Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT INFO
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
THE MEGAPACK SERIES
QUICK PAY FOR MAVERICK MEN, by Ed Earl Repp
TOM’S MONEY, by Harriet Prescott Spofford
WHILE SMOKE ROLLED, by Robert E. Howard
THE AFFAIR AT GROVER STATION, by Willa Cather
THE OUTLAW PILOT, by Stephen Payne
READY FOR A COFFIN, by Gene Austin
BULLDOG CARNEY, by W. A. Fraser
DUST, by Marcet and Emanuel Haldeman-Julius
THE JIMMYJOHN BOSS, by Owen Wister
THE APACHE MOUNTAIN WAR, by Robert E. Howard
ABOVE THE LAW, by Max Brand
WITH GUTS, GUN, AND SCALPEL, by Archie Joscelyn
THE END OF THE TRAIL, by Clarence E. Mulford
THE WILD-HORSE HUNTER, by Zane Grey
THE HONK-HONK BREED, by Stewart Edward White
THE TEXAN SCOUTS, by Joseph A. Altsheler
THE ROAD TO BEAR CREEK, by Robert E. Howard
A KINSMAN OF RED CLOUD, by Owen Wister
NO REPORT, by S. Omar Barke
THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN, by Zane Grey
GUNMAN’S RECKONING, by Max Brand
LITTLE BIG HORN MEDICINE, by Owen Wister
THE LONE RANGER RIDES, by Fran Striker
MAN SIZE, by William MacLeod Raine
COLUMBIA AND THE COWBOY, by Alice MacGowan
COPYRIGHT INFO
“Quick Pay for Maverick Men,” by Ed Earl Repp, originally appeared in Action Stories, June 1942.
“Tom’s Money,” by Harriet Prescott Slofford, is taken from The Wit and Humor of America, vol. 10 (1907).
“While Smoke Rolled,” by Robert E. Howard, originally appeared in Double-Action Western, December 1956.
“The Affair at Grover Station,” by Willa Cather, originally appeared in 1900.
“The Outlaw Pilot,” by Stephen Payne, originally appeared in Ace-High Magazine, March 1, 1932.
“Ready for a Coffin,” by Gene Austin, originally appeared in Double-Action Western, January 1952.
“Bulldog Carney,” by W. A. Fraser, originally appeared in 1919.
Dust, by Marcet and Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, originally appeared as a novel in 1921.
“The Jimmyjohn Boss,” by Owen Wister is taken from The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories (1900).
“The Apache Mountain War,” by Robert E. Howard, originally appeared in Action Stories, December 1935.
“Above the Law” by Max Brand, originally appeared in All-Story Weekly, August 31, 1918.
“With Guts, Gun, and Scalpel,” by Archie Joscelyn, originally appeared in Big Book Western, December 1945.
“The End of the Trail,” by Clarence E. Mulford, originally appeared in Bar-20 Days (1910).
“The Wild-Horse Hunter,” by Zane Grey, is taken from The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories (1933).
“The Honk-Honk Breed,” by Stewart Edward White, originally appeared in Arizona Nights (1907).
“The Texan Scouts,” by Joseph A. Altsheler, originally appeared in 1913.
“The Road to Bear Creek,” by Robert E. Howard, originally appeared in Action Stories, December 1934.
“A Kinsman of Red Cloud,” by Owen Wister, is taken from The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories (1900).
“No Report,” by S. Omar Barke, originally appeared in Ace-High Magazine, April 1931.
The Last of the Plainsmen, by Zane Grey, originally appeared in 1908.
Gunman’s Reckoning, by Max Brand, originally appeared in 1921.
“Little Big Horn Medicine,” by Owen Wister, is taken from Red Men and White (1895).
The Lone Ranger Rides, by Fran Striker, originally appeared in 1941.
Man Size, by William MacLeod Raine, originally appeared in 1922.
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
ATTN: KINDLE READERS
The Kindle versions of our Megapacks employ active tables of contents for easy navigation…please look for one before writing reviews on Amazon that complain about the lack! (They are sometimes at the ends of ebooks, depending on your version or ebook reader.)
RECOMMEND A FAVORITE STORY?
Do you know a great classic science fiction story, or have a favorite author whom you believe is perfect for the Megapack series? We’d love your suggestions! You can post them on our message board at http://movies.ning.com/forum (there is an area for Wildside Press comments).
Note: we only consider stories that have already been professionally published. This is not a market for new works.
TYPOS
Unfortunately, as hard as we try, a few typos do slip through. We update our ebooks periodically, so make sure you have the current version (or download a fresh copy if it’s been sitting in your ebook reader for months.) It may have already been updated.
If you spot a new typo, please let us know. We’ll fix it for everyone (and email a revised copy to you when it’s updated, in either epub or Kindle format, if you provide contact information). You can email the publisher at wildsidepress@yahoo.com.
THE MEGAPACK SERIES
Collect them all!
The Adventure Megapack
The Baseball Megapack
The Boys’ Adventure Megapack
The Christmas Megapack
The Second Christmas Megapack
The Classic American Short Story Megapack
The Dan Carter, Cub Scout Megapack
The Cowboy Megapack
The Craig Kennedy Scientific Detective Megapack
The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack
The Detective Megapack
The Father Brown Megapack
The Ghost Story Megapack
The Second Ghost Story Megapack
The Third Ghost Story Megapack
The Horror Megapack
The Macabre Megapack
The Second Macabre Megapack
The Martian Megapack
The Military Megapack
The Mummy Megapack
The First Mystery Megapack
The Penny Parker Megapack
The Pulp Fiction Megapack
The Rover Boys Megapack
The First Science Fiction Megapack
The Second Science Fiction Megapack
The Third Science Fiction Megapack
The Fourth Science Fiction Megapack
The Fifth Science Fiction Megapack
The Sixth Science Fiction Megapack
The Penny Parker Megapack
The Pinocchio Megapack
The Steampunk Megapack
The Tom Corbett, Space Cadet Megapack
The Tom Swift Megapack
The Vampire Megapack
The Victorian Mystery Megapack
The Werewolf Megapack
The Western Megapack
The Second Western Megapack
The Wizard of Oz Megapack
AUTHOR MEGAPACKS
The E.F. Benson Megapack
The Second E.F. Benson Megapack
The B.M. Bower Megapack
The First Reginald Bretnor Megapack
The Wilkie Collins Megapack
The Philip K. Dick Megapack
The Jacques Futrelle Megapack
The Randall Garrett Megapack
The Second Randall Garrett Megapack
The G.A. Henty Megapack
The M.R. James Megapack
The Murray Leinster Megapack
The Second Murray Leinster Megapack
The Andre Norton Megapack
The H. Beam Piper Megapack
The Rafael Sabatini Megapack
QUICK PAY FOR MAVERICK MEN, by Ed Earl Repp
Crawling stealthily on all fours thr
ough catclaw and cactus, Nevada Jim pulled up suddenly and with a low, colorful oath plucked a chotta spine from the ball of his horny thumb.
“Quit bellyachin’ and move on!” husked old Utah McClatchey from close behind him. “I’m gettin’ tired of havin’ them rundown boots o’ yours shoved in my face!”
A dark silhouette in the pale moonlight, Nevada Jim stuck his injured member into a capacious mouth and licked the pinpoint wound which stung like fire. Then he grinned at his sour-faced old companion. “Don’t get impatient, Utah,” he said. “Good times await us at yonder mine. After we lift ol’ Dan Conover’s gold, we won’t have to do this kind of work no more—unless we feel like havin’ some fun.”
Utah matched his younger partner’s grin. “You know,” he gave back quietly, “we’re really doin’ Conover a big favor by relievin’ him o’ his dust. Why, from what I heard in Tombstone, the poor jasper’s been worryin’ himself near to death for fear somebody was goin’ to rob him. We’ll take a big load off his mind.”
Nevada Jim’s thin, hawk-like face assumed a benign expression. “I believe you’re right, pard,” he said. “I bet he’ll be tickled pink to see us!”
“I reckon,” McClatchey chuckled. “Lots of other folks would, too.”
He was right. Lawmen from Laramie to Paso del Norte would have given time from their lives to nab this pair. Many had seen the two slippery owlhooters, but none of them had been capable of laying hands on them. One reason was because there wasn’t a sheriff west of Omaha who didn’t have a healthy respect for the old Colt Peacemakers they wore, tied hard at their thighs. Another reason was that times had changed and the law was more accustomed nowadays to riding along fine highways in high-powered cars, than fording mean cayuses over the rough western badlands in quest of the two old-time outlaws.
Some newspapers in the Southwest frequently referred to the pair as the Hellers from Helldorado and poked fun at the law for being unable to put them where they rightfully belonged. Others called them ribald raiders because they seemed to enjoy themselves so thoroughly when they walked into some unsuspecting cow-country bank and lifted its cash. There were still other papers, and individuals too, who mentioned slyly when the pair made front page news, that Nevada Jim James and Utah McClatchey sometimes did the country a service by preying upon their own kind. For deputy sheriffs, town marshals, and border patrolmen frequently found dead gangsters in unexpected places, with miniature tombstones carved from chaparral or manzanita placed neatly upon their chests. That was a symbol the Hellers from Helldorado always left behind them.
“We don’t want nobody to git credit for our doin’s but us,” Utah always said. “An’ we shore as heck don’t want to git credit for orneriness that ain’t our’n!”
They enjoyed many a chuckle over those miniature tombstones. And they were valued by the lawmen fortunate enough to get hold of one. They carried a message that was plain as the beak-like nose on Nevada Jim’s predatory face. The miniatures were more than calling cards. They told all and sundry that the Hellers’ hangout was in the old ghost town of Tombstone, Arizona, hard by the fastnesses of the Chiricahua Mountains, the Turkey Creek badlands and the Mexican border. It was an open challenge to the law to come and get them—if it could.
But now the two pards had been forced to abandon their snug retreat in the old Oriental Saloon where Wyatt Earp had once held forth in all of his frock-coated, gun-hung splendor, for Tombstone was coming to life again. Mines were reopening and ore trucks were churning up the thick dust of Allen and Tough-Nut Streets.
“It’s this here dee-fense program that’s runnin’ us into the hills again,” Nevada Jim complained. “It might be a good thing for the country, but it’s goin’ to make it awful tough for us to keep dodgin’ the law.”
Utah McClatchey had squared his flaring old shoulders and snorted: “What this country needs is a few ol’ timers like you an’ me that are plumb handy with hog-laigs.”
“We’re handy enough,” Nevada had agreed. “But we’re also pizen mean an’ ornery. Our law-dodgers say so.”
“They ain’t lyin’,” Utah admitted. “There ain’t no Social See-curety for us, an’ we gotta make a livin’ somehow, don’t we?”
* * * *
Now, the Hellers were high on the flank of a barren Chiricahua peak, making their way with cat-like stealth up the tailings of an old mine dump. New streakings of ore marked it in places, for Dan Conover had recently reopened the Bronco Mine.
“Funny Conover ain’t got his stamp mill runnin’ tonight,” Utah complained. “If it was goin’, we could’ve rode our hosses right up to his shack without bein’ heard instead of us havin’ to crawl on our hands an’ knees.”
Nevada Jim grinned. The old renegade was always complaining about something. “You got to do a little work for yore dinero,” he pointed out, “or you wouldn’t appreciate it none.”
He ceased talking as they reached the edge of the dump, and clamped a hand over his pard’s wrist. His bleak, wintry eyes scanned the shelf for sign of life. There was none. A waning moon shed a faint radiance over the long, narrow plateau, and the gaunt shaft house at the mouth of the mine. The stamp mill, cook shack and long bunkhouse were on the other side of the shaft house. A clammy silence held sway over the place.
The only sign of human habitation was a pale, yellow light in one old shanty off to the right of the two renegades. Save for that, every building seemed deserted when the mine should be going full-blast. There was something subtle in the quiet that Nevada Jim didn’t like. It made the hair crawl on his thin neck.
They stole forward again toward the lighted shack. There was a front and rear door to it and it boasted three rooms, a kitchen, bunkroom and a front room. Nevada was aware of that because he and Utah had once holed up there when a posse became too annoying.
They saw now that the yellow lamp-light was coming from the front room. They picked their way quietly to the rear porch. Testing each step, Nevada mounted slowly. The door was hung on leather hinges, but by lifting it a little, he managed to ease it open without a sound. He stepped inside.
The little kitchen was dark as the inside of his pockets. He paused, with Utah at his shoulder, to accustom his eyes to the darkness. After a moment he could make out the door leading into the front room. Silently he crossed to it. Left hand reaching out, he jerked it open as his right whipped his long-barreled Colt from its pouch. Like a cat he slipped through the door and took one long stride to the right. Utah, gun in hand, moved to the left. It was their system when entering a bank.
Their guns flipped up to cover the room, then sagged. Both stared open-mouthed at old Dan Conover seated beside a stained table in the center of the room. They blinked to make sure their eyes were not playing them false.
A dirty rag had been drawn tight between Dan’s teeth and knotted securely behind his white head. His arms were bound to the back of the chair in which he sat, and his ankles were lashed to the legs of it. Only his blue eyes were active and they were filled with hellfire and brimstone. But when he looked up at the two renegades, Nevada saw his angry expression change. The old mine operator’s shoulders shook and his chest started heaving. A sound came from behind the gag that was very much like choked laughter.
He looked at the renegades standing either side of the door. Utah McClatchey resembled a gaunt lobo. Tall, thin as a rail, bowlegged in his ragged Levis, his blue shirt and moth-eaten cowhide vest hanging about his spare torso in loose folds, he looked like a wolf emerging from a hard winter. His scraggy, drooping, iron-gray mustache fell below his narrow chin. The battered range hat atop his bullet head had seen better days, but now the brim was warped and floppy and the crown boasted two bullet holes. He looked older than he was, for he had hit the owlhoot at twelve, and forty years of night riding since weighed heavily upon him.
Nevada Jim flushed a little when he felt Conover’s laughing eyes go over him. He was garbed much as his old partner, but there the resemblance ended. His eyes and thin
face carried an expression of ironic, devilish humor most of the time. He was perhaps ten years younger than Utah, but heavier. A sparse stubble of roan whiskers, well on the gray side, hid the weather-wrinkles etched about his mouth and flat cheeks. He always enjoyed a good laugh at the other fellow’s expense, but this time he realized the joke was on them. And old Dan Conover knew it.
Utah was the first to speak, then explosively: “Shut yore gurglin’, yuh dang fool!” he cracked out. “You sound like a b’ilin’ teakettle! Untie the critter, Jim, before I get mad an’ shoot the gag out o’ his mouth. Of all the consarned luck I ever did see, this is the worst. Somebody beat us to our gold, by Gawd!”
Nevada had already pouched his gun and was striding toward Conover when he saw him stiffen suddenly back in his chair as though something had smashed him in the chest. Then he saw something had, for a red stain spread quickly over the old mining man’s white shirt front.
A sound, scarcely louder than the low hiss of a snake, accompanied the bullet. Before he could do more than spin toward the bedroom door from which he thought the mysterious shot had come, a second slug sliced neatly through the crown of his battered range hat.
Then Utah McClatchey’s ancient Colt let out a roar that shook the shack. His heavy slug screamed into the bedroom as he yelled: “After ’em, Jim! They’re hidin’ in the bunkroom! Maybe they got our gold in there!”
He started running, straight-up, for the door, with a reckless disregard for modern guns and gunners. But Nevada had other ideas. In a flying tackle he brought the old renegade down to the floor and rolled with him through the dark doorway just as lead from the hissing guns inside the bedroom sheeted above their prone bodies.
Nevada Jim found it disconcerting to fight guns that made no sound. He wasn’t used to it, but he was accustomed to fighting in the dark and he had no more mercy in him now than a cougar has for a fawn between its jaws.
Pale gun-flame stabbed out of the thick blackness from the vicinity of one of the bunks across the room. Nevada snap-shot from the floor, gun swinging up as he triggered to cover the spot of flame. Instantly he heard the thud of a falling body accompanied by a shrill, high-pitched screaming of words in a tongue that was totally unfamiliar to him. The voice gurgled off into the silence of death.