“You can’t get away with this!” Bob burst out angrily, but the undercurrent of hopelessness in his voice was plain. “It’s a devil of a thing! Sherry hates you! What sort of a mind can you have?”
“Sherry will change.” Levitt smiled across the table at her. “I promise you both, she will change. Also, it will be convenient for her to be my wife. She cannot testify against me, and I scarcely believe that with her as my wife you’ll care to bring any charges, Bob. Also, I’ll have control of this ranch, and, as the others are in my hands, the situation is excellent.”
“I’ve a good notion to . . .!” Bob’s voice trailed off into sullenness.
“Have you?” Levitt glanced up, his eyes ugly. “Listen, Vernon! Don’t give me any trouble! You’re in this deeper than I am! You’ve got murder against you, as well as smuggling. If I’m ever exposed, you know that you and Sherry will both go down with me. What will your precious father think then, with his fine family pride and his bad heart?”
“Shut up!” Bob cried angrily. He leaped to his feet. “If it weren’t for Dad, I’d kill you with my bare hands!”
“Really, Bob,” Sherry said quietly, “perhaps we should talk this over. I’m not so sure that prison for both of us wouldn’t be preferable to being married to Star.”
Levitt’s face went white and dangerous. “You’re flattering,” he said dryly, striving to retain his composure. “What, if I may ask, would have happened to Bob if I hadn’t gotten him away from that mess and brought him here? The killing of Clyde Aubury was not any ordinary killing.”
Aubury? Ross Haney’s brows drew together, and he strained his ears to hear more.
“Yes, I think I should have earned your gratitude,” Levitt continued. “Instead, I find you falling for that drifting cowhand.”
Sherry Vernon’s eyes lifted from her plate. “Star,” she said coolly, “you could never understand through that vast ego of yours that Ross Haney is several times the man you could ever have been, even if you hadn’t become a thief and a blackmailer of women.”
Haney’s heart leaped, and his lips tightened. In that instant, he would cheerfully have gone through the window, glass and all, and given his life if it would have helped. Yet even in his elation at her praise of him, he could not but admire the coolness and composure. Her manner was quiet, poised. He stared into the window, his heart pounding. Then she lifted her eyes and looked straight into his!
For an instant that seemed an eternity, their eyes held. In hers he saw hope leap into being, then saw her eyes suddenly masked, and she turned her head, passing something to her brother with an idle comment that ignored Levitt completely.
“Well,” she said after a minute, her voice sounding just a tone louder, “everything is all right for the time. At least I have until Monday!”
He drew back. That message was for him, and between now and Monday was a lifetime—three whole days! Three days in which many things might be done, in which she might be taken from here—in which he might even kill Star Levitt. For he knew now that was what he would do if the worse came to the worst. He had never yet actually hunted a man down for the purpose of killing him, but he knew that was just what he would do if there was no other way out.
Tiptoeing to the corner of the house, Ross started for the stable and his horse, and then, as he stepped past the last tree, a huge cottonwood, a man stepped out. “Say, you got a match?”
It was Kerb Dahl!
Recognition came to them at the same instant, and the man let out a startled yelp and grabbed for his gun.
There was no time to grapple with the man, no chance for a quick, soundless battle. Too much space intervened so there was only one chance. Even as Dahl’s hand grasped his gun, Haney plucked out his own gun and fired.
Flame stabbed from the muzzle, and then a second stab of fire. Dahl took a hesitant step forward, his gun half out. Then the gun belched flame, shooting a hole through the bottom of the holster, and Dahl toppled forward on his face.
Behind Dahl the bunkhouse door burst open, and there was a shout from the ranch house itself. As quickly Ross ducked around the stable and hit the saddle running.
The Appaloosa knew an emergency when he felt one and he lit out, running like a scared rabbit. A gun barked, then another, but nothing in that part of the country could catch the Appaloosa when he started going places in a hurry, and that was just what he was doing.
On the outskirts of Soledad, with the pounding hoofs of the pursuit far behind, Haney leaped the horse over a gully and took to the desert, weaving a pattern of tangled tracks into a trail where cattle had been driven, then cutting back into the scattered back alleys of Soledad, leaving town a few minutes later, crossing a shale slide and swinging around a butte to hit his old trail for Thousand Springs Mesa.
“Río, you saved my neck tonight, an’ we took a scalp. I’d as soon never take another, but if we have to, let ’em all be hombres like Dahl.”
Yet what was all this about a murder charge against Bob Vernon? And what was their connection with the smuggling and the cans of opium he had found in the cabin? He had known the smell the instant he lifted the can to his nostrils, for it is a smell one does not soon forget. He remembered it from a visit, a few years before, to some of the dives along the Barbary Coast. And now he must think. Somehow, some way, he must free Sherry from this entanglement, and as a last resort he would do it, if he must, by facing Star Levitt with a gun.
XV
Haney’s course was clear. Whatever other plans he might have had must be shelved and the whole situation brought into the open by Monday. Studying the situation carefully, he could see little hope, unless the sheriff and the investigating officers from the outside arrived on Monday. Then, if he could present his case—but Levitt would take every measure to avoid that and his only chance would be to get into town before time.
On Sunday night, in absolute blackness, the three rode down the back trail toward Soledad. Outside of town they slackened pace. Ross turned in his saddle as Burt and Mabry came up beside him.
He gestured toward the town. “It looks quiet enough. I’m going to leave my horse at May’s. You two leave your horses there, too. Put them in the stable. Then you two hide out in the stable. I’m going first. You follow in a few minutes. I want to see Scott, and he’ll go to Allan for me. If the worse comes to the worst, and there is no other way, I’m going gunning for Star. I’d rather die myself than see that girl forced to marry him, or to see him win after all this murder and deceit. However, I may give myself up when the sheriff gets here.”
Mabry nodded thoughtfully. “Who are these hombres Levitt’s bringin’ in, Ross? Are they really the law?”
“Yeah, you see he calls Chubb the sheriff. Actually he’s only a town marshal. The county seat is over a hundred miles away by trail, an’ there’s no deputy up here. Star Levitt is shrewd. He knows that sooner or later some word of this scrap will get out. Somebody, on a stage or somewhere, will talk. The chances are they already have. Well, so he sends to the governor for an investigating officer, wanting the whole thing cleared up. That puts him on the map as a responsible citizen. He’ll do the talking and the men he selects will back him up, and the whole situation will be smoothed over. The chances are one of his men will be made a deputy sheriff. Then the investigatin’ officers will go back to the capital and Levitt’s in a nice spot. If any trouble comes up, they will always remember him, apparently rich, a stable citizen, a man who called on the law. They wouldn’t believe a thing against him. His skirts will be clear, an’ we three will be outlawed. Somehow, we’ve got to block that an’ expose the true state of affairs.”
“What is this joker you said you had?” Mabry asked.
“Wait. That will do for the showdown. Nobody knows about that but myself an’ Scott. We’ll have this whole show well sewed up.”
He was the first to move forward, walking the Appaloosa through the encircling trees to May Ashton’s cabin on the edge of Soledad. There was no one
in sight, but a light glowed in the cabin. He moved up and led his horse into the stable and left it there. Then he slipped along the wall of the house until he could glance into a window. The waitress was inside, and alone.
She opened the door at his tap, and he slipped inside. “You!” she gasped. “We were wondering how to get word to you. Star Levitt is marrying Sherry tomorrow.”
“I know. What about the officers from the capital?”
“They’ll be in tomorrow, too. In the morning. The sheriff is coming up from the county seat, and some attorney from the capital named Ward Clymer. Two state Rangers are coming with them. I’ve heard it all discussed in the restaurant.”
“They will have a hearing? Where?”
“In the lobby of the hotel. It’s the only place large enough, aside from the Bit and Bridle. I heard Voyle talking with Syd Berdue about it. Incidentally,” she added quickly, “there’s a warrant out for your arrest. Emmett Chubb has it. They want you for killing Kerb Dahl. Was that you?”
“Uhn-huh, but it was a fair shake. In fact, he went for his gun first. I had no choice but to shoot.”
“Well, the order is out to shoot on sight, and they have Reward posters ready to go out tomorrow morning. They will be all over town for the officers to see when they come in. You’re wanted for murder, dead or alive, and they are offering a thousand dollars.”
Ross smiled wryly. “That will make it worse! A thousand dollars is money enough to start the blood hunters out. Now, listen. I’m going to Scott, and I’m going now. Mabry and Burt will be in soon, and they’ll hide here in the stable. They will be standing by in case of emergency. I’ll try to communicate with you in case of really serious trouble, and then you can get word to them. I intend to give myself up to the officials and make them hold a preliminary hearing right here. I can talk them into that, I think. Then we can get facts in front of them.”
“Ross, don’t plan on anybody siding you,” May said quickly. “Chubb has been around town with Hanson, and they have frightened everybody. You can’t depend on a soul. I don’t even know whether I’d have nerve enough to back you up, but I’m afraid Allan will. He’s that kind.”
The street was dark when Ross Haney stepped out of May’s cabin. He did not try to keep out of sight, realizing that such an attempt, if seen, would be even more suspicious. He walked rapidly down the street, staying in the deep shadows, but walking briskly along. Scott was the man he must see. He must get to him at once, and he would know what to do. Also, it would be a place to hide.
Glancing across the street, he saw a half dozen horses standing at the hitch rail in front of the Bit and Bridle. There was light flooding from the windows, and the sound of loud laughter from within.
A man opened the door and stumbled drunkenly into the street, and for a moment Ross hesitated, feeling uneasy. The street was altogether too quiet; there was too little movement. He turned at right angles and went between a couple of buildings, starting for the back door of Scott’s place. Once he thought he glimpsed a movement in the shadows, and hesitated, but, after watching and seeing nothing more, he went on up to the back door and tapped gently. The door opened, and he stepped in.
Scott glanced at him, and alarm sprang into his eyes.
“Set down,” he said. “Set down. You’ve sure been stirrin’ up a pile of trouble, Haney.”
He poured a cup of coffee and placed it on the table. “Drink that,” he said quietly. “It will do you good.”
Scott stared at him as he lifted the cup. “Big trouble’s goin’ to break loose, Scott,” Haney said. “I hope I can handle it.”
His ears caught a subtle whisper of movement outside, and his eyes lifted, then his face went to a dead, sickly white.
Scott had a shotgun, and its twin barrels were pointed right at his stomach.
“Sit tight, son,” he said sternly. “A move an’ I’ll cut you in two.” He lifted his voice. “All right, out there! Come on in! I’ve got him!”
The door burst open and Emmett Chubb sprang into the room, and with him was Voyle, Tolman, and Allan Kinney!
Chubb’s eyes gleamed and his pistol lifted. “Well, Mister Ross Haney, who’s top dog now?”
“Hold it!” Scott’s shotgun made a sharp movement. “You take her easy, Emmett Chubb! This man’s my prisoner. I’m claimin’ the reward, right now. Moreover, I’m holdin’ him alive for Levitt!”
“You will not!” Chubb snarled. “I’ll kill the dirty dog!”
“Not unless you want a blast from this shotgun!” Scott snapped. The old outlaw’s blue eyes sparked. “Nobody’s beatin’ me out of my money! Kinney, here, he has a finger in it, maybe, because he tipped me off, but you take him away from me over my dead body!”
Baffled, Chubb stared from one to the other.
“He’s right, Emmett,” Kinney agreed. “He got him first.”
Ross Haney stood flat-footed, staring from Kinney to Scott. “Sold out!” he sneered. “I might have suspected it!”
Kinney flushed, but Scott shrugged.
“A thousand dollars is a lot of money, boy. I’ve seen men killed for a sight less.”
“Let’s take him off to jail, then,” Chubb said. “This ain’t no place for him.”
“He stays right here,” Scott said harshly. “He’s my prisoner until Levitt gets him, an’ then Levitt can do what he’s a mind to. Nobody’s beatin’ me out o’ that money. Stay here an’ help guard if you want, but don’t you forget for one minute that he’s my prisoner. This shotgun won’t forget it.”
Kinney slipped around behind Haney and lifted his guns. Reluctantly Haney backed into a corner and was tied to a chair. Shocked by the sudden betrayal, he could only stare from Allan to Scott, appalled by the sudden turn of fortune.
From the high, if desperate hopes of the day, he was suddenly smashed back into hopelessness, a prisoner, betrayed by the men he had most confidence in. How could they have known he was in town? There was only one way. May must have betrayed him! She and Allan must have planned together, and, when he left her house, she must have gotten word to him at once.
Chubb dropped into a chair and pulled one of his guns over into his lap. “I’d like to blast his heart out,” he said sullenly. “What you frettin’ so about, Scott? You get the money, dead or alive.”
“Sure,” Scott said. “And if you kill him, you’ll lay claim to it. I wouldn’t trust you across the street where that much money was concerned. Nor any of you.” He chuckled, his eyes sneering at Haney. “Anyway, Levitt’s top dog around here from now on, an’ he’s the boy I do business with. I’m too old to be shoved out in the cold at my time of life. I ain’t figurin’ on it. I’ll work with Star, an’ he’ll work with me.”
“I never heard of you bein’ so thick with him.” Chubb’s irritation was obvious.
Scott chuckled. “Who got him into this country, do you suppose? I’ve knowed him for years! Who told him this place was right for a smart man? I did! That’s who! Haney, here, he figured on the same thing. He figured on takin’ over when Reynolds an’ Pogue were out of it, but he was leavin’ too much to chance. Star doesn’t leave anything to chance.”
Bitterly Ross Haney stared at the floor. This time he was finished. If Mabry and Burt had gone to May’s, they would have been sold out, too. He listened, straining his ears for shots, hoping at least one of them would manage to fight it out and go down with a gun in his hand.
The situation was all Levitt’s now. The man was a front rider, and these others were with him. He stared at Kinney, and the young man’s eyes wavered and looked away. How could he have guessed that such a man would sell him out? And Scott? Of course, the old man was an admitted outlaw, or had been. Still, he had felt very close to the old man, and liked him very much.
There was no chance for Sherry now—unless . . . His eyes narrowed with thought. What would they do with him? Would they get word to Star that he was a prisoner, then smuggle him out of town to be killed? Or would they bring him out in the
open with evidence arrayed against him, or kill him trying to escape?
If only there would be some break, some chance to talk to Ward Clymer or the sheriff! Of course, held as a prisoner, with Reward posters out and stories Star and his men would tell, he would have himself in a bad position even before they talked to him, for they would be prejudiced against him, and everything he might say. And what evidence had he? Star Levitt would have plenty, and, as May had told him, no one in town would testify for him against Star. They were frightened, or they were getting on the bandwagon. He was through.
Unless—there was a vague hope—that Mabry and Burt had not been captured. If they could somehow free him? Knowing the manner of men they were, he knew they would not hesitate to make the attempt.
XVI
In the back room of the store the night slid slowly by and crawled into the gray of day, slowly, reluctantly. The rising sun found the sky overcast and no opening in the clouds through which it could shine down on the clustered, false-fronted frame buildings and adobes of Soledad. A lone Mexican, a burro piled twice its own height with sticks, wandered sleepily down the town’s dusty street.
Pat walked out of the Bit and Bridle and stared at the sky, then turned and walked back within. A pump rattled somewhere, then began a rhythmical speaking.
Half asleep in his bonds, Ross Haney heard the water gushing into the pail in spouts of sound. He stirred restlessly, and his chair creaked. He opened his eyes to see four pairs of eyes leveled at him. Emmett Chubb, Voyle, Allan Kinney, and Scott all sat, ready and watchful. His lids fluttered and closed. Behind them his mind began to plan, to contrive.
No man is so desperate as a prisoner. No man so ready to plan, to try to think his way out. If only his hands were free! In a few minutes, an hour at most, the stage would rattle down the street and halt in front of the Cattleman’s Rest Hotel and the passengers would go into the restaurant to eat. Later they might go upstairs to sleep. During that interval, he would know his fate. He touched a tongue to dry lips.
“Al,” Scott said suddenly, “you take this here shotgun. I’ll throw together a few ham an’ eggs. I’m hungry as a hibernatin’ bear in the springtime.”
The Man from Battle Flat Page 12