“Aw, I was just showin’ Big Bill Bailey how handy I was with a shootin’ iron. And I showed him, too! Look at the knot over there, partner.”
Spick grinned as he looked at the ’dobe-lumber side of the structure. The bullet group was very good indeed, but there was something else causing Spick’s grin.
He went back to the door and looked in and there on the floor, very, very dead, lay a prize milk cow. Buster’s slugs made a very fine pattern under her ear.
“Oh,” whispered Buster, faintly. “I . . . I better be gettin’ out of here, Spick. I . . . I don’t think Sis will like that.”
And when the deed was discovered several hours later, Susan was not at all pleased. Buster was ordered to bed without any supper and, adding insult to it, was told he could not leave said house for a week.
When Susan came out of the front room and into the dusk, she found Spick sitting on the top step braiding a rope. He looked at her very disarmingly.
“I wouldn’t be too hard on him, Miss Price. It was my fault. Honest it was.”
“You’re trying to cover him,” accused Susan.
“Well, maybe. But just the same, Miss Price, it was I that taught him how to shoot like that. And if I say it myself, I was nine before I could make a group like that. Someday he’ll maybe need that training to protect his own home, his own wife and children. There’s been a lot of men who would be alive today if they had spent a little more time with a target.”
It was like Spick to add such a happy, homely note to the affair. He could not now be censored and told that he was practically inviting Buster to launch himself as a gun terror in his teens.
“It makes no difference,” said Susan. “I’ve talked to Father to try and make him forbid Buster to touch guns, but it’s no use. If Mother were still here, she wouldn’t stand for it. I . . . I won’t be hard on you about it, Spick. You know all about such things and you put too high a value on them. But please don’t encourage Buster. It’s not that I care anything about a cow, but what if it had been a man?”
This, naturally, made very small impression on Spick Murphy. In fact, he could have shown her definitely that a cow on the hoof was worth a lot more than most men, according to his lights. But he had something else to say.
“I wouldn’t have kept it up, Miss Price, if he hadn’t persisted himself. But Big Bill Bailey showed him a few tricks like the border shift and the Curly Bill Spin and the pinwheel, but his hands are so small and guns are so heavy, I figured he’d better not be foolin’ with them unless he knew they’d shoot, too. And naturally when Big Bill Bailey dropped in and wouldn’t believe Buster, the kid showed him—”
“Big Bill was here today?”
“Yes’m. He was here. He came cat-footing around. I guess he’s trying to keep an eye on me.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Susan.
“Maybe so, Miss Price, but Big Bill Bailey has a lot of trouble getting an idea out of his head once it’s stuck there. Hello, there comes Mr. Price from town.”
Sam Price pulled up the buckboard before the porch and threw the reins to Spick. He climbed out, brushing the dust from his coat and looking very satisfied with himself.
“Father,” said Susan, “Buster . . .”
“Give them a good rubdown,” said Sam to Spick. “They’ve been hitting it up pretty hard. Yes, Susie? What about Buster?”
He went up the porch and Susan followed him inside. “He shot at the barn and killed Lulu. He didn’t do it on purpose, really he didn’t, and I’ve already punished him by sending him to bed and telling him he had to stay in for a week.”
“He what?” said Sam.
“He shot Lulu through the side of the barn with a revolver. Big Bill dared him to and he did. I’ve already punished him. . . .”
“There’s no saving the cow?”
“All six bullets hit her just under the ear, poor thing. She never made a sound, according to Buster. I had to tell you because you’d miss Lulu and the boys dragged her out on the mesa for the coyotes. He didn’t mean—”
“How far away was he?”
“Why . . . just over by the corral.”
“Fifty or sixty feet anyway,” said Sam. “All six in a small bunch? How big was it?”
“About two inches. I’ve already punished him so you needn’t—”
“Punish him? Hell, Susie, what do I care about a cow? Say, that lad is some shot. I wish I could do that well.”
“But Lulu cost a lot of money.”
“Money,” scoffed Sam. “What do I care about money now? As if I didn’t have enough already, old Jameson of Jameson vs. Whitlock—you remember the fees I was to get?—well, old Jameson died and his trustees discovered that he had faked his books so I wouldn’t get my twenty percent of the settlement. They just shipped the specie to San Carlos. Damned if I know what to do with it. Buy more land and cattle, I guess. Can’t let two hundred thousand lie around loose.”
“Then you won’t punish Buster? I couldn’t stand to have you whip him after I sent him to bed. He’s been punished enough already.”
“If I had my way, I’d give him a sharpshooter medal. But say, what do you know about old Jameson faking those books just to cut me out when they settled out of court, huh? He always was a wily old rat. Wait until . . .”
That was the last Spick Murphy cared to hear about it. He slipped silently off the porch and, as quietly as possible, led the team back toward the barn.
And as he rubbed them down he broke forth into melodious song.
Chapter Seven
THAT night Buster was restive in his sleep, rolling from one side of the bed to the other at short intervals. The last time he turned that night, he put his small, troubled face into the beam of a bull’s-eye lantern.
He was groggily awake on the instant, sitting up, striving to force a yell of terror through his contracted throat.
Spick’s voice was as sibilant as a cat’s. “Don’t make a sound, Buster. It’s me—Spick.”
The course of the bull’s-eye’s flickering beam was bent downward to the red Navajo beside the bed. Buster stared at Spick’s silhouette in the open window. The curtains were blowing like uneasy white ghosts and Spick was very black in the moonlight. He stepped to Buster’s side with a tread lighter than a jaguar’s.
“I knew how bad you felt,” whispered Spick. “I couldn’t stand to hear her ragging you about something you couldn’t help.”
Buster was awake now, scrubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands, the indignation of great wrong filling him anew.
“Besides, what’s a cow,” whispered Spick. “I want to help you.”
Buster looked attentive.
“I’ve been wanting to go on a hunting trip in the Cordilleras,” said Spick, “and I’m leaving tonight. Maybe if you just vanished for three or four days and made them know how you felt about this, you’d have things coming your way better.”
Buster was trying to think and he squinted up his eyes with the effort. He had been in many another such scrape before this and now Spick was conjuring up all those nights without supper. The proposition was attractive.
“What you goin’ to hunt?” said Buster, lowering his voice to a mysterious whisper.
“Grizzlies and deer. There’s a cabin I know about. I got the supplies we need and I’ve got a new rifle for you—that is, if you want to go.”
“A new rifle?” said Buster eagerly.
“Sssh,” cautioned Spick. “They said you couldn’t have any more guns but if you bag a grizzly by yourself, maybe they’ll have to change their minds, huh? I’m all for you, Buster.”
“What kind of a rifle?”
“A Winchester .22 brand-new. It’s outside in the packs.”
Buster was out on the instant. He swiftly slid into his overalls and grabbed his hat in one hand, his boots in the other and started for the window.
At the sill he whispered, “Maybe I better leave a note. I . . . I don’t want Sis to worry too much.”
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“Okay,” replied Spick affably.
Buster took his slate and scribbled:
Sis, I’m going to hunt me a few bears and deer and things with Spick.
Buster
He hung it on the bedpost and then consented to leave. Spick lingered long enough to wipe the writing off on his pants and scrawl an entirely different message thereon.
Very softly they stole past the corral to the four mounts Spick had saddled and packed. They led these for some distance before they mounted.
“First,” said Spick, “I got to see a man in town and after that, we’re really on our way.”
“Swell,” said Buster. “Now where’s that new Winchester, partner?”
Spick’s grin was nothing more than a gleam of teeth in blackness. “I guess that’s where I slipped up, kid.”
“Say!” said Buster, startled by the grating tone. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Never mind what’s the matter with me, kid. Ride and keep quiet or I’m giving you a taste of this quirt.”
Hanging at the foot of Buster’s bed was the slate and upon it uneven letters said:
I collected my pay in San Carlos. Follow me and all you’ll find is what’s left of your brat.
Chapter Eight
THE desert dawn lay cold and thin upon the sleeping rancho of Big Bill Bailey. As yet but half visible, the kingly castle of ’dobe showed only a thin blue spire of smoke to mark the efforts of a Chinese beginning breakfast so silently that Big Bill Bailey slumbered peacefully in his throne room.
He was wishing dimly that he had enough presence to get up and pull another blanket over himself but he didn’t. With half thoughts coursing slowly through his mind between dreams and ideas, a panorama of his immediate woes began to unfold, now very real, now assuaged by wildly painted hopes which he would not remember upon waking.
A rolling, staccato sound troubled him vaguely. No such running horse should be here on the ranch at this time of the day. But the sound grew louder and louder and then stopped, was gone for an instant to be immediately taken up and continued by the swift patting of boots on sand and then on wood. That stopped too and even yet Big Bill was giving it no real thought.
He heard Wang’s singsong voice, “Him sleepy. No can see, missee.”
And then Susan’s urgent words, “I’ve got to see him. Quick!”
Big Bill heard that. He rolled over and swung his feet down fishing foggily for his boots. The spurs were cold to his fingers as he brushed them aside and almost immediately stepped on their sharp rowels. The pain brought him more fully awake and he stopped hunting.
Throwing a kingly slicker about him he went to the door and opened it.
Susan was walking swiftly toward him, her big eyes wild with terror.
“Big Bill! Spick’s gone! Buster’s gone! You’ve got to do something!”
She had a slate in her hand, shoving it at him.
Big Bill ran his hand over his face to stir up his blood. He rubbed his eyes and became conscious of the slate. He took it and turned it around and read it.
He read it again before it made sense to him. He gave his head a violent shake and came all the way to the surface. “What’s this all about?”
“Buster’s gone! Spick’s gone! You’ve got to do something!”
She was wringing her hands pitifully, looking expectantly at him.
“Begin at the beginning,” said Big Bill. “You don’t make sense.”
“Spick robbed the San Carlos bank. Don’t you see? And then he came back and took Buster so that nobody would follow him. But he’ll kill Buster. I know he’ll kill him. Maybe he’s already dead. You’ve—”
“Which way did he go?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
Big Bill thought for a while and then made a decision. “He must have hit for the border. That would bring him within three miles of here if he was making it straight, which means he’ll be at Coyote Pass.”
Big Bill was wide awake now and his stare was level and sober upon her. “Until you needed me,” he said slowly, “you forgot all about me.”
“Yes,” she said swiftly, not hearing him. “Yes, of course. We’ve got to go if we catch them at all.”
“Until you had something for me to do,” said Big Bill, “I was so much sagebrush. You threw me over for Spick Murphy, a killer.”
“Yes— No! No! He meant nothing. Believe me, he meant nothing to me. I tried to be decent to him because I thought everybody was his enemy. I’m sorry. I’ll do anything! But for God’s sake, Big Bill, don’t stand here talking. Can’t you realize he’ll murder Buster?”
“I know,” said Big Bill. “But what makes you think I’ll do this for you? Why should I?”
She looked at him blankly, unable to fully understand that this was Big Bill Bailey talking. Big Bill Bailey, the most dependable man in Rio Carlos, the righter of wrongs, king of the desert ranges. . . .
“You got yourself into this against my advice,” said Big Bill. “Now you come to me to get you out of it when you could have saved yourself all this trouble. Your crusade for Spick Murphy’s come back at you. You think I’m easy. You think I’m thick-skulled. Until you need me you have nothing to do with me. And if I do this for you, it will change nothing. Why should I go out there and match guns with Spick Murphy just as a favor to a woman who calls me only when she has a dirty job to be done?”
He said it without rancor, only as a series of questions which seemed also to be troubling him. If he had been angry she could have matched him and derided him for a coward or anything else. But the chill of his tones and the knowledge that her brother was in danger gave her a beaten attitude.
“You mean you won’t?” she said brokenly.
“I didn’t say that. But I certainly won’t walk into a mess like this for nothing.”
“You mean . . . you mean you want money?”
“What use have I got for that?”
She could not understand this. She was shivering with both the cold and the inner quake of fear for Buster.
Big Bill’s tone was suddenly harsh. “Why don’t you go for Sheriff Doyle? Why not let a posse take out after them? Why come here and ask me to take on a killer single-handed?”
She was crying now. “You know why. They . . . they wouldn’t risk anything to save Buster. They’d pen him up and he’d shoot Buster. . . . I know he would. . . .”
“And so you come to me and ask that I invite sudden death . . . I’d hardly fight that buzz saw for nothing.”
“What do you want?”
“If I do this for you,” said Big Bill in a hard voice, “will you marry me?”
She straightened up. Something like contempt crept into her glance. “You’d force me?”
“I hold the winning hand,” said Big Bill, jerking his thumb at his holstered gun which dangled from a peg. “And I mean to play it.”
“All right. All right, I’ll marry you if you do this.”
Big Bill looked at her for several seconds as though deciding whether or not she would keep her word. Then he turned and closed the door in her face, to emerge a few minutes later fully dressed and buckling on his Colt.
“While they’re saddling a couple horses,” said Big Bill, “I’ll take some coffee. Have some?”
She did not answer him, pressing herself back against the wall as he passed her.
Chapter Nine
IT was noon when Big Bill Bailey and Susan Price thundered down the steep slope into the southern end of Coyote Pass. The white-flecked mounts showed the difficulty of the byway they had traversed to short-circuit their route.
Big Bill pulled to a skidding halt at the side of the trail which swept back obliquely from them and looked down at the undisturbed dust.
“No tracks made since last night’s wind,” announced Big Bill after due process of thought. “They either didn’t take this route or we’re ahead of them.”
Susan was wrapped in the dust cloud of her own making which
had now caught up with her. Her small face was framed by her black, flat hat now turned to the white shade of alkali, chin thong still tight against her small jaw. Fearfully she looked up at the rearing heights of the fantastic rocks about them.
“This is Mexico,” said Big Bill, “but we’re not going to worry about that. What the Feds don’t know won’t hurt them and Spick won’t be expecting this. He’s most likely camped up one of these draws.”
Susan still had nothing to say. The dust had cleared and the sun beat unmercifully down upon her checkered shirt. She was still sweeping the towering badlands with worried gaze.
Big Bill tensed and raised his head. “There! Do you smell that wood smoke?”
“No.”
“Open your mouth and take a slow, easy breath. There, smell it?”
She looked at him in sudden fright. “He’s close by.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Big Bill got down and whipped his reins over his horse’s head, dropping them. From his scabbard he pulled his Winchester.
It was not quite out of the boot when Spick’s mocking voice came down to them. “Put it back, Bailey. You haven’t got a chance.”
Susan whipped around and stared upward, trembling hand on her horn. Spick was a black silhouette against the sky not fifty feet away, a silver-mounted six-gun alertly held at his hip. His white teeth were bared in a grin.
Big Bill had stopped like a statue, the Winchester poised with its muzzle still inside the boot.
“This is nice of you, Bailey,” said Spick. “I couldn’t figure out how to get the lady too and now you’ve solved it for me. Come up here, kid.”
This last was addressed to Buster. Spick knelt and grabbed the boy by his collar and hauled up, standing him in front.
“I tried to yell at you,” whimpered Buster. “Honest I did. . . . But—”
“Shut up,” snapped Spick with a cuff.
Susan could see now why Buster had not yelled. His mouth was a red splotch of fresh blood where a gun barrel had struck him. The hypodermic of rage steeled Susan.
“Leave him alone!”
“Don’t try for that gun,” said Spick amiably. “Not if you want to live.”