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

by Robert E. Howard

  “Where’s Waters?” rapped out Laramie.

  “Solly!” Hop Sing beamed on the younger man. “He gone to town to see doctluh and get leg fixed. Slim Jones dlive him in in buckbload. He be back tonight.”

  “Damn!” groaned Laramie. He saw his plan being knocked into a cocked hat. That plan had been to lead a band of men straight to the outlaws’ hide-out and bottle them up in their stronghold before they could scatter out over the range in their planned raid. The Boxed W punchers would not follow a stranger without their boss’s orders, and only Waters could convince the bellicose citizens of San Leon that Laramie was on the level. Time was flying, and every minute counted.

  There was only one risky course left open. He swung on his tiring horse and reined away on the road for San Leon.

  He met no one on the road, for which he was thankful. When he drew up on the outskirts of the town his horse was drawing laboring breaths. He knew the animal would be useless in case he had to dust out of town with a posse on his heels.

  Laramie knew of a back alley that led to the doctor’s office, and by which he hoped to make it unseen. He dismounted and headed down the alley, leading the gelding by the reins.

  He sighted the little adobe shack where the town’s one physician lived and worked, when a jingle of spurs behind him caused him to jerk his head in time to see a man passing the end of the alley. It was Mart Rawley, and Laramie ducked behind his horse, cursing his luck. Rawley must have been prowling around the town, expecting him, and watching for him. His yell instantly split the lazy silence.

  “Laramie!” howled Rawley. “Laramie’s back! Hey, Bill! Lon! Joe! Everybody! Laramie’s in town again! This way!”

  Laramie forked his mustang and spurred it into a lumbering run for the main street. Lead was singing down the alley as Laramie burst into Main Street, and saw Joel Waters sitting in a chair on the porch of the doctor’s shack.

  “Get all the men you can rustle and head for the Diablos!” he yelled at the astonished ranchman. “I’ll leave a trail for you to follow. I found the gang at the old hide-out — and they’re comin’ out tonight for a big cleanup!”

  Then he was off again, his clattering hoofs drowning Waters’ voice as he shouted after the rider. Men were yelling and .45s banging. Ahorse and afoot they came at him, shooting as they ran. The dull, terrifying mob-roar rose, pierced with yells of: “String him up!” “He shot Bob Anders in the back!”

  His way to open country was blocked, and his horse was exhausted. With a snarl Laramie wheeled and rode to the right for a narrow alley that did not seem to be blocked. It led between two buildings to a side-street, and was not wide enough for a horse to pass through. Maybe that was the reason it had been left unguarded. Laramie reached it, threw himself from his saddle and dived into the narrow mouth.

  For an instant his mount, standing with drooping head in the opening, masked his master from bullets, though Laramie had not intended sacrificing his horse for his own hide. Laramie had run half the length of the alley before someone reached out gingerly, grasped the reins and jerked the horse away. Laramie half turned, without pausing in his run, and fired high and harmlessly back down the alley. The whistle of lead kept the alley clear until he bolted out the other end.

  There, blocking his way in the side, street, stood a figure beside a black racing horse. Laramie’s gun came up — then he stopped short, mouth open in amazement. It was Judy Anders who stood beside the black horse.

  Before he could speak she sprang forward and thrust the reins in his hand.

  “Take him and go! He’s fast!”

  “Why — what?” Laramie sputtered, his thinking processes in a muddle. The mere sight of Judy Anders had that effect upon him. Hope flamed in him. Did her helping him mean — then reason returned and he took the gift the gods had given him without stopping for question. As he grabbed the horn and swung up he managed: “I sure thank you kindly, miss—”

  “Don’t thank me,” Judy Anders retorted curtly; her color was high, but her red lips were sulky. “You’re a Laramie and ought to be hung, but you fought beside Bob yesterday when he needed help. The Anderses pay their debts. Will you go?”

  A nervous stamp of her little foot emphasized the request. The advice was good. Three of the townsmen appeared with lifted guns around a corner of a nearby building. They hesitated as they saw the girl near him, but began maneuvering for a clear shot at him without endangering her.

  “See Joel Waters, at the doctor’s office!” he yelled to her, and was off for the open country, riding like an Apache, and not at all sure that she understood him. Men howled and guns crashed behind him, and maddened citizens ran cursing for their mounts, too crazy-mad to notice the girl who shrieked vainly at them, unheeding her waving arms.

  “Stop! Stop! Wait! Listen to me!” Deaf to her cries they streamed past her, ahorse and afoot, and burst out into the open. The mounted men spurred their horses savagely after the figure that was swiftly dwindling in the distance.

  Judy dashed aside an angry tear and declaimed her opinion of men in general, and the citizens of San Leon in particular, in terms more expressive than lady-like.

  “What’s the matter?” It was Joel Waters, limping out of the alley, supported by the doctor. The old man seemed stunned by the rapidity of events. “What in the devil’s all this mean? Where’s Buck?”

  She pointed. “There he goes, with all the idiots in San Leon after him.”

  “Not all the idiots,” Waters corrected. “I’m still here. Dern it, the boy must be crazy, comin’ here. I yelled myself deef at them fools, but they wouldn’t listen—”

  “They wouldn’t listen to me, either!” cried Judy despairingly. “But they won’t catch him — ever, on that black of mine. And maybe when they come limping back, they’ll be cooled down enough to hear the truth. If they won’t listen to me, they will to Bob!”

  “To Bob?” exclaimed the doctor. “Has he come out of his daze? I was just getting ready to come over and see him again, when Joel came in for his leg to be dressed.”

  “Bob came out of it just a little while ago. He told me it wasn’t Laramie who shot him. He’s still groggy and uncertain as to just what happened. He doesn’t know who it was who shot him, but he knows it wasn’t Buck Laramie. The last thing he remembers was Laramie running some little distance ahead of him. The bullet came from behind. He thinks a stray slug from the men behind them hit him.”

  “I don’t believe it was a stray,” grunted Waters, his eyes beginning to glitter. “I got a dern good idee who shot Bob. I’m goin’ to talk—”

  “Better not bother Bob too much right now,” interrupted the doctor “I’ll go over there—”

  “Better go in a hurry if you want to catch Bob at home,” the girl said grimly. “He was pulling on his boots and yelling for our cook to bring him his gun-belt when I left!”

  “What? Why, he musn’t get up yet!” The doctor transferred Waters’ arm from his shoulder to that of the girl, and hurried away toward the house where Bob Anders was supposed to be convalescing.

  “Why did Buck come back here?” Judy wailed to Waters.

  “From what he hollered at me as he lighted past, I reckon he’s found somethin’ up in the Diablos. He come for help. Probably went to my ranch first, and findin’ me not there, risked his neck comin’ on here. Said send men after him, to foller signs he’d leave. I relayed that there information on to Slim Jones, my foreman. Doc lent Slim a horse, and Slim’s high-tailin’ it for the Boxed W right now to round up my waddies and hit the trail. As soon as these San Leon snake-hunters has ruint their cayuses chasin’ that black streak of light you give Buck, they’ll be pullin’ back into town. This time, I bet they’ll listen.”

  “I’m glad he didn’t shoot Bob,” she murmured. “But why — why did he come back here in the first place?”

  “He come to pay a debt he figgered he owed on behalf of his no-account brothers. His saddle bags is full of gold he aims to give back to the citizens o
f this here ongrateful town. What’s the matter?”

  For his fair companion had uttered a startled exclamation.

  “N-nothing, only — only I didn’t know it was that way! Then Buck never robbed or stole, like his brothers?”

  “Course he didn’t!” snapped the old man irascibly. “Think I’d kept on bein’ his friend all his life, if he had? Buck ain’t to blame for what his brothers did. He’s straight and he’s always been straight.”

  “But he was with them, when — when—”

  “I know.” Waters’ voice was gentler. “But he didn’t shoot yore dad. That was Luke. And Buck was with ’em only because they made him. He wasn’t nothin’ but a kid.”

  She did not reply and old Waters, noting the soft, new light glowing in her eyes, the faint, wistful smile that curved her lips, wisely said nothing.

  In the meantime the subject of their discussion was proving the worth of the sleek piece of horseflesh under him. He grinned as he saw the distance between him and his pursuers widen, thrilled to the marvel of the horse between his knees as any good horseman would. In half an hour he could no longer see the men who hunted him.

  He pulled the black to an easier, swinging gait that would eat up the miles for long hours on end, and headed for the Diablos. But the desperate move he was making was not dominating his thoughts. He was mulling over a new puzzle; the problem of why Judy Anders had come to his aid. Considering her parting words, she didn’t have much use for him. If Bob had survived his wound, and asserted Laramie’s innocence, why were the citizens so hot for his blood? If not — would Judy Anders willingly aid a man she thought shot her brother? He thrilled at the memory of her, standing there with the horse that saved his life. If only he weren’t a Laramie — How beautiful she was.

  * * *

  7. BOTTLED UP

  A GOOD three hours before sundown Laramie was in the foothills of the Diablos. In another hour, by dint of reckless riding over trails that were inches in width, which even he ordinarily would have shunned, he came in sight of the entrance to the hide-out. He had left signs farther down the trail to indicate, not the way he had come, but the best way for Waters’ punchers to follow him.

  Once more he dismounted some distance from the tunnel and stole cautiously forward. There would be a new sentry at the entrance, and Laramie’s first job must be to dispose of him silently.

  He was halfway to the tunnel when he glimpsed the guard, sitting several yards from the mouth, near a clump of bushes. It was the scar-faced fellow Harrison had called Braxton, and he seemed wide-awake.

  Falling back on Indian tactics, acquired from the Yaquis in Mexico, Laramie began a stealthy, and necessarily slow, advance on the guard, swinging in a circle that would bring him behind the man. He crept up to within a dozen feet.

  Braxton was getting restless. He shifted his position, craning his neck as he stared suspiciously about him. Laramie believed he had heard, but not yet located, faint sounds made in Laramie’s progress. In another instant he would turn his head and stare full at the bushes which afforded the attacker scanty cover.

  Gathering a handful of pebbles, Laramie rose stealthily to his knees and threw them over the guard’s head. They hit with a loud clatter some yards beyond the man. Braxton started to his feet with an oath. He glared in the direction of the sound with his Winchester half lifted, neck craned. At the same instant Laramie leaped for him with his six-gun raised like a club.

  Scarface wheeled, and his eyes flared in amazement. He jerked the rifle around, but Laramie struck it aside with his left hand, and brought down his pistol barrel crushingly on the man’s head. Braxton went to his knees like a felled ox; slumped full-length and lay still.

  Laramie ripped off belts and neckerchief from the senseless figure; bound and gagged his captive securely. He appropriated his pistol, rifle and spare cartridges, then dragged him away from the tunnel mouth and shoved him in among a cluster of rocks and bushes, effectually concealing him from the casual glance.

  “Won the first trick, by thunder!” grunted Laramie. “And now for the next deal.”

  The success of that deal depended on whether or not all the outlaws of Harrison’s band were in the hide-out. Mart Rawley was probably outside, yet; maybe still back in San Leon. But Laramie knew he must take the chance that all the other outlaws were inside.

  He glanced up to a ledge overhanging the tunnel mouth, where stood precariously balanced the huge boulder which had given him his idea for bottling up the canyon.

  “Cork for my bottle!” muttered Laramie. “All I need now’s a lever.”

  A broken tree limb sufficed for that, and a few moments later he had climbed to the ledge and was at work on the boulder. A moment’s panic assailed him as he feared its base was too deeply imbedded for him to move it. But under his fierce efforts he felt the great mass give at last. A few minutes more of back-breaking effort, another heave that made the veins bulge on his temples — and the boulder started toppling, crashed over the ledge and thundered down into the tunnel entrance. It jammed there, almost filling the space.

  He swarmed down the wall and began wedging smaller rocks and brush in the apertures between the boulder and the tunnel sides. The only way his enemies could get out now was by climbing the canyon walls, a feat he considered practically impossible, or by laboriously picking out the stones he had jammed in place, and squeezing a way through a hole between the boulder and the tunnel wall. And neither method would be a cinch, with a resolute cowpuncher slinging lead at everything that moved.

  Laramie estimated that his whole task had taken about half an hour. Slinging Braxton’s rifle over his shoulder he clambered up the cliffs. At the spot on the canyon rim where he had spied upon the hide-out that morning, he forted himself by the simple procedure of crouching behind a fair-sized rock, with the Winchester and pistols handy at his elbows. He had scarcely taken his position when he saw a mob of riders breaking away from the corral behind the cabin. As he had figured, the gang was getting away to an early start for its activities of the night.

  He counted twenty-five of them; and the very sun that glinted on polished gun hammers and silver conchas seemed to reflect violence and evil deeds.

  “Four hundred yards,” muttered Laramie, squinting along the blue rifle barrel. “Three fifty — three hundred — now I opens the ball!”

  At the ping of the shot dust spurted in front of the horses’ hoofs, and the riders scattered like quail, with startled yells.

  “Drop them shootin’ irons and hi’st yore hands!” roared Laramie. “Tunnel’s corked up and you can’t get out!”

  His answer came in a vengeful hail of bullets, spattering along the canyon rim for yards in either direction. He had not expected any other reply. His shout had been more for rhetorical effect than anything else. But there was nothing theatrical about his second shot, which knocked a man out of his saddle. The fellow never moved after he hit the ground.

  The outlaws converged toward the tunnel entrance, firing as they rode, aiming at Laramie’s aerie, which they had finally located. Laramie replied in kind. A mustang smitten by a slug meant for his rider rolled to the ground and broke his rider’s leg under him. A squat raider howled profanely as a slug ploughed through his breast muscles.

  Then half a dozen men in the lead jammed into the tunnel and found that Laramie had informed them truthfully. Their yells reached a crescendo of fury. The others slid from their horses and took cover behind the rocks that littered the edges of the canyon, dragging the wounded men with them.

  From a rush and a dash the fight settled to a slow, deadly grind, with nobody taking any rash chances. Having located his tiny fort, they concentrated their fire on the spot of the rim he occupied. A storm of bullets drove him to cover behind the breastworks, and became exceedingly irksome.

  He had not seen either Rawley or Harrison. Rawley, he hoped, was still in San Leon, but the absence of Harrison worried him. Had he, too, gone to San Leon? If so, there was every chance th
at he might get clean away, even if his band was wiped out. There was another chance, that he or Rawley, or both of them, might return to the hide-out and attack him from the rear. He cursed himself for not having divulged the true identity of the gang’s leader to Judy Anders; but he always seemed addled when talking to her.

  The ammunition supply of the outlaws seemed inexhaustible. He knew at least six men were in the tunnel, and he heard them cursing and shouting, their voices muffled. He found himself confronted by a quandary that seemed to admit of no solution. If he did not discourage them, they would be breaking through the blocked tunnel and potting him from the rear. But to affect this discouragement meant leaving his point of vantage, and giving the men below a chance to climb the canyon wall. He did not believe this could be done, but he did not know what additions to the fortress had been made by the new occupants. They might have chiseled out handholds at some point on the wall. Well, he’d have to look at the tunnel.

  “Six-guns against rifles, if this keeps up much longer,” he muttered, working his way over the ledges. “Cartridges most gone. Why the devil don’t Joel’s men show up? I can’t keep these hombres hemmed up forever — damn!”

  His arm thrust his six-gun out as he yelped. Stones and brush had been worked out at one place in the tunnel-mouth, and the head and shoulders of a man appeared. At the crash of Laramie’s Colt the fellow howled and vanished. Laramie crouched, glaring; they would try it again, soon. If he was not there to give them lead-argument, the whole gang would be squeezing out of the tunnel in no time.

  He could not get back to the rim, and leave the tunnel unguarded; yet there was always the possibility of somebody climbing the canyon wall.

  Had he but known it, his fears were justified. For while he crouched on the ledge, glaring down at the tunnel-mouth, down in the canyon a man was wriggling toward a certain point of the cliff, where his keen eyes had discerned something dangling. He had discovered Laramie’s rope, hanging from the stunted tree on the rim. Cautiously he lifted himself out of the tall grass, ready to duck back in an instant, then as no shot came from the canyon rim, he scuttled like a rabbit toward the wall.