Hashknife and the Fantom Riders Read online

  “Dud-danged right,” admitted Lonesome, and to the crowd—

  “When he wakes up, you tell him to high-tail it out of town, ’cause I’m comin’ back to make both sides of his face match up.”

  Then Lonesome went out of there, walking stiff-legged, and headed for the Antelope. The sheriff was still planted in the same spot, but Lonesome walked past him, as if the sheriff was a stranger. He spoke to Lonesome, but got no reply.

  Lonesome went into the Antelope and found Smoky in a poker-game. Or rather, Smoky was half-in and half-out of the game. He was standing up, leaning across the table and talking in uncertain and very profane terms over what he declared to be a deliberate attempt to swindle him out of a pot.

  Smoky was just drunk enough to be vile in his language, and dangerous withal. He was standing up in front of his chair when Lonesome’s right hand hooked into his gaudy muffler, and a moment later he went over backward, taking the chair with him, and landed on the back of his head with a thud.

  It knocked all the fight out of Smoky, and his mind was a blank during the time that Lonesome removed his gun and took out the cartridges. Smoky had no friends in the place to assist him, and those present seemed to get a lot of fun out of the incident.

  “Tell him to rattle his hocks out of town,” said Lonesome. “He’s been makin’ himself ob-obnoxious around here, and I’ll be watchin’ the front door for Ids goin’. Me and the sheriff is plumb tired of bein’ annoyed.”

  Lonesome went out of the door and crossed the street toward the office, without looking at the sheriff, who was still holding forth between the two saloons. Lonesome went into the office and planted himself near the front window, after placing the sawed-off shotgun handy.

  It was several minutes later that Ben Lanpher came to the door of the Lily of the Valley. His right hand caressed the side of his head and he seemed undecided as to what he intended doing. He took stock of the fact that the sheriff was between him and the Antelope saloon, but started walking toward him.

  About this time Smoky Cole staggered out of the Antelope, his hat in his hand. He was also a trifle erratic in his movements, and perhaps a bit near-sighted after the bump on his head, because he too started toward the sheriff.

  There was nothing for the sheriff to do but to move away from between them, which he did and did quickly.

  “Don’tcha start nothin’!” he yelled. “Don’tcha—”

  But his warning was wasted. The two belligerents had recognized each other. For a moment they hesitated, then two hands reached for two guns. Smoky was the faster of the two. His gun was out before Ben had started his draw, but the hammer fell upon an empty cylinder.

  Swiftly his thumb hooked the hammer, and again the dull click of a dead cylinder. Ben’s gun was leveled now, but his efforts were as unavailing as were Smoky’s. But Smoky did not hear the click of Ben’s gun, because Smoky was going away as fast as his legs would carry him.

  Ben did not pay any attention to Smoky’s going, because a quick glance told him that his gun was empty, and he turned to run the other way. Lonesome whooped with glee and fell backward on the cot, while the sheriff, after a glance in either direction, hurried across to the office.

  Lonesome sat up and looked at the sheriff, his eyes filled with tears. The sheriff was a trifle pale and his lips worked soundlessly.

  “What’s the matter with you?” choked Lonesome.

  “Thank the Lord!” exclaimed the sheriff. “I—I’m glad to hear your voice, Lonesome. I thought I had lost my hearin’. Them two guns—”

  “Were empty,” finished Lonesome. “Ha, ha, ha, ha! They never thought to look at ’em, and nobody told that I took out the shells.”

  “You took ’em out?”

  “Yeah, I took ’em out,” laughed Lonesome, and then told the sheriff what he had done to both men.

  The sheriff went to the door and looked into the street. Ben Lanpher was mounting his horse, and a moment later rode away toward home. He was unsteady in his saddle and lost his hat, but did not stop to recover it.

  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 came 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 so-and-so, 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 shoot-in’,” 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 mar
ry 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 damn 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 be 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 God, 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 hell 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 be 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 talking 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 th
e 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 Tomabawk, while Lonesome spluttered 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.”