And to the open-mouthed amazement of the young clerk within, Long Sam was out the back door as fast, comparatively, as he had come in the front door slow. Dodging rubbish piles and discarded packing cases, Long Sam got to the Planters’ Palace without sighting anyone. He tried the back door, it opened, and the gaunt outlaw let himself into a room that was cluttered with cases of bottled goods, beer barrels, discarded furniture.
“Ought to be another door up here somewhere,” Long Sam grumbled, feeling his way cautiously along a rough plank wall.
A board squeaked so close to Long Sam he recoiled in mingling alarm and astonishment. He heard faint thudding sounds then, and realized he had groped in beneath the stairs that led from the barroom and dance hall up to the private gambling rooms on the second floor. Ned Witcher’s office was also up on the second floor, and Long Sam had a hunch that the dive owner was heading for that retreat.
Long Sam struck a match, and a few moments later found the door he sought. He turned the doorknob and looked out into a narrow runway that led behind the long mahogany bar.
A beetle-browed bartender was at the forward end of the bar, facing the street doors. A double-barreled scattergun was leaning against the inside of the bar near his knees. There was no one else in sight, and Long Sam ghosted in behind the bar. He slid a gun out of a holster and slanted the six-shooter up at the barman.
“Don’t touch the scattergun!” Long Sam’s voice was a rasping whisper.
The barkeep jumped violently, flung his head around as he saw Long Sam’s twisted grin and leveled gun.
“Well, well,” Long Sam droned. “Moss Burton, sure as sin! Last account I had of you, you were makin’ a livin’ by bushwhackin’ men who happened to have bounties on their hides.”
Moss Burton grunted. “But I don’t pack a badge no more, so yuh’ve got nothin’ to worry about.”
“You never packed a badge,” Long Sam grunted. “Where’s Ned Witcher and his two shadows?”
“Listen, Sam, I’ve been on duty since midnight, and I don’t know where they are,” Moss Burton growled.
“You’re still a liar by choice, and a back-shootin’ murderer at heart!” Long Sam said coldly. “Ned Witcher, and likely enough Bull Packard and Cal Zigler, are upstairs! Witcher left you to blast me with that scattergun in case I started through the front door.”
A buzzer whirred sharply, three long bursts.
“That’s the boss, wantin’ me to fetch drinks up to the office!” Moss Burton gulped. “If I don’t show up with the stuff, him or one of the others will—”
He broke off, pale eyes rolling uneasily behind swollen lids.
“Witcher and his two pet killers ain’t here, remember?” Long Sam taunted. “But don’t argue any more, Moss. Slide past me and head for the stock room.”
Moss Burton slogged forward. He stomped on past as if he meant, to do as he had been told, but Long Sam was not taken unawares when one of Burton’s big feet suddenly lashed backwards in a savage drive and he opened his mouth to roar a warning to the men upstairs.
Long Sam’s six-shooter bounced off his bristly head. The one-time bounty collector flopped down on his face, breath gusting from his sagging lips, senseless.
Long Sam holstered his six-shooter, picked up the shotgun at the far end of the bar. The buzzer cut loose again, and suddenly Long Sam was hurrying out from behind the bar and across the room. He took the stairs three at a time and was making the last leap to the upstairs hallway when a bullet hit him across the ribs, spinning him half around.
“Littlejohn got in here somehow, Boss!” Cal Zigler was yowling.
Zigler’s gun was popping again, and as Long Sam lost his balance and fell he saw the big-shouldered killer crouching before an open doorway. A slug from Zigler’s pistol ripped the hat off Long Sam’s head, and a second burned the tip of his right shoulder.
Then the scattergun in the gaunt outlaw’s hands let loose and Cal Zigler was crashing backwards into the doorway.
Long Sam plunged to his feet, teeth set against the pain of the wound in his right side. He heard wild yells coming from the open room, which he now recognized as Ned Witcher’s office. A gun went off in there, and Long Sam hunched down low, hurtling the buckshot-riddled body of Cal Zigler.
But even as Long Sam sprang into the room, a bullet slammed against the shotgun in his hands, slapping the weapon out of his grip. He folded at the knees and hit the floor, whipped his six-shooters from holsters and began firing.
Bull Packard was charging behind a pair of spitting guns, cursing hoarsely. The big man quit cursing suddenly and his mouth sagged open, spilling a cascade of blood over his chin and shirt front as he sank slowly down to the floor.
Long Sam’s slitted eyes swung, for a gun was still spitting at him from a far corner of the room. A bullet slapped across his left cheek. He saw Ned Witcher wedged in behind a huge iron safe, and to Witcher’s right, squatting behind a thick bookcase, was Wilson Brule, owner of the Valley Limited railroad.
Wilson Brule’s thin, sallow-skinned face was smeared with blood, and he was daubing at it with a handkerchief.
Long Sam felt a bullet skim across the top of his head and ducked so violently he bumped his nose on the soft rug. He jerked his head up and caught Ned Witcher hopping out from behind the safe, beginning to grin in triumph.
Long Sam fired two rapid shots, one from each gun. Ned Witcher’s mouth flew open, and suddenly he was pitching down to the floor, blood spilling from two bullet holes fairly between his pale eyes.
“Alright, Brule!” Long Sam called hoarsely. “This is once you’re caught in the open. Waltz out, and let’s head for jail!”
“A buckshot cut my forehead wide open, Littlejohn,” Wilson Brule said calmly. “But this is no fight of mine. I only dropped in for a visit with Witcher, and was caught in the fracas.”
“You’re also caught by the seat of your fancy pants, with a charge of hirin’ arsonists to strike at Pat Casey’s railroad!” Long Sam droned.
“You talk like an idiot!” Brule snorted. “Why should I want anyone to bother Pat Casey’s two-bit road?”
“Because that hundred miles of railroad old Pat built is everything but a penny-ante, two-bit layout!” Long Sam snorted. “You held a franchise, but figured a hundred miles of rails connectin’ your Valley Limited with the big line to the north would never payoff. You sold old Pat the franchise, and had everybody laughin’ at him thinkin’ he was a fool to lay steel out across those hills and valleys. But Pat laid the rails—coal minin’, lumberin’, stock raisin’ and farmin’ sprung up along his road—and now you want it back.”
Wilson Brule walked out into the room, blue eyes coldly mocking as he mopped blood from a deep gash across his narrow forehead. Looking at him, seeing the man’s complete confidence, Long Sam wondered bitterly if this shrewd devil would be able to wiggle free to go on plotting old Pat Casey’s downfall.
“Funny thing is, Brule—I only came up here to have a talk with Ned Witcher,” Long Sam droned. “I think Witcher sent Joe Fry out to pull a stunt that was supposed to be the death of Fry and a heap of trouble for Pat Casey. You dreamed up that stunt of havin’ Joe Fry try to flag one of Casey’s trains, knowin’ the guards would kill Fry. I was hopin’ Ned Witcher would admit that.”
“Ask Ned,” Wilson Brule laughed thinly, jerking his heads towards Witcher’s dead hulk. “Or ask Bull Packard and Cal Zigler,” and he pointed toward the two bodies.
“Sure, Ned Witcher and his two thugs are dead, Brule,” Long Sam shrugged. “But I wouldn’t crow too soon, if I was you.”
* * * *
Long Sam heard boots coming up the steps and moved away from the door, smoky eyes watching Wilson Brule stiffen. Then Sheriff Ott Sheppard and Pat Casey were coming into the room, shoving Moss Burton ahead of them.
“Sam, you’re lookin’ like a stuck pig!” Pat Casey shrilled. “But you’ve shot the daylights out of Witcher and his two killers, that’s certain. And look what you’v
e got for Ott’s jail, now!”
Pat Casey’s eyes were on Wilson Brule, who smiled thinly and held the handkerchief to his cut forehead.
“Neat move, Pat, getting this Littlejohn gunhawk on your payroll,” Brule chuckled. “But if you want the pants sued off you, let him jail me as the fool is threatenin’ to do!”
“We found this one stumblin’ around in the barroom, Sam, cussin’ because he had lost his scattergun,” Sheriff Ott Sheppard said, shoving Moss Burton forward. “Want him?”
“I’ll say we want him!” Long Sam grinned. “Moss Burton is a professional killer. Posin’ as a bartender was pretty smooth, but it won’t keep his neck out of a noose. He’s workin’ for Wilson Brule, not Ned Witcher. Provin’ that Moss led the gangs that have wrecked four of Pat Casey’s trains won’t be too much of a chore.”
“You’re batty!” Moss Burton glared at Long Sam. “I’ve worked the night shift here at the Planters’ Palace for the past year!”
“Yeah, you worked the night shift here,” Long Sam nodded. “But each time a train has been wrecked on Pat’s line, it just happened to be on yore night off! What Wilson Brule didn’t tell you and Ned Witcher is that two of Pat Casey’s best special agents have been checking and double-checking on the whole bunch of you here who were doing Brule’s dirty work!”
“Boss, yuh knowed some of Casey’s railroad snoops was watchin’ me and the others and didn’t warn us?” Moss Burton questioned Wilson Brule.
“So he admits he’s workin’ for Wilson Brule!” Long Sam said quickly. “He’ll wish he hadn’t been! Brule will toss him to the hangman in order to save his own neck.”
“Not me, feller!” Moss Burton said. “Some of Pat Casey’s railroad bulls have been checkin’, or you wouldn’t know that nothin’ happened to Casey’s trains only on the nights I was off duty. Maybe Brule didn’t tip me off—”
Brule, a raging oath on his lips, flipped out a gun, pumped three slugs into Moss Burton’s body before Long Sam could slap the raging man down with a gun barrel. Long Sam whacked him again, then wrenched the gun out of his fingers, slammed him down in a chair at the end of the shiny desk.
“He killed Moss Burton deader’n a cracked bedbug, Sam!” big Ott Sheppard wailed. “Why didn’t you shoot him before he could do that? Now we ain’t got a chance of pinnin’ anything on Brule.”
“Nothin’ except cold-blooded murder, since Moss Burton was not only disarmed but in our custody!” Long Sam said gravely. “You see, Ott, I remembered somethin’ about this Brule hellion. Seems that the hooded murderers he bossed when him and his kind rode after the Civil War as State Police here in Texas, all feared Brule for one thing—his uncontrollable temper. I figured if I made Moss Burton blunder, that temper of Brule’s would let go. But I didn’t aim for him to kill Burton.”
Long Sam looked down at Wilson Brule, who was white and tense, shocked out of his fit of temper by the shadow of the noose.
“Let’s go, Brule,” Long Sam said calmly. “I only signed on with Pat Casey last night, and sure didn’t figure on workin’ myself out of a job this fast. But looks like I have, for with you jailed on a murder charge I reckon Pat won’t need me any longer.”
“Take your prisoner on to jail, Ott!” Pat Casey snapped at the big sheriff. “And Littlejohn, you need a doctor up here before you do any walkin’ around.”
Ott Sheppard pulled out a pair of handcuffs, linked Brule’s wrists and took the stiff-faced prisoner out of the office, shooting a puzzled glance at Pat Casey as he left.
“Now, about this business of you quittin’ me, Littlejohn!” Pat Casey gritted. “There’s just nothin’ doin’! Only, we’ll let Joe Fry think you turned in your badge and left, otherwise the little bulldog will be botherin’ you plenty.”
“I’ll think it over, Pat,” Long Sam grinned. “Did Fry tell you and Ott anything?”
“Fry is too mad to make any sense, but did admit that Ned Witcher told him you were up in Buckhorn yesterday, aimin’ to ride that trainload of logs down this mornin’,” Pat Casey grinned. “I told Fry I’d leave it up to you whether we brought charges against him for attemptin’ to build a fire on the tracks!”
“Good!” Long Sam chuckled. “Fry knew better than to pull a fool stunt like that, so we’ll let him stew in his own juices until I’m patched up, and ready to swim that Sleeper hoss of mine to the yonder shore of the Rio Grande.”
“But you can’t quit me, Sam!” Pat Casey howled.
“I’ll think it over, Pat,” Long Sam sighed. “If I decide to keep on wearin’ one of your special agent badges, I’ll let you know before I head for Mexico.”
LEFT FER THE BUZZARDS, by Allan R. Bosworth
The young mule driver trudged painfully along at the side of the long-eared wheel animals. Suddenly he stubbed a boot toe and pitched headlong into the dirt. The mules halted, breathing hard. Up in the brassy bowl of the breathless sky, a gaunt buzzard swooped lower, watching, waiting for the end.
A tall, dark-faced waddy who walked and led a weary sorrel cayuse staggered up to the little freighter’s side and reached out his hand. “Shorty” waved it away.
“I’m all right, Willie!” he muttered thickly, fighting his way to his feet. “We’re all all right! We’ll make it, yet! It’s jest a little farther. I think I can see the windmill.”
Willie Wetherbee, also known as the “Sonora Kid,” swayed a little as he shaded bloodshot eyes for a look toward the point of the hill that reared itself over there in a crazy shimmer of heat waves. Either those were the blades of a windmill wheel standing idle in the sun, or they were another mirage—a phantom of heat and thirst such as had haunted the partners since their water ran out, two days before.
The tall cowboy’s swollen lips cracked as he attempted to smile. “Yeah!” he croaked. “It’s there! I reckon mebbe we’ve beat them buzzards that have been trailin’ us. We’ll git there!”
Shorty licked his lips with a tongue that felt like sandpaper. “Shore we will!” he said grimly. “Then to-morrer we can go on to the Waggin Tongue Ranch fer another load o’ hides. Mules, yuh been two days without water, and yonder it is. Giddap!”
The freight outfit crawled forward, jerkily, uncertainly, toward the heat-shimmered hill. Six mules, their red-rimmed eyes caked white with alkali dust, stumbled and dragged their hoofs.
The steel tires, grown loose from the shrinkage of dry wheels, wobbled in slow revolutions to the accompaniment of creaking spokes. The staves of the empty water keg on the side of the first wagon rattled mockingly.
Two days without water, in a country dry as the sun-bleached ribs of a steer’s skeleton! The drought was on Texas. It was only mid-morning, but the sun glared unmercifully on the drooping, shriveled mesquites, and was reflected blindingly from alkali flats and the garish limestone patches on the distant hills.
Panting jackrabbits crouched in the scanty shade of cat’s-claw and sacaguista clumps and did not move as the freight wagons rolled by. Even the lizards had forsaken the sun-scorched stretches for what dim coolness they could find far down in the crevices of rocks. Here and there lay the stark bones of cattle, grisly evidence of the importance of rain.
Suddenly the mules’ ears pointed forward. The bells on the leaders’ hame straps jingled in quickened tempo, and the very sound was liquid and cool. They had smelled the water in the dirt tank that was over there by the windmill, still hidden by the hill.
The partners could have left their wagons back down the thirsty trail, but Shorty had contracted to haul more hides for the Wagon Tongue spread, and he always kept his word.
He could have left all the mules but Chopin, saddling the big right-hand leader to ride him to water. But neither he nor Willie would have suggested such a thing.
The Sonora Kid knew that Shorty would have as soon thought of abandoning his own brothers. There were no other mules like these six offspring of a range mare named Lucy—the outfit which the music-loving Shorty had christened the “Sextet from Lucia.”
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As for Wetherbee, he could have gone ahead on Tumbleweed, the sorrel cow pony, making it across the waterless range in a third the time it had taken the slow freight wagons. But rustlers and skinning thieves were at work on the Wagon Tongue, and he stuck by his sawed-off pard for fear there might be trouble before he returned with filled canteens.
“Jest a little farther!” Shorty rasped encouragement to the mules. “Water—jest over the hill! Half a mile, and then—”
Braang! A single shot, distance-dulled but startling, came floating over the point of the hill.
Shorty clapped his hand to his hip from instinct, then remembered that he had left his gun on the floor of the wagon so he would have that much less weight to carry.
“Trouble—mebbe!” drawled the Sonora Kid, his right thumb hooked in his cartridge belt. Weight or no, Willie Wetherbee was seldom without that black-butted .45 strapped around his lean waist.
The partners trudged on, saving their breath, tortured by every step of that last half-mile. Perhaps some waddy of the far-flung Wagon Tongue range had ridden down to inspect this windmill that was the last outpost for eighty miles when drought sucked the final moisture from the scattered water holes. Perhaps he had shot a coyote or a sidewinder. There was no use getting alarmed until danger was actually at hand.
The freight outfit dipped into a draw where willows and walnuts should have afforded cool shade, and the wagon tires slipped and rattled over the smooth stones that sometimes were covered with rushing water, twisting toward the Pecos, miles away. Now the trees were all but leafless, and the mules did not linger.
The long-eared team dragged its burden slowly and laboriously up the farther slope and passed into the final stretch of mesquite flat. There were no birds in the trees that stood like listless, green-gray phantoms in the shimmer of heat waves, and not even a locust shrilled.
Braang! Another shot. Clearer, sharper now.
The Western Megapack - 25 Classic Western Stories Page 8
