Death Waits at Sundown (3 page)

Chapter Three

A
T
two o'clock the
following afternoon, Lynn Taylor sat at the window of his hotel room and
watched ranchers and their riding crews pour into Pioneer for the hanging. They
came to make a holiday of it and as one outfit greeted another, cliques began
to form while men swapped their experiences since last meeting. Here and there
fights started, to be quickly stopped. Along the high boardwalks men stopped to
argue about the hanging and from snatches of conversation which floated up from
the walk, Lynn found that the country was divided upon the guilt of Frank.
Those few who had known him well were loud and vociferous in their declaration
of its impossibility. But in the main, blinded by lust for “justice” and
carried forward now by mob spirit, cattlemen began to applaud McCloud's swift
stopping of the crime wave, damning the apparent incompetence of Hawkins in the
same breath.

A few discussed the holdup of the night before and
McCloud went about dropping remarks that he knew the guilty party. He preferred
to act wise and mysterious about it and was quite successful in creating face
by the attitude.

Lynn heard the door open behind
him and whirled, hands darting to his guns. But it was Hawkins. He came swiftly
through the room and to the point.

“Taylor, you've got to get out of here. Somebody's got
the idea that you pulled that stage job and, after all, you did. If you don't
take it on the run, there's goin' to be two gibbets decorated instead of one.”

“Fanner McCloud knows where to find me.”

“Yeah, but Fanner McCloud's no fool. He knows it'll cost
somethin' to pick you off. Frank
wasn't such shucks
as a gunman. Maybe McCloud
figures that if you're in the crowd when they start to hang Frank, he can sing
out and you'll have so many around you you won't have a chance to get away.”

“Yeah. Maybe so. Did you get my note to Frank?”

“Sure. He's standin' up under it pretty good. God, but
that kid sure has got faith in you, Texas. Before you came he was half out of
his head but now he's quieted down. He says, ‘Tell Lynn I ain't worryin' none
now.'”

Lynn turned back to the window
and looked up the street toward the buying pens where cattle were bought for
the north trailing. About fifty head of longhorns were there now, restless with
all the noise of the town.

“Maybe it isn't very smart to stay around,” said Lynn.

“Now you're talkin',” said Hawkins.

Lynn stood up and tightened the
thongs on his thighs. He took out his guns and gave each cylinder a spin to
check the loads. Giving them a
border roll
, he slipped them into their
holsters.

Hawkins did not trail him very far, parting from him at
the back of the hotel. Lynn was amused at Hawkins' reluctance to be seen with a
marked man.

The
livery stable
was three buildings down the street
and Lynn leisurely made his way toward it. He entered the pungent interior from
the rear and looked around. Seeing nothing out of order he approached Glitter's
stall. He was so deep in thought that he sensed rather than heard the swish of
a rope.

He spread out his arms and ducked. But he was too late.
The man in the loft had made a true cast and with a jerk he brought Lynn's arms to his sides. Even then Lynn made a stab at his guns but the rope pulled him
off his feet.

On his knees in the straw, he glared with angry eyes at
the two who stepped watchfully from an empty stall. They were McCloud's men.
The other in the half-loft dropped down into a broken bale and took up his
lariat
slack as he approached his captive.

One of the others went back of Lynn and flipped the guns
away, thrusting them into his waistband. He turned to saddle Glitter but the
stallion had other ideas which he expressed with a slashing kick. The fellow
withdrew hastily.

“Saddle your own, Texas.”

The man with the rope eased up. Slowly Lynn did as he
was told. Three other mounts were led from their stalls already saddled.

“Are we going places?” said Lynn.

“Think we want a
lynch mob
to spoil this hangin'?” said
a fellow with reddish eyes and a discolored mustache. “We got law an' order
around here and you ain't goin' to mess it up. You're goin' to have a legal
trial tomorrow when things quiet down and then we're goin' to hang you.”

“That's tellin' 'm, Stew,” said the man with the rope.

“I get it,” said Lynn. “When there ain't so many in town
to see what you call justice. Mind tellin' me what for?”

“For robbin' the stage last night, that's what for.”

“After the driver leaves. Is that it?” said Lynn.

“Maybe there's such a thing as bein' too smart,” said
Stew.

“I heard somethin' said about somebody findin' a
neckerchief on the road with an ‘M' on it,” said Lynn.

Stew looked uncertain. “That don't prove nothin'.”

“It did to the driver and you've had him dead drunk ever
since.”

“C'mon,” said Stew, impatiently. “We ain't got all day.”

Lynn mounted up, shedding the
rope. The cavalcade headed for the front of the stable.

“Don't try nothin' fancy,” warned Stew. “Just ride east
like nothin' was wrong. If you make a break, we'll find plenty of reason to
plug
you. Get goin', Texas.”

They went into the brilliant sunlight of the street and
in the press of horsemen who still continued to come into town, the three riders
following close on the heels of one were scarcely noticed.

At a trot, Lynn headed for the open country, his three
guardians staying close to him.

“You mind tellin' me where we're goin'?” said Lynn, over his shoulder.

“To Fanner's ranch, if you got to know. An' we don't
like missin' the hangin' any more than you do.”

For five miles, Lynn proceeded with a great docility
which gradually lulled the watchfulness of his captors. They were going through
a heavily wooded pass which led to a plain beyond and it was necessary to duck
to avoid being brushed out of the saddle by pine boughs.

They were in single file now, Lynn still ahead for the
reason that the men disliked riding with their backs to him. They rounded a
bend in the thickly shrouded trail and for a brief instant, Lynn was masked
from the rest. And in that instant he did two things. He dug spur to the
buckskin and grabbed a bough over his head, swinging up, sent by the surge of
his mount.

With a startled snort, Glitter charged away. The sound
was enough to send three sets of spurs driving home. Heads down to miss the
swinging bough, the trio dashed ahead.

Stew was the last in line. A bomb dropped on him,
knocking him out of the saddle. A hand crushing against his mouth stifled any
sound he might have uttered. His mount raced on, still furnishing hoofbeats to
assure the others.

Lynn was up first. He yanked
Stew to his feet and slammed him down again with a solid blow to the jaw. Stew
grunted and twisted into a ball and then lay still.

With a quick movement Lynn retrieved his guns out of
Stew's belt and holstered them.

Ahead the others broke into the open and were astounded
to see that they pursued a riderless horse. They looked back to find a
riderless mount behind them and with a yell they pivoted and charged again into
the woods.

Lynn stood in the center of the
trail. The first saw him and drew. The second pulled up and chopped down. Four
shots sounded almost as one. And smoke rolled from the muzzles of Lynn's guns.

He holstered them quietly and placed his fingers in his
mouth to whistle. Glitter came in a moment, stepping gingerly around the two
things on the trail and giving the nervous, masterless mounts a disdainful
glance.

Lynn glanced at the sun. The
shadows were very long and he had five miles to go.

Swinging up, he dug spur, and with Glitter's hoofs
kettledrumming a mad staccato, raced through the hills toward Pioneer.

Chapter Four

M
cCLOUD
had appointed himself hangman, being less squeamish in such
matters than other men. He was well aware that he made a fine showing there on
the gallows platform with all the country gathered in the street and square
about it.

From the jail came a tight group of vigilantes, forming
a square around the prisoner. The crowd gave way. Here and there somebody
jeered, but the jeers lessened into undertone expressions of wonder. The
prisoner was not at all downcast. Though he had a hard, Texas way about him at
all times, Frank Taylor was bright of eye and he unceasingly looked at the
people he passed as though a word of greeting was ready on his lips. He was
completely detached from his role of a doomed man. The attitude was variously
interpreted as nerve and callousness but McCloud, with an inward grin, was
confidently in possession of Frank's hope and its disaster.

Solemnly the guards marched their captive up the
thirteen steps and each step the prisoner's boot touched gave forth a hollow,
dismal sound which echoed across the silent crowd.

When Frank reached the platform, the new planks creaked
and that sound too was abnormally loud. A few in the crowd found their voices
and yelled but they too fell silent after a moment.

McCloud was spreading the noose, fondling his hangman's
knot with loving care. He had a black cap tucked in his belt and when Frank
came up to him he pulled it out.

Frank Taylor's young face was beginning to show a trace
of worry. His eyes grew restless as they searched the face-paved expanse on all
sides.

“You won't find him,” said McCloud in a whisper. “I took
care of that.”

Frank faced him, suddenly white with anger. “You've
murdered him!”

McCloud went into action. He tried to slip the black cap
over Frank's head but he could not. Three guards leaped up the steps to hold
Frank in firm grips. The cap was pulled down in place. Roughly they shoved
Frank to the trapdoor and then McCloud, with help, slid the noose over his head
and drew it tight.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said McCloud with pious
intonation. “I hope this'll be a lesson to you. This's the fate of evildoers in
Pioneer. We ain't had no justice here in a long time, but by God we've got it
now! This gent tried to grab all the cows and all the gold in sight and so we
ain't got no use for such an unrespectable citizen in a respectable town and
here and now we are about to terminate his youth after a fair and legal trial
durin' which he was proved guilty as hell of all them things that's been
happenin'. The law has tooken its course. Amen. Boys, the . . .”

There came a shriek from the outskirts of the crowd and
then a mad rush away from the east end of the street. Suddenly the cry spread
with the wings of terror and men leaped hastily for cover.

Fifty longhorns, horn rattling on horn, hurtled toward
the gallows, excited by the yells about them but terrified by the shrieking
fiend behind them who slashed them with a quirt and made a whirlwind with a
serape
.

“Yee-yip-yipyip-yippi
yi
!”
yelled Lynn.

And the crowd fled before the approaching wall of beef.
They were afoot and the consequences of that fact swept away all reason. Long
before the front rank of the herd touched the gallows, all spectators had
vanished and could be seen clinging precariously to roofs and false-fronts on
either side of the square while others peered from doorways, ready to bolt
again.

Isolated on the gallows were McCloud, three guards and
their victim.

McCloud instantly thought
of fight as the steers rumbled by on either side. He grabbed his Colt and
started to snap down on the rider made phantom by the billowing dust. A shot
drove the steers even faster, but it had come from their wake. McCloud's gun,
with a bright gash in the stock, flipped to the platform and McCloud was
holding his wrist.

The three guards felt needlessly exposed, not sure but
what the next shot would down any one of them, uncertain that the gallows was
safe from the steers who shook it to its foundation in their passage.

Enwrapped in the dust now, the guards took the wiser
course and threw up their hands.

With drawn guns, Lynn charged up the steps on the
buckskin. He leaned out of the saddle and took the rope from around Frank's
neck and slashed the bonds which confined the boy's arms. Frank yanked off his
black hood and grabbed up McCloud's fallen gun.

“Stay where you are!” warned Lynn. And with Frank up
behind him he rode down the steps and up the front of the general store. Men
went out the back door when the two came in the front.

Presently all was quiet in Pioneer and the steers, no
longer driven, quietly searched out the grass on the plain beyond. Two by two
and ten by ten, cattlemen ventured forth into the street. The guards, not
certain but what they were still covered from the general store, stood with
their hands stiffly in the air, still shocked by the fact that a man marked
dead had turned up so astonishingly. McCloud still sat on the planking and
nursed his hand.

A clear voice from the store struck into the throng. Lynn, both guns showing above a molasses barrel, sang out, “Gents, you've made a mistake.
And I ain't clearin' out of this town until you fix it up.”

McCloud found courage. He stood up and waved his arm in
a sweeping motion. “Go get him!”

“The first man up here gets it,” said Lynn. And behind
another barrel inside the door, Frank's gun was also showing and his eyes
looked eager to see a target down its sights after his late injustices.

“I got the evidence,” said Lynn, “that Fanner McCloud
has played you gents for suckers.” The crowd stiffened and Lynn surged on. “He
pulled all them robberies himself and then tried to cover them up by hangin'
Frank Taylor and incidentally getting Frank's spread. Gents, if you care to
look, I'll lay you ten to one that you'll find last night's dispatch box under
McCloud's floor. Go look and see.”

Several went and looked. McCloud started to find a way
through the crowd.

A short time later, the searchers charged forth with a
yell. “There's eight dispatch boxes under that floor! Don't let that guy get
away!”

McCloud had stopped moving. He had a gun jammed into his
stomach and behind the gun stood ex-Sheriff Hawkins.

“There's
your murderer! There's your thief!” shouted Lynn. “And there's the gallows!”

A
bout midnight the celebration of the hanging of Fanner McCloud
began to wane and Frank and Lynn withdrew to the stable and saddled up.

Hawkins met them as they led their horses forth.

“Lynn,” said Hawkins, “I got to thank you.” And he gave
his star a burnishing brush. “I hope you'll stick around this country for a
while. I
allus
did like you Texans. But how the hell did you know where them
dispatch boxes was?”

“Yeah,” said Lynn, swinging up, “that is a puzzle, ain't
it. C'mon, Frank. I never did get a chance to look at this ranch of yours.”