by Max Brand
Another moment and the pain was gone. Another moment and the blood went tingling through the veins of Lew Carney. For the girl had refused the proffered assistance of her companion and she had done it in an unmistakable manner. Another woman in another time might have done twice as much without telling a thing to the eyes of Lew Carney, but now he was watching with a sort of second sight, and he saw her wave away the hand of the other and swing lightly, unaided, into the saddle.
It was a small thing but it had been done with a little shiver of distaste, and now she sat in her saddle looking straight before her, smiling. Once more Carney read her mind, and he knew that it was a forced smile, and that she feared the man who was now climbing into his own place.
VI
A moment later they were trotting down the street side by side, and the pain darted home to Lew Carney again. A hundred yards more and she would jog around the corner and out of his life forever. She would pass on, and beside her the man who was connected with the ghost wagon and the dead body in Silver Cañon. Yet how small were his clues. The man with the brown mustache had frowned at a story that made other men laugh, and a girl had shrugged her shoulders very faintly, refusing the assistance to her saddle.
Small things to be sure, but Carney, with his heart on fire, made them everything. To his excited imagination it seemed certain that this brown-faced girl with the big, bright eyes, was riding out of his life side by side with a murderer. She must be stopped. Fifty yards, ten seconds more, and she would be gone beyond recall.
He glanced wildly around him. His own horse was stabled. It would take priceless minutes to put him on the road. And now the inertness of the bystanders struck him in the face. Could they not see? Did not the patent facts shout at them? A man sat on the edge of the plank sidewalk and walled up his eyes, while he played a wailing mouth organ. A youth in his fourteenth year passed the man, sitting sidewise in his saddle, rolling his cigarette, and sublimely conscious that all eyes were upon him.
A thought came to Lew. He started to the horse of the boy and grabbed his arm. “See ’em?” he demanded.
“See what?” said the boy with undue leisure.
“See that gent and the girl turning the corner?”
“What about ’em?”
“Do me a favor, partner.” The word thawed the childish pride of the boy. “Ride after him and tell him that Bud Lockhart wants him in a deuce of a hurry.”
For what man was there near Cayuse who would not answer a summons from Lockhart? The boy was nodding. He swung his leg over the pommel of the saddle, and, before it struck into place in the stirrup, he had shot his horse into a full gallop, the brim of his hat standing straight up.
Carney glanced after him with a faint smile, then he started in pursuit, walking slowly, close to the buildings, mixing in with the crowd to keep from view. What he would say to the girl when he met her, he had not the slightest idea, but see her alone, he must and would, if this simple ruse worked.
And it worked. Presently he saw the man of the brown mustache riding slowly back down the street, talking earnestly to the boy. In the midst of that earnest talk, he checked his horse and straightened in the saddle. Then he sent his mount into a headlong gallop. Carney waited to see no more, but, increasing his pace, he presently turned the corner and saw the girl with her horse reined to one side of the street.
She had forgotten her smile and was looking wistfully straight before her. Behind her eyes there was some sad picture and Carney would have given the remnants of his small hopes of salvation to see that picture and talk with her about it. He went straight up to her, pushed by the fear that the man of the brown mustache might ride upon them at any moment, and when he had come straight under her horse, she suddenly became aware of him.
It was to Lew Carney like the flash of a gun. Her glance dropped upon him. A moment passed during which speech was frozen on his tongue and thought stopped in his brain. Then he saw a faint smile twitch at the corners of her lips as the color deepened in her cheeks. He became aware that he was standing with his hat gripped and crushed in both hands and his eyes staring fixedly up to her, like any worshipping boy. He gritted his teeth in the knowledge that he was playing the fool, and then he heard her voice, speaking gently. Apparently his look had embarrassed her, but she was not altogether displeased or offended by it.
“You wish to speak to me?” she said.
“I don’t know your name,” Carney said slowly, and as he spoke he realized more fully how insane this whole meeting was, how little he had to say. “But I’ve something to say to you.”
He was used to girls who were full of tricky ways, and now her steady glance, her even voice, shook him more than any play of smiles and coyness.
“My name is Mary Hamilton. What is it you have to say?”
“I can’t say it in this street … if you’ll go …”
But her eyes had widened. She was looking at him with more than interest; it was fear. “Why?” she asked.
“Because I want to talk to you for two minutes, and your friend will be back in less time than that.”
“Do you know?”
The excitement had grown on her with a rush, and one gauntleted hand was at her breast.
“I sent for him,” confessed Carney. “It was a bluff so I could see you alone.”
Momentarily her glance dwelt on him, reading his lean face in an agony of anxiety, and then it flashed up and down the street, and he knew that she would go with him.
“Down here and just around the corner,” he said. “Will you? Yes?”
“Follow me,” commanded the girl, and sent her horse at a trot out of the street and down the byway. He hurried after her, and as he stepped away, he saw the man with the brown mustache thundering down the street. There were nine chances out of ten that he would ride straight on to find the girl and never think of turning down this alley. But there was something guilty about that speed, and when Lew stood before the girl again, he felt more confidence in the vague things he had to say. All the color was gone from her face now; she was twisting at the heavy gauntlets.
“What do you know?” she asked, and always her eyes went everywhere about them in fear of some detecting glance.
“I think,” said Lew, “that I know a few things that would interest you.”
“Yes?”
“In the first place you’re afraid of the gent with the brown mustache.”
All at once he found her expression grown hard.
“He sent you here to try me,” she said. “Jack Doyle sent you to me.”
What a wealth of scorn was in her voice. It made the cheeks of Carney burn.
“He’s the one that’s with you?”
“Don’t you know it?”
“I’m some glad to have his name,” admitted Lew. Suddenly he decided to make his cast at once. “My story you may want to know has to do with a wagon pulled by eight men, with two horses and …”
But a faint cry stopped him. She had swung from the saddle with the speed of a man and now she caught at his hands. “If you know, why don’t you save us? Why …?” She stopped as quickly as she had begun and pressed a gloved hand over her lips. Above the glove her eyes stared wildly at him. “What have I said?” she whispered. “Oh, what have I said?”
“You’ve said enough to start me and something you’ve got to finish.”
She dropped her glove. “I’ve said nothing. Absolutely nothing. I …” And unable to finish the sentence, she turned and whipped the reins over the head of her horse, preparatory to mounting.
The gambler pressed in between her and the stirrup. “Lady,” he said quietly, “look me over. Then go back and ask the town about Lew Carney. They’ll tell you that I’m a square-shooter. Now say what’s wrong. Make it short, because this Jack Doyle is drifting around looking for you.”
She winced and drew closer to the
horse.
“Say two words,” Lew Carney said, the uneasy spark bursting into flame in his eyes and shaking his voice. “Say two words and I’ll see that Jack Doyle doesn’t bother you. Lift one finger and I’ll fix it so that you ride alone or stay right here.”
She shook her head. Fear seemed to have her by the throat, stifling all speech, but the fear was not of Lew Carney.
“Gimme a sign,” he pleaded desperately, “and I’ll go with you. I’ll see you through, so help me God.”
And still she shook her head. It was maddening to the man to feel himself at the very gate of the mystery, and then to find that gate locked by the foolish fears of a girl.
“I got a right to know,” he said, playing his last card. “Everybody’s got a right to know … because there’s one dead man mixed up with the ghost wagon, and there may be more.”
She went sick and pale at that, and with the thought that it might be guilt, Lew Carney grew weak at heart. How could he tell? Someone near and dear to her might have fired that coward’s shot from behind. Why else this haunted look? More than anything, that mute, white face daunted him. He fell back and gave her freedom to mount by his step. And she at once lifted herself into the saddle.
With her feet in the stirrups fear seemed in a measure to leave her. And she looked with a peculiar wistfulness at Carney.
“Will you take my advice?” she said softly.
“I’ll hear it,” said Lew.
“Then leave this trail you’ve started on. It’s a blind trail to follow, and a horror at the end of it. But if you should keep on, if you should find it, God bless you.”
And she spurred her horse to a gallop from that standing start.
VII
It was as though she had smiled on him before she slammed the door in his face. He must not follow the blind trail to the horror, but if he did persist, if he did go to the end of the trail, then let God bless him.
What head or tail was he to make of such a speech? She wanted him to come and yet she trembled at the thought. And at the very time she denied him her secret, she pleaded bitterly with her eyes that he should learn the truth for himself. When he mentioned the ghost wagon, she had flamed into hope. When he spoke of the dead man, she had gone sick with dread. But above all that her words had meant, fragmentary as they were, the tremor of her voice when she last spoke was more eloquent in the ear of Lew Carney than aught else.
Yet, stepping in the dark, he had come a long way out of the first oblivion. He was still fumbling toward the truth blindly, but he knew at least that the ghost wagon had not been an illusion of the senses. How it had vanished into thin air and what strange reason had placed eight men on the chain drawing it—all this remained as wonderful as ever. But now it had become a fact, not a dream. His first impulse, naturally enough, was to go straight to Lockhart and triumphantly confirm his story.
But two good reasons kept him from such a step. In the first place there was now a new interest equaled with his first desire to learn the truth of the ghost wagon, and the new interest was Mary Hamilton. Until he knew or even guessed how far she was implicated, he could not take the world into his confidence. And beyond this important fact there was really nothing to tell the world except the exclamation of the girl, and the frown of Jack Doyle.
These things he thought over as he hurried toward the stables behind Bud Lockhart’s saloon. For on one point he was clear: no matter how blind might be the trail of the ghost wagon, the trail of the girl and her escort should be legible enough to his trained eyes, and he intended to follow that trail to its end, no matter where the lead might take him.
Coming to the stables he had a touch of guilty conscience in the thought that Bud Lockhart must be still waiting for him in the gaming rooms, for no doubt Glory had told the boss that Lew Carney had stepped out for only a moment and would soon return. But there was no sign of Bud in the rear of the saloon, and Lew saddled the gelding in haste and swung into place. He touched the mustang in the flank with his spur and leaned forward in the saddle to meet the lunge of the cow pony’s start, but instead of the usual cat-footed spring, he was answered by a hobbling trot.
For a moment he sat the saddle, stunned. Lameness was not in the vocabulary of the gelding, but Lew drew him to a halt and, dismounting, examined the left front hoof. There was no stone lodged in it. Deciding that the lameness must be a passing stiffness of some muscle, Lew leaped into the saddle again and spurred the mustang cruelly forward. The answering and familiar spring was still lacking. The horse struck out with a lunge, but on striking his left foreleg crumpled a little, and he staggered slightly. Lew Carney shot to the ground again. If the trouble was not in the hoof, it must be in the leg. He thumped and kneaded the strong muscles of the upper leg and dug his thumb into the shoulder of the gelding, but there was never a flinch.
He stood back, despairing, and looked over his mount. Never before had the dusty roan failed him, and to leave him to take another horse was like leaving his tried gun for a new revolver. Besides, it would mean a loss of time, and moments counted heavily, now that the afternoon was waning to the time of yellow light, with evening scarcely an hour away. Unless the two took the way of Silver Cañon—and that was hardly likely—they would be out of sight among the hills if he did not follow immediately.
Looking mournfully over that offending foreleg, he noticed a line of hair fanning out just above the knee, as if the horse had rubbed against the stall and pressed on the sharp edge of a plank. He smoothed this ridge away thoughtlessly and then looked wistfully down the street. The lazy life of the town had not changed. Men were going carelessly about their ways, yet there were good men and true passing him continually. Charlie Rogers went by him, Gus Ruel, Sam Tern, a dozen other known men who would have followed him to the moon and back at a word. But what word could he give them? A hundred men would scour the hills at his bidding, yet what reason could he suggest? All that wealth of manpower was his if he only had the open sesame that would unlock the least fragment of the secret of the ghost wagon. No, he must play this hand alone.
He looked back with a groan to the lame leg of the horse and again he saw the little ridge of stubborn hair. It was a small thing but he was in a mood when the smallest things are irritating. With an oath he leaned over and smoothed down the hair with a strong pressure of his fingertips, and at once, through the hair, he felt a tiny ridge as hard as bone, but above the bone. Lew Carney set his teeth and dropped to his knees. It was as he thought. A tiny thread of silk had been twisted around the leg of his horse, and drawn taut, and that small pressure, exerted at the right place over the tendons, was laming the gelding. One touch of his jackknife, and the thread flew apart while there was a snort of relief from the roan. And Lew Carney, lingering only long enough to cast one black look behind him, sprang into the saddle for the third time, and now the gelding went out into his long, rocking lope.
The gambler felt the pace settle to the usual stride but he was not satisfied. What if Doyle had given his horses the rein as soon as he found the girl? What if he had made it a point to get out of Cayuse at full speed? In that case he would be even now deep in the bosom of the hills. And many things assured him that the stranger was forewarned. He must have been given at least a hint by the same agency that had lamed the roan. More than this, if someone knew that Lew Carney was about to take up this trail, and had already taken such a shameful step as this to prevent it, he would go still further. He might send a warning ahead. He might plant an ambush to trap the pursuer.
There is no position so dangerous as the place of the hunter who is being hunted, and, at the thought of what might lie ahead of him, Lew Carney drew the horse back to a dog-trot. Even if the odds were on his side, it might be risky work, but he had reason to believe that there were eight men against him, eight men burdened with one crime already, and therefore ready and willing to commit another to cover their traces.
Th
e thought had come to Lew Carney as he broke out of Cayuse and headed west and south, but while the thoughts drifted through his mind, and all those nameless pictures that come to a man in danger, his eye picked up the trail of two horses that had moved side by side. And the trail indicated that both horses were running at close to top speed. For the hoof prints were about equally spaced, with long gaps to mark the leaps. The trail led, as he had feared, into the broken hills south of Silver Cañon where danger might lie in wait to leap out at him from any of twenty places in every mile he rode.
But Lew Carney at any time was not a man to reckon chances too closely, and Lew Carney, with a trail to lead him on, was close to the primitive hunting animal. He sent the roan gelding back into the lope, and in a moment more the ragged hills were shoving past him, and he was fairly committed to the trail.
It was a different man who rode now. With his hat drawn low to keep the slant sunlight from dazzling him, his glance swept the trail before him and the hills on every side. Men have been known to play a dozen games of chess blindfolded. Lew Carney’s problems were even more manifold. For every half mile passed him through a dozen places where men might lie concealed to watch him or to harm him, and each place had to be studied, and all its possibilities reckoned with. He loosened his rifle and saw that it drew easily from the long holster. He tried his revolver and found it in readiness. Now and again he swung sharply in the saddle, and his glance took in half the horizon behind him, for in such a sudden turn a man can often take a pursuer by surprise. But the great danger indubitably lay ahead of him, and here he fixed his attention.
The western light was more and more yellow now, and before long the trail would be dim with sunset, and then obscured by the evening. When that time came, he must fix a landmark ahead of him, and then strike straight on through the night, trusting that Doyle had cast his course in a straight line. Unless by dint of hard riding he should come upon the two before dark. But this he doubted. Riding at full speed, Doyle and the girl had opened up a gap of miles before Lew was even started. Moreover, for all his leathery qualities of endurance, the roan was not fast on his feet over a comparatively short distance. It needed a two days’ journey to bring out his fine points.
