Kid Wolf of Texas Part 39

"Next thing, we got business with that man!" Garvey pointed to Dave Robbins' father.

"With me?" Robbins demanded in astonishment.

"The same. We want yuh to sign this paper, turnin' over yore claim in the San Simon to me. Now both of yuh have heard!"

"But why should yuh want my claim in San Simon?"

"Yuh might as well know," Garvey sneered in reply, "there's silver on it. And I want it. Hand over that express box now and sign the paper.

If yuh don't----"

"And if we don't?" Kid Wolf asked mildly. His eyebrows had risen the merest trifle.

"Here's the answer!" Garvey rasped. He pointed at two mounds of freshly disturbed earth a few feet from the road. "Read what's written over 'em, and take yore choice."

Kid Wolf saw that two headboards had been erected near the shallow graves. One of them had the following significant epitaph written on it in neatly printed Spanish:

_Aqui llacen restos de Kid Wolf._

This in English was translated: "Here lies in the grave, at rest, Kid Wolf."

The other headboard was the same, except that the name "Bill Robbins"

had been inserted.

"Those graves will be filled," sneered Garvey, "unless yuh both come through. Now what's yore answer?"

"Garvey," spoke up Kid Wolf, "I've known of othah white men who hired the Apaches to do their dirty work. They all came to a bad end. And so, if yo' want my answah--take it!"

Garvey's gang found themselves staring into the muzzles of two .45s!

The draw had been magical, so swiftly had the Texan's hands snapped down at his hips. Al Arnold, alone of the six riders, saw the movement in time even to think about drawing his own weapon. And perhaps it would have been better if he had not seen, for his own gun pull was slow and clumsy in comparison with Kid Wolf's. His right hand had moved but a few inches when the Texan's left-hand Colt spat a wicked tongue of flame.

Before the thunder of the explosion could be heard, the leaden slug tore its way through Arnold's wrist. Before the puff of black powder smoke had drifted away, Arnold's gun was thudding to the ground. The others dared not draw, as Kid Wolf's other six-gun still swept them.

They knew that the Texan could not fail to get one or more of them, and they hesitated. Garvey himself remained motionless, frozen in the saddle. His lips trembled with rage.

"I'm not a killah," Kid Wolf drawled. "I nevah take life unless it's forced on me. If I did, I'd soon make Lost Springs a bettah place to live in. Now turn yo' backs with yo' hands in the air--and ride! The next time I shoot, it's goin' to be on sight! Vamose! p.r.o.nto!"

Muttering angrily under their breath, Garvey and his gunmen obeyed the order. Yet Kid Wolf knew that the trouble had not been averted, but merely postponed. He was not through with the Lost Springs bandit gang.

The driver of the coach--the only member of the posse who had remained loyal in the face of peril--was a man of courage. Johnson was his name, and he offered his adobe house as a place of refuge for the night.

"I'm thinkin' yuh'll be needin' it," he told the Texan. "We can stand 'em off there, for a while, anyway. Garvey will have a hundred Mexes and Injuns with him before mornin'."

Kid Wolf accepted, and the coach was deserted. They buried the bodies of the men they had brought in the stage, not in the Lost Springs graveyard, but in an arroyo near it. Then they removed the valuable express box and took it with them to the Johnson adobe.

The house was a two-room affair, not more than a quarter of a mile from the Springs, and still closer to Boot Hill. On the side next to the water hole, the gra.s.s and tulles grew nearly waist-high. On the other three sides, barren ground swept out as far as eye could reach.

Kid Wolf placed the express box in the one living room of the hut. As a great deal might depend upon having horses ready, Blizzard, along with two pinto ponies, was quartered in the other apartment. This redone, and with one of the four men standing watch at all times, they prepared a hasty meal.

"One thing we lack that we got to have," stated Johnson. "It's water.

I'll take a bucket and go to the spring. I know the path through the tulles."

They watched him proceed warily toward the water hole. The landscape was peaceful. Not a moving thing could be seen. In a few moments, Johnson was swallowed up in the high gra.s.s. He reappeared again, carrying a br.i.m.m.i.n.g bucket. They could see the setting sun sparkling on the water as he swung along. Then suddenly a shot rang out sharply--the unmistakable crack of a Sharps .50-caliber rifle! Without a cry, Johnson sank into the tulles, the bucket clattering beside him.

He had been shot in the back!

A cry of horror burst from the lips of the watchers in the adobe. It was all that Kid Wolf could do to hold back the excitable younger Robbins, who wanted to avenge their friend's death immediately.

"No use fo' us to show ouahselves until we know how the cahds are stacked," the Texan said grimly. "Nevah mind, Dave. They'll pay fo'

it!"

It was hard to tell just how many of their enemies might be lurking in the tulles or beyond them. They were soon to find that there were far too many. Gunfire began to blaze out in sharp, reechoing volleys.

Bullets clipped the adobe shack, sending up spurts of gray dust.

"Don't show yo'selves," Kid Wolf warned.

His keen eyes lined out the sights of his own twin Colts, and he fired twice, and then twice again. As far as the others could see, there was nothing in view to shoot at; but agitated thres.h.i.+ngs about in the tulles showed them that at least some of his bullets had found human lodging places.

Garvey had evidently succeeded in adding men to his gang, for more than a dozen gun flashes burst out at once. The attackers soon learned, however, that it wasn't healthy to attempt to rush the adobe.

Surrounding it was impossible, and for a while they contented themselves with sending lead humming through the small window on the exposed side of the hut.

"We're in fo' a siege," Kid Wolf told the elder Robbins.

"Maybe we'd better give in to 'em," said the other.

Kid Wolf smiled and shook his head.

"That wouldn't save us. They'd butchah us, anyway. Nevah yuh worry.

Before they get us, they'll find that The Wolf, from Texas, has teeth!"

"Then we'll play out the hand," agreed Robbins.

"To the last cahd," Kid Wolf drawled. "I have two hands heah that can turn up twelve lead aces fo' a show-down. And I have anothah ace--a steel one, that's always in the deck."

The Texan saw as well as the others how desperate the situation had become. He knew that death would be the probable outcome for all of them.

Kid Wolf, however, was not a type of man who gave up. If they must go out, he decided, they would go out fighting.

The sun climbed the sky and disappeared over the distant blue range to the west, leaving the desert behind bathed in warm reds and soft purples. Then the shadows deepened, and night fell.

With it came a full moon, riding high out of the southeast--a pumpkin-colored, gigantic Arizona moon that changed to s.h.i.+ning silver.

Its light illuminated the scene and turned the landscape nearly as bright as day. This was a fact in favor of the three men cornered in the adobe. The attackers dared not show themselves in a rush. All night long their guns cracked, and they continued to do so when the east was beginning to lighten with the dawn.

Another day, and it proved to be one of torment. There was no water.

Before the hour of noon, the three besieged men were suffering from intense thirst. The little adobe was like an oven. The sun burned down pitilessly, distorting the air with waves of heat, and drawing mocking mirages in the sky. Bullets still hummed and buzzed about them. Every hissing slug seemed to whistle the mournful tune of "Death--death--death!" Late in the afternoon, the elder Robbins could endure the torture no longer.

"I'm goin' after water!" he cried.

Neither his son nor Kid Wolf could reason with him. He would not listen. He reasoned that although it was death to venture to the spring, it was also death to remain. He was nearly crazed with thirst.