He started across the meadow. The sorrel stayed close at his side, and he knew Jenny was half expecting him to fall from the saddle. But as he rode, the cold night air whipped life and strength back into him. By the time they reached the forks, where Tod waited, he was sitting straight, feeling almost alive again.
“I was about ready to ride back.”
Cameron said, “There’s nothing to ride for.” He went on down the valley by the trail he had come up such a short time before. At one place, he stopped the roan and looked to the west. From here he could see the other trail twisting along a cliff face. He glimpsed Jenny and Tod moving through the moonlight, and when they were on safer ground, he brought the roan about and continued on.
From the moon’s position, he judged he had a little time to spare, and he used this to soak his face in an icy spring halfway down the mountainside. He rode on, more alert now, watching every shadow ahead for movement, for sign that Larabee had been clever enough to post a guard.
But he passed Rafe Arker’s cabin and reached the wagonroad without seeing so much as a jackrabbit move. He squinted up at the moon. Time enough yet if he pushed the roan. It was closing in on midnight. The festivities in town would be about over for those who had finished their work and come down out of the hill country. Then things would go quiet. And that would be the time Sax Larabee was waiting for.
With the solid road beneath its hoofs, the roan stretched out in its ground-eating lope. Cameron could feel fever working in him, and now and then he would lift his head and blink and then realize he had fallen asleep. He was almost into town before he realized that he could be riding into a trap. There was little doubt in his mind that Larabee had told his story and that it had been accepted by Balder and Stedman and the others who ran the town.
If he came in boldly, up the main street, Balder could have him in jail before the dust from the roan’s hoofs had a chance to settle.
Ahead and to the right, a narrow track worked up through the timber to the ridge trail. Cameron turned and walked the roan through the dark stand of trees and out into the moonlight again. The ridge trail was half covered with deadfalls and tumbles of loose rock, but there was only a short distance to go, and so Cameron let the roan set its own pace.
The trail came into town by way of Cougar Hill, dropping around a shoulder of the hill and onto Hill Street where the fancier homes were. And down where this road crossed Main, he’d find Sax Larabee, Cameron thought.
He started downslope, between rows of tall trees, riding slowly now for the sake of quietness. Cameron judged it barely short of one o’clock, and he pictured Larabee and his men moving up carefully on the sleepy guards by the bank. He could almost feel the strike of gun butts against their skulls, and he fought down an urgent need to hurry. If he hammered into town now, he would alert Larabee and lose any advantage he might have from surprise.
The better houses were gone, and smaller places lined the street now. A crossroad ahead marked the end of the lane of trees. Below that the scattered business houses began, with the hotel and bank only another block along.
Cameron reached the crossroad, paused to peer down through the empty moonlight, and lifted the reins to move on again.
A horse stepped briskly out of shadow cast by the tall trees. A voice cracked sharply, “Hold it! You’ve gone far enough, Roy.”
Cameron turned in the saddle. Moonlight lay on Marshal Balder’s tight features and it glinted off the carbine he held unswervingly, aimed at Cameron.
“So you believed Sax Larabee’s story,” Cameron said softly.
Balder’s voice was almost sorrowful. “I had no choice. I told you I wrote to Boise for information. I got a letter back today saying you two’d been in prison together.”
He brought his horse closer. “That’s why I’m here. I figured Larabee was pulling a shennanigan with his talk about you hitting the bank on Sunday. I figured you’d try tonight. And I was right. Come along, Roy. You’re under arrest.”
XVIII
CAMERON STABED at the .44 aimed at him. He said softly, “So you believed Larabee’s story.”
“Not at first I didn’t” Balder said. “And not all of it even afterward.” He sounded almost sorrowful now. “I didn’t want to believe it at all, but after I got that letter from Billy Rogers in Boise …”
With a start, Cameron recalled the letter Balder had sent to his friend in the Boise sheriff’s office. “And you learned I was in prison with Sax Larabee?”
“I learned that about you and a lot more about your sidekick Larabee.”
“Did the letter tell you I was released after three months when they found I was innocent?” Cameron demanded.
Balder snorted. “How many times have both of us heard that story before!” Hardness began to creep into his voice. “I thought you acted danged funny about Larabee. Then when he come to me with that story about you planning to rob the bank Sunday night, I got the idea you’d rubbed him the wrong way a little too much and he was trying to get back at you. When I read the letter from Billy Rogers, I figured out what everything meant — we was supposed to sit around asleep tonight, waiting for tomorrow, while you and Larabee packed off all the gold.”
Cameron started to explain and stopped before the first word was fully formed. He needed only one glance at Balder’s set features to know that he would gain nothing by talking. And Balder’s next words gave him proof that he was right.
“You’ve argued with me plenty about my claiming a jailbird don’t change his stripes,” the marshal said. “It looks like you proved my point instead of yours.” He waggled the gun barrel. “Let’s move down to the jailhouse.”
“While you sit there jawing at me, Larabee’s taking the gold,” Cameron said in a tight voice.
Balder snorted. “I ain’t as big a fool as you’d like. I figured you’d sneak into town this way and I was waiting for you. I figured too Larabee’d show up to help you at the right time — and I got two good men waiting at the bank for him.” He added in a disgusted voice, “I’d have more but most everybody who came to town got liquored up early tonight.”
By this Cameron judged that Obed and his crews were still in the hills, or at best at Obed’s ranch. That meant Jenny and Tod had a chance of warning Obed so that he could make a try at catching Larabee. Even if he had failed here, there was still that slim chance Jenny or Tod had got through in time.
Balder waggled his gun impatiently. Cameron said, “You might not be as big a fool as I’d like, but you’re a lot bigger one than you think. Larabee isn’t going to hit that bank alone. He’s got Jupe Dondee and Joe Farley with him. Your guards will be looking for Larabee, not for men they’ve drunk with.’ They won’t last long tonight, marshal.” He glanced at the moon and added softly, “It should be about over by now.”
Balder simply said, “Ride on down to the jail, Roy,” in a cold, disinterested voice. Cameron did as he was bid and walked the roan in the middle of the street. He had no chance at all of getting away, he thought. Balder rode just far enough back to be safely out of reach.
Balder was a bitter man now, Cameron guessed. A man who believed he had been hoodwinked by someone he had trusted. A man who believed his judgment had been wrong. A man whose strong pride had been horsewhipped.
And he would never know how wrong he was. Even if Obed and his crew stopped Larabee, Balder wouldn’t learn the truth. Cameron knew Sax Larabee well enough to be sure he would play on Balder’s belief, swear that he and Cameron together planned the robbery. He would see his chance to get his final revenge on Cameron — it was not an opportunity he would pass up.
And suddenly Cameron knew that even if he had no chance, he had to try to stop Larabee. He twisted his fingers in the reins and laid a knee into the roan’s side. The sudden pressures sent it dancing backwards and to the left. Cameron jerked the reins, swinging the horse around abruptly. At the same instant, Cameron flattened in the saddle and drove his heels into the roan’s flanks. The swiftness of
the maneuver caught Balder off guard. He tried to jerk his own horse out of the way and at the same time bring his gun into play.
Cameron tried almost the same trick he had used against Rafe Arker. He rammed the roan’s shoulder into the other horse’s side. At the same time he reached out, but instead of trying to pull Balder out of the saddle, he caught the barrel of the marshal’s .44 and jerked back. The gun came loose and Cameron sent it spinning to the edge of the street. He drew his own handgun awkwardly, still using his left hand.
“Don’t move!” he ordered sharply as Balder lifted his heels to spur his horse. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re still friends, and I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Be damned to you!” Balder cried.
Cameron motioned him to ride on. Balder made a sudden surge forward as if daring to find out how far Cameron would go. Cameron sent the roan after him and jerked the reins from the marshal’s hand. He led the other horse to the alley and up it to the jailhouse. Here he locked Balder in one of his own cells.
His movements were slower than he liked. He wanted no lamp to warn Larabee and so he used only the moonlight that filtered into the jail. And his leg began to bother him as soon as he put weight on it. When he left the building, the clock in the office read eighteen minutes after one.
He rode on up the alley, around Mrs. Crotty’s boarding house and on across the street and down the alley that ran behind Jenny’s café to the rear of the bank. He rode quietly until he was even with the café. Then the roan’s front hoof struck a bottle someone had thrown to the ground and the ringing sound brought shadows moving away from the bank wall ahead.
A slash of moonlight struck Jupe Dondee and the gun he held, and Cameron knew he was too late to help the guards. He kicked the roan into swift movement, hugging dark shadow. He called out, trying to thicken his voice. “Cameron killed Arker and got loose. Tell the boss to hurry.”
Jupe answered, “Hale?” in a half-suspicious voice. Then Cameron was on him. Without compunction, he came alongside and drove his gun barrel like a whip into Jupe Dondee’s face. Dondee sagged in the saddle. Cameron struck again, crushing his nose, and he fell soggily to the ground.
Cameron dropped to the ground, holstered his gun and pilled his carbine from the boot. He ran limpingly toward the rear door of the bank. He almost fell over the motionless body of a man sprawled across the sill of the doorway. He stepped into the bank’s backroom, a small place where the stores were kept, and he stumbled. A quick glance showed him the second guard lying where he had fallen.
A doorway ahead led into a hall and as Cameron stepped that way, he saw a faint light dancing ahead. His footsteps resounded on board flooring and Joe Farley called from up near the light: “Jupe? Who was that talking out there?”
“Hale’s come,” Cameron called out, thickening his voice again. “Cameron got loose and killed Arker. We better hurry.”
“Then come here and give us a hand.” It was Larabee’s cold incisive voice.
Cameron moved forward, the carbine resting on his hip. Someone moved in darkness ahead and the light receded. He kept going. He passed the doorway leading into the bank proper and went on toward the vault. Someone moved in that doorway and Larabee said softly, almost pleasantly, “Jupe doesn’t talk quite like that, Roy. All right, Farley, take care of him.”
Farley moved into view, holding a bull’s-eye lantern. “Here?”
“Don’t be a fool! Keep your gun on him. I don’t want any shooting until we’re out of town.” He paused and then said quietly, “But we won’t have to shoot Cameron, will we? Bring him in by the vault I was looking for something to put against the dynamite to muffle the blast.”
Farley made a gagging sound, but the gun he held was steady enough. He said, “Drop that carbine, Cameron,” and when it clattered to the floor, he added, “move in there!” He took Cameron’s handgun.
Cameron walked into the vault room. It was windowless and so the lamp set close to the big metal door was only partially shielded. Cameron only half believed Larabee’s threat until he saw the dynamite placed strategically by the lock. He studied Sax Larabee’s face and knew that the man intended to kill him this way.
“It’s too bad,” Cameron said dryly. “If I was to stay alive, you could think about how you broke me, how you made me lose my job and my land and maybe even my girl. This way you won’t have much to remember.”
“I’ll have enough,” Larabee said. He bobbed his head abruptly.
Cameron heard a bootsole scrape behind him and realized that Farley was coming forward to club him down. Larabee stood to one side, holding his handgun steadily, careful as always.
Cameron waited until he could feel the gusting of Farley’s breath on the back of his neck. Then he dropped suddenly to one knee, pivoting on his good leg so that he faced in the opposite direction. Before Farley could make a move, Cameron drove upward. He caught Farley in the belly with his shoulder, spun him toward Larabee and pushed.
Larabee was setting for a shot and he tried too late to check himself. His bullet slammed into Farley and his staggering body suddenly went limp. Cameron heard Farley’s gun hit the floor. He dropped to one knee. His fingers closed over the gun butt. He jerked the .44 up, lifting his head at the same time.
The force of Farley’s body drove Larabee backwards. He caught himself and pushed the heavy weight to one side. He seemed to sense that he had no time to aim at Cameron. His gun whipped toward the lantern. He fell away as he fired. Cameron’s shot shattered only darkness as Larabee’s bullet smashed out the light.
Cameron could hear Larabee’s soft breathing, and then that was curbed, leaving only silence. Cameron tried to orient himself to the doorway, but the door had been closed when Farley brought him in and there was nothing to see except thick blackness.
Bootsoles scraped over the floor. Cameron swung in the direction of the sound. It stopped and a moment later started again well to the left of the point Cameron had located it. Puzzled, he tried to quess what Sax Larabee was up to, tried to keep up with that quick, deadly brain.
A match flared. Something hissed. Cameron swung toward the sound and the faint glow that showed as the match puffed out. He turned around at the noise of the door opening. Then it slammed shut and the latch dropped down.
From the other side of the door, Sax Larabee called softly, “That’s a short fuse I lit, Roy. Go put it out if you have time.”
What foolishness was this? The burning fuse was less than the room’s width from him — a half dozen strides at the most. Cameron got to his feet and stepped toward the dull reddish pinpoint of light. He was no more than a step away when he heard the door latch lift He jumped back instead of forward. From the doorway, Larabee’s gun blasted viciously and his bullet struck the floor where Cameron would have been standing had he tried to put out the fuse.
Cameron lost his balance as his bad leg gave way. He tried to turn as he fell, to bring his gun up, to get a shot at Larabee. The door slammed shut again.
“Next time,” Larabee called. “How long is the fuse now, Roy?”
Acrid smoke drifted to Cameron’s nostrils now. The light from the burning fuse beckoned to him mockingly. He felt sweat break out on his body and the hand holding Farley’s gun trembled.
How did you best a man who could think as swiftly as Larabee did? A man who could wait coolly beyond that door, knowing the shots would bring townsmen, but willing to take the risk, willing to lose the gold for the sake of gaining his revenge?
Cameron could see only the burning end of the fuse. The light was too thin to tell him how far it was from the dull glow to the dynamite. He might have five minutes. He might have only five seconds. He moved to his left, scraping his bootsoles heavily over the floor, hoping to draw Larabee into opening the door.
“You aren’t going in the right direction, Roy. You’re only wasting precious time.”
Cameron moved again, this time toward the sound of Larabee’s voice, toward the doorway. He felt h
is foot hit something yielding and he pitched forward, dropping the gun. He found a match in his pocket and struck it alight. The gun lay beside Farley’s dead body.
He heard the door come open and he sought to blow out the match and to roll away at the same time. Larabee’s gun smashed into the darkness. Cameron felt the whip of the bullet and heard it probe soggily into Farley. Then the door slammed again.
He had rolled on the match and there was only the dull glow from the fuse. But that second shot seemed to have jarred his brain. He spent precious seconds examining a sudden idea. Then he went on his knees back to Farley’s body. He lifted it and maneuvered until he had Farley’s arms draped around his neck and Farley’s chest and belly pressed against his back.
With Farley covering his back like clammy armor plate, he dragged himself across the floor toward the burning fuse. He made no effort to be quiet except to hold the .44 up from the rough boards. The reddish glow was some distance from where it had been before, and as Cameron neared the light was strong enough for him to see faint reflection from the metal of the vault.
The door came open. Larabee fired. Cameron felt the jar of the bullet striking into Farley’s body. Then the gun butt smashed down on the burning end of the fuse. The faint light died.
Larabee fired again and again the bullet struck Farley’s body. Cameron straightened up suddenly so that the body slid to one side. He turned, bringing the .44 around in a sweeping motion. His eyes focused on the doorframe as it outlined faint light seeping down the hallway. They focused on the thin darkness of Larabee standing sideways, framed by that light.
A gout of flame stabbed out toward Cameron. The .44 bucked in his hand. He heard a startled cry from Larabee, a gasp of surprise and disbelief. Then the sound was cut off abruptly as something smashed at his shoulder, driving him to the floor. A roaring filled his ears, and for an instant he thought he had missed the burning fuse and the dynamite had gone off. Then he had no thoughts at all. Only darkness filled his mind.
The Desperate Deputy of Cougar Hill Page 13
