Hardcase

by Short, Luke;

  “Be careful, Dave,” she said softly. “Be awfully careful.” She hesitated, then said passionately, “Oh, Dave, are you sure it will work?”

  “Why won’t it?” Dave asked absently.

  His very indifference encouraged Carol. She walked to the door and said, “You’ll be careful?”

  Dave didn’t look up. He had already started to write, and still writing, he said “If you tell anyone about this—anyone, understand—your dad will hang.”

  “Who would I tell?” Carol asked resentfully.

  Dave didn’t even answer her. He was writing. She closed and locked the door and went downstairs, feeling a little angry that Dave thought she’d tell. She’d show him.

  XXII

  By six o’clock the next evening Dave’s stolen horse was tied to a small cedar in the dry wash behind Alamo Butte. The road stretching across the sage flats to Yellow Jacket was empty. Dave, standing under the cottonwood, shivered a little in the chill air, for when the sun went down now the nights were immediately cool. Soon winter would be on them, and he would drift down into Mexico again, aimless and footloose, following the sun. For some reason that thought didn’t cheer him up now.

  He set about gathering brush and stacking it under the big cottonwood. Fuel was scarce around here, and he worked fast to get a big pile. Finished, he hunted up a big flat rock, paced the ten feet south of the fire, and put the rock down. He did not place the deed under it; he kept that in his pocket.

  Then he climbed the face of the butte. It was dusk now, but he could see for miles out on the flats on either side. Presently, riding the road from Yellow Jacket, he picked out a pin point of black that soon materialized into the shape of a horse and rider. Nothing moved anywhere else, except a scattering of cattle off toward the east.

  Satisfied, he climbed down again. It was getting dark fast. He lighted the fire, picked up his rifle standing against the tree, then crossed the dry gulch, and bellied down amid the tall sage on its far bank.

  Darkness came suddenly, and the night breeze fanned the flames. Dave listened, keening the wind for any sound of more than a single rider. But there were only the night sounds about him, the scurrying of a mouse in the brush, the deep tearing sounds of the bull bats as they cruised and dived for their food overhead.

  And now there was the sound of a horse approaching. Dave lay there watching. He heard the horse stop, and he knew the man riding it was looking over the place before he ventured into the firelight.

  Then Tate Wallace rode up to the cottonwood and dismounted. Dave knew it would be Wallace and was not surprised. He saw Wallace carrying a canvas sack, step over to the fire, kneel, and dump out fat, tight-packed sheaves of bank notes. One bunch, picked at random, he untied and fanned out, so that anyone watching from the darkness could see they were bank notes. He waited a moment, standing away from the fire and giving an observer time to look, then he walked over to the stone and lifted it.

  Before he had time to curse Dave called easily, “Wait a minute, Wallace. I’ll bring it over to you.”

  Dave came down the bank and crossed the arroyo. Wallace was standing with his hands in the air.

  “I haven’t got a gun,” he said quietly.

  “I didn’t think you would have,” Dave said. “Come on over to the fire.”

  They walked into the circle of firelight, and Dave reached in his shirt pocket and brought out the deed and receipt. He handed it to Wallace, who hesitatingly accepted it, then opened it to make sure it was the deed.

  “I throwed in the sheet I tore from the county records too,” Dave said.

  Wallace folded the deed and put it in his pocket. “Thanks.”

  Dave said, “Don’t thank me. Just write me a receipt for that deed.”

  “Receipt?” Wallace asked curiously. “Why a receipt?”

  Dave looked at the fire and said idly, “When you’re in my business, Wallace, you learn to cover your back trail. I don’t aim to get another reward plastered on me for stealin’ a deed I ain’t got. Write me a receipt, I say, so I can show it to the next tank-town sheriff that throws down on me for stealin’ the Bib M deed.”

  Wallace regarded him with speculation and then said, “You’re gettin’ pretty cagey, Dave.”

  Dave looked up at him and answered simply, “Well, you know what I’m fightin’. I got to be.” He reached in his shirt pocket and brought out a slip of paper and a stub of pencil. “Write the date, the amount you paid, and the place—here at Alamo Butte.”

  Wallace took the pencil and paper and scribbled a receipt. Dave took it, looked at it and nodded, and then pocketed it carelessly.

  Wallace said, “Don’t you want to look at the money?”

  “No. I reckon the count is right,” Dave said easily. “You’re smarter than that.”

  “Can I go now?”

  “Sure,” Dave said.

  Wallace walked a few steps toward his horse, then paused, and looked back at Dave. Dave was still staring absently at the fire.

  “Mind my talkin’?” Wallace asked.

  Dave glanced up at him and shook his head. “Go ahead.”

  Wallace’s long lean face almost broke into a smile. “You said something about tank-town sheriffs. You driftin’?”

  “That’s right.” Dave almost grinned too. “Mind tellin’ me who’s been packin’ you, Wallace?”

  Wallace only smiled and shook his head.

  Dave shrugged and yawned. “Well, I don’t give a damn,” he said quietly. “It’s a nice, smooth job, Wallace. You’re considerably slicker than when you tried to cold-deck me in Dodge.”

  “I’m older,” Wallace said.

  “Yeah. Nothin’ like practice, I reckon,” Dave said idly.

  Wallace said, “You’ sure raised hell with me for a while there.”

  “I had to have money. Might’s well get it from the gent that’s makin’ it, hadn’t I?”

  “Well, you got it,” Wallace said dryly. “And, mister, you sure earned it the hard way.”

  Dave chuckled. “But I got it.”

  “Well, so long.”

  “So long,” Wallace said.

  He and Dave faded out of the firelight at the same time, neither wholly trusting the other. Dave turned then and walked back toward his horse. He was whistling cheerfully, softly and off key.

  It was all over now but the shouting.

  He knew the man behind Wallace, the man who had shot Sholto, the man who had framed McFee—knew for dead certain. Tomorrow the rest of the world would know.

  XXIII

  Sheriff Harvey Beal always walked to work because his horse, which he seldom used, was stabled at the feed stable below the office. When he swung into the main street this morning he was struck by the absence of activity in the town. For a moment it puzzled him, and then he remembered that most of the stores were closed, the men out hunting Coyle. The street, usually busy at this early-morning hour, held mostly women and children and only a scattering of men. He could have counted on both hands the number of saddle horses, buckboards, and spring wagons at the tie rails.

  Ernie See had drifted in with his crew at an early hour this morning. They had combed one slope of the Corazon fruitlessly and had come back for rest and grub before they started out again. Most of them, Beal guessed, were still in bed.

  He passed Tim King’s Keno Parlor and said good morning to the swamper, who had already swept out and was stacking empty beer barrels on the boardwalk in front of the saloon. This irritated Beal a little, as it did every morning, because he had warned Tim not to clutter the sidewalk with the barrels. But this morning it was only a minor irritation. He had lots more to think of.

  Approaching the office, he was fumbling in his pocket for the keys when he noticed the horse at the tie rail in front of the office.

  It stood there with its stirrups tied over the horn, the cinch loosened, and its bit slipped.

  Beal suddenly hauled up with an abruptness that was surprising. He stood there looking at the
horse, like a hunting dog pointing, as the significance of it came to him.

  Only one man left a horse like that—Dave Coyle.

  For a moment Sheriff Beal was panicked. The last time this had happened was in Sabinal—and Sholto had been kidnaped.

  He looked uneasily around him, as if he expected to see Dave Coyle watching him. No, the street was almost deserted.

  Slowly, then, Beal moved to the door of his office. He unlocked the door, then, still looking up and down the street, he backed into the office and locked the door. He moved swiftly to the window and peered out again. The horse was standing there patiently, a symbol and a threat and a puzzle.

  Beal lifted his Stetson and scratched his head, then turned around. What he saw then almost stopped his heart.

  Dave Coyle was asleep on his desk top!

  A cold clawing fear seized Beal, and he held his breath. Then he heard the deep slow breathing of Dave as he slept.

  Ever so softly Beal tiptoed over to the door, unlocked it, and stepped out, locking it after him. He went on tiptoe past the office, then ran.

  In the saloon he bawled to Tim King and his bartender, “Tim, send a man to wake Ernie! Tell him to get all the men he can and come down to the office! Here, gimme that greener from behind the bar!”

  He took the shotgun from the amazed bartender, yelled, “Get on with it, man!” and ran out of the saloon.

  He took up his position across the street in front of Badey’s store. Every man that passed—and there were half a dozen—Beal ordered into Badey’s to pick up a gun and ammunition. Slowly, minute by minute a crowd congregated on the boardwalk in front of Badey’s. Beal hadn’t told them what he was arming them for, but they, too, had seen the horse across the street and knew what it meant.

  In ten minutes Ernie, with a dozen more men, drifted up and said, “What the hell is the fuss?” His hair wasn’t combed; his eyes were bleared with sleep, and his shirt was buttoned crooked.

  For answer Beal pointed to the horse and said, “He’s asleep on my desk in the office.”

  Ernie cursed softly, levering a shell in his gun. Beal said quietly to the crowd, “Surround the place, back alley and all. Tell the women to get off the streets. Ernie, you and about four others come in with me.”

  Beal gave his posse, which was swelling by the moment, time enough to pick their vantage points, and then he and Ernie started across the street, walking slowly, carefully, rifles slacked just off their shoulders.

  Beal unlocked the door, pushed it open a way, peered in, then waved the others in after him. Dave was still asleep. The awed townsmen filed in on tiptoe and locked the door behind them.

  They stood in a half circle around Dave, watching him, while Beal signed Ernie to take Dave’s gun.

  Ernie reached over and gently edged the six-gun out of Dave’s holster, and then Beal signed to the others to raise their rifles and cover him.

  Small beads of perspiration had formed on Beal’s forehead. Gingerly he reached over with his gun barrel and poked Dave in the ribs.

  Dave woke at once. He opened his eyes, glanced coolly at the men covering him, and then sat up slowly. He yawned, and when his mouth closed again his face was insolent, his eyes jeering. His lip was lifted faintly in a sneer as he looked at Beal.

  “Took you long enough,” Dave said to Beal.

  “Don’t you move!” Beal said.

  Dave sneered and slipped to the floor and hitched up his pants. The men moved backward a step.

  Beal said, “Ernie, unlock that corridor door.”

  Ernie did and stood aside. Dave looked at him and said, “I want four eggs for breakfast. No cream in the coffee.”

  He turned and walked into the cell block. McFee’s guards, who waited each morning to be let out of the cell block by Beal, were standing by the door when Dave walked in. Dave marched past them, stopped, and looked at McFee.

  Carol’s father had lost ten pounds during the time he had been in jail. All the fight had gone out of him, and now his face looked gentler, less like a bigot’s.

  Dave said, “How they treat you here, General?”

  “All right,” McFee said quietly. “So they got you, eh?”

  “For a while,” Dave said, indifferent. He turned to Beal and said, “Don’t stand there like a knot head, Beal. Give me a room. And hurry up with that breakfast. I’m hungry.”

  Beal made an inarticulate noise, and Ernie laid a hand on him. “Just get him in a cell before you blow up, Harve! What about that one across from McFee?”

  Dave was put in the cell opposite his partner, and then Beal relaxed. The others crowded around Dave’s cell and looked at him. This was the man with the twenty-thousand-dollar reward on his head. The rest of the town, men, women, and children, were pouring into the cell block now, for the word had spread like a grass fire. Beal did his best to keep them out, but there were too many of them. They flocked into the narrow way between the cells, fighting for a chance to see and insult Dave Coyle, the famous outlaw. The kids jeered at him, and the women shouted angry insults, while the men mostly stared and then smiled in a superior way. While Dave Coyle was fighting them and licking them he was some sort of god, but when he gave himself up they concluded he was just a man like themselves. He was scared. Too much bounty had put the odds against him, and like a wise man he had decided to face the music and trust his life to a jury instead of his guns.

  Ernie and Beal fought for half an hour to clear the crowd out, and while Beal didn’t fight too hard, since these people elected him, he finally succeeded in making his authority felt. The cell block was cleared, and a man was sent for the breakfasts.

  Dave sat on his bunk and yawned, partly out of sleepiness and partly out of boredom. He observed McFee from time to time, but they did not talk. All the bluster and the truculence in McFee was gone. He was just a patient, soft-spoken old man.

  Ernie and Beal brought in the breakfasts and watched their two prisoners eat. Ernie kept watching Dave for some sign of success, and finally, when Beal had turned to say something to McFee, Dave nodded imperceptibly. Ernie felt a vast relief flood him. It had worked.

  Dave, finished, said, “Beal, come here.”

  Beal and Ernie came up to the bars. Beal had a look of smug self-satisfaction on his cherub’s face.

  Dave said, “You figure I done you a favor?”

  “Favor?” Beal echoed. “How?”

  “By givin’ up. By not shootin’ you. I was awake when you came into the office alone this mornin’. I could have gunned you.”

  Beal flushed. “All right. Maybe you did, only we’d of caught you anyway.”

  “But you admit I done you a favor?”

  Beal nodded cautiously.

  “Then do me one.”

  “Depends,” Beal said skeptically and added, “I don’t see why I should be doin’ you any favors, Coyle. You’ve kept this damn county in a holy hell of an uproar for too long.”

  “I want my preliminary hearin’ today,” Dave said.

  Beal just stared at him. Ernie said, “Why?” truculently.

  “I want to git it over with, that’s all.”

  “Why, damn your gall!” Ernie blurted out. He knew Beal well enough to know that Beal would invariably take the opposite side he took in any argument. His cue was to object, and Beal would be contrary enough to contradict him. “Why should we be doin’ favors for a coyote like you?” Ernie asked hotly.

  “Wait a minute,” Beal said pacifically. “Judge Warburton’s here now, Ernie. Why not?”

  “Why not?” Ernie glared at him. “Hell, just because he asked us to, if for nothin’ else!”

  Beal said grimly, “The sooner it’s over, the sooner he hangs.”

  “Why, I wouldn’t—” Ernie began. Beal laid a hand on his arm and took him over to a far corner.

  Beal said sternly, “Remember our talk the other day, Ernie? You’re through tomorrow.”

  “I remember,” Ernie said glumly.

  “Just so you
do,” Beal said. “Now, since you’re still deputy, I’ll tell you why I agree with Coyle. The longer we keep him here, the more chance there is of him breakin’ out. The sooner I get him in Sante Fe for the trial, the happier I’ll be. No sir, I’m goin’ to talk to Warburton.”

  “He’s your prisoner,” Ernie said sulkily. “I’d keep him here till he rots, if I was doin’ it.”

  “But you ain’t!” Beal said emphatically.

  Beal walked over and said to Dave, “You’ll get your hearin’ just as soon as I can arrange it.”

  At that moment the corridor door opened and a man poked his head in. “What about Miss McFee seein’ her old man with Maitland?”

  Beal felt magnanimous now. “Bring them in.”

  Carol came in. Dave could tell by the dazed expression on her face that she had heard the news. Senator Maitland, beside her, looked with firm disapproval at Dave. Ernie, down at the far end of the corridor out of earshot, smoked in silence.

  Carol spoke to her father, but she came to Dave’s cell. “What happened?”

  Dave said, “It’s so simple you wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Tell me.”

  Dave said bitterly, “I slept out last night. I got cold. Then I got to thinkin’ of all the other nights I’d have to sleep out, waitin’ for a shot in the back, hidin’ out, goin’ without food and sleep, tired and hungry and broke. I—just decided to give up.”

  Carol didn’t say anything, and Dave thought she was going to cry. “I got the money,” he said softly. “It’s hid. Your dad will get out, so don’t worry.”

  “Oh, I’m not worrying about him. What about you?” Carol cried passionately.

  Dave only shrugged carelessly and said, “I’ll break out when I’m rested up.” He rose and called, “Senator.”

  Maitland came over to the cell. “I’m havin’ my preliminary hearin’ this mornin’. I want a lawyer or I’ll get framed for a dozen things I didn’t do. You figure you’d take the job?”

  Maitland’s kindly face sagged in amazement Then his mouth clamped shut, and he said emphatically, “I would not!”