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

by Robert E. Howard

  “What’s happened?” she cried. “Where’s Bob?”

  “No time to pow-wow,” panted Laramie. “Bob’s been hurt. Don’t know how bad. I got to ride, because—”

  He was interrupted by shouts from the other side of the cabin.

  “Look out, Judy!” one man yelled. “Stay under cover! He shot Bob in the back!”

  Reacting to the shout without conscious thought, Judy sprang to seize his reins.

  Laramie jerked the sorrel aside and evaded her grasp. “It’s a lie!” he yelled with heat. “I ain’t got time to explain. Hope Bob ain’t hurt bad.”

  Then he was away, crouching low in his saddle with bullets pinging past him; it seemed he’d been hearing lead whistle all day; he was getting sick of that particular noise. He looked back once. Behind the cabin Judy Anders was bending over a limp form that the men had carried in from the desert. Now she was down on her knees in the dust beside that limp body, searching for a spark of life.

  Laramie cursed sickly. History was indeed repeating itself that day in San Leon.

  For a time Laramie rode eastward, skirting the desert, and glad of a breathing spell. The sorrel had profited by its rest behind the Anders’ cabin, and was fairly fresh. Laramie had a good lead on the pursuers he knew would be hot on his trail as soon as they could get to their horses, but he headed east instead of north, the direction in which lay his real goal — the Boxed W ranch. He did not expect to be able to throw them off his scent entirely, but he did hope to confuse them and gain a little time.

  It was imperative that he see his one friend in San Leon County — Joel Waters. Maybe Joel Waters could unriddle some of the tangle. Who were the men masquerading as Laramies?

  He had been forging eastward for perhaps an hour when, looking backward from a steep rise, he saw a column of riders approaching some two miles away through a cloud of dust that meant haste. That would be the posse following his trail — and that meant that the sheriff was dead or still senseless.

  Laramie wheeled down the slope on the other side and headed north, hunting hard ground that would not betray a pony’s hoof-print.

  * * *

  3. TRIGGER DEBT

  DUSK was fast settling when he rode into the yard of the Boxed W. He was glad of the darkness, for he had feared that some of Waters’ punchers might have been in San Leon that day, and seen him. But he rode up to the porch without having encountered anyone, and saw the man he was hunting sitting there, pulling at a corn-cob pipe.

  Waters rose and came forward with his hand outstretched as Laramie swung from the saddle.

  “You’ve growed,” said the old man. “I’d never knowed you if I hadn’t been expectin’ you. You don’t favor yore brothers none. Look a lot like yore dad did at yore age, though. You’ve pushed yore cayuse hard,” he added, with a piercing glance at the sweat-plastered flanks of the sorrel.

  “Yeah.” There was bitter humor in Laramie’s reply. “I just got through shootin’ me a sheriff.”

  Waters jerked the pipe from his mouth. He looked stunned.

  “What?”

  “All you got to do is ask the upright citizens of San Leon that’s trailin’ me like a lobo wolf,” returned Laramie with a mirthless grin. And tersely and concisely he told the old rancher what had happened in San Leon and on the desert.

  Waters listened in silence, puffing smoke slowly.

  “It’s bad,” he muttered, when Laramie had finished. “Damned bad — well, about all I can do right now is to feed you. Put yore cayuse in the corral.”

  “Rather hide him near the house, if I could,” said Laramie. “That posse is liable to hit my sign and trail me here any time. I want to be ready to ride.”

  “Blacksmith shop behind the house,” grunted Waters. “Come on.”

  Laramie followed the old man to the shop, leading the sorrel. While he was removing the bridle and loosening the cinch, Waters brought hay and filled an old log-trough. When Laramie followed him back to the house, the younger man carried the saddle bags over his arm. Their gentle clink no longer soothed him; too many obstacles to distributing them were rising in his path.

  “I just finished eatin’ before you come,” grunted Waters. “Plenty left.”

  “Hop Sing still cookin’ for you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ain’t you ever goin’ to get married?” chaffed Laramie.

  “Shore,” grunted the old man, chewing his pipe stem. “I just got to have time to decide what type of woman’d make me the best wife.”

  Laramie grinned. Waters was well past sixty, and had been giving that reply to chaffing about his matrimonial prospects as far back as Buck could remember.

  Hop Sing remembered Laramie and greeted him warmly. The old Chinaman had cooked for Waters for many years. Laramie could trust him as far as he could trust Waters himself.

  The old man sat gripping his cold pipe between his teeth as Laramie disposed of a steak, eggs, beans and potatoes and tamped it down with a man- sized chunk of apple pie.

  “Yo’re follerin’ blind trails,” he said slowly. “Mebbe I can help you.”

  “Maybe. Do you have any idea who the gent on the showy pinto might be?”

  “Not many such paints in these parts. What’d the man look like?”

  “Well, I didn’t get a close range look at him, of course. From what I saw he looked to be short, thick-set, and he wore a short beard and a mustache so big it plumb ambushed his pan.”

  “Why, hell!” snorted Waters. “That’s bound to be Mart Rawley! He rides a flashy pinto, and he’s got the biggest set of whiskers in San Leon.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Owns the Red Lode. Come here about six months ago and bought it off of old Charlie Ross.”

  “Well, that don’t help none,” growled Laramie, finishing his coffee and reaching for the makings. He paused suddenly, lighted match lifted. “Say, did this hombre ride up from Mexico?”

  “He come in from the east. Of course, he could have come from Mexico, at that; he’d have circled the desert. Nobody but you Laramies ever hit straight across it. He ain’t said he come from Mexico original; and he ain’t said he ain’t.”

  Laramie meditated in silence, and then asked: “What about this new gang that calls theirselves Laramies?”

  “Plain coyotes,” snarled the old man. “Us San Leon folks was just gittin’ on our feet again after the wreck yore brothers made out of us, when this outfit hit the country. They’ve robbed and stole and looted till most of us are right back where we was six years ago. They’ve done more damage in a few weeks than yore brothers did in three years.

  “I ain’t been so bad hit as some, because I’ve got the toughest, straightest-shootin’ crew of punchers in the county; but most of the cowmen around San Leon are mortgaged to the hilt, and stand to lose their outfits if they git looted any more. Ely Harrison — he’s president of the bank now, since yore brothers killed old man Brown — Ely’s been good about takin’ mortgages and handin’ out money, but he cain’t go on doin’ it forever.”

  “Does everybody figure they’re the Laramies?”

  “Why not? They send letters to the cowmen sayin’ they’ll wipe out their whole outfit if they don’t deliver ’em so many hundred head of beef stock, and they sign them letters with the Laramie name. They’re hidin’ out in the Diablos like you all did; they’s always the same number in the gang; and they can make a get-away through the desert, which nobody but the Laramies ever did.

  “Of course, they wear masks, which the Laramies never did, but that’s a minor item; customs change, so to speak. I’d have believed they was the genuine Laramies myself, only for a couple of reasons — one bein’ you’d wrote me in your letter that you was the only Laramie left. You didn’t give no details.” The old man’s voice was questioning.

  “Man’s reputation always follows him,” grunted Buck. “A barroom gladiator got Jim. Hank got that gunfighter the next week, but was shot up so hisself he died. Tom joined the revolu
tionaries and the rurales cornered him in a dry wash. Took ’em ten hours and three dead men to get him. Luke—” He hesitated and scowled slightly.

  “Luke was killed in a barroom brawl in Sante Maria, by a two-gunfighter called Killer Rawlins. They said Luke reached first, but Rawlins beat him to it. I don’t know. Rawlins skipped that night. I’ve always believed that Luke got a dirty deal, some way. He was the best one of the boys. If I ever meet Rawlins—” Involuntarily his hand moved toward the worn butt of his Colt. Then he shrugged his shoulders, and said: “You said there was two reasons why you knowed these coyotes wasn’t Laramies; what’s t’other’n?”

  “They work different,” growled the old man. “Yore brothers was bad, but white men, just the same. They killed prompt, but they killed clean. These rats ain’t content with just stealin’ our stock. They burn down ranch houses and pizen water holes like a tribe of cussed Apaches. Jim Bannerman of the Lazy B didn’t leave ’em two hundred of steers in a draw like they demanded in one of them letters. A couple of days later we found nothin’ but smokin’ ruins at the Lazy B, with Jim’s body burned up inside and all his punchers dead or shot up.”

  Buck’s face was gray beneath its tan. His fist knotted on the gunbutt.

  “The devil!” he choked, in a voice little above a whisper. “And the Laramies are gettin’ the blame! I thought my brothers dragged the name low — but these devils are haulin’ it right down into hell. Joel Waters, listen to me! I come back here to pay back money my brothers stole from San Leon; I’m stayin’ to pay a bigger debt. The desert’s big, but it ain’t big enough for a Laramie and the rats that wears his name. If I don’t wipe that gang of rattlers off the earth they can have my name, because I won’t need it no more.”

  “The Laramies owe a debt to San Leon,” agreed old Joel, filling his pipe. “Cleanin’ out that snake-den is the best way I know of payin’ it.”

  Some time later Laramie rose at last and ground his cigarette butt under his heel.

  “We’ve about talked out our wampum. From all I can see, everything points to this Mart Rawley bein’ connected with the gang, somehow. He must have been the one that shot Bob Anders. He was ahead of the other fellows; they couldn’t see him for a rise in the ground. They wouldn’t have seen him shoot Anders. He might have been aimin’ at me; or he might have just wanted Anders out of the way.

  “Anyway, I’m headin’ for the Diablos tonight. I know yo’re willin’ to hide me here, but you can help me more if nobody suspects yo’re helpin’ me, yet.

  “I’m leavin’ these saddle-bags with you. If I don’t come back out of the Diablos, you’ll know what to do with the money. So long.”

  They shook hands, and old Joel said: “So long, Buck. I’ll take care of the money. If they git crowdin’ you too close, duck back here. And if you need help in the hills, try to git word back to me. I can still draw a bead with a Winchester, and I’ve got a gang of hard-ridin’ waddies to back my play.”

  “I ain’t forgettin’, Joel.”

  Laramie turned toward the door. Absorbed in his thoughts, he forgot for an instant that he was a hunted man, and relaxed his vigilance. As he stepped out onto the veranda he did not stop to think that he was thrown into bold relief by the light behind him.

  As his boot-heel hit the porch yellow flame lanced the darkness and he heard the whine of a bullet that fanned him as it passed. He leapt back, slamming the door, wheeled, and halted in dismay to see Joel Waters sinking to the door. The old man, standing directly behind Laramie, had stopped the slug meant for his guest.

  With his heart in his mouth Laramie dropped beside his friend. “Where’d it get you, Joel?” he choked.

  “Low down, through the leg,” grunted Waters, already sitting up and whipping his bandanna around his leg for a tourniquet. “Nothin’ to worry about. You better git goin’.”

  Laramie took the bandanna and began knotting it tightly, ignoring a hail from without.

  “Come out with yore hands up, Laramie!” a rough voice shouted. “You can’t fight a whole posse. We got you cornered!”

  “Beat it, Buck!” snapped Waters, pulling away his friend’s hands. “They must have left their horses and sneaked up on foot. Sneak out the back way before they surround the house, fork yore cayuse and burn the breeze. That’s Mart Rawley talkin’, and I reckon it was him that shot. He aims to git you before you have time to ask questions or answer any. Even if you went out there with yore hands up, he’d kill you. Git goin’, dern you!”

  “All right!” Laramie jumped up as Hop Sing came out of the kitchen, almond eyes wide and a cleaver in his hand. “Tell ’em I held a gun on you and made you feed me. T’ain’t time for ’em to know we’re friends, not yet.”

  The next instant he was gliding into the back part of the house and slipping through a window into the outer darkness. He heard somebody swearing at Rawley for firing before the rest had taken up their positions, and he heard other voices and noises that indicated the posse was scattering out to surround the house.

  He ran for the blacksmith shop, and, groping in the dark, tightened the cinch on the sorrel and slipped on the bridle. He worked fast, but before Laramie could lead the horse outside he heard a jingle of spurs and the sound of footsteps.

  Laramie swung into the saddle, ducked his head low to avoid the lintel of the door, and struck in the spurs. The sorrel hurtled through the door like a thunderbolt. A startled yell rang out, a man jumped frantically out of the way, tripped over his spurs and fell flat on his back, discharging his Winchester in the general direction of the Big Dipper. The sorrel and its rider went past him like a thundering shadow to be swallowed in the darkness. Wild yells answered the passionate blasphemy of the fallen man, and guns spurted red as their owners fired blindly after the receding hoof-beats. But before the possemen could untangle themselves from their bewilderment and find their mounts, the echoes of flying hoofs had died away and night hid the fugitive’s trail. Buck Laramie was far away, riding to the Diablos.

  * * *

  4. SIDEWINDER RAMROD

  MIDNIGHT found Laramie deep in the Diabios. He halted, tethered the sorrel, and spread his blankets at the foot of a low cliff. Night was not the time to venture further along the rock-strewn paths and treacherous precipices of the Diablos. He slept fitfully, his slumber disturbed by dreams of a girl kneeling beside a wounded man.

  With the first gray of dawn he was riding familiar trails that would lead him to the cabin in the hidden canyon that he knew so well, the old hideout of his gang, where he believed he would find the new band which was terrorizing the country. The hideout had but one entrance — a rock-walled tunnel. How the fake gang could have learned of the place Laramie could not know.

  The hideout was in a great bowl, on all sides of which rose walls of jumbled rock, impassable to a horseman. It was possible to climb the cliffs near the entrance of the tunnel, which, if the fake gang were following the customs of the real Laramies, would be guarded.

  Half an hour after sunrise found him making his way on foot toward the canyon entrance. His horse he had left concealed among the rocks at a safe distance, and lariat in hand he crept along behind rocks and scrub growth toward the old river bed that formed the canyon. Presently, gazing through the underbrush that masked his approach, he saw, half hidden by a rock, a man in a tattered brown shirt who sat at the mouth of the canyon entrance, his hat pulled low over his eyes, and a Winchester across his knees.

  Evidently a belief in the security of the hide-out made the sentry careless. Laramie had the drop on him; but to use his advantage incurred the possibility of a shot that would warn those inside the canyon and spoil his plans. So he retreated to a point where he would not be directly in the line of the guard’s vision, if the man roused, and began working his way to a spot a few hundred yards to the left, where, as he knew of old, he could climb to the rim of the canyon.

  In a few moments he had clambered up to a point from which he could glimpse the booted feet of the guard sti
cking from behind the rock. Laramie’s flesh crawled at the thought of being picked off with a rifle bullet like a fly off a wall, if the guard looked his way.

  But the boots did not move, he dislodged no stones large enough to make an alarming noise, and presently, panting and sweating, he heaved himself over the crest of the rim and lay on his belly gazing down into the canyon below him.

  As he looked down into the bowl which had once been like a prison to him, bitterness of memory was mingled with a brief, sick longing for his dead brothers; after all, they were his brothers, and had been kind to him in their rough way.

  The cabin below him had in no wise changed in the passing of the years. Smoke was pouring out of the chimney, and in the corral at the back, horses were milling about in an attempt to escape the ropes of two men who were seeking saddle mounts for the day.

  Shaking out his lariat, Laramie crept along the canyon rim until he reached a spot where a stunted tree clung to the very edge. To this tree he made fast the rope, knotted it at intervals for handholds, and threw the other end over the cliff. It hung fifteen feet short of the bottom, but that was near enough.

  As he went down it, with a knee hooked about the thin strand to take some of the strain off his hands, he grinned thinly as he remembered how he had used this descent long ago when he wanted to dodge Big Jim who was waiting at the entrance to give him a licking. His face hardened.

  “Wish he was here with me now. We’d mop up these rats by ourselves.”

  Dangling at the end of the rope at arm’s length he dropped, narrowly missing a heap of jagged rocks, and lit in the sand on his feet, going to his all-fours from the impact.

  Bending low, sometimes on hands and knees, he headed circuitously for the cabin, keeping it between himself and the men in the corral. To his own wonderment he reached the cabin without hearing any alarm sounded. Maybe the occupants, if there were any in the canyon beside the men he had seen, had gone out the back way to the corral. He hoped so.