Hashknife and the Fantom Riders Page 7

  “That damn good! Both go?”

  “No,” Hashknife shook his head. “I’m goin’ to work for the Circle Cross, Jimmy.”

  “Not good,” Jimmy shook his head.

  “You don’t like the Circle Cross?”

  “No, by God!”

  And then to Sleepy—

  “I be back soon.”

  He spurred his horse ahead and faded out in a cloud of dust.

  “The Tomahawk sure does love the Circle Cross,” laughed Hashknife. “No wonder they drew a dead-line. Find out what it was all about, Sleepy. Prob’ly just a personal affair, but we’ve got to consider everything around here. But don’t come bustin’ over with the first thing yuh find out. Let it soak into yore mind, cowboy.”

  They shook hands at the forks of the road and went on their different ways. They had fought their range-battles together for so long that they both felt a trifle helpless apart.

  “Some day they’ll get us both,” mused Hashknife, as he rode slowly along the dusty road. “Yuh can dodge bullets just so long, but they’ll get yuh in the end. Dang Sleepy! If he’ll only keep his darned eyes open. He needs a keeper, that’s what he needs. Mebbe I won’t like this Circle Cross job—mebbe.”

  He found Jim Trainor sitting in an easy chair on the ranch-house porch, a bottle beside him and his right foot swathed in bandages.

  “Put up your bronc, Hartley,” he called. “You’ve got a job. Buck will show yuh where to put him.”

  Buck Avery called from the bunk-house and joined Hashknife at the barn, where they stabled the horse.

  “Bronc stepped on Jim’s foot,” explained Buck. “Dang fool won’t send for a doctor, so he can suffer for all of me. Yuh seen Poco, did yuh?”

  “Yeah, he sent me out.”

  They sauntered up to the ranch-house and Trainor yelled for Quong to bring two more glasses. Trainor was already half-drunk, but in a good humor.

  “I was wonderin’ if Poco would find yuh before yuh got another job,” he explained. “You’re a top-hand, I can see that, Hartley. Losin’ Smoky Cole kinda puts me short-handed, and now I go and get walked on. Damn horse was sharp-shod, too. Pour your own drinks, gents.

  “I ought to be gettin’ an answer from Lanpher pretty soon. I found Mitchell, that lawyer, and told him to take the kid’s case, but the kid cussed the hell out of him. That sure is appreciation. I suppose things will have to ride about like they are until Lanpher shows up from Frisco and looks things over. What do you think of the case, Hartley?”

  “Well, it kinda looks like the kid was guilty,” observed Hashknife. “Mebbe the law will consider that they were both drunk at the time; but that’s a poor defense. A feller ain’t so awful drunk when he’ll bushwhack a man and kill him the first shot.”

  “Ben Lanpher is a good shot, too,” said Buck Avery. “He never did do nothin’ but drink whisky and practise shootin’.”

  “Two bad things to mix,” declared Trainor thoughtfully, and then—

  “Where’s your partner, Hartley?”

  Hashknife looked up quickly.

  “Did yuh want to hire him, too?”

  “Want to—yes; but I haven’t work enough.”

  “He went out to the Tomahawk ranch. Sleepy’s always doin’ somethin’ for folks, and he kinda thought mebbe they’d need a little help. This deal makes it kinda tough for the Tomahawk.”

  “That’s a fact,” Trainor scowled at his glass, shaking his head sadly. “Yuh know, I should ’a’ sent one of the boys over there to help ’em out.”

  “They’d be welcome,” laughed Buck. “Welcome, like the smallpox.”

  “Me and Sleepy came past there a while back,” volunteered Hashknife. “Wasn’t sure just what ranch it was, but we was kinda dry; so we stopped for a drink. They treated us fine.”

  “You were lucky,” said Trainor, pouring himself another drink. “You work for me and you won’t dare go over there.”

  “They didn’t look dangerous. Nobody there, except the old lady, the girl and the half-breed puncher.”

  “Uh-huh,” Trainor’s voice was mildly sarcastic. “Don’t underrate that half-breed, Hartley. He’s one of the best rifle-shots you ever seen.”

  “Yeah?” Hashknife leaned back against a porch-post and hugged his knees.

  “Yuh know, I’ve never seen such a country for crack-shots as this is. Mostly everybody I’ve heard spoken about has that reputation. If trouble ever starts there won’t be more’n one box of shells needed to kill off the whole danged population.” Trainor laughed boisterously and handed the bottle to Buck.

  “We sure can shoot, can’t we, Buck? I betcha Hartley can shoot a few, too, eh, Hartley?”

  Hashknife shook his head.

  “No-o-o, I wouldn’t say that, Trainor. Me and Sleepy never put ourselves up to be good shots, but we’re willin’ shooters. Lotsa folks can out-shoot us, but,” Hashknife grinned softly, “we’re still alive.”

  “And some of them ain’t, eh?” grinned Buck suggestively.

  “Every dog has its day,” said Hashknife slowly. “None of us can live forever. I always forked on the theory that bein’ right gives yuh the edge on folks that do wrong. That’s why a horse-thief goes to the end of his rope in a short time. A gunman cuts a short swath. If yuh notice, they don’t last long, and it’s because they’re all wrong. Look at Smoky Cole. Look at Ben Lanpher.”

  “Your theory don’t work out right, Hartley,” laughed Trainor. “It wasn’t a case of right winnin’ out there. Ben Lanpher wasn’t any more right than Smoky.”

  “All right—where’s Ben Lanpher? The law got him, and the law is right.”

  “Oh, to hell with such arguments!” blurted Trainor. “Fill up your glass, Hartley. Here comes Poco. Didja tell him to get the mail, Buck?”

  “Yeah, I told him,” said Buck.

  Poco rode down to the stable, put up his horse and came slowly up to the house. He nodded to Hashknife and handed Trainor a telegram. Buck offered Poco a glass and the bottle, but the flinty-faced cowpuncher refused with a shrug of his thin shoulders.

  “Telegram from William Lanpher,” explained Trainor. “He’ll arrive at Wolf Wells tomorrow night. Don’t say whether he’s alone or not. damn it, I told him he ought to take Ben home months ago, but he wouldn’t do it.”

  “Ben is of age,” grunted Buck. “He had a birthday about a month ago and celebrated it by gettin’ drunk and shootin’ at himself in the Antelope mirror. There was busted glass all over the place. Somebody said he’d have bad luck for seven years.”

  “Mrs. Lanpher’ll probably come,” said Trainor thickly. “She thinks Ben’s a little tin god.”

  “He’s her son.” Thus Poco Saunders, speaking for the first time since he arrived.

  “He ain’t worth worryin’ about, that’s a cinch,” laughed Trainor.

  “Good or bad, their mother worries,” said Poco flatly, and got to his feet.

  He started to say something more, but changed his mind and went down to the bunk-house.

  Hashknife looked after him and squinted thoughtfully. He had disliked Poco Saunders—until that remark. It showed that somewhere inside that minister-looking cow-puncher was a big spark of human nature.

  “Good or bad, their mother worries,” repeated Hashknife to himself. “She thinks that Ben is a tin-god—but he’s her son.”

  “Queer sort of a jigger,” said Buck, noticing that Hashknife was looking toward the bunk-house.

  “Poco don’t drink like other folks. He won’t take a drink until he is ready to get drunk. Then he hides his gun, and proceeds to get goshawful drunk. He won’t talk much, but he’s no fool, Poco ain’t.”

  “No, I betcha he ain’t,” agreed Hashknife. “If I was goin’ to pick an enemy, I sure wouldn’t pick Poco Saunders.”

  “The killin’ of Smoky Cole kinda hit him hard,” said Buck. “He used to grin once in a while, but now he goes around with the same hard-faced expression all the time. I’ll bet he’d make a scrap-heap out
of Ben Lanpher, if he had the chance.”

  “Aw, to hell with ’em all!” snorted Trainor. “Hey! Quong! Bring us another bottle. I’m celebratin’ a busted foot and I need a lot of liquor.”

  “Ex-cuse me then,” laughed Hashknife apologetically, “my stummick ain’t in good shape, and I never did need much liquor. I’ll go down and get used to the bunk-house.”

  Trainor frowned slightly, but gave a drunken shrug of his shoulders.

  “You know your own insides, Hartley. If me and Buck get plumb paralyzed, you and Poco run the ranch, will yuh?”

  “We’ll do our best,” laughed Hashknife, and went down to the bunk-house, where he found Poco Saunders playing solitaire.

  Poco nodded, but kept on with his game.

  “Which bunk do I take?” asked Hashknife.

  Poco pointed out two unoccupied bunks and began rolling a cigaret. His tobacco sack was almost empty, so Hashknife tossed a full sack in front of him. He nodded his thanks and finished his cigaret. Suddenly he turned and looked straight at Hashknife.

  “Do you think that Ben Lanpher killed Smoky Cole?”

  Hashknife’s face did not change a line, but his eyes squinted a trifle, as he replied—

  “What makes yuh think he didn’t, Saunders?”

  Poco turned back to the table and gathered up the cards.

  “I was just wonderin’,” he said slowly. “Lanpher was pretty drunk.”

  “If Ben didn’t kill him, who did?” asked Hashknife.

  He had asked the same question several times, but no one had given him the slightest clue to show who might have done the murder. And he was doomed to disappointment this time. Poco inhaled deeply and shuffled the cards.

  “There was several of that jury that was sore at him,” reminded Hashknife.

  “Not sore enough to murder him.”

  “Lotsa folks seem to think that Smoky Cole got what was comin’ to him.”

  “Thasso?” Poco scowled thoughtfully at his cards, and tinned slowly, facing Hashknife.

  “They say that Smoky wasn’t any good, Hartley. He drank and raised hell in general every time he got money enough. Smoky was a gunman, and mebbe, accordin’ to law, he wasn’t just the sweetest little citizen yuh’ could imagine; but he was my bunkie.

  “Me and Smoky shared the same blanket for a long time. We split fifty-fifty on everythin’—me and Smoky did. He might ’a’ been an enemy of society, as the judge said at Cassidy’s trial, speakin’ about criminals, but he was a good friend of mine.”

  Poco shifted his eyes and looked out through the dusty window, where the last rays of the sunset back-lighted the old cottonwoods beyond the creek, and the lines of his face softened until he was no longer the sinister-looking cowboy.

  “He was my bunkie—my pal,” he said softly.

  “I reckon I understand,” said Hashknife slowly. “I’ve got a bunkie, too, Saunders.”

  Poco turned and looked at him, as he got slowly to his feet and walked over to the door.

  “I know yuh have,” said Poco softly, “and—and yuh might tell him to look out.”

  Hashknife squinted wonderingly, as Poco shut the door behind him.

  “What does he know?” wondered Hashknife, half-aloud. “And why does he tell me to warn Sleepy?”

  There was no question that Poco Saunders knew something; that he did not believe Ben Lanpher guilty of murder. Hashknife wondered if Poco knew something about the Fantom Riders, who were making inroads on the cattlemen of the Ghost Hills Range; and was afraid to name them.

  “It’s too foggy for me to see through,” he decided, “so I reckon we’ll have to let nature take her course.”

  Came the musical clanging of the cook’s triangle, which announced that supper was ready at the Circle Cross. As Hashknife stepped outside, Poco Saunders was crossing from the barn.

  “We’ll feed alone t’night,” he observed, motioning toward the front porch of the ranch-house.

  “Trainor and Buck ate both paralyzed drunk.”

  “Do they make a practise of drinkin’ each other to sleep?” asked Hashknife.

  “No. Trainor don’t drink much, and Buck only cuts loose once a month. Help yourself to a wash-pan.”

  CHAPTER VI

  THE next day, neither Trainor nor Buck Avery was in any shape for active duties. Hashknife asked Trainor what he wanted done, and Trainor was so muddled in the head that he had no coherent ideas. He finally told Hashknife to do what he pleased; so Hashknife saddled his gray bronco and headed into the hills, cutting across toward the Tomahawk.

  He wanted to find Sleepy and tell him what Poco Saunders had said; but most of all he wanted to see if Sleepy was all right.

  Circle Cross, Tomahawk and Flying M cattle dotted the hills, but the Circle Cross predominated. The feed was fairly good and there seemed plenty of water. It was an ideal range as far as nature was concerned.

  As he swung higher into the hills he could see the town of Wolf Wells, a blur of buildings in the swale-like little valley, and beyond that drifted the smoke of a train. There was little color in the hills. Even the foliage of the few trees was of a gray tint that blended into the gray of the forbidding-looking hills.

  “Ghost Hills is the right name for ’em,” he told his horse, as he swung along a hogback, which led to the little valley of the Tomahawk ranch.

  He found Sleepy humped up in the doorway of the ranch-house, trying to coax a tune out of a one-string mandolin, while Lorna leaned against the wall and smiled at his serious efforts.

  “Hyah, cowboy!” yelled Sleepy. “By gosh, I’m glad for to see yuh. Git down and listen to the ‘Cowboy’s Lament,’ done to a turn on one string.”

  Hashknife dismounted and came up to the doorway. Lorna nodded to him, but it was plainly evident that he was not exactly welcome, and he blamed it to the fact that he was working for the Circle Cross. Mrs. Cassidy came to the door, bobbed her head and went back to her work.

  “Here, you play it, Lorna,” Sleepy handed her the mandolin, and grinned at Hashknife. “She can play it, too.”

  But Lorna did not seem disposed to exhibit her musical ability. She took the instrument and went into the house.

  “Callin’ her by her first name already, eh?” chided Hashknife seriously.

  Sleepy blushed and rubbed his stubbled chin.

  “Well, there ain’t no harm in that, is there?”

  “No-o-o, I s’pose not. Lemme tell yuh somethin’, cowboy.”

  And in a few words, Hashknife repeated what Poco Saunders had said.

  “What do yuh reckon he meant?” asked Sleepy. “Look out for what?”

  “Just that, and no more, Sleepy. I tell yuh, they’re on to us and Poco knows it.”

  “Yeah, and Poco’s probably one of the gang.”

  “If he is, why should he warn us?”

  Sleepy shook his head violently.

  “That’s what I hate about this damn country, Hashknife. They’re all too scared to talk. But I found out that the Tomahawk has lost a lot of stock. And old Cassidy never killed that detective, no more than I did. There’s a bad, bad gang back in these hills, cowboy; and they swoop out and strike hard at anybody that horns into their business.”

  “Want to pick up and drift out?” queried Hashknife.

  Sleepy glanced back at the doorway and shook his head.

  “No more than you do, Hashknife. We’ll strike a lead pretty soon. I tried to pump the half-breed puncher, but he’s closemouthed like all Injuns. Mebbe he don’t know any more than we do, but he’s scared to talk.”

  “Suppose we take a ride into the hills,” suggested Hashknife. “We’ll kinda look around and see what we can see.”

  “That’s a pious idea,” agreed Sleepy, “I’ll get my horse.”

  Lorna stood in the doorway and watched them ride away. Sleepy waved at her, but she made no move to show that she had seen him.

  “Yo’re free, white and twenty-one,” said Hashknife, “but you ain’t above takin
friendly advice, are yuh, Sleepy?”

  “Well, I ain’t makin’ love to her—if that’s what yuh mean.”

  “Yuh don’t have to make love, cowboy. It’s already made. Do yuh know what I mean?”

  “Yore advice is accepted,” grinned Sleepy. “Let’s forget the female end of this proposition.”

  They rode straight back to the main divide of the Ghost Hills, and swung in a wide circle. It was a wild range, where an army might be able to hide without fear of detection. They found two deserted old cabins, windowless and doorless, where the range horses sought shelter from the flies; but there were no other signs of human habitation.

  It was nearly sundown when they came back to the Tomahawk. Jimmy, the half-breed, was there and greeted them with a grin. Hashknife did not dismount, but rode back to the Circle Cross, where he found supper on the table, Buck half-drunk again and Trainor swearing at his sore foot. Poco was eating supper.

  Buck was just drunk enough to be quarrelsome, and insisted that he was going down to meet the Lanpher family, or as many of them as were coming that night.

  Trainor was just as emphatic in telling Buck that he was seven kinds of a fool to even think he was. Trainor appealed to Hashknife.

  “He’d be a fine lookin’ thing to meet the owner of this ranch, wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t Mrs. Lanpher and Helen appreciate havin’ him meet ’em, Hartley?”

  “Well,” grinned Hashknife, “I dunno them folks, but I reckon yo’re right.”

  Buck exploded with protestations that he was as sober as a judge, and called upon Poco to look upon him and see if he—Buck—wasn’t fit to meet a king and queen.

  But Poco refused to be drawn into the argument and Buck subsided in a chair, where he began to snore.

  “I don’t like to ask it of yuh, Hartley,” said Trainor, “but would yuh mind meetin’ them folks and bringin’ ’em out here? They’ll be in about nine o’clock tonight, if the tram is on time, which it probably won’t be.

  “You can get a two-seated hack at the livery-stable and lead your horse back. Yuh won’t be able to miss ’em, ’cause we don’t have many strangers come into Wolf Wells.”

  “Sure, I’ll go after ’em, Trainor. As soon as I get through eatin’ a bit of supper, I’ll go right down-town.”