Max Brand (12 page)

A phrase which he had coined for the gossips of Woodville, came back
into his mind. He was no longer as young as he once was, and even at
his prime he shrewdly doubted his ability to cope with Riley Sinclair.
With the weight of Gaspar thrown in, the thing became an impossibility.
Gaspar might be a weakling, but a man who was capable of murder was
always dangerous.

To have been thwarted once was shame enough, but he dared not risk two
failures with one man. He must have help in plenty from Woodville, and,
fate willing, he would one day have the pleasure of looking down into
the dead face of Sinclair; one day have the unspeakable joy of seeing
the slender form of Gaspar dangling from the end of a rope.

His mind was filled with the wicked pleasure of these pictures until he
came suddenly upon Woodville. He drew his horse back to a dogtrot to
enter the town.

It was a short street that led through Woodville, but, short though it
was, the news that something was wrong with the sheriff reached the
heart of the town before he did. Men were already pouring out on the
veranda of the hotel.

"Where is he, sheriff?" was the greeting.

Never before had that question been asked. He switched to one side in
his saddle and made the speech that startled the mind of Woodville for
many a day.

"Boys, I've been double-crossed. Have any of you heard tell of Riley
Sinclair?"

He waited apparently calm. Inwardly he was breathless with excitement,
for according to the size of Riley's reputation as a formidable man
would be the size of his disgrace. There was a brief pause. Old Shaw
filled the gap, and he filled it to the complete satisfaction of the
sheriff.

"Young Hopkins was figured for the hardest man up in Montana way," he
said. "That was till Riley Sinclair beat him. What about Sinclair?"

"It was him that double-crossed me," said the sheriff, vastly relieved.
"He come like a friend, stuck me up on the trail when I wasn't lookin'
for no trouble, and he got away with Gaspar."

A chorus, astonished, eager. "What did he do it for?"

"No man'll ever know," said the sheriff.

"Why not?"

"Because Sinclair'll be dead before he has a chance to look a jury in
the face."

There were more questions. The little crowd had got its breath again,
and the words came in volleys. The sheriff cut sharply through the
noise.

"Where's Bill Wood?"

"He's in town now."

"Charley, will you find Billy for me and ask him to slide over to my
office? Thanks! Where's Arizona and Red Chalmers?"

"They went back to the ranch."

"Be a terrible big favor if you'd go out and try to find 'em for me,
boys. Where's Joe Stockton?"

"Up to the Lewis place."

Old Shaw struck in: "You ain't makin' no mistake in picking the best
you can get. You'll need 'em for this Riley Sinclair. I've heard tell
about him. A pile!"

The very best that Woodville and its vicinity could offer, was indeed
what the sheriff was selecting. Another man would have looked for
numbers, but the sheriff knew well enough that numbers meant little
speed, and speed was one of the main essentials for the task that lay
before him. He knew each of the men he had named, and he had known them
for years, with the exception of Arizona. But the latter, coming up
from the southland, had swiftly proved his ability in many a brawl.

Bill Wood was a peerless trailer; Red Chalmers would, the sheriff felt,
be one day a worthy aspirant for the office which he now held, and Red
was the only man the sheriff felt who could succeed to that perilous
office. As for Joe Stockton, he was distinctly bad medicine, but in a
case like this, it might very well be that poison would be the antidote
for poison. Of all the men the sheriff knew, Joe was the neatest hand
with a gun. The trouble with Joe was that he appreciated his own
ability and was fond of exhibiting his prowess.

Having sent out for his assistants on the chase, the sheriff retired to
his office and set his affairs in order. There was not a great deal of
paper work connected with his position; in twenty minutes he had
cleared his desk, and, by the time he had finished this task, the first
of his posse had sauntered into the doorway and stood leaning idly
there, rolling a cigarette.

"Have a chair, Bill, will you?" said the sheriff. He tilted back in his
own and tossed his heels to the top of his desk. "Getting sort of warm
today, ain't it?"

Bill Wood had never seen the sheriff so cheerful. He sat down gingerly,
knowing well that some task of great danger lay before them.

All that Gaspar dreaded in Riley Sinclair had come true. The
schoolteacher drew his horse as far away as the trail allowed and rode
on in silence. Finally there was a stumble, and it seemed as if the
words were jarred out from his lips, hitherto closely compressed:
"
You
killed Quade!"

A scowl was his answer.

But he persisted in the inquiry with a sort of trembling curiosity,
though he could see the angry emotions rise in Sinclair. The emotion of
a murderer, perhaps?

"How?"

"With a gun, fool. How d'you think?"

Even that did not halt John Gaspar.

"Was it a fair fight?"

"Maybe—maybe not. It won't bring him back to life!"

Riley laughed with savage satisfaction. Gaspar watched him as a bird
might watch a snake. He had heard tales of men who could find
satisfaction in a murder, but he had never believed that a human being
could actually gloat over his own savagery. He stared at Riley as if he
were looking at a wild beast that must be placated.

Thereafter the talk was short. Now and again Sinclair gave some curt
direction, but they put mile after mile behind them without a single
phrase interchanged. Gaspar began to slump in the saddle. It brought a
fierce rebuke from Sinclair.

"Straighten up. Put some of your weight in them stirrups. D'you think
any hoss can buck up when it's carrying a pile of lead? Come alive!"

"It's the heat. It takes my strength," protested Gaspar.

"Curse you and your strength! I wouldn't trade all of you for one ear
of the hoss you're riding. Do what I tell you!"

Without protest, without a flush of shame at this brutal abuse, John
Gaspar attempted to obey. Then, as they topped a rise and reached a
crest of a range of hills, Gaspar cried out in surprise. Sour Creek lay
in the hollow beneath them.

"But you're running straight into the face of danger!"

"Don't tell me what I'm doing. I know maybe, all by myself!"

He checked his horse and sat his saddle, eying Gaspar with such
disgust, such concentrated scorn and contempt, that the schoolteacher
winced.

"I've brought you in sight of the town so's you can go home."

"And be hanged?"

"You won't be hanged. I'll send a confession along with you. I've
busted the law once. They're after me. They might as well have some
more reasons for hitting my trail."

"But is it fair to you?" asked Gaspar, intertwining his nervous
fingers.

Sinclair heard the words and eyed the gesture with unutterable disgust.
At last he could speak.

"Fair?" he asked in scorn. "Since when have you been interested in
playing fair? Takes a man with some nerve to play fair. You've spoiled
my game, Gaspar. You've blocked me every way from the start, Cold Feet.
I killed Quade, and they's another in Sour Creek that needs killing.
That's something you can do. Go down and tell the sheriff when he
happens along and show him my confession. Go down and tell him that I
ain't running away—that I'm staying close, and that I'm going to nab
my second man right under his nose. That'll give him something to think
about."

He favored the schoolteacher with another black look and then swung out
of the saddle, throwing his reins. He sat down with his back to a
stunted tree. Gaspar dismounted likewise and hovered near, after the
fashion of a man who is greatly worried. He watched while Sinclair
deliberately took out an old stained envelope and the stub of a pencil
and started to write. His brows knitted in pain with the effort.
Suddenly Gaspar cried: "Don't do it, Mr. Sinclair!"

A slight lifting of Sinclair's heavy brows showed that he had heard,
but he did not raise his head.

"Don't do what?"

"Don't try to kill that second man. Don't do it!"

Gaspar was rewarded with a sneer.

"Why not?"

The schoolteacher was desperately eager. His glance roved from the set
face of the cowpuncher and through the scragged branches of the tree.

"You'll be damned for it—in your own mind. At heart you're a good man;
I swear you are. And now you throw yourself away. Won't you try to open
your mind and see this another way?"

"Not an inch. Kid, I gave my word for this to a dead man. I told you
about a friend of mine?"

"I'll never forget."

"I gave my word to him, though he never heard it. If I have to wait
fifty years I'll live long enough to kill the gent that's in Sour Creek
now. The other day I had him under my gun. Think of it! I let him go!"

"And you'll let him go again. Sinclair, murder isn't in your nature.
You're better than you think."

"Close up," growled the cowpuncher. "It ain't no Saturday night party
for me to write. Keep still till I finish."

He resumed his labor of writing, drawing out each letter carefully. He
had reached his signature when a low call from John Gaspar alarmed him.
He looked up to find the little man pointing and staring up the trail.
A horseman had just dropped over the crest and was winding leisurely
down toward the plain below.

"We can get behind that knoll, perhaps, before he sees us," suggested
Jig in a whisper. His suggestion met with no favor.

"You hear me talk, son," said Sinclair dryly. "That gent ain't carrying
no guns, which means that he ain't on our trail, we being figured
particularly desperate." He pointed this remark with a cold survey of
the "desperate" Jig.

"But the best way to make danger follow you, Jig, is to run away from
it. We stay put!"

He emphasized the remark by stretching luxuriously. Gaspar, however,
did not seem to hear the last words. Something about the strange
horseman had apparently riveted his interest. His last gesture was
arrested halfway, and his color changed perceptibly.

"You stay, then, Mr. Sinclair," he said hurriedly. "I'm going to slip
down the hill and—"

"You stay where you are!" cut in Sinclair.

"But I have a reason."

"Your reasons ain't no good. You stay put. You hear?"

It seemed that a torrent of explanation was about to pour from the lips
of Jig, but he restrained himself, white of face, and sank down in the
shade of the tree. There he stretched himself out hastily, with his
hands cupped behind his head and his hat tilted so far down over his
face that his entire head was hidden.

Sinclair followed these proceedings with a lackluster eye.

"When you
do
move, Jig," he said, "you ain't so slow about it. That's
pretty good faking, take it all in all. But why don't you want this
strange gent to see your face?"

A slight shudder was the only reply; then Jig lay deadly still. In the
meantime, before Sinclair could pursue his questions, the horseman was
almost upon them. The cowpuncher regarded him with distinct approval.
He was a man of the country, and he showed it. As his pony slouched
down the slope, picking its way dexterously among the rocks, the rider
met each jolt on the way with an easy swing of his shoulders, riding
"straight up," just enough of his weight falling into his stirrups to
break the jar on the back of the mustang.

The stranger drew up on the trail and swung the head of his horse in
toward the tree, raising his hand in cavalier greeting. He was a
sunbrowned fellow, as tall as Sinclair and more heavily built; as for
his age, he seemed in that joyous prime of physical life, twenty-five.
Sinclair nodded amiably.

"Might that be Sour Creek yonder?" asked the brown man.

"It might be. I reckon it is. Get down and rest your hoss."

"Thanks. Maybe I will."

He dropped to the ground and eased and stiffened his knees to get out
the cramp of long riding. Off the horse he seemed even bigger and more
capable than before, and now that he had come sufficiently close, so
that the shadow from his sombrero's brim did not partially mask the
upper part of his face, it seemed to Sinclair that about the eyes he
was not nearly so prepossessing as around the clean-cut fighter's mouth
and chin. The eyes were just a trifle too small, a trifle too close
together. Yet on the whole he was a handsome fellow, as he pushed back
his hat and wiped his forehead dry with a gay silk handkerchief.

Sinclair noted, furthermore, that the other had a proper cowpuncher's
pride in his dress. His bench-made boots molded his long and slender
feet to a nicety and fitted like gloves around the high instep. The
polished spurs, with their spoon-handle curve, gleamed and flashed, as
he stepped with a faint jingling. The braid about his sombrero was a
thing of price. These details Sinclair noted. The rest did not matter.

"The kid's asleep?" asked the stranger, casting a careless glance at
the slim form of Jig.

"I reckon so."

"He done it almighty sudden. Thought I seen him up and walking around
when I come over the hill."

"You got good eyes," said Sinclair, but he was instantly put on the
defensive. He was heartily tired of Cold Feet Gaspar, his
peculiarities, his whims, his weaknesses. But Cold Feet was his riding
companion, and this was a stranger. He was thrown suddenly in the
position of a defender of the helpless. "That's the way with these
kids," he confided carelessly to the stranger. "They get out and ride
fast for a couple of hours. Full of ambition, they are. But just when a
growed man gets warmed up to his work; they're through. The kid's tired
out."