by Max Brand
“It ain’t no use,” he said sadly. “I see it all now. You was cut out to end in a rope collar.”
Not another word could be pried from his set lips during breakfast, a gloomy meal to which Sally Bent came with red eyes, and Jerry Bent sullenly, with black looks at Sinclair. Jig was the cheeriest one of the party. That cheer at last brought another explosion from Sinclair. They stood in front of the house, watching a horseman wind his way up the road through the hills.
“It’s Sheriff Kern,” said Jerry Bent. “I can tell by the way he rides, sort of slanting. It’s Kern, right enough.”
Sally Bent choked, but Jig continued to hum softly.
“Singin’?” asked Riley Sinclair suddenly. “Ain’t you no more worried than that?”
The voice of the schoolteacher in reply was as smooth as running water. “I think you’ll bring me out of the trouble safely enough, Mr. Sinclair.”
“Mr. Sinclair’ll see you damned before he lifts a hand for you!” Riley retorted savagely.
He strode to his horse and expended his wrath by viciously jerking at the cinches, until the mustang groaned. Sheriff Kern came suddenly into clear view around the last turn and rode quickly up to them, a very short man, muscular, sweaty. He always gave the impression that he had been working ceaselessly for a week, and certainly he found time to shave only once in ten days. Dense bristle clouded the lower features of his face. He was a taciturn man. His greetings took the form of a single grunt. He took possession of John Gaspar with a single glance that sent the latter nervously toward his saddle horse.
“I see you got this party all ready for me,” said the sheriff more amiably to Riley Sinclair, who was watching in disgust the clumsy method of Jig’s mounting. “You’re Sinclair, I guess?”
“I’m Sinclair, sheriff.”
They shook hands.
“Nice bit of work you done for me, Sinclair, keeping the boys from stringing up Jig, yonder. These here lynchings don’t set none too well on the reputation of a sheriff. I guess we’re ready to start. S’long Sally—Jerry. Are you riding our way, Sinclair?”
“I thought I’d happen along. Ain’t never seen Woodville yet.”
“Glad to have you. But they ain’t much to see unless you look twice at the same thing.”
They started down the trail three abreast.
“Ride on ahead,” commanded Sinclair to Jig. “We don’t want you riding in the same line with men. Git on ahead!”
John Gaspar obeyed that brutal order with bowed head. He rode listlessly, with loose rein, letting the pony pick its own way. Once Sinclair looked back to Sally Bent, weeping in the arms of her brother. Again his face grew black.
“And yet,” confided the sheriff softly, “I ain’t never heard no trouble about this Gaspar before.”
“He’s poison,” declared Sinclair bitterly, and he raised his voice that it would unmistakably carry to the shrinking figure before them. “He’s such a yaller-hearted skunk, sheriff, that it makes me ashamed of bein’ a man!”
“They’s only one thing I misdoubt,” said the sheriff. “How’d that sort of a gent ever get the nerve to murder a man like Quade? Quade wasn’t no tenderfoot, and he could shoot a bit, besides.”
“Speaking personal, sheriff, I don’t think he done it, now I’ve had a chance to go over the evidence.”
“Maybe he didn’t, but most like he’ll hang for it. The boys is dead set agin’ him. First, he’s a dude; second, he’s a coward. Sour Creek and Woodville wasn’t never cut out for that sort. They ain’t wanted around.”
That speech made Riley Sinclair profoundly thoughtful. He had known well enough before this that there were small chances of Jig escaping from the damning judgment of twelve of these cowpunchers. The statement of the sheriff made the belief a fact. The death sentence of Jig was pronounced the moment the doors of the jail at Woodville clanged upon him.
They struck the trail to Sour Creek and almost immediately swung off on a branch which led south and west, in the opposite direction from the creek. It was a day of high-driving clouds, thin and fleecy, so that they merely filtered the sunlight and turned it into a haze without decreasing the heat perceptibly, and that heat grew until it became difficult to look down at the blazing sand.
Now the trail climbed among broken hills until they reached a summit. From that point on, now and again the road elbowed into view of a wide plain, and in the center of the plain there was a diminutive dump of buildings.
“Woodville,” said the sheriff. “Hey, you, Jig, hustle that hoss along!”
Obediently the drooping Gaspar spurred his horse. The animal broke into a gallop that set Gaspar jolting in the seat, with wildly flopping elbows.
“Look at that,” said Sinclair. “Would you ever think that men could be born as awkward as that? Would you ever think that men would be born that didn’t have no use in the world?”
“He ain’t altogether useless,” decided the sheriff. “Seems as how he’s done noble in the school. Takes on with the little boys and girls most amazing, and he knows how to keep even the eighth graders interested. But what can you expect of a gent that ain’t got no more pride than to be a schoolteacher, eh?”
Sinclair shook his head.
The trail drifted downward now less brokenly, and Woodville came into view. It was a wretched town in a wretched landscape, far different from the wild hills and the rich plowed grounds around Sour Creek. All that came to life in the brief spring, the long summer had long since burned away to drab yellows and browns. A horrible place to die in, Sinclair thought.
“Speaking of hosses, that’s a wise-looking hoss you got, sheriff.”
“Rode him for five years,” said the sheriff. “Raised him and busted him and trained him all by myself. Ain’t nobody but me ever rode him. He can go so soft-footed he wouldn’t bust eggs, sir, and he can turn loose and run like the wind. They ain’t no better hoss than this that’s come under my eye, Sinclair. Are you much on the points of a hoss?”
“I use hosses—I don’t love ’em,” said Sinclair gloomily. “But I can read the points tolerable.”
The sheriff eyed Sinclair coldly. “So you don’t love hosses, eh?” he said, returning distantly to the subject. It was easy to see where his own heart lay by the way his roan picked up its head whenever its master spoke.
“Sheriff,” explained Sinclair, “I’m a single-shot gent. I don’t aim to have no scatter fire in what I like. They’s only one man that I ever called friend, they’s only one place that I ever called home—the mountains, yonder—and they’s only one hoss that I ever took to much. I raised Molly up by hand, you might say. She was ugly as sin, but they wasn’t nothing she couldn’t do—nothing!” He paused. “Sheriff, I used to talk to that hoss!”
The sheriff was greatly moved. “What became of her?” he asked softly.
“I took after a gent once. He couldn’t hit me, but he put a slug through Molly.”
“What became of the gent?” asked the sheriff still more softly.
“He died just a little later. Just how I ain’t prepared to state.”
“Good!” said the sheriff. He actually smiled in the pleasure of newfound kinship. “You and me would get on proper, Sinclair.”
“Most like.”
“This hoss of mine, now, has sense enough to take me home without me touching a rein. Knows direction like a wolf.”
“Could you guide her with your knees?”
“Sure.”
“And she’s plumb safe with you?”
“Sure.”
“I know a gent once that said he’d trust himself tied hand and foot on his hoss.”
“That goes for me and my hoss, too, Sinclair.”
“Well, then, just shove up them hands, sheriff!”
The sheriff blinked, as the sun flashed on the revolver in the steady hand of Sinclair. There was a significant little jerking up of the revolver. Each time the muzzle stirred, the hands of the sheriff jumped higher and higher until his arms
were stiffly stretched. Gaspar had halted his horse and looked back in amazement.
“I hate to do it,” declared Sinclair. “Right off I sort of took to you, sheriff. But this has got to be done.”
“Sinclair, have you done much thinking before you figured this all out?”
“Enough! If I knowed you one shade better, sheriff, I’d take your word that you’d ride on into Woodville, good and slow, and not start no pursuit. But I don’t know you that well. I got to tie you on the back of that steady old hoss of yours and turn you loose. We need that much start.”
He dismounted, still keeping careful aim, took the rope coiled beside the sheriff’s own saddle horn and began a swift and sure process of tying. He worked deftly, without undue fear or haste, and Gaspar came back to look on with scared eyes.
“You’re a fool, Sinclair,” murmured the sheriff. “You’ll never get shut of me. I’ll foller you till I drop dead. I’ll never forget you. Change your mind now, and we’ll say nothing has happened. But if you keep on, you’re done for as sure as my name is Kern. Take you by yourself, and you’d be a handful to catch. But two is easier than one, and, when one of them two is a deadweight like Gaspar, they ain’t nothing to it.”
He finished his appeal completely trussed.
“I ain’t tied you on the hoss,” said Sinclair. “Take note of that. Also I’m leaving you your guns, sheriff.”
“I hope you’ll have a chance to see ’em come out of the holster later on, Sinclair.”
The cowpuncher took no notice of this bitterness. Gaspar, who looked on, was astonished by a certain deferential politeness on the part of the big cowpuncher.
“Speaking personal, I hope I don’t never have no trouble with you, sheriff. I like you, understand?”
“Have your little joke, Sinclair!”
“I mean it. I know I’m usin’ you like a skunk. But I got a special need, and I can’t take no chances. Sheriff, I tell you out of my heart that I’m sorry! Will you believe me?”
The sheriff smiled. “The same as you’ll believe me when we change parts, Sinclair.”
The big man sighed. “I s’pose it’s got to be that way,” he said. “But if you come for me, Kern, come all primed for action. It’ll be a hard trail.”
“That’s my specialty.”
“Well, sheriff, s’long—and good luck!”
The sheriff nodded. “Thanks!”
Pressing his horse with his knees, Kern started down the trail at a slow canter. Sinclair followed the retiring figure, nodding with admiration at the skill with which the sheriff kept his mount under control, merely by power of voice. Presently the latter turned a corner of the trail and was out of sight.
“But—I knew—I knew!” exclaimed John Gaspar. “Only, why did you let him go on into town?” The cold glance of Sinclair rested on his companion. “What would you have done?”
“Tied him up and left him here.”
“I think you would—to die in the sun!” He swung up into his saddle. “Now, Gaspar, we’ve started on what’s like to prove the last trail for both of us, understand? By night we’ll both be outlawed. They’ll have a price on us, and long before night, Kern will be after us. For the first time in your soft-hearted life you’ve got to work, and you’ve got to fight.”
“I’ll do it, Mr. Sinclair!”
“Bah! Save your talk. Talk’s dirt cheap.”
“I only ask one thing. Why have you done it?”
“Because, you fool, I killed Quade!”
CHAPTER 13
From the first there was no thought in the sheriff’s mind of riding straight into Woodville, trussed and helpless as he was. Woodville respected him, and the whole district was proud of its sheriff. He knew that five minutes of laughter can blast the finest reputation that was ever built by a lifetime of hard labor. He knew the very faces of the men who would never let the story die, of how the sheriff came into town, not only without his prisoner, but tied hand and foot, helpless in the saddle.
Without his prisoner!
Never before in his twenty years as sheriff had a criminal escaped from his hands. Many a time they had tried, and on those occasions he had brought back a dead body for the hand of the law.
This time he had ample excuse. Any man in the world might admit that he was helpless when such a fellow as Riley Sinclair took him by surprise. He knew Sinclair well by reputation, and he respected all that he had heard.
No matter for that. The fact remained that his unbroken string of successes was interrupted. Perhaps Woodville would explain his failure away. No doubt some of the men knew of Sinclair and would not wonder. They would stand up doughtily for the prowess of their sheriff. Yet the fact held that he had failed. It was a moral defeat more than anything else.
His mind was made up to remain in the mountains until he starved, or until he had removed those shameful ropes—his own rope! At that thought he writhed again. But here an arroyo opening in the ragged wall of a cliff caught his eye. He turned his horse into it and continued on his way until he saw a projecting rock with a ragged edge, left where a great fragment had recently fallen away.
Here he found it strangely awkward and even perilous to dismount without his hands to balance his weight, as he shifted out of the stirrups. In spite of his care, he stumbled over a loose rock as he struck the ground and rolled flat on his back. He got up, grinding his teeth. His hands were tied behind him. He turned his back on the broken rock and sawed the ropes against it. To his dismay he felt the rock edge crumble away. It was some chalky, friable stuff, and it gave at the first friction.
Beads of moisture started out on the sheriff’s forehead. Hastily he started on down the arroyo and found another rock, with an edge not nearly so favorable in appearance, but this time it was granite. He leaned his back against it and rubbed with a short shoulder motion until his arms ached, but it was a happy labor. He felt the rock edge taking hold of the ropes, fraying the strands to weakness, and then eating into them. It was very slow work!
The sun drifted up to noon, and still he was leaning against that rock, working patiently, with his head near to bursting, and perspiration, which he could not wipe away, running down to blind him. Finally, when his brain was beginning to reel with the heat, and his shoulders ached to numbness, the last strand parted. The sheriff dropped down to the ground to rest.
Presently he drew out his jackknife and methodically cut the remaining bonds. It came to him suddenly, as he stood up, that someone might have seen this singular performance and carried the tale away for future laughter. The thought drove the sheriff mad. He swung savagely into the saddle and drove his horse at a dead run among the perilous going of that gorge. When he reached the plain he paused, hesitant between a bulldog desire to follow the trail single-handed into the mountains and run down the pair, and a knowledge that he who retreats has an added power that would make such a pursuit rash beyond words.
A phrase which he had coined for the gossips of Woodville, came back into his mind. He was no longer as young as he once was, and even at his prime he shrewdly doubted his ability to cope with Riley Sinclair. With the weight of Gaspar thrown in, the thing became an impossibility. Gaspar might be a weakling, but a man who was capable of murder was always dangerous.
To have been thwarted once was shame enough, but he dared not risk two failures with one man. He must have help in plenty from Woodville, and, fate willing, he would one day have the pleasure of looking down into the dead face of Sinclair; one day have the unspeakable joy of seeing the slender form of Gaspar dangling from the end of a rope.
His mind was filled with the wicked pleasure of these pictures until he came suddenly upon Woodville. He drew his horse back to a dogtrot to enter the town.
It was a short street that led through Woodville, but, short though it was, the news that something was wrong with the sheriff reached the heart of the town before he did. Men were already pouring out on the veranda of the hotel.
“Where is he, sheriff?�
� was the greeting.
Never before had that question been asked. He switched to one side in his saddle and made the speech that startled the mind of Woodville for many a day.
“Boys, I’ve been double-crossed. Have any of you heard tell of Riley Sinclair?”
He waited apparently calm. Inwardly he was breathless with excitement, for according to the size of Riley’s reputation as a formidable man would be the size of his disgrace. There was a brief pause. Old Shaw filled the gap, and he filled it to the complete satisfaction of the sheriff.
“Young Hopkins was figured for the hardest man up in Montana way,” he said. “That was till Riley Sinclair beat him. What about Sinclair?”
“It was him that double-crossed me,” said the sheriff, vastly relieved. “He come like a friend, stuck me up on the trail when I wasn’t lookin’ for no trouble, and he got away with Gaspar.”
A chorus, astonished, eager. “What did he do it for?”
“No man’ll ever know,” said the sheriff.
“Why not?”
“Because Sinclair’ll be dead before he has a chance to look a jury in the face.”
There were more questions. The little crowd had got its breath again, and the words came in volleys. The sheriff cut sharply through the noise.
“Where’s Bill Wood?”
“He’s in town now.”
“Charley, will you find Billy for me and ask him to slide over to my office? Thanks! Where’s Arizona and Red Chalmers?”
“They went back to the ranch.”
“Be a terrible big favor if you’d go out and try to find ’em for me, boys. Where’s Joe Stockton?”
“Up to the Lewis place.”
Old Shaw struck in: “You ain’t makin’ no mistake in picking the best you can get. You’ll need ’em for this Riley Sinclair. I’ve heard tell about him. A pile!”
The very best that Woodville and its vicinity could offer, was indeed what the sheriff was selecting. Another man would have looked for numbers, but the sheriff knew well enough that numbers meant little speed, and speed was one of the main essentials for the task that lay before him. He knew each of the men he had named, and he had known them for years, with the exception of Arizona. But the latter, coming up from the southland, had swiftly proved his ability in many a brawl.