Author of “The Range Boomer,” “Flames of the Storm,” etc.
Two men swung their horses through the tumble-down gateway of the
Half-Moon Ranch and rode slowly toward the old, rambling ranch-house.
The man in the lead was a tall, thin, unshaven cowboy, with a long, sad
countenance and a pair of bright, grin-wrinkled eyes. He rode standing
straight in his saddle, with the brim of his sombrero pulled down over
his eyes.
The other man was shorter, heavier, with a heavy-lined face and
half-shut eyes. A few strands of roan-colored hair straggled from under
the brim of his hat, which rested on the back of his head.
They drew rein and looked the place over. The tall one nodded toward
the side of the house, and they both rode around to the rear, from
whence came the sound of a voice raised in anger.
“Cook!” exclaimed the voice scornfully. “You? Huh! Do yuh think the
Half-Moon outfit wear steel bills and digests their food through a
gizzard? Why, dang yore hide, yuh can’t even burn stuff decently. Set
yoreself up to cook fer an outfit, do yuh? Where’d you learn to cook?
Cook, ----! Yo’re fired! No, I don’t want to hear yuh explain how yuh
got drunk on one li’l drink and forgot which way home was. No sir! Pack
yore war-bag and drift. I’ve got enough troubles without annexin’ a lot
of bad stummicks around here. Yo’re fired; _sabe_? If you can’t
understand English, I’ll write it out in Swedish and mail it to yuh.”
The tall cowboy’s face wrinkled into a grin, and he started to say
something to his companion, but just at that moment a woman opened the
kitchen-door and looked out at them.
She was a tiny wisp of a woman, dressed in faded calico. About fifty
years of age, with a mild, sweet face and soft, blue eyes. She stared
at the two cowboys for a moment, and a flush crept into her tanned
face.
“Ma’am,” said the tall cowboy taking off his hat, “I plumb betcha that
cook knows where to head in at about now.”
“Did--did you hear--me?” she faltered.
“Yes’m. I’m ‘Hashknife’ Hartley and my pardner’s name is ‘Sleepy’
Stevens. Nod to the lady, Sleepy.”
“I am Mrs. Snow,” said the lady. “‘Frosty’ Snow is my husband. He owns
this Half-Moon Ranch.”
“T’ meetcha,” bowed Hashknife, and then seriously, “Ma’am, if that cook
ain’t took the hint yet, I’d admire to repeat yore words to him.”
“The--there ain’t no cook here now,” confessed Mrs. Snow.
“Ain’t? Why----”
“He won’t quit, don’tcha see? His name’s ‘Swede Sam,’ and if ---- ever
made a more ignorant person than Swede Sam he sure kept him under cover
for loco-seed.”
“Didja ever try firin’ him?” asked Hashknife.
“Sure. But he won’t quit. Every day I practise on a new style of firin’
him. And what you just heard was what I’m framing up to tell him when
he shows up again. We’ve done everythin’ except kill him outright, but
he just grins and says:
“‘Das goot yoke. Ay am de cook, you bet.’”
Hashknife laughed joyfully. He liked Mrs. Snow because she could see
the humor of life.
“Where is he now?” asked Sleepy.
Mrs. Snow shook her head slowly.
“I dunno. A few weeks ago he cooked up a big mess of prunes and forgot
where he put ’em. Yesterday he drank the result, and lit out for
Caldwell; singin’ somethin’ that didn’t sound like a Swedish
church-hymn. I reckon he’s asleep in Casey McGill’s saloon now. He
thinks Casey’s a Swede.”
“Much stock runnin’ in this Lodge-Pole country, ma’am?” asked the
practical Sleepy.
“Ye-e-es--I reckon you’d say there was.”
“We’re lookin’ for jobs, ma’am,” explained Hashknife. “Me and Sleepy
are what you’d call top-hands.”
“Never seen a puncher that wasn’t,” declared Mrs. Snow. “Frosty says
there’s been a epidemic in the cow-country, which has made top-hands
out of every danged buckaroo what has two legs to wear chaps.”
“They do get graduated fast, I reckon,” agreed Hashknife grinning. “Me
and Sleepy earned ours. Do we get the job?”
Mrs. Snow smiled and shook her head. She liked the looks of these two
bronzed, practical-looking men, but the Half-Moon was full handed.
“We’re runnin’ full of help, boys. Frosty said he’d likely have to cut
down pretty soon.”
“Well, that’s too danged bad,” observed Hashknife. “I’d sure like to
work for you, ma’am. Know any ranch that might be honin’ for two more
to feed?”
Mrs. Snow smiled and shook her head, but sobered as she squinted at
them.
“Might try the Tombstone Ranch.”
“Sounds right cheerful, ma’am,” observed Hashknife. “Do they raise ’em
already carved?”
“Kinda,” admitted Mrs. Snow seriously. “Place belongs to old Amos
Skelton, the meanest old son-of-a-gun that ever pulled on a boot.
Everybody hates him.”
“Must amount to somethin’ then,” observed Sleepy.
“What does his iron look like--his brand?” asked Hashknife, reaching
for the cigaret makings.
“It’s the old 33 outfit. Folks named it the Tombstone about a year ago.
Bill Wheeler owned the old 33 and he let Caldwell put their graveyard
on his ranch. It was a kinda nice spot, where the grass stays green
most of the time. Then old Amos comes along and buys Bill out. Amos is
a danged old blow-hard and most everybody starts in hatin’ him at the
drop of a hat.
“Long comes Halloween Eve and some brainless cowpunchers goes down to
the graveyard, swipes the tombstones, and when old Amos wakes up the
next mornin’ his front yard is set full of them epi-tafts.
“It was a good joke on Amos, don’t you think?”
“Did he laugh?” queried Hashknife.
“Not so’s you could notice it,” smiled Mrs. Snow. “He took a plow and
harrer up to the graveyard, and when he got through cultivatin’ it
would take a higher power than exists in the Lodge-Pole country to tell
where all them tombstones belonged. Yessir, he sure did remove all the
brands. Them tombstones are all in his front yard yet, and I reckon
they’ll stay.”
Hashknife and Sleepy laughed immoderately. Mrs. Snow looked severe for
a moment, but joined in the laugh.
“Any punchers workin’ for that outfit?” asked Hashknife, still
laughing.
“One--‘Quinin’ Quinn.”
“Why for the medicine cognomen?” asked Hashknife.
“Bitter. Quinn ain’t smiled since he was born. Fact. Ain’t got no
grin-wrinkles on his face--not one. Nobody plays poker with him, ’cause
of his face. Him and old Amos makes a good pair--to let alone.”
“Well, we’re sure much obliged to you, Mrs. Snow,” said Hashknife.
“We’ll mosey along to Caldwell, I reckon. If you can’t make your cook
understand anythin’, send for me. I sure _sabe_ one word he’ll jump
for.”
“Tell it to me, will you?”
“_Skoal._”
“Shucks!” Mrs. Snow laughed shortly. “I _sabe_ that one. It’s like
sayin’, ‘Here’s my regards.’”
“Yeah, that’s true,” admitted Hashknife solemnly. “But yuh might yelp
it just before you hit him with the ax.”
They turned their horses and rode back around the house, heading toward
Caldwell.
* * * * *
Ahead of them the dusty road circled through the hills, as though
following the lines of least resistance.
There was little flat land in the Lodge-Pole range, but it was ideal
for cattle; the breaks giving protection for feed in Summer and for
stock in Winter. Cottonwood grew in abundance along the streams, and
every cañon seemed heavily stocked with willow. The hills were scored
with stock-trails, leading from water to the higher ground.
“Don’t like this country,” declared Sleepy after they had ridden away
from the Half-Moon, “too many places to shoot from cover.”
“Sleepy, you ought to have been an undertaker,” said Hashknife. “Death
sure does have a attraction for you, cowboy. To me this looks like a
land of milk and honey.”
“Milk and honey, like ----! More like strong liquor and hornets.”
Hashknife laughed. He and Sleepy argued continually, swore
affectionately at each other and shared the blanket of a cowboy’s joys
and woes.
“Look at the doughnut,” grinned Hashknife. “Consider the rim of brown
dough instead of lookin’ through the hole all the time. Nothin’ ever
looks right to you, Sleepy.”
“I said ‘strong liquor’,” declared Sleepy, leaning forward in his
saddle, “and here comes the proof.”
A horse and rider had topped a rise just beyond them, and there was no
doubt but what the rider was sitting drunkenly in his saddle. The horse
was going slowly, and in anything but a straight line, as if trying to
balance its rider.
“Drunker ’n seven hundred dollars,” declared Sleepy. “Ho-old fast!” he
grunted, as the rider almost toppled from the saddle.
The horse stopped as they rode up, standing at right angles to the
road, snuffing at the dust. The rider swayed sidewise and Hashknife
grabbed him by the arm.
“Drunk ----!” snorted Hashknife. “This man’s been shot!”
“My Gawd, yes!” gasped Sleepy, dismounting and going around to the
other side.
“More ’n once, too,” declared Hashknife, “or he’s smeared himself with
the blood.”
They took the man off his horse and laid him beside the road. His
flannel shirt was soaked with blood, and an examination showed that the
man had been shot twice. One bullet had struck him high up in the left
shoulder, while the other had torn its way through his body on the
right side, about midway between shoulder and waist.
He was unconscious from loss of blood and his breath came jerkily.
“There ain’t a danged thing we can do for him,” said Hashknife, getting
to his feet. “Looks to me like he’d been hit with a thirty-thirty.”
Sleepy nodded as he looked up from an examination of the man’s face.
“Betcha forty dollars that this here is Quinin Quinn. Didja ever see
such a sour face in your life?”
“’F you got two thirty-thirties through your carcass, I reckon you’d
kinda sour, too,” retorted Hashknife. “’F we knowed where the Tombstone
Ranch was, we’d take him there.”
“Must be between here and Caldwell. This feller likely headed f’r home
and missed the gate. If we don’t find the ranch, I reckon we can find
the town.”
“And that,” said Sleepy, as they draped the man over his saddle, “is
the first danged thing I ever suggested that you didn’t argue about,
Hashknife.”
“First time you ever spoke sense, Sleepy.”
“Glad you give me credit for this once.”
“I’ll give you credit, when you got it comin’. Get your lariat, Sleepy.
We’ve got to tie this jigger kinda tight.”
Sleepy got his rope and proceeded to tie his end of the man to the
saddle.
“Lots’a times I never get no credit,” grunted Sleepy. “Lots’a times you
takes all the credit.”
“Givin’ you credit now, ain’t I, Sleepy?”
“Yeah--this time--I could tell you a lot of times----”
“Shall we set down and argue and let this man die, or would you rather
shut your face and give him a chance?”
“Who’s arguin’?” demanded Sleepy, swinging into his saddle.
“’F I ever open my mouth----”
“You expose your ignorance,” finished Hashknife. “Ride on the other
side and see that he don’t slip loose.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that, too,” agreed Sleepy, suiting his action to the
word. “But,” he added, looking across the body of the wounded man,
“don’t think you’ve got all the brains, Hashknife--nor a big part of
’em. I never did see a tall man what had any too much _sabe_. Caesar
was a short man, and Napoleon was small and----”
“And look what happened to Napoleon,” grinned Hashknife. “They pastured
him on an island all alone.”
“How about Caesar, eh?”
“I dunno a ---- thing about him,” admitted Hashknife. “What happened to
him, Sleepy?”
“I dunno f’r sure, but--betcha forty dollars that’s the Tombstone
Ranch.”
* * * * *
They rode around the point of a hill and below them was a ranchhouse,
sprawled in a clump of cottonwoods. A long feed-shed, its roof twisted
out of a straight line, stretched from a series of pole corrals along
the bank of a willow-grown stream.
A thin streamer of smoke was drifting from the crooked stove-pipe.
Between the gate and the ranch-house the ground was dotted with white
slabs, seemingly laid out in orderly rows.
“That’s her,” agreed Hashknife. “Graveyard and all.”
They rode down to the gate and up past the graveyard to the front door.
There was no sign of an inhabitant, until Hashknife dismounted and
started for the door, when the door was suddenly flung open and
Hashknife faced the muzzle of a double-barreled shotgun. The man behind
the gun was as gray as a rabbit, slightly stooped and with a face as
hard as chiseled granite.
“Hook your feet to the dirt and keep your hands above your waist!” he
growled.
Then he saw Sleepy.
He peered closer and the muzzle of the shotgun came down.
“Your name Stevens?” he asked.
“Hey!” gasped Sleepy. “You’re ‘Bliz’ Skelton! Well, you danged pelican!
Whatcha know about that?”
Sleepy fairly fell off his horse and bow-legged his way up to the door,
where he and Skelton shook hands.
“This is Hashknife Hartley, my pardner, Bliz.”
“Ex-cuse m’ scatter-gun,” said Skelton, as he shook hands with
Hashknife.
“Danged old dodo!” Sleepy grinned widely. “Ain’t seen you since you
owned the O-Bar-O in Eagle River. You ain’t changed much, ’cept to get
homelier ’n ----. Mrs. Snow said that Amos Skelton owned this ranch.
Never heard nobody call yuh anythin’ but Blizzard.”
“Christened Amos,” grunted Skelton, squinting out at the horses.
“Plumb forgot the wounded man!” grunted Hashknife, leading the way out.
“----!” gaped Skelton. “That’s Quinin! He’s my hired man. What happened
to him, anyway?”
Sleepy and Hashknife unfastened the ropes, while they told Skelton of
how they had found Quinin. The old man’s face grew tense and he spat
viciously, but said nothing. They carried Quinin into the house and
placed him on a bed. Hashknife took hold of a limp wrist and squinted
down at the man. Then he took a tiny mirror from his vest pocket and
held it to the man’s lips. The surface remained unclouded.
Hashknife slowly replaced the mirror and looked at Skelton.
“He was your hired man--not is, Skelton.”
“Dead?”
Hashknife nodded and reached for the “makings.”
“Got any idea who threw the lead?” he asked.
Skelton shook his head.
“Trouble hunter, Bliz?” asked Sleepy.
“No!” Emphatically. “Quinin minded his own business.”
Hashknife lighted his cigaret and looked around the room. It contained
a box-stove, a table, littered with cigaret papers, two bunks and a few
chairs.
“Me and Quinin lived in here,” said Skelton. “Built our bunks in here
so there’d only be one room to clean.”
“What’s the trouble around here?” asked Hashknife suddenly.
Skelton stared at him.
“What trouble?”
“Folks don’t like you, Skelton. Feller don’t get disliked for nothin’.
Either you’re wrong, or folks see things wrong. Me and Sleepy are
danged good listeners.”
“That’s a fact, Bliz,” nodded Sleepy.
“I’m ---- if I know,” admitted Skelton. “I’ve had this ranch about a
year and a half and I ain’t made a cent--nor a friend.”
“Mebbe they’re sore about the graveyard,” said Sleepy.
“I don’t blame ’em,” agreed Skelton. “It was a dirty trick, but I
didn’t have a thing to do with it.”
“You plowed out the grave-mounds,” reminded Hashknife.
“I did, like ----!” snapped Skelton. “I tell you I’m gittin’ tired of
denyin’ that charge.”
“Oh!” grunted Hashknife softly.
“I left them tombstones where somebody planted ’em; but I sure didn’t
smooth out them mounds, y’betcha. I’m wonderin’ that somebody ain’t
killed me over it, ’cause it’s sure a killin’ matter to obliterate
ancestors thataway.”
“’S a wonder yuh never sold out,” grunted Sleepy.
“Been asked to.” Skelton grinned for the first time. “Yes sir, it has
been hinted at considerable.”
“You’re bull-headed, Bliz,” grinned Sleepy. “I’d sure as ---- sell out
if I was you.”
“Yeah? Mebbe you would, Sleepy--I dunno. They laid that tombstone job
on to me, and everybody hates me fer it; and m’ cattle disappears
reg’lar-like, and once in a while somebody takes a whang at me with a
rifle. But outside of that----”
Skelton spat and shook his head.
“What price do you hold on the ranch?” asked Hashknife.
“One hundred thousand dollars.”
“Oh ----!” gasped Hashknife weakly. “You’re old enough to know better
than that, Skelton.”
Skelton nodded seriously and scratched the palms of his hands on his
hips.
“Age don’t cut no ice, Hartley. This danged ranch ain’t worth more ’n
eight, nine thousand, with them tombstones throwed in to boot; but I’m
---- if anybody’s goin’ to run Bliz Skelton off the place! I ain’t the
runnin’ kind, y’betcha. And as long as I’ve got a shell left for that
old sawed-off shotgun, I ain’t goin’ t’ run; _sabe_?”
“Tha’s all right,” mumbled Hashknife. “You know your own capacity.
What’ll we do with the dead man?”
“Take him to Caldwell, I reckon. I’ll hitch up to the wagon. I suppose
Jake Blue and Doc. Clevis’ll have a ---- of a lot of questions to ask
now.”
“Who’re they?” asked Sleepy.
“Sheriff and coroner.”
Skelton stopped in the doorway and looked back.
“I’m ---- glad yuh came along when you did. ’F I had to take him in
alone I’d sure be stackin’ m’self agin’ a lot of misery.”
“I betcha,” nodded Hashknife. “As it is, we’ll split the misery three
ways.”
* * * * *
“Takes somethin’ powerful to stir me in this ---- heat; but right now I
grows excited.”
“Pinch” Johnson leaned back against the doorway of Barney Stout’s
blacksmith-shop and spat explosively. Barney lifted a perspiring face
and ceased rasping on the hoof of a piebald bronco. His rasp fell to
the floor with a clatter, and he came to the doorway, rubbing his horny
hands on his leather apron.
“Ol’ Amos bringin’ comp’ny to town,” grunted Pinch.
“One’s that Half-Moon Swede,” observed Barney, “and he’s drunker ’n
---- yet. Started out to walk to the ranch, and he was takin’ up both
sides and the middle of the road.”
“And them ain’t all!” grunted Pinch, getting to his feet.
“They’s a pair of boots stickin’ out the end of that wagon, Barney!”
Skelton drove up in front of Shipman’s general store and tied his team
to a porch-post. Several men crossed from the War-Bonnet saloon, and
one of them was Jake Blue, the sheriff--a skinny, blear-eyed personage,
of much self-importance and undoubted ability with a gun.
“Looks t’me like somebody done got hurt,” observed Pinch wisely.
He crossed the street with Barney hurrying along behind him.
The sheriff and the other men looked over the sides of the wagon-box
curiously.
“What’samatter?” asked Blue. “Drunk?”
“Dead,” said Hashknife.
“Zasso?” Mr. Blue had a habit of speaking a whole sentence as if it
were only a single word.
He moved to the end-gate of the wagon and looked at the body from that
angle.
“Howdedie?”
“Quiet-like,” said Hashknife, manufacturing a cigaret.
“Huh!”
Mr. Blue seemed to discover Hashknife for the first time. He masticated
his tobacco rapidly and glanced at Skelton.
“Howaboutcha?”
Skelton told in a few words, while more folks came and looked at the
dead man.
“Where’d you come from?” asked the sheriff, looking at Hashknife.
“Recently?”
“Yeah.”
“Tombstone ranch.”
“I mean--before that.”
Hashknife snapped his cigaret away and leaned back in his saddle.
“I was borned in Pecos, Texas, about thirty-two years ago----”
“What in ---- do I care about that?” snapped Blue.
Hashknife looked surprized at the interruption.
“Pardner, you asked where I came from, didn’t you? I’m tryin’ to tell
you.”
“Zasso? Well, we’ll let that slide fer now while we talks about other
things. Will somebody find Doc Clevis?”
A man from the War-Bonnet signified his willingness to find the doctor,
while the crowd waited and grew to greater proportions.
Doc Clevis was easy to find, and a few minutes later he arrived on the
scene, bustling with importance. He was over six feet tall, dressed in
a loose-fitting, rusty-black suit and short boots. A thin fringe of
hair circled his otherwise bald head and surmounted a face which was a
mixture of unutterable sadness and no little evil.
He climbed into the wagon and sat humped on the edge of the wagon-box,
while he examined the body. Finally he nodded sadly and looked at the
circle of onlookers.
“He’s dead,” he announced solemnly.
“My ----!” marveled Hashknife. “You’re a wonder, Doc.”
“Been dead quite a while,” said the doctor.
“Wonders’ll never cease,” grinned Hashknife.
Doc Clevis squinted at him, as if wondering if this tall cowboy was in
earnest or not.
“Where does the Swede figure into this?” asked Pinch.
“We found him settin’ beside the road,” explained Skelton. “He’s too
drunk to know anythin’.”
“Lemme look at that rifle,” ordered the sheriff.
Sleepy handed down the rifle, and the crowd moved in to look at it. The
sheriff levered out three cartridges and slipped a white cigaret-paper
into the breech.
“Been shot lately,” he announced, peering down the barrel.
“It was beside the road,” said Skelton.
“Yeah?”
The sheriff looked quizzically at Skelton. “You found the Swede beside
the road, too? ’Pears to me that you found a lot of things beside the
road. Was the rifle near the Swede?”
“’Bout six feet from him.”
“How far from the Swede did yuh find Quinin Quinn?”
“’Bout two miles.”
“That don’t mean nothin’,” said Barney Stout. “Quinin was still
pluggin’ along when they found him. Anyway, that Swede never shot him.”
“Zasso?”
Mr. Blue fastened his watery eyes upon Barney and lifted his sparse
eyebrows.
“Mebbe you know who shot him,” he said.
“Well,” faltered Barney, “I dunno who shot him, but that ---- Half-Moon
cook was so drunk----”
“Yo’re excused!” snapped Blue, and then to Skelton:
“This here is goin’ t’ need investigatin’, Skelton. I dunno anythin’
about these two strangers who horns in on this deal--do you?”
“This’n,” nodded Skelton, indicating Sleepy. “I’ve knowed Sleepy
Stevens f’r a long time; and when he takes a pardner, I kinda backs
this here pardner. Know what I mean, Blue?”
“Gotcha. What do you make of it, Doc?”
“He was shot twice, and he’s dead,” replied Doc. “I ain’t advancin’ any
theory who done it, sheriff.”
“It’s a ---- good thing we called yuh, Doc,” said Hashknife seriously.
“I used to live in a place where we didn’t have no doctor, and it sure
was ----. Why, I’ve knowed times when we kept dead men propped up
around town for weeks--waitin’ to be sure they were dead. Lookin’ back
at them days, I’m wonderin’ what killed ’em. Mebbe they was shot--I
dunno.”
“Are you plumb ignorant, or jist actin’ smart?” asked the sheriff.
“That,” said Hashknife seriously, “that is the secret of my success.
Nobody ever found out, and I couldn’t tell ’em, ’cause I didn’t know
m’self.”
“Thasso?”
The sheriff’s jaw muscles bulged, like twin walnuts, and he hooked his
thumbs into the waist-band of his overalls, as he squinted at
Hashknife’s serious face.
“You came to a ---- good place for to be found out.”
“Well, that’s right nice of you, sheriff. What do you reckon I ought to
do for the information--kiss you?”
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roared Pinch Johnson. “I’d admire to see you do it,
stranger.”
Mr. Blue’s face did not belie his name, except that it went purple from
the added flood of red. He opened his mouth, as though a ready retort
burned his tongue, then he shut his jaws tightly and turned to the
doctor--
“When’ll you hold a inquest, Doc?”
“T’morrow, I reckon,” said the doctor, rubbing his bald head with a
rotary motion, as if polishing it. “Take that long to git evidence,
won’t it?”