CHAPTER XVII
"SO-LONG, BUCK!"
"Before you go, Buck, I want to tell you that you needn't jollyyourself into thinking your death will be avenged. It won't. Younoticed what I wrote; and there isn't a scrap of my writing anywhere inthe country to catch me up--" Ward's thoughts went to Billy Louise,who had some very good samples, and he stopped suddenly. He was tryingnot to think of Billy Louise, to-day. "Also, when somebody happens toride this way and sees you, I won't be anywhere around."
"This is the tree," he added, stopping under a cottonwood that flung abig branch out over the narrow cow-trail they were traveling. "Thechances are friend Floyd will be ambling around this way in a day ortwo," he said hearteningly. "He can tend to the last sad rites andtake charge of your horse. He's liable to be sore when he reads yourpedigree, but I don't reckon that will make a great deal of difference.You'll get buried, all right, Buck."
Ward dismounted with a most businesslike manner and untied Buck Olney'srope from the saddle. "I can't spare mine," he explained laconically.He had some trouble in fashioning a hangman's noose. He had not hadmuch practice, he remarked to Buck after the first attempt.
"How do you do it, Buck? You know more about these things than I do,"he taunted. "You've helped hang lots of poor devils that will be gladto meet yuh in hell to-day."
Buck Olney moistened his dry lips. Ward glanced at his face and lookedquickly away. Staring, abject terror is not nice to look upon, eventhough the man is your worst enemy and is suffering justly for hissins. Ward's fingers fumbled the rope as though his determination wereweakening. Then he remembered some things, hunched his shoulders,impatient of the merciful impulse, and began the knot again. An oldprospector had shown him once how it was done.
"Of course, a plain slip-knot would do the business all right," hesaid. "But I'll try and give you the genuine thing, same as you gavethe other fellows."
"Ward, for God's sake, let me go!"
Ward started. He did not know that a man's voice could change so muchin so short a time. He never would have recognized the tones as comingfrom Buck Olney's loose, complacent lips.
"Ward, I'll never--I'll leave the country--I'll go to South America, orAustralia, or--"
"You'll go to hell, Buck," Ward cut in inexorably. "You've got yourticket."
"I'll own up to everything. I'll tell you where some of the money'scached we got in that Hardup deal, Ward. There's enough to put you onEasy Street. I'll tell you who helped--"
"You'd better not," advised Ward harshly, "or I'll make hanging arelief to you. I know pretty well, right now, all you could tell. Andif I wanted to send your pardners up, I wouldn't need your help. It'spartly to give them a chance that I'm sending you out this way, myself.I don't call this murder, Buck. I'm saving the State a lot of time andtrouble, that's all; and your pardners the black eye they'd get forthrowing in with you. I heap sabe who was the head push. You got themin to take whatever dropped, so you could get off slick and clean, justas you've done before, you--you--"
Buck Olney got it then, hot from the fires of Ward's wrath. A man doesnot brood over treachery and wrong and a blackened future for years,without storing up a good many things that he means to say to thefriend who has played him false. Ward had been a happy-go-lucky youngfellow who had faith in men and in himself and in his future. He hadlived through black, hopeless days and weeks and months, because ofthis man who tried now to buy mercy with the faith of his partners.
Ward stood up and let the rope trail forgotten from his hands while hetold Buck Olney all the things he had brooded over in bitterness. Hehad meant to keep it all down, but it was another instance of bottledemotions, and Buck, with his offer of a fresh bit of treachery, hadpulled the cork. Ward trembled a little while he talked, and his facegrew paler and paler as he dug deep into the blackest part of the past,until when he finished he was a tanned white. He was shaking at thelast; shaking so that he staggered to the tree and leaned against itweakly, while he fumbled for tobacco and papers.
In the saddle Buck sat all hunched together as if Ward had lashed himwith rawhide instead of with stinging words. The muscles of his facetwitched spasmodically. His eyes were growing bloodshot.
Ward spilled two papers of tobacco before he got a cigarette rolled andlighted. He wondered a little at the physical reaction from hisoutburst, but he wondered more at Buck Olney sitting alive and unhurton the horse before him--a Seabeck horse which Ward had seen FloydCarson riding once or twice. He wondered what Floyd would do if he sawBuck now and the use to which the horse was being put.
Ward finished the cigarette, rolled another, and smoked that alsobefore he could put his hand out before him and hold it reasonablysteady. When he felt fairly sure of himself again, he lifted his hatto wipe off the sweat of his anger, gave a big sigh, and returned tothe tying of the hangman's noose.
When he finally had it fixed the way he wanted it, he went close andflung the noose over Buck Olney's head. He could not trust himself tospeak just then. He cast an inquiring glance upward, took Buck's horseby the bridle, and led him forward a few steps so that Buck wasdirectly under the overhanging limb. Then, with the coil of Buck'srope in his hand, he turned back and squirmed up the tree-trunk untilhe had reached the limb. He crawled out until he was over Buck'sbullet-punctured hat-crown, sliced off what rope he did not need, andflung it to the ground. He saw Buck wince as the rope went past him.The pinto horse shied out of position.
"Take the reins and bring him back here!" Ward called shortly, and gavea twitch of the rope as a hint.
Mechanically Buck obeyed. He did not know that the rope was not yettied to the limb.
Ward tied the rope securely, leaving enough slack to keep Buck fromchoking prematurely. He fussed a minute longer, with his lip curledinto a grin of sardonic humor. Then he crawled hack to the trunk ofthe tree and slid down carefully so that he would not frighten thepinto.
He went up and took the hobble off Buck Olney's feet, felt in the seamof his coat-lapel, and pulled out four pins, with which he fastenedBuck's "pedigree" between Buck's shrinking shoulder-blades. Then hestood off and surveyed his work critically before he went over toRattler, who stood dozing in the sunshine.
"Sorry I can't stay to see you off," he told Buck maliciously. "I'vedecided to let you go alone and take your own time about starting. Aslong as that cayuse stands where he is, you're safe as a church. Andyou've got the reins; you can kick off any time you feel like it.Sabe?" He studied Buck's horror-marked face pitilessly.
"You've got about one chance in a million that you can make that pintostand there till someone comes along," he pointed out impartially."I'm willing to give you that chance, such as it is. And if you'relucky enough to win out on it--well, I'd advise you to do some going!South America is about as close as you'll be safe. Folks around hereare going to know all about you, old-timer, whether they get to readwhat's on your back or not.
"And, on the other hand, it's a million-to-one shot you'll land whereyour ticket reads. I'd hate to gamble on that horse standing in onespot for two or three days, wouldn't you?" He wheeled Rattlerunobtrusively, his eye on the pinto. "I hope he don't try to follow,"he said. "I want you to have a little time to think about the things Isaid to you. Well, so-long."
Ward rode back the way he had come, glancing frequently over hisshoulder at Buck, slumped in the saddle with a paper pinned to his backlike a fire-warning on a tree, and his own grass rope noosed about hisneck and connecting him with the cottonwood limb six feet above his hatcrown.
Ward had not ridden a hundred yards before he heard Buck Olney screamhysterically for help. He grinned sourly with his eyebrows pinchedtogether and, that hard, strained look in his eyes still. "Let himholler awhile!" he gritted. "Do him good, damn him!"
Until distance and the intervening hills set a wall of silence between,Ward heard Buck screaming in fear of death, screaming until he was sohoarse he could only whisper; screaming because he had not se
en Wardtake his knife and slice the rope upon the limb so that it would nothave held the weight of a rabbit.