“Have you two got it into your old battle heads that they’ll shoot to kill tonight?” demanded Young Jeff.
“What’n hell else should a man shoot for?” Red Shirt Bill retorted altogether logically.
So they rode on, though more slowly now, their ears cocked for any sound, their eyes watching everywhere, in front, on both sides, even behind them.
“One thing I forgot to tell you,” said Young Jeff when they reined in, a hundred yards from the house. “Warbuck says he knows where Charlie Carter’s mine is. He offered every man of them a share, swearing no one would get less than ten thousand dollars. Must be he’s out on a limb.”
He noted the curious fashion in which the two old men’s heads jerked about; Still Jeff and Red Shirt Bill were facing each other, each seeking through the dark to make out how that bit of information registered on the other.
“Before we get through,” said Bill Morgan, “I’m going to tan Bart Warbuck’s hide and set it dryin’ on my old barn door.”
They stopped by common consent about fifty paces from the old house, where cover was offered by a thick grove of young timber.
“It’s too damn quiet around here,” said Red Shirt Bill. He sniffed the air like an old wolf. “Either they’re layin’ in ambush, ready to cut us down, or they’ve skedaddled. Most likely there’s a man or two anyhow, hid in the brush, ready to cut loose on us.”
“You and Jeff stick right here,” said Young Jeff. “I’ll go find out.”
He swung down and stepped out toward the house, but he kept all the while in the deepest of the pools of dark basing the big trees. He thought, “They’re all gone by now. It’s a long time since I ran out on them, more than an hour. They wouldn’t have stuck here after that. They threw on a log to have a bit of talk; then drifted. There’s no one here.”
And still he experienced an uncanny sort of feeling which already had brushed old Red Shirt Bill when he had said, “It’s too damn quiet.” Nonsense of course, but just the same there it was, a queer prickling up and down the spine, an intuition perhaps, the sense that this great hush was not merely the natural sleeping quietude of the mountains but something more than that, something man-made. And after all, where could the Warbuck men have gone? They had no horses, and surely they could not have expected Young Jeff’s return with reinforcements so soon. They might be just waiting for a chance like this, a chance to make an end of Jeff Cody and whatever friends of his he brought back with him. It would be a foxy play; they’d still a few tongues and at the same time help themselves to what they needed most, horses.
So he stood stone still where he was a long time, his eyes probing into the darkness, his ears cocked against the faintest sound.
He tried to figure out what Ogden would have done; what he himself, if in Jim Ogden’s place, would have done. First, there were the charges Warbuck had passed over to him to guard, Doc Sharpe and the old woman and Arlene. Any one of them now, had they heard the horses’ hoofs on the rocky ground, would have called out in warning and in hope of help. Jim Ogden would have figured on that. So he would have had his prisoners gagged or, simpler to do if he did not mind cutting down his own fighting force, escorted to some short but safe distance. The trio of captives could have their hands tied behind them; they could be marched off and taken care of by two or three, or even one, of Ogden’s men.
“That’s about what’s happened.” Somehow Young Jeff felt pretty sure of it. “I’d better get back to Jeff and Bill before—” Then it seemed to him that all hell exploded all around him. There was a shout ringing out as clear as a bugle and as coldly murderous as a wolf’s howl, Jim Ogden’s voice unmistakably, and with it an explosion of gun-fire. Young Jeff saw flashes and emptied a revolver into the midst of them as fast as he could work a trigger. Then he raced back to where he had left Still Jeff and old Bill, yelling at them to spill off their horses and duck for cover—for as he caught his first glimpse of them he saw that both still sat in their saddles. They had their rifles up at their shoulders and were blazing away at such targets as they could see or imagine.
“You two!” he railed at them when, dodging bullets all the way, he came to them. “Haven’t you got any sense! Climb down!”
“Shucks,” said Red Shirt Bill. And added, “Anyhow we’d ought to get twice as many of them as they get of us, them bein’ at a disadvantage with so many for us to shoot at.” He fired three quick shots, then remarked, “If you feel that way, Kid, you might claw your old man out’n the saddle. I sort of reckon he’s froze there and can’t get down.”
Young Jeff saw that it was a matter of pride with them, though he didn’t know the whole story. At the first shot, Red Shirt Bill Morgan had started to scramble out of his saddle—and old Still Jeff had giggled. Hadn’t said a word, had just giggled. That settled it.
But it settled things only as far as their own stubbornness went. Young Jeff reached up and caught Red Shirt Bill about the bulky body and dragged him down off his horse. While Bill Morgan was still sputtering curses which somehow didn’t ring quite true, Young Jeff made a flying tackle at old Still Jeff and brought his spare form down alongside Bill Morgan.
“Dammit,” said Young Jeff. “You two—” But both Still Jeff and Red Shirt Bill, flat on their bellies now, were shooting at the intermittent flashes that so briefly set the darkness quivering, and this was no time for words; not even for swear-words. He grew silent, stood a moment, then drew back and broke into a swift, silent run: The thing to do was come around behind the Warbuck men, come up close, so close that he could see what he was shooting at—and strive to make what few shells he had left go the longest way. No sense wasting ammunition tonight.
Before he had run fifty paces a sudden voice demanded harshly, in a rasping half-whisper, “Hey! Who’s that?”
Jeff answered in the quietest, most efficient and economical way: He glimpsed the man into whom he had all but caromed, swung his gun high and brought it crashing down on his skull. Then he ran on.
All the while Ogden’s men were firing and both Still Jeff and Red Shirt Bill, spacing their shots coolly, were firing back. He thought grimly, “There’s a chance I’ll stop a bullet one of those old boys has cut loose,” but it was a chance to be taken, and there was lots of room here in the badlands for bullets to go without hitting his narrow frame.
It was the simplest thing in the world now to locate definitely the Warbuck men. Dark as was the night, he began to see them, to make out their blurred figures standing in the thickset dark in a grove of pines. He came up on them from the rear as he had planned; they were too busy fighting it out with Still Jeff and Red Shirt Bill to so much as think of a man coming by stealth to take them in the rear. He heard Jim Ogden shout, “There were only three of ’em, boys. We’ve nailed one, ’cause there are only two shooting at us now. We’ll knock them over in two shakes.”
A bullet screamed by Young Jeff’s ear, so close to his head that he felt his hair curl; a bullet, of course, winged along its way by either Still Jeff or Bill Morgan. He wished those two old devils would hold their fire a minute or two!
Anyhow, Jim Ogden’s voice had told him exactly where Ogden stood. Young Jeff, walking like a cat on velvet, crept closer—closer yet. Making never a sound, trying not to dodge from bullets whistling around him so close that he fancied they cut grooves in his hair, he came up close behind Ogden. He pushed the nose of his gun between Ogden’s shoulder blades. He said in a whisper, his lips close to Ogden’s ear, “Got you, Jim! And I’ll kill you deader’n a dead skunk unless you do as you’re told. Stand still a second and think it over. You’re dead or alive in two minutes, just as you decide right now.”
Ogden stood as still and stiff as the big boles of the pines about him. Then he twisted his head about; he said, whispering no louder than Young Jeff.
“That you, Jeff?”
“Yes, it’s me, Jim. Keep your mouth shut now. Back up with
me about twenty feet.”
Jim Ogden thought it over; Young Jeff could feel along his pistol barrel the tensing of the man’s muscles.
“Sure,” said Ogden. “Anything you say.”
He began backing up, Jeff moving in step with him, the blunt ugly nose of the forty-five always tight against Ogden’s body.
“Hold it, Jim,” said Jeff presently. “This is far enough. Tell me first, where is Arlene?”
“Gone,” said Ogden.
“Where? Why? Who went with her?”
Ogden took some more time out for thought. Then he shrugged—Young Jeff could feel the shrug along the barrel of the forty-five—and said gruffly, “Warbuck. He came back. He marched her off, her and Sharpe and the old woman.”
“How long ago? And who else went with him?”
“Half an hour maybe. Pocopoco Malaga and Buck Nevers.”
“Where’s Andy Coppler?”
“Dead, I guess!” This time in Jim Ogden’s quiet grunt there was a hint of satisfaction. “He was standing right close to me; from the gargling noises he made, I guess one of you fellers must have shot him square through the throat. He was a rat anyway.”
“Listen, Jim. Listen good.”
“Sure,” said Ogden. “Me, I’m listening.”
“You can get out of this alive tonight—maybe. Make a wrong move and I’ll be glad of the excuse to kill you. I guess you know that. For what you did to Bob Vetch and Bud King, and on general principles. Got it?”
“What’s on your mind?” demanded Ogden.
All this time the firing was going on spasmodically, and now and then Jeff heard a bullet scream past him altogether too close to give a man any comfort, and once he heard a stifled squeal of pain from one of the Ogden men not far off. He said hurriedly, “Shed your guns, Jim, and don’t let your hand slip while you’re doing it! Let me have ’em. That’s good. Now call your men off, one at a time. Call Trigger Levine to step back here a minute. After him, Scad Murphy, then Long Knife. One at a time. Got it?”
“Damn you, Jeff!”
“Sure. But hurry. My finger’s sweaty on the trigger and is apt to slip. Maybe Warbuck’s been gone half an hour as you say, maybe five minutes. Anyhow they didn’t travel fast, all but him being afoot; they’re close enough to hear the shooting. So I’m in a hurry. Now, call Trigger Levine.”
Jim Ogden sang out, “Hi, Trigger! You, Levine! Come here and make it lively.”
Levine came running, demanding, “What’s up?” When he saw two men standing close together it meant nothing to him; one, of course was Jim Ogden, and he didn’t bother about the other—until he felt a gun jammed into his middle. Then it was too late to do anything about it, except do as he was told. Young Jeff made haste to take his guns from him.
“Lie down flat, Levine,” he commanded curtly. “Play dead dog and play it the best way you can. If you try to get up, if you move, I’ll blast a couple of holes through you. And get mighty busy doing it fast!”
“Well I’ll be a—” began Trigger Levine. Jeff drove the muzzle of his gun deep into the man’s lean middle, and Levine subsided without challenging the high card. He lay down as directed, stretched out flat, and kept his mouth shut.
“Call Long Knife,” said Jeff.
“Someday,” muttered Jim Ogden, “someday soon—”
“I said call Injun Long Knife!”
“Sure,” grunted Ogden, and called. And Long Knife came just as Trigger Levine had come, all unsuspecting, and was as promptly disarmed. Commanded to lie down alongside Levine he complied without even a word or a grunt.
“Call Scad Murphy,” said Jeff.
Jim Ogden called Murphy, and he came as the others had and went through a similar experience. Jeff looked down at the three men lying side by side like sardines and said to Ogden, “This can’t go on all night. Pretty soon some one of your thick-headed gang is going to get to wondering; then I’ll be out on a limb.”
It was hard to think coolly; Still Jeff and Red Shirt Bill were still peppering the night with rifle bullets—and Jeff wished they’d hold it for a bit! There was no sense trying to dodge bullets, but a man just couldn’t help it.
“Let’s try it once more,” said Jeff. “Call Dave Humphries over.”
“Hi, Dave!” called Jim Ogden. “Come over here!”
“What say, Jim?” Dave Humphries wanted to know. He was breaking his gun, shoving fresh shells into the chambers of its cylinder. “What’n hell are you boys doin’ back there anyhow? Scared?”
Then his boot struck one of the men lying on the ground, or a hand plucked warningly at his leg—it was too dark to see—and Dave Humphries started back, jerking his gun up.
“Hold it, Dave!” snapped Young Jeff.
Humphries could make out Jim Ogden’s tall form, could make out the taller form of Jeff Cody bulking at his side; and he knew Jeff’s voice.
“Hold hell!” he cried, and blazed away. Young Jeff shot at the same instant. Dave Humphries seemed to curl up there in the dark and melt down into the earth. Jeff stepped back a couple of paces, getting his shoulders against a big pine.
“Jim,” he said, very stern and clipping his words short, “I could kill every one of you rats and you know it. Maybe I’m chicken hearted tonight.”
“I’ve got enough for one night,” said Ogden. “I’ll call it a draw if you will.”
Jeff had estimated swiftly: He had taken care of Ogden, Levine, Murphy, Long Knife, Humphries—and that one other man he had struck down on his way here. Andy Coppler, if Jim Ogden spoke the truth, was out of it. Then there had been that squeal of agony followed by silence a while ago, some man knocked over by Still Jeff and Bill Morgan. And Warbuck had taken two men with him. Altogether, nine of Warbuck’s dozen were accounted for. That left three men still plugging away at Still Jeff and Red Shirt Bill. The odds had become even.
“All right,” said Jeff. “Stop the shooting. Yell to your men to pull off; tell them to hit the high places going down to Tinker’s Meadows. Tell ’em there are horses there, and to bring ’em here on the run. Tell ’em any damn thing so you get ’em going. Snappy, Jim, and no slips on your part.”
“Sure,” said Jim Ogden. “You’re on top of the dog pile tonight. Next time maybe it’ll be different.”
“Next time,” said Jeff, “maybe I won’t be chicken hearted. Now let’s get things going. Lively does it, Jim.”
So Jim Ogden, keeping a cool head and admitting that the other man held the cards, did as ordered. At his sharp command his men ceased firing and started back toward him; he stopped them with the second order, just as Jeff had dictated it: They were to hot-foot down trail to Tinker’s Meadows looking for horses which did not exist. When one of them began asking questions Jim Ogden, with Jeff’s gun as cold as an icicle against his back, shut them up. “Get a move on,” he said. “Get the horses.”
They sped away, wondering no doubt, but rapidly vanishing among the pines. When you could have counted fifty after the last sound of their boots died away, Jeff called out to Still Jeff and Red Shirt Bill.
“Hi, boys! It’s all over. Step along over here and bring our horses with you. No more shooting; you almost bagged me a couple of times.”
A bull-like roar came from Red Shirt Bill.
“What’n hell?” he demanded. “What’s happened, Jeff.—That’s you, ain’t it, Jeff?”
“Step along, you two, and I’ll tell you,” answered Young Jeff. “Only don’t wait for sunup.”
They stepped along, leading the three horses, carrying their rifles at readiness for any surprise that the night might have in store for them. Then, with everything explained, while Red Shirt Bill emitted a glorious “Haw, haw!” Still Jeff grew voluble.
“I got a notion!” was what he said.
That was enough, coming from him, to make any man of them prick up his ears. A
nd Still Jeff, going strong, made them quite a speech.
“Here we’ve got a lot of Long Valley birds just where we want ’em,” said Still Jeff. “And pretty soon, if luck is good, we’re going to have Warbuck stacked up in the same pile. Now, what to do with ’em all? I tell you boys, I’ve got a notion.” Then he asked, “Who are these seeming dead men you’ve got stacked up like cord wood, Jeff?” Young Jeff, wondering what it was all about, told him. “Hm,” said Still Jeff. “Trigger Levine’s one of ’em, huh? I know Trig right well; also and likewise, I know some things about him. I sort of reckon Trigger Levine is my man. Get up, Trig, and step aside with me. I’m going to whisper in your good ear.”
Trigger Levine got up; you would have said he was glad to get up, scrambling to his feet the way he did. Still Jeff edged him along gently with the end of his rifle barrel until the two were just out of earshot. Then he proceeded to lay the law down to Trigger Levine.
“I’ll pay you a hundred dollars and give you a clean bill of health for running this errand for me, Trig,” said Still Jeff. “Otherwise you’ll be hung high inside two days. That’s a promise. Which way’ll you take it?”
“What yuh want?” said Levine.
“Streak straight across the hills to Spurlock’s place; that’ll take you, a-foot, two hours. Grab a horse; better steal one out of his corrals. Ride like all hell was after you down to Pioneer. Fetch up with Dan Hasbrook. Tell him I sent you and that I want a barrel of tar and a big fat feather mattress. Got all that, kid?”
“What’s this all about?” mumbled Levine.
“Trig,” said Still Jeff, friendly-wise, “this might be just about your last day of living. On the other hand you might live to grow nice snow-white whiskers. You figure it out.”
“I savvy!” said Levine. “I’ll do what you say.”
“Thought as though you might,” said Still Jeff. “Now—run!”
And Trigger Levine ran.
Chapter Seventeen
“We’ve got ropes on our saddles,” said Still Jeff when he came back. “Likewise, we’ve got saddle strings. We can tie these gents up so they’ll stay tied, where we can find ’em when we want ’em.”
The Fifth Western Novel Page 73
