The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack

by Charles Alden Seltzer

  “Harlan got his handle that way. He goes for his guns so slow an’ hesitatin’ that he seems to drag ’em out. But some way he’s always shootin’ first. An’ they always let him off because it’s mighty plain that the other guy tried to draw first.”

  “I’ve heard that,” said Deveny slowly. “What’s his record?”

  “Plays her a lone hand,” returned Rogers. He watched the other steadily.

  Deveny toyed with a glass as he gazed out of the window. There was a cold, sullen gleam in his eyes when he finally looked at Laskar.

  “You said Harlan told you he was coming here as soon as Morgan cashed in. According to that, Morgan must have been hit bad.”

  “The Chief said he bored him plenty. An’ me an’ Dolver must have got him some.”

  “You didn’t get a chance to search Morgan?”

  “No chance—he fit like a hyena; an’ when he got behind that damned rock there was no way of gettin’ at him.”

  “Then,” said Deveny, “according to what you say, Harlan will come here as soon as Morgan dies. And when you left there Morgan was in a bad way. Harlan is due most any time, then.”

  “That’s the way I figger,” agreed Laskar.

  And now Laskar fidgeted. “I aim to be hittin’ the breeze now—before Harlan hits town. This climate is gettin’ unhealthy for me. Harlan give me notice.”

  “To leave town?”

  It was Deveny who spoke. There was a snarl in his voice; he leaned forward and scowled at Laskar.

  Laskar nodded.

  Rogers cleared his throat, and Lawson moved his feet uneasily.

  Deveny’s scowl faded; he grinned coldly.

  “Giving orders—is he?” he snapped. “Well, we’ll see.” He laughed. “When Harlan hits town it will be a sign that old Morgan’s crossed the Divide. Well, there was no witnesses to Morgan’s cashing in, and one man’s word is as good as another’s in this country.”

  “Meanin’?” questioned Rogers, noting the light in Deveny’s eyes.

  “Meaning that Laskar is going—right now—to whisper into Sheriff Gage’s ear that he saw our friend, ‘Drag’ Harlan, killing old Morgan.”

  Rogers got to his feet, grinning. The gleam in his eyes indicated that he felt some relief over the prospect presented by Deveny’s suggestion.

  “Of course we ain’t sure Harlan means to make trouble here,” he told Deveny; “but it’s just as well to shove him off onto the sheriff.”

  The four men walked to the front door of the First Chance, after pausing for a few minutes at the bar.

  Outside, halting for an instant on the board platform in front of the saloon, Rogers, who had been the first to emerge, started as he glanced toward the desert, and then stood rigid, shading his hands with his eyes against the sun that poured into his face.

  “He’s comin’ now!” he said.

  Deveny and the others also looked into the blinding glare of the sun—likewise shading their eyes. And they saw, far out upon the vast sea of sand—yet not so far that they could not distinguish objects—a black horse coming steadily toward them.

  Deveny was strangely silent, glowering toward the desert; Rogers folded his arms and faced the oncoming rider and the somber-coated animal he bestrode; Lawson scowled; and Laskar nervously estimated the distance that stretched between himself and the steady-eyed man who had told him certain things in a voice that had been entirely convincing.

  CHAPTER V

  A PRISON

  Barbara Morgan had not been able to sleep except by fits and starts. A dozen times during the night she had caught herself on the verge of sinking into deep slumber, and each time she had got up and washed her eyes with some water from a pitcher on the bureau, determined that she would not take any chances of permitting Deveny to surprise her.

  When the dawn came she was haggard and tired; and she got up listlessly, combed her hair, and washed her face, and dragged away the pieces of furniture that had formed the barricade at the door.

  She felt more secure with the dawn, and when the sunlight began to stream into the east windows she opened the door of the room, descended the stairs, and took a short walk to the edge of town.

  Returning, she saw a man arrayed in overalls, boots, a blue woolen shirt, and broad felt hat, standing in the doorway of the stable that, she felt, belonged to the Eating-House. Sight of the stable brought to her thoughts of her horse—Billy—and she decided to determine if the man who had taken charge of him had put him into the stable.

  She paused before the door, directly in front of the man, who did not move aside to permit her to enter.

  She thought at first that he was not aware of her desire—until she observed an amused light in his eyes; and then she knew that he was purposely barring her way.

  “This is the Eating-House stable, I suppose?” she inquired quietly.

  “You’re supposin’ is a heap correct, ma’am,” grinned the man.

  “Well,” she said, “if you will kindly step aside I shall see if my horse is all right.”

  “Your horse is all right, ma’am,” returned the man. “I’ve just fed him.”

  Irritated by his attitude, she spoke sharply:

  “Step aside, please; I am going into the stable!”

  The man grinned widely. “It’s ag’in’ orders, ma’am; you’ll have to stay out.”

  “Whose orders?”

  “Deveny’s. You ain’t to go into the stable.”

  She hesitated, afflicted with a queer sensation of weakness and indecision.

  It was her fear of Deveny, she supposed, that made her feel that way, together with the conviction that Deveny must have known that she had been in the room next to the one he had taken, even before he had ascended the stairs. It seemed to her that this deliberate interference with her must be inspired by evil intentions, and for an instant panic overtook her.

  Then, yielding to the flash of anger that surged over her, she drew the small revolver she always carried with her on her rides, and presented it. She stepped back a little, so that the man might not strike the weapon from her hand, and spoke shortly, commandingly to him.

  “Get away from that door!”

  “Shootin’, ma’am?” he drawled. “Oh, don’t!”

  He grinned at her and calmly began to roll a cigarette, at which action she gulped with dismay, wheeled swiftly, and walked to the stairs. She went up proudly enough, her head held high, for she divined that the man would be watching her. But when she entered her room her pride forsook her, and she sank into a chair by the east window, dismayed and frightened.

  While she sat there the slatternly woman slowly opened the door and stuck her head in. She grinned widely at Barbara.

  “Goin’ ridin’ this mawnin’, deary?”

  Barbara looked at her, saw the mockery in the jealous eyes, and turned her head again, making no reply.

  “Too stuck up to talk, eh?” jibed the slattern. “Well, before you get out of here you’ll be tickled enough to shoot off your gab. Bah! You an’ your airs! If you want any grub this mawnin’ you’ll come down an’ grab it yourself, I’m tellin’ you that.”

  She slammed the door, her jeering laugh penetrating the partition with hideous resonance.

  After the woman had gone Barbara got up, her lips set in resolute lines.

  Once in the hall she started to walk toward the stairs, when she saw the cowboy of the stable lounging against the rail on the platform. He saw her at the instant she looked at him, and he grinned hugely.

  “I reckon you’ve noticed I’ve sort of shifted,” he said. “I keep goin’ up—gettin’ higher in the world.”

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Just loafin’, I reckon,” grinned the other. “An’ obeyin’ orders,” he added instantly. “Much as I hate to disconvenience a lady, I ain’t takin’ no chances on rilin’ Deveny.”

  “Do you mean that Deveny placed you here to watch me?”

  “He didn’t issue no partic
ular orders as to where I was to do my standin’. But he was sure earnest about sayin’ that you wasn’t to leave your room.”

  “I left it once this morning.”

  “My fault,” he grinned. “I was sneakin’ a drink in the Antler, an’ you slipped me. I’m bettin’ it don’t happen ag’in!”

  Overcome with a cold terror that suddenly seized her, Barbara wheeled and re-entered her room, standing for an instant at the door as she locked it, and then walking to the chair and sinking nervelessly into it.

  Somehow, she sensed the futility of further effort at escape. She was aware of Deveny’s power in the country; she knew that he ruled Lamo as he ruled every foot of land in the section; and she was convinced that it would be wasted effort to call for help. Even her own sex—represented by the slattern, and most of the women in Lamo were of that type, in character—seemed to be antagonistic toward her. It seemed to her that they would mock her as the slattern had mocked her, should she appeal to them.

  And as for the men of Lamo, they were not to be considered. She was certain she could not induce one of them to act contrary to Deveny’s wishes. For her father had told her about Lamo’s men—how they were slaves to the will of the man whose deeds of outlawry had made him feared wherever men congregated; and she knew Lamo itself was a sink-hole of iniquity where women were swallowed by the evil passions of men.

  She might have appealed to Gage, the sheriff, and she thought of Gage while she sat at the window. But Gage, her father had told her, with disgust in his eyes, was a man of colorless personality and of little courage—a negligible character upon whom the good people of the section, who were pitifully few, could not depend. Her father had told her that it was his opinion that Gage, too, was a slave to Deveny’s will.

  She wished now that she had not yielded to the impulse which had brought her to Lamo; but her lips grew firm and her eyes defiant as she at last got up and walked to one of the front windows.

  Now, more vividly than ever, could she understand the significance of Deveny’s glances at her in the past; the light in his eyes had been an expression of premeditated evil, awaiting an opportunity.

  She was pale, and her hands were trembling as she placed them on the sill of the front window and glanced down into the street, hoping that she might see a friendly face; praying that one of the Rancho Seco men might have come to town during the night.

  But she saw no one she knew. Indeed, except for a pony standing in front of a saloon down the street a little distance, and several others hitched to a rail across the street, in front of the First Chance saloon, Lamo seemed to be deserted. And a silence, deep and portentous of evil, seemed to have settled over the town.

  But as she leaned upon the sill a sound floated to her through the open window—a man’s voice, so close to her that it made her start and stiffen. It was Deveny’s voice, and it seemed to come from a point in the street directly beneath the window.

  “Did you find Gage?” it said.

  Barbara leaned forward a little and looked downward. Below her, on the narrow board-walk that ran in front of the Eating-House, were four men. She recognized three of them—Deveny, Strom Rogers, and Meeder Lawson, the Rancho Seco foreman.

  The other man was a stranger. Evidently it was the stranger to whom Deveny had spoken, for it was the stranger who answered.

  “He’s in his office now.”

  Deveny turned to Lawson and Rogers. “You two wait here, Laskar and myself will do the talking to Gage.” He started away with the man who had answered him; then called back over his shoulder: “Hang around; if there’s trouble, you’ll want to get in on it.”

  Deveny and Laskar walked down the street; the girl saw them enter the building occupied by the sheriff.

  Wondering, intensely curious—for that word “trouble” meant shooting in the vocabulary of men of the Deveny type—Barbara drew back until she was certain the men in the street could not see her.

  When Deveny and Laskar disappeared, Strom Rogers laughed sneeringly:

  “Deveny’s scared of ‘Drag’ Harlan, I reckon. It’s a cheap frame-up.”

  “Aw, hell,” jibed the other; “you’re jealous, that’s all. You’d like to see Harlan plug Deveny, eh; so’s you’d have a chance with Barbara Morgan. I’d be a heap careful, if I was you, Rogers. Deveny knows you took a shine to Barbara Morgan. I seen him lookin’ hostile at you when you was quizzin’ him in Balleau’s. He’s next.”

  “This is a free country,” returned Rogers. The girl caught the malignant note in his voice, and she leaned outward a little, trying to see his face, while she shivered with dread.

  “Yes,” laughed Lawson; “a man can cash in without any excuse, usual; all he’s got to do is to cross Deveny. You’re a damned fool, Strom, to go to takin’ a shine to Barbara Morgan, when Deveny wants her. He’s been waitin’ for her, an’ meanin’ to have her, all along. He’s only been waitin’ until ol’ Morgan cashed in, so’s he’d have a chance to take her. Now that Morgan’s dead his chance has come.”

  Silently, her face dead white, her eyes closed, Barbara slipped backward and crumpled into a heap on the dirty carpet of the room.

  When she again opened her eyes it was to look wildly at the open window through which the terrible news had come. Then she dragged herself to it, and making no sound leaned her arms on the sill and listened again, her heart seeming to be in the clutch of icy fingers, her brain atrophied, reeling in a chaos of incoherent, agonized impulses.

  She did not know how long she had been unconscious. She saw that Rogers and Lawson were still below, and still talking. So keen was her sense of hearing—every nerve straining in the effort to learn more—that the voices of the men came in through the window with a resonance that, she felt, must be audible to every person in Lamo.

  “It ain’t my style, that’s all. I’d meet Harlan on the level, man to man, if he was lookin’ for me. It’s likely he ain’t at that. I’ve heard, bad as he is, that he plays square. An’ if I was runnin’ things I’d take a look at him before chargin’ him with killin’ Lane Morgan, when the killin’ had been done by the Chief, an’ Dolver, an’ Laskar.”

  It was Strom Rogers’ voice. It bore conviction with it, even though there was passionate feeling behind it, mingled strangely with personal hatred and jealousy.

  Dumbly, Barbara clutched the window-sill. One dry, agonized sob racked her; and then she sat on the floor, to stare vacantly at the dingy walls of the room.

  Once more she heard Rogers’ voice; this time there was a note of savage glee in it:

  “There’s Harlan now, just slippin’ off his cayuse in front of Gage’s place. ‘Drag,’ eh? Well, there don’t seem to be nothin’ impedin’ his actions anywhere.”

  Prompted by the urge of a curiosity that she could not resist, Barbara reeled to her feet, and with her hands resting on the window-sill leaned out and looked up the street.

  In front of the sheriff’s office, not more than thirty or forty feet distant, she saw a tall, well-built man standing beside the hitching rail that fringed the board sidewalk. He had evidently just dismounted, and he was standing at the head of a big, coal-black horse. He was in the act of hitching the animal, and his back was toward her.

  She watched breathlessly until he turned. And then she stared hard at him, noting the steady, cold, alert eyes; the firm lips; the bigness of him, the atmosphere of capableness that seemed to surround him; the low-swung guns at his hips, with no flaps on the holster-tops, and the bottoms of the holsters tied to his leather chaps with rawhide thongs.

  Never had she seen a man like him. For some reason, as yet inexplicable to her, he brought into her troubled consciousness a feeling of cold calm, a refreshing influence that might be compared to the sweep of a cool and unexpected breeze in the middle of a hot day.

  He dominated the group of men that instantly surrounded him; and the dominance was not of attire, for he was arrayed like the others. She saw Deveny standing near him, and the man Laskar behind Deve
ny and Sheriff Gage and several other men. And she saw Rogers and Lawson as they walked slowly toward him.

  And then a realization of her loss, of the tragedy that had descended upon her, again assailed her; and a fury of intolerance against inaction seized her. She could not stay in this room and suffer the hideous uncertainty; she could not take Rogers’ word that her father had been killed. There must be some mistake. Perhaps Rogers knew she was at the window, listening, and he had said that just to spite her. For she had discouraged Rogers’ advances as she had discouraged Deveny’s.

  Breathing fast, she unlocked the door and went out into the hall.

  The man whom Deveny had placed to guard her was still lounging on the stair platform, and he grinned when he saw her.

  “Comin’ to try ag’in?” he grinned.

  She smiled—a disarming smile that brought a fatuous gleam into the man’s eyes, so that he permitted her to come close to him.

  “Deveny’s got damn’ good judgment,” he said as she halted near him. “He knows a thoroughbred when he sees—Hell!”

  The ejaculation came from his lips as Barbara leaped swiftly past him. He threw out a futile arm, and stood for an instant, shocked into inaction as Barbara ran down the stairs toward the street. Then the man leaped after her, cursing. She could hear him saying: “Damn your hide! Damn your hide!” as he came after her, his spurs jangling on the steps.

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAIN-LIGHTNING

  Turning from Purgatory, after he had dismounted in front of the sheriff’s office, Harlan faced three men who stood just outside of the building, watching him.

  The slightly humorous smile that curved Harlan’s lips might have betrayed his reason for dismounting in front of the sheriff’s office, for he had seen Laskar standing with the two other men. But no man could have told that he looked at Laskar directly, except Laskar himself, who would have sworn that Harlan did not remove his gaze from him, once he had slipped from Purgatory’s back.

  For Harlan’s eyes told nothing. They seemed to be gazing at nothing, and at everything. For Gage, watching the man, was certain Harlan was looking directly at him as he grinned, and Deveny, like Laskar, was sure Harlan’s gaze was upon him. And all of them, noting one another’s embarrassment, stood silent, marveling.