the Trail to Seven Pines (1972) (26 page)

"How many were there?" That was Dud's voice.

"Two, I reckon. Well, with Cassidy down, the other one won't be so tough," Bale answered.

"Let's get him."

"Wait." Clarry Jacks's voice sounded strange. "Maybe there are more."

"Only two shot," Dud said. "You sure you got Cassidy?"

"I saw him fall," Bale said. "He went down hard."

Lock, Cassidy realized, could probably hear all that was said. He would now believe Cassidy dead and would be working out some plan to handle all three of the outlaws.

That he would never leave without a try at Clarry Jacks, Hopalong knew. As the bowl was small, whatever he did, Lock was sure to hear.

"Other one took out," Leeman said suddenly. "I'm havin' a look."

Belligerently, he started for the pines across the bowl. Hop-along saw Duck Bale stare uneasily after him, but Clarry Jacks turned abruptly and started toward the woods. Then he disappeared among the trees.

Hopalong waited, trying to locate Lock and to understand what the man had in mind.

There was no sound from across the basin, but then, close at band, a twig cracked!

Silence, and then the sound of walking-not of creeping, but calm, easy walking, as if by a man out for a stroll, the sound of boots that stepped without fear, even with indifference.

Riveted, caught up by the spell of the moment, gripped in an iron band of suspense, he waited, watching an opening in the trees. There was something peculiar about the sound of those steps, something that did not seem quite natural.

"Cassidy!"

The voice was from behind him!

Hopalong's hands were poised, and the swing of his body threw the butt of his Colt into his hand. It leaped from the holster, the barrel lifting as he turned. Clarry Jacks, thin as a knife blade, his once-handsome face hard and vulpine now, stood at the edge of the woods. His draw was a blur of speed.

Hopalong's face was tight-drawn, like the face of a lynx, and from a half crouch his guns roared, stabbing daggers of flame that lanced across the shots of Clarry Jacks. Hopalong felt a bullet whiff hot breath past his ear, and with his guns roaring and bucking in his hands, he began to close in. Jacks stepped back, his shirt front a spreading crimson stain, his lips parted in a snarl that became a grimace.

Yet his guns lifted again, and Hopalong fired from both hands, seeing Jacks stagger as the heavy slugs smashed into his chest. The killer fell against a tree, blood filmed his face from a bullet wound in the head, and he fell, rolling over on one hand, the other clutching a gun.

Hopalong held his fire, waiting. The gun slipped from Jacks's fingers and the gunman slid to the ground, his nose plowing into the pine needles. Hopalong ran forward.

Dropping beside him, Hopalong turned the dying man on his back. Jacks's eyes flickered open. "Fooled-fooled you!" he whispered hoarsely. "Queer-echo." His eyes glazed over, and Hopalong got slowly to his feet, thumbing shells into his guns.

Ben Lock was coming along the path toward him, preceded by Duck Bale with his hands high. They were coming toward Hopalong, but the footsteps sounded behind him!

"What do you know?" Ben said wonderingly.

"It's the cliff back there," Bale said. "This whole basin has places like that all over it. It catches the sound somehow and makes it sound funny-like. Sounds seem to come from the wrong direction."

"Where's Dud?"

"He came into the woods after me," Ben replied. "He missed his first shot." Ben Lock looked down at the body of Clarry Jacks. "Well, you got him. Maybe Jesse will rest easy now."

They were within two miles of the Rocking R before Shorty sighted them. With Tex Milligan and Frenchy Ruyters they came racing down to meet the little cavalcade.

Shorty looked at Bale.

"See you got the Duck," he said. "How about the others?"

"They won't bother anybody," Ben replied. He looked ahead to see Lenny Ronson racing a black mare from the ranch to meet them. "Better not tell her yet."

Hopalong drew up as Lenny swung alongside, and Ben rode on with his prisoner. Shorty Montana watched him go, grinning. "There goes an hombre who will be a married man inside the week! You wait and see!"

"He?" Milligan was surprised. "Who'll marry him?"

"Katie."

"Katie?" Frenchy stared. "I thought you had that claim staked. Wasn't that where you always hung out?"

"Sure it was." Montana grinned, his tough brown face lightening with good humor.

"Katie's my sister!"

'Tour sister?" Milligan stared at him in mock horror. "Who'd think a horny toad like you could come from the same basket as her! She's beautiful as a bay pony with three white feet, and you're as ugly as the mornin' after payday in a minin' town!"

"Huh!" Shorty sneered. "You should talk! You got a face like a lonesome jackass!"

Hopalong chuckled. It was time he was moving on to the 3 T L to look Gibson up. He'd gotten word that Red Connors would be there and Hopalong was looking forward to seeing his old friends again.

"Hoppy," Lenny suggested tentatively, "now the trouble is over we can have time to get acquainted. There's to be a dance and pie supper at the school Monday."

"Won't be able to make it." Hoppy smiled at Lenny, happiness bringing a strange radiance to his face. Lenny noticed it and looked at him in amazement.

"I was headed north," Hopalong continued, keeping his face grave, "and I better push on. Now with this fuss over, your brother won't need a fightin' segundo anymore."

He sighed deeply and cast a glance around, as if memorizing the distant mountains, the sparkling streams, the broad acres of rolling grasslands. "Sure like it here.

But then," he added, "I'm a ridin' man. And I do get restless when things are quiet."

The morning sun found him on the edge of the Black Sand Desert. Hopalong eased the big guns on his thighs and looked between the horse's ears at the skyline. The wind was at his back and it carried a vague scent of pine down from the slopes of the mountains. It touched his collar and tugged at the brim of his hat.

Somewhere up ahead were towns where he had never been, country he had never seen.

The trail stretched out before him, a thin line of possibilities worn in the sand.

Hopalong Cassidy paused a moment, then urged Topper into a trot and pointed him at where the road crossed into the distance. His friends Red Connors and Mesquite Jenkins were waiting for him, and it had been a long time since he had seen Gibson of the 3 T L.

*

A Note of
Explanation, Thanks, and Other Things
Of
those of you who have not read The Rustlers of West Fork and its Afterword, here is a brief history of my father's involvement with Hopalong Cassidy stories:

In the early 1950s, actor William Boyd took his version of the Cassidy character from the big screen to television. His earlier movies and Clarence Mulford's Hopalong books had been very popular and so Doubleday, Mulford's publisher, became interested in marketing some new Hoppy novels. Mulford, who had been retired since 1941, did not want to go back to the job and so he turned the task over to a young (actually not that young-Dad was 42) writer of pulp magazine westerns . . . Louis L'Amour.

The publishers chose the pen name Tex Burns for him and in 1950 and '51 he wrote his four Hopalong Cassidy books. They were published as the feature stories in the short-lived periodical, Hopalong Cassidy's Western Magazine, and in hardback by Doubleday. Due to a disagreement with the publisher over which interpretation of the Hopalong character to use (Dad wanted to use Mulford's original Hoppy, a red-haired, hard-drinking, foulmouthed, and rather bellicose cowhand, instead
O
f
Doubleday's preference for the slick, heroic approach
that Boyd adopted for his film
s my father refused to admit that he had ever written those last four Hopalong stories.

Starting with
The Rustlers of West Fork, this is the first time that they have ever been published with his name on them.

For a more in-depth version of the story of how Louis L'Amour came to write and then deny that he had written the Cassidy stories you can take a look at the Afterword in
Rustlers.

In the same afterword I mentioned that, before he died, my father had wanted to include a note in the back of one of his books asking all of his readers to take it upon themselves to go out and plant a tree. So here I want to send out my special thanks to Ken Munro of Owen Sound, Ontario. He was the first reader to write and tell me that he had planted a tree, and he even sent along a picture of it. My father would have been very pleased.

Deforestation is not only a problem in the remote reaches of the Amazon, but right here in good old North America as well. Logging is one of the more destructive legacies left to us from the period of the Old West. We must replant forests in North America, even if it is only to supply the next generation with construction materials and paper products.

We must ask our legislators to limit cutting and require replanting. Logging is a business that will not go away (nor should it, as a good portion of the population depends on it for their livelihood), but the industry, left to its own devices, would cut itself out of business. Like most American businesses based on natural resources, it knows little restraint, and would practice its craft until the last redwood toppled to the ground and the entire industry collapsed. If logging companies are forced to replant the trees they cut, with luck, there will still be a trade left for their grandchildren to practice.

We can also plant trees ourselves, as individuals. In the wilderness, in your back yard (you might as well get some pleasure from it), in a pot on your twentieth floor balcony. I urge you to do it anywhere you can and as often as you can. It is an inexpensive investment in our future.

To conclude, I want to offer my thanks to David R. Hastings II and Peter G. Hastings, Trustees of the Clarence E. Mulford Trust. Also to the late C. E. Mulford himself for creating the classic character of Hopalong Cassidy.