The Coyote

by James Roberts

  CHAPTER XIII

  A MAN AND HIS HORSE

  When Rathburn closed the outer door after him he plunged down thesteps and into the shadows by the wall of the jail. Few lights showedin the town, for it was past midnight. He could see yellow beamsstreaming from the windows of the resort up the street, however, as hehesitated.

  He was mightily handicapped because he had no horse. A horse--his ownhorse, he felt--was necessary for his escape, but his horse was a longdistance away.

  Rathburn stole across the street to the side on which the big resortwas situated, and slipped behind a building just as the muffledreports came from within the jail. After a short interval, five moreshots were heard, and Rathburn grinned as he realized that the jailerhad fired the remaining bullets in his own and the sheriff's guns.

  He heard men running down the street. So he hurried up street behindthe buildings until he reached the rear of the large resort, which wasthe place Lamy had held up.

  Peering through one of the rear windows he saw the room was desertedexcept for the man behind the bar. Even at that distance he could hearhorses and men down the street. Doubtless they were crowding into thejail where the sheriff would insist upon being liberated at once so hecould lead the chase and, as Rathburn had the key, this would resultin a delay until another key could be found, or Brown, who probablyhad one, could be routed out.

  Rathburn thought of this as he looked through the window at the lonelybartender who evidently could not decide whether to close up and seewhat it all was about or not. But the thing which impressed Rathburnmost was the presence of a pile of sandwiches and several cans ofcorned beef and sardines--emergency quick lunches for patrons--on theback bar. Also, he saw several gunny sacks on a box in the rear of theplace almost under the window through which he was looking.

  Rathburn stepped to the door in sudden decision, threw it open, andwalked in. His gun flashed into his hand. "Quiet!" was all he said tothe stupefied bartender.

  He scooped up one of the sacks, darted behind the bar, brushed thesandwiches and most of the cans of corned beef and sardines into it,and then slung it over his left shoulder with his left hand.

  "The sheriff will return the money that was taken from here," he saidcoolly as he walked briskly to the front door. "Play the game safe;stay where you are!" he cautioned as he vanished through the door.

  There were no horses at the hitching rail, but he saw several down thestreet in front of the jail. Men were running back and forth acrossthe street--after Brown, he surmised.

  Again he stole around to the rear of the resort; then he struckstraight up into the timbered slope above the town, climbing rapidlyafoot with the distant peaks and ridges as his guide.

  Some two hours after dawn he sat on the crest of a high ridge watchinga rider come up the winding trail from eastward. He had seen otherriders going in both directions from his concealment behind a screenof cedar bushes. He had watched them with no interest other than thatexhibited by a whimsical smile. But he did not smile as he watchedthis rider. His eyes became keenly alert; his face was grim. His mindwas made up.

  When the rider was nearing his ambush, Rathburn quickly scanned theempty stretch of trail to westward, then leaped down and confrontedthe horseman.

  Ed Lamy drew rein with an exclamation of surprise.

  "There's not much time, an' I don't hanker to be seen--afoot," saidRathburn quickly. "Where's my horse?"

  "He's in a pocket on a shale slope this side of the timber on a linefrom the house where you left him," replied Lamy readily. "Or you canhave mine."

  "Don't want him," said Rathburn curtly. "You going in to see thesheriff?"

  Lamy nodded. "His orders. Say, Coyote----"

  "He'll probably meet you on the way," Rathburn interrupted with asneer. "You can be figurin' out what to say to him. My saddle with thehorse?"

  "It's hanging from a tree where you go into the pocket. Big limestonecliffs there below the shale. Say, Coyote, my sister an' kid brotherwas tellin' me about your visit that morning, an' I guess Iunderstand----"

  "We can't stand here talkin'," Rathburn broke in, pulling the tobaccosack from his shirt pocket. He extracted a folded piece of paper."Here's a note I wrote you in jail before I left. Read it on the wayin when there's no one watching you. Maybe you'll learn something fromit; maybe you won't. I expect you wanted money to fix that ranch up;but you'll get further by doing a little irrigating from up thatstream than by trying to be a bandit. You just naturally ain't cut outfor the part!"

  With these words he handed Lamy the note and bounded back up theslope. The screen of cedar bushes closed behind him as Lamy pushed on,looking back, wondering and confused, with heightened color in hisface.

  It was late that night when Lamy returned to the little ranch house.Frankie had gone to bed, but his sister was waiting up for him with ameal and hot tea ready.

  He talked to his sister in a low voice while he ate. When he hadfinished he read the note for the third time; read it aloud, so hissister could hear.

  "LAMY: I meant to take you back and give you up, for I was pretty sore. Then I saw your resemblance to your small brother by the freckles and eyes and I remembered he had said something about you saying some decent things about me. I guess you thought they were nice things, anyway.

  "Then I thought maybe you got your ideas about easy money from the stuff you'd heard about me, and I sort of felt kind of responsible. I thought I'd teach you a lesson by flirting with that posse and telling you that killing story to show you what a man is up against in this game. I guess I can't get away from it because they won't let me. But you don't have to start. I was going to give you a good talking to before I let you go, but I hadn't counted on the little kid in the house. I'm glad he told the truth. He'll remember that. I gave you back your gun because you hit the nail on the head when you said if I was square I'd give it to you and let you make a run for it.

  "I took the money off you so if they got us I could take the blame and let you off. I can take the blame without hurting my reputation, so don't worry. I'm not doing this so much for your sake as for your kid brother and your sister. I figure you'd sort of caught on when I heard they hadn't located my horse. That was a good turn. Do me another by getting some sense. There's plenty of us fellows that's quite capable to furnish the bad examples.

  "RATHBURN."

  The girl was crying softly with an arm about her brother's neck whenhe finished reading.

  "What--what are you going to do, Eddie?" she sobbed.

  "I'm goin' to irrigate!" said Ed Lamy with a new note in his voice."I'm goin' to build a sure-enough ranch for us with this piece ofpaper for a corner stone!"

  Dawn was breaking over the mountains, strewing the gleaming peaks withwarm rosettes of color. A clear sky, as deep and blue as any sea,arched its canopy above. Virgin stands of pine and fir marched up thesteep slopes to fling their banners of green against the snow. Silverribbons of streams laughed in the welcome sunlight.

  In a rock-walled gulch, far above the head of Sunrise Canon, a firewas burning, its thin smoke streamer riding on a vagrant breeze. Nearby lay a dun-colored horse on its side, tied fast. A man was squattingby the blaze.

  "I hate to have to do this, old hoss," the man crooned; "but we've gotto change the pattern of that CC2 brand if we want to stick together,an' I reckon we want to stick."

  He thrust the running iron deeper into the glowing coals.