Range Ghost

by Bradford Scott

  He filled glasses to the brim, chuckled, and hurried back to the far end of the bar, where his head drink juggler was making need-of-help motions.

  “Even more crowded, busier and noisier than the last time we were here,” Slade remarked. “Quite a few people from uptown, in addition to the cowhands. Well, he runs a square place, and the word gets around.”

  “And it seems everybody is in town tonight,” Jerry observed, gazing toward the bar. “There’s our other new neighbor, Mr. Shaw. The tall man with the yellow hair.” Slade regarded him with interest.

  Unlike Neale Ditmar, who exuded personality, Tobar Shaw was not a man to catch the eye and hold it. In appearance and dress he differed little from any other fairly well-to-do rancher. He was mildly handsome, Slade thought, with his yellow hair inclined to curl, a broad forehead and deep-set eyes; at that distance, Slade could not ascertain their color. In build he was tall and lean but broad-shouldered.

  At that moment, Shaw turned toward the table, nodded genially to Jerry and walked to the far end of the bar, where he engaged Thankful Yates in conversation. Jerry was speaking and Slade forgot all about him.

  “Here come Uncle Keith and the boys!” she exclaimed. “Looking for us, I expect. You remember the boys, of course—Joyce Echols and Cale Fenton you kept from being murdered by the Sosna rustlers, and Bolivar, the range boss, and old Pedro, the cook, and the others. Look at them sift sand!”

  The XT bunch came plowing through the crowd, whooping joyously at sight of Slade. After a gabble of conversation and hand-shaking all around, the hands trooped to the bar. Old Keith Norman drew up a chair and ordered drinks for everybody.

  “See there’s our new neighbor, Tobar Shaw, talking with Thankful,” he remarked. Catching the rancher’s eye, he waved a cordial greeting, which Shaw returned.

  “Guess Jerry told you about him and Neale Ditmar, eh?” Norman went on. “Shaw kept the old Hartsook brand, the Bradded H, but Ditmar changed his and uses a Tumbling D burn. Shaw ’pears to be a nice friendly feller, but Ditmar is sorta uppity. Civil enough, but carries his comb sorta high. Oh, well, we’re getting all kinds. Funny, ain’t it, new folks coming in from every direction, but a lot of the oldtimers are pulling out, like Webb, who sold to Ditmar. Some of ’em say it’s getting too dadblamed crowded hereabouts and are heading for New Mexico and Arizona. Up at Tascosa, they’re leaving like fleas from a singed coyote’s back.”

  Norman paused to take a drink, and then resumed, “Others say they just can’t make a go of it against the widelooping we’ve been having during the past few months; it’s bad. The way things are going, it begins to look like that soon there won’t be any real old fellers here ’cept John Fletcher and me—he don’t aim to move come hell and high water, unless he really has to. Saw Fletcher up at the Trail End. He swears you saved his life, and I’ve a notion you did. He won’t forget it. He told me about how you took Pete Crowly down a peg. Like to split my sides laughin’ over that one. Figured to pull against El Halcon, eh? Guess he’ll know better next time. Crowly’s another uppity cuss. I sorta like his boss, young Brent. You sure did a good chore in getting those two outfits together. We were all scairt real trouble would come from their snappin’ at each other.”

  “You have been losing stock, Mr. Norman?” Slade asked.

  “Uh-huh, more’n I like to think about,” Norman replied.

  “Any notion where they run them?”

  Norman shrugged. “Guess there’s only one way they can run ’em, west by way of the Canadian River Valley,” he replied. “But they sure do it slick—nobody’s been able to catch ’em up. Sure no running them across the desert to the south of the Canadian, not over that flattened-out streak of hell with no water; no cows could make it.”

  With which Slade was ready to agree.

  “Trouble is, it’s just about impossible to track a herd across our range, to the Canadian or anyplace else,” Norman added. “The grass jumps right back up after a hoof has pressed it and don’t leave any mark at all.” He paused for a moment, looking reflective. Slade was again willing to agree with his statement; he recalled what was written by Pedro de Castaneda, Coronado’s scrivener, in his journal of that explorer’s expedition across the Texas Panhandle:

  “Who would believe that a thousand horses and five hundred of our cows, and more than five thousand rams and ewes, and more than fifteen hundred friendly Indians and servants, in traveling over these plains, would leave no more trace where they had passed than if nothing had been there—nothing—so that it was necessary to make piles of bones and cow dung now and then, so that the rear guard could follow the army. The grass never failed to come erect after it had been trodden down.”

  Which peculiarity worked in favor of the wideloopers; tracking them was almost an impossibility. Old Keith was speaking again.

  “Funny thing happened,” he said. “A bunch of stock was run off from around a waterhole with a little crik running out of it. For some reason or other, along that crik for nearly half a mile the grass is sorta sparse, hardly any at all. My boys who were trying to trail the stock swore that the marks of their hoofs and the horses’ irons were plumb plain on that stretch, and that they headed not north to the Canadian, but south. That’s what they said, south. I told them they were loco, but Joyce Echols said, ‘All right, come and see for yourself.’ ”

  “Did you?” Slade asked, abruptly interested.

  “I did,” Norman admitted. “Hanged if they weren’t right. Yes, sir, for a good half mile those darned tracks held south by a mite west. Of course when they hit the tall grass again we lost ’em, but the last we saw of ’em they were sure headed south, never turned.”

  Slade nodded and did not comment. He had let the garrulous oldtimer run on because he felt he was gathering needed information relative to prevailing conditions. Now he desired time to do a little thinking on what he had learned.

  “Like to dance?” he asked Jerry.

  “I’d love to,” the girl replied. “Floor sure is crowded, but we’ll make out.”

  “Just gives the fellers a chance to hold the gals tighter and the gals don’t seem to mind,” Norman remarked. “I see Shaw is leaving and Thankful’s coming over to talk with me. Go to it! I’ll be at the bar when you get back.”

  The floor was crowded, all right, but that didn’t pose much of a problem to such expert dancers as Slade and Jerry Norman. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes sparkling, and she was a bit breathless when, after several fast numbers, they returned to their table.

  “Wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Uncle Keith was right. You held me like—like when—well, you held me! Now I want a glass of wine.”

  Slade poured it and remarked, “You didn’t mention to me that you were losing stock.”

  “I was so glad to see you I forgot all about it,” she replied. “Yes, we have lost quite a few cows, but it’s slackened up a bit since we started patrolling the range at night. Mr. Shaw is patrolling, too, and so, I heard, is Ditmar. But somehow they keep slipping bunches through from the spreads north of the Canadian River. I don’t know how they do it, but they do.”

  Slade nodded thoughtfully and let the subject drop for the time being.

  Frankly he doubted that the rustlers shoved the stolen cows south and west across the Tucumcari Desert; without water the distance was too great, no herd could make it. He suspected that the tracks Norman saw were in the nature of a blind to foil possible pursuit, the cattle really being turned back to follow the course of the Canadian. Well, perhaps he’d be able to find out about that later; an idea was building up in his mind, something in the nature of his noteworthy “hunches,” but an idea. He resolved to pay a visit to the Valley soon.

  Chapter Four

  Now the Washout was really hopping. Every table was occupied, the bar was crowded three deep. All appeared to be noise and gaiety and in order—in so far as anything serious was concerned. Slade was thoroughly enjoying himself.

  Nevertheless, he was growing restle
ss. He felt he was accomplishing nothing, and not likely to so far as the Washout was concerned. He wondered what the street and other places were like.

  Young Joyce Echols came over from the bar and asked Jerry to dance.

  “I’ll look out the door a minute,” Slade told her. Jerry understood perfectly what he had in mind, and why, there being no secrets between them. Her eyes were anxious as she accompanied Echols to the dance floor.

  The street was just as crowded as the Washout, and just as noisy. But, like in the Washout, everybody appeared cheerful and happy, though apparently imbued by a mounting ambition to get drunk as quickly as possible. It was a typical payday bust in a typical cow town.

  For Amarillo was still a cow town despite the steady encroachment of agriculture and sheep. Here still the cowboy was king and the prosperity of the growing town still centered about him. Slade shrewdly surmised that the time was fast approaching when it would be different, when the Queen City of the Panhandle would owe its phenomenal growth to factors other than cattle. He had a theory relative to as yet little suspected potential wealth in the vicinity, still jealously guarded by inscrutable nature. He wondered if others had an inkling of its existence.

  His theory was not mere unsubstantiated theory; there were certain surface indications that were highly significant to the trained engineer with an exhaustive knowledge of geology and petrology, the science of rocks; and Walt Slade was that kind of an engineer.

  Shortly before the death of his father, which followed financial reverses that led to the loss of the elder Slade’s ranch, young Walt had graduated from a noted college of engineering. He had a postgraduate course in view that would better fit him for the profession he had resolved to make his life’s work.

  This for the moment was out of the question and Slade was undecided as to just which way to turn. While he was pondering the matter, he visited Captain Jim McNelty and Captain Jim had a suggestion to make that commended itself to Slade.

  “Walt,” said Captain Jim, “why don’t you sign up with the Rangers for a while and pursue your studies in spare time? You seemed to like the work when you served with me some during summer vacations, and I consider you darn good Ranger material.”

  So instead of a civil engineer, Walt Slade became a Texas Ranger, and almost before he realized it, the short term of service he had planned was jogging along through the years.

  For Ranger work had gotten a strong hold on him providing as it did so many opportunities to right wrongs, help deserving people, and make his land a better land. He found he was loath to sever connections with the illustrious body of law-enforcement officers—that was, just yet—plenty of time to be an engineer.

  As he strolled along the crowded street, he smiled at recalling the lucrative offers he had received from noted men of finance and industry, such as James G. “Jaggers” Dunn, General Manager of the great C. & P. Railroad System, former governor Jim Hogg, and John Warne “Bet-a-Million” Gates, the Wall Street tycoon. When he would finally decide to resign his Ranger commission, there was little doubt that his future would be assured.

  Often his knowledge of engineering and kindred subjects had proven of great help in the course of his Ranger activities. He felt that right here might well be such an instance.

  As he drew nearer the lake front, the streets became darker, the racket from the many saloons more raucous. Now El Halcon walked with care, taking note of all things that might be sinister, his gaze probing alley mouths and doorways, scanning passers-by. Frequently he glanced over his shoulder in an effort to ascertain whether he was being followed. That, however, was difficult, for there were quite a few people on the street.

  His stroll was not aimless but in line with a definite course of action. He didn’t know where to come by the outlaws, so he determined to give the outlaws an opportunity to come to him. If he had been watched in the Washout or elsewhere, such might develop.

  That the plan was hazardous, he well know, but being very much on the alert, El Halcon did not give that contingency very serious thought. He had little fear of being taken by surprise and felt able to take care of any happening so long as he was prepared.

  So far as he could see, no one gave him a second glance. Everybody appeared intent on his or her business, for here there were women on the streets, dance-floor girls who had slipped out with their partners, and others who had just “slipped out.”

  He entered one of the dingy saloons and ordered a drink which he sipped slowly, studying the crowd the while. Nobody paid any attention to him; nothing happened. He tried a second with likewise negative results. It began to look like he was pursuing a fruitless quest.

  Then in the third place he hit paydirt, and in such an unexpected manner that it very nearly caught El Halcon off balance—very nearly, but not quite.

  He was standing at the bar, not far from the door, when the three men entered. The foremost was heavily built and fairly tall. The pair trailing after him were lean, wiry men of slighter build. The big man, after a glance around, walked up to Slade, almost within arm’s reach, and halted, a scowl darkening his blocky, bad-tempered face.

  “El Halcon, ain’t it?” he asked in a gravelly voice that carried to all parts of the room.

  “Been called that,” Slade admitted, very much on the alert, his attention mostly focused on the pair behind the speaker, who had paused directly back of him.

  “We don’t want your sort here; this is a law-abiding place,” the big man said, raising his voice. “Get out!” As he spoke he slewed sideways from in front of his companions.

  Slade hit him, with all his two hundred pounds back of his steely fist. The fellow shot through the air, landed on the floor with a crash, and stayed there. The pair went for their guns.

  El Halcon drew, but he did not shoot. With his blinding speed and the pair of killers so close, it wasn’t necessary. The heavy barrels of his Colts slashed right and left, and there were three forms on the floor, two of them pouring blood from split scalps.

  In the same flicker of movement, Slade whirled toward the crowd, the black muzzles of his guns thrusting to the front.

  “Anybody else interested?” he asked. “I aim to accommodate.”

  There was dead silence. Men stood rigid, careful not to move a hand, lest it be misinterpreted by the grim figure facing them. Slade swept the room with his glance and backed slowly to the door where he paused and holstered his guns, his hands hovering over the black butts. He glanced at the three unconscious forms on the floor—he’d know them did he see them again—and spoke, casually—

  “Gentlemen, I think it would be a good idea to stay inside for a while. Otherwise, I might get nervous.”

  Still there was silence. He eased through the door, took two long strides up the street and turned, his eyes on the door. Nobody came out. He turned again and strode on, neither fast nor slow. Another glance back and he turned a corner and continued to the Washout.

  It had been a nice try, all right, carefully planned and novel—the big man meant to center his attention for the instant needed by the two gunmen to get into action. And he had provided an “alibi,” a justifiable motive for the killing, to protect the community from El Halcon, the notorious outlaw; and they might well have gotten away with it. However, it appeared they were not very familiar with El Halcon, or had perhaps believed him overrated. Well, they quite likely would come back to consciousness with an altered opinion.

  He could have killed all three, of course, but he considered he had handled the affair the better way and was very well satisfied with the night’s work. Dead men tell no tales, true, but dead men also do not show the way to whoever sends them on their errand. He had not only frustrated another attempt against his life, but he also had three of the outfi t spotted, which might be more productive of good results than just doing away with three hired hands.

  “Well, couldn’t you find her?” Jerry asked.

  “Didn’t look for her,” he replied as he sat down.

/>   “But what if she comes looking for you?”

  “Then I’ll let you take care of the situation,” he countered.

  “I will,” Miss Norman declared energetically. “I have fi ngernails.”

  “That’s right, you have,” he agreed reminiscently, with a slight twitch of his shoulders. Jerry giggled, and changed the subject.

  He did not tell her of the encounter, there being no point in needlessly worrying her. After a bit, Joyce Echols approached and asked her to dance again. While they were on the floor, Sheriff Carter strolled in.

  “Well?” he remarked, interrogatively, after he had ordered a snort, and coffee for Slade.

  The Ranger related in detail his brush with the three killers. Carter swore with explosive violence.

  “That was a new one, all right,” he commented. “But I figure the hellions didn’t know El Halcon very well or they wouldn’t have tried it.”

  “So I assumed,” Slade agreed. “But it may provide us with a much needed lead. I may get a chance to spot them in somebody’s company and eventually get a line on the brains of the outfit. I haven’t the slightest notion who he might be or where to look for him, the way the situation stands at present. Well, here’s hoping.”

  “If you can manage to stay alive long enough,” the sheriff said morosely. “They sure are after you.”

  “Which means, I’d say, that they are quite perturbed and may end up doing something rash,” Slade predicted.

  “Maybe.” The sheriff was pessimistic. “I’d say that after what happened tonight they’re liable to pull in their horns a little. Two flops in two tries must be a mite discouraging. I’ve a notion they’re still trying to figure how the devil you escaped that shotgun trap set for you at the office. Well, I’ll keep an eye out for a coupla busted heads and a swole jaw; guess you gave the hellions something to remember you by, anyhow.”

  “How are things uptown?” Slade asked. The sheriff shrugged.

  “A lot of fuss and noise and general heck-raising, but no real trouble, so far,” he replied. “I’ve got three specials on the job in addition to my three regular deputies, and they are keeping things pretty well under control. Something may cut loose before the night is over, never known it to fail, but the redeye hasn’t started to really get in its licks yet. Wait!” Slade was inclined to agree.