CHAPTER XXVIII
THE SUNDAY MURDER
Banks's _posse_, leaving Medicine Bend before daybreak, headednorthwest. Their instructions were explicit: to scatter after crossingthe Frenchman, watch the trails from the Goose River country andthrough the Mission Mountains, and intercept everybody riding northuntil the _posse_ from Sleepy Cat or Whispering Smith shouldcommunicate with them from the southwest. Nine men rode in the partythat crossed the Crawling Stone Sunday morning at sunrise with EdBanks.
After leaving the river the three white-capped Saddles of the Missionrange afford a landmark for more than a hundred miles, and towardthese the party pressed steadily all day. The southern pass of theMissions opens on the north slope of the range into a pretty valleyknown as Mission Springs Valley, and the springs are the head-watersof Deep Creek. The _posse_ did not quite obey the instructions, andfollowing a natural instinct of safety five of them, after Banks andhis three deputies had scattered, bunched again, and at dark crossedDeep Creek at some distance below the springs. It was afterward knownthat these five men had been seen entering the valley from the east atsundown just as four of the men they wanted rode down South MissionPass toward the springs. That they knew they would soon be cut off, ormust cut their way through the line which Ed Banks, ahead of them, wasposting at every gateway to Williams Cache, was probably clear tothem. Four men rode that evening from Tower W through the south pass;the fifth man had already left the party. The four men were headed forWilliams Cache and had reason to believe, until they sighted Banks'smen, that their path was open.
They halted to take counsel on the suspicious-looking _posse_ farbelow them, and while their cruelly exhausted horses rested, Du Sang,always in Sinclair's absence the brains of the gang, planned theescape over Deep Creek at Baggs's crossing. At dusk they divided: twomen lurking in the brush along the creek rode as close as they could,unobserved, toward the crossing, while Du Sang and the cowboy Karg,known as Flat Nose, rode down to Baggs's ranch at the foot of thepass.
At that point Dan Baggs, an old locomotive engineer, had taken ahomestead, got together a little bunch of cattle, and was livingalone with his son, a boy of ten years. It was a hard country and tooclose to Williams Cache for comfort, but Dan got on with everybodybecause the toughest man in the Cache country could get a meal, a feedfor his horse, and a place to sleep at Baggs's, without charge, whenhe needed it.
Ed Banks, by hard riding, got to the crossing at five o'clock, andtold Baggs of the hold-up and the shooting of Oliver Sollers. The newsstirred the old engineman, and his excitement threw him off his guard.Banks rode straight on for the middle pass, leaving word that two ofhis men would be along within half an hour to watch the pass and theranch crossing, and asking Baggs to put up some kind of a fight forthe crossing until more of the _posse_ came up--at the least, to makesure that nobody got any fresh horses.
The boy was cooking supper in the kitchen, and Baggs had done hismilking and gone back to the corral, when two men rode around thecorner of the barn and asked if they could get something to eat. PoorBaggs sold his life in six words: "Why, yes; be you Banks's men?"
Du Sang answered: "No; we're from Sheriff Coon's office at Oroville,looking up a bunch of Duck Bar steers that's been run somewhere upDeep Creek. Can we stay here all night?"
They dismounted and disarmed Baggs's suspicions, though the conditionof their horses might have warned him had he had his senses. Theunfortunate man had probably fixed it in his mind that a ride fromTower W to Deep Creek in sixteen hours was a physical impossibility.
"Stay here? Sure! I want you to stay," said Baggs bluffly. "Looks tome like I seen you down at Crawling Stone, ain't I?" he asked ofKarg.
Karg was lighting a cigarette. "I used to mark at the Dunning ranch,"he answered, throwing away his match.
"That's hit. Good! The boy's cooking supper. Step up to the kitchenand tell him to cut ham for four more."
"Four?"
"Two of Ed Banks's men will be here by six o'clock. Heard about thehold-up? They stopped Number Three at Tower W last night and shotOllie Sollers, as white a boy as ever pulled a throttle. Boys, a manthat'll kill a locomotive engineer is worse'n an Indian; I'd help skinhim."
"The hell you would!" cried Du Sang. "Well, don't you want to start inon me? I killed Sollers. Look at me; ain't I handsome? What you goingto do about it?"
Before Baggs could think Du Sang was shooting him down. It waswanton. Du Sang stood in no need of the butchery; the escape couldhave been made without it. His victim had pulled an engine throttletoo long to show the white feather, but he was dying by the time hehad dragged a revolver from his pocket. Du Sang did the killing alone.At least, Flat Nose, who alone saw all of the murder, afterwardmaintained that he did not draw because he had no occasion to, andthat Baggs was dead before he, Karg, had finished his cigarette. Withhis right arm broken and two bullets through his chest, Baggs fell onhis face. That, however, did not check his murderer. Rising to hisknees, Baggs begged for his life. "For God's sake! I'm helpless,gentlemen! I'm helpless. Don't kill me like a dog!" But Du Sang,emptying his pistol, threw his rifle to his shoulder and sent bulletafter bullet crashing through the shapeless form writhing andtwitching before him until he had beaten it in the dust soft and flatand still.
Banks's men came up within an hour to find the ranch-house deserted.They saw a lantern in the yard below, and near the corral gate theyfound the little boy in the darkness, screaming beside his father'sbody. The sheriff's men carried the old engineman to the house; othersof the _posse_ crossed the creek during the evening, and at eleveno'clock Whispering Smith rode down from the south pass to find thatfour of the men they were after had taken fresh horses, after killingBaggs, and passed safely through the cordon Banks had drawn around thepass and along Deep Creek. Bill Dancing, who had ridden with Banks'smen, was at the house when Whispering Smith arrived. He found somesupper in the kitchen, and the tired man and the giant ate together.
Whispering Smith was too experienced a campaigner to complain. Hisparty had struck a trail fifty miles north of Sleepy Cat and followedit to the Missions. He knew now who he was after, and knew that theywere bottled up in the Cache for the night. The sheriff's men weresleeping on the floor of the living-room when Smith came in from thekitchen. He sat down before the fire. At intervals sobs came from thebedroom where the body lay, and after listening a moment, WhisperingSmith got stiffly up, and, tiptoeing to still the jingle of his spurs,took the candle from the table, pushed aside the curtain, and enteredthe bedroom.
The little boy was lying on his face, with his arm around his father'sneck, talking to him. Whispering Smith bent a moment over the bed,and, setting the candle on the table, put his hand on the boy'sshoulder. He disengaged the hand from the cold neck, and sitting downtook it in his own. Talking low to the little fellow, he got hisattention after much patient effort and got him to speak. He made him,though struggling with terror, to understand that he had come to behis friend, and after the child had sobbed his grief into a strangeheart he ceased to tremble, and told his name and his story, anddescribed the two horsemen and the horses they had left. Smithlistened quietly. "Have you had any supper, Dannie? No? You must havesomething to eat. Can't you eat anything? But there is a nice pan offresh milk in the kitchen."
A burst of tears interrupted him. "Daddie just brought in the milk,and I was frying the ham, and I heard them shooting."
"See how he took care of you till the last minute, and left somethingfor you after he was gone. Suppose he could speak now, don't you thinkhe would want you to do as I say? I am your next friend now, for youare going to be a railroad man and have a big engine."
Dannie looked up. "Dad wasn't afraid of those men."
"Wasn't he, Dannie?"
"He said we would be all right and not to be afraid."
"Did he?"
"He said Whispering Smith was coming."
"My poor boy."
"He is coming, don't be afraid. Do you know Whispering Smith? He iscoming. The men
to-night all said he was coming."
The little fellow for a long time could not be coaxed away from hisfather, but his companion at length got him to the kitchen. When theycame back to the bedroom the strange man was talking to him once moreabout his father. "We must try to think how he would like things donenow, mustn't we? All of us felt so bad when we rode in and had so muchto do we couldn't attend to taking care of your father. Did you knowthere are two men out at the crossing now, guarding it with rifles?But if you and I keep real quiet we can do something for him while themen are asleep; they have to ride all day to-morrow. We must wash hisface and hands, don't you think so? And brush his hair and his beard.If you could just find the basin and some water and a towel--youcouldn't find a brush, could you? Could you, honestly? Well! I callthat a good boy--we shall have to have you on the railroad, sure. Wemust try to find some fresh clothes--these are cut and stained; then Iwill change his clothes, and we shall all feel better. Don't disturbthe men; they are tired."
They worked together by the candle-light. When they had done, the boyhad a violent crying spell, but Whispering Smith got him to lie downbeside him on a blanket spread on the floor, where Smith got his backagainst the sod wall and took the boy's head in his arm. He waitedpatiently for the boy to go to sleep, but Dan was afraid the murdererswould come back. Once he lifted his head in a confidence. "Did youknow my daddy used to run an engine?"
"No, I did not; but in the morning you must tell me all about it."
Whenever there was a noise in the next room the child roused. Aftersome time a new voice was heard; Kennedy had come and was askingquestions. "Wake up here, somebody! Where is Whispering Smith?"
Dancing answered: "He's right there in the bedroom, Farrell, stayingwith the boy."
There was some stirring. Kennedy talked a little and at lengthstretched himself on the floor. When all was still again, Dannie'shand crept slowly from the breast of his companion up to his chin, andthe little hand, feeling softly every feature, stole over the strangeface.
"What is it, Dannie?"
"Are you Whispering Smith?"
"Yes, Dannie. Shut your eyes."
At three o'clock, when Kennedy lighted a candle and looked in, Smithwas sitting with his back against the wall. The boy lay on his arm.Both were fast asleep. On the bed the dead man lay with a handkerchiefover his face.