The Desperate Deputy of Cougar Hill Page 6

  The sound of footsteps coming toward the front door brought Tod to his feet. Panic surged through him and he turned and bolted across the open yard. Behind him a voice shouted in surprise and anger. Before he was halfway to the protection of the shoulder of rock a gun blasted. Lead tugged at Tod’s hat, and he flung himself forward in a weaving run in a desperate effort to cover the last twenty feet of open ground.

  “It’s that kid from the livery!” Jupe Dondee bellowed.

  “He’s thick with Cameron,” Larabee snapped. “God knows how much he heard. Don’t let him get back to town. Shoot him!”

  Another bullet whispered angrily as it came close to Tod. Then he was behind the rock shoulder and momentarily safe. But not for long, he knew. Larabee’s horse was handy. He would be aboard and coming fast enough. Gasping now, Tod ran to where the paint waited.

  He jerked the reins free and flung himself into the saddle. He barely had the pony headed downslope when Larabee burst out of the canyon entrance. Tod spurred the paint but he knew that in open pursuit, Larabee’s bay could run him down. He had ridden the horse himself more than once. It was fast and tough. Frantically he looked around for help. The protection of the timbered slope rising up from the valley beckoned. But he rejected the idea. Once in there, the three men could bottle him up. Nor did he dare try to reach the valley floor. He would be ridden down before he could get to it.

  Now he was past the top of the timber, the paint flying as it raced downhill. The rutted track leading to Arker’s place appeared on Tod’s left. But there was no safety there — Arker was Larabee’s man. Not at Arker’s, but what of the hills beyond his shack? That was country Tod knew, country that Larabee and the Dondee brothers could not know. Once in those hills he could work into the high country. If he could lose them even for a short time, he could cut west, across the stagecoach road leading out of the valley and on to Obed Begg’s place. And of all the men he could think of, Obed would be the best one to turn to for help.

  Three guns opened up behind him. He glanced back to see that the Dondees had joined Larabee. He reined the paint sharply to his left, putting it on the rutted track. Rifle bullets kicked dirt near the pony’s feet. But the maneuver had surprised his pursuers, had given him a little precious time.

  He pressed the paint grimly. If Rafe and Farley weren’t waiting at the other side of the cut, he would have a chance for safety. But the sounds of shooting were almost sure to bring them out of the shack.

  Even so, he had no choice. He could only spur the paint on.

  VII

  IT WAS still fairly quiet in Cougar Hill when Sax Larabee rode the little rented bay south from the livery barn. He was a man careful with animals and he made the horse go slowly until its muscles were loose. Then he turned from the stagecoach road and worked his way onto the ridge that would take him south.

  An observant man, he had learned a good deal about the lay of the Cougar country since coming here, and if he had wished, he could have made a quick trip to the mining country. But he preferred to ride slowly and avoid being seen. Even so, he caught a glimpse of a rider down on the valley floor who acted as if he might be looking up at the ridge. Then he recognized Tod Purcell, and decided the boy was probably just out checking Cameron’s cattle for him.

  Once on the wagonroad, Larabee dropped downslope to Arker’s trail and rode on through the cut to the small stump ranch cupped by logged-off hills. Larabee shook his head as he looked around. He found it hard to understand how men could live the way Arker and Farley did.

  The cabin was a sag-roofed affair of badly chinked logs and with window panes of scraped gut instead of proper glass. The outbuildings had a desolate, half ruined look about them. The corral was weed-grown, and scum clung to the edges of the horse trough. Inside, he found the cabin’s one room in as poor shape as the outdoors. The stove was stained with cooked food, and dirty dishes were scattered over the lone table. Arker and Farley sat on backless chairs, sucking coffee noisily from broken-handled mugs.

  Arker grunted and talked carefully through his still swollen mouth. “Coffee pot’s on the stove.”

  Larabee made an effort to hide his disgust at the stench in the place. He lit a cheroot and wrapped himself in its smoke and thought bitterly of what a man had to put up with to satisify his passion for revenge. And it seemed perfectly logical to his mind that the blame for his having to deal with a man like Rafe Arker belonged to Cameron.

  Larabee said, “I didn’t come here to drink coffee. I came to tell you to watch for the law.”

  Arker snorted. “There ain’t no law outside the town limits — unless you count the sheriff over at the county seat. And he ain’t about to bother me, not when he has to ride a hundred miles across these mountains.” He glared at Larabee and added, “What the devil would the law want with me now?”

  “Two men jumped Cameron in the east alley last night and put him in the hospital,” Larabee said.

  “And he claims it was me, I suppose,” Arker grunted.

  “Cameron’s in no shape to talk,” Larabee answered. “But I broke up the fight and I can swear it wasn’t you two.”

  “Who did it?” Arker demanded.

  “It was too dark for me to tell,” Larabee lied. “I thought you might have hired somebody. The town thinks it was you, naturally.”

  “I don’t know who whipped Cameron,” Arker insisted. “But it wasn’t me and Joe. I ain’t in shape yet to fight a rabbit. But I’ll be ready in a couple days and then that lawman better watch out.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Larabee snapped. “I told you most people in town think you beat up Cameron last night. If anything happens to him when you’re on your feet, they’ll come after you with a posse. And I want you free to move around Saturday night.”

  He blew a cloud of smoke. “Do it my way and you’ll end up getting everything you want — Cameron, money, and that Purcell woman.”

  He waited no longer but turned to go. He could stand just so much of Rafe Arker and the filth that he lived in. Whatever Arker had for an answer was lost in the sound of the slamming door.

  He breathed deeply, gratefully, of the fresh air as he rode the bay slowly through the cut. He wished he didn’t have to deal with a man like Arker. He couldn’t be trusted to follow orders as they had to be followed if this plan was to be a success. And, he knew, Arker resented him — his easy way of handling problems, his brains. Knowing this, he had plans to take care of Arker if it should become necessary.

  Larabee always planned to take care of every contingency. He had been meticulous in his planning ever since that one time he had failed to do so — and had spent three years of his life in a prison cell.

  Those same three years had developed in him his one great weakness — his overriding desire for revenge on Roy Cameron. At times the force of his hatred for Cameron frightened him. He had tried many times to cleanse his mind of this by trying to accept Cameron’s story about the bank robbery. But the facts as Larabee saw them added up to only one answer — Cameron had doublecrossed him.

  During his time in prison he read through the warden’s library. And because the warden had once been a mining lawyer, Larabee came to know a great deal about the subject. After his release, he put his knowledge to work — he acquired properties cheaply and sold them at large profits. He made a good deal of money over the years, and he spent it — buying a home in San Francisco, buying land of speculation with long term profits in mind, and buying information about Roy Cameron.

  At one time Larabee had four Pinkerton men working for him. And slowly he built up a picture of Cameron during the long, hate-filled years. More than once he was tempted to appear where Cameron worked and denounce him as a criminal masquerading as a lawman. But each time he curbed himself, knowing that in most western towns such a background would not be to Cameron’s disfavor. Too many lawmen had ridden the wild trails. But finally Cameron settled in Cougar Hill, and Larabee knew that here the temper of the people was different. Here,
Cameron could be hurt.

  And then, as if to mock all of Larabee’s efforts, his investments began to fail. His money disappeared. He mortgaged his home, sold his properties, and he found himself without the capital he needed to work the one big deal he hoped would make him a truly rich man.

  The report he had received from the Pinkerton man who found Cameron in the Cougar valley country told Larabee a good deal about the town itself. And as he read it, he realized he might have found the way to finally revenge himself for those three years in prison and at the same time get the capital he needed. By train and then by stage, he worked his way to Idaho Territory. Here he learned all he could about Cougar Hill and the valley. He hired the Dondee brothers, men he had used before, and sent them ahead of him. He heard about Rafe and waited patiently for him to be released from prison.

  Thinking about Arker made Larabee smile with satisfaction. He had handled the man perfectly. As far as Arker knew, their meeting a half day’s ride from the prison had been lucky coincidence. And Arker would go on thinking this, never realizing that he was being used. Or not realizing it until nothing he could do would change the inevitable. The fact that Arker would be destroyed did not bother Larabee. He despised men of Arker’s type. In his opinion, the world would be better off without them.

  As he rode up the wagonroad to the benchland, Larabee thought of how easily he could have destroyed Roy Cameron. He could have killed him last night. Or he could have stood by and let him be killed. But that would not have been enough. Cameron had to know the pain of loneliness, of being without friends. He had to know the humiliation of defeat. And above all, he had to live long enough to know who had brought him the pain, the humiliation, the defeat.

  A narrow trail led Larabee from the wagonroad into a box canyon. Here the Dondees had their shack and their mine. Fresh dirt scattered on a pile of weed grown tailings testified that they were actually working. Larabee was pleased and surprised to see this. He was more surprised to hear sounds of a pick and shovel coming from the large hole that was the entrance to the old mine the Dondees had taken over.

  He whistled shrilly and in a few moments Jupe Dondee appeared. He tossed down the shovel he was carrying and hurried down the path to where Larabee waited.

  “This is Sunday,” Larabee said. “You don’t have to overdo the business of being a miner.”

  Jupe Dondee grinned behind his straggle of beard. “Hell,” he said, “look at this!” He pulled a poke from his pocket and opened it. He shook glittering flakes into the palm of his hand. “Look!”

  Larabee looked. He took the poke and upended it, letting a glittering stream fall to the ground. “What the hell you think you’re doing? That’s a week’s hard work!” Jupe cried angrily.

  “These are iron yprites,” Larabee said disgustedly. “Fool’s gold. Your week’s work is worth less than that poke. Now stop wasting my time and call Hale down here. We’ve got business to take care of.”

  Jupe Dondee stared from the mineral in his palm to the pile on the ground. He lifted his head and carefully studied Larabee’s expression. His suspicion was obvious, but after a moment it faded reluctantly away.

  He emptied his palm and brushed his hands. “I guess you ought to know,” he said grudgingly. Turning aside, he shouted for his brother.

  Hale Dondee came out of the hole and down the short, steep trail. He was carrying a good-sized sack and showing his broken teeth in a wide grin. “I guess you out-foxed yourself, Larabee, when you said we could keep anything we made mining. Look at this!” He slapped the sack with his free hand.

  Jupe Dondee grabbed the sack from his brother and upended it, spilling the glittering pyrites onto the pile. “Larabee says this is fool’s gold,” he grunted. “It ain’t worth as much as the dirt it’s laying on.”

  Hale swore loudly. He stomped around, accusing Larabee of trying to cheat them. But after a time, he calmed down and shrugged philosophically.

  “There’ll be plenty of the real stuff come Saturday night,” he said finally. He laughed. “How’s the lawman today? You think he’ll bother us when we make our hit?”

  “Cameron won’t bother us,” Larabee assured him. He frowned. “But you gave him more of a beating than I wanted. If I hadn’t stopped you when I did, he’d be in that hospital for a month. As it is, we’ll be lucky if he’s up and around by Saturday.”

  Jupe stared at him in open amazement. “Lucky! You gone crazy? What do you want the law up and around for?”

  Larabee turned on him savagely. “I know what I’m doing. I told you before that I want him alive and on his feet when we make the hit.”

  Jupe rubbed his knuckles. “That still don’t make no sense to me. Cameron’s a wildcat. The next time I tangle with him, I want an army behind me and a gun in my hand.”

  Larabee started for the small shack. “Make me some coffee and I’ll try to get the idea through your head.”

  Inside, the cabin’s one room was fairly neat. At least, Larabee thought, it didn’t stink like Rafe Arker’s place. He dropped onto one of the two chairs and stretched his booted feet in front of him. “Here’s the plan,” he said. “Get it clear and don’t try to change it. The army will be here at the end of the week. They’ll look over the stock Beggs and his crews are bringing down from the hills and buy what they want. From what I hear, they’re hungry for horses and mules and the ranchers have some good stock for them. That means there’ll be even more money than I thought at first. Stedman, that banker, estimated between eighty and a hundred thousand dollars all told.”

  “That’s a lot of gold,” Hale Dondee breathed.

  “And it’s all ours if we play things right,” Larabee answered. “The way they work things here is for this Obed Beggs to take charge of everything. The army pays him every man’s share. He puts the money in the bank as it comes to him. Most of it will be there by late Friday with the last dribbles in on Saturday morning. By Saturday afternoon the last of the army will be gone with the stock. The bank is locked up and the ranchers go about their regular business until Monday. Then they come to town and Beggs parcels out the shares, including the wages for the townsmen and such people.”

  Jupe Dondee finished lighting a fire in the cook stove and set the coffee pan on the hottest part of the rusty surface. “So most of the gold will be in the bank by Friday night and all of it by Saturday afternoon — waiting for us.”

  “There’ll be more money than this Cougar country ever saw at one time,” Larabee said. “And you can be sure that the law will have its eye on that bank.”

  “But you said …” Jupe started to protest.

  “I said I wanted Cameron up and around — and guarding the bank Saturday night,” Larabee snapped. “I don’t want Balder or some valley rancher nervous enough to shoot at shadows. I want Cameron there because when the time comes for us to make our play, he’s the one man who won’t interfere.”

  Both men gaped at him. Hale Dondee snorted loudly. “You trying to tell me Cameron’ll let us bust open that bank? Not him, Larabee. I watched him operate long enough to know that he won’t help us if we was to give him all the gold and the bank building too. You got the wrong man, thinking that Cameron’ll …”

  “I know what I’m doing,” Larabee retorted. “I said Cameron won’t bother us, and he won’t. When the time comes, he’ll be looking the other way.”

  He smiled coldly. “And I intend to fix things so that Balder and the rest of the town’s big men will be spending their time accusing Cameron of having helped in the robbery instead of going after us. They’re either going to think that Cameron was part of the gang or that his beating made him run scared.”

  “And if he don’t run scared?” Jupe Dondee demanded. “Or if he don’t do things the way you want him to — what then?”

  “He will,” Larabee said softly. “That’s my job — to see that he does nothing while we help ourselves to over eighty thousand dollars worth of gold.”

  VIII

  IT WAS Tu
esday night before Cameron realized he was alive. Before that his mind held only vague blurs of memory. He recalled the ambush, the coming of Sax Larabee, and Tod’s helping him to the doctor’s house. After that there was mostly darkness, with now and then a faint bit of light — remembrance of Balder, of Obed Beggs, of Sax Larabee, and especially of Jenny Purcell. But there was no recall of Tod at all, and Cameron lay wondering at this.

  He rolled his head on the pillow as the door to his room came open. The spare figure of Doctor Draper appeared. “Ah, I hoped you’d come awake tonight,” he said. “How’s the appetite?”

  “I have one,” Cameron said dryly. “My stomach feels like it missed Sunday dinner.”

  “And a few more meals,” the doctor agreed. “This is Tuesday, Roy.”

  Surprise brought Cameron sitting up. Pain lanced at his ribs and into his right shoulder. He fell back.

  “You’ll need a while yet before you can get up and around,” the doctor said. “You got a nasty crack on the head and some badly bruised ribs.”

  Cameron lay back, his eyes closed, and tried to comprehend that he had lost three days out of his life. He thought of the roundup and grunted. Both Obed and Balder could have used him those three days.

  And then his mind turned to Sax Larabee and cold shadows of trouble clouded him. The memory of Sax appearing in the alley rescuing him brought the shadows into harsh focus. There was something wrong with that scene, something Cameron felt he should be able to put words to. But his mind was too tired, and he felt Sax Larabee drift out of it.

  The doctor appeared with chicken soup. He said, “Jenny made it for you. She’s on the roundup most of the time, but she said to tell you she’d be back by Friday at the latest.” He added as if this needed explaining, “I assured her you were all right; otherwise she would have spent all her time right here.”

  “I guessed as much,” Cameron said. He sat up, carefully this time. “By the time she gets here, I should be ready to ride.”