The guns were sounding again in front. One roared out louder than the others. Hal pushed open the swing doors.
'You all right, Frank?' he asked.
'Yep. The shots are coming from the Rest Easy and the hotel. One bullet chipped the wall almost back of me. I took a crack at the fellow upstairs.' Frank turned and caught sight of Wall dragging in the captured man. 'Where did Tom come from?' he cried in astonishment.
'He saw what Mullins was up to and got the drop on him.'
Hal's smile was ironic. 'He picked this as a good place to eat. Maybe he is right at that. If this siege lasts long, we ought to be well provisioned.'
'It won't last long,' Mullins growled. 'The boys will come right in after you.'
'Some of them,' Hal corrected gently. 'A few of them will stop before they get here.'
Another bullet tore through one of the shattered windows and splintered the leg of a chair.
'Better get back against the wall, Tom,' advised Hal. He dragged the prisoner to a less exposed place than the one where he was lying.
They heard the noise of an automobile coming down the street. It stopped directly in front of the hotel. Hal risked a peep through the window below which he was crouched. He saw armed men jumping down from the car, four or five of them. Casey and Shorty were two of them. Dale Lovell was at the wheel.
Hal called across to Frank, 'The whole Seven Up ranch has moved in.'
The boy gave a whoop and started to his feet.
'Wait a minute,' Wall suggested. 'Let's make sure the shooting is over.'
'Dale is with the boys and has gone into the hotel,' Hal reported. 'She is probably arranging an armistice.'
They waited in the restaurant to give her time.
CHAPTER 12
Dale Shakes Hands With a Killer
CASH POLK came forward with an unhappy smile to meet Dale Lovell. 'I'm right glad to see you, Miss Dale,' he told her. 'We been having a little trouble with Hal Stevens. Dud Calloway tried to arrest him and he started shooting. He's over there in the restaurant right now.'
'Where is Frank?' the young woman demanded.
'He's with Stevens. I'm sorry about that.'
'Are either of them hurt?'
'Not far as I know. Now you have come we can fix this up. You go talk to the boys and tell them they had better surrender, Miss Dale.'
'What have they been doing?'
'I think Dud wants to arrest Stevens for holding up a poker game.'
'He can't do it,' she said bluntly. 'The game was crooked. All the boys took was the money that belonged to them. You can't get away with this, Cash.'
'Now, Miss Dale, there's evidence to show different. This isn't business for a young lady to mix up in.' Casey was standing in the doorway. 'The Seven Up thinks otherwise,' he said quietly. 'The ranch boys are backing any play Miss Dale makes.'
Frawley and Brick Fenwick had come into the room through the back door.
'Keep out of this, Casey,' the former warned, 'unless you are looking for trouble.'
Dud Calloway came forward, a much-worried man. Though he was lined up with the hill men, the shooting had shaken his nerve. He was too timid to want to be involved in a killing by being made a cat's-paw. Lacking the courage to stand out against Frawley and Fenwick, he welcomed the support of the Seven Up ranch that would give him an out.
'I reckon this has gone far enough,' he said. 'I don't want any bloodshed in making this arrest. If Miss Dale feels thataway about the matter, I'll call the whole thing off for the present and put it up to Sheriff Elbert.'
Brick said, a warning in his slitted eyes and icy voice, 'Trying to crawl out of it, Dud?'
Anger for the moment choked down Dale's fear for the trapped men. 'You want to murder my brother and Hal Stevens, don't you?' she cried. 'You can't do it. I won't let you. If you take my advice, you and the rest of your despicable gang will get in a car and keep going day and night till you are a thousand miles from here. There's law in this country, and I am going to see it runs you down unless you get out.'
The young killer's laugh was low and taunting. 'You talk like you was Roosevelt,' he mocked.
'We're deputies, Miss Dale, trying to arrest two wild boys who have gone outside the law,' explained Cash in the reasonable, long-suffering voice of a parent seeking to soothe a child in a bad temper. 'You ain't got the right point of view just now. 'Course you are worked up about this on account of because Frank is one of the boys. That's natural. Only you mustn't blame us. We got to do our duty.'
His fawning impudence made the girl sick. He was as bad as Brick Fenwick, but without that young ruffian's courage.
'You always were a rat,' she exploded.
'Now — now, Miss Dale, you're excited,' he remonstrated mildly. 'When you think this over you will be sorry.'
Shorty cut in bluntly. 'Get this straight. You can't move a foot against those two boys without taking us on. We won't stand for it.'
Cash realized the immediate chance of wiping out Stevens and young Lovell had gone. They would have to wait for another opportunity. 'If you want to stand in the way of the law, Miss Dale, there is nothing we can do about it just now,' he said reprovingly. 'Maybe you think big property owners like you-all don't have to obey the law. Maybe it is only for poor folks.'
Helen Barnes stood in the doorway. 'If it is for poor folks, then it must be for me,' she told Cash. 'You and your friends have pretty nearly ruined my place. Do you intend to make the damage good?'
Cash rubbed his bristly chin and considered. 'We were sworn in as deputies to help arrest these men. Seems to me you ought to look to Stevens and Lovell for payment, Miss Helen. How about that, Brick?' He turned toward Fenwick for support, but that young man had vanished through the door. 'Well, if they ain't men enough to pay it, I'll personally attend to it, Miss. Let's go, Jim. We ain't wanted here, I reckon.'
Frawley said, glaring at Dale, 'This thing ain't over yet.' He added an angry curse before he followed Cash from the room, making his exit through the back door.
Dale and Helen went out to the porch. Four men were just emerging from the restaurant. One of them had his hands tied behind him. The two parties met in the street. In spite of his bloody face, battered twice within a few hours, Hal smiled with gay insouciance. 'This is certainly Ladies' Day at the show. Choice seats reserved in the grandstand.'
Dale said sharply, 'You've been shot.'
'No, lady. Tried to steal home and slid in on my face.'
She glanced at the wrecked car. 'When you had the smash, I suppose.'
'Correct.'
Dale turned to her brother, looked him over swiftly to make sure he was uninjured, and asked a question. 'Was it an accident?'
'No accident,' Frank answered. 'One of the scoundrels shot the tire and we crashed.'
His sister said angrily, 'We'll see if there isn't law in the land.'
Hal caught sight of Calloway on the porch. The deputy sheriff was uncertain what he ought to do. He wanted to explain away his share in this to Dale, but he was afraid he would not have much luck.
'Lots of law,' Hal said. 'There's good old Dud now, watching over us like a hen over its chickens. Can't anyone hurt us while Dud is around.'
Dale looked scornfully at the deputy. 'What were you doing while these villains were trying to kill my brother?'
'I couldn't do a thing — one man against eight or nine,' he protested.
'You could have joined the men in the restaurant, couldn't you?'
Dale turned her back on Calloway. She had nothing more to say to him. There was no bottom in him on which to build character.
'What are we going to do with this bird?' Wall asked, jerking his head toward Mullins.
'Nothing to do but turn him loose,' Hal said, and untied the rope fastening the hands of the man.
'You were lucky you had a couple of women to hide behind,' Mullins said, with a jeering laugh.
'Yes,' agreed Hal. 'Very lucky.'
'Some of your crowd w
ere lucky too,' Wall retorted. 'On your way, fellow.'
'I don't think I have met you before,' Dale said to Wall.
'No, ma'am. I've often seen you. My name is Tom Wall.'
She drew back, stiffening. 'I've heard of you,' she said curtly.
Hal said, quietly, his steady eyes on her: 'I dare say you have heard about how he had to kill Gus Nesbit in self-defense last year. Fortunately, we were able to prove there was no other way out for Tom. But you haven't heard how he went into the brush and captured this fellow Mullins who was drilling at us with a machine gun. He did not have to get into this brawl. Nobody else in town lifted a hand except Miss Barnes.'
Dale offered Wall her hand. 'It seems I am wrong again, as usual,' she told him, a wry smile on her face.
At Helen's suggestion they moved into the restaurant.
'I tried to call you at the ranch,' Helen said to Dale. 'But nobody answered. You must have been on the way.'
'Through field-glasses I saw a car filled with these men go down the valley road,' Dale explained. 'I recognized two of them, so I thought we had better follow. Well, it's all over now. There won't be any more trouble.'
'Won't there?' Hal asked, almost in a murmur.
Helen flung a startled look at him. 'You don't think they will try again?'
'They have gone too far to quit now.'
'What's it about — rustling?'
'More than that. Creating a black market. Killing a Government man who came here to investigate. They have to destroy the evidence that would send half a dozen of them to death.'
The girl was shocked. She had not realized that this was anything more than a modern version of the old trouble between cattlemen and rustlers.
'What Government man did they kill?' asked Helen.
'He boarded at your restaurant. Passed as a preacher named Andrew Watts.'
'Do you mean Mr. Watts wasn't a preacher?'
'He was sent here to find out who was creating the black market by supplying the beef. You thought he fell off a cliff. That is not true. He was captured by the gang, taken up on the cliff, and pushed off.'
'How do you know?'
'They left evidence. It had rained the day before. I found that four horses had climbed the shoulder of the cliff that day. I don't think the fall killed the victim immediately. They rode down to the foot of the cliff and bashed his head in. The wound could not possibly have been made from the fall. He struck on the right shoulder. This was on the left side of the head.'
The startled eyes of Frank were fastened on Stevens in a horrified fascination. 'I heard Cash and Brick tell how they found the preacher's body and rode to your place, the nearest ranch, for help to bring it in. I never guessed there was foul play.'
'If this is a secret, why are you telling it now?' Dale asked.
'It does not matter any more. This is out in the open now. The Government wants it known. Some day one of the gang, when the hunt gets hot, will come in and offer state's evidence.'
'You hope,' Wall said.
'If not, the case may be broken open anyhow.'
'I begin to understand why these outlaws are so persistent,' Dale said. 'Rustlers are always on the defensive. They don't carry the war to cattlemen, but skulk around in the brush. It's not their rustling that worries these miscreants, but the fact that Uncle Sam wants them for murder.'
'The two things tie up together,' Hal suggested.
The whole party ate a midday dinner at the restaurant.
Before all of them were finished, Dale asked Shorty to saunter down Main Street and find out if the hill men had yet left town. He reported that they were getting ready to go.
'They been drinkin' their dinner at the Rest Easy,' he drawled. 'That young plug-ugly Brick Fenwick is sitting on the porch steps lookin' like he had swallowed a half a bottle of quinine.'
He was still sitting there when Hal strolled out of the restaurant. Stevens stood in the doorway. The rest of his group would join him in a minute or two. His glance picked up casually the three men across the street. The sight of them tightened his stomach muscles and brought him to rigid attention.
CHAPTER 13
The Showdown
THOUGH HAL stood in the warm sunlight, a cold chill ran through him. He had walked into a trap. Brick was rising from the hotel steps, gun in hand. Hanford stood at the corner of the Rest Easy. To the right, in front of the grocery store next to the restaurant, Frawley had stationed himself. The hill men had cut Hal off on three sides. With luck he might get back into the restaurant alive, but he knew they would be hard on his heels. In the crash of guns that would follow, the women must be endangered.
He thought in quick, flashing stabs. Retreat was out of the question. He must get away from the front of the eating house, so that bullets would not tear into it. His hand reached back and closed the door. Without haste he took a few steps along the sidewalk toward Hanford.
Brick followed him step for step. 'Stay where you're at, fellow,' he ordered, from between clamped teeth. 'You got no women to hide behind now.'
It was a showdown. Hal had not the least doubt of that. They intended to riddle him with bullets. His whole mind was concentrated on the problem, searching for some slender chance of escape. He could find none. They were three to one, and they had their guns out while he had not drawn.
'Don't tell us you've left yore gun at home,' Frawley jeered.
Hal saw nothing except these three men whose eyes were fastened on him so steadily. Yet afterward he recalled that the same brindle pup that had entered the danger zone before was trotting forward again. Moreover, he knew that somebody had opened the door of the restaurant.
'Shut that door,' he warned. 'Don't let the women out.'
The first glance told Casey that the battle was about to begin. With his left hand he closed the door behind him and held on to the knob.
'Don't start anything, boys,' he pleaded. 'Not with the women here.'
'You're not in this, Casey,' his former foreman snarled. 'Get back into the house.'
After the first brief glance, none of them paid any attention to Casey. Their whole tense interest was focused on Stevens. Hal knew this was the preliminary war of nerves. They were trying to break him down before the weapons crashed. That they had him cold they knew, but if they could flood him with fear, it would be an extra margin of safety for them.
'What are you waiting for?' he asked. 'Some more of your friends to show up?'
Even as he spoke, his hand was sweeping out the revolver from its holster. Their weapons were smoking while he was diving for the scant shelter of the nearest doorway. The sound of their shots went smashing down the street tunnel before he got into action. He crouched, flattened against the jamb, flinging his first bullet at Brick. A slug ripped at the woodwork beside him. Another tore the hat from his head. Though he counted himself a dead man, he was quite cool and deliberate. Frawley could not easily get at him in the recess where he stood, so Hal fired at Brick a second time and then at Hanford. Casey had his sixshooter out. The bark of it joined the others. The hammering of the guns filled the roadway with the sharp explosions.
Brick moved closer, knees bent, face venomous with hate.
Hanford shifted position warily, coming to the edge of the sidewalk across the street. Hal's gun covered him. It jumped with the crook of the finger. The heavy body of Hanford plunged forward into the street. The weapon dropped from his hand. He rolled over, lay still.
The door of the restaurant opened and men poured out.
Jolted by the sight of Hanford lying sprawled on the road and by the arrival of reinforcements for his enemy, Frawley turned and ran. Brick stayed to pump one last shot at Stevens before going, then backed into the Rest Easy and raced through it to the alley in the rear.
A moment before, the street had been empty except for the fighters and one stray brindle pup streaking down the road. Now a dozen people jostled one another as they crowded forward to look at the dead man.
'Ar
e you — all right?' Dale asked Hal, her voice low and shaky. The girl's face and lips were colorless.
'Yes. They were waiting for me, hoping I would come out alone.'
Casey said,'I thought you were gone when I saw all three of them with their guns on you.'
Hal nodded thanks. 'They gave you a chance to get away, but you didn't take it. I think that saved me. You divided their attention when you began shooting.'
'Is one of them… dead?' Dale questioned.
'The one called Hanford,' answered Hal. 'They kept crowding closer.'
'You killed him in self-defense,' she replied. 'We all know that.'
Their eyes met and held for a long second. She knew what he was thinking, that Tom Wall, too, had slain a man because it had been forced upon him and she had thought of him as a killer, a man set apart by reason of what he had done. Later she might think of him the same way.
CHAPTER 14
In the Lobby of the Frontera
DALE CALLED up Sheriff Elbert by long distance and told him, not only what had just taken place at Big Bridge, but also gave him an account of the events that had led to the trouble. He had been a friend of her father and was himself a cattleman, so that he did not doubt the accuracy of her story. He said he would drive over at once. In the meantime her brother and Stevens could go on to Tucson, but he would expect the latter to return to his ranch as soon as he could.
Within five minutes of the time that the Black gang left town on the valley road headed for the hills, the men they had tried to rub out departed in the opposite direction. Hal and Frank traveled in an old roadster owned by Wall. The owner of the car went with them. It seemed to him prudent to leave Big Bridge for a time. He had not felt very safe there, even before his part in the trouble earlier in the day, since the man he had been forced to kill a year ago was a hanger-on of the Black outfit. The outlaws would regard what he had just done as surplusage, and if they found it difficult to get Stevens would very likely try to kill him as part payment on account.
Who Wants to Live Forever? Page 7