“You’re right,” her father agreed. “Bob is the dog with a bad name. We don’t want to correct a story putting the blame on him. Most of the people who read it would never see the correction.”
Sandra beat a small fist despairingly into the palm of her other hand. “It’s no use,” she declared. “If he gets out of this he’ll just get into another mix-up, and by this time everybody in the territory is on the lookout for him.”
Ranger knew this was true. Yet he sympathized with the cause driving Webb to what looked like reckless folly. “You can’t blame him for trying to clear his name. If he had just lit out after the jail break the stigma on his name never would have been cleared up.”
“You think now it will?” the girl asked eagerly.
“Yes. We’ve got an investigation moving now.” He added, regretfully: “But I can’t promise he’ll be alive when we spring our evidence on Packard, and I don’t know that what we dig up will be enough to convict Jug—except in public opinion.”
“If Bob Webb isn’t alive, it will do him a lot of good to show he has been the victim of a conspiracy,” Sandra said bitterly. “And as for the villain who sent him to prison—a lot he’ll care what people think, if he escapes the law.”
John put a hand gently on her shoulder. “Keep a stiff upper lip, honey,” he said cheerfully. “This will work out right yet.”
He wished that he believed his own prediction.
21. Retrodden Trails
WHEN THE FUGITIVES LEFT TUCSON THEY DID NOT HAVE time to make a choice of roads. They took the one that led them most quickly out of range. It brought them to a cactus-covered mesa that extended eastward for miles. Bob turned out of the road into the thick growth of cholla, prickly pear, and greasewood. The scrub was tall, and inside of a few minutes they were in a wilderness of brush so dense that it made an ideal temporary hiding place.
To the north at the horizon’s edge were the bare stark Santa Catalina mountains, to the south the Rincons. They had to decide the direction in which they had better travel, after which they must find another horse.
“They’ll expect us to strike for Mexico muy pronto,” Fraser said. “Even so, I reckon it would be the smart thing to do.”
“With the border closed to us, as it will be inside of an hour? Jug isn’t anybody’s fool. He’ll wire to Douglas, Bisbee, Nogales, and all points along the line. Soon as we show our noses officers will pounce on us. I’d say for us to get into the mountains and hole up till the chase is over. We could pass through Oracle, off to the left a bit so that we won’t be seen, cross the Divide, and drop down into the San Pedro valley. Once there, we can head for the White Mountains or for the Dragoons, whichever seems the safest bet to you, Stan.”
Fraser nodded agreement. “I reckon you’re right. But first off, I’ve got to get me a horse.”
“Buy one or steal one?” Bob asked.
“There are objections to both,” the little man grinned, scratching his head. “If I buy one the seller is going to start talking soon as he hears about the rumpus in the plaza; if I steal a bronc I’ll have officers in my hair whereever I show myself.”
“Not so good,” Bob admitted. “We might buy you a horse and get away with it, but soon as we talk about buying a saddle a rancher is going to get suspicious. He’ll want to know where yore own saddle is. Maybe we could rope a stray mount on the range, but you can’t rope a saddle too.”
The eyes of Fraser lit. “You’ve done said it, son. We’ll borrow a horse to take me far as Oracle. I’ll buy one there. McMurdo is a good friend of mine. He’ll fix me up all right.”
They wound in and out through the brush toward the Catalinas, one walking and the other riding. In the sunlight the mountains looked as if they were made of papier-mâché, an atmospheric effect helped by the gulches and cañons that seamed the sides of the range. From the mesa they dropped down into the valley of the Rillito and crossed its bed, a dry wash that after a cloudburst was sometimes filled with a roaring torrent of water.
Bob pointed to the sahuaro slope rising to the foothills. “A bunch of horses,” he said. “You had better do the roping, Stan. I’m out of practice.”
The horses were not wild, though they showed a little nervousness at the approach of Fraser. He was careful not to alarm them by any hurried movement. They were cropping alfilaria in a small draw from which it was not easy to escape without passing him. He picked a sorrel gelding, and at the first cast the loop of the rope dropped over the head of the animal. The old-timer fashioned from the rope a headstall and reins and swung to the bare back of the bronco. After a crowhop or two the horse accepted the domination of its new master.
They kept away from the road as much as possible, following the foothills until late in the afternoon. It was getting near sunset when Fraser pointed out a road winding around the side of a bluff.
“That’s where yore pappy made the big mistake of his life. He and two-three of his boys came on a bunch of Pachies who had trapped a freight outfit. They drove off the Injuns. One of the mule skinners was wounded. It was Packard. If they had left him right there to die everything would have been slick. But yore pappy put him in a wagon, took the sidewinder back to Tucson, and had Mrs. Webb nurse him till he was well.”
Young Webb reflected with sardonic irony that this simple act of kindness had resulted in the ruin not only of his father’s life but also those of his mother and his own.
Darkness had fallen before the riders reached the live oak groves of Oracle. From a hill-top they looked down on the lights of the stage station.
“I reckon I’d better drift down and have a powwow with Jim McMurdo,” Fraser said. “If it looks all right we’ll wave a lantern in front of the house for you to come on in.”
Bob tied the horses and sat down on a flat rock to wait. Stars flooded the sky and a big red moon was just rising over the horizon. The night was peaceful as one could imagine, but there was no serenity in the heart of this hunted man. For years he had lived like a caged beast and since his escape the life of a hunted one. The trouble was that he was at war with himself. He had built a steely wall of protective hardness around his kindly human emotions, and of late he had found them seeping through and overflowing the barrier.
A light moved to and fro in front of the house below. Bob mounted and let his horse pick a way down among the boulders, the led horse by his side.
McMurdo was a stoutly built Scot of middle age. His shrewd blue eyes, rather stern, looked steadily into those of the escaped convict.
“I knew your father,” he said quietly. “A fine man. Mr. Fraser tells me you have been wronged. I don’t know about that, but I don’t trust Packard. Never have. I’ve agreed to let Stan have a horse and saddle. My wife is making supper for you. While you eat, my son will feed your mount.”
Before they went into the house Fraser released the sorrel gelding and gave it a cut with a quirt on the rump. The animal started on a trot down the road. Within twenty-four hours it would be back on its own range.
As they ate, Fraser told the story of their escape at Tucson, omitting all reference to the Rangers. Bob noticed that the manager of the stage station watched him closely. The man had something on his mind and was hesitating as to whether he had better mention it.
It was while Fraser was saddling his horse at the stable that McMurdo came out with what was troubling him.
“Know a man named String Crews?” he asked Webb.
Bob shook his head. “Don’t think I do—not to remember him anyhow.”
“Drove stage for me last year.”
Fraser spoke up. “I knew him. Long hungry-lookin’ fellow lean as a range cow after a tough winter.”
“That’s the man. Quit me a couple of months ago to settle on a ranch in the San Pedro valley. Long time ago he drove an ore wagon for the Johnny B.”
Webb fastened his eyes on McMurdo. “In my father’s time?” he asked.
“Then, and for a while afterward.” The station manager tur
ned to his son. “Bill, run up to the house and see if your mother has that package of grub packed for Mr. Fraser.” After the boy had gone McMurdo said, his direct gaze on Bob: “String told me something that maybe you ought to know.”
“If it is about my father’s death I think I ought,” Bob answered. “I’ve stuck around Arizona because I want to get to the bottom of this business. I think Packard murdered my father and robbed my mother. I know he lied me into prison.”
“I’ll give you what String told me for what it is worth, though I don’t know whether he is willing to stand by it in court. He went on a spree with a man called Uhlmann about a week after your father’s death. Uhlmann got very drunk and was throwing his money away. He boasted that it came easy. At first that was all he would say, but later in the night he claimed that Packard had given him five hundred dollars for a special job, a bit of dynamiting that was worth a lot to Jug.”
“Did he say just what the job was?” Bob asked, his voice rough and tense.
“It was to blow up your father, but I don’t know that Uhlmann admitted this in so many words. Anyhow, String understood what he meant. That wasn’t the end of the story. After Uhlmann sobered up he remembered that he had talked too much, though he wasn’t quite sure how far he had gone. In a roundabout way he tried to find out from String. He said he was an awful liar when he was soused and you couldn’t believe a word he said. But String could see Uhlmann was worried and he began to get scared of the fellow. A few weeks later somebody shot into the cabin where String was sleeping. The bullet passed over his body so close that it ripped the bedding. String could not prove that Uhlmann had fired the shot, but he felt sure of it. That day he left his job at the Johnny B and never went back.”
“Whereabouts is this ranch of his?”
“On the river. Five or six miles above Mammoth.”
“I’m obliged to you, Mr. McMurdo.”
“If you are innocent, I hope this will help you. Tell Crews you heard it from me.”
The fugitives rode into the night up the trace which led them past the big rocks from which they could look down into the valley below, a dim gulf of space in the darkness. They made a dry camp, using their hair ropes to draw a protective circle around them against rattlesnakes. Though neither of them knew whether the rough hairs were so irritating to the belly of a rattler that the reptile would not crawl over such a rope, like a good many outdoor men of the Southwest they gave the tradition the benefit of the doubt.
By day the valley stood out in sharp detail. The silvery river wound along its floor, and here and there cottonwood groves dotted the banks. The blades of ranch windmills sparkled in the sunlight. The last time Bob had seen the San Pedro he was with his father. He remembered that it was spring, and the slope of the Galiuro Mountains which rose to hem in the opposite side of the valley had been one immense golden splash from millions of blooming poppies.
Before they reached Mammoth they left the road, cutting across the baked desert to a bend in the stream a few miles above the town. A barbed wire fence barred the way. They deflected, to follow the fence. It brought them, after two right-angle turns, to a neat whitewashed adobe house. The woman who came to the door pointed upstream.
“String lives about a mile farther up the river,” she said. “On the right side.”
Fraser found String as gaunt and as hungry-looking as he had been a dozen years earlier. He was directing the course of water in an alfalfa field, but he stopped to lean on his hoe while he talked. He was glad to meet Fraser and hash over old times and acquaintances. To Stan’s younger friend Cape Sloan he did not pay much attention.
At Crews’ insistence they stayed to eat a bachelor dinner in the unplastered adobe house of two rooms which went with the ranch. Not until they were nearly finished eating did Fraser lead the talk back to their host’s freighting days at the Johnny B.
String agreed that Bob Webb had been a fine man, a good boss, always fair and reasonable. “Different from that damn fox Packard as day is from night.” He pulled up and looked hard at Fraser. “I could tell you something, Stan, that would give you a jolt.”
“I don’t reckon you could tell me anything about that old snake in the grass that would surprise me,” Fraser replied carelessly.
Crews was piqued at this cavalier indifference. “That’s what you think, old-timer. I know better. But I reckon I’ll keep my mouth shut. You’re just as well off not knowing it.”
That the ranchman wanted to shock his friend but did not think it would be wise to talk was clear. Bob guessed that his presence had something to do with String’s reticence. When dinner was finished he strolled away to take a look at some horses in the corral.
Fraser nodded toward the retiring back of Webb. “He’s all right, Sloan is, but it was smart of you to wait till he had gone to tell me about Jug.” There was flattery in the wise drop of the voice, all set for the reception of confidential gossip.
It turned the scale. Crews had been telling himself he had better not tell what he knew, but now he changed his mind. He leaned forward and put his forearms on the table.
“What would you say if I told you Bob Webb wasn’t killed by an accident but on purpose?” he asked.
Fraser showed the proper amazement. “Good Lord!” he gasped.
“Sure as you’re a foot high.”
“But—he was blown up in an explosion down in the mine.”
“That’s right. He was asked into the drift by a man who had set the charge and made an excuse to beat it in time.”
Stan showed frank incredulity. He shook his head. “No, String. Someone must of pulled a whizzer on you. Did the fellow claim he was there and saw all this?”
The rancher hesitated. He could still stop without giving any details that might later turn out to be dynamite. But Fraser was a close-mouthed fellow, and String had an answer so pat and startling that it was not in him to suppress it.
“More than that. He told me he was the one who did it.”
The old-timer felt it due his host not to discount any of the shock by reason of having heard this before. “My God!” he exclaimed. “Somebody told you he murdered Bob Webb?”
“Practically.” Crews nodded his head in affirmation. “And who gave him five hundred dollars to do it.”
“How came he to do it—to tell you, I mean?”
“He let it out soon after when he was dead drunk and blowing the money.”
It was time, Fraser felt, to put the direction question. “Who?” he asked.
“Hans Uhlmann. Packard wanted Webb out of the way and paid him.”
“To get hold of the mine.”
“Yes, sir, and he got it.” Crews finished the story. “Somebody shot at me one night while I was in bed. Just barely missed me. I knew it was Uhlmann. You see, he kinda remembered telling me. I lit out prontito. That fellow is a killer, and I knew I wouldn’t last long there.”
Bob watched for a sign from Fraser to rejoin the others. He did not want a premature return to interfere with what Crews had to tell.
Not till after they had left did Fraser repeat to his friend what he had just learned. They discussed whether they had better try to get Crews’ sworn story down on paper or wait until they needed it. Stan favored the latter plan.
“If he has to sit around and wait after going on record he might get scared and skip. Leave him lay. He’ll stay put. When we need him he’ll come through.”
Bob too was of the opinion that there was no need to rush him.
22. On the Dodge
BOB PICKETED HIS HORSE AND LAY IN THE BRUSH IN THE shade of a clump of ocatillos while Stan rode into Mammoth and bought supplies at the little store there. It was certain that the stage had brought up news of the fight on the plaza, but unless by mischance somebody recognized Fraser he was not likely to be taken for one of the fugitives. Cowboys riding the chuck line were common as fleas in this cattle country. Work was slack, and a good many of them were drifting from one range to another.
The proprietor of the store was a scrawny little man wearing glasses. Fraser ordered flour, bacon, a package of Arbuckle’s and other supplies. He bought also a coffee pot and a fry pan. While he was packing the goods in a gunny sack for easier carrying the storekeeper mentioned that the stage had been robbed yesterday five miles from Oracle.
“The hold-ups get much?” Fraser asked.
“About two hundred dollars, mostly from the passengers.”
“They don’t know who did it, I reckon?”
“Not for sure. Folks think it was that fellow Webb who escaped from the pen two-three months ago—him and a pal of his. They were in Tucson day before yesterday and killed a man there.”
Fraser bit off the answer that was on his tongue. This was not the time to defend Bob. “Seems like Arizona has more than its share of scalawags,” he said virtuously. “We’d ought to have rangers like Texas has to clear them out.”
“That’s right,” agreed the merchant. “We got no protection. Webb and his pardner might drop in any minute, and what could I do?”
The customer looked out of the door in startled alarm. “Don’t talk thataway, mister,” he remonstrated. “No foolin’, I don’t want any truck with bad men. But shucks! we don’t need to worry. Those fellows are skedaddlin’ for the White Mountains or some other outlaw hole-up. They ain’t stickin’ around here none.”
That was likely, the storekeeper agreed. He strolled outside after Fraser and watched him tie the sack behind the saddle seat.
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