The Project Gutenberg eBook of Five miles to Perdition

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Title: Five miles to Perdition

A "Young Pete" story

Author: Henry Herbert Knibbs

Release date: August 17, 2026 [eBook #79385]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1930

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79385

Credits: Prepared by volunteers at BookCove (bookcove.net)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE MILES TO PERDITION ***

There’s Lots of Different Names for Hell in the Southwest.

Five Miles to Perdition

A “Young Pete” Story

By Henry Herbert Knibbs

The tired horses drank at a waterhole rimmed with dusty scum. Young Pete gazed at the weathered signboard. “Five Miles to Perdition,” he said. The sign pointed toward a group of cottonwoods far down the desert. “Means hell, or somethin’ like that,” Pete added.

“There’s a place called Purgatory, out near the White Sinks,” said Dave Hamill. “Funny how many different names there are for hell.”

“There’s a lot of different kinds of hell,” declared Pete.

They rode on.

“I like mine thick and rare,” said Young Pete presently. “And plenty hot bread and coffee.”

“Same here—if you mean steak.”

“I wasn’t talkin’ about wimmen,” said Pete.

Perdition admired to call itself a tough town. The mines back in the hills had closed down, but petty graft and the cowboys from Luna and Magdalena kept the hurdy-gurdy honking and the ball spinning in the wheel. Earnest but indiscreet visitors were received with open arms, wrung dry and tossed out onto the city dump. Awakening next morning sore and sober they were haled before the justice of the peace and fined for disorderly conduct. Perdition’s city marshal, Mr. Collins, was able to get away with this because he required visiting gentlemen to hang up their guns upon entering town.

Unaware of this handicap, Young Pete and Dave Hamill rode into town, stabled their horses and made tracks for the nearest restaurant. They were sitting on high stools waiting for the two steaks, thick and rare, when City Marshal Collins stepped in through a side door and approached them from behind.

“You boys will have to hang up your guns while you’re here,” the marshal said.

“Like hell we will!” said Dave Hamill, swinging round and facing the marshal.

Pete kicked Dave on the leg. “Leave it to me,” he whispered. Then to the marshal: “Here’s my gun. But I want a receipt for her. I’m leavin’ town in the mornin’ early.”

“That’s all right,” said Collins.

“What’s all right?”

“You won’t need any receipt.”

Young Pete’s grin faded. “You got my gun. All I got is your word I’ll get it back. I want it in writin’.”

“I’ll take your gun, too,” said the marshal, ignoring Young Pete.

Pete jerked Dave’s gun from its holster. “Give us two receipts and you can have it,” said Pete, rolling the gun. “But you needn’t pester Dave. All he does is the thinkin’ for this outfit. I do the shootin’.”

“You’re a tough kid, ain’t you?”

Young Pete grinned into the muzzle of the gun the marshal had just taken away from him. “Just bite me and see! But don’t count on that gun. She’s empty. That’s why I give her to you.”

A dark wizened little man at a table across the room laid down his fork and laughed. The waiter, coming suddenly from the kitchen glided behind the big coffee urn.

City Marshal Collins stared at Young Pete’s lean, dark face. “Hand over that gun!”

“Can’t,” said Pete. “Don’t belong to me. What you pesterin’ me for? You got my gun. And Dave, here, ain’t got no gun. It ain’t awful hard to figure.”

The man who had laid down his fork rose and walked over to Pete. “I’d like to shake hands with you,” he said. “You’re the first sober man that ever called Collins’ bluff. I run a little game over at the Silver Dollar. They call me ‘the Spider’, down this way.”

“Glad to meet you,” said Pete. “Dave, you shake hands for both of us. I’m busy.”

“You’ll be busier if you don’t hand over that gun!” threatened Collins.

“So will your friends if you don’t quit pesterin’ me.” Young Pete continued to roll the gun.

City Marshal Collins glared at the Spider. “These friends of yours?” he rasped. “That why you horned in?”

“No. I don’t know either of them.” The Spider turned his back on the city marshal. “Any time you want a job,” he said to Pete, “just let me know.”

“Thanks. Any time you want a new city marshal, just say the word.”

The Spider signaled to the waiter behind the coffee urn. “Fetch those orders over to my table. I think Mister Collins will excuse us.”

“You’ll horn in once too often,” said the marshal.

“Any time you think you can beat me to it, I’ll accommodate you,” said the Spider, “Come on, boys. Those steaks are getting cold.”

The waiter fetched their steaks. “Nothin’ has smelled so sweet as that marshal since Pansy died,” said Pete. “Pansy,” he explained, “was a mule. She fell into a well. Pass the ketchup, Dave.”

“But the marshal’s name is Collins,” said the Spider.

“He’s the homeliest damn catamount I ever seen!” said Dave.

Pete’s eyebrows twisted in a puzzled frown. “Homely? Mebby that was it. I thought he was makin’ faces at me.”

The Spider ate little but drank much coffee. Dave and Young Pete kept busy until their checks came. Then they took time to stare at each other. “What’s yours?” asked Pete.

“Two dollars and four bits. I’m goin’ to need crutches to get out of here.”

“Table service costs a dollar more than counter service, here,” said the Spider. “I invited you boys to eat with me. I’ll take care of the checks.”

“We ain’t exactly broke,” declared Dave.

“Better keep your change,” said the Spider. “If Collins takes a notion to run you in and you haven’t any cash, he’ll hold you for vagrancy and levy on your outfit.”

“He took me for a kid. I don’t aim to let no cheap city marshal get ahead of me.”

The Spider gathered up the checks. When they were out in the street he gestured toward the saloon across the way. “You’ll find me there, most of the time. About Collins—let him get as far ahead of you as he likes. But don’t let him get behind you.” And the Spider crossed the street and entered the Silver Dollar.

“Sounds kind of like advice, at that,” said Pete.

“Looks like that there Perdition sign was a warnin’,” said Dave as they walked down the street. With the same thought in mind they headed for the livery barn. “There ain’t no reward out for me,” said Dave as they came opposite the building. “Suppose you wait and I’ll get our horses.”

Pete stepped back into the shadow of a doorway. In a few minutes Dave returned. “We’re sure afoot,” he complained. “The city marshal has left orders to hold our horses till you hand over your gun.”

“Did you offer to pay the feed bill?”

“I sure did!”

They turned and walked back up the street. Across the street a short, thick man in a big Stetson was keeping abreast of them.

“He was in the livery office,” whispered Dave.

“Mebby a deputy, set to watch that we don’t make our getaway,” Pete ventured. “Let’s step in here and see if he follows us.”

Entering the Silver Dollar they sauntered to the bar. Dave bought a drink. Young Pete, who never drank, bought a handful of nickels and moved over to the nickel-in-the-slot machine. He pushed in a nickel and pulled the lever down. The cards revolved. Pete gazed into the strip of mirror at the top of the machine. The short man in the big hat had entered the saloon and was sitting at a wall table talking with a companion. The revolving cards flickered and stopped, one card short of a straight.

“You can’t beat them things,” said Dave as he came up.

“But I can watch ’em go round.” Pete peered into the mirror as he again played the machine. The man in the big hat and his companion had their heads together. The whirring cards stopped—three aces and a pair of fours. “You win!” said Dave Hamill as several nickels rattled down into the receiver. Pete scooped up the nickels. The man in the big hat had gestured with his thumb toward the ceiling.

A roustabout removed the dustcloths from the card tables. Pete saw the Spider seated near the faro layout, reading a newspaper. Pete thrust another nickel into the machine.

A brisk, sallow-faced man entered. “Card-man,” reflected Pete. The sallow-faced man nodded to the two at the side table as he passed. Again the man in the big hat gestured toward the ceiling with his thumb.

The sallow-faced man, known as “Slicker,” put on a green eye-shade, hung up his coat and took his place at the head of the faro table.

Three cowpunchers sauntered up to the bar and called for drinks. The faro dealer spoke to the Spider, who nodded without looking up. Two more cowboys drifted in and joined the group at the bar. Dave Hamill played three or four nickels in the machine and lost.

Pete wondered why the two men across the room had pointed toward the ceiling. Could the gesture have anything to do with the skylight directly above the faro table?

“Keep rollin’ ’em,” he said to Dave. “Me, I’m goin’ to take a look around this joint.”

Curling a smoke, Pete sauntered from table to table, pausing to watch the play, then moving on. He came to the end of the room, opened a door. The room contained a bed, a washstand, some clothing, a table and chair and a small safe. “The Spider’s office,” said Pete to himself as he backed out.

The adjoining door led, eventually, to an alley back of the building. Pete stepped out into the darkness. A pinch of light coming from a shaded window at the back of the dance hall next door caught his eye. The dance hall piano was going. Pete sauntered down the alley. The sound of piano playing stopped. He was almost under the window from which the pinch of light came.

“Playin’ the nickel-in-the-slot machine,” said someone in the room. “Him and his pardner.”

“Which might be me, they’re talkin’ about,” reflected Pete. He moved up near the window.

“We’re lucky if we get away with it. The Spider....”

Pete recognized the voice of City Marshal Collins.

“Easy,” said the first speaker. “Bill is on the roof with a rope. A couple of minutes to twelve, Soapy ’ull start an argument with the Kid. Slicker ’ull switch off the lights. Just as he switches ’em off he’ll drop the Spider. I’ll raid the Spider’s safe an’ put the stuff in a pair of saddle bags. Bill will let down the rope through the skylight while the light is off. Up goes the cash. When the lights come on again, the Spider’ll be dead, an’ the dough and the Kid and his pardner ’ull be gone.”

“That sounds all right, Pelcher,” came the voice of City Marshal Collins, “but suppose Slicker don’t get the Spider the first shot?”

“You gettin’ cold feet? Listen: Somebody starts an argument at the faro table. Slicker’s got that ribbed up. Slicker throws down his eye-shade and steps over to ask the Spider to settle the argument. The Spider always is settin’ in his big chair near the electric switch. When Slicker gets close enough to the Spider to make a sure thing of it, he lets him have it.”

There was a pause and the sound of someone striking a match. Then the city marshal’s voice. “Don’t you be too sure the Kid and his partner will run when the shootin’ starts. Calls hisself just ‘the Kid’ here, but he’s better known as ‘the Arizona Kid’ elsewhere. An’ he’s got a record over in Arizona. He’s poison with a gun. He’s been in two gunfights since he hit New Mexico. He’s wanted in Vegas right now.”

“The Arizona Kid! Why, he ain’t much more’n a boy!” Again came a silence. Then: “I’ll fix that. Just before Slicker gets busy I’ll tell the Kid I’m night man over to the livery barn, and that it’s all right with me if he wants to pull his freight. By the way his pardner talked to the boss when I was in the livery office, those two boys’ll jump at the chance to make their getaway.”

Young Pete heard City Marshal Collins make some remark, just as the piano started up again. Then he hastened back to the Spider’s place.

The long, wide room had begun to fill up. A poker game was going. Several more cowpunchers had come in. Pete got another handful of nickels and began to play the slot machine. He told Dave Hamill to mill around and find out, without asking, if the man dealing faro was called “Slicker”.

Pete played the slot machine again. Dave came from the bar. “It’s the faro dealer, all right,” he said. “How’s your game goin’?”

“Watch close,” said Pete pulling the lever down. The cards whirred. “They framed it to rob the Spider’s safe,” said Pete. “The city marshal is in it, and that short fella with the big hat. The marshal figures to let us make a break and getaway. We’re strangers in town. He’ll say we shot the Spider and got away with the cash. But the cash really stays right in town. What you bitin’ your lip about?”

“You asked me to find out who that Slicker fella was so you could give him a tip?”

“Not any. He’s got the job of bumpin’ off the Spider.”

“Him. Why, they’re pardners! The bartender told me.”

“Pardners in business, mebby. But you can’t tell how they stack up, private.”

“Where did you get wise?”

“Out in the alley. Quit talkin’. Watch me win.” Young Pete nodded toward the flickering cards. “Three aces—deuce—five spot. Tell me when you see the Spider come in.”

“You can’t beat that thing. Say, Pete, how about stickin’ up the livery stable and leavin’ town right now? I don’t like this here frame-up.”

“But I kind of like the Spider’s style.” Pete played another nickel. “And that city marshal is goin’ to stick his foot in a gopher hole and break his neck, if he don’t watch out.”

“He’s playin’ safe.”

“Nobody’s playin’ safe that tangles with the Spider.”

“I thought you was strong for leavin’ town, a while ago,” said Dave.

“I was. If our horses was fresh I don’t know but what I’d be willin’ to take a chance. But I don’t aim to let a posse shoot me up for stealin’ somethin’ I didn’t steal. And mebby you recollect the Spider offered me a job, when he was in the restaurant? Well, he didn’t mean washin’ dishes.”

“Think he knows you’re the Arizona Kid?”

“I dunno. I saw him in El Paso once. I was with Tonto Charley. But that don’t make no difference. The idea is, Dave, when you’re a stranger in a town like this you got to side with one bunch or the other, or sure as hell somebody’ll get you.”

“Oh, I ain’t so sick I can’t stick around and watch you lose all our nickels,” said Dave.

“All right. You stand up near the front of the bar, and when the Spider comes in, tell him quiet-like I wanter see him. If there’s too many folks around, just haze him over to me. Tell him I broke my arm tryin’ to pull a winnin’ hand out of this here machine.”

“It’s gettin’ close to twelve,” said Dave.

“Yes,” Pete nodded. “And I notice likewise, that the fella in the big hat is back. He’s edgin’ over this way. That’ll be Pelcher. That greasy lookin’ sport in the blue suit must be the one they call ‘Soapy.’ Here they come. You start an argument with me about my havin’ your gun. Make out you’re sore. When I give you your gun, you drift up to the front of the bar like I said.”

The stocky man in the big hat, and Soapy, a tinhorn gambler with a hard reputation, shoved up to the bar and called for a drink.

“I reckon I’ll drift,” said Dave, loudly to Pete. “I’ll take my gun, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Like hell you will!” laughed Pete.

“You ain’t takin’ me serious.”

Pete’s smile vanished. “You sore?”

“I sure am!”

Pete handed the gun to Dave. “All right. Go and fall down and shoot yourself. I reckon this is where we split.”

“Suits me,” said Dave, holstering the gun and moving toward the front of the room.

Glass in hand, the tinhorn, Soapy, turned to Young Pete. “How they rollin’, sport?”

“Backwards. This here machine is a liar.”

“Have a drink?”

“Nope. I never drink when I’m gamblin’. Might get reckless.”

“You’re a tough kid, ain’t you?”

“The Kid is all right,” said the stocky man in the big hat. He stepped round Soapy and leaned confidentially toward Pete. “Listen, Kid. I’m night man over to the barn. I heard the city marshal tell the boss to hold your horses. Seems Collins has got somethin’ on you boys. It’s nothin’ to me. I been there myself. All I got to say is, the boss is asleep. There’s nobody at the barn right now.”

“I’m right obliged to you.” Pete thrust another nickel into the slot machine. He counted the nickels in his hand. “I’ll shoot these, then I’m done.”

The smoke swirled near the doorway. The Spider came in. “Lost your pardner?” he said as Dave came up alone.

“No. He’s playin’ the nickel machine. He says the machine is crooked and he’d like the pleasure of tellin’ you so.”

The group at the end of the bar laughed. The Spider’s beady black eyes swept the room.

“Guess I’ll be driftin’,” said Dave stepping in front of the Spider. He leaned nearer, whispered tensely, “See him quick, Spider!” And Dave moved on.

The Spider made his way to where Young Pete stood playing the nickel machine. Pete looked disgusted.

“Say, Spider, I been feedin’ this thing for two hours and I only won twice. It needs fixin’.”

Soapy and the stocky man were so near that Pete dared not risk more than a hint. His chance came when the Spider took a nickel and played the machine. Pete leaned forward as the cards settled down.

“The machine is all right,” said the Spider.

“That’s right!” Pete counted the hand. “King, queen—watch Slicker an’ the skylight; they’re gonter rob your safe at twelve—jack, ten, nine! Well, what do you think of that!”

“I can handle it,” laughed the Spider. He laid a handful of nickels on the bar and invited Soapy, the man in the big hat, and Pete to have a drink. It was nine minutes of twelve.

Young Pete took a cigar and asked the Spider for a match. “I’ll take that job you offered me, now,” said Pete in a low tone. “But I ain’t heeled.”

A couple of cowboys crowded up and shook hands with the Spider. They turned to the bar. The Spider swiftly unbuttoned his frock coat and reached for his pocketbook. Pete saw the ivory handle of a six-shooter. The Spider opened the pocketbook. Pete swept the six-shooter into his own holster unobserved. The Spider gave Pete a ten-dollar bill.

“Will that hold you?”

“Thanks,” said Pete. He invited Soapy and the stocky man to drink with them.

The Spider declined. “Meet Soapy—and this is his friend, Pelcher.” The Spider gestured. “This is the Arizona Kid. He wants you boys to drink with him.”

The Arizona Kid! Soapy was too startled to offer to shake hands. The city marshal had told Pelcher that the Kid was a bad one to tangle with, but Soapy had no idea that the slim, dark Young Pete was the notorious Arizona outlaw. Pete was surprised that the Spider knew him, but he covered his surprise with a grin. His real name didn’t seem to set very well with the tinhorn, Soapy.

Dave Hamill sauntered up and nodded. “Hello, Dave!” said Pete. “I thought you had drifted?”

“Changed my mind.”

“Well, it needed changin’. The Spider was just askin’ me to entertain Mister Soapy, here, and his friend Mister Pelcher. Mebby you can help.”

“I can’t sing. But I can dance to beat hell.”

Pelcher saw that Soapy’s nerve was going back on him. It was five minutes of twelve. “If you boys are wise,” said Pelcher confidentially to Young Pete and Dave, “you’ll fade while you got the chance.”

“Thanks,” said Pete. “Me, I’m plumb foolish.”

“And I’m just as happy if I had sense,” declared Dave. “You buyin’, Pete?”

The bartender shoved glass and bottle toward Dave Hamill. Pete turned and surveyed the room. Beyond the faro table, in his big armchair against the wall sat the Spider, reading a newspaper. Pete surmised that the Spider was deliberately playing into the hands of the gang and would continue to do so up to the last minute. The Spider knew what he was doing. Pete was certain of that.

Somebody at the faro table began an argument with the dealer, Slicker. Slicker pushed up his eye-shade. The clock above the bar mirror showed two minutes of twelve.

Handing his newspaper to the man seated next to him, and calling his attention to an article about a gold strike, the Spider got up and walked toward the back of the room. The argument at the faro table continued. Slicker threw his eye-shade on the table and walked over toward the man reading the newspaper. In a flash Pete saw how the Slicker had planned to kill the Spider—reach up to switch off the lights and shoot him as the Spider looked up. Just then the newspaper moved. A derringer flashed in Slicker’s hand. Just as he fired he saw that the man behind the newspaper was not the Spider. Another shot boomed as Slicker threw up the switch handle. Slicker let go of the switch and sank to the floor.

As Slicker shot down the man in the chair, the tinhorn, Soapy, went for his gun. Pete, watching him, thrust Dave to one side and let Soapy have it. With the crash the room went dark.

The crowd, surging toward the front door, cursed and shouted. Someone had locked the outside front doors. The crowd crashed through and into the street.

In the darkness someone groaned. Someone was dragging something across the floor. Then a voice said, “Haul away, up there!”

“They got the dough, anyway,” whispered Dave Hamill.

The lights flashed on.

“My God, look!” cried Dave.

Halfway between the top of the faro table and the skylight dangled the body of a man, a rope round his neck. The body turned slowly.

“Pelcher,” murmured Young Pete.

On the table lay a pair of saddle bags.

“He don’t struggle any,” whispered Dave. “He must have been dead before his neck went into that noose.”

“It was the Spider that told the fella on the roof to haul away,” Young Pete observed. “The rope must have jammed. Anyhow, the skylight was open. Now it’s down.”

Across the room, in front of the chair where he had been reading the newspaper, lay the body of the man the Slicker had killed. A few feet beyond, Slicker lay doubled up against the wall.

Still, statue-like at the head of the faro table, sat the Spider, a pack of cards in his hands. He was smoking a cigar. He shuffled the cards slowly.

Pete bent over Soapy. “He’s done,” said Pete as Dave bent down to look.

“I didn’t know you was heeled,” said Dave.

“Neither did he,” said Pete.

The bartender’s head appeared, then his shoulders. He held a cocked gun.

“Drop it!” called Pete. The bartender put up his hands.

“He’s all right,” called the Spider from the faro table.

The bartender came round the end of the bar and walked out into the room.

City Marshal Collins and two deputies, heavily armed, pushed into the saloon.

“Steady!” said Pete, as Dave made a move to pull his gun. “Let them start it.”

“There they are!” cried the marshal. “Cover ’em while I investigate.” He saw the swinging body above the faro table. He stopped, stared at it, at the Spider beyond.

“How does he look to you now?” said the Spider.

“What—how did that happen?”

“You might ask him.”

City Marshal Collins walked over toward the body of Slicker, saw a man on the floor covered partially by a newspaper. He jerked the paper back. “It’s Sweeney!” he said.

“Yes, it’s Sweeney, another of your rotten gang.” The Spider’s voice was low. “And it was your friend Slicker that killed him. Slicker got Sweeney—by mistake. His mistake, not mine.”

“My God, Spider!” The marshal stooped and turned Slicker over. “Who shot Slicker here?”

“Hard to tell. The room was dark.”

Tired of keeping his hands up, Young Pete asked City Marshal Collins why he was under arrest.

“For robbery and murder,” replied Collins.

The Spider laid down his deck of cards.

“Who was robbed, Collins?” he asked the city marshal.

“Those saddle bags,” Collins pointed to the faro table, “belong to one of these two boys here—I seen ’em when they rode into town.”

“That’s right,” said Young Pete. “But the liveryman had our saddles and outfit locked up in his office ever since we lit in town. He said it was by order of the city marshal.”

“This,” said Collins pointing toward Pete, “is the Arizona Kid. He’s wanted for robbery and murder.”

“Just a minute,” said the Spider; he rose and came around the end of the table.

Young Pete’s lips barely moved as he told Dave to drop to the floor in case the Spider went for his gun. “Those deputies are gettin’ nervous,” said Pete. “So is Collins. He don’t like the Spider’s talk.”

“For robbery and murder?” The Spider’s beady, black eyes were fixed on the marshal’s gun hand, not on his face.

“You mean these boys here planted someone on the roof to haul up those saddle bags after Pelcher had cleaned out my safe? Did they talk Slicker into shooting me down while I sat reading my paper? An’ those saddle bags were under lock and key in the livery offices, along with their saddles and rig—I suppose the Kid stole ’em out of the office, huh? Well there were four men in the livery office at half-past eleven an’ two of ’em were your deputies!”

The Spider took a cigar from his vest. “About the murder end of it. After the safe’s robbed an’ everything, the Kid stops and shoots his pals Sweeney an’ Slicker an’ Pelcher here, when any orn’nary sensible man would ’a’ been makin’ his getaway, huh? An’ yes, I almost forgot Soapy, there. I suppose the Kid killed him, too? Next thing you’ll be saying he murdered me.”

“This isn’t any time to get funny, Spider.”

“Then don’t, Collins.” The Spider bit the end off his cigar and struck a match. The cigar in one hand, the match in the other, he stood as though waiting for Collins to speak. For two or three seconds they eyed each other. The match flared up. “Tell your men to let those boys go,” said the Spider.

“Damned if I do!” The city marshal’s gun flashed up from the holster. The cigar and the match dropped from the Spider’s fingers. His lean hands flickered downward like the stroke of a cat’s paw; reappeared with a flashing gun. His first shot took the city marshal between the eyes. Collins’ arm jerked up, dropping the gun he had just drawn. The Spider fired again. Collins pitched forward, struck the corner of the table and rolled over.

At the Spider’s first shot both Young Pete and Dave Hamill dropped to the floor. Two slugs tore through the face of the bar above them. Enraged that the deputies had fired on them when they had their hands up, Young Pete had pulled his gun as he fell. He fired from the floor. One of the deputies turned and ran. The other, shot through the shoulder, dropped his gun and thrust his hands up. The fleeing deputy had just reached the door when the Spider dropped him with a shot between the shoulders. “You can go, Smith,” he said to the other deputy.

Dave Hamill lay where he had fallen. Pete rose, stooped and lifted him in his arms. Dave’s face was streaked with blood.

“What the hell?” mumbled Dave as Young Pete shook him.

“You’re all right,” said Pete. “Just peeled yourself on the foot rail.”

Dave leaned against the bar and slowly reached for a bottle. The Spider stood by the faro table reloading his six-shooter. The bartender had vanished.

“I reckon we better drift,” said Dave, pouring whisky on his bandanna and wiping the blood from his face.

The Spider took up the saddle bags from the faro table. “Come on back in the office,” he said.

Dumping the contents of the saddle bags onto his bed he handed the bags to Young Pete. “Don’t ride any farther west than the waterhole,” said the Spider. “Then turn south and head for the Pinnacles. Tell Old Man Enright at the Pinnacles that I sent you. He’ll let you take fresh horses, if you need ’em.”

“Thanks. How about this gun?” Pete drew the ivory-handled six-shooter the Spider had loaned him.

“Keep it,” said the Spider. “Call it a day’s wages.”

“I’ll stick—if you say the word, Spider.”

The Spider shook his head. “No. I’m through, here. I figured to close up the first of the month. Slicker was the only one who knew it. I saw he was getting pretty thick with Collins, but I didn’t think he had the nerve to try it on like he did.”

A crowd had gathered across the street opposite the front of the Silver Dollar. As Young Pete and Dave Hamill stepped out into the alley a tall, flannel-shirted man in high laced boots and a flat-brimmed Stetson strode in through the front entrance and marched back to the Spider’s office.

“Then the gang didn’t get you?” the tall man said, watching the Spider stack his money and put it in the safe.

“Not yet.”

The superintendent of the Bluestone mines thrust out his hand. “Awful mess—but congratulations, Spider. We’ll be needing a new city marshal.”

“You will,” said the Spider.

Dave Hamill and Young Pete drew up at the waterhole. Pete reined close to the weathered old signboard, reached up and jerked it loose.

“What’s the idea?” said Dave.

“It’ll be the first time this sign ever done anybody any good. In a couple of hours I aim to boil some coffee. They ain’t no wood in the bad lands where we’re headed. That coffee’ll carry us from daylight to the Pinnacles.”

“The Pinnacles!” said Dave Hamill grimly. He stared through the darkness toward the bad lands south. “Funny, how many different names there are for hell.”

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

This story appeared in Short Stories magazine, September 10, 1930. It is believed to be in the public domain in the United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.

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Five Miles to Perdition

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