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

jail or out," he answered, "on foot or on horseback, with fists or knife or gun. And you can lay to this, Rhinehart: I'll remember you a pile better'n you'll remember me!"

All the repressed savagery of his nature came quivering into his voice as he spoke, and the other shrank instinctively a pace. In the meantime the sheriff had succeeded in turning the rusted lock, which squeaked back. The door grumbled on its heavy hinges. Sinclair stepped into the musty, close atmosphere within.

"Don't look like you had much use for this here outfit," he said to the sheriff.

The latter lighted a lantern.

"Nope," he said. "It sure beats all how the luck runs, Sinclair. We'd had a pretty bad time with crooks around these parts, and them that was nabbed in Sour Creek got away; about two out of three, before they was brought to me at Woodville. So the boys got together and ponied up for this little jail, and it's as neat a pile of mud and steel as ever you see. Look at them bars. Kind of rusty, they look, but inside they're toolproof. Oh, it's an up-to-date outfit, this jail. It's been a comfort to me, and it's a credit to Sour Creek. But the trouble is that since it was built they ain't been more'n one or two to put in it. Maybe you can make out here for the night. Have you over to Woodville in a couple of days, Sinclair."

He brought his prisoner into a cagelike cell, heavily guarded with bars on all sides. The adobe walls had been trusted in no direction. The steel lining was the strength of the Sour Creek jail. The sheriff himself set about shaking out the blankets. When this was done, he bade his two companions draw their guns and stand guard at the steel door to the cell.

"Not that I don't trust you a good deal, Sinclair," he said, "but I know that a gent sometimes takes big chances."

So saying, he cut the bonds of his prisoner, but instead of making a plunge at the door, Sinclair merely stretched his long arms luxuriously above his head. The sheriff slipped out of the door and closed it after him. A heavy and prolonged clangor followed, as steel jarred home against steel.

"Don't go sheriff," said Sinclair. "I need a chat with you."

"I'm in no hurry. And here's the gent we was talking about. Here's
Arizona!"

The sheriff had waved his two companions out of the jail, as soon as the prisoner was securely lodged, and no sooner was this done, and they had departed through the doorway, than the heavy figure of Arizona himself appeared. He came slowly into the circle of the lantern light, an oddly changed man.

His swaggering gait, with heels that pounded heavily, was gone. He slunk forward, soft-footed. His head, usually so buoyantly erect, was now sunk lower and forward. His high color had faded to a drab olive. In fact, from a free-swinging, jovial, somewhat overbearing demeanor, Arizona had changed to a mien of malicious and rather frightened cunning. In this wise he advanced, heedless of the curious and astonished sheriff, until his face was literally pressed against the bars. He peered steadily at Sinclair.

On the face of the latter there had been at first blank surprise, then a gradually dawning recognition. Finally he walked slowly to the bars. As Sinclair approached, the fat cowpuncher drew back, with lingering catlike steps, as if he grudged every inch of his retreat and yet dared not remain to meet Sinclair.

"By the Eternal," said Sinclair, "it's Dago!"

Arizona halted, quivering with emotions which the sheriff could not identify, save for a blind, intense malice. The tall man turned to the sheriff, smiling: "Dago Lansing, eh?"

"Never heard that name," said the sheriff.

"Maybe not," replied Sinclair, "but that's the man I—"

"You lie!" cried Arizona huskily, and his fat, swift hand fluttered nervously around the butt of the revolver. "Sheriff, they ain't nothing but lies stocked up in him. Don't believe nothing he says!"

"Huh!" chuckled Sinclair. "Why, Kern, he's a man about eight years ago that I—"

Pausing, he looked into the convulsed face of Arizona, who was apparently tortured with apprehension.

"I won't go on, Dago," said Sinclair mildly. "But—so you've carried this grudge all these days, eh?"

Arizona tossed up his head. For a moment he was the Arizona the sheriff had known, but his laughter was too strident, and it was easy to see that he was at a point of hysterically high tension.

"Well, I'd have carried it eighty years as easy as eight," declared
Arizona. "I been waiting all this time, and now I got you, Sinclair.
You'll rot behind the bars the best part of the life that's left to
you. And when you come out—I'll meet you ag'in!"

Sinclair smiled in a singular fashion. "Sorry to disappoint you, Dago. But I'm not coming out. I'm going to stay put. I'm through." The other blinked. "How come?"

"It's something you couldn't figure," said Sinclair calmly, and he eyed the fat man as if from a great distance.

Sinclair was remembering the day, eight years ago, in a lumber camp to the north when a shivering, meager, shifty-eyed youngster had come among them asking for work. They had taken pity on him, those big lumberjacks, put him up, given him money, kept him at the bunk house.

Then articles began to disappear, watches, money. It was Sinclair who had caught the friendless stripling in the act of sleight of hand in the middle of the night when the laborers, tired out, slept as if stunned. And when the others would have let the cringing, weeping youth go with a lecture and the return of his illicit spoils, it was the stern Sinclair who had insisted on driving home the lesson. He forced them to strip Dago to the waist. Two stalwarts held his hands, and Sinclair laid on the whip. And Dago, the moment the lash fell, ceased his wailing and begging, and stood quivering, with his head bent, his teeth set and gritting, until the punishment was ended.

It was Sinclair, also, when the thing was ended, and the others would have thrust the boy out penniless, who split the contents of his wallet with Dago. He remembered the words he had spoken to the stripling that day eight years before.

"You ain't had much luck out here in the West, kid, but stay around. Go south. Learn to ride a hoss. They's nothing that puts heart and honesty in a man like a good hoss. Don't go back to your city. You'll turn into a snake there. Stay out here and practice being a man, will you? Get the feel of a Colt. Fight your way. Keep your mouth shut and work with your hands. And don't brag about what you know or what you've done. That's the way to get on. You got the markings in you, son. You got grit. I seen it when you was under the whip, and I wish I had the doing of that over again. I made a mistake with you, kid. But do what I've told you to do, and one of these days you'll meet up with me and beat me to the draw and take everything you got as a grudge out on me. But you can't do it unless you turn into a man."

Dago had listened in the most profound silence, accepted the money without thanks, and disappeared, never to be heard from again. In the sleek-faced man before him, Sinclair could hardly recognize that slender fellow of the lumber camp. Only the bright and agile eyes were the same; that, and a certain telltale nervousness of hand. The color was coming back into his face.

"I guess I've done it," Arizona was saying. "I guess we're squared up,
Sinclair."

"Yep, and a balance on your side."

"Maybe, maybe not. But I've followed your advice, Long Riley. I've never forgot a word of it. It was printed into me!"

He made a significant, short gesture, as if he were snapping a whip, and a snarl of undying malice curled his lips.

"As long as you live, Sinclair," he added. "As long as you live, I'll remember."

Even the sheriff shuddered at that glimpse into the black soul of a man; Sinclair alone was unmoved.

"I reckon you've barked enough, Arizona," he suggested. "S'pose you trot along. I got to have words with my friend, the sheriff."

Arizona waved his fat hand. He was recovering his ordinary poise, and with a smiling good night to the sheriff, he turned away through the door.

"Nice, friendly sort, eh?" remarked Sinclair the moment he was alone with Kern.

"I still got the chills," said the sheriff. "Sure has got a wicked pair of eyes, that Arizona."

Kern cast an apprehensive glance at the closed door, yet, in spite of the fact that it was closed, he lowered his voice.

"What in thunder have you done to him, Sinclair?"

"About eight years ago—" began Sinclair and then stopped short.

"Let it go," he went on. "No matter what Arizona is today, he's sure improved on the gent I used to know. What's done is done. Besides, I made a mistake that time. I went too far with him, and a mistake is like borrowed money, sheriff. It lays up interest and keeps compounding. When you have to pay back what you done a long time ago, you find it's a terrible pile. That's all I got to say about Arizona."

Sheriff Kern nodded. "That's straight talk, Sinclair," he said softly.
"But what was it you wanted to see me about?"

"Cold Feet," said Sinclair.

At once the sheriff brightened. "That's right," he said hurriedly. "You got the right idea now, partner. Glad to see you're using hoss sense. And if you gimme an idea of the trail that'll lead to Cold Feet, I can see to it that you get out of this mess pretty pronto. After all, you ain't done no real harm except for nicking Cartwright in the arm, and I figure that he needs a little punishment. It'll cool his temper down."

"You think I ought to tell you where Cold Feet is?" asked Sinclair without emotion.

"Why not?"

"Him and me sat around the same campfire, sheriff, and ate off'n the same deer."

At this the sheriff winced. "I know," he murmured. "It's hard—mighty hard!" He continued more smoothly: "But listen to me, partner. There's twenty-five-hundred dollars on the head of Cold Feet. Why not come in? Why not split on it? Plenty for both of us; and, speaking personal, I could use half that money, and maybe you could use the other half just as well!"

"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Sinclair, "I'll give you the layout for finding Cold Feet. Ride west out of Sour Creek and head for a flat-topped mountain. On the shoulder just under the head of the peak you'll find Cold Feet. Go get him!"

The sheriff caught his breath, then whirled on his heel. The sharp voice of Sinclair called him back.

"Wait a minute. I ain't through. When you catch Cold Feet you go after him without guns."

"How come?"

"Because you might hurt him, and he can't fight, sheriff. Even if he was to pull a gun, he couldn't hit nothing with it. He couldn't hit the ground he's standing on with a gun."

Sheriff Kern scratched his head.

"And when you get him," went on Sinclair, "tell him to go back and take up his life where he left off, because they's no harm coming to him."

"Great guns, man! No harm coming to him with a murder to his count and a price on his head?"

"I mean what I say. Break it to him real gentle."

"And who pays for the killing of Quade?"

Sinclair smiled. He was finding it far easier to do it than he had ever imagined. The moment he made the resolve, his way was smoothed for him.

"I pay for Quade," he said quietly.

"What d'you mean?"

"Because I killed him, sheriff. Now go tell Cold Feet that his score is clean!"

26

Toward the flat-topped mountain, with the feeling of his fate upon him, Bill Sandersen pushed his mustang through the late evening, while the darkness fell. He had long since stopped thinking, reasoning. There was only the strong, blind feeling that he must meet Sinclair face to face and decide his destiny in one brief struggle.

So he kept on until his shadow fell