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Show USELESS ' TUB STORY THUS FAR: Melody Jonei and Georte Fury had ridden Into piyoevllle. Melody mistaken for the out-Uw, out-Uw, Moot Jarrad. Monte's flrl. Cherry, Cher-ry, with George, met Lee, Monte'i prd-ner, prd-ner, at ha and Melody vera leavini the city. They overpowered Lee and went le Ui ihack wber Mont hid th cipren money. Luk Paeker, th Insurance cop, in there and that by lomeone outilde. n-ben Melody returned with the honei f.iey found tha iherlff In the cabin but the body (one. They toon found the money hid In wall with the body of Luke. At thli point Melody and Cherry wer ante to make a break and eel away. Fury bid met op with Monte. He wai determined de-termined to take Monte Into town. CHAPTER XV All expression had left Monte Jar. rad's face, except for a clear brightness bright-ness In his eyes, as In the eyes of a lynx. "Crazy," he murmured, as if talking to himself. He fired, then. He hardly seemed to go through the motions of a draw at all, the weapon came so smoothly from the tied-down holster at his thigh. All George Fury ever saw was a general galvanizing Jerk of Monte Jarrad's whole frame, and Instantly the gun blasted In Monte'i hand, as if it had been there all the time. George Fury doubled and pitched forward as if he had been struck in the middle by a swinging log. His gun, which he had somehow grabbed out of its leather, fired only a bare Instant after Jarrad's weapon; but it exploded downward, blowing half of the little campflre away; and the recoil almost tore it out of George Fury's slackened hand. Monte Jarrad reclined motionless, his face impassive, but his eyes awake, watching the man who was down. His gun was cocked and steady. After a moment or two he noticed that George Fury's right hand half covered a living coal from the little fire, but did not draw away. When he saw this, Jarrad let the hammer down, easing it gently. Morning was leaking out of the far-off Dragonette ranges as Melody Jones drew near the ramshackle ranch house of the Busted Nose. First a dull green illumination appeared ap-peared In the eastern sky, without in any way lighting the soot-black trail; and as this appeared the red-poppers red-poppers began to go "zeep" in the brush. After a time this first effort withdrew, so that the night seemed blacker than before; but a muddy grayness was beginning to pervade the ranges, as if seeping' up out of the ground. By the time this had increased to full dawn, Melody was sitting his pony behind a stand of locust, watching the ranch house from a respectful distance of more than four hundred yards. So far as he could find out he was alone in the world entirely. Even the bear cub had been turned loose, or had worked its way free, from its chain beside the broken screen door. As Melody prospected closer, a late-ranging armadillo trundled ! around the corner of the house, and i disappeared without hurry. Melody ! was satisfied with that The animal ! would have known, better than he could, If anyone were around. He ' rode to the back stoop of the house without further caution. I After that he walked a little way I out from the house, to get away from the sound of the pony's munching, munch-ing, and listened a while longer, very lonely in the dawn; and then ( made a fire in the stove, with more than necessary thuds and bangs, to be rid of the Insufferable quiet, i A hot smell of coffee, smelling tea times better than it would ever taste, began floating down-wind from the Busted Nose. Melody rummaged for something to eat which would take no work to &x. His back was to the door, and his hands were pawing over a shelf of canned goods, when the kitchen darkened faintly. His hands faltered, but only for n instant He went on with what he was doing without looking around, stalling over the labels. Somebody was standing in the doorway. He knew that much, though he had heard no approach. Melody's right hand weighed a can of tomatoes, testing It as a weapon. But he set it down. Melody turned slowly, empty handed; and, for the first time In his life, faced Monte Jarrad. "HI," Melody said. The man In the doorway grunted. Even If the light had been better, bet-ter, Instead of directly behind Jarrad, Jar-rad, Melody might not have recognized recog-nized him yet "Looking for somebody?" Melody asked this stranger. Monte Jarrad took in the whole lay-out coolly, the room first, then Melody Jones. Melody saw him notice no-tice where the carbine was. "Just passing by." Jarrad staid, watching Jones oddly. His voice hid a toft lack of tone to it very unsettling. "You don't need to be so edgy." Melody said. "We don't ask no questions here. Want aome codce? " "I'll get It myself . . . Don't go ver there. Don't go any place. Stay against that walL Back up gainst It a little closer." He gave these orders casually, not even both-'ring both-'ring to look closely at Melody. Ills )es kept wandering around the oom. checking, and checking, ind techecklng. "Now you looky herel" Melody began, "Want to play like you don't know me, huh?" Jarrad commented, his eyes still wandering. "I never seen you before In my born days." Jarrad's gaze stopped wandering. "Nor heard of me. neither. I suppose." sup-pose." "I can't keep knowledge of every grub-testing punk that" He stopped short. "What's the matter?" Jarrad asked sardonically. Melody looked puzzled. "It come to me for a minute that you might be Monte Jarrad. But you ain't" "No?" "No. This Jarrad weasel looks somethin' like I do it fools people even." "It's a hard thing to say about a man." "Whut?" "When I think of being mistooken for the kind of chuckle-head that you look like to me It's enough to turn a feller sick." Melody looked at him with pity. "Don't let it worry you," he said. "Nobody ever mistook me for no such limping wreck as you be. It's small wonder you got strucken by lightning, or something, the manners you got And here's another thing-" "Well, I'll be damned," said Jarrad. Jar-rad. "And here's another thing. Keep on like you're haidlng, and you'll think lightning hit you agalnl" The two looked at each other strangely across the kitchen table. "A feller never knows," Monte Jarrad said obscurely, as if to him- George Fury doubled and pitched forward. self. "Don't make much difference, in the long run, I reckon . . . Stand closer to the walL I don't figure I got much better than an hour here." "So you're him," Melody said, as if he couldn't believe it He stood staring Idiotically, as people look at some great mysterious phenomenon they have heard about all their lives. "It's a hell of a disappointment" he said at last "Take off your boots," Jarrad ordered. or-dered. Slowly Melody unbuckled his spur straps. "It beats me," he said, "what she sees In you, Jarrad." "I'll take your belt; and your hat; and whatever trash Is in them pock ets. I suppose that bone pile out there with my saddle on it you call that your horse . . ." "And that carbine you slung out in the dirt was your carbine!" "You can have it now. We'll get your own saddle on that old hide. You can have mine." "This won't do you no good," Melody Mel-ody told him. "Even If we swap every stitch we own, there still won't be any scar on my bean." "No," Monte admitted. "No; there never will be. But I suppose there can still be the place where one was . . " When the meaning of this soaked In on Melody he studied Monte Jarrad Jar-rad for a long time. "You got clammy clam-my Wees," he said at last without much assurance. "I'd ruthcr be dald than in your place." "You can have both." Jarrad said. Jones obeyed as Monte Jarrad swapped boots, hat and equipment with him; and finally switched his own old worn hull to Harry Hen-shaw. Hen-shaw. After that was done Melody was kept standing against the wall of the kitchen while Jarrad, one-handed, one-handed, drank his soffce. There was still something Montt wanted to know; but he didn't know how to get at It Some very pc"l' things were running In Melody's mind Just then. He knew he was going to make some kind of a play; and he knew It wasn't going to be any good. He entirely en-tirely believed what Monte had said -that he might knock Monte out but not fait enough so that Monte'i gun wouldn't get him. -Where did he say you was from?" Monte asked him. "Montana. A place called Two Lance. But that ain't what you want to know." Monte came out with it then. "What was going on," he asked, "the night you was in Cherry's room?" "Which night you meant" "Which?" "Oh. you mean that one? Nothing. Noth-ing. Nothing then." Jarrad's eyes looked as if they could eat through a horse blanket. "Just what the hell do you mean by 'then,' " "Maybe you got me over a bar'l. But you ain't going to forget me, what short time you live. Because that girl ain't yours no more, and never will be again." Monte Jarrad stood and stared at him, glassy-eyed. "It don't matter how dald I be, or nothing," Melody said, pouring it into him slowly. "Dald or alive, I'm your finish. You ain't never going to get nothing you want again. I can stand in your light ten times better when I'm dald than I ever done yet And when you finally puke blood and die, you'll know it was me that done it some way." Monte Jarrad stared at him dumbfounded, dumb-founded, too profoundly allocked to explode. Nobody had ever talked to him like that in his life before. "You'll be an earmarked ghost," Monte said, looking at Melody's car. "I already got my notch on you, I see." But his mind was not on it "Reckon It won't show with a coffin cof-fin on," Melody answered. "Different "Dif-ferent with the mark I got on you. Because I taken her away from you, you hear? Whether she knows It or not" Two riders were coming In, walking walk-ing their horses. The stride of the ponies, conveyed to tha listeners by the hoof-rhythm, was unhurried; yet they moved in boldly, with no pauses to spy out the situation Into which they headed. Melody shifted to crana bis neck. "Stand where you are!" Monte snarled at him. Monta backed across the angle of tha room until he could flick a glanca through the door In the direction of the corral without giving Melody chanca to make a break. "You don't see em." Melody drawled, without sighting anything himself. "Because they gone In the barn. I can tell that by ear. And I can tell you something else. You don't need to look so sceart Because one of them Is Cherry's horse I can tell because I know he thrun a shoe." He didn't bother to answer Melody. Melo-dy. "So now you can ask her for yourself," your-self," Melody said. "She'll walk in here in a minute. Ask here if what I told you is so. Ask her what that gun will get you from here on in. If you had sense you'd turn It on yourself, and duck a peck ' misery." mis-ery." "Shut upl" Monte's eyes, carefully watching Melody, kept flicking toward the barn; and presently Melody knew by Monte's face that he had been right and that Cherry had come into Monte's view. Very slowly Monte Jarrad put his gun away; but as It settled Into Its holster he tested it to be sure that It rested there lightly. He could draw It again much faster than another man could spit They were standing there like that silent and watchful In suspended suspend-ed motion, as Chery de Longpre came across the gallery to tha door, and stopped there. Chery'a face had no color, bloodless blood-less because she was tired. Her hair was tumbled and her clothes hard worked; but her head was up. "Hello, Cherry," Monte Jarrad said. "I can't remember," she said, "why I ever thought you looked like each other." "Me too." Melody said, mora conversationally. con-versationally. "If I had realized what kind of tlzzlck-looklng Jigger I was mistook for, I sure would of high-tailed out of here to begin on." "Be still," Cherry said, disdaining to raise her voice to him. "You'd better go out to the barn. George Fury is out there. He's hurt" Melody stared at her while this soaked in. "Bad?" he asked finally. "He's dying. I think." Melody shifted his eyes to Monta Jarrad, and held them there while he moved sidelong to the door. She made room for him to pass. Once outside Melody took a chance on turning his back, and moved toward the barn at a run. Cherry looked after him for a moment mo-ment without any change of expression. expres-sion. "Cherry," Monte Jarrad said, "are you crazy?" "No." Cherry said. "Sometimes a couple of times lately It's sure seemed like there was something pretty tunny In the slant you take about him." "Is there?" "He's useless." Monte said, low voiced, without heat "He's got less natural sense than a fresh-dropped calf-and ain't worth half at much. You could study him a lifetime, and never find something he wss good for." "Yes." Cherry said. "Monte, why did you shoot George Fury?" (TO DC CONTINUED) |