the Trail to Seven Pines (1972) (2 page)

Drawing one of the wounded man's guns, Hopalong handed it to him. "Just in case," he said. "They might figure you knew something and come back." He drew the belts nearer. "But I doubt it. I figure you'll be all right."

He headed down the trail at a fast clip, and Topper liked it. He was a horse that always liked to run, and he ran now. Yet they had gone no more than four miles when Hopalong saw a black blotch on the trail ahead that speedily developed into a racing buckboard and a half-dozen riders. There were two men in the buckboard, a blocky man with auburn hair and mustache, and a taller, younger man with a mustache of clipped blond hair and cool but friendly blue eyes. They drew up at Hopalong's lifted hand.

"Wounded man up ahead," he said. "Let's hurry. Is Doc Marsh here?"

The blond young man nodded. "I'm Dr. Marsh."

Hopalong wheeled his horse and led them back up the badly washed trail. One of the men wore a star. He was a tall old man with cold gray eyes and a handlebar mustache.

"Who's alive?"

"Lock, he said his name was."

"Talk any?"

Hopalong was acutely conscious that the others were closing around, listening intently.

"He's badly hurt." Hopalong avoided the question. "They get anything?"

"They got it all!" The burly man driving the buckboard made the reply. "Got my whole cleanup! Thirty thousand dollars' worth of gold! One more like that and I'll be broke!"

Racing into the canyon, they churned to a halt at Hopalong's gesture and swung down.

Hurrying through the rocks in the lead, Hopalong Cassidy stopped suddenly. His face slowly turned gray and hard.

Jesse Lock was dead. His gun was clutched in his hand, the muzzle tight against his temple!

"Suicide!" One of the men drew back. "He shot himself!"

"Looks like it," another man said, and Hopalong lifted his head slowly, having a feeling there had been almost satisfaction in the man's voice. But he could not make out which had been the speaker.

"Now what would make him do a thing like that?" It was the man who had first mentioned suicide. "It doesn't make sense!"

Hopalong moved swiftly away from the others, his hard blue eyes sweeping the ground, his lips twisted and bitter with the realization of failure. Yet what could he have done? The man had needed a doctor.

"Must have been in terrible pain," somebody commented. "Just had enough, I reckon."

The sheriff said nothing, and Hopalong stared at him curiously. When the old man did not speak, Hopalong said quietly, "He didn't kill himself. He was murdered."

"Murdered?" They all stared at him.

"He was murdered," Hopalong Cassidy repeated. "This man was alive and cheerful when I left him. He would not have shot himself."

"What's it look like to you, Hadley?" The speaker was a tall, bulky man with a broad red face. "If that isn't suicide, what is it? The gun's still in position."

Sheriff Hadley looked shrewdly at Hopalong and pulled his mustache thoughtfully. "He was alive when you left him? Was that gun within reach?"

"I put a gun in his hand. I didn't want to leave, but the man needed a doctor if he was goin' to live. I figure he might have made it."

Dr. Marsh had been examining the body. He looked up now. "That's true. Those wounds are in mighty healthy condition, everything considered. What's that poultice on them?"

"Prickly pear. Indians use it to check inflammation."

"Look!" The red-faced man indicated the position of the gun. "If that isn't suicide, what would you call it?"

Hopalong felt anger mount within him. He looked up, his blue eyes utterly cold. "That man was alive when I left him," he repeated. "He knew he was hard hit, but he was standin' up to it. There wasn't"-he said the words viciously-"a single streak of yellow in that kid. He didn't kill himself.

"He must have passed out again," he continued. "Somebody sneaked down here, shot him with his own gun, then wrapped his fingers around it. Look where that gun muzzle is! Flush against his temple! Muzzle blast would have thrown that gun away from his head and maybe clear out of his hand!"

Dr. Marsh nodded. "This gentleman is correct, Hadley," he said quietly. "The recoil would have thrown it or jerked it away from the temple. Also, at that distance, the side of the face would have been badly burned. I can see only a few grains of powder in the skin."

The red-faced man was keeping his eyes on Cassidy. Slowly his gaze went over the black sombrero, shirt, and trousers tucked into high stitched boots, the tied-down, bone-handled guns, then climbed to his cold eyes and silver hair. "That puts you in a bad light," he suggested. "You were the last to see him alive."

"No." Hopalong's gaze was frosty. "The killer was the last to see him." He nodded back along the trail. "There's another one back there. Big fellow in a frock coat."

Hopalong was getting the men placed. The man who had driven the buckboard was Harrington, the mine super and part owner. It was on his shoulders the loss would fall. The big red-faced man was Pony Harper. He was a horse trader who owned the livery stable and corrals in Seven Pines and supplied beef to the mines and a railroad contracting outfit some thirty miles away. There was another man, hollow-cheeked, with yellow eyes and a tied-down gun; they called him Rawhide. He was searching the body in the road.

"Somebody cleaned him out!"

"What did you expect?" Hadley asked dryly. "This here was a robbery." Grimly, Hopalong said nothing. After what had happened to Jesse Lock, he wanted a chance to look over the contents of the man's wallet privately before he handed it over to anyone.

Another rider was coming up the trail from town. He was a well-built, pleasant-looking man of forty. "Howdy, Ronson!" Hadley nodded toward the dead man. "Anybody ever seen this hombre before?"

"I've seen him." Rawhide touched his tongue to a cigarette. "This man's Sim Thacker, the gunfighter."

"Thacker!" Ronson stared at the dead man. "Dead! Who did it?"

"That would answer a lot of other questions," Hadley said. "Looks like whoever did it gave him his chance, then drilled him."

"And put on the finishing touches with a bullet in the head,"

Hopalong said dryly. "That outfit seems to have an urge to leave no witnesses behind.

They must figure folks might get to know them."

Nobody said anything for a while. Dr. Marsh examined Thacker, then got to his feet.

"There's nothing more here for me," he said. "How about you, Harrington?"

The mine super shook his head. "Let's load them up and start back."

Hadley turned to Hopalong. "Stayin" around? Better be in Seven Pines for the inquest.

It will be tomorrow."

"I'll be there. I'm ridin' in."

There was little talk as they headed toward Seven Pines, but what there was concerned the holdup gang and their previous work. The series of stage holdups had netted the gang just over a hundred thousand in gold, all of it in heavy bars. There was some talk of how it could be disposed of, for all possible places of sale had been alerted.

Harrington had been studying Cassidy. 'You wear those guns like you understood 'em.

I'll need a man to take Jesse's place as shotgun."

Hopalong chuckled. "From what I hear, that is not goin' to be a popular job. I hear your messengers die off mighty fast."

Harrington nodded soberly. "They do. I'll not deny that. I'd want a man who didn't scare easily. Jesse was gun-handy, all right. And too sure of himself. I always figured he had some ideas of his own about who the thieves were, but he wasn't talkative.

Now he isn't able to do any talking to anybody."

"He said he had a brother in the Roberts range. Wanted him notified."

'Yeah. Ben Lock." Harrington shook his head. "He'll take it hard, and unless I miss my guess, the killers had better start worryin'. Ben's not the sort to take the death of his brother lyin' down."

The valley fell behind them and the buckboard led the way into a narrow canyon. Scattered mine dumps and shacks began to appear, and then the trail ended in a narrow street flanked by false-fronted buildings. Behind these buildings, which stretched for a quarter of a mile along the sides of the canyon, the mountains sloped steeply back, both sides covered with houses, claim shacks, and ramshackle huts of one kind or another.

The express office faced the livery stable across the street, and beside the express office a saloon stared bright-eyed at a general store. Up the street Hopalong noticed a saddle shop, bootmaker, blacksmith, barber and dentist, a lawyer's office, the jail, a hotel, a boardinghouse, and an assortment of other stores and gambling joints.

He counted the signs of nine saloons. At the far end of the street was the assayer's office.

Hopalong turned his horse toward the livery stable, and Harrington looked after him.

"Don't forget! That job's open!"

Pony Harper and Rawhide had also turned off. Harper glanced at Hopalong curiously but said nothing. Rawhide swung from his saddle, and when Harper went into the livery stable office he said quietly, "I'd figure a long time before I took that messenger job. They seem to die awful easy."

"Maybe," Hopalong agreed, "somebody wants 'em to die."

"A feller could get into trouble stickin' around this town," Rawhide continued. "Montana's a good state. Ever been there?"

"Perhaps. I've been to a lot of places."

Rawhide kicked his boot toe into the earth and watched Hopalong stripping the saddle from Topper. "You sort of look familiar."

"That right?"

"Like somebody I seen in Montana. Or maybe it was Texas?"

"Never can tell."

Rawhide chewed that over, but he didn't like it. Locally he was known as a hard character, and he fancied the reputation. He did not like his questions being avoided. Besides, he had an uneasy feeling that this was a man whom he should know. Whom it was important to know. He rolled a smoke and shot an uneasy glance at Hopalong, who was placidly giving his horse a rubdown with a handful of hay.

"Lock have much to say?" he ventured.

"Said he had a brother," Hopalong ^admitted. "I'm goin' to look him up."

"Mister, you better slope it. This here ain't a friendly town."

"Well"-Hopalong Cassidy's eyes twinkled a little-"I'm not huntin' trouble with anybody."

He turned and started for the door. "So long."

"Hold up there!" Rawhide was angry now. "I asked you a question and I want an answer!"

Cassidy stopped and turned slowly, facing the man in the half-light of the livery stable.

"What did Lock have to say?" Rawhide repeated. "I could beat it out of you!"

Instantly he knew he had said the wrong thing. Hopalong Cassidy took a step toward him. "All right," he agreed, "you beat it out of me. But start now. I'm in no mood for waitin'."

Rawhide swallowed, touched his dry lips with his tongue, and his face became somber.

Suddenly he realized this man would not bluff and he would not scare. Fairly called, Rawhide found he did not want trouble. Not now, not here.

"Oh, shucks!" he said. "I was just funnin'! It don't make any difference, only I figured maybe he talked and said something interestin'. I'm not huntin' for trouble. You're plumb on the prod."

Hopalong watched him without speaking, waiting. Rawhide shifted his feet nervously, wanting to stride up to this man and strike him, to threaten him with a gun, anything.

He wanted to, but a deep-seated judgment warned him it would not be advisable to try.

Hopalong gave him one more look and turned on his heel. Coolly, without a backward glance, he walked out into the sunlit street.

Rawhide stared after him, his eyes ugly. "You'll see," he whispered. "I give you twenty-four hours in this town!"

Chapter
2

Ramrod
of the
Rocking R
.

Hopalong vanished through the wide-mouthed door Pony Harper stepped from the deep shadows of a stall. As he strode up to Rawhide his face was dark with irritation.

"You fool!" he said. "Why brace him about what Lock said? What difference does it make what he said, or whether he said anything at all? If he did say anything, this hombre will tell it, and if he didn't, there's no use makin' the man suspicious."

"Aw, shucks!" Rawhide replied sullenly. "Who's he to get suspicious?"

"Who he is," Harper said unpleasantly, "I don't know, but don't you push trouble with that hombre unless you want to throw lead. That's one gent who's not bluffin'!"

Harper turned on his heel and left the fuming gunman behind him. Despite his words, he was worried. That Jesse Lock had talked before he died was obvious. He had taken time to tell this stranger about his brother, and he might have said more. Still, what could he have seen on such a night? What would he have to tell? It was barely possible he had recognized someone, but that chance was small. The best course was to sit tight and
see what would develop . . . give this stranger time to drift out of the country.