“Will you sit down?”
“Thanks, but I c’n sort of talk better, standin’ up. I dunno just how tuh get intuh what I want tuh say, but I…well, after I shot Mort—”
“You?”
“Eh?” said Yuma in surprise.
“Did you say you shot Mort?” demanded Penny.
“Sure! I would have drilled him clean if I hadn’t been thrown off by yer uncle’s shootin’. That’s why I come here.”
“My-my uncle’s shot…then there were two shots?”
“We both fired tuhgether, Bryant an’ me. His rifle bullet jest missed me. It drilled my hat here, as you c’n see.” Yuma stuck his finger through a neat hole in his hat. “I was fool enough tuh let Bryant know that I knowed the crooks that was workin’ here. He tried tuh kill me so’s I couldn’t tell no one.”
“Yuma, that isn’t true. Uncle Bryant fired at Mort. He thought he hit Mort; he told me so.”
Yuma nodded. “That’s what his story’ll be,” he said, “only, it don’t go down with me. I come tuh ask yuh, Miss Penny, if there ain’t some place you can go instead o’ here.”
“But I don’t want to go anywhere else. Furthermore, I don’t believe what you said about my uncle.”
“Yuh won’t leave, eh?”
“Of course not! This is my home!”
“It’d be downright unsafe here if somethin’ happened tuh Bryant, wouldn’t it, ma’am?”
Penny drew herself up stiffly. “Aren’t you,” she demanded, “having a lot to say—for a cowhand?”
“Mebbe so,” the cowboy muttered. “I’m right sorry.” With that he turned and walked away.
Penny sat down on the steps more bewildered than ever. She felt weak, helpless against the strange confusion of ideas and intrigue, suspicions and apprehensions, in the Basin. She stared across the level ground and saw the mouth of Bryant’s Gap brilliantly lighted by the moon.
CHAPTER X
THE LONE RANGER
It was daybreak when the man in the cave wakened in surprise to find that he had slept the night through. A fragrant aroma of coffee and bacon crisping on a fire made him realize that he was ready for a solid meal. Tonto looked up from his cooking and grinned. The Texan felt of his wounded shoulder. He was amazed at the way the swelling had completely disappeared. He could even move his arm without too much pain. He felt alive this morning. He stood. He was a bit unsteady, but his wounded foot would bear his weight, thanks to the manner in which Tonto had bandaged it.
Sunlight streamed past the opening of the cave and turned the Gap bright and cheerful. Cold water dashed into his face made the Ranger wide-awake. He felt of his three-day growth of beard and turned to Tonto. “I must look like a desert rat,” he said ruefully.
“That easy to fix. How you feel?”
“First-rate, Tonto, thanks to you.”
Tonto beamed and dished up fresh eggs with the bacon. “Today,” he said, “you get plenty well.”
Food never tasted finer than that breakfast did. When it was finished, the Indian produced the Ranger’s duffle, which included, not only shaving materials, but fresh clothing. While the Texan pulled off the mud- and blood-stained remnants of the clothing he’d been wearing, and bathed in the cool stream, the Indian told how he had buried the men in the canyon during the night. He explained that he’d made six fresh graves, though only five men were dead. Whoever visited the scene of battle, and no one from the Basin had yet done so, might wonder who had done the burying, but the impression would be given that all six of the Rangers had died. The trail would clearly show that but six men had ridden there and six lay buried. There would be no search for a survivor who might carry back to town the news of the massacre. The farsighted Indian had destroyed the trail made by the one who lived as he had crept from the scene.
The identity of the wounded man was buried in an empty grave. The Ranger saw the wisdom in Tonto’s scheme. So far he had no idea who the killers were. If they knew he had survived, they would hunt him down while he had no conception of their identity. With the killers misguided into false security, he would be left unmolested as long as he wasn’t recognized as a Texas Ranger.
When he had finished dressing in the clean clothes and boots that Tonto had brought, the Texan sat beside the stream to think. Tonto busied himself about the cave, showing a tact and understanding that was rare in any man. The Indian seemed to know that the Texan wanted to be left alone. He waited to answer what questions might be asked.
The Texan’s eyes fell upon a small black book that was on the gravel at his side. It lay open to the flyleaf, and there was an inscription penned in the fine handwriting that engravers try so hard to copy. The man picked up the Bible and looked at his mother’s words: “To my son, with all my love and a prayer that he will carry with him always the lessons we studied together.”
He remembered candle-lit evenings at his mother’s side in a pioneer home. He recalled the time when he had memorized the Ten Commandments, reciting them, then listening to his father’s interpretation of the original laws of living as applied to life in the new West. Those laws had seemed so simple, yet so all-embracing. His father had said that life was supposed to be simple and that only man-made laws complicated things.
Man-made laws failed so often. As a Texas Ranger he had seen rich murderers freed by juries while poor men were jailed interminably for stealing food to ward off the death of their starving children. Man-made law couldn’t be relied upon to serve the highest form of justice. He thought of his five comrades, now buried in an isolated gap. What law could punish their murderers? How could he find those murderers, and having found them, what proof would there be against them? “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” That was the law. Yet who was there to find and punish those who had already killed five brave men? He knew something of the Cavendish clan. In the Basin there were men who would probably give false testimony. There was unlimited money to be spent in bribes if needed. There was Bryant Cavendish, a law unto himself. Against these forces he stood alone, and practically helpless.
In spite of the odds against his success, the Texan found himself breathing a silent pledge to the souls of his friends. “I’ll find the ones who did it,” he whispered, “and I’ll see them made to pay in full.”
Even as he spoke he knew of another pledge he’d made. A pledge to his mother that he’d mind the precepts he had learned. One of these was “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”
While pledged not to kill, he must confront hard men to whom murder was a mere detail in a day’s work. When and if the showdown came, after he had found the murderers he sought, it would probably be a case of kill or be killed. He didn’t mind dying if it would serve his ends, but his own death would in no way avenge the lives of his friends. Neither would it serve the cause of justice by ridding the country of inglorious ravagers.
He found himself considering the things in his favor. The fact that he had survived the fight was known only to himself and Tonto. He would not be recognized because of his horse. The only other men who knew that white stallion were dead. He could change his appearance by disguise, if necessary. He wondered if these last few days hadn’t already changed his looks. He felt he must have aged considerably. His outlook on life was certainly changed. He no longer felt like the carefree Ranger. He felt older, more serious, more grim.
He rose to his feet and called, “Tonto.”
The Indian advanced. In his hand there were guns, holsters, and a heavy cartridge belt. “Maybe now,” he said, “you look at guns.”
The Texan recognized the brace of perfectly matched and balanced revolvers. “My own!”
Tonto nodded. “After you fall, other Ranger take guns. Tonto find near fight.”
The weight of the belt on his hips was good. It gave the man a feeling of competence. He drew the guns and spun them by the trigger guard. Reflected light splashed off the spinning weapons.
Then the butts dropped in his palms, and the guns were steady. With those weapons the Ranger had ridden a fast horse at top speed and kept a tin can bouncing ahead of him with bullets. He could—and frequently he had done it—restrain his draw until fast gun-slingers had their own weapons free of the holster, and still get the drop on them.
He “broke” one of the guns and dumped the cartridges into the palm of his hand. “You loaded them, eh?”
Tonto nodded.
There was something about the cartridges—they gleamed brilliantly. He studied them a moment, and looked questioningly at the Indian.
“Those bullet,” Tonto said, “are silver.” It was true. The bullets in the cartridges were hard, solid silver. The Texan looked puzzled. “That makes pretty high-priced shooting,” he said.
“You not shoot much,” Tonto replied. Then he explained how the precious metal for the bullets had come from the Texan’s own silver mine. Tonto himself had cast the metal.
The white man marveled at the complete knowledge Tonto had of him and of his affairs.
Then Tonto brought a mask from beneath his buckskin shirt. It was black, and fashioned to cover the entire upper part of a man’s face, effectively concealing all identity.
“Wear this,” Tonto said.
The white man hesitated. “If I go about wearing a mask, the law will be in full chase in no time,” he said.
Tonto nodded. “You hunt-um outlaw!”
Birds of a feather! By concealing his identity with the mask, his disguise would serve a second purpose. It would mark him in such a way that outlaws might welcome his company and thus put him in possession of information otherwise impossible to secure.
“Other Ranger all dead,” said Tonto, as the white man tried the mask and found it a perfect fit. “You only Ranger now. You all alone.”
“All alone,” repeated the other softly. “Except for you, Tonto. It seems that it’s your plan for us to travel together.”
Tonto nodded slowly, soberly. He held out his brown hand again. In the palm there was a metal badge. The Texas Ranger’s badge. The white man took it, looked at it, then closed his fist about it tightly. “The Texas Rangers,” he said softly, “are dead. All six of them have gone. In their place there’s just one man. The lone Ranger.” He put the badge deep in his pocket and murmured again, “The Lone Ranger.”
CHAPTER XI
THE LONE RANGER RIDES
The lone ranger kept the mask across his eyes and experimented with his guns. His shoulder made it hard for him to draw the gun on his left, but he found that his smooth speed seemed to have suffered no loss when he drew the other shining weapon. As a test he unloaded and holstered the pistol. “I’ll just make sure,” he muttered to Tonto. Standing with his right hand straight before him, palm down, he placed a pebble on the back of his hand. He dropped the hand with almost invisible speed, jerked out his gun, leveled it, and snapped the hammer back, then down. All this was done before the pebble touched the ground.
Tonto grinned at the demonstration and said, “That do.”
The masked man sat down and replaced the cartridges in his gun’s cylinder. “So we’re going to travel together,” he said.
Tonto nodded slowly.
The Lone Ranger liked the idea. Tonto’s unequaled knowledge of woodcraft and his animal-like skill in following a trail that was invisible to white men would make him a powerful ally.
Tonto told about the cattle trails he’d found beyond the top of Thunder Mountain, and the trail that led from the mountain’s top to the clearing and beyond into the Basin. He told of his suspicions that stolen cattle were harbored in the Basin.
When the masked man asked where Tonto had secured the food he’d brought, the Indian evaded answering. His pride had suffered when he had been compelled to ask a girl to help him. He felt just a little bit like many of the vagrant, begging Indians that were so despised in certain parts of the country. Nothing but the urgent need of his friend would have prompted Tonto to request those favors, and he fully intended some day to wipe out the obligation. The Lone Ranger didn’t press the point.
Tonto did, however, answer many questions that had bothered the masked man when he explained how he happened to find the cave. He had heard shots in the Gap, and gone toward the sound. Scrambling down a rocky side of the canyon in the dark, he had seen a white horse dimly outlined in the darkness. He hadn’t suspected that the horse was Silver, but instinctively he had sounded the birdlike trill that Silver knew. When the big stallion came to Tonto’s side, he saw that there was no equipment behind the saddle and assumed that Silver was alone. He had led Silver into hiding until dawn, when he followed the back trail to the scene of murder. Signs there showed that one man had gone wounded from the scene. He followed, then, the blood-marked trail until he came to the cave.
“As simple as all that,” the masked man commented when Tonto finished his recital. “If I hadn’t been so nearly unconscious, I’d have recognized your whistle.”
The two spent most of the forenoon making plans and preparations. The masked man’s wounds still bothered him, but he felt equal to a long ride and he was eager to get started on his investigation. He wore the mask continually, so it would become a familiar part of him, and not something strange that hampered his movements.
After their noon meal the two were ready, with their duffle loaded on the backs of Scout and Silver. The white horse seemed eager to be in action once again with his master in the saddle. He whinnied jubilantly when the cinch was pulled tight, and his great strength showed in every rippling muscle beneath his snow white coat.
Tonto mounted Scout, then waited. The Lone Ranger placed one foot in the stirrup and shouted, “Hi-Yo Silver!” The big horse lunged ahead. “Away-y-y,” the ringing, clear voice cried as the masked man settled in the saddle. Silver was a white flame leaping ahead, with silky mane and tail blown straight out by the wind, like the plumes of a knight in white armor. Sharp hoofs hammered on the hard rocks in a tattoo that thrilled like rolling drums. Silver had his master in the saddle, Tonto close behind him. The master’s voice rang out again to echo both ways in the canyon, “Hi-Yo Silver, Away-y-y-y.” Tonto, watching from his saddle close behind the mighty Silver, whispered, “Now Lone Ranger ride.”
A stretch of flat tableland extended for several miles between the rim of the Gap and the foot of Thunder Mountain. After the first thrilling dash, the Lone Ranger slowed Silver to let Tonto take the lead and set the route. The Indian knew exactly where to go to reach the mountain’s top without passing through the Basin. The masked man was not strong enough for great activity, but Tonto anticipated none for the time being. The purpose of this trip was merely one of observation. The Indian intended to point out cattle trails he’d seen, and study them. In so doing he and the Lone Ranger would get further away from the danger of the cave’s proximity to the Basin killers.
Tonto felt sure that the ride wouldn’t overtax the masked man. He knew his white friend was perfectly at home in the big saddle and perhaps far more comfortable than he’d be chafing with inactivity in the cave.
After an hour or so of riding, the ground became more rocky and difficult. Just ahead the mountain rose majestically. Thunder Mountain didn’t divulge her secret dangers. At first the ground sloped only gently upward, with an occasional large tree that gave soft shade. Like a seductress in green, the mountain lured the stranger on with promises of things that were ahead. The trees became more frequent; then larger trees with tangled vines in close embrace made travel harder. As the climb became steeper, leafy discards which had rotted to soft loam gave birth to rank weeds.
The inclination increased so gradually that one wasn’t aware that it was changing. The Lone Ranger realized quite suddenly that his horse was laboring. The weeds had become a crazy tangle, merging with the vines that hung from overhead like spectral streamers. There was a constant clammy caress of invisib
le cobwebs on the Lone Ranger’s face, and the less subtle, sometimes painful brushing of tree trunks against his thighs.
Silver’s coat became blood-flecked where briars and brambles raked the skin. The riders had frequently to crouch or be swept from the saddle by low, far-reaching branches. None but Tonto could possibly have followed this weird and devious route.
Daylight in the woods was at best twilight. Human intrusion brought a constant cacophony of cries and chattered complaints from birds and beasts. No breeze could possibly penetrate this fastness, and the breath of the decaying things was hot and fetid as it rose from the ground. The most distant horizon was within arm’s reach. Underbrush so high that it reached overhead rose from slime that was sometimes ankle-deep.
The ride seemed endless, but the end came without warning. Breaking through a particularly dense cover of berry canes with briars that hurt, the riders found it clear ahead. The land was hard and almost arid. A thought made the masked man smile despite his exhaustion. Old Thunder Mountain needn’t be so proud—her head was bald. Wind and rain had swept the summit clean except for a few gaunt stumps of lightning-blasted trees.
Tonto was at the masked man’s side, offering to help him from the saddle.
“Now we rest,” he said. “You need rest plenty bad.”
“I’m able to go on, Tonto. It’s good to be riding again.”
Tonto shook his head. “We stop here. You rest. Tonto talk.”
CHAPTER XII
A LEGAL PAPER
In the clear air one could see for miles from the top of Thunder Mountain. The Basin, most of it at least, was hidden by the foliage, but the view in the opposite direction encompassed endless plains that led to ranches beyond the horizon. The masked man wondered how many of those ranches had contributed to the crisscrossing of cattle tracks on the bald dome where he stood.
Tonto pointed out the things that he’d observed on previous visits and indicated where a trail had been cut to make a descent straight into the Basin.
Meanwhile, most of the people in the Basin went to Becky’s funeral. It was a simple ceremony without tears, conducted by Jeb Cavendish. No one who had known Rebecca’s life could feel sorry for her for having been released. Penny held the hands of the oldest children during the burial. She frequently felt the eyes of Yuma, standing unhatted with a number of other men, upon her, but each time she looked at the blond cowboy he was staring at the ground. Vince was there, and so were most of the cowhands. Wallie was somewhere away from the Basin. Bryant had a distant view from his seat on the porch of the house. Mort was still in bed with a bandage around his neck.
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