Sunset Trail (10 page)

X

When Matt and Bud reached the bottom of the stairs, Smith motioned for them to sit down. His eyes were thoughtful as he studied
Bud. Finally he said: “You’re a good-looking boy. It would be a shame for anything to happen to you.”

Matt and Bud sat down, neither saying anything. Matt glanced at Nora. Her face was pale, her lips squeezed tightly together.
He thought she had control of herself now. If he could gain enough time, he was confident he would find a way to escape this
trap in which he and his family found themselves.

Smith was smart, but Matt was certain that sometime within the next twelve hours the outlaws would make a mistake, the fatal
kind of mistake that would give him a chance to take them or get word to Jerry Corrigan. Or was this only wishful thinking,
the kind of wishful thinking that a man does when he has his back to the wall and is waiting for the firing squad to shoot?

He didn’t know. He had worried about Nora’s blowing up in a fit of frustration, but he felt better about her now. He glanced
at Jean and decided she was the one he had better worry about. She had an expression he had never seen on her face before.

It was as if she had become a little girl again and was having a dream, a wild and terrifying dream that ran on and on endlessly.
If she could not grasp the reality of the danger they were in, she, instead of Nora, might be the one to do something foolish
that would endanger all of them.

Smith had been studying the faces of the Dugan family, first the women, then Matt, and finally Bud. He said: “I’m a good judge
of human nature. I wouldn’t be in the business I have followed successfully for ten years if I wasn’t. I’m what you good people
call a con man, and therefore I live in a sort of twilight zone between the underworld and that of legitimate business. Bank
robbing is not in my line, but this looked too good to pass up.”

He drew a cigar from his coat pocket and rolled it between his fingers for a while, then he continued: “It’s been my experience
that women are more reckless than men. That’s why I’ve been concerned about you, Missus Dugan, ever since you tried to jump
me when your husband came in.”

Irritated, Nora said: “I told you I learned my lesson. I don’t know why I have to keep saying it.”

“Because this is the only time we will all be together,” Smith said. “I want Bud to understand this, too.” He turned to the
boy. “There is a possibility in this kind of situation that someone will try to be a hero and upset the apple cart and put
everyone in danger. I suppose you might defeat our plan, but you’ll get yourself killed doing it.” He turned back to Matt.
“I’m not the kind of gambler who likes a game with the deuces wild. I intend to copper my bet. First, we’ll talk about tomorrow.
Dugan, I suppose you go to the bank about eight?”

Matt nodded. “I don’t have a set time, but I get there sometime between eight and nine.”

“They’ll look for you at the usual time in the morning?”

Matt nodded again. “That’s right.”

“I expect you to go ahead with your regular habits.” Smith put the cigar into his mouth and chewed on it a moment, then he
said: “Sammy and I may go downtown in the morning and mingle with the crowd. We might even drop into the bank. If we do, you
will treat us as if we were your wife’s cousins.”

“I have to be at the hotel at eight to help make sandwiches,” Nora said.

“Keep your date,” Smith said. “Just be sure you don’t say or do anything to make your friends think something is wrong.”

“Jerry Corrigan will probably stop by in the morning,” Matt said. “He often does.”

“Let him in,” Smith said. “Give him a cup of coffee. Act normal. Jean, you will stay in the house until we leave at noon tomorrow.
If Corrigan wants you to go to the celebration with him, tell him you have a headache.”

“I never have headaches,” Jean said.

“You start tomorrow morning,” Smith said.

“I’m not going off and leave Jean in the house with you and Sammy,” Nora said sharply. “If you go downtown, she’ll be alone
with Ross Hart and you say he’s a terrible man.”

“He’s terrible only when you fail to co-operate,” Smith said. “Now then, Dugan, I can read your mind. You have been thinking
about how you and the sheriff will take us when we leave the house with the
dinero.
You think we will be vulnerable at that time. No, we won’t be, because Sammy is taking Bud to a soddy a little ways from town.
He will be a prisoner until we’re safe. Then he will be released.”

“I won’t let you,” Nora cried. “I’ll co-operate here in town and we’ll promise not to do anything about capturing you for
as long as you say, but I won’t let you take Bud and maybe murder him.”

Smith looked at her as if suddenly he was very tired. “Missus Dugan, I have gone over this with you until it has become monotonous,
and yet you still talk about what you will let us do. All I can tell you is that he will not be murdered if you co-operate,
in town and everywhere else.” Smith turned to Bud. “This works the other way, too, son. Your folks’ safety depends on the way
you act. If you make trouble, or manage to escape and spread the word, you will be the cause of at least your sister’s death
and probably your parents, too.”

“I don’t aim to make any trouble,” Bud said.

“Good.” Smith nodded at Sammy Bean. “Take him along.”

Sammy motioned for Bud to get up. “Come on, kid. I’m getting a little boogery about this deal, so, if you kick any dust into
my face, I’ll twist your damn’ neck just like I would a rooster for Sunday dinner.”

Bud rose. He glanced at his mother who had folded her hands on her lap so tightly the fingers were white, then he looked at
Matt. “You’re right, Pa. We’ve got to play their game for a while.”

He crossed the room and disappeared into the back of the house. Matt didn’t move as he heard the screen door bang shut. Smith
had read his mind and read it accurately. He had not fully understood what Smith had meant by saying he was using Bud as a
hostage, so he had thought he could play it out until the men left tomorrow noon, then he and Jerry Corrigan could capture
them and recover the money.

Now for one long and terrifying moment he pictured Bud lying on his back on the dirt floor of some deserted soddy out in the
sandhills, a bullet in his head. Bud was his only son. Nora was young enough to have more children, but she couldn’t. The
doctor had made that plain enough when Bud was born.

Matt knew, then, in this moment of black despair, that he could not as much as lift a finger to save the dam and ditch project
that meant so much to everyone in Amity.

XI

Bud stopped on the back porch when Sammy Bean said: “Wait. You got a lantern around here?”

“There’s one hanging beside the door.”

“Light it,” Sammy said.

Bud took the lantern off the nail, jacked up the chimney, and, scratching a match to life, held the flame to the wick. He
blew out the match and eased the chimney back into place. When he looked up, he saw that Sammy was watching him, his right
hand on the butt of his gun.

For the first time in his life fear hit Bud so hard that he was sick in the pit of his stomach. He moistened his lips, then
he began to tremble. He called himself a fool, but he couldn’t control his body.

He’d had several narrow escapes from death. Once he had been caught in a blizzard and had almost frozen before he’d stumbled
into a ranch house. Another time, when he was hunting with his father in the mountains, he had wounded a bear that had nearly
killed him before he finished the animal.

There were other cases like these, but he had never been one to worry about death. He didn’t know why this wild fear hit him
the way it did now. Maybe it was the hard, brittle expression on Sammy Bean’s face.

Staring at the young outlaw in the murky lantern light, Bud knew beyond the slightest doubt that Sammy could and would kill
him if he were given an excuse, that John Smith would kill Jean if anything went wrong tomorrow. This was the one horrible
fact that controlled what he did, the outlaws’ capacity for murder.

“You’re fixing to kill all of us before you’re done, ain’t you?” Bud whispered.

Sammy Bean laughed. Bud hated him and he hated himself for his weakness. He had not been able to lift his voice above a whisper;
he was not able to control his hands, which were shaking. Sammy recognized the fear that possessed Bud. It was probably what
amused him.

“Well, now, that depends, kid,” Sammy said, “but I’ll tell you one thing. If you decide to make a run for it, I’ll kill you.”
He motioned toward the barn. “Go ahead of me and saddle your horse.”

Bud stepped off the porch and strode to the shed, Sammy staying two paces behind him. He opened the door and, going inside,
hung the lantern on a nail. He saw that three strange horses were in the barn. One, a buckskin, was saddled. Sammy stepped
into the stall and tightened the cinch, then backed the buckskin into the runway. He waited while Bud saddled the sorrel.

Bud’s fingers were all thumbs and it took him twice as long as usual to saddle the horse. When he finally finished, he led
the sorrel outside, Sammy following. He blew out the lantern, closed the door, and turned to Bud who stood waiting, the reins
in his hand.

“While we’re riding, you’re staying beside me,” Sammy said. “We’ll head a little west of north. If we run into anybody who
asks you what you’re doing this time of night, tell ’em you’re taking a new cowhand to your dad’s ranch.”

“How did you know our ranch was in this direction?” Bud asked.

“Why, we’ve been informed,” Sammy said. “Now, remember that it don’t take me long to get my gun out of leather. The first
jump that sorrel makes will get you a slug between the shoulders. Savvy?”

“I savvy, all right,” Bud said in a “Then let’s ride,” Sammy said.

“Then let’s ride,” Sammy said.

Bud stepped into the saddle and rode down the alley beside Sammy to the street that ran north and south along the west edge
of the courthouse block. In the moonlight the platform from which the governor would speak tomorrow looked like a gallows,
or so it seemed to Bud.

A moment later they were out of town and riding up the gentle slope that lay north of Buffalo Creek. The road to Burlington
was somewhere to the west. Bud glanced at Sammy and saw that his right hand was resting on the butt of his gun. He looked straight
ahead at the long rise in front of him and felt the icy prickles race down his spine.

Once more fear took possession of Bud so completely that it was all he could do to keep from digging his heels into the flanks
of his sorrel and making a wild dash through the sagebrush. The wind that raced across the prairie was hot, but Bud was actually
chilled.

A soddy loomed ahead of them. Sammy said: “Here we are.” He reined up and whistled twice. Suddenly Bud realized where they were.
This was Uncle Pete Fisher’s soddy. He had built it years ago when he’d first proved up on his homestead. He still owned the
land and kept the soddy in livable condition. He stayed in town most of the time, coming out here to spend a night when, as
he put it, he needed to hear the coyotes howl and feel the wind in his face.

Most folks said he wanted to get away from his overbearing wife once in a while. This was the only property he had left after
he lost the bank, and, although the land was practically worthless, it was his.

Bud’s dad thought that the reason the old man came out here was to stand on land that belonged to him. He had told Matt that,
when he was in town, he guessed that even the air he breathed belonged to his wife.

Bud had heard all of this from his father more than once. Now the notion struck him that Uncle Pete must have been the one
who had planned the whole thing. After being the most important man in the county for years and then losing everything except
this quarter-section of range land, he must have gone crazy and thought up this scheme for robbing the bank without being
involved personally.

“So it was Uncle Pete,” Bud said.

“Who’s Uncle Pete?” Sammy asked.

“Pete Fisher,” Bud answered. “He owns this soddy.”

Sammy laughed softly. “Sure, Fisher is the one.” He whistled again.

This time the door opened and a woman stepped outside, a shotgun in her hand. “I see you got him,” she said.

“Get down,” Sammy said. “I’ll put your horse in the shed. This is where you stay till noon tomorrow.”

When Bud was inside the soddy, he saw that the windows were covered by blankets. The woman pulled the door shut, the shotgun
still in her hands. She was a big woman, not fat, but raw-boned and muscular. Bud guessed she was as strong as the average
man. She wore high-heeled boots, a dark green riding skirt, and a tan blouse. Her blonde hair was pinned on the back of her
head. She was clean, and right now at least she seemed pleasant enough.

“Sit down, kid,” she said, and motioned to one of the straight-backed chairs. “Surprised that a woman is gonna run herd on
you?”

He nodded. “A lot of things are surprising me.”

She laughed. “I’ll bet they are, kid. I’ll bet they are.” Her face turned grave as she bit her lip and stared at him for a
moment, her good-natured expression gone. “We’d best have an understanding, kid. Don’t figure you can take advantage of me.
I’m tougher’n a boot heel. If you get ornery, I’ll blow your head off. Savvy?”

“I sure do,” Bud said. “That’s about all I’ve been hearing.”

“I guess all of us want you to know that, when we talk, we ain’t just making the wind blow,” she said. “You and your family
got caught in this scheme. None of us, unless it’s Ross Hart, wants to hurt you. But on the other hand, we can hurt you plenty
if something goes wrong that might make us lose our big, fat fee.”

He started to ask her what she meant by big, fat fee. It didn’t seem right for her to call the stolen bank money a fee. Sammy
came in then and closed the door, so Bud didn’t ask the question.

The woman went to Sammy and kissed him, then patted his cheek and said something that must have been a love word. It seemed
a little crazy to Bud. She was older than Sammy. Besides that, two people working on a bank-robbing scheme like this didn’t
seem to be the kind who would be lovers. But then, maybe all lovers didn’t look like Jean and Jerry.

“It’s going fine so far,” Sammy said. “The Dugans are behaving all right. John’s a real slick one. He even fooled the sheriff
when he came in with the Dugan girl.”

“I ain’t staying here for no posse to find,” the woman warned. “You be sure John Smith knows that.”

“Oh, he knows it, all right,” Sammy said. “No reason why it won’t work on schedule just like we planned. Well, I’ve got to
get back. Don’t let the kid get the bulge on you.”

“He won’t,” the woman said.

She kissed Sammy again. After he left, she barred the door, then jerked a thumb at the bunk. “You lie down and go to sleep.
After a while I may lie down with you, but right now I’m wide awake, thinking about all that
dinero
Sammy’s gonna make out of this caper.”

“What are you getting a big, fat fee for?” Bud asked.

“For murdering. . . .” She stopped, looking as guilty as if she were a small child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
“You little bastard, you ask too many questions. Now, you go to sleep or, by God, I’ll put you to sleep.”

He didn’t argue. She looked mean, real mean. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, the familiar prickles running up
and down his back again. Who were they going to murder? Not his father. They’d had plenty of chance to do that already. And
not Jerry Corrigan. They’d have made him stay when they’d had a chance. No, it must be somebody else, maybe some of the visitors
who would be in town for the celebration.

He couldn’t think who it would be, and presently he dropped off to sleep, the question still unanswered.