the Trail to Seven Pines (1972) (19 page)

Harper had a feeling that fate was closing in around him. He ran a finger around his collar and swore bitterly. Just when everything was going right! Of course if anything happened to the Gore outfit, Clarry Jacks was riding with them and the gunman might be killed. That possibility pleased him, but a lurking doubt Remained, for Jacks had shown an unerring instinct for *i staying alive. There had been that other time, when Dakota Jack's gang was wiped out. Uncomfortably, Harper recalled what had happened to Dakota Jack. Clarry was definitely dangerous.

Joe Turner crossed to him at the bar. Turner jerked a thumb at Harrington, who stood nearby. "He was askin' for you."

Harrington was smiling when Harper stopped beside him. Harper mopped his face. "Hot," he said.

"Uh-huh." Harrington was cheerful. "And getting hotter. They found Poker Harris and Dan Dusark, both dead, and they said it looked like a shootout."

"I figured they worked together."

"Maybe. Can't tell where a man stands these days."

"Anybody else around Corn Patch?"

"Deserted."

"If John Gore's dead," Harper suggested thoughtfully, "that fight may be over."

If Gore was dead, the fight would be over. Harper mopped his face again. Then Cassidy might help Lock in uncovering the killer of Jesse, and that the two might fail, he doubted. His mouth felt dry and he scowled, glaring at his reflection in the bar mirror. That trail might uncover a lot of things, and suddenly he felt tired and afraid. All his plans would go for nothing -nothing!

Another worry was the gold. It had been taken to the mine at Star City. Rawhide was not available to watch over it, for Harper had foolishly allowed him to join the 3 G with Jacks. Rawhide could keep an eye on him there but had no excuse to follow when the big gunfighter went off on his own. Always before he had been positive that he could control Clarry Jacks, yet uneasily he began to recall that such had never been the case. Jacks had gone his own way, always listening to Pony with apparent respect but then doing much as he pleased.

Harris dead. The king of Corn Patch had seemed invulnerable. Somehow he had been a symbol, for not even the domination of Cattle Bob had been able to shake his control of that corner of the mountains. Weakened, yes. His area of control narrowed, but nevertheless existent. And now Harris, who had seemed as immune as the mountains themselves, was gone, puffed out like smoke. Pony Harper licked his dry lips.

He had slept little and looked it. His nerves were fine-drawn and he was irritable.

He walked to the door and stared up the street toward the livery stable, where the arrivals stopped first.

"Wish we'd hear somethin'!" he said angrily. "This silence gets on my nerves!"

Harrington looked at him thoughtfully. "What stake have you got in this? You aren't with the Gores, and the only other bunch that suffers will be the rustlers. Unless," he added carefully, "unless it's the stage robbers."

"You implyin' I had anything to do with them?"

"You?" he asked innocently. "Who would think a thing like that?" He paused. "Jacks?

Now that's another story. He always did have money, but where he got it I could never guess." He lighted a cigar. "See you around, Pony."

Harper stared after him, his lips compressed. He must watch himself.

Joe Turner watched him and smiled secretly. If Harper was out of the picture, Turner stood to gain more than he would lose. Ever since Hopalong Cassidy arrived, Turner had been glad he was a small man, a man unnoticed and usually out of sight. He liked it that way. It was better to be a small man and a live one.

John Gore finally caught a horse. Not the one he had chased earlier, but another horse freed from somewhere and wandering to the only home he had known. Mounted once more, Gore raced for the 3 G, arriving to find empty corrals and silence. There was neither food nor ammunition, nor any sign of his brother or the men. Wild with worry, he ran to the crest of a nearby hill and searched the desert with his field glasses.

At first he saw nothing, and then only a thin dark line that seemed to move.

Squinting, he could not make out what or who it was. It might be cattle heading for a water hole. Actually, it was his own men, lips cracked from heat and thirst, dust-covered and evil-tempered. A half-dozen killers, bitter, vengeful, and hair-triggered of temper. Most vicious now, if not the toughest, was Troy, his normally vile temper aggravated by the blow from Hopalong's gun.

John Gore did some fast thinking. Most of all he needed a horse, but there were none on the ranch now, Cassidy having driven them far out onto the range. Nor would there be any at Willow Springs. The closest horses he knew of were at Mandalay. Unknown to him, these, too, had been driven off.

He returned to the battered mustang he had ridden to the ranch and swung into the saddle. The little horse started off gamely, and then Gore's mind suddenly leaped to the Rocking R.

It was nearer than Mandalay Springs. Their riders should be all gone; there should be plenty of horses. He made a decision and altered his course due west. In such little decisions are the courses of men laid out. For John Gore had taken the trail to death.

Had he gone to Mandalay he would have arrived on a spent horse, with no fresh animal to be had and nothing to do but wait until the horse recovered or somebody came along.

He would have been safely out of the fight until it was over. Taking the road to what he believed would be an almost deserted ranch, he took the road to a ranch where everybody was home but two men. Hopalong Cassidy was riding to the outlaw hideout, and Shorty Montana had slipped away from the others and was trailing Hopalong, wanting to be on hand if he needed assistance, and knowing that where Hopalong was, trouble would be.

Under the flat hot sun Hopalong drifted due east, then swung south. South of him loomed the sprawling foothills and first peaks of the Trinity range, and from under the brim of his wide hat his hard blue eyes searched the sweep of desert before him, starting near and then reaching out, sweeping the sagebrush levels with a careful, searching gaze that left no hummock, no boulder, no suggestion of movement unseen or unstudied. Sweat trickled down his neck. Fine white dust lifted with each footstep of his horse and settled in a film over Topper's sleek white coat and over Hopalong.

Greasewood mingled with the sagebrush and occasional patches of prickly pear, or even cat's-claw. He saw the curious twin tracks of a walking antelope, the hindfoot placed precisely back of the forefoot. Running, the track would be different. The tracks were narrower and tapered more than those of a deer.

Considering the matter, he was quite sure that Duck Bale did not know that he had come down the slide into the hideout, and it was very likely it had never been attempted by any of them. If such was the case, he might again get into the canyon without attracting attention. He mopped the sweat from his face and stared into the heat waves. The broken ridges that were the only outward indication of the hideout showed before him, and he skirted them, seeking the juniper tangle where he had found the sloping ground that led him to the slide.

The heat was oppressive, and several times he glanced at the sky, for it reminded him of nothing so much as the Kansas heat that precedes a bad thunderstorm. There was a faint suggestion of grayness over the mountain, but it might be his imagination and nothing more. In any event, his slicker was behind his saddle. He had not worn it since the day of the holdup.

For the first time he remembered the papers taken from the pockets of Thacker.

In the rush of events that followed his discovery of Jesse Lock, he had forgotten about those papers, forgotten them completely!

Pushing steadily on, Hopalong sighted one of the granitic upthrusts that marked the earthquake fault and, riding toward it, saw the junipers above him. Circling and weaving among the boulders, he arrived and swung to the ground above the slide. Taking down his slicker, he thrust his hands into the capacious pockets.

The forgotten wallet was there, several letters, and some money. The first of the letters was addressed to Sim Thacker, Mobeetie, Texas.

Inclosing one hundred dollars. On arrival you will receive four hundred more. The balance of the fifteen hundred dollars will be paid over when the job is completed.

Of Clarry Jacks you may have heard. How, where, and when is up to you, but the sooner the better.

H.

That H. could stand for Pony Harper. Obviously he had sent out for a gunman to kill Clarry Jacks. If, as Cassidy believed, Harper was involved in the holdups with Jacks, then he had either decided it was foolish to share the proceeds or had decided Clarry Jacks was too dangerous to have around. The killing of Thacker now made sense. He had been called aside, given his chance, and killed as a demonstration of the futility of hiring anyone to kill Jacks. It also implied then that Jacks knew who had hired Thacker.

Why, then, had he not acted against Harper? There could be only one reason. Because he was using him and wanted him around a bit longer. The next letter was a further explanation.

In answer to your query regarding Clarry Jacks. The name is unfamiliar, but the description tallies with that of Vasco Graham, of the Bald Knob family. If this is the same man, he is wanted here for killing a man some fifteen years ago. I believe that he was involved in a cattle war in the state of Texas and he later worked with Panhandle rustlers. He is known as an out-and-out killer, and fast with a gun. He is also wanted for robberies in Colorado.

There was a circular listing rewards for the capture of Vasco Graham or his killing, and a commission as deputy sheriff. Evidently Sim Thacker had gone to great lengths to give his projected killing the cloak of legality.

There was a letter from Thacker's wife, from whom he was separated, and into this letter Hopalong put what money there was to forward to her when he again reached a post office.

Vasco Graham was the outlaw who had murdered his partner and leader, Dakota Jack, and stolen his horse for a getaway. It had been a cold-blooded murder as bad as that of Jesse Lock. No wonder Clarry Jacks had known the country!

Picketing Topper among the junipers, Hopalong went to the slide and studied it with care. There was nobody in sight, and careful inspection showed only a thin trail of smoke from the cabin where he had talked with Duck Bale. Going down the slide was a problem, not so much the difficulty as the necessity for quiet. Loose rocks made it virtually impossible, but by keeping to the inner wall it might be done.

Checking his guns for the last time, Hopalong hitched up his belt and started down.

Six miles behind him Shorty Montana was working out Hopalong's trail through the sagebrush. Ordinarily, as Hopalong had taken no trouble to conceal it, this would not have been difficult, but dust devils had skittered across the desert and wiped out the trail here and there. Montana continued to move and searched the range ahead of him for some sign of Hopalong's objective.

Mopping his tough brown face, Shorty cursed the heat. He wished it would rain. He would give anything for rain. He rolled a smoke with damp fingers and lit up. Drawing deep, he stared at the wreck of mountains before him. Something, he reflected, had raised hob here. Overhead a buzzard wheeled in lazy ellipses, swinging wide and calmly.

The buzzard was in no hurry. In his experience everything eventually came to him.

Shorty spoke to the horse, and it moved on, pleased to be going anywhere that might offer relief from the sun. The range over Seven Pines was topped with cloud. He might get his wish. It might rain.

The stone house in the amphitheater had been built by some vanished tribe of Indians, and it was snug and cool, shaded from the sun. A bottle was open on the table and Clarry Jacks sat bareheaded before it. Damp brown hair was plastered against his forehead, and he was smiling at Laramie.

"You talk to Duck?" Laramie asked.

"Not me. He's a nice hombre, but let him get started and he'll jaw your arm off."

"You think that Red River Regan was Cassidy?"

"Sure. But how he found this place I'll never know. Every time I go out I have trouble getting back."

"You think he'll come here again?"

"Sure. And when he comes, we'll bury him. Duck's watchin' the entrance, and he's to let him ride right in." Jacks looked up, measuring Laramie with his cold eyes "This here's the showdown. Harper hired Thacker to kill me. He tried to hire Jesse Lock."

"Jesse wouldn't hire out to kill anybody."

"Pony tried him. I saw 'em talkin' and braced Jesse about it afterward. He wouldn't give me any definite answer, but he did ask if we didn't get along, Harper and I."

"That was enough?"

"Sure it was. Harper wants all that gold. Every bit of it."

Laramie shrugged. "I never did trust him."

"Well, in a short time we'll be through with Cassidy. Then I'll settle with Harper.

He might have tipped us off to something else that was good if this thing hadn't busted wide open. We'll slope out of here, cash our gold in for money, and live high and handsome for a while."

"Wonder what happened to John Gore?"

"No tellin'. His horse was dead at Corn Patch. Harris and Dusark dead in a gun duel."