by Zane Grey
“Jim, you look like the wrath of Gawd this mornin’.”
“Smoky, I didn’t sleep well. I’m cross, and I reckon I need a shave.”
“Wal, if thet’s all. . . . Say, Jim, did you hear the gurl scream last night?”
“Scream! . . . Did she?”
“Huh. If she didn’t, I’ve shore got the jimjams. . . . My Gawd! Look at pore Latimer!”
Their patient had wrestled off his bed out into the grass. They rushed to lift him back and make him comfortable. He appeared to be burning up with fever and alarmingly bright-eyed, but he was conscious and asked for water. Jim hurried to fetch some.
“How’n hell I rolled out there I don’t know,” said Latimer, after he had drunk thirstily.
“Reckon you was delirious, Sparrow,” replied Smoky.
“No, sir. I was scared.”
“Scared! — You? Thet’s funny,” rejoined Smoky, looking across at Jim.
“What scared you, old man?” queried Jim, bathing Latimer’s hot face with a wet scarf.
“It was after I got my sleep. Must have been late, fer I always am dead to the world fer five or six hours. I was wide awake. It was shore a lonesome, still night. Mebbe my sins weighed on me. . . . But all of a sudden I heard a cry. It scared me so I jumped right off my bed. Hurt me, too, an’ I didn’t try to get back.”
“Maybe it was a coyote right by close,” returned Jim.
“Fellers, I’ll bet you’ll find thet gurl dead. . . . Murdered!” concluded Latimer, hoarsely.
“Wal, I’ll be —— !” ejaculated Smoky.
“Sparrow, you don’t look flighty,” replied Jim, gravely. “But your talk is. Else you’ve a reason to think it.”
“Shore I have,” rejoined Latimer, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Hays beat an’ robbed Herrick! . . . Thet’s the part I wanted to tell you, if I was goin’ to croak. But I gotta tell it anyhow. An’ I ask you both, as pards, to keep what I tell you secret till I’m dead.”
“I swear, Sparrow,” said Smoky, huskily.
“You can trust me, too,” added Jim.
“Wal, thet’s why I feel Hank must have done fer the gurl, too.”
“Robbed Herrick!” exclaimed Slocum, incredulously. “Was there a fight?”
“Yes. But Hank might have avoided it. He drove the man crazy.”
“Fellers, Hays’d steal coppers off a dead nigger’s eyes — shore. But what he said he wanted was the gurl fer ransom. Yet he picked a fight with Herrick an’ beat him with a gun.”
“Sparrow, how come you didn’t tell us before?” asked Smoky, sternly.
“I’m beholdin’ to Hank. But I will say thet if I’d knowed his game, I’d never have gone with him. After it was too late — wal, I stuck. An’ I’d kept it secret. But I feel in my bones I’m done fer. So I’m squealin’, an’ I’m doin’ it because Hays double-crossed you all.”
“Reckon I’d have done the same, if Hank had a hold on me,” conceded Smoky, generously. “Suppose you take a nip of whisky an’ tell us what happened.”
“I’m hot enough without liquor. But I’ll tell you. . . . Gimme some more water.”
After a moment Latimer drew a long breath and resumed: “Hank picked me because he had a hold on me. . . . After you fellers left thet night Hank went out an’ got another hoss. He had a saddle hid somewhere. We took them hosses up the bench back of the house an’ tied them. Then we went down toward the house.”
“Ahuh. He’d had this deal in mind all the time,” said Smoky, nodding his head.
“Yes. Before we got to the house he told me he meant to hold Herrick up fer what money he had on hand — then steal the gurl fer ransom. I opened my trap to kick ag’in’ the gurl part of it, anyway, but he cussed me somethin’ fierce. I seen then he was blood-set on it, so I shet up. . . . Herrick was in the livin’-room. We walked round the house, an’ Hank showed me the gurl’s winder, which was open. . . . Wal, we went back, an’ up on the porch, an’ into the livin’-room. When Herrick looked up Hank threw a gun on him. ‘Keep quiet an’ shell out your money,’ Hank ordered. Thet didn’t phase the Englishman. He jumped up, thunderin’ mad. Hank hit him over the head, cuttin’ a gash. Thet didn’t knock Herrick out, but it made him fight till Hank got him good an’ hard. Then he opened his desk and threw out some packages of greenbacks. After that he slid to the floor. Next Hank ordered me to go out an’ round to the gurl’s winder. It was bright moonlight, but I didn’t locate thet winder quick. An’ at thet I was guided to it by the gurl’s voice. . . . Gimme another drink.”
Latimer quenched his inordinate thirst again, while Jim and Smoky exchanged thoughtful glances over him.
“Wal, where was I? . . . When I straddled thet winder-sill I seen the gurl sittin’ up in bed, white as the sheets about her. Hank had a gun pointed at her head, an’ he was sayin’ if she yelled he’d shoot. Then he told me to look around fer money an’ jewels. I started thet, keepin’ an eye on them. The room was as moonlight as outdoors. Hank told her to git up an’ dress fer ridin’. She refused, an’ he yanked her clean out of bed, splittin’ her nightgown half off. ‘Gurl,’ he said, ‘yore brother is hawg-tied down in the livin’-room, an’ if you don’t do as I tell you, I’ll kill him. . . . I’m takin’ you away fer ransom, an’ when he pays up you can come home. So long’s you’re quiet we won’t hurt you.’ . . . At thet she got up an’ ran into a closet. I heerd her sobbin’. He made her put on ridin’-clothes an’ pack what else she wanted. Meanwhile I found a heap of gold things an’ diamonds, an’ a package of money, still with the Wells Fargo paper on it. These I stuffed in my pockets, an’ I shore — was a walkin’ goldmine.”
“How much was there?” asked Smoky, curiously, when Latimer paused to catch his breath.
“I’ll come to thet. . . . We went out the winder, an’ Hank hustled her into the woods, with me follerin’. Soon we come to the hosses, an’ Hank put the gurl up on the gray. He blindfolded her an’ told me to see she didn’t git away. Then he run back down the hill. The gurl talked a blue streak, but she wasn’t so damn scared, except when we heard a shot, then some one runnin’ on hard ground. Hank come back pronto, pantin’ like a lassoed bull. He said he’d run plump into Progar an’ another of Heeseman’s outfit.
“‘Miss Herrick,’ he says, ‘them fellers — was bent on robbin’ your brother — mebbe killin’ him. I shot — Progar, but the — other — got away.’ . . . He tied the bundle on his hoss, an’ leadin’ the gurl’s hoss, he rode up the mountain. We rode the rest of the night, stoppin’ to rest at daylight. Hyar I turned the money an’ trinkets over to Hank. He counted the money Herrick had turned over — somethin’ more’n sixteen thousand — but he never opened the Wells Fargo package I’d found in the gurl’s trunk. . . . Thet’s all, fellers. We rode till noon, meetin’ you as agreed in the cedars.”
“What was in thet Wells Fargo package?” asked Smoky, after a long pause.
“Money. Hundred dollar bills. I tore a corner of the paper off. It was a thick an’ heavy package.”
“Ahuh. So Hank went south with thet an’ the jewelry?”
“Yes. When he made the divvy hyar he give me his share of thet sixteen thousand. It’s hyar in my coat. You an’ Jim air welcome to it. Cause where I’m goin’ — I won’t need any.”
“Sparrow, it was a long story fer a sick man — an’ hard to tell,” said Smoky, feelingly. “Jim an’ me will respect your confidence. An’ if you pull through — as I hope to Gawd you do — we’ll never squeak. . . . But, pard, don’t be surprised at what comes off.”
CHAPTER 12
FIVE DAYS LATER Sparrowhawk Latimer died during the night, after a short interval of improvement which gave his comrades renewed hope. He passed away alone, evidently in agony to judge from his distorted face. When Slocum found his body in the morning it was stiff and cold.
“Wal, I don’t know but thet Sparrow’s better off,” remarked Smoky, with pathos. “This hyar game ain’t hardly wuth playin’.”
T
hey buried him in his tarpaulin on the spot, and divided his effects among them by drawing lots.
“What’d you do with the money you found on him?” queried Hays.
“We didn’t find none. Sparrow gave it to me an’ Jim some days ago,” replied Smoky.
“Reckon you better divide it.”
“Ump-um,” rejoined Smoky, nonchalantly, his beady little eyes on the chief.
“Why not?”
“Wal, Sparrow wanted us to have it, not, I reckon, because we took care of him when you forgot him, but jest because he cottoned to us.”
“Smoky, tell Hays the other reason,” spoke up Jim.
“Thet’ll wait, Jim. No hurry. An’ I’m not so shore Sparrow wanted us to tell.”
Hank Hays turned livid of face and the gaze he flashed upon his two cool subordinates held nothing if not the lightnings of a desperate soul.
“Ahuh. Mebbe you’d both be wise to stay shet up,” he said, and left.
Brad Lincoln was the first of the others to voice intense curiosity.
“What’s all this gab?” he demanded.
“Keep your shirt on, Brad,” returned Smoky, provokingly.
“Fellers,” continued Lincoln, turning to the others, “I’ve had a hunch all along there was a stink in this deal. Air you with me in demandin’ a show-down from Smoky an’ Jim?”
“We shore air,” rejoined Bridges, and Mac and Happy Jack expressed like loyalty.
“Smoky, you’re square. If there’s anythin’, we want to know.”
“Wal, there’s a hell of a lot. It’s due you. Jim an’ me have no mind to keep silent, now Latimer’s gone. But we’re stuck hyar in this hole, an’ we don’t want to fight among ourselves.”
“Right you air. But no matter,” snapped Lincoln.
“It’ll bust up the poker game, Brad. You’re behind, an’ so long as there’s a chanct to win Hays’ roll, why not take it?”
Lincoln made a passionate gesture. Smoky had hit his weakness. He was the top gambler of the outfit. They were all gamblers when they had money and leisure, but Lincoln had the distinction of winning most.
“Smoky, you’re sluggin’ me one below the belt. You know damned well I’d pass up anythin’ to beat Hank. I’m game. Keep your mouth shet till it’s gotta come out. An’ you can bet your life if it’s as serious as you hint, there’ll be a hell of a row.”
“Mebbe we can slick it over,” replied Smoky, smoothly. “If we win all the boss’s money — an’ he’ll shore be easy now with thet gurl on his mind — I reckon there won’t be any sense in tellin’ at all. Eh, Jim?”
“I don’t make any rash promises, Smoky,” returned Jim. “I admire you a lot, Slocum, but I’m thinking you run this into the ground. In all justice these men ought to be told something.”
“Damn you, Wall!” flashed Smoky, but he was not venomous.
Lincoln leaped up and hissed like a snake. His rage was confirmation of suspicions. Smoky laid a restraining hand on him.
“It sorter r’iled me, Brad. But take my word for it, it’s a case of choosin’ between the cards an’ bein’ told.”
“I say cards. You fellers can’t keep it forever,” rejoined Lincoln, darkly.
From that hour dated the grim and passionate gambling in which they all participated. With one man on lookout duty, the others spent most of the daylight hours sitting at Happy Jack’s table of cottonwood poles. Hays was a gambler by nature; he gambled with everything, particularly life and death.
Jim had separated his money into two parts — one consisting of the bills of large denomination, and the other of small. The former was very much in excess of the latter. While on guard up on the bluff Jim sewed his considerable sum in the lining of his coat and vest. He had a premonition that he would need it some day. The other he kept out for gambling, intending to quit when it was lost.
But fortune was fickle. He did not lose it. Instead, he won steadily. There was no hope of his getting out of the game so long as he was ahead. He wanted to watch, think, plan. Luck changed eventually, and he lost all he had won. Then he seesawed for a day, before he struck another streak of losing, and lost everything.
“I’m cleaned,” he said, rising. “But, by gosh! I gave you a run.”
“Jim, you shore had rotten cards lately,” replied Hays. “But you can’t be clean busted.”
“No. I’ve saved out a little, and I’m going to hang on to it.”
“I’m way ahead. I’ll lend you some,” offered Hays, generously.
“No, thanks. I’m glad to get off this well. I’ll go up to the rock and send Mac down. From now on I’ll do most of the lookout work. I like it.”
“Thet’s civil of you, Jim. . . . How many cards, Jeff? . . . Say, Smoky, don’t you ever talk no more? I can’t read your mind.”
“Hell of a good thing you can’t,” replied Slocum, glumly. Gambling roused the worst in him, as indeed in all of them. Hays was loud, merry, derisive when he won, and the reverse when he lost.
Jim was glad this phase of his connection with the outfit was past. He had played for days, won and lost, all in the interest of the scheme fermenting in his mind. He wanted to be alone. If nothing else intervened, this gambling would lead to the inevitable quarrel. Whether Hays won all the money or lost what he had, there would be a fight. Daily the stakes had grown higher, the betting more reckless, the bitterness or elation more pronounced. There was too much cash in the possession of these robbers. It had been begotten in evil and only in evil could it end.
Mac was so glad to be relieved of his lonely duty in the hot sun that he ran like an overgrown boy down the slope and back to camp.
But Jim welcomed the change. The sun had no terrors for him. Nevertheless, he had packed up a bundle of thick brush and three long trimmed poles, with which he essayed to erect a shelter. This proved not an easy job, for the reason that there was no place to stick the poles. However, by carrying up stones he finally accomplished his design, and took his well-earned seat in the shade.
And at once a restless, baffled, hurried condition of mind seemed to leave him. To face those men hour after hour, day after day, hiding his thoughts, had engendered irritation. Happy Jack was an agreeable and likable man, who really had no business among these robbers. He had no force. He veered like the wind, and the person who last had his ear convinced him. Smoky Slocum was the salt of the earth, if such tribute could be paid one of Hank Hays’ band. The others, however, had palled upon Jim. When the split came and the shooting began Jim wanted to be around. He would help it along considerably.
He plied the glasses as diligently as before, sweeping all the hazy distances, the purple canyons, the white washes and valleys of green from which heat veils rose like smoke, and the mounds and ridges of red stone. Then he would watch the gamblers for a while. Often he would take a long look at the tent shelter where the girl spent her weary days. Savage as Jim was to precipitate eruption and catastrophe, here he had the sagacity and stamina to wait. Time was a conspirator with him. As surely as the sun shone blazingly down upon Robbers’ Roost by day and the stars pitilessly by night, just as surely would tragedy decimate the gang. Every day brought that hour closer.
The season of storms arrived and showers of rain fell almost every day. Dust cleared out of the air; the heat diminished; and flowers and grass sprang up out of the earth.
Jim kept his slicker at the lookout, in expectation of a long, drenching rain, but seldom did he put it on. Often he stood out from under the brush shelter to let the rain beat upon him. He loved the smell of the hot stone, the sand, the dust after they had been wet. In the mornings the sky would be clear and azure blue, except round the peaks of the Henrys, where the storms formed. About noonday or later the white clouds would sail up on all sides, and they would darken and swell and gloom. Then streaky curtains of rain, gray as steel, would wind down from the clouds and move across the desert. Here would be sunshine, and here shadow, and in between, rainbows of gorgeous vividness, of transpa
rent, ethereal delicacy, or dark, sinister, ruddy hue, and of every shape that was possible for a curve.
One day in midsummer when Jim was returning to camp somewhat before sunset he heard a shot. It startled him. Gunshots, except his own while hunting rabbits and antelope, had been marked by their absence. And this one either had a spiteful ring or so it sounded to Jim’s sensitive ears. He listened for others. None came.
The moment he entered the oval to see Hays striding for the cabin, his hair standing up, and his men grouped outside of the camp shelter, Jim knew that there had been trouble. It had been long in coming, but it had arrived. Jim hoped Hays had not shot Smoky or Happy Jack. Any one of the others would be one less.
Presently Smoky detached himself from the group and came to meet Jim. He walked slowly, his head down. They met at the rise of ground opposite the little cove where Hays had erected the cabin.
“What now, Smoky?”
“Hank did fer Brad.”
“How? Why? . . . You don’t mean Hays beat Lincoln to a gun?”
“He did, Jim. By Gawd he did!” ejaculated Slocum, his eyes gleaming strangely. “But Hank was at the end of the table an’ had a free throw. You know thet bench Jack fixed on the side next to the fire? Wal, Brad was sittin’ on it an’ his gun bumped the table. Thet gave Hank the edge. He bored Brad. I was the only feller who seen it. The rest was duckin’ to beat hell.”
“What was it about, Smoky?”
“Wal, Brad has been gittin’ sorer every day, an’ today we cleaned him. Hank had a bad run, too. But you know he was way ahead, an’ most on Brad’s money. Brad opened up on Hank, no doubt meanin’ to call him fer fair. But Brad didn’t git goin’ good before Hank hissed an’ went fer his gun.”
“Smoky, he had his mind made up,” declared Jim, tensely.
“Shore. That’s the queer part of it. Hank was not goin’ to let Brad spit out much. . . . An’, friend Jim, that’s a hunch fer us.”