“I have brought this guitar to the prisoner,” she continued. “I understand he enjoys singing, and we think it cruel and inhuman that he be forced to listen to that banging and hammering while they build a gallows on which to hang him. It is cruel torture.”
Jones was embarrassed. “He don’t mind, ma’am,” he protested. “Leo, he’s—”
“May I take this instrument to him, Sheriff Jones?” Her voice was cold. “Or do you want to examine me? Do you think I might be smuggling files, too?”
Sheriff Jones was embarrassed. The very idea of laying a hand on Ruth Hadlin, the daughter of old Judge Emory Hadlin, gave him cold shivers.
“No, no, ma’am! Of course not.” He gestured toward the cells. “Just you give it to him, ma’am! I’m sorry. I—”
“Thank you, Sheriff.” Ruth swept by him and up to the cell.
“Young man,”—her voice was clear—“I understand that you play a guitar, so I have brought you this one. I hope the music that you get out of it will make your heart free.”
Leo looked startled, and he took the guitar through the bars. “Thank you, Miss Hadlin,” he said politely. “I wish—” He broke off, his face a little flushed. “I wish you didn’t have to see me in here. You see, I didn’t—I never killed those men. I’d like you to believe that.”
“What I believe,” Ruth said sweetly, “is of no importance. The music from the guitar will be pleasant for you, if played in private.” She turned abruptly and walked out, and she went by Sheriff Jones like a pay-car past a tramp.
Mary told it afterwards, and Mary said that Leo plunked a string on that guitar and then he looked at it, funnylike. “It sure didn’t sound right,” Mary said. I shouldn’t wonder.
That was late Monday afternoon. By sundown there was maybe two hundred people camped around town waiting for the big hanging next afternoon. Old Pap, he wasn’t around, nor was Editor Chafee. Some said that when they left the judge’s house, the judge himself was riding with them.
When next I come across Old Pap, he was standing on the corner looking at that gallows. That was near the jail, and from the window Leo could see us.
“Folks would be mighty upset if they missed their hanging, Pap,” Leo said.
“They won’t!” Pap was mighty short and gruff. “They’ll git their hanging, and don’t you forget it.”
That gallows looked mighty ghostly standing there in the twilight, and it didn’t make me feel no better. Leo, well, he always seemed a right nice feller. Of course, he had rustled a few head, but I wouldn’t want to take no oath I hadn’t, nor Old Pap, nor most of us. Leo, he was just a young hellion, that was all.
Even when he stuck up those stages he just done it for drinking money. Not that I’m saying it’s right, because I know it ain’t, but them days and times, folks excused a lot of a young man who was full of ginger, long as he didn’t hurt nobody and was man enough.
Especially of Leo’s sort. If you was in trouble you just let him know. Come prairie fire, flood, stampede, or whatever, Leo was your man. No hour was too late, no job too miserable for him to lend a hand. And never take a dime for it.
So we all went to bed, and the last thing Leo said was, “I never did cotton to no rope necktie. I don’t figure it’s becoming.”
“Wait’ll tomorry,” Old Pap said.
THE SUN WAS NO MORE than up before the lid blew off the town. Somebody yelled and folks came a-running. I slid into my pants and scrambled outside. The crowd was streaming toward the Plaza and I run down there with ’em. The bars was out of the jail window, filed off clean as you’d wish, then bent back out of the way. Tied to one of them was a sheet of paper. It was a note:
“Sorry I couldn’t wait, but I don’t think you folks want me hanging around here, anyway.”
Mary Ryan was there by the jail. She had tears in her eyes but she looked pleased as a polecat in a henhouse, too. Sheriff Jones, he took on something fierce.
“Figured she was talking poetry,” he said angrily. “She told him the music he’d get out of that guitar would make his heart free. No wonder Mary wouldn’t tell me what became of the other two files.”
One big bearded man with hard eyes stared at the sheriff with a speculative eye. “What about the hanging?” he demanded. “We drove fifty mile to see a hanging.”
Editor Tom Chafee, Judge Emory Hadlin, and Old Pap came up around them. They looked across the little circle at Jones.
“Ruth figured it right,” the judge said. “Only six shotguns in town. My two shotguns, and by the dust of the cases you can see they’d not been disturbed; Editor Chafee’s, which hadn’t been cleaned in months; Old Pap’s was broke, and Mitch had his with him. That leaves just one more shotgun.”
Everybody just stood there, taking it all in and doing some figuring. Suppose that twenty thousand never left the bank? Or suppose it did leave and it was recovered by the man sending it? His debt would be paid and he would still have the money, and a young scamp like Leo Carver’d be blamed for it all.
Of course, Leo was gone. Some folks said he rode that big black Ruth Hadlin bought. What happened to that horse we never did know, because Ruth was gone, too, and her gray mare.
The trail headed west, the trail they left, and somebody living on the edge of town swore he heard two voices singing something about being bound for Californy.
We figured the judge would about burst a gasket, but he was a most surprising man. Something was said about it by somebody and all he did was smile a little.
“Many’s a thoroughbred,” he said, “was a frisky colt. Once they get the bridle on ’em, they straighten out. As far as that goes,” he added, “every blue-blooded family can use a little red blood!”
So everybody was happy. We celebrated mighty big. I reckon the biggest in the history of Canyon Gap. O’Brien’s German band played, and everybody had plenty to eat and drink.
The folks that came for the hanging wasn’t disappointed, either. They got what they wanted. They got their hanging, all right. Maybe it wasn’t a legal hanging, but it was sure satisfactory.
We hung Mort Lewand.
Barney Takes a Hand
Blinding white sun simmered above the thick, flourlike dust of the road, and the ragged mesquite beside the trail was gray with that same dust. Between the ranch and the distant purple hills, there was nothing but endless flats and sagebrush, dusty and dancing with heat waves.
Tess Bayeux stood in the doorway and shaded her eyes against the sun. The road was empty, empty to the horizon beyond which lay the little cow town of Black Mesa.
With a little sigh of hopelessness, she turned away. It was too soon. Even if Rex Tilden had received her note and decided to come, he could never come so quickly.
After an hour, during which she forced herself not to look even once, she returned to the door. The road was still empty, only white dust and heat. Then her eyes turned the other way, and she looked out across the desert, out to where the road dwindled off to a miserable trail into the badlands where nothing lived. For an instant then, she thought the heat played tricks with her eyes, for between her and the distant cliffs was a tiny figure.
Struck by curiosity, she stood in the doorway, watching. She was a slender girl with a pert, impudent little nose above a friendly mouth and lips that laughed when her eyes did.
She was still there, much later, when the figure took shape and became a man. The man wore no hat. His shaggy black hair was white with dust, his heavy woolen shirt was open at the neck, and his hairy chest was also dusty.
The man’s face was unshaven, and his jaw was heavy, almost brutal under the beard and dust.
The jeans he wore were strange to the cow country, and his feet wore the ragged remains of what had been sneakers. His jeans were belted with a wide leather belt, curiously carved.
He wore no gun.
Several times the man staggered, and finally, when he turned from the road and stopped at the gate, he grasped the top with his big hands and stared at T
ess Bayeux.
For a long time he stared while she tried to find words, and then one of the big hands dropped and he fumbled for the latch. He came through the gate and closed it behind him. It was a small thing, yet in his condition it told her something.
THE MAN CAME ON toward the house, and when she saw his face she caught her breath. Sunburn had cracked the skin until it had bled, and the blood had dried. The face was haggard, a mask of utter weariness from which only the eyes glowed and seemed to be alive.
Brought to herself suddenly, she ran inside for water. She tried to pick up the dipper, but dropped it. Then she carried the bucket to the man, and he seized it in his two big hands and lifted it to his mouth. She put out a hand to stop him, but he had merely taken a mouthful and then held it away, sloshing the water about in his mouth.
He looked at her wisely, and suddenly she had a feeling that this man knew everything, that he was afraid of nothing, that he could do anything with himself. She knew how his whole body must be crying for water, yet he knew the consequences of too much too soon and held the bucket away, his face twisted as though in a sneer at his fervid desire for its cool freshness.
Then he swallowed a little, and for a moment his face twisted again. He straightened it with an effort and picking up the washbasin beside the door, filled it and began to bathe his face and hands, slowly, tenderly. In all this time he said nothing, made no explanation.
A long time ago Tess had ridden with her brother into the badlands beyond the desert. It was a waterless horror, a nightmare of gigantic stones and gnarled cacti, a place where nothing lived.
How far had this man come? How could he have walked all that distance across the desert? That he had walked was obvious, for his sneakers were in tatters and there was some blood on the ground where he stood.
He shook the water from his eyes and then, without speaking, stepped up on the porch and entered the house. Half frightened, she started to speak, but he merely stretched out upon the floor in the cool interior and almost at once was asleep.
Again she looked at the road. And still it was empty. If Rex Tilden were to come in time, he must come soon. Judge Barker had told her that as long as she had possession, there was a chance.
If she lost possession before he returned from Phoenix, there was little chance that anything could be done.
It was sundown when she saw them coming. It was not Rex Tilden, for he would come alone. It was the others.
It was Harrington and Clyde, the men Tess feared.
They rode into the yard at a canter and reined in at the edge of the veranda.
“Well, Miss Bayeux”—George Clyde’s silky voice was underlined with malice—“you are ready to leave?”
“No.”
Tess stood very still. She knew there was little Clyde wouldn’t stoop to if he could gain an end. Harrington was brutal, rough. Clyde was smooth. It was Clyde she feared most, yet Harrington would do the rough work.
He was a big man and cruel.
“Then I am afraid we will have to move you,” said Clyde. “We have given you time. Now we can give you only ten minutes more to get what you want and get out on the road.”
“I’m not going.” Tess held her head high.
Clyde’s mouth tightened. “Yes, you are. Of course”—he crossed his hands on the saddle horn—“if you want to come to my place, I think I could make you comfortable there. If you don’t come to my place, there will be nothing in Black Mesa for you.”
“I’ll stay here.”
Tess stood facing them. She couldn’t win. She knew that in her heart. Rex was too late now, and the odds were against her. Still, where would she go? She had no money; she had no friends who dared help her. There had been only Tilden.
“All right, Harrington,” Clyde said grimly. “You move her. Put her outside the gate.”
Harrington swung down from the saddle, his face glistening with evil. He stepped up on the porch.
“Stay where yuh are!” a voice said from behind her.
Tess started. She had forgotten the stranger, and his voice was peculiar. It was low, ugly with some fierceness that was only just covered by an even tone.
“You come a step farther and I’ll kill yuh!” he said.
Harrington stood flat-footed. George Clyde was quicker.
“Tess Bayeux, who is this man?”
“Shut up!” The man walked out on the porch, and his feet were catlike in their movements. “And get movin’.”
“Listen, my friend,” Clyde said, “you’re asking for trouble. You’re a stranger here and you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know a skunk by the smell.” The stranger advanced to the edge of the porch, and his red-rimmed eyes glared at Clyde. “Get goin’!”
“Why, you—”
Harrington reached for him.
HE REACHED, but the stranger’s left hand shot out and seized Harrington by the throat and jerked him to his tiptoes. Holding him there, the stranger slapped him twice across the face. Slapped him only, but left him with a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. Then, setting him down on his heels, the stranger shoved, and big Deek Harrington sprawled at full length in the dust.
Clyde’s face was deadly. He glanced at Harrington and then at the stranger, and then his hand shot for his gun. But the stranger was quicker. He seized the bridle and jerked the horse around and, catching Clyde by his gun arm, whipped him from the saddle to throw him into the dust.
Clyde’s gun flew free, and the stranger caught it deftly and thrust it into his own waistband.
“Now,” he said, “start walkin’. When yuh’re over the horizon, I’ll turn yore hosses loose. Until then, walk!”
Harrington staggered to his feet, and Clyde got up more slowly. His black coat was dusty. The stranger looked at Harrington.
“You still wear a gun,” he said coolly. “Want to die? If yuh do, why don’t yuh try drawin’ it.”
Harrington wet his lips. Then his eyes fell and he turned away.
“That goes for later,” the stranger said. “If yuh want to try a shot from up the road, do it. I haven’t killed a snake in a week!”
The two men stumbled from the yard, and the stranger stood there, watching them go. Then he picked up the bucket and drank, for a long time. When the two recent visitors were growing small toward the horizon, he turned the horses loose, hitting each a ringing slap on the haunches.
They would never stop short of town if he knew Western horses.
“I’m going to get supper,” Tess told him. “Would you like to eat?”
“You know I would.” He looked at her for a moment. “Then yuh can tell me what this is all about.”
TESS BAYEUX WORKED SWIFTLY, and when she had the coffee on and the bacon frying, she turned to look at the man who had come to her rescue. He was slumped in a chair at the table. Black hair curled in the V of his shirt, and there was black hair on his forearms.
“You aren’t a Western man?” she asked him.
“I was—once,” he answered. “but that was a long time ago. I lived in Texas, in Oklahoma, then in Utah. Now I’m back in the West to stay.”
“You have a home somewhere?”
“No. Home is where the heart is, they say, and my heart is here”—he touched his chest—“for now. I’m still a dreamer, I reckon. Still thinkin’ of the one girl who is somewhere.”
“You’ve had a hard time,” she said, looking at him again.
She had never seen so much raw power in a man, never seen so much sleeping strength as in the muscles that rolled beneath his shirt.
“Tell me about you,” he said. “Who are them two men that was here?”
“Harrington and Clyde,” she told him. “The H and C Cattle Company. They moved in here two years ago, during the drouth. They bought land and cattle. They prospered. They aren’t big, but then, nobody else is either.
“The sheriff doesn’t want trouble. Clyde outtalks those who dislike him. My father did, very
much, and he wasn’t outtalked. He died, killed by a fall from a bad horse, about a year ago. It seems he was in debt. He was in debt to Nevers, who runs the general store in Black Mesa. Not much, but more than he could pay. Clyde bought up the notes from Nevers.
“Wantrell, a lawyer in Phoenix who knew my father, is trying to get it arranged so we will have water here. If we do, we could pay off the notes in a short time. If we had water I could borrow money in Prescott. There is water on government land above us, and that’s why Clyde wants it. He tried to get me to move away for the notes. Then he offered to pay me five hundred dollars and give me the notes.
“When I refused, he had some of his men dam the stream and shut off what water I had. My cattle died. Some of my horses were run off. Then he came in with some more bills and told me I’d have to leave or pay. He has some sort of a paper on the place. It says that my father promised to give Nevers the place if he didn’t pay up or if anything happened to him.”
“No friends?” asked the man.
“Yes, a man named Rex Tilden,” Tess said. “He rode for Dad once and then started a ranch of his own. He’s good with a gun, and when I wrote to him, he said he would come. He’s five days late now.”
The stranger nodded. “I know.” He took a small wallet from his pocket. “That his?”
She caught it up, her face turning pale. She had seen it many times.
“Yes! You know him? You have seen him?”
“He’s dead. Dry-gulched. He was killed near Santos three days ago.”
“You knew him?” Tess repeated.
“No. I got kicked off a train I was ridin’. I found him dyin’. He told me about you, asked me to help. There was nobody else around, so I came.”
“Oh, thank you! But Rex! Rex Tilden dead. And because of me!”
His face didn’t change. “Mebbe.” He brought out the gun he had taken from Clyde and checked it. “Mebbe I’ll need this. Where’s that dam?”
The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Five Page 31