The Range Detectives Page 11

  “That’s right. The killer may have made up the plan on the spur o’ the moment when he spotted Martin and the others comin’, but it worked just like the varmint wanted. He gunned down Abel Dempsey and framed you for the killin’.” Trenches appeared in Stovepipe’s weathered cheeks as he added, “That’s a pretty good day’s work for a murderer.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Stovepipe walked the Appaloosa toward the boulders, with Wilbur and Dan coming along behind him. Again Stovepipe studied the ground. He saw a number of hoofprints, but there was nothing really distinctive about any of them and he knew quite a few riders had milled around here since Dempsey was shot.

  He was more interested in any tracks he might find among the boulders, but the ground was too rocky there. He spotted a few places where the stone had been nicked by a horseshoe, but they didn’t tell him anything.

  “The shot the hombre took at you from over here,” he said to Dan. “Could you tell if it came from a rifle or a handgun?”

  “A handgun, I’d say. That’s what it sounded like, and I remember thinking the range was pretty far for a handgun. I knew that when I shot back with my Colt, too, but I did it anyway. Like I said, it was just instinct to return the fire.”

  “Yeah. The varmint didn’t want to hit you, anyway. It would’ve ruined his plan if he’d killed you, because then you wouldn’t have been around to take the blame for murderin’ Dempsey.”

  Stovepipe swung down from the saddle and studied the ground more closely, then turned his attention to the boulders themselves. He wasn’t sure what he was going to find, if anything, but he hadn’t been searching for more than a minute when he spotted something caught on a rough spot on one of the big slabs of rock. He reached out to pull it loose and rubbed it lightly between his fingers.

  “What’ve you got there, Stovepipe?” asked Wilbur.

  “It’s a thread of some sort—” Stovepipe began.

  He stopped short as he felt the wind-rip of a bullet passing within inches of his ear. It slammed into the boulder and whined off, leaving behind a splash of lead. At the same time, the whipcrack of a rifle tore through the air.

  Stovepipe twisted around and reached for his gun before he remembered that his holster was empty.

  “Take cover!” he called to Wilbur and Dan as more shots slammed out. The two men leaped from their saddles. Dan wheeled around and drew the revolver he had taken from Deputy Matthews back in Hat Creek. He triggered two rounds toward the trees. From the sound of the shots directed at them, the rifleman was hidden in there.

  That distraction gave Wilbur time to haul both his and Stovepipe’s Winchesters from their saddle boots. Carrying the two rifles, he lunged toward the rocks. Dan was right behind him. Bullets sizzled through the air around them.

  “Stovepipe!” Wilbur said as he tossed one of the rifles toward his friend. Stovepipe caught the weapon and had it spitting flame and lead in an instant as he dropped to one knee behind a small boulder. Slugs ricocheted wildly as more than one man opened fire from the pines.

  Dan and Wilbur flung themselves behind the rocks, too, and had to catch their breath for a second before they could join the battle. Meanwhile Stovepipe kept up a steady fire toward the pines. His bullets rattled low-hanging branches and chewed big chunks of bark from the tree trunks.

  Wilbur rose up into a crouch, brought his rifle to his shoulder, and started firing as well. He called to Stovepipe, “Can you see any of the varmints?”

  “No, but they’re in there!” Stovepipe replied.

  Dan took a couple of fresh cartridges from the loops on his shell belt and thumbed them into the Colt’s cylinder, replacing the rounds he had fired.

  “I can’t do much good at this range,” he said. “How much ammunition do you fellas have?”

  “Maybe a dozen spare rounds in my pockets,” replied Stovepipe.

  “Yeah, same here,” Wilbur added. “We’ve got plenty of cartridges in our saddlebags, but they’re not going to do us much good where we are now.”

  That was true. The Appaloosa and Wilbur’s dun weren’t easily spooked, but enough gun-thunder had roared to make them trot off along the bluff. They had come to a stop about thirty yards away, far enough that crossing the open ground between them and the rocks would likely prove fatal for anyone who attempted it.

  “They’ve got us pinned down,” Dan said. “All they have to do is wait for us to run out of ammunition and then rush us.”

  Stovepipe looked behind him. The edge of the bluff was only ten feet away. It was a drop of twenty-five or thirty feet, depending on where along the rugged bluff a fella was.

  “Dan, is the face of that bluff rough enough that an hombre could climb down it?” he asked.

  “Probably,” Dan replied, “but if we did that, we’d have to leave our horses behind. We wouldn’t have a chance afoot. Whoever’s after us would be able to run us down without much trouble.”

  “I ain’t plannin’ to leave the horses behind. But like you said, we can’t just squat here, empty our guns, and wait for those varmints to kill us. Toss me that six-shooter o’ yours.”

  Dan frowned and said, “I don’t much cotton to the idea of being unarmed.”

  “You won’t be,” Stovepipe assured him. “I’ll slide my rifle over to you, tie up the extra shells I got in a bandanna, and throw them to you as well. You and Wilbur will be able to keep those fellas in the trees busy for a spell. Just be sure and pick your shots, so you’re not wastin’ too much lead.”

  “And what are you gonna be doing?” asked Wilbur.

  “Thought I’d take me a little scenic excursion,” replied Stovepipe with a grin. “I’m gonna climb along the face o’ that bluff until I can get up in the trees and circle around behind the bushwhackers.”

  “You’ll fall off and bust your fool noggin open!”

  “Not if I’m careful, I won’t.” Stovepipe put his Winchester on the ground and shoved it over to Dan, who was kneeling behind a boulder about fifteen feet away. The rifle slid close enough for Dan to reach out, snag the barrel, and pull it the rest of the way. Stovepipe followed it a moment later with the little bundle of extra bullets he had tied up in a neckerchief.

  Dan loaded the sixth chamber in his revolver, which customarily was kept empty, and threw it to Stovepipe, who caught it with both hands.

  “You’ve got a full wheel,” Dan told the lanky cowboy. “You want my extra shells?”

  Stovepipe shook his head and said, “If six rounds won’t do the job, it ain’t likely any more would.”

  He pouched the iron in his empty holster and went down on his belly. As he crawled backward toward the edge, Wilbur laughed and said, “You’re doodlebuggin’, Stovepipe.”

  With his legs already hanging over the brink, Stovepipe didn’t reply to that gibe. Instead he eased over the edge and searched for handholds.

  As Dan had said, the face of Apache Bluff wasn’t sheer. There were fissures, rocky knobs, the occasional hardy little bush. Stovepipe considered trying to climb all the way to the ground, but it was so rough down there he thought he might make better time working his way along just below the rim.

  Above him, shots rang out from Wilbur and Dan. They were taking their time now, trying to make the ammunition last. More shots blasted from the trees. Stovepipe tried to estimate how many gunmen might be hidden in the pines. He knew there were at least two and might be as many as four. Those weren’t very good odds, so he would have to make every bullet count.

  Assuming he ever got in position to use the borrowed revolver, he reminded himself. He had to reach the trees first, and it was slow going.

  A couple of times during the arduous journey along the bluff, he almost fell. His feet slipped, and he found himself hanging from his hands. There was a lot of strength in his wiry body, though, so he was able to cling to the precarious grip until he got his toes wedged in another crack. Slowly but surely, he came closer to the trees. When he tipped his head back, he could see the tops of
the pines sticking up above the rim.

  Finally, he was below them, and it was only a short climb to the top. Stovepipe pulled himself up and over and sprawled belly-down among fallen pine needles. Shots still boomed, close by now. He came up on hands and knees and drew the Colt, then rose lithely to his feet and pressed himself against one of the tree trunks.

  With all the stealth of one of the stalking Apaches who had given the bluff its name, Stovepipe slipped through the growth toward the bushwhackers. He heard a horse whicker and stamp somewhere not far away. A moment later, an empty rifle clicked, and a man cursed.

  “We never should have given them a chance to fort up in those rocks,” he said in a harsh voice.

  “Well, it’s not like we were trying to,” another man said impatiently. “If we’d been able to kill Hartford and those other two gents, whoever they are, we could wrap up this whole thing.”

  Stovepipe stayed where he was, barely breathing, as he eavesdropped on the would-be killers. It was possible they would hand him all the information he needed to figure this out, right on a silver platter.

  Or maybe not, because just as that thought went through his head, another man yelled, “Hey!” and a gun blasted. Splinters of pine bark stung Stovepipe’s cheek as a bullet slammed into the tree trunk only inches from his head.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Stovepipe pivoted and saw a man charging toward him. The gun in the man’s fist blasted again. Stovepipe felt the bullet tug at his vest as he dropped to one knee and drew the revolver he had borrowed from Dan Hartford. That gun got around a lot, from Brock Matthews to Dan and now to him, thought Stovepipe as the weapon roared and bucked against his palm when he triggered it.

  The slug smashed into the attacker’s right shoulder, likely shattering it. The hombre howled in pain as the bullet’s impact knocked him halfway around. His gun went flying. He dropped to his knees and then fell the rest of the way to the ground, where he lay writhing.

  Underbrush crashed as the other bushwhackers trampled through it. One of them shouted, “Lonnie!” Stovepipe figured that was the man he’d just shot.

  He stood up and darted over to another tree just as two men with rifles came in sight. They spotted him at the same time and opened fire. Stovepipe crouched, thrust the gun barrel past the rough-barked trunk, and squeezed off another shot. One of the bushwhackers yelped but didn’t seem to be hurt badly, considering how spry he was as he jumped for cover.

  Stovepipe caught a glimpse of a trailing foot and risked another shot. The man who belonged to that foot screamed as the bullet tore through his boot and smashed his ankle to bits. He toppled out from behind the pine where he had taken cover. Stovepipe could have killed him easily then, but the lanky cowboy held his fire. The man was in too much agony to be much of a threat.

  That appeared to leave just one of the bushwhackers, and the man didn’t seem eager to risk exposing himself to Stovepipe’s deadly accurate fire. He called, “Lonnie! Pete! Can you get to the horses? Let’s get the hell outta here!”

  Stovepipe pressed himself to the tree trunk and grinned. He had only three rounds left and didn’t hanker to continue this battle, either. On the other hand, if he was able to capture at least one of these varmints, it could bust the whole thing wide open. Cheap gun-wolves tended to spill their guts, especially when they were facing the threat of a hangrope.

  That wasn’t going to be the case here, however. The unwounded member of the trio opened fire again, and he must have known which tree Stovepipe was hidden behind. He concentrated his fire there, slamming bullet after bullet into the trunk until there was a veritable shower of splinters filling the air. Stovepipe didn’t dare budge from his concealment.

  When the shooting stopped and he risked a look again, he saw that both of the men he had shot were no longer where they had fallen. They had managed to crawl or hop to where their horses were hidden.

  A moment later, a sudden rataplan of hoofbeats confirmed that theory. The bushwhackers were making their escape, and there wasn’t a blessed thing Stovepipe could do to stop them.

  He was still alive and with a whole skin, though, and he hoped Wilbur and Dan were in the same shape. From the sound of the shots that were still ringing out from the rocks, that was the case.

  “Hey, fellas, hold your fire!” shouted Stovepipe. “I think the bushwhackin’ polecats are gone!”

  “Stovepipe, are you all right?” called Wilbur.

  “Yeah. Stay where you are and let me do a little scoutin’.”

  For the next few minutes he stalked through the trees, the gun in his hand ready for instant use if he needed it.

  That wasn’t necessary. The would-be killers were gone. And he and his friends needed to rattle their hocks, too, thought Stovepipe, because it was possible there were Box D cowboys within earshot, and they would be coming to see what all the gunfire was about.

  Stovepipe trotted out of the trees and headed for the boulders. Wilbur and Dan emerged from the rocks at the same time, and the three of them met in the middle of the open area where Dan had found Abel Dempsey’s body a couple of days earlier.

  “Let’s round up those hosses and get outta here,” Stovepipe said as he traded the Colt for the Winchester Dan held.

  As he reloaded the revolver, Dan said, “Sorry I shot up all those cartridges you gave me, Stovepipe.”

  “That’s all right. There’re more in my saddlebags, and you kept those dry-gulchers busy while I was climbin’ along that bluff like a dang monkey.”

  “Did you get a look at those fellas?” asked Wilbur as they walked toward the horses.

  “I caught a glimpse of a couple of ’em, but it didn’t do me any good. Never seen either of them before, leastways not that I recall. And I got a good memory for faces. They looked like run-o’-the-mill hard cases to me, though. I heard a couple of names. Lonnie and Pete. Those mean anything to you, Dan?”

  The young cowboy shook his head.

  “No. I’ve known a few fellas named Pete, but none around here. And I don’t think I’ve ever met a Lonnie. Why would they want to kill us? You think maybe they were members of a search party from Hat Creek? Some of Sheriff Olsen’s temporary deputies?”

  “Could be, I suppose,” said Stovepipe. “But it’s more likely they’re tied in with whoever’s responsible for Abel Dempsey’s murder.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  They had reached the horses, and Stovepipe didn’t answer until he and his two companions had caught the animals and swung up into their saddles again.

  Then Stovepipe said, “My hunch is that those three varmints were keepin’ an eye on the place where Dempsey was killed on the chance that you’d come back here and look for evidence to clear your name . . . which is exactly what happened, of course. That was pretty smart of ’em. If they killed you, after you’d been arrested for Dempsey’s murder and then broke jail, that’d tie everything up with a pretty little bow. Everybody around here would just accept that you killed Dempsey, and that’d be that.”

  “Which means the real killer would get away with it,” added Wilbur. “Yeah, that makes sense, Stovepipe. And it means that whoever shot Dempsey wasn’t acting by himself. He’s tied in with a bigger bunch.”

  Dan frowned in thought and said, “You’re talking about those rustlers.”

  “Dempsey’s the third cattleman in these parts who’s died under mysterious circumstances,” Stovepipe said. “They’re tryin’ to throw the basin into enough chaos that when they start their big roundup, there won’t be anybody able to stop them.”

  “That would take a big, well-organized gang.”

  Stovepipe nodded and said, “I reckon that’s what we’re dealin’ with.”

  “How in the world can we stop them, just the three of us?”

  “Well, it’ll be a tall order, all right,” drawled Stovepipe. “But we’ll start by seein’ if we can trail those fellas who just tried to kill us. We got to be quick about it, though. We ain’t got much ti
me.”

  They rode through the trees and searched for the tracks left behind by the fleeing bushwhackers. Stovepipe had heard the hoofbeats and knew where to look, and it didn’t take long to locate the trail.

  The sign led away from the bluff and then curved back toward it, well away from the spot where Dempsey had been killed and Stovepipe and his companions had traded shots with their mysterious enemies. After a while, Wilbur said, “They’re heading for those badlands.”

  “You said a while ago that they might be holed up in there,” Stovepipe pointed out. “Looks like you were right, Wilbur.”

  Dan said, “You mean they’ve been right here on Box D range all along?”

  “Did Dempsey run any stock in those badlands?”

  Dan shook his head and said, “No, it’s not good enough grazing land for that. It’s pretty much worthless, in fact.”

  “Unless you’re an outlaw lookin’ for a place to hide.”

  “Yeah,” Dan agreed grimly.

  The bluff began to shallow out into an easier slope. Dan led the way down an arroyo that cut through it and took them into the region of razorback ridges and dry washes.

  “This stretch is a couple of miles wide,” Dan told Stovepipe and Wilbur. “Then there’s some better range again before you come to those breaks where my camp was.”

  Wilbur said, “So this ugly bit of country was plopped down in the middle of the Box D for no good reason.”

  Stovepipe chuckled and said, “I reckon el Señor Dios had His reasons, all right, but you’d have to ask Him about that, Wilbur. Some things are beyond our understandin’.”

  “Yeah . . . like how we’ve managed to live so long when you’re all the time getting us mixed up in one shooting scrape after another.”

  “Well, you don’t have much of a chance to get bored, do you?”

  Wilbur laughed and shook his head.

  “No, you can say that for it, that’s true,” he agreed.

  They were still following the trail left by the bushwhackers, but in this rugged terrain it was getting more difficult to do so. Finally the ground became so rocky that it wouldn’t take any prints at all, and even Stovepipe had to admit defeat, though it galled him.