‘Watch it, pal, if you’re aimin’ to take the Black Hills trail ridin’ alone. Maybe bein’ a stranger you ain’t heard o’ the Kid, but I guess everyone else in Arizona has. There’s been word he was sighted hangin’ around here … watch it, he’s mighty dangerous.’
Tex Scarron, six feet of whipcord and steel, at thirty experienced and in his prime, was thinking about this warning as later he rode solitary along the Black Hills trail. The bartender back at Indian Creek, the settlement now left behind, hadn’t been faking. He believed that the Kid had been seen in the district – and maybe he was right at that – and he’d got ants in his pants as a result.
Tex grunted at his own thoughts as he rode the trail towards the hills looming ahead. The moon was up, shedding a silvery radiance over the trail itself, thick with the alkali dust after a hot day, over the broken, waste ground lying on either side, over the hills, outcrops of the Mexican Sierra Madre range which broke across the border between Mexico and Arizona. Tex didn’t need telling that here was ideal country for a hold-up, for the operations of bandits. The terrain itself was highly suitable, broken, deserted; furthermore this corner of the great state of Arizona was isolated, cut off from civilization, inhabited only by ranchers who had the reputation of keeping themselves to themselves and running their own affairs.
Tex was aiming for the township of Grant’s River, on the other side of the Black Hills. It was true that he was a stranger to Arizona, in that he hadn’t set foot in the state for twenty years, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t heard of the notorious Kid, bandit and outlaw, who operated almost exclusively in Arizona. The Kid’s name was known elsewhere in the Union; and Tex had been around.
He’d heard of the Kid, knew that the guy had been at work for a good few years, evading all attempts to get him. He’d been wise to select Arizona, for the Governor, who had recently handed in his checks, hadn’t been exactly efficient. Parts of the state had sunk back into lawlessness during his term of office.
All this Tex knew because he’d made it his business to find out, ever since the letter Sam Steel had sent him had caught up with him. What Sam had said in that letter had made it necessary for Tex to find out what he could about the Arizona set-up. Now a new Governor, of the name of York, had been appointed and they said he was a go-getter. Maybe in future the Kid wouldn’t find it so easy to make a living hi-jacking and looting; and maybe certain guys in Grant’s River would find it necessary to pull in their horns.
Tex wasn’t worrying much about the Kid. Tex had mixed with all sorts and knew his stuff. His two Colts were lying loose in their holsters as he rode towards the hills, and there weren’t many guys quicker on the draw than Scarron. He’d been in contact with bandits before, knew that the majority were jackals when it came to it. A guy who knew how to look after himself wasn’t usually in much danger. It was true that the Kid had managed pretty well up to now, true that rumour had it that he always worked alone or with a single companion, not like most running in with a gang. Maybe this was true and the guy had more guts than most, but Tex wasn’t worrying. He didn’t reckon the Kid or anyone else would stop him getting to Grant’s River tonight and then to the Bar X.
He dismissed the Kid from his mind and concentrated on the Bar X set-up, the Grant’s River set-up, as laboriously outlined by Sam in his letter. Sam was a better hand with a six-shooter or a lariat than with the pen, but he’d managed to put down what he wanted. He’d appealed to Tex, reminding him of the old days of boyhood, when Tex had spent three years with his uncle at the Bar X. He hadn’t appealed in vain, but Tex was sorry the letter had taken so long to catch up with him. In three months quite a lot could have happened at Grant’s River. According to Sam things had been pretty bad when the letter was written. Old Dave, Tex’s mother’s brother, had folded up. By now maybe things were worse.
For the time being the fact that Arizona had a new Governor, who according to reports was out to clean-up the state, wasn’t important. Tex was always willing to take on anything himself, do his own cleaning-up when necessary; but the mechanism of the law wasn’t to be despised – when it was in working order. To bump off a crook was OK when there was nothing else for it, but the example of a public trial was often valuable. Maybe it would work out that this guy Sam called the Parson could be attended to by York … in the end. But first the set-up had to be investigated and the Parson proved guilty.
Tex’s pony picked its own way along the narrow trail. Man and beast had ridden a long way during the day and both were tired, though at Indian Creek they had found refreshment and some rest. Tex could have stayed the night at the Creek, but that wasn’t his way. When he was on a job he always wanted to get to it without delay. This job interested him more than any other he had taken on during the last ten years of free-lancing, looking for trouble; Dave Brand had been kind to him in the old days. Already enough time had been wasted.
Pony and rider moved on up the trail which since Indian Creek had been rising, making for the pass in the hills. The moon gave the area a quality which the scorching sun of summer could not, for the moon’s art lay in concealment. Now the barren ground, here on this side of the Black Hills unsuitable for cattle grazing, was given a soft quality, the harsh lines of canyons and gaunt rocks made more gentle by the silver light. Nevertheless it was not inviting country. Good country for the Kid or any other bandit, certainly. There was money in the Grant’s River area. Sure, money … that was what also brought Tex Scarron here.
After nearly an hour Tex reached a point within a quarter of a mile of the crest of the pass. Ahead of him lay the beginning of the defile through which the trail passed. Precipitous cliffs ran down sheer to the trail on either side, forming a gorge through which ran the trail.
Tex pulled up to check over his guns. If he were a bandit aiming to lay up along this trail, well used by ranchers, he’d choose the defile as the ambush site, and he remembered that near the crest of the pass was a cleft in the right-hand cliff, offering a handy escape route to the west. Tex was always careful.
He checked his Colts … and then, from behind him he heard the clatter of a pony’s hoofs drawing near. He couldn’t see who was coming for he was on the wrong side of a bend in the trail, but whoever it was either liked hurrying or needed to make speed. It was just about ten o’clock now, not very late but late enough for precautions to be taken along a trail like this.
Tex swung off his beast and made for cover. He found it within a few yards of the trail, a cluster of gigantic rocks, affording concealment for both him and his pony. He left the beast free for the pony was well trained. It stood quietly, not attempting to move. Tex himself crouched behind one of the rocks, his Colt in his hand, his eyes on the snaking trail leading back to Indian Creek.
The clatter of hoofs came on, not hesitating. Then round the bend swirled a rider, clearly to be seen in the moonlight. Rider and pony came round the bend and then the latter was pulled in sharply and skilfully. It reared up but remained under perfect control. The rider swung lightly from the saddle, eyes on the dusty trail.
Tex Scarron’s jaw tightened, his brows drew together in sheer surprise. The rider who had come up solitary, mounted on a beast obviously fresh and mettlesome, who had controlled the animal with such skill, was a mere slip of a girl, standing maybe five foot five, no more; a slender girl, not at all bad looking, in fact pretty much the other way unless the moonlight was playing tricks. Tex stayed where he was for a few moments, too surprised to move.
He knew the West intimately, knew that girls such as this didn’t usually ride about the place alone after dark. Ranchers in all the cow states were mighty careful about their wives and daughters, they had to be. No respectable girl would be out alone at this hour on a trail such as this, not if she could help it. This girl was respectable all right. Tex hadn’t a doubt about that. It might be that some accident had happened, accounting for her riding along this trail; but somehow the impression Tex gained was that she was here deliberately, not the victim of circumstances but in control of them. He couldn’t rightly have explained why he was so sure, but he was.
Then with further surprise he realized that she was trailing him. She was casting round, eyes on the ground; she was picking up the tracks he had left in the white dust. Now she was standing gazing towards the huddle of rocks … and in her hand had appeared a gun.
Tex reckoned it was time he moved. He hadn’t yet been flushed out of anywhere by a woman and he wasn’t going to start now. He didn’t trust women with firearms. He’d play this game his own way; and his curiosity was aroused. He wanted to know more about this girl.
He moved silently, with the uncanny stealth he had learned over the years. His pony remained standing motionless, out of sight – not that it mattered now if the beast was seen because already Tex was way off the line. For all his bulk, his six feet of height and two hundred pounds avoirdupois, he moved without a sound. The girl didn’t hear him, didn’t see him. He moved down the slope, and came to a point thirty yards from where he had originally crouched. He was still under cover.
He saw the girl move also, cautiously, gun still levelled. She moved carefully towards the huddle of rocks. Mighty soon now she’d sight the pony. Tex put up his own gun. He had scruples about even threatening a woman with a Colt. He could manage all right without the aid of the gun.
She passed out of sight behind the first boulder of the cluster and then Tex came to his feet. As lightly as a cat he moved up the slope again, came to the boulders once more and saw the girl standing by the pony only five yards away. She was peering this way and that – but not behind her, which was her mistake.
Tex stuck his hands in his gun-belt and moved into sight.
‘Evenin’, miss … lookin’ for somethin’?’
At that she swung round, surprised but not at a loss, he noted. He also noted that her hair, escaping from under her wide-brimmed Stetson, was very dark, almost black, framing a small, oval face pale in the moonlight. Her eyes could be brown or dark blue, he estimated. He couldn’t be sure about that yet.
She certainly wasn’t at a loss. The little gun didn’t waver, jerked up menacingly.
‘Get your hands up,’ she snapped.
Tex kept his hands in his belt. He laughed, but his eyes were wary and shrewd, fixed on the gun. As he spoke he moved forward, very slowly.
‘I guess I got a rooted objection to takin’ orders, especially from women,’ he drawled. ‘But come to that I don’t reckon you’re a woman … what’s the reckonin’, ’bout eighteen, maybe? I should say your Dad don’t know you’re out?’
Deliberately he made his voice taunting. He judged that being female, if not strictly speaking yet a woman, she wouldn’t much like what he’d said or the way he’d said it. That ought to make her drop her guard a bit.
He was right, she was mad – and she dropped her guard.
‘Don’t you talk to me like that,’ she said, her voice angry, though Tex reckoned that in other circumstances it could be melodious.
That was as far as she got, for Tex had taken the chance afforded by her attention moving from him and what he was doing to what he had said. He moved like lightning … reached her in a couple of strides and his hand had plucked the gun from her grasp before she rightly knew what was happening.
It was all over inside a couple of seconds; and Tex was slipping the gun into the pocket of his jeans.
‘Guess we can talk more easily now,’ he drawled. ‘Dangerous things guns – when females start handlin’ ’em.’
She still exhibited no fear, but there was anger showing in her eyes, blazing anger.
‘Give me back that gun,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll….’
‘Cut it out, miss, you’ll do nothin’. What you reckon you are, Deadwood Dick?’ He looked at her more closely, noting the slender column of her white throat rising from the open neck of her check shirt, the bud-sharp figure and the lines of a body which couldn’t be much more than his first guess of her age. He saw, too, that her eyes were in fact blue. ‘I like blue,’ he continued abruptly, ‘blue eyes, I mean.’
She bit her lip – it was a generous, red mouth. But before she could speak Tex had continued.
‘Suppose you tell me what you were trailin’ me for? I’m a stranger in these parts, leastways, I haven’t been here for twenty years, not since I was a boy stayin’ with my uncle at the Bar X. I reckon I ain’t given you any cause to come after me with a gun.’
Her manner changed somewhat, he could sense it. She stared at him, at last spoke.
‘The Bar X? You mean Dave Brand is your uncle?’
‘Sure, I’m aimin’ to pay him a visit … it’s about time I did.’ She could make what she liked of this last remark. ‘Well, what about the trailin’, Miss … what’s the name? Mine’s Scarron, Tex Scarron they call me.’
She didn’t exactly relax but she grew less alert.
‘All right, I’ll take your word for it,’ she said. ‘I’m Linda Forbes, from the Lazy Y … my cousin owns it.’ Then, as a thought obviously came to her, ‘Who owned it in your day?’
‘Ted Wyatt, they called him Dutch … satisfied?’
‘Yes, Buck bought it off Wyatt. OK stranger, I guess you’re telling the truth.’ She held out her hand. ‘How about my gun?’
He didn’t make any move to give it back to her. She still hadn’t answered the most important of the questions he had put to her.
‘Why did you trail me?’ he repeated.
‘I saw you from way back … there’s talk the Kid is around. I aimed to find out who was ridin’ the trail, that’s all. You left your tracks in the alkali.’
Tex grunted. So far so good; he was willing to believe the story, but it still seemed queer she was out alone after dark; queer, too, that she, a slip of a girl, had been willing to take such a risk and handle a gun so casually. Unless Arizona had changed a whole lot since Tex’s day, ranchers didn’t much care for their womenfolk using rods.
Apparently she read his thoughts with some accuracy.
‘I can look after myself,’ she stated, ‘and maybe I can use a gun better than you can, Mister Scarron. You said just now maybe my Dad didn’t know I was out. I’ve got no parents and Buck gave up tryin’ to keep me in a long time ago.’
She spoke with the sing-song accent of the Arizona cow-country, but her voice, very clear and as Tex had guessed melodious when she wasn’t angry, lent it a quality usually absent when ranchers talked. Tex watched her with interest. She was mighty sure of herself; and remembering how she had controlled her pony he thought maybe she could handle a gun.
‘May I have it back please?’ she asked again.
‘Sure … sorry I took it, but I wasn’t takin’ risks.’ He paused for a moment and then added, ‘What I said just before I grapped it wasn’t meant personal … I was aimin’ to get your attention off what I was doin’.’
Her blue eyes were shrewd as she returned his gaze. Then for a moment a little smile touched her lips.
‘OK. You pulled a fast one. I don’t like bein’ foxed, but….’
‘But this time you’ll call it quits? I’m mighty glad about that. I guess we’d better be friends, seein’ I’m going to stay at the Bar X for a bit. How about it, Linda? You’re not too old to mind me usin’ your first name?’
He towered over her, seven or maybe eight inches taller than she, a massive man but as she could see without an ounce of fat on him. His hair, showing in the moonlight, for he had taken off his Stetson, glinted with a dull red sheen. His face was strong and intelligent.
She dropped her eyes suddenly, involuntarily. And as she did so a faint flush showed on her cheeks. Tex Scarron was the first man who had ever brought colour to Linda’s face.
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ she said slowly.
‘That’s fine … I told you, folks call me Tex. I’m hoping we shall see somethin’ of each other. Sam Steel wrote me about some o’ the folks hereabouts, but he didn’t say nothin’ ’bout you. It’s been a pleasant surprise.’ He broke off for an instant and then continued. ‘He told me there’s a guy they call Parson Dean down at Grant’s River … seems he owns the hotel and the gamblin’ joint as well. Guess you know the Parson?’
He made his voice sound casual and, as he spoke, he handed her back her gun. His voice was casual, but he was watching her closely. He could do with her reactions to the name of Parson Dean, seeing she was outside the Bar X set-up and, presumably, the Parson’s field of operations. The reactions of an outsider were often valuable.
She didn’t answer for a moment but took the gun and held it loosely. Then she spoke.
‘Everyone knows the Parson,’ she said. ‘He’s a good enough guy, I guess. Some folk are jealous of him, that’s the way it usually goes, but he’s brought a bit of law and order to the River … before he came there was trouble with bandits, but he’s put a stop to that.’
Tex said nothing at all, but he was thinking pretty hard. What Linda Forbes had said didn’t link up with the report Sam had sent through. Well, maybe the girl didn’t know the real facts and had swallowed the tale that Parson Dean was doing the settlement and the ranchers a good turn with his mutual protection scheme.
Linda spoke again, switching the subject. Her grasp tightened on the butt of the gun.
‘Maybe I’d better prove I can handle a rod,’ she said.
She brought up the gun and the next instant it had cracked viciously. Two hundred yards away a straight wooden pole, stuck in the earth and left there, maybe by some rancher to mark a boundary, splintered as the bullet struck home.
It was first-class shooting, pretty nearly miraculous for a girl. Tex wouldn’t have backed himself to hit a target only inches wide at such a range.
‘Well, Tex, good enough?’ asked the girl. ‘You reckon I’m safe with a gun?’
She might have continued, but as the last words were spoken, from the far distance there came the crack of another shot. Almost it was like the echo of Linda’s. Somebody else was shooting, maybe for target practice but maybe not.
Tex swung round, automatically his hand reaching for one of his Colts. As he did so another shot was heard … and then another.
Tex Scarron was remembering that the Kid was reported to be in the district. Tex grabbed for his pony, standing by. He wanted to know what was going on over the other side of the Black Hills pass.