Rimrock Trail, Joseph Allan Dunn [miss read books TXT] 📗

paid. Plimsoll's game was square. A few, reading the slight signs of Hahn's nervousness, still held some doubts, but the games were closing. The drinks were brought. Two men lounged out into the front room after they had tossed theirs down. Sandy slipped the folded bills into the breast pocket of his shirt in a compact package.

"See who went out?" asked Sam in his side whisper.

"Yep. Saw it in the glass of that picture. We'll go out the back way. Not yet." He shouldered his way through the congratulating crowd, Sam close behind him, into the front room. It was empty. The short end of Sandy's winnings still provided liquor. For a moment they were alone. Plimsoll had not followed them. Sandy swiftly socketed the bolt on the inside of the front door, turned the key and slid that into his pocket.

"Now we'll go out the back way," he said. "I ain't strong fo' playin' crawfish, Sam, but I ain't keen on bein' potted in the dark. I'll bet what I got in my pocket Butch is huggin' the boards to one side of this shack. I got too much money on me to be a good insurance risk."

Sam chuckled. Plimsoll met them just inside the door.

"Makin' a short cut," said Sandy. "Good night."

As the pair went out at the rear, Plimsoll jumped into the front room. Sam, closing the back door behind them noiselessly, heard the gambler cursing at the bolted door. Silently as a cat, he covered the short distance between the house and the arroyo of the creek and disappeared, merged in its shadow. Sandy joined him and they made their way swiftly along the bottom, climbing the bank where the railroad bridge crossed it, striking off for the main street, lit by sputtery arc-lamps, making for their ponies, still standing patiently outside the all-night restaurant.

"No sense in runnin' our heads into a flyin' noose," said Sandy. "Plimsoll owns the sheriff. Married his sister. We'd be wrong whatever stahted. They'd frisk me of my roll an' we'd never see it ag'in, less we made a runnin' fight of it. Wondeh how much eddication costs nowadays, Sam? What you laffin' at?"

"Butch an' the rest of Plimsoll's gunmen holdin' up the shack, waitin' fo' us to come out, while Plim is huntin' that key."

"Don't laff too hard till we git home," said Sandy. "It's eleven miles to the Three Star."

They mounted, swung their horses and loped off toward the bridge across the creek. There were two spans, one built since the advent of automobiles, the other ancient, little used. They headed for the latter. Passing the end of the street they saw nothing out of the ordinary. The door of the "Good Luck" was open, shown by a square of light. A group stood outside. Sandy and Sam rode off, the ponies' hoofs silent in the soft thick dust; moving shadows in the twilight, merging with the dark.

CHAPTER V IN THE BED OF THE CREEK

The old bridge, utilized only by wheels with metal tires these days, and by riders, opened a short-cut to the road leading to the Three Star, a way hardly to be distinguished from the plain. Sandy was minded to get back to the ranch as soon as possible with his winnings. Five thousand for Molly, five thousand for the Three Star, that was the agreement, the custom, and he knew the girl's breed well enough to have no hesitation in making the split as he would with a man. The next thing to do was to pick out a school for her. There Sandy was at a loss. He mulled it over as he rode, his outer senses playing sentinels to his consciousness.

He had deliberately avoided trouble for reasons he considered quite sufficient, but annoyance pricked him that he had been forced to slide out the back way from Plimsoll's, for all the odds against him. If it had been his own money—a sudden flash of future responsibilities as Molly Casey's guardian illumined his thought—if the luck-piece had not been hers, the play for her future welfare, he would have set his own marvelous coordination against Butch and the others in a shooting match, as he had done other times, in other places. Sam, he knew, was wondering a little at their strategic retreat.

But the old days were going, law and order were beginning to supersede the old methods of every man to his own judgment and action. Hereford had a sheriff who was not above suspicion, but the majority of the people had little use for him and this term of office would be his last.

Sandy could not quite gauge Plimsoll's actions in tamely paying over the winnings and he looked and listened, noting every movement of Pronto moving free-muscled beneath him, for some sign of alarm—perhaps a rifle-shot out of the mesquite. They were not the best of targets, Sam and he, riding fast in the thick dusk under the stars. The road was almost invisible, the plain unsubstantial, though the far-off mountain ranges showed plainly cut, with a curious trick of seeming always to shift back as the observer advanced. Little winds blew in their faces, cool and sweet from the desert, charged with spice of sage.

The ponies struck the loosened planks of the bridge clop-clop, springing forward into a gallop as their riders touched heels to flanks. The pinto was the quicker to get into his stride. Just past the center of the bridge Sam saw Sandy's mount jump like a startled cat into the air. He saw Sandy pliant in his seat; marked against the starry sky. Then came a spurt of red flame from the far bank—to the right—another—and another—from the left. A bullet hummed by him and his own horse slid stiff-legged, plowing the planks, hind feet flat from hoof-points to fetlocks as the pony whirled away from the yawning gap in the bridge, where boards had been pried away in the preparation, of the ambush.

Helpless for the moment until he got his bearings and his pony gained solid footing, Sam automatically whipped out his gun, cursing as he saw Sandy slide from the saddle, clutch at the rim of the gap, drop down to the bed of the creek, while Pronto, frantic at the loss of his master, leaped the opening and fled with clatter of hoof and swinging stirrup into the desert.

Sam, wild with rage at the thought of Sandy shot, scrambling in bloody sand below him, flung himself from the roan as more bullets whined, whupping into the planks. One seared his upper arm, another struck the saddle tree as he vaulted off, slapping the roan on the flanks, yelling at it as it gathered, leaped the gap and followed Pronto.

"You damned, cowardly, murderin' pack of lousy coyotes!" swore Sam mechanically, as he knelt on the edge of the gap and tried to pierce the blackness, listening fearfully for a groan. He had not fired back. There was nothing to fire at but clumps of blurred growth. The shots had been too sudden, the shying of the horses too confusing for location.

He kneeled over the rim of the last plank, turned, caught with his hands, revolver thrust back into its holster, swung, dropped. A hand closed about his ankle, pulled him down sprawling on the soft sand.

"I'm O. K.," whispered Sandy, and Sam's heart leaped. "Only plugged the rim of my hat. I faked a fall to fool 'em. Snake erlong down the crick bed. Here's where we git even." Sam knew that ring in his partner's voice, low though it was, and his blood tingled. The high crumbly banks of the creek, gouged out by winter rains and cloud-bursts, were set with brush. Immediately above the bridge were the stripped trunks of cottonwoods, stranded in a flood. Peering through the boughs, they saw stooping figures running along the bank. A man called from the lower side of the bridge, a shot was fired harmlessly. The hunters in view raced back.

"Think they saw us," whispered Sandy. "They'll hear from us, right soon." He led the way back, crossing to the town side beneath the bridge, keeping half-way up the bank, close under the stringers of the bridge, crawling between bushes on his belly, Sam with him. Now they could see no gunmen but occasionally they caught a whisper, the slight sound of moving brush.

There was only a trickle of water in the bed of the creek. Here and there were small bars of bleached shingle and larger boulders. Sandy found a stone imbedded in the bank, loosened it, squatted on his haunches and passed it to Sam, taking a gun in each hand.

"Chuck it into that sunflower patch," he said with his mouth close to Sam's ear. "Then fire at the flashes." Sam pitched the stone through the darkness. It fell with a rustle, chinked against a rock. Instantly there came a fusillade from the opposite bank, four streaks of fire, the bullets cutting through the dried stalks, the marksmen evidently hunting in couples.

Sandy, crouching, pulled triggers and the shots rattled out as if fired from an automatic. Beside him, Sam's gun barked. Each fired three times, Sandy shooting two-handed, flinging six bullets with instinctive aim while the bed of the creek echoed to the roar of the guns and the air hung heavy with the reek of exploded gases. Then they rushed for the top of the bank, wriggling behind the cover of bushes, lying prone for the next chance.

One yell and a stream of curses came from across the arroyo. Two indistinct figures bent above a third, lifted it, hurrying back toward a clump of willows. The fourth man trailed the others, his oaths smothered, running beside the two bearers, his hand held curiously in front of him, dimly seen.

"They're through. That's enough," said Sandy. "We ain't killers."

"Got two of 'em," said Sam. "Good shootin', Sandy! I reckon I missed clean. I fired to the left."

"The man who's down is Butch," said Sandy. "I'd know his figger in a coal shaft. I've a hunch the other was Hahn. Hit him somewheres in the hand; spile his dealin' fo' a while. Let's git out of this. They've quit."

"Wonder if Plimsoll was with 'em. How about the hawsses? Can you whistle Pronto back?"

"Reckon so."

They walked toward the bridge and crossed it, passing the gap on the side timbers. Plimsoll's men had departed with their casualties. Sandy whistled shrilly through his teeth. After a minute he repeated the call.

"Sure hate to hoof it to the ranch," said Sam. "Mebbe the shots stampeded 'em. Better not try to borrow hawsses in town, I figger."

"No. Pronto ain't fur. Yore roan'll stick with him. That pinto of mine is half human. I've sent him ahead before. Ef I'd yelled 'Home' he'd have gone. Shots w'udn't have scared him. Made him stand by—like Molly."

"Got yore money safe?"

"Yep."

There came a sound of pounding hoofs. Then that of others, coming from the town.

"Better load up, Sam," said Sandy grimly, "we ain't out of this yet. That'll be Jim Plimsoll's brother-in-law, likely."

"Here come our ponies."

As yet they could see nothing advancing, but a horse whinnied from the plain lying between them and the Three Star road.

"Pronto," said Sandy, shoving cartridges into his guns.

A body of mounted men had come out from town and ridden fast upon the bridge. The foremost stopped with an exclamation at the missing boards. All wheeled in some confusion and slid their horses down into the arroyo to scramble up the bank again and spur for Sam and Sandy just as the pinto and the roan, curveted up to their masters. The two cowmen leaped for their seats, Sandy temporarily sheathing one gun. They faced the townsmen who formed a half-circle about