Hashknife and the Fantom Riders Read online

  Lanpher laughed mockingly, loudly and then his teeth fairly snapped. The room had gone quiet and every one had heard what Hashknife had said, although he had spoken quietly.

  “Take it kinda easy,” advised Hashknife. “I’m a stranger to you and we ain’t got no quarrel.”

  “Backin’ up, eh?” snarled Lanpher. “Next time you laugh at a man, you’ll find out who he is first.”

  Lanpher’s hand was on the butt of his gun and his body tensed forward, expecting that Hashknife would accept his challenge. But Hashknife’s eyes squinted just past Lanpher’s head and his left eyelid drew down quickly in a deliberate wink.

  Lanpher’s head twisted as quick as a flash; thinking that there was danger right behind him, and before he could turn back Hashknife’s left hand had caught him by the right wrist, while Hashknife’s open right hand splatted against the side of his jaw, throwing him off his balance and placing him powerless to do anything, except swear.

  And Lanpher did plenty of the latter. Hashknife held him helpless, while the crowd moved in close to enjoy the sight.

  “Yuh got a lot of things to learn before yuh can be a honest-to-gosh bad-man,” explained Hashknife. “And one of ’em is to never turn yore head.”

  “Lemme go!” wailed Lanpher.

  “All right, I’ll let yuh go,” agreed Hashknife, “but you’ve got to agree to one thing.”

  “All right, damn yuh. What is it?”

  “As soon as yuh get yore balance, we’ll both start shootin’.”

  The crowd behind Lanpher parted with great alacrity.

  But Lanpher did not care for the conditions. Hashknife flung him away and Lanpher staggered into a card-table before he regained his balance. Then he went straight out of the door, without looking back.

  “That’s tamin’ ’em,” declared Trainor, who had been an interested observer. “It was just what he needed, Hartley. I’ll buy a drink.”

  The crowd went back to their games, but the incident was not forgotten. Hashknife was a stranger, which was worthy of notice in Wolf Wells, where few strangers ever came, and he had demonstrated that he was able to take care of himself in a way that appealed to the range folk.

  “I wish I had a job for you fellers,” said Trainer, as they leaned on the bar, “but I’m plumb filled up right now.”

  “We ain’t exactly dependent on a job right now,” explained Hashknife, “but a feller don’t like to go broke before he lands a job. Who’d be a good rancher to see about a job?”

  “I dunno. Yuh might see old man Shappee. He owns the Flyin’ M, but I suppose he’s got a full crew.”

  “How much of a crew do you have, Trainor?”

  “I’m only hirin’ three men now. Nothin’ much to do this time of the year, except to kinda watch the waterholes. We’re break-in’ a few horses, too. Usually I have five or six men. I had kinda bad luck lately. Mebbe yuh heard about two of my men gettin’ shot.”

  “Got shot?” Hashknife shook his head. “We ain’t been here long enough to hear much gossip. Was it for the killin’ of one of them that Cassidy is bein’ tried?”

  “Yeah, the last one. Mebbe he killed the first one, I dunno.”

  “He don’t look like a killer.” This from Sleepy.

  “No, he don’t, but he’s meaner than a snake.”

  “Just in what way?” Hashknife was curious, and Trainor glanced quickly at him.

  “Oh, just mean. He said he’d shoot the first Circle Cross man he found on the Tomahawk.”

  Hashknife grinned.

  “He must have a grudge ag’in’ yore outfit, Trainor.”

  Trainor grunted an unintelligible reply and turned as some one called his name. It was an undersized cowboy, with a limp cigaret glued to his protruding underlip.

  “You seen Whitey Anderson?” he asked.

  “Not today,” replied Trainor.

  “He was lookin’ for yuh about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “All right, Shorty.”

  Trainor accepted another drink and left the saloon.

  “Who’s Anderson?” asked Hashknife of the bartender.

  “Depot agent.”

  CHAPTER III

  THEY drifted outside and found Lonesome Hobbs sitting on a hitch-rack. How he ever got himself up that high was a mystery, but he was up there. He nodded to Hashknife and Sleepy and slid over to give them room.

  “I seen yuh have yore fuss with young Lanpher,” he said huskily. “Bub-by gosh, he needed a jolt. How’d yuh ever think up that winkin’ idea?”

  “Used my head,” grinned Hashknife.

  “That’s it,” nodded Lonesome. “Feller’s got to use his brains—if he’s gug-got any. I can think of the best doggone schemes, but I forget ’em right when I need ’em bad. Feller told me a good scheme once. Said to step hard on a feller’s feet, when yo’re fightin’ him and he’ll fall down. I tried it—once.”

  “Didn’t it work?” asked Sleepy.

  “Not fer me, it didn’t. I reckon that was only part of the trick; the rest of it was to keep the other feller from knockin’ the hell out of yuh until yuh could fuf-find his feet. Anyway, that’s how she ’pears to me.”

  They were laughing as Trainor came up to the rack and untied his roan horse.

  “Goin’ home?” asked Hashknife.

  “Yeah. Wish I had a job for you two. Hope you get one.”

  “Much obliged,” grinned Hashknife. “We’ll swindle somebody out of a few month’s wages. Adios.”

  “Seems like a right nice sort of a feller,” observed Hashknife, as Trainor rode away.

  “Who, Trainor? Best there is, y’betcha. Hanged good cowman, top-notch puncher and reliable as—”

  “Which is some reliability,” agreed Hashknife. “We’d kinda like to work for him.”

  “Well, I dunno whether I would or not.” Lonesome pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I’m kinda superstitious, don’tcha know it? I figgers that things happens three times before they quits. There’s been two of the Circle Cross punchers killed lately. They was leaded considerable, too.

  “Figgerin’ the way I do, there’s another one to go. It don’t always work out that-away, of course, bub-but I ain’t the kind of a jasper that goes dead ag’in’ my own hunches.”

  “Why do yuh reckon they was killed?” queried Sleepy.

  “Why.” Lonesome leaned his elbows on his knees and shook his head. “I ain’t prepared to say.”

  “Any idea who killed ’em?”

  “Well, they’re tryin’ old Cassidy for the last one.”

  “Where is Cassidy’s ranch?” asked Hashknife.

  Lonesome jerked his thumb in a northerly direction.

  “Out thataway. Yuh take the main road out there, and a little over two miles she folks, but don’t take the right-hand fork, ’cause that goes to the Circle Cross. Keep on goin’ about a quarter-mile and take the left-hand road.

  “It’s about seven miles to the Tomahawk, and about five to the Circle Cross. I’d keep plumb away from the Tomahawk, if I was you. They ain’t a danged bit friendly.”

  “But Cassidy is where he can’t hurt anybody.”

  “No, he can’t, but there’s young Lanpher livin’ there, and Jimmy Droop-drawers.”

  Hashknife laughed outright.

  “For gosh sake, what a name!”

  “He’s a half-breed,” grinned Lonesome, “and that name fits him like a plaster. Jimmy was absent the day they was passin’ around the brains, but he sure can shoot.”

  “You got kind of a sweet lot of folks around here,” observed Hashknife. “Looks to me like Wolf Wells had enough gunmen to hold up the reputation of a bigger place.”

  “Aw, we ain’t botherin’ with gunmen.” Lonesome spat dryly and shook his head. “We ain’t afraid of nothin’ we can see, y’betcha. It’s the things we can’t see that gits under our hides.”

  “Such as what?” asked Hashknife.

  “Cows that evaporate, for instance.”

  Hashknife and Slee
py looked closely at Lonesome, but his face was deadly serious.

  “Well,” said Hashknife slowly. “I’ve heard of evaporated milk. Mebbe that’s where it come from, Lonesome.”

  “Mum-mebbe,” dubiously. “Anyway, it ain’t a fav’rite subject with me, gents. I reckon I’ll be goin’ back to the office. You ain’t found no jobs yet?”

  He almost fell off the hitch-rack, without waiting for an answer, recovered his hat, which rolled under a horse, and bow-legged his way across the street.

  Sleepy grinned and looked at Hashknife. “What do you think of things, Hashknife?”

  “Well, it’s too danged early in the game to make any remarks, but I’ll say there’s a lot of folks around here that might start shootin’ any time.

  “I don’t think a lot of old man Lanpher’s offspring, but I do like his pardner. Trainor seems like a regular he-man. The sheriff has only one thing to recommend him, and that is the fact he’s so danged thin that nobody could hit him with anythin’ bigger than a .22 rifle.

  “Lonesome Hobbs is all right. Old man Cassidy might ’a’ killed that puncher, but I have my doubts. His girl is danged pretty, and William Lanpher might be danged well honored to think that she’d look at his slack-headed son. Outside of that, I’m hungry. Let’s go and eat.”

  “All right,” agreed Sleepy. “I kinda feel that we’re goin’ to like Wolf Wells. It kinda reminds me of the old Wilier Crick outfit, Hashknife. Everybody suspicious of everybody else. I sure hope they don’t suspicion us.”

  “They will, if we don’t get a job, Sleepy.”

  As they crossed the street, Ben Lanpher, Cassidy’s squaw and Lorna Cassidy were getting into a fight wagon. Lanpher saw them, but did not look up as they passed. The girl gave them a keen glance and the two cowboys lifted their hats. As they went into a restaurant, Hashknife looked back and the girl had turned her head and was watching them.

  “I hope she knows us next time she sees us,” said Sleepy, grinning.

  “I hope they all do,” replied Hashknife. “I’d hate to be mistaken for some of the boys from the Circle Cross.”

  * * * *

  The Tomahawk was a typical squaw-man’s ranch. There was little semblance of order in the locations of the ranch-house, barns or corrals, and the buildings looked as if they might collapse in the next breeze.

  The weather-beaten ranch-house, a low, rambling affair, was sway-backed from old age and the weight of many snows, and the barn stood, as a cowboy might express it, kinda antegodlin’ to everythin’. The corral fences were lopsided and badly in need of repair.

  A few mongrel chickens strayed around the littered front yard of the ranch-house, clucking wildly after the winged grasshoppers; a family of magpies chattered in the cottonwoods behind the barn, while down in a corral a hungry calf bawled loudly.

  It was the day following the dimissal of the jury. In the long living-room Ben Lanpher humped over in a dilapidated rocking-chair, staring moodily at a crumpled envelope. His hair was matted, his face unshaven and his clothes bore evidence that he had slept in them—and not on a bed.

  Lorna Cassidy leaned against the side of the adobe fireplace, looking with troubled eyes at Lanpher, while near her the squat figure of Mrs. Cassidy was seated on a low stool. At the far end of the room, sitting on the floor, with his knees drawn up to his chin, was the half-breed cowboy, known by the unlovely title of Jimmy Droop-drawers.

  Jimmy was a typical half-breed, in which the Indian blood seemed to predominate strongly. His lower lip was thick and pendulous, his eyes mere slits above his high cheek-bones, and his garb, with the exception of his high-heeled boots, badly run-over at the heels, was entirely aboriginal. It was plainly evident that his beaded-blanket pants had not been made by a tailor, because the seat was entirely too commodious—which accounted for his cognomen.

  Ben Lanpher crumpled the letter in his hand and got to his feet.

  “Well—” He tried to laugh, but it was only a grimace. “Well, that settles the cat-hop, I suppose. The old man has cut off my credit—told me that I could have no more of his money.”

  He turned his head and looked at Lorna.

  “Well, why don’t somebody say something? I’m too damn dry even to curse him.”

  “There is nothing to say,” said Lorna softly.

  “Ain’t there?” Ben laughed hoarsely. “It means that we won’t be able to hire a lawyer for the next trial. I’m broke.”

  “Why need lawyer?” asked Mrs. Cassidy. “My man never kill cowboy. Only one man think so.”

  “That damn Smoky Cole!” snapped Ben. “I’ll fill him so full of holes that he’ll—”

  “And who will pay for the lawyer to keep you from hanging?” asked Lorna quickly.

  “You don’t need a lawyer when you kill a man in self-defense.”

  “Yo’ look out,” advised Jimmy thickly. “Cole bad man with a gun. Mebbe yo’ need doctor—not lawyer.”

  “Too much talk about kill,” said the stolid old squaw, as she slowly filled a pipe with plug tobacco. “No good to talk.”

  “Tha’s jus’ right,” nodded Jimmy. “Old Minnie know. Big talk, small medicine.”

  “Who were those two men who passed, when we were ready to leave Wolf Wells yesterday?” asked Lorna.

  “Them two?” Ben took a half-filled bottle from his hip pocket and reached for a tin cup on the table.

  “I dunno who they are. Couple of smart cowpunchers, I guess.”

  “Ben, why don’t you go back to your home?”

  “Huh?”

  Ben took the cup away from his lips and stared at her.

  “Why don’t I go home?”

  “Yes—back to your people.”

  Ben laughed harshly.

  “Why should I go back to them?”

  “They are your people. You don’t belong here. They would be glad to have you come back.”

  “Whatcha talkin’ about, Lorna?”

  Lanpher was half-angry, as he got to his feet and walked over to her.

  “I told yuh I’d stay here and see that the old man was cleared. Dad wanted me to stay with the Circle Cross, but me and Trainor couldn’t get along. He treated me like I was a kid. Told me not to come over here. Said that you was just a damn Injun, and that your father would shoot me if I came on the Tomahawk ranch.”

  Lorna turned and stared out of the window, her lips shut tight, as if to hold back a flood of bitterness. Then—

  “Well, I suppose he was right, Ben.”

  “What do we care?” laughed Ben hoarsely. “If I want to marry an Injun, that’s my business, ain’t it?”

  Lorna shook her head.

  “No, you are just foolish, I think. You go back to your people and forget everybody in the Ghost Hills.”

  “Not by a damn sight! When I go back to California—to Frisco, you are going with me, Lorna.”

  The old squaw took her pipe slowly from her lips and looked up at Ben.

  “You are very big damn fool, I think,” she declared.

  “Is that so?”

  Ben turned to the old squaw.

  “Mebbe you’d have somethin’ to say about it?”

  She nodded slowly and began puffing on her pipe.

  Ben shrugged his shoulders and poured himself another drink. He had imbibed so much liquor during the last two weeks that his system shrieked for more.

  “Why don’t you quit drinking?” asked Lorna. “When you came here you did not drink.”

  “Lot of things I didn’t do then.”

  Ben wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and laughed uncertainly, as he looked closely at his almost depleted flask.

  “I’ve got to go to town and get more hooch.”

  “What will you do when your money is all gone?”

  “Do?”

  Ben laughed and picked up his hat.

  “Rob a bank, I guess. Maybe I’ll join the Ghost Hills gang. By God, I’ll bet they’d take me in.”

  He turned and walked out of th
e door, staggering slightly, as he clumped off the porch and headed for the barn. Jimmy, the half-breed, walked to the door where he leaned lazily against the sill, puffing on his cigaret.

  The old squaw did not turn her bead as Ben went out, but continued to puff at her pipe, while Lorna moved from the fireplace and stood beside the table, her shapely fingers picking at the cloth.

  “Just a damn Injun,” she said softly, sadly. “Just that and nothing more. Am I any different or worse than other girls?”

  The squaw knocked the dottle from her pipe and got clumsily to her feet, which were shod in buckskin.

  “You good girl, Lorna. Good Injun just as good as white people.”

  “You damn right!” agreed Jimmy from the doorway. “You jus’ right, Lorna. To hell with Trainor.”

  Jimmy turned away from the door and came back toward them.

  “Ben gone to town,” he announced, and added. “Too much whisky no good.”

  He squatted at the fireplace and started to roll another cigaret, but his trained ears heard a sound outside and he arose swiftly and his hand swung back to jerk his revolver holster into position.

  Came the scrape of a footstep on the narrow porch and Jim Trainor’s voice called—

  “Anybody home?”

  “Somebody home,” replied Jimmy huskily. He was just a trifle afraid of the big man from the Circle Cross.

  Trainor’s huge frame fairly blocked the door as he came in from the porch. Lorna looked straight at him, but the old squaw, after the manner of her kind, paid him no heed. Jimmy watched him closely.

  “Hello, Lorna,” grinned Trainor, “I got to wonderin’ how you folks were gettin’ along so I came over to see. Where’s Ben Lanpher?”

  “He go to town,” said Jimmy. “Go jus’ now.”

  “Gone down to get drunk again, I suppose.”

  Trainor sat down in the rocking-chair and threw his hat on the table. He seemed entirely at home, even though his welcome had not been any too cordial.

  “Why do you come here?” asked Lorna.

  “Why?” Trainor laughed shortly. “I told you I wanted to see how you were all getting along, Lorna.”

  “That should not take long to find out, Mr. Trainor.”