Max Brand (18 page)

"Dirty work!" said Sandersen sympathetically.

The storekeeper said nothing at all, but began to fold up a bolt of
cloth which lay half unrolled on the counter.

"It knocked me cold," continued Cartwright, "and when I come to, they
wasn't no sign nor trace of 'em."

Buckling on the belt, he shoved the revolver viciously home in the
holster.

"I'll land that pair before the posse gets to 'em, and when I land 'em
I won't do no arguing with fists!"

"Say, I call that nerve," put in the storekeeper, with patent
admiration in his eyes, while he smoothed a fold of the cloth. "Running
agin' one gent like Sinclair is bad enough—let alone tackling two at
once. But you'd ought to take out a big insurance on your life, friend,
before you take that trail. It's liable to be all out-trail and no
coming back."

A great deal of enthusiasm faded from Cartwright's face.

"How come?" he asked briefly.

"Nothing much. But they say this Sinclair is quite a gunfighter, my
friend. Up in his home town they scare the babies by talking about
Sinclair."

"H'm," murmured Cartwright. "He can't win always, and maybe I'll be the
lucky man."

But he went out of the store with his head thoughtfully inclined.

"Think of meeting up with them two all alone and not knowing what they
was!" sighed Sandersen. "He's lucky to be alive, I'll tell a man."

Whitey grinned.

"Plenty of nerve in a gent like that," went on Sandersen, his pale blue
eyes becoming dreamy. "Get your gat out, will you, Bill?"

Bill Sandersen obliged.

"Look at the butt. D'you see any point on it?"

"Nope."

"Did you look at that welt on the stranger's head?"

"Sure."

"Did you see a little cut in the middle of the welt?"

"Come to think of it, I sure did."

"Well, Sandersen, how d'you make out that a gun butt would make a cut
like that?"

"What are you driving at, Whitey?"

"I'm just discounting the stranger," said Whitey. "I dunno what other
talents he's got, but he's sure a fine nacheral liar."

It was some time before Riley Sinclair interrupted his pacing and,
turning, strode over to the dim outlines of the sleeping girl. She did
not speak, and, leaning close above her, he heard her regular
breathing.

Waiting until he was satisfied that she slept, he began to move
rapidly. First, with long, soft steps he went to his saddle, which was
perched on a ridge of rock. This he raised with infinite care,
gathering up the stirrups and the cinches so that nothing might drag or
strike. With this bundle secured, he once more went close to the figure
of the sleeper and this time dropped on one knee beside her. He could
see nothing distinctly by the starlight, but her forehead gleamed with
one faint highlight, and there was the pale glimmer of one hand above
the blankets.

For the moment he almost abandoned the plan on which he had resolved,
which was no less than to attempt to ride into Sour Creek and return to
the girl before she wakened in the dawn. But suppose that he failed,
and that she wakened to find herself alone in the mountain wilderness?
He shuddered at the idea, yet he saw no other issue for her than to
attempt the execution of his plan.

He rose hastily and walked off, letting his weight fall on his toes
altogether, so that the spurs might not jingle.

Even that brief rest had so far refreshed his mustang that he was
greeted with flattened ears and flying heels. These efforts Sinclair
met with a smile and terrible whispered curses, whose familiar sound
seemed to soothe the horse. He saddled at once, still using care to
avoid noise, and swung steeply down the side of the mountain. On the
descending trail, he could cut by one half the miles they had traversed
winding up the slope.

Recklessly he rode, giving the wise pony its head most of the time, and
only seeing that it did not exceed a certain speed, for when a horse
passes a certain rate of going it becomes as reckless as a drunken man.
Once or twice they floundered onto sheer gravel slides which the
broncho took by flinging back on its haunches and going down with
stiffly braced forelegs. But on the whole the mustang took care of
itself admirably.

In an amazingly short time they struck the more placid footing of the
valley, and Sinclair, looking up, could not believe that he had been so
short a time ago at the top of the flat-crested mountain.

He gave little time to wondering, however, but cut across the valley
floor at a steady lope. From the top of the mountain the lights of Sour
Creek were a close-gathered patch, from the level they appeared as a
scattering line. Sinclair held straight toward them, keeping away to
the left so as to come onto the well-beaten trail which he knew ran in
that direction. He found it and let the mustang drop back to a steady
dogtrot; for, if the journey to Sour Creek was now a short distance,
there would be a hard ride back to the flat-topped mountain if he
wished to accomplish his business and return before the full dawn. He
must be there by that time, for who could tell what the girl might do
when she found herself alone. Therefore he saved the cattle pony as
much as possible.

He was fairly close to Sour Creek, the lights fanning out broader and
broader as he approached. Suddenly two figures loomed up before him in
the night. He came near and made out a barelegged boy, riding without a
saddle and driving a cow before him. He was a very angry herdsman, this
boy. He kept up a continual monologue directed at the cow and his
horse, and so he did not hear the approach of Riley Sinclair until the
outlaw was close upon him. Then he hitched himself around, with his
hand on the hip of his old horse, swaying violently with the jerk of
the gait. He was glad of the company, it seemed.

"Evening, mister. You ain't Hi Corson, are you?"

"Nope, I ain't Hi. Kind of late driving that cow, ain't you?"

The boy swore with shrill fluency.

"We bought old Spot over at the Apwell place, and the darned old fool
keeps breaking down fences and running back every time she gets a
chance. Ain't nothing so foolish as a cow."

"Why don't your dad sell her for beef?"

"Beef?" The boy laughed. "Say, mister, I'd as soon try to chew leather.
They ain't nothing but bones and skin and meanness to old Spot. But
she's a good milker. When she comes in fresh she gives pretty nigh onto
four gallons a milking."

"Is that so!"

"Sure is! Hard to milk, though. Kick the hat right off'n your head if
you don't watch her. Never see such a fool cow as old Spot! Hey!"

Taking advantage of this diversion in the attention of her guardian,
Spot had ambled off to the side of the road. The boy darted his horse
after her and sent her trotting down the trail, with clicking hoofs and
long, sweeping steps that scuffed up a stifling dust.

"Ain't very good to heat a milker up by running 'em, son," reproved
Sinclair.

"I know it ain't. But it wouldn't make me sorry if old Spot just
nacherally dropped down dead—she gives me that much trouble. Look at
her now, doggone her!"

Spot had turned broadside to them and waited for the boy to catch up
before she would take another forward step.

"You just coming in to Sour Creek?"

"Yep, I'm strange to this town."

"Well, you sure couldn't have picked a more fussed-up time."

"How come?"

"Well, you hear about the killing of Quade, I reckon?"

"Not a word."

"You ain't? Where you been these days?"

"Oh, yonder in the hills."

"Chipping rocks, eh? Well, Quade was a gent that lived out the norm
trail, and he had a fuss with the schoolteacher over Sally Bent, and
the schoolteacher up and murders Quade, and they raise a posse and go
out to hang Gaspar, the teacher, and they're kept from it by a stranger
called Sinclair; when the sheriff comes to get Gaspar and hang him
legal and all, that Sinclair sticks up the sheriff and takes Gaspar
away, and now they're both outlawed, I hear tell, and they's a price on
their heads."

The lad brought it out in one huge sentence, sputtering over the words
in his haste.

"How much of a price?"

"I dunno. It keeps growing. Everybody around Woodville and Sour Creek
is chipping in to raise that price. They sure want to get Gaspar and
Sinclair bad. Gaspar ain't much. He's a kind of sissy, but Sinclair is
a killer—and then some."

Sinclair raised his head to the black, solemn mountains. Then he looked
back to his companion.

"Why, has he killed anybody lately?"

"He left one for dead right today!"

"You don't mean it! He sure must be bad."

"Oh, he's bad, right enough. They was a gent named Cartwright come into
town today with his head all banged up. He'd met up with Gaspar and
Sinclair in the hills, not knowing nothing about them. Got into an
argument with Sinclair, and, not being armed, he had it out with fists.
He was beating up Sinclair pretty bad—him being a good deal of a
man—when Gaspar sneaks up and whangs him on the back of the head with
the butt of his Colt. They rode off and left him for dead. But pretty
soon he wakes up. He comes on into Sour Creek, rarin' and tearin' and
huntin' for revenge. Sure will be a bad mess if he meets up with
Sinclair ag'in!"

"Reckon it had ought to be," replied Sinclair. "Like to see this gent
that waded into two outlaws with his bare fists."

"He's a man, right enough. Got a room up in the hotel. Must have a pile
of money, because he took the big room onto the north end of the hotel,
the room that's as big as a house. Nothin' else suited him at all. Dad
told me."

"I ain't got nothing particular on hand," murmured Sinclair. "Maybe I
can get in on this manhunt—if they ain't started already."

The boy laughed. "Everybody in town has been trying to get in on that
manhunt, but it ain't any use. Sheriff Kern has got a handpicked
posse—every one a fightin' fool, Dad says. Wish you luck, though. They
ain't starting till the morning. Well, here's where I branch off.
S'long! Hey, Spot, you old fool, git along, will you?"

Sinclair watched the youngster fade into the gloom behind the ambling
cow, then he struck on toward Sour Creek; but, before he reached the
main street, he wound off to the left and let his horse drift slowly
beyond the outlying houses.

His problem had become greatly complicated by the information from the
boy. He had a double purpose, which was to see Cartwright in the first
place, and then Sandersen, for these were the separate stumbling blocks
for Jig and for himself. For Cartwright he saw a solution, through
which he could avoid a killing, but Sandersen must die.

He skirted behind the most northerly outlying shed of the hotel,
dismounted there, and threw the reins. Then he slipped back into the
shadow of the main building. Directly above him he saw three dark
windows bunched together. This must be Cartwright's room.

It seemed patent to Bill Sandersen, earlier that afternoon, that fate
had stacked the cards against Riley Sinclair. Bill Sandersen indeed,
believed in fate. He felt that great hidden forces had always
controlled his life, moving him hither and yon according to their
pleasure.

To the dreamy mind of the mystic, men are accidents, and all they
perform are the dictates of the power and the brain of the other world.

Sandersen could tell at what definite moments hunches had seized him.
He had looked at the side of the mountain and suddenly felt, without
any reason or volition on his part, that he was impelled to search that
mountainside for gold-bearing ore. He had never fallen into the habit
of using his reason. He was a wonderful gambler, playing with singular
abandon, and usually winning. It mattered not what he held in his hand.

If the urge came to him, and the surety that he was going to bet, he
would wager everything in his wallet, all that he could borrow, on a
pair of treys. And when such a fit was on him, the overwhelming
confidence that shone in his face usually overpowered the other men
sitting in at the game. More than once a full house had been laid down
to his wretched pair. There were other occasions when he had lost the
very boots he wore, but the times of winning naturally overbalanced the
losses in the mind of Bill. It was not he who won, and it was not he
who lost. It was fate which ruled him. And that fate, he felt at
present, had sided against Riley Sinclair.

A sort of pity for the big cowpuncher moved him. He knew that he and
Quade and Lowrie deserved death in its most terrible form for their
betrayal of Hal Sinclair in the desert; and nothing but fate, he was
sure, could save him from the avenger. Fate, however, had definitely
intervened. What save blind fate could have stepped into the mind of
Sinclair and made him keep Cold Feet from the rope, when that hanging
would have removed forever all suspicion that Sinclair himself had
killed Quade?

Another man would have attributed both of those actions to common
decency in Sinclair, but Sandersen always hunted out more profound
reasons. In order to let the fact of his own salvation from Sinclair's
gun sink more definitely into his brain, he trotted his horse into the
hills that afternoon. When he came back he heard that the posse was in
town.

To another it might have seemed odd that the posse was there instead of
on the trail of the outlaws. But Sandersen never thought of so
practical a question. To him it was as clear as day. The posse had been
brought to Sour Creek by fate in order that he, Sandersen, might enlist
in its ranks and help in the great work of running down Sinclair, for,
after all, it was work primarily to his own interest. There was
something ironically absurd about it. He, Sandersen, having committed
the mortal crime of abandoning Hal Sinclair in the desert, was now
given the support of legal society to destroy the just avenger of that
original crime. It was hardly any wonder that Sandersen saw in all this
the hand of fate.