Trouble Shooter (1974) (7 page)

'em.

"Water?"

"Yeah. Looks like she might be an old rustlers hangout."

Hopalong nodded. "I imagine," he said carefully, not looking at Pike Towne, "that they have been in this country. We'll have to try to find if they had a way out on the other side."

Towne's face stiffened queerly. He shot a sharp glance at Hopalong and set his cup down on a rock. "You wasn't figurin' on rustlin', were you?"

Hopalong was mildly surprised. "No. Why?"

"Nothin'. I didn't figure you would, but anyway, I want no part in anything that isn't legal."

"My feelings, too," Hopalong assured him, "but a way out might be convenient."

'There's an old trail," Pike said thoughtfully, "east of here. You must have seen it. The trail leaves the road to the Box T about ten miles out of Kachina, heads northeast. That trail must pass close to the bend of the Picket Fork. We might find a way out that way."

"We might," Hopalong agreed.

He was growing more and more curious about Pike Towne, and he had been almost positive that Towne, if left alone, would rind the kind of clearing they sought. If the big man had not at one time lived in the area, Hopalong Cassidy would be badly fooled. Whether he had been an outlaw himself, Hopalong had no idea. What he did know was that Pike was concealing something, but in his own good time he might talk.

Somewhere a coyote yapped shrilly into the night, and a nighthawk swooped close, then winged on away into the darkness. Stars came out, thick and bright, seeming so close about them that it appeared a man might reach up and knock them down with a stick.

He ate in silence, and again Shep came to lie beside him. Pike lit his pipe, and they dozed. And then, suddenly, it came!

Hopalong stiffened, almost dropping his cup. Pike Towne's face blanched and his wife stared at him, her cheeks drawn and

pale.

High and clear, sounding distant, yet close, there came the sound of voices on the wind. A long, hollow call. A pause, then an answering chorus. The sound faded, then swept back; although distorted as it was by the distance, they could hear the unmistakable rhythm of words and phrases.

The weird chanting reached out into the night and then ended. A strange cry filled with loneliness and memories of terror, a cry that chilled their spines and left the three staring, the echo of it hanging in their ears.

"What was that?" Hopalong demanded, of nobody in particular.

There was no answer, for there was none to be given. Then it came again, and again it sounded long and clear and somehow unearthly. It might have come from the range behind them. It might have come from up- or down-stream, or from the wastes of the chaparral, but they all knew it did not. It came from farther away, maybe miles away.

Nobody said anything for several minutes, and then Hopalong glanced over at Pike. The man's face was haunted by memory, and when he turned, his lips started to form words, then stopped. The fire crackled and a stick fell, then sparks sprang up, following the trail of the smoke. After a minute a coyote lifted his plaintive voice high into a shrill yelping that chattered off down a long hill of sound, then died away.

"Now that was quite a sound," Hoppy said. "Ever hear it before, Pike?"

Towne's lips were tight, his eyes cold. A moment passed before he replied, and it was with a question. "Why ask me? What makes you think I might have?"

"A hunch."

Pike studied Cassidy while Sarah Towne's eyes went from one to the other, half-frightened, half-hopeful. It was the hopefulness that made Hopalong curious. Topper stamped in the tall grass and blew contentedly. Firelight flickered on his flanks and glistened on the shining coats of the darker horses.

"What you lookin' for?" Pike's voice promised nothing.

"I want to know who killed Pete Melford."

"I don't know anything about that. I've got my own questions to look into hereabouts." Pike's lids flickered ever so slightly. "We may be out here doin' the same kinda thing, Cameron. But we ain't doin' it for the same reasons."

Hopalong examined Pike Towne narrowly, the shade of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. "And I thought you were just working your way through to Oregon," he said.

"I am." Pike looked over toward Sarah. "But I've got to know that what's past is behind me. We can't make a new life until I do." He got to his feet and looked down at Cassidy. "We've got a big job, boss. Let's hit the hay."

Hopalong Cassidy knew the man, and knew he had as much as he was likely to get. He shrugged, then got to his feet. "All right, but if you know of any good springs back in that nightmare, tell me about them."

"In the morning," he said quietly.

"One thing more. Where's Sipapu?" Towne hesitated, and for an instant Hopalong did not believe the man would reply, but when he did he spoke quietly. "East of here. It's a ghost town on a trail to nowhere. It's a town that was born quick, lasted only a little while, and then died hard with guns in the streets. It was another place where the vigilante idea didn't work. They hung the crooks, and then each other, and finally died shooting."

His face was twisted with bitterness. "It's a place I've no wish to see, Cameron, nor any man who has ever seen hatred as I saw it in the streets of that town. Hatred and fear." "You said it was east of here. Just where?" "You know that trail I mentioned? The one that runs off the Box T road toward the north? That trail used to take you, but it won't anymore because the old canyon bridge is gone. It's just as well. There's no reason for anybody to go, and I don't believe anybody has been there in years."

"Thanks, you've helped me some, Pike. I've got a job here. Pete Melford, the man who owned this land before Tredway showed up, was a friend of mine."

Pike looked at him carefully. "We'll do our best. I've good reason to believe this Colonel Tredway is somethin' different from what he wants everyone to think, and I think he's capable of nearly anything. Of course"--he grinned at Hopalong--"I've reason to think the same way about you." Pike Towne turned and walked to the wagon to join his wife.

Hopalong tossed another stick on the fire and then banked it a little so there would be coals for the morning. Moving back from the flames, he got to his feet and walked to the edge of the

woods. The night was very still. The water rustled among the reeds along the banks, the wind stirred, and out in the chaparral there were myriad rustling sounds and stirrings as the creatures of the night came alive for their hunting.

Hopalong Cassidy scowled uncomfortably. He had the feeling of being watched by something he could not see, and he did not like it. He didn't like it at all.

There were things happening about him of which he knew nothing. Pike Towne had been here before, an outlaw, perhaps. Maybe he knew a great deal, and perhaps very little.

He walked on, away from the horses. Behind him the fire dwindled as he moved away until it was scarcely more than another star, glimmering in the night. At last, on a low knoll beside the Picket Fork, he paused. Around him the night was very still. Suddenly a flicker of movement caught his eyes and he looked around. Far away over the top of the chaparral loomed the distant finger of Chimney Butte, pointing at the stars, and then beyond and to the east of it lay Brushy Knoll, a huge, ominous darkness blotting out the distant horizon. Yet he had seen movement there, and now he saw it again, visible at even this distance, the slow movement of lights upon the mountainside!

Cassidy narrowed his eyes, staring into the night. Had there been a trail through the chaparral, he would have saddled up at once, but there was not, so he stood still, watching while the trail of lights mounted higher, and then still higher. At last, after what seemed a very long time, the lights emerged on the very top of the knoll and merged into a group. They flickered there, danced, and held his eyes, and only after a long time did they slowly begin to burn down and vanish. Sobered, he wandered

back to the fire. He glanced at his watch and was astonished to see he had been gone for all of two hours!

He crawled into his bed and scarcely felt the ground under him. He sighed, breathed deeply, and was asleep.

Far away, on Brushy Knoll, the lights appeared again, descended in slow, switchback movements until they vanished behind the pear forest. A wind lifted and stirred the leaves, and Topper pricked his ears and stared curiously off into the darkness. At the edge of the dimming firelight, a pack rat crept closer, watched, and sniffed, then moved into camp, curious as always, and alert for something that would interest him enough to steal.

After a long time there was movement in the wagon and then a low question was spoken. The sound, ever so slight, awakened Hopalong. He did not move, but lay very still, listening. At first he could not distinguish the words, and then they began to come through to him.

"No telling what we'll uncover back in there. I'm afraid of it, yet I wouldn't be anywhere else."

Sarah Towne was speaking. "You're not worried, Pike?"

"Of course I'm worried. But what can I do? What else can we do?"

"Suppose he finds out? What will happen?"

There was a long silence, and then Pike's voice, tired now and sounding its worry: "I don't know. Who can know? Kill me, probably, or try it. The trouble is, nobody suspects him. Nobody but me."

"You won't tell them?"

"Tell them? I would tell them nothing! Let them find out!

Of course," he added fatalistically, "he will find out. He's that kind of man."

Nobody spoke for several minutes then, and Hopalong waited, believing they had gone to sleep. Then he began to wonder. Of whom were they talking? Was it Justin Tredway of whom they spoke? What was there he could find out? Why would their presence here be dangerous to Tredway? Or was it he himself of whom they talked?

Pondering this question, Hopalong Cassidy went to sleep.

T
he big brindle steer backed up and lowered his head as Hop-along turned Topper toward him and shook out a loop. He backed up about three steps and then, as Topper moved in, the steer ducked and bolted for open space. Instantly Hopalong Cas-sidy dropped his loop. It was a short, easy cast around the horns and the steer jerked to a halt and swung half around. Instantly he charged. Topper swung away, and the jerk of the rope snapped the steer's head around. He stopped, bracing his legs and glaring.

Topper started away from him at once, tugging on the rope. The steer braced himself to resist the unaccustomed tug on his horns and Pike closed in behind on his paint and slapped the steer across the rump with his coiled rope. The steer sprang forward and Topper led off. Pulled from before and struck from behind, the steer went forward reluctantly. He hesitated at the gate of the big corral, but sighting the other cattle inside, he bolted for it. Hopalong brought him up short, then, as the steer

turned, Hopalong shook loose his loop and flipped it from the horns.

Freed, the steer raced away toward the others who fed at the far side of the corral. Hopalong mopped the sweat from his face and grinned at Pike. "That's the first one. We've made a start, anyway!"

Pike nodded, rolling a smoke. "Yeah, an' we had a break finding those six head already in the corral. I expect they've been feeding in here ever since it was abandoned."

They turned their horses and started toward the brush. Pike rode without speaking for a short time, and then said unexpectedly, "This Tredway figures to be a sharp dealer. He ain't goin' to like paying us, an' unless our guessin' is wrong, we'll have two thousand dollars comin' before long. We haven't used Shep on this yet, but he'll go back into the deep brush after the worst ones."

"We'll need him there. When they are pushed, these steers will find their way into brush where no man on horseback could go. I don't think Tredway ever figured on a dog."

"If he had"--Pike's voice was thoughtful--"he wouldn't have let us in here. He'd have picked up a dog or two and started in himself."

They rode in silence, then halted at the edge of a new clearing. There were four steers and a cow grazing here. None of them were branded.

Hopalong indicated them with a nod of his head. "Seem funny to you, Pike, that those steers wouldn't be marked? I was thinking that maybe somebody wasn't too sure of himself."

"Looks thataway." Pike drew deep on the stub of his smoke. "You come across by the trail, like we did?"

"Followed your tracks," Hopalong said, waiting to see what Pike Towne had on his mind.

"Country looks mighty dry. Not many cattle back on the reg'lar Box T range. Notice that?"

"I sure did," Hopalong said, "and I'm beginning to wonder a bit. Do you suppose this hombre is as well-off as folks think? That range isn't good. He hasn't made any recent shipments. I've an idea that the Colonel is short of cash. I think he needs these cattle and needs them bad."

"Is that why you don't intend to brand any of them now?"

'Tes, it is," Hopalong said quietly. "Look, Pike. We've been hired for a job. We both have an idea that Tredway may try to run us out of here about the time we get our five hundred head. He won't pay for less, but if he can run us off here before then, he won't have to pay for any.