Ride the Dark Trail s-18 Read online

  "You stay the hell out of this, mister. If she wants a room she can have mine, and me with it."

  I turned to her. "Ma'am, you pay no mind to such talk. You just set down yonder and I'll see you have something warm to eat an' drink."

  That blond man wasn't fixed to like me very much. "Stranger," he said, "you'd better back off an' take another look. This here ain't your town. If I was you I'd straddle whatever I rode in here and git off down the road before I lose patience."

  Now we Clinch Mountain Sacketts ain't noted for gentle ways. The way I figure it is if a man is big enough to open his mouth he's big enough to take the consequences, and I was getting tired of talk.

  Stepping over to an empty table I drawed back a chair. "Ma'am, you just set here." I walked over to the bar, and, turning to the man behind it, I said, "Fix the lady a bowl of hot soup and some coffee."

  "Mister," he rested both hands on the bar, his expression as unpleasant as that other gent's, "I wouldn't fix that - "

  A man can lose patience. I reached across that bar and grabbed myself a handful of shirt and jerked that bartender hall over his bar.

  The grip I'd taken was well up at his throat and I held him there and shook him real good a time or two and when his face started to turn blue, I slammed him back so's he hit that back bar like he'd been throwed by a bronco. He slammed into it and a couple of bottles toppled off and busted. "Fix that soup," I said matter-of-factly, "and be careful what tone you use around a lady." That Len Spivey, he just stood there, kind of surprised, I take it. I'd been keeping him in mind, and the others, too. Nothing in my life had left me trusting of folks.

  "I don't think you understand," the blond man said, "I'm Len Spivey!"

  Seems like every cow town has some two-by-twice would-be bad man.

  "You forget about it, son," I said, "and I'll promise not to tell nobody!"

  Well, he didn't know what to do. He dearly wanted to stretch my hide but suddenly he wasn't so awful sure. It's easy to strut around playing the bad man with local folks when you know just what you can do and what they can do. But when a stranger comes into town it begins to shade off into another pattern.

  "Len Spivey," the black-haired man said, "is the fastest man in this country."

  "It's a small country," I said.

  The bartender came with the soup and placed it on the table very carefully, then stepped back.

  "Eat that," I told the girl, who looked to be no more than sixteen, and maybe less. "I'll drink the coffee."

  Talk began and ever'body ignored us, only they didn't really. I'd been in strange towns before and knew the drill. Sooner or later one of them would make up his mind to see how tough I really was. I'd looked them over and didn't care which. They all sized up like a bunch of no-account mavericks.

  "Are there any decent womenfolk around here?" I asked her. "I mean folks who aren't scared of this crowd?"

  "There's only Em Talon. She ain't feered of nobody or nothing."

  "Eat up," I said, "and I'll take you to her."

  "Mister, you don't know what you're sayin'. That ol' woman would shoot you dead before you got the gate open. She's nailed a few, she has!"

  She spooned some soup, then looked up. "Why, she shot up Jake Flanner, who owns this place! Busted both his knees!"

  "Somebody mention my name?" He stood in the door behind the corner of the bar, leaning on two crutches. He was a huge man, big but not very fat. His arms were heavy with muscle and he had big hands.

  He swung around the bar, favoring one crutch a mite more than the other. A good-looking man of forty or so, he was wearing a holstered gun, and he had another, I was sure, in a shoulder holster under his coat.

  "I'm Jake Flanner. I think we should have a talk." Nobody was supposed to know he had that shoulder holster. There were mighty few of them around, and this one was set well back under his arm, and as the gun was small it could go unnoticed on a big-chested man like Jake Flanner.

  A crippled man is smart to leave off wearing a gun. There's few men who would jump a cripple, and in most western towns there'd be no surer way of getting yourself nominated for a necktie party. So if this man was all loaded down with iron there had to be a reason.

  Something about those crutches worried me, too, and how he favored one side. To use a gun he'd have to let go of a crutch.

  "May I seat myself?"

  "Go ahead ... only stay out of line in case somebody decides to open the ball. I wouldn't want to kill any innocent bysitters."

  "You're new around here," he said, easing himself in his chair. "Riding through?"

  "More'n likely."

  "Unusual for a man passing through to take up for a lady. Very gallant ... very gallant, indeed."

  "I know nothing about gallant," I said, "but a lady should be allowed to choose her comp'ny, an' should be treated like a lady until she shows she prefers different"

  "Of course. I'm sure the boys meant nothing disrespectful." He taken a long look at me. "You seem to have traveled far," he said, "and judging by the looks of your horse, you've traveled fast."

  "When I get shut of a place, I'm shut of it"

  "Of course." He paused, stoking a pipe. "I might use a good man right here. A man," he added, "who can use a gun." He paused again. "I would surmise you are a man who has seen trouble."

  "I've come a ways. And I've been up the creek an' over the ridge, if that's what you mean. I've busted broncs, roped steers, an' fit the heel flies. I've skinned buffalo and laid track an' lived with Indians, so I don't figure to be no pilgrim."

  "You're just the man I've needed."

  "Maybe, maybe not. You trot out your argument an' run her around the corral an' we'll see how the brand reads."

  There was nothing much about this Flanner that I took to, but when a man is on the dodge with a lot of country he can't go back to right away he's in no position to be picky about folks he works for.

  "I heard the young lady here mention Emily Talon. She runs the Empty outfit over against the mountain, and she owes me money. Now she's a mean old woman and she's got some mean cowhands and I'd like to hire you to go out there and collect for me."

  "What's the matter with Spivey there? He looks like a man who's bit into a sour pickle with a sore tooth. He'd be just the man to tackle an old woman."

  Spivey slammed his bottle on the bar. "Look, you!" He was so mad he spluttered.

  "Spivey," I said, "you got to wait your turn. I'm in a coffee-drinkin' mood now, an' right contented to be in out of the rain. I'll take care of you when I get around to it an' not a moment sooner."

  "There's fifty dollars in it," Flanner added, "and you don't have to shoot unless shot at. I'll even give you a badge to wear, so's it's official."

  "Right now I need some sleep," I said, "and I ain't about to crawl back in a saddle until daybreak. How far's it out there?"

  "About seven miles. It's a big, old house. The biggest an' the oldest around here." Flanner's eyes were bland. "It is an easy fifty, if you want it" He paused. "By the way ... what shall I call you?"

  "Logan ... Logan will do."

  "All right, Logan, I'll see you in the morning. Boys," he struggled to his feet, getting the crutches under his shoulders, "lay off Mister Logan. I want him around to talk to in the morning."

  He swung away, moving easily on those crutches. He was a big man but he handled himself easily. Crippled or not, if'n I ever saw a dangerous man, this one was. Dangerous but smooth, mighty, mighty smooth!

  "Don't you do it," the girl whispered. "Don't you help them bully that old woman."

  "Thought you was scared of her. Scared to go out there?"

  "She shoots. She's got herself a Sharps Fifty an' she will hit anything she shoots at. They're trying to take her ranch away. It's him an' them nesters. They were Johnny-come-latelies, all trying to move in on that old lady just because she's old, alone, and got the best land anywhere around."

  "Are you from here?"

  "Not really. My pa was o
ne of the nesters. Pa was an honest man but he never done well. Everything he put a hand to seemed to turn sour. He wasn't much of a manager when it came to money, and he never worked no harder than the law allowed."

  "There was just the two of us. Pa picked himself a piece of prairie land and tried to prove up, but the land he plowed mostly blew away and no rain came and pa took to hitting the bottle. One night coming home he fell off his horse and come morning he had pneumonia."

  "I taken a job keepin' house for Spud Tavis and his youngsters, only it turned out what Spud was hunting was a woman for himself and not a housekeeper. He got almighty mean, so I got into a buckboard and came into town."

  "How old are you?"

  "Sixteen. Mister Logan," her voice lowered so only he could hear, "it may sound a hard thing, but if pa had to go I'm glad it was right then. Pa was going to sell something he knew to Flanner."

  "About the Empty outfit?"

  "Pa knew a way in. When we first came into this country we boarded a cowhand who'd worked for her. He got scared an' quit, buffaloed by Flanner's men, but before he left the country he told pa one night about a way he knew to come into the Empty outfit from behind.

  "It was an Injun trail, and he come on it one time huntin' strays. It had been used a time or two, year ago. He found some sign of that, and he reckoned it was that gun-slinging kid of Talon's ... Milo."

  "Milo Talon? He's kin to the old woman out yonder?"

  "Son. There's another boy, too, only he went off to foreign parts. Seems they had kinfolk in Canada and France. This cowhand was quite a talker, and him an' pa had knowed each other back in West Virginny."

  "Your pa knew about a trail into the back of the Empty? Did he ever tell Flanner?"

  "I don't think so. He figured we had to pull out and we needed a road-stake. He figured he might get a hundred dollars for it, an' we could go on to Californy or Oregon, but pa never did have no luck. That horse dropped him an' he taken sick to his death."

  "That cowhand, where did he go?"

  She shrugged. "He taken out. That's six, eight months ago."

  "What's your name, girl?"

  'I'm Pennywell Farman."

  "Pennywell, I've got no money to speak of. I can't send you nowhere, but we might get you to that Em Talon. She might like to have somebody to he'p out now and again."

  "We'd never get in. She'll shoot you, mister. These folks been after her place, and she'll let nobody close."

  My eyes taken a look around that room and nobody seemed to be paying us no mind. All the same, I knew they were trying to listen and that they hadn't forgotten us. Pennywell went to spooning soup, and I gave thought to the fix she was in.

  Me, I was a drifting man, and there was nothing around here I wanted. Right now I was figuring on wintering in Brown's Hole. I had to get shut of this girl and leave her some place she'd be safe.

  I'd no idea of taking Flanner's offer. That was just a mite of stalling to get trouble off my back until I could get my horse rested and a meal in me. Seemed our only chance was that old lady yonder.

  "Pennywell, when that cowhand was a-talkin' to your pa, what were you doin'?"

  "Sleeping."

  "Now, Penny, if I'm to help you, you got to help me. I don't figure to get myself killed, and it might be you could help that old lady. Don't you recall what that cowhand said about that trail through the back?"

  She gave me a long, thoughtful look. "I think you're a good man, Mister Logan, or I'd say nothing. I think maybe I could find that trail if you'd help."

  Suddenly the outer door burst open and a big man stood framed in the doorway. Len Spivey turned to look, then began to grin.

  "Lookin' for your girl, Spud? There she is ... with that stranger."

  When that door opened I recognized trouble. That big man was surely on the prod and he came into the room like he figured to smash everything in sight. He was big, he was wet, and he was hoppin' mad.

  "You, there! What d'you mean runnin' off with my rig? I got a notion to see you jailed for stealin' horses. You git up out o' there an' git back to the buckboard. Soon's I have a drink we'll be drivin' back home. What you need is a taste of the strap!"

  "I quit!" Pennywell said firmly. "I went to care for your children, Spud Tavis, and to cook for them and you, but that was all, and you knowed it. You got no right to come after me thisaway!"

  "By the Lord Harry, I'll show you what!"

  "You heard the lady," I said mildly. "She's quit you. You're no kin to her an' you've got no rights in the matter, so leave her alone."

  He reached for the girl and when he did I just kind of slapped his arm away. It caught him unexpected and spun him so's he had to take a step to keep balance.

  He caught himself, his features flushed with anger, and turned on me. He had a big, thick, hairy fist and he drew it back to throw a punch, but as he stepped forward there was an instant when his foot was off the ground and I let go with a sweeping, sidewise move of my foot that swept his foot over and up. He staggered and fell, hitting the floor with a bump.

  He got up fast, I'll give him that. For a man of his heft he was quick, and he came right at me.

  Me, I never so much as moved from my chair, only hooked my toe around the leg of the chair at the end of the table. He taken a lunge at me and I kicked the chair into his path and he came down across it, all sprawled out.

  "Something the matter?" I asked. "Seems like you're kind of unsteady."

  He got up more slowly, but he let his hand close over one of the broken chair legs. "Better get back against the wall," I told Pennywell, "from here on this is going to get rough."

  This time he was cautious. He came toward me slowly, gripping the club in his right hand; he raised it a mite more than shoulder high and poised to strike. But this time I was on my feet. He didn't know much about stick fighting and his one idea was to bash in my skull. He struck down and hard. Blocking the downcoming blow with my forearm, I slid my right hand under and over his arm to grasp my own wrist in an arm lock. I had him and there was never much mercy in me. I just slammed the pressure to him and his hand opened and dropped the club as he screamed.

  He went over backwards to the floor and I released him and let him fall. I had almost broken his arm. I could have without no trouble. He was game and he got up. When he tried to swing with his injured arm I was suddenly tired of the whole thing. I hit him four inches above the belt buckle with my left, and then clobbered him on the ear with my right. He went down, his ear split apart, gasping for breath.

  "A man that can't fight shouldn't try," I commented. "He's just lucky I didn't break his fool neck."

  Taking Pennywell by the elbow, I went to the door. '"I'm taking this girl to a good home," I said, "but I'll be back."

  Spud Tavis was slowly sitting up. "Tavis," I said, "you've got youngsters, Pennywell says. My advice is to go home an' take care of them. If you ever bother this young lady again, you'll answer to me. An' next time I won't play games."

  The rain had wind behind it, lashing the boardwalk and the faces of the buildings. We slopped across to the livery stable, where I left Pennywell under the overhang and went in alone, gun in hand.

  Nobody was there. I saddled up my horse, who looked almighty unhappy with me, and then mounted up. At the door I gave her a hand up and we went out and down the road. As we left I saw somebody standing on the edge of the walk, peering after me. Once out of sight and sound in the darkness we cut across a field, took a country lane, and headed for the mountains.

  The trail began at a lightning-scarred pine and wound steeply up among the rocks, slick from rain and running water. After a climb of nearly half a mile we came to a huge boulder that hung over what was called a trail. It taken us nearly two hours to travel maybe a mile and a half of trail, and then we were riding smooth and in the woods a couple of thousand feet above the prairie.

  Wet branches slapped at our faces and dripped water down our necks. Several times the horse slipped on the muddy trail. T
he horse I rode was bigger than most and powerful, but it was carrying double. After a while I got down and walked, leading the horse along.

  "Logan Sackett," I said to myself, "you can get yourself into some mighty poor situations."

  Here I was, slippin' an' sloppin' through a wet forest, headin' toward what might be a bullet in my fat skull, and all because of some no-account drifter's girl.

  The house when I saw it looked almighty big, even from up on the mountain. It looked the way folks figure a ha'nted house might look like, standin' up there on its hill, peerin' out over the country around.

  Behind it there was a long building, more'n likely a bunkhouse. There were a couple of barns, sheds, and some corrals. I could see light reflected from a water tank. It must have been quite an outfit when it was all together an' workin' right.

  We walked and slid down the steep hill behind the house, and lookin' back I could see why nobody tried that way in, because it was rimmed around with cliffs two or three hundred feet high or mountains too steep for a horse to climb.

  I led my horse inside a barn and stripped off the saddle. The barn was empty and smelled like it'd been empty a long time. Very carefully we crossed to the bunkhouse and I opened the door, stepped in, and struck a match. It was empty, too. No bedrolls, nothing.

  A few old dried-out, worn-out boots, some odds and ends of harness and rope, a dusty coat hung from a nail.

  We crossed the yard and went very easily up the back steps. The door opened under my hand, and we stepped in.

  All was dark and still. The house had the musty smell of a place long closed. Lightning flashed revealing a kitchen storeroom. We tiptoed on through it, opening the door into the kitchen.

  There was a fire in the kitchen range, and the smell of warmth and coffee was in the room.

  The floor creaked ever so slightly as we crossed it. I could feel the skin crawl on the back of my neck, but I laid a hand on that door.

  By rights we should have had a gun barrel stuck in our faces, but there hadn't been a sound. Was the old lady dead?

  Gently I opened the door. Beyond was a big room, cavernous and dark. Lightning flashed and showed through the shuttered windows and the glass transom window over the door. And in that momentary flash I found myself looking across the room into the black muzzle of a big pistol. Behind it stood the old lady.