The Rangeland Avenger - Max Brand
Perhaps their very numbers would work against them. Even now they could
be heard cautiously maneuvering. They would shoot through the door in
his general direction, unaimed shots, with the hope of a chance hit,
and eventually they would strike him down. Suppose he were to steal
close to the door, leap over the bed, and plunge out among them, his
Colt spitting lead and fire.
That unexpected attack would cleave a passage for him. The more he
thought of it, the more clearly he saw that the chances of escape to
the street were at least one in three. And yet he hesitated. If he made
that break two or three innocent men would go down before his bullets,
as he sprang out, shooting to kill. He shrank from the thought. He was
amazed at himself. Never before had he been so tender of expedients. He
had always fought to win--cleanly, but to win. Why was he suddenly
remembering that to these men he was an outlaw, fit meat for the first
bullet they could send home? Had he been one of them, he would have
taken up a position in that very hall just as they were doing.
Slowly, reluctantly, fighting himself as he did it, he shoved his
revolver back into his holster and determined to take the chance of
that surprise attack, with his empty hands against their guns. If they
did not drop him the instant he leaped out, he would be among them, too
close for gunplay unless they took the chance of killing their own men.
Keeping his gaze fixed on Cartwright across the room--for the moment he
showed his intention, Cartwright would shoot--he maneuvered softly
toward the bed. Cartwright turned his head, but made no move to lift
his gun. There was a reason. The light from the door fell nearer to the
rancher than it did to Sinclair. To Cartwright he must be no more than
a shapeless blur.
A gun exploded from the doorway, with only a glint of steel, as the
muzzle was shoved around the jamb. The bullet crashed harmlessly into
the wall behind him. Another try. The sharp, stifling odor of burned
powder began to fill the room, stinging the nostrils of Sinclair.
Cartwright was coughing in a stifled fashion on the far side of the
room, as if he feared a loud noise would draw a bullet his way.
All at once there was no sound in the hotel, and, as the wave of
silence spread, Sinclair was aware that the whole little town was
listening, waiting, watching. Not a whisper in the hall, not a stir
from Cartwright across the room. The quiet made the drama seem unreal.
Then that voice outside the window, which seemed to be Sinclair's
Nemesis, cried: "Steady, boys. Something's going to happen. He's
getting ready. Buck up, boys!"
In a moment of madness Sinclair decided to rush that window and dispose
of the cool-minded speaker at all costs before he died. There, at
least, was the one man he wished to kill. He followed that impulse long
enough to throw himself sidling along the floor, so as not to betray
his real strategic position to those at the door, and he splashed two
bullets into the wall, trimming the side of the window.
Only clear, deep-throated laughter came in response.
"I told you, boys. I read his mind, and he's mad at me, eh?"
But Riley Sinclair hardly heard the mocking answer. He had glided back
behind the bed, the instant the shots were fired. As he moved, two guns
appeared for a flickering instant around the edge of the doorway, one
on each side. Their muzzles kicked up rapidly, one, two, three, four,
five, six, and each, as he fired, spread the shots carefully from side
to side. Sinclair heard the bullets bite and splinter the woodwork
close to the floor. The chest of drawers staggered with the impact.
He raised his own gun, watched one of the jumping muzzles for an
instant, and then tried a snap shot. The report of his revolver was
bitten off short by the clang of metal; there was a shouted curse from
the hallway. He had blown the gun cleanly out of the sharpshooter's
hand.
Before the amazed rumble from the hall died away, Sinclair had acted.
He shoved his weapon back in its holster, and cleared the bed with a
flying leap. From the corner of his eye, he saw Cartwright snatch up
his gun and take a chance shot that whistled close to his head, and
then Sinclair plunged into the hall.
One glimmering chance of success remained. On the side of the door
toward which he drove there were only three men in the hall; behind him
were more, far more, but their weapons were neutralized. They could not
fire without risking a miss that would be certain to lodge a bullet in
the body of one of the men before Sinclair.
Those men were kneeling, for they had been reaching out and firing low
around the door to rake the floor of the room. At the appearance of
Sinclair they started up. He saw a gun jerk high for a snap shot, and,
swerving as he leaped, he drove out with all his weight behind his
fist. The knuckles bit through flesh to the bone. There was a jarring
impact, and now only two men were before him. One of them dropped his
gun--it was he who had just emptied his weapon into the room--and flung
himself at Sinclair, with outspread arms. The cowpuncher snapped up his
knee, and the blow crumpled the other back and to the side. He sprang
on toward the last man who barred his way. And all this in the split
part of a second.
Chance took a hand against him. In the very act of striking, his foot
lodged on the first senseless body, and he catapulted forward on his
hands. He struck the legs of the third man as he fell.
Down they went together, and Sinclair lurched up from under the weight
only to be overtaken by many reaching hands from behind. That instant
of delay had lost the battle for him; and, as he strove to whirl and
fight himself clear, an arm curled around his neck, shutting off his
breath. A great weight jarred between his shoulders. And he pitched
down to the floor.
He stopped fighting. He felt his gun slipped from the holster. Deft,
strong hands jerked his arms behind him and tied the wrists firmly
together. Then he was drawn to his feet.
All this without a word spoken, only the pant and struggle of
hard-drawn breaths. Not until he stood on his feet again, with a
bleeding-faced fellow rising with dazed eyes, and another clambering up
unsteadily, with both hands pressed against his head, did the captors
give voice. And their voice was a yell of triumph that was taken up in
two directions outside the hotel.
They became suddenly excited, riotously happy. In the overflowing of
their joy they were good-natured. Some one caught up Sinclair's hat and
jammed it on his head. Another slapped him on the shoulder.
"A fine, game fight!" said the latter. It was the man with the smeared
face. He was grinning through his wounds. "Hardest punch I ever got.
But I don't blame you, partner!"
Presently he saw Sheriff Kern. The latter was perfectly cool, perfectly
grave. It was his arm that had coiled around the neck of Sinclair and
throttled him into submission.
"You didn't come out to kill, Sinclair. Why?"
"I ain't used to slaughterhouse work," said Sinclair with equal calm,
although he was panting. "Besides, it wasn't worth it. Murder never
is."
"Kind of late to come to that idea, son. Now just trot along with me,
will you?" He paused. "Where's Arizona?"
Cartwright lurched out of the room with his naked gun in his hand. Red
dripped from the shallow wound where Sinclair's bullet had nicked him.
He plunged at the captive, yelling.
"Stop that fool!" snapped the sheriff.
Half a dozen men put themselves between the outlaw and the avenger.
Cartwright straggled vainly.
"Between you and me," said Sinclair coldly to the sheriff, "I think
that skunk would plug me while I got my hands tied."
The sheriff flashed a knowing glance up at his tall prisoner's face.
"I dunno, Sinclair. Kind of looks that way."
Although Cartwright had been persuaded to restore his gun to its cover,
he passed through the crowd until he confronted Sinclair.
"Now, the tables is turned, eh? I'll take the high hand from now on,
Sinclair!"
"It's no good," said Sinclair dryly. "The gent that shot out the light
had a chance to see something before he done the shooting. And what he
seen must have showed that you're yaller, Cartwright--yaller as a
yaller dog!"
Cartwright flung his fist with a curse into the face of the cowpuncher.
The weight of the blow jarred him back against the wall, but he met the
glare of Cartwright with a steady eye, a thin trickle of crimson
running down his cut lips. The sheriff rushed in between and mastered
Cartwright's arms.
"One more little trick like that, stranger, and I'll turn you over to
the boys. They got ways of teaching gents manners. How was you raised,
anyway?"
Suddenly sobered, Cartwright drew back from dark glances on every side.
"Fellows," he said, in a shaken voice, "I forgot his hands was tied.
But I'm kind of wrought up. He tried to murder me!"
"It's all right, partner," drawled Red Chalmers, and he laid a strong
hand on the shoulder of Cartwright. "It's all right. We all allow for
one break. But don't do something like that twice--not in these parts!"
Sinclair walked beside the sheriff, while the crowd poured past him and
down the hall. When they reached the head of the stairs they found the
lighted room below filled with excited, upturned faces; at the sight of
the sheriff and his prisoner they roared their applause. The faces were
blotted and blurred by a veil of rapidly, widely waving sombreros.
The sheriff paused halfway down the stairs and held up his hand.
Sinclair halted beside him looking disdainfully over the crowd.
Instantly noise and movement ceased. It was a spectacular picture, the
stubby little sheriff and the tall, lean, wolflike man he had captured.
It seemed a vivid illustration of the power of the law over the
lawbreaker. Sinclair glanced down in wonder at Kern. It was in
character for the sheriff to make a speech. A moment later the
sheriff's own words had explained his reason for the impromptu address.
"Boys," he said, "I figure some of you has got an almighty big wish to
see Sinclair on the end of a rope, eh?"
A deep growl answered him.
"Speaking personal," went on the sheriff smoothly, "I don't see how
he's done a thing worth hanging. He took a prisoner away from me, and
he's resisted arrest. That's all. Sinclair has got a name as a killer.
Maybe he is. But I know he ain't done no killing around these parts
that's come to light yet. I'll tell you another thing. A minute ago he
could have sent three men to death and maybe come off with a free skin.
But he chose to take his chance without shooting to kill. He tried to
fight his way out with his hands sooner'n blow the heads off of gents
that never done him no harm except to get in his way. Well, boys,
that's something you don't often see. And I tell you this right now: If
they's any lynch talk around this here town, you can lay to it that
you'll have to shoot your way to Sinclair through me. And I'll be a
dead one before you reach to him."
He paused. Someone hissed from the back of the crowd, but the majority
murmured in appreciation.
"One more thing," went on the sheriff. "Some of you may think it was
great guns to take Sinclair. It _was_ a pretty good job, but they ain't
no credit coming to me. I'm up here saying that all the praise goes to
a fat friend of mine by name Arizona. If you got any free drinks, let
'em drift the way of Arizona. Hey, Arizona, step out and make a bow,
will you?"
But no Arizona appeared. The crowd cheered him, and then cheered the
generous sheriff. Kern had won more by his frankness than he could
possibly have won in half a dozen spectacular exploits with a gun.
25
The crowd swirled out of the hotel before the sheriff and his prisoner,
and then swirled back again. No use following the sheriff if they hoped
for details. They knew his silence of old. Instead they picked off the
members who had taken part in some phase of the fight, and drew them
aside. As Sinclair went on down the street, the populace of Sour Creek
was left pooled behind him. Various orators were giving accounts of how
the whole thing had happened.
Sinclair had neither eye nor ear for them. But he looked back and up to
the western sky, with a flat-topped mountain clearly outlined against
it. There was his country, and in his country he had left Jig alone and
helpless. A feeling of utter desolation and failure came over him. He
had started with a double-goal--Sandersen or Cartwright, or both. He
had failed lamentably of reaching either one. He looked back to the
sheriff, squat, insignificant, gray-headed. What a man to have blocked
him!
"But who's this Arizona?" he asked.
"I dunno. Seems to have known you somewhere. Maybe a friend of yours,
Sinclair?"
"H'm," said the cowpuncher. "Maybe! Tell me: Was it him that was
outside the window and trimmed the light on me?"
"You got him right, Sinclair. That was the gent. Nice play he made,
eh?"
"Very pretty, sheriff. I thought I knowed his voice."
"He seems to have made himself pretty infrequent. Didn't know Arizona
was so darned modest."
"Maybe he's got other reasons," said Sinclair. "What's his full name?"
"Ain't that curious! I ain't heard of anybody else that knows it. He's
a cool head, this Arizona. Seemed to read your mind and know jest how
you'd jump, Sinclair. I would have been off combing the trails, but he
seemed to know that you'd come into town."
"I'll sure keep him in mind if I ever meet up with him," murmured
Sinclair. "Is this where I bunk?"
The sheriff had paused before a squat, dumpy building and was working
noisily at the lock with a big key. Now that his back was necessarily
toward his prisoner, two of the posse stepped up close beside Sinclair.
They had none of the sheriff's nonchalance. One of them was the man
whose head had made the acquaintance of Sinclair's knee, and both were
ready for instant action of any description.
"I'm Rhinehart," said one softly. "Keep me in mind, Sinclair. I'm him
that you smashed with your knee. Dirty work! I'll see you when you get
out of the lockup--if that ever happens!"
The voice of Sinclair was not so soft. "I'll meet you in jail or out,"
he answered, "on foot or on horseback, with fists or knife or gun. And
you can lay to this, Rhinehart: I'll remember you a pile better'n
you'll remember me!"
All the repressed savagery of his nature came quivering into his voice
as he spoke, and the other shrank instinctively a pace. In the meantime
the sheriff had succeeded in turning the rusted lock, which squeaked
back. The door grumbled on its heavy hinges. Sinclair stepped into the
musty, close atmosphere within.
"Don't look like you had much use for this here outfit," he said to the
sheriff.
The latter lighted a lantern.
"Nope," he said. "It sure beats all how the luck runs, Sinclair. We'd
had a pretty bad time with crooks around these parts, and them that was
nabbed in Sour Creek got away; about two out of three, before they was
brought to me at Woodville. So the boys got together and ponied up for
this little jail, and it's as neat a pile of mud and steel as ever you
see. Look at them bars. Kind of rusty, they look, but inside they're
toolproof. Oh, it's an up-to-date outfit, this jail. It's been a
comfort to me, and it's a credit to Sour Creek. But the trouble is that
since it was built they ain't been more'n one or two to put in it.
Maybe you can make out here for the night. Have you over to Woodville
in a couple of days, Sinclair."
He brought his prisoner into a cagelike cell, heavily guarded with bars
on all sides. The adobe walls had been trusted in no direction. The
steel lining was the strength of the Sour Creek jail. The sheriff
himself set about shaking out the blankets. When this was done, he bade
his two companions draw their guns and stand guard at the steel door to
the cell.
"Not that I don't trust you a good deal, Sinclair," he said, "but I
know that a gent sometimes takes big chances."
So saying, he cut the bonds of his prisoner, but instead of making a
plunge at the door, Sinclair merely stretched his long arms luxuriously
above his head. The sheriff slipped out of the door and closed it after
him. A heavy and prolonged clangor followed, as steel jarred home
against steel.
"Don't go sheriff," said Sinclair. "I need a chat with you."
"I'm in no hurry. And here's the gent we was talking about. Here's
Arizona!"
The sheriff had waved his two companions out of the jail, as soon as
the prisoner was securely lodged, and no sooner was this done, and they
had departed through the doorway, than the heavy figure of Arizona
himself appeared. He came slowly into the circle of the lantern light,
an oddly changed man.
His swaggering gait, with heels that pounded heavily, was gone. He
slunk forward, soft-footed. His head, usually so buoyantly erect, was
now sunk lower and forward. His high color had faded to a drab olive.
In fact, from a free-swinging, jovial, somewhat overbearing demeanor,
Arizona had changed to a mien of malicious and rather frightened
cunning. In this wise he advanced, heedless of the curious and
astonished sheriff, until his face was literally pressed against the
bars. He peered steadily at Sinclair.
On the face of the latter there had been at first blank surprise, then
a gradually dawning recognition. Finally he walked slowly to the bars.
As Sinclair approached, the fat cowpuncher drew back, with lingering
catlike steps, as if he grudged every inch of his retreat and yet dared
not remain to meet Sinclair.
"By the Eternal," said Sinclair, "it's Dago!"
Arizona halted, quivering with emotions which the sheriff could not
identify, save for a blind, intense malice. The tall man turned to the
sheriff, smiling: "Dago Lansing, eh?"
"Never heard that name," said the sheriff.
"Maybe not," replied Sinclair, "but that's the man I--"
"You lie!" cried Arizona huskily, and his fat, swift hand fluttered
nervously around the butt of the revolver. "Sheriff, they ain't nothing
but lies stocked up in him. Don't believe nothing he says!"
"Huh!" chuckled Sinclair. "Why, Kern, he's a man about eight years ago
that I--"
Pausing, he looked into the convulsed face of Arizona, who was
apparently tortured with apprehension.
"I won't go on, Dago," said Sinclair mildly. "But--so you've carried
this grudge all these days, eh?"
Arizona tossed up his head. For a moment he was the Arizona the sheriff
had known, but his laughter was too strident, and it was easy to see
that he was at a point of hysterically high tension.
"Well, I'd have carried it eighty years as easy as eight," declared
Arizona. "I been waiting all this time, and now I got you, Sinclair.
You'll rot behind the bars the best part of the life that's left to
you. And when you come out--I'll meet you ag'in!"
Sinclair smiled in a singular fashion. "Sorry to disappoint you, Dago.
But I'm not coming out. I'm going to stay put. I'm through." The other
blinked. "How come?"
"It's something you couldn't figure," said Sinclair calmly, and he eyed
the fat man as if from a great distance.
Sinclair was remembering the day, eight years ago, in a lumber camp to
the north when a shivering, meager, shifty-eyed youngster had come
among them asking for work. They had taken pity on him, those big
lumberjacks, put him up, given him money, kept him at the bunk house.
Then articles began to disappear, watches, money. It was Sinclair who
had caught the friendless stripling in the act of sleight of hand in
the middle of the night when the laborers, tired out, slept as if
stunned. And when the others would have let the cringing, weeping youth
go with a lecture and the return of his illicit spoils, it was the
stern Sinclair who had insisted on driving home the lesson. He forced
them to strip Dago to the waist. Two stalwarts held his hands, and
Sinclair laid on the whip. And Dago, the moment the lash fell, ceased
his wailing and begging, and stood quivering, with his head bent, his
teeth set and gritting, until the punishment was ended.
It was Sinclair, also, when the thing was ended, and the others would
have thrust the boy out penniless, who split the contents of his wallet
with Dago. He remembered the words he had spoken to the stripling that
day eight years before.
"You ain't had much luck out here in the West, kid, but stay around. Go
south. Learn to ride a hoss. They's nothing that puts heart and honesty
in a man like a good hoss. Don't go back to your city. You'll turn into
a snake there. Stay out here and practice being a man, will you? Get
the feel of a Colt. Fight your way. Keep your mouth shut and work with
your hands. And don't brag about what you know or what you've done.
That's the way to get on. You got the markings in you, son. You got
grit. I seen it when you was under the whip, and I wish I had the doing
of that over again. I made a mistake with you, kid. But do what I've
told you to do, and one of these days you'll meet up with me and beat
me to the draw and take everything you got as a grudge out on me. But
you can't do it unless you turn into a man."
Dago had listened in the most profound silence, accepted the money
without thanks, and disappeared, never to be heard from again. In the
sleek-faced man before him, Sinclair could hardly recognize that
slender fellow of the lumber camp. Only the bright and agile eyes were
the same; that, and a certain telltale nervousness of hand. The color
was coming back into his face.
"I guess I've done it," Arizona was saying. "I guess we're squared up,
Sinclair."
"Yep, and a balance on your side."
"Maybe, maybe not. But I've followed your advice, Long Riley. I've
never forgot a word of it. It was printed into me!"
He made a significant, short gesture, as if he were snapping a whip,
and a snarl of undying malice curled his lips.
"As long as you live, Sinclair," he added. "As long as you live, I'll
remember."
Even the sheriff shuddered at that glimpse into the black soul of a
man; Sinclair alone was unmoved.
"I reckon you've barked enough, Arizona," he suggested. "S'pose you
trot along. I got to have words with my friend, the sheriff."
Arizona waved his fat hand. He was recovering his ordinary poise, and
with a smiling good night to the sheriff, he turned away through the
door.
"Nice, friendly sort, eh?" remarked Sinclair the moment he was alone
with Kern.
"I still got the chills," said the sheriff. "Sure has got a wicked pair
of eyes, that Arizona."
Kern cast an apprehensive glance at the closed door, yet, in spite of
the fact that it was closed, he lowered his voice.
"What in thunder have you done to him, Sinclair?"
"About eight years ago--" began Sinclair and then stopped short.
"Let it go," he went on. "No matter what Arizona is today, he's sure
improved on the gent I used to know. What's done is done. Besides, I
made a mistake that time. I went too far with him, and a mistake is
like borrowed money, sheriff. It lays up interest and keeps
compounding. When you have to pay back what you done a long time ago,
you find it's a terrible pile. That's all I got to say about Arizona."
Sheriff Kern nodded. "That's straight talk, Sinclair," he said softly.
"But what was it you wanted to see me about?"
"Cold Feet," said Sinclair.
At once the sheriff brightened. "That's right," he said hurriedly. "You
got the right idea now, partner. Glad to see you're using hoss sense.
And if you gimme an idea of the trail that'll lead to Cold Feet, I can
see to it that you get out of this mess pretty pronto. After all, you
ain't done no real harm except for nicking Cartwright in the arm, and I
figure that he needs a little punishment. It'll cool his temper down."
"You think I ought to tell you where Cold Feet is?" asked Sinclair
without emotion.
"Why not?"
"Him and me sat around the same campfire, sheriff, and ate off'n the
same deer."
At this the sheriff winced. "I know," he murmured. "It's hard--mighty
hard!" He continued more smoothly: "But listen to me, partner. There's
twenty-five-hundred dollars on the head of Cold Feet. Why not come in?
Why not split on it? Plenty for both of us; and, speaking personal, I
could use half that money, and maybe you could use the other half just
as well!"
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Sinclair, "I'll give you the layout
for finding Cold Feet. Ride west out of Sour Creek and head for a
flat-topped mountain. On the shoulder just under the head of the peak
you'll find Cold Feet. Go get him!"
The sheriff caught his breath, then whirled on his heel. The sharp
voice of Sinclair called him back.
"Wait a minute. I ain't through. When you catch Cold Feet you go after
him without guns."
"How come?"
"Because you might hurt him, and he can't fight, sheriff. Even if he
was to pull a gun, he couldn't hit nothing with it. He couldn't hit the
ground he's standing on with a gun."
Sheriff Kern scratched his head.
"And when you get him," went on Sinclair, "tell him to go back and take
up his life where he left off, because they's no harm coming to him."