He staggered, the gun falling from his loosening fingers, his hands dropped to his sides, and he sagged forward inertly, plunging into the dust in front of the kitchen door.
Nyland ran forward, peered into the man’s face, saw that no more shooting on his part would be required, and then ran into the house to search for Peggy.
She was not in the house—a glance into each room told Nyland that. He went outside again, his face grim, and knelt beside the man.
The latter’s wound was fatal—Nyland saw that plainly, for the bullet had entered his breast just above the heart.
Nyland got some water, for an hour he worked over the man, not to save his life, but to restore him to consciousness only long enough to question him.
And at last his efforts were rewarded: the man opened his eyes, and they were swimming with the calm light of reason. He smiled faintly at Nyland.
“Got me,” he said. “Well, I don’t care a whole lot. There’s just one thing that’s been botherin’ me since you come. Did you think somethin’ was wrong in the house when you was tyin’ your cayuse over there at the corral fence?”
At Nyland’s nod he continued:
“I knowed it. It was the water, wasn’t it—in the trough? I’m sure a damned fool for not thinkin’ of that! So that was it? Well, you’ve got an eye in your head—I’ll tell you that. I’m goin’ to cash in, eh?”
Nyland nodded and the man sighed. He closed his eyes for an instant, but opened them slightly at Nyland’s question:
“What did you do to Peggy? Where is she?”
The man was sinking fast, and it seemed that he hardly comprehended Nyland’s question. The latter repeated it, and the man replied weakly:
“She’s over in Okar—at Maison’s—in his rooms. She—”
He closed his eyes and his lips, opening the latter again almost instantly to cough a crimson stream.
Nyland got up, his face chalk white. Standing beside the man he removed the two spent cartridges from the cylinder of his pistol and replaced them with two loaded ones. Then he ran to his horse, tore the reins from the rail of the corral fence, mounted with the horse in a dead run, and raced toward Okar.
CHAPTER XXIX
NYLAND’S VENGEANCE
Just before the dusk enveloped Okar, Banker Maison closed the desk in his private office and lit a cigar. He leaned back in the big desk chair, slowly smoking, a complacent smile on his lips, his eyes glowing with satisfaction.
For Maison’s capacity for pleasure was entirely physical. He got more enjoyment out of a good dinner and a fragrant cigar than many intellectual men get out of the study of a literary masterpiece, or a philanthropist out of the contemplation of a charitable deed.
Maison did not delve into the soul of things. The effect of his greed on others he did not consider. That was selfishness, of course, but it was a satisfying selfishness.
It did not occur to him that Mary Bransford, for instance, or Sanderson—or anybody whom he robbed—could experience any emotion or passion over their losses. They might feel resentful, to be sure; but resentment could avail them little—and it didn’t bring the dollars back to them.
He chuckled. He was thinking of the Bransfords now—and Sanderson. He had put a wolf on Sanderson’s trail—he and Silverthorn; and Sanderson would soon cease to bother him.
He chuckled again; and he sat in the chair at the desk, hugely enjoying himself until the cigar was finished. Then he got up, locked the doors, and went upstairs.
Peggy Nyland had not recovered consciousness. The woman who was caring for the girl sat near an open window that looked out upon Okar’s one street when Maison entered the room.
Maison asked her if there was any change; was told there was not. He stood for an instant at the window, mentally anathematizing Dale for bringing the girl to his rooms, and for keeping her there; then he dismissed the woman, who went down the stairs, opened the door that Maison had locked, and went outside.
He stood for an instant longer at the window; then he turned and looked down at Peggy, stretched out, still and white, on the bed.
Maison looked long at her, and decided it was not remarkable that Dale had become infatuated with Peggy, for the girl was handsome.
Maison had never bothered with women, and he yielded to a suspicion of sentiment as he looked down at Peggy. But, as always, the sentiment was not spiritual.
Dale had intimated that the girl was his mistress. Well, he was bound to acknowledge that Dale had good taste in such matters, anyway.
The expression of Maison’s face was not good to see; there was a glow in his eyes that, had Peggy seen it, would have frightened her.
And if Maison had been less interested in Peggy, and with his thoughts of Dale, he would have heard the slight sound at the door; he would have seen Ben Nyland standing there in the deepening dusk, his eyes aflame with the wild and bitter passions of a man who had come to kill.
Maison did not see, nor did he hear until Ben leaped for him. Then Maison heard him, felt his presence, and realized his danger.
He turned, intending to escape down the other stairway. He was too late.
Ben caught him midway between the bed and the door that opened to the stairway, and his big hands went around the banker’s neck, cutting short his scream of terror and the incoherent mutterings which followed it.
Peggy Nyland had been suffering mental torture for ages, it seemed to her. Weird and grotesque thoughts had followed one another in rapid succession through her brain. The thing had grown so vivid—the horrible imaginings had seemed so real, that many times she had been on the verge of screaming. Each time she tried to scream, however, she found that her jaws were tightly set, her teeth clenched, and she could get no sound through them.
Lately, though—it seemed that it had been for hours—she had felt a gradual lessening of the tension. Within the last few hours she had heard voices near her; had divined that persons were near her. But she had not been certain. That is, until within a few minutes.
Then it seemed to her that she heard some giant body threshing around near her; she heard a stifled scream and incoherent mutterings. The thing was so close, the thumping and threshing so real, that she started and sat up in bed, staring wildly around.
She saw on the floor near her two men. One had his hands buried in the other’s throat, and the face of the latter was black and horribly bloated.
This scene, Peggy felt, was real, and again she tried to scream.
The effort was successful, though the sound was not loud. One of the men turned, and she knew him.
“Ben,” she said in an awed, scared voice, “what in God’s name are you doing?”
“Killin’ a snake!” he returned sullenly.
“Dale?” she inquired wildly. Her hands were clasped, the fingers working, twisting and untwisting.
“Maison,” he told her, his face dark with passion.
“Because of me! O, Ben! Maison has done nothing to me. It was Dale, Ben—Dale came to our place and attacked me. I felt him carrying me—taking me somewhere. This—this place—”
“Is Maison’s rooms,” Ben told her. In his eyes was a new passion; he knelt beside the bed and stroked the girl’s hair.
“Dale, you said—Dale. Dale hurt you? How?”
She told him, and he got up, a cold smile on his face.
“You feel better now, eh? You can be alone for a few minutes? I’ll send someone to you.”
He paid no attention to her objections, to her plea that she was afraid to be alone. He grinned at her, the grin that had been on his face when he had shot Dal Colton, and backed away from her until he reached the stairs.
Outside he mounted his horse and visited several saloons. There was no sign of Dale. In the City Hotel he came upon a man who told him that earlier in the day Dale had organized a posse and had gone to the Double A to arrest Sanderson. This man was not a friend of Dale’s, and one of the posse had told him of Dale’s plan.
Nyland moun
ted his horse again and headed it for the neck of the basin. In his heart was the same lust that had been there while he had been riding toward Okar.
And in his soul was a rage that had not been sated by the death of the banker who, a few minutes before Nyland’s arrival, had been so smugly reviewing the pleasurable incidents of his life.
CHAPTER XXX
THE LAW TAKES A HAND
Barney Owen was tying the knot of the rope more securely when he heard the bolt on the pantry door shoot back. He wheeled swiftly, to see Mary Bransford emerging from the pantry, her hands covering her face in a vain endeavor to shut from sight the grisly horror she had confronted when she had reached her feet after recovering consciousness.
Evidently she had no knowledge of what had occurred, for when at a sound Owen made and she uncovered her eyes, she saw Owen and instantly fainted.
Owen dove forward and caught her as she fell, and then with a strength that was remarkable in his frail body he carried her to the lounge in the parlor.
Ho was compelled to leave her there momentarily, for he still entertained fears that Dale would escape the loop of the rope. So he ran into the pantry, looked keenly at Dale, saw that, to all appearances, he was in the last stages of strangulation, and then went out again, to return to Mary.
But before he left Dale he snatched the man’s six-shooter from its sheath, for his own had been lost in the confusion of the rush of Dale’s men for the door.
Mary was sitting up on the lounge when Owen returned. She was pale, and a haunting fear, cringing, abject, was in her eyes.
She got to her feet when she saw Owen and ran to him, crying.
Owen tried to comfort her, but his words were futile.
“You be brave, little woman!” he said. “You must be brave! Sanderson and the other men are in danger, and I’ve got to go to Okar for help!”
“I’ll go with you,” declared the girl. “I can’t stay here—I won’t. I can’t stand being in the same house with—with that!” She pointed to the kitchen.
“All right,” Owen said resignedly; “we’ll both go. What did you do with the money?”
Mary disclosed the hiding place, and Owen took the money, carried it to the bunkhouse, where he stuffed it into the bottom of a tin food box. Then, hurriedly, he saddled and bridled two horses and led them to where Mary was waiting on the porch.
Mounting, they rode fast toward Okar—the little man’s face working nervously, a great eagerness in his heart to help the man for whom he had conceived a deep affection.
Banker Maison had made no mistake when he had told Sanderson that Judge Graney was honest. Graney looked honest. There was about him an atmosphere of straightforwardness that was unmistakable and convincing. It was because he was honest that a certain governor had sent him to Okar.
And Graney had vindicated the governor’s faith in him. Whenever crime and dishonesty raised their heads in Okar, Judge Graney pinned them to the wall with the sword of justice, and called upon all men to come and look upon his deeds.
Maison, Silverthorn, and Dale—and others of their ilk—seldom called upon the judge for advice. They knew he did not deal in their kind. Through some underground channel they had secured a deputyship for Dale, and upon him they depended for whatever law they needed to further their schemes.
Judge Graney was fifty—the age of experience. He knew something of men himself. And on the night that Maison and Sanderson had come to him, he thought he had seen in Sanderson’s eyes a cold menace, a threat, that meant nothing less than death for the banker, if the latter had refused to write the bill of sale.
For, of course, the judge knew that the banker was being forced to make out the bill of sale. He knew that from the cold determination and alert watchfulness in Sanderson’s eyes; he saw it in the white nervousness of the banker.
And yet it was not his business to interfere, or to refuse to attest the signatures of the men. He had asked Maison to take the oath, and the banker had taken it.
Thus it seemed he had entered into the contract in good faith. If he had not, and there was something wrong about the deal, Maison had recourse to the law, and the judge would have aided him.
But nothing had come of it; Maison had said nothing, had lodged no complaint.
But the judge had kept the case in mind.
Late in the afternoon of the day on which Dale had organized the posse to go to the Double A, Judge Graney sat at his desk in the courtroom. The room was empty, except for a court attache, who was industriously writing at a little desk in the rear of the room.
The Maison case was in the judge’s mental vision, and he was wondering why the banker had not complained, when the sheriff of Colfax entered.
Graney smiled a welcome at him. “You don’t get over this way very often, Warde, but when you do, I’m glad to see you. Sit on the desk—that’s your usual place, anyway.”
Warde followed the suggestion about the desk; he sat on it, his legs dangling. There was a glint of doubt and anxiety in his eyes.
“What’s wrong, Warde?” asked the judge.
“Plenty,” declared Warde. “I’ve come to you for advice—and perhaps for some warrants. You recollect some time ago there was a herd of cattle lost in Devil’s Hole—and some men. Some of the men were shot, and one or two of them went down under the herd when it stampeded.”
“Yes,” said the judge, “I heard rumors of it. But those things are not uncommon, and I haven’t time to look them up unless the cases are brought formally to my attention.”
“Well,” resumed Warde, “at the time there didn’t seem to be any clue to work on that would indicate who had done the killing. We’ve nothing to do with the stampede, of course—that sort of stuff is out of my line. But about the shooting of the men. I’ve got evidence now.”
“Go ahead,” directed the judge.
“Well, on the night of the killing two of my men were nosing around the level near Devil’s Hole, trying to locate a horse thief who had been trailed to that section. They didn’t find the horse thief, but they saw a bunch of men sneaking around a camp fire that belonged to the outfit which was trailin’ the herd that went down in Devil’s Hole.
“They didn’t interfere, because they didn’t know what was up. But they saw one of the men stampede the herd, and they saw the rest of them do the killing.”
“Who did the killing?”
“Dale and his gang,” declared the sheriff.
Judge Graney’s eyes glowed. He sat erect and looked hard at the sheriff.
“Who is Sanderson?” he asked.
“That’s the fellow who bossed the trail herd.”
The judge smiled oddly. “There were three thousand head of cattle?”
Warde straightened. “How in hell do you know?” he demanded.
“Banker Maison paid for them,” he said gently.
He related to Warde the incident of the visit of Sanderson and the banker, and the payment to Sanderson by Maison of the ninety thousand dollars.
At the conclusion of the recital Warde struck the desk with his fist.
“Damned if I didn’t think it was something like that!” he declared. “But I wasn’t going to make a holler until I was sure. But Sanderson knew, eh? He knew all the time who had done the killing, and who had planned it. Game, eh? He was playing her a lone hand!”
The sheriff was silent for a moment, and then he spoke again, a glow of excitement in his eyes. “But there’ll be hell to pay about this! If Sanderson took ninety thousand dollars away from Maison, Maison was sure to tell Dale and Silverthorn about it—for they’re as thick as three in a bed. And none of them are the kind of men to stand for that kind of stuff from anybody—not even from a man like Sanderson!”
“We’ve got to do something, Judge! Give me warrants for the three of them—Dale, Maison, and Silverthorn, and I’ll run them in before they get a chance to hand Sanderson anything!”
Judge Graney called the busy clerk and gave him brief instructions. As
the latter started toward his desk there was a sound at the door, and Barney Owen came in, breathing heavily.
Barney’s eyes lighted when they rested upon the sheriff, for he had not hoped to see him there. He related to them what had happened at the Double A that day, and how Dale’s men had followed Sanderson and the others to “wipe them out” if they could.
“That settles it!” declared the sheriff. He was outside in an instant, running here and there in search of men to form a posse. He found them, scores of them; for in all communities where the law is represented, there are men who take pride in upholding it.
So it was with Okar. When the law-loving citizens of the town were told what had occurred they began to gather around the sheriff from all directions—all armed and eager. And yet it was long after dusk before the cavalcade of men turned their horses’ heads toward the neck of the basin, to begin the long, hard ride over the plains to the spot where Sanderson, Williams, and the others had been ambushed by Dale’s men.
A rumor came to the men, however, just before they started, which made several of them look at one another—for there had been those who had seen Ben Nyland riding down the street toward Maison’s bank in the dusk, his face set and grim and a wild light in his eyes.
“Maison has been guzzled—he’s deader than a salt mackerel!” came the word, leaping from lip to lip.
Sheriff Warde grinned. “Serves him right,” he declared; “that’s one less for us to hang!”
CHAPTER XXXI
THE FUGITIVE
After the departure of Barney Owen and Mary Bransford, the Double A ranchhouse was as silent as any house, supposed to be occupied by a dead man, could be.
But after a few minutes, if one had looked over the top of the partition from which Owen had hanged Alva Dale, one might have seen Dale move a little. One might have been frightened, but if one had stayed there, it would have been to see Dale move again.
The first time he moved he had merely placed his feet upon the floor, to rest himself. The second movement resulted in him raising his smashed hands and lifting the noose from his neck.
The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack Page 19
