Max Brand (11 page)

Sally Bent choked, but Jig continued to hum softly.

"Singin'?" asked Riley Sinclair suddenly. "Ain't you no more worried
than that?"

The voice of the schoolteacher in reply was as smooth as running water.
"I think you'll bring me out of the trouble safely enough, Mr.
Sinclair."

"Mr. Sinclair'll see you damned before he lifts a hand for you!" Riley
retorted savagely.

He strode to his horse and expended his wrath by viciously jerking at
the cinches, until the mustang groaned. Sheriff Kern came suddenly into
clear view around the last turn and rode quickly up to them, a very
short man, muscular, sweaty. He always gave the impression that he had
been working ceaselessly for a week, and certainly he found time to
shave only once in ten days. Dense bristle clouded the lower features
of his face. He was a taciturn man. His greetings took the form of a
single grunt. He took possession of John Gaspar with a single glance
that sent the latter nervously toward his saddle horse.

"I see you got this party all ready for me," said the sheriff more
amiably to Riley Sinclair, who was watching in disgust the clumsy
method of Jig's mounting. "You're Sinclair, I guess?"

"I'm Sinclair, sheriff."

They shook hands.

"Nice bit of work you done for me, Sinclair, keeping the boys from
stringing up Jig, yonder. These here lynchings don't set none too well
on the reputation of a sheriff. I guess we're ready to start. S'long
Sally—Jerry. Are you riding our way, Sinclair?"

"I thought I'd happen along. Ain't never seen Woodville yet."

"Glad to have you. But they ain't much to see unless you look twice at
the same thing."

They started down the trail three abreast.

"Ride on ahead," commanded Sinclair to Jig. "We don't want you riding
in the same line with men. Git on ahead!"

John Gaspar obeyed that brutal order with bowed head. He rode
listlessly, with loose rein, letting the pony pick its own way. Once
Sinclair looked back to Sally Bent, weeping in the arms of her brother.
Again his face grew black.

"And yet," confided the sheriff softly, "I ain't never heard no trouble
about this Gaspar before."

"He's poison," declared Sinclair bitterly, and he raised his voice that
it would unmistakably carry to the shrinking figure before them. "He's
such a yaller-hearted skunk, sheriff, that it makes me ashamed of bein'
a man!"

"They's only one thing I misdoubt," said the sheriff. "How'd that sort
of a gent ever get the nerve to murder a man like Quade? Quade wasn't
no tenderfoot, and he could shoot a bit, besides."

"Speaking personal, sheriff, I don't think he done it, now I've had a
chance to go over the evidence."

"Maybe he didn't, but most like he'll hang for it. The boys is dead set
agin' him. First, he's a dude; second, he's a coward. Sour Creek and
Woodville wasn't never cut out for that sort. They ain't wanted
around."

That speech made Riley Sinclair profoundly thoughtful. He had known
well enough before this that there were small chances of Jig escaping
from the damning judgment of twelve of these cowpunchers. The statement
of the sheriff made the belief a fact. The death sentence of Jig was
pronounced the moment the doors of the jail at Woodville clanged upon
him.

They struck the trail to Sour Creek and almost immediately swung off on
a branch which led south and west, in the opposite direction from the
creek. It was a day of high-driving clouds, thin and fleecy, so that
they merely filtered the sunlight and turned it into a haze without
decreasing the heat perceptibly, and that heat grew until it became
difficult to look down at the blazing sand.

Now the trail climbed among broken hills until they reached a summit.
From that point on, now and again the road elbowed into view of a wide
plain, and in the center of the plain there was a diminutive dump of
buildings.

"Woodville," said the sheriff. "Hey, you, Jig, hustle that hoss along!"

Obediently the drooping Gaspar spurred his horse. The animal broke into
a gallop that set Gaspar jolting in the seat, with wildly flopping
elbows.

"Look at that," said Sinclair. "Would you ever think that men could be
born as awkward as that? Would you ever think that men would be born
that didn't have no use in the world?"

"He ain't altogether useless," decided the sheriff. "Seems as how he's
done noble in the school. Takes on with the little boys and girls most
amazing, and he knows how to keep even the eighth graders interested.
But what can you expect of a gent that ain't got no more pride than to
be a schoolteacher, eh?"

Sinclair shook his head.

The trail drifted downward now less brokenly, and Woodville came into
view. It was a wretched town in a wretched landscape, far different
from the wild hills and the rich plowed grounds around Sour Creek. All
that came to life in the brief spring, the long summer had long since
burned away to drab yellows and browns. A horrible place to die in,
Sinclair thought.

"Speaking of hosses, that's a wise-looking hoss you got, sheriff."

"Rode him for five years," said the sheriff. "Raised him and busted him
and trained him all by myself. Ain't nobody but me ever rode him. He
can go so soft-footed he wouldn't bust eggs, sir, and he can turn loose
and run like the wind. They ain't no better hoss than this that's come
under my eye, Sinclair. Are you much on the points of a hoss?"

"I use hosses—I don't love 'em," said Sinclair gloomily. "But I can
read the points tolerable."

The sheriff eyed Sinclair coldly. "So you don't love hosses, eh?" he
said, returning distantly to the subject. It was easy to see where his
own heart lay by the way his roan picked up its head whenever its
master spoke.

"Sheriff," explained Sinclair, "I'm a single-shot gent. I don't aim to
have no scatter fire in what I like. They's only one man that I ever
called friend, they's only one place that I ever called home—the
mountains, yonder—and they's only one hoss that I ever took to much. I
raised Molly up by hand, you might say. She was ugly as sin, but they
wasn't nothing she couldn't do—nothing!" He paused. "Sheriff, I used
to talk to that hoss!"

The sheriff was greatly moved. "What became of her?" he asked softly.

"I took after a gent once. He couldn't hit me, but he put a slug
through Molly."

"What became of the gent?" asked the sheriff still more softly.

"He died just a little later. Just how I ain't prepared to state."

"Good!" said the sheriff. He actually smiled in the pleasure of
newfound kinship. "You and me would get on proper, Sinclair."

"Most like."

"This hoss of mine, now, has sense enough to take me home without me
touching a rein. Knows direction like a wolf."

"Could you guide her with your knees?"

"Sure."

"And she's plumb safe with you?"

"Sure."

"I know a gent once that said he'd trust himself tied hand and foot on
his hoss."

"That goes for me and my hoss, too, Sinclair."

"Well, then, just shove up them hands, sheriff!"

The sheriff blinked, as the sun flashed on the revolver in the steady
hand of Sinclair. There was a significant little jerking up of the
revolver. Each time the muzzle stirred, the hands of the sheriff jumped
higher and higher until his arms were stiffly stretched. Gaspar had
halted his horse and looked back in amazement.

"I hate to do it," declared Sinclair. "Right off I sort of took to you,
sheriff. But this has got to be done."

"Sinclair, have you done much thinking before you figured this all
out?"

"Enough! If I knowed you one shade better, sheriff, I'd take your word
that you'd ride on into Woodville, good and slow, and not start no
pursuit. But I don't know you that well. I got to tie you on the back
of that steady old hoss of yours and turn you loose. We need that much
start."

He dismounted, still keeping careful aim, took the rope coiled beside
the sheriff's own saddle horn and began a swift and sure process of
tying. He worked deftly, without undue fear or haste, and Gaspar came
back to look on with scared eyes.

"You're a fool, Sinclair," murmured the sheriff. "You'll never get shut
of me. I'll foller you till I drop dead. I'll never forget you. Change
your mind now, and we'll say nothing has happened. But if you keep on,
you're done for as sure as my name is Kern. Take you by yourself, and
you'd be a handful to catch. But two is easier than one, and, when one
of them two is a deadweight like Gaspar, they ain't nothing to it."

He finished his appeal completely trussed.

"I ain't tied you on the hoss," said Sinclair. "Take note of that. Also
I'm leaving you your guns, sheriff."

"I hope you'll have a chance to see 'em come out of the holster later
on, Sinclair."

The cowpuncher took no notice of this bitterness. Gaspar, who looked
on, was astonished by a certain deferential politeness on the part of
the big cowpuncher.

"Speaking personal, I hope I don't never have no trouble with you,
sheriff. I like you, understand?"

"Have your little joke, Sinclair!"

"I mean it. I know I'm usin' you like a skunk. But I got a special
need, and I can't take no chances. Sheriff, I tell you out of my heart
that I'm sorry! Will you believe me?"

The sheriff smiled. "The same as you'll believe me when we change
parts, Sinclair."

The big man sighed. "I s'pose it's got to be that way," he said. "But
if you come for me, Kern, come all primed for action. It'll be a hard
trail."

"That's my specialty."

"Well, sheriff, s'long—and good luck!"

The sheriff nodded. "Thanks!"

Pressing his horse with his knees, Kern started down the trail at a
slow canter. Sinclair followed the retiring figure, nodding with
admiration at the skill with which the sheriff kept his mount under
control, merely by power of voice. Presently the latter turned a corner
of the trail and was out of sight.

"But—I knew—I knew!" exclaimed John Gaspar. "Only, why did you let
him go on into town?" The cold glance of Sinclair rested on his
companion. "What would you have done?"

"Tied him up and left him here."

"I think you would—to die in the sun!" He swung up into his saddle.
"Now, Gaspar, we've started on what's like to prove the last trail for
both of us, understand? By night we'll both be outlawed. They'll have a
price on us, and long before night, Kern will be after us. For the
first time in your soft-hearted life you've got to work, and you've got
to fight."

"I'll do it, Mr. Sinclair!"

"Bah! Save your talk. Talk's dirt cheap."

"I only ask one thing. Why have you done it?"

"Because, you fool, I killed Quade!"

From the first there was no thought in the sheriff's mind of riding
straight into Woodville, trussed and helpless as he was. Woodville
respected him, and the whole district was proud of its sheriff. He knew
that five minutes of laughter can blast the finest reputation that was
ever built by a lifetime of hard labor. He knew the very faces of the
men who would never let the story die, of how the sheriff came into
town, not only without his prisoner, but tied hand and foot, helpless
in the saddle.

Without his prisoner!

Never before in his twenty years as sheriff had a criminal escaped from
his hands. Many a time they had tried, and on those occasions he had
brought back a dead body for the hand of the law.

This time he had ample excuse. Any man in the world might admit that he
was helpless when such a fellow as Riley Sinclair took him by surprise.
He knew Sinclair well by reputation, and he respected all that he had
heard.

No matter for that. The fact remained that his unbroken string of
successes was interrupted. Perhaps Woodville would explain his failure
away. No doubt some of the men knew of Sinclair and would not wonder.
They would stand up doughtily for the prowess of their sheriff. Yet the
fact held that he had failed. It was a moral defeat more than anything
else.

His mind was made up to remain in the mountains until he starved, or
until he had removed those shameful ropes—his own rope! At that
thought he writhed again. But here an arroyo opening in the ragged wall
of a cliff caught his eye. He turned his horse into it and continued on
his way until he saw a projecting rock with a ragged edge, left where a
great fragment had recently fallen away.

Here he found it strangely awkward and even perilous to dismount
without his hands to balance his weight, as he shifted out of the
stirrups. In spite of his care, he stumbled over a loose rock as he
struck the ground and rolled flat on his back. He got up, grinding his
teeth. His hands were tied behind him. He turned his back on the broken
rock and sawed the ropes against it. To his dismay he felt the rock
edge crumble away. It was some chalky, friable stuff, and it gave at
the first friction.

Beads of moisture started out on the sheriff's forehead. Hastily he
started on down the arroyo and found another rock, with an edge not
nearly so favorable in appearance, but this time it was granite. He
leaned his back against it and rubbed with a short shoulder motion
until his arms ached, but it was a happy labor. He felt the rock edge
taking hold of the ropes, fraying the strands to weakness, and then
eating into them. It was very slow work!

The sun drifted up to noon, and still he was leaning against that rock,
working patiently, with his head near to bursting, and perspiration,
which he could not wipe away, running down to blind him. Finally, when
his brain was beginning to reel with the heat, and his shoulders ached
to numbness, the last strand parted. The sheriff dropped down to the
ground to rest.

Presently he drew out his jackknife and methodically cut the remaining
bonds. It came to him suddenly, as he stood up, that someone might have
seen this singular performance and carried the tale away for future
laughter. The thought drove the sheriff mad. He swung savagely into the
saddle and drove his horse at a dead run among the perilous going of
that gorge. When he reached the plain he paused, hesitant between a
bulldog desire to follow the trail single-handed into the mountains and
run down the pair, and a knowledge that he who retreats has an added
power that would make such a pursuit rash beyond words.