by Zane Grey
The giant’s ox eyes rolled, and his beard and chin wobbled from side to side as Linc tried to lift him to a sitting position.
“Sealover... came after — me... offered me — thousand... Emery’s — hand — back...”
Haskel’s mouth remained open, but he said no more. His clutching hands fell away from his big belly, allowing his insides to spill out upon the street.
“Men, you heard?” queried Lincoln, of the two beside him.
“Wal, we shore did,” replied the cowboy. The other witness nodded his head, while he mopped his brow.
As Bradway straightened to face about, Kit Bandon came hurrying into the street. Behind her were some of the Leave It customers. Reaching the group, the Maverick Queen looked down upon the dying man. She held her white dress away from the blood-soaked dust. Haskel presented a horrible sight at which most women would have fainted but the face of this incredible woman was without expression. Linc lowered the body of the dead man to the street, arose and started striding across to the door of the Leave It. With a sudden cry Kit caught his arm, only to be shaken off. She had to run to keep up with him, holding on to his sleeve, then his pocket, while all the time she talked excitedly.
“Awful mess you made of him. Why’d you shoot him in the belly? Oh, I savvy! Wanted to ask him something. I saw you. What’d he say?... Linc, I had nothing to do with this dead man who was shot off the balcony. You have to believe me, Linc. You have a dark horse, Mr. Bradway!... You’ll need him more and more! Emery will be worse than ever unless you kill him!”
This last she whispered, close at Lincoln’s side. But the Nebraskan did not seem to hear. All of his faculties were intent on the next move in this brutal drama.
Emery, with half a dozen other men, one of them a white- aproned bartender, stood under the bright light, in a half- circle. The gambler’s eyes burned out of a face that was ash white. As he saw Bradway advancing with Kit clinging to his arm he backed hurriedly toward the door, only to bump into one of the men, who promptly shoved him forward. Linc saw that the man behind Emery was Vince. Now it was too late for the gambler to get away. He probably realized he might be the next victim, but his jealous rage had overcome his terror. His eyes, blazing into hatred, were upon the woman and not the man.
“Bandon, let go of that cowboy,” he shouted, and his hard tone implied an accustomed mastery over her. At least, she obeyed him. “Anyone would think to see you hanging on to that stranger, that you were on his side.”
“I am, but he’ll never believe me,” she retorted. “He’s one cowboy against this whole cut-throat outfit. You see: I told you.”
“Shut up, you man-crazy hellcat!” There was murder in his low voice. Then Bradway confronted him, gun still smoking, over the dead man on the sidewalk. The Nebraskan touched the prostrate figure with the toe of his boot; but he did not lower his eyes from those of the man before him.
“Is this man Sealover?” he asked.
“No. His name is Mike something or other.... Whatever he had in mind he was on his own.”
“Yes, and you’ll claim that Sealover rode over to Atlantic after Haskel on his own, too,” sneered Linc, shaking himself free from the woman’s clinging arm. “But no use to lie. Haskel told me you were behind this. I have two witnesses to his statement. An’ they’re right here.”
With a sweep of his gun Lincoln indicated the cowboy and the traveler who had left the spot where Haskel had fallen and now stood on the sidewalk. It was the cowboy who spoke:
“Thet’s true, Mr. Emery. I heard him.”
The traveler, pale of face, and obviously reluctant to be drawn into the vortex of this fight, nevertheless corroborated the cowboy’s testimony.
Emery met this proof of his implication with a gambler’s nerve. He barely glanced in the direction of the two witnesses, then turned again toward the Maverick Queen, his voice charged with sarcastic politeness.
“Miss Bandon, if you step in line with these two witnesses I suppose Bradway will force me to meet him. In that case I’ll ask for time to give him a little information he will be glad to know about you.”
A blow in her face could hardly have had more effect upon Kit Bandon than the gambler’s veiled threat. For an instant the smooth beauty of her white face seemed to shrivel. Suddenly she looked old. Then the spasm of sheer terror passed and she was herself again.
“Jess, I didn’t hear what Haskel said,” she said, sharply. “My interest in this cowboy was only in fair play. You know me.”
“Ha! I should say I do!” snarled Emery— “where cowboys are concerned....”
Bradway interrupted. “See here, Emery! Leave the woman out of this. She had absolutely nothing to do with it.... Threatening and browbeating a woman who seems to be in your power isn’t going to save you from answering to me. Emery, you slimy, yellow snake, your hand is called.... But for one thing — just one thing — I’d bore you where you stand.”
“Just one thing I suppose I’m to be grateful for?” snarled Emery sarcastically. “Could it be, by any chance — that one thing might be this frail and lovely creature who seems to have fallen for another cowboy?” In his slight gesture toward Kit Bandon he clearly intimated a contempt that matched his speech.
“No!” roared Bradway. “That one thing is to see you hanged!”
The gambler stared. His amazement overpowered all his other emotions. Hanging had not yet come as far west as South Pass. Emery tried to step back from the tall Nebraskan, but Vince pushed him forward again.
“Bradway — you must be crazy,” he declared, uneasily.
“Yeah? — Stretching hemp may seem farfetched to you, but I’ve a hunch I’m going to live to see you do it.”
“Who’s going to do it?” blustered the gambler; yet for all his effort he seemed shaken by the cowboy’s calm conviction.
“That’s one you can ask yourself,” replied Bradway, “and I’ll be glad to help you find the answer.” Wheeling abruptly Linc slipped into the shadow beyond the lighted doorway and strode swiftly away behind the crowd that had gathered. Knowing Vince would follow, he made straight for the livery stable. Headly was not in his little office, but the door was open and a rickety armchair stood on the veranda outside. Lincoln sank into it, meaning to wait a short while for Vince, then backtrack to his lodging.
It was too soon for the inevitable feeling of sickness and reaction that always followed the killing of a man. Excitement and anger still gripped him. He smoked a cigarette and sought some semblance of calmness.
“Let’s see. What came off?” he soliloquized, and reviewed the swift-moving events of that evening. “Got by lucky. Had to force the action — and it worked! These low-down hombres have been used to having their own way in making their own deals work out.... Still, I was lucky — in more ways than one. It wouldn’t have come off so well without Vince there to back me up....”
But was he any nearer a solution to his problem? It did not seem so. The plot to get rid of Emery by fair means or foul had failed so far. South Pass would be agog over this latest development. The gambler had more guts than Linc had given him credit for. And what was his sinister hold on Kit Bandon? She was unquestionably guilty also. But of what? Emery knew, but was he the only one who did? Lincoln could not kill him until he, too, knew the truth about her. The belief slowly established itself in his groping mind that both Emery and Kit Bandon were connected with Jimmy Weston’s death. She evidently was a person of fiercely changing moods. It was easy to see that she hated Emery. But she might have loved him once, might still be allied with him in carrying out his shady deals. But that she loved him no longer, he was certain. Had she not suggested that Bradway kill him? Dead men could tell no tales of past events. Evidently she would feel more secure with the gambler out of the way.
A dark form appeared coming down the street! He could not mistake that awkward horseman’s gait. Presently Vince arrived out of breath. It was too dark to see the expression on his face.
“Linc! Hea
h you are.... My Gawd, I had one stiff drink, but it ain’t done me no good yet,” he said huskily, and sat down, back to the wall.
“Swallow your gizzard,” advised Bradway, “and fight the thing. It never is a pleasure to kill a man. It’ll be worse the next time... . I reckon you saved my life.”
“Ha! I know damn well I did, pard, an’ I gotta think of thet.”
“I’ll never forget it. You made good the first move.... How come you bored that hombre Mike?”
“Jest as you left, I seen him sneakin’ upstairs with thet rifle. I follered him. He didn’t go in the parlor where Kit took you, but into the front room, an’ he left the door open. I couldn’t see till he opened the door out to the balcony. I watched — slipped up closer. When he raised the rifle — I — I bored him.”
“Slick work, pard. And what else?”
“You was in all the rest, ‘cept when you left Emery scared yellow. Thet hangin’ idee got him where it hurt. He turned on Kit again like a bitin’ rattlesnake. But what he said he whispered. They went upstairs. I had my drink at the bar. Pretty soon games started up again. But Emery an’ his Queen failed to show up. Pard, my hunch is he’ll kill her onless she beats him to it. An’ I’ll gamble the little lady has thet in her mind right this heah minnit.”
“She has, Vince. She wanted me to bore him.”
“Hell you say? Wal, thet’s a sticker. But mebbe it ain’t. I’m jest kinda thick-haided.”
“Vince, she’s afraid of him. Why?”
No answer came from the squatting figure beside his chair. Presently Vince went on: “When I come out some of the help was packin’ Mike in. But Haskel lay where you left him in the middle of the street. Daid, an’ shore an appallin’ sight, if I ever seen one. Not a damn man near! I reckon, though, everybody seen him.”
“Have you spotted Sealover yet?”
“No. I’ll get a line on him tomorrer. What’ll we do to thet bird?”
“It will depend on him. If he’ll talk, well and good. If not...”
“Pard, you got plenty of coin. Let’s bribe Sealover to talk, if proddin’ a cocked gun in his ribs won’t do it. These low-down geezers have been doin’ Emery’s biddin’ for a few bits. Let’s try some real money on them.”
“Another slick idea, Vince. We’ll try it. Say, pard, I hired Doc Williamson to have Weston’s body dug up and examined. I want to know what kind of a bullet killed him.”
“I’ll be damned! But, pard, you can’t look at Jimmy?”
“Yes, I could, if it’d help me to find out who shot him, but let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. Vince, it’s been a long, long day. Let’s turn in.”
“Good. I’m dawg-tired. I’ll hit the hay heah in Headly’s barn.”
“Do you know where to find me in case you want to?”
“Yep. I marked the house. Mrs. Dill’s. I know her.... Good night, pard, an’ go the back way. From now on you an’ me must be Injuns.”
Linc felt as exhausted as if he had been in the saddle since dawn, cutting and branding calves. South Pass social life, such as it was, was still going full blast, as he stole through town by the back way. A few minutes later, barred in his little room, he stretched out in the dark, feeling he would never move again.
But despite his weariness, he could not sleep. That terrible hour had come in which he had to fight the physical and mental effects of being driven to take a human life. This time what saved him from the mood of black mental sickness was the thought of Kit Bandon. He recalled every act and look and word of hers, since first he had met her. She had made no effort to conceal her feelings for him. Even his rebuff of all her advances had not seemed to destroy her self-confidence, possibly because she was one of those strange vain creatures who had never before failed to make men mad for her. Was a woman such as Kit Bandon really capable of unselfish love for a man — say, for instance, as a girl like Lucy would be? If he did not know that a girl such as Lucy existed, would he have been able to resist the lure and passion of the Maverick Queen? In all honesty, he couldn’t be sure.
He had had very little opportunity since boyhood to learn the ways of women. He had never experienced a serious love affair with any girl, let alone with a fascinating willful, unscrupulous woman such as Kit Bandon. He could not help pitying her. As he remembered it now, her passionate kiss, calculated and demanding as it had seemed at the time, now in retrospect seemed warm and sweet. He realized that similar kisses had been given to other cowboys — to Jimmy Weston — setting their blood on fire and leading inevitably to their destruction. He had a feeling that were it not for the debt of vengeance he had come to pay and for a memory of the look of hurt in a pair of blue eyes that he, too, would have yielded to the strange enchantment of Kit Bandon.
As Linc Bradway lay there in his boxlike room he found his thoughts turning away from the Maverick Queen. He swore to himself that he would find the strength to resist her. And he thanked God that he had met Lucy Bandon — was it only that morning? So much had happened since she had waved good-by to him from her buckboard on the road to Sweetwater Valley. He recalled her lovely face, her boyish figure in the old blue jeans, her bitter outburst against her aunt who had killed her love for Jimmy Weston even before it was born, her gallant refusal to betray the secret of Sweetwater Valley.
How could he even think of the Maverick Queen when this lovely, brave, unhappy girl was waiting beyond the Pass? He realized now that he loved her, that he would save her from her unhappy situation if she would let him. He longed for the night to pass so that he could ride over the Pass to tell Lucy that he loved her, that if she would place her faith in him, he would never give her cause to regret it.
He wished desperately now that he had planned to meet Lucy tomorrow. He clung to the thought of his love for her as a drowning sailor clutches a spar; and at last when slumber came, Lucy’s sweet wistful face hovered in the shadows of his darkening consciousness.
CHAPTER V
AWAKENING LATE, BRADWAY found the same somber mood of last night settling down upon him again. “Ahuh! I reckon I was hunting for trouble. And it’s piled up on me,” he muttered, as he went out. It was noon in South Pass, the quietest hour of the twenty-four. Passing the center of town he found an eating place where he had himself a late breakfast. From there he went on to Headly’s stable. Vince had been gone for some time, the liveryman said. Lincoln holed up in the tiny office, watching the street and the queer variety of passers-by. A stage stopped for an exchange of horses.
“What’s the news over Lander way?” asked Headly, of a cattleman who had stepped out of the stage.
“Wal, with summer here some of us are drivin’ stock over into the Sweetwater range.”
“You’re all welcome. It’s boom time around South Pass these days. Plenty room, plenty grass, plenty gold.”
“Yes, an’ plenty shootin’, if all I hear is true.”
“Shootin’ frays are perkin’ up, at thet,” drawled Headly, with a touch of pride.
Some time after the stage had departed Vince limped up the street on his high heels to the livery stable, and was just asking for his partner when he espied him.
“Gosh, I didn’t run into you nowhere,” he complained. “Finally jest had to go to yore bunkhouse. Mrs. Dill said you went out about midday, black as a thundercloud.... Wal, I hoofed it some today, an’ you can ask my pore feet.”
“Vince, you’re bursting with news,” said Linc, impatiently. “Come out with it.”
“Wal, I been everywhere I could get in, an’ picked up some talk thet you can take for what it’s worth.... There’s news afoot thet ranchers in the valley air formin’ a secret band of night riders. News from Rock Springs thet cattle are up two dollars a haid. Rustlers workin’ down the valley near Red Desert. I heerd thet if Kit Bandon breaks with Emery he will get run out of South Pass. She left this mawnin’ early for her ranch. By hossback, an’ kinda in a hurry. I seen her ride off an’ she looked like a mighty troubled woman. ‘Pears she had room
s at Aldham’s — thet’s the best hotel. She has a room also at the Leave It, as you remember. Later I had a look at Emery. He was mad as a hornet. He was with a nervous dark-complected little feller who I took for Sealover. An’ I found afterward thet my hunch was correct. An’ last it ‘pears thet Emery is thought damn pore of about town. O’ course he always was, as I know, but this fracas with you an’ the dirty bizness it brought to light, has hurt him with the decent town folks, of which there are quite some few. Altogether, pard, it ain’t been a bad forty-eight hours for us.”
“Right. If I can only lay low and go slow!... But that’s almost impossible in this kind of a deal.”
“Shore. The thing for you is to get away from heah often, an’ relax from this watchin’ game. Steady work as thet will get on yore nerves.”
“Where’ll I go? I promised to meet Lucy tomorrow. I wish it was today. After that — I don’t know.... Right now, I’ve an appointment with Doc Williamson. Meet me at this first little restaurant down the street, just about dark.”
“Okay, pard. Keep yore eyes peeled. There’s some stink brewin’, but I can’t tell the turn yet.”
Lincoln cut across the slope to the street which led down from the bank, and approached Williamson’s office that way. He found the doctor in, and evidently awaiting him.
“Evening, Bradway. I see you are on time,” was his greeting.
“Have you any — any word for me?” queried Lincoln, grimly.
“Yes,” returned the doctor, a curious gleam in his eyes. “Bradway, your friend Weston was shot with a light caliber gun — a thirty-eight, and from the front.”
A little later Bradway asked the doctor to take him to see McKeever.
“This little gun I showed you belongs to him,” said Lincoln. “I had the notion that it or one similar had been used on Weston.”
“Come along,” replied Williamson. “I haven’t had time to call on McKeever today.”