The Baron of Coyote River

  “Can you send a message to Washington on that thing?” said Tyler.

  “Why, yes, of course I can,” replied the scared operator, slightly easier when he understood that this was not a holdup.

  “Can you write, pardner?” said Tyler to Lance.

  “Yep,” said Lance and drew a pencil and pad toward him.

  “All right,” said Tyler, “take this: ‘To Sam Thorpe, secretary to the secretary of the Attorney General, Washington, DC.’ Got that? All right. ‘Dear Sam, I been pretty good lately, how’s yourself?’ Uh-huh, got that? ‘But I’ve had me a pretty hard time with a feller known as the Baron, seein’ that he went and took most of my cows and didn’t leave me nothin’ to do. So, time bein’ heavy on my hands, I’m layin’ off to fill this buzzard full of lead. He took most of the cows around here and he’s goin’ to ship them out north in a couple days and I thought maybe you could have him headed off.’ Let’s see, got that?

  “‘It’s fellers like this Baron that give Arizony a bad name and lawful hombres like me don’t stand a chance havin’ only one gun while the Baron’s got fifty or so workin’ for him.’”

  “Wait a minute,” said Lance, taut with listening.

  From the other end of the platform came the jar of boots. Men were talking and coming closer.

  “Troopers,” whispered Lance, reaching hastily for the light.

  But before he could turn out the yellow glare, two faces appeared on the other side of the wicket. In that instant Lance recognized two of the guards who had once tried to get him. The next instant the room was in darkness.

  With a yell, the troopers sped back toward the town. Citizens turned out of their doorways, loading their guns. Brant bolted from the saloon. Anderson appeared on the general store porch.

  A shot rapped into the side of the flimsy building. The operator ducked under the desk.

  Tyler kicked the door shut and locked it. Lance took a post beside the window, gun in hand.

  “You get back to that blank,” said Tyler. “I never sent no telegram before and I ain’t goin’ to let these ignorant, mule-faced mavericks stop me now.”

  Tyler fired through a hole in the glass, sighted carefully and fired again. Lance seated himself at the table and took up the pencil.

  “It’s hard to write in the dark,” said Lance, “but fire away.”

  “Got what I said? All right. ‘It ain’t easy for us to stop this Baron because there ain’t nobody but a couple troops of cavalry here and they ain’t enough to do anything.’” His heavy Colts roared again and he grunted that he had missed. “‘But I ain’t able to do anything here in Santos because the citizens are sort of set agin’ me, besides naturally bein’ given to argument.

  “‘There’s a young feller workin’ with me named Lance Gordon that’s a pretty good gent and a public benefactor, havin’ eliminated some of the bad element over in Los Gatos already, showin’ that he dotes on civic duty. But we can’t . . .’” He depressed the muzzle of his Colt and fired. “Missed him. No I didn’t, I hit his arm. All right, you got that?

  “As I was sayin’, ‘It’s things like this that gives Arizony a bad name and I think you ought to tell the President to maybe do something about stoppin’ the Baron from shippin’ my cows and everybody else’s up to the north, that bein’ classed as stealin’ here, same as anyplace else.

  “‘My health . . .’” A bullet slapped through the window, showering the room with glass. Yells came up from all sides. “‘My health,’” said Tyler, “‘is pretty good so far and I hope nobody’s been stealin’ your cows like they have mine. And don’t forget to tell the President to do something about the Baron, him bein’ an ornery, lowdown longhorn that don’t deserve to live. Meanin’ the Baron, not the President. Very truly yours, M. R. Tyler.’ Got that? Then c’mon up here and help me stand these lobos off.”

  Lance went to the window on the other side and peered cautiously forth. Men were creeping up under the cover of the platform edge. He took three quick shots at their coat tails, the only visible part, and sent them skittering back across the tracks.

  A voice bawled at them from outside, “If you give up peaceful-like, we’ll give you a fair trial.”

  “That’s Brant,” said Tyler, shooting toward the sound.

  “Wonder when the troopers’ll get here,” said Lance.

  “’Most any minute,” said Tyler. He pulled the operator out from under the table and plunked him down before the telegraph key, tossing the message at him.

  “You get that off, pronto,” said Tyler. “I want to be sure it goes.”

  The operator’s shaking hand went to the switches and he began to clear the line. He took the roughly written sheets and although he added an unnecessary number of dots here and there, he began to send.

  Lance moved to another window and saw that three men were trying to advance under the cover of a baggage truck. He caromed bullets off the steel bracing and the truck was hastily deserted.

  “Good thing it’s dark,” said Lance.

  “Yep,” said Tyler, across the room.

  The clicking key sounded puny in the crash of Colts, but it went on fast enough.

  “Wonder how we’ll get out of here,” said Tyler.

  Lance went into the baggage room and saw that two barrels of whiskey had come on the last train, destined for the Diamond Palace Saloon. With a strength lent by the necessity for haste, he knocked out the tops with his gun butt and opened a small trap in the center of the floor.

  Then with rapid motions and with a fine disregard for the whiskey, he poured both barrels through the trap. The fluid ran with a gay gurgle, sending fumes boiling about the room. Then he went to the office again.

  “S’time we did something, Tyler,” said Lance. “Look here, operator, you all through with that?”

  A shot showered splinters from the wall over the operator’s head. He dived hastily under the desk again and peered cautiously up at Lance. “Y-Y-Yessir.”

  “Then listen, we’re goin’ to be in those barrels, and if they ask you what happened to us, you tell ’em we escaped five minutes ago in the darkness and headed south. Got it? If you don’t, then I’ll plug you through a bunghole. And remember, I’ll be seeing you down my sights.”

  “Y-Y-Y-Yessir!”

  “C’mon, Tyler.”

  Tyler grinned through his beard. “It’s gonna be close quarters, but the perfume’s mighty nice.”

  Lance upended a barrel over Tyler’s head and then one over his own. When he settled himself, Lance had a clear view of the office through the bunghole he had knocked out.

  For several minutes the shooting kept up outside and then, when nothing answered their lead, the citizens of Santos grew more bold, especially when the two troops of cavalry came up from the fort.

  Suddenly the door splintered open and Anderson tramped into the room, looking very mad and holding a revolver as though anxious to use it. He stared about him and then called to Brant and the others. When the sheriff came, the operator edged cautiously out from under the desk. They seized him by the shirt and shook him.

  The operator tried hard to keep his gaze off the barrels visible through the door of the baggage room. “Th-th-they left about five minutes ago. Th-th-th-they went south.”

  “You had that end, you fool!” Anderson bellowed at Brant. “And you let ’em slip through.”

  Brant, anxious to redeem himself, rushed out of the door shouting, “Get your horses. We’ll catch ’em before they hit the border!”

  The room was cleared and soon hoofbeats thundered away into the south.

  Lance shoved the barrel off his head. The fumes of the whiskey had made him groggy. His clothing reeked of liquor. He lifted the barrel off Tyler, but Tyler sat where he was.

  “Don’t disturb me,” said Tyler, blissfully
, eyes closed. “I never knew you could get soused just breathin’ the stuff.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Stampede

  THREE days later Lance and Tyler were still camped beside the dry bed of the Coyote River. It was night and the plain glowed beneath a slice of moon.

  Tyler leaned against a rock pulling on a carefully cupped cigarette. “See anything yet?”

  Lance was laying along the top of a rock, Sharps rifle at his side, looking toward the mouth of the pass. “Nothing at all. I figure if they’re going to start that drive they’d have done it before now.”

  “Seems as how,” said Tyler, “the Baron has given us the go-by. Funny, but there ain’t any other way out of the basin and we haven’t stopped lookin’ all this whole time. Grub’s almost gone, too. Maybe we better go back to Santos and break into the general store again. It’s moonlight and maybe we could see good enough not to get hold of such moldy sowbelly like we did last time.”

  “He couldn’t have gotten out and that means he’s still in. And I’m not ridin’ down that pass, Tyler. No way out and he’ll have guards strung all along it since I escaped.”

  “It’s moonlight,” said Tyler. “Maybe if we went up to that pinnacle of rock over there we could take a look. No use one of us stayin’ here.”

  “I’ll stay and if they come out, I’ll stampede ’em back in like we planned.”

  “By yourself? Needs two of us. One to take care of the advance riders. I keep thinkin’ how swell it would be if the Baron and the whole crew tailed the herd. If they all got caught in there and we stampeded the whole herd back at ’em . . . That’s shore a sight I want to see. He ain’t goin’ to part me and my pore cows if I can help it.”

  “Well, let’s both of us go, then. We could see if there were any left in the basin anyhow. If there ain’t, then he’s slipped out another way and we’ve been coolin’ our heels for three days for nothin’.”

  Tyler got up and began to take in on his mount’s stake rope. Lance slid off the rock and saddled his own horse.

  “There’s one place,” said Tyler, “we can get down into the pass, but we can’t get back up without a derrick. You come over from that pinnacle and hit the pass square in the middle along a ridge. That’s how I got there the night they chased you out. Maybe if we hit there we wouldn’t find no guards.”

  “The guards are further in,” said Lance.

  They forked their broncs and rode at a walk toward the finger of rock which pointed up at the moon. The plains were spooky and their mounts shied at the shadowy, crouching clumps of brush.

  “Maybe we hadn’t ought to leave,” said Tyler, “but I’m gettin’ terrible tired of waitin’. And besides I hone to see them critters of mine.”

  Lance paused to listen occasionally, half expecting to trip across the Baron’s scouts. They were on the north side of the basin, on very dangerous ground.

  But they arrived without mishap at the pinnacle and dismounted. Tyler led the way up the path toward the summit, clinging to small clumps of grass to steady himself.

  At the top all the plains were spread out for their study and the silvered world was brilliant in the half-light.

  Lance stared intently down into the basin and swore. “He’s given us the slip!”

  “By God, you’re right! It’s empty.”

  “Well, if this don’t beat—Wait a minute, Tyler. What’s that shadow movin’ over there? Looks like a cloud runnin’ along the ground.”

  Tyler peered intently for a full minute and then cried, “It’s the herd! It’s the herd! Well, damn my eyes, he’s movin’ out. Oh lord, we waited for three days and then when he moves out . . .”

  Lance wasn’t waiting for any further word. He plunged down the steep trail, high-heel boots barely holding to the earth, spurs catching in the clumps of grass.

  Tyler scrambled after him. “Hey, don’t kill yourself. There ain’t any use now. We can’t get ahead of them in time and if we stampede ’em on the plains, they’ll kill us and just gather ’em up again. Hey, Lance. Wait for me!”

  Lance mounted on the run, his wild-eyed bronc rearing. Lance waited impatiently until Tyler crawled his horse.

  “Lead off for that pass center,” said Lance. “We can follow them anyhow.”

  “Ornery, murderin’ lobo,” said Tyler, applying quirt and spur. “He would have to do that. Just as if he knowed where we was all the time.”

  They rode recklessly over the short distance, risking spills in dry washes, plunging toward the ridge. Lance realized then what a wild ride Tyler must have made to save him that night and he experienced a warm wave of appreciation.

  The herd was filing out of the pass mouth long before they reached the center, but Tyler and Lance had hopes that they could do something.

  They arrived at the one middle pass entrance without regard to the noise they made. It was impossible to hear above the thunder of split hoofs and the lowing of the cattle on the move. Dust was choking, blotting out the moon. Cattle were packed half the length of the pass.

  Tyler looked into the split, “The rear guard’s just passin’.”

  “Let’s get down,” cried Lance, dismounting and swinging over the edge. “If we trail them, maybe we can start a stampede anyway and cause a heap of trouble.”

  “Don’t run into that guard, you fool! There’s forty men down there!”

  Lance held back until the loafing ponies had gone by and then he began to drop ten feet at a time down the sheer wall. Tyler dropped a lariat to help him and quickly followed.

  When they reached the pass floor, invisible in the fog of dust, Lance said, “I wonder where the Baron is.”

  “Probably up front where the dust ain’t so bad. What’ll we do for horses now? The other time I jumped mine down and damn near broke his legs. Maybe I ought to go back up . . .”

  “Here’s our horses,” said Lance, climbing up on a boulder the height of a man.

  Two punchers, evidently the last of the herd’s rear guard, came slowly riding through the dust, neckerchiefs tied across their faces.

  Lance did not wait to see if Tyler was there. He launched himself at the first man, straight as an arrow, clubbed .45 in hand. He struck and clutched the horn. The puncher weaved drunkenly in the saddle.

  A sharp cry and a grunt came above the rumble of the herd and Lance knew that Tyler had gotten his man. Lance lifted the puncher he had knocked out and laid him across the rock.

  Tyler saw the movement and put his man across the other. Then, as though nothing had happened, Tyler and Lance began to ride out after the rear guard, faces hidden beneath the protection of their bandanas.

  “Wait until they hit the plains,” said Tyler. “Then we’ll start shooting and spread them cows all over the range. And maybe in the confusion, we can knock off the Baron, damn him.”

  But whatever their plans, they would not be executed that night. The tone of the herd changed. The bawling cattle began to bunch up. The thunder was deafening and growing louder.

  “What the hell,” said Lance. “Maybe they struck a snag.”

  He and Tyler reined in and sat listening. The roar grew louder and louder until it almost split their eardrums.

  Suddenly a man whipped down the pass toward them, a gray spectre out of the dust. “Run, you fools!” he yelped.

  Lance and Tyler wheeled their mounts uncertainly and stared after him.

  “He looked like he was goin’ someplace,” said Tyler.

  “In a hurry,” agreed Lance.

  Three riders materialized out of the darkness and, with whips cracking, sped back toward the basin, almost running down the two who stood in the pass.

  “Run!” bellowed the fellow in the lead.

  “Now what the hell do you suppose . . .” began Tyler.

  The lowing
of crazed cattle, the click and snap of horn against horn, the roll of thousands of hoofs shook the world.

  Five riders whipped down the pass, wild-eyed with fear.

  “Stampede!” squalled the man in the lead.

  “Oh, my gawd,” said Tyler, “they’re running at us!”

  They wheeled but the horses needed no coaxing. The ponies knew cattle too well to loiter. Something had frightened the skittish herd at the pass entrance and the cattle had turned back into the basin.

  “We’ll be caught in here!” yelled Lance, but the roar drowned his words.

  They were in the midst of a tight press of men and horses, all of them with but one thought—to get back into the basin ahead of the stampede, to get out of the juggernaut’s way.

  They were in the midst of a tight press of men and horses, all of them with but one thought—

  Beside Lance a horse stumbled and went down, throwing the rider into the blur of running, churning hoofs.

  It seemed to Lance that the mile and a half back to the basin was ten thousand leagues. Tyler was at his side, forcing his mount to greater effort. Lance’s hat whipped off and hung about his neck by the chin thong, choking him, but he could not loosen it.

  Horn against horn, thousands of hoofs shaking the world, glaze-eyed, frightened beasts running under a pall of dust which rose up to engulf the moon. No telling what had started them and no man worried now. It was ride and ride hard and you might get out alive if your horse didn’t stumble and if your horse was fast enough and if you kept lathered leather between your knees.

  Forty riders, Lance and Tyler, fled, fastest horses to the fore. And the beasts Lance and Tyler had acquired were not of the best. Their riders, on top of that boulder in the pass, were safe enough, far safer than their brothers.

  “If I ever get out of this,” said Lance between set teeth, but not really believing it, “I’ll never look at another cow.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Fight in the Basin

  AHEAD the Coyote River basin spread out before them like a winning hand in a poker game. The riders fanned to the right and left, running down the trail, scattering out over the meadows, getting out of the way of the herd.