THE LAW
Night had descended when Rathburn came in sight of the little town on
the edge of the foothills. He rode slowly toward it, staring moodily
at the flickering lights between interlaced branches which waved and
weaved in the wind blowing down from the mountains. In all the
distance he had traveled from the lonely ranch where he had met the
girl and the boy he had encountered no one. He surmised that the trail
to the desert hills to eastward was not a popular one.
As he neared the town he saw that it consisted of one main street with
buildings clustered about it, and numerous shacks scattered in the lee
of the hills. There were trees close to the eastern end of the street
which he was approaching, and when he reached these trees he
dismounted, led his horse into the shadows, and tied it.
He walked down the main street, which was illuminated only by the
stars and the yellow gleams of light from windows on either side.
There were several resorts, and one in particular seemed the most
popular. Rathburn glanced in through the door of this place as he
passed and saw that it consisted of a bar and numerous tables, where
games were in progress. He did not stop but continued on his way.
Few people were on the street; none of them took any especial notice
of him. Several doors below the largest resort which he had so
casually investigated, he came to a small, one-story, white-painted
building, which, save for the door and window in its front, looked
like a huge box.
Across the glass in the door was lettered in gold:
JUDSON BROWN
Justice of the Peace
Notary Public
A dim light shone within, and, peering through the window, Rathburn
saw that this light came from a lamp in a second room behind the
little front office.
He looked up and down the street and saw but two pedestrians, both
walking up the other side of the thoroughfare with their back to him.
He tried the door stealthily, found it unlocked, and stepped quickly
inside. Three strides took him to the door of the inside room.
A man looked up from a small table where he was engaged in writing. He
was a stout man, large of countenance, with small black eyes under
bushy brows which were black, although his hair was gray. He scowled
heavily at the intruder who failed to remove his hat, and who stood,
with feet well apart, in the doorway, a whimsical smile playing on his
lips.
In a sweeping glance Rathburn saw that the room contained a bed,
wardrobe closet, several chairs, and other articles of furniture and
decoration of a bedroom and living room. His eyes flashed back to the
burly man sitting at the table, pen poised, coolly surveying him with
a frown.
"Your name Jud Brown?" he asked, stepping inside the room and to the
side of the door toward the table where he could not be seen from the
street.
"I'm _Judge_ Brown," replied the large man testily. "You should have
knocked before you came in, but now you're here, state your business
as quickly as possible."
"That's a businesslike tone that I admire to hear, Brown," drawled
Rathburn. "You'll excuse my not callin' you judge. I'm afraid when you
find out who I am you'd think I was kiddin' you!"
He smiled amiably while the justice glared angrily.
"You're drunk!" flared Brown. "The best thing you can do is get out of
here--quick."
Rathburn looked pained. "First you ask me to state my business an' now
you tell me to get out," he complained. "You might as well know that I
never touch likker," he added convincingly.
Brown was studying him intently with a puzzled look on his face.
"Well," he said finally, with a show of irritation, "what do you
want?"
"I want you to tell me the why an' the wherefores of this document,"
said Rathburn sternly as he drew a folded piece of paper from a pocket
and spread it out on the table before the astonished gaze of the
justice.
"That's one of a number I saw tacked on trees on the east trail out of
here," continued Rathburn, frowning. "What's it all about, Brown?"
The pen in the hand of the justice suddenly began to waver as the hand
trembled. Then Brown dropped it, squared away his chair, and looked
grimly at his nocturnal visitor. For some moments his gaze was
concentrated on Rathburn's face. Then he slowly read the poster
offering a reward of five hundred dollars for The Coyote. He wet his
lips with his tongue.
"So I was right!" he exclaimed. "You _were_ headed in this direction.
I'm assuming that you're The Coyote!"
"And you're assuming what's the bare, untarnished truth," said
Rathburn. "I'm The Coyote you've offered five hundred for, an' who'll
bring another five hundred in several counties in Arizona, not to
mention five thousand that the State of Arizona has tossed into the
pot. I suppose I'm worth at least ten thousand as I stand here."
"That would be cheap for a man of your reputation!" said the justice
bravely. "We don't want you across the line in California, Coyote. We
won't put up with your depredations, and if you murder one of our
citizens you'll hang!"
Rathburn's chilling laugh hung upon the justice's words. "You're
side-stepping the point," he said suddenly in crisp tones that were
like the crack of a whiplash. "You're anticipating events, Jud. That's
my complaint--that's my business here with you." He brought his right
palm down upon the table smartly.
"An' now that I'm here, Jud, you're sure goin' to listen!"
"Don't threaten me!" cried the justice. "There are a hundred men
within call and they'd make short work of you if they got their hands
on you. Darn your ornery hide, I'm holding the winning cards in this
game!" he concluded excitedly.
Rathburn was smiling at him; and it was not his natural smile. It gave
the justice pause as he looked up into those narrowed gray eyes, shot
with a steel-blue light. Rathburn's right hand and wrist moved with
incredible swiftness, and Brown found himself staring into the black
bore of a six-gun. Still he saw the eyes above the weapon. His face
blanched.
"There are six winning cards in my right hand," Rathburn said slowly.
"You can start shoutin' for those hundred men you mentioned just as
soon as you want. Brown, it's you an' your kind that's made me
desperate--dangerous, like you said in that printed notice. I won't
fool with you or any other man on earth!"
"What--what did you come here for?" stammered the justice.
"To get away from--from back there in that cactus-bordered country of
black, lava hills where I was born an' where I belong!" said Rathburn
grimly, sliding into a chair on the opposite side of the table from
Brown.
"Listen to me! I was driven out. I've ridden for a week with the idea
of gettin' where I wasn't known an' where I could maybe get a fresh
start, and here I find a reward notice staring me in the face from the
top of the first hill I cross after leaving Arizona. I've never been
here before; I've done nothing to molest you or your town; but you sic
the pack on me first off an' hand-running, without any reason, except
that you've _heard_ things about me, I reckon."
Brown nodded his head as Rathburn finished. A measure of composure
returned to him. His eyes gleamed with cunning as he remembered that
his front door was unlocked and some one might by chance come in. But
he again felt troubled as he conjectured what might happen in such
event.
"You cannot blame me," he said to Rathburn. "You've robbed, and you're
a killer----"
"That's what you _hear_?" thundered Rathburn. "I admit several
robberies--holdups of crooked, gambling joints like you've got in this
town, an' petty-larceny bankers who robbed poor stockmen with sanction
of the law. I've killed one man who had it coming to him. But I've
shouldered the blame for every killing an' every robbery that's been
staged in the desert country for the last three years. 'The Coyote did
it,' is what they say, an' the crooks an' gunmen that turned the deal
go free. I'm talking to you, Brown, as man to man--a thing I've never
done with any mouthpiece of the law before. I'm trying to show you
how you an' your kind can make a man an outlaw an' keep him one till
somebody shoots him down. I'm sore, Brown, because I know that one of
these days I'm going to get it myself!"
The justice saw that the man was in deadly earnest. He saw the hand
resting on the table tighten its grip upon the gun.
"I didn't know all these things," he said hastily. "I had to judge by
what I heard--and read. Why didn't you make all this known to the
Arizona authorities?"
Rathburn laughed harshly. "Because I'd be framed clear across the
board," he said jeeringly. "It's the law! It's as much of a crime to
rob a thieving gambler or a snake of a whisky runner or peddler as it
is to rob a home! I've had to rob to live! An' all the while there's
been the makings of one of the hardest-lookin' bad men that this
Southwest country ever saw in me. And, now that I think of it, why the
devil I've held off I don't know!"
Brown was moved by the sincerity of the man. He saw in Rathburn's eyes
that he was speaking the gospel truth. He saw something else in those
eyes--the yearning of a homeless, friendless man, stamped with the
stigma of outlawry, rebelling against the forces which were against
him, relentlessly hunting him down.
"You say you came here to start over?" he asked curiously. "How do I
know you won't walk right out of this office and turn a trick right
here in this very town?"
"You don't know it, that's the devil of it!" exclaimed Rathburn. "An'
there's no use in my telling you I won't, for you wouldn't take my
word for it. You've got me pegged for a gun-fightin' bandit of first
water an' clear crystal, an' I won't try to wise you up because it
wouldn't do any good. Now that you know I'm in this country, you'll
blame the first wrong thing that happens on to me. I've got no
business here talking to you. I'm wasting my breath. You'll have to
find out from somebody besides me that I was telling you the truth,
an' I reckon that coincidence ain't in the pictures. Where's your
handcuffs?"
The justice stared at him, startled.
"Where's your handcuffs?" insisted Rathburn angrily.
"In the drawer of my desk out in front," replied Brown.
"Go an' get 'em an' bring 'em here," Rathburn commanded. "I'll keep my
drop on you under cover."
Brown rose and went to his desk in the front room while Rathburn
watched him in the doorway with his gun held under his coat.
When the justice returned to the inside room Rathburn moved a chair
close against one of the bedposts. He compelled Brown to sit in the
chair, put his hands around between the supports in the back, and
about the bedpost. He handcuffed him in that position.
Drawing a bandanna handkerchief from a pocket he swiftly gagged the
justice. Then he rummaged about the room until he found a piece of
rope tied about a pack in the bottom of the wardrobe. With this he
secured Brown's ankles to the front legs of the chair.
"There!" he said, standing back to view his handiwork. "You're pretty
well trussed up. I ain't trusting you any more than you'd trust me,
an' I don't figure on you raising any hue an' cry before I can get
along on my way."
The eyes of the justice were rolling as he struggled in vain to
speak.
"Never mind," said Rathburn. "I reckon I know what you want to say.
Under the circumstances, the same being so much on my side, you'd say
you believed me an' all that. But I took a chance in coming here to
tell you what I did an' I never aim to take more'n one chance in a
day. So long."