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Trail South from Powder Valley

A Powder Valley Western

OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

The week's accumulation of mail that Saturday afternoon in early May consisted of a catalog of ladies' dresses for Sally Stevens from a Chicago mail-order house; a brief typewritten letter addressed to Mr. Patrick Stevens from the Colorado Stockmen's Association; and a dog-eared envelope addressed in a soft smudgy pencil to: "Pat Stevens, Somewheres in Powder Valley Colorado."

"This'n took some long time gettin' here," the postmaster at Dutch Springs chuckled as he handed Pat the last letter. "Been to Pueblo an' Hopewell Junction, an' all around. Gettin' it at-all proves you're a mighty important man in Colorado, I reckon."

A grin crinkled Pat's firm mouth. "Powder Valley ain't so big," he protested, holding the envelope up to study the postmark. "When does it say it was mailed?"

"Nigh onto three weeks ago," the postmaster pointed out importantly. "From down in New Mexico. Town name of Santa Alice or somethin' like that."

The envelope had no return address. Pat turned it over and over in his hands, frowning down at it as he strolled across from the mail window in the Dutch Springs general store to the end of a counter piled high with woolen blankets. Pat Stevens was a tall, bronzed man who carried his thirty-odd years with a look of jaunty youthfulness. Settling down to the staid life of a married rancher in the almost-civilized community of Powder Valley had quieted down naturally roving eyes and sobered up a quirky mouth, but nothing could take away from him a certain air of recklessness, of blithe audacity, that had been so much a part of his younger years before he met Sally and fathered their young son.

His lips were pursed in a tuneless whistle as he carefully tore the envelope open and shook out a folded sheet of cheap ruled paper. He didn't know who in New Mexico would be writing to him. Seemed to him he remembered a town named Santa Alicia — somewhere about the middle part of the state. A frown puckered the outer corners of his eyes as he read the penciled salutation: "Dear Pat Stevens, You Ole Hawse-thief ..."

He glanced on down to the bottom of the sheet to the signature, and his frown deepened. The letter was signed "Mose Higgins."

His long lithe body stiffened perceptibly. Though he continued to stare down at the penciled sheet of paper, it became blurred before his eyes as his thoughts raced back, how long? Twelve — no, fifteen years, by God. At least fifteen years. A grim scene took vivid shape in his memory. There was a stretch of sand dunes, with two men riding in the blazing sun. One rider was young, reeling in the saddle from thirst and exhaustion. The other was older, with a thin, leathery face and the kindest blue eyes a man had ever seen. Beyond the two riders, dimly seen like a mirage, were other riders, hordes of them, whipping their mounts in a desperate effort to overtake the pair.

Pat Stevens closed his eyes and a wave of physical nausea swept over him. What a young fool he had been! Mose Higgins hadn't asked any questions that day. He knew only that the young puncher was in desperate need, hounded across the New Mexico desert by a grim-faced posse with orders to shoot on sight. No, Mose hadn't asked him whether he was innocent or guilty, had refused to let him waste his breath telling the story of mistaken identity that sent the posse on his trail. To Mose he had been only a fellow human being in need of succor, and Mose had defied the law and saved his life that day — had sent him onward that night astride a stolen horse....

Pat Stevens shook his head slowly and opened his eyes. Rudely penciled words leaped up at him from the page in his hands:

I been hearing bout you off and on, 'bout you turning honest after that scare you got from the posse, ha-ha. Hell, boy, one look at you that time and I knowed you'd never been nothing but honest. Been hearing about you tying up with two tough gun- pards and cleaning up Powder Valley and such-like, so I'm wondering if you might be looking for another cleanup job. I don't mean to be asking no favors from you, Pat. It'll be plenty worth your time if you mosey down this way right quick while I'm still alive to put you onto a plumb raw deal. But you'll have to make it quick because I've had my warnings. And I've got a little gal that's going to need a friend if her daddy kicks off. My place is eight miles north of Santa Alicia right off the road you'll be riding. Hoping this reaches you in time and that you're still gun-handy.

MOSE HIGGINS

Pat Stevens carefully folded the penciled note and put it back in its envelope. As he strode out of the store into the southern Colorado sunlight his face had a bleak look, as though he listened to a voice no one else could hear. He unlooped the reins of a Lazy Mare gelding from the hitch rail, swung into the saddle, and headed out of town in a slow lope.

Sally Stevens was at the door of their comfortable ranch home to greet him when he arrived a couple of hours later. Ten years of marriage had ripened Sally. She was a lovelier and more desirable woman than the slim blond lass Pat had married.

The welcoming smile faded from Sally's face when Pat swung down to the ground and came up the walk. She stepped forward to meet him, asking anxiously, "Is anything wrong in town, Pat?"

He circled her shoulders with his right arm and looked down into her face, shaking his head gravely. He confessed, "I'm worried some about havin' to leave right in the middle of the spring work. But I guess you can manage all right ... you an' the boy, huh?" he added as young Dock came trotting up from the corrals where he had been secretly experimenting with bareback bronc-riding on a yearling heifer.

Sally leaned back against her husband's arm, her blue eyes round with amazement. "Worried about having to leave?" she echoed. "Where are you going, Pat? What sort of trouble is it this time?" Her voice was thin with quick fear which she could not conceal; a throwback to those past days when Pat's departure from home meant that he was taking up the danger-trail again, when each hour of his absence was an eon of torture for the young wife left behind.

Pat smiled reassuringly when he heard that note in her voice. He ruffled her bright fluffy hair with sinewy fingers and protested, "What makes you think there's any sort of trouble? I've just got to make a ride down into New Mexico on business."

That wasn't a lie, he comforted himself. Not really. It was business. Bad business, from the tone of Mose Higgins' letter.

"Don't you try to fool me, Pat Stevens. I know you too well. You're like an old fire-horse snorting at the first smell of smoke. Any time there's a chance to get in a gun flight ..."

He silenced her with a good-natured palm over her mouth. "Just like a woman," he complained, "Always ready to believe the worst. I got a letter from an old friend today," he hurried on. "Feller name of Mose Higgins. Mose writes that he ain't hopin' to live much longer an' he wants me to sort of come down and help him settle up things before he goes. I can't refuse an old friend that favor," he ended gently. "Can I, now?"

"Why do you have to go?" Sally asked dubiously. "Doesn't he have any friends closer than Powder Valley?"

"I reckon mebby not. They do say New Mexico is a right unfriendly country. An' it ain't all just friendship neither. The way he wrote in his letter I reckon there'll be some profit in me goin' down."

"But you're needed here at the ranch, Pat," pleaded Sally. "You're not just a kid any more, who can go traipsing off anywhere any time. You have responsibilities...."

Pat Stevens' face took on a wearied, pinched look. He gestured down toward young Dock who stood near by drinking in every word his parents said. He told Sally:

"There's somethin' I haven't told you yet. Mose has got a little gal he wants for me to look after if he passes on sudden-like. I couldn't refuse a man that, Sally. Think how it'd be if me an' Dock was left here alone an' me dyin' without any friends close by. I'd shore look for an old friend to come and take care of things."

"Of course, Pat," Sally cried, drawing out of the circle of his arms. "That changes everything. Maybe I'd better go with you. Is it just a little baby — or what?"

"I don't rightly know how old the gal is," Pat confessed. "Mose didn't say in his letter. But I don't see how you can go along. No trains run down there. An' we couldn't take Dock along. Nope, honey, I reckon I better start ridin' early in the morning an' I'll be back that much quicker."

"I'll try not to worry," Sally assured him stoutly. "You go right ahead, Pat. And you bring that little girl right back with you if it turns out she's orphaned and needs a home to stay in. Everyone says two children aren't a bit more trouble than one."

She smiled brightly and Pat felt a great lump rise in his throat as he bent to kiss her. He was ashamed of the way he'd fooled her. But hell, a man couldn't tell his wife everything. Sally would just worry her head off if she knew the implication of danger contained in Mose's letter. This way was certainly best.

After it was all over, Sally would understand and forgive him.

Daylight hadn't broken when Pat swung his long legs out of bed the next morning. He shivered in the darkness as he cautiously gathered up his clothes and went out of the bedroom so he wouldn't waken Sally with his dressing. There was a faint red glow in the eastern sky when he was fully dressed and ready to go. He hesitated in the middle of the long living room, glancing down doubtfully at his waist unadorned with gun-belts.

His guns were in the bedroom, hanging in dusty holsters on nails in the wall above the head of the wide bed in which Sally was still sleeping. He took a step toward the bedroom door and his spurs rattled loudly in the pre-dawn silence. He stopped, then squatted down and removed both spurred boots. Treading silently in heavy woolen socks, he reached the bedroom door and pulled it open soundlessly. The reflected glow of a kerosene lamp behind him lighted Sally's face. She lay on her side with one white hand doubled up against her chin, breathing evenly. For perhaps the thousandth time, Pat Stevens decided he had the prettiest wife in the whole world. He stood in the doorway a moment to admire her, and to steel himself for what had to be done. She'd be fit to be tied if she woke up and found his guns missing. But that was a chance he had to take. He'd feel worse than naked riding down into New Mexico without them sagging on his hips.

Two steps took him close enough so he could reach out and get hold of the wide leather belts. He lifted them off their nails and started to back out. Sally stirred and sighed softly. Pat stood stock-still, his heart beating like a small boy caught in the jam cupboard. Then Sally started breathing easily again, and Pat's pulse slowed to normal. He backed out of the room and closed the door, buckled the heavy gun-belts about his waist, and stepped back into his boots.

In the chill light of dawn he hastily threw a saddle on the back of a trail-wise roan that snorted and humped its back threateningly when Pat stepped aboard. That gave Pat a chance to relieve some of his pent-up feelings. He swore at the animal and drove blunt rowels into its sides. The roan crow-hopped a couple of times, then lunged away in a wild gallop. Pat swung into the lower valley road without looking back. He knew dang well he'd get choked up if he wasted a look back at the ranch house where Sally and Dock were left behind.

Smoke was spiraling out of the kitchen chimney of the Bar ES ranch house when Pat Stevens rode into the yard a couple of hourse later. It was on the road he had to take south into New Mexico and he'd promised Sally last night that he'd stop there for breakfast on his way — the only reason she had been willing to let him start that morning without getting up to fix a hot breakfast for him.

Huge, one-eyed Ezra came to the door and gaped in astonishment when he saw who the early morning visitor was. Unshaven, in a ragged undershirt with duck jeans belted about his hips, Ezra looked like some savage caveman out of the prehistoric past, but he opened his big mouth and roared an effusive welcome to his old partner when Pat strode up the path.

"Dog my cats," he bellowed happily. "Ef it ain't li'l old Pat Stevens all dressed up like a Boy Scout with a pair of shootin' irons strapped aroun' his belly jest like he knowed whut they was fer."

He engulfed Pat's hand with a bone-crushing grip while his single eye gleamed happily in the early morning sunlight. From inside the kitchen came Sam Sloan's querulous voice:

"What's that yo're hootin' aboot out there, Ezra? If we got company fer breakfast I got to throw some more ditch water an' flour in the flapjacks."

Pat entered the hot kitchen with a grin. "Wouldn't of stopped here to eat if I'd knowed you lobos was still too lazy to milk a cow so's you could make some decent flapjacks," he greeted the dark-featured wiry little man. "Plumb shiftless, that's what it is."

With a dirty floursack tied about his waist, Sam beamed at him from above a glowing wood range. "Set your car-case on a chair an stop shootin' off yore mouth. How come Sally untied you from her apron strings long enough for you to drap in for some real linin' to the inside of yore belly?"

The three men had been close gun-partners for many years past, forming a trio that was hard to beat in that country where the man who shot first was the man who survived. When Pat Stevens broke up the trio by marrying Sally and settling on the Lazy Mare ranch in upper Powder Valley, the other two partners had regretfully decided it was time for them also to take a vacation from action, and had set up bachelor quarters on the Bar ES ranch lower down in the valley. There all three had lived continuously for more than a decade; a contented and quiet life that was broken only sporadically by ventures remindful of past exploits, but they were still three to be reckoned with when they took the trail of a desperado or a gang of criminals. One-eyed Ezra, with his gargantuan strength and his ability to carry out orders; small and dark Sam Sloan, with the nerve of a catamount and the cunning of an Indian on the trail; sober, strong and resourceful Pat Stevens who had never been bested in a gun-fight or a trial of wits — the three of them together formed a combination that had performed deeds already becoming legendary throughout the length and breadth of the untamed West.

"Jest headin' down into New Mexico on a little jaunt," Pat told Ezra and Sam mendaciously as he wolfed crisp flapjacks and burned his guts with Sam's caustic coffee. "Got a letter from Mose Higgins at Santa Alicia yesterday, askin' me to drop in an' say howdy."

"So you jest buckled on yore pop-guns an' started ridin?" snorted Sam. "Who the hell is Mose Higgins? The two-gun terror of the badlands?"

Soberly, Pat related the facts concerning his acquaintanceship with Mose Higgins. "... That was the time I run foul of the law in Sante Fé on account I looked too dang much like a killer that made a specialty of bustin' ol' women over the head with his gun-butt," ended his explanation. "Mose hid me out an' helped me steal a hawse for a get-away, so I figger I owe him any favor he asks."

"An' what is the favor he asks this time?" Sam queried suspiciously.

Pat shrugged with an elaborate pretense of unconcern. "Seems like Mose figgers he's got one foot in the grave an' he's worried some aboot what'll become of his little gal does he get both feet underground. So Sally shoos me off with orders to pack the baby back to the Lazy Mare where she'll take care of her from here on out."

A heavy, disbelieving silence settled over the kitchen when Pat finished speaking. Sam winked across the table at Ezra, then glared at Pat. "Wearin' yore guns fer the baby to cut her teeth on while she's riding back with you, I reckon?" he demanded sarcastically.

"Now, how'd you guess it?" Pat looked up at him in amazement. "Mind-readin', that's what it is. You could make money with that stunt ... goin' around to County Fairs ..."

Ezra blinked his single eye solemnly and said, "Me, I think he's lyin', Sam."

"Course he's lyin'," Sam snorted. "He's bin a liar since he left his mammy's breast. He's got some fun figgered out down there, an' by golly if he ain't plannin' to leave us sittin' back here suckin' our thumbs while he gets hisself killed down yonder in New Mexico."

"In which case," said Pat, smiling broadly, "I'll take it kindly if you two ring-tailed side-winders will sort of look out after Sally an' Dock." He got up and stretched. "Thanks for the bellyful. It'll last me a hour or so, mebby."

He rode away from the Bar ES ranch with an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew that if he had let fall one word that sounded remotely like an invitation, Sam and Ezra would have dropped everything to ride south with him. But he had thought it all out last night and decided it wouldn't be fair to them to ask them to join him. After all, he had only a hazy notion to go on. He didn't even know there would be any trouble when he reached Santa Alicia. Mose Higgins had been woefully vague in his letter. And the chances were that he would arrive much too late. Mose had mentioned the need of speed, yet the inadequately addressed letter had been weeks on the road before it finally reached him.

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Excerpted from Trail South from Powder Valley by Brett Halliday. Copyright © 1942 William Morrow and Company, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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