“That there’s some kind of a tie-up between him and Darley and Shelton. Of course we know that, but suppose we can prove it? Prove that one of them hired Ruggles to get that note to me?”
“Sure, it’d look bad,” Rolfe conceded, “but I don’t know how we can prove anything of the sort.”
“Maybe Ruggles came to town after dark,” Neal said, “and told Shelton what had happened. He might be bunking with Shelton tonight. He wouldn’t go to Darley because Darley and his wife are at Tucker’s boarding house, but Shelton sleeps alone in their office.”
“You’re just grabbing at a handful of straws,” Rolfe said, “but I wouldn’t mind putting the screws on that bastard. We’ve been too easy on him and Darley both. Let’s go wake him up and listen to him squirm. Wait’ll I get my shirt and boots on.”
Chapter Ten
Neal walked beside Joe Rolfe down the twisting street toward the business block, the pines’ giant spears pointing at the dark sky, the lava rock low mounds among the earthbound shadows. They moved cautiously, but still stumbled over the lava outcroppings that edged sharply into the street. They would have fallen if they had not been walking slowly.
“Should have fetched a lantern,” Rolfe muttered, when they reached Main Street. “I damn near break my neck every time I come down that street after dark.”
Neal said nothing. He had thought about a lantern, but decided against suggesting they bring one. On a night as dark as this a moving lantern would be as noticeable as a bright star in a black sky. Neal had a hunch Shelton expected him to do the very thing he was doing. If Shelton was watching from a window, a lantern would warn him, perhaps show him there were two instead of one.
Now, in the ebb-tide hours of early morning, no light showed along Main Street, not even in O’Hara’s bar or the hotel lobby. Neal had the weird impression the town was deserted. It seemed to him that the sharp sound of boot heels on the boards of the walk echoed and reechoed, the staccato beat inordinately slow to die in the otherwise silent night.
When they reached the foot of the stairs that led to the Darley and Shelton office over the Mercantile, Neal said: “Let me do the talking, Joe.”
“Why?” Rolfe demanded.
“If he hears my voice and thinks I’m alone,” Neal answered, “he’ll tip his hand, but he’ll play it close to his chest if he knows you’re here.”
Rolfe considered this for a moment, then he said: “All right, Neal, we’ll play it your way.”
Neal climbed the stairs, making no effort to be silent. Rolfe followed two steps behind him. Neal wondered if Shelton was asleep. Or was he sitting up expecting this visit? And did Darley know about the notes, or was it just Shelton’s idea? Or was it either one of them? A lot of questions and no answers, but maybe they’d have some soon.
Standing beside the door, he pounded on it. One short moment of silence, then gunfire broke out from inside the company office, bullets slicing through the door and slapping into the wall across the hall. No warning, no demand for the visitor to identify himself. Nothing but the sudden burst of gunfire.
If Neal had been standing directly in front of the door, he’d have been hit. He drew his gun and fired, checking himself after the third shot as he realized he wasn’t accomplishing anything. Shelton would not be foolish enough to remain in an exposed position on the other side of the door.
Then, after the last echo of the shots had faded, Neal was aware that Rolfe was not standing on the stairs behind him. He backed up, calling: “Joe?”
“Here,” Rolfe said. “I got tagged.”
The sheriff was halfway down the stairs when Neal reached him. Neal asked: “Where’d you get it?”
“In the arm. Just took off a hunk of hide.”
“We’ll get Doc up.”
“No such thing. . . .”
“Come on, come on,” Neal said impatiently.
He was thoroughly angry, now that he’d had time to think about it. Not a word had been spoken. Whoever was in the office—and it must be Shelton—had cut loose the instant he’d heard Neal’s knock.
By the time Neal and Rolfe reached the street, lights had bloomed in the hotel lobby, Doc Santee’s office, and O’Hara’s bar. Before they reached the doctor’s office, doors were flung open and men ran into the street, some in their underclothes, others hastily pulling on their pants, fingers fumbling with buttons.
Someone yelled: “What happened?”
And another man: “Who got shot?”
The last was O’Hara’s voice. Neal called: “Shelton tried to shoot me and the sheriff!” They were in front of Santee’s office then. The doctor stood in the doorway, his bulky body almost filling it, with the lamp behind him throwing a long shadow across the boardwalk. Neal said: “Joe’s hit, Doc.”
“Fetch him in,” Santee said and swung around, content to ask questions later.
But the others had to know. O’Hara crowded into the office, Harvey Quinn shoving him forward. Olly Earl was a step behind them.
O’Hara asked: “What happened, Clark?”
Santee had taken Rolfe into his back room. Neal did not follow, but stood looking at the men who formed a solid wedge in the doorway. Others had joined them. Six altogether. Now seven. No, eight as the Sorrenson kid who worked nights in the livery stable appeared in the rear.
Neal saw no trace of friendliness in their faces, only hostility. That was exactly what he expected. He remembered what Darley had said that afternoon: People don’t like you. Before this is over, they’ll hang you. It would take very little, he thought, to turn these eight men into a lynch mob. Henry Abel had been right.
“Damn it, you gonna answer me or not?” O’Hara shouted. “I asked you what happened.”
“I went to the Darley and Shelton office with Joe Rolfe,” Neal said. “We wanted to ask Shelton some questions, so I knocked on the door. Whoever was inside didn’t say a word. Just started shooting. Must have been Shelton. Joe got nicked.”
Still they stood there, staring at him truculently as if not believing he was telling it straight.
Finally Quinn asked: “Why would he do that?”
“Ask him.”
“We will,” O’Hara said and, wheeling, motioned the others out of the doorway.
They were gone, O’Hara leading, the sound of their passage reminding Neal of the sullen departure of a storm. He stood in the doorway watching them, thinking how quickly the town had come to life. Only a few minutes before he’d had the impression it was deserted. Now it seethed with the strongest of human emotions: fear and greed and hate, violent emotions that could easily lead to death.
These men might be back with a rope for him. Was that what Shelton and Darley wanted? There was no way to know. How could you fathom a human mind that was as near the animal level as Shelton’s? Or Darley’s? Or both?
Turning, he walked across Santee’s outer office to the back room, a little sick with fear. He would have no hesitation whatever if he had to shoot and kill Darley or Shelton. But he could not kill O’Hara or Olly Earl or the Sorrenson kid. Still, he would not be dragged out into the street with a rope on his neck.
Santee was putting a bandage on Rolfe’s arm. He glanced up when Neal came in. He was a big, bald man with huge hands that were miraculously nimble for their size, and, like most doctors who served a vast area with a thin population, he was always tired and sleepy, for he spent more hours in the saddle than he did in bed.
“Joe’ll have a sore arm for a while,” Santee said. “He’s staying here for the night. I’ll give him something to make him sleep.”
“The hell you will,” Rolfe said angrily. “I’m going up there and drag Shelton out by his ear.”
“You’ll have a riot on your hands, if you do,” Neal said. “The bunch that was here went to see him. You know what he’ll tell them.”
“No, I don’t. Nothing he can say. Hell, he started throwing lead before . . .”
“You’ll wait till morning. They’ll be cooled off by
then.” Santee picked up a bottle from a shelf, poured a drink, and handed it to Rolfe. “I’ll tell you what he’ll say if you don’t know. He didn’t hear your voice before you knocked on the door. That right, Joe?”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“That’s it in a nutshell. Shelton will claim he fired because he didn’t know who was in the hall, but he had to protect the company money that was in the safe. He figured nobody would be pounding on the door this time of night unless it was a hold-up.”
“That’s the size of it,” Neal said. “Doc, did Joe tell you about this Ruggles gent? And the notes I’ve been getting?”
“He told me,” Santee said, “and I don’t have any idea what it means, either, if that’s what you want to know. But it doesn’t seem reasonable for a man like Ruggles to be hanging around for the fun of it. And I don’t think the notes are just a bluff.”
“I’m scared,” Neal said. “I’m so damned scared I don’t know up from down. If Laurie’s really in danger . . .”
“Go home, Neal.” Santee laid a hand on his shoulder. “Stay with Laurie. Keep her in the house.”
“All right.” Neal started to turn, then stopped. “Doc, would anybody but a crazy man think of using a child to get revenge?”
“You’re thinking Ed Shelly is really around here?”
“It’s possible.”
“I don’t think so,” Santee said thoughtfully. “I’m convinced that Darley and Shelton will play every dirty, stinking trick they can to get you out of the country.”
“But we don’t know how far they’ll go,” Neal said, “so my question hasn’t been answered. Would anyone but a crazy man hurt a child? It doesn’t make any difference whether he’s getting revenge or filling his pockets. A sane man just wouldn’t use a child.”
Santee reached for his pipe and filled it, scowling as he tamped the tobacco into the bowl. “Neal, I’m a doctor. I’m good at jobs like this.” He nodded at Rolfe. “Or helping babies into the world.” He tapped his forehead. “When it comes to saying whether a man is sane or crazy, well, I just don’t know. All I know is that there’s times when a crazy man acts sane, and vice versa.”
“But if a man lives with his hate long enough . . .”
“He can go crazy,” Santee interrupted. “I’ll agree to that, but our trouble is we’re shooting in the dark. We don’t know our man. If he is crazy, then Laurie’s really in danger. All you can do is be damned sure she’s never left alone.”
“If you leave the house in the morning,” Rolfe said, “be sure Jane keeps Laurie inside.”
“She will,” Neal said, and, turning, trudged wearily out of the office and along the boardwalk toward his home.
Neal walked through the pines, thinking that imaginary trouble can become real trouble within a matter of seconds. For eight years he had been plagued by his fear of Ed Shelly, his certainty the man would someday return. If he had not stepped into the street that day and shot Buck and Luke Shelly . . .
But it was foolish to think about the might-have-beens. Not knowing even now whether Laurie and Jane were in real trouble or not, the only thing he could do was to take every precaution that was possible.
When he reached his house, he crossed the yard rapidly, his hand on gun butt, realizing that if Ruggles was the one who had shot at him before, the man might have returned. He unlocked the front door, opened it, and slipped inside. He closed and locked it, relieved. He leaned against the wall, breathing hard and asking himself if he was being jumpy over nothing. He was a little ashamed, then thought he shouldn’t be. The notes he’d received might be only bluffs, but the bullets that had been fired at him tonight were real indeed.
He lighted the lamp on the table in the parlor and went upstairs. He waited a moment outside his bedroom door, listening to Jane’s even breathing, then went on to Laurie’s room. The bracket lamp in the hall was lighted. He glanced in, saw that she was all right, and went back downstairs.
Drawing a chair in front of the fireplace, he threw on more wood, and then sat down to wait, his gun across his lap.
Chapter Eleven
Jane slept later than usual this morning. Ordinarily Neal got up half an hour before she did. It was his habit to build the fire, set the coffee pot on the front of the stove, then go to the woodshed and split the day’s supply of wood. Jane would remain in bed, torn between the knowledge that she should get up and start breakfast and the desire to linger in the comfortable warmth of the bed, enjoying a luxury she had never been able to afford when she and Neal had lived on the Circle C.
This morning she woke suddenly, the sharp April sunlight falling across her face from the east window. She had not slept well during the night, waking often and reaching to the other side of the bed to see if Neal was there. But he hadn’t come. He wasn’t there now, and suddenly she was afraid. Something must have happened to him or he would have come to bed hours ago.
The fear passed. If Neal had been hurt, she would have heard. Joe Rolfe or Doc Santee would have come to the house before this. Besides, she had faith in Neal’s ability to handle any situation. He had always seemed indestructible to her. He still did, even though she realized he was more worried than he had ever been before in his life. He wasn’t worried about himself, she knew. Being shot at last night had not bothered him as much as the warning notes that threatened her and Laurie.
Her thoughts went back to the early years of their marriage when Neal’s father dominated everything they did. Sam Clark was the only man she had ever hated and she had been relieved when he died. Neal must have felt the same way, and instantly she knew she was wrong. In spite of all the things that were wrong with Sam Clark, Neal had never hated him.
She thought how helpless she had been on the ranch, just living and working and never having the slightest opportunity to do what she wanted to with the house. She had been tested as few wives were ever tested. Even moving to town had not been a free choice on Neal’s part.
She got up and dressed, thinking that this trouble would be settled soon, today or maybe tomorrow. One good thing would come out of it, she was sure. Sam Clark’s hold upon Neal would be shattered. They would go back to the Circle C, and Neal would be happier. She would be, too. She had never fitted socially in town, not with women like Mrs. Quinn and Mrs. Earl and the rest.
Pinning up her hair in front of the mirror, she wondered why Neal, in many ways a tough and unyielding man, had yielded to his father as much as he had. Habit, maybe. On occasion he had stood up to his father, but on the big things, like taking on the bank, he had submitted. Neal had a right to live his own life, she told herself defiantly. If it meant selling the bank, they’d do it.
She went down the stairs, determined to push Neal into the decision she knew he wanted to make. When she reached the parlor, she forgot all about it. Neal was dozing in a rocking chair, his pistol on his lap.
For a moment Jane stood motionlessly, vaguely alarmed. Neal should have been upstairs in bed. She walked across the room and shook him awake. He grunted and rubbed his eyes, then rose, and slipped the gun into his holster. He left the parlor and, crossing the dining room to the kitchen, closed the door after Jane who had followed him.
He grinned ruefully. “I sure turned out to be a good guard, going to sleep like that. I’d get shot if I was in the Army.”
She gripped his arms. “Neal, what happened? You’ve been up all night, sitting there with that gun on your lap . . .”
“Wait’ll I build a fire,” he said. “I need some coffee.”
She waited beside the stove until he had the fire going, the pine snapping with staccato cracks, then she set the coffee pot on the stove, and dropped into the chair Neal had placed there for her. He pulled up another chair and sat down, his angular face hard set, the muscles at the hinges of his jaws bulging like half marbles.
“What happened after you left the house last night?” Jane asked.
He hesitated, then told her about getting Joe Rolfe out of bed and going
to Shelton’s office and being shot at. “We still don’t know whether those notes are bluffs, or whether Ed Shelly is alive and hiding around here.”
“It’s a trick,” Jane said. “It’s got to be. Joe has always told you Ed Shelly was dead.”
“Sure, he’s told me.” Neal got up and walked to the window. “It’s this thing about Laurie, Jane. If anything happens to her . . .”
“It won’t,” Jane said. “We won’t let it.” She stared at his back, feeling the tension that was almost a physical sickness in him. “Neal, did you think they might be sending you those notes to keep you in the house? Darley and Shelton, I mean.”
He turned sharply to face her. “And while I’m staying here, watching out for Laurie, they get out of town with the money. No, I hadn’t thought of it.” He frowned, and added thoughtfully: “And this is the day they have a man coming from Portland, a fat goose they aim to pick. It would work just as well for them if I stayed in the house as if I got out of town.”
He would be safer here, she thought, but he would never forgive himself if he stayed at home, falling into the trap they were setting. No, he couldn’t stay, built the way he was.
She said: “You go on to the bank. I’ll take care of Laurie. I promise.”
He looked at her doubtfully. “I don’t know. This is Joe Rolfe’s business . . .”
“You’ve made it yours, darling. You can’t hand it to Joe now.” She rose and, going to him, put her hands on his shoulders. “Ed Shelly’s been on your mind eight years, hasn’t he?”
“How did you know?”
“You’ve talked in your sleep,” she said. “You were dreaming about it, I guess. Sometimes it seemed as if you were having nightmares.”
“I’ve had nightmares, all right,” he said. “It was always the same whether it was you or Laurie or me who was being hurt. Ed Shelly had come back to Cascade City.”
He whirled away from her and, going to the stove, poured himself a cup of coffee. “If Ed Shelly wanted to get square by worrying the hell out of me,” he said, “he’s getting it. Maybe I’ve worried so much about it, I brought it to pass.” He tried to grin at her over the top of the coffee cup. “Fool notion, isn’t it? I think I knew all the time I’d have to face something like this, but it’s worse because of Laurie.”
The Man from Yesterday Page 8
