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

But the sheriff and his prisoner gained the door of the jail first, and Kern locked it behind him. His deputy on guard rose with a start, and at the same time there was a hurried knocking on the door and a clamor of voices without. Arizona shrank away from that sound, scowling over his shoulder, but the sheriff nodded good-humoredly.

"Take it easy, Arizona. I ain't going to make a show of you!"

"Sure, that's like you, sheriff," said a hurried, half-whining voice. "You're square. I'll sure show you one of these days now I appreciate the way you treat me!"

Kern was staggered. It seemed to him that a new personality had taken possession of the body of the fat man. He led the way past his gaping deputy. The jail was not constructed for a crowd. It was merely a temporary abiding place before prisoners were taken to the larger institution at Woodville. Consequently there was only one big cell. The sheriff unlocked the door, slipped the manacles from the wrists of Arizona, and jabbed the muzzle of a revolver into his back!

The last act was decidedly necessary, for the moment his wrists were released from the grip of the steel, Arizona twitched halfway round toward the sheriff. The scrape of the gunmuzzle against his ribs, however, convinced him. Over his shoulder he cast one murderous glance at the sheriff and then slouched forward into the cell.

"Company for you, Riley," said the sheriff, as the tall cowpuncher rose.

The other's back was turned, and thereby the sheriff was enabled to pass a significant gesture and look to Sinclair. With that he left them. In the outer room he found his deputy much alarmed.

"You ain't turned them two in together?" he asked. "Why, Sinclair'll kill that gent in about a minute. Ain't it Arizona that nailed him?"

"Sinclair will play square," Kern insisted, "and Arizona won't fight!"

Leaving the other to digest these mysterious tidings, the sheriff went out to disperse the crowd.

In the meantime Sinclair had received the newcomer in perfect silence, his head raised high, his thin mouth set in an Ugly line—very much as an eagle might receive an owl which floundered by mistake onto the same crag, far above his element. The eagle hesitated between scorn of the visitor and a faint desire to pounce on him and rend him to pieces. That glittering eye, however, was soon dull with wonder, when he watched the actions of Arizona.

The fat man paused in the center of the cell, regarded Sinclair with a single flash of the eyes, and then glanced uneasily from side to side. That done, he slipped away to a corner and slouched down on a stool, his head bent down on his breast.

Apparently he had fallen into a profound reverie, but Sinclair found that the eyes of Arizona continually whipped up and across to him. Once the newcomer shifted his position a little, and Sinclair saw him test the weight of the stool beneath him with his hand. Even in the cell Arizona had found a weapon.

Gradually Sinclair understood the meaning of that glance and the gesture of the sheriff, as the latter left; he read other things in the gray pallor of Arizona, and in the fallen head. The man was unnerved. Sinclair's reaction was very much what that of the sheriff had been—a sinking of the heart and a momentary doubt of himself. But he was something more of a philosopher than Kern. He had seen more of life and men and put two and two together.

One thing stared him plainly in the face. The Arizona who skulked in the corner had relapsed eight years. He was the same sneak thief whom Sinclair had first met in the lumber camp, and he knew instinctively that this was the first time since that unpleasant episode that Arizona had been cornered. The loathing left Sinclair, and in its place came pity. He had no fondness of Arizona, but he had seen him in the role of a strong man, which made the contrast more awful. It reminded Sinclair of the wild horse which loses its spirit when it is broken. Such was Arizona. Free to come and go, he had been a danger. Shut up helplessly in a cell, he was as feeble as a child, and his only strength was a sort of cunning malice. Sinclair turned quietly to the fat man.

"Arizona," he said, "you look sort of underfed today. Bring your stool a bit nearer and let's talk. I been hungry for a chat with someone."

In reply Arizona rolled back his head and for a moment glared thoughtfully at Sinclair. He made no answer. Presently his glance fell, like that of a dog. Sinclair shivered. He tried brutality.

"Looks to me, Arizona, as though you'd lost your nerve."

The other moistened his lips, but said nothing.

"But the point is," said the tall cowpuncher, "that you've given up before you're beaten."

Riley Sinclair's words brought a flash from Arizona, a sudden lifting of the head, as if he had not before thought of hoping. Then he began to slump back into his former position, without a reply. Sinclair followed his opening advantage at once.

"What you in for?"

"Murder!"

"Great guns! Of whom?"

"Sandersen."

It brought Sinclair stiffly to his feet. Sandersen! His trail was ended; Hal was avenged at last!

"And you done it? Fatty, you took that job out of my hands. I'm thanking you. Besides, it ain't nothing to be downhearted about. Sandersen was a skunk. Can they prove it on you?"

The need to talk overwhelmed Arizona. It burst out of him, not to Sinclair, but rather at him. His shifting eyes made sure that no one was near.

"Kern is going to send south for the dope. I'm done for. They can hang me three times on what they'll learn, and—"

"Shut up," snapped Sinclair. "Don't talk foolish. The south is a tolerable big place to send to. They don't know where you come from. Take 'em a month to find out, and by that time, you won't be at hand."

"Eh?"

"Because you and me are going to bust out of this paper jail they got!"

He had not the slightest hope of escape. But he tried the experiment of that suggestion merely to see what the fat man's reaction would be. The result was more than he could have dreamed. Arizona whirled on him with eyes ablaze.

"What d'you mean, Sinclair?"

"Just what I say. D'you think they can keep two like us in here? No, not if you come to your old self."

The need to confide again fell on Arizona. He dragged his stool nearer.
His voice was a whisper.

"Sinclair, something's busted in me. When them irons grabbed my arms they took everything out of me. I got no chance. They got me cornered."

"And you'll fight like a wildcat to the end of things. Sure you will! Buck up, man! You think you've turned yaller. You ain't. You're just out of place. Take a gent that's used to a forty-foot rope and a pony, give him sixty feet on a sixteen-hand hoss, and ain't he out of place? Sure! He looks like a clumsy fool. And the other way around it works the same way. A trout may be a flash of light in water, but on dry land he ain't worth a damn. Same way with you, Fatty. While you got a free foot you're all right, but when they put you behind a wall and say they're going to keep you there, you darned near bust down. Why? Because it looks to you like you ain't got a chance to fight back. So you quit altogether. But you'll come back to yourself, Arizona. You—"

Arizona raised his hand. He was sitting erect now, drinking in the words of Sinclair, as if they were air to a stifling man. His face worked.

"Why are you doing this for me, Sinclair—after I landed you here?"

"Because I made a man out of you once," answered the tall man evenly, "and I ain't going to see you backslide. Why, Arizona, you're one of the fastest-thinkin', quickest-handed gents that ever buckled on a gun, and here you are lying down like a kid that ain't never faced trouble before. Come alive, man. You and me are going to bust this ol' jail to smithereens, and when we get outside I'll blow your head off if I can!"

Riley's words had carried Arizona with him. Suddenly an olive-skinned hand shot out and clutched his own bony, strong fingers. The hand was fat and cold, but it gripped that of Riley Sinclair with a desperate energy.

"Sinclair, you mean it? You'll play in with me?"

"I will—sure!"

He had to drag the words out, but after he had spoken he was glad. New life shone in the face of Arizona.

"A man with you for a partner ain't done, Sinclair—not if he had a rope around his neck. Listen! D'you know why I come in town?"

"Well?"

"To get you out."

"I believe you, Arizona," lied Sinclair.

"Not for your sake—but hers."

Sinclair's face suddenly went white.

"Who?"

"The girl!" whispered Arizona. "I cached her away outside of town to wait for—us! Sinclair, she loves you."

Riley Sinclair sat as one stunned and dragged the hat from his head.

32

Through the branches of the copse in which she was hidden, the girl saw the sun descend in the west, a streak of slowly dropping fire. And now she became excited.

"As soon as it's dark," Arizona had promised, "I'll make my start. Have your hoss ready. Be in the saddle, and the minute you see us come down that trail out of Sour Creek, be ready to feed your hoss the spur and join us, because when we come, we'll come fast. Don't make no mistake. If you ride too slow we'll have to ride slow, too, and slow ridin' means gunplay on both sides, and gunplay means dead men, because the evenin' is a pile worse nor the dark for fooling a man's aim. You'll see me and Sinclair scoot along that there road, with the gang yellin' behind us!"

Having made this farewell speech, he waved his hand and, with a smile of confidence, jogged away from her. It was the beginning of a dull day of waiting for her, yet a day in which she dared not altogether relax her vigilance, because at any time the break might come, and Arizona might appear flying down the trail with the familiar tall form of Sinclair beside him. Wearily she waited until sundown.

With the coming of dusk she wakened suddenly and became tinglingly alert. The night spread rapidly down out of the mountains. The color faded, and the sudden chill of the high altitude settled about her. Her hands and her feet were cold with the fear of excitement.

Into the gathering gloom she strained her eyes; toward Sour Creek she strained her ears, starting at every faint sound of a man's shout or the barking of a dog, as if this might be the beginning of the uproar that would announce the escape.

Something swung on to the road out of the end of the main street. She was instantly in the saddle, but, by the time she reached the edge of the copse, she found it to be only a wagon filled with singing men going back to some nearby ranch. Then quiet dropped over the valley, and she became aware that it was the utter dark.

Arizona had failed! That knowledge grew more surely upon her with every moment. His intention must have been guessed, for she could not imagine that slippery and cold-minded fellow being thwarted, if he were left free to work as he pleased toward an object he desired. She could not stay in the grove all night. Besides, this was the critical time for Riley Sinclair. Tomorrow he would be taken to the security of the Woodville jail, and the end would be close. If anything were done for him, it must be before morning.

With this thought in mind she rode boldly out of the trees and took the road into town, where the lights of the early evening had turned from white to yellow, as the night deepened. Sour Creek was hardly a mile away when a rattling in the dark announced the approach of a buckboard. She drew rein at the side of the trail. Suddenly the wagon loomed out at her, with two down-headed horses