The Lone Ranger and Tonto (11 page)

Eph Summers called, "Hold on, Sheriff Dixon. I'll go along with yuh."

The Sheriff studied the guard a moment and then growled, "You'd better go some place and get some sleep. You look mighty unhealthy to me."

"Let me go and inspect the redskin's cargo," Eph coaxed, "I'm all right an' I'm curious about this particular Injun."

"Come on then." Eph Summers joined the others as Tonto reached the door.

Tonto knew that within the next few minutes he would have to fight. As he crossed the porch of the Royal Flush ahead of the Sheriff and two deputies, he slipped his hand beneath his buckskin jacket and gripped the handle of a knife. He knew there would be no chance to draw the rifle from its scabbard on the side of Scout. He would have to depend entirely on the knife in a fight against three men, each of whom was well armed.

Though the Lone Ranger had frequently impressed upon the Indian that there should never be killing by either of them regardless of what came to pass, Tonto felt that on this occasion he would be justified. He knew that the life of the Lone Ranger was at stake. He weighed the value of this mystery rider's life against the value of the lives of the three lawmen. The West, he felt, and the white folks who were settling there, would be much more benefited if the Lone Ranger were to remain alive than they would be by three ordinary mortals. The thought that he might lose his own life in fighting those three never entered his mind. Tonto never considered his own welfare.

As he went down the steps he saw the fourth man! The secrets that lay beneath the pile of supplies on Silver's back had already been probed! Beside the big white horse stood a tall man with a top hat, gaudy clothes, and a flowing black moustache. One of the man's hands rested beneath the duffel. He could not fail to discover the saddle, and perhaps the saddlebags!
Four men
, he thought,
instead of three
. He saw the white-toothed smile of the stranger and heard him speak to Sheriff Dixon.

"Good day, Mister Delaney," replied the Sheriff in a courteous voice. "We were just goin' to examine the redskin's horses. I figured he might be carryin' some liquor."

"Why," replied the tall man, "have you time to investigate Indians? You must have found young Walters. Is that the case?"

"Well, no, we haven't, Mister Delaney, and I don't think we will. We spent the night and part of the morning looking for some sign of him, but he's just disappeared from sight."

"What about the masked man who returned to rob John Langford?"

"We haven't found him, either," replied the lawman in a somewhat apologetic manner that was in direct contrast to the way he spoke in the Royal Flush. Tonto thought this man who was called Delaney must have rare influence in the community. Tonto knew his type. The gambler type was familiar in the Western settlements, and yet there was an odd contradiction in the tall man.

Tonto noticed his eyes. They were steady and unwavering. His voice, too, had a fine quality and held no trace of the usual oiliness of the gamblers the Indian had known. There were things about the man called Delaney that Tonto liked. Especially the sharp way he addressed the Sheriff upon whom Tonto already looked as an enemy.

"Disappeared has he?" Delaney snapped. "I don't know what you do around here to make you worth what you're paid, Sheriff Dixon. I can tell you where to find Dave Walters."

"You can?"

"Of course. I don't see why it's necessary for me to do your work for you, and I can't understand why it is that I can remain right here in town and learn more than you can while you're out on the manhunt."

Sheriff Dixon scratched his head in a perplexed manner. "Doggone it, Mister Delaney, I can't understand that myself."

Tonto had reached the side of the horses and stood slightly apart from the others as Dixon and Delaney talked. His right hand was still concealed beneath his shirt as he gripped the knife in readiness.

"Where is Dave Walters? Is that what you wanted to tell me last night?" asked the Sheriff.

"Last night?" echoed the man called Delaney.

"Yeah. One of the Royal Flush waiters told me that you sat at your favorite table for a long time last night, waitin' for me to come back from the search. You wanted to see me."

"I could have told you last night where to locate the man you want."

"Where?" asked the lawman eagerly. "Just tell me where and we'll be headin' there pronto."

"First, there's one thing you've got to promise me."

"What's that, Mister Delaney."

"I want the boy brought back to town alive."

"But if he puts up a fight…"

"I don't care what sort of a fight he puts up. He's to be brought back alive and uninjured, and see that you take enough men along with you to make that possible."

"Um-m," replied the Sheriff thoughtfully, "we'll try."

"And you
do
it. I'm doubtful about his guilt, and I want to see him get a fair trial."

Dixon showed surprise. "Gosh, Mister Delaney, you've sure changed your mind a lot in the past twenty-four hours. It was you who was so sure that Dave Walters killed Ma Prindle in the first place."

"Was I?" asked Delaney.

"You know you were. I was sorry for the kid, but you insisted that he was the murderer and I didn't have any choice but to lock him up."

"If you have any doubt about your ability to bring him back alive," went on the tall man in a somewhat ironic manner, "I'll ride out and get him myself."

"You don't have to, Mr. Delaney," promised the Sheriff. "We'll see that it's done. Now tell us how to locate him."

Tonto had been studying the tall man carefully during the conversation. For some reason, he liked this man. There was a peculiar mixture of impressions in the Indian's simple mind that he could not straighten out. He waited, and watched developments. He wondered if it were in any way possible that the tall man who was so obviously a gambler, could have learned of the secret hide-out in the cave in Snake River Canyon. His doubts were dispelled when Delaney spoke again.

"He's in a cave," he said, "in Snake River Canyon. Go to the canyon and follow it until you reach the bend about twenty miles from here where there's a waterfall."

"I know where that is," offered one of the deputies.

"There's a cave in the south side of the canyon. You'll have to look closely to find it, but it's there, and that's where you'll find the man you want."

Tonto could hardly believe what he heard. How
could
this man know of the hiding place? There was murder in the black stare Tonto directed at Delaney. Had the Lone Ranger been captured and, in some way, forced to tell of the hiding place? No, that could not be possible. No amount of pain or torture would unseal the lips of the masked man if another man's life were at stake. But perhaps the Lone Ranger had some purpose in sending the lawmen to bring Dave in. Perhaps, and Tonto hoped fervently that this was the case, the Lone Ranger
wanted
Dave brought in. The gambler at least had insisted that Dave be brought into the town alive. There was hope in that thought.

"Just one thing," said the Sheriff, "Tell me, Mister Delaney, how in thunder do you learn things?"

"That," replied the tall man, "is none of your business and you're wasting time. If you want to get to Dave before it gets dark, you'd better get started right away. It may take you the rest of the day to find the cave."

"Right," replied Dixon. "We'll start right away." He motioned to his men and they left, heading with long strides for the stable where their horses waited. Tonto remained where he was, his eyes meeting those of the taller man who turned to face him. He saw that Baldy, the bartender, had approached, and also the boy who had been scrubbing the floor. "Do you," said Delaney, "speak English?" Tonto nodded without speaking. "Then how would you like to earn a dollar?" Tonto was about to reply that he wanted to be left alone, and especially wanted him to leave the big white stallion alone. Thinking of the stallion brought a new perplexity to the Indian's mind. Why had Silver, the fiery animal that he was, permitted the stranger to approach and lay a hand upon his back? That was not like the white horse. He glanced back at the tall man, as a jolting thought crashed through his mind. Silver wasn't peculiar. Silver wasn't allowing a stranger to touch him. This tall man
was not a stranger to the horse
! No disguise could fool Silver. A happy light came into the Indian's eyes and the tall man saw it. He deliberately turned so that his back was toward the others who stood listening and watching and his lips formed a group of peculiar phrases, "Kee-Moh-Sah-Bey." Tonto grinned and nodded. "Me earn dollar."

"Very well then, leave your horses in the stable behind the Royal Flush. You might unsaddle them, since you'll be here for some time and they're cinched up pretty tight."

Tonto loosened the tethers and led the horses around the side of the Royal Flush, with the tall man in Steve Delaney's clothes walking at his side. When it was safe to speak without being overheard by the bartender or the red-haired boy, the tall man explained that he had left the real Delaney gagged and tied in his own rooms. He explained how he had effected the disguise and how successful it had been, so much so that it even fooled the Sheriff who knew Delaney well, and Tonto who certainly knew the Lone Ranger.

"It was lucky," the Lone Ranger said, "that Delaney didn't have any close friends in town. When I learned that he kept pretty much to himself and had moods when he didn't speak to anyone, I thought it might be safe to try to impersonate him. When I had to say so much to the Sheriff, I was sure he'd see through the disguise."

"Him say you sound strange," observed the Indian.

The Lone Ranger nodded. "True, but no matter what the Sheriff suspected, he was too much afraid of Steve Delaney to risk offending him. The Sheriff very likely has to depend on Delaney to hold his job."

"How Delaney get so much power?"

"Practically everyone in town owes money to him. He holds mortgages on almost every farm and ranch around this part of the country. He can foreclose those mortgages whenever he wants to. That's why people give him his way."

Tonto nodded. The two men were in the saddle shed with the door almost closed behind them. Just enough of an opening had been left to let a little light shine through so that they could see what they were doing. Tonto asked the Lone Ranger why he had divulged Dave Walters's hiding place in the distant cave.

"Because I want Dave brought back here," the tall white man replied. "They can't get back to town with him before tomorrow morning, and I hope by that time to have things well straightened out. If not, we'll see that Dave is protected."

"You got proof?"

The tall man shook his head. "Not all of it," he said, moving to the opening of the shed. "I have some proof, but not as much as we will need."

"Lynch mob get-um boy." said Tonto.

"I don't think so," the Lone Ranger said. "If the Sheriff had wanted to do so, he could have stopped the lynchers last night. But he knew that Steve Delaney started the lynch talk, and knew that Delaney would have been furiously angry if it had been stopped. Now, with the Sheriff taking orders from me, thinking I am Delaney, things will be very different when Dave Walters is in jail."

Tonto nodded. The Indian realized that the Lone Ranger suspected the gambler of having a hand in the murder of Mrs. Prindle, but he also knew that it would take a vast amount of very convincing evidence to make any sort of case against Delaney.

"You unsaddle the horses," the Lone Ranger said, "and give them some oats from the box over there in the corner. When you've finished come into the Royal Flush and join me. I'll be at a corner table."

The Lone Ranger left the shed and went around to enter the Royal Flush by the front door. He did not look toward the man behind the bar as he went in. There were so many things about Delaney he didn't know that his role was becoming increasingly awkward. Delaney may have had some habitual gesture of greeting when he entered the Royal Flush, or some nickname by which he addressed the man behind the polished bar. The Lone Ranger, of course was uninformed on these points. He therefore thought it best to maintain an aloof manner; a surliness that would discourage any attempt at conversation. He took a seat at a table near the front of the café and watched the street outside while he waited for Tonto to join him.

He noticed that the dusty street was still almost deserted. Few men showed themselves and those who did come into view moved slowly as if they would have given a great deal to go back to their beds and recover from the late hours of the night before. Presently Tonto walked into the place and took a seat across the table from the Lone Ranger.

"We've had to work alone so far," the Lone Ranger said, "but now, Tonto, with Dave Walters off your hands, we can work together in this town."

"That true?" queried the Indian.

"It certainly is, Tonto. There were several times last night when I'd have given a lot to have had you on hand. But you're here now, and I think the two of us can accomplish a great deal before another sunrise."

Tonto looked extremely pleased at the simple statement of his own importance to the white man. "You got-um plan?" he asked.

"Something of the sort. Do you remember Dave Walters speaking about a man named Higgy?"

Tonto nodded that he did.

"Well, Higgy is across the street in the hotel."

"Him there now?" asked Tonto in surprise.

"He's there now, and I think he'll be there for as long as we want him to be." The Lone Ranger glanced at the bartender who appeared quite uninterested in the two at the table. He was too far away to hear anything that was said between the two friends, but the Lone Ranger nevertheless dropped his voice to almost a whisper. "Here," he said, "is the plan I have in mind."

The hotel located diagonally across the street from the Royal Flush showed every indication of hard times. It seemed to have grown prematurely old through lack of care. Instead of being a proud two-story building, it looked as though it were somewhat ashamed of the distinction of the second story. The builder, perhaps to economize, had applied one thin coat of paint when the hotel was built, but this had long since chipped and peeled away to expose raw wood to the elements. Dust and rain had scoured, and blistering suns had bleached the wood until it was almost as white as the bones of long-dead animals on the desert.