Sunset Trail Page 17

  He began to cry again, but he managed to blub-ber: “I hated Wyatt so much I didn’t see how it would work out. All I could think of was getting even with him. Now you gotta stop him. You gotta keep Dick Miles from coming into town with him.”

  Matt got to his feet, so furious with Fisher he wanted to reach out and grab him by the throat and strangle him. He had heard Fisher ramble on about how much he hated Wyatt and the Populists, and how everybody would be ruined if Wyatt was reëlected governor, but he had never even dreamed the old man was actually capable of doing anything that would harm Wyatt. Now Matt, thinking of the three men in his house, could and did believe everything that Fisher had said.

  “You fool!” Matt said. “You old fool! Do you know what can happen to Jean and Bud because of your infernal scheming?”

  Fisher didn’t answer. He was crying softly now, his head bobbing back and forth as the tears poured down his cheeks and ran into his mustache and beard.

  “There’s a hundred houses in this town,” Matt raged. “Why did you have to pick mine?”

  “It had the best location,” Fisher mumbled. “Your upstairs window in Nora’s sewing room looks right at the platform where Wyatt is to stand. Stop him, Matt. You got to stop him.”

  “And I’ve got a girl and a boy they can use for hostages,” Matt said in a low tone. “They can kill them to save their hides if it comes to that. I ought to beat you to death, Pete. I ought to drag you out of that chair and break your worthless neck.”

  “I didn’t think,” Fisher moaned. “I got to talking to them rich men in Denver and I was tellin ’em about Wyatt coming here and how easy it would be to shoot him from your upstairs window and the first thing I knew they had it all worked out. I hate Wyatt ’cause he ruined me. I’ve got to beg my wife for money to even buy a drink. Beg her on my hands and knees because I’m broke. I didn’t think about Jean and Bud getting hurt. Or about the dam, either.”

  “My God, you didn’t think.” Matt wheeled to the door, knowing he had to find Corrigan and there was so little time. “You stay right there. Jerry will take care of you. Don’t try to get away.”

  Matt ran out of his office and past Fred Follett and the men lined in front of the teller’s cage. He raced on out of the bank and into the street and pushed and jammed his way through the crowd. He had no idea where to find Corrigan. Probably around the courthouse.

  He asked several men if they had seen Corrigan. None had. Matt worked clear of the crowd and ran along the street toward the courthouse. Then he saw Corrigan in front of the platform talking to Cole Talbot. Most of the band was here now, producing noise but no music.

  Matt yelled: “Jerry!” Again he started jamming his way through the crowd. He yelled-“Jerry!”-a second time, but there was still too much racket for him to be heard. When he reached Corrigan, he grabbed his arm, saying: “I’ve got to see you, Jerry.”

  Irritated, Corrigan wheeled away from Talbot, saw who it was, and nodded. He turned back to Talbot. “I’ll help you later if you need it, Cole.”

  Using their shoulders and elbows to get through the crowd, they forced their way to the street. Matt told Corrigan what Fisher had said, and added: “We’ll go ahead as planned. I’ll take the money at noon, but you’ve got to saddle up and ride out to meet Dick Miles. I don’t care what you tell them, but keep them from coming into town. As far as anybody else goes, we’ll keep mum about the assassination scheme.”

  Corrigan’s pulse was pounding in his temples. He Corrigan’s pulse was pounding in his temples. He said: “Matt, Wyatt won’t be easy to stop. He may give us a little extra time, but I don’t figure he’ll stay out of town all afternoon while we figure out what to do.”

  “I’m sure he won’t,” Matt said. “He’s a stubborn old man and he’s got more’n his share of guts. Make him give us half an hour. I’ll have a gun when I go into the house. You be in the barn. I’ll start the ball if I get an opening, and you can give me a hand from the back. I don’t know how it’ll work out, so we’ll have to play our cards the way they fall, but we can’t just sit tight. We’ve got to get at ’em some way, and I can get into the house with the money without making a fuss.”

  Corrigan didn’t like it and showed it in his face. He said: “They’ll kill you, Matt.”

  “Then I’ll be dead,” Matt said irritably. “It’s a price I’m willing to pay to save Jean. The governor, too, but I don’t know about Bud. I wish to hell I did, but we haven’t got time to find out about him.”

  “All right,” Corrigan said, and wheeled and ran toward the livery stable.

  Matt returned to the bank, walking slowly. He felt whipped, and he had little faith that his plan would do any good, but there seemed to be nothing else he could do. Fisher had been right about his standing still for a bank robbery, but he couldn’t stand still for the governor to be murdered.

  He went into the bank and walked on back to his office, then he saw that Uncle Pete Fisher was gone.

  XXI

  I wait, Bud Dugan told himself over and over. I’ve got to wait till that she-devil quits and runs for it.

  She would, he knew. He watched her pace back and forth in the soddy, go to the door and look down the slope toward Amity, then turn and pace some more. All the time her face and neck grew redder and redder, her breathing louder and louder until she was practically panting.

  She’ll blow up pretty soon, Bud thought. She’ll scream like a stepped-on cat and go running out of here to the shed. She’ll saddle up and hightail out of the country.

  Still she stayed. He sat on the bed and watched every move she made, and all the time he was thinking of his mother and Jean in the house with three killers. He knew his mother was scheduled to help Hannah Talbot with the sandwiches. If she told the outlaws, they’d probably let her go and tell her to keep her mouth shut, but the chances were they’d keep Jean in the house and he couldn’t bear to think what they might do to her during the morning.

  In spite of all he could do, tears ran down his cheeks. He was remembering that he was supposed to help Cole Talbot with the tables. Cole was kind of a mean man, and he’d be sore because Bud hadn’t showed up. He’d go to the bank and ask where Bud was. Bud wondered what his dad would say.

  Hard to tell what Jerry Corrigan would do, too. He was no fool. If he caught on to what was happening, and Bud figured he would, he might let his temper go and sail into the house with his gun in his hand and start shooting. He’d get killed, and then Jean would be killed.

  Bud wiped a sleeve across his eyes. Here he was, sitting on the bed in Uncle Pete Fisher’s soddy. He could put a stop to the whole business if he could get away. No, he couldn’t stop the whole business, but he could tell Jerry, and Jerry would know what to do if he thought about it. He guessed Jerry would know what to do about anything as long as his temper didn’t make him go off half cocked.

  He wiped his sweaty face, his gaze never leaving Dolly as she prowled around the room like an oversize cat. Several times he tensed his muscles to jump her if she came close enough to him, then he always relaxed, reminding himself that it would be certain suicide. He wouldn’t free Jean by getting himself killed.

  But time was running out. From inside the soddy he couldn’t see the sun, but it had to be close to noon. Whatever was going to happen would be happening before very many more minutes passed. He couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Uncle Pete Fisher used to tell us kids about the lynchings he had seen in Denver,” Bud said, his voice high-pitched and excited. “He said their necks got real long as their bodies fell. . . .”

  “Kid, I told you to shut your big mouth.” Dolly “Kid, I told you to shut your big mouth.” Dolly wheeled on him, her big fists clenched, her face going ugly from the fury that swept over her. “You keep that up and I’ll bust you a good one.”

  “And their faces turned purple,” he went on. “He said their tongues were sticking out of their mouths something awful. He told us it made him throw up, it was so horrible. I
got to thinking about you. . . .”

  She rushed toward him and hit him on the side of the head, a powerful blow that knocked him flat on his back across the bed. She grabbed up the thongs she had used to tie him early that morning and yanked both hands in front of him. She tied his wrists, then lashed the other thong around his ankles. She was trembling, her face so red it was almost purple.

  “I’m going to the shed and saddle my horse, so I’ll be ready to get out of here as soon as they come!” she yelled as she picked up the shotgun and revolver from the table. “Maybe you’ll get loose again, but you’d better stay right here if you do. I’ll blow your damned head off if you don’t.”

  She ran out of the soddy. He told himself she was bluffing. She wasn’t staying here waiting for the men to come, but knowing that didn’t help much. He strained at the thong that bound his wrists, but he couldn’t get enough slack to free his hands.

  Time, he kept telling himself. He didn’t have time to lie here all day, but he couldn’t untie the knot with his teeth. He tried. He just couldn’t get a solid bite on the thong to pull the knot loose, then he realized that the rawhide was stretching, that he had more slack than he’d had a moment before.

  Within two or three minutes his hands were free. It took only a few more seconds to untie his ankles. He ran to the door, thinking he would get his horse and light out for town, then he stopped. Maybe the woman was out there at the shed. He hadn’t heard her ride away, but it didn’t prove anything because he’d been so intent on getting free that he probably wouldn’t have heard a company of cavalry ride past.

  He slipped along the front of the sod house, reached the corner, and peered around it, showing as little of himself as possible. Dolly wasn’t in sight. Neither were the horses. She had taken his horse, too.

  Dolly wasn’t on the slope above the shed, so she must have made it over the brow of the hill to the north. He glanced at the sun. It wasn’t quite noon, he thought, but it was close. He started to run down the slope toward Amity, sick with the paralyzing fear that he would not be in time.

  He heard the band playing “Turkey in the Straw” before he reached the first house. He was out of breath; he staggered and fell, and for a short time lay motionlessly on the ground, laboring for air, then he got back on his feet and ran more slowly toward his house.

  He didn’t know where to look for Jerry and he didn’t have time to run all over town. He still didn’t know who was to be murdered; he didn’t know what he could do to get Jean out of the house, but maybe he could do something. Then a thought sent a chill down his back. Maybe he was too late. Maybe it was all over by now.

  He reached the barn behind his house and slipped inside quickly. If any of the outlaws had been looking out of the kitchen window, they would have seen him, but it was a chance he had to take if he was going to get into the barn, and it was the only place where he could hide and still watch the house.

  Bud pulled the door shut. The three horses were in the first three stalls, so it wasn’t over with, but he couldn’t guess how much time was left. Now he was here, he didn’t know what to do. He had no weapon. What could an unarmed fourteen-year-old boy do against three killers?

  He had been stupid even to dream that he might think of something. He had to go after Jerry whether he had time or not, had to find him and bring him here. He would think of something. Jerry would get Jean out of the house.

  He started back toward the door, then stopped to glance through the cobweb-covered window. He froze. He was too late. They must have seen him.

  Sammy had stepped through the back door and was crossing the yard toward the barn.

  XXII

  Corrigan took the Burlington road out of town, pushing his horse as hard as he could. He knew it would be touch and go, that it was almost twelve now and the tension would be tightening the nerves of the three outlaws in the Dugan house.

  He wasn’t sure he could make it back in time to be in the barn when Matt came into the house with the money. Alone, Matt would have no chance at all if he tried to smoke it out with the outlaws, but the fat would be in the fire and they’d be sure to take Jean with them.

  Then he saw Dick Miles’s rig top the ridge ahead of him and he breathed a little easier. Maybe luck was running his way now. He kept on up the road, holding his right hand over his head for the rig to stop. It kept coming and he motioned wildly. For a minute he thought Miles was going to run him down, but he finally stopped, yanking the horses back on their haunches and slamming on his brake.

  “Get out of the way, Corrigan!” Miles bawled furiously. “I figured I was gonna make it to town by the skin of my teeth, and here you are holding me up.”

  Aman with a white beard sat in the back seat beside a smooth-shaven young man. Both had rifles, and both seemed a little uncertain about whether they should start shooting or not. The bearded man would be Governor Ben Wyatt, but Corrigan had no idea who the other one was.

  “Who is he?” Wyatt asked.

  “The sheriff,” Miles answered. “Jerry Corrigan.”

  “Well, young man,” Wyatt said, “we were stopped once before this morning by three men who intended to shoot me. Why are you stopping us?”

  “I’m trying to keep you from getting shot,” Corrigan “I’m trying to keep you from getting shot,” Corrigan said quickly. “I haven’t got much time to explain it to you, but Matt Dugan’s family’s safety is involved. Matt’s, too, if I don’t get back in a hurry. Just a few minutes ago we learned of a conspiracy to murder you when you get on the platform and start speaking.”

  Miles’s expression showed he didn’t believe it. He snorted: “Come off it, Corrigan. Matt’s family would be. . . .”

  “I told you we should never have come here!” the young man beside Wyatt shouted. “We should have got on the train in Burlington and gone back to Denver.”

  “I figure this one is a lot of hogwash, Governor,” Miles said, “though I can’t see what Corrigan’s up to.”

  “Shut up, Miles,” Corrigan said angrily. “I don’t know why you’re talking that way. All I want to do is to save the governor’s life. I’m asking you to stay here for at least half an hour. Matt and me think that’ll give us time to clean the outlaws. . . .”

  “Hold on, Sheriff,” Wyatt interrupted. “I’ve got something to say. Tom, we’re not going back. I keep telling you that, and you keep talking about going back. Now then, Miles, do you know the sheriff pretty well?”

  “Yeah, I know him, all right,” Miles said grudgingly. “He’s a purty fair lawman for a young buck, but there’s some cowmen around Amity who don’t want this dam project to be finished up. This might be their scheme to keep. . . .”

  “My God, Miles,” Corrigan said, “I knew you weren’t smart, but I didn’t think you were an idiot. I’m not going to stay here arguing. I’ve got to get back to town because Matt’s heading for his house in a few minutes and he’ll get shot all to hell if I ain’t there to give him a hand.”

  “How did you hear about this conspiracy?” Wyatt asked, still unconvinced.

  “An old man named Pete Fisher was in on it,” Corrigan said. “I mean, it was Denver men who put it together, but Fisher was the one who told ’em about you coming and how easy it would be to shoot you from the front upstairs window of the Dugan house. He got religion this morning. Claimed he was sorry he ever got into it, so he told Matt all about it and wants it stopped. He’d been drinking enough for his tongue to be oiled up good. Matt had put up three strangers in his house since midnight, but they told him it was a scheme to rob the bank.”

  Wyatt nodded, obviously believing Corrigan’s story now. “It makes sense. We received a warning to stay out of Amity. It’s my guess Fisher sent it. When the time grew near for me to arrive, he got cold feet. I know Fisher and I know what he thinks of me, but I can understand why he wanted it stopped. He’s not a killer. I think I know the Denver men you mention. They are killers. I suspect we’ll find their names in Fisher’s house and we
’ll have them arrested.”

  “Then you’ll stay here for half an hour?” Corrigan demanded.

  “We will stay a few minutes,” Wyatt said stubbornly. “Not half an hour. I don’t have that much time, and I don’t want to disappoint the Amity people by keeping them waiting. If you haven’t arrested these men by the time we reach town, I won’t get up on the platform. I’ll just. . . .”

  “All right,” Corrigan said, and whirled his horse and dug in the steel.

  Time, he thought. Somehow Miles and the governor just couldn’t understand how much each second counted. He should have ridden off and let them do what they pleased as soon as he had warned them, but, no, he’d waited until he had Wyatt’s assurance they’d stay there for a while.

  Matt would say he’d done right, that Wyatt had to be persuaded to stay because his life was the important one, but Corrigan would never agree to that. If any life was more important than the others’, it was Jean’s.

  Well, it was too late now to change what he’d done. As he rocketed down the slope and into the alley that ran behind the Dugan house, he glanced at the sun. If it wasn’t high noon, it was within minutes of it. He didn’t know just when Matt would take the money to the house, and, of course, there was no way of knowing how long the men would wait for the governor to show up.

  Corrigan pulled his horse to a stop and dismounted. He turned the animal into a corral belonging to one of Matt’s neighbors. He didn’t want to stir up any dust or ride his horse back of the Dugan house. One of the men might be watching the alley from the kitchen window. It wouldn’t take much to trigger an explosion if the outlaws were as jumpy by this time as he expected them to be.