Savage Range (6 page)

It was on one of these ridges that Jim got a glimpse of some horsemen. He could not tell the number, but he picked out Sheriff Link Haynes's claybank. He smiled to himself and then said to Ben, “You let me handle this, Ben. You keep out of it.”

They met at the bottom of the valley, where the trees were thick. Another man, probably a deputy, was with Sheriff Haynes. Haynes pulled up at sight of Jim and waited for him to approach. Jim stopped ten yards from him and regarded him with sardonic amusement. Haynes's face was a yellow color, as if his food was still troubling him.

“You ought to change cooks, Haynes,” Jim drawled. “You look like you'd fried up a wagon bed and ate it without salt.”

Haynes didn't answer immediately, and then he murmured, “Lord, and you can joke on this day.”

“Why not?” Jim answered, grinning. “It was a fine one—until I saw you.”

Haynes pursed his lips and whistled. Immediately, there was a rustling in the brush. Jim wheeled his horse—too late. Five men, rifles to their shoulders, stepped out from behind him. When Jim looked around, Haynes and the deputy had a gun on him.

Jim said meagerly to Haynes, “I should never have trusted you this far, Sheriff.”

One of the men behind Jim said, “Shall I let him have it, Link?”

“Bushwhackin'?” Jim inquired.

Haynes rode up to him and looked long in his face. There was an expression of disgust, almost horror, on Haynes's face that troubled Jim. The man wasn't angry, he was sick with loathing.

Jim looked about him at the others. They wore identical expressions.

“You gents must feel pretty strongly about your squatter friends,” Jim observed.

The deputy raised his rifle, cursing. Haynes reached out and batted the gun aside just as it went off. But the deputy was furious.

“You low-down, scabby, murderin', bushwhackin' polecat,” he said bitterly. “A man ought to lose his eyes, just for lookin' at you!”

Jim picked up one word from what the deputy had said, and his heart sank. “Did you say murderer?” he asked quietly.

They all looked at him and didn't speak.

“I saw that man shot,” Jim said quietly. “I didn't think he was hurt bad.”

Haynes opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again.

“Where did he die?” Jim asked.

“He?” Haynes asked. “There were thirteen ‘he's' that died. Which one do you mean?”

Jim's eyes narrowed. “Thirteen? You mean there were thirteen men killed?”

Haynes said savagely, “You didn't know that, of course.”

“Where?”

“Where your outfit killed 'em, damn you! Three at the Rocking L! Four at the Sliding H! Old man Benjamin at the Sundown! Two at the Chain Link! Three at the Bib K!”

“That's a lie!” Ben said hotly.

Jim raised a hand and said, “Quiet, Ben.” To Haynes he said, “If those men were killed, they weren't killed by Excelsior!”

“Why, you lyin' tinhorn!” the deputy yelled. “They were seen! Old Lady Benjamin talked with Pardee. She heard him call to you. Lipscomb's kid at Bib K named five of your crew! He saw you on a chestnut.”

Jim just stared at him, and then something went to pieces inside him. His face drained of color until it was gray, and slowly his glance fell to his hands on the horn. Those ten men he had left there at the house had waited for him to go, and then they had ridden out on their massacre. Not a single lease squatter had been warned of what to expect. Ball, Miles, and Pardee had never ridden out to warn them. The crew had waited until Jim was riding, until he would be seen by Cruver on his raid, and that same night they had struck. Without mercy, these killers had struck, and now no court in the land would believe that Jim Wade didn't head them.

He felt Haynes take his guns, and heard him say, “We better pull off the road, boys, if we want to dodge that lynch mob.”

All day they kept to the brush, working toward San Jon. They were in sight of it by late afternoon, but they wanted the cover of darkness to smuggle Jim into the county jail. From what these grim-faced men dropped, it was evident that the whole countryside was in arms for Jim Wade, the foreman of this killer crew.

When darkness came and they were ready to ride, Jim said, “Haynes. I got a favor to ask of you.”

“The only favor I'd do for you is shoot you,” Haynes answered quietly. “And that would be a greater damn favor than you deserve.”

“Turn this kid loose,” Jim said quietly. “He's never taken a dollar of Excelsior pay. No man of all these squatters can claim they saw Ben Beauchamp.”

Haynes hesitated, and Jim said urgently, “I'll take this on my own head. But don't drag an innocent kid into it.”

Haynes said abruptly, “Beat it, Ben.”

Ben Beauchamp sensed the temper of these men, and while he gladly would have gone against them, he understood there was some reason for Jim Wade wanting him free. Without a word, he mounted his blue and rode off.

The entry in town was quiet, by alleys, and on foot between houses until they entered the back door of the sheriff's office which was located on the corner of the plaza across from the hotel and catty-corner from Cope's Freighter's Pleasure saloon.

There was not a light in the sheriff's office, but as soon as Jim Wade entered it, he knew there were men in here. It was thick with tobacco smoke, and he could make out the dim figures of men lounging against the wall.

When everyone was inside, Haynes said, “Bard, you here?”

“Yeah.”

“Then get the preliminary hearing over pronto.”

Jim couldn't see anyone, but he heard the solid tap of Cope's crutch as the heavy man moved in restlessness. The hearing was swift, with only legal questions asked.

Bard, apparently the justice of the peace, recited rapidly, “The prisoner, James Wade, is charged with the willful murder of thirteen persons, to wit—” and he droned out the names of the men killed by the Excelsior crew. “Does the prisoner plead guilty or not guilty to the charge?”

“Can I talk?” Jim asked.

“You haven't a lawyer. State your case.”

Jim did. He had not planned the killings, he said with vehemence. He planned the raid on the Star 88. A man was shot, but not badly. As for the killings, they were planned by the crew, which got out of hand. He had no knowledge of the killings until Haynes told him, so help him God. His speech was met with silence.

Bard droned on. “Not guilty is the plea. You will be held for trial in the circuit court which convenes two weeks from this day. You are remanded to the custody of the sheriff.”

“What about bail?” a weary voice asked.

“I will place the bail at two hundred thousand dollars,” Bard answered, and this was met by grunts of satisfaction.

Someone approached him. It was Haynes, and he said, “Wade, I have deputized five men to guard this jail. They are five of the most honest men I know. My duty is to guard you until the date of your trial.” He paused. “My sincere hope is that you are taken from my custody and killed. You deserve it. Now get into the cell block.”

Alone in the single large cell, the window of which opened onto an alley running behind the building, Jim sank down on the cot and put his head in his hands. In the tomblike quiet of the cell, his thoughts began to take some order. Soon he began to perceive a pattern which underlay these events. The man behind it was, obviously, Max Bonsell. Bonsell had a job to do in driving off the squatters, a job which might take years of feuding. He preferred the quick way, the killer's way. But someone would have to pay for murder, even in this lawless country. He had gone to Dodge City in search of a man. That man had to have a reputation for handling men, a reputation as a gun fighter, and a reputation as an honest man. Jim Ward filled the bill and was hired. The rest was carefully planned, too. Jim Wade had had all the responsibility for the eviction of the squatters placed squarely on his shoulders. Moreover—and this was a stroke of blind fortune for Max Bonsell—Jim Wade had publicly and before the sheriff assumed that responsibility. All that remained was the raid. It had been planned nicely. While Jim, with a small crew, burned Cruver out, the others did the killing. In one swift stroke, most of the opposition to the Excelsior was wiped out. Instead of taking a year, it took a night.

But somebody had to answer for those murders—and Jim Wade was the man!

Bonsell could sanctimoniously claim that he knew nothing about it. Jim made a bet with himself that Bonsell had been in town the night before last, so his alibi would be perfect. As for the crew, they would vanish into the hills, leaving only Jim Wade, their foreman, to answer for them.

It was neat, merciless, complete.

Jim tried to look ahead. The chances were that when he was discovered in the jail, a lynch mob would form. And the length of his life after that depended on how ably those five men defended the jail.

And why should they defend it with their lives, knowing he was doomed, anyway?

He got up from the cot and started an examination of his cell. The jail was old, of adobe some three feet thick, with the five bars at the window sunk deep in the wall. Not an impossible jail to break out of in ordinary times, but impossible now, with five men quietly listening in the next room.

He was examining the ceiling when he heard a voice at the window.

“Jim Wade!” it whispered. “Jim Wade!”

Jim moved his cot over below the high window and stood on it. This brought his head level with the window, which was screened with heavy wire.

He looked into the slim, sad face of Lily Beauchamp.

“Lily!”

“Did they hurt you, Jim?”

“No.”

“Oh, Jim, Ben told me about it! He knows you didn't do it because he was with you! What will happen?”

Jim whispered quietly, “Why, they'll either lynch or hang me if I don't get out of here.”

“Can you?”

“It don't look like it,” Jim confessed.

“But you've got to! And you've got to do it right away! The whole town is deserted, looking for you. But when word gets out you're captured, they'll come back and mob up!”

“Unh-hunh.”

“Can you break out?”

“I'll try.”

“Do you need tools?”

Jim smiled meagerly. “You'd have to cut the screen to get 'em to me and the racket would bring them in here.”

Lily was silent a long while, and Jim was suddenly aware that she was sobbing.

“Lily, what's the matter?”

“I hate it! I hate it!” she whispered passionately.

Jim's face reflected surprise in that half-light.

Lily looked up at him and said, “Oh, I know it's strange, Jim, but can't you understand a girl? You—you're the first man who's ever treated me kindly, who hasn't asked for things I would never give. You're kind and—and you've done something for Ben. You've given me hope and—”

“You're excited, Lily,” Jim said gravely. “Any man who wasn't blind could see how decent you are. If—well, if I don't come through this, don't get bitter and hard about it, girl. Watch Ben and make somethin' out of him. He's got the stuff.”

“Jim,” Lily whispered. “I love you. Is that—is that queer?”

Jim didn't answer.

“I've only seen you ten minutes in my whole life, but you've never been out of my mind since that night. Never!” She looked up and smiled. “I just wanted you to know. It doesn't make any difference to you, I know, because you don't love me. Only—only—good-by. And I'll get you out! I
will
, Jim!”

And she was gone. Jim stood there, looking out into the night, letting Lily Beauchamp's words sink into his mind. He felt small and humble before this girl, who had been honest enough to pour out her heart to him. Suddenly he gripped the bars until his knuckles were white. What the hell kind of a world was it that would beat and cow a girl like Lily into being so grateful for one decent act a man did for her? Cow her until she was so grateful for this act that she mistook her gratitude for love. For Jim Wade did not think for one instant that Lily Beauchamp loved him. It was gratitude, gratitude for a kindness that any white man would have been glad to do.

He stood there watching the night. The dark form of a freight wagon on the street was the only thing he could clearly see. He'd better take a good look, he thought, because that freight wagon was the last thing he'd see when he was at peace with the world.

He climbed down and continued his examination of the cell. It was solid and had probably housed many men as desperate as he was until the hour of their sentence.

Lying down on the cot, he rehearsed all the jail escapes he had ever heard of. But all of them precluded a situation that was not guarded by five grim men in the next room.

He lay awake for hours, waiting for dawn, listening to the quiet of the town. If he ever got out of here, he would spend the rest of his life hunting down Max Bonsell and killing him. It was a wholly impersonal anger that did not include self-pity; it was an anger at injustice, at a frame-up.

A sound drifted into his consciousness and roused him. He listened. A sifting of gravel rattled faintly on the screen. Rising, he stood on the cot and looked out of the window. There was no one there. Then, just as he was about to step down off the cot, Cope's egg-bald head appeared.

“Well, you done it,” Cope announced grimly.

Jim said guardedly, “Done what?” because hadn't he heard Cope out in the front room with those others?

“Didn't you suspect a damn thing about Bonsell?” Cope said angrily. “How old are you, Wade?”

“A broke man can't afford to suspect,” Jim retorted.

“He can't afford not to,” Cope replied. He was silent a minute. “Can you get out of there?”

“How?”

“I'm askin' you.”

“Not without a gun.”