CHAPTER XXI: A RUNNING-FOOL HORSE
The next day they buried Buck Gillis in the little cemetery on the slope of a hill, where the sand-scoured old head-boards, each standing at a different angle, marked the last resting places of those who had gone down the long trail. As one cowboy plaintively remarked, “Even an Arizonan ort to be entitled to a little shade after he’s dead, ’cause he shore don’t git much while he’s alive.”
A preacher from Broad Arrow conducted the ceremony, an old friend of Buck Gillis. Buck had no relatives, but there were plenty of mourners among the women, who felt it their privilege and duty to cry a little over the funeral oration, even if they didn’t know Buck very well.
Cultus went to the funeral with Bad News. Mendoza and Tony Gibbs were there, and after the funeral Cultus asked Mendoza if he still had the gray horse at the Circle M.
“You not take heem away?” asked Mendoza.
“I did not.”
“Ver’ funny. I keep horse in corral, but bimeby, he’s gone. I’m t’ought you take away.”
Bad News wanted to know what horse Cultus was talking about, but Cultus didn’t enlighten him. Bad News stuck rather closely to Cultus, because he wanted to find out more things, and he had a feeling that Cultus knew who had done the shooting in Padre Canyon.
They found Butch Van Deen in charge of the War Dance Saloon. He told them that Marsh had taken it over, and that he was to run the place until Marsh could get the man he wanted.
Butch seemed civil enough, but Cultus didn’t trust him. Evidently Hank North had told Butch about the trouble in Padre Canyon, because Butch wanted to know more about it. Alden Marsh was there, drinking rather heavily and inviting others to drink with him.
“This place will go broke, furnishin’ free liquor to young Marsh,” said Bad News.
Butch shrugged his shoulders.
“That ain’t my lookout. The old man lets the kid do as he pleases.”
Cultus noticed that Della was rather prominent about the place, but seemed rather serious. He saw her refuse to drink with Alden, who sneered at her openly, but continued drinking.
Finally she sat down alone at a table, and Cultus worked his way around to her. She looked him over cynically, as he sat down beside her.
“How soon do yuh figure on leavin’ here?” he asked softly.
She looked at him queerly, wondering what he meant.
“Marsh is almost through with yuh,” he continued. “You ain’t been much of a success as a spy, yuh know.”
She blinked quickly, but her eyes hardened.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, yes, yuh do. And this is just between friends. Marsh is goin’ to double-cross you.”
“Ye-es?” More interest and less suspicion now.
“Yuh know. Marsh never plays a losin’ game. You think you can hold him up for more money, but yo’re all wrong. You’ve got the idea that you’ve got information he’ll pay yuh to keep to yourself. He will not. With his organisation, there’s plenty ways to stop your mouth.”
Della licked her dry lips and began fumbling with her bracelets.
“Just how much do you know?” she asked softly.
“I know plenty.”
“Are you working for Marsh?”
“Would you answer that question?”
“I guess not. But what’s your game, anyway?”
“That’s entirely my business.”
“Oh, I see. I suppose Marsh told you to scare me, eh? Does he think I’m going to beat it out of here without any money? You’re crazy and so is Marsh, if either of you think so. This is the first time I ever had a chance to pick up some real money, and I’ll get it or squawk.”
“Don’t ever let Marsh think for a minute that yuh might squawk.”
“I don’t care if he knows it. I get my ten thousand dollars, and then I’ll pull out. Not before.”
Cultus grinned to himself. Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money, he thought. And just what did this dance-hall girl know that might be worth ten thousand to Kendall Marsh, he wondered? Then aloud, “He’ll never pay it.”
“Won’t he?” Her eyes flashed. “Oh, yes, he will; and be getting off pretty damn cheap at that. Oh, you can tell him. And you might tell him that I want the money right away. The ante jumps a thousand every day from now on. I’m no cheap sport, no matter what kind of a piker he is. Tell him what I said, and see where it hits him.”
Della got up from the table and walked away, leaving Cultus to look after her, a grin on his thin lips. She thought he was one of Marsh’s men, and he chuckled to himself. It was better than he had hoped, but he knew that the case required quick action. If Marsh did pay her the money, she would leave Painted Valley; and if he decided not to pay her, something might happen to Della.
Cultus soon left the War Dance, saddled his horse and rode out to the Circle M. Mendoza was friendly enough. He seemed as anxious as anybody to get news of Blaze Nolan. And he commented on the missing gray horse.
“Yuh don’t suppose Blaze got the gray, do yuh?” queried Cultus.
“Blaze Nolan never steal horse.”
“No, I don’t reckon he would. Yo’re a good friend to Blaze Nolan, eh?”
“Blaze Nolan my friend.”
Which was sufficient answer. He strolled up to the house and sat down in the shade of the adobe wall. Tony Gibbs came out and sat with them, while Mexico Skinner clattered pans in the kitchen. The Circle M didn’t hire a regular cook, but the men took turns in preparing their simple meals.
Cultus steered the conversation around to firearms, and they discussed the merits of different revolvers. Tony appeared well posted on such matters. He had tested the penetration of different calibres, and talked intelligently about them.
“Didja ever use a forty-one?” asked Cultus.
“Not very much good,” said Tony. “Not as good as forty-four and forty-five. The bullet hits hard, but don’t go so deep. Mebby it’s ’cause they make the bullet so blunt on the nose. I have one quite a while.”
“You got it yet?” asked Cultus.
Tony shook his head and grinned widely.
“Had pearl handles. Pretty gun, that one was, but it didn’t shoot good; so I traded it to Hank North, out at the Triangle X, for a good forty-five.”
Cultus grinned to himself. The trail was getting warmer now.
“Hank North likes a pretty gun, eh?” he asked.
“He said it would make a good tradin’ gun.”
“How long ago did yuh make the trade, Tony?”
“That gun? Oh, six, seven months ago. I don’t remember how long.”
“Have you known Terry Ione very long?”
Tony shook his head quickly.
“He ain’t been there long, and I never know him.”
“How long has he been there?”
“Three, four weeks. Hank North tells me he’s old friend of Butch Van Deen. I see him once in a while, but I don’t know him.”
Cultus did not stay much longer. He rode back to Medicine Tree, pondering over two things he didn’t know before; that Tony Gibbs had traded a forty-one revolver to Hank North of the Triangle X crowd, and that Terry Ione was a fairly new arrival in Painted Valley.
There was only one drawback to the forty-one bullet as evidence; it might be said that it might have been fired previous to the killing of Ben Kelton, or since, as far as that was concerned, by some over-enthusiastic cowboy, and the bullet lodged in the wall of the store. But Blaze had said that he distinctly heard the bullet strike the building, and that was the only bullet hole Cultus was able to find over there.
As for the shooting of Buck Gillis, the bullets which killed him were of .44 calibre, and Cultus was certain that Blaze carried a forty-five. This seemed to clear Blaze of the killing of Buck Gillis, anyway.
Cultus rode back to town, determined to find the present owner of that forty-one, and if possible to find out more about Terry Ione.
After Cultus left the War Dance, Della accepted several drinks. She seldom drank anything, and these few drinks of liquor made her reckless.
“What did that homely puncher talk to you about?” asked Butch. He had noticed that Della left him abruptly, after a conversation which looked very much like an argument.
“Somebody else trying to tell me my business,” she replied.
“Don’t let ’em,” he grinned.
She had started to walk away from him, but she came back.
“How long has this Collins person been working for Marsh?”
“Yo’re crazy; he never worked for Marsh.”
“I don’t think I’m crazy. You better ask Marsh. If Collins isn’t working for him, he knows a whole lot about things.”
“About what things, Dell?”
“I’m not mentioning anything, Butch; but he knows. Advised me to pull out.”
“Advised you to pull out?” blankly.
“Yes, me! Said Marsh wouldn’t pay me a cent, and that something might happen to me, if I didn’t get out. Don’t tell me that Marsh didn’t send him to scare me. But I don’t scare. Marsh will pay me what I ask, or—”
“Or what?”
“That’s for me to know.”
Della walked away from Butch, who leaned against the bar, trying to figure out what it all meant. He was sure that Cultus did not work for Marsh. There was something wrong somewhere, but Butch wasn’t sure just where it was. But he did decide on one thing—to get in touch with Kendall Marsh as quickly as possible. He was saddling his horse at the livery stable, when Cultus came in to put up his horse.
Butch started to say something, but changed his mind, and decided to see Kendall before doing anything else.
A little later in the afternoon Harry Kelton rode in, bringing Cultus’s saddle.
“I went out and got both of the saddles,” he told Cultus. “Tried to find where you folks came down that trail, but I didn’t find it.”
“Well, I’m shore glad to get my saddle,” grinned Cultus. “I’ve been ridin’ a hull that belongs to the stableman, and it shore didn’t fit me none to speak about. How’s yore sister to-day?”
“Still a little lame, and she get white around the gills, when she talks about the climb you folks took. Dad said to bring yuh out to have supper with us.”
“I’d like to do that.”
“That’s fine. You’ve kinda got the old man thinkin’ about things. Yuh know, he’s always been bitter as the devil toward Blaze Nolan, since that shootin’ scrape. I reckon we all have, as far as that’s concerned. Ben was dad’s favourite, and it almost killed him. But I reckon he’s thinkin’ about what you said out at the house, and we wants to talk more with yuh. Bein’ crippled the way he is, he’s got lots of time to frame up a hate against anybody, and he thinks you’ve got lots of sense. And Jane said she’d be glad if you’d come out, too.”
“That settles it,” grinned Cultus. “I’ll shore come now. If I was handsome and ten years younger, yore dad would have to sit on the front porch with a shotgun to keep me away. I think yore sister is the gamest girl I ever met.”
“Jane is a nice girl, Collins.”
“That don’t half cover it. Kelton, all I’ve got to do is look at her and I know dang well Blaze Nolan never done the things they accused him of doin’.”
“You don’t think he’s guilty? Man, yo’re crazy.”
“I reckon we’ve all got a bug of some kind, and that’s mine.”
“Well, yo’re all wrong. I suppose you’ll say he never killed Buck Gillis and escaped.”
“Want to bet he did?”
Harry laughed shortly. “Yeah, I’ll bet yuh any odds yuh want.”
“All right. I’ll bet yuh my dead horse in Padre Canyon against any live one in yore remuda.”
“That’s a bet, Collins. Let’s go and have a drink on it. This will be the first dead horse I ever won.”
“And the first live one I ever won,” laughed Cultus. “Most any one yuh select will be better than the one I’ve had to rent from the livery stable.
“Oh, I’ll lend yuh a good bronc. I’ve got a dozen out at the ranch, if yuh don’t mind forkin’ one that might do a little buckin’.”
“I’ll take him to-night, Kelton; and a little buckin’ is good for yore digestion. If he’s real good I’ll accept him as my end of the bet.”
“You ain’t serious, are yuh?” asked Harry.
“Never was more serious in my life.”
Harry shook his head as they went to the War Dance Saloon.
“I don’t sabe yuh,” he declared.
“Don’t let that get yuh down,” laughed Cultus. “Nobody else ever did, as far as that’s concerned.”
They found Alden Marsh still at the bar. He glared at Cultus, but said nothing. That one experience had cured him of taking chances with Cultus. But he stuck to his post at the bar, while they had a drink together. Oscar Link was still tending bar to help out Butch Van Deen, and when he offered to set up the drinks, Cultus declined.
“One drink is plenty,” he said. “I’m goin’ out to the JK for supper, and I want to be in a condition to enjoy all of it. This Chinese restaurant food has almost weaned me.”
Alden looked him over owlishly, his elbows hooked over the top of the bar. Finally he lurched away from the bar and walked unsteadily out of the saloon and Oscar snorted disgustedly.
“Fine specimen! ’F I had a son like him, I’d strangle the danged fool. Not a brain in his head. Guzzles whisky all day, tries to get smart with the girls, and give me to understand that his pa owns this whole shebang. Do yuh know, it would save money for the taxpayers, if he’d fall off his horse and break his fool neck? It would, for a fact.”
“How do yuh figure that?” asked Harry.
“Well it costs the county money to try somebody for murder, don’t it?”
“Then you think he’s due to go out on the hot end of a bullet, eh?” laughed Cultus.
“Wouldn’t surprise me a bit. Didja notice that Butch Van Deen is in charge here? Butch Van Deen knows as much about runnin’ this place as I do of runnin’ a church. He knows how to open the front door, and I know how to ring the bell.”
A few minutes later Cultus and Harry got their horses and headed for the ranch. Both Jane and her father greeted him warmly. Jane’s elbows were still in bandages, and he noticed that she was wearing a pair of old slippers, several sizes too large for her.
“I haven’t worn a boot since you were here last,” she laughed. “My toes are still raw.”
“You’ll have something to tell yo’re grandchildren about,” said Cultus. “They won’t believe it, but you can prove it by me.”
“That will be fine,” said Jane, blushing a little. “I only hope I can point you out to them.”
“Oh, I’ll still be wanderin’ around,” he laughed. Harry was as good as his word. He caught up a hammer-headed sorrel gelding, almost as tall as Cultus’s missing gray, and tied him to the corral.
“I won’t guarantee him not to buck,” said Harry. “He’s been ridden a little, and he’s bridle-wise, but if I remember rightly, he’s plumb sudden about swoppin’ ends on yuh.”
“As long as he sabes a bit, I’ll take a chance; and thanks.”
“I’ll accept the thanks now, and not wait until he piles yuh off in the brush.”
Cultus enjoyed his supper, and told them some of his experiences down along the border. He and Jane talked over their experiences in Padre Canyon, wondering if they could find the beginning of the Lost Trail, and speculating on who it was that dynamited the cliffs behind them. Blaze Nolan’s name was not mentioned during supper.
It was after they had gone to the living-room that Harry told them of the bet he had made with Cultus. Jane watched Cultus anxiously when he insisted that he had all the best of the bet. He seemed so serious over it that Jim Kelton studied him over the smoke from his old pipe.
“I can’t believe that,” said Jim Kelton. “No, it’s not because of any prejudice that I say you’ll never clear Blaze Nolan. The evidence was too strong against him. And more has piled up since he came back.”
Cultus smiled back at the old man, as the cigarette smoke lazily curled from his nostrils.
“Evidence is a queer thing, Kelton,” he said slowly. “I never did believe in circumstantial evidence. I don’t believe the courts should accept it. Lotsa things I don’t believe in. I don’t believe the law has a right to kill a man. They have no right to take away a life. ‘Thou shaft not kill’ applies as much to the law as it does to an individual. The Bible probably means that there will be a punishment for a murderer in the hereafter.
“When twelve men sift the evidence, evidence as it is presented to them by schemin’ lawyers who are able to fill their minds with just what they want to fill ’em with, what chance has an innocent man? It all depends on the lawyer. He can twist the biggest lie into gospel truth, and never lay a hair. That’s what he’s for. A prosecutor don’t care whether yo’re innocent or guilty. Yo’re his trophy. If he can send yuh to prison or to the gallows, he counts coup on yore scalp and ties it to his belt. Personally he may be the finest man on earth, but the minute he starts pilin’ evidence against yuh, he’s worse than any damned Apache that ever roamed this country. He out for yore blood.
“The evidence built up by yore prosecutor sent Blaze Nolan to prison. He took the word of a drunken kid and made gospel truth out of it. The court appointed a lawyer for Blaze, and that lawyer was a close friend of the prosecutin’ attorney. Blaze never had a chance. A good criminal lawyer would have torn Alden Marsh’s testimony to shreds.
“But I’m not goin’ on any of the testimony of that case; I’m goin’ on what I have learned since I came here. Blaze Nolan is nothin’ to me. Whether he’s workin’ for Kendall Marsh or not is nothin to me. I’m no detective. But”—and Cultus smiled widely—“I’m goin’ to win me a horse.”
“I haven’t a bit of faith in you, as far as clearin’ Nolan is concerned,” said Jim Kelton seriously “but if you can clear him of all these charges and fix the blame where it belongs, I’ll give you the best horse on the JK ranch.”
“If I keep on, I’ll have me a remuda,” laughed Cultus.
They spend the rest of the evening talking about other things, and it was ten o’clock when Cultus decided to go back to town. The old patio was flooded with moonlight when they went out to the corral. Jane wanted Cultus to select a gentle horse for his ride back to town, but Cultus had taken a liking to the tall sorrel, and insisted on riding him to Medicine Tree.
The animal punched nervously under the pull of the cinch, but Cultus used a heavy bandanna handkerchief for a blindfold, and the sorrel stood quietly after Cultus turned him around, facing the road to town.
“Get him pointed down the road,” laughed Cultus, as he shook hands with all of them. “Give me enough open country and I’ll make a horse out of him.”
He swung carefully into the saddle, settled himself in the stirrups and whipped off the blindfold. For a few moments the tall sorrel stood there, all muscles tensed, quivering.
Then he shot forward into the air, came down in a twisting buck, with his head between his knees, throwing a shower of sand against the patio wall. For several moments there was just a blur of horse and rider in the moonlight, as they bucked out past the ranch-house, and then the sorrel, discouraged in his initial attempt to dislodge this long-legged rider, went racing wildly down the road, while Cultus stood in his stirrups, hat in hand, his mouth open in a soundless cowboy yell.
Not since he had lost Amigo had he felt such a horse between his knees. He swung his hat down across the animal’s rump with a resounding smack, but there was no buck left, only speed. He sank his rowels up along the shoulder, but the animal merely snorted and increased its speed.
“Good boy!” grunted Cultus. “Runnin’ hawse from Painted Valley! Easy, tall feller!”
There was a sharp curve ahead, a mile from the JK. Cultus drew sharply on the reins, but the horse was what is commonly known as “cold-jawed,” and the pull meant nothing. Cultus swung himself far over to the inside of the curve, fairly lifting the animal around the curve, which was hedged on both sides by mesquite thickets, and as they came around in a lurching sweep, Cultus got a flash of two riders almost blocking the road.
He was into them so quickly that there was no time for him to straighten up or try to swerve the animal. A gun seemed to explode almost against his face, a jarring crash when the rump of his horse struck the shoulder of another horse. Came the flash of another gun, as Cultus’s horse went to his knees, sending a shower of sand and dust, turning almost around in the slide. But Cultus stayed with the horse, which came back to its feet so quickly that Cultus was thrown along its neck, almost losing his balance.
He was up in a moment, shooting swiftly at the indistinct shapes. A horse had been knocked down, and Cultus wasn’t sure where the rider was. The horse got to its feet and went galloping up the road, while the other rider spurred his horse in pursuit. Cultus had fired four shots, but with his horse rearing and plunging he was unable to shoot with any degree of accuracy.
Still breathless, dazed at the unexpected encounter, he swung the sorrel around and headed for Medicine Tree. Neither himself nor the horse had been injured, as far as he could determine.
“The gods of luck were with me that time,” he told himself. “Somebody knew I’d come along that road to-night, but they didn’t know I was ridin’ the tail of a rocket. That’s what saved me. And I was wonderin’ why on earth I was fool enough to fork a bad bronc in the moonlight. A hunch to do it! That’s the second time they tried and failed. Now it’s my turn. C’mon, tall feller; and a lot of thanks to the mare that foaled a runnin’ fool like you.”
The tall sorrel swung into a mile-eating gallop, and Cultus laughed at the moon. Death had struck at him again and missed.
“Some day I’ll take up book-keepin’, and drown in the ink,” he told himself whimsically. “Fate is fate, and yuh can’t dodge it.”
“You’ve got a reg’lar bronc, ain’t yuh?” grinned the stable-keeper, as Cultus dismounted. “Can he run?”
“He shore can, pardner.”
“Say! His knees are skinned a little. Did he fall with yuh?”
“No,” smiled Cultus. “He was kneelin’ to the gods of luck. But yuh might fix ’em up a little if yuh will. I’ll make it right with yuh.”
“Oh, I’d do that anyway; thanks just the same, Collins. They ain’t so bad. I’ve got some great salve for that kinda thing.”
“That’s great. Buenas noches.”