Sunset Trail Page 9

  The two men were silent, waiting for Nora to answer the question, but all she could do was to nod. The small man said: “Believe me, Missus Dugan, we have no wish to harm you. All we ask is that you obey orders. Is your husband home?”

  Again she tried to speak, but she still could not make a word come out of her mouth. She had always been a strong, self-reliant woman. Ara nch wife had to be and she had prided herself on being a good one, but now her insides were jelly. She shook her head and was ashamed that fear had so completely possessed her.

  “All right, we’ll talk to him when he gets here,” the man said. “Let’s go into your front room and sit down. Remember that we will not hurt you or any of your family if you co-operate. You are an attractive woman and I understand that your daughter is equally attractive, but let me repeat what I said. We will not touch either of you unless you force us to.”

  She walked into the front room and sat down in her rocking chair, her legs feeling as if they were stilts. Both of her legs and arms were cold, even though her face was damp with perspiration. The small man dropped into the black leather couch that was across the room from Nora, but the big one stood a few feet away, his gaze fixed on her.

  “I’m John Smith,” the small man said, smiling slightly. “You’ve never heard of me, but you have heard of my friend.” He nodded at the big man. “His name is Ross Hart.” He stopped, apparently expecting her to be impressed, or frightened. The name did sound vaguely familiar, but she could not pin an identity to it.

  “You and your husband sleep downstairs,” Smith said. “Upstairs you have two bedrooms and a sewing room which is next to the street and looks out on the park that surrounds the courthouse. One of these bedrooms is occupied by your daughter Jean, the other by your son Bud. Am I right?”

  She was breathing easier, her heart had dropped back to its normal position, and she had begun to believe he meant it when he’d said that they did not intend to hurt her or her family. Now her curiosity began to work, and she asked: “How do you know so much about us?”

  She did not recognize her own voice, but at least she was able to speak. She felt a prickle slide down her spine. She glanced at Hart and saw that his pale blue eyes were pinned on her. She looked away, but still she felt his gaze. She sensed something unspeakably evil about the man as if he were an animal who was disguised as a man.

  “Never mind how we know.” Smith laughed softly. “You will find that we know a great deal about you and your family, Missus Dugan. Now then, where is Bud?”

  “In bed asleep.”

  “Jean?”

  “She’s out buggy riding with the sheriff.” Nora clenched her fists and leaned forward. “He’ll bring her home any minute. If you know what’s good for you, you will both get out of here before he does.”

  “Now why should we do that?” Smith asked.

  “Because if you’re still here when he comes in, I’ll have him arrest you.”

  “No, I wouldn’t advise that, Missus Dugan,” Smith said. “That sort of talk will get you hurt. If he does come into the house, you will introduce us as your cousins from the western slope who unexpectedly dropped in on you. You don’t have room for us, but you’ll put us up some way because every room in town is taken. Is that right?”

  “Yes, but he won’t believe that.”

  “It’s up to you to lie so well that he does believe you. I want to be honest with you and Mister Dugan when he gets here. You have a choice. You can cooperate and you will not be hurt, or you can get your family killed. It’s that simple. Your sheriff may be hell on high, red wheels, but he can’t handle both of us.”

  She wiped her face with her handkerchief. It wasn’t just the heat that was making her perspire. It was fear. Her heart was in her throat again. She believed this man Smith. He was soft-spoken and courteous, but it was only a veneer. She felt a ruthlessness about him that was almost as terrifying as the animal-like evil she had sensed in Ross Hart.

  “Good,” Smith said when she nodded. “You have made the right choice. I hope you will stay with it. One more thing. When will your husband be home?”

  “I thought he’d be home before this,” she said in a low tone.

  “Then he should be along any time,” Smith said. “Ross, take one of the lamps and go upstairs. See how her sewing room looks.”

  Hart picked up a lamp that was on the oak center table and climbed the stairs, his rifle still in his right hand. Nora hunched forward, her small hands tightly clenched. She wondered if she could lunge across the room and reach Smith before he could draw his gun. She had not really made her choice.

  She did not know what they intended to do, but death might be far better than what would happen if these men had their way with her. When she remembered the expression on Hart’s face, she knew she would prefer death, but then she thought of Matt and Jean and Bud, and she realized the choice was not hers to make.

  VI

  Matt angled across a corner of the park on his way home, pausing for a moment beside the platform from which the governor would speak tomorrow. He tried, but he could not free his mind of what Uncle Pete Fisher had said.

  Suppose the governor was shot while he was here? It would give Amity a black eye whether the people of Amity had anything to do with it or not. What was worse, it would probably arouse public sentiment to such a wild fury that it would kill the dam project.

  He went on toward his house, telling himself that at least he would talk to Jerry Corrigan. They could watch out for an assassin. Maybe they could stop him in time, and he knew at once this was foolish thinking. The murder would be committed, the crowd would be thrown into an uproar with no one being sure what had happened, and in the chaos that was bound to follow the killer would probably get away.

  Matt crossed the street to the gate in the picket fence in front of his house, gloomily making note of the fact that the lamps in the front room were still lighted. He sighed, telling himself he had known all the time that Nora would stay up until he came home, even though she needed the sleep as much as he did.

  As usual the gate squealed when it was opened. The sound irritated him. He had told Bud a dozen times to oil the hinges, but the boy could think of a number of things he’d rather do, with the result that the gate still squealed. Maybe it was a good idea to keep the gate that way. It warned people who were in the house that someone was coming.

  One thing was sure. Jean couldn’t slip in at two o’clock in the morning and then blandly brag about being so quiet that no one heard her come in at only half past twelve. It wasn’t really important. Jean would be married and gone in a month. Nora worried about the girl, but that was a natural fault of any mother.

  Matt smiled as he walked up the path to his front door. He had a mental picture of Jean: a tow- headed girl who loved to ride and romp with Bud and could still hold her own with him in a tussle. He found it hard to accept the fact that she had become a young lady old enough and mature enough to marry Jerry Corrigan. Matt would be thirty-nine in another year, a year that would probably make him a grandfather. He grimaced at the thought.

  He opened the front screen and stepped inside, pausing to hang his hat on the hall tree. Nora told him he ought to start wearing a derby, that it was more fitting for a banker than the sweat-stained old Stetson that had been bucked off his head and been down in the manure of a corral more than once. It was a carry-over from his ranching days, and like his worn boots it was so comfortable that he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away.

  Matt went into the front room, knowing that Nora would be sitting there waiting for him. She would be angry, but he’d get around her some way. He opened his mouth to apologize to her, but the apology was never made.

  The instant Matt appeared in the doorway, Nora lunged out of her chair and charged across the room at a strange man who was sitting on the couch, her hands in front of her as if she had every intention of clawing his eyes out.

  Matt had no idea who the man was or why he was here, or
even what Nora was trying to do. He took one more step, moving automatically, and stopped as the man rose and slapped Nora on the side of the face, a hard blow that rocked her head and sent her reeling halfway back toward her chair.

  For an instant Matt was paralyzed, completely dumbfounded by the scene he had stumbled into, a scene he would never expect to see in his own front room. Then he recovered. He yelled an oath and dived at the man, filled with an insane desire to kill the stranger with his hands. He was still ten feet away when something crashed against his head sending him to his knees, Nora’s scream ringing in his ears.

  For a good part of a minute Matt stayed on his knees, blood dribbling down the side of his face. He wasn’t unconscious, but he wasn’t fully conscious, either. Nora’s screams seemed to run on and on. He couldn’t get up, and yet he somehow managed to keep from falling forward on his face. He wanted to smash the man who had struck Nora, but he couldn’t move.

  “I warned you not to do anything like that, Missus Dugan,” the man said. “I told Sammy to stay in the kitchen out of sight just on the chance you might be foolish, and you were. I hope you have learned your lesson. If you haven’t, some people you love will get killed.”

  “He’s hurt,” Nora said. “Help me get him to the couch so he can lie down.”

  “Give her a hand, Sammy,” the man said. “If there is any more trouble, my gun is the one that will be used. My gun is for shooting, Missus Dugan. I do not club people on the head with it.”

  Matt heard the talk, but the words seemed to be floating to him from a great distance. His head felt as if someone were pounding on it in a steady rhythm.

  They lifted him to his feet, Nora on one side, the man who had slugged him on the other. The room tipped and turned in front of him as he staggered the few feet to the couch. He lay down, the incessant beating on his head not stopping even for a moment.

  “Let me get a wet cloth on his head,” Nora said. “Please.”

  “You brought this on, Missus Dugan,” the man said. “I told you, when I first came in, I had no desire to hurt you or your family. If you could really understand that, and make up your mind to cooperate, we’ll get along a lot better.”

  “I understand it now,” Nora said. “Will you please let me go to the kitchen and get a wet cloth?”

  “Of course,” the man said. “Go with her, Sammy. We can’t trust her after what she just did. If she tries anything foolish again, shoot her.”

  This must be a nightmare, Matt thought. It couldn’t be happening, not in Amity where a drunken brawl was the most disturbing thing that ever happened. Or in his own home where an argument between Jean and Bud about Bud’s getting out of the parlor when Jean and Jerry wanted to sit there, or about who was going to help Nora with the dishes was the worst that he could imagine.

  He sat up and fell back at once, the pain in his head so agonizing that he had to clench his teeth to keep from crying out. He heard a groan and felt foolish when he realized he was the one who had made the sound. If he only knew what was going on-if he had a gun-if Jean would get back and bring Jerry into the house. But it was all wishful thinking. The fact was they were in one hell of a tight fix.

  Nora knelt beside the couch and wiped the blood from his face, then she laid the wet cloth across his forehead. “Honey,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know there were three of them. One went upstairs and I thought there was just this one man down here. I tried to . . . oh, I should have done what he told me.”

  “That’s right,” the man said, standing behind her. “You forgot what I told you about Ross, that if you made trouble down here, he’d kill Bud. This was close, Missus Dugan. If Sammy hadn’t nailed your husband the second he did, Bud would be dead and you would have nobody but yourself to blame.”

  “I told you I learned my lesson,” Nora said.

  She tried to choke back a sob, but she could not. She sat on the floor beside the couch, a handkerchief to her eyes. The man waited for a few seconds, staring at her as if not quite sure of her yet, then he said: “All right, Missus Dugan, we’ll go on that basis.”

  He stood over Matt, scratching his nose, his forehead furrowed. After a moment’s silence, he said: “Can you hear me and understand what I’m saying, Dugan? I know your head hurts like hell, but we’ve got some things to talk about. The sooner you get this deal straightened out in your mind, the better.”

  Matt heard, but his head was still pounding. Nora had not moved from where she sat on the floor. Apparently Bud was asleep upstairs. Matt figured Jean was still out with Jerry. When they got back, Jerry might come into the house with her. He usually did just for a minute. That could be the only chance they had to get these men off their backs.

  A bluff might work, Matt thought. “You’d better clear out before the sheriff comes in with our daughter,” he said.

  The man laughed. “Your wife tried that, Dugan. Your head’s too thick for you to figure things out, so I’ll figure them out for you. Your boy, Bud, is asleep upstairs. Our friend, Ross Hart, is also upstairs. If you or your wife or your sheriff upsets our little apple cart, the boy dies. I’m going upstairs to look around. Now you just lie there and think about what I said. Maybe your head will ache a hell of a lot worse after you get done thinking.”

  He left after telling Sammy to watch them. Matt closed his eyes. He heard the rumble of talk from upstairs, and even though he still wasn’t able to keep his mind focused on what was happening or on what might be a way out of their trouble, one thing came clear. If he tipped off Jerry and Jerry jumped these men, Bud would die. That, of all things, must not happen.

  VII

  Matt lost all sense of time. He lay on the couch with the wet cloth over his eyes, the pounding in his head gradually becoming less violent. Nora had not moved from where she sat on the floor beside the couch.

  He did not open his eyes until he heard the man say: “All right, Dugan. Are you able to listen to me?”

  He looked at the man, rolling his head just a little on the cushion. Even that slight movement started the racketing in his head again. He guessed that the man had not been upstairs more than five minutes, but he knew he had to listen, had to figure out some way to fool Jean and Jerry Corrigan when they came in.

  “Go ahead,” Matt said.

  “Good,” the man said. “My name is John Smith. The young man who hit you is Sammy Bean. You have never heard of us, but you have heard of Ross Hart, who is upstairs. He’s a killer, Dugan. We all are, if necessary, but Sammy’s young and I don’t like killing. I hate to even kill an animal. Real chickenhearted, you might say.”

  Matt stared past Smith at the young fellow who had hit him. He was hardly a man, although Matt could not guess his age. His beardless face was almost girlish. He was average height and thin, with fine features and a knife-lipped mouth that held a smirking grin.

  “No use to lie to him,” Sammy Bean said. “I’m as much of a killer as Ross. I ain’t as old. That’s all.”

  John Smith nodded. “That’s right, Sammy. Give yourself a year or two and you’ll have as many notches on your gun as Ross has. What I’m trying to tell you, Dugan, is a simple equation of time and space. I have said this before and I will say it again because it is of life and death importance to you. I don’t want to hurt any of you. At the risk of boring you, I’m being repetitious. Is that clear?”

  “It’s clear,” Matt said.

  “Now, then. Ross Hart is upstairs. Your boy, Bud, is asleep upstairs. If the sheriff comes in with your daughter, and if you get the idea through to him that you’re in trouble, he will draw his gun and he’ll die. So will you, but regardless of what happens to you or the sheriff or your women, the boy will die the instant Ross hears a shot from down here. I should explain that I really don’t give a damn whether your family lives or dies, but I am very anxious that our plan succeeds. That’s why I don’t want any shots fired. It’s to our interest as well as yours that you cooperate all the way.”

  “We wil
l,” Matt said, “but if you’ve gone to all this trouble to rob us. . . .”

  “Save your energy, Dugan,” Smith said. “We did not go to all this trouble just to rob you. You won’t like what we’re going to do. That’s why I have said repeatedly that your lives depend on your cooperation. If you fully understand that, I’m hopeful that you will co-operate even though you hate like hell to do it.”

  Matt reached down beside the couch and took Nora’s hand. He still had no idea what kind of a devil’s scheme Smith had planned, but he was convinced that these men were not bluffing. He was unable at the moment to identify the name Ross Hart, but he had read about the man in the newspaper. Sooner or later he would remember what he had read.

  He glanced at Sammy Bean who stood behind Smith, grinning like an idiot. Matt couldn’t tell whether he was average bright or short on brains, but one thing was sure-Sammy’s brag about being as much of a killer as Ross Hart was true.

  “We’ll co-operate,” Matt said.

  “I think I just heard a buggy in the street,” Smith said. “It might be your daughter and her sheriff friend. If I’m right, we don’t have much time. How about you, Missus Dugan?”

  “I’ve already said. . . .”

  “I want to hear you say it again,” Smith said.

  “I’ll co-operate,” Nora said, her voice trembling. “All right,” Smith said. “When Jean and the sheriff come in, tell them that Sammy and I are your cousins from the western slope. We arrived unexpectedly this evening to take in the celebration tomorrow. Ross Hart works for us. We’ll stay here tonight and pull out tomorrow because we can’t leave our business in Grand Junction any longer than that. We’re cattle buyers. We’ll buy a small herd and drive it down the Grand. I think your sheriff will accept that story.”

  “Jean won’t,” Matt said. “She knows we don’t have any relatives on the other side of the mountains.”

  “Then you’d better be damned sure you convince her,” Smith said, his voice turning brittle.