The Desperate Deputy of Cougar Hill (7 page)

Larabee could only be riding for Arker’s place or the Dondees’ mine, Tod was sure. And so after a short ride south, he angled eastward into the timber, following a short cut that would bring him onto the wagonroad before Larabee reached it. When he reached the south edge of the trees, he stopped, looking carefully up the road. The rutted trail leading to Arker’s place was almost directly across from him. The side trail that led into the Dondees’ box canyon was visible at the top of a curve in the road well upslope. It was here that Tod fixed his attention.

He heard Larabee coming and then, shortly, saw him ride into view. But instead of reining the bay toward the Dondees’ place, he came on down the road and swung toward Rafe Arker’s. Tod waited until he was swallowed by the cut and then he spurred the paint forward. Pulling up in the pine thicket, he turned the horse off the trail and tied it. Then he moved forward on foot, following a narrow track that went over the east side of the hill through which the cut ran. He dropped down on the far side where the hill tapered into Arker’s yard, a little distance behind the blank rear wall of his cabin.

Tod moved quietly now, easing along the way Cameron had taught him until he was pressed against the cabin wall. He located a spot where the mud chinking had dropped from between the logs and tried to see inside. The narrow space between the two logs wasn’t enough for him to see anything but by listening closely he could hear most of what was being said inside.

He was in time to hear Arker’s rumble: “I don’t know who whipped Cameron, but it wasn’t me and Joe. I ain’t in shape yet to fight a rabbit. But I’ll be ready in a couple days and then that lawman better watch out.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Larabee’s cold voice snapped. “I told you most people in town think you beat up Cameron last night. If anything happens to him when you’re on your feet, they’ll come after you with a posse. And I want you free to move around Saturday night.”

Free for what, Tod wondered. He heard Larabee add: “Do it my way and you’ll end up getting everything you Want — Cameron, money, and that Purcell woman.” The door slammed, and in a moment Tod heard the jangle of harness as Larabee rode away.

“That Larabee’s smart, Rafe,” Joe Farley said. “You do like he says.”

Rafe Arker laughed. “If it gets me all them things, I sure will.” The laughter faded from his voice. “Especially that lawman. He’s what I want the most.”

Tod hurried back the way he had come, not wanting to risk losing Larabee now. He guessed the man would go to the Dondees’ place, but he had thought that before and been wrong.

When he reached the top of the hill, he glimpsed Larabee turning upslope on the wagonroad. He hurried down to the paint and climbed into the saddle. As eager as he was, he forced himself to walk the horse so as to give Larabee time to get out of sight. Even so, when he reached the road. Larabee was just turning onto the trail that led to the box canyon. He disappeared around a shoulder of rock, and Tod spurred the paint.

Where the trail led into the box canyon, Tod reined in and dropped to the ground. He tied the paint behind the shoulder of rock, out of sight, and moved forward on foot again. But now he could feel the weariness that came from more than twenty hours without sleep tugging at him. As excited as he was, the warming sun made his eyes heavy, his movements slow. He swallowed a yawn as he stopped just before the trail broke around the rock shoulder and into the box canyon.

Pressing himself to the ‘rock, he blinked his eyes to clear them and leaned forward, peering into the canyon. He could see Larabee and Jupe Dondee standing in the middle of the clearing. They seemed to be arguing about something but he was too far away to catch more than an occasional word. But from the way Jupe was glaring at a small mound of glittering pyrites on the ground at his feet, Tod guessed the argument was about that. Then Hale Dondee came down the steep trail from the mine dug into the hillside. He had a good-sized sack in his hand and he waved it at Larabee.

“I guess you out-foxed yourself, Larabee, when you said we could keep anything we made mining. Look at this!” His voice was excited, loud enough for Tod to hear him clearly. Tod swallowed back a desire to laugh when Jupe took the sack and upended it, sending a glittering stream of pyrites onto the pile at his feet. He said something the boy failed to catch and Hale began to stomp around, swearing. When he calmed down, he spoke to Larabee.

Tod caught only an occasional word: “… Saturday night … lawman …”

A light puff of breeze down the canyon wall carried most of Larabee’s words to Tod, but they made little sense: “Cameron … you gave him more of a beating than I wanted…. We’ll be lucky if he’s up and around by Saturday.” And after Jupe said something in a lower voice, “… I want him alive and on his feet when we make the hit.”

Tod was still trying to put meaning to Larabee’s words when the three men moved toward the cabin set on the far side of the small canyon. He frowned in disappointment. To reach the cabin, he would have to cross better than twenty yards of open ground, most of it in view of the two front windows. But now that he knew the Dondees were the ones who had ambushed Cameron, he felt he had to take the risk and learn what was going on.

He stayed as close to the rock wall of the canyon as he could, easing along with his gaze fixed on the cabin, ready to turn and bolt if the door should come open. He wished he had a gun but the only one he owned was back with the paint.

The twenty yards were covered with agonizing slowness, but finally he reached a point even with the corner of the cabin. Breathing easier, he turned and sprinted to his right. He reached the cabin wall and dropped to his knees until he caught his breath. Then he sought a weak spot where he might overhear as he had at Rafe Arker’s place. But this cabin was too tightly built and finally he risked crawling around beneath one of the open front windows.

Shock ran through him as he heard Larabee’s smooth, cold voice saying, “I want Cameron there because when the time comes for us to make our play, he’s the one man who won’t interfere.”

And Hale Dondee said, “You trying to tell me that Cameron’ll let us bust open that bank?”

A horse neighing from the corral behind the building drowned out the rest of Hale’s words. When the sound quieted, Tod heard Larabee say, “When the time comes, he’ll be looking the other way.”

Not Roy, Tod thought desperately. He couldn’t be in with these men. He couldn’t be part of a plan to rob the bank of the money paid in by the army! But then, why had the Dondees beaten him up? Had he been part of the plan and then tried to back out — and given a beating to bring him back into line?

Then he heard Jupe Dondee say, “If he don’t run scared? Or if he don’t do things the way you want him to — what then?”

Larabee’s answer came so softly that Tod barely heard it. “He will. That’s my job — to see that he does nothing while we help ourselves to over twenty thousand dollars worth of gold.”

To see that Roy did nothing while … Tod sucked in his breath. Some way, Larabee had a hold on Roy Cameron. Some way, he was going to force Roy to help him steal the money that was going to help the valley people get through the long winter ahead. He had to help, he thought He had to find Roy and get him to explain so he could know what to do to help.

The sound of footsteps coming toward the front door brought Tod to his feet. Panic surged through him and he turned and bolted across the open yard. Behind him a voice shouted in surprise and anger. Before he was halfway to the protection of the shoulder of rock a gun blasted. Lead tugged at Tod’s hat, and he flung himself forward in a weaving run in a desperate effort to cover the last twenty feet of open ground.

“It’s that kid from the livery!” Jupe Dondee bellowed.

“He’s thick with Cameron,” Larabee snapped. “God knows how much he heard. Don’t let him get back to town. Shoot him!”

Another bullet whispered angrily as it came close to Tod. Then he was behind the rock shoulder and momentarily safe. But not for long, he knew. Larabee’s horse was handy. He would be aboard and coming fast enough. Gasping now, Tod ran to where the paint waited.

He jerked the reins free and flung himself into the saddle. He barely had the pony headed downslope when Larabee burst out of the canyon entrance. Tod spurred the paint but he knew that in open pursuit, Larabee’s bay could run him down. He had ridden the horse himself more than once. It was fast and tough. Frantically he looked around for help. The protection of the timbered slope rising up from the valley beckoned. But he rejected the idea. Once in there, the three men could bottle him up. Nor did he dare try to reach the valley floor. He would be ridden down before he could get to it.

Now he was past the top of the timber, the paint flying as it raced downhill. The rutted track leading to Arker’s place appeared on Tod’s left. But there was no safety there — Arker was Larabee’s man. Not at Arker’s, but what of the hills beyond his shack? That was country Tod knew, country that Larabee and the Dondee brothers could not know. Once in those hills he could work into the high country. If he could lose them even for a short time, he could cut west, across the stagecoach road leading out of the valley and on to Obed Begg’s place. And of all the men he could think of, Obed would be the best one to turn to for help.

Three guns opened up behind him. He glanced back to see that the Dondees had joined Larabee. He reined the paint sharply to his left, putting it on the rutted track. Rifle bullets kicked dirt near the pony’s feet. But the maneuver had surprised his pursuers, had given him a little precious time.

He pressed the paint grimly. If Rafe and Farley weren’t waiting at the other side of the cut, he would have a chance for safety. But the sounds of shooting were almost sure to bring them out of the shack.

Even so, he had no choice. He could only spur the paint on.

I
T WAS
still fairly quiet in Cougar Hill when Sax Larabee rode the little rented bay south from the livery barn. He was a man careful with animals and he made the horse go slowly until its muscles were loose. Then he turned from the stagecoach road and worked his way onto the ridge that would take him south.

An observant man, he had learned a good deal about the lay of the Cougar country since coming here, and if he had wished, he could have made a quick trip to the mining country. But he preferred to ride slowly and avoid being seen. Even so, he caught a glimpse of a rider down on the valley floor who acted as if he might be looking up at the ridge. Then he recognized Tod Purcell, and decided the boy was probably just out checking Cameron’s cattle for him.

Once on the wagonroad, Larabee dropped downslope to Arker’s trail and rode on through the cut to the small stump ranch cupped by logged-off hills. Larabee shook his head as he looked around. He found it hard to understand how men could live the way Arker and Farley did.

The cabin was a sag-roofed affair of badly chinked logs and with window panes of scraped gut instead of proper glass. The outbuildings had a desolate, half ruined look about them. The corral was weed-grown, and scum clung to the edges of the horse trough. Inside, he found the cabin’s one room in as poor shape as the outdoors. The stove was stained with cooked food, and dirty dishes were scattered over the lone table. Arker and Farley sat on backless chairs, sucking coffee noisily from broken-handled mugs.

Arker grunted and talked carefully through his still swollen mouth. “Coffee pot’s on the stove.”

Larabee made an effort to hide his disgust at the stench in the place. He lit a cheroot and wrapped himself in its smoke and thought bitterly of what a man had to put up with to satisify his passion for revenge. And it seemed perfectly logical to his mind that the blame for his having to deal with a man like Rafe Arker belonged to Cameron.

Larabee said, “I didn’t come here to drink coffee. I came to tell you to watch for the law.”

Arker snorted. “There ain’t no law outside the town limits — unless you count the sheriff over at the county seat. And he ain’t about to bother me, not when he has to ride a hundred miles across these mountains.” He glared at Larabee and added, “What the devil would the law want with me now?”

“Two men jumped Cameron in the east alley last night and put him in the hospital,” Larabee said.

“And he claims it was me, I suppose,” Arker grunted.

“Cameron’s in no shape to talk,” Larabee answered. “But I broke up the fight and I can swear it wasn’t you two.”

“Who did it?” Arker demanded.

“It was too dark for me to tell,” Larabee lied. “I thought you might have hired somebody. The town thinks it was you, naturally.”

“I don’t know who whipped Cameron,” Arker insisted. “But it wasn’t me and Joe. I ain’t in shape yet to fight a rabbit. But I’ll be ready in a couple days and then that lawman better watch out.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Larabee snapped. “I told you most people in town think you beat up Cameron last night. If anything happens to him when you’re on your feet, they’ll come after you with a posse. And I want you free to move around Saturday night.”

He blew a cloud of smoke. “Do it my way and you’ll end up getting everything you want — Cameron, money, and that Purcell woman.”

He waited no longer but turned to go. He could stand just so much of Rafe Arker and the filth that he lived in. Whatever Arker had for an answer was lost in the sound of the slamming door.

He breathed deeply, gratefully, of the fresh air as he rode the bay slowly through the cut. He wished he didn’t have to deal with a man like Arker. He couldn’t be trusted to follow orders as they had to be followed if this plan was to be a success. And, he knew, Arker resented him — his easy way of handling problems, his brains. Knowing this, he had plans to take care of Arker if it should become necessary.

Larabee always planned to take care of every contingency. He had been meticulous in his planning ever since that one time he had failed to do so — and had spent three years of his life in a prison cell.

Those same three years had developed in him his one great weakness — his overriding desire for revenge on Roy Cameron. At times the force of his hatred for Cameron frightened him. He had tried many times to cleanse his mind of this by trying to accept Cameron’s story about the bank robbery. But the facts as Larabee saw them added up to only one answer — Cameron had doublecrossed him.