Max Brand (20 page)

"You always got a pile of fancy words," protested the big man.

Sinclair saw Fatty put his hand on the shoulder of his companion.
Plainly he was the dominant force of the two, in spite of his lack of
height.

"Red, as sure as you're born, they's something going to happen this
here night. My scars is itching, Red, and that means something."

Again the mind of Sinclair flashed back to something familiar. A man
who prophesied by the itching of his scars. But once more the danger of
the moment made his mind a blank to all else.

"What scars?" asked Red.

"Scratches I got when I was a kid," flashed the fat man. "That's all."
"Oh," chuckled Red, plainly unconvinced. "Well, we'll play the game a
little longer."

"That's the talk, partner. I tell you we got this trap baited, and it's
got
to catch!"

Presently they drifted around the corner of the building and out of
sight. For a moment Sinclair wondered what that trap could be which the
fat man had baited so carefully. His mind reverted to his original
picture of a card game. Cheap tricksters, sharpers with the cards, he
decided, and with that decision he banished them both from his mind.

There was no other sign of life around him. All of Sour Creek lived in
the main street, or went to bed at this hour of the early night. The
back of the hotel was safe from observance, except for the horse shed,
and the back of the shed was turned to him. He felt safe, and now he
turned, settled his fingers into a new grip on the eaves, and made his
third attempt. It succeeded to a nicety, his right knee catching
solidly on the ledge.

He got a fingertip hold on the boards and stood up. Straightening
himself slowly, he looked into the room through a corner of the window
pane.

Cartwright sat with his back to the window, a lamp beside him on the
table, writing. He had thrown off his heavy outer shirt, and he wore
only a cotton undershirt. His heavy shoulders and big-muscled arms
showed to great advantage, with the light and sharp shadows defining
each ridge. Now and then he lifted his head to think. Then he bent to
his writing again.

It occurred to Sinclair to fling the window up boldly, and when
Cartwright turned, cover him with a gun. But the chances, including his
position on the ledge, were very much against him. Cartwright would
probably snatch at his own gun which lay before him in its holster on
the table, and whirling he would try a snap shot.

The only other alternative was to raise the window—and that with
Cartwright four paces away!

First Sinclair took stock of the interior of the room. It was larger
than most parlors he had seen. There was a big double bed on each side
of it. Plainly it was intended to accommodate a whole party, and
Sinclair smiled at the vanity of the man who had insisted on taking
"the best you have." No wonder Sour Creek knew the room he had rented.

In the corner was a great fireplace capable of taking a six-foot log,
at least. He admired the massive andirons, palpably of home manufacture
in Sour Creek's blacksmith shop. It proved the age of the building. No
one would waste money on such a fireplace in these days. A little stove
would do twice the work of that great, hungry chimney. There were two
great chests of drawers, also, each looking as if it were built up from
the floor and made immovable, such was its weight. The beds, also, were
of an ancient and solid school of furniture making.

To be sure, everything was sadly run down. On the floor the thin old
carpet was worn completely through at the sides of the beds. Both
mirrors above the chest of drawers were sadly cracked, and the table at
which Cartwright sat, leaned to the right under the weight of the arm
he rested on it.

Having thus taken in the details of the battle ground, Sinclair made
ready for the attack. He made sure of his footing on the ledge, gave a
last glance over his shoulder to see that no one was in sight, and then
began to work at the window, moving it fractions of an inch at a time.

When the window was half raised—the work of a full ten
minutes—Sinclair drew his revolver and rested the barrel on the sill.
He continued to lift the sash, but now he used his left hand alone, and
thereby the noises became louder and more frequent. Cartwright
occasionally raised his head, but probably he was becoming accustomed
to the sounds.

Now the window was raised to its full height, and Sinclair prepared for
the command which would jerk Cartwright's hands above his head and make
him turn slowly to look into the mouth of the gun. Weight which he
could have handled easily with a lurch, became tenfold heavier with the
slowness of the lift; eventually both shoulders were in the room, and
he was kneeling on the sill.

Cartwright raised his hands slowly, luxuriously, and stretched. It was
a movement so opportune that Sinclair almost laughed aloud. He twisted
his legs over the sill and dropped lightly on the floor.

"No noise!" he called softly.

The arms of Cartwright became frozen in their position above his head.
He turned slowly, with little jerky movements, as though he had to
fight to make himself look. And then he saw Sinclair.

"Keep 'em up!" commanded the cowpuncher, "and get out of that chair,
real soft and slow. That's it!"

Without a word Cartwright obeyed. There was no need of speech, indeed,
for a score of expressions flashed into his face.

"Go over and lock the door."

He obeyed, keeping his arms above his head, all the way across the
room, while Sinclair jerked the new Colt out of its holster and tossed
it on the farthest bed. In the meantime Cartwright lingered at the door
for a moment with his hand on the key. No doubt he fought, for the
split part of a second, with a wild temptation to jerk that door open
and leap into the safety of the hall. Sinclair read that thought in the
tremor of the big man's body. But presently discretion prevailed.
Cartwright turned the key and faced about. He was a deadly gray, and
his lips were working.

"Now," he began.

"Wait till I start talking," urged Sinclair. "Come over here and sit
down. You're too close to the door to suit me, just now. This is a pile
better."

Cartwright obeyed quietly. Sitting down, he locked his hands nervously
about one knee and looked up with his eyes to Sinclair.

"I come in for a quiet talk," said Sinclair, dropping his gun into the
holster.

That movement drew a sudden brightening of the eyes of Cartwright, who
now straightened in his chair, as if he had regained hope.

"Don't make no mistake," said Sinclair, following the meaning of that
change accurately. "I'm pretty handy with this old gun, partner. And on
you, just now, they ain't any reason why I should take my time or any
chances, when it comes to shooting."

Unconsciously Cartwright moistened his white lips, and his eyes grew
big again.

"Except that the minute you shoot, you're a dead one, Sinclair."

"Me? Oh, no. When a gun's heard they'll run to the room where the
shot's been fired. And when they get the lock open, I'll be gone the
way I come from." Sinclair smiled genially on his enemy. "Don't start
raising any crop of delusions, friend. I mean business—a lot."

"Then talk business. I'll listen."

"Oh, thanks! I come here about your wife."

He watched Cartwright wince. In his heart he pitied the man. All the
story of Cartwright's spoiled boyhood and viciously selfish youth were
written in his face for the reading of such a man as Sinclair. The
rancher's son had begun well enough. Lack of discipline had undone him;
but whether his faults were fixed or changeable, Sinclair could not
tell. It was largely to learn this that he took the chances for the
interview.

"Go on," said Cartwright.

"In the first place, d'you know why she left you?"

An anguish came across Cartwright's face. It taught Sinclair at least
one thing—that the man loved her.

"You're the reason—maybe."

"Me? I never seen her till two days ago. That's a tolerable ugly thing
to say, Cartwright!"

"Well, I got tolerable ugly reasons for saying it," answered the other.

The cowpuncher sighed. "I follow the way you drift. But you're wrong,
partner. Fact is, I didn't know Cold Feet was a girl till this
evening."

Cartwright sneered, and Sinclair stiffened in his chair.

"Son," he said gravely, "the worst enemies I got will all tell you that
Riley Sinclair don't handle his own word careless. And I give you my
solemn word of honor that I didn't know she was a girl till this
evening, and that, right away after I found it out, I come down here to
straighten things out with you if I could. Will you believe it?"

It was a strange study to watch the working in the face of
Cartwright—of hope, passion, doubt, hatred. He leaned closer to
Sinclair, his big hands clutched together.

"Sinclair, I wish I could believe it!"

"Look me in the eye, man! I can stand it."

"By the Lord, it's true! But, Sinclair, have you come down to find out
if I'd take her back?"

"Would you?"

The other grew instantly crafty. "She's done me a pile of wrong,
Sinclair."

"She has," said the cowpuncher. He went on gently: "She must of cut
into your pride a lot."

"Oh, if it was known," said Cartwright, turning pale at the thought,
"she'd make me a laughing stock! Me, old Cartwright's son!"

"Yep, that'd be bad." He wondered at the frank egoism of the youth.

"I leave it to you," said Cartwright, settling back in his chair.
"Something had ought to be done to punish her. Besides, she's a weight
on your hands, and I can see you'd be anxious to get rid of her quick."

"How d'you aim to punish her?" asked Sinclair.

"Me?"

"Sure! Kind of a hard thing to do, wouldn't it be?"

Cartwright's eyes grew small. "Ways could be found." He swallowed hard.
"I'd find a heap of ways to make her wish she'd died sooner'n shame
me!"

"I s'pose you could," said Sinclair slowly. He lowered his glance for a
moment to keep his scorn from standing up in his eyes. "But I've heard
of men, Cartwright, that'd love a woman so hard that they'd forgive
anything."

"The world's full of fools," said the rich rancher. He stabbed a stern
forefinger into the palm of his other hand. "She's got to do a lot of
explaining before I'll look at her. She's got to make me an accounting
of every day she's spent since I last seen her at—"

"At the wedding?" asked Sinclair cruelly.

Cartwright writhed in the chair till it groaned beneath his uneasy
weight. "She told you that?"

"Look here," went on Sinclair, assuming a new tone of frank inquiry.
"Let's see if we can't find out why she left you?"

"They ain't any reason—just plain fool woman, that's all."

"But maybe she didn't love you, Cartwright. Did you ever think of
that?"

The big man stared. "Not love me? Who
would
she love, then? Was they
anybody in them parts that could bring her as much as I could? Was they
anybody that had as good a house as mine, or as much land, or as much
cattle? Didn't I take her over the ground and show her what it amounted
to? Didn't I offer her her pick of my own string of riding horses?"

"Did you do as much as that?"

"Sure I did. She wouldn't have lacked for nothing."

"You sure must have loved her a lot," insinuated Sinclair. "Must have
been plumb foolish about her."

"Oh, I dunno about that. Love is one thing that ain't bothered me none.
I got important interests, Sinclair. I'm a business man. And this here
marriage was a business proposition. Her dad was a business man, and he
fixed it all up for us. It was to tie the two biggest bunches of land
together that could be found in them parts. Anyway"—he grinned—"I got
the land!"

"And why not let the girl go, then?"

"Why?" asked Cartwright eagerly. "Who wants her? You?"

"Maybe, if you'd let her go."

"Not in a thousand years! She's mine. They ain't no face but hers that
I can see opposite to me at the table—not one! Besides, she's mine,
and I'm going to keep her—after I've taught her a lesson or two!"

Sinclair wiped his forehead hastily. Eagerness to jump at the throat of
the man consumed him. He forced a smile on his thin lips and
persistently looked down.

"But think how easy it'd be, Cartwright. Think how easy you could get a
divorce on the grounds of desertion."

"And drag all this shame into the courts?"

"They's ways of hushing these here things up. It'd be easy. She
wouldn't put up no defense, mostlike. You'd win your case. And if
anybody asked questions, they'd simply say she was crazy, and that you
was lucky to get rid of her. They wouldn't blame you none. And it
wouldn't be no disgrace to be deserted by a crazy woman, would it?"

Cartwright drew back into a shell of opposition. "You talk pretty hot
for this."

"Because I'm telling you the way out for both of you."

"I can't see it. She's coming back to me. Nobody else is going to get
her. I've set my mind on it!"

"Partner, don't you see that neither of you could ever be happy?"

"Oh, we'd be happy enough. I'd forgive her—after a while."

"Yes, but what about her?"

"About her? Why, curse her, what right has she got to be considered?"

"Cartwright, she doesn't love you."

The bulldog came into the face of Cartwright and contorted it. "Don't
she belong to me by law? Ain't she sworn to—"

"Don't" said Sinclair, as if the words strangled him. "Don't say that,
Cartwright, if you please!"

"Why not? You put up a good slick talk, Sinclair. But you don't win. I
ain't going to give her up by no divorce. I'm going to keep her. I
don't love her enough to want her back, I hate her enough. They's only
one way that I'd stop caring about—stop fearing that she'd shame me.
And that's by having her six feet underground. But you, Sinclair, you
need coin. You're footloose. Suppose you was to take her and bring her
to—"