by Lauran Paine
“If you worked on my outfit,” stated Evart Hart-man, breaking across Smith’s running flow of words, “and talked this much, we’d hang you just plumb out of hand.”
Hartman turned for a final face-off with Homer Bradshaw. “I been saying it for years, Homer. You always were an underhanded feller.”
“I’m the law here!” exclaimed Bradshaw, glaring.
Hartman was not very impressed. “I’ll go around town and see about that, now. You been running out o’ rope for a long while, Homer.”
Rufe, who had not said a word, accompanied the old cowman back to the office, locked the cell-room door, and pitched the ring of keys over atop all those weapons on the desk.
“Well?” he said to Hartman.
“Seems Tome someone’s got to find your partner and Arlen Chase,” stated Hartman. “Also seems Tome someone’s got to ride atop the mesa and get Elisabeth Cane’s side of all this.” Hartman fished for his makings and stood, stooped and thoughtful, while Rufe went to the roadway windows and looked out. The crowd was still out there, but its mood had changed, which perhaps was inevitable. No one could stand around in the hot roadway being consistently angry or excited or indignant, whatever had motivated most of those men.
A number of men were idly standing over in front of the general store, talking. Others were southward and northward, but on the same, opposite, side of the road, also idly talking. The men out front, at the tie rack and in the vicinity of it, were mostly stock-men who were so accustomed to the heat they did not appear to be aware of it.
Rufe turned when the old cowman spoke through a thin drift of fragrant smoke.
“Where do you reckon them two went…Chase and your partner?”
Rufe had absolutely no idea. The last he had seen, Jud had just punched Arlen Chase through the doors of the saloon, and had jumped out behind him. There had been no gunfire, no great shouts by either man, but, of course, there had been the stun-ning aftermath of his shoot-out with Bull Harris to interfere with his own, and everyone else’s concern, about Jud and Arlen Chase.
He told the cowman that, if he could keep the townsmen and those range men out there as well from interfering, he would try and locate his partner. Hartman smoked, and thought, and finally said: “I’ll go with you.” He did not explain why he would do this, and Rufe, eyeing the shrewd older man, felt that he understood. Evart Hartman was not an incautious man. He had seemed entirely convinced by the story Rufe had told him. In the cell room his attitude had reinforced Rufe’s feeling that this was indeed so. On the other hand, Hartman’s offer to accompany Rufe was not based entirely upon a desire to help. He wanted to be along just in case all his partial convictions turned out to be incorrect. He looked like that kind of a man, shrewd, careful, completely and analytically poised.
Rufe went to the desk, picked up Hartman’s weapon, and handed it to him, then he motioned to-ward the door, and Hartman crossed over as he holstered his weapon. When he stood in the doorway, looking out, he spoke to the cowmen at the tie rack, but the moment that jailhouse door had opened, all those other men up and down the roadway, and upon the opposite plank walk, came straight up to listen.
Hartman was brusque. “Homer Bradshaw’s locked in a cell in here, boys, along with Matt Reilly and a couple of Arlen Chase’s men…his range boss is one of’em. Those rumors we been pickin’ up around town now and then about Chase making trouble for old Amos Cane’s girl atop the mesa been pretty much true. This feller in here with me, Rufe Miller, and his partner, the feller who’s missing along with Arlen Chase, work for Miz Cane. Me and this feller are going to ride out and see if we can’t find his partner and Chase. Someone’d ought to set here in the jailhouse and mind the town, and make certain none of the prisoners in here gets loose.”
Hartman did not ask for volunteers. He pointed over the heads of the men nearest him to a portly, dark-haired man over in front of the general store. “You, Lemuel. You’re head of the town council this year, and you got a clerk in the store to mind the business. You better come over here and ramrod this matter, because, sure as hell, Clearwater don’t have any law at all right now.”
Hartman dropped his arm, watched the distant storekeeper a moment to see whether he would agree, would start across toward the jailhouse, then called to Rufe to come out.
No one said a word. No one more than shuffled his feet a little when Rufe came forth from the jail-house, until he was fully out there on the plank walk, then the old man in the long coat, still clutching someone’s whiskey bottle, reared up from along the north doorways and said: “You sure done a job that’s been a long while finding someone to do it, sonny.” He did not explain, but the assumption was that he had in mind the killing of Bull Harris.
Evart Hartman called to a range man. “Jamie, fetch my horse down to the livery barn, will you?”
He strolled along with Rufe, and, as they entered the shady area out front of the barn, Rufe recognized a heavy-set, unkempt-looking individual standing in the runway of the barn that he had seen earlier rattling the jailhouse door, then stamping off, cursing, because that door had been locked. It was the livery-man. He greeted Hartman and Rufe with a palpably false smile and turned to pace along with them until Rufe located his horse, then the liveryman offered to do the rigging. Rufe declined, did his own saddling and bridling. Then he leaned across the saddle seat and said: “Hour back, or more, you wanted to get in-side the jailhouse, mister. I saw you up there shaking the door. Why?”
The liveryman’s coarse, florid features creased up into a smile that nearly completely obscured small, porcine eyes. “Just lookin’ for old Homer. Me and him usually share a cup of coffee in the morning. Been doin’ that for years, me an’ old Homer.”
Rufe had a feeling about the liveryman, but he neither knew the man personally nor had anything except that small feeling, so he scooped up reins and led his horse out front.
They did not have to wait long. When Hartman’s animal arrived, the cowboy who brought it looked closely at Rufe, but spoke to the old cowman. “You know what you’re doing, Pa?”
Hartman smiled for the first time. “No,” he told the young cowboy, “but that don’t have Tomean much. Mostly, in my lifetime, I’ve been doing things I wasn’t sure about.” His eye turned kindly. “You send your brother back to mind the ranch. You and the other boys hang around town until this here is settled, and don’t fret about me.”
For Rufe, the mystery of Jud’s disappearance seemed to be a case of pursuit. It had seemed to be that ever since Rufe’s last glimpse of his partner, lunging out through the saloon doorway behind Arlen Chase.
He knew that neither Jud nor Chase had fired a shot, because, thus far today, there had only been one gunshot around town—the one that had resulted in the death of Bull Harris. He also knew that Chase had the advantage of being familiar with Clearwater, while Jud was not. Also, Chase was familiar with the desert cow range on all sides of Clearwater.
Rufe led the way up the alley behind the livery barn, located the shed where he and Jud had put Ruff and Chase’s cocinero down in the bootleg hole, and took Hartman inside, just in case Jud had re-turned to this place with Chase.
Hartman knew the hole. He said that just about everyone else in the countryside knew about it, and remembered the old-timer who had at one time made some of the finest whiskey in the entire territory down in that hole.
But neither Chase nor Jud was there.
Hartman, it turned out, was also very knowledgeable about the town. They made a very thorough and painstaking search of it—without turning up any sign of either Rufe’s partner or Arlen Chase.
Hartman shook his head about this. “They ain’t here. No way under the sun for’em to be here, and us not have found them this morning.”
Rufe considered, and decided that, if Jud had pur-sued Chase out of Clearwater, the most logical route for Chase to have taken would have been back in the direction of his camp atop of Cane’s Mesa, because he would believe he had men up th
ere to reinforce him.
There was another consideration. Whoever that had been hours earlier Rufe and Jud had seen coming down off the mesa in bright sunlight should by now be fairly well along on their way to town— which should put them between Chase, pursued by Jud, and the top of the mesa.
He explained all this to Evart Hartman. The cow-man stoically listened, then turned and without a word led off back up toward the northwesterly desert beyond Clearwater, tipping down his hat, now that the full heat of hot daytime was over the land, and even a wide hat brim did not help a lot, because brilliant sunshine bounced up off millions of mica particles in the soil and sand, but the hat brim was better than no protection at all as they rode to the edge of town, then headed forth into the desert.
Rufe sashayed back and forth, but, as Evart Hart-man pointed out, there were always fresh-shod horse tracks this close to Clearwater. Unless Jud’s animal had very unusual shoes, his tracks would be indistinguishable from all those other tracks, and Hartman was correct.
Rufe was anxious without being actually very worried. Jud was a man who a harsh existence had formed to survive under almost all adverse conditions, but particularly under the variety of conditions he was now involved in.
What puzzled Rufe was where Jud could have gone in his pursuit of Arlen Chase, and, most of all, it puzzled him that there had been no gunfire.
Of course, by now the pursuit could have put Jud and Arlen Chase a considerable distance from town, by now there could be gunshots, and no one would hear them in Clearwater.
XV
Evart Hartman knew the countryside they were traversing even though he had never run his cattle this far west. He also recalled meetings with Amos Cane, and recounted a few of them as they rode upcountry When Rufe chided him for doing nothing about conditions on the mesa, Hartman did not deny that he had heard talk around town; what he did deny was his right, or the right of anyone else, to go charging out over the countryside like some damned silly Don Quixote, trying to right wrongs which would turn out to be, in nine out of ten cases, pure gossip.
Of course, Rufe could have pursued this, could have shredded that argument to pieces, but right at the moment he needed Evart Hartman, and he did not care a damn about the things folks should have done.
They were a considerable distance from town. The buildings and rooftops were still abundantly discernible, but sounds were deadened by the distance, when Rufe made another wide pass from west to east, seeking fresh trails, and this time he found promising sign. Even the old cowman studied it with interest, and afterward raised his head to gaze up along the bluff faces toward the top out of Cane’s Mesa.
“I expect we should have figured Arlen’d do that. Only place he figures to find friends.”
Rufe had already considered this, and he had also considered something else—up ahead, there had been someone coming down off the mesa. Before Chase could race up there, he was going to encounter those other people.
The encounter evidently occurred while Rufe and Hartman were discussing the chances of Chase’s reaching his cow camp with Jud on his trail. Suddenly, up ahead some distance, several men shouted indignant, but wholly indistinguishable, words. Rufe did not wait; he gigged his horse, and reined back and forth through the underbrush. Evart Hart-man, some little distance rearward, loped ahead, too, but with caution, and also with a six-gun in his right fist.
They did not find the horsemen until someone up ahead heard them coming, and bellowed for his companions to get down, to get to cover.
Rufe halted in a long slide when he heard that outcry. He knew that voice. It belonged to horse-killing Charley Fenwick!
While Rufe puzzled over that, Evart Hartman walked his horse on up the last 100 feet, still holding his balanced pistol, looking ahead through the man-high underbrush, and said: “Seen anyone up there?”
Rufe hadn’t. He was in the act of dismounting when someone up ahead through the underbrush hoorawed a loose horse. It was an old ruse, and, while it had undeniable benefits, it failed this morning simply because the hoorawed horse and the men who had sent it stampeding through the underbrush to stir up anyone who might be out there sent the horse in the wrong direction. They sent it stampeding due southward, while Rufe and Evart Hartman were not only more westerly, but they also happened to be almost as far northward as the hid-den men with Charley Fenwick were—although neither Rufe nor Hartman knew that this was true, until that loose horse broke away and went charging southward.
Evart made a slight clucking sound, lowered his Colt, and made a motion for Rufe to follow him in ab-solute silence. They left their animals hidden in un-derbrush and zigzagged through thorny brush until old Hartman sank to one knee, head cocked, and motioned for Rufe to slip in beside him.
Up ahead, on their right, they could hear men mumbling. Rufe detected Fenwick’s voice again, and shook his head. The last time he’d seen Fenwick the cowboy had been chained in Elisabeth Cane’s barn.
Finally something occurred which helped explain what was happening on ahead through the under-brush. An angry voice, made sharp by someone’s incensed condition, said: “What’n hell you’d let him get away for? He’ll fetch up his partner and a lousy posse!”
Rufe and Hartman exchanged a look, then Hart-man dropped low as another, less furious voice said: “Hurry up with the horses so’s we can get out of here. He can’t do anything by himself, anyway, and by the time he gets back….” The rest of this remark was lost as the speaker either turned his back in the direction of the two listening men, or just let his words trail off.
Someone back where Rufe and Hartman had left their horses made a mountain quail call. It was realistic enough, except that Rufe knew that call. He tapped Hartman’s shoulder, jerked his head, and began withdrawing back in that direction.
Jud was down there, calmly smoking a cigarette, when Rufe, leading the way, came around a tall, thorny stand of underbrush. Jud gazed over, and shook his head dolorously. “What took you so damned long?” he querulously asked.
Rufe introduced Evart Hartman, and Jud nodded, still looking irritable. When Rufe said—“What’s going on up there?”—Jud answered almost laconically.
“I almost had Chase, when the whole blasted ball of wax gave way. He rode up onto them.”
Hartman interrupted. “Rode up onto who?”
“Elisabeth bringing Fenwick and the other one with her down to town to the jailhouse.” Jud shrugged. “Just as well she never made it, eh? Any-way, Chase threw down on her. I saw that much, but, before I could get any closer, Chase freed Fen-wick, gave him her pistol, and handed her carbine to the other feller…and, hell, I lost out.”
Rufe was intrigued. “Where’s Elisabeth now?”
“Up there,” replied Jud, dropping his smoke to stamp it out. “They got her for their hostage. That’s what I meant when I said the whole damned thing come unraveled.” He glanced at Hartman. “Any more fellers on their way?”
The old cowman shook his head. “No. But there’s the three of us…and if all they got is three guns….”
Jud studied the old cowman with a sour look, then turned toward Rufe. “Maybe we can hold them down while someone rides back for more men.” He pointed. “They can’t use the trail up the slope.” His meaning was clear; that trail going up to the mesa was fully exposed.
Hartman did not appear very impressed. As he said, there were a dozen other routes away from this particular spot. Jud nodded. “Then it’s up to us to hold’em here, isn’t it?”
They ventured again back through the underbrush until they were close enough to hear men working with livestock. Shortly now Arlen Chase and his riding crew would attempt to escape, and Jud, still showing monumental disgust, gestured. “If you fellers will slip around yonder, one to the west, one to the east, I’ll drive in a couple of bullets from down here. That ought Tomake them defensive.” He looked at Rufe. “Just remember, I’m down here, if you get to throwing lead.”
If there was a better way, they did no
t see it right then, and because they did not seem to have very much time to accomplish their purpose before Chase and his riders made their break for it, Rufe turned away, as did Evart Hartman, leaving Jud standing morosely behind the big thorn-pin tree.
Rufe’s course was not difficult. All he had to do was avoid contact with the underbrush, and watch where he stepped in order to avoid dry twigs under-foot. He could hear an occasional voice up ahead, where Chase and his men were getting organized, but he did not pay much attention until he was between them and the uphill road leading back atop Cane’s Mesa. Then he began skulking in closer, hoping for a view of the secreted men with Arlen Chase. What he specifically wished to determine was where Elisabeth was. If there was to be a battle, he did not want her endangered if there was any way to avoid it.
Of course, there was no way to avoid it. When he finally caught a glimpse of movement through the lower limbs of underbrush, what he saw was three horses, saddled and being held by someone who he could not distinctly make out at all.
He shoved his Colt forward, wriggled in as close as he could at the base of a particularly hardy stand of buckbrush, allowed a full minute to pass, during which he thought Jud and the old cowman would be in place, then he sang out.
“Chase! Fenwick! We’re on all sides of you!”
He had more to say, but a nervous trigger finger up through the brush fired a gun in the direction of Rufe’s voice, and the bullet made a tearing sound, clearly audible, but two feet higher than where Rufe was lying.
Rufe held his fire, intending to sing out again. From off to the east, far out, Evart Hartman fired; at least that shot came from the area where Rufe was certain Hartman had gone, but otherwise there was no way for Rufe to be sure who had fired.
