“Meaning Stretch,” nodded Lansing.
“That’s a good question,” Larry thoughtfully conceded. He trudged to the bedroom door, opened it and spent quite some time in checking the befuddled occupants. He peered behind the drapes at the window, squinted out to the balcony where the bulky blonde still slumbered. Then, unhurriedly, he moved into another room. It was deserted, except for a clutter of bottles and glasses, an empty keg and, unaccountably, a large mongrel dog of advanced years, curled up on the bed. He ignored the dog and moved across to a closet door, opened it. Clad in naught but his underwear and brandishing a bottle, Stretch Emerson emerged from the closet and mumbled a complaint.
“These rooms ain’t big enough. I been stuck in there half the night—couldn’t even find a lamp. If we’re payin’ hard cash for the best rooms in this doggone hotel, how come I ain’t got a bed?”
“There’s a hound-dog sleepin’ on your bed,” retorted Larry, “and you’re drunk.”
“No, I ain’t neither,” growled Stretch, “I’m sober.”
“C’mon,” said Larry. “We got company.”
As Stretch tagged him to the parlor entrance, he asked, “Anybody we know?”
“Never saw him before,” said Larry. “A big shot soldier—a colonel, no less. Says his name is Lansing.”
They entered the parlor. Lansing put his eyes on the taller Texan and asked himself again, “Could Max be sincere about this—or is he pulling my leg?” Right now, Stretch Emerson looked far from formidable. Barefooted, he stood close to six feet six. His sandy hair was tousled and he was bleary-eyed. He was a beanpole. But, paying closer attention to that lean frame, Lansing conceded there was muscle aplenty.
Side by side, the Texans perched on the chaise-lounge. It groaned a protest under their combined weight. It didn’t occur to Larry to apologize for the condition of the room, but he felt obliged to explain.
“We’ve been havin’ a party.”
“I got that impression,” frowned Lansing.
“Where is everybody?” asked Stretch.
“Sleeping it off,” grinned Larry. “You and your consarned Texas Tornado—Professor Emerson’s Lone Star Elixir. I told you not to mix that stuff, didn’t I?”
“It couldn’t hurt anybody,” grunted Stretch. “Just rum and gin and whisky and a mite of brandy ...”
“All in one glass,” scoffed Larry.
“If you gentlemen will spare me a few moments of your valuable time ...” began Lansing.
“Talks plumb polite, don’t he?” observed Stretch.
“Polite enough,” shrugged Larry. “All right, Colonel, say your piece.”
“It has been suggested by one of my officers,” said Lansing, “that you might be interested in a certain crisis confronting the citizens of Bosworth County.”
“Seems to me I’ve heard of Bosworth,” mused Larry. “A ways west of here, huh?”
“About two days’ ride,” nodded Lansing. “The territory is partially under martial law.”
“Why?” demanded Larry.
“Because of the proximity,” said Lansing, “I might say the uncomfortable proximity of Sun Dog Mesa—which happens to be an Apache reservation.” He talked on for a full ten minutes, briskly, precisely, reporting the theft of the rifle shipment, and stressing the obvious danger to an entire community, should that shipment fall into the wrong hands.
Namely, the greedy hands of the paleface-hating Gayatero. He told of the energetic but abortive efforts of the local authorities—civil and military—to cut sign of the hijackers. He admitted, with some reluctance, that Colonel Stone’s garrison forces could do naught but patrol all approaches to the reservation, hoping to intercept the shipment in the event the hijackers tried to transfer it to the aggressive but poorly-armed Apaches. “I can’t imagine why,” he told them in conclusion, “any whites would want to arm Gayatero with those repeaters. It seems an outlandish notion, yet we dare not disregard the possibility.”
“It’s happened before,” Larry soberly reminded him.
“Colonel Stone believes ...” began Lansing.
“Who?” asked the Texans, in perfect unison.
“Colonel Stone,” frowned Lansing, “the C.O. of the Ninth Cavalry. Are you acquainted with him?”
“Are we acquainted with him?” Larry repeated the question and, somehow, resisted the impulse to laugh out loud. “Yeah. Kind of.”
To say the Lone Star Hellions were acquainted with the 9th Cavalry would have been a masterpiece of understatement. On several occasions during the past few years, they had tangled with the Texas-hating Stone and with his entire command. They admired Stone the way they admired rattlesnakes, cardsharps, rustlers, horse thieves and pompous law officers, meaning not at all.
Lansing finished what he had begun to say.
“Colonel Stone believes the stolen shipment has been cached somewhere within the county. With the assistance of Sheriff Upshaw, he conducted a full-scale investigation and ...”
“And couldn’t find any of those hijacked repeaters,” drawled Larry, “nor any tracks of the hijackers.”
“But he has established,” stressed Lansing, “that no heavy-laden wagons have quit the county since the ambush. The whole territory is under tight surveillance, Valentine. Patrols are stopping every wagon and checking the cargo. We are certain the rifles haven’t left the county. And now our only hope of avoiding a clash with Gayatero’s forces is to locate the shipment—and quickly—before the thieves devise some means of transferring it to the mesa.”
“You’re pretty sure Gayatero would go on the warpath again,” prodded Larry.
“I doubt if he could resist the temptation,” sighed Lansing. “Of course, he has abided by the terms of the treaty for quite some time, but ...”
“But only because he knows the Bosworth citizens could outshoot his braves,” guessed Larry.
“That’s it,” nodded Lansing. “Armed with those repeaters, and all that stolen ammunition, there’d be no holding him.”
“That’s kind of a rough situation,” mused Stretch.
“I ask you to consider the potential threat to the people of Bosworth,” said Lansing. “Men, women and children. You might argue that the garrison force would provide ample protection, and no doubt they would, but we aren’t merely concerned with the winning of a war against the Apaches. It will be better for all concerned if there is no war, if open violence can be avoided.”
“Sure,” grunted Larry. “That makes sense.”
“What he wants,” Stretch opined, “is for me and you to head for Bosworth County, snoop around a mite and find them repeaters—before somebody passes ’em to these consarned Injuns. That’s what he wants.”
“That is exactly what I’m asking of you,” muttered Lansing. “And, if you refused, I could hardly blame you. You’d be acting in an unofficial capacity, working undercover. The hijackers, for all we know, may be masquerading as honest citizens. Obviously, your operations would have to be conducted in the strictest secrecy. You can’t appeal to the army for help, should you run into trouble. You ...” He shrugged sadly, “you won’t even be paid for your services—successful or otherwise. Your only profit would be the certain knowledge that you’d saved many a life. Even with the Ninth aiding the civilian population, Bosworth could become a bloody battleground.”
Both Texans were now cold-sober. They traded glances, and wry grins. Stretch summed up their reaction with an oft-repeated remark.
“Here we go again.”
“Yeah.” Larry nodded pensively. “Here we go again.”
Three
Gold, Guns and Greed
Before quitting the suite, Lansing answered, as accurately as he was able, every query fired at him by the quick-thinking Larry. There was a great deal he wanted to know about the general set-up of Bosworth County. His questions were pertinent and always logical; Lansing was impressed, ready to believe that Telliger had advised him shrewdly. Though he wore the look of a case-hardened ro
wdy, it was obvious that an alert intellect lurked behind the weather-beaten exterior of Larry Valentine.
Left alone, the drifters fed themselves a hair of the dog, shaved and bathed, then donned their regular attire. Their Fort Gale spree had been expensive, absorbing a full quarter of their four thousand dollar bankroll, but they weren’t about to complain. For many months, they had yearned to celebrate recent victories, pitched battles with the forces of lawlessness from which they had emerged bloody but alive. Some of these victories had been a financial success, because some of their victims had been wanted men, the kind whose unprepossessing features had adorned official bulletins, under the familiar heading—“Reward, Dead or Alive.”
It was over now. They’d had their fun—at least enough to satisfy them for the time being.
By the time they were descending to the lobby, Colonel Lansing was back at the Telliger house, resuming his visit with his favorite officer. Had he been able to see them now, the colonel might have taken fresh heart. Fully clad and hefting pack-rolls and Winchesters, they looked what they were—two hard-boiled, dauntless Texans who would stop at nothing. They wore their range garb and batwings chaps with the swaggering ease of veteran range-riders, and the gunbelts that girded their loins were never a mere decoration, but tools of trade.
Wyvern and Sneddon greeted them with apprehensive frowns. Nonchalantly, Larry dropped two hundred dollar bills on the desk, and drawled, “I reckon that’ll cover any extra damage.”
“You’re …” Wyvern swallowed a lump in his throat, “… checking out?”
“It’d be too much to hope for!” panted Sneddon.
“Checkin’ out,” Larry assured them, on his way to the revolving door.
“Hasta la vista,” grunted Stretch.
Within fifteen minutes of their quitting the hotel, the Texans had retrieved their horses from a local livery stable and were on their way west. The storm had come and gone, and Fort Gale would never forget. Maybe the hell-raisers would pass this way again. Many a disreputable local hoped they would.
In Bosworth County, on the morning of the Texans crossing the territory’s eastern boundary, Webb Collier managed to travel to the dense brush below Sun Dog Mesa without being spotted by an army patrol. A lone rider, moving cautiously, could make it to the reservation nowadays. For a group of horsemen or any kind of vehicles, it would have been well nigh impossible.
It was exactly nine-fifty a.m. when the boss hijacker finished his ascent to the wind-swept mesa, a flat, thickly vegetated area dotted with the many teepees of the Apaches. He was immediately surrounded by a jabbering score of squaws and papooses, who hastily dispersed with the arrival of a lynx-eyed, sullen-faced brave. The respect accorded him caused Collier to suppose that he might be Mochita, only son of the wily old chief. He raised his hand in the peace sign and introduced himself. The brave replied in broken but intelligible English, and Collier’s supposition was proved correct.
“You speak the white man’s tongue, Mochita,” he cheerfully remarked, as he dismounted.
“But not with pride,” retorted the brave.
“Your father—the mighty chief,” drawled Collier, “does he too speak English?”
“Gayatero has learned much of your tongue,” muttered Mochita, “from the white chiefs who called him to council.”
He added, bitterly, “Those who forced him to sign the treaty.”
“Well …” Collier shrugged nonchalantly, “… I’m not here to argue about that.”
“Why do you come?” Mochita demanded.
“To parley with the chief,” grinned Collier. “A business proposition, Mochita. You savvy what that means? No. I guess you wouldn’t. So let me put it this way. You Apaches have something I want—and I have something you want. I’m here to offer a trade.”
So inscrutable was Mochita’s dusky visage that Collier couldn’t decide if he were interested or indifferent. Abruptly, the brave turned and strode toward the lodge in the heart of the reservation. Collier fell in behind him, only mildly disquieted by the fixed stares of the other braves.
Face to face with Mochita’s sire in the dimly-lit lodge, the schemer skillfully concealed his revulsion. So this was the mighty Gayatero, who had ranked with Cochise and Geronimo and, in his heyday, had promised to become the U.S. Army’s number one problem? He found himself exchanging mumbled greetings with a fat, slovenly, evil smelling redman of advanced years clad in filthy buckskins and a patched and tattered poncho. The deeply-furrowed, flabby-jowled face was devoid of expression—until one studied the dark, slitted eyes which reflected all the cunning of a predatory wolf.
Mochita squatted cross-legged beside his father. In response to the chief’s languid gesture, Collier crouched on his haunches and lit a cigar. Gayatero eyed the stogie fixedly, so Collier dug out another and lit it for him.
“I come in peace ...” he began.
The old man blew smoke into his face, bared yellowed teeth in a derisive grin and retorted, “All white-eyes say this, when first they greet Gayatero.”
“I mean it, Chief,” Collier fervently assured him. “I could help you.”
“Tell Gayatero how,” the chief invited.
He bent to catch the words of his son, mumbled in the Apache dialect. Collier waited patiently. Then, eyeing him intently, Mochita explained.
“I have told my father why you come.”
“What does Gayatero have,” demanded the chief, “that the white-eyes would take from him?”
“I reckon you’ve guessed that already, Chief,” said Collier. “A year ago, Apaches crossed the big river into California and raided the mining camps of Collado Bernadino. Much gold was stolen. Raw gold, Chief. Of no use to the Apaches, but they stole it anyway. The thieves were never traced, but I always had my own ideas about that raid. It’s my belief they were Sun Dog Mesa braves. Maybe you sent them. Maybe they just got weary of doing nothing and hankered to lift a few scalps. One thing I’m sure of. That gold was brought back here to the reservation. It’s hidden here—somewhere—and it’s no damn use to you.”
“You lie.” Gayatero’s retort was as prompt and as automatic as Collier had expected. “Gayatero knows nothing of this.”
“No?” Collier grinned blandly. “That’s too bad. If you don’t have the gold, I can’t trade with you.”
“White-eyes has nothing,” grunted Gayatero, “that Apache needs.”
“Nothing?” challenged Collier. “Not even rifles, the new long guns—repeaters? You savvy repeaters, Chief? It means they fire many times. Regular bullets. Not loads you have to fill yourself. You don’t have to reload after every shot. Hell, no. Many bullets in each gun.”
“White man’s guns,” breathed Mochita. “With these, my father, we could ...”
He broke off in obedience to Gayatero’s urgent gesture. “You have,” the old man challenged Collier, “how many of these long guns?”
“With bullets,” nodded Collier, “enough repeaters to arm all your braves.”
“How you get?” demanded Gayatero.
“Same way your braves got all that gold from Collado Bernadino,” grinned Collier. “Two whole wagonloads—on their way to Camp Stone. Those guns were meant for your enemies, Chief. I have them now—hidden safe. If you agree to the trade, I’ll make medicine on it, figure some way of shipping the guns to you. How about that?”
The swarthy face creased in a sly grin.
“Maybe Gayatero can find gold.”
“All the gold,” stressed Collier, “for all the rifles.”
The chief nodded in eager agreement. “Good. You can’t send your braves out to meet me—toting all that gold—so it’ll be my job to plan a way of bringing the guns up here.”
“How long?” prodded Gayatero.
“The morning after tomorrow,” frowned Collier. “By then, my plan will be made.”
“You come tell me?” Gayatero suggested.
“No,” said Collier. “Better you send a scout down to meet me. I’ll t
ell him the plan—and then you’ll know when the guns will be delivered. You savvy. Chief?”
“Savvy good,” grunted Gayatero. “Where you meet scout?”
“The Long Knives,” growled Mochita, “keep many eyes on the mesa.”
“As if I didn’t know,” scowled Collier. He gave the matter some thought before coming up with an answer. “Well, I think the best place would be the arroyo over by the Santa Rosas. You know the arroyo—south of the tall pine?”
“I know this place,” Mochita assured his father.
“My son,” Gayatero decided, “will meet you.”
“In the morning,” said Collier, “day after tomorrow.”
At about this same time, in an area far removed from Sun Dog Mesa, Larry and Stretch were viewing a small tableau that seemed to demand a touch of Texas chivalry. Rounding a bend of a well-marked trail, they came upon a stalled wagon surrounded by a patrol of seven troopers and one N.C.O. At first, they paid no attention to the soldiers, because, being male and healthy, all their interest was focused on the wagon-driver.
She was standing on the seat, heaping abuse on the soldiery and menacing them with a sawed-off shotgun, a slim, good-looking girl who looked to be no more than twenty. She wore a crisp white blouse tucked into tightly-belted blue jeans. Her blue eyes flashed in anger. Long, corn-colored hair streamed from under the flat-crowned Stetson clamped to the back of her head. Her partner on the seat was an undersized, freckled boy whom Larry guessed to be fourteen or fifteen. The boy was shabbily garbed and appeared worried, but every bit as indignant as the girl. As the Texans drew closer, they heard her sharp rebuke.
“You’ll keep your gosh-dam paws off this merchandise—unless you crave a load of buckshot. This is a Lowell-Taft rig. Everybody knows the Lowell-Taft Freight Line is fair, square and honest. Anybody says otherwise, I’ll ...!”
“Consarn you, gal!” bellowed the N.C.O. “Will you quit hollerin’ at us and listen to reason? Nobody’s accusin’ you of anything. It’s just we got our orders. Every rig that travels Bosworth County has to be checked.”
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