Max Brand (24 page)

But he forgot that a moment later, when he saw the form of a horseman
break out of covert from the trees farther down the mountain and
immediately disappear again. Sinclair? He studied the barrel of the
revolver, but the horseman appeared no more in the brightening and
misty dawn. It was only after a long pause that there issued from the
trees, not Riley Sinclair, but the squat, thick form of Arizona!

Behind the sheriff's apprehensive glance there had been reason. True
the door had closed upon Arizona, and the door was thick. But the
moment Arizona had passed through the door, he clapped his ear to the
keyhole and listened, holding his breath, for he was certain that the
moment his back was turned the shameful story of his exploits in the
lumber camp eight years before would come out for the edification of
Kern. If so, it meant ruin for him. Arizona was closed to him; all this
district would be closed by the story of his early light-fingeredness.
He felt as if he were being driven to the wall. Consequently he
listened with set teeth to the early questions of the sheriff; then he
breathed easier, still incredulous, when he heard Sinclair refuse to
tell the tale.

Still he lingered, dreading that the truth might out, and so heard the
talk turn to a new channel—Cold Feet. Cold Feet meant many things to
Sour Creek; to Arizona, the schoolteacher meant only one
thing—twenty-five-hundred dollars. And Arizona was broke.

To his hungry ear came the tidings: "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll
give you the layout for finding Cold Feet. Ride west out of Sour Creek
and head for a flat-topped mountain. On the shoulder just under the
head you'll find Cold Feet. Go get him!"

To Arizona it seemed as if this last injunction were personal advice.
He waited to hear no more; if he had paused for a moment he might have
learned that the hope of twenty-five hundred was an illusion and a
snare. He saw the bright vision of a small fortune placed in his hands
as the result of a single gunplay. He had seen the schoolteacher. He
knew by instinct that there was no fighting quality in Jig. And the
moment he heard the location it was as good as cash in his pocket, he
was sure.

There was only one difficulty. He must beat out the sheriff. To that
end he hurried to the stable behind the hotel, broke all records for
speed in getting the saddle on his roan mare, and then jogged her
quietly out of town so as to rouse no suspicions. But hardly was he
past the outskirts, hardly crediting his good luck that the sheriff
himself was not yet on the way, than he touched the flanks with his
spurs and sent the mare flying west.

In the west the moon was dropping behind the upper ranges, as he rode
through the foothills; when he began to climb the side of the mountain,
the dawn began to grow. So much the better for Arizona. But, knowing
that he had only Cold Feet to deal with, he did not adopt all the
caution of Sandersen on the same trail. Instead he cut boldly straight
for the shoulder of the mountain, knowing what he would find there on
his arrival. In the nearest grove he left his horse and then walked
swiftly up to the level. There the first thing that caught his eyes was
the form wrapped in the blanket. But the next thing he saw was the pale
glimmer of the dawn on the barrel of a revolver. He reached for his own
gun, only to see, over the rock above him, the grinning face of
Sandersen arise.

"Too late, Arizona," called the tall man. "Too late for one job,
partner, but just in time for the next!"

Arizona cursed softly, steadily, through snarling lips.

"What job?"

"Sinclair! He's gone, but he'll be back any minute. And it'll need us
both to down him, Arizona. We'll split on Sinclair's reward."

Disgust and wrath consumed Arizona. Without other answer he strode to
the prostrate form, slashed the rope and tore the handkerchief from
between the teeth of Cold Feet. The schoolteacher sat up, gasping for
breath, purple of face.

"Leave him be!" cried Sandersen, his voice shrill with anger. "Leave
him be! He's the bait, Arizona, and we're the trap that'll catch
Sinclair."

But Arizona cursed again bitterly. "Leave that bait lie till the sun
burns it up. You'll never catch Sinclair with it."

"How come?"

From around the rock Sandersen appeared and walked down to the fat man.

"Because Sinclair's already caught."

If he had expected the tall man to groan with disappointment, there was
a surprise in store for him. Sandersen exclaimed shrilly for joy.

"Sinclair took! Took dead, then!"

"Dead? Why?"

"You don't mean he was taken alive?"

"Yes, I sure do! And I done the figuring that led up to him being
caught."

The slender form of Jig rose before them, trembling.

"It isn't true! It isn't true! There aren't enough of you in Sour Creek
to take Riley Sinclair!"

"Ain't it true?" asked Arizona. "All right, son, you'll meet him pronto
in the Sour Creek jail, unless the boys finish their party of the other
day and string you up before you get inside the jail."

This brought a peculiar, low-pitched moan from Cold Feet.

"Cheer up," said Sandersen. "You ain't swinging yet awhile."

"But he's hurt! If he's alive, he's terribly wounded?"

Arizona beat down the appealing hand with a brutal gesture.

"No, he ain't particular hurt. Just his neck squashed a bit where the
sheriff throttled him. He didn't fight enough to get hurt, curse him!"

Frowning, Sandersen shook his head. "He's a fighting man, Arizona, if
they ever was one."

It seemed that everything infuriated the fat man.

"What d'you know about it, Lanky?" he demanded of Sandersen. "Didn't I
run the affair? Wasn't it me that planted the whole trap? Wasn't it me
that knowed he'd come into town for you or Cartwright?"

"Cartwright!" gasped Jig.

"Sure! We nailed him in Cartwright's room, just the way I said we
would. And they laughed at me, the fools!"

He might have gathered singular inferences from the lowered head of Jig
and the soft murmur: "I might have known—I might have known he'd try
for me."

"And I might have had the pleasure of drilling him clean," said
Arizona, harking back to it with savage pleasure, "but I shot out the
light. I wanted him to die slow, and before the end I wanted to pry his
eyes open and make him see my face and know that it was me that done
for him! That was what I wanted. But he turned yaller and wouldn't
fight."

"He wouldn't kill," said Jig coldly. "But for courage—I laugh at you,
Arizona!"

"Easy," scowled the cowpuncher. "Easy, Jig. You ain't behind the bars
yet. You're in reach of my fist, and I'd think nothing of busting you
in the face. Shut up till I talk to you."

The misty eyes of Sandersen brightened a little and grew hard. There
was a great deal of fighting spirit in the man, and his easy victory of
that morning had roused him to a battling pitch.

"Looks to me like you ain't running this here party, Arizona," he said
dryly. "If there are any directions to give Cold Feet, I'll give 'em.
It was me that took him!"

No direct answer could Arizona find to this true statement, and, as
always when a man is at a loss for words, his temper rose, and his
fists clenched. For the first time he looked at Sandersen with an eye
of savage calculation. He had come to hope of a tidy little fortune. He
had found it snatched out of his hand, and, as he measured Sandersen,
his heart rose. Twenty-five-hundred dollars would fairly well equip him
in life. The anger faded out of his eyes, and in its place came the
cold gleam of the man who thinks and calculates. All at once he began
to smile, a mirthless smile that was of the lips only.

"Maybe you're right, Sandersen, but I'm thinking you'd have to prove
that you took Cold Feet.'

"Prove it?"

"Sure! The boys wouldn't be apt to believe that sleepy Sandersen woke
up and took Cold Feet alive."

Instantly the gorge of Sandersen rose, and he began to see red.

"Are you out to find trouble, Fatty?"

The adjective found no comfortable lodging place in the mind of
Arizona.

"Me? Sure I ain't. I'm just stating facts the way I know 'em."

"Well, the facts you know ain't worth a damn."

"No?"

It was growing clearer and clearer to the fat man that between him and
twenty-five-hundred dollars there stood only the unamiable figure of
the long, lean cowpuncher. He steadied his eye till a fixed glitter
came in it. He hated lean men by instinct and distrusted them.

"Sure they ain't. How you going to get around the fact that I did take
Cold Feet?"

"Well, Sandersen, you see that they's twenty-five-hundred dollars
hanging on the head of this Cold Feet?"

"Certainly! And I see ten ways of spending just that amount."

"So do I," said Arizona.

"You do?"

"Partner, you've heard me talk!"

"Arizona, you're talking mighty queer. What d'ye mean?"

"Now, suppose it was me that brought in Cold Feet, who'd get the
money?"

"Why, you that brought him in?"

"Yep, me. And suppose I brought him in with two murders charged to him
instead of one."

"I don't foller you. What's the second murder, Fatty?"

"You!"

Sandersen blinked and gave back a little. Plainly he was beginning to
fear that the reason of Arizona was unbalanced.

He shook his head.

"I'll show you how it'll be charged to Cold Feet," said the fat man.

Taking the cartridge belt of Jig he shook the revolver out of the
holster and pumped a shot into the ground. The sharp crack of the
explosion roused no echo for a perceptible space. Then it struck back
at them from a solid wall of rock, almost as loud as it had been in
fact. Off among the hills the echo was repeated to a faint whisper.
Arizona dropped the revolver carelessly on the ground.

"Fatty, you've gone nutty," said Sandersen.

"I'll tell you a yarn," said Arizona.

Sandersen looked past him to the east. The light was growing rapidly
about the mountains. In another moment or so that sunrise which he had
been looking forward to with such solemn dread, would occur. He was
safe, of course, and still that sense of impending danger would not
leave him. He noted Jig, erect, very pale, watching them with intense
and frightened interest.

"Here's the story," went on the fat man. "I come out of Sour Creek
hunting for Cold Feet. I came straight to this here mountain. Halfway
up the side I hear a shot. I hurry along and soft-foot on to this
shoulder. I see Cold Feet standing, over the dead body of Sandersen.
Then I stick up Cold Feet and take him back to Sour Creek and get the
reward. Won't that be two murders on his head?"

The thin Swede rubbed his chin. "For a grown man, Fatty, you're doing a
lot of supposing."

"I'm going to turn it into fact," said Arizona.

"How?"

"With a chunk of lead! Pull your gun, you lanky fool!"

It seemed to Jig, watching with terrible interest, that Sandersen
stared not at Arizona, as he went for his gun, but beyond the stubby
cowpuncher—far behind and into the east, where the dawn was growing
brighter, losing its color, as sunrises do, just before the rising of
the sun. His long arm jerked back, the revolver whipped into his hand,
and he stiffened his forearm for the shot.

All that Jig saw, with eyes sharpened, so that each movement seemed to
be taking whole seconds, was a sneering Arizona, waiting till the last
second. When he moved, however, it was with an almost leisurely flip of
the wrist. The heavy Colt was conjured into his hand. With graceful
ease the big weapon slipped out and exploded before Sandersen's
forefinger had curled around the trigger.

Out of the hand of the Swede slipped the gun and clanged unheeded on
the ground at his feet. She saw a patch of red spring up on his breast,
while he lurched forward with long, stiff strides, threw up his hands
to the east, and pitched on his face. She turned from the dead thing at
her feet.

The white rim of the sun had just slid over the top of a mountain.

She dropped to her knees, and with a sudden, hysterical strength she
was able to turn him on his back. He was dead. The first glimpse of his
face told her that. She looked up into the eyes of the murderer.

Arizona was methodically cleaning his gun. His color had not changed.
There was a singular placidity about all his movements.

"I just hurried up what was coming to him," said Arizona coolly, as he
finished reloading his Colt. "Sinclair was after him, and that meant he
was done for."

Oddly enough, she found that she was neither very much afraid of the
fat man, nor did she loathe him for his crime. He seemed outside of the
jurisdiction of the laws which govern most men.

"You said Sinclair is in jail."

"Sure, and he is. But they don't make jails strong enough in these
parts to hold Sinclair. He'd have come out and landed Sandersen, just
as he's going to come out and land Cartwright. What has he got agin'
Cartwright, d'you know?"

Oh, it was incredible that he could talk so calmly with the dead man
before him.

"I don't know," she murmured and drew back.

"Well, take it all in all," pursued Arizona, "this deal of mine is
pretty rotten, but you'd swing just the same for one murder as for two.
They won't hang you no deader, eh? And when they come to look at it,
this is pretty neat. Sandersen wasn't no good. Everybody knowed that.
But he had one thing I wanted—which was you and the twenty-five
hundred that goes with the gent that brings you into Sour Creek. So, at
the price of one bullet, I get the coin. Pretty neat, I say ag'in."

Dropping the revolver back into the holster he patted it with a
caressing hand.

"There's your gun," went on Arizona, chuckling. "It's got a bullet
fired out of it. There's Sandersen's gun with no bullet fired, showing
that, while he was stalking you, you shot and drilled him. Here's my
gun with no sign of a shot fired. Which proves that I just slid in here
and stuck you up from behind, while you were looking over the gent
you'd just killed."