The rustler had shiny leather chaps over his jeans. He wore a faded hickory shirt and a big white sombrero that drooped down on his face. Though his brows were knotted in a scowl, there was a reluctant good will in the eyes turned on Sloan.
“Fellow, you ain’t got sense enough to pound sand in a rat hole, or you wouldn’t of been crazy enough to walk up to Pete’s gun thataway.” A gleam of mirth twitched at his dark face. “You sure gave him the leather a-plenty. He’s a mean little polecat. Nobody likes him. You ought to be popular with the boys.” After a slight hesitation he added: “But you’re not with some of them. Take Uhlmann now.”
“I gathered that he is a little annoyed at me,” Sloan replied dryly.
“Annoyed is not the word. He has figured out who you are. Something about the way you walk told him.”
“And who am I?”
“You’re Bob Webb, he claims. Rhino is fixin’ to do something about it.”
“What does he mean to do?”
“He didn’t exactly say. But I reckon it will be sudden. Don’t make any mistake. You can’t monkey with him the way you did with Pete.”
Sloan nodded. His cool appraising eyes rested on the rustler. “I’m much obliged, sir. But I don’t quite see where you stand. I notice things. The other day Uhlmann and McNulty thought hanging was too good for you. They did considerable talking. They don’t seem to be so eager now.”
The rustler’s frown carried a warning. “Strictly their business and mine. Don’t make it yours.”
The smile on Sloan’s sardonic face was friendly. “I can wonder why you are telling me this if you are tied up with Uhlmann, can’t I?’”
“Hell, I don’t have to give reasons,” Scarface growled irritably. “Just because a man does business with another doesn’t mean he has to back every play he makes. You did me a favor the other day without meaning to when I was being crowded some. That’ll do for you, won’t it?”
“If I nearly shoved my neck into a rope loop it wasn’t out of kindness to you,” Sloan said. “You’ve got a better reason than that. It sticks in yore craw to see a man murdered without a chance for his life.”
“Uhlmann played you a rotten trick once, I’ve heard. I never did like the brute. If you can slip across the line into Mexico that will be all right with me.” Scarface turned to Fraser. “I’ll be hittin’ the trail now, Stan. I’m headin’ south a ways. Maybe yore friend will join me till our trails divide.”
“I appreciate the offer,” Sloan told the outlaw. “But I’m riding in another direction.”
“If I was in yore shoes it would be south,” Scarface reiterated. “But you’re playin’ the hand.”
He rode away with a wave of the hand, a dangerous sinister scoundrel, but one Cape much preferred to his associates Uhlmann and McNulty.
Sloan remained at the corral while Fraser hunted up Mose Tarwater to take over for him during his absence. Cape was not happy about what he had done. He recognized ruefully the liabilities of his temperament. What if McNulty had called him a thief? Hard names break no bones. He might have let the little sneak go. To use a whip on a man was degrading to both parties. After Cape had flung down the quirt he had felt for a time physically sick. One had no right to treat another human being with such contempt. Wasn’t there something in the Bible about a man being made in the image of God? Already he had paid bitterly for his hot temper. If he had any sense at all by this time he would have learned to curb and control his anger.
Though still a boy when he was taken to the penitentiary, he had already become embittered at the injustice of a social system that permitted the innocent to be robbed by a smoot scoundrel using the law to cover his theft and to ruin the life of a lad framed for a killing he had not committed. The endless days in prison, every minute regulated by armed guards who treated him like a chained wild beast, had intensified the sour resentment churning in him.
A clean fastidious streak in his character had saved him from the underground vileness propagated by some of his fellow convicts. He lived within himself, apart from the prison politics, too proud to cater to those in authority or to join in the plots of those in his cell block. It had been only by sheer chance that an opportunity had come for him to join in the jail break organized by others.
During the days that followed he had lived like a hunted wolf, ready to kill or be killed at a moment’s notice. Then Sandra had come into his life. The friendliness and the kindly consideration with which she and her family had treated him had gone to his heart as water does to the roots of a thirsty plant. He had fought against the softness beginning to undermine his hatred. In Sandra’s way of life he had no part, he told himself.
14. The Half-Pint Squirt Says His Piece
FRASER CAME HURRYING BACK ALMOST ON A RUN. “SLAP yore saddle on, son. We’re gettin’ outa here quick. Something cooking over at O’Brien’s. Uhlmann has three-four of the boys in a huddle, and that spells nothing good for you.”
They left by the back gate of the corral to avoid notice. More than once they looked back, half expecting to see men mounting in pursuit. Except for a few horses tied to hitch racks the street was as deserted as one in a Mexican village during the hours of siesta.
Sloan laughed. “I’m not so important as you thought I was,” he said. “Nobody cares whether I go or stay.”
“Don’t fool yoreself,” the little man barked. “This country is gonna be plenty hot for you. Rhino will see to that.”
They did not follow the road to Tombstone but cut across the hills. Below them they could see a wagon moving along the winding road to the quartz mill of the Tough Nut Mining company, but nowhere was there visible on it a body of riders who might be looking for an escaped convict with a reward on his head.
Fraser noticed that though young Webb, or Sloan as he now called himself, gave evidence in his actions and bearing of a desperate recklessness, born of the assurance that he would some day soon pass out to the sound of crashing guns as slugs tore into his body, he none the less scrutinized vigilantly the terrain they traveled, just as his wary eyes an hour ago had probed into the enemies he was facing. He had set himself a task, and until he had finished it he meant if possible to stay alive.
“We’d better not reach Tombstone till after dark,” Fraser suggested. “There’s a reward notice for you posted at the post office and at Hatch’s saloon. We’ll slip in kinda inconspicuous and put up at a rooming-house I know on Allen Street.”
They unsaddled in a hill pocket and lay down beneath a live oak which protected them from the heat of the sun. Cape fell asleep within five minutes. He had been hunted so long that he had learned to snatch rest whenever he could do so with safety. The sun had set when Fraser awakened him by throwing a chunk of dead wood at his legs.
Sloan came to life suddenly, gun in hand. He glared at his friend a moment, then grinned at him sheepishly.
“Force of habit,” he apologized.
“That’s why I threw the chunk at you,” Fraser explaned. “I reckoned you might be jumpy if you were roused by hand, and I’d hate to have you sorry about puncturing me.”
It was after dark when they slipped into Tombstone and left their horses at the O.K. Corral, which a few years earlier had been the scene of the famous gun battle between the Earp brothers and the McLowry-Clanton faction. They walked up Fremont Street to Fourth and ate in a small Mexican restaurant. There was better food at the Can-Can, but they decided against going there on account of its popularity. Best to meet as few people as possible. Before sun-up they expected to be on the road for Tucson.
For the same reason they avoided the Grand Hotel and put up at a cheap rooming-house just outside the business district.
“You stay put right here, son,” Fraser ordered. “I’ll drift uptown and look around. Maybe Uhlmann has sent word that you may be in town tonight. If there’s any news floating about, I’ll pick it up.”
He sauntered up Allen Street and dropped in at the Crystal Palace. Back of the bar, ne
ar one end of it, was a blackboard on an easel upon which were tacked notices of an ice-cream social at the Methodist church, of a school entertainment, and of the new bill at the Birdcage Theater. Beside them was a poster offering two hundred dollars reward for the arrest of Robert Webb, who had escaped from the penitentiary at Yuma on the night of June 22, together with Chub Leavitt and Oscar Holton, both of whom had since been recaptured. He was described as a man of twenty-six years of age, weight one hundred and sixty pounds, wiry and athletic, not likely to be captured without a struggle. Blue eyes. Thick brown hair. Height, five feet ten. Disposition, morose. Was clean-shaven at the time of the prison break.
Fraser put a foot on the rail and ordered a drink. After supplying him, the bartender nodded toward the easel.
“Saw you reading that poster,” he said. “Funny about that. I hear he was in Charleston today, but I don’t believe it. If you ask me, he’s probably in Mexico. Say, somewheres around Mazatlan or Monterrey. He’s had plenty of time to light out. He wouldn’t be fool enough to stick around here.”
With that opinion Fraser agreed. “Sure, unless he’s a plumb idjit. Who says he was at Charleston?”
“Fellow by the name of Uhlmann. Claims to have recognized him. He was in here a while ago. Uhlmann, I mean. With some of his cronies. He was lookin’ for Webb.”
“Well, I haven’t lost him,” Fraser drawled. “I’ll say this. I knew Giles Lemmon, the fellow he was sent to the pen for killing. Anybody who has served seven years for bumping off that curly wolf has done paid the account with a hell of a lot of surplusage.”
The man with the apron put his hairy forearms on the bar and leaned forward. “I was in Prescott when young Webb was tried,” he said. “Never saw him. But I’ve met Jug Packard, and I’ve heard plenty about how he robbed the Webbs and fixed it so this boy had to go to the pen. Just between you and me and the gate post, brother, they sometimes put the wrong man behind the bars.”
“You’ve talked a mouthful.” Fraser finished his drink and turned to go.
Before he reached the swing doors several men pushed through them and came into the room. A wry twisted little smile showed on the face of the corral owner. He knew that there would be trouble ahead unless he lied convincingly. For the first man through the door was Uhlmann. Behind him trooped Morris, McNulty, and a big fellow from the San Simon Valley who called himself Cole Hawkins.
“ ’Lo, boys,” Fraser invited. “Have one on me.”
“Where is yore friend Webb?” demanded Uhlmann.
Stan’s wide hat was tilted jauntily. He put an elbow on the bar and looked at the huge man with affected surprise.
“Why, I wouldn’t know exactly. He went south with Scarface. My guess is that he ought to be crossing the line about now.”
“That’s a lie. Scarface left Charleston alone—before you and Webb did.”
“That’s right. About fifteen minutes before us. Webb and I separated outside of town. He went south, to catch up with Scarface.”
“I don’t believe it,” Uhlmann growled angrily. “He’s here in town somewhere.”
“What makes you think that?” Fraser asked. “He’s not a plumb jackass. When Scarface came to the corral he told us you had recognized Webb. Bob figured that spelled trouble, so soon as I had fixed him up with some grub he hit the trail for mañana-land.”
Uhlmann mulled that over in sullen silence. It seemed altogether likely. Scarface had told him bluntly he ought to let young Webb alone. Nothing was more probable than that he had warned the man in danger, and if so the only sane thing for Webb to do was to get to the safety of Mexico as fast as a horse could carry him.
But this was not a satisfactory solution for Uhlmann. He wanted to believe that the man he had injured was within reach so that he could strike again.
“If he was going with Scarface, why didn’t they start together?” McNulty asked suspiciously.
Fraser gave the man his studied attention. “I’ve mentioned the reason. Webb stayed while I rustled him some grub. You interested in meeting him—again?”
“One for you, Pete,” Hawkins said, grinning
Uhlmann pushed to the forefront of the talk. “I’m interested in meeting him, if you want to know, Fraser. Seems you’re a friend of this jailbird. That’s yore business, since you want to run with trash like that. But——”
“You’ve done said it, Rhino,” interrupted the little man. “I pick my own company without advice from anybody else.”
“Yeah, then listen, fellow.” Uhlmann’s voice rumbled anger. “I don’t let any half-pint squirt pull any shenanigan on me. Get between me and Webb, and I’ll tromp you down like I would a beetle.”
There was a clean strain of fighting tallow in Fraser. He had ridden the Texas brush country when those who dwelt there fought the raiding Kiowas and Comanches. He had followed the cattle trails to Dodge and Ellsworth regardless of stampedes, blizzards, and bank-full rivers. It was a chief article in his creed to back down for no man.
“Interesting,” he murmured, as if to himself. “I’ve read that the bigger they are the harder they fall—and they are sure easier to hit.”
Hawkins slammed a heavy fist joyously on the top of the bar. “The li’l’ bantam rooster crows fine. Damfidon’t take him up on his offer. Line up, boys. Mr. Fraser’s treat.”
Reluctantly Uhlmann accepted the drink. There was no percentage in quarreling with Fraser. The owner of the Rawhide Corral was a privileged character. He was an honest man in a community where rogues abounded. He did not interfere with them, and they in turn let him go his own own way. Perhaps it was his blunt fearlessness that made him popular.
“Just the same, if you know what’s good for you, Fraser, you’d better cut out siding with Webb,” the German grumbled.
“That’s what I say,” agreed McNulty.
“I reckon Rhino is mighty glad to have yore backing, Pete,” Fraser said gently. Since he was not looking for a quarrel with the big ruffian he ignored his threat.
McNulty looked at him angrily, started to speak, and changed his mind. Every time his trousers rubbed against the thighs beneath them he was given a painful reminder of the possible penalty on free speech.
15. The Rangers Make a Call
WHEN SANDRA DROVE WITH HER FATHER TO TUCSON BY the old mission road, the day after their hunted guest had ridden from the ranch, it was ostensibly to get material for a new dress. But there was another more urgent reason for the trip. This she broached to John Ranger at the end of her shopping spree. They were eating supper at a Chinese restaurant on Commerce Street.
“Jim Budd told me that Mr. Sloan’s sister lives in Tucson,” she said, as her father lit his post-prandial cigar. “I’m not very happy about him. He risked his life to save Nels and me. We were able to do so little for him. I’m wondering if we couldn’t meet his sister and maybe help him in some way.”
Ranger shook the light from his match and considered this. “It’s not our fault that we didn’t do more, Sandra. He has his neck bowed to go his own way.”
She sighed. “Yes, I know. But it wouldn’t do any harm to get in touch with his sister. She’s married, Jim says.”
“How does Jim know so much about her?”
The girl decided to speak out the suspicion in her mind. “I think he was in the penitentiary with Cape Sloan.”
“What makes you think that?”
She gave her reasons. They were not convincing, but they might very well be true, the cattleman reflected.
“If you’re right about this, I suppose I’ll have to let Jim go,” he said regretfully.
“Why will you?” she flared up. “Jim is one of the nicest colored men I ever knew. He is devoted to us. I know he is. Just because he has been in prison——”
John smiled indulgently at the cook’s champion. “I won’t be hasty about it. We’ll find out why he was in, and all about his record. Maybe he is entitled to another chance. I like him too. And about Webb——”
“We’d better call him Sloan,” she suggested. “Or we’ll make a mistake and call him Webb when somebody else is around.”
“All right, Sloan. I’m willing to look his sister up. Do you know her married name?”
“No. Jim had never heard it.”
“We’ll have to move carefully, so as not to get anybody wondering why we are looking for her.” He took three or four puffs at his cigar while Sandra waited. “I’ll speak to Phil Davis. He’s on the Star staff and knows everybody in town, more or less. He and I are good friends. He’ll keep his mouth shut.”
Ranger walked to the office of the Star to have a talk with Davis, recently promoted to managing editor. The newspaper man was rotund, middle-aged, and very deaf. At sight of the caller his eyes lit. A good many years earlier they had been in a small party that had stood off a bunch of Apaches for two days.
He jumped up and slapped the ranchman on the back. “You blamed old skeezicks! Where have you been all these years? You come to town and never look me up. Why not?”
“I’m looking you up now,” Ranger shouted in his ear. “It was just three months ago I saw you.”
They sat down at the desk. The owner of the Circle J R drew a paper pad toward him and scribbled a line. Davis read, “My business is private. Mind if I write it?”
The editor nodded. “Hop to it, John.”
Ranger wrote: “I want to find the sister of Bob Webb, the man who was sent to the pen for killing Giles Lemmon. She has been married since, I’ve been told.”
“Young Webb broke jail two-three months ago,” Davis murmured.
The cattleman used the pad again. “I know that. It’s his sister I’m interested in just now. Thought you might help me locate her.”
Davis moved over to a long table with a Star file of the previous year. After leafing the bound volume for five minutes he found what he was seeking. It was a story half a stick long telling of the marriage of Joan Webb to Henry Mitchell. He turned to the town directory and ran down a column of names beginning with M.
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