by Max Brand
“What made that a fair fight?” she asked. “Did Jimmy have a crowd with him?”
Bent looked down at the ground and seemed to study it before he answered; in reality he was concealing his exultation.
“Of course Jimmy must have had help or Harry never would have tackled him. But—no one knows who was with Clifton. He was found with the knife—er—in his throat, Charlie!”
She threw out her hands as though she were casting away a disgusting thought.
“Not a knife!”
“Yes. It’s the worst business of all.”
“Stabbed Jimmy Clifton? Jimmy? I don’t believe it!”
“I don’t either,” said Bent hastily. “Only—the knife was there! The ‘D’ carved on it, and everything!”
“If he’d done such a thing, he wouldn’t be fool enough to leave the knife in the wound—not a knife that could be identified. Somebody stole that knife and murdered Clifton!”
Protest, Bent had been prepared for, but not the naked truth so suddenly thrown in his face.
He was saved the necessity of finding words by the girl herself.
“Jerry,” she called faintly, “you take that red-eyed devil, will you? I’m afraid of him!”
She put her hand on Bent’s arm.
“Start me walking, and keep right on,” she said. “I’m mighty dizzy! Stabbed Jimmy? Stabbed him and left the knife in the wound and——”
“Forget that, will you?” asked Bent. “I didn’t come to talk about it!”
She stopped short, and her hand gripped his arm fiercely.
“Why should I care a rap about him? Thief, gunman, professional fighter, lazy, shiftless—and now a murderer! Why should I care a rap about him? I’m a fool! I’m a fool!” cried Charlie Dangerfield. “I don’t want to talk about him any longer!”
Bent looked hard at her, and then he answered: “If I thought I could believe you, Charlie, I’d lose my heart about saying what I intend to say—what I came here to say. But I don’t believe you. Should I?”
“You came out to talk about this killing. You came out to explain it away, I suppose? God knows how Harry can deserve such a friend as you are!”
“What of you, Charlie?”
“Ah, he found me when I was young—I was a baby, only. And he took my heart in his hands with such a grip, Chester, that I’ve never been able to take it back. What with loving him, pitying him, being shamed for him, fearing him, and then losing him! Why, the thought of Harry’s all around me, just as the hills and the mesas are all around this ranch. But what keeps you true to him? That’s what I don’t understand!”
“Because, Charlie, I don’t care to analyze my best friend.”
She watched him for a moment, and then he saw her glance melting.
“Dear old Chet!” said she. “One man like you puts all the rest of us in our places! You’re true blue! Tell me what I’m to do, and I’ll do it!”
“Is there a quiet place, a secluded place near the house, Charlie?”
“What d’you mean?”
“Some shack, say?”
“There’s the house by the old well.”
“The one that went dry?”
“Yes.”
“That would do, perfectly. You’re to be there tonight.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Night, did you say?”
“Yes. You can’t expect him to ride about the country during the day, can you?”
“Harry? Is he to come there?”
Bent set his teeth for an instant—such a joy came up in her eyes, and flushed in her brown face, that bitter envy burned him up. This for Harry Destry, even when she thought that his hands were red with the murder of a helpless man!
“He’s to come there, I trust. If I can persuade him, at least.”
“And then?”
“And then you’re to start persuading where I left off!”
“Persuading him to do what? Am I to reform him? Is that the little thing you expect of me?”
“I expect that you can do anything with him, if you have a chance. If you’re not proud with him, I should say! Because there’s enough iron in him to resent pride.”
“Proud?” said she. “Oh, I’ll not be proud! But what would I say?”
“You’d ask him to leave five of the twelve men untouched, and go away with you!”
She considered the idea, trembling.
Then, in a rapid murmur so that he hardly heard the words: “He wouldn’t listen, of course. I’ve failed him when he needed me—when he pretended to need me. I’m dead to him, now!”
“You’re not. I don’t think so, at least. At any rate, will you make the experiment, Charlie?”
“Ask drowning men if they’ll catch at straws!” said she.
Chapter Thirty-three
A happy glow of achievement already possessed the body and the soul of Bent as he returned to Wham. For if he had not actually fulfilled all his purpose, the first part was done, and the remainder seemed easily at hand.
It was not possible that a guilty conscience could move him. Too much is made of guilty consciences. They generally begin to work on criminals after the stern hand of the law has grasped them by the nape of the neck. They prepare for a holy death to make up for a bad life, only after the hangman is assured. So Bent was unencumbered with remorse of any kind.
What fascinated him was the intricacy of his plan, the width of the end which he aimed at, the skill with which his purposes were so dovetailed together that where the one plan ended and the other began would have been hard to tell.
On the whole, everything that he did seemed based upon the putting down of Destry. To the imprisonment of Destry he owed his own safety from prosecution for the train robbery in the beginning of his prosperity. Again, to the cruel fame of Destry he owed it that he had been able to strike down a creditor and cancel that debt. Yet again, the very act which would kill Destry would be interpreted by Charlie Dangerfield as an accident which had taken place through the malice of others, and in spite of the guarding care of the real contriver. She would credit him with having tried to save Destry from any calamity; the very death of Destry he would so arrange that she must feel Bent was least concerned in it.
The death of Clifton had removed the last danger to his fortune. The end of Destry would clear his way to the hand of Charlotte Dangerfield. And as an extra profit, he would receive the undying gratitude of five men whom he had shown a way to rid themselves of a mortal danger.
He knew that his way was not yet clear, but out of the darkness he saw light and was well content. Indeed, as he rode down the street of Wham he was hardly sure that he would have been pleased to gain all his ends by legitimate means; crime, which had been a tool, now was becoming an end, desirable for its excitement.
He drew up at the shop of Cleeves, who came out to him with the soot of the forge on his face, and black streaks of grease on his hairy arms.
“You know the old dry well on the Dangerfield place?” he demanded without prelude.
“I reckon I do.”
“Be out there tonight and have the rest of the boys handy. There’s plenty of chaparral growing right up to the door where the rest of ’em can hide. But you, Cleeves, you’re a shot-gun expert.”
“I can handle a shot gun.”
“You’ve got a sawed off gun?”
“I have one.”
“You get out there well before dark. Get up into the attic and lie there. Mind you that nobody sees you on the way. You’re out to shoot doves, if anybody in the shop asks you when you start. Lie up there in the attic and wait for Destry to come. The girl will be there first. Lie still as a mouse till Destry comes. The fact is, I don’t depend on the other four; I depend on you, Cleeves!”
The other nodded. “If I miss that close up,” he said, “I’m a fool and I’ll never shoot again!”
“If you miss, you’ll never shoot again,” said Bent. “You’re right about that. If you miss, you�
�ll be a dead man, old fellow! But you’re not going to miss. What’s happened in town today?”
“The merchants have got together and offered a reward for Destry. The coroner has hung the killing of Clifton on him. It’s clear sailing in that direction.”
“What about old Ding Slater? What’s he done?”
“Nothing—as usual. He’ll never hold a job in this town when his term’s up this time. They’re tired of him.”
“What happened when Slater got to the house the other night?”
“Nothin’ happened. You can’t get fresh sense out of a dry brain! He just looked around and clucked like an old hen. After a while, he stood in the doorway and asked if any of the furniture had been moved, and I told him it hadn’t. Then Ding says he don’t see how Bent could of seen the dead body from the door, or something like that. The old man’s pretty far gone!”
This observation made Bent sit a little straighter, but he said nothing. To him, the observation of the sheriff seemed to prove that Slater’s was far from a dry brain! However, the news about the reward was far the more important tidings, he judged.
He left Cleeves at once, and riding down the street he straightway encountered the sheriff and dismounted to say to him anxiously: “Ding, it doesn’t seem possible that Harry Destry could have stabbed Clifton!”
“He didn’t,” said the sheriff.
“Didn’t he? Then what’s all the talk about?”
“I dunno. Some mighty ornery sneak got into the house and stole that knife; or else it’s an old knife that Harry give away a long time ago. Anyway, Destry never done the job.”
“I knew he didn’t have that sort of work in him!”
“You knew right, Chet. They’s more knowledge of people in friendship than there is in the law! A mighty lot!”
“But who could have done the job?”
“They’re in town—plenty that hate Destry and would be glad to knife Clifton if they could do it so safe!”
With that uncomforting knowledge in his mind, Bent rode on from the town. Yet however keen the old sheriff might be on the trail, it was patent that he did not suspect Chester Bent of the crime, otherwise he would not have spoken so freely. But close trailing of the crime might reveal the real criminal. There was no doubt of that, and, though Bent could not see where he had left incriminating evidence behind him, still he knew that a clever hand and a sharp eye can unravel nearly any crime, no matter how well covered the traces of it may be.
He was reasonably confident, but he knew that his safety was not yet built upon bed rock.
There remained the problem of the boy, as well. If he was alive, then nothing but ruin hung over Bent’s head. But there was hardly a chance that the youngster had not been torn to death among the sharp rocks of the Cumber Creek.
With that comfort, with no sureties, but with many excellent high hopes for the future, Bent rode out of Wham and took the old trail toward Pike Pass.
He rode on through the heat of the afternoon, with the rocks burning about him and smoking with heat waves, until the mesquite thinned out, and then the dauntless lodgepole pines, which seem able to live in a furnace or an icebox, began to cluster on the hills.
He had turned a sharp corner of the trail when the voice of Destry called suddenly behind him. He whirled about, his hand instinctively flying to his gun, and there was Destry in the middle of the trail with Fiddle sticking her head out from the trees close by. The man was greatly changed. Continued exposure to wind and sun had browned his face, and as he took off his hat and waved it, Bent saw that the hair of Destry was growing long. The clipped skull had made him seem a criminal by right and profession; now he appeared a typical wild man of the mountains.
“I wanted to see if you’d lost some of the edge of your eye, Chet,” he called, “and here you been and let me stalk you like a blind man!”
Bent came back to him, smiling and holding out a hand which was received with a quick grip, like a clutch of iron, a familiar grip to Bent. And every time he felt it, he wondered how his own might of arm would match against that of Destry!
“I was hoping to be stalked,” said he, “not dodging it. Harry, I’ve brought you news. They’ve put a price on you, for Clifton!”
“For Clifton? What about him?”
“D’you ask me that?” said Bent slowly.
“I do.”
“He was found dead last night, and with a knife of yours in his throat!”
“That leaves five,” was the first response of Destry.
He added: “How come a knife of mine? I wasn’t near the town!”
“I’m going to believe you, Harry. Then what scoundrel could have done it?”
“I dunno,” said Destry. He asked curiously: “They’ve put a price on me?”
“Twenty-five hundred, and it’ll soon go up.”
“How did you know the knife was mine?”
“By a ‘D’ carved in the butt of it.”
“I left a knife like that in your house, Chet. They’ve stolen it.”
“Who would have dared——”
“Why, one of the five, d’you see? To throw the blame on me and bring the law onto their side of this business. When you can’t win your own fight, call in a dog to help you! What does Ding say?”
“He’s for you. Three people in the world stick to you, Harry. I’m one. And the third is what I’ve come to talk about. Charlie wants to see you.”
“Charlie’s kind,” said Destry drily.
“Are you going to take it like this?”
“How should I take it?”
“Man, man, she talked to me with tears in her eyes, and she’s not a soft headed type, as you ought to know.”
“Then what does she want?”
“She wants you.”
“Now that I’m a murderer, too?”
“What does she care? She wants you. She’s ready to pack up and leave with you. She’ll do anything. But she begs you to come down to see her at the old house by the dry well.”
“I know the place.”
Bent laid a hand on the shoulder of his companion.
“You’re arming yourself with indifference, Harry,” said he, “but the fact is that you know you love her still!”
“I’ve taken her out of my mind,” said Destry firmly. “You think you have. She’s at the door now. Can you keep her out, Harry?”
Destry drew a great breath.
Then he said thoughtfully: “If they’s more than you two that know of the meeting place, I’m no better than a dead man, Chet, when I start down there. You realize that?”
“Who else could know?”
“True,” said Destry. “They wasn’t pity or conscience in what she said, man? She wanted to see me?”
“I give you my word.”
Destry threw up his hand. “Look!” said he.
“At what, Harry?”
“My good resolutions. There they go like smoke! And I’ll be riding down there this same evenin’; but I reckon that I’ll need my guns before that ride is over!”
Chapter Thirty-four
Out of Cumber River, Willie Thornton had crawled at last like one half drowned; and so exhausted was he that, when he reached the shore, instead of shaking himself like a dog, as most boys would have done, and then taking off and wringing his soaked clothing, he merely sank down on the rocks to rest.
An increasing wretchedness possessed the boy. Not only was he exhausted, but the wind which came down the valley clipped him to the bone with its cold tooth, and his breathing began to send a pain through his chest.
He remained on the rocks in a stupor, for a time, and when he recovered enough to stand up, he knew that he was sick. For his head was heavy, his eyes were dull, and his lips felt numb.
He walked forward without a purpose or a goal, except that he guessed it would be death to remain wet and exposed much longer. When he came to the bank, his legs collapsed, and he had to scramble up slowly, using hands and feet and knees.
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sp; At the top, some of the dizziness left him. He kept shaking his head like a stunned prizefighter, to drive that confusion from his brain, but now the dark woods were around him, and with them came the thought of Bent like a prowling panther.
That cleared his brain like a breath of open air after a close room. His very muscles grew stronger, as it seemed, and he went forward cautiously, every now and again pausing to stare about him. And it seemed to the boy that the breathing of the wind was that of Bent, hurrying up behind him, and when a branch caught at him, it was the hand of the murderer on his shoulder once more!
These fancies grew a little less strong as he wandered on through the trees, until at last he came from among them and saw before him the shattered rays of a lamp’s light that shone in the distance.
He made straight toward it. Dipping into a sharp sided draw, the light disappeared. The loss of it discouraged him mightily. The old bewilderment returned, but a curious bulldog instinct, such as keeps an army on the go during a forced march, carried him straight ahead, laboring shakily up the opposite bank until he came out in view of the light once more.
It was much nearer, now. He was able to distinguish that it came from a small shack with sage brush growing about it—he knew that by the smell of the bushes when he struck against them in floundering forward. Behind the house there was a stack of hay or straw, and toward this he headed.
Sleep was the panacea which always had cured his ills, and he intended to burrow his way into cover and there close his eyes. He felt guilty over his decision. In his confused mind there was a voice which told him that he must not stop, but must go on and on in the cause of Destry.
What he could accomplish, or what he should try to do, he did not know, but loyal service to a friend seemed to demand an unfailing effort on his part.
However, he surrendered to the necessity for rest and was through the bars of the corral when a voice called loudly behind him: “Who’s there? Stop!”
Bent?
The terror of the thought made him suddenly strong to flee. He raced across the corral, vaguely conscious that he was again pursued; but as he strove to slide through the bars on the opposite side of the enclosure, strong hands gathered him up lightly, easily.