Читать книгу White Wolf's Law - Dunning Hal - Страница 5

On the following day, about eleven o’clock, a great shout went up from the crowd before the courthouse. The jury had brought in a verdict of first-degree murder against Pete Cable.

On Thursday night, after dinner, Tim Lynch, the Hogg brothers, and the sheriff met in the judge’s house. They had been there but a short time when Ace Cutts, followed by Anderson, strolled into the room. The sheriff frowned when he saw them, but he realized that it would be better to keep them here now than to allow them to go away. They must suspect something about the gathering.

“Dad told me that little fake, Jim Allen, was coming here to-night, so I thought I’d drop in and look him over,” Ace said sneeringly.

Sam Hogg bounced to his feet. “You promised to tell no one!”

“Ace is really my son, and it just slipped out,” the judge apologized. He looked sternly at Ace. “You kept your word?”

“Sure thing. Bill, here, never heard a word about the Wolf until we came in here,” Ace replied.

“That’s true, gentlemen,” Anderson corroborated him.

The sheriff doubted both of them. He considered swiftly. He could not reach Allen now and warn him not to come. Dutchy had gone downtown. If he himself left to find Allen he might miss him. Better to remain here and help the Wolf when he came.

Bill Anderson regarded the waiting circle sardonically. “I’ve always been curious to see Jim-twin Allen,” he said. “You’ll forgive me if I mention that an alliance between a judge, a sheriff, and an outlaw has its humorous side.”

“You’re quite right,” said the judge thoughtfully. “But if he can help us we are justified in allying ourselves with him.”

“If he was the devil and could lead us into the lava fields I’d follow, hanging onto his tail,” said the sheriff.

“If what I hears is true, that he can follow trail like an Apache or a bloodhound, I’m bettin’ he can lead us through them lava fields,” Sam Hogg cried warmly.

“You fellows are wastin’ your time,” Ace Cutts put in. “He ain’t got nerve enough to come here.”

“Yuh mean he ain’t big enough fool to come into a town filled with gents what is longin’ to plug him,” Jim Hogg corrected.

“Call it that if yuh like.”

“I am afraid I agree with Ace; whether it is fear or caution which keeps him away, he won’t come to-night,” the judge said heavily.

“He will come, because he said he would,” affirmed a girl’s voice. Snippets had entered the room in time to hear the last remarks.

Anderson laughed tolerantly. “That sounds like a schoolgirl’s admiration for Robin Hood.”

“Robin Hood – huh! Allen’s rep is made by fools, girls, and old men,” Ace snapped. “I’m tellin’ yuh he ain’t no good and he won’t come. And we’re wasting our time not havin’ a rider beatin’ it to Texas to get Cupid Dart, the gent I was tellin’ you of.”

His words held a word of hate. The other men looked at him curiously. Jim Hogg scratched his head. The judge looked questioningly at the others.

“I think Ace is right,” Bill Anderson said judiciously. “We have all heard of Cupid Dart. Why not send for him? Even if Allen does come, it is a question if we can trust him.”

“Trust him? Of course you can’t trust him! He’s a bushwhackin’ killer, who kills men by shootin’ them in the back. I know men who have seen him do it.” Ace’s face was pale with rage.

“Why do you hate him?” the girl asked quietly.

“Because you are a sorta cousin of mine, and I hate to think of you having truck with a man like him,” Ace replied bitterly.

“I have no truck with him; I have never heard one word from him since the day he rode away after saving my father. He told me then that friendship between a girl like myself and a man like him was impossible.”

The girl’s face was flushed. In spite of herself her voice trembled. But her eyes were steady as she looked into Ace’s angry brown ones.

“Darn it, the girl’s in love with the little runt,” Sam Hogg whispered to his brother. He went over and placed an arm about the girl’s shoulder.

“Ace, yuh got Allen wrong,” he said defensively. “When I was in the Rangers and he hung out in Texas, I chased him plenty. And he had the rep then, among bad hombres, of bein’ square. An’ I don’t believe he killed any gent what didn’t need killin’ bad.”

“Only men who fear him hate him,” the girl said softly.

Ace Cutts took a step toward her, but Anderson grasped his arm.

“You fool!” he exclaimed in a whisper.

His back was toward the others. His lips formed a sentence that could be read only by Ace. The young man nodded sullenly and made an effort to recover his composure.

“When he comes,” Snippets said anxiously to Tom Powers, “remember you promised there will be no shooting.”

“Are you scared I’ll drop your hero?” Ace jeeringly asked.

“There’s going to be no gun play,” Tom Powers cut in sharply.

“Make him give you his word,” she insisted.

The worry in her voice was apparent to all. Ace was triumphant.

“I promise you I won’t – ” he began.

Sam Hogg read the reason correctly for the girl’s anxiety and he interrupted sharply.

“Yuh idiot! She ain’t scared for the Wolf. But she’s worried that yuh’ll make a fool play so’s the Wolf will have to drop yuh before the judge.”

Ace Cutts jeered and slapped his holstered gun. The little cattleman looked meaningly toward Tom Powers, who nodded, crossed to Ace Cutts, and slipped the gun from its holster. Snippets smiled gratefully at the grizzled ex-Ranger. Ace Cutts lapsed into sulky silence.

Then a noise at the rear of the room made them turn. The door that led to the kitchen swung open. Just outside the doorway stood a shadowy figure. It moved forward into the lamplight.

“You bum, what you doing here?” Jim Hogg rasped.

The newcomer was the hobo they knew as Jim Anson.

“Howdy, gents,” he said. “Yuh sent for me?”

He removed the blue glasses and tilted back his battered hat. As he advanced farther into the room they saw the two big Colts strapped at his thighs. His loose mouth split in a broad grin, and his big, uneven teeth flashed white.

The clock on the wall ticked loudly in the silence. The assembled men stared wonderingly at the undersized boy. It was Snippets who broke the silence.

“Uncle, this is Jim-twin Allen.”

The judge coughed and said foolishly: “I thought you were Jim Anson.”

Jim Allen grinned again. That contagious grin made the two Hogg brothers chuckle aloud, and even the judge and the sheriff smiled in return.

“No, I ain’t Jim Anson. I knows there was gents in this town longin’ for my scalp, so I sorta disguises myself. And as there was gents sneakin’ around in the bushes out there, I had to pretend to still be Jim Anson. I reckon some one of yuh gents talked, ’cause the Toad’s got all of his killers out there waitin’ for me. I told the Yuma Kid I had a message for the judge, so he let me pass,” Allen explained.

The men were amazed. It seemed unbelievable. Jim Anson, the cowardly, whining little bum! Jim-twin Allen! Their glances traveled from his shapeless moccasins to his boyish, freckled face. But from his strange, animallike eyes, there could be no doubt he was the man for whom they were waiting. They also understood how he had come by the name of the Wolf.

Ace Cutts’ face was ghastly white. With an effort he switched his eyes from Allen to Bill Anderson. The latter was licking his dry lips and staring at the famous outlaw, hypnotized. The realization that Jim Anson was Jim Allen had stunned the politician. Desperately he tried to figure what this would mean. At all costs Allen must not leave that room. He shot a glance to Ace Cutts. The latter began to slide unobtrusively toward the front door.

“I’m right glad to meet yuh, Jim Allen,” Sam Hogg cried heartily.

His brother, Jim, chuckled. “An’ you tole me yuh chased this feller ragged when yuh was in the Texas Rangers.”

“I sure did,” the cattleman said ruefully. “I bet the Rangers winded a hundred horses chasin’ yuh when yuh was hangin’ around lower Texas. An’ we never got close enough to throw lead at yuh. Yuh still got them grays yuh had then?”

Allen’s face clouded as he glanced quickly at Snippets.

“I got one of ’em – but Queen is dead. I got her son, though.”

The ex-Ranger had heard that story. Snippets had told him how Allen had ridden his favorite horse to death in order to save her father. He understood what a sacrifice that had been – for to men who ride the long trail, horses become more than horses. They are friends, companions, and the only living things to be trusted. Sam Hogg cleared his throat.

“Heard about that,” he murmured. “It was sure a fittin’ end for a grand ol’ hoss. When my time comes I hopes I go out like that. I hears the whole town turned out unanimous and planted Queen in style.”

“Yeah,” Allen murmured dully. The others watched the little rancher and the even smaller outlaw in wonder. Bill Anderson glanced at Ace Cutts, who was close to the door now. Then his eyes once more sought Allen, and he sneered. A man who could sentimentalize over the death of a horse could hardly be as redoubtable an antagonist as rumor painted him.

Allen stepped away from the girl, who had laid her hand on his arm. He looked at Anderson and grinned once more.

“Let’s get down to business,” Tom Powers spoke.

“Sure, we’re wasting time,” Anderson snapped. “Allen, we think, because you are an outlaw, you may know the whereabouts of the Lava Gang. If you will lead us to them we will pay you well.”

There was something intolerably offensive in the way Bill Anderson spoke. Jim Hogg opened his lips to protest – but the expression on Allen’s face did not change. There was nothing there to indicate he had noticed the veiled insult in Anderson’s words; if anything, his grin grew broader.

“Yuh mean, I, bein’ on the dodge, maybe knows some of the Lava Gang and will give up my friends if yuh pays me enough?” he asked gently.

“No, we don’t mean that,” the judge cried.

“Not at all,” Tim Lynch added.

Allen ignored the judge, glanced meaningly at Tom Powers, then faced Bill Anderson, who was lounging against the fireplace. This maneuver placed Ace Cutts behind the little outlaw. Anderson had expected Allen to grow angry, to bluster, and this calmness disconcerted him. However, he had gained his objective, which was to concentrate Allen’s attention on himself; and Allen’s back was now toward the door.

“We are not asking you to betray your friends, but if you will lead us to them, we will pay you well.” The explanation was even more offensive than the original statement.

“Yuh aimin’ to get me mad?” Allen asked. He grinned at Bill Anderson and shook his head.

“Mister, I never get mad, ’cause things might happen if I did, and me not notice ’em. I let yuh talk ’cause I wasn’t sure – now I’m certain.”

Only one of the bystanders, Powers, understood the significance of Allen’s words. The others glanced curiously from Allen to Anderson. The politician’s face flushed, and he shot a quick glance at Ace Cutts, who had reached the door, then he glanced over his shoulder into the mirror behind him. At once he understood that Allen had been watching Ace Cutts reflected there, and was fully aware of the foreman’s attempt to gain the outside, where he could give the alarm to the Yuma Kid and the others waiting there.

“Yuh gents gave me yuhr promise no one was to leave the room while I was here,” Allen reminded.

“We sure did,” Jim Hogg cried.

“Get away from that door, Ace,” Tim Lynch snapped.

“Ace, don’t leave this room,” the judge commanded.

Ace Cutts had his hand on the doorknob. Now he paused.

“If he turns that knob I’ll drop him,” Allen said.

All expression had left the little gunman’s voice. It was flat, toneless. But its very flatness made Ace hesitate. He glanced at Anderson, who nodded to him to go. Then realization came to him that Allen had been watching him in the mirror and that Anderson knew it. Even if he failed to get clear of the door before Allen fired, Anderson would have gained his objective, for a shot in that room would bring the Toad’s killers on the run. Anderson was deliberately trying to sacrifice Ace. He dropped the doorknob as if it had suddenly grown red-hot, threw himself into a chair, and stared fixedly at his neat boots.

“I am given to understand that you know the members of the Lava Gang,” the judge said.

“Yeah, I knows them,” Allen replied softly.

“You can trust every one here. Will you give me their names?”

“I came here to tell yuh, but I’ve changed my mind.”