by Lauran Paine
Hub took a little forward step, put his palm against this cowboy’s chest, and gave a little push. The gaunt man’s eyes flashed; he dropped both hands from his belt and teetered there, on the brink of action.
From his saddle, out in the yellow brilliance, that raffish-looking man called: “Forget it, Buck! Come on. Let the townsfolk handle it their own clumsy way.”
“That,” said Wheaton quietly to the angry-eyed man in front of him, “is damned good advice.”
Afterward, when the six of them were riding off, Johnny Fleharty came up tentatively, not certain whether to speak or step on past and run into his saloon. He was still undecided when Wheaton spoke without taking his eyes off those moving riders.
“Johnny, I know something about you.” Hub turned and looked down. “I know you were egging McElhaney to find that missing three thousand dollars. Now I’m going to tell you something, an’ you’d better believe me. There never was three thousand dollars. There was only nine thousand dollars. That’s all there ever was.”
“But the express company said they’d been robbed…”
“I don’t care what they said. That nine thousand dollars wasn’t their money. I’m almost positive of that. Likely, at this late date, we’ll never recover their twelve thousand anyway. Whoever got that is hundreds of miles away by now.”
“You mean…Frank Travis really wasn’t the robber?”
Hub Wheaton turned at a slight sound. Amy Morgan was there behind him in a white blouse and a buckskin-colored riding skirt. He forgot Fleharty altogether to stare.
“Where is Lew?” Amy asked.
“At the hotel.”
“Hubbell, why didn’t you tell me, too, what happened this morning?”
“You mean about McElhaney and this Travis feller?” asked Hub. “Well, Amy, Lew asked me not to frighten you with it.”
Amy looked exasperated. “Hubbell,” she said crisply, “I am the one who was responsible for Parker Travis being out on the stage road this morning. It was I who put him where McElhaney found him. Do you know what he’ll think about me for what happened to him out there?”
Hubbell didn’t answer this. He frowned a little and said: “Who told you about McElhaney?”
“Charley did. Right after you and Lew left the ranch this afternoon, Charley came to me with a little note my uncle had left with the cook for him. In the note it said Lew was coming to town with you to see Parker Travis…”
“Yes? What else did it say, Amy?”
“It said for Charley to saddle up and get out of the country at once, for him to write Lew when he settled somewhere, and Lew would send him money.”
Behind Sheriff Wheaton, Johnny Fleharty made a little sigh of sound. Hubbell swung angrily on him. “Go on, crawl back in your rat hole, an’, if you don’t keep that double-hinged tongue of yours quiet, I’ll personally carve it out of you an’ make a necktie out of it. Beat it!”
Fleharty fled around them into the Great Northern. At the hitch rack out where Amy had tied her animal, several cowboys came up, got down, tied up, and paused to stare admiringly at Amy. Hub Wheaton took her arm and started along southward.
“It’s working out all right,” he told her. “Lew was smart. I just can’t imagine why he didn’t want me to know he was sending Charley away, though.”
Amy looked up at the shadow of trouble mantling Wheaton’s countenance. “Because he wasn’t sure you wouldn’t want to arrest Charley, Hubbell.”
“Why would I arrest him?” Wheaton asked, puzzled.
“For murder,” said Amy as she freed her arm and swept on into the hotel lobby.
Chapter Ten
Parker recognized Lewis Morgan the instant he saw him in the gloomy corridor outside his hotel room. He nodded without speaking and Morgan did the same back again.
Parker unlocked his door, pushed it back, and motioned Morgan in ahead of him. He afterward closed the door, leaned upon it, and put a considering look forward where the owner of Lincoln Ranch halted and turned about.
“All right,” said Parker. “Sheriff Wheaton told me you had something to say. Say it.”
Morgan removed his hat, tossed it aside, and looked straight at Travis. “I’d like to see that bill of sale Wheaton says you have, before I say anything.”
Parker dug the paper out, wordlessly handed it over, and continued to stand by the door, watching Morgan read it. Parker saw the slackness of Mor-gan’s muscles, the grayness of his lips. He stood waiting for Morgan to speak.
Morgan made a little feeble gesture. “What can I say?” he muttered. “I think this is probably true.”
“It’s true, all right!” exclaimed Parker.
Morgan nodded dumbly. “I wired Arizona the minute I got to town…after Hub Wheaton told me what you’d said and what you’d shown him. The answer’ll be along soon now.”
“What then?” asked Parker dryly. “You going to offer me cash, Mister Morgan?”
“Would cash do it, Travis?”
Parker shook his head.
“No, I didn’t think it would.”
“Only justice will satisfy me, Mister Morgan.”
“You mean…with guns?”
Parker shook his head again. “I didn’t have that in mind, exactly, although apparently Ace McElhaney did. I had in mind a fair court trial for every man connected with my brother’s killing.”
Morgan dropped the bill of sale upon the room’s only bed. He brought forth a limp handkerchief and mopped perspiration. “All those men weren’t involved.”
“Yes they were. Every man who rode with you and Sheriff Wheaton’s brother the day my brother was killed is involved. I’ll accept nothing less than a trial for every one of them.”
“Travis, listen to me. McElhaney is dead. Can’t you be satisfied with that? What good can a trial do for the others? They didn’t even see your brother shot. They weren’t even close enough to hear the shots.”
“A lot of them aren’t even close enough right now to serve a court summons on, Morgan.”
Lew looked startled. “What d’you mean by that?” he swiftly demanded, his expression guilty.
Parker didn’t make any immediate reply. A black suspicion sprang through him. “I meant,” he said slowly, watching Morgan’s eyes, “that I sat outside this afternoon and counted nine riders with bedrolls and canteens hit the southward trail out of Laramie.” Parker paused, cocked a wry eye, and said: “But you just made me suspect something else, the way you looked when I said that. Tell me, Morgan, where did you tell Charley Swindin, your ranch foreman, to hide out?”
Lew turned, walked to the window, looked out a moment, turned, and walked back. His eyes were suddenly imploring. “Name what you want as an alternative to all this and I’ll give it to you, Travis.”
“I want Swindin first. After that, I’ll see the rest of you tried for being accessories to murder.”
“Travis, give us a chance. We know now what we did. Give us a chance to…”
“Yeah,” broke in Parker. “I’ll give you the same rotten chance you gave my brother.” Again Parker cocked his head with that same dry expression. “Of course, you can try to compound it by having me murdered, too, Morgan, like your niece did this morning with McElhaney. But I’ll promise you one thing if you try it. You’ll be dead, too, if I’m able to draw a breath afterward.”
Lew was stunned. “My niece? Are you talking about Amy? She has nothing whatever to do with this.”
“One thing at a time,” growled Parker. “Where did you send Swindin?”
“Away. You can’t blame me for wanting to save a man’s life, Travis.”
“No, I wouldn’t blame you for that, Morgan. That’s what Frank was trying to do on that thoroughbred horse I gave him, when your former sheriff and your foreman rode him down and shot him like a rabid dog.”
Lew Morgan was breathing hard; this was the only sound in the room for a little while.
Parker said again: “Where is Swindin?”
“I don
’t know. That’s the truth. I told him to get away. To go a long way off. I didn’t say where he was to go, only that he was to leave at once…today.”
Parker stood there dourly considering the cattleman. When next he spoke, his voice had hardened, had turned grim and accusing: “You feel badly about being part of a murder, yet not quite bad enough to see the other murderers tried in court. Morgan, you’re scum. You’re the kind of a man who says he believes in law and order, but, when it affects you personally, you don’t believe in it at all. You’re the lowest kind of a hypocrite. I wish you’d go for that gun under your coat.”
The door was pushed suddenly inward, striking Parker. He side-stepped at once, dropped his right hand, whirled, and faced what he thought was fresh danger. It was Amy. She looked straight at him, ignored his fighting stance, entered the room, and closed the door.
Her uncle said: “Amy, what are you doing here?”
She had an answer for him: “The same thing you are, but also to explain to Mister Travis I didn’t know anything about McElhaney when we talked this morning.”
Lew gradually came to appear puzzled. He watched Amy face Travis.
“I don’t know how he knew you’d be on that road this morning. I have an idea, but otherwise I want you to believe me. I did not know anything about your fight with McElhaney until late this afternoon. I want you to believe that.”
“Why?” asked Parker. “What difference does it make whether I believe that or not?”
Amy went forward several steps; she was now between her uncle and Travis. She turned toward Parker. “So there will be no more senseless killings.”
He gazed at her. She stood before him, cool-looking, fresh, and crisp in all that wilting heat. Just gazing upon her forced out some of the bitterness. “Was it just coincidence, ma’am?” he sarcastically asked.
Amy shook her head. “I don’t think so. You see Ace McElhaney and our ranch foreman Charley Swindin were close friends. I’ve been told my uncle warned Swindin against you. I know also that Sheriff Wheaton, when he suspected who you were last night, also warned McElhaney to watch out for you.”
“So?”
“It’s not hard to understand, Mister Travis. McElhaney was riding to Lincoln Ranch this morning. He evidently intended to discuss the trouble they were in with Charley. On the way to Lincoln Ranch he came upon you. He made the kind of a decision the McElhaneys of this world are capable of making. He saw you and at once thought that, if he could kill you without any witnesses around, he would solve everyone’s troubles.” Amy lifted her shoulders, and let them fall. “He tried and he failed.”
Parker looked past at Lew. Morgan was running this theory through his mind. It made sense to him, Parker could see by Morgan’s expression. In fact, it even impressed Parker, but he showed nothing by his expression as he returned his attention to Amy.
“All right,” he said to the beautiful girl. “That doesn’t really matter any more, though. McElhaney is dead…whatever his intentions, he’s dead. What I want to know now is where your uncle sent Charley Swindin.”
Morgan spoke up. “You’re calling me a liar, Travis. I told you I didn’t send him anywhere.”
“I think you’d lie,” Parker shot right back. “Morgan, I think under the right circumstances you’d lie.” He smiled with his lips only. “You can take offence if you wish. You’ve got a gun. Miss Amy, step clear.”
Amy shook her head. “Why do you think I got between the pair of you?” she asked.
Parker looked at her, still with his mirthless smile. “You know,” he said softly, “you’re quite a woman. I knew that when we met this morning. I just didn’t know how much of a woman you are.” He inclined his head. “All right, I withdraw what I said to your uncle. But neither of you is going out of here until you tell me about Swindin. Where did he come from, who were his friends…where would he be most likely to go?”
Amy turned to gaze at Lew. He seemed in an agony of indecision. Finally he said: “Charley’s not a coward, Travis, but neither is he a fool. He won’t go down to Tularosa where he came from. He’ll know you’ll find that much out about him. Most of the saloon girls here in town know that much about him. I frankly don’t know where he’d go…and I’m thankful that I don’t.”
Parker stood there with his head a little to one side wryly watching Morgan. “I’ll find him,” he said. “If I can’t make much of a start here, I’ll ride down to Tularosa. From there, I’ll backtrack every camp he’s ever made. Somewhere along that trail I’ll run across him, Morgan. Maybe you don’t know where he’s gone, but all your ignorance has bought Swindin is a few more months. I’ve got a lot of time, I’ll find him…and for running I’ll kill him.”
“That,” exclaimed Amy forcefully, “is your kind of justice, isn’t it? That’s what you were talking about this morning. Not genuine justice, as you’d have had me believe, Mister Travis, but jungle justice.” Her words burnt him with scorn, with deepest contempt. Her smoky gaze raked over him. She faced her uncle. “Take me out of here. I need fresh air. Take me home, Lew.”
Morgan, though, looked for a moment past her at Parker Travis. “Listen,” he said, “I can’t change anything, not your brother’s killing or your going after Swindin. And words are one of the cheapest commodities on earth. But nevertheless I want to say this. I want you to remember it, Travis, for as long as we both live. I’m sick inside about what I helped do to your brother. So is Hub Wheaton. If I could give money or cattle, land or anything else I own, to change things back, I’d give them up right this minute. All of them, every damned thing I own.”
Morgan stood still with a little flutter at the nostrils, a hot dryness to his eyes. Then he took an uncertain forward step, caught Amy’s arm, and walked past to the door, looking down.
Parker let them leave. He kicked the door closed after them, crossed to the window, saw Morgan’s hat upon the bed, looked at it briefly, then looked around for the chair he’d left beside the window, drew it up again, dropped down upon it, pushed both long legs out until his heels were upon the sill, and there he sat.
Fifteen minutes later a gentle knocking brought him around, one hand dropping down. “Come in!” he called, then wearily stood up as Amy Morgan entered his room.
She murmured: “My uncle’s hat.”
He handed it to her. She looked at him. He was mute.
She passed over to the door, turned, and said—“Mister Travis, it matters to me whether or not you believe me.”—then she was gone and he stood, looking at the blank place where she’d been.
Chapter Eleven
Two hours later Parker Travis was still sitting at his upstairs window, watching the lamp-lighted town below. Riders came and went, off work for the night and bent on the powerful releases range men need at the end of the day. The last coach departed northward to make its eventual easterly swoop toward Cheyenne
A knock on the door brought Parker back to the present with a jolt. He stood up, stepped away from backgrounding light, and called: “Come in!”
It was Sheriff Wheaton. He stood a moment, peering ahead beyond the opened door into the room’s deep gloom. As though he believed Parker had doused the light for fighting purposes, Hub said: “Stand easy, Travis. I come in peace.”
“Then come in and close the door.”
Wheaton did this. He said: “You worryin’ about another bushwhacker, sittin’ in the dark up here?”
“Not exactly.” Parker resumed his seat by the window. “Pull up a chair if you wish.”
Wheaton did that. As he sank down upon it, he mightily sighed. “Hot tonight. Thirty degrees cooler than daytime, but still damned hot.”
Parker sat looking down upon Laramie, saying nothing or looking around at the sheriff.
Wheaton turned loosely where he sat. He, too, ran a solemn look out over his town. Then he suddenly said: “You weren’t the only one who lost, Travis.”
Parker still said nothing or moved.
“I talked to Amy before sh
e an’ Lew left town. I’d like to tell you something. It’s personal, and therefore I’ve never spoken much about it. My brother who was the former sheriff…the man your brother shot and killed…he was twelve years older than I was. My mother died in an epidemic. My pa was shot to death tooling a stage from here to Cheyenne. But the outlaw who robbed that coach and shot Pa was never found. That happened when I was a kid, Travis. After that, it was just my brother an’ me. He left school and went to work for a liveryman. He got three dollars a week and Saturdays off so he could go huntin’. We lived on brush rabbits, sage hens, an occasional antelope, and deer meat. Sometimes in wintertime he’d get a chance to go with freighters to the Tetons. When that happened, he usually came home with plenty of bear meat.” Hub stopped speaking for a moment, put his feet upon the windowsill, ruefully wagged his head, and chuckled. “You ever eat antelope and bear meat, Travis? Well, antelope stinks when you’re cleanin’ it, and, when it’s cooked, it tastes like an old billy goat smells. Now bear meat…there’s something. It’s like eatin’ rancid hog fat with the entrails left in. When I was real little, I’d bawl like a bay steer, but later, after I was old enough to understand how much Ken was sacrificin’ to get those carcasses, I’d choke…but I’d eat the stuff.”
Parker spoke finally. He looked steadily at Wheaton, saying: “I get the point, Sheriff.”
But Hub wasn’t ready to stop yet. “Sure you get it,” he conceded, “but let me tell you a little more. We didn’t have very good clothes, you see…oh, sure, the townsfolk helped when they could, but they had kids of their own…so when I went to school, the other kids used to pick on me. I reckon I got beat up more’n any kid in our school until I got big enough to do a little beatin’ of my own. Now, mind you, Travis, Ken was only eighteen or nineteen at the time, but he was big as a man and tough as catgut. Still, when I’d come home bawlin’, he’d refuse to go with me an’ waylay those big kids. You know what he told me, Travis? He said…‘Hub, you can’t lean on folks. You’ve got to learn to fight back.’ It used to make me hate him. I didn’t understand why a big tough kid like Ken wouldn’t defend his little brother. Then one day he did, but that wasn’t with school kids. A drunk cowboy roped me in the roadway and was draggin’ me behind his horse. Ken was in the livery barn and saw that.” Wheaton chuckled. “He came across the damned road like he’d been shot out of a cannon. He hit that cowboy on the fly, knocked him off his horse, and dang’ near beat him to death. I think he would’ve killed him if some fellers hadn’t dragged him off.”