by Max Brand
CHAPTER 37
There was no further attempt at challenging his authority. When heordered Clune and La Roche to bring in boughs for bedding--since theywere to stop in the shack overnight--they went silently. But it was sucha silence as comes when the wind falls at the end of a day and in asilent sky the clouds pile heavily, higher and higher. Andrew took theopportunity to speak to Scottie Macdougal. He told Scottie simply thathe needed him, and with him at his back he could handle the others, andmore, too. He was surprised to see a twinkle in the eye of theScotchman.
"Why, Andy," said the canny fellow, "didn't you see me pass you thewink? I was with you all the time!"
Andrew thanked him and went into the cabin to arrange for lights. He hadno intention of shirking a share in the actual work of the camp; eventhough Allister had set that example for his following. He took somelengths of pitchy pine sticks and arranged them for torches. One of themalone would send a flare of yellow light through the cabin; two made acomfortable illumination. But he worked cheerlessly. The excitement ofthe robbery and the chase was over, and then the conflict with the menwas passing. He began to see things truly by the drab light ofretrospection. The bullets of Allister and Clune might have gone home--they were intended to kill, not to wound. And if there had been twodeaths he, Andrew Lanning, would have been equally guilty with the menwho handled the guns, for he had been one of the forces which made thatshooting possible.
It was an ugly way to look at it--very ugly. It kept a frown on Andrew'sface, while he arranged the torches in the main room of the shack andthen put one for future reference in the little shed which leanedagainst the rear of the main structure. He arranged his own bed in thissecond room, where the saddles and other accouterments were piled. Itwas easily explained, since there was hardly room for five men in thefirst room. But he had another purpose. He wanted to separate himselffrom the others, just as Allister always did. Even in a crowded roomAllister would seem aloof, and Andrew determined to make the famousleader his guide.
Above all he was troubled by what Scottie had said. He would have felteasy at heart if the Scotchman had met him with an argument or with afrown or honest opposition or with a hearty handshake, to say that allwas well between them. But this cunning lie--this cunning protestationthat he had been with the new leader from the first, put Andrew on hisguard. For he knew perfectly well that Scottie had not been on his sideduring the crisis with La Roche. Macdougal sat before the door, hismetal flask of whisky beside him. It was a fault of Allister, thispermitting of whisky at all times and in all places, after a job wasfinished. And while it made the other men savage beasts, it turnedScottie Macdougal into a wily, smiling snake. He had bit the heel ofmore than one man in his drinking bouts.
Presently La Roche and Clune came in. They had been talking togetheragain. Andrew could tell by the manner in which they separated, as soonas they entered the room, and by their voices, which they made loud andcheerful; and, also, by the fact that they avoided looking at eachother. They were striving patently to prove that there was nothingbetween them; and if Andrew had been on guard, now he becametinglingly so.
They arranged their bunks; Larry la Roche took from his vest a pipe witha small bowl and a long stem and sat down cross-legged to smoke. Andrewsuggested that Larry produce the contents of his saddlebag and share thespoils of war.
He brought it out willingly enough and spilled it out on the improvisedtable, a glittering mass of gold trinkets, watches, jewels. He pickedout of the mass a chain of diamonds and spread it out on his snakyfingers so that the light could play on it. Andrew knew nothing aboutgems, but he knew that the chain must be worth a great deal of money.
"This," said Larry, "is my share. You gents can have the rest and splitit up."
"A nice set of sparklers," nodded Clune, "but there's plenty left tosatisfy me."
"What you think," declared Scottie, "ain't of any importance, Joe. It'swhat the chief thinks that counts. Is it square, Lanning?"
Andrew flushed at the appeal and the ugly looks which La Roche and Clunecast toward him. He could have stifled Scottie for that appeal, and yetScottie was smiling in the greatest apparent good nature and belief intheir leader. His face was flushed, but his lips were bloodless. Alcoholalways affected him in that manner.
"I don't know the value of the stones," said Andrew.
"Don't you?" murmured Scottie. "I forgot. Thought maybe you would. Thatwas something that Allister did know." The new leader saw a flash ofglances toward Scottie, but the latter continued to eye the captain witha steady and innocent look.
"Scottie," decided Andrew instantly, "is my chief enemy."
If he could detach one man to his side all would be well. Two againstthree would be a simple thing, as long as he was one of the two. Butfour against one--and such a four as these--was hopeless odds. Thereseemed little chance of getting Joe Clune. There remained only JeffRankin as his possibly ally, and already he had stepped on Jeff's toessorely, by making the tired giant stand guard. He thought of all thesethings, of course, in a flash. And then in answer to his thoughts JeffRankin appeared. His heavy footfall crashed inside the door. He stopped,panting, and, in spite of his news, paused to blink at the flashof jewels.
"It's comin'," said Jeff. "Boys, get your guns and scatter out of thecabin. Duck that light! Hal Dozier is comin' up the valley."
There was not a single exclamation, but the lights went out as if bymagic; there were a couple of light, hissing sounds, such as iron makeswhen it is whipped swiftly across leather.
"How'd you know him by this light?" asked Larry la Roche, as they wentout of the door. Outside they found everything brilliant with the whitemoonshine of the mountains.
"Nobody but Hal Dozier rides twistin' that way in the saddle. I'd tellhim in a thousand. It's old wounds that makes him ride like that. We gotten minutes. He's takin' the long way up the canyon. And they ain'tanybody with him."
"If he's come alone," said Andrew, "he's come for me and not for therest of you."
No one spoke. Then Larry la Roche: "He wants to make it man to man.That's clear. That's why he pulled up his hoss and waited for Allisterto make the first move for his gun. It's a clean challenge to someone of us."
Andrew saw his chance and used it mercilessly.
"Which one of you is willing to take the challenge?" he asked. "Whichone of you is willing to ride down the canyon and meet him alone? LaRoche, I've heard you curse Dozier."
But Larry la Roche answered: "What's this fool talk about takin' achallenge? I say, string out behind the hills and pot him with rifles."
"One man, and we're five," said Jeff Rankin. "It ain't sportin', Larry.I hate to hear you say that. We'd be despised all over the mountains ifwe done it. He's makin' his play with a lone hand, and we've got to meethim the same way. Eh, chief?"
It was sweet to Andrew to hear that appeal. And he saw them turn one byone toward him in the moonlight and wait. It was his first greattribute. He looked over those four wolfish figures and felt hisheart swelling.
"Wish me luck, boys," he said, and without another word he turned andwent down the hillside.
The others watched him with amazement. He felt it rather than saw it,and it kept a tingle in his blood. He felt, also, that they werespreading out to either side to get a clear view of the fight that wasto follow, and it occurred to him that, even if Hal Dozier killed him,there would not be one chance in a thousand of Hal's getting away. Fourdeadly rifles would be covering him.
It must be that a sort of madness had come on Dozier, advancing in thismanner, unsupported by a posse. Or, perhaps, he had no idea that theoutlaws could be so close. He expected a daylight encounter high up themountains.
But Andrew went swiftly down the ravine.
Broken cliffs, granite boulders jumped up on either side of him, andthe rocks were pale and glimmering under the moon. This one valleyseemed to receive the light; the loftier mountains rolling away on eachside were black as jet, with sharp, ragged outlines against the sky. I
twas a cold light, and the chill of it went through Andrew. He wasafraid, afraid as he had been when Buck Heath faced him in Martindale,or when Bill Dozier ran him down, or when the famous Sandy cornered him.His fingers felt brittle, and his breath came and went in short gasps,drawn into the upper part of his lungs only.
Behind him, like an electric force pushing him on, the outlaws watchedhis steps. They, also, were shuddering with fear, and he knew it.
Dozier was coming, fresh from another kill.
"Only one man I'd think twice about meeting," Allister had said in theold days, and he had been right. Yet there were thousands who had swornthat Allister was invincible--that he would never fall before asingle man.
He thought, too, of the lean face and the peculiar, set eye of Dozier.The man had no fear, he had no nerves; he was a machine, and death washis business.
And was he, Andrew Lanning, unknown until the past few months, now goingdown to face destruction, as full of fear as a girl trembling at thedark? What was it that drew them together, so unfairly matched?
He could still see only the white haze of the moonshine before him, butnow there was the clicking of hoofs on the rock. Dozier was coming.Andrew walked squarely out into the middle of the ravine and waited. Hehad set his teeth. The nerves on the bottom of his feet were twitching.Something freezing cold was beginning at the tips of his fingers. Howlong would it take Dozier to come?
An interminable time. The hoofbeats actually seemed to fade out and drawaway at one time. Then they began again very near him, and now theystopped. Had Dozier seen him around the elbow curve? That heartbreakinginstant passed, and the clicking began again. Then the rider came slowlyin view. First there was the nodding head of the cow pony, then the footin the stirrup, then Hal Dozier riding a little twisted in the saddle--afamous characteristic of his.
He came on closer and closer. He began to seem huge on the horse. Was heblind not to see the figure that waited for him?
A voice that was not his, that he did not recognize, leaped out frombetween his teeth and tore his throat: "Dozier!"
The cow pony halted with a start; the rider jerked straight in hissaddle; the echo of the call barked back from some angling cliff facedown the ravine. All that before Dozier made his move. He had droppedthe reins, and Andrew, with a mad intention of proving that he himselfdid not make the first move toward his weapon, had folded his arms.
He did not move through the freezing instant that followed. Not untilthere was a convulsive jerk of Dozier's elbow did he stir his foldedarms. Then his right arm loosened, and the hand flashed down tohis holster.
Was Dozier moving with clogged slowness, or was it that he had ceased tobe a body, that he was all brain and hair-trigger nerves making everythousandth part of a second seem a unit of time? It seemed to Andrewthat the marshal's hand dragged through its work; to those who watchedfrom the sides of the ravine, there was a flash of fire from his gunbefore they saw even the flash of the steel out of the holster. The gunspat in the hand of Dozier, and something jerked at the shirt of Andrewbeside his neck. He himself had fired only once, and he knew that theshot had been too high and to the right of his central target; yet hedid not fire again. Something strange was happening to Hal Dozier. Hishead had nodded forward as though in mockery of the bullet; hisextended right hand fell slowly, slowly; his whole body began to swayand lean toward the right. Not until that moment did Andrew know that hehad shot the marshal through the body.
He raced to the side of the cattle pony, and, as the horse veered away,Hal Dozier dropped limply into his arms. He lay with his limbs sprawlingat odd angles beside him. His muscles seemed paralyzed, but his eyeswere bright and wide, and his face perfectly composed.
"There's luck for you," said Hal Dozier calmly. "I pulled it two inchesto the right, or I would have broken your neck with the slug--anyway, Ispoiled your shirt."
The cold was gone from Andrew, and he felt his heart thundering andshaking his body. He was repeating like a frightened child, "For God'ssake, Hal, don't die--don't die."
The paralyzed body did not move, but the calm voice answered him: "Youfool! Finish me before your gang comes and does it for you!"
