‘I don’t know I like it. This guy’s a hoodlum, it ain’t any use tryin’ to make out he ain’t. I reckon we’re bein’ rushed into workin’ in with him.’
Sam Steel sat hunched on a boulder outside the cave talking to Tex and Pop but mainly to Tex. Sam was making it pretty plain that now he was getting his bearings he wasn’t all that happy about the latest developments.
Tex and Pop didn’t say anything. Some time had elapsed since the rescue at the defile and the subsequent first talk at the hideout. It was now growing dusk, the shadows lengthening over the broken ground stretching towards Grant’s River.
Since the first talk there had been more detailed discussion, to which Sam and Pop Dwight had listened mostly in silence. Now the Kid was talking to Linda and Slick was keeping watch, which left the other three to themselves.
Tex could understand something of how Sam felt – and maybe Pop, too, though the latter hadn’t yet committed himself. Here they were promised to work in with the Kid and Slick against the Parson and whoever was behind him. That was OK as far as it went. The Kid was a guy who knew how to look after himself, and looked at one way he and his buddy were useful recruits. But that didn’t overcome the fact that they were both bandits, wanted by the law.
Tex drew at his cigarette, thinking. During the talk that had followed the first show-down, Linda had revealed that there had been no killing at the defile. The dynamite charge had been set-off at exactly the right moment. Eventually the sheriff’s bunch had sorted themselves out and had ridden back to the River, not attempting any pursuit which by then was obviously hopeless. Linda had been at the settlement waiting on events, having ridden there after contacting the Kid. She had brought word that none of the posse had been seriously injured. Jeb was OK which proved that the Kid’s shot had missed him.
Buck Forbes was all right, too. Linda hadn’t known that her cousin was to be with the posse, hadn’t apparently worked out that he might be. She was glad he hadn’t been hurt but she hadn’t said much about that.
Tex was thinking about Buck right now. According to Linda he didn’t know that she had found out that he’d mortgaged the Lazy Y to the Parson, presumably as security for the poker debts. The girl maintained that probably Buck thought this was just a formality. She’d tried to convince her cousin that the Parson was a crook, but Buck wasn’t having any. When it suited him the Parson would foreclose. The fact that Buck didn’t pay any protection dues proved to her that he was being kept happy for larger picking later.
Maybe this was all true, but Tex wasn’t taking it necessarily at its face value. Buck Forbes had been out on the previous night. Linda didn’t know that; when she was told she’d had no idea where he’d been. She herself, of course, had been out and thus unable to keep tabs on her cousin. The guy behind the Parson was clever, there was no doubt about that. He covered his tracks pretty well.
Tex was thinking about other points, too. The Kid, now … was he on the level, for the purpose of getting the Parson and the guy behind him? Was he on the level or bluffing? Had he, for example, killed old man Dave and now aimed to put the crime on the Parson. Tex didn’t reckon so, couldn’t see the point of the two rescues if the Kid was playing a crooked game. He’d rescued Tex from the lynching; then, as Tex now knew, not knowing that he had any connection with the Parson affair. He just hadn’t aimed to stand by while a guy was lynched. OK, then that incident probably had no significance either way. But the defile affair was different. The Kid had known all about Tex then. If he was playing a crooked game why run the risk of staging a rescue?
Tex considered Sam’s views but dismissed them. The Kid was a bandit, outside the law, but the way things had worked out there wasn’t much alternative to working in with him. It wasn’t the first time Tex Scarron had operated with an outlaw. He owed the Kid his life, so did Sam and Pop. On the whole Tex reckoned the Kid was OK. He reckoned, too, that he was on the level with them, which was a matter of more importance than Sam’s qualms of conscience.
‘I reckon you’re talkin’ hay-wire,’ said Tex at last, turning back to the others. ‘I ain’t lettin’ up on the Parson an’ I reckon you ain’t, Sam? OK, we’d be loco to turn up the chance of help from the Kid and his buddy. He’s on the level, I reckon, an’ we can use him, same as he can use us, for the same object. What do you think, Pop?’
Pop Dwight nodded. He’d had plenty of time now to think about the new set-up. It didn’t look as though the Kid could get much out of this business except revenge, but guys were queer. The Kid was after the guy who’d hijacked him and that could be sufficient motive. And Linda was an attractive girl … maybe the Kid wasn’t immune to feminine charms. Like Tex, Pop couldn’t work out any reason why the Kid should be bluffing them. He’d come clean it seemed, very clean, taking a risk in snatching them from the sheriff’s posse and another in bringing them to the hideout – though Pop had noticed that he and Slick kept their rods handy all the time.
Another point that influenced Pop, as he said now, was the fact that he was fond of Linda and reckoned she was dead on the level. She was a great girl the way she’d tipped off the Kid to snatch them.
‘I reckon we got to work in with the Kid,’ he said.
Sam grunted, changed his ground.
‘OK, I guess you’re right, but I ain’t got no experience joinin’ up with bandits.’ Then, abruptly, ‘How did Linda know what the Parson was aimin’ to do?’
‘Seems like there’s somebody down at the River workin’ in with her,’ replied Pop slowly. ‘But she ain’t talkin’ ’bout that an’ neither is the Kid.’
This was true enough. Tex had picked up that point and pressed it a bit. Linda had discovered that the Parson aimed to grab them on a murder charge, him at all events, and maybe Sam and Pop as well. That was definite, but it hadn’t been explained yet who had tipped her off. That was something yet to come.
‘We got to get together an’ work out the next move,’ said Tex. ‘The Kid told me he’d give me all the dope then. But Linda ain’t stayin’, she’s gettin’ back to the Lazy Y ’fore there’s questions asked. Then I guess we’ll get together with the Kid. He reckons he’s got an idea how we can get the Parson and the other guy, but he ain’t talkin’ yet.’
He broke off as Linda came across.
‘I’m goin’ now,’ she said. ‘You hang around here with the Kid, I’ll be up again tomorrow and maybe I’ll have some more to tell you then. I reckon this is goin’ to set the Parson back, losin’ you the way he did.’
Tex reached for his Stetson.
‘I’m going with you part o’ the way,’ he said. ‘I ain’t havin’ you ridin’ alone farther’n you need.’
He didn’t much like her going back at all. She said she’d be safe enough and that nobody knew she’d tipped off the Kid or had any connection with him. Maybe that was right, but still Tex didn’t like it. If she’d slipped up and the Parson suspected her he wouldn’t pull any punches because she was a woman. But if she stayed at the hideout, didn’t show up at the Lazy Y, that would maybe work out worse for her. There’d be a hue and cry with guys from the Lazy Y searching the hills. And her absence might well give the Parson the tip she wasn’t what she seemed.
She looked at Tex askance.
‘You reckon I can’t look after myself?’ she asked.
‘I ain’t takin’ chances,’ was the reply. ‘Slick reckoned he saw a guy movin’ around a while back. Let’s go.’
It was true enough that Slick had thought he’d seen a movement half an hour earlier at a distance from the hideout. He’d gone scouting but hadn’t come up with anyone. He admitted that maybe he’d been deceived by a shadow. But Tex wasn’t taking any risks. There might be somebody hanging around. He was going to ride with Linda as near to the Lazy Y as he could get safely. The Kid, with Slick, Sam and Pop could look after themselves at the hideout for a bit.
Linda didn’t raise any other objections and pretty soon she and Tex were riding away, using all the cover they could find. Darkness had come by now, and though the moon was up the light was poor, offering them good cover in itself. They rode silently, Tex going first, keeping to goat-tracks. Once away from the hideout the outcrops brooded silently. If there was anyone around then he was acting like a shadow. Tex reckoned the waste lands were deserted.
Without incident they came to within a mile of the Lazy Y, having seen nobody on the way. They had skirted the settlement, glimpsing the lights in the distance but keeping them well to the south. During the whole trip they hadn’t spoken.
Now Linda drew up. In the far distance could be seen lights, those of the Lazy Y ranch-house.
‘I’ll be all right now,’ said the girl, ‘and you mustn’t come any closer.’ She paused and then added, ‘Thanks for bringin’ me, Tex.’
‘That’s OK.’
There was silence again. She made no attempt to break it but Tex was aware that she was glancing sidelong at him. At last he spoke again, abruptly.
‘I reckon you’ve been mighty worried about Buck,’ he said.
‘Yes … don’t get him wrong, Tex. Oh, I know he took the lead over that fake lynchin’ and maybe you haven’t got much to thank him for, but he’s a good guy really, when you get to know him. He lost his father pretty young and he’s had to make his own way since then. He’s young … sure, I know he’s older than I am, goin’ by years, but … he’s only a kid. He thinks he’s smart but….’
Her voice tailed away. Now she wasn’t looking at Tex but staring ahead at the distant lights of the Lazy Y.
‘You’re pretty fond of him?’
Tex phrased it like a question but to him it wasn’t really a question. He reckoned that Linda had proved she was fond of her cousin, the things she’d done to try and save him from himself. Tex had never met any girl like Linda Forbes. She was lovely to look at, essentially feminine, but she could use a gun like a man and she was tough, must be. She’d linked up with the Kid, all to break the Parson … not so much to break the Parson, Tex worked out, as to stop Buck ruining himself. Sure, she was fond of Buck.
‘Of course I’m fond of him,’ she replied, ‘and of my aunt. I wish you could meet her, Tex.’
He said nothing. He reckoned he could work it all out for himself. There wasn’t any reason why cousins shouldn’t marry. Maybe that was the way it would work out. Maybe not, but Tex wasn’t saying anything about that, nor about the possible reason why it wouldn’t work out that way. He was thinking that the whole shoot served him right. This was the first time he’d ever looked twice at a girl. He’d decided a long time ago that game wouldn’t pay off. Now he’d proved it – the hard way. It served him right.
She spoke again, still sitting her pony, making no attempt to clear.
‘Buck has somethin’ to thank you for,’ she said, ‘only he doesn’t know it, I suppose. You saved him losin’ more dollars to Spike, didn’t you?’
He shrugged his shoulders. This was the first time the poker incident at the hotel had been mentioned since they’d met in the foothills after Dave’s murder.
‘I stacked the deck,’ he said, ‘but not usin’ two aces. It didn’t get me far, though. I guess you’ve picked up with some queer hombres,’ he added. ‘There’s the Kid and there’s me … I know most o’ the tricks. But I’m on the level.’
He didn’t quite know why he emphasized this. It should be obvious by now that he was on the level; and it couldn’t matter to him anyway what she thought of him. But something made him speak that way.
She turned to him impulsively.
‘I know that, Tex. Thanks … for bringin’ me this far, I mean. I’ll be seem’ you.’
She touched her pony and the beast moved. But as it did so it caught its forefoot in a hole and stumbled. The girl would have fallen, taken unawares, but Tex was there and caught her.
For a moment she was in his arms, her slim, firm body close to his. She felt his arm round her, looked up and caught a glimpse of something in his eyes that brought a hot surge of colour to her face. It was only for a moment that she lay in his arms, but it was enough. Linda knew then something which it was no longer necessary for Tex to tell her.
She drew herself away from him.
‘It’s all right … thank you.’
With that she jerked the reins and was away, this time without incident. Tex sat his beast and watched her go, watched until she was out of sight round a bend in the track. He could still feel her body in his arms.
Then he turned his pony and made back up the track, striking towards the hills and the hideout which he had left with Linda more than an hour before. He’d ridden to Grant’s River in the first place expecting trouble. He had found more than he’d anticipated; and now he’d found something else he hadn’t banked on.
He rode for a long way without incident. Once more he skirted the settlement by some two miles, crossed the Bar X trail not far from the defile and so came to the broken ground running up to the hills. The territory seemed deserted. He reckoned that the Parson was probably down at the hotel mighty mad that his scheme had gone astray and that the guy he’d intended to liquidate had got away with it again. He wouldn’t be so pleased either that the notorious Kid had taken a hand. Linda hadn’t been able to find out how much the Parson knew about the affair at the defile, whether he knew that the Kid had been implicated, but it was good odds that he did know. The Parson wouldn’t be so pleased.
Tex was anxious to reach the hideout and get down to it again with the Kid. He was a slick guy all right, must be after his lengthy experience. He reckoned he’d worked out how to break the Parson and get the guy behind him. Tex wanted to know what he’d got in mind.
He pushed on under the moon, which was fitful, passing now and again behind clouds. He came within half a mile of the hideout and then the silence which hitherto had brooded over the wastes was broken by the crack of a gun. Almost simultaneously there came other shots, a volley of them, from ahead of Tex, from the direction of the hideout.
Tex reined in as the shots cracked out and the flashes of flame seared the darkness. The cliff where the cave was situated reared up against the skyline clearly to be seen, for though the moon had gone behind clouds the sky was fairly light. There wasn’t any doubt that the shots had come from the hideout or very near to it. As Tex reined in, grabbing for his Colt, he was remembering the movement Slick had glimpsed in the distance more than two hours earlier. There was trouble broken out at the cave; maybe the hideout had been rumbled and word taken back to the Parson.
This was as far as Tex’s thoughts took him, for from slightly behind him another shot spurted. The bullet flaked a chip from a boulder a couple of feet to his right. Then he was out of the saddle and on the ground. Another shot cracked. He pin-pointed the direction from the stab of flame and fired back. He had walked into trouble himself. The area here must be swarming with guys. It didn’t take much working out whose guys.
He fired again into the gloom but didn’t know whether he scored a hit. He found cover behind a rock by the side of the track he had been following, but even as he did so he was attacked from the flank, where he was not covered by the rock. There was the crack of a shot and his Colt spun from his hand. He was unwounded but the bullet had struck the gun.
He grabbed for his other Colt but before he could draw it there was a rush from behind. He swung round but too late. He glimpsed a figure, shadowy but huge, and then the butt of a gun crashed down across his skull.