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CONTENTS
About the Book
Copyright
One – The Coming of Sam
Two – The Man from Moon Mountain
Three – The Witnesses
Four – Thieves’ Council
Five – Menace in the Night
Six – Anatomy of a Double-Cross
Seven – Too Many Shocks
Eight – No Genuine Papoose
Nine – Westbound
Ten – Crisis at Moon Mountain
The Larry and Stretch Series
More on Marshall Grover
Hit the danger trail with Larry and Stretch ... and ride out shooting!
The battle of Moon Mountain might have been the Texans’ last fight. Their luck had run out, but they were still defiant, as tough as ever, and a force to be reckoned with. Once again, the West’s rowdiest trouble-shooters are up to their Texas ears in violence, intrigue and sudden death. Once again, the fists fly and the guns roar. Once again, the lawless get more than they bargained for, in a hectic fight to the finish with the Lone Star Bravados.
One – The Coming of Sam
The Texans were about to roll into their blankets beside the campfire, when the deputation arrived. And maybe ‘deputation’ wasn’t quite the word. War party seemed a better term to describe the two-score swarthy, buckskin-clad intruders. With startling suddenness, swiftly and silently, the clearing in the woods was invaded. The Lone Star Hellions were surrounded.
Stretch Emerson blinked incredulously, and remarked, “Injuns!”
Larry Valentine squatted on his blanket and wisely resisted the impulse to reach for his weapons. His quiet warning stayed Stretch’s hand.
“Don’t show a gun, big feller.”
To offer resistance would be worse than futile, Larry observed. The redmen were heavily armed. Almost every warrior toted a rifle, with the muzzle pointed at the seated Texans.
“For all we know,” he muttered, “they’ve been creepin’ up on us for a half-hour or more.”
“Plumb sneaky,” scowled Stretch.
“Smile,” growled Larry. “They got the edge on us.”
It was a sizeable clearing, well sheltered. Until this moment, Larry had considered it an ideal site for their night-camp. They had cooked and disposed of a substantial supper with their customary relish. They were a mite saddle-sore and eager for sleep. And now this! Very slowly, he produced his Durham-sack and papers, began building a cigarette. Maybe this casual act would convince the intruders that he wasn’t alarmed.
He took a glowing twig from the fire, lit his smoke, raised his right hand in the peace-sign, and drawled, “Howdy.”
Forty pairs of dark eyes continued to appraise the drifters from out of forty swarthy faces. Stretch fidgeted uncomfortably. The red men moved in closer, giving Larry an opportunity for a more thorough appraisal. This was Nevada Territory, so these warriors could be Piutes. Uh huh. Piutes they were. Nothing surer. War paint? No. They weren’t wearing war paint, and that was something to be grateful for. A few sported broad-brimmed Stetsons with goose-feathers stuck into the bands. One wore a shirt of checked flannel. Another was garbed in patched levis. Could they be reservation Indians? He hoped so.
One of the bucks approached the fire and stood within swinging distance of the seated Larry. He was a tall one, and Larry got the impression the others were deferring to him, waiting for him to speak. Could this be the boss-man of this party? The tall brave spoke.
“Gatamano,” he announced.
“Gatamano,” retorted Stretch, “to you, too.”
“Don’t back-talk him,” chided Larry. He dribbled smoke through his nostrils, frowned up at the tall one. “Gatamano? That’s your name?”
The brave nodded.
“You parlay any English, Gatamano?”
“Some,” grunted Gatamano.
“Well ...” Larry threw his partner a sidelong glance, “now we’re gettin’ somewhere. At least we can talk.”
“Oh, sure,” scowled Stretch. “So now they can tell us why they’re gonna cut our throats. That’ll be a big help.”
Gatamano sank to the ground, squatting cross-legged in front of Larry. To Stretch, Larry said, “You’d better leave all the talkin’ to me.”
“Don’t I always?” countered Stretch.
“No kill white man,” muttered the Piute chief, “if white man do as I say. Kill white man muy pronto—if white man say no.”
“Well,” frowned Larry, “I reckon that’s plain enough.” He eyed Gatamano steadily. “What’s your problem?”
“Gatamano look for white man,” announced the chief.
“You mean—us?” challenged Larry.
“Any white man,” said Gatamano.
“For what?” demanded Larry.
Gatamano offered an explanation, and somewhat heatedly, using broken English spiked with scrambled Spanish. It was incomprehensible to Stretch, but not to Larry.
“He’s got somethin’ that belongs to the palefaces,” he told Stretch, “only he don’t want it any more. So he wants for us to take it back to where it belongs—meanin’ a town called Blanco Roca, which ain’t far from here.”
“Boy,” frowned Stretch, “this here’s a sick Injun, and no mistake. First time I ever heard of an Injun givin’ back what he stole from a white man.”
Gatamano’s eyes flashed. Curtly, he declared, “No steal!”
“Okay.” Larry nodded placatingly. “You didn’t steal it. You just found it—whatever it was.”
“No steal,” repeated Gatamano. “No find.”
“All right then,” shrugged Larry, “How’d you get it?”
“One Piute hunter go to paleface village—trade pelts,” explained Gatamano. “White woman give to him, say this belong to Piute, so he bring to Valley of the Yellow Sun.”
“That’s the reservation?” asked Larry. “The Valley of the Yellow Sun?”
Gatamano nodded.
“Well—you must’ve signed a treaty with the whites.”
“Made peace,” grunted Gatamano. He pointed to Larry, then at Stretch. “But kill you muy pronto, if you not help us.”
“Doesn’t give us any choice, does he?” mused Larry. He nodded resignedly. “Well, Gatamano? Just what do you want us to take to Blanco Roca?”
The chief signaled the braves. From the rear, one came padding to the fire, toting a blanket-wrapped bundle. Gatamano took it from him, dumped it into Larry’s lap, and declared, “You take it back, we no kill. You say ‘no’—and we kill fast. Kill you—and paleface papoose.”
Larry started convulsively. A stream of oaths erupted from the incredulous Stretch, as the bundle heaved on Larry’s lap. Larry grasped at it, pulled back a fold of the blanket and blinked down into the tiny face—round, pudgy, pallid.
“Hell’s bells and holy Hannah,” he breathed, “it’s a baby!”
“Paleface papoose,” nodded Gatamano.
“Hold on now!” protested Stretch. “No white woman would give a baby to these doggone Injuns! It don’t make sense!”
“Quit hollerin’,” scowled Larry. “Put a smile on your face and keep your big mouth shut.” He studied the babe’s face a moment, then stared hard at Gatamano. “Chief—you sure this sprig belongs in Blanco Roca?”
Gatamano was more than sure, and said as much. He spoke vehemently, sometimes incoherently, so that Larry had to piece the story together bit by bit. It finally made sense—as much sense as could be found in such an outlandish story. Ten months before, a Piute hunter from the reservation had visited the big township to the west, Blanco Roca, for the purpose of trading pelts for tobacco and canned food.
Apparently, Piutes were no novel
ty in Blanco Roca. The saloons were barred to them, but they were permitted to trade with Blanco Roca’s merchants if they so desired. The hunter was about to leave town and head back to the reservation, when a white woman accosted him and shoved a wrapped bundle into his arms—the same babe now writhing in Larry’s lap. The hunter had protested, but in vain. The woman had assured him that the babe was of Indian blood and belonged with its own people.
At first, Gatamano had been inclined to agree, and to accept the infant as being Piute, entitled, therefore, to the protection of the reservation tribe. Certainly, the babe had looked Piute, with its dark skin, dark eyes and raven hair. But, with the passing of the months, the chief decided he’d been duped. No Indian babe, this. The skin became fair, the eyes bright blue.
“Piute take care of their own,” he assured Larry, “but no white papoose. Let white papoose be fed by paleface.”
“You figure that hunter was tricked into bringin’ the young ’un home,” mused Larry, “and I got to agree with you.” He drew back the blanket, exhibited the infant for Stretch’s nervous inspection. “Injun?”
“Hell, no,” grunted Stretch. “If that’s a Piute papoose, I’m a Chinaman’s grandpappy. The kid’s white all right.”
“What else can you tell us?” Larry asked the chief. “Who was the woman? Was she young, old, fat, skinny?”
“Not know,” said Gatamano. “Only know papoose not Piute. You take um, and you go free. No fighting. No killing. You say you no take, and ...”
“Like I said before,” drawled Larry, “you don’t give us any choice.”
“Hell, runt,” fretted Stretch, “what’re we gonna do with a consarned baby?”
“Find its momma,” growled Larry.
“But where?” wondered Stretch.
“Somewhere in Blanco Roca is my hunch,” shrugged Larry. “No use complainin’, big feller. They got us outnumbered.” He nodded to the chief. “All right, Gatamano. It looks like you made yourself a deal.”
“Bueno,” grunted Gatamano.
As silently as they had arrived, the red men departed. Within the minute, the clearing was deserted—except for the Texas Hell-Raisers and their small charge.
“Spooky,” complained Stretch. “Spookiest thing I ever seen. They were all around us—and we didn’t hear ’em.”
Larry offered no rejoinder. He was anxiously examining the infant. Gatamano had repossessed the Piute blanket, so that the unwanted mite was now clad in naught but diaper, nightgown and cotton undershirt. The chuckling sounds and the threshing of chubby arms and legs indicated the infant was healthy enough. Soberly, Larry wondered if it would stay that way. He knew little of Blanco Roca, except that it was a boom silver-mining town some two days’ journey to the west. Could a couple of fiddle-footed drifters keep a ten-month-old babe alive during that journey?
“We have to,” he vehemently asserted. “And that’s that!”
“Have to what?” blinked Stretch.
“Look out for the young ’un,” muttered Larry. “Find its home. Give it back to its momma.”
“You keep sayin’ ‘it’,” frowned Stretch. “Don’t it have to be a boy-baby—or gal-baby—one thing or the other?”
Larry made a further examination, intimate but necessary. A sigh of relief escaped him, as he announced, “He’s a boy.”
“Bueno,” grinned Stretch. “Women are trouble, I always say.”
Larry wrapped the babe in his own blanket, settled it beside the fire. They traded thoughtful frowns and tried to visualize the problems in store for them.
The reluctant godfathers had been on the drift many a long year. Thrown together as mere youths during the closing stages of the Civil War, they had stayed together thereafter, rarely visiting vast, dusty Texas, their home state. Across the southwest they had wandered. As far west as the California line, as far south as the Rio Bravo and beyond, as far east as the Mississippi and as far north as the Canadian border, their names had become a legend in their own lifetime.
Oddly enough, and despite their talent for violence, they were natural enemies of the lawless. In battle against rustlers, stage-robbers—any variety of malefactor that a lawman could name—they fought with the strength of ten, asking no quarter, giving none. Yet they had naught but contempt for the majority of duly appointed lawmen. Badge-toters were, to the Lone Star Hellions, a questionable necessity, a potential hindrance and, nine times out of ten, a doggone nuisance.
Larry Valentine was a husky, brawny, dark-haired man with a weather-beaten handsomeness and a questing, agile mentality. He was near six feet three inches tall, even without his boots. He wore shabby range clothes and, except when sleeping or bathing, he toted a Colt .45, a Bowie knife and a Winchester.
Stretch Emerson was lean and ungainly, standing a full two inches taller than his saddlepard, a fact that frequently moved him to address Larry as ‘runt.’ His hair was sandy and unruly. His eyes were clear blue and, most times, wore an expression of childish innocence, a mighty deceptive expression. He was lantern-jawed, with jug-handle ears. Not quite as mentally alert as Larry, he was still a force to be reckoned with. The scrawny frame was capable of spectacular feats of strength, especially during a brawl. He, too, used a Bowie and a Winchester, but he toted twice as much Colt as did Larry, a .45 at either hip, in holsters slung from a single, well-stocked cartridge belt.
The drifters were, at this time, headed no place in particular. And that was no novelty.
“I reckon,” decided Larry, “we might’s well catch up on our sleep.”
“Why, sure,” agreed Stretch. “Little Sam looks like he’s gonna sleep clear through till sun-up.”
“Sam?” challenged Larry.
“Gotta name him, don’t we?” shrugged Stretch. “Can’t call him, ‘Hey, You.’ It wouldn’t be polite.”
And so the unwanted babe was dubbed ‘Sam.’ After Sam Houston of Texas. Naturally.
As he laid his head to his saddle and flicked his cigarette into the fire, Larry yawned and announced, “We’ll get started early in the morning—head straight for Blanco Roca.”
They slept, but not for long. Twenty-five minutes later, some sixth sense caused Larry to open an eye. He cursed luridly, opened the other eye as well. Stretch came awake, asking, “What—uh—who—uh—where ...?”
“Grab him!” roared Larry.
Stretch rolled over, threw out a long arm and grasped the rear section of Sam’s diaper, hastily jerked backward. The babe had wriggled free of Larry’s blanket and had begun crawling—straight for the fire. Larry sought solace in a long minute of imaginative profanity, as he restored the chuckling infant to his swaddling clothes.
“It won’t be all that easy,” Larry decided. “Not for us, it won’t. For them that savvies babies, it’d be real simple. But not for us.”
“Damn right,” Stretch worriedly agreed. “We’ll be clumsy as a couple grizzly bears tryin’ to raise a chicken-hawk.”
“Sooner we hit Blanco Roca and unload Sam to a female, the happier I’ll be,” asserted Larry. “Any female will do! Any female that’ll give Sam a home.”
“It oughta be his own momma,” protested Stretch.
“I guess so,” nodded Larry. “Yeah. We’ll have to find out who he belongs to.” He scowled down at the infant. “How d’you like that? He’s sleepin’ again already! He shoots holes through our nerves—and now he sleeps again!”
“We can’t both sleep,” opined Stretch. “No tellin’ what he’ll do.”
“Go ahead,” sighed Larry. “I’ll rouse you when I can’t keep my eyes open.”
He squatted by the fire until ten of two, chain-smoking, watching the sleeping babe, listening to Stretch’s discordant snoring. Then, with his eyelids drooping, he nudged the taller Texan awake. Stretch sat bolt upright, his right fist full of cocked .45, and said, “Run for cover! You keep ’em busy, while I circle around behind ’em ...!”
“You and your wild dreams,” yawned Larry.
“How’s
Sam?” asked Stretch, with an apprehensive glance toward the silent bundle.
“He hasn’t budged again,” muttered Larry. “Keep an eye on him while I catch a little shut-eye.”
He slept deeply until six-thirty, then came awake to the feel of the sun on his face. The rays were filtering through the canopy of green above. Appetizing aromas wafted toward him from the fire, indicating Stretch had begun fixing breakfast. Sam was awake and abroad, crawling back and forth across the clearing, chuckling, drooling a little. He looked different this morning. Something square and white and moist hung from Stretch’s lariat, which had been strung between two trees. Rightaway, Larry recognized it as the baby’s diaper.
“It felt kinda wet,” Stretch cheerfully explained.
“You washed it?” frowned Larry, as he got to his feet. “Where?”
“Found a crick,” drawled Stretch, “’bout a hunnerd yards south o’ here.”
“You went to the damn-blasted crick,” challenged Larry, “and left the young ’un here—and me asleep? Hell’s bells—he might’ve crawled onto the doggone fire!”
“You think I got no brains at all?” countered Stretch. “I toted him down there with me.”
“How could you wash that consamed diaper,” Larry wanted to know, “and keep your eye on the kid? He might’ve fallen in the crick and drowned!”
“Made damn sure he didn’t,” Stretch smugly assured him.
“How?” demanded Larry.
“Roped him to a tree,” said Stretch.
“Well—all right,” shrugged Larry. “I guess that was the only thing to do.” He eyed the crawling babe again. “What kind of diaper is he wearin’ now? It looks like ...”
“Your bandanna, runt,” shrugged Stretch. “Well, I couldn’t let him go half-naked, could I? It wouldn’t be decent.”
~*~
Two days later, at sundown, the brothers Markham watched a gnarled old timer trudging into Blanco Roca’s main street from its north end, leading a laden burro.
“Coming in from the Calaveras,” guessed Garth Markham, the elder brother.
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