“Are you out of your wits?” demanded Wheeler Bent. “Don’t you know that that house is full of armed men?”
“Well, that’s all right, too,” Rankin said. “There can be a lot of guns in a crowd ... and only a few of ’em will go off at the right time.”
“You can’t take him out of the house,” Wheeler Bent said. “There’s no use thinking of that.”
“Then you go and bring him out to me,” suggested Rankin. “How would that suit you?”
“I’ve got to think,” muttered Wheeler Bent, “and my brain’s spinning too fast. I can’t make it work.”
“When a gent can’t make his brain work, he’d better start his feet to moving,” Rankin remarked. “You go along ahead and do what you can on the job. I’ll wait out here.”
“Don’t wait so near the house,” Wheeler Bent said. “Stay farther away.”
“All right then. That flat-topped hill over yonder. That’s where I’m going to be with the other two. And if you come out there, you can say a last good bye to the Parson ... poor sucker ... before we bump him off.”
Chapter Twenty
Wheeler Bent, out of breath, staggered, and more or less desperate, got back inside the huge central room of the house and found before his eyes the last picture in the world that he expected or desired to see. For there he saw that Judge Tyrrel was in the midst of hearty laughter and had actually, at that moment, clapped his hand on the shoulder of the detestable vagabond, Jingo. He saw, worse than this if possible, that the girl was looking up at the two with a sheen in her eyes such as Wheeler Bent never had seen in them before.
Young Bent’s entire hopes, which, only the day before, had seemed to be based as upon strong granite, now dissolved into vapor. He could hardly see the features of his own settled intentions. All was adrift and at a loss with him.
And he heard Judge Tyrrel say: “But you say that another man came out with you, Jingo?”
“Yes, another man,” Jingo said. “The Parson is big enough to make two.”
“And where is he now?”
“Out behind a flat-topped hill just near the house. He and I camped there this afternoon and listened to the derricks groaning and watched the loads of hay come in.”
“Then he’s out there growing hungry. Call him inside,” insisted the judge. “I want to see the sort of a fellow you would team with, Jingo.”
“Oh, he’ll fill your eye, all right,” Jingo said.
“Hello, Wheeler!” called the judge. “Jingo is going out to ask in his friend. You go along to make sure the Parson knows that he’ll be welcome in here with us. Hurry along, my lad. Step right along with Jingo.”
It was the last invitation that Wheeler Bent wished to accept, but he had to turn, against his will, and walk through the door beside Jingo.
He was never to forget that walk up the hill and what awaited them at the top of the rise.
In the first place, as they stepped out under the bright heavens, Jingo said: “You seem to hate me, Bent. I don’t blame you, in a way, but I want to tell you something. If I handed you one on the chin, the other evening, I’m willing to let you have your try at getting even whenever you say so. Right now might be the time to please you. If you can put me down ... well, I won’t be hurrying back inside the house. And if I don’t reappear ... well, your own way might be considerably cleared up for you, old son.”
Wheeler Bent looked askance at his companion.
He was the same height. There was hardly a pound of difference in their weight. And Wheeler Bent had been trained in wrestling and boxing since he was a boy. Yet he knew that if there were a fight, he would have no more chance than a fifty-pound dog has against a fifty-pound lynx, or a hundred-pound dog against a hundred-pound panther. He knew that while he was fighting his honest best, there would be a sudden explosion in Jingo, a savage outbursting of energy, an electrical flare of force that would magnify him many times, for a few effective instants.
Wheeler Bent, then, eyed the man beside him as a dog might eye a wolf. Afterward he looked forward to that flat-topped hill toward which Jingo was stepping, for there would be found Jake Rankin and his two assistants with the Parson in their hands. When Bent saw how perfectly his means were matching his ends, he even smiled at the idea of fighting Jingo.
He therefore answered, rather lightly: “Fighting wouldn’t be a great help to me or to you. A black eye or a bleeding nose wouldn’t decorate the scene any. Besides, I’ve been bumped on the chin before.” He added carelessly: “Just what sort of a fellow is the Parson?”
“The Parson,” said Jingo, “is what you might call slow poison. He doesn’t start fast, but he keeps on finishing for a long time. He’s something. When he wants to, he can be a friend.”
“Well, how would you define a friend?” Wheeler Bent asked, glad of the ground they were covering to that flat-topped hill.
“A friend?” Jingo said. “Why, that’s the one thing that a man can’t get along without.”
“A man can’t get along without meat and beer,” Wheeler Bent stated more lightly than ever.
“He can, though,” insisted Jingo. “He can chew leather and eat roots and live on hope. A man can get along without a home or a wife or a child, but he has to have a friend. And the Parson could be that sort of a friend.”
“I thought,” said Wheeler Bent, “that he was just a big oaf with a face like a horse. I remember seeing him at the dance. Of course, I didn’t talk to him.”
“Well,” said Jingo, “a lot of people can see him without knowing him.”
Wheeler Bent looked up at the sky with such a sudden jerk of the head that the stars whirled before his eyes. He thought of himself and how few people in all the world knew him rightly. No one, certainly, knew him well enough to suspect the things that he was planning for this night. This, he determined, would be the one occasion when he would step off the straight and narrow path. But if he could once brush Jingo from his path, he told himself that the rest of his life would flow surely and safely forward to a happy sea. Eugenia would forget the romantic, nameless fellow very shortly. And Wheeler Bent’s part in the disappearance of Jingo would never be known.
On the whole, Bent felt satisfied with himself, and he had a sense of extra power. He could understand what was meant in old legends when it was said that a man had sold his soul to the devil. In fact, it seemed to Wheeler Bent that evil walked beside him as an ally, through the dark of this night.
They had come up to the top of the hill, very nearly, when he said in a loud voice: “Well, Jingo, I hope the whole deal will turn out ...”
They were stepping through the brush at that moment, and there was a sudden exclamation in a deep voice that seemed to rise out of the ground.
“Jingo! Look out!”
Jingo leaped to the side as he heard the exclamation, and as he sprang, there was the instant sheen of a gun in his hand. But behind the brush, several dim forms were rising. Something cut the air with a hissing whisper, and Wheeler Bent saw the noose of a rope—a movement rather than an image on the eye—fall over Jingo. The rope was drawn taut with a jerk that tumbled Jingo on the ground. The gun slithered away out of his hand among the leaves, and the dark forms hurled themselves on him.
Even in the tingling fear of that crisis, Wheeler Bent noticed that there was no outcry from Jingo. And that seemed strange. He would have expected the snarling of a fighting wildcat. Instead, there was only the noise of scuffling and the gasping and grunting of laboring men.
Then a perfect silence followed. Jingo lay on the ground, trussed hand and foot.
“That was easier than I figured it would be,” said the voice of Jake Rankin as he stood up again.
“Yeah,” another responded, “but if the Parson had yipped a quarter of a second sooner, it wouldn’t’ve been easier for a couple of us. We’d’ve been too dead to worry about how we w
ent out. That’s my way of seeing it.”
“Get the irons on him,” Rankin ordered.
One of the men stepped away.
“Give us a patch of light,” went on Rankin.
One of his helpers struck a match and kindled, with the little crackling flame, a handful of dry twigs. It burned up like a torch. The gentle wind leaned the fire to one side, and, in the utter silence, Wheeler Bent could hear the soft fluttering of the flame.
By that light, he saw the Parson, his immense body swathed in rope, his hands tied behind his back. To Jingo it seemed a wonder that ropes that could hold a horse were able to hold a man so powerful. He believed that he should be hearing a series of loud bursting noises as the ropes flew to pieces and the giant sprang up to battle.
A man with the pointed face of a rat and bright little hungry eyes came from down the hill, carrying a jingle of irons.
He kneeled beside Jingo and began to fit the irons on him.
And a sudden excess of joy rushed over the heart of Wheeler Bent, making him exclaim: “You’ve done a great job, Rankin! You’re a real man-catcher.”
“Now that I’ve got him, where do you want him delivered?” Rankin asked.
“Wait a moment, boys,” said the calm voice of Jingo. “Is Bent behind this job?”
“Behind it? He is it!” exclaimed the Parson. “The dirty pup hired Rankin to get us. They grabbed me here, from behind. I was watching the house, Jingo. I wouldn’t’ve thought of something coming from behind. And they dropped right onto me. They dropped out of the sky on me, and tied me up in a bundle.”
“And Wheeler Bent is the paymaster, eh?” Jingo said softly. “Oh, I’m a soft-headed fool.”
Bent came closer. His body was quivering. There had been electric fear in him, then triumph, and now he found himself wanting to enjoy sufferings.
“You see,” he said as he stood over Jingo, “what a fool I would have been to fight you?”
Jingo looked up at him with a smile such as Bent had never endured before from any man.
A savage impulse made Bent lean and strike the flat of his hand into the face of Jingo. The blow made a loud, popping sound. That sound and the feel of the flesh under his fingers sent long thrills through the body of Wheeler Bent.
He drew back his hand again, and suspended the weight of it, ready. He was thinking of what effect this scene would make upon Judge Tyrrel and upon the daughter of the judge, if they could look in on it. He enjoyed considering that effect. It seemed to Wheeler Bent that there was one simple solution to all the problems of life, and that was to have at one’s beck and call trustworthy men, savage, wolfish men, who obey because it is worth their while.
These were the things that were in the mind of Wheeler Bent. He was ready to strike the face of Jingo again, because the smile continued there. But his arm was caught by Jake Rankin.
And Rankin said: “Don’t sock that hombre while he’s down. He ain’t that kind. He’s a straight up-and-up fighter. Don’t poke him in the face again while his hands are tied.”
“I’ll do what I want with him. I’ve bought him and paid for him,” Wheeler Bent gasped, an uncontrollable anger brewing in him.
His own voice was new to him. It was huskier and pitched on a deeper note than of old.
“Yeah, and that’s all right,” Jake Rankin said. “But don’t sock him again when he’s down. I don’t like it.”
Jake Rankin did not like it? Well, in the future days, when the fortune of Judge Tyrrel was at his command, he would have men who would not dare to question him on how he lifted his hand.
But for the present?
There was something in Jake Rankin’s manner of speaking that made Wheeler Bent step back though an unsatisfied appetite was still raging in him. Strange to say, he felt the throb of a recurrent pain on the side of his jaw, where the fist of Jingo had gone home the night before. He knew, suddenly, that he could enjoy shredding away the body of this man to small bits and pieces. He wanted nothing in the world so much as a chance to wring one shriek of agony from Jingo. Above all, he saw in the eyes of Jingo a perfect understanding of him, and that maddened Wheeler Bent more than ever.
He could hardly hear the voice of Rankin, saying: “What’s to happen to this pair of hombres?”
“Take them ... somewhere ... No, hold them,” Wheeler Bent ordered. “I want ... to see Jingo ... again.”
Brutal words came to him, but he kept them back.
Rankin said: “Put him out of the way and hold him? You dunno what you’re talking about. But I understand this hombre, old son. I understand him like a book.” Rankin kept on nodding his head. “You can’t keep a pair like this. You can’t keep ’em long, I mean. They’ll find ways of busting loose. A pair like this ... you’d need ten men to watch ’em, day and night. You gotta do something else with ’em.”
“What do you mean?” Wheeler Bent snapped.
“Yeah ... and you know what I mean,” answered Rankin.
The cruel fury swelled in the throat of Wheeler Bent again.
“Then ... bash in their heads here and now!” he hissed.
Rankin looked at him curiously.
Boyd, the rat-faced man, and Oliver, the bulldog, drew close to the shoulders of their chief and stared at Wheeler Bent. They seemed to understand very intimately what they saw there.
“Bump off the pair of ’em right here,” said Rankin, “where we leave a lot of footprints and stuff like that behind us? No, Bent. I ain’t such a fool. We gotta take ’em to another place. And that’s where we’ll finish ’em. Got any good place in mind?”
And suddenly Wheeler Bent saw the place. He seemed to have known it from the first. Above the house, where the cañon of the creek narrowed, where the water gathered headway as through a flume, there were many great boulders strewn about, and the whole place looked as though it had been produced by an explosion that had rent through the base of the mountain and left vast fragments scattered here and there.
“Go up the cañon of the creek,” Wheeler Bent said. “And ... and hold them there for a while. Go there, will you? Up the cañon of the creek. You’ll come to a place where the water’ll chew up their bodies against the rocks. Chew them up so small that there won’t be a trace left afterward. There’ll be moonlight, a little later. You’ll be able to see what you’re doing. Take them there ... and hold them.”
“Why hold ’em?” Rankin asked, still staring curiously.
“Because I’ve got to go back to the house now, and explain that Jingo has gone away ... with the Parson. And I won’t be able to tell where they’ve gone.”
He laughed hoarsely.
“Hold them up the cañon, and when I get a chance, I’ll come up there and see the last of them. I’ve got to make sure. I’ve got to see what happens.”
Chapter
Twenty-One
Wheeler Bent went straight back to the house. He paused only an instant at the door and, when he entered the room, he was laughing.
“Where’s Jingo? Where’s the Parson?” Judge Tyrrel asked.
Wheeler Bent dissolved the heartiness of his laughter into a mere chuckling sound.
“There’s a wild pair for you, Judge Tyrrel,” he said. “When I got out there, I saw the Parson, looking as big as a house, and told him that you wanted him in for supper. ‘That’s all right,’ said the Parson, and pulled Jingo aside, muttering something at his ear. Jingo seemed excited. ‘Where are they?’ he asked. At that, the Parson whispered something else. ‘We’ll go and get them now. We’ll burn ’em up,’ Jingo said to him.
“And with that, he jumped a horse and simply sang out to me ... ‘Tell the judge that I forgot I had a previous engagement.’ And he and the Parson went galloping off. They’re as wild as a pair of hawks.”
“Hawks are not half as wild,” the judge commented. “Well, I was young myself, in the
old days, but I was never half as young as that. What do you think of it, Eugenia?”
The girl stood by the fireplace where the uneven flooding of the light threw continual shadows over her face. She said nothing at all in answer to her father but looked straight at Wheeler Bent as though she were thinking about him rather than seeing his face.
“What is it?” asked the judge. “Come now, Eugenia. What’s in that brain of yours?”
She shook her head.
“I was simply wondering,” she said, “what might be the point of Wheeler’s joke.”
“Wheeler’s joke?” Judge Tyrrel asked.
“Well,” she said, “I don’t think that Jingo is galloping anywhere, just now.”
“Great Scott, Gene,” Wheeler Bent said, “what do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I’m just doing a little wondering.”
Wheeler Bent was silent. He stared at the girl with half-closed eyes, for suddenly it came over him that Jingo was as like this girl as though he had been born her twin. Their coloring was different, but they had the same slender rounding beauty of body, the same look of swift-handed surety, the same sheen of the eyes, the smile that meant nothing but delight in life. Now that the idea had come to Wheeler Bent, by looking at the girl, he was able to conjure up the ghost of Jingo beside her. And he was mortally glad that the last hours of Jingo were now ending. Only a little time from this, and if he were seen, it would have to be his ghost, indeed.
* * * * *
Not long after this, a procession moved up the cañon of the creek—Jake Rankin riding first with his Winchester balanced across the bow of his saddle, and behind him came the Parson with his hands still lashed behind his back, his feet tied under the belly of his mare, and her lead rope fastened to Rankin’s saddle.
After them came Jingo with the irons on his wrists and on his ankles. Therefore he had to ride aside in his saddle, and he was very simply secured by means of a lariat whose slip noose was about his throat, the other end of the rope being fastened about the horn of his saddle. If he slipped from his place on the restless horse, he would be quickly throttled, and since his hands were not free, he had only his sense of balance to preserve him in the saddle. This had been the device of Jake Rankin.
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