The Fugitive (27 page)

“It's you, Speedy, is it?” said the sheriff.

Speedy simply murmured: “Yes, it's I. What's the matter? And who are you?”

“I'm not one of the thousand thugs who'd like to have you where I have you now, Speedy,” said the sheriff. “But you know mighty well who I am.”

“I never stood in front of you before in my life,” said Speedy.

The sheriff remembered an odd bit that he had heard of this famous man. For it was said that he would not lie, no matter how closely pressed, but fell back upon some slippery prevarication, rather than direct falsehoods. He determined to test him, and said now: “Speedy, answer me, yes or no. Were you lying up there in the woods, near the clearing where I found Oliver Fenton?”

“You can see for yourself that I've come down from the woods,” said Speedy. “What clearing do you mean?”

“Fenton's clearing.”

“What Fenton?”

“Oliver Fenton, the man you've just finished talking to back there somewhere. Answer me, yes or no.”

“Every man has his own way of getting information out of a witness,” said Speedy. “Your way is like a good many others that I've listened to. But what do you want with me and who are you?”

The sheriff grinned suddenly. “You're Speedy, all right,” he said, nodding. Then he added: “I kind of thought that there was something about your face that I'd oughta know, when you went by me on the trail. But when you went on, you sat that mustang so bad, that I couldn't believe it was really Speedy.”

“I'm a mighty bad rider,” said Speedy.

“You are, if you don't mind me saying so,” said the sheriff. “You're a mighty, thumping bad rider. Now tell me what you've got to do with this here business. What's Fenton to you?”

“What's Fenton to me?” Speedy repeated. “What Fenton?”

The sheriff laughed, but softly. Still, he did not move his gun out of line with the youth. “It's a lot of information that I'm giving you, I suppose,” he said, “if I tell you that I'm Sam Hollis, the sheriff of this damned wolf-eaten county. I guess it surprises you a lot to hear that?”

“I'm always glad to meet another sheriff,” said Speedy.

“Are you?” answered the other. “Speedy, I've got to run you into the lockup.”

“I'm mighty sorry for that,” said Speedy.

“You've put your hand in between me and my job,” said the sheriff. “And I can't have that.”

“I don't know what you mean,” said Speedy.

“Sure you don't,” agreed the other. “You wouldn't be such a fool as to know what I mean. Will you give me your word to ride in, calm and peaceful, to Trout Lake, or do I have to lash you onto the back of that mustang?”

Only for an instant did Speedy hesitate, but in that instant his dark eyes became as coldly shining as black diamonds. “I'll go into Trout Lake quietly with you, Hollis,” he said. “But I'd like to know . . .”

“The crime you're charged with, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Interfering with the law,” said the sheriff. “Maybe the charge won't hold in front of a judge, but it'll hold long enough to keep you in jail for a few days while I'm cleaning up this case. I'm sorry, Speedy. You're not the kind of a man that the law works ag'in', but duty's duty.”

“I know it,” said Speedy. “I'll go along with you. I've given you my promise.”

It was the sheriff's turn to hesitate a little. Tradition said that the word of Speedy was an inviolable bond, that his naked promise was better than the sworn oaths of any other man. Finally Sam Hollis decided that it was worthwhile to treat the tradition experimentally. First, he would examine another legend—that Speedy always went unarmed. That was quickly done. He merely had to order those slender hands, those famous workers of trouble, into the air. Then he patted the clothes of the other dexterously, and located a small pocket knife only.

“It's true,” muttered the sheriff. “Well, then, follow me.” He led the way down to the trail, where he mounted his horse. Speedy ranged along beside him.

A peculiar warmth of pleasure filled the honest heart of Sam Hollis. He began to look with strong and sudden favor upon his prisoner. He recalled, out of the past, a hundred legends of the great deeds of this man and the work of those incredibly cunning hands. A thousand knavish performances, no doubt, could be traced to them, but in the long run they had always worked for the welfare of the honest man and the downfall of the thug. Yet now he was obviously interfering with the clear duty of a sworn officer of the law and he would have to be put aside.

Speedy was saying, calmly: “How are things in Trout Lake?”

“How are things in any mining camp,” asked the sheriff, “in this part of the world? I can't stop the killings. I just manage to keep down the daily average, that's all. They're a pretty hardy lot just now. The judge doesn't have to work overtime, but the gravediggers do.”

“I know,” said Speedy. “The fellows all want their fling. I sort of sympathize with 'em, at that. Speaking of gunmen, I thought I saw Slade Bennett in town . . . just had a glimpse through a window as I was going down the street.”

“Yes, he's in town,” said the sheriff.

Speedy started a little, the merest trifle, but it was enough to have meaning to the quick eye of the sheriff.

“That was a cast in the dark. You didn't have no idea that Slade Bennett was in town, eh?”

“I know now, though,” said Speedy. “I'd expect him at this sort of a show.”

“You call him a gunman, eh? I know he has that reputation, but always self-defense.”

“Yes, that's his game. It's an old one, too.”

The sheriff nodded. “I've got nothing on Slade Bennett,” he said. “Speaking about Fenton . . .”

“Bennett,”—Speedy interrupted, not loudly, but softly, as though pursuing his own thoughts and unaware that the other had spoken in the interim—“is one of those fellows who practices two hours a day with his guns and his knife.”

“Knife?” said the sheriff. “Why d'you say it like that?”

“I hope to tell you, one of these days,” said Speedy. “Depending on how long you keep me locked up in the jail.”

The sheriff smiled a wry and twisting smile, but his eyes were dancing. “I know your dodges, Speedy,” he said. “Locks and walls ain't made to hold you. You ferret your way out through 'em, somehow or other. But I'll try what a double guard can do with you in an open room, and the lights on twenty-four hours a day.”

Speedy nodded. “That's a hard combination to beat,” he agreed. “After you have me put away, I'd keep my eye on Slade Bennett, if I were you. He's an actor that'll probably be found in the middle of a play, and holding down the center of the stage.”

“Thanks,” said the sheriff. “I'll take your advice. I'd like to ask you something.”

“About Fenton?” said the boy.

They were coming close to the first shacks of Trout Lake as they talked.

“About yourself,” said the sheriff.

“Every man loves to talk about himself,” said Speedy.

The sheriff shrugged his shoulders, and then shook his head. “It's hard to corner you and make you talk, Speedy,” he said. “You've made a fool out of me today, but, damn me, I don't seem able to feel no malice on account of it, and that's a fact.”

“You've got an oversize heart and that's the reason,” commented Speedy. And his eyes met those of the sheriff gravely, steadily.

The sheriff flushed a little. “I'll tell you what I'll do,” said the sheriff, “if you'll keep out of the way between me and Fenton, and answer one question about yourself, I won't bother you with the lockup. I'd like to have you free. You're likely to do Trout Lake more good in a day than I could do in a month.”

“Thanks a lot,” said Speedy, “but what's the question?”

“It's this . . . what do you get out of it? I mean . . . out of this wandering about, fighting the fights of other men, never cashing in for yourself?”

Speedy squinted at a distant cloud. “Why do people stretch a tight wire from one tower to another, and then walk across it in a wind?” he asked softly.

The sheriff started. “I understand,” he muttered. “I believe you, too. So long, Speedy. I ought to lock you up. But I've got more instinct than brains in me, and instinct tells me to set you loose. Get on your way.”

 

Speedy went straight to the hotel. In the dusty, smoky, crowded little room that served as lobby, he ran straight into Ben Thomas and the girl. The man glared at him in a rage. Jessica Fenton was pale with anger and silent, while Thomas exploded: “You've come back, have you? After you finished your monkeyshines! You sneak thief! You stole out of my pocket . . .”

He was in a frenzy of anger. But Speedy lifted one finger and smiled past it in such a singular way that Ben Thomas stopped short, at the risk of choking over his own unspoken words.

“I've seen Fenton,” said Speedy. “He knows a snake in the grass from an honest man, by this time. Thomas, remember one thing . . . night and day, I'm watching you.” He turned on his heel and went out into the street.

He was sorry, in many ways, that he had had to show so much of his hand, faceup, on the table, but he was troubled about the girl. By revealing part of what he knew and what he had done, he hoped he might so paralyze Ben Thomas that he would perhaps fade out of Trout Lake. Besides, there might be enough in what he had said to give the girl warning. However, he could not give himself up, for the time being, to this part of the problem. Other things swarmed before him and must be attended to. The time was short, how short he could not tell.

He paused at the next saloon, pushed through the doors, bought a glass of beer for a dollar, and sipped half of it. “I've got a message for big Slade Bennett,” he said. “Anybody seen him around here?”

A little smooth-faced, pink man came up, touched his arm, and looked at him out of confiding eyes. “Across the street, brother,” he said softly, and winked.

Speedy did not stay to finish his drink. He turned on his heel and crossed the street into Haggerty's Saloon. It was like most of the others, but perhaps a little more pretentious. The prices charged in Haggerty's were higher, because of the long mirror that ran the length of the room behind the bar. It had been brought up from the railroad line in several boxes, and it was screwed in place in sections, which might not be as splendid a mirror as one in a long piece, but which had the great advantage of breaking only one by one, if bullets flew that way. Even now, one panel was splintered diagonally.

It was well into the afternoon by this time and, since the sun was hot outside and the wet sawdust on the floor of Haggerty's promised coolness within, a score of men were already drinking, shaking dice for the drinks, leaning their elbows on the bar, or seated at the small, round-topped tables that fringed the wall.

Two men stood out from others instantly, not because they were bigger or better than some of the rest, but because the electric tension of danger had come between them. One was John Wilson, standing down the bar with his head high, his face colorless, the lips compressed in a straight line; the nearer man, his face turned only in profile to Speedy, was Slade Bennett. The triangular scar that disfigured his cheek was enough to identify him.

What had happened, Speedy could only guess. But whatever it was—word or gesture or something else—it had happened just before he entered the saloon. The men along the bar were beginning to straighten and turn around to watch the pair. Those at the tables were turning, also, and two of them had jumped to their feet, tense and nervous.

It was apparent that some vital offense had been given. It was also patent, from the leaning head and the forward thrust of the whole body of Slade Bennett, that he had spoken; John Wilson, crystallized to white ice by the stroke of the thing, raised his head still higher.

“You can't talk like that to me,” he said.

“Oh, can't I?” purred Bennett. He raised his head deliberately; he tilted it back, and he laughed, so that all could see the derision and the confident scorn in his face.

“What'll keep me from saying it twice over, you yellow hound of a tenderfoot?”

It was time for gunplay, of course, or for a mansize punch, at the least.

But John Wilson was still as a stone; lips began to curl as the men watched. The tension went out of the air. It seemed perfectly patent that Wilson was going to take water. His eyes wavered from the leer of Bennett, and Speedy caught that eye and jerked his head shortly to the side, to indicate the side exit.

John Wilson, as though hypnotized, turned and made a long stumbling stride toward freedom.

“Wait a minute!” thundered the voice of Bennett, cruel exultation in his eyes.

Speedy made a step forward to the elbow of the gunman. “Don't make a fool of yourself, Slade,” he said.

“Who says fool to me?” said Bennett, snarling and turning like a tiger. He looked down from his height into the eyes of Speedy. A big and splendid man was Bennett, and the fury of the bully was in him now, the fury that had taken the place of his desperate hunger for a fight fairly throttling him. With a side glance, he saw that his intended victim had reached the door and gone out through it, and there was no guffaw of laughter for the exit of the coward. Interest had been too suddenly arrested and concentrated upon this new arrival, and his singularly bold speech to so famous a warrior as Slade Bennett.

“You . . . Speedy . . . eh?” muttered Bennett in surprised tones. His eyes worked an instant as his thought and desire struggled within him. It was only a split part of a second that separated him from the drawing of his gun, but Speedy's mysterious hands were still closer than that. Too many legends had been told about their works of wonder; one of those works, Slade Bennett had seen.