The first rider reached the boulder that he had marked and Burns’ guns were hammering in his grip, spitting fire, blasting the night wide open with their talk.
Screams and yells burst out and the posse swirled madly for a moment with horses rearing and fighting the bits, men fighting to break free from the riders who were packed around them.
One man threw up his arms, his scream was drowned by the gurgle of blood welling in his throat. A horse jack-rabbited up the hillside, kicking at the bouncing thing that dragged beside it, foot caught in the stirrup.
Then, suddenly, the gorge was clear—clear except for three sprawled figures. One was bigger than the other two and that one, Burns knew, was a horse that one of his bullets had caught.
Horses were galloping wildly, reins dragging, while men raced like scurrying shadows for a patch of undergrowth, for a boulder, for anything that might serve as shelter from the storm of lead.
Flat on his belly, Burns fed cartridges into his guns. A gun coughed angrily and a bullet howled off a boulder, turning end over end into the moonlight night.
Another gun spat like a startled cat and the bullet crunched with a chewing sound through the screen of juniper, smacked into the earth. A third gun talked and then a fourth. Lead snarled and whined.
Huddled against the biggest boulder, Burns held his fire. Let them shoot. Let them burn a little powder. After a while they’ll wonder what they’re shooting at—now they’re just shooting blind, working off some steam.
A branch, clipped by one of the buzzing bullets, fell on top of his hat and he shook it off with a jerk of his head. Another plowed ground three inches from his boot.
It was more than he had bargained for, he admitted grimly. Twenty men or more against his guns. Right in the middle of the jackpot and plumb out of blue chips.
The guns quieted and there were rustling noises—the sound of men moving forward, working closer to his position, crawling up the hill so they could get above him.
Squinting through the tangle of junipers, he waited. Out in the moonlight a stealthy figure moved, inching along like a drifting shadow. Burns brought one gun up, waited tensely. The shadow moved again and the gun in his hand barked into the night. The shadow screamed and jerked half upright, then fell back, a huddled shape sprawling on the hillside.
Guns shrieked and hammered and the junipers danced wildly with the bullets. Hugging the ground, Burns felt the breath of death wing past, whispering in his ear. Sand geysered and sprayed into his face. A burning thing raked across his elbow. Screaming lead slid wildly from the boulders and went yowling away. They were doing their best to get him.
Another shadow moved and Burns jerked up his gun, triggered swiftly. The shadow yelled, leaped from the ground, became a running man. Burns’ trigger finger worked again and the man bent in the middle, hit the ground with his shoulders and pinwheeled into the gully.
Guns yammered and the hillside and gully were full of winking muzzles that spat out leaden death.
The boulders and thicket of juniper lay no more than ten feet from the lip of the dry stream bed that sluiced down the gully.
The guns were quiet again. They were waiting for a moving target.
Burns crouched, gathering his feet beneath him. Then he moved, straight toward the dry wash, hurling himself across the moonlit space.
One gun cracked and then he was over the edge, tumbling down into the darkness, steeling himself against the boulders and gravel that would bite into his body.
His shoulder crashed into something soft and yielding, something that grunted and swore, something that lumbered out of his way.
Scrambling to his feet, Burns swung around, face to face with Sheriff Egan.
The impact had knocked the gun from the sheriff’s hand and the sheriff was ambling toward him with a huge fist cocked.
Burns swung up his gun, but even as he did the fist exploded in his face and he felt himself lifted from his feet and sailing backward. He crashed into the gravelly bank behind him and for a moment his head seemed to burst and spin with screaming colors. Then he was crawling on his hands and knees, gasping for breath, while his stomach churned with an icy coldness and his knees and arms were so weak they ached.
A savage voice cut across his brain: “You damn fool, why didn’t you shoot him?”
The sheriff growled and Carson’s voice said: “Well, then, by Lord, I will.”
A third voice came. “If you shoot him, Carson, it’ll be the last thing you ever do. I’ll drill you where you stand.”
Cold seconds dripped by, breathless and taut.
The voice that had threatened Carson came again and this time Burns’ befuddled brain remembered it—the voice of the man who had stood propped against the door jamb with the pipe hanging from his mouth.
“Law and order, Carson. That’s what you’re pulling for and it’s what I’m pulling for and we’re going to have it if I have to shoot you to get it.”
Leather rasped as Carson holstered his gun.
“O.K., Humphrey,” he said. “You win. Law and order, it is. He’ll get a trial.”
“Hell of a lot of good it’ll do him,” the sheriff growled.
A boot prodded him viciously.
“Come on, get up,” someone rasped. “You’re lucky. We’re heaving you in jail.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The Scapegoats Vamoose
Steve hunkered in a corner of the single room that served as the Skull Crossing jail. He glared sourly at the two barred windows which let in some moonlight.
From the opposite corner came the sound of breathing, deep and regular—not of one alone, but of several people. Burns listened carefully, but the breathing rose and fell with monotonous regularity of sleep.
Funny, how sound those hombres can sleep, Burns told himself. Never figured anyone could sleep that good when he was going to be hung. His elbow was sore where the bullet had nicked it back there in the gully and his stomach still was squeamish—but he’d done the thing he’d set out to do. They’d never find Ann now.
Funny how that newspaper hombre had up and saved the beans. If it hadn’t been for that, Burns knew, Carson would have shot him in cold blood out there in the gully.
Burns shook his head. Queer setup. Carson and the sheriff were in cahoots, that much as least was certain. But they had the town buffaloed into thinking they were bringing law and order to Skull Crossing.
Rounding up those cow thieves over there in the corner had been a master stroke that convinced the town on this law and order business and assured the sheriff’s re-election. Fixing up that gallows was another thing. Lots more impressive than a cottonwood. Sort of civilized and fancy. Make the people think justice had finally come to stay.
One of the men stirred in the corner and Burns suddenly realized that the regular breathing had stopped.
“Hey, amigo,” a voice whispered. “What they throw you in for?”
“I shot somebody,” Burns told him.
“Ah, that’s bad,” the voice said. “We only steal the cows and look at us. They hang us for only steal some cows.”
He shuffled out of the darkness and came into the moonlight. Other men followed him, three of them, and squatted down behind him when he stopped in front of Burns.
“Who you shoot?” he asked.
Burns shook his head. “I wouldn’t know. I’m not acquainted here.”
“I hope it was the sheriff.”
“Not the sheriff,” said Burns. “I only hit the sheriff. In the face with a gun.”
“Hear that?” said the man to the other three. “He hit the sheriff, right in his big, fat face.”
“You tell him, Raymond,” said one of the others.
“Shut up!” snapped Raymond.
Raymond hunkered down to face Burns. The moonlight fell across his face and Burns saw that
it was dirty and wolfish, a man who would cut your throat when you weren’t looking.
“You want to stay in here?” he asked.
Burns shook his head. “I don’t intend to stay.”
Raymond traced a pattern on the dirt floor with a grimy finger.
“You figure out a way to leave?” he asked.
“Not yet,” said Burns. “I will.”
“How much you give to go?”
Steve’s mouth snapped tight. “I haven’t any money.”
Raymond’s finger retraced the pattern carefully.
“You see some people in town?” he asked.
Burns nodded.
“Man with scar across his face,” said Raymond. “Call himself Gunderson, maybe. Maybe something else.”
“What about him?” asked Burns.
“He get us into this,” snarled Raymond. “He come to us, he say easy pickings here. So we come and we have easy pickings and then one day he leave us and the sheriff come.”
Raymond made a motion with his forefinger across his throat, made a noise like a spurting jugular.
“We think he sell us out,” he said.
“You think he’d still stick around here if he’d sold you out?”
Raymond’s face wrinkled like a worried hound dog’s. “Something funny,” he said. “Something smell. Judge, he won’t let us tell about this man in court. Judge, he won’t let us say a thing. Like maybe judge he know about this man and don’t want us to spill the beans.”
“Red headed man?” asked Burns. “Scar across his face. Finger missing on his left hand.”
“That’s him. That’s him. You know him.”
“He jumped me this afternoon,” said Burns.
“And you? Of course, you kill him?”
“Of course,” said Burns.
Raymond let the breath out of his lungs slowly.
“You hear that?” he asked the other three.
He swung back on Burns.
“Name of Gunderson? You sure?”
“Name of Kagel,” said Burns. “But that doesn’t make any difference. I knew him once before and his name was Taylor.”
“Man of many names,” said Raymond quickly.
“He sure took you for a ride,” Burns told them. “Helped Carson hang it on you. Carson had to find some scapegoat to explain the range terror that he used to drive the ranchers out and so he got Kagel or Gunderson or whatever you want to call him to fix you fellows up as the fall guys.”
Raymond’s eyes narrowed. “Tricked?”
“That’s it,” said Burns. “Carson’s outfit stole and burned and killed and you were blamed for it—they’re hanging you for it.”
Raymond rocked quietly on his toes and laughed softly to himself.
“No, we not hang. We got it all fixed up.”
He rose to his feet. “Come,” he said.
He shuffled toward the other end of the room and Burns followed, trailed by the other three. A packing box stood near one corner and Raymond indicated it.
“Table,” he said. “Play the monte on him.”
He laid hands on the box, grunted, shoved it to one side.
“Look,” he said, pointing.
Burns knelt on the dirt floor, staring. A dark hole gaped up at him. Behind him he heard Raymond chuckling.
“We dig,” said Raymond. “We dig like hell. Use old pie plate. Hide dirt under blankets. Tonight we finish him. Now we go.”
He clapped a friendly hand on Burns’ shoulder.
“You kill the gringo dog. You go, too.”
“A while ago,” said Burns, “you talked of money.”
Raymond spread his hands, embarrassed. “But that was before we know about this gringo. You save us the trouble of finding him and doing what was needed. You leave with us. You ride with us.”
“I leave with you,” said Burns, “but I won’t ride with you. I got other things to do.”
“As you wish,” said Raymond. “I go first. You follow me.”
The tunnel was small—just big enough for a man to squeeze his way, dark and earthy. Slowly Burns worked his way along with clawing hands and kicking boots, thrusting himself along the downward dip, along the level run that passed beneath the walls of the jail, then up, with the stars shining through the opening above him.
Raymond reached down a hand and Burns caught it and was hauled up. The hole emerged a matter of six feet or so beyond the rear of the building, just within the limit of the shadow cast by the moon that now was sliding down the western sky.
Burns squatted on his heels, ears alert, eyes busy with the shadows, while Raymond hovered over the hole, lending help to his three companions.
Getting to their feet the five of them moved into the deeper darkness next to the building.
“We go now,” Raymond said softly. “We get some horses. You sure,” urged Raymond, “that you stay here?”
“I have to stay,” Burns told him. “I got some folks to see.”
Raymond held out his hand. “Adios,” he said.
“Adios,” said Burns, “and look. Lay off the gray horse. He’s mine.”
“You betcha,” said Raymond. “We pass up the gray one.”
“And take it easy,” warned Burns. “Don’t bring the whole town down on top of us. Better ride east. That west country, toward the hills, may be full of Carson’s gunslicks.”
“Sure Mike,” said Raymond.
He moved away and his three companions followed. Burns stood watching them. A few yards away they stopped again, lifted hands in salute. Burns waved back at them, then turned and cat-walked swiftly through the darkness behind the buildings.
A smoky lantern set on the dump burned dimly in the back room of the Tribune. Humphrey, perched on a high-legged stool, was busy setting type, the bulldog pipe clenched between his jaws.
Standing just outside the window, Burns stared in at the editor, then moved softly to the back door.
From down the street came a startled yelp, a shot, then the wild clatter of hoofs building up some distance. Another shot boomed hollowly and silence came again, a thick and breathless silence that hung above the town.
The back door shrilled open on screeching hinges and Humphrey appeared within the frame staring at the darkness.
“I’m coming in,” Burns told him softly, “and don’t make a squawk.”
Humphrey started, then saw Burns.
“Oh, it’s you again.”
Burns strode across the doorway, shut the door behind him.
“I thought I heard some shooting out in back,” said Humphrey.
“It was up in front,” Burns told him. “The cow thieves just escaped.”
He clacked his tongue. “And that pretty gallows, standing out there waiting.”
Humphrey relit his pipe, eyes fixed on Burns, face lighted up by the flaring match.
“You haven’t got a gun back here?” asked Burns.
“Nope,” said Humphrey. “Got one up in front.”
“Just was going to warn you not to try to use it if you had,” Burns told him. “I came to do some talking.”
Humphrey motioned at the pot-bellied stove in the center of the room and the battered coffee pot that perched on top of it.
“How about a cup?” he asked.
Burns nodded.
Humphrey paced to the stove, lifted the pot.
“Don’t ever be a newspaperman,” he said. “Hell of a job. You work all hours of the day and night.”
“I just sort of wanted to ask you,” declared Burns, “why you stepped in and saved my hide tonight.”
Humphrey wrinkled his brow. “Revulsion, I guess. Get tired every now and then of Carson’s high handed ways. Runs the town, you know. Have to play ball with him, but shooting a man in cold blood is
just a bit too much.”
“Aren’t you just a bit afraid he’ll think it over some and get hostile about you pulling a gun on him?”
“Maybe,” admitted Humphrey. “But, hell, that’s the only kind of language a hombre like Carson understands. And if he wants to argue about it, he knows where to find me.”
Humphrey sucked noisily on his pipe, squinted quizzically at Burns. “Aren’t you taking a chance, my friend? Sitting around like this with me.”
“You mean you figure I’d ought to be building up some miles—why I’m still hanging around these parts?”
Humphrey nodded. “That is precisely the thought that went across my mind.”
“Can’t do it,” Burns told him. “Got a date with Carson.”
“What you so steamed up over Carson for?” demanded Humphrey. “Here you ride cold into town and before a day is over you’ve worked up a feud with our leading citizen.”
“I’m against anyone who drives his neighbors out,” said Burns. “Don’t take very kindly to shooting up a peaceful valley and running off cattle and burning houses. Don’t seem very honest to me.”
“Well, I be damned,” declared Humphrey. “Why didn’t I think of it before. Seems natural now, of course. Figured everything wasn’t on the square, but I never figured Carson would have the gall to do a thing like that.”
“He covered up his tracks right good,” said Burns. “Seems to have most of the people fooled. Reckon you all thought it was a gang of night riders.”
Humphrey hesitated. “Yes, I guess so. Although it seemed sort of funny to me that four puny Mexicans could raise quite so much unadulterated hell.”
“They didn’t,” Burns told him. “Carson’s gunslicks out on the Lazy K were the ones that did it. Them Mexicans were just the scapegoats. Served two purposes really. Covered up Carson’s tracks and served as bait to keep Carson’s sheriff snug in his office. Carson could have fixed up a crooked election and elected him anyway, but it was simpler this way. Easier to fool the people into voting for him.”
Humphrey squinted at Burns in the dim lantern light. “How come you dealt yourself a hand?” he asked. “Custer or some of the others send for you?”
“Nope,” Burns told him, “I’m looking for a place to hang up my guns.”
Dusty Zebra: And Other Stories Page 23