White Wolf's Law

CHAPTER XXII

ON SQUINT’S TRAIL

Doc Hollis’ house was at the far end of town. It was small and set quite a way back from the street. Shortly after dark that night, Allen pushed open the gate and walked up the path. On the porch he stood and listened for a moment. He had no reason to fear a trap, but his life had taught him the cautiousness of a wolf. He waited for a moment and then knocked on the door. Doc Hollis opened it, and Allen entered the small living room where he found Bill McAllister before him.

“Doc, this is the gent I tol’ yuh about,” the old horse wrangler said bluntly.

Allen shook hands with Doc and grinned a greeting. Doc Hollis was a small, rotund man with a smooth, bald head. He stared in puzzled wonder at the outlaw. It seemed impossible that this smiling, freckle-faced boy could be the most notorious gunman of all time.

Allen seemed to read his thoughts, for he said with a broad, loose grin: “I’m sure me.”

The doctor chuckled, and Bill McAllister’s leathery face broke into a fleeting smile.

“What yuh aimin’ to do?” Doc asked curiously.

“Postmaster a friend of yourn?” Allen countered.

“Frank Cragg? He sure is,” Doc answered.

“Do yuh figger he’d fake a letter – postmarks an’ the whole thing – an’ make believe it just arrived from New Mex for Squint Lane?” Allen asked.

“Reckon he would. Why?”

“Well, if he tol’ folks he had a letter which looked important for Squint, mebbe one of Squint’s friends would put a new address on it, an’ then we’d know where to look for Squint,” Allen said, grinning.

“I’m bettin’ there’s three or four of Spur’s gunmen who knows where Squint’s holdin’ out,” Doc cried excitedly.

In case the letter was opened by some friends, they carefully wrote a long epistle from a supposed friend of Squint’s in New Mexico.

“Now, Doc, there’s one other thing yuh can do. Did yuh ever stop to figger that if Slivers was blottin’ Double R cows to Double B, it’s darn funny that after he lights out there wasn’t enough cows to sell an’ pay off a measly eight hundred what he owed to ol’ Miser Jimpson.”

“Darn me – that’s true,” Bill McAllister growled.

“Sure is – an’ I never thought about it,” Doc commented.

“Then yuh start other folks a-thinkin’. Sorta hints that the gent what framed Slivers was the one what ran off his Double B cows.”

Doc persuaded Allen to wait for them; there was no use for him to run the risk of being recognized on the streets. Doc Hollis and McAllister would visit the post office and arrange about the letter, and then they would all have supper with Mrs. Hart, Slivers’ mother.

As the two walked toward the door, Allen stopped them.

“When did this rustlin’ start?” he asked.

“About six-seven months ago. Old man Reed began to suspect some one was makin’ free with his cows. He started the boys ridin’ night herd. Pretty soon a bunch of ’em runs into a gang of rustlers, an’ two of ’em, Bill Steel an’ ‘Big-foot’ gets downed. The old man knows then the rustlers is strong an’ workin’ hard, so he sends down to the border for a bunch of gunmen. But the rustlin’ goes right on – we has several night battles. Then Slivers is supposed to down Iky Small an’ lights for the hills.” McAllister concluded and cut off a large piece of black plug, which he thrust into his mouth.

“But the rustlin’ goes right on?” Allen asked.

“Correct. Then the ol’ man gets plumb crazy, ’cause his cows is bein’ run off wholesale. A little later he gets downed,” Doc cut in.

“Any rustlin’ since then?”

“The boys ain’t reported nothin’ suspicious, but there ain’t a hell of a lot of Double R cows left,” Bill McAllister said, after a moment’s thought.

“When did this here Spur Treadwell person turn up?” Allen asked.

“Now, look here, Jim, yuh’re barkin’ up the wrong tree,” Bill said warmly. “Spur ain’t got nothin’ to do with this rustlin’. ’Cause why? ’Cause didn’t he down them rustlers what gunned the old man? No gent could get away with a thing like that, ’cause tother gents workin’ for him would sure quit.”

“That’s sure correct,” Doc said gravely. “An’ didn’t Spur, after John Reed was killed, go tearin’ over to Boston Jack’s outfit ready to tear it apart. An’ he sure would have if he’d found anythin’ wrong. An’ Sandy McGill dropped one of Boston’s men. No, sir, Spur ain’t in cahoots with Boston or he could never get away with a thing like that.”

“Jim, yuh’re sure wrong about Spur,” Bill insisted. “I ain’t sayin’ he didn’t frame Slivers ’cause of Dot, but he ain’t no rustler,” Bill insisted.

Jim Allen had far more knowledge of the duplicity of which some men are capable than the other two. It was hard for him to understand how any men could be so blind. He looked at them quizzically for a moment.

“Yuh see ol’ man Reed after he was shot?” he asked unexpectedly.

“Sure – we both see him,” Doc replied. “They sent for me when he was shot, but when I reached the ranch Spur tol’ me he was dead. I was goin’ to look at him, but Spur says I couldn’t do no good an’ for me to tend to Dot.”

“Then yuh didn’t see him?” Allen asked sharply, with a touch of acute disappointment in his voice.

“Yeh, I did. Me an’ Bill, here, was his oldest friends, so we sneaked in to sorta say good-by all by ourselves, late that night,” Doc said sadly.

“An’ I’m bettin’ yuh both was mad when yuh see how he was shot to pieces.”

“We sure swore loud and plenty,” McAllister growled.

Doc Hollis stared at the outlaw, and then took two quick steps toward him.

“Most folks don’t know he was shot up bad. How’d yuh know?” he asked, as a quick suspicion entered his mind.

Allen’s face held a hopeless expression as he met the angry eyes of the older man.

“Yuh thinkin’, ’cause I claims to be a friend of Slivers – an’ as Spur says he was there, mebbe I was, too, when the old man got his?” he asked sarcastically. “That sorta proves yuh can think, but if yuh’ll recollect that Spur is now Dot’s guardian, mebbe yuh’ll see what I see.”

Doc Hollis looked from Allen to Bill McAllister. His face wore a puzzled expression. Slowly this changed to one of startled wonder and then to furious anger.

“The thing was so complete I never thinks. Damn the skulkin’ coyote! Don’t yuh see, Bill? Think! The old man couldn’t write that will after he was downed!” Doc cried excitedly.

“Hell! I sure does now – but them dead rustlers – the thing was so pat,” McAllister mumbled.

The moment when full realization of how their old friend had been foully murdered reached their minds, Allen had all he could do to keep them from dashing out and trying to exact a summary revenge. He pointed out that a hasty move would spoil everything and, little by little, calmed the two older men.

A few minutes later, the two walked out and headed toward the post office. Arriving there, they told the postmaster everything. They got an envelope and addressed it to Squint Lane. The mail came in on the stage at seven that night, and the postmaster promised to show the letter to all who came for their mail.

“Bill, yuh an’ me an’ the rest of the folks in this town is plumb blind,” Doc said sadly.

“We sure is, but Jim Allen ain’t. Do yuh know, Doc, I bet there’s a dozen men in this town what would give an arm to get a shot at his back, an’ he goes roun’ grinning like a schoolboy,” Bill remarked.

They stopped and picked up Allen at Doc’s house and continued on to Mrs. Hart’s little cottage.

She was a short, motherly looking woman with bright-blue eyes and graying sandy hair. “Lands sake, what’s the matter with the boy?” she asked.

“I got a toothache,” Allen replied.

At that she bustled about him like a hen with a lone chick. Allen played the part of the suffering boy until he caught sight of two large, brown pies on the kitchen table, when he instantly lost all interest in everything but those works of art.

“Pies! Well, I’m jiggered if it ain’t pies!” He added greedily: “Yuh aimin’ to give us a piece of that?”

“After yuh eat, yes,” Mrs. Hart replied with a smile.

“I hate to waste space,” Allen said regretfully. The two other men chuckled, and the woman shook her head.

“Yuh’re just like my boy – he was always crazy for sweets.” Her words brought bitter memories to her, and her eyes clouded.

Allen pecked at his food, and his unabashed greediness, as he cast longing glances at the pies, made the woman momentarily forget her grief at being separated from her son. At last, she could no longer stand his wistful, greedy eyes, and arose and cut him a big piece of pie. He gobbled it down before she could regain her seat. With a laugh, she cut him a second piece. As she handed it to him, there came a knock on the door. The others started, but Allen continued to eat his pie.

Mrs. Hart opened the door, and the postmaster entered at a run, bubbling with excitement.

“It sure worked. ‘Lefty’ Simms takes that letter an’ sticks it into another envelope an’ addresses it. I fishes it out. Shucks, I suppose I robbed the mails, but here she is,” he cried, as he held out the letter triumphantly.

Bill McAllister grabbed the letter, glanced at it, and then handed it to Allen, who read the address and grinned gleefully.

“Shucks! He’s way down at Brushtown, along the border,” McAllister said in disappointment.

“But Brushtown ain’t far from Cannondale, an’ I got – ”

“Whoopee, I get yuh! Yuh got friends down there,” Bill McAllister interrupted, “I betcha yuh do have, after what yuh done – ”

At Allen’s warning glance, the old-timer brought his sentence to a close with a series of coughs.

“What yuh goin’ to do?” Doc asked.

“Me? I’m aimin’ to eat another piece of pie, if Mrs. Hart will give it to me, then I’m goin’ to ride to Three Roads Junction an’ send a telegram,” Allen said carelessly.

Mrs. Hart hastily arose and cut Allen a double portion of pie. The postmaster stared at Allen with protruding eyes. He was too overcome to speak. He nudged Bill McAllister and pointed to Allen. The old horse wrangler nodded in reply.

Doc Hollis volunteered to furnish Allen with a fast horse and then hastened away to saddle it. Five minutes later, he was back again. Allen finished the pie, thanked Mrs. Hart, walked outside, mounted the waiting horse, and rode away into the night.

“He sure does things casuallike,” the doctor said admiringly.

“It’s sure him,” the postmaster said in awe.

“Yeh, but don’t go talkin’ loud,” Bill McAllister warned.

“What is it? Who is that boy?” Ma Hart asked.

“Never yuh mind that,” Doc told her seriously. “Yuh get down on your knees this night an’ pray if yuh want to see that boy of yourn again – pray as yuh never prayed afore that nothin’ happens to the White Wolf to-night.”

“Who is he? The White Wolf? What could happen to him?” the woman asked, bewildered.

Doc pointed to a picture of a man on a white horse that hung over the mantelpiece.

“Read me that there title!” he said.

Wondering, the woman read: “I saw a man on a white horse, and his name was Death!”

“That’s him!”

The other two gravely nodded their heads. The woman glanced from the picture to the three solemn faces and then back to the picture again.

Late that night Bill McAllister and Doc Hollis laughed softly to themselves. The rumor they had started was spreading like wildfire. On their way home, at least three friends stopped them and said practically the same thing:

“Yuh know, I been thinkin’. If Slivers Hart was rustlin’ cows, how come there warn’t no cows on the ranch when the sheriff seized it? It’s funny about the killin’ of John Reed – ” They all would go that far and then nod as if they could say more if they were so inclined.

“Folks is sure startin’ to think,” McAllister chuckled.

The following morning Bill McAllister was with the cavvy when Allen trotted down a slope and rode toward him.

“Yuh send it all right?” the old man asked eagerly.

“Yeh.” Allen slipped to the ground and unsaddled his horse, which was drooping from fatigue. “There is two things I wants yuh to do. Don’t tell her any more than yuh have to – ’cause she might act hopeful an’ give her hand away – but tell Dot to insult Spur Treadwell – call him names, say he ain’t nothin’ but a bull of a man an’ that she’s plumb disgusted with him. Then I wants yuh to make me night wrangler.”

With that, even before Bill McAllister could ask the reason for these requests, Allen curled up beneath a clump of brush and was asleep.

CHAPTER XXIII

AN OLD FRIEND

Bill watched him for a few minutes, then swung into his saddle and started to ride the pasture. He had reached the lower end when he saw a horseman galloping toward him from the direction of the ranch. A few minutes later, he recognized the rider as Snoots Stevens, a tall, gawky man of thirty with a long, thin face.

“Why for yuh out here?” McAllister asked after Stevens had brought his horse to a sliding stop.

“Nothin’ – only – ” Snoots broke off and then added: “Where’s that kid?”

“The kid – why?”

“Nothin’ – only I hears them two twins talkin’ about him plenty – I hears them say they wasn’t goin’ to take no chances, but was goin’ to drop him,” Snoots blurted out.

Bill McAllister had no reply for this. He chewed reflectively and tried to decide what this would lead to. It might be talk and then, again, it might mean that their suspicions had hardened to certainty.

“Yuh better tell that kid to high-tail it out of here. Where is he?” Snoots demanded.

“I’ll go tell him. He’s over by them cottonwoods,” Bill McAllister replied.

The two walked their horses toward the trees They were no nearer than two hundred yards before Allen awoke. A swift glance told him they were friends. He glanced at the sun, calculated the time, and decided he had napped long enough. He took a thick sandwich of bacon and bread from his pocket and was contentedly gnawing at this when the two slipped from their horses.

McAllister had Snoots repeat his story. Allen frowned thoughtfully as he leisurely finished his frugal meal. Having swallowed the last crumb, he negligently lit a cigarette.

“Yuh act as if them twins ain’t nothin’ a-tall,” McAllister snapped. “I’m tellin’ yuh them hombres is hell on wheels, an’ if they starts throwin’ lead at yuh, every one of the killers will join pronto.”

“What yuh figger I better do – cut out an’ run?” Allen asked with a grin.

McAllister had no suggestion to make, so he grew silent and shook his head. Snoots looked curiously from the older to the younger man. He recalled the scene in the bunk house the first night Allen arrived, and his eyes popped out as he began to understand the truth.

Allen looked at McAllister with a broad grin.

“There ain’t no use growlin’. I knows them twins is plumb homicidous, but I got to stay an’ try to fool ’em, ’cause there ain’t nothin’ else to do. So it won’t do no good to fuss about it.”

The old-timer realized that this was Allen’s simple philosophy. There was no use worrying about a bridge until you came to it. As McAllister watched Allen saddle Honeyboy, he knew that all thought of the twins had been dismissed from the boy’s mind.

Snoots was about to speak, when a peremptory gesture of Allen’s hand held him silent.

The little outlaw’s head was cocked sideways like that of an animal who has heard something and is unable to place it. He rose in his stirrups and gazed across the brush, then a second later he relaxed.

“Two gents comin’ with a dead man,” he announced.

The other two strained their ears, but could hear nothing. It was several minutes later before they heard the clink of a horse’s hoof against a stone. Then, from out of the brush, two riders appeared, leading a third horse on which there dangled a strange pack.

The faces of the three watchers grew white and then hard. They instantly recognized the two riders, as well as the man who was taking his last ride. It was the garrulous Shorty who was tied across the saddle. The two riders were both newcomers to the ranch.

“Where’d yuh find him? Who downed him?” Bill asked.

“Reckon he was dry-gulched,” one said.

“We finds him over to Sunk Creek in that wash by them big white stones,” the other added.

“He had his gun in his hand, three shells empty, so I reckon he made a fight for it,” the first continued. “We scouted around an’ finds where the killers lay behind some brush.”

McAllister and Snoots stared at poor Shorty, but Allen’s eyes were on the men’s faces as they told their story.

“Why don’t yuh go track them killers?” Allen said, with apparent excitement, to McAllister.

“Reckon I will.”

The two riders headed toward the ranch. McAllister ordered Snoots to stay with the remuda until he returned, and then he and Allen headed toward Sunk Creek.

“What did yuh want me to come out here for?” McAllister asked after they had ridden in silence for a time.

“’Cause Shorty wasn’t killed where they found him,” Allen explained. “There was blood on his off-stirrup leather, and he was tied on with his head on the near side, so I figger he was packed twice. Reckon he got too curious – he tells me the other night he was plumb curious naturally.”

A short time later, they were in the wash near the big white stones where Shorty’s body had been found. Allen circled around and found the tracks of three horses. He followed them with the sureness and cunning of the desert wolf, up the wash, across the range, and twisting among the brush. There were times when Bill McAllister could see no sign at all and believed that the outlaw had lost the trail. Then, after they had twisted about for a mile, he would see bent blades of grass or scuffled stones, proving that Allen had been following the trail with the sureness of death itself.

The trail twisted this way and that, but always came nearer and nearer to the Hard Pan country.

“Yep, Shorty was tellin’ me he was plumb curious to visit over there. Reckon he did an’ gets cashed,” Allen said. “Reckon if they kills a gent for gettin’ curious about this here Hard Pan country, I figgers I better amble in there myself.”

He warned Bill McAllister to say nothing about their having followed the trail, and then he swung Honeyboy about and headed toward the wooded country that lay to the left of the Hard Pan. His companion rode soberly back to the Double R Ranch.

It was not until the following morning that McAllister saw Allen again. The boy was sitting in the sun against the wall of the bunk house, laughing and talking with two of the Double R riders. Bill McAllister tried to signal that he wished to talk to him, but Allen ignored him completely. The old wrangler edged up close to the group by the bunk house.

“Yuh take that old mossback – I once heard if a gent chews regular the tobacco works up in his brain an’ makes it solid,” he heard Allen say.

Then the boy went on and added a ribald joke. Although his name had not been mentioned, Bill McAllister knew that he was the butt at whom Allen was poking his fun, and the laughter that followed made the old wrangler’s cheeks burn. He took one step forward with the intention of chastising the grinning kid. Then realization came to him – that grinning kid was Jim-twin Allen. For some reason of his own, Allen was giving the impression of disliking the old wrangler.

Just the same, Allen’s joke had been a cruel one, and Bill McAllister’s face was flushed as he walked away. He was anything but in a good humor when he passed around the front of the ranch house and climbed into the buckboard waiting there. He was to drive Dot Reed into town that day.

A few minutes later, Dot ran from the house and stepped into the buckboard. She shot a flashing smile at McAllister as she announced she wanted to drive into town. The two half-broken horses hitched to the wagon were fresh, rearing to go and trying to break loose from the two men who held them firmly by the bits. But Dot was an accomplished horsewoman, so McAllister changed places with her without any protest. She gave the word, the two men holding the reins sprang back, and the horses leaped forward at a wild gallop and went tearing down the lane. With a shout she swung them through the gate and deftly sent them dashing down the trail toward Malboro. They covered several miles before the team allowed itself to be pulled down from its headlong gait.

“Yuh’re lookin’ real perky this mornin’,” Bill McAllister said curiously.

“I am – I got some good news this morning,” she smiled. She studied the weather-beaten face of the man beside her. “Do yuh think Slivers was guilty of the murder?”

He stiffened and thought quickly for a moment, then said cautiously, “I always figgered as Slivers warn’t the kind of man to dry-gulch a gent.”

“He wasn’t,” she cried warmly. Then, after a moment, she added: “I got a letter from him this morning. He is coming back and is now trying to prove his innocence. Do yuh know that letter just appeared out of nowhere? I don’t know who brought it. It said I was to trust any one who came to me an’ said: ‘My name’s Allen; I come from Slivers Hart.’”

“I wouldn’t go tellin’ that to everybody,” Bill McAllister warned.

“Isn’t it exciting? I think Slivers has a friend working on the ranch.”

“Look here, Dot. Mebbe Slivers has a friend in our outfit, mebbe Slivers is right close – but yuh got to remember that if yuh tol’ the wrong person, mebbe that friend an’ Slivers would die pronto. So don’t yuh go talkin’ to nobody – nobody a-tall!” McAllister warned her.

The gravity of his expression made her eyes cloud with fear. She thought for a moment and then nodded. “I won’t tell any one,” she agreed.

It was close to noon when they arrived in Malboro. As they turned into the livery stable, a rider swung from a big dun horse and addressed the hostler.

“Feller, don’t be skimpin’ the oats. Gents call me Toothpick Jarrick, ’cause I sure whittle hombres, what rile me, to the size of toothpicks.” He removed one of those implements from the corner of his mouth and held it up for the holster’s inspection. “Yuh see that? That’s all what’s left of the gent what last annoyed me. Now, on the contrary, if I likes a gent, I buys him plenty of drinks.”

The hostler grinned at him, then both became conscious of Dot Reed and Bill McAllister.

The hostler ran forward to take the horses, while Toothpick stared in frank admiration at Dot Reed and regretted his own travel-stained and dusty appearance. He watched the old man and the girl walk down the street.

“Who’s she?” he asked.

“That’s Dot Reed, the owner of the Double R. That gent what is crossin’ over to her is Spur Treadwell, her sweetie,” the hostler explained as he deftly unhitched the sweating horses from the buckboard.

Spur Treadwell walked across the road with an arrogant grace. He swept off his hat as he neared the girl, and then the three of them entered McCann’s hotel.

“Yep, I’m tellin’ the worl’ that gent is the first gent I ever see what is handsomer than me, an’ I don’t blame that gal none,” Toothpick said.

“Shucks!” The hostler looked him up and down and then shook his head. “Feller, yuh ain’t never looked into a lookin’-glass, I’m bettin’ plenty on that, ’cause my eyesight is plumb good an’ I finds yuh about as handsome as a chuckwalla horned toad.”

The two watered and fed the horses, then headed across the street toward the Lone Star Saloon to attend to their own personal wants. The saloon was a long, low room. At the rear four men were playing pool; the bar itself was deserted, except for the McGill twins. When the hostler saw them, he attempted to back out, but Toothpick pushed him forward.

“Barkeeper, push out a bottle. Gents, what’s yourn?” The last was addressed to the McGill twins.

Like a pair of puppets worked by the same string, the twins slowly turned toward Toothpick and allowed their hard, cold eyes to wander from his dusty boots up along his worn jeans to come to rest on his face.

Toothpick’s expression never changed as he met their searching gaze. The hostler fidgeted uneasily and looked everywhere excepting at the killers.

At last, Sandy McGill broke the silence.

“Yuh a stranger?”

Toothpick remarked easily: “I sure am – an’ I’m hopin’ yuh gents will join me in a little liquor.”

The twins made no answer to this request. Their expressions grew bleaker, their eyes colder. In spite of Toothpick’s laughing eyes, they read the challenge that lay within them. It was not the challenge of a gunman – simply that of a brave man who would die rather than back down, even if faced by a thousand enemies. Simultaneously, remembrance came to both the twins of something that had happened the night before. It was too soon to kill again. They relaxed.