Neal backed slowly out of the door, through the second door into the aisle before the cages, watching Rathburn like a cat.
Rathburn slipped his own weapon into his left hip pocket and with his left hand dug into his trousers pocket for the key to the cage. He didn’t take his eyes from Neal’s as he brought it out and inserted it in the lock. His right hand continued to hang above the gun he had taken from the jailer.
“Sheriff,” he said with a cold ring in his voice, “this may seem like an insult, but I’m goin’ to ask you to unlock that cage and go in. You can take your time if you want, but I warn you fair that if any one should start coming up the steps outside I’ll try to smoke you up.”
For answer Neal, with the glitter still in his eyes, stepped to the cage door, unlocked it, and swung it open.
He took a step, whirled like a flash––and the deafening report of guns crashed and reverberated within the jail’s walls.
Neal staggered back within the cage, his gun clattering to the floor, his right hand dropping to his side.
“If I hadn’t been up against a strange gun I wouldn’t have hit your finger, sheriff,” said Rathburn mockingly. “I was shootin’ at your gun.”
He shut the cage door quickly, locked it, and stuck the key in his pocket. Then he threw the jailer’s gun in through the bars and thrust his own weapon in its holster.
“I want you gentlemen inside, an’ armed,” he said laughingly. “If the jailer will be so good as to read what’s written on the paper on the bench, he’ll learn something to his advantage. Sheriff, you an’ Brown were wrong in this, but the devil of it is you’ll never know why.”
He left Neal pondering this cryptic sally, ran to the front door, opened it, and disappeared.
Neal clutched his injured fingers and swore freely, although there was amazement in his eyes. He could have been killed like a rat in a trap if The Coyote had felt the whim.
The man from the desert stepped to the bench and read on the sheet of paper:
If anybody ever gets to read this they will know that what I said about learning to throw a knife is true. I can do it. I’ve carried that knife in a special case that would fit in my sock and boot for just such an emergency as came up to-night. But I never would have throwed it. It would be against my ethics.
The man from the desert swore softly. Then he hurriedly picked up his gun and fired five shots to attract attention.
* * *
CHAPTER XIII
A MAN AND HIS HORSE
When Rathburn closed the outer door after him he plunged down the steps and into the shadows by the wall of the jail. Few lights showed in the town, for it was past midnight. He could see yellow beams streaming from the windows of the resort up the street, however, as he hesitated.
He was mightily handicapped because he had no horse. A horse––his own horse, he felt––was necessary for his escape, but his horse was a long distance away.
Rathburn stole across the street to the side on which the big resort was situated, and slipped behind a building just as the muffled reports came from within the jail. After a short interval, five more shots were heard, and Rathburn grinned as he realized that the jailer had fired the remaining bullets in his own and the sheriff’s guns.
He heard men running down the street. So he hurried up street behind the buildings until he reached the rear of the large resort, which was the place Lamy had held up.
Peering through one of the rear windows he saw the room was deserted except for the man behind the bar. Even at that distance he could hear horses and men down the street. Doubtless they were crowding into the jail where the sheriff would insist upon being liberated at once so he could lead the chase and, as Rathburn had the key, this would result in a delay until another key could be found, or Brown, who probably had one, could be routed out.
Rathburn thought of this as he looked through the window at the lonely bartender who evidently could not decide whether to close up and see what it all was about or not. But the thing which impressed Rathburn most was the presence of a pile of sandwiches and several cans of corned beef and sardines––emergency quick lunches for patrons––on the back bar. Also, he saw several gunny sacks on a box in the rear of the place almost under the window through which he was looking.
Rathburn stepped to the door in sudden decision, threw it open, and walked in. His gun flashed into his hand. “Quiet!” was all he said to the stupefied bartender.
He scooped up one of the sacks, darted behind the bar, brushed the sandwiches and most of the cans of corned beef and sardines into it, and then slung it over his left shoulder with his left hand.
“The sheriff will return the money that was taken from here,” he said coolly as he walked briskly to the front door. “Play the game safe; stay where you are!” he cautioned as he vanished through the door.
There were no horses at the hitching rail, but he saw several down the street in front of the jail. Men were running back and forth across the street––after Brown, he surmised.
Again he stole around to the rear of the resort; then he struck straight up into the timbered slope above the town, climbing rapidly afoot with the distant peaks and ridges as his guide.
Some two hours after dawn he sat on the crest of a high ridge watching a rider come up the winding trail from eastward. He had seen other riders going in both directions from his concealment behind a screen of cedar bushes. He had watched them with no interest other than that exhibited by a whimsical smile. But he did not smile as he watched this rider. His eyes became keenly alert; his face was grim. His mind was made up.
When the rider was nearing his ambush, Rathburn quickly scanned the empty stretch of trail to westward, then leaped down and confronted the horseman.
Ed Lamy drew rein with an exclamation of surprise.
“There’s not much time, an’ I don’t hanker to be seen––afoot,” said Rathburn quickly. “Where’s my horse?”
“He’s in a pocket on a shale slope this side of the timber on a line from the house where you left him,” replied Lamy readily. “Or you can have mine.”
“Don’t want him,” said Rathburn curtly. “You going in to see the sheriff?”
Lamy nodded. “His orders. Say, Coyote–––”
“He’ll probably meet you on the way,” Rathburn interrupted with a sneer. “You can be figurin’ out what to say to him. My saddle with the horse?”
“It’s hanging from a tree where you go into the pocket. Big limestone cliffs there below the shale. Say, Coyote, my sister an’ kid brother was tellin’ me about your visit that morning, an’ I guess I understand–––”
“We can’t stand here talkin’,” Rathburn broke in, pulling the tobacco sack from his shirt pocket. He extracted a folded piece of paper. “Here’s a note I wrote you in jail before I left. Read it on the way in when there’s no one watching you. Maybe you’ll learn something from it; maybe you won’t. I expect you wanted money to fix that ranch up; but you’ll get further by doing a little irrigating from up that stream than by trying to be a bandit. You just naturally ain’t cut out for the part!”
With these words he handed Lamy the note and bounded back up the slope. The screen of cedar bushes closed behind him as Lamy pushed on, looking back, wondering and confused, with heightened color in his face.
It was late that night when Lamy returned to the little ranch house. Frankie had gone to bed, but his sister was waiting up for him with a meal and hot tea ready.
He talked to his sister in a low voice while he ate. When he had finished he read the note for the third time; read it aloud, so his sister could hear.
“Lamy: I meant to take you back and give you up, for I was pretty sore. Then I saw your resemblance to your small brother by the freckles and eyes and I remembered he had said something about you saying some decent things about me. I guess you thought they were nice things, anyway.
“Then I thought maybe you got your ideas about easy money from the stuff you’d hea
rd about me, and I sort of felt kind of responsible. I thought I’d teach you a lesson by flirting with that posse and telling you that killing story to show you what a man is up against in this game. I guess I can’t get away from it because they won’t let me. But you don’t have to start. I was going to give you a good talking to before I let you go, but I hadn’t counted on the little kid in the house. I’m glad he told the truth. He’ll remember that. I gave you back your gun because you hit the nail on the head when you said if I was square I’d give it to you and let you make a run for it.
“I took the money off you so if they got us I could take the blame and let you off. I can take the blame without hurting my reputation, so don’t worry. I’m not doing this so much for your sake as for your kid brother and your sister. I figure you’d sort of caught on when I heard they hadn’t located my horse. That was a good turn. Do me another by getting some sense. There’s plenty of us fellows that’s quite capable to furnish the bad examples.
“Rathburn.”
The girl was crying softly with an arm about her brother’s neck when he finished reading.
“What––what are you going to do, Eddie?” she sobbed.
“I’m goin’ to irrigate!” said Ed Lamy with a new note in his voice. “I’m goin’ to build a sure-enough ranch for us with this piece of paper for a corner stone!”
Dawn was breaking over the mountains, strewing the gleaming peaks with warm rosettes of color. A clear sky, as deep and blue as any sea, arched its canopy above. Virgin stands of pine and fir marched up the steep slopes to fling their banners of green against the snow. Silver ribbons of streams laughed in the welcome sunlight.
In a rock-walled gulch, far above the head of Sunrise Cañon, a fire was burning, its thin smoke streamer riding on a vagrant breeze. Near by lay a dun-colored horse on its side, tied fast. A man was squatting by the blaze.
“I hate to have to do this, old hoss,” the man crooned; “but we’ve got to change the pattern of that CC2 brand if we want to stick together, an’ I reckon we want to stick.”
He thrust the running iron deeper into the glowing coals.
* * *
CHAPTER XIV
THE WITNESS
The morning was hardly two hours old, and the crisp air was stinging sweet with the tang of pine and fir, as Rathburn rode jauntily down the trail on the eastern slope of the divide and drew rein on the crest of a high ridge. As he looked below he whistled softly.
“Juniper, hoss, there’s folks down there plying a nefarious trade, a plumb dangerous trade,” he mused, digging for the tobacco and brown papers in the pocket of his shirt. “I reckon they’re carrying on in direct defiance of the law, hoss.”
The dun-colored mustang tossed his head impatiently, but his master ignored the animal’s fretful desire to be off and dallied with tobacco and paper, fashioning a cigarette, lighting it, breathing thin smoke as his gray eyes squinted appraisingly at the scene below.
Winding down into the foothills, in striking contrast to the dim trails higher up, was a well-used road. It evidently led from the saffron-tinted dump and gray buildings of a mine which showed on the side of a big, bald mountain to southward. At a point almost directly below the ridge where the man and horse stood, it crossed a small hogback and descended a steep slope between lines of jack pines, disappearing in the timber farther down.
The gaze of the man on the ridge was concentrated on the bit of road which showed on the hogback and the slope beyond. A truck was laboriously climbing the ascent. But the watcher evidently was not so much concerned with the approach of the truck as with certain movements which were in progress on the hogback at the head of the grade.
Three persons had dismounted from their horses behind the screen of timber. One, a tall man, had donned a long, black slicker and was tying a handkerchief about his face.
“Juniper, hoss,” said Rathburn, “what does that gent want that slicker on for? It ain’t going to rain. An’ how does he reckon to see onless maybe he’s got holes cut in that there hanky?”
A second man had made his way down the slope a short distance. He took advantage of the timber which screened him from sight of the driver of the oncoming truck.
“I ’spect that’s in case the truck driver should suddenly take it into his head to slide down backwards,” said the observer, speaking his thoughts aloud in a musical, bass voice. “One in front, one behind; now how about the kid?”
As if in answer to his question the third member of the party, evidently a boy, led the horses a short way up the hogback where a good view could be obtained of the road in both directions.
The watcher grunted in approval. “One in front to do the stick-up, one behind to stop a retreat and get whatever it is they’re after, and one on the lookout to see there ain’t any unexpected guests. Couldn’t have planned the lay any better ourselves, hoss.”
He was too far distant to interfere, even if he had had any desire to do so, which was doubtful from his interested and tolerant manner. Anyway it could have done no good to shout a warning, for the driver of the truck could not have heard anything above the roar of his machine, and the trio had gone about the preparations with dispatch. Already the truck was climbing the last steep pitch to the top of the hogback.
The tall man in the black slicker and mask now quickly stepped forth from the edge of the timber. The watcher above saw his right hand and arm whip out level with his shoulders. There was a glint of morning sunlight and dull metal. The truck came to a jarring stop as the driver jammed on the brakes. Then the driver’s hands went into the air.
Stepping from the timber at the roadside behind the truck, the second man leaped upon the machine. The watcher grunted again as he saw that this man was also masked. The driver was disarmed and searched, then forced to clamber down from the truck into the road, where the man in the slicker kept him covered while the other quickly searched about the seat and cab of the truck. Then the second man released the brakes and dropped nimbly from the machine which plunged backward down the steep slope, crashed into the tree growth on one side of the road, and overturned.
The boy mounted and led the other two horses down the hogback in the scanty timber to the head of the grade. There the man in the slicker and his companion joined him, mounted, and the trio rode quickly along the hogback in a southerly direction and disappeared on a blind rail into the forest.
Rathburn rolled himself another cigarette with a grin as he watched the truck driver stand for some moments uncertainly in the road and then start rapidly down the slope toward his disabled machine.
“C’mon, hoss,” said the erstwhile spectator, turning his dun-colored mount again into the trail. “So far’s I can make out, this is the only way down out of these tall mountains to the east, so we might as well get going. We ain’t got no business south or west. We’ll be just in time to get blamed for what’s happened down there.”
Whatever there might be in the prospect, the rider did not permit it to have any influence on his cheerful mood. He drew in long breaths of the stimulating air and sniffed joyously at the fragrance of the murmuring forests which clothed the higher hills. Far below the timber would dwindle, the ridges would flatten into round knolls and lose their verdure; then would come the dust and lava slopes, and beyond––the desert.
A wistful light came into the horseman’s eyes. “Home, Juniper, hoss,” he said softly. “We’ve just got to have cactus an’ water holes an’ danged blistering heat in ours; and I don’t care so much as the faded label off an empty tomato can if it’s in California, or Arizona, or Nevada, so long as it’s desert!”
The trail he was following wound tortuously around ridges, through the timber, into ravines and cañons; now treading close upon the bank of a swift-running mountain stream in a narrow valley, and again seeking the higher places where there were rocks and fallen trees and other obstructions. An observer would have gleaned at once that the rider was not familiar with the trail or territory he traversed.
“Don’t reckon they’d have heard me if I’d hollered, or seen me if I’d waved,” he mused. “They picked out a good spot for the dirty work,” he concluded, looking about.
Shortly afterward, as he was staring down at the tracks in the road, he smothered an exclamation. Then he dismounted, picked up two small objects from the dust at the point where the trio had started on their get-away, examined them with a puzzled expression, and thrust them into a pocket.
“Queer,” he ruminated; “mighty queer. If those silly things had been laying there in the road before the rumpus they’d have been tracked into the dust. But they was on top of a perfectly good hoss track. An’ it don’t look like there’s been anybody along here since.”
He continued down the road, descending the steep slope, and came to the overturned truck. At a glance he saw it had been used for hauling supplies, doubtless to the mine he had glimpsed on the slope of the high mountain to southward. Several kegs of nails, some hardware, and some sacks of cement were scattered in the road. He remembered that the man who had climbed on the truck had only searched the driver and the cab. Anything he might have taken must have been in a small package or it would have been discernible even at that long distance.
“That outfit wasn’t after no mine supplies,” Rathburn reflected as he finished his brief inspection and again mounted. “An’ they wasn’t taking any chances on smoking anybody up or being followed too quick. Pretty work all around. An’ here’s the committee, hoss!”
A touring car came careening around a turn in the road and raced toward him. He turned his horse to the side of the road and spoke to him as the animal, plainly unfamiliar with motor cars, snorted and shied.
The Coyote Page 8
