by Dean Owen
Grabbing out the automatic, Gary shot point-blank.
The bullet spun the man around, and sprawled him flat, clutching at his shoulder.
Not one of the other men stirred. As though rooted in their tracks, they stood paralyzed, watching helplessly, as Gary joined Leda and the two of them backed away—out of the fireglow, into the sheltering blackness of the woods.
CHAPTER TWELVE
With slow reluctant footsteps Gary trudged up the main-street sidewalk in Saghelia, through a gray dreary rain.
He was sore from his fight last night, his face was bruised, his burst knuckle smarted; but of that and the cold rain he was totally unaware. He was thinking, only, that with every step he was drawing nearer his salvation or doom—the Mounted Police quadrangle at the south edge of town.
It had been nearly morning when he and Leda finally got home—cold and weary but thankful to be alive. When he thought back upon the ambush last night, the overwhelming odds, his fight with Hugh Ludlow, the black-snake, and all that those men intended doing to him, he shuddered.
From the shelter of awnings and doorways people stared at him as he went by. A few made remarks, and once he caught Leda’s name linked insultingly with his own. But he paid no attention. His visit to Sergeant Rhodes was more momentous business than punching a pool-hall idler.
More than anything else, it was his hour last evening at the tarn which had brought him in to Saghelia. As things stood, he was helpless to do anything for Leda or himself. But if Rhodes could deliver him from his outlawry, then he’d be free to take Leda away from Saghelia.
As he trudged along through the rain, he tried to plan what to say to Rhodes and just how to tell the story of that calamitous Winnipeg night. Only a fool—or an exceedingly wise person—would ever believe so fantastic an account.
He felt that if Rhodes did believe him, the officer would put up a hard fight in his defense. But what, in the Lord’s name, could Rhodes do? His duty gave him little leeway or discretion; he was two thousand miles from Winnipeg; the case was two months cold.
“Short of pulling a rabbit out of a hat,” Gary thought, “I don’t see how he can lift a hand to help me. When he hears my story he may just smile that queer smile of his and jerk his thumb at the butter-tub.”
As he passed out of the business section of Saghelia, his footsteps dragged. He realized that this might be the last free walk of his life. When he turned occasionally and gazed into the gray mist at the invisible mountains of Little Saghelia, all his instincts clamored at him to whirl around and get back there, before it was too late.
Three blocks from the Police quadrangle, he came to the Ludlow home; and through the high iron fence he looked at it thoughtfully, as he went past. The grounds were lavishly landscaped, with rock gardens, imported trees, bird fountains and neatly patterned shrubbery. The landscape artist, working with flowers and greenery, had fashioned a very lovely scene, Gary thought. Too lovely, in fact. Too correct and stiffly perfect. There was no wildness about it, and wildness was the very heart of nature’s mystic beauty.
It seemed ironic to him that a man should turn a whole lovely mountain valley to ugly desolation and then surround himself with this formal and lavish “nature.”
The home itself, a big mansion of brick and marble, ivy-clad, half-hidden by sweeping Tibetan pines, had an air of cold emptiness about it. With something of pity Gary thought of the old man living there, whose wife and two daughters had been in Europe for years, whose fortune was about to crash in ruins, whose son gave him no loyalty, help or comfort. Truly and profoundly the split-log cabin up Little Saghelia housed more human happiness and joy in life than this place dreamed of.
As he walked past the drive entrance, a long black limousine came purring up the street from the mills, and turned in at the arched stone gateway. Gary glanced uninterestedly at the lone man occupant in the rear seat.
“Why, gosh,” he breathed, taking a second look, “it’s the old Blizzard himself! It’s Hugh’s daddy!”
He noticed that old Ludlow gave him a long stare, then leaned forward and asked the chauffeur some question. But he thought nothing more of this, and went on past.
When he was a little way up the walk, he heard the squeal of brakes, and glanced around. The car was backing out of the drive.
To his surprise the automobile glided up the street and stopped at the curb beside him, and the chauffeur motioned him to come over to the car.
“You want me?” Gary asked.
Old Ludlow lowered the window panel. “Yes, you!” he barked, without removing the cigar from his mouth. “Come here.” And to the driver: “Leave me alone a minute.”
As the chauffeur obediently stepped out into the heavy drizzle and moved off, Gary approached the car, still believing this was a mistake. Why under the sun should old Hugh Ludlow want a private talk with him?
Through the open window he looked at young Hugh’s father, a hard-faced man of sixty, with iron-gray hair and bulldog jaw. In voice and feature and domineering gesture the two were strikingly alike. But the father seemed much more a man than the son. He seemed to have strength of purpose and character about him, where young Hugh had only willfulness and undisciplined appetites.
With cold disdainful eyes old Ludlow stared at Gary, at his patched clothes, battered hat and muddy shoes.
“Are you the fellow who’s living up Little Saghelia at that old ground-hog’s shack?”
Gary’s sympathy of a few minutes ago went glimmering. The man’s stare and tyrannical tones irritated him, and he resented that reference to old Nat.
He retorted: “Nat Higgens isn’t a ground-hog, and he doesn’t live in a shack. When you mention him to me, try to be civil, even if it doesn’t come natural.”
“Answer my question. Are you the fellow?”
“I am, and what about it?”
Old Ludlow paid no attention to anger in a person so far beneath him.
“Good. Been wanting to see you. Been intending to send a man to bring you to town. Got a proposition to make.”
“Yes?” Gary fenced. A “proposition,” was it? Probably had something to do with this struggle between himself and young Hugh.
“Yes! Money in it for you.” He paused, watched Gary; and when the latter showed no excitement at this mention of easy money, he frowned in surprise. “You listening to me?”
“I’m not deaf. Let’s have your proposition.”
Old Ludlow chewed on his cigar for a moment, then demanded bluntly: “What d’you think of this Barton girl up there? You and her get along all right, do you?”
Gary colored a little. “You don’t mind prying into a person’s private affairs! What I think of Miss Barton is my own business.”
“Answer my question!”
“Why, you old piece of impudence, go to hell!” Gary flared out. He turned away. “Take your proposition, whatever it is, and go jump!”
“Wait a minute. Come back here. I’m talking big money to you. You’d better listen.”
Gary got hold of himself and stopped. “Why,” he thought, “I’m acting like a boob, letting that old hard-face rile me. If I was sensible, I’d listen and maybe learn something worth knowing.” He walked back to the car. “All right, I’ll listen. Make it snappy.”
Old Ludlow was forthright. He demanded, point-blank: “What’ll you take to marry that girl?”
Gary nearly fell over. “Marry her?” he gasped. “Is that your—your proposition?”
“That’s it! Marry her, get her out of Saghelia, get her clear out of the country! Come on! What d’you say?”
As he stared at old Ludlow, Gary realized that the offer was genuine; and in spite of his amazement he saw the motive behind that offer. If Leda Barton was out of the country and entirely out of young Hugh’s life, the latter would have to write her off, and then he would turn to Mona Casper. With those mines clo
sing down and the Ludlow fortune toppling to disaster, old Ludlow was offering a price to anyone who’d get Leda away!
Not a bad move. Quite sensible and shrewd, even if blunt. Certainly a far more decent and worthy move than young Hugh’s resort to criminal weapons.
“When I say ‘marry’,” old Ludlow rapped, “that’s what I mean. No sham stuff. Legal and court-tight. This Rhodes person can do it. What’ll you take, I say?”
Gary-almost laughed aloud. Mercy of heaven, money for marrying Leda. Getting paid to marry his Lee partner!
“You’re right about it being easy money,” he said, “but,”—he shook his head decisively—“I have to turn you down. Besides the fact that I’m not exactly free to do what I want to, I wouldn’t care to get married on Ludlow dollars.”
Old Ludlow snorted. “Huh! Trying to squeeze a stiff price out of me, are you? I’ll pay you five thousand, cash, and if you stall around any I’ll hire somebody else to marry her!”
Gary did laugh at that. “I tell you, there’s nothing doing.” He turned away. “I’m not stalling or jacking up any price.”
“Hold on.” Old Ludlow clambered out of the car, followed him to the sidewalk and caught his arm. “Are you crazy? You don’t have to live with her. Just marry her and get her out of the country.”
Gary freed himself. “I told you no! That’s flat and final.” He started on, for the Police quadrangle.
“But wait!”—old Ludlow was following him down the walk. “I’ll make it seventy-five hundred, and you have her out of here tomorrow. Seventy-five hundred dollars!”
“Go on back and get out of the rain,” Gary called, over his shoulder. It seemed an odd twist, an incredible thing, that old Hugh Ludlow, master of all these mines and mills and timber limits, should be following a penniless “bum” down a rainy sidewalk, arguing, begging. And stranger still, the strangest twist in all his life, that he was actually being offered a small fortune to marry Leda!
“Wait, you!” Old Ludlow shouted. “Listen to me. Wait.”
Without turning, Gary motioned at him to go back.
“Hey! Stop!” There was a note of the frantic, now, in old Ludlow’s voice. “Let’s talk it over.”
Gary walked on, rapidly outdistancing the older man.
“You there!”—the words came to Gary indistinctly. “Ten thousand! D’you hear me? You damned fool. Ten thousand dollars—just for marrying that little huzzy—”
At that, Gary took one final glance back at old Ludlow, gave him an emphatic thumbs down, and then strode on.
* * * *
Across the desk in Sergeant Rhodes’ cottage, Gary confronted the enigmatic officer.
“Well, here I am, Sergeant.”
“So I perceive,” Rhodes replied. If he was at all surprised by Gary’s visit, he showed no sign. He motioned at the comfortable wicker chair. “Sit down.”
Gary refused. “I’d rather take it standing up,” he said. Through the window, where a clump of wild roses brushed against the screen, he saw the Police butter-tub, a small gray structure of cement and steel; and its likeness to a death cell gave him a bad jar. “I guess there’s no use beating around the bush. I came here to give myself up.”
That seemed to surprise Rhodes a bit. But he said nothing; merely looked at Gary.
“You’ve known all along who I am,” Gary went on. “You’re harder to read than Chinese in the dark; but that first day, when I had the run-in with Hugh Ludlow, I had a hunch you recognized me. Why didn’t you nail me then, Rhodes? You were waiting for my buddies to show up, weren’t you?”
For a little time Rhodes eyed Gary narrowly, as though debating what answer to make. At last he nodded slightly.
“Well, that was once, Rhodes, when you made a mistake. There aren’t any buddies, never were, never will be.”
Rhodes thrummed casually on the desk, still eying Gary. “You mean you handled this job entirely by yourself.”
“No! I mean to say I didn’t have a cussed thing to do with that robbery and killing. Rhodes, I actually didn’t know what happened till I read it in a newspaper. I do know some facts about the business—which I never got a chance to tell; but except for that I’m no more implicated than you are.”
At that word “killing,” Rhodes stiffened a little and stopped thrumming. His curious eyes puzzled Gary.
“What’s the matter, Rhodes?”
“Nothing. You were telling me that you’re not implicated.”
“And that’s what I mean! This information here”—he pointed to a Frazier poster tacked on the order board—“it’s so cock-eyed crazy that I’d laugh at it, only a fellow can’t very well laugh with a noose around his neck.”
Rhodes looked at the poster; his eyes opened widely; he looked again at Gary, and came to his feet.
“You? You’re Gary Frazier?”
The question fairly stunned Gary. He stared dumfoundedly at the officer.
“Why—why,” he gulped, “didn’t you know?”
In silent amazement Rhodes stepped over to the board for a look at the picture. Presently he turned around.
“I do see a resemblance, now that you’ve told me who you are. And you’re Frazier. And you’ve been around here for a month! I’ll be damned!”
“But—but hell’s bells, man, you just got through saying you knew me, knew everything!”
“I hadn’t the faintest idea who you were or what you wanted to give yourself up for. But I did suspect it might be important, so I merely allowed you to tell me.”
Gary mopped his forehead. “And you didn’t know! You strung me along and let me blurt it all out! I’ve seen a lot of poker-faced so-and-so’s, but you beat ’em all, Rhodes!”
The sergeant smiled faintly at the compliment. Across the desk they gazed at each other, officer and outlaw. Gradually, as he realized that his visitor was a man facing death for a double killing, Rhodes’ smile faded. At last he inquired:
“What made you so sure that I recognized you, Frazier?”
“I don’t know; I guess it was just your way,” Gary said, groping for words to express the officer’s mesmeric silence. For a whole month that silence and the memory of the sergeant’s uncanny eyes had preyed on him, till he felt dead-positive that the officer knew everything. “I guess you just hypnotized me, Rhodes.”
“But why did you walk in here like this? Surely you realize what’s against you. You had little chance to escape, but why did you throw that little away?”
“I came here to tell you my story, Rhodes. If you don’t help me out, I’m going to swing.”
Without answering, Rhodes turned to a steel cabinet, unlocked a drawer and sorted out a brown envelope. “Pardon me,” he said, taking out the enclosed papers. “I want to glance over the details of your case again. I wasn’t exactly looking for you to show up here at Saghelia.”
While Rhodes read the secret departmental data from headquarters, Gary leaned against the desk and waited, fighting hard to be steady. On this hour hung life or death or him; and the quiet of the little cottage was more terrible than the silence when Skunk-Bear had stalked him on the ledge. Then his life had depended upon his own brains and courage, but here he was helpless, his fate wholly in the hands of this officer.
When Rhodes finally folded the papers and looked up his face was grave; and the pity in his eyes struck a chill into Gary.
“It’s—it’s pretty bad, isn’t it, Rhodes?”
“Yes, bad. Didn’t you realize that I’d have to take you up?”
Gary’s hands gripped the desk top, and he battled against the paralyzing conviction that he had lost his fearsome gamble. Past Rhodes’ shoulder he caught another glimpse of the cement-steel butter-tub; and as he thought of Leda and the cabin and the wild freedom of Little Saghelia, something near to panic shook him.
“Yes, I knew you’d have to a
ct,” he managed. “But I thought that with your experience and Police connections, you might figure some way to help me. That is, if you’ll believe my story.”
“I’d like to hear it, of course,” Rhodes said gently. He proffered cigarettes.
Gary shook his head, scarcely noticing. The monotonous rain drumming upon the cottage roof was bringing him vivid memories of that Winnipeg night when, in the space of a few hours, the whole course of his life had been changed.
“I’ll make it short,” he said, forcing himself to speak calmly to the man across the desk. “Here it is:
“I got out of law school in Chicago on the tenth of June. Besides needing money, I wanted an outdoor summer, so I headed north for Canada.
“At Fort Frances, there on the Border, I buddied up with three young fellows, transients like myself; and we caught a rattler on to Winnipeg.
“While we were living in a hobo jungle there, waiting to get shipped to a job we’d signed up for, another fellow joined us, a person we called Greenie. I think Winnipeg was his home—he seemed to know all the ropes around the town.
“Those other three fellows thought Greenie was pretty hot stuff, but he and I didn’t get along. I sized him up as a chiseler and small-potato crook. One evening we had a quarrel and a fight, and I threw him out on his ear. He stood outside in the rain cursing me. I went to sleep with him standing outside that tin shack spewing oaths at me.
“Along about midnight I was waked up by a flashlight in my face, and there was a cop and a Mounty bending over me and just ready to snap the handcuffs on. The Mounty said, ‘Are you Gary Frazier?’ and when I said ‘Yes,’ the cop blurted, ‘My God, he blows two fellows’ brains out and then goes to sleep like a baby!’
“That sure jarred me plenty. I didn’t know what it was all about, and I didn’t hang around to find out. I slugged those two, snagged a blind and got away.
“The next noon, at Brandon, I bought a morning paper to find out what had happened. I knew there’d been a killing and I was somehow involved, but I wasn’t really scared yet. I imagined the mistake would be cleared up quick, and I was thinking, I’d go back and let ’em take me.
