The Black Muldoon Read online

  One thing at least was in his favor if he had guessed the route of Lanning. The fugitive would hold Sally back for a long chase, not thinking that the marshal would run his horses out in the first twenty miles, but that was exactly what Dozier would do. At the end of the twenty miles, the fresh mounts from Long Bridge would be waiting for his men.

  The first light of dawn came when they labored over the crest of the range, and as they pitched down toward the plain below, he picked out his men with shrewd glances. No one had joined who was not sure of his endurance or of his ability with weapons, for men knew that the trail of Andrew Lanning would not be child’s play, no matter what the odds. Dozier gauged them carefully and nodded his content.

  A strange happiness rose in him. This was the continuation, after so long a gap, of the pursuit in which he had ridden Gray Peter to death in the chase of Sally and the outlaw. And this second time he could not fail. It was not man against man, or horse against horse, but the law against a criminal who must die.

  If only he had been right in his guess as to Lanning’s direction! When the dawn brightened, he saw, far away across the plain, a solitary dark spot. He fastened his glasses on the moving object and made sure. Then he swept the lower slopes of the hills and found the huddling group of fresh horses that had been sent out from Long Bridge.

  The marshal communicated his tidings to the men, and with a yell, they spurred on the last of the first relay.

  XII

  They changed horses and saddles swiftly, eager to be off on the fresh run. The marshal sent back to Long Bridge a message to telephone ahead to Glenwood to send out a fresh relay that must wait anywhere under the foot of the Cumberlands. Then he spurred on after his men.

  Freshly mounted, they were urging their horses on at a killing pace, and presently the small form of Lanning began to come back to them slowly and surely. Twenty weary miles were behind Sally, and she could not stand against this new challenge. Yet stand she did! A fabulous tale at which he had often laughed came back to the marshal’s mind, a tale of some half-bred Arabian pony that had done a hundred miles through mountains between twilight and dawn. But the endurance of Sally seemed to make the tale possible.

  By the time the day was bright and the light could be seen flashing on the silken flanks of Sally, they had drawn perilously close to her, but from that point on she began to increase her lead. Once or twice in the morning, the marshal stopped his own mount for a breath, and when he trained his glasses on the great mare, he could see her running smoothly, evenly, with none of the roll and lurch in her stride that tells of the weary horse. And then he called to his men and urged them to save the strength of their mounts. The greatest speed over the greatest distance, between that point and the first hills of the Cumberlands, that was what was wanted. There the second relay, which would surely run Lanning into the ground, would be waiting. That was fifteen miles away, and the blue Cumberlands were rolling vast and beautiful into the middle of the sky.

  Toward the end of the stretch they had to send their ponies on at a killing pace, for Sally was slowly and surely drawing away. A sturdy gray dropped with a broken heart before that run was over, and still Sally went on to a greater lead and disappeared into the first hills of the Cumberlands.

  But five minutes later the posse, weary, drawn-faced, ferociously determined, was on the fresh horses from Glenwood. They scattered out in a long line and charged the hills where Lanning had disappeared. Presently someone on the far left caught sight and drew in the others with a yell. That was the beginning of the hottest part of the struggle.

  Nearly forty miles of running lay behind her, but Sally drew now on some mysterious reserve of strength that only those who know the generous hearts of fine horses can vaguely understand. The hilly country, too, was in her favor, and she took short cuts as nimbly as a goat. In spite of that, they pressed closer and closer. Before the middle of the morning came the crisis. Hal Dozier came in distant range, halted his horse, pitched his rifle to his shoulder, and tried three shots.

  They fell wide of the mark. After half an hour more of riding, he called for a volley. It was given with a will. Dozier, watching through his glass like a general directing artillery fire, saw the hat jump and fall lopsided on the head of Lanning, and yet he did not fall, but turned in his saddle. Three times his rifle spoke in quick succession, and three little puffs of rock dust jumped before three of the men of the posse. Dozier cursed in admiration.

  “It’s his way of telling us that he could have potted the three of you if he had wanted,” he said. “Now spread out and ride like the wind.”

  They spread out and spurred obediently, fighting their horses up the slopes, which increased in difficulty, for they were nearing the heart of the Cumberlands. Sally still drifted just outside of close rifle fire. And eventually, about noon, she began to gain again. Hal Dozier shook his head in despair. Plainly the gallant mare must be traveling on her nerve strength alone, but how long it would last no one could tell.

  He called his men back to a steady pace. They could only hope to get at Lanning now by wearing him down and reaching him by night. Certainly Sally would not last so long as that.

  The afternoon came unendurably hot, with the men drooping and drowsy in their saddles from the long ride. It was at this time that they were jerked erect by the clang of three rapid shots, echoing a little distance ahead of them. They rounded the shoulder of the next hill hastily and saw the glistening form of Sally disappearing over a crest beyond, but in the hollow beneath them stood a horse with empty saddle, and the rider was lying prone beside it, his face exposed to the burning of the sun. Hal Dozier headed the rush into the hollow and dismounted.

  It was Scottie who lay there, and Scottie had ridden his last ride. He begged for water feebly, but after it was given to him, he spoke more clearly, and they made a futile pretext of binding his wounds. One bullet had smashed his right shoulder. The other had pierced his body below the lungs, and he was in agony from it, but he made no complaint. Death was coming quickly on him. Hal Dozier hurried the posse on and remained holding the head of the dying man.

  “It was Lanning,” murmured Scottie. “We blew the safe, Hal, and we planted Lanning’s coat there to fix the blame on him. Then we started out.”

  “You were the four men on horses,” said the marshal. “But how did you keep ahead of Sally? And why did Lanning take after you?”

  “We used Allister’s old gag,” said Scottie. “We planted relays before we turned the trick. Then we lit out in a semicircle. But Lanning … he must have known that we turned that trick and threw the blame on him … remembered that we had an old meeting place up yonder in the Cumberlands. And while we rode in an arc, he cut across in a straight line from Martindale, and Sally brought him up to us.

  “We saw him following. We could see you following Andy. A game of tag, eh? The devil played against us, however. I cursed Sally till my throat was dry. There’s no wear -out to that mare. She kept coming on at us. Finally we drew up and gave our nags a breath and drew straws to see who should go back and try to pot Lanning. I got the short straw, and I went back. Well, it was a game of tag, and I’m it.” He added after a moment: “But while it lasted … a great game. S’long, Hal.”

  He died without a murmur of pain, without a convulsion of face or body, and to the very end, he kept an iron grip on himself.

  Hal Dozier rode like mad to the posse and communicated his tidings. The real criminals rode far beyond. The man they chased was acting the part of a skirmisher. They must ride now, not to kill Lanning, but to keep him from being overpowered by the numbers.

  It was a singular goal for that posse, but they were sharpened by the phrase: “The last of old Allister’s gang.”

  They rode hard, using the last strength of their horses. Two hours wore on, but there was no sight of Sally again. It was a strange predicament. The more they pressed on Lanning, the more he would struggle to escape and close on the real criminals. And yet they could n
ot desist and leave odds of three-to-one against him.

  At last they were riding over gravel and hard rock that gave no trail to follow. Suddenly a second fusillade made them spur their horses on. The crackling of guns had been far away, only a gust of wind had blown the sound to them, showing how hopelessly they had been distanced. They urged their sweating horses on in the ominous silence that followed the firing. Then the neighing of a horse guided them.

  They climbed to a ridge, and on the shoulder below them, in a natural theater rimmed by great rocks, they saw the picture. The gaunt, horrible body of Larry la Roche lay propped against the rocks, his long arms spread out beside him. Clune was curled up on his side nearby, with the gravel scuffed away where he had struggled in the death agony. In the center of the terrible little stage lay no less a person than Lefty Gruger, gaping at the sky, and across him lay the body of him who had worked all this death, Andrew Lanning. Above him, trembling with weariness, stood beautiful Sally, neighing for help till the mountainside reechoed.

  Not a man spoke as they went down the slope.

  The whole thing was perfectly clear. The gang, hard pressed by their terrible antagonist, had turned back and waylaid him, taking ambush behind these rocks. When he came down, they had shot him from his horse. It was while he was falling, perhaps, and while he lay on the ground that they had rushed him, but the revolver of Lanning had come out, and this was its work. The first bullet had slain the grim la Roche, and the second had curled up Clune. The head of Lefty Gruger had been smashed with a stroke of the butt as he came running to close quarters.

  They lifted the form of the conqueror from the body of Lefty Gruger, and the marshal, with his face pressed to the breast of Andy, caught the faint flutter of the heart.

  Only then they set about the work of first aid, and they started with a sort of fierce determination, hard- eyed and drawn- lipped. The marshal cursed them as they worked, telling them briefly the true story of Andrew Lanning, which they would never believe before. And now, it seemed, he had given his life for them.

  It was a dubious matter indeed. The bullet that had knocked him from his horse had whipped through his thigh. Another had broken his left arm, and a third—and this was the dangerous one—had plowed straight through his body. When his breathing became perceptible, a red bubble rose to his lips. Somewhere that bullet had touched the lungs, and now the matter of life or death was as uncertain as the flip of a coin.

  They could not dream of removing him. He must be brought back to life or die on the spot, and they worked like madmen, throwing a shelter against sun and wind above him, bedding him soft in saddle blankets and fir boughs, washing the wounds and bandaging them.

  “Get the doctor from Glenwood,” said Hal Dozier to his messengers, “and get Anne Withero … she’s in Martindale. Let the doc come as fast as he can, but make Anne Withero come like the wind.”

  * * * * *

  The doctor was there before dark, and he shook his head.

  Anne Withero was there before midnight, and she set her teeth.

  At dawn the doctor admitted there was a ghost of a hope. At noon he declared for a fighting chance. In the twilight Andy Lanning parted his stained lips and whispered into the ear of Anne Withero: “The bad strain, dear … I think they’ve let it out.”

  The Two-Handed Man

  With the exception of two serials, all of Frederick Faust’s published output in 1932—twenty-three short novels and fourteen serials—appeared in Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine, his primary market from 1921 through 1933. “The Two-Handed Man” was published in the issue dated December 3, 1932, under Faust’s George Owen Baxter byline. The story deals with the theme of the redeemed outlaw, one of Faust’s favorites.

  I

  When Jimmy reached the top of the hill, the wind and rain came at him across the valley with such a roar that his horse turned, cowering, but Jimmy squinted his eyes against the stinging and beating of the rain and stared down into the hollow. Like water, the pale evening and the storm filled the ravine.

  Through the twilight he could see the glimmer of a town down there, and suddenly a craving struck him mightily for hotcakes and maple syrup, and coffee with real milk in it. He knew that he would be a fool to go into the town. Its name might be unknown to him, but he was probably well enough known to it. Men with a money reward hanging over their heads are quickly enough recognized. The newspapers see to that, and placards in post offices and other public buildings.

  When money is hard to come by, why shouldn’t the active fellows who are quick on the trigger look out for the odd chance? A bullet costs very little. In the case of Jimmy Bristol, it would bring home a reward of just over $5,000, to say nothing of the fame.

  That was why Jimmy Bristol waited there with the rain volleying to smoke against the rubber face of his slicker. He dreaded the force of the law. He feared the many hands that might serve it down there where the lights were twinkling. But his craving for hotcakes and syrup, and coffee with real milk in it, was altogether too much for him.

  For three months he had cooked his own food and boiled his own coffee. A good deal of that food had been toasted rabbit and mountain grouse. Tempting fare, you say. But that’s because you have not been forced to live on it.

  Now he turned the chestnut suddenly down into the valley and jogged it into the town. The ruts were full of water that was flung up from the cup of a forehoof now and then and splashed as high as the knee. Once a pair of riders went crashing by him, suddenly appearing and suddenly disappearing through the penciled grayness of rain that filled the air.

  He passed windows that were covered with ten thousand little, starry eyes, where the lamplight inside was broken up by the drops that adhered to the glass panes. It was the supper hour, and many odors of cookery came out to him.

  Far away and long ago, centuries distant from him, he had known the sweetness of ginger cookies. He knew how they breathed forth fragrance from a deep tin pan where they were kept in the pantry. It made him think of the taste of them as he sensed that odor again now. Tell me, what is as good as cold, fresh milk and ginger cookies?

  There was many a flavor of bacon on the air, too. There always is, in Western cookery. Bacon runs through the kitchen work more than prayer runs through the air of a church. And he knew the smell of frying steaks, too, with some of the grease burning and the rest bubbling in the hot pan. Other scents were strong, such as cabbage boiling, onions frying. They all drew out in the heart of Jimmy Bristol various stops of emotion and great, crashing chords of desire.

  Well, the safe, honest men, they could remain at home and enjoy such delicacies as liver and bacon—strange how he always had hated that estimable dish—but he, Jimmy Bristol, had time in this town for no more than hotcakes and coffee—with real milk in it.

  He found two desired opportunities close to one another—one was a livery stable, and the other was a lunch counter. So he rode straight in through the big double doors of the stable and heard the hoofbeats of his horse sound muffled on the floor, made pulpy by the treading of countless iron shoes. The rain roared on the roof, high up and far away, and the rain crashed in the street, nearer at hand.

  When he dismounted, the fall and the upsplash of that rain made a shining mist before the eyes of Jimmy Bristol.

  A stable attendant came toward him, wearing rubber boots, a shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders, and the suspenders holding his trousers worn outside the shirt. He held a big sponge in his hand, as though he had just come from washing down some buggy or buckboard. Jimmy Bristol looked curiously at him. He never could quite understand what made men work for wages—certainly he never could comprehend how a fellow would be willing to take on the night shift in a livery stable.

  “Yeah?” greeted the man with the sponge.

  “This horse of mine is tuckered out a little,” said Bristol.

  “Yeah.” The stableman nodded.

  “And I’ve got to be moving on before long. Got a
ny good horses for sale here?”

  “Yeah,” said the stableman.

  “Show me the three best, beginning with the best of the three,” said Jimmy Bristol.

  “Yeah,” said the stableman.

  He led the way to a box stall and opened the door. There was a brown mare inside, with dark points all around.

  But Bristol did not even step into the stall to make a closer examination. His knowing eye had looked for and found the faults immediately.

  “That’s a good mare,” he said. “That mare can carry weight, and she can run fast. But she can’t go far. There’s not much room for a heart in her under the cinches.”

  The stableman looked askance at him. He started toward the next box, but Jimmy Bristol called him back.

  “If that’s your best, I’ll take your word for it and not look at the second best. You can start in working on this chestnut, will you?”

  “Yeah,” said the stableman.

  “I’ll be back here in about fifteen minutes. Give her a swallow of water, put her in a stall, and pass out a feed of oats. You have some good, clean oats?”

  “Yeah,” said the stableman. He hooked a thumb under his suspenders and snapped the elastic against his swelling chest.

  “While she’s eating those oats, never stop working on her. Rub her down. Do you know how to rub a horse down?”

  “Yeah,” said the stableman.

  “And really work your thumb under the muscles?”

  “Yeah,” said the stableman. And this time there was a faint glint of interest in his eyes.

  “Well, start working now, and keep on working,” said Jimmy Bristol. “Peel the saddle right off her, and start in working hard on her. Here’s a dollar for your work. I’ll pay the other bill when I come for her.”