by Unknown
Again they fell to whispers. The next word that came to Curly clearly was his own name. But it was quite a minute before he gathered what they were saying.
"Luck Cullison went his bail. I learnt it this mo'ning."
"The son-of-a-gun. It's a cinch he's a spy. And me wanting you to let him in so's he could hold the sack instead of Sam."
"Knew it wouldn't do, Lute. He's smart as a whip."
"Reckon he knows anything?"
"No. Can't."
"If I thought he did----"
"Keep your shirt on, Lute. He don't know a thing. And you get revenge on him all right. Sam will run with him and his friends while he's here. Consequence is, when they find the kid where we leave him they'll sure guess Curly for one of his pardners. Tell you his ticket is good as bought to Yuma. He's a horse thief. Why shouldn't he be a train robber, too. That's how a jury will argue."
Blackwell grumbled something under his breath.
Stone's voice grated harshly. "Me too. If he crosses my trail I'm liable to spoil his hide before court meets. No man alive can play me for a sucker and throw me down. Not Soapy Stone."
Once more the voices ran together indistinctly. It was not till Blackwell suggested that they go get a drink that Curly understood anything more of what was being said.
The outlaws passed out of the little room and strolled forward to the bar.
Curly had heard more than he had expected to. Moreover, as he congratulated himself, his luck had stood up fine. Nobody in the sunburnt territory felt happier than he did that minute when he struck the good fresh air of the alley and knew that he had won through his hazardous adventure alive.
The first thing that Flandrau did was to walk toward the outskirts of the town where he could think it out by himself. But in this little old planet events do not always occur as a man plans them. Before he reached Arroyo street Curly came plump against his old range-mate Slats Davis.
The assistant foreman of the Hashknife nodded as he passed. He had helped Curly escape less than a month before, but he did not intend to stay friendly with a rustler.
Flandrau caught him by the arm. "Hello, Slats. You're the man I want."
"I'm pretty busy to-day," Davis answered stiffly.
"Forget it. This is more important."
"Well?"
"Come along and take a walk. I got something to tell you."
"Can't you tell it here?"
"I ain't going to, anyhow. Come along. I ain't got smallpox."
Reluctantly Davis fell in beside him. "All right. Cut it short. I've got to see a man."
"He'll have to wait." Curly could not help chuckling to himself at the evident embarrassment of the other. The impish impulse to "devil" him had its way. "You're a man of experience, Slats. Ever hold up a train?"
The foreman showed plainly his disgust at this foolishness. "Haven't you sense enough ever to be serious, Curly? You're not a kid any more. In age you're a grown man. But how do you act? Talk like that don't do you any good. You're in trouble good and deep. Folks have got their eyes on you. Now is the time to show them you have quit all that hell raising you have been so busy at."
"He sure is going good this mo'ning," Curly drawled confidentially to the scenery. "You would never guess, would you, that him and me had raised that crop in couples?"
"That's all right, too. I'm no sky pilot. But I know when to quit. Seemingly you don't. I hear you've been up at Stone's horse ranch. I want to tell you that won't do you any good if it gets out."
"Never was satisfied till I had rounded up all the trouble in sight. That's why I mentioned this train robbery. Some of my friends are aiming to hold up one shortly. If you'd like to get in I'll say a good word for you."
Davis threw at him a look that drenched like ice water. "I expect you and me are traveling different trails these days, Curly. You don't mean it of course, but the point is I'm not going to joke with you along that line. Understand?"
"Wrong guess, old hoss. I do mean it."
Davis stopped in his tracks. "Then you've said too much to me. We'll part right here."
"It takes two to agree to that, Slats."
"That's where you're wrong. One is enough. We used to be good friends, but those days are past. None of us can keep a man from being a durned fool if he wants to be one. Nor a scoundrel. You've got the bit in your teeth and I reckon you'll go till there is a smash. But you better understand this. When you choose Soapy Stone's, crowd to run with that cuts out me and other decent folks. If they have sent you here to get me mixed up in their deviltry you go back and tell them there's nothing doing."
"Won't have a thing to do with them. Is that it?"
"Not till the call comes for citizens to get together and run them out of the country. Or to put them behind bars. Or to string them to a cottonwood. Then I'll be on the job."
He stood there quiet and easy, the look in his steady eyes piercing Curly's ironic smile as a summer sun does mackerel clouds in a clear sky. Not many men would have had the courage to send that message to Soapy and his outfit. For Stone was not only a man killer, but a mean one at that. Since he had come back from the penitentiary he had been lying pretty low, but he brought down from the old days a record that chilled the blood.
Curly sloughed his foolishness and came to the point.
"You're on, Slats. I'm making that call to you now."
The eyes of the two men fastened. Those of Flandrau had quit dancing and were steady as the sun in a blue sky. Surprise, doubt, wonder, relief filled in turn the face of the other man.
"I'm listening, Curly."
His friend told him the whole story from the beginning, just as he had been used to do in the old days. And Davis heard it without a word, taking the tale in quietly with a grim look settling, on his face.
"So he aims to play traitor to young Cullison. The thing is damnable."
"He means to shut Sam's mouth for good and all. That is what he has been playing for from the start, to get even with Luck. He and his gang will get away with the haul and they will leave Sam dead on the scene of the hold-up. There will be some shooting, and it will be figured the boy was hit by one of the train crew. Nothing could be easier."
"If it worked out right."
"Couldn't help working out right. That's why Soapy didn't let me in on the proposition. To get rid of one would be no great trouble, but two--well, that's different. Besides, I could tell he was not sure of me. Now he aims to put me on the stand and prove by me that Sam and he had a quarrel and parted company mighty sore at each other hardly a week before the hold-up. He'll have an alibi too to show he couldn't have been in it. You'll see."
"You wouldn't think a white man could take a revenge like that on his enemy. It's an awful thing to do in cold blood."
"Soapy is no white man. He's a wolf. See how slick his scheme is. At one flip of the cards he kills the kid and damns his reputation. He scores Cullison and he snuffs out Sam, who had had the luck to win the girl Soapy fancies. The boy gets his and the girl is shown she can't love another man than Stone."
"Ever hear the story of French Dan?" asked Slats.
"Not to know the right of it."
"Soapy and Dan trained together in them days and went through a lot of meanness as side pardners. One day the Arivaca stage was held up by two men and the driver killed. In the scrap one of the men had his mask torn off. It was French Dan. Well, the outlaws had been too damned busy. Folks woke up and the hills were sprinkled with posses. They ran the fellows down and hunted them from place to place. Two--three times they almost nailed them. Shots were exchanged. A horse of one of the fugitives was killed and they could not get another. Finally one dark night the outlaws were surrounded. The posse lay down in the zacaton and waited for morning. In the night one of them heard a faint sound like the popping of a cork. When mo'ning broke the hunters crept forward through the thick grass. Guess what they found."
Curly's answer was prompt. "Gimme a harder one. There were two men and only one
horse. The only chance was to slip through the line before day arrived. My guess is that they found French Dan with a little round hole in his skull--and that the bullet making it had gone in from behind. My guess also is that the posse didn't find the horse and the other man, just a trail through the zacaton back into the hills."
"Go to the head of the class. There was one man too many in that thicket for the horse. French Dan's pardner was afraid they might not agree about who was to have the bronch for a swift getaway. So he took no chances. There's only one man alive to-day can swear that Soapy was the man with French Dan lying in the zacaton. And he'll never tell, because he pumped the bullet into his friend. But one thing is sure. Soapy disappeared from Arizona for nearly two years. You can pick any reason you like for his going. That is the one I choose."
"Same here. And the man that would shoot one partner in the back would shoot another if he had good reasons. By his way of it Soapy has reasons a-plenty."
"I'm satisfied that is his game. Question is how to block it. Will you go to the sheriff?"
"No. Bolt would fall down on it. First off, he would not believe the story because I'm a rustler myself. Soapy and his friends voted for Bolt. He would go to them, listen to their story, prove part of it by me, and turn them loose for lack of evidence. Sam would go back to Dead Cow with them, and Stone would weave another web for the kid."
"You've got it about right," Slats admitted. "How about warning Sam?"
"No use. He would go straight to Soapy with it, and his dear friend would persuade him it was just a yarn cooked up to get him to throw down the only genuwine straight-up pal he ever had."
"Cullison then?"
"You're getting warm. I've had that notion myself. The point is, would he be willing to wait and let Soapy play his hand out till we called?"
"You would have to guarantee his boy would be safe meanwhile."
"Two of us would have to watch him day and night without Sam knowing it."
"Count me in."
"This is where we hit heavy traveling, Slats. For we don't know when the thing is going to be pulled off."
"We'll have to be ready. That's all."
"Happen to know whether Dick Maloney is here for the show?"
"Saw him this mo'ning. Luck is here too, him and his girl."
"Good. We've got to have a talk with them, and it has to be on the q.t. You go back to town and find Dick. Tell him to meet us at the Del Mar, where Luck always puts up. Find out the number of Cullison's room and make an appointment. I'll be on El Molino street all mo'ning off and on. When you find out pass me without stopping, but tell me when we are to meet and just where."
Curly gave Slats a quarter of an hour before sauntering back to town. As he was passing the Silver Dollar saloon a voice called him. Stone and Blackwell were standing in the door. Flandrau stopped.
Soapy's deep-set eyes blazed at him. "You didn't tell me it was Luck Cullison went bail for you, Curly."
"You didn't ask me."
"So you and him are thick, are you?"
"I've met him once, if that's being thick. That time I shot him up."
"Funny. And then he went bail for you."
"Yes."
"Now I wonder why."
The eyes of the man had narrowed to red slits. His head had shot forward on his shoulders as that of a snake does. Curly would have given a good deal just then for the revolver lying on the bed of his room. For it was plain trouble was in sight. The desperado had been drinking heavily and was ready to do murder.
"That's easy to explain, Soapy. I shot him because I was driven to it. He's too much of a man to bear a grudge for what I couldn't help."
"That's it, is it? Does that explain why he dug up good money to turn loose a horse thief?"
"If I told you why, you would not understand."
"Let's hear you try."
"He did it because I was young, just as Sam is; and because he figured that some day Sam might need a friend, too."
"You're a liar. He did it because you promised to sneak up to my ranch and spy on us. That's why he did it."
With the last word his gun jumped into sight. That he was lashing himself into a fury was plain. Presently his rage would end in a tragedy.
Given a chance, Curly would have run for it. But Soapy was a dead shot. Of a sudden the anger in the boy boiled up over the fear. In two jumps he covered the ground and jammed his face close to the cold rim of the blue steel barrel.
"I'm not heeled. Shoot and be damned, you coward. And with my last breath I'll tell you that you're a liar."
Flandrau had called his bluff, though he had not meant it as one. A dozen men were in sight and were watching. They had heard the young man tell Stone he was not armed. Public opinion would hold him to account if he shot Curly down in cold blood. He hung there undecided, breathing fast, his jaw clamped tightly.
The lad hammered home his defiance. "Drop that gun, you four-flusher, and I'll whale you till you can't stand. Sabe? Call yourself a bad man, do you? Time I'm through with you there will be one tame wolf crawling back to Dead Cow with its tail between its legs."
The taunt diverted his mind, just as Curly had hoped it would. He thrust the revolver back into the holster and reached for his foe.
Then everybody, hitherto paralyzed by the sight of a deadly weapon, woke up and took a hand. They dragged the two men apart. Curly was thrust into a barber shop on the other side of the street and Stone was dragged back into the Silver Dollar.
In two minutes Flandrau had made himself famous, for he was a marked man. The last words of the straggling desperado had been that he would shoot on sight. Now half a dozen talked at once. Some advised Curly one thing, some another. He must get out of town. He must apologize at once to Stone. He must send a friend and explain.
The young man laughed grimly. "Explain nothing. I've done all the explaining I'm going to. And I'll not leave town either. If Soapy wants me he'll sure find me."
"Don't be foolish, kid. He has got four notches on that gun of his. And he's a dead shot."
The tongues of those about him galloped. Soapy was one of these Billy-the-Kid killers, the only one left from the old days. He could whang away at a quarter with that sawed-off .45 of his and hit it every crack. The sooner Curly understood that no boy would have a chance with him the better it would be. So the talk ran.
"He's got you bluffed to a fare-you-well. You're tame enough to eat out of his hand. Didn't Luck Cullison go into the hills and bring him down all alone?" Flandrau demanded.
"Luck's another wonder. There ain't another man in Arizona could have done it. Leastways no other but Bucky O'Connor."
But Curly was excited, pleased with himself because he had stood up to the bogey man of the Southwest, and too full of strength to be afraid.
Maloney came into the barber shop and grinned at him.
"Hello, son!"
"Hello, Dick!"
"I hear you and Soapy are figuring on setting off some fireworks this Fourth."
It did Curly good to see him standing there so easy and deliberate among the excitable town people.
"Soapy is doing the talking."
"I heard him; happened to be at the Silver Dollar when they dragged him in."
Maloney's eyebrows moved the least bit. His friend understood. Together they passed out of the back door of the shop into an alley. The others stood back and let them go. But their eyes did not leave Curly so long as he was in sight. Until this thing was settled one way or the other the young rustler would be one of the most important men in town. Citizens would defer to him that had never noticed him before. He carried with him a touch of the solemnity that is allowed only the dead or the dying.
Back to the hotel the two ran. When Curly buckled on his revolver and felt it resting comfortably against his thigh he felt a good deal better.
"I've seen Slats Davis," Maloney explained. "He has gone to find Luck, who is now at the Del Mar. At least he was an hour ago."
"Had a
ny talk with Slats?"
"No. He said you'd do the talking."
"I'm to wait for him on El Molino street to learn where I'm to meet Cullison."
"That won't do. You'd make too tempting a target. I'll meet him instead."
That suited Curly. He was not hunting trouble just now, even though he would not run away from it. For he had serious business on hand that could not take care of itself if Soapy should kill him.
Nearly an hour later Maloney appeared again.
"We're to go right over to the Del Mar. Second floor, room 217. You are to go down El Molino to Main, then follow it to the hotel, keeping on the right hand side of the street. Slats will happen along the other side of the street and will keep abreast of you. Luck will walk with me behind you. Unless I yell your name don't pay any attention to what is behind you. Soon as we reach the hotel Slats will cross the road and go in by the side door. You will follow him a few steps behind, and we'll bring up the rear casually as if we hadn't a thing to do with you."
