by Max Brand
He dismounted, led the horse, trailing and stumbling behind him for a short distance into the woods, tethered it there, and then went at full speed up the hillside.
A mountain lion would hardly have climbed faster than he did, leaping over rocks, almost always in fast motion, no matter what the grade he was managing. As he worked, his eyes were still shining, and his face was bright.
He had gone on for some distance before he began to call—“Oliver Fenton!”—cupping his hands so as to direct the sound straighter and farther before him. Again, after he had run ahead, he paused and shouted once more: “Oliver Fenton!”
He got no answer out of the wilderness, but he hardly expected one; he simply wanted to send a warning of his coming, so that the hunted father of the girl would not slink away at the noise of footsteps.
At last, breaking into the clearing, he swept it with a glance, and shouted for the final time, with all his might: “Oliver Fenton!”
He was silent, then, straining his ear to distinguish an answer, perhaps far away. Once he thought that he heard a sound, but he could not be sure whether it was a human voice coming toward him, or some noise among the trees, for a wind had risen and was bending them slowly from side to side.
It was a crossing of his plans and his hopes that he had not counted on, and he snapped his slender fingers with annoyance. Everything depended upon his ability, he felt, to get to the spot in time to speak with the fugitive, warn him of the coming of the sheriff, warn him, above all, of the treachery of Ben Thomas. And now, having arrived at the proper place, he found that his quarry was gone. He groaned impotently.
There was nothing for it, however. He drew back among the trees, found a patch of thick brush, and behind that he crouched, waiting.
A full half hour went slowly and wretchedly by. He heard not a single sound of approach, but suddenly a smallish form was standing in the clearing where, a moment before, there had been nothing. It was Sam Hollis, beyond a doubt. It amused the watcher as much as it caused him anxiety to watch the prowling movements of the sheriff. He admired the way Sam Hollis handled himself. As he moved, so would Speedy have done under similar circumstances, with the same catlike silence, the same deftness of foot, the same uncanny wariness of ear and eye, for always Hollis was probing the silence and the shadows of the trees about him while he stepped here and there, never stepping where the print of his foot would remain upon the ground or even upon the cushion of pine needles, but always from rock to rock, where he could be reasonably sure that only a microscope would betray the fact that he had come and gone.
Now he was stooping beside the runlet of water; now he had broken out a bit of earth from the bank; now he was washing it in the hollow of his hand. When he arose, it was with a sudden stiffening of his body, and Speedy saw that the face of the man had become hard and cold.
That was what the sight of the gold would always do. Murder was in the air of that quiet little clearing, into which the rays of the sun sifted down so pleasantly, and left little pools and patches and charming embroideries of light upon the ground.
The sheriff drew back and disappeared. There was nothing to see, nothing to hear—only the burbling of the water as it ran with a sound like a secret whisper and the occasional murmur of the wind in the tops of the trees. Then a squirrel came out and squatted in a patch of sunshine, sitting up, examining something that it held in its little black claws. It remained for only a moment, turning its head with bird-like movements from side to side. Then, suddenly, it scooted away, made a gray streak up the side of a pine tree, and was presently chattering harshly far up among the branches.
Then big Oliver Fenton came slowly out into the clearing and looked about him with a frown. “Funny damn’ thing,” he said aloud. “I kind of thought that somebody was hollering my name around about in here. Some man who . . .” His voice trailed away to join his silent thoughts.
Speedy, tiger-keen with eagerness and anxiety, continued a movement that he had begun as soon as the fugitive from justice appeared. He had hoped, if Fenton came down to the clearing, he might pass close to the spot where he was lying and receive the timely warning. But, in fact, he had come in on the farther side of the clearing and was closer to the place where the sheriff had disappeared.
So Speedy slid out from the patch of brush, where he was securely hidden, and approached the clearing little by little, gliding swiftly from the protection of one tree to another, as though every open glimpse of the little brook were a flight of arrows driven at him. He was almost at the edge of the clearing when the sheriff stepped out from a tree behind Fenton, with a leveled revolver in his hand. Speedy noted that the gun was held low, hardly more than hip high, and thrusting out half the length of the curving arm. That was the way an expert always handled his weapons in this part of the world.
For the thousandth time in his wild young life, Speedy wished that there were a gun under his coat. But that wish was one that he would never gratify. He knew his own nature too well, and the temptations that come from carrying human lives within the crook of a forefinger.
The sheriff had not spoken a word, had made no move that was audible, when Fenton, as it seemed, became conscious of an unseen danger. With a stifled exclamation, he whirled about, saw the man and the gun, and reached for his own weapon.
“Stop!” shouted Speedy.
That unexpected, ringing call out of the woods caused both the sheriff and Fenton to glance to the side. They saw nothing. Speedy had flattened himself out close to the ground, behind a small, spreading shrub that sheltered him fairly well from view while it enabled him to peer out at the pair in the clearing.
“I’ve got you covered, Hollis,” said Speedy. “And I’ll put a rifle bullet through the middle of you, if you try to pot him. Fenton, don’t be a fool. Keep your hand off your gun. Don’t you see that he has the drop on you?”
Oliver Fenton, there was no doubt, would never have submitted to the silent pressure of that leveled gun. He had risked his life too many times in the past three years to surrender himself to the law without a fight, no matter against what desperate odds.
But now that voice that called from the near distance, and seemed to come from a friend, stopped him, because it gave him another hope.
“Whoever you be that’s layin’ up back in there, you’re interferin’ with the law,” said the sheriff. “D’you know that? Or do you think that I’m a holdup artist, maybe?”
“You’re Sheriff Sam Hollis and a good man with your hands,” said Speedy. “But the point is that you’ve come for the wrong man.”
“I’ve come for Oliver Fenton, and this is him,” said the sheriff.
“Steady, Fenton,” cautioned Speedy as the big man seemed about to go for a gun again. “Steady, there, partner, and we’ll work this out without any gunplay.”
Chapter 10
The sheriff had come, without question, to a full halt, and stood in an utter quandary while Speedy commanded briefly: “All right, Fenton. Back up into the woods, will you, and keep going for a while. I’ll take care of the sheriff.”
Fenton nodded, and, stepping back, his face still toward the man of the law, he found sanctuary within the forest.
“Now, partner,” said the sheriff, “what’s the end of your play? You’ve got the drop on me, and I ain’t fool enough to play ducks and drakes with a rifle that I can’t even see.”
“Wait a minute,” urged Speedy. “I’ve got to think it over for a moment.”
Even as he spoke, he was drifting away to the left, and, once behind the trunk of one of the great pines, he worked rapidly and silently away through the forest gloom, making a swift semicircle that had a radius of a furlong, at least.
Behind him, he heard the sheriff speak again, but, now that he was away from the place, the sheriff, for an instant, was out of his picture and he wanted to see Sam Hollis no more. What was of a keener interest to him was the shadowy form that presently he spotted before him, moving quietly forward among h
e trees. That was big Oliver Fenton, and, coming close up behind, Speedy spoke.
Fenton whirled, with gun ready, hip-high; Speedy raised his hands obediently in the air.
“It’s all right, Fenton,” he said. “You don’t need a gun for me.”
A change came in the savage face of Fenton. “You’re the fellow that covered the sheriff,” he muttered. “And a good thing for me that you were there, but what brought you? Where’s your rifle?”
“My rifle was a bit of bluff. It was dirty work that brought me, Fenton.”
“Whose work?”
“That of Ben Thomas.”
Fenton scowled. “You’ve done me a good turn, lad,” he said. “Don’t be undoing it by running down the whitest man on earth. He’s as true as steel.”
His eyes burned as he brought out his confession of faith, but the boy shook his head.
“Listen to facts, Fenton. I was lying up in a pine tree, yonder, when you and your girl and Thomas were talking together.”
“You were what?” exclaimed Fenton.
“You try to believe me. I met the two of ’em at Council Flat, and I didn’t like the look of Ben Thomas. It was intuition, if you want to call it that. I talked to him, and my ears liked him even less than my intuition.”
“I don’t understand what you’re driving at,” said Fenton, “but, man, Ben Thomas has been the best friend and the truest man that ever . . .”
“That ever cut a friend’s throat, eh?” finished off Speedy. “When I heard that they were heading for
Trout Lake, I came here ahead of ’em. . . . I was waiting for ’em, and I trailed ’em out of the town. I worked up the valley behind them, and, when I got their line from the black rocks, I cut ahead and spotted you in the clearing. It was no trick to slide up the back side of a pine tree and lie out on a branch over your head.”
“No trick for a wildcat . . . I never saw the man that could do it, though,” answered Fenton. “But go ahead.”
“Why, I saw the evil in the face of Thomas, when he got the gold out of the pan. He looked up, and I looked down, and there was murder in him, plain to see. But you and your girl were too much taken up with one another to watch him. I followed them back to town. I stole the claim papers out of the pocket of Thomas and watched him go down the street and turn in at the office of Sheriff Sam Hollis.”
“Ha?” cried Fenton. His face turned gray as he listened, and his eyes stared.
“That’s what I saw him do,” said the boy, “and any child could have guessed, from that point, why he wanted the sheriff. He had left the girl in the hotel. He’d send the sheriff for you and he’d file the claims in his own name. Consequences could go hang. Is that a clear story?”
“If there’s no truth and loyalty in Ben Thomas,” said the other, “there’s no loyalty or truth in the whole world.”
“There’s not much of it, I suppose,” said Speedy. “When a fellow’s down, everybody takes a kick at his face.”
“Ben Thomas,” muttered Fenton. “I’ve bunked with him, ridden herd with him, nursed his children, lent him money, fought his enemies, loved his friends, and now you try to tell me that he’s a crooked hound. I won’t believe you.”
“Then, why else am I here?” Speedy asked.
“I don’t know. You’re a demon, for all I can make out.”
“It was gunplay, back there in the clearing,” pointed out Speedy. “You were going for your gun while Hollis had the drop on you, and he’s not the man to miss that sort of a shot.”
“I’d be on my back, dead,” agreed the other. “Yes, and I know it. But what was it that dragged you into
this?”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Speedy. “It’s a game that I like. That’s all that I can say. But here’s another point. When I saw Thomas go into the sheriff’s office, I went to the hotel again, persuaded your daughter that Thomas had sent me back there after her because he had to be busy elsewhere, and got her to the bureau to file the claim in her own name alone.” He shrugged his shoulders as he added: “I left her waiting in line while I came sloping up the valley and found you here.”
“You did all this for your own pleasure?” demanded the other grimly.
“Never mind why I’m doing it. I’ve told the yarn for you up to date. How’ll you play it from this point on?”
“I’ll get to Ben Thomas if I have to walk through fire every step of the way. When I see him, I’ll get the truth out of him, or . . .”
“Or kill him, eh?” asked the boy, pressing the point.
“If he’s done what you say, he’s a Judas.”
“You’d kill him, eh?” Speedy repeated his question.
“What else is he fit for but killing?”
“That puts two ropes around your neck,” said Speedy. “Listen to me, will you?”
“Of course, I’ll listen,” said Fenton.
“You’re to keep your hands from Ben Thomas. If you meet him, as you’re likely to before long, you’re to smile in his face. Will you do as I ask?”
“I’d rather tear out his heart.”
“And hang for it,” the youngster reminded him.
“I’m to hang for one man already. What’s the difference if I hang for two?”
“Because you didn’t kill Dodson,” said the boy.
“Ah, didn’t I?” muttered the other. “And who was it did kill him, then?”
“Slade Bennett.”
“Slade Bennett!” cried Fenton, throwing up one hand before his face as though a light had blinded him with the words. “Slade Bennett? That scoundrel?
Was it him?”
“It was Bennett, I think,” said the boy. “I remember the story of that killing, now. Dodson was a neighbor of yours. There was bad blood between you. He was going downhill, losing money, mortgaged up to the eyes. He’d been drinking and threatening you in a saloon in town. When you heard of that, you saddled your horse and rode away from your place, with your wife and your girl begging you to stay at home. That’s the story that was told, at least. You came back late that night. The next morning, you were arrested. Dodson had been found dead inside his house, from a knife wound in the throat. The sign of your horse was traced straight up to Dodson’s door. Besides, Slade Bennett swore that he’d ridden by, heard voices shouting in the cabin, then a quick silence and the noise of a horse galloping away. That was what made the case against you.”
“That was the case.” The rancher nodded. “And what makes you think that I didn’t kill Dodson, when killing was just what he needed?”
“Nobody needs killing,” Speedy said with a shrug of his shoulders.
“What makes you sure that I didn’t kill Dodson?” insisted the rancher.
“The look of you tells me that,” said the boy. “You’re ready and handy enough with a gun, but you wouldn’t use a knife on another man.”
“And what makes you think that Slade Bennett did the job?”
“Because Slade would use a knife. He’d used one before. And because he was the man who swears that he heard Dodson name you as the killer. Did Bennett have anything against you before that?”
“Not that I know of.”
“He was waiting to see Dodson about something or other,” said the boy. “He listened while you and Dodson had your talk and your quarrel. When you rode away, he stepped in, finished his man, and gave you the credit. That’s the story, as I see it.”
Fenton, breathing hard, stared for a long moment at the smaller man before he answered, with a nodding of his head: “Seems to me like I see it all lined out. And you’re right. You’re dead right. Slade Bennett did the trick.”
“You can be freed from any crime that you didn’t commit,” said the boy. “But if you kill Ben Thomas, it’s murder, no matter what the provocation. You have something besides yourself to think about. You have Jessica, eh?”
“What’s she to you?” asked Fenton with a start.
“A fine girl, a straight shooter, and a thoroughbred,�
� said Speedy calmly, “and nothing else in the world.”
“Nothing else?” asked Fenton, narrowing his eyes.
“Nothing else,” Speedy answered deliberately. “Now, I want to know what you’ll do. Will you go to Trout Lake and make a fool of yourself on the trail of Ben Thomas, or will you stay somewhere up here in the woods?”
“I’ll stay here,” said the fugitive. “That is, I’ll stay
here if I can. But Hollis will have out a hundred men to comb the woods for me.”
“A thousand couldn’t find you, if you take to the trees, or to the ground. Stay where I can find you.”
Fenton rubbed his knuckles across his forehead. “Man,” he said, “you seem to have me in your pocket. I’d like to know your name.”
“I have a lot of names,” said the boy. “More names than suits of clothes. But a good many people call me Speedy.”
“Speedy?” exclaimed the other. And then he threw back his head and laughed softly. “I might have guessed, by the wildcat ways of you,” he said. “I’ve heard of you, Speedy. Mostly I’ve thought that the yarns they tell about you are just fireside lies. But now I guess they’re true. Only, you must be his younger brother, not Speedy himself. The Speedy I’ve heard about must be forty years old. You haven’t lived enough years to do all the things that Speedy has done.”
“Why, man,” said Speedy, “I haven’t done a great deal. But when a fellow gets gossiped about, the gossip multiplies everything by ten. It’s fixed, then, Fenton? You stay put, up here.”
“I stay put,” agreed Fenton. “If you’d told me your name at first, I wouldn’t have argued so much. Speedy, eh?” He stared with increasing wonder at the youth.
Speedy brushed this complimentary wonder away, remarking: “If you see Ben Thomas, be friendly with him?”