“Hey, Bennett,” called the first guard. “Why in hell are you stoppin’ here?”
“Bad place for an ambush,” fretted the second guard. Their names were Jed Rushton and Dave Kirk, and they were engaged in an important chore, the task of escorting a wagon load of supplies from Finnsburg, Nevada, to the timber-getting regions to the north-west. The wagon-driver was Vin Bennett, Finnsburg agent for the Rico Ridge Lumber Company. He didn’t appear nervous at this time, but the same couldn’t be said for Messrs. Rushton and Kirk. They knew the wagon carried something of greater value than routine provisions. Stowed behind the driver’s seat was a strongbox containing the payroll drawn from the Finnsburg Settlers Bank. Fifteen thousand dollars. Fifteen thousand temptations.
Bennett had halted his team to the left of a clump of mesquite and to the right of a cluster of outsized boulders, massive rocks behind which many a bandido could be lurking. Rushton and Kirk reined up and sat their mounts uneasily, level with the driver’s seat. Kirk sourly repeated Rushton’s question.
“Had to stop,” Bennett shrugged, as he climbed down. “One of those teamers has picked up a stone in his hoof.”
“I didn’t see him limpin’,” frowned Rushton.
“How could you?” retorted Bennett. “You’ve been watchin’ the territory—not the team.”
He dug a jack-knife from his pocket, prised out a blade and showed the guards a nonchalant grin. At forty, he was a sallow-complexioned man of medium build, with pale blue eyes and a scruffy moustache nestling under a bulbous nose. His garb marked him as a townsman. For some fifteen months he had occupied a small office on Finnsburg’s main street. Finnsburg, the seat of Finn County, had been chosen by the lumber company as the logical location for a branch office, being the nearest large town to the Rico Ridge camps.
His grin did nothing to ease the guards’ tension. They remained mounted, readying their rifles and keeping wary eyes on the rock formations, as Bennett sauntered forward to check the forehoof of his team-leader. That teamer hadn’t picked up a stone, and Bennett knew it. Reaching the animal, he turned his back on the guards and waited tensely, his ears anticipating the roar of guns.
He heard the reports almost immediately. So did Rushton and Kirk, but too late. The first bullet struck Rushton’s head, killing him instantly, and Kirk died just as quickly, flopping to the ground with his chest bloody. Three more shots were triggered by the dry-gulchers lurking in the mesquite. The teamers pranced and the riderless saddle-horses skittered nervously to the side of the trail. Bennett, with his pulse pounding, raised his voice above the echo of gunfire.
“All right—that’s enough! They’re done for!”
Two men rode out of the bush unhurriedly. They appeared deadly calm, one of them was lighting a cigar. Their Colts were returned to holsters concealed beneath their well-tailored coats, as they exchanged nods with Bennett.
“Well …” Bennett licked his lips, “it sure worked—huh, Webb?”
“It worked,” nodded the elder of the Ingham brothers.
“Didn’t we say it would be simple?” the younger brother challenged Bennett.
“Yeah, sure,” grinned Bennett. “That’s what you said.”
Webb Ingham puffed a blue cloud, threw a sidelong glance at the huddled bodies of the guards and grimaced. Then, curtly, he muttered a command to his brother, who dismounted and climbed into the wagon.
“Behind the seat,” offered Bennett.
“We know, Bennett,” drawled Webb Ingham. “We know.”
Despite the fact that he had participated in two murders and was now engaged in grand larceny, he looked to be as coldly serene as a veteran gambler dealing a poker hand. He was, like his brother, lean and blond. Unlike Dexter, he effected a carefully trimmed moustache which added to his distinguished good looks. His suit of grey broadcloth fitted him to perfection, as did Dexter’s. The brothers patronized only the most expensive of Finnsburg’s tailors, as befitted men of their position. They were bankers, jointly managing the Security & Trust Bank, an establishment not quite as popular as the Finnsburg Settlers, not as prosperous.
Dexter Ingham threw the box down. His brother again drew his shoulder-holstered .45, took aim at the lock and squeezed the trigger. Dexter descended to the ground, got the lid open and began transferring the bundles of banknotes to his pockets. Webb watched him intently a while, then told him.
“Pass the rest to me. We don’t want to ride home with our pockets bulging.”
The younger brother surrendered the remaining seven thousand dollars, as casually as if it were seven thousand cents. Webb transferred the wealth to his pockets, distributing it as evenly as possible. “Time for us to move out,” suggested Dexter.
“All right,” nodded Webb. “But don’t forget—it has to look convincing.” He eyed Bennett enquiringly. “Ready?”
“Yeah,” grunted Bennett. “I’m ready.”
He held his arms away from his sides. Dexter Ingham advanced to within a few feet of him, hefting his Colt. With great care, he hammered back and took aim.
“Don’t budge now,” he warned. “Just hold still …”
“I’m frozen,” Bennett nervously assured him.
The Colt boomed. Bennett flinched, then breathed a sigh of relief. Dexter’s bullet had gone through Bennett’s coat at the left side, burning vest, shirt and undershirt. The material smoldered, but Bennett quickly overcame that by clamping a bandanna to it.
“That,” Webb Ingham coolly opined, “should convince our gallant guardians of the peace. Is your story clear in your mind, Bennett?”
“I got it all figured out,” asserted Bennett. “I’ll claim we were jumped by a half-dozen strangers—mean-lookin’ hombres in cowpokes’ clothes. Rushton and Kirk never had a chance. Somebody took a shot at me and—uh—the only thing I could do was pretend they got me. So I flopped and played possum.”
Webb Ingham pointed to the north.
“They took off in that direction,” he drawled.
“Sure, sure,” nodded Bennett. “I got it all figured out, Webb. And the sheriff’ll believe anything I tell him.”
“Fine,” said Webb.
He gestured to his brother, who remounted and wheeled his horse to follow him off the trail into high grass. When they were out of sight, the traitor of the Rico Ridge Lumber Company set about his chores, tossing the looted cashbox back into the rig, hefting the dead guards over the tailgate and dumping them into the wagonbed. He tethered the saddle horses to the tailgate before resuming his perch on the seat and wheeling the team. Back to Finnsburg he travelled, hustling the horses to their utmost speed.
Within the hour, he had raised the alarm, and the county seat buzzed with the news. Indignation was rife, and Sheriff Tim Washburn found himself leading a posse three times larger than might have been considered necessary, when he rode out to begin the search for the men described by the treacherous Vin Bennett—six hardcase gunhawks headed for the Idaho line. Bennett rode with that posse, living to the hilt his role of loyal employee of the lumber company, and stalwart supporter of law and order.
~*~
In the hour before sundown of that day, two tall, travel-stained strangers drifted into an arroyo in the northernmost sector of Finn County and prepared to make night-camp. Larry Valentine dismounted, yawned and began offsaddling. Stretch Emerson rolled and lit a cigarette, making no move to follow his saddlepard’s example. As he dumped his saddle, Larry squinted up at him, and asked,
“What’re you waitin’ for? This is as good a place as any. Cool your saddle and start rustlin’ up a fire. I’m bone-weary, but hungry, too.”
“I bet I’m twice as hungry as you, runt,” drawled the taller Texan. “And I’m rememberin’ we’re short on grub.”
“We got enough,” said Larry.
“Scarce enough to fill our bellies,” countered Stretch. He stared away to the west, dribbled smoke through his nostrils. “Tell you what, runt. I spotted a crick while we was toppin’ that last rise.”
“So?” prodded Larry.
“All of a sudden,” grinned Stretch, “I crave a mess of cod. Fish’ll be jumpin’ in that crick, I betcha.”
“A mite late in the day for fishin’,” argued Larry.
“Could be the best time,” said Stretch. “I’m feelin’ lucky. You fix a fire. I’ll catch our supper.”
“With what?” demanded Larry.
“I got a cord and a hook,” Stretch assured him. “Down by the crick, I’ll rig me a fish-pole from a sapling.”
“All right,” shrugged Larry.
He removed his sorrel’s bridle and set that rangy cayuse to graze, watched by his tall sidekick, who was in no hurry to move off. The casual observer, seeing them now, might have been inclined to dismiss them as just two more aimless drifters, two more lazy wanderers of the frontier trails. But a casual observation was never enough—not nearly enough—to accurately assess the potential of the Lone Star Hellions.
That tag, and many others, had been affixed to them during fifteen years of their wandering the sometimes tranquil, sometimes dangerous regions of the vast West. Lone Star Hellions. Texas Hell-Raisers. Trouble Shooters. They had built a reputation, a fact which pleased them not at all, because, despite their spectacular achievements, they were always unassuming and never conceited. The reputation—maybe ‘legend’ was a better word for it—was a natural consequence of their having figured in many a bloody battle with the lawless, and with some success.
Along the owlhoot trails and in the hideout camps of rustlers, bank-bandits and stage-robbers, Larry and Stretch were discussed with much profanity and bitter resentment. They fought on the side of law and order. They weren’t overly fond of duly appointed lawmen, in fact they heartily despised nine out of every ten lawmen with whom they had ever come in contact. But, basically, they were honest men, and therefore the sworn enemies of the lawless.
“You’re beat down to your boots, runt,” observed Stretch, “on accounta you scarce slept a wink last night.”
“We camped in the high country,” Larry yawned again, as he reminded him. “Wolves kept me awake.”
He was the brain of this unbeatable duo, though he also contributed a formidable share of brawn. A big man was Larry Valentine, almost six feet three inches tall, muscular, with broad shoulders and deep chest tapering down to a flat belly, slim hips and long legs. His hair was dark brown and unruly. His eyes, despite his weariness at this time, were keen and quizzical, hinting at an alert mentality. His strong-jawed face was suntanned, weather-beaten, ruggedly handsome. His range clothes were much the worse for wear, but the Colt .45 slung to his right thigh from a well-stocked cartridge belt was in perfect working condition, as had been proved on many a hectic occasion.
Stretch was a beanpole, nudging six feet six inches bootless, and this superiority of height often moved him to address his sidekick as ‘runt’. His hair was as sandy as Larry’s was dark. His was a homely countenance. His best friend would never call him handsome, and his best friend was Larry. He was lantern-jawed, with ears that stuck out. His almost permanent facial expression was one of placidity, good humor and almost child-like innocence. No deep thinker was Stretch. He lacked Larry’s enthusiasm for intrigue and cerebral activity. Nevertheless, he was no fool, and his scrawny build was deceptive. In fistic combat, his muscle-power was prodigious. With any kind of firearm, he could hit just about any target, at any range. He wore twice as much Colt as Larry, a .45 slung to either hip from a single gun-belt.
“I keep thinkin’ about fish,” he mused, “gutted and scaled and roastin’ over a fire.”
“All right …” Larry gestured good-humoredly. “So go fishing.”
“Be back before it gets dark,” Stretch promised, as he nudged the pinto to movement.
He was out of sight, moving westward through a screen of brush beyond which the creek rippled, by the time Larry set about kindling a fire. Larry was tired, and had no inclination to hustle. He gathered dry wood and brush, built a modest-sized mound and scratched a match, lighting a cigarette, then the fire. He hunkered beside it, resting his weary limbs and puffing contentedly. To the right and left of the arroyo, there was timber and brush aplenty, ample cover for a formidable body of Finn County men closing in. His usually acute hearing failed him, just this once. He knew nothing of their presence until he heard the roar of a gun and felt the impact of a bullet.
He sprawled on his left side, cursing against the agony of it and the temporary paralysis. His right arm wasn’t affected, and he made the instinctive movement toward his holster, but checked himself, upon noting the eight men lining the north lip of the arroyo, and the dozen or more closing in from the opposite side. Hell’s bells. As sizeable a posse as he had ever seen. Almost three dozen strong.
Two of the men wore tin stars. Another—the man who had shot him—was a medium built hombre wearing a cruel grin and hefting a smoking Colt. The elder of the lawmen, whom Larry guessed to be the senior authority, growled a reprimand at him.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Bennett! There wasn’t to be any shooting until I gave the word!”
“I wasn’t takin’ any chances on this jasper,” grinned Bennett. “Recognized him right off, I did. He’s one of ’em, all right, Sheriff, and that’s a fact.”
“You’d better be sure,” scowled the sheriff.
“Well, damnitall!” boomed the deputy. “Of course he’s sure! Got eyes to see with, hasn’t he?”
The sheriff winced and muttered a reprimand, as he began descending into the arroyo.
“Do me a favor, Reavitt. Quit bawling in my ear. I’m not deaf.”
The lawman, Bennett and three others entered the arroyo and bent over the grim-faced Larry. Deputy Reavitt took possession of Larry’s six-gun. A posseman slid the Winchester from its sheath, and then Larry found his voice. Gritting his teeth against the pain that wracked him, he enquired of the boss-lawman,
“Just exactly what in blue blazes do you think you’re blame well doin’?”
“I’m Tim Washburn,” said the lawman, “sheriff of Finn County. This is a duly sworn-in posse, stranger, and we got a man here who identifies you as one of six gun-hawks that raided a payroll wagon today. So what do you have to say to that?”
“He’s one of ’em, and I’ll swear to it,” offered Bennett.
“He’s one of the skunks that gunned Jed and Dave.”
“I don’t know what this galoot is gabbin’ about,” scowled Larry.
He had marked Bennett for future reference. Now, he gave Washburn and the deputy a keen once-over. For Washburn, he felt a vague, if grudging, respect. He looked to be one of the old school of frontier lawmen, well on in years, but durable, still devoted to his hazardous profession, a squatly-built, greying man with a broad, hard-molded face and sad brown eyes. Reavitt he dismissed as a bumptious underling. The deputy was tall and of powerful physique, with undershot jaw, hawk-like nose and hazy grey eyes—eyes so small that, along with the nose, they put Larry in mind of a buzzard. He said as much, because he felt entitled to.
“You remind me,” he sourly informed Reavitt, “of a buzzard.”
One of the possemen sniggered. Reavitt snarled an oath, bent over Larry and struck him a vicious back-hander. Washburn promptly shouldered him aside.
“Don’t try that again, Reavitt! A good lawman never strikes a wounded prisoner.” He looked at Larry again. “You got a name?”
On the point of giving his real name, Larry checked himself. Stretch hadn’t yet appeared. Could he rely on his sidekick to practice a little restraint, if only this once? He hoped so. For Stretch to come barging into the arroyo now would be worse than futile. In the meantime, if he gave his right name, some of these jaspers would be bound to remember the name that matched it, the name with which it was always coupled. Anywhere west of the Mississippi, no man mentioned Larry without also mentioning Stretch. Let these galoots know they had captured Valentine, and some of them would surely take off in search of Emerson.
“Guthrie,” he told Washburn. “Hank Guthrie.”
“All right, Guthrie,” said Washburn. “I guess you savvy what you’re up against. Vin Bennett was driving that pay wagon. You almost killed him, as well as Rushton and Kirk. He’s sure of his identification, which means I have to take you in. You’ll get a fair trial couple weeks from now, when the circuit judge arrives. Until then, I’ll be accommodating you in the Finnsburg jail.”
During this, Larry’s eyes were busy. He kept his head down, letting the brim of his Stetson shield the upper half of his face from their searching eyes. He was checking the brush beyond the lip of the shallow arroyo and, catching a glimpse of an all-too-familiar face, he began to feel grateful. Grateful because, instead of coming on at a rush, Stretch was remaining in the background.
He was within earshot, so he could hear what was being said and form his own conclusions. More importantly, he could see Larry’s face, and Larry’s warning expression, his quick wink, which spoke volumes. The high-sign had been observed and noted. Stretch would remain hidden.
“On your feet,” barked Reavitt, “you sidewinder—you dry-gulchin’ skunk!”
“Not until we’ve doctored his wound,” snapped Washburn. He crooked a finger. “Moss Michaels, you’re a good vet, so maybe you can tend a gunshot wound.”
The flabby Moss Michaels hustled to oblige, crouching beside Larry and tearing his pants at the right thigh.
“How about it?” prodded Washburn.
“Slug’s stuck in the meat,” Michaels reported. “Nowheres near the bone. He’s lucky. I can dig it out with just a jack-knife, clean the hole with whisky and fix him a bandage. He’ll ache some, but he’ll be able to set a saddle.” Larry looked up again, as the veterinarian began his chore. The pain increased, but he wasn’t about to give these galoots the pleasure of hearing his groans, so he groaned inwardly. After that brief exchange of knowing glances, Stretch had ducked down out of sight.
He’ll need to know the whole score, Larry was thinking. As much as I can give him, anyway.
He spoke to Washburn, raising his voice loud enough for his words to reach his invisible sidekick.
“Let me get this straight. You’re accusin’ me of robbery and murder. This Bennett jasper claims I’m one of a half-dozen that ambushed a payroll wagon. What payroll wagon?”
“Supply wagon,” frowned Washburn, “on its way to the timber camps of the lumber outfit at Rico Ridge.”
“He’s one of ’em all right,” asserted Bennett.
“That doesn’t give you the right to open up on him,” chided Washburn, “without waiting for my challenge.”
“I recognized him rightaway,” shrugged Bennett, “and I was rememberin’ how him and his pards gave it to poor Jed and Dave.” He glared ferociously at Larry. “He’s lucky I’m a bad shot. I was aimin’ to kill him.”
“You’d have killed an innocent man,” said Larry. He transferred his gaze to Washburn again. “And that’s gospel. I haven’t raided any payroll wagon. I only hit this county an hour ago.”
“He’s lyin’!” snarled Reavitt. “Make him tell where his five pards headed for!”
“How about that, Guthrie?” demanded Washburn.
“I don’t have five pards,” frowned Larry, “and I wasn’t mixed up in any payroll hold-up.”
“Hey!” A posseman had investigated Larry’s saddlebag and was excitedly exhibiting a bundle of banknotes. “This hombre’s toting damn near two thousand dollars!”
“Well, Guthrie?” challenged Washburn.
“That’s my own dinero,” muttered Larry, “and you better handle it careful, because I’ll be wantin’ it back—every last dollar of it.”