Crossroads (11 page)

H
is fear had lasted long enough for anger to take part of its place. “I’m going to write out the pardon for you,” he said, “not because I’m afraid of your gun, but because I always humor an hysterical woman.”

“Partner,” answered Jack calmly, “I don’t care why you do it, as long as it’s done.”

“Of course,” he went on, “the moment you’re gone, I’ll call in a marshal, explain how I was held up at the point of a gun for the pardon, swear out a warrant for your arrest, and send a messenger to Double Bend to cancel the pardon.”

“That,” said the girl with unabated cheerfulness, “sounds smooth, but it wouldn’t work. First, because they don’t make marshals in these parts that could stop me, and because I’d come back and get you…and you know it! Second, because you don’t dare let ’em know that a woman bluffed you out at the point of a gun. They’d never stop laughin’ in this state if they knew that, Governor.”

He had not thought of that. It made him wince and turn yellow. Once more he saw the face of Oñate turning yellow with vindictiveness when he heard of the governor’s pardon. The image of the white verandah and the cool, green palms died out in the governor’s brain.

“Write,” commanded the girl. “I’m a pile hurried.”

He sat down at the desk and wrote, slowly—because
his brain was working in fits and starts, like a cold engine, but finally the words were set down and his name scrawled beneath the message. He shoved the paper slowly toward her. Even then his mind was working to discover a way to undo what he had just completed.

“Stick up your hands,” said the girl as she received the paper in her left hand, “and keep ’em up while I throw an eye over this lingo. If you make a move to pull ’em down while I’m reading…trust me…I’ll see you!”

He obeyed, sweating with mortification.

“It looks okay,” she announced after she had finished reading. “The writing looks sort of wobbly…like you was drunk, old boy…but it’s better to be drunk than be like you are sober. So long. Dix Van Dyck’ll drink a long one to you when he gets this.”

At the door she pulled the veil down over her face, slipped away the gun into a fold of her dress, and disappeared into the gloom of the hall.

For half a minute the governor stood staring at the door through which she had vanished as if he saw a specter. Then he leaped into action. He jammed his plump forefinger down on the button and kept it there until the private secretary fairly leaped through the door.

“Get Mitchell,” groaned the governor like an expiring man.

It was, indeed, a political death that was taking place. Joe sped for the telephone. In half an hour Mitchell appeared. He was the power behind the throne in the state. For fifteen years he had controlled the legislature and usually the governor was his choice. He had dragged Boardman from the gutter to the gilded heights of the capital. And he was fond of his nominee for of all the men he had handled the present governor was the most pliable. He came now, in haste, but even in his haste his dignity would not have shamed the presence of a Roman
senator, an old man of nearly seventy with a bush of snow-white hair and a slender beard of the same color. Long, lean, with high cheekbones and buried, small eyes, he looked like a fighter, and a fighter he was.

“I’m done,” said the governor without rising to greet the great man.

“You usually are,” said Mitchell, “once a month. What is it this time? The Mexicans or the copper men?”

“A woman,” groaned the governor.

“Hell,” said Mitchell, showing his first emotion, “that’s worse than both together. What is it? Blackmail?”

“Looked like a lady,” said the governor, “and came with a plea for Dix Van Dyck…the outlaw that was taken the other day. Oñate was interested in getting Dix Van Dyck. That’s why I outlawed him.”

“Put a rope around his neck for the sake of Oñate, eh?” murmured Mitchell. “I remember now.”

“Of course, I turned her down. Said Van Dyck had to swing. She pulled a gun. What could I do? The little devil had hellfire in her eyes. I made out the pardon. She’s ridden away with it straight for Double Bend, I suppose. I can’t retract the pardon. If the state knows that a woman has made me back down, they’ll never stop laughing at me.”

“I could laugh myself,” murmured Mitchell, “if it weren’t for Oñate. He’ll be furious when he finds out that Van Dyck is out again. How did the feud start between Oñate and Van Dyck? And who is Van Dyck? Was it land or booze or women or what?”

“Something Van Dyck said. Oñate sent his brother and two other men to kill Van Dyck. Instead, he got all three of ’em. That put Oñate on his trail. I had to railroad Van Dyck to keep Oñate. Oñate means twenty per cent of the state.”

“Dirty business,” said Mitchell, and then, being a graceful man, he waved his lean old hands through the air,
“but little men have to die in order that big men may live. We can’t ruin ourselves for the sake of any Dix Van Dyck. I’ll tell you what you’ve got to do, Sam. You have to stop that girl before she reaches Double Bend. Before that pardon reaches the prison, you’ll have to have Van Dyck strung up by a mob…anything will do. The great thing is to conciliate Oñate. Am I right?”

“Stop the girl? You might as well talk of stopping the wind. I’ve seen her. It can’t be done, Mitchell.”

“There’s a gambling chance…better than an even chance. Stop the girl with peaceful means if you can, and get that pardon away from her. Stop her with bullets if you have to. In the meantime send off a messenger on the gallop for Double Bend. Oñate will be there enjoying the sight of Van Dyck behind the bars.”

“But stopping the girl?” objected the governor, regaining his interest in life to some extent.

“Leave that to me. I’ll telephone ahead down the path to Double Bend. I’ll have a dozen men combing the trail for her. If she comes in reach of the trap, you can rest assured that she’ll fall into it.”

“And Oñate?”

“Give him a hint that the thing for him to do is to raise a mob and attack the jail at Double Bend.”

“But,” said the governor, “there’s one thing in the way of that. Marshal Phil Glasgow is in Double Bend, and he’s hell on mobs.”

“Damnation!” roared the irate Mitchell, springing to his feet. “Are you going to let one man block your scheme? To hell with Phil Glasgow. Have him shot…tie him hand and foot…but don’t let that pardon get to Double Bend. We’ve reached the turning of our tide. Without the Mexican vote, we’ve got nothing…and we lose the Mexican vote if we lose Oñate. He wants Van Dyck. Let him have the fellow. It’s our contribution to hell…our cake
thrown to Cerberus…yes, very good…our contribution to Cerberus. Ha, ha, ha!” Mitchell chuckled over his metaphor for he was a man of some classical education. He awoke with a growl. “But don’t sit there like a blockhead staring at me. Get busy, Sam. This makes you or breaks you. Don’t try to get that message to Oñate over the wire. You’ll have to trust a messenger. Leave it to me to stop the girl.”

“If you can do that!” sighed the governor.

“Is a slip of a girl,” sneered the great man, “going to be the monkey wrench that wrecks my machine? Boardman, sometimes you talk like a fool.”

T
he greatness of a leader, it is said, can be accurately judged by the ability of his lieutenants. The leader himself may be capable, but unless he can choose the right men for the right place his hands are tied. Washington needed Hamilton, and Napoleon needed Soult, Lannes, Souchet, and the rest. As for Mitchell, while his scope was not so great, he had an equal need for men who would accept his word as the final law and act upon it unhesitatingly—wisely. He required smooth-tongued speakers for lobbying, silent powers to touch financial interests, stump-speakers to stir the brain, and preachers to rouse the emotions. He needed men with subtle brains and men with hard fists. He needed some who roared like lions and others who went as silently as the snake. Such were his requirements as boss of the state. He had the men. He had them pigeon-holed in the orderly recesses of his brain.

When he retired from the presence of Governor Boardman, therefore, he had merely to sit a moment by himself and comb over his resources. On this occasion he had hardly the leeway that he generally enjoyed. He had to find the right man, not in the state but in the little town of Godfrey that lay halfway between Double Bend and the capital city. Every town was mapped in the brain of Mitchell. He could name most of the streets. He knew the
leading citizens. His system of espionage touched every channel of life in the state—financial, political, and social. Now he concentrated on the town of Godfrey, and out of that mental effort a picture rose in his mind—the picture of Bill Lawton.

What Mitchell wanted was not an officer of the law, but a man who would take his word in the place of any legal authority. He wanted, moreover, a man who would attack a woman as soon as he would a man. These were the two requirements that came into Mitchell’s careful mind. There was another qualification that he did not think of until later. But in answer to the first two demands he saw the clear picture of Bill Lawton, hook-legged from a life spent in the saddle, a gait as clumsy as that of a salt-water tar when on foot, blunt, ugly hands ready for all work, a shock of iron-gray, dirty hair tumbling over a low forehead, little pig-eyes set close together, a negligible nose, and the loose mouth of a satyr.

He rang up the saloon of Bull Murphy at Godfrey. When the connection was made, he asked for Bill Lawton. He was perfectly sure that if he was in town Bill Lawton would be in the saloon. It was as impossible to imagine him elsewhere as it would be to imagine the sand away from the desert. In a moment the voice of Bill Lawton rolled back along the wire.

“Lawton?”

“Right.”

“This is Mitchell.”

“What Mitchell?”

“Cripple Creek Mitchell.”

“The hell-l-l-l!”

“Are you broke, Bill?”

“Always.”

“Want work?”

“Always. If it ain’t hard.”

“Can you get a dozen men…or half a dozen?”

“Half a hundred, if you want ’em.”

“Then get ’em. I’ll pay the expense. Tell ’em that. I want you to stop a woman who’s riding between this town and Double Bend. She ought to be along early tomorrow morning. She rides….”

“D’you say this’s got to do with a woman?”

“Right.”

“Then I can’t get no half hundred…not in this town.”

“How many can you get?”

“I dunno. Maybe half a dozen.”

“Then get them.”

“What’s the woman done?”

“She’s carrying a paper to Double Bend. First, you’ve got to stop that woman. Next, you’ve got to get that paper.”

“How bad do you want her?”

“A hundred dollars’ worth for you and twenty bucks for every man with you.”

“That sounds fair to me. How bad d’you want her, speakin’ of guns?”

“The way I always want a thing done.”

“If she rides too fast?”

“Shoot the horse.”

“If she carries a gun….”

“She does carry a gun, and she’ll use it. That’s her kind.”

“Well?”

“Treat her like a man.”

“Is that straight? It don’t go none too easy with a man that tackles a woman…not in these parts.”

“I told you to stop her. I don’t care how you do it.”

“You’re behind me?”

“To the limit.”

“But I reckon you’d better raise that hundred to two.”

“It’s done.”

“How’ll I know the girl?”

“Very good-looking. Dark. Black hair and eyes. She’ll probably be riding hard. Ought to pass somewhere near Godfrey early tomorrow morning. Will you be on the trails?”

“Trust me, chief.”

“Good luck.”

“S’long.”

But, when he had hung up the telephone, Bill Lawton turned and wiped from his forehead large and steadily growing beads of perspiration. He went immediately to the corner of the barroom where his compatriot, the half-breed, Noony, still sat. To him he explained the situation, and Noony, before responding, shifted his eyes swiftly to all sides to make sure that no one was within distance of a whispering voice.

“It ain’t lucky,” said Noony, who was half Indian and half white, “to fool with a girl.”

“It ain’t,” agreed Lawton. “You never said nothin’ truer, Noony. But we got the big boss behind us.”

“But, if a gang gets wind of it,” answered Noony, “the big boss is a pile too far away to help us any. How many men you going to take?”

“How many?” queried Lawton. “You an’ me. That’s all. Take two men an’ they’ll keep their faces shut about a little deal. Take three an’ one of ’em’s apt to go to the district attorney and stay put. I
know
.” He said it with sinister lack of enthusiasm. “But you, Noony, you know me too well to try any funny stuff.”

The half-breed shrugged his shoulders as though something cold were running down his back. “I know,” he said laconically. “But you think two’s enough?”

“Where there’s a woman,” said Lawton, “it’s almost too much. A woman ain’t no good, Noony. I know because I’ve tried ’em when I was flush. A woman can make more trouble amongst a lot of gents than a barrel of whiskey
and a pile of loot. I
know
. That’s why I never take no chance with ’em.”

“How d’you mean?” asked the half-breed.

“This,” said Bill Lawton, and leaning forward with a ghastly grin he drew his forefinger slowly, with relish, across his throat. “After that,” he concluded, “there ain’t many men will want to fight for ’em.”

“Going to do that this time?” asked Noony.

“What do you think I been talkin’ for?” asked Lawton. “Money? Sure I’m going to do that this time! Think I’ll let the girl come down to Godfrey and tell the boys what’s happened? There’s some of ’em already that don’t like me none too much ever since I bumped off old Milton down at the cabin. And she couldn’t make no mistake describin’ this map of mine. God sure tagged and labeled me when I come into the world. They’d know me in a cityful. Even if we done nothing to her but take that paper off’n her, the boys would be out for my scalp. All she’d have to do would be to spill a couple of tears, and all the boys would go crazy. The sight of a woman cryin’, Noony, is worse’n gambling to drive gents off their feed and make ’em ready for guns. I
know
. We’ll stop this girl and hold her till we get the paper. Then I’ll pull my knife…and you jest look the other way so’s you couldn’t give no evidence ag’in’ me. Right?”

“Right!”

“Then where’ll we lay for her?”

“She’ll take the east trail, like as not,” said Noony. “The big boss is after her. Maybe she knows she’s wanted. She won’t come near no town. She’ll keep in the hills.”

“Noony, there’s what I call brain work! If it wasn’t that I owed the boss a lot, I’d never tackle this job. But he got me out of the can when I was lingerin’ around behind the bars waitin’ to be knocked in the head. My God, Noony, there ain’t nothin’ so bad as jail…an’ the shadows of the bars. They leave marks on you…inside. I got ’em with me still!”