'Wait a minute.' Her strong, firmly fleshed body blocked the way. 'You've been hurt. What's it all about?'
Hal put a hand to the side of his head and saw it was covered with blood. He must have landed there when he was tossed from the car.
A scatter of shots struck the adobe wall forming the front of the restaurant.
'No time to explain,' Hal told her. 'A bunch of Tick Black's men are trying to get us. We'll be on our way.'
'Where?' she asked.
'I wish I knew. This is an ambush.'
The girl did not faint. She did not even look frightened at being caught in this trap set for others. He could see a pulse of excitement beating in her throat.
'No,' she vetoed. 'You can't go. They'll have you in the open out there and shoot you down.'
The grin of the cattleman was sardonic. 'We can't go, and we can't stay. That's one for the book.'
'I'll go to the front door and talk with them.'
Frank was watching through a corner of the window the other side of the street. 'You can't do that,' he objected. 'They might shoot you down before they saw it was a woman.'
Hal frowned, considering the situation. 'Something queer about this. They could have killed us before we reached cover. Why didn't they? Looks as if they wanted to take us alive. Orders from Tick, I reckon.'
'You mean — they aren't trying to murder you,' Helen Barnes said.
'I'm only guessing. Not at this precise moment, I would say. The law would get them if they did. Tick has something up his sleeve. I wonder what.'
'The bullets all landed in the soft adobe,' Frank added. 'Not one came through the windows.'
'They didn't want to hit anybody else in the restaurant,' Miss Barnes suggested.
'Might be that,' Hal agreed dubiously.
'Man coming across the street with a white flag,' Frank spoke up. 'It's Dud Calloway.'
The young woman turned to the waiter. 'Manuel, lock the back door so that nobody can come in that way.'
Hal stepped to the window and looked out, exposing himself as little as possible. A fat man had stopped in the middle of the road to wave a white tablecloth. He was so obviously afraid of his reception that he made a ludicrous picture.
Through the open screened window Stevens called to him. 'All right, Dud. We're not on the prod. Come along. If your friends want to surrender, we'll give them terms.'
Calloway waddled forward to the sidewalk and through the door. He wiped his red perspiring face with a bandanna handkerchief.
'Let's not have any trouble, boys,' he puffed.
'Are you having trouble, Dud?' Hal asked.
'I'm an officer of the law,' Calloway explained. 'No personal feeling against you, understand. But I got a warrant to serve on you, Mr. Stevens, and on Frank. For your arrest.'
'Who wants us arrested? And what for?'
'Several of the boys claim you held them up at a poker game and robbed them. 'Course I don't know a thing about it. I'm just a deputy sheriff doing his duty.'
'Do you always make arrests in this rather violent way — by first wrecking a car, nearly killing the occupants, and then shooting at them as they run for cover?'
The deputy lifted a fat hand in protest. 'Now, Mr. Stevens, I hadn't a thing to do with that. Not a thing. Probably the boys thought you were trying to run away. But I'm not justifying them. They were too hasty.'
'You think so?' The smile on the face of Stevens was ironic. 'No doubt you will arrest them for assault with a deadly weapon and intent to kill.'
'If a warrant is sworn out for their arrest, I'll sure serve it.'
'And who pays for our ruined car?'
'Why, that would be a civil case, wouldn't it?'
Helen Barnes could keep silent no longer. 'This is the most outrageous thing I ever saw,' she burst out. 'You know what riff-raff these men are. You ought to be ashamed to come here on such an errand, Dud Calloway.'
Calloway's fat face creased to an oily propitiatory smile. 'Now, Miss Helen, you're not looking at this the right way, I got no option but to serve this paper. If these gentlemen are not guilty, why, of course they will come clear.'
'Is the idea to let us put up bond?' Hal inquired.
'Probably I would have to take care of you for tonight until we could get to a judge.'
'I thought so. In that flimsy old cabin you call a jail.
And what's to prevent somebody who doesn't like us much from slipping up in the night and shooting holes in us through the window?'
The officer looked shocked. 'Nobody would do that, Mr. Stevens. Why, that would be murder.'
'So it would. We don't want to be responsible for such a crime. It would be wrong for us to put such a temptation before anybody. Therefore, if you please, we'll postpone the arrest.'
'But —but—'
'The United States has called Frank up to join the army. We want to be sure he reaches Tucson in time — and not in a box. As a patriot you will understand, Dud, that the call of the country comes first.'
Galloway looked stumped. He did not know how much legality this argument had to stand on, but he was quite sure that he would have no luck in trying to arrest this cool customer with the gentle voice and the steely eyes. And he was just as certain that the men back of the guns across the street would give it no weight.
He rubbed a hand dubiously over his unshaven chin. 'I'll tell the boys,' he said, plainly crestfallen.
'Yes, do. And tell them that Miss Barnes and the restaurant force will come out and leave Frank and me here. If they think they can arrest us, they are welcome to try.'
'I don't want to leave,' the girl demurred. 'It's my place. If we go they will attack you.'
'Very likely.'
She thought of another talking point. 'Before they got through they would ruin the place.'
'Afraid you'll have to risk that.'
She still objected to going, but in the end he made her see that their enemies would come over in a body if she was still on the place and any effective defense would be impossible. With her beside them, they could not open fire on the attackers.
CHAPTER 10
Miss Barnes Speaks Her Mind
HELEN BARNES crossed the street to the hotel, Manuel and the colored cook in her wake. She saw a man peering out of a window of the Rest Easy and another lounging in the doorway of Flack's store. Probably both of them were on guard to prevent the escape of the two penned in the restaurant. The one at Flack's certainly was. He had a rifle in his hands. She knew him well enough to say 'Good morning' when they met. More than once he had eaten in the restaurant. His name was Hanford.
Except herself and the restaurant employees nobody was on the street. That was understandable, since it had just been swept by bullets and might be again at any moment. At sight of them a dog trotted down the middle of the road, cheerfully unaware of being in a dangerous No Man's Land. What interested him was the sight of two friends, Manuel and Sam, both of whom had frequently fed him table scraps.
'You Pete, better light outa here sudden,' Sam warned the dog, waving menacing arms.
Pete thought this a new and delightful form of play and bounded forward to jump up at the gesturing hands.
'Let him come into the hotel with you, Sam,' the young woman advised.
In the lobby were two more men with rifles, Cash Polk and a young fellow she had heard called Brick Fenwick, She turned on Cash, eyes hot with anger.
'What do you mean by shooting at my restaurant?' she demanded.
'Don't you worry, Miss Helen. You're just as safe as when you are singing in the choir. We wouldn't hurt you for anything.' The man's voice was unctuous with false good will. 'We were mighty careful where we shot. All we wanted was to let them two criminals who ran into your place know we wouldn't let them make a getaway.'
'I didn't see any criminals.' Her wrath exploded. 'I'm going to find out whether riff-raff can shoot up my restaurant and not go to prison for it.'
Brick Fenwick spoke, a drawl in
his cool voice, but a quick excitement in his hot and glittering eyes. 'You and I will have to talk that over, Miss. We might come to an understanding.'
For just an instant her scornful gaze swept across him. In her words there was the sting of a small whistling whiplash. 'I have nothing to talk over with you… ever. When I talk, it will be to the law.'
'Now, Miss Helen, I wouldn't do that,' Cash replied, smooth as a well-oiled hinge. 'We'll fix up the front of your place and pay any damages you might ask.'
'And drop in frequent to eat at the restaurant,' Brick added, his gaze of jeering admiration still fixed on its owner.
'None of you will ever eat there again.'
'Take it easy, Miss,' the young ruffian advised. 'I like yore spunk. We're gonna be good friends, you and me.'
She gave him one brief contemptuous look before she turned away, moving toward the young man behind the desk. He was the son of the woman who ran the hotel, and she had often danced with him. 'You might tell these men, Jack, that if they make a move to attack Frank Lovell and Hal Stevens, two or three of them are going to die very quickly.'
Frawley came into the room by a passage that led from the back door. The girl noted that his face was badly cut and bruised. 'What's doing?' he asked harshly.
'Nothing yet, except that Stevens told Dud he couldn't arrest them,' Cash explained. 'He said Frank had got his call to report for enlistment and was on his way to Tucson.'
'We ought to of rubbed them both out while we had the chance,' Frawley cried bitterly. 'All this monkeying around and nonsense about arresting. They're a pair of hold-ups. Ain't that enough?'
The shocked voice of Cash reproved him. 'Sh-sh, Jim! That's no way to talk. We got to act lawful.' He gave a slight warning tilt of his head in the direction of Helen Barnes.
The discharged foreman was beyond caution. 'And very likely let them get away,' he stormed.
'They ain't going to get away,' Brick told him, almost in a murmur, the words distinctly spaced. 'I'm making it my personal business to see to that.'
Helen, puzzled and troubled, pointed a question at Frawley. 'I don't understand. You're the foreman of the Seven Up and Down. Why are you helping these men against Frank?'
'I was the foreman,' Frawley contradicted harshly. 'I quit the lousy outfit this morning.'
'You had trouble with them?'
'What's that to you? Mind yore own business.'
'Keep yore shirt on, Jim,' Fenwick said gently. He was smiling thinly, but his eyes were cold. 'That's no way to talk to a lady.'
The big man stared at the boy, surprised at this unexpected consideration for a woman. 'What's eatin' you, Brick?' he snapped.
Helen said, suddenly, 'I'm going down the street to Flack's.'
'A good idea, Miss,' Brick agreed. 'Only that's a little near. I'd keep on going to some friend's house in the edge of town. And don't be frightened if you hear a little shooting.'
The girl looked at the evil face of the boy, and a surge of sickness went through her. 'If you go on with this, it will be murder,' she told him in a low voice.
'That's not a nice word for a lady to use,' the young scoundrel replied, grinning.
Cash would not let it go at that. He was always careful to build up a justification for whatever he did. He must have a color of legality to his outrages.
'We don't aim to hurt these boys at all, Miss Helen. They are both neighbors of mine. I like them fine, though I'm afraid they have gone too far this time. All we want to do is arrest them. Maybe you could talk them into having a little sense.'
'I wouldn't try,' she said. 'I don't know what this is all about, but I can see they are fighting for their lives. They can't trust you. I'll just say one thing before I go. If you kill those two men, the law will never let you rest as long as you live.'
She walked out of the hotel followed by her entourage of two men and a dog. There were more of these gunmen posted around the restaurant at different points and she meant to tell them all that if they persisted in violence they would be bringing trouble down on their own heads.
Another reason for leaving was urgent in her mind. She wanted to phone to the Seven Up and Down news of the trap into which Frank and his companion had fallen.
CHAPTER 11
Tom Wall Pays a Debt
HAL GUESSED they would have a few minutes before the attack. These fellows were not going to walk up to two rifles without contriving some way of making it as safe as possible. The trapped men could count on that as surely as on the certainty that next time there would be no wasted shots. They had tried Tick Black's way. Now it would be one devised by Cash Polk.
Frank stayed on guard in the front room while Hal looked after the defenses in the rear. The back door was locked and bolted. Hal piled the kitchen table and chairs against it. On a shelf he found a stack of old newspapers. These he crumpled and flung under the two windows until there was a mound of them knee-high. If anybody came in through a window, he could not reach the floor without a warning rustle of paper.
Through the swing doors Hal returned to the dining-room.
'All quiet on the western front,' Frank reported.
Helen Barnes and her followers came out of the hotel and passed down the street. She stopped in front of the Rest Easy and called to somebody inside the saloon. A man carrying a Winchester rifle came to the door and stepped quickly back of her. He was not letting himself be a target for a shot from the restaurant. The girl talked with him for two or three minutes. Once the beleaguered men heard her voice raised in urgent argument, but the distance was too far for them to make out what she said. Presently the little party walked down the sidewalk as far as the Flack store. They disappeared into it.
'Zero hour pretty soon,' Frank said. His voice was a little strained. Waiting for the enemy to make its move was trying on the nerves.
'They might get at us if we are not careful from the hotel upstairs windows,' Hal replied. 'They won't come ramping across the street at us, unless they have lost their senses.'
'No. I wonder what they will do.' Frank grinned. He meant to keep up a good front. 'I'm getting some good army training anyhow. I'll bet there won't be another fellow in my company get under fire as he was on the way to being inducted.'
They caught a glimpse of a man slipping across the cañon road from the back door of the hotel. Just after they saw him, he disappeared over the brow of a small hill. Their guess was that he was carrying instructions to the outposts watching the back door of the restaurant. The plan might be to drum in a heavy fire from the rear and under cover of it to slip across the road for a try at shooting the defenders through the windows.
Neither of them was under any delusion as to the determination of their foes to rub them out. Frank had tried to reach the Seven Up and Down to get reinforcements and found the wire from the restaurant cut. They could thank Cash Polk for thinking of that. The significance of it stood out like a sore thumb. The hill men intended to settle this before any help from outside reached their victims. There must be eight or ten of them in Big Bridge. Later they would try to escape the law by sticking to a common story that Stevens had fired the first shot.
The minutes dragged. Frank lit a cigarette.
'I got you into this, Hal,' he blurted. 'If I hadn't fooled with those poker games, you wouldn't be here.'
'And if I hadn't butted into the game you wouldn't be here,' Stevens answered evenly. 'I've been in spots just as hot before and wiggled out. I'm expecting us to get out of this one.'
'I don't see how.'
'Nor I yet. We've got to wait tor a break.'
Hal spoke more confidently than he felt. The few residents of the town would not dare to stand up to these ruffians from the hills. Given time, their enemies could smoke them out.
A bullet crashed through a window and tore a hole in the top of a table. It must have come from a rifleman stationed in an upstairs room of the hotel. Almost before the sound of it had died away, the rat-tat-tat-tat of a submachine gun
began popping. Somebody in the brush at the rear was peppering the back of the building.
'This is it,' Frank said. 'They'll come tearing in the back way.'
'Not just yet. They are feeling us out — softening us up. I'll slip into the kitchen and see if I can get a crack at the busy boy in the mesquite.'
'I wouldn't. He'll spray the whole room.'
'He has quit for the moment. All I want to do is to let him know we can still sting.'
Hal crept through the swinging doors on all fours, reached a window, and looked out. He saw a surprising sight. A man was moving out of the bushes into the open, his hands in the air. At his heels, a revolver pressed into his back, another man walked with him stride for stride. They were headed for the restaurant. Hal tore away the chairs and the table that blockaded the door. He drew back the bolt and turned the key. The two men walked into the kitchen, and Hal slammed the door shut, bolted, and locked it.
'Where in Mexico did you come from?' Hal asked the man with the gun.
The man was a narrow-flanked, lean-shouldered customer wearing a white sombrero, hickory shirt, and corduroy trousers tucked into cowboy boots. He cocked an eyebrow whimsically at Stevens.
'From Salina, Kansas, if you're taking the census, fellow. Born in Lima, Ohio, twenty-five years ago come next Christmas Day.'
Tom Wall was the name of the man. He had spent six weeks at a line cabin on the M K ranch the winter before, a man wanted by the law for murder. Hal had not only kept him hidden; he had dug up the evidence to prove that the killing had been done in self-defense.
The captive he had brought with him out of the brush spoke bitterly. 'The boys will get you for this, Tom. This wasn't any row of yours.'
Wall disagreed with that lightly. 'Any of Hal's rows are mine. Tell the boys to like it or lump it, whichever they please.'
While they tied up their prisoner, Wall explained that he was working at a garage in town. When he had heard that Stevens was one of the two trapped in the restaurant, he had buckled on his gun and started on the warpath. He had chanced to see Mullins heading for the brush and had thought it a good idea to follow him unobserved. His order to the hill man to drop his weapon had been one Mullins recognized reluctantly he must obey.
Who Wants to Live Forever? Page 6