The Sheriff's Son
Chapter XVI
Roy is Invited to Take a Drink
Dingwell gave a fishing-party next day. His invited guests wereSheriff Sweeney, Royal Beaudry, Pat Ryan, and Superintendent Elder, ofthe Western Express Company. Among those present, though at arespectable distance, were Ned Rutherford and Brad Charlton.
The fishermen took with them neither rods nor bait. Their flybookswere left at home. Beaudry brought to the meeting-place a quarter-inchrope and a grappling-iron with three hooks. Sweeney and Ryan carriedrifles and the rest of the party revolvers.
Dave himself did the actual fishing. After the grappling-hook had beenattached to the rope, he dropped it into Big Creek from a large rockunder the bridge that leads to town from Lonesome Park. He hooked hisbig fish at the fourth cast and worked it carefully into the shallowwater. Roy waded into the stream and dragged the catch ashore. Itproved to be a gunnysack worth twenty thousand dollars.
Elder counted the sacks inside. "Everything is all right. How did youcome to drop the money here?"
"I'm mentioning no names, Mr. Elder. But I was so fixed that Icouldn't turn back. If I left the road, my tracks would show. Therewere reasons why I didn't want to continue on into town with the loot.So, as I was crossing the bridge, without leaving the saddle or evenstopping, I deposited the gold in the Big Creek safety deposit vault,"Dingwell answered with a grin.
"But supposing the Rutherfords had found it?" The superintendent puthis question blandly.
The face of the cattleman was as expressive as a stone wall. "Did Imention the Rutherfords?" he asked, looking straight into the eye ofthe Western Express man. "I reckon you didn't hear me quite right."
Elder laughed a little. He was a Westerner himself. "Oh, I heard you,Mr. Dingwell. But I haven't heard a lot of things I'd like to know."
The cattleman pushed the sack with his toe. "Money talks, folks say."
"Maybe so. But it hasn't told me why you couldn't go back along theroad you came, why you couldn't leave the road, and why you didn't wantto go right up to Sweeney's office with the sack. It hasn't given meany information about where you have been the past two weeks, or how--"
"My gracious! He bubbles whyfors and howfors like he had just comeuncorked," murmured Dave, in his slow drawl. "Just kinder effervescesthem out of the mouth."
"I know you're not going to tell me anything you don't want me to know,still--"
"You done guessed it first, crack. Move on up to the haid of theclass."
"Still, you can't keep me from thinking. You can call the turn on thefellows that robbed the Western Express Company whenever you feel likeit. Right now you could name the men that did it."
Dave's most friendly, impudent smile beamed upon the superintendent."I thank you for the compliment, Mr. Elder. Honest, I didn't know howsmart a haid I had in my hat till you told me."
"It's good ye've got an air-tight _alibi_ yoursilf, Dave," grinned PatRyan.
"I've looked up his _alibi_. It will hold water," admitted Eldergenially. "Well, Dingwell, if you won't talk, you won't. We'll moveon up to the bank and deposit our find. Then the drinks will be on me."
The little procession moved uptown. A hundred yards behind it cameyoung Rutherford and Charlton as a rear guard. When the contents ofthe sack had been put in a vault for safe-keeping, Elder invited theparty into the Last Chance. Dave and Roy ordered buttermilk.
Dingwell gave his partner a nudge. "See who is here."
The young man nodded gloomily. He had recognized already the two mendrinking at a table in the rear.
"Meldrum and Hart make a sweet pair to draw to when they're tanking up.They're about the two worst bad men in this part of the country. Myadvice is to take the other side of the street when you see themcoming," Ryan contributed.
The rustlers glowered at Elder's party, but offered no comment otherthan some sneering laughter and ribald whispering. Yet Beaudrybreathed freer when he was out in the open again lengthening thedistance between him and them at every stride.
Ryan walked as far as the hotel with Dave and his partner.
"Come in and have dinner with us, Pat," invited the cattleman.
The Irishman shook his head. "Can't, Dave. Got to go round to theElephant Corral and look at my horse. A nail wint into its foot lastnight."
After they had dined, Dingwell looked at his watch. "I want you tolook over the ranch today, son. We'll ride out and I'll show you theplace. But first I've got to register a kick with the station agentabout the charges for freight on a wagon I had shipped in from Denver.Will you stop at Salmon's and order this bill of groceries sent up tothe corral? I'll meet you here at 2.30."
Roy walked up Mission Street as far as Salmon's New York Grocery andturned in the order his friend had given him. After he had seen itfilled, he strolled along the sunny street toward the plaza. It wasone of those warm, somnolent New Mexico days as peaceful as old age.Burros blinked sleepily on three legs and a hoof-tip. Cowponiesswitched their tails indolently to brush away flies. An occasionalhalf-garbed Mexican lounged against a door jamb or squatted in theshade of a wall. A squaw from the reservation crouched on the curbbeside her display of pottery. Not a sound disturbed the siesta ofBattle Butte.
Into this peace broke an irruption of riot. A group of men pouredthrough the swinging doors of a saloon into the open arcade in front.Their noisy disputation shattered the sunny stillness like a fusilladein the desert. Plainly they were much the worse for liquor.
Roy felt again the familiar clutch at his throat, the ice drench at hisheart, and the faint slackness of his leg muscles. For in the crowdjust vomited from the Silver Dollar were Meldrum, Fox, Hart, Charlton,and Ned Rutherford.
Charlton it was that caught sight of the passing man. With an exultantwhoop he leaped out, seized Beaudry, and swung him into the circle ofhillmen.
"Tickled to death to meet up with you, Mr.Royal-Cherokee-Beaudry-Street. How is every little thing a-coming?Fine as silk, eh? You'd ought to be laying by quite a bit of themazuma, what with rewards and spy money together," taunted Charlton.
To the center of the circle Meldrum elbowed his drunken way. "Lemmeget at the pink-ear. Lemme bust him one," he demanded.
Ned Rutherford held him back. "Don't break yore breeching, Dan. Bradhas done spoke for him," the young man drawled.
Into the white face of his victim Charlton puffed the smoke of hiscigar. "If you ain't too busy going fishing maybe you could sell me awindmill to-day. How about that, Mr. Cornell-I-Yell?"
"Where's yore dry nurse Dingwell?" broke in the ex-convict bitterly."Thought he tagged you everywhere. Tell the son-of-a-gun for me thatnext time we meet I'll curl his hair right."
Roy said nothing. He looked wildly around for a way of escape andfound none. A half ring of jeering faces walled him from the street.
"Lemme get at him. Lemme crack him one on the bean," insisted Meldrumas he made a wild pass at Beaudry.
"No hurry a-tall," soothed Ned. "We got all evening before us. Takeyore time, Dan."
"Looks to me like it's certainly up to Mr.Cherokee-What's-his-name-Beaudry to treat the crowd," suggested ChetFox.
The young man clutched at the straw. "Sure. Of course, I will. Gladto treat, even though I don't drink myself," he said with a weak,forced heartiness.
"You _don't_ drink. The hell you don't!" cut in Meldrum above theBabel of voices.
"He drinks--hic--buttermilk," contributed Hart.
"He'll drink whiskey when I give the word, by Gad!" Meldrum shookhimself free of Rutherford and pressed forward. He dragged a bottlefrom his pocket, drew out the cork, and thrust the liquor at Roy."Drink, you yellow-streaked coyote--and drink a-plenty."
Roy shook his head. "No!--no," he protested. "I--I--never touch it."His lips were ashen. The color had fled from his cheeks.
The desperado pushed his cruel, vice-scarred face close to that of theman he hated.
"Sa-ay. Listen to me, young fellow. I'm g
oing to bump you off one o'these days sure. Me, I don't like yore name nor the color of yore hairnor the map you wear for a face. I'm a killer. Me, Dan Meldrum. AndI serve notice on you right now." With an effort he brought his mindback to the issue on hand. "But that ain't the point. When I ask aman to drink he drinks. See? You ain't deef, are you? Then drink,you rabbit!"
Beaudry, his heart beating like a triphammer, told himself that he wasnot going to drink that they could not make him--that he would diefirst. But before he knew it the flask was in his trembling fingers.Apparently, without the consent of his flaccid will, the muscles hadresponded to the impulse of obedience to the spur of fear. Even whilehis brain drummed the refrain, "I won't drink--I won't--I won't," thebottle was rising to his lips.
He turned a ghastly grin on his tormentors. It was meant to propitiatethem, to save the last scrap of his self-respect by the assumption thatthey were all good fellows together. Feebly it suggested that afterall a joke is a joke.
From the uptilted flask the whiskey poured into his mouth. Heswallowed, and the fiery liquid scorched his throat. Before he couldhand the liquor back to its owner, the ex-convict broke into a curse.
"Drink, you pink-ear. Don't play 'possum with me," he roared. Roydrank. Swallow after swallow of the stuff burned its way into hisstomach. He stopped at last, sputtering and coughing.
"M--much obliged. I'll be going now," he stammered.
"Not quite yet, Mr. R. C. Street-Beaudry," demurred Charlton suavely."Stay and play with us awhile, now you're here. No telling when we'llmeet again." He climbed on the shoe-shining chair that stood in theentry. "I reckon I'll have my boots shined up. Go to it, Mr.Beaudry-Street."
With a whoop of malice the rest of them fell in with the suggestion.To make this young fellow black their boots in turn was the mosthumiliating thing they could think of at the moment. They pushed Roytoward the stand and put a brush into his hand. He stood still,hesitating.
"Git down on yore knees and hop to it," ordered Charlton. "Give himroom, boys."
Again Beaudry swore to himself that he would not do it. He had animpulse to smash that sneering, cruel face, but it was physicallyimpossible for him to lift a hand to strike. Though he was tremblingviolently, he had no intention of yielding. Yet the hinges of hisknees bent automatically. He found himself reaching for the blackingjust as if his will were paralyzed.
Perhaps it was the liquor rushing to his head when he stooped. Perhapsit was the madness of a terror-stricken rat driven into a corner. Hisfear broke bounds, leaped into action. Beaudry saw red. With bothhands he caught Charlton's foot, twisted it savagely, and flung the manhead over heels out of the chair. He snatched up the bootblack's stoolby one leg and brought it crashing down on the head of Meldrum. Theex-convict went down as if he had been pole-axed.
There was no time to draw guns, no time to prepare a defense. Hisbrain on fire from the liquor he had drunk and his overpowering terror,Beaudry was a berserk gone mad with the lust of battle. He ran amucklike a maniac, using the stool as a weapon to hammer down the heads ofhis foes. It crashed first upon one, now on another.
Charlton rushed him and was struck down beside Meldrum. Hart, flungback into the cigar-case, smashed the glass into a thousand splinters.Young Rutherford was sent spinning into the street.
His assailants gave way before Beaudry, at first slowly, then in apanic of haste to escape. He drove them to the sidewalk, flailing awayat those within reach. Chet Fox hurdled in his flight a burro loadedwith wood.
Then, suddenly as it had swept over Roy, the brain-storm passed. Themists cleared from his eyes. He looked down at the leg of the stool inhis hand, which was all that remained of it. He looked up--and sawBeulah Rutherford in the street astride a horse.
She spoke to her brother, who had drawn a revolver from his pocket."You don't need that now, Ned. He's through."
Her contemptuous voice stung Roy. "Why didn't they leave me alone,then?" he said sullenly in justification.
The girl did not answer him. She slipped from the horse and ran intothe arcade with the light grace that came of perfect health and thefreedom of the hills. The eyes of the young man followed this slim,long-limbed Diana as she knelt beside Charlton and lifted his bloodyhead into her arms. He noticed that her eyes burned and that hervirginal bosom rose and fell in agitation.
None the less she gave first aid with a business-like economy ofmotion. "Bring water, Ned,--and a doctor," she snapped crisply, herhandkerchief pressed against the wound.
To see what havoc he had wrought amazed Roy. The arcade looked as if acyclone had swept through it. The cigar-stand was shattered beyondrepair, its broken glass strewn everywhere. The chair of the bootblackhad been splintered into kindling wood. Among the debris sat Meldrumgroaning, both hands pressing a head that furiously ached. BradCharlton was just beginning to wake up to his surroundings.
A crowd had miraculously gathered from nowhere. The fat marshal ofBattle Butte was puffing up the street a block away. Beaudry judged ittime to be gone. He dropped the leg of the stool and strode toward thehotel.
Already his fears were active again. What would the hillmen do to himwhen they had recovered from the panic into which his madness hadthrown them? Would they start for him at once? Or would they mark onemore score against him and wait? He could scarcely keep his feet frombreaking into a run to get more quickly from the vicinity of the SilverDollar. He longed mightily to reach the protection of Dave Dingwell'sexperience and debonair _sang froid_.
The cattleman had not yet reached the hotel. Roy went up to their roomat once and locked himself in. He sat on the bed with a revolver inhis hand. Now that it was all over, he was trembling like an aspenleaf. For the hundredth time in the past week he flung at himself hisown contemptuous scorn. Why was the son of John Beaudry such an arrantcoward? He knew that his sudden madness and its consequences had beenborn of panic. What was there about the quality of his nerves thatdiffered from those of other men? Even now he was shivering from thedread that his enemies might come and break down the door to get at him.
He heard the jocund whistle of Dingwell as the cattleman came along thecorridor. Swiftly he pocketed the revolver and unlocked the door.When Dave entered, Roy was lying on the bed pretending to read anewspaper.
If the older man noticed that the paper shook, he ignored it.
"What's this I hear, son, about you falling off the water-wagon andfilling the hospital?" His gay grin challenged affectionately the boyon the bed. "Don't you know you're liable to give the new firm,Dingwell & Beaudry, a bad name if you pull off insurrections like that?The city dads are talking some of building a new wing to the accidentward to accommodate your victims. Taxes will go up and--"
Roy smiled wanly. "You've heard about it, then?"
"Heard about it! Say, son, I've heard nothing else for the last twentyminutes. You're the talk of the town. I didn't know you was such abad actor." Dave stopped to break into a chuckle. "Wow! Youcertainly hit the high spots. Friend Meldrum and Charlton and our kindhost Hart--all laid out at one clatter. I never was lucky. Here Iwouldn't 'a' missed seeing you pull off this Samson _encore_ for threecows on the hoof, and I get in too late for the show."
"They're not hurt badly, are they?" asked Beaudry, a little timidly.
Dave looked at him with a curious little smile. "You don't want to goback and do the job more thorough, do you? No need, son. Meldrum andCharlton are being patched up in the hospital and Hart is at DocWhite's having the glass picked out of his geography. I've talked withsome of the also rans, and they tell me unanimous that it was the mostthorough clean-up they have participated in recently."
"What will they do--after they get over it?"
Dingwell grinned. "Search me! But I'll tell you what they won't do.They'll not invite you to take another drink right away. I'll bet ahat on that. . . . Come on, son. We got to hit the trail for home."