The Max Brand Megapack (336 page)

A sort of pity for the big cowpuncher moved him. He knew that he and Quade and Lowrie deserved death in its most terrible form for their betrayal of Hal Sinclair in the desert; and nothing but fate, he was sure, could save him from the avenger. Fate, however, had definitely intervened. What save blind fate could have stepped into the mind of Sinclair and made him keep Cold Feet from the rope, when that hanging would have removed forever all suspicion that Sinclair himself had killed Quade?

Another man would have attributed both of those actions to common decency in Sinclair, but Sandersen always hunted out more profound reasons. In order to let the fact of his own salvation from Sinclair’s gun sink more definitely into his brain, he trotted his horse into the hills that afternoon. When he came back he heard that the posse was in town.

To another it might have seemed odd that the posse was there instead of on the trail of the outlaws. But Sandersen never thought of so practical a question. To him it was as clear as day. The posse had been brought to Sour Creek by fate in order that he, Sandersen, might enlist in its ranks and help in the great work of running down Sinclair, for, after all, it was work primarily to his own interest. There was something ironically absurd about it. He, Sandersen, having committed the mortal crime of abandoning Hal Sinclair in the desert, was now given the support of legal society to destroy the just avenger of that original crime. It was hardly any wonder that Sandersen saw in all this the hand of fate.

He went straight to the hotel and up to the room which the sheriff had engaged. Cartwright was coming out with a black face, as Sandersen entered. The former turned at the door and faced Kern and the four assistants of the sheriff.

“I’ll tell you what you’ll do, you wise gents,” he growled. “You’ll miss him altogether. You hear?”

And then he stamped down the hall.

Sandersen carefully removed his hat as he went in. He was quite aware that Cartwright must have been just refused a place on the posse, and he did not wish to appear too confident. He paid his compliments to the bunch, except Arizona, to whom he was introduced. The sheriff forestalled his request.

“You’ve come for a job in the posse, Bill?”

Hastily Sandersen cut in before the other should pronounce a final judgment.

“I don’t blame you for turning down Cartwright,” he said. “A gent like that who don’t know the country ain’t much use on the trail, eh?”

“The point is, Bill, that I got all the men I need. I don’t want a whole gang.”

“But I got a special reason, sheriff. Besides a tolerable fast hoss that might come in handy for a chase, I sling a tolerable fast gun, sheriff. But beyond that all, I got a grudge.”

“A grudge?” asked the sheriff, pricking his ears.

“So did Cartwright have a grudge,” cut in Arizona dryly.

Perhaps after all, Sandersen felt, fate might not be with him in this quest for Sinclair. He said earnestly: “You see, boys, it was me that raised the posse that run down Cold Feet in the first place. It was me that backed up Sinclair all the way through the trail, and I feel like some of the blame for what happened is coming to me. I want to square things up and get a chance at Sinclair. I want it mighty bad. You know me, Kern. Gimme a chance, will you?”

“Well, that sounds like reason,” admitted the sheriff. “Eh, boys?”

The posse nodded its general head, with the usual exception of Arizona, who seemed to take a particular pleasure in diverging from the judgments of the others.

“Just a minute, gents,” he said. “Don’t it strike you that they’s something the same with Cartwright and Sandersen? Both of ’em in particular anxious to cut in on this party; both of ’em has grudges. Cartwright said he didn’t want no share of the money if you caught Gaspar and Sinclair. Is that right for you, too, Sandersen?”

“It sure is. I want the fun, not the coin,” said Sandersen.

“Boys,” resumed Arizona, “it rounds up to this: Sinclair came down here to Sour Creek for a purpose.”

Sandersen began to listen intently. He even dreaded this fat man from the southland.

“I dunno what this purpose was,” went on Arizona, “but mostly when a gent like Sinclair makes a trip they’s a man at the far end of it—because this ain’t his range. Now, if it’s a man, why shouldn’t it be one of these two, Cartwright or Sandersen, who both pack a grudge against Sinclair? Sinclair is resting somewhere up yonder in them hills. I’m sure of that. He’s waiting there to get a chance to finish his business in Sour Creek, and that business is Cartwright or Sandersen, I dunno which. Now, I’m agin’ taking in Sandersen. When we’re private I’ll tell you my reason why.”

There was something of an insult in this speech and the tall man took instant offense.

“Partner,” he drawled, “it looks to me like them reasons could be spoke personal to me. Suppose you step outside and we talk shop?”

Arizona smiled. It took a man of some courage and standing to refuse such an invitation without losing caste. But for some reason Arizona was the last man in the world whom one could accuse of being a coward.

“Sandersen,” he said coldly, “I don’t mean to step on your toes. You may be as good a man as the next. The reasons that I got agin’ you ain’t personal whatever, which they’re things I got a right to think, me being an officer of the law for the time being. If you hold a grudge agin’ me for what I’ve said, you and me can talk it over after this here job’s done. Is that square?”

“I s’pose it’s got to be,” replied Sandersen. “Gents, does the word of your fat friend go here?”

Left to themselves, the posse probably would have refused Arizona’s advice on general principles, but Arizona did not leave them to themselves.

“Sure, my word goes,” he hastened to put in. “The sheriff and all of us work like a closed hand—all together!”

There was a subtle flattery about this that pleased the sheriff and the others.

“Reckoning it all in all,” said sheriff, “I think we better figure you out, Sandersen. Besides they ain’t anything to keep you and Cartwright and the rest from rigging up a little posse of your own. Sinclair is up yonder in the hill waiting—”

Suddenly he stopped. Sandersen was shaken as if by a violent ague, and his face lost all color, becoming a sickly white.

“And we’re going to find him by ourselves. S’long Sandersen, and thanks for dropping in. No hard feelings, mind!”

To this friendly dismissal Sandersen returned no answer. He turned away with a wide, staring eye, and went through the doorway like a man walking in a dream. Arizona was instantly on his feet.

“You see, boys?” he asked exultantly. “I was right. When you said Sinclair was waiting up there in the hills, Sandersen was scared. I was right. He’s one of them that Sinclair is after, and that’s why he wanted to throw in with us!”

“And why the devil shouldn’t he?” asked the sheriff.

“For a good reason, sheriff, reason that’ll save us a pile of riding. We’ll sit tight here in Sour Creek for a while and catch Sinclair right here. D’you know how? By watching Cartwright and Sandersen. As sure as they’s a sky over us, Sinclair is going to make a try at one of ’em. They both hate him. Well, you can lay to it that he hates ’em back. And a man that Sinclair hates he’s going to get sooner or later—chiefly sooner. Sheriff, keep an eye on them two tonight, and you’ll have Sinclair playing right into your hands!”

“Looks to me,” muttered Red Chalmers, “like you had a grudge agin’ Cartwright and Sandersen, using them for live bait and us for a trap.”

“Why not?” asked Arizona, sitting down and rubbing his fat hands, much pleased with himself. “Why not, I’d like to know?”

In the meantime Bill Sandersen had gone down to the street, still with the staring eyes of a sleep walker. It was evening, and from the open street he looked out and up to the mountains, growing blue and purple against the sky. He had heard Hal Sinclair talk about Riley and Riley’s love for the higher mountains. They were “his country.” And a great surety dropped upon him that the fat man of the posse had been right. Somewhere in those mountains Sinclair was lurking, ready for a descent upon Sour Creek.

Now Sandersen grew cold. All that was superstitious in his nature took him by the throat. The fate, which he had felt to be fighting with him, he now was equally sure was aligned against him. Otherwise, why had the posse refused to accept him as a member? For only one reason: He was doomed to die by the hand of Riley Sinclair, and then, no doubt, Riley Sinclair would fall in turn by the bullets of the posse.

The shadows were pouring out of the gorges of the western mountains, and night began to invade the hollow of Sour Creek. Every downward step of those shadows was to the feverish imagination of Sandersen a forecast of the coming of Sinclair—Sinclair coming in spite of the posse, in spite of the price upon his head.

In the few moments during which Sandersen remained in the street watching, the tumult grew in his mind. He was afraid. He was mortally in terror of something more than physical death, and, like the cornered rat, he felt a sudden urge to go out and meet the danger halfway. A dozen pictures came to him of Sinclair slipping into the town under cover of the night, of the stealthy approach, of the gunplay that would follow. Why not take the desperate chance of going out to find the assailant and take him by surprise instead?

The mountains—that was the country of Sinclair. Instinctively his eye fell and clung on the greatest height he could see, a flat-topped mountain due west of Sour Creek. Sandersen swung into his saddle and drove out of Sour Creek toward the goal and into the deepening gloom of the evening.

CHAPTER 22

In the darkness beneath the north windows of the hotel, Sinclair consulted his watch, holding it close until he could make out the dim position of the hands against the white dial. It was too early for Cartwright to be in bed, unless he were a very long sleeper. So Sinclair waited.

A continual danger lay beside him. The kitchen door constantly banged open and shut, as the Chinese cook trotted out and back, carrying scraps to the waste barrel, or bringing his new-washing tins to hang on a rack in the open air, a resource on which he was forced to fall back on account of his cramped quarters.

But the cook never left the bright shaft of light which fell through the doorway behind and above him, and consequently he could not see into the thick darkness where Sinclair crouched only a few yards away; and the cowpuncher remained moveless. From time to time he looked up, and still the windows were black.

After what seemed an eternity, there was a flicker, as when the wick of a lamp is lighted, and then a steady glow as the chimney was put on again. That glow brightened, decreased, became an unchanging light. The wick had been trimmed, and Cartwright was in for the evening.

However, the cook had not ceased his pilgrimages. At the very moment when Sinclair had straightened to attempt the climb up the side of the house, the cook came out and crouched on the upper step, humming a jangling tune and sucking audibly a long-stemmed pipe. The queer-smelling smoke drifted across to Sinclair; for a moment he was on the verge of attempting a quick leap and a tying and gagging of the Oriental, but he desisted.

Instead, Sinclair flattened himself against the wall and waited. Providence came to his assistance at that crisis. Someone called from the interior of the house. There was an odd-sounding exclamation from the cook, and then the latter jumped up and scurried inside, slamming the screen door behind him with a great racket.

Sinclair raised his head and surveyed the side of the wall for the last time. The sill of the window of the first floor was no higher than his shoulders. The eaves above that window projected well out, and they would afford an excellent hold by which he could swing himself up. But having swung up, the great problem was to obtain sufficient purchase for his knee to keep from sliding off before he had a chance to steady himself. Once on the ledge of those eaves, he could stand up and look through any one of the three windows into the room which, according to the boy, Cartwright occupied.

He lifted himself onto the sill of the first window, bumping his nose sharply against the pane of the glass.

Then began the more difficult task. He straightened and fixed his fingers firmly on the ledge above him, waiting until his palm and the fingertips had sweated into a steady grip. Then he stepped as far as possible to one side and sprang up with a great heave of the shoulders.

But the effort was too great. He not only flung himself far enough up, but too far, and his descending knee, striving for a hold, slipped off as if from an oiled surface. He came down with a jar, the full length of his arms, a fall that flung him down on his back on the ground.

With a stifled curse he leaped up again. It seemed that the noise of that fall must have resounded for a great distance, but, as he stood there listening, no one drew near. Someone came out of the front door of the hotel, laughing.

The cowpuncher tried again. He managed the first stage of the ascent, as before, very easily, but, making the second effort he exceeded too much in caution and fell short. However, the fall did not include a toppling all the way to the ground. His feet landed softly on the sill, and, at the same time, voices turned the corner of the building beside him. Sinclair flattened himself against the pane of the lower window and held his breath. Two men were beneath him. Their heads were level with his feet. He could have kicked the hats off their heads, without the slightest trouble.

It was a mystery that they did not see him, he thought, until he recalled that all men, at night, naturally face outward from a wall. It is an instinct. They stood close together, talking rather low. The one was fairly tall, and the other squat. The shorter man lighted a cigarette. The match light glinted on an oily, olive skin, and so much of the profile as he could see was faintly familiar. He sent his memory lurching back into far places and old times, but he had no nerve for reminiscence. He recalled himself to the danger of the moment and listened to them talking.

“What’s happened?” the taller man was saying.