Red Shirt Bill said in a voice that wasn’t like his at all, so gruff and smothered, “Let’s have it, Amanda Grayle. Let’s have it straight, and God have mercy on your soul if you try to lie. What about Hank Ryan?”
“You two big fools!” she shrilled. “Of course it was Barton Warbuck that killed him! You three men. Bill Morgan and Jeff Cody and Hank Ryan were pardners and hit gold; you had forty or fifty thousand dollars cached in dust, and Hank Ryan stole it. You both swore to get him. Then somebody did get him; shot him in the back of the head with an old gun from your cabin and left the gun there and kept the gold dust. And for-more than twenty years Bill Morgan has thought Jeff Cody did it, and Jeff Cody has thought Bill Morgan did it! I knew it and Sharpe knew it—and all this time Barton Warbuck’s been paying us money to keep our mouths shut. Now he’s as big a fool as you two; for Sharpe, just like me, protected himself by having the whole thing written out and signed and left where it’ll pop up within ten days of not hearing from him. So Barton Warbuck’s cut his own throat tonight. And there are other things I could tell you—”
But they were no longer listening to her. The eyes of both Still Jeff and Red Shirt Bill Morgan had been riveted on her face; now as swift as light they turned toward each other. Those old eyes were like knives now, cutting deep, dissecting, probing all the way to the hilt for the truth. Neither of them said a word for a while, not even Red Shirt Bill Morgan. They just stood and stared; they looked back across more than twenty years without saying a word. Then Red Shirt Bill Morgan said quite simply, “Jeff, let’s go out, you’n me, and pull Bart Warbuck down. It’s time.”
And Still Jeff nodded. The two went out side by side. Young Jeff saw how their shoulders were brushing.
Young Jeff called to them, “Wait a shake; I’ll be with you,” and Red Shirt Bill thundered back, “Sure, Jeff; take your time.” Young Jeff felt that he couldn’t leave Arlene thus precipitately, not with Sharpe dead on the floor, not alone with this old hag. He’d have to move Sharpe into the little room through which Warbuck had gone—and he’d have to arrange somehow about Arlene.
Red Shirt Bill Morgan and Still Jeff Cody didn’t wait a single minute, wasn’t in either of them to wait tonight. They meant to track Bart Warbuck, they two alone, and felt that even in the dark they could find him. He was unarmed; he was on foot; he’d strike as straight as a string, they thought, down south through the barrens and toward a horse and a gun. These he’d find at the Adam Holliday ranch; Holliday was a friend of his. It was there that the little blonde school teacher, Chrystine Ward, boarded. So they wasted no time; they’d either run him down before morning or cut him off, cork him up in the badlands where by daylight they’d get him. And it was like old times, the two of them riding together, Red Shirt Bill with so much to say, Still Jeff always ready with a friendly grunt.
But it so happened that not these two, whom Warbuck had tricked for so many years, stifling about the finest thing that ever came into their hardy lives, but Young Jeff first came upon Bart Warbuck.
For Warbuck hadn’t gone far before he stopped and came cautiously back. He had no gun; maybe he could get one that either Pocopoco Malaga or Buck Nevers had dropped. And he wanted a horse; never in his life had he wanted a horse so much. He should be able to get his own or one belonging to the men from Halcyon. He risked something returning, but he risked everything trying to get out of this devil’s country on foot.
When Young Jeff hurriedly finished what he had to do inside, moving Sharpe’s body and assuring Arlene that soon they’d come back for her and that in the meantime she’d be all right, he found that already the two old-timers had gone. But there was Jeff’s horse where he had left it, and nearby was Warbuck’s horse. And just then Warbuck, as he jerked a tie-rope loose, this being his unlucky night, stepped on a dead branch that crackled loudly underfoot, and Young Jeff saw him. Faint as the starlight was, it was sufficient to show him Warbuck’s big bulking body, and he knew in a flash what had happened.
“Warbuck!” he shouted and ran forward. Warbuck at last got the rope free and was scrambling up into the saddle but before he could get away Young Jeff had caught the bridle chains, close to the bit, holding the horse back.
Then Warbuck came down out of the saddle like a mountain lion pouncing, throwing his heavier weight down on Young Jeff, grabbing at his gun arm. Jeff went reeling backward, all but crushed to the ground, but doing so he managed to jerk his gun arm free.
“Got you, Warbuck, damn you!”
But Warbuck wouldn’t stop, and Jeff couldn’t bring himself to squeezing the trigger; much as he knew Warbuck needed killing he couldn’t quite make a go of shooting an unarmed man. Warbuck lashed out at him, right and left, pressing him backward by the fury of his attack and the impact of his greater weight unleashed like a landslide. Jeff barely managed to keep his feet; he retreated still another step and shoved his gun back into its holster; then with every muscle and nerve and sinew girded up, he tore into his assailant. The sound of the blows they gave and took, the crack of a hard fist against bone, fists thudding into bodies, were to be heard at a distance. Arlene came running out of the old hut, and the old woman, as spry as a cricket, came nimbly after her.
They were four pretty nearly equally desperate persons just then, each with a different cause and reason for desperation. Arlene had already experienced enough of horror to last her the rest of a natural life, and now to see Young Jeff Cody and Bart Warbuck—Young Jeff and her own father—trying to beat each other into insensibility if not into death, was so nightmarishly horrible to her that she could almost persuade herself that she was only dreaming it—that it was an utter and absurd impossibility. But the sounds of those blows, of those coughing grunts, were real enough.
“Kill him, kill him!” shrieked the old woman.
That shrill command belonged, too, to the demesne of nightmares; Arlene didn’t know whether Amanda Grayle wanted Jeff to kill Warbuck, or Warbuck to kill Jeff.
But whether Jeff or Warbuck, neither one of those two even heard the screaming voice. Jeff, almost overborne again by Warbuck’s bearlike bulk, went staggering backward. Then his heel did catch on a stone and he toppled and clutched wildly at empty space and fell. Warbuck leaped forward and struck at him with a heavy boot. Jeff rolled clear, or almost; the boot grazed his shoulder near the base of his throat. He swung out his arm as he rolled and caught Warbuck by the calf of the leg, and as he half rose Warbuck was jerked down with him, and the two, caught in each other’s arms rolled and threshed together.
Then Jeff felt a big pair of hairy hands like monstrous tarantulas closing about his throat. He knew what would happen to him, once those hands got a secure grip; there was no mercy in them, they were machines of destruction. He gripped one of them; he began a savage hammering at Warbuck’s face, trying to catch him on the chin.
The old woman was scrabbling around on the ground with her bony claws, seeking a stone. She stood up with a jagged bit of granite in each hand; she hovered over the combatants, seeking the chance to hurl one of them against Warbuck’s head.
No such chance came. She was swept off her feet and sent sprawling and mumbling curses as the two flailing bodies crashed against her. Jeff broke Warbuck’s grip in time and writhed free and stood up. Warbuck, as though lifted by an explosion, came up after him. But this time Jeff struck first and unerringly and with all the battle force in him, and his fist cracked into Warbuck’s jaw and sent him toppling backward, his two arms thrown out wildly. In between those outspread arms Jeff charged again and struck again and this time found the point of the chin. Warbuck went down, flat on his back, like a tree crashing to earth, and with one great triumphant leap Young Jeff Cody was on top of him. And he battered—and battered—
“Jeff! Jeff!” pleaded Arlene. “You’re killing him! Don’t!” The old woman caught her roughly by the arm.
“Shut up, you little fool!” she screeched. “Let Jef
f kill him. You ought to be glad!”
“No! No! I don’t want Jeff to be a murderer too!”
Jeff half stood up; he said, coughing out the words pantingly over his shoulder.
“Rope. Get me a rope. From the horse.”
It was Amanda Grayle who ran for the rope and brought it back eagerly and stooped low, watching catlike, as Young Jeff did a thorough job of binding Bart Warbuck’s hands behind his back; Warbuck, if at all conscious was too sick and weak to move. When Jeff finished his job he threw a half hitch of free rope around Warbuck’s neck.
“If you try to get funny, Warbuck,” he promised, “I’ll strangle you with that. Now get up and walk. You’re going inside where I can have light enough to watch you.”
After a while Warbuck, assisted to his feet, got up and walked. He had never a word to say but his eyes, slashing back and forth, filled with hatred and defeat, red with rage and humiliation, spoke for him. That was when they were inside the cabin and Jeff had replenished the fire for the sake of light; he made Warbuck lie down in a corner and hog-tied him with half-hitches drawn tight about his ankles. He had to wipe the blood out of his eyes to get that job done, but did not as yet feel the long gash across his brow.
Seeing Warbuck securely disposed of Jeff hurried out; he had two things in mind: One was to catch and re-tie Warbuck’s horse, the other and more important matter was to call back Still Jeff and Red Shirt Bill before they had gone too far to hear a pistol shot. There was yet chance, he thought, in all this silence, for them to hear.
First then he fired the three equally spaced shots which mountain men know for a summons, a message saying “Here’s what we were looking for; hurry.” Then he waited a moment and again fired three shots; they should hear and return; the wind, slight as it was, was all in his favor.
After that he went looking for Warbuck’s horse, found it not fifty paces from where they had left it, and tied to a young tree. He was hastily finishing his work when he heard a hurrying tread behind him, then a hushed voice saying, “Jefferson! Jefferson Cody!”
That of course was the old hag from Witch Woman Hollow. He demanded curtly, “Well? What now?”
“Tell me, Jefferson, what are you going to do with him? With Barton Warbuck?”
“I don’t know. Plenty, I hope. We’ve got Jim Ogden and most of the rest of the crowd Warbuck left at Devil Take-It, tied up. Anyhow we’ll run them out of the country and they’ll stay out. Jeff and Bill ought to be back with us in no time.”
“Don’t let him live, Jefferson! Kill him. Kill him like you’d kill a snake. He’s killed Sharpe tonight; he knows now that he might have just as well shot himself through the head; he’ll kill me. But instead, you’ve got to kill him! Now!” She gripped him fiercely by the arm, her claw digging into his flesh. “Jeff!” she cried excitedly, “you love Arlene, don’t you. You do, Jeff, and she loves you!”
He tried to drag himself free of her clutch.
“What are you talking about?” he said harshly. “Are you crazy?”
She tried to giggle at him, her old habit, but now her throat was dry and she half choked. She said earnestly, “I’ll tell you something—a secret—a great secret! I’ll tell you lots of secrets! The one you and Arlene want to hear first of all is this: She isn’t his daughter. They’re not even blood relations!”
He thought at first that she had gone stark mad, what with the night’s experiences. Then he remembered little things that had been said, the merest and, until now, meaningless hints.
“Look here!” he said. “What’s all this? Come clean with it!”
They talked together there under the pine but a little while, less than ten minutes, perhaps not over five. But by the time Young Jeff, hurrying and calling excitedly to Arlene, had reached her, already Barton Warbuck for the second time that night was free and a fugitive. As before he went headlong through the small, high window; Jeff arrived just in time to hear the faint sound he made brushing through and to see Arlene, her face pale but her eyes brilliant and defiant, standing there with the rope in her hand.
“Yes, I let him go!” she said, and let the rope slip from her fingers and into a coil on the floor at her feet like a snake. “He pleaded with me, he begged me, he promised he would go and never return, that no matter what happened he would never lift his hand against you again. And after all, Jeff—after all, he is my father. And—”
The old woman began screeching, almost dancing with rage, in a storm of fear that shook her as an aspen is shaken in a strong winter wind.
“You fool, you fool, you fool!” she screamed over and over. “You—” Young Jeff didn’t hear the rest of it nor did he say a word to Arlene. He simply thought, “He can’t have gone a dozen steps!” He turned and ran out, gun in hand. This time, if he came up with Warbuck there was going to be no chance of a third escape. Arlene ran after him, calling him back, pleading with him.
This time Warbuck, running around the corner of the cabin, close to its wall, had stumbled in the dark over the body of Pocopoco Malaga, and had pitched forward, falling headlong. His outflung hand touched something, closed on it frantically; it was Malaga’s gun. Warbuck, coming up to his feet with new life and power and confidence running hot along his blood-stream, saw Jeff coming out. He fired when the two men were not over ten feet apart. And like a reflected flare of the hot flash from his weapon came Young Jeff’s answer.
They were wild bullets, chance shots, short as was the range, winged by destiny rather than a man’s skill or judgment in that faint, deceptive light. Then Jeff’s hammer clicked on an empty shell and he thought dully, “Well, I guess this ends it for me.” But he heard a groan from Warbuck and made out vaguely a staggering form, and leaped upon it, his gun clubbed and brought smashing down. Warbuck dropped in his tracks.
They heard a far-off shout in the unmistakable thunder of Red Shirt Bill’s voice and then the clatter of racing hoofs coming on. Jeff took up the gun that had fallen from Warbuck’s hand and stood leaning against the cabin wall, waiting.
Chapter Nineteen
Bart Warbuck had been shot through the gun arm, the bone near the elbow shattered, and he had taken a blow over the head that had dropped him into unconsciousness. Carried into the hut, water thrown over him and his wound bound up, he stirred and sat up. Jeff stood watchfully over him, ready to smash him down if he tried to get to his feet.
Then Still Jeff and Red Shirt Bill, summoned back by Jeff’s pistol-shot signals, came hurrying in. They took in everything at a glance and their eyes brightened.
“So he came back, askin’ for it, and he got it!” exclaimed Red Shirt Bill in high delight. “What’s more, he’s still alive, so we can take him along with us to our party. Dreams do come true, Kid.”
Warbuck said thickly, “You’d better lay off—I’ll have the law on every damn one of you—I’ve got influence—” His words were drowned in Red Shirt Bill’s hearty laughter. Even Still Jeff—well, he didn’t exactly laugh outright, but you’d have said his smile became audible.
“What’s this ‘party’ you’re talking about, Bill?” asked Young Jeff. “When and where?”
“Down at Devil-Take-It. Remember Jim Ogden and some more of the Long Valley boys, overdue somewhere else, are waitin’ for us down there. We’ve got guests comin’, too; we’ve sent out invitations, me and this dodderin’ old fool.” He ran a big arm about Still Jeff’s gaunt shoulders. “Me and this varmint are pardners, you know; are now, always were and always will be. So we’re puttin’ on this party together.”
“Let’s get going,” said Still Jeff.
There were six of them all told and there were only four horses. Arrangements seemed almost to make themselves; Warbuck, the hand of his uninjured arm tied down to the saddle strings, was boosted up on one horse and the old woman of Witch Woman’s Hollow, despite her screaming protests was lifted up behind him; to keep from falling she h
ad to cling to him, her arms about his body, and that made her keep up her curses all the way almost at every step. Young Jeff helped Arlene up into his own saddle, then swung up behind her. And though he found it most convenient to put his arms around her and keep them there, steadying them both, she did not scream and he did not curse. The two “pardners” mounted, and they quitted Cooper’s Sluice to take the shortest way back to Devil-Take-It.
“Arlene,” said Jeff softly, his lips against her hair.
“Oh, Jeff! Why did all this have to happen? Why is life so ugly, so unbearable! What did I ever do to bring all this down on me! Only a few days ago I was so happy; I had everything; I was so proud to be Arlene Warbuck!” He could feel her convulsive shudder. “And now—”
“And now?” he said very gently. “Listen, Arlene, now—”
“I even hate my name! Arlene! I hate everything that—”
“Sh! Listen. No, you’re not Arlene anymore; we won’t stand for it. Say, Ah Wong named you with a new name—Missee Ah Lee! Now listen to me, Ah Lee—”
“Oh, Jeff, how can you! When my heart’s bleeding—”
“It won’t be in a minute! Listen, Ah Lee. You’re going to be happier than you ever were. You’re going to feel just like a man who’s had his stinging morning cold bath and is yelling for his breakfast—a breakfast like Ah Wong’s. Let me hold you so you won’t fall out of the saddle when I tell you. Good news, Ah Lee. Can you stand it? Ready?”
She said faintly, “Good news? Ah, Jeff. There can’t be any for me, ever. As long as I remain who I am, what I am—She heard him chuckle, and stiffened as though he had stabbed her, so cruelly non-understanding did he seem to her.
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