The Rangeland Avenger - Max Brand
She went straight to the hotel, threw the reins, and walked boldly
through the door into a cluster of men. They yelled at the sight of
her.
"Jig, by guns! He's come in! Say, kid, the sheriff's been looking for
you."
They swerved around her, grinning good-naturedly. When a person has
been almost lynched for a crime another has committed, he gains a
certain standing, no matter what may be the public opinion of his
courage. The schoolteacher had become a personage. But Jig met their
smiles with a level eye.
"If the sheriff's looking for me," she said, "tell him I have a room in
the hotel. He can find me here."
Pop shook hands before he shoved the register toward her. "My kids will
sure be glad to see you safe back," he said. "And I'm glad, too, Jig."
Nodding, she turned to sign her name in the bold, free hand which she
had cultivated. She could feel the crowd staring behind her, and she
could hear their murmurs. But she was not nervous. It seemed that all
apprehension had left her.
"Where's Cartwright?" she asked.
"Sitting in a game of poker."
"Hello, buddy!" she called to a redheaded youngster. "Go in and tell
Cartwright that I'm waiting for him in my room, will you?"
"Ain't no use," said Pop, staring at this new and more masculine Jig.
"Cartwright is all heated up about the game. And he's lost enough to
get anybody excited. He won't come. Better go in there if you want to
see him."
"I'll try my luck this way," said Jig coldly. "Run along, buddy."
Buddy obeyed, and Jig went up the stairs to her room.
"What come over him?" asked the crowd, the moment Cold Feet was out of
sight. "Looks like he's growed up in a day!"
"He's gone through enough to make a man of him," answered Pop. "Never
can tell how a kid will turn out."
But in her room Jig had sunk into a chair, dropped her elbows on the
table, and buried her face in her hands, trying to steady her thoughts.
She heard the heavy pounding of feet on the stairs, a strong tread in
the hall that made the flooring of the old building quiver, and then
the door was flung open, slammed shut, and the key turned in the lock.
Cartwright set his shoulders against the door, as though he feared she
would try to rush past him. He stared at her, with a queer admixture of
fear, rage, and astonishment.
"So I've got you at last, eh? I've got you, after all this?"
Curiously she stared at him. She had dreaded the interview, but now
that he was before her she was surprised to find that she felt no fear.
She examined him as if from a distance.
"Yes," she admitted, "you have me. Will you sit down?"
"I need room to talk," he said, swaggering to the table. He struck his
fist on it. "Now, to start with, what in thunder did you mean by
running away?"
"We're leaving the past to bury the past," she said. "That's the first
concession you have to make."
He laughed, his laughter ending with a choked sound. "And why should
_I_ make concessions?"
Jig watched the veins of fury swell in his forehead, watched calmly,
and then threw her sombrero on the bed and smoothed back her hair,
still watching without a change of expression. It seemed as if her calm
acted to sober him, and the passing of her hand across the bright,
silken hair all at once softened him. He sank into the opposite chair,
leaning far across the table toward her.
"Honey, take you all in all, you're prettier right here in this man's
outfit that I ever see you--a pile prettier!"
For a moment she closed her eyes. The sacrifice which she intended was
becoming harder, desperately hard to make.
"I'm going to take you back and forgive you," said Cartwright,
apparently blind to what was going on in her mind. "I ain't one to
carry malice. You keep to the line from now on, and we'll get along
fine. But you step crooked just once more, and I'll learn you a pile of
things you never even dreamed could happen!"
To her it seemed that he stood in a shaft of consuming light that
exposed every shadowy nook and cranny of his nature, and the
narrow-minded meanness that she saw, startled her.
"What you do afterward with me is your own affair," she said. "It's
about the present that I've come to bargain."
"Bargain?"
"Exactly! Do what I ask, and I go back and act as your wife. If you
refuse, I walk out of your life forever."
He could not speak for a moment. Then he exploded.
"It's funny. I could almost laugh hearing you chatter crazy like this.
Don't you think I got a right to make my own wife come home with me,
now that I've found her? Wouldn't the law stand behind me?"
"You can force me to come," she admitted quietly, "but if you do, I'll
let the whole truth be known that I ran away from you. Can your pride
stand that, Jude?"
He writhed. "And how'll you get around that, even if I don't make you,
and you come back of your own free will?"
"Somehow I'll manage. I'll find a story of how I was carried away by
half a dozen men who had come to loot the upper rooms of the house,
while the wedding party was downstairs. I'll find a story that will
wash."
"Yes, I think you will," said Cartwright, breathing heavily. "I sure
think you will. You was always a clever little devil, I know! But a
bargain! I'd ought to--" He checked himself. "But I'm through with the
black talk. When I get you back on the ranch I'll show you that you can
be happy up there. And when you get over your fool notions, you'll be a
wife to be proud of. Now, honey, tell me what you want?"
"I want you to save the lives of two men. They're both in jail--on my
account. And they're both charged with murder. You know whom I mean."
Cartwright rose out of his chair.
"Sinclair!" he groaned. "Curse him! Sinclair, ag'in, eh? What's they
between you two?"
Her answer smothered his fury again. It was pain that was giving her
strength.
"Jude, if you really want me to go back with you, don't ask that
question. He has treated me as an honorable man always treats a
woman--he tried to serve me."
"Serve you? By coming here trying to kill me?"
"He may have thought I wished to be free. He didn't tell me what he was
going to do."
"That's a lie." He stopped, watching her white face. "I don't mean
that, you know. But you ain't actually asking me to get Sinclair out of
jail? Besides, I couldn't do it!"
"You could easily. Moreover, it's to your interest. It will take a
strong jail to hold him, and if he breaks away, you know that he's a
dangerous man. He hates you, Jude, and he might try to find you. If he
did--"
She waved her hand, and Cartwright followed the gesture with great,
fascinated eyes, as if he saw himself dissolving into thin air.
"I know; he's a desperado, right enough, this Sinclair. Ain't I seen
him work?" He shuddered at the memory.
"But get him out of the jail, Jude, and that will be ended. He'll be
your friend."
"Could I trust him?"
"Don't you think Riley Sinclair is a man to be trusted?"
"I dunno." He lowered his eyes. "Maybe he is."
"As for Arizona," she went on, "the same thing holds for him."
"Yes; if I could get one out, I could get two. But how can I do it?
This Sheriff Kern is a fighting idiot, and loves a gunplay. I ain't no
man-killer, honey."
"But you're rich, Jude."
"Tolerable. They may be one or two has more than me, around these
parts."
"And money buys men!"
"Don't it, though?" said Jude, expanding. "Why, when they found that I
was a spender they started in hounding me. One gent wanted me to help
him on a mortgage--only fifty bucks to meet a payment. And they's half
a dozen would mortgage their souls if I'd stake 'em to enough
downstairs to get them into a crap game, or something."
"Then let them have the money they need. Why, it wouldn't be more than
a hundred dollars altogether."
"A hundred is a hundred. Why should I throw it away on them bums?"
"Because after you've done it, you'll have a dozen men who'll follow
you. You'll have a mob."
"Sure! But what of that? Expect me to lead an attack on a jail, eh?
Throw my life away? By guns, I think you'd like that!"
"You don't have to lead. Just give them the money they need and then
spread the word around that Riley Sinclair is really an honorable man
who killed Quade in a fair fight. I know what they thought of Quade. He
was a bully. No one liked him. Tell them it's a shame that a man like
Sinclair should die because he killed a big, hulking cur such as Quade.
They'll listen--particularly if they have your money. I know these men,
Jude. If they think an injustice is being done, they'll risk their
necks to right it! And if you work on them in the right way, you can
have twenty men who'll risk everything to get Riley out. But there
won't be a risk. If twenty men rush the jail, the guards will simply
throw down their guns and give up."
"Well, I wonder!" muttered Cartwright.
"I'm sure of it, Jude. Do you think a deputy will let himself be killed
simply to keep a prisoner safely? They won't do it!"
"You don't know this Kern!"
"I _do_ know him, and I know that he's human. I've seen him beaten once
already."
"By Sinclair! You keep coming back to him!"
"Jude, if you do this thing for me," she said steadily, "I'll go back
with you. I don't love you, but if I go back I'll keep you from a great
deal of shameful talk. I'm sorry, truly, that I left. I couldn't help
it. It was an impulse that--took me by the throat. And if I go back
I'll honestly try to make you a good wife."
She faltered a little before that last word, and her voice fell. But
Jude Cartwright was wholly fascinated by the color in her face, and the
softness of her voice he mistook for a sudden rise of tenderness.
"They's only one thing I got to ask--you and Sinclair--have you ever--I
mean--have you ever told him you're pretty fond of him--that you love
him?" He blurted it out, stammering.
Certainly she knew that her answer was a lie, though it was true in the
letter.
"I have never told him so," she said firmly. "But I owe him a great
debt--he must not die because he's a gentleman, Jude."
All the time she was speaking, he watched her with ferret sharpness,
thinking busily. Before she ended he had reached his decision.
"I'm going to raise that mob."
"Jude!"
What a ring in her voice! If he had been in doubt he would have known
then. No matter what she said, she loved Riley Sinclair. He smiled
sourly down on her.
"Keep your thanks. You'll hear news of Sinclair before morning." And he
stalked out of the room.
33
Cartwright went downstairs in the highest good humor. He had been
convinced of two things in the interview with his wife: The first was
that she could be induced to return to him; the second was that she
loved Riley Sinclair. He did not hate her for such fickleness. He
merely despised her for her lack of brains. No thinking woman could
hesitate a moment between the ranches and the lumber tracts of
Cartwright and the empty purse of Riley Sinclair.
As for hatred, that he concentrated on the head of Sinclair himself. He
had already excellent reasons for hating the rangy cowpuncher. Those
reasons were now intensified and given weight by what he had recently
learned. He determined to raise a mob, but not to accomplish his wife's
desires. What she had said about the weakness of jails, the strength of
Sinclair, and the probability that once out he would take the trail of
the rancher, appealed vigorously to his imagination. He did not dream
that such a man as Sinclair would hesitate at a killing. And, loving
the girl, the first thing Sinclair would do would be to remove the
obstacle through the simple expedient of a well-placed bullet.
But the girl had not only convinced him in this direction, she had
taught him where his strength lay, and she had pointed a novel use for
that strength. He went to work instantly when he entered the big back
room of the hotel which was used for cards and surreptitious drinking.
A little, patient-faced man in a corner, who had been sucking a pipe
all evening and watching the crap game hungrily, was the first object
of his charity. Ten dollars slipped into the pocket of the little
cowpuncher brought him out of his chair, with a grin of gratitude and
bewilderment. A moment later he was on his knees calling to the dice in
a cackling voice.
Crossing the room, Cartwright picked out two more obviously stalled
gamblers and gave them a new start. Returning to the table, he found
that the game was lagging. In the first place he had from the start
supplied most of the sinews of war to that game. Also, two disgruntled
members had gone broke in his absence, through trying to plunge for the
spoils of the evening. They sat back, with black faces, and watched him
come.
"We're getting down to a small game," said the gray-headed man who was
dealing.
But Cartwright had other ideas. "A friend's a friend," he said
jovially. "And a gent that's been playing beside me all evening I
figure for a friend. Sit in, boys. I'll stake you to a couple of
rounds, eh?"
Gladly they came, astonished and exchanging glances.
Cartwright had made a sour loser all the game. This sudden generosity
took them off balance. It let in a merciful light upon the cruel
criticism which they had been leveling at him in private. The pale man,
with the blond eyelashes and the faded blue eyes, who had been
dexterously stacking the cards all through the game, decided at that
moment that he would not only stop cheating, but he would even lose
some of his ill-gotten gains back into the game; only a sudden rush of
unbelievable luck kept him from executing his generous and silent
promise.
This pale-faced man was named Whitey, from the excessive blondness of
his hair and his pallor. He was not popular in Sour Creek, but he was
much respected. A proof of his ingenuity was that he had cheated at
cards in that community for five years, and still he had never been
caught at his work. He was not a bold-talking man. In fact he never
started arguments or trouble of any kind; but he was a most dexterous
and thoroughgoing fighter when he was cornered. In fact he was what is
widely known as a "finisher." And it was Whitey whom Cartwright had
chosen as the leader of the mob which he intended raising. He waited
until the first shuffle was in progress after the hand, then he began
his theme.
"Understand the sheriff is pretty strong for this Sinclair that
murdered Quade," he said carelessly.
"'Murder' is a tolerable strong word," came back the unfriendly answer.
"Maybe it was a fair fight."
Cartwright laughed. "Maybe it was," he said.
Whitey interrupted himself in the act of shoving the pack across to be
cut. He raised his pale eyes to the face of the rancher. "What makes
you laugh, Cartwright?"
"Nothing," said Jude hastily. "Nothing at all. If you gents don't know
Sinclair, it ain't up to me to give you light. Let him go."
Nothing more was said during that hand which Whitey won. Jude,
apparently bluffing shamelessly, bucked him up to fifty dollars, and
then he allowed himself to be called with a pair of tens against a full
house. Not only did he lose, but he started a laugh against himself,
and he joined in cheerfully. He was aware of Whitey frowning curiously
at him and smiling faintly, which was the nearest that Whitey ever came
to laughter. And, indeed, the laugh cost Cartwright more than money,
but it was a price--the price he was paying for the adherence of
Whitey.
"What about this Sinclair?" asked the man with the great, red, blotchy
freckles across his face and the back of his neck, so that the skin
between looked red and raw. "You come from up north, which is his
direction, too. Know anything about him? He looks like pretty much of a
man to me, and the sheriff says he's a square shooter from the word
go."
"Maybe he is," said Cartwright. "But I don't want to go around digging
the ground away from nobody's reputation."
"Whatever he's got, he won't last long," said Whitey definitely. "He'll
swing sure."
It was Cartwright's opening. He took advantage of it dexterously,
without too much haste. He even yawned to show his lack of interest.
"Well, I got a hundred that says he don't hang," he observed quietly
and looked full at Whitey across the table. It was a challenge which
the gambling spirit of the latter could not afford to overlook.
"Money talks," began Whitey, then he checked himself. "Do you _know_
anything, Cartwright?"
"Sure I don't," said Jude in the manner of one who has abundant
knowledge in reserve. "But they say that the sheriff and Sinclair have
become regular bunkies. Don't do nothing hardly but sit and chin with
each other over in the jail. Ever know Kern to do that before?"
They shook their heads.
"Which is a sign that Sinclair may be all right," said the sober
Whitey.
"Which is a sign that he might have something on the sheriff," said
Jude Cartwright. "I don't say that he _has_, mind you, but it looks
kind of queer. He yanked a prisoner away from the sheriff one day, and
the next day he's took for murder. Did the sheriff have much to do with
his taking? No, he didn't. By all accounts it was Arizona that done the
taking, planning and everything. And after Sinclair is took, what does
the sheriff do? He gets on the trail of Arizona and has him checked in
for murder of another gent. Maybe Arizona is guilty, maybe he ain't.
But it kind of looks as if they was something between Sinclair and
Kern, don't it?"
At this bold exposition of possibilities they paused.
"Kern is figured tolerable straight," declared Whitey.
"Sure he is. That's because he don't talk none and does his work.
Besides, he's a killer. That's his job. So is Sinclair a killer. Maybe
he did fight Quade square, but Quade ain't the only one. Why, boys,
this Sinclair has got a record as long as my arm."
In silence they sat around the table, each man thinking hard. The
professional gunman gets scant sympathy from ordinary cowpunchers.
"Now I dropped in at the jail," said the man of the great freckles,
"and come to think about it, I heard Sinclair singing, and I seen him
polishing his spurs."
"Sure, he's getting ready for a ride," put in Cartwright.
There was a growl from the others. They were slowly turning their
interest from the game to Cartwright.
"What d'you mean a ride?"
"Got another hundred," said Cartwright calmly, "that when the morning
comes it won't find Sinclair in the jail."
At once they were absolutely silenced, for money talks in an eloquent
voice. Deliberately Cartwright counted out the two stacks of shimmering
twenty-dollar gold pieces, five to a stack.
"One hundred that he don't hang; another hundred that he ain't in the
jail when the morning comes. Any takers, boys? It had ought to be easy
money--if everything's square."
Whitey made a move, but finally merely raised his hand and rubbed his
chin. He was watching that gold on the table with catlike interest. A
man _must_ know something to be so sure.
"I'd like to know," murmured the man of the freckles disconnectedly.
"Well," said Cartwright, "they ain't much of a mystery about it. For
one thing, if the sheriff was plumb set on keeping them two, why didn't
he take 'em over to Woodville today, where they's a jail they couldn't
bust out of, eh?"
Again they were silenced, and in an argument, when a man falls silent,
it simply means that he is thinking hard on the other side.
"But as far as I'm concerned," went on Cartwright, yawning again, "it
don't make no difference one way or another. Sour Creek ain't my town,
and I don't care if it gets the ha-ha for having its jail busted open.
Of course, after the birds have flown, the sheriff will ride hard after
'em--on the wrong trail!"
Whitey raised his slender, agile, efficient hand.
"Gents," he said, "something has got to be done. This man Cartwright is
giving us the truth! He's got his hunch, and hunches is mostly always
right."
"Speak out, Whitey," said the man with the freckles encouragingly. "I
like your style of thinking."
Nodding his acknowledgments, Whitey said:
"The main thing seems to be that Sinclair and Arizona is old hands at
killing. And they had ought to be hung. Well, if the sheriff ain't got
the rope, maybe we could help him out, eh?"
34
The moment her husband was gone, Jig dropped back in her chair and
buried her face in her arms, weeping. But there is a sort of sad
happiness in making sacrifices for those we love, and presently Jig was
laughing through her tears and trembling as she wiped the tears away.
After a time she was able to make herself ready for another appearance
in the street of Sour Creek. She practiced back and forth in her room
that exaggerated swagger, jerked her sombrero rakishly over one eye,
cocked up her cartridge belt at one side, and swung down the stairs.
She went straight to the jail and met the sheriff at the door, where he
sat, smoking a stub of a pipe. He gaped widely at the sight of her,
smoke streaming up past his eyes. Then he rose and shook hands
violently.
"All I got to say, Jig," he remarked, "is that the others was the ones
that made the big mistake. When I went and arrested you, I was just
following in line. But I'm sorry, and I'm mighty glad that you been
found to be O.K."
Wanly she smiled and thanked him fox his good wishes.
"I'd like to see Sinclair," she said.
Kern's amiability increased.
"The best thing I know about you, Jig, is that you ain't turning
Sinclair down, now that he's in trouble. Go right back in the jail. Him
and Arizona is chinning. Wait a minute. I guess I got to keep an eye on
you to see you don't pass nothing through the bars. Keep clean back
from them bars, Jig, and then you can talk all you want. I'll stay here
where I can watch you but can't hear. Is that square?"
"Nothing squarer in the world," said Jig and went in.
She left the sheriff grinning vacantly into the dark. There was a
peculiar something in Jig's smile that softened men.
But when she stepped into the sphere of the lantern light that spread
faintly through the cell, she was astonished to see Arizona and
Sinclair kneeling opposite each other, shooting dice with abandon and
snapping of the fingers. They rose, laughing at the sight of her, and
came to the bars.
"But you aren't worried?" asked Jig. "You aren't upset by all this?"
It was Arizona who answered, a strangely changed Arizona since his
entrance into the jail.
"Look here," he said gaily, "why should we be worryin'? Ain't we got a
good sound roof over our heads, with a set of blankets to sleep in?"
He smiled at tall Sinclair, then changed his voice.
"Things fell through," he said softly, glancing at the far-off shadowy
figure of the sheriff. "Sorry, but we'll work this out yet."
"I know," she answered. She lowered her voice to caution. "I'm only
going to stay a moment to keep away suspicions. Listen! Something is
going to happen tonight that will set you both free. Don't ask me what
it is. But, among those cottonwoods behind the blacksmith shop, I'm
going to have two good horses saddled and ready for you. One will be
your roan, Arizona. And I'll have a good horse for you, Riley. And when
you're free start for those horses."
Sinclair laid hold on the bars with his big hands and pressed his face
close to the iron, staring at her.
"You ain't coming along with us?" he asked.
"I--no."
"Are you going to stay here?"
"Perhaps! I don't know--I haven't made up my mind."
"Has Cartwright--"
She broke away from those entangling questions. "I must go."
"But you'll be at the place with the horses?"
"Yes."
"Then so long till the time comes. And--you're a brick, Jig!"
Once outside the jail, she set to work at once. As for getting the
roan, it was the simplest thing in the world. There was no one in the
stable behind the hotel, and no one to ask questions. She calmly
saddled the roan, mounted him, and rode by a wider detour to the
cottonwoods behind the blacksmith shop.
Her own horse was to be for Sinclair. But before she took him, she went
into the hotel, and the first man she found on the veranda was
Cartwright. He came to her at once, shifting away from the others.
"How are things?"
"Good," said Cartwright. "Ain't you heard 'em talking?"
Here and there about the hotel, men stood in knots of three and four,
talking in low voices.
"Are they talking about _that_?"
"Sure they are," said Cartwright, relieved. "You ain't heard nothing?"
"Not a word."
"Then the thing for you to do is to keep under cover. You don't want to
get mixed up in this thing, eh?"
"I suppose not."
"Keep out of sight, honey. The crowd will start pretty soon and tear
things loose." He could not resist one savage thrust. "A rope, or a
pair of ropes, will do the work."
"Ropes?"
"One to tie Kern, and one to tie his deputy," he explained smoothly.
"Where you going now?"
"Getting their retreat ready," she whispered excitedly. "I've already
warned them where to go to get the horses."
She waved to him and stepped back into the night, convinced that all
was well. As for Cartwright, he hesitated, staring after her. After
all, if his plan developed, it would be wise for him to allow the
others to do the work of mischief. He had no wish to be actively mixed
up with a lynching party. Sometimes there were after results. And if he
had done no more than talk, there would be small hold upon him by the
law.