The Fugitive (29 page)

Speedy waved the messenger off, and, turning back into the room, he saw the drawn, tense face of John Wilson, staring at him in mingled fear and hope.

It turned the heart of Speedy cold, that fixed, pleading stare. Opening the letter, he found that Slade Bennett had scrawled on the back of the paper that Speedy had sent:
I'm waiting, right here, for another half hour. And then I'm coming over to get the low hound.
There was no signature. The big firm handwriting spoke for itself. Evidently Slade Bennett saw through Speedy's bluff.

“It's no good,” said Speedy. “There's the letter. You've got to go back and face him.”

John Wilson seized the slip of paper and read it over and over. It seemed to be a thousand words, from the length of time that he took over it.

Speedy, looking through the window, saw the golden and purple dust of twilight filling up the landscape and dimming the great mountains. Only their crests glistened with redoubled and polished brightness.

Then the hard voice of John Wilson said: “Speedy, I've got to write some letters home, in case anything happens. I'll meet you downstairs. I'd rather be alone for a few minutes. Just leave my gun behind, so's I can look it over before I go down, will you?”

It was a pitifully poor attempt at deception. Suicide was what poor John Wilson meant, and Speedy knew it perfectly well. As he stood there, facing the sunset and setting his teeth hard, he strove to grope his way through this difficulty and find the solution of it. But no solution presented itself to his mind. He needed time to think the thing over, time to ponder on it. Besides, it was highly possible that Wilson really did wish to be alone to write farewell messages.

“I'll leave you alone for a few minutes, Wilson,” he said at last. “But then I'll come back and see you. And I'm not leaving the gun behind.” He left the room as he spoke, regardless of a feeble protest from the young man.

In the outer hall, as he stepped from the room, it seemed to him that he saw a shadow draw back through an open doorway into a room not far from him, the shadow of a tall man. He hurried to the place. “Who's there?” he asked of the empty darkness beyond the open door. As there was no answer, he asked again, a little more loudly: “Who's there?”

A subdued murmur answered him: “Is that you, Speedy?”

He knew that voice. It was not so very long since he had been hearing it. “Fenton,” he said, and glided instantly into the room.

By the glimmering light of the dusk, he saw the big man in a corner; the sheen of a naked gun was in his hand.

“Fenton,” said Speedy, “you promised to stay there in the woods. Why did you go and break your word?”

“I didn't give a real promise,” muttered the deep, husky voice of the fugitive. “The more I thought about Ben Thomas, the more I knew that I had to see him face to face and have a little talk.”

“With guns, eh?” said Speedy.

“With guns,” Fenton affirmed grimly.

“Nothing's proved against him, so far,” said Speedy. “Nothing except my word. Are you going to kill on the word of the first man you hear talk against an old friend?”

“I'm going to find Thomas,” said the other. “His room's right down this hallway.” He moved to the door.

“Stop where you are,” Speedy commanded.

“You can't stop me,” said Fenton. “He's in the hotel, and I'm going to get him. If I die for it afterward . . . well, dying's a small thing to me. There's not much good left in the life that I have in front of me.”

Speedy was utterly helpless. “Fenton,” he murmured, stepping closer, “you're a fool. Will you listen while I try to . . . ?”

“I won't listen,” said Fenton. “I've made up my mind.”

“Listen to me, and stick up your hands, Fenton!” snapped the voice of Sheriff Sam Hollis, just behind him, in the dimness of the hallway.

Fenton, with a groan and a curse, whirled, instead of throwing up his hands. At least, he had not come this far to surrender without a fight. But there was no chance for him against the preparedness of such a fighter as Sheriff Sam Hollis. The gun of the latter barked, and, as Speedy sprang forward, the tall body of Fenton toppled back into his arms. He lowered the weight to the floor.

The sheriff was saying, panting as he spoke: “Had to do it. Speedy, it's you, isn't it? I'm sorry, but I had to.”

“The foul fiends take you and what you had to do,” Speedy answered bitterly. “You've murdered a better man than you'll ever be.”

“If a killer can be a good man, he may be one,” said the sheriff.

“He's not dead,” announced Speedy, who had been touching the bleeding body with his hands. “He's knocked out, he may be dying, but he's not dead.”

Footfalls were beginning to hurry down the hall in the direction from which they had heard the heavy, booming sound of the gun shot, but the sheriff slammed the door in the face of the curious as Speedy lighted the lamp that stood on the table in the center of the room.

As the light flooded his face, Fenton opened his eyes. He was perfectly controlled and aware of everything about him. “I guess that's about all,” he said. “I was a fool, Speedy. Just as you said. Get Jessica, will you? I'd like to have her near while I pass in my checks.”

Speedy was back on his knees beside the wounded man, tearing away the coat and shirt, now splotched with red, to lay bare the wound. It was almost exactly above the heart and yet the heart was still beating. He turned Fenton over carefully. In the very center of the back the bullet had come out, and around the side was a purple streak, rapidly growing darker.

Speedy gasped with relief. “You're knocked out, Fenton,” he said, “but you're not going to die. The bullet glanced around the ribs. You'll be walking in a week . . . the sort of a fellow you are.” He raised his head, as he ended, and looked at Sheriff Sam Hollis. “You have your streaks of luck, too,” he said slowly, and the sheriff, although he understood perfectly what was meant, returned no answer. It was not particularly easy, at that moment, to meet the concentrated light and bitterness in the eyes of Speedy.

They laid Oliver Fenton on the bed. Speedy went to find a doctor, located one in the lobby of the hotel, and waved aside the questions showered upon him by the people in the hallway. Then he went to the room of Jessica Fenton and tapped at the door.

She opened it at once and, at sight of him, cried out: “Speedy, I've heard you talking to poor John Wilson! If you drive him back into a shambles at that saloon, if you tempt him to risk his life, God will never forgive you, and I'll despise you forever!”

“You can despise me to your heart's content,” he answered shortly. “But now come with me and take care of your father. Sam Hollis has shot him down. He's not dead . . . he's only hurt. But he wants you.”

She swayed to the side and put a hand against the wall. He made no effort to support her. Oliver Fenton and John Wilson were the only people in his mind at this moment; as for this girl, she was simply a trapping of the situation, nothing essential to his mind. Then, as she hurried from the room, he led the way to Fenton, and watched her drop on her knees beside the wounded man.

“Speedy was dead right, Jessica,” said her father. “I should have kept away. But I wanted to find that hound of a Ben Thomas.”

Speedy was already in the hallway, speaking to the sheriff. The curious crowd had dispersed when it found that no information about the gunfight was leaking out.

“What'll you do with him, Hollis?” he asked.

“He goes to jail as soon as he's fit to be carried there,” said Hollis. “That's all the news you need from me, and that's about all you get.”

“Good,” said Speedy. “That's the way for a sheriff to talk. Wash the blood off your hands, and get ready for a new job, Sheriff. You may be needed again before the evening's over.”

He went slowly back to the room of John Wilson, slowly, because the sense of failure was a bitter weight upon his heart. He had failed with Fenton. The man would be tenderly nursed back to life by the men of the law, and then securely hanged by the same careful hands that had tended him in sickness. That was the end of him. Jessica Fenton would go on through life with the stigma of her father's shameful death on her name. The other problem, John Wilson—well, Wilson would probably never be urged on to toe the mark.

When Speedy opened the door of the room again, he saw that not even the uproar in the hall had drawn Wilson away from his writing. He was addressing the letter, when Speedy came in, and he winced at the sight of the small man.

Speedy went to the window and sat on the sill of it, and he wondered bitterly and callously how many men, passing in the street, would put a charge of buckshot or a rifle bullet in his back, if only they could have known who was sitting there, a helpless target.

“Ready now?” he asked.

The stone-pale lips of the other made no answer.

“Jessica Fenton can't be wrong,” said Speedy. “She and I both can't be wrong about you.”

“What does she say of me?” groaned Wilson.

“It isn't what she says about you,” Speedy responded. “It's the way she looks about you that counts.”

 

It was no matter to Speedy how far he carried deception, so long as he could make his point, so long as he could force John Wilson to play the man even for a moment, even though he were to die under the bullets of Slade Bennett the next minute. Jessica Fenton? She was not to be considered, if only her name and influence could make the blood of Wilson respond.

In fact, Wilson had risen from the table, as one drawn upward by a hand. “What about Jessica Fenton?” he asked.

“What about her?” echoed the other. “Why, you're not a fool as well as a coward, I hope. You can see what's in a girl's face, when she shows it as openly as Jessica Fenton had showed it to you.”

The white face of the young man flushed crimson. “Maybe I'm both a fool and a coward,” he admitted. “Only, Speedy, has Jessica said anything to you?”

“She didn't tell me that she'd go on her knees across the Rocky Mountains for the sake of one kind look from you,” said Speedy. “She didn't tell me that. She didn't write it on paper, either, and sign it before a notary. That's the only kind of information that you'd be interested in, though, I suppose.”

Big John Wilson, breathing hard, glared out the window, then he looked back toward Speedy. “I've worshiped her from the day I first laid eyes on her,” he said hoarsely. “But I thought . . .”

“It's all right,” said Speedy. “She'll soon be over caring anything about you, when she hears that you've taken water. She'll find that out soon enough, when Slade Bennett comes over to kick you out of town.”

The young man closed his eyes and groaned.

The heart of Speedy sank like a stone in thinnest water. It struck bottom. Then a cold demon got him by the throat and made him say: “Go over there and face him, you rat.”

“I can't, I can't,” breathed Wilson.

“You can, and you will,” said Speedy. “There's your gun. Take it, you dog, and go over and face him. Throw open the saloon door. Thunder out his name. Ask . . .'Where's Slade Bennett?' And then start shooting. You can shoot straight and fast. Every coward learns how to use a gun like an expert.”

“It's no good, all my practice,” said John Wilson. “There's nothing in me. I can't do a thing. I've got to get out of town . . . I'vegot to go.” He started for the door.

Speedy stepped in front of him. “You're not leaving town. You're going with me to Haggerty's Saloon.” “No!” cried Wilson.

“Then, I'll take you.”

“Curse you,” rasped Wilson. “Get out of my way!”

In his frenzy, he struck for the dark head of Speedy, but that lightning-quick eye of Speedy saw clearly enough the coming of the blow. A dozen ways he could have avoided it, but a new thought had come to him and stopped him. There he stood, patient as a log, and let the stroke crash home against his head. It knocked him flat with a force that skidded him on the floor. A cloud of darkness, mingled with red sparks, flew up across his eyes. Through that cloud, he saw Wilson leaning above him, and heard the astonished voice gasping: “And that's Speedy!”

Speedy lay still.

“If I can do that to him,” muttered the voice of the other, “what's a bully like Slade Bennett to me?” Suddenly he had snatched the gun from the table on which Speedy had laid it and rushed for the door.

Speedy gathered himself from the floor and followed. His brain was still buzzing and his jaw felt as though it were broken, but there was triumph in his heart. There was a hidden manliness in big John Wilson, and he, Speedy, had finally opened the door upon the secret treasure. He was hurrying on now to face Bennett, this young man who had newly discovered himself. In another thirty seconds, he might be dead. But from the viewpoint of Speedy, that mattered nothing, or little more than nothing. To die like a man, from his conception, was far better than to live like a coward, haunted forever by fear. If only the impulse would last and carry John Wilson across the street, and through the door of Haggerty's Saloon.

Speedy, running fast, saw the big fellow lurch out of the door of the hotel and crash across the veranda, then race on across the street. In Wilson, too, there was probably a dread lest the heat of the impulse should cool before it had been given form in action. Speedy was on the heels of the runner, when the latter reached the swinging doors of Haggerty's Saloon and, casting them wide, strode in, shouting: “Where's Slade Bennett?”

As a ripple of water curls around a stone, so Speedy slipped around big John Wilson, and stood some distance along the wall of the saloon.

It was brief. Slade Bennett was standing near the head of the bar and, as Wilson's stentorian shout reached his ears, he wheeled suddenly about with a deep, muffled cry, a revolver flashing in his hand like the gleam of a knife.