The Robert E. Howard Omnibus: 97 Collected Stories

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The Robert E. Howard Omnibus: 97 Collected Stories Page 312

by Robert E. Howard


  "How did Harrison get mixed up in this deal?" demanded the sheriff.

  "Mixed, hell! He planned the whole thing. He was cashier in the bank when the Laramies robbed it; the real ones, I mean. If it hadn't been for that robbery, old Brown would soon found out that Harrison was stealin' from him. But the Laramies killed Brown and give Harrison a chance to cover his tracks. They got blamed for the dough he'd stole, as well as the money they'd actually taken.

  "That give Harrison an idee how to be king of San Leon. The Laramies had acted as scapegoats for him once, and he aimed to use 'em again. But he had to wait till he could get to be president of the bank, and had taken time to round up a gang."

  "So he'd ruin the ranchers, give mortgages and finally get their outfits, and then send his coyotes outa the country and be king of San Leon," broke in Laramie. "We know that part of it. Where'd Rawlins come in?"

  "Harrison knowed him years ago, on the Rio Grande. When Harrison aimed to raise his gang, he went to Mexico and found Rawlins. Harrison knowed the real Laramies had a secret hide-out, so Rawlins made friends with Luke Laramie, and--"

  "We know all about that," interrupted Anders with a quick glance at Buck.

  "Yeah? Well, everything was bueno till word come from Mexico that Buck Laramie was ridin' up from there. Harrison got skittish. He thought Laramie was comin' to take toll for his brother. So he sent Rawlins to waylay Laramie. Rawlins missed, but later went on to San Leon to try again. He shot you instead, Anders. Word was out to get you, anyway. You'd been prowlin' too close to our hide-out to suit Harrison.

  "Harrison seemed to kinda go locoed when first he heard Laramie was headin' this way. He made us pull that fool stunt of a fake bank hold-up to pull wool over folks's eyes more'n ever. Hell, nobody suspected him anyway. Then he risked comin' out here. But he was panicky and wanted us to git ready to make a clean sweep tonight and pull out. When Laramie got away from us this mornin', Harrison decided he'd ride to Mexico with us.

  "Well, when the fightin' had started, Harrison and Rawley stayed out a sight. Nothin' they could do, and they hoped we'd be able to break out of the canyon. They didn't want to be seen and recognized. If it should turn out Laramie hadn't told anybody he was head of the gang, Harrison would be able to stay on, then."

  Preparations were being made to start back to San Leon with the prisoners, when a sheepish looking delegation headed by Mayor Jim Watkins approached Laramie. Watkins hummed and hawed with embarrassment, and finally blurted out, with typical Western bluntness:

  "Look here, Laramie, we owe you somethin' now, and we're just as hot too pay our debts as you are to pay yours. Harrison had a small ranch out a ways from town, which he ain't needin' no more, and he ain't got no heirs, so we can get it easy enough. We thought if you was aimin', maybe, to stay around San Leon, we'd like powerful well to make you a present of that ranch, and kinda help you get a start in the cow business. And we don't want the fifty thousand Waters said you aimed to give us. You've wiped out that debt."

  A curious moroseness had settled over Laramie, a futile feeling of anti-climax, and a bitter yearning he did not understand. He felt old and weary, a desire to be alone, and an urge to ride away over the rim of the world and forget--he did not even realize what it was he wanted to forget.

  "Thanks." he muttered. "I'm paying that fifty thousand back to the men it belonged to. And I'll be movin' on tomorrow."

  "Where to?"

  He made a helpless, uncertain gesture.

  "You think it over," urged Watkins, turning away. Men were already mounting, moving down the trail. Anders touched Laramie's sleeve.

  "Let's go. Buck. You need some attention on them wounds."

  "Go ahead. Bob. I'll be along. I wanta kind set here and rest."

  Anders glanced sharply at him and then made a hidden gesture to Slim Jones, and turned away. The cavalcade moved down the trail in the growing darkness, armed men riding toward a new era of peace and prosperity; gaunt, haggard bound men riding toward the penitentiary and the gallows.

  Laramie sat motionless, his empty hands hanging limp on his knees. A vital chapter in his life had closed, leaving him without a goal. He had kept his vow. Now he had no plan or purpose to take its place.

  Slim Jones, standing nearby, not understanding Laramie's mood, but not intruding on it, started to speak. Then both men lifted their heads at the unexpected rumble of wheels.

  "A buckboard!" ejaculated Slim.

  "No buckboard ever come up that trail," snorted Laramie.

  "One's comin' now; and who d'you think? Old Joel, by golly. And look who's drivin'!"

  Laramie's heart gave a convulsive leap and then started pounding as he saw the slim supple figure beside the old rancher. She pulled up near them and handed the lines to Slim, who sprang to help her down.

  "Biggest fight ever fit in San Leon County!" roared Waters, "and I didn't git to fire a shot. Cuss a busted laig, anyway!"

  "You done a man's part, anyway, Joel," assured Laramie; and then he forgot Joel Waters entirely, in the miracle of seeing Judy Anders standing before him, smiling gently, her hand outstretched and the rising moon melting her soft hair to golden witch-fire.

  "I'm sorry for the way I spoke to you today," she said softly. "I've been bitter about things that were none of your fault."

  "D-don't apologize, please," he stuttered, inwardly cursing himself because of his confusion. The touch of her slim, firm hand sent shivers through his frame and he knew all at once what that empty, gnawing yearning was; the more poignant now, because so unattainable.

  "You saved my neck. Nobody that does that needs to apologize. You was probably right, anyhow. Er--uh--Bob went down the trail with the others. You must have missed him."

  "I saw him and talked to him," she said softly. "He said you were behind them. I came on, expecting to meet you."

  He was momentarily startled. "You came on to meet me? Oh, of course. Joel would want to see how bad shot up I was." He achieved a ghastly excuse for a laugh.

  "Mr. Waters wanted to see you, of course. But I--Buck, I wanted to see you, too."

  She was leaning close to him, looking up at him, and he was dizzy with the fragrance and beauty of her; and in his dizziness said the most inane and idiotic thing he could possibly have said.

  "To see me?" he gurgled wildly. "What--what you want to see me for?"

  She seemed to draw away from him and her voice was a bit too precise.

  "I wanted to apologize for my rudeness this morning," she said, a little distantly.

  "I said don't apologize to me," he gasped. "You saved my life--and I--I--Judy, dang it, I love you!"

  It was out--the amazing statement, blurted out involuntarily. He was frozen by his own audacity, stunned and paralyzed. But she did not seem to mind. Somehow he found she was in his arms, and numbly he heard her saying: "I love you too, Buck. I've loved you ever since I was a little girl, and we went to school together. Only I've tried to force myself not to think of you for the past six years. But I've loved the memory of you--that's why it hurt me so to think that you'd gone bad--as I thought you had. That horse I brought you--it wasn't altogether because you'd helped Bob that I brought it to you. It--it was partly because of my own feeling. Oh, Buck, to learn you're straight and honorable is like having a black shadow lifted from between us. You'll never leave me, Buck?"

  "Leave you?" Laramie gasped. "Just long enough to find Watkins and tell him I'm takin' him up on a proposition he made me, and then I'm aimin' on spendin' the rest of my life makin' you happy." The rest was lost in a perfectly natural sound.

  "Kissin'!" beamed Joel Waters, sitting in his buckboard and gently manipulating his wounded leg. "Reckon they'll be a marryin' in these parts purty soon, Slim."

  "Don't tell me yo're figgerin' on gittin' hitched?" inquired Slim, pretending to misunderstand, but grinning behind his hand.

  "You go light on that sarcastic tone. I'm liable to git married any day now. It's just a matter of time till I decide what ty
pe of woman would make me the best wife."

  * * *

  Contents

  "GOLDEN HOPE" CHRISTMAS

  by Robert E. Howard

  Chapter 1

  Red Ghallinan was a gunman. Not a trade to be proud of, perhaps, but Red was proud of it. Proud of his skill with a gun, proud of the notches on the long blue barrel of his heavy .45s. Red was a wiry, medium-sized man with a cruel, thin lipped mouth and close-set, shifty eyes. He was bow-legged from much riding, and, with his slouching walk and hard face he was, indeed, an unprepossessing figure. Red’s mind and soul were as warped as his exterior. His insister reputation caused men to strive to avoid offending him but at the same tome to cut him off from the fellowship of people. No man, good or bad, cares to chum with a killer. Even the outlaws hated him and feared him too much to admit him to their gang, so he was a lone wolf. But a lone wolf may sometimes be more feared than the whole pack.

  Let us not blame Red too much. He was born and reared in an environment of evil. His father and his father’s father had been rustlers and gun-fighters. Until he was a grown man, Red knew nothing but crime as a legitimate way of making a living and by the time he learned that a man may earn a sufficient livelihood and still remain within the law he was too set in his ways to change. So it was not altogether his fault that he was a gunfighter. Rather, it was the fault of those unscrupulous politicians and mine-owners who hired him to kill their enemies. For that was the way Red lived. He was a born gun-fighter. The killer instinct burned strongly in him—the heritage of Cain. He had never seen the man who surpassed him or even equalled him in the speed of the draw or in swift, straight shooting. These qualities together with the cold nerve and reckless bravery that goes with red hair, made him much in demand with rich men who had enemies. So he did a large business.

  But the fore-van of the law began to come into Idaho and Red saw with hate the first sign of that organization which had driven him out of Texas a few years before—the vigilantes. Red’s jobs became fewer and fewer for he feared to kill unless he could make it appear self-defense.

  At last it reached a point where Red was faced with the alternative of moving on or going to work. So he rode over to miner’s cabin and announced his intention of buying the miner’s claim. The miner, after one skittish glance at Red’s guns, sold his claim for fifty dollars, signed the deed and left the country precipitately.

  Red worked the claim for a few days and then quit in disgust. He had not gotten one ounce of gold dust. This was due, partly to his distaste for work, partly to his ignorance of placer mining and mostly to the poorness of the claim.

  He was standing in the front door of the saloon of the mining town, when the stage-coach drove in and a passenger alit.

  He was a well built, frank-appearing young fellow and Red hated him instinctively. Hated him for his cleanliness, for his open, honest, pleasant face, because he was everything that Red was not.

  The newcomer was very friendly and very soon the whole town knew his antecedents. His name was Hal Sharon, a tenderfoot from the east, who had come to Idaho with the hopes of striking a bonanza and going home wealthy. Of course there was a girl in the case, though Hal said little on that point. He had a few hundred dollars and wanted to buy a good claim. At this Red took a new interest in the young man.

  Red bought drinks and lauded his claim. Sharon proved singularly trustful. He did not ask to see the claim but took Red’s word for it. A trustfulness that would have touched a less hardened man than Red.

  One or two men, angered at the deliberate swindle, tried to warn Hal but a cold glance from Red caused them to change their minds. Hal bought Red’s claim for five hundred dollars.

  He toiled unceasingly all fall and early winter, barely making enugh to keep him in food and clothes, while Red lived in the little town and sneered at his uncomplaining efforts.

  Christmas in the air. Everywhere the miners stopped work and came to town to live until the snow should have melted and the ground thawed out in the spring. Only Hal Sharon stayed at his claim, working on in the cold and snow, spurred on by the thought of riches—and a girl.

  It was a little over three weeks until Christmas when, one cold night Red Ghallinan sat by the stove in the saloon and listened to the blizzard outside. He though to Sharon, doubtless shivering in his cabin up on the slopes, and he sneered. He listened idly to the talk of the miners and cow-punchers who were discussing the coming festivals, a dance and so on.

  Christmas meant nothing to Red. Though the one bright spot I his life had been one Christmas years ago when Red was a ragged waif, shivering on the snow covered streets of Kansas City.

  He had passed a great church and, attracted by the warmth, had entered timidly. The people had sung, "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing!" and when the congregation passed out, an old, white haired woman had seen the boy and had taken him home and fed him and clothed him. Red had lived in her home as one of the family until spring, but when the wild geese began to fly north and the trees began to bud, the wanderlust got into the boy’s blood and he ran away and came back to his native Texas prairies. But that was years ago and Red never thought of it now.

  The door flew open and a furred and muffled figure strode in. It was Sharon—his hands shoved deep in his coat pockets.

  Instantly Red was on his feet, hand twisting just above a gun. But Hal took no notice of him. He pushed his way to the bar.

  "Boys," he said: "I named my claim the Golden Hope, and it was a true name! Boys, I’ve struck it rich!"

  And he threw a double handful of nuggets and gold-dust on the bar.

  Christmas Eve Red stood in the door of an eating house and watched Sharon coming down the slope, whistling merrily. He had a right to be merry. He was already worth twelve thousand dollars and had not exhausted his claim by half. Red watched with hate in his eyes. Ever since the night that Sharon had thrown his first gold on the bar, his hatred of the man had grown. Hal’s fortune seemed a personal injury to Red. Had he not worked like a slave on that claim without getting a pound of gold? And here this stranger had come and gotten rich off the same claim! Thousands to him, a measly five hundred to Red. To Red’s warped mind this assumed monstrous proportions—an outrage. He hated Sharon as he had never hated a man before. And since with him to hate was to kill, he determined to kill Hal Sharon. With a curse he reached for a gun when a thought stayed his hand. The Vigilantes! They would get him sure if he killed Sharon openly. A cunning light came to his eyes and he turned and strode away toward the unpretentious boarding house where he stayed.

  Hal Sharon walked into a saloon.

  "Seen Ghallinan lately?" he asked.

  The bartender shook his head.

  Hal tossed a bulging buck-sack on the bar.

  "Give that to him when you see him. It’s got about a thousand dollars worth of gold-dust in it."

  The bartender gasped. "What! You giving Red a thousand bucks after he tried to swindle you? Yes, it is safe here. Ain’t a galoot in camp touch anything belonging to a gun-fighter. But say—"

  "Well," answered Hal, "I don’t think he got enough for his claim; he practically gave it to me. And anyway, " he laughed over his shoulder, "It’s Christmas!"

  Chapter 2

  Morning in the mountains. The highest peaks touched with a delicate pink. The stars paling as the darkness grew grey. Light on the peaks, shadow still in the valleys, as if the paint brush of the Master had but passed lightly over the land, coloring openly the highest places, the places nearest to Him. Now the light-legions began to invade the valleys, driving before them the darkness; the light on the peaks grew stronger, the snow beginning to cast back the light. But as yet no sun. The king had sent his courtiers before him but he himself had not appeared.

  In a certain valley, smoke curled from the chimney of a rude log cabin. High on the hillside, a man gave a grunt of satisfaction. The man lay in a hollow, from which he had scraped the drifted snow. Ever since the first hint of dawn, he had lain there, watching
the cabin. A heavy rifle lay beneath his arm.

  Down in the valley, the cabin door swung wide and a man stepped out. The watcher on the hill saw that it was the man he had come to kill.

  Hal Sharon threw his arms wide and laughed aloud in the sheer joy of living. Up on the hill, Red Ghallinan watched the man over the sights of a Sharpe .50 rifle. For the first time he noticed what a magnificent figure the young man was. Tall, strong, handsome, with the glow of health on his cheek.

  For some reason Red was not getting the enjoyment he thought he would. He shook his shoulders impatiently. His finger tightened on the trigger—suddenly Hal broke into song; the words floated clearly to Red.

  "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing!"

  Where had he heard that song before? Suddenly a mist floated across Red Ghallinan’s eyes; the rifle slipped unnoticed from his hands, He drew his hand across his eyes and looked toward the eat. There, alone hung one great star and as he looked, over the shoulder of a great mountain came the great sun.

  "Gawd!" gulped Red, why—it is Christmas!"

  * * *

  Contents

  MOUNTAIN MAN

  By Robert E. Howard

  I was robbing a bee tree, when I heard my old man calling: "Breckinridge! Oh, Breckinridge! Where air you? I see you now. You don't need to climb that tree. I ain't goin' to larrup you."

  He come up, and said: "Breckinridge, ain't that a bee settin' on yore ear?"

  I reached up, and sure enough, it was. Come to think about it, I had felt kind of like something was stinging me somewhere.

  "I swar, Breckinridge," said pap, "I never seen a hide like your'n. Listen to me: old Buffalo Rogers is back from Tomahawk, and the postmaster there said they was a letter for me, from Mississippi. He wouldn't give it to nobody but me or some of my folks. I dunno who'd be writin' me from Mississippi; last time I was there, was when I was fightin' the Yankees. But anyway, that letter is got to be got. Me and yore maw has decided you're to go git it. Yuh hear me, Breckinridge?"

 

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