Part 22 (1/2)
Cinnabar's face went a shade paler, but he made no reply and the other turned to Jennie. ”You go to the house--me an' Cinnabar wants to make medicine.”
”You go to the devil!” flashed the girl. ”Who do you think you are anyhow? Tryin' to order me around on my own ranch! If you've got anything to say, just you go ahead an' spit it out--don't mind me.”
”Kind of sa.s.sy, ain't you? If you was mine, I'd of took that out of you before this--or I'd of broke you in two.”
”If I was yourn!” cried the girl contemptuously, ”if you was the last man in the world, I'd of et wolf poison before I'd be'n seen on the street with you. I've got your number. I didn't work in the hotel at Wolf River as long as I did, not to be onto your curves. You're a nasty dirty low-down skunk--an' that's the best can be said about you! Now, I guess you know how you stand around here. Shoot off what you got to say, an' then take your dirty hide off this ranch an' don't come back!”
”I guess Cinnabar won't say that,” sneered the man, white with rage, ”you don't hear him orderin' me off the place, do you--an' you won't neither. What I've got on him'll hold you for a while. You're holdin'
yer nose high--now. But, you wait--you'll pay fer them words you said when the time comes--_an' you'll pay my way!_”
Jennie's face went suddenly white and Cinnabar Joe stepped forward, his eyes narrowed to slits: ”Shut up!” he said, evenly, ”or I'll kill you.”
Purdy glanced into the narrowed eyes of the ex-bartender, and his own glance fell. Cinnabar Joe was a man to be reckoned with. Purdy had seen that peculiar squint leap into the man's eyes once or twice before--and each time a man had died--swiftly, and neatly. The horse-thief laughed, uneasily: ”I was only jokin'. What do I care what the women say? Come on over here a piece, an' I'll tell you what I want. You asked me if there was anything you could do.”
”Say it here,” answered Cinnabar without taking his eyes from the man's face.
Purdy shrugged: ”All right. But first let me tell you somethin' fer yer own good. Don't kill me! I've got three pals not so far from here that's in on--well, you know what. I told 'em the whole story--an' if anything happens to me--up you go--see? An' if you try to double-cross me--up you go, too. You git that, do you? Well, here's what you got to do. It ain't much. I've got a boarder fer you. It's a woman. Keep her here fer a week, an' don't let anyone know she's here. Then I'll come an' git her.
That's all!”
”Who is she, an' what you goin' to do with her?”
”That ain't none of yer d.a.m.n business!” snapped Purdy, ”an' mind you don't try to bushwhack me, an' don't let no one know she's here, or you'll spend the rest of your life in Deer Lodge--an' me an' Jennie'll run the outfit----”
With a cry Jennie threw herself upon her husband who, unarmed, had launched himself at Purdy. ”Joe! Joe! He'll kill you! He's got his guns!” she shrieked, and held on the tighter as Cinnabar struggled blindly to free himself. Purdy vaulted into his saddle and dashed across the creek. Upon the opposite side he jerked his horse to a stand, and with a wave of his hand, indicated the coulee down which he had come: ”She's up there a piece on a cayuse tied to a tree. Go get her--she's had a hard ride.”
Cinnabar succeeded in freeing himself from his wife's grasp, and dashed for the house. Purdy stopped speaking abruptly and spurring his horse madly, whirled and dashed for the shelter of a cottonwood grove. As he plunged into the thicket a gun cracked behind him, and a piece of bark flew from the side of a tree not a foot from his head. ”The d.a.m.n fool! I wonder if he knew I was lyin' about tellin' the others. He sure as h.e.l.l was shootin' to kill--an' he d.a.m.n near called my bluff!”
Working out of the thicket into the mouth of a deep coulee, Purdy rode rapidly into the bad lands.
Three or four miles from the hang-out of the Grimshaw gang, was a rocky gorge that had become the clandestine meeting place of the four who sought to break the yoke of Grimshaw's domination. Unlike the cave, the place was not suited to withstand a siege, but a water-hole supplied moisture for a considerable area of gra.s.s, and made a convenient place to turn the horses loose while the conspirators lay among the rocks and plotted the downfall of their chief. Purdy made straight for this gorge, and found the other three waiting.
”Where in h.e.l.l you be'n?” asked one, ”we be'n here sence noon.” Purdy eyed the speaker with contempt: ”Who wants to know?” he asked and receiving no answer, continued, ”where I be'n is my business. Why don't you ask Ca.s.s where he's be'n, sometime? If you fellers are goin' to follow my lead, I'll be boss--an' where I've be'n is my own business.”
”That's right,” a.s.sented one of the others, in a conciliating tone.
”Don't git to sc.r.a.ppin' amongst ourselves. What we wanted to tell you: the Flyin' A's raid is off.”
”Off!” cried Purdy, ”what do you mean, off?”
”Ca.s.s told me this noon. The IX rodeo has worked down this side of the mountains, an' it'll be a week before the slope's clear of riders.”
Purdy broke into a torrent of curses. The Flying A horse raid, planned for that very night, was to have been the end of Ca.s.s Grimshaw. He was to have been potted by his own men--both Ca.s.s and his loyal henchman, Bill.
After a few moments Purdy quieted down. He rolled a cigarette and as he smoked his brows knitted into a frown. Finally he slapped his leg. ”All right, then--he'll take it where he gits it!” The others waited. ”It's this way,” he explained, ”we ain't got time to dope it all today--but be here tomorrow noon. Tonight everything goes as usual--tomorrow night, Ca.s.s Grimshaw goes to h.e.l.l--an' it'll be the Purdy gang then, an' we won't stop at horse-runnin' neither.” The men looked from one to the other, uneasily. ”It's better this way anyhow,” announced Purdy, ”we'll b.u.mp him off, an' collect the reward. I know a feller that'll collect it--I've got somethin' on him--he's got to.”
”We're all in the gang,” muttered the man who had asked Purdy where he had been, ”looks like if you had somethin' on someone you'd let us all in.”
”Not by a d.a.m.n sight! If I did, what would keep you from double-crossin'
me, an' goin' after him yerselves. All you got to do is be here tomorrow noon--then we'll cut the cards to see who does the trick.”
Grumbling dubiously, the men caught up their horses, and scattering approached the hang-out from different directions. As Purdy rode he scowled blackly, cursing venomously the heavens overhead, the earth beneath, and all the inhabitants thereof. ”I overplayed my hand when I made Cinnabar sore,” he muttered. ”But he'll come around in a week.
Trouble is, I've took too much on. Ca.s.s an' Bill'll git theirn tomorrow night, that'll give me time to git organized, an' horn the pilgrim out of his five thousan', an' git it over with by the twentieth when old McWhorter's due fer his lonesome jag, an' then fer three days I'll have my own way with the girl--an' when I've had her fer three days--she'll never go back!” A sudden thought struck him, and he pulled up and gazed toward Red Sand while a devilish gleam played in his narrowed eyes.