The Rangeland Avenger - Max Brand
"How come?"
"Sandersen's death by your bullet, and mine when I die in the law. Both
to your account, Arizona, because you know I'm innocent."
"I know it, but a hunch ain't proof in the eyes of the law. Besides, I
don't work so cheap. Sandersen was no good. He ain't worth thinking
about. And as for you, Jig, though I don't like to throw it in your
face, as a schoolteacher you may be all right, but as a man you ain't
worth a damn. Nope. I won't give neither of you a thought--except for
Sinclair."
"Ah?"
"Him and you have been bunkies, if he ever should find out what I done,
he'd go on my trail. Maybe he will anyway. And he's a bad one to have
on a gent's trail."
"You fear him?" she asked curiously, for it had seemed impossible that
this cold-blooded gunman feared any living thing.
He rolled a cigarette meditatively before he answered.
"Sure," he said, "I fear him. I ain't a fool. It was him that started
me, and him that gave me the first main lessons. But I ain't got the
nacheral talent with a gun that Sinclair has got."
Nodding his head in confirmation, his expression softened, as with the
admiration of one artist for a greater kindred spirit.
"The proof is that they's a long list of gunfights in Sinclair's past,
but not more deaths than you can count on the fingers of one hand. And
them that he killed was plumb no good. The rest he winged and let 'em
go. That's his way, and it takes an artist with a gun to work like
that. Yep, he's a great man, curse him! Only one weak thing I ever hear
of him doing. He buckled to the sheriff and told him where to find
you!"
Scratching a match on his trousers, the cowpuncher was amazed to hear
Jig cry: "You lie!"
He gaped at her until the match singed his fingers. "That's a tolerable
loud word for a kid to use!"
Apparently he meditated punishment, but then he shrugged his shoulders
and lighted his cigarette.
"Wild horses couldn't have dragged it out of him!" Jig was repeating.
"Say," said the fat man, grinning, "how d'you know _I_ knew where you
was?"
Like a blow in the face it silenced her. She looked miserably down to
the ground. Was it possible that Sinclair had betrayed her? Not for the
murder of Quade. He would be more apt to confess that himself, and
indeed she dreaded the confession. But if he let her be dragged back,
if her identity became known, she faced what was more horrible to her
than hanging, and that was life with Cartwright.
"Which reminds me," said Arizona, "that the old sheriff may not wait
for morning before he starts after you. Just slope down the hill and
saddle your hoss, will you?"
Automatically she obeyed, wild thoughts running through her mind. To go
back to Sour Creek meant a return to Cartwright, and then nothing could
save her from him. Halfway to her saddle her foot struck metal, her own
gun, which Arizona had dropped after firing the bullet. Was there not a
possibility of escape? She heard Arizona humming idly behind her.
Plainly he was entirely off guard.
Bending with the speed of a bird in picking up a seed, she scooped up
the gun, whirling with the heavy weapon extended, her forefinger
curling on the trigger. But, as she turned, the humming of Arizona
changed to a low snarl. She saw him coming like a bolt. The gun
exploded of its own volition, it seemed to her, but Arizona had swerved
in his course, and the shot went wild.
The next instant he struck her. The gun was wrenched from her hand, and
a powerful arm caught her and whirled her up, only to hurl her to the
ground; Arizona's snarling, panting face bent over her. In the very
midst of that fury she felt Arizona stiffen and freeze; the snarling
stopped; his nerveless arm fell away, and she was allowed to stagger to
her feet. She found him staring at her with a peculiar horror.
"Murdering guns!" whispered Arizona.
Now she understood that he knew. She saw him changed, humbled, disarmed
before her. But even then she did not understand the profound meaning
of that moment in the life of Arizona.
But to have understood, she would have had to know how that life began
in a city slum. She would have had to see the career of the sneak thief
which culminated in the episode of the lumber camp eight years before.
She would have had to understand how the lesson from the hand of big
Sinclair had begun the change which transformed the sneak into the
dangerous man of action. And now the second change had come. For
Arizona had made the unique discovery that he could be ashamed!
He would have laughed had another told him. Virtue was a name and no
more to the fat man. But in spite of himself those eight years under
free skies had altered him. He had been growing when he thought he was
standing still. When the eye plunges forty miles from mountain to
mountain, through crystal-clear air, the mind is enlarged. He had lived
exclusively among hard-handed men, rejoicing in a strength greater than
their own. He suddenly found that the feeble hand from which he had so
easily torn the weapon a moment before, had in an instant acquired
strength to make or break him.
All that Jig could discern of this was that her life was no longer in
danger, and that her enemy had been disarmed. But she was not prepared
for what followed.
Dragging off his hat, as if he acted reluctantly, his eyes sank until
they rested on the ground at her feet.
"Lady," he said, "I didn't know. I didn't even dream what you was."
29
Gradually she found her breath and greater self-possession.
"You mean I'm free?" she asked him. "You won't make me go into Sour
Creek?"
His face twisted as if in pain. "Make you?" he asked violently. "I'd
blow the head off the first one that tried to make you take a step."
Suddenly it seemed to her that all this was ordered and arranged, that
some mysterious Providence had sent this man here to save her from
Sandersen and all the horror that the future promised, just as Sinclair
had saved her once before from a danger which he himself had half
created.
"I got this to say," went on Arizona, struggling for the words. "Looks
to me like you might have need of a friend to help you along, wherever
you're going." He shook his thick shoulders. "Sure gives me a jolt to
think of what you must have gone through, wandering around here all by
yourself! I sure don't see how you done it!"
And all this time the man whom Arizona had killed, was lying face up to
the morning, hardly a pace behind him! But she dared not try to analyze
this man. She could only feel vaguely that an ally had been given her,
an ally of strength. He, too, must have sensed what was in her mind.
"You'll be wanting this, I reckon."
Returning the Colt to her, he slowly dragged his glance from the ground
and let it cross her face for a fleeting instant. She slipped the gun
back into its holster.
"And now suppose we go down the hill and get your hoss?"
Evidently he was painfully eager to get the dead man out of sight. Yet
he paused while he picked up her saddle.
"They'll be along pretty pronto--the sheriff and his men. They'll take
care of--him."
Leading the way down to her hobbled horse he saddled it swiftly, while
she stood aside and watched. When he was done he turned to her.
"Maybe we better be starting. It wouldn't come in very handy for Kern
to find us here, eh?"
Obediently she came. With one hand he held the stirrup, while the other
steadied her weight by the elbow, as she raised her foot. In spite of
herself she shivered at his touch. A moment later, from the saddle, she
was looking down into a darkly crimsoned face. Plainly he had
understood that impulse of aversion, but he said nothing.
There was a low neigh from the other side of the hill in answer to his
soft whistle, and then out of the trees came a beautifully formed roan
mare, with high head and pricking ears. With mincing steps she went
straight to her master, and Jig saw the face of the other brighten. But
he was gloomy again by the time he had swung into the saddle.
"Now," he said, "where away?"
"You're coming with me?" she asked, with a new touch of alarm. She
regretted her tone the moment she had spoken. She saw Arizona wince.
"Lady," he said, "suppose I come clean to you? I been in my time about
everything that's bad. I ain't done a killing except squarely. Sinclair
taught me that. And you got to allow that what I done to Sandersen was
after I give him all the advantage in the draw. I took even chances,
and I give him better than an even break. Ain't that correct?"
She nodded, fascinated by the struggle in his face between pride and
shame and anger.
"Worse'n that," he went on, forcing out the bitter truth. "I been
everything down to a sharp with the cards, which is tolerable low. But
I got this to say: I'm playing clean with you. I'll prove it before I'm
done. If you want me to break loose and leave you alone, say the word,
and I'm gone. If you want me to stay and help where I can help, say the
word, and I stay and take orders. Come out with it!"
Gathering his reins, he sat very straight and looked her fairly and
squarely in the eye, for the first time since he had discovered the
truth about Cold Feet. In spite of herself Jig found that she was drawn
to trust the fat man. She let a smile grow, let her glance become as
level and as straight as his own. She reined her horse beside his and
stretched out her hand.
"I know you mean what you say," said Jig. "And I don't care what you
have been in the past. I _do_ need a friend--desperately. Riley
Sinclair says that a friend is the most sacred thing in the world. I
don't ask that much, but of all the men I know you are the only one who
can help me as I need to be helped. Will you shake hands for a new
start between us?"
"Lady," said the cowpuncher huskily, "this sure means a lot to me. And
the--other things--you'll forget?"
"I never knew you," said the girl, smiling at him again, "until this
moment."
"Oh, it's a go!" cried Arizona. "Now try me out!"
Jig saw his self-respect come back to him, saw his eye grow bright and
clear. Arizona was like a man with a new "good resolution." He wanted
to test his strength and astonish someone with his change.
"There is one great thing in which I need help," she said.
"Good! And what's that?"
"Riley Sinclair is in jail."
"H'm," muttered Arizona. "He ain't in on a serious charge. Let him stay
a while." Stiffening in the saddle he stared at her. "Does Sinclair
know?"
"What?" asked the girl, but she flushed in spite of herself.
"That you ain't a man?"
"Yes."
For a moment he considered her crimson face gloomily. "You and Sinclair
was sort of pals, I guess," he said at length.
Faintly she replied in the affirmative, and her secret was written as
clearly as sunlight on her face. Yet she kept her eyes raised bravely.
As for Arizona, the newborn hope died in him, and then flickered back
to an evil life. If Sinclair was in his way, why give up? Why not
remove this obstacle as he had removed others in his time. The hurrying
voice of the girl broke in on his somber thoughts.
"He went to Sour Creek to help me as soon as he found out that I was
not a man. He put himself in terrible danger there on my account."
"Did Cartwright have something to do with you and him?"
"Yes."
But Arizona made no effort to read her riddle.
She went on: "Now that he has been taken, I know what has happened. To
keep me out of danger he told--"
"That you're a woman?"
"No, he wouldn't do that, because he knows that is the last thing in
the world that I want revealed. But he's told them that he killed
Quade, and now he's in danger of his life."
"Let's ride on," said Arizona. "I got to think a pile."
She did not speak, while the horses wound down the steep side of the
mountain. Mile after mile rose behind them. The sun increased in power,
flashing on the leaves of the trees and beginning to burn the face with
its slanting heat. Now and then she ventured a side-glance at Arizona,
and always she found him in a brown study. Vaguely she knew that he was
fighting the old battle of good and evil in the silence of the morning.
Finally he stopped his horse and turned to her again.
They were in the foothills by this time, and they had drawn out from
the trees to a little level space on the top of a rise. The morning
mist was thinning rapidly in the heart of the hollow beneath them. Far
off, they heard the lowing of cows being driven into the pasture land
after the morning milking, and they could make out tiny figures in the
fields.
"Lady," Arizona was saying to her, "they's one gent in the world that
I've got an eight-year-old grudge agin'. I've swore to get him sooner
or later, and that gent is Riley Sinclair. Make it something else, and
I'll work for you till the skin's off my hands. But Sinclair--" He
stopped, studying her intently. "Will you tell me one thing? How much
does Sinclair mean to you."
"A great deal," said the girl gently. "But if you hate him, I can't ask
you."
"He's a hard man," said Arizona, "and he's got a mean name, lady. You
know that. But when you say that he means a lot to you, maybe it's
because he's taken a big chance for you in Sour Creek and--"
She shook her head. "It's more than that--much more."
"Well, I guess I understand," said Arizona.
Burying the last of his hopes, Arizona looked straight into the sun.
"Eight years ago he was a better man than I am," said he at length.
"And he's a better man still. Lady, I'm going to get Riley Sinclair
free!"
30
As Arizona had predicted, Sheriff Kern was greatly tempted not to start
on the hard ride for the mountains before morning, and finally he
followed his impulse. With the first break of the dawn he was up, and a
few minutes later he had taken the trail alone. There was no need of
numbers, for that matter, to tell a single man that he no longer need
dread the law. But it was only common decency to inform him of the
charge, and Kern was a decent sort.
He was thoughtful on the trail. A great many things had happened to
upset the sheriff. The capture of Sinclair, take it all in all, was an
important event. To be sure, the chief glory was attributable to the
cunning of Arizona; nevertheless, the community was sure to pay homage
to the skill of the sheriff who had led the party and managed the
capture.
But now the sheriff found himself regretting the capture and all its
attendant glory. Not even a personal grudge against the man who had
taken his first prisoner from him, could give an edge to the sheriff's
satisfaction, for, during the late hours of the preceding night he had
heard from Sinclair the true story of the killing of Quade; not a
murder, but a fair fight. And he had heard more--the whole unhappy tale
which began with the death of Hal Sinclair in the desert, a story which
now included, so far as the sheriff knew, three deaths, with a promise
of another in the future.
It was little wonder that he was disturbed. His philosophy was of the
kind that is built up in a country of horses, hard riding, hard work,
hard fighting. According to the precepts of that philosophy, Sinclair
would have shirked a vital moral duty had he failed to avenge the
pitiful death of his brother.
The sheriff put himself into the boots of the man who was now his
prisoner and facing a sentence of death. In that man's place he knew
that he would have taken the same course. It was a matter of necessary
principle; and the sheriff also knew that no jury in the country could
allow Sinclair to go free. It might not be the death sentence, but it
would certainly be a prison term as bad as death.
These thoughts consumed the time for the sheriff until his horse had
labored up the height, and he came to the little plateau where so much
had happened outside of his ken. And there he saw Bill Sandersen, with
the all-seeing sun on his dead eyes.
For a moment the sheriff could not believe what he saw. Sandersen was,
in the phrase of the land, "Sinclair's meat." It suddenly seemed to him
that Sinclair must have broken from jail and done this killing during
the night. But a moment's reflection assured him that this could not
be. The mind of the sheriff whirled. Not Sinclair, certainly. The man
had been dead for some hours. In the sky, far above and to the north,
there were certain black specks, moving in great circles that drifted
gradually south. The buzzards were already coming to the dead. He
watched them for a moment, with the sinking of the heart which always
comes to the man of the mountain desert when he sees those grim birds.
It was not Sinclair. But who, then?
He examined the body and the wound. It was a center shot, nicely
placed. Certainly not the sort of shot that Cold Feet, according to the
description which Sinclair had given of the latter's marksmanship,
would be apt to make. But there was no other conclusion to come to.
Cold Feet had certainly been here according to Sinclair's confession,
and it was certainly reasonable to suppose that Cold Feet had committed
this crime. The sheriff placed the hat of Sinclair over his face and
swung back into his saddle; he must hurry back to Sour Creek and send
up a burial party, for no one would have an interest in interring the
body in the town.
But once in the saddle he paused again. The thought of the
schoolteacher having killed so formidable a fighter as Sandersen stuck
in his mind as a thing too contrary to probability. Moreover the
sheriff had grown extremely cautious. He had made one great failure
very recently--the escape of this same Cold Feet. He would have failed
again had it not been for Arizona. He shuddered at the thought of how
his reputation would have been ruined had he gone on the trail and
allowed Sinclair to double back to Sour Creek and take the town by
surprise.
Dismounting, he threw his reins and went back to review the scene of
the killing. There were plenty of tracks around the place. The gravel
obscured a great part of the marks, and still other prints were blurred
by the dead grass. But there were pockets of rich, loamy soil, moist
enough and firm enough to take an impression as clearly as paper takes
ink. The sheriff removed the right shoe from the foot of Sandersen and
made a series of fresh prints.
They were quite distinctive. The heel was turned out to such an extent
that the track was always a narrow indentation, where the heel fell on
the soft soil. He identified the same tracks in many places, and,
dismissing the other tracks, the sheriff proceeded to make up a trail
history for Sandersen.
Here he came up the hill, on foot. Here he paused beside the embers of
the fire and remained standing for a long time, for the marks were
worked in deeply. After a time the trail went--he followed it with
difficulty over the hard-packed gravel--up the side of the hill to a
semicircular arrangement of rocks, and there, distinct in the soil, was
the impression of the body, where the cowpuncher had lain down. The
sheriff lay down in turn, and at once he was sure why Sandersen had
chosen this spot. He was defended perfectly on three sides from
bullets, and in the meantime, through crevices in the rock, he
maintained a clear outlook over the whole side of the hill.
Obviously Sandersen had lain down to keep watch. For what? For Cold
Feet, of course, on whose head a price rested. Or, at least, so
Sinclair must have believed at the time. The news had not yet been
published abroad that Cold Feet had been exculpated by the confession
of Sinclair to the killing of Quade.
So much was clear. But presently Sandersen had risen and gone down the
hill again, leaving from the other side of the rock. Had he covered
Cold Feet when the latter returned to his camp, having been absent when
Sandersen first arrived? No, the tracks down the hill were leisurely,
not the long strides which a man would make to get close to one whom he
had covered with a revolver from a distance.
Reaching the shoulder of the mountain, Kern puzzled anew. He began a
fresh study of the tracks. Those of Cold Feet were instantly known by
the tiny size of the marks of the soles. The sheriff remembered that he
had often wondered at the smallness of the schoolteacher's feet. Cold
Feet was there, and Sandersen was dead. Again it seemed certain that
Cold Feet had been guilty of the crime, but the sheriff kept on
systematically hunting for new evidence. He found no third set of
tracks for some time, but when he did find them, they were very
clear--a short, broad foot, the imprint of a heavy man. A fat man,
then, no doubt. From the length of the footprint it was very doubtful
if the man were tall, and certainly by the clearness of the
indentation, the man was heavy. The sheriff could tell by making a
track beside that of the quarry.
A second possibility, therefore, had entered, and the sheriff felt a
reasonable conviction that this must be the guilty man.
Now he combed the whole area for some means of identifying the third
man who had been on the mountainside. But nothing had been dropped
except a brilliant bandanna, wadded compactly together, which the
sheriff recognized as belonging to Sandersen. There was only one
definite means of recognizing the third man. Very faint in the center
of the impression made by his sole, were two crossed arrows, the sign
of the bootmaker.
The sheriff shook his head. Could he examine the soles of the boots of
every man in the vicinity of Sour Creek, even if he limited his inquiry
to those who were short and stocky? And might there not be many a man
who wore the same type of boots?
He flung himself gloomily into his saddle again, and this time he
headed straight down the trail for Sour Creek.
At the hotel he was surrounded by an excited knot of people who wished
to know how he had extracted the amazing confession from Riley
Sinclair. The sheriff tore himself away from a dozen hands who wished
to buttonhole him in close conversation.
"I'll tell you gents this," he said. "Quade was killed because he
needed killing, and Sinclair confessed because he's straight."
With that, casting an ugly glance at the lot of them, he went back into
the kitchen and demanded a cup of coffee. The Chinese cook obeyed the
order in a hurry, highly flattered and not a little nervous at the
presence of the great man in the kitchen.
While Kern was there, Arizona entered. The sheriff greeted him
cheerfully, with his coffee cup balanced in one hand.
"Arizona," he said, "or Dago, or whatever you like to be called--"
"Cut the Dago part, will you?" demanded Arizona. "I ain't no ways
wishing to be reminded of that name. Nobody calls me that."
Kern grinned covertly.
"I s'pose," said Arizona slowly, "that you and Sinclair had a long yarn
about when he knew me some time back?"
The sheriff shook his head.
"Between you and me," he said frankly, "it sounded to me like Sinclair
knew something you mightn't want to have noised around. Is that
straight?"
"I'll tell you," answered the other. "When I was a kid I was a fool
kid. That's all it amounts to."
Sheriff Kern grunted. "All right, Arizona, I ain't asking. But you can
lay to it that Sinclair won't talk. He's as straight as ever I seen!"
"Maybe," said Arizona, "but he's slippery. And I got this to say: Lemme
have the watch over Sinclair while he's in Sour Creek, or are you
taking him back to Woodville today?"
"I'm held over," said the sheriff.
He paused. Twice the little olive-skinned man from the south had
demonstrated his superiority in working out criminal puzzles. The
sheriff was prone to unravel the new mystery by himself, if he might.
"By what?"
"Oh, by something I'll tell you about later on," said the sheriff. "It
don't amount to much, but I want to look into it."
Purposely he had delayed sending the party to bury Sandersen. It would
be simply warning the murderer if that man were in Sour Creek.
"About you and Sinclair," went on the sheriff, "there ain't much good
feeling between you, eh?"
"I won't shoot him in the back if I guard him," declared Arizona. "But
if you want one of the other boys to take the jog, go ahead. Put Red on
it."
"He's too young. Sinclair's get him off guard by talking."
"Then try Wood."
"Wood ain't at his best off the trail. Come to think about it, I'd
rather trust Sinclair to you--that is, if you make up your mind to
treat him square."
"Sheriff, I'll give him a squarer deal than you think."
Kern nodded.
"More coffee, Li!" he called.
Li obeyed with such haste that he overbrimmed the cup, and some of the
liquid washed out of the saucer onto the floor.
"Coming back to shop talk," went on the sheriff, as Li mopped up the
spilled coffee, mumbling excuses, "I ain't had a real chance to tell
you what a fine job you done for us last night, Arizona."
Arizona, with due modesty, waved the praise away and stepped to the
container of matches hanging beside the stove. He came back lighting a
cigarette and contentedly puffed out a great cloud.
"Forget all that, sheriff, will you?"
"Not if I live to be a hundred," answered the sheriff with frank
admiration.