by Short, Luke;
Major Fitz appeared the most indignant of all, and Hank watched him covertly, a little puzzled. A good half hour passed before Bledsoe, his face flushed and harried, made his way up to the orchestra platform. He didn’t have to raise his hand to command silence this time.
“I—I don’t know how to announce this,” he said. “But when it comes down to brass tacks, it’s a question of the legality of the registration. All right, but what about our registration in this town? We know that maybe a tenth of the voters here did not register. Nevertheless they voted. Are we going to draw the line when it comes to those outside of Cosmos?” He shook his head. “I don’t see how we can. At any rate, these men were better registered than a tenth of our voters. So the votes stand—and Baily Blue is re-elected sheriff of Cosmos county.”
Johnny’s heart dropped, to rest in a sodden unhappiness. Only Nora’s look of sturdy courage and faith in him made this minute bearable. To Turk and Hank, the news was like a blow across the face. Turk grinned wryly and murmured, “Well, it was a nice two-day vacation from business.”
Nora turned away from the dozen people offering Johnny their sympathy and took him by the arm. “Shall we go, Johnny?”
Outside, in the silver-pricked blueness of the night, Johnny didn’t say anything for a long while. They walked along instinctively drawn close together. Then he felt Nora squeeze his arm.
“I guess I’m soft,” Johnny murmured huskily. “But I hate to get a rookin’ when I’m lookin’ it right in the face.”
“Who did it, do you suppose?”
Johnny looked at her in the dark. “What do you mean?”
“Why somebody sent those fifty-six men over to vote, didn’t he? Whoever it was knew that the election would be close; he didn’t want to take any chance of losing.”
Johnny didn’t answer for a moment. Of course that was it, but who was responsible? And was Johnny Hendry going to let him get away with it?
At the hotel they went out into the kitchen, where Nora made them sandwiches and coffee. Soon a little of the anguish was gone from Johnny’s mind, and it was done through Nora’s skilled argument.
“But Johnny, you’re not vain, are you?” she began.
“No. Not much.”
“And you didn’t want to be sheriff just to wear the star?”
“You know I didn’t,” Johnny growled.
“Then why did you?”
Johnny smiled sheepishly. “Two reasons, honey. The first was because I thought it would lead me to gettin’ Pick’s killer. The second was because you said you’d marry me if I did a good job of cleanin’ up this county.”
“All right,” Nora said. “You forget what I said. It’s not possible now. You did your best, and you were doing a good job when the chance was taken away from you. All right, now about Pick’s killer. Hasn’t Hugo told you enough tonight to give you the chance you wanted?”
Johnny nodded.
“Then why care about the sheriff’s office, dear? It’s got you what you wanted—information about Pick’s murder. As for me, I’ll marry you when you bring that killer to justice, just as I promised in the first place.”
There was only one thing to do then, and Johnny did it; he kissed her. After a cigarette, he said good night and went up to his attic room. Turk and Hank were undressing glumly, and it sort of hurt Johnny to watch them.
Hank announced grimly, “Me, I’ve wore this country out. I’m clearin’ out tomorrow. Maybe in a month of ridin’, I’ll have the taste of it out of my mouth.”
“And me,” Turk said, “I haven’t wore this county out. It’s the only place they’ll leave me alone, so I reckon I’ll go back to my old business.”
Wisely, Johnny said nothing. He unbuckled his holster belt and hung it over its peg, taking out the pearl-handled Colts, wrapping them in their flannel and putting them in his war bag. He looked around for his everyday, cedar-handled guns, but he could only find one of them. The room was in a litter of clothes and blankets and gear, and he was too tired to finish the search. He blew out the light and tumbled into bed.
Sleep was long in coming. And he couldn’t estimate how long he’d been asleep when a low rumble awakened him. He said, “Turk,” softly, and Turk grunted.
“Hear that?” Johnny asked.
“Yeah. What was it?”
“Thunder? Blasting?”
“Probably Baily Blue turnin’ over in bed,” Turk growled. “He makes big enough tracks now to do it. Whatever it was, it ain’t any of our business, is it?”
“I guess not,” Johnny said, and turned over. He slept.
Chapter Ten: IN THE CANYON
It took old Picket-Stake Hendry one full day of tireless walking to get back to the canyon he had cited on the false location papers planted on the bushwhacker. The next morning, he summed up the situation. It would probably take a couple of days for the body to be discovered. It would take at least two more for the discoverer—who would undoubtedly be a partner of the bushwhacker—to find this canyon. One day had passed; that left at least three days before anyone would appear in the canyon, time enough for him to hunt and gather berries and stock his cave with provisions.
Pick had discovered this cave a long time ago. It was high up the canyon side, just a few feet below the rimrock, and from the bottom of the canyon, it was invisible. Its only entrance was by a length of rope anchored to the rimrock. He knew it would be a perfect place of concealment.
Satisfied, Pick left the canyon to go to a salt lick higher up in the Calicoes. Two days later he returned with his pack full of partially dried deer meat. The next day, he went back to the salt lick for the rest of the meat and the berries he had picked.
On the morning of the fourth day he left the cave at sunup and made his way down into the canyon. Choosing a small butte screened with thick brush, he pushed his way into it, and by full day he was on the watch, invisible to anyone in the canyon or on the rimrock. During that long day, Pick did a lot of wondering. Would the bushwhacker’s body, under the belief it was Pick’s, be turned over to Johnny? Maybe then Johnny would be the one to find the false location papers. If so, Johnny would come up here.
But Pick didn’t think so. He knew two men had been following him. Up yonder and over south where his real strike was, where the mother lode was, he knew that he had not been seen. Neither was it down here, where he had dug fruitlessly for months and sunk a dozen test pits, that the two men had picked up his tracks. It had been farther over toward the north, where he had been puttering at a couple of test pits off and on for the last two months before he moved up the mountain. There were two of them, and they were careless with their tracks, he thought. That had cost the life of one. Surely this man’s partner would be the one to find the body and to get the false papers.
Afternoon came and passed, and Pick did not see a living thing the whole day but a jack rabbit. At dark, he went back to his cave. Next morning, with the patience of an Indian, he was back in the brush.
Around nine o’clock, he saw a man enter the canyon on foot, and a dry smile of satisfaction crossed Pick’s face. The man’s movements were cautious; he had a rifle slacked under his arm and a pack of miner’s tools on his back. When he had climbed a pinnacle rock and scanned the canyon for a full half hour, he came down and pulled a paper from his Levi’s pocket. Those would be the location papers, Pick thought.
Pick lay there a long time, watching. The man paused perhaps three hundred yards away, down on the floor of the canyon, and soon was working at a shallow test pit Pick had dug. He was filling small ore sacks with a short-handled shovel. The clang of his pick and single jack were loud in the morning stillness.
Pick debated. He wanted a good look at this man. He also wanted to talk to him, but after a few minutes of watching, he knew that it would not be easy to capture him here. The pit stood in the midst of a barren space that afforded no cover at all. He would be a perfect target for the man’s rifle. Pick knew that the old trail was the only logical way out of t
he canyon. Why don’t I drop down there and stop him? He won’t be half so spooky if he gets his work done and thinks he’s alone.
His mind made up, Pick backed quietly out of the brush, and, keeping the big boulders of the canyon floor between himself and the man, worked his way to the canyon side. Halfway up it, he heard the ring of the single jack cease, and he hurried a little. It was a good mile to the place he had in mind. Still, the man would have to tote the heavy ore sacks, and that would slow him up. Even if he missed him, Pick thought, it wouldn’t be hard to overtake a man afoot packing forty pounds of ore on his back.
Just the same, old Pick hurried. The place he chose was so similar to the one in which he had lain in wait for the bushwhacker that a wry smile pulled up the corners of his mouth. Crouched behind a rock, gun drawn, Pick waited—and waited and waited.
When he could stand it no longer, he took to the trail and worked carefully back toward the mouth of the canyon. When he got a view of it, he saw it was empty. Dismay struck him, and immediately he searched for tracks. Back in a little rincon he saw the reason why he had missed the man. Here, in the drifted dust, were the tracks of a horse.
Pick squatted on his haunches and cursed himself with blistering venom. He had been taken in like a child, like any simple fool. Just because the man had entered the canyon afoot, it had not occurred to Pick to look for a horse. And while he was making his laborious way afoot to the trail, the man had escaped on horseback.
But Pick remained standing there only a moment. Then he started out trailing the horse. He could do it at a fast walk, but it was nerve-straining work, and when darkness fell he had to admit defeat. He could not overtake the man; but maybe he could track him to the end of his journey.
But next day, at noon, Pick knew he really was licked. The tracks petered out in the gravelly bed of a stream, and four hours spent in searching for tracks went unrewarded. Pick glared at the horizon, cursing himself and his luck and life in general.
“But hogtie me,” he swore darkly, “if this isn’t the last time I get caught.”
Next night, down at one of the foothill water holes, Pick helped himself to a Bar 33 horse. In four more days, he was over on the other side of the county, where he was sure he wouldn’t be known. He was there for a reason. He wanted to find out if Johnny Hendry was doing anything about cleaning up the mystery. To Pick, this was more important than finding the man who had tried to bushwhack him.
Pick met a puncher near Doane’s store. And, talking with him, learned many things, among them that Johnny Hendry had been elected sheriff, that he had run the hardcases out of Cosmos, and that there had been an election dance held for him last night.
The puncher, seeing Pick’s grin, said, “What’s the matter, pop? Anything funny about that?”
“Nary a thing,” Pick answered. “I was just wonderin’ when it was goin’ to happen.”
“Brother, it has,” the puncher said fervently.
And Pick, satisfied, headed back for the Calicoes, his patience a bottomless thing once again. In a few more days, if Johnny’s success in dealing with these hardcases continued, Pick could come back to life. Just a few more days.
Chapter Eleven: KILLER’S GOLD
At the first gray dawn, Johnny was awakened by a soft noise. Almost instantly, he realized that last night he had neglected to haul the trunk over the trap door. He reached out for his gun, pulled himself back in a dark corner of the bed, and trained his gun on the attic’s only entrance.
And Nora appeared.
“Johnny,” she whispered, and when Johnny answered her, she came over to him. Her hair was down around her shoulders, and she held a gray wrapper close around her. Johnny could not see her face, but he could tell by the timbre of her voice that she was frightened.
“What is it?”
“Are you awake enough to get this straight? The bank was blown last night and the Esmerella gold taken from the vaults. The robbers escaped. But Baily Blue is down here—in the hall right below—waiting for you. He—he found something of yours in the bank.”
Johnny sat bolt upright. “Mine? What?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. Dress and come down. And, oh, Johnny, do keep your temper. I know it’s all right, that you weren’t in it, but be careful what you say.”
Nora went back down the ladder, and Johnny dressed hurriedly. Turk and Hank were breathing deeply, and he did not think they had awakened.
Baily was waiting down in the hall below. Johnny stepped off the lower rung of the ladder to face him. “What is all this, Baily?”
Baily’s chill blue eyes belied the amiability of his face. “Nora tell you about the bank?”
“Yes, that it was blown. What about me, though?”
For answer, Baily held out a worn Colt. It was cedar-handled, its butt scarred with use. “We found that in the alley just outside the back door of the bank. It fell out when a man jumped on his horse and it bucked.” He looked at Johnny. “It’s yours, ain’t it?”
Johnny nodded, not taking his gaze from Baily’s face. So that was why he hadn’t been able to find his other gun when he went to bed.
Baily extended his other hand. It held a worn spur. “We found this, too. You got any idea whose it is?”
Johnny looked at it and then shuttled his gaze back to Baily. “You know whose it is, don’t you?”
“I got a good idea. You tell me,” Baily said.
“Turk’s.”
“That’s what I thought.” There was a little silence, during which Nora came and stood by Johnny’s side. They were both watching Blue, waiting for him to make a move. He lounged erect from the wall, took off his hat, mopped his head with a handkerchief, and said, “Son, heaven knows I hate to do this. But I got to take you and Turk in.”
“You believe it?” Johnny said softly.
“It ain’t that, and you know it. But you’ve worked around my office long enough to know how we run things like this.”
Johnny had his mouth open to answer hotly when a dark form hurtled down from the trap door above and crashed on top of Baily Blue, carrying him to the floor. It was Turk and, straddling Blue, he pinned both his arms to the floor.
“I heard,” Turk said angrily. “Wake Hank and get your bedroll, Johnny. We’re gettin’ out of here.”
“No!” Johnny said angrily, his voice sharp above the sucking and gasping that Blue was making in his effort to recover his wind.
Turk’s face was dark with fury. “You fool! Don’t you see what kind of a frame-up this is? We’ll be strung up by a lynch mob if we give ourselves up! All those hardcases—Wigran and his outfit—will be in town in the mornin’! Once we’re in jail, they’ll see us swing higher’n a kite!”
“It’s true, Johnny,” Nora said.
“Get your stuff! Get mine! Wake Hank and tell him to dress and come along. If you don’t, we’re dead, and you know it!”
Johnny looked at Nora, and she nodded bleakly.
When he was gone to wake Hank, Nora looked down at Blue. He had his breath, and he was observing Turk with placid friendliness. “Well, now, Turk, that was a giveaway, wasn’t it?”
Turk growled, “Shut up.”
Baily looked up at Nora and said sadly, “It’s pretty tough on you, girl. Johnny’s the last man I ever thought would do that.”
Turk’s open palm smacked sharply across Blue’s mouth. “Say that again, and I’ll show you how your teeth taste when they roll loose in your head.”
Baily only smiled. When Hank and Johnny returned, Turk took Blue’s guns away from him and let him get up. He said nothing; his smile was still only amiable, and a bit pitying.
“Baily,” Johnny said gently, “I don’t know if you’re behind this or not. I don’t think you are. Anyway, you were at least partly behind that election steal. But if you are mixed up in this, heaven help you. I don’t like a frame-up!”
“I’m sheriff and I done a sheriff’s duty,” Baily answered.
“A sight too
well,” Turk growled. He took the rope from Hank, and in a moment Blue was tightly trussed on the floor.
“I just wanted to tell you the rest,” Blue said. “There was three men robbed the bank. One of ’em held the horses. Would the third man be you, Hank?”
Hank said nothing. Johnny turned to Nora and took her in his arms. “It’ll be a long time before I see you again, honey. But I’ll be back. And when I do come back, I’m goin’ to have plenty scalps in my belt. All right with you?”
“You know it is,” Nora murmured.
Twenty minutes later, the three of them were riding south out of town. At the rise above Cosmos they pulled up and looked back at the grimy, slatternly town that they had tried to save. “Still want to hit the grit, Hank?” Johnny asked.
Hank only shook his head.
“And you, Turk?”
“You couldn’t blast me out of this county,” Turk said savagely.
“Nor me,” Johnny murmured. “Looks like we’re all here. Want to stick together on it?”
They nodded.
They pulled off the road and headed cross country for the shelter and solitude of the Calicoes. To Johnny, these were the bitterest hours of his life. To see success within his grasp and then to lose it was enough to dishearten anyone. But had he really lost? After all, the election didn’t matter, and the fact that he was an outlaw wasn’t much more important. He had a clue to Pick’s killer. That alone was worth all the hard luck he had suffered. “Let’s don’t ride too far,” he said, toward noon. “I’m goin’ back to Cosmos tonight to talk with Hugo Miller. And not even Baily Blue had better try to stop me.”
Miller was deep in his report when the door opened and Lemrath came in. It was seven-thirty. Hugo had been working all day.
“Evenin’,” Lemrath said pleasantly, and he took the chair Hugo waved him into. He was an ordinary-looking man of middle age with a square, alert face. His least movements were slow and entirely controlled. There was no nervousness in him at all. His clothes were worn but clean; he looked at Hugo with a frank and steady gaze.