Collection 1986 - The Trail To Crazy Man (v5.0) (30 page)

F
OX HESITATED AND then stepped back, and I drew up the buckskin for a minute. Fox looked up at me, and our eyes met. “I’m glad of that, Fox,” I said. “I’d hate to have killed a man as good as you. They don’t come often.”

The sincerity in my voice must have reached him, for when I happened to glance back he was staring after me, his face puzzled. As I dismounted, Chapin walked over toward the house.

Olga stood on the steps awaiting me. There was no welcome in her eyes. Her face was cool, composed. “There was something you wanted?”

“Is that my only welcome?”

“What reason have you to expect anything more?”

That made me shrug. “None,” I said, “none at all. How’s Canaval?”

“Resting.”

“Is he better? Is he conscious?”

“Yes to both questions. Can he see anybody? No.”

Then I heard him speak. “Sabre? Is that you? Come in!”

Olga hesitated, and for a minute I believed she was going to defy the request. Then with a shrug of indifference she led Chapin and me into the wounded man’s room.

The foreman’s appearance shocked me. He was drawn and thin, his eyes huge and hollow in the deathly pallor of his face. His hand gripped mine and he stared up at me. “Glad you’re here, Sabre,” he said abruptly. “Watch that little demon! Oh, he’s a fast man! He’s blinding! He had a bullet into me before my gun cleared! He’s a freak, Sabre!”

“Sure,” I agreed, “but that isn’t what I came about. I came to tell you again. I had nothing to do with killing Rud Maclaren.”

He nodded slightly. “I’m sure of it.” I could feel Olga behind me. “I found—tracks. Not yours. Horse tracks, and tracks of a man carrying a heavy burden. Small feet.”

Chapin interrupted suddenly. “Sabre, I’ve a message for you. Picked it up in Silver Reef yesterday.” He handed me a telegram, still sealed. Ripping it open, I saw there what I had expected.

MY BROTHER UNHEARD OF IN MANY MONTHS. MORGAN PARK ANSWERS DESCRIPTION OF PARK CANTWELL, WANTED FOR MURDER AND EMBEZZLE
MENT OF REGIMENTAL FUNDS. COMING WEST.
LEO D’ARCY
COL. 12TH CAVALRY

Without comment I handed the message back to Chapin, who read it aloud. Olga grew pale, but she said nothing.

“Know anything about the case?” Canaval asked Chapin.

T
HE EDITOR NODDED. “Yes, I do. It was quite an exciting case at the time. Park Cantwell was a captain in the cavalry. He embezzled some twenty thousand dollars and then murdered his commanding officer when faced with it. He got away, was recaptured, and then broke jail and killed two men in the process. He was last heard of in Mexico.”

“Not much chance of a mistake, is there?”

“None, I’d say. Or very slight. Not many men are so big, and he is a striking character. Out west here he probably believed he would not be seen. Most of his time he spent on that lonely ranch of his, and he rarely was around town until lately. Apparently, if this is true, he hoped to realize enough money out of this deal of his with Jake Booker to retire in Mexico or elsewhere. Probably in this remote corner of the West, he believed he might never be recognized.”

“And now?” Olga had returned to the room. “What will happen?”

Chapin shrugged. “I’ll take this message to Sheriff Will Tharp, and then we’ll wait for D’Arcy to arrive.”

“There’s not much else we can do,” I agreed.

“What is it Park and Booker want?” Chapin wondered. “I don’t grasp their motive.”

“Who does?” I shrugged.

Olga had not looked at me. Several times I tried to catch her eye, but she avoided my glance. Her face was quiet, composed, and she was, as always, perfectly poised. Not by so much as a flicker of an eyelash did she betray her feelings toward me, but I found no comfort in that. Whether or not she believed I had killed her father, she obviously wanted no part of me.

Discouraged, I turned toward the door.

“Where to now?” Canaval asked.

“Why”—I turned—“I’m heading for town to see Morgan Park. No man ever beat me with his fists yet and walked away scot-free. I’ll have the hide off that brute, and now is as good a time as any.”

“Leave him alone, Sabre!” Canaval tried to sit up. “I’ve seen him kill a man with his fists!”

“He won’t kill me.”

“What is this?” Olga turned around, her eyes blazing. “A cheap, childish desire for revenge? Or are you talking just to make noise? It seems all I’ve heard you do since you came here is talk! You’ve no right to go in there and start trouble! You’ve no right to fight Morgan Park simply because he beat you! Leave him alone!”

“Protecting him?” My voice was not pleasant. Did she, I wondered, actually love the man? The idea did not appeal to me, and the more it stayed in my mind, the more angry I became.

“No!” she flared. “I am not protecting him! From what I saw of you after that first fight I don’t believe it is he who needs the protection!”

S
HE COULD HAVE said nothing more likely to bring all my own temper to the surface. So when she spoke, I listened, my face stiffening. Then without another word I turned and walked from the room. I went down the steps to my horse, and into the saddle.

The buckskin leaned into the wind and kept the fast pace I set for him. Despite my fury, I kept my eyes open and on the hills. Right then I would have welcomed a fight and any kind of a fight. I was mad all the way through, burning with it.

And perhaps it was lucky that right then I should round a bend of the trail and come into the midst of Jack Slade and his men.

They had not heard me until I rounded the bend, and they were heading the same way I was, toward town. The sudden sound of horse’s hooves turned their heads, and Slade dove for his gun.

He was too late. Mad clear through, the instant I saw them I slammed the spurs into my startled buckskin. The horse gave a lunge, driving between the last two riders and striking Slade’s horse with his shoulder. At the same instant, I lashed out with the barrel of my Colt and laid it above the ear of the nearest rider. He went off his horse as if struck by lightning, and I swung around, blasting a shot from my belt that knocked the gun from the hand of another rider. Slade was fighting his maddened horse, and I leaned over and hit it a crack with my hat. The horse gave a tremendous leap up and started to run like a scared rabbit with Slade fighting to stay in the saddle. He had lost one stirrup when my horse lunged into his and had not recovered it. The last I saw of him was his running horse and a cloud of dust. It all happened in a split second, and one man had a smashed hand, one was knocked out, and Slade was fighting his horse.

T
HE FOURTH MAN had been maneuvering for a shot at me, but among the plunging horses he was afraid of hitting his own friends. Wheeling my horse, I fired as he did and both of us missed. He tried to steady his horse and swung. Buck did not like it and was fighting to get away. I let him go, taking a backward shot at the man in the saddle, a shot that must have clipped his ear, for he ducked like a bee-stung farmer, and then Buck was laying them down on the trail to town.

Feeding shells into my gun, I let him run. I felt better for the action and was ready for anything. The town loomed up, and I rode in and swung down in front of Mother O’Hara’s Buck’s side looked bad, for the spurs had bit deep, and I’m a man who rarely touches a spur to a horse. After greasing the wounds and talking Buck into friendship again, I went inside.

There was nobody around, but Katie O’Hara came out of her kitchen. One look at me and she could see I was spoiling for trouble. “Morgan Park in town?”

She did not hesitate. “He is that. A moment ago I heard he was in the saloon.”

Morgan Park was there, all right. He was sitting at a table with Jake Booker, and they both looked up when I entered. I didn’t waste any time. I walked up to them.

“Booker,” I said, “I’ve heard you’re a no-account shyster, a sheep-stealin’, small-town shyster, at that. But you’re doing business with a thief and a murderer, and the man I’m going to whip!” With that I grabbed the table and hurled it out of the way, and then I slapped Morgan Park across the mouth with my hat.

Morgan Park came off his chair with a roar. He lunged and came up fast, and I smashed him in the teeth with a left. His lips flattened and blood showered from his mouth, and then I threw a right that caught him flush on the chin—and I threw it hard!

He blinked, but he never stopped coming, and he rushed me, swinging with both of those huge, ironlike fists. One of them rang bells on my skull, and the other dug for my midsection with a blow I partially blocked with an elbow. Then I turned with his arm over my shoulder and threw him bodily across the floor against the bar rail. He came up fast, and I nailed him with another left. Then he caught me with both hands, and sparks danced among the stars in my skull. That old smoky taste came up inside of me, and the taste of blood in my mouth, and I walked in smashing with both hands! Something busted on his face, and his brow was cut to the bone. The blood was running all over him.

T
HERE WAS A crowd around, and they were yelling, but I heard no sound. I walked in, bobbing and weaving to miss as many of those jarring, brutal blows as possible, but they kept landing and battering me. He knocked me back into the bar and then grabbed a bottle. He took a terrific cut at my skull and I ducked, smashing him in the ribs. He staggered and sprawled out of balance from the force of his missed swing, and I rushed him and took a flying leap at his shoulders. I landed astride and jammed both spurs into his thighs, and he let out a roar of agony.

I went over his head, lighting on all fours, and he sprang atop my back. I flattened out on the floor with the feeling that he had me. He was yelling like a madman, and he grabbed my hair and began to beat my head against the floor. How I did it I’ll never know, but I bowed my back under his weight and forced myself to my hands and knees. He ripped at me with his own spurs, and then I got his leg and threw him off.

Coming up together we circled, more wary now. His shirt was in ribbons, and he was covered with blood. I’d never seen Morgan stripped before. He had a chest and shoulders like a Hercules. He circled and then came into me, snarling. I nailed that snarl into his teeth with both fists, and we stood there swinging free with both hands, rocking with the power of those punches and smelling of sweat, blood, and fury.