He thought his manner had already forced Betty to give him his father's letters and admit the existence of the idol—she had been afraid to lie to him about them. And so Betty was "stringing" him along, as Taggart had suggested, until he completed the repairs on the buildings, until he had the ranch in such shape that it might be worked, and then at the end of the year Betty would tell him that his reformation had not been accomplished, and she and Taggart would take legal possession.
But if that was their plan they were mistaken in their man. Until he had worked out this solution of the situation he had determined to leave. Betty's deceit had disgusted him. But now, though there were faults in the structure of the solution he had worked out, he was certain that they intended working along those lines, and he was now equally determined to stay and see the thing out.
Of course, Taggart was trying to make a fool of Betty—that was all too evident. A man who has serious intentions—honorable intentions—toward a girl does not talk about her to his friends as Taggart had talked. Taggart did not care for her; he was merely planning to gain her confidence that he might gain possession of the money and the idol. The very fact that he was meeting Betty secretly proved that she had not given him the treasure. Perhaps she had doubts of him and was delaying. Yes, that was the explanation. Well, he would see that Taggart would never get the treasure.
He went in to breakfast and watched Betty covertly during the meal. She was trying to appear unconcerned, but it was plain to see that her unconcern was too deep to be genuine, and it moved Calumet to malevolent sarcasm.
"Nothin' is botherin' you this mornin', I reckon?" he said to her once when he caught her looking at him. "Clear conscience, eh?" he added as she flushed.
"What should bother me?" she asked, looking straight at him.
"I was thinkin' that mebbe the racket I was makin' tryin' to kill that snake might have bothered—"
To his surprise, she pressed her lips tightly together, and he could see mirth in her eyes—mocking mirth.
"You are talking in riddles," she said quietly.
So then she was going to deny it? Wrath rose in him.
"Riddles, eh?" he said. "Well, riddles—"
"That reptile was sure botherin' you a heap," cut in Dade; and Calumet shot a quick glance at him, wondering whether he, also, was a party to the plot to "string" him.
He thought he detected gratitude in Betty's eyes as she smiled at Dade, but he was not certain. He said no more on the subject—then. But shortly after the conclusion of the meal he contrived to come upon Betty outside the house. She was hanging a dish towel from a line that stretched from a corner of the porch to the stable.
Looking at her as he approached, he was conscious that there was something more than rage in his heart against her for her duplicity; there was a gnawing disappointment and regret. It was as though he was losing something he valued. But he put this emotion away from him as he faced her.
"You're damn slick," he said; "slicker than I thought you was. But I ain't lettin' you think that you're stringin' me like you thought you was." He put vicious and significant emphasis on the word, and when he saw her start he knew she divined that he had overheard the conversation between her and Taggart.
Her face flushed. "You were listening, then," she said with cold contempt.
"I ain't ashamed of it, either," he shot back. "When a man's dealin' with crooks like—" He hesitated, and then gave a venomous accent to the words—"like you an' Taggart, he can't be over-scrupulous. I was sure listenin'. I heard Taggart ask you if you was still stringin' me. If it hadn't been for that new pup which I just brought Bob I'd have done what I was goin'—"
He stopped talking and looked sharply at her, for a change had come over her. In her eyes was that expression of conscious advantage which he had noticed many times before. She seemed to be making a great effort to suppress some emotion, and was succeeding, too, for when she spoke her voice was low and well controlled.
"So you heard Taggart talking to me?" she mocked, mirth in her eyes. "And you shot at him? Is that it? Well, what of it? I do not have to account to you for my actions!"
He laughed. "Nothin' of it, I reckon. But if you're stuck on him, why don't you come out in the open, instead of sneakin' around? You made it pretty strong the day I smashed his face for talkin' about you. I reckon he had some grounds."
He was talking now to hurt her; there was a savage desire in his heart to goad her to anger.
But he did not succeed. Her face paled a little at his brutal words, at the insult they implied, and she became a little rigid, her lips stiffening. But suddenly she smiled, mockingly, with irritating unconcern.
"If I didn't know that you hate me as you do I should be inclined to think that you are jealous. Are you?"
He straightened in astonishment. Her manner was not that of the woman who is caught doing something dishonorable; it was the calm poise of sturdy honesty at bay. But while he was mystified, he was not convinced. She had hit the mark, he knew, but he laughed harshly.
"Jealous!" he said; "jealous of you? I reckon you've got a good opinion of yourself! You make me sick. I just want to put you wise a few. You don't need to try to pull off any of that sweet innocence stuff on me any more. You're deep an' slick, but I've sized you up. You made a monkey of the old man; you made him think like you're tryin' to make me think, that you're sacrificin' yourself.
"You soft-soaped him into smearin' a heap of mush into his letters to me. It's likely you wrote them yourself. An' you hoodwinked him into givin' you the money an' the idol so's you an' Taggart could divvy up after you put me out of the runnin'. Goin' to reform me! I reckon if I was an angel I'd have to have a recommendation from the Lord before you'd agree that I'd reformed. You couldn't be pried loose from that coin with a crow-bar!"
He turned from her, baffled, for it was apparent from the expression of mirth deep in her eyes that his attack had made no impression on her.
Calumet went to the stable and threw a bridle on Blackleg. While he was placing the saddle on the animal he hesitated and stood regarding it with indecision. He had intended to refuse to accept Betty's orders in the future; had decided that he would do no more work on the buildings. But he was not the Calumet of old, who did things to suit himself, in defiance to the opinions and wishes of other people. Betty had thrown a spell over him; he discovered that in spite of his discovery he felt like accommodating his movements to her desires. It was a mystery that maddened him; he seemed to be losing his grip on himself, and, though he fought against it, he found that he dreaded her disapproval, her sarcasm, and her taunts.
It seemed to him puerile, ridiculous, to think of refusing to continue with the work he had started. As long as he was going to stay at the Lazy Y he might as well keep on. Betty would surely laugh at him if he refused to go on. He fought it out and took a long time to it, but he finally pulled the saddle from Blackleg and hitched the two horses to the wagon. When he drove out of the ranchhouse yard he saw Betty watching him from one of the kitchen windows. He felt like cursing her, but did not.
"I reckon," he said as he curled the lash of the whip viciously over the shoulders of the horses, "that she's got me locoed. Well," he cogitated, "any woman's liable to stampede a man, an' I ain't the first guy that's had his doubts whether he's a coyote or a lion after he's been herd-rode by a petticoat. I'm waitin' her out. But Taggart—" The frown on his face indicated that his intentions toward the latter were perfectly clear.
CHAPTER XV
A MEETING IN THE RED DOG
Of the good resolutions that Calumet had made since the night before, when he had re-read his father's letter in the moonlight while standing beside the corral fence, none had survived. Black, vicious thoughts filled his mind as he drove toward Lazette. When the wagon reached the crest of a slope about a mile out of town, Calumet halted the horses and rolled a cigarette, a sullen look in his eyes, unrelieved by the prospect before him.
By no stretch of the imaginati
on could Lazette be called attractive. It lay forlorn and dismal at the foot of the slope, its forty or more buildings dingy, unpainted, ugly, scattered along the one street as though waiting for the encompassing desolation to engulf them. Two serpentine lines of steel, glistening in the sunlight, came from some mysterious distance across the dead level of alkali, touched the edge of town where rose a little red wooden station and a water tank of the same color, and then bent away toward some barren hills, where they vanished.
Calumet proceeded down the slope, halting at the lumber yard, where he left his wagon and orders for the material he wanted. Across the street from the lumber yard was a building on which was a sign: "The Chance Saloon." Toward this Calumet went after leaving his wagon. He hesitated for an instant on the sidewalk, and a voice, seeming to come from nowhere in particular, whispered in his ear:
"Neal Taggart's layin' for you!"
When Calumet wheeled, his six-shooter was in his hand. At his shoulder, having evidently followed him from across the street, stood a man. He was lean-faced, hardy-looking, with a strong, determined jaw and steady, alert eyes. He was apparently about fifty years of age. He grinned at Calumet's belligerent motion.
"Hearin' me?" he said to Calumet's cold, inquiring glance.
The latter's eyes glowed. "Layin' for me, eh? Thanks." He looked curiously at the other. "Who are you?" he said.
"I'm Dave Toban, the sheriff." He threw back one side of his vest and revealed a small silver star.
"Correct," said Calumet; "how you knowin' me?"
"Knowed your dad," said the sheriff. "You look a heap like him. Besides," he added as his eyes twinkled, "there ain't no one else in this section doin' any buildin' now."
"I'm sure much obliged for your interest," said Calumet. "An' so Taggart's lookin' for me?"
"Been in town a week," continued the sheriff. "Been makin' his brags what he's goin' to do to you. Says you wheedled him into comin' over to the Lazy Y an' then beat him up. Got Denver Ed with him."
Calumet's eyes narrowed. "I know him," he said.
"Gun-fighter, ain't he?" questioned the sheriff.
"Yep." Calumet's eyelashes flickered; he smiled with straight lips. "Drinkin'?" he invited.
"Wouldn't do," grinned the sheriff. "Publicly, I ain't takin' no side. Privately, I'm feelin' different. Knowed your dad. Taggart's bad medicine for this section. Different with you."
"How different?"
"Straight up. Anybody that lives around Betty Clayton's got to be."
Calumet looked at him with a crooked smile. "I reckon," he said, "that you don't know any more about women than I do. So-long," he added. He went into the "Chance" saloon, leaving the sheriff looking after him with a queer smile.
Ten minutes later when Calumet came out of the saloon the sheriff was nowhere in sight.
Calumet went over to where his wagon stood and, concealed behind it, took a six-shooter from under his shirt at the waistband and placed it carefully in a sling under the right side of his vest. Then he removed the cartridges from the weapon in the holster at his hip, smiling mirthlessly as he replaced it in the holster and made his way up the street.
With apparent carelessness, though keeping an alert eye about him, he went the rounds of the saloons. Before he had visited half of them there was an air of suppressed excitement in the manner of Lazette's citizens, and knowledge of his errand went before him. In the saloons that he entered men made way for him, looking at him with interest as he peered with impersonal intentness at them, or, standing in doorways, they watched him in silence as he departed, and then fell to talking in whispers. He knew what was happening—Lazette had heard what Taggart had been saying about him, and was keeping aloof, giving him a clear field.
Presently he entered the Red Dog.
There were a dozen men here, drinking, playing cards, gambling. The talk died away as he entered; men sat silently at the tables, seeming to look at their cards, but in reality watching him covertly. Other men got up from their chairs and walked, with apparent unconcern, away from the center of the room, so that when Calumet carelessly tossed a coin on the bar in payment for a drink which he ordered, only three men remained at the bar with him.
He had taken quick note of these men. They were Neal Taggart; a tall, lanky, unprepossessing man with a truculent eye rimmed by lashless lids, and with a drooping mustache which almost concealed the cruel curve of his lips, whom he knew as Denver Ed—having met him several times in the Durango country; and a medium-sized stranger whom he knew as Garvey. The latter was dark-complexioned, with a hook nose and a loose-lipped mouth.
Calumet did not appear to notice them. He poured his glass full and lifted it, preparatory to drinking. Before it reached his lips he became aware of a movement among the three men—Garvey had left them and was standing beside him.
"Have that on me," said Garvey, silkily, to Calumet.
Calumet surveyed him with a glance of mild interest. He set his glass down, and the other silently motioned to the bartender for another.
"Stranger here, I reckon?" said Garvey as he poured his whiskey. "Where's your ranch?"
"The Lazy Y," said Calumet.
The other filled his glass. "Here's how," he said, and tilted it toward his lips. Calumet did likewise. If he felt the man's hand on the butt of the six-shooter at his hip, he gave no indication of it. Nor did he seem to exhibit any surprise or concern when, after drinking and setting the glass down, he looked around to see that Garvey had drawn the weapon out and was examining it with apparently casual interest.
This action on the part of Garvey was unethical and dangerous, and there were men among the dozen in the room who looked sneeringly at Calumet, or to one another whispered the significant words, "greenhorn" and "tenderfoot." Others, to whom the proprietor had spoken concerning Calumet, looked at him in surprise. Still others merely stared at Garvey and Calumet, unable to account for the latter's mild submission to this unallowed liberty. The proprietor alone, remembering a certain gleam in Calumet's eyes on a former occasion, looked at him now and saw deep in his eyes a slumbering counterpart to it, and discreetly retired to the far end of the bar, where there was a whiskey barrel in front of him.
But Calumet seemed unconcerned.
"Some gun," remarked Garvey. It was strange, though, that he was not looking at the weapon at all, or he might have seen the empty chambers. He was looking at Calumet, and it was apparent that his interest in the weapon was negative.
"Yes, some," agreed Calumet. He swung around and faced the man, leaning his left arm carelessly on the bar.
At that instant Denver Ed sauntered over and joined them. He looked once at Calumet, and then his gaze went to Garvey as he spoke.
"Friend of yourn?" he questioned. There was marked deference in the manner of Garvey. He politely backed away, shifting his position so that Denver Ed faced Calumet at a distance of several feet, with no obstruction between them.
Calumet's eyes met Denver's, and he answered the latter's question, Garvey having apparently withdrawn from the conversation.
"Friend of his?" sneered Calumet, grinning shallowly. "I reckon not; I'm pickin' my company."
Denver Ed did not answer at once. He moved a little toward Calumet and shoved his right hip forward, so that the butt of his six-shooter was invitingly near. Then, with his hands folded peacefully over his chest, he spoke:
"You do," he said, "you mangy ———!"
There was a stir among the onlookers as the vile epithet was applied. Calumet's right hand went swiftly forward and his fingers closed around the butt of the weapon at Denver Ed's hip. The gun came out with a jerk and lay in Calumet's hand. Calumet began to pull the trigger. The dull, metallic impact of the hammer against empty chambers was the only result.
Denver Ed grinned malignantly as his right hand stole into his vest. There was a flash of metal as he drew the concealed gun, but before its muzzle could be trained on Calumet the latter pressed the empty weapon in his own hand against th
e one that Denver Ed was attempting to draw, blocking its egress; while in Calumet's left hand the six-shooter which he had concealed under his own vest roared spitefully within a foot of Denver Ed's chest.
Many in the room saw the expression of surprise in Denver Ed's eye as he pitched forward in a heap at Calumet's feet. There were others who saw Garvey raise the six-shooter which he had drawn from Calumet's holster. All heard the hammer click impotently on the empty chambers; saw Calumet's own weapon flash around and cover Garvey; saw the flame-spurt and watched Garvey crumple and sink.
There was a dead silence. Taggart had not moved. Calumet's gaze went from the two fallen men and rested on his father's enemy.
"Didn't work," he jeered. "They missed connections, didn't they? You'll get yours if you ain't out of town by sundown. Layin' for me for a week, eh? You sufferin' sneak, thinkin' I was born yesterday!" He ignored Taggart and looked coolly around at his audience, not a man of which had moved. He saw the sheriff standing near the door, and it was to him that he spoke.
"Frame-up," he said in short, sharp accents. "Back Durango way Denver an' the little guy pulled it off regular. Little man gets your gun. Denver gets you riled. Sticks his hip out so's you'll grab his gun. You do. Gun's empty. But you don't know it, an' you try to perforate Denver. Then he pulls another gun an' salivates you. Self-defense." He looked around with a cold grin. "Planted an empty on him myself," he said. "The little guy fell for it. So did Denver. I reckon that's all. You wantin' me for this?" he inquired of the sheriff. "You'll find me at the Lazy Y. Taggart—" He hesitated and looked around. Taggart was nowhere to be seen. "Sloped," added Calumet, with a laugh.
The Boss of the Lazy Y Page 12
