by Noel Loomis
“You stay here; I’ll dicker with him.”
He lowered his long legs and dropped lightly to the limestone floor of the cave. Then he turned suddenly to face Curly Brown as he raised both hands level with his shoulders. The body of Jude Tabor had been removed.
“Where’s Jude?” Cummings asked curiously. “I saw you beat him to the gun!”
“In the river yonder,” the little outlaw answered violently. “That’s where you’re going!”
“Mebbe not, but that can wait,” Cummings answered with a careless shrug. “I’ve just come from the Devil’s Graveyard, back there in Hell’s Half Acre.”
“You lost a customer in the case of Jude Tabor,” Brown sneered.
“But those owl-hooters you brought in more than made up for Jude,” Cummings reminded sharply.
“I’m still alive,” Brown boasted. “You won’t be, for very long!”
“Who can say?” Cummings murmured. “It could be you.”
“I haven’t met my match yet with a six-shooter,” the waspy outlaw said, and now his voice did not sound boastful. More like a master workman who makes a statement of fact.
“I heard you say you were the fastest in the Strip,” Cummings reminded Brown. “I know one who is faster!”
“Ace Fleming didn’t pack the sand to ride back and face me for showdown!” Brown declared flatly. “What did you do with my money?”
“Took it to town and gave it to Ace,” Cummings answered evenly. “He wants to meet you more than anything in the world!”
“You’re a liar!” Brown barked venomously. “He knows I have him faded!”
“All he wanted was a fair shake.” Cummings ignored the insult.
“That’s all I ask,” Curly Brown snarled.
“Then holster your gun,” Cummings said quietly. “Ace Fleming came with me, and right now he’s got you under his gun!”
Curly Brown jerked erect, hesitated, and then slowly holstered his six-shooter. “Come on down if you’re there, gambler!” he challenged hoarsely.
Ace Fleming jumped lightly to the floor and faced the outlaw in a crouch. Then he moved slowly away, and Gospel Cummings was between the two deadly gunmen.
Fleming holstered his gun and twitched the handles out just so.
“I’m here,” he said quietly. “How do you want it, head or heart?”
“Stealing my stuff!” Brown snarled, and then he grinned a wolfish smile. “And you?” he retorted.
“You’ve paid your money; now you can take your choice,” Fleming answered quietly. “Snake Hollister is dead,” he added.
“So is Tod Ballard, and a few more I could name,” Brown retorted.
“That’s right, including most of the owl-hooters you sent to drive the Utah trail-herd,” Fleming said quietly. “I’m not the law, but I’m giving you the chance to surrender.” He voiced the words grudgingly. “You’ll get a fair trial!”
“You disappoint me,” Brown sneered. “You know that you’re betting on a sure thing that way. You know I’ll never surrender!”
“I know,” Fleming admitted. “But Saint John is a friend of mine, and I had to go through the law routine. Like you said, I was betting on a sure thing, but I did give you a chance to surrender.”
“I’m satisfied to let old Judge Colt sit on my case,” Curly Brown said, with a sneering smile on his thin face. “Three of my boys are holding back that Wagon Wheel crew; they can hold them back from now on!”
“So that don’t leave you many men to guard the cattle down in the Canyon,” Cummings guessed shrewdly. “Seeing that you won’t ever get them out, how many head are you holding down yonder through the tunnel?”
Curly Brown ignored the direct question. “Things would have been different if Snake had brought those two women back here,” he told Ace Fleming.
Gospel Cummings saw Fleming jerk his head lip angrily. “But you didn’t succeed in your vile plan,” Cummings interrupted. “Snake Hollister paid with his sinful life. He was your segundo!”
Now it was Curly Brown who lost his self-control. Like most small men, he was inordinately vain. He spoke venomously to Cummings without taking his slitted eyes from the face of Ace Fleming.
“Which same will cost you, sin buster!” he declared arrogantly. “Buy in whenever you’re a mind. I’ve got you both faded!”
“The stiff neck shall be bowed, and pride goeth before a fall,” Cummings warned sternly. “Better take Ace’s offer to surrender.”
“Time’s a-wasting!” Brown barked. “Make your pass, gambling man!”
“I’ll pay for your funeral out of your own money,” Fleming said quietly. “That’s the last thing I can do for you, but Gospel will read a short service.”
Curly Brown laughed grimly. “I’ll die the way I’ve lived, when my time comes,” he said acidly. “I’ve heard that old Holy Joe talk about repentance at Boot Hill, but that’s for cowards like the late Joe Slade!”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars will do a lot of good in the right places,” Fleming said quietly.
Brown went into a crouch, but mention of the money made him hold his right hand. Fleming was waiting, watching every move. His handsome face was devoid of expression, but his keen dark eyes were the giveaway. They were smoldering with studied determination; this was a game of draw for the highest stakes that one could bet.
“About that money,” Brown said in a whisper. “Mebbe you brought it with you?”
Ace Fleming shook his head. “I did bring five thousand with me,” he admitted. “Just in case I needed bait for a rat. It’s in my inside coat pocket. I figured the rest belonged to the Wagon Wheel.”
“Five thousand for a getaway stake,” Brown murmured. “I can get back up that chimney the way you and Cummings came down. Yeah, I was up there yesterday,” he admitted. “When I missed the money, I circled for sign, and Cummings left plenty. I took torches and just backtracked him.”
“You could have bushwhacked us up top,” Gospel Cummings said slowly. “I’d like to know why you didn’t.”
“I wanted to face you or Jim Waggoner for a shootout,” Brown admitted. “But I’d rather settle it with Fleming.”
“Throw off your shot, Ace,” Cummings appealed to the little gambler.
Curly Brown waited for the gambler’s answer with his head cocked slightly to the side. Ace Fleming slowly shook his head, and Curly Brown laughed mockingly.
“I never throw off my shots, as that Holy Joe can tell you,” he boasted. “I’m going to drill you center, and I’m coming out now!”
Gospel Cummings knew that showdown was inevitable, but there was still one more chance left.
“I saw you throw your shots off one time,” he contradicted the outlaw. “When Jude Tabor shot at you with blank cartridges, and you shot over his head before you finished your play-acting for Miss Molly!”
Curly Brown’s breathing was raspy as he fought back his anger. He watched Ace Fleming intently, but the gambler waited for him to answer.
“That was the one time in my life!” Brown declared viciously. “Tabor talked me into it, but he also talked himself right into hell!”
“When you see him, tell him I hope he burns there forever,” Fleming said pungently. “Tod Ballard was my friend.”
Curly Brown resumed his crouch, and swayed gently as he spaced his boots for balance. His lips moved swiftly.
“I’m all talked out!” he snarled. “I’m coming out smoking!”
His right shoulder twitched as the outlaw’s big right hand plunged down to his holstered gun. The move was like the flash of sun on a strong mirror, but Ace Fleming was ready.
Both were small men, and masters with their tools. Ace Fleming whipped his right hand down, and his left boot slithered to take him a step to the side as he was making his draw. Curly Brown was standing flat-footed with his knees slightly bent.
Gospel Cummings watched like a man in a strange dream, and he would have sworn that there was no difference in speed between
the two deadly gunmen. Both guns came up and roared savagely, but it was Curly Brown who was battered into a half-turn.
Ace Fleming caught his bucking gun on the recoil, and he triggered a swift follow-up which sounded like a stuttering echo of his first shot. Curly Brown was just swinging around when the heavy slug caught him in the left breast.
The smoking pistol dropped from his hand as he was jerked back and to the left. Then the outlaw’s knees buckled to pitch him face forward toward the mouth of the cave.
Ace Fleming turned slowly with his six-shooter following the dying man, and a little plume of black powder-smoke trailed up from the threatening muzzle.
Gospel Cummings recovered from his stunned surprise. His black pistol whipped out of leather to cover the entrance to the cave. Then he heard the staccato drum of boots as Curly Brown rattled his life away in almost the same spot where Jude Tabor had died.
“He’s dead,” Cummings said gently, as he looked at Fleming.
The little gambler stood facing Brown, and his left arm hung limp at his side. A trickle of crimson dripped from his long fingers, but he waved Cummings away.
“Just a bullet burn, but it was close,” he said harshly.
“It was a draw,” Gospel Cummings murmured. “Only that side step saved you from going with Curly!”
“That’s what I get for going soft!” the little gambler barked crossly. “I hit him high with my first slug, but he was playing for keeps. Next time I’ll know better than to listen to you!”
“Let’s move up and give the boys a hand,” Cummings suggested. “We’ve got those three men between us and the Wagon Wheel crew, and they ought to surrender.”
Ace Fleming holstered his pistol, and drew the spare from his left holster. They moved slowly toward the big entrance, one on each side. Sporadic firing came from the steep trail between the cave and the Wagon Wheel crew, and Cummings spotted the first outlaw sighting down the barrel of a rifle. He had no time to shout a warning, and his six-shooter flamed before the rifleman could press trigger.
The rustler yelled and dropped his rifle as the heavy slug hit him in the right arm. A burst of rifle shots came from down the trail, and another man spilled out from the brush, and thudded to the ground.
“Hold your fire, Wagon Wheel!” Cummings shouted. “Give that lone lobo a chance to surrender!”
“Hold your fire, men!” Gospel heard Jim Waggoner repeat. “Are you and Ace all right, Gospel?”
“Right as rain!” Cummings answered. “But Curly Brown is dead. I’m promising this lone survivor a fair trial if he wants to surrender. How about it, hombre?”
A six-shooter roared to throw splinters of rock near Cummings as the outlaw refused to capitulate. But the flash of his gun gave his position away, and a savage barrage gave answer from the cowboys down the trail. A single shot blasted out from across the cave, and Gospel Cummings sighed when the lone outlaw pitched to the ground. Ace Fleming smiled grimly as he holstered his smoking six-shooter.
“We gave him every chance,” the little gambler said quietly. Then he raised his voice. “All right, Jim; you and the boys can come up now!”
Cummings grunted as Jim Waggoner rode up the trail with his old sorrel horse. Another cowboy brought Fleming’s thoroughbred, and boosted the gambler to the saddle with a heave of his shoulder. Gospel Cummings rode in the lead as they entered the big cave, and he spoke a word of caution.
“Mind that deep hole yonder to the right. That’s where Lost River gets lost. It might be nearly a hundred feet straight down, but it comes out again down in the canyon.”
Ace Fleming and Jim Waggoner followed the gaunt plainsman through the dusky light of the long tunnel. They emerged into sunlight in a low narrow valley surrounded by high cliffs. Wagon Wheel and Circle F cattle were grazing peacefully, and the two crews rode out from the cave and stared at the grazing cattle in the high lush grass.
“Must be all of three hundred head,” Waggoner made a swift tally. “Plenty of water and grass, and a perfect hideaway!”
“Just the place for a honeymoon,” Gospel Cummings suggested.
“I’ll tell Molly what you said,” Waggoner answered with a smile. “Looks like we ought to have peace for a long time now, here in the Strip.”
“There won’t be much work for Saint John to do,” Ace Fleming remarked, with quiet satisfaction. “Thanks to our good friend Gospel Cummings, if I may say so.”
“Give my love to Sandra and Molly,” Gospel changed the subject quickly. “Now I want to ride alone for a time, if you gents don’t mind. My cough is bothering me some.” And he rode up the tunnel trail alone.
There in the darkness he reached to the right tail of his long coat, on the side where the bad man of his nature had its abode. His groping fingers found and closed around the bottle of Three Daisies.
“Someday I will conquer my besetting sin,” the tall plainsman whispered in the darkness, and now his voice was steady and strong. “When I read the services at Boot Hill, there will be at least one repentant sinner.” He sighed and added softly: “But a man never knows when he’s like to get bit by a snake!”
HELLGATE, by William Colt MacDonald
Copyright © 1956 by Alan William Colt MacDonald.
CHAPTER 1
AMBUSH
For a considerable time there wasn’t the slightest doubt that the three-day downpour was responsible for the landslide at Shoulder Bluff where it elbowed to one side the twin tracks of the T.N. & A.S. Railroad, slickly wet in the rain. Fortunately, no wreck took place. The headlight of the freight train’s locomotive, cutting a bright beam through the slanting arrows of moisture, had picked out in plenty of time the tumbled debris of earth and rock spilled across the right-of-way, and the engine had been brought to a safe stop. Followed some bitter profanity on the part of the train crew, while the usual precautionary measures were undertaken, flagging signals set out and so on.
Meanwhile, less than a mile distant from the point where the train had halted, two mule-drawn wagons made their way doggedly through the wet night. A stretch of gumbo-like clay wasn’t helping the progress any. There was considerable cracking of whips and vitriolic cursing as each team of mules strained against the traces, hoofs tearing at the slippery, mud-churned roadway on a grade approaching Shoulder Bluff. Roadway? There wasn’t any roadway. A sort of trail, perhaps, little used nowadays, with sage and greasewood and cactus thriving along ancient wheel ruts. The mesquite grew higher on either side of the old trail, and more than once a wagon had missed the way in the sodden gloom when one of the mules found itself pushing through low brush. Then there’d be more swearing until the wagon was swerved back on the trail again.
The wagons traveled one behind the other, rain beating steadily into the faces of the drivers. Sometimes brakes were jammed on abruptly, and the harness set up a jangling, until slipping animals could once more find a sort of footing. Then, one after the other, they’d lurch on through the dripping night. The teamsters were both lean muscular oldsters, heavily bewhiskered, with battered, shapeless felt hats from which water dripped in an almost continual stream. Their clothing was shabby and at present soggy. Patched breeches were tucked into knee-length flat-heeled boots. Their names were Corny Callahan and Ringbone Pardee, and a tough pair of old roots they were by any standard.
By this time, Corny Callahan, in the lead, had tooled his team to a more level stretch of ground. Calling back something over his shoulder, he pulled the steaming animals to a halt. Ringbone Pardee too halted and after securing his reins, climbed down from his wagon and made his way, slipping and sliding, to the foremost wagon, where Callahan was endeavoring to light a short stubby pipe. In the light from the flickering flame, his keen old eyes looked down with some amusement on his companion. Then he too dropped to the earth. “It’s quite the night to be out, Ringbone, me bye.” He chuckled. There was a touch of Irish brogue in his tones. “And it’s me that’s seein’ plain ye’re not likin’ of it.”
Ring
bone Pardee swore. “What did ye stop fer?” he demanded in aggrieved tones. “We was finally makin’ some time—”
“And it’s you sittin’ on your drivin’ seat takin’ of your comfort, that’s complainin’,” Callahan scoffed. He gestured toward the panting mules. “Is it forgetting’ ye are that them kittens is needin’ a breather after makin’ of that grade?”
“What difference does weather make to a mule?” Pardee growled. “It ain’t no fit night for a human to be out—so black you can’t see your face in front of you.”
“And why—” Callahan laughed, “—should you be wantin’ to scare yourself to death in that fashion?” He cut short a half-snarled retort and went on. “This is nothin’ at all, at all. Had you been with me in the old days when we was drivin’ of the six-mule high-wheeled freighters, through blizzards and desert heat, ye’d be thinkin’ a trip of this kind was play for a child—”
“Yaah! Yaah! Yaah!” Pardee cut in peevishly. “All’s you can do is talk of them old days. I’m sick and tired of your guff. I was a damn’ fool to take this job with you—”
“It was you that was needin’ of the money, you kept sayin’,” Callahan reminded. “And when the opportunity come it was of my old friend, Ringbone, I thought on the fir-r-st. It’s sorry I am, if the job is not to your likin’—”
“I’ll never take another job with you,” Pardee said sullenly.
“That is as it may be,” Callahan said mildly. “But now that we’re into the job, we’d best be carryin’ of it through.” His old eyes probed the darkness trying to find some reaction on Pardee’s face, but it was too dark to see. “Anyway you look at it, the worst should be over, with the two of us makin’ of more downgrade on the return trip. We’d better be startin’ again.”
“Leastwise, it could stop rainin’,” Pardee said disagreeably.
“That would be makin’ no difference to us, at all, at all,” Corny Callahan said philosophically. “We can get no wetter than we are at the moment.”
