Trouble Shooter (1974) Read online

  pointed. Once within these close confines, there were no landmarks, nothing but a man's own trail to guide him.

  Walls of jonco brush, all spines and ugly as sin, devil's head, and yucca; it was all here in a dense tangle. And under it moved a myriad of life-forms: rattlesnakes, javelinas, and many varieties of birds and lizards. It was a morass without water, a maze without plan, a trap that could grip and hold a man for days. Once lost, only chance could help a man escape. Even when fairly cool where there was a breeze, within the black chaparral the air was close and sweat streamed down your body, soaking your clothing. Thorns snagged at the clothes and skin. You jerked free from one thorn to be stabbed by another. Only heavy leather, hot as Hades, offered protection. This was exactly like the dreaded monte of Mexico and Texas.

  Hopalong rode slowly along that thorny rampart, alert for any opening that might allow him to enter. Twice he believed he had found what he wanted, but each time it proved to be only a deviation in the wall of brush, and there was no entry. ' As he skirted the chaparral he thought of the problem that faced him. The wild cattle of the brush country had lost all domestication. They lived for the wilderness, and he had known of cases where, when removed from the brush, the cattle simply lay down and died, refusing to be driven despite torture and beating. And they were utterly savage, fighting anything that came into their path, possessed of the speed of a deer and the agility of a panther. He who has not encountered wild cattle in their native habitat can have no idea of their nature.

  Now the wall bellied out before him, and swinging wide to skirt it, Hopalong suddenly saw a projecting corner of rock. Riding nearer, he found that a huge fault in the surface had thrust a rocky ledge from the earth on a steep incline. Beneath its shade the brush had not gathered, and it seemed to offer entry to the wall of brush. Topper went forward, his ears pricked with curiosity, and avoiding with dainty steps the reaching spines of the catclaw. Rounding the corner of the ledge, Hopalong saw a narrow avenue before him and he saw cow tracks, some of them amazingly large, along the earth and sand that formed the trail.

  Carefully he pushed on, and the close, deadly air of the chaparral settled about him, confining and sticky with heat. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck and under his arms. Dust arose from beneath him and settled over his clothing. The reaching spines of the pear snagged at his clothing, only sliding off the stiff leather of his chaps.

  Yet the trail continued. Once he had seen those tracks, Hop-along knew that he had found an entry to that backcountry of the bush. Somewhere far ahead he heard a steer lowing. It was a soft, distant, moaning sound. He moved steadily on, the walls of the chaparral so close that a lifted hand would be snagged by the spines. Overhead was a single strip of brassy sky. He halted, talking softly to Topper, and let the horse breathe a little, yet it was almost better to be moving. Once they entered a small clearing, about half an acre in area. Here they paused longer. There were cow tracks all about now, and here and there smaller alleyways led off into the brush waste.

  Chimney Butte might as well have been a thousand miles away, for from here it could not be seen. He spotted a big steer, its huge horns all of five feet across. It lifted its head and stared

  at him, but made no move to attack, merely snuffing suspiciously at the scent of horse and man.

  It was well nigh impossible to estimate distance in the chaparral. The trail twisted and turned, and occasionally he had to double back and try again. Usually the tracks helped, but the rock wall of the upthrust had long since fallen behind. Then he began to encounter more and more clearings, small but grassy, and in many of them the grass was remarkably green. Because of the roots, very little rain that fell on this land ever ran off. Yet these clearings would grow fewer and fewer as time went on, and eventually there would be none at all. The brush would have covered every available foot of it. This brush was a thorny-handed monster, an octopus of the plains and desert country, never satiated while anything remained to be taken and to be bound in the clinging tentacles of its roots.

  Suddenly Hopalong rode out into a huge clearing that must have been all of half a mile long and more than a quarter of a mile wide. Here at least thirty head of cattle were feeding or lying about on the grass. They got up and stared at him, and one bull came toward them, lowing deep in his chest and kicking dust over his back, his big head lowered, his eyes rolling. That bull, Hopalong reflected, must weigh all of twenty-two hundred and his head and sides were scarred by many battles.

  Hopalong swung wide around him and, mopping sweat from his face, searched the opposite wall for a way out of the clearing. He found it, and then continued to search until he had located more cattle and more clearings. It was late afternoon before he started back. He had seen at least a hundred head of

  cattle, and heard many more, and he doubted if he had more than touched the huge mass of the chaparral.

  It was dark when he reached camp, and he rode toward the firelight, hot and weary. Pike was already in, seated on a fallen log with a tin cup of coffee. He grinned at Hopalong. "Got into it, I see. Find much?"

  When Cassidy had told him of his day's venture into the brush, Pike nodded. "I reckon I saw about as many as you did. There's plenty of cattle in there, all right, and from the way they act, they haven't been bothered much. Notice any brands other than Box T?"

  "No, not a one," Hopalong admitted, "but most of this stock has never been branded. How about you?"

  "Same as you. No other brands." He hesitated, then reaching for the coffeepot, he said casually, "Found a place to hold our cows. Old corral back in there. The fence is all overgrown, but she was built tight. Now the brush has grown all through the posts and rails so it's that much tighter. It's big--big enough to hold a thousand head if necessary. I reckon somebody threw it up some years back. It was built about like you suggested, just pieced together wherever the brush wasn't tight enough to hold

  'em.

  "Water?"

  "Yeah. Looks like she might be an old rustlers hangout."

  Hopalong nodded. "I imagine," he said carefully, not looking at Pike Towne, "that they have been in this country. We'll have to try to find if they had a way out on the other side."

  Towne's face stiffened queerly. He shot a sharp glance at Hopalong and set his cup down on a rock. "You wasn't figurin' on rustlin', were you?"

  Hopalong was mildly surprised. "No. Why?"

  "Nothin'. I didn't figure you would, but anyway, I want no part in anything that isn't legal."

  "My feelings, too," Hopalong assured him, "but a way out might be convenient."

  'There's an old trail," Pike said thoughtfully, "east of here. You must have seen it. The trail leaves the road to the Box T about ten miles out of Kachina, heads northeast. That trail must pass close to the bend of the Picket Fork. We might find a way out that way."

  "We might," Hopalong agreed.

  He was growing more and more curious about Pike Towne, and he had been almost positive that Towne, if left alone, would rind the kind of clearing they sought. If the big man had not at one time lived in the area, Hopalong Cassidy would be badly fooled. Whether he had been an outlaw himself, Hopalong had no idea. What he did know was that Pike was concealing something, but in his own good time he might talk.

  Somewhere a coyote yapped shrilly into the night, and a nighthawk swooped close, then winged on away into the darkness. Stars came out, thick and bright, seeming so close about them that it appeared a man might reach up and knock them down with a stick.

  He ate in silence, and again Shep came to lie beside him. Pike lit his pipe, and they dozed. And then, suddenly, it came!

  Hopalong stiffened, almost dropping his cup. Pike Towne's face blanched and his wife stared at him, her cheeks drawn and

  pale.

  High and clear, sounding distant, yet close, there came the sound of voices on the wind. A long, hollow call. A pause, then an answering chorus. The sound faded, then swept back; although distorted as it was by the distance, they
could hear the unmistakable rhythm of words and phrases.

  The weird chanting reached out into the night and then ended. A strange cry filled with loneliness and memories of terror, a cry that chilled their spines and left the three staring, the echo of it hanging in their ears.

  "What was that?" Hopalong demanded, of nobody in particular.

  There was no answer, for there was none to be given. Then it came again, and again it sounded long and clear and somehow unearthly. It might have come from the range behind them. It might have come from up- or down-stream, or from the wastes of the chaparral, but they all knew it did not. It came from farther away, maybe miles away.

  Nobody said anything for several minutes, and then Hopalong glanced over at Pike. The man's face was haunted by memory, and when he turned, his lips started to form words, then stopped. The fire crackled and a stick fell, then sparks sprang up, following the trail of the smoke. After a minute a coyote lifted his plaintive voice high into a shrill yelping that chattered off down a long hill of sound, then died away.

  "Now that was quite a sound," Hoppy said. "Ever hear it before, Pike?"

  Towne's lips were tight, his eyes cold. A moment passed before he replied, and it was with a question. "Why ask me? What makes you think I might have?"

  "A hunch."

  Pike studied Cassidy while Sarah Towne's eyes went from one to the other, half-frightened, half-hopeful. It was the hopefulness that made Hopalong curious. Topper stamped in the tall grass and blew contentedly. Firelight flickered on his flanks and glistened on the shining coats of the darker horses.

  "What you lookin' for?" Pike's voice promised nothing.

  "I want to know who killed Pete Melford."

  "I don't know anything about that. I've got my own questions to look into hereabouts." Pike's lids flickered ever so slightly. "We may be out here doin' the same kinda thing, Cameron. But we ain't doin' it for the same reasons."

  Hopalong examined Pike Towne narrowly, the shade of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. "And I thought you were just working your way through to Oregon," he said.

  "I am." Pike looked over toward Sarah. "But I've got to know that what's past is behind me. We can't make a new life until I do." He got to his feet and looked down at Cassidy. "We've got a big job, boss. Let's hit the hay."

  Hopalong Cassidy knew the man, and knew he had as much as he was likely to get. He shrugged, then got to his feet. "All right, but if you know of any good springs back in that nightmare, tell me about them."

  "In the morning," he said quietly.

  "One thing more. Where's Sipapu?" Towne hesitated, and for an instant Hopalong did not believe the man would reply, but when he did he spoke quietly. "East of here. It's a ghost town on a trail to nowhere. It's a town that was born quick, lasted only a little while, and then died hard with guns in the streets. It was another place where the vigilante idea didn't work. They hung the crooks, and then each other, and finally died shooting."

  His face was twisted with bitterness. "It's a place I've no wish to see, Cameron, nor any man who has ever seen hatred as I saw it in the streets of that town. Hatred and fear." "You said it was east of here. Just where?" "You know that trail I mentioned? The one that runs off the Box T road toward the north? That trail used to take you, but it won't anymore because the old canyon bridge is gone. It's just as well. There's no reason for anybody to go, and I don't believe anybody has been there in years."

  "Thanks, you've helped me some, Pike. I've got a job here. Pete Melford, the man who owned this land before Tredway showed up, was a friend of mine."

  Pike looked at him carefully. "We'll do our best. I've good reason to believe this Colonel Tredway is somethin' different from what he wants everyone to think, and I think he's capable of nearly anything. Of course"--he grinned at Hopalong--"I've reason to think the same way about you." Pike Towne turned and walked to the wagon to join his wife.

  Hopalong tossed another stick on the fire and then banked it a little so there would be coals for the morning. Moving back from the flames, he got to his feet and walked to the edge of the

  woods. The night was very still. The water rustled among the reeds along the banks, the wind stirred, and out in the chaparral there were myriad rustling sounds and stirrings as the creatures of the night came alive for their hunting.

  Hopalong Cassidy scowled uncomfortably. He had the feeling of being watched by something he could not see, and he did not like it. He didn't like it at all.

  There were things happening about him of which he knew nothing. Pike Towne had been here before, an outlaw, perhaps. Maybe he knew a great deal, and perhaps very little.

  He walked on, away from the horses. Behind him the fire dwindled as he moved away until it was scarcely more than another star, glimmering in the night. At last, on a low knoll beside the Picket Fork, he paused. Around him the night was very still. Suddenly a flicker of movement caught his eyes and he looked around. Far away over the top of the chaparral loomed the distant finger of Chimney Butte, pointing at the stars, and then beyond and to the east of it lay Brushy Knoll, a huge, ominous darkness blotting out the distant horizon. Yet he had seen movement there, and now he saw it again, visible at even this distance, the slow movement of lights upon the mountainside!

  Cassidy narrowed his eyes, staring into the night. Had there been a trail through the chaparral, he would have saddled up at once, but there was not, so he stood still, watching while the trail of lights mounted higher, and then still higher. At last, after what seemed a very long time, the lights emerged on the very top of the knoll and merged into a group. They flickered there, danced, and held his eyes, and only after a long time did they slowly begin to burn down and vanish. Sobered, he wandered

  back to the fire. He glanced at his watch and was astonished to see he had been gone for all of two hours!

  He crawled into his bed and scarcely felt the ground under him. He sighed, breathed deeply, and was asleep.

  Far away, on Brushy Knoll, the lights appeared again, descended in slow, switchback movements until they vanished behind the pear forest. A wind lifted and stirred the leaves, and Topper pricked his ears and stared curiously off into the darkness. At the edge of the dimming firelight, a pack rat crept closer, watched, and sniffed, then moved into camp, curious as always, and alert for something that would interest him enough to steal.

  After a long time there was movement in the wagon and then a low question was spoken. The sound, ever so slight, awakened Hopalong. He did not move, but lay very still, listening. At first he could not distinguish the words, and then they began to come through to him.

  "No telling what we'll uncover back in there. I'm afraid of it, yet I wouldn't be anywhere else."

  Sarah Towne was speaking. "You're not worried, Pike?"

  "Of course I'm worried. But what can I do? What else can we do?"

  "Suppose he finds out? What will happen?"

  There was a long silence, and then Pike's voice, tired now and sounding its worry: "I don't know. Who can know? Kill me, probably, or try it. The trouble is, nobody suspects him. Nobody but me."

  "You won't tell them?"

  "Tell them? I would tell them nothing! Let them find out!

  Of course," he added fatalistically, "he will find out. He's that kind of man."

  Nobody spoke for several minutes then, and Hopalong waited, believing they had gone to sleep. Then he began to wonder. Of whom were they talking? Was it Justin Tredway of whom they spoke? What was there he could find out? Why would their presence here be dangerous to Tredway? Or was it he himself of whom they talked?

  Pondering this question, Hopalong Cassidy went to sleep.

  The big brindle steer backed up and lowered his head as Hop-along turned Topper toward him and shook out a loop. He backed up about three steps and then, as Topper moved in, the steer ducked and bolted for open space. Instantly Hopalong Cas-sidy dropped his loop. It was a short, easy cast around the horns and the steer jerked to a halt and swung
half around. Instantly he charged. Topper swung away, and the jerk of the rope snapped the steer's head around. He stopped, bracing his legs and glaring.

  Topper started away from him at once, tugging on the rope. The steer braced himself to resist the unaccustomed tug on his horns and Pike closed in behind on his paint and slapped the steer across the rump with his coiled rope. The steer sprang forward and Topper led off. Pulled from before and struck from behind, the steer went forward reluctantly. He hesitated at the gate of the big corral, but sighting the other cattle inside, he bolted for it. Hopalong brought him up short, then, as the steer

  turned, Hopalong shook loose his loop and flipped it from the horns.

  Freed, the steer raced away toward the others who fed at the far side of the corral. Hopalong mopped the sweat from his face and grinned at Pike. "That's the first one. We've made a start, anyway!"

  Pike nodded, rolling a smoke. "Yeah, an' we had a break finding those six head already in the corral. I expect they've been feeding in here ever since it was abandoned."

  They turned their horses and started toward the brush. Pike rode without speaking for a short time, and then said unexpectedly, "This Tredway figures to be a sharp dealer. He ain't goin' to like paying us, an' unless our guessin' is wrong, we'll have two thousand dollars comin' before long. We haven't used Shep on this yet, but he'll go back into the deep brush after the worst ones."

  "We'll need him there. When they are pushed, these steers will find their way into brush where no man on horseback could go. I don't think Tredway ever figured on a dog."

  "If he had"--Pike's voice was thoughtful--"he wouldn't have let us in here. He'd have picked up a dog or two and started in himself."

  They rode in silence, then halted at the edge of a new clearing. There were four steers and a cow grazing here. None of them were branded.

  Hopalong indicated them with a nod of his head. "Seem funny to you, Pike, that those steers wouldn't be marked? I was thinking that maybe somebody wasn't too sure of himself."