“One day Ned Keegles got sick and took me into his confidence. He wasn’t in the West for his health, he said. He was a fugitive from the law, accused of murdering his father. It wasn’t a nice story to hear, but he told it, thinking he was going to die.”
Dakota smiled enigmatically at Sheila and coldly at the now shrinking man seated in the chair beside the fireplace.
“One day Keegles went into his father’s office. His father’s partner, David Dowd Langford, was there, talking to his father. They’d had hard words. Keegle’s father had discovered that Langford had appropriated a large sum of the firm’s money. By forging his partner’s signature he had escaped detection until one day when the elder Keegles had accidentally discovered the fraud—which was the day on which Ned Keegles visited his father. It isn’t necessary to go into detail, but it was perfectly plain that Langford was guilty.
“There were hard words, as I have said. The elder Keegles threatened to prosecute. Langford seized a sample knife that had been lying on the elder Keegle’s desk, and stabbed him, killing him instantly. Then, while Ned Keegles stood by, stunned by the suddenness of the attack, Langford coolly walked to a telephone and notified the police of the murder. Hanging up the receiver, he raised the hue and cry, and a dozen clerks burst into the office, to find Ned Keegles bending over his father, trying to withdraw the knife.
“Langford accused Ned Keegles of the murder. He protested, of course, but seeing that the evidence was against him, he fought his way out of the office and escaped. He went to Dakota—where I met him.” He hesitated and looked steadily at Langford. “Do you see how the trails have crossed? The crooked one and the straight one?”
Langford was leaning forward in his chair, a scared, wild expression in his eyes, his teeth and hands clenched in an effort to control his emotions.
“It’s a lie!” he shouted. “I didn’t kill him! Ned Keegles—”
“Wait!” Dakota rose from his chair and walked to a shelf, from which he took a box, returning to Langford’s side and opening it. He drew out a knife, shoving it before Langford’s eyes and pointing out some rust spots on the blade.
“This knife was given to me by Ned Keegles,” he said slowly. “These rust spots on the blade are from his father’s blood. Look at them!” he said sharply, for Langford had turned his head.
At the command he swung around, his gaze resting on the knife. “That’s a pretty story,” he sneered.
Dakota’s laugh when he returned the knife to the box chilled Sheila as that same laugh had chilled her when she had heard it during her first night in the country—in this same cabin, with Dakota sitting at the table—a bitter, mocking laugh that had in it a savagery controlled by an iron will. He turned abruptly and walked to his chair, seating himself.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s a pretty story. But it hasn’t all been told. With a besmirched name and the thoughts which were with him all the time, life wasn’t exactly a joyful one for Ned Keegles. He was young, you see, and it all preyed on his mind. But after a while it hardened him. He’d hit town with the rest of the boys, and he’d drink whiskey until he’d forget. But he couldn’t forget long. He kept seeing his father and Langford; nights he’d start from his blankets, living over and over again the incident of the murder. He got so he couldn’t stay in Dakota. He came down here and tried to forget. It was just the same—there was no forgetfulness.
“One night when he was on the trail near here, he met a woman. It was raining and the woman had lost the trail. He took the woman in. She interested him, and he questioned her. He discovered that she was the daughter of the man who had murdered his father—the daughter of David Dowd Langford!”
Langford cringed and looked at Sheila, who was looking straight at Dakota, her eyes alight with knowledge.
“Ned Keegles kept his silence, as he had kept it for ten years,” resumed Dakota. “But the coming of the woman brought back the bitter memories, and while the woman slept in his cabin he turned to the whiskey bottle for comfort. As he drank his troubles danced before him—magnified. He thought it would be a fine revenge if he should force the woman to marry him, for he figured that it would be a blow at the father’s pride. If it hadn’t been for a cowardly parson and the whiskey the marriage would never have occurred—Ned Keegles would not have thought of it. But he didn’t hurt the woman; she left him pure as she came—mentally and physically.”
Langford slowly rose from his chair, his lips twitching, his face working strangely, his eyes wide and glaring.
“You say she married him—Ned Keegles?” he said, his voice high keyed and shrill. He turned to Sheila after catching Dakota’s nod. “Is this true?” he demanded sharply. “Did you marry him as this man says you did?”
“Yes; I married him,” returned Sheila dully, and Langford sank limply into his chair.
Dakota smiled with flashing eyes and continued:
“Keegles married the woman,” he said coldly, “because he thought she was Langford’s real daughter.” He looked at Sheila with a glance of compassion. “Later, when Keegles discovered that the woman was only Langford’s stepdaughter, he was mighty sorry. Not for Langford, however, because he could not consider Langford’s feelings. And in spite of what he had done he was still determined to secure revenge.
“One day Langford came to Keegles with a proposal. He had seen Keegles kill one man, and he wanted to hire him to kill another—a man named Doubler. Keegles agreed, for the purpose of getting Langford into—”
Dakota hesitated, for Langford had risen to his feet and stood looking at him, his eyes bulging, his face livid.
“You!” he said, in a choking, wailing voice; “you—you, are Ned Keegles! You—you— Why—” he hesitated and passed a hand uncertainly over his forehead, looking from Sheila to Dakota with glazed eyes. “You—you are a liar!” he suddenly screamed, his voice raised to a maniacal pitch. “It isn’t so! You—both of you—have conspired against me!”
“Wait!” Dakota got to his feet, walked to a shelf, and took down a small glass, a pair of shears, a shaving cup, and a razor. While Langford watched, staring at him with fearful, wondering eyes, Dakota deftly snipped off the mustache with the shears, lathered his lip, and shaved it clean. Then he turned and confronted Langford.
The latter looked at him with one, long, intense gaze, and then with a dry sob which caught in his throat and seemed to choke him, he covered his face with his hands, shuddered convulsively, and without a sound pitched forward, face down, at Dakota’s feet.
CHAPTER XX
INTO THE UNKNOWN
After a time Sheila rose from the bunk on which she had been sitting and stood in the center of the floor, looking down at her father. Dakota had not moved. He stood also, watching Langford, his face pale and grim, and he did not speak until Sheila had addressed him twice.
“What are you going to do now?” she said dully. “It is for you to say, you know. You hold his life in your hands.”
“Do?” He smiled bitterly at her. “What would you do? I have waited ten years for this day. It must go on to the end.”
“The end?”
“Yes; the end,” he said gravely. “He”—Dakota pointed to the prostrate figure—“must sign a written confession.”
“And then?”
“He will return to answer for his crime.”
Sheila shuddered and turned from him with bowed head.
“Oh!” she said at last; “it will be too horrible! My friends in the East—they will—”
“Your friends,” he said with some bitterness. “Could your friends say more than my friends said when they thought that I had murdered my own father in cold blood and then run away?”
“But I am innocent,” she pleaded.
“I was innocent,” he returned, with a grave smile.
“Yes, but I could not help you, you know, for I wasn’t there when you were accused. But you are here, and you can help me. Don’t you see,” she said, coming close to him, “don’t you se
e that the disgrace will not fall on him, but on me. I will make him sign the confession,” she offered, “you can hold it over him. He will make restitution of your property. But do not force him to go back East. Let him go somewhere—anywhere—but let him live. For, after all, he is my father—the only one I ever knew.”
“But my vengeance,” he said, the bitterness of his smile softening as he looked down at her.
“Your vengeance?” She came closer to him, looking up into his face. “Are we to judge—to condemn? Will not the power which led us three together—the power which you are pleased to call ‘Fate’; the power that blazed the trail which you have followed from the yesterday of your life;—will not this power judge him—punish him? Please,” she pleaded, “please, for my sake, for—for”—her voice broke and she came forward and placed her hands on his shoulders—“for your wife’s sake.”
He looked down at her for an instant, the hard lines of his face breaking into gentle, sympathetic curves. Then his arms went around her, and she leaned against him, her head against his shoulder, while she wept softly.
* * * *
An hour later, standing side by side in the open doorway of the cabin, Sheila and Dakota watched in silence while Langford, having signed a confession dictated by Dakota, mounted his pony and rode slowly up the river trail toward Lazette.
He slowly passed the timber clump near the cabin, and with bowed head traveled up the long slope which led to the rise upon which, in another time, Sheila had caught her last glimpse of the parson. It was in the cold, bleak moment of the morning when darkness has not yet gone and the dawn not come, and Langford looked strangely desolate out there on the trail alone—alone with thoughts more desolate than his surroundings.
Sheila shivered and snuggled closer to Dakota. He looked down at her with a sympathetic smile.
“It is so lonesome,” she said.
“Where?” he asked.
“Out there—where he is going.”
Dakota did not answer. For a long time they watched the huddled form of the rider. They saw him approach the crest of the rise—reach it. Then from the mountains in the eastern distance came a shaft of light, striking the summit of the rise where the rider bestrode his pony—throwing both into bold relief. For a moment the rider halted the pony, turned, glanced back an instant, and was gone.
THE TWO-GUN MAN
Originally published in 1911.
CHAPTER I
THE STRANGER AT DRY BOTTOM
From the crest of Three Mile Slope the man on the pony could see the town of Dry Bottom straggling across the gray floor of the flat, its low, squat buildings looking like so many old boxes blown there by an idle wind, or unceremoniously dumped there by a careless fate and left, regardless, to carry out the scheme of desolation.
Apparently the rider was in no hurry, for, as the pony topped the rise and the town burst suddenly into view, the little animal pricked up its ears and quickened its pace, only to feel the reins suddenly tighten and to hear the rider’s voice gruffly discouraging haste. Therefore, the pony pranced gingerly, alert, champing the bit impatiently, picking its way over the lumpy hills of stone and cactus, but holding closely to the trail.
The man lounged in the saddle, his strong, well-knit body swaying gracefully, his eyes, shaded by the brim of his hat, narrowed with slight mockery and interest as he gazed steadily at the town that lay before him.
“I reckon that must be Dry Bottom,” he said finally, mentally taking in its dimensions. “If that’s so, I’ve only got twenty miles to go.”
Half way down the slope, and still a mile and a half from the town, the rider drew the pony to a halt. He dropped the reins over the high pommel of the saddle, drew out his two guns, one after the other, rolled the cylinders, and returned the guns to their holsters. He had heard something of Dry Bottom’s reputation and in examining his pistols he was merely preparing himself for an emergency. For a moment after he had replaced the weapons he sat quietly in the saddle. Then he shook out the reins, spoke to the pony, and the little animal set forward at a slow lope.
An ironic traveler, passing through Dry Bottom in its younger days, before civic spirit had definitely centered its efforts upon things nomenclatural, had hinted that the town should be known as “dry” because of the fact that while it boasted seven buildings, four were saloons; and that “bottom” might well be used as a suffix, because, in the nature of things, a town of seven buildings, four of which were saloons, might reasonably expect to descend to the very depths of moral iniquity.
The ironic traveler had spoken with prophetic wisdom. Dry Bottom was trying as best it knew how to wallow in the depths of sin. Unlovely, soiled, desolate of verdure, dumped down upon a flat of sand in a treeless waste, amid cactus, crabbed yucca, scorpions, horned toads, and rattlesnakes. Dry Bottom had forgotten its morals, subverted its principles, and neglected its God.
As the rider approached to within a few hundred yards of the edge of town he became aware of a sudden commotion. He reined in his pony, allowing it to advance at a walk, while with alert eyes he endeavored to search out the cause of the excitement. He did not have long to watch for the explanation.
A man had stepped out of the door of one of the saloons, slowly walking twenty feet away from it toward the center of the street. Immediately other men had followed. But these came only to a point just outside the door. For some reason which was not apparent to the rider, they were giving the first man plenty of room.
The rider was now able to distinguish the faces of the men in the group, and he gazed with interested eyes at the man who had first issued from the door of the saloon.
The man was tall—nearly as tall as the rider—and in his every movement seemed sure of himself. He was young, seemingly about thirty-five, with shifty, insolent eyes and a hard mouth whose lips were just now curved into a self-conscious smile.
The rider had now approached to within fifty feet of the man, halting his pony at the extreme end of the hitching rail that skirted the front of the saloon. He sat carelessly in the saddle, his gaze fixed on the man.
The men who had followed the first man out, to the number of a dozen, were apparently deeply interested, though plainly skeptical. A short, fat man, who was standing near the saloon door, looked on with a half-sneer. Several others were smiling blandly. A tall man on the extreme edge of the crowd, near the rider, was watching the man in the street gravely. Other men had allowed various expressions to creep into their faces. But all were silent.
Not so the man in the street. Plainly, here was conceit personified, and yet a conceit mingled with a maddening insolence. His expression told all that this thing which he was about to do was worthy of the closest attention. He was the axis upon which the interest of the universe revolved.
Certainly he knew of the attention he was attracting. Men were approaching from the other end of the street, joining the group in front of the saloon—which the rider now noticed was called the “Silver Dollar.” The newcomers were inquisitive; they spoke in low tones to the men who had arrived before them, gravely inquiring the cause.
But the man in the street seemed not disturbed by his rapidly swelling audience. He stood in the place he had selected, his insolent eyes roving over the assembled company, his thin, expressive lips opening a very little to allow words to filter through them.
“Gents,” he said, “you’re goin’ to see some shootin’! I told you in the Silver Dollar that I could keep a can in the air while I put five holes in it. There’s some of you gassed about bein’ showed, not believin’. An’ now I’m goin’ to show you!”
He reached down and took up a can that had lain at his feet, removing the red lithographed label, which had a picture of a large tomato in the center of it. The can was revealed, naked and shining in the white sunlight. The man placed the can in his left hand and drew his pistol with the right.
Then he tossed the can into the air. While it still rose his weapon exploded, the can shook spasmodically a
nd turned clear over. Then in rapid succession followed four other explosions, the last occurring just before the can reached the ground. The man smiled, still holding the smoking weapon in his hand.
The tall man on the extreme edge of the group now stepped forward and examined the can, while several other men crowded about to look. There were exclamations of surprise. It was curious to see how quickly enthusiasm and awe succeeded skepticism.
“He’s done it, boys!” cried the tall man, holding the can aloft. “Bored it in five places!” He stood erect, facing the crowd. “I reckon that’s some shootin’!” He now threw a glance of challenge and defiance about him. “I’ve got a hundred dollars to say that there ain’t another man in this here town can do it!”
Several men tried, but none equaled the first man’s performance. Many of the men could not hit the can at all. The first man watched their efforts, sneers twitching his lips as man after man failed.
Presently all had tried. Watching closely, the rider caught an expression of slight disappointment on the tall man’s face. The rider was the only man who had not yet tried his skill with the pistol, and the man in the street now looked up at him, his eyes glittering with an insolent challenge. As it happened, the rider glanced at the shooter at the instant the latter had turned to look up at him. Their eyes met fairly, the shooter’s conveying a silent taunt. The rider smiled, slight mockery glinting his eyes.
Apparently the stranger did not care to try his skill. He still sat lazily in the saddle, his gaze wandering languidly over the crowd. The latter plainly expected him to take part in the shooting match and was impatient over his inaction.
“Two-gun,” sneered a man who stood near the saloon door. “I wonder what he totes them two guns for?”
The shooter heard and turned toward the man who had spoken, his lips wreathed satirically.
“I reckon he wouldn’t shoot nothin’ with them,” he said, addressing the man who had spoken.
The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack Page 175
