The Bells of San Juan by Jackson Gregory (notion reading list txt) 📕

in the corner. Kid Rickard, cursing now and then, had dragged himself a little away and grew quiet, half propped up against the wall. Struve, as the fire of fagots and grass began to burn low, commanded Galloway to lead the way back into the barroom and herded five other men after him, the shotgun promising a mutilated body to any man of them who sought to run for it.

"Nuñez is dead," reported the deputy sheriff, getting up from his knees. "Norton is alive and that's about all. A shot along the side of the head."

He turned slowly toward Galloway who, with steady hands and his face set in hard, inscrutable lines, was pouring himself a generous glass of whiskey.

"Looks like you'd got him, Jim," he said harshly, his eyes glittering. "And it looks like I'd got you. Where I want you, by God!"

Galloway drank his whiskey and made no reply. He was thinking, thinking fast. His eyes were never still now, but roved from Rod Norton's white face to the faces of Tom Cutter, Struve, and the other men gathering in the room.

Borne upon one of the Casa Blanca's doors Norton was carried to Struve's hotel, the nearest place where an attempt could be made to care for him. Word came in that Virginia Page had been summoned upon one of her rare calls and was in Las Estrellas. Patten, however, would be on hand in a moment. It was suggested that Kid Rickard also be carried to the hotel. But he himself asked to be left where he was until Patten came, and Cutter raised no objection. It was clear that the Kid was too badly hurt to think of making an escape, were such his desire.

Galloway and Antone alone were put under arrest, the others merely advised to be on hand if they were wanted later. Galloway coolly demanded the charge against him.

"Resisting an officer is as good as any right now," snapped Cutter.

As quiet claimed the town again Caleb Patten became the most important figure in San Juan. At such moments he seemed to swell visibly. He drove the curious from the room while he examined the unconscious sheriff and, when he had finished, merely shook his head, looked grave, and refused to commit himself. He ordered Norton undressed and put to bed, went down the street to see Kid Rickard, probed the wound in the upper chest, ordered him to bed, and returned to Norton at the hotel.

"Well?" asked John Engle who had arrived, talked with Struve, and now looked anxiously to Patten. Patten shrugged.

"Heavy-caliber bullet ripped along the side of his head," he said thoughtfully. "I am going to make a second examination now. Doubtless just the shock stunned him. That or striking his head as he pitched forward; there's another slight wound, a scalp wound, showing where his head hit as he fell."

A moment later Tom Cutter came in hastily, stood for a little staring with frowning, troubled eyes at the quiet form on the bed, and went away, tugging at his lip, his frown deepening. He had his hands full to-night, had Tom Cutter, and no one but himself knew how he wanted Rod Norton to tell him just what to do, to show him the way to make no mistake. Leaving the room he had gone no farther than the front door when he swung about and returned.

"May I have a word with you, Mr. Engle?" he asked.

Engle nodded and followed him silently. Out in the street, in the full light of Struve's porch-lamp, Cutter stopped, glancing about him to make sure that he was not overheard.

"You know all about the shooting of Brocky Lane up in the mountains," he said hurriedly. "Rod told me you did. Well, I just gathered in Moraga!"

"Moraga?" muttered Engle. "He has seen Galloway, then? And told him all about our knowing the rifles were cached in the old caves?"

"I found him at the Casa Blanca," said Cutter, the worried look in his eyes. "Somebody shot out the light when the mix-up started, you know. I've a notion it was Moraga. He was in one of the little card-rooms . . . putting on his shoes! I got his gun; he'd fired just one shot. The muzzle of it was bloody."

"If he has told Galloway. . . ."

"But I don't believe he has. Struve says that just as Norton started things he saw a man run in from the cottonwoods and duck into the house. It was Struve's job to see that nobody got out and he let him go by. If it wasn't Moraga, who was it? And, when I grabbed him just now, the first thing he said was: 'I want to talk with Galloway.'"

"You didn't let him?" demanded Engle quickly.

"No. A couple of the boys have walked him off down the road. I've got Galloway and Antone in the jail. Now, what I want is some advice. What am I going to do with this job until Rod Norton comes to and takes a hand . . . if he ever does," he muttered heavily.

"It's clear that you've got to keep Moraga away from Galloway; if they haven't already had a chance to talk it's a pure Godsend and it's up to you that they don't get that chance."

"Yes,", admitted Cutter slowly. "But I'm the first man to admit that I'm all muggled up. What did Moraga have his shoes off for? If he shot out the light, why did he do it? And how'd he get blood on his gun?"

Engle shook his head.

"All questions for the district attorney later, Tom," he answered. "But, if you want any advice from me, here it is: Get Moraga out of the way on the jump. He is supposed to be in jail in the next county; he must have broken out. Send a man to Las Palmas to telephone to Sheriff Roberts; send Moraga along with him. And, whatever you do, keep Jim Galloway where you've got him. I think we've got our case against him to-night."

"That's what I've been thinking. I guess that's what Norton would do, eh?"

"Sure of it," said Engle promptly. "Find out, if you can, whether Moraga got a chance to talk with Galloway. I'm going back to the house to let my wife and Florrie know what has happened."

Engle hurried to his home, told what had happened, and, leaving his wife anxious, his daughter weeping hysterically, returned to the hotel.

"I've done all that any one could do for him," said Patten, as though defending himself because of Norton's continued unconsciousness. "He's in pretty bad shape, Engle. Oh, I guess I can pull him through, but at that it's going to be a close squeak. Lucky I was right on hand, though." And he grew technical, spoke of blood pressures taken, of traumatism superinducing prolonged coma, of this and that which made no impression on the banker.

"You mentioned two wounds," Engle reminded him. "The one made by the bullet and another. . . ."

"By his head striking as he fell? Yes; that would have completed the work of the first shock in knocking him unconscious. But it is a negligible affair now; he wouldn't know anything about it in the morning if it weren't for the lump that'll be there. And since the other injury, the long gouging cut made by the bullet, has just plowed along the outer surface of the skull, I think that I can promise you he'll be all right pretty soon now. We ought to have some ice, but I've made cold compresses do."

Engle went again to look in upon Norton. The sheriff lay as before, on his back, his limbs lax, his face deathly white, a bandage about his head. A lump came into the banker's throat and he turned away. For he remembered that just so had Billy Norton lain, that Billy Norton had never regained consciousness . . . and that the blow then as now had been struck by Galloway or Galloway's man. The sudden fear was upon him that Rod Norton was even more badly hurt than Caleb Patten admitted. The fear did not lessen as the night drew on and finally brightened into another day. When the sun flared up out of the flatlands lying beyond Tecolote the wounded man at Struve's hotel lay as he had done all night giving no sign to tell whether he was life's or death's.

CHAPTER XIII (CONCEALMENT)

 

The eyes of San Juan were upon Caleb Patten throughout the night and during the long hours of the following day. Under them his inflated ego grew further distended while, waxing more technical than ever, he explained how a man in Rod Norton's condition could live and yet lie like a man dead. So prolific and involved were his medical phrases that men like John Engle and Struve began to ask themselves if Patten understood his case. When, after twelve hours, the wounded man awoke to a troubled consciousness Patten's relief was scarcely less visible than that of Norton's friends. Patten felt his prestige taking unto itself new wings and immediately grew more wisely verbose than ever. It was a rare privilege to have the most talked of and generally liked man of the community under his hands; it was wine to Patten's soul to have that man show signs of recovering under his skill.

So he drove well-wishers from the room, drew the shades, commanded quiet and came and went eternally, doing nothing whatever and appearing to be fighting, sleeves rolled up, for a threatened life. Long before noon there were those who had laughed at Patten before, but who now accused themselves of having failed to do him justice.

Virginia Page had remained all night with her patient in Las Estrellas. The first rumor she had of the fight in the Casa Blanca was borne to her ears by Ignacio's bell as she rode back toward San Juan. Only a few hours ago she had talked with Galloway, watching him banter with Florrie Engle; but a little before that, earlier in the same day, she had seen Rod Norton. Before she galloped up to the old Mission garden her heart was beating excitedly, and she was asking herself, a little fearfully: "Is it Galloway or is it Rod Norton?" For she was so sure that in the end Ignacio would ring the Captain for one of them.

Ignacio told her the story. Norton was lying in the hotel, unconscious, Patten working over him; Jim Galloway and Antone were in the little jail and soon would be taken to the county-seat; Kid Rickard was shot through the lung but would live, Patten said; Vidal Nuñez, over whom the whole thing had started, was dead.

"If mi amigo Roderico die," mumbled Ignacio, "it will be two Nortones, two sheriffs, that die because of Galloway. If Roderico live, then the next time he will kill Galloway. You will see, señorita."

She made no answer as she rode slowly down the street. She was thinking how, only a few weeks ago, she had heard the bells ring for the first time, how then Galloway and Norton had been but meaningless names to her, how she had been little moved by