The Rangeland Avenger by Max Brand (best books to read .TXT) 📗

he recalled that all men, at night, naturally face outward from a wall. It is an instinct. They stood close together, talking rather low. The one was fairly tall, and the other squat. The shorter man lighted a cigarette. The match light glinted on an oily, olive skin, and so much of the profile as he could see was faintly familiar. He sent his memory lurching back into far places and old times, but he had no nerve for reminiscence. He recalled himself to the danger of the moment and listened to them talking.

"What's happened?" the taller man was saying.

"So far, nothing," grunted the other.

"And how long do you feel we'd ought to keep it up?"

"I dunno. I'll tell you when I get tired."

"Speaking personal, Fatty, I'm kind of tired of it right now. I want to hit the hay."

"Buck up, buck up, partner. We'll get him yet!"

Now it flashed into the mind of Sinclair that it must be a pair of crooked gamblers working on some fat purse in the hotel, come out here to arrange plans because they failed to extract the bank roll as quickly as they desired. Otherwise, there could be no meaning to this talk of "getting" someone.

"But between you and me," grumbled the big man, "it looked from the first like a bum game, Fatty."

"That's the trouble with you, Red. You ain't got any patience. How does a cat catch a mouse? By sitting down and waiting—maybe three hours. And the hungrier she gets, the longer she'll wait and the stiller she'll sit. A man could take a good lesson out'n that."

"You always got a pile of fancy words," protested the big man.

Sinclair saw Fatty put his hand on the shoulder of his companion. Plainly he was the dominant force of the two, in spite of his lack of height.

"Red, as sure as you're born, they's something going to happen this here night. My scars is itching, Red, and that means something."

Again the mind of Sinclair flashed back to something familiar. A man who prophesied by the itching of his scars. But once more the danger of the moment made his mind a blank to all else.

"What scars?" asked Red.

"Scratches I got when I was a kid," flashed the fat man. "That's all." "Oh," chuckled Red, plainly unconvinced. "Well, we'll play the game a little longer."

"That's the talk, partner. I tell you we got this trap baited, and it's got to catch!"

Presently they drifted around the corner of the building and out of sight. For a moment Sinclair wondered what that trap could be which the fat man had baited so carefully. His mind reverted to his original picture of a card game. Cheap tricksters, sharpers with the cards, he decided, and with that decision he banished them both from his mind.

There was no other sign of life around him. All of Sour Creek lived in the main street, or went to bed at this hour of the early night. The back of the hotel was safe from observance, except for the horse shed, and the back of the shed was turned to him. He felt safe, and now he turned, settled his fingers into a new grip on the eaves, and made his third attempt. It succeeded to a nicety, his right knee catching solidly on the ledge.

He got a fingertip hold on the boards and stood up. Straightening himself slowly, he looked into the room through a corner of the window pane.

Cartwright sat with his back to the window, a lamp beside him on the table, writing. He had thrown off his heavy outer shirt, and he wore only a cotton undershirt. His heavy shoulders and big-muscled arms showed to great advantage, with the light and sharp shadows defining each ridge. Now and then he lifted his head to think. Then he bent to his writing again.

It occurred to Sinclair to fling the window up boldly, and when Cartwright turned, cover him with a gun. But the chances, including his position on the ledge, were very much against him. Cartwright would probably snatch at his own gun which lay before him in its holster on the table, and whirling he would try a snap shot.

The only other alternative was to raise the window—and that with
Cartwright four paces away!

First Sinclair took stock of the interior of the room. It was larger than most parlors he had seen. There was a big double bed on each side of it. Plainly it was intended to accommodate a whole party, and Sinclair smiled at the vanity of the man who had insisted on taking "the best you have." No wonder Sour Creek knew the room he had rented.

In the corner was a great fireplace capable of taking a six-foot log, at least. He admired the massive andirons, palpably of home manufacture in Sour Creek's blacksmith shop. It proved the age of the building. No one would waste money on such a fireplace in these days. A little stove would do twice the work of that great, hungry chimney. There were two great chests of drawers, also, each looking as if it were built up from the floor and made immovable, such was its weight. The beds, also, were of an ancient and solid school of furniture making.

To be sure, everything was sadly run down. On the floor the thin old carpet was worn completely through at the sides of the beds. Both mirrors above the chest of drawers were sadly cracked, and the table at which Cartwright sat, leaned to the right under the weight of the arm he rested on it.

Having thus taken in the details of the battle ground, Sinclair made ready for the attack. He made sure of his footing on the ledge, gave a last glance over his shoulder to see that no one was in sight, and then began to work at the window, moving it fractions of an inch at a time.

23

When the window was half raised—the work of a full ten minutes—Sinclair drew his revolver and rested the barrel on the sill. He continued to lift the sash, but now he used his left hand alone, and thereby the noises became louder and more frequent. Cartwright occasionally raised his head, but probably he was becoming accustomed to the sounds.

Now the window was raised to its full height, and Sinclair prepared for the command which would jerk Cartwright's hands above his head and make him turn slowly to look into the mouth of the gun. Weight which he could have handled easily with a lurch, became tenfold heavier with the slowness of the lift; eventually both shoulders were in the room, and he was kneeling on the sill.

Cartwright raised his hands slowly, luxuriously, and stretched. It was a movement so opportune that Sinclair almost laughed aloud. He twisted his legs over the sill and dropped lightly on the floor.

"No noise!" he called softly.

The arms of Cartwright became frozen in their position above his head. He turned slowly, with little jerky movements, as though he had to fight to make himself look. And then he saw Sinclair.

"Keep 'em up!" commanded the cowpuncher, "and get out of that chair, real soft and slow. That's it!"

Without a word Cartwright obeyed. There was no need of speech, indeed, for a score of expressions flashed into his face.

"Go over and lock the door."

He obeyed, keeping his arms above his head, all the way across the room, while Sinclair jerked the new Colt out of its holster and tossed it on the farthest bed. In the meantime Cartwright lingered at the door for a moment with his hand on the key. No doubt he fought, for the split part of a second, with a wild temptation to jerk that door open and leap into the safety of the hall. Sinclair read that thought in the tremor of the big man's body. But presently discretion prevailed. Cartwright turned the key and faced about. He was a deadly gray, and his lips were working.

"Now," he began.

"Wait till I start talking," urged Sinclair. "Come over here and sit down. You're too close to the door to suit me, just now. This is a pile better."

Cartwright obeyed quietly. Sitting down, he locked his hands nervously about one knee and looked up with his eyes to Sinclair.

"I come in for a quiet talk," said Sinclair, dropping his gun into the holster.

That movement drew a sudden brightening of the eyes of Cartwright, who now straightened in his chair, as if he had regained hope.

"Don't make no mistake," said Sinclair, following the meaning of that change accurately. "I'm pretty handy with this old gun, partner. And on you, just now, they ain't any reason why I should take my time or any chances, when it comes to shooting."

Unconsciously Cartwright moistened his white lips, and his eyes grew big again.

"Except that the minute you shoot, you're a dead one, Sinclair."

"Me? Oh, no. When a gun's heard they'll run to the room where the shot's been fired. And when they get the lock open, I'll be gone the way I come from." Sinclair smiled genially on his enemy. "Don't start raising any crop of delusions, friend. I mean business—a lot."

"Then talk business. I'll listen."

"Oh, thanks! I come here about your wife."

He watched Cartwright wince. In his heart he pitied the man. All the story of Cartwright's spoiled boyhood and viciously selfish youth were written in his face for the reading of such a man as Sinclair. The rancher's son had begun well enough. Lack of discipline had undone him; but whether his faults were fixed or changeable, Sinclair could not tell. It was largely to learn this that he took the chances for the interview.

"Go on," said Cartwright.

"In the first place, d'you know why she left you?"

An anguish came across Cartwright's face. It taught Sinclair at least one thing—that the man loved her.

"You're the reason—maybe."

"Me? I never seen her till two days ago. That's a tolerable ugly thing to say, Cartwright!"

"Well, I got tolerable ugly reasons for saying it," answered the other.

The cowpuncher sighed. "I follow the way you drift. But you're wrong, partner. Fact is, I didn't know Cold Feet was a girl till this evening."

Cartwright sneered, and Sinclair stiffened in his chair.

"Son," he said gravely, "the worst enemies I got will all tell you that Riley Sinclair don't handle his own word careless. And I give you my solemn word of honor that I didn't know she was a girl till this evening, and that, right away after I found it out, I come down here to straighten things out with you if I could. Will you believe it?"

It was a strange study to watch the working in the face of
Cartwright—of hope, passion, doubt, hatred. He leaned closer to
Sinclair, his big hands clutched together.

"Sinclair, I wish I could believe it!"

"Look me in the eye, man! I can stand it."

"By the Lord, it's true! But, Sinclair, have you come down to find out if I'd take her back?"

"Would you?"

The other grew instantly crafty. "She's done me a pile of wrong,
Sinclair."

"She has," said the cowpuncher. He went on gently: "She must of cut into your pride a lot."

"Oh, if it was known," said Cartwright, turning pale at the thought, "she'd make me a laughing stock! Me, old Cartwright's son!"

"Yep, that'd be bad." He wondered at the frank egoism of the youth.

"I leave it to you," said Cartwright, settling back in his chair. "Something had ought to be done to punish her. Besides, she's a weight on your hands, and I can see you'd be anxious to get rid of her quick."

"How d'you aim to punish her?" asked Sinclair.

"Me?"

"Sure! Kind of a hard thing to do, wouldn't it be?"

Cartwright's eyes grew small. "Ways could be found." He swallowed hard. "I'd find a heap of ways to make her wish she'd died sooner'n shame me!"

"I s'pose you could," said Sinclair slowly. He lowered his glance for a moment to keep his scorn from standing up in his eyes. "But I've heard of men, Cartwright, that'd love a woman so hard that they'd forgive anything."

"The world's full of fools," said the rich rancher. He stabbed a stern forefinger into the palm of his other hand. "She's got to do a lot of explaining before I'll look at