Hardcase (12 page)

“Will you—get him out of the way for good?”

The man stared at him, understanding him well enough. He said quietly, “Not for that price. Do your own killin', Wallace.”

“Who's got him?” Wallace said abruptly.

The man shook his head. “Now I don't aim to tell you that.”

“Where is he?”

“Nor that neither.”

Wallace's hands had been hanging at his sides. Now he raised his right hand in one fluid motion, and when it came to rest hip high there was a Colt .44 in it, cocked, leveled at the rider. Wallace said, “This time I'll find him myself.”

The rider didn't even seem surprised. “I don't reckon you will.”

Wallace said, “Joe, take his rope and tie him.”

The Three Rivers man did Wallace's bidding. Afterward Wallace led the way over to the blacksmith shop, his rider leading the hog-tied messenger. In the blacksmith shop Wallace pointed to the big anvil and said, “Tie him over that, face up.”

The messenger was ordered down on his knees, his back to the anvil. He said with just a suggestion of alarm in his voice, “What are you aimin' to do to me?”

Wallace only smiled and told his rider to get on with the job. The messenger was bent over backward and lashed to the anvil, the rope running under his arms. Then Wallace went over to the forge, blew the coals there into a glowing heat, took a branding iron from the rack, and laid it on the coals.

The messenger, who was watching him carefully, saw him and said, “I don't know nothin' about it, I tell you! I was only sent here!”

Wallace turned to him and only smiled faintly. He picked up the iron by its long handle and came over to the messenger. Smiling crookedly, he held it close to the messenger's cheek. The man shrank away from it as far as he could, the sweat standing out on his forehead.

“Now,” Wallace said thinly, “I'm goin' to shove this square in your face unless you talk. I'm goin' to give you one chance—one, you understand!”

The messenger nodded.

Wallace said, “Who's got Sholto?”

The messenger said earnestly, “Wallace, I'm only a nester over on Blue Crick! I was paid fifty dollars by Turkey Gordon to come to you with this word! That's all I know, and you can kill me and I can't tell you more, because that's all I know!”

“You don't know who's got Sholto?”

“Somebody Turk's workin' for, and that's God's own truth!”

Wallace didn't want to believe him. With the iron still inches from the man's face, Wallace asked savagely, “Then how in hell was you to deliver the money?”

“I was told to ride up the long grade before you get in Wagon Mound. Beginnin' at the turnoff to the old mill, I was to start whistlin' ‘O Susanna' over and over, and I'd git picked up pretty quick.”

Wallace cursed him then and raised the iron, ready to stamp it in the man's face. The man moaned and turned his head away, and just as the iron reached its peak, ready to descend, a sharp voice said:

“Put that down, Wallace!”

Wallace's hand paused. He turned his head. There, standing in the doorway, was Dave Coyle.

Wallace saw Dave didn't have a gun in his hand, and in that second he acted.

He threw the iron at Dave, and his hand streaked for his gun. Dave ducked the iron, and then from his hip a flash of orange fire blossomed. Wallace's Stetson went sailing off behind him. Wallace's hand quickly fell away from his gun butt.

And then the rider, who had been to one side of Dave, unseen, dived at him and they went down. McFee suddenly stepped out from behind the door, a gun in his hand. He said swiftly, “Keep your hands away from that, Wallace.” Wallace, who had started for his gun again, paused once more, then raised his hands. The Three Rivers hand had piled into Dave, and now they were down together. Dave was on the bottom, and the puncher was slugging wildly at him. Dave saw the sizzling iron lying only three feet from his head. He raised a leg to brace himself, then suddenly wrapped his arms around the puncher, and rolled him over.

The puncher's side hit the ground, and Dave rolled him over on his back.

The puncher screamed. Dave had rolled him over on the hot iron. Dave got off him. The puncher scrambled away from the iron and lay there moaning.

Dave said meagerly to him, “You come off lucky.”

He glanced up at Wallace. “You hadn't ought to do that to me, fella. It'll get you hurt sometime.”

He kicked the puncher to his feet, then said, “Get in there with your boss.”

When the puncher and Wallace were standing together Dave looked at the messenger, still bound to the anvil. He said to Wallace, “Untie him.”

Wallace did. Dave said then, “Now you three jaspers just sit down on the floor with your backs to that anvil.”

They sat down Sullenly, the puncher still moaning with pain. Dave bound them to the stump on which the heavy anvil sat. Its weight would hold them there, and if they succeeded in crawling to their knees it would topple over on one of them.

Dave stepped back and said, “I don't figure you'll need a gag, Wallace. Your crew's rode out for the day. I heard you send 'em, because we were hidin' in the loft. That only leaves two women, don't it? Well, one of 'em's deaf, McFee says, and the other won't be here.” He raised his hand in mock salute. “McFee will keep you quiet, I reckon, while I do a little business.”

He said to McFee, “Try and hold your temper and don't shoot Wallace unless you have to.”

He grinned at Wallace and walked around to the side where the messenger was tied. He said, “You said ‘O Susanna,' didn't you?”

The messenger nodded, and Dave went out and up to the house. He knocked on the door through which Wallace had entered that morning.

It was opened by a pretty girl who started a little at sight of him. Dave took off his Stetson.

“Mrs. Sholto? I'm Dave Coyle.”

“I—guessed you were,” she said, bewilderment in her voice.

“Wallace has likely told you I killed your husband. Do you believe it?”

“I don't believe anything he says,” Lily Sholto said bitterly.

“You want to see Jim Sholto again?”

“Then you've got him?”

“I haven't, but if you come with me I will have.”

She regarded him with puzzlement in her eyes. Dave smiled a little and said, “Look, Mrs. Sholto. Nobody's told me anything; I've just guessed. Your husband got in a jam of some sort. That's what Wallace held over him to make him witness that fake deed. And to make sure that your husband didn't run out on him he's holdin' you here. Is that right?”

The girl stared at him a long moment, then moved her head slightly in assent.

“Then once you're out of Wallace's hands it means your husband can break loose, don't it?”

“Why—yes.”

“Then you better come with me,” Dave said gently.

“But Wallace will turn over the—the information to the sheriff,” Lily said slowly. “Jim will be outlawed.”

“That's right,” Dave said. “You reckon you'd rather have him work for Wallace than be an outlaw, Mrs. Sholto?”

Sudden decision came to Lily Sholto's eyes. She said quietly, “I know I wouldn't.” She started to turn away, and Dave said, “Don't say anything to that woman in there. Just walk out.”

Lily hesitated, looked long at Dave, then, as if her mind was made up, took her apron off and stepped out the door. “I trust you, you see,” she said quietly.

Dave only nodded, and they walked out to the blacksmith shop. When Lily Sholto saw Wallace tied to the anvil her eyes widened, and she looked sharply at McFee and Dave. Then they saddled three horses and rode off. Already the messenger and the Three Rivers rider were yelling for help. Wallace wasn't, because he knew it was no use.

XI

Carol waited one miserable day and a half until the last member of the second and larger posse hunting her father and Dave straggled into Yellow Jacket. There was no sign of Dave Coyle and McFee, the sheriff's office reported. It was believed that they were heading into the desert country to the east, although all sign of them had been lost before they reached Sabinal. Sheriff Beal was raging like a madman. When Carol went to bed that night Beal had already laid before the county commissioners a suggestion for an emergency appropriation for a permanent dozen deputies, the best trackers and shots in the county. They were to be paid to systematically hunt down and kill Dave Coyle and McFee.

Carol awakened late the next morning, knowing that she couldn't stand this any longer. To sit here almost within sight of the sheriff's office, knowing that over there men were planning to hunt down her father and kill him, like they would hunt down a mad dog, was intolerable.

She sent word to Senator Maitland, asking him if he would drive her back to the Bib M. When she got his answer that he would have the buckboard at the hotel in fifteen minutes she felt a relief that was hard to put into words. What had happened these last few days was bewildering. Her father had turned from a sane man into a maniac. He had hated Dave Coyle enough to put a reward on his head and fist-fight him in jail, yet he had escaped with Coyle. And she had started out by liking Dave Coyle, and now she hated him. Everything was changed, so that she didn't know what to believe or whom to believe.

When she went down into the lobby, Bitterman carrying her bag, Ernie See rose from a lobby chair and came over to her. “Mind stoppin' in at the sheriff's office before you go, Miss McFee?”

“How did you know I was going?” Carol asked sharply.

“Saw the senator hitchin' up. He's over at the office. Would you like to come?”

“I wouldn't like to, but I will,” Carol said tartly and added, “What for, so you can show me how you plan to kill my father?”

Ernie didn't say anything, only held open the lobby door. He and Carol walked downstreet to the sheriff's office without exchanging a word. Sheriff Beal rose at her entrance, and Senator Maitland, his face troubled, smiled and spoke to her.

“This'll only take a minute, Miss McFee,” Beal said coldly. “I only wanted to show you some things. They ought to convince you, I reckon, that you ought to make your dad give himself up.”

“How could I?” Carol asked impatiently. “I don't know where he is.”

“He'll turn up,” Beal said grimly. “A bad penny.”

He unfolded a newspaper and laid it on the desk. A story on the front page in bold type was circled with a blue pencil mark. “I just got this by the Sabinal stage,” he said slowly. “You might have heard about me askin' the county for money to hunt your dad down?”

“I did!” Carol said angrily.

“Well, I got it, and not from the county. Here. Read this.” He shoved the paper at her.

Carol saw it was the Sabinal weekly
Clarion
. In a boxed message on the front page was this story:

This office has received anonymously the sum of five thousand dollars. The sender specifies that it is to be offered as a reward for the capture, alive or dead, of Bruce McFee, Yellow Jacket County rancher, guilty of paying for the murder of a witness who was to appear against him in court of law. The money has been forwarded this day to Sheriff Harvey Beal, and with it goes the heartiest approbation of all decent-thinking folks in this county.

Carol's face was crimson with anger as she finished. She threw the paper on the desk and said, “That's a cheap trick of Lacey Thornton's to get even with Dad!”

Beal held out a bank draft and said, “What's cheap about five thousand dollars?”

Carol could only glare at him, speechless with anger.

“There's that,” Beal said, “and then there's this. It come on the Sabinal stage today too. Open the envelope.”

Carol did, and a shower of crisp new bank notes fell to the desk. Inside was a note. She read: “This is reward for the capture, dead or alive, of Bruce McFee. (Signed) A Friend of Law and Order.”

Beal looked at her and said gently, “If there's ten thousand dollars' reward for the capture, alive or dead, of your dad, do you see, Miss McFee, what I'm tryin' to tell you? Your dad will have a bigger price on his head than Dave Coyle. Why, there's hundreds of men in this county and surroundin' counties that will give up their jobs, oil up their guns, and spend years huntin' for your dad. He can't win.”

Carol's face was pale, and her lips trembled with indignation. “Oh, it—it's rotten!” she said passionately. “It's beastly! I can't believe that people feel that way about Dad! It's just that—that two men have seen a chance to get Dad murdered, and they're willing to pay cheap bounty hunters like you to do it for them! Can't you see? It's just another way of assassinating an innocent man!”

Ernie See said, “Innocent of what? He escaped, didn't he?”

“One moment,” Senator Maitland said. “You're overstepping your authority, Beal, and you know it as well as I do. You haven't proof that Sholto is dead! You haven't any right or authority to offer an ‘alive-or-dead' reward for Bruce McFee. ‘Capture and conviction,' yes, but ‘alive or dead,' no. And I'll fight you from hell to breakfast to prove it in court!” His kindly face was stern-looking, unrelenting, Carol had never seen him so angry.

“You got ahead of me, Senator,” Sheriff Beal said dryly. “I said, ‘If there's a ten-thousand alive-or-dead reward.' I was tryin' to show Miss McFee what's liable to happen.” He looked at Carol now. “Your dad is runnin' with Dave Coyle. If anybody tries to capture them there'll be shootin and killin'. And the minute anyone is killed tryin' to capture them, Miss McFee, the court will give me permission to add ‘alive or dead' to the reward. And I want him to give himself up before that happens. I want you to tell him, too, that travelin' with Dave Coyle will get him hanged—and damn quick!”