by Short, Luke;
Beal came into the room and shut the door and then regarded Ernie with pure bale in his eyes. He said with savage sarcasm, “Nobody’s ever told Mr. See’s son that Lacey Thornton owns one of the two newspapers in this county, have they?”
“Sure,” Ernie said cheerfully. “What of it?”
“Listen,” Beal said, almost choking with rage. “I’m sheriff here. I was elected! Elected, you hear? Lacey Thornton backed me in the last election, and he’s goin’ to back me in the next—if I treat him right! And now my deputy comes along and calls him a liar!”
“Well, he is one, ain’t he?”
“What’s that got to do with it?” Beal bawled, his cherub’s face looking as if it was ready to burst into tears. “He could eat his kids for breakfast, but what’s that got to do with tellin’ him so?”
“All right,” Ernie said.
“All right what?” Beal bawled. “You’ve already called him a liar! You can’t call him one again!”
Ernie’s face got a little red with anger. “Yes, I can. If you don’t quit drippin’ off at the mouth, I will.”
Beal almost choked. Then he bellowed, “You’re through, Ernie! Fired!”
“What? Again?” Ernie gibed.
“This time I mean it! By God, you and me are through! There’s four more days to payday, and if you come back here on the fifth day I’ll kick you across the street!”
Ernie sobered at this. In the past Beal had fired him in the morning, sulked through the day, and the next day, when Ernie showed up, it was forgotten. Ernie worked hard, and Beal knew it, and even if they argued and fought it was usually ironed out in time. But this time Beal meant what he had said. A kind of panic seized Ernie now. He couldn’t be fired! Dave needed him here.
He said soberly, “Listen, Harve, maybe I shot off my mouth. I always do, I reckon. But I’m plumb sorry. I reckon I made a mistake.”
“That won’t work this time!” Beal said grimly. “You’ve put a noose around my neck for the last time! What I said goes. You’re through come payday!”
Ernie couldn’t hide the dismay on his face. His bluntness, his impulsiveness, his outspokenness had finally done for him. He’d pushed Beal too far. And what would Dave say now?
Beal said bitterly, “Keep away from Lacey and give me time to smooth it over.” And he stalked out, his fat slack body ramrod straight.
Ernie sank down on his cot and stared at the floor. A faint suspicion began to form in his mind. Was Lacey Thornton really the man who had killed Sholto, and was Beal in with him? Ernie tried to put that out of his mind, but it wouldn’t go. Suppose Lacey and Beal really were in cahoots to keep McFee in jail? That would explain Beal’s easy acceptance of the killing of Sholto. And if Lacey was the man who tried to kill Dave the other night, then he saw Dave and Ernie talking. And if he saw that and reported it to Beal wasn’t this Beal’s way of getting rid of his deputy before he interfered with them? Ernie had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. In spite of Harve Beal’s bombast, his bluster, his timidness, his caution, his fence straddling, and his fumbling, bumbling bewilderment, Ernie liked him. No, Harve wasn’t a crook. But how explain all this?
Ernie didn’t know; he only knew that for once he had goaded Beal too far, and now he was paying for it with his job. The job didn’t matter so much, but he had failed Dave. He had …
The sound of angry voices, many of them, in the front office interrupted his thoughts. He rose and opened the corridor door. He could hear someone shouting, and he hurried into the office.
There stood Tate Wallace, his riders crowded in behind him, facing Beal. Tate whirled at Ernie’s entrance, and Ernie was appalled by what he saw on Wallace’s face. Wallace looked berserk with rage.
“Dave Coyle stole the deed to the Bib M last night! He was hid in the house!”
“Stole the deed?” Ernie echoed blankly.
“Stole it! Killed four of my men and escaped!”
Ernie leaned back against the wall, relief flooding him. He didn’t have to act as if he were surprised; he was, even if he knew it would happen beforehand. Dave had got away with it.
Ernie said softly, “Well, I’m double-damned!”
Wallace turned to Beal, who sat there with a look of stupefaction on his face. “And somethin’ else! He told me he’d taken the record of the deed out of the county clerk’s files!”
Beal gazed helplessly at Ernie. “So that’s why the lock was broke the other day.” He looked up at Wallace and said, “What do you want me to do?”
“Do?” Wallace yelled. “Find him! You’re the law here, ain’t you! Deputize every man in town! Comb the country! Take my crew and get all the men you can!”
Beal just stared at the floor. Presently he said, “That makes your title to the Bib M no good, don’t it? You haven’t got a deed, and there’s no record of it ever bein’ filed.”
Wallace nodded and then said in a thick, wicked voice, “That’s it, Beal! But if anybody tries to take that place away from me I’ll kill ’em! I bought it!”
“Nobody said you didn’t, Beal said hastily. “I was just figurin’ out why he stole the deed.”
“I’m goin’ to get that deed back if it takes ten years!” Wallace raged. “Beal, I want you to send a man over to Sabinal with a telegram for the Governor, askin’ for troops! I want you to put every man that can bear arms to huntin’ Coyle!”
Lacey Thornton said, “There’s somethin’ better than that, Wallace.”
Wallace looked at him for the first time. Ernie watched them, to see if anything passed between them. If there was he couldn’t see it. Wallace’s eyes were hot with anger, his face stiff. Thornton just wore his usual whisky flush, heightened a little now by the excitement.
Thornton said, “Beal has got ten thousand dollars here on deposit—ten thousand reward money that was supposed to be put on McFee. But it ain’t been paid off, because McFee walked into the jail, almost. Why not take that ten thousand and put it on Dave Coyle’s head—dead or alive—because he killed four of your men? He’s got seven thousand on it now. That would make seventeen thousand dollars and—”
“I’ll put three more to make it twenty,” Wallace said.
“Good. That’s twenty thousand dollars.” He looked around the room. “Why, hell, every man in the county will give up his job or close his store to hunt Coyle. That’s more’n a man earns in three-four years!”
“I’ll do it!” Beal said, coming to his feet. “Ernie, get the word around town. Twenty thousand reward, and anybody can get it! And they don’t have to capture him this time. They can kill him!”
Ernie, a little sick when he thought what a man would do for twenty thousand dollars, went out to spread the word around town.
In an hour all the stores except Badey’s, all the saloons except Tim King’s Keno Parlor were closed. The town was sold out of ammunition, and horses were at a premium. In Yellow Jacket’s main street, there was a milling mob of riders, waiting to split up and start the biggest man hunt—and the longest—any of them could remember.
XXI
From the hotel lobby window Carol, Lily Sholto, and Senator Maitland saw the posse forming and watched it for an hour. Finally, when it split up and rode out of town in all four directions, Senator Maitland observed, “I wouldn’t like to be in Dave Coyle’s boots.”
“You think they’ll get him?” Carol asked anxiously.
Maitland shrugged. “If there’s any justice left in this world they will.”
“But, Uncle Dan,” Carol objected, “he’s helped us.”
Maitland nodded somberly. His seamed face looked weary today and stern, somehow. He was sitting between Lily and Carol. He looked at them both and said, “I shouldn’t be saying this, I know. I’m Bruce McFee’s lawyer and friend, so I should be grateful to Dave Coyle for stealing that deed. It puts Wallace in the position of a trespasser now. He has no right, no title to the Bib M now. The disappearance of the deed and any record of it will defeat him in court. The
Bib M is still the McFee place.” He shook his head and made a wry face. “Still, I’m a man of conscience, I hope. I don’t like to win my court fights in that manner.”
Carol laughed uncertainly. “Neither do I, Uncle Dan, but it’s been given to us, it seems.”
“Certainly.” Maitland looked gloomily out the window. “Still, it doesn’t change things much, does it, my dear? Your father is still coming up for trial on a murder charge.” He said with sudden passion, “The ranch be damned. I want your father free!” He looked at Carol. “Isn’t that the way you feel?”
Carol nodded mutely. Maitland looked at his watch. “It’s visiting hour now. Shall we go over?”
The three of them crossed the street, but at the sheriff’s office their way was barred by Beal.
“No visitin’ today,” he said firmly.
“And why not?” Maitland asked.
Beal glared at him. “Don’t ask me, Maitland. Figure it out for yourself. Your little outlaw friend has made you happy enough for one day. You can do without the visit.”
Maitland said angrily, “Are you insinuating, Beal, that I had any connection with the theft of that deed?”
“I’m not insinuatin’ anything, Senator,” Beal said shortly, angrily. “All I’m sayin’ is that it looks as if you’d won your case out of court! I’m sayin’ somethin’ else too. I got too much to do today without herdin’ relatives of a killer in to weep on his shoulder. Get out!”
Maitland took the girls out, and since there was nowhere else to go, they went back to the hotel. A sudden weariness overwhelmed Carol in the lobby. She was sick of this, sick to death. She hated the town; she hated the hotel; she was without hope, bored to tears, and helpless as a baby. She envied Lily Sholto, who was so calm that nothing surprised her. Why, when the news came that Dave Coyle had hidden in the Bib M house and stolen the deed Lily only smiled.
Carol said, “I’m going to my room, Uncle Dan. I think I’ll try and sleep. If any news comes in wake me.”
Lily looked at her and didn’t ask what kind of news. It was in Lily’s face that she knew what Carol meant by news. If Dave Coyle was caught or killed was what she meant. Carol flushed a little under that friendly stare of Lily’s, then mounted the stairs, and sought her room.
She let herself in, closed the door, and walked slowly over to the bed. Halfway there she stopped, a small cry escaping her.
There, sound asleep on her bed, one hand folded under the pillow, was Dave Coyle.
Carol stood transfixed for a moment, then she tiptoed swiftly to the door and locked it. Oh, the fool, she thought, the reckless, headstrong fool!
She felt her knees go weak as she turned to look at him again. Twenty thousand dollars on his head, the whole of the county hunting him, and he was peacefully asleep on a bed in the hotel across the street from the sheriff’s office!
And then Carol had a thought that warmed her and made her feel important again. He trusted her enough to come to her when he needed shelter and rest.
Carol sat down then in the chair. She wasn’t going to waken him. He was probably exhausted. She sat in the chair still as a mouse for two hours, as the sun heeled over and the room grew dark.
She was sitting there in a kind of dreamy trance when Dave’s voice startled her.
“How long you been here?”
Carol started and then looked at him. He was propped up on his elbows, grinning at her.
“Hours,” Carol said. “Dave, why do you take the risk?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” Dave said. He got up, stretched, yawned, and went over to the washstand, poured out a basin of water, washed his face, dried it, ran a hand through his unruly black hair, then came and sat on the edge of the bed, pulling out a sack of tobacco.
Carol said, calmly as she could, “Do you know there’s a twenty-thousand-dollar reward on your head?”
Dave lighted the cigarette and said, “Is that all? Wallace is a piker.”
“Oh, Dave!” Carol moaned. “You’ve done enough for us! Can’t you get out of the country?”
Dave grinned around his cigarette. There was none of the insolence in his face now that Carol had seen before. He looked friendly. He reached in his shirt pocket, brought out a paper, and held it in his hand. “Here’s the deed.”
“You shouldn’t have done it, Dave,” Carol said.
“Aren’t you glad?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“Sorry you cussed me out the other night?”
Carol flushed a little. “I—I am. Dreadfully sorry.”
Dave grinned and looked at the deed. “What are you goin’ to do with it?”
“Destroy it, shouldn’t I?”
Dave shook his head and laid the deed on the bed. “I been figurin’,” he said slowly and looked levelly at Carol. “You think your dad will be acquitted?”
He had said casually, almost brutally, the thing that Carol had not even dared to ask herself these past few days. But now that he had framed the question Carol knew that she had already answered it in her mind. It was settled. She said softly, hopelessly, “No, I don’t.”
“Neither do I,” Dave said. “So maybe I better tell you what I been thinkin’.”
“You aren’t going to try to break him out of jail!” Carol said swiftly, alarm in her voice. “Dave, it won’t work again! Don’t crowd your luck!”
“Listen to me,” Dave said. He picked up the deed and held it in front of him. “That deed will get your dad out of jail,” he said slowly.
Carol stared at him, not understanding. “But—but he’s in for murder, Dave.”
“Forget that,” Dave said. “I know what I’m talkin’ about. I’ve found out some things. You haven’t got ten thousand dollars to your name, have you, Carol?”
“Ten thousand? No,” Carol said blankly.
“Has Senator Maitland?”
“No, he’s poor.”
“Ten thousand dollars will get your dad out of jail,” Dave said, watching her.
“How?”
“Ernie See can be bought,” Dave lied slowly. “For ten thousand dollars Ernie See will let your dad out of jail, give him a fast horse, and start him on his way to Mexico.”
“Dave!” Carol said softly. She looked searchingly at him, trying to get a clue to his thoughts. Then she said, “How do you know?”
“Every man has his price,” Dave said cynically. “I found out his. It’s ten thousand dollars.”
Carol looked wonderingly at him. “But what would Dad do in Mexico—providing he could get there?”
“What’ll he do dead?” Dave asked brutally.
Carol shuddered. Dave had put it bluntly enough; it was either Mexico or the hang noose.
She said, “That’s true. He should go. But where will we get ten thousand dollars?”
Dave, who had been holding the deed in front of him, simply waved it once and said nothing.
Carol, understanding, said swiftly, “You’ll sell the deed back to the Three Rivers?”
“Not to Wallace himself. I don’t trust him. I’m goin’ to sell it back to the man behind Wallace for ten thousand dollars.”
Carol felt an excitement pounding through her, and then it was dampened. “But do you know who it is?”
Dave grinned. “I don’t. But I’ll tell you how I can find out. You remember that night at your spread when you told me of the letter bein’ stole?”
“Yes, yes!”
“I’ll send a letter to each of those men who could have stole the letter. I can’t send one to Will Usher because he’s dead. I won’t send one to Ernie See because I’ve found out he can’t be the one. But I’ll send a note to Sheriff Beal and one to Lacey Thornton.” He paused. “I’ll also send one to Senator Maitland.”
“But—” Carol began and then smiled. What difference did it make if Uncle Dan got one? He’d just be bewildered and wouldn’t understand.
“What will you say in the notes?”
“I’ll say the same th
ing in all of them,” Dave continued. “It will read like this: ‘If you want the deed to the Bib M, follow these directions. Get ten thousand dollars in bank notes. At seven o’clock tonight ride south out of Yellow Jacket three miles until you come to the big cottonwood by the ford. There will be a fire burning there. Dump out your bank notes by the fire, so I can see them. Then walk twenty feet south, lift the flat rock, and the deed will be under it. If your bank notes are just paper you will be shot by me. If they are really bank notes you can ride off unharmed.’ I’ll sign my own name.”
Carol nodded, then said, “But what if it’s Sheriff Beal and he brings men with him?”
“Seven o’clock is just after dark. There’s a butte behind the cottonwood. On top of it I can see whether one man comes or a dozen. If it’s more than one I grab the deed and run. If it’s one I stay there.” He grinned. “It can’t fail.”
Carol thought a moment, then said bitterly, “Whoever it is, they’ll send a messenger. We’ll never know who is behind Tate Wallace and the Three Rivers outfit.”
Dave shrugged carelessly. “We got to give that up. We don’t care who it is, just so your dad goes free.”
“That’s true. That’s all that matters. Only—we’ll never know.”
It was almost dark in the room now. Dave said, “You got any paper and a pen?”
“Are you going to write the letters?”
Dave nodded. “You go downstairs. It’s almost suppertime. Leave me here. When you come back there’ll be four letters for you to mail. Take them out and mail them.”
“Four?” Carol asked. “Who is the fourth one to?”
Dave smiled faintly. “It’s a man. He’s got nothin’ to do with this. His name is—let’s see.” He scratched his head. “George Bemis. He’s comin’ to town soon. I’ll mark his letter ‘Hold till called for.’ You mail ’em all right after supper.”
Carol nodded. “And when will Dad make his escape?”
“Two nights from now,” Dave said.
Carol stood up and got the paper and pen and envelopes. Dave pulled the curtain, and she lighted the lamp. Then she stood by the desk, and Dave pulled the chair over.
