Sir Gilhooly arrived before the clapboard Toweres of Marlowe, pointed his lance at the sizzling zenith and cried, “Hist, Ladye Mary Anne!” and then, more loudly, “How now?”
The weather-beaten old house remained quiet. Gilhooly raised his voice and repeated and then, in sudden doubt, “Hey, Mary Ann, it’s just me!”
And still nothing happened.
Puzzled, Gilhooly said, “You see anything of her, Calico?”
Calico stirred and swished at the flies. Gilhooly anchored him to the wind and got down, thrusting his lance into the earth. He went into the house and stood while his eyes adjusted themselves to the dim interior.
And then his glance lighted upon a tidy out of place. That would never happen in Mrs. Marlow’s house. Again, there was some dust upon the floor and …
He got down on his knees and picked up a torn bit of gingham. A flood of unreasoning terror took him. He jumped to his feet and stared all about him. He went swiftly to the kitchen and there he found a chair overturned. Just outside the back door he saw that the loose dust had been disturbed by long scrapes as though somebody had been dragged unwillingly across it.
Hurrying on this trail he came to a gulch and found that many horses had been there. He tried to count them but he was too excited for accurate tracking.
Disaster had come to the Marlow ranch and that was all that Gilhooly could register.
He whistled excitedly for Calico and the pony came, tripping on his reins. Gilhooly mounted with a rush and spurred around the house. He caught up his lance as he passed it and then swerved back to catch the other trail.
One horse had a notch gone from its shoe and by this mark Gilhooly could follow on the trodden wagon trail.
“It’s Fallon,” said Gilhooly with the wind in his teeth. “It’s that dirty sheepherder Fallon!”
Beyond that he could not go. He accredited Fallon with no great strategy, but only remembered that Mary Ann Marlow was a lovely girl, much in demand but, for some reason which had always been wondrous to Gilhooly, giving most of her time to one Jigs Gilhooly.
And because he had never been able to figure out why she was at all interested in him, he was now more anxious than ever to prove up. And as he rode he pictured what would happen to Fallon.
But Gilhooly completely forgot that he had left his six-gun home because he needed the empty holster for a lance couch. He did not even have his Winchester.
Six men, probably. But the way Gilhooly felt, the six might as well have been six hundred. He balanced his lance and forgot to remember that a rifle bullet can reach a thousand yards with fair accuracy whereas his lance in the same length of time could reach about thirty feet.
He had only read Ivanhoe and so he did not know that chivalry had died as the bullet progressed.
Chapter Four
FALLON had a prospector’s cabin perched precariously on a hillside above a dry stream bed. Above it five horses filed along the steep trail, picking their careful ways until they reached the flat ground behind the sad shack.
Fallon eased his thick bulk to earth and grinned at Mary Ann. “Now, if you don’t mind, young lady, we’ll take you in and leave you to sit and think for a spell.”
“You’d better watch out!” said Mary Ann, her blue eyes sparking with anger. “If Jigs tracks you to this place, he’ll shoot that grin off your face and hang it on the wall.”
Fallon appreciated the brave if empty statement. He grinned more broadly. “Yeah? You didn’t see what me’n Billings saw last week. Your honey lamb was out pushing a longhorn around with a long stick.”
Mary Ann stared down at Fallon. “He was what?”
“You heard me. He’s been chewin’ on locoweed, sweetheart, and you got as much chance of havin’ him pry you out of this with bullets as he has of sayin’ no to me now. Now you get inside and be quiet and I’ll go over and see if Gilhooly will buy you back.”
Mary Ann had never had any real reason to be sure of Gilhooly. He might or might not be dumb and he might or might not be brave. But she wanted very badly to believe that he was bright and brave and so she said that he was in no uncertain terms.
“I tell you that he’ll take you apart!” said Mary Ann. “You can’t browbeat him into doing anything he doesn’t want to do! You want his range so you can get all the range for nothing when the next dry season comes. But Jigs won’t give in. Not him! You’d better start leaving the country before he hears about this outrage!”
“Big talk,” grinned Fallon, scrubbing his thick jaw and chuckling. “This afternoon I think you’ll find out just how brainy and brave this Gilhooly gent is. When he comes here I’ll be leadin’ him and he’ll be as docile as a spring lamb.”
Mary Ann wanted to disbelieve that, but she was almost certain it was true. Never in the career of Jigs Gilhooly had anyone said that he was dangerous. And too late she knew that she had accepted his attention to the exclusion of others merely because his company was usually so restful after a hard week’s teaching. True, she had wanted him to be romantic but …
Fallon hauled her down off the horse, pushed her into the cabin and shut the door.
Stogie and Carson were a little nervous, not liking anything too lawless but not lacking in bravery.
“You sure about this Gilhooly gent?” said Stogie.
“Yeah,” said Fallon. “Of course I’m sure.” He spat into the dust. “He’s big and dumb.”
“How about this?” said Carson, jerking his thumb at the cabin.
“Her?” said Fallon. “How about it, Billings?”
Billings grinned. “Aw, by the time the country gets warmed up about this, we’ll have Gilhooly’s ranch. And as soon as we get that, we get all the money we need. It’s been promised.”
Stogie and Carson looked a little more convinced and got down.
Fallon turned his horse around and then mounted. “And now, gents, you stay here and keep an eye peeled. I’m going to ride over to Gilhooly’s and ask him for his signature. This is too easy.”
Fallon spurred his mustang up the trail and over the canyon edge to trot out across the sage-covered plain. He was in a very happy mood as he had never been more certain of anything in his life.
He rode about a mile before he saw the approaching horseman. Once in a while light flashed from bright metal and suddenly Fallon knew that it was Gilhooly.
“Huh,” Fallon told himself, “he come right along after all.”
Gilhooly was coming, with all the speed that Calico could thunder out of the road. He saw Fallon in the distance and without slackening pace, narrowed the gap to a hundred yards. Then he slowed to a walk and Fallon slowed to a walk and, watchfully, they approached each other.
“Where’s Mary Ann?” shouted Gilhooly.
Fallon looked at the tin pail and the long pine stick and chuckled. “She’s safe enough. Thanks for ridin’ over, Gilhooly. You saved me the trouble of findin’ you.”
“What for?” said Gilhooly.
“Why, if you will sell your place and water rights, you get back Mary Ann. It’s as easy as that.”
They were less than a hundred feet apart now, both coming to a halt.
“I got it figured out right,” said Gilhooly. “If I sell, you’ll block off the wells and the next dry season you can buy the whole range for a song. The ranchers around here would be pretty mad at me, Fallon. It ain’t a deal.”
“No?” said Fallon. “Well, my boy, it is a deal—but the price is only a thousand dollars now. If you don’t sell, I can’t promise what’ll happen to Mary Ann Marlow.”
“You gettin’ hard-boiled?” said Gilhooly.
“Yeah,” said Fallon.
“Okay, mister,” snapped Gilhooly, “you asked for it!”
And before the startled Fallon could so much as blink, Gilhooly quirted Calico and leveled the long lance and charged straight
at Fallon.
It was a terrifying thing, to see that spear coming. But Fallon had plenty of time to draw—and draw he did.
He snapped a quick and accurate shot at Gilhooly’s thigh and the puncher was almost jerked out of his saddle. But the lance was still in line and still coming.
With a thump the button slammed Fallon in the chest, picked him off his mustang and threw him to earth. The tip struck down, dug sod and before Gilhooly could free it, the pine was snapped in two sections with such force that he too was hurled from his saddle.
He hit rolling and ended up not ten feet from Fallon who was scrambling madly for his lost Colt. Gilhooly dived but he was too late.
Fallon, bruised, blowing and mad, towered above the puncher, Colt leveled. “Funny, ain’t you?” snapped Fallon. “I ought to plug you!”
Gilhooly sat still. His thigh was numb and a hole in the batwing told him where the bullet had gone in.
“Ain’t so full of ginger now, are you?” said Fallon.
Gilhooly glared through the slits of the water pail and said nothing.
“You changed your mind now?” challenged Fallon.
“What else can I do?” said Gilhooly in a dull voice.
Fallon relaxed a little and grinned. He looked around to see his own pony fleeing for home. Calico was standing by and Fallon approached. Calico shied away but Fallon got the rein.
“You goin’ to leave me here?” said Gilhooly on the ground.
“Naw,” said Fallon. He mounted and Calico laid back his ears and bucked. But Fallon quirted him into docility and almost broke his jaw with the bit.
“Naw,” said Fallon, finishing his sentence, “but I ain’t goin’ to walk. Come on, puncher. March!”
“But my leg,” protested Gilhooly, trying to get up. Then he picked up a five-foot section of the broken lance and pried himself from the earth. Using the pine as a crutch he began to hitch himself along.
“Faster,” said Fallon. “I ain’t got all day.”
Gilhooly hippity-hopped faster, head down.
“This is too easy,” said Fallon. “I never did think you had any guts, Gilhooly. We’ll go down to my place and sign. But I’ve cut the price. You don’t get but five hundred. I can’t pay you less without makin’ it suspicious. That all right with you?” he added unnecessarily.
“Yeah,” said Gilhooly in a dull voice.
“And after you get paid,” said Fallon, “you can leave the country. It won’t be healthy for you. Understand?”
Gilhooly didn’t answer. He stumped dejectedly along, never turning to look at Fallon.
They came at long last to the rim above the cabin. Gilhooly was played out from loss of blood and the hot sun, and it was all he could do to make it down the trail to the dilapidated shack.
Mary Ann was looking out the window at him and there was both pity and disappointment on her face. But there was no respect.
For her, Gilhooly had passed out of the reach of any respect. He looked so ridiculous with that pail on his head and she judged that his wound would not be serious or else he could not walk at all.
She felt pity and pity is the pallbearer of love.
Fallon got down.
Stogie and Carson and Billings got up from a patch of shade and walked over, gazing amusedly at Gilhooly.
“He tried to get tough, but I took all the fight out of him,” said Fallon. “Creased his leg and you’d think he was killed. Ain’t that right, Gilhooly?”
Gilhooly looked at the ground through the slits in the pail and said nothing.
“G’wan inside,” said Fallon, booting Gilhooly.
Gilhooly walked with difficulty through the door. There was a chair beside the table and he sat down upon it, shoulders slumped in dejection. He would not look up to meet the contempt in Mary Ann’s eyes.
Fallon was joyously overbearing. He hauled out some printed forms, some ink and a pen, and shoved them at Gilhooly.
“The more I think about it,” said Fallon, “the more I think it would be a shame to spend money on you, Gilhooly. Supposing we make this for ten dollars. Is that all right?” he challenged.
Sorrowfully, Gilhooly nodded. His hand was shaking when he picked up the pen. He dipped it in the ink and tried to make a mark with it.
Stogie and Carson and Billings were standing around grinning.
The pen would not write.
“I got another one,” stated Fallon with the air of a man of property. He turned around and rummaged in a box against the far wall.
Gilhooly was still half leaning on his crutch. Stogie and Billings turned to watch Fallon search.
And suddenly the cabin exploded.
Carson saw the stick whip level and he dived for his gun. But before he could draw, hard pine hit him between the eyes and he was slammed sideways against Stogie.
Billings whirled with a warning yell and grabbed at his own gun. Whack—and his wrist was broken.
With a backhand on the same sweep, Gilhooly smashed Stogie’s nose all over his face.
Fallon roared with anger and leaped up. Gilhooly struck at him but Fallon had time to dodge. The pine stick sailed to crash into the door and drop outside.
Gilhooly and Fallon collided in the middle of the room. Fallon had no time to draw. Gilhooly’s fists were too swift. And Fallon’s countering blows elicited yells of pain from him. His knuckles were smashed against the improvised casque.
Billings was scrambling for a gun on the floor. Gilhooly leaped up and back and his heels crunched down on Billings’ fingers.
Whirling Fallon around with a right, Gilhooly plucked the Colt from its holster and then, reversing its butt, began to get in some work.
The cabin floor was covered with dust that now began to rise chokingly in the room. Through this fog of battle Mary Ann, pressing the far wall with her back, saw a monster with a shining helmet take four men apart with such savage efficiency that it chilled her.
Billings was out of it, a stumbling block on the floor. Stogie could not see for blood and a final crack on the head spilled him into the ashes of the fireplace.
Carson came to and came up fighting. He fired once, but he did not fire twice.
Like a javelin thrower, Gilhooly lanced Carson out through the back window and Carson started an avalanche as he went down the slope.
Gilhooly’s helmet had come off in the fray and now, face streaked with sweat and eyes wild with battle, he advanced one final time upon the flailing fists of Fallon.
There was a swift exchange of cracking blows and suddenly Fallon collapsed over Billings. Methodically, Gilhooly reached down and yanked Fallon to his feet only to knock him over again.
“Don’t kill him!” screamed Mary Ann.
Gilhooly picked Fallon up and carried him to the water barrel and dumped him in it upside down.
Then he set the bedraggled sheepman in what was left of the chair.
Slowly Fallon came around.
He looked up and saw Gilhooly’s set jaw and quailed. “Don’t hit me again,” pleaded Fallon, fending off.
“You’re dumb,” stated Gilhooly. “You are the dumbest man I have ever met, in fact.”
“How was I to know you wasn’t hit?” whined Fallon. “You wasn’t square!”
“I’m being square now,” said the awful specter of fury which was Gilhooly. “You want my place. Well, I’m going to sell you land, see? I’m going to sell you land and its going to cost you fifteen hundred dollars.”
“You’ll sell?” gaped Fallon.
Gilhooly snatched the forms to him and grabbed the pen. He scrawled names and locations onto the dotted lines and then signed at the bottom. He reversed the paper and handed the pen.
Fallon read, and what he read he thought must be distorted by his swelling eyes. “But … but you’re only selling me one acre! You?
??re selling me one acre on the driest part of your land! You can’t do this. I won’t …”
Gilhooly’s voice was quiet but Gilhooly’s voice went through Fallon’s head like a bullet. “Sign and get the money!”
Fallon looked at Gilhooly’s face and then Fallon signed. He stumbled over to the box against the back wall and dug out an iron container. Dolefully he counted the contents and found fifteen hundred and forty-five dollars.
Gilhooly snapped it out of his hands. “The forty-five bucks is rent on my horse. Now get out of here. Kick some life into those gents and travel. And don’t never come near the Painted Buttes country no more.”
He collected the guns and strung them on a piece of wire and went outside to hook them over Calico’s horn.
Mary Ann was watching him with wide eyes.
He came back and suddenly he picked her up and carried her out and put her on Carson’s sorrel.
The four were collected now. They mounted, watching Gilhooly for any swift move, and then, almost gladly, they rode up the trail and out of sight.
“Oh, Jigs,” said Mary Ann, “I never saw anything so wonderful in my life! To fool them into thinking you were wounded and then beating them up and then getting fifteen hundred and forty-five dollars …”
“I didn’t fool them,” said Gilhooly, tenderly regarding his leg. “But say, you know that guy Ivanhoe?”
“Yes, Jigs?”
“He was a fake.”
“What?”
“Yeah, why the dickens didn’t you tell me that bein’ romantic was just beatin’ up guys with your bare fists? You’d a saved me a pile of trouble.”
Story Preview
NOW that you’ve just ventured through some of the captivating tales in the Stories from the Golden Age collection by L. Ron Hubbard, turn the page and enjoy a preview of Branded Outlaw. Join Lee Weston, who’s blamed for rustling cattle. He’s almost lynched, but will stop at nothing to find his father’s killer … until he’s framed for shooting the father of the only girl he’s ever looked at more than once!