Curse of Texas Gold Read online

  Curse of Texas Gold: A Walt Slade Western

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 1959 by Bradford Scott.

  Published by Wildside Press LLC.

  wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

  Chapter One

  LIKE A TORPID SNAKE, the Mojo Trail slithers through the Puerta Hills. It slips stealthily past the juncture of the Old Spanish Trail and the famous Chihuahua Trail, slides furtively into Boraco, the railroad town, and flows onward toward the distant Guadalupes. On the eastern edge of the Guadalupes it becomes the main street of Sotol. Then it winds past ill-omened Jericho Valley, enters the remote fastnesses of the Guadalupes and steals across the state line into New Mexico.

  The Pueblos used to pad over it, long before the Spaniards brought the horse to the New World and thereby greatly extended the Indian’s scope of activity and increased his capacity for devilishness.

  But the Mojo was old long before the Pueblos first used it in their treks from south of the Rio Grande to their cliff dwellings in what is now New Mexico; and even then it had a sinister history, being the natural route from one wasteland to another—the wastelands always provide sanctuary for men who make sinister history.

  Fifty miles northwest of Boraco, the Mojo begins its weary climb over the towering backbone of the Puertas. With a bristling cliff on one side and a sheer drop into a shadowy canyon on the other, it winds steeply upward, with many an almost right-angle turn where the cliff wall thrusts out at the traveler and the dark gulf to the south reaches hungrily for horse and rider. The trail is narrow here, with barely passing room for two teams taking it slow and easy and exercising the utmost care.

  Up this steep and winding gradient, rode a man mounted on a magnificent black horse, full eighteen hands high, whose glorious mane was like to a ripple of dark flame. The rider was worthy of the splendid animal he bestrode. He was over six feet in height, broad of shoulder, deep of chest, narrow of waist and hip. His pushed-back “J.B.” revealed crisp black hair and a broad forehead singularly white in contrast to his deeply-bronzed cheeks. His nose was prominent and his rather wide, good-humored mouth, grin-quirked at the corners, somewhat offset the tinge of fierceness evinced in that hawk nose, the jutting chin and the lean, muscle-rippling jaw. From the bronzed countenance, under heavy black brows, gay, reckless gray eyes looked out upon the world and found it good.

  Thus, with a song on his lips and laughter in his eyes, Ranger Walt Slade, named by the Mexican peons of the Rio Grande river villages El Halcon—The Hawk—rode the Mojo Trail, headed for Sotol, thirty miles distant.

  Slade looked forward to his mission Sotol and predicted he would find it an interesting town. There had been six killings and as many robberies in and around Sotol in the past two months, with some cattle stealing thrown in for good measure. This was why an angry Captain Jim McNelty had dispatched his lieutenant and ace-man to the section in answer to a plaintive bleat for help from the local authorities.

  “Some sidewinder, or maybe two or three, raising the devil and shoving a chunk under a corner over there,” said Captain Jim. “See what you can make of it, Walt. Got a letter from the sheriff yowling about conditions. Name’s Clem Baxter and he sounds to be all right. Get in touch with him and the chances are he can give you the lowdown. Just the usual deviltry that takes place in all gold strike sections, I reckon. Figure you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting things under control. Those old cowtown sheriffs get panicky when something comes along to bust up their routine. Most of ’em are cowhands that got elected to office and following a cow’s tail most of their lives don’t do much to develop intelligence. Honest and dumb, that’s what you usually find ’em. Quick on the trigger and slow in the think tank. Be seeing you.”

  Walt Slade wore the efficient, unconventional garb of the rangeland with careless grace. About his lean waist were double cartridge belts and from the carefully worked and oiled cut-out holsters protruded the plain wooden handles of heavy black guns. His Ranger badge, the famous silver star set on a silver circle, was not in evidence at the moment but tucked away in a cunningly concealed secret pocket in his broad leather belt. He preferred not to reveal his Ranger connections for the time being, having found that it was sometimes to his advantage not to do so until necessary.

  His habit of working under cover had built up a peculiarly mixed and not altogether enviable reputation. Plenty of people knew him to be a Ranger and admired and respected him—“the ablest and most fearless Ranger of them all.” Which was saying considerable. Some who did not know him as the ace-man of the most illustrious commander the famed Border Battalion ever had, were wont to say that if El Halcon wasn’t an owlhoot he missed being one by the skin of his teeth. Slade did nothing to discourage this erroneous conclusion, although he well knew it made him fair game for any ambitious gunman out to get a reputation, having found out by experience that a man of dubious standing could ofttimes gather valuable information, the sources of which would be closed to a recognized peace officer.

  As Shadow climbed the long and winding slant of the Mojo Trail, Slade talked to him jovially in the fashion of men who ride much alone. The big black seemed to understand, for he wheezed and snorted, nodded his head wisely at times and at others shook it vigorously in emphatic disagreement. Slade chuckled and began humming a song as he lounged gracefully at ease in his comfortable Mexican saddle.

  Suddenly, however, he straightened, his bearing became alert. Some of the sunniness left his gray eyes and there was a tightening of his lean jaw. He leaned forward in an attitude of listening.

  From somewhere ahead, thin with distance, had sounded the hard, metallic crack of a rifle shot, another, and another, evenly spaced, purposeful.

  Slade listened intently for a further repetition of the sounds, which did not come. Quite likely some trapper or hunter shooting at a varmint, he decided, and was about to resume his comfortable, loose-jointed slouch when he heard a faint rumbling, an almost inaudible mutter that steadily increased in volume.

  The concentration furrow between El Halcon’s black brows deepened, and he tightened his grip on Shadow’s bridle. There was something ominous to that steadily loudening rumble that hinted at wheels spinning altogether too swiftly for safety on the hazardous track. He pulled the black to a halt and sat rigid in the hull, his head again bent forward in an attitude of listening, his gaze fixed on the trail a hundred yards ahead, where it vanished in a bristle of growth which took advantage of a sudden widening of the crumbling ledge on which the track ran.

  “Shadow,” he muttered, “that sounds like a—Blazes! It is a runaway!”

  From out the dark tangle of pinon and chaparral crashed a wagon drawn by four frantic horses. Despite the mad speed with which they raced down the trail, the heavy wagon kept jamming the trees against the hind quarters of the wheelers, driving them insane with fright. They in turn lunged against the leaders, squealing and biting and infecting them with their panic. The driver of the wagon sagged against the high back of his seat, lurching and lolling, his head rolling on his shoulders, the reins limp in his nerveless hands.

  In a single swift glance Walt Slade took in the situation, and with the same swiftness he acted. He wheeled the black on bunched hoofs, leaned low in the saddle; his voice rang out, “Trail, Shadow, trail!”

  Like the released coil of a spring, the great horse shot down the trail, his irons drumming a low thunder on the flinty surface. And after him raged and roared the hurtling death and destruction.

  Under ordinary circumstances, the wagon horses would have been no match for Shadow, but now, driven insane by terror, they raced down the steep track with the speed of madness. They were on the black’s very heels before he got into his full stride and for hundreds of yards he did not gain a foot. Indeed, the crashing rumble of the runaway seemed louder in Slade’s ears as he glimpsed, not far ahead, an almost right-angle turn which to take Shadow must slacken his breakneck speed or court destruction. It was well nigh impossible for him to take that turn at the speed he was traveling.

  Slade’s mouth tightened as he visualized what would happen did the racing horse stumble or fall. Instinctively he glanced over the crumbling lip of the trail and into the shadowy depths of the canyon which flanked it, down through five-hundred feet of nothingness to where swift water glinted and black fangs of stone reached hungrily upward.

  And even in the tenseness of the moment his attention was momentarily distracted from his own appalling situation. Down there in the depths he was certain he had detected movement, a flickering of shadows among the shadows, that appeared to be horsemen riding parallel to the grim race with death half a thousand feet above.

  Perhaps they had spotted the runaway and were racing to be present when the inevitable happened. Slade jerked his eyes back to the trail and gave his whole attention to negotiating the perilous turn that raced toward him with frightening speed.

  A flickering glance over his shoulder estimated the space between him and the hurtling team, another the distance to the turn ahead. It was going to be close, horribly close. His hand tightened on the bridle. He put forth his strength steadily, surely, careful not to break the rhythm of Shadow’s stride. With a slow, steady pull he turned the black’s head to the right. Shadow snorted, curved his glossy neck, leaned toward the threatening bulge of the cliff; let him hit the jut of stone and he would rebound into the canyon. He knew it and his rider knew it, but Slade also knew he must crowd the cliff to the last possible inch if he were to take the turn. br />
  Slipping and skating, Shadow rounded the bend. Once he was all but off his feet and his skidding irons showered fragments of stone over the lip of the ledge, but Slade’s steely strength steadied and held him. Behind him crashed the runaway, the breath of the lead horses hot on his flanks. Their squeals of terror shrilled in his ears. With a desperate lunge he whisked around the bulge and scudded down the straightaway like the glint of a sunbeam on a wave crest. Behind him sounded awful screams of terror and despair.

  There was a rending crash as the wagon caromed off the bulge, a screech of sliding metal and an awful grinding sound. Slade, twisting in his saddle as he fought to master his frantic mount, saw the tangled mass of horses and wagon shoot over the lip as if hurled by a mighty hand. The dead or unconscious driver was flung from the seat as a stone from a sling. Arms and legs revolving wildly, he plummeted downward.

  “God Almighty!” Slade gasped.

  From the slowly overturning wagon, two more bodies had catapulted like pips squeezed from an orange. Down they plunged, after them a rain of what looked like sacks of grain, with the spinning wagon and the still plunging horses following.

  The awful screams of the doomed horses thinned to an agonized wail. Up from the dark depths geysered a far-off thudding crash, followed by silence utter and complete.

  Chapter Two

  COLD SWEAT breaking out on his face, Slade finally pulled Shadow to a skittering halt. With another effort he turned the gasping horse and rode back up the trail. He reached the bulge, rounded it and pulled up on the very lip of the cliff edge. Leaning far out over the awesome chasm, he peered down. His lips formed a startled oath.

  Sprawled among the dark fangs of stone he could see the splintered wagon and the crushed horses. Several men were running toward the pitiful debris. He spotted a clump of saddled horses a little distance up the canyon from where the wreckage lay. He leaned over the lip, peering with interested eyes at the activity on the canyon floor. Then with blurring suddenness he flung backward, dragging Shadow’s head up with all his strength.

  On his hind legs, the snorting black surged back from the edge. And even as he did so, something screeched through the air and fanned Slade’s cheek with its lethal breath. From the canyon depths drifted the crack of a gun.

  With Shadow hugging the inner cliff wall, Slade dismounted. He slid his heavy Winchester from where it snugged in the saddle boot and crouched low, glaring angrily at the cliff edge. For a moment he crouched motionless, then with infinite caution he crept toward the lip of the ledge. He was out of sight from the men below and should they fan out into the canyon he would see them as quickly as they could sight him. Cocked rifle at the ready, he waited.

  With a smashing crack, a bullet slammed the cliff face scant feet above his head. He ducked instinctively as flying rock fragments showered him with stinging splinters.

  Where the devil did that one come from? It could not have come from below and hit the cliff at that angle. It had to come from somewhere above. Slade’s head flung up as he felt the wind of the next one. This time he heard the rifle crack, following the arrival of the slug with an appreciable space between. His gaze flickered across the canyon, searching the ragged crest of the cliff that formed its far wall, where objects stood out hard and clear in the flood of morning sunshine. He hurled himself sideways and down as he caught a gleam of shifting metal.

  “That one hit right where I was, but now I got a line on you!” he growled apropos of the distant rifleman.

  He clamped the butt of the Winchester against his shoulder, his eyes glanced along the sights. A spiral of smoke wisped from the black muzzle.

  Slade saw the puff of dust where the bullet struck a foot or two below the man crouching on the cliff top, barely visible against a straggle of growth, his position revealed by the telltale glint of sunlight on his rifle barrel.

  Up came the Winchester muzzle, the barest fraction of an inch. Again Slade’s eyes glanced along the sights. He squeezed the trigger just as smoke puffed from the barrel of the distant rifle.

  As he fired, Slade writhed sideways, shifting position as much as he could. Even so, the slug ripped the shoulder of his shirt and grained the skin beneath. The drygulching hellion could shoot!

  But heedless of the burn of the passing lead, Slade raised himself and stared across the canyon as the distant gunman, looking little bigger than a doll, pitched over the cliff edge and, turning slowly in the air, plunged to the rocks a thousand feet below.

  Slade instantly inched forward a few feet and shifted his gaze to the canyon floor. No one was in sight. His mind worked swiftly.

  “Stay put, feller,” he flung over his shoulder at Shadow and began crawling around the cliff bulge, hugging the rough stone, his eyes never leaving the west half of the canyon floor, which was all that his restricted range of vision included.

  But as he rounded the bulge, just as he had surmised, his range of vision broadened, due to the lessening angle as the trail turned more to the east. He stood erect, the rifle clamped against his shoulder.

  Three men were riding away from the wreckage of the wagon, headed up canyon. Slade’s fingers tightened on the trigger. Hard upon the report came a distant yell of pain and anger. Slade saw the rearmost horseman reel in his saddle. He clutched the pommel for support and kept his seat. His companions twisted in their hulls, flung rifles to their shoulders. Bullets stormed about Slade, smacking against the cliff face, kicking up puffs of dust from the trail, but he was in the shadow while those below were outlined by the full glare of the sunlight. Rock-steady, his own barrel lined with the target below. Again he saw a man leap sharply in his saddle and knew he had scored another hit. But before he could line sights a third time, the group sent their horses charging around a bulge of the canyon wall and were out of sight.

  “Guess that will even up for peppering me with hunks of rock!” El Halcon growled as he lowered the smoking Winchester. “Don’t know what this is all about, but gents who throw lead take the chance of getting some thrown back.”

  For long minutes Slade stood with his gaze fixed on the bulge, but the dark edge discovered nothing of movement. Evidently the horsemen had kept going, with two of their members winged but not seriously.

  “What the devil is this all about?” Slade wondered aloud.

  Neither Shadow nor a querulous crow circling about overhead was able to answer the question. Slade glanced at the sun, then into the shadowy gorge which grew less shadowy as the sun climbed the long slant of the eastern sky. Coming to a decision, he mounted Shadow and rode swiftly down the trail. He had to back-track almost five miles before he could enter the canyon. The semblance of a trail snake-slithered among the rocks and straggles of growth. Slade followed its tortuous course and finally reached the wrecked wagon.

  The vehicle was smashed to splinters, the horses to pulp. All around, the ground was littered with beans, flour and grain spilled from the burst sacks. To all appearances the wagon had been packing provisions, probably to some outlying ranch. But Slade suspected it had also packed something else decidedly more valuable.

  The bodies of the unfortunate occupants of the wagon were battered almost beyond human resemblance, but not battered enough to obliterate the bullet holes puncturing the chest of each. Slade was of the opinion that they were dead when they went over the cliff, which under the circumstances was a merciful blessing. Gazing at the horribly disfigured faces, he strove to reconstruct the tragedy.

  The rifleman who had tried to kill him had ridden along the rimrock cresting the far wall of the canyon, from where he had a clear view of the trail. With three accurately placed shots he had killed the wagon’s occupants. The driver had not yet set the brakes before dipping down the steeper grade. The wagon rolled against the wheelers and set them running, which was very likely what the drygulcher figured they would do and had held his fire till just the right instant. Meanwhile the group in the canyon had ridden for the hairpin turn which they knew the uncontrolled equipage would never take. The drygulcher riding the rimrock had spotted him, Slade, at about the same time the bunch in the canyon did and had cut loose on him with his rifle. Fortunately, opposite the bulge the canyon widened considerably and his aim wasn’t quite good enough.