The Bells of San Juan

by Jackson Gregory

  CHAPTER XII

  WAVERING IN THE BALANCE

  Ignacio Chavez, waiting to ask no questions, had raced away through thedarkness to beat out a wild alarm upon his bells. Later he would learnhow many were dead and would set the Captain mourning. But already hadSan Juan poured out her handful of citizens upon the street.

  "Keep those men where they are," called Tom Cutter to Struve. "Everydamned one of them; there'll be an answer wanted for to-night's work.Get a doctor, somebody; Patten or Miss Page."

  Candles were brought; presently a lamp was found and set on the bar.The curious began to desert Struve and his prisoners outside, and tocrowd about Cutter and the two forms lying still in the corner. KidRickard, cursing now and then, had dragged himself a little away andgrew quiet, half propped up against the wall. Struve, as the fire offagots and grass began to burn low, commanded Galloway to lead the wayback into the barroom and herded five other men after him, the shotgunpromising a mutilated body to any man of them who sought to run for it.

  "Nunez is dead," reported the deputy sheriff, getting up from hisknees. "Norton is alive and that's about all. A shot along the sideof the head."

  He turned slowly toward Galloway who, with steady hands and his faceset in hard, inscrutable lines, was pouring himself a generous glass ofwhiskey.

  "Looks like you'd got him, Jim," he said harshly, his eyes glittering."And it looks like I'd got you. Where I want you, by God!"

  Galloway drank his whiskey and made no reply. He was thinking,thinking fast. His eyes were never still now, but roved from RodNorton's white face to the faces of Tom Cutter, Struve, and the othermen gathering in the room.

  Borne upon one of the Casa Blanca's doors Norton was carried toStruve's hotel, the nearest place where an attempt could be made tocare for him. Word came in that Virginia Page had been summoned uponone of her rare calls and was in Las Estrellas. Patten, however, wouldbe on hand in a moment. It was suggested that Kid Rickard also becarried to the hotel. But he himself asked to be left where he wasuntil Patten came, and Cutter raised no objection. It was clear thatthe Kid was too badly hurt to think of making an escape, were such hisdesire.

  Galloway and Antone alone were put under arrest, the others merelyadvised to be on hand if they were wanted later. Galloway coollydemanded the charge against him.

  "Resisting an officer is as good as any right now," snapped Cutter.

  As quiet claimed the town again Caleb Patten became the most importantfigure in San Juan. At such moments he seemed to swell visibly. Hedrove the curious from the room while he examined the unconscioussheriff and, when he had finished, merely shook his head, looked grave,and refused to commit himself. He ordered Norton undressed and put tobed, went down the street to see Kid Rickard, probed the wound in theupper chest, ordered him to bed, and returned to Norton at the hotel.

  "Well?" asked John Engle who had arrived, talked with Struve, and nowlooked anxiously to Patten. Patten shrugged.

  "Heavy-caliber bullet ripped along the side of his head," he saidthoughtfully. "I am going to make a second examination now. Doubtlessjust the shock stunned him. That or striking his head as he pitchedforward; there's another slight wound, a scalp wound, showing where hishead hit as he fell."

  A moment later Tom Cutter came in hastily, stood for a little staringwith frowning, troubled eyes at the quiet form on the bed, and wentaway, tugging at his lip, his frown deepening. He had his hands fullto-night, had Tom Cutter, and no one but himself knew how he wanted RodNorton to tell him just what to do, to show him the way to make nomistake. Leaving the room he had gone no farther than the front doorwhen he swung about and returned.

  "May I have a word with you, Mr. Engle?" he asked.

  Engle nodded and followed him silently. Out in the street, in the fulllight of Struve's porch-lamp, Cutter stopped, glancing about him tomake sure that he was not overheard.

  "You know all about the shooting of Brocky Lane up in the mountains,"he said hurriedly. "Rod told me you did. Well, I just gathered inMoraga!"

  "Moraga?" muttered Engle. "He has seen Galloway, then? And told himall about our knowing the rifles were cached in the old caves?"

  "I found him at the Casa Blanca," said Cutter, the worried look in hiseyes. "Somebody shot out the light when the mix-up started, you know.I've a notion it was Moraga. He was in one of the littlecard-rooms . . . putting on his shoes! I got his gun; he'd fired justone shot. The muzzle of it was bloody."

  "If he has told Galloway. . . ."

  "But I don't believe he has. Struve says that just as Norton startedthings he saw a man run in from the cottonwoods and duck into thehouse. It was Struve's job to see that nobody got out and he let himgo by. If it wasn't Moraga, who was it? And, when I grabbed him justnow, the first thing he said was: 'I want to talk with Galloway.'"

  "You didn't let him?" demanded Engle quickly.

  "No. A couple of the boys have walked him off down the road. I've gotGalloway and Antone in the jail. Now, what I want is some advice.What am I going to do with this job until Rod Norton comes to and takesa hand . . . if he ever does," he muttered heavily.

  "It's clear that you've got to keep Moraga away from Galloway; if theyhaven't already had a chance to talk it's a pure Godsend and it's up toyou that they don't get that chance."

  "Yes,", admitted Cutter slowly. "But I'm the first man to admit thatI'm all muggled up. What did Moraga have his shoes off for? If heshot out the light, why did he do it? And how'd he get blood on hisgun?"

  Engle shook his head.

  "All questions for the district attorney later, Tom," he answered."But, if you want any advice from me, here it is: Get Moraga out of theway on the jump. He is supposed to be in jail in the next county; hemust have broken out. Send a man to Las Palmas to telephone to SheriffRoberts; send Moraga along with him. And, whatever you do, keep JimGalloway where you've got him. I think we've got our case against himto-night."

  "That's what I've been thinking. I guess that's what Norton would do,eh?"

  "Sure of it," said Engle promptly. "Find out, if you can, whetherMoraga got a chance to talk with Galloway. I'm going back to the houseto let my wife and Florrie know what has happened."

  Engle hurried to his home, told what had happened, and, leaving hiswife anxious, his daughter weeping hysterically, returned to the hotel.

  "I've done all that any one could do for him," said Patten, as thoughdefending himself because of Norton's continued unconsciousness. "He'sin pretty bad shape, Engle. Oh, I guess I can pull him through, but atthat it's going to be a close squeak. Lucky I was right on hand,though." And he grew technical, spoke of blood pressures taken, oftraumatism superinducing prolonged coma, of this and that which made noimpression on the banker.

  "You mentioned two wounds," Engle reminded him. "The one made by thebullet and another. . . ."

  "By his head striking as he fell? Yes; that would have completed thework of the first shock in knocking him unconscious. But it is anegligible affair now; he wouldn't know anything about it in themorning if it weren't for the lump that'll be there. And since theother injury, the long gouging cut made by the bullet, has just plowedalong the outer surface of the skull, I think that I can promise youhe'll be all right pretty soon now. We ought to have some ice, butI've made cold compresses do."

  Engle went again to look in upon Norton. The sheriff lay as before, onhis back, his limbs lax, his face deathly white, a bandage about hishead. A lump came into the banker's throat and he turned away. For heremembered that just so had Billy Norton lain, that Billy Norton hadnever regained consciousness . . . and that the blow then as now hadbeen struck by Galloway or Galloway's man. The sudden fear was uponhim that Rod Norton was even more badly hurt than Caleb Pattenadmitted. The fear did not lessen as the night drew on and finallybrightened into another day. When the sun flared up out of theflatlands lying beyond Tecolote the wounded man at Struve's hotel layas he had done all night giving no sign to tell wheth
er he was life'sor death's.