White Wolf's Law / A Western Story
CHAPTER I
APACHES OR LAVA GANG
Death had struck twice on that September afternoon, and two riders returning to Cannondale had marked the glow from a fire against the early evening sky.
At first they had mistaken it for a brush fire and had swung their horses off the trail and headed toward it as rapidly as the going would permit. The brush was as dry as tinder, and a fire, unless checked, spelled ruin both to townfolk and plainsmen.
The two riders slid their horses down the shelving bank of a wide arroyo. After their horses had scrambled up the farther side, it was “Toothpick” Jarrick who first realized the truth.
“Hey, ‘Dutchy,’ it’s a house on fire!” he cried.
“Sure is!” Dutchy grunted and checked his horse to a trot.
“Get goin’!” Toothpick cried impatiently.
“Not any,” Dutchy said shortly. “Lava Gang.”
“Yuh sure talk as if words hurt yuh,” Toothpick grumbled.
His companion’s taciturnity was always a source of irritation to the tall, lanky cow-puncher, and he lapsed into a sulky silence for a time, chewing the ever-present toothpick in his mouth, from which he derived his name.
“Yuh mean maybe the gents they calls the Lava Gang is makin’ another raid, and they may be still hangin’ about?” Toothpick asked.
“Yep.”
“Why don’t yuh open yuhr mouth and let the words come out, instead of choking yuhrself on ’em, and makin’ me explain to myself what yuh aim to say?” Toothpick asked scornfully.
Dutchy grunted, drew his rifle out of the boot beneath his saddle flap and balanced it across the pommel.
“If we’re goin’ to war, I’m sure plenty glad to have yuh along,” Toothpick grumbled as he followed the example of his companion; “but yuh sure ain’t no gent to relieve the tedium of existence with light chatter.”
Accustomed as they were to the grim tragedies of the border, they were totally unprepared to find what they did close to the burning house. There was nothing left save smoldering rafters and bare adobe walls. Toothpick swung from his horse and quickly extinguished some brush that had been fired by a spark. Then he gave an exclamation and cried sharply:
“Hey, Dutchy, come here!”
Dutchy was a grizzled two-gun fighter who, rumor said, had once ridden “the long trail.” He had lived close to the border all his life, yet he winced when he saw what the white-faced Toothpick pointed out to him.
A scant five yards from the doorway of the house, the body of a man lay half concealed in the brush. It was mutilated and scalped.
“Apache?” Toothpick queried as he slid a nervous hand to the hammer of his rifle and cast apprehensive glances into the darkness.
“Maybe so,” Dutchy said shortly. “Let’s see if we can find any others.”
After a short search they discovered the body of a woman near a small shed. Powder marks on the back of her head told the story. She had been murdered deliberately – shot at close range.
“Skunks – downed a woman!” Toothpick swore.
“Cussin’ never hurt no one,” Dutchy growled. He wandered to the rear of the ruined house and a little later called: “Here’s a gent what’s got breath in him.”
Toothpick hastened to the side of Dutchy and found him kneeling beside a middle-aged man who was unconscious. The two cow-punchers dressed his wound. After a time the man’s eyelids fluttered open and he stared at them with frightened eyes.
“We’re friends, old-timer,” Toothpick told him. The man sighed with relief.
“Set fire to house to bring help,” the man whispered.
“Well, it come,” Toothpick soothed as he forced a little water between the man’s parched lips. “Who done this?”
The man’s eyes flashed and he raised himself on his elbow.
“Le fils du Diable à Cheval – oui– I knew him – ”
The man sank back and grew silent. Toothpick gave him more water. “Who’s the gent yuh knew?” he asked.
“Le Diable à Cheval.” The man’s voice was nothing but a faint whisper. He sighed and closed his eyes.
“Dable Chaval – huh, that’s a hell of a name,” Toothpick grumbled. “Reckon we’ll have to wait until he comes to again. Will he live?”
“Certain – then he’ll talk.” Dutchy was positive.
“When he does I’m aimin’ to start gunnin’ for the gent what murdered that woman,” Toothpick cried savagely.
“Me, too,” Dutchy said quietly.
They covered the wounded man with a blanket and once more continued their search of the surrounding bushes. Fifteen minutes later, just as they had decided there was nothing more to be found, a voice hailed them from the darkness.
“Hey, Dutchy, what’s goin’ on here?” the voice asked.
At the sound of the summons, both Toothpick and Dutchy instinctively leaped for cover. Recognition of the voice brought them to an abrupt halt.
“Huh, it’s the sheriff,” Toothpick said with a shamefaced grin.
Dutchy nodded and lowered the hammer of his rifle.
Three riders materialized from the darkness and entered the circle of light cast by the smoldering ruins. Tom Powers, the sheriff, came first. He was followed by his deputy, “Silent” Moore, and Sam Hogg, a wiry little man of fifty.
Tom Powers was a slender man of thirty. His face was gaunt, bony, and burned a brick red by the sun. At first his face looked hard, but his deep-set blue eyes told the character of the man. There was no hardness there, only force. He cast one quick glance at Dutchy’s grim face and sensed the tragedy.
“Where’s the Courfays?” he asked.
“Scattered about.” Dutchy waved his hand.
Sam Hogg was good-natured and was forever cracking jokes. He now joined in.
“You two boys sure scattered yourselves when you heard us shout,” he said, chuckling. “You acted skittish, like a pair of heifers just out of school.”
A second later his mirth came to an abrupt end when he saw the sheriff, who had dismounted, kneel beside the body of the mutilated man. He swore excitedly and joined the sheriff.
Toothpick briefly told what he knew of the tragedy. He led them first to the body of the woman, then to where the unconscious man lay. The man was muttering in delirium. The sheriff kneeled beside him and listened, but after a moment he arose to his feet and shook his head.
“Can’t catch a word. I know him, though – he was a brother of the woman over there and came from across the border to visit last week,” the sheriff explained.
“He was talkin’ when we – ” Toothpick began, but Dutchy brought his words to an abrupt halt by kicking him in the shins.
“Somebody comin’!” Dutchy warned in a low voice.
They listened and heard the noisy hoofs of a pair of horses and the crunching of wheels. A minute later two men in a buckboard drove up. The sheriff and Sam Hogg walked forward to greet them. Dutchy drew Toothpick aside.
“Some day yuh’ll dig yuhr grave with yuhr tongue,” he growled. “Don’t tell no one that that gent talked to us private.”
“But he didn’t say nothin’ I could understand,” Toothpick protested.
“Maybe the Lava Gang wouldn’t believe yuh,” Dutchy said grimly.
Judge Ransom, one of the two men in the buckboard, climbed out and listened gravely to what the sheriff had to say. He was a man of fifty-five, with the face of a scholar.
“Who’s that jasper?” Dutchy demanded as he nodded toward the buckboard.
“With