The Range Detectives

by William W. Johnstone

  Dan was about to grasp the lanky cowboy’s hand when Brock Matthews reeled out of the cell block with his mouth open, ready to let loose a shout of alarm.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Stovepipe’s reactions were lightning swift. His left hand shot out and clamped around Brock’s throat, choking off any outcry. His right hand balled into a knobby-knuckled fist that crashed into the deputy’s jaw a split second later. Once again Brock’s eyes rolled up in their sockets as his knees unhinged.

  Wilbur caught the stocky young man under the arms and lowered him to the floor behind the desk.

  “He’ll stay quiet for a spell,” said Wilbur. “When Stovepipe wallops ’em, they stay walloped.”

  “Come on,” Dan said. “Those stairs are back here.”

  He led the way along a narrow corridor and around a corner to a door that was barred with a thick wooden beam.

  “How’d you know this was here?” asked Stovepipe. “Been locked up in this jail before?”

  “No, but one time I rode in with Lew Martin, the Box D foreman, when he had to pay the fine for a couple of the hands who’d gotten into a drunken brawl. I saw the stairs then.”

  Stovepipe and Wilbur lifted the beam from its brackets and set it aside. The door opened onto a wooden landing with a narrow flight of stairs attached to it that angled down the back side of the courthouse. There were no lights back here, but enough of a glow came from the moon and stars for the four people to descend the steps without any trouble.

  When they reached the bottom, Stovepipe got that quick handshake from Dan that the deputy had interrupted.

  “Take care,” Stovepipe said. “Saunter around the corner like you belong there, climb on the buckboard, and drive away nice and easy-like.”

  Dan nodded and then put on Brock’s big hat.

  “I’m obliged to you for all your help—” he began.

  “Save it,” said Stovepipe. “We’ll see you at the Needles.”

  He and Wilbur waved farewell to Dan and Laura and slipped away into the shadows.

  “You figure that young fella’s tellin’ the truth, don’t you, Stovepipe?” Wilbur whispered as they traveled through the back alleys of Hat Creek, heading for the livery stable.

  “I sure do,” replied Stovepipe. “Did you see the way the gal reacted when he said he didn’t want her testifyin’ about what really happened because they don’t have any future together? That plumb ripped her heart out. I can’t see any woman feelin’ that way if she had any doubts about a fella. She knows Dan’s innocent because she was with him when Dempsey was shot, just like he said.”

  “Yeah, he sure was caught between a rock and a hard place. Either face the gallows or let the woman he loves be ruined. Especially when it might not even do any good for her to tell her story, like you pointed out to him.” Wilbur paused in his speech, though not in his hurrying to keep up with his old friend’s long-legged strides. “You know, there is one other thing we can do besides go on the run from the law.”

  “I ain’t ready to do that yet,” Stovepipe said stubbornly. “That’d just make things harder for us in a lot of ways. This way, nobody in these parts knows what to expect from us.”

  “I do,” Wilbur said. “I expect we’ll wind up neck-deep in trouble, as usual.”

  * * *

  They followed Dan’s directions and found the livery stable without any problems. They paused at the establishment’s back door. Stovepipe tried the knob and found it locked.

  “Blast it,” muttered Wilbur. “That door looks flimsy enough we could bust it down—”

  “But that’d make enough racket to wake up the night man, if he’s sleepin’ in the tack room like most of ’em do,” Stovepipe finished the thought for him. He stepped back and tilted his head to look above them. “There’s a door up there leadin’ into the hayloft. If you’ll gimme a boost, I think I can reach it.”

  “How come it’s always me giving you a boost?”

  “Because even though I’m a head taller ’n you, I weigh less,” Stovepipe replied with a grin.

  “That’s just because you’re so dang scrawny.” Wilbur sighed, bent over slightly, and laced his fingers together to form a makeshift stirrup. “All right, cowboy. Up you go.”

  Stovepipe put his booted left foot in Wilbur’s hands and pushed off with his right foot as Wilbur lifted. Stovepipe’s left hand pressed lightly against the wall for balance as he reached up as far as he could with his right. He grasped the bottom of the hayloft door. It swung open freely. He was able to grab hold of the opening’s bottom edge with both hands and pull himself up as Wilbur gave him an added boost.

  Stovepipe levered himself up and over, rolling onto the planks that formed the loft. Straw dust filled the air and threatened to make him sneeze. He sat up, opened his mouth, caught his breath, and held a finger under his nose until the almost irresistible urge passed.

  As he relaxed and started to breathe again, the overpowering need to sneeze struck again. He was unable to suppress it this time, but he managed to get his hand over his nose and mouth in time to muffle the sound.

  Then Stovepipe waited, motionless and intent, to see if anyone inside the stable was going to raise the alarm.

  Everything was quiet except for the faint sounds of horses moving around restlessly in the stalls below.

  Satisfied that nobody had heard his sneeze, Stovepipe crawled on hands and knees between stacked bales of hay to the ladder. He swung around and climbed down. The place was almost pitch-dark, shut down for the night. Snoring came from somewhere toward the front of the cavernous barn. Just as Stovepipe had thought, the night hostler was asleep.

  It would be better all around if he stayed that way for a while.

  Stovepipe went to the back door, unfastened the simple latch, and opened it for Wilbur, who was waiting just outside.

  “All clear?” asked the redhead.

  “Got a fella sawin’ logs somewhere.”

  “Yeah, I hear him.”

  “Lemme strike a match so we can find our horses.”

  Stovepipe fished a lucifer out of his pocket and snapped it to life with a flick of his thumbnail. The sulfur match put out a little stink along with its light, but that was unavoidable. Stovepipe held it above his head, squinted against the glare, and spotted his Appaloosa in one of the stalls. Not surprisingly, Wilbur’s dun was in the adjacent stall.

  “I see our saddles,” Wilbur whispered. A note of excitement entered his voice as he went on, “Our rifles are still with ’em.”

  “We won’t be completely unarmed, then,” said Stovepipe. “Grab your saddle. We’ll have to work in the dark.”

  That didn’t prove to be a problem. These two had saddled their horses thousands of times before, sometimes in pitch darkness, or in pouring rain, or with bullets whipping around their heads. In a matter of minutes, they had the animals ready to ride.

  Stovepipe led the Palouse out into the center aisle. Wilbur did the same with the dun. Wilbur whispered, “We’ll have to go out the front. It’ll be risky.”

  “Yeah, but they can’t hang us for stealin’ our own horses.”

  “No, but they’ll add that jailbreak to the list of charges against us. That ought to be good for another five years in the territorial pen.”

  “They got to put us there first,” said Stovepipe.

  Slowly, carefully, and as quietly as possible, he and Wilbur led their mounts toward the entrance. But it was impossible for animals as big as horses to move around without making some sound, and as they neared the closed double doors, the snoring stopped abruptly.

  Stovepipe had been listening for that. He handed his reins to Wilbur as he turned in the direction the snoring had been coming from until just now.

  “Somebody out there?” a man’s voice called. “Who’s there? If you want your horse, I’ll get it for you. That’s my job.”

  A yellow glow sprang into existence as the man scratched a match and lit a lantern. Stovepipe’s eyes narrowed. Th
ey were accustomed to the darkness, and the light half blinded him as the night hostler, holding the lantern, stepped out of the tack room.

  Stovepipe caught a glimpse of a beard-stubbled, middle-aged face as he muttered, “Sorry about this, hombre.” The next instant his rock-hard fist crashed into the hostler’s jaw.

  With his other hand, Stovepipe caught the lantern’s bail as the man dropped it. That was the most nerve-racking part of the whole thing. If that lantern had busted, it could have easily caught the livery stable on fire, and all that wood and straw would have turned the place into an inferno in a few heartbeats.

  “Get him?” Wilbur called softly.

  “Yeah,” said Stovepipe. He studied the sprawled hostler in the lantern light and saw that the man would be out for a minute or two, more than likely. That would be long enough. He blew out the lantern and told Wilbur, “Get one of those doors open.”

  He set the lantern aside and hurried to take the Appaloosa’s reins back from Wilbur. With any luck, Dan Hartford and Laura Dempsey had already left the settlement behind them, Stovepipe thought as he and Wilbur led the horses outside.

  Wilbur swung the door closed behind them. It was quiet around the livery stable. The other businesses in this block on both sides of the street appeared to be closed, although light and music and the occasional sound of a woman’s laugh came from saloons up the street.

  One of the cafés was still open, too. A squat, rock building with a slate roof, its sign proclaimed it to be the Red Top Café. As Stovepipe and Wilbur were about to swing up into their saddles, the door opened and a burly man stepped out onto the boardwalk, digging at something in his mouth with a toothpick. He must have spotted the two men and horses half a block away and recognized them, because he suddenly threw the toothpick aside and started forward.

  “Hey!” the man called. “You two! Hold on there.”

  “Blast it, that’s Sheriff Olsen!” exclaimed Wilbur.

  “Yeah,” said Stovepipe. “Let’s rattle our hocks, Wilbur!”

  They practically leaped into the saddles and then dug their heels into the animals’ flanks. Sheriff Frank Olsen was running toward them now as they wheeled the mounts around.

  “Stop, damn it!” Olsen bellowed as he yanked his revolver from its holster. The weapon roared and belched flame as he started thumbing off shots as fast as he could.

  “There’s that old familiar sound again!” Wilbur called over the racket as he and Stovepipe leaned forward in the saddles and the horses lunged into a gallop that carried them along Front Street.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The light in the street wasn’t very good for shooting. One of Olsen’s bullets came close enough that Stovepipe heard it whine past a few feet above his head, but that was the best the lawman did.

  Olsen wasn’t the only threat, however. More men poured into the street in response to the shots, and the sheriff yelled at them, “Stop those varmints! They’re escaping prisoners!”

  Several men yanked out guns and started blazing away. Stovepipe and Wilbur had to run a gauntlet of angry townspeople. They couldn’t pull out their Winchesters and shoot their way through, either, because those folks were innocent of any wrongdoing, at least in this matter.

  The Appaloosa and the dun were moving fast, though, and the hastily aimed bullets missed the two fugitives.

  Some of the men firing those shots weren’t so fortunate. As Stovepipe and Wilbur flashed past, the townies found themselves inadvertently shooting at each other. One man let out a yelp as a slug burned his arm, and another howled and collapsed with a bullet hole in his thigh. Rather than run right into the middle of that storm of lead, Sheriff Olsen stopped and roared, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire, damn it! They’re getting away!”

  It was true. The horses pounded around a corner into a side street and were gone.

  “Get your horses!” Stovepipe heard Olsen yell. “I need a posse to go after those fellas!”

  That was the last Stovepipe heard from the sheriff. The drumming hoofbeats drowned out anything else Olsen had to say.

  Barely slowing their racing mounts, Stovepipe and Wilbur made another sharp turn, this time into an alley, and thundered along it. When it came to an end, they had reached the edge of the settlement and rode out onto the sage-and-saguaro-dotted flats. They were headed west.

  “We’ll keep goin’ this way for a while!” Stovepipe called to Wilbur. “Then we’ll swing north toward those Needles Dan told us about.”

  “We’d better try to cover our trail,” warned Wilbur.

  “That’s what I figured.”

  Right now, though, they couldn’t slow down and worry about anything except putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the inevitable pursuit from Hat Creek. The horses had plenty of stamina, but they’d already had one hard run today and Stovepipe knew it could be disastrous to push them too much. They had to walk that fine line between all-out flight and caution.

  When he thought enough time had passed, he hauled back on the reins and slowed the Appaloosa. Wilbur followed suit with the dun.

  “They won’t be able to read sign very well until mornin’,” Stovepipe said. “We’ll do a few things to try to throw ’em off the scent.”

  The first of those things was to follow a rocky arroyo for almost a mile before climbing back out. When they came to a shallow creek, they rode out into it and followed it for another mile. Stovepipe, leading the way, started curving to the north, the direction they ultimately wanted to go.

  As they rode, they listened for the sound of riders behind them. A couple of times, Stovepipe thought he heard distant hoofbeats, but the posse failed to close in on them.

  “We had too good a lead by the time they started on our trail,” commented Wilbur. “They don’t know where we are.”

  “More than likely,” Stovepipe agreed. “We can’t afford to get careless, though. We’ll keep movin’.”

  They rode all night, in fact, stopping now and then to let the horses rest. Stovepipe kept rough track of the time by watching the stars that wheeled through the ebony sky overhead. The air was so clear and dry those glittering diamonds looked close enough for a man to reach up and pluck one of them from its mounting.

  The dry air also cooled off efficiently, so that by the time the eastern sky began to turn gray with the approach of dawn, it was downright chilly.

  The breakneck flight from Hat Creek had taken Stovepipe and Wilbur far out of their way, so it was almost sunup by the time they spotted the two towering rock spires ahead of them.

  “That’s got to be the Needles,” said Wilbur. “I don’t see anything else around here that looks like it’d have a name like that.”

  “Nope, I don’t, either,” Stovepipe agreed. “Wonder if Dan and Miss Laura are here already.”

  As they came closer, the horses moving at a walk now, Stovepipe spotted a buckboard in the gray light, parked in the twenty-foot gap between the spires. Two draft horses had been unhitched from the vehicle and picketed to graze on the sparse grass that grew around the base of the Needles.

  “They must be here,” commented Wilbur, “but I don’t see ’em.”

  Stovepipe pointed to a shape underneath the buckboard.

  “Looks like one of ’em wrapped up in a blanket,” he said.

  “Or both of ’em,” Wilbur said with a grin.

  Stovepipe cocked his head to the side and said, “I don’t reckon that’s very likely. A fella as worried about a gal’s reputation as Dan was wouldn’t be likely to try to take advantage of her.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right about that. Of course, if folks ever find out they spent the night out here together, just the two of them, it’ll still be a scandal.”

  “Some people can make a scandal outta dang near anything,” Stovepipe said.

  A figure stepped out from behind the closest spire, pointed a revolver at them, and ordered, “Hold it right there! Stovepipe, is that you?”

  “In the flesh
, Dan,” Stovepipe replied as he reined in. Beside him, Wilbur did likewise.

  Hatless now, Dan Hartford lowered the gun as he walked toward them.

  “You’re both all right?” he asked.

  “Yep.”

  “We were out of town, heading in this direction, when I thought I heard some shooting.”

  “That was us,” said Wilbur. “Or rather, that was us being shot at. The sheriff spotted us just as we were about to ride out of town. Just pure bad luck . . . the sort that seems to follow us around all the time.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Stovepipe put in. “After all, we’ve been in some mighty tight spots, some bad scrapes, and come out of ’em all with our hides in one piece.”

  “For the most part,” Wilbur added dryly.

  “So I figure we’ve had our share of good luck, too.”

  “Maybe, but it’s gonna run out one of these days. Maybe today, for all we know.”

  Dan holstered the gun and said, “Well, we’re all here now. We need to figure out what we’re going to do next.”

  From underneath the wagon, Laura Dempsey said, “We can still head for California, Dan.”

  She had sat up while the men were talking, no doubt awakened by their voices. Her hair was loose now and spilled in flowing, dark waves around her shoulders. She climbed out from under the buckboard, stood up, shook her head, and knuckled sleep from her eyes.

  Dan turned toward her and said, “If we run off to California, we’ll always be fugitives, Laura. We’ll always be looking over our shoulders, expecting to see some lawman there ready to arrest us.”

  “We’d be together, though,” she said. “We probably wouldn’t have any trouble finding a preacher to marry us. That’s what we’ve both wanted for a long time, isn’t it? To be married?”

  “That’s what I wanted,” said Dan.

  “And you think I didn’t?” she asked.

  “You said yes to Abel Dempsey, so yeah, I reckon you wanted to be married, all right.”

  Stovepipe pointed with a thumb and said to Wilbur, “Let’s wander over yonder to that other rock and unsaddle these horses. I’m sure they’d appreciate some rest, some grass, and a drink.”