And, as it happened, Larry was moving, slowly but surely, swimming underwater. Not until his lungs seemed to be bursting did he dare to break the surface. When he did, he found himself some five yards downstream from the still-mounted intruders. He was close to the bank, and the horseman nearest him was the lawyer, Tyler Halsey.
Like Stabile and the Markhams, Halsey was concentrating all his attention on Stretch and the newspaperman. He had assumed, as Markham had assumed, that Larry’s life had been snuffed out by that first shot. Larry didn’t try to move quietly. Thanks to the din of the waterfall, there was no need. Halsey’s back was turned to him.
He moved to the bank, began hauling himself up. Stretch spotted him and, somehow, managed to keep his face impassive. Smokey was staring straight at the elated Markhams—frightened, but as inquisitive as ever.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “Markham—have you lost your mind?”
“Pathetic, isn’t it?” Garth grinned at the deputy. “He knows nothing.”
“And he’ll die curious!” jeered Kane.
“D-d-die?” blinked Smokey.
“We owe you a vote of thanks, gentlemen,” grinned Halsey, “for leading us to the richest silver lode in Nevada Territory.”
“What’re we waiting for?” Stabile wanted to know.
“First we dispose of these witnesses,” decided Garth. “And then—it’ll be our turn to investigate the other side of the waterfall.”
Somehow, Stretch resisted the impulse to drop his gaze to Smokey’s saddlebag—where the Walker reposed. He had just remembered the big gun. Could he hope to reach it—faster than a bullet? Maybe he could at that, because Larry was about to create the necessary diversion.
Larry had advanced to the right side of Halsey’s mount. His left hand rose and fell—hard. The sudden slap startled the lawyer’s animal. It reared in alarm and, as Halsey struggled to remain mounted, Larry seized his right boot, jerked it from the stirrup and heaved upwards with all his might. The lawyer’s yell was just loud enough to reach the other men. Instinctively, they twisted to stare backwards—giving Stretch his chance.
To the confused Smokey, what followed was fast, furious and violent. Stretch unseated him, in his urgent haste to reach the Walker. By the time Stretch was hefting the heavy weapon and hammering back, Smokey was on the ground, rolling over and blinking in bewilderment. Halsey, too, was down, sprawling on face and hands, with Larry wresting the Colt from his grasp. Stabile yelled a curse, swung his gun towards Larry, but not fast enough. Larry triggered, cocked, triggered again, and scored with both bullets. Simultaneously, Stretch got the mighty Walker working, with fatal consequences for Kane Markham. The impact of the .44 slug drove him clear off his horse to strike the ground shoulders-first.
In panic, Garth Markham wheeled his mount. His six-gun boomed and jumped in his fist, as he fired wildly at Stretch and the prone newspaperman. A bullet actually kicked dirt into Smokey’s face, momentarily blinding him. Another dug a crease along Stretch’s ribs, buffeting him, almost throwing him off-balance. The Walker sagged in his grasp. He cursed luridly, began raising the heavy weapon again.
“Drop it!” Larry roared at Markham.
Markham crouched in his saddle, thrust his gun-filled fist towards the sodden figure hovering over the prone lawyer. Grim-faced, Larry fired. The boss-thief shuddered, groaned, pitched over sideways. As he crashed to the ground, his Colt discharged, but to the sky.
Larry’s cold eyes travelled from the huddled bodies of Stabile and the Markhams to Stretch’s contorted face and the ground-hugging newspaperman, then to the lawyer, who was now struggling to his feet. A violent oath erupted from him. He dropped the six-gun, grasped Halsey by the front of his jacket and backhanded him three times. Halsey bunched a fist in retaliation, but never threw the punch, because Larry spun him around, shoved him to the bank and into the creek.
“Drown the sonofagun,” scowled Stretch.
And, to the confused Smokey, it appeared that this was Larry’s intention. Halsey was being held underwater. His arms and legs flailed. His fingers clawed at Larry’s face, and still Larry held him under.
“No, Larry!” gasped Smokey. He struggled to his feet, dashed to the bank and yelled a plea. “It’s better we take him alive! There may be others involved! You can force a confession from him ...!”
Larry eyed him a moment. There was a mystery here. He knew only one of the intruders—the deputy, Stabile. The other three he had never seen before. And he disliked mysteries. Just this once, Smokey was making sense. Why not faze a few fast answers from this jasper? He turned and waded to the bank, dragging the waterlogged Halsey by his coat-collar.
Stretch had dismounted and was taking off his bloodied shirt.
“Goin’ in for our hardware,” he told them, as he trudged to the bank.
“Stay put,” ordered Larry, “and keep your eye on this sidewinder. I’ll find the hardware.”
“You’re wounded, too,” fretted Smokey.
“It don’t hurt worth a damn,” retorted Larry, as he plunged back into the creek.
By the time he had located their side arms and was again climbing to dry land, Smokey had got a fire started. Stretch squatted by the fire, almost dislocating his neck in his eagerness to examine his wound.
“How bad is it?” demanded Larry, as he dropped the gunbelts and flopped beside his partner.
“A shallow gash—not too bad,” muttered Smokey. As well as kindling a fire, he had broken out the medical kit, a small box containing bandages, balms and antiseptics. He might not have brought it along had Esther not insisted.
“Kinda sudden, weren’t they?” mused Stretch. “I swear I never suspicioned anybody was taggin’ us.” He eyed the newspaperman sourly. “Little man—you sure you didn’t gab it around, ’fore we left Blanco Roca? Seems to me these galoots knew what they were after.”
“I give you my word,” Smokey earnestly assured him, “I said nothing to anybody.” He transferred his gaze to Larry. “Turn around. Let me see your back.” Larry twisted Smokey squinted, and observed, “You must live right, Larry. That bullet might’ve smashed your backbone or injured a kidney.”
“I feel fine,” shrugged Larry. “And don’t waste your time with bandages.” He nodded to the falls. “I’ll be in and out of there a dozen times or more, before we head for home.”
“Cave in back of the falls, huh?” frowned Stretch.
“In a couple hours,” nodded Larry, “we could chip out enough silver to make Anna a rich woman.”
Halsey rolled over, gasping. Smokey threw him a glance, shook his head sadly, and declared, “I just don’t understand it. They meant to murder us.”
“We ran into the deputy before,” muttered Larry, “but I don’t know about the other three. Who are they, anyway?”
“This one is Tyler Halsey—a lawyer,” said Smokey. “The other two were the Markham brothers. They ran an assay office in Blanco Roca. I’m puzzled, Larry, and that’s putting it mild. Until now, I thought they were respectable businessmen.”
“Well,” grunted Larry, “Mr. Halsey is gonna explain everything.” He glowered at the lawyer. “Start from the beginning—and you better make sense. If I think you’re lyin’ ...” He jerked a thumb to the creek, “… I’ll finish what I started a little while ago.”
“Better talk fast, lawyer-man,” advised Stretch. “Next to shootin’ skunks, Larry dearly loves to drown ’em. It’s kind of a hobby with him.”
“Tell it plain,” Larry ordered the lawyer.
And Halsey told it. In defeat, he had lost the last shreds of his courage. The violence—so bloody, so final—had unnerved him. He punctuated the confession with desperate lies, striving to minimize his own complicity in Garth Markham’s venal scheme, but the Texans weren’t fooled.
At the end of it, Smokey opined, “It’s damn-near unbelievable.”
“You got to believe it,” Larry relentlessly pointed out, “because you saw it happen.”
~*~
They took their time over the tricky chore of hacking the precious metal from the walls of the cavern, and Tyler Halsey spent most of those forty-eight hours tied to a tree. Before the mining operation began, they removed all identification from the bodies of the three would-be thieves and buried them some short distance from their camp. The other mules were located and brought to the makeshift corral that housed their own animals.
By dawn of the third day, they were ready for the return journey to Blanco Roca. Every mule was heavy-laden. Halsey was unceremoniously lashed to his horse, his feet secured by a line slung under the animal’s belly, his hands tied to the saddlehorn. Smokey was in high spirits again and the Texans, despite the smarting of their wounds, felt equal to the long ride home. They had completed their mission. Anna’s future was secure—which meant that Sam, their unofficial godson, would grow Jo manhood in an atmosphere unmarred by financial problems. They were more than satisfied with the results of their labors.
At Smokey’s suggestion, upon their return to the boomtown, they made straight for the headquarters of the territory’s biggest mining project, the Gersten-Wallace Combine.
“What Anna really needs,” the newspaperman reminded them, “is ready cash and plenty of it. Better we should offer this shipment to the combine immediately, than store it in my rear yard. We have to be practical, boys.”
“I guess you’re right,” agreed Larry. “And it wouldn’t surprise me if these big-shots make her an offer muy pronto—after they get an eyeful of this load.”
The representatives of the mining company reacted exactly as Larry had anticipated. Veterans though they were, they had never handled ore to compare with the shipment now undergoing analysis. They were amazed and somewhat incredulous, but the evidence was here before their eyes—the richest horde of silver they had ever seen.
By noon of that day, all negotiations were successfully concluded. The Gersten-Wallace officials had assessed the value of the shipment and had made Anna an offer that almost caused her to swoon. She might have done so, had she not been nursing her son at the time. Upon her accepting the figure named, the official undertook to have the money deposited to her credit in a local bank.
At the jailhouse, a stunned Marshal Fames installed the shattered Tyler Halsey in a cell. Halsey’s confession was repeated by Smokey—reading aloud from his own notes—after which the Texans and their host were reunited with Esther at the Bugle Call office.
They arrived noisily and triumphantly. The drifters traded weary grins, as Smokey embraced his anxious spouse and cheerfully informed her, “I was involved in a gunfight, almost caught pneumonia helping Larry and Stretch to mine the silver, took a shot at a mountain lion ...!”
“Godfrey Daniel!” gasped Esther.
“What an experience!” enthused Smokey. “And wait till you read my story. It’ll have to be serialized through three editions. I knew it, by golly! I knew—if ever I could ride with Larry and Stretch—I’d end up writing the greatest story of my career!”
“Don’t holler,” grinned Larry.
“It ain’t couth,” yawned Stretch.
Smokey went to work at once, setting up type. Smiling softly, Esther opened a drawer of his desk, produced the whisky bottle and retreated to her kitchen, signaling for the Texans to follow her. Coffee was brewed and poured. Into their mugs, she added generous shots of the raw bourbon. They gulped gratefully, flopped into chairs, and her kitchen hadn’t appeared as untidy in many a year. She made her short speech of thanks, with fervor.
“You brought him back safe and sound,” she murmured. “I knew you would. I had confidence in you.”
“He wasn’t such a doggone nuisance as I feared he’d be,” Stretch charitably confided, “and I’ll allow he ain’t afeared of hard work.”
“The waitin’,” mused Larry, “must’ve been rough for you—and Anna, too.”
“You’ll go to see her?” asked Esther. “I think you should.”
“Rightaway,” Larry assured her.
“Yeah,” grinned Stretch. “We hanker to see the little feller again.”
The babe was wide-awake, grinning in his mother’s arms, when Pete Davidson ushered the drifters into the hotel room. Another speech of gratitude began, but Larry cut it short.
“It wasn’t a real tough chore,” he told Anna. “Of course, we weren’t countin’ on gettin’ jumped by that Markham bunch, but ...”
“But that wasn’t no problem,” drawled Stretch. “No problem at all.”
“Only one thing I’m sorry about,” declared Pete Davidson. “I wish I could’ve gone along with you.”
“We managed,” shrugged Larry. At a time like this, understatement came naturally to him.
“Larry—Stretch,” smiled Anna, “I’m having a hard time persuading Pete to accept my proposal of marriage, but I won’t stop trying until he says yes. Do you have to hurry away from Blanco Roca?”
“Well,” frowned Larry, “we only came here to find Sam’s mother.”
“And we did,” said Stretch, “and now our feet itch again.”
“Could you stay awhile?” she begged. “Just long enough to be guests at the wedding—and later on, when Sam is christened?”
Much as they itched to be gone from this territory, they agreed to delay their departure and attend both ceremonies. In the days between, the Gersten-Wallace Combine sought Anna’s permission to investigate the Moon Mountain claim, on the understanding that they would subsequently make an offer for her entire inheritance.
Smokey Leonard’s stirring account of the Moon Mountain affair was duly purchased by an eastern news syndicate and was enjoying a wide circulation, by the time Larry and Stretch filled their saddles and traded goodbyes with all interested parties. It was a slow but pleasant progress, that last ride along Blanco Roca’s main stem.
They were farewelled from the front porch of the Bonanza by Toby Jaeger and Doc Kyle, and a grinning Big Red Peck, and from the law office porch by Marshal Fames and Deputies Paulson and Meyers. As they passed the Mid-Town Hotel, they exchanged waves with the smiling family on the first-floor gallery—Anna Davidson, her husband and son.
Last, but by no means least, they found a small trio awaiting them at the edge of town—Carolyn, and sisters Susannah and Gabriella. Very solemnly, Carolyn declared, “We’re awful sorry you have to go.”
The Texans reined up awhile, hooked legs over their saddle horns and began rolling cigarettes.
“Well,” frowned Larry, “we have to go anyway.”
“We always move on, kids,” explained Stretch. “Never stay long in any one place.”
“But you have to promise to come back again,” insisted Carolyn. She smiled eagerly.
“You young ’uns take care of yourselves,” ordered Larry. “Go to school regular and don’t make trouble for your folks. And, in a few years, maybe we’ll stop by Blanco Roca again.”
“Could be we’ll be in a marryin’ mood,” drawled Stretch. “Like my old Aunt Lulu used to say, ‘There oughta be at least one marriage in every family’.”
“Well—goodbye,” sighed Carolyn.
“We’ll be waiting for you,” grinned Susannah. Gabriella chuckled and waved frantically—at the horses, not at the Texans. The drifters lit their cigarettes, gravely doffed their Stetsons to their small admirers and nudged their mounts to movement.
“How about that?” Larry wistfully remarked, when Blanco Roca was a half-mile to their rear.
“Sure enough,” grinned Stretch, “we won ourselves a coupla hearts.”
“Don’t laugh at ’em,” growled Larry.
“All right,” shrugged Stretch. “You want we should hang around hereabouts, wait for them kids to grow up—then get hitched to ’em?”
“We couldn’t settle peaceful in Blanco Roca,” declared Larry, “or any other town. We ain’t the settlin’ kind.”
“Ain’t it the truth?” Stretch cheerfully agreed.
The Larry and Stretch Se
ries by Marshall Grover
Drift!
Arizona Wild-Cat
Ride Wild to Glory
Nomads from Texas
Ride Out Shooting
… And more to come every month!
LARRY AND STRETCH 5: RIDE OUT SHOOTING
By Marshall Grover
First Published by The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd
Copyright © Cleveland Publishing Co. Pty Ltd, New South Wales, Australia
First Smashwords Edition: April 2017
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd.
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