Savage Range

by Short, Luke;

  “No blunter than I want. It’s not news to me.”

  “All right. When we made our plans, we saw it was risky. Also, there was no assurance that we wouldn’t double-cross each other if we got a chance.”

  “I can understand that,” Mary said dryly.

  “On the other hand, if we were square with each other, we both stood to profit. But Buckner wanted to make sure of one thing. That was, that I wouldn’t kill him if I saw a chance to grab the Ulibarri grant by myself.”

  “You’re both lovely men, I know,” Mary commented.

  Bonsell ignored her. “So he couldn’t make me his heir. He figured I’d kill him if he did. But in case of his accidental death, he wanted to leave me somethin’. Can’t you guess what it was?”

  “The charter?”

  “That’s it. He left me the charter. And whoever was goin’ to take over the Ulibarri grant—his heirs, you, your folks, or a shyster outfit would have to have the charter. That left me with the charter to bargain with. That was my reward for shootin’ square with him.” He paused. “Well, I got the charter. What’s it worth to you?”

  “You mean you’re trying to sell it to me so I can prove title to the Ulibarri grant?”

  “That’s it to a hair. What’s it worth to you?”

  “But I haven’t any money.”

  “If you get the charter you will have. In the neighborhood of half a million dollars, maybe more.”

  “But I can’t get your charter without money.”

  “I’ll trust you.”

  “You’ll what?” Mary asked, amazement in her voice.

  “I’ll trust you,” Bonsell said placidly. “Look here, Miss Buckner. I may have done a lot of things in my life that wouldn’t stand a too close look. But I’ve learned to judge people. I know an honest person, a fine woman when I see one. You’re both. Your note would be as good as gold with me, even if I couldn’t go to a court to collect it. That’d be enough, just your note.” Bonsell, for once, was telling the truth. He never doubted Mary’s honesty. All a man had to do was look at her to know that. She was a person who would keep her word to a dog. And that one point was what Bonsell counted on. In a year, he would have that money from her, with only her promise as security. Even if he was proven ten times over a murderer, Mary Buckner would keep her promise. And, far from considering his attitude strange, Bonsell thought it only natural.

  Mary looked at Bonsell a long moment. “That’s quite a compliment, considering the source of it.”

  Bonsell only grinned. “You’ll admit you need it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it’s yours for fifty thousand dollars.”

  Mary said, “Isn’t that quite a bit?”

  “Less than ten percent of what the Ulibarri grant is worth.” He rose. “Think it over, Miss Buckner. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  He left then. Mary called Sheriff Haynes and asked if she could see Cope.

  When Cope came, she told him of Bonsell’s offer. Cope left and went over to his rooms. Jim Wade was pacing the floor, his gray eyes hot with an anger that was almost choking him.

  He whirled at Cope’s entrance and said, “Have they let her out?”

  Cope shook his head and pushed Jim down into a chair. “Listen to this,” he said, and told him of Bonsell’s offer.

  For a long moment, Jim said nothing, staring at Cope. Then he said, “But the charter’s in the bank!”

  “That’s what we thought.”

  “But it is!” Jim insisted vehemently. “We know Buckner brought the charter with him because he told Scoville so. Would he keep it in his room?”

  “It don’t look like it.”

  “Would he keep it on him?”

  “No.”

  “Then where else could it be if it isn’t in the bank?”

  “But how can Bonsell get it if it’s in the bank?” Cope said gloomily. “The bank won’t give it to him. No, it’s got to be somewhere else.”

  Jim sat motionless for a moment, then comprehension flooded his face. He bounded up and grabbed Cope by the arm.

  “We’re fools, Cope, fools! Of course it’s in the bank! Don’t you see? Bonsell’s goin’ to bust the bank open and take it!”

  Cope scowled, watching him.

  “I know Bonsell,” Jim said, more quietly. “He never thinks of the risk in anything. What he wants, he’ll take. He’s busted banks before. He’ll bust this one. He’ll take all the cash he can find and rifle the boxes in the vault. And you’ll find when he’s done, the charter is gone out of Buckner’s box. It’ll pop up next week or so and cost Mary fifty thousand dollars.”

  Cope said, “But he’d give himself away.”

  “Who to?” Jim countered. “Nobody knows what’s in that box but us and Warren. Warren, he can take care of. But he doesn’t know we know it. Even the bank doesn’t know it. That makes it easy, doesn’t it?”

  He started pacing the floor again, and Cope watched him, letting this piece of information turn over in his mind. It sounded logical. It sounded like Max Bonsell.

  Jim paused and said quietly, “Also, he’s the coyote that nailed Buckner.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Easy,” Jim said grimly. “Scoville convinced Buckner that Bonsell was double-crossing him. They had a row, and Buckner kicked Bonsell out. Bonsell just had a fortune taken away from him. What’s left to be done? Get even with Buckner. But there was no information he could peddle to Mary that she didn’t know already. There was only one way to make money from his knowledge. That was to get the charter and sell it to Mary. So he got even with Buckner by killing him. And he’ll make his money on the charter. That could happen, couldn’t it?”

  “It could,” Cope conceded.

  “It did,” Jim said. He paused at one of the heavily curtained windows and looked over the roofs of the town. He felt like a trapped animal, helpless. As long as daylight lasted, he was penned up in these rooms, and could only try to walk his restlessness off. In the jail across the street, they were holding Mary Buckner, an innocent girl, on the rottenest frame-up charge possible. He had to throttle the impulse to tuck a gun in his waist, go out in broad daylight, and kill the man who tried to stop him from taking Mary Buckner out of that jail. But it wouldn’t help—except to prove to the world that Mary Buckner was guilty.

  He wheeled to face Cope. “What time is the preliminary hearing set for?”

  “Eleven o’clock. In ten minutes.”

  “Got the bail?”

  “Five thousand, right in my pocket.”

  Jim swore darkly and resumed his pacing. Cope left, and the place was silent. Ben Beauchamp was in Cope’s bed sleeping. Jim tried to quiet his racing brain by guessing at Bonsell’s plans. If Bonsell robbed the bank, it would be at night. Tonight? Maybe, maybe not. He’d be there to see, anyway.

  Even the thought of Bonsell brought red murder to his mind. Why not slip out tonight, wait for Bonsell or hunt him down and kill him? No, his judgment told him that was poor planning. Bonsell must be caught with the goods, and the capture must prove that Mary was innocent of Buckner’s murder, must prove her title to the grant, and prove his own innocence. But how could it all be done? He didn’t know.

  He paced the floor, clenching his fists till his knuckles were white. His pipe tasted foul, and he put it away without smoking. And he sat there, boiling—and helpless.

  Chapter Sixteen: OLD ENEMIES—NEW PARTNERS

  Bonsell was undecided about two or three things, but they would work themselves out. After he left Mary, he arranged for Buckner’s burial which would be in the afternoon. After the arrangements, he and Warren left the hardware store, in the back of which were the undertaking parlors.

  On the street, Warren said, “I’m much obliged for givin’ me an alibi for last night.”

  Bonsell murmured, “Por nada—for nothing. No use givin’ Haynes a chance to rawhide you when I could keep him from it, was there?”

  Warren said no. He rolled a smoke a
nd lighted it and then observed, “The funny part of it is, I had the chance to murder him and you had the motive to.” He looked at Bonsell. “We weren’t together last night. Neither one of us knows whether the other one did it.”

  “What motive would I have had?” Bonsell asked.

  “You double-crossed him on that false corner, didn’t you? When he saw you, he would have fired you.”

  “So that’s what he was goin’ to see me about?” Bonsell murmured. “Well, well. How’d he spot that?”

  “Scoville took him to see it.”

  “Scoville’s dead.”

  “Prob’ly wasn’t his name.”

  Bonsell smiled. “No, and I can tell you his name. It was Jim Wade. Remember me writin’ the boss about the way I hung that squatter trouble on Wade?”

  “Yeah, I got the letter here.”

  “Read it careful, then. I told you he broke jail and disappeared. Last week one of my riders spotted that false corner, and a man workin’ on it. It was Wade, and he drove Wade off.” Bonsell laughed. “Did Wade send for Buckner?”

  “Wrote him a letter.”

  “And Buckner talked to him before he talked to me?”

  Warren nodded, watching Bonsell carefully. Bonsell only shook his head and said in a tone of injury, “Now why didn’t he come to me right off? Pardee could have told him the whole story.”

  “You knew it, then?”

  “Knew it! It’s in the letter that’s waitin’ for Buckner in Sante Fe now,” Bonsell lied. “Could I tell him about it any faster? I wrote as soon as I went over and saw it for myself.”

  Warren was silent a long moment, teetering on the edge of the boardwalk. “That’s mighty queer,” he said, at last.

  “What is?”

  “Why, yesterday, I’d of sworn you was guilty of tryin’ to double-cross Buckner. I reckon I acted sort of short last night.”

  “I didn’t notice it if you did,” Bonsell said blandly.

  “Well, and now you tell me this mornin’ what it’s all about. And it sounds so damn simple, I’m wondering why both me and Buckner got up on our hind legs.”

  Bonsell nodded thoughtfully. “If he’d only talked to me first. He ought to know I’d never try and get away with a thing like that, even if he didn’t trust me. Wade, I reckon, hoped he’d do just that. Wade was trying to break our partnership.”

  “I can see that now.”

  “Too bad Buckner couldn’t.”

  Warren dropped his cigarette. “Who killed Buckner, Bonsell?”

  Bonsell scowled thoughtfully. “I dunno. What happened out there at the corner?”

  Warren told him. When he was finished Bonsell snapped his fingers. “Then you never saw Wade go back to town?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know he wasn’t followin’ you?”

  “Maybe he was.”

  “And when he saw Buckner ride into town instead of high-tailin’ it to me, he thought Buckner wasn’t goin’ to do anything about it. He saw where his plan didn’t work. But he still aimed to square things with the Excelsior. So he sneaked up to Buckner’s room, knowin’ you’d be gone, because he’d seen you go.”

  “But what about draggin’ that girl into it?”

  “She’s a Buckner, ain’t she? He don’t know anything about the girl’s fight with Buckner.”

  Warren thought this over a moment, then said, “So it’s Wade?”

  “Who else could it be?”

  “Well, I’m damned,” Warren said.

  Bonsell left him that way, saying he’d meet him around town. Walking over to the bank, he smiled to himself at Warren’s gullibility. Maybe he could use the man.

  At the bank, Bonsell asked for Charles Mitchell, the president. He wanted to straighten out Buckner’s affairs, he said, and close the Excelsior account. It took a little time, and all the time he was there he was examining the bank, its locks, its windows, its bars, its vault. Nothing escaped him, for his was a practiced eye. He saw the single rack of safety boxes against the left wall. They were steel boxes, labeled and locked. He didn’t inquire if Buckner had a safety-deposit box, because it was too risky. He simply gave the name of the Sante Fe bank where Buckner’s will was, and left.

  He ate at the Exchange House dining-room at a table by himself. The talk was all of Buckner’s murder, but he gave no opinions.

  After dinner, he loafed around the plaza. Soon he saw Will-John Cruver go into the Freighter’s Pleasure. He followed him and saw him standing at the bar. There were only a few men in the saloon, and those were either playing in the game of poker or watching it. Cope wasn’t around.

  Bonsell called for a whisky and saw in the bar mirror that Cruver was regarding him without any tear at all. The bartender brought the bottle and glass to Bonsell, then retired to his newspaper at the end of the bar. If he was surprised at seeing the heads of two warring factions drinking quietly at the same bar, he did not show it.

  Presently, Bonsell turned his head and said quietly, “Haven’t seen you around much, Will-John. Where you been?”

  “Buryin’ people,” Cruver answered.

  Bonsell smiled a little and said, “Now that the war’s over, we can buy each other a drink, can’t we?”

  Cruver said, “Who said it was over?”

  “You aimin’ to carry it on by yourself?”

  “Don’t know but what I will,” Cruver said.

  Bonsell slapped a half dollar on the counter and said softly, “We might talk it over downstreet.”

  He paid up and went out. Cruver followed him after a half minute’s interval. Bonsell headed for the Mexican cantina off the plaza. It was a low adobe affair of a single room that was cool in the midday sun.

  He was sitting at a table when Cruver walked in and took a chair opposite him. Bonsell called in Spanish for a bottle of whisky and two glasses, and then poured the drinks.

  “Well, it looks sort of tough for us both,” Bonsell announced.

  “You out of your job?”

  Bonsell nodded. “The Buckner girl will take over in a little while and she can’t use me. You, either.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Cruver drawled.

  “Make no mistake,” Bonsell went on. “She’s the rightful heir. All the fightin’ done around here will be you against the U.S. marshal.”

  Cruver shrugged.

  “I hate to leave the place without takin’ a little somethin’ with me,” Bonsell murmured.

  Cruver’s crafty eyes narrowed. “Like what?”

  “Money.”

  “Where’ll you get it?”

  “Where most people put it.”

  “The bank, hunh?”

  Bonsell shrugged. “Ever bust a bank? Know anything about it?”

  Cruver shook his head.

  “This one’s easy,” Bonsell said. “I happen to know that Buckner deposited twenty thousand in it the day he got here.”

  Cruver’s eyes lighted up.

  “But you ain’t interested,” Bonsell went on. “You’re goin’ to stick here and fight, you said.”

  “Not if I can get out with money.”

  Bonsell smiled suddenly. “You can. I need another man.”

  It didn’t seem peculiar to either of them that they should throw together. After all, Bonsell’s status was that of a paid fighting man, and Cruver had been illegally holding land that did not belong to him. Underneath they were of the same stripe, Bonsell with the brains, the quickness, Cruver with the strength and the stubbornness. It occurred to both of them that they were admirable partners, and that they were wasting their time fighting each other. Bonsell named the meeting-place and left. Cruver stayed long enough to finish the bottle of whisky, reflecting on his great good fortune.

  Buckner’s funeral was a hurried affair. A hired buck-board was the hearse, and Germany Kling, a pious sort of man, offered to officiate. Link Haynes, Kling, Bonsell, and Warren were the only ones attending. It was significant that Harvey Buckner, who had been friendless in
life, had only a hired preacher, a suspicious lawman, and two hired gunmen to put him to rest.

  Afterward, Kling and Haynes rode home in the buck-board, and Warren and Bonsell went to their horses. The Spanish gravedigger was already at his work.

  “What do you aim to do now?” Bonsell asked Warren.

  “Ride.”

  “Want to bust a bank before we leave?” Bonsell asked casually. There was no use mincing words; Warren was a man like himself.

  Warren regarded him soberly. “Is it worth it?”

  “I dunno. Cope coins money in that place of his. He uses this bank. That alone ought to be worth it.”

  Warren agreed, much as he would have agreed to a drink in the nearest saloon.

  “Then get your war bag. Stop in at Haynes’s office, tell him you’re ridin’, then hit the trail. Tonight we’ll meet.” He named the place. At the plaza, they shook hands in public and parted, and Warren went on to the sheriff’s office.

  Bonsell watched him go, a wicked smile on his face. Two fools, Warren and Cruver.

  Chapter Seventeen: “COME AND GET ME!”

  As soon as dark came, Jim, Scoville, and Ben slipped out to the edge of town where they got the horses Scoville had left there. Once mounted, they sought the alleys and without any difficulty achieved the one that ran past the rear of the bank. Scoville then took the horses, went up the alley with them, and tied them at the hitchrail that ran alongside the sheriff’s office.

  When he came back, Jim had chosen their hiding-places. One was in the shed directly back of the bank. That was Scoville’s and Ben’s place. His own was immediately behind the board fence adjoining the shed.

  Jim judged that while Bonsell would have preferred many hours of darkness in which to get away after the robbery, he could not risk an attempt early in the evening. The robbery would take place after the town had emptied, and while it was asleep. Nevertheless, Jim could not take the risk of missing him.

  They squatted inside the shed to wait, and the hours dragged by. None of them said much, Jim Wade least of all. He had known anger before, but the sight of Mary Buckner when she came to Cope’s rooms, smiling but lost and afraid, had done something to him. He felt like a machine now, intent on only one thing—to punish Bonsell for hurting her. It was a different kind of anger, a cool one, a killing one, the kind a man experienced when he saw a man reach for a gun and knew that he himself must reach faster and shoot straighter. A man couldn’t afford a hot anger then, and Jim Wade couldn’t now.