by Short, Luke;
Toward midnight the noises of the town ceased. That meant the stores were closing, and that people had sought their homes.
But it was closer to one o’clock when Ben, on watch, whispered, “Here comes a bunch of riders.”
Jim went to the door and counted them, then motioned Ben back to latch the door from the inside. He himself slipped behind the fence, and waited until they approached. There were three of them, and they were not talking.
He heard them stop not twenty feet from him, and a man’s voice, Bonsell’s, said finally, “Well, here she is, gents.”
“Back door and window have got bars over ’em, ain’t they?” a strange voice asked.
“Unh-hunh. So’s the front.” That was Cruver’s voice. Cruver and Bonsell together! That didn’t make sense. On second thought, it did, too, for they were alike in many ways, apt to pool their resources once they quit fighting each other.
“Don’t worry about that,” Bonsell said quietly. “There’s a roof on the place, ain’t there?”
“That what you brought the crowbar for?” Cruver asked.
“You watch. Here. Take these tow-sacks and the dynamite. And, for God’s sake, be careful of it.”
They dismounted, leading their horses close behind the bank and tethering them at the bars of the window.
There was a lot of quiet business that Jim could hear but not see. The proximity of their horses to the rear door meant that they were not going to blow through the rear entrance, at least.
And then Jim saw them on the roof. So Bonsell had spotted the skylights as the weakest place! But once they achieved the ridge of the bank’s roof, they went no farther.
Cruver said querulously, “What you goin’ to do, Bonsell? Cut a hole in the damn thing?”
“You wait,” Bonsell said. The first thing he did was rip away the tar paper on the roof. There were three layers of it, and he peeled it off quickly. Then he said, “Yeah, just what I thought. The roof is like any other buildin’.” He turned to Cruver. “Why try to tear an iron bar out when all you got to do is pry off a board?”
He proceeded to do so. The boards ran from the ridge to the eaves. He pried off five of them. Then he came to the subroofing, which was laid diagonally. He got the ends of three of those boards loose, propped them up, slipped in between the rafters, and disappeared inside. There was some talk between them that Jim couldn’t hear, but it was probably Bonsell telling them that there was a ceiling over the room and to hand the crowbar down.
At any rate, Cruver handed it to him. Jim heard a couple of muffled blows, which would be sufficient to break the lath over the ceiling. Then Cruver and the stranger slipped through the roof and disappeared.
Jim came out to join Scoville and Ben.
“Well, I’m damned,” Scoville murmured. “Just took the roof off, hunh?”
Inside Bonsell lowered himself to a desk from one of the rafters and took the dynamite from Cruver, who then came down. Warren was last.
Bonsell told them his plan. “Whatever jughead—a bunch of Mexs, I suppose—done the stonework on that vault, he left a couple of small holes for ventilation. That’s where the dynamite goes. You two jaspers go up in front and lie down on the floor. After she blows, Warren, you stay there at the front door and watch. Whoever tries to get in, knock out that glass and cut down on him. Will-John, you take the back door. There’s two locks. A hasp on the bars comes through the wooden door to padlock to a staple inside. Shoot it off first. Then there’s the lock on the wood door. Shoot that off, unbolt the bolts, and we’re away. You do that while I’m gettin’ the loot. Now you got it?”
They said they had. After they had moved two desks together so they afforded adequate shelter against the blast, Bonsell went up to the vault.
Toward the top there was a small, square hole, big enough for three sticks of dynamite. Bonsell didn’t need that many but he wanted to make sure. He uncoiled the fuse, slipped the caps on, and then tucked the dynamite in the hole.
He saw no sense in a long wait, so he cut the fuse short, saw that all was ready, and called, “Lie down!”
Then he whipped a match across his pants, touched it to the fuse end, and ran.
He barely made the protection of the desk before the sharp, vicious explosion hammered out, seeming to suck all the air in the room to it. The floor seemed to lift and slide, there was a heavy muffled clap and then every window in the place shattered as something heavy collapsed.
Bonsell, a full wastebasket in his hand, was on his feet immediately, Cruver behind him. They parted at the vault, and Bonsell saw that a whole section of the stone vault lay open toward the top. He lifted his leg, placed it against the stone, and shoved. Four feet of the wall caved inside.
Once through the opening, he worked swiftly, without nervousness. He touched a match to the paper in the wastebasket, so that it served as a lamp. By its light, he read the names on the safe-deposit boxes until he came to Buckner’s. He pulled out the box, shot the lock off, opened it, and saw the slim bundle of papers in the bottom. One was thick and wrapped in oilcloth, and he smiled at sight of it. He put all in his inside coat pocket.
Then he pulled out two or three other boxes, shot the locks off, and dumped their contents in the tow-sacks without looking at them. This would make the robbery of Buckner’s box less noticeable.
Cruver’s shooting was loud in that small room. He shot three times, swearing loudly. Bonsell moved up to the big cash box, opened it, dumped the contents in a sack, smiling at its meagerness, then proceeded to sweep papers, anything in sight, into the sack, also.
The light had gone out now, and Bonsell carefully set the sack down and moved to the opening. Through it, he could see Warren outlined against the dim lights of the town.
Drawing his gun, he rested it on a rock jutting from the jagged wall, took careful sight, and pulled the trigger. Warren went down without a sound.
He shuttled his gaze to Cruver. Cruver had stopped work, and was looking up at Warren. Again Bonsell raised his gun and fired. Cruver staggered back against the wall, tripped, fell, and rolled on his face. But he had his gun out and was fighting to get a sight at Bonsell.
Bonsell moved quick as a snake. He lunged for a desk, just as Cruver shot, and the slug ripped into the wood. With one great heave, he turned the desk over on Cruver, crushing his gun hand to the floor. He had shot Cruver in the chest. Why take time to kill him?
The sack of loot he left in the vault. Running up to Warren, he grabbed him by the back of his coat and hauled him back beside Cruver, then yanked Warren’s gun out and shot it once. Cruver’s boots kept tapping the floor as he kicked weakly. It would look now as if Cruver and Warren had got to fighting after the robbery and had killed each other.
He looked toward the front and heard men across the plaza yelling at each other. It was time to move. He went to the back door, yanked the wooden door open, and a blast of gunfire poured into it from Ben and Scoville. He slammed it quickly, looking up front again. Two men were running across the plaza. It looked as though they had him trapped, but Bonsell coolly surveyed his chances. There was always the roof.
He leaped to the desk, paused, caught his wind, then jumped for the rafter showing through the hole in the ceiling. He caught it and swung himself up and was soon on the roof. As he emerged, a shot from below whipped into a board beside his head.
He sent a snap shot at the flame, then started out across the roofs, crouching low, toward the livery stable.
Another shot reached out for him, the slug whipping into the roof. He turned in time to see a man’s head vanish below a roof ridge. This man had taken to the roofs, too. Footsteps were pounding in the alley and he heard a man yell, “Get him on the street, Ben! He’s got to come down!”
Bonsell was two roofs from the corner. He ran as hard as he could down the roof slope, jumped the gap, ran up the next, down it, and was on the wooden awning next the street. It was low; he did not even pause in his pace. He soared off the awning, lit i
n the street, rolled over with his momentum, gained his feet, all in one motion and streaked for the dark sanctuary of the feed-stable door. Shots kicked up dust around him as he raced, and one whipped into the archway frame a foot from his head as he sprawled onto the planking in the darkness.
And then Jim Wade came boiling over the roofs, just as Scoville and Ben came out of the alley. He jumped, just as Bonsell jumped, only did not fall.
Ben was streaking for the passageway between the stable and saddle shop next door; Scoville cut across, without any orders, and rounded the corner on his way to the alley.
And Jim plunged into the darkness of the archway after Bonsell. Halfway down it, he heard two shots and saw a gun flash from the corral. Almost immediately there was another shot from the alley, and again, more to the left this time, the gun flash appeared.
And then Jim Wade smiled. Bonsell was trapped in the corral.
He slipped out the back door and flattened himself against the barn. Ben, at the far corner of the corral, laced a tentative shot into the darkness. It was answered immediately by Bonsell, who was standing almost in the middle of the corral. Scoville, in the alley at the other corner of the corral, took up firing on the heels of Bonsell’s shooting.
And then there was a long silence in which horses snorted and stamped.
“Bonsell!” Wade called.
There was a silence and then softly, “Who is it?”
“Jim Wade. Better give up.”
“Be damned to you, Wade!” Bonsell snarled. “Come and get me!”
“I’m comin’,” Jim said quietly.
With a gun in each hand, he started to move slowly toward the middle of the corral, listening carefully for any movement other than that of the horses. Bonsell shot at him once, but it was wide of the mark, and Jim answered. Bonsell laughed softly, his voice seeming to come out of a dozen places in the night.
The darkness was a great void which, to a man’s eyes, touched infinity. Sifting through it came the shouting of the men at the bank and the small noises of an awakening town. But here it was silent, with a thin, wire-taut tension to it that screwed a man’s nerves tight and wild.
And then, at Scoville’s end of the corral, a light appeared over the sheds and began to grow.
Bonsell laid five shots in the direction of the fire, panic seizing him. Still, only the blurred dark forms of the horses were visible.
Suddenly, like a meteor in the sky, a flaming barrel lifted over the corral poles and crashed into the corral lot. It was a trash barrel holding paper. Scoville had dragged it up behind a shed, lighted the paper and allowed it to catch, covered with boards to hide the flames, and then had tossed it over the poles.
When it landed, it spilled out a smear of burning paper, pushing the night back beyond the corral poles.
There was a stirring among the horses, and then Bonsell, in his sock feet, made a wild dash for the barrel. Jim, not a hundred feet away, snapped a shot at him. Bonsell tripped, swiveled his head, saw Jim, and then rose to his feet.
This time he moved, moved toward Jim. He would face the inevitable. He walked slowly, and Jim saw him raise one gun and lower it as if he were throwing it, using it as a club. At the finish of its sweep, it exploded, and dust geysered in front of Jim.
Jim raised his gun slowly, tilted it toward the sky, then brought it down almost as slowly. Bonsell’s second shot plucked at his sleeve, and still his gun came lower. When the black bulk of Bonsell’s body blotted out the sights, Jim fired. He saw Bonsell stop, heard him grunt.
And then, in a wild surge of elation, he let go, both guns bucking into his palms, the wild sting of powder smoke in his nose, feet planted wide to meet anything Bonsell could throw at him.
He saw Bonsell’s body jerk as though he were on strings as each slug caught him and jarred him.
And then his guns were empty. He waited, guns lowered. Bonsell took one lagging step toward him, stubborn and rawhide-tough to the end, then sighed mightily and fell. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Slowly Jim walked up to him. Scoville and Ben came running. The fire was brighter now, since the barrel had caught fire.
Jim knelt and turned Bonsell over. Reaching in his coat pocket, he drew out the charter. He looked at it and raised his eyes to Scoville.
There was a look of wild expectancy in Scoville’s eyes. Jim could read it. It was as if Scoville had said, “There’s the charter, Jim. It’s yours, with nobody looking. Pick it up and run.”
And then Jim said, in a weary voice, “It won’t work, Phil. I couldn’t do it. Mary couldn’t take it.”
The light in Scoville’s eyes died, and he nodded. “That’s right.”
Ben lifted his head and listened and then said rapidly, “Jim, they’re comin’! You better run!”
Jim only shook his head.
Scoville said quietly, pointing to Bonsell, “There’s the only man that could have told the truth, Jim, about that squatter raid. And he’s dead.”
Jim only shook his head again, his gray eyes thoughtful and at peace.
“No, I’ll give up, Phil. I’ve played my cards out—clean out.”
Haynes and Cope and two other men came through the archway. Cope was running, his crutch winking in the light like the spokes of a wagon wheel.
When Haynes saw Jim Wade, he stopped, stared for the tenth part of a second, then made a grab for his gun.
Cope’s crutch whipped across his wrist, pinning it to his gun butt.
“He’s give up, you damn fool. Now watch what you’re about.”
Haynes drew his gun more carefully now. He covered Jim, and disarmed him, and then Ben. Afterward, he looked down at Bonsell.
“Now what’s this about?” he asked harshly.
“There’s your third bank robber,” Jim said quietly. “And here’s what he stole.” He tendered Haynes the charter and other papers.
“What are they?”
“The charter to the Ulibarri grant,” Jim murmured. “He stole them from Harvey Buckner’s box, intending to sell them to Mary Buckner.”
“Hah!” Haynes said, and raised his glance to Jim Wade. He couldn’t keep the triumph from his eyes. “Looks like you played ’em so close to your chest, you couldn’t even see ’em yourself, don’t it, Wade?”
“Sort of looks like it,” Jim agreed.
“You won’t bust jail this time, my friend,” Haynes said. Turning to the other men, he added, “Take aholt of his arms, you two. And Wade, if you make a break for it, I’ll do just what I been wantin’ to do ever since I first seen you. So help me, I’ll shoot you in the back!”
Chapter Eighteen: STUBBORN
The bank was lighted. Will-John Cruver lay stretched out on one of the desks, his legs hanging over the edge, breathing laboriously. Red foam flecked his beard, and his breath whistled sickeningly as it came and died. A circle of silent men watching him parted for Sheriff Haynes and Cope and Jim Wade.
Cruver’s eyes shifted over to Jim Wade, and then he looked away.
“Can I try it?” Jim asked Haynes.
“Go ahead.”
Jim stepped up to Cruver. “Will-John, I got Bonsell.”
“Good,” Cruver murmured.
Jim wondered what was keeping the man alive. It was nothing but his great fighting heart, his toughness.
“Goin’ to pull through, Will-John?” Jim asked softly.
“Hunh-unh. This is it. I know.”
“Want to talk?” Jim asked.
Cruver looked slowly at him. “What about?”
“Jim Buckner’s murder,” Jim answered. “Only your word stands between Mary Buckner and the Ulibarri grant, Will-John. And that girl never harmed a soul. Will you talk?”
Cruver whispered, “If I can.”
“Then tell Haynes you and Donaldson, Boyd, Harmony, and Slocum killed him.”
“Reed, too. We all killed him. We were scared.”
“Where’s he buried?”
Cruver only shook his head, as if he
wouldn’t answer. And then, seeming to change his mind, he murmured, “Above the spring on Mako Donaldson’s place. That’s what haunted Mako all these years.”
Jim reached out and took Cruver’s hand and squeezed it. Cruver smiled then, his great beard parting.
“You’re a bucko boy, Jim,” he whispered. “Some other time, some other place, we’d have made a pair.” His eyes closed. “Too late,” he murmured. “Too late.”
He was quiet then. Nobody seemed to realize that he was dead, for Jim asked him a question. Cruver looked as if he was thinking about it, trying to answer. But there was no answer.
Jim looked up and said to Haynes, “That satisfy you, Haynes? James Buckner, the real heir to the grant, was killed by these men. And Mary Buckner is the rightful heir now.”
“Mebbe,” Haynes said. “It don’t change what you done, though.”
“No,” Jim agreed quietly.
Haynes turned his attention to Warren, who was laid out on the floor. “Now, why was he in on this? And who is he? What’s his real name?”
Nobody could answer that. Haynes went over and searched the man. There were papers in his coat pocket, some letters, and Haynes pocketed these, then turned to Jim and Cope.
“Well, it’s jail for you, Wade.”
They filed over to the office, the crowd growing behind them. Jim Wade’s crime had been replaced by so many others that the townspeople did not seem hostile.
Mary Buckner was waiting in the sheriff’s office. She took one look at Jim, shifted her glance to Cope, and then said in a dead voice, “You’re holding Jim, Sheriff?”
“I am,” Haynes said.
Mary looked at Jim. “What happened, Jim?”
“Bonsell broke into the bank with Cruver and Warren. He killed Warren, shot Cruver, and took the charter. We caught him down at the stable.” He said faintly, “Cruver talked, Mary. He admitted the murder of your father.”