Читать книгу: «Mystery Ranch», страница 10

Jim took off his pack and threw his camping equipment inside the shack. Then he turned his pack-animal into the wild hay in the pasture he had fenced off in the creek bottom. He had some other live stock roaming around in the little valley – enough steers and horses to make a beginning toward a comfortable independence, if he had only had sense enough to start in that way. Also there was good soil on the upland. He could run a ditch from the creek to the nearest mesa, where the land was red and sandy and would raise anything. The reservation agriculturist had been along and had shown him just how the trick could be done, but Bill Talpers's bootlegging schemes looked a lot better then!

The half-breed slammed his shack door shut and rode away with his greasy hat-brim pulled well over his eyes. He paid little attention to the demands he was making on horseflesh, and he rode openly across the country. If the Indian police saw him, he could outdistance them. The thing that he had set out to do could be done quickly. After that, nothing mattered much.

Skirting the ridge on which Helen and Lowell had stood, Jim made a détour as he approached the reservation line and avoided the Greek Letter Ranch. He swung into the road well above the ranch, and, breasting the hill where the murder had taken place on the Dollar Sign, he galloped down the slope toward Talpers's store.

The trader was alone in his store when the half-breed entered. Talpers had seen McFann coming, some distance down the road. Something in the half-breed's bearing in the saddle, or perhaps it was some inner stir of guilty fear, made Talpers half-draw his revolver. Then he thrust it back into its holster, and, swinging around in his chair, awaited his partner's arrival. He even attempted a jaunty greeting.

"Hello, Jim," he called, as the half-breed's lithe figure swung in through the outer doorway; "ain't you even a little afraid of the Injun police?"

McFann did not answer, but flung open the door into Bill's sanctum. It was no unusual thing for the men to confer there, and two or three Indians on the front porch did not even turn their heads to see what was going on inside. Talpers's clerk was out and Andy Wolters had just departed, after reporting to the trader that the half-breed had seemed "plumb uneasy out there in the brush." Andy had not told Bill the cause of McFann's uneasiness, but on that point the trader was soon to be enlightened.

"Bill," said the half-breed purringly, "I hear you've been having your safe cracked."

Something in the half-breed's voice made the trader wish he had not shoved back that revolver. It would not do to reach for it now. McFann's hands were empty, but he was lightning in getting them to his guns.

The trader's lips seemed more than usually dry and cracked. His voice wheezed at the first word, as he answered.

"Yes, Jim, I was robbed," he said. Then he added, propitiatingly: "But I've got a new safe. Ain't she a beauty?"

"She sure is," replied McFann, though he did not take his eyes off Talpers. "Got your name on, and everything. Let's open her up, and see what a real safe looks like inside."

Talpers turned without question and began fumbling at the combination. His hands trembled, and once he dropped them at his side. As he did so McFann's hands moved almost imperceptibly. Their movement was toward the half-breed's hips, and Talpers brought his own hands quickly back to the combination. The tumblers fell, and the trader swung the door open.

"Purtier 'n a new pair of boots," approved the half-breed, as a brave array of books and inner drawers came in view. "Now them inside boxes. The one with the thousand-dollar bill in it."

"Why, what's gittin' into you, Jim?" almost whined Talpers. "You know I ain't got any thousand-dollar bill."

"Don't lie to me," snapped the half-breed, a harsh note coming into his voice. "You've made your talk about a thousand-dollar bill. I want to see it – that's all."

Slowly Talpers unlocked the inner strong box and took therefrom a roll of money.

"There it is," he said, handing it to McFann. A thousand-dollar bill was on the outside of the roll.

"I ain't going to ask where you got that," said McFann steadily, "because you'd lie to me. But I know. You took it from that man on the hill. You told me you'd jest found him there when I come on you prowling around his body. You said you didn't take anything from him, and I was fool enough to believe you. But you didn't get these thousand-dollar bills anywhere else. You double-crossed me, and if things got too warm for you, you was going to saw everything off on me. Easy enough when I was hiding out there in the sagebrush, living on what you wanted to send out to me. I've done all this bootlegging work for you, and I covered up for you in court, about this murder, all because I thought you was on the square. And all the time you had took your pickings from this man on the hill and had fooled me into thinking you didn't find a thing on him. Here's the money, Bill. I wouldn't take it away from you. Lock it in your safe again – if you can!"

The half-breed flung the roll of bills in Talpers's face. The trader, made desperate by fear, flung himself toward McFann. If he could pinion the half-breed's arms to his side, there could be but one outcome to the struggle that had been launched. The trader's great weight and grizzly-like strength would be too much for the wiry half-breed to overcome. But McFann slipped easily away from Talpers's clutching hands. The trader brought up against the mailing desk with a crash that shook the entire building. The heat of combat warmed his chilled veins. Courage returned to him with a rush. He roared oaths as he righted himself and dragged his revolver from the holster on his hip.

Before the trader's gun could be brought to a shooting level, paralysis seemed to seize his arm. Fire seared his side and unbearable pain radiated therefrom. Only the fighting man's instinct kept him on his feet. His knees sagged and his arm drooped slowly, despite his desperate endeavors to raise that blue-steel weapon to its target. He saw the half-breed, smiling and defiant, not three paces away, but seemingly in another world. There was a revolver in McFann's hand, and faint tendrils of smoke came from the weapon.

Grimly setting his jaws and with his lips parted in a mirthless grin, Talpers crossed his left hand to his right. With both hands he tried to raise the revolver, but it only sank lower. His knees gave way and he slid to the floor, his back to his new safe and his swarthy skin showing a pale yellow behind his sparse, curling black beard.

"Put the money away, Bill, put it away, quick," said McFann's mocking voice. "There it is, under your knee. You sold out your pardner for it – now hide it in your new safe!"

Talpers's cracked lips formed no reply, but his little black eyes glowed balefully behind their dark, lowering brows.

"You're good at shooting down harmless Indians, Bill," jeered McFann, "but you're too slow in a real fight. Any word you want to send to the Indian agent? I'm going to tell him I believe you did the murder on the Dollar Sign road."

A last flare of rage caused Talpers to straighten up. Then the paralysis came again, stronger than before. The revolver slipped from the trader's grasp, and his head sank forward until his chin rested on his broad chest.

McFann looked contemptuously at the great figure, helpless in death. Then he lighted a cigarette, and, laughing at the terror of the Indians, who had been peeping in the window at the last of the tragedy, the half-breed walked out of the store, and, mounting his horse, rode to the agency and gave himself up to Lowell.

CHAPTER XIV

Lowell consulted with Judge Garford and Sheriff Tom Redmond, and it was decided to keep Jim McFann in jail at the agency until time for his trial for complicity in the first murder on the Dollar Sign road.

Sheriff Redmond admitted that, owing to the uncertainty of public sentiment, he could not guarantee the half-breed's safety if McFann were lodged in the county jail. Consequently the slayer of Bill Talpers remained in jail at the agency, under a strong guard of Indian police, supplemented by trustworthy deputies sent over by Redmond.

The killing of Talpers was the excuse for another series of attacks on Lowell by the White Lodge paper. Said the editor:

The murder of our esteemed neighbor, William Talpers, by James McFann, a half-breed, is another evidence of the necessity of opening the reservation to white settlement.

This second murder on the Dollar Sign road is not a mystery. Its perpetrator was seen at this bloody work. Furthermore, he is understood to have coolly confessed his crime. But, like the first murder, which is still shrouded in mystery, this was a crime which found its inception on the Indian reservation. Are white residents adjacent to the reservation to have their lives snuffed out at the pleasure of Government wards and reservation offscourings in general? Has not the time come when the broad acres of the Indian reservation, which the redskins are doing little with, should be thrown open to the plough of the white man?

"'Plough of the white man' is good," cynically observed Ed Rogers, after calling Lowell's attention to the article. "If those cattlemen ever get the reservation opened, they'll keep the nesters out for the next forty years, if they have to kill a homesteader for every hundred and sixty acres. So far as Bill Talpers's killing is concerned, I can't see but what it is looked upon as a good thing for the peace of the community."

It seemed to be a fact that Jim McFann's act had appealed irresistibly to a large element. Youthful cowpunchers rode for miles and waited about the agency for a glimpse of the gun-fighter who had slain the redoubtable Bill Talpers in such a manner. None of them could get near the jail, but they stood in picturesque groups about the agency, listening to the talk of Andy Wolters and others who had been on more or less intimate terms with the principals in the affair.

"And there was me a-snoozin' in that breed's camp the very day before he done this shootin'," said Andy to an appreciative circle. "He must have had this thing stewin' in his head at the time. It's a wonder he didn't throw down on me, jest for a little target practice. But I guess he figgered he didn't need no practice to get Bill Talpers, and judgin' from the way things worked out, his figgerin' was right. Some artist with the little smoke machine, that boy, 'cause Bill Talpers wasn't no slouch at shootin'! I remember seein' Bill shoot the head off a rattlesnake at the side of the road, jest casual-like, and when it come to producin' the hardware he was some quick for a big man. He more than met his match this time, old Bill did. And, by gosh! you can bet that nobody after this ever sends me out to any dry camps in the brush to take supplies to any gunman who may be hid out there. Next time I might snooze and never wake up."

All was not adulation for Jim McFann. Because of the Indian strain in his blood a minor undercurrent of prejudice had set in against him, more particularly among the white settlers and the cattlemen who were casting covetous eyes on reservation lands. While McFann was not strictly a ward of the Government, he had land on the reservation. His lot was cast with the Indians, chiefly because he found few white men who would associate with him on account of his Indian blood. Talpers was not loved, but the killing of any white man by some one of Indian ancestry was something to fan resentment without regard to facts. Bets were made that McFann would not live to be tried on the second homicide charge against him, many holding the opinion that he would be hanged, with Fire Bear, for the first murder. Also wagers were freely made that Fire Bear would not be produced in court by the Indian agent, and that it would be necessary to send a force of officers to get the accused Indian.

Lowell apparently paid no attention to the rumors that were flying about. A mass of reservation detail had accumulated, and he worked hard to get it out of the way before the trial. He had made changes in the boarding-school system, and had established an experimental farm at the agency. He had supervised the purchase of livestock for the improvement of the tribal flocks and herds. In addition there had been the personal demands that shower incessantly upon every Indian agent who is interested in his work.

Reports from the reservation agriculturists, whose work was to help the Indians along farming lines, were not encouraging. Drought was continuing without abatement.

"The last rain fell the day before the murder on the Dollar Sign road," said Rogers. "Remember how we splashed through mud the day we ran out there and found that man staked down on the prairie?"

"And now the Indians are saying that the continued drought is due to Fire Bear's medicine," observed Lowell. "Even some of the more conservative Indians believe there is no use trying to raise crops until the charge against Fire Bear is dismissed and the evil spell is lifted."

In spite of the details of reservation management that crowded upon him, Lowell found time for occasional visits to the Greek Letter Ranch to see Helen Ervin. He told her the details of the Talpers shooting, so far as he knew them.

"There isn't much that I can tell about the cause of the shooting," said Lowell, in answer to one of her questions. "I could have had all the details, but I cautioned Jim McFann to say nothing in advance of his trial. But from what I have gathered here and there, Jim and Talpers fell out over money matters. A thousand-dollar bill was found on the floor under Talpers's body. It had evidently been taken from the safe, and might have been what they fought over."

Helen nodded in comprehension of the whole affair, though she did not tell Lowell that he had made it clear to her. She guessed that in some way Jim McFann had come into possession of the facts of his partner's perfidy. She wondered how the half-breed had found out that Talpers had taken money from the murdered man and had not divided. She had held that knowledge over Talpers's head as a club. She could see that he feared McFann, and she wondered if, in his last moments, Talpers had wrongfully blamed her for giving the half-breed the information which turned him into a slayer.

"Anyway, it doesn't make much difference what the fight was over," declared Lowell. "Talpers had been playing a double game for a long time. He tried just once too often to cheat his partner – something dangerous when that partner is a fiery-tempered half-breed."

"Is this shooting of Talpers going to have any effect on McFann's trial for the other murder?" asked Helen.

"It may inflame popular sentiment against both men still further – something that never seems to be difficult where Indians are concerned."

Lowell tried in vain to lead the talk away from the trial.

"Look here," he exclaimed finally, "you're worrying yourself unnecessarily over this! I don't believe you're getting much of any sleep, and I'll bet Wong will testify that you are eating very little. You mustn't let matters weigh on your mind so. Talpers is gone, and you have the letter that was in his safe and that he used as a means of worrying you. Your stepfather is getting better right along – so much so that you can leave here at any time. Pretty soon you'll have this place of tragedy off your mind and you'll forget all about the Indian reservation and everything it contains. But until that time comes, I prescribe an automobile ride for you every day. Some of the roads around here will make it certain that you will be well shaken before the prescription is taken."

Lowell regretted his light words as soon as he had uttered them.

"This trial is my whole life," declared the girl solemnly. "If those men are convicted, there can never be another day of happiness for me!"

On the morning set for the opening of the trial, Lowell left his automobile in front of his residence while he ate breakfast. To all appearances there was nothing unusual about this breakfast. It was served at the customary time and in the customary way. Apparently the young Indian agent was interested only in the meal and in some letters which had been sent over from the office, but finally he looked up and smiled at the uneasiness of his housekeeper, who had cast frequent glances out of the window.

"What is it, Mrs. Ruel?" asked Lowell.

"The Indian – Fire Bear. Has he come?"

"Oh, that's what's worrying you, is it? Well, don't let it do so any more. He will be here all right."

Mrs. Ruel looked doubtful as she trotted to the kitchen. Returning, she stood in the window, a steaming coffee-pot in her hands.

"Tell me what you see, Sister Annie," said Lowell smilingly.

"Nawthin' but the kids assemblin' for school. There's old Pete, the blacksmith, purtendin' to be lookin' your machine over, when he's just come to rubber the way I am, f'r that red divvle. They're afraid, most of the agency folks, that Fire Bear won't show up. I wouldn't take an Injun's word f'r annythin' myself – me that lost an uncle in the Fetterman massacree. You're too good to 'em, Mister Lowell. You should have yanked this Fire Bear here in handcuffs – him and McFann together."

"Your coffee is fine – and I'll be obliged if you'll pour me some – but your philosophy is that of the dark ages, Mrs. Ruel. Thanks. Now tell me what traveler approaches on the king's highway."

Mrs. Ruel trotted to the window, with the coffee-pot still in her hands.

"It's some one of them educated loafers that's always hangin' around the trader's store. I c'n tell by the hang of the mail-order suit. No, it ain't! He's climbin' off his pony, and now he's jumped into the back of your automobile, and is settin' there, bold as brass, smokin' a cigarette. It's Fire Bear himself!"

"I thought so," observed Lowell. "Now another cup of coffee, please, and a little more of that toast, and we'll be off to the trial."

Mrs. Ruel returned to the kitchen, declaring that it really didn't prove anything in general, because no other agent could make them redskins do the things that Mister Lowell hypnotized 'em into doin'.

Lowell finished his breakfast and climbed into his automobile, after a few words with Fire Bear. The young Indian had started the day before from his camp in the rocks. He had traveled alone, and had not rested until he reached the agency. Lowell knew there would be much dancing in the Indian camp until the trial was over.

Driving to the agency jail, Lowell had McFann brought out. The half-breed, unmanacled and without a guard, sat beside Fire Bear in the back seat. Lowell decided to take no policemen from the reservation. He was certain that Fire Bear and McFann would not try to escape from him. The presence of Indian policemen might serve only to fan the very uncertain public sentiment into disastrous flames.

White Lodge was crowded with cattlemen and homesteaders and their families, who had come to attend the trial. A public holiday was made of the occasion, and White Lodge had not seen such a crowd since the annual bronco-busting carnival.

As he drove through the streets, Lowell was conscious of a change in public feeling. The prisoners in the automobile were eyed curiously, but without hatred. In fact, Jim McFann's killing of Talpers, which had been given all sorts of dramatic renditions at camp-fires and firesides, had raised that worthy to the rank of hero in the eyes of the majority. Also the coming of Fire Bear, as he had promised, sent up the Indian's stock. As Lowell took his men to the court-room he saw bets paid over by men who had wagered that Fire Bear would not keep his word and that he would have to be brought to the court-room by force.

The court-house yard could not hold the overflow of spectators from the court-room. The crowd was orderly, though there was a tremendous craning of necks when the prisoners were brought in, to see the man who had killed so redoubtable a gunman as Bill Talpers. Getting a jury was merely a matter of form, as no challenges were made. The trial opened with Fire Bear on the stand.

The young Indian added nothing to the testimony he had given at his preliminary hearing. He told, briefly, how he and his followers had found the body beside the Dollar Sign road. The prosecuting attorney was quick to sense a difference in the way the Indian's story was received. When he had first told it, disbelief was evident. Today it seemed to be impressing crowd and jury as the truth.

The same sentiment seemed to be even more pronounced when Jim McFann took the stand, after Fire Bear's brief testimony was concluded without cross-examination. Audience and jury sat erect. Word was passed out to the crowd that the half-breed was testifying. In the court-room there was such a stir that the bailiff was forced to rap for order.

The prosecuting attorney, seeing the case slipping away from him, was moved to frantic denunciations. He challenged McFann's every statement.

"You claim that you had lost your lariat and were looking for it. Also that you came upon this dead body, with your rope used to fasten the murdered man to stakes that had been driven into the prairie?" sneered the attorney.

"Yes;" said McFann.

"And you claim that you were frightened away by the arrival of Fire Bear and his Indians before you had a chance to remove the rope?"

"Yes; but I want to add something to that statement," said the half-breed.

"All right – what is it?"

"There was another man by the body when I came there looking for my rope."

"Who was that man?"

"Talpers."

A thrill ran through the court-room as the half-breed went on and described how he had found the trader stooping over the murdered man, and how Talpers had shown him a watch which he had taken from the victim, but claimed that was all the valuables that had been found. Also he described how Talpers had prevailed upon him to keep the trader's presence a secret, which McFann had done in his previous testimony.

"Why do you come in with this story, at this late day?" asked the attorney.

"Because Talpers was lying to me all the time. He had taken money from that man – some of it in thousand-dollar bills. I did not care for the money. It was just that this man had lied to me, after I had done all his bootlegging work. He was playing safe at my expense. If it had been found that the dead man was robbed, he was ready to lay the blame on me. When I heard of the money he had hidden, I knew the game he had played. I walked in on him, and made him take the dead man's money from his safe. I threw the money in his face and dared him to fight. When he tried to shoot me, I killed him. It was better that he should die. I don't care what you do with me, but how are you going to hang Fire Bear or hang me for being near that body, when Bill Talpers was there first?"

Jim McFann's testimony remained unshaken. Cast doubt upon it as he would, the prosecuting attorney saw that the half-breed's new testimony had given an entirely new direction to the trial. He ceased trying to stem the tide and let the case go to the jury.

The crowd filed out, but waited around the court-house for the verdict. The irrepressible cowpunchers, who had a habit of laying wagers on anything and everything, made bets as to the number of minutes the jury would be out.

"Whichever way it goes, it'll be over in a hurry," said Tom Redmond to Lowell, "but hanged if I don't believe your men are as good as free this minute. Talpers's friends have been trying to stir up a lot of sentiment against Jim McFann, but it has worked the other way. The hull county seems to think right now that McFann done the right sort of a job, and that Talpers was not only a bootlegger, but was not above murder, and was the man who committed that crime on the Dollar Sign road. Of course, if Talpers done it, Fire Bear couldn't have. Furthermore, this young Injun has made an awful hit by givin' himself up for trial the way he has. To tell you the truth, I didn't think he'd show up."

Lowell escaped as soon as he could from the excited sheriff and sought Helen Ervin, whom he had seen in the court-room.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come to get you, on account of having to bring in the prisoners," said Lowell, "but I imagine this is the last ride to White Lodge you will have to take. The jury is going to decide quickly – or such is the general feeling."

Lowell had hardly spoken when a shout from the crowd on the court-house steps announced to the others that the jury had come in.

Lowell and Helen found places in the court-room. Judge Garford had not left his chambers. As soon as the crowd had settled down, the foreman announced the verdict.

"Not guilty!" was the word that was passed to those outside the building. There was a slight ripple of applause in the court-room which the bailiff's gavel checked. Lowell could not help but smile bitterly as he thought of the different sentiment at the close of the preliminary hearing, such a short time before. He wondered if the same thought had come to Judge Garford. But if the aged jurist had made any comparisons, they were not reflected in his benign features. A lifetime among scenes of turbulence, and watching justice gain steady ascendancy over frontier lawlessness, had made the judge indifferent to the manifestations of the moment.

"It's just as though we were a lot of jumping-jacks," thought Lowell, "and while we're doing all sorts of crazy things, the judge is looking far back behind the scenes studying the forces that are making us go. And he must be satisfied with what he sees or our illogical actions wouldn't worry him so little."

Fire Bear and McFann took the verdict with customary calm. The Indian was released from custody and took his place in Lowell's automobile. The half-breed was remanded to jail for trial for the Talpers slaying. Lowell, after saying good-bye to the half-breed, lost no time in starting for the agency. On the way he caught up with Helen, who was riding leisurely homeward. As he stopped the machine she reined up her horse beside him and extended her hand in congratulation.

"You're not the only one who is glad of the acquittal," she exclaimed. "I am glad – oh, I cannot tell you how much!"

Lowell noticed that her expression of girlishness had returned. The shadow which had fallen upon her seemed to have been lifted miraculously.

"Wasn't it strange the way things turned out?" she went on. "A little while ago every one seemed to believe these men were guilty, and now there's not a one who doesn't seem to think that Talpers did it."

"There's one who doesn't subscribe to the general belief," answered Lowell.

"What do you mean?"

Lowell was conscious that she was watching him narrowly.

"I mean that I don't believe Bill Talpers had anything to do with murdering that man on the Dollar Sign road!"