going to kill you!”
head.
Steadily, slowly, full glass still in his
“No go, Kramer,” he said flatly. hand, Daunt turned. His face was white, but
“That’s what I’m tired of. Taking orders—
his voice was even. “Just a minute, Kramer,”
running away—jumping when somebody he said. “There’s always time for one more yells.”
drink.”
Butt first, Daunt extended the gun
Unshakingly, his hand carried the glass
Action Stories
6
to his lips. He jerked his head back. “Ah-h-h,”
characters painted on their sides—and two
he sighed, as he finished drinking. “All right, humans. A Chinaman—fat, sleek, resigned,
Kramer,” he breathed softly. “I’m ready. who seated himself on one of the boxes. And a You’re all wrong—tangled up in your own
Russian—big, tall, massive-framed, whose
loop. But go ahead. Play your marbles!”
eyes flamed boldly, as he paced ponderously
He set the whiskey glass on the bar.
back and forth, looking this way and that
With a gesture of finality, he dropped his arms across the yucca-studded desert.
and awaited the searing smash of the bullet
They spotted it simultaneously—the
from Kramer’s poised gun.
Russian and the Brazos Kid. The car, dust
rising cyclone-like behind it, was speeding
III
toward the station. Deep in his throat, the
Russian grunted gutturally. The Chinaman
A HUNDRED times, the Brazos Kid had stood up. High pitched was his voice as he almost despaired of getting into Kramer’s jabbered excitedly. The Kid, behind his border hide-out. His month’s leave of absence shielding ’dobe wall, chuckled to himself.
had passed. Two months had slipped by. And
Then he sobered. The car, top down,
he had found neither Kramer nor Daunt.
came on, rumbled toward the hidden Kid and
Lean, gaunt, unshaven, wearied with
the waiting aliens. It stopped with a scream of the hopelessness of his task, he lounged tortured brakes. The granite-faced guard despondently against the crumbling ’dobe wall stepped out, two guns on his hips. The Kid
of a narrow gauge railroad terminal building.
wondered, racked his brain again. What could
Deserted it was, as it always had been,
he do? Were these really Kramer’s agents?
except for those few times when the Brazos
The guard stepped quickly to the two
Kid had seen the car whisk the loads away.
aliens. They jabbered at him in their
Twice he had seen that. Twice in thirty days, respective tongues. He grabbed them both by
that long, low, powerful car had purred their arms and pushed them toward the silently to this deserted, eerie place. Twice, waiting car.
piloted by the same, clear-eyed, bronzed-
“Shut yore traps,” he rasped at them.
faced, set-featured girl, it had taken aboard its
“Shut up an’ git in there.”
load of boxes marked with strange, foreign
The girl remained behind the wheel of
characters. Once the load had been human.
the car. She grinned a little at the aliens as Chinese—slant-eyed, puzzled, bewildered they climbed into the back seat. The guard creatures who had been bundled started back for the boxes. The girl made a unceremoniously into the long tonneau by the
sibilant noise with her mouth. Then she called hard-faced jasper who accompanied the girl
softly to the guard. The soft purr of the motor driver. While behind the ’dobe wall, the didn’t drown her voice.
Brazos Kid had watched and racked his tired
“We have company,” she called. There
brain for a plan whereby he could come to
was veiled sarcasm in her voice.
know this girl and her cold-eyed guard.
The hard-faced guard whirled, hands
And then they came again, just after
streaking toward his holsters. The Brazos Kid the train had gone. Gone wheezingly down the
jerked involuntarily, then relaxed. His glance weaving narrow track, its short, squatty, followed the gaze of the girl.
wood-burning engine puffing snortingly
through its flaring smoke-stack. This time the TALL, lithe, white teeth showing between
train had left two boxes with those strange
slightly parted lips, a swarthy Mexican rode
A Ranger Rides to Rimrock
7
A crackle of rifle fire came from the
clump of mesquite across the narrow-gauge
mesquite clump. The guard crumpled forward
track. The girl’s eyes were hard as she on his face beside the queerly marked box.
watched him ride up.
The girl screamed as the Mexican leaned
“Our friend Parada,” she said forward, hand outstretched to grab her. The ironically.
deep voice of the Russian and the high-pitched The guard relaxed, walked to one of
squeal of the Chinaman in the back seat of the the queerly marked boxes and picked it up.
car blended inharmoniously with the sharp
“’T’ hell with Parada,” he grunted as he bark of Kitty’s pistol as she shot upward at the carried the box toward the car.
Mexican above her.
The mounted Mexican reached the car
The Brazos Kid leaped forward.
first. He swept off his gaudily decorated Parada cursed. His hand clutched his right sombrero with an exaggerated flourish. shoulder. The motor roared under the long
“Querida mia,” he smirked. “A nice day, eh?
hood of the car. Horsemen, yelling, shooting
Ees eet not?” His black eyes shone with aimlessly, spurred from the mesquite. The sardonic humor.
Brazos Kid reached the car as it started
The girl took papers and tobacco from
forward. Both guns out, he leaped on the
a shirt pocket. She deftly rolled a cigarette and running board.
licked it with her tongue. Then she looked up.
“Git goin’! he shouted to the girl.
Her eyes were cold.
Bullets from the Mexican horsemen
“Go to hell,” she said flatly.
sang about the car. The Kid climbed into the
The guard chuckled and grinned back seat. The Chinaman huddled down in a mockingly at the Mexican, Parada. He set the
corner. But the Russian, eyes shining, turned, box in the bottom of the car and started back knees on the seat, and watched. The Brazos
for the other one. He grunted in a pleased
Kid, beside him, thumbed leaden fury at the
fashion as he strode.
banditos behind them.
“That,” he said to Parada, “from Kitty
Like thunder, stuttering, rumbling,
Kramer, oughta hold yuh for a while, I guess.”
reverberating, sounded the Kid’s twin guns as The Mexican sat stiffly in his saddle.
they shook jerkily under the recoils of his
His black eyes shot hate at the guard’s back.
shots. The car gained momentum, roared,
The Brazos Kid, in his place of rocked dizzily as it swept along, speeding concealment, stiffened too. Kitty Kramer. easily away from the pursuing horsemen.
Kramer! He was right.
The Russian sighed deeply and sat
Tensely he watched the Mexican’s back in his seat. His eyes glowed approvingly eyes dart furtively toward the clump of as he looked at the Brazos Ki
d. The Chinaman mesquite from which he had just ridden. The
got up from his corner. His round, yellow face Kid, catching that glance, eased his guns in
was placid again.
their holsters...
The guard reached the second box. MILES down the trail, the girl stopped the car Parada looked at him. There was a light of
and slid out of the seat. She stepped to the
triumph in the Mexican’s gleaming eyes. He
ground and faced the Kid in the car. In her
raised his right hand high—straight up. The
hand was a gun. Her clear blue eyes were
girl, Kitty Kramer, glanced up at him from
hard-filled with suspicion.
lighting her cigarette. Her eyes flashed wide
“Just who are you?” There was no
open as she saw his pose.
friendliness in her tone.
Action Stories
8
The Kid stepped out of the car. He
serious now.
rubbed his right hand meditatively across the
“A saddle?” she asked.
beard stubble on his lean chin. His eyes
The Kid nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “A
dropped to survey his torn boots, his faded,
good kak.”
tattered jeans. He snorted slightly through his The girl studied him thoughtfully.
nose as he looked up at her. He tipped back
“Working?” she asked.
his worn, lopsided Stetson. Then he dropped
The Kid shook his head sidewise.
his hands to his hips.
“Want a job?”
“Th’ governor uh Texas,” he said “Doin’
what?”
disgustedly. “Who are you?” His tone was as
“Riding.” The girl patted the leather
hard as hers had been. Without waiting for a
seat beside her. “Here.”
reply, he turned and started tramping back the
“How
much?”
way the car had just come. The girl watched
“Plenty.”
him a moment. There was a slight sneer on her The Kid shot his jaw at her. “You’re
lips.
th’ jefe? ” he asked. “You hire an’ fire,
“Tonto,” she muttered to herself. Then mebby?” There was disbelief in his tone.
she called out to the Kid, irony in her voice.
The girl grinned slightly. “They don’t
“Where you going, mister?”
know it,” she said. “But I do—on this job.”
The Brazos Kid stopped and turned.
The Brazos Kid paced around the front
There was contempt in his eyes and voice. “I
of the car. He opened the door and sat himself left a dam’ good saddle back there,” he said.
on the seat beside her. He looked out of the
“They cost money. I’m gonna get it.”
windshield in front of him. He crossed his
He turned and started walking again.
legs.
Speculatively, Kitty Kramer watched him
“Cut ’er loose,” he said. “I’ll ride in
go—watched him until he was nearly out of
yore rodeo.”
sight. Her eyes changed from suspicion to
uncertainty as the Kid tramped on and on. She IV
looked at the placid-faced Chinaman and the
huge Russian in the back seat of the car. The THE Brazos Kid made his brag. But before he
Russian growled something at her. His eyes
finished that ride with the Stetson-hatted,
were flaming, and he nodded his head up and
overall-clad, booted girl beside him, he
down violently as he gestured back toward the wished many times for the comforting feel of
disappearing Kid. His voice rumbled like a frenzied, pitching bucker beneath him.
drum beats.
Shrieking, whistling, plucking at him, the
The girl chuckled and her eyes wind rushed past the car as they whizzed twinkled. She nodded her head at the Russian.
across northern Mexico.
“I don’t sabe that lingo, mister,” she said
Rocking, rolling like a barrel in a sea
solemnly, “but I bet, by dam’, that you’re
wash, the huge car rocketed on with terrific
right.”
speed. Up—around curves sickeningly—
She slid under the steering wheel careening wildly—down stomach-lifting again. The motor purred more loudly. The girl dips—they rushed on. Whimpering
whirled the car about and sped back in pursuit complainingly, the high pitched voice of the
of the Brazos Kid. She wheeled the long car
Oriental mingled with the deep toned
up beside him. The Kid stopped and stared
rumbling ejaculations of the Russian.
without expression at her. Her own face was
The sun capped the day, sank. Twilight
A Ranger Rides to Rimrock
9
came. And amid a squeal of brakes the Brazos
“Well, Kramer,” he breathed, “what do
Kid took breath again in Rimrock.
I get—job or bullet?”
The car stopped. The girl got out. She
Kramer sheathed his gun. Eyes steady
pointed to a sign over the door of a ’dobe.
on Daunt’s, he cat-footed forward. Close to
“Cantina—Jose Aguilar,” it said.
Daunt, he peered into the captain’s eyes.
“Wait there for me,” she told him.
There was amazement in his stare.
She took the aliens by the arm and piloted
“Dam’,” he wheezed, “I wonder if you
them away. The Brazos Kid stalked stiffly
do mean it.”
toward the cantina. He stopped at the doorway Daunt spread his hands and smiled.
and looked inside.
Kramer snapped to sudden decision. With a
A fat man, squat and massive, was
straight finger, he tapped nervously on the
aiming a pistol at another gent against the bar.
broad chest of Captain Perry Daunt.
The fat man’s face was livid with fury.
“I’ll bet with you,” snapped Kramer.
“All right, Daunt,” he cried, “make
“Outside of me, you’re th’ big bull of th’
your play. I’m going to kill you—now!”
woods. I run th’ shipments. I handle th’ cash.
The Kid froze, watched. The other You keep peace around here. Handle th’
man turned. He was tall, bronzed. His face
men.” Kramer straightened and peered
was tired. And, as he tilted his head back and searchingly into Daunt’s eyes. “That a bet?”
drank from a glass in his hand, the Brazos Kid he asked nervously. “Is that a bet?”
saw that a finger was missing from his right
Daunt inclined his head. There was a
hand. Daunt! Daunt, here with the peculiar smile on his firm lips. He strode to contrabandistos.
the center of the room, stooped, picked his
Daunt set down his glass and smiled at
discarded gun from the floor. Holstering it, he the fat man. “All right, Kramer,” he breathed straightened. There was power, personality,
softly. “I’m ready. You’re all wrong—tangled
leadership in his poise as he looked at Kramer.
up in your own loop. But go ahead. Play your
And there was satisfaction in his voice.
marbles!”
“That’s a bet,” he agreed.
Kramer! That was he! Kramer and
The Brazos Kid sighed. What a man—
Daunt! The Brazos Kid was cold—icy cold.
that Daunt!
Indecision, puzzlement, even fear came to
him, paralyzed him with the suddenness of
RUSTLING softly, growing in volume,
this appearance of the two for whom he rumbling, bursting into a full throated roar, a searched. Unseen, unnoticed, he stood at the
half hundred husky throats bellowed at once.
doorway.
One wild, high-pitched cry of approval was
Kramer’s finger whitened where the
drowned by the mighty blast of dissent.
edges of the trigger pressed. Curses, half Turmoil. Confusion. The heavy scuffle of inarticulate, came from his throat. Mottled booted feet. The shrill screams of women.
places, white under the swart of his skin, Deep throated curses of men.
appeared on his face.
“T’ hell with Daunt!”
But Daunt smiled—a cold, icy smile of
“Hurrah for th’ new jefe. ”
complete indifference.
The smack of flesh on flesh. The
Doubt appeared in Kramer’s pig-like
glitter of slithering knife blades. The swift, eyes. Indecision swayed him. His gun hand
sweeping flash of guns. Fighting, cursing, the wavered, lowered. Daunt smiled coldly, throng surged forward.
triumph tingling the mockery in his eyes.
Back to the bar, crouching, gun in
Action Stories
10