Valley Of the Sun (Ss) (1995) (21 page)

In New York he had spent a lot of time in shooting galleries. In the woods he had hunted, tracked, and enjoyed fistic battles with rugged mountaineers. He had practiced drawing in front of a mirror until he was greased lightning with a gun. The shooting galleries gave him the marksmanship, and in the woods he had learned to become even more of a tracker than he had learned to be in the brush country of his father, to which he returned for his summer vacations
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Moreover, he had been listening as well as talking. Since he had been here on the Slash Seven, Gar Mullins had several times mentioned the rough country of Tierra Blanca Canyon as a likely hangout for the rustlers. It was believed they disposed of many stolen cattle in the mining camps to the north, having a steady market for beef at Victorio and in the vicinity
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Tom West loved his sister and had a deep affection for his friendly, likable nephew, but Johnny was well aware that Tom also considered him a guest, and not a hand. Mullins could have told them the kid was both a roper and a rider, and had a lot of cow savvy, but Mullins rarely talked and never volunteered anything
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Johnny naturally liked to be accepted as an equal of the others, and it irritated him that his uncle treated him like a visiting tenderfoot. And because he was irked, Johnny decided to show them, once andfor all
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Bert Ramsey's irritable toleration of him angered him
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Once he left Mullins, when the cattle were out of the quicksand, he headed across the country through Sibley Gap. He passed through the gap at sundown and made camp at a spring a few miles beyond. It could be no more than seven or eight miles farther to the canyon of which Mullins had talked, for he was already on the Tierra Blanca
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At daybreak he was riding. On a sudden inspiration, he swung north and cut over into the trail for Victorio
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The mining town had the reputation of being a rugged spot, and intended to keep it. The town was named after the Apache chieftain who had several times taken a bad whipping trying to capture the place. Several thousand miners, gamblers, gunmen, and outlaws made the place a good one to steer clear of. But Johnny Lyle had not forgotten the talk about Slash Seven beefs being sold there by rustlers
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Johnny swung down from his horse in front of the Gold Pan Restaurant and walked back to a corral where he saw several beef hides hanging. The brand was Seven Seventy-seven, but when he turned the hide over he could see it had been changed from a Slash Seven
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"Hey!" A bellow from the door brought his head up. "Git away from those hides!"
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The man was big. He had shoulders like the top of an upright piano and a seamed and battered face
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Johnny walked to the next hide and the next while the man watched. Of the five fresh hides, three of them were Slash Sevens. He turned just in time to meet the rushing butcher
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Butch Jensen was big, but he was no mean rough-and-tumble scrapper. This cowhand was going to learn a thing or two
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"I told you to get away!" he shouted angrily, and drew back his fist
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That was his first mistake, for Johnny had learned a little about fighting while in New York. One thing was to hit from where your fist was. Johnny's fist was rubbing his chin when Jensen drew his fist back, and Johnny punched straight and hard, stepping in with the left
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The punch was short, wicked, and explosive. Jensen's lips mashed under hard knuckles and his hands came up. As they lifted, Johnny turned on the ball of his left foot and the toe of his right, and whipped a wicked right uppercut into Jensen's huge stomach
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Butch gasped, and then Johnny hit him with both hands and he went down. Coolly, Johnny waited for him to get up. And he got up, which made his second mistake. He got up and lunged, head down. A straight left took him over the eyebrow, ripping a gash, and a right uppercut broke his nose. And then Johnny Lyle went to work. What followed was short, interesting, and bloody. When it was over Johnny stood back
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"Now," he said, "get up and pay me sixty dollars for three Slash Seven steers."
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"Sixty!" Butch Jensen spluttered
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"Steers are going for twelve--fifteen
. d
ollars!"
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"The steers you butchered are going at twenty dollars," Johnny replied calmly. "If I ever find another hide around here, the price will be thirty dollars."
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He turned away, but when he had taken three steps, he stopped. There was a good crowd around, and Johnny was young. This chance was too good to miss
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"You tell Hook Lacey," he said, "that if he ever rustles another head of Slash Seven stock I'll personally come after him!"
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Johnny Lyle swaggered just a little as he walked into the Gold Pan and ordered a meal
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Yet as he was eating he began to get red around the ears. It had been a foolish thing to do, talking like that. Folks would think he was full of hot air
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Then he looked up into a pair of wide blue eyes. "Your order, sir?"
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Two days later Chuck Allen rode up to the ranch house and swung down. Bert Ramsey got up hastily from his chair
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"Chuck," he asked eagerly, "you see him?"
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Chuck shook his head. "No," he said, "I
. a
in't seen him, but I seen his trail. You better grab yourself a bronc, Bert, and start fogging it for the border. That kid's really started something."
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The door opened and Tom West came out. "What's up?" he demanded. His face was gray with worry. "Confound it, what's the matter with these hands? Two days now I've had you all ridin' to find that kid, and you can't turn up a clue! Can't you blind bats even find a tenderfoot kid?"
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Chuck grew a little red around the ears, but his eyes twinkled as he looked at Bert out of the corner of his eyes. "I crossed his trail, boss, and she's some trail, believe you me!"
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West shoved Bert aside. "Don't stand there like a slab-sided jackass! What happened? Where is he?"
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Chuck was taking his time, "Well," he said, "he
. W
as in Victorio. He rode in there the morning after he left the ranch. He found a couple of Slash Seven hides hanging on Butch Jensen's fence. They'd been burned over into Seven Seventy-sevens, but he found 'em, and then Butch Jensen found him."
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"Oh, Lordffwas West paled. "If that big brute hurt that kid, I'll kill him!"
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"You won't need no war paint," Chuck said, aggravatingly slow, "because the kid took Butch to a swell three-sided whipping. Folks say Johnny just lit all over him, swinging in every direction. He whipped Butch to a frazzle!"
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"Chuck," Bert burst out, "you're crazy!
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Why, that kid couldn't whip one side of--"
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"But he did," Chuck interrupted. "He not only beat Butch up, but he made him pay for three head at twenty dollars a head
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He further told him that the next hide he found on Butch's fence would cost him thirty dollars."
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West swallowed. "And Butch took it?"
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"Boss, if you'd seen Butch you'd not ask that
. q
uestion. Butch took everything the kid could throw, which was plenty. Butch looks like he'd crawled facefirst into a den of wildcats. But that ain't all."
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They waited, staring at Chuck. He rolled a smoke, taking his time
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"He told everybody who was listening," he finally said, "and probably three or four of 'em was friends of Lacey, that if Hook rustled one more head of our stock, he was going to attend to him personal."
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West groaned and Bert Ramsey swallowed
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But Chuck was not through
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"Then the kid goes into the Gold Pan. He ain't there more'n thirty minutes before he has that little blond peacherino crazy about him. Mary, she's so crazy about that kid she can't even get her orders straight."
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"Chuck," West demanded, "where's Johnny now? If you know, tell me!"
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Chuck Allen grew sober. "That's the trouble, boss. I don't know. But when he left Victorio he headed back into the mountains. And that was yesterday afternoon."
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Bert Ramsey's face was pale. He liked his job on the Slash Seven and knew West was quite capable of firing him as he had promised. Moreover, he was genuinely worried. That he had considered the boss's nephew a nuisance was true, but anybody who could whip Butch Jensen, and who could collect for stolen cattle, was no tenderfoot, but a man to ride the river with. But to ride into the hills after Hook Lacey, after whipping Jensen, threatening Hook, and then walking off with the girl Hook wanted--t was insanity
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Whipping Jensen was something, but Hook Lacey wouldn't use his fists. He would use a gun, and he had killed seven men, at least. And he would have plenty of help
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West straightened. "Bert," he said harshly, "you get Gar Mullins, Monty Reagan, and Bucky McCann and ride after that kid. And don't come back without him!"
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Ramsey nodded. "Yes, sir," he said
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"I sure will get him."
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"How about me?" Chuck asked. "Can I go, too?"
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At the very hour the little cavalcade was leaving the ranch, Johnny Lyle was lying on a ridge looking down into the upper part of the Tierra Blanca Canyon. A thin trail of smoke was lifting from the canyon, and he could see approximately where the camp was. He lay high on the rugged side of Seven Brothers Mountain, with the camp almost fifteen hundred feet below
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"All right, boy," he told himself, "you've made your brags. Now what are you going to do?"
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North of the camp the canyon ran due north and south, but just below it took a sharp bend to the west, although a minor canyon trailed off south for a short distance in less rugged country. Their hideout, Johnny could see, was well chosen. There was obviously a spring, judging from the way their camp was located and the looks of the trees and brush, and there was a way out up the canyon to the north
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On the south, they could swing west around the bend. Johnny could see that this trail branched, and the branch beyond also branched. In taking any route they were well covered, with plenty of chance of a getaway unseen, or for defense if they so desired
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Yet if they had to ride north up the canyon there was no way out for several miles. With a posse closing in from the south, one man could stop their escape to the north. Their camp at the spring, however, was so situated that it was nearly impossible for them to be stopped from going south by anything less than a large posse. It was fairly obvious, though, that if they were attacked they would ride south
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The idea that came to him was the wildest kind of a gamble, but he decided to take the chance, for there was a possibility that it might work. To plan ahead was impossible. All he could do was start the ball rolling and take advantage of what opportunity offered
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Mounting his horse, he rode along a bench of Seven Brothers and descended the mountain on the southwest. In the canyon to the west he hastily gathered sticks and built a fire, laying a foundation of crossed dry sticks of some size, gathered from canyon driftwood and arranged in such a way as to burn for some time. The fire was built among rocks and on dry sand so there was no way for it to spread, and no way for it to be seen, though the rising smoke would be visible
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Circling farther south and east, he built three more fires. His hope was that the smoke from all of them would be seen by the outlaws, who would deduce that a posse, having approached during the night, now was preparing breakfast, with every way out blocked. If they decided this, and without a careful scouting expedition, which would consume time, the outlaws would surely retreat up the canyon to the north
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Johnny Lyle worked fast and he worked hard, adding a few sticks of green wood to increase the smoke. When his last fire had been built, he mounted again and rode north on the east side of Stoner Mountain. Now the mountain was between him and the outlaws and he had no idea of what they would do. His gamble was that by riding north, he could hit the canyon of the Tierra Blanca after it swung east, and intercept the escaping outlaws
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He rode swiftly, aware that he could travel faster than they, but with no idea whether or not they had seen his fires and were moving. His first idea was to ride into the bottom of the canyon and meet them face-to-face, but Hook Lacey was a rugged character, as were his men, and the chances were they would elect to fight. He chose the safer way and crawled down among some rocks
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