Max Brand (30 page)

"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?"

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.

Moreover, things were going smoothly under the guidance of Whitey. The
pale-faced man had thrown himself body and soul into the movement. It
was a rare thing to see Whitey excited. Other men were readily
impressed. After a time, when anger had reached a certain point where
men melt into hot action, these fixed figures of men would sweep into
fluid action. And then the fates of Arizona and Sinclair would be
determined.

It pleased Cartwright more than any action of his life to feel that he
had stirred up this movement. It pleased him still more to know that he
could now step back and watch the work of ruin go on. It was like
disturbing the one small stone which starts the avalanche, which
eventually smashes the far-off forest.

So much was done, then. And now why not make sure that the very last
means of retreat for the pair was blocked? The girl went to get the
horses. And if, by the one chance in twenty, the two should actually
break out of the jail, it would remain to Cartwright to kill the horses
or the men. He did not care which.

He slipped behind the hotel and presently saw the girl come out of the
stable with her horse. He followed, skulking softly behind her until he
reached the appointed place among the cottonwoods. The trees grew tall
and thick of trunk, and about their bases was a growth of dense
shrubbery. It was a simple thing to conceal two saddled horses in a
hollow which sank into the edge of the shrubbery.

Cartwright's first desire was to couch himself in shooting distance.
Then he remembered that shooting with a revolver by moonlight was
uncertain work. He slipped away to the hotel and got a rifle ready
enough. Men were milling through the lower rooms of the hotel. The
point of discussion had long since been passed. The ringleaders had
made up their minds. They went about with faces so black that those who
were asked to join, hardly had the courage to question. There was
broad-voiced rumor growing swiftly. Something was wrong—something was
very wrong. It was like that mysterious whisper which goes through the
forest before the heavy storm strikes. Something was terribly wrong and
must be righted.

How the ringleaders had reasoned, nobody paused to ask. It was
sufficient that a score of men were saying: "The sheriff figures on
letting Sinclair and Arizona go."

A typical scene between two men. They meet casually, one man whistling,
the other thoughtful.

"What's the bad luck?" asks the whistler.

"No time for whistling," says the other.

"Say, what you mean?"

"I ask you just this," said the gloomy man, with a mystery of much
knowledge in his face: "Are gents around here going to be murdered, and
the murderers go free?"

"Well?"

"Sinclair and Arizona—that's what's up! They're going to bust loose."

"I dunno about Arizona, but Sinclair, they say, is a square shooter."

"Who told you that? Sinclair himself? He's got a rep as long as my arm.
He's a bad one, son!"

"You don't say!"

"I do say. And something has got to be done, or Sour Creek won't be a
decent man's town no more."

"Let me in." Off they went arm in arm.

Cartwright saw half a dozen little interviews of this nature, as he
entered the hotel. Men were excited, they hardly knew why. There is no
need for reason in a mob. One has only to cry, "Kill!" and the mob will
start of its own volition to find something that may be slain. Also, a
mob has no conscience and no remorse. It is the nearest thing to a
devil that exists, and it is also the nearest thing to the divine mercy
and courage. It is braver than the bravest man; it is more timorous
than the most fearful; it is fiercer than a lion, gentler than a lamb.
All these things by turns, and each one to the exclusion of all the
others.

Now the thunderclouds were piling on the horizon, and Cartwright could
feel the electricity in the air. He went to Pop.

"I got to have a rifle."

"What for?"

"You know," said Cartwright significantly.

The hotelkeeper nodded. He brought out an old Winchester, still mobile
of action and deadly. With that weapon under his arm, Cartwright
started back, but then he remembered that there were excellent chances
of missing even with a rifle, when he was shooting through the shadows
and by the treacherous moonlight. It would be better, far better, to
have his horse with him. Then, if he actually succeeded in wounding one
or both of them, he could run his victim down, or, perhaps, keep up a
steady fire of rifle shots from the rear, that would bring half the
town pouring out to join in the chase.

So he swung back to the stables, saddled his horse, trotted it around
in a comfortably wide detour, and, coming within sound distance of the
cottonwoods behind the blacksmith shop, he dismounted and led his horse
into a dense growth of shrubbery. That close approach would have been
impossible without alarming the girl, had it not been for a stiff wind
blowing across into his face, completely muffling the noise of his
coming. In the bushes he ensconced himself safely. Only a few yards
away he kept his eye on the opening among the cottonwoods, behind which
the girl and the two horses moved from time to time, growing more and
more visible, as the moon climbed above the horizon mist.

He tightened his grip on the rifle and amused himself with drawing
beads on stumps and bright bits of foliage, from time to time. He must
be ready for any sort of action if the two should ever appear.

While he waited, sounds reached his ear from the town, sounds eloquent
of purpose. He listened to them as to beautiful music. It was a low,
distinct, and continuous humming sound. Voices of men went into it, low
as the growl of an angered dog, and there was a background of slamming
doors, and footsteps on verandas. Sour Creek was mustering for the
assault.

Now that sound had entered the jail, and it had a peculiar effect. It
was like that distant murmuring of the storm which walks over the
treetops far away. It made the sheriff and his two prisoners lift their
heads and look at one another in silence, for the sheriff was most
unprofessionally tilted back in a chair, with his feet braced against
the bars of the cell, while he chatted with his bad men about men,
women, and events. The sheriff had a distinct curiosity to learn how
Arizona had recovered so suddenly from his "blue funk."

Unquestionably the fat man had recovered. His voice was as steady now
as any man's, and the old, insolent glitter was in his eyes. He squared
his shoulders and blew his smoke straight at the face of the sheriff,
as he talked. What caused it, the sheriff could not tell, this
rehabilitation of a fighting man, but he connected the influence of
Sinclair with the change.