Way of the Lawless by Max Brand (latest books to read txt) 📕

Dozier. His head had nodded forward as though in mockery of the bullet; his extended right hand fell slowly, slowly; his whole body began to sway and lean toward the right. Not until that moment did Andrew know that he had shot the marshal through the body.

He raced to the side of the cattle pony, and, as the horse veered away, Hal Dozier dropped limply into his arms. He lay with his limbs sprawling at odd angles beside him. His muscles seemed paralyzed, but his eyes were bright and wide, and his face perfectly composed.

"There's luck for you," said Hal Dozier calmly. "I pulled it two inches to the right, or I would have broken your neck with the slug—anyway, I spoiled your shirt."

The cold was gone from Andrew, and he felt his heart thundering and shaking his body. He was repeating like a frightened child, "For God's sake, Hal, don't die—don't die."

The paralyzed body did not move, but the calm voice answered him: "You fool! Finish me before your gang comes and does it for you!"

CHAPTER 38

There was a rush of footsteps behind and around him, a jangle of voices, and there were the four huddled over Hal Dozier. Andrew had risen and stepped back, silently thanking God that it was not a death. He heard the voices of the four like voices in a dream.

"A clean one." "A nice bit of work." "Dozier, are you thinkin' of Allister, curse you?" "D'you remember Hugh Wiley now?" "D'you maybe recollect my pal, Bud Swain? Think about 'em, Dozier, while you're dyin'!" The calm eyes traveled without hurry from face to face. And curiosity came to Andrew, a cool, deadly curiosity. He stepped among the gang.

"He's not fatally hurt," he said. "What d'you intend to do with him?"

"You're all wrong, chief," said Larry la Roche, and he grinned at Andrew. His submission now was perfect and complete. There was even a sort of worship in the bright eyes that looked at the new leader. "I hate to say it, but right as you mos' gener'ly are, you're wrong this time. He's done. He don't need no more lookin' to. Leave him be for an hour and he'll be finished. Also, that'll give him a chance to think. He needs a chance. Old Curley had a chance to think—took him four hours to kick out after Dozier plugged him. I heard what he had to say, and it wasn't pretty. I think maybe it'd be sort of interestin' to hear what Dozier has to say. Long about the time he gets thirsty. Eh, boys?"

There was a snarl from the other three as they looked down at the wounded man, who did not speak a word. And Andrew knew that he was indeed alone with that crew, for the man whom he had just shot down was nearer to him than the members of Allister's gang.

He spoke suddenly: "Jeff, take his head; Clune, take his feet. Carry him up to the cabin."

They only stared at him.

"Look here, captain," said Scottie in a soft voice, just a trifle thickened by whiskey, "are you thinking of taking him up there and tying him up so that he'll live through this?"

And again the other three snarled softly.

"You murdering hounds!" said Andrew.

That was all. They looked at each other; they looked at the new leader. And the sight of his white face and his nervous right hand was too much for them. They took up the marshal and carried him to the cabin, his pony following like a dog behind. They brought him, without asking for directions, straight into the little rear room—Andrew's room. It was a sufficiently intelligible way of saying that this was his work and none of theirs. And not a hand lifted to aid him while he went to work with the bandaging. He knew little about such work, but the marshal himself, in a rather faint, but perfectly steady voice, gave directions. And in the painful cleaning of the wound he did not murmur once. Neither did he express the slightest gratitude. He kept following Andrew about the room with coldly curious eyes.

In the next room the voices of the four were a steady, rumbling murmur. Now and then the glance of the marshal wandered to the door. When the bandaging was completed, he asked, "Do you know you've started a job you can't finish?"

"Ah?" murmured Andrew.

"Those four," said the marshal, "won't let you."

Andrew smiled.

"Are you easier now?"

"Don't bother about me. I'll tell you what—I wish you'd get me a drink of water."

"I'll send one of the boys."

"No, get it yourself. I want to say something to them while you're gone."

Andrew had risen up from his knees. He now studied the face of the marshal steadily.

"You want 'em to come in here and drill you, eh?" he said. "Why?"

The other nodded.

"I've given up hope once; I've gone through the hardest part of dying; let them finish the job now."

"Tomorrow you'll feel differently."

"Will I?" asked the marshal. All at once his eyes went yellow with hate. "I go back to the desert—I go to Martindale—people I pass on the street whisper as I go by. They'll tell over and over how I went down. And a kid did it—a raw kid!"

He closed his eyes in silent agony. Then he looked up more keenly than before. "How'll they know that it was luck—that my gun stuck in the holster—and that you jumped me on the draw?"

"You lie," said Andrew calmly. "Your gun came out clean as a whistle, and I waited for you, Dozier. You know I did."

The pain in the marshal's face became a ghastly thing to see. At last he could speak.

"A sneak always lies well," he replied, as he sneered at Lanning.

He went on, while Andrew sat shivering with passion. "And any fool can get in a lucky shot now and then. But, when I'm out of this, I'll hunt you down again and I'll plant you full of lead, my son! You can lay to that!"

The hard breathing of Andrew gradually subsided.

"It won't work, Dozier," he said quietly. "You can't make me mad enough to shoot a man who's down. You can't make me murder you."

The marshal closed his eyes again, while his breathing was beginning to grow fainter, and there was an unpleasant rattle in the hollow of his throat. Andrew went into the next room.

"Scottie," he said, "will you let me have your flask?"

Scottie smiled at him.

"Not for what you'd use it for, Lanning," he said.

Andrew picked up a cup and shoved it across the table.

"Pour a little whisky in that, please," he said.

Scottie looked up and studied him. Then he tipped his flask and poured a thin stream into the cup until it was half full. Andrew went back toward the door, the cup in his left hand. He backed up, keeping his face steadily toward the four, and kicked open the door behind him.

War, he knew, had been declared. Then he raised the marshal's head and gave him a sip of the fiery stuff. It cleared the face of the wounded man.

Then Andrew rolled down his blankets before the door, braced a small stick against it, so that the sound would be sure to waken him if anyone tried to enter, and laid down for the night. He was almost asleep when the marshal said: "Are you really going to stick it out, Andy?"

"Yes."

"In spite of what I've said?"

"I suppose you meant it all? You'd hunt me down and kill me like a dog after you get back on your feet?"

"Like a dog."

"If you think it over and see things clearly," replied Andrew, "you'll see that what I've done I've done for my own sake, and not for yours."

"How do you make that out—with four men in the next room ready to stick a knife in your back—if I know anything about 'em?"

"I'll tell you: I owe nothing to you, but a man owes a lot to himself, and I'm going to pay myself in full."

CHAPTER 39

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but, though he came to the verge of oblivion, the voices from the other room finally waked him. They had been changing subtly during the past hours and now they rose, and there was a ring to them that troubled Andrew.

He could make out their talk part of the time; and then again they lowered their voices to rumbling growls. At such times he knew that they were speaking of him, and the hum of the undertone was more ominous than open threats. When they talked aloud there was a confused clamor; when they were more hushed there was always the oily murmur of Scottie's voice, taking the lead and directing the current of the talk.

The liquor was going the rounds fast, now. Before they left for the Murchison Pass they had laid in a comfortable supply, but apparently Allister had cached a quantity of the stuff at the Twin Eagles shack. Of one thing Andrew was certain, that four such practiced whisky drinkers would never let their party degenerate into a drunken rout; and another thing was even more sure—that Scottie Macdougal would keep his head better than the best of the others. But what the alcohol would do would be to cut the leash of constraint and dig up every strong passion among them. For instance, Jeff Rankin was by far the most equable of the lot, but, given a little whisky, Jeff became a conscienceless devil.

He knew his own weakness, and Andrew, crawling to the door and putting his ear to the crack under it, found that the sounds of the voices became instantly clearer; the others were plying Jeff with the liquor, and Jeff, knowing that he had had enough, was persistently refusing, but with less and less energy.

There must be a very definite reason for this urging of Rankin toward the whisky, and Andrew was not hard pressed to find out that reason. The big, rather good-natured giant was leaning toward the side of the new leader, just as steadily as the others were leaning away from him. Whisky alone would stop his scruples. Larry la Roche, his voice a guarded, hissing whisper, was speaking to Jeff as Andrew began listening from his new position.

"What I ask you," said La Roche, "is this: Have we had any luck since the kid joined us?" "We've got a pile of the coin," said Jeff obstinately.

"D'you stack a little coin against the loss of Allister?" asked Larry la Roche.

"Easy," cautioned Scottie. "Not so loud, Larry."

"He's asleep," said Larry la Roche. "I heard him lie down after he'd put something agin' the door. No fear of him."

"Don't be so sure. He might make a noise lying down and make not a sound getting up. And, even when he's asleep, he's got one eye open like a wolf."

"Well," repeated Larry insistently, and now his voice was so faint that Andrew had to guess at half the syllables, "answer my question, Jeff: Have we had good luck or bad luck, takin' it all in all, since he joined us?"

"How do I know it's his fault?" asked Jeff. "We all knew it would be a close pinch if Allister ever jumped Hal Dozier. We thought Allister was a little bit faster than Dozier. Everybody else said that Dozier was the best man that ever pulled a gun out of leather. It wasn't luck that beat Allister—it was a better man."

There was a thud as his fist hit the rickety, squeaking table in the center of the room.

"I say, let's play fair and square. How do I know that the kid won't make a good leader?"

Scottie broke in smoothly: "Makes me grin when you say that, Jeff. Tell you what the trouble is with you, old man: you're too modest. A fellow that's done what you've done, following a kid that ain't twenty-five!"

There was a bearlike grunt from Jeff. He was not altogether displeased by this gracious tribute. But he answered: "You're too slippery with your tongue, Scottie. I never know when you mean what you say!"

It must have been a bitter pill for Scottie to swallow, but he was not particularly formidable with his weapons, compared with straight-eyed Jeff Rankin, and he answered: "Maybe there's some I jolly along a bit, but, when I talk to old Jeff Rankin, I talk straight. Look at me now, Jeff. Do I look as if I was joking with you?"

"I ain't any hand at readin' minds," grumbled Jeff.

He added