Trigger Gospel Read online

  Trigger Gospel

  By SINCLAIR DRAGO

  Author of “Desert Water,” “Guardians of the Sage,” etc.

  M. EVANS

  Lanham • New York • Boulder • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

  M. Evans

  An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

  4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

  http://www.rlpgtrade.com

  10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom

  Distributed by National Book Network

  Copyright © 1935 by The Macaulay Company

  First Rowman & Littlefield paperback edition 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

  ISBN 13: 978-1-59077-487-8 (pbk: alk. paper)

  The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

  Printed in the United States of America

  For EDWARD A. DUCKER

  Justice of The Supreme Court of Nevada

  Whose feet have trod the lonely cañons and wind-swept rimrocks, where a man’s best companion is himself.

  TRIGGER GOSPEL

  Contents

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter I

  WHEN Dodge City was the end of steel for the whole South West, the thundering hoofs of a million Texas longhorns carved deep into the prairie sod of Oklahoma the trail that old Tascosa Cummings and his little X Bar X spread followed this long, hot July afternoon.

  Thirty years had passed since the last of the great trail herds had come bawling up from the Panhandle. Those ghostly legions of longhorns and the brawling, reckless men of that all-but-forgotten day lived now only in the memories of such old-timers as himself. Even the trail, packed down with their sweat and blood, had been all but effaced by the jungle-like growth of native bluejoint grass that grew saddle-high on the rolling plains between the North Fork of the Canadian and the Cimarron.

  And yet, Tascosa, riding at the head of his outfit, followed it without conscious effort as it uncoiled its tawny, rutted ribbon to the north. He had nothing to say, but the old trail stirred vagrant emotions in him, and he screwed his long, thin, weather-beaten face into a flinty squint that almost hid his faded blue eyes.

  “Almost gone,” he told himself sadly. “She ain’t waiting to be ploughed under. Another year or two and there won’t be nothin’ left—nary a sign to say this was once the hell-roarin’est boulevard on earth.”

  The blotting out of the old Texas trail was but one of many evidences of social decay that he professed to see in the Oklahoma that had grown up under his very nose, so to speak. Seventy, if he was a day, a product of the era of the free-range when men roamed the plains high, wide and handsome, he had only a withering contempt for the nester who was satisfied to dig in on a little two-by-four patch of a hundred and sixty acres of government land and call it a ranch, and he had but little more respect for the new generation of cowmen, boxed off with barbed wire, who spouted newfangled nonsense about improving the blood strains of their stock and doubling the weight of a steer.

  He now expressed his disgust for the pack of them with a grunt that was as eloquent as it was profane. He spat out the cud of tobacco that had served him for hours.

  “Progress! Improvements!” he snorted fiercely. “Damn their souls, that’s what’s ruinin’ this yere country. They got her all broken down in the loins already with their town sites and lightnin’ rods. Gittin’ so a man can’t turn around this side of the Nations or the Strip without stumbling over somebody. If it keeps on it’ll soon be a crime to even pack a gun here.”

  Considering that at the moment Oklahoma was overrun with outlaws; that Bowie, a division point on the Rock Island Pacific, was the only town west of Kingfisher; that there was not a foot of made road nor a doctor, preacher or lawyer (working at his trade) in ten thousand square miles of territory; that to all practical purposes the six-gun was still the popular arbiter of right and wrong, made it appear that Tascosa was unduly apprehensive.

  Of course, it was a subject on which he was not only biased but in certain quarters held to be just a little cracked. Certainly he was a disreputable old hooker, dirty, lawless and as full of guile as a Kiowa halfbreed. In the way of the old days, he wore his hair long, and at those rare moments when he removed his battered Stetson, he looked like nothing so much as a scrawny, tobacco-stained old eagle.

  His X Bar X brand—always called the old Sawbuck —had not decorated a steer’s hide in ten years. His chuck wagon was his ranch house. And yet he was prosperous, for he made a business of bidding on the government beef issues to the tribes down in the Nations. With a signed contract in his pocket, he would start looking for cattle. Sometimes he went incredible distances, but he usually succeeded in doing business on his own terms before he closed. The long drive to one of the agencies followed. He had to be there on time, hell or high water, and he always was. Then lazy days until it was time to repeat the operation.

  It was a nomadic, care-free existence that suited him better than anything else he could have devised. Its lack of restraint, its breath of danger and excitement, the dash of hard work and the sure promise of long periods of ease made it something utterly desirable in other eyes than his, and he had drawn unto himself half-a-dozen men cut after his own pattern—hardriding, two-fisted fighting men who could lick three times their weight or numbers with fist or gun as the occasion demanded.

  They were on their way up from Anadarko and the Kiowa country now, heading back to Bowie. Behind them, well back out of the dust their ponies were kicking up, rumbled the wagon, with Maverick Williams, the cook, asleep on the seat and seemingly certain to be pitched out on his face at every jolt. Skull Creek was their destination for the night. They had been rambling along since dawn, and when Tascosa flung up his hand a few minutes later and signaled that the creek was in sight, they answered with a sharp yip of satisfaction and spurred up to where he waited at the top of the rise. Below them, off to the right a few hundred yards, a dense tangle of willow and wild cherry marked the course of the Skull.

  “Thar she is boys!” Tascosa declared. “We used to drive right down to the stream years ago; but it sure looks as though a twister had torn things up around here just recent. Suppose you all spread out and find a way to git the wagon down. Me and Little Bill will jest follow the old trail to the bottom of this yere slope and see what that little draw looks like.”

  “Well, come on, let’s ramble,” Little Bill jerked out. “The shadows are gettin’ long.”

  He was a little runt of a man, not over five feet four even in his high-heeled boots, and the rangy claybank gelding that he rode, at least three hands hi
gher than any horse in the outfit, made him appear even smaller than he was. His hands and feet were as tiny as a woman’s. It was an incongruous touch, for although he was still under thirty there was something in the depths of his hazel eyes and the reckless set of his mouth that said he was a human buzz-saw when aroused. Shrewd, habitually alert, he had made himself Tascosa’s lieutenant and over others, his elder brother Luther included, who had been riding for the Sawbuck for years. Without waiting for old Tas, he sank his knees into his big horse and started down the trail. His brother Luther and the others struck off across the slope. The old man had to use his spurs to overtake him.

  “Say, what’s the rush?” he demanded crustily.

  “I ain’t aimin’ to go pokin’ around no creek bottom after dark,” Little Bill answered. “We might run onto some folks that prefer their own company.”

  “Dark? Why the sun’s an hour high yet!”

  “It won’t be if we don’t find water here and have to go on to the Cimarron.”

  “Right,” old Tas acknowledged gruffly. Experience had taught him that Little Bill was usually right, even though he made a virtue of never admitting it.

  They reached the bottom of the hill and began to pick their way down the draw, with Little Bill in the lead. He had not progressed over thirty yards when he pulled up abruptly to stare at something on the ground.

  “What is it?” Tascosa whipped out as he saw him freeze to attention. For answer, Little Bill pointed to a bare, sandy spot in the jungle of grass.

  “Fresh tracks of shod horses,” he said. “They ain’t over an hour old. Five or six in that bunch.”

  “Jest about.” Tascosa thoughtfully masticated a fresh chew of tobacco. “Headin’ for the creek too. Didn’t notice no tracks cuttin’ across the trail.”

  “Neither did I,” Little Bill agreed. “Reckon they was careful not to leave any. The grass ain’t broken down neither. That’s tellin’ me plenty.” His manner was suddenly grave.

  “Yeh?” The old man narrowed his eyes and squirted a stream of tobacco juice with expert aim at a blue beetle. “What do you figger it means, Bill?”

  The question was beside the point, for he understood him perfectly. The intentness with which he was scanning the tree-choked creek bottom proved it.

  “The same as you,” Little Bill snapped. “Long riders; somebody sneakin’ out of the Strip on unfinished business. Not over two hundred and fifty yards to the creek. Reckon they got us covered this minute with a high-power or two.”

  “Like as not,” Tas muttered grimly. The words were hardly out of his mouth before the bark of a .30-.30 shattered the stillness of early evening. “Well,” he grunted as the echo rolled down the creek, “that’s language I can understand. We ain’t lost no banks nor express boxes, so we’ll just back-trail outa here pronto.”

  He stood up in his stirrups and hailed his men with a shrill cry.

  Five minutes later they were back on the trail. The wagon had come up too.

  “What was that shootin’ ?” Maverick cried out.

  “The Skull is too crowded for us tonight,” Tascosa explained soberly. “We’re goin’ on to the Cimarron. We’ll have to step along right lively to make it afore sundown. You shake up that team, Maverick; we’re movin’ !”

  Chapter II

  TASCOSA and his five men rode abreast. They traded questions.

  “Who do you figure they are?” Luther Stillings drawled casually. He had his brother’s freckles and brick-red hair. In no other way were they alike, save in their promise of efficiency in a pinch.

  “The Doolins—or maybe Smoke Sontag,” Little Bill answered. “It’s about time for the Sontags to be breakin’ loose again.”

  “That’s sumthin’ for the marshals and sheriffs to worry about,” Tascosa reminded them. “It ain’t our put-in no way at all. We h’ain’t seen a thing.”

  “I hope to tell yuh we ain’t,” Link Appling grinned. “It’s strictly a two-sided fight. Just part your hair in the middle, boys, and don’t lean one way or t’other.”

  “You’re dead right, Link,” Scotty Ryan, the dean of Tascosa’s hired hands agreed. “It t’ain’t no shine off our pants no matter what happens. See nothin’, say nothin’ and you may live to a ripe old age, unless Maverick’s cookin’ kills you afore your time.”

  They laughed, and there was no dissenting opinion, for Link and Scotty had only expressed a viewpoint that was typical of the attitude of their calling. Honest themselves, they never knew when they might drift into outlawry. Certainly most of those who rode with Red Doolin and Smoke Sontag had once been cowboys. They still had friends, legions of them, or else the law would have turned them up in a hurry. An outsider wouldn’t have understood this bond between good men and bad, nor been able to find any definite line of demarcation between those inside the law and out, for the bad and good in them was sadly scrambled.

  Little Bill set the pace. He was inclined to run away from the wagon. There was no point in that. He looked back to see Maverick dozing again.

  “I’ll start his circulation a hoppin’ !” he ground out furiously. “He’s got somethin’ on his hip.”

  He dropped back until he rode abreast the wagon. He didn’t bother to shout to Maverick, but drawing one of his brass-handled .45’s sent a slug crashing into the bottle that protruded from the cook’s hip pocket. Maverick jerked his two hundred and ten pounds of fat erect as though he worked on wires.

  “Why, you red-headed little ant, I’ll eat you alive for that!” he roared. “Damn you, don’t you ever try to curry me that-a-way! I’ll—”

  Little Bill emptied his six-gun over the heads of the weary horses and they leaped away with a rush that cut short the tirade.

  “You high-tail it now, Maverick!” he shouted as the wagon began to hit only the high places. “I’m layin’ back here to dust you off if you don’t!”

  There was a twinkle in his eyes, for Maverick and he were the best of friends.

  The rolling hills began to give way to level plain. They made better time now. Maverick held the team to a steady trot, with the result that the sun was just sliding below the horizon when they rode down into the valley of the Cimarron to bring up a few minutes later at a grassy flat just below Cherokee crossing. Here was wood, water and grass.

  In no time at all Maverick had his cook-fire going and his end of the wagon open. He was slicing thick steaks off a butt of beef as Little Bill approached.

  “Nice goin’,” the red-haired one grinned.

  “Yeh?” Maverick growled. “I been pickin’ glass outa my backside for ten miles. I hope I git hyderphoby or somethin’ so I can give it to you.”

  “You mean so you can charge me for it; you never gave nothin’ away in your ornery old life,” Little Bill retorted as he reached under the seat for a currycomb and brush.

  He had already watered his horse. The big gelding was picketed on the flat now, and as the others stretched out on the ground, glad to be out of the saddle after the long day, Little Bill got busy with his brush and comb.

  Before long the animal’s coat began to shine. The horse seemed to enjoy the attention that was being lavished on it. He was a clean-limbed three-year-old with a long barrel; the best proof in the world that there was little if any mustang blood in him.

  Absorbed in what he was doing, Little Bill worked on without glancing at the lounging men who, without exception, were watching him with growing interest. He had owned the gelding but a short while, having acquired the horse down in the Panhandle as the result of some shrewd trading and the spending of the better part of his bankroll. His pride in the animal and the care he lavished on it had already resulted in an inordinate amount of chaffing at his expense, and the present moment was pregnant with fresh possibilities. Link Appling fired the first gun a few moments later.

  “Too bad a high-falutin’ critter like that has to be bogged down with a common, cow pony name like Six-gun,” he declared, addressing Tonto Baker. “You been below the
Rio Grande and you savvy them tony Mexican names, Tonto. Why don’t you suggest somethin’ fittin’ to Bill?”

  “Well, there might be something to that,” Tonto replied, putting on a thoughtful face. “But I ain’t up much on anythin’ but girls’ names. You could hardly tack any thin’ like Conchita or Estancia on that geldin’. Bill might think I was castin’ aspersions.”

  “I’ll do a little castin’ myself, and like as not it’ll be this currycomb,” the red-haired one retorted, “if you start any of your greaser lingo on me.”

  “There he goes; on the prod already,” Link protested. “You can’t open your mouth even in a helpful way no more.”

  The others laughed as he shook his head sadly.

  “Now look here; you boys lay off of Bill,” old Tas put in with deep cunning, for he enjoyed the fun as much as any. “Bill’s got a big impression to make when he rides into Bowie tomorrow mornin’. If I thought for a minute that I was goin’ to meet anybody half as sweet as he does I’d begin usin’ a currycomb on myself, I’m tellin’ yuh!”

  “Now I did forget all about that for a fact,” Link asserted gravely. “I sure beg your pardon, Bill. You go right ahead and put ribbons in that horse’s tail if you want to and it’ll be all right with me. But just the same, I think you’re takin’ a chance in dollin’ that animal up that-a-way. I can’t speak for the lady, but if it was me, I’d find it a little confusin’; I wouldn’t know just which one of you to choose.”

  “I’d take the horse,” Scotty Ryan called out.

  “I’m sure you would, Scotty,” Little Bill fired back. “A horse and a jackass ought to hit it off pretty good.”

  The laugh was on Scotty now, and they enjoyed it quite as much as though it had been on Bill. They returned to the attack then and kept at it until Maverick was ready for them. The cook ran a critical eye over the gelding.

  “Fly speck there on the right stifle, Bill,” he cried. “Take care of that and you can come and get it!”