Stepsons of Light

“Exactly. That’s what they say. They might have been mistaken. It is hard and stony ground.”

“They may have been mistaken, yes. Someone else will see those tracks. Now you listen close. Listen hard. If it turns out that Jody Weir and his two pardners, coming down Redgate on a run to give the alarm, rode over and rubbed out all tracks made by my horse and the dead man’s horse, wherever they crossed each other – then that’s another mistake they made. For when I left Forbes there were only two fresh tracks in the cañon – tracks of two fresh-shod horses going up the cañon, keeping to the road, and made yesterday. I’m sorry they didn’t take me back to Garfield. I would have liked a peek at those tracks myself.”

“But it rained, and it rained hard.”

Johnny felt of his neck again.

“She sure did,” he agreed. “Started just as this man Lull picked me, like fruit on the bough. I forgot that. Well, anyway, if this Garfield place is half human, then a slew of men went up Redgate Cañon before the rain. There must have been some live ones in the bunch.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that none if I was you,” said the jailer. “I know Garfield, and I know old Pete Harkey, and he was taking the lead. If Adam’s horse came down the cañon after you did, he’ll know it. And if your track and the other were carefully ridden out where they crossed – why, old Pete will see that, too.”

Johnny raised his hand. “That’s what he will see! Hold that idea tight – squeeze it! If I am innocent, those tracks were ridden out and spoiled, till Adam Forbes’ horse went one way and mine another.”

“Well, then – Pete Harkey’ll see that, too; he will think about it once and twice. Don’t you worry. Jerome Martin and Jim-Ike-Jones went along, too, and old man Fenderson, maybe. They’ll see. That’s what they’re going for.”

“Hearsay evidence is no good in court. So I’m going to prophesy in writing – with you to witness and swear to the time of it – that all tracks this side of the murdered man are muddled. That written prophecy may not be evidence, but it will make the judge scratch his head.”

“As much as to say – ”

“Exactly. Someone killed Adam Forbes. You don’t want to forget that. If it wasn’t me – who was it? Well, let me tell you something. It was a mean man. Now you keep still a little, while I think over the meanest man I’ve seen lately.”

Johnny rolled another smoke; and when it was alight he spoke again.

“Curious, when we come to think of it, but the meanest things a man can do is what he does with his mouth. To kiss and tell, for instance; betrayal under trust. We go to church and hear about the crucifixion. We have no hatred for the hands that drove the nails or the soldier who stood guard – scarcely for the fanatics who hounded the innocent to a shameful death. Our loathing is for Judas Iscariot, who betrayed with a kiss.”

Gwinne eyed his captive benevolently.

“Good land of Goshen, son – what on earth has all this got to do with the price of hemp?”

“Everything to do with it. Demand for hemp is going to fluctuate violently if I can swing the deal I have in mind,” replied Johnny, with spirit. “I was just thinking about two traitors I know.”

In a prolonged silence Mr. Gwinne rumpled his beard and refilled his pipe.

“The two Garfield men and the other three did not seem to be agreeing very well,” he said at last. “Lull – he’s the one who arrested you – he went back to Garfield last night. Couldn’t sleep, he said, and they’d be wanting to know in Garfield. The other one, See, the least one, he was round here soon this morning wanting to talk it up with you. He was real feverish about the quarantine.”

Johnny cocked his head impishly and looked sidelong at the jailer.

“Just what was the big idea for sending one man to arrest me?”

“They didn’t say.”

“And why were they all crosswise with each other, like jackstraws?”

“They didn’t tell me that either.”

“You’re allowed three guesses.”

Gwinne puffed unhurriedly at his pipe, and after some meditation delivered himself of a leisurely statement between puffs.

“About a year ago, near as I can remember, this man Caney – Big Ed Caney – deputy sheriff in Dona Ana – did you know that? Thought not. Well, he went out beyond Hatch with a warrant for a fellow. He found another man – old Mexican sheep herder – cut down on him with a rifle and ordered him to throw ’em up. The old Mexican was scared or else he remembered something, I don’t know which; he was perfectly innocent of this particular charge, whatever it was; they caught the other man later. Anyhow the old gentleman made a dash for his gun – it was leaning up against a tree not far away. And Caney killed him.”

“So you think maybe Caney wanted to start something. Ambush, maybe? So I’d go after my gun?”

“I don’t know anything about what Caney wanted to do or didn’t want to do. All I know is – he didn’t.”

“And the Garfield boys wouldn’t stand for it?” persisted Johnny.

“Lull and Charlie See won’t stand for any crooked work – if it’s them you mean. Lull was the only Garfield man. Charlie See is from Dona Ana, where they grow good and bad, same as they do here.”

“Yes. I see. I know Jody and Toad Hales, myself. I met Lull and See yesterday evenin’, just out of Garfield. Say, Mr. Gwinne, could you rustle me a razor?”

“I can too. Anything else on your mind?”

“Why, no. Only I wish I knew where the John Cross outfit is holding forth, and when they are likely to get word about me being in a tight. They may hear to-day, and it may be a week.”

“They’re up beyond Hermosa, somewhere at the head of Cuchillo Creek. And I shouldn’t much wonder if they heard about you to-day sometime.” Mr. Gwinne looked through the window at the visible wedge of Hillsboro, wavy low hills and winding streets; looked with long and lingering interest, and added irrelevantly: “I knew your father.”

Late that afternoon a heavy knock came at the outer door of the jail. Gwinne hustled his prisoner into a cell and answered the call.

He was greeted at the door by Aloys Preisser, the assayer, a gay-hearted old Bavarian – the same for whom, in his youth, Preisser Hill was named – and by Hobby Lull. Hobby’s face was haggard and drawn; there were dark circles under his eyes.

“We want to settle a bet,” announced Hobby, “and we’re leaving it to you. I say that Robin Hood knocked out the Proud Sheriff of Nottingham, and Preisser claims it was a draw. How about it?”

“Hood got the decision on points,” said Gwinne soberly.

“There! What did I tell you, you old hunk of Limburger?” Hobby Lull laid hands delicately upon his adversary’s short gray beard and tugged it with deferential gentleness. The unresisting head wagged sedately to and fro. “Take that, you old bug hunter!” said Hobby, and stood back, waiting.

The assayer became statuesque.

“You see, Mister Deputy? He has assauldt gommitted, and you a witness are. With abusive language!”

“The wienerwurst is yet to come,” observed Lull, in a voice sepulchral and ominous.

“With threats also, and insults – abandoned ruffian! Desperate! Catiline! Officer – do your duty! I make demand of you. Dake dot mon into gustody!” Preisser’s eyes were dancing as he fought down a grin.

Mr. Gwinne regarded the impassioned disputants with grave eyes.

“You are under arrest, Mr. Lull,” he said with somber official severity. “Can you give bail?”

“Not one red cent.”

“Come in, then.”

Lull followed through the door. Turning, he smiled back at the little assayer. Preisser winked.

“I’ll have to lock you up, you know,” said Gwinne. “District attorney particularly desired that no one should hold communication with Dines, over yonder.” He locked Lull in a cell; forgetfully leaving the key in the lock. “Don’t try to shout across to Dines, now,” he warned. “I’ll hear you. Well, I’ll be meanderin’ along to the kitchen and starting supper.”

Hobby reached through the bars and turned the key. He went over to Johnny’s cell.

“Well, Dines, how goes it? You don’t look much downhearted.”

“I’m not,” said Johnny. “I’m sorry about the dead man, of course. But I didn’t know him, and you can’t expect me to feel like you do. I’m right as rain – but I can’t say as much for you. You look like you’d been dragged through a knothole.”

“No sleep. I went back to Garfield, made medicine, and hurried back here. Seventy-five miles now, after a day’s work and not much sleep the night before. I thought you’d be having your prelim, you see, or I’d have waited over. Didn’t know that Judge Hinkle was out of town.”

“Any news?”

“Yes,” said Hobby, “there is.”

He held out his hand. Johnny took it, through the bars.

“You don’t think I killed your friend, then?”

“I know you didn’t. But, man – we can’t prove it. Not one scrap of evidence to bring into court. Just a sensing and a hunch – against a plain, straight, reasonable story, with three witnesses. You are It.”

“Now you can’t sometimes most always ever tell,” said Johnny. “Besides, you’re tired out. Get you a chair and tell it to me. I’ve been asleep. Also, you and I have had some few experiences not in common before our trails crossed yesterday. I may do a little sensing myself. Tell it to me.”

“Well, after Caney’s crowd told us Adam was killed in Redgate, Uncle Pete and a bunch went up there hotfoot. They found everything just about as Caney told it. There was your track, with one shoe gone, and Adam’s horse with the bridle dragging – till he broke it off – ”

“And where those two tracks crossed,” interrupted Johnny, “those fellows had ridden over the trail till you couldn’t tell which was on top.”

Hobby stared.

“How did you know that? Uncle Pete was all worked up over it. I never heard him so powerful before, on any subject.”

“You’re tired out, so you can’t see straight,” said Johnny. “Also, I know that when I came down Redgate there were no fresh tracks heading this way. If those three men killed Forbes and want to saw it off on me – then they confused that trail on purpose. If they didn’t kill Forbes, and muddled the tracks that way, they’re half-wits. And they’re not half-wits. Go on.”

“They found poor old Adam and your fire. They pushed on ahead to read all the sign they could before dark. Up in the park there’d been a heap of riding back and forth. Just at dark they found where a bunch of cattle had been headed and had gone over the divide into Deadman and gone on down. Then the rain came – and the rest is mud.”

“Yes. It rained. There was a little low gap to the north from where I branded my calf. If anybody had been there making tracks – those cattle would blot ’em out.” Johnny began to laugh. “Look, amigo– all this dope seems fairly reasonable and nightmareish, turn about, as we see it across thirty miles and twenty-four hours – but it is a safe guess that some folks didn’t sleep much last night. They know all about it, and I reckon when they got to thinking it over it seemed to them like the whole story was printed in letters a mile high. Scared? I guess yes. I’d hate to trade places with ’em right now. And before it rained – oh, mamma! I bet they was tickled to see that rain! Well, go on. Proceed. Give us some more.”

“The further I go the less you’ll like it,” said Lull. “Pete and his hand-picked posse stayed up there and scattered out at daylight, for general results. They found one of Adam’s cows with a big fresh-branded calf – branded yesterday. Dines, you’re up against it – hard! It’s going to look black to any jury. That calf carried your brand – T-Tumble-T!”

“’Hellfire and damnation – make my bed soon!’” said Johnny. “The boy stood on the burning deck, With neither high nor low! The Sons of Zeruiah!.. Ho, warder! Pull up the drawstring! Let the portcrayon fall! Melt down the largess, fling out the pendulum to the breeze, and howl the battle cry of Dines!”

Hobby’s gaunt features relaxed to a laugh.

“You silly ass! And the rope on your very neck! And what is the battle cry of Dines, if I may ask?”

“Only two out!” said Johnny Dines. He flung up his head; his hawk’s face was beautiful.

“Good boy!” said Hobby Lull. “Good boy! You never shot Adam Forbes – not in the back. You hold your mouth right. It isn’t so bad, Dines. I wanted to see how you’d take it. I know you now. There’s more to come. You live a long way from here, with roughs and the river between. We’ve never seen any of your cattle. But we looked you up in the brand book. Your earmark is sharp the right, underslope the left. That yearling’s ears are marked sharp the left, underslope the right.

“Yes. And I knew that without looking at the brand book,” said Johnny. “They’ve overplayed their hand. Any more?”

“One thing more. Nothing to put before a jury – but it fits with a frame-up. This morning, Uncle Pete scouted round beyond where they quit the trail at dark. He found locations where Weir and Caney and Hales struck rich placer yesterday. A big thing – coarse gold. It was natural enough that they didn’t tell us. For that matter, they mentioned prospecting along with their saddle-thieves’ hunt. You heard ’em tell Gwinne about the saddle thieves last night. But – Adam Forbes was prospecting too. That’s what he went up there for. Caney, Weir and Hales – any one of them has just the face of a man to turn lead into gold. There’s a motive for you – a possible motive.”

“More than possible. Let me think!” Johnny nursed his knee. He saw again the cool dark windings of Redgate, the little branding fire, the brushy pass low above him – where a foe might lurk – himself and Forbes, clear outlined on the hillside, the letter Forbes had given him.

“H’m!” he said. “H’m! Exactly!” With a thoughtful face, he chanted a merry little stave:

The soapweed rules over the plain,And the brakeman is lord of the train,The prairie dog kneelsOn the back of his heels,Still patiently praying for rain.

“Say, Mr. Lull, isn’t it a queer lay to have the county seat inland, not on the railroad at all, like Hillsboro?”

“That’s easy. Hillsboro was the county seat before there was any railroad.”

“Oh – that way? And how do you get your mail at Garfield? Does that come from Hillsboro?”

“No. Hillsboro is the closest post office, but our mail goes to Rincon. There’s the river, you see, and no bridge. A letter takes two days and a hundred miles to get from Garfield to Hillsboro – and it’s only twenty-five miles straight across in low water.”

“I see,” said Johnny.

Again he visioned the scene on the hillside, the fire, Adam Forbes, the location papers he was to mail; he remembered Toad Hales and his attempted betrayal of the horse camp guest; he remembered Jody Weir’s letter to Hillsboro, and how it was to be delivered. Jody Weir – and the girl in Hillsboro post office – steady, Johnny – steady, boy! Even so, Jody Weir could keep those location papers from reaching the recorder!

The whole black business became clear and sure to him. And in that same flaming moment he knew that he could not clear himself by shaming this light lady – that he had never seen or known. To shield her fault or folly, he must take his chance. He looked up and spread out his hands.

“No go, Mr. Lull!” he said cheerfully. “Much obliged to you – and here is gear enough for a cuckoo clock, but I can’t make it tick. Surmise and suspicion. Not one fact to lay hands on. Something may come out in the trial, of course. Looks like both ends against the middle, don’t it? When dry weather keeps you poor and a rain hangs you? Tough luck! Alas, poor Johnny! I knew him well!”

So far his iron fortunes had brought him – to the shadow of the gallows. There, beset with death and shame, with neck and name on the venture, he held his head high, and kept his honor spotless. Well done, Johnny Dines! Well played, our side!

There is somewhat which must be said here. Doubtless it is bad Art – whatever that means – but it is a thing to be done. It is charged to me that I suppress certain sorry and unsavory truths when I put remembered faces to paper – that I pick the best at their best, and shield with silence their hours of shame and weakness – these men I loved. Well – it is true. I take my own risk by that; but for them, it is what they have deserved. It is what Johnny Dines did for Kitty Seiber.

“Well, that’s about all,” said Hobby. “Uncle Pete is still skirmishing round. Adam had a tame tank somewhere close by, and Pete thinks he may find some more light on the case, there or somewheres else. If you don’t think of anything more I guess I’ll go down to the Gans Hotel and sleep a day or two. Nobody knows where See is. He may be asleep – and then again he may be up to some devilment.”

“From what I could hear a while ago,” said Johnny, grinning hugely, “I thought you were a prisoner.”

“I am,” said Hobby.

He went to a window at the end of the big hall and looked out. Hillsboro is generously planned, and spreads luxuriously over more hills than Rome. This is for two reasons: First, there was plenty of room, no need to crowd; second, and with more of the causative element, those hills were rich in mineral, and were dotted thick with shaft and tunnel between the scattered homes.

Several shafts were near the jail. On the nearest one Mr. Preisser diligently examined the ore dump. Hobby whistled. Mr. Preisser looked up. Hobby waved his hat. Preisser waved back and started toward the jail. Hobby returned to his cell and locked himself in. Mr. Preisser thundered at the jail door.

“Well?” said Gwinne, answering the summons.

“I have been thinking about the criminal, Lull,” said Mr. Preisser, beaming. “Considering his tender years and that he is nod fully gompetent and responsible mentally – I have decided nod to bress the charge against him. You may let him go, now.”

“Oh, very well,” said Gwinne.

He went to the cell – without remark concerning the key in the lock – and set the prisoner free. His face kept a heavy seriousness; there was no twinkle in his eye. Assailant and victim went arm in arm down the hill.

Mr. Charlie See came softly to Hillsboro jail through the velvet night. He did not come the front way; he came over the hill after a wearisome detour. He approached the building on the blind side, cautiously as any cat, and crouched to listen in the shadow of the wall. After a little he began a slow voyage of discovery. At the rear of the building a broad shaft of light swept out across the hill. This was the kitchen. See heard Gwinne’s heavy tread, and the cheerful splutterings of beefsteak. Then he heard a dog within; a dog that scratched at the door with mutter and whine.

“Down, Diogenes!” growled Gwinne; and raised his voice in a roaring chorus:

“And he sunk her in the lonesome lowland low —And he sunk her in the lowland sea!”

Charlie retraced his steps to the corner and the friendly shadows. He crept down the long blank side of the jail, pausing from time to time to listen; hearing nothing. He turned the corner to the other end. A dim light showed from an unwindowed grating. The investigator stood on a slope and the window place was high. Reaching up at full stretch, he seized the bars with both hands, stepped his foot on an uneven stone of the foundation, and so pulled himself up to peer in – and found himself nose to nose with Johnny Dines.

The prisoner regarded his visitor without surprise.

“Good evening,” he observed politely.

“Good eve – Oh, hell! Say, I ought to bite your nose off – you and your good evening! Look here, fellow – are you loose in there?”

“Oh, yes. But the outer door’s locked.”

“Well, by gracious, you’d better be getting to thunder out of this! You haven’t a chance. You’re a gone goose. You ought to hear the talk I’ve heard round town. They’re going to hang you by the neck!”

“Well, why not – if I did that?” inquired Johnny, reasonably enough. They spoke in subdued undertones.

“But I know damn well you didn’t do it.”

The rescuer spoke with some irritation; he was still startled. Johnny shook his head thoughtfully.

“The evidence was pretty strong – what I heard of it, anyhow.”

“I guess, by heck, I know a frame-up when I see it. Say, what the hell are you talking about? You wild ass of the desert! Think I got nothing to do but hang on here by my eyelashes and argue with you? One more break like that and down goes your meat house – infernal fool! Listen! There’s a mining shaft right over here – windlass with a ratchet wheel and a pawl. I can hook that windlass rope on these bars and yank ’em out in a jiffy. If the bars are too stubborn I’ll strain the rope tight as ever I can and then pour water on it. That’ll fetch ’em; won’t make much noise, either, I judge. Not now – your jailer man will be calling you to supper in a minute. Maybe we’d better wait till he goes to sleep – or will he lock you up? Fellow, what you want to do is go. You can make Old Mexico to-morrow. I’ll side you if you say so. I’ve got nothing to keep me here.”

“Now ain’t that too bad – and I always wanted to go to Mexico, too,” said Johnny wistfully. “But I reckon I can’t make it this riffle. You see, this old rooster has treated me pretty white – not locked me up, and everything. I wouldn’t like to take advantage of it. Come to think of it, I told him I wouldn’t.”

“Well, say!” Charlie stopped, at loss for words. “I get your idea – but man, they’ll hang you!”

“I’m sorry for that, too,” said Johnny regretfully. “But you see how it is. I haven’t any choice. Much obliged, just the same.” Then his face brightened. “Wait! Wait a minute. Let me think. Look now – if Gwinne locks me up in a cell, bimeby – why, you might come round and have another try, later on. That will be different.”

“I’ll go you once on that,” returned the rescuer eagerly. “Which is your cell?”

“Why, under the circumstances it wouldn’t be just right to tell you – would it, now?” said the prisoner, doubtfully. “I reckon you’ll have to project round and find that out for yourself.”

“Huh!” snorted Charlie See.

“Of course if I make a get-away it looks bad – like admitting the murder. On the other hand, if I’m hanged, my friends would always hate it. So there we are. On the whole, I judge it would be best to go. Say, Gwinne’ll be calling me to chuck. Reckon I better beat him to it. You run on, now, and roll your hoop. I’ll be thinking it over. G’night!”

His face disappeared from the embrasure. Charlie See retired Indian-fashion to the nearest cover, straightened up, and wandered discontentedly down the hill to Hillsboro’s great white way.

XI

“We retired to a strategic position prepared in advance.”

– Communiqués of the Crown Prince.

Charlie See was little known in the county seat. It was not his county, to begin with, and his orbit met Hillsboro’s only at the intersection of their planes. Hillsboro was a mining town, first, last and at all intervening periods. Hillsboro’s “seaport,” Lake Valley, was the cowman’s town; skyward terminus of the High Line, twig from a branch railroad which was itself a feeder for an inconsiderable spur. The great tides of traffic surged far to north and south. This was a remote and sheltered backwater, and Hillsboro lay yet twelve miles inland from Lake Valley. Here, if anywhere, you found peace and quiet; Hillsboro was as far from the tumult and hurly-burly as a corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street.

Along the winding way, where lights of business glowed warm and mellow, feverish knots and clusters of men made a low-voiced buzzing; a buzzing which at See’s approach either ceased or grew suddenly clear to discussion of crossroads trivialities. From one of these confidential knots, before the Gans Hotel, a unit detached itself and strolled down the street.

“Howdy, Mr. See,” said the unit as Charlie overtook it. “Which way now?”

“Oh, just going round to the hardware store to get a collar button.”

“You don’t know me,” said the sauntering unit. “My name is Maginnis.”

“I withdraw the collar button,” said Charlie. He slowed his step and shot a glance at the grizzled face beside him. Who’s Who in Cowland has a well-thumbed page for Spinal Maginnis. “What’s your will?”

“You arrested young Dines?”

“In a way, yes. I was with the bunch.”

“It is told of you by camp fires,” said Maginnis, “that you’ll do to take along. Will you come?”

“With you, yes. Spill it.”

“For me. To do what I can’t do for myself. You arrested Johnny Dines, or helped; so you can go where I’m not wanted. Notice anything back yonder?” He jerked his head toward the main street.