Bull Hunter by Max Brand (best books to read now txt) 📗

"You expect me to believe talk like that? Young man, d'you know who I am?"

"I dunno," murmured Bull, overawed and drawing back a pace.

The action drew a chuckle from the crowd. Some of the idlers even rose and sauntered to the edge of the veranda, the better to see the baiting of the giant. His prodigious size made his timidity the more amusing.

"You dunno, eh?" asked the other. "Well, son, I'm Sheriff Bill Anderson!" He waited to see the effect of this portentous announcement.

"I never heard tell of any Sheriff Bill Anderson," said Bull in the same mild voice.

The sheriff gasped. The idlers hastily veiled their mouths with much coughing and clearing of the throat. It seemed that the tables had been subtly turned upon the sheriff.

"You!" exclaimed the sheriff, extending a bony arm. "I got to tell you, partner, that I'm a pile suspicious. I'm suspicious of anybody that's a friend of Pete Reeve. How long have you knowed him?"

Bull was very anxious to pacify the tall man. He shifted his weight to the other foot. "Something less'n nothing," he hastened to explain. "I ain't never seen him."

"And why d'you want to see him? What d'you know about him?"

It flashed through the mind of Bull that it would be useless to tell what he knew of Pete. Obviously nobody would believe what he could tell of how Reeve had met and shot down Uncle Bill Campbell. For Bill Campbell was a historic figure as a fighter in the mountain regions, and surely his face must be bright even at this distance from his home. That he could have walked beyond the sphere of Campbell's fame in five days never occurred to Bull Hunter.

"I dunno nothing good," he confessed.

There was a change in the sheriff. He descended from the floor of the veranda with a stiff-legged hop and took Bull by the arm, leading him down the street.

"Son," he said earnestly, walking down the street with Bull, "d'you know anything agin' this Pete Reeve? I want to know because I got Pete behind the bars for murder!"

"Murder?" asked Bull.

"Murder—regular murder—something he'll hang for. And if you got any inside information that I can use agin' him, why I'll use it and I'll be mighty grateful for it! You see everybody knows Pete Reeve. Everybody knows that, for all these years, he's been going around killing and maiming men, and nobody has been able to bring him up for anything worse'n self-defense. But now I think I got him to rights, and I want to hang him for it, stranger, partly because it'd be a feather in my cap, and partly because it'd be doing a favor for every good, law-abiding citizen in these parts. So do what you can to help me, stranger, and I'll see that your time ain't wasted."

There was something very wheedling and insinuating about all this talk. It troubled Bull. His strangely obscure life had left him a child in many important respects, and he had a child's instinctive knowledge of the mental processes of others. In this case he felt a profound distrust. There was something wrong about this sheriff, his instincts told him—something gravely wrong. He disliked the man who had started to ridicule him before many men and was now so confidential, asking his help.

"Sheriff Anderson," he said, "may I see this Reeve?"

"Come right along with me, son. I ain't pressing you for what you know. But it may be a thing that'll help me to hang Reeve. And if it is, I'll need to know it. Understand? Public benefit—that's what I'm after. Come along with me and you can see if Reeve's the man you're after."

They crossed the street through a little maelstrom of fine dust which a wind circle had picked up, and the sheriff led Bull into the jail. They crossed the tawdry little outer room with its warped floor creaking under the tread of Bull Hunter. Next they came face to face with a cage of steel bars, and behind it was a little gray man on a bunk. He sat up and peered at them from beneath bushy brows, a thin-faced man, extremely agile. Even in sitting up, one caught many possibilities of catlike speed of action.

Bull knew at once that this was the man he sought. He stood close to the bars, grasping one in each great hand, and with his face pressed against the steel, he peered at Pete Reeve. The other was very calm.

"Howdy, sheriff," he said. "Bringing on another one to look over your bear?"

CHAPTER 7

The prisoner's good humor impressed Bull immensely. Here was a man talking commonplaces in the face of death. A greater man than Uncle Bill, he felt at once—a far greater man. It was impossible to conceive of that keen, sharp eye and that clawlike hand sending a bullet far from the center of the target.

He gave his eyes long sight of that face, and then turned from the bars and went out with the sheriff.

"Is that your man?" asked the sheriff.

"I dunno," said Bull, fencing for time as they stood in front of the jail. "What'd he do?"

"You mean why he's in jail? I'll tell you that, son, but first I want to know what you got agin' him—and your proofs—mostly your proofs!"

The distaste which Bull had felt for the sheriff from the first now became overpowering. That he should be the means of bringing that terrible and active little man to an end seemed, as a matter of fact, absurd. Guile must have played a part in that capture.

Suppose he were to tell the sheriff about the shooting of Uncle Bill? That would be enough to convince men that Pete Reeve was capable of murder, for the shooting of Uncle Bill had been worse than murder. It spared the life and ruined it at the same time. But suppose he added his evidence and allowed the law to take its course with Pete Reeve? Where would be his own reward for his long march south and all the pain of travel and the crossing of the mountains at the peril of his life? There would be nothing but scorn from Uncle Bill when he returned, and not that moment of praise for which he yearned. To gain that great end he must kill Pete Reeve, but not by the aid of the law.

"I dunno," he said to the sheriff who waited impatiently. "I figure that what I know wouldn't be no good to you."

The sheriff snorted. "You been letting me waste all this time on you?" he asked Bull. "Why didn't you tell me that in the first place?"

Bull scratched his head in perplexity. But as he raised the great arm and put his hand behind his head, the sheriff winced back a little. "I'm sorry," said Bull.

The sheriff dismissed him with a grunt of disgust, and strode off.

Bull started out to find information. This idea was growing slowly in his mind. He must kill Pete Reeve, and to accomplish that great end he must first free him from the jail. He went back to the hotel and went into the kitchen to find food. The proprietor himself came back to serve him. He was a pudgy little man with a dignified pointed beard of which he was inordinately proud.

"It's between times for meals," he declared, "but you being the biggest man that ever come into the hotel, I'll make an exception." And he began to hunt through the cupboard for cold meat.

"I seen Pete Reeve," began Bull bluntly. "How come he's in jail?"

"Him?" asked the other. "Ain't you heard?"

"No."

The little man sighed with pleasure; he had given up hope of finding a new listener for that oft-told tale. "It happened last night," he confided. "Along late in the afternoon in rides Johnny Strange. He tells us he was out to Dan Armstrong's place when, about noon, a little gray-headed man that give the name of Pete Reeve came in and asked for chow. Of course Johnny Strange pricks up his ears when he hears the name. We all heard about Pete Reeve, off and on, as about the slickest gunman that the ranges ever turned out. So he looks Pete over and wonders at finding such a little man."

The proprietor drew himself up to his full height. "He didn't know that size don't make the man! Well, Armstrong trotted out some chuck for Reeve, and after Pete had eaten, Johnny Strange suggested a game. They sat in at three-handed stud poker.

"Things went along pretty good for Johnny. He made a considerable winning. Then it come late in the afternoon, and he seen he'd have to be getting back home. He offered to bet everything he'd won, or double or nothing, and when the boys didn't want to do that, it give him a clean hand to stand up and get out. He got up and said good-bye and hung around a while to see how the next hands went. So far as he could make out, Pete Reeve was losing pretty steady. Then he come on in.

"Well, when Johnny Strange told about Pete being out there, Sheriff
Anderson was in the room and he rises up.

"'Don't look good to me,' he says. 'If a gunfighter is losing money, most like he'll fight to win it back. Maybe I'll go out and look that game over.'

"And saying that he slopes out of the room.

"Well, none of us took much stock in the sheriff going out to take care of Armstrong. You see Armstrong was the old sheriff, and he give Anderson a pretty stiff run for his money last election. They both been spending most of their time and energy the last few years hating each other. When one of 'em is in office the other goes around saying that the gent that has the plum is a crook; and then Anderson goes out, and Armstrong comes in, and Anderson says the same thing about Armstrong. Take 'em general and they always had the boys worried when they was together, for fear of a gunfight and bullets flying. And so, when Anderson stands up and says he's going out to see that Reeve don't do no harm to Armstrong, we all sat back and kind of laughed.

"But we laughed at the wrong thing. Long about an hour or so after dark we hear two men come walking up on the veranda, and one of 'em we knowed by the sound was the sheriff."

"How could you tell by the sound?" asked Bull innocently.

"Well, you see the sheriff always wears steel rims on his heels like he was a horse. He's kind of close with his money is old Anderson, I'll tell a man! We hear the ring of them heels on the porch, and pretty soon in comes the sheriff, herding a gent in ahead of him. And who d'you think that gent was? It was Reeve! Yes, sir, the old sheriff had stepped out and grabbed his man. He wasn't there quick enough to stop the killing of Armstrong, but he got there fast enough to nab Reeve. Seems that when he was riding up to the house he heard a shot fired, and then he seen a man run out of the house and jump on his hoss, and the sheriff didn't stop to ask no questions. He just out with his gat and drills the gent's hoss. And while Reeve was struggling on the ground, with the hoss flopping around and dying, the sheriff runs up and sticks the irons on Reeve. Then he goes into the house and finds Armstrong lying shot through the heart. Clear as day! Reeve loses a lot of money, and when it comes to a pinch he hates to see that money gone when he could get it back for the price of one slug. So he outs with his gun and shoots Armstrong. And the worst part of it was that Armstrong didn't have no gun on at the time. The sheriff found Armstrong's gun hanging on the wall along with his cartridge belt. Yep, it was plain murder, and Pete Reeve'll hang as high as the sky—and a good thing, too!"

This story was a shock to Bull for a reason that would not have affected most men. That a man who had had the courage to stand up and face Uncle Bill in a fair duel should have been so cowardly, so venomous as