The Man from Bar-20/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
THE SCIENCE OF SOMBREROS
JOHNNY rubbed his eyes and sat up, wondering. It was still dark, but a grayness in the east told of approaching daylight. He was puzzled, for it had been mid-forenoon when he had gone to sleep. Unrolling stiffly from the blanket, he sat up to listen and to peer about him. From his thicket he could see the tent, with the soles of his boots and part of his blanket showing. Arising he stretched and flexed his muscles to ease the ache of them, and then approached the ashes of the fire, and found them and the ground underneath to be stone cold. Rubbing his eyes, he laughed suddenly: he had slept for nearly twenty hours!
"Shore made up for th' sleep I been missin'!" he grunted. "An' ain't I hungry!"
Having eaten a hearty breakfast he scouted along his back trail, acting upon the assumption that the Circle S puncher might have gone back again, picked it up and followed it. Reassured as to that he started back to camp, and on the way topped a little rise and caught sight of Pepper grazing in the narrow canyon.
"That won't do, at all," he muttered, thoughtfully. "She's a dead give-away—an' now I can't take no chances."
Returning to his camp he packed up food and spare ammunition, and then, hurrying down the canyon, whistled to the horse, who followed him closely, as he searched in vain for a safe place to put her. He was growing impatient, when he chanced to look closely at the face of the southern Twin, and then nodded quickly. If there was water on its top, that was the place for the horse. Half an hour later, after some careful climbing, he reached the high plateau, dropped the reins down before Pepper's eyes and made a swift examination of the top of the butte. His hopes were rewarded, as he had expected them to be, for in a deep bowl-like depression lying at the foot of a high steep ridge he found a large pool, the level of which was considerably below the high-water mark on the wall. This meant concentration due to evaporation, and he tasted the water to be sure that it was fit to drink. Whistling Pepper to him, he picketed her so that she could reach the edge of the pool and range over enough grass to satisfy her needs, cached the pack and departed.
When he reached the canyon he went around the butte and started for his camp along its southern side, critically examining the sheer wall as he fought the brush and the loose shale under his feet. There was one place where he thought it possible for a cool-headed, experienced man to climb to the top, if he put his mind to the task and took plenty of time. Giving it no further thought he plunged on, glad that the horse was out of the sight of any scouting rustler and picketed so she could not get near the edge, where she would have shown up sharply against the sky, visible for miles.
Swinging past his camp and turning to the south he cautiously crossed the rustlers' main trail and climbed the wall behind it, and as he went forward he tried to figure out what his enemies thought of the situation. If they believed that several enemies opposed them they would be likely to stay in the houses, or not stray far from them; but if they thought only one man fought them they would most certainly take the field after him. Such was his summing up; and, bearing in mind that Long Pete, when last seen by him, was headed toward the houses, he took full advantage of the cover afforded.
Approaching the cliff by a roundabout way, he at last wriggled to the edge and peered over. A gun-barrel projected from the crack of the door in the last house; a man lay behind a bowlder on the cliff across the valley, facing eastward; and almost directly below him a sombrero moved haltingly as its wearer slowly climbed up the cliff at one of the few places where it could be scaled.
"They've figgered right," thought Johnny; "an' they're goin' to make things whiz for me. Red Shirt, over there, must be a thousand yards away; but this sink is deceivin'."
He looked down at the climber, who was about half way up the bluff. "Huh! I don't want to shoot him without givin' him a chance; but he just can't come up. Le's see: one, two, three; an' one in th' house, wounded, is four. There's a couple more somewhere, layin' low I reckon, waitin' for me to move across their sights."
He looked across at Red Shirt and grinned. "He's layin' on th' wrong side of that rock an' don't know it. I'll tell him, an' get rid of that climber at th' same time. Hope he busts his neck gettin' down."
Wriggling back from the edge so that the man in the house could not locate him by the smoke, he took deliberate aim at Red Shirt and gently squeezed the trigger. Red Shirt soared into the air and dove over the bowlder headfirst and with undignified speed.
"Knowed it was deceivin'," growled Johnny. "Shot plumb over him. Can't be more'n eight hundred yards. An' that's a fool color of a shirt to wear on a job like this."
Johnny's shirt had been blue, a long time back; but now its color hardly could be described by a single adjective. Sun, wind, and strong lye soap had taken their toll; and it had not been washed since he had left his little valley.
Wriggling back to the patch of grass, a quick glance below showed the climber frantically descending; and the man in the house was making lots of smoke on a gamble. Across the valley a gray-white cloud puffed out above the big rock and a little spurt of sand forty feet to Johnny's left told him that Red Shirt, too, was guessing
"Must 'a' been asleep not to see my smoke," muttered Johnny.
More smoke rolled up from the bowlder and soon some pebbles not ten feet away from him scattered suddenly, while a high-pitched whine soared skyward.
"He's pluggin' at every bit of cover he can see," mused Johnny, wriggling back behind a rock. "An' he'll prospect that bunch of grass—knowed it! He can shoot," he exclaimed in ungrudging praise; "an' he's got th' range figgered to a foot. An' he's workin' steady from th' north to th' south; an' when he tries for that clump of brush over there he's got to show his head an' shoulder."
A puff of dust and sand fifty feet to his right told him to get ready; and then a bowlder south of the sand-puff said spat!
Johnny lowered his rear sight and cuddled the stock of the heavy Sharp's to his cheek. Slowly a red dot moved up in front of his sights and he again squeezed the trigger, and again missed. But he had no way of knowing that Art Fleming was spitting sand and that his eyes had not escaped the little shower.
"I got to guess too much," swore Johnny. "That front sight hides him. I wonder how many times I was goin' to file it sharp?"
As he reloaded, his sombrero suddenly tugged at his scalp and a flat report sounded behind him. He quickly rolled into a shallow depression and another bullet sprayed him with sand.
"Repeater," he growled. "I got as much sense as a sheep-herder!"
There now was plenty of cover between him and Repeater, but there was still too little distance between him and Fleming; and the latter was a disconcertingly good shot. Two quick reports sounded from the house and Johnny smiled; the man at the door was seeing things, and backing his imagination with lead.
Johnny was watching a ridge behind him. "Me an' Repeater are goin' to argue," he remarked, and almost fired when a sombrero slowly arose on the skyline.
"Cussed near bit," he chuckled; "but you got to have yore head in that bonnet before I lets drive."
A matted tuft of grass on the top of the ridge moved so gently that only a very observant eye would have detected it. Johnny's Sharp's roared, and instantly was answered from a point a yard away from the stirring clump of grass, the bullet fanning his face.
"Yo're too cussed tricky," grunted Johnny; "but I got a few of my own."
Leaving his rifle lying so that its barrel barely projected into sight, he slipped into a gulley and crept toward the west, a Colt in his hand.
Repeater again stirred the grass tuft, and then he found a rock about the size of a man's head and pushed it up to the skyline of the ridge. Nothing happened "If my hair wasn't so red," he murmured, "I'd take a peek. It's an awful cross for a man to bear."
He was a cheerful cattle-thief and did not get easily discouraged. Also, he was something of a genius, as he proved by putting his sombrero on the rock and raising the decoy high enough in the grass for the hat brim to show.
"Shoot, cuss you!" he grunted, leveling his rifle; and then as the uneventful seconds passed he grew fault-finding and used bad language. Suddenly a suspicion flashed across his mind.
"That would fool a man with second sight," he muttered. "Somethin's plumb wrong; an' I think I better move. That bowlder over there looks good." And as he crawled behind it a pair of keen eyes barely caught sight of his disappearing heel.
"That man's got th' right to wear expensive hats," grinned Johnny, squatting behind a great mass of lava; and his grin widened as he glimpsed the sombrero-topped rock. "Yes, sir: he's got a head worth 'em; an' if I don't watch him close I'll grab holt of th' wrong end of somethin'."
Across the valley Fleming, having cleared his eyes of sand, was rapidly recovering his normal vision and was preparing with cheerful optimism to bombard everything which looked capable of sheltering his enemy, when a movement north of and far behind the suspected area acted upon him galvanically. He threw the rifle to his shoulder without elevating the sight, raised it instinctively to the angle of maximum range and squeezed the trigger. He did not expect a hit, and he did not get one; but he caused his friendship to be strongly doubted.
Repeater ducked, and when his face bobbed up again it wore an expression of outraged trust, and he raised a belligerent fist and muttered profanely in hot censure of the distant experimenter. Fleming, chuckling at his friend Sanford's anxiety, raised his sombrero and waved it, seeming to regard this as ample reparation.
"He's gettin' as bad as Gates," growled Sanford, eying a leaden splotch on a bowlder a foot above his head; "but he can shoot like th' hinges of h—l with that blasted Sharp's."
He suddenly leaped closer to the bowlder and behind its sheltering bulge, for Fleming, having apologized, fired again. The marksman was frantically waving his sombrero, seemingly indicating a southerly direction.
Sanford scowled at him. "Does he want me to go south, or does he mean that that feller is south of me?"
Fleming, with no regard for the cost of Sharp's Specials, fired again and Sanford heard the slobbering, wheezing hum of a nearly spent bullet turning end over end in the air and trying to ricochet after it struck.
"He's shootin' south of me," said Sanford; "an' I stays here. Somethin' tells me that th' feller that does th' movin' is goin' to die. No red-head ever made a handsome corpse, an' bein' th' red-head which I mentions, I'm goin' to stick to this hunk of granite like a tick to a cow."
Johnny, hands on hips, was glaring defiance at the cheerful spendthrift, sorry that he had left his rifle behind. He regarded Fleming as a meddlesome busybody who took delight in revealing his every movement. Also, the optimist was a good shot; but he derived no satisfaction from the fact that the closest bullet had been a ricochet, for a key-holing slug makes an awful mess if it lands.
"I'll bust yore neck!" quoth Johnny, shaking a fist at the persistent nuisance; and then he jumped aside as a sudden sharp spat! came from the bowlder. "You can shoot near as good as Red Connors: but if he was here he'd show you what that little difference means." He raised his voice: "Hey, Repeater! Who is that fool?"
Sanford laughed softly and made no answer; but he carelessly showed a shirt sleeve, and when he jerked it back under cover it needed a patch.
"What th' h—l you doin'?" demanded Sanford heatedly.
"Who's Red Shirt?"
"Ackerman."
"Then he's better with a Sharp's than a Colt."
"That's a Spencer carbine."
Johnny laughed derisively: "If it is he'll strain it."
"It's a Winchester," chuckled Sanford
"Yo're a liar!"
"Yo're another! She's a single-shot, .40-90."
"Then he's changed guns. He had a Winchester repeater in Hastings. I saw it."
"You'll see too much some day. You'll see a slug in yore eye."
"I'm waitin'," replied Johnny, and ducked. Fleming was getting good again, and Johnny was glad that he could not see where his bullets were landing, for as it was he was shooting by guess.
"He'll get you yet," encouraged Sanford.
"Think I'm goin' to wait for it?" indignantly demanded Johnny.
"Gimme a look at you," urged Sanford genially.
"Stand up an' take it," retorted Johnny.
"Reckon I'm scared to?"
There was no reply, for Johnny had slipped away and was running at top speed along a gully, where he was out of sight of the hard-working Fleming. A few minutes later he had reached his rifle and was cuddling it against his cheek; and he was causing Sanford a great amount of mental anguish and wriggling progress.
"Some people calls this strategy," muttered Johnny, "but I calls it common sense."
Raising his head cautiously he looked across the valley but saw no sign of Fleming; and he figured that it would be an hour before that interesting person could cross the valley and get close enough to be a menace. What concerned him most were the two rustlers' friends, who must certainly have heard the shooting. Out of deference to the curiosity of those individuals he crawled into a partly filled-in crevice, whose sides were steep rock and whose floor was several feet below the level of the surrounding plateau.
Peering out from between two rocks he saw Sanford's sombrero disappear from the ridge, and then it cautiously arose again; and Johnny's eyes narrowed, for he knew the numerous uses of sombreros.
"Keep stickin' it up," he muttered. "An when I get tired shootin' at it you'll stick yore head in it an' get a good look around. Most generally when a man pokes up an empty hat th' crown don't tip back as it rises; it just comes up level. An honest hat slants back more an' more as it comes up. 'Cause why? Why, 'cause. 'Cause a man uses his neck to raise his head with. Now, if he kept his neck stiff an' raised his whole body, from th' knees up, plumb straight in th' air, then th' hat would come up level. An' I asks you, Ladies an' Gents, if a man layin' down behind a little ridge can raise his whole body stiff an' straight, plumb up an' down? No, ma'am; he can't. He raises his soiled an' leathery neck, an' th' top of th' useful sombrero just naturally leans backward; just like that.
"Look, Mister; there it comes again; an' it don't tip back at all. I shall ignore it, deliberate an' cold. But when it tips back, lifelike an' natural, like a' honest hat should, then I'll pay attention to it, me an' my little Sharp's Special.
"Oh, I've done made a study of appearin' hats. I'm a reg'lar he-milliner. It was Red Connors an' Hoppy that directed my great intelligence to that important science. Tex Ewalt knowed about it, too. Tex was eddicated, he was. He said it is in th' little things that genius showed. He said somethin' about genius payin' attention to details, an' havin' infernal patience. Now, Ladies an' Gents, a hat is a detail; an' right now I've got th' infernal patience. Lookee! There she comes again! Level as a table. So, you see; I'm a genius. An' ain't he a persistent cuss? He's got infernal patience, too; but he ain't no genius. He ain't strong on details."
He looked around and grinned. Another hat, to the west of him, was in plain sight.
"Huh! Two hats in sight are two corners of a triangle; an' sometimes th' most dangerous corner is th' third, where there ain't no hat. Somewhere east of me there's a feller sneakin' up; an' he's th' feller I got to ventilate with my long-distance ventilator. An' mebby th' second hat's boss is circlin' around bare-headed; but it is still a triangle. Mebby it's a four or five or six cornered triangle. An' me, I'm all alone; so I'll crawl east an' hunt for company."
He dropped the monologue and took up the science of wriggling swiftly and silently; and when he stopped he was in the middle of a nest of rocks and bowlders at the base of a great pile of them.
The second hat still could be seen, but he gave most of his attention to the opposite direction.
"If I'm wrong, why did Number Two stick up his hat? I'll bet a peso that him, or Red Shirt, or their friends are stalkin' me from th' east. An' I'll bet two pesos that I'll cure him of such pranks. There's only two ways of explainin' that second hat. One is that th' owner is loco. Th' other is that he left his sign hangin' up to show me where he ain't. Th' other is that he left it so I'd think he wasn't there, but he is. An' th' other is that he figgered I'd think he left it to show me where he ain't an' that I'd think he was, so he moved on an' ain't there at all. Jumpin' mavericks! It makes my head ache. Havin' settled it with only four ways left to guess, I'll stay pat, right here, an' let them do th' openin'."
The shadows were growing longer and reaching out from bowlders and brush like dark fingers of destiny, and the sun hung over the western buttes and set them afire with brilliant colors. A lizard flashed around a rock, regarded the prone and motionless figure with frank suspicion until a slight movement sent it scurrying back again.
To the left a bush trembled slightly and he covered a rain-worn crease which cut through the top of a ditch bank. To the right a pebble clicked and behind him came the faint snapping of a twig.
"Three of 'em stalkin' me!" he muttered angrily, "I got to shoot on sight an' not waste a shot. An' they knowed where I was, judgin' from th' way they're closin' in on that crevice."
In front of him a red line showed and, rising steadily into view, became the back of a bare head. Then, very slowly, a brown neck pushed up, followed by the shoulders. Johnny picked up a small rock and arose to a squatting position.
Sanford was now on his toes, crouching, the tips of his left hand fingers on the ground, while in his other hand, held shoulder high, poised a Colt, ready for that quick, chopping motion which many men affected.
Johnny took careful aim and threw the stone. Sanford jumped when the missile struck near him, and wheeled like a flash, the Colt swinging down. He saw a squatting figure, a dull glint of metal and a spurt of flame. Johnny wriggled swiftly back among the rocks and awaited developments.
"They don't know who fired," he mused, "an' they dassn't ask."
If it had been a miss the silence would have been unbroken, as before, until a second shot shattered it; and if it had killed the rustler the silence also would remain unbroken; but if Sanford had scored a kill he instantly would have made it known. Being uncertain they were sure to investigate.
"Cuss it, there's at least two left; an' there may be four or five," grumbled Johnny. " I stay right here till dark."
Suddenly he heard a soft, rubbing sound, and he guessed that someone wearing leather chaps was crawling along the rocky ground behind the pile of bowlders which sheltered him. The sound grew softer and died out, and a panic-stricken lizard flitted around a rock, stopped instantly as it caught sight of him, wheeled and darted between two stones. Johnny smiled grimly and waited, the gun poised in his hand. Again the rubbing sounded, this time a little nearer, and he softly pushed himself further back among the bowlders. Something struck his left hand holster and he glanced quickly backward, and paled suddenly as he saw the copperhead wrestling to get its fangs loose. He drew in his breath sharply and his hand darted back and down, gripping behind the vicious, triangular, burnished head; and instantly a three-foot, golden-brown, blotched band writhed around his wrist and arm, seeming to flow beneath its skin. Jerking his hand forward again he broke the reptile's neck, tore it from his arm, shoved it back among the rocks, picked up the Colt again, and waited.
There sounded, clear and sharp, a sudden whirring rattle and the rubbing sound grew instantly louder. Again the fear-inspiring warning sounded and he heard pebbles rolling, where a creeping rustler made frantic efforts to get back where he suddenly felt that he belonged. A rattlesnake ready for war is not a pleasant thing to crawl onto.
"This is a devil of a place!" muttered Johnny, cold chills running along his spine. "It's a reg'lar den! As soon as that cow-thief gets far enough away, that rattler will slip in among these rocks—an' my laigs ain't goin' to be back there when he arrives!"
He wriggled softly out of the narrow opening and found more comfort on a wider patch of ground, where he could sit on his feet. As he settled back he saw the rattler slipping among the stones at his left.
"It all belongs to you an' yore friends," muttered Johnny, getting off his feet. "I'll risk th' bullets, cussed if I won't!" And he forthwith crawled toward the side where he had heard the rubbing sounds.
The shadows were gone, merged into the dusk which was rapidly settling over the plateau, and he had to wait only a little longer to be covered by darkness; but he preferred to do his waiting at a point distant from a snakes' den. Creeping along the edge of the bowlder pile, alert both for snakes and rustlers, he at last reached the southern end and stopped suddenly. A leather-covered leg was disappearing around a dense thicket, and he darted to the shelter of a gully to wait until darkness would hide him on his return to camp.