by Zane Grey
It seemed to shout with many piercing voices at the trail driver. It was haunted. Gray ghastly ruin of caravans! How many lives sacrificed to the bloody greed of the border? Faces of rugged pioneers, scalped heads of women, nude bodies of children gazed mournfully out of that pile upon Blue. Had he not met thousands of caravans? Did he not know the lion-hearted men, the courageous quiet-eyed women, the innocent playing youngsters of the tide of empire that moved west? No man could know them better than the trail driver. And he sank down shudderingly sick, struck to his soul, momentarily warped from his relentless purpose. He had seen the work of Satana and Latch. Bloody devils! He ground his teeth in irrepressible rage. But the fierce Kiowa chief could be understood, for the white man had driven him into the waste places, robbed him of meat. But not so Latch! What a monster! This was the secret of Spider Web Canyon, this the shadow on Latch’s past, this the end of Bowden’s lost wagon train.
Blue felt only hatred for Latch in that moment. He repudiated his stern resolve of rescue. Let Leighton work his will on his great enemy. Let Latch take his due. However brutal Leighton’s revenge, it could not be enough. Then into Blue’s righteous wrath flashed thought of Estelle. His flower-faced Estelle, with her innocence and sweetness, was this border murderer’s daughter. A storm of conflicting emotion shook Blue to the core.
At the moment he felt the Indian’s moccasined foot upon his outstretched hand. Blue raised his head. Hawk Eye made a slight gesture, imperious and warning. Slowly Blue expanded his lungs in an exhaustive breath. Then he crawled silently in the wake of the Kiowa, glad to get under cover again.
This last tedious approach ended in a little covert on the very edge of the thicket. Here and there apertures in the foliage emitted bright light. The open was less than an arm’s-length away and the barrier only leaves.
Blue took his cue from the Indian, who cautiously rose on one knee to peep out through a hole. Only then did Blue give attention to the voices beyond the green screen.
“Ho! Ho! and a bottle of rum!”
That was Leighton’s harsh voice, vibrant with an exultant ring. Then followed a clinking crash that nonplused Blue.
“Listen to that music, Bruce…. What ho! Gold! Gold! Gold!”
The long metallic tinkle ending in a ringing crash came indeed from gold. Blue recognized a sound he had become familiar with in the gambling-hells of Dodge. It thrilled and astounded him. Gold here in Spider Web Canyon? It had to do with that pile of wagon wreckage. Rising on one knee beside Hawk Eye, he found a slit between leaves.
Less than fifty feet away, against the colorful background of the open sunny canyon, he espied Leighton, nude from the waist up, radiant and hideous of face, in the act of lifting a double handful of gold coins from a basin which lay upon a flat rock, to let them slide out in a glinting stream back into the sounding tin. A number of little canvas sacks tied at the neck lay clustered on that flat rock. They told an incredible story. Latch, adventuring back to this canyon for the proof he required, had found gold neither he nor any of his band had ever known had slid over that wall with the wagons.
Blue had to force his gaze away from Leighton. The second spectacle to rivet it was the headboard of a prairie-schooner, leaning against a sapling. It appeared to be in a remarkably good state of preservation. Red letters on a background of green were legible. Tullt & Co. No. I A. Latch had found the proof he had sought and a fortune in gold besides. Leighton, tracking him to his lair, had surprised him and captured him in the act.
Farther on a few steps, Breese was puttering round the camp fire. He was a little wiry man with a weazened face, and a formidable look. Though the day was hot, he still wore his heavy gun belt; the rapt Leighton had dispensed with his.
Hawk Eye nudged Blue and directed his attention to another peephole in the foliage. Through this one he espied Bruce Kennedy, dark and mask-like of countenance, sitting on a rock, with inscrutable eyes on Leighton. A few steps to his right appeared Latch, bound upright to a spruce tree, the lower branches of which had been trimmed off. Latch’s gray head drooped, so that Blue could not see his face. It struck Blue that the man’s hair was distinctly grayer than when he had seen him last. Latch made a picture of abject, hopeless despair.
Blue’s next move was to find a longer slit in the foliage through which he could hafe all the men in sight at once. This took him six feet or more from the Kiowa, who followed to give him a warning gesture. It was lost upon Blue. The great Kiowa scout had done his work. Blue was almost tempted to laugh. The game was his. The miserable Latch in his collap$e, the mad Leighton in his triumph, the traitor Kennedy absorbed in his scheme—these men were beyond suspicion of their environment. But Breese had to be catered to and watched. An unusual sound in the brush, the chatter of a squirrel or squall of a jay, would not be overlooked by him. Blue knelt on one knee, gun in hand, and peered stealthily out, resolved to go the limit in patience. This drama was one to see played out. Pity for Latch knocked at Blue’s heart, but did not gain entrance. Once more he lent keen ears to the talk of the outlaws.
“He never knew the gold was in that wagon,” declared Leighton, evidently addressing Kennedy. “When I slipped up on Latch he was digging the bags out of that old wagon-bed. Couldn’t have heard the crack of doom.”
“Ha! Reckon it was the crack of doom,” replied Kennedy.
“Bruce, you don’t seem wild with joy over this find,” complained Leighton. “There’s all of fifty thousand dollars in those bags.”
“I won’t be yet awhile.”
“God! to think that gold was hid in the bottom of the big schooner all the time!” exclaimed Leighton, and walked out of the sun to wipe his sweaty face. “I remember that Tullt wagon. Something different all the way through. It had a false bottom. But I was too crazy over the Bowden girl to look at anything else.”
“Ahuh. Wal, loosen up, Lee,” returned Kennedy, with sarcasm. “You been close-mouthed all these years. It’s time you spilled over.”
“I will, you bet, soon as my old pard Latch perks up enough to see and hear.”
Breese manifestly heard, for he left his task to come over and speak, “Your idee is to stay hyar awhile?”
“I should smile.”
“How long?”
“Days, anyhow.”
“It’s a no-good idee.”
Leighton guffawed with the intolerance of the master who had conquered all.
“Sam, it’s the best idee I ever had in all my life.”
“Ahuh. Wal, we don’t agree. You left thet damned trail driver alive back there to muss up your plans.”
“Lee, I’m agreein’ with Sam,” interposed Kennedy, curtly.
“I see you are. Well, what do you agree on?” replied Leighton, impatiently.
“We wouldn’t stay in here too long,” went on Kennedy.
“Hell, man! With Manley and Jacobs bringing the—” Leighton choked off the end of that ejaculation.
“Wal, you reckon they are. But I don’t,” rejoined Breese, significantly.
Leighton turned purple in the face and cursed at even a hint of defeat to his plans. They could not fail. This was his hour.
“Get your deal with Latch over,” suggested the cold Kennedy. “Then talk turkey to us.”
“What?”
“Yes, what. What do we get?”
“Bruce, I don’t like your tone,” replied Leighton, soberly.
“An’ I don’t like your slow deal. It’s revenge you want. You don’t care a damn for land an’ stock an’ money. But Sam an’ I do. Moreover, this unexpected gold fall makes a difference.”
“I’ll divide that with you,” said Leighton, grandly.
If he expected his two allies to exhibit rapture over this generosity he was disappointed. Kennedy was not impressed, while Breese walked back to the camp fire.
“All right with me, if Bruce is satisfied,” he called back.
“Say you’re both—— ——uppish all of a sudden…. Bruce, can’t you stand pros
perity?”
“Never had a chance to try. Suppose you give me one.”
“We’ll all have one…. How’d you like this? Soon as Manley and Jacobs come you can all go down to take charge of the ranch for us.”
“I’ll think that over,” returned Kennedy, ponderingly.
Leighton stood up. He appeared to expand. He wrestled as if with some spirit of procrastination. He threw it off and stood transfigured.
“Cousin Steve, are you ready now to talk terms?” he burst out, in stentorian voice.
Latch lifted a haggard face, and fastened dull eyes upon his captor. Blue concluded that Latch had been knocked senseless and was just recovering.
“I have all your papers,” went on Leighton, waving a hand toward his saddle and pack. “Every debt you contracted in Latchfield you owe me. Same in Dodge City and Abilene.”
“Suppose you—have?” replied Latch, hoarsely, breathing hard. “I can’t pay now.”
“You will sign over your ranch property to me.”
“No—you—rustler!” flamed Latch. “You stole my cattle. You stole the herds I sold!”
“You can’t prove that, Latch.”
“I know a cowboy who can.”
“That—— —— —— ——Blue!” rasped Leighton, violently.
“I’m not saying heah.”
“You needn’t say, Latch. We know,” replied Leighton, passionately. “We’re on to your sleepy-eyed, slick trail rider. Another Lester Cornwall. We slipped up on him, I admit. He fooled us all—By God! I don’t know how much. But he killed Nigger Johnson and Lopez, robbed me and burned my property, crippled Kennedy—all of which you’ve got to pay for.”
“I can’t pay—I told you.”
“Lee, I’m buttin’ in to say mebbe we ain’t done yet slippin’ up on Slim Blue,” interrupted Kennedy, sourly.
In weary amaze Leighton swore roundly at his henchman.
“Listen! I heerd somethin’,” cracked out Breese, peering all around.
“Meebe it was the last kick of thet greaser I shot,” said Breese, as if to himself.
“Might have been a horse. Jacobs and Manley ought to be here,” returned Leighton, hopefully, and gazed with basilisk eyes down the canyon. Silence ensued. After a while the men relaxed. Leighton went to his saddle-bag, from which he carefully extracted parcels wrapped in an oiled skin. The contents of these, spread upon the flat rock, proved to be papers with pen and ink.
“I’ve everything ready, Latch. All you do is sign…. Bruce, when he gives in untie his hands and get something flat for him to write on. Ho! The wagonboard! Just the thing…. Latch, why in the hell did you risk all to come up heah after that old Tullt haidboard?”
Latch made no reply. He was difficult to gauge just then. Blue knew that the ranch and the bags of gold just found, strong factors in this situation, were not the determining one.
“What is your deal, Leighton?” Latch queried, curiously.
“Sign over all your holdings.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll force you off,” flashed Leighton. “And I’ll betray you to your daughter and the range.”
“Betray me how?”
“I’ll give away your partnership with Satana. I’ll prove your complicity in the massacre of Bowden’s lost wagon train and of other caravans.”
“You can’t—prove—” panted Latch, with a mounting horror in his gaze. Sweat dripped from brow and hair. He strained on his bonds.
“Hell! Look at that pile of wagons there. If I needed more proof they would be enough. But I don’t need—I can prove it in other ways. Yes, Latch, I’ve got you at last. I will prove to your daughter that you were boss of Satana’s murderers and scalpers—that you were long a border outlaw—that you built Latchfield with bloody money—I will prove to her that you were married to her mother by an outlaw—that she is a bastard.”
“Leighton, if I agree to sign—what guarantee have I—that you never will betray me?” asked Latch in a husky whisper.
“Ha! You’ll have to take my word, Cousin Steve,” declared Leighton. “But the fact is I could settle down to ranching easier in mind—if the truth about you is never told.”
“How many living men know that truth?”
“Not many, Steve. Outside of me there’s Manley, Jacobs, Bruce heah, and Breese. Also that old Kiowa scout of yours, Hawk Eye. Mizzouri and the other members of our bank, long turned honest—they’ll never squeal. So with our lips shut you’re safe.”
“I’ll—sign,” said Latch.
Leighton appeared strung on vibrating wires, as he strode to the rock and gathered up a large, legal-looking document and carefully unfolded it. Then he dipped the pen in the bottle. Breese had fetched the wagon-board while Kennedy, armed with a Bowie knife stood ready to cut Latch’s bonds.
“Aha! We’re quite business-like, heah in Spider Web,” babbled Leighton. “Sam, brace the board against him… lower… there, hold it…. Bruce, don’t cut the rope; we may need it. Untie his hands.”
In another moment Latch was rubbing his wrists. He went over to the board, his tragic face white, his dishevelled hair hanging down, and studied the paper Leighton held under his eyes.
“Sign—heah,” ordered Leighton, in a high-pitched voice.
Latch took the pen and wrote with a steady hand. When he dropped the pen Leighton snatched up the paper, read the signature gloatingly, waved the paper to and fro to dry the ink, and seemed to have difficulty in getting his breath. But at the moment he did not look at Latch.
“Bruce, tie his hands again,” he ordered, presently, and wrapping up the deed in the oiled skin, he went to his saddle-bag and put it carefully away. He knelt there a moment after the talk was completed.
“I heerd thet damn noise again,” muttered Breese.
“What kind of noise?” asked Kennedy.
“Damn if I know. Funny little noise! Not a hoss…. I reckon this canyon is haunted.”
Leighton leaped up, suddenly transfigured.
“It will be haunted, by God!” he cried, and with giant strides he went back to Latch. “You squared one debt. But there are two more.”
Latch shrank against the tree and sagged in his thongs. He nodded his shaggy head as if to give affirmation to a fact his mute lips refused to speak.
The dignity of great passion sat upon Leighton’s brow like a crown. In that moment of revelation a terrible sincerity, born of wrongs, shone from his face. He placed a quivering finger upon the livid scar that marked temple and cheek on the left side—that defaced his features so hideously.
“Steve Latch, you will pay for this with your life,” he rang out. “But not until you’ve paid the other debt.” Latch’s lips framed a query that never breathed into sound. He knew. He read his foe’s mind. And a gray blight spread over his countenance.
“You stole Cynthia Bowden from me.” In the fury that replaced his former dignity, Leighton almost screamed the words. “Latch, you’ll live to see me strip her daughter—heah—before this day ends!”
“God-Almighty!… Leighton—you could not—be so vile!… Leighton—you could not—be so vile!… Kill me! Make an end—of all!… Remember your mother—your sister…. Don’t debase—that innocent girl!”
“Burning you alive wouldn’t satisfy me. I know your weakness. Through Estelle I’ll get even with you, Steve Latch…. Jacobs and Manley are fetching her heah!”
No human being could have doubted Leighton. Certainly Latch did not. Right there he faced a hell that rendered null his other trials and sufferings. He could not die or even faint. But his mortal spirit seemed to consume his flesh. He grew old while Blue watched. Torture visibly rended and racked him. It was so tremendous that it would not let him collapse. Whatever had been his crimes, he paid in full measure for them in this last hour of retribution.
Blue could bear no more. One more moment he waited to steel himself against the drum and stride of passion not his own.
“Listen!” called out
Breese. “I heerd thet funny noise again.”
“Horses cornin’,” jerked out Kennedy, nervously.
“Horses!” Leighton fairly screamed the word. He ran out into the open, his bare back shining in the sunlight. In his fury of eagerness he went beyond a clump of spruce which obstructed the view down the canyon.
Suddenly Kennedy leaped in front of Latch, struck him a hard blow in the chest, shook him violently, shoved up the hanging head.
“Latch, wake up,” he said, sharp and low. “Leighton will do as he swore. He’s got your girl. Jacobs an’ Manley went out on the road to waylay her, fetch her here…. It’s too dirty a job for Sam an’ me…. If I cut you loose—leave this knife in your hands—will you make thet same ranch deal with us?”
Latch strangled over a rumbling consent. Life and fire returned to the dead hollow eyes.
Kennedy leaped around behind Latch, moved swiftly, bent low, and stood straight again. Blue saw the tight ropes loosen.
“Drop your haid,” flashed the keen Breese. “He’s cornin’.”
Leighton appeared, charging back, like a disappointed bull. He marched straight for the flat rock, and snatching up his gun he confronted his men.
“No horses coming. You both lied. Something funnier than a noise heah!”
“Aboot as funny as death, Leighton,” taunted Bruce Kennedy.
Latch lunged from the tree, an appalling spectacle of a man inspired with a superhuman will to kill, the wicked blade high. Leighton heard and wheeled. His wild scream mingled with Latch’s terrible roar. He shot as the knife descended. But up went the knife aloft, dripping blood, and on the instant Leighton seized the arm that held the knife while Latch gripped Leighton’s gun hand. They whirled like spinning tops, kicking up the dust. Blue could not have shot had he been inclined. He was not sure of himself. Latch would kill his kinsman. No mere bullet could stop that magnificent regurgitation of will. He was the stronger. He jerked Leighton off his feet and fell with him, to roll and thump over the ground. Suddenly the gun went flying. Latch had sheered his blade into contact with Leighton’s gun arm. Blood streamed down it over the naked shoulder.
