Savage Range (18 page)

As soon as he was out of sight, Bonsell said to Pardee, “Saddle my black and be quick about it.”

Pardee looked at him shrewdly. “You want to get Warren?”

“No,” Bonsell said irritably. “Don't be a damn fool, Pardee! Nobody's to touch him. Go saddle my horse.”

When the big black gelding was saddled, Bonsell mounted, left the crew in command of Ball, and disappeared into the night. He had a long ride ahead of him, and he did not spare his horse. He was going to see Buckner tonight, and about what he had no idea. But he did have an idea that something was wrong. This secret visit was not like Buckner unless he had something on his mind. Warren would lame his horse since Ball had pulled a shoe, and would not reach San Jon till daylight.

When he rode into San Jon, it was two in the morning. Instead of leaving his horse in front of the hotel at the tie rack, Bonsell pulled into the darkness of the alley and tied him beside Tom Beauchamp's blacksmith shop. Then he surveyed the back of the hotel. It was pitch-dark. Already he had decided not to advertise his visit.

He tried the hotel's kitchen door and found it was locked. Then, very quietly, he hunted about for something to stand on and finally moved the barrel from under the eave spout at the corner. Standing on it, he tried three windows at the back of the hotel, and found them locked. But he was a persistem man. The fourth one he tried on the south side was open, and he swung up into the kitchen, shutting the window softly after him. The kitchen was dark, and he moved slowly enough toward the far wall that he did not even kick a bucket of wash water which the swamper had set in the middle of the floor in readiness for his morning's scrubbing.

He found that one door in the kitchen led out into a corridor which ran the length of the building and opened onto the lobby, where a light was burning.

Softly he walked the length of the corridor, approaching the lobby with infinite care. He heard a paper rustle now and then, and when he looked around the newel post of the stairs which ascended to the second floor, he could see the night clerk seated in one of the lobby chairs reading a paper, the lamp on a table beside him. It was a young fellow whom the proprietor had hired to protect himself from the occasional freighters who demanded a room at all hours of the night.

Bonsell considered the situation. He could slug the clerk on the head, but he didn't want to leave a trail. Also, he could try to sneak up the stairs. But he was leery of the boards whose squeaks would be sure to give him away. He stood there motionless, his crafty face musing.

The lobby desk was a right-angled counter just to the right of the stairs, and on it was the register and a pen. Bonsell's glance settled on the pen, which was stuck upright in a glass of buckshot, and then his glance rose to the open double doors of the dining-room beyond the clerk.

Gently, then, he hunkered down and crept the ten feet to the counter and paused. The clerk turned a page of his paper. Bonsell's hand reached up, fumbled for the glass of buckshot, found it, and took it. In another moment he was back in his old place, and the clerk had not moved.

The rest was simple enough. Taking two buckshot in his fingers, Bonsell tossed them over the table where the lamp sat, over the clerk's head so that they landed in the door of the dining-room and rolled noisily across the floor.

At the first one, the clerk swiveled his head to listen. Two more landed and rolled off in the dark. They made a strange sound, something like a board cracking, something like a mouse skittering across paper. At the third one, the clerk put down his paper and walked over to the door and listened. No sound come from the dining-room and he came back to his paper. When he was seated again, Bonsell threw another one. This time the clerk put down his paper, picked up the lamp, and entered the dining-room. He paused in the doorway, then, as if he wanted no more worry about the noise, moved inside to investigate.

Bonsell laid the glass of shot on the desk, tucked the register under his arm, and ascended the stairs softly. Once at the head of the stair well, he waited until he heard the clerk take his seat again and resume his reading, then he tiptoed down to the far end of the corridor and around the L in it. He struck a match, consulted the register, found that he was only five doors from Buckner's room, approached it, and knocked softly on the door.

Buckner appeared in a moment, a pair of pants pulled over his nightshirt.

Bonsell smiled and murmured, “Howdy, Buckner. Warren said you wanted to see me.”

Buckner smiled uneasily and extended his hand, then invited Bonsell into his room. Shutting the door behind him, he asked, “Where is Ray?”

“Puttin' up the horses. I figured I might's well ride in with him tonight.”

Buckner looked relieved. “Take a chair,” he said, without much warmth. He turned the lamp higher, put his coat on against the chill, and lighted a cigar. Bonsell watched him carefully. There was something wrong, and he might as well find out now what it was.

“Any trouble come up?” he asked Buckner, then smiled again. “Whatever it is, it ain't enough to make you feel bad about the news I got for you.”

“And what's that?”

“The squatters are cleaned out. Last night we cornered 'em, killed six, and the rest have drifted out of the country.”

Buckner regarded him with a slow smile. “That's fine, Max. You've settled all my affairs for me before we part company, haven't you?” He sat down on the bed, watching Bonsell.

Bonsell said, “Before we what?”

“Part company. You and I are through, Max.”

Bonsell drawled patiently, “Now what brought that about?”

“I took a little trip today—yesterday,” Buckner said. “I saw your new corners. A pretty job, but I spotted them a little too soon.”

Bonsell looked blank. “What new corners?”

Buckner laughed. “You're a good actor, Max. I always said you were. But this time I've got the goods on you.”

“What in hell are you talkin' about?” Bonsell drawled.

Buckner was smiling. “Just to show you how much I know about it, I can tell you the whole scheme,” Buckner said. “You thought you could steal a nice slice of land from the grant by changing the corners. Chances were I'd never discover it, but if I did you figured I'd have to keep my mouth shut because I didn't want anybody snooping into my title to the grant. Well, mister, you're wrong. I spotted the steal. I saw the new corner some ten miles this side of the old one. I even talked to one of the crew that changed it under your orders. You made the blunder of misreading the survey records as to the south corner. You've located the false corner on a butte of white quartz, whereas the survey record states that it's on a butte whose south face is of black
malpais
.” He smiled complacently. “For a minute I was stumped. But I made the bank before it closed and consulted the survey report. Also, you informed your man wrong as to the length of that south boundary, in case it's any interest to you. It's eighty miles, not ninety. I took a look at the old charter to make sure this afternoon.”

He spread his hands. “You're a sharp man, friend Bonsell. You're so sharp you've cut your own throat.”

Bonsell was trying to make sense out of this and he could not. He started at the beginning. “You think I changed boundary corners on you?”

“I know you did.”

“And you saw the false corner?”

“I did.”

“How'd you find it?”

“One of your crew took me.”

“And who was it?”

Buckner hesitated. Scoville had said he was leaving the country, so it didn't matter if he was named. “Man by the name of Scoville,” he said carefully. “Ever hear of him?”

Bonsell's face betrayed the fact that he had. “Yeah,” he said, “He ran out on me when the goin' got too hot. He showed you the corner, eh? What did he tell you?”

“That he'd done it himself under your direction. You were planning to steal part of the grant and blackmail me into keeping silent about it.”

Bonsell's thoughts were far ahead of him. So that rat Scoville had built this frame-up? He didn't believe it. Scoville had nothing against him. There was only one man in this country who hated him enough to do this. And that man was Jim Wade.

“Scoville,” he murmured. “Did he wear a beard?”

“No.”

“How'd you run across him?” Bonsell asked, surer than ever that Scoville was Wade.

Buckner smiled. “He wrote me a letter. I picked him up here in town.”

“Where?”

“That house by the blacksmith shop, if that's any use to you.”

That would be Lily Beauchamp's place. Jim Wade and Lily Beauchamp! Of course. They'd met and become friends the night Wade blew in. Then this was Wade's frame-up. Slow fury boiled inside Bonsell, but he glanced lazily at Buckner. Buckner was already convinced of his guilt, and there seemed no way to destroy this conviction. To blame it on a disgruntled employee, Jim Wade, whom he could not catch, would be a feeble alibi and one Buckner would not believe. Denial of it was useless, but he might as well try it. So he said, “Did it ever occur to you, Buckner, that somebody is trying to frame me?”

“Who?”

Buckner had him there. He couldn't say, “A man I fired,” and be believed. But he would have to make a stab at it. “Why, Mary Buckner, I reckon. She's the one that wants to sink us-both.”

Buckner smiled unpleasantly. “That's another thing I've got to thank you for. Why didn't you tell me she was here, had taken a room in this hotel about four doors down the corridor?”

“I wrote and told you. You must have left too soon to get the letter.”

Buckner said with heavy sarcasm, “It makes a nice story, Max. So she's trying to frame you? You think she hired Scoville? You think she just picked him up—maybe saw him as she was riding past in the stage and called to the driver to stop. Maybe she said, ‘My good man, will you guarantee to do a frame-up for me? I don't know you, but you have an honest face. And you look like you work for Max Bonsell, although I never saw him. Will you frame him for me?' Bah!” Buckner snorted. “You're guilty as hell, Max! You used to be a fair liar but you're slipping. You haven't even got a decent alibi.”

Bonsell smiled thinly. “That ought to convince you I'm innocent.”

“No,” Buckner said. “It'd take more than that, Max. I've always known you for what you are—a killer with brains. I've used you as far as I'm able. If you'd played square with me, we'd have gone places. But I've always had a hunch that if I gave you enough rope, you'd hang yourself. You have.”

Bonsell leaned forward and said quietly, “Not quite. You seem to forget that little paper we signed when we started on this deal. I was to get fifty percent of the split—in land, cattle, money, whatever we got out of it.” He smiled unpleasantly. “You'd like to buy that back, wouldn't you, my friend? You can fire me and hire another man in my place, but I still get half the kitty.”

Buckner threw back his head and laughed. He laughed immoderately, and Bonsell regarded him with a growing feeling of uneasiness.

“Wait a minute,” Buckner said when he was through laughing. “Do you admit you're guilty of falsifying those corners?”

“I'm not,” Bonsell said. “But just to make things smoother, I will.”

“Good. That brings us down to the partnership contract,” Buckner said. “There were two sets of papers, exactly alike. They said that we agreed to split fifty-fifty on whatever we got out of this. They said that in case of the death of one of us, the other was to receive his share. Wasn't that it?”

“It was.”

Buckner said dryly, “Max, do you think I'm such a fool that I'd put my hand to an agreement like that? Do you think I would, knowing that all you'd have to do to get the whole Ulibarri grant would be to put a slug in my back? Do you?”

“I don't think,” Bonsell said. “I saw you do it.”

“Have you ever consulted that contract?”

“No. It's in Sante Fe in the bank.”

“You ought to read it sometime,” Buckner said with a smile. “There are several things that are made very clear. One of them is that in the event of my death, the incomes from the Ulibarri grant go to charity. You aren't even mentioned, my friend.”

Bonsell's eyes opened. “Why, your contract was the same as mine!”

“So you thought, my friend, so you thought. But you didn't take the trouble to make sure. My lawyer handed you a contract. You read it and said it was satisfactory. My lawyer said that being so, he'd get the other contract. He took yours, turned to his portfolio, drew out the other contract, substituted the one you'd just read for it, and let you read the same one. Then he spread both on the desk and we signed, and you took the original sheet. You took the one I wanted you to take, the one leaving you out in the rain. I took the one I wanted. Therefore, the contract I have declares that if you die all your money goes to me. The one you have says that if I die, all my money goes to charity.”

He smiled a little. “My friend, out here in the West it doesn't seem to be the custom to read things you sign. You trust a man. But I came from the East, where lawyers are a little sharper than these homespun orators of yours.” He put his cigar out and settled back on the bed.

“You see, you haven't a share in anything. You haven't anything to gain by killing me. I think you have a phrase for it here. You are holding the sack, friend Bonsell.”

Bonsell's eyes were dreamy. He should have been angry, raging; he only felt a little childish. That a shifty-eyed, smooth-talking lawyer had fooled him out of a good part of a fortune was a hard thing to take, but Bonsell was a fatalist. He didn't even doubt that every word of it was true. He had worked like a slave, risked his life a hundred times, just so he could turn over the Ulibarri grant, swept clean of squatters, to a man who would discard it like a cigarette butt. He didn't care so much about the money; he could always make that; but the idea of Harvey Buckner, lord of these uncounted acres, reigning in his place was a hard thing to swallow. He couldn't let that happen. He would have to kill Buckner. But, outside of the satisfaction it would give him, what would he get out of it? Nothing.