Part 7

Black Jack, his black eyes hard as flint, lips set in a thin line, stooped to lift Shorty.

A brown streak of tobacco juice shot out, catching the breed squarely in the eyes. With a howl of pain as the stinging nicotine blinded him, the outlaw leader sprang erect, hands to his eyes.

A shot, accompanied by tinkling glass. “Stick ’em up!” bawled Tad.

The man bending over Pete whirled, shooting from the hip at the window. Tad’s shot caught the outlaw in the shoulder, spinning him about.

“Watch the jasper on the couch, Tad!” yelled Shorty, rolling across the floor in twisting flops and striking the legs of Black Jack, who was groping for the table where the lamp stood. Cursing in a monotone, his eyes blinded and hot with pain, the half breed fell across Shorty’s form.

Tad, gun in hand, sprang through the doorway. Black Jack shot desperately at the least sound, and Tad felt the air of a passing bullet. Tad leaped forward, the high heel of his boot crunching the breed’s gun hand into the dirt. The small bones cracked sickeningly and Black Jack cursed as he groped for the gun with his left hand.

A streak of fire from the bunk. Slim’s bullet tore through the crown of Tad’s hat. Tad’s gun roared, tearing the .45 from Slim’s hand.

“Both wings busted,” snarled Slim, and followed the statement by a string of curses.

The other man was in a heap, whining and begging.

“Kill the yaller coyote,” yelled Slim. “Kill the howling ——! Fight, you —— polecat!”

Tad was on top of Black Jack now, his long arms swinging like flails as the breed fought like a trapped cougar. A terrific swing and the breed went limp.

The powder smoke was stifling. Every man’s ears rang from the roar of the big calibered six-shooters. Slim was shrieking curses and begging some one to kill the wounded outlaw who put up so tame a fight.

Tad cut Shorty’s ropes first.

“Thanks, Ox,” grinned the little puncher. “Gimme that rope and I’ll tie that Injun. Where’s yore men, big feller?”

“I come with Kipp. Quit a runnin’ off at the head, runt, and tie up that black-muzzled skunk afore he comes alive and makes me kill ’im.”

Pete and Kipp were quickly freed. They grinned their thanks and set to work silencing Slim and the other man.

“Pete,” grinned the jubilant Shorty, “meet up with my ol’ Tad pardner. Homelier’n a muley cow, but we can’t all of us be han’some. Yuh done got here jest about time, feller. The Injun was kinda goin’ on the notion that all good cow hands was dead ’uns and was rearin’ tuh convert me’n Pete. I owes Peter twenty cents, Taddie. Bein’ kinda nervous inside, I missed that —— spider every shot. I ain’t so good as I used tuh be at——”

“Fer gosh sake, dry up, runt,” grumbled Tad. “Yuh dad-gummed li’l locoed idjit. Snuk off on me and overmatched yorese’f, didn’t yuh? I’d orter ’a’ let yuh git yore needin’s.”

With a snort of disapproval, he turned to Kipp.

The sheriff had moved to the open doorway and was staring with thoughtful eyes into the night. He turned as Tad’s hand rested on his shoulder. Together they stepped outside.

“That —— hole ketched me, Ladd. The fall knocked me out and they had me foul when I come to. I done my best, which was a —— of a pore showin’.”

“No man kin do more’n his best, Joe. It’s over now, let’s fergit it.”

Tad shoved out his hand, but Kipp shook his head.

“It ain’t over fer me, Ladd. I got my work cut out fer me. When I’ve done that work, I’ll shake hands if yo’re still in the notion.”

“Meanin’ Fox and you locks horns?”

“Partly that. When we bring this herd up outa the brakes, Fox’ll know that his game is lost. It’ll be either run er shoot it out, and he ain’t the runnin’ kind. It’ll be me er him, that’s all. The range is too small tuh hold us both.”

Tad nodded.

“I’m layin’ my bets on you, Joe.”

“I’m obliged, pardner.”

They turned and entered the cabin.

* * * * *

There followed half an hour of cross-questioning the outlaw who had begged for mercy when he had been wounded. They learned that there were no more men to be accounted for. Tad told of the conversation he had overheard between Bill and his companion.

“Then we got clear trail ahead,” said Kipp. “Bill’ll pick up the gent at the rimrock, bein’ they’re sorter pardners. We might as well bed down and take it easy till mornin’. We’ll take turns standin’ guard. There’d orter be beds out under the trees so’s them as ain’t on guard kin rest. Come daylight, we’ll take the herd out and I’ll take the pris’ners tuh Hank’s place.”

This plan met with hearty approval. Not a man there but needed rest. Tad took first guard.

Black Jack, conscious now, had lapsed into a sullen silence. His black eyes were opaque, his bearded features expressionless. No amount of questioning could open his thin lips.

“That’s the Injun in him,” grinned Shorty as he and Pete followed Kipp outside in search of beds.

“My work is done, Sheriff,” smiled Pete Basset when Shorty was out of earshot. “I’m giving myself up to you. I’m ready to go back to Deer Lodge.”

“Better wait a day er so, Pete. I’m too danged busy tuh fool with yuh right now. Keep yor gun fer a spell. It may come in handy. Fox’ll have men with him when we meet up with him at the lone cottonwood to pay off yore dad’s note. This show ain’t over. Till it is, yo’re plumb free, savvy?”

“That’s white of you, Sheriff. I’ve had a hunch for a long time that you were in cahoots with Fox and his gang. Black Jack’s recent talk clinches that suspicion. Also, it’s plain that you’re breaking with the LF. I want you to know that I’m for you.”

Beyond the cottonwood grove near the corrals, Shorty was jerking the saddle from his tired horse and staking the animal out where the grass was high. He sang as he worked:

“Parson, I’m a maverick, jest runnin’ loose an’ grazin’, Eatin’ where’s the greenest grass and drinkin’ where I choose; Had tuh rustle in my youth an’ never had no raisin’; Wasn’t never halter broke an’ I ain’t got much tuh lose; Used tuh sleepin’ in a sack an’ livin’ in a slicker; Church folks never branded me, I don’t know as they tried, Wisht you’d say a prayer fer me and try tuh make a dicker For the best they’ll give me when I cross the Big Divide.”

XII

At midnight Tad went outside to call Kipp for guard duty. He found the old officer sitting on a tarp-covered bed, smoking. “Herd’s a layin’ peaceful, Joe. I done found a jug uh licker and Slim and the yaller ’un has drunk theirselves tuh sleep. Black Jack’s the fust breed I ever run acrost that don’t tech t’rant’lar juice.”

Kipp smiled absently and got to his feet. Tad was pulling off his boots already. The sheriff’s form was silhouetted against the lighted doorway for a moment, then the door closed.

Tad, in the act of pulling off a second tight-fitting boot, paused, his wide brow furrowed in thought. For as long as a minute he sat thus. Then he pulled the boot back on his foot and donned its mate. He listened for a moment to Shorty’s snoring then, moving stealthily, Tad made his way to the cabin, crouching by the window, the glass of which had been broken earlier in the night.

“Hurry up and cut these ropes,” Tad heard Black Jack command in a low-pitched tone.

“No,” came Kipp’s answer.

The sheriff’s voice sounded tired, the voice of an old man who carried too heavy a burden.

“Yuh know what it means fer us both if I talk?”

“Yes. I’ve done figgered it all out. I’m takin’ my medicine and givin’ you yourn. There ain’t no use talkin’. I’m goin’ through with this. I aim tuh come clean with the hull story. How you killed a man when he ketched yuh stealin’ hosses. How yuh got life fer it. How I filed the bars uh the window on that Los Cruces jail and staked yuh to a hoss tuh git away into Mexico. Yuh said you’d never bother me no more. I come north, changed my name and lets the past lay dead. Then you and this Fox hunts me out and makes me play yore dirty game. I’m tellin’ all that when the time comes. They kin do what they —— please with me. I’ll die in the pen knowin’ I’ve squared my accounts here on this side uh the Big Divide.”

The breed made no reply. Tad, peering through the logs where a bit of chinking had dropped out, saw the sheriff squatted with his back against the door, a Winchester across his knees.

Black Jack’s back was toward Tad. He could see the brown, muscular hands, one of them swollen and discolored, twist at the tightly knotted rope.

“You’d bust the promise yuh made to a dyin’ woman?”

“I’ve kept that promise,” replied Kipp slowly, “more than kept it. I reckon you know that as well as I do.”

“Yes,” came the breed’s answer, “I reckon I do. You done yore share and more. I aim tuh do mine.”

One of those brown hands had so maneuvered that it had slipped inside the waistband of the overalls and was hidden. Unseen by Kipp, it now came forth, holding a tiny derringer. Before Tad grasped the import of the breed’s intention, Black Jack had pressed the muzzles of the little double-barreled gun into his own back. A dull roar as the hammer fell and the soft-nosed .44 slug ripped its way upward through Black Jack’s spine and into his chest. A second thudding roar. Then the smoking gun dropped to the floor.

Kipp was on his feet, staring strangely at the breed. Tad saw Black Jack’s face twist upward, white teeth showing in a twisted grin.

“Yuh see I’m keepin’ my word,” said the breed through smiling lips. “I won’t bother yuh no more. I’m—goin’ now. So long.”

The bearded head sagged forward. The body swayed sidewise. Kipp caught it and lowered him gently to the floor, dead.

Tad, entering the cabin, saw dimly outlined in the blue smoke haze Kipp squatting beside the body of the dead outlaw, staring into the glazing black eyes of the half-breed who had made the old sheriff’s life a living hell.

Kipp looked up. Tad was amazed to see the sheriff’s eyes wet with unshed tears.

“He was my son, Ladd,” said Kipp simply.

Tad stared stupidly for a moment, stunned at the sheriff’s words. Then he nodded understandingly. Slim and the other outlaw, stirred in their drunken slumber and slept on. Tad looked up to see Shorty, gun in hand, framed in the doorway.

“Black Jack done killed hisse’f, Shorty,” Tad explained. “Pete awake?”

“Awake and on the way, Tad. Yonder he comes, limpin’. Bet he stepped on a cactus in his sock feet.”

“I reckon Joe wants tuh be left alone, pard. Tell——”

“Hold on, Ladd,” said Kipp quietly, rising. “Let Pete come. The time has come fer explainin’ off a few things. Come in and set.”

The three younger men, awed into respectful silence by Kipp’s gravity, did as he asked.

“I won’t take long, boys,” Kipp began. “Ner will I try fer tuh git yore sympathy. Yonder lays my boy, the only child by a marriage that never should uh bin. She was Apache, I was a white man. We was both kids at the time and mistook lonesomeness fer love. We run off and was married down in Mexico.

“When she run off with me, she outlawed herself from her folks. They hated white men. I was —— fool enough tuh think I could make her over into a white woman. —— knows she was purty enough and as decent as ary white gal that ever lived. But in the towns, the white women shied off from her. Men called me a squaw-man and treated me as such. We wa’n’t so happy as we might uh bin them days, and we stuck clost to the little cow ranch I had down on the border. Then the boy come and fer a while it looked like we was goin’ tuh be happy onct more.

“But it didn’t last long. I was gone a heap, round-ups and hoss huntin’ and such. She was left alone on the ranch. There was a good lookin’ Mexican that used tuh drop in sometimes. Fancy outfit and always shaved and wearin’ of a clean shirt. He had money. I didn’t know till later that he made it sellin’ stolen hosses. She was a right purty little thing. I come in from a week’s work in the hills tuh find her gone. She’d took the boy, then a kid ten years old, with her.

“I oiled my gun and hit their trail. But ——, they was plumb gone. I rode over half uh Mexico, then come home tuh find my cattle scattered and run off and nary hoss left. The Mexicans had stole me blind, durin’ the twelve months I’ve bin gone. Travelers has tore down my corrals tuh build camp fires. A rattler strikes at me as I steps into the gutted cabin which I’d called home, and I’m that low in speerits that I goes back to my hoss without shootin’ the snake’s head off. Keepin’ clear uh town er the ranches where I’m known, I quits that range fer keeps.

“Cowpunchin’, ridin’ grub-line, breakin’ broncs, night-hawkin’, even takin’ a whirl at cookin’, and I’m driftin’ like a tumbleweed afore a norther. Doin’ my share uh drinkin’ and —— raisin’ with the rest, aimin’ tuh fergit that I got a wife an’ kid a strayin’ somewheres. But it ain’t noways easy tuh fergit and I keeps driftin’ back across the border hopin’ tuh cut their trail and always I got a shell in my gun fer the greaser that’s mavericked my wife an’ kid.

“It’s ten years from the day they run off from me, that I finds Mister Mex. I’m ridin’ into a li’l’ ol’ Mex town when I hears shootin’. I rounds the corner uh the _adobe rurale_ fort in time tuh see a _rurale_ firin’ squad blowin’ the smoke from their carbines. In a heap against a _’dobe_ wall is my Mex, plumb full uh lead. They’ve done ketched him stealin’ hosses. His pardner, a ’breed kid, has out rode ’em and got away after killin’ three uh their men. That ’breed kid, understand, is my son.

“That night I finds my wife down in a stinkin’, dirty _’dobe_ shack in Gopher town. She’s got fat and black lookin’ and she’s dyin’ from pneumonia. I stays by her till she dies. The kid, a good lookin’, black-eyed young tough, drifts in as she’s goin’ out. Not knowin’ me, he stands there in the door a-coverin’ me till she tells him he’s linin’ his sights on his own dad. He’s there when I promises her to look after him and get him weaned off from his wild ways. He’s laughin’ at me and her when she closes her eyes and I feels her hand go limp in mine.

“‘We’ll be startin’ fer Arizona when we’ve buried yore mother,’ I tells him.

“‘The —— we will,’ he says, blowin’ cigaret smoke in my face. ‘You shore got a good imagination. Diggin’ graves is outa my fine uh work and yore ways is too tame fer me. I jest dropped in tuh git some ca’tridges and a bottle uh mescal. My father, eh? A —— of a father, you are. And —— yuh, don’t go tryin’ tuh reform me, _sabe_? Bury the squaw if yuh feel like it, then go back to where yuh belong.’

“He steps out into the dark and is gone. The next time I sees him, he’s in jail at Los Cruces, bound fer Florence tuh serve a life sentence. I brings him some smokin’ and pays off his law sharp and figgers I’ve done my best. But he gits under my hide about this here promise I done made his mother. He swears he’ll quit the country complete and reform if I gits him loose. I weakens and that night I lets him out.

“I changes my name and drifts to Montana, aimin’ tuh begin fresh and thinkin’ the kid has gone tuh South America and made a clean start. Fifteen years passes and I’m sheriff here. Then him and Fox shows up. The kid’s older now and his whiskers keeps me from recognizin’ him.

“Me and Hank Basset rides into the brakes follerin’ the sign uh the stolen cattle. We splits up. I gits my hoss shot out from under me and takes to the brush. I jumps this Black Jack sudden, shootin’ the gun outa his hand. I’m puttin’ the ’cuffs on him when he tells me who he is.”

Kipp paused. His hands went out in a weary gesture.

“You kin guess the rest, boys. Fox and him a houndin’ me. They tell me that the night uh the Los Cruces jail break, a deputy was killed. The kid shot him, like as not. Him er Fox who was in town at the time, dickerin’ fer stolen hosses that the kid brung across the line. But they’ve laid the killin’ on to me and I’m wanted down there. Likewise the kid plays on this promise I done made his mother, sayin’ how I done wrong by her all the way through and if he’d had the right kind uh raisin’ he’d uh turned out different. Mebbe so, by gittin’ Fox and cleanin’ up this gang, I kin make up a mite fer what or’nariness I’ve done. Then I’m goin’ back tuh Los Cruces and let ’em do what they want with me. That’s the hull —— story, boys. The story that’s writ in black and white and lays in my safe. I want that you should know this afore I meets up with Fox.”

* * * * *

Opening the door, Joe Kipp stepped out into the night, his hair silvery white in the bright moonlight.

“I wonder,” said Pete Basset, as if musing aloud, “what we can say to make him know we’re for him?”

“Leave it tuh Tad,” whispered Shorty. “He kin do ’er. Hop to it, Taddie. Do it and I’ll give yuh them Chihuahua spurs yuh bin wantin’.”

Tad gave his little partner a withering look, then stepped over to Black Jack’s dead body, looking down into the upturned face. Then he jerked the blanket off the snoring Slim and covered the body of Joe Kipp’s son.

“I wish you would say something to him, Tad,” said Pete earnestly. “I’m afraid I’d make a mess of it.”

“If I gotta, I gotta,” replied Tad grimly. “Shed them spurs, runt.”

Tad met Kipp at the corral. He held out his hand to the old sheriff.

Kipp’s eyes were misty as he gripped it. “That goes fer all of us,” said Tad simply.

XIII

Luther Fox swung a long leg across his saddle horn and thus at ease in his saddle, gazed at the rudely lettered sign nailed to the lone cottonwood. A cold cigar jutted from the corner of his thin-lipped mouth. The age-yellowed ivory butt of a long-barreled .45 poked itself from beneath the long tail of his rusty black coat. He removed the cigar from between his crooked teeth and sprayed the sign with tobacco juice. One or two brown specks were added to the already badly spotted white expanse of shirt front.

“Barring —— and high water,” he addressed his two roughly garbed, heavily armed companions who had dismounted and squatted on the ground, “that sign will come off that tree before sundown.”

“No more dead-line between Basset’s and the LF, eh, boss?”

Fox nodded. The corners of his mouth twitching. Then he pointed with the butt of a home-made quirt to a small dust cloud, slowly approaching from the direction of the Basset place.

“What do you make of it, boys? How many comin’?”

“Two. Two hossbackers. Nary steer.”

“That’ll be Basset and his sweet-tempered wife. We’re due to receive a tongue lashing, boys. —— a man that can’t do business without his —— cat of a woman tagging along. Killing’s too good an end for such females.”

“I wonder where’s the cattle and them two waddies yuh hired, boss?”

“Quit the country, no doubt. I sent a man over here yesterday to see ’em. They’d pulled out and Basset was making no effort to gather the few head uh stuff he has on his range. As a matter of fact, Basset’s wife had the old fool penned off in the blacksmith shop.”

Fox smiled faintly. The two punchers laughed coarsely.

“Yuh aim tuh make a dicker fer the Basset iron, boss? Watch clost that ol’ Hank don’t sluff the ol’ lady off on yuh along with the brand.”

Hank and Ma Basset came on slowly, their horses scuffing up puffs of yellow dust.

The old couple looked tired and worried. Ma, dressed in bib overalls, flannel shirt, and an old slouch hat, filled her saddle to the point overflowing. Her eyes were a bit red as if from recent shedding of tears. Of the two, Hank looked the more downcast as they approached the lone tree that marked the boundary line. Low on Hank’s thigh swung a .45 in a weather-stained holster. Across Ma’s saddle pommel rested a sawed-off shotgun.

“Looky here, Hank Basset, perk up. I don’t aim that Fox should see us down in the mouth. Land sakes, can’t yuh scare up a grin of some description to wear on yore face. You don’t see me sittin’ my hoss like a dogie in a blizzard.”

At that moment her horse, an old flea-bitten gray, stumbled and went to his knees, jolting the breath out of Ma as her saddle horn jabbed her. Hank did his best to hide a grin. Ma, red-faced and gasping, gave him an angry look.

“If that ain’t a cowpuncher for yuh! I do believe you’d laugh if I was to be killed by this crow-bait of a hoss. Now what’s so comical? What yuh grinnin’ at?”

“Yuh ’lowed I was tuh perk up, Ma. I’m perkin’.”

Hank’s hand, searching for tobacco, encountered Kipp’s sheriff badge.

“Joe Kipp and the Ladd feller ’lowed they’d be here at noon today. The sun lacks half a hour uh throwin’ the short shadder. We ain’t licked yet.”

“If ary harm had come to Pete, I’d feel it in my bones, Hank. What was it Joe Kipp said about that paper in his safe?”

“He ’lowed it ’ud be useful to us.”

“Huh! He mighta said more. Yonder’s Fox, lookin’ fer all the world like a turkey buzzard, drat him. I’d like tuh give that old skinflint a piece uh my mind. Set up straight, can’t yuh? Goodness, a person ’ud think you was a hunchback. If them new galluses is too tight, let ’em out a notch.”

The couple approached the tree. Fox, his long leg still crooked across his saddle horn, lifted his hat with an air of mocking gallantry.

“The dried up ol’ he school-marm,” muttered Ma Basset, freezing him with a hard stare.

Fox’s head, bare as a billiard ball, disappeared beneath the wide-brimmed black hat.

“I understood there was a bunch of cattle to be delivered here, Basset,” he said as if surprised to see no herd. “My two boys are bringing them, perhaps?”

“Perhaps,” snapped Ma Basset. “’Tain’t noon yet.”

“On such a beautiful Sabbath morning, we mortals should forget our quarrels, Mrs. Basset. I come on an errand of peace. Ours should be a relationship of neighborly friendship instead on enmity.”

His bony hand indicated Basset’s sign. “It is my wish that such things should not exist, madam. In my pocket is your note. I would gladly destroy that bit of paper and seal, in that manner, our bond of mutual friendship. In return, I ask for something that is of little value. Namely, the transfer of your iron into my name. It is evident that but a handful of cattle in that iron exist. I am offering to lift the burden of debt from you in return for a brand that has no value.”

“_Why?_” snapped Ma Basset.

“That such ill feeling as is shown by yonder sign may be wiped away. You will be taken care of. Moreover, I shall myself make a plea to the governor of the State for an absolute pardon for your son. I wish to prove to you that Luther Fox is not the scoundrel you would have men think him to be.”

His bony thumbs hooked in the armholes of his grease-spotted waistcoat, he attempted a yellow-fanged smile.

“A buzzard chatterin’ like a magpie,” was Ma Basset’s audible comment to her husband.

Fox’s yellow cheeks took on a pinkish hue. His eyes glittered venomously.

“We ain’t askin’ no compromise, Fox,” said Hank. “The deal goes as she lays.”

“So be it.”

Fox bit off his words sharply. Pulling forth a huge watch, he held it in the palm of his hand.

“You have exactly twenty-eight minutes to produce those cattle, Basset.”

“And that’s a plenty, Luther Fox! Look yonder!” cried Ma Basset.

Out of a long draw came a moving mass of stock. The faint sound of bawling cattle came to them. The brownish spot widened quickly, taking form as the herd spread out across the prairie.

Fox went pasty white. The crooked smile on his thin lips vanished. A man seeing a ghost could look no more startled.

“Something’s wrong as ——,” he muttered as his leg swung to catch the ox-bow stirrup. Beads of moisture stood out on his cheeks. His claw-like fingers shook as they wrapped about the ivory butt of the low-hung .45. He gazed as if fascinated at the oncoming herd.