The crimson stream kept trickling down over Rock’s face. He had no pain
except a burning sensation on the top of his head, but the crimson flow
annoyed him. He finally hit upon the expedient of stuffing the black
silk handkerchief which he habitually wore about his neck, into the
crown of his hat, adding thereto a smaller one from his pocket. Then he
jammed the crown tightly down on his head to absorb the flow. That
done, he rolled himself a cigarette. Then he stood looking
speculatively down at his captive.
“Are you Joe Stack or Bill Hurley?” he inquired.
“Stack,” the man grunted. He stared at Rock out of sullen eyes.
“Then I suppose that was Mr. Hurley that I downed, eh?”
The man assented with a nod. Those were the names of the two hard
citizens Buck Walters kept hanging around the Cross home ranch, so
Charlie Shaw had told him. Rock was not in the least surprised to find
his guess correct. Men who had acquired notches on their guns in the
South were not usually averse to adding more notches when they drifted
North--either for profit or satisfaction.
“Well, you took on a contract,” he said. “And you have fallen down on
it. I am going to tell you a few things, Stack, then I am going to ask
you some questions. You’re a Texan. Did you ever hear of Steve Holloway
who was a U. S. marshal at Abilene for a spell? I expect you did. He
cleaned out a nest of outlaws up in the Childress country, where I
understand you made yourself a reputation. Steve was my father. Then
there is Tom Holloway, who is a captain in the rangers. ‘Long Tom’ they
call him. He’s an uncle. Then there’s Ben Holloway who owns the Ragged
H down on Milk River, not so awful far from this neck of the woods.
He’s a cousin of mine. There are other Holloways scattered here and
there west of the Mississippi. Most any one of them would go a long way
to shoot a skunk, especially of the two-legged variety. I’m something
like that myself. You were sure hunting big game when you camped on my
trail. Did you know it?”
The man didn’t answer. But the look of apprehension in his eyes
deepened.
“And Buck didn’t tell you? Maybe he didn’t know, himself,” Rock said.
“Now, why did Buck Walters set you to kill me the way he got Doc Martin
killed? Will you answer me that?”
“You got me foul,” Stack muttered. “I tried to get you, an’ you got me,
instead. But I ain’t talkin’.”
“No?” Rock said very softly. “Well, I was raised in an Apache country,
Stack. I expect I can _make_ you talk.”
He turned away with a frown. No use wasting words. All about in the
thicket were dry twigs, dead sticks. He gathered an armful of these,
broke them up into short lengths, and dumped the lot by his prisoner.
He took out his knife and whittled a lot of shavings. Once he stopped
to roll another smoke.
“Don’t you reckon you better talk, Stack?” he suggested.
The man’s mouth shut in a tight line.
Rock lit the fire with the same match he used for his cigarette. When
it began to crackle briskly he laid hold of the boot on Stack’s free
foot and jerked it off. The man’s face went livid. For a second he
struggled in a momentary panic, then lay still, his face gradually
turning ashy, little beads of moisture breaking out on his forehead.
Rock addressed him quite casually.
“I want to know just why Buck Walters is so anxious to have me killed
off. I want to know what sort of skin game he is working on the Maltese
Cross, and how he works it. I want to know why he was so eager to hang
Doc Martin when he thought he had failed at bushwhacking him. You know
why, I am pretty sure. Cough up what you do know.”
“I don’t know nothin’ except that Buck offered me and Hurley five
hundred dollars to put your light out. That’s all I know.”
“You are lying,” Rock said. “I will jog your memory a little, I think.”
* * * * *
With a jerk he drew the man close to the fire and thrust his foot at
the small, hot blaze. Stack jerked his knee up. Rock put his spurred
foot on that cocked knee, forced it down, and stood on it with all his
weight. The heat made a singeing smell rise from the man’s sock. His
eyes bulged. He set his teeth in his under lip. Rock stood over him,
holding him helpless. Outwardly Rock was hard and merciless, but
inwardly he felt his stomach turning. He hated the thing he had set his
hand to. It was a contest of a sort between his fundamental humanity,
his sense of decency, and the nerve of this cowardly assassin. And
Stack weakened a trifle before Rock felt he could go no farther with
that fiery ordeal.
“Oh!” Stack groaned. “Let up! I’ll tell you.”
Rock kicked the glowing coals aside. His own face was white.
“Spill it all,” he snarled. “I know enough to tab you if you try to
stall.”
For the next ten minutes words tumbled out of Stack in short, jerky
sentences. Here and there Rock put a question.
“An’ that’s all I know,” Stack gasped at last.
“It’s enough--plenty,” Rock said. “I’m tickled to death you waylaid me
to-day.”
“What you goin’ to do with me?” Stack muttered, as Rock stood over him
in brooding silence.
“If I were some people I know you’d never get out of this draw alive,”
Rock said. “You certainly have it coming. I’m not just sure I ought to
turn you loose.”
“All I want is a chance to get a long ways from this country now,” the
man declared.
“I wonder what Buck Walters would do to you if you went to him and told
him I pried all this out of you?”
“I ain’t crazy,” Stack protested. “You turn me loose, an’ neither you
nor Buck Walters’ll ever see me for the cloud of dust I’ll raise
foggin’ it to Idaho or Oregon, or some place a long ways from the
Marias River. I know when I got enough.”
“I expect that would be your best move,” Rock agreed.
He bent over Stack and undid the rope. The man sat up, rubbed his foot
gingerly, and drew on his boot.
“Now,” Rock said sternly, “people like you sometimes say one thing and
do another. You may change your mind, once you get hold of a gun again
and get a horse between your legs. You may figure you’d like to get
even with me. I am not letting you go out of sympathy. I haven’t time
to bother with you, or I would take you to Fort Benton and throw you in
the calaboose and land you eventually in the pen. But I am after Buck
Walters--not small fry. It is not going to be healthy for him nor any
of his crowd around here very soon. So, I will make you an offer and
give you a piece of advice. The offer is that if you will walk out in
plain sight on the hill, in about an hour, I will give you back this
horse. The advice is that you mount him, head south, and keep going.”
Stack rubbed his wrists where the hair macarte had sunk deep in his
flesh.
“That suits me down to the ground,” he said. “I don’t never play in a
losin’ game if I get a chance to draw out. You needn’t worry about me
changin’ my mind. I don’t want none of _your_ game, no more. But I got
stuff at the Maltese Cross I’d like to have.”
“Buck Walters is too clever for a man like you,” Rock declared. “He
would get out of you what has happened before you knew where you were
at. And I don’t want him to know. He’d probably end up by throwing a
bullet into you.”
“Maybe. Only I don’t think he’d be there at the ranch,” Stack declared.
“What makes you think that? Where would he most likely be.”
“I have only got a hunch,” Stack said slowly. “But I think he’s goin’
North for a spell, with a hand-picked crew.”
Rock considered this gravely.
“Look,” Stack offered. “I ain’t hankerin’ to take a chance with Buck. I
don’t see nothin’ in this country for me no more, nohow. Can’t you
stake me to an extra horse, a bed, an’ some grub? Then I can light
right out.”
“You’ve sure got gall,” Rock said coldly. “To ask me to stake you to
anything after trying to kill me.”
“Well, long as I’m alive I got to eat,” the man retorted. “I got some
money on me, but it might be quite a ways to another job.”
Rock regarded the man for a moment. He was not moved by any feeling of
kindness. Stack was a gunman whose services were for sale to the
highest bidder. He would kill for money, and he would kill for lack of
it. There was nothing of loyalty in his make-up. He would embark on
desperate undertakings without any personal rancor toward his victims.
And he would desert with as little compunction if the game didn’t seem
worth the candle.
Stack had had enough of Rock Holloway. To save his feet from being
toasted, he had divulged information which made northern Montana no
place for him. He had blood money in his pocket. With a horse under
him, a dead running mate behind him, he would leave for new fields,
where his peculiar talents might find suitable employment. Buck Walters
would be a long time finding out what had become of his two thugs, if
this one had a horse, a blanket, and a little food to start him on his
journey.
“You don’t get no extra horse,” said Rock. “I’ll bring you back this
one. A Maltese Cross horse is as good for you to ride out of the
country as any. I’ll stake you to a blanket and a little grub. You can
take it or leave it.”
“You’re the doctor,” Stack agreed indifferently. “I’d like another
cayuse, but if you ain’t got one to spare----” He shrugged his
shoulders in acceptance of those terms.
Rock swung into the saddle and left him. He had all the guns. He
galloped down the ravine after Nona Parke’s work stock, picking them up
where they had stopped to graze, half a mile below. He had to haze them
into the ranch, catch a fresh mount, secure the things he had promised
Stack, and return here.
After that--well, riding fast toward the Marias, with an ache beginning
to make his temples throb, Rock could still smile with anticipation. It
was worth a sore head. He would very soon have a weird tale to relay to
Uncle Bill Sayre in Fort Worth. He would surprise that estimable
banker. And it was not impossible that he might surprise Buck Walters
even more in the immediate future.