Gunsmoke and Trail Dust

by Bliss Lomax

  He had been riding the line and had seen Jeb with the sheep. He had made his way back to the road and had reached the knoll by passing the schoolhouse. His father had known nothing about it, he swore.

  Eudora could believe that part of it, but it did not excuse Webb Nichols in her eyes; the slaying was only an expression of the hatred with which he had been filling Verne’s mind since early childhood. For the boy himself, she had a deep pity. It was strong enough to make her promise him she would keep his secret unless the law charged some innocent man with the crime.

  Walking back to the ranch this afternoon Clay and Eudora were so careful to avoid saying anything about what was uppermost in their minds that each was aware of the other’s restraint.

  From a clump of buckbrush Verne spied on them as they passed. He had been watching them for several days, hounded by an ever mounting fear that Eudora would give him away.

  He was at her door soon after Clay left. His eyes had a harried look and his mouth twitched nervously.

  “You been telling him anything about me?” he demanded, when she permitted him to enter.

  Eudora faced him with quick indignation. “Don’t you dare to take that truculent tone with me, Verne! I gave you my promise that not a word would pass my lips unless—”

  “I don’t care what you tell Roberts!” he interrupted angrily. “Tell him anything you please! I was just making up what I said to you about Jeb! Scaring you, that’s what I was doing!”

  Under Eudora’s coldly accusing glance, he dropped his eyes and began to scrape his boots.

  “Is this what your father has advised you to tell me?” she demanded sternly.

  “No!” Verne got out chokingly. “He don’t know I blabbed anything to you! If you try to say anything ag’in me, folks will know you’re doing it to keep Roberts out of trouble ’cause you’re stuck on him!”

  This, certainly, was the reasoning of Webb Nichols; Verne was not equal to anything as artful. Eudora regarded the boy with a disconcerting smile.

  “If that’s the case, Verne, then it doesn’t matter whether I repeat what you told me. Since you were only having some sport at my expense, I shall feel free to say whatever I please.”

  It knocked all the arrogance and bluff out of Verne. Never too sharp-witted, he was helpless as consternation overcame him.

  “You promised you wouldn’t say nothing,” he whined, a wild light in his eyes.

  “Then you weren’t lying to me,” Eudora challenged.

  “I—I don’t know what I said,” he faltered. “You got it out of me; I didn’t mean to tell you.”

  Eudora was torn between pity and contempt for him. It was well enough to hold his father responsible for what Verne had done, but the boy was weak and treacherous on his own account.

  “You get out of here, Verne,” she ordered, “and don’t come again. You can tell your father I’ll do my best not to betray you. If he has anything further to say about it, he’ll have to speak to me himself.”

  She locked the door after Verne left and tried to reduce her racing thoughts to ordered thinking. It was true, she realized, if a trumped-up charge was brought against Clay and she rushed to aid him with her story that every word she had to say would be put down as prejudiced in his favor. It would be brought out that she and Clay planned to marry. Her love for him would be used to discredit her testimony. She knew from what had just happened that Verne would repudiate his confession. And he’d be carefully coached before he was put on the stand. It would be her word against his, with Clay’s fate hanging in the balance.

  “I’ll make the jury believe me!” was her anguished thought. “I’ll find a way to bring out the truth!”

  With a blessed sigh of relief she suddenly realized that there wasn’t any charge against Clay as yet; no single bit of evidence.

  “I’m foolish to go to pieces like this!” she told herself. “Mr. Nichols must think it’s Verne who is in danger, or he wouldn’t have sent him to me with such a ridiculous story!”

  Had something been turned up that pointed to Verne? Or did Nichols have reason to believe such a disclosure was about to be made? She felt sure that Frank Dufors would conceal any evidence he discovered unless it could be used against Clay. But there was Shad Caney; he might have found something, and he was no longer playing Dufors’s game.

  Eudora sat there pondering over it for minutes on end. Clay had urged her repeatedly to leave the Nichols place and go over to the Humes’. She had refused to consider it, feeling she was perfectly safe where she was. Somehow, that sense of security had fled. It wasn’t only Verne’s spying and insolence; Webb’s manner had been growing increasingly threatening. Mrs. Nichols and the children, with the exception of Elly, were no longer friendly. Something sinister seemed to hang over the ranch. Sitting down to the table with them and pretending there was nothing wrong had become more than she could bear.

  “Clay was right; I should have gone to Harvey’s several weeks ago!”

  The admission, once made, cleared away any lingering doubts about what she should do. She glanced around the comfortable, homelike cabin. It was meaningless now.

  I’ll leave some things for Elly, she thought. It won’t take me long to pack what I want! I’ll go to the Humes’ this evening; Harvey can come for my trunk tomorrow!

  Chapter Sixteen

  A ROTTEN DEAL

  IN THE BRIGHT, noontime sunshine Frank Dufors jogged up to the store at White Pine and munched on crackers and cheese and a can of mustard sardines, using Eph’s counter for a table.

  Old Eph had known Dufors for years and had always been cunning enough to give him the idea that they saw eye to eye. All the gossip and surmises regarding the killing of young Jeb had reached Eph in due course. He had some conclusions of his own, which he had kept to himself. This opportunity to hear what the deputy sheriff had to say about the murder found him lending an attentive ear. To his disappointment, however, Dufors had more to say about the effort he was making to solve the mystery than about what he had accomplished. His failure to make any progress had begun to nettle him and loosen his tongue.

  “It’s a hard nut to crack, Eph!” he declared, spearing a sardine with the blade of his pocketknife. “You hear all the talk. How does it look to you?”

  Adkins shrugged. “I dunno,” he said cagily. “It might not be healthy to say too much.”

  Dufors shot a shrewd glance at him. “Meanin’ that gent up at the Santa Bonita?”

  “Meanin’ it might not be healthy for me to say yes or no to anythin’,” Eph returned coolly. “He don’t seem able to account for where he was that afternoon. Says he was up in the hills. It kinda leaves him wide open—if you want to take it that way. I ain’t sayin’ I do. Why he’d want to knock off that kid, unless it was done by mistake, gits me. It was a bright, sunshiny afternoon. Don’t seem as how a man wouldn’t know who he was shootin’ at.”

  “Don’t let nobody tell you a mistake was made,” Dufors said, with a knowing leer. “This thing came off jest the way it was planned. I’ll make an arrest one of these days; this thing is goin’ to be cleared up before I quit.”

  “I should think so,” Eph remarked dryly. “Fifteen hundred bein’ offered, I hear.”

  “Fifteen hundred,” Dufors assured him, his mouth stuffed with food. “Better give me another handful of crackers, Eph. Only three parties could have done the job. It’s bound to turn out to be one of ’em.”

  “Three, eh? Reckon yo’re includin’ Webb and his boy.”

  Dufors nodded. “It wasn’t them; I’m dead certain of that!” He didn’t say what made him so positive. Ad-kins stabbed him with a darting glance.

  “Two from three leaves only him, eh?”

  “It does, accordin’ to my figgerin’.” Dufors wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “How much do I owe you for every thin’, Eph?”

  “Oh, two-bits is enough.”

  Dufors handed him a dollar and Adkins pulled out his purse to make change.
>
  “Here you are, Frank. By the way, did you ever see one of these things?”

  “Why, it’s a fifty-cent piece,” Dufors observed, taking the coin in his fingers. “Somebody’s punched a couple holes in it. What’s so out of the ordinary about it?”

  “Why, that’s one of them Columbian half dollars the Gov’ment minted specially for the Chicago World’s Fair. A couple years ago there was a saloon down in Kingman that had some set right in the top of the bar till the boys started diggin’ ’em out with their knives and walkin’ off with ’em. Roberts dropped this one in the store yesterday. He’s got four or five chained together for a watchfob. Reckon one came off when he was leanin’ over the counter. I’m savin’ it for him.”

  Dufors’s obsidian eyes were suddenly as beady and bright as polished shoe buttons. He had racked his brain in a quest for something that he could use against Clay but in the wildest flights of fancy he had never conjured up anything to compare with this.

  He turned the coin over in his palm and gazed at it with a brooding fascination. “Does anybody know you got this, Eph?” he got out tensely.

  “No; I didn’t find it till I swept up a little this mornin’.” Old Eph cocked a puzzled eye at Dufors. “Hellsfire, Frank, there’s no reason to take on about it; it ain’t worth more’n a couple of dollars.”

  “Eph, yo’re crazy! Do you know what this thing is worth to you and me? Fifteen hundred dollars!”

  The White Pine storekeeper blinked his eyes as understanding whipped through him.

  “Half of that is seven-fifty, Eph. It’s a nice little piece of money.”

  Adkins jerked his head affirmatively. “I could use it,” he admitted, with a stony rasp. “But you git me straight, Frank; I ain’ takin’ no chances!”

  “Chances?” Dufors jeered. “All I want you to do is forgit you ever saw this coin. I’ll take care of everythin’ else!”

  They made their unholy bargain without a twinge of conscience. Dufors was now anxious to get away from White Pine before anyone saw him there.

  “Heck Barry is on his way up from Kingman,” he told Eph, as he was leaving. Though he owed his official position to Sheriff Barry, he secretly despised the little man. “The county prosecutor’s comin’ along with him. I don’t know whether they’ll take Jennings back with them or bring him to trial in Mescal. It don’t mean a damned thing to me now.”

  “Is Steve in any shape to go to trial?”

  “Yeh, he’s perkin’ up considerable. Heck ain’t foolin’ me; I know why he’s comin’ to Mescal. It ain’t on account of Steve Jennings. He’s out to git my hide ’cause nothin’s been done about the killing of the kid.” Dufors laughed evilly. “I’ll be ready for him, Eph!”

  To return to the knoll east of the schoolhouse and conceal the half dollar in the dust, where he could find it at will, called for no great effort. When Barry, making the long trip around by Lund, got off the stage the next morning Dufors was, as he had predicted, ready for him.

  In his younger days, Heck Barry had been a capable and honest officer. He was still as honest as politics would permit and considerably wiser.

  “We got to break this case somehow,” he said flatly, after hearing all Dufors had to say. “Papers all over the State hollering their heads off about it! Young boy murdered, and nothing being done! That’s bad in an election year, especially when it comes on top of our being made to look silly by having a stockman’s association bring in a big-time rustler like Steve Jennings and handing him over to us. You didn’t find the empty cartridge or nothing, eh?”

  “Not a thing,” Dufors answered. “The killer picked up the ca’tridge, I figger. He wasn’t no greenhorn, to think of that.”

  “Nine times out of ten that’d be true,” Barry conceded. “We better go out there and have another look.”

  They were on Willow Creek by late afternoon. Dufors pointed out the spot from which the shot that killed Jeb had been fired. Barry got down on hands and knees and examined the ground carefully. When he neared the spot where the killer had lain, and where the half dollar was hidden, Dufors got down with him. Brushing the sand aside, he uncovered the coin. He called Heck and permitted him to pick it up.

  “Well!” the little man exclaimed triumphantly. “Now we’re getting somewheres! A Columbian half dollar! There ain’t so many of them around. The way this one’s been pierced, looks like it was being worn for an ornament.”

  “This nails it down, Heck!” Dufors cried, with pretended surprise and excitement. “Clay Roberts wears a watch fob made of half dollars like this! This one must have pulled off when he was stretched out here; he could have scuffed his boot and covered it up without ever knowin’ it!”

  “If the holes in this coin fit the links on the ones he’s wearing, it’s sure-fire!” the sheriff declared soberly. “Where is Roberts?”

  “At Ringe’s ranch on the Santa Bonita. At least, that’s where he’s stayin’.”

  “Okay! If he ain’t there, we’ll wait for him!”

  * * * *

  Big John was seated on the gallery, when they rode in. Clay had been down in the basin in the afternoon and was having supper with the crew. He had seen Eudora. To find that she had taken the step he had so long advised was a welcome surprise, and he had returned to the Santa Bonita with a relieved mind.

  Ringe called him to the door.

  “I don’t know what this means, Clay, but Sheriff Barry is here. He’s got Dufors with him. They want to see you.”

  Clay took it calmly. “Whatever they’ve got to say, let’s hear it,” he said, following Ringe to the office.

  Barry jerked a nod at him. Dufors looked on, wooden-faced.

  “Roberts, does this Columbian half dollar belong to you?” the sheriff inquired, offering him the coin.

  Clay looked at it carefully. “I imagine it does,” was his answer. “It must have dropped off my fob. I missed it last night when I got back from the basin. I thought I’d lost it around the yard, or between here and White Pine. We looked for it this morning, and on the way up this evening, I stopped at White Pine and asked Adkins if he’d seen anything of it. Where did you find it?”

  “Let’s see if it fits,” Barry said, ignoring the question. “Well, no question but it does!” He squared off and fixed Clay with a grim glance. “Roberts, are you familiar with the little rounded knoll, east of the Willow Creek schoolhouse, from which this Caney boy was killed?”

  “I know where it is,” Clay told him. “I’ve never had occasion to climb it since I’ve been here. Why do you ask?”

  “That’s where we found your coin, little better than an hour ago.”

  Ringe, seldom a profane man, ripped out a violent oath. “Barry, if that’s where you found it, somebody planted it there!” he roared. He glared at Dufors with blazing eyes. “I recognize your hand in this, Dufors! I can smell a skunk a long ways!”

  “Take it easy, John,” Clay advised. “I don’t know how this frame-up was worked but it won’t help us any to lose our heads over it.”

  Heck gave him an approving nod. “That’s the sensible way to look at it. You’ll get a square deal from me. If you can knock out this evidence, you’ll have plenty chance. I’ll have to take you in, of course. You got a gun on you?”

  “On my hip.”

  Dufors took possession of the gun.

  “Heck Barry, I’ve known you for twenty years!” Ringe burst out afresh, his usually ruddy face purple with rage. “Before politics went to your head, you were on the up and up! You’ve got the wolves yapping at your heels now, and all you’re interested in is making an arrest. I’m telling you to your teeth that I’m not convinced Roberts will get a square deal from you!”

  The charge hit the nail on the head so squarely that it Shook Hector Barry. “I ain’t interested in the name-calling, John,” he snapped.

  “You will be before this is over!” Big John shot back. “You’ll never railroad this boy to prison or worse as long as I can draw breath! The real
taxpayers in this end of the county have been asking you for years to get rid of Dufors; and we gave you good and sufficient reasons! But you’ve strung along with him, thinking that was the way to get votes! Well, things have changed around here, Barry, and what you’re up to now will settle your hash for keeps!”

  Ranch hospitality required him to ask the sheriff and his deputy in to supper; but the invitation was not forthcoming for the first time in his long ownership of the Diamond R.

  “You go along with them, Clay, and keep your chin up; I’ll get the best lawyer money can buy, even if I have to go all the way to Tucson or Phoenix for him. You tell me what you want me to bring in to you tomorrow, and I’ll fetch it.”

  Clay asked for the privilege of speaking to him privately for a minute. Barry granted it and stepped out on the gallery with Dufors.

  “Eudora’s got to be told, John,” Clay said, his mouth tight. “I’d rather she heard it from you than anyone else.”

  “I’ll see her sometime tomorrow. She’ll take it pretty hard, I reckon. Maybe I better wait till I see what can be done in Mescal. Sam Bascom isn’t much of a lawyer, but he’ll have to do until I can send for a good man. Maybe Bascom can get you released on a writ or something. They’ll have to give you a hearing before they can bind you over to stand trial. I’ll be there with Bascom; if the coin is the only evidence they have against you, they may not vote an indictment. There’s just a chance, Clay, that I might be able to bring Miss Stoddard some good news.”

  “All right, do as you think best. I don’t want her dragged into this mess, John. I’m pretty sure she knows something about what happened that afternoon that she hasn’t felt free to tell me. Don’t urge her to talk; if she brings it up, that’ll be different. But unless it’s really important, don’t let her do anything about it.”

  Ringe nodded. “You can trust me to use my judgment.”