CHAPTER IX
SOME DEBTS ARE PAID.
The arrival of one additional horseman in the principal street of Wild Horse was something to attract no attention whatever. Several hundred riders had arrived at that headquarters of industry and gossip, ahead of Milton Bertram. Most of them, it is to be said, were interested in the gossip, rather than the prosaic affairs of the cattle industry. The news of Jimmy Coyle’s shooting by the masked horseman had spread fast and far, and men had ridden far and fast to talk it over.
Only the Texan did not urge his horse at top speed, like the others, as he entered the town. On the contrary he slackened the animal’s steady pace a trifle. One might have thought that he had come in from a distant camp for supplies, and that he would soon be heading forth again, a slave of the vast region of silences which binds its victims none the less strongly because they are willing in servitude.
Perhaps something in the unusual keenness of the Texan’s glance from one building to another would have told one of his intimate friends that something out of the ordinary was on his mind. But to the average beholder he was merely one more cowboy, riding into town, a handsome fellow to be sure, long of limb, broad of shoulder, and with a certain supple grace in the saddle that marks the born horseman. His features, which ordinarily were expressive of the lightest sentiment that crossed his mind, to-day seemed molded into a hard mask of determination. His dark eyes, under level brows, were calm enough, but it would take little, apparently, to light the fires of anger in them.
Obviously the Texan was undecided just where to stop. He reined his horse momentarily in front of the hotel and then drove on and crossed the street to a saloon and gambling place, known as Laroque’s.
As he dismounted and tied his horse to a hitching rack that had little vacant space, the Texan’s motions were deliberate. He made sure that his horse was securely tied, something entirely unnecessary, seeing that the well-trained animal would not have stirred away if the reins had been left trailing. But, while he was going through the mechanics of making secure his horse’s place at the rack, the Texan’s mind had leaped ahead, and he was visualizing Laroque’s place something as follows:
“Let’s see: Eddie Laroque himself will probably be tending bar. That’s good, because Eddie is no rat, and he will stick when trouble starts. There aren’t any doors into the room where the gambling layouts are. The open doorway’s not more than one jump from the end of the bar. The barroom itself is plenty wide. There’s elbow room enough for an orchestra of fiddlers let alone a couple of gun fighters. I guess Laroque’s is as good a place as any.”
With a good-by pat on the white-starred forehead of his horse the Texan turned toward Laroque’s, mechanically adjusting the guns at his hips, as he did so. Here again there would have been nothing to arouse more than passing interest on the part of the ordinary spectator, for every cowboy, who had entered Laroque’s, had made that same readjustment of revolvers. It was a fighting man’s country, and Laroque’s specialized in entertainment for men of that sort. Eddie’s shutters had been taken down and used so often to carry out men, who were either dead or desperately wounded, that it was said that the hinges were being worn out. Laroque himself was supposed to order his big mirrors by the half dozen, for every gun fight saw one shattered.
There was a long line of men at Laroque’s bar, as the Texan entered the saloon, and others were sitting in little groups at the tables to the right. The Texan instinctively realized that Jimmy Coyle’s shooting had caused something approaching a revolt in the Swingley ranks. Hardened as the invaders were and accustomed to the idea of killing, this shooting of a mere boy and leaving him for dead was something that went against the grain.
Bertram had no sooner set foot in Laroque’s place than the group at the first table called him over and inquired about Jimmy Coyle’s condition. Bertram sat down, but in such a position that he could see through the open doorway into the gambling establishment.
“Swingley and Hoog are here,”, said one of the cow-punchers, “and they’re sure as restless as a couple of mountain lions. Likewise they’ve both been taking on more liquor than common.”
“I know you don’t stand any too well with ’em, Milt, on account of your quittin’ the command,” observed another puncher. “Onless you are courtin’ argymint, I advise your seekin’ entertainment elsewhere.”
“I’m here, and I always did like the homelike atmosphere of Eddie Laroque’s place,” responded Bertram quietly. “I reckon I’ll stay.”
As he spoke, the Texan saw Tom Hoog entering the open doorway. Though he must have seen the Texan, who was in plain view, Hoog made no sign, but walked to the bar.
With one foot on the rail, his elbow on the bar, the gunman let his gaze travel slowly over Bertram, from head to foot. The others at the table shoved back uneasily. Those who were in the direct line of fire rose and stepped to one side. The Texan returned the gaze calmly enough. The men who flanked Hoog at the bar, after a startled glance around, edged away.
“Texas ain’t produced but few quitters,” said Hoog, in a loud voice, though apparently he was not addressing anybody. “But, when it does produce one, he’s all yellow.”
Bertram did not change his expression nor his attitude. Hoog’s face reddened with sudden passion. As he stood at the bar, his long, saturnine countenance writhing with hate, more men slipped quietly out of the room, feeling that the storm could not be delayed many seconds longer. The gunman stood with one arm resting on the bar, though he had not touched the glass that had been shoved toward him by the despairing Laroque, who had already counted another mirror as good as smashed.
“Push along another glass, Eddie,” went on Hoog. “I’m goin’ to have a drinkin’ companion. Come on over here, you big feller from Texas. You never would drink with me before, but you’ve got to to-day, because I’ve got a special toast fer you.”
Bertram rose slowly and walked over to the bar, beside Hoog, as calmly as if he had been invited by his most intimate friend. The bartender shoved the bottle of bootleg toward him, and the Texan poured out a drink. The spectators noticed that his hand did not tremble.
“Now pour me a good, stiff drink,” said Hoog, determined to goad Bertram into an attempt to draw. “I’m tired to-day, and I need a waiter to pour my liquor for me.”
To the amazement of the onlookers, who had surged quietly away from; the bar to new positions out of the line of fire, Bertram did as directed. He filled Hoog’s glass almost to the brim. Even the gunman was surprised at the obedience to his insulting order. His left hand, which had been half opened at his side, for Hoog was an ambidextrous fighter, dropped away from the pistol butt that peered from the worn leather scabbard at the gunman’s hip.
“Now let’s drink,” said Hoog, jubilant at having humiliated Bertram before the crowd. “Drink to the State you’ve disgraced—Texas.”
Both men drank, Hoog raising his glass to his lips with his right hand and tossing off the liquid. As they set down their glasses, Hoog said: “If there’s any word that’ll make you fight, Bertram, tell me what it is, and I’ll say it.”
But the Texan apparently did not hear. He had produced the little bottle of gray powder which the district attorney had given him. Evidently he had palmed the bottle before he had stepped to the bar, as he made no move toward his pocket to get it. With the little brush, which was inserted in the cork, he dusted some of the powder on the outside of Hoog’s whisky glass.
The gunman, with every one else in the room, was watching with undisguised interest, as the Texan inspected the glass.
“Goin’ to give us a little parlor magic?” asked Hoog.
Bertram set down Hoog’s whisky glass, carefully refraining from touching it, where the gray powder showed on the outside.
“Hoog,” he said softly, “that was a long, long time ago when you got bitten in the right thumb by a rattlesnake, wasn’t it?”
“How do you know I had a rattlesnake bite me?” asked the gunman, disconcerted at the unexpectedness of the question.
The Texan’s eyes and face blazed into anger. His supple frame tightened, and his voice came, quick, sharp and electrifying.
“Because you leave the mark of it on everything you touch, you prowling hound. You didn’t know it, but you might as well have signed your name, every time you posted a notice, you masked assassin. You left your thumb print, with the snake scar on it, on little Jimmy Coyle’s chaps and rifle. You’ve left it on this whisky glass, and it’s your confession and your death warrant, all rolled into one. Now, if you want to fight, draw and we’ll see if I have disgraced Texas.”
Confronted thus suddenly and unexpectedly with evidence of his guilt, Tom Hoog was a fraction of a second late in reaching for his weapons. The young Texan had given the gunman a fair chance at the draw, but Hoog, for the first time in his life, was not equal to the emergency. Before his terrible guns were out of their holsters two bullets had been sent from the weapon of the crouching Texan.
Hoog stood for a moment, a wound in either arm, just above the elbow. His long, sinuous hands were powerless to grasp the revolvers that had never failed before. Then he fell in a heap on the floor.
The men, who had prepared to rush from the room at the first sign of conflict, had not stirred. The fight had developed so unexpectedly, after every one believed that all signs of trouble were over, that even the most phlegmatic had been taken completely by surprise.
Leaping over Hoog’s prostrate form the Texan ran through the open door. At the sound of the two shots the gamblers had ceased all play. Asa Swingley, who had just started a game at the head of the room, kicked over his chair and, drawing both guns, had started toward the barroom. He saw Bertram in the doorway, his smoking weapons in his hand.
Instinctively Swingley raised both revolvers, but, before he could pull a trigger, Bertram had “creased” him twice, and the outlaw leader staggered to a chair.
The Texan, firing from the hip, had disabled the second man even more quickly than the first.
Sheathing one of his weapons, but carrying the other at a threatening angle, Bertram turned back to the barroom. “Laroque,” he said, “see that these two disabled outlaws are properly guarded until the sheriff arrives.” Then, picking up Hoog’s whisky glass, Bertram held it out to Laroque. “Here, Ed, take this whisky glass in the palm of your hand. Careful, now, and don’t touch that powder on the outside of the glass. That’s state evidence against this assassin, Hoog, and his employer, Swingley. Put it away in your safe, and the district attorney will be in here in a few minutes to get it. If you’ve brushed so much as a speck of the dust off that glass, you’ll be run out of town. Swingley’s reign is ended in this county. We’re going to hand these assassins over to the court, and we’ll see that they get what is coming to them. From now on law and order are going to rule here.”
Paying no attention to the questions and congratulations that the men showered upon him, the Texan made his way to the door. As he untied his horse, he could hear the babel of voices, as the cow-punchers, with their tongues loosened, began to crowd about Swingley and Hoog.