Webster said thoughtfully, “You speak with a lot of confidence. I shouldn’t imagine that the hijackers would want any of their victims to live to identify them.”
“There’s the point,” Clanton spoke up. “Nix’s office has been analyzing these robberies, and it’s a funny thing; very few men are killed during them. Only the hotheads who want to put up a fight over their goods or money. Damned fool trick, you can replace your goods, but you’re a long time dead.”
“I’ve had that pointed out to me before,” Webster said. “So you think you’ll be safe enough?”
“Yeah, and we’ve made doubly sure. Those boxes haven’t got bolts of cloth in them; they haven’t got anything in them but the money. We worked out the idea with Faulkner. Here’s what we’re planning to do, and it’s one reason we have to bring you in on our plans. Nix’s dope on most of these robberies is that they take place about halfway down the other side of the pass in the hills. By our rate of speed, we figure that we’ll be there maybe a couple of hours before daylight. I’ve got a feeling that we’ll be met there. So, you’ll be driving, and when we get close there, Nix and I will be in those boxes with our rifles. The hijackers are not in the habit of killing the drivers. They’ll stop you, and they’ll demand the gold, and if there has been a leak, as we think, they’ll want to know where we are. You give them some cock-and-bull story. They’ll start to search the wagon. That’s when we’ll pop up out of those boxes, and before we’re through with them we’ll have wounded some of those boys. We want to get our hands on a couple of them alive, and give them a right stiff interview. We think they can tell us some mighty interesting things.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Webster said, getting to his feet. “At any rate, we’d better get going. It’s your show, but I’ll give you a hand.”
“Just don’t get in a hurry with your gun,” Clanton cautioned him. “We don’t want ’em dead; we want ’em in talking condition. Usually the men you face are not able to tell a man much afterward.”
“I’ll try to restrain myself,” Webster grinned at him.
“Do that,” Clanton said. “Remember, there’s one thing common to these crimes; they don’t seem to want to kill anybody. That points to the fact that there’s one directing mind back of them and that man is smart. He realizes that as long as it’s only goods that are being stolen, there won’t be as much fuss as if a lot of people get killed. So, don’t take chances.”
Webster thought that he’d been hearing a lot about the protection of life in the last few hours, and this set him thinking. There was one thing about the plans of crooks that he had always noticed; the longer a plan worked successfully, the more certain the crooks were to keep on using it. And the longer they used it, the more it was used; the shorter the length of time when something went wrong with it. Nothing was more certain than that things went on without change, and so it followed that the longer a thing had gone on without change, the sooner it was bound to change.
By that reasoning, things ought to be popping around here pretty soon.
“Two more things,” Clanton added. “There’s always chance of a slip-up. We don’t figure on it, naturally, but something could happen to us, since we’re officers, and they might suspect it and prefer to get us out of the way for keeps. We’ll both deputize you. That makes you an officer on either side of the river, in case you need authority. And we’ll show you how this money is marked, in case you ever have any occasion to trace it.”
CHAPTER VI
And Through The Trees
Webster pushed the four-horse team slowly up the rocky mountain trail, their movement indicated only by the grumbling of the wagon wheels and the rattle of harness in the almost complete blackness under the trees. About midnight they reached the ridge and stopped and made coffee over a small fire, which they quickly extinguished after they had finished.
As they worked the wagon down the far side of the mountain, they all became more alert. After an hour or so, Clanton and Nix left the seat and took up their positions in the big square, white-pine, yard-goods boxes in the wagon bed, taking their new rifles with them. They had smaller boxes in the larger ones, on which they could sit in comfort after the lids of the bigger boxes had been dropped over their heads.
After they got settled, Webster started his team again, continuing on down the mountain with his senses alert for the first sign of trouble. He was convinced that it would come, but he had never been over this trail before, and he had no way of knowing when or where or how it would come. All he could do was to ride into it.
The sky to his right—that would be to the east—was streaked with gray when the trouble hit.
Webster had been half dozing when the attackers struck with a suddenness that jerked him up in his seat.
A single rifle shot rang out, and the near lead horse dropped in his tracks, screamed, kicked once and died. Webster jerked on the reins, trying to get them all into one hand and use the hand brake, all at the same time. His hand started for his pistol, but he recalled Clanton’s order, and left his gun pouched.
The other horses piled up as he brought them to a stop, and he had to give his attention to getting them under control. By the time he had them quieted, he was able to do some thinking about himself, and his first thought was of the complete silence after the shot.
It was light enough now for him to see that the trail had been cut through a bank so that on each side of the ruts there was a rise higher than the wagon bed itself, and that the higher ground was thick with trees and brush.
It was from the trees that the voice came, “All right, driver, crawl down, and keep your hands high enough for us to see them.”
The voice came from his right. Webster looked to his left, and measured the distance from his seat to the outbank on that side. He might be able to jump it and dive into the trees, provided the man at the right was not fast enough.
He had just about decided to try for the bank when a man stepped out from behind the tree he was planning to try to reach. The man had a rifle aimed at him, held waist high. He came to the lip of the bank and made a motion with his gun.
“All right, didn’t you hear? Get on down.” He was not the man who had first spoken, for the first voice had come from the other side of the road.
Webster obeyed, thinking that men wouldn’t be here to meet this wagon unless they were sure it was coming, and knew that it contained more than hardware and drygoods.
He was turning this over in his mind when the hidden first voice said, “Joe, get his gun.”
The man who had shown himself hopped off the cliff to the trail below, managing his rifle as he jumped. He lifted Webster’s pistol, and the latter, knowing that he was covered by at least one other gun from the darkness, did not put up a fight.
He was beginning to wonder about Clanton and Nix. Why hadn’t they shown themselves?
After he was disarmed, another man came out from behind his tree on the right of the road, and stood towering over him, sizing up things in the slowly increasing light.
“All right,” he said over his shoulder, “His fangs are pulled.” Then he said to Webster, “Where’s your partners?”
“I haven’t got any partners,” Webster said. “You think this is a moonlight hayride I’m on, or something?”
“Where are those tin stars that came along with you?”
“You’re asking me riddles at this time of day?” Webster answered. “I’m just hauling a load of goods to a store at Buckhorn.”
“I know all about that,” the man said gruffly. “And a little loose change in the form of ten thousand dollars in hard coin. What happened to those men with that money?”
“How would I know?”
The voice of the man hidden in the trees answered with a kind of irritated patience. “Listen, driver, we don’t want to hurt you. We just want those men and that money. Now you want to
get back to Woodbine and collect your wages, don’t you? If you do, then start talking. If you don’t we’ll kill you quicker than hell can scorch a feather.”
“I’ll tell you,” Webster said, wondering what Clanton and Nix were waiting for. “I never was the gabbing kind. If you’ve got any idea that I’m hiding any men or money that belongs to you, why don’t you come and look for it?”
“That’s just what we intend to do. You left Woodbine with those men and that money, and it is a cinch that they didn’t stop off to go fishing or something. Joe, crawl up on that wagon and give it the once-over.”
The man in the trail nested his rifle under his arm and climbed up over the hub of the front wheel, placing his foot in the bed of the wagon back of the seat. He had his back to Webster, but without his gun, and with at least one other man covering him, Webster was helpless.
Webster turned his head, keeping his hands high, and swept the ground with his eyes, then turned back to watch the man in the wagon. He stepped back to the first big box and placed his hand on the lid.
“Ain’t nailed down,” he called out to the man in the woods. “Maybe that money is hid in it.”
“Then look and see,” came the order.
The man in the wagon lifted the box lid. And as he did, the lid of the other box came up almost in unison with it. And out of both boxes, rose the figures of Clanton and Nix, with their rifles coming up to their shoulders.
The man in the wagon emitted a yell and lifted his gun. There was a sudden explosion on the bank, and then two more men were out from behind the trees and pouring rifle fire into the wagon. The night bounced with echoes rolling across the hills.
Webster saw Clanton and Nix drop back into the boxes, then before the firing stopped he was in motion. His first jump landed him with one foot on the hub of the wagon, then without a break his second jump landed him up on the bank on the side opposite the riflemen. He landed flat, rolling like a log toward the nearest tree. As the firing resumed suddenly he heard the bullets whining by his ears, but he twisted himself around the big pine, got to his feet and disappeared deeper into the darkness of the woods above the outbank. He heard a few more shots following him on general principles, but they could not see him, and they were simply shooting in the general direction of the sound of his running feet. Probably to scare him and future drivers who would hear his tale.
The darkness became so thick here that he bumped into a clump of elderbushes without seeing them. Stooping, he used his hands to push the bushes apart, and crawled into them, where he had a chance to stop and get his breath. And time to wonder just what had happened. The whole thing had occurred so abruptly in the semidarkness that he had been unable to tell just what had taken place.
Clanton and Nix had not downed the man in the wagon, for he had been still on his feet when Webster escaped. And why had Clanton and Nix dropped back down into the boxes when the shooting started? They had wanted to wound at least one of the robbers, but Webster had not had a chance to see any of them fall. All he had seen were the dim figures and the orange flashes of flame pouring out of their rifle barrels.
He felt guilty at first for running out of the fight; but then he knew that there had been nothing he could have done. The bandits had actually succeeded in getting the drop on him and disarming him. And besides, whether he otherwise would have done it that way or not, he had at least been obeying orders. Faulkner had given him orders not to fight the bandits, and Clanton had told him specifically that he wanted Webster to do nothing, but to let him and Nix handle the affair.
But despite this, Webster was not constituted so that he could run from a fight and then excuse himself for it. He had the feeling now that something had gone wrong with Clanton’s plan.
He heard thumping and some talking, and an occasional yell at the horses, but unarmed against four men, he did not try to get any closer to the wagon to see what was going on. Either Clanton and Nix were dead, or they were going on with their plans in whatever way they could. Right now, he was not in a position to investigate.
Coming out of the bushes and moving around, he came upon the bandits’ horses. His first inclination was to untie them and leave the men afoot, but he quickly gave this up, knowing it was better to let them go and then follow them to their hiding place. He was struck particularly by one horse, a bay-and-white paint with a bay left front leg and right hind leg, and white right front and left hind legs. An unusual marking for even a paint horse.
He left the horses and waited half an hour, by which time he knew the bandits were gone. Then he made his way toward the road, moving from tree to tree.
He went forward slowly and cautiously, lest the bandits might have left a sniper back at the wagon in the hope of his returning. Thus, instead of going directly toward the wagon, he worked his way silently as an Indian from tree to tree until he was convinced that there was nobody around. And not until he had completely searched the surrounding woods did he go back to the wagon.
He had a short battle with himself about his conduct. He had the guilty feeling that he could have found some way to help the officers, but none of his reasoning showed him how that could have been done. They were competent men doing their jobs and taking their own risks. He would have protected them even against their wishes if they had got into hot water, and he could have helped them get out. But having allowed himself to be disarmed at their suggestion, he could only have got himself killed by putting up any resistance.
Webster had ample courage, and this he knew. But he had lived too dangerous a life to act foolhardily, knowing that it would do no good and only bring disaster on himself. He had a job of his own to do, and his first duty was to accomplish that.
With such arguments, he cleared his conscience and went about investigating the wagon. It was light enough to see well now, and as he stepped out onto the ridge of the cut beside the wagon, he saw everything just as he had left it. One of the lead horses was lying dead in its harness and the other three were standing hip-shot, waiting. The goods and the two big white-pine boxes were just as he had left them.
And there was no sign of Clanton and Nix.
What had happened? Had they followed the bandits. Or—
He climbed up over the wagon wheel and lifted the lid of the first box. Ben Clanton lay huddled in a shapeless pile in the bottom of the box, his rifle still in his hand, his black hat cocked crazily over one ear.
Webster knew without looking further that Ben Clanton was dead.
He moved over a step and lifted the lid of the other box and found what he now expected to find, Henry Nix dead in his own hiding place.
He lowered the box lid softly and searched the wagon without any expectation of finding what he was looking for. The canvas satchel of money was not to be found anywhere.
The robbers had known that those two officers were coming through with money. And they had simply killed them and taken it away.
Then the thought struck Webster that they could have killed him just as easily—even more easily. They could have put a bullet through him just as simply and safely as they had shot the lead horse.
Why didn’t they? They had robbed other wagons, trains and herds, but they had never killed unless the victims had foolishly put up a fight.
Had they considered Clanton and Nix as being damned fools who had to be killed—or had they a purpose of their own in destroying them?
Webster stood in the wagon bed beside the two boxes containing the bodies of the officers, and a great wave of bitterness poured over him. Everything seemed disconnected to him, but nonetheless a pattern was shaping up in the back of his mind. He could not get over the idea that all this outlawry was not just a long series of isolated events, but that it all fitted into some carefully planned scheme which had been thought out and organized by some strong and calculating mind. Clanton and Nix had been tackling their ends of the threads that had to be unrave
led, and Webster had his own threads on which he was working.
However, the threads all seemed to be parts woven into some much bigger single cord of events.
While Clanton and Nix were about their own business, he still felt that because of this singleness of pattern in the whole trouble, their sacrifice somehow put a moral obligation on him to carry on for them as well as for himself. He was thinking that they were working for the general welfare of the decent people as well as doing their appointed jobs, and that his obligation also expanded wider than his mere agreement to help Swanson.
In short, though Jim Webster was not a man who acknowledged that he had much sympathy or concern with people as a whole, he nevertheless, in spite of his hard surface, did have a strong moral sense of his responsibilities.
He got the shovel out of the tool box, shucked off his jacket, and dug two shallow graves beside the road, up under the pine trees. He removed their wallets and other effects from their pockets, took their badges, and then buried them. He then put rocks over their graves so that the wolves and coyotes could not dig them up.
Going back to the wagon he was struck with a sudden thought; Clanton and Nix had been prepared for this attack, and they certainly had heard the voices of those in command.
Why had they not been able to kill or wound any of the four bandits?
Figuring their positions in the boxes, picturing them rising suddenly together with their rifles at their shoulders, considering that this move would have come as a surprise to the bandits—why hadn’t Nix or Clanton between them managed to have shot at least one of them?
The Fifth Western Novel Page 26
