A BRIBE AND A THREAT
Virginia Page found time passing swiftly in San Juan. Within two weeks
she came almost to forget how she had heard a rattle of pistol-shots,
how the slow sobbing of a bell in the Mission garden had bemoaned a
life gone and a fresh crime upon a man's soul; at the end of a month it
seemed to her that she had dreamed that ride through the night with
Roderick Norton, climbing the cliffs, ministering to a stricken man in
the forsaken abode of ancient cliff-dwellers. She was like one
marooned upon a tiny island in an immense sea who has experienced the
crisis of shipwreck and now finds existence suddenly resolved into a
quiet struggle for the maintenance of life . . . that and a placid
expectation. As another might have waited through the long, quiet
hours for the sign of a white sail or a black plume of smoke, so did
she wait for the end of a tale whose beginning had included her.
That the long days did not drag was due not so much to that which
happened about her, as to that which occurred within her. She carried
responsibility upon each shoulder; her life was in the shaping and she
and none other must make it what it would be; her brother's character
was at that unstable stage when it was ready to run into the mould.
She had brought him here, from the city to the rim of the desert--the
step had been her doing, nobody's but hers. And she had come here far
less for the sake of Elmer Page's cough than for the sake of his
manhood. She wanted him to grow to be a man one could be proud of;
there were times when his eyes evaded her and she feared the outcome.
"He is just a boy," she told herself, seeking courage. It seemed such
a brief time ago that she had blown his nose for him and washed his
face. She made excuses for him, but did not close her eyes to the
truth. The good old saw that boys will be boys failed to make of Elmer
all that she would have him.
Further to this consideration was another matter which filled the hours
for her. The few dollars with which she had established herself in San
Juan marched in steady procession out of her purse and fewer other
dollars came to take their places. The Indian Ramorez whose stomach
trouble she had mitigated came full of gratitude and Casa Blanca
whiskey and paid La Señorita Doctor as handsomely as he could; he gave
her his unlimited and eternal thanks and a very beautiful hair rope.
Neither helped her very greatly to pay for room and board. Another
Indian offered her a pair of chickens; a third paid her seventy-five
cents on account and promised the rest soon. When she came to know his
type better she realized that he had done exceptionally well by her.
She went often to the Engles', growing to love all three of them, each
in a different way. Florrie she found vain, spoiled, selfish, but all
in so frank a fashion that in return for an admittedly half-jealous
admiration she gave a genuine affection. And she was glad to see how
Elmer made friends with them, always appearing at his best in their
home. He and Florrie were already as intimate as though they had grown
up with a back-yard fence separating their two homes; they criticised
each other with terrible outspokenness, they made fun of each other,
they very frequently "hated and despised" each other and, utterly
unknown to either Florrie Engle or Elmer Page, were the best of friends.
Of Roderick Norton San Juan saw little through these weeks. He came
now and then, twice ate with Virginia and Elmer at Struve's, talked
seriously with John Engle, teased Florrie, and went away upon the
business which called him elsewhere. Upon one of these visits he told
Virginia that Brocky Lane was "on the mend" and would be as good as new
in a month; no other reference was made to her ride with him.
But through his visits to San Juan, brief and few though they were,
Roderick Norton was enabled to assure himself with his own eyes that
Kid Rickard was still to be found here if required, that Antone, as
usual, was behind the Casa Blanca bar; that Jim Galloway was biding his
time with no outward show of growing restless or impatient. Tom
Cutter, Norton's San Juan deputy, was a man to keep both eyes open, and
yet there were times when the sheriff was not content with another
man's vision.
Nor did the other towns of the county, scattered widely across the
desert, beyond the mountains and throughout the little valleys, see
much more of him. If a man wished word with Rod Norton these days his
best hope of finding him lay in going out to _el Rancho de las Flores_.
It was Norton's ranch, having been Billy Norton's before him, one of
the choice spots of the county bordering Las Cruces Rancho where Brocky
Lane was manager and foreman. Beyond the San Juan mountains it lay
across the head of one of the most fertile of the neighboring valleys,
the Big Water Creek giving it its greenness, its value, and the basis
for its name. Here for days at a time the sheriff could in part lay
aside the cares of his office, take the reins out of his hired
foreman's hands, ride among his cattle and horses, and dream such
dreams as came to him.
"One of these days I'll get you, Jim Galloway," he had grown into the
habit of musing. "Then they can look for another sheriff and I can do
what I want to do."
And his desire had grown very clearly defined to him; it was the old
longing of a man who comes into a wilderness such as this, the longing
to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before his coming.
With his water rights a man might work modern magic; far back in the
hills he had found the natural site for his storage dams; slightly
lower in a nest of hills there would be some day a pygmy lake whose
seductive beauty to him who dwells on desert lands calls like the soft
beauty of a woman; upon a knoll where now was nothing there would come
to be a comfortable, roomy, hospitable ranch-house to displace forever
the shacks which housed the men now farther down the slopes; and
everywhere, because there was water aplenty, would there be roses and
grape-vines and orange-trees. All this when he should get Jim Galloway.
From almost any knoll upon the Rancho de las Flores he could see the
crests of Mt. Temple lifted in clear-cut lines against the sky. If he
rode with Gaucho, his foreman, among the yearlings, he saw Mt. Temple;
if he rode the fifty miles to San Juan he saw the same peaks from the
other side. And a hundred times he looked up at them with eyes which
were at once impatient and stern; he began to grow angry with Galloway
for so long postponing the final issue.
For, though he did not go near the cliff caves, he knew that the rifles
still lay there awaiting Jim Galloway's readiness. A man named Bucky
Walsh was prospecting for gold upon the slopes of Mt. Temple, a silent,
leather-faced little fellow, quick-eyed and resourceful. And, above
the discovery of color, it was the supreme business of Bucky Walsh to
know what happened upon the cliffs above him. If there were anything
to report no man knew better than he how to get out of a horse all
there was of speed in him.
In the end Norton called upon the reserves of his patience, saying to
himself that if Jim Galloway could bide his time in calmness he could
do the same. The easier since he was unshaken in his confidence that
the time was coming when he and Galloway would stand face to face while
guns talked. Never once did he let himself hope for another ending.
Giving what time he had free to ranch matters at Las Flores the sheriff
found other things to occupy him. There was a gamblers' fight one
night at the camp at Las Palmas mines, a man badly hurt, an ill-starred
bystander dead, the careless gunman a fugitive, headed for the border.
Norton went out after him, shifted saddle from jaded beast to fresh
again and again, rode two hundred miles with only the short stops for
hastily taken food and water and got his man willy-nilly a mile below
the border. What was more, he made it his personal business that the
man was convicted and sentenced to a long term; about San Juan there
was no crime less tolerable than that of "shooting wild."
But all this brought him no closer to Jim Galloway; Galloway, meeting
him shortly afterward in San Juan, laughed and thanked him for the job.
It appeared that the man whom Norton had brought back to stand trial
was not only no friend of the proprietor of the Casa Blanca, but an
out-spoken enemy.
"You'll be asking favors of me next, Norton," grinned the big,
thick-bodied man. "I'd pay you real money for getting a few like him
out of my way. Get me, don't you?" and he passed on, his eyes turned
tauntingly.
Yes, Norton "got" him. No man in the southwest harbored more bitter
ill-will for the lawless than Jim Galloway . . . unless the lawless
stood in with him. Aforetime many a hardy, tempestuous spirit had
defied the crime-dictator; here of late they were few who hoped to slit
throats or cut purses and not pay allegiance to the saloon-keeper of
San Juan.
Upon the heels of this affair, however, came another which was destined
to bring Roderick Norton to a crisis in his life. Word reached him at
Las Flores that a lone prospector in the Red Hills had been robbed of a
baking-powder tin of dust and that the prospector, recovering from the
blows which had been rained on his head, had identified one of his two
assailants. That one was Vidal Nuñez; circumstances hinted that the
other well might be Kid Rickard.
Norton promptly instructed Tom Cutter to find out what he could of
Rickard's movements upon the day of the robbery, and himself set out to
bring in Vidal Nuñez, taking a grim joy in his task when he remembered
how Nuñez had been the man who, with a glance, had cautioned Antone to
hold his tongue after the shooting of Bisbee at the Casa Blanca.
"Here's a man Jim Galloway won't thank me for rounding up," he told
himself. "And we are going to see if his arm is long enough to keep
Nuñez out of the penitentiary."
He went to San Juan, learned that nothing had been seen of the Mexican
there, set the machinery of the man hunt in full swing, doubled back
through the settlements to the eastward, and for two weeks got nothing
but disappointment for his efforts. Nuñez had disappeared and none who
cared to tell knew where. But Norton kept on doggedly; confident that
the man had not had the opportunity to get out of the country, he was
equally confident that, soon or late, he would get him. Then came the
second meeting with Jim Galloway.
[Illustration: Then came the second meeting with Jim Galloway.]
The two men rode into each other's view on the lonely trail half-way
between San Juan and Tecolote, which is to say where the little, barren
hills break the monotony of the desert lands some eight or ten miles to
the eastward of San Juan. It was late afternoon, and Galloway, riding
back toward town, had the sun in his eyes so that he could not have
known as soon as did Norton whom he was encountering. But Galloway was
not the man to ride anywhere that he was not ready for whatever man he
might meet; Norton's eyes, as the two drew nearer on the blistering
trail, marked the way Galloway's right hand rested loosely on the
cantle of his saddle and very near Galloway's right hip.
Norton, merely eying him sharply, was for passing on without a word or
a nod. The other, however, jerked in his horse, clearly of a mind for
parley.
"Well?" demanded Norton.
"I was just thinking," said Galloway dryly, "what an exceptionally
fitting spot we've picked! If I got you or you got me right now nobody
in the world need ever know who did the trick. We couldn't have found
a much likelier place if we'd sailed away to an island in the South
Seas."
"I was thinking something of the same kind," returned Norton coolly.
"Have you any curiosity in the matter? If you think you can get your
gun first . . . why, then, go to it!"
Galloway eased himself in the saddle.
"If I thought I could beat you to it," he answered tonelessly, "I'd do
it. As you know. If I even thought that I'd have an even break with
you," he added, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully as they took stock of
the sheriff's right hand swinging free at his side and never far from
the butt of the revolver fitting loosely in his holster, "I'd take the
chance. No, you're a shade too lively in the draw for me and I happen
to know it."
For a little they sat staring into each other's eyes, the distance of
ten steps between them, their right hands idle while their left hands
upon twitching reins curbed the impatience of two mettled horses. As
was usual their regard was one of equal malevolence, of brimming, cold
hatred. But slowly a new look came into Norton's eyes, a probing,
penetrating look of calculation. Galloway was again opening his lips
when the sheriff spoke, saying with contemptuous lightness:
"Jim Galloway, you and I have bucked each other for a long time. I
guess it's in the cards that one of us will get the other some day.
Why not right now and end the whole damned thing?--When I'm up against
a man as I am against you I like to make it my business to know just
how much sand has filtered into his make-up. You'd kill me if you had
the chance and weren't afraid to do it, wouldn't you?"
"If I had the chance," returned Galloway as coolly, though a spot of
color showed under the thick tan of his cheek. "And I'll get it some
day."
"If you've got the sand," said Norton, "you don't have to wait!"
"What do you mean?" snapped Galloway sharply.
Norton's answer lay in a gesture. Always keeping such a rein on his
horse that he faced Galloway and kept him at his right, he lifted the
hand which had been hanging close to his gun. Slowly, inch by inch,
his eyes hard and watchful upon Galloway's eyes, he raised his hand.
Understanding leaped into Galloway's prominent eyes; it seemed that he
had stopped breathing; surely the hairy fingers upon the cantle of his
saddle had separated a little, his hand growing to resemble a tarantula
preparing for its brief spring.
Steadily, slowly, the sheriff's hand rose in the air, brought upward
and outward in an arc as his arm was held stiff, as high as his
shoulder now, now at last lifted high above his head. And all of the
time his eyes rested bright and hard and watchful upon Jim Galloway's,
filled at once with challenge and recklessness . . . and certainty of
himself.
Galloway's right hand had stirred the slight fraction of an inch, his
fingers were rigid and still stood apart. As he sat, twisted about in
his saddle, his hand had about seven inches to travel to find the gun
in his hip pocket. Since, when they first met, he had thrown his big
body to one side, his left boot loose in its stirrup while his weight
rested upon his right leg, his gun pocket was clear of the saddle, to
be reached in a flash.
"You'll never get another chance like this, Galloway," said Norton
crisply. "I'd say, at a guess, that my hand has about eight times as
far to travel as yours. You wanted an even break; you've got more than
that. But you'll never get more than one shot. Now, it's up to you."
"Before we start anything," began Galloway. But Norton cut him short.
"I am not fool enough to hold my hand up like this until the blood runs
out of my fingers. You've got your chance; take it or leave it, but
don't ask for half an hour's option on it."
Swift changing lights were in Galloway's eyes. But his thoughts were
not to be read. That he was tempted by his opportunity was clear; that
he understood the full sense underlying the words, "You'll never get
more than one shot," was equally obvious. That shot, if it were not to
be his last act in this world, must be the accurate result of one
lightning gesture; his hand must find his gun, close about the grip,
draw, and fire with the one absolutely certain movement. For the look
in Rod Norton's eyes was for any man to read.
Jim Galloway was not a coward and Rod Norton knew it. He was
essentially a gambler whose business in life was to take chances. But
he was of that type of gambler who plays not for the love of the game
but to win; who sets a cool brain to study each hand before he lays his
bet; who gauges the strength of that hand not alone upon its intrinsic
value but upon a shrewd guess at the value of the cards out against it.
At that moment he wanted, more than he wanted anything else in the wide
scope of his unleashed desires, to kill Rod Norton; he balanced that
fact with the other fact that less than anything in the world did he
want to be killed himself. The issue was clear cut.
While a watch might have ticked ten times neither man moved. During
that brief time Galloway's jaw muscles corded, his face went a little
white with the strain put upon him. The restive horses, tossing their
heads, making merry music with jingling bridle chains, might have
galloped a moment ago from an old book of fairy-tales, each carrying a
man bewitched, turned to stone.
"If you've got the sand!" Norton taunted him, his blood running hot
with the fierce wish to have done with sidestepping and
procrastination. "If you've got the sand, Jim Galloway!"
"It's better than an even break that I could get you," said Galloway at
last. "And, at that, it's an even break or nearly so, that as you
slipped out of the saddle you'd get me, too. . . . You take the pot
this time, Norton; I'm not betting." Shifting his hand he laid it
loosely upon the horn of his saddle. As he did so his chest inflated
deeply to a long breath.
Norton's uplifted hand came down swiftly, his thumb catching in his
belt. There was a contemptuous glitter in his eyes.
"After this," he said bluntly, "you'll always know and I'll always know
that you are afraid. I make it a part of my business not to
under-estimate the man I go out to get; I think I have overestimated
you."
For a moment Galloway seemed not to have heard as he stared away
through the gray distances. When he brought his eyes back to Norton's
they were speculative.
"Men like you and me ought to understand each other and not make any
mistakes," he said, speaking slowly. "I have just begun to imagine
lately that I have been doping you up wrong all the time. Now I've got
two propositions to make you; you can take either or neither."
"It will probably be neither; what are they? I've got a day's ride
ahead of me."
"Maybe you have; maybe you haven't. That depends on what you say to my
proposition. You're looking for Vidal Nuñez, they tell me?"
"And I'm going to get him; as much as anything for the sake of swatting
the devil around the stump."
"Meaning me?" Galloway shrugged. "Well, here's my song and dance: This
county isn't quite big enough; you drop your little job and clear out
and leave me alone and I'll pay you ten thousand dollars now and
another ten thousand six months from now."
"Offer number one," said Norton, manifesting neither surprise nor
interest even. "Twenty thousand dollars to pull my freight. Well, Jim
Galloway, you must have something on the line that pulls like a big
fish. Now, let's have the other barrel."
"I have suggested that you clean out; the other suggestion is that, if
you won't get out of my way, you get busy on your job. Vidal Nuñez
will be at the Casa Blanca to-night. I have sent word for him to come
in and that I'd look out for him. Come, get him. Which will you take,
Rod Norton? Twenty thousand iron men or your chances at the Casa
Blanca?"
It was Norton's turn to grow thoughtful. Galloway was rolling a
cigarette. The sheriff reached for his own tobacco and papers. Only
when he had set a match to the brown cylinder and drawn the first of
the smoke did he answer.
"You've said it all now, have you?" he demanded.
"Yes," said Galloway. "It's up to you this time. What's the word?"
Norton laughed.
"When I decide what I am going to do I always do it," he said lightly.
"And as a rule I don't do a lot of talking about it beforehand. I'll
leave you to guess the answer, Galloway."
Galloway shrugged and swung his horse back into the trail.
"So long," he said colorlessly.
"So long," Norton returned.