'Drag' Harlan

by Charles Alden Seltzer

  CHAPTER V

  A PRISON

  Barbara Morgan had not been able to sleep except by fits and starts. Adozen times during the night she had caught herself on the verge ofsinking into deep slumber, and each time she had got up and washed hereyes with some water from a pitcher on the bureau, determined that shewould not take any chances of permitting Deveny to surprise her.

  When the dawn came she was haggard and tired; and she got up listlessly,combed her hair, and washed her face, and dragged away the pieces offurniture that had formed the barricade at the door.

  She felt more secure with the dawn, and when the sunlight began to streaminto the east windows she opened the door of the room, descended thestairs, and took a short walk to the edge of town.

  Returning, she saw a man arrayed in overalls, boots, a blue woolen shirt,and broad felt hat, standing in the doorway of the stable that, she felt,belonged to the Eating-House. Sight of the stable brought to her thoughtsof her horse--Billy--and she decided to determine if the man who hadtaken charge of him had put him into the stable.

  She paused before the door, directly in front of the man, who did notmove aside to permit her to enter.

  She thought at first that he was not aware of her desire--until sheobserved an amused light in his eyes; and then she knew that he waspurposely barring her way.

  "This is the Eating-House stable, I suppose?" she inquired quietly.

  "You're supposin' is a heap correct, ma'am," grinned the man.

  "Well," she said, "if you will kindly step aside I shall see if my horseis all right."

  "Your horse is all right, ma'am," returned the man. "I've just fed him."

  Irritated by his attitude, she spoke sharply:

  "Step aside, please; I am going into the stable!"

  The man grinned widely. "It's ag'in' orders, ma'am; you'll have to stayout."

  "Whose orders?"

  "Deveny's. You ain't to go into the stable."

  She hesitated, afflicted with a queer sensation of weakness andindecision.

  It was her fear of Deveny, she supposed, that made her feel that way,together with the conviction that Deveny must have known that she hadbeen in the room next to the one he had taken, even before he hadascended the stairs. It seemed to her that this deliberate interferencewith her must be inspired by evil intentions, and for an instant panicovertook her.

  Then, yielding to the flash of anger that surged over her, she drew thesmall revolver she always carried with her on her rides, and presentedit. She stepped back a little, so that the man might not strike theweapon from her hand, and spoke shortly, commandingly to him.

  "Get away from that door!"

  "Shootin', ma'am?" he drawled. "Oh, don't!"

  He grinned at her and calmly began to roll a cigarette, at which actionshe gulped with dismay, wheeled swiftly, and walked to the stairs. Shewent up proudly enough, her head held high, for she divined that the manwould be watching her. But when she entered her room her pride forsookher, and she sank into a chair by the east window, dismayed andfrightened.

  While she sat there the slatternly woman slowly opened the door and stuckher head in. She grinned widely at Barbara.

  "Goin' ridin' this mawnin', deary?"

  Barbara looked at her, saw the mockery in the jealous eyes, and turnedher head again, making no reply.

  "Too stuck up to talk, eh?" jibed the slattern. "Well, before you get outof here you'll be tickled enough to shoot off your gab. Bah! You an' yourairs! If you want any grub this mawnin' you'll come down an' grab ityourself, I'm tellin' you that."

  She slammed the door, her jeering laugh penetrating the partition withhideous resonance.

  After the woman had gone Barbara got up, her lips set in resolute lines.

  Once in the hall she started to walk toward the stairs, when she saw thecowboy of the stable lounging against the rail on the platform. He sawher at the instant she looked at him, and he grinned hugely.

  "I reckon you've noticed I've sort of shifted," he said. "I keep goin'up--gettin' higher in the world."

  "What are you doing here?" she demanded.

  "Just loafin', I reckon," grinned the other. "An' obeyin' orders," headded instantly. "Much as I hate to disconvenience a lady, I ain't takin'no chances on rilin' Deveny."

  "Do you mean that Deveny placed you here to watch me?"

  "He didn't issue no particular orders as to where I was to do mystandin'. But he was sure earnest about sayin' that you wasn't to leaveyour room."

  "I left it once this morning."

  "My fault," he grinned. "I was sneakin' a drink in the Antler, an' youslipped me. I'm bettin' it don't happen ag'in!"

  Overcome with a cold terror that suddenly seized her, Barbara wheeled andre-entered her room, standing for an instant at the door as she lockedit, and then walking to the chair and sinking nervelessly into it.

  Somehow, she sensed the futility of further effort at escape. She wasaware of Deveny's power in the country; she knew that he ruled Lamo as heruled every foot of land in the section; and she was convinced that itwould be wasted effort to call for help. Even her own sex--represented bythe slattern, and most of the women in Lamo were of that type, incharacter--seemed to be antagonistic toward her. It seemed to her thatthey would mock her as the slattern had mocked her, should she appeal tothem.

  And as for the men of Lamo, they were not to be considered. She wascertain she could not induce one of them to act contrary to Deveny'swishes. For her father had told her about Lamo's men--how they wereslaves to the will of the man whose deeds of outlawry had made him fearedwherever men congregated; and she knew Lamo itself was a sink-hole ofiniquity where women were swallowed by the evil passions of men.

  She might have appealed to Gage, the sheriff, and she thought of Gagewhile she sat at the window. But Gage, her father had told her, withdisgust in his eyes, was a man of colorless personality and of littlecourage--a negligible character upon whom the good people of the section,who were pitifully few, could not depend. Her father had told her that itwas his opinion that Gage, too, was a slave to Deveny's will.

  She wished now that she had not yielded to the impulse which had broughther to Lamo; but her lips grew firm and her eyes defiant as she at lastgot up and walked to one of the front windows.

  Now, more vividly than ever, could she understand the significance ofDeveny's glances at her in the past; the light in his eyes had been anexpression of premeditated evil, awaiting an opportunity.

  She was pale, and her hands were trembling as she placed them on the sillof the front window and glanced down into the street, hoping that shemight see a friendly face; praying that one of the Rancho Seco men mighthave come to town during the night.

  But she saw no one she knew. Indeed, except for a pony standing in frontof a saloon down the street a little distance, and several others hitchedto a rail across the street, in front of the First Chance saloon, Lamoseemed to be deserted. And a silence, deep and portentous of evil, seemedto have settled over the town.

  But as she leaned upon the sill a sound floated to her through the openwindow--a man's voice, so close to her that it made her start andstiffen. It was Deveny's voice, and it seemed to come from a point in thestreet directly beneath the window.

  "Did you find Gage?" it said.

  Barbara leaned forward a little and looked downward. Below her, on thenarrow board-walk that ran in front of the Eating-House, were four men.She recognized three of them--Deveny, Strom Rogers, and Meeder Lawson,the Rancho Seco foreman.

  The other man was a stranger. Evidently it was the stranger to whomDeveny had spoken, for it was the stranger who answered.

  "He's in his office now."

  Deveny turned to Lawson and Rogers. "You two wait here, Laskar and myselfwill do the talking to Gage." He started away with the man who hadanswered him; then called back over his shoulder: "Hang around; ifthere's trouble, you'll want to get in on it."

  Deveny and Laskar walked down the street; the girl saw them enter thebui
lding occupied by the sheriff.

  Wondering, intensely curious--for that word "trouble" meant shooting inthe vocabulary of men of the Deveny type--Barbara drew back until she wascertain the men in the street could not see her.

  When Deveny and Laskar disappeared, Strom Rogers laughed sneeringly:

  "Deveny's scared of 'Drag' Harlan, I reckon. It's a cheap frame-up."

  "Aw, hell," jibed the other; "you're jealous, that's all. You'd like tosee Harlan plug Deveny, eh; so's you'd have a chance with Barbara Morgan.I'd be a heap careful, if I was you, Rogers. Deveny knows you took ashine to Barbara Morgan. I seen him lookin' hostile at you when you wasquizzin' him in Balleau's. He's next."

  "This is a free country," returned Rogers. The girl caught the malignantnote in his voice, and she leaned outward a little, trying to see hisface, while she shivered with dread.

  "Yes," laughed Lawson; "a man can cash in without any excuse, usual; allhe's got to do is to cross Deveny. You're a damned fool, Strom, to go totakin' a shine to Barbara Morgan, when Deveny wants her. He's beenwaitin' for her, an' meanin' to have her, all along. He's only beenwaitin' until ol' Morgan cashed in, so's he'd have a chance to take her.Now that Morgan's dead his chance has come."

  Silently, her face dead white, her eyes closed, Barbara slipped backwardand crumpled into a heap on the dirty carpet of the room.

  When she again opened her eyes it was to look wildly at the open windowthrough which the terrible news had come. Then she dragged herself to it,and making no sound leaned her arms on the sill and listened again, herheart seeming to be in the clutch of icy fingers, her brain atrophied,reeling in a chaos of incoherent, agonized impulses.

  She did not know how long she had been unconscious. She saw that Rogersand Lawson were still below, and still talking. So keen was her sense ofhearing--every nerve straining in the effort to learn more--that thevoices of the men came in through the window with a resonance that, shefelt, must be audible to every person in Lamo.

  "It ain't my style, that's all. I'd meet Harlan on the level, man to man,if he was lookin' for me. It's likely he ain't at that. I've heard, badas he is, that he plays square. An' if I was runnin' things I'd take alook at him before chargin' him with killin' Lane Morgan, when thekillin' had been done by the Chief, an' Dolver, an' Laskar."

  It was Strom Rogers' voice. It bore conviction with it, even though therewas passionate feeling behind it, mingled strangely with personal hatredand jealousy.

  Dumbly, Barbara clutched the window-sill. One dry, agonized sob rackedher; and then she sat on the floor, to stare vacantly at the dingy wallsof the room.

  Once more she heard Rogers' voice; this time there was a note of savageglee in it:

  "There's Harlan now, just slippin' off his cayuse in front of Gage'splace. 'Drag,' eh? Well, there don't seem to be nothin' impedin' hisactions anywhere."

  Prompted by the urge of a curiosity that she could not resist, Barbarareeled to her feet, and with her hands resting on the window-sill leanedout and looked up the street.

  In front of the sheriff's office, not more than thirty or forty feetdistant, she saw a tall, well-built man standing beside the hitching railthat fringed the board sidewalk. He had evidently just dismounted, and hewas standing at the head of a big, coal-black horse. He was in the act ofhitching the animal, and his back was toward her.

  She watched breathlessly until he turned. And then she stared hard athim, noting the steady, cold, alert eyes; the firm lips; the bigness ofhim, the atmosphere of capableness that seemed to surround him; thelow-swung guns at his hips, with no flaps on the holster-tops, and thebottoms of the holsters tied to his leather chaps with rawhide thongs.

  Never had she seen a man like him. For some reason, as yet inexplicableto her, he brought into her troubled consciousness a feeling of coldcalm, a refreshing influence that might be compared to the sweep of acool and unexpected breeze in the middle of a hot day.

  He dominated the group of men that instantly surrounded him; and thedominance was not of attire, for he was arrayed like the others. She sawDeveny standing near him, and the man Laskar behind Deveny and SheriffGage and several other men. And she saw Rogers and Lawson as they walkedslowly toward him.

  And then a realization of her loss, of the tragedy that had descendedupon her, again assailed her; and a fury of intolerance against inactionseized her. She could not stay in this room and suffer the hideousuncertainty; she could not take Rogers' word that her father had beenkilled. There must be some mistake. Perhaps Rogers knew she was at thewindow, listening, and he had said that just to spite her. For she haddiscouraged Rogers' advances as she had discouraged Deveny's.

  Breathing fast, she unlocked the door and went out into the hall.

  The man whom Deveny had placed to guard her was still lounging on thestair platform, and he grinned when he saw her.

  "Comin' to try ag'in?" he grinned.

  She smiled--a disarming smile that brought a fatuous gleam into the man'seyes, so that he permitted her to come close to him.

  "Deveny's got damn' good judgment," he said as she halted near him. "Heknows a thoroughbred when he sees--Hell!"

  The ejaculation came from his lips as Barbara leaped swiftly past him. Hethrew out a futile arm, and stood for an instant, shocked into inactionas Barbara ran down the stairs toward the street. Then the man leapedafter her, cursing. She could hear him saying: "Damn your hide! Damn yourhide!" as he came after her, his spurs jangling on the steps.