BAD PLACE TO DIE
CHAPTER 1
A
FTER THE RIFLE shots there was no further sound, and Kim Sartain waited, listening. Beside him Bud Fox held his Winchester ready, eyes roving. “Up ahead,” Kim said finally, “let's go.”
They rode on then, walking their horses and ready for trouble, two tough, hard-bitten young range riders, top hands both of them, and top hands at trouble, too.
Their view of the trail was cut off by a jutting elbow of rock, but when they rounded it they saw the standing, riderless horse and the uncomfortably sprawled figure in the trail. Around and about them the desert air was still and warm, the sky a brassy blue, the skyline lost in a haze of distance along the mountain ridges beyond the wide valley.
When they reached the body, Kim swung down although already he knew it was useless. A man does not remain alive with half his skull blown off and bullets in his body. The young man who lay there unhappily at trail's end was not more than twenty, but he looked rugged and capable. His gun was in his holster, which was tied in place.
“He wasn't expecting trouble,” Bud Fox said needlessly, “an' he never knew what hit him.”
“Dry-gulched.” Kim was narrow of hip and wide of shoulder. There were places east and south of here where they said he was as fast as Wes Hardin or Billy the Kid. He let his dark, cold eyes rove the flat country around them. “Beats me where they could have been hidin'.”
He knelt over the man and searched his pockets. In a wallet there was a letter and a name card. It said he was
JOHNNY FARROW, IN CASE OF ACCIDENT NOTIFY HAZEL MORSE, SAND SPRINGS STAGE STATION
. Kim showed this to Bud and they exchanged an expressionless look.
“We'll load him up,” Kim said, “an' then I'll look around.”
When the dead man was draped across his own saddle, Kim mounted and, leaving Bud with the body, rode a slow circle around the area. It was lazy warm in the sunshine and Bud sat quietly, his lean, rawboned body relaxed in the saddle, his watchful gray eyes looking past the freckles of his face. He was wise with the wisdom of a young man who never had time to be a boy, yet who still was, at times.
Kim stopped finally, then disappeared completely as if swallowed by the desert. “Deep wash,” Bud Fox said aloud. He got out the makings and rolled a smoke. He looked again at the body. Johnny Farrow had been shot at least six times. “They wanted him dead. Mighty bad, they wanted it.”
Kim emerged from the desert and rode slowly back. When he drew up he mopped the sweat from his face. “They laid for him there. Had him dead to rights. About twenty-five yards from their target and they used rifles. When they left, they rode off down the wash.”
“How many?” Bud started his horse walking, the led horse following. Kim Sartain's horse moved automatically to join them.
“Three.” Kim scanned the desert. “Nearest place for a drink is Sand Springs. They might have gone there.”
They rode on, silence building between them. Overhead a lone buzzard circled, faint against the sky. Sweat trickled down Kim's face and he mopped it away. He was twenty-two and had been packing a six-gun low on his leg for seven years. He had started working roundups when he was twelve.
Neither spoke for several miles, their thoughts busy with this new aspect of their business, for this dead young man across the saddle was the man they had come far to see. The old days of the Pony Express were gone, but lately it had been revived in this area for the speeding up of mail and messages. Young Johnny Farrow had been one of the dozen or so riders.
Both Sartain and Fox were riders for the Tumbling K, owned by Ruth Kermit and ramrodded by Ward McQueen, their gunfighting foreman. One week ago they had been borrowed from the ranch by an old friend and were drifting into this country to investigate three mysterious robberies of gold shipments. Those shipments had been highly secret, but somehow that secret had become known to the outlaws. The messages informing the receiving parties of the date of the shipment had been sent in pouches carried by Johnny Farrow. Five shipments had been sent, two had arrived safely. Those two had not been mentioned in messages carried by Farrow.
The mystery lay in the fact that the pouches were sealed and locked tightly with only one other key available, and that at the receiving end. Johnny Farrow's ride was twenty-five miles which took him an even four hours. This route had been paced beforehand by several riders, and day in and day out, four hours was fast time for it. There were three changes of horses, and no one of them took the allowed two minutes. So how could anyone have had access to those messages? Yet the two messages carried by other riders had gone through safely. And the secret gold shipments had gone through because of that fact.
“Too deep for me,” Fox said suddenly. “Maybe we should stick to chasin' rustlers or cows. I can't read the brand on this one.”
“We'll trail along,” Kim said, “an' we got one lead. One o' the hombres in this trick is nervous-like, with his fingers. He breaks twigs.” Sartain displayed several inch-long fragments of dead greasewood. Then he put them in an envelope and wrote across it,
FOUND WHERE KILLERS WAITED FOR JOHNNY FARROW
, and then put it in his vest pocket.
CHAPTER 2
A
HEAD OF THEM were some low hills, beyond them rose the bleak and mostly bare slopes of the mountains. Higher on those mountains there was timber, and there were trailing tentacles of forest coming down creases in the hills, following streams of run-off water. The trail searched out an opening in the low hills, and they rode through and saw Sand Springs before them.
The sprawling stage station with its corrals and barn was on their right as they entered. On the left was a saloon and next to it a store. Behind the store there was a long building that looked like a bunkhouse. The station itself was a low-fronted frame building with an awning over a stretch of boardwalk, and at the hitch-rail stood a half-dozen horses. As Sartain swung down he looked at these horses. None of them had been hard ridden.
A big man lumbered out of the door, letting it slam behind him. He was followed by two more roughly dressed men and by two women, both surprisingly pretty. Across the street on the porch of the saloon a tall old man did not move, although Sartain was aware of his watching eyes.
“Hey?” The big man looked astonished. “What's happened?”
“Found him up the road, maybe six or seven miles. He'd been dry-gulched. It's Johnny Farrow.”
One of the girls gave a gasp, and Kim's eyes sought her out. She was a pretty, gray-eyed girl with dark hair, much more attractive than the rather hard-looking and flamboyant blond with her. The girl stepped back against the wall, flattening her palms there, and seemed to be waiting for something. The blond's eyes fluttered to the big man who stepped down toward them.
“My name's Ollie Morse,” he said. “Who are you fellows?”
“I'm Sartain.” Kim was abrupt. “This is Bud Fox. We're on the drift.”
No one spoke, just standing there and looking, and none of the men made the slightest move toward the body. Kim's eyes hardened as he looked them over, and then he said, “In case you're interested, the mail pouches seem all right. There was a card in his pocket said to notify Hazel Morse.” Kim's eyes went to the white-faced girl who stood by the wall, biting her lip.
To his surprise it was not she but the blond who stepped forward. “I'm Hazel Morse,” she said, and then turning sharply her eyes went to the two younger men. “Verne,” she spoke sharply, “you an' Matty get him off that horse. Take him to the barn until you get a grave dug.”
Kim Sartain felt a little flicker of feeling run through him and he glanced at Bud, who shrugged. Both men gathered up their bridle reins. “Better notify the sheriff an' the express company,” Kim commented idly. “They'll probably want to know.” The faint edge of sarcasm in his voice aroused the big man.
“You wouldn't be gettin' smart now, would you?” His voice was low and ugly. His gun butt was worn from much handling, and he looked as tough as he was untidy.
“Smart?” Kim Sartain shrugged. “That ain't my way, to be smart. I was just thinkin',” he added dryly, “that this young fellow sure picked a bad place to die. Nobody seems very wrought-up about it, not even the girl he wanted notified in case of death. What were you to him?” he addressed the last question to Hazel Morse suddenly.
Her face flushed angrily. “He was a friend!” she flared. “He came courtin' a few times, that was all!”
Sartain turned away and led his horse across the street to the saloon, followed by Bud Fox. Behind him there was a low murmur of voices. The older man sitting on the porch looked at them with veiled eyes. He was grizzled and dirty in a faded cotton shirt with sleeves rolled up exposing the red flannels he wore. His body was lean and the gun he had tucked in his waist-band looked used.
He got up as they went through the door into the saloon, and followed them in, moving around behind the bar. “Rye?” he questioned.
Kim nodded and watched him set out the bottle and glasses. When Kim poured a drink for Bud and himself, he replaced the bottle on the bar, and the old man stood there, looking at them. Kim tossed a silver dollar on the bar and the man made change from his pants pocket. “Any place around here a man can get a meal?” Kim asked.
“Yeah.” The older man waited while Kim could have counted to fifty. “Over the road there, at the station. They serve grub. My old lady's a good cook.”
“Your name Morse, too?”
“Uh huh.” He scratched his stomach. “I'm Het Morse. Ollie, he runs the stage station. He's my boy. Hazel, that there blond gal you talked to, she's my gal. Verne Stecher, the young feller with the red shirt, he's my neffy, my own brother's boy. Matty Brown, he just loafs here when he ain't workin'.”
Kim felt a queer little start of apprehension. He had heard of Matty Brown. The sullen youngster had killed six or seven men, one of them at Pioche only a few months back. He was known as a bad one to tangle with. Suddenly, Kim had a feeling of being hemmed in, of being surrounded by the Morse clan and their kind.
“Too bad about that express rider,” Bud commented.
“Maybe,” Kim suggested to Bud, “we might get us jobs ridin' the mail. With this gent dead, they might need a good man or two.”
“Could be,” Bud agreed. “It's worth askin' about. Who,” he looked up at Het, “would we talk to? Your son?”
“No. Ollie, he's only the station man. You'd have to ride on over the Rubies to the Fort, or maybe down to Carson.” He looked at them, his interest finally aroused. “You from around here?”
“From over the mountains,” Kim said. “We been ridin' for the Tumblin' K.” They had agreed not to fake a story. Their own was good enough, for neither of them had ever been connected with the law; both had always been cowhands.
“Tumblin' K?” Het nodded. “Heard of it. Gunfightin' outfit. Hear tell that McQueen feller is hell on wheels with his guns. An' that other'n, too, that youngster they call Sarten.”
“Sartain,” Kim said. “Emphasis on the âtain' part.”
“You know him?” Het studied Kim. “Or maybe you are him?”
“That's right.” Kim did not pause to let Morse think that over, but added, “This is the slack season. No need for so many hands, an' Bud here, him an' me wanted to see some country.”
“That's likely.” Het indicated the darkening building across the road. “Closin' up now, until after grub. They'll fix you a bite over there. I'll let you a room upstairs, the two of you for a dollar.”
Supper was a slow, silent meal. The food was good and there was lots of it, but it was heavy and the biscuits were soggy. It was far different from the cooking back on the K, as both punchers remembered regretfully. Nobody talked, for eating here seemed to be a serious business.
The dark-haired girl came and went in silence, and once Kim caught her looking at him with wide, frightened eyes. He smiled a little, and a brief, trembling smile flickered on the girl's face, then was gone. Once a big woman with a face that might have been carved from red granite appeared in the door holding a large spoon. She stared at him and then went back into the kitchen. If this was Het's wife there was little of motherly love around Sand Springs.
Het chuckled suddenly, then he looked up. “You fellers got yourself a high-toned guest tonight,” he said, grinning triumphantly and with some malice, too. “That dark-haired one is Kim Sartain, that gunfightin' segundo from the Tumblin' K!”
All eyes lifted, but those of Matty Brown seemed suddenly to glow with deep fire. He stared at Kim, nodding. “Heerd about yuh,” he said.
“Folks talk a mighty lot,” Sartain said casually. “They stretch stories pretty far.”
“That's what I reckoned,” Matty slapped butter on a slab of bread, his tone contemptuous.
Kim Sartain felt a little burst of anger within him and he hardened suddenly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bud Fox give Matty a cold, careful look. Bud was no gunslinger, but he was a fighting man and he knew trouble when he saw it. As far as that went, they sat right in the middle of plenty of trouble. Kim had guessed that right away, but he knew it with a queer excitement when he saw Ollie reach over and break a straw from the broom and start picking his teeth with it.
Outside on the porch, Fox drew closer to Sartain. “Better sleep with your gun on,” he said dryly. “I don't like this setup.”
“Me either. Wonder what that dark-haired girl is doin' in this den of wolves? She don't fit in, not one bit.”
“We'll see,” Kim said. “I think we'll stick around for awhile. When the stage goes on, we'll send a letter to Carson about jobs, but that'll be just an excuse to stay on here.”