Melinda Patton’s sorrel mare was no longer at the hitching rack. She must have left town during the conference at the Corkscrew Inn. Grimes reasoned that Potts, who could not be proved guilty of the attempted dry-gulching, would scarcely shake his hocks; instead, he’d merely hide out until the trail herd left Skeleton Creek. And Melinda’s ranch house was the one place where he’d expect to stay clear of Grimes, a gun slinger no one in Skeleton Creek cared to face.
Half an hour later, he was approaching the ranch house of the late Hank Patton. Though neat, it already showed signs of dwindling fortunes. The cracking of the rustlers’ syndicate had cut heavily into the fortune Melinda’s father took in and spent each year. Then he noted hoof prints: rider and a led horse had not long ago galloped toward the house.
One of the beasts had been bleeding. And the led horse had one cracked shoe; the sign Grimes had noted at the ambush. Melinda had sent Potts to bushwhack him.
A feud was a feud, and he couldn’t blame the gal. But if Potts were carrying on her vengeance—
“Gawd a-mighty!” he groaned, catching all the implications. “She wouldn’t hire anyone to plug me. She ain’t that low. But ef someone was making love to her, she’d have a right to ask him to settle me.”
He dismounted, stealthily approached the house. He knew all too well in what wing the living room was. As he came nearer, he heard a murmur of voices. The garden afforded him adequate cover from observation by any employees who might be about the bunk house or stables.
He was tall enough to get a peep between the curtains that screened the barred windows; and what Grimes saw was more than enough.
The woman must be Melinda. A man was bending over her, drawing her toward him. Her face was thus not visible, but there was no mistaking that riding skirt, well over her knees, nor the dazzling curve of her white legs.
“Oh… Lem…you mustn’t…not now… I do appreciate what you’ve a done—what you’re doing for me—but I can’t—please—”
Grimes drew his .45; but those slim arms, and her incoherent gasps unnerved him. His entire body trembled, and a red haze blurred his eyes. He turned from the window.
Killing Potts in Melinda’s house would damn Grimes, who had no right there. If he were jailed, he’d be foiling Uncle Carter, whose old wounds kept him from going with the herd.
“…Lem, darling—please don’t—but tomorrow night—come back at eight—”
Grimes stumbled back to his horse, spurred his beast to a gallop. He’d made a fool of himself, suspecting Bailey. The only thing to do was to apologize for a piece of Georgia orneriness and square himself with Gil Stewart and Uncle Carter’s other neighbors.
* * * *
His two hours were almost up when he came larruping into Skeleton Creek. As he dismounted in front of the Corkscrew Inn, he saw Gil Stewart, and said, “Jest fergit what I said about Bailey. I done made a hell of a mistake.”
“All right, bub,” answered the trail boss. “I’ll tell him—”
“I’d ruther tell him myself, Gil. But ef yo’ want to tell Jeb Terry and the others, I’d sho’ thank you. I feel so’t of foolish about this mess.”
He stalked toward the White Horse Hotel. Bailey was not at the bar; Grimes therefore ascended the rickety stairs to the second floor. He tapped at the door of Number Four. A woman bade him enter.
He halted a pace across the threshold, and devoted the next moment to gaping and stuttering. Her blue robe trailed half open, and what little she wore beneath it, accentuated the high spots between waist and collarbone. There were the sleek legs he’d viewed by sunrise; and now he caught more fully the dazzling beauty which distance had that morning withheld. Her smile was a crimson challenge.
“Uh—ur—beg yo’ pahdon, m’am—I’m lookin’ fa’ Mistah Bailey’s room—I’m Simon Bolivar Grimes, m’am—”
“Oh…Mr. Grimes? If you don’t mind—” She paused, basking in his hungry glance, yet seeming to grope for a tactful way of reminding him that she could dress just as well without an audience.
The comb slipped from her fingers. Grimes sank to his knees to retrieve it, and did his best to keep his eyes on the floor and his fingers steady. When he straightened, she was so close that he felt her warmth and roundness against him.
But that was nothing to the next shock! Hungry lips pressed a moist, clinging kiss on his mouth, choking his gasp of amazement. Her arms twined about him, and she arched herself closer, breathing an inarticulate sigh of contentment.
“Lawd, m’am!” He was thrilled and horrified. “You kain’t do that—not heah—with that door—”
His mouth went dry and ice raced through his veins when heavy footsteps came clumping down the hall. Then the robe slipped from her shoulders. Sheer horror paralyzed him.
In desperation, he reached for her wrists. She cried out, and while one hand broke away, her feet laced treacherously with his boots, tripping him. He was hopelessly tangled with a writhing armful when the door burst open.
Bailey was at the threshold. At his heel was the marshal, Hob Terrill.
“I’ll kill the skunk!” roared Bailey, gun drawn before Grimes could kick clear and protest that it was a frame-up.
“Drop it!” snarled Terrill, knocking the weapon aside just as Grimes got to his own gun. “Yuh fool, yuh’ll jest embarrass yore wife ef yuh kill him and have tuh explain why. She ain’t been hurt none, not exactly—”
He cocked a critical eye at the hysterical Mrs. Bailey, who was laughing, sobbing, and pouring out an incoherent account of how Grimes had gone wild seeing her state of array when she turned from the dresser. Terrill didn’t blame Grimes for having notions; he was getting a few himself; but he sternly went on, “Yo’re under arrest fur assault and battery, improper and unfittin’ conduck, an’ attempted—”
He choked, groping for just the word to use before a lady. But Bailey cut in, “Hell, marshal, ef yuh arrests him, yuh’ll be advertising my wife’s humiliation. Supposin’ him and me go outside the city limits and settle this.”
“Kain’t do it.” Terrill was adamant. “I kain’t countenance dueling. If a couple gents gets riled an’ on the spur of the moment shoots each other, that’s jest a act of God. But planning it, with malice aforethought, it’s down right iniquitous an’ it don’t go. Not in Skeleton Crick.”
Bailey’s wrath subsided. “Maria, I done tol’ yuh that that dang open front nightgown—”
“Bart, it’s a negligee—”
“That open front nightgown was downright indecent,” he persisted. “So mebbe I shouldn’t git too hostile, specially as he ain’t done no—no—uh—damage.”
Grimes was sweating, embarrassed, and wrathful. Bailey was a skunk; but having told Gil Stewart that he’d withdrawn his objections, Grimes couldn’t back down. And then Bailey said, “Since this here ain’t got beyond the four of us, I’ll fergit it, ef yun let me in on the Skeleton Crick pool.”
“You damn’ ornery polecat!” fumed Grimes.
“Yuh agrees,” Terrill cut in, “er by God, I take yuh to the hoosegow.”
“I ain’t agreein’ because Terrill’s caught me with my galluses hangin’ halfway to my ankles,” raged Grimes. “I jest done told Stewart I was mistaken about you, and that I wouldn’t vote agin you. So I kain’t back down.
“But once this trail herd gits to Kansas, I’m scatterin’ yo’ guts all ovah a quarter section! Now ef yo’ wants to join, yo’ ah plumb welcome, suh”
Bailey chuckled. Grimes stamped into the hall. And to forget the morning’s humiliation, he spent the remainder of the day at the branding pen.
The following morning, the trail herd surged northward, chuck wagon and remuda at the rear.
Grimes, watching Bailey’s critters joining the pool, saw something he had not noticed the previous morning. It became plain enough, once a trick of the early light made him for a second time
scrutinize the “BB” on the flank of one of the beasts that supposedly had come all the way from Del Rio.
It was slick and skillful branding; but his resentment and his initial suspicions had sharpened his eyes. The “BB” had not long ago been “HP”—Melinda Patton’s brand! Instead of having come from Del Rio, Bailey had by a circuitous route taken Melinda’s disguised cattle from her spread and then back again to Skeleton Creek.
Neither could it be wholesale theft; particularly not when Potts, Melinda’s lover, had been conferring with Bailey the morning previous. It was becoming intricate beyond reckoning; each possible answer was contradicted by some other fact.
Gil Stewart, though he had heard nothing of the clash between Bailey and Grimes, kept them far apart, just on the chance that the boy’s initial opposition might, in the tension of the long march, cause an outbreak of hostilities. The most even tempers would crack after the first week of long marches, nights broken by guard duty, by alarms real and false, by rumors of rustlers, by threats of stampedes.
* * * *
For the first night’s camp, Grimes was assigned to the third watch. Instead of spreading his tarpaulin near his fellows, he made his bed somewhat apart, and near the river. All day long, whenever a BB could be picked out of the herd, he received fresh confirmation; positively no doubt that they had all been HP. He was still simmering with wrath and humiliation and jealousy; he had to get to the heart of the riddle.
Something crooked was in the wind. He now had two on his list of men to blot out, once Uncle Carter’s cattle had been delivered and the money banked: Bart Bailey, and Potts, Melinda’s new lover.
Yet despite his brain wracking, he finally must have dozed. Something was creeping toward him; a silent shape whose advance he had felt rather than heard.
The hair on the back of his neck bristled from the shock of realizing that an enemy had almost crept up on him. Then, silent as the stalker, Grimes drew his pistol, thumb ready to flick the hammer back when the enemy was too close to retreat.
“Simon, I thought it’d never be dark,” whispered a soft voice. “Last night I sneaked to the chuck wagon—”
“What? You hid in it?”
“In that bull’s hide stretched under the wagon bed. I shoved out some of the brushwood they put in fer fuel.”
She was in his arms, eyes agleam in the dim light, hungry lips seeking his mouth, stopping his protest, “Yo’ kain’t follow us. Uncle Ca’tah was right. Though I did so’t of ’low it’d be nice ef yo’ could—”
“Just tonight and tomorrow night, honey,” she explained, wriggling closer, a supple length of quivering loveliness. “Then I’ll take a hoss and go back. Won’t be nothing—I can make it in a day, riding. I hid some grub—”
But by that time, Grimes wasn’t interested in details concerning the bull’s a hide “hammock” in which Susie had stowed away. He drew her closer, thrilled as her breath sighed in quick gasps in his ear…
The trail day is long, and the night woefully short, yet there were a number of hours before Grimes was due to stand watch. And though kisses made them drowsy, he watched the slow circling of the dipper overhead.
An owl hooted…then another…just a night sound; and but for the girl in his arms, Grimes would have ignored it as did the herd guards and the nighthawk of the remuda. But it would be a mess, having the second watch slip up on him and catch Susie.
He relaxed. Then, peering toward the men stretched out near the chuck wagon, he saw a dark shape emerging from a blacker patch. The moon’s upper edge was just peeping from the horizon, though trees still shadowed most of the camp.
The figure moved silently, infinitely cautious. There was a gleam of steel.
Murder! Grimes, thrusting Susie aside, snapped his .45 into line. The blast shook the silence; but even as the gun jumped in his hand, he knew that he had been an instant too late. The blade sank home. The slayer leaped, whirling toward the report.
Grimes bounded forward. Tongues of flame laced the gloom. Susie cried out, stumbled; but that shot stretched into a prolonged drumming. The gunner, bolting toward the remuda, pitched headlong.
“Cut down, hip high!” yelled Grimes. “Susie—fer Gawd’s sake—”
She was on her feet, but the hand that caught his wrist was wet with blood. And then the camp became a howling madness.
“I got him!” Grimes roared. “Quit yo’ shooting—see who he knifed—You, Jeb!” Matches flared. Gil Stewart plucked at the knife haft in his chest, coughed, and slumped back, dead. The assassin Grimes had shot down was Bart Bailey.
The reason for his treachery became apparent an instant later. Rifle fire crackled from the flank of the bedded herd. Horsemen charged out of the darkness. That explained the owl hoots!
Grimes made a dive for the wagon, passing out rifles. The cowpunchers aroused in time to beat the ambush, raked the raiders with a withering fire. Saddles emptied, horses pitched end for end. Instead of a camp gutted by a stealthy assassin, they charged into a hornet’s nest.
They broke; and as the drovers piled into their saddles, Grimes got the answer: Melinda, Potts, and Bailey had conspired to plunder, then peddle the stolen cattle to traders in wet beef.
But as the enemy fled, a new peril threatened the camp. The cattle were stampeding. A long, rumbling line thundered along the flank. The raiders, defeated, had precipitated a panic to block pursuit. The drovers again were on the defensive; and against a deadlier peril.
Grimes jerked Susie from her feet and into the saddle in front of him. No time to get a second horse. Not a chance to fan out the roaring herd. They had gotten too good a start. Moonrise revealed a surging sea of long, deadly horns; and the main body, blindly following, was adding to the irresistible flood of beasts.
“The river—Simon—the river—” gasped Susie.
“Not a chanct, honey! They’s cut us off, both sides—”
She tried to worm from his arms, but he checked her.
“Simon—you’re silly—I can’t last long—I’m just tiring your hoss—a wild shot—plugged me—”
Good God! Then he remembered how she’d let out scarcely a yeep. The morning before she’d yelled bloody murder, just at a scratch. She must be badly injured.
“Shut up, you little fool,” he snapped, turning in the saddle. “We’ll make it.”
His .45 crackled. A longhorn pitched in a heap another, and a third. The mountain of beef was too high for those behind to hurdle. Horns locked, they could not swerve. Bones crushed as tons of frenzied beasts piled up, held like a timber jam by one key log.
“We’re gainin’, honey—hang on—”
He swung to the left, trying to outrace the further tip of the crescent. He emptied his other gun, gained a few more precious yards.
Then the overloaded mustang’s stride broke. He had lamed himself in a gopher hole.
Terror drove him on, but he couldn’t last long. Escape every instant became more hopeless.
“Simon—you fool—”
Susie’s frenzy caught Grimes off guard. She slipped free, thudded to the earth. One bit of devotion in a solid front of treachery. He wheeled, reloaded his guns, bounded to her side. It was insane; perhaps Grimes knew he hadn’t a chance, even though he did ride on.
“That buffler wallow—scrunch into it! I’ll shoot the hoss!” he yelled. “And pile up some cows tother side of it—”
And then, far ahead, he saw a rider skylined in the moonlight; a rider suddenly blossoming white, and wildly waving something white. A pistol blazed. The point of the onrushing crescent swung, fanned out. Hundreds of frenzied beasts with a single, insane mass mind responded to the new terror. Those further to the rear wheeled, snorting, bawling, hoofs rumbling, horns clashing. Grimes whirled, picked up his limp burden, swung to the saddle.
He flogged his lamed mustang with his pistol barrel, booted and spurred th
e beast till it forgot its tortured leg.
And when the horse finally pitched in a heap, the stampede had been turned. Other riders, who had outraced the right wing of the herd, came scrambling up the bank to press the advantage. The critters were milling now. Hundreds dead, but the most were saved.
Grimes, struggling to his knees, saw the white rider reel in the saddle. It was Melinda Patton, peeled down to her boots and a few scraps that only an expert in ladies’ wear could have described. She slid to her feet, swaying as she clutched the saddle horn.
“Simon,” she panted, “I came to warn you—they were going to murder—you and Stewart and as many others—as they could—then loot—”
Grimes, kneeling beside Susie, looked up and snarled, “Yo’ came to save yo’ own critters!”
“No! It was you. Do you suppose if they planned to stampede the herd they’d try murder by hand, when the herd would do that?”
That clinched it. Grimes felt Susie snuggle closer. She smiled and murmured something, then slumped against his arm.
“I wonder,” he finally muttered, voice dry and strained, “if you really are in a class with this gal?”
Melinda knelt beside him. “Let’s forget our feud. Dad was in the wrong. I finally saw your position. Then I suspected Potts—”
“Potts?”
“Yes. After dad was exposed, and all the cattlemen got damage judgments against his estate, the bank began wobbling. The only way I could save myself was to disguise my HP cattle as BB, and get Bailey to drive them north. The money I’d raise would go into the bank in a blind account and tide me over, instead of having everything cleaned out by judgments against dad’s estate. Just judgments, but ruinous.
“I was wrong, but desperate. Potts had been courting me for some time, and finally I pretended to encourage him. But when he came in yesterday, with a wounded horse, and a confused story, I suspected dirt.
“Then the marshal told me how Bailey and his wife tricked you. That nasty play set me thinking more. And when Potts, early this evening, left me on a flimsy pretext—instead of trying to force himself on me, I became more suspicious, and followed him.”
E. Hoffmann Price's War and Western Action Page 33
