At the head of the cemetery's latest grave was a simple granite slab bearing chiseled words:
JOSEPH ASHFIELD
Ambushed
Anna Siebert and the Triangle S cowboys had paid for Joe Ashfield's burial. Gloom had reined throughout the rangeland ever since a posse under Bob Reynolds had returned from the Sierra Secos, bearing Ashfield's bullet-riddled corpse shrouded in an old blanket.
Ashfield had met with foul play on the little-used short-cut trail from Marfa. His horse had been found grazing with a herd of wild fuzztails many miles away, by a drifting cowpoke who had recognized the Triangle S brand and brought the saddler to Mexitex the day the sheriff returned with Ashfield's body.
Anna Siebert was the last to leave the boothill graveyard, after her Triangle S cowhands had moved off to the main street to drown their grief with liquor.
With her was Sheriff Reynolds. The old lawman put on his sombrero as they left the cemetery gate, and he took her arm as they headed toward the sheriff's home on the outskirts of town.
There, with Mrs. Reynolds bustling about to provide a noontime meal for the young mistress of the Triangle S spread, the kindly old sheriff tried to find words to comfort the girl. In Joe Ashfield, she had lost the most valuable man on her outfit.
She had counted heavily on Ashfield to help her shoulder the numerous burdens of her father's Mexitex Land & Cattle Syndicate. Now, with Ashfield dead—
"I can't see how he missed Hap Kingman," the girl said heavily. "I must send a messenger up to Marfa, Bob. Hap is probably still waiting at the Drover's Hotel, wondering why Joe doesn't show up."
The sheriff avoided Anna's gaze, and for the first time she knew that the lawman had not told her all he had found out at the time he had discovered Ashfield's mutilated corpse.
"Bob! Bob!" cried the girl, her eyes lighting with tragic dread. "Don't… don't tell me… that you found Hap's body in that ambush—"
Sheriff Kingman swallowed hard. He had dreaded this moment, but he knew the girl must know the worst.
"I… I got deppities investigatin' the badlands," he faltered. "But… I can't say for shore that Hap Kingman was drygulched along with yore ramrod, Anna."
The girl went white.
"Then… then Hap did… did meet Joe at the Marfa hotel?"
The sheriff inhaled deeply, and then plunged into the hard business of telling what he knew.
"Anna, I do know that Hap an' Joe were ridin' together at the time Joe was killed. But… I haven't found Hap Kingman's body, nor any trace of it."
"Then how do you know he met Joe at Marfa?"
"The pony you loaned him, Anna. It was found about a mile away from where we found Joe's body. The hoss was almost eaten up by coyotes. There was Hap's saddle an' pack, Joe Ashfield's .45-70 rifle, an' some distance away was one of the two six-guns that Hap Kingman was packin' at the time he left us to go to Marfa."
"But no trace of Hap himself?"
Reynolds shook his head in the negative.
"It's queer as hell—er, almighty queer, Anna. Mebbe the ambusher shot Kingman's horse an' set him afoot. But why would Hap leave his guns behind?"
The girl's eyes dulled with an agony of dread.
"Melrose killed them both," she whispered huskily. "He got the money belt that Joe Ashfield was wearing—either he did, or some gunhawk Melrose hired."
The sheriff groaned his sympathy.
"We haven't got a smatterin' o' actual proof against Melrose," he pointed out. "Hap Kingman is the only man livin' who can prove anything against Melrose—or that Melrose was fixin' to have Joe Ashfield ambushed so he could waylay that syndicate cattle money. But until we can locate Hap, Melrose will just laugh at us."
Anna pressed a handkerchief to her brimming eyes.
"You're sure Hap Kingman's body isn't lying out there somewhere? Could your posses have missed it?"
"A pretty slim chance, Anna. We combed that country for a mile in all directions. If Hap was lyin' dead or hurt anywhere around we'd have found him. As I say, I still got a couple deppities scoutin' the country on the off chance they may locate Hap."
They consumed Mrs. Reynolds' meal in moody silence. Anna Siebert, more than at any time since she had recovered from the shock of her father's brutal murder, felt the weight of overwhelming responsibility upon her.
Besides the crushing loss of her father and, close upon the heels of George Siebert's murder, the tragic death of her homeward-bound foreman, Anna Siebert had to worry about the theft of the thirty thousand dollars belonging to her father's syndicate.
Two-thirds of that money belonged to other ranchers belonging to the syndicate. Unless it was recovered, Yaqui County's stockmen were faced with bankruptcy.
Meal finished, Anna Siebert mounted her saddle pony and, with Sheriff Reynolds riding at her stirrup, proceeded down town. The sheriff rounded up the Triangle S cowboys, who accompanied their boss back to the home ranch.
The afternoon of the day following Joe Ashfield's funeral, Anna Siebert was roused out of an after-lunch nap by a Mexican servant woman.
"El señor sherife ees out at the gate, señora," the cocinera told her. "There are other hombres weeth heem, tambien."
Hurriedly adjusting her hair, Anna Siebert went to the door in time to see Sheriff Bob Reynolds striding up the path, with six burly, gun-hung men clanking their spurs behind him.
Looking past her lawman friend, Anna Siebert recognized the frock-coated figure of the lawyer, Russ Melrose, with Everett Kingman at his heels. The other four men were ugly half-breeds, and strangers to the girl.
Anna's heart leaped, thinking that perhaps the strangers were deputy sheriffs and that Everett Kingman and Melrose were under arrest.
But one look at Bob Reynolds' gray, twisting face, and the girl knew that the sheriff of Yaqui County was bringing evil tidings.
"Brace up, girl," whispered the sheriff, as she stood aside to admit them into the living room of the Triangle S ranchhouse. "I'm takin' this on the chin as bad as you'll have to, Anna—even though I haven't anything personal at stake."
Anna Siebert's eyes flashed with hate as she returned Russ Melrose's insolent stare. Everett Kingman, his dissolute, haggard face twisted in a smirk of triumph, saw the lawyer flush under her stinging glance.
"I'm not so sure I want these men in my home, sheriff!" snapped the girl, her tone ringing with defiance. "In fact, Mr. Melrose, I am asking you to get out before I have the sheriff throw you out. And the same goes for that drunken sot beside you, Everett Kingman!"
Russ Melrose seated himself indolently in the chair that had been George Siebert's favorite, hooked his spurred boot heels on a table edge, and proceeded to light a cigar.
"Before you go throwing anybody out of this house, you better consult with your friend the sheriff, Miss Siebert," taunted the lawyer. "If you don't treat me more hospitably, I may be forced to throw you out of here. It isn't your home any longer."
Anna Siebert turned to the sheriff, eyes wide with concern.
"What does he mean, Bob?"
The sheriff dropped his gaze. He fumbled with trembling hands inside his chaps pocket to draw forth a legal-looking document. The paper rattled noisily in the ghastly silence of the room.
"Melrose has got the court to issue dispossession notice, Anna," whispered the sheriff, his face mottled with fury. "As sheriff, there's nothin' I can do but serve 'em."
Russ Melrose puffed twin jets of cigar smoke through his beaklike nostrils, and laughed harshly.
"Of course, if you can pay me the sum of ten thousand dollars, plus eight months' accrued interest at six percent, those dispossession papers won't mean a thing, Miss Siebert," jeered the lawyer. "Pay that mortgage, and I get out."
The girl turned to the sheriff, a sickish feeling attacking her stomach.
"But I… I couldn't raise one thousand dollars, Bob," she told the lawman in a panicked voice. "You know that. The only money I had was in Joe Ashfield's possession, and he… he was ambushed b
y these… these—"
The sheriff's sharp glance made her break off. She was conscious of the fact that the four gunmen who had accompanied Melrose and Everett Kingman were fingering their six-gun butts and glancing at the lawyer, as if waiting for orders.
"The… the mortgage Melrose holds is several days overdue," the sheriff said huskily. "These… these papers here—the court has granted Melrose possession of the Triangle S Ranch and the controllin' interest of the Mexitex Land & Cattle Syndicate. If you can't pay up—"
Anna Siebert controlled her mounting panic with a visible effort. A look of understanding and sympathy, mixed with helplessness, came from Sheriff Bob Reynolds.
"How… how soon… do I have to get out?"
Russ Melrose answered the question she had directed to her sheriff friend.
"Today. Pronto. From now on, Miss Siebert, I'm living here in the Triangle S casa. And I won't be needing your men. Rustle 'em together and have 'em pack up your personal possessions. If you aren't off this spread by sundown, my men here will help you move off."
Anna saw knots of muscle playing on the sheriff's jaws, but she saw the bleak light of defeat in Reynolds' eyes. She knew the sheriff would like nothing better than to swing into action with blazing guns.
But Russ Melrose had anticipated trouble, and had brought along his greased-lightning gunhawks to forestall any loss of temper which the sheriff might suffer, or to combat any show of resistance on the part of Anna Siebert's loyal Triangle S cowboys.
"I've figgered it out from all angles, Anna," said the Mexitex sheriff heavily. "You'll have to move out, an' surrender the syndicate books to Melrose. But yo're welcome to live at my place with Mrs. Reynolds an' me as long as you see fit."
23
HAP KINGMAN RETURNS
Forty long, endless, dragging days had been checked off on One-eye Allen's calendar before Hap Kingman was able to move about on his injured leg. But years of clean living, plus the wholesome food and expert care of One-eye Allen, had enabled the broken shin to knit together without the danger of a lifetime of limping.
One-eye Allen had left his patient alone only once during the six weeks of his convalescence. That had been on a trip to Marfa, where Allen had purchased a mild-tempered cow pony for Hap to use when the time came for him to return to Mexitex.
On his return with the horse, Allen brought word that Hap's saddle and the .45-70 rifle, which Allen had left behind at the scene of Hap's misfortune, were no longer there.
"Some damned saddle tramp prob'ly picked 'em up," the old prospector said. "If there'd been room on Gertrude's back I'd have packed your belongin's an' that Winchester along with me that night."
Kingman shrugged.
"Forget it, unk. I can ride bareback to Mexitex, and I can pick up some artillery from friends."
One-eye Allen beamed with pleasure whenever he heard the cowpoke address him as "unk."
As Allen recalled more details of his last association with Warren Allen, Hap Kingman became more and more convinced that he, through some quirk of fate which was as yet a riddle, was really the orphaned son of Warren and Eleanor Allen.
The two were able to see hereditary resemblance between themselves, as time went on. They had the same mannerisms and skull structure and general build—resemblances of blood relationship which were too numerous, Hap figured, to be coincidental.
But the crowning proof that they were nephew and uncle was provided by an old-time tintype photograph taken nineteen years before in San Antonio, and which One-eye Allen had among his few personal trinkets.
The tintype showed a young couple and a child of about two years. The father's picture was almost the mirrored image of Hap Kingman, differing only in the outmoded style of hairdress, the ram's horn mustache which men wore in that period.
"That's my brother Warren, an' his wife Eleanor —an' you, when you were knee-high to the loadin' gate of a rifle, Hap!" One-eye Allen had said. "See that cowlick on the little tike's scalp? A dead ringer for the cowlick on yore noggin."
Hap, conscious of strange, tugging emotions in his heart, had stared long and hard at the photograph of the couple he knew must have been his parents.
"I'm not doubtin' it, unk," the cowboy had said. "And just as soon as my leg is well enough for me to get around, I reckon we can find the proof we want over in Mexitex."
It was seven weeks to the day since One-eye Allen's chance discovery of the trapped cowboy—a trek which the prospector had made to investigate the focal point of soaring flocks of buzzards—that the two men set out from the prospector's stone shack, and picked up the Mexitex trail once more.
Hap was still limping, but it was due to the natural weakness of his leg muscles and not to any maladjustment of his mended shin bone. If One-eye Allen had been a doctor, his bone-setting could not have been more expert.
Two days later, when they were leaving the Sierra Secos foothills and the dim line of the Rio Grande's course was once more visible on the southwestern horizon, the two made camp at the little-known waterhole deep in the recesses of an arroyo.
"I've got a hunch that there'll be men who'll start gunnin' for me when I show up," said Hap Kingman gravely, after they had picketed their mounts and rolled up in blankets for the night.
"I been thinkin' o' that," replied One-eye Allen. "I been wonderin' if it wouldn't be a good idea for me to hole up here in camp while you look up your friend the sheriff an' see what can be done about corralin' this Russ Melrose jigger?"
Kingman pondered this suggestion for several minutes.
"Bueno," he said. "And if I'm not back here to report by day after tomorrow, unk, you better light a chuck to Mexitex and tell Bob Reynolds that I returned from the dead. Even if Melrose's gunnies are on the prowl, they won't recognize you as havin' any connection with me."
Feeling better for thus having an ace in the hole in the event that he ran into bad luck, Hap Kingman borrowed Allen's saddle for his own mount the next morning.
"Reckon I'll sashay over to Anna Siebert's first," he decided, "and get an idea about what's happened durin' the past two months. Then I'll get my head together with the sheriff and see what can be done about smokin' Melrose out of his den."
He spurred his pony into a trot as he approached Manzanita Hill and knew that beyond it he would find Anna Siebert's Triangle S ranchhouse. The chestnut-haired girl had been constantly in his thoughts during his long period of enforced idleness, and he had worried many times over what the loss of her syndicate money might mean to the girl.
Topping the crest of Manzanita Hill, the cowboy looked down on the red-tiled Spanish-type hacienda which had been George Siebert's home.
A number of horses were tied to the hitch rack in front of the ranchhouse yard, and the thought flashed through Kingman's head that the syndicate might be having a meeting today at Anna's home.
And then, when he was midway down the slope, he suddenly reined up with a start.
The front door of the Triangle S house opened, and two men strode out, busily engaged in conversation.
Kingman's right hand dropped to the butt of the six-gun which One-eye Allen had loaned him, as he recognized those two hombres as Russ Melrose and his foster brother, Everett.
"What in hell are they doin' here at the Tri—"
Then, like a thunderbolt out of the blue, the truth struck Hap Kingman.
Anna Siebert was no longer owner of the Triangle S. Her home now served as the headquarters of the man who had slain Joe Ashfield and stolen the cattle syndicate's money.
Failing to notice the lone cowboy midway up Manzanita Hill, Russ Melrose and Everett Kingman disappeared from view around the white stucco walls of the ranchhouse, headed for the nearby barns and corrals.
Grimly, Hap debated whether to ride down onto the ranch grounds and force a showdown with the two outlaws. Then, realizing that the Triangle S probably swarmed with Melrose's gun-hung henchmen, the cowboy headed back over Manzanita Hill and galloped in the direction of Mexite
x town.
But if Kingman believed his near-approach to Melrose's new stronghold had gone unnoticed, he was mistaken.
Hardly had the cowboy returned over the skyline of Manzanita Hill than an excited Mexican cook dashed out of the Triangle S kitchen, yelling and waving his arms as he sprinted toward Melrose and Everett Kingman.
The cook was Juan Fernandez, who until recently had been a member of Señor Giboso's smuggling ring. But Melrose, having taken over the control of the Mexitex Land & Cattle Syndicate, had forsaken the dangerous game of contraband shipments over the border, to give his full energies to the profitable career of running Yaqui County's cattle range.
Most of Melrose's cattlemen were ex-members of the smuggling outfit he had ramrodded in the disguise of Señor Giboso. And the job of ranch cook had gone to Juan Fernandez, the peon who had been forced to turn over Hap Kingman and a shipment of narcotics to the border patrol.
"Señor! Señor!" babbled Fernandez, skidding to a halt alongside a corral fence where Everett Kingman and the syndicate boss were inspecting some new breeding stock. "I see a ghost, señor, but eet was not a ghost."
Melrose jerked his cigar from his teeth and said impatiently, "You've been hitting the mescal too heavy, Juan. Get back to peelin' spuds!"
The Mexican shook his head wildly.
"No, no, Señor Melrose! It is Señor Hap Kingman—I see him again, weeth my own eyes, es verdad! Husking corn I was, in the cocina. I saw Hap Kingman ride his caballo down Manzanita Hill, es seguro—and then he turned and rode away!"
A muscle twitched in Melrose's cheek. Cold dread kindled in his slitted eyes.
"You must be loco, Juan. Hap Kingman is dead—" Everett Kingman gulped audibly and reminded his chief:
"Don't forget that Hap's carcass wasn't discovered along with his hoss, when the sheriff come back with Joe Ashfield. There's a chance Hap pulled through, chief. An' first thing he'd do would be to come back an' try to look up Anna—"
Melrose turned grimly to Everett Kingman. "Rustle up some of the boys and ride to Mexitex," he rasped. "If you spot Hap Kingman, gun him down and light a shuck for the Rio. Hide out in Maduro until I send for you—but don't let Hap Kingman escape alive!"
Bushwack Bullets Page 14
