Brian rode the horse boldly through one of the openings and into the main sala, the cavernous living-room that ran across the front of the house. He guided the animal through heaps of rubble and fallen beams, across a stretch of comparatively open floor, and stopped at the narrow hallway leading into the central patio. They dismounted and ground-hitched the horse and moved cautiously through the pitch-black hall and into the patio. The moon was beginning to rise, casting its eerie light into the weed-covered enclosure that was surrounded on all sides by the house.
In one corner, half-hidden by a heap of rubble, were the stairs leading to the wine cellar. If Parrish and Sandoval had gotten here first, they would be in that dank cavern now, waiting, listening.
And if Wolffe had come later, undoubtedly with Latigo, they would be in one of the bedrooms on the north side, or perhaps in the kitchen at the rear.
Brian glanced around, prodded by the pressures of tension, doubt, possible error. Had he misjudged Arleen? He was so sure he’d found the answer today. It was Arleen’s primary allegiance that had held her to her brother before. It had to mold her now.
Tarrant came into the patio behind Brian, nervous, looking quickly around. The rattle of his boots against the rubble was the only sound.
“Nobody’s here,” he said.
The brittle, shaking tone of his voice told Brian a lot. The man was becoming increasingly convinced that the notes had been lures, that Wolffe had tried to kill them both in Skeleton Canyon. He was enraged and panicked by the thought, ready to jump in any direction.
If Wolffe was listening, the talk would have to sound as though this were a prearranged meeting. Yet Brian had to draw something out of Tarrant that would sound like a betrayal of Wolffe. He began ambiguously.
“We might as well face it, Ford. We’re in the same boat.”
Tarrant paced in a little circle, lips white at the edges. “Damn him, damn him … “
“I guess those deposit slips drove him against the wall. Once the court sees those the whole thing will snowball.”
Tarrant’s eyes popped. “Deposit slips?”
Brian smiled enigmatically. “You didn’t think I was bluffing yesterday when I said I had proof of Asa’s innocence, did you? Why else would Wolffe be so jumpy? It’s piling up against him. One word from you could pin him down. Cline’s murder and all.”
Tarrant moistened his lips. “You haven’t got proof on that.”
Brian knew he had to risk a guess now. But it was a logical guess, since Tarrant had worked so closely with Wolffe up to now. “We know now you were there when Wolffe planned the killing, though I thought till yesterday afternoon it was you who planned it. But they hang accessories too, Ford.”
The man’s beefy jowls quivered. “I was against it. I told him he was going too far—”
He stopped short as he realized his admission. Brian showed little reaction, smiling thinly. “Never mind. You’re not telling us anything new. It’s yourself you’ve got to protect now. A man can turn state’s evidence, make a bargain with the court. Tell what you know and it might even get you off clean.”
“State’s evidence.” Tarrant said it softly, scowling thoughtfully. Brian could almost see the possibilities working their way into his rotten core. He was in something too big and too dangerous for him to cope with. It had started out with a little political juggling and had ended with murder. And now his own life was threatened. He was a man in deep water, willing to reach for any straw that might pull him out.
Brian heard his horse whinny and stir fretfully inside the house. Were they moving in? It sent a ripple of tension through him. He heard a faint scrape from the hall and covered it quickly with his voice.
“You’ve got to jump first, Ford. We can’t give him a chance to try again.”
Ford moistened his lips, nodded furtively. “You’re right.”
“Shall we see Judge Parrish?”
Tarrant glanced sharply at him, face pale and stiff. The suggestion was too final, and Brian could see him begin to recoil.
“It’s either you or Wolffe now, Ford. Are you going to give him a chance to try again?”
Memory of Skeleton Canyon sent another little spasm through Tarrant’s florid face and he shook his head. “No. You’re right. It’s me or him.”
He turned involuntarily toward the house. Then he stopped, with a husky sound of surprise. George Wolffe stood in one of the gaps in the wall. The brim of his flat-topped hat dropped a black slice of shadow across his broad face. He held a six-shooter in his hand. A sick letdown came to Brian. He knew he should feel triumph. But now he realized he hadn’t wanted to be right about Arleen; hadn’t wanted this proof of the taint in her.
The tails of Wolffe’s clawhammer coat whispered against his shanks as he moved into the moonlit patio. Brian waited for Latigo to appear. He didn’t think Wolffe would have come alone.
“So that’s what you’d blow the lid off with,” Wolffe said to Tarrant. “State’s evidence.”
“Why shouldn’t he?” Brian said. And still no Latigo. “You were ready to throw him to the wolves. And you’ve been doing it to me from the beginning. No wonder you wanted me to settle down. I was spending too much of the money you figured was yours.”
Wolffe frowned at Tarrant. “You haven’t been listening to this man?”
“Why not?” Tarrant said. His voice was shrill, outraged. “After Latigo tried to cut me down in Skeleton Canyon!”
“The same way he cut down Cline,” Brian said. “You must have been real anxious to see that Latigo did as efficient a job this time, George. Otherwise you wouldn’t still be here.”
“That’s a filthy lie. Everybody knows Asa killed Cline,” Wolffe said sharply.
Tarrant shook his head. “It’s no use, George. They know the whole thing. How you planned it, who was there, everything.”
Wolffe’s face turned pale in reaction. Then a feral glow lit his eyes. He lifted his gun, swinging it toward Brian, cocking it. “Then maybe you know too much.”
Sandoval moved from behind the rubble heap hiding the cellar stairs. “Drop the gun, Wolffe.”
Wolffe wheeled involuntarily toward the Yaqui.
Brian called, “Chino—watch out—Latigo—”
He was pulling his own six-shooter as he yelled. Before he had finished a gun blasted from one of the windows on the north side. Sandoval was hit, staggering backward. Wolffe tried to whirl back to Brian. Brian fired. Wolffe jerked, took a step backward, then fell forward onto his hands and knees. Brian was already plunging for the protection of the hall door. The second shot from the north window smashed adobe off the wall inches behind him as he plunged into the hall.
He heard the dim pound of boots through the north bedrooms. He knew it was Latigo now and guessed the man was trying to reach the main sala first, thus trapping Brian in the narrow hall. Brian took a chance on his head start and ran headlong into the cavernous living-room. He almost crashed into the horse, ground-hitched by the hall door. The animal squealed in fright and jumped a few feet down the wall toward the north end of the room.
At the same time Latigo plunged from the bedroom doorway at that end. Even as he came out he realized he had lost the race, and checked his headlong run to dodge back into cover. Brian’s snap shot slammed into the sagging door an instant after the man had disappeared.
Brian flattened himself against the wall. The nearest cover was the fallen beams and rubble heaps in the center of the room. They were fifteen feet away and Brian could not gain them without exposing himself to Latigo’s fire. Flattened against the wall, he heard a dragging sound behind him, like a bale of hay pulled across the floor. He grew rigid against the wall, trying to identify the sound. Then he remembered Wolffe, going to his hands and knees in the patio. That was all it could be. Wolffe, wounded, on his hands and knees, crawling, dragging himself through the hall towa
rd the sala, intent on getting Brian before his life leaked out of him.
It bracketed Brian. He was between the two doorways, his back against the wall. Whichever man he turned to meet, it would expose his back to the other. The sweat on his face turned icy. His mouth went dry as cotton and his eyes swept the room vainly for a way out. Only a couple of seconds left. With that insistent, dragging sound growing louder all the time.
Then the horse shifted nervously, ten feet down the wall toward Latigo. The shots had spooked the animal and it was fiddling and snorting. Brian saw his chance. He ran toward the horse, keeping it between him and the bedroom door.
He slapped the animal’s rump with all his strength. The horse squealed and bolted. Brian caught a stirrup leather with his left hand, running on its off side so the horse would be between him and Latigo as they passed the bedroom door. Running headlong, the horse almost dragging him off his feet, he was suddenly opposite the black maw of the bedroom door.
He had a shadowy glimpse of Latigo’s surprised movement. The man gave a wild shout and fired in panic, probably still not understanding what had happened. The bullet chewed leather from the cantle of the saddle and whined past Brian’s head. He released the stirrup leather, firing over the horse’s rump at Latigo’s gun-flash.
He fired twice more as the horse ran from between him and the door. The horse galloped out through a breach in the wall and the echoes of its passage and of the gunfire died swiftly. Brian was left in a void of stillness.
There was no movement from the bedroom door, no sound. Then George Wolffe crawled out of the hall. Brian wheeled toward the man. Wolffe’s gun lay against the floor, gripped in a hand that was smeared with blood. He looked at Brian with glassy eyes. Crouched on hands and knees, he tried to lift his gun.
“You know too much, Brian … “
Blood bubbled from his mouth. He hung that way, gun half lifted. Then his eyes rolled up in his head and he sagged full length on the floor. Brian gazed emptily at the man a moment. No feeling would come, no reaction. Like an automaton he moved into the bedroom to check Latigo. The foreman lay on his back. Two bullets had struck his chest and he was dead. Brian walked back into the main sala. A thin nausea was beginning to move through him now. Pancho called from somewhere outside the house and Brian answered. In another moment the man appeared, looking at Wolffe with round eyes.
“Dios,” he said. “I wish I followed you closer. I could help.”
“You did your job,” Brian said. He felt drained now, apathetic, sick. Sandoval stumbled into the room, holding a shattered arm. Brian went quickly to him, pulling his bandanna off.
“Don’t treat me like the baby,” Sandoval grunted. “She’s just little nick.”
Judge Parrish moved testily out of the hall, prodding Tarrant ahead of him with a drawn gun. He looked down at Wolffe and shook his white head. “Damnedest court I ever held. But what I heard tonight will sure free Asa. If you get another judge to sit on the case I’ll be a witness to this whole thing.”
“You can’t prove anything,” Tarrant said sullenly.
“You said enough tonight to convict you of complicity in Cline’s murder,” Judge Parrish told the man. “The only hope you have is in state’s evidence. Tell the whole thing and it might get you some leniency.”
Tarrant didn’t answer. But Brian knew there was little core to the man. “I think he’ll talk,” Brian said. “Can you ride with that wound, Chino?”
“Sure,” the Yaqui said. He grinned at Brian.
* * * *
It was long after midnight when they reached Apache Wells. Brian was surprised to see a light still burning in the rooms Estelle and Cameron had taken at the hotel. Parrish and Pancho told Brian they would take care of Tarrant, freeing Brian to go to the hotel. It was a long time before Estelle answered the door. She was still dressed and her eyes, heavy and half-closed with sleep, made her look like a little girl.
“I guess I went to sleep in the chair,” she said. “I—”
The look on his face stopped her. She moved back and he stepped into the room, telling her in a rush what had happened. It brought her wide awake and when she learned Asa was cleared she almost cried with relief and happiness.
“I guess we’ve all won,” she said. “Surely you can get part of the Double Bit back, with this proof of what Wolffe did.”
It surprised him that he hadn’t thought of that yet. It made him realize how little that mattered now in comparison with the other things he had found during these last months. She seemed to sense the direction of his thoughts and didn’t press it. Already the expression of her face was changing. She seemed to be searching for something in his eyes. He knew what it was. There remained but one question to be answered.
“That’s over too, Estelle. Arleen doesn’t have any more hold on me.”
They both hesitated a moment longer, looking at each other, on the brink of something as they had been so often before. But now there was nothing to hold them back. He touched her and then he took her in his arms and kissed her. He felt the warm tears on her cheeks and she buried her face against his chest. He held her tight.
“It’s all over now,” he said. “It’s all over.”
“No it isn’t,” she whispered. “It’s just begun.”
THE END
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