The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack

by Charles Alden Seltzer

  His face was pale, his lips stiff and white, and his eyes were alight with the wanton fire that she had seen in them many times, though now there was something added to their expression—concern and thankfulness.

  “God!” he said, after a little space, during which she looked at him with shining eyes. She no longer gave any thought to Taggart; the struggle with him was an already fading nightmare in her recollection; he had been eliminated, destroyed, by the man who stood before her—by the man whose presence in the kitchen now stirred her to an emotion that she had never before experienced—by the man who had come back to her. And that was all that she had cared for—that he would come back.

  With a short laugh he released her and stepped over to where Taggart lay, looking down at him with a cold, satisfied smile.

  “I reckon you won’t bother nobody any more,” he said.

  He turned to Betty, the pale stiffness of his lips softening a little as she smiled at him.

  “I want to thank you,” he said, “for sendin’ Toban after me. He caught me. I wasn’t ridin’ so fast an’ I heard him comin’. I knowed who it was, an’ stopped to have it out with him. He yelled that he didn’t want me; that you’d sent him after me. We met Dade an’ Malcolm—we’d passed Double Fork an’ nothin’ was bogged down. So we knowed somebody’d framed somethin’ up. I come on ahead.” He grinned. “Toban’s been braggin’ some about his horse, but I reckon that don’t go any more. That black horse can run.” He indicated Taggart. “I reckon he come here just to bother you,” he said.

  She told him about the diagram and he started, stepping quickly to where Taggart lay, searching in his pockets until he found the paper.

  Then he went to the door. Standing in it, he looked as he had looked that day when he had humiliated Neal Taggart in her presence. The gentleness which she had seen in him some hours before—and which she had welcomed—had disappeared; his lips had become stiff and pale again, his eyes were narrowed and brilliant with the old destroying fire. She grew rigid and drew a deep, quivering breath, for she saw that the pistol was still in his hand.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I reckon old Taggart will still be waitin’ in the timber grove,” he said with a short, grim laugh. “They’ve bothered me enough. I’m goin’ to send him where I sent his coyote son.”

  At that word she was close to him, her hands on his shoulders.

  “Don’t!” she pleaded; “please don’t!” She shuddered and cast a quick, shrinking glance at the man on the floor. “There has been enough trouble tonight,” she said. “You stay here!” she commanded, trying to pull him away from the door, but not succeeding.

  He seized her face with his hands in much the same manner in which he had seized it in his father’s office on the night of his return to the Lazy Y—she felt the cold stock of the pistol against her cheek and shuddered again. A new light had leaped into his eyes—the suspicion that she had seen there many times before.

  “Are you wantin’ old Taggart to get away with the idol?” he demanded.

  “He can’t!” she denied. “He hasn’t the diagram, has he? You have just put it in your pocket!”

  A quick embarrassment swept over him; he dropped his hands from her face. “I reckon that’s right,” he admitted. “But I’m goin’ to’ send him over the divide, idol or no idol.”

  “He won’t be in the timber grove,” she persisted; “he must have heard the shooting and he wouldn’t stay.”

  “I reckon he won’t be able to run away from that black horse,” he laughed. “I’ll ketch him before he gets very far.”

  “You shan’t go!” she declared, making a gesture of impotence. “Don’t you see?” she added. “It isn’t Taggart that I care about—it’s you. I don’t want you to be shot—killed. I won’t have it! If Taggart hasn’t gone by this time he will be hidden somewhere over there and when he sees you he will shoot you!”

  “Well,” he said, watching her face with a curious smile; “I’m takin’ a look, anyway.” In spite of her efforts to prevent him he stepped over the threshold. She was about to follow him when she saw him wheel swiftly, his pistol at a poise as his gaze fell upon something outside the ranchhouse. And then she saw him smile.

  “It’s Bob,” he said; “with a rifle.” And he helped the boy, white of face and trembling, though with the light of stern resolution in his eyes, into the kitchen.

  “Bob’ll watch you,” he said; “so’s nothin’ will happen to you. Besides—” he leaned forward in a listening attitude; “Toban an’ the boys are comin’. I reckon what I’m goin’ to do won’t take me long—if Taggart’s in the timber.”

  He stepped down and vanished around the corner of the ranchhouse.

  He had scarcely gone before there was a clatter of hoofs in the ranchhouse yard, a horse dashed up to the edge of the porch, came to a sliding halt and the lank figure of Toban appeared before the door in which Betty was standing.

  He looked at her, noted her white face, and peered over her shoulder at Bob, with the rifle, at Taggart on the floor.

  “Holy smoke!” he said; “what’s happened?”

  She told him quickly, in short, brief sentences; her eyes glowing with fear. He tried to squeeze past her to get into the kitchen, but she prevented him, blocking the doorway, pushing hysterically against him with her hands.

  “Calumet has gone to the timber grove—to the clearing—to look for Tom Taggart. Taggart will ambush him, will kill him! I don’t want him killed! Go to him, Toban—get him to come back!”

  “Shucks,” said Toban, grinning; “I reckon you don’t need to worry none. If Taggart’s over in the timber an’ he sees Calumet he’ll just naturally forget he’s got a gun. But if it’ll ease your mind any, I’ll go after him. Damn his hide, anyway!” he chuckled. “I was braggin’ up my cayuse to him, an’ after we met Dade an’ Malcolm he run plumb away from me. Ride! Holy smoke!”

  He crossed the porch, leaped into the saddle and disappeared amid a clatter of hoofs.

  Betty stood rigid in the doorway, listening—dreading to hear that which she expected to hear—the sound of a pistol shot which would tell her that Calumet and Taggart had met.

  But no sound reached her ears from the direction of the timber grove. She heard another sound presently—the faint beat of hoofs that grew more distinct each second. It was Dade and Malcolm coming, she knew, and when they finally rode up and Dade flung himself from the saddle and darted to her side she was paler than at any time since her first surprise of the night.

  Again she was forced to tell her story. And after it was finished, and she had watched Dade and Malcolm carry Neal Taggart from the room, she went over to where Bob sat, took him by the shoulder and led him to one of the kitchen windows, and there, holding him close to her, her face white, she stared with dreading, anxious eyes through the glass toward the timber clump. She would have gone out to see for herself, but she knew that she could do nothing. If he did not come back she knew that she would not want to stay at the Lazy Y any longer; she knew that without him—

  She no longer weighed him in the balances of her affection as she stood there by the window, she did not critically array his good qualities against the bad. She had passed that point now. She merely wanted him. That was all—she just wanted him. And when at last she saw him coming; heard his voice, she hugged Bob closer to her, and with her face against his sobbed silently.

  A few minutes after he left the ranchhouse Calumet was in the clearing in the timber grove, standing over the body of a man who lay face upward beside a freshly-dug hole at the edge of a mesquite clump. He was still standing there when a few minutes later Toban came clattering up on his horse. The sheriff dismounted and stood beside him.

  Calumet gave Toban one look and then spoke shortly:

  “Taggart,” he said.

  “Lord!” said Toban, in an awed voice; “what in blazes did you do to him? I didn’t hear no shootin’! Is he dead?”

  Both k
neeled over the prone figure and Calumet pointed to the haft of a knife that was buried deep in the body near the heart.

  “Telza’s,” said Calumet, as he examined the handle. “I dropped it here the other night; the night Sharp was killed.”

  “Correct,” said Toban; “I saw you drop it.” He smiled at the quick, inquiring glance Calumet gave him.

  “I was comin’ through here after tendin’ to some business an’ I saw Telza knife Sharp. I piled onto Telza an’ beat him up a little. Lordy, how that little copper-skinned devil did fight! But I squelched him. I heard some one comin’, thought it was one of Taggarts, an’ dragged Telza behind that scrub brush over there. I saw you come, but I wasn’t figgerin’ on makin’ any explanations for my bein’ around the Lazy Y at that time of the night, an’ besides I saw the Taggarts sneakin’ up on you. While they was gassin’ to you I had one knee on Telza’s windpipe an’ my rifle pointin’ in the general direction of the Taggarts, figgerin’ that if they tried to start anything I’d beat them to it. But as it turned out it wasn’t necessary. I sure appreciated your tender-heartedness toward them poor dumb brutes of the Taggarts.

  “After you set the Taggarts to walkin’ home, I took Telza to Lazette an’ locked him up for murderin’ Sharp.”

  “I reckon, then,” said Calumet, a puzzled frown wrinkling his forehead as he looked from Taggart to the freshly dug hole; “that somebody else killed Taggart. It was someone who knew where the idol was, too—he’d been diggin’ for it.”

  “I reckon you’ve got me,” said Toban. “Sharp an’ Telza an’ you an’ Betty is the only one’s that ever saw the diagram. I saw you pick it up from where Telza dropped it when I was maulin’ him. I know you didn’t do any diggin’ for the idol; I know Betty wouldn’t; an’ Sharp’s dead, an’ Telza’s in jail—”

  There was a clatter of hoofs from the direction of the ranchhouse. Both men turned to confront a horseman who was coming rapidly toward them, and as he came closer Toban cried out in surprise:

  “Ed Bernse!” he said; “what in thunder are you doin’ here?”

  “Trailin’ a jail breaker!” said the latter. “That copper-skinned weazel we had in there slipped out some way. He stole a horse an’ come in this direction. Got an hour’s start of me!”

  Calumet laughed shortly and turned to the new-made excavation, making a thorough examination of it.

  At its bottom was a square impression, a mold such as would be left by the removal of a box. Calumet stood up and grinned at Toban.

  “The idol’s gone,” he said. “Telza’s got it. You go back to Lazette,” he said to Bernse, “an’ tell the man who owns the horse that Calumet Marston will be glad to pay for it—he’s that damned glad he’s got rid of the idol.”

  Followed by Bernse, Calumet and Toban returned to the ranchhouse. When they neared it they were met by Dade and Malcolm, bearing between them the body of Neal Taggart. Calumet directed them to the clearing, telling them briefly what they would find there, and then, with Toban and Bernse, continued on to the ranchhouse.

  Bernse hesitated at the door. “I reckon I’ll be lightin’ out for town,” he said to the sheriff.

  “Wait,” said the sheriff; “I’ll be goin’ that way myself, directly.”

  Calumet had preceded Toban. As the latter was speaking to Bernse, Calumet stood before Betty, who, with Bob, had moved to the sitting-room door and was standing, pale, her eyes moist and brilliant with the depth of her emotions.

  Briefly, he told her what he had found in the clearing.

  “And the idol’s gone,” he concluded. “Telza’s got it.”

  “Thank God!” she exclaimed, devoutly.

  “I reckon,” came Toban’s voice, as he stepped across the kitchen floor toward them, “that we’d better bring this here idol business to an end. Mebbe it’s bothered you folks a heap, but it’s had me sorta uneasy, too.” He grinned at Betty. “Mebbe you’d better show him his dad’s last letter,” he suggested. “I reckon it’ll let me out of this deal. An’ I’m sure wantin’ to go back home.”

  Betty vanished into the sitting-room in an instant, and presently returned bearing an envelope of the shape and size which had contained all of the elder Marston’s previous communications to Calumet. She passed it over to the latter and she and the sheriff watched him while he read.

  “MY DEAR SON:

  “If you receive this you will understand that by this time Betty is satisfied that you have qualified for your heritage. I thank you and wish I were there to shake your hand, to look into your eyes and tell you how glad I am for your sake.

  “As soon as you have your affairs in shape I want you to marry Betty—if she will have you. I think she will, for she is in love with your picture.

  “By this time you will know that I didn’t leave Betty alone to cope with the Taggarts. If Dave Toban has kept his word—and I know he has—he has visited the Lazy Y pretty often. I didn’t want you to know that he was back of Betty, and so I have told him to visit her secretly. He will give you what money is left in the bank at Las Vegas—we thought it would be safer over there.

  “I want to thank you again. God bless you.

  “Your father,

  “JAMES MARSTON.”

  Calumet slowly folded the letter and placed it into a pocket. He looked at Toban, a glint of reproach in his eyes.

  “So, it was you that I kept hearin’ in the office—nights,” he said.

  “I reckon,” said Toban. He looked at Betty and grinned.

  Calumet also looked at her. His face was sober.

  “I reckon I’ve been some fool,” he said. “But I was more than a fool when I thought—”

  “I didn’t blame you much for that,” smiled Betty. “You see, both times you heard us talking it happened that Taggart was somewhere in the vicinity, and—”

  “Well,” interrupted Toban with a grin; “I reckon you two will be able to get along without any outside interference, now.”

  They both watched in silence as he went to the door and stepped outside. He halted and looked at them, whereat they both reddened. Then he grinned widely and was gone.

  Betty stood at one side of the sitting-room door, Calumet at the other. Both were in the kitchen. Bob, also, was in the kitchen, though Calumet and Betty did not see him; so it appeared to Bob. Having some recollection of a certain light in Betty’s eyes on the night that Calumet had brought home the puppy, Bob’s wisdom impelled him to compare it with the light that was in them now, and he suspected—he knew—

  And so, very gently, very quietly, with infinite care and patience, lest they become aware of his presence, he edged toward the kitchen door, his rifle in hand. Still they did not seem to notice him, and so he passed through the door, into the dining-room, backed to the stairs, and so left them.

  The silence between Betty and Calumet continued, and they still stood where they had stood when Bob had stolen away, for they heard sounds outside that warned them of the approach of Dade and Malcolm.

  But it seemed they did not see Dade and Malcolm stop at one of the kitchen windows, and certainly they did not hear the whispered conversation that was carried on between the two.

  “Shucks,” said Dade; “it begins to look like Cal an’ Betty’s quarrel is—”

  “I reckon we won’t go in,” decided Malcolm; “not right now. Mebbe in an hour, or so. Let’s go down to the bunkhouse and play a little pitch.”

  They were all alone now. And Love had not been blind to the stealthy activities that had been carried on around it.

  Betty turned her head and looked at Calumet. He smiled at her—it was the smile of a man who has won a battle with something more than the material things; it was the smile of a man who has conquered self—the smile of the ruler who knows the weakness of the citadel he has taken and plans its strengthening. It was the smile of the master who realizes the potent influence of the ally who has aided in his exaltation and who meditates reward through the simple method of bestowing upon the all
y without reservation that citadel which she has helped to take and which, needless to say, she prizes. But it was something more, too, that smile. It was the smile of the mere Man—the man, repentant, humble, petitioning to the woman he has selected as his mate.

  “I reckon,” he said; “that they all thought we wanted to be alone.”

  But the ally was not prepared for this precipitate bestowal of reward, and as she blushed and looked down at the toe of her shoe, sticking out from beneath the hem of her skirt, she looked little like a person who had conducted a bitter war for the master who stood near her.

  “Oh,” she said; “did you hear them?”

  “I reckon I heard them,” he said. He went closer to her. “They’re wise—Dade an’ Malcolm. Bob, too. Wiser than me. But I’m gettin’ sense, an’ I’ll come pretty close to bein’ a man—give me time. All I need is a boss. An’ if you—”

  “I reckon,” said Dade, stretching himself an hour later, “that we’ll turn in. That brandin’ today, an’ that ridin’ tonight has bushed me—kinda.”

  Malcolm agreed and they stepped to the bunkhouse door.

  The moonlight threw a mellow glare upon the porch of the ranchhouse near the kitchen door. It bathed in its effulgent flood two figures, the boss and the master, who were sitting close together—very close together—on the porch.

  The two figures came into instant focus in Dade’s vision. He stepped back with a amused growl and gave place to Malcolm, who also looked.

  Silently they went back into the bunkhouse.

  “I reckon,” suggested Dade, from the darkness, “that if we’re figgerin’ to go to bed we’ll have to bunk right here. There’s no tellin’ when them two will get through mushin’. An’ it’s been too hard a tussle for them to have us disturbin’ them now.”

  From the porch there came a low protest from the ally.

  “Don’t, Cal,” she said; “don’t you see that Dade and Malcolm are watching us?”