Trail of Blood and Bones: A Walt Slade Western. Bradford Scott

bad temper. Outsmarted again! Sosna had figured what his move would be and had set a trap for him; and he had blithely blundered into it.

      “And nothing but plain bull luck saved us,” he growled to Shadow, overlooking the part his own acute perceptions had played. He smiled wryly as he recalled his remark to Amado Menendez, that in this deadly game of hide-and-go-seek it was sometimes difficult to be sure just who was the pursued and who the pursuer. Sure worked out that way this time. Still watching the brush-flanked bend in the trail, he drew forth his waterproof pouch of tobacco and matches and rolled and lighted a cigarette.

      “Guess we can take a chance on a brain tablet,” he told Shadow. “Won’t make enough smoke to be seen and the wind’s blowing from the west, so the hellion can’t smell it. Seems ridiculous to think he could even with the wind blowing the other way, but if Sosna himself happens to be somewhere around, I wouldn’t put it past him. Now I wonder what he figures I figure to do? The answer to that one could be mighty important.”

      He smoked the cigarette down to a short butt, which he pinched out carefully and cast aside. For several more minutes he stood gazing toward the bend in the trail; it showed no signs of life.

      “Horse,” he said, “we’re going to play a hunch. It’s evident that the hellion isn’t riding down this way to try and learn what happened to us. I’ve a notion he’ll figure that if we weren’t drowned, we’ll continue to wherever we were headed for when we tackled the ford. Which would mean that we’d ride west on this trail. Perhaps he hightailed when we went into the drink, but then again perhaps he didn’t. He could still be holed up waiting for another chance. Sosna doesn’t take kindly to failure, and the fellow may be reluctant to go and report that for all he knew he did fail. The whole business seems to be sheer nonsense, his arriving at such a conclusion; just doesn’t make sense. But then nothing the Sosna bunch does seems to make sense. Let’s go!”

      Mounting, he rode diagonally up the brush clad slope. Shadow didn’t like it but registered his disapproval in a single disgusted snort, then forged ahead, avoiding as many thorns as possible.

      Slade smiled grimly as he reflected that now, at least, the outlaws were on Texas soil and under his jurisdiction as a Ranger. In Mexico his only authority had been what he packed on his hip, and there was always the chance that he might find himself in exceedingly hot water. This was much better.

      Finally he reached the crest of the rise where the growth was even heavier than farther down the slope. Shadow wriggled and wormed his way through the chaparral strands until they arrived at a point Slade believed was not far from being directly above where the drygulcher had been holed up and possibly still was. As far as he dared go on horseback. He slipped from the saddle, dropped the split reins to the ground and gave Shadow a pat.

      “Take it easy, now,” he whispered. “Can’t take a chance any longer on the racket you make shoving through the brush. Be seeing you.”

      Silently as the shadow of the great mountain hawk for which he was named, he drifted down the slope, pausing often to peer and listen. He followed a slantwise course for a while, until he was sure he must be directly above the point from which the drygulcher’s bullets had come. Now it should be less than a hundred feet down the sag. That is, if the fellow hadn’t moved. He might have slipped farther down the slope, but Slade doubted it. Farther up he would have a better view of the trail where it curved around the growth, following the bend of the river. Slade slowed his pace to a crawl, careful to snap no twig, to step on no dry branch, to move no stone.

      The sun was close to the western horizon now and it was already gloomy under the thick growth. The hush of evening had descended, broken only by the sleepy chirps of birds. Slade strained his eyes to pierce the deepening shadows, and he began to believe that his thorny ride and stalk had been for nothing; there was naught to be seen, nothing to be heard. Looked very much like the killer had hightailed. Instinctively he quickened his gait a little.

      Then abruptly he halted to stand rigid. From nearby had come a sound, faint and musical, the jingle of a bit iron as a horse tossed its head. The devil was still there!

      But blast it! where was “there?” Must be close, unpleasantly close. Had he been spotted creeping down the slope? Was the muzzle of a gun swinging in his direction, eyes glinting along the sights? A nice thought! He stood tense and motionless, his glance probing the shadows ahead, bleday, N.Y., 1948. drew a breath of relief as nothing happened. He risked another forward step, and saw the drygulcher.

      He was lounging against the trunk of a small tree, less than half a dozen paces distant, his eyes fixed on the trail below. Slade’s pulses leaped exultantly; he had the hellion “settin’!” Take him alive and perhaps force him to talk. He drew his right-hand gun, glided forward another step. His lips opening as if to speak, he sensed rather than saw movement to his right. There were two of the devils!

      Sideways and down he went. A gun blazed and the slug whipped through the crown of his hat. He fired at the flash, rolled over and over. The drygulcher by the tree whirled with a yell of alarm. Bullets stormed from two directions, kicking up spurts of dust, fanning his face with their deadly breath. He shot as fast as he could pull trigger, left and right, left and right!

      A gurlging scream knifed through the uproar, the thud of a falling body and a wild thrashing about. Slade whirled over on his side, saw the second killer looming huge and distorted in the gloom, almost over him. He fired point-blank, tried to surge erect. Something crashed against his skull and the world exploded in flame and roaring sound, and a cyclone-rush of blackness.