The Collected Westerns of William MacLeod Raine: 21 Novels in One Volume

by Unknown

  "Yes," said Sanders.

  He walked across to the corral fence, where Joyce sat huddled against the lower bars.

  She lifted her head and looked at him from wan eyes out of which the life had been stricken. They stared at him in dumb, amazed questioning.

  Dave lifted her from the ground.

  "I... I thought you... were dead," she whispered.

  "Not even powder-burnt. His six-shooter outranged mine. I was trying to get him closer."

  "Is he...?"

  "Yes. He'll never trouble any of us again."

  She shuddered in his arms.

  Dave ached for her in every tortured nerve. He did not know, and it was not his place to ask, what price she had had to pay.

  Presently she told him, not in words, without knowing what he was suffering for her. A ghost of a smile touched her eyes.

  "I knew you would come. It's all right now."

  His heart leaped. "Yes, it's all right, Joyce."

  She recurred to her fears for him. "You're not ... hiding any wounds from me? I saw you fall and lie there while he shot at you."

  "He never touched me."

  She disengaged herself from his arms and looked at him, wan, haggard, unshaven, eyes sunken, a tattered wretch scarred with burns.

  "What have you done to yourself?" she asked, astonished at his appearance.

  "Souvenirs of the fire," he told her. "They'll wash and wear off. Don't suppose I look exactly pretty."

  He had never looked so handsome in her eyes.

  CHAPTER XLV

  JOYCE MAKES PIES

  Juan Otero carried the news back to Malapi. He had been waiting on the crest of the hill to see the issue of the adventure and had come forward when Dave gave him a signal.

  Shorty brought Keith in from where he had left the boy in the brush. The youngster flew into his sister's arms. They wept over each other and she petted him with caresses and little kisses.

  Afterward she made some supper from the supplies Doble had laid in for his journey south. The men went down to the creek, where they bathed and washed their wounds. Darkness had not yet fallen when they went to sleep, all of them exhausted by the strain through which they had passed.

  Not until the cold crystal dawn did they awaken. Joyce was the first up. She had breakfast well under way before she had Keith call the still sleeping men. With the power of quick recuperation which an outdoor life had given them, both Shorty and Dave were fit for any exertion again, though Sanders was still suffering from his burns.

  After they had eaten they saddled. Shorty gave them a casual nod of farewell.

  "Tell Applegate to look me up in Mexico if he wants me," he said.

  Joyce would not let it go at that. She made him shake hands. He was in the saddle, and her eyes lifted to his and showered gratitude on him.

  "We'll never forget you--never," she promised. "And we do so hope you'll be prosperous and happy."

  He grinned down at her sheepishly. "Same to you, Miss," he said; and added, with a flash of audacity, "To you and Dave both."

  He headed south, the others north.

  From the hilltop Dave looked back at the squat figure steadily diminishing with distance. Shorty was moving toward Mexico, unhasting and with a certain sureness of purpose characteristic of him.

  Joyce smiled. It was the first signal of unquenchable youth she had flashed since she had been trapped into this terrible adventure. "I believe you admire him, Dave," she mocked. "You're just as grateful to him as I am, but you won't admit it. He's not a bad man at all, really."

  "He's a good man gone bad. But I'll say this for Shorty. He's some man. He'll do to ride the river with."

  "Yes."

  "At the fire he was the best fighter in my gang--saved one of the boys at the risk of his own life. Shorty's no quitter."

  She shut her teeth on a little wave of emotion. Then, "I'm awful sorry for him," she said.

  He nodded appreciation of her feeling. "I know, but you don't need to worry any. He'll not worry about himself. He's sufficient, and he'll get along."

  They put their horses to the trail again.

  Crawford met them some miles nearer town. He had been unable to wait for their arrival. Neither he nor the children could restrain their emotion at sight of each other. Dave felt they might like to be alone and he left the party, to ride across to the tendejon with Bonita's bulldog revolver.

  That young woman met him in front of the house. She was eager for news. Sanders told her what had taken place. They spoke in her tongue.

  "And Juan--is it all right about him?" she asked.

  "Juan has wiped the slate clean. Mr. Crawford wants to know when Bonita is to be married. He has a wedding present for her."

  She was all happy smiles when he left her.

  Late that afternoon Bob Hart reached town. He and Dave were alone in the Jackpot offices when the latter forced himself to open a subject that had always been closed between them. Sanders came to it reluctantly. No man had ever found a truer friend than he in Bob Hart. The thing he was going to do seemed almost like a stab in the back.

  "How about you and Joyce, Bob?" he asked abruptly.

  The eyes of the two met and held. "What about us, Dave?"

  "It's like this," Sanders said, flushed and embarrassed. "You were here first. You're entitled to first chance. I meant to keep out of it, but things have come up in spite of me. I want to do whatever seems right to you. My idea is to go away till--till you've settled how you stand with her. Is that fair?"

  Bob smiled, ruefully. "Fair enough, old-timer. But no need of it. I never had a chance with Joyce, not a dead man's look-in. Found that out before ever you came home. The field's clear far as I'm concerned. Hop to it an' try yore luck."

  Dave took his advice, within the hour. He found Joyce at home in the kitchen. She was making pies energetically. The sleeves of her dress were rolled up to the elbows and there was a dab of flour on her temple where she had brushed back a rebellious wisp of hair.

  She blushed prettily at sight of her caller. "I didn't know it was you when I called to come in. Thought it was Keith playing a trick on me."

  Both of them were embarrassed. She did not know what to do with him in the kitchen and he did not know what to do with himself. The girl was acutely conscious that yesterday she had flung herself into his arms without shame.

  "I'll go right on with my pies if you don't mind," she said. "I can talk while I work."

  "Yes."

  But neither of them talked. She rolled pie-crust while the silence grew significant.

  "Are your burns still painful?" she asked at last, to make talk.

  "Yes--no. Beg pardon, I--I was thinking of something else."

  Joyce flashed one swift look at him. She knew that an emotional crisis was upon her. He was going to brush aside the barriers between them. Her pulses began to beat fast. There was the crash of music in her blood.

  "I've got to tell you, Joyce," he said abruptly. "It's been a fight for me ever since I came home. I love you. I think I always have--even when I was in prison."

  She waited, the eyes in her lovely, flushed face shining.

  "I had no right to think of you then," he went on. "I kept away from you. I crushed down hope. I nursed my bitterness to prove to me there could never be anything between us. Then Miller confessed and--and we took our walk over the hills. After that the sun shone. I came out from the mists where I had been living."

  "I'm glad," she said in a low voice. "But Miller's confession made no difference in my thought of you. I didn't need that to know you."

  "But I couldn't come to you even then. I knew how Bob Hart felt, and after all he'd done for me it was fair he should have first chance."

  She looked at him, smiling shyly. "You're very generous."

  "No. I thought you cared for him. It seemed to me any woman must. There aren't many men like Bob."

  "Not many," she agreed. "But I couldn't love Bob because"--her steadfast eyes met his
bravely--"because of another man. Always have loved him, ever since that night years ago when he saved my father's life. Do you really truly love me, Dave?"

  "God knows I do," he said, almost in a whisper.

  "I'm glad--oh, awf'ly glad." She gave him her hands, tears in her soft brown eyes. "Because I've been waiting for you so long. I didn't know whether you ever were coming to me."

  Crawford found them there ten minutes later. He was looking for Joyce to find him a collar-button that was missing.

  "Dawggone my hide!" he fumed, and stopped abruptly, the collar-button forgotten.

  Joyce flew out of Dave's arms into her father's.

  "Oh, Daddy, Daddy, I'm so happy," she whispered from the depths of his shoulder.

  The cattleman looked at Dave, and his rough face worked. "Boy, you're in luck. Be good to her, or I'll skin you alive." He added, by way of softening this useless threat, "I'd rather it was you than anybody on earth, Dave."

  The young man looked at her, his Joy-in-life, the woman who had brought him back to youth and happiness, and he answered with a surge of emotion:

  "I'll sure try."

  THE END

  * * *

  Contents

  TANGLED TRAILS

  A Western Detective Story

  by WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE

  CHAPTER I

  NO ALTRUIST

  Esther McLean brought the afternoon mail in to Cunningham. She put it on the desk before him and stood waiting, timidly, afraid to voice her demand for justice, yet too desperately anxious to leave with it unspoken.

  He leaned back in his swivel chair, his cold eyes challenging her. "Well," he barked harshly.

  She was a young, soft creature, very pretty in a kittenish fashion, both sensuous and helpless. It was an easy guess that unless fortune stood her friend she was a predestined victim to the world's selfish love of pleasure, and fortune, with a cynical smile, had stood aside and let her go her way.

  "I . . . I . . ." A wave of color flooded her face. She twisted a rag of a handkerchief into a hard wadded knot.

  "Spit it out," he ordered curtly.

  "I've got to do something . . . soon. Won't you--won't you--?" There was a wail of despair in the unfinished sentence.

  James Cunningham was a grim, gray pirate, as malleable as cast iron and as soft. He was a large, big-boned man, aggressive, dominant, the kind that takes the world by the throat and shakes success from it. The contour of his hook-nosed face had something rapacious written on it.

  "No. Not till I get good and ready. I've told you I'd look out for you if you'd keep still. Don't come whining at me. I won't have it."

  "But--"

  Already he was ripping letters open and glancing over them. Tears brimmed the brown eyes of the girl. She bit her lower lip, choked back a sob, and turned hopelessly away. Her misfortune lay at her own door. She knew that. But-- The woe in her heart was that the man she had loved was leaving her to face alone a night as bleak as death.

  Cunningham had always led a life of intelligent selfishness. He had usually got what he wanted because he was strong enough to take it. No scrupulous nicety of means had ever deterred him. Nor ever would. He played his own hand with a cynical disregard of the rights of others. It was this that had made him what he was, a man who bulked large in the sight of the city and state. Long ago he had made up his mind that altruism was weakness.

  He went through his mail with a swift, trained eye. One of the letters he laid aside and glanced at a second time. It brought a grim, hard smile to his lips. A paragraph read:

  There's no water in your ditch and our crops are burning up. Your whole irrigation system in Dry Valley is a fake. You knew it, but we didn't. You've skinned us out of all we had, you damned bloodsucker. If you ever come up here we'll dry-gulch you, sure.

  The letter was signed, "One You Have Robbed." Attached to it was a clipping from a small-town paper telling of a meeting of farmers to ask the United States District Attorney for an investigation of the Dry Valley irrigation project promoted by James Cunningham.

  The promoter smiled. He was not afraid of the Government. He had kept strictly within the law. It was not his fault there was not enough rainfall in the watershed to irrigate the valley. But the threat to dry-gulch him was another matter. He had no fancy for being shot in the back. Some crazy fool of a settler might do just that. He decided to let an agent attend to his Dry Valley affairs hereafter. He dictated some letters, closed his desk, and went down the street toward the City Club. At a florist's he stopped and ordered a box of American Beauties to be sent to Miss Phyllis Harriman. With these he enclosed his card, a line of greeting scrawled on it.

  A poker game was on at the club and Cunningham sat in. He interrupted it to dine, holding his seat by leaving a pile of chips at the place. When he cashed in his winnings and went downstairs it was still early. As a card-player he was not popular. He was too keen on the main chance and he nearly always won. In spite of his loud and frequent laugh, of the effect of bluff geniality, there was no genuine humor in the man, none of the milk of human kindness.

  A lawyer in the reading-room rose at sight of Cunningham. "Want to see you a minute," he said.

  "Let's go into the Red Room."

  He led the way to a small room furnished with a desk, writing supplies, and a telephone. It was for the use of members who wanted to be private. The lawyer shut the door.

  "Afraid I've bad news for you, Cunningham," he said.

  The other man's steady eyes did not waver. He waited silently.

  "I was at Golden to-day on business connected with a divorce case. By chance I ran across a record that astonished me. It may be only a coincidence of names, but--"

  "Now you've wrapped up the blackjack so that it won't hurt, suppose you go ahead and hit me over the head with it," suggested Cunningham dryly.

  The lawyer told what he knew. The promoter took it with no evidence of feeling other than that which showed in narrowed eyes hard as diamonds and a clenched jaw in which the muscles stood out like ropes.

  "Much obliged, Foster," he said, and the lawyer knew he was dismissed.

  Cunningham paced the room for a few moments, then rang for a messenger. He wrote a note and gave it to the boy to be delivered. Then he left the club.

  From Seventeenth Street he walked across to the Paradox Apartments where he lived. He found a note propped up against a book on the table of his living-room. It had been written by the Japanese servant he shared with two other bachelors who lived in the same building.

  Mr. Hull he come see you. He sorry you not here. He say maybe perhaps make honorable call some other time.

  It was signed, "S. Horikawa."

  Cunningham tossed the note aside. He had no wish to see Hull. The fellow was becoming a nuisance. If he had any complaint he could go to the courts with it. That was what they were for.

  The doorbell rang. The promoter opened to a big, barrel-bodied man who pushed past him into the room.

  "What you want, Hull?" demanded Cunningham curtly.

  The man thrust his bull neck forward. A heavy roll of fat swelled over the collar. "You know damn well what I want. I want what's comin' to me. My share of the Dry Valley clean-up. An' I'm gonna have it. See?"

  "You've had every cent you'll get. I told you that before."

  Tiny red capillaries seamed the beefy face of the fat man. "An' I told you I was gonna have a divvy. An' I am. You can't throw down Cass Hull an' get away with it. Not none." The shallow protuberant eyes glittered threateningly.

  "Thought you knew me better," Cunningham retorted contemptuously. "When I say I won't, I won't. Go to a lawyer if you think you've got a case. Don't come belly-aching to me."

  The face of the fat man was apoplectic. "Like sin I'll go to a lawyer. You'd like that fine, you double-crossin' sidewinder. I'll come with a six-gun. That's how I'll come. An' soon. I'll give you two days to come through. Two days. If you don't--hell sure enough will cough."

  Whatever
else could be said about Cunningham he was no coward. He met the raving man eye to eye.

  "I don't scare worth a cent, Hull. Get out. Pronto. And don't come back unless you want me to turn you over to the police for a blackmailing crook."