The Lone Ranger Rides

by Fran Striker

  Chapter XVI

  ONE-EYE SEES DEATH

  The Lone Ranger stood close to his horse at the edge of the Basin wherethick foliage marked the beginning of the rise of Thunder Mountain. Hestrained his eyes and ears to detect what he could in the Basin.Motionless and tense, the masked man waited like a hunter that tried tocatch a scent from a wind that held its breath. He heard the usual nightsounds of cattle, katydids, and frogs. There was an occasional call froma creature of the forest that rose behind him. Nothing more.

  On the downward path, the masked man had met no one. He had dismountedon several occasions to examine the trail by matchlight, and near thebottom, where it was overgrown with weeds, he had lighted a candle toinspect it further. He found that many head of cattle had traveled wherethe path was smooth, but the beef had been fanned out in many directionsnear the bottom of the mountain and driven into the Basin at severalpoints. He decided that this had been done so that a path would not beseen from the Basin itself.

  The Lone Ranger guided Silver back among the trees where the white coatwouldn't be so obvious if someone rode near. He whispered softly, thenleft the horse untethered.

  He paused to make sure that his mask was snugly in place. It had becomeso much a part of him that he couldn't be sure of its presence unless hefelt it with his hand. When Tonto had, at first, suggested wearing themask all the time, he had thought it a bit dramatic, perhaps even silly,but consideration made him realize that he already was hampered by thedetermination not to shoot to kill, by great odds, and by the weaknessof his wounds and recent fever. He might have to fight, to rope andshoot, and the mask must be no handicap. He checked his guns, makingsure that they were fully loaded by replacing the shell that had beenused to disarm Rangoon. Then he was ready.

  An experienced black cat stalking a nervous bird could be no more quietthan was the Lone Ranger as he moved across the Basin. His clothing hadno flapping superfluities; he wore no jingling spurs; his guns were tieddown so that the holsters could not slap his legs. Boots oiled topreclude the slightest possibility of any squeaking leather, he movedswiftly and surely toward the buildings of the ranch. He saw the houseand, not far from it, the row of lighted squares that marked thebunkhouse.

  Halfway to the buildings, the Lone Ranger froze. He wondered if his eyeswere playing tricks, or if he actually had seen someone, or something,move at one end of the bunkhouse. Now he saw a moving figure in the beamof light that slanted from a rear window. In an instant, whatever he sawwas obscured by the darkness. He glanced over his shoulder. Silver waswell out of sight. His own dark clothing would be barely visible unlesssomeone were quite close to him.

  Then he heard the sound of hoofs. A horse and rider appeared as a vagueshadow against the lighted bunkhouse windows. The masked man droppedflat on his stomach, hugging the ground as closely as possible. Therider was coming straight toward him.

  He drew a pistol, holding it in readiness if he should be seen. He knewthat his hat was light, and might attract attention, but he dared notmove it. He felt the ground tremble with the beat of hoofs. He heard thecrack of a quirt, cruelly applied, and a man's husky voice. Now therider was almost upon him, without slackening his speed. The racinghorse looked tremendous as it passed within twenty feet of the LoneRanger. It was impossible to tell who was in the saddle. All detailswere shrouded by the darkness, but whoever that horseman was, he was ina hurry. He swept across the Basin toward the foot of Thunder Mountain,and the last the masked man saw was the barely perceptible shadowbreaking through the underbrush that hid the uphill trail.

  The Lone Ranger presently rose to his feet, waited several seconds, andthen moved ahead again. This time his destination was the bunkhouse. Hecould call on Bryant and Penelope later. First, he would investigate tolearn, if possible, the reason for the unknown rider's sudden departure.

  There was no sound from within the bunkhouse. The masked man advancedtoward the side of the long and rather narrow one-story building. Therear, from which the unknown rider had started, was on his right, thefront of the building on his left. He could see that a door which openedout was wide, but from his point of view the Lone Ranger couldn't seethe inside of the place.

  He could hear something going on inside the ranch house, a couple ofhundred feet away, but couldn't distinguish the sounds clearly enough toknow what they might mean. "Go there," he muttered, "later on."

  With increasing caution, he approached the objective until his back waspressed close to the slab side of the bunkhouse at the corner betweenthe lighted windows and the open door. Still there was no sound inside.His gun in readiness, he rounded the corner and looked in the door. Hesaw a well-lighted room. Double-deck bunks lined each of the side walls,divided by a narrow aisle. In the front part of the room there was onelarge table, and several chairs. At least twenty men slept here, but nowthere was no one in sight.

  The table had held a poker game which seemed to have been interruptedsuddenly. Freshly dealt cards lay face down on the table as they hadfallen, before the chairs of the players. The room was littered withbattered pictures, extra boots, blanket rolls, and other paraphernaliathat would naturally be accumulated by those who slept there. The LoneRanger stepped inside and drew the door shut behind him.

  At the poker table he paused and examined a few of the cards. Rifflingthrough them he came across two aces. He held these cards close to acoal-oil lamp and studied their backs. In one corner, he found a barelydiscernible indentation that might have been made by a fingernail. Henodded slowly.

  "Looks like it might be Slick Lonergan," he mused. Slick hadn't beenseen in any of his familiar haunts since the time he had disappearedbefore a trial in which he was to be questioned about a murder. The LoneRanger knew Lonergan's entire background; a crooked gambler, a craftylawyer, and a shrewd schemer, who should have been jailed long ago, butwho had repeatedly found loopholes that served as ratholes for him toslip through and remain free.

  Leaving the table, the Lone Ranger began a quick but systematic searchof the building. He moved down the aisle, studying the possessions neareach bunk. He found a handbill that had Rangoon's picture on it, but thename at the time of its printing was Abe Larkin. Larkin apparentlyhadn't taken any pains to hide the fact that he was wanted by the law.

  Once he thought he heard a faint, low moan from somewhere close at hand.He stood attentive, but the sound was not repeated. He continued in hissearch, oppressed by a somewhat guilty feeling as a prowler and anunexplainable sensation that there was someone else in the bunkhousewith him.

  He studied two more bunks and then heard the moan again. This time itwas unmistakable. The Lone Ranger hurried to the far end of thebunkhouse, and there, in the lower bunk on his right, he found a manunconscious. The window over the head of the still form was open. It wasoutside this window that the unknown rider had been first seen.

  The unconscious man--the Lone Ranger could see in the dim light that hewas old--was shadowed by the shelf-like bunk of the second tier. TheLone Ranger unhooked a lamp that swung from the ceiling and placed it sothat the light fell across the bald head, which lay in a widening poolof red. He jerked his bandanna from a pocket and soused it in a near-bywater pitcher; then he bathed the old fellow's face. A tremulous softsob broke through the white mustache. The eyes of the wounded manfluttered slightly, then stared up. There was an empty socket where theleft eye should have been, but the other eye was bright with pain.

  "Take it easy," the Lone Ranger whispered. "I'm going to have a look atthat wound and see what we can do for you. Don't try to speak justyet--wait a little."

  He turned the old man gently to his side and saw the handle of a knifeprotruding from high up on one shoulder. The blade was out of sight. Hedidn't touch the knife--there was no use. The wound was fatal; Gimlet atbest had only a few minutes.

  He applied more water to the old man's face and forehead. "Tell me, ifyou can, who did this?" he said.

  Gimlet's lips moved feebly, but no words came.

  "Do you know who
stabbed you?" asked the Lone Ranger. "One word, justthe name of the man, can you tell me that?"

  Gimlet lifted one hand very feebly, and pointed toward the open window.

  The Lone Ranger nodded. "I know, he stabbed you through that window.Tell me who it was."

  The dying man seemed to be gathering himself for one supreme effort. Heswallowed hard; his eyelids closed, then opened.

  "Tried," he said, then coughed and started again. "I--I tried tuh--getYuma--His bunk here--" More coughing choked the words. Blood drooledfrom the side of the old man's mouth and stained his white mustache. TheLone Ranger pressed water from his handkerchief against Gimlet's lips.

  "I heard you," he said softly, "I heard what you said. You tried to getYuma. Yuma is a man who works here?"

  Gimlet nodded.

  "You said this was his bunk?"

  Again the slowly moving head went down and up.

  "Tell me some more. What about Yuma?"

  "Felt o' his bunk ... lookin' tuh see...." Gimlet had to pause for a fitof coughing so violent that it hardly seemed his fast-ebbing strengthcould stand it. When he finished, his breath came in short and painfulgasps. "The ... the house," he managed to say. He struggled hard,fighting the Grim Specter every step of its advancing way. There wasmore he wanted desperately to tell. The old man was upon that borderlinebetween the living and the dead. From his position, he seemed to seethings in their true light. He looked beyond the mask and saw a man heknew could be trusted. His gnarled, blue-veined hand clutched that ofthe Lone Ranger while he fought hard to make a last statement. Themasked man leaned close to him, to catch the dying words if they wereuttered. But whatever Gimlet was about to say went with him across thelast threshold. His hand clutched convulsively and then relaxed. Hecoughed once, and brought a flood of his life's blood to his mouth, andthen lay back.

  The masked man felt and found no pulse. He closed the old man's fingersand laid them across the bony chest.

  "Yuma," he muttered. "This was Yuma's bunk. I wonder who Yuma is andwhere I'll find him?"

  His thoughts came to a lurching halt when a sharp voice snarled a cursewith cataclysmic violence.

  "Yuh damned murderin' skunk, I'll kill yuh fer this!" It was Yuma whoshouted from the doorway.