 A Jent From Bear Creek, by Robert Howard. The folks on Bear Creek ain't what you'd call peaceable by nature, but I was kind of surprised to come on to E. Raph Elkins and his brother-in-law, Joel Gordon, locked in mortal combat on the bank of the creek, but there they was, so tangled up they couldn't use their buoys to no advantage, and their cussing was scandalous to hear. Remonstrances, being useless, I kicked their knives out of their hands and throwed them bodily into the creek. That broke their holds, and they come swarming out with bloodthirsty shrieks and dripping whiskers, and attacked me. Since they was too blind mad to have any sense, I bashed their heads together till they was too dizzy to do anything but holler. Is this any way for relatives to act, I asked disgustedly? Let me at him, how old Joel, gnashing his teeth whilst blood streamed down his whiskers. He's broke three of my fangs, and I'll have his life. Stand aside, Breckenridge, raved E. Raph. No man can chaw ear off a me and live to tell the tale. I shut up, I snorted, one more yelp out of Ethernia, and I'll see if your fool heads are harder than this. I brandished a fist under their noses, and they quieted down. Now, what's all this about I demanded? I just discovered my brother-in-law is a thief, said Joel bitterly. At that E. Raph gave a howl and a violent plunge to get at his relative, but I kind of pushed him backwards, and he fell over a willer stump. The faxes Breckenridge, said Joel. Me and this polecat found a buckskin poke full of gold nuggets and a holler oak over on a patchy ridge yesterday. We didn't know whether somebody in these parts had just hit it there for safekeeping, or whether some old prospector had left it there a long time ago, and maybe got sculpted by the engines and never come back to get it. We agreed to leave it alone for a month, and if it was still there at that time, we'd feel pretty sure that the original owner was dead, and we'd split the gold between us. Well, last night I got to worry and somebody'd find it which wasn't as honest as me, so this morning I thought I'd better go see if it was still there. At this point E. Raph laughed bitterly. Joel glared at him ominously and continued, Well, no sooner I hoeve inside of the holler tree than this gunk let go at me from the brush with a rifle gun. That's a lie, yelled E. Raph. It were just the other way round. Not being armed, Breckenridge, Joel said with dignity, and realizing that this coyote was trying to murder me so he could claim all the gold, I legged it for home and my weapons, and presently I sighted him sprinting through the brush after me. E. Raph began to foam slightly at the mouth. I weren't chasing you, he said. I was going home after my rifle gun. What's your story, E. Raph? I inquired. Last night I dreamt somebody had stole the gold, he's answered sullenly. This morning I went to see if it was safe. Just as I got to the tree, this murderer begun shooting at me with a Winchester. I run for my life, and by some chance I've finally run right into him. Likely he thought he'd killed me and was coming for the skull. Did either one of you see Tothern shoot at you, I asked? How could I with him hid in the brush, snapped Joel? But who else could it been? I didn't have to see him, growled E. Raph. I felt the wind of his slug. But each one of you says he didn't have no rifle, I said. He's a cussed liar, they accused simultaneous, and would have fell on each other tooth and nail if they could have got past my bolt. I'm convinced they's been a mistake, I said. Get home and cool off. You're too big for me to lick, Breckenridge, said E. Raph. But I warn you, if you can't prove to me it wasn't Joel which tried to murder me, I ain't gonna rest nor sleep nor eat till I've nailed his mangy sculpt of the highest pine on Apache Ridge. That goes for me too, said Joel, grinding his teeth. I'm declaring true still tomorrow morning. If Breckenridge can't show me by then that you didn't shoot at me, either my wife or your one will be a witter before midnight. So saying they stalked off in opposite directions whilst I stared helplessly after them, recently dazed at the responsibility which had been dumped on to me. That's the drawback of being the biggest man in your settlement. All the relatives piled their troubles on to you. Here it was up to me to stop what looked like the beginnings of a regular family feud which was bound to reduce the population awful. The more I thought of the gold them idjits had found, the more I felt like I ought to go and take a look to see was it the real stuff. So I went back to the corral and saddled Captain Kidd and lit out for Apache Ridge which was about a mile away. From the remarks they'd let fall whilst cussing each other I had a pretty good idea where the holler oak was at and sure enough I found it without much trouble. I tied Captain Kidd and clung up on the trunk till I reached the holler. As soon as I was craning my neck to look in I heard a voice say, Another darn thief! I looked around and seen Uncle Jephard Grimes pointing a gun at me. Mere creak is going to hell, said Uncle Jephard. First it was Erath and Joel and now it's you. I'm going to throw a bullet through your hind leg just to teach you a little honesty. After that he started sighting along the barrel of his Winchester and I said, You better save your lead for that engine over there. Him being an old Indian fighter he just naturally jerked his head around quick and I pulled my forty-five and shot the rifle out of his hands. I jumped down and put my foot on it and he pulled a knife out of his boot and I had taken it away from him and shaken him till he was so adult when I let him go he run in a circle and fell down cussing something terrible. His every body on Bear Creek going crazy I demanded. Can't a man look into a holler tree without getting assassinated? You was after my gold, sawer Uncle Jephard. So it's your gold eh, I said, while a holler tree ain't no bank. I know it, he growled, combing the pine needles out of his whiskers. When I come here early this morning to see if it was safe like I frequent does, I seen right off somebody had been handling it. Whilst I was meditating over this I seen Joel Gordon sneaking toward the tree. I fired a shot across his bowels in the morning and he run off. But a few minutes later here comes E. Rath Elkins slithering through the pines. I was mad by this time, so I combed his whiskers with a chunk of lead and he hightailed it. And now by God here you come. I don't want your blame gold, I roared. I just wanted to see if it was safe. And so did Joel and E. Rath. If them men was thieves they'd I took it when they found it yesterday. Where'd you get it anyway? I panned it up in the hills, he said sullenly. I ain't had time to take it to Chaudir and get it changed into cash money. I figured this here tree was as good a place as any, but I done put it elsewhere now. Well I said, you gotta go tell E. Rath and Joel it was you shot at them, so they won't kill each other. They'll be mad at you, but I'll cool them off, maybe with a hickory club. All right, he said. I'm sorry I misjudged you, Breckenridge, just to show you I trust you. I'll show you where I hid it. He led me through the trees till he came to a big rock jutting out from the side of a cliff and pointed to a smaller stone wedged beneath it. I pulled out that rock, he said, and dug a hole and stuck the poke in. Look! He heaved the rock out and bent down. Then he went straight up in the air with a yell that made me jump and pull my gun with cold sweat, busting out all over me. What's the matter with you, I demanded? Are you snake-bit? Yeah, by human snakes, he hollered. It's gone. I've been robbed! I looked and seen the impressions, the wrinkles, and the buckskin poke it made in the soft earth. But there wasn't nothing there now. Little Jeopard was doing a scalp dance with a gun in one hand and a buoy knife in the other. I'll fringe my leggings with their mangy sculpts, he raved. I'll pickle their hearts on a barrel of brine. I'll feed their livers to my hound-dogs. Whose livers, I inquired? Whose, you idiot, he held. Joel Gordon and E. Rath Elkins turn it. They didn't run off. They snuck back here and seen me move the gold. I've killed better men than them for half as much. Ah, I said, ain't possible they stole your gold. Then where is it, he demanded bitterly. Who else note about it? Look here, I said, pointing to a belt of soft lone near the rocks, a horse's tracks. What of it, he demanded? Maybe they had horses tied in the brush. Ah, no, I said, look how the caulkins is set. There ain't no horses on Bear Creek shod like that. These is the tracks of a stranger. I bet the feller I seen ride past my cabin just about daybreak. A black whiskered man, with one ear missing. That hard ground by the big rock don't show where he got off and stomped around. But the man which rode this horse stole your gold. I'll bet my guns. I ain't convinced, said Uncle Jeopard. I'm going home and I'll my rifle-gun, then I'm going to go over and kill Joel and Erath. Now you listen, I said forcibly. I know what a stubborn old jassic you are, Uncle Jeopard, but this time you got to listen to reason or I'll forget myself and kick the seed out of your britches. I'm going to follow this feller and take your gold away from him, because I know it was him who stole it, and don't you dare to kill nobody till I get back. I'll give you till tomorrow morning, he compromised. I won't pull a trigger till then. But, said Uncle Jeopard, waxing poetical, if my gold ain't in my hands by the time the morning sun heists itself over the shining peaks of the jackass mountains, the buzzards will rassle their hash on the carcasses of Joel, Gordon and Erath Alkins. I went away from there, mounted Captain Kidd, and headed west on the trail of the stranger. It was still tolerably early in the morning, and one of them long summer days ahead of me. Today wasn't a horse in the Humboldts equal to Captain Kidd for endurance. I've rode a hundred miles on him between sundown and sun-up. But that horse the stranger was riding must have been some chunk of horse meat his self. The day wore on, and still I hadn't come up with my man. I was getting into country I wasn't familiar with, but I didn't have much trouble in following the trail. And finally, late in the evening, I come out on a narrow, dusty path where the caulk marks of his hooves was very plain. The sun sunk lower, and my hopes dwindled. Captain Kidd was beginning to tire, and even if I got the thief and got the gold, it would be an awful push to get back to Bear Creek in time to prevent mayhem. But I urged on Captain Kidd, and presently we come out onto a road, and the tracks I was following merged with a lot of others. I went on, expecting to come to some settlement and wondering just where I was. I'd never been that far in that direction before then. Just at sundown I rounded a bend in the road and seen something hanging to a tree, and it was a man. There was another man in the act of pinning something to the corpse's shirk, and when he heard me he wheeled and jerked his gun—the man, I mean, not the corpse. He was a mean-looking cuss, but he wasn't black whiskers. Seeing I made no hostile move he put up his gun and grinned. That feller's still kicking, I said. We'd just strung him up, said the fella. The other boys has rode back to town, but I stayed to put this warnin' on his bosom. Can you read? No, I said. Well, he said, this here paper says, warnin' to all outlaws, and specially them on Grizzly Mountain. Keep away from Wampum. How far is Wampum from here, I asked. Half a mile down the road, he said. I'm Al Jackson, one of Bill Orman's deputies. We aim to clean up Wampum. This is one of them, dirned outlaws, which is dined up on Grizzly Mountain. Before I could say anything, I heard somebody breathing quick and gaspy, and there was a patter of bare feet in the brush, and a kid girl about fourteen years old bustin' to the road. You've killed Uncle Joab. She shrieked. You murderers! A boy told me they was fixin' to hang him. I run as fast as I could. Get away from that corpse, roared Jackson, hitting at her with his quirk. You stop that, I ordered. Don't you hit that youngin'. Oh, please, mister, she wept, wringin' her hands. You ain't one of Orman's men. Please help me. He ain't dead. I seen him move. Waitin' for no more. I spurred alongside the body and draw'd my knife. Don't you cut that rope, squawked the deputy, jerkin' his gun. So I hit him under the jaw, and knocked him out of his saddle, and into the brush beside the road where he lay groanin'. I then cut the rope, and eased the hanged man down onto my saddle, and got the noose off his neck. He was purple in the face, and his eyes was closed, and his tongue lulled out, but he still had some life in him. Evidently they didn't drop him, but just hauled him up to strangle to death. I laid him on the ground, and worked over him till some of his life begun to come back to him, but I know he ought to have medical attention. I said, Where's the nearest doctor? Doc Richards in Wampum, whispered the kid. But if we take him there, Orman'll get him again. Won't you please take him home? Where you all live, I inquired. We've been livin' in a cabin on Grizzly Mountains since Orman runned us out of Wampum. She whimpered. Well, I said I'm going to put your uncle on Captain Kidd, and you can sit behind the saddle and help hold him on, and tell me which way to go. So I done so, and started off on foot, leadin' Captain Kidd in the direction the girl showed me. And as we went, I seen the Deputy Jackson drag himself out of the brush, and go limpin' down the road, holdin' his jaw. I was losin' an awful lot of time, but I couldn't leave this feller to die, even if he wasn't outlaw, because probably the little gal didn't have nobody to take care of her but him. Anyway, I'd never make it back to Bear Creek by daylight on Captain Kidd, even if I could have started right then. It was well after dark when we'd come out on a narrow trail that wound up a thickly timbered mountainside, and pretty soon somebody in a thicket ahead of us hollered, Alt, where ya be, or alt, shoot! Don't shoot, Jim! Called the girl. This is Ellen, and we're bringin' Uncle Joab home. A tall, hard-lookin' young feller stepped out in the open, still bitein' his Winchester at me. He cussed when he seen our load. He ain't dead, I said, but we oughta get him to his cabin. So Jim led me through the thickets until we'd come to a clearing where there was a cabin, and a woman come runnin' out and scream like a cat amount when she seen Joab. Me and Jim lifted him off and carried him in, and laid him on a bonk, and the women began to work over him, and I went out to my horse, because I was in a hurry to get gone. Jim followed me. This is the kind of stuff we've been havin' ever since Ormond come to wamp him, he said, bitterly. We've been livin' up here like rats, a fear to stir in the open. I warned Joab against slippin' down into the village today, but he was sought on it, and wouldn't let any of the boys go with him. Said he'd sneak in, get what he wanted, and sneak out again. Well, I said, what's your business is not a mine, but this here life is hard lines on women than children. You must be a friend of Joab's, he said. He sent a man east some days ago, but we was afraid one of Ormond's men trailed him and killed him. But maybe he got through. Are you the man Joab sent for? Meanin' am I some gunman come in to clean up the town? I snorted. Nah, I ain't. I never seen this fellow Joab before. Well, said Jim, cuttin' down Joab like you'd done has already got you in bad with Ormond. Help us run them fellers out of the country. There's still a good many of us in these hills, even if we have been run out of Wampum. This hangin' is a last straw. I'll round up the boys tonight and we'll have a showdown with Ormond's men. We're outnumbered, and we've been licked bad once, but we'll try again. Won't you throw in with us? Listen, I said, climbin' into the saddle. Just because I cut down an outlaw ain't no sign I'm ready to be one myself. I'd done it just because I couldn't stand to see the little girl take on so. Anyway, I'm lookin' for a feller with black whiskers and one ear missin', which rides a rone with a big, lazy A-brand. Jim fell back from me and lifted his rifle. You'd better ride on, he said somberly. I'm a-bleached to you for what you did, but a friend of Wolf Ashley can't be no friend of Iron. I gave him a snort of defiance and rode off down the mountain and headed for Wampum, because it was reasonable to suppose that maybe I'd find black whiskers there. Wampum wasn't much of a town, but they was one big saloon in Gamelon Hall where sounds of hilarity was comin' from, and not many people on the streets, and them which was, mostly went in a hurry. I stopped one of them and asked him where a doctor lived. He pointed out a house where he said Doc Richards lived. So I rode up to the door and knocked, and somebody inside said, What do you want? I got ya covered. Are you Doc Richards? I said. He said, Yes. Keep your hands away from your belt, or I'll fix ya. This is a nice friendly town, I snorted. I ain't figurin' on harmin' ya. There's a man up in the hills which needs your attention. At that the door opened, and a man with red whiskers and a shotgun stuck his head out and said, Who do you mean? They call him Joab, I said. He's on Grizzly Mountain. Hmm, said Doc Richards, lookin' at me very sharp, where I shot Captain Kidd in the starlight. I set a man's jaw to-night, and he had a lot to say about a certain party who cut down a man that was hanged. If you're that party, my advice to you is to hit the trail before Armin catches you. I'm hungry and thirsty, and I'm lookin' for a man, I said. I aim to leave Wampum when I'm good and ready. I never argue with a man as big as you, said Doc Richards. I'll ride to Grizzly Mountain as quick as I can get my horse saddled, if I never see you alive again, which is very probable. I'll always remember you as the biggest man I ever saw, and the biggest fool. Good night. I thought, the folks in Wampum is the clearest actin' I ever seen. I took my horse to the barn, which served as a livery-stable, and seen that he was properly fixed. Then I went into the big saloon which was called Golden Eagle. I was low in my spirits because I seemed to have lost Black Whiskers trail entirely, and even if I found him in Wampum, which I hoped I never could make it back to Bear Creek by sun-up, but I hoped to recover that Dern Gold yet and get back in time to save a few lives. There was a lot of tough-lookin' fellers in the Golden Eagle, drinkin' and gamblin' and talkin' loud and cussin', and they all stopped their noise as I come in, and looked at me very fishy. But I give him no heed, and went to the bar, and pretty soon they kinda forgot about me, and the racket started up again. Whilst I was drinkin' me a few fingers of whiskey, somebody shouldered up to me and said, Hey! I turned around and seen a big, broad-built man with a black beard and blood-shot eyes, and a pot-belly with two guns on. I said, Well, who are you? he demanded. Oh, who are you? I came back at him. I'm Bill Orman, Sheriff of Wampum, he said. That's who. And he showed me a star on his shirt. Oh! I said, I'm Breckinridge Alkins from Bear Creek. I noticed a kinda quiet come over the place, and fellas was laying down their glasses and their billiard sticks, and hitchin' up their belts, and kinda gatherin' around me. Orman scowled and combed his beard with his fingers, and rocked on his heels, and said, I got to arrest you. I sat down my glass quick, and he jumped back and hollered, Don't you desk draw no gun on the law? And there was a kinda movement among the men around me. What you arrestin' me for, I demanded. I ain't busted no law. You assaulted one of my deputies, he said. And then I saw that feller Jackson standin' behind the sheriff, with his jaw all bandaged up. He couldn't work his chin to talk. All he could do was pint his finger at me and shake his fists. You likewise cut down a outlaw we had just hung, he said, Orman. You're under arrest. But I'm lookin' for a man, I protested. I ain't got time to be arrested. You shoulda thunk about that when you busted the law, opine Orman. Give me your gun, and come along peaceable. A dozen men had their hands on their guns, but it wasn't that which made me give in. Pappet always taught me never to resist no officer of the law, so it was kinda instinctive for me to hand my gun over to Orman, and go along with him without no fight. I was kinda bewildered, and my thoughts was addled anyway. I ain't one of these fast-thinkin' sharps. Orman escorted me down the streetaways with a whole bunch of men following us, and stopped at a log-building with barred windows, which was next to a bored shack. A man come out of this shack with a big bunch of keys, and Orman said he was the jailer. So they put me in the log jail, and Orman went off with everybody but the jailer, who sat down on the step outside the shack, and rolled a cigarette. There wasn't no light in the jail, but I found the bunk, and tried to lay down on it, but it wasn't built for a man six and a half feet tall. I sat down on it, and at last realized what an infernal mess I was in. Here I oughta be huntin' black whiskers, and gettin' the gold to take back to Bear Creek, and save the lives of a lot of my kin folks, but instead I was in jail, and no way of gettin' out without killin' an officer of the law. With daybreak, Joel and Erath would be at each other's throats, and Uncle Jephard had begunin' for both of them. It was too much to hope that the other relatives would let them three fight it out amongst their selves. I'd never seen such a clan for buttonin' to each other's business. The guns would be talkin' all up and down Bear Creek, and the population would be decreasing with every volley. I thought about it till I got dizzy, and then the jailer stuck his head up to the window, and said if I would give him five dollars, he'd go give me somethin' to eat. I give it to him, and he went off and was gone quite a spell, and at last he come back and gave me a ham sandwich. I asked him, was that all he could get for five dollars, and he said Grubb was awful high in Wampum. I ate the sandwich in one bite because I hadn't ate nothin' since mornin', then he said if I'd give him some more money, he'd give me another sandwich, but I didn't have no more, and told him so. What, he said, breathin' liquor fumes in my face through the window-bars? No money, and you expect us to feed ya for nothin'? So he cussed me and went off. Pretty soon the sheriff come and looked in at me and said, what's this I hear about you not havin' no money? I ain't got none left, I said, and he cussed somethin' fierce. How you expect to pay your fine, he demanded. You think you could lay up in our jail and eat us out of house and home? What kind of critter are you, anyway? Just then the jailer chipped in and said somebody told him I had a horse down at the livery-stable. Good, said the sheriff, we'll sell the horse for his fine. No you won't, neither, I said, beginnin' to get mad. You try to sell Captain Kidd, and I'll forget what Pap told me about officers, and take you plum apart. I risen up and glared at him through the window, and he fell back and put a hand on his gun. But just about that time I seen a man going into the golden eagle, which was an easy side of the jail and lit up, so the light streamed out into the street. I give a yell that made Orman jump about afoot. It was black whiskers. Arrest that man's sheriff, I hollered, he's a thief. Orman whirled and looked and said, are you plum crazy, that's Wolf Ashley, my deputy. I don't give a durn, I said. He stole a poke of gold from my uncle Jeopard up in the Humboldts, and I've trailed him clean from Bear Creek. Do your duty and arrest him. You shut up, Roared Orman, you can't tell me my business. I ain't gonna arrest my best gun, my star deputy, I mean. What you mean, trying to start trouble this way? One more yap out of you, and I'll throw a chunk of lead through ya. And he turned and stalked off, muttering. Poke of gold, huh? Holdin' out on me, Izzy. I'll see about that. I sought down and held my head in bewilderment. What kind of sheriff was this, which wouldn't arrest a durned thief? My thoughts ran in circles till my wits was addled. The jailer had gone off, and I wondered if he went to sell Captain Kidd. I wondered what was goin' on back at Bear Creek, and I shivered to think what would bust loose at Daybreak. And here I was in jail, with them fellers fixin' to sell my horse whilst the durned thief swaggered round at large. I looked helplessly out the window. It was gettin' late, but the golden eagle was still goin' full blast. I could hear the music blaring away, and the fellers yippin' and shootin' their pistols in the air, and their boot heels stompin' on the boardwalk. I felt like bustin' down and cryin', and then I began to get mad. I get mad slowly, generally, and before I was plum-mad, I heard a noise at the window. I seen a pale face starin' in at me in a couple of small, white hands on the bars. Oh, mister, a voice whispered. Mister! I stepped over and looked out, and it was the kid girl, Ellen. What you doin' here, gal, I asked. Doc Richards said you was in Wampum, she whispered. He said he was afraid Ormond and his gang would go for ya, because you helped me so I slipped away on his horse and rode here as hard as I could. Jim was out tryin' to gather up the boys for a last stand, and Aunt Rachel and the other women are busy with Uncle Joab. There wasn't nobody but me to come, but I had to. You saved Uncle Joab, and I don't care if Jim does say you're an outlaw cause you're a friend of Wolf Ashley's. Oh, I wished I wasn't just a girl. I wished I could shoot a gun so I could kill Bill Ormond. That's no way for a gal to talk, I said. Leave killin' to the men. But I appreciate you goin' to all this trouble. I got some kid sisters myself. In fact, I got seven or eight, as near as I can remember. Don't you worry none about me. Lots of men get thrown in jail. But that ain't it, she wept, ringin' her hands. I listened outside the window, in the back room, in the golden eagle, and heard Ormond and Ashley talkin' about you. I don't know what you wanted with Ashley when you asked Jim about him, but he ain't your friend. Ormond accused him of stealin' a poke of gold and holdin' out on him, and Ashley said as a lie. Then Ormond said, you told him about it, and that he'd give Ashley till midnight to produce that gold. And if he didn't, Wampum would be too small for both of them. Then he went out, and I heard Ashley talkin' to a pal of his, and Ashley said he'd have to raise some gold somehow, or Ormond had to have him killed. But that he was gonna fix you, mister, for lyin' about him. Mister, Ashley and his bunch are over in the back of the golden eagle right now, plottin' to bust into the jail before daylight and hang ya. Aw, I said, the sheriff wouldn't let him do that. You don't understand, she cried. Ormond ain't the sheriff. Him and his gunmen come in to Wampum and killed all the people that tried to oppose him or run him up in the hills. They got us pinned up there like rats, nice starvin' and a fear to come to town. Uncle Joe had come in to Wampum this morning to get some salt, and you seen what they'd done to him. He's the real sheriff. Ormond's just a bloody outlaw. Him and his gang is usin' Wampum for a hangout whilst they rob and steal and kill all over the country. Then that's what your friend Jim meant, I said slowly. And me, like a dumb, damned fool, I thought Him and Joab and the rest of you all was just outlaws, like that fake deputy said. Ormond took Uncle Joab's badge and called his self the sheriff to fool strangers, she whimpered. What honest people is left in Wampum are a fear to opposing. Him and his gunmen are rulin' this whole part of the country. Uncle Joab sent a man east to get us some help in the settlements on Buffalo River, but none ever come. And from what I overheard tonight, I believe Wolf Ashley followed him and killed him over east of the Humboldt somewheres. What are we gonna do? She sobbed. Ellen, I said, you get on Doc Richard's horse and ride for Grizzly Mountain. When you get there, tell the doc to head for Wampum because there'll be plenty of work for him time he gets there. But what about you, she cried. I can't go off and leave you to be hanged. Don't worry about me, Gal. I said, I'm Breckenridge Elkins of the Humboldt Mountains and I'm preparing for to shake my mane. Hustle, somethin' about me, evidently convinced her because she glided away whimpering into the shadows and presently I heard the clack of horses' hooves dwindlin' in the distance. I then Rizz and I laid hold of the window-bars and I tore them out by the roots. Then I sucked my fingers into the sill log and tore it out and three or four more and the wall gave way entirely and the roof fell down on me. But I shook aside the fragments and heaved up out of the wreckage like a bear out of a deadfall. About this time the jailer come running up and when he seen what I had did he was so surprised he forgot to shoot me with his pistol so I'd taken it away from him and knocked down the door of a shack with him and left him laying in its ruins. I then strode up the street toward the Golden Eagle and here come a feller galloping down the street. Who should it be but that darn fake deputy Jackson? He couldn't holler with his bandage jaw but when he seen me he jerked loose his lariat and piled it around my neck and sought spurs to his coyose aiming for to drag me to death. But I seen he had his rope tied fast to his horn, Texas-style, so I laid hold on it with both hands and braced my legs and when the horse got to the end of the rope the girths busted and the horse went out from under the saddle and Jackson come down on his head in the street and laid still. I throwed the rope off my neck and went on to the Golden Eagle with the jailers 45 in my scabbard. I looked in and seen the same crowd there and Ormond reared back at the bar with his belly stuck out roaring and bragging. I stepped in and hollered, look this way Bill Ormond and pull iron you dirty thief. He wheeled, paled and went for his gun and I slammed six bullets into him before he could hit the floor. I then throwed the empty gun at the day's crowd and gave one definite roar and tore into him like a mountain cyclone. They begun to holler and surge onto me and I throat them and knocked them right and left like tin pins. Some was knocked over the bar and some under the tables and some I knocked down stacks of beer kegs with. I ripped the roulette wheel loose and mowed down a whole row of them with it and I throwed a billiard table through the mirror behind the bar just for good measure. Three or four fellers got pinned under it and yelled bloody murder. But I didn't have no time to unpin them for I was busy elsewhere. Four of them hellions came at me in a flying wedge and the only thing you do was give them a dose of their own medicine. So I put my head down and butted the first one in the belly. He gave a grunt you could hear across the mountains and I grabbed the other three and squaled them together. I then flung them against the bar and headed into the rest of the mess of them. I felt so good I was yelling some. Come on, I yelled. I'm breaking Ridge Elkins and you got my dander roused. And I waited in and poured it to them. Meanwhile they was hacking at me with buoys and hit me with chairs and brass knuckles and trying to shoot me but all they done with their guns was shoot each other because there was so many they got in each other's way and the other things just made me matter. I laid hands on as many as I could hug at once and the thud of their heads begging together was music to me. I also done good work heaving them head on against the walls and I further slammed several of them hardly against the floor and busted all the tables with their carcasses. In the melee the whole bar collapsed and the shells behind the bar fell down when I slang a feller into them and the bottles rained all over the floor. One of the lamps also fell off the ceiling which was beginning to crack and cave in and everybody began to yell fire and run out through the doors and jump out the windows in a second. I was alone in the blazing building except for them which was past running. I'd started for an exit myself when I seen a buckskin pouch on the floor along with a lot of other belongings which had fell out of men's pockets the way they will when men get swung by the feet and smashed against the wall. I picked it up and jerked the tie string and a trickle of gold dust spilled into my hand. I began to look on the floor for Ashley but he wasn't there. But he was watching me from outside because I looked and seen him just as he let bam at me with a 45 from the back room of the place which wasn't yet on fire much. I plunged after him ignoring his next slug which took me in the shoulder and I grabbed him and taken the gun away from him. He pulled a buoy and tried to stab me in the groin but only sliced my thigh. So I threw him the full length of the room and he hit the wall so hard his head went through the boards. Meantime the main part of the saloon was burning so I couldn't go out that way. I started to go out the back door of the room I was in but got a glimpse of some fellers which was crouching just outside the door waiting to shoot me as I come out. So I knocked out a section of the wall on another side of the room and about that time the roof fell in so loud then fellers didn't hear me coming. So I fell on them from the rear and beat their heads together till the blood ran out their ears and stomped them and took their shotguns away from them. One big fella with a scarred face tackled me around the knees as I bent over to get the second gun and a little man hopped on my shoulders from behind at the same time and began clawing like a catamount. That made me pretty mad again but I still kept enough presence of mind not to lose my temper. I just grabbed a little man off and hit scarface over the head with him and after that none of the rest bothered me within hand-hold distance. Then I was aware that people was shooting at me in the light of the burning saloon and I seen that a bunch was ganged up on the other side of the street so I begun to loose my shotguns into the thick of them and they broke and run yelling blue murder and as they went out one side of the town another gang rushed in from the other yelling and shooting and I snapped an empty shell at them before one yelled, Don't shoot, Elkins! We're friends! And I seen it was Jim and Doc Richards and a lot of other fellers I hadn't never seen before then. They went tearing around looking to see if any of Ormond's men was hiding in the village but none was. They looked like all they wanted to do was get clean out of the country so most of the grizzly mountain men took in after them, whooping and shouting. Jim looked at the wreckage of the jail and the remnants of the Gold Eagle and he shook his head like he couldn't believe it. We was on our way to make a last effort to take the town back from the gang, he said. Alan met us as we come down and told us you was a friend and an honest man. We hoped to get here in time to save you from getting hanged. Again he shook his head with a kind of bewildered look. Then he said, Oh, say, I had about forgot. On our way here we run onto a man on the road who said he was looking for you. Not knowing who he was, we roped him and brung him along with us. Bring the prisoner, boys. They brung him, tied to a saddle, and it was Jack Gordon, Joel's youngest brother and the fastest gunslinger on Bear Creek. What you doing here, I demanded bitterly, has the feud begun already and has Joel set you on my trail? Well, I got what I started after and I'm heading back for Bear Creek. I can't get there by daylight but maybe I'll get there in time to keep everybody from killing everybody else. Here's Uncle Jephard's cussed gold and I waved the pouch in front of him. But that can't be it, he said. I've been trailing you all the way from Bear Creek trying to catch you and tell you the gold had been found. Uncle Jephard and Joel and E.R.A.F got together and everything was explained and is all right. Where'd you get that gold? I don't know if Ashley's pals got it together so he could give it to Ormond and not get killed for holding out on his boss. Or what, I said. But I know that the owner ain't got no more use for it now and probably stole it in the first place. I'm giving this gold to Ellen. I said, she sure deserves a reward and giving it to her makes me feel like maybe I accomplished something on this wild goose chase after all. Jim looked around at the ruins of the outlaw hangout and murmured something I didn't catch. I said to Jack, you said, Uncle Jephard's gold was found? Where was it, anyway? Well said Jack, little General William Harrison Grimes, Uncle Jephard's youngest boy. He seen his pap put the gold under the rock and he got it out to play with. He was using the nuggets for slugs in his nigger shooter, Jack said, and his plum cute the way he pops a rattlesnake with him. What did you say? Nothing, I said between my teeth. Nothing that'd be fit to repeat, anyway. End of A Gent from Bear Creek. The Road to Bear Creek by Robert Howard. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Road to Bear Creek by Robert Howard. When Pap gets rheumatism, he gets remorseful. I remember one time particular. He says to me, him laying on his bar skin with a jug of corn liquor at his elbow, he says, Brackenridge, the sins of my youth is right in my conscience heavy. When I was a young man, I was free and careless in my habits as numerous tombstones on the boundless prairies testifies. I sometimes wonders if I weren't a trifle hasty in shooting some of the men which disagreed with my principles. Maybe I should have controlled my temper and just chowed their ears off. Take Uncle Esau Grimes, for instance, and then Pap Hova sighed like a bull and took a drink and said, I ain't seen Uncle Esau for years. Me and him parted with harsh words and gun smoke. I've often wondered if he still holds a grudge against me or plantin' that charge of buckshot in his hind leg. What about Uncle Esau? I said. Pap produced a letter and said, he was brung to my mind by this here letter which Jib Braxton forged me from Warpaint. It's from my sister Elizabeth, back in Devilville, Arizona, where Uncle Esau lives. She says Uncle Esau's on his way to California and is due to pass through Warpaint about August the 10th. That's tomorrow. She don't know whether he intends turning off to see me or not, but suggests that I meet with him at Warpaint and make peace with him. Well, I demanded, because from the way Pap combed his beard with his fingers and eyed me, I knowed he was aiming to call on me to do something for him. Which sane he was. Well, said Pap, taking a long swig out of the jug, I want you to meet the stage tomorrow morning at Warpaint and invite Uncle Esau to come up here and visit us. Now don't take no for an answer. Uncle Esau is as cranky as hell and a peculiar old duck, but I think he'll like a fine upstanding young man as big as you be. Especially if you keep your mouth shut as much as possible and don't expose your ignorance. But I ain't never seen Uncle Esau, I protested. How am I gonna know him? He ain't a big man, said Pap. Last time I seen him, he had a right smart growth of red whiskers. You bring him home regardless. Don't pay no attention to his belly aching. He's a peculiar old cuss, like I said, and awful suspicious, cause he's got lots of enemies. He burnt plenty of powder in his younger days, all the way from Texas to California. He was mixed up in more feuds and range wars than any man I ever knowed. He's supposed to have considerable money hit away somewheres, but that ain't got nothing to do with us. I wouldn't take his blasted money as a gift. All I want is to talk to him and get his forgiveness for filling his hide with buckshot in a moment of youthful passion. If he don't forgive me, said Pap, taking another pull at the jug, I'll bend my 45 over his stubborn old skull. Now get going. So I saddled Captain Kidd and hid out across the mountains and the next morning found me eating breakfast just outside of war paint. I didn't go right into the town because I was very bashful in them days, being quite young and scared of sheriffs and things. But I'd stopped with old Bill Polk, an old hunter and trapper, which was camped temporary at the edge of town. War paint was a new town which had sprung up out of nothing on account of a small gold rush right recent, and old Bill was very bitter. A hell of a come off this is, he snorted, cluttering up the scenery and scaring the animals off with their full houses and claims. Last year I shot a deer right where their main saloon is now, he said, glaring at me like it was my fault. I said nothing but chaud my venison which we was cooking over his fire, and he said, no good'll come of it, you mark my words. These mountains won't be fit to live in. These camps draw scums like a dead horse draws buzzards. Already the outlaws is riding in from Arizona and Utah besides the native ones. Grizzly Hawkins and his thieves is hiding up in the hills and no telling how many more will come in. I'm glad they catch badger Chisholm and his gang after they rob that bank at Gunstock. That's one gang which won't be devilous because they're in jail. If somebody just killed Grizzly Hawkins now. About that time I seen the stagecoach fogging it down the road from the east in a cloud of dust. So I settled Captain Kitten, left old Bill, gorge and deer meat and prophesying disaster and damnation, and I rode into war paint just as the stage pulled up at the stand which was also the post office and the saloon. They was three passengers and none of them was tender feet. Two was big hard-looking fellas and Tothern was a wiry, oldish kind of bird with reddish whiskers. So I knowed right off it was Uncle Esau Grimes. They was going into the saloon as I dismounted the big men first and the older fella following them. I touched him on the shoulder and he whirled most amazing quick with a gun in his hand and he looked at me very suspicious and said, What you want? I'm Breckenridge Elkins, I said. I want you to come with me. I recognized you as soon as I seen you. I then got an awful surprise but not as awful as it would have been if Pap hadn't warned me that Uncle Esau was peculiar. He hollered, Bill, Jim, help. And swung a sick shooter against my head with all his might. Them two fellas whirled in their hands streaked for their guns. So I knocked Uncle Esau flat to keep him from getting hit by a stray slug and shot one of them through the shoulder before he could unlimber his artillery. The other engrazed my neck with a bullet so I perforated him in the arm and again in the hind leg and he fell down across the other. I was careful not to shoot him in the vital parts because I seen they was friends of Uncle Esau. But when guns is being drawn it ain't no time to argue or explain. Min was hollering and running out of saloons and I stooped and started to lift Uncle Esau who was kind of groggy because he'd hit his head against a hitch and post. He was crawling around on his all fours cussing something terrible and trying to find his gun which he dropped. When I laid hold on him he commenced biting and kicking and hollering and I said, don't act like that, Uncle Esau. Here comes a lot of fellas and the sheriff might be here any minute and rest me for shooting them idiots. We've got to get going. Pap is waiting for you up on Bear Creek. But he just fit that much harder and hollered that much louder. So I scooped him up bodily and jumped on the Captain Kit and throwed Uncle Esau face down across the saddle-bow and headed for the hills. A lot of men yelled at me to stop and some of them started shooting at me but I give no heed. I gave Captain Kit the rain and we went tearing down the road and around the first bend and I didn't even take time to change Uncle Esau's position because I didn't want to get arrested. I'd heard tell them folks in war paint would even put a fellow in jail for shooting a man within the city limits. Just before we reached the place where I aimed to turn off up into the hills I seen a man on the road ahead of me and he must have heard the shooting and Uncle Esau yelling because he whirled his horse and blocked the road. He was a wiry old cuss with gray whiskers. Where are you going with that man? He yelled as I approached at a thundering gate. None of your business I retorted. Get out of my way. Help, help, hollered Uncle Esau. I'm being kidnapped and murdered. Drop that man you turned outlaw or the stranger suiting his actions to his words. Him and me drawed simultaneous but my shot was a split second quicker than hisen. His slug fanned my ear but his hat flew off and he pitched out of his saddle like he'd been hit with a hammer. I seen a streak of red along his temple as I thundered past him. Let that larn you not to interfere in family affairs I roared and turned up the trail that switched off the road and up into the mountains. Don't never yell like that. I said irritably to Uncle Esau. If you like to got me shot that fella thought I was a criminal. I did catch what he said but I looked back and down over the slopes and shoulders and seen men boiling out a town full tilt and the sun glended on six shooters and rifles so I urged Captain Kidd and recovered the next several miles at a fast clip. They ain't a horse in southern Nevada which can equal Captain Kidd for endurance, speed and strength. Uncle Esau kept trying to talk but he was bouncing up and down so all I could understand was his cuss words which was free and fervent. At last he gasped. For God's sakes let me get off this cusset saddle horn. It's rubbing a hole in my belly. So I pulled up and seen no sign of pursuers so I said all right you can ride in the saddle and I'll sit on behind. I was going to hire you a horse at the livery stable but we had to leave so quick there weren't no time. Where are you taking me? He demanded. To Bear Creek I said. Where you think? I don't want to go to Bear Creek he said fiercely. I ain't going to Bear Creek. Yes you are too I said. Perhaps said not to take no for an answer. I'm going to slide over behind the saddle and you can sit in it. So I pulled my feet out of the stirrups and moved over the candle and he slid into the seat and the first thing I knowed he had a knife out of his boot and was trying to carve my gizzard. Now I like to humor my relatives but there is a limit to everything. I've taken the knife away from him but in the struggle me being handicapped by not wanting to hurt him I lost hold of the reins and Captain Kidd bolted and run for several miles through the pines and brush what with me trying to grab the reins and keep Uncle Esau from killing me at the same time neither one of us in the stirrups finally we both fell off and if I hadn't managed to catch hold of the bridle as I went we'd had a long walk ahead of us. I got Captain Kidd stopped after being drugged for several yards and then I went back to where Uncle Esau was laying on the ground trying to get his win back because I kind of fell on him. Is that any way to act? Trying to stick a knife in a man which is doing his best to make you comfortable? I said reproachfully. All he done was gasp. So I said well Pat told me you was a cranky old duck so I reckon the thing to do is just to not notice your eccentricities. I looked around to get my bearings because Captain Kidd had got away off the trail that runs from Warpaint to Bear Creek. We was west of the trail in very wild country but I seen a cabin off through the trees and I said we'll go over there and see if I can hire or buy a horse for you to ride. That'll be more convenient for us both. I started heisting him back into the saddle and he said kind of dizzily, this here's a free country. I don't have to go to Bear Creek if and I don't want to. Well, I said severely you ought to want to after all the trouble I've went to coming and inviting you. Set still now, I'm sitting on behind but I'm holding the reins. I'll have your life for this, he promised blood thirstily but I ignored it because Pat had said uncle Esau was peculiar. Pretty soon we hove up to the cabin I'd glimpse through the trees. Nobody was in sight but I seen a horse tied to a tree in front of the cabin. I rode up to the door and knocked but nobody answered. But I seen smoke coming out of the chimney so I decided I'd go in. I dismounted and lifted uncle Esau off because I seen from the gleam in his eye that he was intending to run off on Captain Kidd if I give him half a chance. I got a firm grip on his collar because I was determined that he was gonna visit us up on Bear Creek if I had to toad him on my shoulder all the way and I went into the cabin with him. There wasn't nobody in there though a pot of beans was simmering over some coals in the fireplace and I seen some rifles and racks on the wall and a belt with two pistols hanging on a nail. Then I heard somebody walking behind the cabin and the back door opened and there stood a big black whiskered man with a bucket of water in his hand and an astonished glare on his face. He didn't have no guns on. Who the hell are you? He demanded but uncle Esau gave a kind of gurgle and said grizzly hawkins. The big man jumped and glared at uncle Esau and then his black whiskers bristled in a ferocious grin and he said, oh, it's you, is it? Who the fuck I'd ever meet you here? Grizzly hawkins, eh? I said, realizing that I'd stumbled onto the hideout of the worst outlaw in them mountains so you all know each other? I'll say we do, rumbled hawkins, looking at uncle Esau like a wolf looks at a fat yearlin. I'd heard you as from Arizona, I said, being naturally tactful. Looks to me like there's enough cow thieves in these hills already without outsiders buttoning in, but your morals ain't none of my business. I wanna buy or hire or borrow a horse for this here gent to ride. Oh, no you ain't, said grizzly. You think I'm gonna let a fortune slip through my fingers like that? I'll tell you what I'll do, though. I'll split with you. My gang had business over toward Tomahawk this morning, but they're due back soon. Me and you'll work him over before they get back and we'll nab all the loot ourselves. What you mean, I asked. My uncle and me is on our way to Bear Creek. I don't act innocent with me, he snorted disgustedly. Uncle, you think I'm a plum fool? Can't I see he's your prisoner the way you got him by the neck? Think I don't know what you're up to? Be reasonable. Two can work this job better than one. I know lots of ways to make a man talk. I bet you if we kinda massage his hinder parts with our red hot brandon iron, you'll tell us quick enough where the money's hid. Uncle, he saw turned pale under his whiskers and I said indignantly, why, you low life pole cat, you got the crust to pretend to think I'm kidnapping my own uncle for his dough? I got a good mind to shoot you. Saw your greedy, huh? He snarled, showing his teeth. Want all the loot to yourself, huh? I'll show you. Wicked as a cat, he swung that water bucket over his head and let it go at me. I ducked and it hit Uncle Esau in the head and stretched him out, all drenched with water. And Hawkins give a roar and dived for a 4590 on the wall. He wheeled with it and I shot it out of his hands. He then come for me, wild eyed, with a buoy out of his boot and my next cartridge snapped and he was on top of me before I could cock my gun again. I dropped my gun and grappled with him and we fit all over the cabin and every now and then we'd trompe on Uncle Esau which was trying to crawl toward the door and the way he would holler was pitiful to hear. Hawkins lost his knife in the melee but he was as big as me in a bear cat at rough and tumble. We'd stand up and wail away with both fists and then clench and roll around the floor, biting and gouging and slugging and once we rolled clean over Uncle Esau and kind of flattened him out like a pancake. Finally Hawkins got hold of the table which he lifted like it was aboard and splintered over my head. And this made me mad. So I grabbed the pot off the fire and hit him in the head with it and about a gallon of red hot beans went down his back and he fell into a corner so hard he jolted the shelves loose from the logs and all the guns fell off the walls. He'd come up with a gun in his hand but his eyes was so full of blood and hot beans that he missed me the first shot and before he could shoot again I hit him on the chin so hard it fractured his jawbone and sprained both his ankles and stretched him out cold. Then I looked around for Uncle Esau and he was gone and the front door was open. I rushed out of the cabin and there he was just climbing aboard Captain Kid. I hollered for him to wait but he kicked Captain Kid in the ribs and went tearing through the trees only he didn't head north back toward Warpaint. He was pined at Southeast in the general direction of Hyde-Out Mountain. I jumped on Hawkins horse which was tied to a tree nearby and lit out after him though I didn't have much hope of catching him. Grizzly's Caillus was a good horse but he couldn't hold a candle to Captain Kid. I wouldn't have caught him neither if it hadn't been for Captain Kid's distaste of being rode by anybody but me. Uncle Esau was a crack horseman to stay on as long as he did. But finally Captain Kid got tired of running and about the time he crossed the trail we'd been following when he first bolted he bogged his head and started busting his self in two with his snut rub in the grass and his heels scraping the clouds off of the sky. I could see mountain peaks between Uncle Esau and the saddle and when Captain Kid started sun fishing it looked like the wrath of judgment day but somehow Uncle Esau managed to stay with him till Captain Kid plumb left the earth like he aimed to aviate from then on and Uncle Esau left the saddle with a shriek of despair and sailed head on into a blackjack thicket. Captain Kid gave a snort of contempt and trotted off to a patch of grass and started grazing and I dismounted and went and untangled Uncle Esau from amongst the branches. His clothes was tore and he was scratched so he looked like he'd been fighting with a drova Wildcats and he left a right smart batch of his whiskers among the brush but he was full of pison and hostility. I understand this here treatment he said bitterly like he blamed me for Captain Kid pitching him into the thicket but you'll never get a penny. Nobody but me knows where the doe is and you can pull my toenails out by the roots before I tells you. I know you got money hit away I said deeply offended but I don't want it. He snorted skeptically and said sarcastic then what are you dragging me over these cusset hills for? Cos Pap wants to see you I said but they ain't no use in asking me a lot of fool questions. Pap said for me to keep my mouth shut. I looked around for Grizzly's horse and seen he'd wandered off. He sure hadn't been trained proper. Now I gotta go look for him I said disgustedly. Will you stay here till I get back? Sure, he said. Sure. Go on and look for the horse. I'll wait here. But I give him a search and look and shook my head. I don't want to seem like I mistrust you I said but I see a gleam in your eye which makes me believe you intends to run off the minute my backs turned. I hate to do this but I got to bring you safe to Bear Creek so I'll just kinda hog tie you with my lariat till I get back. Well he put up an awful holler but I was firm and when I rode off on Captain Kidd I was satisfied that he couldn't untie them knots by himself. I left him laying in the grass beside the trail and his language was awful to listen to. That dirt horse had wandered further than I thought. He'd moved north along the trail for a short wave and turned off and headed in a westerly direction and after a while I heard the sound of horses galloping somewhere behind me and I got nervous thinking that if Hawkins gang had got back to their hideout and he had told them about us and sent them after us to capture poor Uncle Esau and torture him to make him tell where his savings was hid. I wished I'd had since enough to shove Uncle Esau back in the thicket so he wouldn't be seen by anybody riding along the trail and I just decided to let the horse go and turn back when I seen him grazing among the trees ahead of me. I headed back for the trail leaving him aiming to hit it a short distance north of where I'd left Uncle Esau and before I got inside of it I heard horses and saddles creaking ahead of me. I pulled up on the crest of a slope and looked down onto the trail and there I seen a gang of men ride north and they had Uncle Esau amongst them. Two of the men was riding double and they had him on a horse in the middle of him. They took the ropes off him but he didn't look happy. Instantly I realized my premonitions was correct. The Hawkins gang had followed us and now poor Uncle Esau was in their clutches. I let go of Hawkins horse and reached from a gun but I didn't dare fire for fear of hitting Uncle Esau. They was clustered so close about him. I reached up and tore a limb off an oak tree as big as my arm and I charged down the slope yelling, I'll save you Uncle Esau. I come so sudden and unexpected them fellas didn't have time to do nothing but holler before I hit them. Captain Kid plowed through their horses like an avalanche through saplings and he was going so hard I couldn't check him in time to keep him from knocking Uncle Esau's horse sprawling. Uncle Esau hit the turf with a shriek. All around me men was yelling and surging and pulling guns and I risen my stirrups and laid about me right and left and pieces of bark and oak leaves and blood flew in showers and in a second the ground was littered with writhe and figures and the groaning and cussing was awful to hear. Knives was flashing and pistols was banging but them outlaws eyes was too full of bark and stars and blood for them to aim and right in the middle of the brawl when the guns was roaring and men was yelling and horses neighing and my oak limb going crack, crack on human skulls. Down from the north swooped another gang, howlin' like hyenas. There he is, one of them yelled. I see him crawling around under them horses. After him boys we got as much right to his doe as anybody. The next minute they dashed in amongst us and embraced the members of the other gang and started hammering them over the heads with their pistols and in a second with the damnedest three-cornered ward you ever seen. Men fighting on the ground and on the horses all mixed and tangled up, two gangs trying to exterminate each other and me wailing hell out of both of them. Now I have been mixed up in ruckuses like this before. Despite the fact that I'm a peaceful and easy-going feller which never done harm to man or beast unless provoked beyond reason, I always figure the best thing to do in a brawl is to hold your temper and I done just that. When this one feller fired a pistol plum in my face and singed my eyebrows, I didn't get mad. When this other and come from somewhere to start biting my leg, I only picked him up by the scruff of the neck and knocked a horse over with him. But I must have lost control a little I guess when two fellers at once started bashing with my head with rifle butts. I swung at them so hard I turned Captain Kidd plum around and my club broke and I had to grab a bigger and tougher one. Then I really laid into him. Meanwhile Uncle Esau was on the ground undress, yelling bloody murder and being stepped on by the horses. But finally I cleared a space with a devastating sweep of my club and leaned down and scooped him up with one hand and hung him over my saddle horn and started battering my way clear. But a big feller, which is one of the second gang, came charging through the melee yelling like an engine with blood running down his face from a cut in his scalp. He snapped an empty cartridge at me, then leaned out from his saddle and grabbed Uncle Esau by the foot. Let go, he held, he's my meat. Release Uncle Esau before I does you an injury, I roared, trying to jerk Uncle Esau loose, but the outlaw hung on and Uncle Esau squalled like a catamount in a wolf trap. So I lifted what was left of my club and splintered it over the outlaw's head and he gave up the ghost with a girdle. I then wheeled Captain Kidd and rode off like the wind. Them fellers was too busy fighting each other to notice my flight. Somebody did let bam at me with a Winchester, but all it done was nick Uncle Esau's ear. The sounds of carnage faded out behind us as I headed south along the trail. Uncle Esau was belly aching about something. I'd never seen such a cuss for finding fault, but I felt there was no time to be lost so I didn't slow up for some miles. Then I pulled Captain Kidd down and said, What did you say, Uncle Esau? I'm a broken man, he gasped. Take my secret, let me go back to the posse. All I want now is a good, safe prison term. What posse? I asked, thinking he must be drunk, though I couldn't figure where he got any boost. The posse you took me away from, he said. Anything's better than being dragged through these hellish mountains by a homicidal maniac. Posse, I gasped wildly. But who was the second gang? Grizzly Hawkins outlaws, he said, and added bitterly. Even they would be preferable to what I've been going through. I give up, I know what I'm licked. The does hid in a holler oak three miles south of Gunstock. I didn't pay no attention to his remarks because my head was in a whirl. A posse? Of course. The sheriff and his men had followed us from War Paint along the Bear Creek Trail, and finding Uncle Esau tied up, had thought he'd been kidnapped by an outlaw, instead of merely being invited to visit his relatives. Probably he was too cuss at ornery to tell him any different. I hadn't rescued him from no bandits. I took him away from a posse which thought they was rescuing him. Meanwhile, Uncle Esau was clamoring, well, why didn't you let me go? I told you where the doe is. What else you want? You got to go on to Bear Creek with me, I begun. And Uncle Esau give a shriek and went into a kind of convulsion. And the first thing I knowed, he twisted around and jerked my gun out of its scabbard and let bam right in my face. So close it singed my hair. I grabbed his wrist and Captain Kidd bolted like he always does when he gets a chance. There's a limit to everything, I roared. A hell of a relative you be, you old maniac. We was tearing over slopes and ridges at breakneck speed and fighting all over Captain Kidd's back. Me to get the gun away from him and him to commit murder. If you weren't kin to me, Uncle Esau, I'd plum lose my temper. What you keep calling me that fool name for? He yelled frothing at the mouth. What you want to add insult to injury? Captain Kidd swerved sudden and Uncle Esau tumbled over his neck. I had him by the shirt and tried to hold him on, but the shirt tore. He hit the ground on his head and Captain Kidd run right over him. I pulled up as quick as I could and hovis sigh relief to see how close to home I was. We're nearly there, Uncle Esau, I said. But he made no comment. He was out cold. A short time later I rode up to the cabin with my eccentric relative slung over my saddle-bow and took him and stalked into where Pap was laying on his bar-skin and slung my burden down on the floor in disgust. Well, here he is, I said. Pap stared and said, Who's this? When you wipe the blood off, I said you'll find it's your Uncle Esau grimes. And, I added bitterly, the next time you want to invite him to visit us, you can do it yourself. A more ungrateful cuss I never seen. Peculiar ain't no name for him. He's as crazy as a local jackass. But that ain't Uncle Esau, said Pap. What do you mean, I said irritably. I know most his clothes is tore off and his face is kinda scratched and skinned and stomped out of shape, but you can see his whiskers is red in spite of the blood. Red whiskers turn gray, in time, said a voice and I wheeled and pulled my gun as a man loomed in the door. It was a gray whiskered old fellow I'd traded shots with on the edge of war paint. He didn't go for his gun, but stood twisting his mustache and glaring at me like I was a curiosity or something. Uncle Esau, said Pap. What, I hollered. Are you Uncle Esau? Certainly I am, he snapped. But you weren't on the stagecoach I begun. Stagecoach, he snorted, taking Pap's jug and beginning to pour liquor down the man on the floor. Them things is for women and children. I travel horseback. I spent last night in war paint and aimed to ride on up to Bear Creek this morning. In fact, Bill, he addressed Pap, I was on the way here when this young maniac creased me. He indicated a bandage on his head. You mean Breckenridge shot you? Ejaculated Pap. It seems to run in the family, grunted Uncle Esau. But who's this, I hollered wildly, pointing at the man I'd thought was Uncle Esau and who was just coming to. I'm Badger Chisholm, he said, grabbing the jug with both hands. I demands that he protected from this lunatic and turned over to the sheriff. Him and Bill Reynolds and Jim Hopkins robbed the bank over at Gunstock three weeks ago, said Uncle Esau, real one, I mean. A posse captured him, but they'd hid the loot somewhere and wouldn't say where. They escaped several days ago and not only the sheriff was looking for him, but all the outlaw gangs, too, to find out where they'd hid their plunder. It was an awful big haul. They must have figured that escaping out of the country by stagecoach would be the last thing folks would expect them to do and they weren't known in this part of the country. But I recognized Bill Reynolds when I went back to war paint to have my hand dressed after you shot me, Breckenridge. The doctor was patching him and Hopkins up, too. The sheriff and a posse lit out after you and I followed him when I got my head fixed. Of course, I didn't know who you was. I come up while a posse was fighting with Hawkins gang and with my help we corralled a whole bunch. Then I took up your trail again. Pretty good day's work wiping out two of the worst gangs in the West. One Hawkins men said Grizzly was laid up in his cabin and the posse was going to drop by for him. What you gonna do about me, climber Chisholm? Well, said Pap, we'll bandage your wounds and I'll let Breckenridge here take you back to war paint. Hey, what's the matter with him? Badger Chisholm had fainted. End of the road to Bear Creek. The Haunted Mountain by Robert Howard. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Haunted Mountain by Robert Howard. The reason I despise is tarantulas, stinging lizards and hydrophobias skunks is because they reminds me so much at Lavaca, which my uncle Jacob Grimes married in an absent-minded moment when he was old enough to know better. That their woman's voice plum puts my teeth on age and it has the same effect on my horse, cat and kid, which don't generally shy of nothing less than the rattlesnake. So when she stuck her head out of her cabin as I was riding by and yelled, Breckenridge! Cat and kid jumped straight up in the air then tried to buck me off. Stop tormenting that poor animal and come here, Aunt Lavaca commanded, whilst I was fighting for my life against Cat and Kid's spine twist and sunfishing. I never see such a cruel, worthless, no good! She kept right on yapping away until I finally wore him down and rained up alongside the cabin stoop and said, what do you want, that Lavaca? She give me a scornful snort and put her hands on her hips and glared at me like I was something she didn't like the smell of. I want you should go get your uncle Jacob and bring him home, she said at last. He's off on one of his idiotic prospectants' frieze again. He snuck out before daylight with a bay mare and a packed mule. I wished I'd woke up and caught him. I'd have fixed him. If you hustle, you can catch him beside a haunted mountain gap. You bring him back if you have to lasso him and tie him to a saddle. Oh, fool, off hunting gold when there's work to be did in the alfalfa fields. Says he ain't no farmer. I'll allow I'll make a farmer out of him yet. You get going. But I ain't got time to go chasing uncle Jacob all over haunted mountain. I protested. I'm heading for the radio over to Chod Ear. I'm gonna win me a prize, bulldoggin' some steers. Bulldoggin', she snapped. A fine occupation. Go on, you worthless loafer. I ain't gonna stand here all day arguing with a big nanny like you be. Of all the good for nothing, triflin' lunk-headed. When Aunt Lavaca starts in like that, you might as well travel. She can talk steady for three days and nights without repeating herself. Her voice getting louder and shriller all the time till it nice splits a body's eardrums. She was still yellin' at me as I rode up the trail toward haunted mountain gap and I could hear her long after I couldn't see her no more. Poor uncle Jacob. He never had much luck prospecting, but trailing around through the mountains with a jackass is a lot better than listening to Aunt Lavaca. A jackass's voice is mild and soothin' alongside of hers. Some hours later I was climbin' the long rise that led up to the gap and I realized I'd overtook the old coot when something went ping up the slope and my hat flew off. I quickly reigned Captain Kidd behind a clump of brush and looked up toward the gap and seen a pack mules rear-end sticking out of a cluster of boulders. You quit that shootin' at me, uncle Jacob? I roared. You stay where you be, his voice came back sharp as a razor. I know Lavaca sent you after me, but I ain't goin' home. I'm on to somethin' big at last and I don't aim to be interfered with. What you mean, I demanded. Keep back or I'll ventilate you, he promised. I'm goin' for the lost haunted mine. You been huntin' that thing for 30 years, I snorted. This time I finds it, he says. I bought a map off on a drunk Max down to Perdition. One of his ancestors was an engine which helped pile up the rocks to hide the mouth of a cave where it is. Why didn't he go find it and get the gold, I asked. He's scared of ghosts, said uncle Jacob. All Max's is awful superstitious. This an' a'd rather set an' drink, know how. There's millions in gold in that there mine. I'll shoot you before I'll go home. Now, will you go on back peaceable or will you throw in with me? I might need you in case the Pachneal plays out. I'll come with you, I said, impressed. Maybe you have got somethin' at that. Put up your Winchester. I'm comin'. He emerged from his rocks, a skinny leathery old cuss. And he said, what about Levaki? If you don't come back with me, she'll follow us herself. She's that strong-minded. I'll leave a note for her, I said. Joe Hopkins always comes down through the gap once a week on his way to Chaudere. He's due through here today. I'll stick the note on a tree where he'll see it and take it to her. I had a pencil stub in my saddle-bag and a Torah piece of wrapping paper off in a can of tomatoes Uncle Jacob had in his pack. And I writ, dear Aunt Levaki, I am takin' Uncle Jacob way up in the mountains. Don't try to follow us. It won't do no good. Gold is what I'm after. Breckin' Ridge. I folded it and read on the outside. Dear Joe, please take this here note to Ms. Levaki Grimes on the Chaudere Road. Then me and Uncle Jacob sought out for the higher ranges and he started telling me all about the lost haunted mine again, like he'd already did about 40 times before. Seems like they was once an old prospector which stumbled onto a cave about 50 years before then, which the walls was solid gold and nuggets all over the floor till a body couldn't walk as big as mushrooms. But the Indians jumped him and run him out and he got lost and nearly starved in the desert and went crazy. When he'd come to a settlement and finally regained his mind, he tried to lead a party back to it, but never could find it. Uncle Jacob said the Indians had took rocks and brush and hid the mouth of the cave so nobody could tell it was there. I asked him how he knowed the Indians done that and he said it was common knowledge. Any fool oughta know that's just what they done. This here mine, says Uncle Jacob, is located in a hidden valley which lies away up amongst the high ranges. I ain't never seen it and I thought I'd explored these mountains plenty. Ain't nobody more familiar with them than me except old Joshua Braxton. But it stands to reason that the cave is awful hard to find or somebody'd already found it. According to this here map, that lost valley must lie just beyond the patchy canyon. Ain't many white men knows where that is even. We're headed there. We had left the gap far behind us and was moving along the slanting side of a sharp angled crag whilst he was talking. As we passed it we seen two figures with horses emerge from the other side, headed in the same direction we was. So our trails converged. Uncle Jacob glared and reached for his Winchester. Who's that? he snarled. The bigons Bill Glanton, I said. I never seen Dothern. And nobody else outside of our freak museum, growled Uncle Jacob. This other fellow was a funny looking little maverick with laced boots and a cork sun helmet and big spectacles. He sawed his horse like he thought it was a rockin' chair and held his reins like he was trying to fish with him. Glanton hailed us. He was from Texas, original, and was rough in his speech and free with his weapons. But me and him had always got along very well. Where you all goin', demanded Uncle Jacob. I am Professor Van Brock of New York, said the tender foot whilst Bill was gettin' rid of his tobacco-wad. I have employed Mr. Glanton here to guide me up into the mountains. I am on the track of a tribe of Aborigines, which, according to fairly well substantiated rumor, have inhabited the haunted mountains since time immemorial. Listen here, you four-eyed runt, said Uncle Jacob in wrath. Are you givin' me the horse laugh? I assure you that equine levity is the furthest thing from my thoughts, says Van Brock. Whilst turning the country in the interest of science, I heard the rumors to which I have referred. In a village possessing the singular appellation of Chod Ear, I met an aged prospector who told me that he had seen one of the Aborigines, clad in the skin of a wild animal, and armed with a bludgeon. The wild man, he said, emitted a most peculiar and piercing cry when sighted, and fled into the recesses of the hills. I am confident that it is some survivor of a pre-Indian race, and I am determined to investigate. They ain't no such critter in these hills, snorted Uncle Jacob. I've roamed all over him for a thirty year, and I ain't seen no wild man. Well, says Glanton, they's something unnatural up there, because I've been here in some funny yarns myself. I never thought I'd be huntin' wild men, he says, but since that hash slinger and perdition turned me down to a lope with a travelin' salesman, I welcomes the chance to lose myself in the mountains and forget the perfidy of womankind. What's you all doin' up here? Prospectin, he said, glancing at the tools on the mule. Not an earnest, said Uncle Jacob hurriedly. We're just kinda wildin' away our time, and ain't no gold in these mountains. Folks say that lost haunted mine is up here somewhere, said Glanton. A pack of lies, snorted Uncle Jacob, busting into a sweat. Ain't no such mine. Well, Breckinridge, let's be shovin'. Gotta make Attalope Peak before sundown. I thought we was goin' to Apache Canyon, I says, and he'd give me an awful glare, and said, yes, Breckinridge, that's right. Attalope Peak, just like you said. So long, Jance. So long, said Glanton. So he turned off the trail almost at right angles to our course. Me, follower and Uncle Jacob, bewilderedly, when we was out of sight of the others, he reigned around again. When nature gave you the body of a giant Breckinridge, he said, she, plum, forgot to give you any brains to go along with your muscles. You want everybody to know what we're lookin' for? Ah, I said them fellas as just lookin' for wild men. Wild men, he snorted. They don't have to go no further than chaud ear on payday night to find more wild men than they can handle. I ain't swaller and no such stuff. Gold is what thereafter, I tell ya. I seen Glanton talkin' to that Maxon perdition the day I bought the map from him. I believe they either got wind of that mine or know I got that map, or both. What you gonna do, I asked him. Head for Apache Canyon by another trail, he said. So we done so, and arrived there after night, him not willing to stop till we got there. It was deep, with big high cliffs cut with ravines and gulches here and there and very wild in appearance. We didn't descend into the canyon that night, but cramped on a plateau above it. Uncle Jacob loud, we'd begin exploring next morning. He said there were lots of caves in the canyon and he'd been in all of them. He said he hadn't never found nothin' set bars and painters and rattlesnakes, but he believed one of them caves went on through to another, hidden canyon, and there was where the gold was at. Next morning I was awoke by Uncle Jacob shakin' me and his whiskers was curlin' with rage. What's matter? I demanded, setting up, pulling my guns. They're here, he squalled. Dog gone it, I suspected them all the time. Get up, you big lunk. Don't sit there goppin' with a gun in each hand like an idiot. They're here, I tell you. Who's here, I asked. That darn tender foot and his cussed Texas gunfighter, snarled Uncle Jacob. I was up just at daylight and pretty soon I seen a wisp of smoke curlin' up from behind a big rock dud or side of the flat. I snuck over there and there was Glanton fryin' bacon and then Brock was pretendin' to be lookin' at some flowers with a magnifying glass. The blame fake. He ain't no professor. I bet he's a darn crook. They're follarin' us. They aim to murder us and rob us of my map. Ah, Glanton wouldn't do that, I said. And Uncle Jacob said, you shut up. A man'll do anything where gold is concerned. Dang it all, get up and do somethin'. Are you gonna set there ya big lummox and let us get murdered in our sleep? That's the trouble with being the biggest man in your clan. The rest of the family always dumps all the unpleasant jobs onto your shoulders. I pulled on my boots and headed across the flat with Uncle Jacob's war songs ringin' in my ears. And I didn't notice whether he was bringin' up the rear with his Winchester or not. They was a scatterin' of trees on the flat and about halfway across a figure emerged from amongst them, headed my direction with fire in his eye. It was Glanton. So ya big mountain grisly, he greeted me rambunctiously. You was goin' to Antelope Peak, eh? Kinda got off the road, didn't ya? Oh, we're on to ya, we are. What you mean, I demanded. He was actin' like he was the one which oughta feel righteously indignant instead of me. You know what I mean, he says, frothing slightly at the mouth. I didn't believe it when Van Brock first said he suspicious you, even though you ombre's did act funny yesterday when we met you on the trail. But this morning when I glimpsed your fool, Uncle Jacob spying on our camp and then seen him sneakin' off through the brush, I know Van Brock was right. You're after what we're after, and you all resort to dirty, underhanded tactics. Does you deny you're after the same thing we are? No, I don't, I said. Uncle Jacob's got more right to it than you all. And when you says we use underhanded tricks, you're a liar. That settles it, Nash T. Go for your gun. I don't wanna perforate you, I growled. I ain't hankering to conclude your mortal career, he admitted, but Haunted Mountain ain't big enough for both of us. Take off your guns and I'll maul the livin' daylights outta ya, big as ya be. I unbuckled my gun belt and hung it on the limb, and he laid off hisn' and hit me in the stomach and on the ear and in the nose, then he socked me in the jaw and knocked out a tooth. This made me mad, so I'd taken him by the neck and throwed him against the ground so hard it jolted all the wind outta him. I then sought on him and started banging his head against the convenient boulder, and his cussin' was terrible to hear. If you all had acted like white men, I gritted, we'da give you a share in that there mine. What you talkin' about, he gurgled, trying to haul his bully out of his boot, which I had my knee on. The lost Haunted Mine, of course, I snarled, getting a fresh grip on his ears. Hold on, he protested. You mean you all are just lookin' for gold on the level? I was so astonished I quit hammerin' his skull against the rock. Why, what else, I demanded. Ain't you all fallin' us to steal Uncle Jacob's map which shows where at the mine is hid? Get off of me, he snorted disgustfully, takin' advantage of my surprise to push me off. Hell, he said, and startin' to knock the dust off his britches. I mighta known that Tenderfoot was wool-gatherin'. After we seen you all yesterday and he heard you mention Apache Canyon, he told me he believed you was fallin' us. He said that yarn about prospectin' was just a blind. He said he believed you was workin' for a rival scientific society to get ahead of us and capture that there wild man yourselves. What, I said, you mean that wild man yarn is straight? So far as we're concerned, said Bill, prospectors has been tellin' some unusual stories about Apache Canyon. Well, I laughed at him at first, but he kept on usin' so many 45-caliber words that he got me to believin' it might be so. Cause, after all, here was me guidein' the Tenderfoot on the trail of a wild man and there wasn't no reason to thank you when Jacob Grimes was any more sensible than me. Then this mornin' when I seen Joab peekin' at me from the brush, I decided Van Brock must be right. You all hadn't never went to Adelope Peak. The more I thought it over, the more certain I was you was fallin' us to steal our wild man, so I started over to have a showdown. Well, I said we've reached an understanding at last. You don't want our mind and we sure don't want your wild man. There's plenty of them amongst my relatives on Bear Creek. Let's get Van Brock and lug him over to our camp and explain things to him and my weak-minded uncle. All right, said Glanton, bucklin' on his guns. Hey, what's that? From down in the canyon came a yell. Help! Aid! Assistance! It's Van Brock, yelled Glanton. He's wandered down into the canyon by himself. Come on. Right near their camp, there was a ravine leadin' down to the floor of the canyon. We pelted down that at full speed and emerged near the wall of the cliffs. There was the black mouth of a cave showing nearby in a kind of cleft and just outside this cleft, Van Brock was staggering around, yellin' like a hound dog with his tail caught in the door. His cork helmet was lying on the ground, all bashed out of shape and his spectacles was lyin' near it. He had a knob on his head as big as a turnip and he was doin' a kind of ghost dance or somethin' all over the place. He couldn't see very good without his specs because when he sighted us he gave a shriek and started leggin' it for the other end of the canyon, seemin' to think we was more enemies. Not wanting to indulge in no sprint in that heat, Bill shot a heel off his boot and that brought him down, squawing blue murder. Help! he shrieked. Mr. Glanton, help! I am being attacked. Help! Ah, shut up, snorted Bill. I'm Glanton. You're all right. Give him his specs, Breck. Now, what's the matter? He put them on, gasping for breath and staggered up, wild eyed and pointed at the cave and hollered, the wild man! I saw him as I descended into the canyon on a private exploring expedition, a giant with a panther's skin about his waist and a club in his hand. He dealt me a murderous blow with a bludgeon when I sought to apprehend him and fled into that cavern. He should be arrested. I looked into the cave. It was too dark to see anything except for a hoodow. He must have saw somethin' Breck, said Glanton, hitchin' his gun harness. Somethin' sure cracked him on the conk. I've been hearin' some queer tales about this canyon myself. Maybe I better sling some lead in there. No, no, no, broken Van Brock. We must capture him alive. What's goin' on here? Said a voice and we turned to see Uncle Jacob approaching with his Winchester in his hands. Everything's all right, Uncle Jacob, I said. They don't want your mind. They're after the wild man, like they said. And we got him cornered in that there cave. All right, huh? He snorted. I reckon you think it's all right for you to waste your time with such darn foolishness when you oughta be helpin' me look for my mind. Big help you be. Where was you whilst I was arguing with Bill here, I demanded. I'd known you could handle the situation. So I started exploring the canyon, he said. Come on, we got work to do. But the wild man, cried Van Brock, your nephew would be invaluable in securing the specimen. Think of science, think of progress, think of a striped skunk, snorted Uncle Jacob. Freckin' Ridge, are you comin'? Ah, shut up, I said disgustedly. You both make me tired. I'm goin' in there and run that wild man out. And Bill, you shoot him in the hind leg when he comes out so as we can catch him in time-up. But you left your guns hangin' onto that limb up on the plateau, objected Glanton. I don't need him, I said. Didn't you hear Van Brock say we was to catch him alive? If I started shootin' in the dark, I might ruin him. All right, says Bill, cockin'ous six-shooters, go ahead. I figure you're a match for any wild man that ever come down the pike. So I went into the cleft and entered the cave and it was dark as all get-out. I groped my way along and discovered the main tunnel split into two, so I'd taken the biggest one. It seemed to get darker the further I went and pretty soon I bumped into something big and hairy and it went whoop and grabbed me. Thinks I, it's the wild man and he's on the warpath. We waded into each other, tumbled around on the rocky floor in the dark, bitein' and mollin' and tarin'. I'm the biggest and fightin'est man on Bear Creek, which is feigned far and wide for its ring-tailed scrappers, but this wild man sure give me my hands full. He was the biggest, hairiest critter I ever laid hands on and he had more teeth and talons than I thought a human could possibly have. He'd chaud me with vigor and enthusiasm and he waltzed up and down my frame free and hardy and swept the floor with me till I was groggy. For a while I thought I was gonna give up the ghost and I thought with despair how humiliated my relatives on Bear Creek would be to hear their champion battler had been clawed to death by a wild man in a cave. That made me plum a shame for weakening and the socks I give to him ought to laid out any man, wild or tame, to say nothing of the pile driver kicks in his belly and button him with my head so he gasped. I got what felt like an ear in my mouth and commenced chawin' on it and presently, what with this and other mayhem I committed on him, he give a most inhuman squall and bust away and went lickety-split for the outside world. I risen up and staggered after him hearing a wild chorus of yells break forth outside, but no shots. I bust out into the open, bloody all over and my clothes hangin' in tatters. Where is he, I hollered, did you let him get away? Ooh, said Glanton, comin' out from behind a boulder. False man brought an Uncle Jacob dropped down out of a tree nearby. No wild man, dammit, I roared. We ain't seen no wild man, said Glanton. Well, what was that thing I'd just run out of the cave, I hollered. That was a grizzly bar, said Glanton. Yes, neared Uncle Jacob, and that was Van Brock's wild man. And now, Breckenridge, if you're through playin', we'll, no, no, hollered Van Brock jumping up and down. It was a human being which smote me and fled into the cavern, not a bear. It is still in there somewhere unless there is another exit to the cavern. Well, he ain't in there now, said Uncle Jacob, peering into the mouth of the cave. Not even a wild man would run into a grizzly's cave, or if he did, he wouldn't stay long. Mm, a rock come whizzin' out of the cave and hit Uncle Jacob in the belly, and he doubled up on the ground. Aha, I roared, knocking up Glanton's ready six-shooter. I know, there's two tunnels in there. He's in the smaller cave. I went into the wrong one. Stay here, you all, and give me room. This time I get him. With that I rushed into the cave mouth again, disregarding some more rocks which emerged and plunged into the smaller opening. It was dark as pitch, but I seemed to be running along a narrow tunnel, and ahead of me I heard bare feet pattern on the rock. I followed him at full lope and presently seen a faint hint of light. The next minute I rounded a turn and come out into a wide place, which was lit up by a shaft of light coming in through a cleft in the wall, some yards up. In the light I seen a fantastic figure climbing up on a ledge, trying to reach that cleft. Come down off of that, I thundered, and give a leap and grab the ledge by one hand and hung on, and reached for his legs with the other hand. He give a squall as I grabbed his ankle and splintered his club over my head. The force of the lick broke off the lip of the rock ledge I was holding on to, and we crashed to the floor together, because I didn't let loose of him. Fortunately I hit the rock floor head first which broke my fall and kept me from fracture in any of my important limbs, and his head hit my jaw which rendered him unconscious. I risen up and picked up my limp captive and carried him out into the daylight where the others was waiting. I dumped him on the ground and they stared at him like they couldn't believe it. He was a gaunt old cuss with whiskers about a foot long and matted hair, and he had a mountain lion's hide tied around his waist. A white man enthused Van Vrock dancing up and down, an unmistakable Caucasian. This is Stupendous, a prehistoric survivor of a pre-Indian epoch. What an aid to anthropology. A wild man, a veritable wild man. Wild man, hell, snorted Uncle Jacob, that there's old Joshua Braxton, which was trying to marry that old vain school teacher down a chaud ear all last winter. I was trying to marry her, and Joshua bitterly, setting up suddenly and glaring at all of us. That there is good, that there he is, and me all the time fighting for my life against it. Her and all her relations was trying to marry her to me. They made my life a curse. They was finally all set to kidnap me and marry me by force. That's why I come away off up here and put on this rig to scare folks away. All I craves is peace and quiet, and no darn women. Van Brock began to cry because there wasn't no wild man, and Uncle Jacob said, Well, now that this darn foolishness is settled, maybe I can get to something important. Joshua, you know these mountains even better than I do. I want you to help me find the lost haunted mine. There ain't no such mine, said Joshua. That old prospector imagined all that stuff whilst he was wandering around over the desert crazy. But I got a map I bought from a Mexican in perdition, hollered Uncle Jacob. Let me see that map, said Glanton. Why, hell, he said, that there's a fake. I seen that Mexican draw on it, and he said he was going to try to sell it to some old jassic for the price of a drunk. Uncle Jacob stopped down on a rock and pulled his whiskers. My dreams is bust, he said weekly. I'm going home to my wife. You must be desperate if it's come to that, said old Joshua acidly. You better stay up here. If there ain't no gold, there ain't no women to torment a body either. Women is a snare and a delusion, agreed Glanton. Van Rock can go back with these fellers. I'm staying with Joshua. You all ought to be ashamed talking about women that way, I reproached him. What in this here lousy and troubled world can compare to women's gentle sweetness? There the scoundrel is, screeched a familiar voice. Don't let him get away. Shoot him if he tries to run. We turned sudden. We'd been arguing so loud amongst ourselves we hadn't noticed a gang of folks coming down the ravine. There was Aunt Lavaca and the sheriff a-chaud ear with ten men, and they all pined and sawed off shotguns at me. Don't get rough, Elkins, warned the sheriff nervously. They're all loaded with buckshot and ten-penny nails. I know your reputation and I take no chances. I arrest you for that kidnapping of Jacob Grimes. Are you plum crazy, I demanded? Kidnapping, hollered Aunt Lavaca waving a piece of paper. Abducting your poor old uncle. Aiming to hold him for ransom. It's all written down in your own handwriting here on this here paper. Says you're taking Jacob away off into the mountains. Warning me not to try to follow. Same as threatening me. I'm never here to such do-ins. Soon as that good for nothing Joe Hopkins brung me that their insolent letter I went right after the sheriff. Joshua Braxton, what are you doing in them on decent talks? My lands, I don't know what we're coming to. Well, sheriff, what you standin' there for like a ninny? Why, ain't you put some handcuffs and chains and shackles on him? Are you scared of the big lunkhead? Oh, heck, I said, this is all a mistake. I warn't threatenin' nobody to map their letter. Then where's Jacob? She demanded. Produce him immediately, or? He ducked into that cave, said Glanton. I stuck my head in and roared, Uncle Jacob, you come out of there and explain before I come in after you. He snuck out, lookin' meek and down-draughtin'. And I says, you tell these idiots that I ain't no kidnapper. That's right, he said. I brung him along with me. Hell, said the sheriff disgustedly. Have we come all this way on a wild goose chase? I should have knew better to listen to a woman. You shit your full mouth, squalled Aunt Lavaca, a fine sheriff you be. Anyway, what was Breckenridge doin' up here with you, Jacob? He was helpin' me look for a mine, Lavaki, he said. Helpin' you, she screeched, while I sent him to fetch you back. Breckenridge Elkins, I'll tell your pap about this, you big lazy good-for-nothing load-down ornery. Ah, shut up, I roared, exasperated beyond endurance. I seldom let my voice go its full blast. Echoes rolled through the canyon-like thunder, the trees shook and the pine cones fell like hail, and rocks tumbled down the mountain sides. Aunt Lavaca staggered backwards with an outraged squall. Jacob, she hollered, are you gonna allow that ruffian to use that there tone of voice to me? I demand you flail the livin' daylights out of that scoundrel right now. Uncle Jacob winked at me. Now, now, Lavaki, he started soothing her, and she gave him a clip under the ear, which changed ends with him. The sheriff and his posse and van Brock took out up the ravine like the devil was after him, and Glanton bit off a char at a backer and said to me, he says, well, what was you fixin' to say about woman's gentle sweetness? Nothing, I snarled. Come on, let's get goin'. I yearned to find a more quiet and secluded spot than this herein'. I'm staying with Joshua and you in a grizzly. End of the Haunted Mountain.