Riders From Long Pines (27 page)

“Where's your guts, Sheriff?” Duvall asked Quinn with contempt, still holding his gloved hand over Maria's mouth, his gun barrel still beneath her chin. “No wonder this pretty woman rebuked you the last time you met.” He leaned his lips near Maria's ear. “I bet she wouldn't treat me that way. Would you, darling?”

“Do you hear this, Ranger?” Grissin called out to the hillside. “If you want to see this beautiful woman unharmed . . . back away.”

“No hurry, Ranger,” Duvall called out with a dark chuckle.

“We'll let her go farther down the hill trail,” said Grissin, giving Duvall an unpleasant look.

“You'll let her go now, Grissin,” said the ranger from the opposite side of the clearing, “or you'll die where you're standing.”

Grissin and his men turned quickly, caught off-guard, more than just a little surprised by the ranger's having circled the clearing and slipped in behind them unnoticed. The drovers gave only a glance over their shoulders toward the sound of the ranger's voice. But they kept their attention on Grissin and his men. “Ranger Burrack, you say the word, we've all four got you covered,” Mackenzie said quietly.

“Obliged,” Sam replied, staring straight ahead. He stepped forward, his big Colt out and cocked, the big Swiss rifle in his other hand.

“Whoa, now, Ranger,” said Grissin. “You must've heard what I just said.”

“I heard,” Sam said flatly.

“Then you realize that I've broken no law here,” said Grissin. “I made my intention clear to you the last time we met.” He tapped his foot sidelong against the canvas money bag. “I came for my money and I had every right to get it back, whatever it took to do so.”

“Turn her loose,” Sam repeated, the iron in his voice letting Grissin and his men know that he would not be asking again.

“All right, he's turning her loose,” Grissin said, trying to appear calm and in control. With a nod from Grissin, Duvall took his forearm from around Maria's throat and stepped away from her. He kept his gun up, cocked and ready, not trusting the cold killing look on the ranger's face. “There she is, Ranger,” said Duvall, “no harm done, eh?”

Maria stepped over, stooped down and picked up her Colt from the dirt and shook it off. She turned, facing Duvall with a cold stare.

“Just so long as we understand each other, Ranger,” said Grissin. “I take the money and we ride away from here. We'll call all this just one big unfortunate misunderstanding.” He gave an insincere grin. “Hell, I'm not even mad at these cowpoke—
drovers
, that is,” he said, correcting himself.

Mackenzie only stared, his range Colt still cocked, ready, willing.

“I'll even pay them what they're owed, if it will settle the stew any,” Grissin offered.

Harper spit on the ground, letting Grissin know that his money was no good.

“You meant to kill us and ride away without a thought,” said Thorpe, blood running down from the graze on his head.

“If I'd meant to kill you, you'd all be dead. What the hell?” Grissin chuckled. “It was all in the heat of the situation.” He turned toward the ranger and said, “No jury would ever convict me for anything that's happened here today. Tell them, Ranger.”

“Are you all right?” Sam asked Maria without taking his eyes off Grissin and Duvall, knowing the drovers had the other gunmen covered.

“Si
, I'm all right,” Maria replied quietly. She rubbed her throat where the gunman's forearm had been clamped tightly.

“I don't like to say it,” the ranger called out to the drovers, “but what he's telling us is true. There's nothing he's done here that a good attorney can't smooth over for him.”

“That figures,” Harper said.

“Keep quiet, Tadpole,” said Mackenzie.

“At least we did the right thing,” Harper said grudgingly in a lowered tone.

“The right thing. That's funny,” said Grissin. He laughed. Duvall laughed with him. Quinn and Fellows joined in, both of them relieved that it was nearly over. Only Longworth didn't laugh. He stood watching in silence. Cannidy still kneeled on the ground, his hands clasped to his bloody chest.

“Somebody needs to smarten you fools up a little,” Grissin said. “Doing the right thing never got anybody anywhere.” He gave them a look of contempt, then said to the ranger, “I'm picking up my money and leaving now, Ranger, unless you think you've got some reason to stop me.”

Sam looked at the drovers, seeing all the wounds they'd taken for trying to do right. He knew that he had nothing to charge Grissin with. Grissin was smart. He knew the law and he knew how to play it to suit himself. The thought of Grissin walking away free left a bitter taste in his mouth. But he had no choice. “Yeah, you can go, Grissin,” he said. But then, surprising even himself, he said, “I've got the broken money band. That should be enough for me to prove where the money came from.”

Grissin started to pick up the bag and leave, but he stopped and gave the ranger a curious look. “You've got what?”

“The money bands, Grissin,” Sam said, bluffing. “The bands on the stacks of money in that bag are going to prove that the cash came from the Bank of Santa Fe.”

Grissin continued staring at him. “So what if it came from the Bank of Santa Fe?” He offered a feigned grin and added, “All money goes through a bank at some time or other.”

“That's right,” said Sam, “but the Bank of Santa Fe only started using those new paper money bands the day the bank was robbed. They hadn't used them before, they haven't used them since.” He paused for a moment, then said, “But if you're innocent, none of that makes any difference, does it?”

“That's right, it doesn't,” Grissin said defiantly.

“Your attorney will be able to explain why you have the only batch of money bands made, that were stolen in a bank robbery,” Sam said. He stared at him, unwavering, and said, “Take your money and go. We'll work this out later, let the Bank of Santa Fe decide whether or not to charge you with robbery.”

Grissin considered it for a moment, then laughed out loud and said, “Whew, you had me going there, Ranger.” He stooped to pick up the bag of money. But then he looked all around and said to the ranger, “Are you the only lawman one who knows about this—the money bands, that is?”

Sam gave a thin, crafty trace of a smile. “What does it matter? You've got nothing to worry about, being innocent.”

“I don't believe you, Ranger,” he said. Again he started to raise the bag; again he stopped. He kept his hand off the handle as if denying it belonged to him for a moment. He looked over at Clayton Longworth. “Hey, you ought to know about this,
Detective Chief
Longworth. Tell me something to earn your pay. Is any of this true?”

Longworth looked at Sam closely, their eyes meeting with some secret understanding between the two of them. Sam waited, neither his eyes nor his countenance wavering. “Yes, it's true,” Longworth said at length.

Grissin flared. “Damn it, man, why didn't you tell me about this before now?”

“I figured you already knew it,” said Longworth. “I haven't seen the money, I never figured anybody to be fool enough to ship stolen stacks of dollars with identifiable bands still around them.”

“It appears some fool would . . . ,” Duvall whispered to himself, a look of disgust coming to his hard, chiseled face.

Grissin stood opening and closing his fists, considering what to do. As long as the ranger held those bands as evidence, he knew he would be on the hook for the Santa Fe bank robbery. He looked at Sam, seeing in his eyes that both of their thoughts were the same. If he killed the ranger right here, right now, this would never go any further.

“Easy . . . ,” Duvall purred in a gravelly voice, as if reading Grissin's deadly thoughts. “Take the money and walk away,” he cautioned him. “Do that and you're the winner here.”

Grissin had to shake his head a bit to jar his mind away from killing. “You're right,” he said to Duvall, “I'm walking away.” He stooped enough to pick up the money bag, turned and took a step toward his horse.

“See you in court,” the ranger said quietly.

Grissin stopped cold. The bag hit the ground at his feet. “Damn you to hell, Burrack!” he bellowed, coming around fast, his Remington rising, cocking on the upswing.

Maria saw Grissin coming around toward Sam. She had her Colt out and ready. But she knew Sam didn't want her help, only her backup. This was between him and Davin Grissin, nobody else. In a split second it came to her what the ranger had done. He had become lawman, judge and jury at a point in time where he'd seen that his was the only justice to be had. He had allowed Grissin to try himself in his own mind, and in doing so, Grissin had declared himself guilty.

The drovers had seen Grissin's move coming too, and like Maria they stood prepared, ready if the ranger needed them. Yet they all four knew without saying, without being told that this was no longer their fight; it had stopped being that once the ranger had walked into the clearing.

When Grissin had made a full turn, facing the ranger, his Remington up and aimed, Sam let the hammer fall on his big Colt with sudden finality. The shot roared up against the rocky hillside and rolled off like a hard clap of thunder. Grissin flew backward. He bounced off the canvas money bag and landed on the rocky ground, before the last of the gunshot had swept itself away over the rugged terrain.

Sam turned the Colt quickly and fired again, seeing Tillman Duvall make a move for his revolver. His second shot nailed the bodyguard in his chest and sent him flying backward. Duvall landed with a hard jolt beside his downed employer.

“Get him!” Quinn shouted at Fellows and Longworth, realizing this might be his only chance to ever get even with the ranger for what had happened between them. But as Quinn's gun came up, Fellows threw his hands in the air and hurried backward.

“Don't shoot!” Fellows shouted.

Sam didn't even get a chance to turn toward Quinn. As Quinn swung his gun up toward Sam, Longworth's Colt streaked up from ten feet away and shot the corrupt sheriff square in his forehead. Quinn hit the ground beneath a red mist of blood. “He's down,” Longworth called out to Sam, spinning his Colt down into his holster, letting Sam see that his hand was empty.

Sam took a breath of relief. Maria and the drovers stood looking stunned at Clayton Longworth. “I hope you've got yourself some paperwork, Chief,” Sam called out to him.

Longworth stepped forward. “I certainly do,” he said, reaching inside his lapel and coming out with a folded document. “It explains what I'm doing here . . . legally signed by the president of Midwest Detective Agency himself.”

As he walked over to the ranger and Maria with the folded paper in hand, Sam stepped over to where Davin Grissin lay dying in the dirt, a trickle of blood running down from the corner of his mouth. With a weak dark chuckle, Grissin said, “You . . . tricked me . . . Ranger.”

“I didn't trick you, Grissin,” Sam said quietly. “I laid out two choices for you. If the money wasn't stolen, an innocent man would have walked away. If the money was stolen, you knew you had to kill me.” As he spoke he took out the broken paper money band and let it fall from his fingertips.

“Sounds . . . like a trick . . . to me,” Grissin said in a struggling voice. He watched the four drovers move in and stand around him in a half circle. In an act of contrition he looked at the bloody money bag and said to Sam, “Give . . . these drovers what I . . . owe them.”

“We can't take it,” Mackenzie cut in firmly.

“Why—why not?” Grissin asked, his eyes fading, his voice growing more and more shallow and blank.

“You still don't get it, do you, Grissin?” the ranger said quietly.

Grissin only stared, unable to comprehend it.

“Tell him, trail boss,” Sam said to Mackenzie.

Mackenzie took off his hat out of respect for a dying man in spite of all the trouble that dying man had caused him and his pals. “We can't take the money,” he said in a humble tone, “it's not
ours
to take . . . it's not
yours
to give.”

Grissin stared at the drovers in disbelief. “Damn . . . fool cowpokes . . . ,” he said. “No wonder . . . none of you are worth anything. . . .” His words became a whisper that trailed and died on his lips.

Mackenzie stooped down and closed Grissin's eyes. Sam glanced at Clayton Longworth, then looked down at the letter Longworth had placed in his hand. He read through it and passed it back to Longworth. “I expect I'm not too surprised. I never figured you for riding with the likes of Davin Grissin and this bunch anyway.”

“I'm obliged to hear you say it, Ranger,” said Longworth. “I used you shooting me as a good way to get in with him. He thought I had some vendetta to settle with you. So my agency agreed that I should play up the idea of being a detective who was tired of always chasing the money, and ready to get out on the other side of the law and make myself some for a change.”

“You don't look like a thief,” said Sam, appraising the young detective. “But then, neither did he.” He nodded down at Grissin.

“Thanks,” said Longworth. “It was working. But I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't played a bluff on him. He was as cool as they come—a hard man to pin anything on. When you came up with that part about the money bands, I saw a chance to nail him, and I jumped on it with you.”

“I'm glad to hear you're still on this side of the law,” Sam replied.