2-Gun Western, February 1954 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BUT ONE MAN ALONE MIGHT.... pattern. Wolf Clade caught a vic- tim off guard, and held a gun on him. “Hold your hands behind your head!” he ordered. When the vic- tim did, knowing it would mean sudden death to refuse, Wolf Clade berated him, working up his rage until it was flaming insanity, then shot him down and rode away. He had done so tonight, Lanwell had been told. The sheriff had been standing in the streak of light com- ing from a store doorway, talking to friends. A rider had come down the street to turn in toward the hitch rail. He had not been recognized at first. The lawman and his friends were laughing at something happen- ing in the store. A harsh voice had called: “Sheriff! Get ’em up! Hands behind your head!” Tom Borson had been caught un- armed, for he’d left his gunbelt in his office when he strolled to the store to get smoking tobacco. He had no chance of defense. The townsmen to whom he was talking stood stricken motionless..The out- law began his tirade, ended with a wild screech and sudden gunfire. Then hoofs drummed the earth as Wolf Clade rode away through the moonlight... IM LANWELL was remembering J this as he went toward home. Now he had to go to Ella, who'd loved her father dearly. After the funeral, he would attend to his of- ficial duty, run down Clade and get him, either dead or alive. He knew others would watch him closely, question his courage and ability. And Wolf Clade was ruth- less, a beast in human form, with a wild beast’s cunning. The fact that Lanwell had not been there to aid in Clade’s arrest and conviction would carry no weight with the out- law. The badge he wore would give Clade incentive enough. From a patch of darkness, a man stepped into the path in front of Lanwell. “Senor!” he called softly. “T am Pedro Perez.” | Lanwell’s-right hand remained on his holster, where he had dropped . it. “What do you want, Pedro? Walk 17 toward me through the moonlight.” Lanwell knew the middle-aged Mexican, who did off jobs around town, for a hard-working respected man with a large family. Perez shuf- fled forward, stopped and spoke: “I know what has happenea, Senor Lanwell. The sheriff was a good man who often helped me. I believe, senor, I can show you how to get Wolf Clade.” “You know where he hides out?” Lanwell asked, eagerly. “Not that, senor. But I know how perhaps you can handle him if he attacks you. I have heard how he sneaks upon a man and gets the drop on him, tells him to clasp his hands ‘behind his head, then shoots him while he is helpless. Such a man can be handled, if you know how.” “Why are you so eager to heip anyone get Wolf Clade?” Lanwell asked. Perez drooped his head, and scratched at the sandy soil with the toe of a ragged sandal. “My first child was a daughter. A year before Wolf Clade was arrested and sent to prison, he stopped at my hut on a ranch where I was working. He de- manded food, and my wife fed him. He saw my daughter, who was six- teen and beautiful. When he rode away, he took her with him, though she kicked and screamed and my wife tried to fight him. We have not seen her since. Do you under- stand, senor?” “TI understand,” “How can-you help me?” “At the mouth of Mad Dog Can- yon is a path branching off to the right. Day after tomorrow, meet me there a little after daylight.. It is better nobody else knows.” “T’ll meet you there,” Acting Sher- iff Lanwell decided. Perez bowed and stepped aside, and Lanwell strode on up the path toward his home. The sheriff was buried late the following afternoon. Before the fu- nerail, Lanwell wrote a report of the sheriff’s murder and mailed it to the state capital, and swore in an elder- ly townsman to act as his office dep- Lanwell said, uty. After the funeral, he tried to. comfort Elia. Gomichbooks (S@)