by Short, Luke;
Bard, apparently the justice of the peace, recited rapidly, “The prisoner, James Wade, is charged with the willful murder of thirteen persons, to wit—” and he droned out the names of the men killed by the Excelsior crew. “Does the prisoner plead guilty or not guilty to the charge?”
“Can I talk?” Jim asked.
“You haven’t a lawyer. State your case.”
Jim did. He had not planned the killings, he said with vehemence. He planned the raid on the Star 88. A man was shot, but not badly. As for the killings, they were planned by the crew, which got out of hand. He had no knowledge of the killings until Haynes told him, so help him God. His speech was met with silence.
Bard droned on. “Not guilty is the plea. You will be held for trial in the circuit court which convenes two weeks from this day. You are remanded to the custody of the sheriff.”
“What about bail?” a weary voice asked.
“I will place the bail at two hundred thousand dollars,” Bard answered, and this was met by grunts of satisfaction.
Someone approached him. It was Haynes, and he said, “Wade, I have deputized five men to guard this jail. They are five of the most honest men I know. My duty is to guard you until the date of your trial.” He paused. “My sincere hope is that you are taken from my custody and killed. You deserve it. Now get into the cell block.”
Alone in the single large cell, the window of which opened onto an alley running behind the building, Jim sank down on the cot and put his head in his hands. In the tomblike quiet of the cell, his thoughts began to take some order. Soon he began to perceive a pattern which underlay these events. The man behind it was, obviously, Max Bonsell. Bonsell had a job to do in driving off the squatters, a job which might take years of feuding. He preferred the quick way, the killer’s way. But someone would have to pay for murder, even in this lawless country. He had gone to Dodge City in search of a man. That man had to have a reputation for handling men, a reputation as a gun fighter, and a reputation as an honest man. Jim Ward filled the bill and was hired. The rest was carefully planned, too. Jim Wade had had all the responsibility for the eviction of the squatters placed squarely on his shoulders. Moreover—and this was a stroke of blind fortune for Max Bonsell—Jim Wade had publicly and before the sheriff assumed that responsibility. All that remained was the raid. It had been planned nicely. While Jim, with a small crew, burned Cruver out, the others did the killing. In one swift stroke, most of the opposition to the Excelsior was wiped out. Instead of taking a year, it took a night.
But somebody had to answer for those murders—and Jim Wade was the man!
Bonsell could sanctimoniously claim that he knew nothing about it. Jim made a bet with himself that Bonsell had been in town the night before last, so his alibi would be perfect. As for the crew, they would vanish into the hills, leaving only Jim Wade, their foreman, to answer for them.
It was neat, merciless, complete.
Jim tried to look ahead. The chances were that when he was discovered in the jail, a lynch mob would form. And the length of his life after that depended on how ably those five men defended the jail.
And why should they defend it with their lives, knowing he was doomed, anyway?
He got up from the cot and started an examination of his cell. The jail was old, of adobe some three feet thick, with the five bars at the window sunk deep in the wall. Not an impossible jail to break out of in ordinary times, but impossible now, with five men quietly listening in the next room.
He was examining the ceiling when he heard a voice at the window.
“Jim Wade!” it whispered. “Jim Wade!”
Jim moved his cot over below the high window and stood on it. This brought his head level with the window, which was screened with heavy wire.
He looked into the slim, sad face of Lily Beauchamp.
“Lily!”
“Did they hurt you, Jim?”
“No.”
“Oh, Jim, Ben told me about it! He knows you didn’t do it because he was with you! What will happen?”
Jim whispered quietly, “Why, they’ll either lynch or hang me if I don’t get out of here.”
“Can you?”
“It don’t look like it,” Jim confessed.
“But you’ve got to! And you’ve got to do it right away! The whole town is deserted, looking for you. But when word gets out you’re captured, they’ll come back and mob up!”
“Unh-hunh.”
“Can you break out?”
“I’ll try.”
“Do you need tools?”
Jim smiled meagerly. “You’d have to cut the screen to get ’em to me and the racket would bring them in here.”
Lily was silent a long while, and Jim was suddenly aware that she was sobbing.
“Lily, what’s the matter?”
“I hate it! I hate it!” she whispered passionately.
Jim’s face reflected surprise in that half-light.
Lily looked up at him and said, “Oh, I know it’s strange, Jim, but can’t you understand a girl? You—you’re the first man who’s ever treated me kindly, who hasn’t asked for things I would never give. You’re kind and—and you’ve done something for Ben. You’ve given me hope and—”
“You’re excited, Lily,” Jim said gravely. “Any man who wasn’t blind could see how decent you are. If—well, if I don’t come through this, don’t get bitter and hard about it, girl. Watch Ben and make somethin’ out of him. He’s got the stuff.”
“Jim,” Lily whispered. “I love you. Is that—is that queer?”
Jim didn’t answer.
“I’ve only seen you ten minutes in my whole life, but you’ve never been out of my mind since that night. Never!” She looked up and smiled. “I just wanted you to know. It doesn’t make any difference to you, I know, because you don’t love me. Only—only—good-by. And I’ll get you out! I will, Jim!”
And she was gone. Jim stood there, looking out into the night, letting Lily Beauchamp’s words sink into his mind. He felt small and humble before this girl, who had been honest enough to pour out her heart to him. Suddenly he gripped the bars until his knuckles were white. What the hell kind of a world was it that would beat and cow a girl like Lily into being so grateful for one decent act a man did for her? Cow her until she was so grateful for this act that she mistook her gratitude for love. For Jim Wade did not think for one instant that Lily Beauchamp loved him. It was gratitude, gratitude for a kindness that any white man would have been glad to do.
He stood there watching the night. The dark form of a freight wagon on the street was the only thing he could clearly see. He’d better take a good look, he thought, because that freight wagon was the last thing he’d see when he was at peace with the world.
He climbed down and continued his examination of the cell. It was solid and had probably housed many men as desperate as he was until the hour of their sentence.
Lying down on the cot, he rehearsed all the jail escapes he had ever heard of. But all of them precluded a situation that was not guarded by five grim men in the next room.
He lay awake for hours, waiting for dawn, listening to the quiet of the town. If he ever got out of here, he would spend the rest of his life hunting down Max Bonsell and killing him. It was a wholly impersonal anger that did not include self-pity; it was an anger at injustice, at a frame-up.
A sound drifted into his consciousness and roused him. He listened. A sifting of gravel rattled faintly on the screen. Rising, he stood on the cot and looked out of the window. There was no one there. Then, just as he was about to step down off the cot, Cope’s egg-bald head appeared.
“Well, you done it,” Cope announced grimly.
Jim said guardedly, “Done what?” because hadn’t he heard Cope out in the front room with those others?
“Didn’t you suspect a damn thing about Bonsell?” Cope said angrily. “How old are you, Wade?”
“A broke man can’t afford to suspect,” Jim retorted.
&
nbsp; “He can’t afford not to,” Cope replied. He was silent a minute. “Can you get out of there?”
“How?”
“I’m askin’ you.”
“Not without a gun.”
“That’s out.” He paused. “I can get you out.”
Jim hesitated. “Why should you?” he murmured.
“You’re too good a bucko to die on a cottonwood limb, for one thing,” Cope said gravely. “Another is, we need you.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Do you want out of there bad enough to find out?”
“I want out mighty bad,” Jim said fervently.
“You aim to run when you’re out?”
“Not before I nail Bonsell’s hide to the wall,” Jim answered quietly.
Cope almost chuckled. “Then you’ll stick?”
“Till hell won’t have me,” Jim said.
“All right.” With incredible silence, Cope hoisted a huge logging-chain up even with the window. He slipped its big hook between the bars and the screen, then hooked it over the shank of the chain.
“See that freight wagon?” Cope asked.
“Yes.”
“In half an hour, Jody Capper will hook five teams to it and head for the mines at Tres Piedras. Those broncs will be salty and they’ll try to break harness the minute they hear his whip. This chain will be hooked to the rear axle of the wagon. When the window goes out you follow it. Cut across behind the hotel, then turn right, and make for behind my saloon. There’s stairs on the north side of it. Climb ’em and go into my rooms. I’ll be there.”
Jim was silent a long moment. “How do I know this isn’t an excuse to avoid a trial by cuttin’ down on me the minute I get out?”
“You don’t,” Cope said, and vanished from sight.
Jim watched. He saw Cope couple another length of logging-chain to the one at the window, then trail it over to the wagon. A third length he coupled to this, then, crawling under the wagon, he fastened it to the axle.
What he did next fascinated Jim. He moved leaves from the ditch over onto the logging-chain. When he came to the boardwalk, he lifted a section of it out from under the chain and put the walk back on top of it. Then, taking a whiskbroom from his hip pocket, he carefully brushed out his tracks, working especially hard on the indentations his crutch had made. When he was finished, he waved to Jim and vanished into the night.
The wait was interminable, but Jim never left the window. Later, much later, a light appeared in the shack next to the hotel. That would be Jody Capper breakfasting. Presently two men with a lantern emerged and went to the big barn fronting on the road. There was considerable swearing from within the barn and a long wait. Then the doors opened, and a pair of skittish broncs were led out by the man with the lantern. They were harnessed to the wheel place, and immediately another team was brought out. This went on until five teams, restive in the chill morning air, were harnessed to the wagon.
Jim almost choked once when the shortest man walked around behind the wagon and climbed the end gate to examine something inside. But he didn’t touch the chain, and Jim breathed more freely again. The other man stood holding the bridle of the lead team, while the first one stood on the wagon bed, holding the reins and cursing the team. They started once, but the two men fought them so that they backed up beyond the former mark.
Then the man in the wagon, Jody Capper, Jim guessed, picked up a whip with his free hand and unleashed it. With a shout to the man holding the horses to clear out, he cracked his whip like a pistol shot.
The five half-broken teams exploded into their collars.
There was a long second when nothing happened, and then the chain sung taut, throwing the boardwalk high into the air.
A clang of screeching iron lifted into the night, and simultaneously, the rear end of the wagon lifted off the ground, and the whole window frame of the cell pulled out in a moil of dust.
Jim lunged through the opening in one jump, noting that the team was still on the run. Jody Capper was looking back, cursing in a wild voice, but it was not Jody Jim was watching. It was the man with the lantern, who had turned and was staring at him.
Jim hit him running, hit him hard enough to knock him sprawling, the lantern sailing through the air to smash in the road.
Scarcely pausing in his stride, he made for the alley behind the hotel. Rounding its rear corner, he heard the first yell from the jail.
When he crossed the street, it was at a walk, soundlessly. They could not see him, but they might hear him. Achieving the alley behind the saloon, he sped down it and found the stairs at the far side of it.
He climbed them slowly, silently, and opened the door facing the top platform. Immediately he stepped into a room burning one lamp and that only dimly.
Cope was mountainous in the middle of the room, his face grave and sweating.
Beside him stood the most beautiful woman Jim Wade had ever seen. She was dressed in a suit of dark-blue wool with a full, sweeping skirt. It sheered off at her neck, showing the fine sweep of her head which was crowned with a mass of corn-colored hair. Her face was surprised, so that her full lips were parted a little, and the excitement brought color to her cheeks. It was her eyes, bright with excitement and curiosity that Jim Wade looked at. They were deep-set behind low cheekbones, and dark as night pools.
“This is the man?” she murmured, in a full, low voice.
Cope grinned. “Good boy! Mary, this is Jim Wade. Jim, this is Mary Buckner, the real owner, the heir of the Ulibarri grant.”
Without waiting for Mary to extend her hand, Cope blew out the light and said, “Go into that room.”
Mary went in ahead of him, for Jim could smell her perfume. Cope closed the door on them, and they were in darkness.
Within fifteen seconds, there was a pounding on the stairs, and Jim heard a thundering knock at the door. Someone shouted, “Cope! Cope!”
Jim heard Cope mumble, “Yeah?” then a pause, and then the tap, tap of his crutch as he went to the door.
“He’s gone!” a man said excitedly. “He broke jail!”
“Hell!” Cope exploded. “Get out of the way and let me see!”
They left, for the door slammed solidly.
Mary Buckner said quietly in the darkness, “We could go into the other room.”
Chapter Six: STOLEN RANGE
The lamp was burning just as Cope left it when, supposedly, he was roused from bed.
By its light Jim Wade looked at Mary Buckner, and Mary Buckner looked at him. It was a friendly scrutiny from both of them, and at last Jim Wade grinned.
“This is comin’ a little too fast for me. I—I don’t know what to say.”
“We might shake hands,” Mary Buckner said gravely. “We’re going to be friends, aren’t we?”
They shook hands solemnly, and then Mary laughed. “Sit down.”
Jim waited for her to take her chair, and then he sank onto the sofa.
“Cope told me everything that’s happened,” she began. “He’s a loyal friend.”
Jim smiled. “But I didn’t even know he was one. To me, I mean.”
“He’s sharp. He can tell a crook a mile off—and he can like a man as quickly, too.”
“But why—” Jim began, and stopped. Where to begin? He started off on another tack. “Did he say your name was Mary Buckner, ma’am?”
She nodded. “You’ve heard of us, I suppose?”
Jim nodded. “Barely. You are the family the Excelsior bought from?”
“Bought from?” Mary shook her head. “Hardly. I’m the one they stole it from.”
She saw the puzzled expression on Jim’s face, and she smiled. “Hadn’t we better start from the beginning?”
“If there is one,” Jim said fervently. “I landed in the middle of it. That’s all I know.”
She began to talk, and Jim found it hard to concentrate on her words. She was like something shining and clean that a man couldn’t stare at enough. But he listened and
he heard a strange story.
The Ulibarris, Mary Buckner said, were the original grantees, and the Buckners’ claim to it was through one Simon Buckner, a Yankee ship’s captain. His ship was wrecked on the west coast of Mexico in the late seventeen-hundreds, after which he made his way to Mexico City. There he courted the only daughter of the Ulibarri house, Principia by name, and later eloped with her, taking her to Salem. When, after the Mexican War, title to this country was transferred to the U.S., it was found one Leonidas Buckner, Boston merchant, was heir to the Ulibarri grant. He had two sons, Harvey and James. Harvey was a scapegrace, James a semi-invalid. On the father’s death, the Ulibarri property went to son James, who moved West with his daughter. That was James Buckner, and Mary was his daughter.
Soon after James Buckner moved into the old house, built by the Ulibarris long ago, the cattle business began to thrive. A rough type of cattleman began to encroach on the grant, and Will-John Cruver was one of them. James Buckner didn’t mind; he wasn’t a cattleman. But when the big estate began to drain away James Buckner’s slim resources, he decided to run cattle. That had been the death of him.
“How do you mean, the death of him?” Jim asked.
“He ordered Cruver and the other squatters to leave,” Mary said. “Rather than do it, they came to the house one night and shot him and took his body with them.”
“You saw it?”
Mary only nodded quietly. “I was a little girl, and nobody would believe my story. I was left an orphan by that murder. I was ten years old then.”
“How did you live?”
Mary’s face softened a little. “I wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for rough Jack Cope. His wife was alive then, and they adopted me. Later, when I was school age, Uncle Jack sent me to school in the East. When I was out of school, I was aching to come back to the West. I did come back—but to Wyoming as a schoolteacher.”
“But your land,” Jim said. “It’s still yours?”
Mary shook her head. “It would take money to prove that in court, years of litigation. And I was poor.”
“So you tried to save money for the court fight?”