by Noel Loomis
Job Sye laid down his pipe. “I have got here a couple of quitclaim deeds, which you can sign now and save yourself a wet night.”
“You mean you’re goin’ to do that tonight?” asked Simmons desperately.
“No use waitin’, far as I see. You can wait here while we try the next prisoner.”
“Who?”
“George Keller, for attempted rape and unnatural practices.”
Simmons asked, “What are you goin’ to do to him?”
Sye raised his eyebrows. “Hangin’s really too good for him, but we may have to be satisfied with it.”
“Hangin’?”
Sye looked at the man’s ashen face and protruding eyes. “Sure, you know—rope around his neck.” He leaned his head to the left and made the sign of a knife. “Sheriff, you go get the prisoner. Maybe you better take a couple of husky fellers with you to pull him out of that well.”
“I’ll take Osterman and Porter.”
“You fellers git a move on. We got a lot of work to do tonight after the trial.”
“We’ll hurry,” said Ackerman.
“Court’s recessed until they git back,” said Sye, and all went outside to breathe the night air and to light up their smokes or bite off fresh chews of plug. The air wasn’t clean any more, for the south breeze brought the smell of hogs over them like a blanket.
“Sure was a dirty trick,” said Simon Hudson. “No question about it.”
While he waited, Ferguson went over to the well and saw that the bucket had brought up a new kind of sand. He felt it, and it seemed to be wet. He had better go down into the well in the morning and see what it looked like.
He heard the committee galloping back, and Ackerman rode into the yard and pulled up with a flourish. “He’s gone!” he said. “Plumb gone! No hide nor hair! He was down there at sunset, but he ain’t there now!”
CHAPTER XVI
When the excitement was over, Ackerman and some twelve or fourteen men took Simmons down to the river, while Ferguson went to the tavern for something to eat.
Sally waited on him, and while she set the table, she said: “Mr. Ferguson, the Otos are on the rampage, they say up at the Forks.”
“That’s talk,” Ferguson said easily.
Her blue eyes were wide. “No, sir, I don’t think it is, because on the way home I rode through a whole band of Indians going toward the Forks. They stopped me and talked ugly, but Walking Bird came up and told them to leave me alone.”
“Thank goodness.”
“Walking Bird said I should tell you that some of his men have been treated badly by some of the whites, and are getting hard to hold back.”
“Then there’s nothing for it but to be ready to defend ourselves.”
“Walking Bird said to tell you he is persuading some of his men to work for you.”
“Good,” said Ferguson. “Now, Sally—” He took her by the shoulders. “Listen carefully to this.”
Her blue eyes were big as they watched his.
“If Indians come into the tavern, either front or back, don’t talk to them, don’t say a word. Just very quietly and casually walk away, get out of sight, and stay out of sight.”
“They might be hungry.”
“They might also be inflamed by war talk; might come here with honest intentions, but they might change their minds when they see you. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
He stood up and looked down at her soberly.
“This is a deadly serious proposition,” said Ferguson. “A peaceful-looking Indian can turn into a maniac in an instant—and then it will be too late. Don’t take any chances.”
She studied him. “Why are you so fussed over me, Mr. Ferguson? Why not—why not Mrs. Talbot?”
“I—” He looked into those large blue eyes, and breathed the faint, clean aroma of her hair. “Well,” he said, “I feel different about you, Sally. I—” He took her into his arms, and she came willingly. “Sally, I love you,” he said. “Isn’t that enough reason?”
She stood on her bare tiptoes and threw her arms around him and kissed him on the lips, “It sure is,” she whispered.
Obie came into the kitchen with a load of wood, and she backed away and ran to the kitchen.
Noah came in behind Obie, put down his wood, and entered the dining room. “There’s sign of water in the well,” he said, “and I thought maybe you better take a look, Mr. Ferguson, before it’s too late.”
“I noticed the sand was damp. Tell you what: you go down to the ferry and help Mr. Benson for a few hours while I have a look at the well. I can let myself down, and Obie can come over in a couple of hours and get me out.”
Sally looked in. “I’ll come over and pull you up,” she said. He looked at her radiant face, and his pulse quickened and he felt as if she were the only girl on earth—and she was his. “Good,” he said, trying to sound businesslike. “Let Sally come over. The mule is prob’ly running from the hogs, but he won’t go far from that corn.” He smiled. “He’s waitin’ for it to tassel.”
“I’ll see that you get out, Mr. Ferguson,” she said.
Obie asked, “What can I do?”
“You can come with Sally, in case she needs help. Until this Indian trouble settles down, you’d better not ride around the country alone.” And he thought, but did not say, that George Keller was somewhere loose in the countryside, and it could well be that in his twisted mind he would see Sally as the cause of his trouble, and would consider it his right to take whatever perverted vengeance he could imagine.
Sally started back to the kitchen, but pounding hooves sounded outside. The horse stopped suddenly, and a man flung himself from the saddle and ran heavily into the tavern; it was Black Gallagher. “Mr. Ferguson,” he shouted, “we wuz down along the river, huntin’ Keller, and lookin’ around the dock—and we found Bill Benson with his throat cut.”
Ferguson was stunned. “Dead?” he asked senselessly. Gallagher nodded.
“Mr. Benson? I can’t—you sure?”
Gallagher nodded.
Ferguson started for the door. “Who did it?” he asked.
“Nobody knows.”
Ferguson galloped down to the ferry. They had laid Benson’s body on the dock, but there was no blanket over it, and a swarm of flies buzzed around it. Ferguson walked near, took off his hat, and looked down for a moment, hardly seeing the ugly, half-severed neck. Finally he turned away and said, “Better bury him this afternoon. Mr. Porter, I heard you can build a coffin.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then build a good one for Mr. Benson. I will pay for it. Noah.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You stay here and take care of the ferry on this side.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Porter, what do you make of this?”
“Either Injuns or George Keller.”
“Where did you find him?”
Porter led him to a spot just under the dock, where it was damp but not under water. “Layin’ right there.”
“No signs of blood,” said Ferguson.
“Nope”
“That means they hauled the body here from where he was killed—but why?”
Porter shook his head.
“It sure wouldn’t be Injuns,” said Art Grimes.
“No,” said Ferguson. “It seems to me that he must have been killed to keep him from talking.”
“Keller would not have done it, because it don’t make any difference to Keller who sees him. We all know he escaped.”
“But somebody had to help him escape.”
“Must be Mawson,” said Roy Ernest. “He seems to be runnin’ things over here.”
“Or more likely Logan or Yeakel,” said Ferguson. “Mawson would more likely do it openly. Logan or Yeakel would not want to be caught. So Benson must have come upon them as they were pulling Keller out of the well, and Keller killed him so he couldn’t tell. Did anybody examine the footprints around the well?”
/> “I looked ’em over,” said Art Grimes, “but they was too many. About all I could be sure of was that one set had small feet. It was too dusty to hold much sign,” he said.
“That wouldn’t be Mawson,” said Ferguson.
“Major Yeakel has small feet,” said Ernest.
“Maybe we’d better talk to him.”
“We’ll give him a trial!” said Gallagher.
“No. Let’s don’t get so we try everybody for everything. We don’t have any real evidence at all except that Yeakel has small feet—and hundreds of people have small feet.”
“Dave Ackerman’s party is comin’ up from the river,” said Porter. “Wonder if they had any luck.”
“Hard to say. Is that Simmons with them?”
“Yeah, ridin’ in the saddle with his head down and floppin’. Wonder if they drownded him.”
“I want somebody to go with me to Benson’s cabin,” said Ferguson. “Ernest, you want to go?”
“I’ll go—but I got to get home first and get my old woman some wood to make dinner.”
“I’ll meet you here right after dinner. Nobody will bother his place until then. Mr. Grimes, gather some men and see if you can find Mr. Benson’s murderer—but don’t hang anybody. Then we’ll have to have trial.”
“Yes, sir.”
Roy Ernest rode off, his long legs jogging awkwardly. Ackerman came up with a paper in his hand. “He was pretty stubborn,” he said, “but we was stubborner.”
Ferguson looked at Simmons, who had not raised his head. “You didn’t go too far, did you?”
“We might near had to,” said Ackerman. “But I reckon he’s still alive.”
“How long did he hold out?” asked Porter.
“We was up to two minutes and ten seconds, and I thought he would bust.”
“And your watch don’t run very good,” said Osterman.
Ferguson folded the papers and put them inside his shirt. He looked at Simmons again. “You sure he’s alive?”
“He may be full of water,” said Ackerman, “but he was alive when we drug him out, because he signed the quitclaims.”
Ferguson said sharply, “Look up, Simmons!”
To his relief, the man slowly raised his head—but Ferguson was shocked, for Simmons had aged twenty years during the night. His face was gray and drawn, his eyes were haunted and lifeless.
“If you want any claim at all on those hogs, you get them off my place and clean up that hundred and sixty acres,” said Ferguson. “If you want to tell who hired you to jump my claim, I’ll help you clean up the land.”
Simmons looked dully at him but said nothing.
“You might as well turn him loose,” said Ferguson.
“Suits me,” said Ackerman. “Now we can all go after Keller.”
“One thing, Mr. Ackerman: Mr. Benson has been murdered, but you must not hang anybody or take any other summary action. The guilty man must be brought to trial in legal fashion before we undertake any punishment—and any man who unnecessarily kills such a man will be guilty of murder himself.”
Ackerman grinned. “You’d have a hell of a hard time getting a jury to convict anybody for killing George Keller.”
Ferguson went on. “Another thing: we want him alive long enough to ask him questions. Keller is working for somebody, and it would help if we could get him to say who that person is.”
“If he swallers enough river water, he will talk,” said Tim Jones.
“Not if he has a bullet-hole between the eyes,” said Ferguson, looking hard at Ackerman.
Ackerman grinned. “All right, I will try to get him here alive.”
“If you see a bunch of Otos headed this way, don’t start shooting until you find out what they’re up to.”
“With Injuns,” said Roy Ernest, “you got to act first or it’s too late.”
“Give them a chance,” said Ferguson. “I have asked Walking Bird to get a crew together to help me with the sheep.”
“We’ll remember that,” said Black Gallagher, “but if one of them red-skinned critters comes wavin’ a bloody scalp, I’ll shoot first.”
Ferguson looked at Obie, who had been listening with bulging eyes. “Obie, you go back to the tavern with me. I’ve got to take a look at that well and see what’s going on down there. It might be that it needs just a little more digging to be a well.”
Ackerman rode a little way with him. “Mr. Ferguson, we’re worried on account of that bet you made with Mawson. We could all pitch in and help, and we might git them woollies acrost the river in time.”
Ferguson said. “I’m figuring on the Indians’ helping me do it.”
“Swimmin’?” Ackerman asked dubiously.
“You shoulda stopped the bet when Mawson didn’t bring his sheep to the dock,” said Porter.
“No,” said Ferguson. “This man is going to harass us one way or another, and he is especially going to harass me because he wants the ferry. I would rather stick to this, because I still expect to win, and then we won’t have so much trouble with him. Maybe he will even leave the country.”
“We can help.”
“You keep hunting Keller. He’s loose and he’s dangerous. Anyway, moving sheep is not a job for just anybody. I will need a crew of sheepmen to handle twelve thousand sheep, and I am gambling on the Indians.”
“When do you expect to start?” asked Porter.
“Right after dinner I will take a small band across, and find out if the lead goat will do her job swimming. I might find a couple then that will help to lead the rest of them. I’m not worried—unless something unforeseen happens.” Porter rode off with Benson’s body across the saddle of a mule that had wandered in—probably the mule which Benson had ridden to the ferry. Ferguson and Obie rode back to the tavern, and Ferguson told Sally: “You can come to pull me out in about two hours. And bring Obie with you.” She smiled softly to suggest the secret between them, and he smiled in return.
“Mind what I say,” he insisted. “Don’t come alone.”
“I will mind,” said Sally. “If you order me, I will mind!”
CHAPTER XVII
He went back to his own cabin and got a pair of horsehide gloves. He lifted the bucket into the well, took a firm hold on the rope, and stepped into the bucket and began to pay out the rope around the handle of the bucket.
In a moment he was down fifty feet, and the hole above looked small against the cloudless, light blue sky.
At a hundred feet he doubled the rope and took two turns around the handle of the iron bucket, and stopped for a few minutes. At a hundred and fifty feet he stopped again.
Then he drew a deep breath and began to loosen the rope. He dropped more slowly to the two-hundred-foot level, and stopped to let his eyes adjust themselves before going on to the bottom.
He went on slowly, hoping to hear the slap of water against the bottom of the bucket. When he finally did hear it, the bucket immediately came to bottom on the sand. Keeping a hold on the rope and one hand on the bucket, he stepped out.
He got back in the bucket and pulled himself up, hand over hand.
He got the tools and went back down, tied the rope and stepped out. He set the bucket to one side and began to probe with the shovel. He dug in a couple of feet on one side, went through a hard layer of clay, and was gratified to observe that water accumulated there pretty rapidly. He watched the water oozing out of the face of the sand, and realized that there was already enough to make a steady stream as big as his little finger.
He had been down about two hours, he figured, and it was time for Sally and Obie to come after him. He poked around a little more, and watched the water level begin to rise. He loaded the tools in the bucket and was prepared for Sally’s voice to come from far above. But after a while the water was six inches deep, and still she had not called.
When he looked up again, the sun was gone, and he guessed it was one o’clock, and began to worry. He wondered if Sally and Obie could have fun afoul of
the Otos.
The water was a foot deep, and rising at the rate of fifty gallons an hour; the flow had increased steadily.
By three o’clock, however, with the water steadily rising, and now up to his knees, he began to consider trying to hoist himself; perhaps he could make it in relays.
At four o’clock he estimated that the water would be six feet deep in twelve more hours, and he would then have to stand on the bucket. By that time he faced the fact that apparently nobody was coming after him, and he would have to get out by himself. He would have to try the rope.
He figured to pull on the rope, and that would take his weight off the bucket; he would go hand over hand as far as he could in safety, and then perhaps coil the rope around his body until his hands regained their strength.
He stepped into the bucket, took up the slack of the rope, and began to pull, hand over hand. As he pulled his weight off the bucket, the bucket rose as far as it could; then he transferred his hold and pulled again. He got up about ten feet, but the bucket caught its rim in an unusually wide crack between two planks. He jerked hard—and, without warning, the bucket fell away from under him and he went down with it.
The water cushioned the drop, but he struck the backs of his thighs against the rim of the iron bucket, and for an instant could not straighten up. Then he became aware of two hundred feet of rope falling on top of him; he leaped out of the bucket and straightened up against the side of the well as flat as possible, and watched unbelievingly as the rope dropped into the well. It filled the bottom incredibly fast, and he finally realized that actually there were two ropes falling.
The ropes filled the well, loosely stacked, to about his shoulders, and in the passage of a breath it was all over.
He climbed on top of the pile of rope, and it occurred to him to wonder why the rope had broken. He found the two ends and stared at them in the dimness; he felt them both with his fingers, and there was no doubt of it: the rope had been cut. Not cut entirely in two, but almost in two, so that he might very well have dropped the full distance. It was a miracle that he had not—the miracle of the bucket rim’s catching the crack.
