Having secured the door, Barker took the key from the lock and hung his hat upon the knob.
“Don’t want anyone peeking in,” he murmured, as he resumed his seat by the fire. He was no longer cold, but there was companionship in its glow.
The meager little office was a palace compared with the cell from which he had escaped, he thought as he looked about him in the dim light from the open door of the stove.
“If he plays me any more tricks—” His mind reverted to Westcott, and the cold sweat stood upon his forehead at the idea of possible treachery.
“Pshaw!” he muttered. “There’s nothing more he can do. He’s done it all. God! To think I swore to kill him at sight, and here I am begging favors of him.”
The angry snarl in his voice changed to a cough, and ended in a whimper.
“I couldn’t do anything else,” he pleaded, as though arguing with someone. “I want to get back east. I want to die in the open. Hell! I was going mad in that hole.”
He rested his head between his fists, torturing himself with memories of the days before he crossed the Divide, the youngest chain-man in the surveyors’ gang of a projected new railroad. He had come from Iowa, and boy-like he sang the praises of his native state all across the alkali plains, until, in derision, his fellows dubbed him “the Iowa barker.”
The name stuck. In Nevada he was plain “Barker.” The others seemed to have forgotten his real name, and as Barker, when he left the outfit, he drifted down into Arizona. He blessed the easy transition when the trouble came that fixed the killing of big Dan Lundy on him. He had kept his real name secret through all that came after.
What had it all been about? What was he doing here to-night? Why hadn’t he killed Westcott, instead of sitting here by his fire?
He passed a wavering hand before his eyes. Oh, yes. Now he remembered. Westcott was going to send him east—to God’s country. Meanwhile, he was dead for sleep. He caught himself, as he lurched in his chair, and rising heavily, he threw himself upon the couch.
It was past noon when he woke. The sun lighted the yellow curtains; the door stood open, and Westcott bent over him, shaking him by the shoulder.
“Barker! Barker!” the attorney called.
“Barker! Wake up! Time to get out of this. I’ve got a chance to send you down to the railroad.”
By degrees he struggled to consciousness, and sat up. Westcott had brought him a big cup of steaming coffee.
“Drink this,” he said, not unkindly.
“My friend came up with the money,” he went on, as Barker drank, sitting sidewise on the couch. “He’s going to take you down in his buggy. He’ll fix you up all right.”
Barker was still dazed with sleep. His ears rang, and the lawyer’s voice sounded strange and far away. The coffee made him feel better. It soothed the cough that had racked him the moment he sat up.
“Now eat some grub,” Westcott said.
He had brought food from the hotel. Barker was still too far off to wonder at this. He had no desire for food, but he ate, obediently.
Westcott, meantime, had gone outside. In front of the hotel stood a big, rangy bay horse, hitched to a light road-wagon. Near the outfit lounged a tall, determined-looking man, who came forward when he saw the attorney.
“I’ve got to be getting a move on soon,” he said. “It’ll be late night, as ’tis, before we get there.”
“He’ll be ready in the shake of a horn,” the other replied.
“Say, Frank,” he continued. “He don’t know who you are. I’ve let on you’re a friend of mine, going to take him down. Let him think that till you get out of town.”
“Must be a dead easy one,” the man addressed as Frank said.
“Well, you see,” Westcott laughed, nervously, “I doped him pretty well last night—the poor devil coughed so,” he added, in explanation, and the deputy sheriff gave a grunt that might mean anything. It brought a flush of embarrassment to Westcott’s face.
“Come on,” he said, shortly, turning toward his office. The deputy climbed into his buggy and drove after him.
“Got to hurry, Barker,” Westcott called, opening the door.
He escorted his charge briskly outside.
“This is Mr. Arnold,” he mumbled, beside the wagon. “A friend of mine that’ll see you fixed all right.”
The man holding the reins scrutinized Barker closely as the latter climbed up beside him.
“All right,” he decided, finally, speaking to Westcott, and handed the attorney a folded paper.
“That’s what you were after,” he said, briefly. “So long.”
A word to the bay colt and they were swinging down Upper Broadway at a pace that made Barker catch his breath as he noted the narrow road, and the steep cañon-side.
“It’d sure be a long fall,” his companion said, answering his look, “But we ain’t goin’ to take it. You can bank on the colt. He’s sure-footed as a deer.”
“I ain’t afraid,” Barker responded. The fresh, sweet air was beginning to clear his brain and he sat up straighter, a touch of color coming into his death-like face. The other man avoided his glance, giving all his attention to the colt, who was swiftly putting distance between them and the town. The exigencies of the steep, rough road made such attention necessary and neither man spoke again until they had traversed the narrow pass, and were out of the gulch. A sudden turn of the way brought them among the foothills, the broad, yellow expanse of cactus-dotted plain before them.
“Doesn’t seem as far as it did when I footed it in last night,” Barker said at last, with an attempt to smile, and Arnold nodded. The bay colt was a good traveler, and they were on the level now, following the road that wound its spiritless, grey way among the cacti. The colt took it in long, free strides, that promised to get them somewhere by daylight.
“Good horse you got there,” Barker said, with a country-bred man’s interest in animals. “Mighty good shoulders.”
“You bet!” was the deputy’s hearty response. “Good for all day, too.”
“I raised him myself,” he went on, “and he’s standard bred, too, Daystar, out’n an Alcantara mare.” He spoke with proper pride, as the owner of a good horse may.
“They raise some fine stock back in Iowa,” Barker remarked, and his companion’s fount of speech seemed suddenly to run dry. Barker waited, expectant, for some little time.
“Where are we going to hit the railroad?” He asked, at last.
“The railroad?” Arnold looked puzzled.
“Westcott said you’d land me where I could get the train east,” the other explained. “He said you had the price of a ticket for me. It’s all on the level, ain’t it?” he demanded, his voice going higher.
“Oh—Oh! yes, yes! It’s all fixed. Don’t you worry none.” The bronze of the deputy’s face crimsoned.
“Don’t you worry none,” he repeated, with a glance at the sky.
An ominous cloud lowered, overhead. The sun was hidden, and the air had grown chill. A fit of coughing had followed Barker’s flash of excitement, and he crouched in his seat, shivering slightly.
“Look here,” Arnold exclaimed, “you ain’t dressed warm enough. They’s some kind of weather breeding.”
He reached beneath the wagon-seat and pulled forth his own coat.
“Put this on,” he directed. “I’ve got my sweater on, and don’t need it.”
Barker pushed it back.
“I’m all right,” he said. “You’ll need that yourself.”
“You do what I tell you,” the deputy insisted. “Put it over your shoulders. The wind’s at your back.”
He thrust the garment across his companion’s wasted shoulders and Barker drew the sleeves across his chest.
As he did so his hand touched something hard, under one lapel. He glanced down at it, and started.
“What’s that?” he cried, turning the metal badge up for closer inspection.
A groan of horror escaped him as he recognized the object.
He sprang to his feet, his long, gaunt hands reaching for the deputy’s throat. Arnold swept him back with one motion of his powerful arm.
“Don’t you do anything like that,” he said, with rough kindness. “You’d be just a skeeter if I took hold of you, and I don’t want to. Suffering snakes!” he pleaded, “Don’t look like that! I’m sorry, man; by Heaven, I’ve hated this job like blue poison, ever since I laid eyes on you.”
The words died away in his throat before the dumb misery in the other man’s face. The wasted figure was slumped forward in an abandon of despair. All the man’s pride and courage died in the face of his fearful disappointment.
“Oh, God! Oh, God!” he moaned. “And I thought I was going to die in the open.”
He turned to the deputy, a sudden hope lighting his woe.
“Let me get out,” he begged. “Let me get out right here. I can’t get anywheres: I’m bound to die; but it’ll be out in the open. Please let me out.”
“I can’t.” The words came through Arnold’s set teeth.
“Why not? I never killed Dan Lundy. Before God, I never laid a finger on him.” Barker spoke fast and thick, in his eagerness.
“I went to his shack and found him there, knifed to death. And Jim Texas swore he saw me do it. Swore it, mind you; when Hart Dowling and I both knew Texas had threatened Lundy time and again.”
A fit of coughing interrupted him, but he went on as soon as he could, his hoarse voice breaking now and then.
“And Westcott came sneaking ’round to see what there was in it for him. He was just starting in then, and I’d heard he was a smart fellow. I told him of the fifteen hundred dollars dust I had hid in my shack. He was to find Dowling. Dowling ’d gone up into Wyoming. Westcott was to get him down here as a witness. And the damned coyote was to have my fifteen hundred.”
Again the racking cough, and his voice trailed off in a choking struggle for breath. He was shrieking when he continued.
“And Westcott took the money! Took it out of my shack, and never came near me again. Left me to die. They’d ha’ hung me, sure, if some of the jury hadn’t believed Jim Texas lied.”
The deputy’s face was twisted with pity and shame; the man was so horribly broken.
“They’s a flask in the pocket o’ that coat,” he said. “Take a pull; it’ll brace you up.”
“I don’t want it,” Barker snarled. “It chokes me more.”
He had drawn the coat about him, the sleeves tied across his chest.
“And Westcott went back on me this time, too.” He took up the pitiful tale again. “He couldn’t be satisfied, the devil, with what he’d done. He had to do it over. But what for? What for? I say? I never did him dirt.”
The deputy gave a start of surprise.
“Why Westcott got—” he began, then pity kept him silent. If Barker had not guessed he would not tell him.
“Westcott ... hell!” He spat savagely out upon the desert, shaking his head with pity, as he glanced again at the huddled figure.
“Westcott’s a damned side-winder,” he muttered.
They were descending into an arroyo, once the bed of a creek; dry, now, for more than a year. The road crossed it, here.
“We’re going to get our weather, quick,” the deputy said, as he noticed that the bottom of the arroyo held tiny pools of water.
Even as he spoke a little stream came trickling down.
“It’s us for the level! Quick!” he shouted, urging the bay.
In an instant darkness was upon them. A sudden flash of steely blue rent the sky; almost with it a quick roll of thunder was all about them and a bellowing rush of water came tearing along the arroyo.
The bay colt squealed with terror, plunging sidewise, heedless of whip and voice. The deputy tried to turn him back to where the bank sloped, but already they were sweeping along with the torrent.
“A cloudburst,” Arnold shrieked, and with the words he was wrested from his seat.
The shafts of the light vehicle snapped short at the gear. The colt, plunging, open-mouthed, was hurled forward in a fearful somersault, and went under, just as the wagon and its remaining occupant rolled over and over, as a boulder might roll, in the churn of maddened water.
It was far into the night when, amid a matted drift, half-way up one bank of the arroyo, something stirred, faintly. Caught in a web of debris, and a tangle of mesquite roots that thrust far out from the soil, a man strove feebly to disentangle his head from a smother of something that enwrapped it. When at last he partly succeeded he looked up at the calm stars, lamping the sky in solemn splendor. Below him he could still hear the rush of water, but above all was peaceful.
Long he lay, more dead than alive, trying to remember what had happened. By the bright starlight he managed to make out that the body of the light wagon had caught upon an out-thrust web of mesquite roots. He was lying on his side in the wagon box, one arm thrust, to the shoulder, through something that he could not see. About his neck and head was a tangle of cloth which he made out to be the deputy’s coat, and a long thong of leather, probably one of the harness reins. This was wound, as well, about what remained of one of the seat braces.
Slowly, by agonizing degrees, the man began to work himself loose from the tangle. Then he discovered that the thing binding his shoulder was the strap of a horse’s nose-bag, and the bag itself. It was caught over a long, splintered fragment of the reach, which had broken through the bottom of the wagon box. The bag seemed to be about half full of oats.
Inch by inch he cleared himself, and laying hold upon the mesquite roots, rose slowly, until he stood up. Every movement was pain, but he persisted doggedly, climbing little by little up the bank, clinging now to a root of mesquite, now to a point of rock, pausing for breath, or to ease the strain upon his tortured muscles. At last he grasped the trunk of a mesquite and dragged himself out upon the desert, where he fell helpless upon the sand.