A MAN AND HIS HORSE
When Rathburn closed the outer door after him he plunged down the
steps and into the shadows by the wall of the jail. Few lights showed
in the town, for it was past midnight. He could see yellow beams
streaming from the windows of the resort up the street, however, as he
hesitated.
He was mightily handicapped because he had no horse. A horse--his own
horse, he felt--was necessary for his escape, but his horse was a long
distance away.
Rathburn stole across the street to the side on which the big resort
was situated, and slipped behind a building just as the muffled
reports came from within the jail. After a short interval, five more
shots were heard, and Rathburn grinned as he realized that the jailer
had fired the remaining bullets in his own and the sheriff's guns.
He heard men running down the street. So he hurried up street behind
the buildings until he reached the rear of the large resort, which was
the place Lamy had held up.
Peering through one of the rear windows he saw the room was deserted
except for the man behind the bar. Even at that distance he could hear
horses and men down the street. Doubtless they were crowding into the
jail where the sheriff would insist upon being liberated at once so he
could lead the chase and, as Rathburn had the key, this would result
in a delay until another key could be found, or Brown, who probably
had one, could be routed out.
Rathburn thought of this as he looked through the window at the lonely
bartender who evidently could not decide whether to close up and see
what it all was about or not. But the thing which impressed Rathburn
most was the presence of a pile of sandwiches and several cans of
corned beef and sardines--emergency quick lunches for patrons--on the
back bar. Also, he saw several gunny sacks on a box in the rear of the
place almost under the window through which he was looking.
Rathburn stepped to the door in sudden decision, threw it open, and
walked in. His gun flashed into his hand. "Quiet!" was all he said to
the stupefied bartender.
He scooped up one of the sacks, darted behind the bar, brushed the
sandwiches and most of the cans of corned beef and sardines into it,
and then slung it over his left shoulder with his left hand.
"The sheriff will return the money that was taken from here," he said
coolly as he walked briskly to the front door. "Play the game safe;
stay where you are!" he cautioned as he vanished through the door.
There were no horses at the hitching rail, but he saw several down the
street in front of the jail. Men were running back and forth across
the street--after Brown, he surmised.
Again he stole around to the rear of the resort; then he struck
straight up into the timbered slope above the town, climbing rapidly
afoot with the distant peaks and ridges as his guide.
Some two hours after dawn he sat on the crest of a high ridge watching
a rider come up the winding trail from eastward. He had seen other
riders going in both directions from his concealment behind a screen
of cedar bushes. He had watched them with no interest other than that
exhibited by a whimsical smile. But he did not smile as he watched
this rider. His eyes became keenly alert; his face was grim. His mind
was made up.
When the rider was nearing his ambush, Rathburn quickly scanned the
empty stretch of trail to westward, then leaped down and confronted
the horseman.
Ed Lamy drew rein with an exclamation of surprise.
"There's not much time, an' I don't hanker to be seen--afoot," said
Rathburn quickly. "Where's my horse?"
"He's in a pocket on a shale slope this side of the timber on a line
from the house where you left him," replied Lamy readily. "Or you can
have mine."
"Don't want him," said Rathburn curtly. "You going in to see the
sheriff?"
Lamy nodded. "His orders. Say, Coyote----"
"He'll probably meet you on the way," Rathburn interrupted with a
sneer. "You can be figurin' out what to say to him. My saddle with the
horse?"
"It's hanging from a tree where you go into the pocket. Big limestone
cliffs there below the shale. Say, Coyote, my sister an' kid brother
was tellin' me about your visit that morning, an' I guess I
understand----"
"We can't stand here talkin'," Rathburn broke in, pulling the tobacco
sack from his shirt pocket. He extracted a folded piece of paper.
"Here's a note I wrote you in jail before I left. Read it on the way
in when there's no one watching you. Maybe you'll learn something from
it; maybe you won't. I expect you wanted money to fix that ranch up;
but you'll get further by doing a little irrigating from up that
stream than by trying to be a bandit. You just naturally ain't cut out
for the part!"
With these words he handed Lamy the note and bounded back up the
slope. The screen of cedar bushes closed behind him as Lamy pushed on,
looking back, wondering and confused, with heightened color in his
face.
It was late that night when Lamy returned to the little ranch house.
Frankie had gone to bed, but his sister was waiting up for him with a
meal and hot tea ready.
He talked to his sister in a low voice while he ate. When he had
finished he read the note for the third time; read it aloud, so his
sister could hear.
"LAMY: I meant to take you back and give you up, for I was pretty
sore. Then I saw your resemblance to your small brother by the
freckles and eyes and I remembered he had said something about you
saying some decent things about me. I guess you thought they were
nice things, anyway.
"Then I thought maybe you got your ideas about easy money from
the stuff you'd heard about me, and I sort of felt kind of
responsible. I thought I'd teach you a lesson by flirting with
that posse and telling you that killing story to show you what
a man is up against in this game. I guess I can't get away
from it because they won't let me. But you don't have to start.
I was going to give you a good talking to before I let you go,
but I hadn't counted on the little kid in the house. I'm glad he
told the truth. He'll remember that. I gave you back your gun
because you hit the nail on the head when you said if I was
square I'd give it to you and let you make a run for it.
"I took the money off you so if they got us I could take the blame
and let you off. I can take the blame without hurting my
reputation, so don't worry. I'm not doing this so much for your
sake as for your kid brother and your sister. I figure you'd sort
of caught on when I heard they hadn't located my horse. That was a
good turn. Do me another by getting some sense. There's plenty of
us fellows that's quite capable to furnish the bad examples.
"RATHBURN."
The girl was crying softly with an arm about her brother's neck when
he finished reading.
"What--what are you going to do, Eddie?" she sobbed.
"I'm goin' to irrigate!" said Ed Lamy with a new note in his voice.
"I'm goin' to build a sure-enough ranch for us with this piece of
paper for a corner stone!"
Dawn was breaking over the mountains, strewing the gleaming peaks with
warm rosettes of color. A clear sky, as deep and blue as any sea,
arched its canopy above. Virgin stands of pine and fir marched up the
steep slopes to fling their banners of green against the snow. Silver
ribbons of streams laughed in the welcome sunlight.
In a rock-walled gulch, far above the head of Sunrise Canon, a fire
was burning, its thin smoke streamer riding on a vagrant breeze. Near
by lay a dun-colored horse on its side, tied fast. A man was squatting
by the blaze.
"I hate to have to do this, old hoss," the man crooned; "but we've got
to change the pattern of that CC2 brand if we want to stick together,
an' I reckon we want to stick."
He thrust the running iron deeper into the glowing coals.