He broke off, as Laura Nelson came running into the barroom. "Tom Justice is on his way here!" she reported swiftly. "One of Martinez's men just saw him coming across the plaza. What are you going to do, Lou?"
Grace said, "Run along. chiquita. Pick yourself a corner between two thick adobe walls. This is the night we've been waiting for, and everything's under control, but there might be a little stray lead flying around shortly."
The girl looked at the blond man for a moment; then she stepped forward and kissed him quickly on the mouth. Before Burdick realized what she was about to do, she had kissed him, also.
"Good luck to you both," she said in a breathless voice. Her eyes were very bright. She glanced at Bascom, and laughed. "You, too."
They watched her hurry from the room. Grace turned to Bascom. There was elation in the blond man's manner, but his voice was businesslike. "Get out in the alley now, Cal. Make sure Martinez and his vaqueros are at their posts, preferably awake and reasonably sober, although that may be too much to ask. Then come back and wait outside the door. I don't think, between the two of us, we'll need your help to handle him, but keep your ears open and use your judgment.... Burdick, you stand here at the bar. You'll need the elbowroom with that long gun. I'll take the corner table. That way we've got him in a crossfire." He looked around. "Cal?"
The gunman turned at the alley door. "What?"
"Have a rider ready to carry the news out to Flying V as soon as the kid goes down—somebody who's not known out there. If we can draw the old man and his out fit back into town, maybe we can finish this up tonight."
"That's agreeable to me, friend," Bascom said sourly. "I've seen enough of this town of yours to last me a while. Why wait? I'll send the man off right away."
"You'll do as I said," Grace told him. "Let's not crowd Lady Luck, when she's being so kind to us. Wait till the thing is done, then let your rider go."
Bascom went out, and the door closed silently behind him. Grace took his pistol from its holster, looked it over, and put it back. He carried his glass to the corner table and sat down. "It's your party, Professor," he said. "Handle it any way you like. But I'll have my gun on him under the table the minute he steps in the door, just in case."
Burdick said, "I don't recall asking for any help."
The blond man grinned at him across the room. "What are friends for, except to help without being asked?"
Burdick looked at him thoughtfully. There were many things that could have been said; however, it was a little late for conversation. Burdick checked the loads of the shotgun. With the weapon over his arm, he picked up the drink that had been offered him earlier, saluted Grace with the glass, and emptied it. They heard quick, deter mined footsteps cross the lobby, coming closer.
"Watch it now!" the blond man whispered. "Here he comes!"
The footsteps approached the barroom doors. Burdick regarded the empty glass in his hand for a moment, waiting. The decision came to him suddenly; and as the doors began to open, he threw the glass straight at Lou Grace's yellow head. As the blond man ducked instinctively, Burdick aimed the shotgun at him and cocked the hammers. "Come in, Mr. Justice," he said.
The doors swung violently apart, and the boy stepped through them dramatically and brought up short, his hand on his gun. "What—"
Burdick said, "You're in a trap, sonny, I'd get the hell out of here if I were you... Grace, if anybody opens that alley door, I'll blow your head off your shoulders!" He spoke without looking around. "Goodby, Mr. Justice." The boy hesitated. There was a shout in the alley, and the sound of running feet, and he turned, paused, and looked back. "What about you?"
"I'll worry about me," Burdick said impatiently. "Just don't make me have to worry about you, too. Goodby." The lobby doors opened and closed, and Tom Justice was gone. A voice cried a warning near the front of the hotel, and somebody rapped on the alley door. "Grace. Grace, what the hell's—"
"Stay out!" The blond man's voice was strained. Grace looked at the shotgun, and at Burdick's face. "What are you trying to do? Whose side are you on, anyway?"
Burdick said, "The same one as always, my own. I'll run my own fights, Mr. Grace, and if I should ever want help, you'll hear me ask for it." He took a coin from his pocket lefthanded, and laid it on the bar. "That pays for the drink. Now, it looks kind of as if I was in the same fix as the Cowboy who lassoed the bear. Maybe you can suggest how I'm going to let go without getting clawed."
The blond man looked at him grimly across the room. Suddenly he grinned. "Ah, put up the scattergun and walk out in peace. I still owe you something for saving my life, the day we met." His grin faded. "Just don't cross me again, hear?"
Burdick lowered the shotgun and let the hammers down. He looked at Grace for a moment longer; then turned his back on the seated man and walked out of the room. As be did so, a man brushed past him, crying: "Señior Grace, he is gone! No one has seen him leave the hotel, but he is gone, we cannot find him...."
Laura Nelson was not in sight as Burdick walked through the lobby. Instead Mrs. Betterson was at the desk. The grayhaired woman looked up quickly as he passed, and started to ask a question, but something she saw in his face made her change her mind. Two men with pistols drawn came running from the corridor leading to the rear wing of the hotel and hurried into the barroom. Burdick beard their voices behind him, reporting to Grace.
He walked out through the front door, and a banditlike figure with a rifle and a bandolier of cartridges turned sharply to challenge him, but saw that he was no redhaired boy and let him pass. There seemed to be more armed men out in the dark. Burdick laid his thumb across the shotgun hammers as he walked across the plaza. He did not like this comic opera brandishing of loaded weapons; and there was irritation and anger, like a pressure within him. He knew that if anyone aimed a gun at him tonight, he would empty the shotgun at this misguided individual without inquiring too closely into his intentions.
Then he had left the plaza behind and was walking down the quiet street toward the gallery, feeling relaxation and weariness steal over him: it had been a long day. As be reached for the key to let himself into the building, a shadowy figure moved at the corner, to his right.
He whirled to face the danger, raising the Purdey. A woman's laughter met him, soft and throaty. It was not a laugh he had ever heard before.
"The gun is not necessary, Señior," an accented voice said. She came toward him, There was enough light that he would see that she was darkskinned and blackhaired, with a compact, fully developed figure, the secrets of which were but imperfectly kept by the thin, loose blouse and skirt that, standard costume for the women of the region, had shocked him at first, coming as he did from a, land of rigid corsets and multitudinous petticoats.
"What do you want?" he asked.
She laughed again. "You are a photographer, like the other one who lived here?"
"Yes."
"Then perhaps you would like to take Rosa's picture, Señior." She swung her hips as she approached him. "I am older, but I am still beautiful, no? I take off my clothes and we make some fine pictures, better than with him, he was a foolish old man. I come in the morning when there is light. Or I come now, and we wait for morning together. It will cost only a little more."
Burdick looked at her in the darkness. As he started to speak, he felt embarrassed and at the same time a little selfrighteous, the way a man always felt, sending away a willing woman. Then she was gone, with a laugh, and he was in the gallery, bolting the door behind him. It occurred to him presently that he had left the hotel without eating supper; and he went into the kitchen to remedy the oversight...
23
Tom Justice stood in the center of the room into which he had been drawn, listening to the footsteps of the searchers outside. He watched Laura Nelson turn the key in the lock. The tall girl straightened up and turned to face him, placing her shoulders against the door. She studied him for a moment.
"It wouldn't help to shoot me, Tom Justice," s
he said at last with a faint smile. "The noise would bring them all running. "
He looked down at the pistol in his hand, flushed, and shoved the weapon hastily back into its holster. "I wasn't thinking of—"
"There's no reason for you, to trust me," she said. "Except that you haven't anybody else in town to trust, have you? You were a fool to come back alone."
"Dad had given orders for everybody to stay out of town," Tom said. "I slipped away. I didn't expect to run into an army—"
"Is your father the only one who can hire men with guns?"
"Hire?" Tom's voice was indignant. "When did Lou Grace or any of his friends ever have enough money to pay this many men?"
"Some men work for money," Laura said lightly, "and some work for love, and some work for beef. Martinez was a twobit cattle thief until Lou took him in hand. Now he's a great man among his people, like a revolutionary general south of the border."
Tom checked what he had been about to say, as it occurred to him that he was being ungrateful, quarreling with this girl who had saved him. He asked, "Why did you help me?"
She met his eyes briefly, looked away, and shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. Call it an impulse."
"It's the second time you've saved me." He moved for ward to stand close to hero She was almost as tall as he was; he found it an odd feeling to talk with a girl whose eyes were practically on a level with his own. He was used to looking down at ... He put the thought aside. To hell with Carol Wellesley. What had she ever given him but criticism. This girl had saved his life twice. He said, "I'm very grateful—"
"Hush!"
Two men were coming down the hall outside. They opened the door of the adjoining room and went in. The sounds of their search came clearly through the thin hotel partitions. Laura glanced quickly at Tom, and drew him to one side of the door. A moment later a knock rattled the panels.
"Who is it?" Laura asked, after a deliberate pause.
"Pardon, señiorita, but we have instructions to search all the rooms."
She said sharply, "Well, you take your instructions right back to Lou Grace, and tell him I'm about to retire, and if he wants this room searched, he can search it in the morning."
"But, señiorita—"
"Run along!" she said impatiently. "The Señorita Nelson is tired and disgusted. She does not want to be disturbed particularly by clumsy men who can't even handle one young boy with red hair. Deliver that message for me, amigos. Buenas noches."
There was a low-voiced consultation in the corridor; and the men went away. Tom Justice said, "Phew!" Laura said, "What happened in the barroom? How did you get away?"
"That Burdick fellow saved my hide. He was holding his gun on Grace when I walked in."
"Burdick? Why would he—"
"He's a funny hombre, hard to figure out. I reckon some men just don't like the odds too heavy in their favor."
He looked around the room in which he stood. It was a typical hotel room, except for the fresh, ruffed curtains at the windows and a few pictures on the wall—some of them photographs taken by Laura's father and signed by him. They were not, in Tom's opinion, worth much as decoration, but perhaps they had a sentimental value.
In other respects she had made few changes, considering the length of time she had lived here as an unofficial ward of Mrs. Betterson. The bedstead and dresser could have been duplicated in any room in the hotel. It was, Tom found himself thinking, as if the girl had fought against making herself completely at home here, always hoping, perhaps, even after years had passed, that her stay would be a temporary one. The thought made him feel guilty, remembering the part his family had played in bringing her here.
Laura said, as if reading his thoughts, "Well, it's hardly your manor house out at Flying V, but it's a pleasant enough place. Mrs. Betterson has been very kind."
He said, "She makes you earn your keep, from what I've seen."
"I'm glad to do it. It makes me feel useful."
He looked at her for a moment in silence, thinking that she was really a very pretty girl, mature and attractive, even with her plain dress and severely ordered hair. He must never, he thought, have really looked at her before. He felt a kind of warm glow of discovery. He. said, "You still haven't told me why you helped me."
She shook her head slightly. "I told you the truth: I don't know." Then she smiled at him. "And if I did know, I doubt that I'd tell you." She put her hand on his arm. "Only a fool or a child asks questions like that, my friend. "
There was no doubt of the invitation in her glance, He hesitated, wanting to make no mistakes here. She stirred impatiently, as if to withdraw her hand; then she was in his arms, responding to his kiss in an ardent and provocative way....
He felt the slight tug at his hip. A moment later she had broken free with the heavy pistol in her hand. Her face had changed. It looked hard and cruel and triumphant. He stared at her in utter confusion.
"Justice!" she said, with a little hiss in her voice. "Justice! What a name for your dirty tribe!"
"Laura—"
"My father was beaten and run out of town," she whispered, "but they'll hang you, my amorous friend. And I'll watch it. Oh, I wouldn't let them shoot you or kick you to death. That's too quick and easy. I want you to wait and tremble in your cell and hear them outside, until they break in the doors and come for you. Help!" she cried. "Help!"
She turned and hurled the revolver through the window behind her. Glass shattered noisily; there was a crash of sound outside as the cocked weapon discharged upon striking the ground.
"Help!" Laura cried again. "I've got his gun away, but help me!"
Deliberately, facing him, she reached across her body, caught the shoulder of her gingham dress, and pulled hard, so that the sleeve parted company with the remainder of the garment. Still moving without haste, she gasped the bodice at the neck with both hands and ripped it open to the waist while he watched her with a curious paralysis holding him immobile; with a few more deliberate, efficient motions she reduced her garments to utter ruin. Then she shook her head quickly looking at the pins that held her hair, until the whole mass of it fell loose and untidy about her face. There were footsteps outside the bro ken window now: Belatedly, like a man in a bad dream, Tom turned to flee.
"Help!" Laura cried shrilly. "Oh, please help me, he's hurting—"
She caught him at the door and struck at his face with her clawed fingers, looking fantastic and inhuman with her fair hair wild and her dress in rags. He caught her by the wrists to protect his eyes, and tried to hold her without harming her, but she was strong enough that he had to use his body to pin her against the wail.
"Stop it!" he gasped. "For the love of God; stop—"
He heard the splintering crash as the door collapsed; then a gun barrel caught him across the head, sending him down into unconsciousness.
24
Lounging in a corner of the room, out of the crowd that filled the corridor, Lou Grace watched the marshal haul the prisoner to his feet and start him toward the door. The boy's face, scratched and bloody, held a dazed look; his eyes found Laura Nelson where she stood by the broken window, pale and disheveled and accusing, with her arms crossed tightly over her bosom to hold her torn garments in place—the pose gave her an appearance of shrinking modesty, Grace thought, that was very effective. He noted that, aside from the dramatic wrecking of her dress, she seemed to have suffered no damage that could not quickly be put to right with a comb and a few hairpins.
Tom Justice started to speak, and stopped. Holding his arm, the marshal paused at the door and glanced back.
"You all right, Miss Nelson?"
"I ... I think so, Mr. Greer. Just take him away. I don't want to have to look at—"
"He forced his way in here, you say?"
"Yes. He held his gun on me and made me send the men away when they came to the door. I thought he'd leave then. Instead, he laughed and said it would be foolish for him to desert such a ... such a cozy hiding place.
while they were still searching for him. He seemed to think that because I'd saved his life on a previous occasion He said it was going to be a long night and we might as well pass it ... pleasantly She shivered abruptly. "I should have shot him when I had the gun!" she cried. "Get him out of here, Marshal, please!"
There was a murmur from the crowd at the door. Some one shouted, "Why waste time on the pup? A rope's what he deserves!"
Marshal Greer turned sharply. "There'll be no more of that kind Of talk! Make way, now.... And you, son, had better come along nicely. If you've any fool notions of trying to escape, just look around you. There's only one safe place for you tonight, and that's jail!"
The group in the doorway parted reluctantly to let him pass with his prisoner, and straggled down the corridor after him, the men speaking among themselves in indignant tones. A few remained behind, Cal Bascom among them. Grace straightened up and walked toward them. "Hasn't Miss Nelson been through enough tonight without you hanging around? Get out!?' He waited until they were moving away, and spoke again, "Bascom."
The gunman came back. "What now?"
Grace said in a low voice, "Is that rider still waiting? Well, send him 'off right away. Have him tell Dan Justice he'd better get here quick, before his boy's dragged out of jam and hanged from one of the cottonwoods in the plaza. That ought to bring him in a hurry. We'll be ready for him when he comes." Grace looked down at the smaller man. "You'll be ready for him, if you want the rest of your money."
Bascom said, "I'm always ready, friend. The question is, is the money ready?"
"Don't worry about the money."
"Why, I don't. The worry is yours, friend. But when I ask, there had better be eight hundred dollars forthcoming pronto. Don't try putting me off again."
He turned and walked away. Grace frowned at his re treating back; then closed the door and swung about to look at Laura Nelson, still standing by the broken window in her spectacular rags, a little ridiculous now that"she had permitted the look of distress to leave her face. When he moved forward, she let her arms fall to her sides, and awaited him passively. He stopped before her, and took the torn edge of her bodice between thumb and forefinger. "Looks like you put up a hell of a fight, honey," he said dryly.
The Two-Shoot Gun Page 13