Where the Trail Divides Part 6

"P'raps and p'raps not," still deliberately. "I ain't lookin' fer trouble, mind you, but I just like to have things explicit. To be dead sure, I'd like to have you repeat it."

Again there was silence. In it Bob Manning returned to his place behind the counter; his game leg shuffling behind him as he moved. In it likewise there was an interruption from without; the subdued clatter of a horse's feet on the packed earth of the street, the straining of leather, as the man, its rider, alighted, a moment later the click of the door latch as the same man, a stranger if they had noticed, entered and halted abruptly at what he saw. But those within did not notice.

Silent as the night without, forgetful for the moment of even Pete Sweeney, they were staring at those two actors there before them.

"I'm listening," repeated Bud Smith gently. "I ain't lookin' fer trouble, you understand; but as fer as I recollect, no feller of my own age ever called me coward. If you think so, I'd like to hear you say it.

I'm listenin' fer you to say it now, Walt Wagner."

Again within the room there was silence, and again from without there approached an interruption. From up the street, from out the door of Red Jenkins's joint it came; the patter, patter of many feet, leading it the heavy clump of mighty cowhide boots on the cottonwood sidewalk, the jingle of spurs on those same boots at every step, the deep breathing of a cowman intoxicated at last. Down the walk they came, past the darkened doorways of the deserted shops; wordless, menacing, nearer and nearer.

Within the tiny storeroom no one had spoken, no one had noticed. The arms of Walt Wagner were not on the showcase now. In the depths of his pockets they were fumbling again, aimlessly, nervously. His face had gone whiter than before. Once he had opened his lips to speak, revealing the blackness of the vacant tooth; but he had closed them again silently. Now at last he cleared his throat, involuntarily he drew in a long breath. Whether he was about to speak they who watched never knew.

What if he had spoken he would have said they likewise never knew; for at that moment, interrupting, compelling, the door to the street swung open with a crash, and fair in the aperture, filling it, blocking it, appeared the mighty, muscular figure of a cowman, while upon their ears, like the menacing bellow of an enraged bull, burst a voice--the challenging, bullying voice of Pete Sweeney, inebriate.

"What the h.e.l.l be you fellers doin' here?" And when there was no answer repeated, "What the h.e.l.l be you doin', I say?"

For a s.p.a.ce that dragged into a half minute there was inaction while every man within sound of his voice gazed at the speaker; at first almost with fascination, then as the real meaning of the interruption came over them, with sensations as divergent as their various individual minds. There was no need to tell them who looked at that towering, intruding figure that tragedy lurked in the air, that death on the slightest provocation, at the twitch of a trigger finger, dwelt in those big twin Colts lying menacingly across the folded arms. A lunatic escaped was a pleasant companion, a child, to deal with, compared with Pete Sweeney at this time. Malevolent, irresponsible, dare G.o.d--bull mastery fairly oozed from his presence. Bad every inch of him, hopelessly, irredeemably bad was this mountain of humanity. Bad from the soles of his misshapen boots to the baggy chaperajos, to the bulging holsters at his hips, to the gleaming cartridge belt around his waist, to the soft green flannel shirt, to the red silk handkerchief about his throat, to the dark unshaven face, to the drink-reddened nose, to the mere slits of eyes, to the upturned sombrero that crowned the shock of wiry hair; bad in detail, in ensemble, was this inebriate cowman, bad.

"Well, why don't you talk?" Himself interrupting the silence he came a step nearer, braced himself with legs far apart. "What've you got to say for yourselves? This ain't no Quaker meeting. Speak up. What're you all doin' here?"

Among the crowd one man alone spoke, and that was lobster-red Bud Smith.

"Tendin' to our own business, I reckon, Pete," he explained evenly.

"You lie!" Narrower and narrower closed the slit-like eyes. "You lie by the clock. You were planning to fix ME, you nest of skunks." From man to man he pa.s.sed the look, halted at last at the figure of the lanky Missourian. "Some feller here figgered to pot me, and I'm lookin' to see the colour of his hair. Who was it, I'd like to know?"

"Someone's been stuffin' you, Pete." Even, deliberate as before Smith spoke the lie. "We don't give a whoop what you do. You can own the whole county so far as we care. Go back and 'tend to your knittin'. Dad here wants to close up, now."

"He does, does he? Well, he can in just a minute, just as soon as you name the feller I mention." Of a sudden his eyes shifted, dropped like claws on the figure of the little land man. "You know who it is I'm lookin' for. Tell me his name."

"You don't know me very well, Pete."

"I don't, eh? You think I don't know you?" The speaker was inspecting the other as a house cat inspects the mouse within its paws. "In other words, you mean you know, but won't tell me." Lingeringly, baitingly, almost exultingly, he was dragging the _denouement_ on and on. "That's what you mean to imply, is it?"

"You've guessed it, Pete." Not a muscle in the small man's body twitched; there was not the slightest alteration of the even tone.

There, facing death as surely as harvest follows seedtime, knowing as he knew that but one man present could interfere to prevent, that that man wouldn't, he spoke those four words: "You've guessed it, Pete." And but minutes before Manning had called this man coward!

For a moment likewise Sweeney did not stir. For a second his slow brain failed to grasp the truth, the deliberate challenge of the refusal; then of a sudden, in a blinding, maddening flood, came comprehension, came action. Swifter than any human being would have thought possible, unbelievably ferocious even in this land of licence, something took place, something which the staring onlookers did not realise until it was done. They only knew that with a mighty backward leap the cowman had reached the single heavy oak door, had sent it shut with a bang. That at the same time there was the vicious spit of a great revolver, that the odour of burnt gunpowder was in their nostrils, that lifting slowly toward the ceiling was a cloud of thin blue smoke; a curtain that once raised made them shudder, made their blood run cold, for it revealed there, stretched on the floor, huddled as it had dropped, lifeless, motionless, the figure of the man who had refused, the weazened face of Land Man Bud Smith! All this they realised in that first second; then something that was almost fascination drew away their eyes to the man who had done this deed, to the man who, his back to the great door, the only means of egress, was covering them, every soul, with the two great revolvers in his hands. For Pete Sweeney was not drunk now. As swiftly as that horrible thing had been done he had gone sober. Yet no man who saw him that instant feared him one whit less. Not a man present, believer or scoffer, but breathed a silent prayer. And there was reason.

If Pete Sweeney, Long Pete, had possessed a real friend on earth, he possessed that one no more. Disciples he had, imitators a-plenty; but friends--there had been but one, and now there was none. In an instant of oblivion, of drunken frenzy, he had murdered that friend; murdered him without a chance for self-defence, fair in his tracks. Not another had done this thing but he himself, he, Cowman Pete. Small wonder that they who watched this man prayed, that surrept.i.tious glances sought for an avenue of escape where there was none, that the face of Walt Wagner went whiter and whiter; for as certain as Bud Smith lay dead there upon the floor, there would be a reckoning,--and what that reckoning would be G.o.d alone could tell!

And Sweeney himself. After that first, all but involuntary movement, he had not stirred. In his hands the big revolvers did not waver the breadth of a hair. Out of bloodshot, terrible eyes he was looking at that mute figure on the floor; looking at it immovably, indescribably, with an impa.s.sivity that was horrible. For the moment he seemed to have forgotten the others' presence, seemed at their mercy; and to the mind of Walt Wagner there came a suggestion. Slowly, surrept.i.tiously one hand came out of his pocket, advanced by the fractions of inches towards his hip; advanced and halted and advanced again, reached almost--almost--.

"That'll do, you!" It was not a voice that spoke, it was a snarl: the snarl of an angry animal. "Put that fist back in your breeches or by G.o.d--"

No need to complete that threat. Back went the hand, back as though drawn by a spring, back as though it were a paralysed, useless thing.

"Now line up." At last the move had come, the move they had known was but a question of time. "Toe the crack, every mother's son of you. Step lively."

They obeyed. As Wagner's hand had done, they obeyed. Six men of them there were: surly crippled Manning, with eyes ablaze and jaws set like a trap; lank Wagner with his hands still in his pockets; Rank Judge, stumping on his wooden leg; greasy adipose Buck Walker, who ran the meat market; Slim Simpson, from the eating joint opposite, pale as the tucked-in ap.r.o.n around his waist; last of all the stranger, tall, smooth-shaven, alien in knickerbockers and blouse, his lips compressed, at his throat the arteries pounding visibly through his fair skin. Up they came at the word of command, like children with ill-learned lessons to recite, like sheep with a collie at their heels. Humorous at another time and another place, that compliance would have been; but with that mute, prostrate figure there before them on the floor, with that other menacing, dominating figure facing them, it was far from humorous. It was ghastly in its confession of impotence, in its mute acquiescence to another's will.

The shuffling of feet ceased and silence fell; yet for some reason Pete did not act. Instead he stood waiting; his red-rimmed eyes travelling from man to man, the fissure between them deepening, the heavy lids narrowing, moment by moment. A long half minute he waited, gloating on their misery, prolonging their suspense; then came the interruption. A step sounded on the walk without, a step that was all but noiseless. A hand tried the k.n.o.b of the door, found it bolted, and tapped gently on the panel.

Not a soul within the room stirred, not even Long Pete; but the narrowing lids closed until they were mere slits, and the unshaven jaws tightened.

Again the knock sounded; louder, more insistent.

This time there was action. One of the revolvers in Pete's hand moved to the end of the line, halted. "Up with your hands," snarled a voice.

Two gnarled, distorted hands, the hands of Bob Manning, lifted in air.

"Up with you," and another pair, and another and another followed, until there were not two but twelve.

"Make a move, d.a.m.n you,"--one of the revolvers had returned to its holster, the free hand was upon the bolt,--"and I'll drop you, every cursed one of you, in your tracks. I'll drop you if I swing the next second." With a jerk, the door opened wide, and like a flash the hand returned to the holster. "Come in, you idiot," he challenged into the darkness without, "come in and take your medicine with the rest."

Within the room the six peered at the blackness of the open doorway, peered and held their breath. For an instant they saw nothing; then of a sudden, fair in the opening, walking easily, noiselessly on moccasined feet, entered a brand new actor, advanced half across the room, while his eyes adjusted themselves to the light, halted curiously. Back of him that instant the door again returned to its case with a crash, the rusty bolt grating in its socket; and above the noise, drowning it, sounded the snarl the others knew so well.

"It's you, is it, redskin? What the h.e.l.l are you doin' here?"

Deliberately, soundlessly as he had entered, the newcomer turned. From his height of six feet one, an inch below that of Pete himself, he returned the other's look fixedly, without answer. He wore a soft flannel shirt, and a pair of dark brown corduroy trousers, supported by a belt. Unconsciously, as though he were alone, he hitched the corduroys up over his narrow hips, in the motion of one who has been riding. That was all.

Closer and closer came the red lids over Pete's veritable disfigurement.

Involuntarily his great nostrils opened.

"Talk up there, Injun," he repeated slowly; and this time his voice was almost gentle. "My name's Sweeney, and I'm speakin' to you. What the devil are you here for?"

No answer, not a sound; not even the twitching of an eyelid or a muscle.

Ten seconds pa.s.sed, fifteen.

"I'll give you one more chance there, aborigine;" slowly, with an effort, almost gratingly came the words, like the friction of a rusty spring at the striking of a clock; "and I ain't in the habit of doin'

that either, pard." He halted and his great chest heaved with the effort of a mighty breath, his whole body leaned a bit forward. "Tell me what you want here, and tell me quick, or by the eternal I'll fill you so full of holes your own mother wouldn't recognise you."

One by one the two repeaters shifted, shifted until they were focussed upon a spot midway between the belt and the rolling collar of the flannel shirt. "I'm listening, How Landor."

At last the moment had come, the climax, the supreme instant in the career of those eight men in that tiny weather-boarded room. No need to tell seven of them at least that it was a moment of life or death. If something, something which seemed inevitable, happened, if one of those curling, itching fingers on the triggers tightened, if but once that took place, their lives were not worth the wording of a curse. If once again that black-visaged, pa.s.sion-mastered human smelt powder, there would be no end while a target had power to move, while a tiny gleaming cylinder remained in the row within his belt. This they knew; and man by man, as the Creator made them, revealed the knowledge. The jaws of Bob Manning were quiet now, but the old eyes blazed from beneath their sockets like the eyes of a grey timber wolf, the centre of a howling pack. Next to him lank Wagner stood, waiting with closed lips; his lips as grey as those of the dead man on the floor. Rank Judge had not moved, but the harness on his wooden stump creaked softly as his weight shifted from leg to leg. Fat Buck Walker was perspiring almost grotesquely, like an earthenware pitcher. Great drops hung from his chin, from his uptilted nose, and his cotton shirt was dark. Slim Simpson, white before, was like a corpse; only his great boyish eyes stared out, as a somnambulist stares, as one hypnotised. Last of all, at the end of the line was the stranger from the East, representative of another world.

Piteous, horrible, the others had been; but he--but for his clothes, his most intimate friend would not have recognised him at that moment. In him, blind, racking terror was personified. To have saved his soul he could not keep still, and his heavy walking shoes grated as they shuffled on the rough floor. He had bitten his lip and the blood stood in his mouth and trickled down, down his clean-shaven face. His eyes, like those of Slim Simpson, were abnormally wide, but shifting constantly in a hopeless search for a place of concealment, of safety.

If aught in his life merited retribution, the man paid the price a hundred times over and over that second.

Thus man by man they stood waiting; a background no art could reproduce, no stage manager prodigal of expense. If on earth there ever was a h.e.l.l, that tiny frontier room with the smoke-blackened ceiling and the single kerosene lamp sputtering on the wall, was the place. Not an imp thereof, but Satan himself, stood in the misshapen boots of Cowman Pete; doubly vicious in the aftermath of a debauch, Pete with the l.u.s.t of blood in his veins. And against him, scant hope to those who watched, was a man; tall, but not heavy, smooth-cheeked as a boy of fourteen, soft-eyed, soft-handed, without the semblance of a weapon. One branded unmistakably a sleeper, a dreamer, one apparently helpless as a woman.

Yet there that night, within the s.p.a.ce of minutes, from the time there fell that last speaking silence, with this man the chief actor, there took place something, the report of which spread swifter than wildfire, from the river to the Hills, from the north Bad Lands to the sandy Platte, that will live and be repeated while tales of nerve and of man mastery quicken the pulses of listeners. For after that night Coyote Centre knew Long Pete Sweeney no more; Dakota knew him no more. Not that he was murdered in cold blood as he had murdered others: it was not that. Alone, unmolested, he left, in the starlight of that very night; but he knew, and they who permitted him to go, knew that it had been better--

But we antic.i.p.ate.

"I'm listening, How Landor," he had said.

But he heard nothing:--yet he saw. He saw a tall, lithe, catlike figure straighten until it seemed fairly to tower. He saw this same figure look at him fully, squarely; as though for the first time really conscious of his presence. He saw two unflinching black eyes, flanked by high cheek bones, out of a copper-brown face meet his own, meet them and hold them; hold them immovably, hold them so he could not look away. He saw the owner of those eyes move--he did not hear, there was no sound, not even a pat from the moccasined feet, he merely saw--and move toward him. He saw that being coming, coming, saw it detour to pa.s.s a prostrate body on the floor; always silent, but always coming, always drawing nearer. He saw this thing, he, Pete Sweeney, he, Long Pete, whose name alone was terror. He knew what it meant, he knew what he should do, what he had sworn to do; the muzzles of his two revolvers were already focussed, but he made no move. His fingers lay as before on the triggers. Once in unison they tightened; then loosened again. He did not act, this man. As his maker was his judge, he could not. He was wide awake, preternaturally wide awake; he tried to act, tried to send the message that would make the muscles tense; but he could not. Those two eyes were holding him and he could not. All this he knew; and all the while that other was coming nearer and nearer. He began to have a horror of that coming that he could not halt. The great unshaven jaw of him worked; worked spasmodically, involuntarily. His skin, flaming hot before, of a sudden felt cool. The sweat spurted, stood damp on the hairy hands.

Something he had never felt before, something he had observed in others, others like those six in the background, began to grip him; something that whitened his face, that made him feel of a sudden weak--weak as he had never felt before. And still those eyes were upon him, still that dark face came closer and closer. Once more his brain sent the message to kill, once more he battled against the inevitable; and that message was the last. There was no more response than if he were clay, than if his muscles were the muscles of another man. In that instant, without the voicing of a word, the deed was done. That instant came the black chaotic abandon that was terror absolute. In pure physical impotence, his arms dropped dangling at his sides. The other was very near now, so near they could have touched, and the cowman tried to brace himself, tried to prepare for that which he knew was coming, which he read on the page of that other face. But he was too late. Watching, almost doubting their own eyes, the six saw the end. They saw a dark hand of a sudden clench, shoot out like a brown light. They heard an impact, and a second later the thud of a great body as it met the floor. They saw the latter lift, stumble clumsily to its feet, heard a m.u.f.fled, choking oath. Then for a second time, the last, that clenched fist shot out, struck true.

That was all.

For a minute, a long, dragging minute, there was silence, inaction. Then for the first time the victor turned, facing the spectators.

Deliberately he turned, slowly, looked at them an instant almost curiously,--but he did not smile. Twelve arms, that had forgotten to lower, were still in the air--but he did not smile. Instead he sought out the stranger in knickerbockers and blouse.