WAVERING IN THE BALANCE
Ignacio Chavez, waiting to ask no questions, had raced away through the
darkness to beat out a wild alarm upon his bells. Later he would learn
how many were dead and would set the Captain mourning. But already had
San Juan poured out her handful of citizens upon the street.
"Keep those men where they are," called Tom Cutter to Struve. "Every
damned one of them; there'll be an answer wanted for to-night's work.
Get a doctor, somebody; Patten or Miss Page."
Candles were brought; presently a lamp was found and set on the bar.
The curious began to desert Struve and his prisoners outside, and to
crowd about Cutter and the two forms lying still in the corner. Kid
Rickard, cursing now and then, had dragged himself a little away and
grew quiet, half propped up against the wall. Struve, as the fire of
fagots and grass began to burn low, commanded Galloway to lead the way
back into the barroom and herded five other men after him, the shotgun
promising a mutilated body to any man of them who sought to run for it.
"Nuñez is dead," reported the deputy sheriff, getting up from his
knees. "Norton is alive and that's about all. A shot along the side
of the head."
He turned slowly toward Galloway who, with steady hands and his face
set in hard, inscrutable lines, was pouring himself a generous glass of
whiskey.
"Looks like you'd got him, Jim," he said harshly, his eyes glittering.
"And it looks like I'd got you. Where I want you, by God!"
Galloway drank his whiskey and made no reply. He was thinking,
thinking fast. His eyes were never still now, but roved from Rod
Norton's white face to the faces of Tom Cutter, Struve, and the other
men gathering in the room.
Borne upon one of the Casa Blanca's doors Norton was carried to
Struve's hotel, the nearest place where an attempt could be made to
care for him. Word came in that Virginia Page had been summoned upon
one of her rare calls and was in Las Estrellas. Patten, however, would
be on hand in a moment. It was suggested that Kid Rickard also be
carried to the hotel. But he himself asked to be left where he was
until Patten came, and Cutter raised no objection. It was clear that
the Kid was too badly hurt to think of making an escape, were such his
desire.
Galloway and Antone alone were put under arrest, the others merely
advised to be on hand if they were wanted later. Galloway coolly
demanded the charge against him.
"Resisting an officer is as good as any right now," snapped Cutter.
As quiet claimed the town again Caleb Patten became the most important
figure in San Juan. At such moments he seemed to swell visibly. He
drove the curious from the room while he examined the unconscious
sheriff and, when he had finished, merely shook his head, looked grave,
and refused to commit himself. He ordered Norton undressed and put to
bed, went down the street to see Kid Rickard, probed the wound in the
upper chest, ordered him to bed, and returned to Norton at the hotel.
"Well?" asked John Engle who had arrived, talked with Struve, and now
looked anxiously to Patten. Patten shrugged.
"Heavy-caliber bullet ripped along the side of his head," he said
thoughtfully. "I am going to make a second examination now. Doubtless
just the shock stunned him. That or striking his head as he pitched
forward; there's another slight wound, a scalp wound, showing where his
head hit as he fell."
A moment later Tom Cutter came in hastily, stood for a little staring
with frowning, troubled eyes at the quiet form on the bed, and went
away, tugging at his lip, his frown deepening. He had his hands full
to-night, had Tom Cutter, and no one but himself knew how he wanted Rod
Norton to tell him just what to do, to show him the way to make no
mistake. Leaving the room he had gone no farther than the front door
when he swung about and returned.
"May I have a word with you, Mr. Engle?" he asked.
Engle nodded and followed him silently. Out in the street, in the full
light of Struve's porch-lamp, Cutter stopped, glancing about him to
make sure that he was not overheard.
"You know all about the shooting of Brocky Lane up in the mountains,"
he said hurriedly. "Rod told me you did. Well, I just gathered in
Moraga!"
"Moraga?" muttered Engle. "He has seen Galloway, then? And told him
all about our knowing the rifles were cached in the old caves?"
"I found him at the Casa Blanca," said Cutter, the worried look in his
eyes. "Somebody shot out the light when the mix-up started, you know.
I've a notion it was Moraga. He was in one of the little
card-rooms . . . putting on his shoes! I got his gun; he'd fired just
one shot. The muzzle of it was bloody."
"If he has told Galloway. . . ."
"But I don't believe he has. Struve says that just as Norton started
things he saw a man run in from the cottonwoods and duck into the
house. It was Struve's job to see that nobody got out and he let him
go by. If it wasn't Moraga, who was it? And, when I grabbed him just
now, the first thing he said was: 'I want to talk with Galloway.'"
"You didn't let him?" demanded Engle quickly.
"No. A couple of the boys have walked him off down the road. I've got
Galloway and Antone in the jail. Now, what I want is some advice.
What am I going to do with this job until Rod Norton comes to and takes
a hand . . . if he ever does," he muttered heavily.
"It's clear that you've got to keep Moraga away from Galloway; if they
haven't already had a chance to talk it's a pure Godsend and it's up to
you that they don't get that chance."
"Yes,", admitted Cutter slowly. "But I'm the first man to admit that
I'm all muggled up. What did Moraga have his shoes off for? If he
shot out the light, why did he do it? And how'd he get blood on his
gun?"
Engle shook his head.
"All questions for the district attorney later, Tom," he answered.
"But, if you want any advice from me, here it is: Get Moraga out of the
way on the jump. He is supposed to be in jail in the next county; he
must have broken out. Send a man to Las Palmas to telephone to Sheriff
Roberts; send Moraga along with him. And, whatever you do, keep Jim
Galloway where you've got him. I think we've got our case against him
to-night."
"That's what I've been thinking. I guess that's what Norton would do,
eh?"
"Sure of it," said Engle promptly. "Find out, if you can, whether
Moraga got a chance to talk with Galloway. I'm going back to the house
to let my wife and Florrie know what has happened."
Engle hurried to his home, told what had happened, and, leaving his
wife anxious, his daughter weeping hysterically, returned to the hotel.
"I've done all that any one could do for him," said Patten, as though
defending himself because of Norton's continued unconsciousness. "He's
in pretty bad shape, Engle. Oh, I guess I can pull him through, but at
that it's going to be a close squeak. Lucky I was right on hand,
though." And he grew technical, spoke of blood pressures taken, of
traumatism superinducing prolonged coma, of this and that which made no
impression on the banker.
"You mentioned two wounds," Engle reminded him. "The one made by the
bullet and another. . . ."
"By his head striking as he fell? Yes; that would have completed the
work of the first shock in knocking him unconscious. But it is a
negligible affair now; he wouldn't know anything about it in the
morning if it weren't for the lump that'll be there. And since the
other injury, the long gouging cut made by the bullet, has just plowed
along the outer surface of the skull, I think that I can promise you
he'll be all right pretty soon now. We ought to have some ice, but
I've made cold compresses do."
Engle went again to look in upon Norton. The sheriff lay as before, on
his back, his limbs lax, his face deathly white, a bandage about his
head. A lump came into the banker's throat and he turned away. For he
remembered that just so had Billy Norton lain, that Billy Norton had
never regained consciousness . . . and that the blow then as now had
been struck by Galloway or Galloway's man. The sudden fear was upon
him that Rod Norton was even more badly hurt than Caleb Patten
admitted. The fear did not lessen as the night drew on and finally
brightened into another day. When the sun flared up out of the
flatlands lying beyond Tecolote the wounded man at Struve's hotel lay
as he had done all night giving no sign to tell whether he was life's
or death's.