The 7th Western Novel

by Francis W. Hilton

  “You’re the jasper we want!” Kent shouted, sighting them and coming on a run. “The fellows say they heard a shot just before the storm. Smokey is missing. Where is he?”

  “To hell with Smokey!” Montana snapped. “I don’t know where he is.”

  “You’d better be telling,” Kent cried threateningly. “You’ve had it in for Smokey ever since you hit the Basin. You aimed to kill him and I’ll bet—”

  “Go to hell!” Montana struggled with his mounting anger. He jerked as a blinding flash of lightning rent the sky to be followed by a clap of thunder that seemed to rock the earth. His wounded and came from behind him. He flinched with the pain of the movement, swayed on his feet. Cousins seized hold of him to keep him from falling.

  “You’re hurt, Montana!” the rancher exclaimed. “What is it?”

  “Just a scratch,” the cowboy answered weakly.

  “It’s a bullet wound!” Cousins cried. “Did they get—”

  “A bullet wound?” Kent snarled. “Then that accounts for things. I warned you against this damned trail-drifter, Al. He’s killed—”

  “I haven’t killed anybody,” Montana cut in to retort, gritting his teeth on the pain that was streaking like livid flame through his arm.

  “Then who shot you?” Kent demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Montana flung back. “But I’m going to find out!”

  “Like hell you are!” Kent roared. “You arrest this fellow, Al, or I’ll kill him.”

  Cousins whirled on him.

  “What for?” he snapped.

  “Smokey is missing,” Kent shouted furiously. “We’ve searched high and low for him. Now this drifter sneaks in here wounded. The dancers heard a shot. He’s drilled Smokey!”

  “You’re crazy!” Cousins snorted. “Wait—”

  “And let him get away?” Kent blazed. “Not on your life. You’ll arrest him or—”

  “You’ll play hell arresting me, jasper!” Montana flared before Cousins could stop him. “I knocked down your cob pile once and saw you didn’t have any guts under it and I’ll do it again if you get funny.”

  “Don’t threaten me!” Kent thundered. “Cousins, I’m holding you responsible.”

  Cousins ignored him.

  “Hold on, Montana!” he cried. “Where you going?”

  “To find Little Montana,” Montana flashed, striding away.

  “Arrest him!” Kent bawled. “I tell you he’s killed Smokey.”

  “Don’t be a damned fool all your life,” Cousins growled. “He isn’t to be monkeyed with. Especially not now while that boy’s missing. He’s shot, man. And knows something. We’ll never find out the way you’re going at it. To hell with that talk of him killing Smokey.”

  He stood glaring at Kent through the dripping rain. Presently the sloshing of a horse’s hoofs in the mud broke in upon them. Montana jerked his mount to its haunches in the slippery earth.

  “Halt!” Kent cried, flying into a new fit of rage. “You’re under arrest.”

  “Arrest, hell!” Montana snorted. “There aren’t enough men in Thunder Basin to arrest me till I find that kid!”

  “What’s happened, Montana?” Cousins put in.

  “I don’t know,” the cowboy answered. “But I’m going to locate Little Montana and Tremaine. And if anything has happened to that boy I’ll go through this dump like a white-faced bull through a herd of billy goats.”

  “See, I told you!” Kent roared. “There he goes threatening again. I tell you—” A streak of lightning that shivered across the sky to leave a blinding glare of light behind it silenced him. A mighty clap of thunder crashed down upon them followed by a terrific gust of wind. The lights in the dance pavilion flared up and went out. Pandemonium broke loose. Women were screaming. Men were shouting hoarsely. The crowd broke frantically for the entrance only to become hopelessly jammed and driven back by the lashing storm.

  “Montana! Montana!” Cousins shouted to make himself heard above the uproar. “Hold on!” He paused, straining for some sound he had caught through the howling gale. “It’s the river!” he cried. “Piney is coming up. For God’s sake, Montana, ride the river for that boy!”

  “Damn the brat!” bawled Kent. “We’ve got to find Smokey.”

  But Montana did not hear him. His horse had snorted under the gouging rowels and lunged away into the night.

  “Every hand on the place get going!” Cousins bellowed. “Patrol that river till the flood comes down. Go all directions. For God’s sake, hurry. Find that boy before the flood!”

  When he had all the employees of the ranch breaking from the mass and running toward the corrals to secure their mounts, and had succeeded in getting the crowd quieted in the pavilion, he came back to Kent, who had not moved.

  “You’ve sure showed your hand tonight,” he said scornfully. “If you’d have kept a dally on that tongue of yours we might have gotten somewhere. But you had to blow off and that poor little kid—”

  “Damn the brat!” Kent interrupted to snarl. “To hear you talk a fellow would think it was your kid instead of a drifter’s brat.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference whose kid he is, he is going to have help!” Cousins flared. “For ten years I’ve let you run off at the head around here. But I’m still boss of this layout; and from now on you aren’t any better than anybody else. Climb onto your hoss and patrol that river or I’ll bend a scantling over your mullet head!”

  Dumfounded by Cousins’s first explosion in years Kent recoiled. “That drifter has poisoned you against me,” he cried hoarsely. “Having that brat around—”

  “Brat or no brat you’re going to hunt for him!” Cousins cut in savagely. “I’ve held in till I’m busting. Now I’ve cut loose. This here hurt of mine on the head wasn’t from falling down like I told you. I was shot. Shot from behind the same as I’ll bet Montana was. And when they come on to my place and go to shooting, damn me, the rag has plumb flew out.”

  Whirling, he hobbled away toward the corrals, leaving the thunderstruck Kent staring after him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE SEARCH

  Away from the hubbub at the Diamond A, regardless of the pains shooting along his wounded arm, unmindful of the cold, Montana roweled over the ground at a reckless pace, the wild running of his horse seeming to ease his violent emotions.

  The storm increased in fury. He humped up in his saddle, head bowed to the sheets of rain that drenched him to the skin and ran in rivulets off the brim of his hat. The wind screamed through the trees and brush about him. But he heeded it not. Blood-red passion consumed him, blinded him to things about him.

  Thought of the boy, helpless and alone, lost in the storm-swept wilderness that had claimed the lives of many—even though they were familiar with its dim and lonely trails—haunted him. And somewhere out there, too, was Smokey Tremaine.

  He urged his horse to greater speed toward the spot where he had last seen Little Montana. After a time the wind and rain began to cool his boiling blood. The chaotic thoughts in his brain took definite form. He began to reason sanely.

  At a dangerous pace he reached the point where the bullet had sent him down and from which Little Montana had started back to the Diamond A. Dismounting, he squatted on his heels to strike a match. The wind killed its tiny gleam even before it had made a flare in the darkness. And the rain had obliterated any footprints.

  “There is only one way he could of gone if he didn’t go back to the Diamond A,” he mused, nursing his throbbing arm. “That is toward the mountains. And if he did go that way he’d have had to cross the river!” Arising, he pulled himself painfully into the saddle and sat peering into the darkness.

  “It all depends on how fast he could travel,” he reasoned, coolly now. “He’d have gone like the devil to start with because he’d have figured he was on th
e right track. Then he’d be played out by the time he got to the river. Reckon though, he must have crossed it, for he’d have had time to get to the ranch if he’d turned back. Or mebbeso Smokey—” A grim smile braced his lips across his teeth. He set rowels to his horse and started toward the mountains.

  The din and fury of the storm increased. The lightning shivered across the sky to tear and snap savagely about him. Crash after crash of thunder blasted the heavens until his ears pounded with the deafening reports. The ferocious wind bent double the pines and aspens which creaked ominously and threw new deluges over him as he passed beneath.

  Then ahead he caught the sound of the river, a roar no louder than that of the storm, yet more sinister and deadly. Its challenge warned him to greater caution. He pulled his horse to a walk and moved forward, alert to the first sign of the flood. As he neared the stream he began calling to Little Montana. But no answering voice came back above the tumult of the storm-lashed mountains.

  Presently he reached the bank of the river, leaned over in the saddle to peer down into the water that swirled and hissed beneath him. Dark as it was he could see that it was up and rising rapidly. Time and again his horse shied away violently. It was only with great difficulty that he succeeded in forcing the snorting brute to the water’s edge. Finally, after a persistent fight, he roweled the animal ahead. The water was barely to its knees as yet, but the current was terrific.

  “It’s a cinch he got this far before the storm hit,” Montana reasoned aloud, straightening up in his saddle and giving his pony rein. It lurched around and sidled away from the stream, fighting the bit in an attempt to go back down the trail. “And if he was tuckered out and scared, like as not he ran across this ford on the cobblestones without noticing that he was in water till it was too late. Lost folks seldom turn back; once they start they keep going straight or in a circle.”

  His conclusions were the result of years of experience on the silent trails. The inner sense that all punchers cultivate now told him that Little Montana had crossed the river. With another look into the swirling water, he rode a short distance above to allow for the sweep of the current, and roweled his unwilling horse into the stream.

  The next few moments were filled with struggles, terrific, heartbreaking struggles that several times threatened to defeat the valiant efforts of the two. Then they were in midstream. Once it looked as though Montana would have to quit the fighting brute to lighten its load. But the pony had been there before and held its own until it could right itself, put every ounce of its strength into one mighty effort, and strike for the opposite shore. It floundered out onto the bank, shook itself like a dog and started wearily along a slippery trail, which at that point, began winding toward the peaks.

  Away from the crash and boom of the river, Montana began shouting again. Still no answer.

  For an infinity of time he traveled, now stopping to let his horse blow, now dismounting to lead it around some boulder where the going was too perilous to ride in safety.

  Then the storm went whirling away across the heavens to wreak its remaining vengeance on the lowland world. The stars popped forth to touch the trail with a soft, pale light. Save for the roar of the flooded river and distant grumbling of the storm below, a vast and ominous hush lay over the mountains. Again he shouted. This time he thought he heard the faintest kind of an answer far ahead. But when it was not repeated he decided that his fancy had tricked him.

  “It’s damned odd,” he mused. “I’ll lay money he never could have come this far unless Tremaine found him. And if Smokey did, he would head up, feeling certain that nobody would attempt a river crossing till daylight, or mebbeso till Piney went down.” Gritting his teeth on the pain in his arm which, now that the excitement of fording the stream was past, had started its throbbing anew, he plunged on.

  Dog-tired, weak from loss of blood, aching in every joint from the cold, covered from head to foot with mud where he had gone down during the slippery climb, his clothes clinging like a mantle of ice to his shivering form, he finally succeeded in reaching a ledge of rock at the head of the trail. Here he drew rein and dismounted to rest for a moment before attempting to proceed along the trail, which now was but a narrow passageway scratched in the rock overhanging a precipice that dropped some fifty feet to a boulder field below.

  When he had succeeded in catching his breath, he went forward cautiously, leading his horse. Rounding the hazardous point without mishap, he could see the outline of a cabin set in a thick grove of spruce some twenty yards beyond. As quickly as he sighted it he shook off his lethargy of weariness and became alert. Tying his horse to a tree, he went forward afoot. His heart gave a mighty leap. There was a light inside the cabin. Making his way as quickly as he could in his water-soaked boots, he crept stealthily to the single window. Then he straightened up and peered within.

  With an effort he stilled the curse that sprang to his lips. Before he thought he reached for his forty-five. But his holster was empty. Unmindful of the pain, he sent his fist crashing against the window. The glass shattered with a loud report.

  “Tremaine!” he cried in a strained, unnatural voice. “One move and I’ll kill you!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  FIGHT ON THE LEDGE

  Smokey Tremaine’s swarthy face went ashen at the sound of Montana’s voice. He stood for an instant framed in the light of a smutty-globed lantern on a table inside the cabin, his jaws sagging, huge body rigid. Then he spun about to face the window. Little Montana, a forlorn figure in his rain-soaked clothes, leaped up from a chair in the corner where he was crouched. “Montana!” he screamed. “Montana!”

  “Throw down your guns, Tremaine!” Montana snapped, ignoring the startled boy’s cry and keeping well out of sight in the darkness. “I’ve got you covered. One break and I’ll plug you!”

  Smokey bounded away from the light to peer furtively at the shattered window, plainly undecided whether that voice was real or the trick of a guilty conscience. But whatever was rushing through his mind he went for his forty-fives. Once out of their holsters, he hesitated an instant then dropped them to the floor. One fell at his feet. The other caromed away into the darkness.

  In Tremaine’s movement Montana saw something that set his jaws like clamps. But he had no time to ponder it. Elated that his ruse had worked thus far, he did not wait to map out a course of action. He only knew that inside the cabin were Little Montana and Smokey Tremaine. Further than that he did not think. A wild and reckless impulse was driving him on.

  “Now open the door!” he ordered. “And remember, don’t bat an eye or I’ll riddle you!”

  Before the startled Tremaine could collect his wits enough to comply with the command, Little Montana had sprung forward, dropped a heavy bar from across the door and thrown it open.

  In a single leap Montana was inside.

  “Now, damn you—” he began.

  He got no farther. In a glance Tremaine saw that he was unarmed. He stooped to seize the forty-five at his feet. Before he could pick it up, Montana had bundled himself, hurtled through the air and sent him crashing to the floor. Frightened half out of his senses, the boy cowered back against the wall.

  As he bore the big puncher down, Montana made a grab for the forty-five. Tremaine clutched his wounded arm. The pain that raced through it for a moment stunned Montana. Before he could recover himself, Smokey had rolled him off and dropped upon him with a force that knocked the breath from his lungs. For several seconds they lay locked in a death grip, their breath rasping croupily in their throats, their muscles bulging, their strength so evenly matched that neither could gain the advantage.

  Then the strain began to tell on Montana. The throbbing wound in his arm, the struggle in the river, the difficult ascent of the rain-washed trail, had undermined his strength. Still he knew that to relax for a single instant would allow Tremaine to seize the forty-five that lay within re
ach of both of them.

  “Buddy,” he gasped to the boy. “Get that gun!”

  For all the numbing fear that gripped him Little Montana somehow managed to start forward.

  “Stay back,” Tremaine snarled. “You touch that gun and I’ll kill you, too.”

  The brutal threat sent the boy cringing back. A blinding fury possessed Montana. With all his remaining strength he threw the big puncher off and lurched to his feet. He had only time to kick the gun from reach when Tremaine came up. Before he could leap away the puncher’s great arms encircled him. Again they went crashing to the floor. With the gun out of the way, Montana fought gamely, savagely. But weak as he was he was no match for the giant.

  “Button!” he panted again. “Get that gun!”

  This time the boy mastered his fear long enough to obey. Before Tremaine could jerk himself away and spring up he had seized it and covered him. With one mighty sweep Smokey knocked it from his hand, spun about. Setting himself, Montana sent a stinging blow to the point of his chin. The big fellow reeled but came on. Again and again Montana struck him. But his blows lacked steam.

  Then, for all he could do, Tremaine’s arms were about him again. He was borne backward. They rolled against the table. It upset with a crash. The lantern went flying. Luckily the light flickered out before it could ignite the oil that trickled onto the floor. The room was plunged into darkness. Tremaine was on top, squeezing the little remaining breath from Montana’s body with a vice-like scissor-grip, his fingers clawing for a throat hold.

  Nearer and nearer came those fingers, groping like deadly tentacles in the gloom. Montana tried to bridge. Tremaine’s weight was too great. He attempted to squirm from under the huge body. In this, too, he failed.

  Sheer desperation in the knowledge that neither he nor the boy could expect any mercy at the hands of the brutal Smokey, lent him the strength to fight on. Yet he was swiftly nearing the point of collapse.

  “I’ve got the gun, Montana!” the boy’s shrill voice burst upon them.

  “Don’t kill him unless you have to,” Montana panted. “He—”