“Suppose you had lost in that card cutting?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Either man would have given me enough to
keep the girl in school. You don’t understand. I am desperate. Our house
has been destroyed, our barn, our hay. Our stock has been run off. I’m
out of possession of the property, and have no money to pay the
lawyers—and I am fighting unlimited capital.”
There was nothing in her tone which suggested a plea for sympathy.
Merely she reported facts.
“And can I be of some assistance?” I asked, more to see what her reply
would be than otherwise. My own mind was already made up. From what I
had seen and heard of some of the actors in this land piracy, Fate was,
indeed, tired of many of the residents of Caliente Valley.
She shook her head emphatically. “I have nothing to offer by way of pay,
and I would not neither ask for, nor accept your aid otherwise. Now
let’s talk of something else; one would think that mine were the only
troubles in the world.”
With that she commenced to talk of books, seeking with almost childish
eagerness to learn what I knew of them. As it happens, books are my one
source of recreation, one friend that I can confide in and take with me.
In my saddlebag I always have one or more books, sent me by mail,
carried with me to read on the long trails, about my camp fires on the
desert. An education is at once a privilege and a curse. I, too, have
been through the best of the Eastern colleges, and my mind cannot remain
inactive, cannot hibernate within a shell. On my travels I must have
something with which to occupy my mind.
For an hour the girl talked, and in her eagerness actually forgot her
troubles. It was not until she mentioned the wonderful collection of
books in her library that her eyes suddenly clouded and her mouth took
on that woodenish, expressionless look—and then I knew that her library
had been destroyed in the fire.
She had been eating as she talked, and Wing Lee’s face beamed approval
as he brought in a dessert.
“Thing be allee light now,” he said, confidently; and, even as he spoke,
my ears caught the stealthy creak of footsteps along the floor behind
him.
I was on my feet, my hands ready to drop to my guns by the time the huge
figure hulked in the doorway. It was the heavy-set man with the seamed
face and cunning eyes, and there was an oily smirk upon his evil
countenance.
“Yuh craved some action with the card cuttin’ out at the ranch, Miss
Bevans, an’ the boss has decided to give it to yuh. He’s squeezed
himself into a buckboard, an’ come in. He’ll meet yuh at the Green
Leaf.”
I held no love for Bob Carstairs, and I felt that I would have something
to say to him shortly, so I advanced slightly, getting my eyes where he
could not avoid them. A shapely hand pressed my arm, however, and the
words which were on my lips never came.
“Never mind, Mr. Barr. It is the best way after all. I will get it over
with, one way or another. Let’s go.”
And, hearing those words, Bob Carstairs stood not upon the order of his
departure, but shambled swiftly and awkwardly out of the place, like a
great bear shuffling down the side of a mountain. It was that very
haste, that cunning leer of his face which gave me concern, but there
was no chance to talk to the girl. She was tripping out of the room with
the lithe grace of a panther. I followed.
Without, there could be discerned the vague form of a buckboard,
illuminated by the light of the stars and the reddish gleam which came
from the window of the restaurant. Within the buckboard, pressing it
down until the springs seemed entirely flattened, the huge bulk that sat
in the driver’s seat leered out at us with oily triumph. Ed Boswell
seemed even fatter than when I had seen him at the ranch. His hairy
hands held the reins; his great weight careened the buckboard well to
one side, and his greasy countenance essayed a lardy smile as he chirped
to the horses and started slowly toward the Green Leaf, one of the
popular gambling halls of the little place.
On either side was his bodyguard, splendidly mounted on spirited horses.
Their hands fluttered about the butts of their guns, and their eyes were
ever on me. Half a block behind, there bulked the dark forms of many
horsemen. It had all the earmarks of a fight, and I swung to the saddle
of my black and followed down to the Green Leaf with the corners of my
mouth commencing to twitch with nervous rage.
Somehow word seemed to have reached the gambling place of the event that
was to take place, for men were gathered on either side of the door,
forming a living lane down which the principal actors in the drama went
their way.
The girl stepped quickly, gracefully, with impassive face, dainty ankles
and easy carriage. Five men helped the huge bulk of Ed Boswell, owner of
the Half Box, from the buckboard, and he wheezed and waddled into the
room, his face wreathed with exultation. Bob Carstairs shambled along
behind, seeming almost dwarfed behind the huge carcass of his master.
Then the others hung slightly back, and I was the next to enter the
room, my guns swinging, and my eyes continually watching the gunmen who
escorted me on either side, the bodyguard of Ed Boswell, paid killers,
who had been instructed as to their duties, and there could be but
little doubt as to what those instructions had been. They never took
their eyes from my hands, or their own hands from their guns. They were
watching, waiting.
The girl and Boswell sat at a vacant card table, and Boswell’s thick,
puffy fingers shuffled a deck of cards, while his eyes rested hungrily
on the girl’s face. At one side there reposed a long, legal-looking
document.
“Here’s the cards, and here’s a quitclaim deed to the homestead,” he
wheezed, his eyes fixed intently upon the girl. “We cut the cards. If
I’m low you take the deed. If I’m high I take you.”
The girl nodded, her face coppery in its impassivity, her eyes fixed on
the fat hands that shuffled the cards.
I could not see more. I dared not let these paid killers get at my back,
and it was necessary for me to work back against the wall. Here I stood
on a chair and could catch glimpses of the tables, the cards, the faces
of the two players. Before me, their eyes continually upon me, watching
every motion, were the two killers, and several of the cowpunchers
loitered about in significant attitudes, their hands on their guns,
their eyes and attention only half occupied by the action at the table.
They outnumbered me fifteen to one, and they were ready for me.
The oily, hairy hands fumbled with the cards, picking one from the very
top of the deck. It was the ten of clubs.
A tense sigh ran around that room like a breath of wind rustling through
dry sage; and then the slender arm of the girl came into view. Her
well-formed fingers spread out the other cards in the deck and picked
one from well toward the bottom.
She pulled the card back, away from the deck, face down, and hesitated a
moment before she turned it.
“If it is lower than the ten you get me. If it is higher I get the
deed,” she said, as though she feared some trickery.
Boswell wrinkled his fat neck in what was meant for a nod, but his eyes
never left the girl’s face.
There was something uncanny about the power of the man. It was his eyes
that gave the impression. They were as steady as a rock, as keen as an
eagle’s, as remorseless as a cat’s, and they surmounted great puffs of
baggy flesh which seemed somehow out of place beneath the piercing
immobility of those steady eyes.
The girl slowly flipped the card—A nine of diamonds!
Instantly there became apparent a swift tension about the room. Men
seemed frozen into rigid suspense. Only at the back of the table was
there a commotion. A commotion where a yellow face with beady,
glittering eyes swirled through a sea of faces.
It was the voice of the girl, calm, steady, self-contained which stopped
him, which held me.
“Wing Lee, stop!” she commanded. “You and Barr will both remain quiet. I
have gambled and I have lost.”
I thrilled to think that she had mentioned my name, that she had known
me well enough, even in the brief time of our acquaintance, to be sure
that I stood ready to help her, to back whatever play she might make.
But she would have none of it.
“I have lost, and I will pay,” she repeated, standing as a queen might
stand. “If I am not given a chance to pay my honest debt, if you seek to
thwart me, I will kill myself. Rather death than the feeling that I
gambled in a one-sided game where I might win but could not lose.”
She meant it, this girl who had descended from the most ancient race in
America. In her veins flowed the blood of proud chieftans, men who had
unflinchingly stood at the stake and watched burning splinters of pine
eat into their bleeding flesh. Not one whimper would ever escape her.
She had staked her all on a cut of the cards and had lost—and she would
play the game.
Swiftly, she made for the door, climbed into the buckboard and called to
Boswell. “I am ready. Hurry!”
He could not hurry, but he appreciated the danger of the moment, knew
the necessity for getting away with his prize, and he did the best he
could. The floor bent and sagged beneath the great weight of the man as
his fat legs took short steps, his weight balanced by an arm on the
shoulder of a cowpuncher who stood on either side.
All of the time the killers stood, watching me, tense, ready; and my
hand was stayed, stayed by the words of the girl.
There came a great commotion from without, the creaking of springs, the
grunts of laboring men, and Ed Boswell was in the buckboard with his
prize. There came the sound of a spoken command to the horses, the
rattle of wheels, and they drove off into the night, escorted by a
half-circle of cowpunchers, an armed guard that protected the rear.
I sighed, got down from my chair and walked past the two killers who
still watched me, walked to the card table, and reached for the deck of
cards that still remained scattered over the green cloth, all but two of
the cards face down, the winning ten and the fatal nine showing with
faces up.
“Don’t touch those cards.”
The words were those of Bob Carstairs, and there was a certain tension
in his tone which convinced me he had remained behind for a
purpose—probably to pick a fight with me, a fight in which his two
killers could effectively dispose of me. Very well, it would be a
showdown.
I straightened, my hands dropping, my mouth commencing to writhe and
twist in its deadly smile.
“And why not?”
“Boswell wants ’em. He told me to bring them out to the ranch. He wants
’em for a souvenir.”
“Tell Ed Boswell that I also desired them as a souvenir, and that _I_
got them,” I said, and again reached for the pack, but this time I
reached with my left hand. My right remained near my holster.
There was a tense silence, a moment of hesitating uncertainty. The
killers flickered their eyes anxiously at Bob Carstairs, waiting for
orders, and Bob Carstairs flecked his lips with his tongue, and
refrained from giving the signal that would have turned the gambling
room into a shambles.
It is not often that I am surprised, but this was one of the times. I
had confidently expected that the men would start shooting as I reached
for the cards. I knew that Ed Boswell had left his bodyguard of killers
behind for but one purpose, to finish me. Why then didn’t they do it?
Why overlook such an opportunity?
I could not reason out the answer, but put the deck of cards in my coat
pocket, and backed to the crude bar which ran the length of the room on
one side, my hands still ready, mouth still twitching.
Slowly, a bit at a time, by imperceptible degrees, the tension relaxed.
Spectators left their places along the walls to advance cautiously
toward the center of the room. A cowpuncher ordered a drink. Somewhere a
chair scraped. There came the rattle of chips, and a poker game started,
slowly, stiffly at first, but gradually getting more into the swing of
accustomed usage.
Carstairs and his killers still remained in the room, gravitating toward
each other, getting sufficiently close so that the gunmen could hear the
whisper which came from Carstairs’s lips. I could see the thick lips
move, but could not catch the words, even though I knew their import.
Those words were my death warrant, some instructions which would have to
do with concerted action, with a swift rush for guns when I was off my
guard.... Bah! The man was obvious, as transparent as a window pane, and
yet—why did he not do something? Why had he let me get that deck of
cards? Why had he not started to shoot it out when I had one hand busy
gathering up the pasteboards?
Half an hour passed, a tense half hour while the killers watched and I
waited. Perhaps it was their intention to wait until all of the
witnesses would have their eyes elsewhere; perhaps they were seeking to
have me relax, to catch me off my guard. Perhaps, after all, they had
been instructed not to start things, but merely to watch and make sure I
did not follow the buckboard.
And then, suddenly, a suspicion crossed my mind. Were they afraid to
shoot while I was gathering those cards because they dared not let the
spectators see those cards? If I were shot, or if I killed them, either
way, there would be a rush of spectators and the cards would be still on
the table. Mentally, I kicked myself for not having thought of it
sooner.
That would answer everything. It would even explain their present
inactivity. They were afraid to pick a fight, to kill me, knowing that
the deck of cards would be found on my body.
I kept my eyes on them, dropped one hand to my coat pocket, took out the
cards, and riffled through the corners of the deck while the pack was
still half in my coat.
I should have known. Fat Ed Boswell gambled only with certainties, took
no chances. The deck was a phony one. There was only one high card in
it, the ten. The rest of the cards were nines, eights, sevens, sixes, on
down to deuces. The girl had walked into a trap. In the tension of that
moment no one had thought of the cards. The demeanor of the actors of
the drama, the momentous possibilities of the occasion had engrossed the
attention of every one. Boswell had managed to keep his high card on the
top of the deck throughout his shuffle, and the girl had stood no
chance.
Cold rage flowed through my veins, and my mouth felt like a snake
crawling over my face. Bob Carstairs’s horrified eyes read the
expression rightly, knew that I had peeked at the deck, had solved the
mystery of the cut cards.
He coughed, a wheezy, spasmodic cough—and that cough was a signal.
They were quick, those gunmen, but I had little attention for them. My
own moves had already been planned. They swept into action with absolute
unison, the swift rhythm which is the criterion of gunfighters the West
over, but they were too slow. In the first place I had read decision in
the eyes of Bob Carstairs even before the sound of that cough had
penetrated to the consciousness of the killers.
My guns were coming from their holsters before the first sputter of that
cough had emanated from the thick lips of the plotter, and my shots
went, not for the paid gunmen, but for the lights.
There were two lanterns, burning with a filament, and they were placed
on either wall. My first two bullets made dead center shots and plunged
the place in total darkness; but even as I pulled the triggers I could
see the guns of the killers coming out, could see even Bob Carstairs
himself tugging at a gun which he carried in a holster, back of his fat
hip. He was unbelievably awkward as he sought to twist his huge body
about and get at that weapon.
However, I had no time to waste on revenge. Somewhere in the night the
proud girl had gone forth to ally herself to the slimy beast who had
tricked her into submission. My first work was to be done there, and I
must escape from that gambling hall, from the watchful eyes of the two
guards if I were going to be of any assistance to the girl.
With the darkness came the flashing of guns, the crash of bullets, the
acrid fumes of powder, nor was I at any pains this time not to return
the fire. I shot at the flashes as well as I was able, kept my guns
blazing so that the innocent bystanders would fall back, hug the floor
and keep out of my way.
I gained the welcome freshness of the star-studded night, vaulted into
the saddle of my snorting black, and reloaded my guns as I galloped away
into the darkness, following the trail to the Half Box ranch.
Behind me came a thundering mass of horseflesh, a jumble of pursuing
men. I could hear hoarse shouts, curses, the rattle of pistols, the
whizzing of bullets.
I bent low and spoke to the black. We would be at the ranch well in
advance of those who pursued. The black had never failed me, nor would
he now. I could feel the bunching of his muscles beneath the creaking
saddle, the snap of his stride, the ripple of smooth action, and the
desert beneath me swept past in a white blur.
I wasted no time firing at my pursuers, but helped my horse by sitting
low, quietly, balanced in the saddle. At high speed the faintest
suggestion of motion of the rider will throw the horse out of balance
just enough to interfere slightly with his stride, and I was measuring
my plan for future activity in seconds, in fractions of seconds.
Slowly, I drew away from my pursuers. The firing behind me ceased, and
there was no sound to reach my ears save the drumming of the hoofs of
the black as he thundered his way across the floor of the elevated
valley. Ahead there flickered a faint light—a light which showed redly
for a minute and then was gone. Again it showed, then glowed steadily,
becoming momentarily brighter. Other lights appeared—the Half Box
outfit.
I checked the horse I was riding, checked him to a trot, a swift, silent
walk, led him from the main trail to the shelter of a barn, left him in
the dark shadows, the reins twisted over the horn of the saddle. He
understood, this black horse, and he would wait there for my whistle,
and then come to me.
Perhaps it was instinct which led me to the dark window at the rear of
the ranch-house, perhaps it was sheer luck. It might have been either.
I slipped through the dark oblong, into the musty mystery of a strange
room. The house seemed strangely silent, a silence which suddenly
savored of a trap, a trap which was baited, set, ready to spring. My
hands dropped to my sides, ready to jerk out my guns, and I stood,
poised, tense, balanced on the balls of my feet, waiting.
Still there was no sound. The velvety blackness of the house seemed
something tangible, a cloak that could be touched, that closed in upon
me, oppressive, heavy, stifling. There was none of those faint creaks
which come to deserted houses at night, none of those settling noises
which, while at first startling the senses, nevertheless lend a
comforting feeling of physical contact with the walls and floors.
I tiptoed across the room, toward the faintest possible thread of light
which seemed to indicate a door. My hand groped along the wall, the
rasping of the fingertips seeming magnified a thousand-fold, and then my
fingers closed on the knob of the door.
From without came the sound of galloping hoofs. There was a shout, a
welcoming hail, a medley of excited questions and answers, and then the
rhythmic pulsations of the thundering hoofbeats of running horses broke
up into a series of irregular ruddy-tud-thuds as horses were drawn up
and riders leapt to the ground. There was no time to be lost if I would
be of any service to the girl, and I threw open the door.
A surprise awaited me. My senses had not been in error after all. That
intuitive warning which had mentioned a trap to my unheeding mind had
been no idle worry of strained nerves. They were waiting for me, and
there was a smile upon the flabby lips of Ed Boswell as he looked at the
door, his eyes gleaming as cold and compassionless as ever, his hands
folded in his lap, the flesh billowing in greasy folds over his immobile
face. On either side of him stood his bodyguard, and their hands were on
their guns, their eyes also on the door.
They had left that window open as a trap, and I had walked into it.
Mattie Bevans stood to one side, her hand at her breast, her eyes wide,
but there was none of the helpless doll about her. Her lips were firm,
her chin up in the air and her eyes steady.
“Ah, yes, Black Barr, himself,” piped Boswell. “You have just broken and
entered, and I shall be compelled to turn you over to the authorities
for imprisonment. I thought that _perhaps_ you would take advantage of
that open window. It leads directly into the outer room of my study, you
see. And, of course, I would not want any visitor to call and find me
remiss in my duties as host.”
In a strained, detached, impersonal tone, the girl spoke to me.
“Mr. Barr, you apparently do not understand that I have made a choice of
my own free will. You have mentioned Fate. Surely Fate has willed that I
should solve my problems in this way—and I have given my word to Mr.
Boswell.”
I noticed then that the big man was fingering the quitclaim deed, that
he had taken it from his pocket and was twirling it in his fingers. It
was as though he tried to impress upon the girl that she had gambled,
that she had cut cards with Fate, and that she had lost.
I had need of my hands near my guns at that moment, but I risked a
bullet to make a spectacular play. My hand pulled the cards from my
pocket and spread them, face upward, on the table.
“Perhaps before you question the wisdom of Fate you should see just how
far her decision had been anticipated,” I said, shortly. “This is the
deck which Boswell shuffled and gave you to cut.”
Her eyes looked at the cards, and the coppery tinge of her cheeks became
more pronounced. Her face remained firm, calm, expressionless, but her
eyes seemed to be covered with a film of black fire. Quick as a panther,
as accurately as a hawk, she swooped forward, and her hand darted toward
the bosom of her dress.
As though the motion had been a signal, the guards stiffened, and, at
that moment, there came the sounds of heavy feet on the wooden porch, a
clamoring of many voices as the front door swung open.
They started for their guns at the same time, those guards. They had
caught, and correctly interpreted, the twisting, writhing smile which
distorted my features.
They were quick, these men, but not quick enough. My hands seemed
literally to fly through the air, and I could feel the jarring recoil of
my heavy weapons even before I fully realized that my wrists had jerked
the muzzles free from the holsters. In my draw I never pause for aim,
never seek to raise my arms. My hands drop to my guns, and I am pulling
back the hammers even as I pull the guns. The trigger is held against
the guard, and such aiming as I do is done in that infinitesimal, split
fraction of a heartbeat during which the hammer is descending upon the
firing cap of the shell. It is merely a flip of the wrist.
Four guns thundered, and to the ears of the uninitiated it would have
seemed that they roared their messages of death in unison; but the two
killers were dead when they fired. Two bullets had torn their black
hearts asunder, and they were falling as they discharged their weapons.
The girl, swift though she had been, still had her hand groping in the
bosom of her dress. The action she had seen had been the action of
trained men, killers against a killer, the pick of the Border ruffians
against one who had need of his skill for others besides himself.
And then there came a shout from the hallway.
The door stood open behind me, that door through which I had made my
way, and back of which I knew was an open window leading into the night.
I had no time to enjoy the expression of utter incredulity which pushed
its way to the surface of Ed Boswell’s face, fighting upward through the
folds of fat as a swimmer fights to the surface; had no time even to
estimate the strength of the force at the door. It was a time for
action, and quick action at that. I swept Mattie Bevans back into the
darkness of that room and slammed the door, nor was I a second too soon.
The warm, velvety darkness of the room closed about us, and then the
silence of the night was shattered by a burst of firing. Light trickled
into the room through jagged, splintered holes which appeared in the
door as by some magic.
Nor did I need to explain matters to the girl. She rushed for the oblong
of darkness which marked the star-studded location of the open window as
direct as though she had been a homing pigeon seeking the air. Together
we went through the opening, seemingly almost at the same instant, so
close was I upon her heels. Behind us came the pack. The door banged
open, and there sounded the shouts of men, the rattle of pistols, the
foul-mouthed curses of ruffians who saw their prey escaping; and,
through the open door, in that brief instant while I looked back, I
could catch a glimpse of Ed Boswell, sitting in that chair, held in one
position by the great billows of flesh which enveloped him, motionless
by his very weight, almost helpless, incapable of quick action.
Only for a second was the sight burnt in on my vision, and then I had
jerked my head down and to one side, and the darkness above was
punctuated by ruddy spurts of stabbing flame.
We made the corner of the porch, and the girl would have made a run for
it through the darkness, straight for the open, but I held her back.
There was no time for words, nor would I have wasted them on her. Ed
Boswell had held a quitclaim deed in his hairy, oily hand when the
action started, and I did not propose that he be left with it.
And, even at that, it was the best move. Twenty cowpunchers were on my
trail, were determined on having my life, and to rush out into the open
would have been to give them a certain, unbeatable advantage. By rushing
around the corner of the house, half doubling on our tracks, we were
able to baffle them, to start them running in several directions,
calling out in their confusion.
The girl was dressed in a dark suit, and never have I had occasion to be
more thankful for the dark garments which I habitually wear. There was
nothing to give them a clue, no fluttering, filmy veil to wave at them
as we rounded the corner, no billowy skirts to have revealed a flash of
white petticoat. Dark, silent, swift, we skirted the corner of the
house, my hand holding the arm of the girl in an iron grip.
Another spurt and another corner. The front steps loomed before us, and
they were deserted. All of the cowpunchers, like so many banded sheep,
had stampeded through the front door at the sound of the firing, had
gone into the room from which we had made our escape, had stumbled over
each other in making for the window.
To the surprise of the girl, I guided her up those steps and into the
house we had so lately quitted. Breathless, hurried, but determined, we
thrust our way into the study, and paused before the figure which hulked
in the chair.
On either side there lay the killers, the paid bodyguard who had
escorted the big man wherever he went, who had worked in shifts, two on
and two off. Two of the killers had accompanied him to town and been
left behind to account for me; these two had remained, to watch their
master when he returned with his prize, and these two had paid the
penalty for their part in the affair. They sprawled in the awkward
postures of men who have met death suddenly and unexpectedly.
Ed Boswell hulked in his chair, absolutely immobile, his eyes wide and
staring straight ahead, his hands resting on his lap.
“The deed!” I ordered, turning one of my guns toward his fat stomach.
He neither moved nor answered, but sat rigid, ignoring my presence and
my summons, his putty-like face a sickly hue, his lips slightly blued,
his eyes seemingly somewhat filmed, but steady.
And then something caught my attention. It was a trickle of red, and it
drew my eye at the same time my forehead puckered in bewilderment over
his strange calm, his placid self-possession.
I bent forward and looked again. The handle of a knife protruded from
his chest, over the heart, and the handle was almost buried in the
sagging folds of fat. A long knife it was, and it had penetrated neatly
and cleanly at the first thrust. The man was stone dead.