Death Rides the Night (19 page)

He laughed and went into the barn to drag out a bale of alfalfa. He broke the three wires holding the bale together and tossed half of it over the fence into the feed-box, and then walked up to the house whistling softly.

His house consisted of two small rooms in which Pinky lived very comfortably. A confirmed bachelor, he had everything down to a set routine, and it didn't take much effort the way he kept house.

He lit a lantern by the door and hung it on a nail overhead in the room that served him as a kitchen-dining-sitting room, shook out the ashes in the grate and threw some pieces of dry mesquite root in the fire-box, doused it with kerosene and dropped in a lighted match.

He stepped back to avoid the sheet of flame that burst upward, waited until the fire burned steadily and then replaced the lid. He pulled an iron pot of boiled frijole beans from the back to the front of the stove, poured a little more water in the pot and stirred it up. He threw a handful of fresh coffee on top of the old grounds in the coffeepot and put in three cups of fresh water, then got out a pan of stale baking powder biscuits that had been cooked two days previously and sprinkled them with water. He slid them into the oven to soften and heat, and he had finished his simple preparations for supper.

Women fussed too much about cooking and all, Pinky thought. A woman thought she had to cook up things fresh for every meal, when his experience had taught him that beans and bread and coffee were always more tasty the oftener they were warmed over—and it sure saved a hell of a lot of time too.

While his supper was heating, he took the lantern and a tin bucket out to the barn and milked his Jersey. He quit after drawing off a little more than a quart in his bucket, and turned the cow's eager calf in to finish up the job. Tending a cow was something else Pinky didn't waste much effort on. Other people milked a cow dry and then turned around and fed the excess milk to a calf out of a pan. That seemed mighty foolish to Pinky. He didn't see any reason to interfere with nature. Why shouldn't a man just take what he needed and let the calf work for the rest of it? Saved lots of trouble and muss.

He carried his fresh milk back to the kitchen and tested the beans. They were bubbling gently and emitted a slightly sour odor. Pinky sniffed at them twice to assure himself they weren't too sour to taste good. As long as they tasted good he didn't see any reason to throw them out. He figured that boiling them that way killed all the germs, and they never had made him sick. This pot of beans had been first cooked four days previously and he was getting down to the bottom of the pot. He decided he'd better try to finish them off tonight and set a new pot to soaking.

The coffee was boiling furiously and it gave off a vicious odor not unlike a crock of lye at soap-making time. Pinky nodded approvingly and his nostrils twitched in appreciation. A man could get his teeth into that coffee. None of that fresh-brewed insipid stuff for him.

He turned out the beans into a big round bowl, set the coffeepot and a cup beside it on the table, and pulled the pan of heated biscuits from the oven. The biscuits were sort of hard in the middle, but he broke them up into the bowl of beans and went to work with a tablespoon, washing the slightly sour concoction down with draughts of coffee that would have taken the enamel off the teeth of a less hardy man.

Pinky felt much better after he cleaned up the beans. He left a couple of biscuits for breakfast and drained off the last cup of coffee from the pot half full of grounds and settled back with a sigh of satisfaction to roll a cigarette. It was mighty nice not to be bothered by womenfolks and their finicky ways. Look at old Sam Sloan, he thought indulgently. Worried as a bee in a tar bucket about that she of his. Just because she was due to drop a baby. Had to have a doctor from town and all. Just as if nature hadn't intended women to have babies.

He lit his cigarette and threw the match into a corner piled high with caked mud, cigarette butts and charred match sticks. He swept the room once every week, piling all the debris up into one corner until the mound got so high it spread out onto the floor. Then he got a shovel and shoveled it out. He had to do this once every six months or so, and it was a neat solution to the housekeeping problem.

The lantern swinging gently overhead cast a grotesque shadow of Pinky onto the wall behind him. It was very still in the small, isolated ranch house. Pinky kept glancing at the open window across the length of the room and he was subconsciously straining his ears to catch the sound of approaching hoofbeats that would warn him a visitor was coming.

He thought it was about time for Harlow to get there. The VX rider had had plenty of time to get to the ranch and tell the boss what Pinky had said, and it wasn't more than an hour's ride from the VX to Pinky's place.

He shifted his chair back from the table slightly so his right hand was free to reach his holstered shooting iron. He didn't really expect Eustis Harlow to come a-shootin', but you never could tell about a man like that. Harlow acted soft and inoffensive, but that might just be a cover-up for something else. It was just as well to be ready for anything, Pinky always figured.

He was very comfortable as he sat and waited for Harlow to come. His belly was full and his mind was at rest. He looked forward to the interview. He grinned happily as he anticipated it, still keeping his ears keened for any sound outside the house.

Seemed to him it was unnaturally quiet out there. The moon had risen and there should by rights be some crickets and katydids outside the window singing it a cheery song of welcome like they did most every night.

But they weren't singing tonight. Not a sound came through the open window. It was plumb funny. Not even the wailing howl of a coyote from a distant ridge. It seemed like, by golly, that all the animals and night insects were holding their breaths as if they waited for something to happen.

Pinky Wright stirred uneasily in his chair. He wasn't a superstitious man but this unnatural silence was beginning to get under his skin. It was as though he alone were left alive in a dead world of silence.

He felt his hair beginning to prickle and rise at the back of his neck. He could dang near
hear
the silence, by golly. It held an ominous portent that made the chills run up and down his spine.

He told himself this was crazy, but beads of sweat were beginning to stand on his face. He impatiently pushed his coffee cup back and started to get up.

Half erect, he froze in that position leaning forward with blunt fingertips resting lightly on the table in front of him.

What was that sound outside? Or, was it even a sound? It was like the furtive crunch of a bootheel in the soft dirt under the window.

But it wasn't repeated. He wasn't even sure he had heard anything. Maybe his nerves were playing tricks on him. But it was a hell of a time to be developing nerves. He was getting as bad as a scary woman. Jumping at some imagined sound.

He straightened up resolutely … and he stared across the room at the red-whiskered and contorted face of Ezra outside his window.

One eye-socket was vacant and the other eye was inflamed with murderous fury. The face seemed disembodied, as though it floated in the thin night air outside the window; and the illusion was strengthened by the soundlessness with which it had appeared there, as though it were an evil spirit that had materialized from out of the night.

Pinky Wright was hypnotized by the suggestion of noxious evil that flamed toward him from the single eye outside the window.

He was powerless to move. He knew what was happening but he couldn't do anything to avert what was to come. It was like he was suddenly standing off to the side and watching his own body. He felt sorry for himself, but there was nothing he could do. He had to stand there and watch Pinky Wright die.

He saw the muzzle of a gun slowly appear out of the darkness from below the window ledge. It steadied on him and he waited for it to belch death in his direction. Curiously, he wasn't afraid. It seemed like all his emotions were dead, as if he were already dead.

Nothing mattered any more. He wanted Ezra to shoot and get it over with. He wondered if the others had felt that way. He wondered why Ezra had singled him out for his next victim when he was only trying to do the one-eyed man a favor. He wanted to shout out to him that he was making a mistake, but he couldn't open his mouth to form the words.

He stood like that and waited for Ezra to fire.

He saw movement behind the big red-whiskered man. Just the suggestion of movement in the silvery moonlight … and then the blow descended on Ezra's head.

The menacing .45 exploded as Ezra went down. A bullet buried itself in the wall behind Pinky and the loud report released him from the grip of the unseen force that held him motionless.

He lunged toward the window, .drawing his gun as he ran. A figure straightened up and confronted him.

It was Pat Stevens. He said curtly, “That'll be all for now, Pinky. I got him in time. Come on out an' help me load him in my buckboard an' we'll haul him in to town where there's a lynching party waitin'.”

Pinky turned and ran around to the door and outside. He didn't understand any of it. He didn't know how either Ezra or Pat had got there, nor why they were there. But Pat's cold voice told him it was all up now with Ezra. This time he had been caught in the act of attempted murder, and he would have to pay the penalty.

Pat met him at the corner of the house. “I'll get the buckboard an' drive up so we can load him in. I tied my team down by the creek an' slipped up quiet because I figured this was due to happen.”

Pat trotted away toward the creek before Pinky had a chance to ask any questions. He walked on around the corner and stopped beside the bulky, crumpled body on the ground. He knelt and felt for the pulse and found it strong. It was clear that his attacker was just knocked out and would live long enough to be hanged.

This saddened Pinky. He thought it was too danged bad Pat hadn't finished the job right there and then. He'd always liked Ezra. Seemed like a pity he had to end up this way.

Pat came driving up in the buckboard, and he leaped out to use his one good arm helping Pinky load the big man into the back of the buckboard. Pat was grim and silent, and Pinky respected his silence as they both climbed onto the front seat and started for Dutch Springs. He knew Pat must feel mighty bad about the whole thing. He felt bad enough about it his ownself.

17

Kitty had come out from under the influence of her sedative and Doctor Trimble was leaving her out for a time. He didn't believe in making childbirth too easy for his patients. When the pains got too bad he'd give her something again to ease them, but in the meantime he let nature take its course.

He had an idea it was good for the fathers too. Let them stew in their own juice a little, Doc Trimble thought grimly. Let 'em find out what a woman went through with when she brought his child into the world. Give them something to think about for awhile.

Well, Sam Sloan was getting something to think about. He was striding up and down in the darkness outside the express station, following a beaten path to the corral and back. When he reached the far end of the course he had to strain to hear Kitty's pain, and he turned and hurried back because it didn't seem right for him to get so far away.

Then, as he neared the house it got so bad that it was all he could do to keep from turning and running away from it again. He tried to think about other things to take his mind off Kitty, but he couldn't. He kept trying to get his thoughts on Pat and Ezra in town, but it wasn't any use. He couldn't even make out to worry about Ezra. Kitty was so much more important. He was sure she was dying, and he didn't think Doc Trimble cared. He fiercely suspected that the doctor wished she would go ahead and die so he could get back to Dutch Springs and the bottle Sam had torn him away from. He suspected Trimble of being a cynical old fellow who hated all his patients because he had to stay relatively sober at times to care for them.

Sam was stolidly striding back toward the corral when he heard a buckboard driving up in front of the station. He whirled and sprinted back in time to intercept Sally Stevens as she stepped out of the vehicle.

She grabbed his arm and demanded, “How is she, Sam? I came as fast as I could.”

“You can hear how she is,” Sam muttered. “I'm shore glad you come, Sally. I don't trust that there Doe Trimble nohow.”

Sally laughed lightly and patted his arm. “I'm not nearly as worried about Kitty as I am about Pat right now. Do you know what they're saying about him, Sam? About Pat and Ezra?”

“Yeh. I know all about it. Pat wants me to come into town to he'p them but I don't see how I can. Not with Kitty so bad off. I'm gonna stay here jest in case.”

Sally stopped dead still on the threshold into the station. She turned slowly and asked in a tremulous voice, “Have you seen Pat?”

“Shore. An' he's awright. Jest a bullet through one shoulder,” Sam scoffed. “Jest as soon as he gets Ezra back in jail, I don't see what …”

“What's that? About putting Ezra back in jail? And you say Pat's wounded?” Sally's voice rose hysterically.

“Not bad, he ain't. Yuh see, he knocked Ezra out when he come here an' clumb in the window an' scairt Kitty plumb outta her wits an' so Pat loaded him in the buck-board an' took him in to jail. An' he wants me tuh come in but I don't …”

“Mrs. Stevens?” said Doctor Trimble cheerily from inside. “You're just in time to help me. Now, if we can just get rid of that fat-headed husband, you and I will get right to work.”

“You bet we're going to get rid of him,” Sally blazed out. “How dare you hang around here, Sam Sloan, when Pat and Ezra need you?”

“Well now I …” Sam backed away uneasily.

“You get on a horse and ride for town,” Sally's voice lashed at him. “Don't you dare come back here till everything's fixed up.” She stepped in and slammed the door shut to emphasize her words.