Trouble Shooter (1974) (16 page)

The covered wagon was almost to the old Kachina-Sipapu trail when Rig suddenly grabbed Hopalong's arm. "Look! There they come!"

A dozen men made up the posse and they came riding swiftly after the slow-moving wagon. In an instant they had surrounded it. Not over seven hundred yards off, Hopalong leveled his strong field glasses at the group and watched. He could make out nothing of what was being said, but he could see the faces plainly enough. Tredway was not among those with the posse, nor was Tom Burnside.

Buck Lewis, the town marshal, was there, and with him were a number of faces Hopalong had seen around town, but none of whom he knew. Cindy Blair stood up in the wagon and appeared to be doing the talking, and apparently she was telling them but good. Hopalong passed the glasses to Rig. "I reckon they'll make out," he said, "but that posse will head back for camp to pick up our tracks."

Rig nodded, then said suddenly, "How about leading them to Sipapu? Maybe they'd run into Bill Saxx."

Hopalong grinned suddenly. "Man, you've got a head on you! Let's do just that! How about that horse of yours? Can he run?"

"He'll run the legs off a coyote!" Rig was grinning. "Let's start 'em!"

Hopalong wheeled to the edge of the chaparral and looked

down toward the horsemen at the wagons. Lifting a hand, he yelled. The horsemen jerked around staring, and he yelled again, then wheeled and let Topper have his head.

The white gelding hit the pinon breaks running like a scared rabbit, with Rig Taylor about a length ahead. They were not far from the crossing of the Picket Fork, and both men knew the exact location of this intersection of the river and the Ka-china-Sipapu trail. Riding swiftly, they reached the ford and splashed through, then ran up the trail toward Chimney Creek Canyon. The old bridge was out, but they might at least lead the posse to a place where they could see the abandoned buildings at Sipapu ... perhaps leading them to investigate.

Riding side by side, the two rode right up to the canyon, then rode off the trail to the right. Almost instantly Hopalong swung at right angles into the dense chaparral, finding a narrow cattle trail. Leading the way, he whipped and turned through it, then spotting a thin place, he lunged Topper at the wall. It gave before him and they pushed through the brush toward the widest and thickest part of the chaparral. This was the section on the east side of the Sipapu trail and an area wherein neither man had worked.

They had been pushing through the brush for some distance when Hopalong suddenly saw the tracks of a rider coming from Chimney Creek. As he correctly surmised, these were tracks made earlier by Tredway when he contacted the outlaws after the stage holdup. He rode swiftly along this trail, keeping out of the tracks so as not to spoil them, and they brought him at once to the narrow portion of the canyon. On the lip there were fragments of bark broken off when the logs had been

dropped across the gap. Below, on the rocks at the edge of the stream, they could see the logs.

After a brief glance the two riders turned back into the chaparral. Behind them they could hear the pursuit, but evidently their trail had been lost, for the shouts seemed to be along the creek itself.

Walking his horse, Hopalong led off, found a low bank on the Picket Fork, and forded the stream. Now they were in rolling hills, broken by many deep ravines and much rocky, rough country dotted with cedar and pinon. From time to time they paused to listen, but all pursuit had fallen far behind.

Rig dug out a paper and some tobacco and began building a smoke as he rode. From time to time he glanced at Hopalong, who was studying the terrain with care. "What's on your mind now?" he demanded, his interested eyes watching Cassidy.

"Burnside," Hopalong said briefly. "We're going to pay him a visit."

"And get shot?" Taylor inquired sardonically. "That old coot is^ nobody to fool with."

Hopalong pulled his hat brim lower and scanned the sunlit hills before him. Slow smoke lifted from among some trees far ahead. That was Tom Burnside's place, but whether that smoke indicated he was at home was another thing. The old lawman was very shrewd in the ways of outlaws and he might be expecting them to try to avenge their comrades. It would not do to take chances.

Rig Taylor began to grow more and more uneasy as they approached. Cassidy kept shifting his advance, keeping to low ground and trees, his eyes alert to every movement, every

change in terrain. Finally he drew up. "From here we walk. It's only a little ways now."

Leaving their horses, they started walking carefully along the trail. Although they walked quietly and did not talk, Hop-along made no effort to conceal their passage, knowing that if Burnside caught them sneaking up to his place, he would be inclined to start shooting and ask questions afterward, and he would waste few shots.

Rounding the corner of the barn, they stopped abruptly. Tom Burnside was standing not a dozen paces away. He had a bucket in his left hand and his right was poised to draw. "Don't, Tom!" Hopalong said sharply. "We're friendly." "An' you come sneakin' up on a man?" Burnside demanded, his old eyes measuring them coldly.

"Well, we didn't know but what you might have folks here with you who weren't so friendly," Hopalong said. "Who might they be?"

"Tredway, the marshal, a lot of people right now. They've got us pegged for that holdup today."

Tom Burnside did not speak for a minute. His eyes were shrewd and considering. These men looked like straight shooters, and there was something about that fellow with the gray hair. Suddenly it came to him. "You're Hopalong Cassidy, that Bar-20 gunfighter."

"That's right. I've been going by the name of Cameron up here." Briefly he explained the circumstances. His ride to visit his old friend Pete Melford, the meeting with Cindy and Taylor, and the events that followed. Finally Burnside put down his bucket.

"Let's go inside," he said shortly. "I want to hear more of this."

When he had heard them out, he refilled his pipe without comment, then got up and put the coffeepot on the fire. When he returned to his seat, he said, "Why come to me with this yarn?"

"Because," Hopalong said simply, "you've got more than an ounce of brains, and because you don't go off half-cocked. Above all, you've been a law officer. I figure that with what you've heard from us you can learn a lot more."

"Should be able to," the old man admitted, "an' you bein' who you are means a lot.

"One thing," he said dryly, "seems to have escaped your figurin'. When I was a law officer, only one thing went agin me. It was this outfit you're talkin' about. That Ben Hardy bunch. I'd like nothin' better than to get my hands on 'em."

Hopalong glanced at Rig, then said carefully, "Tom, what would you say if one of those outlaws was alive--I've told you most of them were murdered by Harlan--but living honest?"

Burnside got to his feet and, walking to the door, lighted his pipe. "Don't know," he replied, "but I reckon a man deserves a chance to change his ways. If he was honest, I wouldn't push him. That what you want?"

"This man has worked out an honest life for himself. He's got a wife and he figures on staying that way. It's Ben Hardy."

The old man's eyes glinted. "Hardy, eh? Hardy hisself ?" He chuckled. "Why didn't you say so, boy? That Hardy had me dead to rights one time. My horse went down, shot through the head,

an' me pinned down. My gun had been throwed from my hand when I fell, an' there I was, cold turkey.

"This Ben Hardy rode up an' stopped. He had a gun in his hand an' I'd been runnin' him mighty hard. He sat there on his horse an' looked down at me, an' he said, 'Now look at you! You're in a deuce of a fix, ain't you?' Then, instead of shootin' me, he put a rope on that horse an' lifted him off me. Then he shook his rope loose an' rode off laughin'!" Burnside chuckled again. "He wasn't a bad lot, that Hardy. I'm sure pleased it wasn't Harlan rode up right then!"

They were silent, considering the situation. Burnside took his pipe from his mouth. "If this hombre is as smart as you figure, he'll have an alibi. He'll say he was at his own place, an' who could deny it?"

"I can." Rig smiled grimly. "I was at the ranch all day." "Good!" Burnside slammed his fist on the table, making the cups jump. "Is there anybody can back that up?"

"The Chink who cooks for them. He was the only one there."

"That'll help. He might not testify against them, but he'll admit you were there. Anything else?"

"It's a shame we can't prove he got that money from Saxx. If we could find that on them, we might be able to lock them up," Burnside said.

"We'll dig up something," Hopalong told him. "There's some checking we can do. Get a description of Fan Harlan and see how it matches. If we could prove that he and Tredway were one and the same, we could bring him in on any number of charges."

"That would be something." Burnside nodded, his eyes narrowing. "Now, that would really be something."

When Hopalong Cassidy and Rig Taylor moved away from Burnside's ranch, they kept to the brush and timber, riding the hillsides and taking all the precautions to conceal their trail. Mountain and desert men pursued, men trained in the tracking of stock, and wild animals, some of them with the skill of Indians, and they dared leave no smallest hint of their goal or the route they were choosing.

Despite Hopalong's confidence in her, Cindy worried him more than he would admit. The girl was too confident and too daring. Moreover, she was furious at Tredway, who she was sure had stolen the PM Ranch and cattle. As he thought of that the trail grew more rugged and the brush thicker. They turned off the trail and cut across country.

' Hopalong led the way and he turned deeper and deeper into the dreaded maze of the pear forest, seeking out trails that led him steadily toward one direction. Rig Taylor rode behind him, his eyes ever straying toward their back trail. From time to time they paused to listen, but heard no sound of pursuit. Hopalong finally turned into an opening that led them to the long-abandoned cabin in the chaparral.

"You figuring on camping here?" Rig asked skeptically. His eyes strayed toward the cabin with its skeletons.

"Tonight," Hopalong replied. "There's water and our horses need rest. No telling when we may have to run for it."

"What then?"

"We'll move on north. Hook up with Pike. Of all the talk I've heard, none of it has been about the country around Brushy Knoll or Chimney Butte. I did hear there was an old trail went that way. I want to see where it goes."

Rig shrugged. "Will the Brothers like that? From all I hear, they consider that their own private preserve." "No helping it."

Hopalong swung down and stripped the saddle from Topper. After giving him a brisk rubdown with a handful of dried grass, he picketed him and returned to gather wood for a fire. It was no trouble to find dead branches from a couple of fallen trees and some long-uprooted brush. In a short time they had a small fire going and coffee on.

Rig Taylor took off his hat and began to throw a meal together. As he worked he reflected glumly on their situation. From an honest young cowhand headed west to become foreman of a new ranch, he had become an outlaw, pursued by the law. Nevertheless, as he glanced at Hopalong he felt that it was worth it to have such a friend.

Hopalong moved out away from the fire and stood for a long time listening to the night noises of the chaparral. He could hear nothing that he had not expected. No foreign sounds came into this wilderness. A man might as well have stood on another planet, for here he was alone, and if a man were injured in this wilderness, he might never be found, and would die here by himself. And there was little water unless a man knew exactly where to go and how to find it. His eyes lifted over the thick black of the pear forest and looked at the not-too-distant rim of

the mesa. No lights showed there, and none on Brushy Knoll. The Brothers were quiet now.

Strange stories had been told of the Penitentes and their mysterious rites, of men crucified in semblance of the Savior, of others whipped until their backs were shredded flesh. This had been true of those in New Mexico, according to report, and these were said to be even more fanatical. There was no telling what might happen up there on Babylon Mesa when the moon was full.

He walked back to the fire with an armful of wood, and the two men ate in silence, listening to the pleasant sound of the water running and the horses cropping grass nearby. Their ears remained attuned to all the noises of the night, and at the slightest change they would have known it at once. There was much to do, but morning would be soon enough to do it.

"We gonna keep watch?" Rig asked. "I'm dead beat."

"Topper will watch for us. If anything comes close, he'll know it before we would anyway. Let's get some rest. We're liable to need it."

Rolled in his blankets, Hopalong watched the stars bright above them and heard the far-off cry of a night bird and the rustling of water, and then he was asleep.

After a long time something stirred in the brush, and Topper looked up, nostrils distended. He listened and rolled his eyes, watching. He did not see the dark-cloaked figure that moved along the edge of the chaparral, then disappeared.

Tredway was sitting tight, but he was worried. The story of the Box T outlaws was going the rounds, and Tredway's story of his firing of the two men and their association with Rig and Cameron was also rumored around. Nevertheless, suspicion would linger among those who disliked him.