The Octopus, Frank Norris [books you need to read txt] 📗

his long beard, added:

“No—no—no violence, no UNNECESSARY violence, that is. I should hate to have innocent blood on my hands—that is, if it IS innocent. I don’t know, that S. Behrman—ah, he is a—a—surely he had innocent blood on HIS head. That Dyke affair, terrible, terrible; but then Dyke WAS in the wrong—driven to it, though; the Railroad did drive him to it. I want to be fair and just to everybody”

“There’s a team coming up the road from Los Muertos,” announced Presley from the door.

“Fair and just to everybody,” murmured old Broderson, wagging his head, frowning perplexedly. “I don’t want to—to—to harm anybody unless they harm me.”

“Is the team going towards Guadalajara?” enquired Garnett, getting up and coming to the door.

“Yes, it’s a Portuguese, one of the garden truck men.”

“We must turn him back,” declared Osterman. “He can’t go through here. We don’t want him to take any news on to the marshal and S. Behrman.”

“I’ll turn him back,” said Presley.

He rode out towards the market cart, and the others, watching from the road in front of Hooven’s, saw him halt it. An excited interview followed. They could hear the Portuguese expostulating volubly, but in the end he turned back.

“Martial law on Los Muertos, isn’t it?” observed Osterman. “Steady all,” he exclaimed as he turned about, “here comes Harran.”

Harran rode up at a gallop. The others surrounded him.

“I saw them,” he cried. “They are coming this way. S. Behrman and Ruggles are in a two-horse buggy. All the others are on horseback. There are eleven of them. Christian and Delaney are with them. Those two have rifles. I left Hooven watching them.”

“Better call in Gethings and Cutter right away,” said Annixter. “We’ll need all our men.”

“I’ll call them in,” Presley volunteered at once. “Can I have the buckskin? My pony is about done up.”

He departed at a brisk gallop, but on the way met Gethings and Cutter returning. They, too, from their elevated position, had observed the marshal’s party leaving Guadalajara by the Lower Road. Presley told them of the decision of the Leaguers not to fire until fired upon.

“All right,” said Gethings. “But if it comes to a gun-fight, that means it’s all up with at least one of us. Delaney never misses his man.”

When they reached Hooven’s again, they found that the Leaguers had already taken their position in the ditch. The plank bridge across it had been torn up. Magnus, two long revolvers lying on the embankment in front of him, was in the middle, Harran at his side. On either side, some five feet intervening between each man, stood the other Leaguers, their revolvers ready. Dabney, the silent old man, had taken off his coat.

“Take your places between Mr. Osterman and Mr. Broderson,” said Magnus, as the three men rode up. “Presley,” he added, “I forbid you to take any part in this affair.”

“Yes, keep him out of it,” cried Annixter from his position at the extreme end of the line. “Go back to Hooven’s house, Pres, and look after the horses,” he added. “This is no business of yours. And keep the road behind us clear. Don’t let ANY ONE come near, not ANY ONE, understand?”

Presley withdrew, leading the buckskin and the horses that Gethings and Cutter had ridden. He fastened them under the great live oak and then came out and stood in the road in front of the house to watch what was going on.

In the ditch, shoulder deep, the Leaguers, ready, watchful, waited in silence, their eyes fixed on the white shimmer of the road leading to Guadalajara.

“Where’s Hooven?” enquired Cutter.

“I don’t know,” Osterman replied. “He was out watching the Lower Road with Harran Derrick. Oh, Harran,” he called, “isn’t Hooven coming in?”

“I don’t know what he is waiting for,” answered Harran. “He was to have come in just after me. He thought maybe the marshal’s party might make a feint in this direction, then go around by the Upper Road, after all. He wanted to watch them a little longer. But he ought to be here now.”

“Think he’ll take a shot at them on his own account?”

“Oh, no, he wouldn’t do that.”

“Maybe they took him prisoner.”

“Well, that’s to be thought of, too.”

Suddenly there was a cry. Around the bend of the road in front of them came a cloud of dust. From it emerged a horse’s head.

“Hello, hello, there’s something.”

“Remember, we are not to fire first.”

“Perhaps that’s Hooven; I can’t see. Is it? There only seems to be one horse.”

“Too much dust for one horse.”

Annixter, who had taken his field glasses from Harran, adjusted them to his eyes.

“That’s not them,” he announced presently, “nor Hooven either. That’s a cart.” Then after another moment, he added, “The butcher’s cart from Guadalajara.”

The tension was relaxed. The men drew long breaths, settling back in their places.

“Do we let him go on, Governor?”

“The bridge is down. He can’t go by and we must not let him go back. We shall have to detain him and question him. I wonder the marshal let him pass.”

The cart approached at a lively trot.

“Anybody else in that cart, Mr. Annixter?” asked Magnus. “Look carefully. It may be a ruse. It is strange the marshal should have let him pass.”

The Leaguers roused themselves again. Osterman laid his hand on his revolver.

“No,” called Annixter, in another instant, “no, there’s only one man in it.”

The cart came up, and Cutter and Phelps, clambering from the ditch, stopped it as it arrived in front of the party.

“Hey—what—what?” exclaimed the young butcher, pulling up. “Is that bridge broke?”

But at the idea of being held, the boy protested at top voice, badly frightened, bewildered, not knowing what was to happen next.

“No, no, I got my meat to deliver. Say, you let me go. Say, I ain’t got nothing to do with you.”

He tugged at the reins, trying to turn the cart about. Cutter, with his jack-knife, parted the reins just back of the bit.

“You’ll stay where you are, m’ son, for a while. We’re not going to hurt you. But you are not going back to town till we say so. Did you pass anybody on the road out of town?”

In reply to the Leaguers’ questions, the young butcher at last told them he had passed a two-horse buggy and a lot of men on horseback just beyond the railroad tracks. They were headed for Los Muertos.

“That’s them, all right,” muttered Annixter. “They’re coming by this road, sure.”

The butcher’s horse and cart were led to one side of the road, and the horse tied to the fence with one of the severed lines. The butcher, himself, was passed over to Presley, who locked him in Hooven’s barn.

“Well, what the devil,” demanded Osterman, “has become of Bismarck?”

In fact, the butcher had seen nothing of Hooven. The minutes were passing, and still he failed to appear.

“What’s he up to, anyways?”

“Bet you what you like, they caught him. Just like that crazy Dutchman to get excited and go too near. You can always depend on Hooven to lose his head.”

Five minutes passed, then ten. The road towards Guadalajara lay empty, baking and white under the sun.

“Well, the marshal and S. Behrman don’t seem to be in any hurry, either.”

“Shall I go forward and reconnoitre, Governor?” asked Harran.

But Dabney, who stood next to Annixter, touched him on the shoulder and, without speaking, pointed down the road. Annixter looked, then suddenly cried out:

“Here comes Hooven.”

The German galloped into sight, around the turn of the road, his rifle laid across his saddle. He came on rapidly, pulled up, and dismounted at the ditch.

“Dey’re commen,” he cried, trembling with excitement. “I watch um long dime bei der side oaf der roadt in der busches. Dey shtop bei der gate oder side der relroadt trecks and talk long dime mit one n’udder. Den dey gome on. Dey’re gowun sure do zum monkey-doodle pizeness. Me, I see Gritschun put der kertridges in his guhn. I tink dey gowun to gome MY blace first. Dey gowun to try put me off, tek my home, bei Gott.”

“All right, get down in here and keep quiet, Hooven. Don’t fire unless–-”

“Here they are.”

A half-dozen voices uttered the cry at once.

There could be no mistake this time. A buggy, drawn by two horses, came into view around the curve of the road. Three riders accompanied it, and behind these, seen at intervals in a cloud of dust were two—three—five—six others.

This, then, was S. Behrman with the United States marshal and his posse. The event that had been so long in preparation, the event which it had been said would never come to pass, the last trial of strength, the last fight between the Trust and the People, the direct, brutal grapple of armed men, the law defied, the Government ignored, behold, here it was close at hand.

Osterman cocked his revolver, and in the profound silence that had fallen upon the scene, the click was plainly audible from end to end of the line.

“Remember our agreement, gentlemen,” cried Magnus, in a warning voice. “Mr. Osterman, I must ask you to let down the hammer of your weapon.”

No one answered. In absolute quiet, standing motionless in their places, the Leaguers watched the approach of the marshal.

Five minutes passed. The riders came on steadily. They drew nearer. The grind of the buggy wheels in the grit and dust of the road, and the prolonged clatter of the horses’ feet began to make itself heard. The Leaguers could distinguish the faces of their enemies.

In the buggy were S. Behrman and Cyrus Ruggles, the latter driving. A tall man in a frock coat and slouched hat—the marshal, beyond question—rode at the left of the buggy; Delaney, carrying a Winchester, at the right. Christian, the real estate broker, S. Behrman’s cousin, also with a rifle, could be made out just behind the marshal. Back of these, riding well up, was a group of horsemen, indistinguishable in the dust raised by the buggy’s wheels.

Steadily the distance between the Leaguers and the posse diminished.

“Don’t let them get too close, Governor,” whispered Harran.

When S. Behrman’s buggy was about one hundred yards distant from the irrigating ditch, Magnus sprang out upon the road, leaving his revolvers behind him. He beckoned Garnett and Gethings to follow, and the three ranchers, who, with the exception of Broderson, were the oldest men present, advanced, without arms, to meet the marshal.

Magnus cried aloud:

“Halt where you are.”

From their places in the ditch, Annixter, Osterman, Dabney, Harran, Hooven, Broderson, Cutter, and Phelps, their hands laid upon their revolvers, watched silently, alert, keen, ready for anything.

At the Governor’s words, they saw Ruggles pull sharply on the reins. The buggy came to a standstill, the riders doing likewise. Magnus approached the marshal, still followed by Garnett and Gethings, and began to speak. His voice was audible to the men in the ditch, but his words could not be made out. They heard the marshal reply quietly enough and the two shook hands. Delaney came around from the side of the buggy, his horse standing before the team across the road. He leaned from the saddle, listening to what was being said, but made no remark. From time to time, S. Behrman and Ruggles, from their seats in the buggy, interposed a sentence or two into the conversation, but at first, so far as the Leaguers could discern, neither Magnus nor the marshal paid them any attention. They saw, however, that the latter repeatedly shook his head and once they heard him exclaim in a loud voice:

“I only