“Yeah.”
“Didja hear about the shootin’ at Jack Hartwell’s place?”
“No. What was that about?”
The sheriff invited him into the office, where he showed him the two
bodies. Slim looked them over closely, while the sheriff told him the
story as told to him by Hashknife. Slim listened closely to the
narrative, but made no comment, except to ask where these two strange
cowboys were now.
“Rode out of here a little while ago, Slim. Dunno where they’re goin’.
By golly, I don’t _sabe_ ’em. They don’t scare worth a ——, either.”
“Uh-huh,” reflected Slim. “Somebody stole that shipment of cartridges
that came in last night. Hork’s yellin’ his head off over ’em.”
“Broke into his place? Who in —— would do that, Slim?”
“That’s the question, Sudden—who would?”
“The sheepmen couldn’t, could they?”
“Not very likely.”
“Uh-huh.”
The sheriff grew thoughtful. Then an idea seemed to strike him.
“Slim, I’ll betcha it was Hartley and Stevens. I tell yuh, they’re
here for no good. Yessir, that’s some of their work. What time did
them shells arrive?”
“On the train last night, I suppose.”
“Hm-m-m! By grab, I’ll bet they got ’em. Next time I get a chance I’m
goin’ to shove them into jail, I tell yuh. They’ve caused me all the
worry they’re goin’ to. Want to see King?”
“Aw, to —— with him.”
“Didn’t know but what you’d like to laugh at him, Slim.”
“Naw. I’ve got to be gettin’ back. These crazy punchers chasin’ all
over the country, drinkin’ liquor and capturin’ people kinda busts a
lot of holes in the dead-line. Next thing we know, we’ll have sheep
all over the street down here.”
Slim went out, swung into his saddle and rode out of town, heading
north.
* * * * *
Eight armed men were eating a belated lunch at the sheep camp when
Hashknife and Sleepy rode their jaded horses up to the huddle of tents
and dismounted. They had circled far to the west, beyond the guarded
dead-line, to get past the cattlemen.
Under the circumstances it was a foolhardy thing to do; to ride into
that sheep camp. A number of saddle horses were tied to the wagons,
giving it the appearance of a cattle camp. The sheepmen ceased eating
and received them with Winchesters in their hands; a hard-bitten lot
of men, who handled their rifles with familiarity.
Steen, the foreman, was there, and met them as they dismounted. He and
Hashknife looked keenly at each other for several moments.
“I’ll betcha,” said Hashknife slowly, “I’ll betcha, if yuh had that
bunch of hair off yore face, I’d call yuh Bill Steen.”
“Hartley! You old, long-legged galliwimpus!”
Bill Steen almost threw himself at Hashknife, reaching out with both
hands. They mauled each other with rough delight, while the sheepmen
grinned and stacked their rifles.
“Well, dern yore old soul!” exploded Steen. “Long time I no see yuh,
Hashknife.”
“Plenty long,” grinned Hashknife. “Yo’re the last person I ever
expected to see up here. Bill, when in —— did you turn to sheep?”
“About five years ago. Oh, I’m an old sheepherder now, Hashknife. It
pays me better than the cows did. Well, how in —— are yuh?”
“No better than ever, Bill. This here excess baggage of mine is named
Sleepy Stevens. Sleepy, you’ve heard me tell of Bill Steen.”
Sleepy shook hands with him gravely.
“Yeah, I’ve heard yuh tell about him. You and him stole cows together,
didn’t yuh?”
“Yeah, we sure did,” laughed Steen.
“But what in —— brought you two fellers up here, I’d like to know?
Lookin’ for jobs? If yuh are, you’ve sure got ’em.”
“Yo’re just as comical as ever,” declared Hashknife. “We’re
cowpunchers, you old blat-listener. Listen, Bill: We came up to tell
yuh that yore boss is in jail at Totem City.”
“Eph King? In jail?”
Hashknife explained in detail, while the sheepmen crowded near to find
out how it had happened.
“That’s sure a —— of a note,” said Steen seriously. “I was afraid
somethin’ had happened to him, so I sent a man down there an hour ago
to see if he could find out somethin’. This here sure is serious news,
Hashknife. My ——, they’ll hang Eph King.”
“I’m kinda afraid they will, Bill. And they’ll hang Jack Hartwell
along with him.”
“Why would they hang Jack Hartwell?”
“’Cause they think he is a spy for Eph King.”
“Oh, the —— fools! Jack Hartwell’s no spy for us.”
“He’ll have to prove it, Bill.”
“What’ll we do, Bill?” asked one of the men anxiously.
“What became of Mac?” asked another.
“Mac got killed,” said Hashknife. “A man named Boomer Bates shot and
killed Mac. Bates is dead, too.”
“Well, for the love of ——!” exploded a sheepman. “What did Boomer
Bates shoot MacLeod for?”
“Mistook him for somebody else, I reckon. Were they friends?”
“Well, mebbe they wasn’t friends, but they wasn’t enemies. Mac didn’t
even know Bates, I don’t think.”
“And what in —— is Bates doin’ over in this country?” wondered Bill
Steen.
No one seemed to know just why Bates might be in Lo Lo Valley.
“There’s a lot of things I don’t _sabe_,” observed Steen, “and one of
’em is this: Why did you fellers ride plumb up here to tell us that
Eph King is in jail?”
Hashknife grinned and began rolling a cigaret.
“Bill,” he said slowly, “I didn’t know you were here. I’m not a —— bit
in sympathy with the sheep, but I thought it might be worth my while
to come up and tell you what had happened.”
“Just how would it be worth yore while, Hashknife?”
“C’mere.”
Hashknife led him out of earshot, where they squatted on their heels
and blew Bull Durham smoke in each other’s faces.
“Go ahead,” grunted Steen.
“Bill—” Hashknife was very serious—“why did the sheep stop where they
are?”
“Why?” Steen grinned. “Dead-line.”
“Yeah? Well, that’s fine. And what else?”
“Nothin’ else, Hashknife.”
“I see,” Hashknife nodded and rubbed his long nose. “Bill, what kind
of a jigger is Eph King?”
“Hashknife, he’s one of the best yuh ever knew. Oh, I know he’s a
sheepman, and all that. He’s got a bad name.” Steen shifted his
position and inhaled deeply. “If King was the tough —— they’ve called
him, we’d have sheep below Totem City by this time. But he don’t want
a lot of killin’. He’s waitin’—well, I dunno.”
“Waitin’ for what, Bill?” queried Hashknife smiling.
“Well, he—he——” Steen faltered. “He thought it would be the best thing
to do, Hashknife.”
“All right, Bill. I reckon we’ll be goin’ along.”
“Goin’ back to Totem City?” asked Steen, as they mounted.
“Eventually,” said Hashknife. “Got any word yuh want sent to King?”
Steen smiled grimly, but shook his head.
“Come and see me ag’in, both of yuh,” he said. “There’s always grub
and a blanket waitin’ for yuh.”
“Thank yuh, Bill. Adios.”
* * * * *
They rode due east from the sheep camp, staying well above the
dead-line. Their horses were fagged from the long ride up the slopes;
so they took things easy now. Sleepy did not question Hashknife, but
wondered at the reason for the wide swing of the country. It was
almost sundown when they came down Deer Creek and swung west again to
pass the Turkey Track ranch.
There was no sign of life about the ranch, and they did not stop. A
smoke was lazily drifting from the kitchen stovepipe, but that was the
only evidence of recent occupation. They came back on to the old road,
leading toward Jack Hartwell’s place. Hashknife studied it closely and
finally drew rein.
A coyote trotted out of a thick clump of brush below the road, looked
them over for a moment and disappeared like a puff of gray-blue smoke.
Hashknife reined his horse around and rode down to where the coyote
had come out of the brush.
An offensive odor assailed their nostrils, coming, it seemed, from the
tangle of brush. Hashknife dismounted and led his horse in through a
natural trail to where he discovered the body of a horse, partly eaten
by coyotes. Sleepy followed him in, and together they examined the
animal. There was a brand mark on its right shoulder, which showed a
well marked JN.
“That’s the horse you downed that night,” said Hashknife. “It’s a
wonder to me that they didn’t cut out that brand.”
They went out of the brush, mounted and rode on toward Jack Hartwell’s
place, keeping a close watch on all sides. They knew this to be
hostile territory, and did not care to run into trouble. Their horses
were too tired to show much speed, and the two riders were red eyed
from lack of sleep.
They rode in at Jack Hartwell’s place and dismounted. The front door
was open, but there was no one in sight.
“Looks kinda queer around here,” said Hashknife, as he looked in
through the doorway.
There was an upset table in the center of the room, a smashed vase and
a litter of odds and ends on the carpet. A rocking-chair, with one arm
broken off, leaned drunkenly against the wall, and a window on the
east side of the room, looked as if some one had shoved an elbow
through the pane.
“Holy gee!” whistled Sleepy, as they surveyed the wreckage. “They must
pulled off a wrestlin’ match, when they arrested King and Jack.”
“It sure looks like it,” agreed Hashknife, as he crossed the room and
peered into the kitchen.
“C’mere!” he called to Sleepy. “Somebody got snagged.”
There was a well-defined trail of blood across the kitchen floor,
leading out of the back door. They went outside and picked up the
trail again. It led them straight to the corral, where they found a
man, lying face down, almost against the fence.
He had been shot through the left side, below the heart, but he was
still alive. They carried him carefully to the house, where Hashknife
cut away his shirt and examined the wound, which had stopped bleeding
externally. He was not a man that either of them had ever seen before.
“I’ll betcha this is the man that Bill Steen sent down here to find
Eph King,” said Hashknife. “Now, what do yuh reckon he ran into down
here?”
Sleepy got some water and they washed the wounded man’s face. It was
all they could do for him. They forced a few drops between his teeth
and after a few minutes he opened his eyes, looking dazedly up at
them.
“All right, pardner,” said Hashknife. “Just take it easy and see if
yuh can talk.”
The man frowned, as if trying to remember. Hashknife gave him another
drink, which he took greedily, although he was almost too weak to
swallow it.
“Do yuh remember what happened?” asked Sleepy.
The man shut his eyes, and they thought he had fainted, but he opened
them again. He tried to take a deep breath, but choked with the pain.
Then he made the supreme effort and whispered—
“Ed—shot—me.”
It was a very faint whisper, in which he added—“He—took—the—woman.”
For a moment he tried to say more, but the words would not come. Then
he seemed to relax instantly and his eyes closed. Hashknife got slowly
to his feet and looked around.
“So Ed got the woman, eh?” he muttered. “Now, who in —— is Ed?”
“I wish we had some whisky,” mourned Sleepy.
“What for?”
“To give him a shot. Strong liquor—”
“Wouldn’t do him any good, Sleepy; he’s dead.”
“Well,” said Sleepy vacantly, “I—the poor son-of-a-gun. What’ll we do
with him?”
“Nothin’, Sleepy. We can’t keep on carryin’ dead men to town. I’m
tired of bein’ a travelin’ morgue, so I reckon we’ll shut the door and
leave him here for a while. It kinda looks like somebody by the name
of Ed came along and took Hartwell’s wife.”
“My gosh, do yuh reckon he done that, Hashknife?”
“Yuh can’t dispute a dead man, can yuh? We’ve got to find this here Ed
person and get an explanation. C’mon.”
They fastened the door, mounted their horses and rode on toward Totem
City. It was growing dark now.
“If I ever get my sylph-like form between sheets, I’ll never get up,”
declared Sleepy. “I’m plumb bug-eyed, I tell yuh. Night don’t mean
nothin’ to me, except darkness. That Hartwell place is a hoodoo, I
tell yuh. Every time we show up there we run into death. Well, why
don’tcha say somethin’, Hashknife? Do a little talkin’, can’tcha?”
“Talk about what?”
“Anythin’, dang it. I’ve got to talk, hear talkin’ or go to sleep on
this frazzle-legged bronc. If I fall off, don’tcha dare to pick me up.
Just figure that I’m dead and lemme lay, cowboy. Why don’tcha sing? My
——, you’d sing at any other time.”
“Cows!” exclaimed Hashknife, jerking up his horse.
The road ahead of them was full of cows, the slope below them was a
moving mass of cows, and more cows were coming down a cañon and
crossing the road. Hashknife dismounted and Sleepy followed suit. It
was impossible to estimate the number of cattle that crossed the road
ahead of them.
And behind them came riders, not visible against the darkness of the
landscape, but audible. One of them snapped a bull whip, like the
report of a small pistol. Then they drifted away in the night, leaving
only the odor of dust and cattle. They were traveling in a
southeasterly direction, as near as the two cowboys could judge.
“What do yuh make of it, Hashknife?” asked Sleepy as they got wearily
back on their horses and went ahead. “Reckon it was within the law?”
“It didn’t look like it, Sleepy, but my bronc is too tired to run away
from trouble, and I’m too sleepy to shoot my way out of it. Anyway,
I’m kinda losin’ my affection for these Lo Lo cattlemen.”
They stabled their horses at Totem City and went to a restaurant.
Sudden Smithy was there with Sunshine. Sudden nodded curtly, and his
face showed little enthusiasm when Hashknife and Sleepy sat down at
his table.
Sunshine merely grunted and kept up a steady attack on his plate of
food. Hashknife and Sleepy had noticed that there were quite a number
of horses at the hitch racks: Evidence that all of the cowpunchers
were not out at the dead-line. Sudden seemed slightly nervous and
often squinted toward the front windows.
The waiter was just placing their food on the table, when in came
Matthew Hale, the prosecuting attorney. He came straight to the
sheriff, paying no attention to the other three men.
“Well?” said the sheriff coldly.
“I’ve been looking for you,” said Hale. “Several of the men are over
in Hork’s place, and it’s beginning to look dangerous. You know as
well as I do that you can’t keep King and Hartwell in jail without a
specific charge against them. As far as I know there is nothing
against them. They were not arrested by the law; merely kidnaped.”
“All right,” grunted Sudden angrily. “I suppose yuh want me to turn
’em loose, eh?”
“I merely want you to comply with the law, Sheriff. It seems to me,
that with all this shooting going on, and dead men, whose deaths have
not been investigated, there should be something for the sheriff’s
office to do beside keeping men in jail, against whom there have been
no charges made, who have never even been arrested.”
Sleepy innocently clapped his hands by way of applause.
It angered Sudden. He whirled on Sleepy, who met his glare with an
expression of angelic innocence.
“Ain’t he the talker?” queried Sleepy. “Silv’ry tongued, and all that.
No wonder they sends lawyers to Congress.”
It was all said with such sincerity that Sudden turned and looked at
Hale, as if wondering just what Hale had said.
“—— fool!” grunted Sunshine, his mouth filled with food.
“Mebbe,” said Sleepy, “but he don’t talk like one.”
“I meant you,” growled Sunshine.
“Check the bet,” laughed Sleepy.
Hale was looking closely at Hashknife, and now he said to Sudden:
“These are the two men who—uh—went away from the inquest, are they
not?”
“Yeah, —— ’em!” growled Sudden. “They’re always around where they
ain’t wanted.”
“If I remember correctly you made a specific charge against them at—”
“Now, just hang on to yoreself,” advised Hashknife. “We’ve been
charged just about all we’re goin’ to be. You bunch of narrow-headed
Lo Lo-ites are up against enough real grief, without tryin’ to fasten
somethin’ on to me and Sleepy Stevens.
Yo’re asleep, that’s what you are. My ——, I dunno how you’ve prospered
at all.”
He turned on the sheriff.
“Who’s Ed?”
“Ed who?”
“Just Ed. There must be somebody around here named Ed.”
“Well, let’s see.”
Sudden frowned thoughtfully. He knew almost every man in Lo Lo Valley
by his first name. Sunshine had lived there for years, as had Matthew
Hale, but none of them was able to give Hashknife the slightest
assistance.
“That is rather peculiar,” said Hale thoughtfully. “In all the valley,
I do not know one man by that name. There was old Ed Barber, of
course.”
“But he’s dead,” said Sudden. “Nossir, I don’t know of one man by that
name. What’s the idea, Hartley?”
“I’ve got to find Ed—who ever he is, Sudden—because he’s the man who
killed another man at Jack Hartwell’s place today, and took Mrs. Jack
Hartwell along with him.”
“What in —— are you talkin’ about?” exploded the sheriff, getting to
his feet.”
“Took Mrs. Hartwell and ——”
“Set down,” advised Hashknife. “Don’t get excited. She’s gone,
thassall. The house looks like a cyclone had swept through it, and
there’s a dead man propped up on the sofy. Ed shot him, so he said,
before he died. And he lived long enough to say that Ed took the
woman. The woman must have been Mrs. Hartwell.”
“For ——’s sake!” gasped Hale. “What is this country coming to, anyway?
When they steal women——”
“Who was the dead man?” asked Sudden.
“I don’t know,” Hashknife shook his head. “He was one of King’s men,
who was sent from the sheep camp to find out why King didn’t come
back. Mebbe he tried to protect the woman and got killed.”
Yeah?” Sudden got to his feet, his jaw set tightly. “How in —— do you
know all this, Hartley?”
Hashknife smiled at him, shoved his plate aside and rested his elbows
on the table,
“Mebbe it’s because I haven’t lived here so long that I’ve got cobwebs
in my brain and scales over my eyes, Sheriff. Another question: Who
owns the JN brand?”
“JN? I don’t know it. What’s the JN brand got——”
“I’m askin’ questions—not answerin’ ’em. Have yuh got a brand registry
at yore office?”
“Yeah, I’ve got one.”
“Then let’s go and find out where it is located—this JN outfit.”
They paid for their meal and went outside. Hale was interested enough
to go with them. As they crossed the street, going toward Hork’s
store, the sheriff stopped, with a muttered exclamation. It was too
dark to distinguish clearly, but in the yellow lights from the
opposite building, there appeared to be a number of horses in front of
the sheriff’s office.
“What the —— is goin’ on down there?” wondered Sudden.
The sheriff grunted and started down the middle of the street, when,
from a point about midway between them and the office, some one fired
a gun. The shooter blended into the wall of the building and was not
visible, and his shot was evidently fired into the air as a warning.
A moment later several bullets whispered past the five men in the
street, and they all broke for shelter. Hashknife and Sleepy ran
across toward Hork’s store, while the others scattered separately.
Men came running out of the store, only to be driven back by a
fusillade of bullets, which splintered the wooden sidewalks and bit
chunks out of Hork’s porch posts. Hashknife and Sleepy flattened
themselves against the building. Here and there a door crashed shut,
as men decided that the street was no place to be in that storm of
lead.
And about a minute later a group of horsemen swept up the street from
the jail, shooting promiscuously to drive every one off the street. A
bullet smashed through a window beside Hashknife and Sleepy, and they
dropped flat. But as the horsemen rode through the cross lights of the
Totem Saloon and Hork’s store, they saw the huge figure of Eph King,
sitting straight in the saddle, leading his men out of the town where
he was so badly hated.
The dust of the passing horsemen had settled before Totem City crawled
out of their holes to see what it was all about. Hashknife and Sleepy
ran down to the sheriff’s office and found the sheriff and Sunshine in
there viewing the wreckage. For once in his life, Sudden Smithy could
not find words to express his feelings.
Both prisoners were gone. The front door of the office sagged on one
hinge, and two of the cell doors had been sprung so badly that they
would never function again. The sheepmen had left two big crowbars, an
ax and ten pounds of dynamite. It was evident that they were prepared
for any emergency.
In a few minutes the office was filled with inquiring men. Sudden
Smithy finally recovered his powers of speech, and their questions
were met by a flow of bitter profanity. Sudden had, at one time, been
a muleskinner, and his profane vocabulary was almost inexhaustible. In
fact, Sudden was in no condition to talk coherently of what had
happened, so Sunshine told them that the sheepmen had smashed the jail
and had taken away Eph King and Jack Hartwell.
“Yuh should ’a’ known they’d do that,” said a cowboy.
This was sufficient to send Sudden into paroxysms of profanity, as he
congratulated the cowboy on his wisdom.
“Well, we should,” agreed Sunshine, and this caused Sudden to choke on
his own words and become silent.
“Jist about how did the sheepmen know that King was here?” asked one
of the crowd.
Sudden looked at the speaker for a moment. He remembered that
Hashknife and Sleepy had ridden out of town immediately following the
locking up of King and Jack Hartwell, and he also remembered that
Hashknife had seemed to know too much about the death of the man who
had come to Hartwell’s place looking for King. Then Sudden threw up
his hand in a signal for silence.
“I’ll tell yuh who told ’em!” he yelled. “The same men I accused of
bein’ King’s spies last night.”
Hashknife was almost at his elbow, and between him and the door,
looking at a book, which he had picked up from Sudden’s desk, while
Sleepy was further back in the room.
As the sheriff spoke he whirled to grasp Hashknife by the arm, as if
to place himself between Hashknife and the door, but Hashknife was
fully alive to his danger, and when Sudden tried to jump past him,
Hashknife’s right hand whipped through in an uppercut, and the Lo Lo
sheriff’s teeth shut with a dull “cluck!” and he went down on his
shoulders.
The sheriff had hardly hit the floor when Hashknife ducked out through
the doorway, knocking a cowboy spinning along the wall. Sleepy sprang
across the sheriff and tried to escape, but they fell upon him in a
group, and he went down on his face, with half a dozen men on top of
him.
The room was in an uproar, as others jammed into the doorway, trying
to get a glimpse of Hashknife; but all they glimpsed was a rider going
away from the Totem hitch rack. Whether or not it was the leanfaced
cowboy they did not know. So they went back and helped the rest subdue
Sleepy, who was making life miserable for everyone concerned. But
there is strength in numbers, and in a few minutes Sleepy was behind
the bars of the only intact cell in the jail, while the sheriff held
on to his jaw with both hands and swore through his nose. There were
others who had suffered from Sleepy’s toes and fists, and they were
equally divided as whether to hang him right away or to wait until
they all had a drink. The drink idea finally carried, and they trooped
over to the Totem Saloon, leaving the sheriff and Sunshine alone in
the office.
“You talked too —— much,” said Sunshine with little sympathy. He had
been kicked in the ankle.
“Ozz zhut ’p!” groaned Sudden.
“If yuh had any sense, you’d ’a’ shot ’em both and then told the crowd
what yuh shot ’em for. By ——, if I’m ever elected sheriff of this
county, I’ll show ’em.”
Sudden did not think it worth while replying to Sunshine. It was
difficult for him to talk, and he felt that all of his teeth had been
driven at least an inch deep into his jaws. He got to his feet, kicked
his chair aside and started for the door.
“Stay here,” he ordered. “Goin’ ’fter drink.”
“Yeah, I’ll stay here,” snapped Sunshine. “But if them snake-hunters
come and want to lynch that jigger—they can have him.”
Sudden grunted and walked out. Sunshine rubbed his ankle, after
removing his boot, and the pain made him wince. He had stepped into
range of Sleepy’s kicks, and now he cursed reflectively.
“Mary Sunshine!” called Sleepy. “Can I have a drink of water?”
Sunshine told him in plain profanity where he could go and get water.
“Got a mean disposition, ain’t yuh?” laughed Sleepy. “What are you so
sore about? Did you get hurt?”
“Well, I got kicked in the ankle, and it’s all black-and-blue.”
“Oh, excuse me,” said Sleepy seriously. “I didn’t mean to kick you,
Sunshine.”
“Well,” said Sunshine doubtfully, “I dunno whether yuh meant to do it,
but yuh sure done it real good.”