“Shore, miss, I appreciate your interest in justice, seein’ as how your pappy is who he is. But this country is different, miss. We got a pack of outlaws in Rio Carlos and we got to trim ’em down. If we make an example out of Spick—”
“Example! Then you haven’t even the honesty of knowing his guilt. There’s been rustling, there’s been killing, certainly. But the state has no right—”
“Now, miss, you better go talk to your pappy before you start blowin’ up about this.”
“May I see the prisoner?”
“Why . . . Gosh, I—”
“Is there any reason why I can’t?”
“No, but . . .” He gave up and got his keys and she followed him back to the cells. He unlocked the outer door and let her pass and then locked it after her and sat down in the backless chair.
Spick Murphy was not feeling so well. He had a headache from the bullet crease over his ear and he knew that a noose would soon put a stop to that. He felt very greatly wronged, as no bad man ever really believes himself bad.
He came to the bars and saw Susan and the hunted look went out of his eyes to be replaced by the most saintly expression imaginable.
“I saw them bringing you in,” said Susan.
“Yes’m. They caught up with me in the Cordilleras and I never would have been caught if I hadn’t stopped to help a sick Mexican.”
“A sick Mexican?”
“Yes’m. The poor fellow had hurt his ankle in a fall from the horse he was riding and when I passed him in the trail, I couldn’t leave him there for the wolves, could I?”
“You knew they were after you?”
“Yes’m. I could see their dust, but the Mexican—”
“Why were you running away?”
“Oh, I know there’s been a lot of talk. And when a friend of mine told me that they were after me, I knew I wouldn’t have a chance, no matter how innocent I was. So I tried to get away.”
“You’ve been in jail before?”
“No, ma’am!”
“Why did they single you out as their game?”
“Well, ma’am, there’s been quite a bit of rustling going on what with Con Mathews tryin’ to keep from going broke and they had to pick on somebody. And since I stopped Con Mathews from shooting a Mexican woman in cold blood—”
“When did that happen?”
“Didn’t you hear about it, ma’am? But then, of course, Con Mathews wouldn’t ever tell about it, what with all the things he and Big Bill Bailey have done to rid the range of sheep. Not that they’re bad, ma’am, and Big Bill is a nice fellow, but sheep and cattle just don’t mix, and neither do Indians and whites. You really want to know why they got me, ma’am?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you knew I was half-Apache and half-Irish, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Well, I am. And nobody around here ever had any use for me. The Indians wouldn’t have anything to do with me because I was half-white and the whites won’t have anything to do with me because I’m half-Indian and nobody ever let me hold a job very long. After I got an education in the mission school, I had just nothing but trouble every place I went because the big cattlemen wouldn’t let the Mexicans alone and the sheepmen keep driving out the small ranchers, and honest, ma’am, I can’t stand around and see things like that happen all the time.”
“Of course not!”
“But there’s no use wasting any sympathy upon me, ma’am. I’m done for. A lynch mob or the law will hang me. But God is the only one who can judge me. And when I stand before His Great Judgment Seat, I shall not be afraid.”
He almost broke down at this point and his handsome face was sad but brave. “To help those who need help is no crime in His eyes, ma’am, and I have done only that which I considered right. Waste no sympathy. The will of the crowd will be done.”
Susan was touched. Her face hardened into determination. “Don’t give up hope. I’ll find a way to help you.”
Chapter Four
WHEN Susan Price got back to the ranch she found Big Bill sitting on the top step with her eight-year-old brother, Buster. Big Bill was demonstrating the border shift to an apt pupil when he heard Susan. He thrust his .45 into its holster and took off his hat as he stood up.
Buster looked reproachfully around Big Bill’s right leg. “Hell,” said Buster. “I was just gettin’ the hang of it and you had to come along.”
“Buster!” said Susan.
“Awright. Heck, then.”
“Ma’am,” said Big Bill, “I’m glad to see you got home all right. I was wondering . . .”
“Thank you,” said Susan.
“Ma’am, I was wondering if you still felt sorry for that polecat, Spick Murphy. I got to thinking about it and remembering the way he’s got with the women and—”
“Sir?”
“Well, you got mixed up in a sheep war and I thought if you was goin’ to get mixed up in this, I better try to ride you off. Spick’s goin’ to be lynched and that’s all there is to it. I—”
“You are convinced of that, are you?” said Susan icily.
“Shore. Everybody knows—”
“You’re willing to condemn a man before he’s even tried! You despise him because he’s half-Indian and half-white! You’re just like the rest of these barbarous men! The poor fellow hasn’t a chance of a fair trial! Get out of my sight!”
Big Bill didn’t move. He was too stunned. He stood revolving his hat round and round while Susan entered the house. Finally, very puzzled, he went out and climbed his horse and rode disconsolately away.
Sam Price heard the hoofbeats and glanced out of his study window. He sat up straight and laid John Marshall aside. Susan came in.
“What’s the matter with Big Bill?” said Sam Price. “He looked pretty sad. Have a fight?”
“He’s a fool!” said Susan.
Sam Price leaned back in the Morris chair. “So you did have a fight. What about?”
Susan sat down on the arm of his chair and ran her fingers thoughtfully through his sparse gray locks. “Dad, you’ve got to do me a favor.”
Sam Price suspected something was coming and he knew there wasn’t much use trying to fight it. The very futility of the effort caused his jaw to set in a hostile manner.
“If it’s more Mexicans and sheep, I am telling you positively that I am not interested. These matters are in the hands of the men they concern and my jurisdiction ends with the front door.”
“Now, Dad,” said Susan.
“Don’t you ‘Now, Dad’ me, Susan Price. My mind is made up. I don’t care what has happened, I won’t be a party to it and that’s final.”
Gruffly he sat back again and pulled John Marshall into his lap and began to open the pages. There was a long silence and then in a high-pitched, angry voice he demanded, “Well, dammit, what is it?”
“They caught a man named Spick Murphy and they’re determined to hang him as a rustler and murderer as an example to the outlaws in Rio Carlos. He’s a fine-looking young fellow, half-Apache, half-Irish. . . .”
“Too many outlaws around here anyway,” said Sam. “Anything that isn’t nailed down turns up missing. See here, young woman, I have definitely retired and nothing short of an earthquake could get me in front of a jury box again. I refuse to have anything to do with it!”
Again he turned to John Marshall and turned a few more pages.
“Well,” he demanded, explosively. “What chance has he got?”
“None,” replied Susan. “Without real evidence, they are determined that he is going to die.”
“Without real evidence? Why, that’s . . . But no! No, dammit, you’re not going to get me into a courtroom over a half-breed. You’ve been reading out of my library. I know you have. You haven’t been the same since you read Elizabeth Fry on prison reform and crime! To hell with Elizabeth Fry!”
He got up, almost knocking her off the arm of his chair. He advanced across the room and poured a drink.
“Well? What’s public opinion got against him?”
“They’re going to make him suffer for every crime which has been committed in San Carlos and Rio Carlos.”
“Huh,” said Sam. “He couldn’t have done all of them. Not fair to make one man pay the whole cost. . . . No! I won’t defend him! I won’t have anything to do with him! I tell you I have retired!”
And so it was that Sam Price stood in the San Carlos courtroom the following month, defending Spick Murphy on the charge of rustling and murder.
And Sam Price was Sam Price, and though Con Mathews had been most diligent in capturing Spick Murphy in the Cordilleras and though Sheriff Doyle had long been on the trail of the defendant, it soon became clear to all that both men had been most lamentably careless about collecting concrete evidence.
And because Sam Price was Sam Price, even the prejudiced jury could not bring in a conviction and Spick Murphy, meek and mild, was again released upon the world.
Chapter Five
BIG BILL BAILEY, resplendent in a sombrero which would have looked small on the Sphinx and generally dressed up to please the feminine eye, was waiting outside the courthouse when the jailer loosed Spick Murphy.
Sam Price, still garbed in the black and the dignity of the court, and Susan were there, waiting. The loafers from the San Carlos General Store were standing around and recollecting a time when nothing like this would have been permitted to happen.
Big Bill thought the moment propitious to sign an armistice with Susan. He had, of course, delivered blunt testimony in the court against Spick Murphy’s character, but that had been purely in the line of business and a war to Big Bill was over when it was lost or won.
He approached and raised his hat courteously, “Mister Price, sir, I wish to congratulate you on your case. I’ve heard a lot about how you worked, sir, but it wasn’t anything to the seeing. Even if you did hornswoggle that yellow Gila monster’s freedom, I—”
“I might object to the word,” said Sam with a grin, “but I won’t. Thanks, Bailey.”
“Susan,” said Big Bill, turning, hat still in the air above his head as a sort of umbrella, “may I invite you to go for a ride this afternoon?”
Susan looked at him coldly.
“But . . . but I haven’t done anything,” said Big Bill. “I had to give that testimony, didn’t I?”
“You almost lost Father the case and Murphy his life,” said Susan distantly. “I shall thank you, sir, to stay away from the Pinta.”
“Shore, Susan, you wouldn’t let a filthy lobo like Murphy come between us, would you? He ain’t worth it, ma’am. Let’s forget about it. The fight’s fought and you won. That ought to close the whole deal and call for new cards all around.”
His plea might have taken effect. He had planned his wording an hour before he had delivered his speech. But all that labor was lost because, at that moment, Spick Murphy was ejected from the courthouse by disgusted Sheriff Doyle, who thereafter dusted his hands and wiped them on his pants.
Spick Murphy looked very pale after his month in the hoosegow. Further, he looked saintly and repentant. He swept off his hat and bowed so low that the brim touched earth.
“Miss Price,” he said with feeling, “how can I ever repay you for your kindness. And Mr. Price, whatever charges you care to make for your services I shall labor for years if necessary to repay.”
“Hell,” said Sam Price. “You don’t owe me anything, sonny.”
“But,” faltered Spick, “I heard your fees were enormous. Fifty thousand . . . a hundred thousand . . .”
“Right. But as I won’t take less and you could never pay it, write it off to experience. Susan, I think we had better be leaving.”
But she lingered, looking at repentant Spick Murphy. “What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know,” said Spick. “No one here would ever give me honest employment and I have no other home. Perhaps if I wandered to far countries . . .”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Susan. “You can show your appreciation to my father by helping him at the ranch. He needs another hand.”
“I what?” said Sam Price.
“You know you do!” said Susan.
“I guess I do,” surrendered Sam.
“I should like nothing better,” said Spick. “I shall get some of my belongings together and report for my orders this evening.”
“That will be fine,” said Susan.
Sam was dragging her away before anything else happened. Spick stood on the steps and smiled after them. Big Bill stood with his hat still raised and stared. He had forgotten to lower his arm. But he remembered now and set his hat back on his head and faced Spick Murphy.
Big Bill figured out what he would do and that gave Spick a chance to ease away a foot or two. Big Bill advanced and again Spick retreated. Abruptly Spick found himself backed up to the hitch rack. Big Bill’s big hand held him there, containing a quantity of shirt.
Abruptly Spick found himself backed up to the hitch rack. Big Bill’s big hand held him there, containing a quantity of shirt.
“You wormed yourself into this,” said Big Bill. “And I can’t do what I’d like to do without getting into trouble with her. But . . .”
Spick was not a coward by far, but he had the good sense to remain silent and not grin.
“But if I hear of you misbehaving,” said Big Bill, “I’ll track you to hell and back and when I find you I’ll cut off your ears and fry them for breakfast. You got that down pat?”
Spick nodded.
Big Bill released his shirt and stalked over to his horse and left Spick grinning to himself.
Chapter Six
SPICK MURPHY was received very badly at first among the punchers of the Pinta spread. Warily they waited for him to do something which would justify their plea that he be fired.
None of them would have dreamed of actually treating Spick Murphy with anything but ginger courtesy. The man was not armed, visibly, but nobody was willing to take a chance with a fellow who could and had driven spikes with bullets at thirty paces.
It was not merely that Spick Murphy was known to be chain lightning with a gun, it was another quality which worried these worthy waddies.
Spick looked like a kid in his teens with a cherubic smile always displayed upon his swarthy face and nothing but kindliness glowing from his Indian black eyes. But physiognomy is the most untrustworthy of sciences and the punchers were not fooled as easily as the naturally impulsive Susan.
They knew that Spick had grinned like that since the day of his birth, even when he was shooting a man in the back. Drunk or sober, angry or in the best of humors, free or jailed, Spick’s appearance attested only great camaraderie toward the world.
And that was what made it so bad. You could never tell when he was really mad or drunk or kill-crazy and therefore it behooved all those endowed with a love of life to walk easily where Spick was concerned.
But that did not prevent the Pinta spread from ignoring him, which they could do collectively and with little personal danger.
After a few weeks, however, their antipathy toward him waned and they began to think that his dangerousness had been greatly overrated. He did those jobs assigned to him with an ease which made everyone else look clumsy, and did them cheerfully. And at the fall roundup, he could be found from dawn until dark beside the branding fire scorching The Paint-Bucket brand into hair and hide. The Pinta punchers forgot themselves so far as to actually admire the artistic way Spick handled a running iron.
It became increasingly apparent that Spick had taken a turn for the better. He never got roostered in San Carlos, he went far out of his way to avoid fights and his attitude toward Sam Price and his daughter was something to behold as a model for all respect and courtesy.
Buster, at first, had been very diffident about Spick and the wise shook their heads and quoted the old saw about “dogs and children.” But children, after all, are practically huma
n, and after the roundup, Buster thawed.
This came to a very moody Big Bill Bailey one crisp evening. Big Bill had come to the Pinta with lessening frequency, taking the attitude of a policeman dropping around to a gambling hall he wished he could close.
Buster found Big Bill leaning against the corral and looked up brightly.
“Gimme your gun,” ordered Buster.
Big Bill handed it down.
“Look,” ordered Buster.
And before he could be stopped, he had fanned the hog leg into the side of the barn, completely knocking out a knot some two inches in diameter. The kick of the gigantic weapon had knocked off his small sombrero and now he picked it up and put it back very solemnly.
“Us gunfighters has got to practice,” said Buster.
“Who taught you that?” inquired Big Bill, reloading and looking distrustfully at his former protégé.
“Why, Spick, o’ course. Say, he’s a swell shot. I bet he’s a better shot than even you. I tell you, Bill,” added Buster with great gravity, “that guy is hell on wheels and no brakes when it comes to shootin’.”
Naturally, Big Bill Bailey did not take very well to the statement. Silently he stared at Buster and then shoved his gun back in its holster. He wanted very badly to tell Buster a few pertinent facts but he felt very inadequate to the task.
Miserably Big Bill crawled his bronc and went away from there.
“I’ll tell Sis you was here!” shouted Buster after him. His little forehead wrinkled in a puzzled frown. He looked around but could find no elders nearby. Accordingly he spat into the dust and muttered, “Wonder what the hell’s wrong with him?”
He turned then and was so startled he put daylight between his boots and earth.
Spick had slid around the end of the barn, his face very calm, a .45 in his hand.
“Whatcha want to scare me for?” complained Buster.
Spick looked around and relaxed, shoving the .45 inside his shirt.
“I didn’t know you carried a gun like that, Spick.”
“What was the shooting about, kid?”