Hardcase (23 page)

XX

With McFee's lunch on a tin tray, Ernie left the restaurant and headed for the sheriff's office, whistling cheerfully through his teeth. Each meal Ernie went through this same curious rigmarole of cutting McFee's food into small bits, slicing his bread thinly, and fishing around with a spoon in his cup of coffee just to make sure that no implements of escape were smuggled in to him in his food. That was funny, come to think of it. McFee, since his preliminary hearing, was too broken in spirit to even try to escape. He was too dumb to, besides. And beyond that, Dave would have him free in quick order—if everything went right last night at the Bib M. Ernie wondered about that and knew he was cheerfully expecting the impossible. But his new partner was a man who could do the impossible.

He kicked open the door to the office and saw Lacey Thornton in a chair talking to Beal. Ernie said howdy and went on through the corridor to the cell block. McFee's face was gray with worry and fright, and he didn't even look up at Ernie as he unlocked the door and put the tray in the cell.

Coming back to the office, Ernie wondered about Lacey Thornton. He was one of their suspects in Sholto's death, perhaps the man behind Wallace, and now Ernie, keeping this in mind, had his first chance to observe him.

He loafed into the office and said, “How's things, Lacey?” and sat down.

“Soso,” Lacey said. The faint aura of bourbon whisky surrounded him, and his monkey face was its usual brick color. He suddenly seemed a little uneasy to Ernie, but then Ernie figured that might be his imagination.

“How's that murderin' coyote of a McFee?” Lacey growled.

“Holdin' up, sort of,” Ernie answered, grinning.

Lacey turned to Beal. “You handed out that reward for his capture yet?”

Beat shook his head. “Nobody captured him. Me and Ernie was first out in the street, but when his horse throwed him a half-dozen other men was around too.”

“What do you aim to do with the money?” Thornton asked.

“I dunno,” Beal said.

Lacey Thornton cleared his throat and said, “That's what I come to see you about. This—this party that put up half that reward money, he claims that he ought to get it back.”

Ernie regarded Lacey Thornton closely, and he was suddenly certain of one thing. The reward money Lacey Thornton had brought over and said was sent anonymously was his own. And now that McFee was jailed he wanted it back.

Ernie's lip curled in contempt. He said dryly, “What's the matter, Lacey? Gettin' pinched for cash?”

Lacey Thornton squirmed in his chair to face him, his lips forming words that were soundless. Suddenly he exploded: “Dammit, Ernie, you sayin' I'll keep that money instead of returning it?”

“Why return it? It's yours, ain't it?”

“Ernie!” Beal said sharply.

“Why, look at him,” Ernie said stubbornly. “Hell's bells, his face give it away. What are you gettin' so red for, Lacey?”

“If I'm gettin' red it's because I got a prime notion to knock your head off!” Thornton bawled.

Beal got to his feet. “Ernie, I want to talk to you,” he said ominously.

“Go ahead.”

“In your room.”

Ernie shrugged and went ahead of Beal into his room. He heard Beal say, “Stay here, Lacey. I won't take a minute.”

Beal came into the room and shut the door and then regarded Ernie with pure bale in his eyes. He said with savage sarcasm, “Nobody's ever told Mr. See's son that Lacey Thornton owns one of the two newspapers in this county, have they?”

“Sure,” Ernie said cheerfully. “What of it?”

“Listen,” Beal said, almost choking with rage. “I'm sheriff here. I was elected!
Elected
, you hear? Lacey Thornton backed me in the last election, and he's goin' to back me in the next—if I treat him right! And now my deputy comes along and calls him a liar!”

“Well, he is one, ain't he?”

“What's that got to do with it?” Beal bawled, his cherub's face looking as if it was ready to burst into tears. “He could eat his kids for breakfast, but what's that got to do with tellin' him so?”

“All right,” Ernie said.

“All right what?” Beal bawled. “You've already called him a liar! You can't call him one again!”

Ernie's face got a little red with anger. “Yes, I can. If you don't quit drippin' off at the mouth, I will.”

Beal almost choked. Then he bellowed, “You're through, Ernie! Fired!”

“What? Again?” Ernie gibed.

“This time I mean it! By God, you and me are through! There's four more days to payday, and if you come back here on the fifth day I'll kick you across the street!”

Ernie sobered at this. In the past Beal had fired him in the morning, sulked through the day, and the next day, when Ernie showed up, it was forgotten. Ernie worked hard, and Beal knew it, and even if they argued and fought it was usually ironed out in time. But this time Beal meant what he had said. A kind of panic seized Ernie now. He couldn't be fired! Dave needed him here.

He said soberly, “Listen, Harve, maybe I shot off my mouth. I always do, I reckon. But I'm plumb sorry. I reckon I made a mistake.”

“That won't work this time!” Beal said grimly. “You've put a noose around my neck for the last time! What I said goes. You're through come payday!”

Ernie couldn't hide the dismay on his face. His bluntness, his impulsiveness, his outspokenness had finally done for him. He'd pushed Beal too far. And what would Dave say now?

Beal said bitterly, “Keep away from Lacey and give me time to smooth it over.” And he stalked out, his fat slack body ramrod straight.

Ernie sank down on his cot and stared at the floor. A faint suspicion began to form in his mind. Was Lacey Thornton really the man who had killed Sholto, and was Beal in with him? Ernie tried to put that out of his mind, but it wouldn't go. Suppose Lacey and Beal really were in cahoots to keep McFee in jail? That would explain Beal's easy acceptance of the killing of Sholto. And if Lacey was the man who tried to kill Dave the other night, then he saw Dave and Ernie talking. And if he saw that and reported it to Beal wasn't this Beal's way of getting rid of his deputy before he interfered with them? Ernie had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. In spite of Harve Beal's bombast, his bluster, his timidness, his caution, his fence straddling, and his fumbling, bumbling bewilderment, Ernie liked him. No, Harve wasn't a crook. But how explain all this?

Ernie didn't know; he only knew that for once he had goaded Beal too far, and now he was paying for it with his job. The job didn't matter so much, but he had failed Dave. He had …

The sound of angry voices, many of them, in the front office interrupted his thoughts. He rose and opened the corridor door. He could hear someone shouting, and he hurried into the office.

There stood Tate Wallace, his riders crowded in behind him, facing Beal. Tate whirled at Ernie's entrance, and Ernie was appalled by what he saw on Wallace's face. Wallace looked berserk with rage.

“Dave Coyle stole the deed to the Bib M last night! He was hid in the house!”

“Stole the deed?” Ernie echoed blankly.

“Stole it! Killed four of my men and escaped!”

Ernie leaned back against the wall, relief flooding him. He didn't have to act as if he were surprised; he was, even if he knew it would happen beforehand. Dave had got away with it.

Ernie said softly, “Well, I'm double-damned!”

Wallace turned to Beal, who sat there with a look of stupefaction on his face. “And somethin' else! He told me he'd taken the record of the deed out of the county clerk's files!”

Beal gazed helplessly at Ernie. “So that's why the lock was broke the other day.” He looked up at Wallace and said, “What do you want me to do?”

“Do?” Wallace yelled. “Find him! You're the law here, ain't you! Deputize every man in town! Comb the country! Take my crew and get all the men you can!”

Beal just stared at the floor. Presently he said, “That makes your title to the Bib M no good, don't it? You haven't got a deed, and there's no record of it ever bein' filed.”

Wallace nodded and then said in a thick, wicked voice, “That's it, Beal! But if anybody tries to take that place away from me I'll kill 'em! I bought it!”

“Nobody said you didn't, Beal said hastily. “I was just figurin' out why he stole the deed.”

“I'm goin' to get that deed back if it takes ten years!” Wallace raged. “Beal, I want you to send a man over to Sabinal with a telegram for the Governor, askin' for troops! I want you to put every man that can bear arms to huntin' Coyle!”

Lacey Thornton said, “There's somethin' better than that, Wallace.”

Wallace looked at him for the first time. Ernie watched them, to see if anything passed between them. If there was he couldn't see it. Wallace's eyes were hot with anger, his face stiff. Thornton just wore his usual whisky flush, heightened a little now by the excitement.

Thornton said, “Beal has got ten thousand dollars here on deposit—ten thousand reward money that was supposed to be put on McFee. But it ain't been paid off, because McFee walked into the jail, almost. Why not take that ten thousand and put it on Dave Coyle's head—dead or alive—because he killed four of your men? He's got seven thousand on it now. That would make seventeen thousand dollars and—”

“I'll put three more to make it twenty,” Wallace said.

“Good. That's twenty thousand dollars.” He looked around the room. “Why, hell, every man in the county will give up his job or close his store to hunt Coyle. That's more'n a man earns in three-four years!”

“I'll do it!” Beal said, coming to his feet. “Ernie, get the word around town. Twenty thousand reward, and anybody can get it! And they don't have to capture him this time. They can kill him!”

Ernie, a little sick when he thought what a man would do for twenty thousand dollars, went out to spread the word around town.

In an hour all the stores except Badey's, all the saloons except Tim King's Keno Parlor were closed. The town was sold out of ammunition, and horses were at a premium. In Yellow Jacket's main street, there was a milling mob of riders, waiting to split up and start the biggest man hunt—and the longest—any of them could remember.

XXI

From the hotel lobby window Carol, Lily Sholto, and Senator Maitland saw the posse forming and watched it for an hour. Finally, when it split up and rode out of town in all four directions, Senator Maitland observed, “I wouldn't like to be in Dave Coyle's boots.”

“You think they'll get him?” Carol asked anxiously.

Maitland shrugged. “If there's any justice left in this world they will.”

“But, Uncle Dan,” Carol objected, “he's helped us.”

Maitland nodded somberly. His seamed face looked weary today and stern, somehow. He was sitting between Lily and Carol. He looked at them both and said, “I shouldn't be saying this, I know. I'm Bruce McFee's lawyer and friend, so I should be grateful to Dave Coyle for stealing that deed. It puts Wallace in the position of a trespasser now. He has no right, no title to the Bib M now. The disappearance of the deed and any record of it will defeat him in court. The Bib M is still the McFee place.” He shook his head and made a wry face. “Still, I'm a man of conscience, I hope. I don't like to win my court fights in that manner.”

Carol laughed uncertainly. “Neither do I, Uncle Dan, but it's been given to us, it seems.”

“Certainly.” Maitland looked gloomily out the window. “Still, it doesn't change things much, does it, my dear? Your father is still coming up for trial on a murder charge.” He said with sudden passion, “The ranch be damned. I want your father free!” He looked at Carol. “Isn't that the way you feel?”

Carol nodded mutely. Maitland looked at his watch. “It's visiting hour now. Shall we go over?”

The three of them crossed the street, but at the sheriff's office their way was barred by Beal.

“No visitin' today,” he said firmly.

“And why not?” Maitland asked.

Beal glared at him. “Don't ask me, Maitland. Figure it out for yourself. Your little outlaw friend has made you happy enough for one day. You can do without the visit.”

Maitland said angrily, “Are you insinuating, Beal, that I had any connection with the theft of that deed?”

“I'm not insinuatin' anything, Senator,” Beal said shortly, angrily. “All I'm sayin' is that it looks as if you'd won your case out of court! I'm sayin' somethin' else too. I got too much to do today without herdin' relatives of a killer in to weep on his shoulder. Get out!”

Maitland took the girls out, and since there was nowhere else to go, they went back to the hotel. A sudden weariness overwhelmed Carol in the lobby. She was sick of this, sick to death. She hated the town; she hated the hotel; she was without hope, bored to tears, and helpless as a baby. She envied Lily Sholto, who was so calm that nothing surprised her. Why, when the news came that Dave Coyle had hidden in the Bib M house and stolen the deed Lily only smiled.

Carol said, “I'm going to my room, Uncle Dan. I think I'll try and sleep. If any news comes in wake me.”

Lily looked at her and didn't ask what kind of news. It was in Lily's face that she knew what Carol meant by news. If Dave Coyle was caught or killed was what she meant. Carol flushed a little under that friendly stare of Lily's, then mounted the stairs, and sought her room.

She let herself in, closed the door, and walked slowly over to the bed. Halfway there she stopped, a small cry escaping her.

There, sound asleep on her bed, one hand folded under the pillow, was Dave Coyle.

Carol stood transfixed for a moment, then she tiptoed swiftly to the door and locked it. Oh, the fool, she thought, the reckless, headstrong fool!