Destry Rides Again (7 page)

It was not yet prime of the day when Destry jogged his tired mustang down the main street of Wham again. He rode with his
eyes fixed straight before him, but from their corners, he was able to feel the attention which followed him. The little,
light rumor, which rises faster than dead leaves on the wind, which is more penetrating than desert dust, had whispered before
him so rapidly that he was aware of faces at windows, at doors, always glimpsed and then disappearing.

Already they knew him thoroughly, and this made him sigh. For, if he could have gone about his work secretly enough, he might
have struck them all, one by one, in this same town. But three were gone, in a breath, and nine remained. He looked forward
to their trails with a drowsy, almost a dull content, like a wolf that trots on the track of a tiring moose, and knows that
there is no hurry.

Sheriff Ding Slater came up to him at a gallop, turning a corner in the fine old slanting style, and raising a huge cloud
of dust, like a gunpowder explosion, when he jerked his mustang to a halt. That dust, settling, powdered the moustaches of
the sheriff a fine white. He shook his gauntleted hand at Destry.

“Young man,” he said, “you been at it fine and early! You clear out of Wham. You ride right on through, and I’ll see you out
of town!”

“Come along, sheriff,” said Destry. “It’s a long time since last night, when I talked to you last!”

The sheriff fell in at his side.

“It’s a dead man and a mighty sick man besides, since last night,” said Ding Slater. “Six years ain’t taught you nothin’,
Harry, and I ain’t gunna expose my town no more to you. You’re worse’n smallpox!”

“Thanks,” said Destry, “because I can feel the compliment behind what you say. Thanks a lot, old timer. Have the makin’s?”

“A dead man! Clarence Ogden dead!” said the sheriff. “And here I ride alongside of the killer! What would they think in the
East about that?”

“Eastern thinkin’ never raised Western crops,” observed Destry. “But about the Ogdens, you know them that live by the gun
shall die by the gun. That’s Bible, or oughta be!”

“You sashay right on outa Wham,” said the sheriff.

“Not me,” answered Destry, “except that my game ain’t here any longer,
I guess. All the birds have seen the hunter, and they all have flown, I reckon?”

The sheriff looked grimly at him.

“D’you mean to take ’em all?” he said. “One by one?”

“I mean it!”

“I can use that agin you, young feller, if this comes up in court, as it’s sure gunna do!”

“The law’ll never get to the wind of me again,” replied Destry. “I’m like a good dog. I’ve had the whip on my back, and I
don’t need two thrashin’s to make me remember the feel of doin’ wrong!”

“Of doin’ wrong!” cried the sheriff. “Is it doin’ right to shoot men down?”

“Self-defense ain’t a crime, even in a Sunday School,” said Destry.

“Ay,” growled Ding Slater. “I can’t answer back to that, especial when it was two to one——”

“And they’d hunted me down!”

“They was huntin’ a calf. They didn’t know that a wild cat was under the skin. But leave the Ogdens out of the picture. What
about the rest? Are they likely to come at you?”

“Them and their hired men,” said Destry. “But let’s not get down to particulars. Everything that I do, it’s gunna be inside
the law—plumb inside of the laws. You’ll be helpin’ me out, before long. You’ll——”

“You got plenty of brass in you,” complained the sheriff. “Help you out? I’ll be hanged first!”

“I’m a sort of a special investigatin’ agent,” said Destry. “I’m gunna open locked doors and let in the light, like the parson
said one Sunday in the prison. I’m gunna unlock a lot of private doors and let in the light, sheriff.”

“Now, whacha mean by that?”

“There ain’t a man on earth,” said Destry, “that don’t need to wear clothes. They’s some part of his life that’s a naked shame,
and I’m gunna find that part. I’m gunna punish them the way that I was punished, only worse.”

“You kinda interest me,” said the sheriff thoughtfully.

“I bet I do,” replied Destry. “If they was a finetoothed comb run through your past, what would come of you, son?”

“There ain’t a thing for me to cover up, hardly,” said the sheriff. “But every man’s a fool some time or other. But to get
back to the others——”

“Sure,” said Destry, smiling.

“I always wished you well, Harry.”

“I guess you did.”

“But whacha mean about punishing the others the way that you were punished?”

“Why, I was shut off from life behind bars. I’m gunna shut off the rest of ’em, but not behind the bars. They’ll have life
in the hand, but it’ll taste like sand and cactus thorns when they try to eat it.”

“You’re talkin’ right in the middle of the street,” noted the sheriff.

“I figger on you tellin’ them,” replied Destry. “Murder is all that they’re lookin’ for now, though the case of Jerry Wendell
might show ’em different. You go tell ’em all, Ding. The more doors they gotta watch and guard, the worse they’ll be able
to guard ’em. So long. You’ll be wantin’ to get to work sendin’ out letters. You know the names! I gotta turn in here to see
Chester Bent.”

He halted his horse and looked fondly at the house.

“He’s stood by you fine,” agreed the sheriff.

“I wish that his house was ten times as big,” said Destry with emotion. “I wish that they was marble columns walkin’ down
the front, and a hundred niggers waitin’ for the bell to ring, and a hundred hosses standin’ in his stable, and a hundred
towns like Wham in his pocketbook. God never made no finer man than him!”

The sheriff went back down the street, and Destry turned down the short drive that led to the barn behind the house. There,
with two other men in a green field behind the house, was Chester Bent, looking at a tall bay mare which one of the others
was leading up and down. Bent came hurrying to meet his friend, and wrung his hand.

“I’ve heard about Jerry!” he said. “Ah, Harry, you’ve pulled the wool over my eyes, as well as over the eyes of the rest of
the town. Wendell’s come in, and gone again, looking like a ghost.”

“If I’d told you,” answered Destry, embarrassed,
which was a strange mood in him, “you would have started to talk me out of it!”

He laid his hand on the other’s shoulder.

“I know you, man! Good for evil is what you’d say, and turn the other cheek, and all that kind of thing. But it ain’t in my
nacher. God didn’t make me that way, and you could give me a bad time, but you couldn’t change me. Not even you!”

“What is it now?” asked Bent, overlooking both the apology and the praise.

“They’ve scattered like birds. I’m gunna follow down one trail.”

“You’re set on that?”

“Out yonder I can spot one of ’em. That’s Clyde Orrin, the great politician, the risin’ man in the state, the honest young
legislator, the maker of clean laws—him with the soft hands that are never more’n a half hour away from soap and water! I’m
gunna call on Clyde’s dark closet and look for spooks. Are you buyin’ that mare?”

“I think so. Come and look at her. But about my friend Orrin—a perfectly harmless fellow, and a good man, you know——”

“Listen to me,” said Destry. “A man can’t live on bread alone. He’s gotta have words, too. I can talk to you, old timer, but
I don’t wanta listen. Understand?”

Chester Bent took a handkerchief from his upper coat pocket and passed it gingerly over his face. Then he nodded.

“I’ll stop thinking about you, Harry,” said he, “and only remember that whatever my friend does must be right! Now come look
at the mare for me. They want nine hundred dollars. And of course that’s too much.”

“Lemme try her,” said Destry.

He took her from the hands of the dealers and swung into the saddle without a glance at her points. Down the pasture he galloped
her, jumped a ditch, turned, took a wire fence, jumped back over it, and cantered her back to the group.

He dismounted with an unchanged face.

“You tried her over wire!” exclaimed Bent. “You might have ruined her, man!”

“Look at the old cuts,” said Destry calmly. “If she ain’t been able to learn wire from that much trouble, she ain’t worth
her looks!”

Bent drew him aside.

“What you say? Not nine hundred, Harry!”

“Listen,” said Destry. “What would you pay for a pair of wings?”

“Is she as good as that?”

“Better! You can’t talk to wings, and you can talk to her. She’s a sweetheart, Chet, I wouldn’t wish you on no other hoss
than her!”

Which was how Fiddle came into the hands of Chester Bent; for his check was written in another moment, and she was taken to
the stable by a waiting negro.

Then Bent walked back to the house and up to the room of his guest to watch Destry pack his roll. He pressed him very little
to stay.

“I see it in your eye, man,” he said. “I almost envy you, Harry. You’re free. You have the open country, and ride your own
way; I’m tied here to my business like a horse to a post; and I’ll take no more of it with me in the end than the horse takes
of the post. I feel like a tame duck in the barnyard, when it sees the wild flock driving a wedge across the morning, and
letting the music come rattling down. I’m still young
enough to understand that music, but after a while I’ll get used to clipped wings and not even dream of better things at
night. Harry, is there one last thing I can do for you?”

“Lend me a fresh mustang—you keep a string of ’em—and take mine in change. It’s a hand picked one, and I haven’t ridden the
velvet off it, yet!”

Bent went out to give directions for the saddling of the new mount, and Destry, finishing his packing, swung his pack over
his shoulder and went down the stairs to the front door. He found the stable boy and note waiting for him beside the new mare,
Fiddle:

Dear Harry,

It’s a sad thing to shake hands with a man I may never see again. I couldn’t have the heart to stay here and say good-by.
Take Fiddle with you. I saw in your eye what you thought of her, and I want you to take with you something that’ll remind
you that I’m your friend.

Chet.

Chester Bent did not write one note only, that morning, but as soon as he had hurried down to his office, he scribbled rapidly:

Dear Clyde,

This is haste. Destry has come to see me. He’s not satisfied with Clarence Ogden dead, and Jud Ogden a cripple for life. It
makes no difference that Jerry Wendell has been disgraced and made a laughing stock. He’s determined to keep on the trail
until he’s killed or ruined every man of the twelve of you.

You know that I’m the friend of Harry. I suppose you also can guess that I’m yours. I’ve tried to dissuade him, but he’s adamant.
I couldn’t budge him a whit.

He’s off now, and on a fast horse. But I’m sending this message on to you, in the hope that you’ll get it in time. I don’t
know how to tell you to guard yourself. It may be your life he’s after. It may be only some other scalp that he’ll try to
lift, but this thing is sure—that if he has his way with you, you’ll
wish
for death before the end!

I don’t need to point out to you that I run a most frightful danger in sending you this letter. If it, or any knowledge of
it, should come to the hands of Destry, I suppose he’d turn on his trail and come back to murder me, friendly though we are.

However, I can’t resist the chance of warning you that the sword is hanging directly over
your head, old fellow, and not even a thread to keep it from falling. Take care of yourself. Remember me to your good wife.

Adios,

C
HESTER
B
ENT
.

When he had written this letter, he rang a bell, and when his secretary came, he said to her: “Send for that scar-faced Mexican
who was in here the other day.”

“Do you mean Jose Vedres?” she asked.

“I mean Jose.”

She hesitated, looking rather shocked, but she was a discreet women who had reached the age of forty, guarded against all
scandal by a face like a hatchet and a voice like a whining cat. She was attached to Bent by more than a personal devotion,
and that was a slight sharing in his secrets. She knew ten per cent inside the margin, and that was more than any other human
had mastered of the ways and the wiles of Chester. She knew enough, in fact, to wish to know more, and Bent was aware that
she never would leave him so long as the hope of one day having him at her mercy was shining before her eyes. For that very
reason he let her look around the corner now and then, just far enough to be able to guess at the direction he was going to
take.

She sent for the Mexican at once, and the man came in a few moments, a venomous looking specimen of his race, slinking, yellow-eyed,
with nicotine ingrained to his very soul.

Bent gave him the letter.

His directions were short and simple; he merely added at the end:

“If that letter gets to any hands other than those of Clyde Orrin, I’m a dead man, Jose. And if I die——”

He made a slight but significant gesture to conclude, and Jose nodded. He understood very well that his own life was so neatly
poised in a balance that it would not take more than the fall of his friend to undo him.

He bowed himself, accordingly, through the door, and, from the window above, Bent watched him as he pitched gracefully up
into the saddle, and sent the mustang scurrying down the street.

“Life insurance,” said Chester Bent, and striking all of this affair from his mind, he turned back to his business of the
day.

Jose, in the meantime, took a short cut from the town, crossed the fields beyond, and soon was headed up the valley.

He did not follow the river road, for, though it was far better graded, it wound too much to suit him. Instead, he chose to
take a straighter though more rugged way which skirted along among the trees and through ground that rose and fell gently,
like small waves of the sea.

In the first copse he paused, drew off a riding boot with some difficulty—for his boots were the one pride of his life in
their fineness and tight fit— and, cutting threads at the top, he divided the outer leather from the lining. In this space
he inserted the letter which had been intrusted to him. Afterward, with a fine needle and waxed thread, he closed the seam
which he had opened. His precautions did not end here, for he actually threw away the needle and the thread remaining before
he remounted and continued his ride.

No animal on dangerous ground could have traveled with a keener and a quicker eye than Jose. It searched every tuft of brush
before. It scanned the shadows thrown from the patches of rocks that outcropped. It probed the groups of trees before he was
near them. And yet all precaution cannot gain utter safety.

As he shot the mustang down a grade, he heard the easy rhythm of a long striding horse behind him, and, looking back, he saw
a long-legged bay swinging down the hill, and in the saddle rode Harrison Destry.

Jose did not spur ahead. One glance at the gait of the horse behind him convinced him that flight was folly. Besides, no one
but a fool would present a broad target, such as a back, to Destry. The Mexican drew rein, and was merely jogging as the other
came alongside at a similar gait—a soft, smooth gait in the mare, the fetlock joints giving so freely that Destry hardly stirred
in the saddle with the shock of the trot.

“Hullo, Jose,” said he. “You’re makin’ good time for a hot day.”

“You, too,” said Jose, countering.

“Not for this mare,” replied Destry. “She don’t run; she flies. A flap of the reins sends her thirty mile an hour and she
takes a hill from the top to the bottom with one beat of the wings. The buzzards and the eagles have been blowin’ behind me
in the wind of her gallop. Doggone me if I ain’t been pityin’ them. Where you bound, Jose?”

“Up the valley,” said Jose, with a courteous smile.

He had another manner for most, but Destry was on a special list with
him.

“Likely it’s the heat comin’ on in the flat,” suggested
Destry. “When the summer comes along, I reckon that you wanta get up to the high pines, Jose. It’s a mighty savin’ on the
complexion, eh?”

This irony apparently missed the head of Jose entirely, for he answered:

“There’s nothing to do in Wham. No jobs for Jose! I go up over the range and try to change my luck!”

“I tell you the trouble with your luck,” said Destry. “You try too many things. Runnin’ up a pack with two crimps in it is
a fine art, Jose, and you oughta be satisfied with one. It works on the suckers, and the wise ones will spot your game, anyway.
You aimin’ at a range-ridin’ job?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why you left your pack behind?”

Jose’s eyelids fluttered down, but instantly he looked up again with his smile.

“You know poker is no man’s friend, señor. It left me a naked man, this mornin’!”

“What color is your hide, Jose?” asked the other.

“Señor?”

“Stop your hoss, drop your gun-belt, and strip. I wanta look at you!”

“Señor Destry——” began the other.

“Jose, Jose,” protested Destry, as one shocked, “you ain’t gunna stop and argue, are you, when you see I’m so hurried? And
when the sun is so hot? Jus’ you climb down off that hoss, and drop your gun, and strip for me! It’ll cool you, no end.”

Jose made a pause that lasted only a half second. In that half second he had taken count of his chances and figured them accurately
as one in five. He was a good gambler, a brave gambler, but he was not a fool. So he dismounted at once and undressed after
he had obediently unbuckled his cartridge belt and
allowed it to fall, together with the holstered gun which it supported.

Then he stood in the glare of the sunshine, looking sufficiently ridiculous in his nakedness, but with the great Mexican sombrero
still on his head.

Destry went over the clothes with care. He found two packs of cards, which he examined card by card. He found a pair of knives,
one long handled, one short, as for throwing. He found a bandana, Bull Durham and papers, a box of matches, a travel stained
envelope with the name of Señor Jose Vedres inscribed upon it in feminine writing, childishly clumsy.

This he opened and scanned for a line or two.

“She loves you, Jose,” said he. “Then she’s like the rest of ’em. Optimists before marriage, and hard thinkers afterwards!
Nothin’ but a profit in girls, and nothin’ but a debit in wives. I guess you ain’t ever married, Jose?”

“No, señor. Are you ended?”

“Before I’ve had a look at the gun, and the boots? Not me, son! Something was blowin’ you up the valley away from the town
too fast for my good. Everything that runs out of Wham, just now, is likely to have something to do with me, and why shouldn’t
I take a look?”

He began to thumb and probe the coat, lingering for a time over the shoulder padding; then he picked up the gun, which he
took to pieces with lightning speed, and left unassembled again on the fallen coat.

“So’s you won’t begin target practice at my back till I’m a half mile away, anyway,” said Destry.

He took up the boots, next, removed the inner lining, and then with consummate care and attention
tapped on the high heels, listening with his ear close to them.

“It’s a mighty delicate business,” said Destry. “Maybe they’s a hollow in here, but I reckon not. Besides, I’ve wasted enough
time. I’m gunna make a short cut, Jose!”

His voice roared suddenly; his Colt leaped from its scabbard and leveled at the Mexican.

“What sent you out of Wham, and who was it that started you on your way?”

“Myself, señor, and no other!”

“Then get down on your damned wo’thless knees and say your last prayers. I’m gunna have the truth out of you, or stop this
trip!”

Jose shrugged his lean, crooked shoulders.

“The saints have stopped their ears to the prayers of poor Jose, señor,” said he. “In heaven it is not as on this sad earth
of ours; good deeds are better than good words; so I have stopped praying!”

Destry put up his gun in one flashing gesture.

“You’re dead game, old son,” said he. “You’re straight enough to follow a snake’s track, I reckon. So long. And don’t hurry
along too fast, because it might be that I’ll meet you where you’re goin’.”