Death Rides the Night (7 page)

“It didn't happen just that way,” Winters said dryly. “Pat knocked you out an' took your gun all right. And he marched Ezra out with it, but not
past
the new sheriff.”

“Didn't make it, huh?” Sam's jaw jutted belligerently. “What're we all waitin' fer back here then, like we was holdin' a wake over a corpse? Pat didn't … he didn't get gunned down out yonder by thuh new sheriff?”

“I'm trying to tell you the straight of it,” Winters said patiently. “Pat went kinda crazy, I reckon. Seemed like he forgot he'd turned in his badge an' thought he still had a lawman's job to do. He held your gun on Ezra and turned him over to Tripo to take to jail soon's he heard what the charge was.”

Sam stood very still, his eyes boring into Winters. “Pat did
what?”

Winters sighed and nodded. “Yep. I'm telling it to you straight. Looks like something funny must've happened to Pat during these years while he's been sheriff. Don't you reckon that's it, John?” He turned to look at Boyd.

The old rancher nodded slowly. His leathery face was harsh and his eyes were cold and uncompromising. “I never thought Pat'd throw in with a man like Harlow if I hadn't seen it happen with my own eyes. An' after all that talk Pat give us in here too.”

“What charge'd they make ag'in Ezra?” Sam demanded. His black eyes were beginning to smolder with repressed anger.

“Rustlin' Harlow's high-bred stock,” Boyd grated. “Harlow claims Ezra had stole a dozen of 'em an' has got 'em penned up on his new ranch.”

“An' Pat believed that about Ezra?” Sam asked in a tone of utter incomprehension.

“Yep. I reckon he did. He told Tripo to put him in jail, an' then he started drinkin' with Harlow friendly as a little spotted dawg that's been kicked in the ribs.”

Sam Sloan's shoulders sagged. He took a faltering step forward and sank down into a chair. “It don't make sense,” he muttered blankly. “Pat knows Ezra wouldn't steal no cows. We all know he wouldn't.” His eyes appealed to the others.

Winters nodded shortly. He drew up a chair opposite Sam Sloan. “It looks like Pat's lost his head over some idea of keeping law and order in the Valley.”

“An' there ain't a gun among the lot of us,” Sam groaned with a searching look at the others. “What're we gonna do?”

Boyd and Pete sat down also. Pete opened his tight lips to say, “Guns in our saddlebags.”

“Whose saddlebags?”

“Mine, an' t'other boys from the Lazy Mare. We brung 'em in thinkin' there might be trouble.” It was a long speech for Pete. He began to roll a cigarette after completing it.

“And I've got guns in my store,” Winters reminded Sam. “But I sure hate to go against Pat in this thing. Him acting that way is what buffaloes me.”

“To hell with Pat,” Sam ejaculated, his dark face livid with anger. “I ain't lettin' 'em keep Ezra locked up. Not me. I've done let Pat twist me aroun' his finger the last time. How 'bout you, Pete? Pat's yore boss. You goin' along with him or throwin' in with us?”

Pete said, “I'm here, ain't I?”

“Awright.” Sam's eyes were very bright. “S'posin' you hunt up the other boys an' all three of you empty yore saddlebags? John an' me'll mosey over tuh Winters' store an' pick us out a couple of six-shooters from stock. That makes five of us an' I reckon five is enough tuh tear the jail apart an' get Ezra out.”

“Make it six,” Winters said quietly.

“No need fer you tuh mix in it,” Sam said quickly. Winters was different from the others, a substantial businessman and one of the strongest advocates of legal methods in the Valley. Unlike the others, he had never packed a gun on his hip even in the old days of lawlessness, and Sam knew that he had an aversion to any sort of gun-play.

“That's right,” Boyd put in quickly. “You'll be doin' yore part by unlockin' the store an' outfittin' Sam an' me. If things go wrong nobody needs to know you had any part in it.”

“I've got a sawed-off gun in the back of the store,” said Winters flatly. “This is one time when I'm willing to go against what looks like the legal way. I think it's time Eustis Harlow finds out we're not all spotted dogs here in the Valley.”

There was a little silence in the back room of the saloon after the storekeeper's words. All of them were thinking of Pat Stevens and Boyd's description of the way he had acted. All of them felt sort of sick inside about it. Pat's actions were as incomprehensible as they were sickening to these men who had known him so long and so well.

Sam stirred first. He shook his head briefly as though to dismiss the black thoughts obsessing him, and pushed back his chair. “Ain't no use us settin' around here,” he observed with finality. “Wishin' ain't gonna get Ezra out of jail.”

The others got up with him. Sam pushed the door open and stalked out into the saloon. It wasn't as full as it had been. Pat was gone, and neither Harlow nor any of his gang were there. Men turned from the bar and looked curiously at the grim-faced men who came out of the back room. Their faces indicated that they had been discussing the group behind the closed door, and wondering what they might do.

The bartender came hurrying down from the front of the bar and greeted Sam jovially, “Got something here that belongs to you, Sam.”

“That so?” Sam Sloan stopped and squinted at him suspiciously. “What is it?”

“Your six-gun,” the bartender told him. He reached under the bar and pulled out Sam's .45. “Pat Stevens gave it to me to keep for you,” he explained. “He told me to tell you not to forget you're riding the mail in the morning and that Kitty will be looking for you.”

Sam nodded grimly. He took the weapon and holstered it. Pete drifted on past him and drew the other two Lazy Mare punchers aside. He spoke to them for a moment, and then the trio went outside to their saddled horses at the hitch-rail. Sam turned to Winters and said gruffly, “It looks like I won't need to go over to thuh store with yuh. Why don't you take John over an' get him fixed up, an' I'll meet you-all outside in about five minutes?”

Winters nodded, and he and the rancher went out. Sam turned back to the bar and grunted, “Pour me out a shot of red-eye, Alex.”

The bartender poured him a drink.

“Where's ever'body at?” Sam asked in a low voice.

Alex glanced up at the row of men still at the bar, and answered out of the side of his mouth, “Harlow gathered up his hands and took out right after Pat left.”

“All of 'em?”

“All except Tripo and a couple of them he deputized to guard the jail. I reckon they figure some of Ezra's friends might try to pull a jail-break.”

Sam grunted something unintelligible deep in his throat. He tossed off the drink of whisky and set the glass down. When he reached in his pocket for payment, the bartender backed away and said hastily, “Your drink's paid for. Harlow laid out the cash for drinks for everybody when he set them up to Pat.”

Sam's face remained expressionless. He pulled out a silver half dollar and spun it across the bar. “I reckon I'll buy my own.” He tugged his hat lower over his eyes and strolled out.

Pete and the other two punchers were waiting for him on the boardwalk outside. They had gotten their guns and cartridge belts out of their saddlebags, and all were armed.

“We'll walk on down to the store,” Sam suggested. “Pick up John an' Winters there, an' then spread out to surround the jail.”

Pete fell in step beside Sam, and his two younger companions trailed along behind. They were slim young cowboys who had been reared in the Valley and had been working on the Lazy Mare for a couple of years. They recognized Pete as their leader, and they had obeyed him without question when he came out of the back room and drew them aside to say they were to assist Sam Sloan in a jail break to rescue Ezra. They might not have agreed so readily had they known everything that had happened behind the closed door of the back room for they worshipped their employer and were intensely loyal to him; but Pete had given the impression that the whole thing had been prearranged with Pat before Ezra was arrested, so they came along unquestioningly.

As they left the lights of the Gold Eagle behind them, the boardwalk became dark and the only sound in the night was the hard thudding of eight bootheels on the pine boards. Except for the laggards still in the saloon, the rest of Dutch Springs was asleep and unaware of the desperate plan afoot to free the imprisoned Ezra.

A glimmer of light showed ahead through the dirty and cobwebbed windows of Mr. Winters' general store. It blinked out as they approached the store, and two dark figures emerged from the door to wait for them on the boardwalk.

John Boyd had a long-barreled .45 swinging in his hand while the storekeeper had a double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun resting easily in the crook of his left arm.

“I didn't bother to get a belt an' holster,” Boyd explained, hefting the weight of the six-gun anxiously. “You figger we'll just walk up an' blast 'em, Sam?”

“Did Tripo stay at the jail?” Winters put in. “Or did he just lock Ezra up and ride back to the ranch with the key in his pocket? I brought along a short wrecking bar to force the door if we can't get hold of a key,” he added.

“I reckon we'll find a key there,” Sam grunted. “Alex at the Gold Eagle says Tripo depytized two of the VX hands to guard the jail tuhnight. He most likely left a key with them. Le's split up,” he suggested. “You can see a light in the office back of thuh jail from here. They must be settin' up there watchin'.”

“The less shooting there is the better the whole thing will be,” Winters said firmly as the six men moved forward toward the gleam of light showing from the sheriff's office in the lean-to at the back of the jail. “This is bad enough if we can pull it off without anybody being killed,” he went on to Sam. “A sawed-off shotgun is a mighty handy thing to throw a scare into a man. That's why I insisted on bringing it along. I think if I can sneak up to the window unobserved and cover them with the shotgun, some of the rest of you can go in the door and disarm them and get the key without any trouble.”

“I'd like tuh run into some trouble,” said Sam angrily. “Me, I'm jest itchin' to fill them depyries full of lead.”

“No,” said Winters sharply. “They're just hired hands, Sam. They're not to blame for taking orders from Harlow. Let's stop here.” They were just across the street from the jail which was situated behind the new courthouse building. “You, Dick. Stay here on the corner to keep watch,” he ordered one of the Lazy Mare hands. “Stop anyone who tries to ride closer to the jail while we're there. And you go across to the opposite corner and do the same,” he told the other oowpoke. “You come with me, Sam, and we'll go around back to the window while Pete and Boyd go up to the door. You i and Pete wait until we cover them from the window,” he told Boyd. “Then go in and get their guns.”

Boyd nodded and he and Pete moved away. Sam wanted to protest this plan because it seemed too easy and didn't offer much chance of any shooting, but he realized it was the sensible way to work the jail delivery and he went along by Winters' side without arguing but not without the inward hope that the two new deputies would be foolhardy enough to go for their guns in the face of a shotgun and his .45.

The figures of Pete and John Boyd blended with the moonlit night and were swallowed up in the haze. Winters and Sam crossed the dusty road silently and moved across the courthouse yard on tiptoe to come up behind the adobe lean-to. The single square window was small and was set high in the adobe wall. It was a square blob of light that seemed to beckon them on, as though it were an eye that watched their approach and wondered why they came so slowly.

Sam stayed a pace in advance of the storekeeper, bent forward almost double for the dual purpose of making himself as inconspicuous as possible and to scan the ground more closely for rocks or dry branches that might betray them to the men inside the office.

His hand was on his gun, and he loosened it in the holster as he reached the shadow of the jail. The lean-to was at the other end of the squat building. He stopped and listened intently, but could hear no sound from the other side of the building to indicate that Boyd and Pete were closing in also. He turned his head and whispered to Winters who had stopped right behind him, “We better wait a minute tuh be shore John an' Pete are ready.”

Winters nodded his head. He held the shotgun down in front of him with one hand clutching the double muzzles and the other with a finger crooked about the triggers. He seemed completely cool, and Sam Sloan marveled at the storekeeper's composure. A man would think, by golly, that he was in the habit of engineering a jail break every night. It just went to show that you never could tell about a man until the pressure was on. Take Pat now.

But Sam put the thought of Pat away from him angrily. Thinking about the way Pat had run out on Ezra brought sharp pain. It was something he didn't dare let himself think about. Later he knew he would have to think about Pat, and he dreaded that time. Right now, it was enough to think about Ezra, probably sound asleep right now inside the jail.

Ezra had always been one to make the best of any bad circumstances. He could settle down and go to sleep 'most anywhere, and it wasn't the first jail Ezra had been in either. He'd probably be sore and cuss them out, Sam thought indulgently, when they unlocked the door and woke him up to take him out.

“They ought to be at the door by now,” Winters whispered, and he stepped past Sam toward the lighted window.

Sam unholstered his gun and followed him. They crept along in the shadow of the wall, stooping beneath the Window ledge that was at about the height of Sam's shoulders.