Bullets in the Sun

by Robert J. Horton

  If Big Tom Lester could have seen the look on Porky Snyder’s face a few moments later, he would have been in no mood for the sleep he needed so much. For the little gunman’s eyes gleamed with malice and hatred, contempt, and disbelief. He took his tobacco and papers and painfully managed to roll a cigarette. Lester was through!

  * * * * *

  Dan Farlin sat at supper in his cabin with his daughter Gladys. He had talked casually but to the point during the meal, answering her questions to her apparent satisfaction. Gladys had listened attentively, stealing keen glances at her father from time to time. “And so I’ve decided there’s no use in finishing out the season here,” he said, putting down his napkin with an air of finality. “This town is played out. John Duggan told me himself that the homesteaders were coming next spring. You know what that means. It means farmers, people of small means, if any, who will build shacks and fences, dig wells and haul coal, and plow, and what-not. They don’t make live towns like this one and they’re no good for my business.” He lifted his brows and looked at his daughter.

  “If they do come,” said Gladys seriously, “they’ll make this a livelier town than it ever was before and in a decent way.”

  “Now don’t start that,” said Dan Farlin sharply.

  “I will start that,” flared Gladys. “I’m sick and tired of all this. I suppose you and Lester and Lawson thought this country would stay wild and untamed forever.”

  “Don’t link me with that pair,” warned her father.

  “Why not?” The girl looked surprised. “They’re in the business, as you call it, are they not?”

  Farlin shook his head impatiently. “Well, you’re going to have your way,” he said in resignation. “I’m going to quit and I’m going to move out. We’ll go down to the ranch. But you needn’t tell anyone about it . . . not even that Smith girl.”

  “When are we going, Daddy?” asked Gladys, brightening.

  “Within two weeks, I hope. And we’ll need all the ready cash we can get together. So if you’ve got any money in the bank at the Point, get a draft for it, or draw it . . . and soon.”

  “I’m willing to do that,” said the girl. “I’ll have it when we’re ready to go.”

  “And there’s a couple of other things.” Her father frowned. “I wish you’d quit the Red Arrow and not sing there any more. I think Lester has guessed I’m figuring on leaving and he doesn’t feel any too hilarious about it. I’d rather you wouldn’t do your turn there from now on. I’ve quit splitting with him on my end.”

  “Just as you say, Daddy,” Gladys assented.

  “Then there’s that young fellow who’s been hanging around,” Farlin went on. “He’s stuck on you, of course. I don’t blame him. Cut him out, Gladys. He’s bad medicine. I’ve got that straight. You’ll do that for me and for yourself, won’t you?”

  Gladys laughed. “If I’d string a sheepherder along, you would worry, wouldn’t you, Daddy?” She got up, went around the table, and put her arms about his neck. “You know I can take care of myself, don’t you, Daddy?”

  “Yes,” answered Farlin grimly. “But this bozo isn’t one to be strung along. He’s dangerous, dearie. It bothers me to have you even listening to him. It might have been lucky that he was around when Porky tried his little stunt, but . . .”

  “Yes?” prompted Gladys.

  “He had no business up here, just the same,” growled Farlin.

  “I suppose you want me to believe that he’s this terrible man, Bovert, you’ve mentioned,” the girl suggested.

  “I happen to know,” said Dan Farlin grimly, “that he is.”

  Gladys caught her breath sharply and turned away. Her father looked after her with satisfaction. And yet he liked the fellow.

  * * * * *

  Farlin walked down the trail into town in the last glow of the sunset. It would be interesting to meet Big Tom, since he knew the resortkeeper had followed him to Rocky Point. Dan Farlin was rather pleased to have something up his sleeve. It would be interesting, too, to see the young desperado who called himself Bond. Funny business—Lester hiring this Bond to do an errand for him and then trying to do for him on the open plain. Was Farlin as valuable to Lester as all that? And what, Farlin thought suddenly, did Bovert, or Bond, have up his sleeve? He didn’t think too hard. The spring twilight was too beautiful with its pink and purple shadings. A cool breeze was blowing in from the open country. Birds were singing their nocturnal serenade in the arching cottonwoods. It was good to be alive. At forty-five, Handsome Dan had never felt younger. He found Big Tom, refreshed by sleep, at his place in his establishment and his face immediately broke into a smile. Big Tom seemed astonished at this show of cheerfulness and also somewhat taken aback.

  “Hello, Tom,” Farlin greeted cordially. “Guess you didn’t expect me back so soon, eh?”

  “Well . . . I didn’t know,” stammered the discomforted Lester.

  “You don’t seem any too glad to see me,” Farlin observed.

  “Oh, yes I am,” said Lester hastily. “I was just surprised . . . well, to tell the truth, I didn’t expect you back quite so soon.”

  Farlin laughed easily. After all, Lester was a great deal of an overgrown kid. “I just slipped into the Point, Tom, to put some money in the bank.” Lester’s start was not lost upon him. “I thought somebody might try to make a raid on my cache, but I never suspected your Man Friday would have the nerve.”

  “I’ve given Porky his marching orders,” rasped Lester, scowling hard.

  “Looks to me like our little stranger gave him his orders,” Farlin remarked dryly. “Anyway, let us take just a wee libation, Tom. I hope we’re still friends.”

  “We’ve never changed so far as I’m concerned,” said the puzzled resortkeeper. “You’re not figuring on quittin’ us just yet, then?”

  “I’m one of those men you can’t put your finger on,” said Farlin mysteriously. “My business isn’t stationary like yours. And . . . oh, yes, Tom. I’d rather Gladys didn’t do her turn down here for a while. You remember that cowpuncher that got fresh and I had to slam? Well, with this stranger hanging around . . . you know.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said Lester, eager to please. “Sure, it’s all right with me if she stays away for a time. She’s her own boss so far’s I’m concerned, anyway. I’ve never tried to dictate to her . . . or you, either, Dan.”

  Farlin nodded soberly. Big Tom was not a novice at lying. “Speak of the devil,” said Farlin, nodding toward the front of the room, “here he comes now.”

  Jim Bond strode jauntily down the bar. Lester’s face went dark, but Farlin studied the handsome, debonair youth intently. He held his head up and his eyes were everywhere, but not unpleasant. He radiated confidence. Yet he gave one the impression of nerves strung on a hair-trigger. He walked straight to the pair at the end of the polished bar. “Will you gentlemen take a light one with me?” he invited. And, without waiting for the nods in the affirmative, he turned on the man in the white coat. “Make me a tall, cool glass of lemonade,” he said in a deep, agreeable voice. “Use one lemon and a spoonful of powdered sugar and shake it up with ice. And don’t forget to strain out the seeds,” he added, smiling.

  “That,” said Dan Farlin, “is to my certain knowledge the first glass of lemonade that was ever ordered over this bar.”

  “For a nickel I’d order it not served,” snapped Lester.

  Jim Bond spun a silver dollar on the bar so that it slowly moved in Lester’s direction. “I haven’t got a nickel,” he said, looking the resortkeeper straight in the eyes. “Will a dollar do just as well?”

  “We’ll take the same,” said Farlin quickly, clamping a hand on the spinning coin.

  “That’s all well and good,” said Bond, still looking at the Red Arrow proprietor, “but I want this man to know that I order what I want, and I usually get it.”

  “You mean you’re lookin’ for trouble,” said Lester hotly.

  “Want me to change my o
rder?” asked Bond coldly.

  Lester’s jaw clamped shut and at a nudge from Farlin he turned back into the office.

  “Why start something here?” asked Dan Farlin sternly.

  “To show you that he’s yellow!” Bond retorted. Then he deliberately turned his back on the gambler and walked away.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Before Jim Bond could reach the door, Dan Farlin’s hand was on his shoulder, whirling him about. Bond’s right hand dropped to his gun but hung there as he looked into the gambler’s eyes, hard and cold.

  “Here’s your dollar,” said Farlin, holding out the coin Bond had spun on the bar. “I suppose you think I’m going to pay for the drinks you ordered. Is that it?”

  Bond’s eyes brightened. He took the dollar. “I’d plumb forgotten about that,” he said. “I don’t like to remember anything unpleasant. Do you still feel like drinking with me?”

  Farlin stepped closer and his words were for Bond alone. “You made a crack down there about Lester, but don’t get it into that fresh head of yours that I’m yellow. You’ve been playing a pretty high hand here. High hands happen to be my specialty. I’ll draw cards with you any time, and I’m not particular who you are or what you are. We’ll drink and you’ll pay for it, of course.”

  “Of course,” Bond agreed with a sparkle of admiration in his eyes. “And you can draw cards, like you say, with me any time. But I’m standing pat all the time. And that’s an answer.” He turned back to the bar with Farlin following, his brows creased.

  “There’s something I’m going to have to ask of you,” said the gambler, toying with his glass when they had been served. “I’m asking you to stop annoying my daughter.” His tone was quiet, but firm, and a stern look went with it.

  “Has Miss Gladys complained?” asked Bond blandly.

  “I am doing the complaining, understand?” replied Farlin.

  “Sure.” Bond nodded. “You’ve got me wrong, but we’ll let it go at that.” He lifted his glass of lemonade.

  “I’ve got you right, if you want to know,” Farlin snapped out. It was rarely he lost his temper, but the youth’s complaisance exasperated him. Moreover, he wasn’t at all sure that he did have this man right—which didn’t serve to soothe his ruffled feelings. Bond appeared to be mocking him in a subtle, confident way.

  “We’ll let it go any way you wish,” said Bond coldly. “And now, if it’s jake with you, I’ll shoot a hundred on the wheel.”

  The white-coated servitor took a liberty as Bond stepped to a roulette table.

  “He’s as smooth as they make ’em,” he said to Dan Farlin in an undertone. “It’s goin’ to take a fast man to give him what he’s lookin’ for, believe me.”

  Farlin favored him with a look of contempt.

  “Your brains just naturally run loose when you haven’t got a hat on,” was his comment. He stood against the bar and watched Bond win five stiff bets, pocket the money, and saunter out.

  Bond strolled up the street and entered the general store. A man was lighting the hanging lamps and Bond waited until he was through. Then he bought some tobacco.

  “Is Miss Smith around?” he asked casually. “Nothing important.”

  “Why . . . er . . . she’s over in the post office,” said the clerk who showed by his manner that he had heard things about this customer. He pointed to a booth at the lower end of the store and Bond saw Gladys Farlin’s friend behind the window there.

  “Thanks.” He nodded, and strolled down to the post office.

  “How do you do, Miss Smith,” he said pleasantly. “Do you mind my speaking to you a moment?”

  “That depends on what you want to speak about,” replied the young lady primly. “You’re a stranger to me.”

  Bond instantly formed a correct opinion of her.

  “I’m not exactly a stranger to your friend, Gladys Farlin.” He smiled.

  “That has nothing to do with me,” said Miss Smith stiffly.

  “In that case, I beg your pardon,” said Bond politely. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  “Was it . . . anything in particular?” asked Miss Smith as he turned away.

  “Why . . . yes . . . and no,” he said in a hesitating voice. “I was going to ask you to do me a favor, but I guess I haven’t the right.”

  “That would depend on the favor,” the girl compromised.

  “Well, you see, it’s this way,” said Bond, wrinkling his brows. “I want to get a message to Miss Farlin and I don’t exactly think I should go up there. Well, I thought maybe you might be going up”—he lowered his voice to a confidential whisper that interested his listener mightily—“and I thought, if you were going up, you might . . . but I guess you wouldn’t want to.”

  “Carry your message?” said Miss Smith a bit breathlessly.

  “I had no right to think you would do that, Miss Smith.”

  Louise Smith had heard a thing or two about this dashing young stranger. What she had heard from her father—which was not so complimentary except as to Bond’s expertness with his gun—had thrilled her. What she had heard from Gladys had puzzled her. But he was far too good-looking to be as bad as he was painted in some quarters, she decided. Besides, no one knew for sure. And maybe he was in love with Gladys. This thought also thrilled her.

  “Well,” she said, fussing purposelessly with some papers, “I am going up to see her, and I don’t know why I shouldn’t take your message, if . . . I don’t see why it wouldn’t be all right, do you?”

  “Why, no,” he replied with a smile. “It’s just that I want to see her this evening. If she would walk down the trail after a while, Miss Smith, I’d be sure to see her and maybe she’d talk with me a minute. It really is important, in a way. Do you think she would come?” His tone was so humblingly anxious that Miss Smith decided on the instant.

  “I’ll tell her,” she promised. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she came. She isn’t going to sing tonight. I’ll tell her.”

  “Now that’s kind of you, Miss Smith,” he said with a note of mingled gratitude and enthusiasm in his voice. “I’m going to buy a nice box of candy right now . . . .”

  “I never accept presents from strangers,” she broke in severely.

  “. . . for both you girls,” he concluded with his flashing smile. “I . . . don’t know any other girls up here and I hope you won’t think it’s a bribe. It’ll make me feel good, anyway.”

  He took his leave of her, touching his hat brim, bought the candy, and instructed the clerk to give it to the young lady in the post office “for her courtesy”—which left the clerk in a perplexed mental torment.

  Jim Bond was calmly deliberative during the next hour. He went to the livery to make sure that his horse was properly taken care of, and to speak casually with the night man in charge of the barn. He learned that Gladys Farlin hadn’t ridden out as usual at sunset, that her horse had not been out of the barn from the time her father had left, that Lester’s horse had been hard-ridden while Farlin’s had been well-treated. He learned, too, and it gave him pause in his conjecturing, that Lawson had ridden out of town the same night Farlin, Lester, and he had left. None of Lawson’s men was in town. The barn man showed interest in his questions and evinced a desire to please. For all of which he was paid in gold and put under promise to keep what Bond had asked to himself.

  This was one of those beautiful nights of the prairie spring, with a scented breeze blowing and a big orange moon swimming in a field of stars. Bond loitered in the shadows about the trail to the Farlin cabin. Lights were burning up there. Would Gladys come? Everything seemed to hinge on her action this night. Bond looked up at the friendly moon and decided it was worth taking a long chance—as he was doing—in the desperate drama being enacted here to win her favor. Why not let Farlin go ahead with his plan to help Lawson rob the Rocky Point bank? What difference would it make to Bond how Farlin got his money, or what he did with it? And why not let Farlin go through with everything, then pr
otect him against Lawson and hold his knowledge as a club over the gambler’s head in his desire to win favor with Gladys? He spurned this thought almost from its inception. And he was rewarded by a vision of color that flitted through the trees from the cabin. Gladys Farlin was coming.

  “I had to take this means of meeting you,” he told her when she reached him, “because your father gave me my orders tonight, and I didn’t want to run the risk of trouble . . . more trouble . . . by coming to the cabin. Your meeting me here means a lot to me, Miss Gladys.”

  “I couldn’t help myself, I guess,” said the girl anxiously. “Did you learn anything important?” Her eyes were wide as she looked up at him.

  “Yes . . . but I’m not going to cause you any more worry by telling you what I know, or think I know,” he replied.

  “Do you think this is fair?” she flashed.

  “I really think it is best,” he returned. “I know what your suspicions are and there may be cause for them.”

  “Then Father is planning to do something with Lawson?”

  “I want to put a question to you straight, Gladys,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Would you want your dad to put in with Lawson on a last deal, even if you knew it would be successful and no harm would come to him?”

  “No!” she exclaimed impulsively. “And Lawson would be sure to get the best of him in the end.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” said Bond. “But I’m going to butt in and stop anything like that. I don’t want to preach any heroics, girlie, but why do you suppose I’m taking a hand in this?”

  She looked up at him for some little time before answering. If this man really merited the sinister reputation that had been bestowed on him, he might be taking a hand in whatever was going on with a view to profiting for himself. Or was he bribing her in such an indirect fashion?