Hardcase (3 page)

“Your Dad's signature,” Dave said. “It's on the deed and on the receipt. What about it?”

“Dad had a fall from a horse two months ago that crushed his hand. It's still stiff. His writing isn't like it was—it's like a child's. They knew that. They could imitate it—and they did.”

“And the foreman?” Dave said. “Is he gone?”

“Disappeared. He sailed for South America,” Carol said briefly. She hesitated a moment, then said, “You see how hopeless it is? We're losing a range that would be a bargain at a hundred thousand dollars. But we can't win—not even with the lawyer Dad's got!”

“Who?”

“Senator Maitland, Dad's oldest friend. He's the best lawyer in the territory, Dave, but he says we haven't an even chance. And what could you do that he can't?”

Dave said, “Go to bed.”

When Carol's face flushed and she came to her feet, indignant at his rudeness, he added, “Somebody may poke a gun through that window any minute. I don't want you hurt.”

“Then you're going, Dave?”

“No.”

“But—”

“Go to bed,” Dave repeated.

Carol walked to the door, and Dave opened it for her. Carol paused and turned to him, a kind of hurt pride fighting with the friendliness in her face. “Dave, you were good to come. I didn't have any claim on your friendship. I was—well, just an acquaintance to you. But you see, you can't help. The time for fighting is over. I'm sorry you came up here. I'm sorrier about the letter. It's just—well, good-by.” She put out her hand.

Dave took it “Good night.”

“Good-by.”

“Good night, I said.”

“But—”

Gently Dave placed his hand in the middle of her back and pushed her out the door and closed it. He leaned against it, listening. Presently he heard something like a sigh, and the sound of footsteps retreated down the hall.

He didn't leave the door, only moved to one side of it and waited. The knock he seemed certain was coming finally did. Dave said, “Walk in, Will.”

The door opened, and a man walked into the room. He was a moose of a man, dressed in a black broadcloth suit that bulged at the shoulders. He had his hands raised far above his head and he didn't turn his head, only stopped in the middle of the room.

“I'll take your word for it. Will,” Dave murmured. “You smell money. Put 'em down.”

Will Usher let his hands sink to his sides and slowly turned around. He had the face of a Roman senator—the high, noble forehead, the wide-spaced and clean-looking blue eyes, the firm wide jaw, the well-shaped mouth, and a shock of beautiful iron-gray curls which he parted on the side. He was smiling now, and his teeth were white and even and strong. Standing there waiting for Dave to speak, he was every inch the high-born, intellectual aristocrat. But there was a flaw to his appearance, a flaw that he couldn't hide. His hands were not the long-fingered white hands of an aristocrat; they were the hands of a butcher—big, red, with thick fingers that were all approximately the same size. They were huge and hideous, stranger's hands, and even the soft buckskin gloves he affected could not hide them.

Dave said softly, “You don't mind takin' a chance, do you, Will?”

“You won't shoot me,” Will Usher said confidently. “We need each other.”

“The only thing I need you for is a target.”

“Don't take that kidnapin' so hard, Dave. A man has to make a livin'.”

“It drove me to Mexico, Will,” Dave purred. “I don't love any man for that.”

“That wasn't me; that was the—”

“Careful,” Dave murmured.

They eyed each other a moment, and not like two dogs. It was more like two cats. In Dave Coyle's face was wary contempt, a careful, watchful disgust. In Will Usher's face, beneath the handsomeness of it, was the still fear of a man walking on dynamite.

Dave said, “Let's hear it.”

“Can I sit down? This'll take time.”

“No.”

“All right. That McFee girl has—”

Dave held up his hand, and Usher ceased talking. Presently the sound of slow footsteps sounded in the hall. They came up to the door, paused, and there was a loud knock on the door.

Dave looked wickedly at Usher. Usher shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, denying any knowledge of who it was. Dave pointed to him, then pointed to the corner of the room against the front wall. Silently Usher tiptoed over to the corner and hugged the wall.

Dave twisted the knob and pulled the door open. He confronted a truculent-looking old man who had his hand raised to knock again.

“I heard you,” Dave said arrogantly.

“Look here, young feller,” the old man said. “You didn't register.”

“You were out hellin' around.”

“I was out—” The old man paused and peered closely at Dave. Then he licked his lips and took a step backward. “Ain't you—” he began, and his voice died. He tried again, weakly, “Ain't you Dave Coyle?”

“Yes.”

For a moment the old man was confounded. He started to speak and couldn't and only stared. Then he said sharply, “You can't stay here!”

“Throw me out,” Dave invited.

“Get out of here!”

“No.”

The old man backed away and then raised a finger and shook it at him. “By gummy, I'll get you out!”

He turned and almost ran down the hall. Dave closed the door. Usher said dryly, “You better move quick, Dave.”

Dave walked over to the bed and ripped off the blankets. He pulled off a sheet and while he was tying it to the bed-frame he said, “Take that other sheet and tie it to this one.”

Usher moved swiftly too. When the two sheets were tied together Dave said, “Open the window.” While Usher did, Dave shoved the bed over against it and then unrolled the two sheets out the window. To anyone entering the room it would be a case of simple escape out the window.

Dave said, “Where's your room?”

“Down the hall.”

“Let's go there.”

Usher led the way to it. Dave went in last and closed the door behind him and put his back to it. There was a sound of voices suddenly welling in the hall and then the heavy tramping of many feet. They pounded past the door and then stopped abruptly. Dave heard a man's voice saying, “I ain't goin' in there first. It's your job, Sheriff.”

“Dave Coyle!” somebody called. “Come out of there! You're surrounded!”

No answer. Then there was a long period of silence, and suddenly a man bawled, “He's went out through the window!” Somebody shot.

Again there was a savage pounding of feet in the hall, and then it died as the crowd hit the stairs.

Dave looked at Will Usher, who was standing by the bed. “Make your deal,” he said.

“That girl must have told you about—”

“She told me. What about it?”

“Don't get redheaded at this next, Dave. I'm only askin'. Do you like her? Do you want to help her?”

Dave, his gray eyes a little narrowed, said, “I want to help her, yes.”

“And earn a fifty-fifty split on fifty thousand dollars?”

Dave said quietly, “Does it stink?”

“It's clean!” Usher protested. “Cleanest money I ever made!”

“It could still stink. What is it?”

“Look. The Three Rivers outfit is bringin' that witness, Sholto, through here tomorrow and takin' him to the railroad in Sabinal. Now—”

“How do you know that?”

“It's in the papers,” Usher protested. “Anybody could read it.”

“All right. Go on.”

Usher grinned. “Well, don't you know now?”

“Sure I do. Kidnap him and let the Three Rivers outfit buy him back for fifty thousand.”

Usher nodded, spread his palms, and smiled. “Simple, eh? And clean. They're a bunch of pirates. They're runnin' a pretty cagey sandy on Bruce McFee, and it's sewed up tight. But they need that witness. They're gettin' away with a hundred-and-twenty-five-thousand-dollar steal. They need Sholto, and they'll pay fifty thousand to get him back.”

Dave nodded and said softly. “Why ring me in on it? Fifty thousand is more than twenty-five. Why split it?”

Usher shook his head and raised both hands, palms out. “Hunh-unh. Not me, Dave. I couldn't swing it. I'll take a fifty-fifty chance any time, and lots of times I'll take a sixty-forty chance. But I don't like these ninety-ten odds. You do.”

Dave didn't say anything, only looked at Usher, and finally Usher said, “Well?”

“Got any ideas?”

“I've got a beauty. It's risky. Outside of that horse-faced Wallace and his Three Rivers crew there'll be a deputy U.S. marshal and Sheriff Beal and however many deputies he wants guardin' Sholto and the train. Now that you're in the country Beal will probably double the guard. That's the risk. Now here's the plan.”

He told him, and Dave listened critically. When Usher was finished Dave said, “All right. I'll take thirty thousand; you take twenty when we get the ransom money.”

“Wait a—”

“Take it or leave it.”

Usher glared at him for a moment, then shrugged. “All right. It's a deal.”

“Light a rag, then,” Dave said coldly.

“What?”

“Get out. Vamoose. Drag it. Light a shuck. Hit the grit. Get out of here,” Dave murmured.

“But this is my room! I sleep—”

Dave opened the door and stood aside. Usher glanced around the room, his handsome face sullen, picked up three cigars off the dresser, and put them in his breast pocket. He said, “You sure you know what you're goin' to do, Dave?”

“I'm goin' to kick you out of this room in about three seconds,” Dave said coldly.

Usher hurried past him and went out, saying good night. Dave didn't answer him. He blew out the lamp, then lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

Will Usher's plan was good as far as it went. It would get them money. But as soon as Sholto was back in Wallace's hands there was the same threat to McFee. The thing to do, of course, was to keep Sholto away from Wallace for good. But if he did that Wallace would claim that McFee and Dave Coyle were in partnership, and McFee would be prosecuted. No, he must help McFee and make it look as if he were helping only himself. And this was a start, small as it was.

He wondered, suddenly, Why he had ridden six hundred miles and put a noose around his neck just to help a girl who had once ridden on a stage with him. He guessed it was because she needed him. Other women before had needed him—honky tonk girls, outlaws' women, little Mexican cantina girls—but never a girl like Carol McFee. Of course she had only wanted his gun prowess, but that was something. She was different, nice, strange, a lady. And some stubborn desire within him made him want to show her that he could be a friend to a lady too.

He went to sleep in Usher's bed, while outside in the night the sheriff's crowd was cautiously beating the alleys, looking for him.

III

Sabinal, ten miles from Yellow Jacket, had an almost festive air today. It wasn't the kind of bright gaiety that is seen during a fiesta, when all the country people come in to drink and dance because their crops are in. It was a townsman's festivity, when hot black suits are donned, ties are worn, vest pockets stocked with cigars, and pants pockets are filled with half dollars to buy drinks. It was a politician's holiday, for wasn't Sheriff Beal and a posse bringing Sholto, the Three Rivers star witness, to the train? All the arrangements had been made at the Sabinal House to take over the dining room for the noon meal and the front suite afterward while they waited for the train to come in at three o'clock. Votes would be swapped, a lot of whisky drunk, and enough speculation on the coming court fight—McFee vs. the Three Rivers Cattle Company—to fill volumes. This was history making, for McFee had come into the country twenty years ago, a hardheaded and penniless Scot. And he had succeeded, with a born cattleman's savvy, in building up a tidy empire, making a host of enemies and dumping along the way somewhere a troublesome partner who had first put up the money to start them. Few people liked him, but everyone had respect for him, for his ruthlessness and his success. The Three Rivers outfit, headed by Tate Wallace, had set up shop next to McFee's range. They had fought in and out of court and in and out of three towns that bounded their range, but this was the first time it was ever intimated that it was going to be a fight to the death. Wallace claimed McFee, seeing he would be beaten, sold out to Three Rivers, and he had a deed to prove it. McFee claimed he had never signed the deed. One of them was lying. If McFee won his suit Tate Wallace would be in jail for many years. Most people hoped and thought Wallace would win it. And in that case, McFee was ruined.

It excited people, and they milled around the streets waiting for a sight of Beal's posse. Already two extra deputy marshals were lounging in the hotel, ready to swell the number of official guards offering safe conduct to the witness. The crowd was concentrated on the main street, for it was certain that Beal, good politician that he was, would give the townspeople a parade.

The back street next to the railroad track was naturally deserted, and it was down this rutted street, around noon, that a team and wagon appeared. The team was a sorry-looking crowbait pair with their harness patched with rope. The wagon, its wheels atilt, was covered by a rotted canvas on hoops and was driven by a shabby Mexican in bib overalls.

The wagon pulled up beside the railroad station, whose red paint was sun-blistered and peeled, and the Mexican dismounted. He glanced about him with some bewilderment, circled the place once, then walked up to the yawning door of the freight warehouse and took off his hat and stood there.

The men were lounging inside, one sitting on the scales and smoking a pipe, the other sitting on a box crate. Presently the man with the pipe caught sight of the Mexican and he called, “What you want,
amigo?
”