Hidden blood

HIDDEN BLOOD CHAPTER I HASHKNIFE HAS RHEUMATISM IN HIS LEG

HIDDEN BLOOD

CHAPTER I

HASHKNIFE HAS RHEUMATISM IN HIS LEG“If I had rheumatism like you’ve got, I’d sure head for the hot springs. Yuh can boil it out easier’n any other way.”

The owner of Piute leaned back, braced his bony elbows on the bar, spat wisely, and squinted at the two cowboys, who were draped against the bar beside him.

“Hashknife” Hartley, a tall, thin, serious-faced cowboy, was standing on one leg, much in the attitude of a stork, except that his knee naturally bent the other way.

“Sleepy” Stevens, Hashknife’s partner, was of medium height, with a grin-wrinkled face and serious eyes. There was nothing colorful nor romantic about their raiment or physical appearance. They were clad in well-worn overalls, nondescript shirts, high-heeled boots, and sombreros.

Their cartridge belts were scarred, weathered, as were their holsters, from which protruded the plain wood butts of single-action Colt sixshooters. They wore no coats. Hashknife’s vest was little more than a wrinkled piece of cloth, suspended stringlike from his shoulders, affording him pocket room for his tobacco and cigarette papers.

“Which way do yuh head for hot springs, pardner?” asked Sleepy, making cabalistic marks on the scarred bar top with the bottom of his wet glass. “I’m goin’ to put this lean pardner of mine on to boil.”

“Aw, I’ll be all right,” protested Hashknife, flexing his aching leg.

“You won’t be until yuh are,” flared Sleepy. “Yuh can’t ride a horse thataway. I’ve done used up a bottle of horse liniment on yuh, and all it’s done is to make yuh smell.”

“Rheumatism ain’t no fun.” Thus the proprietor. “I sure had it ache hell out of me a few years ago.”

“Didja go to a hot spring?” asked Sleepy.

“Shore did. I went up into Hawk Hole and b’iled out up there. That sulphur water smells like all the bad aigs of the world had been busted; but it knocked my rheumatism.”

“Where’s this here Hawk Hole?” asked Hashknife, interested.

“South of here, about thirty mile. I dunno whether yuh can use the springs now or not. Belongs to ‘Big Medicine’ Hawkworth, and he ain’t so friendly as he might be.”

“We’d take a chance on him, if Hashknife was able to ride that far,” said Sleepy.

“Yuh might go by stage. She comes through here about midnight and changes horses here. On ’count of the heat they make the drive from Caliente at night. They go to Pinnacle; but in yore case they might swing around by Hawkworth’s place and let yuh off. If they don’t, it’s only two miles from Pinnacle.”

“That sounds good t’ me,” declared Sleepy. “How does she listen to you, pardner?”

“Well, all right, Sleepy. I’d go any place to get rid of this ache that’s twistin’ my muscles. I ain’t slept for three nights and days hand-runnin’. If this Hawkworth person tries to deny me a chance to boil the pain out of my carcass, I’ll try and make him see the error of his ways.”

“He prob’ly will deny yuh,” said the proprietor. “C’mon and let’s see if supper is ready.”

Piute consisted of one building, a long, low adobe structure, separated into three parts: a saloon, a dining-room and kitchen combined, and a place to sleep. Behind this long building were a shedlike stable, corrals, and a well.

Its only excuse for existence was to act as a stage station, or a night haven for those who traveled the road from Caliente to Pinnacle. Piute was always hot, except at night. To the north the road disappeared through mesquite-covered flats, while to the south it twisted higher into the hills; rocky hills, where grew stunted pine, piñon, and juniper; down into a land where the law held little sway, where only a range of hills separated them from the land of mañana.

Hashknife managed to limp into the dining-room assisted by Sleepy, flopped into a chair, and did justice to a feed of tortillas, frijoles, and coffee.

“You ain’t natives down in this here country, are yuh?” asked the proprietor.

“What makes yuh think that?” grinned Sleepy.

“Jist seen yuh blowin’ on yore frijoles. Yuh can’t cool no chili pepper by blowin’ on it, pardner.”

“My mistake,” grinned Sleepy. “The danged things are hot.”

“Need ’em inside yuh down here. Hot food is the stuff in this climate. Eskimo would explode on it. Never been over in Hawk Hole, have yuh?”

“Never heard of it,” said Hashknife.

“Town of Pinnacle’s over there. Ain’t much of a town. Lot of mines back in the Greenhorn country and they all outfits down in Pinnacle. Old Big Medicine Hawkworth owns most of Hawk Hole. Stage line does quite a business, haulin’ supplies, miners, and the kind of folks that clutter up a minin’ town. Pinnacle ain’t exactly in the Hole—kinda on the rim of it. Them hot springs are shore good for rheumatism, y’betcha. There’s cold springs there, too. Big Medicine has been there twenty-five year, and he shore hooked on to most of the place.”

“Does he run any cattle?” asked Sleepy.

“Yeah. He has the Tumblin’ H iron. The Hole is a dandy place for to run cows, except that she’s almost too close to the border.”

“We might get a job,” smiled Sleepy. “I’d punch cows while you boil out, Hashknife.”

“Yeah, yuh might,” agreed the proprietor. “But I’m bettin’ yuh won’t. Big Medicine will prob’ly tell yuh that yuh can’t take a soak in his hot springs, and tell yuh to get to hell off his place. He’s a old squaw-man—meaner than hell.

“Some folks say that Big Medicine is English, English from the old country. We don’t see much of him. He’s been out this far jist once since I’ve been here at Piute. I’ve heard folks say that he’s crazy. I dunno whether he is or not. Anyway, I do know that he wants folks to leave him alone—and they mostly always do the second time.”

Hashknife grimaced with pain as he shoved back from the table and tried to cross his knees.

“Does this Big Medicine person mind his own business?” he asked.

“Hm-m-m—well, I s’pose so. Down in this country yuh can hear all kinds of talk. It mostly goes into one of my ears and out the other, bein’ as I ain’t noways situated where I can talk a lot about my fellermen and keep my scalp where she belongs. He ain’t never bothered me; so I say he’s all right.”

Hashknife and Sleepy did not ask for any further information. They were in a strange country, whither they had drifted; wanderers into the cattle country of the Southwest. They had found things but little different from those in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, except for the desert stretches, style of architecture, and lack of streams.

All had been well until Hashknife had contracted rheumatism, which had crippled him so badly that he suffered keenly in riding. Sleepy had doctored him to the best of his limited ability, but the pain had grown steadily worse, and they both knew that it was a case of seeking medical assistance at once.

The arrival of the midnight stage interrupted their three-handed game of seven-up. It required four horses to haul the heavy stage over the grades ahead, and the proprietor assisted in changing teams.

The driver was a big, gruff Norwegian, with a big beard and a heavy head of hair, which stood up on his head like the roach of a grizzly bear.

The only passenger was a young man, well dressed, black-haired, and with a thin, dark face. He was hardly past twenty years of age, but his mouth and eyes already showed lines of dissipation. He drank whiskey at the bar and climbed back into the stage while Hashknife and Sleepy were tying their horses at the boot.

“You got de rheu-maticks?” asked the driver, when he noticed that Hashknife had difficulty getting aboard.

“That’s what she feels like,” grunted Hashknife. “I never had it before, but they say she acts like this.”

“Yah, she does. You go to Pinnacle, eh?”

“The hot springs.”

“So? To de hot springs, eh? All right.”

His long whip snapped in the moonlight, the four horses sprang into life, and the stage to Pinnacle went lurching and grinding up the grades, swinging wide on the narrow turns, where a driver is only allowed one mistake.

Over the top of the hill they swung back into another valley, a fairyland in the blue of the moonlight. The road was rough, badly engineered as to grades, but the driver swore in his own tongue, plied his long whip without stint or threw his weight on a protesting brake on the steep pitches.

The young man had nothing to say. He smoked innumerable cigarettes and huddled down in his seat. Hashknife suffered in silence, while Sleepy whistled unmusically between his teeth and cursed the driver.

“He’s hit every rock so far,” he told Hashknife. “I’ll bet yuh even money that this damned equipage don’t hold together to reach Pinnacle.”

Sleepy turned to the young man. “Have you ever been over this road, pardner?”

The young man removed his cigarette. “No,” he said.

“Think you’ll ever go agin’?”

“Maybe.”

Sleepy laughed and stretched out his legs. “You won’t never get hung for talkin’ too much.”

“What do you mean?” asked the stranger coldly.

“Oh, hell!”

Sleepy shifted his seat and rolled a cigarette. Hashknife forgot his pains long enough to laugh. Thereafter all conversation ceased, except from the driver. Stretches of smooth road lulled the passengers to sleep, only to shock them back with lurching bumps that even drew profanity from the lips of the driver.

About twenty-five miles of the journey had been completed. The road wound down the side of a mountain, twisting around the heads of deep, heavily timbered draws and out onto moonlit points, where far below stretched the haze of Hawk Hole. Here the roadbed was more smooth and the passengers dozed.

Suddenly the driver swore viciously, shoved on the brake until the rear wheels almost skidded off the grade. Sleepy was flung off his seat, and he fell across Hashknife’s lap, colliding with the stranger.

For several moments they were confused, dazed; and when they turned to the open windows of the stage, they looked into the muzzles of two shotguns, which were plainly defined in the moonlight.

“Stay jist like yuh are,” ordered a clear voice. “We can see yuh plenty plain, gents.”

The holdup men had their backs to the moon, which flung its rays into the stage, and Sleepy knew that a motion toward his holster would invite one or both of those shotguns to send a wicked shower of lead into them.

“Lift up yore hands,” ordered the voice again, and all three men complied. “Now git out of there, one at a time.”

Sleepy came out first and lined up against the side of the stage, while behind him came the stranger. Sleepy’s holster had twisted behind him. It was difficult for Hashknife to get out, and the men swore at him for his slowness.

“He’s got rheumatism, dang yuh!” snorted Sleepy.

“Excuse me,” laughed one of the men. “Now line up.”

One other man was helping himself to the strongbox, while the driver sat stolidly in his seat, arms reaching toward the sky. He yanked the strongbox out across the front wheel and let it fall into the dirt.

The man who had handled the box was carrying a revolver in one hand, and now he came back to those who were watching the passengers. The men were all masked. The man with the revolver looked at the passengers closely.

Suddenly, and with apparently no reason, he threw up his revolver and fired point-blank at the stranger. The action was so sudden, so uncalled for, that Hashknife and Sleepy instinctively ducked.

“Stand still, damn yuh!” roared one of the shotgun men.

The stranger went to his knees, groped blindly for a moment, and sprawled on his face.

For several moments not a sound was heard. Then the man who fired the shot shoved his gun back into his holster.

“The damn fool reached for a gun,” he said slowly. “Shove the rest of ’em back into the stage.”

Hashknife turned and climbed back inside, while one man picked up the strongbox and walked around the team. Sleepy got inside, menaced by those two guns, and sat down. The two men turned and started around the team, while Sleepy swore softly, swung his belt around, and jerked out his gun.

“Take it easy, pardner,” cautioned Hashknife. “They never hurt us.”

“They killed that poor devil,” replied Sleepy angrily. “He never tried to pull a gun, Hashknife.”

Sleepy stepped outside, gun in hand, but the men had disappeared. The driver was starting to get down.

“Held up, I’m a son of a gun!” he snorted, as he almost fell off the hub.

Sleepy knelt down and examined the stranger. He was breathing heavily, painfully, and was unconscious.

“Well, he ain’t dead,” declared Sleepy. “How far is it to town, driver?”

“’Bout five-six mile. I’m never held up before, I’m a son of a gun!”

“Put him in here,” ordered Hashknife.

Sleepy and the driver lifted the wounded man inside and eased him into a seat. He was as limp as a rag, so Sleepy sat beside him, holding him upright.

“Drive as fast as yuh can,” ordered Hashknife. “This man needs a doctor right now.”

“You bet you,” agreed the driver. “I’ll go like hell.”

He was as good as his word. Hashknife and Sleepy were not at all faint-hearted, but that driver brought prayers to their lips before the running team reached the bottom of Hawk Hole. In fact he had caused Hashknife to forget his rheumatism.

“How are yuh standin’ it, Hashknife?” asked Sleepy.

“He either scared or bumped it all out of me,” replied Hashknife.

“I’ll betcha. There’s some things that even rheumatism won’t stand for, I reckon. We ought to be close to town. That driver said five or six miles, and we fell that far.”

In a few minutes they drove into the sleeping town of Pinnacle and stopped in front of a stage station. Daylight was flooding the hill now. A sleepy-eyed individual opened the door of the stage office and came out to them. Across the street glowed the dim light of an oil lamp over a poker game.

Somewhere a cheap phonograph screeched a tune, following a squeaky announcement that it was being sung by So-and-So, for the So-and-So “Phonograph Cuc-cuc-company of New Yar-r-r-k and Par-Par-Paris.”

It did not take the excited driver long to blurt out the fact that he had been held up, robbed of the strongbox, and that he had a dying man inside the stage. The sleepy-eyed one snapped into life. He turned around twice, evidently undecided just what to do—and did nothing.

“Yore best bet is to take this feller to a doctor,” declared Hashknife.

“That’s right,” agreed the sleepy-eyed one. “Doc Henry lives jist outside town, Pete. He ain’t such a damn good doctor, I don’t suppose, but he’s all we’ve got. Say, the sheriff is here, I think. Anyway, he was here last night, and mebbe he’s over there in that poker game right now. Lemme look.”

He ran across the street into a saloon, and was back in a minute, followed by a short, heavy man, who questioned the driver regarding the affair.

“Is the man still alive?” he asked.

“He won’t be, if yuh don’t quit yappin’ and get him to a doctor,” declared Sleepy.

The sheriff came closer and peered into the stage. He was a serious-looking person, round eyed and with a heavy mustache. After a short inspection he nodded and turned to the driver.

“Take him to the doctor, Pete.”

“You go along, Sheriff?” asked the driver.

“No, I can’t. I’m right in a big pot. See yuh later.”

He turned and hurried back across the street, while the stage went on down to the doctor’s home.

Doctor Henry answered their knock, arrayed in a nightgown and a blanket, and told them to bring the man into the house.

An examination showed that the young man had been shot through the left shoulder, and that the bullet was still in him. He had lost considerable blood, but the doctor assured them that the wound was not necessarily fatal.

“I don’t know him,” replied the driver, in answer to the doctor’s questions. “He ride from Caliente. He say somet’ing ’bout San Francisco. He don’t talk much. Maybe somebody know him here.”

They left the doctor and went back. Pinnacle was beginning to wake up now. The driver let Hashknife and Sleepy have space in the stable for their horses, and offered them a bed at the rear of the stage office.

“That damned hotel no good,” he told them. “Too much bug. You have good bed in my place—cost not’ing.”

They thanked him kindly and accepted his offer. Hashknife’s rheumatism was less painful now; and while Pinnacle awoke to the fact that the stage had been robbed and a man shot, Hashknife and Sleepy burrowed down in a fairly good bed and forgot that such things as wounded men and stage robbers ever existed.