by Short, Luke;
He slipped out in the corridor and into her room. The lamp was lighted. He picked a crumpled handkerchief from her dresser, then tore a strip of cloth out of a dressing-gown thrown over the foot of her bed.
Back in Buckner’s room he listened until Mary came back upstairs. The clerk was with her, and he heard them talking in the corridor. Presently the clerk went downstairs.
Turning up the lamp, Bonsell arranged things the way he wanted them. He put the strip of cloth in Buckner’s hand. He dropped the handkerchief under the chair. He took Buckner’s gun, a Colt .45 with scarred cedar handles identical to his own, and exchanged them, placing the gun on the bed.
With one last look about him, he turned the lamp dim, opened the window, and drew his gun.
Pointing it at the sky, he fired once, then closed the window, dropped to the ground, and ran for his horse.
Slowly, then, he rode out of town, just as a lamp was lighted in one of the hotel rooms where the shot had been heard.
Chapter Fifteen: “HE’S BUSTED BANKS BEFORE.”
Mary Buckner was not yet asleep when she heard the shot. Like everyone else in the hotel, she was startled by it. Rising and throwing her wrapper about her, she wondered if the shot had any connection with that mysterious note she had just received. She was still angry over having had to dress and go down to the lobby, only to be told that she must have been dreaming, that nobody was waiting for her.
She peered out into the corridor, to find all the other doors open. A horse trader, galluses trailing down his legs, had pulled on his pants over his nightshirt and was standing in the middle of the hall, scratching his head when the clerk mounted the stairs.
Several others trailed out of their rooms, asking, “What happened?”
The horse trader answered them all with a “Damfino,” and said to the clerk, “A shot woke us up.”
“Was it here in the building?”
“Sure sounded like it. On that side of the building.”
The clerk looked at the doors. They were all open, with persons standing in them, except one, and that was the door to Buckner’s room. Mary came out and joined the others, her curiosity whetted.
The horse trader noticed the closed door and went over and knocked on it. There was no answer, and he asked the clerk, “Who’s in there?”
“I’ll have to look at the register.”
“Hell, I don’t aim to call him by his name,” the horse trader growled. He pounded on the door. “Hey, open up if you’re there!” Still no answer.
“Try the door,” the clerk suggested.
The horse trader opened it, and the others crowded toward it. There lay Buckner dead on the bed. At sight of him the horse trader whistled and entered the room. The others shoved in behind him. Mary, since nobody had spoken a word, came up to the door last. The watchers were so scattered that she could see Buckner’s form lying on the bed.
The sight of him made her gasp, attracting the horse trader’s attention. He turned to Buckner, lifted the strip of cloth from his hand and looked at Mary. “Well, well,” he said slowly.
He came across the room, put the cloth against Mary’s dressing-gown, and said nothing, only looked at her.
It took Mary a full second to understand what he was doing, and then the color flushed out of her face.
“Do you know this man?” the horse trader asked curiously, pointing to Buckner.
“Y—Yes.”
That was all there was to it. The clerk got the sheriff. The sheriff got Cope. When they got there, Mary was crying on the chair under which the horse trader had already found the handkerchief. A sheet was thrown over Buckner.
Cope stormed in, his face dark with fury, and Mary rushed to his arms. His first words were matter-of-fact ones. He told her to go dress. His next were addressed to the morbid watchers, and he told them to get the hell out of there.
His next move was to go over and look at Buckner.
“How’d you find him?” he asked the horse trader. He was told. Immediately he went down to Mary’s room and came back with the dressing-gown. It was Sheriff Link Haynes who found where the piece was torn out.
Cope said, “I don’t believe it.”
“You got eyes, ain’t you?” the horse trader said.
“Mister,” Cope said in a voice filled with quiet menace, “I raised that girl.”
“Looks like you done a damn poor job of it,” the horse trader opined.
Cope was on him in a second. It took Sheriff Haynes and two others to get Cope off, and the horse trader slunk out of the room, nursing a bloody nose.
When the sheriff, Cope, and the clerk were alone again, Cope said to Haynes, “Well, what are you goin’ to do?”
Haynes said quietly, “That’s her father, isn’t it?”
Cope nodded.
“And they’ve fought?”
“Who said so?”
“She told Kling the other day that she didn’t know or care about her father. She was huffy.”
“What does that prove?” Cope snarled.
“Take it easy,” Haynes said. “It proves they weren’t friendly.”
“Does it prove she killed him?”
“She was awake five minutes before. She came down to the clerk with a cock-and-bull story. She didn’t like her father. A piece of her clothes was found in his hand. Her handkerchief was found under the chair. What am I supposed to believe, if I won’t believe my eyes?”
“I tell you she didn’t do it!” Cope said angrily.
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know. But she didn’t!”
Haynes looked at Cope a long time. “All right, Cope, that’s what you say. But I’ve talked to men who saw Buckner in Sante Fe years back. He told them that he thought his daughter was crazy, and that sometimes he was afraid of her. If all those things don’t add to one thing, then I can’t count.”
“But she’s a girl!”
“A girl can shoot a gun, can’t she?”
Cope was wordless. What was there to say, except to blindly reiterate his belief that Mary Buckner was innocent?
Haynes listened and didn’t comment until Cope was through. Then he said, “I don’t know why she shot him, Cope. Maybe he got rough. Maybe he threatened her. Maybe she shot him in self-defense. I dunno why she did, but it looks like she shot him. And I got to arrest her.”
“Jail her?”
Cope exploded again at Haynes’s nod, but Mary’s entrance cut him short. Then Haynes began to question her. He was finished by daylight, and not once during those hours did she change her story. No, she didn’t like her father. Yes, she knew he was here. No, she hadn’t talked to him. No, she didn’t kill him. No, she didn’t know how the cloth got in his hands. She showed Haynes the note that was stuck under her door in the night. Haynes looked skeptical. If it was true, then it was only Buckner’s ruse to get her out of bed to come to his room. And she shot him; there was no doubt about it.
The upshot was that Mary had breakfast in the hotel dining-room and afterward was taken to the new jail. Cope was furious, but Link Haynes was as stubborn as a weak man could be. The Excelsior outfit, the Buckners and Bonsell, the squatters and their rights—all of these he was heartily sick of. Reports had been sifting through to him of fights between Bonsell and the squatters. He couldn’t find the truth anywhere. Everybody was lying. When he accosted Cruver on the street and asked him about the reports, Cruver told him to mind his own damn business. There was nothing a man could go against, only rumors.
But he could get his teeth into this. And like all indecisive men, when he made up his mind, he had made it up for good. Mary Buckner hadn’t ever asked his help. He didn’t know why she was here, only he supposed it was something to do with the Excelsior, some trouble she was going to straighten out with her father. Well, she had gone too far.
Mary went docilely into the cell while Cope stirred up the town with his wrath. Strangely enough, he found it divided in sentiment. There were many who never liked Buckner, and who r
emembered that story Mary Buckner had tried to spread about her father’s death. They didn’t like her either. They didn’t like the Buckners’ uppish ways. They thought Haynes was justified in holding her.
At eight o’clock, the mail was distributed, and Link Haynes, sick of Cope’s rowing, walked over alone to get his mail at the post office. He came back considerably faster than he went, and entered the new cell block without any ceremony. He would not let Cope come in with him.
“Miss Buckner,” he began, “I got a letter in the mail this mornin’ about you.”
“What about me?”
Haynes looked wise. “James Buckner wasn’t your father. He wasn’t James Buckner. He was your uncle Harvey, posin’ as your father. That was the cause of the fight. That’s why you murdered him.”
Mary Buckner’s wan face, for the first time, wore a look of uneasiness, and Link Haynes knew that the writer of this anonymous letter had been right.
In the absence of Cope, he started a gentle bullying, but he soon abandoned it. He didn’t need it. Mary had given herself away. The look of guilt on her face was interpreted by Haynes as a confession. To right that impression, Mary told him that James Buckner was Harvey Buckner, and that the letter had been correct. That only strengthened Haynes’s belief that she had committed the murder. He hated to think as pretty a girl as this would murder her father. An uncle made it easier. It also made a neater case for him. She wouldn’t tell him how it happened that Harvey Buckner owned the Ulibarri acres, while she was left penniless by her father, but he surmised that James Buckner had disinherited his daughter. That gave a motive for the killing. He wanted to know about James Buckner, too, but again Mary would tell him nothing. The only confession that ever passed her lips was the fact that the Buckner who had been killed was her uncle.
Haynes came away from that session a little puzzled, but confident that he was on the right track. As for holding a woman, wasn’t she a murderer? Maybe a jury wouldn’t convict her, but he would have done his duty in bringing her to trial.
When he stepped out into the office, Cope was still there, huge and sweating and angry as a bull. His crutch kept tap-tapping on the floor in impatience.
“You still here?” Haynes growled.
“I want to know things,” Cope said. “Where is the man who rode in here with Buckner yesterday?”
“Who was that?”
“How the hell would I know? That’s your job. He brought a man with him from Sante Fe. A lantern-jawed gunnie that looked like he’d kill a man for the price of a drink. Go find him!”
“All right.”
“Another thing. Have you had Bonsell in here? He’s another killer. He was partners with Buckner in the Excelsior. How do you know he didn’t kill Buckner over the ranch?”
“I don’t.”
“Then find out!” Cope raved. “You’ve grabbed an innocent girl on a simple frame-up, Link, and damned if I’m goin’ to let you stop there! Get those two to start with! And another thing. Who sent that letter to you this mornin’?”
“What letter?” Haynes asked blankly.
“Why, you damn fool, I heard you bullyin’ her into admitting that Buckner was her uncle. Who sent the letter?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out! Find out!” Cope raved. “Get out of here and do something!”
Sheriff Link Haynes was simply overwhelmed by Cope’s fury. Fortunately for him, Max Bonsell and a stranger rode into town at nine o’clock and pulled up at the Exchange House tie rail. Bonsell had picked Ray Warren up on the road. Warren’s horse had thrown a shoe last night and had gone lame. Early this morning, on his way to town, Max Bonsell had ridden into his camp. Seeing his plight, he had gone back to the hide-out for another horse and they had ridden in together.
Link Haynes saw them and went over to them as they dismounted.
“Where you two goin’?” he asked bluntly.
Bonsell regarded him coldly. “Well, it ain’t much of your business, Haynes, but we’re goin’ in the hotel to see a man.”
“Who?”
Bonsell looked at Warren and then back at Haynes. “Why, man by the name of Buckner.”
“He’s dead,” Haynes announced bluntly. “Murdered last night.”
Bonsell and Warren only stared at him, and then Warren said, “Jim Buckner murdered? Here?”
Haynes nodded. “Where were you two last night?”
Bonsell said quickly, “At my camp.”
“Both of you?”
“Yes.”
“Any proof?”
“All you want,” Bonsell drawled, and then asked, “How’d he die?”
“Never mind that,” Haynes said. “I want to talk to you two. Come over to the office.”
At the office, Haynes ordered Cope out and then began his examination of the two men. Both were closemouthed about their business with Buckner, saying only that their business was none of Haynes’s. Warren crawled under the shelter of Max Bonsell’s lie with a certain thankfulness, since a night spent alone at the time of a murder would place him as a suspect. Bonsell knew this, and he swore innocently that he and Warren had been at his camp with some men, some men he hired as a skeleton crew to man the Excelsior.
Haynes got nowhere. When he was finished, Bonsell spoke his mind. He said he thought it was a particularly offensive act on Haynes’s part to arrest Mary Buckner as a suspect. In a roundabout way, and with a perfectly expressionless face, he said insulting things about Haynes’s intelligence until the sheriff’s face was red as brick. Bonsell finished, “Since you’ve got her in jail here, I don’t suppose anybody can talk to her but you.”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Then I’d like to speak to her,” Bonsell said. “If what you say is true that Jim Buckner was her uncle and not her father, that still makes her take over the Ulibarri grant, don’t it? And if it does, she’s my boss. And I’d like to talk to her and get some orders.”
Haynes took Bonsell’s gun and let him into the cell block. Mary was seated on a bench, her head bowed, but when she heard the door open, she looked up.
Her brown eyes plainly told Bonsell that he was not welcome. For his part, he was a perfect gentleman. He drawled a good morning, took his hat off, and bluntly announced that he thought Haynes was a fool for doing this to her. Haynes slammed the door, and they were alone.
Mary looked at Bonsell with some curiosity in her glance. This was the man that had framed Jim Ward so neatly, a merciless gunman from Texas, Jim had said. He certainly didn’t look the part, but Mary was not fooled.
She said coldly, “I don’t imagine we have much to talk about, have we? Under what pretense did you get in here, anyway?”
“I’m still the ramrod for Excelsior, Miss Buckner,” Bonsell said humbly. “My boss is dead. You’re his daughter so you’re my boss.”
“I wish I were,” Mary said bitterly, her brown eyes flashing. “Let’s drop the pretense. Both you and I know that James Buckner over there in the hotel wasn’t my father. So does Haynes. What do you want?”
“Does the Ulibarri grant go to you now, Miss Buckner?” Bonsell asked.
“You know it doesn’t!” Mary flared. “You’ve taken enough pains in these last years to make sure I never get it!” She paused, eying his cool, bland features with their smoky, expressionless eyes. “I’ve often thought that you’re probably the man who stole the charter out of my trunk up in Wyoming.”
Bonsell colored a little at that. “You haven’t accused me yet of killin’ Buckner.”
“You probably did!” she said swiftly.
Max Bonsell grinned amiably. “Now, I’ve never torn up that kind of a meal ticket in my life, Miss Buckner. Give me credit for some sense.”
“Then what do you want with me?”
“I only wondered what yuh aimed to do when you get out of here. I mean, are you goin’ to take to the law courts over the grant?”
“Of course.”
“Goin’ to try and prove that
Buckner was your uncle, not your father?”
“I am.”
“How?”
“By proving he was a fraud.”
“I know, but how?”
“There must be some way,” Mary said coldly. “He’s made a slip somewhere.”
Bonsell conceded that. “But to prove he’s your uncle, you got to prove your father’s dead. And even you have got to admit that can’t be done. You can’t even find his grave.”
Mary said, “And how do you know all this? How do you know what I’ll have to do in court?” Her intuition prompted the next remark. “Did he make you his heir, by any chance?”
Bonsell smiled and held up his hands. “He did not,” he said grinning. “That would make too nice a case for murder against me. No, he didn’t leave me a thing—except the disposal of some of his papers.”
Mary missed that last remark, but Bonsell was patient.
“Then what do you want? What are you trying to tell me? That I have a long fight ahead of me to prove my identity, and that I have a slim chance of taking over my property?”
“That’s about it,” Bonsell said.
“How does that concern you?”
“Well, what if I made it easier for you?”
“You mean testify that James Buckner was Harvey Buckner?”
Bonsell laughed. “No such thing. I’ll never be dragged into a court, Miss Buckner.”
“Then how?”
“Isn’t there something else that would help you?”
“Nothing short of—” She paused and looked keenly at him. “You mean the charter?”
Bonsell nodded.
Mary had her mouth open to say, “But it’s in the bank under his name and nobody can touch it except his heirs,” but something warned her to keep silent. She said in a small voice, “Oh.”
“Wouldn’t that help you?”
Mary nodded. “Have you got it?”
This time Bonsell nodded.
“How did you get it?”
Bonsell rolled a smoke and lighted it. “I’m goin’ to tell you somethin’, Miss Buckner, about me and your uncle. We aren’t what you’d call trustful men. We’ve both had to live by our wits, and the law could take us for a lot of things if it could prove its case. Now, when we threw in together to do you out of the Ulibarri grant, it was risky.” He smiled suddenly. “I’m talkin’ pretty blunt.”