“Not even if he is innocent?” she cried.
“If he is innocent, let him surrender. I’m willing to reopen the case.”
“He won’t surrender, after spending seven years in that terrible prison. He would rather be killed than be taken.”
“I don’t ask whether you know where he is hiding— and I don’t want to know. But if you get in touch with him, try to persuade him to give himself up—or at least to get out of the country until you’ve worked up the case against Packard and Uhlmann.”
“He won’t leave,” John Ranger said. “He is filled with the one thought of proving the case against Packard. I wish you knew him, Ben. Webb is not just a wild daredevil. He is fine and strong as steel—a thoroughbred.”
“I have a sheepish admiration for him, even though I haven’t made his acquaintance,” the governor confessed, and there was a smile on his face. “Half the people in Arizona are cheering for him and laughing at the authorities. They are making a romantic Robin Hood of him. My own wife and children say they hope he won’t be captured.”
“Because they think he is innocent,” Sandra tossed in.
“Not at all. They don’t care whether he is innocent. Because of his confounded impudence.”
“Was it impudence that made him ride alone against four of Pablo Lopez’ killers to save me and my brother?” Sandra asked, her eyes starry with indignation.
Ben Andrews had a moment of regret for his own vanished youth. He was happily married, but the days of romance for him were gone forever. That fine rapt look in Sandra’s face belonged only to lovers. It occurred to him that Bob Webb, hunted convict though he was, might have something in his life most men would never know.
“He has plenty of sand in his craw,” the governor admitted. “Maybe too much. I don’t suppose you can tame your wild buckaroo, Miss Sandra. He’s a little too exciting for Arizona now that it claims to have passed the days of its riotous youth. Ever since he broke loose he has been in one difficulty or another. Just check up on them. To begin with, practically caught rustling.”
“And proved innocent,” Sandra interrupted quickly.
The governor ignored the interruption. “Kills a Mexican scoundrel the same day and wounds another.” He held up a hand to ward off the protest of Ranger. “I’m merely running through a list of his activities, John. Beat up a citizen with a quirt.”
“A fine citizen,” Sandra flung out scornfully.
“Is accused of another murder and stage robbery. On top of that kidnaps a sheriff starting to arrest him. The fellow is making more news in the territory than Geronimo did. I’m afraid to look at my paper in the morning for fear he has committed some other outrage.”
His smile robbed the indictment of much of its force. Sandra smiled back at him. “Sheriff Norlin was probably trying to win that fifteen hundred dollar reward you say ought never to have been offered.”
“Well, it oughtn’t,” the governor admitted resentfully. “Jug had no right to print and circulate that reward poster. He did not consult me. I would never have authorized the public to bring Webb in dead or alive, and as soon as I learned what Packard had done I called in the posters and notified the newspapers to that effect.”
John Ranger nodded approval. “We know you did. That poster explains itself, Ben. You know Jug Packard is tight as the bark on a live oak. Why did he offer so much money, in an open invitation for hunters to kill rather than capture Webb? There can be only one reason. He is afraid to have Bob at large for fear he will get proof of his skulduggery.”
Andrews thought that might be true. “It looks bad, John. Maybe you are right. Webb may have been framed. There is nothing I would like better than to get enough evidence to free the young fellow and to put Jug in his place at Yuma. But move carefully. And make Sandra keep out of this. If Packard thought you were working against him I wouldn’t put it past him to have you dry-gulched.”
“Nor I,” agreed Ranger thoughtfully. “He has everything at stake that counts with him—property, power, even his life perhaps. Murder wouldn’t stop him.”
“But this time he must know somebody is raking up the past to get something on him.” The governor put a hand on Sandra’s shoulder. “Stay at home and tend to your knitting, my dear. This is war, and you must not be mixed up in it. Your young man has several good friends working for him now. Let them take care of this.”
The color deepened in the girl’s cheeks, but her eyes held fast to his. “He isn’t my young man, but I want to see justice done,” she said quietly.
Yet there was a touch of proud defiance in the poised grace of her fine lifted head. He might think what he pleased. She had enlisted in Bob Webb’s cause regardless of what anybody might say. The governor read worry in John Ranger’s troubled face. He too believed that Sandra was in love with this vagabond who had the brand of the criminal on him, and from such an attachment no happiness could come.
25. Two of a Kind
“BE REASONABLE, RHINO,” PROTESTED PACKARD. “DON’T get hell in your neck. All I want is for this to work out right for us both.”
“All you want is for someone else to be yore catspaw,” Uhlmann differed, an ugly snarl in his voice. “I’m to run the risk while you sit back not doing a frazzlin’ thing that could get you into trouble, the way it has always been. By Judas priest, it won’t be like that this time. If you want this fellow, you get him yoreself.”
“It won’t be hard,” Packard continued. “He’s hanging around in the brush back of the Circle J R somewheres. Locate his camp, watch your chance, and plug him in the back.”
“Glad you think it’s so easy, because you’re going to have to nail his hide on a fence if it’s done. I ain’t ridin’ on that kind of a job any more. My saddle is done hung up on a peg for keeps.”
“Just pick your time right and there is no danger.”
“Not interested,” Uhlmann grunted. “You can’t catch this mule with that ear of corn, Jug.”
“I wouldn’t wonder but what you could use a couple of hundred dollars now.”
“Why, you blamed Shylock, you made a public offer of thirteen hundred,” the big ruffian cried angrily.
The mine owner thought fast for an out. “That was different. If a posse had got him they would of had to divide the dough half a dozen ways.”
“Webb would be just as dead if I gunned him, wouldn’t he?” The German looked at Packard with a contempt he did not take the trouble to conceal. “I never met up with a human as poisonous as you. If a skunk bit you it would die awful quick.”
“No use flying off the handle and making talk like that, Rhino,” Packard remonstrated with no apparent resentment. “We been friends a long time, and I don’t aim to get mad because you’ve got a mean temper.”
“Friends!” repeated Uhlmann harshly. “There never was a day you wouldn’t of sold me down the river if it had paid you.”
Packard did not waste breath defending himself. “We’re in this together, Rhino, and up to our necks. No use loading ourselves with the idea that the past is dead and buried. This fellow Webb is dangerous as a tiger that has got loose, and he has important friends helping him. Like I told you, Ranger and his daughter called on the governor Thursday, and they took with them that fellow Newman.”
“Chan Newman hasn’t got a thing on me,” the ranchman boasted, the small eyes in his pachydermous face gloating over his accomplice. “I didn’t rob the Webbs of the Johnny B. This is your chicken coming home to roost.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. This whole thing ties up into one ball of yarn with some loose threads sticking out. Soon as Webb begins to pull on any of those threads anything is liable to come loose.” The shifty eyes of Packard’s evil wrinkled face fixed fast on those of his companion. “For instance, you talked too much after this fellow’s father had the accident in the mine. If this wolf got hold of that thread and raveled it out he would come right smack to you.”
“And to you,” Uhlmann added. “Don’t
forget that for a minute.” Sullenly he followed this up with a question. “How is he gonna prove the accident to his old man was kinda intentional? The only talking I ever did was to String Crews, and we haven’t heard of him for years. Last I knew he was figuring on drifting back to Nebraska to live.”
“I don’t say he can prove it,” Packard replied. “I’m just pointing out that we’re in the same boat and have got to pull together or sink.”
“Yeah,” sneered the other. “Only remember you’re not a passenger in the boat and have got to do some pulling too.”
“This fellow Webb is the rock on which we might founder,” Packard went on, his voice oily with persuasion. “If he was out of the way we would be all right. Nobody else is going to bust a tug trying to get us in trouble. You could fix that with a crook of your finger, Rhino.”
“No rheumatism in yore finger, is there?”
“You know I can’t do that sort of thing, Rhino— haven’t the cold nerve for it. You never saw man or devil you were afraid of. I always said you can outgame any fellow I ever met. Of course I’d be prepared to pay a reasonable sum.”
Uhlmann was flattered at the praise, but not to an extent that it diverted him from an intent to get all the traffic would bear. He knew why he was being soft-soaped.
“I’ll not hold you up,” he said. “This guy’s grandstanding doesn’t faze me any. I had rubbed out my first man before he was born—when I was a kid of nineteen. Any time he wants to come a-smokin’ I’ll be waiting at the gate.”
“I know that,” purred Packard. “You’ve got what it takes to stand up to any of them. Still, no use you running any risk.”
“I won’t,” bragged the killer. “He won’t know what’s happening until it will be too late. Now about the price.”
“You said it wouldn’t be much, seeing as you have to get him on your own account too.”
“It will be just fifteen hundred plunks, the thirteen hundred you promised and an extra two hundred as a bonus for having a crackajack gunman on the job who will do it right.”
Packard let out a yelp of distress.
“Jumping creepers, Rhino, I’m no millionaire. Fact is, if I had to raise a thousand dollars right now I wouldn’t know where to turn.”
Uhlmann fished twenty-five cents from his pocket. “Go get yoreself a square meal, if you can find a restaurant that will let a bum dressed like you are sit down at a table,” he jeered.
“I might go as high as four-five hundred,” the mine owner said.
“You’ll go to fifteen hundred, one third payable now.”
“Have a heart, Rhino. Times are awful tight.”
“You paid more than a hundred thousand spot cash for that Sinclair ranch last month.”
“Somebody has misinformed you about that. It was one of those three-party deals with a lot of swapping in it and mighty little money. Tell you what I’ll do—six hundred spot cash soon as the job is done.”
“You’re so poor I can’t take yore money, Jug. To keep yore family from starving I’ll pay you six hundred to do it.” Uhlmann rose from the chair in which he had been sitting, stretched his huge arms in a deep yawn, and heavy-footed to the door. “Going to hit the hay. If you decide to take that six hundred let me know. But you’re so slippery I can’t let you have a nickel till I’ve seen Webb in his coffin.”
“Wait a minute,” Packard said. “Let’s settle this now. You know you’re going to do this, to protect yoreself if for no other reason. What’s the sense in trying to jack up the price to more than I can pay?”
“You got mighty poor all of a sudden.” The ranchman’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Must have had some losses since you got that poster out.”
“When I had that printed I expect I had got jumpy. The governor called that in, so it’s off.” Packard moved closer to Uhlmann and dropped his voice almost to a whisper. “If anything was to happen to Webb now, the law would take it for granted he had robbed the Oracle stage and wouldn’t go looking for anybody else. But if he lives, like as not he could prove an alibi. I wonder if you could, Rhino, if some busybody officer started to push you around.”
Uhlmann glared at him angrily. “Don’t threaten me, you damned Judas. I won’t take it from you. For fifteen years I’ve known yore slimy tricks. All I have to do is open my mouth to blow you sky high.”
“Now—now, don’t get off on the wrong foot. I was just showing you another reason why you had better rub out this Webb. Dad-gum it, a blind man could see he’s bound to have it in for us both. It’s neck meat or nothing. If we don’t get him, he’ll get us. No two ways about that.”
“Buy him off,” suggested Uhlmann.
“Not the kind you can buy. He told me we had murdered his father and he meant to get us. You have seen that ad in the Star for Mary Gilcrest. What would she do if she saw it?”
“She would keep her mouth clamped if she knew what was good for her,” Uhlmann answered brutally. “Why do you suppose I married her, except to fix it so she could not testify against me?” He showed his teeth in a savage grin.
Packard met that smile with another as evil. “I take some credit to myself for that happy marriage. Even when I bought off her pappy to send her to California until after the trial I knew she was still a danger to you. Webb’s lawyer might get at her later. Seeing she was a nice plump pretty girl, I figured it would be a kindness to find her a husband who had just got him a good spread and a bunch of cows likely to have a remarkable increase on account of being close to a couple of big ranches. So I said, ‘God bless you, my boy,’ and sent you courting to Los Angeles. You being such a handsome buck, she couldn’t resist you.”
“Don’t get funny at me,” Uhlmann growled. “I don’t like it.”
“You know I wouldn’t, Rhino,” Packard replied, instantly dropping the sarcasm. “But about Mary. She’s barred from testifying against you. But now they have started hunting for Mary Gilcrest they are sure to find out she is your wife. They’ll contact her if possible, and if they get her to talking that will do a lot of harm.”
“I’ll have a little powwow with her,” the ranchman promised, his voice harsh and grim. “After I have given her orders she wouldn’t say ‘Good morning’ to the Shah of Persia.”
“I hope you’re right,” the owner of the Johnny B said doubtfully. “Sometimes she looks at you like she hates you, Rhino.”
“I know I’m right. What do I care how much she hates me? A woman is like a horse. She has got to know who is master, and every so often you have to give her the whip so she won’t forget it.”
Packard did not comment on that. He knew how this ruffian beat his horses and he had suspected that he gave his wife the same treatment. There was a sadistic streak in the fellow that might some day get him into trouble. Horses had been known to kill cruel masters and this might be true of women driven to despair. If she was too cowed for this, she could run away and start talking. But there was nothing Jug could do about that. The German would have to keep his own household in order.
“What say we fix up the price after you’ve done the job?” Packard proposed. “I’ll be liberal.”
“The price is fixed,” Uhlmann replied obstinately. “It’s fifteen hundred.”
“The standard price for bushwhacking a man has never been above five hundred.”
“The cost of living is going up,” gloated the giant. “But I’ll make you an offer. We’ll draw straws, and the one who loses does it for nothing.”
Packard considered for a moment whether there would be any chance of gypping his co-conspirator and decided that it could not be done. Uhlmann would be too suspicious to let him get away with any sleight of hand trick. Jug might get the wrong straw.
Reluctantly he turned over to the killer five hundred dollars as a deposit for value to be received.
26. Sandra Rides to Visit a Neighbor
JIM BUDD BROUGHT INTO THE PARLOR TO MEET SANDRA A shuffle-footed Negro named Sam Washington. He was the cook at the John
ny B mine, and he and Jim had become close friends. Sam was as embarrassed as he would have been at a Buckingham Palace presentation, and he stood twirling his hat in two restless hands.
Sandra rose from the piano where she had been playing a Viennese waltz. She had made Jim promise to bring Sam in to see her next time he stopped at the ranch.
“I’m glad you and Jim get along so well,” she said. “Make him give you a piece of that apple pie he has in the kitchen. It’s delicious. But since you are a cook yourself good food may not be a treat to you. I hear you have been at the Johnny B a long time.”
“Ten years come next Christmas, ma’am.”
“That’s a long time. I wonder if you remember a girl, whose father used to work for Mr. Packard. Her name was Mary Gilcrest.”
The cook twisted his face into a grimace to help his memory. “Folks they come an’ go. Seem like I got a recommembrance, but I cain’t jest put my mind on it.”
“Her father was a miner,” Sandra prompted.
Sam slapped a hand on his thigh. “Pete Gilcrest. He moved away. Comes to me I done heard he was dead.”
“He died in Nevada. Do you know what became of Mary?”
The Johnny B cook nodded. He had the woman placed now all right. “She up and got married.”
Sandra felt a tingle of excitement run through her. The answer to the next question she asked would bring her to an impasse or wound open a road for her to follow. “Did you ever hear the name of her husband?”
Sam’s eyes went blank. It was as if she had drawn a curtain over them and yet left them still open. “She married a ranchman in this valley, a man who used to work for Mr. Packard. Name of Uhlmann.”
“A big heavy ugly man—the one they call Rhino?”
“That’s him.” Sam’s voice had grown sullen and vindictive.
“You don’t like him,” the girl said quickly. “Neither do I.”
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