Hardcase (9 page)

Two minutes later Dave was in the cell next to McFee, and half of Yellow Jacket was milling in the cell block, waiting for a chance to see him. Ernie was shouting, shoving them out, cursing them, and pushing them with a harried look on his face. Finally, when they were cleared out, Sheriff Beal and Ernie confronted Dave on the other side of the bars. Dave sat on the cot and yawned.

“All right now, Coyle,” Beal said in a businesslike way. “Let's have the story.”

“What story?”

“Where's Sholto? Did you kill him? Why you givin' yourself up?”

Dave said mildly, “I come in here to take McFee out.”

Ernie looked blankly at Sheriff Beal, and then color started to crawl up his neck. “You mean you're just goin' to walk out with him?” he said.

“That's about it,” Dave answered and yawned.

Ernie took a deep breath and said thickly, “Listen, runt, if we have to, we'll hold your trial in that cell and hang you to the ceiling rafter.”

“Boo!” Dave said, staring blankly at him.

Ernie's fists gripped the bars until his knuckles were white. “I'm goin' to kick that cocky face of yours in someday!” he raged. “I'm goin' to load a pair of oversize boots with horseshoes and I'm goin' to kick your head till it rings like a church bell!”

“Ernie, Ernie,” Beal admonished. Ernie, his face white with rage, got a grip on himself, and then Beal turned to Dave. “All right, Coyle. Talk.”

“Tomorrow,” Dave said. “I need sleep.”

“Why, damn you—” Ernie began. Dave yawned, lay down on the cot, and turned his back to them.

Beal shoved Ernie, who was murmuring inarticulate threats out into the corridor, and closed the door behind him. He was content to let Dave cool off for a while. The jail was new, built of stone, the bars made of the best steel.

When they had gone Dave raised up on the cot and looked in the next cell. McFee, his craggy face white with anger, his eyes full of murder, was standing there looking at him.

“Save it,” Dave said. “I'm sleepy.”

He turned over and went to sleep, while McFee was still looking at him.

VIII

When Tate Wallace heard of Dave Coyle's arrest he didn't believe it, but he followed the crowd that stampeded out of the saloon into the cell block. He was shoved out with all the others, but not before he got a glimpse of Dave Coyle, hands on hips, staring insolently and indifferently at the crowd that Ernie See was trying to break up in the cell block.

Wallace went out then and waited on the edge of the boardwalk until Marty Cord, his foreman, drifted out. Wallace nodded his head and Cord came over to him, a puzzled expression on his unshaven face, and together they turned downstreet. Wallace walked with the stiff and lazy stride of a man who has spent many long hours in the saddle. His brain was fogged with weariness, and he was dead for sleep, but more than sleep he needed to think this over.

They shouldered into Tim King's Keno Parlor, a big saloon that ran the full half block to the alley and was two stories high. Wallace shoved his way through the crowd and started back through the gaming tables to the stairs that led up to the gallery. A percentage girl threw her arms around Wallace's neck, but he pushed her away and went on.

They mounted the steps that led to Wallace's room. Although Wallace was general manager of the Three Rivers Cattle Company and had a certain dignity to maintain, he scorned it. Instead of staying at a hotel, he took a dirty room in a noisy saloon, like any saloon bum or a rider of the chuck line. Old habits were ingrained, and this was one of them.

His room fronted the street and contained a paint-peeled iron bed and washstand. He lighted the lamp, waved Marty Cord to a seat, and then sank down on the bed.

“What's wrong with it, Marty?” he growled. “That ain't like Dave Coyle. And where's Sholto?”

Marty Cord was of the same stamp as Wallace, a Texan, maybe forty-five, with a face that contrived to be cunning and brutal and forceful, all at the same time. He wore the rough clothes of a puncher, too, although on this night he was wearing a faded and wrinkled coat over a dirty collarless shirt.

He shifted a wad of tobacco delicately into his opposite cheek and spat in the corner.

“Nothin' looks wrong to me. They got that little hellion at last.”

“But it don't—”

Wallace paused as a knock came on the door. He looked at Marty and nodded his head, and Marty came out of his chair, loosening his gun at the same time.

Marty opened the door a few inches and a voice said, “I'm lookin' for Tate Wallace.”

“What about?” Marty growled.

There was a pause, then the voice said, “Sholto.”

Marty swung the door open, and a stocky rider tramped in. He was anonymous-looking, with his unshaven face, greasy Stetson, and dusty clothes. He might have been any one of a hundred men downstairs in the saloon.

Wallace stood up as he entered and said, “What did you say?”

Marty closed the door and put his back to it.

The man said, “Sholto.”

“Where is he?”

“You know, don't you?” the man asked.

Wallace looked at Marty Cord, and Marty stared at him. Something passed between them then, and Wallace shook his head imperceptibly. He said to the man, “Dave Coyle's got him, ain't he?”

The man grinned. “You don't catch me on that, Wallace. Coyle's in jail; I just heard it. It don't matter who's got Sholto. You want to buy him back?”

Wallace stared at him speculatively, his brain working fast. This was what he had been expecting all day, some word from someone about the ransom money. But the events of the last few minutes had changed that—changed it enormously. For Bruce McFee and Dave Coyle were in jail on suspicion of collaborating in the murder of Sholto. And if Sholto was really found dead, then McFee and Dave Coyle would hang! And McFee's suit against him then would vanish.

Wallace smiled crookedly. “Who said I wanted to buy him back?” he drawled.

The man stared at him blankly. “Hell, he's your witness in court. How you goin' to win the case if you ain't got him?”

“Did you ever hear of two witnesses?” Wallace lied.

For a long moment they looked at each other. The disbelief on the man's face turned to blank amazement. “Two witnesses?” He grinned suddenly. “You're runnin' a sandy, Wallace. You're tryin' to beat the price down.”

“Ask me how much I'll offer you for Sholto,” Wallace asked softly.

“Well, how much will you?”

“Nothin'—not even the price of a drink.”

The man laughed. “It won't do you no good to bluff us, Wallace. You need Sholto.”

“That's my offer, mister,” Wallace said. He smiled crookedly. “Keep him. Stuff him and mount him. See if I care.”

The puncher regarded him carefully, then looked at Marty. “He drunk?”

“Stone sober,” Marty drawled. “You drunk? If you ain't, and you can understand American, get the hell out of here. We can't do business with you. Can't you understand that?” He opened the door and stood aside.

The man looked perplexed. Will Usher hadn't made any provision for this kind of retort, and the messenger didn't know what to do. Finally he shook his head. “I'll be back,” he said. “I'll be back when you git some sense, Wallace.”

“Don't bother,” Wallace said.

The man went out, and Wallace leaped for the door and closed it. Then he whirled on Marty. “Follow that bird, Marty! Find out where he's goin'. He'll take you to Sholto! Then come back and let me know!”

“I don't get it,” Marty said.

“You damn fool. I don't want Sholto!” Wallace said swiftly. “McFee and Coyle are in jail on suspicion of his murder. If we can get to Sholto and murder him and put it on Coyle, then him and McFee will hang. And I can take over the whole damn McFee range! Now git!”

He pulled the door open, and Marty stepped out. The messenger was just going down the stairs, and Marty started after him. Wallace stood there in the doorway, watching Marty leave, a smile on his face.

He would have been surprised to learn that what he had just done was approximately what Dave Coyle had expected him to do. Dave had guessed everything, except the time and the place.

IX

When Dave wakened next morning it was to find Ernie See and Sheriff Beal waiting with his breakfast. While Ernie held a gun on Dave, Sheriff Beal put the tray in his cell. They did the same to McFee, who didn't even get up to receive his food. The sheriff and Ernie went out then.

Dave wolfed his food down in silence, afterward rolling and lighting a smoke. He looked over at McFee, who was sitting listlessly on his cot.

“You better eat,” Dave said. “You'll need it.”

McFee didn't even answer him, didn't even look at him.

“You and me are breakin' out of here, so you better eat,” Dave repeated.

McFee slowly turned his head to regard Dave. His eyes were bitter, disillusioned, past anger. “If I could get out of here,” McFee said, “I'd get a greener and blow a hole a foot wide in your belly.”

Dave said, “You'll get the chance, because we're leavin'.”

“Are we?” McFee asked with savage sarcasm. “What are you waitin' on? There's nobody here to see you. Walk out!”

“I'm waitin' on you to find out for yourself they won't let you out of here in six months.”

McFee laughed bitterly, getting angry now. “They'd let me out of here if you'd tell them where Sholto is!”

Dave shrugged, stood up, and bawled, “Sheriff! Sheriff Beal!”

Ernie See and Beal strolled in a minute later. Dave looked at McFee and then said to Beal, “I kidnaped Sholto for the ransom money. Me and Will Usher throwed in together. Will arranged for me to get on the train in the coffin. He had the horses planted there at the top of the grade. I took Sholto up to the old Lazy K Knife line camp, aimin' to hold him there until Will Usher got the ransom money from Wallace. But Usher crossed me up. He was waitin' at the line camp. He throwed down on me and was goin' to kill me, collect my bounty and Sholto's ransom. I broke away. Usher's got Sholto.” He had been talking easily, insolently. Now he looked back at McFee. “Now listen to what they say, McFee.” He turned his head to regard them again.

Ernie See sneered. He said mockingly, “And the Princess married the young King, and they lived happily ever and ever after.” He made a rude and unprintable noise with his lips.

Dave grinned and looked at McFee. “See?”

“All right, Coyle,” Sheriff Beal said. “Now let's have the real story.”

“You got it,” Dave said.

Beal smiled faintly and shook his head. “What did McFee pay you to kidnap Sholto and get him out of the way?”

Dave looked at McFee. “Are you listenin'?”

Sheriff Beal said testily, “We know Miss McFee wrote you on her dad's orders! We know you came to Yellow Jacket to talk to him! We know you were in Sabinal and we saw you kidnap Sholto!” He shook his head. “Two and two make four, even in this county, Coyle. We think you killed Sholto for McFee. Now do you aim to talk?”

McFee said hotly, “Anybody that says I paid Coyle a cent or that I even talked to him is a liar!”

Ernie See said sarcastically, “Man alive, but I'm a liar. And I like it, and I think I'll stay that way.”

McFee looked angry and helpless. He glanced over at Dave, who was leaning against the bars watching him. Dave had a faint smile of cynical amusement on his lips, and McFee looked even angrier when he saw it.

Beal said, “McFee, I've already advised your lawyer what to do. I've told him to tell you to plead guilty. Now that we've got Coyle, I advise it even more. You'll get off with a couple of years' sentence. Coyle, of course, will be tried on other charges that carry a longer sentence. We can't try you on murder charges, McFee, because we haven't found Sholto's body. If and when we do find it you'll be tried for murder too. So I'd advise you to plead guilty to kidnaping a witness and get a light sentence just as quickly as you can.”

McFee, hands gripping the bars, stared at him as if he were a lunatic.

He bawled angrily, “But you just heard Coyle say Sholto was alive, you damn jug head!”

“McFee,” Beal said caustically, “I'm fifty years old. I been sheriff of this county for ten-fifteen years. In that time I've learned to eat without being fed, to read, to write, to talk. In other words, maybe I'm as smart as the average twelve-year-old kid. And a twelve-year-old kid wouldn't believe Dave Coyle or you. A six-year-old kid wouldn't. Hell, nobody would.” He glared at McFee. “The trouble with you is you been the Big Augur in this county too long. And when somebody like Wallace drifts in and settles here you try and clean 'em out like a tinhorn in a gold camp. You ain't bright, that's all.”

McFee was speechless. He heard Dave's soft laugh, and it maddened him and at the same time impressed him. Dave Coyle was showing him just how useless it was to argue with the law when you got in bad with it. For the first time since his arrest he was scared. A cold panic gripped his belly, and he thought his knees were going to cave in. He said hoarsely, “You mean you're goin' to keep me in jail?”

“Look,” Ernie See said harshly. “Who the hell do you think you are, McFee? You may be a tin saint to your Bib M outfit, but to us you're just another moneybags that's got too big for his pants. Stay in jail? Hell, yes, you'll stay in jail till we find Sholto's body. The next time you see open sky after that will be on the way to your trial. The next time after that will be a couple of years away!”

McFee felt sick. He left the bars and walked back to sit on his cot. Dave watched him, his eyes impersonal.

Then Beal said to Dave, “Want to talk to me now, Coyle?”