CHAPTER 3
S
ARTAIN KICKED HIS feet from under the blankets in the chill of dawn. He rubbed his, eyes and growled under his breath, then pulled on his wool socks and padded across the room to throw cold water on his face. When he had straightened, he looked at Bud. The lean and freckled cowhand was sleeping with his mouth open, snoring gently.
Kim grinned suddenly and looked at the basin of cold water, then remembered they would sleep here tonight and thought the better of his impulse. Crossing to the bed he sat down hard and searched under it for a boot. He pulled it on, stamping his foot into place. Bud Fox opened one wary eye. “I know, you lousy souwegian, you want me to wake up. Well, I ain't a gonna do it!” Closing his eyes he snored hard.
Sartain grinned and pulled on the other boot, then crossed to the water pitcher. Lifting it, he sloshed the water about noisily, then looked at the bed. Bud Fox had both eyes wide with alarm. “You do it,” he threatened, “an' so help me, I'll kill you!”
Kim chuckled. “Get up! We got work to do!”
“Why get up? What we got to do that's so pressin'?” As he talked, Fox sat up. “When I think of eating breakfast with that outfit I get cold chills. I never did see such a low-down passel o' folks in all my days.” He stretched. “ 'Ceptin' for that dark-haired Jeanie.”
Kim said nothing, but he was in complete agreement. As he belted on his guns he looked out the window, studying the white track of the trail. Nowhere had he seen such a misbegotten bunch of buildings or people.
“You watch that Matty Brown,” Fox warned, heading for the basin. “He's pizen mean. Sticks out all over him.”
“They're all of a kind, this bunch,” Kim agreed. “I reckon we won't have to travel much further to find what we want. Proving it may be a full-sized job. That old man downstairs fair gives me the chills. To my notion he's the worst of the lot.”
When they left the room Kim Sartain paused and glanced down the bare and empty hall. Five more doors opened off the hall, but now all were closed. There was a door at the end, too, but that must lead to the stairs he had seen from below.
Turning, they walked down the hall, their boots sounding loud in the passage. The stairs took them to the barroom where all was dark and still. The dusty bottles behind the bar, the few scattered tables with their cards and dirty glasses that stood desolate and still, all were lost in the half gloom of early day.
Outside a low wind was blowing and they hustled across to the warmth of the boardinghouse. Here a light was burning but there was no one in sight, although the table was set and they could hear sounds from the kitchen, a rattle of dishes, and then someone shaking down a stove.
Kim hung his hat on a peg and glanced into the cracked mirror on the wall. His narrow, dark face looked cold this morning. As cold as he felt. He hitched his guns to an easier place, resting his palms on the polished butts of the big .44 Russians for an instant. There were places where the checking on the walnut butt had worn almost smooth from handling.
There were hurried footsteps and then the dark-haired girl came through the door with a coffee pot. She smiled quickly, glancing from Kim to Bud and back again. “I knew it must be you. Nobody else gets around so early.”
“
You
seem to,” Kim said, smiling. “Are you the cook?”
“Sometimes. I usually get breakfast. Areâ¦are you leaving today?”
“No.” Kim watched her movements. She was a slim, lovely girl with a trim figure and a soft, charming face. “We're staying around.”
For an instant she was still, listening. Then low-voiced, she said, “I wouldn't. I would ride on, quickly. Today.”
Both of the cowhands watched her now. “Why?” Kim asked. “Tell us.”
“I can't. Butâ¦but itâ¦it's dangerous here. They don't like strangers stopping here. Especially now.”
“What are you doing here? You don't seem to fit in.”
She hesitated again, listening. “I have to stay. My father died owing them money. I have to work it out, and then I can go. If I tried to leave now, they would bring me back. Besides, it wouldn't be honest.”
Kim Sartain looked surprised. “You think we should leave? I think
you
should leave. At onceâby the next stage.”
“I cannot. Iâ¦,” she hesitated, listening again.
Kim looked up at her. “What about Johnny Farrow? Was he in love with Hazel, and she with him?”
“He may have been, but Hazel? She loves no one but herself, unless it is Matty. I doubt even that. She would do anything for money.”
She went out to the kitchen and they heard the sound of frying eggs. Kim glanced around, reached for the coffee pot, and then filled his cup. As he did so, he heard footsteps crossing the road, and then the door opened and Matty Brown came in, followed by Verne Stecher. They dropped onto the bench across the table.
Matty looked at Kim. “Up early, ain't you? Figure on pullin' out?”
“We're going to stick around. We're writin' to Carson, maybe we, can get jobs ridin' with the mail or express. Sounds like it might be interesting.”
“You seen Farrow. That look interesting?”
Before Kim could reply, Ollie Morse came in with his father. They looked sharply at Kim and Bud and then sat down at the table. Finishing their meal, the two cowhands arose and went outside, drifting toward the stable.
“Johnny Farrow,” Kim said suddenly, “started his ride ten miles west of here. He swapped horses here, and then again ten miles east, and as the next stretch was all up and down hill, rough mountain country, he finished his ride in just five miles on the third horse.
“All this route was mapped out and timed. They know those messages had to be read while in his possession, yet they couldn't have been. Nobody had time to open those pouches, open a message and then seal both of them again in the time allowed. It just couldn't be done. Unless⦔
“Unless what?”
“Unless Johnny found a way to cut his time. All the way out here I've been studying this thing. He had to find some way to cut his time. Now he swapped horses here, an' we know that everybody here is in the one family, so to speak. We know that Johnny was sweet on Hazel. No man likes to just wave at a girl; he likes to set over, coffee with her, talk a mite.
“Suppose he found a way or somebody showed him a way he could cut his time? Suppose while he sat talkin' to Hazel, these other hombres found a way to open the mail pouch?”
Bud nodded and lit his cigarette. “Yeah,” he agreed, “it could have been done that way. Whatever was done, Johnny must have got wise. Then they killed him.”
CHAPTER 4
T
HEY SADDLED UP and, mounting their horses, started down the trail to the west. Glancing back, Kim saw Ollie Morse standing on the porch shading his eyes after them. All morning there had been an idea in the back of Kim's mind and now it came to the fore. He swung left into an arroyo and led the way swiftly in a circling movement that would bring them back to the trail east of Sand Springs.
“Where you headed for now?” Bud demanded. “You're headed right into the worst mess of mountains around here.”
“Yeah,” Kim slowed his pace, “but you know something? I've been drawing maps in my mind. It looks to me like that trail from Sand Springs to the next station at Burnt Rock swings somewhat wide to get around those mountains you speak of. Suppose there was a way through? Would that save time or wouldn't it?”
“Sure, if it would save distance. If there was an easy way through, why, a man might cut several miles off, and miles mean minutes.”
“In other words, if a man knew a shortcut through those mountains, and he wanted to stay an' talk to his girl a while, he could do it. I've seen girls I'd take a chance like that to talk to. That Jeanie, for instance. Now she's reg'lar.”
They rode on in silence for several minutes. Before them the wall of the mountains lifted abruptly. It was not a wall, but a slope far too steep for a horse to climb and one that would have been a struggle for a mountain goat. While there were notches in the wall, none of them gave promise of an opening. As far as they could see to the north the mountains were unchanged, a series of peaks, and the wall, staggered somewhat, still.
Twice they investigated openings, but each time they ended in steep slides down which water had cascaded in wet periods. At noon they stopped, built a dry brush fire, and made coffee. But Fox ate in silence until Kim filled his cup for the third time. “Don't look good, Kim. We ain't found a thing.”
“There's got to be a hole!” Kim persisted irritably. “There's no other way he could have made it.”
He was wishing right now that Ward McQueen was here. The foreman of the Tumbling K had a head for problems. As for himself, well, he was some shakes in a scrap but he'd never been much for figuring angles.
Tired and dusty from travel, they returned to Sand Springs. The street between the buildings was deserted as they approached, not even a sight of Het, who apparently almost lived on the saloon stoop. They stabled their horses and rubbed them down and then started for the boardinghouse. Suddenly Kim stopped. “Bud, watch yourself! I don't like the look of this!”
Bud Fox moved right of the wide barn door, every sense alert. “What's the matter, Kim?” he whispered. “See something?”
“That's the trouble,” Kim said. “I don't see anything or hear anything. It's too quiet!”
Carefully, he backed into the shadows and eased over in the darkness along the wall. It was late evening, not yet dusk, but dark when away from the wide barn door. Looking out, Kim's eye caught what was the merest suggestion of movement from a window over the saloon. Although the evening was cool, that window was open. A rifleman there could cover the barn door unseen.
Turning swiftly, Kim ran on soundless feet to the rear of the barn. Opening the door to the corral, he slid outside and scrambled over the fence, then ducked into the desert and circled until he could get across the road. All this took him no more than two minutes, but once across the road, he eased around to the back of the saloon and opened the rear door after mounting the stairs. He crept down the hall, but just as he reached for the doorknob a board creaked under his feet. He grabbed the knob and thrust the door open, hearing a faint sound from within the room as he did so.
Kim stepped into the room, gun in hand, then stopped. It was empty. On the right there was another door and he stepped swiftly to it and turned the knob. The door was locked.
There was a bed here as in his own room; there was also a chair and table, a bowl and pitcher. He stepped to the window and glanced out. There was no sound or movement anywhere. He was turning away when he heard something crunch slightly under his boot. He dropped to one knee and felt around on the floor, then picked up several twigs, broken about an inch long in each case.
Closing the door behind him, he walked along the hall and then went down the stairs. There was nobody in sight. The saloon was empty. Stepping out into the street, Sartain holstered his gun and crossed the street to the stable. “All right, Bud,” he said.
As they walked to the boardinghouse he explained swiftly, then he saw a light go on inside the boardinghouse and he pushed open the door. Jeanie was just replacing the lamp chimney after lighting the lamp.
“Oh?” Was that relief in her eyes? “It's you. Did you have a nice ride?”
“So-so.” He waved a hand. “Where is everybody?”
“All gone but Hazel and she's asleep. They left right after you did, only they rode the other way. They said they would be back about sundown.”
Bud looked inquiringly at Kim, who shrugged his shoulders. If she was the only one around, had it been she who was in the room over the saloon? But how could she have crossed the street unseen?
CHAPTER 5
S
EVERAL RIDERS CAME up and dismounted in front of the stable and then Ollie and Matty Brown came through the door. They looked sharply at the two cowhands, but neither spoke. After a few minutes the others came in, but the meal seemed to drag on endlessly and the tension was obvious.
Yet as the meal drew to a close, Kim Sartain suddenly found himself growing more and more calm and cool. He felt a new sense of certainty and of growing confidence.
In his own mind he was positive that the killers of Johnny Farrow were here, in this room. He was also convinced that somewhere about was the stolen gold. He had both of these jobs to do: to find how the information on the shipments had been given to the outlaws, and also what had become of the gold. For the authorities were sure that thus far none of it had been sold or used.
With the new sense of certainty came something else, a knowledge that he must push these men. They were guilty and so were doubtless disturbed by the presence of the two cowhands, even though they might not suspect their purpose in being here. Kim was sure that an attempt was to have been made to kill them both that afternoon. The broken twigs were evidence enough that Farrow's killer had stood beside that window, though it could have been at some other time than today. And Ollie Morse used pieces of broom straw for toothpicks, and probably used twigs too.
“Been thinkin',” he remarked suddenly, throwing his words into, the pool of silence, “about that poor youngster who was killed. I figure somebody wanted him dead mighty bad, else they would never have filled him with so much lead. Next, I get to wonderin' why he was killed.”
Het Morse said nothing, sitting back in his chair and lighting his pipe. Matty continued to eat, but both Verne and Ollie were watching him. “Now I,” Kim went on, “figure it must have been jealousy. Which one of you here was jealous of him seein' Hazel?”