Chapter XXIX. Billy The Clerk
If Sheriff Pete Glass had been the typical hard-riding, sure-shootingofficer of the law as it is seen in the mountain-desert, his work wouldhave died with his death, but Glass had a mind as active as his hands,and therefore, for at least a little while, his work went on after him.He had gathered fifteen practiced fighters who represented, it might besaid, the brute body of the law, and when they, with most of Rickett attheir heels, burst down the door of the Sheriff's office and found hisbody, they had only one thought, which was to swing into the saddle andride on the trail of the killer, who was even now in a diminishing cloudof dust down the street. He was riding almost due east, and the cry wentup: "He's streakin' it for the Morgan Hills. Git after him, boys!" Sointo the saddle they went with a rush, fifteen tried men on fifteenchosen horses, and went down the street with a roar of hoof-beats. Thatwas the body and muscle of the sheriff's work going out to avenge him,but the mind of the law remained behind.
It was old Billy, the clerk. No one paid particular attention to Billy,and they never had. He was useless on a horse and ridiculous with a gun,and the only place where he seemed formidable was behind a typewriter.Now he sat looking, down into the dead face of Pete Glass, trying tograsp the meaning of it all. From the first he had been with Pete, fromthe first the invincibility of the little dusty man had been the chiefarticle of Billy's creed, and now his dull eyes, bleared with thirtyyears of clerical labor, wandered around on the galaxy of dead men wholooked down at him from the wall. He leaned over and took the hand ofthe sheriff as one would lean to help up a fallen man, but the fingerswere already growing cold, and then Billy realized for the first timethat this was death. Pete Glass had been; Pete Glass was not.
Next he knew that something had to be done, but what it was he couldnot tell, for he sat in the sheriff's office and in that room he wasaccustomed to stop thinking and receive orders. He went back to his ownlittle cubby-hole, and sat down behind the typewriter; at once his mindcleared, thoughts came, and linked themselves into ideas, pictures,plans.
The murderer must be taken, dead or alive, and those fifteen men hadridden out to do the necessary thing. They had seemed irresistible, asthey departed; indeed, no living thing they met could withstand them,human or otherwise, as Billy very well knew. Yet he recalled a saying ofthe sheriff, a thing he had insisted upon: "No man on no hoss will everride down Whistlin' Dan Barry. It's been tried before and it's neverworked. I've looked up his history and it can't be done. If he's goin'to be ran down it's got to be done with relays, like you was runnin'down a wild hoss." Billy rubbed his bald head and thought and thought.
With that orderliness which had become his habit of mind, from workwith reports and papers, sorting and filing away, Billy went back tothe beginning. Dan Barry was fleeing. He started from Rickett, and ninechances out of ten he was heading, eventually, towards those practicallyimpenetrable mountain ranges where the sheriff before had lost the trailafter the escape from the cabin and the killing of Mat Henshaw. Towardsthis same region, again, he had retreated after the notorious Killingat Alder. There was no doubt, then, humanly speaking, that he would makefor the same safe refuge.
At first glance this seemed quite improbable, to be sure, for the MorganHills lay due east, or very nearly east, while the place from whichBarry must have sallied forth and to which he would return was somewherewell north of west, and a good forty miles away. It seemed strange thathe should strike off in the opposite direction, so Billy closed hiseyes, leaned back in his chair, and summoned up a picture of thecountry.
Five miles to the east the Morgan Hills rolled, sharply broken ups anddowns of country--bad lands rather than real hills, and a difficultregion to keep game in view. That very idea gave Billy his clue. Barryknew that he would be followed hard and fast, and he headed straight forthe Morgan's to throw the posse off the final direction he intendedto take in his flight. In spite of the matchless speed of that blackstallion of which the sheriff had learned so much, he would probablylet the posse keep within easy view of him until he was deep within thebad-lands. Then he would double, sharply around and strike out in thetrue direction of his flight.
Having reached this point in his deductions, Billy smote his handstogether. He was trembling with excitement so that he filled his pipewith difficulty. By the time it was drawing well he was back examininghis mental picture of the country.
West of Rickett about the same distance as Morgan Hills, ran the WagoMountains, low, rolling ranges which would hardly form an impediment fora horseman. Across these Barry might cut at a good speed on his westerncourse, but some fifteen or twenty miles from Rickett he was bound toreach a most difficult barrier. It was the Asper river, at this seasonof the year swollen high and swift with snow-water--a rare feat indeedif a man could swim his horse across such a stream. There were only twoplaces in which it could be forded.
About fifty miles north and a little east of the line from Rickett theAsper spread out into a broad, shallow bed, its streams dispersed forseveral miles into a number of channels which united again, fartherdown the course, and made the same strong river. Towards this ford,therefore, it was possible that Dan Barry would head, in the region ofCaswell City.
There was, however, another way of crossing the stream. Almost due westof Rickett, a distance of fifteen miles, Tucker Creek joined the Asper.Above the point of junction both the creek and the river were readilyfordable, and Barry could cross them and head straight for his goal.
It was true that to make Tucker Creek he would have to double out of theMorgan Hills and brush back perilously close to Rickett, but Billy wasconvinced that this was the outlaw's plan; for though the Caswell Cityfords would be his safest route it would take him a day's ride, on anordinary horse, out of his way. Besides, the sheriff had always said:"Barry will play the chance!"
Billy would have ventured his life that the fugitive would strikestraight for the Creek as soon as he doubled out of Morgan Hills.
Doors began to bang; a hundred pairs of boots thudded and jingledtowards Billy; the noise of voices rolled through the outer hall, pouredthrough the door, burst upon his ears. He looked up in mild surprise;the first wave of Rickett's men had swept out of the courthouse to takethe trail of the fugitive or to watch the pursuit; in this second wavecame the remnants, the old men, the women; great-eyed children. In spiteof their noise of foot and voice they appeared to be trying to walkstealthily, talk so softly. They leaned about his desk and questionedhim with gesticulations, but he only stared. They were all dim as dreampeople to Billy the clerk, whose mind was far away struggling with hisproblem.
"Pore old Billy is kind of dazed," suggested a woman. "Don't bother him,Bud. Look here!"
The tide of noise and faces broke on either side of the desk and swayedoff towards the inner office and vaguely Billy felt that they shouldnot be there--the sheriff's privacy--the thought almost drew him back tocomplete consciousness, but he was borne off from them, again, on a waveof study, pictures. Off there to the east went the fifteen best men ofthe mountain-desert on the trail of the slender fellow with theblack hair and the soft brown eyes. How he had seemed to shrink withaloofness, timidity, when he stood there at the door, giving his name.It was not modesty. Billy knew now; it was something akin to the beastsof prey, who shrink from the eyes of men until they are mad with hunger,and in the slender man Billy remembered the same shrinking, the samehunger. When he struck, no wonder that even the sheriff went down;no wonder if even the fifteen men were baffled on that trail; andtherefore, it was sufficiently insane for him, Billy the clerk, to sitin his office and dream with his ineffectual hands of stopping thatresistless flight. Yet he pulled himself back to his problem.
Considering his problem in general, the thing was perfectly simple:Barry was sure to head west, and to the west there were only twogates--fording the creek and the river above the junction in the firstplace, or in the second place cutting across the Asper far north atCaswell City.
If he could be turned fr
om the direction of Tucker Creek he would headfor the second possible crossing, and when he drew near Caswell City ifhe were turned by force of numbers again he would unquestionably skirtthe Asper, hoping against hope that he might find a fordable place as hegalloped south. But, going south, he might be fenced again from TuckerCreek, and then his case would be hopeless and his horse worn down.
It was a very clever plan, quite simple after it was once conceived,but in order to execute it properly it was necessary that the outlaw bepressed hard every inch of the way and never once allowed to get outof sight. He must be chased with relays. In ordinary stretches of themountain-desert that would have been impossible, but the country aroundRickett was not ordinary.
Between the Morgan Hills and Wago there were considerable stretches ofexcellent farm land in the center of which little towns had grown up.Running north from the country seat, they were St. Vincent, Wago, andCaswell City. Coming south again along the Asper River there were Gantonand Wilsonville, and just above the junction of the river with TuckerCreek lay the village of Bly Falls. There was no other spot in themountain-desert, perhaps, which could show so many communities. Also itwas possible to get in touch with the towns from Rickett, for in a wildspirit of enterprise telephones had been strung to connect each villageof the group.
His hand went out mechanically and pushed in an open drawer of hisfiling cabinet as if he were closing up the affair, putting away thedetails of the plan. Each point was now clear, orderly assembled. Itmeant simply chasing Barry along a course which covered close to ahundred miles and which lay in a loosely shaped U. St. Vincent's was thetip of the eastern side of that U. The men of St. Vincent's were to becalled out to turn the outlaw out of his course towards Tucker Creek,and then, as he struck northeast towards Caswell City, they were tofurnish the posse with fifteen fresh horses, the best they could gatheron such short notice. Swinging north along that side of the U, Wagowould next be warned to get its contribution of fifteen horses ready,and this fresh relay would send Barry thundering along towards CaswellCity at full speed. Then Caswell City would send out its contingent ofmen and horses, and turn the fugitive back from the fords. By this time,unless his horse were better winded than any that Billy had ever dreamedof, it would be staggering at every stride, and the fresh horses fromCaswell City would probably ride him down before he had gone five miles.Even in case they failed in this, there was the little town of Ganton,which would be ready with its men and mounts. Perhaps they could hemin the desperado from the front and shoot him down there, as he skirtedalong the river. At the worst they would furnish the fresh horses andthe fifteen hardy riders would spur at full speed south along the river.If again, by some miracle, the black stallion lasted out this run,Wilsonville lay due ahead, and that place would again give new horses tothe chase.
Last of all, the men of Bly Falls could be warned. Bly Falls was a townof size and it could turn out enough men to block a dozen Dan Barrys, nomatter how desperate. If he reached that point, he must turn back. Thefollowing posse would catch him from the rear, and between two fires hemust die ingloriously. Taking the plan as a whole it meant running Barryclose to a hundred miles with six sets of horses.
It all hinged, however, on the first step: Could the men of St. Vincentturn him out of his western course and send him north towards CaswellCity? If they could, he was no better than a dead man. All thingsfavored Billy. In the first place it was still morning, and eight hoursof broad daylight would keep the fugitive in view every inch of the way.In the second place, much of the distance was cut up by the barb-wirefences of the farm-lands, and he must either jump these or else stop tocut them.
A crackle of laughter cut in on Billy the clerk. They were laughing inthat inner office, where the sheriff lay dead. Blood swept across hiseyes, set his brain whirling, and he rushed to the door.
"You yelpin' coyotes!" shouted Billy the clerk. "Get out. I got to bealone! Get out, or by God--"
It was not so much his words, or the fear of his threats, but the veryfact that Billy the clerk, harmless, smiling old Billy, had burst intonoisy wrath, scared them as if an earthquake had gripped the building.They went out sidling, and left the rooms in quiet. Then Billy took upthe phone.
"Pete Glass is dead," he was saying a moment later to the owner of thegeneral merchandise store at St. Vincent. "Barry came in this morningand shot him. The boys have run him east to the Morgan Hills. Johnny,listen hard and shut up. You got half an hour to turn out every man inyour town. Ride south till you get in the hills on a bee-line east ofwhere Tucker Creek runs into the old Asper. D'ye hear? Then keep youreyes peeled to the east, and watch for a man on a black hoss ridin'hard, because Barry is sure as hell goin' to double back out of theMorgan Hills and come west like a scairt coyote. The posse will bebehind him, but they most like be a hell of a ways to the bad. Johnny,everything hangs on your turnin' Barry back. And have fifteen freshhosses, the best St. Vincent has, so that the boys in the posse canclimb on 'em and ride hell-bent for Wago. Johnny, if we get him startednorth he's dead--and if you turn him like I say I'll see that you comein on the reward. D'ye hear?"
But there was only an inarticulate whoop from the other end of the wire.
Billy hung up. A little later he was talking to Wago.