West of Nowhere

by Alan Lemay

  "If you think I'm not MacGinnis," said the last, "you can take it into court. I can raise up a hundred men, I betcha, right here in the Malloon, that remember me... Aloysius MacGinnis."

  "Yeah, I recognize you myself," Duffy admitted painfully. "I guess it's you, all right."

  "And if you still claim I signed this shaft over to you, I'm willing to write my name down, and then you write it yourself, and we'll see plain who planked it onto that deed. I'll tell you straight out, Santy Claus, I never saw you before in my life. Here...gimme a pencil...."

  "Ain't any need, to speak of," said Duffy sorrowfully. "I'll own up to it, Aloysius. 'Twas me rigged up the deed."

  Peculiar Shirt Smith turned a pair of furiously popping eyes upon his aged partner. "You cold-decked me, then!" he yelled at Duffy. "You got me to come in with you and put up the stake on a dirty, sidewinding...."

  "It's a harsh way to put it," said Duffy humbly. "I meant it all for your own good, Peculiar. I was virtually certain that MacGinnis dynamited a good vein, when he upped stakes and blew, twelve years back. And I couldn't've opened the shaft alone at my age, and broke. So, you being so offish, and making so many objections, I just made that up about me having a deed to the old mine. I needed a stake, and a right honest and husky young man...."

  "I knew there'd be some catch to it!" said Peculiar Shirt bitterly.

  "... so that night I wrote out the deed myself," Duffy finished lamely.

  "I don't want any trouble with you boys," said MacGinnis. "But if it's trouble you want, I've come prepared for it."

  "Yeah...I've observed you so done," sighed Duffy. "Well, easy come, easy go.... I ain't beat. I kin find me another."

  The next morning Duffy and his partner, Peculiar Shirt Smith, rode away over the Casket Range.

  "Tough break for the old corkscrew," MacGinnis admitted when they were gone. "Well, that's the last we'll hear of him."

  It was the last, for all of three days.

  On the morning of the fourth day three riders appeared in the notch of the Casket Range. Two of them were Duffy and Peculiar Shirt, but the third was a leathery, one-eyed, old party, who carried his sheriffs star in his pocket.

  When MacGinnis and his two homely friends had been called out of the shaft, the hand of MacGinnis made a slight motion toward his holster, but he reconsidered in time, for there were rifles in the hands of Peculiar Shirt and Duffy, and the one-eyed sheriff had some small reputation of his own.

  "I'll have to take all three of you boys, I'm afraid," the sheriff announced. "The rope's waited for you a long time, Aloysius, but I reckon it'll still hold. I guess it must have slipped your mind about the trial, where you was convicted of killing both them Benton boys!"

  MacGinnis considered while his face grew pale. "No, I was just hoping it would be brushed over like...it's been so long. Can't say I forgot, exactly."

  "Neither," said the sheriff, "has the law."

  "Well," MacGinnis said, "I guess you got me on conspiracy to defraud. But that's all you got me on. I'm not Aloysius MacGinnis. My name's Wilbur H.Harkness. That being the case, I may as well go with you, I guess."

  "I guess you had," said the sheriff. "The other two hombres, too, on general principles. Saddle, you jiggers, I got to get back!"

  "Well, for cat's sake!" said Peculiar Shirt when they had gone. "Can he prove he ain't MacGinnis?"

  "I'm virtually certain," said Duffy, "that he kin. Fact is I wouldn't've called in the law on him if I hadn't believed he could worm out. It was funny about those killings. You see, MacGinnis really killed the Benton boys in self-defense. Only the evidence made it look bad, and he was sentenced to swing, if he hadn't broken loose and sloped. No, I wouldn't have give him away, if I'd really thought it was him, not for all the gold in the Malloon. It wouldn't've been right."

  "But how did you know it wasn't MacGinnis? You said your own self you recognized him."

  "Well, you know yourself, Peculiar, lots of fellers find cause to take unto themselves fresh names...such as Smith, for instance."

  "Well, of all the fool....Say, you tellin' me you just guessed he wasn't MacGinnis, because lots of fellers use the wrong name? Well, of all the darned...."

  "Not exactly," admitted Duffy. "We'll just take back this shaft. Mister Shirt Smith, by right of uncontested reopenry."

  "But how did you know it wasn't him?" Peculiar Shirt insisted.

  Duffy slowly surveyed his partner from head to foot, and back again, with a mild but thorough eye.

  "Well," he said at last, "I was virtually certain, on that point. You see I happen to be Aloysius MacGinnis myself."

  "I ain't to be discouraged by no such a small thing," averred Whiskers Beck, the aged, white-bearded patriarch of the Triangle R cowpunchers. "I've set my mind on goin' to this Bar C dance an' gen'ral shindy in soo-preme comfort an' style. An' I aim to do so."

  "Not disputin' with huh," said Squirty Wallace, the wiry little top hand, "that it would be real comfortin' for you an' me an' Dixie to play stud in the back of the chuck wagon while somebody else drives, but I'm afeared the deal is off. That flunky says he won't drive for us for no consideration. An' just to make sure we wouldn't make him, he's went to work an' rode off, leavin' us flat."

  "Think o' havin' a low, suspicious attitude like that," Whiskers marveled. "He must 'a' read my mind. But I ain't beat yet. Now, if you two boys would jest take turns drivin' the team, neither one would have to drive hardly half the way. An' meantime, the other two of us could be playin' cards, plumb peaceful an' free o' dust. That's my idee of a real...."

  "Well, not much!" declared Dixie Kane, the young bronc' peeler. "An' I should think not! Me an' Squirty does the drivin' an' collects up all the dust six horses can kick up while you sets all pretty under canvas, huh? Well, me, I'll just fork the one horse."

  "Me, too," agreed Squirty Wallace. "We may get a few shovels o' dust sifted down the back of our neck, but we won't get the whole Loop Hole Road throwed in our face by the bucket!"

  Whiskers Beck rolled mournful eyes at the log buildings of the Triangle R home camp.

  "Well," he said, "I got one plan left. I sure ain't honin' to be jiggled into a heavy sweat over twenty miles o' road. I'd druther use brains. Now how's this? We'll take the old spring buckboard. We'll hook on that team o' bays, jest the two hosses. The buckboard is so light that they won't have no trouble, not even in Dead Woman's Pass. Soon's we get that team started down the road, we'll jest forget about 'em. No one will need to drive. That team is as good at holdin' the road as any I ever seen. Step along puny, too. Bet it won't take 'em two hours fer the twenty mile."

  "How'll a buckboard keep us out o' the dust?" Squirty wanted to know.

  "We'll rig up one o' those old tents we used in that Cork Mountain camp that time. Soon's we get the team headed down the road, we'll lash the flies shut, an' there we'll be, inside with our lantern an' our cool drinks an' a deck o' cards an' the back end open for fresh air an'...."

  "Darn if that don't sound purty good," admitted Dixie Kane.

  "Looks like every time the team takes a notion to stop an' eat, we'll have to unlash the flies," objected Squirty, running a hand through his rusty hair. "'T that rate we'd get to the Bar C along about the early part o' September."

  "Aw, poo-bah," scoffed Whiskers. "I can crack the side o' the tent with my quirt, so's it's the livin', spittin' imitation of a whip crackin'. I can even imitate the w'istle Co' the lash, like this...swrreet...pop! That'll make any cayuse spraddle out an' get a move on!"

  Squirty Wallace's thoughtfully wrinkled face relaxed into a grin. "If I don't think you've got the right idee!" he conceded at last. "This cow country has gone on too long "thout the comforts an' refinements o' home. What's the use o' bein' us if huh can't do nothin'?"

  "That's what I say," agreed Whiskers heartily. "An' leave me tell huh somethin' else." He drew them confidentially about him. "It's goin' to rain."

  "Blah," said Squirty, "you make me sick. I dunno if I want to
go ridin' with a crazy man or not!"

  "I wisht it would rain," declared Dixie Kane wholeheartedly.

  "Ain't that original?" Squirty burst into laughter. "Oncommon. The only folks that has thought that previous, up to the time you suggested it, was all the cattlemen an' all the hands an' all the saddle stock an' one hunerd percent o' the critters an' most o' the picket pins an' all o' the...."

  "I wisht it would rain in sheets," pursued Dixie. "Just downright pour. I'm sick o' wadin' knee-deep in dust, everywhere. The wet cows gives dust for milk. The steers has to walk with they heads throwed back to keep from walkin' on they tongues. I wisht it would rain ontil...."

  "Take a look over the shoulder o' Mount Saleratus to the west there," urged Whiskers. "What do huh see?"

  "Nothin," said the two 'punchers in chorus.

  "Rain," declared Whiskers, squinting his old blue eyes into the west. "Not more'n two hundred miles off, an' comin' to beat the cards!"

  "Whiskers is gettin' old," said Squirty to Dixie confidentially. "Beginnin' to show it, too."

  "I'll jest lay huh even money...," began Whiskers.

  The cook's horn brought the dispute to an abrupt end.

  The clear, dry twilight, almost as light as midday, but without the glare of the desert sun, was upon them as they got their odd vehicle under way. It was seven o'clock in the evening. Already many of the cowboys had ridden out, resplendent in the best clothes they could muster, on their way to the dance at the Bar C.An unexpected amount of work involved in the construction of their special car had delayed the three inventors. But they were well pleased with their work and confident of arriving at the Bar C by nine o'clock.

  Unlimited ingenuity combined with a minimum amount of labor had gone into the construction of the "parlor cyar" designed by Whiskers Beck. Poles of various uneven lengths had been lashed together in a framework adapted to support the grayed canvas of the tent. Due to the stretchy quality of its rope trusses, this superstructure swayed slightly, but, nonetheless, it at once showed itself to be surprisingly roadworthy on the whole.

  Within, several war bags stuffed with blankets and other blankets spread on the floor of the buckboard provided couches where the three might recline as they played.

  A lantern, well anchored, was suspended midway between floorboards and ridge pole to provide light as needed. A bucket, half full of sloshing water, acted as a refrigerator for several bottles, for, as Whiskers pointed out "In this country a snake may r'ar up an' bite a man any minute." and they wished to be prepared for any contingency. No comfort was lacking, and if the buckboard was somewhat jouncy and teetery of movement, at least it in no way simulated the harsh pounding encountered in the saddle of a trotting horse.

  A few belated 'punchers swept past on their mounts, raking them with jeers, ribaldry, and mocking laughter. But the three, reclining in dustless comfort, grinned with the satisfaction of men who enjoy the fruit of their brains and know when they are well off.

  The reins, entering their moving tent through a crack beneath the tightly lashed forward flies, pulsated slightly with the jogging movement of the invisible horses. The reins showed a slight tendency to sneak away through the crack, and Whiskers, after some thought, finally tied them about his right leg. By seven-thirty the dusk had deepened materially, and they lighted the lantern and had a drink.

  Dixie Kane, settling back on the blankets to examine the cards that Squirty had dealt, heaved a huge sigh of contentment. "When I think," he said, "o' the rest o' the boys, painfully poundin' leather in the heat an' dust in a desper'te effort to get where they're goin', I could pretty near cry!"

  "Yeah," said Squirty. "Ain't it painful t'watch the pit'able struggles of the ignor'nt?"

  "Only one thing is lackin' to make m'happiness complete," said Dixie. "I wisht it would rain!"

  "You jest keep on wishin'," said Whiskers, "an' mebbe so you'll get your boots rained full yet tonight."

  Another half hour passed a half hour of luxury, peace, and restful, if somewhat joggly, locomotion.

  Squirty Wallace was dealing a particularly interesting hand of stud poker. Dixie Kane, with aces, back to back, on the first round, calmly drew out a ten dollar bill, and dropped it in the middle of the triangle they formed on the bouncing floor of the buckboard. Ordinarily he would not have dared spoil a good hand by such a high initial bet, but Squirty and Whiskers both had deuces showing, and deuces were wild.

  Solemn, with sarcastic remarks about ten dollar bets made "under the gun," the other two matched Dixie's ten dollars in kind. Three more cards were dealt. Dixie drew a king. Whiskers a second deuce.

  "Boys," said Squirty, "somethin' tells me I got the winnin' hand right here in this deck." Slowly he drew off the top card, very deliberately began to turn it over.

  Poof! That vicious first puff of wind clapped into the traveling tent with almost the force of an explosion. A swirl of dust came with it, leaping into their eyes, and the lantern trembled, flickered, and all but died. In the failing light, through the whirl of dust, they saw three hands of cards take wings and fly out of the wagon.

  "Damn," said Squirty, "there goes the three best hands. ...My God! The tens went with 'em!"

  Frantically they searched the tent. The currency was nowhere.

  "Dixie! Quick!" yelled Squirty Wallace.

  He sprang for the opening at the back just as the team leaped ahead, startled by the commotion. Squirty, his footing jerked out from under him, took a gigantic plunging step into space and landed prone in the dust with a mighty plop.

  "Stop the wagon!" howled Dixie Kane.

  "Whoa!" yelled Whiskers, hauling desperately upon the reins.

  Dixie Kane, hastening after, tripped over a rope, and Squirty was consoled by a second whop in the dust that told him Dixie had followed suit. Together they scrambled up and dashed, cursing, back along the dusty road.

  A sullen darkness had descended with ominous swiftness. The air seemed darker than the land, giving the rough landscape that they had entered a singular ghostly appearance. Great swirling dust devils, revolving, solid-looking columns twenty feet tall raced along the road, looking like pale, phosphorescent specters. One of these plunged upon them as if to seize the hurrying men, and for an instant they were lost in a blinding, choking swirl.

  Nothing was to be seen of cards or greenbacks. Even as they frantically peered this way and that the darkness thickened until they could not longer see each other. The rushing dust devils, too, disappeared, but the men could hear them howling and hissing about them with a noise like the rushing of myriad ghostly feet on sand. The wind now began to howl among the scraggly pine of the foothills they were traversing.

  "Back to the wagon, Dixie!" yelled Squirty. "Them moneys is plumb relapsed into memory!" Then, as no answer came: "Dixie! Dixie! Where are huh?"

  No answer. Squirty turned and dashed for the covered wagon. The horses started with a jerk as Squirty tumbled in.

  "Where's Dixie?" demanded Whiskers.

  "I dunno!" yelled Squirty above the mounting voice of the wind. "Wait! Stop! Hold on!"

  Whiskers somehow brought the nervous team to a stop. Both together, they hallooed long and loud. It seemed to them that the wind would not possibly let their voices travel beyond the walls of their swaying, wind-racked tent. But, after a moment, a faint answering hail was heard. It came from ahead, far down the road.

  In a moment or two Dixie arrived and tumbled in among them.

  "I guess I run past, when I made for this here parlor cyar," he explained sheepishly.

  The team hurried on as Whiskers relaxed the reins. Great thudding drops began to batter down upon the walls of the tent, singly and distinctly at first, each drop a separate blow, and then in an increasing volley that swept into a crescendo roar, filling the lurching tent with dizzy sound. A mighty thunderbolt crashed to the earth, illuminating the walls of the canvas with a blaze of white light. They could feel the shock, and an acrid smell of sulphur filled the tent.

&nbs
p; "Gosh," said Dixie Kane. "Be they shootin' at us, or was that just plain careless?"

  The whirling growl of raindrops now was varied with the impact of heavy water, bucketfuls at a time. The rain was literally coming down in sheets. Another terrific crash of thunder, the impact of sound coming simultaneously with the blazing white flash, striking the earth near them. Then another and another, until the lightning was so continuous that a man could have read a newspaper by its glare if anyone would have felt like reading in the terrific bedlam of screaming wind and mountain-smashing thunder.

  A rope had given way, so that one side of the tent sagged. The pocket of canvas at once filled with water, tubs of it. Suddenly, just as the thunder roared again, the canvas split, drenching Dixie Kane with the full volume of water and whipping cupfuls of cold rain into the faces of the other two. A damp hysterical spluttering of oaths came from Dixie as he emerged from his first paralyzed assumption that he had been struck by lightning.

  "Dixie wished it would rain," said Squirty Wallace.

  The racking, swaying buckboard, plunging along behind the frightened, galloping horses, was now traversing the narrow road leading through the rough country of Dead Woman's Pass. The canvas circumscribed their vision, but the downward dives and brief, almost perpendicular, climbs told them that they were traveling over tricky ground at a breakneck pace.

  "Ain't... the lantern...holdin' out...good?" yelled Whiskers in brief breaks in the thunder.

  As he spoke, a terrific screech of wind burst through the rent canvas, puffing out the kerosene firefly and wrenching it from its moorings. Dixie Kane seemed to be the leading goat this night for it was upon Dixie's hat that the flailing lantern smashed. Thereafter, for the remainder of the night, all who came close to Dixie noticed a strong odor of kerosene.

  "Who done that?" they heard the bronc' peeler demanding in a dazed, aggrieved voice.

  A lurch of the wagon flung Squirty upon Whiskers.