by Max Brand
“‘Partner,’ says Hugh, ‘they ain’t any doubt about it. I got something that’ll hang him. Just show me that I’m safe first, and I’ll bring it. But not till you got Al behind bars.’
“‘What’ll it convict him of?’
“‘The murder of Coy.’
“Well, it didn’t take Bill White long to start up some action. Pronto he wires to Polkville and hears that Al is all married and on his way to his home. The sheriff cuts across the country and grabs Al off’n the train with a trumped-up warrant that don’t amount to nothing. Then he sent out word by a machine that was driving past Hugh Smiley’s place to get Hugh to come in with the evidence. Hugh’ll be coming in on the west road ‘most any time now on his old, one-eared roan. I sold him that hoss, and Hugh still rides him... ten years, I guess.”
There was more talk of it, but Bob Lake closed his ears to the tiresome chatter. He needed some thought.
III. PHILANTHROPIC INTERFERENCE
THERE WAS NO doubt in his mind that Al Rankin was guilty of all the crimes that the old man had charged against him, and even more. But a cold syllogism looked Bob Lake in the face. He had vowed himself to secure the happiness of Anne Rankin. Anne Rankin loved Al Rankin. To secure her happiness he must make the criminal safe. A more foresighted man might have pondered long before he reached the same conclusion; certainly he must have weighed much evidence pro and con. But Bob Lake was not foresighted, nor was he fitted to ponder nice questions. He had a hundred and ninety pounds of muscle suitable for action, and by action he was accustomed to cut the Gordian knot.
Moreover, spurring him on into the service of Al Rankin was the fact that he had coveted the wife of another man the moment he laid eyes on her. To the spotless honor of Bob Lake that was an indelible stain. Indeed, the honor of Bob Lake was almost a proverbial thing on his own ranges. And now he was determined to wipe away the blot, if he could, by assiduously serving the man whom he had in thought shamefully wronged. A very nice distinction, some would have said — to Bob Lake it was as clear as day.
The important thing was, if possible, to keep the evidence of Hugh Smiley from reaching the hands of the sheriff. To that end Bob secured a horse as soon as possible, saddled, and rode at full speed for the west road out of Everett. When he was clear of the town, he sent home the spurs and proceeded at a wild gallop.
It was a matter of four or five miles before he saw a small dust cloud ahead of him, and, as soon as he had made sure from the slowness of its approach that it was a horseman and not a wind drift of dust, he checked his own pace to a lope. The dust cloud eventually cleared, and he was aware of a middle-aged fellow on a roan, one of whose ears was close-cropped. Bob Lake made straight for him and reined in beside the other.
“You’re Hugh Smiley?”
“Maybe,” said the other without enthusiasm, and he studied Bob with intense interest not untinged with alarm.
“If you are, speak up. I’m from Sheriff Bill White. New man of his. Name’s Bob Lake.”
“What are you doing out here?” asked the rider of the roan uneasily.
“The word’s out,” said Bob Lake cheerfully, “that you’re bringing in the evidence that’ll hang that skunk, Al Rankin. The sheriff doesn’t want to take any chances.”
“Any chances of what?”
“Chances that some friend of Al Rankin’s might cut in on you and keep you from landing the evidence in Bill White’s safe.”
“Who ever heard of Al having any friends around these parts?”
“You never can tell. The sheriff ain’t taking any chances.”
“Maybe not.”
Hugh Smiley remained entirely uncommunicative. He was a rat-faced fellow with one of those noses that dip out to a point, forehead and chin receding at exactly the same angle, and yellowish teeth of prodigious length, and his little eyes roved over and over the big body of Bob Lake.
“Anyway,” said Bob, “they ain’t any harm in me riding in beside you, and if anything should happen... why, then I’ll come in handy.”
“But nothing’ll happen,” protested Smiley in growing uneasiness, and he shifted his glance to search the hills through which they were riding. “Nothing’ll happen. Everybody knows that Al never played no partners. He was always a lone hand.”
“Sure. The point is, Bill ain’t taking any chances of any kind. Ain’t hard to see why. If he hangs Rankin, it’ll be a feather in his cap. He can have his job for life... pretty near.”
“Yep, pretty near.”
“I ain’t an old hand around these parts, but I been here long enough to find out that Rankin is a skunk.”
Under this stimulating talk, Hugh Smiley grew more communicative. “Yep, I guess I’m doing a pretty good thing all around for the boys.”
“And a thing that takes a lot of nerve,” Bob Lake said frankly. “I been raised in a pretty hard country, and I’ve had my knocks, but I’d hate to come up ag’in’ a gunfighter like Al Rankin, even if he was behind bars.”
“Would you?” Smiley shuddered at the prospect. “What’s him to me?” he declared bravely. “Ain’t he flesh and blood just like me?” He was trying to bring back his courage, but his color changed.
“Just flesh and blood,” admitted Bob Lake, “but a pretty dangerous sort. I tell you there’s going to be a pile of the boys around town that’ll want to shake hands with you, when Rankin is strung up, Smiley! I’ve heard talk already. They was some even said they didn’t think it was in you.”
Smiley warmed again half-heartedly. “All that glitters ain’t gold by a long sight,” he declared. “You can lay to that. I ain’t around blustering and bluffing like the younger gents, but I stand for my rights and most generally git ’em.”
“Sure you do,” returned Bob Lake. “I could see you was that kind at a glance.”
Hugh Smiley now expanded like a flower in the sun of this admiration. “And I’m the man that’s going to hang Rankin,” he declared.
“A good thing, too.”
“Is it? I’ll tell a man it is, son!”
“What I can’t figure is how a smooth one like him would ever leave the evidence lying around?”
“Sounds queer, don’t it? I’ll tell you how it was. He got into a little trouble with Coy, I figure. Maybe he didn’t go there to kill him on purpose. But Al has a devil of a temper, and it must have flared up on him while he was talking to Coy. Must have begun first with a lot of wrestling around. The ground was all stamped up in front of the door. Then they went for their guns. Al maybe dropped his, but he got Coy’s away from him and shot him plumb through the heart.
“I was coming by, and I heard the noise. I let out a yell and started on the gallop. Most like Al heard me yell and didn’t think of nothing except to get on his hoss and get away. Which he done, but he left his gun behind him. I come up, find Coy dead, and Al’s gun on the ground. I put the gun up and let the sheriff know how I found things, but I left out all about the gun.
“Because why? Because Al was paying a lot of attention to Sylvia, my girl, along about then. That was why. But then he turned around and treated her like a dog, and I started to lay for him. Today I got my chance. I’m waitin’ and hungerin’ for the minute when I shove this gun under Al’s nose and say... ‘You skunk, here’s what hangs you!’”
He had grown so excited in his recital that now he suited the action to the word and, whipping out a pearl-handled revolver, he brandished it in the air close to Bob Lake.
“But there’s a lot of pearl-handled guns,” said Bob. “How’ll that tie the murder of Coy on Rankin?”
“There’s not a lot with Al’s initials on ’em,” triumphantly replied the rat-faced man. “Besides, everybody knows this gun. Al’s mighty fond of it. A thousand has heard him say that he wouldn’t trade it for a ten-thousand-dollar check, because it saved his life too often. And now it’ll hang him.” He broke into horrible laughter. “What he’ll have to explain away is how come he parted with that gun. And I’ll be there to swear
where I found it, and how I found it.”
“Suppose he says that he gave it to you?”
“He never gives anything away. They’s them that can tell how Sandy McGregor offered him a cold thousand for that gun and got refused... got laughed at. No, sir, they ain’t any way for him to wriggle out. Not with twelve men out of this here county trying him.”
“Then,” said Bob Lake, “it looks pretty clear that the whole case hangs on the gun. Without the gun your testimony wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel.”
“Not a nickel, son.”
“Sorry, Smiley,” murmured Bob Lake, “but I’ll have to take the gun.”
“Eh?” asked Smiley, frowning.
He found a gun held close beneath his chin, and behind it there was a determined, savage face.
“Hand over the gun, you rat!”
“You!” exclaimed Smiley. “You’re playing with Rankin?”
“Maybe. Come out with the gun. Slow... slow... take it by the barrel... that’s it.”
He received the handsome weapon, set with jewels, flashing in the sunlight.
“They’ll lynch you,” said Smiley. “You fool!”
“You won’t come into town to tell ’em about it till Rankin’s out of jail, Smiley. You’re going to turn around and ride down this here road till I see you out of sight. If I catch you in town, I’m going to trim that ugly face of yours with bullets. Now, get out!”
There was a parting leer of terror and rage, and then Smiley whirled his horse without a word and galloped down the road looking back over his shoulder. Unquestionably, had Bob Lake turned his back for a moment, the little man would have wheeled and tried a pot shot from the distance, but Bob did not turn, and eventually he had the pleasure of seeing Smiley disappear around the turn.
Then he spurred toward Everett, not far away, for they had covered most of the distance during their talk.
How he should dispose of the weapon was the next trouble, for, if it were found on him, and Smiley explained how the weapon had come into his possession, the gun would still hang Al Rankin.
The sound of running water suggested the solution of that problem. A narrow stream cut across the trail, hardly fetlock deep, but to the right it dropped into a deep pool. Into that pool he dropped the pearl-handled revolver after a last admiring examination of the jewels with which it was set. Then he continued the journey.
Al Rankin was freed by his act. By the same act Anne’s husband was returned to her. A gambler and murderer returned to her! For the first time the full force of that combination came upon Bob Lake, and he sighed. Forethought was not his strong point, but in afterthought he was something of a philosopher. However, the act was irretrievable. By it he had determined the destiny of Anne; by it he had automatically excluded himself from her life. There was a hope, perhaps, that Al Rankin might change his ways. But, as he remembered that pale, handsome, calm face, the hope dwindled and grew thin in the heart of Bob Lake.
He reached Everett in a black melancholy, and, when he had returned the horse and gone back to the hotel, he learned that there was not even an escape from the town. If he went back to the railroad, a timetable told him that he could not get another train until the next morning about noon.
He lounged gloomily through the rest of the afternoon, forced himself to eat dinner, and then returned to his room for the night. He was unhappy, more desperately unhappy than he had ever been in his life. Truly the way of the philanthropist was a wretched way.
He had hung up his cartridge belt at this point in his reflections, when the door was flung open without the warning of any preliminary knock. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the hall blocked with armed men.
IV. ALL FOR ANNE
AT THEIR HEAD was the chunky little man with the gray hair — Bill White.
“You’re Bob Lake,” he said bluntly, pointing a stubby forefinger at Lake. “You’re Bob Lake, alias what?”
“Alias nothing,” returned Bob with equal bluntness. “What in thunder are you doing in my room?” As he spoke, he removed the cartridge belt from the hook on the wall and shook the gun out of the holster.
“None of that,” returned the sheriff.
But Bob Lake had forgotten reasonable caution. That mad mood was on him which had made his best friends prophesy that sooner or later he would fall afoul of the law. “Step high, partner,” he said to the sheriff warningly, “Step light. It looks to me like I got the drop on you gents, and I’m going to keep it. Hands away from guns, if you please.”
They had entered so full of the courage of numbers — there were half a dozen of them — that they had not taken the precaution of drawing a weapon against him. And now he stood close to the wall, swaying a little from side to side with a murderous light in his eyes.
“Son,” said White, who seemed less daunted than the others, “you’re talking fool talk. I’m the sheriff.”
“You don’t say so. Am I going to take your word for that?”
Bill White exposed the badge of his office and then grinned triumphantly. “Now, Bob Lake,” he said, “will you listen to reason?”
“Maybe, maybe not. I feel sort of irritable, Sheriff, and you got to talk sharp. What you want?”
“To search you and your room. Start in, boys.”
“You stay put, gents, you hear?” said Lake. “Let’s see your search warrant, eh? Trot it out, Sheriff!”
The sheriff growled: “Search warrant be blowed, Lake!”
“Maybe. But you don’t touch a pocket till you show me one.”
“What’ll keep me from it?”
“This!”
“Lake, I’d ought to arrest you on the spot.”
“Arrest me without a charge, Sheriff, and you’ll wish you’d arrested the devil sooner before you’re through. You hear me talk?”
“Fool talk,” said the sheriff. His calm was breaking into anger.
“Listen,” said Lake, growing calmer as he saw the temper rise in the sheriff. “If you lay a hand on me, partner, you’ll be the first that ever did it. My record’s clean. In my part of the country I’ve got friends, and I’ll use ’em to make your trail hot. Now, get out of this room!”
“Just a minute. Hugh!”
Smiley appeared from the rear of the crowd. “Is this the gent?”
“It’s him right enough.” Smiley looked evilly at Bob Lake.
“Lake, you took Al Rankin’s gun off Smiley. Talk up and confess. You’ll come to no harm that way.”
“I never saw your rat-faced friend before.”
“How does he know you, then?”
“I’ve been in town since morning, and my name’s on the register downstairs. That’s easy enough.”
“Why, if this ain’t the grandpa of all liars!” exclaimed Smiley. “D’you mean to say... ?”
“Wait,” said the sheriff, raising his hand. “Loud talk don’t lead nowheres. Now, Lake, talk sense. You’re in the hole.”
“I don’t see how.”
“And you can’t fight your way out. Lake, you horned in to help Rankin. We know it.”
“Never met Rankin in my life.”
“Will you stand to that?”
“Sure. What’s your story?”
“That Smiley was bringing in evidence against Rankin in the shape of his gun, picked up at the scene of the Coy murder, and that you took it from him.”
“Smiley lies. Probably he was talking loud with nothing behind it. You ask him to show, and call his bluff. All he can do is shift the blame on what he ain’t got. He picks a stranger, and I’m the man. Ain’t that simple?”
“Suppose we search the room?”
“Go ahead. If it means anything serious, I’m sure ready to oblige you, gents.”
His calm and the readiness with which he now submitted to the search staggered the sheriff. Under his directions, while he kept an eye upon the actions of Lake, the others went over every inch of the space. Closet, suitcase, the clothes of Bob Lake, the bed — there was not th
e space of a pin that was not seen to or probed, and, as the search progressed and black looks began to be cast at Smiley, the excitement of the little man grew intense.
“He’s thrown it away, Bill,” he declared. “That’s what he’s done. He knew we’d search, and he threw it away.”
“You’re a fool, Hugh. That gun, jewels and all, is worth a thousand, if it’s worth a cent.”
Hugh Smiley groaned in despair. And the search, coming to an end, resulted in a dark-faced semicircle gathering around the rat-faced man.
“Sheriff,” said Bob Lake suddenly, “has this little rat got any grudge ag’in’ this Rankin you talk about? Any grudge that’d make him try to get Rankin in trouble?”
“Grudge? Sure.” The sheriff turned with a new and ugly glance upon Smiley.
“Take this gent and put him in front of Rankin... sudden... and see what Rankin does,” suggested Smiley.
It was not an altogether brilliant idea, but the sheriff, seeing his greatest of prizes about to slip through his fingers, was quite willing to grasp at straws. Bob Lake readily assented, and they journeyed across to the jail. By this time Hugh Smiley had lost all aggressiveness and was lingering in the back of the group. But the others dragged him along. He had never been a popular member of the community. Behind him was an unsavory youth full of a cunning smoother and infinitely meaner then the crimes attributed to Al Rankin. Now he was carried along in the rear of the little crowd, and his courage was subjected to their sarcastic comments.
When they reached the jail, a little, low-lying building, the sheriff marshaled them into an outer room and cautioned them to silence with a raised finger.
“Now, follow me,” he whispered to Bob Lake. Leaving the others behind, he threw open an inner door.
“I got a friend of yours, Al,” he called as he entered with Bob Lake behind him. Then he stepped aside to watch the expressions of the two men.
Al Rankin sat behind a heavy set of bars on his cot, and the door opened into a narrow passage between the bars and the wall of the building. In this passage stood the sheriff and Bob Lake, and upon the latter the prisoner now bent a calm glance.