Way of the Lawless

by Max Brand

  CHAPTER 25

  In Hal Dozier there was a belief that the end justified the means. WhenHank Rainer sent word to Tomo that the outlaw was in his cabin, and, ifthe posse would gather, he, Hank, would come out of his cabin that nightand let the posse rush the sleeping man who remained, Hal Dozier waswilling and eager to take advantage of the opportunity. A man of actionby nature and inclination, Dozier had built a great repute as a hunterof criminals, and he had been known to take single-handed chancesagainst the most desperate; but when it was possible Hal Dozier played asafe game. Though the people of the mountain desert considered himinvincible, because he had run down some dozen notorious fighters, Halhimself felt that this simply increased the chances that the thirteenthman, by luck or by cunning, would strike him down.

  Therefore he played safe always. On this occasion he made surety doublysure. He could have taken two or three known men, and they would havebeen ample to do the work. Instead, he picked out half a dozen. For justas Henry Allister had recognized that indescribable element of danger inthe new outlaw, so the manhunter himself had felt it. Hal Dozierdetermined that he would not tempt Providence. He had his commission asa deputy marshal, and as such he swore in his men and started for thecabin of Hank Rainer.

  When the news had spread, others came to join him, and he could notrefuse. Before the cavalcade entered the mouth of the canyon he had somethirty men about him. They were all good men, but in a fight,particularly a fight at night, Hal Dozier knew that numbers to excessare apt to simply clog the working parts of the machine. All that hefeared came to pass. There was one breathless moment of joy when thehorse of Andrew was shot down and the fugitive himself staggered underthe fire of the posse. At that moment Hal had poised his rifle for ashot that would end this long trail, but at that moment a yelling memberof his own group had come between him and his target, and the chance wasgone. When he leaped to one side to make the shot, Andrew was alreadyamong the trees.

  Afterward he had sent his men in a circle to close in on the spot fromwhich the outlaw made his stand, but they had closed on emptyshadows--the fugitive had escaped, leaving a trail of blood. However, itwas hardly safe to take that trail in the night, and practicallyimpossible until the sunlight came to follow the sign. So Hal Dozier hadthe three wounded men taken back to the cabin of Hank Rainer.

  The stove was piled with wood until the top was white hot, and then theposse sat about on the floor, crowding the room and waiting for thedawn. The three wounded men were made as comfortable as possible. Onehad been shot through the hip, a terrible wound that would probablystiffen his leg for life; another had gone down with a wound along theshin bone which kept him in a constant torture. The third man was hitcleanly through the thigh, and, though he had bled profusely for sometime, he was now only weak, and in a few weeks he would be perfectlysound again. The hard breathing of the three was the only sound in thatdim room during the rest of the night. The story of Hank Rainer had beentold in half a dozen words. Lanning had suspected him, stuck him up atthe point of a gun, and then-refused to kill him, in spite of the factthat he knew he was betrayed. After his explanation Hank withdrew to thedarkest corner of the room and was silent. From time to time looks wenttoward that corner, and one thought was in every mind. This fellow, whohad offered to take money for a guest, was damned for life and branded.Thereafter no one would trust him, no one would change words with him;he was an outcast, a social leper. And Hank Rainer knew it as wellas any man.

  A cloud of tobacco smoke became dense in the room, and a halo surroundedthe lantern on the wall. Then one by one men got up and mutteredsomething about being done with the party, or having to be at work inthe morning, and stamped out of the room and went down the ravine to theplace where the horses had been tethered. The first thrill of excitementwas gone. Moreover, it was no particular pleasure to close in on awounded man who lay somewhere among the rocks, without a horse to carryhim far, and too badly wounded to shift his position. Yet he could liein his shelter, whatever clump of boulders he chose, and would make ithot for the men who tried to rout him out. The heavy breathing of thethree wounded men gave point to these thoughts, and the men of familyand the men of little heart got up and left the posse.

  The sheriff made no attempt to keep them. He retained his firsthand-picked group. In the gray of the morning he rallied these menagain. They went first to the dead, stiff body of the chestnut geldingand stripped it of the saddle and the pack of Lanning. This, by silentconsent, was to be the reward of the trapper. This was his in lieu ofthe money which he would have earned if they had killed Lanning on thespot. Hal Dozier stiffly invited Hank to join them in the manhunt; hewas met by a solemn silence, and the request was not repeated. Dozierhad done a disagreeable duty, and the whole posse was glad to be free ofthe traitor. In the meantime the morning was brightening rapidly, andDozier led out his men.

  They went to their horses, and, coming back to the place where Andrewhad made his halt and fired his three shots, they took up the trail.

  It was as easy to read as a book. The sign was never wanting for morethan three steps at a time, and Hal Dozier, reading skillfully, watchedthe decreasing distance between heel indentations, a sure sign that thefugitive was growing weak from the loss of the blood that spotted thetrail. Straight on to the doorstep of Pop's cabin went the trail. Dozierrapped at the door, and the old man himself appeared. The bony fingersof one hand were wrapped around the corncob, which was his inseparablecompanion, and in the other he held the cloth with which he had beendrying dishes. Jud turned from his pan of dishwater to cast a frightenedglance over his shoulder. Pop did not wait for explanations.

  "Come in, Dozier," he invited. "Come in, boys. Glad to see you. Ain'tparticular comfortable for an oldster like me when they's a full-grown,man-eatin' outlaw layin' about the grounds. This Lanning come to my doorlast night. Me and Jud was sittin' by the stove. He wanted to get us tobandage him up, but I yanked my gun off'n the wall and orderedhim away."

  "You got your gun on Lanning--off the wall--before he had you covered?"asked Hal Dozier with a singular smile.

  "Oh, I ain't so slow with my hands," declared Pop. "I ain't half so oldas I look, son! Besides, he was bleedin' to death and crazy in the head.I don't figure he even thought about his gun just then." "Why didn'tyou shoot him down, Pop? Or take him? There's money in him."

  "Don't I know it? Ain't I seen the posters? But I wasn't for pressin'things too hard. Not me at my age, with Jud along. I ordered him awayand let him go. He went down yonder. Oh, you won't have far to go. Hewas about all in when he left. But I ain't been out lookin' around yetthis morning. I know the feel of a forty-five slug in your inwards."

  He placed a hand upon his stomach, and a growl of amusement went throughthe posse. After all, Pop was a known man. In the meantime someone hadpicked up the trail to the cliff, and Dozier followed it. They wentalong the heel marks to a place where blood had spurted liberally overthe ground. "Must have had a hemorrhage here," said Dozier. "No, wewon't have far to go. Poor devil!"

  And then they came to the edge of the cliff, where the heel marks ended."He walked straight over," said one of the men. "Think o' that!"

  "No," exclaimed Dozier, who was on his knees examining the marks, "hestood here a minute or so. First he shifted to one foot, and then heshifted his weight to the other. And his boots were turning in. Queer. Isuppose his knees were buckling. He saw he was due to bleed to death andhe took a shorter way! Plain suicide. Look down, boys! See anything?"

  There was a jumble of sharp rocks at the base of the cliff, and thewater of the stream very close. Nothing showed on the rocks, nothingshowed on the face of the cliff. They found a place a short distance tothe right and lowered a man down with the aid of a rope. He looked aboutamong the rocks. Then he ran down the stream for some distance. He cameback with a glum face.

  There was no sign of the body of Andrew Lanning among the rocks. Lookingup to the top of the cliff, from the place where he stood, he figuredthat a man could have jumped cl
ear of the rocks by a powerful leap andmight have struck in the swift current of the stream. There was no traceof the body in the waters, no drop of blood on the rocks. But then thewater ran here at a terrific rate; the scout had watched a heavy bouldermoved while he stood there. He went down the bank and came at once to adeep pool, over which the water was swirling. He sounded that pool witha long branch and found no bottom.

  "And that makes it clear," he said, "that the body went down the water,came to that pool, was sucked down, and got lodged in the rocks. Anybodydiffer? No, gents, Andrew Lanning is food for the trout. And I say it'sthe best way out of the job for all of us."

  But Hal Dozier was a man full of doubts. "There's only one other thingpossible," he said. "He might have turned aside at the house of Pop. Hemay be there now."

  "But don't the trail come here? And is there any back trail to thehouse?" one of the men protested.

  "It doesn't look possible," nodded Hal Dozier, "but queer things are aptto happen. Let's go back and have a look."