A change came over Haydon. The clawlike fingers began to straighten; imperceptibly at first, and then with a spasmodic motion that flexed the muscles in little jerks. The hand became limp; it dropped slowly to his side—down beyond the pistol holster. Then it came up, and the man swept it over his eyes, as though to brush away a vision that frightened him.
His face grew pale, he shuddered; and at last he stood, swaying a little, his mouth open with wonder for the phenomenal thing that had happened to him.
Harlan’s voice, cold and expressionless, startled him:
“You wasn’t meanin’ to cuss me?”
“No!” The denial was blurted forth. Haydon grinned, faintly, with hideous embarrassment; the knowledge that he had been beaten, and that he owed his life to Harlan, was plain in his eyes.
He laughed, uncertainly, as he made an effort to stiffen his lagging muscles.
“I was a bit flustered, Harlan; I talked rather recklessly, I admit. You see, I’ve been used to giving orders myself. I was riled for a minute.”
“That goes!” said Harlan, shortly. His voice had changed. The slow drawl had gone, and a snapping, authoritative sharpness had replaced it.
Haydon gazed at him with a new wonder. He sensed in Harlan’s manner the consciousness of power, the determination to command. At a stroke, it seemed, Harlan had wrenched from him the right to rule. He felt himself being relegated to a subordinate position; he felt at this minute the ruthless force of the man who stood before him; he felt oddly impotent and helpless, and he listened to Harlan with a queer feeling of wonder for the absence of the rage that should have gripped him.
“I’m runnin’ things from now on,” Harlan said. “I ain’t interferin’ with the Star. But I’m runnin’ things for the boys. I told Rogers to drive the cattle to Willow’s Wells—an’ to sell them. I’ve promised the boys a bigger divvy. They get it. I’ve told them to take a day off, in town, after they turn the cattle over.
“There’s got to be a new deal. The boys are fussed up—claimin’ they ain’t gettin’ their share. I’m seein’ that they do. You can’t run a camp like this an’ not treat the boys right.”
The wonder that had been aroused in Haydon grew as Harlan talked; it increased in intensity until, when Harlan’s voice died away, it developed into suspicion.
That was what Harlan had come to the Star for! He wanted to run the camp, to direct the activities of the outlaws in the valley. Power! Authority! Those were the things Harlan craved for.
Haydon saw it all, now. He saw that Harlan wanted to dominate—everything. He wanted to rule the outlaw camp; he wanted to run the Rancho Seco; he intended to get possession of the gold that Morgan had left, and he wanted Barbara Morgan.
The rage that had held Haydon in its clutch when he had called Harlan to him was reviving. Haydon’s face was still white, but the fury in his eyes—slowly growing—was not to be mistaken.
Harlan saw it, and his lips straightened. He had expected Haydon would rage over what he had determined to tell him; and he was not surprised. He had deliberately goaded the man into his present fury. He had determined to kill him, and he had been disappointed when he had seen Haydon lose his courage when the crisis arrived. And now his deliberate and premeditated plan was to bear fruit.
Harlan was reluctant to kill, but there seemed to be no other way. Haydon was a murderer. He had killed Lane Morgan; he was an outlaw whose rule had oppressed the valley for many months. If Harlan could have devised some plan that would make it possible for him to attain his end without killing anybody, he would have eagerly adopted it.
But in this country force must be fought with force. It was a grim game, and the rules were inflexible—kill or be killed.
His own life would be safe in this section so long as he guarded it. Eternal vigilance and the will to take life when his own was threatened was a principle which custom had established. If he expected to save the girl at the Rancho Seco he could not temper his actions with mercy. And he knew that if he was to succeed in his design to disrupt the outlaw gang he would have to remove the man who stood before him, working himself into a new frenzy. There seemed to be no other way.
But Haydon seemed to have control of himself, now, despite the frenzied glare of his eyes. He was outwardly cool; his movements were deliberate—he had conquered his fear of Harlan, it seemed.
He laughed, harshly.
“Harlan,” he said; “you had me going—talking that way. By Heaven! you almost convinced me that I’d let you run things here. I was beginning to believe I’d lost my nerve. But see here!”
He held out his right hand toward Harlan—it was steady, rigid, not a nerve in it quivered.
“You’re fast with your guns, but you can’t run any whizzer in on me—you can’t intimidate me. You killed Latimer the other day; and you’ve got the boys with you. But you can’t run things here. Have all the boys gone?”
“Woodward’s here.”
Harlan spoke lowly; his eyes were keenly watchful. This flare-up on Haydon’s part was merely a phase of his confused mental condition. He saw that Haydon did not mean to use his gun—that he intended to ignore it, no doubt planning to regain his authority when the men of the outfit returned—when he might enlist the support of some of them.
“Woodward’s here—eh?” laughed Haydon. He raised his voice, shouting for the man. And Harlan saw Woodward come from behind an outbuilding, look toward the ranchhouse, and then walk slowly toward them.
Woodward halted when within several paces of the two, and looked from one to the other curiously, his eyes narrowed with speculation.
“Woodward,” directed Haydon; “hit the breeze after the outfit and tell them to drive those cattle back here!”
Harlan grinned. “Woodward,” he said, gently; “you climb on your cayuse an’ do as Haydon tells you. Haydon is figurin’ on cashin’ in when you do.”
Haydon blustered. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that if Woodward goes after the boys I’m goin’ to blow you apart. I’m givin’ the orders around here!”
Watching Haydon, Harlan saw that he was not exhibiting rage, but intense interest. He was not looking at Harlan, but at Woodward. And, turning swiftly, his guns both leaping into his hands with the movement—for he had a swift suspicion that Woodward might be standing with Haydon against him—he saw that Woodward had fallen into a crouch; that the man’s right hand was hovering over his pistol holster, and that his eyes were gleaming with a light that could mean only the one thing—murder.
Backing slowly away from both Haydon and Woodward, Harlan watched them, his guns ready for instant action should he catch any sign that would indicate trickery toward himself.
He saw no such signs. It became plain to him that Woodward had no eyes for anyone but Haydon, and that Haydon’s attention was fixed upon Woodward with an intentness that meant he had divined that Woodward’s peculiar manner had a definite, personal meaning.
Woodward continued to advance on Haydon. He was waving his left hand as though giving Harlan a silent order to get out of his way, while his gaze was centered upon Haydon with an unspoken promise of violence, fascinating to behold.
It seemed to have fascinated Haydon. Harlan saw him shrink back, the bluster gone out of him, his face the color of ashes. He kept stepping back, until he brought up against the rear wall of the ranchhouse; and there he stood, watching Woodward, his eyes bulging with dread wonder.
Harlan saw his lips move; heard his voice, hoarse and throaty:
“It’s a frame-up—a frame-up. Both of you are out to get me!”
“Frame-up!”
This was Woodward. He was a sinister figure, with his black beard seeming to bristle with passion, his eyes flaming with it; all his muscles tensed and quivering, and his right hand, with clawlike fingers, poised above the butt of his pistol.
“Frame-up!” he repeated, laughing hoarsely between his teeth. “Hell’s fire! Do you think it takes two men to ‘get’ you—you
miserable whelp?
“I’ve been waitin’ for this day—waitin’ for it, waitin’ to get you alone—waitin’ for the boys to go so’s I could tell you somethin’.
“You know what it is. You ain’t guessin’, eh? Listen while I tell you somethin’. The day ‘Drag’ Harlan got in Lamo he brought news that Lane Morgan had been killed out in the desert. I heard the boys sayin’ you had a hand in it. But I thought that was just talk. I didn’t believe you was that kind of a skunk. I waited.
“Then you sent me over to the edge of the level, near the Rancho Seco—where Harlan found that flattened grass when he rode over here. You told me to watch Harlan and Barbara Morgan. You said you thought Harlan would try some sneak game with her.
“You can gamble I watched. I saw Harlan standin’ guard over her; I saw him follow that sneak Lawson. I heard the shot that killed Lawson, an’ I saw Harlan tote him downstairs, an’ then set on the door-sill all night, guardin’ Barbara Morgan.
“The sneakin’ game was played by you, Haydon. When I saw Harlan headin’ toward the valley the day he come here, I lit out ahead of him. And when he got to the timber over there I brought him in.
“An’ I heard you talk that day. I heard him sayin’ that you killed Lane Morgan. He said my dad told him you fired the shot that killed him.”
Harlan started and leaned forward, amazed. But Haydon swayed, and then steadied himself with an effort, and stared at Woodward with bulging, incredulous eyes.
“Your dad?” he almost shrieked; “Lane Morgan was your father?”
Woodward’s grin was wolfish. He took two or three steps toward Haydon—panther-like steps that betrayed the lust that was upon him.
“I’m Billy Morgan,” he said, his teeth showing in a merciless grin; “Barbara’s brother. Flash your gun, Haydon; I’m goin’ to kill you!”
Haydon clawed for his pistol, missing the butt in his eagerness, and striving wildly to draw it. It snagged on a rawhide thong that supported the holster and his fingers were loosening in the partial grip when Billy Morgan shot him.
He flattened against the wall of the ranchhouse for an instant, staring wildly around him; then his head sagged forward and he slid down the wall of the ranchhouse into the deep dust that was mounded near it.
* * *
CHAPTER XXII
A DEAD MAN WALKS
Harlan had paid strict attention to Lane Morgan’s words at Sentinel Rock, and he remembered that Morgan had told him that his son, whom he had called “Bill,” had left the Rancho Seco on some mission for the governor. Evidently it had not occurred to Morgan that his son’s mission had taken him only to the valley in which reigned those outlaws Morgan had reviled.
But it was plain to Harlan that “Billy” was here—he had said so himself, and he had given proof that he had been watchful and alert to Barbara’s interests. And now was explained young Morgan’s interest in himself. The thought that during all the days he had spent at the Rancho Seco, his movements had been watched by the man who had just killed Haydon, brought a glow of ironic humor to Harlan’s eyes.
During a long interval, through which Billy Morgan stood over Haydon, watching him with a cold savagery, Harlan kept at a respectable distance, also watching.
He saw that for Haydon the incident had been fatal. The man’s body did not move after it slipped to the ground beside the ranchhouse wall. Yet Morgan watched until he was certain; then he slowly wheeled and looked at Harlan.
“That settles him—damn him!” he said, with a breathlessness that told of the intense strain he had been laboring under.
Still Harlan did not speak; and his guns were in their holsters when Morgan walked close to him, grinning wanly.
“I had to do it. There’s no use tryin’ to depend on the law in this country. You’ve seen that, yourself.”
“I’ve noticed it,” grinned Harlan. “You’re feelin’ bad over it. I wouldn’t. If it had been my dad he killed I couldn’t have done any different. I reckon any man with blood in him would feel that way about a coyote like that killin’ his father. If men don’t feel that way, why do they drag murderers to courts—where they have courts—an’ ask the law to kill them. That’s just shovin’ the responsibility onto some other guy.
“I’ve handed several guys their pass-out checks, an’ I ain’t regrettin’ one of them. There wasn’t one of them that didn’t have it comin’ to him. They was lookin’ for it, mostly, an’ had to have it. I’ve heard of guys that had killed a man feelin’ squeamish over it—with ghosts visitin’ them at night; an’ sufferin’ a lot of mental torture. I reckon any man would feel that way if he’d killed an inoffensive man—or a good man, or one that hadn’t been tryin’ to murder him.” He grinned again. “Why, I’m preachin’!”
And now into his gaze as he looked at Morgan, came cold reproach.
“You wasn’t figurin’ to let Barbara play it a lone hand?” he said.
“Hell’s fire—no!” denied Morgan, his eyes blazing. “I’ve been watchin’ the Rancho Seco—as I told Haydon. I saw Barbara set out for Lamo. There was no one followin’ her, an’ so I thought she’d be all right. That mixup at Lamo slipped me. But I seen you an’ Barbara come back, an’ I heard the boys talkin’ about what happened at Lamo. I’d heard of you, too; an’ when I seen you come back with Barbara I watched you. An’ I seen you was square, so I trusted you a heap.
“An’ I had a talk with Sheriff Gage about you, an’ he told me my dad had sent to Pardo for you, through Dave Hallowell, the marshal of Pardo. Gage said you was out to clean up Deveny an’ Haydon, an’ so I knowed I could depend on you.”
“Barbara don’t know you’re hangin’ around here—she ain’t known it?”
“Shucks, I reckon not,” grinned Morgan. “I didn’t come here for six months after I left the Rancho Seco—until I growed a beard. Barbara’s been within a dozen feet of me, an’ never knowed me. I’ve been thinkin’ of telling her, but I seen Haydon was sweet on her, an’ I didn’t dare tell her. Women ain’t reliable. She’d have showed it some way, an’ then there’d have been hell to pay.”
“An’ I’ve been pridin’ myself on takin’ care of Barbara,” said Harlan. “I feel a heap embarrassed an’ useless—just like I’d been fooled.”
“You’ve done a thing I couldn’t do,” confessed Morgan; “you’ve busted Haydon’s gang wide open. If you hadn’t showed up there’d have been nothin’ done. There’s some of the boys that ain’t outlaws—boys that are with me, havin’ sneaked into the gang to help me out. But we wan’t makin’ no headway to speak of.”
Harlan looked at Haydon. “That guy was educated,” he said. “What was his game? I’ve felt all along that there was somethin’ big back of him—that he wasn’t here just to steal cattle an’ rob folks, an’ such.”
“You ain’t heard,” smiled Morgan. “Of course you wouldn’t—unless Gage had gassed to you.
“There’s a gang of big men in Frisco, an’ in the East, figurin’ to run a railroad through the basin. A year or so ago there was secret talk of it in the capital. It leaked out that the railroad guys was intendin’ to run their road through the basin. They was goin’ to build a town right where the Rancho Seco lays; an’ they was plannin’ to irrigate a lot of the land around there. The governor says it was to be big—an’ likely it’ll be big, when they get around to it.
“But them things go slow, an’ a gang of cheap crooks got wise to it. They sent Haydon down here, to scare the folks in the basin into sellin’ out for a song. They’ve scared one man out—a Pole from the west end. But the others have stuck. Looks like they was figurin’ on grabbin’ the Rancho Seco without payin’ anything for it—Haydon intendin’, I reckon, to put dad an’ me out of the way an’ marry Barbara. Then he could have cut the ranch up into town lots an’ made a mint of coin.”
“An’ Deveny?”
“Deveny’s a wolf. Haydon brought him here from Arizona—where he’d terrorized a whole county, runnin’ it regardless. He figured to cas
h in, I reckon, but he’s been grabbin’ up everything he could lay his hands on, on the way.”
“You’ll be tellin’ Barbara, now?” suggested Harlan.
“You’re shoutin’!” said Morgan, his eyes glowing. “I’m hittin’ the breeze to the Rancho Seco for fair.” He looked at Haydon, and his eyes took on a new expression. “I was almost forgettin’ what the governor sent me here for,” he added. “The governor was wantin’ to know who is behind Haydon an’ Deveny, an’ I’m rummagin’ around in Haydon’s office to find out. Goin’?” he invited.
Both looked down at Haydon as they passed him, and an instant later they were entering a door of the ranchhouse.
They had hardly disappeared when Haydon’s head moved slightly.
His eyes were open; he glanced at the door of the ranchhouse through which Harlan and Morgan had entered. Then he raised his head, dragged himself to an elbow—upon which he rested momentarily, his face betraying the bitter malignance and triumph that had seized him.
He had realized that Morgan had meant to kill him, even before Morgan had revealed his identity, and his backward movement, which had brought him against the wall of the ranchhouse had been made with design. He had felt that even if he should succeed in beating Morgan, Harlan would have taken up the quarrel, for he knew that Harlan also had designs on his life. And with a cupidity aroused over the desperate predicament in which he found himself, he had decided to take a forlorn chance.
Morgan’s bullet had struck him, but by a convulsive side movement at the instant Morgan’s gun roared Haydon had escaped a fatal wound, and the bullet had entered his left side above the heart, paralyzing one of the big muscles of the shoulder.
His left arm was limp and useless, and dragged in the dust as he squirmed around and gained his feet. There was no window in the wall of the ranchhouse on that side; and he backed away, staggering a little, for he had lost much blood. He kept the blank wall before him as he backed away from the house; and when he reached his horse he was a long time getting into the saddle. But he accomplished it at last; and sent the horse slowly up the slope and into the timber out of which Harlan had ridden with the black-bearded man on the day of his first visit to the Star.
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