by J. T. Edson
‘Preacher’s out of town. Won’t be back until dawn, boss,’ he said.
‘Oh well!’ Lanton shrugged. ‘One of your men must stay near his house and bring him here as soon as he arrives. The other two stay here, guarding Smith. If the girl tries anything, kill him.’
The sheriff licked his lips, he was looking worried. ‘Boss?’
‘What is it, Lynch?’ Lanton snapped testily.
‘Did you go near the livery barn?’
‘No, why?’
‘It’s full of horses. There’s some of the best gun hands I’ve seen in town. They’re down at the saloon now.’
Lanton frowned, rubbing his fat jowls. The war with KH had been far from a success although very costly. He might have needed more guns before he heard about the tunnel. Now he did not. They would only be an added expense to be met after the fighting. He could have done with less expenses all along.
‘Forget them for now. If our crew can’t take the KH we’ll take these new men on. Otherwise I don’t want them.’
Rene Hamilton was brought down from her room after dawn the following day. Her face was pale but composed as she looked at the preacher, a thin, scared-looking old man. Lanton, Ames, Lynch and Willet were in the room.
‘Where is Just?’ she asked.
Lanton nodded and Willet held the side door open. Just Smith was fastened in a chair, one of the deputies sitting by him. Rene started forward but Lanton caught her arm and restrained her. The deputy came out of the room at Lanton’s sign and shut the door.
‘Start the ceremony,’ Lanton ordered. ‘Are your two men watching outside, Lynch?’
‘Sure,’ the sheriff agreed. ‘I saw to it.’
‘Mr. Lanton,’ the preacher put in, his face working nervously. ‘I will not do this thing.’
‘Won’t you?’ Lynch sneered, catching the old man by the shirt and drawing back his fist.
‘Let loose, you brute!’ Rene snapped.
Lynch turned to look at Lanton and the fat man nodded. Rene went to the side of the old preacher. ‘Do as they say. It will be all right.’
The man looked at her and started to protest but she shook her head gently and went to stand by Lanton. The preacher gulped, then came forward and started to run through the wedding ceremony in a frightened, garbled voice.
Rene stood without hearing what was said, the world roaring around her. She felt Lanton’s signet ring slipped on to her finger and the fatal words.
‘I now pronounce you man and wife.’
Thirteen – The Kid to the Rescue
‘Aren’t they back yet?’ There was worry in Brazos’ voice as he looked out across the range.
‘Shucks, you’re forgetting when you was young,’ Mark replied. ‘I bet you never rushed back when you was out with a pretty gal. They’ll be back when they’re good and ready.’
‘I’m worried,’ Gloria objected. ‘They said they wouldn’t be gone for long and it’s way past seven now. Dusty, do you think we should send—’
‘We got us a caller, not riding too steady either,’ the Kid interrupted. ‘Looks like that Painthoss gent from the Syndicate.’
The others turned to look. They were down at the corral and had been watching Dusty ride the rough string of the remuda. The Kid’s constant vigilance led him to spot the approaching rider. Brazos squinted in the direction the Kid indicated. ‘It is Painthoss.’
‘Looks like he’s been hit!’ Dusty barked, then looked across to where Doc Leroy was pitching horseshoes with Waco and Red. ‘Doc, we’ve got work for you to handle.’ Painthoss, hunched up in his saddle, clinging to the horn, brought his horse to a halt and looked with pain-filled eyes down at the men. They and the ranch appeared to be moving, now near, then far away. He felt hands gripping him and unfastening the rope around him. Then he was lifted down, trying to struggle weakly.
Mark lowered the man to the ground and stood back, Doc Leroy bent over, looking down. ‘Bullet’s still inside. I want him in the house and on a bed. Tote him easy. Mark, Brit, Waco, Red, all of you lift him real easy. He’s lost a lot of blood.’
Painthoss opened his eyes, staring wildly around. Then he saw the small Texan called Dusty Fog and knew he’d made it. A feeling of drowsiness welled over him and he almost let himself go. Then he remembered. ‘Dusty! They got gal Smith!’
Dusty’s face went hard, his eyes cold and deadly, his hands clenched and he snapped. ‘Start catching the hosses, Gloria. We’re going to take the S Star apart board by board.’
‘Hold hard, boy!’ Painthoss’s head fell back, his body going limp. Dusty leaned forward, his voice sharp. ‘Painthoss. Where is she?’
‘No go, Dusty,’ Doc interrupted. ‘He’s unconscious from loss of blood. That bullet’ll have to come out and I don’t reckon he’ll recover consciousness until it has.’
‘Get working, then, Doc!’ Dusty’s voice showed the strain he was under. ‘Take him into the house, boys.’
The four men lifted Painthoss carefully and walked crab-wise towards the house, carrying the still form between them. Doc headed for the bunkhouse at a run to collect his gear for the task ahead of him. Dusty watched him go, then turned to Gloria. The girl stood rigid, her fists clenched and her face colorless.
‘Take the boys, Dusty. Tear Lanton apart, but bring—’
‘No, girl! We can’t pull out and leave you alone here. Painthoss said they haven’t got Rene at the S Star. They’re holding her someplace and it could be anywhere. We could ride circles for days and not find her. I’m not taking the boys when they’re needed here.’
‘To hell with the ranch,’ Gloria answered. ‘Lanton can have it if he sets Rene and Just free.’
‘Which same he won’t do. He’s holding her and Just for some reason and he wouldn’t have sent his men unless he was sure of himself. We’ve got to wait for Painthoss to tell us where she is. Then we can move.’
‘Lanton’s sending a tolerable few men here, Dusty.’
The Ysabel Kid watched his friend turn, knowing Dusty was thinking on the same lines and putting the germ of an idea forward.
‘Yeah. Happen it’ll give you a chance to pry Don Jose Estradre loose. Get to it. Go to the Estradre place first and see the foreman. Tell him all you know. Make him believe you, then bring the Estradre men here to help out.’
The Kid swung towards the corral, taking the rope which hung over the top rail. Dusty raised his voice in a yell which brought Red and Waco on the run. They knew what was wanted and grabbed their ropes to help the Ysabel Kid snake out a relay team of fast horses from the remuda. The Kid left the saddling to the others and ran for the bunkhouse, returning with his old yellow boy and a box of Winchester bullets. Dusty was just completing saddling the big white stallion but the Kid took one of the other horses first. He was saving the white for the last, in case speed was needed. Booting the rifle in the white’s saddle boot for his friend, Dusty stood back. The rescue of the old rancher was no easy matter. The convincing of a possibly hostile crew as to his peaceful intentions not the least of it. Yet if there was one man who might bring both off Loncey Dalton Ysabel was that man.
With a wild Comanche war scream the Kid sent his four-horse relay racing across the range, riding on a mission of rescue while Dusty set the other men to work. The attack on the KH would find the men ready, willing and eager to meet it. Upstairs Doc Leroy, coat off and sleeves rolled up, worked to save the life and help again to consciousness the only man who could tell them where Lanton was holding Rene Hamilton.
Dawn was just breaking when the Ysabel Kid rode his tired white stallion to the front of the large, stone built old Spanish-style ranch house of the Estradre spread. The ranch crew were gathered outside the house and preparing to start out on their day’s work. They were for the most part Mexicans, hard riding young vaqueros, fighting men equaled only by the Texas cowhand. There were a few Americans in the crowd and one of them stood out from the rest, not because he was a tall man, but because, to range wise eyes, he wa
s the leader.
‘Hullo the house,’ the Kid called as he rode nearer.
There was little friendliness in the eyes of the men. Their leader, the ranch foreman, grunted. ‘You from Lanton. If so go back and tell him we don’t want any.’
‘I’m not from Lanton,’ the Kid replied. ‘Got something to tell you, happen I can set down.’
‘Rest your saddle.’ The permission to dismount was grudgingly given.
One of the young vaqueros came swaggering forward, hand resting on the hilt of his fighting knife as he looked the Kid over. Glancing at the bowie knife sheathed at the Kid’s left side he sniffed. ‘Never did I see a gringo who could use a knife except to cut his food.’
The Kid turned and looked the young man over in return, then gave a shrug as if the vaquero was of no consequence. In his fluent Spanish he replied, ‘You are not old enough to have seen much at all, friend.’
The vaquero’s hand brought out his knife fast and drove it towards the black dressed young Texan, meaning at the last instant to swerve it aside in a spectacular near miss. The Mexicans were a nation of knife fighters who knew few peers. The Comanche were also a nation of knife fighters and they had no peers at the art of cut and slash. The Mexican struck at a white man but the Ysabel Kid was moving and reacting like a Comanche.
His left arm deflected the vaquero’s knife hand upwards; leaving the man’s body wide open for a belly wide slash which was the knife fighters coup-de-grace. The bowie knife was out and licking forward, eleven and a half inches of razor sharp steel going to sink its two and a half inch width hilt deep into the man’s body. Tug Salmon, the ranch foreman, started to jump forward with a yell, but he knew he was too late.
A flicker of amazement and terror crossed the face of the vaquero. He knew he was wide open for a kill. Then something struck him in the stomach, yet it was not the piercing point of that great knife. At the last instant the Kid twisted his hand, the top of the hilt, not the point, jabbing into the man’s stomach, bringing a grunt of pain.
The Ysabel Kid moved back, his hands moving, the great knife flying from one to the other in a series of flickering moves as he circled the scared looking young vaquero. Up into the air the knife went, as it fell the Kid’s right hand reached for it, missing and letting the hilt slap down into his left. He flipped the knife into the air again, caught it by the blade and thrust it away.
‘Reckon that was tolerable for a gringo,’ he said casually.
There was a rumble of approval from the watchers and more friendly looks now. The men knew they’d just witnessed a master’s display in the noble art of cuchilo play. They also knew they were lucky not to be burying young Augustine and respected the Indian-dark young man for his restraint.
‘You ain’t from the S Star.’ Salmon held out his hand. ‘Any of that pack’d have killed the boy without thinking twice about it.’
‘The name’s Loncey Dalton Ysabel. Down in Mexico they call me el Cabrito!’
‘El Cabrito!’ Augustine gulped out the words. ‘Madre de Dios. Senor Tug, you are looking at a very foolish man.’
There was once more a rumble of agreement at the words. The Ysabel Kid was well known in Mexico and one of the things which was better known than the rest about him was his skill with a knife.
‘Was talking to Miss Estradre a few days back,’ the Kid remarked to Salmon. ‘I don’t reckon any of you know the Yaqui sign?’
‘I don’t,’ Salmon answered. That figured, if the foreman understood Yaqui sign talk Juanita could have got the message to him. ‘Any of you know how to make Yaqui sign talk?’
A stocky, leathery vaquero pushed forward. ‘I understand it.’
‘You new here?’ the Kid asked.
‘I came from Sonora two days ago,’ the man replied.
Slowly the Kid’s hand moved, watched by Salmon and the vaquero. This latter’s lips moved as he translated the signs into words. At the end Salmon, frowning, asked, ‘What’s all that about? What did Miss Juanita have to say to you?’
It was the vaquero who replied. ‘Don Jose is held prisoner at the S Star, not in Mexico on vacation.’
Salmon looked as if he’d been hit by a club. His mouth fell open and for an instant he was speechless. Then he growled, ‘You sure?’
‘That’s what she told me,’ the Kid replied and explained how Lanton would never let the girl speak anything but English. He told of their meeting at the KH and her use of the Yaqui sign talk to pass the message on to him.
‘Saddle up, pronto, muchachos!’ Salmon bellowed. ‘You heard. We’re going to pry the boss loose.’
‘That’s a real smart move,’ the Kid sounded mocking and sardonic. ‘I told you Miss Juanita talked to me. She said Lanton keeps a man guarding Don Jose all the time. He’s got orders to shoot if anybody tried to make a rescue. You go there like you’re painted for war and they’ll gun the old Don down for sure.’
‘All right, you got an idea?’
‘Might have. The ranch crew’ll all be over the KH, trying to take it. We should be able to get to Don Jose if we works it real nice. What I allow is that we take the crew and leave them well back. Then just you and me ride on in. After that we’ll have to play ’em as they fall.’
‘That hoss of your’n looks to have been well rid. Take your pick of the remuda.’
The Kid nodded gratefully and went with the ranch crew to the corral and looked over the remuda. He picked a fast-looking leggy roan with a mean glint in its eyes. The rope made a fast hooleyann throw and brought the horse out. Eager hands saddled it for the Kid and he went up astride with a bound. The horse was a fighter, one which would give its last ounce of endurance to any one man who could master it. The men watched as the Ysabel Kid, riding like a demon, fought the horse out. They admired the iron guts of a man who could ride all night and still choose a bad horse because it would give him the speed and endurance he needed.
The Estradre crew collected their own horses in record time and lit out across the range. The big white stallion stood snorting and watching them go, then like a faithful dog set out at an easier pace following its fast riding master.
Lanton’s cook sat in the sacred precincts of the ranch dining-room, feet on the polished table top. Between his lips was a big, costly cigar and by his side a bottle of finest bonded whiskey. He was at peace with the world, for while the crew and his boss were away he was making the most of it. The men, less two guarding the old prisoner in the cellar, had pulled out on the raid and he’d been left to make a search of the house. The cigars and whiskey came from Lanton’s private office and the fat cook was making the most of his leisure. He glanced at the door at the room side. If one of the guards came up through it, he would have to hide the plunder and make out he was cleaning the dining room.
The morning sun came through the window behind the cook, filling him with a gentle glow of well-being. It was pleasant just sitting here and his head nodded forward towards his chest. Then suddenly somebody shook him. He opened his eyes, ready to splutter out excuses. His eyes met two of the coldest, cruelest eyes he’d ever seen, red hazel eyes that seemed to bite down into him, no mercy in them. The face above him was not belonging to any man of the S Star crew. It was a dark, innocent-looking face, but those eyes were far from innocent.
‘Rest easy, friend,’ the voice was soft, cold and mocking.
The cook sat up, looking wildly around him, first at the black dressed, dark-faced boy, then at Tug Salmon. The latter was smiling, although the smile did not reach his eyes.
‘Howdy coosie!’ Salmon greeted. ‘Where’s the crew at?’
‘Out on the range, working,’ the cook replied, shooting a nervous glance at the cellar door. ‘What you doing up this ways, Tug?’
‘Come over to see Miss Juanita, her not having been to the spread for a few days. We lost some stock to rustlers and want to know if she wants us to take out after them.’
‘She went to town with the boss.’ Once more the cook looked at the ce
llar door. ‘She won’t be back today so you best take out after them without her knowing.’
‘Yeah!’ Salmon looked around the room with casual interest. ‘You boys at S Star sure have it good if this’s the cook shack. You don’t have it like this over to home.’
‘We don’t either. I was just cleaning up in here when I got a touch of the grippe and sat down to ease myself,’ the cook answered, looking again at the Ysabel Kid. ‘Don’t recollect seeing you at Estradre’s before, friend.’
‘Just took on. The name’s Comanche Blood.’
The Kid knew he’d made a bad mistake the moment he said his favorite alias. Every man of Syndicate knew which tribe was blamed for the death of Santone and Carron. The Kid cursed himself for leaving the arrow lance, although there was no way he could have recovered either during the few wild minutes at the Lazy F. He saw the cook’s eyes again flicker towards the door. For a moment the man appeared to be on the verge of shouting out but thought better of it.
Walking to the window the Ysabel Kid looked out at the corral. ‘You either hold a real big remuda or the hands aren’t using their strings,’ he marked, for there were many horses moving around.
‘Sure,’ the cook felt nervous. He knew the Kid knew a working cowhand would take his string along. ‘The boys aren’t far out, just over to the lower forty. They come back when they want a change.’
Once more the Kid moved, prowling around the room, looking things over until he halted by the door. He could hear the cook’s breathing grow louder but did not turn around. ‘Real strong looking door to be inside a house, Tug,’ he marked. ‘I’ll bet it’s real, genuine oak.’
With these words the Kid lifted his hand, banging on the door twice, hard. Then he flattened himself against the side of the wall, eyes on the handle of the door, knowing it would open away from him.
The cook came to his feet, his mouth opening to yell a warning. Then he felt something touch his temple and turned his head. The muzzle of Tug Salmon’s long barreled Colt poked the cook in the eye.
