The Shipshape Miracle : And Other Stories

CHAPTER I Death Comes to Town!

Smoke still wisped from what had been a cabin crouched beneath the cottonwoods that grew above the spring. The embers, smothered in gray ash, still exuded a stifling heat. Flame-scarred, the cottonwoods themselves stood limp with withered leaf and drooping branch.

But something else than cabin logs and homemade furniture had gone up in flames. Beneath two smoking timbers lay an outline, ash-covered, fire-blackened, that could be neither log nor furniture, steer-hide trunk nor sweat-stained saddle.

Shane Fletcher tossed idly in one hand the things he had found upon the ground and stared at the shape beneath the timbers, wrinkling his nose against the stench that told him better than the shape itself, what lay there in the ashes.

The things in his hand clinked as he tossed them.

“Find something?” asked the man who sat bolt upright on the wagon seat, both hands grasping the cane planted stiffly before him.

“Yes,” said Fletcher.

“Cartridges?”

“How did you know?”

“My ears,” said Blind Johnny. “You’re tossing them. They clink.”

“Three of them,” Fletcher told him. “Fired not long ago. Powder smell still on them.”

“Blood on the grass?” asked Johnny.

Fletcher shook his head. “Nope. They got him near the door, yelled at him to come out and gunned him down when he stepped outside.”

A dog came from the weeds down by the spring, snaked a frightened, apologetic course toward the wagon and the men, tail tucked tightly between his legs, eye-whites showing.

Fletcher patted the animal. “Hello, there, pup!”

A charred wooden bucket lay tilted on its side a few feet from the smoking heap that once had been a cabin. Part of a rude bench lay nearby. A tin wash basin gleamed in the smoky sunlight.

Those, thought Fletcher, had been the things from which Harry Duff had washed his hands and face, dipped a drink of water. This was Harry’s dog, seeking human protection against the whiplash crack of rifles, the angry roar of flames that consumed the things which had been his home.

The dog sat down and stared with eyes abrim with wonder and fear. Fletcher patted the yellow head, felt the quivering fright that ran along the body.

“Tracks?” asked Blind Johnny.

“Maybe,” Fletcher told him. “If there are, they’d head straight into the badlands.”

Blind Johnny wagged his head. “Can’t figure why anyone would want to do something like that to a man like Harry. Never harmed a fly, Harry never did.”

The blind man sat stiffly on the wagon seat, both hands clutching the cane, head unturning, as if he might be staring at the far horizon.

Fletcher patted the yellow head and the dog moved closer, pressed tight against his legs.

“It was just the other day that he was in to see me,” Fletcher said, staring at the ashy mound that lay twisted in the embers. “Happy as a bear knee-deep in honey. Seems an uncle died someplace in the east and left him a few hundred. Enough, he said, to pay off his debt and send back for his girl. Law firm that wrote the letter wanted some information, but he didn’t have it with him. Asked me to drop out again.”

“What kind of debts?” demanded Johnny. “He didn’t drink and didn’t gamble.”

“Mentioned something about a mortgage,” Fletcher said.

“Maybe someone heard he’s been left some money and thought he had it in the cabin.”

Fletcher shook his head. “Not that kind of killing, Johnny. No robbery intended. This is murder. Someone shot him and threw his body in the cabin, then set fire to make it look like he was in there sleeping and couldn’t make it out in time.”

He tossed the gleaming cylinders in his hand. “Careless, too. Leaving things like these around.”

“Most of them are,” Blind Johnny told him. “Careless in one way or another. Though some of them aren’t. Take a smart hombre, now, and he’ll get away with it.”

Fletcher dropped the empty cartridges in the pocket of his coat, moved toward the wagon. “Come on, boy,” he invited the dog. The animal trotted behind him, stood beside the wagon. Stooping, Fletcher boosted him up, climbed to the seat and took the reins.

“What now?” asked Johnny.

“Back to Gravestone and tell the marshal,” said Fletcher.

“Won’t do any good,” declared the blind man. “Marshal Jeff Shepherd is so dumb he can’t even catch a cold.”

“We have to report it, anyhow,” insisted Fletcher. “Our duty as citizens.”

Johnny chuckled. “Awful upset about a killing. But you’ll get over that.”

“Happens often, huh?”

Johnny screwed up his face. “Well, not every day, exactly, but right frequently. Matt Humphrey was shot this Spring by some rustlers running off his cattle. Matt was plumb foolish. Went out and tried to argue with them. Then there was Charlie Craig, last winter.”

“Homesteaders?” asked Fletcher.

“Both of them,” said Johnny.

Fletcher sat staring at the smoking cabin site. Remembering the happiness that had shone in Duff’s face that day he’d come up to the office. A chance to pay off his debts, he’d said, and send back for the girl who was waiting in the East. A chance to start making a home. To buy a few more head of cattle, maybe.

“You don’t wear a gun, do you, Shane?” asked Johnny.

“Why, no,” said Shane, puzzled.

“You look plumb undressed without one,” declared Johnny. “Everyone wears ‘em, you know. Even Banker Childress. He couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”

Fletcher stared at the ash and embers, his eyes narrowed against the sun and smoke. “I think, maybe,” he said, “I could hit a barn.”

He gathered up the reins, clucked to the team, swung a wide circle away from the cottonwoods. . .

The town of Gravestone drowsed in the afternoon sun, huddled on the broad, glassy plain at the foot of the four-square butte. A dog slept in front of the barber shop and his feet twitched as he chased rabbits in a dream. Dan Hunter sprawled on the steps of the Silver Dollar, whittling with a jackknife on a piece of board. Shavings littered the sidewalk and the street beyond.

“What you making, Dan?” asked Fletcher.

“Nuthin’,” Hunter told him. “Just whittlin’ to pass away the time.” He went on whittling.

The wooden signs along the street swung wearily in the gusty wind that walked along the prairie. From the blacksmith shop, two doors down, came the sound of hammer blows as Jack McKinley shoed a horse. Far up the street the flag fluttered in the breeze from the pole in front of the schoolhouse.

“Hell of a big game goin’ on inside,” Dan Hunter volunteered. “Zeb White is in there cleaning out the place. Luckiest buzzard ever I did see.”

“Zeb isn’t any gambler,” declared Fletcher.

“Hell, no,” Hunter agreed, “but he’s run into a streak of luck that he just can’t get rid of.”

Fletcher crossed the street, heading for his two rooms above the bank. Before starting up the stairs he stopped and looked at the thermometer hung from the door casing. The mercury said 85 above.

The rooms upstairs were barren—the front one especially. A desk and three battered chairs, a framed picture of Abraham Lincoln. He had a picture of George Washington, too, but the glass was broken.

Soon as he got the law books from the freight office at Antelope, Fletcher told himself, he’d have to build some shelves. Give the place an air—make it look a bit more like a law office. He’d have time to build the shelves, he knew, for there weren’t many clients.

Standing in the center of the room, he wondered if there’d ever be many clients. Men in this town didn’t take to law too well. They carried it in their holsters instead of getting it from books.

Harry Duff the other day. And Tony, the barber, up to see what could be done about the drunk who’d heaved a rock through Tony’s window as a protest against what he considered the high price of haircuts. And the grocer to find out about collecting from Lance Blair, who owned the Silver Dollar across the street… That was about all.

Heavy footsteps thudded up the stairs and even before the visitor arrived, Fletcher knew it was Charles J. Childress, the banker from downstairs, panting and puffing his way up the creaky steps.

Childress was flabby and affable. His face was red and his shirt tail had come out and was hanging down his back. “Jeff just came in to see me,” he puffed at Fletcher. “Told me about Duff. Too bad, too bad! Told Jeff to leave no stone unturned. No, sir, not a stone unturned. Can’t have things like that happening in this community.”

“Jeff won’t be able to do much,” Fletcher pointed out. “The killer had a few hours start. Got off into the badlands more than likely. No chance of finding him.”

“Jeff’s a mighty capable law officer,” insisted Childress. “Slow on the uptake, but sticks to things. Yes, sir, he sticks to things.”

The banker reached into his back pocket and hauled forth a red bandanna, mopped his face. Handkerchief still clutched in his hand, he lowered himself cautiously into one of the battered chairs and looked around the room.

“How’re you getting on?” he asked.

“Not too bad,” said Fletcher. “It takes time. People have to get to know you. No one ever built a law practice overnight.”

“I was just thinking,” Childress told him, “maybe I could use you. Lots of law work connected with a bank. Been doing it myself, but now you’re here, you might just as well have it—whole kit and caboodle of it. Not enough to keep you busy all the time, but something to fill in.”

“That’s fine,” said Fletcher. “Appreciate it.”

Childress snapped his suspenders. “Yes, sir, great opportunity here for an up-and-coming lawyer. Never could understand why one didn’t come before.”

“I hope you’re right,” Fletcher said. “I thought, perhaps—”

“Sure, sure,” said Childress, interrupting. “Sure, that’s why you came. Foresight. No reason why you couldn’t be county attorney, come election time. Just knowing the right people, doing the right things—playing along, no reason, just because Antelope’s the county seat that the county attorney has to come from there. Now you take Rand—he’s the county attorney, you know.”

Fletcher nodded. “I know.”

“He don’t understand the problems of this country,” declared Childress. “Don’t know up from down. Just trying a little, you could do lots better.”

Fletcher grinned. “Maybe I ought to wait a year or two.”

Childress grunted. “Stuff and nonsense. Put you up next year, that’s what I’ll do. Take you around and introduce you to the folks. Get the boys out to vote for you.”

“That’s kind of you,” said Fletcher.

Childress hoisted himself slowly from the chair. “Like to help fellers along,” he grunted. He mopped his face with the red bandanna. “Nothing like helping the other feller out when you can.” He guffawed. “Then maybe they help you out, come a pinch. That’s my motto, turn about’s fair play. Do what I can to help a feller, expect him to do the same for me.”

He reached out a ham-like hand and thumped Fletcher on the back.” Come down sometime,” he invited, “and we’ll talk about the law business. Got a few jobs now you could start off on right away.”

“I’ll be down tomorrow,” Fletcher promised. He stood in the center of the room, listening to Childress crawfishing heavily downstairs, puffing with exertion.

Funny guy, thought Fletcher. Funny and dangerous—like a lumbering grizzly. That business about running for county attorney, helping one another out, turn and turn about. The offer of a job out of blue sky, meeting the right people and playing along.

He didn’t like it. Fletcher didn’t like the way Childress had acted—as if he already owned him. “I’ll put you up next year.” Just as if he, Fletcher, had nothing to say about it.

Yet, he couldn’t afford to antagonize the man. Law business thrown his way would help a lot, keep him going until he could pick up other clients.

Fletcher grimaced, paced across the room to one of the two windows fronting on the street.

Dan Hunter still lounged on the steps across the street, whittling at his board. A man was leading his horse out of the blacksmith shop, while McKinley, the blacksmith, stood with one arm braced against the doorway.

Childress had emerged from the stairway onto the sidewalk, was mopping at his face, back to the street, reading the thermometer.

Suddenly the thermometer shattered into a spray of flying glass and wood, almost as if it had exploded in the banker’s face. The street echoed to the hammering bellow of a heavy gun.

The man who had been leading the horse out of the blacksmith shop had dropped the reins, stood in the street with his legs widespread as if to anchor himself for another shot. The gun in his fist belched smoke and thunder. Splinters flashed into the sunlight from the building’s side.

Childress had hurled himself to the sidewalk, seemed to be trying to burrow into it. In the quiet that followed the second shot, Fletcher heard the banker’s voice mewing in fright.

Deliberately, as if he had all the time in the world to do his job, the man in front of the blacksmith shop lifted his gun again, but before he could press the trigger another gun coughed.

For a second, the man in front of the blacksmith shop stood stock-still as if gripped and held by a mighty hand. Then he slowly wilted. With gathering momentum, he pitched forward on his face. His gun, knocked from his hand by the impact of the fall, pinwheeled end-over-end and into the dust.

In front of the Silver Dollar, Dan Hunter broke his gun, calmly blew smoke from the barrel, holstered it again. He bent and picked up the board and jackknife which he had dropped.

Fletcher spun from the window, hit the door running, ran downstairs. The street had erupted in a swirl of life. The dead man’s horse was racing up the street, reins flying in the dust. The blacksmith had lifted the dead man from the ground, then slowly let him fall back again. He rose and dusted his hands on his pants.

“He’s dead!” His voice boomed up and down the street.

The barber, white coated, was running down the sidewalk. The Silver Dollar emptied and feet drummed down its steps. Dan Hunter leaned against a post and let them pass, a frosty smile upon his lips.

Fletcher crossed the street. “Who was it?” he asked of Hunter.

“Hombre name of Wilson,” Hunter said. “Used to be a rancher.”

“Used to be?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Mortgaged the place and lost it.”

“To Childress, huh?”

“That’s right,” said Hunter. “Seemed to be sore about it.”

“Lucky for Childress,” observed Fletcher, “that you were sitting here.”

Hunter grinned. “Ah, it wasn’t nothin’,” he declared.

The banker had gotten up from the sidewalk, was waddling out into the street toward the crowd that surrounded the body.

Fletcher jerked his thumb at him. “For a man who wears a gun, he sure don’t stand up to gunfire.”

“Lots of birds that pack guns,” said Hunter, “don’t know how to use them.”

“You do,” said Fletcher.

“Just comes natural,” Hunter told him.

Fletcher saw the insolent slope of Hunter’s shoulders, the hard lines of the mouth, the coldness of the eyes.

Hunter flipped his knife point toward the street. “Here comes the schoolmarm,” he declared.

Cynthia Thornton was walking down the other side of the street, obviously trying not to notice what had happened in front of the blacksmith shop. She wore a blue and white gingham dress that looked prim and fresh. She carried a silly little parasol in her hand.

“You will pardon me,” Fletcher said to Hunter.

Hunter grinned. “Sure,” he said. He sat down on the steps, started whittling again.

Fletcher met Cynthia Thornton at the bottom of the stairs which ran up to his office. She smiled rather wanly and he saw that the hand which carried the parasol was shaking. “What happened, Shane?” she asked.

“A little disagreement,” Fletcher told her. “Someone by the name of Wilson tried to gun Childress, but Hunter shot him down.”

“It’s terrible,” said Cynthia Thornton. “Do you think that someday—”

“Certainly,” said Fletcher. “Someday the town will grow up and it’ll be safe to walk the streets.”

“I can’t stand here,” said Cynthia. “You’ll have to let me go.”

“Duck up to the office for a minute,” suggested Fletcher. “I want to talk to you.”

She hesitated.

“Strictly business,” Fletcher told her. “I’ve got a hunch.”

She nodded at him and started up the steps.

Inside the office he hauled paper from the desk, took a pencil from his pocket. “Pull up a chair,” he said. “I want you to help me figure out a few things.”

Wonderingly, she took the pencil that he handed her, poised it above the sheet of paper.

“You know the country around here better than I do,” he said, “or I wouldn’t have to bother you. I want a map, showing the ranches and the homesteads. Doesn’t have to be fancy or accurate. Just show their relative locations.”

“Starting where?” she asked.

“Starting with Harry Duff’s.”

She looked frightened. But she bent her head above the paper, sketched carefully, neatly. Fletcher came around the desk to stand behind her, watching the paper over her shoulder.

“That’s enough,” he told her. “It’s all I need to know.”

She smiled at him. “Go ahead, and be mysterious, my dear.”

He grinned at her. “By the way—I have a dog for you. One I picked up today. He’s at the livery barn.”

“How nice of you. When can I see him?”

“Any time. He’s Duff’s dog. Came out of the weeds today, scared and frightened. You heard about Duff, didn’t you?”

She nodded. “Some of the children told me.” She tapped the parasol absent-mindedly on the floor.

“It’s nice to have a dog,” she said. “We always had one at the ranch. I’ll take him with me tomorrow when I go riding.”

Fletcher laughed. “Tomorrow is Saturday. Some target practice, I suppose?”

She looked a bit angry. “If I like to shoot,” she told him, “I’m going to shoot. My daddy taught me to ride a horse and handle a gun when I was a little girl and now—”

“And now you spend every Saturday with a horse and gun,” he said.

She made a face at him and swept out.

He grinned, listening to her footsteps tripping down the stairs. Then he laid the map she had drawn, flat on the desk, studied it with a frown.

Craig’s place was west of Duff’s, and Wilson’s between Craig’s and Humphrey’s. And cornering to the south with Duff’s and Craig’s, was Zeb White’s.

Whistling softly, Fletcher folded the paper carefully and tucked it in his coat pocket.

In the back room, where he slept, he unlocked the brass-bound steamer trunk, lifted out a top tray and, burrowing deep into a pile of shirts and socks, brought up a cartridge belt and gun.

He clicked the gun open, spun the cylinder, squinted through the barrel. With swift, sure fingers, he fed in cartridges, clicked the weapon shut, strapped the belt around him.

“Blind Johnny was right,” he told himself. “Time I took to wearing one.”

CHAPTER II Hell Hits the Silver Dollar!

Blind Johnny was softly fiddling Pop Goes the Weasel in the front room of the Silver Dollar, but not much of a crowd had gathered yet. A few men were standing at the bar and a drunk was sleeping it off at a table in the corner.

Mike, the bartender, raised a hand to Fletcher. “What’ll it be tonight?” he asked, reaching for a bottle.

“Pass it up, for the moment, Mike,” said Fletcher. He jerked his head toward the back room. “Game still going on?”

Mike nodded. “White still raking it in. Don’t know how he does it. The way they fall, I guess.”

Fletcher stopped at the table where Johnny was playing. “How goes it, Johnny?”

The blind man lowered the fiddle. “Fletcher, isn’t it?”

“That’s it. Guess you are right about the killings. Man should get used to them after awhile.”

“Man and boy,” said Johnny, “I been fiddling up and down the country. Seen towns where there were more shooting and others that had less. This is just average, I guess.”

“Understand Wilson lost his ranch here some time ago.”

“Lost it to Childress,” Johnny said. “Gave the bank a mortgage and was all set to pay up when someone cleaned him out. Ran off almost every head he had. Without his stock, Wilson couldn’t pay up and Childress wouldn’t listen.”

“Foreclosed, did he?”

“Lock, stock and barrel,” said Johnny. He lifted the fiddle and dashed off a few twinkling notes, lowered it again.

“How about White?” asked Fletcher. “The one who’s making a killing out back. He got a mortgage, too?”

“Danged near everyone in this country’s got a mortgage,” Johnny said. “Sure, he has. But right now he ought to be able to pay it off. Boys tell me he’s got it stacked up in front of him three deep.”

“To Childress?”

Johnny shook his head. “To Blair.”

“Didn’t know Blair lent money.”

“Once in a while,” Johnny told him. “When he figures it’s a good deal.”

Fletcher rose from the chair. “Think I’ll go back and look on awhile.”

The back room was a fog of smoke and alcoholic fumes. A silent knot of men crowded around the table in the center of the room. Lamplight poured down from the ceiling.

Standing by the door, Fletcher picked out faces that he knew. There was McKinley, the blacksmith, with a huge cigar clamped tightly in his jaw. Tony, the barber, standing behind him on tiptoe trying to see. Lance Blair, owner of the Silver Dollar, stood close to the table, arms folded across his chest, twisted stogie between his teeth, his face good-natured in the lamplight. But his lips were a hard straight line. Beside him stood Dan Hunter and nearer to the door, Jeff Shepherd, the marshal. It was a gathering of wolves.

Fletcher took a place alongside Shepherd. By craning his neck, he could see that one of the men at the table had stacks of coins in front of him. He knew it must be White.

“What did you find out at Duff’s?” Fletcher whispered to Shepherd.

“It was Duff, all right,” Shepherd whispered back. “Burned to a crisp. Probably smoking in bed.”

“He was shot,” said Fletcher. “Found three empty cartridges.”

Shepherd grunted. “Doesn’t mean a thing. Harry could have fired them off himself.”

“But they’d been fired only a short time before. Still could smell powder on them.”

“Maybe he shot at something just before it happened,” insisted Shepherd.

“Makes it easy for you that way, doesn’t it?” said Fletcher.

“Shut up, you guys,” yelled someone angrily.

Fletcher said, “I came in here to say something. Give me a minute to say it and then I’ll leave.”

He elbowed forward, pushing men aside until he reached the table. Across the table he saw the hard eyes of Lance Blair on him.

“Anything you have to say, Fletcher,” said Blair, “can wait until the game is over.”

“That’s just the point,” snapped Fletcher. “It can’t.”

He looked across at the man with the stacks of cash. “You White?”

White snarled back at him. “What if I am?”

“You got a mortgage,” Fletcher told him, “with Blair?”

“Now, wait,” yelled Blair. “What has all this got to do with the game? Sure, I hold Zeb’s mortgage, but—”

Fletcher disregarded him. “Got enough in front of you to pay it off?” he asked of White.

“Why, I guess so. Say, what the hell—”

White was rising from the table.

“Sit down, White,” snapped Fletcher. “Count out the money you owe Blair.”

White sat down. “And if I don’t?”

“If you don’t,” said Fletcher, “you won’t live until tomorrow night.”

Blair leaned across the table. “You’re crazy,” he shouted. “Coming in here with talk like this.”

“A man died today,” Fletcher told him evenly, “because he was about to get money that would have paid his mortgage. I only want to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen here.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Fletcher saw the swift motion of Hunter’s arm, driving for his gun.

With a wild yell, the lawyer lunged forward, crashing into one of the players, hurling him against the table. The table tottered and went over, spilling money and whiskey glasses to the floor. Fletcher dropped swiftly and whipped his own gun from its holster.

A bullet chunked through the upturned table edge, hurling splinters in the lamplight. The roar of the shot drowned out the thump of feet, the thud of bodies being hurled to the floor out of bullet line.

Hunter came charging around the table, smoking gun leveled at his hip. Behind the table, Fletcher whirled on his toes, brought his gun around.

Hunter’s triumphant face washed over with a frozen stare of surprise and his heels dug into the floor. Fletcher’s gun coughed smokily and Hunter tripped and fell in a headlong crash, one leg folding under him.

Fletcher ducked and the other man fell to the floor so hard that his gun was shaken from his hand and spun like a wheel of light across the boards.

Slowly Fletcher rose and backed toward the wall.

“Blair,” he said, softly, “put away that gun.”

Blair, flat on his belly, opened his hand and the gun dropped with a clatter.

Fletcher glanced around. Men were crouched or squatting or flattened full length upon the floor. Tony the barber huddled under a chair that he held above his head. Shepherd hunkered in one corner, eyes shining in the lamplight.

Fletcher felt the wall at his back and stopped. “White,” he said, “come out and pick up your money. Just so you can’t say I busted up the game and lost you all that cash.”

White rose slowly from the floor, walked toward the center of the room, squatted on his heels and started scooping up the scattered coin.

“Blair,” said Fletcher, conversationally, “if you make one more pass at that gun, I’ll let you have it straight between the eyes.”

He looked at Hunter, writhing on the floor, a pool of blood growing under him.

“Come out from under that chair, Tony,” Fletcher ordered. “You and McKinley. Take a look at Hunter. He isn’t dead. Stove-up leg, most likely.”

Cautiously the two came out, bent above the fallen man.

White was on his feet again, pockets bulging. “Blair,” he said, making an effort to keep his voice calm. “Blair, I want to pay up my mortgage.”

Blair did not move.

White’s hand dipped to his side, rested on his gun-butt.

“You heard me, Blair.”

Blair rose slowly to his feet. “I haven’t got the mortgage with me,” he declared.

“I’ll pay you off,” said White, “and you can write me a receipt. We’ll take care of the paper work later.”

Blair strode across the room, righted the tip-tilted table. Rapidly, White counted out a pile of money. Blair took a piece of paper from his pocket, felt in other pockets.

“Here you are!” Fletcher flipped a pencil on the table.

“Thanks,” said Blair. He bent to write.

“Fletcher,” said McKinley, his voice booming in the room, “if you don’t mind, we’d better get Hunter out of here and run for the doc. He’s losing blood.”

“I don’t mind,” said Fletcher. “The game is over now.”

Blair had handed White the slip of paper and White was folding it, putting it away. Blair was counting out the money on the table. Fletcher holstered his gun. “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said.

On the porch outside, he stopped for a moment, looking up and down the street. The bank’s windows glowed with light and inside he could see Childress moving about, gathering up papers and books and putting them away in the big iron safe that stood in one corner of the room.

A horse clopped down the street, hoofs thudding softly in the dust, rider swaying easily in the saddle. A woman came out of the grocery store, a basket on her arm.

Footsteps sounded behind him and he whirled. Jeff Shepherd was coming toward him, not too fast, gun out, star gleaming in the lamplight. “What is it, Jeff?” Fletcher demanded.

“I’m arresting you,” said Jeff. “Can’t no tenderfoot come into town and raise as much hell as you just raised.”

“O.K.,” said Fletcher. “Put away your iron. I’ll go along with you peaceable.”

CHAPTER III Jailbreak!

Fletcher sat on the cot, sole furniture in the lone cell the Gravestone jail could boast, and tried to figure it out. Matt Humphrey had a mortgage and Matt Humphrey had been shot by rustlers running off his herd. More than likely just before he had been ready to market the cattle. Charlie Craig, another homesteader, had died by violence last winter. It would be interesting to know, Fletcher mused, if Charlie’d had a mortgage, too.

Wilson had given a mortgage on his place, and when he’d been ready to pay up, the same thing had happened to him as to Humphrey except that Wilson, at the moment, only lost his cattle, not his life.

And Harry Duff, less than 48 hours after he had received the legacy that would have paid off his mortgage, had been shot and burned inside his cabin.

It wasn’t, Fletcher told himself, too hard to piece together. Somebody didn’t want those mortgages paid off, somebody would rather have the land that secured the loans, than the loans themselves.

Fletcher got up off the cot and walked to the tiny, barred window. A sickle moon was rising above the butte and the summer stars blazed out above the plains. From far off came the howl of hunting wolves and in the street nearby a horse clopped slowly out of town while his drunken rider sang, off key.

A shadow hunched itself out of the darkness of the alley and something tapped along the ground. “Johnny,” said Fletcher, softly.

The blind man reached out a hand and found the building, guided himself along. “Brought you something,” Johnny whispered back. He leaned his cane against the building and dug into his shirt front. “Here,” he said, reaching up with two objects.

Fletcher took them. “What the—?”

“File,” said Johnny. “File and a can of oil. The oil will kill the noise.”

“But I haven’t—”

“Shucks,” Johnny told him, “you won’t have no trouble at all. Them bars are soft. Town too tight to buy good steel. Three, four hours and you’ll be out of here.”

“But, Johnny, I haven’t the slightest intention to escape. They can’t prove a thing on me. I didn’t kill Hunter, did I? So they can’t throw a murder charge at me. I shot in self defense—shot a man who was coming at me with a gun. I was careful to hit him in a spot that wasn’t fatal.”

“But you don’t understand,” protested Johnny.

“Come morning,” declared Fletcher, “and they’ll turn me loose. I might even sue for false arrest.”

“Come morning,” Johnny told him, curtly, “you’ll be stretching hemp—decorating a cottonwood, sure as shooting. Hell’s bound to break loose tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen,” hissed Johnny. “You know the lay, don’t you?”

“Sure, I do,” said Fletcher. “Blair and Childress are out to get a block of land. Got a gang operating so the little fellows whose loans they hold can’t pay off and—”

“And,” said Johnny, “you busted it wide open when you walked into that game and told White he wouldn’t be alive if he didn’t pay his mortgage. You had it doped right. They needed White’s land and they didn’t intend that he’d save it just by a lucky break at cards. Going home tonight, someone would have gunned Zeb, sure as hell. Someone, you understand, that knew he had the money and was bent on robbery.”

“Sure, sure, I know!”

“O.K., then,” snapped Johnny. “Get busy with that file. I’ll stand here and warn you if I hear anything.”

“But I can’t run off,” declared Fletcher, “break out of jail like any common thief.”

“Better to break out and live,” Johnny told him, “than stay in and die. Childress and Blair can’t afford to let you leave the place alive. Before morning there’ll be a mob along with guns and ropes.”

Fletcher mopped his brow with his shirtsleeve. “So that’s it, Johnny. Outraged citizens. Sick and tired of fellows coming in and shooting up the place.”

Johnny said, “Start sawing on them bars.”

Footsteps crunched down the corridor that led to the cell. Fletcher wheeled, stooped, set the file and oil can on the floor, slid swiftly to the cot, tried his best to look as if he’d been sitting there all the time.

Against the fan of light that flared out into the corridor from the jail office, Fletcher saw the shuffling shape of Jeff Shepherd. Behind Jeff, another figure stepped swiftly from the office into the corridor. Zeb White! Zeb White, with a gun in hand, was coming down the corridor on tiptoe!

“Well,” Fletcher bellowed at Shepherd, “It’s about time you were coming to let me loose. What do you think—”

The gun in White’s hand rose in the air, struck swiftly. Shepherd slumped against the door, slid to the floor like an emptied sack.

Across the fallen marshal, Fletcher looked at White. “Smart,” said White. “Smart play, Fletcher. With you yelling at him, he didn’t even suspect there was anyone around.”

Fletcher told him, “I was just ready to start on the bars.”

White grunted, stooped over the marshal, came up with a bunch of keys. “I’ll have you out in a minute,” he wheezed. “Then you and me are hitting the dust. Got to warn the boys.”

“You mean the other men with mortgages?”

“Exactly right,” snapped White. “Blair’s gang will be out to make a clean-up before the news gets around. The life of any man who has a loan with Blair isn’t worth a dime.”

“It isn’t only Blair,” said Fletcher. “It’s Childress, too. If we could get into the bank’s safe, we’d find all the papers there.”

The third key White tried clicked back the lock and the door swung open. “We haven’t time to be breaking into banks,” the rancher snapped. “We’ve got to put miles behind us. Mike, the bartender, left right after the ruckus at the Silver Dollar. Blair sent him to tip off the bunch.”

Fletcher nodded. “They’d be hanging out in the badlands, wouldn’t they?”

“That’s the way I figure it,” White agreed. “Perfect hideout for them. Wouldn’t find them there in a million years.”

Swiftly he led the way toward the back, unhooked a door and they stepped into the alley. A faint tapping came out of the shadows of the building.

“That you, Johnny?” Fletcher called.

The blind man sidled up to them, stood silently.

“Look, Johnny,” White said, softly, “you’d better get back before someone misses you. Fletcher and me have riding to do.”

Fletcher shook his head stubbornly in the dark. “I still would like to see what’s in that safe.”

“What safe?” asked Johnny. There was a tremble in his voice.

“The bank safe,” explained Fletcher. “Don’t you see that all the papers would be there? Something to go on, something to show in court.”

“The hell with court,” rasped White. “When we get through with this gang of land grabbers there won’t be any left to show up in court.”

Fletcher shrugged. “Even if we could get into the bank, we couldn’t open the safe. Nothing short of dynamite would budge it.”

Johnny’s fingers plucked at Fletcher’s sleeve. “You get into that bank, Shane, and I’ll get the safe open.”

Fletcher gasped. “You’ll what?”

“I’ll get the safe open,” declared Johnny. “It wouldn’t be the first one.”

White flared at them. “This is all damn foolishness. How’ll you get into the bank to start with?”

“From my office,” Fletcher told him. “Bought a saw the other day to put up shelves for a batch of books. We could saw a hole right through the floor.”

“They’d hear,” protested White. “You’d have the town down on you in five minutes.”

“We have a can of oil,” said Johnny.

“You go ahead, White,” said Fletcher. “Tell me where to meet you. If we haven’t got those papers inside of an hour, I’ll quit and follow you.”

White stared at Fletcher in the darkness. “You’re the damnest hombre I ever saw,” he said. “Never satisfied unless you’re poking your head into a noose. I’ll stick with you if it only takes an hour.”

Fletcher shook his head. “Nope, you ride. Warn a couple of the boys and get them to send other riders out. Tell me where to find you.”

“Know where Phillips’ place is? I’ll meet you there. Before I leave I’ll saddle up a horse and tie him back of the livery barn. You may have to make a quick getaway.”

“You’d better make it two,” said Johnny.

White turned to stare queerly at the blind man. “All right, Johnny,” he finally said. “I’ll make it two.”

Fletcher crouched in the darkness beside the safe, listening to the slow rasp of the dial as Johnny manipulated the combination, ear pressed against the huge steel door.

Silence, broken only by the grinding whisper of the slowly twirling dial, filled the inside of the bank. Fletcher was tense, nerves tight as violin strings.

What he was doing, he told himself, was madness. Robbing a bank. And yet, he knew, by some unusual, perverted logic, it was the only thing to do. For there were only two courses left now. Stay in Gravestone and fight it out with Blair and Childress—or sneak off like a beaten dog and set up another office in some other place, start all over again the struggle to establish himself.

Childress had offered him work only to close his mouth, to make him another Blair-Childress hanger-on, like Mike, the bartender, like Hunter, who whittled on the steps of the Silver Dollar, watching the street when either Blair or Childress might step from their establishments. Like Jeff Shepherd, who had gone post-haste to Childress as soon as Harry Duff’s death had been reported to him.

What Fletcher had told Jeff about the Duff affair had made Childress recognize him as a possible danger, as a man who knew or suspected just a bit too much. So Childress had tried to buy him off with the offer of a job—with the lure of public office.

Fletcher grinned sourly to himself. Childress, of course, would have liked nothing better than a county attorney who was his man.

In the darkness Fletcher heard Johnny suck in his breath, heard the click of the lock. “She’s open,” Johnny whispered.

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 glanced 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.

And even as he fought Blair’s wrist farther from the gun, even as he drove his hand toward the other’s throat, his mind clicked over and decided that this had been a foolish thing to do. An unarmed man and an armed blind man against five other men who were fully armed.

Blair arched his body, bucking, trying to throw him off. With cool deliberation, Fletcher smashed a blow into the other’s face.

As he felt Blair go limp beneath him, Fletcher let go of the wrist, snatched at the gun, snaked it from the holster. With a yell, he wheeled from Blair, crouched low, gun swinging in his hand.

The man who had been sitting on the fence was stretched flat on the ground, arms outspread, face pushed in the earth. One of those who had stood in the doorway was on his knees, bent over, body wracked with coughing.

Johnny was sagging in front of the other man who had stood in the doorway, his gun arm limp and dangling, head pushed forward like a man who was walking against the wind.

Deliberately the man in front of Johnny raised his gun again and Fletcher, breath catching in his throat, jerked up his gun, pressed the trigger.

The man in front of Johnny spun around and his face, for a single instant, was a thing of twisted horror and then went blank. For a moment, he tottered, gun tumbling from fingers that were suddenly limp. Then, like a falling tree, he pitched onto his face.

Off to the side, Johnny slipped forward gently …

There was no sign of the man with the bandaged head. The one who had been on his knees had tipped over, lay like a bear rolled into a ball for winter sleeping, knees drawn up, arms still clutching his belly to drive away the pain.

Fletcher crouched on the ground, suddenly became aware of the weird silence that hung empty and voiceless in the sunlight that streamed across the turreted land.

Slowly, Fletcher rose to his feet, holstered the gun he had taken from Blair. On leaden feet he moved forward, walking around the body of the man who had fallen like a tree, stood for a silent second before he knelt and turned Johnny on his back.

The eyes in Johnny’s face flicked open and stared at Fletcher. A tiny stream of blood ran out of the corner of Johnny’s mouth and trickled down his chin.

“Johnny,” said Fletcher. “Johnny.”

“You know it now,” said Johnny, still staring at him. “Maybe you guessed it all the time.”

“Know what, Johnny?”

“That I wasn’t blind.”

“I wondered some,” admitted Fletcher.

“They wanted me back East,” said Johnny. “I opened too many safes—like—like the one back at the bank. I had educated fingers.”

“It was a disguise?” said Fletcher, softly.

“Sure, Shane. Who’d look for a cracksman who was blind? Who’d ever think a blind man had a price upon his head?”

Fletcher hugged the man close against him, as if by sheer physical power he might keep the ebbing life within the body. “But, Johnny,” he said, “you could have gone on—”

“You stopped and talked to me every time you came in the Silver Dollar,” Johnny told him. “You asked me to go for walks with you. You introduced me to that schoolmarm of yours. You took me for the ride when you went to get the books. Like I was another man—just like yourself. You didn’t ask me how it felt to be blind, or how I came to be blind, or. . .”

The voice pinched into a whisper, ran down until the lips still moved but no sound came. The lids slid over the eyeballs as if Johnny suddenly were tired and had gone to sleep even as he talked.

For a moment, Fletcher stared down into the face of the man he held, then lifted his eyes, swept the heights that hemmed them in. The tiny meadow droned with early morning quietness and the spires and pinnacles had taken on a new and flashing light with the coming of the sun.

Quiet, thought Fletcher. The quiet that comes after the belch of gunsmoke.

The quiet of life that has ended after years of hiding behind a pair of eyes that had been trained to a blank, unwinking stare … the stare that the eyes of the blind would have. The self discipline that allowed a man to see a thing, yet never act as if he’d seen it. The years that had drilled a certain consciousness of his role into a man until he came to think of himself as a blind man who fiddled in saloons up and down the land. A man with educated fingers who must, at times, have chuckled to himself when he was alone, chuckled at the joke that he was playing on all humanity.

Swift feet thudded on the grass behind him, storming footfalls half muffled by the turf.

Fletcher’s hand snaked to his belt and half crouching, he whirled on his heels, rising as he whirled. Even before he saw the man who was charging him, Fletcher knew who it was. Blair! The man who a moment before had been flat upon his back, dazed by a blow—the danger at his back that he had forgotten in Johnny’s death.

Fletcher’s gun moved swiftly in his hand, but not as swiftly as those pounding feet. A thundering weight, half seen, caught Fletcher even as he spun—a weight that crashed him to the ground, that fell on top of him, knocked breath from his lungs and left him reeling in a pit of painful darkness.

Strong fingers seized his gun and jerked and Fletcher tried to fight, tried to retain his grip, tried to twist his wrist so the gun would point toward his opponent’s body. But there was no power left within him.

Then a blow crashed down on his head and filled the world for a moment with flashing lights and spinning, wheeling stars. . .

CHAPTER V The Mystery-Marksman

A vulture wheeled on lazy pinions against the blazing blueness of the sky and a twisted tree clung desperately to the crumbling edge of a painted cliff. Fletcher lay on his back and watched the tree and the bird, wondered how come he was out here in the open, flat on his back, looking at a vulture.

Slowly, sharper consciousness oozed into his thoughts and he became aware of the dull ache that throbbed across his temples, of the pain of hands lashed behind his back. Voices seeped into his ears and he twisted his head around.

Blair and the man with the bandaged head squatted beside a campfire from which a thin, blue thread of smoke rose lazily. A coffee pot simmered on the coals and the man with the bandage poked with a fork at frying strips of bacon in a pan. Beyond the fire a small stream swirled and eddied over a grassy run.

The vulture had left the sky, but the tree still perched with gnarled roots on the brim of the sun-baked cliff. Slowly, methodically, careful to remember all the details, Fletcher thought back, closed his eyes to bring back the pictures of what had happened.

The men back in the meadow had been part of Blair’s terror gang—maybe all of it, for it would take but a few men to do what they had done. Strike and run—striking against single men or single families, all of them unsuspecting, all of them unprepared.

Fletcher wondered if Childress had a hand in organizing the gang and the answer seemed to be that he did not. That, more than likely, had been Blair’s job. Childress had loaned most of the money, and Blair had seen to it that those who borrowed were unable to pay it back.

But something had gone wrong. The man with the bandaged head was proof of that. White apparently had reached the ranches in time and the raiders, instead of striking unsuspecting men, instead of sweeping like a blight across an unprepared range had run into a hail of bullets. Perhaps they had left some of their members back there on the ranches where gunfire had rattled in the night.

But where did he, Fletcher, fit into the picture? Why was he lying here, head throbbing from the blow of Blair’s gun butt, hands lashed behind his back? Why wasn’t he back there in the meadow, dead body stretched alongside that of Blind Johnny?

Grass rustled as feet come toward him. Ungently, a booted toe nudged him in the ribs. He flicked his eyes open and stared up into Blair’s face.

“Time you was coming around,” Blair said.

Fletcher grimaced. “You hit me too hard.”

“Want some bacon and coffee?”

Fletcher struggled to his knees, stood up. “How am I going to eat?” he asked.

“We’ll untie your hands,” said Blair, “but we’ll have a gun on you.”

The man with the bandage, Fletcher saw, had his gun already out. It dangled from loose fingers with the man’s wrist slouched across his knee.

Fletcher nodded at the blanket-wrapped form. “Who’s that?”

Blair blinked his eyes in mock surprise. “Why, don’t you know? That’s Blind Johnny. We have to collect on him, too.”

“Collect?”

“Sure. There’s a price on both of you.”

Fletcher was dumbfounded. “A price?”

“Sure, the bank was robbed. And Childress was killed. So was Jeff. Or don’t you remember?”

Fletcher gasped. “A reward?”

“A thousand bucks apiece. Dead or alive.”

Fletcher stood stiff and straight as Blair stepped behind him, fumbled with the knot that tied his hands. Neat, he thought. A neat piece of work, the kind one would expect of Blair!

Of course the bank had been robbed and Childress had been killed. But neither he nor Johnny had had anything to do with that part of it. That had happened after he and Johnny had left—had happened in the few minutes between the time they had fled into the street and the aroused citizens of the town had reached the bank. It hadn’t taken long. A quick shot and Childress died. A minute’s work to haul the money bags and rolls of bills out of the safe and toss them out a window where they could be picked up later.

Fletcher brought his released hands around in front of him and rubbed them together, massaging his reddened wrists to hide the fact that his hands were shaking.

“Dead or alive,” he said to Blair. “A thousand dollars for either of us, dead or alive?”

Blair regarded him through wary eyes, nodded.

“Then why all the bother of lugging me in alive?”

“Looks better that way,” Blair told him. “Nobody can say that we killed you both to shut your mouths.”

“I can still talk,” said Fletcher.

“Sure,” Blair agreed, “for all the good it does you. You can talk until you’re blue in the face and no one will believe you. Because, you see, we found the loot on you. In your saddlebags.” He motioned toward a pair of bags that lay close to the fire.

“And,” said the man with the bandage, “who in hell would believe the kind of story you’d tell, anyhow?”

Fletcher knew no one would believe it. Not when they took the jury upstairs over the bank and showed them the hole sawed through the floor. No one would believe Blair and Childress had whipsawed the ranchers. No one, that is, but the ranchers themselves. And none of them, Fletcher knew, would have a chance to get on the jury. The very fact that they owed money to Childress or had been foreclosed on by Childress would bring a challenge and they would be excused.

It had been a crazy thing to do, breaking into the bank like that. But it had seemed a good idea at the time. The only way, in fact, to get proof of Childress’ dealings, the only way to learn what ranchers were in danger, the only way to prove in court that Childress had loaned money only to the ranchers who held the land he wanted.

But things hadn’t worked out the way Fletcher had thought they would.

Blair, he saw, was regarding him with amused eyes. “What I can’t figure out,” Blair said, “is what made you do it. You aren’t the kind of man who robs a bank.”

“I’ll tell about that in court,” Fletcher said.

“And why would you lug Johnny along? That was a crazy thing to do. Saddling yourself with a blind man.”

“Ah, hell,” said the man with the bandage, “let’s just shoot him and have it over with.”

“Shut up,” snapped Blair.

“But he’s too slick for us,” persisted the bandaged man. “He’ll get into court and talk himself out of it. Talk us into it, likely, before he gets through with it. He’s a lawyer and law’s his business and—”

The campfire exploded with a vicious, slamming thud that hurled live coals in a smoking shower. Fletcher leaped backward as a red hot ember speared against his arms, burned with a fierce, sudden pain. His bootheel caught against a clump of grass and he felt himself going over, windmilled his arms in sudden fright to keep his balance, but knew it was no use.

Even as he fell the whiplike crash of the hidden rifle caught up with the speeding bullet.

The bandaged man had hurled himself flat behind a scraggly bush, lap pressed tight against the ground. Blair was crouched in a shallow, natural depression shielded by clumps of waving grass. The saloon owner’s clothes were smoldering in a dozen different places from the shower of coals and he was slapping at them fiercely, cursing in a high-pitched voice.

“Fletcher,” said a voice and the lawyer, twisting his head, saw it was Blair who was speaking to him. “Fletcher,” said Blair, “don’t try any funny stuff.”

Fletcher stared back at the man without speaking, read murder in the narrowed eyes beneath the broad-brimmed hat. Blair, with his back to the wall, was dangerous. When things had been going his way, it had been different. Then he had been inclined to flippancy, like a cat playing with a mouse. But now, brought to earth by the hidden rifle, there was quick death in his trigger finger.

Slowly, Fletcher worked his way around until he was flat upon his belly, feeling the man’s eyes upon him all the time. Slowly he hitched himself, hugging the ground, toward a low growing juniper.

“What the hell you scared of?” asked Blair. “Taking cover that way. You ain’t the one they’re shooting at.”

“How do I know?” Fletcher snapped at him. “How do I know who’s out there with a gun. Maybe they wouldn’t mind picking me off along with you.”

Blair grunted savagely, hunkered lower in the shallow, wind-scooped hole.

“What’s going on?” demanded the bandaged man. “Tain’t natural. Just one shot and then no more.”

“Maybe only one man,” said Blair.

They waited. The sun poured down relentlessly. The sky was blue and still.

He had already thrown Blair partially off guard, he knew, by pretending that he feared the gun out there, by crawling to shelter.

But there was, he told himself, little for him to fear from the hidden rifleman, whoever it might be. There were only two sides to this affair and a man was either for him or against him. And if the man with the gun had been against him, then he would have ridden into camp instead of starting to sling lead.

Funny thing about that shot. Only one and that one landing in the fire—nicking the coffee pot and landing in the fire. Almost as if it had been aimed there instead of at any of the three who stood about the fire. And after that, silence, no other shot—as if that first shot had accomplished its purpose.

Fletcher cudgeled his aching brain, wondering who was hidden out there, content to let things ride, as long as he had them pinned to the ground. White, maybe. Although that didn’t seem likely. White would be with the ranchers, wouldn’t come sneaking in alone. If it were White, Blair would now be dead.

He heard a rustle of sound and twisted his head, keeping his cheek pressed against the ground. Blair, he saw, was slowly rising, inching higher and higher above the grass.

A speck of fire flashed momentarily from the rim of the bluff across the creek and the sullen cough of the rifle chugged across the hills. Blair flopped with a thud, burrowed into protecting soil. Just beyond him a dust cloud slowly settled. Fletcher chuckled.

Blair snarled at him out of the corner of his mouth. “Laugh, damn you! I’ll put a laugh on the other side of your face!” Blair’s eyes squinted speculatively. “I’m just waiting for an excuse, Fletcher, that’s all. I wouldn’t like nothing better.”

The rifle on the bluff chugged again and the bullet, plowing the edge of the wash in which Blair crouched, sprayed him with flying dirt.

“He’s getting your range,” said Fletcher. “All I got to do is just lie here and wait until he dusts you off.”

Blair huddled lower in the wash, brushed furtively at the dirt the bullet had showered on his shoulders.

“Or maybe,” declared Fletcher, “he’s planning to bury you alive. A few more shots like that one and—”

Blair bellowed at him. “Shut up!”

Come and Get It!

Fletcher was silent, watching Blair. Slowly he turned his head around to look at the man with the bandaged head. But the space behind the bush, where the man had sprawled, was empty.

“The man’s better than an Indian,” Blair said. “He’s stalking the man with the rifle up there on the cliff.”

Cautiously, Fletcher snaked his body forward until he could stare past the juniper. Eyes half closed against the glare of sun, he searched the tumbled confusion of the crags.

He was there, all right. The white splotch against the shadow of the wall was the bandage around his head. The white spot crossed the face of rock, disappeared for an instant, reappeared again, higher—and nearer to the hiding place of the rifleman.

“I got my eyes on you,” Blair grated. “I’m watching every move you make. Just try to warn your pal up there and I’ll make you buzzard meat.”

Fletcher’s body tensed and his mind swirled in thought. He had to do something.

Something that was not the stalker’s bandaged head was moving near the cliff top, too—something that was smaller than a man and yellow, like yellow fur where the sun’s rays struck it.

The yellow thing was the dog he had found at Duff’s burned cabin and given to Cynthia Thornton! And if the dog were there, Fletcher knew who the rifleman must be—not a man at all, but Cynthia Thornton!

From the cliff came a scream of terror and suddenly the yellow dog was flashing down, down from the ledge and onto the shoulders of the man who wore the bandage. . .

For a moment Blair’s man stood outlined against the rock, back to the outer space, facing the yellow fury that crouched before him, tensed for a vicious spring. For a moment the man’s hands pawed air as he sought to keep his footing, to regain his balance.

And then, slowly, deliberately, as if he were doing it of his own volition, he tumbled backward, off the ledge. He pinwheeled, end-over-end, white bandage flashing in the sun. A drawn-out shriek sounded, seemed to go on and on, but actually it lasted for no more than clipped seconds. . .

Mind still stunned by horror, Fletcher turned. Blair jerked his eyes away and his gun came up. Fletcher, charging in, head down, arms outstretched, saw the red coughing of the gun in front of him, felt the stinging fire that slashed across his shoulder.

His left hand lashed out even as he rushed, his fingers wrapped with a grip of steel around the wrist that held the gun. His body smashed into Blair’s and he jerked the gun arm up with a savage yank.

Blair’s gun arm gave beneath the pressure, folded back. The gun dropped free and Fletcher kicked it away.

“Come on,” he said.

Blair came rushing in, his head down. Dancing back, Fletcher slammed for the head.

A fist sank into his belly. He reeled back, sickness wrenching at his stomach.

Another blow was coming and Fletcher lifted arms that seemed to weigh a ton, caught it on his left wrist, blocked it.

The sickness was fading from his stomach, now, and his head was clearer. Blair was charging in again, head still lowered. Fletcher stepped back and then lunged in, right fist traveling from his knee. It caught Blair on the forehead, stopped him, straightened him. Fletcher struck with his left—and then the right came again.

He saw Blair’s face, drew back his fist and targeted it toward the mouth. Pain grated across his knuckles and the face was still there. The left this time. And then the right again. The face was gone.

Fletcher stood on widespread legs, shook his head to clear away the fog.

A soft, wet nose nuzzled and sniffed at Fletcher’s hand. He reached back the hand and patted the yellow dog. Cynthia Thornton stood beside her horse. “Shane,” her voice choked, “Shane, did you see what the dog did?”

Fletcher nodded. “That was for Duff,” he said. “The man on the cliff must have been one of the men who killed his master. He remembered, you see.”

Cynthia Thornton walked quickly forward, dabbed with a handkerchief at Fletcher’s face. “You’re a sight,” she said.

Hoofbeats interrupted her. A group of mounted men swung out of a canyon. The riders pulled up.

Zeb White rose in his stirrups and raised his hat. “Howdy ma’m,” he said to Cynthia.

“Hello, Mr. White.”

“I see you got him,” said White.

“For a while he had me,” Fletcher told him. “But Miss Thornton came along and created a sort of diversion, you might say.”

Cynthia shook her head. “Just out for a ride, Mr. White, and had my gun along to do some target practice. Then, when I saw Shane all trussed up like a turkey for the pan, I decided to do something about it.”

Another of the riders spoke up. “We heard some shooting.”

Fletcher nodded. “There was a little shooting, I guess.”

The man looked at Blair. “Must of shot him up considerable,” he guessed. In reply Fletcher raised his bloody knuckles.

“Find the money on him?” asked White.

“It’s over by the fire. He was bringing it back. Bringing me with it. Was going to claim I was the one who robbed the bank and killed Childress.”

“He can’t claim that, nohow,” said White. “He was the only one that was using a thirty-eight. The rest of you jaspers mixed up in the deal had forty-fives.”

“And a thirty-eight killed Childress,” said one of the other men. “Doc dug the slug out of him.”

“We better be getting back to town,” said White. “Some of you hombres catch up them horses over there and gather up things, includin’ Blair. And that thing over there in the blanket, whatever ‘tis.”

“That’s Blind Johnny,” Fletcher told him.

“Dead?”

Fletcher nodded. “One of the boys had better ride over to Antelope and tell the preacher we’ll be needing him.”

“Sure,” agreed White, heartily. “We got to give Johnny a proper plantin’.” He looked from Fletcher to Cynthia, back again. “Maybe you two might be wantin’ a preacher, too.”

Fletcher grinned. “After awhile, maybe. I’m not making enough to keep myself right now.”

“Shucks,” said White, “I forgot to tell you. We ain’t got no bank now since Childress was gunned. So we’re organizing another one. Need a man we can trust to run it.”

The men sat silent on their horses, watching Fletcher. “We were sort of considerin’ you,” White told him.

Suddenly Fletcher remembered. He put his hand in his inside coat pocket, drew out a bundle of papers. He riffled through them. He grinned at White. “Guess I had a wrong hunch on these,” he said. “I didn’t need them after all.”

“Put them back in your pocket,” White told him. “Collecting them will be part of your new job.”

Cynthia linked her arm through Fletcher’s, smiled at White. “Perhaps,” she said, “we can use that preacher, after all.”