by John Glasby
The minutes passed slowly. The glare of sunlight, striking the rocks, reflected back at every turn, a continual glare that acted with the growing heat to make them more uncomfortable. They ran down a narrow incline. On either side, rock walls began to lift, breaking now and again, but growing more solid as they progressed. They were entering the pass through the rocks. Leaning sideways a little, he kept a hawk-eyed watch on the rocks. Dimly, he heard the driver urging the horses on. Then there came the sudden sharp bark of a rifle from almost directly ahead of them, the evil, shrill whine of the slug as it spun in murderous ricochet off the rocks. There came a harsh shout. The guard seated on the box fired once, then uttered a low grunt. Out of the corner of his vision, Thorpe saw him slide sideways and crash on to the rocks, his body rolling over and over down the slope as the startled horses continued to plunge forward.
‘Hold it there, driver, or you’re a dead man,’ yelled a raucous voice from somewhere among the rocks.
For a moment, Thorpe thought that the driver intended to ignore the warning, to slash at the horses with the whip and drive them on, hoping to run the gauntlet of gunfire. Then there came the squeal of brakes being applied, the harsh scrape of the wheels on the dirt. Stones flung up by the horses’ hooves struck the side of the door.
Ignoring the danger, Thorpe pulled the Derringer from his pocket, thrust his head through the window, leaning out as far as possible. Sunlight, striking down through the narrow pass, half blinded him so that it was almost impossible for him to make out anything. Then he saw the weaving pattern of a moving man among the rocks, a man who had stepped out of cover and was advancing down the slope, holding a rifle in his hands.
‘Don’t be a goddamned fool,’ fussed Carnford from the other corner of the stage. ‘If you pull a gun on them, they’ll kill us all. I’m prepared to let ’em have any valuables I’m carrying so long as they leave me be.’
Thorpe drew back his lips tightly across his teeth. He levelled the small pistol on the man’s chest, finger tightening on the trigger. Then he jerked his arm up savagely, his numbed fingers dropping the Derringer on to the rocks outside the stage as it slowed to a halt. A sharp gasp of agony broke from his lips as something scorched along his arm. He felt the warm trickle of blood oozing from the wound, was only vaguely aware of the shot that had been fired from somewhere nearer at hand.
‘Don’t try any heroics, mister,’ snarled a voice. ‘Now get out of there and keep your hands where we can see ’em.’
From the edge of his vision, Thorpe saw another shape rising up from the jumbled boulders. The outlaw came forward, a neckpiece wrapped tightly over the lower half of his face. He grasped a Colt in his right hand, the faint wisp of smoke still curling from the end of the barrel.
Clutching at the stage door with his good hand, Thorpe climbed down and stood looking about him with a narrowing concentration. He did not recognize any of the four men who came forward now, but with the neckpieces pulled down over their faces, that was not surprising. It was not until he stared at the fourth man standing near the horses that he felt there was something oddly familiar about him, though what it was he could not quite fathom.
‘Now this ain’t goin’ to take long, gents,’ said the tallest man. He motioned with his Colt to the driver who sat with his hands raised on the stage box.
‘Toss down that strongbox and be quick about it.’
‘Ain’t nothin’ in there that will pay for holdin’ up the stage,’ grunted the other hoarsely.
‘We’ll be the best judge of that,’ snapped the man near the horses. ‘Just throw it down. Hurry!’
The driver complied reluctantly. The strongbox hit the ground with a dull thump, rolled over once, then came to a standstill in the dust near the big man. He bent, caught it up and carried it over to the rocks. ‘Reckon we’d better take a look inside anyway.’ Pointing his revolver at the box, he fired twice. The heavy slugs tore the hasp of the lock away and he bent on one knee, throwing back the lid.
‘Just like we figured,’ he said, with a note of rising excitement in his voice. ‘Piled high with gold. Reckon there must be close on five thousand dollars worth here. Not a bad haul.’
While he had been examining the strongbox the other three men had kept everyone covered with their guns. Now the man with the patch over his left eye moved away from the horses, stepped across to the open box and glanced inside. He nodded his head, satisfied. ‘I guess we may as well relieve the passengers of anything they may have. All contributions will be most welcome.’
‘You’ll never get away with this, whoever you are,’ said Carnford, plucking up courage. He sounded righteously indignant.
The small man nearby thrust the end of his gun barrel into the other’s ribs. Carnford’s face turned white as the blood drained from it and he doubled up in agony, knees buckling. He would have fallen had the other not reached out, gripped him by the shirt front, twisting the material into a tight ball in his fist, and holding him up.
‘We’re doin’ it,’ he said thickly. ‘Now stand back against the stage and keep your hands lifted.’
Somehow, Carnford complied with the order. His features were still ashen, contorted by the force of the vicious blow to the pit of the stomach. He made no further protest as the other went through his pockets, ripped the gold watch away from his buttonhole with a sharp tug that tore through the cloth. He removed the other’s wallet, then walked in no hurry towards Thorpe.
‘You figurin’ on askin’ for more trouble, mister?’ he sneered.
‘No,’ said Thorpe evenly. He was acutely aware of the pain lancing through his arm and of the blood soaking through the cloth of his jacket sleeve, but he somehow managed to keep every trace of pain and emotion out of his voice. ‘But I’ll personally see to it that the four of you are hanged for this.’
Patch-Eye said sharply: ‘Shut up, mister; and do like he tells you. If you do that, ain’t nobody goin’ to get hurt.’
While two men searched the passengers, the other two carried the strongbox back into the rocks to the waiting horses. Then Patch-Eye came back. He stood for a minute watching them, then said to one of the men.
‘Loosen the horses and drive them off.’
Carnford started forward at that as the truth burst upon him. ‘You can’t do that. You can’t leave us here to die of thirst.’
‘Reckon then that you’d better start walkin’ it back to Triple Peaks.’ The other’s neckpiece ruffled as though he were grinning behind it, then throwing a quick, meaningful glance at the heavens: ‘Won’t be long before the sun really gets up. You don’t want to wander too long in the heat. A man can go mad that way.’
While he had been talking, one of the men had unhitched the horses from the stage. Lifting his gun he fired a couple of shots into the air. The startled animals raced off along the trail, dragging their harness behind them. They would keep running for several miles, thought Thorpe before they slowed up. And these men had headed them out east, so that it was out of the question to try to walk in that direction and catch them.
The men stood quietly while Patch-Eye whistled up his horse. He climbed swiftly into the saddle, wrenched the horse’s head about. Spurred heels dug deeply into the animal’s flanks. A leap that covered fifteen feet and he was racing back into the rocks. The rest of the men followed him and within moments the thunderous tattoo of hooves on rock had faded into the distance.
Thorpe drew up slowly, turned to look at the other men standing near him. Slowly, he grew aware of the blood that trickled down his injured arm and of the throbbing agony of it.
‘How bad are you hurt, Thorpe?’ asked Jordan, stepping forward. ‘Think you can make it back to town?’
‘I’ll make it,’ said the lawyer thinly. ‘I’ll make it, because I mean to see to it that those four men hang for what they did today. You’d better walk back and see how the guard is. Though I reckon from the way he fell that there’ll be nothing we can do for him.’
‘Maybe if we w
ere to stay here in the stage somebody would come along and then fetch help from town,’ suggested Carnford. He rubbed the pit of his stomach gently where the pistol barrel had been jammed into his flesh.
‘That ain’t likely, mister,’ put in the driver. He rubbed a hand over his grizzled beard. ‘Don’t get many men usin’ this trail in the heat of the day. And it’ll be a long while before they get worried about us at the way station on the edge of the desert.’ His narrowed eyes glanced up at the sun, a glaring white disc in the cloudless heavens. ‘Reckon it’s goin’ to be as hot inside the stage as outside, once the sun gets to its zenith.’
‘You’re right,’ said Thorpe. ‘We have to start walking. We’ve got no other choice. You got any water on the stage?’
‘Some,’ muttered the other. He hauled himself up on to the tongue of the coach, came down a moment later with two canteens slung over his shoulder. ‘I always carry these with me. Never know when they’ll come in handy crossin’ that hell country yonder.’ He jerked a thumb in the direction of the desert that lay beyond the range of hills on the horizon. ‘Once threw a wheel there and damned near died. Make sure that never happens again.’
Jordan came back along the trail. ‘The guard’s dead,’ he said dully. ‘Bullet must ’ve killed him outright. Just below the breastbone.’
‘Then we’d better leave him here, send somebody back for him when we reach town. No sense in wasting time and effort trying to bury him in this ground.’
They began the long journey back to Triple Peaks. Very soon, the burning sun was upon them with its full blasting heat and it was hard to keep walking when every step sent spasms of agony through their bodies, their feet blistered by the hard, uneven ground, the dust scoring their faces and working its way between their clothing and their flesh, gumming their mouths and eyes. When a faint breeze lifted shortly after high noon, it did nothing to soften the terrible, parching heat. Rather it made things worse, for it picked up handfuls of the itching grains of sand and flung them into their faces, even when they forced themselves to walk with bowed heads.
The fifteen miles back into town took them the whole of that day, through the blistering heat of the noon and the long, drawn-out afternoon, when every breath of air that went down into tortured lungs seemed to have been drawn over some vast oven before it reached them. By the time they staggered into the outskirts of Triple Peaks, Thorpe was in a bad way. His arm seemed swollen to twice its normal size and his mind kept wandering so that it was hard for him to concentrate on what was happening. Several times he would have fallen on that terrible trail, would have lain there unable to rise had not Jordan hauled him to his feet, forcing him on.
He drew in a great sobbing breath as they walked along the main street of town, a street that now lay covered with deep shadows, with the sun touching the distant mountain crests, a blood red orb that held very little heat. There was a cooling river of air flowing along the street but Thorpe was only vaguely aware of it, scarcely knew it when men moved out from the boardwalk, clustered about them, when a couple of men ran along the street for the sheriff and another went for the doctor.
All he was aware of was the throbbing in his arm and body, a pain that pulsed with every beat of his heart and the blood-soaked sleeve of his jacket, the red stain there clotted with the yellow-white dust from the desert. As a man in a dream, he knew that men were half-carrying him into one of the buildings by the side of the street, then there was a face bending over him, a wavering grey blur that approached and receded in a curious fashion that he could not fathom. Fingers were cutting into the fabric of his sleeve with long scissors and he felt the cold touch of steel on his flesh. Then there was nothing more for a long time.
During that period, he wakened for varying lengths of time, but on each occasion, he felt it impossible to take in anything around him. It was not until almost a week later, that he wakened and looked about him with eyes that were able to take in what they saw. He felt hungry and hot, his mind a little puzzled by what he saw.
With an effort, he tried to force himself up in the bed, but a pain, lancing through his head, forced him to relax and lie down once more, a long sigh escaping from his lips. He kept his eyes open, staring up at the ceiling above him, trying to sort things out in his mind, trying to remember what had happened and how he came to be in this room, one which he did not recognize. These thoughts were still running through his mind when he heard the door of the room open and someone come in. With a wrench of neck muscles, he turned his head to look round and a voice said:
‘So you’re awake at last, Wayne. I never thought I’d see you pull through.’
Thorpe narrowed his eyes. For a moment, his vision seemed curiously blurred. Then he recognized the man standing beside the bed. ‘Hello, Doctor,’ he said, his voice sounding strained and flat so that he scarcely recognized it as his own. ‘Where am I? What happened?’
Doc Wheeler smiled faintly, seated himself in the chair near the bed and felt for Thorpe’s pulse. ‘You’ve been very ill, Wayne,’ he said quietly. ‘In fact, there were times when I never thought you’d recover. That bullet in your arm must have set up some form of poisoning and that trek here was more than enough to half kill you. If you hadn’t the constitution of a horse, you’d be dead by now, in spite of my expert doctoring.’
Turning his head, Thorpe glanced at his arm. There was a bandage around it and it felt stiff whenever he tried to move it. But his mind was clear now and gradually, memory returned. At first, only in little snatches, but then forming a recognizable picture.
He rubbed a hand over his forehead. ‘I remember now. The stage was held up by four masked men. Did you get them?’
Wheeler shook his head. ‘They lit out for the mountains apparently. There was no chance of finding them there, although Jessup took out a posse the same night that you arrived back in town.’ His face remained serious as he spoke and Thorpe watched him closely for a moment before speaking.
‘Seems to me you’ve got something else on your mind, Doc. What is it?’
‘You know how long you’ve been unconscious, Wayne?’
‘A couple of days judging by how hungry I feel.’
‘Just over a week,’ said the other tightly. ‘And in that time, those outlaws have struck again, not once, but three times. They hit the bank in Culver City, got away with nearly ten thousand dollars. They attacked the pay office of the Mining Company and they robbed one of the stores here in Triple Peaks.’
Thorpe lay for several moments, trying to digest this news. It was hard to believe. For a long time now, they had lived without trouble in this part of the territory. True, they had long known that there were outlaws in the hills to the east, but until now those men had made no attempt to attack the town. They had seemed content to stay there, out of reach of the law. Now they had been formed into an outlaw band by someone and their reign of terror had clearly begun.
‘And what is Jessup doing about it?’ he demanded weakly. ‘Is he just sitting in his office and letting this happen?’
‘Seems to me that Jessup isn’t concerning himself overmuch with what’s been happening,’ remarked the other, with a curious tone in his voice. ‘He’s taken out a posse now and again, but with no success. If you ask me, he’s scared of meeting up with these hombres.’
‘That’s what I figured,’ said Thorpe evenly. He felt a faint chill of premonition in his mind, shivered a little. What horror was about to be let loose on the town in the near future? he wondered tensely.
It took sightly less than a week for Thorpe to be up on his feet again. Even at the end of that time, he did so in the face of opposition from the doctor. There was a subdued grimness in Triple Peaks now, a feeling that Wayne Thorpe recognized the first time he walked through the town. He recognized also the deep-seated uneasiness of the townsfolk. It was undeniably the attack on the store, more than the hold-up of the stage, which contributed most to their grimness. That, and the fact that it was becoming increasingly plain that
the law, in the person of Sheriff Jessup, seemed unable to cope with the situation.
Very soon, the people of Triple Peaks would have to face up to the situation. If they had known of Thorpe’s suspicions, they would have been even more apprehensive. It seemed to the lawyer that nobody had noticed that shortly before the stage had been held up, the man who had called himself Smith, had vanished from the town and had not been seen since. Whether there was any connection, he was not sure; but on the third day after he was allowed up, Wayne Thorpe went along to the telegraph office and sent off an urgent telegram.
Chapter Four: Stranger in Town
From long habit, Garth Martinue rode through the blasting midday heat at a leisurely gait. When a man had long distances to cover, the slow way was the best. He had been travelling now for seven days and in all of that time, he had seen men only at a distance, as tiny clouds of yellow-white dust along the rim of the desert, clouds of dust that had seemed no bigger than a man’s hand. He had received the message from Wayne Thorpe in Triple Peaks a little over eight days before. At first, he had puzzled over it, then decided to act on it, and had set out the very next day, knowing the long distance he had to cover and wondering why his old friend had sounded so urgent in the telegram.
For a moment, he straightened up in the saddle, rubbed his face where the dust had mingled with the sweat, forming an irritating mask over his flesh. He rode with a rider’s looseness about him. the clear grey eyes watching every movement in the rocks about him. There had been little to keep him company now except for the purple sand lizards and an occasional rattler coiled in a hollow among the rocks.
The single rifle shot came clear and loud in the clinging stillness, shattering the silence into screaming fragments of sound, the slowly atrophying echoes dying away among the slow-rising hills. Swiftly, instinctively, Garth swung himself around in the saddle, jerking up the reins, holding them tightly as he felt the horse start at the sudden, unexpected sound. Eyes narrowed as they searched the low hills about him, he tried to make out the direction from which the crack of the gunshot had come, but he could not. There were too many narrow canyons and bluffs close by to refract the sound and channel it into a multitude of different directions. Then, abruptly, there came the sound of another shot. This time, he judged it to be a revolver shot and he gauged it to come from his right, from somewhere beyond the narrow tangle of scrub that grew along the top of the bluff above him. Swinging the horse around, he put it to the steep ascent. Hooves clawing at the loose shale and dirt underfoot, the horse began the long struggle to the top. It was hard going and Garth leaned back in the saddle to help the animal.
