Hardcase (13 page)

“I'll tell him!” Carol said angrily. There wasn't any more to say to these two men, so she turned to Maitland and said, “Come on, Senator,” and went out. Maitland, his kindly face grim, followed her.

Carol didn't say anything while her bags were loaded into the buckboard at the hotel, and she didn't speak until they were out of town.

Senator Maitland kept looking at her, and finally he took her hand in his. “Don't worry, my dear. It'll work out some way,” he said gruffly.

“But, Uncle Dan, how can it?” Carol cried. She hadn't called him Uncle Dan since she was a child, and it seemed to touch him. He squeezed her hand and said, “Wait. Time settles a lot of things.”

Carol got a grip on herself and looked around her. They were going across the long sage flats west of town, angling toward Wagon Mound, the third town of the county that lay twenty miles west and near the Corazon. It was a crisp fall day, but out in the sun now it was almost hot. This was the time of year she loved, when the chamiso blossomed a gaudy yellow and laid its sharp and pleasant odor over the country. Now and then, off near the creek bottoms, she saw the yellow banners of the cottonwoods touched by frost, and below them the crimson splendor of the wild-plum thickets. The air was limpid, pulling the Corazon to the north miles closer, and the sky was cloudless with the high cold.

She said quietly, “Uncle Dan, who sent that money to Beal?”

Maitland roused himself and said, “I don't know, child. It's hard to tell.”

“I think Lacey Thornton sent the first five thousand. He's hated Dad ever since he left the Bib M. He'd pay to see him hang!”

“Possibly,” Maitland said. “He's a better hater than he is an editor.”

“But who sent the other five thousand?”

“I don't know. One of your father's enemies, perhaps.” He smiled and shook his head. “When a man rises to the top he's bound to step on toes. Maybe your father didn't know it, but he probably stepped on many toes.”

Carol said slowly, looking at the road beyond the horse's ears, “It's the same man who is behind Wallace.”

Maitland looked swiftly at her, surprised. “Behind Wallace? What are you talking about?”

“Hasn't it seemed queer to you, Uncle Dan, that Wallace tried this steal when Dad's hand was crippled and his signature didn't mean a thing? Hasn't it seemed queer to you, too, that Wallace was a tinhorn gambler two years ago and that he's boss of one of the biggest cattle companies in the territory today?”

“I hadn't thought of it,” Maitland said slowly. “Yes, it does seem queer. What do you deduce from that?”

“That there's somebody else's money and brains directing Wallace. And that man, whoever he is, is a friend of Dad's. Look, Dad doesn't sign his name ten times a year. Who else but a friend would know about Dad's signature being as shaky as it is? Who else would know Sam, our old foreman, well enough to know he'd take a bribe and then bribe him? No, it's a friend of Dad's who's doing it, or somebody that knows him well. And my guess is that man sent that last five thousand reward money too,” she finished bitterly.

Maitland shook his head. “That's an awful thought, my girl, a terrible thought.”

“Terrible or not, it's true!”

Maitland was silent a moment, and then he said, “You have a logical right to suspect me.”

“Oh, Uncle Dan!” Carol cried. “How can you say that?”

Senator Maitland smiled. “I didn't say you did, my dear. I said you have a right to. There's Doc Mosher and Josh Bitterman, your dad's best and oldest friends. And the Governor. Would you say Doc would do it?”

“No,” Carol said quickly. “He's been loyal to Dad for years! He's understood his hardness and forgiven him and tried to soften him. No.”

“Josh Bitterman?”

Carol smiled. “No, certainly not. He's as cantankerous and hardheaded as Dad. He's independent, and he doesn't envy any man alive. Besides, he hasn't the brains.”

“That leaves me and the Governor. He'd hardly do it.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Uncle Dan,” Carol said shortly. She looked at him. “I've hurt you.”

“Nonsense,” Maitland said and smiled faintly. “But I insist I get either a clean slate or that I'm suspected.” He frowned. “If it's a friend of Bruce's that's doing it he would have to have several things. First, brains.”

“You've got the brains,” Carol said, laughing.

“Second, ambition.”

“Well, a man doesn't get to be a senator without having ambition,” Carol teased him.

“Third, he'd have to have money to buy the Three Rivers outfit.”

Carol sighed mockingly. “And you haven't any money, have you, Uncle Dan?”

Maitland laughed gently. “Hardly. If I'd stuck to my law business I might have made some. But I'm too fiddle-footed. “I'm a politician.”

“That lets you out.”

Maitland said dryly, “At least it lets me out as far as mailing five thousand dollars in bank notes to Sheriff Beal. Whoever this man is, he must have money. Lots of it.”

“Of course.”

Maitland shook his head. “I think you're wrong, Carol. Three Rivers could be backed by a syndicate of gamblers, bent on crooked work. Wallace could have been put in there to run it for them, being one of their kind. And as for getting information about your dad, you've forgotten Sam, your old foreman.”

“What about him?”

“If he could be bribed to disappear, certainly he could have been bribed to give Wallace all the information about your dad that was needed. Isn't that right?”

“Yes,” Carol said slowly. “That's right.”

“So your case has been picked to pieces by a jackleg lawyer,” Maitland drawled and laughed at her.

“But I still think I'm right,” Carol said stubbornly.

They were silent a long time, each thinking of the matter. Finally Maitland said, “This is an interesting suspicion, Carol. Does your dad share it?”

“I've told him. But he was too worried.”

“And young Dave Coyle?”

“I don't think he does,” Carol murmured and added bitterly, “I hope not, anyway, or he'd interfere again.”

Maitland shook his head. “A dangerous and disagreeable young man, your Dave Coyle. But his crimes will catch up with him, and soon, I believe.”

The ride was a long and dreary one. They paused in Wagon Mound, a straggling frontier town of a dozen false-front stores and a tangle of stock pens squatting along the railroad. After supper they headed on out to the Bib M, McFee's spread. It was six miles from town and middle evening before they reached it.

McFee had sent their housekeeper back to her people when they had left for Santa Fe, and Carol wondered what she would do alone in the big and silent house.

But as they rounded the butte that headed the valley where the home ranch lay they saw lights ahead. Carol said swiftly, “Could it be Dad?”

“I hope not,” Maitland said, concern in his voice. “He'd be a fool to hide out here.”

“Hurry, Uncle Dan!”

The road sloped down into a pleasant sheltered valley. Against the north slope, where a stand of cottonwoods pointed down to the grassy valley floor, the house stood. It was a two-story affair of the stone of the country, with a gallery running along its front. Considering the country, it was an old place, mellowed by a decade of living. The outbuildings were dark, the stone bunkhouse deserted, for Tate Wallace's land steal had left Bruce McFee a piddling thousand acres of desert range without water or grass. The Bib M riders had been paid off, with the right to return if the court fight against Wallace was won.

Maitland drove into the yard, dismounted, and tied the team to the small tie rail in front of the house. Carol, however did not wait for him. She ran up the walk under the gallery and tried the front door. It was locked, and she yanked the bellpull impatiently.

Maitland was standing beside her when Lily Sholto, in the dark dress and white apron of a servant, opened the door.

Carol stood there, surprise making her speechless, when Lily said, “Miss Carol, I'm the new housekeeper.”

Carol walked in, unable to take her eyes off this pretty girl.

“But—who hired you?”

“Your father,” Lily said.

“Dad! Has he been here!”

Lily nodded. “With Dave Coyle. They've left.” She closed the door behind her and took an envelope out of her apron pocket. “This is for you.”

Carol took the envelope and ripped it open and was ready to draw out the letter when a thundering knock sounded on the door.

The three of them stood there staring at each other, and then Carol said faintly, “Answer it, please.”

When Carol and Senator Maitland had left the sheriff's office the corridor door opened and Lacey Thornton stepped out. He'd been hiding in the corridor, where he could hear every word that was said. He looked a little less red-faced then he looked that day at Sabinal, but not much. A lifetime of hard drinking had flushed his tight little monkey's face until it was a uniform brick red and held the stamp of perpetual anger.

He scratched his fringe of copper hair and looked at Beal. “Well, it didn't work. Maitland gummed it up.”

“She's scared, I think,” Ernie See said. He shook his head. “But I shouldn't have brought Maitland over. If he hadn't been here we'd have made her believe that reward was ‘dead or alive' right now. She'd have led us to McFee then, all right.”

“Maybe she will now,” Thornton said.

“She ain't scared enough,” Beal said. “She's just mad.”

“You know what I think?” Lacey Thornton said. “I think he's at the Bib M.”

“At his spread? Hell, he'd be a fool to do that,” Beal said.

“Why?”

“It's the first place we'd look for him.”

“Have you looked?” Thornton asked dryly.

Beal looked at Ernie and grinned sheepishly.

“There you are,” Thornton said. “McFee's travelin' with Dave Coyle, and I keep rememberin' that time Coyle ate in the commissioner's kitchen when that reward was put on him. Coyle's that way. He does what you don't figure he'll do and hasn't got the nerve to do. It's like him to convince McFee the safest place for them to hide is right at the Bib M, the last place you'd think of lookin'.”

Beal said bluntly, “You're right.” He said to Ernie, “Let's head for the Bib M. We'll get there about dark and hole up until Carol McFee and Maitland get there, then bust in on them and search the place.”

“It's worth a try,” Ernie agreed.

The three of them left the office, locked it, and after Beal had deposited the money in the bank, got their horses and rode out across the flats toward Wagon Mound and the Bib M. Ernie See seemed preoccupied during the first half-hour, and Beal and Thornton did most of the talking. But in one of the silences Ernie said to Thornton, “You hear what Miss McFee had to say about you, Thornton?”

“I heard her,” Thornton said grimly. “She thinks I put up the money.”

“Did you?”

“No!” Thornton yelled. “I wish I'd thought of it, though!”

“Funny,” Ernie said mildly. “Why'd they send it to you instead of to us?”

“I don't know. Maybe they wanted it printed in the
Clarion
.”

“We'd have told the
Clarion
,” Ernie said stubbornly.

Thornton turned on him, his red face glowing. “Why ask me? I tell you I didn't put up the money. But I think it's a good idea. I thought it was so good that I rode over on the stage to show it to you. But that's all I did!”

“Sure, sure,” Ernie said gently. But he wasn't convinced. Hadn't Thornton, in public and out of it, cursed Bruce McFee and threatened him and fought him? He had. And now Thornton had appeared with the money and the proposition of trying to scare Carol with the reward threat until she led them to McFee. No, it was more than coincidence. There was nothing unlawful about it, but why hadn't Thornton come out with it and been aboveboard? Ernie thought he knew. Thornton hated Bruce McFee so much he was ashamed of it himself. It was hardly within the dignity of a country editor to offer money for, as Carol McFee had put it, the assassination of an enemy, so Thornton had given it anonymously. Ernie didn't like McFee much better than Thornton did, but somehow that stuck in his craw. He was already ashamed of trying to scare Carol, but he put it down as necessity. Any means justified the ends, if Dave Coyle and McFee were trapped.

It was well after dark when they arrived at the Bib M. They left their horses tied to the fence in the horse pasture and quietly made their way up to the buildings. There was a light in the house, but the other buildings were deserted. Ernie first conducted a search of the barns and outbuildings. A couple of horses had come in from pasture to drink at the tank, but that meant nothing. They could be Coyle's and McFee's or they could be ranch horses. But one thing he was sure of; there were no horses saddled for a quick getaway.

The three of them squatted behind the bunkhouse to await the arrival of Carol and Maitland.

They had waited an hour, when they heard the buckboard pull into the place and stop at the tie rail by the house. Guns drawn, they walked softly toward the house, seeing Carol pull the bell rope and Maitland join her. When they were let into the house Beal said, “Wait a minute. Give McFee time to find out who it is and come out.”

They counted thirty seconds, and then Beal got impatient. “Come on!” he said.

They went up to the door, and Beal kicked it in his anxiety to get inside.

It was opened by the maid, and Beal stepped in, gun drawn, followed by Ernie and Thornton.

Carol, an envelope in her hand, stood in the hallway, Maitland beside her. Carol had a startled expression on her face as she saw Beal.