Part 4

It was probably ten minutes later that Smoky Cole rode out of the livery-stable and headed toward home. He was savagely drunk and took out his spite on his horse, which almost threw him off in front of the sheriff’s office.

“Well, they’re gone and I hope they never come back,” declared the sheriff fervently.

“You and me both,” agreed Lonesome wearily. “It’s gittin’ so a fuf-feller can’t even sleep around here. Next time I’ll take a hammer and nails with me and nail their pants to the floor. I’ll betcha they’ll stay put next time I have to git out of mum-my sleep to correct ’em.”

“You think you’re a little bit of ----, don’tcha?” queried the sheriff sarcastically.

“Not such a little bit either,” retorted Lonesome. “I’ve got the stren’th to hold up the law, y’betcha.”

* * * * *

Hashknife and Sleepy were riding in from the other end of town, and the sheriff watched them ride up to the front of the office and dismount. He was not exactly sure whether he liked these two punchers or not. Still their smiles were friendly enough, but he was not sure that they were not laughing at him.

“Howdy,” greeted Hashknife. “How’s tricks?”

“Tricks are fine,” yelled Lonesome. “I jist pup-played a dinger. Lemme tell yuh about it.”

And with great gusto and much stuttering, Lonesome told them how he had treated the two drunken punchers.

“And Fat Fleager thought he’d lost his hearin’, ’cause he couldn’t hear ’em shootin’,” concluded Lonesome. “Mamma mine, I never done nothin’ half as good before.”

“Didja think they’d do that, when yuh took the shells out of their guns?” asked Hashknife.

“I wasn’t sure of nothin’,” admitted Lonesome, “but it sure worked out swell.”

“Now they’ll pack a grudge agin’ you,” declared the sheriff.

“And I’ll pack a riot-gun,” said Lonesome laughing.

“Kind of a tough place yuh got here,” said Hashknife, sitting down on the sidewalk and producing his papers and tobacco. “Cattle fade out and folks get shot. You kinda got yore hands full, ain’t yuh, sheriff?”

The sheriff nodded slowly and shoved his hands deeply into his pockets.

“Yeah, I reckon things are kinda unsettled, Hartley.”

“You fellers find a job yet?” Thus Lonesome, as if to change the subject.

“Not yet,” grinned Hashknife. “Jobs is scarce.”

“If I wanted a job punchin’ cows, I’d sure pass up the Ghost Hills range,” observed the sheriff. “There’s lots of better ranges than this, where there’s always a need for top-hands.”

“Yeah, I reckon that’s right,” agreed Hashknife. “It ain’t noways the best. The Circle Cross is the best outfit around here, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, I reckon it is. They run more cattle than any other outfit around here--or did until--say, did yuh go over to the Flying M? Old man Shappee might have a job for one of yuh. It’s about four miles east of here. And there’s the 66 outfit about seven miles kinda south of here.”

“We was just ridin’ around today,” explained Hashknife. “We ran across the Tomahawk ranch-house, but they ain’t hirin’ nobody.”

“That’s a cinch,” said Lonesome, grinning widely. “They never did hire anybody. Old Cassidy and Jimmy Droop-drawers done all the work. Mebbe Ben Lanpher is doin’ somethin’ since old Cassidy git into jail, but I doubt it. He’s so soaked with hooch that he’s no good to anybody.”

“Who is this here Ben Lanpher?” asked Hashknife.

“Millionaire kid,” grunted the sheriff. “His father owns half of the Circle Cross. Lives in Frisco, I think. Sent the kid out here to learn the cattle business and he took a post-graduate course in whisky and six-guns. He was at the Circle Cross for quite a while, but he got stuck on Cassidy’s daughter, pulled off a quarrel with Jim Trainor and hooked up with the Tomahawk. He says he’s goin’ to marry that breed girl, but I doubt it.”

“So do I,” agreed Sleepy, and added quickly. “He’d never stay sober long enough for that.”

Hashknife chuckled to himself and tried to catch Sleepy’s eye, but Sleepy was busy examining his fingernails and would not look up.

“It’s a wonder that his father wouldn’t make him come home,” said Hashknife. “Somebody’ll kill him if he don’t pull the kink out of his neck.”

“Well, sir, he’s got a nice father, too,” observed the sheriff. “I kinda like Lanpher. Not a ---- bit like the kid. He was here about a year or so ago--him and his wife and daughter.”

“And that daughter is a dinger,” wheezed Lonesome. “Prettiest girl I ever seen. She sure was a promisin’ lookin’ filly, but Jim Trainor kinda close-herded her all the time. By golly, there was a lot of punchers that’d given their right eye to even dance with her. Her ma high-toned everybody, but papa was sort of a harmless hoptoad.”

Lonesome laughed and shook his head sadly.

“Mamma looked right over my huh-head, when I tried to shake hands with her. I told her to set her sights lower if she wanted to connect with me and she got sore. Anyway, I got papa drunk and he confided that he had high ideas for daughter. I often wonder if he hit what he was aimin’ at.”

“And they ain’t been here since, eh?” This from Sleepy.

“Nope. Their little son stayed, thasall. And I’ll tell a man that this country didn’t draw much when they got him.”

“Lots of cattle shipped out of here?” asked Hashknife.

“Ain’t been for a while.” The sheriff shook his head. “Oh, there’s a few bein’ shipped now and then, but no big shipments. The 66 outfit shipped some horses the other day, didn’t they, Lonesome?”

“Gosh, I dunno,” Lonesome yawned widely. “I never keep track of them kinda things. It keeps me busy knockin’ down drunken bad-men. Ho-o-o--hum-m-m!”

“Why don’tcha try sleepin’ for it?” asked Hashknife.

“Try it?” snorted the sheriff. “My ---- he don’t do nothin’ else but sleep.”

“Don’t I?”

Lonesome slapped himself on the chest.

“I went out and cleaned up on the bad-men, while the sheriff planted himself over there on the sidewalk and got cockeyed from tryin’ to watch both ways at once.”

“Yuh should ’a’ seen him, gents. He seen Smoky comin’ one way and Bennie the other. Then he yelps:

“‘Don’tcha start nothin’!’ Ha, ha, ha, ha!”

Lonesome roared his mirth and the sheriff whirled and went into the office, quivering with indignation.

“Now he’s mad at me,” wailed Lonesome, “and I suppose he’ll fire me, and I won’t have no more job than a jackrabbit. That’s just my luck.”

“You think yore kinda ---- smart, don’tcha?” growled the harassed sheriff.

“Well,” Lonesome sighed gleefully, “it isn’t as bad as I thought it was. When Fat gets to blamin’ me for bein’ smart, I know everythin’ is all right.”

Lonesome began manufacturing a cigaret and the conversation stopped for a few minutes. A loaded wagon creaked down the street, stirring up a cloud of dust. Over in front of the Antelope saloon a couple of cowpunchers mounted and rode away, arguing loudly over something that neither of them knew anything about. Up the street a couple of dogs started a battle, which was a signal to every dog in town to come and look on.

Hashknife inhaled deeply on his cigaret and motioned with his arm to take in the whole town.

“Boys, this is the kind of a town to live in. They can all have their cities--give me the old cow-town.”

“Huh!”

Lonesome flipped away his match and stared at Hashknife.

“Pardner, you’ve got a ---- of an idea of a place to live. You ain’t been around much, have yuh?”

“No-o-o, not a whole lot.”

“I guess you ain’t.”

“Here comes an old-timer,” observed Sleepy, pointing up the street. “Betcha he struck the mother-lode.”

It was a bearded old prospector, astride a bony, gray horse, and trailing him was a decrepit-looking pack-horse, with pack askew and a limp in one leg.

The one-man caravan came straight to the office and the bearded man shaded his eyes from the sun, as he spelled out the sheriff’s sign over the door.

“Howdy, stranger,” said Lonesome. “Somethin’ I can do for yuh?”

“You the sheriff?” asked the bearded one anxiously.

“No, I’m his hired bad-man buster,” grinned Lonesome.

Just then the sheriff came to the door, and Lonesome jerked his thumb in that direction.

“There’s the sheriff--such as he is.”

“What do yuh want?” queried the sheriff.

“Well--” The patriarch cleared his throat raspingly and leaned forward in his saddle--“I found a dead man a little while ago.”

The sheriff stepped out nearer him.

“Keep on talkin’, stranger. Where’d yuh find him?”

“Back up the road a piece. Mebbe it’s a couple of miles. He’s layin’ on his face in the middle of the road. I didn’t move him none, I didn’t, but I looked at him enough to know that he’s dead. Been shot in the back of the head, ’cordin’ to what I observed.”

“What did he look like?” queried Lonesome.

“I told yuh he’s layin’ on his face--kinda rootin’ into the dust. Got on chaps and overalls and a shirt. Jist a little ways before I finds this here dead man, I finds this in the road.”

He drew a six-shooter from the waistband of his overalls and handed it to the sheriff. It was a Colt single-action .44 caliber.

“Say yuh found it in the road?” asked the sheriff, examining the gun closely.

“Yeah. I thinks to myself that I’ve found me a good gun, but when I finds the dead man, I decides to turn the gun over to the sheriff. It’s been shot once.”

“I see it has,” nodded the sheriff, and then to Lonesome--

“Get a hack from the livery-stable and we’ll go out after this dead man.”

Lonesome bow-legged his way across the street and down to the stable, while the sheriff went back through his office to the stable, where he and Lonesome kept their saddle-horses.

The old prospector turned and studied the saloon signs across the street, spat dryly and rode over to the Antelope to quench a thirst that was probably of long standing.

“Who do yuh reckon got killed, Hashknife?” asked Sleepy, as they waited for the sheriff.

“Probably that fool Lanpher. Here comes the sheriff.”

They swung on to their horses and joined Fleager, without waiting for Lonesome.

“He’ll come along after while,” assured the sheriff. “We’ll go ahead and investigate.”

It took them only a short time to reach the spot, where the man was lying. On both sides of the road was a heavy thicket of brush and rocks. The sheriff dismounted and turned the man over.

It was Smoky Cole. Hashknife and Sleepy swung down and the three of them made a minute examination. Cole had been shot from behind, the bullet striking him almost at the base of the brain.

“Never knowed what hit him,” declared the sheriff, standing up and dusting his knees.

“His gun is still in its holster, too,” said Hashknife as he drew the gun out and looked it over. All the chambers were loaded and the barrel was clean.

“Kinda looks like he never had a chance, sheriff.”

The sheriff nodded gloomily and began searching for tracks in the deep dust.

“I wonder where Sandy Claws found that six-gun.”

“Said it was a little beyond here,” said Sleepy. “It was prob’ly beyond that curve, and we can likely see where he picked it up.”

They left the body and walked up the road, searching for the place where the old man had dismounted to pick up the gun. About fifty yards beyond the first turn in the road they found the spot.

“Here’s where the gun was dropped,” observed the sheriff, pointing at the footprints in the road.

Hashknife was looking a little farther on, and now he crossed the road, reached into the brush and picked up a black sombrero.

“Here’s a hat,” he called, and walked back to the sheriff.

It was a fairly new Stetson, but badly soiled, and in the sweat-band was punched the initials “B. L.”

“Ben Lanpher,” declared the sheriff thoughtfully. “That’s his hat. He probably bushwhacked Smoky and lost his hat and gun in his getaway. And he was likely so drunk that he never thought to stop and get ’em.”

As they walked back to the body, Lonesome drove into view and managed to turn his team around near the body.

It did not take Lonesome long to find out all they knew and he shook his head sadly.

“I knowed it,” he declared. “Yuh can’t mix whisky and six-guns. Well,” optimistically, “the county ain’t loser none to speak about, Fat.”

“Mebbe not,” grunted the sheriff, and motioned for them to help him put the body into the hack.

Lonesome climbed back to his seat and the sheriff gave his orders where to deliver the body.

“Ain’t you goin’ back with us?” queried Lonesome.

“Nope, not now. I’ve got to go and get Ben Lanpher.”

“Goin’ to give him a medal?” grinned Lonesome.

“Goin’ to arrest him for murder.”

“Aw, for gosh sake! You don’t call this murder, do yuh?”

“Well--” The sheriff mounted and adjusted his holster--“well, yuh couldn’t very well call it self-defense, Lonesome. Smoky never drawed his gun, and he was shot from behind. No, I reckon Bennie is sure up ag’in’ it good and strong.”

The sheriff rode on toward the Tomahawk, while Lonesome sputtered at the team and drove back toward Wolf Wells, with Hashknife and Sleepy riding behind the wagon.

“Gosh, this sure will be a jolt to old man Lanpher,” observed Sleepy sadly.

“Yeah,” sighed Hashknife. “I sure feel sorry for them folks. I wonder if the sheriff knows Lanpher’s address in Frisco.”

“You know it, don’t yuh?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want anybody to know that I do.”

He called to Lonesome and asked him about the Lanpher family.

“I don’t know his address, and I don’t reckon that Fat does either,” replied Lonesome. “Jim Trainor’d know it.”

“Suppose we ride to the Circle Cross and tell Trainor? He’d probably want to know about Smoky Cole.”

“That’s a good idea,” admitted Lonesome. “You go ahead.”

Lonesome drove on, and the two cowboys turned and rode back up the highway toward the Circle Cross.

Hashknife was very thoughtful, but finally turned to Sleepy.

“Cowboy, it kinda looks like we’ve bit off a big chaw.”

“Sure does,” agreed Sleepy, “and there don’t seem to be no handy place to start chawin’, does there?”

Hashknife shook his head, his eyes squinted thoughtfully.

“No, there don’t, Sleepy. I reckon it’s a fact that a gang of rustlers are makin’ a cleanup in this range, but everybody is scared to talk about it.

“It must ’a’ been that gang who killed the two cattle detectives, but I don’t think they had anythin’ to do with this killin’ today.”

“Mebbe old man Cassidy is one of the gang,” suggested Sleepy.

“Might be. As far as that’s concerned, Ben Lanpher might be one of ’em, too. It looks to me like Smoky Cole tried to convict old Cassidy at that trial. He sure stuck for conviction. I’m just wonderin’ if Smoky Cole didn’t try to make love to Lorna Cassidy, and that was why the old man drew a dead-line against the Circle Cross outfit.

“Smoky was a mean sort of a jasper, and that would be his idea of revenge, to hang the old man. Still I don’t think that Ben belongs to the rustlers, because he wouldn’t hardly steal from his own father.”

“How about that warning that Lorna told us about, Hashknife?”

“Don’t mean anythin’, Sleepy. They’d naturally want everybody to think they was sufferin’, too. But where in ---- are they disposin’ of the stock? Workin’ in the dark thisaway is kinda hard, don’tcha know it? And we can’t ask a lot of fool questions, because we don’t know when we’re talkin’ to some of the gang.”

They passed the spot where Cole had been killed, and took the right-hand road at the forks, which wound in and out of the brushy coulées and into a wide swale on the bank of a creek where the Circle Cross buildings were located.

* * * * *

It was growing late, but there was still enough light to show that the Circle Cross was no small outfit. The ranch-house was pretentious in size, the barns, fences and corrals were in good repair, and even the front yard of the ranch-house seemed well-kept.

“Looks like the teepee of a millionaire,” observed Sleepy, as they dismounted at the ranch-house.

A fat Chinese answered their knock at the front door and nodded solemnly when they asked for Trainor.

“Yessah, he in. I call.”

“Who’s out there?” yelled Trainor’s voice.

“This is Hartley,” called Hashknife.

“Come on in and rest your feet.”

They followed the Chinaman into the living-room, and in a few moments Trainor came in. He was carrying a bottle of liquor and some glasses, and seemed a trifle unsteady in his walk.

“Glad to see yuh,” he boomed. “Welcome to the Circle Cross, gents. I’ve just been tryin’ out some new liquor and I find that it has a lot of authority.”

He started to pour out a glass.

“Say when, Hartley.”

“When!” grunted Hashknife quickly.

“Say, that ain’t half-full, cowboy. Why ----”

“Too late in the afternoon, and we ain’t been fed since breakfast.”

“You ain’t?” Trainor turned and yelled toward the kitchen.

“Hey, Quong! Throw on a couple of steaks. Cut ’em thick, yuh hear me?”

“Yessah, can do,” called the Chinaman.

“Wait a minute,” begged Hashknife. “We didn’t come out here to bum a meal and a drink, Trainor; we came to tell you that Smoky Cole was killed a little while ago, and that the sheriff has gone to arrest Ben Lanpher for murder.”

Trainor stared at Hashknife, started to put the bottle on the table, but missed, and it fell to the floor, where its contents gurgled out over a fine Navajo rug.

“Smoky Cole? How did this happen, Hartley?”

Hashknife explained how Cole’s body had been found and how the evidence all pointed to Ben Lanpher. He told Trainor of the bloodless gun-fight at Wolf Wells, and that Ben Lanpher had ridden away ahead of Smoky Cole.

“And he shot Smoky from the brush, eh?” Trainor’s jaw muscles bulged angrily. “Never gave him a chance. Wait a minute.”

Trainor stepped out onto the front porch and yelled at two cowpunchers, who were down near a corral. Hashknife and Sleepy followed him out and watched the two men come up to them. Hashknife and Sleepy had never seen these two, and Trainor introduced them as “Buck” Avery and “Poco” Saunders.

Avery was a square-faced, pig-eyed, medium-sized man, about thirty years of age, whose face was badly marked from smallpox.

Saunders was of medium height, but thin-faced and as dark as a Mexican. His eyes were sullen and the pupils seemed flecked with red. After a searching glance, which seemed to take in every inch of both Hashknife and Sleepy, Saunders kept his eyes on Trainor’s face, while Trainor repeated what Hashknife had told him.

Buck Avery swore witheringly, but Saunders said nothing when they learned that Smoky Cole was dead.

“We’ll all have a drink and then go to town,” said Trainor. “C’mon.”

But Poco Saunders did not accept the invitation. He turned and walked back toward the corral, without a word.

“He was Smoky’s bunkie,” said Trainor, which seemed sufficient explanation for refusing to drink.

“Poco don’t drink much, anyway,” added Buck, “but I feel like a drink would kinda take the edge off a shock like that. It ain’t that it’s any surprize t’me, though. Smoky always got mean when he was drinkin’, but he thought he was such a ---- of a gunman that he’d git past with anythin’.”

“He was shot from behind,” reminded Sleepy.

“Which’ll make it go hard with Ben Lanpher,” nodded Buck over his drink. “It’s a fine start for a kid like him, and I feel a lot more sorry for his folks than I do for him. Yuh goin’ to wire ’em, ain’tcha, Trainor?”

“Just as soon as I get to town, Buck. Let’s go.”

Poco Saunders had saddled his horse and was waiting for them. Hashknife studied Poco, while Trainor and Buck Avery were saddling, and decided that Poco was a very sinister-looking young man; and might well be marked with a danger signal.

Whereas Smoky Cole was a talkative gunman, prone to boast of his prowess and more or less audible threatening, Poco would probably shoot first and talk about it later, if at all.

Trainor and Avery rode out from the corral, joined them, and the five of them headed for Wolf Wells at a gallop. Hashknife showed them where Smoky’s body had been discovered, and where Ben Lanpher’s gun and hat had been picked up, but Poco showed no interest in this.

Trainor looked curiously at Poco, who went on without them.

“Hit him kinda hard, I reckon,” he observed. “Him and Smoky were bunkies for a long time. Poco’s a good puncher, but he ain’t got much sense.”

“Part Mexican?” asked Hashknife.

“He’s got some Mexican blood in him, I reckon,” replied Buck. “Used to talk it a little once in a while. That’s where he got his nickname.”

They rode into town and went straight to the sheriff’s office, where they found several men talking with the sheriff. He had brought Ben Lanpher back with him and had locked him in a cell.

“He was still drunk,” said the sheriff, “and he sure was a meek jasper. Didn’t object to bein’ locked up, except to tell me he never done it. Mebbe he was so drunk that he didn’t know when he shot Cole. I dunno.”

“Man never gets so drunk that he don’t remember bushwhackin’ and killin’ a man,” declared Hashknife.

“Dang right he don’t,” agreed Lonesome Hobbs. “That ain’t no alibi,” and added sadly, “I wish I’d let their guns alone t’ day. One or both of ’em would ’a’ got killed, but it would ’a’ been legal. I s’pose I’ve got to spend most of my time feedin’ and takin’ care of prisoners now. Thank gosh, we’ve only got two cells. If we get any more prisoners we’ll have to pasture ’em out some’ers.”

A man came across the street and joined the group. He was a sallow-faced man, with tobacco-stained teeth and ink-stained fingers.

“I was just comin’ down to send a telegram to Lanpher,” said Trainor, addressing the newcomer. “You heard what happened, didn’t yuh, Whitey?”

“Yeah, I heard about it. Looks kinda bad for the kid.”

Trainor walked away with Whitey, going to the depot, and Hashknife and Sleepy put their horses into a corral. At the depot, Trainor sent a long message to William Lanpher, giving him the details of the trouble.

“There’s a telegram here for yuh, Trainor,” said the depot agent, as he checked off the words on Trainor’s message.

“I was goin’ to send it out to yuh, if somebody was goin’ out your way. This’ll cost yuh a dollar and sixty cents.”

Trainor paid for the message and walked out. At the edge of the platform he tore open the envelope and read the message, a serious frown on his face. Then he grinned softly and went back up the street.

* * * * *

When Ben Lanpher sobered up he failed to become the least bit repentant over what had happened to him. Trainor had consulted with George Mitchell, the lawyer from San Francisco, and had hired him to defend Ben, but Ben would have none of him.

Hashknife and Sleepy talked with the sheriff about Lanpher.

“He’s loco,” declared the sheriff. “Tells a tale that no jury would believe.”

“What about?” queried Hashknife.

“Aw, he says he never bushwhacked Cole a-tall.”

“I’d like to talk with him a while,” observed Hashknife, “and see if he tells the same thing twice.”

“Might be a good idea,” agreed Lonesome Hobbs. “Me and Fat’ll listen and see what it sounds like.”

“Prob’ly won’t talk to yuh. Mitchell comes down here to have a talk with him, but he cussed Mitchell plumb out of the jail. Mitchell told him that Trainor hired him to defend him, and it made Lanpher sore as ----. I’ll see if Ben’ll talk to yuh.”

The sheriff came back in a few minutes with the information that Ben was willing to talk to anybody who wasn’t connected with the Circle Cross outfit. They went through the office and into the rear, where two cells were built in at the back of the room.

Old Pinto Cassidy scowled at them through the bars, but noticed that they were strangers and became more friendly. Ben came to the barred door and squinted at Hashknife.

“I know you,” he said hoarsely. “You’re the jasper that winked over my shoulder. By ---- that seems a long time ago. What did yuh want to see me for?”

“Ye don’t have to talk with ’em, if ye don’t want to, remimber that, Ben,” warned Cassidy. “Ye have to be careful who ye talk wid in here. Sure, it’s a ---- of a place to be in, so it is.”

“That’s all right, Cassidy,” grunted Ben. “I’ve nothin’ to conceal.”