GUNMEN
For a moment Rathburn waited at the kitchen door. He heard Mallory going upstairs from the next room. All was still outside, save for the stamping of several horses. Then he suddenly opened the door and stepped out. There was no sound or movement, as he accustomed his eyes to the dim light without. He moved across the threshold and walked straight to a bulky figure standing beside a large horse.
“You want to see me, Eagen?” he asked coldly.
“Watch out there, Eagen!” came Mallory’s voice in a strident tone from a window above them. “I’ve got you covered with this Winchester!”
Both Rathburn and Eagen looked up and saw Mallory leaning out of a window over the kitchen, and the stock of a rifle was snug against his cheek and shoulder.
“Acts like he’s scared you can’t take care of yourself,” said Eagen with a sneer. “The way you ditched that posse to-day I didn’t think you needed a bodyguard.”
“I don’t,” Rathburn retorted. “The old man is acting on his own hook. You was watching the sport to-day?”
“Couldn’t help it,” said Eagen. “It was me an’ some of the boys they was after. You sort of helped us out by coming along an’ attracting their attention. I pegged you when I saw you ride for it, an’ I knew they wouldn’t get you.”
“You mean you hid an’ let me stand the gaff,” said Rathburn scornfully. “That’s your style, Eagen. You’re plumb afraid to come out from under cover.”
He noted that there were three men with Eagen. They were quietly sitting their horses some little distance behind their leader.
Eagen muttered something, and Rathburn could see his face working with rage. Then Eagen’s coarse features underwent a change, and he grinned, his teeth flashing white under his small, black mustache.
“Look here, Rathburn, there’s no use in you an’ me being on the outs,” he said in an undertone. “We’ve got something in common.”
“You’ve made a mistake already,” Rathburn interrupted sharply. “We haven’t a thing in common I know of, Eagen, unless it’s a gun apiece.”
“Maybe you think that’s all we need,” said Eagen hoarsely; “an’ if that’s the way you feel you won’t find me backin’ down when you start something. Just now I ain’t forgetting that crazy fool with that rifle up there.”
“You didn’t come here for a gun play, Eagen,” said Rathburn. “You ain’t plumb loco every way. I take it you saw me makin’ for this place an’ followed me here. What do you want?”
“I want to talk business,” said Eagen with a hopeful note in his voice; “but you won’t let me get started.”
“An’ I won’t have dealings with you,” said Rathburn crisply.
“That’s what you think,” sneered Eagen. “But you’re in a tight corner, an’ we can help you out. Long said to-day, I heard just now, that he’d put every deputy he had an’ every man he could swear in as a special on your trail, and he’d get you.”
“The thing that I can’t see,” drawled Rathburn, “is what that’s got to do with you. I suppose you’re here as a missionary to tip me off. Thanks.”
Eagen had calmed down. He stepped closer to Rathburn and spoke in a low tone.
“Here’s the lay: They’re after you, an’ they’re after us. I know you’re no stool pigeon, an’ I know I ain’t takin’ a chance when I tell you that we’ve got a big job comin’ up––one that’ll get us a pretty roll. It takes nerve to pull it off, even though certain things will make it easier. You might just as well be in on it. You can make it a last job an’ blow these parts for good. You don’t have to come in, of course; but it’ll be worth your while. You’ve got the name, an’ you might as well have what goes with it. I’ll let you head the outfit an’ shoot square all the way.”
Rathburn laughed scornfully. “When I heard you was out here, Eagen, I guessed it was something like this that brought you here. Maybe you’re statin’ facts as to this job which, you say, is coming up. But you lied when you said you’d shoot square, Eagen. I wouldn’t trust you as far as you could throw a bull by the tail, an’ there’s half a dozen other reasons why you an’ me couldn’t be pardners!”
Eagen stepped back with a snarl of rage. “I don’t reckon you’re entitled to what rep you’ve got!” he blurted hoarsely. “Right down under the skin, Rathburn, I believe you’re soft!”
“That’s puttin’ it up to me all fair an’ square,” Rathburn replied evenly. “I’ll give it right back to you, Eagen.”
“Get that gun out of the window.”
“Mallory.”
“Right here, Rathburn, an’ all set,” came Mallory’s voice.
“Get that gun out of the window.”
“What’s that? Don’t you see there’s three of ’em? You–––”
“Get that gun out of the window!” rang Rathburn’s voice.
“Let him play with it,” Eagen said harshly.
Mallory withdrew from the window, as Eagen reached for his left stirrup and swung into the saddle.
“I see you ain’t takin’ it,” Rathburn called to him with a jeering laugh.
“An’ I ain’t forgettin’ it?” Eagen shouted, as he drove in his spurs.
His three companions galloped after him, and Rathburn caught sight of a dark-skinned face, a pair of beady, black eyes, and the long, drooping mustaches of one of the men.
“Gomez!” he exclaimed to himself. “Eagen’s takin’ up with the Mexicans.”
Mallory appeared in the kitchen door, holding a lamp above his head. “What’d he want?” he demanded of Rathburn.
“More’n he got,” answered Rathburn shortly. Then he saw Laura Mallory standing behind her father.
“I mean to say he made a little proposition that I had to turn down,” he amended, with a direct glance at the girl. “An’ now I’ve got to do some more ridin’.”
“You leavin’ to-night?” asked Mallory in surprise. “We can put you up here, Rathburn, an’ I’ll keep an eye out for visitors.”
“And we’d have ’em afore mornin’,” said Rathburn grimly. “Eagen will see to it that Bob Long knows I was out here, right pronto. But I aim to stop any posses from botherin’ around your place. If there’s one thing I don’t want to do, Mallory, it’s make any trouble for you.”
The girl came walking toward him and touched his arm.
“What are you going to do, Roger?” she asked in an anxious voice.
“I’m goin’ straight into Hope,” Rathburn replied.
“But, Roger,” the girl faltered, “won’t that mean––mean–––”
“A show-down? Maybe so. I ain’t side-steppin’ it.”
A world of worry showed in the girl’s eyes. “Roger, why don’t you go away?” she asked hesitatingly. “Things could be worse, and maybe in time they would become better. Folks forget, Roger.”
For a moment Rathburn’s hand rested on hers, as he looked down at her.
“There’s two ways of forgettin’, girlie,” he said soberly. “An’ I don’t want ’em to forget me the wrong way.”
“But, Roger, promise me you won’t––won’t––turn your gun against a man, Roger. It would make things so much worse. It would leave––nothing now. Don’t you see? It takes courage to avoid what seems to be the inevitable. That terrible skill which is yours, the trick in this hand on mine, is your worst enemy. Oh, Roger, if you’d never learned to throw a gun!”
“It isn’t that,” he told her gently. “It isn’t what you think at all. I’d rather cut off that right hand than have it raised unfairly against a single living thing. They call me a gunman, girlie, an’ I reckon I am. But I’m not a killer. There’s a difference between the two, an’ sometimes I think it’s that difference that’s makin’ all the trouble. I’m still tryin’ to steer by that thing you call the compass, an’ that’s why I’ve got to go to town.”
He stepped away from her, waved a farewell to Mallory, who was watching the scene with a puzzled expression, and ran for his horse. A minut
e later the ringing hoof beats of his mount were dying in the still night.
Laura Mallory swayed, and her father hurried to her with the lamp and put his arm about her.
“What’s it all about, sweetie?” he asked complainingly.
“Nothing, daddy, nothing––only I love him.”
A puff of wind blew out the light in the lamp, and father and daughter stood with arms about each other under the dancing stars.
* * *
CHAPTER XXX
THE SHERIFF’S PLIGHT
Riding slowly Rathburn kept well in toward the range and proceeded cautiously. This wasn’t alone a safety measure, for he wished to favor his horse. The dun had been hard ridden in the spurt to gain the mountains ahead of the posse. He had been rested at Price’s cabin, to be sure, and also at the Mallory ranch; but now Rathburn had a ride of fifteen miles to the town of Hope, and he did not know how much riding he might have to do next day.
When a scant three miles from Hope, he halted, loosened the saddle cinch, and rested his horse, while he himself reclined on the ground and smoked innumerable cigarettes. He was in a thoughtful mood, serious and somewhat puzzled. The recollection of Eagen’s proposition caused him to frown frequently. Then a wistful light would glow in his eyes, and he thought of Laura Mallory. This would be succeeded by another frown, and then his eyes would narrow, and the smile that men had come to fear would tremble on his lips.
He was again in the saddle with the first faint glimmer of the approaching dawn. He covered the distance into Hope at a swinging lope and rode in behind a row of neat, yellow-brick buildings which formed the east side of one block on the short main street.
Securing his horse behind a building midway of the rear of the block, he entered one of the buildings through a back door. It proved to be a combination pool room and soft-drink bar. No one was in the place except the porter who was cleaning up. Rathburn noted that the man showed no evidences of knowing him, although this was Rathburn’s home town.
“Kind of early, ain’t you, boss?” grinned the porter. “Maybe you’re lookin’ for something to start the day with.” He winked broadly.
Rathburn nodded and walked over to the bar.
“Just get in?” asked the porter, as he put out a bottle of white liquor and glanced at the dust on Rathburn’s clothes.
“Just in,” replied Rathburn, pouring and tossing off one drink. “Where’s everybody? Too early for ’em?”
“Well, it’s about an hour too early on the average, unless there’s been an all-night game,” replied the porter, putting the bottle away, as his customer declined a second drink. “But then there ain’t very many in town right now. Everybody’s out after the reward money.”
Rathburn lifted his brows.
“Say,” exclaimed the porter eagerly, “you didn’t see any men ridin’ looselike, when you was coming in, did you?”
Rathburn shook his head. “What’s all this you’re tryin’ to chirp into my ear?” he asked.
“Well, Bob Long, the sheriff, has got all his deputies out except just the jailer––there ain’t anybody much in jail now, anyway––an’ all the other men he could pin a star on, lookin’ for a gang that held up the stage from Sunshine yesterday mornin’, shot the stage driver dead, an’ made off with an express package full of money. There’s a big reward out for the man that’s leadin’ the gang. He’s called The Coyote. Used to live here. He’s a bad one.”
“Sheriff out, too?” Rathburn asked, showing great interest.
“Sure. Come back in early last night an’ got more men. They’re tryin’ to surround Imagination Range, I guess. That’s where this Coyote an’ his gang are supposed to be hanging out. The sheriff don’t care so much for the fellers that’s with him, I guess, but he sure does want this Coyote person. He told everybody to let the gang go if they had to, but to get the leader.”
Rathburn looked through the front windows with a quizzical smile on his lips. The sun was shining in the deserted street.
“How many men has the sheriff got?” he inquired casually.
“Most two hundred, I guess. They’re scattered all over the range, an’ a lot of ’em has hit over on the other side. They think The Coyote crossed the range an’ is makin’ east.”
“Well, maybe he has, an’ maybe he hasn’t,” Rathburn observed. “The best place to hide from a posse is in the middle of it.”
The porter looked at him, then burst into a loud laugh. “I guess you said something that time, pardner. In the middle of it, eh?” He went about his work, chuckling, while Rathburn walked to a front window and stood looking out.
A few minutes later he stepped quickly back into a corner, as a small automobile raced up the street. He sauntered to the rear door, passed out with a pleasant word to the porter, and when he gained the open, hurried up behind the buildings the length of the block. There he turned to the left and walked rapidly to a large stone building. He went around on the east side and entered a door on the ground floor. He found himself in a hallway, and on his left was a door, on the glazed glass of the upper half of which was the gold lettering: “Sheriff’s Office.”
After a moment’s hesitation he opened the door quickly and went in. A man standing before an open roll-top desk turned and regarded the early-morning visitor. He was a small man, but of wiry build. His eyes were gray, and he wore a small, brown mustache. He had a firm chin, and his face was well tanned. He was holding a paper in his hands, and the paper remained as steady as a rock in his grasp. His eyes bored straight and unflinchingly into Rathburn’s. He showed no surprise, no concern. He made no move toward the pair of guns in the holsters of the belt which reposed on top of his desk. He spoke first.
“Have you come to give yourself up, Rathburn?”
“Hardly that, sheriff,” replied Rathburn cheerfully. “I arrived in town this morning after most of the population had moved to the desert and the country aroun’ Imagination. I didn’t think I was goin’ to be lucky enough to catch you in till I saw you arrive in that flivver. Are you back for more recruits?”
The sheriff continued to hold the paper without moving.
“When you first started to talk, Rathburn, I thought maybe bravado had brought you here to make a grand-stand play,” he said coolly. “But I see you’re not as foolhardy as some might think. I always gave you credit for being clever.”
“Thanks, Sheriff Long,” said Rathburn dryly. “There’s a few preliminaries we’ve got to get over, so–––”
His gun leaped into his hand and instantly covered the official. He stepped to the end of the desk, reached over and appropriated the belt with the two guns with his left hand. He tossed the belt and weapons to a vacant chair.
“Now, sheriff, I didn’t come lookin’ for a cell like you hinted; I drifted in for a bit of information.”
“This is headquarters for that article, especially if it’s about yourself,” said Long, dropping the paper on his desk and sitting down in the chair before it.
“What all have you got against me?” frowned Rathburn.
“Nothing much,” said the sheriff with biting sarcasm; “just a few killings, highway robbery, a bank stick-up, two or three gaming houses looted, and a stage holdup. Enough to keep you in the Big House for ninety-nine years and then hang you.”
Rathburn nodded. “You’re sure an ambitious man, sheriff. The killings now––there was White and Moran, that you know about, an’ a skunk over in California named Carlisle, that you don’t know about, I guess. I couldn’t get away from those shootings, sheriff.”
“How about Simpson and Manley?” countered the official scornfully.
“Not on my list,” said Rathburn quickly. “I heard I was given credit for those affairs, but I wasn’t a member of the party where they were snuffed out.”
“If you can make a jury believe that, you’re in the clear,” said Long. “But how about that stage driver yesterday morning?”
Rathburn’s face darkened. “I got in from the
west just in time to stumble on that gang of rats,” he flared. “That’s how your men came to see me. The chase happened to come in my direction, that’s all.”
“If you can prove that, you’re all right again,” the sheriff pointed out. “The law will go halfway with you, Rathburn.”
“An’ I probably wouldn’t be able to prove it,” said Rathburn bitterly. “Those other things––the bank job an’ the gamblin’ stick-ups––I was younger then, sheriff, an’ no one can say that that bank sharp didn’t do me dirt.”
“If you can show a good, reasonable doubt in those other cases, Rathburn, I know the court would show leniency if the jury found you guilty on the counts you just mentioned,” said the sheriff earnestly. “I’m minded to believe you, so far as yesterday’s work was concerned. I have an idea or two myself, but I haven’t been able to get a good line on my man. He’s too tricky. Of course I’m not going to urge you to do anything against your will. I appreciate your position. You’re a fugitive, but you have your liberty. Perhaps you can get away clean, though I doubt it. But there’s that chance, and you’ve naturally got to take it into consideration. And you’re not sure of anything if you go to trial on the charges there are against you. But it would count like sixty in your favor, Rathburn, if you’d give yourself up.”
Rathburn stared at the official speculatively. His thoughts flashed back along the years to the time when he and Laura Mallory had played together as children. He thought of what she had said the night before about the compass. He shifted uneasily on his feet.
“Funny thing, sheriff, but I had some such fool notion,” he confessed.
“It takes nerve, Rathburn, for a man who is wanted to walk in and give up his gun,” said the sheriff quietly.
“I was thinking of something else,” said Rathburn. “An’ I’ve got to think some more about this that you’ve sort of put in my head.”
“How much time do you want, Rathburn?” asked Long.
Rathburn scowled. “Our positions haven’t changed,” he said curtly. “I’m still the man you’re lookin’ for. I’ll have to do my thinkin’ on my own hook, I reckon.”
The Coyote Page 17
