CHAPTER 7


The prisoner's good humor impressed Bull immensely. Here was a man talking commonplaces in the face of death. A greater man than Uncle Bill, he felt at once--a far greater man. It was impossible to conceive of that keen, sharp eye and that clawlike hand sending a bullet far from the center of the target.

He gave his eyes long sight of that face, and then turned from the bars and went out with the sheriff.

"Is that your man?" asked the sheriff.

"I dunno," said Bull, fencing for time as they stood in front of the jail. "What'd he do?"

"You mean why he's in jail? I'll tell you that, son, but first I want to know what you got agin' him--and your proofs--mostly your proofs!"

The distaste which Bull had felt for the sheriff from the first now became overpowering. That he should be the means of bringing that terrible and active little man to an end seemed, as a matter of fact, absurd. Guile must have played a part in that capture.

Suppose he were to tell the sheriff about the shooting of Uncle Bill? That would be enough to convince men that Pete Reeve was capable of murder, for the shooting of Uncle Bill had been worse than murder. It spared the life and ruined it at the same time. But suppose he added his evidence and allowed the law to take its course with Pete Reeve? Where would be his own reward for his long march south and all the pain of travel and the crossing of the mountains at the peril of his life? There would be nothing but scorn from Uncle Bill when he returned, and not that moment of praise for which he yearned. To gain that great end he must kill Pete Reeve, but not by the aid of the law.

"I dunno," he said to the sheriff who waited impatiently. "I figure that what I know wouldn't be no good to you."

The sheriff snorted. "You been letting me waste all this time on you?" he asked Bull. "Why didn't you tell me that in the first place?"

Bull scratched his head in perplexity. But as he raised the great arm and put his hand behind his head, the sheriff winced back a little. "I'm sorry," said Bull.

The sheriff dismissed him with a grunt of disgust, and strode off.

Bull started out to find information. This idea was growing slowly in his mind. He must kill Pete Reeve, and to accomplish that great end he must first free him from the jail. He went back to the hotel and went into the kitchen to find food. The proprietor himself came back to serve him. He was a pudgy little man with a dignified pointed beard of which he was inordinately proud.

"It's between times for meals," he declared, "but you being the biggest man that ever come into the hotel, I'll make an exception." And he began to hunt through the cupboard for cold meat.

"I seen Pete Reeve," began Bull bluntly. "How come he's in jail?"

"Him?" asked the other. "Ain't you heard?"

"No."

The little man sighed with pleasure; he had given up hope of finding a new listener for that oft-told tale. "It happened last night," he confided. "Along late in the afternoon in rides Johnny Strange. He tells us he was out to Dan Armstrong's place when, about noon, a little gray-headed man that give the name of Pete Reeve came in and asked for chow. Of course Johnny Strange pricks up his ears when he hears the name. We all heard about Pete Reeve, off and on, as about the slickest gunman that the ranges ever turned out. So he looks Pete over and wonders at finding such a little man."

The proprietor drew himself up to his full height. "He didn't know that size don't make the man! Well, Armstrong trotted out some chuck for Reeve, and after Pete had eaten, Johnny Strange suggested a game. They sat in at three-handed stud poker.

"Things went along pretty good for Johnny. He made a considerable winning. Then it come late in the afternoon, and he seen he'd have to be getting back home. He offered to bet everything he'd won, or double or nothing, and when the boys didn't want to do that, it give him a clean hand to stand up and get out. He got up and said good-bye and hung around a while to see how the next hands went. So far as he could make out, Pete Reeve was losing pretty steady. Then he come on in.

"Well, when Johnny Strange told about Pete being out there, Sheriff Anderson was in the room and he rises up.

"'Don't look good to me,' he says. 'If a gunfighter is losing money, most like he'll fight to win it back. Maybe I'll go out and look that game over.'

"And saying that he slopes out of the room.

"Well, none of us took much stock in the sheriff going out to take care of Armstrong. You see Armstrong was the old sheriff, and he give Anderson a pretty stiff run for his money last election. They both been spending most of their time and energy the last few years hating each other. When one of 'em is in office the other goes around saying that the gent that has the plum is a crook; and then Anderson goes out, and Armstrong comes in, and Anderson says the same thing about Armstrong. Take 'em general and they always had the boys worried when they was together, for fear of a gunfight and bullets flying. And so, when Anderson stands up and says he's going out to see that Reeve don't do no harm to Armstrong, we all sat back and kind of laughed.

"But we laughed at the wrong thing. Long about an hour or so after dark we hear two men come walking up on the veranda, and one of 'em we knowed by the sound was the sheriff."

"How could you tell by the sound?" asked Bull innocently.

"Well, you see the sheriff always wears steel rims on his heels like he was a horse. He's kind of close with his money is old Anderson, I'll tell a man! We hear the ring of them heels on the porch, and pretty soon in comes the sheriff, herding a gent in ahead of him. And who d'you think that gent was? It was Reeve! Yes, sir, the old sheriff had stepped out and grabbed his man. He wasn't there quick enough to stop the killing of Armstrong, but he got there fast enough to nab Reeve. Seems that when he was riding up to the house he heard a shot fired, and then he seen a man run out of the house and jump on his hoss, and the sheriff didn't stop to ask no questions. He just out with his gat and drills the gent's hoss. And while Reeve was struggling on the ground, with the hoss flopping around and dying, the sheriff runs up and sticks the irons on Reeve. Then he goes into the house and finds Armstrong lying shot through the heart. Clear as day! Reeve loses a lot of money, and when it comes to a pinch he hates to see that money gone when he could get it back for the price of one slug. So he outs with his gun and shoots Armstrong. And the worst part of it was that Armstrong didn't have no gun on at the time. The sheriff found Armstrong's gun hanging on the wall along with his cartridge belt. Yep, it was plain murder, and Pete Reeve'll hang as high as the sky--and a good thing, too!"

This story was a shock to Bull for a reason that would not have affected most men. That a man who had had the courage to stand up and face Uncle Bill in a fair duel should have been so cowardly, so venomous as to take a mean advantage of a gambling companion seemed to Bull altogether too strange to be reasonable. Certainly, if he had had a difference with this fellow, thought Bull, Pete Reeve was the man to let the other use his own weapons before he fought. But to shoot him down across a table, unwarned--this was too much to believe! And yet it was the truth, and Pete Reeve was to hang for it.

The big man sat shaking his head. "And they found the money on Pete Reeve?" he asked gloomily. "They found the money he took off this Armstrong?"

"There's the funny part of the yarn," said the proprietor glibly. "Pete had the nerve to shoot the gent down in cold blood, but when he seen him fall he lost his nerve. He didn't wait to grab the money, but ran out and jumped on his hoss and tried to get away. So there you are. But it pretty often happens that way! Take the oldest gunfighter in the world, and, if his stomach ain't resting just right, it sort of upsets him to see a crimson stain. I seen it happen that way with the worst of 'em, and in the old days they used to be a rough crowd in my barroom. They don't turn out that style of gent no more!" He sighed as his mind flickered back into the heroic past.

"And Reeve--he admits he done the killing?" Bull asked hopelessly.

"Him? Nope, he's too foxy for that. But the only story he told was so foolish that we laughed at him, and he ain't had the nerve to try to bluff us ever since. He says that he was sitting peaceable with Armstrong when all at once without no warning they was a shot from the window--the east window, I remember he was particular to say--and Armstrong dropped forward on the table, shot through the heart.

"Reeve says that he didn't wait to ask no questions. He blew the candle out, and having got the darkness on his side, he made a jump through the door and got onto his hoss. He says that he wanted to break away to the trees and try to get a shot at the murderer from cover, but the minute he got onto his hoss, he had his hoss shot from under him."

"Was they any shots fired then?"

"Yep. Reeve says that he fired a couple of times when he fell. But the sheriff says that Reeve only fired once, as his hoss was falling, and that the other shot that was found fired out of Reeve's gun was fired into the heart of Armstrong. Oh, they ain't any doubt about it. All Reeve has got is a cock-and-bull yarn that would make a fool laugh!"

Although Bull had been many times assured by his uncle and his cousins that he was a fool of the first magnitude, he was in no mood for laughter. Somewhere in the tale there was something wrong, for his mind refused to conjure up the picture of Reeve pulling his gun and shooting across the table into the breast of a helpless, unwarned man. That would not be the method of a man who could stand up to Uncle Bill. That would not be the method of the man who had sat up on his bunk and looked so calmly into the face of the sheriff.

Bull stood up and dragged his hat firmly over his eyes. "I'd kind of like to see the place where that shooting was done," he declared.

"You got lots of time before night," said the proprietor. "Ain't more'n a mile and a half out the north trail. Take that path right out there, and you can ride out inside of five minutes."

There was no horse for Bull Hunter to ride. But, having thanked his host, he stepped out into the cooler sunshine of the late afternoon.

The trail led through scattering groves of cottonwood most of the way, for it was bottom land, partially flooded in the winter season of rain, and, even in the driest and hottest part of the summer, marshy in places. He followed the twisting little trail through spots of shadow and stretches of open sky until he reached the shack which was obviously that of the dead Armstrong.

The moment he entered the little cabin he received proof positive.

The furniture had not apparently been disturbed since the shooting. The table still leaned crazily, as though it had not recovered from a violent shock on one side. One chair was overturned. A box had been smashed to splinters, probably by having someone put a foot through it.

Bull examined the deal table. Across the center of it there was a dark stain, and on the farther side, two hands were printed distinctly into the wood, in the same dull color. The whole scene rose revoltingly distinct in the mind of Bull.

Here sat Dan Armstrong playing his cheerful game, laughing and jesting, because forsooth he was the winner. And there, on the opposite side of the table, sat Pete Reeve, the guest in the house of his host, growing darker and darker as the money was transferred from his pocket to the pocket of the jovial Armstrong. Then, a sudden taking of offense at some harmless jest, the cold flash of steel as Reeve leaned and jumped to his feet, and then the explosion of the revolver, with Armstrong settling slowly, limply forward on the table. There he lay with a stream pouring across the table from the death wound, his helpless arms outstretched on the wood.

Then Reeve, panic-stricken, perhaps with a sudden stirring of remorse, started for the door, struck the box on his way, smashing it to bits, and as soon as he got outside, leaped for his horse. Luckily retribution had overtaken the murderer in the very moment of escape. Bull Hunter sighed. Never had the strength of the arm of the law been so vividly brought home to him as by this incident. Suppose that he had fulfilled his purpose and killed Reeve? Would not the law have reached for him in the same fashion and taken and crushed him?

He shuddered, and looking up from his broodings, he glanced through the opposite window and saw that the woods were growing dark in that direction. Night was approaching, and, with the feeling of night, there was a ghostly sense of death, as though the spirit of the dead man were returning to his old home. On the other side of the house, however, the woods showed brighter. This was the east window--the east window through which Reeve declared that the shot had been fired.

Bull shook his head. He stepped out of the cabin and looked about. It was a prosperous little stretch of meadow, cleared into the cottonwoods and reclaiming part of the marshland--all very rich soil, as one could see at a glance. There was a field which had been recently upturned by the plow, perhaps the work of yesterday. The furrows were still black, still not dried out by the sun. Today would have been the time for harrowing, but that work was indefinitely postponed by the grim visitor. No doubt this Armstrong was an industrious man. The sense of a wasted life was brought home to Bull; a bullet had ended it all!

Absent-mindedly he passed around the side of the house and started for the east window through which Reeve had said that the bullet was fired, but he shook his head at once.

On the east side the house leaned against a mass of white stone. It rose high, rough, ragged. Certainly a man stalking a house to fire a shot would never come up to it from this side! His own words were convicting Reeve of the murder!

Still he continued to clamber over the stones until he stood by the window. To be sure, if a man stood there, he could easily have fired into the room and into the breast of a man sitting on the far side of the table. Armstrong was found there. Bull looked down to his feet as a thoughtful man will do, and there, very clearly marked against the white of the stone, he saw a dark streak--two of them, side by side.

He bent and looked at them. Then he rubbed the places with his fingertips and examined the skin. A stain had come away from the rock. It was as if the rocks had been rubbed with lead or a soft iron. And then, strangely, into the mind of Bull came the memory of what the hotel man had said of the sheriff's iron-shod heels.

The sheriff had gone for many a year hating Armstrong. The truth rushed over the brain of the big man. What a chance for a crafty mind! To kill his enemy and place the blame on the shoulders of one already known to be a man-killer! Bull Hunter leaped from the rocks and started back for the town with long, ground-devouring strides.

 

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