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  Popular Western, November, 1941

  Donna King Journeys Through the Stormy Range and on a Mission Fraught With Danger and Mystery!

  AIN overtook the buckboard when on tarp and slicker, and her heart shrank at the Donna King still had fifteen miles to

  thought of seeing him. Which only went to

  R go. In one loud, lightning-ripped prove that a woman’s heart is strange beyond instant, the shimmering horizons she loved

  understanding, because Donna King had

  were blotted out by a wet welter, and the first promised to marry Dane. She hurried the team fury changed to a gray downpour as bleak as through the gate and climbed back to her seat.

  her mood. Farther on, she drew leather at the Her yellow slicker and even brighter hair

  B Bar corrals.

  made her a slender, golden picture of

  Jumping down to open the pasture loveliness in the rain’s dreary murk.

  gate, she heard Dane Benson’s shout of

  greeting above the swishing drive of the rain IT WAS characteristic of Donna that she

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  didn’t wait for Benson to open and close the handsome in a big, slow way, with the good

  gate for her, for she had inherited proud nature that went with an absence of worries. It independence from her father, along with that was always flashing into Donna’s mind that

  high-held chin which lost none of its soft, Dane had never known the bitterness of

  curved charm because it held determination.

  struggle, that he was like the white-faced

  She was much like old Rufe King who

  Herefords he grazed on the lush valley of the had asked few favors of his neighbors since B Bar. Rufe King, busy paying last year’s

  that day more than twenty years before when debts with this year’s beef, had clung to the he had unhitched and driven a singletree from gaunt longhorns.

  his wagon into the uncompromising soil of the

  “What kind of news?” he asked.

  Big Bend, as his first stake.

  “Good or bad?”

  This marked a corner of the Singletree

  “Same old kind,” said the girl, and the

  range that had been Old Rufe’s life and lifted shrug of her slickered shoulder was Donna’s life. It marked the beginning of a

  more truthful than her light tone. “Money’s battle that was not yet ended and never would tighter than ever. We would have been able to be, it seemed—a battle with rustlers and borrow if we had tried two days ago. But the Border bandidos, with drought and grass fires bank was held up yesterday.”

  and flood. On the rocky reaches of the

  “No!” Dane Benson ejaculated. “Who

  Singletree spread, Old Rufe had grazed his

  did it?”

  longhorn herds, buried his wife, and reared his Donna’s voice sounded far away and

  golden-haired daughter to be as straight and strained in her own ears.

  proud and defiant as himself.

  “They say Bob Wiley was in the

  Dane Benson shouldered his big bulk

  gang,” she said, and fumbled with the reins, through the wind-fluttered curtain of rain, not wanting to see the “I-told-you-so” in smiling at the girl and shaking his head.

  Benson’s dark eyes. A year before, when the

  “Lord, Donna, I never seen anybody

  tall, reckless Wiley had been punching cows like yuh!” rumbled the B Bar owner. “With a for the Singletree, he had been Benson’s rival thousand and one things to do, I waited here for her heart.

  until the rain started, just to open this gate for But Dane’s sincerity sounded genuine.

  yuh. Then yuh do it yoreself! Climb down and

  “I’m plumb sorry to hear that, Donna. If Bob come in out of the wet.”

  would settle down and straighten out, he

  She ignored his outstretched arms. Her

  wouldn’t be a bad hombre. Trouble with him

  smile was brief and, perhaps, a little wistful.

  is bad company, and he don’t seem to realize The B Bar stone ranchhouse was as

  that the law has come west of the Pecos and comfortable as any bachelor’s quarters could took the place of reckless gun-slinging. How be, and looked inviting. Like everything else was the job pulled, and how much did they

  on Benson’s spread, it was more substantial get?”

  than the sprawling Singletree adobe.

  “About five thousand dollars. Just the

  “You weren’t quick enough,” Donna

  amount Dad wanted to borrow. It happened so chided, then gave a quick toss of her head that quickly nobody knows much about it. There

  slung water from her white Stetson’s brim.

  were four or five men, altogether, and

  “I’m in a big hurry, Dane. The ranch is out of everybody but Bob wore a slicker and a mask.

  chuck. Besides—I’ve some news for Dad.”

  They shot Doane, the cashier. Sheriff Morgan Benson nodded, pulling his slicker was coming up the street on foot, and he saw collar high and looking thoughtful. He was

  them run out to their horses. He emptied his

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  gun at them and hit one, he says. They corral fence and watched as she vanished in scattered and headed for the Border. There’s a the silver-arrowed rain. The Kings, father and posse out.”

  daughter, he was thinking were an

  “Five thousand dollars,” Dane Benson

  independent pair.

  said, shaking his head. If there was one thing Driving on along the mesquite-in his make-up the girl could criticize, it was bordered road to the Singletree, Donna’s

  his love of money. “That would have pulled

  thoughts were as dark as the rain clouds that the Singletree through until fall, eh?”

  brushed the tops of the rimrocked hills. Her Donna nodded, her soft, full lips drawn

  mind told her that Dane Benson’s plan was the taut. She knew what was coming now.

  only way out for the mortgaged ranch she and

  “Donna, darling,” Benson pleaded, her father loved. Her proud heart rebelled.

  reaching up to lay a hand on her arm, “talk to She climbed the divide, and the wind

  yore dad again! Make him see how he ought

  rose to a wild, wet fury. The grassy valleys of to sell out to me. At least he could sell me the the B Bar were behind, and a little farther on west ten sections, and that would pull him

  was the western strip of the Singletree, in its through.”

  rocky wildness. When finally she opened the

  “It’s no use, Dane. You know Dad.”

  gate into Singletree range, water was over her

  “Yes, but he has you to think about,

  spurred ankles, and the buckboard slipped and too. We could get married right away, if yuh swayed on the treacherous slant of the farther didn’t have him to worry about. I’ll give him divide hill.

  the job as foreman. We’ll clean out the

  An impatient exclamation leaped to the

  longhorn strain and stock the combined ranges girl’s lips as she sighted the west prong of with Herefords. Please try, Donna!”

  Buckhorn draw. Where the road canted down

  into the wild walnuts, a yellow flood was

  SHE shook her head, her proud chin higher.

  swirling, licking at the driftwood left by the She wou
ld never marry Dane Benson until

  previous spring’s high water. Too deep for the Old Rufe was financially secure. From the day tarpaulin-covered load of chuck behind the

  Benson had proposed, somehow his marriage

  buckboard seat on which she rode.

  offer had seemed to her to be part and parcel It was still rising, too. Donna wasted

  of a land deal. “Dad may lose the Singletree, only a minute listening to the sullen roar of the but he’ll never sell it,” she said. “Maybe this torrent. There was a longer way around, to the rain will help the grass, and he can pull north, where the west fork of Buckhorn was through some way. Besides, you don’t want

  wider and more shallow. She swung the team

  the west ten sections. There’s nothing on that through the untracked mesquites, paralleling strip but rocks. Dad is still trying to interest the flood.

  mining capital in it, and he’s never had any Followed two miles of twisting and

  luck.”

  turning, of ducking water-laden mesquite

  Benson shook his head. “Gosh only

  branches that could make her rain-tingled

  knows where the King family stubbornness is cheeks no wetter. Two miles of slow going,

  gettin’ both of yuh!” he said. “Won’t you

  wondering why some men were born to

  come in for awhile?”

  wealth, while others had to fight every step of But Donna slapped wet rein leather on

  their way. Of wondering why gay, reckless

  the backs of the buckskins, and waved her

  Bob Wiley allowed himself to get mixed up

  gauntleted hand as the wheels began to roll.

  with a bank robbery gang, and if Rufe King

  Benson backed his big frame against the stone would possibly consider this new proposal of

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  selling the western ten sections.

  upstream. She saw the big willow bend and

  It wasn’t right to ask him, Donna dip until it almost vanished. And then, riding decided. Because Dane Benson undoubtedly

  over it, came the foam-crested wall.

  had made the offer out of generosity and love Cloudburst!

  for her. That ten sections of malpais would be Divide rimrocks had ripped the bottom

  practically worthless to him and his white-

  from those low-hanging clouds. With water-

  faced steers.

  holes filled and the channel of Buckhorn

  She swung the buckskins back toward

  already above normal rain flow, there was

  the draw, the wheels rattling on flat, limestone nothing to delay this swift, sullen sweep of ledges, slanting down to the wide channel.

  destruction.

  Standing up, Donna peered through the swirl Fear’s cold fingers plucked at her

  and saw that even here it would be a close call heart, but she was not Rufe King’s daughter for the load of provisions.

  without the high heritage of Rufe King’s

  She halted, and with a strength courage. There might yet be time to make the unguessed by her slenderness, lifted a box of farther bank.

  the more perishable groceries to the seat,

  She whipped over the sodden ends of

  covering it with a corner of the tarp.

  tied reins, and stung the horses. Her shout was The roar in the draw had flattened,

  a puny whisper in the roar.

  here, to a droning dullness. Donna pointed the A thunder shook the smaller, stream-team into the flood.

  bent willows downstream. It was like a

  thousand cattle stampeding over the echoing IT ROSE, yellow and menacing, over the rocks of the Singletree range. The girl lashed hocks of the sturdy buckskins. She felt the out again, and the off horse stumbled on a

  buckboard shudder, saw the riffle of water

  slippery rock. He recovered gallantly, but

  streak downstream from the wheels, and Donna was already yanking off her gloves and watched anxiously as they neared the center of fumbling inside her slicker.

  the channel.

  As she opened the gleaming blade of

  Water swished against the floorboards

  the skinning knife, it mirrored that curling and seeped through a crack at her feet. But it wall of death.

  would get no deeper, now. That big willow,

  It leaned against the lancing rain,

  bending under the surge of the current, rolling down upon her as a giant comber rolls marked the middle of the channel.

  against a sandy beach. It towered six feet over There would still be the eastern prong

  the level water, and driftwood rode its tawny of Buckhorn to cross. It was sweeping over

  crest as the willow tops flattened. It was less there a mile farther, gullying down the eastern than thirty yards away.

  side of the rocky ridge that thrust like a bony Donna leaned down and made swift,

  finger from the divide. This western fork sure strokes. One of the trace leathers parted, bordered the west side of the ridge, and a few but the other was stubborn. She clung to the miles below its point the two streams angled foot-board and slashed at it. The horses, at together in their course to the Rio Grande.

  least, could save themselves.

  The roar came suddenly, deepening

  The wall struck, and the shock seemed

  over the swishing current like continuous, prolonged, endless. Donna saw the trace part booming surf, drowning the flat dullness with with a jerk of flying leather. The buckboard an intensity not to be mistaken.

  whirled, tongue swinging upstream. A horse’s Donna’s widened blue eyes jerked shrill squeal of terror knifed the roar.

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  There was one swift glance that would

  saloon brawl at Maravillas, and Donna hadn’t always hold in Donna’s memory—a split been in the place since she was a child. But instant of action that was etched on her brain.

  she remembered the two-room shack, with its It showed the buckboard’s left wheels swung half loft, its cracked, warped floor and rusty, crazily to the pouring sky, provisions spilling sheet-iron stove.

  from the seat, the tongue snapping like a

  She searched her pocket anxiously as

  rotten picket, the horses struggling toward she started walking, water swishing in her shore and safety.

  boots at every step. With a glad relief, she Not until the wet smother surged over

  found the small waterproof container in which her did she realize she was in the water. It she carried matches. She could kindle a fire, hammered her down as if she were being

  dry her clothes, and wait for the storm to pass.

  pounded by the flat of a giant’s hand. It rolled Her Stetson was gone. Her hair had

  her across rocks and thrust her slender body tumbled to a clinging, curling mass, reaching through the scratching tangle of wild walnut just below her shoulders. The gold was gone bushes. Her slicker hampered her swimming.

  from it with the wetness. It was now the color The weight of her shop-made boots and the

  of wild honey.

  pearl-handled .38 bolstered at her waist

  She leaned against the slanting rain,

  seemed to drag her under.

  and forced herself on. At last she saw it—the cabin, its back to the ridge. A silver filigree of THERE must have been sixty seconds of water fluttered from its clapboard roof.

  pounding, choking fury before she was driven The door yielded, and she stood in the

  against an unyielding something that knocked dim mustiness of the main room. A wood rat

  what little breath remained from her body. She scurried under the stove and into the nest it clutched it desperately, opened her eyes, and had built high in the corner.

  dared to breathe.

  Donna shucked the wet slicker and
>
  It was a willow in the rim of the emptied the water from her boots. She robbed eddying current, its limbs broken, its top the wood rat’s nest of dry branches and paper, barely above water. She saw the horses climb and huddled over the old stove as the flame out and vanish in the rain, and then, after a flickered, then leaped upward. Smoke

  long time, she struck out for the shore, billowed from a dozen cracks in the stove, but breathlessly buffeted and infinitely weary.

  the heat began to spread comfortingly. Donna Her boots touched bottom. She waded,

  added more fuel, then removed her cartridge then, and sat on a ledge of limestone at the belt and slung it, with the bolstered gun, over draw’s edge, shivering as the wind drove the back of a rickety, hide-bottomed chair.

  against the wetness of her clothes.

  There seemed to be a draught. In her

  It was still ten miles to the ranch, and

  stockinged feet, Donna went to close the

  she doubted whether the flood-terrified horses partly-opened door to the rear room. As she would be anywhere within walking distance of reached for the knob, she halted tensely, and the spot where they had emerged. She looked the color that had been returning to her cheeks up at the softened outline of the rocky ridge suddenly ebbed.

  and got her bearings. Then she remembered

  Above the drone of the rain on the

  the old prospector’s cabin.

  clapboards, she could hear the unmistakable It squatted close against the point of

  sound of a man’s heavy breathing!

  the hill, so it could not be far. The old man Her first impulse was to flee, but

  who once had lived there had been killed in a where could she go, in the rain? She went

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  back to the stove and yanked on her boots.

  Bob whirled on her. He had his left

  Her heart was a trip-hammer, driving