“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed. “I’ll be so glad—I mean, it would be wonderful to hear you play again. Father is dickering for some land down in the mesa country. I think it’s near a town called War Cry.”
A frown stole across Music’s brow. “That’s a long hard trek across the Black Rock Desert,” he said. “Tell him I said to take plenty of water.”
She laughed at his warning. “We have a man to guide us,” she said.
“Who?”
“Mr. Strudder. The bald gentleman who wears a black hat and black shirt.”
Music bit his lips.
“When are you leavin’?” he asked quietly.
“Tomorrow morning,” she said.
“Couldn’t you delay your trip until after tonight?”
“Reckon not.”
Music got up from his heels. “But don’t tell anybody—I might see you sooner’n expected.”
He left her blushing prettily.
Music was plenty worried, for he knew that Keno Strudder was not a professional wagon guide nor a scout. Nor was the man a puncher. Both Keno and Stick Wiley were men who either hired out their guns or dealt in shady jobs that meant big profits. They certainly wouldn’t waste their time guiding a couple of emigrant wagons across the Black Rock Desert for a few dollars. They were up to something that augured ill.
At the corral, Music saddles his own buckskin bronc, a deep-chested animal with a cream mane and tale, then he herded his other four buckskin horses out of the wagon yard and into the rutted main street of Saltville. He had no difficulty with the broncs, for they were well-trained to the drive. Music could swing them right or left with a wave of his arm and by spurring his own bronc up the flank of the four.
Turning into a side alley, Music sent his cavvy scampering out of town through a back pasture. This he crossed to reach a trail that led off toward the mountains, where his valley ranch lay. He was consciously avoiding the direction of the Black Rock Desert, for he didn’t doubt but that Stick and Keno were watching him from some hidden point.
Five miles from town, he halted on the bank of a stream and broke out several canvas waterbags, which he filled and tied one to the back of each buckskin. This drink would have to last them until the next morning. The first water-hole in the desert was sixty miles away. It was better to travel in the moonlight, when it was cool and a man could check his pocket compass by the North Star. There were magnetic lodes here and there that swerved the needle.
* * * *
Just at dusk, Music Stevens slipped into the volcanic wasteland, letting his bronc trot easily, with the other buckskins trailing. He rode with his compass in band, ever westward.
The desert had obtained its name from the great piles of black lava rock that reared out of the sand and gravel. There was a dearth of cacti. Prickly pear and mesquite grew only in the bottom of deep cuts, which had to be constantly skirted.
It was hard travel. Music changed from trot to walk every mile. He had no fear of the two men who had questioned him in Saltville, for he was following no trail. Now and then he whistled a range tune, and once he broke into song. His Buckstin cavvy came up, two on either side of his mount, when the going was easier.
At midnight, he halted to cook some beans and bacon, and to water the horses. He built his fire in the bottom of a sink hola. Watching the coffee boil, he got to thinking about Marian Ellis, wondering if she would leave her folks and settle down with him on his valley ranch. It was a lonely life, but he was saving money. The country was settling up. With a couple of kids, he could branch out through the valley, put in grain and increase his herd. Some day he might be one of the biggest breeders in the West. Music was going places—if something didn’t happen!
After the rest, the night grew chill and the trip harder. The buckskins didn’t like their footing. They began to lag behind and had to be whistled up constantly. In addition, the compass needle acted up, which meant that Music was nearing a magnetic ridge. He took his bearing by the North Star and pushed on until dawn.
Then, with the pinkening of the sky, he spotted a great black butte landmark that lay back of the first spring.
“Go find it!” he shouted at the buckskins, waving his tan hat at them.
The four broncs raced ahead, following the scent of water from a grove of palms. Music drew his six-gun, his eyes hardening. He circled the spring slowly, studying the grove carefully. Finally he rode up to the spring, halted, and sat his saddle tensely. There was no indication that riders had been here before him or that men lay in wait.
“Reckon Stick and Keno got fooled,” Music decided, bolstering his six-gun and dismounting.
Crash! The answer to his belief was the thunder of a hidden rifle and at the same time Music’s right leg was plucked out from under him. He fell whirling, with the thought of jerking his six-gun from its holster. But the nerves of his right side had been shocked and he didn’t seem to be able to get a grip on the gun butt. As in the case of a hard driven wound, he was stupefied for several seconds—and that was just enough time for the bushwhacker to come out of hiding in a nest of black rock across the spring and race toward him.
“Pull that six and you’re dead!” growled the man who stared down at Music.
“Stick Wiley!” Music groaned, looking up to the gunman’s bitter eyes.
“Unbuckle your hogleg and roll away from it,” Stick snapped. “I could just as easy have killed you, but I want a bill of sale for your four buckskins. That’s my dicker for your life.”
A burning pain chased the numbness out of Music’s right leg. He didn’t know if the rifle slug had shattered bone. He did know that he wouldn’t be able to get up. His only hope was in obeying orders, so he unbuckled his cartridge belt and rolled away, faint with agony. But his right leg was not shattered. It moved with his body.
“Let me put a tourniquet on it, Stick,” Music said. “I don’t want to pass out.”
“Go ahead,” the gunman said, picking up the horse trainer’s gun and belt.
Music propped himself to a sitting position against a rock. Grasping the rent made by the rifle bullet in his frontier pants, he tore the seam and laid bare his crimson thigh. The slug had driven a neat hole in the flesh half-way from hip to knee. Nerves and minor muscles had been clipped, but Music knew he would walk again—if Stick Wiley left him his life!
There was no need of a tourniquet. Music plugged the wound with his wadded neckerchief, then tore the tail of his shirt for a bandage. At last he lay back, wiping perspiration from his brow. The bushwhacker was grinning at him. Near the spring, the buckskins had moved over to a patch of grass to graze, and his own mount had joined them.
“If you play straight,” Stick finally said, “I’ll give you a canteen to nurse. Yuh also get pencil and paper to make a bill of sale. Yuh’ll write that some hoss thieves shot at you. I come along and saved your life, so you sold me the cavvy for one thousand bucks, which is the same you got from the XYZ Ranch. Also, I want that extra cash you picked up.”
“I deposited it in the bank in Saltville,” Music said.
“I don’t believe it!” Stick shouted.
“Search me,” Music replied, shutting his eyes. “I’d be a fool to carry money into the desert.”
“They say in Saltville that you’re in love with that nester gal,” Stick Wiley sneered. “Yuh aim to go on to War Cry and meet her family there. Yuh plan to buy farm machinery and set her pap up in a farm in your valley. I got the whole story. Where’s your dinero?”
* * * *
Music didn’t