The Rangeland Avenger, Max Brand [top reads .TXT] 📗

her. She's got to make me an accounting of every day she's spent since I last seen her at—"

"At the wedding?" asked Sinclair cruelly.

Cartwright writhed in the chair till it groaned beneath his uneasy weight. "She told you that?"

"Look here," went on Sinclair, assuming a new tone of frank inquiry.
"Let's see if we can't find out why she left you?"

"They ain't any reason—just plain fool woman, that's all."

"But maybe she didn't love you, Cartwright. Did you ever think of that?"

The big man stared. "Not love me? Who would she love, then? Was they anybody in them parts that could bring her as much as I could? Was they anybody that had as good a house as mine, or as much land, or as much cattle? Didn't I take her over the ground and show her what it amounted to? Didn't I offer her her pick of my own string of riding horses?"

"Did you do as much as that?"

"Sure I did. She wouldn't have lacked for nothing."

"You sure must have loved her a lot," insinuated Sinclair. "Must have been plumb foolish about her."

"Oh, I dunno about that. Love is one thing that ain't bothered me none. I got important interests, Sinclair. I'm a business man. And this here marriage was a business proposition. Her dad was a business man, and he fixed it all up for us. It was to tie the two biggest bunches of land together that could be found in them parts. Anyway"—he grinned—"I got the land!"

"And why not let the girl go, then?"

"Why?" asked Cartwright eagerly. "Who wants her? You?"

"Maybe, if you'd let her go."

"Not in a thousand years! She's mine. They ain't no face but hers that I can see opposite to me at the table—not one! Besides, she's mine, and I'm going to keep her—after I've taught her a lesson or two!"

Sinclair wiped his forehead hastily. Eagerness to jump at the throat of the man consumed him. He forced a smile on his thin lips and persistently looked down.

"But think how easy it'd be, Cartwright. Think how easy you could get a divorce on the grounds of desertion."

"And drag all this shame into the courts?"

"They's ways of hushing these here things up. It'd be easy. She wouldn't put up no defense, mostlike. You'd win your case. And if anybody asked questions, they'd simply say she was crazy, and that you was lucky to get rid of her. They wouldn't blame you none. And it wouldn't be no disgrace to be deserted by a crazy woman, would it?"

Cartwright drew back into a shell of opposition. "You talk pretty hot for this."

"Because I'm telling you the way out for both of you."

"I can't see it. She's coming back to me. Nobody else is going to get her. I've set my mind on it!"

"Partner, don't you see that neither of you could ever be happy?"

"Oh, we'd be happy enough. I'd forgive her—after a while."

"Yes, but what about her?"

"About her? Why, curse her, what right has she got to be considered?"

"Cartwright, she doesn't love you."

The bulldog came into the face of Cartwright and contorted it. "Don't she belong to me by law? Ain't she sworn to—"

"Don't" said Sinclair, as if the words strangled him. "Don't say that,
Cartwright, if you please!"

"Why not? You put up a good slick talk, Sinclair. But you don't win. I ain't going to give her up by no divorce. I'm going to keep her. I don't love her enough to want her back, I hate her enough. They's only one way that I'd stop caring about—stop fearing that she'd shame me. And that's by having her six feet underground. But you, Sinclair, you need coin. You're footloose. Suppose you was to take her and bring her to—"

"Don't!" cried Sinclair again. "Don't say it, Cartwright. Think it over again. Have mercy on her, man. She could make some home happy. Are you going to destroy that chance?"

"Say, what kind of talk is this?" asked the big man.

"Now," said Sinclair, "look to your own rotten soul!"

The strength of Cartwright was cut away at the root. The color was struck out of his face as by a mortal blow. "What d'you mean?" he whispered.

"You don't deserve a man's chance, but I'm going to give it to you. Go get your gun, Cartwright!"

Cartwright slunk back in his chair. "Do you mean murder, Sinclair?"

"I mean a fair fight."

"You're a gunman. You been raised and trained for gunfighting. I wouldn't have no chance!"

Sinclair controlled his scorn. "Then I'll fight left-handed. I'm a right-handed man, Cartwright, and I'll take you with my gun in my left hand. That evens us up, I guess."

"No, it don't!"

But with the cry on his lips, the glance of Cartwright flickered past Sinclair. He grew thoughtful, less flabby. He seemed to be calculating his chances as his glance rested on the window.

"All right," he whispered, a fearful eye on Sinclair, as if he feared the latter would change his mind. "Gimme a fair break."

"I'll do it."

Sinclair shifted his gun to his left hand and turned to look at the window which Cartwright had been watching with such intense interest. He had not half turned, however, when a gun barked at his very ear, it seemed, a tongue of flame spat in from the window, there was a crash of glass, and the lamp was snuffed. Some accurate shot had cut the burning wick out of the lamp with his bullet, so nicely placed that, though the lamp reeled, it did not fall.

24

With the spurt of flame, Sinclair leaped back until his shoulders grazed the wall. He crouched beside the massive chest of drawers. It might partially shelter him from fire from the window.

There fell one of those deadly breathing spaces of silence—silence, except for the chattering of the lamp, as it steadied on the table and finally was still. There was a light crunching noise from the opposite side of the room. Cartwright had moved and put his foot on a fragment of the shattered chimney.

Sinclair studied the window. It was a rectangle of dim light, but nothing showed in that frame. He who had fired the shot must have crouched at once, or else have drawn to one side. He waited with his gun poised. Steps were sounding far away in the building, steps which approached rapidly. Voices were calling. Somewhere on the farther side of the room Cartwright must have found the best shelter he could, and Sinclair shrewdly guessed that it would be on the far side of the chest of drawers which faced him.

In the meantime he studied the blank rectangle of the window. Sooner or later the man who stood on the ledge would risk a look into the dark interior; otherwise, he would not be human. And, sure enough, presently the faintest shadow of an outline encroached on the solid rectangle of faint light. Sinclair aimed just to the right and fired. At once there was a splash of red flame and a thundering report from the other side of the room. Cartwright had fired at the flash of Sinclair's gun, and the bullet smashed into the chest beside Sinclair. As for Sinclair's own bullet, it brought only a stifled curse from the window.

"No good, Riley," sang out the voice. "This wall's too thick for a
Colt."

Sinclair had flung himself softly forward on his stomach, his gun in readiness and leveled in the direction of Cartwright. There was the prime necessity. Now heavy footfalls rushed down the hall, and a storm of voices broke in upon him.

At the same time Cartwright's gun spat fire again. The bullet buzzed angrily above Sinclair's head. His own brought a yell of pain, sharp as the yelp of a coyote.

"Keep quiet, Cartwright," ordered the man at the window. "You'll get yourself killed if you keep risking it. Sheriff!"

His voice rose and rang.

"Blow the lock off'n that door. We got him!"

There was an instant reply in the explosion of a gun, the crash of broken metal, the door swung slowly in, admitting a dim twilight into the room. The light showed Sinclair one thing—the dull outlines of Cartwright. He whipped up his gun and then hesitated. It would be murder. He had killed before, but never save in fair fight, standing in a clear light before his enemy. He knew that he could not kill this rat he detested. He thought of the wrecked life of the girl and set his teeth. Still he could not fire.

"Cartwright," he said softly, "I got you covered. Your right hand's on the floor with your gun. Don't raise that hand!"

In the shadow against the wall Cartwright moved, but he obeyed. The revolver still glimmered on the floor.

A new and desperate thought came to Sinclair—to rush straight for the window, shoot down the man on the ledge, and risk the leap to the ground. "Scatter back!" called the man on the ledge.

That settled the last chance of Sinclair. There were guards on the ground, scattered about the house. He could never get out that way.

"Keep out of the light by the door," commanded the man at the window. "And start shooting for the chest of drawers on the left-hand side of the room—and aim low down. It may take time, but we'll get him!"

Obviously the truth of that statement was too clear for Sinclair to deny it. He reviewed his situation with the swift calm of an old gambler. He had tried his desperate coup and had failed. There was nothing to do but accept the failure, or else make a still more desperate effort to rectify his position, risking everything on a final play.

He must get out of the room. The window was hopelessly blocked. There remained the open door, but the hall beyond the door was crowded with men.

Perhaps their very numbers would work against them. Even now they could be heard cautiously maneuvering. They would shoot through the door in his general direction, unaimed shots, with the hope of a chance hit, and eventually they would strike him down. Suppose he were to steal close to the door, leap over the bed, and plunge out among them, his Colt spitting lead and fire.

That unexpected attack would cleave a passage for him. The more he thought of it, the more clearly he saw that the chances of escape to the street were at least one in three. And yet he hesitated. If he made that break two or three innocent men would go down before his bullets, as he sprang out, shooting to kill. He shrank from the thought. He was amazed at himself. Never before had he been so tender of expedients. He had always fought to win—cleanly, but to win. Why was he suddenly remembering that to these men he was an outlaw, fit meat for the first bullet they could send home? Had he been one of them, he would have taken up a position in that very hall just as they were doing.

Slowly, reluctantly, fighting himself as he did it, he shoved his revolver back into his holster and determined to take the chance of that surprise attack, with his empty hands against their guns. If they did not drop him the instant he leaped out, he would be among them, too close for gunplay unless they took the chance of killing their own men.

Keeping his gaze fixed on Cartwright across the room—for the moment he showed his intention, Cartwright would shoot—he maneuvered softly toward the bed. Cartwright turned his head, but made no move to lift his gun. There was a reason. The light from the door fell nearer to the rancher than it did to Sinclair. To Cartwright he must be no more than a shapeless blur.

A gun exploded from the doorway, with only a glint of steel, as the muzzle was shoved around the jamb. The bullet crashed harmlessly into the wall behind him. Another try. The sharp, stifling odor of burned powder began to fill the room, stinging the nostrils of Sinclair. Cartwright was coughing in a stifled fashion on the far side of the room, as if he feared a loud noise would draw a bullet his way.

All at once there was no sound in the hotel, and, as the wave of silence spread, Sinclair was aware that the whole little town was listening,