by Zane Grey
“Say, boys, I’ve a word for Snecker,” I called, quite loud. Nobody stirred. I swept my glance over the crowd, but did not see Snecker. “I’m in some hurry,” I added.
“Bill ain’t here,” said a man at the table nearest me. “Air you comin’ from Morton?”
“Nit. But I’m not yellin’ this message.”
The rustler rose, and in a few long strides confronted me.
“Word from Sampson!” I whispered, and the rustler stared. “I’m in his confidence. He’s got to see Bill at once. Sampson sends word he’s quit—he’s done—he’s through. The jig is up, and he means to hit the road out of Linrock.”
“Bill’ll kill him surer ’n hell,” muttered the rustler. “But we all said it’d come to thet. An’ what’d Wright say?”
“Wright! Why, he’s cashed in. Didn’t you-all hear? Reckon Sampson shot him.”
The rustler cursed his amaze and swung his rigid arm with fist clenched tight. “When did Wright get it?”
“A little while ago. I don’t know how long. Anyway, I saw him lyin’ dead on the porch. An’ say, pard, I’ve got to rustle. Send Bill up quick as he comes. Tell him Sampson wants to turn over all his stock an’ then light out.”
I backed to the door, and the last I saw of the rustler he was standing there in a scowling amaze. I had fooled him all right. If only I had the luck to have Snecker come along soon. Mounting, I trotted the horse leisurely up the street. Business and everything else was at a standstill in Linrock these days. The doors of the stores were barricaded. Down side streets, however, I saw a few people, a buckboard, and stray cattle.
When I reached the edge of town I turned aside a little and took a look at the ruins of Steele’s adobe house. The walls and debris had all been flattened, scattered about, and if anything of, value had escaped destruction it had disappeared. Steele, however, had left very little that would have been of further use to him. Turning again, I continued on my way up to the ranch. It seemed that, though I was eager rather than backward, my mind seized avidly upon suggestion or attraction, as if to escape the burden of grim pondering. When about half-way across the flat, and perhaps just out of gun-shot sound of Sampson’s house, I heard the rapid clatter of hoofs on the hard road. I wheeled, expecting to see Morton and his man, and was ready to be chagrined at their coming openly instead of by the back way. But this was only one man, and it was not Morton. He seemed of big build, and he bestrode a fine bay horse. There evidently was reason for hurry, too. At about one hundred yards, when I recognized Snecker, complete astonishment possessed me.
Well it was I had ample time to get on my guard! In wheeling my horse I booted him so hard that he reared. As I had been warm I had my sombrero over the pommel of the saddle. And when the head of my horse blocked any possible sight of movement of my hand, I pulled my gun and held it concealed under my sombrero. This rustler had bothered me in my calculations. And here he came galloping, alone. Exultation would have been involuntary then but for the sudden shock, and then the cold settling of temper, the breathless suspense. Snecker pulled his huge bay and pounded to halt abreast of me. Luck favored me. Had I ever had anything but luck in these dangerous deals?
Snecker seemed to fume; internally there was a volcano. His wide sombrero and bushy beard hid all of his face except his eyes, which were deepset furnaces. He, too, like his lieutenant, had been carried completely off balance by the strange message apparently from Sampson. It was Sampson’s name that had fooled and decoyed these men. “Hey! You’re the feller who jest left word fer someone at the Hope So?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied, while with my left hand I patted the neck of my horse, holding him still.
“Sampson wants me bad, eh?”
“Reckon there’s only one man who wants you more.”
Steadily, I met his piercing gaze. This was a rustler not to be long victim to any ruse. I waited in cold surety.
“You thet cowboy, Russ?” he asked.
“I was—and I’m not!” I replied significantly.
The violent start of this violent outlaw was a rippling jerk of passion. “What’n hell!” he ejaculated.
“Bill, you’re easy.”
“Who’re you?” he uttered hoarsely.
I watched Snecker with hawk-like keenness. “United States deputy marshal. Bill, you’re under arrest!”
He roared a mad curse as his hand clapped down to his gun. Then I fired through my sombrero. Snecker’s big horse plunged. The rustler fell back, and one of his legs pitched high as he slid off the lunging steed. His other foot caught in the stirrup. This fact terribly frightened the horse. He bolted, dragging the rustler for a dozen jumps. Then Snecker’s foot slipped loose. He lay limp and still and shapeless in the road. I did not need to go back to look him over.
But to make assurance doubly sure, I dismounted, and went back to where he lay. My bullet had gone where it had been aimed. As I rode up into Sampson’s court-yard and turned in to the porch I heard loud and angry voices. Sampson and Wright were quarrelling again. How my lucky star guided me! I had no plan of action, but my brain was equal to a hundred lightning-swift evolutions. The voices ceased. The men had heard the horse. Both of them came out on the porch. In an instant I was again the lolling impudent cowboy, half under the influence of liquor.
“It’s only Russ and he’s drunk,” said George Wright contemptuously.
“I heard horses trotting off there,” replied Sampson. “Maybe the girls are coming. I bet I teach them not to run off again—Hello, Russ.”
He looked haggard and thin, but seemed amiable enough. He was in his shirt-sleeves and he had come out with a gun in his hand. This he laid on a table near the wall. He wore no belt. I rode right up to the porch and, greeting them laconically, made a show of a somewhat tangle-footed cowboy dismounting. The moment I got off and straightened up, I asked no more. The game was mine. It was the great hour of my life and I met it as I had never met another. I looked and acted what I pretended to be, though a deep and intense passion, an almost ungovernable suspense, an icy sickening nausea abided with me. All I needed, all I wanted was to get Sampson and Wright together, or failing that, to maneuver into such position that I had any kind of a chance. Sampson’s gun on the table made three distinct objects for me to watch and two of them could change position.
“What do you want here?” demanded Wright. He was red, bloated, thick-lipped, all fiery and sweaty from drink, though sober on the moment, and he had the expression of a desperate man in his last stand. It was his last stand, though he was ignorant of that.
“Me—Say, Wright, I ain’t fired yet,” I replied, in slow-rising resentment.
“Well, you’re fired now,” he replied insolently.
“Who fires me, I’d like to know?” I walked up on the porch and I had a cigarette in one hand, a match in the other. I struck the match.
“I do,” said Wright.
I studied him with apparent amusement. It had taken only one glance around for me to divine that Sampson would enjoy any kind of a clash between Wright and me. “Huh! You fired me once before an’ it didn’t go, Wright. I reckon you don’t stack up here as strong as you think.”
He was facing the porch, moody, preoccupied, somber, all the time. Only a little of his mind was concerned with me. Manifestly there were strong forces at work. Both men were strained to a last degree, and Wright could be made to break at almost a word. Sampson laughed mockingly at this sally of mine, and that stung Wright. He stopped his pacing and turned his handsome, fiery eyes on me. “Sampson, I won’t stand this man’s impudence.”
“Aw, Wright, cut that talk. I’m not impudent. Sampson knows I’m a good fellow, on the square, and I have you sized up about O.K.”
“All the same, Russ, you’d better dig out,” said Sampson. “Don’t kick up any fuss. We’re busy with deals today. And I expect visitors.”
“Sure. I won’t stay around where I ain’t wanted,” I replied. Then I lit my cigarette and did not move an i
nch out of my tracks.
Sampson sat in a chair near the door; the table upon which lay his gun stood between him and Wright. This position did not invite me to start anything. But the tension had begun to be felt. Sampson had his sharp gaze on me. “What’d you come for, anyway?” he asked suddenly.
“Well, I had some news I was asked to fetch in.”
“Get it out of you then.”
“See here now, Mr. Sampson, the fact is I’m a tender-hearted fellow. I hate to hurt people’s feelin’s. And if I was to spring this news in Mr. Wright’s hearin’, why, such a sensitive, high-tempered gentleman as he would go plumb off his nut.” Unconcealed sarcasm was the dominant note in that speech. Wright flared up, yet he was eagerly curious. Sampson, probably, thought I was only a little worse for drink, and but for the way I rubbed Wright he would not have tolerated me at all.
“What’s this news? You needn’t be afraid of my feelings,” said Wright.
“Ain’t so sure of that,” I drawled. “It concerns the lady you’re sweet on, an’ the ranger you ain’t sweet on.”
Sampson jumped up. “Russ, had Diane gone out to meet Steele?” he asked angrily.
“Sure she had,” I replied.
I thought Wright would choke. He was thick-necked anyway, and the gush of blood made him tear at the soft collar of his shirt. Both men were excited now, moving about, beginning to rouse. I awaited my chance, patient, cold, all my feelings shut in the vise of my will.
“How do you know she met Steele?” demanded Sampson.
“I was there. I met Sally at the same time.”
“But why should my daughter meet this Ranger?”
“She’s in love with him and he’s in love with her.”
The simple statement might have had the force of a juggernaut. I reveled in Wright’s state, but I felt sorry for Sampson. He had not outlived his pride. Then I saw the leaping thought—would this daughter side against him? Would she help to betray him? He seemed to shrivel up, to grow old while I watched him.
Wright, finding his voice, cursed Diane, cursed the Ranger, then Sampson, then me.
“You damned, selfish fool!” cried Sampson, in deep, bitter scorn. “All you think of is yourself. Your loss of the girl! Think once of me—my home—my life!”
Then the connection subtly put out by Sampson apparently dawned upon the other. Somehow, through this girl, her father and cousin were to be betrayed. I got that impression, though I could not tell how true it was. Certainly, Wright’s jealousy was his paramount emotion.
Sampson thrust me sidewise off the porch. “Go away,” he ordered. He did not look around to see if I came back. Quickly I leaped to my former position. He confronted Wright. He was beyond the table where the gun lay. They were close together. My moment had come. The game was mine—and a ball of fire burst in my brain to race all over me.
“To hell with you!” burst out Wright incoherently. He was frenzied. “I’ll have her or nobody else will!”
“You never will,” returned Sampson stridently. “So help me God, I’d rather see her Ranger Steele’s wife than yours!”
While Wright absorbed that shock Sampson leaned toward him, all of hate and menace in his mien. They had forgotten the half-drunken cowboy. “Wright, you made me what I am,” continued Sampson. “I backed you, protected you, finally I went in with you. Now it’s ended. I quit you. I’m done!” Their gray, passion-corded faces were still as stones.
“Gentlemen,” I called in clear, high, far-reaching voice, the intonation of authority, “you’re both done!”
They wheeled to confront me, to see my leveled gun. “Don’t move! Not a muscle! Not a finger!” I warned. Sampson read what Wright had not the mind to read. His face turned paler gray, to ashen.
“What d’ye mean?” yelled Wright fiercely, shrilly. It was not in him to obey my command, to see impending death. All quivering and strung, yet with perfect control, I raised my left hand to turn back a lapel of my open vest. The silver shield flashed brightly.
“United States deputy marshal in service of Ranger Steele!”
Wright howled like a dog. With barbarous and insane fury, with sheer, impotent folly, he swept a clawing hand for his gun. My shot broke his action as it cut short his life. Before Wright even tottered, before he loosed the gun, Sampson leaped behind him, clasped him with his left arm, quick as lightning jerked the gun from both clutching fingers and sheath. I shot at Sampson, then again, then a third time. All my bullets sped into the upheld nodding Wright. Sampson had protected himself with the body of the dead man. I had seen red flashes, puffs of smoke, had heard quick reports. Something stung my left arm. Then a blow like wind, light of sound yet shocking in impact, struck me, knocked me flat. The hot rend of lead followed the blow. My heart seemed to explode, yet my mind kept extraordinarily clear and rapid.
I raised myself, felt a post at my shoulder, leaned on it. I heard Sampson work the action of Wright’s gun. I heard the hammer click, fall upon empty shells. He had used up all the loads in Wright’s gun. I heard him curse as a man cursed at defeat. I waited, cool and sure now, for him to show his head or other vital part from behind his bolster. He tried to lift the dead man, to edge him closer toward the table where the gun lay. But, considering the peril of exposing himself, he found the task beyond him. He bent, peering at me under Wright’s arm. Sampson’s eyes were the eyes of a man who meant to kill me. There was never any mistaking the strange and terrible light of eyes like those.
More than once I had a chance to aim at them, at the top of Sampson’s head, at a strip of his side. But I had only two shells left. I wanted to make sure. Suddenly I remembered Morton and his man. Then I pealed out a cry—hoarse, strange, yet far-reaching. It was answered by a shout. Sampson heard it. It called forth all that was in the man. He flung Wright’s body off. But even as it dropped, before Sampson could recover to leap as he surely intended for the gun, I covered him, called piercingly to him. I could kill him there or as he moved. But one chance I gave him.
“Don’t jump for the gun! Don’t! I’ll kill you! I’ve got two shells left! Sure as God, I’ll kill you!”
He stood perhaps ten feet from the table where his gun lay. I saw him calculating chances. He was game. He had the courage that forced me to respect him. I just saw him measure the distance to that gun. He was magnificent. He meant to do it. I would have to kill him.
“Sampson, listen!” I cried, very swiftly. “The game’s up! You’re done! But think of your daughter! I’ll spare your life, I’ll give you freedom on one condition. For her sake! I’ve got you nailed—all the proofs. It was I behind the wall the other night. Blome, Hilliard, Pickens, Bo Snecker, are dead. I killed Bo Snecker on the way up here. There lies Wright. You’re alone. And here comes Morton and his men to my aid.
“Give up! Surrender! Consent to demands and I’ll spare you. You can go free back to your old country. It’s for Diane’s sake! Her life, perhaps her happiness, can be saved! Hurry, man! Your answer!”
“Suppose I refuse?” he queried, with a dark and terrible earnestness.
“Then I’ll kill you in your tracks! You can’t move a hand! Your word or death! Hurry, Sampson! I can’t last much longer. But I can kill you before I drop. Be a man! For her sake! Quick! Another second now—By God, I’ll kill you!”
“All right, Russ! I give my word,” he said, and deliberately walked to the chair and fell into it, just as Morton came running up with his man.
“Put away your gun,” I ordered them. “The game’s up. Snecker and Wright are dead. Sampson is my prisoner. He has my word he’ll be protected. It’s for you to draw up papers with him. He’ll divide all his property, every last acre, every head of stock as you and Zimmer dictate. He gives up all. Then he’s free to leave the country, and he’s never to return.”
CHAPTER 14
THROUGH THE VALLEY
Sampson looked strangely at the great bloody blot on my breast and his look made me conscious of a dark hurrying of my mind. M
orton came stamping up the steps with blunt queries, with anxious mien. When he saw the front of me he halted, threw wide his arms.
“There come the girls!” suddenly exclaimed Sampson. “Morton, help me drag Wright inside. They mustn’t see him.”
I was facing down the porch toward the court and corrals. Miss Sampson and Sally had come in sight, were swiftly approaching, evidently alarmed. Steele, no doubt, had remained out at the camp. I was watching them, wondering what they would do and say presently, and then Sampson and Johnson came to carry me indoors. They laid me on the couch in the parlor where the girls used to be so often.
“Russ, you’re pretty hard hit,” said Sampson, bending over me, with his hands at my breast. The room was bright with sunshine, yet the light seemed to be fading.
“Reckon I am,” I replied.
“I’m sorry. If only you could have told me sooner! Wright, damn him! Always I’ve split over him!”
“But the last time, Sampson.”
“Yes, and I came near driving you to kill me, too. Russ, you talked me out of it. For Diane’s sake! She’ll be in here in a minute. This’ll be harder than facing a gun.”
“Hard now. But it’ll—turn out—O.K.”
“Russ, will you do me a favor?” he asked, and he seemed shamefaced.
“Sure.”
“Let Diane and Sally think Wright shot you. He’s dead. It can’t matter. And you’re hard hit. The girls are fond of you. If—if you go under—Russ, the old side of my life is coming back. It’s been coming. It’ll be here just about when she enters this room. And by God, I’d change places with you if I could.”
“Glad you—said that, Sampson,” I replied. “And sure—Wright plugged me. It’s our secret. I’ve a reason, too, not—that—it—matters—much—now.”
The light was fading. I could not talk very well. I felt dumb, strange, locked in ice, with dull little prickings of my flesh, with dim rushing sounds in my ears. But my mind was clear. Evidently there was little to be done. Morton came in, looked at me, and went out. I heard the quick, light steps of the girls on the porch, and murmuring voices.