The Man From Laramie Page 20

  Then he reached in and grasped the derringer and aimed the stubby muzzle through the concealing canvas. He repeated the move many times, until his hand went in smoothly and surely, ready to shoot.

  When he finally closed the sack, Frank stood in a blank moment of indecision. The sick fear was beginning to knot again inside. If he missed, then Vic Hansbro would surely kill him quickly, ruthlessly—

  Frank almost jumped as the office door opened. He saw it was Barbara’s small, straight figure entering, and he swept the money sack and gunbelt back in the desk and pulled down the lid. He tried to sound eager.

  “Darling, I thought you were at Half-Moon.”

  Barbara looked tired. Her mouth with its full red lower lip was not smiling. “I’m not,” Barbara said, and when Frank moved to take her in his arms, her cool “Don’t, Frank,” stopped him. Barbara’s greenish eyes were appraising his face. “Has Lockhart been here?”

  “He has not,” said Frank shortly, and it was galling to see the relief on Barbara’s face. Her next remark was strangely cool. “You said Doctor Matt told you Dave shot Lockhart’s hand.”

  Frank shrugged. He remembered. He hadn’t thought Barbara would think of it again.

  Barbara’s cool voice said, “Doctor Matt didn’t tell you, Frank. You lied to me.”

  Pettishly Frank exploded, “Is that a way to talk? I must have been mistaken. Vic Hansbro was in town that evening, looking for Dave. He probably told me.”

  Barbara looked at him a long moment. Her eyes were big and distant. She was like a stranger as her head shook slightly. “Not Hansbro, either, Frank. You would have told me. Here—”

  Barbara’s hand came from the pocket of her denim jacket. Frank stared at the diamond ring in her small palm, extended to him. “Barbara, I don’t understand. Aren’t you being unreasonable?”

  He thought a kind of sadness touched Barbara’s small dusty face. “Perhaps, Frank. But I’ve decided. Here is your ring.”

  “No!”

  Barbara dropped the ring. It bounced on the floor and stopped near Frank’s shoe. He stared down at it, reddening, and a furious suspicion burst out thickly. “Has that fellow Lockhart been feeding you lies about me?”

  Barbara denied it with a shake of her head. “Not Will Lockhart, Frank.” She was reaching for the doorknob.

  “Barbara—please—”

  Barbara closed the door behind her. Frank listened to her light rapid steps receding toward the front door. Then the full blow came down on him. No chance now of ever owning Barb. He groaned and stooped for the whisky bottle in the bottom desk drawer.

  Moments later he decided this angry impulse of Barbara’s could be changed. No girl could turn so finally, so abruptly from her wedding, on such a slim excuse.

  Then the immediate danger hammered feverishly in Frank’s brain. Vic Hansbro must be handled quickly now. He pushed up the desk lid and reached for the money sack and gunbelt.

  Smashing the future had been easier than Barbara had thought, and harder, too. Frank had looked ghastly. Blindly Barbara crossed the street to the post office. In the bare, dusty little room, she found Aaron Sadler’s shrewd wrinkled face peering at her through his wicket. They were alone, and Aaron said tartly, “Ain’t no love letters. You’re the same as an old married woman now.”

  “Am I?” said Barbara. She had to draw a deep breath before telling Aaron. “I’ve just returned Frank’s ring. We’re not going to be married.”

  Aaron blinked, and then said dryly, “Looks like you’ve finally growed into sense.”

  “I’ll be,” said Barbara dismally, “a vinegary old maid.”

  “Vinegary, mebbe,” Aaron assented. He was peering over his steel-framed spectacles, and his lean mouth twitched. “But an old maid?” Aaron commented. “You?” Aaron’s knowing chuckle followed.

  Barbara gave him a jaundiced look and walked out. Before night, Aaron would inform the town. That had been her purpose in telling Aaron at once.

  The rest of it was not hers to decide, Barbara knew miserably. Frank’s fate rested with Frank now. Through the post office window she had seen Frank mount his horse and ride down the street. Barbara felt tired, drained out as she crossed the street to Frank’s hitchrack, where her horse was tied. Then a final thought sent her back into Frank’s store.

  McGuire came forward to meet her. He was smiling. Barbara liked this small, stocky, droll clerk, and now she made her request confidently.

  “If Will Lockhart comes in, will you send him to our house?”

  “That I will,” assented McGuire readily. He was regarding her oddly. His question was odd. “Would Darrah be going to meet Lockhart now?”

  “I’m sure not.” Barbara hesitated, and then told McGuire, also. “Frank and I are not going to be married. He didn’t tell me what his plans are today.”

  The smile which lighted McGuire’s face became real and friendly and reflective. “So—” said McGuire slowly. “All over, eh?” And when Barbara nodded, McGuire mused slowly, “That might be explaining why Darrah left in a rage, ready for trouble.”

  “Trouble?”

  Watching her, McGuire said, “Sure now, the man never before slipped a derringer out of stock, and bullets to load it. And added the gunbelt and gun I seen under his coat when he left.”

  “But Frank never goes armed.”

  McGuire shrugged. He had the look of knowing more. Barbara walked slowly out to the hitchrack. She was on her horse before the full enormity of it crystallized, and on quick, panicky impulse she reined her horse the way Frank had gone.

  At the Chinaman Creek ford, a dark-featured, familiar figure with flaming red whisker bristle moved out of the brush and stood grinning as her horse splashed through the water to him.

  “Seems we always meet here,” Charley Yuill greeted.

  “Have you seen Will Lockhart?” Barbara asked. A shake of his head denied it, and she asked, “Has Frank Darrah passed?”

  “He’s got the habit,” Charley drawled. “He passed out from town—passed back to town fast—an’ passed out again fast a short while ago.” Charley grinned again. “You only went to town an’ came back.”

  “Have you been watching this ford?”

  Charley’s grin in the bristly red whisker brush did not deny it. A thought caught at Barbara. “Are you Captain Lockhart’s friend?” she inquired offhandedly.

  His skin was chocolate hue over wide cheekbones of Indian blood, and now an Indianlike impassiveness dropped on Charley Yuill’s dark face. His drawled question was silken.

  “Did Darrah tell you to ask about Cap’n Lockhart?”

  Barbara said, “No,” and then worriedly, “Frank Darrah is carrying a revolver and a derringer, and he might meet Will Lockhart—”

  “Has somethin’ happened?” Charley broke in keenly.

  Barbara told briefly of the finding of Alec Waggoman, the guilt of Vic Hansbro—and a dangerous glow began to smolder in Charley’s look. His curt “Wait!” interrupted her.

  He vanished soundlessly back into the brush. Moments later, with almost no noise, he returned astride the same big bareback, mouse-colored mule, a carbine clutched in his left hand.

  “Tell me the rest,” Charley said, and he brought a vast reassurance and relief as his long-eared mule broke into a trot beside her horse.

  From the wooded crest of the steep-sided foothill where he waited, Vic Hansbro could see the ranch road for several miles in either direction. He sat comfortably against the rough trunk of a large piñon pine, rolling and smoking brown-paper cigarettes. Now and then he restlessly cursed this enforced wait for Frank Darrah.

  He had just rolled another cigarette when he sighted a horse and rider on the farthest reach of road toward Barb and Half-Moon. Hansbro stood up, the cigarette forgotten in his fingers.

  Intently he watched the horse and rider vanish as the road swung out of sight, and when they appeared again, closer, Hansbro muttered profanely. Now he could make out the rider’s left hand cradled awkw
ardly in a cloth neck sling.

  Hansbro dropped the unlighted cigarette and caught his carbine off the matted pine needles. His horse was tied out of sight beyond the crest of the hill, and he let the horse stay there.

  Treading lithely for all his bulk, stooping to keep out of sight, Hansbro moved down the hill nearer the road where Will Lockhart would pass.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The hoofmarks of Vic Hansbro’s horse had been easy to follow. But when the sign veered abruptly left into the tall roadside chamisa brush, Will reined up and gazed warily around.

  The road here was threading foothills covered with piñon and juniper and smaller brush. The hot midday quiet was peaceful. But Will’s unshaven face drew taut as he followed the tracks into the chamisa. He had no doubt that Hansbro would kill.

  The dry brush crackled softly. Back up the road a jay called. Overhead a dove’s fluting whisper passed, and faded. Beyond the chamisa, Hansbro’s trail went up the hillside a short distance, and then angled back down into the brush and back into the road.

  Here the sign said a second horse had come from the direction of Coronado. It had trampled dirt beside Hansbro’s horse, and then had turned back to town. Then Hansbro’s trail led up the opposite hillside into screening trees.

  Too far away to shoot, Vic Hansbro swore softly as he watched Will Lockhart’s deliberate advance. A growing uneasiness made Hansbro consider retreating to rougher country. But that would miss Frank Darrah. And Lockhart was alone, with only one hand he could use—

  Stooping behind cover, Hansbro stealthily headed back to higher ground where Will Lockhart would come through the tree growth.

  The long sleepless night dragged a yawn from Will as he halted among the trees and tried to think like Hansbro.

  The man had met someone on the road. After that, Hansbro had leisurely detoured to this higher ground, and turned his horse parallel to the road atop this long, ridgelike hill. Now why? Had Hansbro changed his destination?

  Cautiously Will followed the sign through shade and bright splotches of sunlight. The quiet seemed now to have a brooding quality. The sense of lurking danger was increasing.

  Even his horse, Will noted, seemed to be affected. The horse’s nervously twitching ears were testing the quiet ahead. And then, without warning, the horse nickered, and a second horse nickered back, ahead and to the right.

  Will instinctively reined hard to the right, and as his horse lunged ahead, the flat blurt of a rifle shot tore the peace.

  The bullet keened close and ripped away through the growth. Will ducked under a low tree limb and heard another shrilling bullet miss. He braced in the stirrups as his bolting horse cleared a fallen tree trunk, and he had not yet sighted Hansbro.

  The other horse had sounded over the brow of the hill, on the back slope. Will gambled on being an uncertain target and drove his horse faster, and heard Hansbro shooting wildly and missing.

  Bent low, Will reached the back slope of the hill at full gallop and swung along that slope, and his guess had been right. A gray horse was tied to a thick juniper branch.

  Will hauled up, flung off, yanked carbine from the saddle scabbard, and pounded up the slope to an outcrop of weathered rock. Kneeling there behind cover, he dropped the carbine and drew the Colt’s revolver he had borrowed from Kate Canaday.

  He heard Hansbro running noisily and then stop. And wrath at the man’s skulking trap put a cold taunt into Will’s call.

  “Barb and Half-Moon men are coming for you, Hansbro! Want your horse now?”

  Two fast shots replied. The bullets glanced in screaming ricochet off the rock. Kneeling, panting, Will was remembering his fist fight with the big man. Hansbro angered easily. His thoughts were ponderous. To the unexpected, Hansbro reacted with blind fury and force.

  Now Hansbro’s stealthy ambush had failed. He was cut off from his horse. His own guilt would be anticipating quick pursuit by the Barb and Half-Moon men.

  Will’s laugh was jeering.

  “Hansbro, they mean to hang you!” He heard the big man swearing at him. Jeering again, Will reminded, “You’re cornered now! You’re finished, Hansbro! This will please Alec Waggoman!”

  The shots Hansbro fired rapidly struck chips from the rock and spewed up dirt close beside Will. There was a wild viciousness in the fusillade which suggested Hansbro’s temper was close to cracking.

  Will remembered his own reason for wanting to corner this man.

  “Who asked you to kill Waggoman?” he called, and got no reply. Hansbro might be creeping closer. Will goaded the man with another jeer. “You’re not crowding an old man off the trail now! They’re bringing a rope for that thick neck!”

  Hansbro hadn’t moved. His savage promise came from the same spot. “Before they get here, I’ll kill you an’ be gone!”

  Will’s horse had moved uneasily down the slope, dragging the reins. Hansbro’s gray horse was still tied to the juniper branch. Hansbro could see it. The man must be baffled, raging. Will laughed again.

  “I can wait, Hansbro! You can’t!”

  And in the hot, silent moments which followed, a brace of spaced gun reports echoed across the top of the hill from some near-by point on the road.

  Will was startled. It might be help for Hansbro. He tried again to goad the man’s slow-thinking brain. “They’re coming, Hansbro! You’ll hang quick now!”

  Hansbro’s gun breached the quiet once more—and a second time, sounding closer. Will cocked the revolver; and when Hansbro’s third shot was unmistakably nearer, Will stood up. He was braced for what he saw, and yet Vic Hansbro was a formidable sight.

  Black hat yanked low, black beard abristle, Hansbro was running down the brush-dotted slope with great plunging strides, levering shells into his carbine and shooting as he ran.

  Will fired at the shifting target and missed. Hansbro’s answering shot missed, too, and Hans-bro hurled his carbine aside and yanked the revolver from his side holster. His rush was closing fast as Will dropped to a knee and steadied the revolver barrel across his raised left arm.

  A bullet from Hansbro’s revolver whisked through the crown of Will’s hat before the front gunsight steadied. Slowly Will squeezed the tragger, and he saw Hansbro flinch.

  Carefully, coldly, Will sighted and fired again. He was sighting once more through the spew of muzzle vapor when Hansbro wobbled half around. The long legs crossed, and the great charging bulk hurtled forward in a slamming fall which skidded and rolled down the slope to a stop, face down.

  Hansbro had lost hat and gun. He was breathing harshly, moving slowly, when Will reached him and caught a shoulder and rolled him face up. Wounded in chest and stomach, Hansbro already was blowing bits of flecked froth across the bearded lips.

  “I don’t think you’ll make it,” was Will’s sober decision.

  His mouth open, panting, Hansbro glared back. And when a voice hailed up in the trees, Hansbro’s head tilted fearfully that way. Will drew the Colt’s gun again before he hailed back. And then startled wariness caught Will as two strangers in sky-blue cavalry uniform rode into view, and down the brushy slope to them.

  Slowly Will holstered the gun. His dark, un-shaven face tightened as he took in the older man’s broad shoulders, bristling eyebrows, and careless graying mustache—and the rank of colonel.

  Colonel Lake, from Roxton, was Will’s resigned guess. This he had tried to avoid.

  The man’s question was calm. “A little trouble?”

  Will nodded taciturnly. He watched silently as the colonel swung easily down, tossed reins to the younger lieutenant, and laid a speculative look on Hansbro, and then on Will.

  The same calm tone said, “We heard the shooting.”

  “He’ll not last for the sheriff to arrest him,” Will judged briefly.

  The colonel turned another critical look on Hansbro. His nod agreed. “Would he be the foreman of Barb?”

  “He was.”

  “I heard he was wanted.” Pale-blue eyes estimat
ed the bandage on Will’s left hand. “And I judge you’re Will Lockhart, whom sheriff Johnson mentioned this morning.”

  And when Will merely nodded, he was calmly informed, “I’m Colonel Lake, commanding at Fort Roxton.”

  Will’s brief nod let that die flatly, and Lake’s gaze hardened.

  “This gun fight,” said Lake evenly, “together with other incidents, can be serious, should you be a certain man from Laramie.”

  He’s contacted Laramie, was Will’s dismal acceptance. He met the blue, boring gaze, and agreed, “No doubt, sir.”

  Deep gurgles were audible in Hansbro’s labored breathing. Will bent over the man again.

  “Hansbro, you’re going. You know it, and you’d have hung, anyway. Did Darrah have a hand in Dave Waggoman’s death and your try at Alec?”

  Hansbro glared as he struggled with the shallow, bubbling breaths. Will tried again. “You’re not helping Darrah at all. I’ve cornered him on other crooked business.”

  After an indecisive moment, Hansbro’s thick question countered, “On what?”

  “Peddling rifles to the Apaches.” Startled interest entered Hansbro’s look, and Will asked him, “Did you know that two hundred rifles, shipped from New Orleans as bolt goods, are in Darrah’s powder house now? And ten thousand rounds of ammunition?”

  Colonel Lake’s move to Will’s elbow had immediate, alert interest. Hansbro’s big, unsteady hand weakly smeared the crimson off his bearded lips.

  “Who are you, fellow?”

  Will hesitated, and then reluctantly put the future into the hands of this now grim, older man standing at his elbow.

  “I’m Captain Lockhart, United States Cavalry.”

  “Not a mule skinner? A damn’ wagon man?” Hansbro broke into coughing, and when his throat was clear, “Peddlin’ guns!” came almost as an oath from his smeared mouth. “ ‘Pach’ guns!” Then Hansbro’s slow grin shaped incredible malice, from which he seemed to gain strength.

  “Sure, Frank Darrah hired me t’ kill Alec. He bought cattle, too, that I rustled offa Barb. An’ he paid kickbacks on Barb supplies I bought—” Coughing shook Hansbro again, and then he gasped, “But God’ll-mighty—’Pache guns! The snake!” He lay quietly, the malice holding on the heavy mouth.