The Rangeland Avenger

  28

  She dropped to her knees, and with a sudden, hysterical strength shewas able to turn him on his back. He was dead. The first glimpse of hisface told her that. She looked up into the eyes of the murderer.

  Arizona was methodically cleaning his gun. His color had not changed.There was a singular placidity about all his movements.

  "I just hurried up what was coming to him," said Arizona coolly, as hefinished reloading his Colt. "Sinclair was after him, and that meant hewas done for."

  Oddly enough, she found that she was neither very much afraid of thefat man, nor did she loathe him for his crime. He seemed outside of thejurisdiction of the laws which govern most men.

  "You said Sinclair is in jail."

  "Sure, and he is. But they don't make jails strong enough in theseparts to hold Sinclair. He'd have come out and landed Sandersen, justas he's going to come out and land Cartwright. What has he got agin'Cartwright, d'you know?"

  Oh, it was incredible that he could talk so calmly with the dead manbefore him.

  "I don't know," she murmured and drew back.

  "Well, take it all in all," pursued Arizona, "this deal of mine ispretty rotten, but you'd swing just the same for one murder as for two.They won't hang you no deader, eh? And when they come to look at it,this is pretty neat. Sandersen wasn't no good. Everybody knowed that.But he had one thing I wanted--which was you and the twenty-fivehundred that goes with the gent that brings you into Sour Creek. So, atthe price of one bullet, I get the coin. Pretty neat, I say ag'in."

  Dropping the revolver back into the holster he patted it with acaressing hand.

  "There's your gun," went on Arizona, chuckling. "It's got a bulletfired out of it. There's Sandersen's gun with no bullet fired, showingthat, while he was stalking you, you shot and drilled him. Here's mygun with no sign of a shot fired. Which proves that I just slid in hereand stuck you up from behind, while you were looking over the gentyou'd just killed."

  He rubbed his hands together, and bracing himself firmly on his stubbylegs, looked almost benevolently on Jig.

  Not only did she lose her horror of him, but she gained an impersonal,detached interest in the workings of his mind. She looked on him not asa man but as a monster in the guise of a man.

  "Two deaths," she said quietly, "for your money. You work cheaply,Arizona."

  Jig's criticism seemed to pique him.

  "How come?"

  "Sandersen's death by your bullet, and mine when I die in the law. Bothto your account, Arizona, because you know I'm innocent."

  "I know it, but a hunch ain't proof in the eyes of the law. Besides, Idon't work so cheap. Sandersen was no good. He ain't worth thinkingabout. And as for you, Jig, though I don't like to throw it in yourface, as a schoolteacher you may be all right, but as a man you ain'tworth a damn. Nope. I won't give neither of you a thought--except forSinclair."

  "Ah?"

  "Him and you have been bunkies, if he ever should find out what I done,he'd go on my trail. Maybe he will anyway. And he's a bad one to haveon a gent's trail."

  "You fear him?" she asked curiously, for it had seemed impossible thatthis cold-blooded gunman feared any living thing.

  He rolled a cigarette meditatively before he answered.

  "Sure," he said, "I fear him. I ain't a fool. It was him that startedme, and him that gave me the first main lessons. But I ain't got thenacheral talent with a gun that Sinclair has got."

  Nodding his head in confirmation, his expression softened, as with theadmiration of one artist for a greater kindred spirit.

  "The proof is that they's a long list of gunfights in Sinclair's past,but not more deaths than you can count on the fingers of one hand. Andthem that he killed was plumb no good. The rest he winged and let 'emgo. That's his way, and it takes an artist with a gun to work likethat. Yep, he's a great man, curse him! Only one weak thing I ever hearof him doing. He buckled to the sheriff and told him where to findyou!"

  Scratching a match on his trousers, the cowpuncher was amazed to hearJig cry: "You lie!"

  He gaped at her until the match singed his fingers. "That's a tolerableloud word for a kid to use!"

  Apparently he meditated punishment, but then he shrugged his shouldersand lighted his cigarette.

  "Wild horses couldn't have dragged it out of him!" Jig was repeating.

  "Say," said the fat man, grinning, "how d'you know _I_ knew where youwas?"

  Like a blow in the face it silenced her. She looked miserably down tothe ground. Was it possible that Sinclair had betrayed her? Not for themurder of Quade. He would be more apt to confess that himself, andindeed she dreaded the confession. But if he let her be dragged back,if her identity became known, she faced what was more horrible to herthan hanging, and that was life with Cartwright.

  "Which reminds me," said Arizona, "that the old sheriff may not waitfor morning before he starts after you. Just slope down the hill andsaddle your hoss, will you?"

  Automatically she obeyed, wild thoughts running through her mind. To goback to Sour Creek meant a return to Cartwright, and then nothing couldsave her from him. Halfway to her saddle her foot struck metal, her owngun, which Arizona had dropped after firing the bullet. Was there not apossibility of escape? She heard Arizona humming idly behind her.Plainly he was entirely off guard.

  Bending with the speed of a bird in picking up a seed, she scooped upthe gun, whirling with the heavy weapon extended, her forefingercurling on the trigger. But, as she turned, the humming of Arizonachanged to a low snarl. She saw him coming like a bolt. The gunexploded of its own volition, it seemed to her, but Arizona had swervedin his course, and the shot went wild.

  The next instant he struck her. The gun was wrenched from her hand, anda powerful arm caught her and whirled her up, only to hurl her to theground; Arizona's snarling, panting face bent over her. In the verymidst of that fury she felt Arizona stiffen and freeze; the snarlingstopped; his nerveless arm fell away, and she was allowed to stagger toher feet. She found him staring at her with a peculiar horror.

  "Murdering guns!" whispered Arizona.

  Now she understood that he knew. She saw him changed, humbled, disarmedbefore her. But even then she did not understand the profound meaningof that moment in the life of Arizona.

  But to have understood, she would have had to know how that life beganin a city slum. She would have had to see the career of the sneak thiefwhich culminated in the episode of the lumber camp eight years before.She would have had to understand how the lesson from the hand of bigSinclair had begun the change which transformed the sneak into thedangerous man of action. And now the second change had come. ForArizona had made the unique discovery that he could be ashamed!

  He would have laughed had another told him. Virtue was a name and nomore to the fat man. But in spite of himself those eight years underfree skies had altered him. He had been growing when he thought he wasstanding still. When the eye plunges forty miles from mountain tomountain, through crystal-clear air, the mind is enlarged. He had livedexclusively among hard-handed men, rejoicing in a strength greater thantheir own. He suddenly found that the feeble hand from which he had soeasily torn the weapon a moment before, had in an instant acquiredstrength to make or break him.

  All that Jig could discern of this was that her life was no longer indanger, and that her enemy had been disarmed. But she was not preparedfor what followed.

  Dragging off his hat, as if he acted reluctantly, his eyes sank untilthey rested on the ground at her feet.

  "Lady," he said, "I didn't know. I didn't even dream what you was."