Once more Tex rode down the Bar X trail towards Grant’s River – but not the way he’d meant to ride. His wrists were bound behind his back and he was closely guarded by armed men, his pony led by Jeb. Behind came Sam and Pop.
There wasn’t a chance of making a break for it. And this time, Tex reckoned, his captors would take better care that he didn’t get away. In all there were more than a dozen guys, all well armed and all on the alert. This was a sheriff’s posse, carefully selected, Tex reckoned, to give an appearance of legality. He hadn’t much doubt that the ranchers present, Werner of the Block Diamond, for example, and a guy he took to be Josh Malloney, of the Indian Range joint, had been brought along for that purpose.
The charge of murder was a clumsy frame-up, but it would serve the Parson’s purpose. Clumsy all right because Doc Black had obviously only just been tipped off to fake his yarn that he’d seen Tex commit the murder. The Doc had been up to the Bar X during the morning with the sheriff but hadn’t said a word then about what he was supposed to have seen. The reason given by Poston why the Doc hadn’t talked before was so phoney nobody but a lunatic or a crook would believe it. The Parson wasn’t a lunatic and neither were the other guys who would form the jury, but they were crooks or else bought. Tex knew he was for it, one way or another.
His mind was working quickly as he rode with the escort down the trail. Either there’d be a mock trial and then a hanging or else it’d be worked so that he was bumped off before then. The story would be that he’d tried to make a break for it. Sure, that was the likeliest. In any event the outlook was grim.
The Parson had brains all right. This was a neat way of getting rid of a guy who wasn’t wanted, who was considered dangerous. It had been a neat way to grab him, too, of putting him off his guard. He’d been foxed, just the way the Parson had intended. Or maybe just the way somebody else had intended. That was a thought nibbling away at the back of Tex’s mind … but it didn’t look as though it mattered much now whether he was right or wrong over that. He had been in some tough spots before, but none tougher than this. This time there wouldn’t be any playing at lynching, he reckoned. He was for it.
It meant that the Parson had rumbled him, knew that on the previous night he’d aimed to bluff him, knew that he was here to bust the rackets and was dangerous. Or again, somebody else knew all that. It didn’t matter which … quite a lot was known by the enemy. Maybe it had been guesswork, but Tex didn’t think so. If the guy Brady, whose name had been used to bait the trap at the Bar X, was in with the Parson, that would explain the knowledge possessed. It was possible, then, that the Parson had been warned in advance that Tex was aiming to get down to the hotel; but the fire, which he couldn’t have known about, had maybe startled him into leaving the hotel. Or word that Tex was on the level, intending to bust open the rackets, might have reached the Parson after the hotel incident. It didn’t make a lot of difference. The Parson now aimed to liquidate the guy he reckoned was dangerous.
The charge was a frame-up. But somebody had killed Dave. Like Snake earlier, Tex got that far without difficulty. It was long odds that the Parson’s bunch were responsible for the killing; but again why? Dave had paid his dues, there didn’t seem any reason for killing him off. An accident maybe? It could be, but Tex had a hunch it wasn’t that way. Dave had been bumped off deliberately … for what motive?
Tex’s thoughts were interrupted as a narrow defile was reached. It stretched for only a quarter of a mile, where the trail wound between two outcrops coming close together. The sheriff and Doc Black went first, guns out; behind them came Jeb leading Tex’s beast and alongside Tex was Buck Forbes. Tex hadn’t forgotten that Sam had discovered that Buck had been away from the Lazy Y on the previous night. And certainly he hadn’t forgotten that Linda Forbes had acted mighty queer on more than one occasion.
Tex didn’t have time to think any more about this, however. He was halfway through the defile, with Poston and Black well ahead, when without warning things began to happen. There was a sudden tremendous explosion coming from the River end of the defile, a roar that made the ear-drums sing, and the earth shook and heaved.
Tex was flung from the saddle. As he fell he saw and heard rocks splitting asunder, a chasm open miraculously in the trail a hundred yards ahead. Then a choking cloud of dust swept down the defile blotting out the afternoon sun.
There was chaos. Horses stamped and reared, screaming with terror. Men shouted, others called out in pain. Through the diminishing roar of the explosion and the clattering of rocks hurled down from the outcrops, could be heard the crack of six-shooters.
Tex tried to get to his feet, but Jeb’s pony was lying half across him, hoofs thrashing. The huge Jeb himself could be glimpsed through the dust cloud lying on the ground; others, including Buck Forbes, had also been flung down.
Then through the dust came a man on foot. For the second time since reaching the Grant’s River territory Tex was released by a swiftly flashing knife that severed the ropes at his wrists.
Then he was able to stagger to his feet. The defile was in wild confusion, a mass of plunging, panic-stricken ponies and men, some on foot, others still in the saddle but their beasts out of control, yet others lying on the trail. And helping Tex to his feet was a guy dressed all in black, a black kerchief round his face leaving only his eyes to be seen. The Kid had taken a hand again.
He thrust a Colt at Tex.
‘Get goin’,’ he snapped, and thrust Tex away from him towards one side of the defile where there was a steep goat-track leading up the outcrop.
As he spoke Jeb hauled himself to his feet. The Kid’s gun spoke and Jeb sank back again, though Tex couldn’t see in the confusion and through the dust, still hanging over the defile, whether he’d been hit.
He didn’t wait to find out. He made for the goat-track and nobody hindered him. The explosion, which had rent a great chasm across the defile at its River end, had created such chaos that nobody had time to spare except for his own welfare.
Tex came to the top of the outcrop and found the Kid close behind him.
‘OK, brother, don’t hang around, these guys’ll come gunnin’ for us,’ rasped the bandit. ‘You stick close to me.’
Tex wasn’t having that. There was Sam to be thought about, and Pop Dwight. They’d been riding behind him, he hadn’t seen them since the explosion. He wasn’t clearing until he knew they were OK and free.
‘They’ll be OK,’ was the swift reply. ‘My buddy’s lookin’ after them, they weren’t so near the fireworks, guess they’re …’
He broke off, grabbed Tex’s arm and swung him round. Away to the right, coming into sight from the end of the defile nearest to the Bar X, were three guys on horses. The dust, thick in the defile, didn’t obscure the view on the top of the outcrop. Tex could recognize both Sam and Pop. With them was another, the sun shining on the black kerchief covering his face.
Tex didn’t argue any more. From behind, from the defile, could still be heard the noise of horses and men in wild confusion. Tex could hear the crack of shots as well. The posse must be firing wildly, those that could get at their rods.
‘OK, brother?’ snapped the Kid.
‘Sure … I’m comin’.’
The Kid moved on swiftly, Tex following. Tex now had a gun, but the Kid didn’t seem to rate the chances very high that he’d use it on him. He led the way over the broken ground which stretched in a slope from the top of the outcrop, ground which afforded excellent cover. After some half a mile he came to a declivity where a couple of ponies were uneasily tethered. Obviously they hadn’t liked the explosion even though they were tethered at some distance from the defile, but they were OK and under control.
‘Guess we can move quicker on these,’ grunted the Kid, and threw the reins of one of the beasts to Tex.
Tex grabbed them and mounted. There were a heck of a lot of things he wanted to know, but this wasn’t the moment to start enquiring. The explosion, dynamite had been responsible, he guessed, had thrown the posse into confusion, but it couldn’t be long before it sorted itself out. The advantage of numbers had been offset but that could only be temporarily. This was the moment to vamoose, and quick.
An hour later Tex was finding out much of what he wanted to know; and learning a whole lot he hadn’t expected. The Kid had led him into the foothills and to a cave cut in the face of a cliff, a cave evidently used as a hideout. Sam and Pop, uninjured, were there when he arrived, and with them was the Kid’s buddy. Sam and Pop had been snatched with less difficulty than Tex himself, for they had been farther away from the explosion and their beasts hadn’t been so maddened.
By now the Kid and his buddy had discarded the kerchief masks. The Kid, Tex saw, obviously had Mexican blood; he was lean and dark, with a sharp thin face. His buddy wasn’t Mexican or anything like it. Tex put him down as an Arizona guy or maybe from Colorado. He was broad and thick, with a rugged, weatherbeaten face.
The Kid had talked a bit. The rescue had been skilfully planned and contrived, dynamite being planted at the end of the defile and touched off at the moment when it would throw the posse into confusion but not inflict injury on the prisoners. That must have been pretty tricky to work out as Tex realized, dynamite being unpredictable stuff.
‘Sure, but we managed,’ said the Kid easily, speaking softly with just a trace of Mexican accent. ‘We reckoned the trail was ’bout the only one they could bring you guys.’
Sam broke in violently. Why had the Kid gone to all that trouble to grab them, how had he known they were being taken to Grant’s River?
‘And heck, where’d you get the dynamite?’ he added. ‘I reckon we’re grateful, but….’
Pop Dwight interrupted, staring at the Kid.
‘Sure, I reckon they’re fair questions,’ he said. ‘And you ain’t in the habit o’ goin’ around with your face uncovered, I guess. What’s the game, Kid?’
Tex said nothing but waited for the Kid to answer. He did so as he skilfully rolled a thin, yellow cigarette. There had been no pursuit, or if there had been it had failed to pick up the trail. The Kid’s buddy, whom he called Slick, which maybe wasn’t such a bad name at that, was keeping the broken ground in front of the cliff under observation, but there wasn’t any movement or glimpse of the Parson’s bunch.
‘We got the jam from the Lazy Y,’ drawled the Kid. ‘Sure, they been doin’ some blastin’ lately and the stuff was left over. It came in handy.’
‘The Lazy Y!’
The Kid nodded but didn’t look at Sam. He spoke directly to Tex.
‘Sure, the dame brought it along. She knows what she’s doin’ I guess. A mighty pretty girl,’ he added.
Tex stiffened. There wasn’t any doubt the Kid was talking about Linda. Matters had gone ’way beyond Tex. He didn’t know whether he was coming or going.
Before he could speak Slick jerked out some words over his shoulder.
‘She’s comin’,’ he said.
Tex swung round and stared out over the broken ground. After a bit he picked up a movement, and then saw Linda riding towards the cliff alone.
‘I guess she’ll do the talkin’,’ drawled the Kid at his elbow.
Tex said nothing for a few moments as he watched the girl approach. Then he did speak.
‘I reckon maybe she tipped you off we were for it?’
‘Sure, she tipped us off … but wait for it, brother. She’ll do the explainin’.’
They waited, Tex and his buddies tensely, the Kid easily, drawing at his cigarette. Only once did he speak while they watched the girl approach the hideout.
‘I’ve heard ’bout you, Scarron,’ he said. ‘Seems like you’re a fair guy … the hombres you’ve laid for up north I ain’t got no use for. I ain’t got no use for the Parson, either, nor the guy who’s behind him.’
Tex looked at him sharply then but had no chance to reply because Linda came up. She dismounted, aided by Slick, and then moved across to Tex and the others.
She didn’t pay much attention to Sam or Pop, concentrated on Tex. For a moment nothing was said. Then Tex spoke.
‘Seems like we got to thank you for quite a bit,’ he said slowly. ‘And it looks like I got you all wrong. What’s the set-up?’
She dropped her eyes for a moment but then raised them again. A smile fluttered at her lips.
‘I thought maybe you’d got me wrong. I didn’t want that but I wasn’t sure of you, especially when you pulled the one you were workin’ in with the Parson. But then I found that was wrong and I reckoned we ought to work together – and with the Kid.’
Tex passed up some of the questions he wanted to ask in favour of one in particular.
‘How’d you find out I wasn’t in with the Parson?’
She shrugged her shoulders, after a swift glance at the Kid, a glance which Tex noticed.
‘I get around,’ she replied. ‘I got word what the Parson was aimin’ to do, grab you for the killin’. I reckoned you’d got to be snatched … it’s like I said, you’re after the Parson, and so are we … and the guy behind him.’ She paused and then added, ‘I guess you don’t know nothin’ ’bout that, though.’
Sam broke in hurriedly.
‘What guy behind him?’ he asked. ‘You mean the Parson ain’t boss o’ the rackets?’
Linda Forbes looked across at the Kid again before replying.
‘We reckon there’s somebody in with him,’ she said slowly. ‘Maybe he’s the boss, maybe he’s only a partner, but there’s somebody behind the Parson, somebody who keeps in the background. My guess is he’s got more brains than the Parson.’
‘Sure … an’ the Parson splits fifty-fifty with him,’ interrupted Tex. ‘I got on to that. An’ the mutual protection racket ain’t the only one bein’ worked. I reckon maybe Werner is bein’ blackmailed, an’ there’s rustled cattle been sold.’
The Kid intervened then.
‘You got the right idea, brother. I reckon we ought to start from the beginnin’. You ain’t told the guy how you came to meet up with me,’ he added, turning back to the girl.
‘No, like you say, we’d better start from the beginnin’.’
The Kid left it to her. After a bit she started in talking, and went on for some time. Tex listened without interruption. Sam looked as though he wanted to break in every now and again but he held his horses. Linda did all the talking for some time.
It seemed the Kid had heard about the Parson operating his rackets in the River district; and he’d heard something else, too – that there was another guy in with the Parson, a guy keeping under cover. Linda didn’t go into details of how the Kid had heard, and later on the Kid didn’t amplify, either. Not that it mattered. The point was that some years before the Kid had been hi-jacked over some cattle, south of the Mexican border, by a guy who was then running a rustling racket.
‘The Kid was swindled,’ continued the girl, ‘and the guy got away, beating him to it. A few weeks ago he got the tip this same guy might be in with the Parson. It linked up, because the Kid had heard earlier that the guy who’d hi-jacked him came from these parts. He came to have a look round.’
By accident Linda had fallen in with the Kid. He’d done her a good turn, when her pony had bolted, scared by a thunderstorm.
‘He saved my life I reckon, stopped me goin’ over the edge of Hunt’s Dip … after that we got together. He was after the Parson and this other guy and so was I.’ She paused and added, ‘You see, Buck is bein’ taken for a ride. He don’t know I’m on to it, but he’s bein’ milked. He’s mortgaged the ranch to the Parson now. I reckon it won’t be long before the Parson forecloses.’
Tex was beginning to understand quite a lot. This dame was working in with the Kid, working with him and against the Parson – but making out she was unsuspicious of the Parson. Sure, that explained why she took a hand in the hills when Tex went after the Kid. It looked like the Kid had laid for Jeb and Snake, maybe to try and get some information out of them – and Linda knew about it.
There was something else, too. Tex remembered he’d shot his mouth about going after the Kid.
‘You didn’t want that, I reckon,’ he said, when the girl came to an end of the first part of her story. ‘So you aimed to get me run out o’ town an’ scared off?’
She faced him frankly.
‘Yes, but I didn’t know they were goin’ to lynch you. You’ve got to believe that. I wanted you out of the way. We’ve got to break these rackets before Buck loses everythin’ he’s got. It’s not only him I’m thinking about, but his mother. If the Lazy Y goes it will kill her.’
Sam grunted. He reckoned from what he’d seen that the Kid ought to be able to look after the Parson easy enough. The Kid, swallowing smoke, spoke up.
‘Maybe, an’ I guess it wouldn’t be much loss. I don’t hold with this mutual protection racket. Me an’ Slick, we reckon we’re above that kinda racket. But we got to get the guy behind the Parson, and we don’t know who he is – not yet.’
Pop Dwight saw the point all right, even if Sam didn’t. To liquidate the Parson wouldn’t be enough. The other guy, supposing there was one, would still be dangerous, and he’d still have the Parson’s boys to use. To break the Parson wouldn’t break the rackets.
‘That’s workin’ it out there is somebody behind the Parson,’ added Pop. ‘But I don’t reckon that’s proved.’
‘I guess there’s somebody,’ was Tex’s reaction to this. ‘I had a look at the ledgers … the Parson is splittin’ fifty-fifty with someone. That makes it sure he’s got a partner.’ He paused and then spoke to Linda again. ‘How’d you get the blood on your shirt last night? An’ what were you doin’ up near the Bar X?’
She was startled, there was no doubt about that. She hadn’t known he’d seen the bloodstains. But she answered pat and Tex believed what she had to say.
She’d been up near the Bar X coming back from rendezvousing with the Kid and Slick.
‘Sure, that’s right,’ said the Kid.
‘That was Dave’s blood.’ Her voice was low. ‘I saw him lyin’ and went to see what I could do, but he was dead. That was when I got the blood. Then Sam Steel came and I cleared … he didn’t see me.’
Sam gave an exclamation.
‘You was there? Heck, you must’ve moved mighty slick.’
She nodded. Dave was dead, she could do nothing for him. When she heard Sam coming, and later, from cover had seen him with Dave, her instinct had been to get away. She’d ridden round a bit and then had met Tex.
‘It’s the truth,’ she added. ‘I don’t know who killed Dave, but it must have been one of the Parson’s bunch.’
Tex believed her, on both scores. She herself hadn’t been implicated, he was dead sure of that – and mighty glad to be sure. He was as sure that one of the Parson’s bunch had murdered Dave. He wanted that guy, and the man behind this set-up here in Grant’s River. The Parson himself ought to be easy, but not the other guy, nobody knowing who he was.
There was a whole lot to be discussed yet, a whole lot to be discovered from Linda and the Kid, but Tex had made up his mind on one point. The Kid had saved his life once for sure, maybe twice. Tex wasn’t aiming to lay for the Kid. He’d work in with him.
‘Guess that’s the way you want it?’ he asked, still looking at the girl.
‘Yes … there’s no sense in workin’ against each other.’
‘Sure, I’d rather work in with you,’ was Tex’s reply. ‘Seems like I owe you quite a bit.’
At that Linda dropped her eyes abruptly.
‘I couldn’t let them hang you … or maybe put you out some other way,’ she said.