"I'M GOING TO TAKE YOU OUT AND HANG YOU"
The trouble with a man like Buck Olney is that you can never be sure of
his method, except that it will be underhand and calculated to
eliminate as much as possible any risk to himself. Ward, casting back
into his memory--he had known Buck Olney very well, once upon a time,
and in his unsuspecting youth had counted him a friend--tried to guess
how Buck would proceed when he went down to that corral and found how
those brands had been retouched.
"He'll be running around in circles for awhile, all right," he deduced
with an air of certainty. "Blotched brands he'd know was my work; and
he could have put it on me, too, with a good yarn about trailing me so
close I got cold feet. As it is--" Ward smoked two cigarettes and
scowled at the scenery. As it was, he did not know just what Buck
Olney would do, except-- "If he makes a guess I did that, he'll know
I'm wise to the whole plant. And he'll get me, sure, providing I stand
with my back to him long enough!" Ward had his back to a high ledge,
at that moment, so that he did not experience any impulse to look
behind him.
"Buck don't want to drag me up before a jury," he reasoned further.
"He'd a heap rather pack me in all wrapped up in a tarp, and say how
he'd caught me with the goods, and I resisted arrest."
The assurance he felt as to what Buck Olney would do did not
particularly frighten Ward, even if he did neglect to go to bed in his
cabin during the next few days. That was common sense, born of his
knowledge of the man he was dealing with. He went to the cabin warily,
just often enough to give it an air of occupancy. He frequently sat
upon some hilltop and watched a lazy thread of smoke weave upward from
his rusty stovepipe, but he slept out under the stars rolled in his
heavy blanket, and he never crossed a ridge if he could make his way
through a hollow. It is not always cowardice which makes a man
extremely careful not to fall into the hands of his enemy. There is a
small matter of pride involved. Ward would have died almost any death
rather than give Buck Olney the satisfaction of "getting" him. For a
few days he was cautious as an Indian on the war trail, and then his
patience frazzled out under the strain.
At sunrise one morning, after a night of shivering in his blanket, he
hunched his shoulders in disgust of his caution. If Buck Olney wanted
anything of him, he was certainly taking his time about coming after
it. Ward rubbed his fingers over his stubbly jaw, and the
uncomfortable prickling was the last small detail of discomfort that
decided him. He was going to have a shave and a decent cup of coffee
and eat off his own table, or know the reason why, he promised himself
while he slapped the saddle on Rattler.
He was camped in a sheltered little hollow in the hills, where the
grass was good and there was a spring. It was a mile and more to his
claim, straight across the upland, and it was his habit to leave
Rattler there and walk over to the ridge, where he could watch his
claim; frequently, as I have said, he stole down before daylight and
lighted a fire in the stove, just to make it look as if he lived there.
There was a risk in that, of course, granting that the stock inspector
was the kind to lie in wait for him.
Ward rode to the ridge, with his blanket rolled and tied behind the
cantle. His frying-pan hung behind his leg, and his rifle lay across
the saddle in front of him. He was going home boldly enough and
recklessly enough, but he was by no means disposed to walk deliberately
into a trap. He kept his eye peeled, as he would have expressed it.
Also, he left Rattler just under the crest of the ridge, took off his
spurs, and with his rifle in his hands went forward afoot, as he had
done every time he had approached his cabin since the day he found the
corral and the cattle in the canyon.
In this wise he looked down the steep slope with the sun throwing the
shadow of his head and shoulders before him. The cabin window blinked
cheerfully in the sunlight. His span of mares were coming up from the
meadow--in the faint hope of getting a breakfast of oats, perhaps. The
place looked peaceful enough and cozily desirable to a man who has
slept out for four nights late in the fall; but a glance was all Ward
gave to it.
His eyes searched the bluff below him and upon either side. Of a
sudden they sharpened. He brought his rifle forward with an
involuntary motion of the arms. He stood so for a breath or two,
looking down the hill. Then he went forward stealthily, on his toes;
swiftly, too, so that presently he was close enough to see the
carbuncle scar on the neck of the man crouched behind a rock and
watching the cabin as a cat watches a mouse-hole. A rifle lay across
the rock before the man, the muzzle pointing downward. At that
distance, and from a dead rest, it would be strange if he should miss
any object he shot at. He had what gamblers call a cinch, or he would
have had, if the man he watched for had not been standing directly
behind him, with rifle-sights in a line with the scar on the back of
his thick neck.
"Throw up your hands!" Ward called sharply, when his first flare of
rage had cooled to steady purpose.
Buck Olney jumped as though a yellow-jacket had stung him. He turned a
startled face over his shoulder and jerked the rifle up from the rock.
Ward raised his sights a little and plugged a round, black-rimmed hole
through Buck's hat crown.
"Throw up your hands, I told you!" he said, while the hills opposite
were still flinging back the sound of the shot, and came closer.
Buck grunted an oath, dropped the rifle so suddenly that it clattered
on the rock, and lifted his hands high, in the quiet sunlight.
"Get up from there and go on down to the shack--and keep your hands up.
And remember all the reasons I've got for wanting to see you make a
crooked move, so I'll have an excuse to shoot." Ward came still closer
as he spoke. He was wishing he had brought his rope along. He did not
feel quite easy in his mind while Buck Olney's hands were free. He
kept thinking of what Billy Louise had said to him about shooting this
man, and it was the first time since he had known her that he disliked
the thought of her.
Buck got up awkwardly and went stumbling down the steep slope, with his
hands trembling in the air upon either side of his head. From their
nervous quivering it was evident that his memory was good, and that it
was working upon the subject which Ward had suggested to him. He did
not give Ward the weakest imitation of an excuse to shoot. And so the
two of them came presently down upon the level and passed around the
cabin to the door, with no more than ten feet of space between them--so
inexorably had Ward crowded close upon the other's stumbling progress.
"Hold on a minute!"
Buck stopped as still as though he had gone against a rock wall.
Ward came closer, and Buck flinched away from the feel of the rifle
muzzle between his shoulder blades. Ward reached out a cautious hand
and pulled the six-shooter from its scabbard at Buck's right hip.
"Got a knife? You always used to go heeled with one. Speak up--and
don't lie about it."
"Inside my coat," grunted Buck, and Ward's lip curled while he reached
around the man's bulky body and found the knife in its leather sheath.
Evidently Buck was still remembering with disquieting exactness what
reasons Ward might have for wanting to kill him.
"Take down your left hand and open the door."
Buck did so and put his hand up again without being told.
"Now go in and stand with your face to the wall." With the rifle
muzzle, Ward indicated which wall. He noticed how Buck's fingers
groped and trembled against the wall, just under the eaves, and his lip
curled again in the expression which Billy Louise so hated to see.
Ward had chosen the spot where he could reach easily a small coil of
rope. He kept the rifle pressing Buck's shoulders until he had shifted
the knife into one hand, leaned, and laid its blade against Buck's
cheek.
"Feel that? I'll jab it clear through you if you give me a chance.
Drop your hands down behind you." He spent a busy minute with the rope
before he pushed Buck Olney roughly toward a chair.
Buck sat down, and Ward did a little more rope-work.
"Say, Ward, you're making a big mistake if you--"
"Shut up!" snapped Ward. "Can't you see I'm standing all I can stand,
just with the sight of you? Don't pile it on too thick by letting me
hear you talk. I heard you once too often as it is."
Buck Olney caught his breath and sat very still. His eyes followed
Ward as the eyes of a caged animal follow its keeper.
Ward tried to ignore his presence completely while he lighted a fire
and fried bacon and made coffee, but the hard set of his jaw and the
cold intentness of his eyes proved how conscious he was of Buck's
presence. He tried to eat just to show how calm he was, but the bread
and bacon choked him. He could feel every nerve in his body quiver
with the hatred he felt for the man, and the bitterness which the sight
of him called up out of the past. He drank four cups of coffee, black
and sweetened at random, which steadied him a little. That he did not
offer Buck food or drink showed how intense was his hatred; as a rule,
your true range man is hospitable even to his enemies.
He rose and inspected the ropes to make sure that they were proof
against twisting, straining muscles, and took an extra turn or two with
the loose end, just to make doubly sure of the man's helplessness.
"Where did you leave your horse?" he asked him curtly, when he was
through.
Buck told him, his eyes searching Ward's face for mercy--or at least
for some clew to his fate--and dulling with disappointment because he
could read nothing there but loathing.
Without speaking again, Ward went out and closed the door firmly behind
him. He felt relieved to be away from Buck's presence. As he climbed
the bluff and mentally relived the last hour, he wondered how he had
kept from shooting Buck as soon as he saw him. Still, that would have
defeated his main purpose, which was to make Buck suffer. He was
afraid he could not make Buck suffer as Buck had made him suffer,
because there were obstacles in the path of a perfect retribution.
Ward was not cruel by nature; at least he was not more cruel than the
rest of us; but as he went after Rattler and Buck's horse, it pleased
him to know that Buck Olney was tied hand and foot in his cabin, and
that he was sick with dread of what the future held for him.
Ward was gone an hour. He did not hurry; there was no need. Buck
could not get away, and a little suspense would do him good.
Buck's face was pasty when Ward opened the door. His eyes were a bit
glassy. And from the congested appearance of his hands, Ward judged
that he had tested to the full his helplessness in his bonds. Ward
looked at him a minute and got out the makings of a smoke. His mood
had changed in his absence. He no longer wanted absolute silence
between them; instead, he showed symptoms of wanting to talk.
"If I turn you loose, Buck, what will you do?" he asked at last, in a
curious tone.
"If you--Ward, I'll prove I'm a friend to yuh in spite of the idea
you've got that I ain't. I never done nothing--"
"No, of course not." Ward's lip curled. "That was my mistake, maybe.
You always used to say you were my friend, when--"
"And that's the God's truth, Ward!" Buck's face was becoming flushed
with his eagerness. "I done everything I could for you, Ward, but the
way the cards laid I couldn't--"
"Get me hanged. I know; you sure tried hard enough!" Ward puffed hard
at his cigarette, and the lips that held it trembled a little.
Otherwise he seemed perfectly cool and calm.
"Say, Ward, them lawyers lied to you."
"Oh, cut it out, Buck. I've seen you wriggle through a snake-hole
before. I believe you're my friend, just the way you've always been."
"That's right, Ward, and I can prove it."
Ward snorted. "You proved it, old-timer, when you laid up there behind
a rock with your sights on this shack, ready to get me when I came out.
I sabe now how it happened Jim McGuire was found face down in the
spring behind his shack, with a bullet hole in his back, that time.
You were his friend, too!"
"Ward, I--"
"Shut up. I just wanted to see if you'd changed any in the last seven
years. You haven't, unless it's for the worse. You've got to the end
of the trail, old-timer. When you went laying for me, you fixed
yourself a-plenty. Do you want to know what I'm going to do with you?"
"Ward, you wouldn't dare shoot me! With the record you've got, you
wouldn't stand--"
"Who gave it to me, huh? Oh, I heap sabe; you've left word with your
pardners that you were coming up here to arrest me single-handed. They
will give the alarm, if you don't show up; and I'll go on the dodge and
get caught and--" Ward threw away his cigarette and took a step toward
his captive; a step so ominous that Buck squirmed in his bonds.
"Well, you can rest easy on one point. I'm not going to shoot you."
Ward stood still and watched the light of hope flare in the eyes of his
enemy. "I'm going to wash the dishes and take a shave--and then I'm
going to take you out somewhere and hang you."
"My God, Ward! You--you--"
"I told you, seven years ago," went on Ward steadily, "that I'd see you
hung before I was through with you. Remember? By rights you ought to
hang by the heels, over a slow fire! You're about as low a specimen of
humanity as I ever saw or heard of. You know what you did for me,
Buck. And you know what I told you would happen; well, it's going to
come off according to the programme.
"I did think of running you in and giving you a taste of hell yourself.
But, as usual, you've gone and tangled up a couple of fellows that
never did me any particular harm and I don't want to hand them anything
if I can help it. So I'll just string you up--after awhile, when I get
around to it--and leave a note saying who you are, and that you're the
head push in this rustling business, and that you helped spend the
money that Hardup bank lost awhile back; and that you're one of the
gazabos--"
"You can't prove it! You--"
"I don't have to prove it. The authorities will do all that when they
get the tip I'll give them. And you, being hung up on a limb
somewhere, can't very well give your pardner the double-cross; so
they'll have a fighting chance to make their getaway.
"Now I'm through talking to you. What I say goes. You can talk if you
want to, Buck; but I'm going to carve a steak out of you every time you
open your mouth." He pulled Buck's own knife out of its sheath and
laid it convenient to his hand, and he looked as if he would do any
cruel thing he threatened.
He relighted the fire, which had gone out long ago, and set the
dish-pan on the stove with water to heat. He remade his bunk,
spreading on the army blanket which he took from the saddle on Rattler.
He swept the floor as neatly as any woman could have done it and laid
the two wolf-skins down in their places where they did duty as rugs.
He washed and wiped his few dishes, keeping Buck's knife always within
reach and sending an inquiring glance toward Buck whenever that unhappy
man made the slightest movement, though truth to tell, Buck did not
make many. He brought two pails of water and set them on the bench
inside, and in the meantime he had cooked a mess of prunes and set them
in a bowl on the window-sill beside his bunk, where the air was
coolest. He stropped his razor painstakingly and shaved himself in
leisurely fashion and sent an occasional glance toward his prisoner
from the looking-glass, which made Buck swallow hard at his Adam's
apple.
And Buck, during all this time, never once opened his lips, except to
lick his tongue across them, and never once took his eyes off Ward.
"I've sure put the fear of the Lord into you, haven't I, Buck?" Ward
observed maliciously, wiping a blob of hairy lather upon a page torn
from an old Sears-Roebuck catalogue. "I was kinda hoping you had more
nerve. I wanted to get a whack at you, just to prove I'm not joshing."
Buck swallowed again, but he made no reply.
Ward washed his face in a basin of steaming water, got a can of talcum
out of the dish cupboard, and took the soap-shine off his cheeks and
chin. He combed his hair before the little mirror--trying unavailingly
to take the wave out of it with water, and leaving it more crinkly over
his temples than it had been in the first place--and retied the
four-in-hand under the soft collar of his shirt.
"I wish you'd talk, Buck," he said, turning toward the other. He
looked very boyish and almost handsome, except for the expression of
his eyes, which gave Buck the shivers, and the set of his lips, which
was cruel. "I've read how the Chinks hand out what they call the
death-of-a-thousand-cuts; I was thinking I'd like to try it out on you.
But--oh, well, this is Friday. It may as well go as a hanging." He
made a poor job of his calm irony, but Buck was not in the mental
condition to be critical.
The main facts were sufficiently ominous to offset Ward's attempt at
facetiousness. Indeed, the very weakness of the attempt was in itself
ominous. Ward might try to be coldly malevolent, but the light that
burned in his eyes, and the rage that tightened his lips, gave the lie
to his forced composure.
He went out and led up the horses to the door. He came back and
started to untie Buck Olney's feet, then bethought him of the statement
he had promised to write. He got a magazine and tore out the
frontispiece--which, oddly enough, was a somber picture of Death
hovering with outstretched wings over a battlefield--and wrote several
lines in pencil on the back of it, where the paper was smooth and white.
"How's that?" he asked, holding up the paper so that Buck could read
what he had written. "I ain't in the mood to sit down and write a
whole book, so I had to boil down your pedigree. But that will do the
business all right, don't you think?"
Buck read with staring eyes, looked into Ward's face, and opened his
lips for protest or pleading. Then he followed Ward's glance to the
knife on the table and shut his mouth with a snap. Ward laughed
grimly, picked up the knife, and ran his thumb lightly over the edge to
test its keenness. "Put a fresh edge on it for me, huh?" he commented.
"Well, we may as well get started, I reckon. I'm getting almighty sick
of seeing you around."
He loosened the rope that hound Buck to the chair and stood scowling
down at him, drawing in a corner of his lip and biting it thoughtfully.
Then he took his revolver and held it in his left hand, while with his
right he undid the rope which hound Buck's hands.
"Stick your hands out in front of you," he commanded. "You'll have to
ride a ways; there isn't any gallows tree in walking distance."
"For God's sake, Ward!" Buck's voice was hoarse. The plea came out of
its own accord. He held his hands before him, however, and he made no
attempt to get out of the chair. He knew Ward could shoot all right
with his left hand, you see. He had watched him practice on tin cans,
long ago when the two were friends.
"You know what I told you," Ward reminded him grimly and took up the
knife with a deadly air that made the other suck in his breath. "Hold
still! I'm liable to cut your throat if I make a mislick."
Really, it was the way he did it that made it terrible. The thing
itself was nothing. He merely drew the back of the blade down
alongside Buck's ear, and permitted the point to scratch through the
skin barely enough to let out a thin trickle of blood. A pin would
have hurt worse. But Buck groaned and believed he had lost an ear. He
breathed in gasps, but did not say a word.
"Go ahead; talk all you want to, Buck," Ward invited, and wiped the
knife-blade on Buck's shoulder before he returned the weapon to its
sheath in his inside coat pocket.
Buck flinched from the touch and set his teeth. Ward tied his hands
before him and told him to get up and go out to his horse. Buck obeyed
with abject submissiveness, and Ward's lip curled again as he walked
behind him to the door. He had not the slightest twinge of pity for
the man. He was gloatingly glad that he could make him suffer, and he
inwardly cursed his own humanity for being so merciful. He ought to
have cut Buck's ear off slick and clean instead of making a bluff at
it, he told himself disgustedly. Buck deserved it and more.
He helped Buck into the saddle, took the short rope in his hands, and
hobbled Buck's feet under the horse, grasped the bridle-reins, and
mounted Rattler. Without a word he set off up the rough trail toward
Hardup, leading Buck's horse behind him.