Show 1 I t t my EBY att AW MMA kw caiane alan lc e may se arvice CHAPTER XIV 17 the early sun was upon the broad main street of inspiration as billy wheeler drove horse dunns touring car into the little cow town old man coffee was in the back seat this time without any of his dogs marian who had been dozing against billys shoulder sat up and looked at the vacant street with a detached curiosity it seemed strange to see the street so empty and silent where last they had seen it full of knotted groups of men no stealthy movement in doorways this time no eyes covertly watching thern them from under ten gallon hats nothing but clean horizontal sunlight on quiet dust as it if nothing lived in this place at all marian said you still dont want to tell me what youre going to do it that I 1 dont want to tell you its just that its its got to come to you in another way this is a dramatic thing rather a terrible thing marian said this coming to the end ot of a killers trail dont look at it that way I 1 want you to think of this thing with all the impartiality you can you know now that our western code is a different code not the six gun code of 0 the old days nor the wild kind of thing some people have tried to make out it is such as never existed here or any place else but just a kind of a way of going about things that is bred into dry country men the way of each man making his own right and wrong each man looking only to himself lor for approval in the end maybe youre only going to learn the story of a kind of a kind of private execution maybe by a man who believed with all his heart that he was vas in the ri right ht she looked at him wonderingly for a minute she had never heard him talk in that way before billy billy dont you trust me to face out anything even yet dont you think I 1 have any courage at all 1 I trust your courage more than ive ever trusted anything in my life or you be here now wheeler drove through the town and turned up a side street to the house where sheriff walt amos lived leaving marian and old man coffee in the car he walked around the little house to the back door there was a smell of breakfast cooking here and walt amos himself was ling water over his face and hair at a wash bench beside a pump the young sheriff straightened up and stared at wheeler for a long moment through dripping water hardly expected to see you here ive come to make a deal with you wheeler said dont hardly seem theres any deal to be made between you and me horse dunn going out on bail get it out of your head amos began to dry his face and hair this is something else wheeler said youve wanted me out of this picture youve wanted me out of it from the start you know why and theres no need for us to go into why 1 I got enough troubles on this range amos said without outside capital pitching in to make things worse for the common run of cowmen in short you and your gang has been afraid id help dunn save the 94 you tried to railroad me here in judge chafers Sha fers court but you get away with it maybe youve got other things in mind to try to get me out of the way of your plans I 1 dont know anything about that people from outside that figure to throw in against the best interests ot of this ibis range amos began all right now youve got a chance to get rid of me you give me what I 1 want and ill promise you ill be out of this killing case within 24 hours you got any official standing in this case to begin with amos pointed out like to see me drag my freight just the same and heres how you can get it done well old man coffee and horse dunns niece are here with me give Us an hour to talk to horse dunn alone thais the proposition and all of the proposition and it if I 1 do that pull out of here within 24 hours ill stay out until the killing case against horse dunn is cleared up one way or another after that maybe ill come back to the 94 and maybe ill help it with its finance I 1 dont say one way or the other but if you want me out of it for the ame being heres your chance theres a hook in this some place amos said but ill take a chance horse dunns in the jail where he belongs ill take you there and ill give you an hour the inspiration jail was tiny but it was perhaps tile the most modern thing in the town it sat by itself on a rise of ground yards be hind walt amos house which was the nearest dwelling in structure it was a 20 foot square cube of 0 concrete with tiny air holes near the roof and an iron door within was an inner cage ol of steel bars separated from the outer shell all the way around by a corridor four feet wide vide the place had no great capacity but it would have been a double job tor for a good cracksman to make his way out old man coffee was reluctant to visit horse dunn here dont hardly seem fitting theres a special reason I 1 want you to come for a minute or two have it your own on way sheriff walt amos swung wide the outer door im putting you on your honor not to try any funny business he said but in case of doubt just remember how easy it would be to cut loose on you from the house you talk like a child said coffee it seemed strange billy wheeler thought that the old king of cattle the man who could not only dream a cow kingdom but make it live was to be found standing here in a two by four jail yet within the black p le if M al no 4 W 1 k 10 1 I 1 i ti N then speak out man alan he said shadows of concrete and steel horse dunn towered bigger than ever straighter than ever he seemed not an old man at the end of 0 his rope but a young giant easy in his strength the great sense of latent power that radiated from horse dunn made it seem that he only waited here within these cramped walls because he wilfully used his own great body as a pawn laid in hazard while he awaited his advantage but there were tears in Al marians arians eyes horse dunn grinned upward and about him at the steel and concrete the walls could not shame him it was he who shamed the walls A thousand miles of range have to be held by money mone and cows and men not by a little tin contrivance palmed off on the county by some hardware salesman you think they can hold me here an hour once I 1 decide to move out no one answered him there where the daylight could hardly enter the silence had a way of 0 descending sc sharply like the closing of iron doors after a little of that quiet no one could forget that a man had been found dead in the red sleep and another at ace springs and still another at the head of a gorge without a name wheeler knew that old man coffees eyes were watching him waiting for him to speak ile he drew a deep breath and broke the silence horse he said the whole works has been kind of stood on its head since I 1 saw you last horse dunns voice rumbled well good wheelers voice was very low he found that he could hardly speak no horse it good this is maybe the worst thing that any of us have come to ever in all our long trails held in that sharp hard silence that could clamp down so suddenly here they could feel the chill of the walls wheeler was seeking a way to go on marian was holding her uncles hand against her cheek and now horse drew his hand away billy he said and hesitated then speak out man he said at last two three different things have happened wheeler said A marian abarian and I 1 found lon magoon dead a little way back in the hills coffee here he went to howd magoon die horse dunn asked wheeler would not be turned aside 1 I guess that dont so much matter horse in view of a couple of other things for one thing marjan marian had her horse shot out from under her in plain light back in the hills ive been thinking a whole lot horse he went on about how anybody would ever come to take a shot at her now I 1 think I 1 know what are you coming to boy horse dunn said horse said billy wheeler horse I 1 know who killed marians pony last night and know why he saw horse dunns big shaggy head sway and tip a little to one side as the old man sought to peer more closely into wheelers eyes it if you know that he began wheelers voice was hat flat and relaxed with utter certainty you know I 1 do horse billy wheeler could hear his own blood beating in his ears like a far off indian drum and this time the silence was a terrible silence unendurable to those gathered there coffee horse dunn said in an un unnatural natura voice ill tall talk to this boy alone perhaps some faint persistent hope that he was wrong had lasted somewhere in billy wheelers mind but when horse dunn told old man alan coffee to so go out wheeler knew that he had not been wrong but that they were at the end old man alan coffee moved quickly with the smooth sliding stride of one of his own lion hocq hounds he was glad to be out of there for a moment the young sun splashed through the open door with the brilliance of a powder flare up then the half dark closed again as coffee let the door swing shut behind him they heard the crunch of his heels in the dirt as he walked off down the side of the hill you go too marian horse dunn said softly billy and I 1 want to you want her to stay here horse I 1 think stay here the old mans voice was blurred by a strange and unaccustomed cus tomed uncertainty you want her to stay here it its you that needs her here wheeler told him then after a moment he said almost inaudibly tell her horse an odd back light from one of the high ventilators rs outlined dunns big shaggy head and the sweep of a great shoulder but his eyes they comici could not see As he spoke it seemed that it was not the big old fighter who stood there but an old man as vaguely bewildered as a child tell her he said dimly you want me to tell her once more the silence descended brutal complete it held on endlessly as if no one of them was ever going to be able to break it again and still horse dunn did not speak nor move but stood like a frozen man a great shadowy figure just beyond the bars billy wheeler tried to say something anything to break that terrible taut stillness but he could not suddenly marian dunn stumbled forward against the bars she reached through drew horse dunns wrists through the barrier and hid her face in his two great hands her voice came to them choked and smothered 1 I know I 1 know horse dunns words shuddered as he cried out what what you know that you could love me so much wheeler saw the old fighter sway but in a moment he was steady again he spoke across marians bent head and his voice had a hard edge you dont know what youre talling talking about old man coffee has been loading you with look here is lie he in on this im virtually certain he knows though he figured it out different than I 1 did figured out what spit it out man 11 horse dorsc said wheeler with more sadness in his voice than he had ever known in the world before 1 I can name you every step of P horse dunns voice blazed up breaking restraint in gods name how did boti you find out from something marian said after the first shot at her she said tm im glad it happened I 1 cant tell you why I 1 know now what she meant by that those shots proved to her that no one who loved her was mixed up in the short crick works and today it suddenly came to me that just to fix that idea in her mind might have been reason enough tor for dropping those shots near her then I 1 remembered the night when you taped up your ankle where it was skinned and spoke of 0 straightening your spur of course a spur skin a mans ankle bone some boot weapon would have to do that and a derringer would have fitted in a derringer carrying a shotgun shell the shot in thi saddle fooled coffee for awhile it looked to him like it came from farther away than the horses had stood apart and made him think there was a third man but I 1 just happened to think that the shot could have come from a short weak gun with the same effect well wheeler finished coffee has been to he found out that flagg came through there like a bum dear god horse dunn whispered its the end ot of the rope he pulled his hands away and began to pace the two strides that the cell permitted back and forth back and forth marian wheeler begged tell him you see marian raised her face surprisingly in command ot of herself again her voice was steady 1 I do see III it I 1 see it all dunns pacing stopped he raised big shaking hands pIe pleading adin hands and yet you you aint you dont think P marian cried out to him and there was pain in her voice but there was glory in it too 1 I think nobody ever loved anybody so much as you have proved you love me 1 I I 1 cant hardly believe horse dunn sagged down onto the bare steel cot within his cell marjan marian if youre telling me that you Y you ou kno know w and yet youre backing me still the girl was pressed against the bars that kept her from h him im im telling you that I 1 believe in you with all my heart horse dunn stood up slowly like a man in a dream he said how much have you told her boy she knows only what ashes guessed I 1 think the rest of the story has to come from you the boss of the 94 appeared to consider tor for what seemed a long time 1 I I 1 dont know as I 1 can make out to do that life gone easy or smooth with me other times long ago ive faced down other men more men than these but I 1 swear I 1 never raised gun to any man without he got his break I 1 stood with empty hands always until their guns showed she has to know it all billy insisted from the very begin ing 1 I cant hardly expect her to understand der stand how it come up those shots I 1 threw so close to her the crazy part that a man cant hardly explain I 1 ever have done it it if I 1 know for certain that I 1 could put a slug shig into a two bit piece at a hundred yards ten out of ten easy as put your finger on a nail it seems a wild and crazy thing even to me but I 1 tell you never a man lived that could throw the tear fear into me that this kid has always been able to just on the scare that shed quit me arid and I 1 thought if there was one thing shed be sure of on earth it was that id give my life to save the least hair ot of her head from harm and I 1 took that way so that shed always be dead certain whatever might happen or be proved later that it be true that it was me killed flagg TO BE CONTINUED |