Troubled range (10 page)

"Why sure," Calamity grinned, settling down on the seat and reaching for the reins. "Say, have you-all seen that blonde gal around? I bet she's still in bed after the whupping I handed her."

A sleepy smile twisted Stocker's lips as he looked at Calamity.

"Sure was a whupping," he grinned. "She never laid a hand on you."

"Then why'n't you stop the crowd, somebody kicked hell out of me. You tell her she'll know better'n tangle with Calamity Jane next time."

"I'd do that. Only she's up and gone." *■

"Gone?" Calamity gasped. "How'd you mean, gone?"

"Must've left during the night. Took her trunk and belongings and gone. Are you travelling empty, Calamity?"

"Just some of my own stuff is all."

Walking to the rear of the wagon, Stocker lifted the cover

and looked inside. Apart from a fair sized oblong object covered with a buffalo hide, the wagon contained nothing. Turning back, Stocker stepped over a pile of buffalo chips and logs lying between the wagon and the corral fence. Calamity looked back at him.

"You don't reckon I'd be hiding her in the back of my wagon after what happened last night, do you?" she asked.

"Nope, I reckon not," Stocker answered. "I'll drift along and see if I can find her around town. See you, Mark."

"Yeah, I know," Mark drawled. "You'll be around."

Throwing a warning glance at Calamity, Mark swung aboard his saddle and the bloodbay walked forward. Calamity closed her mouth, took up the reins and started her wagon moving. For a few seconds Stocker stood watching them go, then he grinned, kicked the buffalo chips with his toe and slouched away.

Five minutes passed. Then three men came from a side alley where they had been watching the corral. Soskin, the leader of the trio of hard-cases walked to the corral and looked around him. Behind him, Varney and Carter stood with puzzled expressions on their faces.

"Looks like Belle's slipped out of town," Varney growled.

"How?" Carter replied. "You saw Calamity, she could hardly stand. Reckon Belle'd be in any better shape?"

"She went all right," Soskin put in, pointing down. "And that's how, only Stocker was too dumb to see it."

"What're we going to do?" asked Carter.

"Trail the wagon from well back. Then when they make camp for the night move in on them."

For three miles Mark and Calamity held an even pace, leaving the town behind them. They did not hurry, but Calamity repeatedly twisted around to look at their back trail. She noticed that Mark took no such precautions and grunted.

"What's wrong, Calam?" he asked.

"Reckon the marshal won't be following us?" she replied.

"He'll not. His jurisdiction ends on the edge of town."

"We sure put one over on him," she chuckled.

"Reckon we did, huh?"

"Don't you?"

"Nope."

They were approaching a ford over a wide, though shallow river. Grinning at Mark, Calamity hauled back on the reins and slowed her team's pace.

"Shall I stop here or the other side?" she asked. "I reckon I'll go through—"

"You do and we'll take up where we left off last night!" Belle's voice yelled from under the wagon.

Laughing, Calamity brought the wagon to a halt, applied the brake and slowly climbed down from the box. Bending, she looked under the wagon to where Belle's face showed from inside the possom belly; a sweat and dirt streaked face for the rawhide sheet had never been meant to carry passengers.

Unlike Calamity, Belle had not changed clothes, but wore a blanket over the outfit she had worn the previous night, or rather ended the fight in. She left the possum belly and groaned.

"Whooee!" Calamity grinned. "That's a right fetching perfume you're wearing, Belle gal."

"Eau-de-buiidiXo chips they call it," Belle replied. "The sooner I have a bath and change, the happier I'll be."

"Take the wagon across, Calamity," Mark ordered. "Then I'll ride circle while you both have a bath."

"Yo!" Calamity replied. "Are you riding over, Belle?"

"Not me. I'm going straight in."

That night Calamity and Belle looked much better as they sat around the camp fire. They had bathed and combed out the tangles of their hair at the river, and Belle put on a black shirt, a pair of levis and dainty high heeled riding boots collected from her trunk which Mark brought to the wagon from the hotel in the small hours of the morning.

"How about coming into Hays with me, Belle?" Calamity asked. "You'll have to pick up a horse."

"That's not a bad id—"

"Just sit right where you are!" a voice interrupted, coming from the blackness beyond the fire. "We've got you under our guns."

Sitting down, Mark could not have reached his guns quick enough to do anything other than get himself killed.

Calamity's hip hurt from some part of the fight and she had removed her gunbelt, it lay just too far for her to reach it. Closer lay her blacksnake whip, but she knew better than make a move for it until the person on whom she meant to use it came into range. Belle had her vanity bag hanging from her wrist, but she doubted if she could get her Manhattan out fast enough to give the others a chance.

Soskin and his two men prowled forward into the firelight, their guns in their hands.

"Stay still, Counter," Soskin ordered. "We want Belle."

"You won't get her," Calamity replied, and started to rise.

"Stay down, Calamity!" growled Soskin. "I ain't the sort to worry about shooting a woman, especially one who can handle a gun like you can."

"Do it, Calam!" Belle snapped. "He means what he says."

All the time the others spoke, Mark watched for a chance, but it did not come. While Soskin and his men would have made one of the big-name outlaws retch, they knew enough about the basic details of their trade to avoid giving chances to the people they covered. Faintly, yet distinctly, Mark heard the distant sound of hooves. Two riders at least and it sounded as if they were coming this way. As yet none of the others appeared to have heard the sound. Mark wondered who the approaching travellers might be. They came from the south, yet they might be friends of Soskin. Or they could be outlaws who would throw in with Soskin for a chance at the mythical loot of the Newton bank job. Even if they were just chance drifters, Mark did not care to have them horning in, for there would be no telling which way they would turn if they rode in and learned that Belle Starr was here.

"You know what we want, Belle?" Soskin asked.

"No."

"Don't play smart!" Varney snorted. "We want the money you stashed away after the Newton job."

"All of it?"

"Naw," Soskin answered. "We'll play fair with you. Split it four ways."

"And these two?" Belle went on.

"We'll have to leave 'em so they can't bother us any."

"Sounds a good idea," Belle said quietly, getting to her

feet. "How about Captain Fog and the Ysabel Kid?"

A grin creased Soskin's face. "We circled Elkhorn yesterday and never saw hide nor hair of them. Happen he is Mark Counter, he's working alone."

"You could be right at that," Belle purred, then looked at Calamity. "Sorry about this, Calam, but I just never could stand playing the losing side."

Sudden fury boiled up inside Calamity and she looked at Belle. They had been on the best of terms all day, laughing and joking, discussing the high points of the fight, talking over their lives. Now Belle was calmly going to side with the three men who planned to kill them. *

"Why you cheap, lousy, double-dealing—!" Calamity began.

Watching Belle move towards Calamity, Mark tensed slightly. He saw the trio of hard-cases were paying more attention to the girls than to him. Mark did not know what Belle's game might be, but he guessed something more than a change of sides lay behind her words.

Stepping towards Calamity, Belle drew back her foot. "I owe you something from last night," she said.

Just in time Calamity saw Belle's good eye close in a wink. Then the foot lashed out at her body. Yet it did not come as fast as it might and Calamity had time to shoot up her hands, catch Belle's ankle and twist.

"Get clear of her, Belle!" Soskin bellowed, suddenly seeing the danger.

He saw it a full five seconds too late. Calamity twisted Belle's ankle and caused Belle to stagger. At the same moment Calamity released the ankle, rolled right over and grabbed up her whip.

"It's a trick!" Varney yelled, his gun lining on the staggering Belle.

Several things all started to happen, shattering the group around the fire into sudden and violent action.

Mark flung himself to the left, landing on his side with his right hand Colt drawn and cocked. Varney's revolver was already lining on Belle when Calamity brought her hand sweeping forward. The lash of the blacksnake whip curled out to wrap around Varney's ankle. Still lying on her side,

Calamity heaved back on the whip handle and Varney felt his foot jerk upwards. He fired a shot, but it went harmlessly into the air.

Snarling in a mixture of rage and fear, Carter threw down on Calamity; but Belle had her Manhattan out of her vanity bag's holster. She regained her balance and fired a shot which caught Carter in the shoulder, spun him around and put him out of the fight.

Which left Soskin. Never the quickest of thinkers, the man stood hesitating and trying to decide who to throw lead at first. When dealing with a man like Mark Counter such a show of indecision could prove dangerous. Mark's Colt roared while Soskin's still wavered uncertainly. The gun was batted from Soskin's hand for Mark had time to take careful aim and did not wish to shoot to kill.

For a moment Varney stood gun in hand, for he had not fallen when Calamity caught his ankle. The whip's lash writhed away, curling behind Calamity as she prepared to strike again. At the same instant Varney found himself facing the barrel of Belle's Manhattan and Mark's Army Colt.

Out drove the whip's lash again, this time with Calamity on her knees and able to get full power behind it. Varney howled as the lash curled around his wrist. He felt as if the bones had been crushed and the gun fell from his hand.

"Which just about ends that," Calamity drawled, shaking free her whip. "Why in hell didn't you wig-wag me, Belle gal, let me know what you aimed to do?"

"1 reckoned you'd react better without," Belle grinned. "And I was right."

Then they heard the thunder of rapidly approaching hooves.

"Hey, Mark!" yelled a voice. "Any more of them around?"

"Hundreds," Mark called back. "That's why we stood out here all lit by the fire. Come on in and stop that yelling."

Two men rode into the light of the fire. One was a tall, slim, almost babyishly-innocent faced youngster dressed all in black, with a walnut handled Colt Dragoon at his right side, an ivory hiked bowie knife at the left. He sat on a huge white stallion with an easy, almost Indian grace, a Winchester rifle in his hands. The other was smaller, not

more than five foot six, with dusty blond hair, a handsome, though not eye-catching face. Belted at his waist were a pair of white handled Army Colts, their butts turned for cross-draw. He rode a seventeen hand paint stallion with two letters burned on its flank; an O and a D, the edge of the O touching the straight line of the D.

"Howdy, Dusty, Lon," Mark greeted, "wasn't expecting to see you up here."

"We got through our business in Newton early," Dusty Fog replied, swinging from his paint's saddle. "So we reckoned we'd ride up and find out how you were doing."

"Which same it looks like you're doing all right," the Kid went on, tossing a leg over the saddlehorn and dropping from his white stallion.

Calamity stared at the Rio Hondo gun wizard, Dusty Fog, for a long moment. It seemed Mark had told the truth when he claimed Dusty Fog was a small man. After knowing Dusty for only a few minutes, she never again thought of him as. being small.

"What started all this?" Dusty asked. "We saw the fire and rode over to ask if we could camp the night. Saw you were in a tight spot, but you handled it before we reached you."

While Calamity patched up Carter's arm, Mark told Dusty everything. The small Texan threw a look at Belle, then to where Calamity stood working on, and cursing, the groaning man. From the look of the girls, it had been some fight, yet they appeared to be friendly enough.

"So they wanted you to show them where the loot of the Newton bank job is hidden, Belle," he said. "How'd they plan to get you there?"

"We brought Wicker's hoss along. It's with our'n out on the range," Soskin replied.

"Go and find them, Lon," Dusty said, then turned his attention to the three hard-cases. "That would have taken some doing, collecting the money."

"How d'you mean?" asked Soskin sullenly.

"The marshal in Newton isn't as dumb as the sheriff," Dusty explained. "He didn't like some of the signs about the hold-up. So he watched the teller, caught him boarding the stage out of town, one that connected with the overland route

to the south. The teller had a nice carpet-bag, with thirty thousand dollars inside."

"Whatr Soskin yelped.

"Sure. When the gang spooked, they dropped the bag with the money in it. So the clerk picked it up, hid it and then gave the alarm."

"And the sheriff's posse shot four men for nothing." Belle said quietly.

"Sure," Dusty agreed. "Then the story about a girl being with the gang came out. Maybe the sheriff was just trying to justify the killings, maybe he believed what he heard. Anyway he put out the dodger on you, Belle, and the story that you had hidden the loot got out."

"Four men died," Belle said quietly. "A bank teller takes a chance and grabs the loot they dropped, and they died."

"Five counting Framant," Calamity Jane put in.

"I wouldn't say that, Calam," Mark drawled. "What killed Framant was the bounty on Belle Starr's scalp."

Part Two

The Code of the Mountain Men

Mark Counter had been trail boss and brought in a thousand head of long-horned O.D. Connected beef to the town of Brownsville. As a drive it could hardly be compared with running three thousand head up the great inter-State trails to the Kansas railheads, but it had had its moments. Enough of them to make Mark grateful that he had Johnny Wade along with him as segundo.