Egan and Smith would have their eyes on Jake Hitson, but he might find some means of getting away. Certainly, Steve thought grimly, nothing on horseback was going to catch him now.
The wind grew still colder and howled mournfully under the dark, needled trees. He shivered and hunched his shoulders against the wind. Once, half alseep, he almost fell from the horse when the gray shied at a fleeing rabbit.
As yet there were no Indians. He peered ahead across the bleak and forbidding countryside, but it was empty. And then, not long later, he turned down a well-marked trail to Trinity Creek.
He swung down in front of a log bunkhouse. A miner was at the door.
“A hoss?” The miner chuckled. “Stranger, you’re shore out of luck. There ain’t a hoss hereabouts you could get for love or money.”
Steve Mehan sagged against the building. “Mister,” he mumbled, “I’ve just got to get a horse. I’ve got to.”
“Sorry, son. There just ain’t none. Nobody in town would give up his hoss right now, and they are mighty scarce at that. You’d better come in and have some coffee.”
Steve stripped his saddle and bridle from his horse and walked into the house. He almost fell into a chair. Several miners playing cards looked up. “Amigo,” one of them said, “you’d better lay off that stuff.”
Mehan’s head came up heavily, and he peered at the speaker, a blond giant in a red-checked shirt.
“I haven’t slept since I left Sacramento,” he said. “Been in the saddle ever since.”
“Sacramento?” The young man stared. “You must be crazy.”
“He’s chasin’ a thief,” said the miner Steve had first seen. He was bringing Steve a cup of coffee. “I’d want a man awful bad before I rode like that.”
“I got to beat the steamer to Portland,” Steve said. It was a lie in a way, but actually the truth. “If I don’t, the fellow will get away with fifteen thousand dollars.”
“Fifteen thou…” The young man laid down his hand. “Brother,” he said emphatically, “I’d ride, too.”
Steve gulped the coffee and lurched to his feet.
“Got to find a horse,” he said, and lunged outside.
It took him less than a half hour to prove to himself that it was an impossibility. Nobody would even consider selling a horse, and his own was in bad shape.
“Not a chance,” they told him. “A man without a hoss in this country is through. No way in or out but on a hoss, and not an extry in town.”
He walked back to the stable. One look at his own horse told him the animal was through. There was no chance to go farther with it. No matter what he might do, the poor creature could stagger no more than a few miles. It would be killing a good horse to no purpose. Disgusted and discouraged, numbed with weariness, he stood in the cold wind, rubbing his grizzled chin with a fumbling hand.
So this was the end. After all his effort, the drive over the mountains and desert, the long struggle to get back, and then this ride, and all for nothing. Back there in the Paiute the people he had left behind would be trusting him, keeping their faith. For no matter how much they were sure he would fail, their hopes must go with him. And now he had failed.
Wearily he staggered into the bunkhouse and dropped into his chair. He fumbled with the coffeepot and succeeded in pouring out a cupful. His legs and feet felt numb, and he had never realized a man could be so utterly, completely tired.
The young man in the checkered shirt looked around from his poker game.
“No luck, eh? You’ve come a long way to lose now.”
Steve nodded bitterly. “That money belongs to my friends as well as me,” he said. “That’s the worst of it.”
The blond young fellow laid down his hand and pulled in the chips. Then he picked up his pipe.
“My sorrel out there in the barn,” he said, “is the best hoss on the Trinity. You take it and go, but man, you’d better get yourself some rest at Scott Valley. You’ll die.”
Mehan lunged to his feet, hope flooding the weariness from his body.
“How much?” he demanded, reaching for his pocket.
“Nothin’,” the fellow said. “Only if you catch that thief, bring him back on my hoss, and I’ll help you hang him. I promise you.”
Steve hesitated. “What about the horse?”
“Bring him back when you come south,” the fellow said, “and take care of him. He’ll never let you down.”
Steve Mehan rode out of Trinity Creek ten minutes later, and the sorrel took to the trail as if he knew all that was at stake, and pressed on eagerly for Scott Valley.
The cold was increasing as Steve Mehan rode farther north, and the wind was raw, spitting rain that seemed to be changing to snow. Head hunched behind the collar of his buffalo coat, Steve pushed on, talking low to the horse, whose ears twitched a response and who kept going, alternating between a fast walk and a swinging, space-eating trot.
Six hours out of Trinity Creek, Steve Mehan rode into Scott Valley.
The stage tender took one look at him and waved him to a bunk.
“Hit it, stranger,” he said. “I’ll care for your hoss!” Stumbling through a fog of exhaustion, Steve made the bunk and dropped into its softness…
Steve Mehan opened his eyes suddenly, with the bright sunlight in his face. He glanced at his watch. It was noon.
Lunging to his feet, he pulled on his boots, which somebody had removed without awakening him, and reached for his coat. The heavy-set red-haired stage tender walked in and glanced at him.
“See you’ve got Joe Chalmers’s hoss,” he remarked, his thumbs in his belt. “How come?”
Steve looked up. “Chasing a thief. He let me have it.”
“I know Chalmers. He wouldn’t let Moses have this hoss to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Not him. You’ve got some explainin’ to do, stranger.”
“I said he loaned me the horse,” Steve said grimly. “I’m leaving him with you and I want to buy another to go on with. What have you got?”
Red was dubious. “Don’t reckon I should sell you one. Looks mighty funny to me, you havin’ Joe’s hoss. Is Joe all right?”
“Well,” Steve said wearily, “he was just collecting a pot levied by three treys when I talked to him, so I reckon he’ll make out.”
Red chuckled. “He’s a poker-playin’ man, that one. Good man, too.” He hesitated, and then shrugged. “All right. There’s a blaze-faced black in the stable you can have for fifty dollars. Good horse, too. Better eat somethin’.”
He put food on the table, and Steve ate too rapidly. He gulped some coffee, and then Red came out with a pint of whiskey.
“Stick this in your pocket, stranger. Might come in handy.”
“Thanks.” Mehan wiped his mouth and got to his feet. He felt better, and he walked to the door.
“You ain’t got a rifle?” Red was frankly incredulous. “The Modocs will get you shore.”
“Haven’t seen hide nor hair of one yet,” Steve said, smiling. “I’m beginning to think they’ve all gone East for the winter.”
“Don’t you think it.” Red slipped a bridle on the black while Steve cinched up the saddle. “They are out, and things up Oregon way are bad off. They shore raised ructions up around Grave Creek, and all the country around the Klamath and the Rogue is harassed by ’em.”
Somewhere out at sea the steamer would be plowing over the gray sea toward Astoria and the mouth of the Columbia. The trip from there up to the Willamette and Portland would not take long.
The black left town at a fast lope and held it. The horse was good, no question about it. Beyond Callahan’s, Steve hit the old Applegate wagon trail and found the going somewhat better and pushed on. Just seventy hours out from Knights Landing he rode into Yreka.
After a quick meal, a drink, and a fresh horse, he mounted and headed out of town for the Oregon line. He rode through Humbug City and Hawkinsville without a stop and followed a winding trail up the gorge of the Shasta.
On
ce, after climbing the long slope north of the Klamath, he glimpsed a party of Indians some distance away. They sighted him, for they turned their horses his way, but he rode on, holding his pace, and crossed Hungry Creek and left behind him the cairn that marked the boundary line of Oregon. He turned away from the trail then and headed into the back country, trying a cut-off for Bear Creek and the village of Jacksonville. Somewhere, he lost the Indians.
He pushed on, and now the rain that had been falling intermittently turned to snow. It began to fall, thick and fast. He was riding out of the trees when on the white-flecked earth before him he saw a moccasin track with earth just tumbling into it from the edge.
Instantly he whipped his horse around and touched spurs to its flanks. The startled animal gave a great bound, and at the same instant a shot whipped by where he had been only a moment before. Then he was charging through brush, and the horse was dodging among the trees.
An Indian sprang from behind a rock and lifted a rifle. Steve drew and fired. The Indian threw his rifle away and rolled over on the ground, moaning.
Wild yells chorused behind him, and a shot cut the branches overhead. He fired again and then again.
Stowing the Smith & Wesson away, he whipped out the four-barreled Braendlin. Holding it ready, he charged out of the brush and headed across the open country. Behind him the Modocs were coming fast. His horse was quick and alert, and he swung it around a grove of trees and down into a gully. Racing along the bottom, he hit a small stream and began walking the horse carefully upstream. After making a half mile, he rode out again and took to the timber, reloading his other pistol.
Swapping horses at every chance, he pushed on. One hundred and forty-three hours out of Knights Landing, he rode into Portland. He had covered six hundred and fifty-five miles. He swung down and turned to the stable hand.
“That steamer in from Frisco?”
“Heard her whistle,” said the man. “She’s comin’ up the river now.”
But Steve had turned and was running fast.
The agent for the banking express company looked up and blinked when Steve Mehan lurched through the door.
“I’m buying cattle,” Steve told him, “and need some money. Can you honor a certificate of deposit for me?”
“Let’s see her.”
Steve handed him the order and shifted restlessly. The man eyed the order for a long time, and then turned it over and studied the back. Finally, when Steve was almost beside himself with impatience, the agent looked up over his glasses at the bearded, hollow-eyed young man. “Reckon I can,” he said. “Of course there’s the deduction of one half of one percent for all amounts over a thousand dollars.”
“Pay me,” Steve said.
He leaned over the desk, and suddenly the deeptoned blast of the steamer’s whistle rang through the room. The agent was putting stacks of gold on the table. He looked up.
“Well, what do you know? That’s the steamer in. I reckon I better see about…”
Whatever he was going to see about, Steve never discovered, for as the agent turned away, Steve reached out and collared him. “Pay me,” he said sharply. “Pay me now.”
The agent shrugged. “Well, all right. No need to get all fussed about it. Plenty of time.”
He put out stacks of gold. Mentally Steve calculated the amount. When it was all there, he swept it into a sack—almost fifty pounds of gold. He slung the sack over his shoulder and turned toward the door.
A gun boomed, announcing the arrival of the steamer, as he stepped out into the street. Four men were racing up the street from the dock, and the man in the lead was Jake Hitson.
Hitson skidded to a halt when he saw Steve Mehan, and his face went dark with angry blood. The blue eyes frosted and he stood wide-legged, staring at the man who had beaten him to Portland.
“So!” His voice was a roar that turned the startled townspeople around. “Beat me here, did you? Got your money, have you?” He seemed unable to absorb the fact that he was beaten, that Mehan had made it through.
“Just so you won’t kick anybody out of his home, Jake,” Steve said quietly, “and I hope that don’t hurt too much.”
The small man in the black suit had gone around them and into the express company office. The other men were Pink Egan and a swarthy-faced man who was obviously a friend of Hitson’s.
Hitson lowered his head. The fury seemed to go out of him as he stood there in the street with a soft rain falling over them.
“You won’t get back there,” he said in a dead, flat voice. “You done it, all right, but you’ll never play the hero in Paiute, because I’m goin’ to kill you.”
“Like you killed Dixie and Chuck?” challenged Steve. “You did, you know. You started that landslide and the Mojaves.”
Hitson made no reply. He merely stood there, a huge bull of a man, his frosty eyes bright and hard under the corn-silk eyebrows.
Suddenly his hand swept down.
When Steve had first sighted the man, he had lowered the sack of gold to the street. Now he swept his coat back and grabbed for his own gun. He was no gunfighter, and the glimpse of flashing speed from Hitson made something go sick within him, but his gun came up and he fired.
Hitson’s gun was already flaming, and even as Steve pulled the trigger on his own gun, a bullet from Hitson’s pistol knocked the Smith & Wesson spinning into the dust! Steve sprang back and heard the hard, dry laugh of triumph from Jake Hitson’s throat.
“Now I’ll kill you!” Hitson yelled.
The killer’s eyes were cold as he lifted the pistol, but, even as it came level, Steve hurled himself to his knees and jerked out the four-barreled Braendlin.
Hitson swung the gun down on him, but, startled by Steve’s movement, he swung too fast and shot too fast. The bullet ripped through the top of Mehan’s shoulder, tugging hard at the heavy coat. Then Steve fired. He fired once, twice, three times, and then heaved himself erect and stepped to one side, holding his last shot ready, his eyes careful.
Hitson stood stockstill, his eyes puzzled. Blood was trickling from his throat, and there was a slowly spreading blot of blood on his white shirt. He tried to speak, but when he opened his mouth, blood frothed there, and he started to back up, frowning.
He stumbled and fell. Slowly he rolled over on his face in the street. Blood turned the gravel crimson, and rain darkened the coat on his back.
Only then did Steve Mehan look up. Pink Egan, his face cold, had a gun leveled at Hitson’s companion. “You beat it,” Pink said. “You get goin’!”
“Shore.” The man backed away, staring at Hitson’s body. “Shore, I’m gone. I don’t want no trouble. I just come along, I…”
The small man in black came out of the express office.
“Got here just in time,” he said. “I’m the purser from the steamer. Got nearly a thousand out of that bank, the last anybody will get.” He smiled at Mehan. “Won another thousand on your ride. I bet on you and got two to one.” He chuckled. “Of course, I knew we had soldiers to put ashore at two places coming north, and that helped. I’m a sporting man, myself.” He clinked the gold in his sack and smiled, twitching his mustache with a white finger. “Up to a point,” he added, smiling again. “Only up to a point.”
Fork Your Own Broncs
Mac Marcy turned in the saddle and, resting his left hand on the cantle, glanced back up the arroyo. His lean, brown face was troubled. There were cattle here, all right, but too few.
At this time of day, late afternoon and very hot, there should have been a steady drift of cattle toward the water hole.
Ahead of him he heard a steer bawl and then another. Now what? Above the bawling of the cattle he heard another sound, a sound that turned his face gray with worry. It was the sound of hammers.
He needed nothing more to tell him what was happening. Jingle Bob Kenyon was fencing the water hole!
As he rounded the bend in the wash, the sound of hammers ceased for an instant, but only for an instant.
Then they continued with their work.
Two strands of barbed wire had already been stretched tight and hard across the mouth of the wash. Several cowhands were stretching the third wire of what was obviously to be a four-wire fence.
Already Marcy’s cattle were bunching near the fence, bawling for water.
As he rode nearer, two men dropped their hammers and lounged up to the fence. Marcy’s eyes narrowed and his gaze shifted to the big man on the roan horse. Jingle Bob Kenyon was watching him with grim humor.
Marcy avoided the eyes of the two other men by the fence, Vin Ricker and John Soley, who could mean only one thing for him—trouble, bad trouble. Vin Ricker was a gun hand and a killer. John Soley was anything Vin told him to be.
“This is a rotten trick, Kenyon,” Marcy declared angrily. “In this heat my herd will be wiped out.”
Kenyon’s eyes were unrelenting. “That’s just tough,” he stated flatly. “I warned you when you fust come in here to git out while the gittin’ was good. You stayed on. You asked for it. Now you take it or git out.”
Temper flaring within him like a burst of flame, Marcy glared. But deliberately he throttled his fury. He would have no chance here. Ricker and Soley were too much for him, let alone the other hands and Kenyon himself.
“If you don’t like it,” Ricker sneered, “why don’t you stop us? I hear tell you’re a plumb salty hombre.”
“You’d like me to give you a chance to kill me, wouldn’t you?” Marcy asked harshly. “Someday I’ll get you without your guns, Ricker, and I’ll tear down your meat house.”
Ricker laughed. “I don’t want to dirty my hands on you, or I’d come over an’ make you eat those words. If you ever catch me without these guns, you’ll wish to old Harry I still had ’em.”
Marcy turned his eyes away from the gunman and looked at Kenyon.
West of the Tularosa Page 10
