the Rustlers Of West Fork (1951) (7 page)

"I'll remember that. So Kitchen is dead? Was that after Sparr came on the ranch?"

"Uh-huh, shortly after. The four of their boys, the oldest an' toughest hands on the ranch, got themselves ambushed down on the Little Turkey. Story was the "Paches got 'em. It could be true."

"But you don't think it is?"

Thatcher shrugged. "I got my own ideas. I keep my own advice."

Hopalong nodded to himself. It all added up. But what about Dick Jordan? He framed the question.

'Jordan? He was hurt bad in an accident, crippled up, I hear. Nobody-seen him or that purty daughter of his for a couple o" months."

Hopalong started his horse suddenly. "Let's move. I don't like settin' still too long. How far to your headquarters?"

"Mebbe five mile by trail. I'm back o' the Diamond." Thatcher studied Cassidy. "You seem to know this country."

Hopalong shrugged. "Rode through north o' here once, some time back. But I've heard about it. After Dick got the Circle J he told me about the ranch an' the lay o' the land."

"Then you know Dick Jordan?" Thatcher demanded sharply. "I should smile!" He turned his head.

"Time and again I've been workin' for his old neighbor Buck Peters. I'm Cassidy."

"Hopalong Cassidy?" Thatcher stared at him.

"You don't say! Well, now. Come to look at you an' I should have knowed! I've heard stories about you, dozens o' them from Jordan an' that daughter o' his. They set a lot of store by you."

"That's why I'm here. Partly that. I figured they were in trouble." Thatcher's face grew solemn.

"Maybe. An' maybe makin' trouble for other folks. I never believed bad o' Dick until just recent, but takin'in that Avery Sparr was mighty bad."

"Know this hombre called Soper?"

"Arnie Soper? Sure do! Nice young feller.

He never gives anybody trouble. Nice-lookin' too. Never packs a gun, but even on that hard-case outfit they leave him alone."

"What's he look like?"

The description was perfect for the man who had been in the dining room at Horse Springs.

Cassidy nodded. "I've seen him." He scowled. Bizco had linked Soper and Sparr closely together, and so had the dying gunman. Who was right? The dying man had even implied that Soper was the more to be feared of the two, and such men do not fear lightly.

Suddenly a half-dozen riders cut down from the trees and reined in, facing Cassidy and Thatcher with the road barred. Sim Thatcher's face was dead white. Hopalong noted this from the corners of his eyes and surmised the riders were enemies. They were a tough-looking crowd, and his eyes slid from one to the other in swift appraisal.

"Howdy, Sim!" The speaker was a big, broad-chested man in a faded blue-checked shirt, his heavy jowls unshaven. "You don't look pleased that' meet us!"

"Should I be?" Thatcher's voice was cool.

"I know you, Barker." was "Should I be?"' he says!" Barker laughed. "An" he says he knows me! Well, now! Seems like a good time to git better acquainted, don't it? Thatcher"-Barker leaned forward-"you been told to mind your talk! You been warned before to keep your nose out o' business that ain't yourn! Now you git taught a lesson!"

"Howdy, Barker," Hopalong said quietly.

The big man glared at him suspiciously.

"Who're you?" His little eyes gleamed. "A new hand, Thatcher?"

"Not of mine," Thatcher said quietly. "He's a drifter. He's not in this." Hopalong felt a sudden warmth for the big rancher. Frightened the man obviously was, for they were badly outnumbered and outgunned, yet he still tried to keep Cassidy out of a fight that was not his. "Well, he's along, so he might's well see it, unless he wants to buy in. Do you?"

Hopalong's opaque blue eyes shadowed a little and he kneed the gelding a step forward. "Buy in?"

His voice was suddenly soft and deadly. "Sure!

I want to buy in, Barker! I want not only a piece of it, I want all of it!" He pushed his horse forward.

Barker's face turned dark with angry blood.

"You talk that way to me?" he demanded, astonished.

"Mowry, get hold of this hombre."

A thin, hatchet-faced man started his horse forward. Hopalong's blue eyes flared.

"Stay where you are!"

"Tough, ain't you?" Barker sneered. "Well, by the-was His hand dropped for his gun butt, and Hopalong's pistols sprang to his hands. Both guns thundered, and Barker's half-drawn pistol slipped back into the holster. Slowly, like a great, limp sack of meal, Barker slid from the saddle and hit the ground. Mowry stared at a bloody hand furrowed deep by Hopalong's second bullet. Mowry's pistol lay in the dust. The other men sat still, their faces shocked and astonished.

"You played hob, stranger!" Mowry stared at him, his eyes ugly with hatred. "You sure played hob!"

"You hombres are on T Bar range,"

Thatcher said suddenly. "Better start ridin'." His Winchester was in his hands, and his eyes were cold. "You heard what the gentleman said," Hopalong added.

"Pick up that buzzard meat an' light a shuck."

"You played hob!" Mowry repeated.

"Wait'll Avery Sparr hears of this!"

Cassidy chuckled. "You tell him. Tell him quick. An' tell him that Hopalong Cassidy is comin' callin'-peaceful or otherwise, any way he wants it." "Hey!" One of the riders whispered to Mowry. "That brand on the gelding. That's the brand I seen down to Silver City on that kid's hoss!"

Chapter
5

CHALK UP TWO
FOR CASSIDY

Sim Thatcher stared after the retreating riders, astonishment mirrored on his face. "Man, you threw that gun mighty fast! Barker there was supposed to be a gunman!"

"Was he?"

Hopalong thrust the still-smoking pistol back into its holster, then thumbed a shell into the other gun.

After which he withdrew the first pistol and reloaded it also. "Span keeps some gun-handy men around, don't he?" "He does. An' you saved my life, Cassidy. That bunch aimed to kill me the way they've killed some others. If I had my bet, I'd say some of that bunch were those who ambushed those riders of Jordan's, an' Barker one of them." Thatcher's face was grim with triumph.

"That'll give them somethin' to think about! Nobody ever faced "em successfully before. All the time they've been comin" it high an' mighty around town an' over the range, they've done about as they pleased.

Been two or three killin's aroun', an' they plumb scared out most of the honest men. Each one is afraid if he bucks "em he'll be next.

"Lost some stock?"

"Some, but only small stuff. This outfit's deeper than that. I don't know what they've got in mind, but it won't be little."

"Know anythin" about that bank robbery over to McClellan?" Thatcher looked quickly at Hopalong. "Know anything? No, I don't, but I've done some thinking. Those hombres got away slick as a whistle, an' believe me they weren't just ordinary thieves! They had a plan, an' a mighty shrewd one!"

They rode on in silence until they came to the adobe ranch house of the T Bar. Diamond Creek flowed along a small canyon nearby, and there was little at the ranch but the rambling adobe house, the stables, bunkhouse, and corrals. However, they had been solidly constructed around a square and there was a huge log gate, carefully balanced, that dosed off the central square from the outside.

The house was L-shaped, and with the bunkhouse it formed the end and two sides of the square, while the stables and corrals formed the opposite end. As the stables were also constructed of adobe and there were heavy plank troughs within the corrals, the place was admirably situated for defense against Apaches.

"Come on us three, four times," Thatcher said, as Hopalong washed his hands in a tin basin. "We drove "em off each time. Lost a hand one time, though. He was caught outside. I been here ten years," he added, "an" don't aim to leave, short of they carry me. And I reckon what's left won't be worth the haul."

The dining room was long and low-raftered, warmed by a huge fireplace and a potbellied stove. "Need a fire up here, even in the summertime, usually.

Nighttime she cools off."

A sturdy Mexican woman came in and began piling dishes on the table, and a few minutes later several hands trooped in and dropped to their seats.

One and all, they merely glanced at Hopalong, then began eating. The food was good and wholesome.

Hopalong had not realized how hungry he was, but the slab of steak he took was huge, and he returned for another helping when the platter went by him. The potatoes, beans, and rice were equally good. When he pushed back from the table, Sam Thatcher chuckled at him. "Don't you be cashin' in so soon!" he said. "This here Mexican woman I got bas learned one trick north of the border.

She makes first-rate apple pie!" Hopalong promptly slid his chair back to the table and filled his coffee cup. One of the hands looked up.

"Seen Barker t'day," the hand remarked. "He was sort of scoutin' the ranch. I reckoned he might be huntin' for you. All of us, we aimed to start out, when we seen you comin'."

"Hope you got a good look at him," Thatcher said, "if you aim to remember him. You won't see ham no more."

If he had shouted for attention he would have received it no faster. Not even the arrival of the apple pie distracted their attention. They stared from Sim Thatcher to Hopalong Cassidy, then back at Sim. A big redheaded puncher with a huge Adam's apple was first to demand an explanation. Coolly, ignoring their pleading eyes, Thatcher cut into the apple pie with his fork. It was all of two and a half inches thick, and juicy. Hopalong's mouth watered, and he went to work on his own. Each slab was a quarter of a pie.

Few Western ranchers ever considered cutting a pie into more than four pieces.

Thatcher chewed quietly, then stirred his coffee and tasted it. The punchers stared at him sadly.

Finally the redhead spoke again. "Aw right," he said, "I give in. What happened?"

"Barker," Thatcher said, smacking his lips over the pie, "had some words with us. My friend here declared himself in. Then Barker made a mistake."

Thatcher lifted his cup. He drank from it, then replaced it and picked up his fork. "Well, of all the half-baked storytellers!" Red yelled. "What happened?"

Thatcher chuckled. "I said Barker made a mistake. Well, he sure did. He reached for his gun." The rancher glanced ostentatiously at the clock. ""Bout now they will be plantin" him in Circle J's Boot Hill."

They stared at him. "You mean-you beat him?"

"Not me," Thatcher said. "My friend here. He drilled our friend Barker right through the tobacco sack with one gun an' burned the gun out of Mowry's hand with the other. Then he sat there in his saddle an' let those other hombres ask themselves whether they wanted to gamble or not. None o' them did. About that time I had my rifle out, an' Hopalong here, he suggested they pick up their meat an' mosey."

"Hopalong?" The redhead leaned forward, staring at Cassidy. "Hopalong Cassidy, from the Bar 20 outfit?"

"Used to be Bar 20," Cassidy agreed.

"Now I'm driftin'."

"Hope you stick around here awhile," the redhead said grimly; "there's a gent name of Sparr you should talk to."

"Give him time," Thatcher suggested. "He told Mowry to tell Sparr he was visitin' up that way soon, an' to roll the welcome mat out or come a-shootin', as he liked!"

"No!"

"Sure did."

Thatcher studied the remains of the pie that stood down the table and looked thoughtfully at his plate.

Hopalong waited, and when Sim Thatcher drew back with a sigh, he promptly reached over and picked up his second piece. Thatcher grinned at him. "Couldn't eat any more if I had to! This ranch sure feeds good! If I was huntin' a job, I'd go to work here."

Hopalong grinned but said nothing. Then he turned to Red and the other hands. "Seen anything of that kid of Jordan's lately?

Pamela, her name is. Last time I saw her she was all knees an' freckles." Red grinned.

"That must have been a long time ago," he said. "Right now I'd say she's about the purtiest thing on two feet this side o' the Pecos! Pert an' purty, an' ever' inch of her woman, b'lieve me!"

"How's her right, Red?" Thatcher grinned, and the other punchers chuckled. Red's face flamed, and he looked ruefully about, then at Hopalong. "Aw, don't listen to these fellers! Always hoorawin' a A tousle-headed puncher looked up and winked at Hopalong. "Red took her to a dance one time, an' outside the dance he tried to kiss her. Man, did she ever wallop him! He went around lopsided for three days!" Thatcher glanced over at Hopalong as he lit his cigar. "You mean what you said? That you're goin' over to the Circle J?"

"Yeah. Maybe tomorrow."

"Want we should go with you?"

"Nope. I'll go alone. However," he added, "if you know a way to get fairly close without bein' seen it might help. Once I'm up close I don't mind." A gray-haired puncher glanced up. "There's a couple of ways, both of "em rough rides. As the crow flies it's maybe fourteen mile from here to headquarters on the J. The reg'lar route goes up the canyon o" the West Fork for maybe six mile above the hot springs. Then the trail runs north through the woods for nearly three mile an' turns west to the park where headquarters lies.