Get ready for a thrilling ride into the Wild West! Brace yourselves as we bring to life the riveting tale of "Bottle Up," an unsold submission by Chandler Whipple, later reimagined by the legendary Robert E. Howard. We trail Laramie, a rugged protagonist, on a daring mission; his aim - to bottle up a canyon entrance and trap a gang of outlaws. As the story unfolds, we witness Laramie's audacious tactics to take down a guard and block the tunnel. The climax? An adrenaline-pumping shootout on the canyon rim, as Laramie heroically defends his position against the outlaws.
But the action doesn't end there. Picture this: Laramie, with only six guns against the outlaws' rifles, precariously perched on the canyon rim. The suspense heightens as one outlaw discovers Laramie's rope and begins an upward climb. In the heat of the moment, our hero gets shot in the shoulder and falls unconscious. Then, the ominous sound of approaching footsteps! Who could it be? What's next for Laramie? Who survives this deadly encounter? Join us as we unravel this tale full of suspense and adventure, transporting you into the heart of the Wild West. Do you dare to ride with us on this wild journey?
Return of the Great Hunters
Cattle Drives Website
Legends of Dodge City Website
Order Books
Get ready for a thrilling ride into the Wild West! Brace yourselves as we bring to life the riveting tale of "Bottle Up," an unsold submission by Chandler Whipple, later reimagined by the legendary Robert E. Howard. We trail Laramie, a rugged protagonist, on a daring mission; his aim - to bottle up a canyon entrance and trap a gang of outlaws. As the story unfolds, we witness Laramie's audacious tactics to take down a guard and block the tunnel. The climax? An adrenaline-pumping shootout on the canyon rim, as Laramie heroically defends his position against the outlaws.
But the action doesn't end there. Picture this: Laramie, with only six guns against the outlaws' rifles, precariously perched on the canyon rim. The suspense heightens as one outlaw discovers Laramie's rope and begins an upward climb. In the heat of the moment, our hero gets shot in the shoulder and falls unconscious. Then, the ominous sound of approaching footsteps! Who could it be? What's next for Laramie? Who survives this deadly encounter? Join us as we unravel this tale full of suspense and adventure, transporting you into the heart of the Wild West. Do you dare to ride with us on this wild journey?
Return of the Great Hunters
Cattle Drives Website
Legends of Dodge City Website
Order Books
This story was originally published in the October 1935 issue of Western Aces Starting life as an unsold submission written by pulp author Chandler Whipple. Popular writer Robert E Howard offered to rework and improve the tale After published in Bookform and in other places. As the Last Ride, wild West Podcast produced the audio version of the original transcript as it was first published. This story is in the public domain. Chapter 7 Bottle Up.
Speaker 1:A good three hours before sundown, laramie was in the foothills of the Diabolus. In another hour, by a dent of reckless riding over trails that were inches in width, which even he ordinarily would have shunned, he came inside of the entrance to the hideout. He had left signs farther down the trail to indicate not the way he had come but the best way for water's punchers to follow him Once more. He dismounted some distance from the tunnel and stole cautiously forward. There would be a new sentry at the entrance and Laramie's first job must be to dispose of him silently. He was halfway to the tunnel when he glimpsed the guard sitting several yards from the mouth near a clump of bushes. It was the Scarface fellow Harrison had called Braxton and he seemed wide awake. Falling back on Indian tactics acquired from the Yakis in Mexico.
Speaker 1:Laramie began a stealthy and necessarily slow advance on the guard, swinging in a circle that would bring him behind the man he crept up to within a dozen feet. Braxton was getting restless. He shifted his position, craning his neck as he stared suspiciously about him. Laramie believed he had heard, but not yet located, faint sounds made in Laramie's progress. In another instant he would turn his head and stare full at the bushes which afforded the attacker scanty cover. Gathering a handful of pebbles, laramie rose stealthily to his knees and threw them over the guard's head. They hit with a loud clatter some yards beyond the man. Braxton started to his feet with an oath. He glared in the direction of the sound with his Winchester half-lifted neck craned. At the same instant, laramie leapt for him with a six-gun raised like a club, scarface wheeled and his eyes flashed in amazement. He jerked the rifle around, but Laramie struck it aside with his left hand and brought down his pistol barrel crushingly on the man's head. Braxton went to his knees like a felled ox, slumped full-length and lay still. Laramie ripped off belts and neckerchief from the senseless figure bound and gagged his captive securely. He appropriated his pistol, rifle and spare cartridges then dragged him away from the tunnel mouth and shoved him in among a cluster of rocks and bushes, effectually concealing him from the casual glance, won the first trick by thunder, grunted Laramie. And now for the next deal.
Speaker 1:The success of that deal depended on whether or not all the outlaws of Harrison's band were in the hideout. Mark Raleigh was probably outside, yet maybe still back in San Leon, but Laramie knew he must take the chance that all the other outlaws were inside. He glanced up to a ledge overhanging the tunnel mouth, where he stood precariously balanced, the huge boulder which had given him his idea for bottling up the canyon Cork from my bottle, muttered Laramie. All I need now is a lever. A broken tree limb sufficed for that, and a few moments later he had climbed to the ledge and was at work on the boulder. A moment's panic assailed him, as he feared his base was too deeply embedded for him to move it. But under his fierce efforts he felt the great mass give at last A few minutes more of backbreaking effort. Another heave that made the veins bulge on his temples and the boulder started toppling, crashed over the ledge and thundered down into the tunnel entrance. It jammed there, almost filling the space. He swarmed down the wall and began wedging smaller rocks and brush in the apertures between the boulder and the tunnel sides. The only way his enemies could get out now was by climbing the canyon walls, a feat he considered practically impossible, or by laboriously picking out the stones he had jammed in place and squeezing away through a hole between the boulder and the tunnel wall, and neither method would be a cinch. With a resolute cow puncher slinging lead at everything that moved, laramie estimated that his whole task had taken about half an hour.
Speaker 1:Slinging Braxton's rifle over his shoulder, he clambered up the cliffs At the spot on the canyon rim where he had spied upon the hideout that morning. He forded himself by the simple procedure of crouching behind a fair-sized rock with the Winchester and pistols handy at his elbows. He had scarcely taken his position when he saw a mob of riders breaking away from the corral behind the cabin. As he had figured, the gang was getting away to an early start for his activities of the night. He counted twenty-five of them, and the very sun that glinted on polished gunhammers and silver conches seemed to reflect violence and evil deeds. Four hundred yards, muttered Laramie, squinting along the blue rifle barrel. Three, fifty Three hundred. Now I opened the ball At the ping of the shot. Dust spurred it in front of the horse's hooves and the riders scattered like quail with startled yells Drop them, shootin' irons and heist. Your hands roared, laramie. Tunnels corked up and you can't get out. His answer came in a vengeful hail of bullets spattering along the canyon rim for yards in either direction. He had not expected any other reply. His shout had been more for a rhetorical effect than anything else. But there was nothing theatrical about his second shot, which knocked a man out of the saddle. The fellow never moved after he hit the ground.
Speaker 1:The outlaws converged towards the tunnel entrance, firing as they rode, aiming at Laramie's area, which they had finally located. Laramie replied in kind. A mustang, smitten by a slug meant for his rider, rolled to the ground and broke his rider's leg under him. A squat raider howled profanely as the slug plowed through his breast muscles. The half-dozen men in the lead jammed into the tunnel and found that Laramie had formed them truthfully. Their yells reached a crescendo of fury. The others slid from their horses and took cover behind the rocks that littered the edges of the canyon, dragging the wounded men with them. From a rush and a dash, the fight settled to a slow, deadly grind, with nobody taking any rash chances.
Speaker 1:Having located his tiny fort, they concentrated their fire on the spot of the rim he occupied. A storm of bullets drove him to cover behind the breastworks and became exceedingly irksome. He had not seen either Raleigh or Harrison. Raleigh, he hoped, was still in San Leon, but the absence of Harrison worried him. Had he too gone to San Leon? If so, there was every chance that he might get clean away, even if his band was wiped out. There was another chance that he or Raleigh, or both of them, might return to the hideout and attack him from the rear.
Speaker 1:He cursed himself for not having divulged the true identity of the gang leader to Judy Anders, but he always seemed addled when talking to her. The ammunition supply of the outlaws seemed inexhaustible. He knew at least six men were in the tunnel and he heard them cursing and shouting, their voices muffled. He found himself confronted by a quandary that seemed, to admit, of no solution. If he did not discourage them, they would be breaking through the blocked tunnel and potting him from the rear. But to effect this discouragement meant leaving his point of vantage and giving the men below a chance to climb the canyon wall. He did not believe this could be done, but he did not know what additions to the fortress had been made by the new occupants. They might have chiseled out handholds at some point on the wall. Well, he'd have to look at the tunnel.
Speaker 1:6 Guns Against Rifles. If this keeps up much longer, he muttered, working his way over the ledges, cartridge is most gone. Why the devil don't Joel's men show up? I can't keep these hombres up forever, damn. His arm thrust his six gun out as he yelped. Stones and brush had been worked out at one place in the tunnel mouth and the head and shoulders of a man appeared At the crash of Laramie's cult. The fellow howled and vanished. Laramie crouched, glaring. They would try it again soon. If he was not there to give them lead argument, the whole gang would be squeezing out of the tunnel in no time.
Speaker 1:He could not get back to the rim and leave the tunnel unguarded. Yet there was always the possibility of somebody climbing the canyon wall. Had he but known it. His fears were justified, for while he crouched on the ledge, glaring down at the tunnel mouth down in the canyon, a man was wriggling toward a certain point of the cliff, where his keen eyes had discerned something dangling. He had discovered Laramie's rope hanging from the stunted tree on the rim.
Speaker 1:Cautiously, he lifted himself out of the tall grass, ready to duck back in an instant. Then, as no shout came from the canyon rim, he scuttled like a rabbit toward the wall. Kicking off his boots and slinging his rifle on his back, he began swarming ape-like up the almost sheer wall. His outstretched arm grasped the lower end of the rope just as the others in the canyon saw what he was doing and opened a furious fire on the rim to cover his activities. The outlaw on the rope swore luridly and went up with amazing agility, his flesh crawling, with the momentary expectation of a bullet in his back.
Speaker 1:The renewed firing had just the effect on Laramie that the climber had feared it would have. It drew him back to his breastwork. It was not until he was crouching behind his breastwork that it occurred to him that the volleys might have been attended to draw him away from the tunnel. So he spared only a limited glance over the rocks, for the bullets were winging so close that he dared not lift his head high. He did not see the man on the rope cover the last few feet in a scrambling rush and haul himself over the rim, unslinging his rifle as he did so.
Speaker 1:Laramie turned and headed back for the ledge once he could see the opening, and as he did so he brought himself into full view of the outlaw who was standing upright on the rim by the stunted tree. The whip-like crack of his winchester reached Laramie an instant before he felt a numbing impact in his left shoulder. The shock of the blow knocked him off his feet and his head hit hard against a rock. Even as he fell, he heard the crashing of brush down the trail and his last hopeless thought was that Raleigh and Harrison were returning. Then the impact of his head against the rock knocked all thought and it was stunned to blink.