Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four)

by Robert E. Howard

  “I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t saw it,” old man Braxton moaned faintly.

  “Are you hurt bad, Mr. Braxton?” I asked.

  “I’m dyin’,” he groaned. “Plumb dyin’!”

  “Well, before you die, Mr. Braxton,” I said, “would you mind givin’ me that there letter for pap?”

  “What’s yore pap’s name?” he asked.

  “Roarin’ Bill Elkins,” I said.

  He wasn’t hurt as bad as he thought. He reached up and got hold of a leather bag and fumbled in it and pulled out a envelope. “I remember tellin’ old Buffalo Rogers I had a letter for Bill Elkins,” he said, fingering it over. Then he said: “Hey, wait! This ain’t for yore pap. My sight is gettin’ bad. I read it wrong the first time. This is for Bill Elston that lives between here and Perdition.”

  I want to spike a rumor which says I tried to murder old man Braxton and tore his store down for spite. I’ve done told how he got his leg broke, and the rest was accidental. When I realized that I had went through all that embarrassment for nothing, I was so mad and disgusted I turned and run out of the back door, and I forgot to open the door and that’s how it got tore off the hinges.

  I then jumped on to Alexander and forgot to untie him from the store. I kicked him in the ribs, and he bolted and tore loose that corner of the building, and that’s how come the roof to fall in. Old man Braxton inside was scared and started yelling bloody murder, and about that time a lot of men come up to investigate the explosion which had stopped the three-cornered battle between Perdition, Tomahawk and Gunstock, and they thought I was the cause of everything, and they all started shooting at me as I rode off.

  Then was when I got that charge of buckshot in my back.

  I went out of Tomahawk and up the hill trail so fast I bet me and Alexander looked like a streak. And I says to myself the next time pap gets a letter in the post office, he can come after it hisself, because it’s evident that civilization ain’t no place for a boy which ain’t reached his full growth and strength.

  * * *

  GUNS OF THE MOUNTAINS

  First published in Action Stories, May/June 1934

  THIS business begun with Uncle Garfield Elkins coming up from Texas to visit us. Between Grizzly Run and Chawed Ear the stage got held up by some masked bandits, and Uncle Garfield, never being able to forget that he was a gun-fighting fool thirty or forty years ago, pulled his old cap-and-ball instead of putting up his hands like he was advised to. For some reason, instead of blowing out his light, they merely busted him over the head with a .45 barrel, and when he come to he was rattling on his way toward Chawed Ear with the other passengers, minus his money and watch.

  It was his watch what caused the trouble. That there timepiece had been his grandpap’s, and Uncle Garfield sot more store by it than he did all his kin folks.

  When he arriv up in the Humbolt mountains where our cabin was, he imejitly let in to howling his woes to the stars like a wolf with the belly- ache. And from then on we heered nothing but that watch. I’d saw it and thunk very little of it. It was big as my fist, and wound up with a key which Uncle Garfield was always losing and looking for. But it was solid gold, and he called it a hairloom, whatever them things is. And he nigh driv the family crazy.

  “A passle of big hulks like you-all settin’ around and lettin’ a old man get robbed of all his property,” he would say bitterly. “When I was a young buck, if’n my uncle had been abused that way, I’d of took the trail and never slept nor et till I brung back his watch and the scalp of the skunk which stole it. Men now days—” And so on and so on, till I felt like drownding the old jassack in a barrel of corn licker.

  Finally pap says to me, combing his beard with his fingers: “Breckinridge,” says he, “I’ve endured Uncle Garfield’s belly-achin’ all I aim to. I want you to go look for his cussed watch, and don’t come back without it.”

  “How’m I goin’ to know where to look?” I protested, aghast. “The feller which got it may be in Californy or Mexico by now.”

  “I realizes the difficulties,” says pap. “But if Uncle Garfield knows somebody is out lookin’ for his dern timepiece, maybe he’ll give the rest of us some peace. You git goin’, and if you can’t find that watch, don’t come back till after Uncle Garfield has went home.”

  “How long is he goin’ to stay?” I demanded.

  “Well,” said pap, “Uncle Garfield’s visits allus lasts a year, at least.”

  At this I bust into profanity.

  I said: “I got to stay away from home a year? Dang it, pap, Jim Braxton’ll steal Ellen Reynolds away from me whilst I’m gone. I been courtin’ that girl till I’m ready to fall dead. I done licked her old man three times, and now, just when I got her lookin’ my way, you tells me I got to up and leave her for a year for that dern Jim Braxton to have no competition with.”

  “You got to choose between Ellen Reynolds, and yore own flesh and blood,” said pap. “I’m darned if I’ll listen to Uncle Garfield’s squawks any longer. You make yore own choice — but, if you don’t choose to do what I asks you to, I’ll fill yore hide with buckshot every time I see you from now on.”

  Well, the result was that I was presently riding morosely away from home and Ellen Reynolds, and in the general direction of where Uncle Garfield’s blasted watch might possibly be.

  I passed by the Braxton cabin with the intention of dropping Jim a warning about his actions whilst I was gone, but he wasn’t there. So I issued a general defiance to the family by slinging a .45 slug through the winder which knocked a cob pipe outa old man Braxton’s mouth. That soothed me a little, but I knowed very well that Jim would make a bee-line for the Reynolds’ cabin the second I was out of sight. I could just see him gorging on Ellen’s bear meat and honey, and bragging on hisself. I hoped Ellen would notice the difference between a loud mouthed boaster like him, and a quiet, modest young man like me, which never bragged, though admittedly the biggest man and the best fighter in the Humbolts.

  I hoped to meet Jim somewhere in the woods as I rode down the trail, for I was intending to do something to kinda impede his courting while I was gone, like breaking his leg, or something, but luck wasn’t with me.

  I headed in the general direction of Chawed Ear, and the next day seen me riding in gloomy grandeur through a country quite some distance from Ellen Reynolds.

  Pap always said my curiosity would be the ruination of me some day, but I never could listen to guns popping up in the mountains without wanting to find out who was killing who. So that morning, when I heard the rifles talking off amongst the trees, I turned Cap’n Kidd aside and left the trail and rode in the direction of the noise.

  A dim path wound up through the big boulders and bushes, and the shooting kept getting louder. Purty soon I come out into a glade, and just as I did, bam! somebody let go at me from the bushes and a .45-70 slug cut both my bridle reins nearly in half. I instantly returned the shot with my .45, getting just a glimpse of something in the brush, and a man let out a squall and jumped out into the open, wringing his hands. My bullet had hit the lock of his Winchester and mighty nigh jarred his hands off him.

  “Cease that ungodly noise,” I said sternly, p’inting my .45 at his bay- winder, “and tell me how come you waylays innercent travelers.”

  He quit working his fingers and moaning, and he said: “I thought you was Joel Cairn, the outlaw. You’re about his size.”

  “Well, I ain’t,” I said. “I’m Breckinridge Elkins, from the Humbolts. I was just ridin’ over to learn what all the shootin’ was about.”

  The guns was firing in the trees behind the fellow, and somebody yelled what was the matter.

  “Ain’t nothin’ the matter,” he hollered back. “Just a misunderstandin’.” And he said to me: “I’m glad to see you, Elkins. We need a man like you. I’m Sheriff Dick Hopkins, from Grizzly Run.”

  “Where at’s your star?” I inquired.

  “I lost it in the bresh.” he said. “Me an
d my deputies have been chasin’ Tarantula Bixby and his gang for a day and a night, and we got ’em cornered over there in a old deserted cabin in a holler. The boys is shootin’ at ’em now. I heard you comin’ up the trail and snuck over to see who it is. Just as I said, I thought you was Cairn. Come on with me. You can help us.”

  “I ain’t no deputy,” I said. “I got nothin’ against Tranchler Bixby.”

  “Well, you want to uphold the law, don’t you?” he said.

  “Naw,” I said.

  “Well, gee whiz!” he wailed. “If you ain’t a hell of a citizen! The country’s goin’ to the dogs. What chance has a honest man got?”

  “Aw, shut up,” I said. “I’ll go over and see the fun, anyhow.”

  So he picked up his gun, and I tied Cap’n Kidd, and follered the sheriff through the trees till we come to some rocks, and there was four men laying behind them rocks and shooting down into a hollow. The hill sloped away mighty steep into a small basin that was just like a bowl, with a rim of slopes all around. In the middle of this bowl there was a cabin and puffs of smoke was coming from the cracks between the logs.

  The men behind the rocks looked at me in surprize, and one of them said, “What the hell — ?”

  But the sheriff scowled at them and said, “Boys, this here is Breck Elkins. I done told him already about us bein’ a posse from Grizzly Run, and about how we got Tarantula Bixby and two of his cutthroats trapped in that there cabin.”

  One of the deputies bust into a guffaw and Hopkins glared at him and said: “What you laughin’ about, you spotted hyener?”

  “I swallered my tobaccer and that allus gives me the hystericals,” mumbled the deputy, looking the other way.

  “Hold up your right hand, Elkins,” requested Hopkins, so I done so, wondering what for, and he said: “Does you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, e pluribus unum, anno dominecker, to wit in status quo?”

  “What the hell are you talkin’ about?” I demanded.

  “Them which God has j’ined asunder let no man put together,” said Hopkins. “Whatever you say will be used against you and the Lord have mercy on yore soul. That means you’re a deputy. I just swore you in.”

  “Go set on a tack,” I snorted disgustedly. “Go catch your own thieves. And don’t look at me like that. I might bend a gun over your skull.”

  “But Elkins,” pleaded Hopkins, “with yore help we can catch them rats easy. All you got to do is lay up here behind this big rock and shoot at the cabin and keep ’em occupied till we can sneak around and rush ’em from the rear. See, the bresh comes down purty close to the foot of the slope on the other side, and gives us cover. We can do it easy, with somebody keepin’ their attention over here. I’ll give you part of the reward.”

  “I don’t want no derned blood-money,” I said, backing away. “And besides — ow!”

  I’d absent-mindedly backed out from behind the big rock where I’d been standing, and a .30-30 slug burned its way acrost the seat of my britches.

  “Dern them murderers!” I bellered, seeing red. “Gimme a rifle! I’ll learn ’em to shoot a man behind his back. Gwan, take ’em in the rear. I’ll keep ’em busy.”

  “Good boy!” said Hopkins. “You’ll get plenty for this!”

  It sounded like somebody was snickering to theirselves as they snuck away, but I give no heed. I squinted cautiously around the big boulder, and begun sniping at the cabin. All I could see to shoot at was the puffs of smoke which marked the cracks they was shooting through, but from the cussing and yelling which begun to float up from the shack, I must have throwed some lead mighty close to them.

  They kept shooting back, and the bullets splashed and buzzed on the rocks, and I kept looking at the further slope for some sign of Sheriff Hopkins and the posse. But all I heard was a sound of horses galloping away toward the west. I wondered who it could be, and I kept expecting the posse to rush down the opposite slope and take them desperadoes in the rear, and whilst I was craning my neck around a corner of the boulder — whang! A bullet smashed into the rock a few inches from my face and a sliver of stone took a notch out of my ear. I don’t know of nothing that makes me madder’n to get shot in the ear.

  I seen red and didn’t even shoot back. A mere rifle was too paltry to satisfy me. Suddenly I realized that the big boulder in front of me was just poised on the slope, its underside partly embedded in the earth. I throwed down my rifle and bent my knees and spread my arms and gripped it.

  I shook the sweat and blood outa my eyes, and bellered so them in the hollow could hear me: “I’m givin’ you-all a chance to surrender! Come out, your hands up!”

  They give loud and sarcastic jeers, and I yelled: “All right, you ring- tailed jackasses! If you gets squashed like a pancake, it’s your own fault. Here she comes!”

  And I heaved with all I had. The veins stood out on my temples, my feet sunk into the ground, but the earth bulged and cracked all around the big rock, rivelets of dirt begun to trickle down, and the big boulder groaned, give way and lurched over.

  A dumfounded yell riz from the cabin. I leaped behind a bush, but the outlaws was too surprized to shoot at me. That enormous boulder was tumbling down the hill, crushing bushes flat and gathering speed as it rolled. And the cabin was right in its path.

  Wild yells bust the air, the door was throwed violently open, and a man hove into view. Just as he started out of the door I let bamat him and he howled and ducked back just like anybody will when a .45-90 slug knocks their hat off. The next instant that thundering boulder hit the cabin. Smash! It knocked it sidewise like a ten pin and caved in the wall, and the whole structure collapsed in a cloud of dust and bark and splinters.

  I run down the slope, and from the yells which issued from under the ruins, I knowed they hadn’t all been killed.

  “Does you-all surrender?” I roared.

  “Yes, dern it!” they squalled. “Get us out from under this landslide!”

  “Throw out yore guns,” I ordered.

  “How in hell can we throw anything?” they hollered wrathfully. “We’re pinned down by a ton of rocks and boards and we’re bein’ squoze to death. Help, murder!”

  “Aw, shut up,” I said. “You don’t hear me carryin’ on in no such hysterical way, does you?”

  Well, they moaned and complained, and I sot to work dragging the ruins off them, which wasn’t no great task. Purty soon I seen a booted leg and I laid hold of it and dragged out the critter it was fastened to, and he looked more done up than what my brother Bill did that time he rassled a mountain lion for a bet. I took his pistol out of his belt, and laid him down on the ground and got the others out. There was three, altogether, and I disarm ’em and laid ’em out in a row.

  Their clothes was nearly tore off, and they was bruised and scratched, and had splinters in their hair, but they wasn’t hurt permanent. They sot up and felt of theirselves, and one of ’em said: “This here is the first earthquake I ever seen in this country.”

  “T’warn’t no earthquake,” said another’n. “It was a avalanche.”

  “Listen here, Joe Partland,” said the first ‘un, grinding his teeth, “I says it was a earthquake, and I ain’t the man to be called a liar—”

  “Oh, you ain’t?” said the other’n, bristling up. “Well, lemme tell you somethin’, Frank Jackson—”

  “This ain’t no time for such argyments,” I admonished ’em sternly. “As for that there rock, I rolled that at you myself.”

  They gaped at me. “Who are you?” said one of ‘em, mopping the blood offa his ear.

  “Never mind,” I said. “You see this here Winchester? Well, you-all set still and rest yourselves. Soon as the sheriff gets here, I’m goin’ to hand you over to him.”

  His mouth fell open. “Sheriff?” he said, dumb-like. “What sheriff?”

  “Dick Hopkins, from Grizzly Run,” I said.

  “Why, you derned fool!” he screamed, scrambling up.

  �
��Set down!” I roared, shoving my rifle barrel at him, and he sank back, all white and shaking. He could hardly talk.

  “Listen to me!” he gasped. “I’m Dick Hopkins! I’m sheriff of Grizzly Run! These men are my deputies.”

  “Yeah?” I said sarcastically. “And who was the fellows shootin’ at you from the brush?”

  “Tarantula Bixby and his gang,” he said. “We was follerin’ ’em when they jumped us, and bein’ outnumbered and surprized, we took cover in that old hut. They robbed the Grizzly Run bank day before yesterday. And now they’ll be gettin’ further away every minute! Oh, Judas J. Iscariot! Of all the dumb, bone- headed jackasses—”

  “Heh! heh! heh!” I said cynically. “You must think I ain’t got no sense. If you’re the sheriff, where at’s your star?”

  “It was on my suspenders,” he said despairingly. “When you hauled me out by the laig my suspenders caught on somethin’ and tore off. If you’ll lemme look amongst them ruins—”

  “You set still,” I commanded. “You can’t fool me. You’re Tranchler Bixby yourself. Sheriff Hopkins told me so. Him and the posse will be here in a little while. Set still and shut up.”

  We stayed there, and the fellow which claimed to be the sheriff moaned and pulled his hair and shed a few tears, and the other fellows tried to convince me they was deputies till I got tired of their gab and told ’em to shut up or I’d bend my Winchester over their heads. I wondered why Hopkins and them didn’t come, and I begun to get nervous, and all to once the fellow which said he was the sheriff give a yell that startled me so I jumped and nearly shot him. He had something in his hand and was waving it around.

  “See here?” His voice cracked he hollered so loud. “I found it! It must have fell down into my shirt when my suspenders busted! Look at it, you dern mountain grizzly!”

  I looked and my flesh crawled. It was a shiny silver star.