Death Waits at Sundown (9 page)

Chapter
Seven

T
HAT
night Buster was restive in
his sleep, rolling from one side of the bed to the other at short intervals.
The last time he turned that night, he put his small, troubled face into the
beam of a
bull's-eye lantern
.

He was groggily awake
on the instant, sitting up, striving to force a yell of terror through his
contracted throat.

Spick's voice was as
sibilant as a cat's. “Don't make a sound, Buster. It's me—Spick.”

The course of the
bull's-eye's flickering beam was bent downward to the red Navajo beside the
bed. Buster stared at Spick's silhouette in the open window. The curtains were
blowing like uneasy white ghosts and Spick was very black in the moonlight. He
stepped to Buster's side with a tread lighter than a jaguar's.

“I knew how bad you
felt,” whispered Spick. “I couldn't stand to hear her ragging you about
something you couldn't help.”

Buster was awake now,
scrubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands, the indignation of great wrong
filling him anew.

“Besides, what's a
cow,” whispered Spick. “I want to help you.”

Buster looked
attentive.

“I've been wanting to
go on a hunting trip in the Cordilleras,” said Spick, “and I'm leaving tonight.
Maybe if you just vanished for three or four days and made them know how you
felt about this, you'd have things coming your way better.”

Buster was trying to
think and he squinted up his eyes with the effort. He had been in many another
such scrape before this and now Spick was conjuring up all those nights without
supper. The proposition was attractive.

“What you goin' to
hunt?” said Buster, lowering his voice to a mysterious whisper.

“Grizzlies and deer.
There's a cabin I know about. I got the supplies we need and I've got a new
rifle for you—that is, if you want to go.”

“A new rifle?” said
Buster eagerly.

“Sssh,” cautioned
Spick. “They said you couldn't have any more guns but if you bag a grizzly by
yourself, maybe they'll have to change their minds, huh? I'm all for you,
Buster.”

“What kind of a
rifle?”

“A
Winchester
.22
brand-new. It's outside in the packs.”

Buster was out on the
instant. He swiftly slid into his overalls and grabbed his hat in one hand, his
boots in the other and started for the window.

At the sill he
whispered, “Maybe I better leave a note. I . . . I don't want Sis to worry
too
much.”

“Okay,” replied Spick
affably.

Buster
took his slate and scribbled:

Sis, I'm going
to hunt me a few bears and deer and things with Spick. 

Buster

He hung it on the
bedpost and then consented to leave. Spick lingered long enough to wipe the
writing off on his pants and scrawl an entirely different message thereon.

Very softly they stole
past the corral to the four mounts Spick had saddled and packed. They led these
for some distance before they mounted.

“First,” said Spick,
“I got to see a man in town and after that, we're really on our way.”

“Swell,” said Buster.
“Now where's that new Winchester, partner?”

Spick's grin was
nothing more than a gleam of teeth in blackness. “I guess that's where I
slipped up, kid.”

“Say!” said Buster,
startled by the grating tone. “What's the matter with you?”

“Never
mind what's the matter with me, kid. Ride and keep quiet or I'm giving you a
taste of this quirt.”

H
anging at the foot of
Buster's bed was the slate and upon it uneven letters said:

I
collected my pay in San Carlos. Follow me and all you'll find is
what's left of your brat.

Chapter
Eight

T
HE
desert dawn lay cold and thin
upon the sleeping rancho of Big Bill Bailey. As yet but half visible, the
kingly castle of 'dobe showed only a thin blue spire of smoke to mark the
efforts of a Chinese beginning breakfast so silently that Big Bill Bailey
slumbered peacefully in his throne room.

He was wishing dimly
that he had enough presence to get up and pull another blanket over himself but
he didn't. With half thoughts coursing slowly through his mind between dreams
and ideas, a panorama of his immediate woes began to unfold, now very real, now
assuaged by wildly painted hopes which he would not remember upon waking.

A rolling, staccato sound
troubled him vaguely. No such running horse should be here on the ranch at this
time of the day. But the sound grew louder and louder and then stopped, was
gone for an instant to be immediately taken up and continued by the swift
patting of boots on sand and then on wood. That stopped too and even yet Big
Bill was giving it no real thought.

He heard Wang's
singsong voice, “Him sleepy. No can see, missee.”

And then Susan's
urgent words, “I've
got
to see him. Quick!”

Big Bill heard that.
He rolled over and swung his feet down fishing foggily for his boots. The spurs
were cold to his fingers as he brushed them aside and almost immediately
stepped on their sharp
rowels
. The pain brought him more fully awake and he
stopped hunting.

Throwing a kingly
slicker about him he went to the door and opened it.

Susan was walking
swiftly toward him, her big eyes wild with terror.

“Big Bill! Spick's
gone! Buster's gone! You've got to do something!”

She had a slate in her
hand, shoving it at him.

Big Bill ran his hand
over his face to stir up his blood. He rubbed his eyes and became conscious of
the slate. He took it and turned it around and read it.

He read it again
before it made sense to him. He gave his head a violent shake and came all the
way to the surface. “What's this all about?”

“Buster's gone!
Spick's gone! You've got to do something!”

She was wringing her
hands pitifully, looking expectantly at him.

“Begin at the
beginning,” said Big Bill. “You don't make sense.”

“Spick robbed the San
Carlos bank. Don't you see? And then he came back and took Buster so that
nobody would follow him. But he'll kill Buster. I know he'll kill him. Maybe
he's already dead. You've—”

“Which way did he go?”

“I . . . I don't
know.”

Big Bill thought for a
while and then made a decision. “He must have hit for the border. That would
bring him within three miles of here if he was making it straight, which means
he'll be at Coyote Pass.”

Big Bill was wide
awake now and his stare was level and sober upon her. “Until you needed me,” he
said slowly, “you forgot all about me.”

“Yes,” she said
swiftly, not hearing him. “Yes, of course. We've got to go if we catch them at
all.”

“Until you had
something for me to do,” said Big Bill, “I was so much sagebrush. You threw me
over for Spick Murphy, a killer.”

“Yes— No! No! He meant
nothing. Believe me, he meant nothing to me. I tried to be decent to him
because I thought everybody was his enemy. I'm sorry. I'll do anything! But for
God's sake, Big Bill, don't stand here talking. Can't you realize he'll murder
Buster?”

“I know,” said Big
Bill. “But what makes you think I'll do this for you? Why should I?”

She looked at him
blankly, unable to fully understand that this was Big Bill Bailey talking. Big
Bill Bailey, the most dependable man in Rio Carlos, the righter of wrongs, king
of the desert ranges. . . .

“You got yourself into
this against my advice,” said Big Bill. “Now you come to me to get you out of
it when you could have saved yourself all this trouble. Your crusade for Spick
Murphy's come back at you. You think I'm easy. You think I'm thick-skulled.
Until you need me you have nothing to do with me. And if I do this for you, it
will change nothing. Why should I go out there and match guns with Spick Murphy
just as a favor to a woman who calls me only when she has a dirty job to be
done?”

He said it without
rancor, only as a series of questions which seemed also to be troubling him. If
he had been angry she could have matched him and derided him for a coward or
anything else. But the chill of his tones and the knowledge that her brother
was in danger gave her a beaten attitude.

“You mean you won't?”
she said brokenly.

“I didn't say that.
But I certainly won't walk into a mess like this for nothing.”

“You mean . . . you
mean you want money?”

“What use have I got
for that?”

She could not
understand this. She was shivering with both the cold and the inner quake of
fear for Buster.

Big Bill's tone was
suddenly harsh. “Why don't you go for Sheriff Doyle? Why not let a posse take
out after them? Why come here and ask me to take on a killer single-handed?”

She was crying now.
“You know why. They . . . they wouldn't risk anything to save Buster. They'd
pen him up and he'd shoot Buster. . . . I know he would. . . .”

“And so you come to me
and ask that I invite sudden death . . . I'd hardly fight that buzz saw for
nothing.”

“What do you want?”

“If I do this for
you,” said Big Bill in a hard voice, “will you marry me?”

She
straightened up. Something like contempt crept into her glance. “You'd force
me?”

“I hold the winning
hand,” said Big Bill, jerking his thumb at his holstered gun which dangled from
a peg. “And I mean to play it.”

“All right. All right,
I'll marry you if you do this.”

Big Bill looked at her
for several seconds as though deciding whether or not she would keep her word.
Then he turned and closed the door in her face, to emerge a few minutes later
fully dressed and buckling on his Colt.

“While they're
saddling a couple horses,” said Big Bill, “I'll take some coffee. Have some?”

She did not answer
him, pressing herself back against the wall as he passed her.

Chapter
Nine

I
T
was noon when Big Bill Bailey
and Susan Price thundered down the steep slope into the southern end of Coyote
Pass. The white-flecked mounts showed the difficulty of the byway they had traversed
to short-circuit their route.

Big Bill pulled to a
skidding halt at the side of the trail which swept back obliquely from them and
looked down at the undisturbed dust.

“No tracks made since
last night's wind,” announced Big Bill after due process of thought. “They
either didn't take this route or we're ahead of them.”

Susan was wrapped in
the dust cloud of her own making which had now caught up with her. Her small
face was framed by her black, flat hat now turned to the white shade of alkali,
chin thong still tight against her small jaw. Fearfully she looked up at the
rearing heights of the fantastic rocks about them.

“This is Mexico,” said
Big Bill, “but we're not going to worry about that. What the Feds don't know
won't hurt them and Spick won't be expecting this. He's most likely camped up
one of these draws.”

Susan still had
nothing to say. The dust had cleared and the sun beat unmercifully down upon
her checkered shirt. She was still sweeping the towering badlands with worried
gaze.

Big Bill tensed and
raised his head. “There! Do you smell that wood smoke?”

“No.”

“Open your mouth and
take a slow, easy breath. There, smell it?”

She looked at him in
sudden fright. “He's close by.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Big Bill got down and whipped his reins over his horse's head, dropping them.
From his scabbard he pulled his Winchester.

It was not quite out
of the boot when Spick's mocking voice came down to them. “Put it back, Bailey.
You haven't got a chance.”

Susan whipped around
and stared upward, trembling hand on her horn. Spick was a black silhouette
against the sky not fifty feet away, a silver-mounted six-gun alertly held at
his hip. His white teeth were bared in a grin.

Big Bill had stopped
like a statue, the Winchester poised with its muzzle still inside the boot.

“This is nice of you,
Bailey,” said Spick. “I couldn't figure out how to get the lady too and now
you've solved it for me. Come up here, kid.”

This last was
addressed to Buster. Spick knelt and grabbed the boy by his collar and hauled
up, standing him in front.

“I tried to yell at
you,” whimpered Buster. “Honest I did. . . . But—”

“Shut up,” snapped
Spick with a cuff.

Susan could see now
why Buster had not yelled. His mouth was a red splotch of fresh blood where a
gun barrel had struck him. The hypodermic of rage steeled Susan.

“Leave him alone!”

“Don't try for that
gun,” said Spick amiably. “Not if you want to live.”

Susan stayed her hand
and looked urgently at Big Bill's back. The man had not moved a fraction of an
inch. Contempt came into Susan's face.

“This was too easy,”
said Spick. “An Apache in his cradle could have figured out what you'd do,
where you'd cross, how long it would take you. A squaw would have known that no
posse would come over the border. And I don't have to tell you that there's no
Mexican patrol that can't be bought. That should demonstrate the superiority of
brains over brawn, Bailey.”

“Are you going to . .
. to kill him?” said Buster.

“Turn around, Bailey.
I never shot a man in the back in my life.”

“Don't!” screamed
Susan.

Big Bill was turning
around. A six-gun at fifty paces could not miss in the able hands of Spick
Murphy and the six-gun was already cocked.

The Winchester swooped
out of its boot as Big Bill spun, sun flashing from his cartridge belt, small
swirls of dust shooting out from under his boots.

He got completely
turned and the Winchester was coming up.

Spick fired with the
cool deliberation of a marksman. The bullet kicked Big Bill back into the
roan's flank. The mount's sudden start at both blow and shot knocked Big Bill
forward and flat.

Spick's second shot
ricocheted from a stone beside Big Bill's face.

And out of the curling
dust blazed the Winchester.

Spick dropped his
six-gun. He put both hands to his face and the blood came oozing through his
fingers. He stood there, wavering, and Buster scuttled to one side. Unsteadily
Spick took a pace forward, out over nothingness.

Slowly the dust
settled again. The roan stopped a hundred feet away and looked wonderingly
back, having stepped on his reins.

Susan leaped down and
sped to Big Bill's side but before she got there he was sitting up.

The stock of the
Winchester was cleanly split and a long scarlet furrow ran up his shoulder.

Susan stopped when she
saw he was all right and then reached down as though to help him to his feet.
He shook her off and pulled himself over to a rock. Methodically he took off
his silk neckerchief and began to bind his own shoulder with his hand and his
teeth.

Buster scrambled down
from his high perch and came running. “Gee! Gee, you were lucky! He hit your
gun!”

Big Bill's voice was
muffled by his mouthful of silk but it was still matter-of-fact. “He never
failed to shoot for the heart in his life. That ain't luck, Buster.”

Susan had control of
herself again and she clutched Buster to her, much against his liking. “How . .
. how can I ever thank you?”

Big Bill looked
sideways at her. “You remember your promise?”

She did. It jolted
her. “I didn't think . . .”

“It was a promise,
wasn't it?”

“Yes. Yes. I'll . . .
I'll go through with it.”

“You'll marry me
because I made you say you would?”

“Yes . . . yes, I'll .
. . marry you.”

“You sound like those
words choked you,” said Big Bill, patting his knot in place. “Well, they
needn't. Climb your horse and beat it back to your Pinta. I didn't have any intention
of holding you.”

Amazement, even
relief, dawned upon her face as she crouched there beside Buster. “You mean
you'll release me from that promise?”

“Sure,” said Big Bill
bitterly. “Sure I'll release you. I'd pull up stakes and head for Cheyenne
before I'd keep my part of it. I'd sell my spread for a
plugged
centavo
before I'd ever call you my wife.”

The hardness in his
voice brought her erect, angered her.

He went steadily on.
“All you wanted from me was a favor. I suppose you'd have married Doyle or Con
Mathews or anybody if they'd made you promise. If you had any self-respect you
never would have consented, that's a cinch. And now I know just how much you
think you're worth. I know just where I stand with you. Well, I don't admire
the answer, Miss Susan Price, and I wouldn't have the likes of you with ten
thousand beeves thrown in to boot. Now get on your horse and get out of here,
I'm sick of looking at you.”

“You . . . you knew
you wouldn't go through with this from the first?”

“Shut up and get out of
my sight,” said Big Bill. “You make me sick. I'll recover the money and the
horses. Go on! Beat it!”

She did not move. She
stood and shook with the violence of her anger. “You . . . you did this to make
me look cheap!”

“That's what you are.
Cheap! You aren't worth fighting for. You're fickle and you're dumb and you
haven't got a lick of sense in that pretty head of yours. I let myself be on
call to you for years but that's through. I never want to see you again, but if
I do I'll quirt you. Now get out.”

Still she did not
move. The bandage had slipped when he had waved his arm toward her horse and he
winced as he restored it.

“You don't mean that,
Big Bill.”

“Mean it? Hell, yes, I
mean it. You made a fool out of me for a damned bandit and that's enough of a
dose for anybody to take for any kind of a cure. Well, I'm cured. For years
I've been tipping my hat and saying ‘Yes, ma'am to a woman that didn't rate a
slap from a sheepherder. You figured you were doing me a hell of a big favor to
promise me you'd marry me. Well, by God, I wouldn't have you around my house if
you came with more gold than you could carry. Get out!”

She stepped closer to
him. “You . . . you don't mean that, Big Bill.”

“Mean it? Hell, yes, I
mean it! This shoulder is making me sick enough without having to look at you.”
He started up but the effort shifted the bandage again and he sank back, pain
in his eyes.

“You need me,” she
said softly. “Don't send me away. Here, let me tie—”

“Keep your hands off
me!” cried Big Bill. “I'd bleed to death before I'd let you touch me.”

But she did touch him.
She untied his clumsy knot and fixed the tourniquet right, winding it up with a
rifle bullet.

He glared at her.
Buster looked on in shocked amazement. He had never seen his sister that
humbled before.

Big Bill suffered the
treatment and apparently decided to let her stick around for the moment.

“Go get my horse,” he
said gruffly.

She went and got his
horse.

“Now scramble around
up there and find his camp and saddle his horses and get that money he had. Go
on. Snap into it.”

She went away and a
half-hour later came back with the mounts.

Very sternly he said,
“All right. Give me a hand while I mount and we'll get going.”

She gave him a hand
and let him ride up the trail ahead of her as she and Buster led the rest of
the string.

Big Bill turned around
in his saddle with a terrifying glare. “We're going right on into San Carlos.”

“Yes,” said Susan.

“And we'll get there
before dark if we push along. So don't lag.”

“Yes, Big Bill.”

“And when we get
there, don't go wandering off anyplace before I can find the justice of the
peace. Understand? You'll spend tonight out at my ranch and as long as you
behave yourself and quit monkeying around with bandits, you can stay. Do you
get that?”

“Yes, Big Bill,” said
Susan.