by Max Brand
“He couldn’t of missed.”
“I seen that gun loaded myself with two charges of buckshot. Extra big. It would of blowed the side out of a house.”
“I think I heard them shot strike wood, though! They rattled!”
“Sure, but some of them hit Destry.”
“I heard him fall!”
“What about the kid?”
“He’s scared sick, somewheres in there.”
“Maybe the slugs hit him.”
“A kid like that ain’t much loss.”
“Why don’t Hank answer?”
“Because he’s gloatin’. He ain’t a talker, anyways!”
“Go on in, Bud.”
“I’m with you, Phil, but I ain’t gunna go in first!”
“Come on, all of us!”
“We’ll all go in, or Hank’ll say we was scared!”
Suddenly four men slid through the doorway, closely packed, one behind the other.
“Hey, Hank!” called one of the voices softly.
There was no answer from Hank Cleeves.
“Hello, Hank, where are you?”
Destry stepped into the doorway, and then outside into the open, pure, safe air of the night, and no eye noted him against the stars beyond the door. Certainly he heard no voice call out after him!
But within the house, he heard a voice insistently repeat: “Hello, there, Cleeves! Where are you?”
And then a faintly groaning throat replied, above them: “Dead, dead, and God forgive me!”
Destry paused, with an odd thrill running through his body, for he remembered Hank Cleeves of old, tall, wiry, pale, thoughtful, an ironic and caustic boy, walking apart from the rest, acclaimed as a genius by boys with lesser talents for the making of sleighs, and toys of all sorts.
Now Hank lay dying in the attic, and his friends were climbing up the ladder toward him, and Destry was filled with a sense of desolation because he was the slayer, and not among the rescuers!
The hot, long school afternoons poured back upon his mind, the races to the swimming pool, and flash of naked bodies from the old log into the water, and Hank Cleeves treading water and throwing back his long hair from his eyes with both hands—a bold, strong, fearless, reckless leader among boys, until Destry adroitly had pushed him to one side. For that very reason, he knew in his heart, Cleeves now lay dying in the attic of the shanty!
But he stepped around the corner of the cabin, hearing the half-suppressed, excited voices behind him in the house, and passed through the thicket to the place where he had left Fiddle tethered. Here he mounted, and leaning from the saddle, he picked up the still senseless body of Willie Thornton, and rode back with him toward the Dangerfield place.
As he went he heard a sudden snorting of horses, a trampling of hoofs, rushing off violently, as if under the thrust of the spur, and a crackling of the brush as the mustangs were forced furiously through it.
The four who remained were in full flight, the four left of the twelve men he had selected as his enemies. Perhaps they feared that he might be rushing on their trail, ready to pick them off, one by one, for he could hear them scattering to either side, and fanning out to make his way behind them yet more difficult.
They were not in his mind, except with pity.
He went on toward the Dangerfield house, and on the way, he met three men and Charlie Dangerfield herself, coming in haste with a litter borne among them, to carry Willie Thornton back to the house.
He gave the child down into their hands. He saw Charlie Dangerfield cherishing his face between her hands, by the starlight.
She paid no more attention to Destry than if he had been a spirit rather than a mounted man. So he turned the fine head of Fiddle toward Wham and rode straight toward it across country, going as the bird flies, regardless of fences and ditches in his way.
Chapter Forty
The sheriff was not on his veranda, neither was he in his bedroom, but in his small office, adjoining the jail cells, Destry found him bent over a desk which was piled high with papers, photographs, and such encumbrances. Through the window Destry watched him for a moment; then shrank down into the shadows as a noisy group of miners went down the board walk, chattering and shouting in their eagerness to spend a month’s pay.
In the dark, Destry considered, but finally he went around to the door of the jail and rapped on it; the jailer opened to him with a growl that turned into a groan of terror when he saw the face of his visitor. He staggered back with his arms high in the air.
“I never was none of ’em!” he gasped. “I never had a hand again you, Harry!”
“I don’t want to bother you none,” Destry explained. “Turn your back a minute, Tom.”
Tom obeyed willingly, and when the click of a door sounded, he looked over his shoulder in fear. But Destry was out of sight!
He stood now before Ding Slater without a gun in his hand.
“You come to give yourself up?” asked Ding quietly.
“I ain’t pullin’ a gun on you, Slater,” said the other. “I reckon that speaks for itself!”
“Of course it does,” said the sheriff.
“You’ll be pretty set to hang me,” suggested Destry.
“For what?” asked Ding Slater.
“For Clifton?”
“I been a long time sheriffing,” said Slater, “but I never took no pleasure in the hangin’ of a man for a thing he didn’t do!”
“Hold on,” broke in Destry. “There was my knife in his throat!”
“Sure there was,” replied Slater, “but there wasn’t your hand hitched on to it.”
Destry stared.
“Besides,” went on Slater, “I never heard of a Destry bein’ so plumb careless as to leave a knife stickin’ in the throat of a dead man!”
“Who did it, then?”
“Somebody that if I was to tell you who it was, you would almost of rather that you’d done it yourself.”
“That’s a lot to say, old timer.”
“Ay,” nodded Slater. “It’s a lot to say. What’s really brought you in here, son?”
“I wanted to ask you to come along with me and watch me shoot up a gent, Ding.”
“Go on. I’m ready for the joke.”
“I’m plumb serious.”
“What man?”
“I’m going to kill Chester Bent, or be done in by him.”
“Bent?” cried Slater, rising to his feet.
“Ay.”
“You know about him, then?”
“I know everything!”
“About the old robbery, too?”
Destry hung on the verge of the next prepared sentence which he had been about to speak and looked at the sheriff with amazement. “What robbery?” he managed to gasp.
“The express! The express six years ago!” said Slater impatiently. “The train you were supposed to rob! The robbery that put you in prison—the robbery that’s killed or ruined eight of the twelve men who put you there.”
“Hold on, Ding,” urged Destry. “Don’t run away with this here race all by yourself!”
“It was about then that Bent got rich, all at once. Begun to buy and speculate. How? Stolen money, I say! Stolen money, and the man that he was befriendin’ so’s the ladies cried over him about it, that was the man that had gone to prison in his place. No wonder that he was kind to you, Harry!”
Destry, like a bewildered child, held out one hand and curled up the fingers of it as he counted over the points of the case:
“Chet grabs the money—he plants the package of coin on me—why, I even remember talkin’ to him that day on the street, when he gave me the hundred!—he skids me to prison, sittin’ by my side in the courtroom—he takes me into his house after I get out, and tries to have my throat cut for me so’s he can take in Charlie Dangerfield——”
Truth, at which he had guessed, suddenly was revealed to him with a naked face, and Destry groaned in his anger.
The sheriff finished: “And finally, he murders
a man to put the curse of the law on Destry. Harry, I dunno that I got a right to interfere with the right workin’ of the law, but I’m gunna go down with you and let you arrest Bent. If you miss him, which ain’t likely, I’ll pull my own gun on him! Come along. Start movin’ to cool off, because you look pretty much on fire!”
They hurried from the jail and down the street, the jailer aghast at the sight of the two men, shoulder to shoulder, and Destry not in irons! In front of the jail they took their horses, and the first fear struck at Destry.
“S’pose that he’s guessed something and skinned out of town?”
“It ain’t half likely. He’s got his whole stake here. There’s the light in his library window.”
They left the two horses at the corner of the hedge and went on toward the gate; from a house down the street they could hear an old man’s voice singing one of the monotonous songs with which a night herder keeps the cows bedded down with comfortable minds. The sticky new sprouts of the fir touched their clothes and hands. Acrid dust they breathed still hanging in the air from the last riders who had galloped down the street.
But all was peace, and the bright mountain stars watching them, as they cautiously drew the gate ajar and slipped through. From the lighted window they looked in on Bent, and the first glance was enough.
He was not busied now with his pretense of study. Instead, he was emptying a saddle bag onto the face of the center table, and out of the bag tumbled packages of green and yellow backs, neatly held together by elastics. There was a little chamois sack, moreover, the mouth of which Bent undid and poured out as a sample of the contents a handful of jewels which he shifted back and forth so that the lamplight sparkled on them before he restored them to the sack.
There was no doubt about it. Bent was about to take wing! He wore not his office clothes but a full cowpuncher’s outfit. There was even the cartridge belt about his hips and a holstered Colt low down on his thigh. He was ready to take wing, and with him he was to bear away this nest egg from which he might build up a fortune in another place.
Destry and the sheriff drew back from the window, and inside the coat of the former, Ding Slater pinned the priceless badge.
“The law’s made you sweat, son,” said Ding. “Now it’s time for you to get some advantage out of it. Go in and get him, and bring him out to me! I wouldn’t spoil this party for you.”
Destry gripped the hand of Slater and without a word glided up the front steps of the house. The door was not locked. It opened silently upon its well-oiled hinges, and Destry passed into the darkness of the hall. The first door to the right was faintly sketched by the light of the lamp, leaking through the crack around it.
He found the knob, turned it softly, and pushed the door wide—then stepped in to find Bent turned toward him with a leveled revolver!
He nodded toward Bent with a smile and closed the door behind him, only noticing for the rest that the money had been swept from the table and restored to the fat saddle bag that lay on a nearby chair.
“You?” said Bent.
And he let the muzzle of his revolver slowly tip down. Not a sudden motion of friendship, but a gradual decline of the gun, while his eyes still glittered coldly at the intruder. Plainly he was asking himself if it would not be worth while to finish off Destry this instant. But his glance flashed toward the window, and he seemed to decide that the noise was more than he cared to risk.
“It’s me,” said Destry. “Did I scare you, Chet, comin’ in like this, soft-foot?”
“You gave me a start,” said Bent, and he put up the gun, but still reluctantly.
“I’ve been out at the ranch,” he added, indicating his outfit. “And now, old son, how are things with you? Did you go down to see Charlie?”
Destry had prepared his answer to this question, but he noticed that as Bent asked it, he looked down toward the floor and seemed tensely expectant. Something was known by Bent. How much, he could not say. Therefore Destry changed his mind. He had intended to say that he had not been near the Dangerfield place, but now he said: “Yes, I was there! And half an inch from bein’ trapped, Chet.”
“How come.”
“The skunks had word about what I was gunna do, or else they’d been trailin’ me pretty close.”
“Trailin’ you?”
“When I got there to the old shack, they was outside and inside.”
He hesitated.
“What happened?” asked Bent, his voice guarded and husky.
“There was a slip of a kid that came in, Chet. He had something to tell me, he said. I’d barely started talkin’ with Charlie when he arrived and the first thing that happened, this kid come sashayin’ up. The one that had helped me up in the Cumber Pass. Sick with fever—mighty dizzy—he staggered into the shack——”
“And what did he say?” asked Bent in a snarl.
“Why, I didn’t have no good way of findin’ out, because the minute that he was startin’ to talk, a double-barrel shotgun went off from the attic of the shack, and I seen the face of Cleeves behind the flash of it! I took a snap shot that finished Cleeves, but the buckshot pretty nigh tore the boy in two!”
A glare of the most ferocious joy appeared in the eyes of Bent.
“Killed him, Harry?” he asked, and came toward the other.
“Killed him dead,” said Destry, “the poor little devil! And the same minute, the gents outside—for there was the rest of ’em ready—made a rush for the door, but a couple of bullets turned ’em back. And here I am. I come fast to you, Chet, wantin’ to ask you what I’d better do next. Because Charlie and me had no chance to talk.”
“Go back to her,” said Bent. “Go back, and I’ll ride along with you, Harry! I’ll ride with you out to the place!”
Excess of relief overwhelmed him and he laughed a little, shakily.
Chapter Forty-one
He had learned, no doubt, of the appearance of the boy at the house of Jack and Pete, and again of his riding through Wham. That was the death blow to Bent’s tower of ambition, for with ten words the youngster could destroy him utterly. He had made his preparations for departure rapidly. Another minute, probably, and Destry would have been too late to catch the fugitive.
But now Bent heard that his small enemy was dead, and life inside the law again became possible for him. For with Willie Thornton out of the way, Destry was the murderer of Clifton!
The relief spread over the face, the eyes of Bent; it appeared in the heartier voice of Bent as he spoke again.
“Harry, you’ve taken a long chance in coming into Wham. No matter what happened, you should have stayed out there to see Charlie. But I’ll take you back. The poor kid was killed, eh?”
“He might have been,” said Destry.
“Might?” said Bent.
His voice was almost a shout.
“Mighta been scared to death,” said Destry. “But he had a chance to say a few words.”
Fierce pleasure filled him as he saw the face of Bent whiten, and the green light of desperation come into his face.
“What did he say?”
“Raved a mite, Chet. Crazy talk. Something about you bein’ the one that killed Clifton.”
Bent laughed.
But suddenly he was aware that there was no answering smile on the face of his companion, but gravely, keenly, Destry was watching him. His laughter halted abruptly.
“And what about you, Harry?” he asked. “What d’you thing about the kid’s story?”
Destry waved his hand.
“Kid’s get a lot of fool ideas,” he said. “I ain’t so much interested in that, old son, as I am in the yarn that Slater’s just been tellin’ me about the job that you done on the express six years ago——”
It was a blow so sudden and crushing to Bent, and it came upon him so unexpectedly, that he went back a staggering pace and rested his hand against the wall.
Swiftly he rallied, and Destry covered the moment of confusion by saying: “And I’ve bee
n admiring the way that you handled everything from that point on, Chet. The way that you passed me into the pen for six years, say, and the way that you pretty nigh cried with joy when I got out again! The way that you been befriendin’ me ever since, too, is pretty touching. Traps in my room, guns in the dark, lies and sneak-in’ treachery!”
His voice did not rise as he talked.
Bent, on the farther side of the room, looked like a half stunned fighter striving to regain full control of his wits.
At last he said: “I’ll tell you, Harry, that you’ve been listening to a poor sick kid and to an old fool. You don’t mean to tell me that you believe what either of them have been saying?”
“Not more’n I believe the Bible,” said Destry.
“Harry, what’s up?” asked Bent, his face shining with sweat.
“This!” said Destry.
He drew aside the flap of his coat, and exposed the badge of office which the sheriff had just pinned there.
“So?” said Bent.
He looked up at the ceiling, but Destry knew that the other’s attention in spite of all seeming was constantly fixed upon him.
“Jail or guns, Chester,” he suggested. “You can come along with me and be poisoned with the things that everybody’s gunna say about you, or else you can take your chance right here and now with old Judge Colt, that don’t never make no mistakes!”
Bent drew a quick, long breath and straightened.
“It’s better this way,” he said. “I’ve been a fool in leaving you to other hands. I should have known from the first that you’re enough of a man to need my special personal attention, which I’m going to give you now, Harry!”
“You’ll fight?”
“I’ll kill you,” said Bent, “with a good deal more pleasure than I ever did any act of my life. Before this, I’ve been held back by other considerations.”
“Charlie, for one?”
The face of Bent wrinkled with malignancy.
“I would have had her,” he declared. “Time and a little patience while she forgot the death of the murderer, Destry—and then I would have married her.”
“I doubt it,” said Destry. “But what made you kill Clifton? Only to chuck the blame on me?”