Troubled range (18 page)

Which was when the trouble started. Beau had already announced his time for quitting the game, both knew of his decision. Yet when the appointed hour arrived they raised

violent objections to his going. Their objections brought Mark into the affair for his cousin faced odds of two to one in numbers and almost three to one in weight.

Actually Beau could probably have managed the two men single-handed. Mark definitely could, for neither Rushton nor Kinnear had the courage of cornered rats when put to the test. However, Mark cut in and rendered Kinnear incapable of enjoying his food for some time to come, while Beau demonstrated his fistic prowess on the no more able Rushton.

Seeing the local law did not appear to have the intention of taking their part, Rushton dragged himself to his feet. He wore an Army Colt at his side but did riot touch it. Not that his scruples would have prevented him shooting a man in the back, but he knew the deputy would intervene should he try.

Helping the moaning Kinnear to his feet, Rushton half dragged, half carried him from the street.

At the hotel Mark and Beau prepared to go their separate ways. Beau intended to catch a stage and Mark wished to collect his horse and head down trail on his business.

"About that thousand you lent me to sit in the game, old son," Beau said, taking out his wallet. "I rather improved on it. Here."

Mark accepted the sheaf of hundred dollar bills and riffled them through his fingers.

"Feels like there's more than a thousand here," he remarked.

"Two actually. Call the other interest on your loan."

"You don't need to pay me interest, Cousin Beau."

"I know. But take it anyway," Beau replied. "I'm always luckier if I show a bit of generosity, and I couldn't have got into the game without your help. So put it away and don't argue. I'd force it on you, only I'd get licked."

Grinning at his cousin, Mark put the money into his own wallet and slid the wallet under his shirt to the special pocket built inside.

"I don't feel like licking anybody today," he said.

"Where are Dusty and the Kid?" Beau asked.

"They headed straight down to the O.D. Connected.

What with the delay we had on the way up, with that trouble on the Lindon Land Grant,* and running the law in Mulrooney, they wanted to get back fast. But I heard Pappy was bringing a herd up the west trail and came this way to see him."

"If I was staying in town for the night we could whoop things up a bit. 1 know a couple of young ladies who're just pining for the company of a brace of fine, fit and frolicsome Southern gentlemen. But I've booked a passage on the northbound stage and there's a big game I want to catch due to start in Mulrooney so I can't cancel it."

"Sure," Mark drawled. "I want to be riding myself. See you, Cousin Beau."

"Sure, Cousin Mark. Don't take any wooden women." "I leave that to your side of the family, Adios." With that Mark turned and headed for the livery barn where his horse waited for his pleasure. Beau entered the hotel to collect his belongings. Neither noticed the two girls who had followed them along the street, listening to every word they said.

Riding his seventeen-hand stallion at an easy trot along the winding trail from Guthrie, Mark made for the western slope of the cattle drives which came up from Texas. Somewhere on the western trail he would meet his father's herd, visit for a spell, then head back to the O.D. Connected.

The noose of rope came flying from the side of the trail, sent out in a hooley-ann throw to drop over Mark's head and around his shoulders, then draw tight. Although taken by surprise, Mark did not panic. Allowing the reins to fall, he stopped his horse. His right leg kicked free of the stirrup, over the saddlehorn and he dropped to the ground. With a sudden heave of his enormous biceps, he opened his arms. The rope jerked and he heard a startled feminine yelp, then a thud as the one who roped him shot out of the bushes. Mark started to turn, the rope still on him and slowing his move towards his guns.

♦Told in Trigger Fast by J. T. Edson.

A bullet kicked up dirt between his feet. The shot, a flat bark of a Winchester carbine, came from the opposite side to where the rope came.

"Just freeze solid, big boy!" warned an unmasculine voice.

Keeping his hands still, Mark turned towards the speaker. She stood at the side of the trail, having stepped from concealment. Working the lever of her carbine, she kept Mark covered.

The girl wore a white Stetson on the back of a mop of close cut, curly black hair. She was a good-looking girl, probably not more than eighteen years old at most, with her skin tanned by much time spent in the open. The tartan shirt she wore, and the jeans with their turned back cuffs, emphasised a slim, but not bony build. She wore high-heeled cowhand boots, and a gunbelt, with a Navy Colt in its holster at her right side, hung around her waist.

Just as slowly, Mark turned to look at his captor. She stood in the trail where his sudden jerk had heaved her, the rope still gripped in her hands. In height she came maybe to her pard's shoulder, but did not have a slim build. Rather there was a rubbery plumpness about her, not fat, but the kind of build which allowed its owner to be as agile as many a slimmer person. Her hair style copied her friend's, was mousey brown, and if anything more curly. Her face bore a warm, vibrant, merry, if naive charm. Mark put her age at maybe a year less than the other girl's. A black Stetson hung by its storm strap on to her back. The blue shirt fitted tightly to her body, and the jeans looked stretched almost to their limits. At her left side, the holster and gun looking like mates to the one her friend wore, hung a Navy Colt. Her face showed amazement at having been plucked out of her hiding place with no more effort than if she had been a feather.

"Haul that rope tight again, Britches!" the slim girl ordered. "One wrong move'll see you limping, big boy."

"Annie could do it, too, mister," warned the chubby girl, her voice a little high with excitement.

The chance dropped names, if it had been by chance, puzzled Mark. Sure he had heard of Cattle Annie and Little Britches, but he always discounted them as being no more

than camp-followers of the Doolin gang. Messengers or lookouts kept around to amuse the male members with their pose of being desperate lady outlaws.

Having met Doolin on two occasions, not connected with the outlaw's professional life, Mark liked the man. It did not fit in with Mark's ideas of Doolin's character that the outlaw would allow Cattle Annie and Little Britches to do the dirty and risky work of hold-up while he and the other men stayed hidden. In fact it seemed highly unlikely that Doolin would waste time robbing chance-passing strangers. Finally, apart from their friendship, Doolin would not risk antagonising a man as dangerous as Mark Counter; a man with capable, tough and good friends to back him, or take the vengeance trail should Mark be shot in a robbery.

He allowed the rope to tighten, for Cattle Annie held the carbine like she knew how to use it. Remembering Doolin boasting about the girl's sighting eye, Mark knew better than to object.

"Now ease your hands round in front of you," Annie ordered and Mark obeyed.

Showing skill in the handling, Little Britches sent two coils of rope flipping out to settle around his arms and draw tight. Now Mark remained very still. Given a chance and a few minutes to work up to it, he might have snapped the three strands of hard-plaited Manila rope around him, but not in time to stop the girl in front planting lead into him.

"Cover him, Britches!" Annie ordered, leaning her carbine against a bush. "And keep that rope tight."

Stepping forward, Annie lugged a pair of old Bean Giant handcuffs from her hip pocket. Mark tensed himself, but felt something hard and round gouge into his back. Something about right for the size of the business end of a Navy Colt. Doolin allowed Britches to be fair with a carbine and handy with a light calibre Colt. Even if she could not shoot like Dusty Fog, the girl would be highly unlikely to miss at that range, and Mark had heard her cock the Colt as she approached.

Had there been men along Mark could have acted in a different manner. A man could not kick a girl in the guts, then jump her to get a weapon, which he might have chanced

with a man. He knew Doolin would soon put an end to such foolishness. Which worried Mark. Where was Doolin?

The handcuffs clicked on to his wrists. They looked like an old pair, probably stolen from some sheriff's office. He hoped the girls had a key, although it did not worry him a great deal if they had not.

"Don't tickle," he warned as Annie bent to unlash the support thongs on the bottom of his holsters.

Yet Mark felt puzzled. He could not see why the girls would take the trouble to handcuff him if robbery was their plan. Nor would they waste time in taking off his gunbelt.

Slinging Mark's gunbelt around her shoulders, Annie stepped back. Britches removed the rope with the easy speed of a cowhand and stood grinning at the other girl.

"It worked, Annie," she said. "Just like we planned it."

"Sure," Annie replied, turning to walk towards Mark's horse.

"Watch him, gal!" Mark ordered. "He doesn't take to strangers handling him."

To prove its master's words the big stallion swung its head towards the girl, snorting a warning. Annie showed she knew something about horses. Talking quietly and steadily, she walked towards the horse. Out shot her hand to haul the rifle from the saddleboot, then she sprang clear and avoided a vicious chop from the stallion's jaws.

"What now?" Mark asked, puzzled at the girls' actions.

"You're coming with us," Britches replied, stepping around him, having holstered her Colt while she coiled the rope.

"Why?" Mark asked.

"Why'd you think?" Annie answered.

Mark did not reply in words, but his smile brought an angry flush to Annie's face and caused Britches to giggle.

"Not for thatT Annie snorted.

"You wouldn't need to hawg-tie me if it was," grinned Mark. "Why then?"

"We know you, Mark Counter. Your pappy's coming up trail right now."

"So?"

"So we figure he'll pay a thousand dollars to get you

back," Britches explained and Annie frowned at her for stealing the thunder.

It took Mark almost thirty seconds to get what Britches meant.

"How long's Bill Doolin gone in for kidnapping?' he asked.

"Shucks, this isn't Bill's idea," Britches replied. "It's mine—well, mine and Annie's."

Her amendment came as she saw a frown crease Annie's brow.

"Sure," Annie agreed. "Bill and the boys went out to pull off a raid and left us at a hide-out. Only we come into Guthrie, saw you, learned who you was and where you was headed. Came out here, laid in wait and caught you. Ole Bill doesn't know sic 'em about this."

That figured, happen a man came to think about it. Bill Doolin must be far away for the girls to be trying such foolishness. Mark knew Doolin would put an end to the farce quickly enough should he return. So Mark reckoned he might as well go along with the girls. His father's herd would not be close enough for them to deliver the ransom message for several days and by that time anything could have happened to set Mark free.

"On your hoss, big boy," Annie ordered. "And no tricks, or they'll be calling you Limpy."

While Mark swung afork his horse, Annie threw a bullet into his rifle's chamber. Britches hurried off to return with a pair of wiry ponies. She mounted one, jerking the carbine from its saddleboot, after strapping on her rope to the horn. Annie booted her carbine and retained Mark's rifle in her hands to help keep the big Texan under control.

"Get going, and don't try a trick," Britches ordered.

"Nary a trick, ma'am," replied Mark, now thoroughly enjoying the unusual experience of being kidnapped by a pair of pretty little girls. "Where'd you want for me to go?"

"Turn right into the trees," Annie replied. "We'll point you from there."

They rode for a time in silence, Mark in the lead and the two girls like the twin points of the letter V behind him. However as they left the wooded land behind them and

wound through the rolling Indian Nations land, Britches could restrain herself no longer.

"Boy!" she said, bringing her pony alongside Mark's stallion. "Won't this shake ole Bill down to his toes. And Red Buck and the rest. We'll make a thousand on our first chore."

"Sure," Annie agreed delightedly. "And they wouldn't take us with 'em this time in case the going got rough. I bet they take us along in future."

Mark considered this highly likely, or that Doolin would throw them out on their rumps for pulling such a fool trick. He could imagine Doolin's comments when the outlaw heard the two girls had been stupid enough to think of kidnapping Mark Counter and asking for a ransom from his father, Big Ranee Counter. Mark also thought that the girls might find Doolin's reaction far from the one they hoped to receive.

For a pair of bold, daring kidnappers, the girls made a bad mistake. They took trouble to hide their tracks and stuck to country over which the following of sign would be a slow, difficult proceeding. Yet they made no attempt to blindfold him and prevent him seeing where they took him.

After covering some five miles from the trail, the girls pointed Mark down into a wide, winding valley. The slopes rose fairly steep, with a scattering of rocks, trees and bushes covering them, but the bottom lay open and offered good grazing.

Turning a bend in the valley brought them into sight of a small log cabin. A snug retreat well hidden from prying eyes. To one side of it lay a spring which widened into a deep pool and trickled off in a stream which ran through the edges of a couple of pole corrals. Although the corrals had no horses in them, they had been in recent use. All in all the place looked ideal for gentlemen following Mr. William Doolin's self-effacing business.

"Get yourself down, big boy," Annie ordered as they reached the corrals. "Watch him, Britches, while I tend to the hosses."

"You-all reckon you can handle that big bloodbay of mine, Annie-gal?" asked Mark, swinging from his saddle.