Lorna and Jinks looked at each other. Jinks said drily: “We knowed it already, Bill, though I ain’t seen it yet. Remember I tol’ you I was goin’ to do me some detectin’? Well, I guessed it might be at a bank an’ I asked Roger Rutherford an’ he said, Yep, he was holdin’ it. An’ I been helpin’ the sheriff to find out things, too. Which reminds me, Bill. MacArthur rid by here about an hour ago, an’ say! He’s sore as a saddle boil!”
Dorn cocked up one eyebrow. Jinks explained:
“He says he ought to throw our crowd an’ Bundy’s crowd all in jail, but where’ll he find room in any jail that’s handy, an’ besides mos’ likely we’d tear his jail down.”
“What about Diana?” asked Lorna eagerly.
“She says she’s dying. I guess she is.” He went steadily on and finished all he had to say without an interruption. At the end he added bluntly and without lifting his head to look at them, “And if anyone asks you, folks, you can tell him we’re through. After what happened last night and this morning—No use not looking it in the face. We’re licked.”
Lorna sat rigid, staring at him incredulously. Of a sudden she sprang to her feet, the blood rushing hot and red into her cheeks that had been so wan, and cried vehemently: “We’re not! We’re not, I tell you, Bill Dorn! Nothing is going to stop us. We’re going to start right in now, today, to clean up and build all over again!”
“Is that so?” Dorn snapped back at her, as cross-tempered as an old bear. “Go ahead then. Don’t let me stop you. Do all the cleaning up and rebuilding you like.” He too got up. “I’ll step in and see what Josefa’s got to eat. The coffee smells good.”
But Lorna caught him by the sleeve and tried her best to shake him. “Bill Dorn, you great big coward! You great big quitter! You—you—you—”
“Have it your way,” said Dorn gruffly. He put his hand down on hers, trying to pry her loose.
But she clung tight and her cheeks were hotter than ever, and her eyes were blazing when she demanded: “What are you afraid of? Why won’t you go on? What’s happened to you anyhow?”
“We went into a pretty big project when we started all this,” he told her, and seeing how upset she was he forced himself to speak more calmly and even gently. “We knew it was a gamble all the time: give us luck and we’d maybe win; let luck run out on us and we’d lose. Well luck ran out and we lost. Now wait a minute! To go on would take money, wouldn’t it? A lot of money? New buildings, a new dam, new wagons; everything to be done over. May I ask, without prying too deeply just how much money you stand ready to chip in with, Miss—Miss Brown?”
She let her hand fall from his sleeve.
“You mean—you mean your money is all gone? That we can’t raise any more?”
“Course he don’t,” put in Jinks sharply. Probing at Dorn with those shrewd old eyes of his he said tartly: “You tol’ me yourse’f, Will, an’ not over four-five days ago, you’d fixed things with Roger Rutherford for enough to keep us runnin’. Shucks, Will, I know you got anyhow ten-twenty thousand—an’ me, I ain’t throwed in every cent I got yet, an’ there’s Morg and ol’ Middleton an’ John Sharp that ain’t ready to throw the sconce, an’—”
“You two don’t seem to have got the gist of what I’ve just been telling you,” cut in Dorn, again grown curt and hard. “We were all willing at the outset to tie into a fight with Mike Bundy, a rough-and-tumble, catch-as-catch-can, give-no-quarter battle. Ever since the day I met Lorna down in Nacional she knows that that’s the way I felt. But there are some things a man just doesn’t do, no matter how he hates the other fellow, no matter what the fight is for. You don’t put poison into his soup. You don’t sneak up behind him and jab a knife into his back.—Or do you?”
Jinks rasped out: “What’n hell you drivin’ at, Will?”
“We went out last night and burned Bundy’s place at County Line when Bundy wasn’t even there. We swooped down on his wagon train and burned the whole works, cargo and all. At the time we thought that that was what he had done to us. Well, we know now that he didn’t do it.”
“I still don’t figger you, Will.”
Dorn shrugged heavily and turned toward his meal. “Bundy’s in Liberty. So is my bank. I’m on my way now; I’m going to pay Mike Bundy every damned cent his whole outfit was worth, and when I get through, if there’s a dime left in the bank, we’ll sink it in Palm Ranch to build a new dam, new barns, new houses!”
He stalked into the house. “You’re crazy!” Jinks shrilled after him.
Lorna cried hotly: “I don’t believe a word those Villagas say! I don’t believe Diana is dying and I doubt if she was hurt at all! I don’t believe—” Dorn gulped a cup of hot black coffee, took a big beef sandwich in his hand and escaped to the corral. Pie rode away, Liberty bound, without another word to anybody. “That Diana Villaga!” cried Lorna passionately.
That night Diana Villaga died.
CHAPTER XVI
“What in thunder have you been up to this time, Bill?” demanded Roger Rutherford, staring in a fascinated sort of way at the tall, gaunt, dusty figure striding into the bank.
“What are you talking about?” Dorn countered. He dropped into a chair in a corner of Rutherford’s private office, let his hat slide to the floor and started making a cigarette.
Rutherford continued to regard him curiously.
“Rumors are flying around as thick and as black as a flock of crows,” he said, and emulated Dorn’s activities to the extent of reaching for his pipe. “Have you run amuck or something? Have you gone crazy with the heat and turned bandit and general menace to life and property? Or have you just been blind drunk and having a good time?”
“I don’t get you,” frowned Dorn.
“They’re saying you came down on County Line like the wolf on the fold. That—”
“Oh, that!” said Dorn, and licked the edge of his wheat straw. Then, slightly puzzled: “Say, the news did travel! To get to you so soon.”
“That sort of news always is out for short cuts and speed records. What’s the truth, Bill?”
“I’ll tell you some time, Roger. I’m here on business now. First, do you know whether Mike Bundy is still in town?”
“He left a couple of hours ago. I saw him! He went out of town rarin’ and pitchin’ and pawin’ the ground like a young bull in springtime. If I’m not mistaken he was headed two ways at once—to see how much hell-to-pay there really was at County Line, and to have it out with you.”
“I’m sorry I missed him. Like him, I’m on a double errand. First to see you, then to see Bundy.”
“Well, you see me, Bill, and I’m glad you dropped in. I was going to send word to you. As for Bundy, watch your step. If you ever saw a man with murder in his eye, it’s Mike Bundy.”
“That’s all right. This time we’ll get along.”
But Rutherford shook his head. “He’s trigger-set, Bill, and you better know it. When he got word of what you’d done to him at County Line he was already just ripe to go on the warpath.” He paused a moment; reflectively he polished the warm bowl of his pipe against the side of his nose. “I violate no confidences,” he resumed. “Bundy’s no friend of mine: he has never done any business with my bank. So it struck me as odd that he should come to me, trying to borrow a hefty chunk of money. I said to myself, ‘That long-legged Dorn boy is somehow getting Bundy down flat on his back the way he said he would.’ And in a nice polite way I told Mr. Bundy he could go to hell. There was no gleam of joy in his eye at all. Then on top of that he got word of what had happened to him at County Line while he was chasing around after fresh ammunition.”
“But look here, man,” said a puzzled Bill Dorn. “He’s got a gold mine that’s worth a mint—he ought to be able to borrow all the money he needs on that.”
“Later, no doubt,” returned the banker, “but not right now in a hurry. It’s a big proposit
ion; he is consolidating a lot of interests; also he’s forming a corporation, I understand, planning to sell stock. He can’t pledge the thing until his papers are all in order, and that takes time.”
Dorn’s jaw hardened; his compressed lips made a rigid, slowly whitening line and his brows came down into a black scowl. To himself he said, “We did have Bundy worried—and now I’m getting ready to go broke in order to give him a leg up!”
But that was his own private grief and none of Rutherford’s affair.
“On the subject of money, Roger,” he asked, “how much am I good for right now. Cash on hand, I mean.”
Rutherford went for a sheaf of papers and glanced through them. “I’ve cleaned up a few odds and ends as you asked me to when you gave me your power of attorney; the items are all here.”
“Slide over them. Later, Roger. Just the total I can write a check for?”
Rutherford went for the current balance sheet, juggled a moment with figures and announced: “Twenty-one thousand, about. Maybe a few hundred more, maybe even a couple of extra thousand when this is all cleared up.”
“Twenty-one thousand now?”
“Right, Bill.”
“Gracias, amigo,” said Dorn and stood up. “Y adios.”
“Back to the ranch? Why not have supper with me and we’ll talk.”
“No can do. I’m off to the hotel; I’m going to eat and then I am going to crawl into the best bed the place has got and sleep the clock round.”
“Mañana, then?”
“By the time the rosy fingered goddess gets busy letting the bars down I’ll be on my way. Back to the ranch and to County Line. So long.”
And Rutherford said, “So long,” and Dorn was off to the hotel and to bed before it was dark. He awoke before dawn and lay on his back a long while, hands clasped behind his head, frowning eyes on the vague blur of a ceiling which slowly lost its vagueness in the new day. After a while he shook his head and got up and dressed. There was no other way; there was just one thing to do and he was going to do it the quickest way and get it out of his system.
He meant to stop at the ranch only long enough to change horses, but remained some hours instead. The sheriff was there again and, as Dorn promptly discovered, was as mad as a hornet. Why in blue blazes, he demanded right and left, did they have to go and kill Hank Smith anyhow?
“Drat your pesky hide, Bill Dorn,” was his irate greeting when he met Dorn out at the corral. “Why do you have to let this happen? Hank Smith knew a lot that I want to know, standing closer to Mike Bundy than anyone else. Now you’ve got his mouth shut for good, just when I hit on the way to make him talk.”
Dorn demanded quickly: “What have they done with him? Buried him yet?”
“The boys figured he wouldn’t improve any with keeping,” MacArthur snorted, “so they carted him off just over the edge of the ranch and scooped a hole and popped him in it. Did you want to hang some flowers on him?”
Dorn was thinking of something Diana had said. “Did anyone think to see what he had in his pockets?” he asked.
Up shot the sheriff’s brows at the same time that the corners of his shrewd eyes contracted.
“I did,” he retorted. “And I found something. What do you know about it?”
“What did you find?”
“Some tobacco and papers. A few extra shells for his gun. More money than you’d think to look at him that he’d have. And something else!”
“Let’s have it,” said Bill.
The sheriff extended his leathery palm. In it, like plump lovely eggs in a rude nest, were two satiny, softly glowing pearls. Dorn nodded thoughtfully. Here, if a man needed it, was corroboration of Diana’s story.
“Tell me, Bill,” said the sheriff. And when he had listened to the recital and had returned the Villaga pearls to his pocket and had rolled a thoughtful cigarette, he said, grown brisk again: “Bueno. Now I’m off to have a chat with Mex Fontana. Maybe I can’t make that hombre talk! The two of them, Mex and Hank Smith, have been sticking pretty close side by each. If she gave these to Hank, maybe she gave likewise to Mex. And I’ve got a hunch that I can persuade Señor Fontana to open up.”
“If you’re headed for the Blue Smokes, wait a shake and I’ll ride along.”
“Still looking for Bundy?” Dorn nodded. “Well, you won’t find him there right now. He was at County Line last night; busted in on the place like a crazy man, he was that mad. He was starting out to meet you halfway, Bill, when word came for him to hurry over to the Villagas’. He went over right away, got back late, and again late this morning buzzed back there. I heard him tell some of the men he’s got cleaning up the mess you made of his gambling joint that he wouldn’t be back until some time tonight.”
So the sheriff rode on his way alone, and Dorn remained a while at the ranch. He saw two men on a gentle slope digging; they were Duke Jones and Bud Williams who had at last found a spot which suited them, a place from which a man could look far out over the gently rolling country, a place that would be gently touched by the first rays of the rising sun. “Old Curly would kind of like this place,” they agreed.
He found Cap’n Jinks hunkering on the steps at the house, looking like a sad old grasshopper. After a while Lorna came out, her eyes red and swollen; she had wept over Curly gone, over the ruins about her; had wept from general weariness and dreariness and brokenheartedness.
They had little to say, no questions to ask. If he had cared to volunteer any information they would no doubt have listened listlessly; but he, like them, was content with silence. Once Jinks said in a mumbling way, as though talking to himself, “They’re buryin’ Curly at sun-up; he was a great hand for sun-ups, was Curly.” Lorna merely dropped her face back into her hands; Dorn sat staring away across the green valley into the purpling distances.
At dusk, with no word said against his going this time, he rode away; in his shirt pocket was a blank check and a stub of indelible pencil. And in the early starry evening he came to Bundy’s town.
Here, too, was a heavy pall of silence. It seemed that with the destruction of Bundy’s casino the heart had been cut out of County Line. There was nowhere that men could gather in large numbers to drink and carouse, to dance and gamble and in general make merry; furthermore County Line knew for the first time in its hectic young life a shortage of fire-water. The town drowsed in semi-dark; here and there a light shone in cracks about a door or window. Men went early to bed that night.
Dorn inquired of a man he chanced upon idling down by the ford for Bundy, heard again that Bundy had gone over to the Villagas’, but learned where he might be found when he returned—the cabin which he had occupied while his main building was being erected stood on the bank of the creek a little higher up-stream. Dorn went to it, found it dark, the door unlocked, the one room untenanted. Thereafter, with growing impatience, he set himself the task of awaiting Bundy’s return.
* * * *
One would have thought County Line unusually well policed that night, for the law enforcement machinery of two counties was present in the persons of those counties’ two sheriffs, MacArthur and Martinez. While Bill Dorn in growing impatience was awaiting the arrival of Mike Bundy, MacArthur and Martinez were sitting with a rickety homemade table between them, with a bottle on the table, with the air blue with their smoke. The cabin belonging to Stock Morgan and John Sharp, neither of whom had yet returned to the camp, housed them; presently they meant to roll into the two bunks. Now a bit of talk and a drop or so sufficed them.
Martinez had just been saying, with a vast and complacent chuckle, “Well, old-timer, I guess we were both in luck not being here when Here-We-Go Dorn and his pack of wolves hit this place to do a bit of old fashioned hell-raising. It would have been a tough job to handle, huh?”
“No handling that gang in the mood they were in then,” agreed MacArthur. “And now?” He shru
gged. “Bill and all the rest of ’em would come along gentle, I reckon, if the law called to ’em to do so. But so far Bundy hasn’t said anything to me. Has he to you?”
“Hell no; why should he? I’m here tonight just as a private citizen, to talk to a man tomorrow about a claim he staked for me and—” He chuckled again, good-humored and mellow tonight. “And to watch what happens.” He leaned forward and grinned into his brother sheriff’s face. “I’ve been going over things with our county surveyor since I saw you. The good news is that this whole damn place is clean over my line and in your county. I haven’t any more authority here than you have in China.”
“The hell you say!” growled MacArthur. He was tired where Martinez was rested, testy where Martinez was a cricket for cheer. “That green kid of a Rincon County surveyor is as crazy as he’s cocksure about everything. Me, I’ve been going into this too. Had a talk with Dad Milburn, our surveyor and he says—”
Martinez hooted at him. “Dad Milburn! That old bozo is in his second childhood; seven years ago he got so he forgot where he put his spectacles when he had ’em riding his nose. And you can take it from me—”
MacArthur reached for the comfort of the bottle. “I’m sheriffin’ south of the creek,” he said emphatically. “What happens this side—your side—is none of my give-a-damn. Here’s happy days, Martinez.”
Martinez reached, said, “How, Bart,” and drank. Then they started preparing for bed. They were just about ready to turn in—in other words each of them had discarded coat, belt gun and one boot—when they heard a pistol shot.
“There she goes!” muttered Martinez and through force of habit reached for his gun even before he yanked his boot back on, just as MacArthur, his involuntary gestures dead ringers for Martinez’, growled deep down in his throat, “They’re taking the lid off hell again.” They jostled each other in the narrow doorway and raced down to the creek whence the single shot had resounded.
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