Valley of Outlaws Page 5

  “Are you going to hold up everybody in the room?” Kitty Bowen was asking of her new partner.

  “Me?” asked the outlaw, in a surprised manner. “Why, I just came down for a dance and a chat. I’ve been thinking about you a good deal.”

  “The music is getting very bad,” observed Kitty.

  “We’ll shake ’em up a little,” said the outlaw, and, as they were passing the orchestra stand at that moment, he waved cheerfully at the musicians.

  They stood up of one accord, as though a gun had been swung in their direction. The music staggered almost to a close, and then it began again with a fresher and a truer swing than ever, as though those men of art, in appreciation of a brand new situation, were rising to it with all their will and skill.

  There were few dancers on the floor, now; the merrymakers were huddled together in the corners. And great was the buzz of excitement that rose, as questions were asked and answers hazarded, about Terry Shawn and his lovely partner.

  “I’ve got about half a minute left,” said Terry Shawn. “The sheriff is coming to, and he’ll have his guns out, pretty soon. I had a question to ask you, Kitty. That’s why I came.”

  She nodded. Her head was turned to the side and raised a little; she seemed to be looking into the distance with absent eyes. She seemed to Shawn neither frightened, nor embarrassed, nor happy, but merely thoughtful.

  “I want to know about Sky Pilot,” he said.

  “Sky Pilot?”

  “I mean the horse.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Where does he hang out with the Mexican?” asked Shawn.

  “José has rented a lot from Jud Makin, and he keeps the chestnut there. What do you want with him, Terry?”

  “I’ve got to make a present to a friend,” he said rather inaccurately.

  “Did you have to come into the dance hall to ask that question?” she asked.

  “I’ve sat with you, walked with you, talked with you, Kitty, but I’ve never danced with you,” he said by way of explanation. “Besides, I wanted to ask you another question. When can I see you again?”

  “I never leave the valley,” she said.

  “That’s what the dog said to the wolf.”

  “Yes, they want you,” she said quietly. “Will they ever have you, Terry?”

  “Someday they’ll have me. But I ought to have a few years left before they do.”

  “Not if you keep coming to dances,” she warned him.

  “It depends on where I have to go to find you.”

  “I’m going riding tomorrow,” said Kitty.

  “Which way?”

  “Up Lawson Creek.”

  “What time?”

  “Oh, about nine in the morning.”

  “That’s a funny thing,” he said. “I was going to go riding up Lawson Creek myself at that same time.”

  She turned her eyes straight toward his at that, and looked brightly up to him, then she smiled, and the heart of Terence Shawn contracted and then expanded so wildly that all the hanging lanterns in the hall blurred together before his eyes, and the music was multiplied in his ears as though it were the straining of great martial trumpets.

  “You’d better jump,” said the quiet voice of the girl. “They’ve blocked the doors, but you could get out of that window, there.”

  “How far is it to the ground?”

  “Thirty feet, but there’s a shed roof just under the window.”

  “So long, Kitty. It was a grand dance,” said Shawn joyously.

  “So long, Terry. I’m glad you came,” she said as he slipped from her.

  The sheriff had endured inaction long enough, and now he was coming for Shawn, his ready guns glimmering wickedly in the lantern light, and everyone was silent except one girl who had begun to scream hysterically.

  Terence Shawn dodged through the crowd, and over their heads he tossed a little knot of banknotes into the midst of the musicians. He leaped up, caught the lower sill of the high window, and swung himself up into the gap.

  He stood up against the blackness of the outer night and threw one glance before him at the sloping roof of the shed, then one glance behind him, where the sheriff stood with guns poised, shouting to him to surrender.

  Fire jetted from the muzzle of one of those guns, and a tinkling shower of glass fell around Shawn. Then he jumped, struck the roof, rolled forward, head over heels, and barely caught the outer rain gutter in time to check his fall. The nails worked loose. The gutter stripped off the edge of the roof with a noisy screech, but Shawn had dropped lightly on his feet to the ground below.

  Chapter Nine

  When Shawn struck the ground outside, he had no great amount of time left to get away. He had barely located the spot at which he had stationed his horse, when the rear door of the hall was cast open by the sheriff, who was cursing savagely, because of his long and violent efforts to force it. The shaft of light fell fully, in a wide wedge, upon slender Terry Shawn, and the oaths of the sheriff turned to a wild shout of joy.

  He should have fired instead, and saved a split part of a second, for, in that precious fraction of time, Shawn leaped to the side into enveloping darkness, with two bullets winging wickedly close to his ears.

  Then he sprinted for his horse and leaped into the saddle. A good horse needs no spur, at such a time. The fear and the need of its rider send a quiver of fright and eagerness through its body. So, the instant that he felt the weight of Shawn in the stirrups, the gelding was running, and fighting for his head.

  Straight out from Lister he raced, and not until there was a mile of darkness between them and the confused lights of the town did Shawn at last manage to get his mount in hand. When that happened, he swung around in a sharp curve that brought him, almost in a straight line, back to the village. Trotting his horse softly on, he paused twice in the shelter of brush, and watched rushing bands of riders storm through the night, beating wildly out from Lister. He knew why they rode, and he laughed at their speed. The more of them who mounted and galloped out, the easier would be the task that lay before him.

  He knew where the fields of Jud Makin lay, and to them he went. There, at the head of the town, where the houses thinned and changed to infrequent dottings on the landscape, there was a little shack beside the river, and, as Shawn slackened his pace and went on more slowly than before, he heard before him a clear masculine voice, raised in song, and the tinkling of a guitar. He bent his head; the voice sang in Spanish. He drew closer—Spanish, to be sure—and learned that the song was a ballad of the incredible exploits of a bold brigand and his lucky adventures with the purses of men and the honor of women.

  Down the bank by the edge of the stream, he threw the reins of the horse and went from it toward the shack, pausing again and again, and circling until he made sure that the noise of the musical instrument was coming to him from the farther side of the shack. When he was sure of that, he went forward more confidently, and presently he was creeping along the side of the little shanty.

  He found the Mexican sprawled in the doorway, his guitar in his lap, his head against the doorjamb, his black hair falling back from his pale face, which was turned toward the stars.

  The song ended. “And what do you think of it?” asked the voice of José.

  Shawn bit his lip. This one rascal was apt to give him plenty of trouble, but if he had a companion, the work might be almost impossible. Say what men will about the courage or the lack of courage of a Mexican, in the night he makes a very efficient fighter, if he is a fighting man at all. And Terry Shawn knew all about the potentialities of the Mexican who now sat before him. There was no more dangerous man on the southern side of the Río Grande, and hardly three on the northern side, for that matter.

  There was no answer, immediately, to the remark of José, and the latter snarled: “Tell me, devil, what do you think of it? Answer me.” Still not a voice replied. Then José caught up a blacksnake, and its sinuous body curled and whisked out of sight as he s
napped it. “Speak to me! For you can speak if you wish to. Speak to me, child of the raw north wind and a sandstorm. Ugly soul of tequila, poison heart, witch, will you answer me?”

  It turned the blood of the white man cold to hear him. It was hard to imagine that a second man was inside the shack, but it might well be a woman who dared not stand up to this brute.

  The fingers of Terry Shawn began to twitch, and he crouched a little in his deep disgust and anger.

  “No,” said José in a greater passion than before. “You will not speak. Not here, not now. You save your words. But when the right day comes, then you will speak. When you think that you can conquer me, devil. But you are wrong . . . always I am your master. I take you in my hand, I bend you, and I make you what I will. Ha! Stand over and give more room to my thoughts, in there.” With that, he turned on his elbow and struck savagely into the darkness.

  The answer was a snort and a heavy trampling, and the heart of Shawn was partly relieved and partly thrilled with wonder. It was the horse that lived inside the shanty!

  “José,” he said.

  The Mexican turned as a cat turns when a dog comes suddenly around a corner upon it. He looked venomously up at Shawn, his lean, ugly face all twined with malice and with terror.

  “Sí, sí,” he answered, after he had run his eyes over the slender, well-poised form of the outlaw. “Who are you? I am José, but who are you?”

  “There’s my card,” said the outlaw, and he dropped a $5 bill into the lap of the Mexican.

  The latter clutched it, then he stumbled to his feet. His sullen voice turned to an easy and droning gush of courtesy. “I understand, señor,” he said. “There are two fortunes for men. There is a fortune by day and there is a fortune by night. Señor, perhaps, has tried already by day. Now he wishes to try the other half of his luck. Is it so?” He drew closer, and his laughter bubbled with unhealthy pleasure.

  Shawn stepped back. “Get the horse out,” he said. “Throw a saddle on him, and let me have my fling. If I ride him, he’s mine, eh?”

  “If you ride him” repeated the Mexican, disappearing into the shack. Presently he was heard alternately cursing the horse, and chuckling. “If you ride the horse, he is a present to you. You shall take him and be happy with him, friend,” he said, smiling, as he led the chestnut into the starlight.

  Certainly, in the hands of José, Sky Pilot had not deteriorated in condition. He had had the best of food, or else never would his coat have shone in such fashion; he had had a sufficient share of hard exercise, also, given by those who had paid for their chances to ride him, first with dollars, and then with broken bones.

  Only in spirit had he altered from the gentle-mouthed and star-eyed creature on which the outlaw had descended like the wind from the mountains. Indeed that very lack of spirit was what had caused Shawn to misjudge the capabilities of the animal. A little more iron in the soul of the stallion, and he would have guessed the value of what he had ridden that other night. But now, with his ears pricking slowly forward or else quivering back, tight against his head, his eyes glittering, and his feet reaching and pawing uncertainly, he looked the very spirit of evil, and treachery, and danger.

  “Amigo,” said the outlaw, “tell me why you hate this horse?”

  “I have such reasons,” said the other “that I have made a song out of them. One day I’ll sing it for you, perhaps.”

  He stopped suddenly short, but it was not difficult for the white man to get the implication. Perhaps, when he lay, smashed and broken against the ground, long sick and slowly recovering, there would be a chance for him to hear the song of the Mexican, in which the story of Sky Pilot was told at length.

  Terry Shawn took thought with some gravity. If, in fact, he were thrown and hurt so badly that he could not get away from the place, the law would soon have him in its arms. He never could trust to this treacherous José to take care of him and nurse him loyally back to health and strength again.

  “Stand him out here,” he commanded.

  With a half hitch taken cruelly deep and hard in the upper lip of the chestnut, José stood the horse in the required spot, where the starlight shimmered more brightly over him.

  “He’s a devil,” whispered Shawn to himself.

  “He is, señor,” said the Mexican eagerly. “And who would not like to have a devil for a slave? Who would not like, señor, to cross mountains and deserts on wings, eh?”

  “But you, José, who would love to rule a devil so well, why don’t you ride him yourself, then?”

  “I have ridden him,” said José sadly. “But cannot give the same life twice. It can only be sold once.”

  “Now, what do you mean by that?” asked Shawn, perplexed.

  “My meaning is clear. No? Let it go, then, for the important thing is that you should ride the horse, señor . . . or else take your fall. Do you see? You have all this field to circle in. That fence is so high that even he cannot jump it, yet. If he does not buck you off, or rub you off against the fence, then it will be well with you, señor. You shall have him. Begin, señor. Begin!”

  “Hold his head, then,” said the outlaw sternly and crisply. “I’ll ride him unless he bucks his jacket off. Are those cinches strong?”

  “They are, señor. Try them.”

  “If one of ’em breaks, or a stirrup gives way with me, I’ll have a gun on you while I’m falling, José, and I’ll send your sneaking yellow soul to the place where it belongs. Hold his head now.’’

  With a single bound, he was in the saddle and had swept the reins into his hand.

  The Mexican, in the meantime, had leaned far forward. Now he threw up his hands with a groan that was half fear and half rage.

  “It is Señor Shawn!” he cried. “Oh, devil, now you have met your match!”

  Chapter Ten

  The exclamation of José seemed, in part, joyous at the thought that the chestnut was now, perhaps, to be mastered, and in part it seemed angry because the end of his money-making seemed in sight.

  Shawn had but the slightest glimpse of that play of emotions in the face of the Mexican. The next moment, Sky Pilot took control and went straight forward, not like a horse about to show his paces as a skilled bucker, but rather like a racer off the mark, his head thrust out, his ears flattened close to his head, his quarters sinking with the power and the lengthening of his stride.

  But Shawn gathered that trouble was ahead. He settled himself more deeply in the saddle, although the rapid vibrations of a running horse are the most unsettling thing in the world. The temptation is to rise in the stirrups, lean forward, and let the long loin muscles whip freely back and forth as the horse gallops. But Shawn settled deeper and secured his knee-grip by turning in his toes a little, throwing all the power of the thigh muscles inside the leg. He was gripping hard, and yet, like a perfect horseman, he was giving himself to the motion of the run. He sat strongly, but not rigidly, and waited for the shock.

  It came, but not exactly as he had expected. The chestnut left the ground in a broad jump, but he twisted himself a little to the side, and then came down with arched back, dropped head, and rigid legs. So mighty was the impact that the hoofs cut through the hard soil like plowshares—so clean was the impact, that Terry Shawn went numb of brain. Even then, he would have stuck in his place, had it not been that the little twist at the end of the leap acted upon him like a fiendish leverage. He was literally peeled from the saddle and hurled violently through the air.

  He might have broken his neck from a fall of half that force, but Terry Shawn knew all about the fine art of falling. One should not sprawl, and yet one should be loose. The instinct is to go face down, with fending arms thrust out. But Terry Shawn knew that one must turn the side first, the back if possible, and hit with a roll.

  Hard to think of such things when being hurled from a bucking horse. But, after all, if he had not been able to crowd a great deal of thinking into the split part of a second, he never would have been what he was. He
struck the ground, rolling, and his fall carried him spinning under the lower bar of the fence.

  More than half stunned, his wits reeling, still he was conscious of a shadow leaping after him, of hoofs that beat against the rails, and of a cloud of dust swept over him, and he half stopped his breathing.

  It was the chestnut, which had come after him with a tigerish ferocity, and then, realizing that this man could not be reached, went tearing off around the corral, head raised as he eyed the top bar.

  But that fence was not only insurmountable, it was beyond all consideration for jumping, and had been built for that reason, especially. Sometimes a fresh-caught wild horse will try the impossible and hang himself over a rail, but not the most frantic horse in the world would dream of tackling this barrier.

  Yet the Mexican, hurrying up, rope in hand, went with an anxious step. He cursed and berated the horse as he advanced, and Shawn, sitting up with staggering brain, heard a speech somewhat as follows: “Son of a devil, you have won again, but you have not beaten me. I come again, and I bring my rope with me. Listen to it, my beautiful. This is music. You have heard it before. You cannot escape. Dance and pound upon the ground, but you won’t smash me. You are afraid, my pretty one, because you see the rope in my hand.”

  The eyes of Shawn cleared a little; he staggered to his feet. And now he saw José advancing with outstretched arms, a coil of rope in either hand, feinting first one and then with the other, while the chestnut backed, and pranced, and danced, looking satanically savage, and quite aware of the danger before him.

  He plunged suddenly to the right; the left hand of the Mexican feinted. The horse whirled, and instantly José cast from his other hand. But it seemed that the chestnut had nerves of thought, and muscles of rubber, for he spun about again, and, leaping from under the evil whisper of the rope, he galloped off to the farther end of the enclosure.

  José, gathering his rope again into his hands, laughed harshly. “I am coming, nevertheless,” he assured the high-headed stallion. “Run from me, and you run from your shadow. You cannot escape from me, my beauty. Steady, therefore. Stand patiently. Put out your head for your master.”