Clattering Hoofs. William MacLeod Raine

      

      COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 1944 by William MacLeod Raine.

      Published by Wildside Press LLC.

      wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

      1. A Hostage for Pablo

      SANDRA SAT AT THE TABLE MAKING OUT A LIST OF GROCERIES to be bought for the ranch. Later in the day she and her brother Nelson would drive over to the cross-road store and get them.

      “The sugar is plumb out too, Miss Sandra, an’ in two-three days I’ll be scrapin’ the bottom of the flour barrel,” Jim Budd said. “Beats all what a lot of eatin’ is done on this here ranch.”

      “When the wagon goes tomorrow it can pick up the flour,” Sandra decided. “We can bring the other supplies. You haven’t forgotten anything?”

      “I disremember havin’ forgot a thing,” Jim replied, and flashed a set of shining teeth in a face black as the ace of spades. The huge cook found it easy to grin at his young mistress. He thought her the loveliest human under heaven, and he adored her. In his warped life few people had been kind to him. At the Circle J R ranch he had found a home.

      Into the kitchen burst a redheaded boy, eyes popping with excitement. “You know what, sis?” he cried. “They’ve just brought in Rod Spillman. He’s been shot.”

      Sandra stared at her brother, the grocery list banished from her mind. After a moment of shocked silence she asked a question. “Who shot him?”

      Nelson shook his head. “I dunno. They’re taking him into the bunkhouse. Wouldn’t let me see him. Told me to scat.”

      The girl ran out to the porch. She moved with the light grace of youth and perfect health. From the bunk-house a man walked toward the stable. Sandra intercepted him.

      “Buck, is it true about Rod?” she asked.

      The cowpuncher stopped. “Yes’m. They sure enough got him.”

      “You mean he’s . . . dead?”

      “That’s right. We found him near the mouth of French Gulch.”

      “Who did it?”

      “Rustlers. We dunno who for certain. They run off a bunch of our beef stuff. Looks like Rod must of bumped into them while they were making the gather.”

      John Ranger stepped from his office to the porch. He carried a rifle in his hand. “Hustle up the mounts, Buck,” he ordered. “We want to get started.”

      “You are taking out after the men who killed Rod?” his daughter asked after she had joined him.

      “Yes. The boys are notifying the neighbors. We’re meeting at Blunt’s.”

      “Buck says you don’t know who did it.”

      “We think it was Scarface and his gang. They were seen last night in the valley.”

      “You’ll be careful, Father.”

      Ranger was a large hard-muscled man who looked able to take care of himself. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Those scoundrels aren’t fighting. They are running.”

      “Is there anything I can do, Father?”

      “Not a thing, honey. It’s a bad business. They must have shot Rod so he couldn’t tell who they were.”

      Five minutes later the owner of the J R and three of his men cantered down the road, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake.

      Though still under nineteen, Sandra had managed the house since the death of her mother two years before. Her slim body looked slight, but there was in her a toughness of fiber given by life on the frontier and the responsibilities it had thrust upon her. The death of Rod shocked her, yet she did not let it interfere with the work of the house. By the time she had changed the bed linen and swept the rooms Jim Budd had dinner ready.

      “When do we start for the store?” Nelson asked her as he finished a second helping of rice pudding.

      “As soon as you have hitched up Chance to the buggy,” she told him. “I promised to stop and see Elvira on my way back.”

      “Good. Mebbe we’ll hear at Blunt’s whether they have caught the rustlers.”

      They took the short cut through the brush, following a trail just wide enough for the buggy. Shoots of mesquite and cactus slapped at the wheels. The girl had chosen this road to escape the clouds of yellow dust that travel on the main highway would stir up.

      Chance was a short-coupled, round-bellied buckskin with no ambition to break records. He preferred to walk, but when Nelson tickled his flank with the whip he would reluctantly break into a slow trot.

      At Bitter Wells they met a horseman, Miguel Torres, a middle-aged Mexican who owned a ranch in the vicinity. He had been their neighbor ever since they could remember, and Nelson pulled up to exchange news of the pursuit of the rustlers.

      The road dipped to the flats, and for the next mile they moved along a jungle of cholla, prickly pear, and occasional huisaches. Cattle runs cut through here and there. Once they crossed a dry wash of burning sand over which heat shimmered.

      Four Mexicans rode out of the brush and drew up on the road in front of them, evidently to discuss the direction they wanted to follow. They wore the tight trousers, sombreros, and short decorated vests of vaqueros in their native land. One of them caught sight of the buggy and raised a shout.

      Sandra did not know the men, but at first she was not at all alarmed. She had been brought up in a land where there were many Mexicans, and she Knew them for a gentle friendly race. These riders were armed with rifles. It occurred to her they might be a detachment looking for the rustlers.

      They pounded toward the buggy at a gallop and dragged their mounts to a halt.

      “Oho!” one of them cried in Spanish. “We have flushed a plump little quail in the desert.”

      Both Sandra and her brother were frightened. These men were a villainous-looking lot, and their mocking laughter was not reassuring.

      “What do you want?” Nelson demanded. “John Ranger is our father. Please get out of the road and let us go on.”

      “So you are children of the great John Ranger,” a bearded ruffian said. “That is good. Pablo will like that. He will keep you for hostages.”

      It came to Sandra that he meant Pablo Lopez, the notorious bandit whose name was a terror to the border. He lived in Sonora, but several times his band had swept into Arizona to burn and pillage ranches and to drive cattle across the line.

      “If you will let us go my father will pay you anything you ask,” Sandra promised.

      “Si, señorita, he will pay, but we will not let you go.”

      Nelson let out a cry for help. Fear choked up in his throat. Pablo Lopez was a villain without conscience, and it was a pleasure to him to kill gringos. He recruited his band from the riff-raff of the border, and he preyed on his own race too.

      “Come, little quail,” the bearded ruffian jeered, still in Spanish. “Come to the loving arms of Pedro.”

      He reached forward, and his hands closed around the waist of the girl. Nelson struck at him with the whip. Another outlaw brought the barrel of a forty-five down on the boy’s head. Though Sandra struggled, she was dragged across the wheel of the buggy. Her fingers clawed at the dirty brown face of her captor.

      “Que diablo!” he cried, pinioning her wrists with the fingers of one hand. “This is no quail, but a hawk. Be still, chiquita, or Pedro will slap that pretty face.”

      She screamed, with no real hope that any friend might hear. Miles of desert lay between her and any who might come to the rescue.

      Sandra was held close to the thick body of the bearded outlaw, face