TOO LUCKY

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 23, 28 January 1939, Page 11 (Supplement)

TOO LUCKY

Short Short Story

THE law never got around to punishing "Tonto" Bates for the murders he committed. He was too lucky. Every sheriff, every deputy west of the Mississippi would gladly have fired at the sight of him; yet, curiously, he continued to live and to kill. Tonto was twenty-three when he grew the black beard. He had to grow it. There were too many pictures and descriptions of him scattered throughout the west. A month ago he had shot down two prospectors carrying gold out of the hills. One of them had lived long enough to be found by cowpunchers, and had described the killer. Heai'ing that, Tonto decided to change his appearance. So he was a bearded man when he rode his piato too close to Cinder Centre one summer afternoon. Unexpectedly, on rounding the base of a bluff, he faced two men—and one of them wore the badge of a sheriff. Tonto's heart missed a couple of > beats. His hand leapt to his holster. His gesture .made that official and his companion snatch at their own weapons. "2sTone o* that!" the Sheriff rasped. "Put up your hands, hombre!" Tonto Bates knew that if he tarried there, palavering, those men might discover too much about him. So he drew i his guri and fired from the hip. [ The slug cracked into the sheriff's, • throat; !"• Tonto blazed at the other man, too. • But this one, flinging himself out of his saddle, had time to lunge behind locks. ; > Tonto didn't wait to prolong , the fight. He whirled, his horse around and galloped off—with bullets following him. But his good luck held. Not a slug hit him. "Doggone it!" he told himself as he pounded along the trail, hunched over his saddlehom. "That other poiecat'll get back to town and have a posse after mo inside half an hour! I got to I travel fast!" He plunged into the foothills with i one desire—to put as many miles as I possible between . himself and Cinder j Centre. But just before sundown his pinto stepped into a hole* and broke 1 a leg—and sent Tonto flying fifteen I feet before he landed, sprawling, in | brush. j When he regained his breath and his wits and staggered back to his feet, he saw that the pinto was finished. He put his gun t-to the horse's head and squeezed the trigger. ' Tonto had to stagger on afoot, his saddle slung :over his shoulder. That scared him; gave him a sensation of being lost and helpless. If there was " a posse anywhere behind him, they were making- ten miles to' his one; it wouldn't be long before they'd overtake him.

ByOscar Schisgall

Whenever he readied high ground he stopped, shaded his eyes, and searched the country for some glimpse of dust that would indicate a posse. But he could discern no sign of pursuing men. Still, as he trudged on, he kept telling himself: "I got to get a horse." . And that night, just an hour after darkness, his usual amazing luck seemed to return. For Tonto, reaching the 'dm of a canyon, saw something that brought joy to his heart. A man was camped down in the ravine. He squatted beside a fire, puffing at a pipe. A horse grazed in a clump of grass some twenty feet from the fire. Tonto knew what lie had to do. He put down his saddle and silently made his way into the canyon. Down in thrt ravine's bottom he crouched low as- lie went toward the fire. When he was fifty yards from it lie drew - his gun. He stretched flat on his chest and started crawling forward like a huge lizard. Sago and occasional rocks helped to screen him from the man who still gazed moodily into the lire. He managed to wriggle his way to within . twenty feet of the motionless figure before' the man heard a sound. Startled, the stranger turned to squint into the darkness. Tonto made sure. Then he fired. "The .flash of fiame momentarily blinded him. When at last he blinked arid could see clearly again, he • discovered that the man lay. on his back beside the fire. Tonto rose out of the brush, the 'gun still in his hand, and advanced to the campfire. The red glare painted his tall, rangy figure a weird colour. With his toe he rolled the man over on his l'icl:. He bent, examined the body, and finally tightened his lips. He looked around the camp site. A couple of gunny-sacks appeared, laden with food. Tonto knew he would soon

need those victuals. Evidently his luck was continuing. He started toward the horse under the trees. Halfway to the gelding a new thought halted him. He turned and "gazed at the dead man. "About my own size," he mused. "An* that- a mighty neat shirt-on him. And those brown pants—" What Tonto Bates was thinking was that a complete and new description of him would soon be circulated again. There would bo a clear account of the things he had worn when he'd shot the man with the sheriff's badge. So, with a little chuckle, Tonto went back to the dead figure. It took him onlv a couple of minutes to undress the man. Presently he stood in his new attire—a . flue checkered shirt and brown corduroys that fitted remarkably well. As for his own clothes, he put them on the dead stranger and dragged the body into concealment behind rocks, where he covered it with brush. It was then that he remembered his beard.. "Gosh," lie thought, "if I could get rid of that now—" He looked doubtfully at the gunny-sacks. The dead man, he reasoned, was clean-shaven, so there was a fair chance he owned a razor. He dropped to his knees and began to empty the bags with quick, eager hands. He found a razor, all right; and soap, too. But he found something else that made him stare. He found, neatly clasped by a rubber band, a 6mall bundle of monej\ In amazement that pounded in his heart, Tonto counted the bills. Seven hundred dollars! "By thunder," he said, "this'll let me hightail down into Mexico and get a fresh start! With seven hundred dollars I can do most anything!" Ho stuffed the money back into its little sack, and a quick grin came to his face. In one of the stranger's pans he heated water, over the lire—water he took from the man's canteen. Squatting there beside the flames, Tonto Bates shaved. } It took him half an hour of patient effort, but in the end lie rose—cleanshaven, long-jawed—a figure hardly anyone would have recognised as that of a man who had shot down an official

only a few hours before. Tonto couldn't held, laughing as he saddled the piebald gelding under the-trees. "This sure is what you might call I a fresh start! • New clothes. Newhorse. No beard. And seven hundred ' dollars!" At about two o'clock in the morning ho decided to sleep. He'd put a good many miles between himself and Cinder Centre. Even if he were found, it was doubtful if anybody could identify him. Certainly no one could swear that he was the bearded man who had recently committed a murder. So Tonto staked his horse in grass and lay down under a tree. He was unusually tired, so he heard nothing during the night. Not a sound—until, at dawn, a booted toe roused him by poking into his ribs. • He sat up, blinking. Intuitively his hand reached to his hip. But a harsh voice snapped. "None o' that, hombre! Wo got you covered." Tonto gaped around in bewilderment. More than twenty grini mounted men surrounded him—men with guns in their hands. They were glaring at him with eyes full of rage. Scrambling to his feet, he demanded, "What in thunder is all this?" "Shut up!" ordered a black-bearded man. He glared deep into Tonto's eyes. "Nobody's askin* you to talk. You're under arrest." "Arrest?" gasped Tonto. "What— what for? You hombres are makin' a mistake!" "We ain't makin' 110 mistake. Plenty of us saw you last night." Somebody jerked the six-gun out- of Tonto's holster. With a cry of protest he swung around. "What's the idea?" His voice sounded shrill, shaken. "I was cam pin' out here last night! You hombres never saw—" "Listen, killer." The black-bearded man spoke in a low, harsh voice. "When Jed Harper, the cashier o' the bank over in Longhorn City, was shot dead and robbed last night, you may have figured you got away scot free. But it happened that quite a few of us were play in' poker in the house across the street. The shot made,us look out the window. Wo had a good view o' you. None of us is mistakin' that brand new checkered shirt and those brown corduroys. An' we couldn't be mistaken about that piebald gelding o\ j*ours, either. We saw you as you galloped out o' town —saw you plain as day!'' An' I'll bet we find Jed Harper's seven . hundred dollars on you as a clincher!" Yes, the queer thing about' Tonto Bates was that the Law never got around to punishing him for the ders he committed. When he was hanged. ; it was something he hadn't done at ail .