Bullets in the Sun

by Robert J. Horton

  “But you’ll notice that I’m not sitting in any game,” Bond interrupted. “I won’t take the credit for that because there isn’t going to be any game of the kind I want tonight. But I’ll take the credit for getting the introduction to you tonight, or share it with your dad, if you want it that way. He’ll talk plenty for himself, and probably plenty against me, when the time comes. Anyway, I hope so. Listen, Miss Gladys.” He took a step nearer. “I asked your dad pointblank for that introduction. I asked him if he would give it to me or if I would have to sneak one behind his back. He decided to take the step himself. There was no bargain.”

  “I see,” said Gladys. “But there’s something I don’t know.” It was plain she was helplessly puzzled. And this stranger was in deadly earnest in his speech.

  “If there is, it’s on your side of the fence,” said Jim Bond slowly. “I only know I liked you from the moment I set eyes on you. That’s why I wanted to get acquainted right. And I’m not out here in the moonlight with a mouthful of sweet nothings to toss away.”

  “I think you’ve spoken your piece,” said Gladys with a toss of her head.

  He put a hand on her arm as she started to move away. “Why be mean to me, Miss Gladys? In a place like this you can’t have too many friends. I might come in handy. You’ll have to take me as you find me, but I’m not a bad sort. You remember you started to sing tonight just when it looked like that Cole hombre would be fool enough to try to draw?”

  “I sing three times every night,” flared the girl, but her tone betrayed her.

  “But not at just such times,” said Bond. “You might say it was a crisis you stepped into tonight, Miss Gladys. Yes, that was it. You stopped something. Did you do it on purpose?”

  “I don’t have to stand here answering ridiculous questions,” replied Gladys heatedly. But Bond saw a flush mantle her cheeks.

  “Wouldn’t I be a fine sort not to appreciate a favor?” he said. “You don’t have to answer that. Maybe I’m guessing a lot, but I don’t think so. You don’t usually sing when there’s a gun play about to break, do you? You needn’t answer that, either. But the fact remains, Gladys Farlin, that you don’t want me to come to grief in Sunrise. There isn’t any answer to that.” He closed with a note of triumph in his voice.

  “You say there’s no game such as you want tonight?” she asked, changing the subject abruptly.

  “No game,” he answered. “That’s just what the big fellow said when we were about to start. And what he said went, and went cold.”

  “You mean Big Tom Lester said that?”

  “Nope. The other big one. The man they call Lawson.”

  “Oh!” There was a world of meaning in that word. “Was Father there?”

  “He was to be master of ceremonies. He told me after they had gone out of the room, all but me and him, that I had been lucky to get in, and I was luckier to get out. Nice sociable place, this. But I like your dad, and I’m not saying that to try and plug up my stock.”

  “Lawson stopped the play?” There was undisguised wonder in Gladys’s tone.

  “I’ll tell you,” said Bond impulsively, “and this will have to be between you and me, that’s all, whether you like it or not. This town seems to be moving along quiet enough on the outside. But the inside is coming to a boil, Miss Gladys. You know more about the parties concerned, and I’m only judging from what I see and hear. I can always learn a lot by just looking on. There’s some kind of a polite row in progress. I’ve seen these rows start polite and end tragic. This one has the earmarks of being a healthy youngster.”

  “I don’t think much of your judgment,” said Gladys, but she was really thinking of her father’s announcement that they were to leave the Crazy Butte range. And he had acted queerly of late. She knew, too, that trouble of the character hinted by Bond was dangerous.

  “If it wasn’t . . . well, ordinarily I wouldn’t be interested in this business, Miss Gladys,” said Bond with a frown. “I don’t go around looking for trouble, and I don’t go around roping introductions to every girl I meet, or making ’em myself, for that matter. But I just want you to feel that I’d be glad to be on hand if you wanted me for anything. Understand?”

  “You’re a gunman,” said Gladys thoughtfully.

  “That’s according to how you look at it,” he said quickly. “I’m handy with my gun, yes . . . but only when I have to be, like tonight. They told me afterward, and were careful about it, that this Cole is dynamite.”

  “He runs with Lawson,” said the girl.

  “And Lawson runs a tough outfit.” Bond nodded. “That makes the cards lay right for big doings, if they get started. Are you . . . going home?”

  “I live up there.”

  Bond looked at the orange square of light, while she studied his profile against the moonlight. Bond started. He had seen a shadow clearly outlined against the light in the window of the cabin. He looked at her quickly. “Any menfolk live up there with you?” he asked.

  “My father . . .,” she began, but stopped with a sharp intake of breath. “I don’t see how it concerns you,” she finished severely.

  “Maybe you will soon,” he said, taking her arm. “Step into the shadow of these trees . . . and wait!”

  Gladys did as she was told without thinking, impressed by his change of manner. He left her immediately, stealing up the slope in the shadows. But Gladys was not the kind to remain inactive. As soon as she recovered from her surprise, she also started up the slope. She had now lost sight of Bond, and her second surprise came when she saw a horse standing with reins dangling ahead. She looked quickly up at the cabin. No one was in sight. The housekeeper had gone to bed. It was her habit to retire early and get up to give Gladys something to eat when she got home after midnight. The girl saw at a glance that the horse was not her father’s. And her father certainly had not gone home, even if there wasn’t a big game in progress. She hurried on, careful to keep well in the shadows of the sparse timber below the cabin.

  Jim Bond had slipped stealthily to the shadow of a large lilac bush at a corner of the cabin. The light from the front window slanted across the yard. The house was still. He also had seen the horse. Now he crept along the side of the cabin to the rear. There was an open space here between the cabin and a fringe of trees behind it. Bond waited for a while, glancing keenly about. Then he sidled along the rear wall until he reached an open window. He listened and heard faint sounds within, finally a muttered curse. Then came silence.

  Bond was about to climb through the window when a form came scrambling out. Bond made a flying leap and grasped the intruder, but he did not secure a good hold. In another instant the two men were struggling on the ground, rolling over and over, each trying to grasp the other’s throat. The intruder was a smaller man than Bond, quicker, harder to hold—slippery as an eel. He bit Bond’s arm, and Bond reared back, losing his hold. In the instant that followed a ball of fire burst almost in Bond’s face, the hot powder searing his left cheek.

  Bond flung himself aside as a second tongue of red spurted. It was impossible to grasp his assailant’s wrist in the short space in which the shots were fired, but Bond had secured his own gun and now brought its barrel crashing down upon the face of the man to his side.

  He leaped to his feet. “Drop it or I’ll give it to you!” he cried. But the other had got upon his knees, and again the gun spit its blaze of fire. Bond saw the small figure clearly in the moonlight and his own weapon cracked once, knocking the intruder backward as he was rising.

  The housekeeper was screaming at the front door. A flutter of white showed at the corner of the cabin.

  “Go back there!” Bond commanded sternly. “I’ll bring him around into the light.”

  He picked the man up by the shoulders and carried him around the cabin to where the colored housekeeper, still screaming, her eyes rolling, was holding the lamp just outside the door. Shouts came from the town and men were coming up the path on the run. As Bond got his captive in
to the circle of light, he recognized the small man he had seen follow Lester into the card room earlier that night. It was Porky Snyder.

  Bond put his burden down and speedily found the wound in the gunman’s side. Suddenly there were men about him. He looked up to see Farlin, Lawson, Red Cole, and several others. At this moment, Big Tom Lester pushed his way forward.

  “What’s this?” he demanded, his breath coming in short gasps as he looked down at the motionless form with a curious expression in his eyes. “It’s Porky!” He looked quickly at Dan Farlin.

  “What was he doing here?” asked Farlin sternly.

  “Just a minute!” It was Gladys’s voice, and the group made way for her. “He broke into the house,” the girl told her father, “and I shot him.”

  The men stared at the small, ivory-mounted revolver in her hand.

  In a moment, Big Tom had wrenched the weapon from her grasp with an oath. But Dan Farlin pressed the muzzle of his Derringer against the big man’s stomach.

  “Give me the gun!” he commanded.

  Lester yielded the weapon, his eyes blazing from a pale face.

  “Now,” said Farlin, “what was he doing here?”

  “I . . . don’t know,” said Lester, and there was truth in his voice.

  “Maybe you’d better let me say something,” Jim Bond put in coolly. “I found this man climbing out of a back window and tackled him. He . . . .”

  “And how did you come to be here?” Farlin demanded in a tone that was cold as ice but which trembled with frustrated anger.

  “I was settling our unfinished business,” shot Bond. “Don’t look at that gun in your hand. Here . . .” He drew his own weapon and broke it. Then he held it out to the other. “Look at mine!” he said sharply.

  “And you, mister . . . look at this!” said Cole.

  It was Lawson who knocked the gun from Cole’s hand and followed it with a crashing blow on the jaw. “This isn’t our affair,” he told the man on the ground a moment later. “We’ll be going.”

  “Take him down with you,” Farlin directed some of the men, pointing to the form on the ground. “Gladys, go into the house. You and I will talk this over, Tom. And you”—he nodded to Jim Bond—“can go.”

  Chapter Nine

  Sheathing his weapon, Jim Bond surveyed Farlin coolly. Three of Lawson’s men picked up the motionless form of Porky Snyder, but, as they carried him away, none of the others offered to move. Lawson gave a sharp command as Cole rose, glowering savagely, from the ground and confronted his chief. Lawson beckoned him and started away without another look. But Cole’s eyes met Bond’s for an instant as he turned to follow. Bond’s features were set and cold. There were now three of them—Farlin, Big Tom Lester, and Bond.

  “Are you going?” Dan Farlin demanded.

  “Your man Porky isn’t dead,” said Bond. “If you don’t want to take my word for it that I shot him, he’ll probably tell you so himself. I want you to get this thing straight.” He looked the gambler squarely in the eyes.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Farlin snapped. “I won’t even bother to ask you how you came to be here. You’re just a meddling young whelp and you’re setting your own trap.”

  “If I am, I’ll spring it,” Bond retorted. “I saw this Porky snooping around up here. He’s got a horse cached just below here. Maybe he told your friend Lester where he was going . . . afterward.”

  Big Tom swore. “I’m givin’ you till daylight to get out of town!” he said harshly. “That goes, whoever you are.”

  Bond chuckled softly, looking steadily at Farlin. “That’s supposed to scare me, I take it,” he said, his expression changing with the words. “Tom, you’re a joke . . . and it’s time somebody put you wise.”

  Big Tom’s face went black and his right hand darted down. But Farlin caught him just in time and whirled him around. Bond’s laugh echoed again. His weapon had come into his hand like a flash of light. “Suppose we cut these parlor theatricals,” he suggested mildly. “If we understand each other, Farlin, I’ll be going.”

  “That’s what I’m waiting for you to do,” said Farlin.

  “So long.” Bond nodded, with a swift glance at the enraged Lester. He put up his gun and walked jauntily down the wide trail.

  “Come in the house,” Farlin told Lester, and the two went inside.

  * * * * *

  In the shadowy space in the rear of the Red Arrow, Lawson halted and scowled at Cole.

  “What was the idea in the two plays against this Bond?” he asked in a hard voice.

  “Oh, is he a friend of yours?” Cole countered with a sneer. “Your pal, Tom, said to try him out, an’ he tries to make a fool out of me! Maybe he did. I suppose I’m to let him get away with it. He punctures Porky, an’ you let him get away with it. He . . .”

  “Shut up!” commanded Lawson. “Look here, Red, I’ve got a reason for anything I do. Tom is just fool enough to put something off on you that he’s afraid to do himself. When he puts something off on you, he’s puttin’ it off on me. Ever think of that? I said we’d go slow this trip, an’ you try to gum up the works. I’m just askin’ you one thing, Red . . . are you takin’ orders or not?”

  Cole’s eyes were glittering beads of fire. His chief was calling him, and there was no side-stepping the issue.

  “Meaning just what, Ed?” he managed to get out.

  “Meanin’, are you runnin’ with the outfit or goin’ on your own?” Lawson shot back. “If you’re runnin’ with me, you’re takin’ my orders without askin’ any questions or talkin’ back. If you’re on your own, you’re on hostile territory. You can take it or leave it. That ought to be plain enough.” Lawson was not mincing words, and it was evident he was fighting mad about the whole business.

  Red Cole’s look of anger gave way to astonishment. “That’s strong talk, Ed,” he said, recovering his natural voice. “You said plenty then. Are you givin’ me my notice?” His eyes narrowed.

  “I’m ready to give you your orders, if you’re ready to take ’em,” Lawson retorted. “If you’re not . . . it’s the other thing. An’ Big Tom’s business is none of ours. We’ve got a big play comin’ up, an’ it’ll be all we can do to attend to our own affairs. This is no time to be settlin’ a personal grudge. I’m not anxious to lose you . . . I’ll tell you that. But this newcomer might get you, whether you think so or not. Which way do you stand?”

  “With you, if we’re the same as always,” growled Cole. “But I’d like to know . . . .”

  “Get the men together an’ ready to ride,” ordered Lawson. “No more town stuff. We’ll talk things over later. We’re beating it in an hour.”

  Red Cole made rather a ridiculous figure, swaying and working his hands in indecision. Then, with an effort, he straightened.

  “All right,” he said finally, “but this is the first time you’ve worked behind my back, Ed, an’ maybe I could be of help.”

  “If you could think hard enough, you’d have tried to kill me an’ go out on your own long ago,” sneered Lawson. “I’m your bread an’ butter, an’ you know it. Do as I say an’ leave the big stuff to me.”

  “Sure,” said Cole. “Sure thing.” He walked away quietly enough, but there was murder in his eyes.

  But if there was murder in Red Cole’s eyes, there was that and more in the gaze Lawson leveled at his retreating form. The outlaw strode swiftly into the rear of the resort, but did not go into the big room. He waited possibly two minutes, and then slipped out and into the shadow of the trees behind the place. The sound of voices had come to him, and now he was waiting for Lester.

  * * * * *

  Whether Bond suspected anything or not, he did not keep to the trail on the way from the Farlin cabin. He entered the timber and came out upon the main street of the town at a point above the Red Arrow. Then he strolled to the livery barn. He stepped quickly into the little front office when he saw the activity within. Men were saddling horses, talking, swearing—the Lawson out
fit was preparing to quit town.

  As Bond had a horse that would attract any rider’s eye, he proposed to see that it was not taken by mistake, or otherwise. But swift as his move had been, he had not escaped the alert glance of Red Cole, who had just arrived with Lawson’s orders.

  Cole watched his chance to slip into the office unobserved. The place was unlighted, except for the feeble rays of the lantern hanging over the front doors of the barn, and the dim light filtering in the window.

  Jim Bond’s hand closed on his gun. “No loud talk and no foolishness,” he said. “If you start to act funny, I’ll draw this time.”

  “Don’t worry about me foolin’ none,” said Cole, looking at him keenly. “An’ I meant it when I drew down on you up there. Now I’m glad Ed butted in. I reckon you’re not here for your health.” His words were weighted with a meaning Bond ignored.

  “I don’t have to go looking for something I’ve got,” he said coldly. “If you’ve got anything to say, you better say it ahead of that mob you’re traveling with.”

  Cole stepped quickly to the door and looked out. He turned on Bond with a bright light in his eyes.

  “I’m not goin’ to fool around with this,” he said, speaking rapidly in a low, distinct voice. “You’re here for something besides your health an’ what the card tables would bring you, if anything. I’m all over bein’ sore, not on account of anything you did, but . . . no matter. No man can work this place alone. You can take it from me that I know what I’m talkin’ about. I’m takin’ a chance talkin’ with you at all. But I’m not so tied up that I’m not open to a proposition.” He nodded significantly and again glanced out the door.

  “I suppose your boss would be tickled stiff to hear that,” Bond observed quite coolly.

  Cole’s face darkened. “Tell him,” he shot through his teeth. “You can’t get a crew in here, an’, if you did, you’d have to fight him an’ more others than you think. You can’t do it alone, an’ . . . you heard what I said.”

  Bond was frowning. “Who’s this Porky?” he asked.