“D’yuh mean yuh ain’t heard that Doc passed away last week?” the old man asked bluntly.
“Why, no—”
“He did,” Tas sighed. “His heart finally got him.” Without urging, he supplied the details. “That left Martha all alone—except for Paint,” he concluded.
“What about him?” Bill jerked out with a scowl.
“Wal, he’s up and around ag’in, lookin’ for a job—”
“That ain’t what I meant,” Bill interrupted.
“I know it ain’t.” Tas lifted his Stetson and ran a horny hand through his flowing locks. “Wal, I don’t suppose this will set so well with yuh, and yet yuh shouldn’t complain at this late date, seein’ yuh wouldn’t have it no other way. But to put it in a few words, Bill, I have reason to believe that Paint will be marryin’ Martha before long. Yuh can’t throw a couple young people together for months, with her nursin’ him back to health, without sunthin’ of the sort comin’ out of it.”
Save for an involuntary twitching of the lips and a whitening of his cheeks under the tan, Bill met it stoically. He told himself it was no more than he had been expecting for weeks; that it couldn’t have ended any other way. And yet, it dried his throat. Not the surprise of it, but its finality; the flickering out of an unsuspected spark of hope that had persisted in the face of his often repeated admission to himself that Martha Southard was lost to him forever.
“That’s as it should be,” he found courage to say. “They’ll be happy together. Paint will make Martha a good husband. … I hope they don’t wait too long.”
“I don’t know,” Tas murmured thoughtfully. “I talked to Paint. He said he didn’t want to rush her into anythin’. I reckon he had you in mind when he spoke. He wants to git hisself a good job too. I could use him, but he said he wanted sunthin’ that would give him a chance to start a little string of his own on the side.”
“He’s right,” Bill agreed, though it gave him another stab to find Paint Johnson so ambitious and farsighted as compared to himself.
He took his leave of Tas a few minutes later, the creaking of the wagon warning him that it was lurching down hill to the springs. A mile away, Luther and the others were watching for him. He dreaded the questions that awaited him. And yet, when he had related his conversation with Tascosa, they forbore mentioning Martha or Paint.
Chapter XXIV
BITTER ROOT and Cherokee had been left at the Grocery. Bill took the former aside soon after he and the others rode in.
“Bill, he ain’t made a false move,” Bitter Root said without waiting for a question to be asked. “I tell yuh, he’s deep. Bein’ here alone with him I tried to draw him out, but I didn’t git nowhere. Yuh’d think he’d given up any idear of ever seein’ Beaudry ag’in. Now, I know that don’t make sense. But here he sits all the time yuh bin gone, playin’ cards by hisself er readin’ them mail order catylogs by the hour.”
“He’s waitin’ us out,” Bill said after a moment. “We been watchin’ him too close. I’m goin’ to give him a little more rope.”
Following Smoke Sontag’s custom, he began to post lookouts on the ridge, sending one man a little north of the Grocery and another an equal distance to the south. Every twenty-four hours they were relieved. When it came Cherokee’s turn to go out, Bill spied on him from a distance. Nothing developed then, nor the second or third time.
“He’s figgerin’ he’s watched,” the red-haired one decided. “I’ll give him a free hand from now on. If he starts anythin’ Fll try to stop it before it gits too far.”
Another week passed, and he had to admit that his strategy had failed. His patience was long, however, and he hung on.
One morning, several days later, Latch called him to a window. Coming up the old cut-off was a small band of sheep and a solitary herder. Sheep were still something of a novelty in that country. Luther and five or six others had to have a look at them. Bill put a glass on the herder.
“A greaser,” he announced. “He’s an old man. Walks as though he’d come a long way.”
“Wal, smells like mutton for supper,” Bitter Root laughed.
“No, let him go,” Bill said. “He’ll stop for water. If he needs a little grub, give it to him and git rid of him. You savvy Mexican, don’t yuh, Kid?” Cherokee said that he did. “Well, you git out on the steps and do the talkin’ to him. Find out where he’s goin’.”
When strangers arrived at or passed the Grocery, Bill saw to it that never more than one or two of his men were in evidence. He made them hide out this morning, taking up a position in the store himself where he could overhear what passed between Cherokee and the herder, for he had a working knowledge of border Spanish that he believed was the equal of the Kid’s.
The old Mexican drew up at the store steps ten minutes later and asked for permission to water his sheep at the trough. The Kid told him to go ahead.
The old man sat down beside him, and although the day was not warm, fanned himself with his tattered hat. He said he was all the way from New Mexico, on his way to Laguna, Kansas, where his son had a small ranch. He rolled his eyes in a hungry glance at the interior of the store, and then from an old purse shook out a few silver coins.
“Do you want to buy something?” the Kid asked him in Spanish.
The old man said he wanted some coffee. Cherokee told him to wait there, that he would get it for him, and getting to his feet, walked into the store.
“He wants some coffee,” the Kid explained.
“Well, give him some,” said Bill. “There’s plenty in the bin.”
“What’ll I charge him?”
The red-haired one wrinkled his brow.
“Now yuh got me,” he muttered. “How would I know what to charge for anythin’? Ask him two bits; it ought to be worth that.” He glanced at the Mexican. The old man was idly drawing patterns in the dust with the long staff he carried. “Does he seem to be all right?”
“Yeh, he’s shufflin’ along to Laguna, Kansas,” the Kid explained. He repeated his conversation with the herder. It was all as Bill had originally heard it. He watched Cherokee step out and hand the man the package of coffee, but from where he stood behind the counter he could not see that the Mexican had smoothed the dust at his feet. Nor did he catch the cryptic figures that the stick traced in the dust.
“2 —O,” they read. It was not a problem in arithmetic. It was a cattle brand … Leach Lytell’s Two Bar O brand.
Cherokee saw it and exchanged a glance of understanding with the Mexican. A slight movement of the foot and the message was erased.
Two days later the Kid went to the ridge. An hour after he reached his post he headed south for Lytell’s ranch.
He was back sixteen hours later. His horse could barely stand. He wiped the foam from it and walked the pony round and round, to cool it off. With dry grass he rubbed it down.
Just before dawn he started for the Grocery, leading the animal most of the way that it might freshen up enough so as not to arouse suspicion. Luck was with him, and he put the horse in the corral without a question being asked, and then entered the store to find all of them gathered around Little Bill.
“We can’t expect the weather to hold fine like this any longer,” the red-haired one was saying. “If we’re goin’ to turn a trick we’ve got to git at it in a day or two.”
“We sure have,” Cherokee chimed in. “We’re due for bad weather when the moon changes.”
“Now I’ve been rollin’ somethin’ over in my mind for a week,” Bill continued. “It may take your breath away when you first hear it, but I know the job can be done. The money is there; we know the town backwards; it’s a short ride and plenty of cover #x2014;#x2014;”
“Bill, are you speakin’ of Bowie?” Luther demanded incredulously.
“You guessed it, Luther. It’s Bowie I mean.”
If it fell short of taking their breath away it did not miss it by much.
“Bowie ain’t no different than any other place, even though we u
sed to call it our home town,” Bill went on. “If we got to hoist a bank it shouldn’t make no difference to us where it’s located. What we want to do is to figger out what the odds are against us.”
“Bill, you’re a fool for even suggestin’ it!” Luther burst out angrily. “Others have tried it in the past I What did it git ’em?”
“They bungled it, Luther,” Bill said calmly. “It ain’t been tried in three years now. With a wide-awake sheriff on the job it ain’t likely the bank’s got any idea somethin’ may go wrong without warnin’. They may even feel as you do that we’ll keep out of Bowie ‘cause we’re known there.”
“That ought to be reason enough, but it ain’t, I see!” Luther retorted.
“Sayin’ we got away with it,” Link put in, “how long do yuh think it would be before we got cut down here? Why, the whole town would march out here to git our scalps!”
“I doubt it,” said Bill. “No one loves a banker, Link. There ain’t many people in Bowie would git excited enough to take a chance on their own hides in order to help Jim Cronin or John Slayton git their money back. But you all think it over today. If yuh come around so you see it my way we can move in a hurry. It won’t be necessary to size up the town or get a line on the bank itself. We know all that right now.”
“I know yuh can make it sound easy,” Luther grumbled. “As a matter of fact we can git by with the money we got.”
“I ain’t sayin’ we can’t,” Bill admitted readily. “I’m lookin’ ahead a little. Maybe it’s only a hunch, but I got the feelin’ that Beaudry will turn up before spring. When I’ve settled with him, I’m pullin’ out for old Mexico. If I haven’t mentioned this before it’s only because I’ve only settled on it since we ran into Tascosa. I figger I can start a clean slate down there …. I’m hopin’ some of you will string along with me. I don’t have to tell you it’ll take money to git us there.”
He had no more to say. He had never tried to win them over to his way of thinking against their wills, and he did not propose to do it now. Before the day was gone, however, they made their decision, and it was yes.
That evening as Bill and Link sat on the store steps Cherokee wandered down Black Grocery Creek. He did not go over several hundred yards. His walk seemed to be without purpose. In his hand he carried a branch he had broken off a dead willow.
He surmised that Link was watching him. But that did not worry him. It was not a difficult matter to pretend to peer into a trout hole while he printed a word in the wet sand with the willow limb. It was only a five-letter word, and it spelled
BOWIE
The Kid could not forego a grin as he started to retrace his steps. He knew for a certainty that the eyes for whom the message had been left would see it at daylight and erase it as quickly as the old Mexican had blotted out the message he had drawn in the dust.
Chapter XXV
JUST beyond the cemetery, less than a mile from town, stood Otto Hahn’s tumble-down slaughter house—the same Otto Hahn of the Purity Market, whose billheads had figured so tragically in old Waco’s death. There, this morning, Little Bill and the others waited. Only Maverick had been left behind to guard the Grocery.
“It’s only five minutes to nine,” Bill murmured, flashing a glance at his watch. “We can’t be movin’ yet.”
A tremendous preoccupation rested heavily on them. The day had broken sharp and clear, with a pleasant tang in the air, but without exception their faces were as cold and brooding as the skies were bright and sunny.
They had a light wagon with them, hitched to a team of mules, the box filled with hay; about the quantity a rancher would take into town to feed his team. Cherokee sat on the seat, idly swinging his feet. His lips had twisted into a sneer that they might see his unconcern. Deep in his eyes, however, was unmistakable anxiety.
The details of what lay before them had been talked over at length. Each knew what was expected of him. Bill’s plans were ingenious enough to promise success. Latch, Bitter Root, Scotty and Moffet, who were not so well-known in Bowie, were to swing around town and come in from the north. The others would cross the Rock Island tracks and come in from the south. They were to meet in front of the bank. There they would find Cherokee’s wagon drawn up to the curb. Their rifles would be in the wagon, under the hay. The Kid himself would be perched on a stool at the counter of the little restaurant next door to the bank, ready to go into action at the first sign of trouble.
Bill had assigned each to a position best calculated to cover the actual hold-up. He, Latch and Bitter Root were to go into the bank.
He ran over it again as they waited, although there was no need of it.
“Yuh want to watch the upper windows in the hotel,” he warned. “If they open up on us from there yuh got to stop ’em.”
“We will,” the Kid assured him. “We don’t want nothin’ to go wrong on what may be our last job—” His voice had a hoarse croak.
“Why damn yore red hide anyway!” Bitter Root screeched at him. “What do yuh mean crossin’ our luck by sayin’ anythin’ like that?”
“Aw don’t set yourself afire,” the Kid muttered. “You’re takin’ me the wrong way. I was thinkin’ of what Bill told us about pullin’ out for old Mexico.” To himself he added: “He’s goin’ a lot farther than Mexico this trip.”
At five minutes past nine Bill told Latch he could be moving.
“Just take it easy,” he said. “You’ll see us crossin’ the tracks. Time yourselves then so we land in front of the bank together. We’ll leave here in ten minutes.”
The four men rode away, holding their ponies to a jog. Bill held his watch in his hand. Latch, Flash, Scotty and Bitter Root could be seen until they swung around some Mexican shacks at the edge of town.
Bill put away his watch and spoke to Cherokee.
“You can git your team started, Kid. And don’t look back for us. We’ll be right behind yuh. Just keep the mules down to a walk.”
They gave Cherokee a start of several hundred yards.
On coming out of the cemetery they caught sight of him again, moving along the road that ran from Bowie to Kingfisher. It was deserted, which was unusual at that time of the morning.
“Gittin’ a break,” Link grunted with satisfaction.
“It looks that-a-way,” Bill admitted. There was a reservation in his tone. From the direction of the depot came the long-drawn wail of a locomotive whistle. For some reason it sent a shiver down his spine. “The Guthrie train is just gittin’ in,” he observed.
Presently they saw the hotel bus turn into the road from the depot and head for town.
“Old Wash seems to be in a hurry this mornin’,” Bill remarked thoughtfully. “He’s whippin’ up his team.”
“That gits them out of the way for us,” said Luther. He sighed heavily. “Everythin’ is just as it used to be…. It sure looks good.”
“Don’t git switched off into anythin’ like that,” Bill said sharply. “Keep your mind on what’s ahead of us. I can see Latch and them movin’ our way now. This is workin’ out just as I figgered.”
They knew they could not go far beyond the tracks without being recognized. A lot could happen in those three blocks between the crossing and the bank.
“We better close up a little on the Kid,” Bill advised as soon as they had put the railroad behind them. Glancing ahead he saw two men stare at them from in front of a barbershop, and then hurry inside.
“They got us that time,” Link rasped. “One of ’em was Joe Curtain. He’d know us in hell.”
Bill did not answer. A block-and-a-half down the street a man had rushed out of the bank and leaped to his saddle. He was riding toward them now at a driving gallop.
Even at first glance there was something familiar about the rider. A few seconds later Bill recognized him.
“Good Lord,” he groaned, “it’s Paint Johnson! … What’s he buttin’ into this for?”
Before anyone could answer him, Paint yanked his horse to
its heels in a slithering stop that forced the Kid to pull his team to the side of the road.
“Bill, turn around!” he yelled, his face bloodless in his excitement. “Get out of here as fast as you can!”
“You keep out of this!” Bill barked at him. “You don’t belong in this play! I got no time to talk to yuh now!”
“You got to listen to me I” Paint insisted. “YouVe been framed!”
“What?” Without another word Bill slid to the ground and reached for his rifle under the hay. He couldn’t find it. Not a gun was there. As he stood there helpless with consternation for a moment Cherokee lashed his mules into a run. “Paint—who did it?” the red-haired one finally was able to ask.
“That rat there for one!” Paint cried, jerking his head in the direction of the fleeing Cherokee.
“So he meant this was our last job; Bitter Root didn’t misunderstand him a bit!” The thought seared its way through Bill’s brain. That Cherokee must have dumped the rifles as he drove through the cemetery was not important now. To stop him—to end his crookedness forever—that was what remained to be done.
Cherokee had thrown himself flat on the seat, knowing his life hung by a thread. Bill’s first shot straightened him up. In a desperate effort to save himself, the Kid leaped down, hoping to dart in between the buildings. He was too late. He was dead when his feet hit the ground.
Paint did not have to tell them that Heck Short and five deputy marshals were in the bank; that across the way Kin Lamb had a man posted at every window, for as Cherokee went down a withering blast of gunfire swept the street. Latch, Flash, Scotty and Bitter Root were still a few yards from the bank. They saw Flash pitch out of his saddle as the first shots rang out.
Hard on the heels of them, Heck and his Guthrie men swarmed out of the bank, their guns smoking. Latch, Scotty and Bitter Root, caught without rifles, could only whirl their horses and ride for their lives. Whether they made it or not, Bill and the others could not tell.
“We got to be goin’ ourselves!” Paint was urging. His plea finally registered on Little Bill’s mind.
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