The Coyote

by Roberts, James

  The little mine village was directly below him. The few buildings huddled together below the big mine dump were dark. The mine buildings, too, were dark. A faint glow showed in the east––harbinger of the dawn.

  The left side of the automobile was toward him when it stopped in the little street below. A man climbed out and walked around in front of the car, and Rathburn grunted in recognition as he made out the familiar form of Sautee, the mine manager.

  He saw Sautee and another leave the car and walk toward a building at the lower end of the street. He could see them fairly well in the moonlight and realized that in a comparatively short time it would be daylight. He turned his horse down the slope.

  When he reached the rear of the few buildings which formed the mining village, catering to the wants of the Dixie Queen workers, Rathburn edged along to the lower end where he left his horse in the shadow of a building directly across from the one which Sautee and his companion had entered, and in the windows of which a light now shone.

  He stole across the street. Peering in one of the windows he saw that the room was an office. Sautee was standing before a desk, talking to another man. Rathburn quickly surmised that this man had accompanied Sautee from the town. Even as he looked, Sautee finished his speech by striking a palm with his fist, and his companion strode toward the door.

  Rathburn darted around the side of the building into the shadow as the man came out and hurried up a wide road toward the mine buildings above. Then Rathburn ran around to the front of the building and quietly opened the door.

  Sautee had seated himself at the desk, and he swung about in his chair as he heard the door open. He looked again into the black bore of Rathburn’s gun. His eyes bulged, and this time they shone with genuine terror.

  “It was sure in the pictures for us to meet again, Sautee,” said Rathburn easily. “Our business wasn’t finished. We ain’t through yet.”

  “There isn’t any more money,” Sautee gasped out. “There’s no money up here at all.”

  “Oh, yes, there is,” said Rathburn with a mirthless smile. “There’s twenty-odd thousand dollars in my right-hand coat pocket. Now I wonder what you’ve got in yours. It don’t stand to reason you’d start out this time without a gun. Stand up!”

  Sautee rose. His face was ashen. He held his hands high as Rathburn pressed his weapon against his chest and relieved him of the automatic which he carried. Rathburn felt his other pockets and then smiled agreeably. He tossed the automatic on the desk.

  “All right, we’ll get goin’,” he announced, indicating the open door. “We’ll have to hurry, for I take it you’ve sent for somebody from the mine.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Sautee without moving.

  “We’re goin’ for a little mornin’ walk, if you act reasonable,” replied Rathburn. “That was my intention. But if you don’t want to go–––”

  He shrugged, and as Sautee looked fixedly at him, he cocked his gun.

  Sautee hurried toward the door with Rathburn following him closely. When they were outside Rathburn directed Sautee across the street. When they reached Rathburn’s horse Rathburn quickly mounted and motioned to the mines manager to precede him into the timber behind the little village. When they gained the shelter of the timber they gradually circled around until they struck a trail which led up above the mine. They started up this, Sautee leading the way on foot with Rathburn following on his horse and keeping his gun trained on the mines manager’s back.

  “Don’t worry,” Rathburn crooned. “I won’t shoot you in the back, Sautee. That wouldn’t be accordin’ to my ethics. But I’d have to stop you if you made a break to leave the present company.”

  Sautee plodded on, his breath coming in gasps, the perspiration standing out on his forehead.

  The trail joined with another well-worn path a short distance above the mine. The eastern sky now was light, and Rathburn saw a stone building above them. He also saw that they were on the steep slope of the big mountain on which the Dixie Queen was located, and that there was a rift in this mountain to the left which indicated the presence of a pass there.

  In a few minutes they reached the stone building. It had an iron door across which was painted the legend:

  DANGER POWDER––DYNAMITE KEEP AWAY

  Rathburn dismounted and tossed the reins over his horse’s head so the animal would stand.

  “That place looks like a natural jail,” he commented.

  “It’s the mine’s powder house,” said Sautee, wiping his wet forehead.

  “Sure,” Rathburn rejoined, “that’s just what it is. I expect there’s enough powder in there to blow half this mountain off.”

  He walked to the door and took out his gun as he examined the padlock.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Sautee excitedly.

  “I’m goin’ to blow the lock off,” said Rathburn coolly.

  “Don’t do it!” cried Sautee. “There’s high-percentage dynamite in there and T N T caps that we use on road work––dozens of boxes of it. You might set it off!”

  Rathburn looked at the quaking mine manager speculatively. “That’s right,” he said finally, turning aside to grin to himself. “I guess any little jar might start it workin’. It goes off easy, I’ve heard.”

  “There are caps and detonators in there, too,” said Sautee quickly. “You might shoot into them some way, you never can tell. Well, it would be as bad for you as for me.” He uttered the last sentence in a note of triumph.

  Rathburn was looking at the far-flung view below. He turned a hard gaze on Sautee. “What difference do you suppose it would make to me if that stuff in there goes off?” he demanded in a harsh voice. “Look down there!”

  Sautee looked and drew in his breath with a gasp.

  In the clear light of the blossoming dawn the whole panorama of the lower mountain country was spread out before them. To the left, under the towering peaks of the divide, the rounded crest of the hogback was discernible, and a black spot marked the location of Mannix’s automobile.

  “There’s a car over there,” said Rathburn, noting the direction of Sautee’s gaze.

  Almost directly below them a number of mounted men filed over a ridge and again disappeared in the timber. Off to the right more horsemen were to be seen.

  “Looks like there was a posse or two out this morning,” said Rathburn in a forbidding voice. “I reckon I ain’t such a fool as not to know who they’re lookin’ for, Sautee. Now maybe you can figure out why I ain’t as scared of that powder house as you are.”

  “I can stop them!” cried Sautee in a shaking voice.

  “Sure,” Rathburn agreed. “You can say you lied about me takin’ the money–––”

  “I’ll tell ’em you gave it back!” said Sautee hoarsely. “I’ll tell ’em you brought it on up to the mine and that it’s in the safe. I’ll square it–––”

  “But you can’t square the rewards that are out for The Coyote,” said Rathburn sternly. “You’ve stepped into a bigger game than you thought, Sautee, an’ it’s got plumb out of your hands.”

  He turned on the mine manager fiercely. “Whatever happens, remember this: Once a man gets a bad reputation in a country like this or the country I come from, he’s got it for keeps. He can’t get away from it no matter how he acts or what he does. Mine has drove me away from the place where I belong; it’s followed me here; I can’t lose it; an’ the way things has been going, by glory, I don’t know if I want to lose it!”

  Sautee cowered back under the fierceness in Rathburn’s manner.

  “An’ you can tell ’em, if you ever have a chance to talk again, that I earned my reputation square! I ain’t involved nobody else, an’ I ain’t stole from any poor people, an’ I never threw my gun down on a man who didn’t start for his first.”

  The deadly earnestness and the note of regret in Rathburn’s tone caused Sautee to forget his uneasiness temporarily and stare at the man in wonder. Rathburn’s eyes were
narrowed, his gaze was steel blue, and his face was drawn into hard, grim lines as he looked out upon the far-flung, glorious vista below them, broken here and there by the movement of mounted men.

  “Maybe I––I–––” Sautee faltered in his speech. His words seemed impotent in the face of Rathburn’s deadly seriousness.

  Rathburn turned abruptly to the powder house door.

  “Wait!” cried Sautee.

  The mines manager dug frantically into his pockets and drew out a bunch of keys.

  “There are some locks on this property to which there are only two keys,” he explained nervously. “This is one of them, and I carry the second key. Here!”

  He held out the key ring with one key extended.

  Rathburn thrust his gun back into its holster and took the keys. In a moment he had unlocked the padlock and swung open the iron door, exposing case after case of high explosive within the stone structure.

  Sautee was staring at him in dire apprehension.

  Rathburn pointed toward the rift in the mountain on the left above them. Sautee looked and saw a man and a boy riding down the trail.

  “That looks to me like the man that held me up last night,” said Rathburn. “He looks like one of the men, anyway. Maybe he’s found out he didn’t get much, eh? Maybe he’s coming back because he didn’t have enough to make a get-away with. Maybe he thinks he was double crossed or something.”

  Sautee’s features were working in a spasm of fear and worry. Suddenly he turned on Rathburn.

  “Why don’t you get away?” he asked in eager pleading. “That trail will take you out of the mountains and down into the desert country. You’re from the desert, aren’t you? You can make it. You’ve made a good haul. Go! It’ll be better for me and all of us!”

  Rathburn laughed bitterly. “I can’t go because I’m a worse fool than you are,” he said acridly. “Get in there. Sneaking lizards, man, can’t you see I’m tempted to put a shot into one of them boxes and blow us both to kingdom come?”

  Sautee shrank back into the powder house, and Rathburn slammed the door.

  As Rathburn snapped the padlock and thrust the keys into his pocket his eyes again sought the trail to the left above him. No one was in sight. The man and the boy had disappeared in a bend or depression in the trail.

  But when he looked down toward the hogback he saw a car coming up the road toward the mine. A number of horsemen had taken its place on the hogback.

  Rathburn ran for his horse.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXII

  A SECOND CAPTURE

  Rathburn rode straight up the trail which led from the powder house toward the pass over the big mountain. His eyes were gleaming with satisfaction, but several times they clouded with doubt, and he felt the bank notes in his coat pocket. Each time, however, he would shake his head and push on up the trail with renewed energy.

  Looking backward and downward, he could see the posses gathering in the street of the mine village. He sensed the excitement which had followed the sudden disappearance of Sautee and smiled grimly. He saw that the automobile from the hogback had reached the village. Scores of men were clustered about it. He knew Mannix was taking personal charge of the man hunt; but there was a chance to get away!

  He looked wistfully eastward. Somewhere off there, beyond the rolling foothills, was the desert. He thrilled. It had been there he had made his first mistake. Goaded by the loss of his small cattle ranch he had taken revenge on the man who had foreclosed on him and others in a similar predicament. He had held up the bank and restored a small measure of the losses. Even then the profit of the unscrupulous money lender had been enormous.

  But the law had marked Rathburn. The gunmen who were jealous of his reputation as an expert at the draw had forced him to fall back upon that draw to protect his life. Thus he had been driven to obtain a living in the best way he could, and something in the dangerous, uncertain life of the outlaw had appealed to his wild blood.

  Sautee had said the money in his pocket was a good haul. Why not? He looked again to eastward. Over the big mountain––into the timber––a circling back––a straight cut east–––

  He knew he could do it. He had evaded posses before––posses composed of trained men who were accustomed to take the man trail. It would actually be rare sport to play with the crowd below. His left hand dropped idly into his coat pocket, and he started as he fingered what was there. Then his brow became furrowed, and he scowled.

  “Maybe I ain’t such a good guesser after all,” he muttered. “Maybe I’m just what I told Sautee––a fool.”

  He caught sight of a man and a boy above him. Another instant and they were lost to view.

  Rathburn suddenly put the spurs to his horse, and the dun surged up the steep trail. As he rode, Rathburn took his rawhide lariat from its place on the saddle. At a point above where the trail twisted about a huge outcropping of rock he turned off, dismounted, and crept to the top of the rocks. Quickly he surveyed the trail above. Then he slipped back down to his horse, got in the saddle, and took up a position just at the lower end of the outcropping, some little distance back from the trail and above it. He held the lariat ready in his hands.

  He sat his horse quietly––listening. The wind had died with the dawn, and there was no sound in the hills. The sun was mounting in the sky to eastward. Rathburn looked out over the timbered slopes below with wistful eyes. Suddenly his gaze became alert. The sound of horses upon the rocky trail above the outcropping came to his ears.

  Gradually the sound became more and more distinct. He could hear the hoofs of the horses striking against the rock of the trail. He shook out the noose of his rope, and it sang as it whirled in the air.

  The head of a horse had hardly pushed past the rock when Rathburn’s noose went swirling downward and dropped true over its target. The man in the saddle loosed a string of curses as he felt the rawhide lariat tighten about his arms and chest. His horse shied, and he was dragged from the saddle, landing on his feet, but falling instantly.

  The second horse reared back, and Rathburn’s gun covered the boy in the saddle. Rathburn, keeping tight hold on the rope hand over hand, and retaining his gun in his right hand at the same time, ran down the short pitch. The boy’s horse became still, and while the youth stared Rathburn trussed up the first rider and then stood off to look at him.

  “Just takin’ a mornin’ ride, Carlisle?” he asked cheerfully. “Or did you forget something? Don’t make any false moves, kid. I ain’t in a playful mood.”

  The boy continued to stare, but Carlisle’s face was black with rage, and curses flowed from his lips.

  “That won’t get you anything,” Rathburn said coolly. “You might better be doin’ some tall thinking instead of cussing. You ain’t got the cards stacked for this deal, Carlisle.”

  “What’s your game?” Carlisle managed to get out.

  “It’s a deep one,” Rathburn replied dryly. “An’ it’s too complicated to tell you now. I’m goin’ to give you a chance to do the thinking I mentioned a while back. I ain’t takin’ your gun or your horse. The only thing I’m takin’ is a chance, an’ I ain’t takin’ it on your account.”

  For an instant Rathburn’s eyes burned with fury. Then he dragged Carlisle into the shelter of the rocks, to the side of the trail, and tied his horse near by. Mounting, he motioned to the boy to ride down the trail ahead of him. He looked at the big hat and the overalls the boy wore. The youth looked wildly about and then drove the spurs into his mount and dashed down the trail with Rathburn close behind, calling to him to take it easy.

  Just as they reached a spot directly above the powder house the boy reined in his horse. Rathburn saw he was looking down at the turbulent scene in the street of the little village below the mine. Then the boy swayed in the saddle, and Rathburn had just time to fling himself to the ground and catch the senseless form in his arms as it toppled.

  He put his burden down on the grass beside the trail and l
ed his horse into the timber and tied him. Next he picked up the boy and made his way down to the powder house. The shouts of many men came to him from far below. He succeeded in getting out the keys and unlocking the padlock which secured the door of the powder house. Then he opened the door, covered the frightened mine manager with his gun, and carried his burden in with one arm.

  “One of the accomplices,” he said briefly to Sautee, as he put the lad down and loosened the shirt at the throat. “He’ll come around in a minute.”

  Sautee’s eyes were popping from his head. He leaned back upon the cases of dynamite and passed a clammy hand over his brow.

  “I’ve got Carlisle, too,” said Rathburn. “Takin’ it all around from under it ain’t a bad morning’s haul.”

  Sautee now stared at him with a new look in his eyes––a look in which doubt struggled with terror.

  “I don’t believe you are The Coyote!” he blurted out.

  “Who do you reckon I might be, if I ain’t?” Rathburn asked quietly.

  “You might be some kind of a deputy or something.”

  Rathburn laughed harshly. “It just happens I’m the man some folks call The Coyote,” he said. “I don’t like the name, but it was wished on me, an’ I can’t seem to shake it off. If I wasn’t the man you think I am you wouldn’t be in such a tight fix, Sautee.”

  Rathburn’s words conveyed a subtle menace which was not lost on the mine manager. Sautee cringed and rubbed his hands in his nervous tension.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “Listen!” exclaimed Rathburn.

  From below came the echoes of shouts and other sounds which conveyed the intelligence that a large body of men was on the move up to the mine and the mountain slope above.