AN OLD FRIEND
Bill watched him for a few minutes, then swung into his saddle and
started to ride the pasture. He had reached the lower end when he saw a
horseman galloping toward him from the direction of the ranch. A few
minutes later, he recognized the rider as Snoots Stevens, a tall, gawky
man of thirty with a long, thin face.
"Why for yuh out here?" McAllister asked after Stevens had brought his
horse to a sliding stop.
"Nothin'--only----" Snoots broke off and then added: "Where's that kid?"
"The kid--why?"
"Nothin'--only I hears them two twins talkin' about him plenty--I hears
them say they wasn't goin' to take no chances, but was goin' to drop
him," Snoots blurted out.
Bill McAllister had no reply for this. He chewed reflectively and tried
to decide what this would lead to. It might be talk and then, again, it
might mean that their suspicions had hardened to certainty.
"Yuh better tell that kid to high-tail it out of here. Where is he?"
Snoots demanded.
"I'll go tell him. He's over by them cottonwoods," Bill McAllister
replied.
The two walked their horses toward the trees They were no nearer than
two hundred yards before Allen awoke. A swift glance told him they were
friends. He glanced at the sun, calculated the time, and decided he had
napped long enough. He took a thick sandwich of bacon and bread from
his pocket and was contentedly gnawing at this when the two slipped
from their horses.
McAllister had Snoots repeat his story. Allen frowned thoughtfully as
he leisurely finished his frugal meal. Having swallowed the last crumb,
he negligently lit a cigarette.
"Yuh act as if them twins ain't nothin' a-tall," McAllister snapped.
"I'm tellin' yuh them hombres is hell on wheels, an' if they starts
throwin' lead at yuh, every one of the killers will join pronto."
"What yuh figger I better do--cut out an' run?" Allen asked with a grin.
McAllister had no suggestion to make, so he grew silent and shook his
head. Snoots looked curiously from the older to the younger man. He
recalled the scene in the bunk house the first night Allen arrived, and
his eyes popped out as he began to understand the truth.
Allen looked at McAllister with a broad grin.
"There ain't no use growlin'. I knows them twins is plumb homicidous,
but I got to stay an' try to fool 'em, 'cause there ain't nothin' else
to do. So it won't do no good to fuss about it."
The old-timer realized that this was Allen's simple philosophy. There
was no use worrying about a bridge until you came to it. As McAllister
watched Allen saddle Honeyboy, he knew that all thought of the twins
had been dismissed from the boy's mind.
Snoots was about to speak, when a peremptory gesture of Allen's hand
held him silent.
The little outlaw's head was cocked sideways like that of an animal who
has heard something and is unable to place it. He rose in his stirrups
and gazed across the brush, then a second later he relaxed.
"Two gents comin' with a dead man," he announced.
The other two strained their ears, but could hear nothing. It was
several minutes later before they heard the clink of a horse's hoof
against a stone. Then, from out of the brush, two riders appeared,
leading a third horse on which there dangled a strange pack.
The faces of the three watchers grew white and then hard. They
instantly recognized the two riders, as well as the man who was taking
his last ride. It was the garrulous Shorty who was tied across the
saddle. The two riders were both newcomers to the ranch.
"Where'd yuh find him? Who downed him?" Bill asked.
"Reckon he was dry-gulched," one said.
"We finds him over to Sunk Creek in that wash by them big white
stones," the other added.
"He had his gun in his hand, three shells empty, so I reckon he made a
fight for it," the first continued. "We scouted around an' finds where
the killers lay behind some brush."
McAllister and Snoots stared at poor Shorty, but Allen's eyes were on
the men's faces as they told their story.
"Why don't yuh go track them killers?" Allen said, with apparent
excitement, to McAllister.
"Reckon I will."
The two riders headed toward the ranch. McAllister ordered Snoots to
stay with the remuda until he returned, and then he and Allen headed
toward Sunk Creek.
"What did yuh want me to come out here for?" McAllister asked after
they had ridden in silence for a time.
"'Cause Shorty wasn't killed where they found him," Allen explained.
"There was blood on his off-stirrup leather, and he was tied on with
his head on the near side, so I figger he was packed twice. Reckon he
got too curious--he tells me the other night he was plumb curious
naturally."
A short time later, they were in the wash near the big white stones
where Shorty's body had been found. Allen circled around and found the
tracks of three horses. He followed them with the sureness and cunning
of the desert wolf, up the wash, across the range, and twisting among
the brush. There were times when Bill McAllister could see no sign at
all and believed that the outlaw had lost the trail. Then, after they
had twisted about for a mile, he would see bent blades of grass or
scuffled stones, proving that Allen had been following the trail with
the sureness of death itself.
The trail twisted this way and that, but always came nearer and nearer
to the Hard Pan country.
"Yep, Shorty was tellin' me he was plumb curious to visit over there.
Reckon he did an' gets cashed," Allen said. "Reckon if they kills a
gent for gettin' curious about this here Hard Pan country, I figgers I
better amble in there myself."
He warned Bill McAllister to say nothing about their having followed
the trail, and then he swung Honeyboy about and headed toward the
wooded country that lay to the left of the Hard Pan. His companion rode
soberly back to the Double R Ranch.
It was not until the following morning that McAllister saw Allen again.
The boy was sitting in the sun against the wall of the bunk house,
laughing and talking with two of the Double R riders. Bill McAllister
tried to signal that he wished to talk to him, but Allen ignored him
completely. The old wrangler edged up close to the group by the bunk
house.
"Yuh take that old mossback--I once heard if a gent chews regular the
tobacco works up in his brain an' makes it solid," he heard Allen say.
Then the boy went on and added a ribald joke. Although his name had not
been mentioned, Bill McAllister knew that he was the butt at whom Allen
was poking his fun, and the laughter that followed made the old
wrangler's cheeks burn. He took one step forward with the intention of
chastising the grinning kid. Then realization came to him--that
grinning kid was Jim-twin Allen. For some reason of his own, Allen was
giving the impression of disliking the old wrangler.
Just the same, Allen's joke had been a cruel one, and Bill McAllister's
face was flushed as he walked away. He was anything but in a good humor
when he passed around the front of the ranch house and climbed into the
buckboard waiting there. He was to drive Dot Reed into town that day.
A few minutes later, Dot ran from the house and stepped into the
buckboard. She shot a flashing smile at McAllister as she announced she
wanted to drive into town. The two half-broken horses hitched to the
wagon were fresh, rearing to go and trying to break loose from the two
men who held them firmly by the bits. But Dot was an accomplished
horsewoman, so McAllister changed places with her without any protest.
She gave the word, the two men holding the reins sprang back, and the
horses leaped forward at a wild gallop and went tearing down the lane.
With a shout she swung them through the gate and deftly sent them
dashing down the trail toward Malboro. They covered several miles
before the team allowed itself to be pulled down from its headlong gait.
"Yuh're lookin' real perky this mornin'," Bill McAllister said
curiously.
"I am--I got some good news this morning," she smiled. She studied the
weather-beaten face of the man beside her. "Do yuh think Slivers was
guilty of the murder?"
He stiffened and thought quickly for a moment, then said cautiously, "I
always figgered as Slivers warn't the kind of man to dry-gulch a gent."
"He wasn't," she cried warmly. Then, after a moment, she added: "I got
a letter from him this morning. He is coming back and is now trying to
prove his innocence. Do yuh know that letter just appeared out of
nowhere? I don't know who brought it. It said I was to trust any one
who came to me an' said: 'My name's Allen; I come from Slivers Hart.'"
"I wouldn't go tellin' that to everybody," Bill McAllister warned.
"Isn't it exciting? I think Slivers has a friend working on the ranch."
"Look here, Dot. Mebbe Slivers has a friend in our outfit, mebbe
Slivers is right close--but yuh got to remember that if yuh tol' the
wrong person, mebbe that friend an' Slivers would die pronto. So don't
yuh go talkin' to nobody--nobody a-tall!" McAllister warned her.
The gravity of his expression made her eyes cloud with fear. She
thought for a moment and then nodded. "I won't tell any one," she
agreed.
It was close to noon when they arrived in Malboro. As they turned into
the livery stable, a rider swung from a big dun horse and addressed the
hostler.
"Feller, don't be skimpin' the oats. Gents call me Toothpick Jarrick,
'cause I sure whittle hombres, what rile me, to the size of
toothpicks." He removed one of those implements from the corner of his
mouth and held it up for the holster's inspection. "Yuh see that?
That's all what's left of the gent what last annoyed me. Now, on the
contrary, if I likes a gent, I buys him plenty of drinks."
The hostler grinned at him, then both became conscious of Dot Reed and
Bill McAllister.
The hostler ran forward to take the horses, while Toothpick stared in
frank admiration at Dot Reed and regretted his own travel-stained and
dusty appearance. He watched the old man and the girl walk down the
street.
"Who's she?" he asked.
"That's Dot Reed, the owner of the Double R. That gent what is crossin'
over to her is Spur Treadwell, her sweetie," the hostler explained as
he deftly unhitched the sweating horses from the buckboard.
Spur Treadwell walked across the road with an arrogant grace. He swept
off his hat as he neared the girl, and then the three of them entered
McCann's hotel.
"Yep, I'm tellin' the worl' that gent is the first gent I ever see what
is handsomer than me, an' I don't blame that gal none," Toothpick said.
"Shucks!" The hostler looked him up and down and then shook his head.
"Feller, yuh ain't never looked into a lookin'-glass, I'm bettin'
plenty on that, 'cause my eyesight is plumb good an' I finds yuh about
as handsome as a chuckwalla horned toad."
The two watered and fed the horses, then headed across the street
toward the Lone Star Saloon to attend to their own personal wants. The
saloon was a long, low room. At the rear four men were playing pool;
the bar itself was deserted, except for the McGill twins. When the
hostler saw them, he attempted to back out, but Toothpick pushed him
forward.
"Barkeeper, push out a bottle. Gents, what's yourn?" The last was
addressed to the McGill twins.
Like a pair of puppets worked by the same string, the twins slowly
turned toward Toothpick and allowed their hard, cold eyes to wander
from his dusty boots up along his worn jeans to come to rest on his
face.
Toothpick's expression never changed as he met their searching gaze.
The hostler fidgeted uneasily and looked everywhere excepting at the
killers.
At last, Sandy McGill broke the silence.
"Yuh a stranger?"
Toothpick remarked easily: "I sure am--an' I'm hopin' yuh gents will
join me in a little liquor."
The twins made no answer to this request. Their expressions grew
bleaker, their eyes colder. In spite of Toothpick's laughing eyes, they
read the challenge that lay within them. It was not the challenge of a
gunman--simply that of a brave man who would die rather than back down,
even if faced by a thousand enemies. Simultaneously, remembrance came
to both the twins of something that had happened the night before. It
was too soon to kill again. They relaxed.
Mac McGill reached for the bottle and filled both their glasses.
Silently they raised them to Toothpick and all drank. The twins nodded
to the bartender, who refilled the four glasses and they again drank in
silence. The twins then turned and commenced to talk to each other in a
low voice. They thus gave notice that they wished to be alone.
Later, Toothpick and the hostler crossed the street toward the hotel
dining room. As they stepped up on the raised sidewalk on the farther
side, the hostler shivered and cast an admiring look at his companion.
"Feller, yuh was sure born lucky. I'm tellin' yuh them twins is worser
than wolves, rattlers, an' grizzlies done all up together! An' yuh
deliberately aggrify 'em. I figgers they is sure goin' to drop yuh
pronto."
"Shucks! I seen plenty like them hombres," Toothpick said, as they took
their places at the dining table.
"Yuh has, like Hades! Them two twins is the worst an' fastest gun
slingers in this whole world," the hostler said warmly after he had
ordered his meal.
"Shucks! Yuh ever heard tell of the Allen twins? Them two yuh is
braggin' about ain't in the same class a-tall," Toothpick said
scornfully.
"They ain't!" the hostler cried. "Yuh know what I saw last night right
over there whar yuh got so darn salty? There was a young gent in there
what thinks he is papa's bad boy, an' he has words with the McGill
twins. This young gent was a nester, an' McGill starts talkin' to him,
makes him go for his gun' an then drops him dead as a herrin'. An' yuh
know he gets his gun out so fast an' puts it back faster, so nobody
sees it an' nobody knows which of them McGills done the shootin' until
I see smoke comin' from Sandy's holster."
"Yuh didn't know which done the shootin'? 'Cause why--'cause yuh was
pushin' sawdust with your nose huntin' a hole to hide in," Toothpick
said, grinning aggravatingly. After a moment, he continued: "I'm
bettin' them McGills picked a fight deliberate with that kid. There's
that kind what gets a rep from shootin' kids an' old men. An' wasn't
there any men in this town to take that kid's part?"
"Yuh see, both them twins was there," the hostler returned weakly, "an'
they sorta got this town buffaloed. I ain't sayin' they wasn't no talk
about it bein' sorta like plain murder. But the kid was a no-good
nester."
"Plain no-good murder! Gunmen! Shucks! Yuh wait until they hears the
Wolf howl."
"The Wolf?"
Toothpick remembered his dead friend, Dutchy's, warning about some day
digging his own grave with his tongue, so he resolutely stopped it by
cramming his mouth full of beefsteak.