the Riders Of High Rock (1993) (21 page)

"Say! That's great!" An idea occurred to him. "Look, nobody here knows you. I'll take a look around town, and we'll meet back here in an hour if nothin' starts. All right?"

Mesquite nodded. "Where does this outfit hang out?"

"Right around that corner. Place called the Picket Pin. Better watch your step if you go there."

"I'll watch it. Back here, in an hour."

Mesquite Jenkins turned swiftly towards the Picket Pin. He had arrived too late to help Hopalong, but not too late to settle the crowd that had done him in. If Red was in town--all right, the two of them would go through this bunch like soup through a tall Swede. He sauntered around the corner and met the eye of the man on the bench. He kept going, and the man stood up.

"Goin' somewhere?" The watchman was elaborately casual.

"Inside," Mesquite said briefly, "for a drink. They sell it, don't they?"

"Sure, but right now there's folks busy inside."

"I reckon the door still opens both ways. All your saloons keep a sentry outside? Or is that a special courtesy?"

The outlaw's face darkened. He decided he did not like this cold-faced youngster. It might be a good time to teach him a lesson.

"It's special," he said. "Now beat it!"

Mesquite Jenkins had long been a disciple of the idea that once the point of battle is reached, no good can result from continued conversation or argument. The guard had told him what to do. He turned on his heel with a shrug, but suddenly, as he turned, his right hand shot up, grasped the man's rifle by the middle, and shoved. The guard staggered, the bench caught him behind the knees, and his heels flew up, his head down. His head tunked dully on the butt end of a log, and the guard blanked out.

Jenkins picked up the rifle and shucked the shells from it,then tossed them away. Shoving open the door, he strode into the saloon and to the bar.

Sim Aragon looked up angrily. Most of his men were already placed, but he did not relish interruptions. Nevertheless the man was a stranger and he walked to the bar without apparent interest. Two or three habitues of the place loafed there in low-voiced conversation, so Sim ignored the visitor.

Mesquite remained at the bar for several minutes, and in those minutes he heard several interesting things. Leaving his drink unfinished, Mesquite walked out. The first thing he saw was the guard struggling to his feet. Calmly Mesquite hung a pistol barrel over his skull and walked on. What he had heard was important. Hopalong Cassidy was alive. He was with Red at the saloon in the hotel. And something was in the wind.

Jack Bolt had made his own decision after seeing Cassidy and the others. He had decided suddenly to stop his messenger and to let the whole thing ride until morning. In the bright morning sunlight, when men were relieved of the fears of the night, the messenger could arrive and they would believe the rustlers had struck again, elsewhere. It was the best plan. And when the four men congregated in the street there would be an end to it.

Among the things he did not count upon was a cat-footed young man who watched Manuel Aragon come down the back stairs of the bank building and steal softly away. That same young man saw Bones rise from behind a rubbish pile and begin idly working over his harness. Mesquite nodded grimly. The attack had been called off. He would avoid his friends and stay on the outskirts to watch.

The hours of darkness marched solemnly past, like groups of dark-robed monks proceeding to a morning mass. A few desultory card games whiled the evening away, and a few loiterers lingered long at the bars, but nothing broke the stillness of the evening; the night was serene, starlit, and cool.

At the Picket Pin only a few men gathered. Others came and went about their various activities, having a drink, speaking in low-voiced conversation with each other, hearing guarded messages from the bartender or Bolt himself, then drifting out again.

Only one thing happened during the night, and that not discovered until daybreak. It was the operator at the telegraph station who discovered it--a man was murdered.

Old Dave Wills had been the town's handyman for longer than most people could remember. He worked at odd jobs, and his one steady task was handling freight at the railroad station. He had been in the station's freight-storage room when the operator closed up. He was still there, dead from a knife wound, when he was found. The weapon had been carried away. Nothing was missing.

It had been after midnight when Jack Bolt decided to see what was in the message or messages sent by Hopalong Cassidy. The greater part of Tascotal was in darkness, and Bolt slipped quietly from his room and down the back alleys of the town towards the station. Behind the hardware store he thought he detected a shadow, but a fifteen-minute wait developed nothing, so he went on, determined not to be seen even if he failed in his effort.

The station was fifty yards from the nearest building, and

across the tracks were the stockyards from which cattle were shipped. From the last building in the street he made a short dash to a blasted boulder, removed from the right of way when the railroad was put through. Then he moved forward in the low shadow of the railroad grade.

The station platform was dark and still, but opening a window was a small task for one so long expert in crime. Inside, he hastily rifled through the stack of messages. There were not many, most of them having to do with shipments or invoices of freight received. Suddenly he stopped.

JACK BRONSON REPORTED BUYING STOCK IN WYOMING AND NEVADA. MET HERD OUTSIDE GOOSE LAKE. BRANDS CHECK WITH YOUR MESSAGE. HOLDING CATTLE AND HANDS FOR INVESTIGATION.

GEORGE CUYLER, SHERIFF.

Jack Bolt stared at the message as if hoping the words would change before his eyes, but they did not. This was worse, much worse, than he had expected! This was the end, then. His dream of having a ranch and security, of having a vast herd of his own--it was all at an end.

Alone in the dark room, long after his match went out, he stood there holding the message in his hands. Then he struck another match and shifted the page. Beneath it lay another.

ANSWERS DESCRIPTION OF MOBEETIE JACK BIRCHEN, WANTED HERE FOR RUSTLING, MURDER, AND STAGE ROBBERY. HOLD FOR INVESTIGATION.

JONES, MAJOR, TEXAS RANGERS.

A sudden movement startled him, and he glanced up. Old Dave stood in the doorway to the storage room where he slept.

"Who's there? What do you want?"

The old man came on into the room, striking a match. "Oh? It's you, Mr. Bolt? Why, I'd-- Uh, uh-h-h." Writhing, the old man sank to the floor. The hard-driven knife had gone deep. Bitterly Bolt stared down at him.

"You old fool!" he snarled. "Why didn't you stay where you belonged?"

Returning the messages to the pigeonhole, he slipped out the window and returned to his room. Now, more than ever, only one thing remained. To kill Cassidy and get out of the country, and fast.

He paused an instant, undressing. Those messages! They had not been delivered! Surely, if they had been, Hopalong would already have been after him. Yet the ones he had seen were copies--the real messages must be at the hotel and somehow had not yet come into Hopalong's hands! For an instant he was moved to go at once and try to get ahold of them, but that was useless. Cuyler would be checking soon, and would wire again. He would have to destroy the copies as well, and he was glad he had not done so, for they would have been a clue to the new killing--that of Dave Wills.

Dawn found him wide awake, but tired. He had slept, but he had not rested. He stared up the street, his hatred a living, breathing thing within him. "All right, you fool!" He muttered the words half aloud. "You'll get yours within the next couple of hours, and when you do, it will be good!"

He dressed hurriedly and went at once to the Picket Pin.

Hopalong Cassidy awakened from a sound sleep to find the messages tucked under his door. After they had arrived the night before, Dave Wills had taken them to deliver, but had wandered off on business of his own and had only delivered the messages after Hopalong was asleep. Once he had read them, Hopalong woke Red Connors.

"There it is," he said quietly. "We've got all we want. We'll go down the street and pick him up this morning, if he's still in town--and if he's not, we'll go find him."

Dru Monaghan came across the hall at the sound of their voices and read the messages. "Well, you hit it right, Cassidy," he admitted. "There's no doubt now. Joe an' I'll go along."

"Don't forget about last night!" Red warned. "That Bolt looked too sure of hisself to suit me! We've got to look sharp! He won't quit without a showdown, you can bet on that!"

Hopalong nodded without speaking. Before falling asleep he had studied the situation carefully. That the showdown would come today he knew, and putting himself in the place of Jack Bolt--or Bronson, or Birchen, or whatever his name was --he tried to decide what the man would do. He knew that more than one of the Aragon outfit was in town. He also knew that Grat, Bones, and others of the 8 Boxed H were here also. With such an outfit of hard cases they could put up quite a battle.

Bolt knew where Cassidy was. Bolt would know that a showdown must come, and about how it must begin. Hence, Bolt would attempt an ambush or a trap of some kind.

Chapter
21

Whizzing Lead!

N
o use going off half-cocked," Cassidy suggested, smiling. "Let's eat breakfast. I could use some of those hen eggs that gent downstairs serves up."

"Eggs!" Red shook his head. "Why, I can recall when there wasn't an egg to be found west of the Pecos. Everybody ate beef three times a day!"

"My mother brought three hens an' a rooster across the plains," Dru said. "I was only knee-high to a tall ox about that time, an' she had me shakin' the seeds of every plant we came to for chicken feed. She set powerful store by those chickens."

Hopalong had drifted to the back door of the kitchen when the others sat down. He looked out into the yard from either side of the door. It looked bright, sunny, and beautiful. He was not deceived. That such a place could harbor danger he knew well.

The rubbish pile held his attention. A man concealed there could cover not only the backs of the buildings but the passage between the hardware store and the saloon that adjoined the hotel and dining room. Opening the door carefully, Hopalong stepped out. It took him only a minute to ascertain

there was no one behind the rubbish pile, but the print of a pair of toes and knees was all too plain. Someone had been kneeling there the previous night! This, then, was one of their lookouts, one of the places they could expect a gunman.

As he was turning away he saw something else--the print of a pair of almost-new boots worn by a man with small feet. Something about those prints struck a responsive chord, but the boots were so new as to offer almost no clue to their wearer. Apparently their wearer had been scouting the position just as he was. Puzzled, he went back inside.

He missed Bones by a few minutes only, for the fat outlaw was even at that moment checking his rifle at the livery stable preparatory to returning to his position.

Hopalong Cassidy returned to his seat at the table as the eggs were served. Red Connors grinned at him.

"Home was never like this!" he said. "How many times I've followed a herd over the trail when I would have given my saddle for just one egg. Just anythin' but beef and beans!"

"And I've seen it when you'd have given your saddle for beef and beans," Hopalong said, smiling. "And so would I, many a time."

"You reckon they'll still be in town?" Gamble asked suddenly.

"Sure," Cassidy replied. "They've something up their sleeves. There's too many of them here."

"Where's Sue?" Red asked. "Did she start back?"

"Saw her in the hall. She'll be down in a few minutes," Dru told them. "It would be better if she had gone back."

A buckboard rattled by in the street, and then suddenly, from up the street toward the station, there was a wild yell. The operator rushed down the street and charged into the hotel

dining room. "Wills is dead!" he said. "Somebody busted into the station last night and murdered him."

Swiftly a crowd circled the station agent. Monaghan scowled. "Now, why would anybody murder an old codger like him? Or for that matter, why would anybody bust into the station?"

Connors looked over at Cassidy, and Hopalong nodded. "Could be. It could be that somebody heard I'd sent some messages and got curious. The old man might have interrupted whoever broke in and got killed for his pains."

"Not much use to kill him, seems to me. The whole story was in those messages."

"Unless Dave wanted to hold him," Monaghan suggested, "or the hombre lost his head."

A hard-ridden horse swung down the street and skidded to a stop before the hotel. A rider hit the dust and burst inside. "Cassidy!" he yelled. "Outlaws hittin' the 3TL! Must be a dozen of 'em! I was comin' by an' seen 'em. They shot at me! Gillespie looks like he's standin' 'em off, but he can't hold out for long."

The rider jumped for the door and was gone as the four men lunged to their feet and rushed for the street, grabbing their rifles as they went. Hopalong vaulted the fence and rushed for the livery stable just as a wild Texas yell rang out above the town, and then two guns bellowed as one.