Robber's Roost (1989)

by Grey, Zane

  "Hell, yes!" returned Lincoln.

  "Fellers, it'd be too low-down," went on Smoky, with passion.

  "We're a lot of bad eggs, but Hank ain't thet bad. . . . Collect the ransom an' send her home to her brother after degradin' her!"

  "Smoky, you're a faithful cuss," rejoined Lincoln, admiringly.

  "When air your eyes goin' to open?"

  "They're open, all right," replied Smoky, doggedly.

  "Cheese it. Hyar comes Hays now."

  Jim was satisfied with the slow wearing away of their faith.

  "Fellows, I heard you, and I'm agreeing with Lincoln," he said, hurriedly. "Looks as if Hank is bent on dragging Miss Herrick over to his shack."

  There was an intense silence.

  "I've been watching through the field-glass," added Jim.

  "Wal, by Gawd!" burst out Smoky, convinced against his will. "I been hopin' we was hard on Hank. But, hell, let's give the man a chance. . . . Jim, if he does fer me, you take it up."

  "Let me face him first," demanded Jim, harshly.

  "What the hell, Smoky!" ejaculated Lincoln.

  "Shet up! Hyar he comes. Keep out of it now."

  When the chief reached the shelter he would have passed on without noting them, so great was his abstraction.

  "Hays, come hyar," called Smoky, ringingly, as he stepped out. The robber swerved off his course, startled. "We been arguin' aboot you. Wal, you know me. I'm askin' you damn straight. Do you mean bad by this Herrick woman?"

  "Bad!" echoed Hays, his face changing from red to white.

  "Thet's what I ast," retorted Smoky.

  "Wal, an' suppose I say I do?" demanded Hays, "if it's any of your damn bizness!"

  "Then you can shoot it out with ME, right hyar an' now!"

  "Smoky!" gasped the chief, incredulous.

  "An' if you do fer me you've got Jim to take on," snapped Smoky.

  "More double-crossin'!" bellowed Hays, suddenly wild.

  "Shore. More from you, Hank."

  The leader spat in his fury; and then it was remarkable to see him pull himself together.

  "I jest wanted to know how fer you fellers would go," he declared.

  "An' you've shore give me a cud to chew. . . . As fer thet gurl, I've no more bad feelin's toward her than any one or all of you.

  Savvy? An' let me say if I heah any more sich talk I'll be bustin' up this outfit."

  "It's busted now, Hank," replied Smoky, betraying the bitterness of the disillusioned.

  Jim sought seclusion until sunset, dragging through one of the most horrible hours he had ever lived. Hays would not fight. Jim's hands were tied until further complications untied them. Even an overmastering love could not change his creed, and his creed was similar to that of Smoky Slocum. And he was not so sure but that there were others in Hays' gang who lived up to the honor of thieves. It looked as if Hank Hays had at last broken upon the rock of woman's lure.

  Smoky espied Jim returning, and came to meet him.

  "Sparrow's askin' fer you," he said, moodily. "I'm afeared he's wuss."

  When Jim bent over the wasted Latimer it was indeed to feel a cold apprehension.

  "What is it, Sparrow? I've been on watch," said Jim, taking the other's thin hand.

  "Am I a-goin' to croak?" queried Latimer, calmly, and the look accompanying the words was something to stir Jim.

  "You've a fighting chance, Sparrow. While there's life there's hope."

  "Wal, I've been shot before. But I never had this queer feelin'. . . . Now, Jim, if I git to sinkin', don't keep me from knowin'. If I'm dyin' I want to tell you and Smoky somethin' thet I'd keep if I lived. Savvy?"

  Smoky, kneeling at Latimer's other side, nodded sadly.

  "Sparrow, I couldn't honestly ask for that confession yet," replied Jim. "You might pull through. But I promise you, and I'm shaking your hand on it."

  "Good. Thet eases my mind. Gimme a drink of cold, fresh water."

  Smoky took up the dipper and strode down to fetch it.

  "Jim, I like you--a heap," said Latimer.

  "Thanks, Sparrow. I'm sure I return it," replied Jim.

  "Fellers like me can only expect to die this way. I always knowed. . . . But it's different--now it's hyar. . . . Jim, did you ever think it'd be better to go--back to honest livin'?"

  "Not lately," replied Jim, gloomily.

  "Wal, you're younger'n most of us."

  Smoky returned with the water, and the two men helped Latimer to drink.

  "Sparrow, you can't gain strength on water," complained Smoky, earnestly. "I'm gonna fetch you somethin'."

  On the walk across the oval Smoky said, very seriously: "Jim, I reckon we better have Sparrow tell us tomorrer--whatever he has on his chest. That is, IF we want to know it. Do you?"

  "I sure do, Smoky."

  "Wal, I ain't so damn keen about it myself," rejoined Slocum, darkly.

  "But, Smoky, if it's something Latimer MUST confess, it's something we OUGHT to know."

  "You think so, even if it splits the outfit?"

  "If there's anything that can do that--you bet your life we ought to know," rejoined Jim, forcibly.

  "Not so loud, man. These hyar walls have ears. We'll see tomorrer."

  That night Jim took his time at supper, and afterwards he lingered around the camp fire, and long after Hays had stalked off into the gloom with a significant parting speech: "Good night all. I'm turnin' in."

  "Reckon Hank's tired of layin' awake nights listenin' to thet gurl cry," said Mac.

  "Looks like thet."

  "Thet's what it 'pears to me," replied the cook. "I fixed up her supper before callin' you-all. Hank took it over. He was late comin' fer his own supper, as you saw."

  "Wal, it's decent of him."

  Jim moved his bed closer to the grove, farther from the camp fire, and it commanded a view of the rise of ground where any one passing could be detected above the horizon. And he sat on his bed watching until he was too tired to sit up any longer. But even after he had crawled under his blankets he watched. There was an overhanging shelf of rock, black as coal, then a strip of velvet blue sky, studded with stars, and last the dark, uneven rise of ground. A coyote passing along that near horizon would have seemed as large as a horse.

  But nothing passed. The hours wore on until the utter loneliness of the deep pit weighed heavily upon Jim's oppressed breast. Even the crickets ceased to chirp. The wind failed. He might have been lying in a stone sepulcher. He was fixed in a solitude that seemed to be working upon him. But Jim Wall did not believe in ghosts, and always he had scoffed the few intimations of spirit that had whispered to him from nature. Bent unalterably upon dealing death to the robber who had befriended him, he did not listen to still, small, inward voices.

  He fell asleep and dreamed that he was riding a gigantic, black horse with eyes of fire, and that there was a white flower growing out from a precipice, and in a strange, reckless desire to pluck it he fell into the abyss. Down, down he plunged into blackness. And suddenly a piercing, terrible cry rose from the depths.

  He was sitting upright in bed, his brow clammy with sweat, his heart clamped as in a cold vise. What had awakened him? The night was silent, melancholy, fateful. He swore that a soul-wrecking cry had broken his slumber. Then he remembered the dream. How absurd that he should dream of plucking a white flower and plunging to hell! Nevertheless, it disturbed him. There were things hard to explain. He was not subject to dreams. The rest of the night he dozed at intervals, haunted by he knew not what.

  One by one the members of the gang appeared at Happy Jack's calls to breakfast. With no work to do, no horses to find or rides to make, the robbers were lazy.

  Jim was the last to arrive, except Hays, who had not yet appeared.

  "Darn good thing we ain't in an Injun country," observed Mac.

  "Humph! Fer a feller who lays ten hours in bed I sleep damn little," rejoined Smoky, moodily. "I hear things an' I'm always waitin' fer somethin'."

&nb
sp; "Yell fer the boss. My voice is gone," said Happy Jack.

  Nobody took the trouble to comply with this request. The men fell to eating. Brad Lincoln had not spoken, and he kept his eyes lowered. But Lincoln was always morose in the mornings. After the meal, Jim, as was his custom, hurried toward the shelf where Latimer lay. He had gotten about halfway when Slocum caught up with him.

  "Jim, you look like the wrath of Gawd this mornin'."

  "Smoky, I didn't sleep well. I'm cross, and I reckon I need a shave."

  "Wal, if thet's all. . . . Say, Jim, did you hear the gurl scream last night?"

  "Scream! . . . Did she?"

  "Huh. If she didn't, I've shore got the jimjams. . . . My Gawd!

  Look at pore Latimer!"

  Their patient had wrestled off his bed out into the grass. They rushed to lift him back and make him comfortable. He appeared to be burning up with fever and alarmingly bright-eyed, but he was conscious and asked for water. Jim hurried to fetch some.

  "How'n hell I rolled out there I don't know," said Latimer, after he had drunk thirstily.

  "Reckon you was delirious, Sparrow," replied Smoky.

  "No, sir. I was scared."

  "Scared!--You? Thet's funny," rejoined Smoky, looking across at Jim.

  "What scared you, old man?" queried Jim, bathing Latimer's hot face with a wet scarf.

  "It was after I got my sleep. Must have been late, fer I always am dead to the world fer five or six hours. I was wide awake. It was shore a lonesome, still night. Mebbe my sins weighed on me. . . .

  But all of a sudden I heard a cry. It scared me so I jumped right off my bed. Hurt me, too, an' I didn't try to get back."

  "Maybe it was a coyote right by close," returned Jim.

  "Fellers, I'll bet you'll find thet gurl dead. . . . Murdered!" concluded Latimer, hoarsely.

  "Wal, I'll be ----!" ejaculated Smoky.

  "Sparrow, you don't look flighty," replied Jim, gravely. "But your talk is. Else you've a reason to think it."

  "Shore I have," rejoined Latimer, lowering his voice to a whisper.

  "Hays beat an' robbed Herrick! . . . Thet's the part I wanted to tell you, if I was goin' to croak. But I gotta tell it anyhow.

  An' I ask you both, as pards, to keep what I tell you secret till I'm dead."

  "I swear, Sparrow," said Smoky, huskily.

  "You can trust me, too," added Jim.

  "Wal, thet's why I feel Hank must have done fer the gurl, too."

  "Robbed Herrick!" exclaimed Slocum, incredulously. "Was there a fight?"

  "Yes. But Hank might have avoided it. He drove the man crazy."

  "Fellers, Hays'd steal coppers off a dead nigger's eyes--shore.

  But what he said he wanted was the gurl fer ransom. Yet he picked a fight with Herrick an' beat him with a gun."

  "Sparrow, how come you didn't tell us before?" asked Smoky, sternly.

  "I'm beholdin' to Hank. But I will say thet if I'd knowed his game, I'd never have gone with him. After it was too late--wal, I stuck. An' I'd kept it secret. But I feel in my bones I'm done fer. So I'm squealin', an' I'm doin' it because Hays double- crossed you all."

  "Reckon I'd have done the same, if Hank had a hold on me," conceded Smoky, generously. "Suppose you take a nip of whisky an' tell us what happened."

  "I'm hot enough without liquor. But I'll tell you. . . . Gimme some more water."

  After a moment Latimer drew a long breath and resumed: "Hank picked me because he had a hold on me. . . . After you fellers left thet night Hank went out an' got another hoss. He had a saddle hid somewhere. We took them hosses up the bench back of the house an' tied them. Then we went down toward the house."

  "Ahuh. He'd had this deal in mind all the time," said Smoky, nodding his head.

  "Yes. Before we got to the house he told me he meant to hold Herrick up fer what money he had on hand--then steal the gurl fer ransom. I opened my trap to kick ag'in' the gurl part of it, anyway, but he cussed me somethin' fierce. I seen then he was blood-set on it, so I shet up. . . . Herrick was in the livin'- room. We walked round the house, an' Hank showed me the gurl's winder, which was open. . . . Wal, we went back, an' up on the porch, an' into the livin'-room. When Herrick looked up Hank threw a gun on him. 'Keep quiet an' shell out your money,' Hank ordered.

  Thet didn't phase the Englishman. He jumped up, thunderin' mad.

  Hank hit him over the head, cuttin' a gash. Thet didn't knock Herrick out, but it made him fight till Hank got him good an' hard.

  Then he opened his desk and threw out some packages of greenbacks.

  After that he slid to the floor. Next Hank ordered me to go out an' round to the gurl's winder. It was bright moonlight, but I didn't locate thet winder quick. An' at thet I was guided to it by the gurl's voice. . . . Gimme another drink."

  Latimer quenched his inordinate thirst again, while Jim and Smoky exchanged thoughtful glances over him.

  "Wal, where was I? . . . When I straddled thet winder-sill I seen the gurl sittin' up in bed, white as the sheets about her. Hank had a gun pointed at her head, an' he was sayin' if she yelled he'd shoot. Then he told me to look around fer money an' jewels. I started thet, keepin' an eye on them. The room was as moonlight as outdoors. Hank told her to git up an' dress fer ridin'. She refused, an' he yanked her clean out of bed, splittin' her nightgown half off. 'Gurl,' he said, 'yore brother is hawg-tied down in the livin'-room, an' if you don't do as I tell you, I'll kill him. . . . I'm takin' you away fer ransom, an' when he pays up you can come home. So long's you're quiet we won't hurt you.' . . . At thet she got up an' ran into a closet. I heerd her sobbin'. He made her put on ridin'-clothes an' pack what else she wanted. Meanwhile I found a heap of gold things an' diamonds, an' a package of money, still with the Wells Fargo paper on it. These I stuffed in my pockets, an' I shore--was a walkin' goldmine."

  "How much was there?" asked Smoky, curiously, when Latimer paused to catch his breath.

  "I'll come to thet. . . . We went out the winder, an' Hank hustled her into the woods, with me follerin'. Soon we come to the hosses, an' Hank put the gurl up on the gray. He blindfolded her an' told me to see she didn't git away. Then he run back down the hill.

  The gurl talked a blue streak, but she wasn't so damn scared, except when we heard a shot, then some one runnin' on hard ground.

  Hank come back pronto, pantin' like a lassoed bull. He said he'd run plump into Progar an' another of Heeseman's outfit.

  "'Miss Herrick,' he says, 'them fellers--was bent on robbin' your brother--mebbe killin' him. I shot--Progar, but the--other--got away.' . . . He tied the bundle on his hoss, an' leadin' the gurl's hoss, he rode up the mountain. We rode the rest of the night, stoppin' to rest at daylight. Hyar I turned the money an' trinkets over to Hank. He counted the money Herrick had turned over--somethin' more'n sixteen thousand--but he never opened the Wells Fargo package I'd found in the gurl's trunk. . . . Thet's all, fellers. We rode till noon, meetin' you as agreed in the cedars."

  "What was in thet Wells Fargo package?" asked Smoky, after a long pause.

  "Money. Hundred dollar bills. I tore a corner of the paper off.

  It was a thick an' heavy package."

  "Ahuh. So Hank went south with thet an' the jewelry?"

  "Yes. When he made the divvy hyar he give me his share of thet sixteen thousand. It's hyar in my coat. You an' Jim air welcome to it. Cause where I'm goin'--I won't need any."

  "Sparrow, it was a long story fer a sick man--an' hard to tell," said Smoky, feelingly. "Jim an' me will respect your confidence.

  An' if you pull through--as I hope to Gawd you do--we'll never squeak. . . . But, pard, don't be surprised at what comes off."

  Chapter 12

  Five days later Sparrowhawk Latimer died during the night, after a short interval of improvement which gave his comrades renewed hope.

  He passed away alone, evidently in agony to judge from his distorted face. When Slocum found his body in the morning it was stiff and cold.

/>   "Wal, I don't know but thet Sparrow's better off," remarked Smoky, with pathos. "This hyar game ain't hardly wuth playin'."

  They buried him in his tarpaulin on the spot, and divided his effects among them by drawing lots.

  "What'd you do with the money you found on him?" queried Hays.

  "We didn't find none. Sparrow gave it to me an' Jim some days ago," replied Smoky.

  "Reckon you better divide it."

  "Ump-um," rejoined Smoky, nonchalantly, his beady little eyes on the chief.

  "Why not?"

  "Wal, Sparrow wanted us to have it, not, I reckon, because we took care of him when YOU forgot him, but jest because he cottoned to us."

  "Smoky, tell Hays the other reason," spoke up Jim.

  "Thet'll wait, Jim. No hurry. An' I'm not so shore Sparrow wanted us to tell."

  Hank Hays turned livid of face and the gaze he flashed upon his two cool subordinates held nothing if not the lightnings of a desperate soul.

  "Ahuh. Mebbe you'd both be wise to stay shet up," he said, and left.

  Brad Lincoln was the first of the others to voice intense curiosity.

  "What's all this gab?" he demanded.

  "Keep your shirt on, Brad," returned Smoky, provokingly.

  "Fellers," continued Lincoln, turning to the others, "I've had a hunch all along there was a stink in this deal. Air you with me in demandin' a show-down from Smoky an' Jim?"

  "We shore air," rejoined Bridges, and Mac and Happy Jack expressed like loyalty.

  "Smoky, you're square. If there's anythin', we want to know."

  "Wal, there's a hell of a lot. It's due you. Jim an' me have no mind to keep silent, now Latimer's gone. But we're stuck hyar in this hole, an' we don't want to fight among ourselves."

  "Right you air. But no matter," snapped Lincoln.

  "It'll bust up the poker game, Brad. You're behind, an' so long as there's a chanct to win Hays' roll, why not take it?"

  Lincoln made a passionate gesture. Smoky had hit his weakness. He was the top gambler of the outfit. They were all gamblers when they had money and leisure, but Lincoln had the distinction of winning most.

  "Smoky, you're sluggin' me one below the belt. You know damned well I'd pass up anythin' to beat Hank. I'm game. Keep your mouth shet till it's gotta come out. An' you can bet your life if it's as serious as you hint, there'll be a hell of a row."