Marble Range

by Robert J. Horton

With that he strode away, leaving the sheriff to stare after him.

  He found his company in one of the rooms upstairs. To their questions as to where he had been he made evasive replies. But he knew by Florence Marble’s look that she suspected what he had been doing. Her eyes were troubled. It thrilled him through and through to think that this girl thought enough of him to worry about him.

  “Are you going back with us after the fireworks, Bob?” she asked, when they were together for a few moments near the door.

  “No, Florence, I can’t go back tonight,” he answered. “Don’t look that way, please. I’m investigating some things besides aces and kings. I’ve got to stay. But be sure you take Howard with you.”

  “Oh, I guess he’ll want to ride back with June Macy well enough,” she said. Then impulsively: “Bob Bannister, I don’t want you to get into any trouble on my account. I . . . I can’t stand the thought of it.”

  He laid a hand on her arm. “Don’t worry about me,” he said in a low voice. “That . . . that other down there was a blind accident. But I’m working for you, just the same . . . every minute. And it’s the one real joy of my life.” He moved away and spoke to John Macy. “I’m going down to see that the horses are being taken care of,” he said, and went out the door.

  It was already growing dusk as he walked through the crowd again thronging the street and made his way to the rear of the tents. He passed the long line of wagons and buckboards and corrals and finally came to where they had left their horses. The corral tender told him the horses had been watered at the ditch behind the corrals and he could see the hay on the ground himself. They were still eating. He lingered, talking aimlessly with the man, who was one of Cromer’s teamsters. Something might slip out that would be of interest. But nothing did, and he started back along the corrals in a twilight that was just on the verge of melting with the night.

  Two men approached him. He paid no attention to them until one of them bumped into him with a force that nearly threw him off his feet. He whirled as the man spoke.

  “What’s the matter? You blind? Or maybe you’ve got all this space rented for a sidewalk.”

  Bannister recognized the two Canadians who had been with Le Beck and Hayes. They had seen him and had followed him. It all came to him in a flash. These two could pick a fight with him and get away with it, even if they killed him. They were strangers. Cromer could disclaim any knowledge of them. Le Beck and Hayes would keep silent. It was as raw as it was vicious.

  Bannister didn’t answer and he didn’t hesitate to act. His right came up with the power of a sledgehammer against the man’s jaw, knocking him flat on the grass. Before the other could move, Bannister brought his left crashing against his ear. He went down like a log. But he was out of it in a twinkling and getting up.

  Bannister’s eyes were flaming with the lust for combat. He met the man as he got to his feet with a straight right that he brought clear from the next county. The man stayed down this time. But Bannister caught a glint of metal just in time to leap aside as a gun roared. His own weapon was in his hand like a flash of light. Two thin tongues of flame licked at the deepening dusk and the other man grasped his right arm with a cry and dropped his gun. There were two bullets in that arm.

  “When your friend comes around,” Bannister drawled, breaking his gun to extract the empty shells and reload the two chambers, “you better hot-foot it for headquarters and tell ’em you’re leaving.”

  That’s all he said aloud. Round one, he mused to himself as he walked on along the corrals. I wouldn’t wonder if this would prove to be an evening.

  Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. A horse in the corral he was passing nickered. Somehow the nicker seemed familiar. He looked and stepped close to the rails. The nicker came again from right ahead of him. He looked sharply and came near crying out. There, tied to a rail within three feet of him, was his own horse that had been stolen the night he had been shot.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The corral tender sauntered toward Bannister. “Got a hoss in here?” he asked casually, more because he wanted to talk to someone than anything else.

  “Yes, but I don’t want him now,” Bannister replied. “Quite a scheme, this checking business.” He was wondering if it would do any good to ask the man who it was that had brought in his horse, but decided it wouldn’t, as the corral tenders had doubtless changed shifts.

  “Big boss thought up the scheme,” said the corral tender. “Said it would stop hosses bein’ stole an’ keep things orderly. Anyway, there wasn’t any place to tie ’em an’ you can see how many there are here.”

  “Plenty,” said Bannister, noting that this was the fourth corral from the upper end, and all were filled. “And at two dollars a head it means a sweet bit of change.”

  “You said it.” He chuckled as Bannister moved off.

  Then Bannister bethought himself of something. He stopped, and, when the tender strolled up to him, he asked: “I’m curious if this is a concession or if the company is running it . . . which is it?”

  “Company scheme, company profits,” replied the tender.

  “Well, Cromer isn’t overlooking anything,” Bannister observed. “If this celebration isn’t a moneymaker, then I’m a sheepherder.”

  “Yep,” said the man cheerfully. “Well, they’ve got a brand new bank vault to put it in.”

  “That’s right,” said Bannister, remembering. “The bank opened today, didn’t it?”

  “Sure did,” was the answer. “Nine this mornin’ to ten tonight is opening hours. Then the fireworks.”

  “Well, so long,” said Bannister, starting off. Somehow the man’s last words—Then the fireworks.—struck him queerly. There was a lot of cash in the Marble State Bank this night. The payments made by purchasers on their plot contracts must have amounted to thousands and thousands. The resorts and concession holders would bank big sums. And all this was cash—gold, silver, and bills. A perfect lure for cracksmen or even hold-ups.

  Bannister hurried up the street through the milling crowd. He found Tommy Gale in a place across the street from where he had been when Bannister left him. He was playing poker.

  Bannister went to the bar without appearing to notice him, and, after taking a glass of beer, he left. In a short time Tommy followed him out. Bannister led the way around the upper end of the street and behind the tents. He told Tommy quickly what had happened at the corrals. Then: “Where’s your horse?”

  “Around back of the stands,” Tommy replied, waving a hand toward the east side of town where the temporary stadium was located.

  “Listen, Tommy,” said Bannister in guarded tones, “now you know my horse, don’t you?”

  “Pretty near as well as I do my own,” Tommy replied.

  “All right,” said Bannister with satisfaction. “Now you go and get your horse. Ride around to the corrals and up to the fourth from the upper end. My horse is tied just above the gate. You can spot him in no time. Put your horse up there. Act like you’d had a little bit too much. Get to talking with the corral tender. He wants to talk, for he’s lonesome out there away from the crowd. You better pack a bottle along and give him a drink. Give him all he’ll take. Sit down and lean against a post, or go over in the shadow of a tent and pretend to go to sleep … anything so long as you keep an eye on my horse. We want to see who comes for him and we don’t want whoever does come for him to get out of town. That is, unless I follow him. They probably thought I was too much under the weather to get to the celebration. But by now they must know different. They’ll be planning to whisk that horse away now that night has come. Do you gather my drift?”

  “Sure do,” said Tommy. “I gathered it before you said it.”

  “All right,” said Bannister, “go to it. Now I’m going to try and see who those Canadians report to. They’ll beat it to the doctor’s place to get that arm fixed up. Then they’ll edge around to headquarters, whoever or wherever that is. I aim to find out. But don’t you
let anyone get out of town with my horse, if you have to shoot him out of the saddle. Whoever comes for him is mixed up in the rustling, I’ll bet on that. When I’m through with my sleuthing, I’ll beat it over there where you are. Got it all straight?”

  “Straight as a string,” said Tommy softly. “An’ I’ll sure keep the saddle on my hoss. I’ll mosey over an’ get that cayuse, but first I’ll get a bottle like you said. I can fake my part of the drinking.”

  He went back into the resort where he had been playing cards and Bannister proceeded down the street. He continued on until he reached the hospital tent at the lower end of the street. There he stealthily peered within. He saw immediately that his surmise had been correct. The Canadians were there and the man he had shot in the arm was being treated.

  He stepped into the shadow between the tents on the upper side and waited for the pair to come out. They didn’t come out for some time, and, when they did, one of them had his right arm in a sling.

  They turned up the street and Bannister did not have much trouble following them, despite the crowd. Indeed, the crowd acted as a cover for his movements. They crossed the street and continued up the other side. This also was as Bannister had expected, for it was on this side of the street that the Dome Palace was located. They were making for that place, he felt sure.

  But when they reached the big resort they did not go in the entrance but picked their way through ropes and stays between the tents on the lower side to the rear. Bannister was suspicious of this move. He made his way to the rear of the big tent on the upper side and, peering around the corner of the canvas, could plainly see the two men in the shadow. There was no light behind the tents, although the street was lighted by gasoline torches.

  One of the pair went into the tent by the rear entrance and Bannister could see the white bandages about the forearm of the other. He waited quietly. In a few moments two men came out. One of them was short and slight, with a great hat that seemed to overbalance his diminutive figure. Bannister recognized him as Le Beck. The four slipped from behind the tents and walked rapidly among the parked vehicles to the temporary bowl that had been erected for the rodeo sports. They disappeared underneath the largest stand. Bannister followed as closely as he could without being seen. But when he reached the rear of the stand, he could see nothing but inky blackness underneath.

  He moved in under the tiers of seats cautiously. But for all his caution he bumped against posts and stumbled over pieces of wood and uneven ground. All was still. The only sounds were those Bannister made himself. He halted, listened intently, and endeavored to accustom his eyes to the intense darkness. Then he saw a faint glimmer of light some distance off to his left. He moved carefully in that direction, holding out his hands in front of him, taking one slow, careful step at a time.

  The needle of light shone brighter, and, as he progressed, he saw the pale starlight beyond it and realized that this light came from the extreme northern end of the stand. There, though he did not know it at the time, quarters had been boarded in for some of the more prominent riders and officials of the rodeo. Thus, when he finally could make out the source of the light, he saw it came from a crack between the boards of a room. There were other glimmers of light, too, from other cracks. The sound of voices came to him as he approached stealthily. Then he heard a louder voice that he did not recognize.

  “Remember,” this voice said sharply, “when the first rockets go up.”

  Then came silence. The light suddenly went out. A door opened and closed somewhere. Murmurs of voices came to his ears, but he could make out nothing of what was being said. They died away. Then the silence again.

  Bannister crept toward the opening around the rooms. When he stole out from under the stand, he could see no one. The men had disappeared. From the inside of the bowl, however, came the pounding of hammers, and Bannister knew they were completing the frames for the setting off of the fireworks.

  When the first rockets go up, he recalled. Now what?

  Something was afoot. This doubtless explained the attack the two Canadians had made upon him when he had taken the initiative after they had accosted him. They planned to beat him up or shoot him—get him out of the way somehow. But what did they intend to do when the fireworks began?

  Bannister picked his way through wagons and buckboards to the rear of the Dome Palace, his alert gaze roving everywhere. He saw no one and entered the tent at the rear. Although he circled about the inside, looking at those who stood before the bars and the players at the tables, he saw neither Le Beck nor Hayes or either of the Canadians. This led him to believe they had been under the grandstand and consequently were involved in any scheme that was being cooked up.

  He went into the street, which was rapidly becoming deserted as the throngs made their way to the stadium to view the fireworks. Men were filing out of the canvas-covered resorts to see the show in the skies. Bannister instinctively looked up and instantly became aware of two things—two changes in the elements of air and sky—that he had not noticed as he concentrated on his trailing of the men. The sky eastward and southward was alive with stars. But directly overhead it seemed as if a line had been drawn, cutting the zenith. To the north and west of it, the sky was dark. Clouds were scuttling, rolling the line of stars before it. The wind had freshened, but it was a hot wind, hotter even than the breeze that had dallied during the day as if being blown gently from the jaws of a furnace. Then suddenly all motion of air ceased.

  Bannister knew the signs. One of those sudden, terrific electric storms that are a terror of the northern semi-altitudes was sweeping down from the northwest. It would come with the speed of an express train, wreak its havoc, and rush on. Even as he stood looking upward, a flash of dazzling white fire crinkled in the north, as if leaping the peaks in a celestial ecstasy over the advent of the storm. The air was perfectly still, with the heat weighing down, until the earth seemed a cauldron fed by unseen fires.

  Bannister was standing still in the center of the deserted street, torn in this moment of emergency by indecision. He had started for the corrals to see if Tommy Gale was still there. But how about the safety of Florence Marble, who most certainly had gone to see the fireworks? And the unknown move on the part of the men he had followed that was set for . . . ?

  There was a rush of flame to the east as a dozen rockets soared into the sky, leaving a trail of fiery sparks to rain down almost to the earth. Blue, red, and yellow balls blossomed in the high heavens and were flung headlong by the racing wind, which now dipped and plunged and burst with a wild, deafening roar. The storm came in with all the ferocity the elements could muster.

  Bannister braced himself against the terrific blast of wind and saw a horseman galloping up the street. The form in the saddle appeared familiar. He recognized Tommy.

  “Behind the bank!” Tommy shouted. “Run like . . . !” His words were taken out of his mouth by the blast and hurled away.

  Bannister was on the run down the street in a moment, the wind hurling him on. Tommy galloped ahead of him. He could see the light streaming from the front windows of the bank. Behind the bank! Tommy had shouted. The warning had come on the heels of the signal of the bursting rockets. So that was it—the bank. The lure of gold and silver—of cash—had done its work. Blue flame from the gasoline torches streaked out, giving practically no light. Some were blown out. The street darkened. The shrieking wind brought other hideous sounds—shouts and cries and screams. The world seemed to be spinning.

  Bannister dodged into a space between the bank and the next building. He brought up at the rear of the new building as red arrows of fire stabbed the blackness to the sharp barking of guns. His weapon was in his hand. Then of an instant all was brighter than day in a blinding sheet of lightning. In that long instant Bannister saw a man running out the rear door of the bank. A horseman beyond the door was Tommy. To the left were horses. Bannister and Tommy both fired as the blackness shut in, and the heavens exploded in a deafening crash of
thunder that seemed to rock the very earth.

  A yellow beam of light shone from the open door. Bannister ran for it as a shadow flashed through it. He fired. There were red streaks in front of him in answer. Another lightning bolt shot across the sky and a ball of blue-white fire burst to eastward. The crash of thunder that followed almost threw him to the ground. “It struck!” he shouted, and came into the beam of lamplight.

  He saw a man dashing for the door through a short, narrow corridor, a gun in his hand. He leaped upon the one step as the man reached the door. It was Cromer, his face bloodless—a ghastly white. He fired pointblank at Bannister and Bannister’s hat was knocked from his head by the impact of a bullet. Then the door banged shut and shots rang out behind.

  The rushing black terror above winked three times with its blue-white lightning. The thunderbolts and the thunderclaps came instantaneously. A riderless horse passed by Bannister and he leaped for the dragging reins, grasped them, and brought the animal up. He swung into the saddle and the feel of it told him instantly that it was his own—he was on his own horse!

  A lurid glare shot upward, brightened—a crimson tongue flared into the face of the wind.

  “Fire!” a piercing shriek came from somewhere.

  Then something struck Bannister on his right side, almost knocking him from the saddle. He struggled with it as his horse bolted. It was a piece of canvas. One of the horse’s hoofs caught in it and they went down. Bannister held to the reins although he had been flung over the animal’s head. He was up instantly, pulling at the canvas. A flash of lightning showed him something white darting overhead. The tents were going.

  He freed his horse and swung back into the saddle just as the great cloud reservoir burst and the rain came down in one solid sheet like a cataract.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Bannister’s horse was cavorting wildly. He drew a tight rein on the animal and started around the line of tents, guided by the continuous flashes of lightning that played incessantly through the downpour. The thunder crashed and rolled as the storm unleashed its fury. He finally reached the street, dazed and drenched. Tent ropes and wooden stakes and torn sheets of canvas were hurtling through the air on that roaring wind. The rain came heavier and heavier—a cloudburst.