Jim Waring of Sonora-Town Part 34

Waring's wrist moved in answer. The two reports blended in a blunt, echoless roar. Waring felt a shock that numbed his thigh. High Chin sat stiffly in the saddle, his hand clasping the horn. He turned and gazed down at his brother.

"Thought you got him," said Tony Brewster from the ground. "Sit still and I'll get him from under your horse."

Waring knew now that High Chin was. .h.i.t hard. The foreman had let his gun slip from his fingers. Waring saw a slight movement just beneath High Chin's horse. A shock lifted him from the saddle, and he dropped to the ground as Tony Brewster fired. But there was no such thing as quit just so long as Waring could see to shoot. Dragging himself to his gun, he shook the sand from its muzzle. He knew that he could not last long.

Already flecks of fire danced before his eyes. He bit his lip as he raised himself and drew fine on that black figure beneath High Chin's horse. The gun jumped in his hand. Waring saw the black figure twitch and roll over. Then his sight grew clouded. He tried to brush away the blur that grew and spread. For an instant his eyes cleared. High Chin still sat upright in the saddle. Waring raised his gun and fired quickly. As his hand dropped to the sand, High Chin pitched headlong and lay still.

Then came a soft black veil that hid the glimmering sun and the wide desert reaches.

High Chin, his legs paralyzed by a slug that had torn through his abdomen and lodged in his spine, knew that he had made his last fight.

He braced himself on his hands and called to his brother Tony. But his brother did not answer. High Chin's horse had strayed, and was grazing up the arroyo. The stricken man writhed round, feeling no pain, but conscious of a horrible numbness across his back and abdomen.

"When it hits my heart I'm done," he muttered. "Guess I'll go over and keep Tony company."

Inch by inch he dragged himself across the sand. Tony Brewster lay on his back. High Chin touched him; felt of the limp arm, and gazed curiously at the blue-edged hole in his brother's chest. With awful labor that brought a clammy moisture to his face, he managed to drag himself close to his brother and writhe round to a position where he could sit up, braced against the other's body. He gazed out across the desert. It had been a fast fight. Waring was done for. High Chin wondered how long he would last. The sun was near the horizon. It seemed only a few minutes ago that the sun had been directly overhead and he and his brothers had been cursing the heat. It was growing cold. He shivered. A long shadow reached out toward him from the bank of the arroyo. In a few minutes it would touch him. Then would come night and the stars. The numbness was creeping toward his chest. He could not breathe freely. He moved his arms. _They_ were alive yet. He opened and closed his fingers, gazing at them curiously. It was a strange thing that a man should die like this; a little at a time, and not suffer much pain. The fading flame of his old recklessness flared up.

"I'm goin' across," he said. "But, by G.o.d, I'm takin' Jim Waring with me!"

He glanced toward the buckskin horse that stood so patiently beside that silent figure out there. Waring was done for. High Chin blinked. A long shaft of sunlight spread across the sand, and in the glow High Chin saw that the horse was moving toward him. He stared for a few seconds. Then he screamed horribly.

Waring, his hand gripping the stirrup, was dragging across the sand beside the horse that stepped sideways and carefully as Waring urged him on. Dex worked nearer to High Chin, but so slowly that High Chin thought it was some horrible phantasy sent to awaken fear in his dulled brain.

But that dragging figure, white-faced and terrible--that was real!

Within a few paces of High Chin, Dex stopped and turned his head to look down at Waring. And Waring, swaying up on his hands, laughed wildly.

"I came over--to tell you--that it was Pat's gun--" He collapsed and lay still.

High Chin sat staring dully at the gunman's uncovered head. The horse sniffed at Waring. High Chin's jaw sagged. He slumped down, and lay back across the body of his brother.

A pathway of lamplight floated out and across the main street of Criswell. A solitary figure lounged at the saloon bar. The sharp barking of a dog broke the desert silence. The lounger gazed at the path of lamplight which framed the bare hitching-rail. His companions of the afternoon had departed to their homes. Again the dog barked shrilly. The saloon-keeper moved to a chair and picked up a rumpled paper.

The lounger, leaning on his elbow, suddenly straightened. He pointed toward the doorway. The saloon-keeper saw the motion from the corner of his eye. He lowered his paper and rose. In the soft radiance a riderless horse stood at the hitching-rail, his big eyes glowing, his ears p.r.i.c.ked forward. Across the horse's shoulder was a ragged tear, black against the tawny gold of his coat. The men glanced at each other. It was the horse of the fourth man; the man who had staggered in that afternoon, asked for whiskey, and who had left as buoyantly as though he went to meet a friend.

"They got him," said the saloon-keeper.

"They got him," echoed the other.

Together they moved to the doorway and peered out. The man who had first seen the horse stepped down and tied the reins to the rail. He ran his hand down the horse's shoulder over muscles that quivered as he examined the wound. He glanced at the saddle, the coiled rope, the slackened cinches, and pointed to a black stain on the stirrup leather.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I came over--to tell you--that it was Pat's gun]

"From the south," he said. "Maguey rope, and that saddle was made in Mexico."

"Mebby he wants water," suggested the saloon-keeper.

"He's had it. Reins are wet where he drug 'em in the tank."

"Wonder who them three fellas was?"

"Don' know. From up north, by their rig. I'm wonderin' who the fourth fella was--and where he is."

"Why, he's out there, stiff'nin' on the sand. They's been a fight. And, believe me, if the others was like him--she was a dandy!"

"I guess it's up to us to do somethin'," suggested the lounger.

"Not to-night, Bill. You don't ketch me ridin' into a flash in the dark before I got time to tell myself I'm a dam' fool. In the mornin', mebby--"

Their heads came up as they heard a horse pounding down the road. A lean pony, black with sweat, jumped to a trembling stop.

A young Mexican swung down and walked stiffly up to Dex.

"Where is Senor Jim?" he queried, breathing hard.

"Don' know, hombre. This his hoss?"

"Si! It is Dex."

'Well, the hoss came in, recent, draggin' the reins."

"Then you have seen him?"

"Seen who? Who are you, anyway?"

"Me, I am Ramon Ortego, of Sonora. The Senor Jim is my friend. I would find him."

"Well, if your friend sports a black Stetson and a dam' bad eye and performs with a short-barreled .45, he rode in this afternoon just about a hour behind three other fellas. They lit out into the dry spot. Reckon you'll find your friend out there, if the coyotes ain't got to him."

Ramon limped to the rail and untied Dex. Then he mounted his own horse.

"Dex," he said softly, riding alongside, "where is the Senor Jim?"

The big buckskin swung his head round and sniffed Ramon's hand. Then he plodded down the street toward the desert. At the tank Ramon let his horse drink. Dex, like a great dog, sniffed the back trail on which he had come, plodding through the night toward the spot where he knew his master to be.

Ramon, burdened with dread and weariness, rode with his hands clasped round the saddle-horn. The Senor Jim, his Senor Jim, had found those whom he sought. He had not come back. Ramon was glad that he had filled the canteen. If the man who had killed his Senor Jim had escaped, he would follow him even as he had followed Waring. And he would find him.

"And then I shall kill him," said Ramon simply. "He does not know my face. As I speak to him the Senor Jim's name I shall kill him, and the Senor Jim will know then that I have been faithful."

The big buckskin plodded on across the sand, the empty stirrups swinging. Ramon's gaze lifted to the stars. He smiled wanly.

"I follow him. Wherever he has gone, I follow him, and he will not lose the way."

His bowed head, nodding to the pace of the pony, seemed to reiterate in grotesque a.s.sertion his spoken word. Ramon's tired body tingled as Dex strode faster. The horse nickered, and an answering nicker came from the night. His own tired pony struck into a trot. Dex stopped. Ramon slid down, and, stumbling forward, he touched a black bulk that lay on the sand.

Waring, despite his trim build, was a heavy man. Ramon was just able to lift him and lay him across the saddle. A coyote yipped from the brush of the arroyo. As Ramon started back toward town his horse shied at something near the arroyo's entrance. Ramon did not know that the bodies of Tony and Bob Brewster formed that low mound half-hidden by the darkness.

A yellow star, close to the eastern horizon, twinkled faintly and then disappeared. The saloon at Criswell had been closed for the night.

Next morning the marshal of Criswell sent a messenger to the telegraph office at the junction. There was no railroad entering the Criswell Valley. The messenger bore three telegraph messages; one to Sheriff Hardy, one to Bud Shoop, and one to Mrs. Adams.

Ramon, outside Waring's room in the marshal's house, listened as the local doctor moved about. Presently he heard the doctor ask a question.