by L. P. Holmes
Judith waited, almost breathlessly, for him to go on.
“When the word first reached me,” said John Ogden, “that a member of the gang responsible for the death of my son at the Round Mountain affair had been picked up, I knew an unholy satisfaction. I couldn’t cover country fast enough in my eagerness to face that man, to exact vengeance. I expected to face a typical renegade. Instead, I met your husband, a man liked and respected by those who knew him, a hard-working man of family and possessions, a man who looked me in the eye and admitted freely his part in the affair with a straightforward story of what had happened and how. Despite my desire to believe otherwise, I had to admit that there was no viciousness in Jerry Connell, that his part in the affair had been a very minor one and due entirely to the heedless recklessness of youth.”
Judith drew a deep breath. “That … that is true, Mister Ogden. Jerry had no hand in the death of your son. He did no shooting …”
“I know.” John Ogden’s glance came back to her and a grave smile softened the harsh lines of his face. “I heard of Jerry Connell’s family and I wanted to meet them. It is a very fine one. And I felt, after being the cause of so much anxiety and worry to you, Missus Connell, that I should be the one to bring you direct word that I am withdrawing all my charges against your husband, that I will not attempt to prosecute him in any way. I might add that I have enough influence to bring this about. As soon as I return to town, I am advising Judge Masterson to free your husband and send him home to you and the children. His future and his name are clear, Missus Connell.”
For a moment Judith could not think of a thing to say. Tears misted her eyes and with the sudden, warm impulsiveness that was a part of her, she stepped up to John Ogden and caught one of his hands in both of hers.
“Oh … thank you,” she choked. “You don’t … you can’t know … what this means …”
“I think I do, Missus Connell. It also means that I’m a better man than I suspected, and happier now than I’ve been in a long, long time. I’ve regained something that I had lost. Do you mind if I have a look at what’s in that cradle yonder, and then, perhaps, sit down and become acquainted with these two little chaps?” He looked down at the twins and smiled.
John Ogden thought that the look Judith gave him through her tears was one of the loveliest things he had ever seen.
“Do I mind?” she cried softly. “Do I mind …?”
Still holding his hand, she led him over to the cradle.
* * * * *
In town, the stage from the south came jolting and creaking in, pausing just long enough in front of By Tellifer’s store to toss down a thin mailbag, before going on up to the hotel. Sheriff Cole Ashabaugh, having just stepped out of Mize Callan’s Empire House bar, spun a well-chewed cigar butt into the dust of the street, and then went along to the store, arriving there just as By Tellifer slid the meager contents of the mailbag out onto his counter top. “Anything of interest, By?” asked Ashabaugh.
Tellifer ran through the mail quickly, his moving lips spelling out the addresses. He held out an envelope. “Somethin’ for Judge Masterson. You can take it up to him if you’re goin’ that way.”
Ashabaugh glanced at the postmark. It read: Round Mountain, New Mexico.
Judge Masterson was in his office, pouring over a legal tome. “From Round Mountain, Judge,” said Ashabaugh as he handed the letter across the desk. “But not a word from Dave Wall, though.”
Using precision and an oversize pair of scissors, Judge Masterson snipped a thin sliver of paper off the end of the envelope, pulled out the enclosure, and glanced swiftly through it. He laid it slowly down on the desk.
“A demand for the immediate extradition of Jerry Connell, Sheriff … backed by the requisite authority. We’ve used up all the time we could. I guess this is it.” The judge sounded sober and a little tired.
Cole Ashabaugh took a couple of turns up and down the office, then paused at the window, looking out. “Been afraid of it all along,” he said gruffly. “It was expecting too much that we’d locate this Big George Yearly in time to do any good. So I guess my fine theory wasn’t so good, after all. I know that Dave Wall has done his best, but he hasn’t even come up with Luke Lilavelt yet. If he had, we’d have known about it by this time. So Jerry will have to go, and that’s going to be rough all around … damned rough.”
“I’ll see that he has good legal counsel,” said the judge. “We’ll fight John Ogden to the last breath, and on his own ground.”
Outside, the sun had gone down. The dust of the street seemed to have turned gray. For that matter, thought Cole Ashabaugh savagely, the whole world had turned gray and dismal. He started to turn away from the window, stopped, stared. A low exclamation broke from him.
Judge Masterson was reading over the recently arrived item of correspondence again. His head jerked up. “What is it, Sheriff?”
“Out there … coming up the street. It’s Dave Wall, and he’s got a man with him. But it’s not Luke Lilavelt.”
Cole Ashabaugh left at a run and reached his own office just as Dave Wall reined to a halt in front of it. Wall’s face was dark with sun and unshaven whiskers, craggy and gaunt from fatigue. His eyes were deeply sunken, gritty from loss of sleep.
The man he had with him was tied to the saddle, wrists to the horn, ankles to the cinch rings. A big man who had once been round with fat, but who seemed to have shriveled in some strange way so that flesh lay in folds and sags on him. Particularly were his jowls pouched and baggy and a livid bruise still banded his throat. In fleshy pits the man’s eyes glittered with a sullen ferocity, a trapped wildness.
Almost stupidly, Ashabaugh blurted: “Who in hell is that, Dave?”
Wall stepped from his saddle as though the stiffness of a thousand years rode him. “That,” he said quietly, “is Big George Yearly. Your hunch was right, Cole.”
Words broke from the prisoner with a guttural thickness, as though his vocal cords were rusty from long disuse. “He’s crazy … crazy as hell. My name is Dell … Hippo Dell. I demand …!”
“Don’t demand too much, Yearly,” cut in Dave Wall. “You’ll get plenty as it is. Let’s get him inside and out of sight, Cole. Coming in across the desert I did some thinking of my own. Maybe we can make a trade, a trade with Mister John Ogden, if we don’t show our hole card too soon.”
They untied the big man, hustled him inside. Cole Ashabaugh got a lamp going and its glow fought back the thickening twilight gloom in the room. With the lamp burning to his satisfaction, Ashabaugh turned to Dave Wall. “What about Luke Lilavelt? You find him?”
Wall was silent for a moment, then shrugged. “I found him. He’s dead. If you could get Judge Masterson down here, I’ll give you the whole story.”
“That,” said Ashabaugh, “I can do, too.” He went out, hurrying.
Wall pushed a chair toward his prisoner, settled back in another one himself, blinking owlishly at the lamp. He wondered at his lack of feeling. He should, he realized, feel all the uplift of a great exultation over this, for it meant the answers to so many things. But he didn’t feel any uplift at all. He felt nothing more than the wish that he could crawl off in some quiet corner somewhere and sleep for a month. So much could a grinding fatigue blunt a man’s sensibility. Mechanically he got out tobacco and papers and built a smoke. That didn’t bring any satisfaction, either. All his senses seemed to have dried up in him, including the one of taste. He could feel the prisoner watching him, with a black and steady hatred.
In his office up street, Judge Masterson stared at Cole Ashabaugh. “You mean to say, Sheriff, that Dave Wall has actually brought in Big George Yearly?”
“So he claims,” said Ashabaugh. “He wants you to hear the story, Judge.”
“And I want to hear it. This is more than fortuitous. It borders on the incredible.”
As they hurried along the street, a
buckboard came rolling, with John Ogden driving. It went along to the livery barn and pulled up there.
Judge Masterson tipped his head toward Ogden. “If Wall is correct in this, Sheriff, it means that that man’s cup of vengeance is filled to overflowing.”
They turned in at Ashabaugh’s office. Dave Wall, rousing from his apathy of weariness, pulled himself to his feet. Judge Masterson took a look at the prisoner and then turned to Wall. “Sheriff Ashabaugh tells me you bring startling news, Mister Wall?”
“Yes,” said Wall quietly. “I hope it will straighten things out for us. We should be able to wangle a trade with John Ogden.”
“I hope so,” said the judge, “for just a few minutes I ago I received a communication that just about forces my hand with Jerry Connell.”
A step sounded at the office door. It was John Ogden. He came in, tall and grave of face. “I don’t want to intrude on something that is no concern of mine, gentlemen,” he said. “But I saw you turn in here, Judge Masterson, and if you’ll spare me time for a word or two, it will save me bothering you later.”
The judge looked at him sternly. “Very well. What is it?”
“I have just returned from the Connell Ranch. I thought you might like to know that I have reconsidered. I am not going to push my demand for the extradition of Jerry Connell, nor will I move to prosecute him in any way. I have come to realize that bringing further unhappiness to him and his family would bring no satisfaction at all to me. I have spoken to Missus Connell, spent an hour with her and her children. They deserve much more than the empty vengeance of a tired and bitter man. I recommend that Jerry Connell be immediately released from custody and sent back to his family.”
For a long moment the room was very still. After all they had feared from John Ogden, this quiet, sincere statement left Dave Wall, the judge, and Cole Ashabaugh momentarily stunned. Judge Masterson recovered first. A warm smile broke across his fine face and he stepped quickly over to Ogden, hand outstretched.
“I would like to congratulate you, sir … and shake your hand. I believe I can say with all truthfulness that you’ll now find a happiness you have long missed.”
John Ogden smiled as they struck hands. “I have already found it. Perhaps I might have felt differently if Connell was directly responsible for the death of my son. But I am thoroughly convinced now that he was not. The man truly responsible is still at large, somewhere.”
Dave Wall cleared his throat. “We have a surprise for you, Mister Ogden. We are prepared to deliver that man to you.”
John Ogden reared his head and shoulders to that tall erectness, and his eyes grew piercing. “You mean … you know the whereabouts of Big George Yearly?”
Wall pointed. “There he sits.”
Ogden turned and looked at Hippo Dell. The muscles of Ogden’s lean jaws crawled into little knots of tension. Under the impact of Ogden’s hard stare, Hippo’s sullen glowering showed a faint break. He blurted words he’d already uttered: “He’s crazy. My name is Dell!”
Ogden turned to Wall again. “You have proof?”
“I think so. See what you think.” Wall pinched out the butt of his cigarette and began speaking, moving slowly and with care, to keep everything in sequence. He sketched Cole Ashabaugh’s theory as to how Luke Lilavelt had managed to get hold of the Wanted dodger on Jerry Connell, and how Lilavelt had used the dodger as a club over him. “We hoped that by locating Lilavelt and making him talk, we could pick up the trail of Big George Yearly,” he explained. “So I set out to run down Lilavelt.”
He told of the trails he had ridden in this effort and where they had led him. He told of how through Wind River, the old cook at the Pinnacle spread, he had finally got a fairly direct line on how to locate Lilavelt.
“Wind River gave me the right steer, all right. The man everybody knew as Hippo Dell did show up in Crater City, hoping to get word from Hub Magley that one of Lilavelt’s gunfighters had done my business for me. I trailed Dell into the desert and he led me to Lilavelt.”
Wall told of crawling up through the night to the rim of the desert wash above Lilavelt’s camp. He told of the words that passed between Lilavelt and Hippo Dell.
“I couldn’t believe my ears at first when I heard Lilavelt call this fellow I’d known as Dell by another name, by the tag that made him George Yearly. They quarreled over that. Yearly was savage about it. He warned Lilavelt never to name him so again. He said that the name George Yearly was done with, forgotten … and that only Hippo Dell remained.” Wall paused, rubbed a hand across his bristly jaw. “Well, I heard enough. It all tied in … it all made sense … it supplied all the missing parts. So then it was up to me to get Yearly back here … to Basin. And alive. So I waited it out, until they’d gone to sleep. Then I tried to sneak in. Lilavelt woke up, yelled an alarm, started shooting. I shot back. I killed Lilavelt. Then I tackled Yearly before he could get clear of his blankets. I managed to get the best of him and … there he is.”
While Wall had been speaking, some of the stolidity had gone out of Hippo Dell. He stirred restlessly on his chair and Cole Ashabaugh, drifting a little nearer the door, watched him intently. John Ogden and Judge Masterson were also staring at Hippo.
“Damnedest mess of lies I ever listened to,” blurted Hippo. “I tell you, my name is Hippo Dell. Just because Wall claims different doesn’t make it so.”
“You’ve a point there,” said Judge Masterson quietly. “Er … you admit, however, that you and Lilavelt did have this camp in the desert?”
“Sure we did. That was Lilavelt’s idea. He was afraid of Wall, for Wall had made his brag that he intended to kill Lilavelt. Me, I just worked for Lilavelt. If he wanted to hide out in the desert, that was his business.”
“But Lilavelt was hoping to get word from this Hub Magley to the effect that some Window Sash hand had managed to kill Wall?” probed the Judge.
“Sure he was. Knowing that Wall was out to get him, you couldn’t blame Lilavelt for trying to see that somebody got Wall first. Far as I was concerned, it was all right with me to play messenger boy. I was drawing wages from Lilavelt, and if I hadn’t been on that job, I’d have been working on another for him somewhere else.”
“What is your version of what took place out at that desert camp?”
“I’d been into Crater City for some grub and to see if there was any word from Hub Magley,” said Hippo. “When I got back to camp, Lilavelt was some worried because there’d been no word from Magley. I went ahead and cooked supper. Then me and Lilavelt sat around and smoked for a while. We turned in a little later. Next thing I knew a shot woke me up. Right after that this Wall hombre landed on me and tried to choke me to death. He didn’t … quite. But he tied me up and brought me in here, telling me I was a guy named Big George Yearly. Hell, I don’t even know what it’s all about. Except that Wall’s cooked up some crazy scheme to cover up the fact that he killed Luke Lilavelt while he lay asleep. Shot him to death in his blankets without giving Lilavelt a chance.”
John Ogden, a silent and expressionless listener, turned to Dave Wall. “I’m forming no opinions, jumping at no conclusions. But after coming this far and in light of the change that has taken place within me, I want to be very sure in this matter. I’m questioning no one’s word. But it does seem some further burden of proof exists in this matter, Mister Wall.”
“I think that can be supplied,” Wall assured. “Jerry Connell hasn’t laid eyes on Big George Yearly since the night of that affair at Round Mountain, years ago. He has no idea that I just rode in with that man. Cole, go bring Jerry in. Don’t say a word to him. Nobody will say a word to him. Just bring him in and let him look around. Go ahead, Cole … I’ll keep an eye on our friend yonder.”
Cole Ashabaugh nodded and went along the hall that led from the rear of the office to the jail. Dave Wall built another cigarette. Judge Masterson and John Ogden moved over against
the side of the room, stood quietly.
Jerry came in, blinking against the lamplight. He’d lost weight and his face was drawn. He saw Dave Wall and exclaimed: “Dave! Where you been? What …?”
Jerry broke off abruptly. His anxious glance, moving past Wall, had touched the big, gross figure of Hippo Dell and Hippo seemed to crouch, like a burly animal ready to spring. Jerry’s glance, full upon Hippo now, held and held. His lips moved, but no sound came forth at first. But finally words did come, slowly and spaced, as though from the lips of a man completely dazed. “Big George Yearly. Big … George … Yearly …”
“I guess,” said John Ogden harshly, “I guess that’s it.”
Chapter Twelve
Half an hour later, Dave Wall, Judge Masterson, and Cole Ashabaugh were alone in the sheriff’s office. Jerry Connell, hardly able to believe the benevolent turn that fortune had taken, was on his way home. John Ogden had gone over to the hotel. Big George Yearly was securely locked in the same cell that had held Jerry Connell.
Judge Masterson, searching his pockets fruitlessly for a pipe that he’d left on his own desk, accepted a cheroot from Cole Ashabaugh and lit up. Dave Wall spoke wearily.
“One last angle to be cleared up.” He looked at the sheriff. “I promised you, Cole, that I’d bring Luke Lilavelt in alive. Instead, I killed him. Where does that leave me?”
Ashabaugh cleared his throat, stepped to the open door, and spat out into the darkness. “Didn’t have any choice, did you?” he answered gruffly. “Lilavelt threw the first shot, didn’t he? Well then, do you think I’d expect you to be fool enough to stand there and let him keep shooting until he made one good? Judge, what do you think?”
“Clearly a case of self-defense,” said the judge crisply. “Besides, Lilavelt had put out orders to his riders that they were to get you at first chance, hadn’t he? I see no cause for the slightest concern on your part, Mister Wall.”
“Thanks,” said Wall bleakly. “But I’ll probably know concern for a long time. For it marks the dark end of a dark trail. I’ve a lot of forgetting to do.”