Neither of them trusted the other, but each knew that their desires ran together in this matter. And each villain hoped to destroy his confederate later.
The light in the cabin was blown out before Uhlmann was ready to fire, but the crack of his rifle sounded when a man came out of the cabin. Half a minute later Packard dropped their victim’s horse and Fraser bolted for the arroyo. They had the fellow now, since he had lost his Winchester. It would be only a matter of time before they got him. They moved into the arroyo cautiously, wary as Indians, taking advantage of all the cover there was. But before they could finish the job that fighting fool Webb had broken their ambush and driven them away.
Packard flung himself on his horse and galloped out of the battle zone. In spite of the sly mean streak in him, the safety-first instinct in him that prompted the use of others to do his evil deeds, he was a hardy scoundrel afraid of neither God nor man. His flight was not a question of lack of courage. He had his reputation to consider, the fiction that he was a respectable and law-abiding citizen. It would be a great mistake to be recognized here as an ally of Uhlmann.
One of his worries was that Rhino knew too much about him. If the fellow was captured and not killed, he would implicate the mine owner in his crimes. Packard blamed himself for not having killed the man when he had the chance. He had been too greedy. It had been asking too much to hope that his accomplice would get rid of Webb and then let himself be trapped by Jug.
A man always cautious, he pulled up to listen. He was not expecting immediate pursuit, but it was better to make sure. On the light night breeze there came to him the beat of hoofs. A horse was traveling fast toward him. He guessed the rider of that driven animal was Uhlmann.
Under the shadow of a mesquite beside the trail he waited, revolver in hand. The huge body of Uhlmann was on the horse that came pounding down the road. Packard fired a thin split second too soon. The bullet shattered the saddle horn of the laboring animal. Uhlmann flung himself to the ground on the far side of his mount, hanging on to the bridle with his left hand.
Startled at the explosion, Packard’s horse bucked violently. The rider was flung from the saddle and hit the sand hard, his weapon tossed a dozen feet from him. While one could have counted ten he lay there, jarred and breathless. It took him a long moment to scramble to his feet and another to get his fingers on the forty-five. A slug ripped into his belly. Two spat spurts of dirt from the road. A fourth struck his foot.
Packard sank down. He was through with living and knew it. But the urge to kill was still strong in him. By a tremendous effort he pushed himself up from the ground and raised the revolver weakly. The bullet went whistling into the brush.
Uhlmann did not wait to learn how desperately wounded was his foe. The man was still alive and fighting. Clumsily he pulled himself astride his horse and spurred into the chaparral. He rode up a low ridge and looked down into a swale along which men were moving at a gallop. They were headed for the Baxter cabin. Though he could not identify them in the moonlight, he had no doubt they were Circle J R men.
He knew that if he was going to get out of the country alive he had to hurry. His horse’s head he pointed south. Not until he was deep in Mexico would he feel safe.
38. A Body in the Dust
UHLMANN OPENED CAUTIOUSLY THE BACK DOOR OF THE Silver Dollar saloon and looked the place over before entering. It was the slack morning hour, and there was nobody in the room except two Mexicans, a cowboy, and the bartender. He moved forward ponderously and ordered a drink. The man in the white apron put a glass and a bottle in front of him. The customer showed evidence of having traveled far. He was dusty and sweat-stained, and his little eyes were red and sunken.
“Resting yore saddle after a long ride?” the bartender asked, to make talk.
The big man glared at him sullenly. He was in a very bad humor. His horse had gone lame and added several hours to the journey. As a result he was both weary and exasperated. The bartender was bald, fat, and forty. He looked like a safe man to bully.
“That any of yore business?” Uhlmann demanded truculently.
The cowboy playing solitaire laughed. “One for you, Mike,” he said. “Now will you be good?”
Mike’s slaty eyes rested appraisingly on the surly giant. “No offense meant, stranger,” he mentioned. “I wasn’t asking where you came from or why.”
A dull anger beat into Uhlmann’s face, but for once he let discretion rule him. This was no time to make another enemy. He knows who I am, the killer thought. I’d better drift.
A man came through the wing doors and stopped abruptly before he reached the bar. He was Cole Hawkins from the San Simon country. His eyes fastened on the fugitive.
“So you’re here,” he said.
Uhlmann’s ugly face broke into what was meant for a friendly smile. “Have a drink on me, Cole,” he invited.
“I’ll buy my own drink, you damned sidewinder,” Hawkins replied harshly.
The huge ruffian glared at him. “You can’t talk thataway to me, Cole. I won’t take it.”
“You’ll take it, you dirty murderer. I heard what you did last night.”
Uhlmann spread his huge hands in placatory explanation. “Now looky here, Cole. I had to do it. Jug lay in wait for me. He had first shot. It was him or me, one.”
“Jug?” exclaimed Hawkins in surprise. “Jug too? That’s a new one on me. I was talking about Fraser.”
“I didn’t kill Fraser. That was Jug.”
“You were there with him. You were recognized.”
“Some mistake, Cole. I see now why you were sore at me. No, sir. You might know I wouldn’t hurt good old Stan.”
“You don’t have to lie to me, Rhino. Save that talk for the man outside lookin’ for you.”
“What man?” Uhlmann cried.
“The man whose father you killed years ago—whose friend you shot down last night.”
“You talkin’ about Webb? Is he here—at Nogales?”
“He’s here. To put a rope round yore neck and drag you back to be hanged.”
The eyes in the leathery face of the killer betrayed him. Hawkins knew that cold despair was clutching at the man’s heart. Uhlmann had not expected his enemy to be here so soon.
“Where’s he at now, Cole?” the hunted man asked, his voice fallen to a hoarse whisper. “You wouldn’t be joshin’ me, would you? You gotta have yore little joke.”
“No joke. And I’ll say this. If Bob Webb didn’t have first claim on you I’d drag yore big carcass back myself.”
“Gimme five minutes, Cole,” Uhlmann pleaded. “I’ll light a shuck across the line and never come back. You ’n’ me have had good times together, old man. You wouldn’t throw me down now.”
The man’s wheedling tone stirred contempt in the other. “You’ve thrown yoreself down, you fool,” Hawkins told him bluntly. “I never did like you even when I did business with you. Had a feeling you were rotten bad. Now I know it.”
Uhlmann flared to weak passion. “I’m no more a killer than you. Think I don’t know you shot Chuck Holloway that night at Tucson?”
The eyes of Hawkins narrowed and grew chill. “If I did, he had it coming—as you have.” He was silent a moment, watching the harried man who had come close to the end of his crooked trail. When he spoke, his voice was low and the words spaced. “It’s a show-down. Pull yore freight, wolf, right damn now, or I’ll do the job the hangman is waitin’ to do.”
The dry lips of Uhlmann opened, but no words came from them. He wanted to fling out a defiance, to drag out his forty-five and start shooting, but he could not drive his flaccid will to obey the urge. Out of his throat came a strange animal sound of distress. His dragging feet took him through the screen doors to the narrow adobe street. Up and down the street his gaze swept. A few men were in sight, a group of three not twenty feet from him, but none of them showed any interest at his appearance.
He had made a mistake in stopping on the United States side of the li
ne, but it might not be too late yet to get across to the Mexican side of Nogales. He would keep going, deep into Sonora, where a fugitive was safe. First, he would have to buy another horse. But not until he was in the old town.
His gross body, his flatfooted slouching gait, made him an uncouth sight. He knew this, and usually he resented the looks that followed him. But just now all his thoughts were concerned with reaching the horse he had tied in front of a dry-goods store. As he moved down the sidewalk his eyes darted from right to left and back again. He could not believe that the avenger was so close on his heels. Probably Hawkins had been lying to frighten him. None the less when he was twenty yards from his horse he broke into a shuffling run.
Abruptly he pulled up. A slim man, coffee-brown, walked out of the dry-goods store lithely as a panther. The killer’s stomach muscles tightened. An icy wave drenched him. But it was now or never. Webb was looking leisurely down the street. In a moment he would turn his head and see him.
Uhlmann fired in panic haste. Before Bob had his gun out a second bullet tore through a hanging sign above his head. He was so sure of himself that he shouted an order at the frenzied man.
“Drop that gun!”
The revolver of the killer roared again.
Bob took deliberate aim at the huge body and sent a slug crashing into it. A second one struck the desperado just below the heart, not four inches from the first. The revolver dropped from Uhlmann’s fingers. He spread his two hands over his great stomach, dragging it in to ease the pain, and stumbled forward half a dozen paces. One foot caught on the other, and the giant figure pitched heavily to the sidewalk and rolled from it to the dust of the street.
Bob’s harsh face, the hardness of battle still stamped on it, looked down at the inert mass of flesh and bones that had a moment earlier been quick with life. A thin trickle of smoke rose from the barrel of his forty-five. He felt no emotion, no shock. This had been a possibility he had looked forward to for years, and now that it was fulfilled he had no sense of elation. It was just something unpleasant he had been forced to do. This was no longer his enemy. It was the body of a stranger who had brought about his own destruction by his folly.
A voice said heartily. “No regrets—he’s better dead.”
Bob looked up, and saw Cole Hawkins. “Yes,” he agreed dully.
“You’re in the clear. He took three shots at you before you fired. I never saw the beat of how cool you were.”
“That’s right,” another man spoke up. “Three-four of us saw it all. Self-defense.”
“I meant to take him back to be hanged,” Bob explained, his tone still lifeless. “He shot my best friend last night.”
“And your worst enemy,” Hawkins added.
The surprised eyes of Webb questioned him without words.
“He told me back there in the Silver Dollar,” the San Simon rancher continued, “that he rubbed out Jug Packard last night.”
Bob stared at him in astonishment. “Are you sure that is what he meant to tell you?”
“Dead sure. He trapped himself. I called him a murderer for what he did last night. He thought I meant Packard and said Jug tried to ambush him and was killed.”
The convict made no comment. This was not the way he had planned his vengeance, but he could see that it might be better for Packard to fall at other hands than his.
He drew a long breath. “I reckon if there are no objections I’ll ride back to the Circle J R and see how Stan is making it.”
“Nobody will stop you, Mr. Sloan,” Hawkins said, stressing the name. “We’d better see the sheriff and explain how this happened.”
Webb took the advice of the ranchman and gave the sheriff the name of Cape Sloan, which meant nothing to the officer. He told Bob that since the killing had been clearly self-defense no arrest would be made.
Hawkins said, “I’m going north, and if you have no objections I’ll ride part way with you.”
When they came to the parting of the ways, a few miles south of the Circle J R, Bob made a remark that surprised the other.
“I’ve been told you saved my life once.”
The cattleman glanced at him quickly. “News to me,” he answered.
“On the plaza back of the Tucson Hotel not long ago.”
“Funny now news gets around,” Hawkins commented dryly. “One man saw me fire that shot. He wasn’t going to tell anybody. Now two people inside of an hour accuse me of it—you and Uhlmann.”
“I’m not accusing you,” Bob replied. “I’m thanking you.”
“No need of that. I had an axe of my own to grind. When I saw his rifle aimed at you I let him have it. Understand, I’ll deny this if anybody else puts it up to me.”
Bob assured him that nobody would ever hear of this through anything he would say.
Hawkins nodded. “That’s all right. I’ll be saying adios, Mr. Webb. Good luck.”
They took different trails. The one Bob followed led him to the Circle J R.
39. ‘While the Sands o’ Life Shall Run’
SANDRA WALKED OUT OF THE CABIN WITH THE DOCTOR AND looked an anxious question at him.
“Fraser is a tough old hombre” he said. “Barring unexpected bad luck he’s going to make it. What he needs is good nursing more than a doctor—and I can see he’s going to get it.”
“I’m glad,” the girl said, deeply pleased. “When his friend, Bob Webb, comes back he will be so happy.”
The doctor slanted a smile at her. “I should think he might be.” He had heard stories of Sandra’s eager interest in Webb.
She replied, with a sigh, “I wish he hadn’t felt he had to go and bring that villain back. You don’t think——?”
Doctor Logan finished her uncompleted query. “I think your young man will come back sound as a dollar. He’s too hard a nut for Uhlmann to crack.”
Sandra’s attention had strayed. A rider was coming over the hill. She watched him, in her eyes a queer look of suspended hope. The man on horseback waved a hand at her. He put his horse to a canter, and she broke into a run. Doctor Logan smiled again. Her young man had flung himself from the saddle and taken her into his arms.
“By golly, I was right,” the doctor said aloud, and walked into the house.
Bob’s first word was, “Stan?”
“Doctor Logan says he’s going to be all right.”
“Glory hallelujah!” he cried. “I’ve been worrying all day about him.”
“You didn’t find Uhlmann,” she said.
His voice and manner changed. “Yes, I found him.”
“Did—did you leave him at the ranch?”
“No.” He added, gravely: “I left him at Nogales.”
Back of the words she read finality. An anxious excitement set the blood pounding through her heart. “You killed him.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“I came out of a store and he fired. He had the first three shots and missed. Several men saw it. The sheriff said I was free to go.”
She held him close in her strong young arms. “I’ve been so frightened. I kept seeing you—trapped. And now he’s gone. And Jug Packard too. Did you know that Uhlmann killed him near here after the fight in the arroyo?”
“I heard so.”
“All your enemies are gone. We can forget the long nightmare of the dreadful years that have passed. We’ll be together—always.”
He laughed, happily. “‘While the sands o’ life shall run.’”
It was surprising what a change the laughter made in his harsh bony face. The years and all they had done to him were lifted from it. She thought. I’m going to make him laugh often. I’m going to make him forget all he has been through.
She said: “Governor Andrews will pardon you now. He’s been waiting for a chance. We have plenty of evidence now. And you’ll be a hero for ridding Arizona of that bad man.”
He did not like that. The thought of public acclaim for what he had do
ne disgusted him.
Yet the papers were full of the story. Editorials demanded that he be pardoned. Almost unanimously the people of the territory agreed that a great injustice had been done him. No act of the administration of Governor Andrews was more generally approved than the pardoning of Robert Webb.
One unexpected result was the attitude of the Packard heirs. The family of the mine owner had been alienated from him for years. He was the skeleton in the closet of their lives. They had lived in Tucson and had seen him only at rare intervals. Even before the pardon his son had come to Bob with an offer of restitution. He suggested turning over to Webb a majority of the Johnny B stock.
Bob wanted no part of the mine. He hoped never to see it again. But since he wished to get hold of a cattle ranch he made it clear he would accept a fair monetary compensation. Young Packard suggested he take the Sinclair ranch with all the cattle and equipment on it. This was a fine spread, recently bought by Jug for close to a hundred thousand dollars. Bob looked the place over and accepted the offer.
The young couple moved to it. On it a large family of Webbs were born and brought up. Among her noisy and turbulent brood Sandra moved happily, ruling lightly and wisely. With the passing years she retained the loveliness that had distinguished her youth. When her husband looks at her today, gray-haired, the toll the decades have taken stamped on her face, he still thinks her the paragon of women.
THE END
Clattering Hoofs Page 21