His pencil filled the empty squares of the puzzle. They made them too easy. A kid wouldn’t have had any trouble doing this one. He wondered how McGregor was making out at the ranch. It’d be nice to get out there, and see him again. He had the time to do it today, but Goldie wouldn’t like it. Goldie was used to going straight home from town. And there was the heavy package of magazines to consider. No sense in taking further advantage of Goldie’s good nature and willingness to carry his heavy burdens.
It was good of Lew Miller to send him the magazines. There’d be every weekly issue of the Thoroughbred Record since the beginning of the year. He’d go through every one of them. Maybe he’d find something that would remind him what it was that made him think he’d seen McGregor’s face before.
He finished the puzzle and began running the pencil around its borders. He remembered the bloodstained money in his dresser drawer back home, and his face sobered. He remembered all the kid had said in his delirum when he’d found him. McGregor was convinced he’d been mixed up in a Utah robbery, and that the police were after him. Maybe so. Maybe not. Until the kid got his memory back, he couldn’t be sure of anything.
Gordon pressed harder on his pencil, blackening the lines around the puzzle. Besides, what the kid had done or thought he’d done was none of his business. He was keeping out of it. All he wanted to do was to find out what made McGregor’s face seem so familiar to him. It was a game, more interesting to him than simple crossword puzzles.
He looked up to find Cruikshank still at the end of the counter, and half-turned in his direction. Everyone else had left the restaurant and the jukebox was quiet. The waiter came with his order, and Gordon put down his pencil to eat. But he picked it up again when he’d finished, once more tracing around the puzzle, and thinking of the boy.
He wondered if the kid had regained his memory. Was he still at the ranch or had he decided to move on again? The paper tore beneath his pencil and Gordon turned to the news item above it, tracing the lines around the story as he’d done with the puzzle. It was none of his business what the kid did. He was only interested. If he was going to become involved in other people’s affairs, he might as well go back to Hollywood.
Momentarily his pencil stopped on the paper. He found himself reading. His heavy brows lifted as his eyes widened in surprise. For a long while he stared at the story, reading and rereading it. His pencil began moving again, blackening the lines around the story once more.
“Howdy, Slim.”
He looked up quickly, pushing the paper to one side. “Hello, Allen,” he said.
Allen had a cup of coffee in his hand. He placed it on the table, and sat down beside Gordon. If he had seen Cruikshank, he gave no indication of it. He drank half his coffee, and then said, “That friend of yours, McGregor, puzzles me, Slim.” His narrow brow was furrowed, his eyes on Gordon. “And he gets more puzzling all the time,” he added.
Gordon picked up his own cup of coffee, and finished it. He was frightened. “The kid’s no friend of mine, Allen. Don’t know him at all or anything about him.” He didn’t want to get mixed up with McGregor. Not after having read the story in the paper at his side.
Allen said, “He was working out pretty well for us until a little over a week ago, when I sent him out to look for a wild stallion thought to be on the upper range. I was afraid for my mares and …”
“A wild stallion?” Gordon asked, interested now.
Allen nodded. “You’ll have to see him, Slim. He’s no mustang, but big … mighty big.”
“Then you got him?”
“We got him, all right, but the peculiar part of it is that the kid found him first and didn’t let on to us. In fact, we would have turned back and never got him if Hank hadn’t been along. Hank knew the kid was lying.”
“Strange that he should lie about something like that.”
“And peculiar,” Allen insisted. “Mighty peculiar. But there’s more to it. The kid had gentled this wild outlaw even before we got there. When he knew we had him, he walked right up to the stallion, put a halter on him with no trouble at all, and led him back to the ranch.”
“That’s hard to believe,” Gordon said quietly. “Now and then I’ve run across a small band of horses on the upper ranges. Nobody could gentle a wild stallion that easily.”
Allen put down his hand flat and hard against the table. “That’s what I think, too. But Hank says that sometimes it happens.”
Gordon shook his head. “I doubt it,” he said.
“Come and see for yourself,” Allen said. “And here’s something that puzzles me more than anything else. This morning I gave the kid the opportunity to ride Hot Feet in next week’s races at Preston, and he turned me down! Of course, I could have ordered him to ride, but that’s not for me. Here I thought I was giving him a big break and he kicks it aside!” Allen’s puzzlement showed in his face. “I’d sort of counted on him as my regular rider from the time I took him on. He’s a born race rider. Anyone can see that just by the way he sits a horse.”
Gordon’s bushy eyebrows were raised again. He glanced away from Allen to the door. He was thinking of the package of Thoroughbred Records beside Goldie. “How does he sit a horse, Allen?”
“With short stirrups, but not so short that he loses his balance or control. And forward, and low near the horse’s neck. You know how most jocks ride, don’t you, Slim? Haven’t you ever seen a race, maybe before you came out here?”
Gordon turned back to Allen. “Yes, I know,” he said. Then after a long pause he added softly, “I’d like to talk to the kid.”
“Come along, then. I’ve got the buckboard outside, and I’ll see that you get a ride back to town later.”
Together they left the restaurant.
When they had gone, Cruikshank twisted his gaunt body off the end stool. He walked across to the booth they had left, his large and gloomy eyes on the newspaper that was still there. His worn hands picked it up, and he read the story just above the crossword puzzle, the one marked so heavily in pencil, the story that had brought the startled, frightened look to Gordon’s face while he was watching him.
YOUTH WANTED IN UTAH
MURDER SOUGHT HERE
PHOENIX—The search for a boy involved in the robbery of a Salt Lake City diner last month has led to Arizona and is being intensified since the death last week of Henry Clay, the cashier, resulting from injuries suffered during the theft.
All state, county and city police have been alerted, for it is believed the youth will try to cross the border into Mexico. His description is: between sixteen and eighteen years of age, about five feet five inches tall, red hair and slight of build.
The three men for whom the boy acted as lookout were captured by police soon after the robbery, and are awaiting trial.
Cruikshank reread the description of the boy, and his eyes were no longer gloomy but shifty and bitter. He knew the reason for Gordon’s sudden alarm. He knew the boy. His long, bony hands were trembling as he carefully tore the story from the paper, taking part of the crossword puzzle with it. He put it in his pocket. He would have good use for it, but not right now. He was going to wait until he was sure of the best way to use it. He hated them all for what they’d done to him. He hated the sheriff. He hated Gordon. He hated the kid. But most of all he hated Allen, and maybe what he had on the kid would provide him with a way to get at Allen. Mumbling to himself, he left the restaurant.
The torn newspaper lay on the table. The hole left where the clipping had been removed showed part of the next page. Here, too, there was a story concerning a search for a boy. It was only a few lines in length. It was hardly news any longer.
SEARCH ENDS
JACKSON HOLE, WYO., July 25—The search for Alec Ramsay and his famed stallion, the Black, ended today after more than a month of constant but futile search through Wyoming’s most primitive and rugged regions. No hope is held for their ever being found alive.
The man from behind the counter went
to the table and cleaned it. He took the newspaper, crumpled it, and threw it in with the other trash to be burned.
BLACK FLAME
15
Gordon spoke to Goldie again before climbing into Allen’s buckboard. The burro flicked his ears, but otherwise there was no indication that he’d heard. Until he felt the pack on his back his eyes would remain closed.
Taking up the lines of the two horses hitched to the buckboard, Allen said, “No one is going to bother your burro, Slim.” Then he laughed, adding, “And it doesn’t look like he’ll mind waiting a while longer before going home.”
Allen backed up the team, turned and went down the street. They were well outside the town before he spoke again. “I guess I was counting on the kid riding Hot Feet more than I realized. Can’t seem to get it off my mind now.” Allen paused. “Not that it’s terribly important,” he went on. “Last year I picked up a race rider over at Preston, and we won all right. It’s just that riding Hot Feet is a pretty personal thing with me. I’d been looking for someone who’d work on the ranch, and then ride for me in the races. Larom is too heavy for race riding. I thought the kid was perfect for the job. I guess I’d thought it all along, that’s why his turning me down is hard to take.”
Gordon’s eyes didn’t leave the team. He thought he knew very well why McGregor didn’t want to ride at Preston. McGregor was afraid someone would identify him as the boy wanted by the police. Gordon thought of the news story again. An accomplice in a robbery was one thing, murder another. The diner’s cashier had died of his injuries. While the kid had been only the lookout, he was still as responsible for the cashier’s death as the men who’d been caught.
Gordon shifted uneasily in the hard buckboard seat. He wished he hadn’t found that newspaper in the restaurant. Better still, he wished he’d never found McGregor. The last thing he wanted was to become involved in such a mess. But how could he stay out of it now, when he alone knew the whereabouts of someone who was wanted as an accomplice in a murder?
Why was he going to the ranch? Why did he want to talk to McGregor? He wondered what the kid’s real name was. Even the police didn’t seem to know. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered except that he, Gordon, get out of this in some way and still do what he thought was his duty to society. Maybe he expected to talk McGregor into giving himself up to the police. He must have had that in mind when he’d accepted Allen’s invitation. If he had intended to inform the authorities of what he knew, he would have gone directly to the sheriff.
“You’re pretty quiet, Slim.”
“Just thinking,” Gordon replied.
“You don’t think you could get the kid to ride for me, do you, Slim? After all, he’s a friend of yours. He might listen to you.”
“He’s no friend of mine,” Gordon insisted angrily. “I told you I don’t know anything about him.”
“You don’t have to get sore about it,” Allen said. “I just figured you might help him change his mind. After all, he was living with you when I hired him.”
Gordon didn’t look at Allen. “I found him in the desert. He’d been hitchhiking and got lost.”
“The desert’s a strange place to be hitchhiking,” Allen returned. “Lots of strange things about the kid, all right.” He clucked to the horses and their hoofs beat faster on the dirt road.
Allen said nothing more, and Gordon was glad of it. He wished someone else would identify the kid so he could stay out of the mess altogether. Not that he wanted to see McGregor go to jail. He liked the kid. If only it hadn’t been murder, he might have forgotten the whole thing. Now he had to do something about it. He had to see to it that McGregor was apprehended by the police, and yet stay out of it himself. He wanted none of the publicity he knew would result in the kid’s capture. For six years he had lived a peaceful, quiet life. He wanted to keep it that way.
If the kid did ride at Preston, he thought, someone most likely would identify him, just as McGregor feared. Especially if he won, and got his picture in the papers. Wasn’t that the answer? He turned to Allen. “Why don’t you change your mind and order McGregor to ride?”
Allen shook his head adamantly. “No, Slim,” he said. “He’s got to want to ride Hot Feet. That’s the only way he’ll get up on him now.”
A few moments later Allen changed the subject. “Ralph Herbert of the High Crest Ranch in Texas has been after me for months to have a match race at Preston. I bought Hot Feet from him as a weanling, and now that he’s a champion Herbert would like to get him back at any price I set. But I’m not selling Hot Feet, and he knows it.”
Gordon wasn’t listening to Allen. He was trying to figure out a way to get McGregor to ride in the Preston races.
Allen added, “Now Herbert wants a match race between Hot Feet and his horse, Night Wind.”
Gordon heard this, and turned quickly. “You don’t mean the High Crest Thoroughbred?”
“That’s him.”
Gordon couldn’t help smiling. “You’d be crazy to consent to such a race. Last year Night Wind was voted Thoroughbred Horse-of-the-Year. He’s a great champion, Allen.”
“So’s Hot Feet,” Allen retorted quickly, challengingly. “But how come you know so much about Night Wind?”
“I read about him in some magazines a friend sent me. I used to be quite interested in Thoroughbred racing. Night Wind pulled up lame in the Santa Anita Handicap last winter. They found he had torn a ligament so he was unwound and sent home to High Crest Ranch. They hoped to bring him back to racing.”
Allen said, “You sure know a lot more about him than I do. But maybe it isn’t the same horse. Herbert never mentioned anything like that.”
“It’s the same horse, if his name is Night Wind and he’s a Thoroughbred from High Crest Ranch,” Gordon said quietly.
Allen frowned. “I know that much is true,” he replied. Then his face lightened. “Anyway, Herbert made this proposed match race sound plenty inviting. He wrote that he was sending this Thoroughbred, Night Wind, to California, and could very easily ship him via Preston for the races.”
Gordon interrupted. “Then Night Wind has been put back in training, and is ready to go.”
“Herbert said that match races between Thoroughbreds and quarter running horses were rare,” Allen went on, “and the crowd at Preston might like to see one. He offered to put up five of his best quarter mares as his end of the purse, if I put up …” Allen stopped.
“If you’d put up what?” Gordon prompted.
“Hot Feet.”
“You’d lose him, if you did,” Gordon said. “Stick to your own kind of racing, and leave the Thoroughbreds alone. No quarter horse in the world could stay with Night Wind. Herbert would just like to get Hot Feet from you the easiest possible way … and such a match race would be it.”
“I’d like to get those mares,” Allen said thoughtfully. “I sure would. High Crest Ranch is such a big operation that Herbert’s cornered the finest quarter-horse stock in the country.”
“And some of the best Thoroughbred blood, too,” Gordon added. “That’s exactly why you should stick to quarter-horse racing, Allen.”
“Oh, I’m going to stick to it, all right. That’s why I’d like to get hold of those High Crest mares. But I’m not racing Hot Feet against Night Wind the way Herbert wants it. I’ve written him I’d race Hot Feet any day of the week against his Night Wind at three hundred yards but no farther. He wants the race over a quarter of a mile. I’m not that dumb. Hot Feet’s best distance is three hundred. I’d be taking too big a chance racing him at a quarter.”
“You’d be taking a big chance at any distance,” Gordon said.
“No,” Allen insisted. “Hot Feet could beat anything Herbert has at three hundred yards, and I’d take his mares.”
The ranch was less than a mile away. At the far-off sound of running hoofs they turned to look across the plateau. Allen’s face disclosed his alarm at sight of the running black horse. For a moment he thought the big stallion h
ad broken from his corral and was free. Then he saw the slight figure on the horse’s back and, realizing it had to be McGregor, his fear left him. In its place came swift anger. McGregor had no right to take the black horse from the corral without his permission!
“Say, that horse out there is beginning to move!” Gordon exclaimed.
“That’s the outlaw I told you about,” Allen returned. “The one we caught.”
Gordon looked at Allen, but it was only a fleeting glance. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the fast approaching horse. “And that’s McGregor riding him?”
“No one else would be up on him,” Allen said brusquely. “He’s got no business being out there, running him like that.”
“Open your eyes, Allen. You’ve never seen such strides! And the kid’s making him go. Look at them come!”
But Allen’s gaze had left the black stallion. At the far side of a group of steers he saw Hank Larom riding Hot Feet. Larom turned Hot Feet around as he neared the path of the boy and horse. He was going to make a race of it! Hot Feet was given his head as the black stallion came rushing up from behind.
Allen took a quick breath at Hot Feet’s fast start. He knew no horse in the world could reach his top speed faster than Hot Feet. His champion was in full stride almost at once, and the distance between the two horses remained the same. Nothing could reach Hot Feet now … for three hundred yards no horse could beat him! After that distance, Allen decided, it didn’t matter if the black horse did overtake Hot Feet.
For almost the full three hundred yards there was no change in the position of the racing horses. Allen’s eyes blazed more brightly than ever in his love for his horse. He told himself that the black stallion could run, there was no doubt of it. But Hot Feet was running under saddle and carrying Larom’s heavy weight. The black horse was being ridden bareback by a lightly built kid. Allen banged his fist against the buckboard. “Come on, you little horse! Move away from him! Move!”