Drag Harlan Read online

  Sitting in the sand at the base of the rock, the man who had fallen also snarled as he sat, looking at the rider.

  Neither of the two men moved after the involuntary muscular action that had resulted from their astonishment. The man at the base of the rock stood in the position in which he had found himself when he had wheeled.

  The pistol in his right hand was held close to his side, the muzzle directed at the rider.

  But a change was coming over the man’s face. The color was slowly going out of it, the lips were loosening as his jaws dropped, his body began to sag, and his eyes began to widen with fear, stark and naked. At length, the rider now watching him with a gaze in which there began to glow recognition and contempt, the man dropped his hands to his sides and leaned against the rock.

  “‘Drag’ Harlan!” he muttered hoarsely.

  The rider watched, his eyes glittering coldly, his lips twisting in a crooked sneer. Amusement was his dominating emotion, but there was hate in his gaze, mingling with a malignant joy and triumph. The pistols in his hands became steady as his wrist muscles stiffened; and he watched the two men warily, apparently looking straight at the standing man, but seeing the sitting man also.

  And now a silence fell—a strained, premonitory silence that had in it a hint of imminent tragedy. The sitting man stiffened, divining the promise of violence; the standing man shrank back a little and looked downward at the pistol in his right hand.

  The rider saw the glance and laughed lowly.

  “Keep her right where she is, Dolver,” he warned. “You lift her one little wee lift, an’ I bore you plumb in the brain-box. Sort of flabbergasted, eh? Didn’t expect to run into me again so soon?”

  He laughed as the other cringed, his face dead white, his eyes fixed on the rider with a sort of dread fascination.

  “Dolver, didn’t you know when you got my little partner, Davey Langan, that I’d be comin’ for you?” said the rider in a slow, drawling whisper. “In the back you got him, not givin’ him a chance. You’re gettin’ yours now. I’m givin’ you a chance to take it like a man—standin’, with your face to me. Lift her now—damn you!”

  There was no change in his expression as he watched the man he had called Dolver. There came no change in the cold, steady gleam of his eyes as he saw the man stiffen and swing the muzzle of his pistol upward with a quick, jerky motion. But he sneered as with the movement he sent a bullet into the man’s chest; his lips curving with slight irony when Dolver’s gun went off, the bullet throwing up sand at Purgatory’s forehoofs.

  His eyes grew hard as he saw Dolver stagger, drop his pistol, and clutch at his chest; and he watched with seeming indifference as the man slowly sank to his knees and stretched out, face down, in the dust at the base of the rock.

  His lips were stiff with bitter rage, however, as he faced the other man, who had not moved.

  “Get up on your hind legs, you yellow coyote!” he commanded.

  For an instant it seemed that the other man was to share the fate of the first. The man seemed to think so, too, for he got up trembling, his hands outstretched along the rock, the fingers outspread and twitching from the paralysis of fear that had seized him.

  “Shoot your gab off quick!” commanded the rider. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Laskar,” the man muttered.

  “Where you from?”

  “Lamo.”

  The rider’s eyes quickened. “Where did you meet up with that scum?” He indicated Dolver.

  “In town.”

  “Lamo?”

  The man nodded.

  “How long ago?” asked the rider.

  “’Bout a week.”

  The man’s voice was hoarse; he seemed reluctant to talk more, and he cast furtive, dreading glances toward the base of the rock where Dolver had stood before the rider had surprised the men.

  Watching the man narrowly, the rider noted his nervous glance, and his shrinking, dreading manner. Harlan’s eyes gleamed with suspicion, and in a flash he was off the black and standing before Laskar, forbidding and menacing.

  “Take off your gun-belt an’ chuck it under my horse!” he directed sharply. “There’s somethin’ goin’ on here that ain’t been mentioned. I’m findin’ out what it is.”

  He watched while the man unbuckled his cartridge belt and threw it—the pistol still in the holster—into the sand at Purgatory’s hoofs. Then he stepped to the man, sheathed one of his pistols, and ran the free hand over the other’s clothing in search of other weapons. Finding none, he stooped and took up Dolver’s pistol and rifle that had fallen from the man’s hands when he had tumbled off the rock, throwing them near where the cartridge belt had fallen.

  “You freeze there while I take a look around this rock!” he commanded, with a cold look at the man.

  Half a dozen steps took him around the base of the rock. He went boldly, though his muscles were tensed and his eyes alert for surprises. But he had not taken a dozen steps in all when he halted and stiffened, his lips setting into straight, hard lines.

  For, stretched out on his left side in the sand close to the base of the rock—under the flattened summit which had afforded him protection from the bullets the man with the rifle had been sending at him—was a man.

  The man was apparently about fifty, with a seamed, pain-lined face. His beard was stained with dust, his hair was gray with it; his clothing looked as though he had been dragged through it. He was hatless, and one of his boots was off. The foot had been bandaged with a handkerchief, and through the handkerchief the dark stains of a wound appeared.

  The man’s shirt was open in front; and the rider saw that another wound gaped in his chest, near the heart. The man had evidently made some attempt to care for that wound, too, for a piece of cloth from his shirt had been cut away, to permit him to get at the wound easily.

  The man’s left side seemed to be helpless, for the arm was twisted queerly, the palm of the hand turned limply upward; but when the rider came upon him the man was trying to tuck a folded paper into one of the cylinders of a pistol.

  He had laid the weapon in the sand, and with his right hand was working with the cylinder and the paper. When he saw the rider he sneered and ceased working with the pistol, looking up into the rider’s face, his eyes glowing with defiance.

  “No chance for that even, eh?” he said, glancing at the paper and the pistol. “Things is goin’ plumb wrong!”

  He sagged back, resting his weight on the right elbow, and looked steadily at the rider—the look of a wounded animal defying his pursuers.

  “Get goin’!” he jeered. “Do your damnedest! I heard that sneak, Dolver, yappin’ to you. You’re ‘Drag’ Harlan—gun-fighter, outlaw, killer! I’ve heard of you,” he went on as he saw Harlan scowl and stiffen. “Your reputation has got all over. I reckon you’re in the game to salivate me.”

  Harlan sheathed his gun.

  “You’re talkin’ extravagant, mister man.” And now he permitted a cold smile to wreathe his lips. “If it’ll do you any good to know,” he added, “I’ve just put Dolver out of business.”

  “I heard that, too,” declared the man, laughing bitterly. “I heard you tellin’ Dolver. He killed your partner—or somethin’. That’s personal, an’ I ain’t interested. Get goin’—the sooner the better. If you’d hand it to me right now, I’d be much obliged to you; for I’m goin’ fast. This hole in my chest—which I got last night while I was sleepin’—will do the business without any help from you.”

  After a pause for breath, the man began to speak again, railing at his would-be murderers. He was talking ramblingly when there came a sound from the opposite side of the rock—a grunt, a curse, and, almost instantly, a shriek.

  The wounded man raised himself and threw a glance of startled inquiry at Harlan: “What’s that?”

  Harlan watched the man steadily.

  “I reckon that’ll be that man Laskar,” he said slowly. “I lifted his gun an’ his rifle, an’ Dolver’s gun
, an’ throwed them under Purgatory—my horse. Laskar has tried to get them, an’ Purgatory’s raised some objection.”

  He stepped back and peered around the rock. Laskar was lying in the sand near the base of the rock, doubled up and groaning loudly, while Purgatory, his nostrils distended, his eyes ablaze, was standing over the weapons that lay in the sand, watching the groaning man malignantly.

  Harlan returned to the wounded man, to find that he had collapsed and was breathing heavily.

  For some minutes Harlan stood, looking down at him; then he knelt in the sand beside him and lifted his head. The man’s eyes were closed, and Harlan laid his head down again and examined the wound in his chest.

  He shook his head as he got up, went to Purgatory, and got some water, which he used to wipe away the dust and blood which had become matted over the wound. He shook his head again after bathing the wound. The wound meant death for the man within a short time. Yet Harlan forced some water into the half-open mouth and bathed the man’s face with it.

  For a long time after Harlan ceased to work with him the man lay in a stupor-like silence, limp and motionless, though his eyes opened occasionally, and by the light in them Harlan knew the man was aware of what he had been doing.

  The sun was going now; it had become a golden, blazing ball which was sinking over the peaks of some distant mountains, its fiery rays stabbing the pale azure of the sky with brilliantly glowing shafts that threw off ever-changing seas of color that blended together in perfect harmony.

  Harlan alternately watched the wounded man and Laskar.

  Laskar was still groaning, and finally Harlan walked to him and pushed him with a contemptuous foot.

  “Get up, you sneak!” he ordered. And Laskar, groaning, holding his chest—where Purgatory’s hoofs had struck him—staggered to his feet and looked with piteously pleading eyes at the big man who stood near him, unmoved by the spectacle of suffering he presented.

  And when he found that Harlan gave him no sympathy, he cursed horribly. This drew a cold threat from Harlan.

  “Shut your rank mouth or I’ll turn Purgatory loose on you—again. Lookin’ for sympathy, eh? How much sympathy did you give that hombre who’s cashin’ in behind the rocks? None—damn you!”

  It was the first flash of feeling Harlan had exhibited, and Laskar shrank from him in terror.

  But Harlan followed him, grasping him by a shoulder and gripping it with iron fingers, so that Laskar screamed with pain.

  “Who is that man?” Harlan motioned toward the rock.

  “Lane Morgan. He owns the Rancho Seco—about forty miles south of Lamo,” returned Laskar after a long look into Harlan’s eyes.

  “Who set you guys onto him—what you wantin’ him for?”

  “I don’t know,” whined Laskar. “Day before yesterday Dolver an’ me meets up in Lamo, an’ Dolver asks me to help him give Morgan his pass-out checks on the ride over to Pardo—which Morgan’s intendin’ to make. I ain’t got any love for Morgan, an’ so I took Dolver up.”

  “You’re a liar!”

  Harlan’s fingers were sinking into Laskar’s shoulder again, and once more the man screamed with pain and impotent fury.

  “I swear—” began Laskar.

  Harlan’s grin was bitterly contemptuous. He placed the other hand on Laskar’s shoulder and forced the man to look into his eyes.

  “You’re a liar, but I’m lettin’ you off. You’re a sneak with Greaser blood in you. I don’t ever want to see you again. I’m goin’ to Lamo—soon as this man Morgan cashes in. I’ll be there some time tomorrow. Lamo wouldn’t please me none if I was to find you there when I ride in. You slope, now—an’ keep on hittin’ the breeze until there ain’t no more of it. I’d blow you apart if this man Morgan was anything to me. But it ain’t my game unless I see you again.”

  He watched until Laskar, still holding his chest, walked to where the two horses were concealed, and mounted one of them. When Laskar, leaning over the pommel of the saddle, had grown dim in the haze that was settling over the desert, Harlan scowled and returned to the wounded man.

  To his astonishment, Morgan was conscious—and a cold calmness seemed to have come over him. His eyes were filled with a light that told of complete knowledge and resignation. He half smiled as Harlan knelt beside him.

  “I’m about due, I reckon,” he said. “I heard you talkin’ to the man you just let get away. It don’t make any difference—about him. I reckon he was just a tool, anyway. There’s someone behind this bigger than Dolver an’ that man Laskar. He didn’t tell you?”

  Harlan shook his head negatively, watching the other intently.

  “I didn’t reckon he would,” said Morgan. “But there’s somebody.” He gazed long into Harlan’s face, and the latter gazed steadily back at him. He seemed to be searching Harlan’s face for signs of character.

  Harlan stood the probing glance well—so that at last Morgan smiled, saying slowly: “It’s funny—damned funny. About faces, I mean. Your reputation—it’s bad. I’ve been hearin’ about you for a couple of years now. An’ I’ve been lookin’ at you an’ tryin’ to make myself say, ‘Yes, he’s the kind of a guy which would do the things they say he’s done.’

  “I can’t make myself say it; I can’t even make myself think it. Either you’re a mighty good actor, or you’re the worst-judged man I ever met. Which is it?”

  “Mostly all of us get reputations we don’t deserve,” said Harlan lowly.

  Morgan’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “Meanin’ that you don’t deserve yours?” he said.

  “I reckon there’s been a heap of lyin’ goin’ on about me.”

  For a long time Morgan watched the other, studying him. The long twilight of the desert descended and found them—Morgan staring at Harlan; the latter enduring the gaze—for he knew that the end would not long be delayed.

  At last Morgan sighed.

  “Well,” he said, “I’ve got to take a chance on you. An’, somehow, it seems to me that I ain’t takin’ much of a chance, either. For a man that’s supposed to be the hell-raisin’ outlaw that folks say you are, you’ve got the straightest eyes I ever seen. I’ve seen killers—an’ outlaws, an’ gun-fighters, an’ I never seen one that could look at a man like you’ve looked at me. Harlan,” he went on slowly, “I’m goin’ to tell you about some gold I’ve hid—a hundred thousand dollars!”

  Keenly, suspicion lurking deep in his eyes, his mouth half open, seemingly ready to snap shut the instant he detected greed or cupidity in Harlan’s eyes, he watched the latter.

  It seemed that he expected Harlan to betray a lust for the gold he had mentioned; and he was ready to close his lips and to die with his secret. And when he saw that apparently Harlan was unmoved, that he betrayed, seemingly, not the slightest interest, that even his eyelids did not flicker at his words, nor his face change color—Morgan drew a tremulous sigh.

  “You’ve got me guessin’,” he confessed weakly. “I don’t know whether you’re a devil or a saint.”

  “I ain’t claimin’ nothin’,” said Harlan. “An’ I ain’t carin’ a damn about your gold. I’d a heap rather you wouldn’t mention it. More than one man has busted his character chasin’ that rainbow.”

  “You ain’t interested?” demanded Morgan.

  “Not none.”

  Morgan’s eyes glowed with an eager light. For now that Harlan betrayed lack of interest, Morgan was convinced—almost—that the man’s reputation for committing evil deeds had been exaggerated.

  “You’ve got to be interested,” he declared, lifting himself on his good arm and leaning toward Harlan. “It ain’t the gold that is botherin’ me so much, anyway—it’s my daughter.

  “It’s all my own fault, too,” he went on when he saw Harlan’s eyes quicken. “I’ve felt all along that somethin’ was wrong, but I didn’t have sense enough to look into it. An’ now, trustin’ folks so much, an’ not payin’ strict attention to what was goin’ on around me, I’ve got to the p
oint where I’ve got to put everything into the hands of a man I never saw before—an outlaw.”

  “There ain’t nobody crowdin’ you to put anything into his hands,” sneered Harlan. “I ain’t a heap anxious to go around buttin’ into trouble for you. Keep your yap shut, an’ die like a man!”

  Morgan laughed, almost triumphantly. “I’ll do my dyin’ like a man, all right—don’t be afraid of that. You want to hear what I’ve got to tell you?”

  “I’ve got to listen. Shoot!”

  “There’s a gang of outlaws operatin’ in the Lamo country. Luke Deveny is the chief. It’s generally known that Deveny’s the boss, but he keeps his tracks pretty well covered, an’ Sheriff Gage ain’t been able to get anything on him. Likely Gage is scared of him, anyway.

  “Anyway, Gage don’t do nothin’. Deveny’s a bad man with a gun; there ain’t his equal in the Territory. He’s got a fellow that runs with him—Strom Rogers—who’s almost as good as he is with a gun. They’re holy terrors; they’ve got the cattlemen for two hundred miles around eatin’ out of their hands. They’re roarin’, rippin’ devils!

  “There ain’t no man knows how big their gang is—seems like half the people in the Lamo country must belong to it. There’s spies all around; there ain’t a thing done that the outlaws don’t seem to know of it. They drive stock off right in front of the eyes of the owners; they rob the banks in the country; they drink an’ kill an’ riot without anyone interferin’.

  “There ain’t anyone knows where their hang-out is—no one seems to know anything about them, except that they’re on hand when there’s any devilment to be done.

  “I’ve got to talk fast, for I ain’t got long. I’ve never had any trouble with Deveny or Rogers, or any of the rest of them, because I’ve always tended to my own business. I’ve seen the thing gettin’ worse an’ worse, though; an’ I ought to have got out of there when I had a chance. Lately there ain’t been no chance. They watch me like a hawk. I can’t trust my men. The Rancho Seco is a mighty big place, an’ I’ve got thirty men workin’ for me. But I can’t trust a damned one of them.