The 7th Western Novel

by Francis W. Hilton

  Hartzell’s peaked face blanched. In Montana’s extended hand was a copper-jacketed bullet, the nose of which had been nicked. Beside it lay the six copper-jacketed cartridges from the chamber of Hartzell’s gun. The noses of all of them were nicked!

  “That settles that, sheriff,” Montana told the officer, who now was staring stupidly. “Hartzell might have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for this nicked bullet and the fact that Tremaine carries one gun for a bluff; and for good old Irish Jerry, the bartender at the Midway, who talked me into saving this bullet. We’ve had Hartzell right under our eyes since we hit Elbar.”

  “But I looked at Hartzell’s gun that night,” the coroner ventured with a poor attempt at a sneer. “The chamber was full.”

  “He had plenty of time to reload before you got that inquest started,” Montana replied hotly. “And was smart enough not to reload with nicked cartridges. You were so damned set on clearing Tremaine you couldn’t bother with facts. I had this bullet that night. But Hartzell tricked me for a while by offering his hand. The jig’s up now. He’s through.”

  “I told you Smokey didn’t do that killing,” Kent found his voice to growl. “And that Buzzard rustling you accused us of, it’s a frame-up. Damn you, you’d better—”

  “Save your threats,” Montana lashed out. “Now that I’ve found out who killed Pop Masterson I’m ready to start on you. I told you, you were jail bait as quick as I got ready to play my hand. I’m ready now. Your days are numbered on Thunder, Kent.”

  “I’ve been here a good many years,” sneeringly. “I’ve seen wild-onion spreads like the Buzzard come and go. You’re no different than the rest.”

  “Only so far as I happen to hold your paper, Kent,” Montana retorted coolly.

  “His paper?” Cousins put in excitedly. “He hasn’t any paper—”

  “You’ll find out a lot about him before I’m through, Cousins,” Montana said. “Because I’m sure you haven’t had a part in this thing. Haven’t even known what this double-crosser was doing. I hold the paper on the Four Diamond outfit he’s slapped mortgages on to keep Smokey Tremaine out of jail. The Four Diamond—the spread King Kent and Smokey Tremaine kept stocked with cattle they stole from your Diamond A!”

  The announcement dropped like a bombshell in the packed room. A choking sound left Cousins’s lips. But boiling anger held him speechless. Kent slumped down in his chair.

  “I could foreclose on that stolen stuff without spilling all this,” Montana was saying. “But the Buzzard is on the square, Kent. I’m going to worry you a bit, though, about those critters your phantom rustler gang—that threatened Cousins—stole.”

  “My stuff is not stolen,” Kent shouted. “Not a head. And every bit of my paper is in the hands of the Ranchers’ Commission Company of Omaha.” He essayed a smile that froze on his chalky face. “I reckon they will have something to say about a wild-onion spread calling that paper.”

  “They will,” decisively. “But it just happened that Pop Masterson was the Ranchers Commission Company. He was trying to tell you in the saloon that night this skunk”—he indicated the cringing Hartzell—“plugged him. Pop didn’t know you’d stolen the stuff to start your spread. Didn’t know that you’d robbed your best friend, Al Cousins. Nor he couldn’t know that you and Smokey Tremaine rustled those blackballed Buzzards and branded them Four Diamond; and Whitey caught you at it red-handed. I didn’t spring that Four Diamond brand in the roundup camp that morning. But you knew that I knew, damn you. But Pop did know you were having trouble paying. You swore you couldn’t. Thinking you were an honest man, Pop didn’t want to drive you to the wall. But he couldn’t figure it out when other ranchers were meeting their bills. So he brought these Buzzards in here to feed, to convince himself you were up against the proposition you claimed you were. He aimed to buy your place—that line shack up above Piney you claim, in the mortgage, is the Four Diamond—build up your herd, work with you. Pop’s main reason in coming up here was to pull you out of the hole, Kent.”

  “Damn you, Hartzell!” Kent blurted out savagely. “I asked you fellows there in the Midway that day if you were plumb sure this Buzzard didn’t belong to some commission house. You said no, you lying, sneaking—”

  “But it was you who talked blackballing,” Montana cut in. “You who ran in the Diamond A’s, without Cousins’s consent, to stampede us, you who played poker for our stuff, burned our camp, slapped more paper on your stolen stuff to keep Tremaine—who you thought had killed Pop—from being jailed.” His soft voice crackled with coldness. “And it was you, Kent, who trumped up that phony warrant and paid the sheriff to hound me, then lost your nerve and tried to call him off after we nailed you as a rustler.

  “Sit down!” he flung at the sheriff, who started up, face purple with rage. “I’ll get to you in a minute.”

  He swung back on Kent.

  “You blame Hartzell for telling you Pop didn’t have commission-house stuff. Yet if you kept Tremaine’s mouth shut for a minute when he was deviling the old fellow you’d have found out. Pop was trying to tell you, to explain who he was, what he’d come for. Tremaine was drunk and wouldn’t listen. But that’s all over now, Kent. There are only two jaspers in the world who can call your crooked paper. And they’re doing it now!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  PEACE IN THUNDER BASIN

  The occasional shifting of a nervous boot, a whistling sigh, the sucking breath of Cousins, who was working himself into a fit of rage at revelation of Kent’s double-dealing, were the only sounds that broke the frozen stillness in the room. From outside came the nicker of a pony, the hoof beats of the horse of some late arrival.

  “The Buzzard spread is calling your crooked paper, Kent!” Montana repeated.

  “What’s that to you?” Kent sneered. “The Buzzard spread belongs to Masterson’s—”

  “Masterson’s will left everything to the foreman who was with him at the time of his death,” Montana checked him. “Sal—Miss Hope went to Omaha, took my little pard—whom you kidnapped once—to keep him out of Tremaine’s way. She sent me all the papers, established my claim. I’ll admit I walked into a pay streak blind; but it’s mine now. And the dying words of Pop Masterson were to clean you out, Kent!”

  A slow crimson stain started working itself across the face of Kent. His hands began opening and closing convulsively.

  “There are only two jaspers in the world who can call the paper on that stolen stuff,” Montana was continuing softly; so softly those nearest him strained to hear. “Me, the owner of the Buzzard spread and the Ranchers’ Commission Company, and Whitey Hope, the cowboy you tried to run out of business in Elbar. But it won’t make any difference to you. You’re going over the road, for blotching Buzzard brands after you fell for our two-man roundup gag, for rustling from Al Cousins, for mortgaging stolen property—not to mention kidnapping, Kent. You and Tremaine, the rustler gang of Thunder Basin. And Hartzell, the nervous killer, who, I am convinced, was driven to the killing of Masterson through fear of Tremaine and to prove, some day, his claim to being a man of Smokey’s caliber.

  “Lock them up, sheriff. I’m filing the charges. And you,” as the officer leaped up with alacrity to obey, “Kent has owned you body and soul for years. You’ve done all his dirty work. But with Kent gone we’re giving you one break. You’re coming clean from now on!”

  The sheriff blinked, gulped, and nodded. The movement, fraught with fear, brought a chuckle from the crowd.

  “We’ve warned you now,” Montana said. “Law and order is moving into Elbar. You’re going to do your job and do it right or—Whitey is just snorting to be turned loose. As for you,” he captured the coroner’s shifty gaze, “you tried to frame me at that other inquest. You’re on probation too. One break and you’ll—”

  “It was all a mistake,” the coroner got out hoarsely. “Honest, I—”

&nbs
p; “Honest is the word,” Montana snapped. “From now on you’d better be.”

  “And now, jaspers, the inquest is over,” he announced. “Whitey Hope told some of you there would be jobs at good money for good men this fall. They’re ready, waiting for you at the Buzzard. But not for Diamond A men that Al Cousins needs. The rest of you—we’ll look you over any time, for we’re really stocking Thunder Basin.”

  He took the boy’s arm, assisted Cousins to his feet and started for the door. Outside the three waited for Whitey, who had helped the sheriff herd the cursing Kent, Tremaine, and Hartzell into jail.

  “I didn’t get half of what you were saying, Montana,” Cousins exploded. “About you owning the Buzzard and—”

  “I’ll tell you all about it. Go into detail later,” Montana answered. “But now, everything is all right. I’m tearing up the paper on that stolen stuff, turning back to the Diamond A every head packing Kent’s Four Diamond brand except the Buzzards he rustled.” He stood gazing down the shadowed, moonlit street, packed with punchers emerging from the inquest. “Button is fixed now; he’s going to have a ranch—”

  “I don’t want any ranch,” Little Montana whispered, clinging to his hand. “I only want to stay with you, Montana, be with you wherever you go.”

  “And you can, too,” Cousins cried. “For he’s going into partnership with us on the Diamond A—him and Whitey Hope.”

  “Will you, Montana?” the boy asked hopefully.

  “We’ll see.” Montana’s voice was heavy, almost wistful. “I’ve got to go to Omaha and look over this Commission Company. Then I’m going to take a whirl at the world bronc-busting championship at Cheyenne next summer. After that—”

  “Montana!” The boy stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. “Haven’t you forgotten something?”

  “What?” The cowboy smiled down at him.

  “Sally. Sally said when we left her at the restaurant that she’d have supper waiting for us.”

  “That’s right,” Whitey put in, coming up at the moment. “Let’s eat. Ma will be dying to hear all about this ruckus.”

  They crossed the street and entered the café. There they found a table spread and Sally, fresh and lovely as an orchid in a spotless starched housedress, waiting to serve them.

  After a sketchy detail of the inquest to Mother Hope, they seated themselves.

  “Eat hearty,” Whitey invited, “because it’s the last meal Ma serves in the old stand.”

  “Last meal?” Mother Hope cried. “Why, Whitey what do—”

  “Montana has made me a partner in all of Masterson’s holdings,” Whitey announced proudly. “It’s to be the Ellis and Hope Cattle Company. And we’ll want you to take charge down to the ranch, Ma, run the kitchen, handle the help.”

  Mother Hope’s eyes sparkled.

  “It just seems too good to be true the way things have turned out.” She choked back tears of happiness. “But you boys have earned it. You’ve certainly done things right in Thunder Basin.” Wiping her eyes on her apron, she went back to the kitchen.

  After she had left, Whitey and Cousins fell into an animated conversation. The boy was too busy watching the smiling Sally to talk, while Montana was singularly quiet, his gaze riveted on his plate.

  “Well, how does that partnership in the Diamond A strike you and Whitey?” Cousins asked him presently.

  “I’ve always had the foot-itch,” Montana admitted. “I reckon now I’ve raised all the ruckus I can on Thunder, I’ll just turn over the management of the Buzzard to Whitey. I’ll file charges against Kent, Tremaine, and Hartzell tomorrow; then I’ll just drift till—” A stifled scream, the clatter of crashing dishes brought them to their feet. Sally had dropped a tray. Montana and Whitey sprang over to help her. But she fled to the kitchen from which Mother Hope emerged to finish serving them.

  “What’s the matter with Sally?” Whitey demanded.

  “She doesn’t feel very well,” Mother Hope answered.

  The boy leaned over close to Montana.

  “Why don’t you do something about it?” he asked in a quivering voice.

  Whitey heard the question, burst into laughter. Montana gazed about uncomfortably.

  “That’s the idea,” Whitey chuckled. “Why don’t you do something about it, Montana?”

  “Shucks,” Montana stammered, catching the eye of Mother Hope, in which there was a strange twinkle. “There isn’t anything I can do unless I trot over and get Doc.” He got to his feet, reached for his hat only to be hooted down by Whitey. On the verge of flight, he looked around for the boy. But the youngster had slipped to the kitchen in search of Sally.

  Despite the lively conversation of Mother Hope, Whitey, and Cousins, Montana finished the meal in silence.

  “Well, I reckon I’ll drill on down to the ranch tonight,” he said. “You and Button staying in, Cousins?”

  “Yes. It’s my first trip to Elbar in months. And I guess I’m the only one on the range who hasn’t known all the devilment Kent was doing. We’ll stick around until after you file those charges tomorrow. But I can’t stay any longer. With Smokey and Kent gone I’m shorthanded. Looks like we’re going to have to throw in together to rustle enough men to handle the two spreads.”

  “We’ll think about it,” Montana said. “Let you know later.”

  The boy had sidled up beside him quietly. Now he pulled the cowboy’s head down.

  “Sally knew it was you she kissed at the depot that night,” Little Montana whispered.

  Montana shot a quick, bewildered glance at the others, who, apparently, had not heard—for which he was thankful.

  “She’s crying because she thinks you’re going away,” the youngster rushed on. “She’s been so good to me. I hate to see her cry. I don’t want the Diamond A, Montana. I want to be with you—and Sally. We could be the Three Montanas. I know she’ll come in with us if you’d just ask her.” Before the dumfounded cowboy realized it, he was being shoved along to the kitchen. There they came upon the girl, crying softly, her head buried in her arms outflung across a table.

  “Don’t cry, Sally,” Little Montana pleaded, tucking his hand into hers. “He isn’t going away. He ain’t the kind to quit a pal. I just know he won’t go.”

  “But he said he was,” she sobbed, without looking up. “I—guess I’m foolish. I’ve tried so hard not to care. But I just can’t help—” She lifted her tear-stained eyes, sprang up startled, face flaming, at sight of Montana.

  “I didn’t know my going away would make so much difference to—Button,” he said huskily. “I’d stay if I really thought—But you never even looked at—”

  “Go ahead, tell him to his face you knew it was him you kissed at the depot,” Little Montana prompted the blushing girl.

  “He’s right,” she whispered, her gaze falling before the strange and happy light that had crept into the cowboy’s eyes. “I did know; and I wasn’t angry at the depot, Montana. You’ve been so good to Whitey. And I’ve looked at you every chance—But I didn’t want you to know that I was so—”

  “And you really kissed me—knowing it was me instead of Whitey?”

  “Somebody had to break the ice,” bravely.

  “Go ahead and tell her you liked it,” the boy whispered to Montana. “Gosh-all-hemlocks, pard, if you only knew what a swell pal she is! And she’s been crying for you. Sally—” as Montana hesitated, “he liked that kiss. And he wants another one. Don’t you, Montana? I know Sally does. She told me so.”

  “Hush,” the girl reprimanded sharply.

  “Well, I reckon if a lady really wants to be kissed, it ain’t much of a gent that won’t oblige her,” Montana heard himself saying in amazement.

  “If you two could only see,” the boy begged. “I never had a mother or sister to treat me nice. I never had a man treat me good like you, Montana. Please, pard.
And Sally—” He seized their hands, laid that of the girl in Montana’s. “I don’t want the Diamond A. I want you and Sally. I’ll do anything.” He stopped, his voice breaking, struggled bravely to keep back the tears. “I’ll even promise to brush my teeth for Sally if you’ll—” Tears came in a flood. He threw himself into the girl’s arms and buried his face against her heaving bosom.

  “Well, when it’s put up to a fellow just that way,” Montana stammered, “I reckon there ain’t much left to be said, Miss—Sally!” The name burst in a hoarse whisper from his lips.

  “Montana!” She swayed toward him. The awkward arm he dropped about her shoulder tightened. She cuddled against him, sighed contentedly.

  “Skin out there a minute and tell Cousins we’ll take that partnership in the Diamond A, Button,” Montana jerked out. “Tell him—” The boy rushed into the outer room.

  “Montana is going to stay!” he shouted. “And I’m going to have Sally!”

  “Is he?” Montana whispered in her ear.

  “That’s up to you,” she breathed. “Bless his heart. I love him. I’d hate to part—”

  “It sure takes a brick house to fall on me to make me see some things,” Montana said softly, his arms tightening about the girl, who only snuggled closer. “I know Button really did the proposing. But now that he has it all fixed up I wonder—Do you suppose you could spare a little of that love you feel for him for—” She drew away from him slightly, lifted tear-damp eyes to his.

  “I love you, Montana,” she said in her low husky voice that he now knew had thrilled him from the first. “I’ve loved you from the minute you came into the restaurant and ordered ‘all the ham and eggs in Elbar for two hungry Montana wolves that hasn’t et—’” She laughed gaily. “I knew then, Montana. There now, is that plain enough?” She twined her arms about his neck and again buried her flaming face on his chest.