'Firebrand' Trevison by Charles Alden Seltzer (ebook reader for manga .TXT) 📕

“They got the Judge, ‘Brand’—they run him off, with my cayuse!”

“Who got him?”

“I ain’t reckonin’ to know. Some of Corrigan’s scum, most likely—I didn’t see ’em close.”

“How long ago?”

“Not a hell of a while. Mebbe fifteen or twenty minutes. I been missin’ a lot of time, I reckon. Can’t have been long, though.”

“Which way did they go?”

“Off towards Manti. Two of ’em took him. The rest is layin’ low somewhere, most likely. Watch out they don’t get you! I ain’t seen ’em run off, yet!”

“How did it happen?”

“I ain’t got it clear in my head, yet. Just happened, I reckon. The Judge was settin’ on the ledge just in front of the dobie house you had him in. I was moseyin’ along the edge, tryin’ to figger out what a light in the sky off towards Manti meant. I couldn’t figger it out—what in hell was it, anyway?”

“The courthouse burned—maybe the bank.”

Levins chuckled. “You got the record, then.”

“Yes.”

“An’ I’ve lost the Judge! Ain’t I a box-head, though!”

“That’s all right. Go ahead. What happened?”

“I was moseyin along the ledge. Just when I got to the slope where we come up—passin’ it—I seen a bunch of guys, on horses, coming out of the shadow of an angle, down there. I hadn’t seen ’em before. I knowed somethin’ was up an’ I turned, to light out for shelter. An’ just then one of ’em burns me in the back—with a rifle bullet. It couldn’t have been no six, from that distance. It took the starch out of me, an’ I caved, I reckon, for a little while. When I woke up the Judge was gone. The moon had just come up an’ I seen him ridin’ away on my cayuse, between two other guys. I reckon I must have gone off again, when you shook me.” He laughed, weakly. “What gets me, is where them other guys went, after the two sloped with the Judge. If they’d have been hangin’ around they’d sure have got you, comin’ up here, wouldn’t they?”

Trevison’s answer was a hoarse exclamation. He swung Levins up and bore him into one of the communal houses, whose opening faced away from the plains and the activity. Then he ran to where he had left Nigger, leading the animal back into the zig-zag passages, pulling his rifle out of the saddle holster and stationing himself in the shadow of the house in which he had taken Levins.

“They’ve come back, eh?” the wounded man’s voice floated out to him.

“Yes—five or six of them. No—eight! They’ve got sharp eyes, too!” he added stepping back as a rifle bullet droned over his head, chipping a chunk of adobe from the roof of the box in whose shelter he stood.

Sullenly, Corrigan had returned to Manti with the deputies that had accompanied him to the Bar B. He had half expected to find Trevison at the ranchhouse, for he had watched him when he had ridden away and he seemed to have been headed in that direction. Jealousy dwelt darkly in the big man’s heart, and he had found his reason for the suspicion there. He thought he knew truth when he saw it, and he would have sworn that truth shone from Rosalind Benham’s eyes when she had told him that she had not seen Trevison pass that way. He had not known that what he took for the truth was the cleverest bit of acting the girl had ever been called upon to do. He had decided that Trevison had swung off the Bar B trail somewhere between Manti and the ranchhouse, and he led his deputies back to town, content to permit his men to continue the search for Trevison, for he was convinced that the latter’s visit to the courthouse had resulted in disappointment, for he had faith in Judge Lindman’s declaration that he had destroyed the record. He had accused himself many times for his lack of caution in not being present when the record had been destroyed, but regrets had become impotent and futile.

Reaching Manti, he dispersed his deputies and sought his bed in the Castle. He had not been in bed more than an hour when an attendant of the hotel called to him through the door that a man named Gieger wanted to talk with him, below. He dressed and went down to the street, to find Gieger and another deputy sitting on their horses in front of the hotel with Judge Lindman, drooping from his long vigil, between them.

Corrigan grinned scornfully at the Judge.

“Clever, eh?” he sneered. He spoke softly, for the dawn was not far away, and he knew that a voice carries resonantly at that hour.

“I don’t understand you!” Judicial dignity sat sadly on the Judge; he was tired and haggard, and his voice was a weak treble. “If you mean—”

“I’ll show you what I mean.” Corrigan motioned to the deputies. “Bring him along!” Leading the way he took them through Manti’s back door across a railroad spur to a shanty beside the track which the engineer in charge of the dam occasionally occupied when his duty compelled him to check up arriving material and supplies. Because plans and other valuable papers were sometimes left in the shed it was stoutly built, covered with corrugated iron, and the windows barred with iron, prison-like. Reaching the shed, Corrigan unlocked the door, shoved the Judge inside, closed the door on the Judge’s indignant protests, questioned the deputies briefly, gave them orders and then re-entered the shed, closing the door behind him.

He towered over the Judge, who had sunk weakly to a bench. It was pitch dark in the shed, but Corrigan had seen the Judge drop on the bench and knew exactly where he was.

“I want the whole story—without any reservations,” said Corrigan, hoarsely; “and I want it quick—as fast as you can talk!”

The Judge got up, resenting the other’s tone. He had also a half-formed resolution to assert his independence, for he had received certain assurances from Trevison with regard to his past which had impressed him—and still impressed him.

“I refuse to be questioned by you, sir—especially in this manner! I do not purpose to take further—”

The Judge felt Corrigan’s fingers at his throat, and gasped with horror, throwing up his hands to ward them off, failed, and heard Corrigan’s laugh as the fingers gripped his throat and held.

When the Judge came to, it was with an excruciatingly painful struggle that left him shrinking and nerveless, lying in a corner, blinking at the light of a kerosene lamp. Corrigan sat on the edge of a flat-topped desk watching him with an ugly, appraising, speculative grin. It was as though the man were mentally gambling on his chances to recover from the throttling.

“Well,” he said when the Judge at last struggled and sat up; “how do you like it? You’ll get more if you don’t talk fast and straight! Who wrote that letter, from Dry Bottom?”

Neither judicial dignity or resolutions of independence could resist the threatened danger of further violence that shone from Corrigan’s eyes, and the Judge whispered gaspingly:

“Trevison.”

“I thought so! Now, be careful how you answer this. What did Trevison want in the courthouse?”

“The original record of the land transfers.”

“Did he get it?” Corrigan’s voice was dangerously even, and the Judge squirmed and coughed before he spoke the hesitating word that was an admission of his deception:

“I told him—where—it was.”

Paralyzed with fear, the Judge watched Corrigan slip off the desk and approach him. He got to his feet and raised his hands to shield his throat as the big man stopped in front of him.

“Don’t, Corrigan—don’t, for God’s sake!”

“Bah!” said the big man. He struck, venomously. An instant later he put out the light and stepped down into the gray dawn, locking the door of the shanty behind him and not looking back.