He looked steadily at her. "I didn't say that, Beulah. What I said was that I didn't know where the stolen gold was hidden—and I didn't."
"That was just an evasion. You meant me to think that we had had nothing to do with the—the robbery."
"That's right. I did."
"And all the time—" She broke off, a sob choking her throat.
"I knew who did it. That's correct. But I wasn't a party to the robbery. I knew nothing about it till afterward."
"I've always believed everything you've told me, dad. And now—"
He felt doubt in her shaken voice. She did not know what to think now. Rutherford set himself to clear away her suspicions. He chose to do it by telling the exact truth.
"Now you may still believe me, honey. The robbery was planned by Tighe. I'll not mention the names of those in it. The day after it was pulled off, I heard of it for the first time. Dave Dingwell knew too much. To protect my friends I had to bring him up here. Legally I'm guilty of abduction and of the train robbery, too, because I butted in after the hold-up and protected the guilty ones. I even tried to save for them the gold they had taken."
"Were—any of the boys in it, dad?" she quavered.
"One of them. I won't tell you which."
"And Brad?"
"We're not giving names, Boots."
"Oh, well! I know he was one of them." She slipped her arm within her father's and gave his hand a little pressure. "I'm glad you told me, just the same, dad. I'd been thinking—worse things about you."
"That's all right, honey. Now you won't worry any more, will you?"
"I don't know.… That's not all that troubles me. I feel bad when the boys drink and brawl. That attack on Mr. Beaudry at Battle Butte was disgraceful," she flamed. "I don't care if he did come up here spying. Why can't they let him alone?"
He passed a hand in a troubled fashion through his grizzled hair. "You can bet our boys won't touch him again, Boots. I've laid the law down. But I can't answer for Tighe. He'll do him a meanness if he can, and he'll do it quicker since I've broken off with him because you helped Dingwell and Beaudry to escape. I don't know about Brad."
"I told Brad if he touched him again, I would never speak to him."
"Maybe that will hold him hitched, then. Anyhow, I'm not going to make the young fellow trouble. I'd rather let sleeping dogs lie."
Beulah pressed her arm against his. "I haven't been fair to you, dad. I might have known you would do right."
"I aim to stay friends with my little girl no matter what happens. Yore mother gave you into my hands when she was dying and I promised to be mother and father to you. Yore own father was my brother Anse. He died before you were born. I've been the only dad you ever had, and I reckon you know you've been more to me than any of my own boys."
"You shouldn't say that," she corrected quickly. "I'm a girl, and, of course, you spoil me more. That's all."
She gave him a ferocious little hug and went quickly into the house. Happiness had swept through her veins like the exquisite flush of dawn. Her lustrous eyes were wells of glad tears.
The owner of the horse ranch stood on the porch and watched a rider coming out of the gulch toward him. The man descended heavily from his horse and moved down the path. Rutherford eyed him grimly.
"Well, I'm back," the dismounted horseman said surlily.
"I see you are."
"Got out of the hospital Thursday."
"Hope you've made up yore mind to behave, Dan."
"It doesn't hurt a man to take a drink onc't in a while."
"Depends on the man. It put you in the hospital."
Meldrum ripped out a sudden oath. "Wait. Just wait till I get that pink-ear. I'll drill him full of holes right."
"By God, you'll not!" Rutherford's voice was like the snap of a whip. "Try it. Try it. I'll hunt you down like a wolf and riddle yore carcass."
In amazement the ex-convict stared at him. "What's ailin' you, Rutherford?"
"I'm through with you and Tighe. You'll stop making trouble or you'll get out of here. I'm going to clean up the park—going to make it a place where decent folks can live. You've got yore warning now, Dan. Walk a straight chalk-line or hit the trail."
"You can't talk that way to me, Rutherford. I know too much," threatened Meldrum, baring his teeth.
"Don't think it for a minute, Dan. Who is going to take yore word against mine? I've got the goods on you. I can put you through for rustling any time I have a mind to move. And if you don't let young Beaudry alone, I'll do it."
"Am I the only man that ever rustled? Ain't there others in the park? I reckon you've done some night-riding yore own self."
"Some," drawled Rutherford, with a grim little smile. "By and large, I've raised a considerable crop of hell. But I'm reforming in my old age. New Mexico has had a change of heart. Guns are going out, Meldrum, and little red schoolhouses are coming in. We've got to keep up with the fashions."
"Hmp! Schoolhouses! I know what's ailin' you. Since Anse Rutherford's girl—"
"You're off the reservation, Dan," warned the rancher, and again his low voice had the sting of cactus thorns in it.
Meldrum dropped that subject promptly. "Is Buck going to join this Sunday-School of yours?" he jeered. "And all the boys?"
"That's the programme. Won't you come in, too?"
"And Jess Tighe. He'll likely be one of the teachers."
"You'd better ask him. He hasn't notified me."
"Hell! You and yore kin have given the name to deviltry in this country. Mothers scare their kids by telling them the Rutherfords will git them."
"Fact. But that's played out. My boys are grown up and are at the turn of the trail. It hit me plumb in the face when you fools pulled off that express robbery. It's a piece of big luck you're not all headed for the penitentiary. I know when I've had enough. So now I quit."
"All right. Quit. But we haven't all got to go to the mourner's bench with you, have we? You can travel yore trail and we can go ours, can't we?"
"Not when we're on the same range, Dan. What I say goes." The eyes of Rutherford bored into the cruel little shifty ones of the bad man. "Take yore choice, Dan. It's quit yore deviltry or leave this part of the country."
"Who elected you czar of Huerfano Park?" demanded Meldrum, furious with anger.
He glared at the ranchman impotently, turned away with a mumbled oath, and went back with jingling spurs to his horse.
Chapter XIX
Beaudry Blows a Smoke Wreath
Royal Beaudry carried about with him in his work on the Lazy Double D persistent memories of the sloe-eyed gypsy who had recently played so large a part in his life. Men of imagination fall in love, not with a woman, but with the mystery they make of her. The young cattleman was not yet a lover, but a rumor of the future began to murmur in his ears. Beulah Rutherford was on the surface very simple and direct, but his thoughts were occupied with the soul of her. What was the girl like whose actions functioned in courage and independence and harsh hostility?
Life had imposed on her a hard finish. But it was impossible for Roy to believe that this slender, tawny child of the wind and the sun could at heart be bitter and suspicious. He had seen the sweet look of her dark-lashed eyes turned in troubled appeal upon her father. There had been one hour when he had looked into her face and found it radiant, all light and response and ecstasy. The emotion that had pulsed through her then had given the lie to the sullen silence upon which she fell back as a defense. If the gods were good to her some day, the red flower of passion would bloom on her cheeks and the mists that dulled her spirit would melt in the warm sunshine of love.
So the dreamer wove the web of his fancy about her, and the mystery that was Beulah Rutherford lay near his thoughts when he walked or rode or ate or talked.
Nor did it lessen his interest in her that he felt she despised him. The flash of her scornful eyes still stung him. He was beyond caring whether she thought him a spy. He knew that the facts justi
fied him in his attempt to save Dingwell. But he writhed that she should believe him a coward. It came too close home. And since the affray in the arcade, no doubt she set him down, too, as a drunken rowdy.
He made the usual vain valorous resolutions of youth to show her his heroic quality. These served at least one good purpose. If he could not control his fears, he could govern his actions. Roy forced himself by sheer will power to ride alone into Battle Butte once a week. Without hurry he went about his business up and down Mission Street.
The town watched him and commented. "Got sand in his craw, young Beaudry has," was the common verdict. Men wondered what would happen when he met Charlton and Meldrum. Most of them would have backed John Beaudry's son both in their hopes and in their opinion of the result.
Into saloons and gambling-houses word was carried, and from there to the hillmen of the park by industrious peddlers of trouble, that the young cattleman from the Lazy Double D could be found by his enemies heeled for business whenever they wanted him.
Charlton kept morosely to the park. If he had had nothing to consider except his own inclination, he would have slapped the saddle upon a cowpony and ridden in to Battle Butte at once. But Beulah had laid an interdict upon him. For a year he had been trying to persuade her to marry him, and he knew that he must say good-bye to his hopes if he fought with his enemy.
It was fear that kept Meldrum at home. He had been a killer, but the men he had killed had been taken at advantage. It was one thing to shoot this Beaudry cub down from ambush. It was another to meet him in the open. Moreover, he knew the Rutherfords. The owner of the horse ranch had laid the law down to him. No chance shot from the chaparral was to cut down Dingwell's partner.
The ex-convict listened to the whispers of Tighe. He brooded over them, but he did not act on them. His alcohol-dulled brain told him that he had reached the limit of public sufferance. One more killing by him, and he would pay the penalty at the hands of the law. When he took his revenge, it must be done so secretly that no evidence could connect him with the crime. He must, too, have an alibi acceptable to Hal Rutherford.
Meldrum carried with him to Battle Butte, on his first trip after the arcade affair, a fixed determination to avoid Beaudry. In case he met him, he would pass without speaking.
But all of Meldrum's resolutions were apt to become modified by subsequent inhibitions. In company with one or two cronies he made a tour of the saloons of the town. At each of them he said, "Have another," and followed his own advice to show good faith.
On one of these voyages from port to port the bad man from Chicito Cañon sighted a tall, lean-flanked, long-legged brown man. He was crossing the street so that the party came face to face with him at the apex of a right angle. The tanned stranger in corduroys, hickory shirt, and pinched-in hat of the range rider was Royal Beaudry. It was with a start of surprise that Meldrum recognized him. His enemy was no longer a "pink-ear." There was that in his stride, his garb, and the steady look of his eye which told of a growing confidence and competence. He looked like a horseman of the plains, fit for any emergency that might confront him.
Taken at advantage by the suddenness of the meeting, Meldrum gave ground with a muttered oath. The young cattleman nodded to the trio and kept on his way. None of the others knew that his heart was hammering a tattoo against his ribs or that queer little chills chased each other down his spine.
Chet Fox ventured a sly dig at the ex-convict. "Looks a right healthy sick man, Dan."
"Who said he was sick?" growled Meldrum.
"Didn't you-all say he was good as dead?"
"A man can change his mind, Chet, can't he?" jeered Hart.
The blotched face of the bad man grew purple. "That'll be about enough from both of you. But I'll say this: when I get ready to settle with Mr. Beaudry you can order his coffin."
Nevertheless, Meldrum had the humiliating sense that he had failed to live up to his reputation as a killer. He had promised Battle Butte to give it something to talk about, but he had not meant to let the whisper pass that he was a four-flusher. His natural recourse was to further libations. These made for a sullen, ingrowing rage as the day grew older.
More than one well-meaning citizen carried to Roy the superfluous warning that Meldrum was in town and drinking hard. The young man thanked them quietly without comment. His reticence gave the impression of strength.
But Beaudry felt far from easy in mind. A good deal of water had flowed under the Big Creek bridge since the time when he had looked under the bed at nights for burglars. He had schooled himself not to yield to the impulses of his rabbit heart, but the unexpected clatter of hoofs still set his pulses a-flutter. Why had fate snatched so gentle a youth from his law desk and flung him into such turbid waters to sink or swim? All he had asked was peace—friends, books, a quiet life. By some ironic quirk be found himself in scenes of battle and turmoil. As the son of John Beaudry he was expected to show an unflawed nerve, whereas his eager desire was to run away and hide.
He resisted the first panicky incitement to fly back to the Lazy Double D, and went doggedly about the business that had brought him to Battle Butte. Roy had come to meet a cattle-buyer from Denver and the man had wired that he would be in on the next train. Meanwhile Beaudry had to see the blacksmith, the feed-store manager, the station agent, and several others.
This kept him so busy that he reached the Station only just in time to meet the incoming train. He introduced himself to the buyer, captured his suitcase, and turned to lead the way to the rig.
Meldrum lurched forward to intercept him. "Shus' a moment."
Roy went white. He knew the crisis was upon him. The right hand of the hillman was hidden under the breast of his coat. Even the cattle-buyer from Denver knew what was in that hand and edged toward the train. For this ruffian was plainly working himself into a rage sufficient to launch murder.
"Yore father railroaded me to the penitentiary—cooked up testimony against me. You bust me with a club when I wasn't looking. Here's where I git even. See?"
The imminence of tragedy had swept the space about them empty of people. Roy knew with a sinking heart that it was between him and the hillman to settle this alone. He had been caught with the suitcase in his right hand, so that he was practically trapped unarmed. Before he could draw his revolver, Meldrum would be pumping lead.
Two months ago under similar circumstances terror had paralyzed Roy's thinking power. Now his brain functioned in spite of his fear. He was shaken to the center of his being, but he was not in panic. Immediately he set himself to play the poor cards he found in his hand.
"Liar!" Beaudry heard a chill voice say and knew it was his own. "Liar on both counts! My father sent you up because you were a thief. I beat your head off because you are a bully. Listen!" Roy shot the last word out in crescendo to forestall the result of a convulsive movement of the hand beneath his enemy's coat. "Listen, if you want to live the day out, you yellow coyote!"
Beaudry had scored his first point—to gain time for his argument to get home to the sodden brain. Dave Dingwell had told him that most men were afraid of something, though some hid it better than others; and he had added that Dan Meldrum had the murderer's dread lest vengeance overtake him unexpectedly. Roy knew now that his partner had spoken the true word. At that last stinging sentence, alarm had jumped to the blear eyes of the former convict.
"Whadjamean?" demanded Meldrum thickly, the menace of horrible things in his voice.
"Mean? Why, this. You came here to kill me, but you haven't the nerve to do it. You've reached the end of your rope, Dan Meldrum. You're a killer, but you'll never kill again. Murder me, and the law would hang you high as Haman—if it ever got a chance."
The provisional clause came out with a little pause between each word to stress the meaning. The drunken man caught at it to spur his rage.
"Hmp! Mean you're man enough to beat the law to it?"
Beaudry managed to get out a derisive laugh. "Oh, no! Not when I ha
ve a suitcase in my right hand and you have the drop on me. I can't help myself—and twenty men see it."
"Think they'll help you?" Meldrum swept his hand toward the frightened loungers and railroad officials. His revolver was out in the open now. He let its barrel waver in a semi-circle of defiance.
"No. They won't help me, but they'll hang you. There's no hole where you can hide that they won't find you. Before night you'll be swinging underneath the big live-oak on the plaza. That's a prophecy for you to swallow, you four-flushing bully."
It went home like an arrow. The furtive eyes of the killer slid sideways to question this public which had scattered so promptly to save itself. Would the mob turn on him later and destroy him?
Young Beaudry's voice flowed on. "Even if you reached the hills, you would be doomed. Tighe can't save you—and he wouldn't try. Rutherford would wash his hands of you. They'll drag you back from your hole."
The prediction rang a bell in Meldrum's craven soul. Again he sought reassurance from those about him and found none. In their place he knew that he would revenge himself for present humiliation by cruelty later. He was checkmated.
It was an odd psychological effect of Beaudry's hollow defiance that confidence flowed in upon him as that of Meldrum ebbed. The chill drench of fear had lifted from his heart. It came to him that his enemy lacked the courage to kill. Safety lay in acting upon this assumption.
He raised his left hand and brushed the barrel of the revolver aside contemptuously, then turned and walked along the platform to the building. At the door he stopped, to lean faintly against the jamb, still without turning. Meldrum might shoot at any moment. It depended on how drunk he was, how clearly he could vision the future, how greatly his prophecy had impressed him. Cold chills ran up and down the spinal column of the young cattleman. His senses were reeling.
To cover his weakness Roy drew tobacco from his coat-pocket and rolled a cigarette with trembling fingers. He flashed a match. A moment later an insolent smoke wreath rose into the air and floated back toward Meldrum. Roy passed through the waiting-room to the street beyond.
The Sheriff's Son Page 14