by John Long
‘Doing sentry over Rattlesnake Pass,’ Bruce replied. ‘But don’t worry about him. Jake’s a sight smarter than Ted was. Jake ain’t gun-happy one scrap. Jake will understand how it was. You’ll see.’
‘Maybe,’ mused Mister Sturdy. ‘Just maybe. I figger he saw us ride in without his brother. He’ll be wondering what went and happened in Vulch City, you bet. Look here, Bruce, you’d best let me explain it to him. You can’t afford to lose more men, not at this close stage.’
‘Rand, go fix up your hoss,’ ordered Bruce, sounding more amiable. ‘Show him round the place, Merrick, and wipe that tomfool grin off your gawky face! I’ll get Gowl to throw some grub together for you boys. We’ll talk bizness, Rand, when you get back. If your second name’s poverty, Mister Rand, then mebbe you’re due to tie up with Lady Luck. But I ain’t making no promises just yet. Remember this fact, I don’t stand for no smart-talk from any of my boys, nor any kind of bull-whacking from even you or Symes.’
Symes! That name smote Rand with a force of Bruce’s fist, and Bruce watched the effect with evil pleasure. Was Symes here? Was it the same infamous Symes, the same matchless professional gunfighter whose name had spread across the borders? By the great Lord Harry, this outfit was a hunk more dangerous than he’d imagined! Just what kind of play were they making if it attracted Symes? Jeff Rand – knowing once he learned about that play he would never leave this gulch alive – now found his desire to ride brawling with a professional’s curiosity to catch at least a glimpse of the notorious Killer Symes.
Ruminating on this, the hope of tracking down Miller’s gold, and on Bruce’s veiled promise to tie him up with Lady Luck, Jeff followed Smily Merrick outside.
He no sooner disappeared than the men loosened their tongues; the gabbling that broke out was really surprising.
‘So that’s Rand, the great big man with guns,’ sneered Mex. ‘Why he’s so skinny, so lazy-slow in the head, like a sundrunk pack-mule my father once had. And so you see, fellas, I break him.’ He picked up a piece of wood and snapped it across his bulging chest. ‘Him, Meester Skinny, thinks he is good. If Jake Crocker no kill, I kill, pronto, you’ll see.’
‘Sure, we’ll see,’ sneered Gowl, opening a can of beans on the table. ‘And if you don’t finish Skinny, mebbe Tom will, and when you all are neat mounds of earth, I’ll inspect his innards with this here can-opener. Like hell!’
A sudden bawl of laughter set Mex’s eyes flashing madly. He said nothing, but broke another spar across his chest then folded his arms in silent determination.
‘Rand shore don’t look much, howsoever,’ argued Tom, scratching his bristly chin.
‘Men like Rand seldom do look much. But take care, because he’s got guts,’ warned Gowl, slopping the beans on to a plate.
‘Aw shucks, quit blowing that trumpet, Gowl. Rand’s just a simple kid from the hills someplace. He’s sleepy,’ yawned one of the snoring addicts in the corner.
‘Don’t depend on that,’ advised Mister Sturdy. ‘The tall feller ain’t no kid. He has lived like a lone wild creature most of his life. He’s poison. I know. I’ve seen Rand in action more than just once, and when that happens the feller you see simply disappears – the devil takes over. Keep a wise respect for Mister Jeff Rand, boys, and there’ll be no bloodshed. He don’t strike unless you stand on him – then you’re dead.’
‘That’s nothing.’ Tom laughed contemptuously. ‘If you think I’m a-going to lick his boots, then you’re crazy. I know a few things too, Mister Sturdy. I’ve travelled around just as much as you, I bet. Last Fall I drifted into Tombstone. There, with my own derned eyes, I saw Whyatt Earp steer clear of Symes.’
‘Ah!’ a number of voices knowingly exclaimed.
‘Symes is fast, faster than blazes and always ready to shoot,’ Gowl declared. ‘This outfit was a deal healthier afore it hired Symes.’
‘Yeah, having Symes around gives me the warblers,’ Mex openly admitted. ‘He now is the beeg man, too much for us to handle.’
‘Close this pie-jawing, you fools!’ Bruce suddenly roared. ‘Gunfighting ain’t nothing, we have more important things to occupy our minds, remember that. I don’t figure to suffer by any more mistakes, and that’s why I hired Symes. This time our plan succeeds.’
Everybody fell quiet, watching Gowl nervously slicing up some grisly bacon.
‘Where is he now?’Mister Sturdy gently inquired.
‘Symes is at Flintstone,’ confided Bruce. ‘We’ve been holed up here long enough, waiting for some word from either Clay or Hank. Symes will make those boys skin their eyeballs and work like go-devils.’
‘Better than go-devils; you see.’ Mex approved, grinning. ‘But wait till Meester Symes meets Meester Rand.’
‘Why?’
An awkward hush answered that question, because Rand asked it. He was standing in the doorway.
‘Hi, there! Roll in, the grub’s up,’ invited Bruce, oddly kind and respectful. ‘Come and get yourself loaded, neighbour. Seems you’ll need it.’
Rand conjured up a smile and sauntered forward. At the mention of food, however, a small avalanche had broken out, so to speak. There came a clattering of chairs, a tumbling of supply boxes and an instructive gush of profane language, as every man lunged towards the table.
‘Why, you greedy pack of slobbering wolves!’ Bruce snarled fiercely, half a loaf clutched in his fist. ‘Stand off, or I’ll pound you all to flour!’
Mister Sturdy sat down, looking cheerful as he tucked a napkin behind his bow-tie. As usual Rand took his seat with its back to the wall, while Smily Merrick, openly admiring Rand for some hidden reason, stood alongside, using a knife to fish beans from a can.
‘Stake yourself a claim with us, and you stay staked,’ growled Big Bruce, spraying bread crumbs in Rand’s direction.
‘Mighty reasonable advice,’ agreed Rand. ‘Frankly, I’m taking a liking to this outfit. I like the look of the boys, all real amiable, all alert, and ready to jump to it.’
The men had been watching him closely and silently as before, though now, guiltily keeping their hands from their weapons, they nudged each other and chuckled among themselves. Even Mex grinned and winked at Tom.
‘Yes, Bruce, as soon as I know the layout I’ll make my decision right slick,’ continued Jeff, breaking a tough biscuit on the edge of the table. ‘Actually, I’m hankering after solid cash to buy me a gold-mine.’
An unrestrained burst of laughter answered his revelation.
‘Look here, son,’ said Big Bruce in a fatherly kind of manner. ‘Our cash will come in such large and solid hunks, as will blast your gold-mine into weekend likker money.’ Bruce slammed his fist on the table for emphasis, thereby shocking everybody, as was his habit. ‘You won’t need any mine when the share-outs come. Hey, Gowl! Drag that infernal door open agin. Let some air into this sour bug-house.’
The Bruce Gang’s second impression of Jeff Rand was certainly more favourable. Gowl, wiping a smiling face in his grease-layered apron, obediently flung open the door; Tom rooted out some of his private hoard of tobacco and tossed a chaw to Rand, and Mex served him another helping of bacon. But the bacon was so thin that Smily, nudging Rand, said he could have read the Flintstone Times through it, ’cepting he couldn’t read, though he was learning fast. Rand chuckled softly, and Smily felt good to hear him chuckle that way, believing he had struck up a useful friendship with the lone gunfighter.
‘Like I was saying, we aim for a big and easy pay-off,’ said Bruce. ‘Flintstone is the richest of mining towns, and Bulmer’s Bank handles thousands of dollars per week as gold-exchange. That kind of money is a great responsibility to the Bulmer boys, Mister Rand, so we figure on being kind to them. We’ll relieve ’em of those dollars for nothing, unless they want a hot-lead exchange. Savvy?’
Rand had trained himself to conceal his emotions over a period of many years, yet his underjaw dropped and the biscuit fell from between his fingers as he heard of that intended bank hold-up. Everybody knew that B
ulmer’s chain of banks were the richest in the territory, and everybody knew that the Flintstone branch was the heaviest guarded. The magnitude of such a robbery would be astounding, and the risk was downright frightening, especially since the recent attempted raids on branches at Maxville and Fairgo City.
‘That’s some set-up, Bruce,’ he murmured. ‘A pleasant thought, mind you; but if folk at the bank are already jumpy, I reckon you’ll need an army to carry off those dollar bills.’
‘Army nothing,’ jeered Bruce, looking pompous. ‘All I need I now have, and that’s a coupla extra boys like Symes and Rand. Sure enough we heard about them other raids. Fact is we made ’em. Twice we were misinformed about the monthly shipment of bills, and lost six men cos of it,’ he growled, looking bitterly at the bread he was tearing into with his blackened teeth. ‘This time it will be different, by damn!’ Viciously he threw the bread out of the window. ‘Tell him, Mister Sturdy.’ he muttered.
‘Bruce sez it will be different now, and he never spoke a truer word,’ affirmed Sturdy, lighting his cigar at a flame held out by Tom. ‘Already we have Hank Williams installed as a clerk at the bank. Clay’s in town too, hired out as sweeper at the saloon opposite, just waiting to bring in Hank’s sly go-ahead signal when the shipment rolls in. We judge that shipment to be due any time now, but the two boys were getting jumpy. Clay even packed up his job, but we sent him high-tailing back, under escort of Mister Symes.’ Sturdy smiled carelessly at everybody and adeptly shuffled a pack of cards. ‘It’s easy, Jeff; simply a hunk of huckleberry pie, Jeff. Did I tell yuh that the pickings will be about six hundred thousand dollars.’
‘Whew! Rich pickings!’ Rand exclaimed, thrusting aside his empty plate. ‘Like Bruce sez, it seems I’ve tied up with Lady Luck.’
Everybody laughed. It reassured and pleased them all to hear the scheme again.
‘One thing more, Mister Rand, no gun-blasting without orders,’ growled Bruce. ‘Keep those guns cold while in this gulch. Ted Crocker was your first and last meat from this outfit. If any fella happens to forget this small point, then Symes will make a neat sluicebox out of him.’
Those final words dwindled in Bruce’s throat as he grew aware of the vibrant tension which had gripped the cabin. All eyes stared at the open doorway. Crouching there, sickly-faced and venomous, was Crocker’s brother, and he carried a Winchester. It was aimed at Jeff Rand’s heart.
‘Killed my brother, did yuh?’ his voice was an impassioned hiss. ‘Sure he was your first and last meat from this gang. Sure Ted was cocky, but he was only a laddybuck.’ Jake’s voice broke in his gushing hatred. ‘Jest a kid, yet you – you murdering, poisonous – why, you ain’t fit to breathe fresh air!’
Jake’s face contorted in malice. Vengeful satisfaction suddenly blazed up in his eyes, as he jerked forward the Winchester.
A jolting shot split the silence. It resounded from wall to wall of Grapevine Gulch.
CHAPTER FIVE
The gunshot had come from Rattlesnake Pass. The lookouts were signalling – Symes was coming.
Jake Crocker’s reaction was to turn his head, thereat he discovered himself peering down the forbidding barrel of a six-gun.
‘Drop your Winchester, son!’ commanded the old-timer, who had been on guard-duty outside the cabin. ‘Somehow I b’lieve your brother found his match in a fair gunfight. Naturally you’re grieved some; but if you’re bent on making a play for this Rand fella, then do it honest-fashion. There ain’t no call for cold-blooded killing, son. Gimme the gun.’ He bent closer and lowered his voice. ‘Rand’s a gun-born natural, Jakey; if you draw it’s suicide.’
An angry growling was rising among the men inside. Of a sudden Big Bruce, clutching at a bottle and swinging it up, turned passionately on Crocker.
‘Drop it! You’re a jackass upstart like your brother Ted,’ he snorted in his rage, while liquor coursed down his arm. ‘Make your play some time else, mister, and die!’
Still Crocker stood irresolute, his eyes flashing from the menacing bottle to Rand, who idly nibbled biscuit strewn over the table. Jake knew the old man behind him would not shoot, yet he needed time to consider what the situation might be if he surrendered to him. Rand might suddenly whip out a gun and blast him into eternity.
While Jake argued this dreadful problem within himself, a rider had descended into the gulch. On approaching the merrily trinkling spring this rider dismounted, whistling blithely, and covertly digesting the scene visible in the cabin doorway. Beating the dust from his blue flannel shirt, then hitching forward his guns, he came swaggering jauntily to the cabin. Something in his manner, something evasive yet keenly felt by those who watched him, roused a fellow’s indignation. It was not merely his conceited smile, nor his boastfully swinging shoulders, nor was it anything visible regarding dress or weapons, it was just like the spirit or soul of the man that communed itself: he was a walking challenge. This was Symes. A light and gay person outwardly, though inwardly his heart and soul were as black as the pit of hell – and the devil himself inspired the swiftness of his hands.
Without respect for age he brutally shouldered aside the old-timer, slammed the Winchester from Crocker’s now trembling grip, pressed him back with a clawed hand in his face, then leaned in a leisurely pose against the door-post, still whistling blithely.
Everybody waited for the inevitable, looking from Symes to Rand, and instinctively making a clear passage-way for an exchange of gunfire between the two.
As Symes’ gaze settled on Jeff Rand his whistling dwindled away; his lips became a straight line and his nostrils dilated like a beast’s. Rand returned the look with blearily squinting half-drunken appearance, as if he had happened upon a new species of reptile he could not make out, although he studied it from tip to tip with natural repugnance as well as interest.
‘I don’t like you,’ whispered Symes, a mirthless grin baring his beautifully white teeth. ‘Rand’s the name, ain’t it?’
Nobody judged it expedient to answer for Rand, and Rand judged it more expedient to hold his tongue. The tension therefore increased. All reverenced the stillness as a long battle of looks was waged.
‘Rand ain’t it?’
Symes had hooked his thumbs into his broad gunbelt, where the rows of cartridges glittered with evil ostentation. Slowly and stiffly his fingers now outspread themselves. This action was happening without his knowledge, as a serpent-like preparation to strike. Symes had been through all this so often before, that conscious control was no longer necessary.
‘Rand!’ he sang the word as if it were something delicious on his tongue. ‘Mister Jeff Ra-a-and!’
Still no reply came from Rand who studied the speaker with equal intensity, dwelling on the Forty-fives which nestled snugly in long holsters, low-slung, tied down, and slightly tilted. That was the best style, none better, and Rand knew it. Everything about the man roused deep interest in him. He had curly black and greasy hair, a slender figure, just like a woman’s, and handsome features, better than many a woman’s. But those weapons – they were the most fascinating thing about Symes; and they seemed to possess some hypnotic power, drawing a fellow’s attention, as they hung there, from a ridiculously-large gunbelt. If there was any other thing that Rand kept inspecting as much as those six-guns, it was Symes’ hands, long and slender and fresh, like his very own. As both men kept watching, just like a couple of animals unexpectedly meeting and weighing each other up, Symes knew he faced a man with courage, and Rand knew he had met a quick gunfighter, but felt he could lick him. The admirable spirit of daring and boldness he sensed flaming in Symes only qualified his dislike when he thought he was beginning to like him. Symes was a killer, seeking to devour, lusting for a fight.
‘When I ask questions, I always get answers.’ Symes drooled; and now his tapering fingers flexed and reflexed, ready for violence. ‘When a fella don’t answer, I blast a hole in his stubborn heart. Yuh know why? My name’s Symes.’
‘How-dee, Mister Chimes.’
/>
‘I said Symes.’
‘How-dee,’ purred Rand, popping a biscuit into his mouth, bulging his jaw and deliberately winking at him.
Symes gaped at him in utter astonishment. He could not believe anybody would have such nerve to do that to his face. At first he became flushed with wrath, then he paled and, surprising everyone, he started to chuckle. A moment later he was roaring with laughter like a son of satan. Rand chuckled, his shoulders shaking. He swallowed the biscuit, and he alone knew with what awful difficulty, then said:
‘I like you, Symes, ’cept for one thing. You breathe.’
The laughter died to a ferocious growl in the killer’s throat. Every man there shrank further back, but Rand continued to chuckle.
‘Well, well, well!’ exclaimed Symes, striving to recover his composure, forcing himself to grin then laugh again. ‘You and me have a lot in common, Mister Rand. Yeah, seems this outfit is beginning to look and act tough at long last. It’s derned interesting, though noways healthy for a peace-loving fella like myself.’
The men breathed with relief, nodded and smiled meaningly to each other and cast puzzled looks at Jeff Rand. They had found a new respect for him, yet Rand knew they distrusted him no less. In a really charming manner Symes swaggered inside, whereat one of the burly fellows at the table became nervously quick to vacate a seat for him. Symes sat down and thudded his feet on the table, insultingly close to Rand.
‘You’ve got guts, mister,’ he praised, pouring drinks for them.
‘Shore, mister; and you’ve got big feet,’ Rand pleasantly informed him, slowly yet firmly pushing them aside.
‘You’re all right, Jeff, you don’t get scared,’ mused Symes, looking thoughtful and voluntarily withdrawing his limbs. ‘Mebbe I could use a man like you for some private business someday. Yeah, mebbe I will.’
‘What happened at Flintstone?’ asked Big Bruce, who had been trying to get the question in for a long time.
‘What happened here?’ Symes countered his question. ‘What was the gun-show about as I came in? Do you want me to straighten out these hell-raising Crocker boys for yuh?’
