The Third Western Megapack. Johnston McCulley
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***Out of print.
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ADVERTISED IN ADVANCE, by Johnston McCulley
In the little town of Rock Castle, at the edge of the desert country, the recognized social center was known as Hank’s Place, though it was as much Ike’s as Hank’s, since Ike Cumway and Hank Redlan were partners.
Ike and Hank had come to Rock Castle when there was no indication of a town except a few tents and a mining boom. The boom passed on, but the tents changed into shacks and remained.
It was not much of a town. It was away down in one corner of the country, far from the railroad, and was visited by county officials only at election time and when it was necessary to collect taxes. Citizens of Rock Castle thought that it was a weakness to pay taxes unless the sheriff came in person to collect them.
Rock Castle had a half dozen small buildings that housed business enterprises—a small bank, a blacksmith shop, a livery stable and corral, a restaurant operated by a Chinaman, and a cobbler’s shop. And then there was Hank’s Place.
The Place was a big frame building with a false second story front. A partition clove the building into two long rooms. There was a wide open doorway in this partition. On one side was a general store and postoffice, presided over by Ike. On the other side was the bar, gambling room and dance hall combined, under the supervision of Hank.
Inside Hank’s Place, a dozen men loafed against the bar. On the other side of the partition, Ike was alone after the stage driver had departed to put up his iron steed. Ike opened the mail sack and removed therefrom three newspapers, two mail order catalogues, and three letters. Two of the latter were bills from wholesale houses, for Ike. The third also was for Ike—it was addressed to the postmaster.
Ike Cumway held the letter up to the light briefly, and then ripped the envelope open. Inside was a single sheet of cheap paper, with pencil scrawls upon it. Ike turned the letter to the light that came through the flyspecked window, and read.
Ike Cumway was docile and slow moving, not given to excitability. So the consternation that fell upon Hank and the dozen idlers who suddenly beheld Ike Cumway rush through the open doorway in the partition up to the bar, gasping for words, was intense.
Hank swore, fearing a stroke of some sort. The citizens of Rock Castle stood amazed. Ike lurched against the bar, and motioned wildly toward a bottle. Hank supplied the bottle and a glass, Ike tossed off a snifter of liquor, choked, and sputtered.
“What’s the matter with you, Ike?” Hank demanded. “You gone loco? Scarin’ my customers thataway!”
“Letter—letter!” Ike gasped. “Got a letter!”
“Uh-huh!” Hank sneered. “Don’t you get half a dozen every year? What you riled about? Somebody left you a million? That old claim of yourn suddenly assayin’ fifty thousand to the ton?”
Ike Cumway gulped and looked at those about him. He seemed to calm down somewhat. “It—it’s from the Sagebrush Kid!” he said.
There was a moment of silence while all the men there glanced at one another in sudden fear and wonder. The Sagebrush Kid! The outlaw was a countryside terror who laughed at every sheriff! He worked alone always, helped himself to mine payrolls and gold shipments, stuck up a bank or a store now and then, and occasionally an entire town by way of a lark. The Sagebrush Kid, who was said to kill wantonly and unnecessarily, and laugh when he did it.
“You—you read it, Hank!” Ike gasped.
His trembling fingers pushed the dirty note across the slippery bar. Hank picked it up gingerly, and read it aloud.
Postmaster, Rock Castle:
It’s time that the undersigned had a regular home town. I’m sick of livin’ out in the hills with the coyotes and snakes and prairie dogs. So I reckon to make Rock Castle my home. A castle needs a king, I reckon. If I make it my home, naturally I won’t bother the citizens any, seein’ as how they’ll be my neighbors. And I’m expectin’ the said citizens to be brothers to me, too. I reckon you jaspers will understand. I’ll drop in soon, and I’ll call myself Peter Jones.
The Sagebrush Kid.
“Godfrey!” Hank cried. “He’s goin’ to make this his home town!”
“Maybe we’d better send word to the sheriff,” one of the citizens put in.
“Are you aimin’ to pass out spectacular?” Hank sneered. “Send word to the sheriff, huh? Think he’ll keep a posse here all the time? And after he takes it away, this here Sagebrush Kid will come into town and have his revenge!”
“What’s to be done, Hank?” Ike asked.
“Nothin’!”
“Nothin’?”
“You’ heard me—nothin’,” Hank responded. “We can’t stop this Sagebrush Kid from makin’ his home here, can we? Reckon that he knows it’s pretty safe, away down here in the corner of the county, with the sheriff not knowin’ that we’re on earth except at tax time. They’d never look for the Kid here.”
“Then you’re in favor—” Ike commenced.
“I’m in favor of us simply makin’ him welcome as a new citizen and ’tendin’ to our own business and allowin’ him to ’tend to his,” Hank said. “Dang you jaspers, ain’t you got any sense? Officially, we don’t know that the gent is the Sagebrush Kid. We know him as Peter Jones—Pete for short. That’s what we’ll tell the sheriff if he ever comes snoopin’ around. We don’t have to go out and help the Sagebrush Kid hold up anybody. He always does his work alone, I’ve heard tell.”
“Yeh, and he does it up brown!” Ike quavered. “He—he’s a desperate character. We want to be mighty all-fired careful not to cross him any way.”
“Ike, you’ve said somethin’ for once,” Hank informed him. “Yep, we want to be mighty careful not to offend the jasper. If he wants pie for his breakfast, he can have it. Gosh a’mighty! Ever get him started, he might wreck the town. Ike and me have got money invested here, an’ I don’t aim to be pauperized.”
* * * *
Every dust cloud that appeared on one of the trails that led to Rock Castle was the cause of speculation during the next two days. But each dust cloud resolved itself into some well known cowpuncher coming to town for a frolic, or a rancher after supplies. The Sagebrush Kid was the center of none of them.
But