Hardcase (7 page)

For one panicked moment Dave wondered what to do. Again he looked up, and now he counted the men. There were seven of them, spaced at regular intervals around him, the light from the fire picking them out. He sank down again, cursing—and then something struck him.

Usher had six men, counting himself! He had counted seven. That meant that Sholto was guarding too! Dave forced himself to think back to what had happened in the shack. Sholto hadn't struggled when he'd been forced to make a shield for Dave. And it seemed to Dave that he had willingly smashed into Usher, upsetting his aim.

It was worth a try. And it was his only chance.

Again he raised up, studying these men's figures. They had the light in their eyes now and couldn't see him so well. He saw Sholto, off to one side, toward the middle of the meadow.

Dave ducked down and set off in the heavy grass on his hands and knees toward Sholto. A panicked family of field mice ran over his hands, oblivious to anything but the fire that was chasing them. Dave could hear it crackle behind him and knew that it was burning on a wide front and was fanned by the wind.

He paused and looked up again presently, and he saw Sholto twenty feet ahead of him, knee deep in the grass. The light touched up the man's face, and again Dave was reassured. This wasn't a killer's face.

He crawled on, and now he could see Sholto watching the grass that he was disturbing. And then he looked away, and Dave's heart leaped. He headed straight for him, and still Sholto was looking out toward the fire. Dave passed within inches of him, and still Sholto didn't look at him.

Dave stopped long enough to whisper, “Did they leave a gun in the shack?”

“No,” Sholto whispered.

Dave vanished then. Usher, following the fire, was shouting instructions for them to watch closely. And Dave, traveling as fast as he could, headed for the nearest peninsula of timber that sloped down into the meadow.

In another two minutes he had achieved it, and he put the point of land between him and the fire, then disappeared into the timber.

Panting, he looked back at the scene. The circle of men still held, although the grass fire had eaten more than halfway through it. Those six men stood there with their guns drawn, waiting to collect their bounty on him. A sheepishness welled up in Dave as he looked at it. He'd been a sucker, just like Will had said.

He'd forgotten that Will traveled with a wild bunch, headed it, and that this was the sort of gall that needed men to back it. Well, he'd have to kill Will Usher now. He was a nuisance, a dangerous nuisance, but that could wait. In a few minutes these men would think of their horses, and Dave wanted to be away by that time.

He pondered a moment and decided that Will would have tied the horses to the windward of the shack, lest Dave's mounts, when they approached, catch the scent of other horses and give away their presence.

Therefore, he plunged into the timber, came presently to a ridge, crossed it, dropped down into a gully and walked up it, and found the horses in the dark. They were tied out in a thicket of scrub juniper, which they would tramp. The scent of evergreens would kill any other scent coming to them and keep them from whinnying.

Swiftly, then, Dave searched the saddles, and on one he found a carbine in the rifle scabbard. This was the horse he took, not even bothering to shorten the stirrups until he was clear.

Once he was away from the shack he dismounted, adjusted the stirrups, and considered his situation. Will had Sholto. He would collect ransom on him, just as they had planned together.

For one moment Dave pondered going back and taking Sholto, now that he had the gun. And then another thought occurred to him. Why not let Will Usher have all the grief of lugging Sholto around with him and sending a man for the ransom money? It would be easier to steal the money from Usher than steal Sholto from him.

And that meant that he'd have to hunt up Wallace and watch him. And Wallace had probably been out with the posse, which would return to Yellow Jacket.

He set off in the night, then, through the timber, headed for Yellow Jacket. Will Usher would keep. He was going to have a lot of fun with Usher before he killed him, and he wanted to figure out just what shape that fun would take.

VI

Approximately twenty-four hours after the kidnaping of Sholto, the posse, headed by Sheriff Beal, came home to Yellow Jacket empty-handed. Wallace, who had driven himself and his men until they were ready to drop, dismounted wearily at the tie rail in front of the sheriff's office alongside Ernie See and Beal. The posse members who had borrowed guns from the sheriff's gunrack returned them and scattered to their homes.

Wallace, as soon as he was inside the door of the sheriff's office, started the same song that Ernie had been listening to for twenty-four hours.

“I can't get over it,” Wallace said bleakly, his voice still savage. “Just because you were so knot-headed you wouldn't look in that coffin, Beal, I'm goin' to have to pay out a sweet piece of money.”

And Beal, harried and tired, gave the same exasperated retort he had been giving all night and day. “Dammit, man. You saw the coffin! If I'm a knot head, so are you!”

Ernie shucked off his shell belt and gun and said to Beal, “I'll be back after while.” He went out, sick of Wallace's grousing, smarting under it because he was included as a knot head, too, and tired enough to fall asleep in the street. He cursed Dave Coyle with a bitterness that surprised even himself, and then he headed upstreet for a drink.

Bruce McFee, per Sheriff Beal's instructions, was in the custody of the two deputy U.S. marshals at the hotel here, but he would go free, Ernie thought bitterly. There was no excuse to hold him now. He had disclaimed all knowledge of Dave Coyle and had pointed to his posting of the reward money for Dave's capture as evidence of innocence. But all that was phony, Ernie thought. Who stood to profit most by Sholto's disappearance? McFee, and Ernie was willing to bet good money that none of them would ever see Sholto again. And while McFee was taking his ease in a hotel room, laughing at them, Ernie and the posse had been riding the legs off their horses. And for nothing. The trail had petered out.

Ernie tramped down the boardwalk, disgust riding his honest face. He wished fervently that both McFee and Wallace would drop dead.

“Did you just come from the sheriff's office?” a woman's voice said.

Ernie pulled up and turned. A pretty dark-haired girl in a rusty black dress stood beside him. Ernie didn't know her, but he liked her looks. He touched his hat. “Yes'm.”

“Is Mr. Wallace there?”

“He sure is,” Ernie said grimly.

“When will he be ready to ride out to the place?”

“I dunno, miss. Why?”

“Well, I—I work out there,” the girl said. “I was going out with him.”

Ernie looked at her closely. Then he saw the wedding ring on her finger. For a moment he wondered if Wallace was married, and then he knew he wasn't. Probably some relative.

Ernie said, “I wisht you'd take him out and give us a little peace around this place.”

“Will you tell him I'm waiting.”

“Sure,” Ernie said. “What name?”

“He'll know,” the girl said. She smiled her thanks and went down the street. Ernie watched her a moment, admiration in his eyes, and then started out for the saloon again. He had taken less than three steps when he heard someone call him again. “Ernie, oh, Ernie.”

He stopped patiently and saw old Bitterman, the hotel clerk, hobbling toward him. Ernie looked at him with a baleful gaze. Likely there was a towel missing from the hotel, and old Bitterman wanted a blanket warrant sworn out for all the guests until the towel was retrieved.

“Well?” Ernie said disgustedly when Bitterman faced him.

“I found somethin' while you were gone. I didn't know whether to save it or not.”

“What is it? A burned match?” Ernie asked sardonically.

Bitterman looked aggrieved, but he pulled a folded envelope from his pocket. “It's an envelope,” he said.

Ernie took it, unfolded it, glanced at the writing, and then crumpled it up in his fist and threw it savagely in the gutter and said, “Ah, phooey!”

And then his face changed. He stood there a second, his face blank, and then he dived for the enevelope. Retrieving it, he smoothed it out and read the address again. It was the envelope of Carol's letter to Dave Coyle.

“Where'd you find this?” Ernie asked swiftly.

“Why, the chambermaid found it in that room Coyle was in the other night,” Bitterman said righteously. “I told you it was—”

Ernie didn't even bother to hear him out. He turned and walked rapidly back to the sheriff's office, a plan already forming in his mind. And then his pace slowed. Wallace would still be there, and Ernie didn't want Wallace riding him on this business. He sauntered into the office. Wallace, his hat shoved on the back of his bony skull, was talking to Sheriff Beal, whose face was getting redder and redder.

“I tell you,” Wallace was saying, “either you arrest McFee, Beal, or this is your last term of office!”

Beal spread his hands pleadingly and said, “On what grounds? In the name of all that's high and mighty and holy, on what grounds can I arrest him!”

Ernie interrupted lazily, “Did McFee and that girl of his sign them depositions?”

Beal glared at him. “How could they? This maniac hasn't even let me have a minute free since I got back!”

“I'll take 'em,” Ernie said.

Beal fished around in the desk and got the depositions of McFee and Carol. They were merely statements that they had no part in Dave Coyle's kidnaping of Sholto.

Ernie took them and sauntered out the door, his message from the girl to Wallace forgotten. Wallace was talking again. Once on the street Ernie almost ran up to the hotel. He stopped at the desk long enough to take old Bitterman's inkpot and pen and then he went upstairs. A deputy, his chair back-tilted against the wall of the corridor by McFee's room, told Ernie McFee was in.

Ernie knocked and was bid enter. The room was a sitting room of the only suite in the hotel. Bruce McFee, his hands folded behind his back, was pacing the floor. He whirled at Ernie's entrance and said savagely, “How long am I going to be kept here?”

“Dad,” Carol said, “be patient.”

She was sitting at a table, playing a two handed game of rummy with Senator Maitland.

Ernie took off his hat and said, “It won't be long, Mr. McFee. If you and Miss McFee sign these depositions I reckon the sheriff won't keep you much longer.”

Maitland, always the lawyer, said, “Let me see them.”

Ernie handed him the papers and put the pen and ink on the desk. His heart was beating wildly, and he hoped his face didn't show it. He stood there, hipshot like a horse, while Maitland read over the depositions.

“I think they're safe to sign,” Maitland said. “They absolve you both of any complicity in the kidnaping of Sholto.”

Ernie's face didn't change. He only picked up the pen, dipped it in the ink, and handed it to Carol. She signed, and Ernie handed the pen to McFee, who signed with a stiff hand his childish-looking signature.

Ernie picked up the two papers, backed off across the room, dropped McFee's deposition, and pulled out the envelope. It was Carol's writing on the envelope; he was certain now.

He went to the door and said to the guard, “Step in here.”

When the bewildered deputy came through the door Ernie said swiftly, “Put your gun on them, and don't let them out of this room.”

He bolted out the door and ran down the stairs. McFee, his face bewildered as the deputy's, looked at Maitland. “What did we sign?”

Maitland looked puzzled, too, but neither of them looked at Carol. If they had they would have noticed that she was as pale as the white lace collar of her dress.

McFee started for the deposition that Ernie had dropped, but the deputy pulled up his gun. “You stay put,” he said.

In two minutes Sheriff Beal and Ernie, both out of breath, came into the room. There was a look of triumph on Beal's face as he marched over to Carol and shoved the envelope at her. “Is that your writing?” he asked, half panting.

Carol looked at it, and her heart sank. She couldn't lie, not with their box number on the back of the envelope and a sample of her writing in Ernie See's hands. She said weakly, “Yes.”

“So you wrote him, did you?” Beal said. He wheeled to face McFee. “Where do you get your mail in Wagon Mound?”

“Why—box seventy-three, the post office.”

“Ah,” Beal said. He held the envelope in both hands for the puzzled McFee to look at. “So you didn't arrange to meet Dave Coyle here and plan that kidnaping? There's the evidence, in you own daughter's handwriting. She's admitted it! What do you say to that?”

McFee looked bleakly at Carol, and Carol ran into his arms. “Oh, Dad, I wrote him! I'm sorry! I—I hoped you wouldn't find out!”

McFee put his arms around her and stroked her hair while she sobbed on his chest.

“What have you got to say, McFee?” Beal drawled. On his rosy innocent face was the look of a schoolboy who had just found a quarter.

“Nothing,” McFee said calmly. He looked bewildered, crushed.

“Then I'll have to jail you,” Beal said calmly. “And if Judge Warburton gives you bond on this evidence, you can bet it will be so high that you can't meet it. Because, Mr. McFee,” Sheriff Beal said angrily, “I think Sholto has been murdered by your outlaw friend and you paid him to do it.”

VII

Carol and Maitland stayed with McFee until nine o'clock, and all the while the town buzzed with excitement. Judge Warburton, who could set McFee's bail if he was to get bail, was out of town for two days, but already a messenger had been sent to fetch him back. That was Senator Maitland's work, and he had argued half the evening with Sheriff Beal to effect it.