Slowly the blind man swung the door open and Fletcher, shifting around, squatted on his heels, dimly saw the compartments of the safe—the cash box and the rolls of currency held together by heavy rubber bands, pigeon holes stuffed with papers, a bottle of whiskey that Childress had locked up with the cash.
“I’ll have to chance a match,” he whispered to Johnny.
The blind man grunted. “All right, then, but be quick about it.”
Fishing in his pocket, Fletcher found the match, struck it on the seat of his trousers, cupped it for a moment in his hands, nursing it into a steady flame.
Swiftly, he moved it from pigeon hole to pigeon hole, staring at the papers. One was filled with letters, dog-eared and torn, the other with sheets of scribbled notations, the third with legal documents. Swiftly he snatched the documents from their resting place, shuffled them, one-handed, in the light of the dying match.
Mortgages! Two dozen of them at least.
The match burned down and singed his fingers. He dropped it and the place returned to blackness that folded about them like a blanket.
“Got what you want?” asked Johnny.
“Sure have,” Fletcher told him. “We’d better start getting out of here.” He slipped the package of papers into the inside pocket of his coat, patted it to see that they were in place. Reaching out, he closed the heavy door, was reaching for the combination when Johnny hissed alarm.
Squatting before the safe, Fletcher froze, hand still reaching for the dial. Someone was at the door. He heard the key grating in the lock, imagined that he could hear the wheezing breath of the man outside.
Swiftly, he jerked away from the safe, hurled himself back into the narrow space between the huge iron box and the wall, brought up against Johnny, who had scuttled there at the first sound from outside.
Fletcher eased his gun gently from the holster. He was caught in a bank, with the safe unlocked—burdened with a blind man! Escaped from jail, with the marshal clubbed outside the cell! A neatly sawed hole in the floor above leading down from his office, that could have been made by no one but himself!
Fletcher felt his jaw muscles tightening.
The outer door swung open, silhouetting the bulking figure of Charles J. Childress. Childress came quickly inside, was followed by two others, the last one banging the door behind him.
Fletcher crouched in his corner, suddenly cold with apprehension, gun tilted in his hand.
A muffled growl came out of the darkness: “—dead wrong, Childress. No sense in what you’re doing.”
The banker’s words came back. “You talked me into this deal, Blair, and I stayed as long as it was working out. But now I’m getting out. Ain’t no sense in stayin’ and lettin’ a thing blow up in your face.”
“You’re scared,” snarled Blair.
“Sure, I’m scared,” Childress rumbled back. “Good sense to be scared at a time like this.”
“We’ll have Fletcher stretched out cold before morning,” snapped Blair. “He doesn’t know the country and he can’t get away.”
“He had help breakin’ out,” Childress reminded him. “He has somebody with him.”
A third voice said: “I was walkin’ down toward the cell and someone clunked me on the head.”
“Shut up,” snapped Blair, “or you’ll get worse than being hit on the head. Why Charlie ever made a broken down saddle-stiff like you a lawman, is more than I can figure.”
Childress was waddling across the floor toward the safe and the others followed, boots clumping on the boards.
“I smell something,” said Shepherd suddenly, his harsh whisper rasping across the dark. “Like a match.”
The feet halted.
Childress sniffed. “Don’t smell a thing.”
“Jeff is spooky,” snarled Blair.
“No, I ain’t,” protested Jeff. “I smelled a match, I tell you.”
Puffing, Childress settled his huge bulk in front of the safe. Fletcher pressed himself back into the corner. By reaching out his hand he could have touched the man who squatted there in front of him.
Childress’ stark and startled whisper scraped across the room. “The safe is open!”
“Forget it and get busy,” Blair snapped at him. “You probably forgot to lock it.”
Childress was stubborn. “No, I didn’t. Always lock it. Never forget it.”
“Quick!” snarled Blair. “Open it up and get that money out.”
In the fog of night light that filtered through the window, Fletcher saw the saloon owner had his gun out, was pointing it at the banker.
Childress quavered. “What do you mean?”
“I mean get that money out of there and hand it over.”
“But—but—” Childress sobbed.
“You heard me,” Blair told him. “Get it out and hand it over. You don’t think I’m going to let you pull stakes with all that cash!”
With an agility that belied his size, Childress straightened from the safe, hurled himself for the corner, his massive body crashing into Fletcher.
Out in the center of the room, Blair’s gun spat a flash of fire and a bullet thudded into the wall just above Fletcher’s head.
“There’s someone here!” yelled Childress.
Still sprawled in the corner, Fletcher angled his gun, pressed the trigger. The weapon bucked wickedly against his wrist and the roar drowned out every other sound within the room.
Then Blair was no longer there and over by the desk there was the thud of a falling body, the quick scurry of hands and knees. A gun talked from the corner by the door, three quick shots rippling through the dark.
Hurling himself flat on the floor, Fletcher pressed against the safe. Somewhere in the room, someone stirred. There was no sound from the corner where Blind Johnny crouched. Fletcher wondered for a second how Johnny was getting along.
From behind Fletcher a second weapon coughed. A man screamed in agony and a body thrashed briefly on the floor. Fletcher sucked in his breath and huddled tighter to the safe, his ears straining in the silence.
That shot had come from Johnny’s corner!
By the door there was a terrible quietness after the grisly sound of a flopping body.
“We can’t stay here,” Fletcher told himself. “We have to get away.”
He could envision men tumbling out of bed, reaching for their trousers, scuffling into cold boots, grabbing up their gunbelts.
Slowly, cautiously, pulling himself along by inches, holding his breath, Fletcher edged from behind the safe, squirmed toward the wall that led toward the door. Blair was over there, crouching behind the piece of furniture, waiting for a flicker in the dark, for a sound, for anything to shoot at.
Jeff must be the one down by the door, the one who had screamed and flopped painfully on the floor before the quietness came to still him. Where Childress was, Fletcher had no idea.
Inch by slow inch he hitched himself along. And still the silence held. Almost as if the room were empty, as if hungry guns were not waiting to roar into sudden, flame-etched death. Fletcher put out a hand, let it slowly down. But instead of smooth, hard floor, it met a boot that suddenly exploded into action.
For a single instant, Fletcher saw the huge body looking over him, coming down toward him through the dark.
Hands fastened themselves on one of his feet and hauled. He twisted and struck blindly with the barrel of his gun, felt it slash into puffy flesh, heard the grunt that it knocked out of Childress. Then the hands left his foot, were feeling for him in the dark.
Fletcher doubled his fist and struck into the darkness, struck yielding flesh with an impact that jarred him to the shoulder. Behind him, from the corner by the safe, a gun was barking, drooling flame that made Johnny’s face a thing that flickered.
Johnny, he knew, was trying to keep Blair under
cover with that rapid fire, was trying to give him time to reach the door.
Fletcher doubled up his legs and lashed out savagely, sent the crouching banker slamming against the wall. Then he was on his feet and running, jerking the door wide, turning his gun on the desk behind which Blair crouched.
“Johnny!” he yelled. “This way!” Then he emptied his six-gun at the desk.
Feet thundered across the room and Johnny was past him, out into the street. With a leap, Fletcher followed him, reached and passed him. “Come on, Johnny!” he shouted.
“Just go ahead,” puffed the blind man. “I can follow you. I can hear your feet.”
From far up the street other men were running toward the bank. Someone shouted something from near the blacksmith shop. A rifle crashed in the stillness and a bullet whined above their heads.
Fletcher halted momentarily, grasped Johnny by the arm, ducked into the narrow alley between the Silver Dollar and the livery barn, hauling the blind man behind him. The horses were waiting and he lifted Johnny, boosted him bodily onto one of them, then vaulted into the saddle of the other.
With the reins of Johnny’s horse in one hand, he kicked his mount into a gallop. Ahead loomed the massive height of the mighty butte, a black shadow on the starlit plains.
“We can’t go to Phillips’ place now,” Fletcher told himself. “Having to take care of Johnny, they’d catch me before I was halfway there.”
There was only one place to go, only one place where he could elude pursuit. Grimly he headed the running horse toward the butte and the badlands beyond.
Chapter IV
Badlands Hideout
Dawn thrust golden spears into the tangled badlands, lighting fantastic spire and minaret, scrambling and intensifying the colors that had been subdued pastels as the first faint light had crept up from the east.
The horses picked their careful way down a narrow canyon which held a chattering stream. Fletcher threw a glance over his shoulder, saw that Blind Johnny still clung to the saddlehorn with both hands, head drooping, body swaying.
As if the man became aware of Fletcher’s scrutiny, he lifted his head, blinking with staring, vacant eyes. “Where are we, Shane?” he asked.
“In the badlands,” said Fletcher. “Deep in them. The sun will be rising in a little while. I’m looking for a place to hole up.”
“We haven’t any food,” said Johnny.
Fletcher shook his head. “No, we haven’t, Johnny. We’ll just have to get along. Come night and we can try to make a ranch.”
A jackrabbit burst from a clump of brush, sailed up the canyon slope in soaring leaps. Birds twittered and sang. On a high ridge that rose above the canyon a wolf slunk past like a shadow.
“Been wondering about something, Johnny,” Fletcher said. “How come you pack a gun?”
“Don’t,” Johnny told him, “except on special occasions. Last night was one of them.”
“Shoot by ear, I suppose.”
“That’s right,” said Johnny, cheerfully.
“Better than most men can by sight,” said Fletcher. “You nailed Jeff first off.”
Johnny grunted. “Dark as it must have been, eyes wouldn’t have done a man much good.”
The canyon, Fletcher saw, was ending, widening out into a patch of meadow land.
They left the canyon and struck out across the meadow. Slowly, Fletcher swiveled his head, looking for some place of concealment where they might put up. And as he swung to the right, he stiffened, tightening on the reins. His horse stopped and the other horse bumped into it.
“What’s the matter?” Johnny asked.
“Men,” said Fletcher.
The camp lay in a pocket where a butte curled in upon itself and then flared out again. Horses stirred restlessly within the pole corral and smoke rose in a narrow ribbon from the log cabin that huddled against the cliff.
A man who was sitting on top of the corral fence straightened up and stared at them.
“We better made a run for it,” suggested Johnny.
“Can’t,” Fletcher told him. “We pushed these broncos hard last night. They’re too played out to travel very far. Only thing we can do is ride up and bluff it out.” He stared at the camp. “Anybody got a ranch out here?” he asked. “Just starting up, maybe?”
Johnny snorted in disgust. “Nobody’s loco enough to try to ranch out here.”
The man on the corral fence called out and two men came to the cabin door, stood staring at the two at the canyon’s mouth.
At a walk they approached the camp. The two men still stood in the doorway. The man on the fence dropped off it and walked slowly toward the cabin. All three were waiting, silently, when Fletcher pulled up.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said.
“Howdy,” said the one who had been on the fence. The other two said nothing.
“Didn’t know there was anyone out here,” Fletcher said.
“We ain’t been here long,” said one.
The fence-sitter jerked his thumb toward Johnny. “That’s Blind Johnny, ain’t it?”
“Sure, that’s who I am,” said Johnny, “but I don’t recognize your voice.”
“What’s this hombre doing with you?” asked the man.
“Just takin’ me out for a ride,” said Johnny. “Like to get out in the air once in a while.”
“Must have got an early start.”
A fourth man came to the door. He wore a bloodstained bandage around his head and the whiskers on one side of his face were matted with dried blood. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked.
The fence-sitter said: “We got company. These hombres are gittin’ them some air.”
“Where’s your manners?” demanded the one who had the bandage. “Ask them to light and have some chow.”
“Sure, sure,” said the fence-sitter. “Get down and pull up with us.”
Fletcher gathered up the reins. “No, thanks just the same. We better be getting on. Got to get back to town before noon.”
“Get down!” said the man. His voice did not raise, but there was a whiplash of insistence in it. His hands were resting on his gun butts and he looked like a compressed spring ready to be released into violent action.
Fletcher stared at him. “I don’t quite understand,” he said.
The man patted his gun butts. “I got something here that will make you understand. Crawl down off them nags.”
Fletcher smiled wearily. “I guess we better get down, Johnny.”
Slowly he slung his leg over the saddle and dismounted, dropped the reins upon the ground. Johnny, he saw, was piling off the second horse.
One of the men in the doorway stepped forward and lifted Fletcher’s gun out of the holster, stuck it in his own waistband. “Hate to get rough,” he said, “but we can’t nowise let you get away. Too bad you rode in on us.”
“The boss will be showing up before long,” said the fence-sitter. “He’ll know who they are.”
The man who had taken Fletcher’s gun looked at Johnny. “How about him?”
The man with the bandage shook his head. “He never carries one.”
The men were nervous, Fletcher decided, looking at them. Waiting for something to happen—and not too sure about it. Beneath their day’s growth of beard their faces were tensed and strained and they were ill at ease.
He said: “I hope you fellows know what you’re doing.”
“We’re just being careful, stranger,” said the bandaged one. “We ain’t taking any chances. More than likely we’ll turn you loose once the boss blows in.”
“Here he comes now,” said one of them.
Fletcher swung around, saw a horse trotting swiftly toward the camp from the canyon mouth. He started at the sight of the man in the saddle. It was Lance Blair!
He glance
d quickly at Johnny, saw that the blind man was standing still and straight, faced toward the approaching rider, face tense, almost as if he were seeing him and recognizing him. Savagely he hunted in his mind for some way to tip Johnny off, to let him know who the rider was, to prepare him for what was yet to come. But there was, he knew, no way of doing it. Once Blair opened his mouth, Johnny would have him spotted.
Blair pulled his animal to a sliding stop, sat glaring at the men who stood before the door. “A fine bunch!” he said. “Let a gang of ranchers put the run on you!”
The man with the bandage around his head pushed forward. “I can explain it, boss. They were tipped off and waitin’ for us. We—”
The look on Blair’s face stopped him. He gestured toward Fletcher and Johnny. “When did these two show up?”
“Just now,” said the bandaged man. “We figgered maybe you’d know who they are.”
A wolfish grin snaked across Blair’s face. “Sure! They’re friends of mine!”
“We didn’t know, boss.”
Blair started to swing off his saddle and in that moment Blind Johnny acted. His hand snaked smoothly inside his coat, under his armpit and back out again, all in one rapid motion that was accomplished almost as quickly as a man could blink his eyes.
“Take him, Shane!” he yelled.
Silently, he flung himself at Blair, a powerful leap that caught the saloon owner as he was still swinging from the saddle, driving him mercilessly into the side of his mount. With clawing hands, Blair dropped to the ground, bootheels skidding in the earth and sliding out from under him. The startled horse reared and screamed.
Fletcher hurled himself at Blair in a flying leap, twisting his body to escape the booted leg that jackknifed up viciously, aimed at his stomach. He landed and heard the whoof of breath driven from the man beneath him.
Blair was clawing for his gun and Fletcher drove his hand to catch the wrist, snapped it in a viselike grip, ground it savagely into the sand beneath them. Blair’s fist caught Fletcher on the jaw, shaking him with a blow that rocked his head. Blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, Fletcher struck back blindly.
Back of him, Fletcher heard the snarling crash of guns, instinctively, even as he fought, hunched his shoulders against the bullet that he knew must come.