ALWAYS FIRE FIRST
The soft stirring of footsteps jarred Kitchener out of his hideous
reverie. Diane Durand had stolen past him in the darkness, and with
reaching hands she leaned forward to look out the window. He grabbed her
and flung her backwards so violently that she cried aloud, clutching at
the finger-marks on her wrist.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, amazed and angry.
“Keep away from that window!”
“What for?”
“There’s blood on it. It’s everywhere.”
He had switched off his light and was unable to see her face, but he
heard her draw a shuddering breath and felt her dynamic glance fixed
upon him. “It’s--what?” she said in a small, muted voice.
“It’s murder,” he said, wondering what made his own speech sound so
strange. “That’s all. Just a nicely planned shooting in the back.”
“Who?” gasped the girl. “Who?”
“My--” Kit stopped so abruptly that he bit his tongue. “An old friend of
mine. He was worn out and trying to get a little sleep. I guess he
didn’t know that it happened. I--I hope he never knew.”
“You--what makes you so sure?” she asked in a chilled whisper.
“I’m as sure as though I’d seen it.” His short, ugly laugh did not have
quite the ring of sanity. “His shirt with a bullet hole in the back, all
smeared. The blankets he died in. The dripping across the floor--right
there--right at your feet. A body lugged to the window. Overboard and
into the creek. That’s how it was done. A pretty little job. A neat
piece of work from behind. Your uncle Sim or Jim or whatever you call
him. A straight-shooter--a straight-shooter-in-the-back! A nice, sweet
boy he is!”
There was a dead silence for a space, and then a harsh, choking sound in
the darkness. Then Diane Durand’s voice, icy and level and dangerously
restrained: “I can’t believe I understood you. Will you say that again?”
Kitchener was so stunned by the tragedy that he was unable at present to
think clearly or rationally. All that could matter to him was the aching
certainty that Jerry was gone. Funny old Jerry! He had been done out of
life and disposed of like a trapped, helpless animal. Stalked in his
sleep and brutally killed! The numbing realization left Kit without any
sense of discretion. He wasn’t caring about anything now, what he did or
said or what happened next.
“I said that your uncle came in here and stood over him while he slept
and put a bullet into his body.”
He felt the girl flinch, and he was conscious of her eyes staring at
him. “That’s a lie!” she panted.
“Killed him with the old ivory-butted gun!” Kit laughed insanely. “Of
course! The beautiful, engraved six-shooter that stood for law and
order! How things work out! God, what a joke everything is!”
The girl turned on him in a flash of savagery. “What a beast you are!
You don’t know. You make a wild and wicked guess, and accuse a man of
murder. With nothing whatever to go on except your own crazy notions of
what might be--of what you seem to want it to be. You policemen! No
wonder people are afraid of you. That’s your idea: get somebody, no
matter whom. It doesn’t matter whether he’s guilty or innocent. Get him!
Frame him! Bring him in! Swear his life away! Get your man--any man--”
“Listen, baby!” Kit cut in fiercely. “I don’t need your advice--or
criticism. That sort of talk isn’t helping any. I’ve seen what I’ve
seen. That’s plenty. The waffle-mesh tracks we followed down the river.
You know who those belong to. Stalking the two-bar shoes through the
storm, right to this place. Don’t think I don’t know the ins and outs of
this business. I know whom to look for, and I know he can’t be far from
here right now--”
“You haven’t a shred of real evidence!” she interrupted passionately.
“And to say what you’ve said, without being sure--it’s cruel, it’s
criminal!”
“Yes?” he retorted. “Well, let me tell you--I’m going out and find the
bloody prints. There’ll be tracks somewhere around here. And they’ll
show the waffle marks. I’m just that sure of that. If they shouldn’t
I’ll apologize. I’ll beg your pardon on my hands and knees. You can’t
ask anything fairer than that.”
Kit swung around to face the open doorway. It was snowing heavily
outside and the wind still moaned through the firs. In the black forest
farther down stream the frightful cry of a giant owl quavered in the
night--a hideous, hungering sound. He couldn’t forget the name of this
place. Great Owl Run. His father had been finished here twelve years
ago. And now his brother! A fateful spot for the Tearls. It wasn’t just
coincidence--it was kismet. This place had haunted his imagination since
childhood. Now he had found it for himself. And Bill was gone and Jerry
was gone, and only Kitchener was left.
Perhaps Kitchener would go next in turn. That would be consistent. And
he didn’t particularly care. Little Jane would carry on. It was queer
how his thoughts kept going back to Jane now, and he could smile
tenderly to himself, thinking of her. She was the best of the lot. It
didn’t matter about himself. He wasn’t afraid of the owls or the
mysterious forest or the red-handed murderer who undoubtedly was
skulking somewhere in the neighborhood.
His pulse had slowed to a sober, steady beat, the fever of his blood had
simmered down to an ominous coolness. There was something he had to do,
and he was ruthless and reckless in the zest to see it through. Whatever
happened, he asked only that it might be swift and decisive.
He started towards the door, but a hand reached in the darkness to grab
his sleeve. “What are you going to do?” asked Diane Durand in sudden
panic.
“Find him, and arrest him--if he doesn’t try to resist.”
“Oh, no!” The girl’s tone had changed. She was frightened and desperate.
There was frantic appeal in her voice. “No! Wait! You’ve got to wait!
Something terrible will happen! Don’t. Please don’t!”
“You seem to think he will resist.” Kitchener’s laugh sounded unfamiliar
in his own ears. “Well, he probably will.”
He shook off her hand and started again to leave the cabin. But at the
doorway he changed his mind and halted. He thought he caught a sound
behind him--not where the girl stood, a little to the left--but straight
back, over near the fireplace. He had thoroughly searched the room.
Nothing was there. And yet--
Again he heard it. Unquestionably! A soft, whisking sound--higher
up--near the roof--like snow sliding. He turned, and his pocket light
again found its way into the hand. He didn’t touch the button, but was
ready to shoot on the flash at an instant’s notice.
In his loosely gripped fist the butt of his pistol rested comfortably.
The expert marksman gave no conscious thought to the weapon. It was as
much a part of himself as the hand that held it. The safety slipped off
with the reflex of the thumb. His whole attention was centered towards
the ceiling beside the chimney, where he knew there was a wide hole
opening through the roof.
It was too dark within and without to differentiate between the solid
part of the roof and the open sky. But a prescience more astute, more
sensitive than mere eyesight, appraised him that something was blocking
the gap above, staring into the cabin.
All was still now, save the slow, gentle shifting of the rafters, but
Kit was positive that somebody or something had climbed onto the
roof--that a face was peering down.
He was waiting with every faculty straining to catch the least hint of
sound or movement, when, as sudden as lightning, a white, blinding ray
flashed downward to cut the darkness like a shining blade and hit the
farther wall in a dazzling bullseye.
Kitchener’s reactions were as spontaneous as it is to live or to breathe
or to fight back from a corner. He saw the hard, round spot of light at
the upper end of the shaft--the focus point of the searching beam. The
light was swinging his direction--reaching for him--
There was no volition on his part. It was as though his pistol lifted
and sighted itself and went off on its own responsibility, regardless of
his own will or intention.
Flame spurted, the butt kicked back in his fist, the log walls were
jarred as though by a sledge-hammer blow. At the same instant the light
winked out, and some broken, clinking object dropped and struck the hard
clay floor below.
The room was still filled with the first explosion, when a fiery streak
stabbed down at Kitchener from the darkness of the eaves. A chunk of
lead hit the wall just behind his neck and plunged deep into one of the
logs. The man on the roof had fired at the flash of Kit’s gun, and
missed him by inches.
As the report of the return shot jarred in his ears, Kitchener
side-stepped and ducked towards the floor. His bullet had shattered the
lense of the intruder’s lamp. He was safe enough, as long as he kept his
thumb off his own switch-button.
But Kit was not playing for safety. This blind-man’s work irritated him.
On the roof crouched the man who had assassinated his brother Jerry, and
who also must have had a hand in the ambushing of Inspector Tearl.
Kitchener was troubled by no scruples of chivalry. He grinned dourly to
himself in the darkness as he realized how he had met his first test in
police uniform. He hadn’t even thought of the traditions of the service,
but fired instinctively and beat his man to the shot. So Jerry
undoubtedly would have done in his place. There was no sense in dealing
politely with a dangerous criminal who knew no code.
At this moment Kit’s only regret was that he had shot too accurately. He
had sighted for the man’s electric lamp and smashed it. If his bullet
had only been a little off the line he might not be crouching in the
darkness now, with a live murderer at the roof hole, ready to plug him
the instant he revealed his whereabouts.
The sweetly pungent reek of picric acid was a familiar scent in Kit’s
nostrils. It reminded him of the target gallery where he used to put in
an hour every afternoon following the dismissal of the class on torts.
In law a tort is an evil or injury done one man by another, and the
professor had taught his students that the wronged party was entitled to
complete redress. Kitchener was thankful to-night that he had learned
something in college beyond the theories of books. If he caught a single
glimpse of his man no court of law would ever need to settle this
affair.
He turned his light-stick upward and pushed the button. A luminous
streak splashed to the ceiling, limning brilliantly the jagged hole in
the roof-shakes. In the opening he saw a bulky shoulder and an arm and a
man’s big fist clenching a revolver. His own gun went up. Eyes and
finger synchronized to their business, but in the fractional second
required to make sure of his aim, a living, gasping weight landed on him
from behind.
Kitchener had no warning of the attack. The shock sent him down on one
knee and his flashlight was knocked out of his hand and went flying
across the room in a twisting, white arc. He was unable to check the
pressure of his forefinger in time. A jolt of sound hit his eardrums as
his pistol exploded haphazard to send a bullet on a ricocheting course
from the chimney to the side wall and across the splintering door-slabs.
His assailant was Diane Durand. He had forgotten her in those few
seconds and had allowed her to get behind him. And now she had both arms
around him, clutching his pistol-hand, clinging to him with an amazing
strength.
Kit had often heard the phrase about female deadliness, but he never
thought it really meant anything--not until now. Under their silken
softness her muscles were almost as strong as his, and at that moment
she seemed twice as agile. He regained his feet and tried to wrench his
arm free, but small fingers and sharp nails were digging into his wrist
with the force of desperation.
The girl was hanging on his back, and whichever way he turned he swung
her with him. Her face was pressing his neck and he could feel the
breath come and go harshly from her open mouth. “Let go!” he muttered,
and tore furiously at her hands.
On the roof overhead he heard a slipping, sliding sound, followed by a
heavy thump in the snow behind the cabin. The man outside evidently was
dissatisfied with his peek hole, and had dropped to the ground. Either
he had decided to run away or had started around for the cabin door.
Kit was in too tight a situation to hold any false punctilios in the
distinction of sex. Courtesy towards women is a nice trait, but it was
absurd to be gallant with his life at stake. The beautiful gestures of
life are outmoded. There are no gentle disciples of Gautama left in the
world to feed themselves to female tigers.
This girl was fighting him like a man. He locked his fingers under hers
and wrenched backwards with his full strength. Her breath grew short and
sharp and he felt her supple tendons cramp themselves convulsively. He
was hurting her badly, but she still clung to him, trying to plow her
nails deeper into his flesh. Fiercely he tore her grip away, and whirled
to fling her from him.
But she was a shade the quicker. One slim, tenacious arm crooked itself
around his neck and tightened under his chin to choke back his
breathing. The second hand darted around to clutch him across the mouth,
trying to twist his head off his shoulders.
“Drop that gun!” a voice sobbed in his ear. “I--I’ll make him quit
if--if you’ll--quit!”
“Quit!” Kit laughed truculently against the warm hand that was stifling
him. “Quit, Hell!” He jerked his head aside at the price of a furrow of
skin gouged from his upper lip. Then, with a contortionist’s movement he
dropped to one knee, taking the girl with him and attempting to fling
her in front of him.
His pistol was in his fist and he did not dare to put it away or drop
it. At any minute the expected footsteps might cross the threshold from
without. He only had the use of one hand, and his attacker was as active
and lithe and stubborn as a pouncing cat. He almost threw her by the
unexpectedness of his ruse, but not quite. She recovered her advantage
with a surprising shift of her wiry body, tumbled across his shoulders,
twisted a rounded leg behind his knee, and wrapped both flexible arms in
a tightening strangle-hold against his wind-pipe.
Both were panting in the darkness, and Kit could taste a warm salty
trickle on his lips. He was furious. It stung him to the depths of his
masculine complacency to realize that this slender, boyish-built girl
was quite as able-bodied as he. At that moment, if his thumbs had been
able to reach her pretty throat, he could have throttled her cheerfully.
But she was like a leech, a fierce little incubus, hag--riding his back.
He set his teeth and, with a sudden effort of exasperation, he heaved
himself erect, wrenched his shoulder around and threw back his head.
His skull hit something soft and yielding with an impact sufficient to
hurt through the hardness of his cranium. He heard a broken little cry
behind him, and the girl’s tense body relaxed a trifle, and for an
instant her arms loosened their clutch. She tried to grab him again, but
this time he evaded her hands and tore himself free.
He did not linger to find out what had happened. He felt the draught of
the open doorway, and turned leftward to plunge out into the snowy
night. Groping blindly, he sprang through the door, stumbled over
something that yelped and snapped at his leg. He tumbled sprawling into
the middle of a shrieking, struggling heap of dogs.
His team of huskies had been sitting in an uneasy circle at the cabin
entrance. It was too dark to see, and he had completely forgotten them.
The reminder was so sudden that he did not quite know what had happened
until he found himself flat on his stomach in the snow, the center of
the writhing, howling pack. A wet, furry body fell backwards and sat on
his head. A second shape bounded across him, tangling him in the sledge
traces. One of the beasts snarled in fright, and something slashed his
pants and nipped the flesh of his calf.
Fighting with both hands, he warded off the milling shadows, and managed
to lift himself to his knees. A set of sharp teeth clicked in his face,
and as he threw out his arm to protect himself his pistol slipped from
his grasp and went spinning away into a snow drift. He righted himself
somehow, and scrambled to his feet. Kicking the dogs away, he
disentangled himself from the twisted harness lines and stooped forward
to plunge his arm shoulder deep into the nearest snow bank.
Frantically he groped about with his bare, chilled fingers, and gasped
with relief as his hand closed over the icy butt of his lost gun. This
was sheer good luck. He might have spent an hour in futile search for
the weapon. He examined the gun critically to make sure that the action
was not clogged, and then stole around the cabin, closely hugging the
walls.
There was nobody in sight. He wedged himself into the angle of the
chimney and waited with every sense keyed to hair-trigger alertness. The
dogs were raising such bedlam in front of the shack it was impossible to
hear any other sound. He gaped right and left in the darkness. The man
on the roof had jumped down on this side, but there was nobody here now.
Perhaps he was ambushed in the neighboring timber; perhaps he had fled.
Kit ventured out of his sheltering nook and pushed around to the side of
the cabin overlooking the high embankment of the brook. Still he saw
nothing, heard nothing except the gurgle of water and the raving of the
dogs around in front. He retraced his steps, waded through the animals,
and looked in at the doorway. His electric lamp was still blazing in the
corner of the room where it had fallen. All the rest of the interior was
shrouded in darkness. He did not see the girl and did not stop to search
for her. In three strides he crossed the room, snatched up his lamp, and
again ran out of doors.
His light cast strange, ghostly patterns among the sheeted stumps and
along the ragged, white fringe of the forest. The higher plumes of the
firs swayed and moaned in the wind, but everything was deathly still in
the underwoods below. He made his way around the cabin, boring the
darkness in all directions with his flashlight, steeling himself for the
crashing shock of a bullet.
He reached the rear of the cabin, and nothing interrupted his wary
advance. The lamp was brought to bear, and he paused to read the story
in the snow. Here were a pair of big boot prints. The intruder had
removed his snowshoes at this spot and climbed to the roof. The eaves
were only hands’-reach high, and he had boosted himself upward from a
convenient windowsill. Farther out were two deeper bootmarks. This was
where he had jumped off the roof. There was a circle of scuffled tracks
at this point. He had donned his snowshoes here.
Kit flashed his light outward and saw a line of webbed tracks, heading
across the clearing to the forest. Great, long strides--almost running.
The murderer evidently hadn’t cared for his enemy’s marksmanship and
decided that he had had enough.
There was nothing else that Kitchener needed to see. He switched off his
light and returned to the cabin doorway.
“Hello!” he said to the darkness.
There was no response.
“You there, Diane?” he demanded. “You might as well know it. The
waffle-mesh snowshoes. Your lovely uncle! He was here and took a crack
at me, and beat it, and left you to the wolves.”
“You fired first!” an unsteady voice spoke out from the shadows. “And
nobody left me. He didn’t know I was here. I was careful that he
shouldn’t. If he had he’d have come in and got me. You may not know it,
but I saved you--”
“Or him,” interrupted Kit. His sore lip yielded to a battered grin.
Somehow he bore no malice towards the girl. Nobody could blame her for
fighting for her own. That was the sort of blind, unreasoning loyalty
that he himself understood only too well. He turned on his lamp again
and switched the light around until he found the slight figure standing
lonely in the middle of the room. She faced him unflinchingly, and
apparently was trying to check her labored breathing.
As he looked at her he felt a queer catch in his breath. Her shirt was
torn at the collar, her ruddy hair was flying at wild ends, a bruised,
bare arm emerged from a sleeve ripped to the shoulder. But her pert nose
was the worst. It looked a couple of sizes larger than he remembered it,
and was frankly bloodied.
“Ah, gee!” he exclaimed contritely. “I’m sorry. Honestly, I didn’t mean
to do that.”
“Is it bad?” she asked, and crooked her arm across her face.
Kit hastily dug a clean handkerchief out of his pocket and gave it to
her. “Gosh!” he muttered. “I never hurt a girl before in my life.”
“I don’t think it’s broken,” she assured him through the crumpled
handkerchief. “What did I do to you?”
“You skinned my wrist and half ripped off my lip, that’s all.”
“Well, that’s something, anyhow!” Her dark eyes brightened with
satisfaction. “That makes us quits, doesn’t it?”
Kit drew a deep breath of relief. It was wonderful of her to take it
that way. “You’re a good sport!” he ejaculated. “Darned if you aren’t!
The Dianes! Hellcats, maybe. But that’s all right. I hope I always have
a Diane for an enemy.”
“You will,” she returned evenly.
He cast a sharp glance at her, started to say something, but changed his
mind and turned away. From his pocket he produced a match and ignited
the litter in the fireplace. “Might as well make it comfortable here,”
he said as a cheerful blaze crackled up in the darkness. “I hate to
leave you alone, but there’s no way out of it.”
“You--where are you going?” she faltered.
Kit did not answer. His thoughts were out in the dark forest, pursuing
the trail of the waffle-webbed snowshoes. In a few minutes he would be
on the march again. The other man would be very tired too. Wherever he
went fresh his trail would be easily followed. He couldn’t stay on his
feet forever. Kit could keep going as long as the other man did, and he
had no intention of being shaken off now.
“I’m going with you,” the girl announced.
“You!” he countered. “What chance would you stand? I’m traveling
to-night. I’d leave you miles behind.”
She started towards him, tottered uncertainly, and caught at the table.
“I’m all in!” she said piteously.
“Of course you are,” he assured her. “You stay here and get some sleep
and rest. I’ll come back for you when I can.”
Kit went outside, unharnessed and fed the dogs and turned them loose to
find their own sleeping places. An ax, two blankets, matches and a few
packages of provisions were strapped together into a small back-pack.
The remainder of his equipment he carried into the cabin. He dragged in
several armloads of down-wood and stacked it in a pile by the fireplace.
Then he drew the old ax out of the cabin sill, spiked the door back on
its hinges and refastened the shutters over the broken windows.
The girl had watched him in gloomy silence, knowing it would be useless
to try to dissuade him from his plans.
“I’ve fixed you up as well as I can,” he said. He shouldered his
pack-sack and picked up his rifle. “Good night, Diane.”
The girl was standing by the fireplace, dejectedly. “I hope--” she
began, and stopped.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said drearily. “Good-by.”
Without a backward glance Kit passed out of the cabin and strode off
alone into the blustering night.