Novel 1966 - The Broken Gun (v5.0) Read online

  “Why, of course!” Hazel said. “I’d be only too glad to help. Belle, you poor thing! You just sit down and we’ll get dressed and be right along.”

  They disappeared and Belle said quietly, “What do you hope to gain by that? You know nobody will believe it.” She got up to go inside, and as she started Colin spoke again.

  “Of course they will. Now you just go along with Hazel,” he said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Jimbo had remained silent up to now. “Colin,” he said, “you just can’t mean to let her go.”

  “Oh, but I do!” He sounded cheerful. “This is working out beautifully.” He turned around. “Mark, is Seward’s jeep still out back?”

  “It is.” Mark just stood there, waiting.

  “You know the old fire road that runs into the highway near Bishop Creek? If you were to leave now, you could be parked up there with your lights out.”

  Mark Wilson took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and shook one loose. He took time to light it, and said something too indistinctly for me to hear.

  “It will look better that way. No lights, mind you, and no contact.”

  They talked some more, but I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, only a word or two coming through.

  We backed off, and when safely beyond their hearing, I said to Pio, “What about that old fire road? Do you know where it is?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I don’t understand what he has in mind. Why would he let them leave the place if he intends to take them again? And why so far away? That’s off the ranch, isn’t it?”

  “Sure.”

  “What’s up there? On that old fire road?”

  “Nothing’. Nothin’ a-tall. There was a brush fire up yonder a few years back and they had that fire road cut in…it’s more of a fire break. Rough to go over, even on a horse.”

  We waited in silence, watching the house. Mark Wilson and Jimbo disappeared. We heard a motor come to life, then Jimbo returned and said something to Colin.

  When Belle came out again she was walking quietly beside Hazel. The three women got into Hazel’s station wagon, and Colin stood quietly by, watching them drive away.

  “Cap, we got to get out of here. Sooner or later somebody’s goin’ to have a look at the fort.”

  I got up and led the way toward the fort. We circled it, then paused. “I don’t like it, Pio. Something’s wrong. Colin’s not going to let her get into town and do any talking. He doesn’t dare.”

  “Well, he’s let her go.”

  A thought came to me. “Pio, what’s it like up there? I mean up there where that fire road runs into the main road.”

  “It’s pretty rough country. And right there…I wouldn’t want to drive that fire road in the dark, believe me. Right where it turns into the main road.…I’d say he’d better make that turn. If he doesn’t it’s two hundred feet straight down for him.”

  “Or for anybody driving the main road,” I said. “Suppose somebody comes roaring down from the fire road out of the dark, what would you do?”

  “I’d step on it.”

  “If it was a surprise? Mightn’t you swing away?”

  “I wouldn’t dare. There’s that drop-off, Cap. There just ain’t room to swing away. On that narrow road if you twist your wheel you’ll go over. Really good brakes, if you slapped them hard and quick, might catch you, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  “That’s it, then. He’s planning to kill all three of them. If all three die there’s not likely to be any suspicion that it was aimed at Belle.”

  “It’s crazy.”

  Within me there was a sudden vast emptiness. Belle was going to die, and I had stood by and let her go. All I had thought of was that she would be off the ranch, in the company of other people, women Colin would not dare offend, and whose suspicion he would not dare arouse.

  It hadn’t occurred to me that he might kill all three of them to get at Belle. And now there was nothing I could do.

  Chapter 11

  PIO STARTED OFF and I followed. Once, glimpsing the road, I saw the car’s lights some distance off, headed south.

  “Why are they going south?”

  “Cap, that road takes a big bend. Don’t you remember when you drove in here? You see the ranch from the top of the pass, but the road has to swing clear around the mountain.”

  I grabbed him. “Pio! Is there any way over that mountain? I mean, could we get there first?”

  “Horses!” He started to run.

  Suddenly I remembered that most of the saddle stock was kept in a lower corral, down in the valley and away from the ranch. Horses were brought up to the upper corral only when somebody was planning to ride.

  We had ridden past that corral when starting for the mountains, and I had seen the horses. There was a cabin there, too, I remembered.

  Pio slowed down, breathing hard. “There’ll be a man in the cabin, won’t there?” I asked.

  He turned his face toward me in the dark. “Floyd Reese lives there. He and Dad Styles.”

  We crept up to the corral in the dark. There was a shed where the saddles were kept. Pio caught up a rope and walked swiftly to the corral and ducked between the bars, leaving his rifle beside the gate.

  The horses moved away, but the rush of their feet halted, and then I heard Pio say softly, “Got him!”

  A light went on in the cabin. The horses stampeded across the corral again, worried by this strange man who came to them at night, and without a lantern.

  The door opened and a man came out, carrying an electric lantern. It was Dad Styles, and he was walking right toward me. Abruptly he stopped.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Just keep walking, Styles. Just walk right past me. I don’t want to kill you.”

  “Why, you’re that damn’ four-flushin’ writer!”

  He threw the lantern at me, and I saw the light glint on a gun as he jerked it from his waistband. I drew and fired. He folded in the middle and went to his knees, and I walked up and kicked the gun away from his hand. As I did so flame stabbed the night from the bunkhouse door, and throwing myself to my right, I fired as I hit the ground. I missed, and fired again.

  The bullet hit something—the doorjamb, I thought—and in the shadows beyond the rays of light from the fallen electric lantern, I saw Reese dart from the door. I gave him a lead, then fired.

  He hit the ground skidding, and swung the rifle past me, aiming toward the corral. I took my time, lined up on the spot where he seemed to be, and fired a split second before he did.

  The stab of flame lanced the night, at an angle too high. I fired again, and from the corral Pio fired.

  A shout came from the house, and somebody was running.

  Pio came up, leading two saddled horses. I swung into the leather and wheeled the horse, and as I did so, Floyd Reese raised up from the ground with a pistol held in both hands. Chopping down with the gun, I fired, shooting right down into his chest at point-blank range.

  I tried another shot, turning as I did so, but the gun clicked on an empty chamber.

  Pio was leading off at a dead run, and from behind us came rifle shots, but they were futile shots, for we were beyond several obstacles and well into the darkness.

  Pio turned off the road suddenly and went up a rocky bank and through the brush and cedars. There was no visible trail that I could see, although desert trails usually show white in the darkness. Following closely, I shucked shells from the cartridge belt and reloaded the pistol, wishing I had a rifle.

  Pio rode swiftly, seeming to have eyes like a cat. He picked his way among boulders, slid down the bank of a wash, scrambled his horse up the opposite side, and then went into a lope along the long slope of a hill. There was no sign of the car, although once when the horses slowed to pick their way down a steep declivity, I thought I heard the sound of a motor.

  Wilson must have started his motor, then coasted the jeep away from the house until he could start up and edg
e away so they would not know he was leaving.

  It was not difficult to imagine the scene as Colin planned it. The three women…Hazel, who was rather high-strung, to say the least, at the wheel. They would be talking, Hazel and Esther concerned about the girl between them, and Belle trying to make them realize what had actually happened back at the ranch. There would be no other cars on that road, and they would be concerned with their conversation.

  As I saw the picture, headlights would suddenly flare upon them from above and a car would come charging down off the mountain, only yards away. The instinctive reaction would be to swing the wheel to avert a crash…and there was no margin there, according to Pio.

  A swing of the wheel…steep slope…and then a sheer drop. An awful crash followed by silence, perhaps by flames.

  Mark Wilson would climb down at some convenient spot and make sure the job was finished; if it was not, he would finish it.

  As long as they had us locked up, it would seem like the easiest way. They could take us out and be rid of us elsewhere, no doubt setting it up to make it appear that Pio, a known criminal, had killed me.

  Only now we were free, and by now they must know it.

  Pio pulled up to give the horses a breather. “How much farther?” I asked.

  He pointed across the shallow valley before us at the black bulk of the mountain. The valley was a pool of blackness to the south, but there was starlight, and our eyes, accustomed to the night, could see quite clearly.

  “The fire road’s over there,” he said.

  He started his horse and I followed on. We could hear a car plainly now. It was the jeep, grumbling and growling as it rumbled over the rough terrain. Then the sound ceased.

  The jeep was in position. The trap was set.

  Suddenly we caught the gleam of headlights on the road below. The station wagon was coming along at a good clip.

  We spurred our horses and rode at a breakneck pace over the mountain. We hit the road only yards in front of the station wagon, and as it skidded to a stop I jerked the car door open and pushed Hazel over.

  She started to cry out, but I had already started the car. If we stopped now and explained they would never believe it. They had to see for themselves the trap into which they were driving.

  “Colin planned to kill you all,” I said. “Mark Wilson is waiting on the fire road with a jeep. He was going to push you off the mountain.”

  Belle gasped, but Hazel wasn’t buying it. “Young man, whoever you are, I’ll have you—”

  The station wagon straightened out on a stretch, and ahead of me I saw the white place where the fire road came into the main road. I drove on, and just as we were a car’s length from the fire road, I stepped down on the gas.

  The station wagon leaped, headlights flared blindingly from our right and the jeep came off the mountain with a thunderous roar. My hands gripped hard on the wheel, my foot held the gas pedal down, and we shot past.

  There was a rush and a roar behind us, a harsh grinding of gravel as Mark Wilson tried to make the turn…but I knew he had failed. As quickly as I could, I brought the station wagon to a halt, then backed up slowly.

  Shakily, I got out. Over the rim there was a crackling of flames, a subdued explosion as the gas tank went, and then more crackling.

  Pio stood there, rifle in hand. Even he was shaken. “He almost made it, Cap. He almost did.”

  Belle was there beside me, holding my arm in a grip so tight it almost hurt. Hazel came out from the car; she wasn’t the fainting type.

  “You must be Dan Sheridan. I’ve seen your picture. Was that really Mark Wilson? And to think of the times he’s sat in my home! What’s this all about, anyway?”

  “It’s the ranch,” I said. “It really belongs to Belle. I was researching the story of the Toomey brothers and they were afraid I’d uncover the truth.”

  Pio rode closer. “Cap,” he said, “they’ll be hunting us.”

  “All right.” I turned to Hazel. Talkative she might be, but there was iron in her, too. Esther Karnes had stayed in the car, shocked into silence. “Drive Belle into town, will you?” I said. “And report this to the authorities…particularly to Tom Riley, he’s on the case.”

  “What are you going to do?” Belle asked.

  “I’m going back to the ranch. To the old fort. There’s something back there I have to get.”

  “Be careful. Colin will be furious.”

  “I don’t think so. When he hears what happened he will call his lawyer, and he will start putting a case together. You’ll see.”

  Turning toward the horse, I stopped. “You’d better have an ambulance sent out, and a doctor. I believe there’s been some shooting.”

  “You believe?” Pio grinned at me. “You kiddin’?”

  We took our time riding back to the ranch, and we stayed with the main road. All I could think of now was getting back to Los Angeles, but first I had to fulfill the last request of a dying cattleman, dead these ninety years.

  He had written out the directions in the last of those pages in the gun barrel—writing hastily added. They were, in effect, his last will and testament.

  The ranch house was ablaze with lights when we rode into the yard. Leaving Pio with the horses, I got down and walked in.

  Floyd Reese was lying on the floor and he was dead. Dad Styles, on the sofa, was bandaged up. He was pale, but he was alive, and judging by the look in his eyes, he would recover.

  Doris was at the bar. She still wore the white bikini and she had a drink in her hand. There were dark hollows under her eyes.

  Colin had a drink, too. Benton Seward was gone, as usual. “You, is it? Why have you come back?” Colin said.

  “Mark missed,” I said. “He went over the cliff.”

  He just looked at me.

  “Belle’s gone into town. She’s sending a doctor. And the law.”

  He stared into his drink. “You’ve played hell,” he said.

  “It was you,” I said. “If you hadn’t invited me out here and tried to kill me, you might have gotten away with it.”

  Let him think that. He wouldn’t have gotten away with it, of course. Not after I’d read the journal from the gun barrel. I would not have left it alone or forgotten it until I had worked it all out, and found the answers I wanted.

  “It was your fault,” he said, “a damned, nosy writer.”

  “I hope you won’t forget anything,” Doris commented. “I hope you remember it all.”

  She was referring to the nail file. She could make use of that idea now, just as she had planned. I’d be willing to bet that when the showdown came she’d get off scot-free.

  “I’ll not forget,” I said, and backed away toward the door. I still had to go out to the old fort.

  “Don’t count your chickens.” Colin looked up from his drink. “When all the cards are down, I’ll still have the ranch. I’m in possession, and nobody but me has a thing to show.”

  “Cap, look what I found.” It was Pio in the doorway behind me.

  Jimbo Wells was with him. “You take off that gun,” he said, “and I’ll take you apart.”

  He was big. He would outweigh me by a good bit. I remembered reading on some sports page that he weighed two hundred and sixty pounds, and he looked every bit of it.

  But I had never liked Jimbo Wells. From the first moment I put my eyes on him I had felt my hackles rising. He was rough and brutal in his own game, and he would be mean in a fight; but under whatever circumstances we met, Jimbo Wells and I would have fought, sooner or later. He knew it, and I knew it. He had the instincts of a bully, and I a deep-seated antagonism toward bullies.

  “Pio,” I said, unbuckling the gun belt, “the law will be along in a few minutes. In the meantime, you see we aren’t interrupted.”

  “Sure, Cap.” Pio looked at Jimbo, grinning. “You want to quit now, big fella? You want to quit while you’re all in one piece?”

  “Why, you damn’ fool!” Jimbo said, and came at
me.

  He was ten years younger than I and sixty pounds heavier, and he was fast. Moreover, somewhere he had boxed a little, stand-up, amateur style. He jabbed and I let it go over my right shoulder and hit him in the ribs with a solid right. It was like hitting the side of a barn.

  As my right landed I rolled left and hooked into his belly, then missed with an overhand right for his chin. He rushed into me, clubbing me down, striking for the back of my neck and my kidneys. He had huge fists, great knobs of bone and muscle, and every time he hit he shook me.

  I stabbed a left into his mouth, crossed a right for the chin, and then we went at it, toe to toe, punching like crazy men. I was landing two punches to his one, but they seemed to have no effect.

  He dove at me suddenly, grabbing me around the legs and jerking them from under me. As I fell, I hooked him in the face, stabbing for his eyes with my thumb.

  He didn’t like it and jerked his head away, and I jammed the butt of my palm of my palm under his chin. For a moment we strained, and then I quickly jerked my hand away and hit him on the Adam’s apple. He jerked back, choking and gasping, and I heaved him off.

  Before he could get off his knees I slugged him in the face, smashing his lips into a bloody pulp. He came at me then, swinging with both hands. I ducked the first punch, caught the second, and it knocked me back into a table, which crumpled under me. He jumped to put the boots to me but I rolled free and slammed him behind the knees. His knees buckled and he fell, and then we both got up.

  I was mad but I was liking it, and before he could get set I stepped in, jabbed a left to the bloody mouth and crossed a right that split the pulpy flesh on his cheek right down to the bone. He butted me under the chin with his head, stamped on my feet, tried to knee me. Jerking up my own knee, I avoided that, then threw him with a rolling hip-lock.

  He got up off the floor, his face a great blotch of blood, and I feinted. He waved a hand to try to brush the punch away and I smashed him in the mouth with my right.

  He slugged me on the chin and I felt my knees slump. He hit me again, and everything went black. I started to fall, but pushed myself against him. He staggered back, trying to get punching range, and my vision cleared a bit.