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Show USELESS W 4Mt, . COWBOY MPK ' yJf ALAN Le MAY wn.u. service 4 THE 8TORY THUS FAR: Melody Jones and his ilde-rlder George Fnry rode Into Payneville, a cow town on the route to California. While tn Payneville Melody was mistaken (or Monte Jarrad and Fury for Monte's half-wit nncle, Ros-coe. Ros-coe. Sherry, a girl friend of Monte's, rushed them out of town to her brother ; Avery's ranch. They were soon told by Avery and Cherry to head away from the ranch and to keep going until they reached the border as a posse was after them. As soon as they left, Avery and Cherry went to the barn and found Monte In his hide away between bales of hay. They told him what bad happened. Melody and Fury turned about and re-turned re-turned to the farm. CHAPTER VI At the extreme limit of their compression com-pression they were at the eaves. Through the misfit of the overhang they could see the top of Cherry de Longpre's head, amazingly bright in the light of the three-quarter moon; and the black California-style hat of her brother. "He's changed," they could hear Cherry saying, her voice very deep in her depression. "He started out the only man in the world I ever saw who could really get things done. I'd go to the ends of the earth, for a man like that. But you can't tell me he's driven to all this shooting stuff!" "Why, Cherry," her brother said uncertainly. "He's got to quit this shooting business," Cherry said in so Intense a whisper that it carried better than her spoken words. "Why, Cherry," Avery said again, shaken by this heresy, "You you wouldn't go back on Monte, would you. Cherry?" Cherry's answer came late, but clearly spoken. "No; I wouldn't go back on Monte. I couldn't do that. But he makes me tired, worrying about that grub-testing horsebreak-er!" horsebreak-er!" "That bronc-stomping punk is the bunk," Avery said with conviction. "You got that, did you?" "He's too foolish acting to be true," they heard Avery say crossly. cross-ly. "The old one of course he's another matter. There you got the real thing." George Fury nudged Melody, to be sure he was getting this. "Anybody can see the old one is a genuine half-wit, all right," Avery added. Melody was going to nudge George this time, but he heard George's breath suck through his teeth. "Why them G-a-a-r " "Shet up!" Melody hissed. "Or I'll hesh you with this gun bar'l!" "There's more rats in that roof every year," Avery said, looking up at the eaves. For a moment Melody thought he was being looked between be-tween the eyes. "The old one," Cherry contested, "Is virtually a brilliant mind, compared com-pared to what the young one is. What's the matter with you and Monte? Don't you know a common simpleton when you see one?" 'Monte ain't seen him." "I wish he had. He sure wouldn't worry about him any more, if he got one look. It beats me how the punk gets himself fed. He came when I called him, and he left when I turned him out and he's sheriff's bait for the next three hundred miles. Now will you forget it? And get down into town!" "Mark that well," George Fury whispered to Melody. "I want you should remember every word!" "Now see what you done," Melody Mel-ody answered. Both Avery and Cherry Cher-ry were looking up at the eaves this time. George and Melody began inching back. Avery's heavy voice came to them very plain. "There's rats moving up there big enough to cast a bronc," he said. "Avery," came Cherry's weary tone. ', will you put that gun away id g? gone?" When Avery got hold of an idea he hung onto it. "If there ain't a rat up there I can shoot by ear," he said, "I hope to never shoot another." an-other." Sweat broke out at the roots of George Fury's thin hair, and trickled trick-led down behind his ears. The small of his back began to ache first, then the cords behind his knee; then swiftly a strained fatigue swept all through his frame. His stringy old muscles began to quiver with the tension, and red moons began to weave before his eyes. The toe of George Fury's boot balanced on the edge of the feeble stringer as unsafely un-safely as an egg on the edge of a cup. He knew this could not go on. He knew what the end must be. In the next few minutes George Fury lived one thousand years. An outrageous crash shook the whole house as George's boot slipped. The whole weight of his body drove his foot through the flimsy ceiling, protruding into the room below. Instantly a burst of gunfire exploded ex-ploded in the lean-to beneath. Avery had snatched his forty-five and fired upward as instinctively as a mule lashes out. A splinter stuck in the skin of Melody's thigh. George Fury felt the hard jerk of a bullet that grazed his leather cuff. Avery fired three limes, as fast s his pistol hammer could cock and fall; and instantly afterward a gen eral tumult broke out below. They heard Fever Crick de Longpre bound out of bed with a yell. They heard Cherry running across the kitchen. And close to him in the dark Melody could hear George cussing in hoarse whispers. Melody said, "Are you hit? Did he git you?" "No, I ain't hit, but" "They's a corpse " Fever Crick de Longpre shouted hoarsely "they's a corpse up thar!" With a supreme effort George freed his foot, and they went floundering floun-dering and scrambling back into the main loft. Cherry's voice came choked and strange. "You've killed somebody!" "Well, what in hell-damn were they doing up there?" Avery and Cherry were at the foot of the ladder lad-der to the loft. "Stand back and hold the light!" Avery started up the ladder slowly, well shaken now, his six-gun in his hand. "Pull off your other boot, George," Melody suggested. "You can anyway any-way try to have your feet match, cain't you?" But George Fury had recovered his boot. He pulled it on with a savage wrench, and drew his gun. Crawling on hands and knees, he Instantly a burst of gunfire exploded. ex-ploded. reached the top of the ladder to meet Avery de Longpre. Avery reluctantly re-luctantly lifted his head above the floor of the loft to find a gun like a cannon staring him squarely between be-tween the eyes. Avery looked blankly from one to the other of them. "So it's you," he said. Dazedly he withdrew, and backed down the ladder. He and Cherry stood staring inanely upward up-ward at the two faces which now looked dowji at them from the trap. "It's them," he told his sister. Cherry's voice came faint and small. "What you doing?" she asked Melody, not unreasonably. George Fury tried a foolish bluster. blus-ter. "A man has to sleep some-Where's some-Where's don't he?" Melody Jones lay at full length, relaxed, his chin on his arms, as he looked down. He didn't contribute contrib-ute anything. A slow anger was turning Avery's eyes green. "I guess you better come down here," he decided. "Back down slow, without any false moves. And one at a time," he added add-ed unnecessarily. Melody and George Fury exchanged ex-changed a slow look of mutual dislike, dis-like, then holstered their guns and obeyed. "So now there's three of, you," Avery said. "How many more is up there?" "Didn't see anybody but us," Melody Mel-ody said. "You see anybody, Uncle Roscoe?" Cherry took the gun out of Avery's limp hand, ejected its remaining remain-ing cartridges, and put them In her pocket. Then she stood looking at Melody, and he could almost see her mind work. One thing h did not see, however, was any trace of a misgiving that she might have misjudged mis-judged him. "Sometimes," Melody said, "I feel kind of low in my mind." She drew him away from Avery now, into the kitchen. "Don't you ever stop to think," she asked him quietly, "about what-all I've done for you?" "Whut?" "You were in the soup-kettle, down there in Payneville. Half the town was after your scalp. You couldn't even get your ponies out of the corral without getting hurt. I got them for you. I got you out of there alive. Didn't I?" "Well, you see." Melody said. "I kind of got mistook for a fcilcr name of " "Monte Jarrad." Cherry said. "I saw that. And ever since then, everything ev-erything I've done has been to help you, and undo that mistake 1" "Was that why," Melody askec her, "you run up to me on the street and called me by Monte's name?' Cherry de Longpre wavered a moment. mo-ment. ' "Won't you do just one thing for me?" she asked finally. "Whut?" "Get out of here," she said, hei voice rising with the strain. "Won'' you please, please get out o; here?" And then Melody astonished hei again. "Sure," he said. She stared at him blankly. "What?" He looked her over sadly. "Coms on, George." She was still staring as he turned and walked out of the house. George Fury backed out after Melody, his gun on Avery until they were well into the dark. After Melody Jones and George Fury were gone again, Cherry wenl back to the job of getting her brother broth-er started to town. There was s short struggle. Avery had become confused, and didn't want to move until he was straightened out. First of all Avery had to search the loft; he couldn't get it out of his head that there was a dead man up there. -When he found nothing he was just as bewildered as before. "Either you get started for town," Cherry said through her teeth, "or I'm going out and tell Monte you won't go." Avery looked hurt, but he was convinced. "All right, Cherry." A few moments later he went hammering ham-mering down the trail. Carrying a lamp, and leaving the kitchen dark behind her, she opened the door of her stall-like bedroom. Instantly she almost dropped the lamp. The body of a man was stretched full length upon her bed. Cherry bit her knuckles In a belated be-lated effort to keep herself from screaming. It was not necessary; Cherry didn't go around screaming very much. Melody Jones lay sound asleep, with his mouth open, a look of placid incompetence upon his unconscious face. Cherry stood looking down at him for several moments before he opened his eyes. "Hi," Melody said. Cherry tossed his hat on top of him and turned away; she had nevdr been more discouraged In her life. She sat down on a soap box by the washstand, looking mostly unraveled. unrav-eled. "I don't suppose," she said dully, "it's any use asking you what the hell?" "I been thinkin'," Melody said. "I don't believe that, either," Cherry said bitterly." "You know somethin'?" Melody said. "I believe you're in some kind of a fix, around here." "If I'm not," Cherry said, "I'm going to be, if I can't stop you from haunting me like the living dead! Once and for all, and for the last time will you get out of here?" "Cain't." "Why not?" Melody Jones lied to her then. "My hoss run off," he told her. "What have you done with your partner?" Cherry asked him. He evaded that, partly. "I reckon he's settin' around somewhere, countin' his teeth. That's most generally gen-erally what George is li'ble to be doin'. You see, George didn't want to come back here, seems like." She looked at him blankly, and there was another detour mind-destroying for Cherry de Longpre as he explained to her about Harry Henshaw being the name of his horse. "I suppose," Cherry said, her voice shakng a little, "I ought to be glad you know who you are. You have a cheek, pretending to be Monte Jarrad even trying to fool me! Just because I mistook you for some one else, at first " "No, you didn't," Melody said. "What?" "The whole thing is no better than a hoe-axe," he said. "You knew from the start I wasn't anybody in particular. You cooked the whole thing up in your own haid, and I knew it at the time." She stared at him a moment more, then turned away, bafiled by that mild, effortless lack of pressure. pres-sure. "You're nuts about this Monte, aren't you?" he asked without prejudice. preju-dice. "What if I am?" "Seems like every guy has some gal goes ridic'lous about him," Melody Mel-ody said, "Except except " "You you make a person forget what she was talking about," Cherry Cher-ry said crazily. The strain was burning her out. She picked up a hairbrush from the washstand and looked at it as if she had never seen it before. She shook out her hair and began to brush it mechanically, looking at the wall. "You're in some kind of a box," Melody told her. "You been mixing with the wrong people, or something. some-thing. I don't reckon you'd have turned the sheriff on me, and fixed me up to get shot, and maybe hung, without even knowing who I was. unless something was bothering you. I'd feel like a nump. if'n I just high-tailed high-tailed over the hill, with bullets smoking up the tail of my coat. If I was wearing a coat." "Wait a minute," he said suddenly. sudden-ly. (TO BE CONTINUED) |
