Hardcase

by Short, Luke;

  It excited people, and they milled around the streets waiting for a sight of Beal’s posse. Already two extra deputy marshals were lounging in the hotel, ready to swell the number of official guards offering safe conduct to the witness. The crowd was concentrated on the main street, for it was certain that Beal, good politician that he was, would give the townspeople a parade.

  The back street next to the railroad track was naturally deserted, and it was down this rutted street, around noon, that a team and wagon appeared. The team was a sorry-looking crowbait pair with their harness patched with rope. The wagon, its wheels atilt, was covered by a rotted canvas on hoops and was driven by a shabby Mexican in bib overalls.

  The wagon pulled up beside the railroad station, whose red paint was sun-blistered and peeled, and the Mexican dismounted. He glanced about him with some bewilderment, circled the place once, then walked up to the yawning door of the freight warehouse and took off his hat and stood there.

  The men were lounging inside, one sitting on the scales and smoking a pipe, the other sitting on a box crate. Presently the man with the pipe caught sight of the Mexican and he called, “What you want, amigo?”

  The Mexican smiled and said something in Spanish, and the man with the pipe said to his companion, “Come along, Joe. I don’t savvy his gab.”

  The two men walked over to the Mexican and Joe said, “¿Como?”

  The Mexican started to speak then in slow, measured tones. When he finished Joe said to the freight agent, “His father died last night. He wants us to ship the body to Socorro for him on the train.”

  The freight agent looked skeptical. “He does, does he? Tell him it costs money for that.”

  Joe told the Mexican; the Mexican answered, and Joe told the agent, “He says he’s got money.”

  “I bet he ain’t got enough for that. Tell him it will be twenty-four dollars.” A sudden pity crossed the agent’s face. “Ask him why he doesn’t bury him here and save the money.”

  Joe talked again. Presently he told the agent, “He says he’s got twenty-five dollars. He says all the Ochoas since DeVargas have been buried at Socorro, and that’s their home. I reckon he just wants to do it.”

  “All right,” the agent said gently. “I hate to take his money, though.”

  The Mexican spoke again and Joe translated. “He wants to know if it will go fast.”

  “Tell him express, as fast as we can send it.”

  The three of them went out to the wagon then. A plain pine box, a cross burned in its top, rested in the wagon bed, and when the two men saw it they removed their hats. The three of them stumbled up the platform with the box and into the freight warehouse, where it was deposited in an empty corner.

  They went up to the office; the Mexican paid and left. The agent, watching his stooped figure disappear, shook his head and said, “Think of it, Joe. That poor old jasper has worked fifteen years savin’ this money, and now he spends it all to get the old man back to his buryin’ place.”

  “It’s tough,” Joe agreed.

  A little before noon Sheriff Beal’s posse arrived. At first glance it seemed a well-equipped army, with everyone carrying rifles and side arms. Tate Wallace, the Three Rivers foreman, was a shrewd man, and he knew that in putting up a howl for protection of his witness he was playing to Sheriff Beal’s vanity. Beal had been more than glad to demonstrate that no witness in his county could come to harm.

  Bruce McFee, from the upper-story room of the Sabinal House which he had taken in order to have some place for his daughter to rest after the ride from Yellow Jacket, looked down on Sheriff Beal’s entry.

  Carol, watching him from the bed, saw his face settled into grim lines. It was a rugged, craggy, over-proud face, the face of a domineering man just in his prime. There was bigotry and hardness in his eyes, too, and a kind of simmering rage that had been there since this affair. He affected the plain black suit and expensive boots of a prosperous cattleman, but it had been his boast once that he could top any horse or rope any steer that wore his brand. The trouble was, people said, he rode and hog-tied men with the same ruthless manner. And they had seen many instances to back up this belief. There was, for instance, the reward he slapped on Dave Coyle for saving his daughter from Will Usher’s wild bunch. Also, there was that business about his old partner. Lacey Thornton. When Thornton and McFee, after a decade of killing work, had finally begun to make money, Thornton began to drink. Not much for that time and that day, but enough. Bruce McFee warned him, and when the warning wasn’t taken he kicked him out of the partnership. Thornton claimed, in public and out, that McFee got him drunk and had him sign the release—a release which left Thornton very little money. McFee never bothered to answer him. His stocky body, overlaid now with a little fat, was somehow indomitable-looking. His right hand, which he favored since the fall, hung stiffly at the seam of his trousers, and the fingers twitched now with anger as he looked down at the street. His face was stiff with a cold, hating anger.

  It was this anger that Carol saw now, and she said, “You knew it was going to happen, Dad. Don’t get mad again.”

  Her father turned to her and pointed a stubby finger at the street. “But, dammit, don’t you see what kind of a cheap insult it is? That damned play actin’ out there, it’s tellin’ the whole world that I’d kill Sholto if I got a chance!”

  “Wouldn’t you?” Carol asked.

  McFee’s face got red and he started to speak. Then his eyes became reflective for a moment, and presently he smiled. “Why, yes, I reckon I would, the lyin’, robbin’, perjurin’ tinhorn. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  There was a knock on the door, and Carol went over to open it. She stepped aside to let in Senator Maitland, McFee’s lawyer. He smiled at Carol and shook hands with McFee. He was an almost bald man, stocky as McFee, with the kindly and benign face of an overworked country doctor. His movements were deliberate, his speech slow, but under his almost bumbling and pompous demeanor was hidden the keenest legal brain in the territory. He wore a claw-hammer coat, white ruffled shirt, and black string tie, the indispensable uniform of the politician. His eyes were almost hidden in their deep sockets behind hooded lids. There was a simple air of honesty about him that won any man, and he had remained poor in the service of the people of the territory.

  “Well, Sheriff Beal is playing it the politician’s way, Bruce,” he murmured. “See the parade?”

  “I’m licked before I start, with that kind of stuff,” McFee growled.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Maitland murmured. He put his arm around Carol and gave her a fatherly hug. “Can’t you cheer him up, girl?”

  Carol smiled sadly. “I’m afraid there’s not much to be cheerful about.”

  Maitland shook his head. “That’s a fact.” He sighed. “Well, we aren’t beaten yet. There are a few tricks in court I know that will have them guessing.” He looked at McFee’s gloomy counternance and smiled. “You might as well get ready for another jolt.”

  McFee looked puzzled, and Maitland went on, “Lacey Thornton is downstairs waiting for an interview with you. He insists that he doesn’t want a quarrel but only wants an interview with you for that newspaper of his. He says the Clarion will print lies if it doesn’t get the truth, so he wants you to give him the truth.”

  “Since when did he ever give me justice in the Clarion?” McFee growled. “Tell him I’ll see him in hell first.”

  Maitland shook his head. “You’ll need all the public support you can get, Bruce. You can’t keep the habit of a top dog any more. Can’t afford it. Go down there and hold your temper and tell him the truth.”

  “Do I have to?”

  Maitland smiled gently. “Well, it’s your lawyer’s advice.”

  The three of them went downstairs, but not until after Maitland had taken the precaution of removing McFee’s gun from the holster and putting it on the dresser.

  The lobby was cleared of people, most of whom had stepped out into the street to watc
h Beal’s parade. Only one man remained, and he rose as he saw the three of them coming down the stairs. Lacey Thornton, editor of the Sabinal Clarion, was a little terrier of a man, small, wiry, nervous, with a face that had a seasoned whisky flush in its wizened monkey’s features. Ten feet from him his aura of good bourbon whisky was unmistakable. He’d been drinking today, Carol could see, as he came up to them.

  He touched his hat to her, and McFee said coldly to his ex-partner, “You wanted to interview me?”

  “That’s right,” Thornton said impudently. “How do you feel? Wait until I get my notebook.” He drew out a shear of note paper, licked a pencil, and said again, “How do you feel?”

  “Confident,” McFee said coldly.

  “He feels confident,” Thornton murmured dryly as he wrote. Then he looked up and said, “Has your blood pressure increased?”

  Maitland said gently, “There’ll be no baiting, Lacey. An interview, yes, but no persecution.”

  Thornton made a mock bow to Maitland and said, “Only doin’ my duty, Senator.” To McFee he said, “How does it feel to hold the dirty end of the stick for once, Mr. McFee?”

  “Let’s go,” McFee said curtly to Maitland.

  “Oh, but my interview!” Lacey protested mockingly. “Think of the three hundred and ten readers of the Clarion, Mr. McFee. All of them hope you’ll lose every dollar you’ve ever made, but they want to know how you’re takin’ it. What’ll I tell them?”

  “Anything you damn well please!” McFee shouted.

  Lacey murmured as he wrote, “He’s takin’ it like a bear with a trap on each foot.” He put his notes away and grinned and said, “Well, that covers it, I reckon—except for an expression of sympathy from the Clarion.”

  Carol said, “Sympathy?”

  “Yes, miss,” Lacey drawled. “Sympathy. The Clarion extends sympathy to Mr. McFee,” he said mockingly. “We are all sorry, terribly sorry, that my esteemed ex-partner is going to lose his money. We all hoped he’d lose his life instead.”

  With a growl of rage McFee started for Thornton. Maitland grabbed his arms and held him. Lacey Thornton didn’t move. He only stood there, the light of the devil in his eyes.

  “Man alive,” he murmured. “I’d just as soon die next week. I’ve lived to see everything in this life I wanted to see.” He snapped his fingers in McFee’s face. “When you’re broke come around to the Clarion and I’ll give you two bits for a drink. And I hope it’ll choke you.”

  He laughed and walked into the dining room, not even looking back.

  At that moment the lobby door swung open, and Tate Wallace stepped inside. When he saw McFee he stopped dead.

  He was a tall man, a pale-haired, bleach-eyed Texan with a long bony face and the easy long-legged grace and spare movements of a man who has learned to be quick and swift-moving only in emergencies.

  He paused in mid-stride as he saw the three of them, and then he turned and called over his shoulder, “Hide Sholto, boys. Here’s McFee!”

  There was a small commotion outside the door, and Beal stepped through, his gun drawn. He had the air of a courteous watchdog as he gallantly doffed his hat to Carol and pointed the gun at them with the other hand.

  McFee spat contemptuously in Wallace’s direction and stalked on through the lobby into the dining room, Maitland, with Carol, following. There was a gleam of inner amusement in Wallace’s eye as they retreated, and then it vanished and his face was sober as he turned to Beal. “Much obliged, Sheriff. He looked pretty salty.”

  “Don’t you worry none, Tate. We’ll take care of you,” Beal said in his professionally hearty voice.

  Once inside the dining room McFee, Carol, and Senator Maitland took a table for three by the window and ordered their meal. Before it was served the posse filed into the dining room and sat at the long table provided for them in the center of the room. Sholto was ostentatiously seated in a chair where he was hidden, save for his head, by the bodies of the posse members.

  Carol and McFee, since this was the first time they had seen the man who was supposed to have witnessed the signing of the famous deed, stared at him. It was this man who held their fate in his hands, for without him to swear he had witnessed the transaction, Maitland could prove that any child could forge McFee’s signature. Carol’s first thought was that he looked angry. He was thin, gaunt-cheeked, burned to a saddle color except for his forehead, which had a band of lighter flesh beneath the hairline where his hat had shaded him. Against her will she liked his face. It was melancholy, reserved, almost austere, and for one fleeting moment Carol wondered if her father had signed the deed and forgotten it. This man Sholto didn’t look like a professional liar.

  Sheriff Beal sat on Sholto’s right, and he kept his eyes on McFee. The old boy wouldn’t give him any trouble, he knew, but it wouldn’t hurt to pretend he would. He was still watching McFee and Maitland, almost glaring at them, when a man stepped in between his chair and Tate Wallace’s, who was seated on his right. It was Ernie See, his plain face preoccupied.

  “Harve, I just ran into somethin’ funny. You remember old man Badey’s horse that was reported stole out of the feed corral this morning in Yellow Jacket?”

  Beal nodded, knowing in his bones what was coming.

  “Well, I just seen him in the corral down the street.”

  He and Beal looked at each other a long quiet moment, and then Tate Wallace, who had overheard Ernie, said, “Here? In Sabinal?”

  Again Ernie nodded. Wallace put it into words, drawling angrily, “Well, Sheriff, it only goes to prove what I been tryin’ to tell you. Box 73 at Wagon Mound is Bruce McFee’s box. McFee and Dave Coyle was in Yellow Jacket last night. Dave Coyle never owned a horse in his life. He steals them whenever he wants to move. A horse is stole in Yellow Jacket this mornin’ and it turns up in Sabinal this noon.”

  Sheriff Beal murmured, “Goddlemighty,” and groaned.

  Tate Wallace shoved his chair back and stood up and walked around to the table to face McFee. Sheriff Beal was at his heels, watching him anxiously.

  “So you’ve throwed in with an outlaw now, have you, McFee?” Wallace demanded.

  McFee’s surprise was greater than his anger as he came to his feet. “What outlaw?”

  “Dave Coyle. He’s in town.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “You wrote him to meet you in Yellow Jacket!” Wallace said hotly. “You talked to him last night!”

  Maitland said sternly, “Watch your language, Wallace, or I’ll slap a libel suit on you to boot!”

  McFee didn’t even hear his lawyer. He said angrily to Wallace, “You’re a liar on two counts!” His napkin was balled up in his fist.

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Senator Maitland said. “Remember where we are.”

  “I’m tellin’ you somethin’, McFee,” Wallace said savagely. “You’re travelin’ on the same train as we are this afternoon! We’re takin’ Sholto in the baggage car! And if I lay eyes on you or Coyle in that baggage car I’ll gun you like the damn double-crossin’ dog you are!”

  McFee hit him then. He moved quickly, hotly, and there was a lot of solid weight behind the blow. Wallace cakewalked backward off balance until he was brought up against a chair, and then he sat down abruptly on the floor. For a half second he was immobile, and then his hand streaked for his gun. Sheriff Beal dived at him, and so did the man in the chair beside him. They caught him just as the gun was clearing leather, and there was a swift moment of grunting and wrestling, and finally Beal rose with the gun.

  Wallace came swiftly to his feet. His face was pale with anger, and little lights danced wickedly in his bleached eyes. There was no inner amusement in them this time as he glared at McFee. His rawhiding had turned on him, and he didn’t like it. He said softly, “I’ll ruin you for that, McFee! And if I don’t ruin you I’ll kill you!”

  He turned and stalked out of the dining room, and Beal followed him out. The members of the Three Rivers crew closest
to their boss got up and followed Beal.

  McFee, under the disturbed gaze of Carol and Maitland, who had said nothing during the fight, sat down and picked up his fork. He saw Lacey Thornton writing industriously at another table. He stabbed at some food and then slammed the fork down. He was murdering-mad, and there was no use trying to hide it.

  “Eat, Papa,” Carol said weakly.

  “Eat, hell!” McFee roared. “I’m goin’ up and get a gun and kill that curly wolf!”

  The whole dining room heard him. He got out of his chair so abruptly that he tipped over the water pitcher and stalked out of the dining room; Carol and Maitland, a worried look on his face, followed him up the stairs. Already a pair of deputy marshals stood undecided in the door to the dining room, watching them. Lacey Thornton stood beside them, laughing.

  In the room Carol grabbed hold of her father’s shirt and beat his chest with her small fists. Maitland stood between McFee and the gun on the dresser.

  “Dad! Dad! They’ll murder you!” Carol cried. “Think a minute! Think!”

  “I’ve thought too long!” McFee growled. “I’m goin’ to get it over with.”

  “And what will happen to Carol, Bruce?” Maitland said gently. “Think of that, if you won’t about killing a man.”

  It was that question that hauled McFee up. He stared at Maitland like a man coming out of a trance, but there was still fight in him.