The Rangeland Avenger - Max Brand
So saying, his eye dropped to the floor and remained there, riveted.
The foot of Arizona had rested on the spot where the coffee had fallen.
The print was clearly marked with dust, except that in the center,
where the sole had lain, there was a sharply defined pair of crossed
arrows!
A short, fat, heavy man.
The sheriff raised his glance and examined the bulky shoulders of the
man. Then he hastily swallowed the rest of his coffee.
Yet there might be a dozen other short, stocky men in town, whose boots
had the same impression. He looked thoughtfully out the kitchen window,
striving to remember some clue. But, as far as he could make out, the
only time Arizona and Sandersen had crossed had been when the latter
applied for a place on the posse. Surely a small thing to make a man
commit a murder!
"If you gimme the job of guarding Sinclair," said Arizona, "I'd sure--"
"Wait a minute," cut in the sheriff. "I'll be back right away. I think
that was MacKenzie who went into the stable. Don't leave till I come
back, Arizona."
Hurriedly he went out. There was no MacKenzie in the stable, and the
sheriff did not look for one. He went straight to Arizona's horse. The
roan was perfectly dry, but examining the hide, the sheriff saw that
the horse had been recently groomed, and a thorough grooming would soon
dry the hair and remove all traces of a long ride.
Stepping back to the peg from which the saddle hung, he raised the
stirrup leather. On the inside, where the leather had chafed the side
of the horse, there was a dirty gray coating, the accumulation of the
dust and sweat of many a ride. But it was soft with recent sweat, and
along the edges of the leather there was a barely dried line of foam
that rubbed away readily under the touch of his fingertip.
Next he examined the bridle. There, also, were similar evidences of
recent riding. The sheriff returned calmly to the kitchen of the hotel.
"And your mind's made up?" asked Arizona.
"Yes," said the sheriff. "You go in with Sinclair."
"Go _in_ with him?" asked Arizona, baffled.
"For murder," said the sheriff. "Stick up your hands, Arizona!"
31
Even though he was taken utterly by surprise, habit made Arizona go for
his own gun, as the sheriff whipped out his weapon. But under those
conditions he was beaten badly to the draw. Before his weapon was half
out of the holster, the sheriff had the drop.
Arizona paused, but, for a moment, his eyes fought Kern, figuring
chances. It was only the hesitation of an instant. The battle was lost
before it had begun, and Arizona was clever enough to know it. Swiftly
he turned on a new tack. He shoved his revolver back into the holster
and smiled benevolently on the sheriff.
"What's the new game, Kern?"
"It ain't new," said the sheriff joylessly. "It's about the oldest game
in the world. Arizona, you sure killed Sandersen."
"Sandersen?" Arizona laughed. "Why, man, I ain't hardly seen him more
than once. How come that I would kill him?"
"Get your hands up, Arizona."
"Oh, sure." He obeyed with apparent willingness. "But don't let anybody
see you making this fool play, sheriff."
"Maybe not so foolish. I'll tell you why you killed him. You're broke,
Arizona. Ten days ago Mississippi Slim cleaned you out at dice. Well,
when Sinclair told me where Cold Feet was, you listened through the
door, but you didn't stay to find out that Jig wasn't wanted no more.
You beat it up to the mountain, and there you found Sandersen was ahead
of your time. You drilled Sandersen, hoping to throw the blame on Cold
Feet. Then you come down, but on the way Cold Feet gives you the slip
and gets away. And that's why you're here."
Arizona blinked. So much of this tale was true that it shook even his
iron nerve. He managed to smile.
"That's a wild yarn, sheriff. D'you think it'll go down with a jury?"
"It'll go down with any jury around these parts. What's more, Arizona,
I ain't going to rest on what I think. I'm going to find out. And, if I
send down to the south inquiring about you, I got an idea that I'll
find out enough to hang ten like you, eh?"
Once more Arizona received a vital blow, and he winced under the
impact. Moreover, he was bewildered. His own superior intelligence had
inclined him to despise the sheriff, whom he put down as a fellow of
more bulldog power than mental agility. All in a moment it was being
borne in upon him that he had underrated his man. He could not answer.
His smooth tongue was chained.
"Not that I got any personal grudge agin' you," went on the sheriff,
"but it's gents like you that I'm after, Arizona, and not one like
Sinclair. You ain't clean, Arizona. You're slick, and they ain't
elbowroom enough in the West for slick gents. Besides, you got a bad
way with your gun. I can tell you this, speaking private and
confidential, I'm going to hang you, Arizona, if there's any way
possible!"
He said all this quietly, but the revolver remained poised with
rocklike firmness. He drew out a pair of manacles.
"Stand up, Arizona."
Listlessly the fat man got up. He had been changing singularly during
the last speech of the sheriff. Now he dropped a hand on the edge of
the table, as if to support himself. The sheriff saw that hand grip the
wood until the knuckles went white. Arizona moistened his colorless
lips.
"Not the irons, sheriff," he said softly. "Not them!"
If it had been any other man, Kern would have imagined that he was
losing his nerve; but he knew Arizona, had seen him in action, and he
was certain that his courage was above question. Consequently he was
amazed. As certainly as he had ever seen them exposed, these were the
horrible symptoms of cowardice that make a brave man shudder to see.
"Can't trust you," he said wonderingly. "Wouldn't trust you a minute,
Arizona, without the irons on you. You're a bad actor, son, and I've
seen you acting up. Don't forget that."
"Sheriff, I give you my word that I'll go quiet as a lamb."
A moment elapsed before Kern could answer, for the voice of Arizona had
trembled as he spoke. The sheriff could not believe his ears.
"Well, I'm sorry, Arizona," he said more gently, because he was
striving to banish this disgusting suspicion from his own mind. "I
can't take no chances. Just turn around, will you. And keep them hands
up!"
He barked the last words, for the arms of Arizona had crooked suddenly.
They stiffened at the sharp command of the sheriff. Slowly, trembling,
as if they possessed a volition of their own hardly controlled by the
fat man, those hands fought their way back to their former position,
and then Arizona gradually turned his back on the sheriff. A convulsive
shudder ran through him as Kern removed his gun and then seized one of
the raised hands, drew it down, and fastened one part of the iron on
it. The other hand followed, and, as the sheriff snapped the lock, he
saw a singular transformation in the figure of his captive. The
shoulders of Arizona slouched forward, his head sank. From the erect,
powerful figure of the moment before, he became, in comparison, a
flabby pile of flesh, animated by no will.
"What's the matter?" asked the sheriff. "You ain't lost your nerve,
have you, Fatty?"
Arizona did not answer. Kern stepped to one side and glanced at the
face of his captive. It was strangely altered. The mouth had become
trembling, loose, uncertain. The head had fallen, and the bright, keen
eyes were dull. The man looked up with darting side-glances.
The sheriff stood back and wiped a sudden perspiration from his
forehead. Under his very eyes the spirit of this gunfighter was
disintegrating. The sheriff felt a cold shame pour through him. He
wanted to hide this man from the eyes of the others. It was not right
that he should be seen. His weakness was written too patently.
Kern was no psychologist, but he knew that some men out of their
peculiar element are like fish out of water. He shook his head.
"Walk out that back door, will you?" he asked softly.
"We ain't going down the street?" demanded Arizona.
"No."
"Thanks, sheriff."
Again Kern shuddered, swallowed, and then commanded: "Start along,
Arizona."
Slinking through the door, the fat man hesitated on the little porch
and cast a quick glance up and down.
"No one near!" he said. "Hurry up, sheriff."
Quickly they skirted down behind the houses--not unseen, however. A
small boy playing behind his father's house raised his head to watch
the hurrying pair, and when he saw the glitter of the irons, they heard
him gasp. He was old enough to know the meaning of that. Irons on
Arizona, who had been a town hero the night before! They saw the
youngster dart around the house.
"Blast him!" groaned Arizona. "He'll spread it everywhere. Hurry!"
He was right. The sheriff hurried with a will, but, as they crossed the
street for the door of the jail, voices blew down to them. Looking
toward the hotel, they saw men pouring out into the street, pointing,
shouting to one another. Then they swept down on the pair.
But the sheriff and his prisoner gained the door of the jail first, and
Kern locked it behind him. His deputy on guard rose with a start, and
at the same time there was a hurried knocking on the door and a clamor
of voices without. Arizona shrank away from that sound, scowling over
his shoulder, but the sheriff nodded good-humoredly.
"Take it easy, Arizona. I ain't going to make a show of you!"
"Sure, that's like you, sheriff," said a hurried, half-whining voice.
"You're square. I'll sure show you one of these days now I appreciate
the way you treat me!"
Kern was staggered. It seemed to him that a new personality had taken
possession of the body of the fat man. He led the way past his gaping
deputy. The jail was not constructed for a crowd. It was merely a
temporary abiding place before prisoners were taken to the larger
institution at Woodville. Consequently there was only one big cell. The
sheriff unlocked the door, slipped the manacles from the wrists of
Arizona, and jabbed the muzzle of a revolver into his back!
The last act was decidedly necessary, for the moment his wrists were
released from the grip of the steel, Arizona twitched halfway round
toward the sheriff. The scrape of the gunmuzzle against his ribs,
however, convinced him. Over his shoulder he cast one murderous glance
at the sheriff and then slouched forward into the cell.
"Company for you, Riley," said the sheriff, as the tall cowpuncher
rose.
The other's back was turned, and thereby the sheriff was enabled to
pass a significant gesture and look to Sinclair. With that he left
them. In the outer room he found his deputy much alarmed.
"You ain't turned them two in together?" he asked. "Why, Sinclair'll
kill that gent in about a minute. Ain't it Arizona that nailed him?"
"Sinclair will play square," Kern insisted, "and Arizona won't fight!"
Leaving the other to digest these mysterious tidings, the sheriff went
out to disperse the crowd.
In the meantime Sinclair had received the newcomer in perfect silence,
his head raised high, his thin mouth set in an Ugly line--very much as
an eagle might receive an owl which floundered by mistake onto the same
crag, far above his element. The eagle hesitated between scorn of the
visitor and a faint desire to pounce on him and rend him to pieces.
That glittering eye, however, was soon dull with wonder, when he
watched the actions of Arizona.
The fat man paused in the center of the cell, regarded Sinclair with a
single flash of the eyes, and then glanced uneasily from side to side.
That done, he slipped away to a corner and slouched down on a stool,
his head bent down on his breast.
Apparently he had fallen into a profound reverie, but Sinclair found
that the eyes of Arizona continually whipped up and across to him. Once
the newcomer shifted his position a little, and Sinclair saw him test
the weight of the stool beneath him with his hand. Even in the cell
Arizona had found a weapon.
Gradually Sinclair understood the meaning of that glance and the
gesture of the sheriff, as the latter left; he read other things in the
gray pallor of Arizona, and in the fallen head. The man was unnerved.
Sinclair's reaction was very much what that of the sheriff had been--a
sinking of the heart and a momentary doubt of himself. But he was
something more of a philosopher than Kern. He had seen more of life and
men and put two and two together.
One thing stared him plainly in the face. The Arizona who skulked in
the corner had relapsed eight years. He was the same sneak thief whom
Sinclair had first met in the lumber camp, and he knew instinctively
that this was the first time since that unpleasant episode that Arizona
had been cornered. The loathing left Sinclair, and in its place came
pity. He had no fondness of Arizona, but he had seen him in the role of
a strong man, which made the contrast more awful. It reminded Sinclair
of the wild horse which loses its spirit when it is broken. Such was
Arizona. Free to come and go, he had been a danger. Shut up helplessly
in a cell, he was as feeble as a child, and his only strength was a
sort of cunning malice. Sinclair turned quietly to the fat man.
"Arizona," he said, "you look sort of underfed today. Bring your stool
a bit nearer and let's talk. I been hungry for a chat with someone."
In reply Arizona rolled back his head and for a moment glared
thoughtfully at Sinclair. He made no answer. Presently his glance fell,
like that of a dog. Sinclair shivered. He tried brutality.
"Looks to me, Arizona, as though you'd lost your nerve."
The other moistened his lips, but said nothing.
"But the point is," said the tall cowpuncher, "that you've given up
before you're beaten."
Riley Sinclair's words brought a flash from Arizona, a sudden lifting
of the head, as if he had not before thought of hoping. Then he began
to slump back into his former position, without a reply. Sinclair
followed his opening advantage at once.
"What you in for?"
"Murder!"
"Great guns! Of whom?"
"Sandersen."
It brought Sinclair stiffly to his feet. Sandersen! His trail was
ended; Hal was avenged at last!
"And you done it? Fatty, you took that job out of my hands. I'm
thanking you. Besides, it ain't nothing to be downhearted about.
Sandersen was a skunk. Can they prove it on you?"
The need to talk overwhelmed Arizona. It burst out of him, not to
Sinclair, but rather at him. His shifting eyes made sure that no one
was near.
"Kern is going to send south for the dope. I'm done for. They can hang
me three times on what they'll learn, and--"
"Shut up," snapped Sinclair. "Don't talk foolish. The south is a
tolerable big place to send to. They don't know where you come from.
Take 'em a month to find out, and by that time, you won't be at hand."
"Eh?"
"Because you and me are going to bust out of this paper jail they got!"
He had not the slightest hope of escape. But he tried the experiment of
that suggestion merely to see what the fat man's reaction would be. The
result was more than he could have dreamed. Arizona whirled on him with
eyes ablaze.
"What d'you mean, Sinclair?"
"Just what I say. D'you think they can keep two like us in here? No,
not if you come to your old self."
The need to confide again fell on Arizona. He dragged his stool nearer.
His voice was a whisper.
"Sinclair, something's busted in me. When them irons grabbed my arms
they took everything out of me. I got no chance. They got me cornered."
"And you'll fight like a wildcat to the end of things. Sure you will!
Buck up, man! You think you've turned yaller. You ain't. You're just
out of place. Take a gent that's used to a forty-foot rope and a pony,
give him sixty feet on a sixteen-hand hoss, and ain't he out of place?
Sure! He looks like a clumsy fool. And the other way around it works
the same way. A trout may be a flash of light in water, but on dry land
he ain't worth a damn. Same way with you, Fatty. While you got a free
foot you're all right, but when they put you behind a wall and say
they're going to keep you there, you darned near bust down. Why?
Because it looks to you like you ain't got a chance to fight back. So
you quit altogether. But you'll come back to yourself, Arizona. You--"
Arizona raised his hand. He was sitting erect now, drinking in the
words of Sinclair, as if they were air to a stifling man. His face
worked.
"Why are you doing this for me, Sinclair--after I landed you here?"
"Because I made a man out of you once," answered the tall man evenly,
"and I ain't going to see you backslide. Why, Arizona, you're one of
the fastest-thinkin', quickest-handed gents that ever buckled on a gun,
and here you are lying down like a kid that ain't never faced trouble
before. Come alive, man. You and me are going to bust this ol' jail to
smithereens, and when we get outside I'll blow your head off if I can!"
Riley's words had carried Arizona with him. Suddenly an olive-skinned
hand shot out and clutched his own bony, strong fingers. The hand was
fat and cold, but it gripped that of Riley Sinclair with a desperate
energy.
"Sinclair, you mean it? You'll play in with me?"
"I will--sure!"
He had to drag the words out, but after he had spoken he was glad. New
life shone in the face of Arizona.
"A man with you for a partner ain't done, Sinclair--not if he had a
rope around his neck. Listen! D'you know why I come in town?"
"Well?"
"To get you out."
"I believe you, Arizona," lied Sinclair.
"Not for your sake--but hers."
Sinclair's face suddenly went white.
"Who?"
"The girl!" whispered Arizona. "I cached her away outside of town to
wait for--us! Sinclair, she loves you."
Riley Sinclair sat as one stunned and dragged the hat from his head.
32
Through the branches of the copse in which she was hidden, the girl saw
the sun descend in the west, a streak of slowly dropping fire. And now
she became excited.
"As soon as it's dark," Arizona had promised, "I'll make my start. Have
your hoss ready. Be in the saddle, and the minute you see us come down
that trail out of Sour Creek, be ready to feed your hoss the spur and
join us, because when we come, we'll come fast. Don't make no mistake.
If you ride too slow we'll have to ride slow, too, and slow ridin'
means gunplay on both sides, and gunplay means dead men, because the
evenin' is a pile worse nor the dark for fooling a man's aim. You'll
see me and Sinclair scoot along that there road, with the gang yellin'
behind us!"
Having made this farewell speech, he waved his hand and, with a smile
of confidence, jogged away from her. It was the beginning of a dull day
of waiting for her, yet a day in which she dared not altogether relax
her vigilance, because at any time the break might come, and Arizona
might appear flying down the trail with the familiar tall form of
Sinclair beside him. Wearily she waited until sundown.
With the coming of dusk she wakened suddenly and became tinglingly
alert. The night spread rapidly down out of the mountains. The color
faded, and the sudden chill of the high altitude settled about her. Her
hands and her feet were cold with the fear of excitement.
Into the gathering gloom she strained her eyes; toward Sour Creek she
strained her ears, starting at every faint sound of a man's shout or
the barking of a dog, as if this might be the beginning of the uproar
that would announce the escape.
Something swung on to the road out of the end of the main street. She
was instantly in the saddle, but, by the time she reached the edge of
the copse, she found it to be only a wagon filled with singing men
going back to some nearby ranch. Then quiet dropped over the valley,
and she became aware that it was the utter dark.
Arizona had failed! That knowledge grew more surely upon her with every
moment. His intention must have been guessed, for she could not imagine
that slippery and cold-minded fellow being thwarted, if he were left
free to work as he pleased toward an object he desired. She could not
stay in the grove all night. Besides, this was the critical time for
Riley Sinclair. Tomorrow he would be taken to the security of the
Woodville jail, and the end would be close. If anything were done for
him, it must be before morning.
With this thought in mind she rode boldly out of the trees and took the
road into town, where the lights of the early evening had turned from
white to yellow, as the night deepened. Sour Creek was hardly a mile
away when a rattling in the dark announced the approach of a buckboard.
She drew rein at the side of the trail. Suddenly the wagon loomed out
at her, with two down-headed horses jogging along and the loose reins
swinging above their backs.
"Halloo!" called Jig.
The brakes ground against the wheels, squeaking in protest. The horses
came to a halt so willing and sudden that the collars shoved halfway up
their necks, and the tongue of the wagon lurched beyond their noses.
"Whoa! Evening, there! You gimme a kind of a start, stranger."
Parodying the dialect as well as she was able, Jig said: "Sorry,
stranger. Might that be Sour Creek?"
"It sure might be," said the driver, leaning through the dark to make
out Jig. "New in these parts?"
"Yep, I'm over from Whiteacre way, and I'm aiming for Woodville."
"Whiteacre? Doggone me if it ain't good to meet a Whiteacre boy. I was
raised there, son! Joe Lunids is my name."
"I'm Texas Lou," said the girl.
There was a subdued chuckle from the darkness.
"You sound kind of young for a name like that, kid. Leastwise, your
voice is tolerable young."
"I'm old enough," said Jig aggressively.
"Sure, sure," placated the other. "Sure you are."
"Besides," she went on, "I wanted a name that I could grow up to."
It brought a hearty burst of laughter from the wagon.
"That's a good one, Texas. Have a drink?"
She set her teeth over the refusal that had come to her lips and,
reining near, reached out for the flask. The driver passed over the
bottle and at the same time lighted a match for the apparent purpose of
starting his cigarette. But Jig nodded her head in time to obscure her
face with the flopping brim of her sombrero. The other coughed his
disappointment. She raised the bottle after uncorking it, firmly
securing the neck with her thumb. After a moment she lowered it and
sighed with satisfaction, as she had heard men do.
"Thanks," said Jig, handing back the flask. "Hot stuff, partner."
"You got a tough throat," observed the rancher. "First I ever see that
didn't choke on a swig of that. But you youngsters has the advantage of
a sound lining for your innards."
He helped himself from the flask, coughed heavily, and then pounded
home the cork.
"How's things up Whiteacre way?"
"Fair to middlin'," said Jig. "They ain't hollering for rain so much as
they was."
"I reckon not," agreed the rancher.
"And how's things down Sour Creek way?" asked Jig.
"Trouble busting every minute," said the other. "Murder, gun scrapes,
brawls in the hotel--to beat anything I ever see. The town is sure
going plumb to the dogs at this rate!"
"You don't say! Well, I heard something about a gent named Quade being
plugged."
"Him? He was just the beginning--just the start! Since then we had a
man took away from old Kern, which don't happen once in a coon's age.
Then we had a fine fresh murder right this morning, and the present
minute they's two in jail on murder charges, and both are sure to
swing!"
Jig gasped. "Two!" she exclaimed.
"Yep. They was a skinny schoolteacher named--I forget what. Most
general he was called Cold Feet, which fitted. They thought he killed
Quade account of a girl. But a gent named Sinclair up and confessed,
and he is waiting for the rope. And then a sheriff all by himself
grabbed Arizona for the murder of Sandersen. Oh, times is picking up
considerable in Sour Creek. Reminds me of twenty years back before Kern
come on the job and cleaned up the gunfighters!"
"Two murders!" repeated the girl faintly. "And has Arizona confessed,
too?"
"Not him! But the sheriff has enough to give him a hard run. I got to
be drifting on, son. Take my advice and head straight for Woodville.
You lack five years of being old enough for Sour Creek these days!" He
called his farewell, threw off the brake and cursed the span of horses
into their former trot.
As for Jig, she waited until the scent of alkali dust died away, and
the rattle of the buckboard was faint in the distance. Then she turned
her horse back toward Sour Creek and urged it to a steady gallop,
bouncing in the saddle.
There seemed a fatality about her. On her account Sinclair had thrown
his life in peril, and now Arizona was caught and held in the same
danger. Enough of sacrifices for her; her mind was firm to repay some
of these services at any cost, and she had thought of a way.
With that gloomy purpose before her, her ordinary timidity disappeared.
It was strange to ride into Sour Creek, and she passed in review among
the rough men of the town, constantly fearful that they might pierce
her disguise. She had trained herself to a long stride and a swaggering
demeanor, and by constant practice she had been able to lower the pitch
of her voice and roughen its quality. Yet, in spite of the constant
practice, she never had been able to gain absolute self-confidence.
Tonight, however, there was no fear in her.