Destry Rides Again (11 page)

“Did Warren do that? He did!” said Destry.

“Go on—doncha wait here!” pleaded Willie. “I’m all right. He had to whang me to keep me quiet, only he didn’t whang hard enough.
Go on, Destry. They’re comin’!”

“You done this for me,” said Destry. “May I die tomorrow if I ever forget.”

“I only wanta say one thing—Dad was only pretendin’—he knew you all the time—he wouldn’t be such a doggone fool——”

“You Pop’s all right,” said Destry. “He’s your father. That’s the main thing that’s right in him. Willie, so long. I’m comin’
back to see you. We’re gunna be partners!”

He flashed into the saddle. To the bewildered and admiring eyes of the boy it seemed as though no bird with an airy flirt
of the wings ever could have moved more swiftly and lightly. Then the tall mare swept into her long canter that flicked her
off around a corner of the barn and instantly out of sight and hearing. At that very moment, there was a jumbled outcry from
the men within the barn as they stumbled over the limp body of Warren, and then a yell of fear and of fury as they discovered
who it was that lay there.

They would not remain long on the ground after that, the boy guessed, and in fact, there was an instant flight for horse and
saddle where they had left their ponies up the road and among the trees.

Still Willie remained, as one entranced, behind the barn, looking in that direction where the darkness
had swallowed the great Destry. At last he heard the voices of his mother and father entering the barn; the swinging light
of the lantern which one of them carried set the cracks flushing and dimming as it rose and ebbed.

“A fine thing you’ve done, sicking murderers onto one of your guests!” said the woman.

“I was helpless; they was too many for me!” said he. “Besides, he’s a bad one. The law’s after him!”

“The law ain’t after that fox. A wise hoss that has tasted rope-fire don’t never pull agin the lariat again! Neither will
Destry. He’s got his lesson! They didn’t do nothin’ in the name of the law, but all in the name of this here Sam Warren that
feared for his own hide—and lost his scalp tryin’ to save it! Look at him lyin’ there! He comes with his eight or nine men,
and Destry, he sees him, and finishes him, and then fades out! But if I was——”

Willie heard no more. He had faded off among the brush nearby, for all at once the voices of these people made him sick at
heart. He had looked on a hero; he had seen a hero in action; upon his head the hands of the great man had been placed.

So, like a prince anointed for the throne, he turned his back upon the facts of life and wandered off into the woods to commune
with his swelling heart, and with the future.

The hands of Sheriff Ding Slater were crammed with news of this affair as he walked down the street to the gate of his garden
in Wham. He had telephone messages transcribed among the package of papers in his hand, and he had moreover notes upon verbal
reports which had been made to him at his office. And yet the affair of the Cumber Pass and the death
of Warren did not occupy a great portion of his thoughts. It was something else that bowed his head as he slammed the gate
behind him.

“Hey, Ding!” called his wife from a front window.

He was silent; having closed the gate with much force, he remained there,
glaring up and down the street.

“Hey, Ding, what’s the matter?”

“Aw, nothin’, except that after weedin’ the crooks out of Wham, they’ve come crowdin’ all back in on me to bother my old age.”

“What’s happened?”

“Why, an hour ago a gent with a mask on walked into the Fitzgerald store, stuck up young Fitzgerald, and walked off with the
money. Not much. Three hundred. He takes that and says it’s enough, and walks out again by the back way. Fitzgerald grabs
a gun and tears after him, but there ain’t anybody climbing the frame of a hoss in the back yard. Whoever it is must of just
gone right on around the corner of the house, takin’ off his mask as he went, and walked into the crowd on the corner! Cool
as ice! Fitzgerald tears into that crowd, but nobody had seen nothing, because they’d been watchin’ down the street! There
you are! A package of trouble. Open light of the day. And nobody has no clue. Why, that’s enough to start a whole crowd of
daylight robberies, ain’t it?”

“It’s gunna work out all right!” said the wife. “Come on in. Here’s somebody to see you!”

“I don’t wanta see nobody,” said the sheriff. “Send him away.”

“It ain’t a him,” said the wife, “and she’s waitin’ here and noticin’ the things that you say and the way that you carry on!”

“Is she?” said the sheriff.

He came stumping up the steps and flung open the door.

“Hey, Charlie,” he called to the visitor. “Where’d you come from?”

“How are you, Uncle Ding?” said she.

“Got the rheumatism and the blues,” said he, “and my liver’s out of kilter. Otherwise, I’m pretty fit for fifty-five!”

“You oughta have a helper,” said the girl. “You can’t go on bein’ the lead hoss and the wheeler and do the brain work and
pull all the load, too!”

The sheriff threw his hat into a corner.

“Who’m I gunna get?” he asked. “I been lookin’ all these years for a deputy that was worth his salt, but them that I’ve tried,
they spend their time at home shinin’ up their badge, and spend their time away from home showin’ the badge off to the boys.
It don’t take much notice to spoil a man, these days. They’re gettin’ like girls; they like to be all ornamented. Set down,
Charlie. I’m plumb glad to see you. We ain’t gunna talk about my affairs no more. What about that Destry of yours, that’s
gone and got himself another man?”

“He ain’t mine no more,” said she, with a rather twisted smile. “But I’ll tell you what, Uncle Ding. He’d make a deputy for
you!”

“He? Him? Destry?” gasped Slater.

“I mean he, him, Destry,” she answered.

“Why—honey, you mean it really? Destry’s— he’s—why, I never heard of such an idee.”

“Think it over,” she said. “Particular if that rheumatism is bad. Hell pull at the wheel for you, all right.”

“What would bein’ a deputy mean to him?” asked Slater.

“It would mean that the men who hate him wouldn’t be so bold to attack him. It’s one thing to go after a common man, but an
officer of the law is different.”

“I ain’t noticed it much,” said the sheriff. “However, you’re right. But it ain’t what he wants. It’d cramp his style, considerable,
I reckon, seein’ that he’s doin’ most of the lead-in’, and the rest of ’em are just playin’ on the tricks and followin’ suit,
most of the time.”

“He might of had that idea yesterday, but not today,” she replied. “They’ve hunted him pretty hard, and would of nailed him,
too, if it hadn’t been for a mite of a boy, people say. Well, that’ll make him want to go slower!”

“Sure,” agreed Slater. “Fire’ll burn you before you boil, and I guess he’s been singed a little. But he ain’t left his street
number with me. I dunno that I could pick the mountain top that he’s settin’ on now, gettin’ ready to pounce like an owl on
mice as soon as the evenin’ comes.”

“He’s likely layin’ up at Chester Bent’s house right now,” said the girl.

“What makes you think so?”

“Because Wham’s the center, and the folks he’s after are scattered all round it. He’ll come back here, and he’ll likely go
to Chet’s place.”

The sheriff said not a word before he had gathered his hat off the floor, but before he left the room, he took Charlotte Dangerfield
by the arm and asked her gravely: “How long’d it take you to work this out?”

“All night,” she replied at once, and smiled at him.

“Ay,” said the sheriff, “a house you once lived in is always partly home. So long, Charlie. This here may be an idea that
I can use.”

He went straight up the long street from his house, only pausing at the first corner to look back and see Charlotte saying
good-by to Mrs. Slater at the gate. He could guess, by that, that she had made her call for one purpose only.

He continued his way until he came to the fir hedge that surrounded the house of Bent, and opening the gate in the middle
of this, he left it swinging, with the latch clicking to and fro across the slot, while he marched up to the front door.

It was opened for him by Destry!

That worthy held out his wrists with a grin.

“I seen you comin’,” said he, “and I thought I’d save you the bother of huntin’ me up.”

Ding Slater had recoiled a little from his unexpected appearance; then he brushed the extended hands aside.

“It ain’t for Warren that I’m here,” he said. “When a man tries murder, there ain’t anything in the law that’ll help him when
he gets killed. Warren’s dead, and Warren’s been ripe for dyin’ a long time, by my reckoning. I’ve come here on my own troubles,
Harry. Go back in there and set down with me!”

They sat down in the parlor, hushed and dim. Only one shade was raised a few inches to admit the hot light of the middle day.
This illumination was only sufficient to reveal them to each other in rough profile.

“Harry,” said the sheriff, “sometimes a kid’ll play in one back yard just because he don’t know what it’s like on the far
side of the board fence. Maybe you’re like that kid?”

“Maybe,” said Destry, “I could agree, if I follered the drift.”

“You been agin the law or outside of it since you
was a kid. Now you’re playin’ safe, but still you’re agin the house. Suppose, Harry, that I offered to give you a pack to
deal for me?”

Destry raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“I mean,” said the sheriff, “that I need help, and you kind of need a roof over your head to keep the stones from fallin’
on you. Suppose, then, that you was to put on a badge and call yourself my man for a while? Hired man, y’understand?”

Destry tapped the tips of his fingers together.

It’s this here Fitzgerald business that bothers you some, I suppose?” he queried.

“I suppose that it does,” said the sheriff.

“It’d give me a fine way of fadin’ out of the picture for a few days,” said Destry, thinking aloud. “It’d make my game easier
and their game harder. Why, Ding, I dunno that I can afford to say no to you, no matter how low the wages might be!”

The details of the Fitzgerald robbery were quickly told, and Destry considered them for a moment with the blank eye of a man
in deep thought. At last he asked: “What’s funny about this job, Ding?”

“What would you of done if you’d robbed a store?” asked Ding.

“Waited for dusk, when the till was fuller of money, and the lights was bad outside.”

“What else?”

“Had a hoss handy and flopped onto it and rode off.”

“But what did
he
do?”

“All different. He took three hundred. How much more was in that till?”

“Three times that much.”

“He took a handful and ran?”

“That’s it.”

“He ran—” muttered Destry absently.

“Are you day dreamin’, son?”

“I’m gunna slide away on Fiddle and try this job.”

The sheriff pinned a badge inside his coat, saying: “Mind you, Harry, while
you wear this, you don’t belong to yourself; you’re property of the law!”

“Sure,” said Destry. “I follow that, all right. If there ain’t anything more, I’ll start movin’.”

“That’s what the cat said when she walked on the stove. Are they makin’ it that hot for you?”

“They are,” admitted Destry. “When they wake you up at night, nine strong, that’s something, ain’t it?”

“Ay,” said the sheriff. “That’d make me take to an out-trail! I’d never come back, neither! This job is
gunna rest your nerves considerable, Harry! Good luck to you. They’s one last thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“It was Charlie Dangerfield that suggested where I’d find you, and that I get you for this job.”

“She knew I was here?”

“Yeah. Or guessed it.”

“She’s mighty thoughtful,” said Destry. “She reminds me of the gunmen of the early days, that never let a dead one go without
a good funeral. It used to set some of ’em back a lot, buyin’ coffins and hirin’ hearses. And Charlie’s that way. She takes
care of you after she’s done with you. So long, Ding!”

He departed in haste, heedless of the last anxious words which Slater was calling after him. Out to the barn went Destry,
took the mare from her pasture, saddled and bridled her, and then chatted for a moment with Bent’s hired man, who eyed him
with equal awe and suspicion.

“They’ve done a lot of improvin’ of the roads around here, Mack?” said he. “Since I was away, I mean?”

“They’ve done considerable,” said Mack. “The old roads wouldn’t satisfy people none. It wouldn’t cost enough just to fix them
up. They’ve even had to build a lot of new ones.”

“Where to?”

“Why, up Amaritta way, for instance; and down through the Pike Pass.”

“That’s down towards the railroad, ain’t it?”

“That’s the way. They let the old trail go. But right now it’s twenty mile shorter. You can see from the upper trail how it
would be; you can look right down at it, snakin’ along the river bed most of the way, travelin’ around shorter curves.”

“Why did they ever make a new one?”

“Because to widen the old one for freightin’ meant blastin’ out a lot of rock. But for hoss and saddle, it’s still pretty
good, except that it’s overgrowed a lot! They was uneasy, though, until they found out this fine new way of spending their
money! They had to go and get shut of a pile diggin’ out the new road.”

Destry departed with no further conversation, for he had learned what he wanted, and, turning up the main street, he jogged
Fiddle out the road to Pike Pass. Presently he came to the fork, the new road taking the left, the old trail dipping down
on the right, but Destry kept the lefthand way.

As the slope increased against him, he drew the mare down to a walk, but it was faster than a cowpony’s gait, the long legs
of Fiddle stepping out at a good four mile clip up grade and five down. For she walked as eagerly as she galloped, and kept
turning her bright head from side to side to keep note of her master, and of all that lay around her.

As they climbed, the old trail was indeed visible, on the opposite side of the cañon, and far lower down. It was not smoothly
graded, but jerked up and down according to the way the action of the water, ten thousand years before, had leveled the rocks.

After a few miles, Destry reached a little shack at the side of the way. Weather ages unpainted wood so rapidly that it was
impossible from that clue to determine the age of the house, but the brush and the mesquite still grew up close to the door,
and Destry could guess that the place had not been occupied very long. Otherwise this firewood would have been cut back to
a far greater distance. A half-breed woman sat in the doorway, patting out tortillas from wet corn meal; she nodded in response
to Destry’s salutation.

“D’you move up here from the old trail?” he asked her.

“No,” she replied. “We ain’t been in these parts more’n six months. My man wishes he’d never seen the place, too! But cows
is cows, I always say, and them that follers them is bound to live miserable. Too hot in summer, too cold in winter, bogged
down in spring, and sold in the fall; that’s the life of a cowman, God bring ’em help!”

“I thought that I’d seen you once on the old trail,” said Destry.

“Never not me!”

“I reckon some still ride that way,” he suggested.

“Some that are powerful hurried out of Wham,” she replied. “And some I’ve
seen that fair flew!”

“Not many no more?”

“No, not many. After the new trail was opened, they was still some that kept the old way, ’cause they found out that they
might save time; but they used up the legs and feet of their hosses down there, so now pretty nigh everyone comes by my house.
I pick up a good deal sellin’ meals. You ain’t hungry, are you?”

“No,” said Destry.

She went on: “One come by there two hours back; not fast, though. Easin’ his hoss around through the brush and actin’ like
he was enjoyin’ himself on the ride.”

“That so? From Wham?”

“I reckon from nobody else.”

“I wonder who. Maybe Jimmy Pemberton. He was ridin’ out into the pass today.”

“Did he have a pinto?”

“Yeah. He did.”

“Then that was Jimmy Pemberton that rode up
along the old trail, and you’ll never catch up with him on this one!”

“I reckon I won’t. I’ll just leave him be.”

He went on, but no sooner was he around the next hill-shoulder than he turned aside, and slid Fiddle down the slope to the
bottom of the ravine.

Two hours would have made about the time that the fugitive from the Fitzgerald robbery would have been riding up this cañon
if, as Destry suspected, he had been making for the railroad line; and he was willing to wager a fair sum that the rider of
the pinto was the man the sheriff wanted. Therefore, in the name of the law and his new office, Destry sent Fiddle scampering
up the old trail.

She went as a deer goes, lightly, gracefully, never fighting the steep places as most horses will do, never getting into a
sweat of anxiety over sharp drops in the way, but studying out everything in detail and going nimbly about the solution in
her own way. She was one of those rare animals that accept the purpose of the rider and then bend themselves intelligently
to fulfill it, without starting and plunging at every unexpected obstacle along the way.

He helped her, too, in that perfect partnership. Often the old trail jumped up the almost sheer face of a rock, and then Destry
leaped to the ground and worked his own way up, without giving her the pull of that extra burden. Or again, where it plunged
sheer down, he was once more running beside her, and leaping into the saddle only where the ground became more favorable.

So they went on swiftly—an amazing speed, considering the nature of the way. But Fiddle could leap little gullies through
which most cowponies would have to jog, staggering down one bank and laboring
up the other. And she seemed to know, with that extra instinct which seems like eyes in the foot, exactly which stone would
bear her weight, and which would roll and make her stumble.

However, no matter what speed they were making, Destry did not push her too hard, for he realized that a stern chase is a
long one, and that the pinto had two hours’ start on him. He worked rather to come up with the leader by the dusk of the day
than to overtake him with one sustained effort.

So he checked Fiddle, rather than urged her forward.

It was bitterly hot in the ravine. Even when the sun made sufficient westing to fill the ravine with shadow, the heat which
the rocks had been drinking all the day they now seemed to give up with one incredible outpouring of locked up energy. No
wind could find its way down into the heart of the cañon; the air was close and dead. The mare was cloaked with dripping sweat
that rubbed to foam where the reins chafed the sleek of her neck and shoulders. Destry himself was drenched, but he regarded
his own comfort less than that of the mare. Four times he stopped to slush water over her, and four times she went on, refreshed,
while the pass darkened, and the sky overhead began to grow brilliant with the sunset.

Then Destry called on her for the first time, and she responded with a gallant burst up the long last rise to the summit of
the trail. That long mile she put swiftly behind her, and, as he came to the top of the rise, Destry saw before him a sea
of broken ground on which the dim trail tossed like the wake of a ship on a choppy sea, swinging this side and that.

But all that he could see of the trail was empty;
then something loomed against the skyline—a pinto, surely——

No, it was only a hereford!

But a moment later, as he was digesting this first disappointment, he saw a broad sombrero with a lofty crown grow up against
the sky, and a rider beneath it, sitting tall and straight in the saddle, and finally a pinto mustang; all three were only
two swales away from him; and, seeing the pinto stumble with weariness, and sag as a tired horse will do, he knew that man,
whoever he might be, was within striking distance!