Frank Gruber
Guerrilla Range
I
The house was beyond saving. Flames were shooting out of the windows and even the roof was burning. It was a matter of minutes before it would collapse.
Ethel Morgan saw the smoke a mile away. She put the little pinto to the gallop. The animal burst around a turn in the road, full into the clearing. Ethel cried out in horror when she saw the blazing house.
She swung down from her horse and rushed toward the little group that stood, watching the flames destroy the place that had been the dwelling of Karl Hawkinson and his wife.
“Why are you all standing here?” she cried. “Why don’t you do something to put out the fire?”
Big Jim Sutton winked at Ethel. “Why, sure, Miss Ethel, you don’t think we could do anythin’ now?”
“I wouldn’t expect you to do anything, anytime,” Ethel retorted angrily. She whirled toward another man, saw that it was Dave Daggett and gave him a look of utter contempt.
Daggett immediately defended himself. “Now, Miss Ethel, don’t go lookin’ at me like that. I didn’t set the house afire.”
“Didn’t you?” Ethel Morgan snapped.
She ran toward the burning building and saw that it was doomed. When the heat of the flames scorched her face she turned right and circled the house. And sighed in relief. The Hawkinsons were at the barn. For a minute she’d been afraid—
“How’d it happen, Mr. Hawkinson?” Ethel cried, when she was still some distance from the stocky rancher.
Hawkinson was broad-faced and impassive. He shrugged and did not take his eyes from the flames. His wife, a little woman with greying hair and a resigned look on her face, said, “They set it, of course. We should have sold when he warned us.”
Ethel gasped. “Who warned you?”
“Who but Oscar Kohl.”
“Julia!” Karl Hawkinson said sharply.
Ethel shot him a quick glance. “Oscar Kohl warned you — why?”
Karl Hawkinson shook his head. “Nothing. My wife, she make mistake. Nobody warned us about not’ing. It was — accident. Yes, accident.”
With a roar, the house collapsed. Flames shot high to the skies, sparks showered the three by the barn. Karl Hawkinson seized the opportunity to retreat He caught his wife by the arm and rushed her behind the barn.
Ethel looted after them for a moment, then shaking her head, started slowly back to the road, circling the fire at a safe distance. She was so absorbed in her thoughts she almost bumped into the stranger. It wasn’t until he moved out of her way that she was aware of him.
She said, instinctively, “Excuse me.”
He bowed.
She started to pass him, then stopped. “Did you see the fire start?” she asked.
He was a range tramp, if ever there was one. He was gaunt and needed a shave. He wore the most patched suit of clothes Ethel had ever seen. Once, perhaps, the material had been good. Now it was ragged and patched and covered with alkali. His boots would have been discarded many months ago, even, by a Mexican.
Yet — the gelding standing behind him was one of the finest horses Ethel had ever seen. It was big, but trimly built. There was strength and speed in every line of it. She looked at the horse and looked again at the owner.
“Did you see the fire start?” she repeated.
He shook his head. “No, I was a little too late.”
“Those two men over there — were they here before you?”
He hesitated a brief second. “Yes, they were.”
They heard him. Jim Sutton started toward Ethel and the range tramp. “What’s that you said, bum?” he yelped. Ethel stepped quickly in Jim Sutton’s path. “No one was talking to you, Jim Sutton,” she declared.
“No, but you was talkin’ about me. That there bum said I set the fire.”
“I didn’t say that,” the ragged stranger replied quickly. “I merely said you were here before I arrived.”
“That’s the same thing,” Dave Daggett declared. “That’s fightin’ talk.”
“Where’s your gun?” sneered Jim Sutton. “Yank it out and let’s see if you can fight as big as you talk.”
“I wasn’t talking at all.”
“Don’t you dare!” cried Ethel Morgan. “I’m a witness, Jim Sutton and Dave Daggett, and if you shoot this man — it’s coldblooded murder. Even your boss’s paid sheriff won’t keep you from hangin’.”
Jim Sutton glared at her. “That’s mighty fancy talk, Miss Ethel.”
“Is it? Then tell Mr. Kohl about it?”
“Mebbe we will,” said Daggett “And I don’t think he’ll like it much.”
“I hope he doesn’t. I hope he gets so mad when he hears it that he chokes. And you can tell his son, Eddie, that I hope the same for him.”
Ethel whirled away furiously and walked toward her horse. The ragged stranger promptly turned to his own gelding, but Daggett and Sutton flanked him. “Wait a minute, pardner,” Sutton said smoothly.
“We ain’t finished our talk.”
With one rundown boot in the stirrup the stranger halted. “I don’t know there’s anything to talk about,” he said and looked after Ethel Morgan.
Sutton saw the covert look and chuckled wickedly. “She’s walking out on you, fella. You gotta fight us by yourself.”
The man took his foot out of the stirrup and put it down on the ground. “You insist on fighting?” he asked wearily.
“You can take one damn good pistol whippin’,” snapped Dave Daggett.
The man in the ragged clothes opened his coat. “I haven’t got a gun on me. If you’ll wait a minute—”
He reached toward his saddle bags, but Daggett whipped out a long-barreled Frontier Model Colt and stepped forward. He lunged at the stranger with the gun.
The man did a surprising thing. He didn’t duck or dodge back, as a man should rightly do when he sees a gunbarrel lashing out at him. He leaped forward and smashed Daggett squarely in the face with his fist. Blood spurted from the surprised ruffian’s nose. The pistol flew from his hand.
The stranger caught it in midair with his left hand. Magically it whipped into his right.
It thundered an instant before Jim Sutton’s. And then Sutton was going back. A stain appeared on his shirt front and his mouth fell wide open. His eyes bulged in horror — and then he fell backward to the ground.
Dave Daggett, blood streaming over his mouth and chin, cried out. His gun, in the stranger’s hand, covered him. “Don’t shoot!” Daggett choked.
“You wanted to fight?” the ragged man said thickly. “Come on, you’ve got another gun.”
“No — no!” cried Daggett, backing away.
Ethel Morgan’s horse pounded up. She had heard the shot and was coming back. “Don’t!” she cried at the top of her voice.
A shudder seemed to run through the man. The glint that had been in his eyes faded and he looked dully at Ethel Morgan. She tumbled out of the saddle and came toward him. She winced when she passed the prone body of Jim Sutton.
“That’s enough,” she said, tightly. “I saw — they forced it on you, but — it’s enough. Don’t kill this man, too.”
“I didn’t tell you before,” he said. “They wouldn’t let the people who owned the house put out the fire. I didn’t see them set the fire — but I saw them prevent the man and woman from putting it out.”
“It was Sutton,” cried Daggett. “He did it He set the house on fire.”
“And you helped him,” Ethel Morgan said bitterly. “You — deserve what Sutton got. But get out of here now. Get away quick.”
Daggett shot an apprehensive glance at the ragged man’s face, then bolted. His horse wasn’t far away and he leaped into the saddle on a run. He whirled the animal and headed straight for the woods, as if fearful he would be shot if he remained within range too long.