A Gold Watch
THAT trail was looped generously up a slope spotted with trees and great rocks, and mantled over with the yellow-green of new grass. The fugitive was not in view, but the noise of pounding hoofs blew back to the pursuer.
To rush up that trail was simply to invite a bullet through the brain. A man will do a second murder to escape punishment for a first, of course.
Silver did not hesitate. He aimed straight up the side of the mountain, a bit to the left of the widest loop of the trail. The stallion took him with one grand sweep up the first part of the rise; then he flung himself out of the saddle and ran on foot the rest of the way. The slope rose like a wall, but still he ran, with short, digging steps.
If he fell, he would have rolled to the bottom of the hill, so great was the downward pitch. When he ventured a glance behind him and below, he could see the village growing smaller, drawing together. He could see the hotel, where he had been a moment before, the crowd still gathering in the street, and by the white of the faces he knew that they were all looking up toward him, tracing his course of vengeance.
Off to his right the noise of hoofs rushed straight at him. The head of the stallion labored up and down beside him. And now he stepped out, with sudden grace of relief for his aching legs, onto the narrow level of the trail.
The mountain horse and the mountaineer with the ragged beard heaved into view that same instant. It seemed that the mustang knew the meaning of the leveled gun of the stranger, for it halted instantly, sliding on braced legs.
“Get down,” said Silver.
The man of the beard did not move. His eyebrows were shaggy, like the beard, and the small, bright eyes glittered beneath them.
“Put your hands up over your head and get down,” said Silver. “Don’t take chances with this gun!”
The two hands, a little blacker than mere sunshine could stain them, began to rise. When they got breast-high, they fluttered and struggled for an instant. Then they rose above the head. The fellow turned, swung his right leg over the horn of the saddle, and slid down to the ground.
He faced Silver with the same bright, animal eyes, with a sort of beastly patience and endurance about him that was almost touching. There was a moment of silence, and in it Silvertip listened to his own breathing, and to the creaking of cinches as the sides of the great stallion heaved. Beyond these sounds he heard the windy rushing of a waterfall not far away, and a small stream was gurgling and bubbling straight across the trail.
“Turn your back to me, Butch,” said Silvertip.
“Whatcha going to do?” asked Butch.
“I’m going to fan you, and then march you back to Crowtown.”
“I ain’t going back,” said Butch Lawson.
“You’re not going back?”
Butch dropped his glance toward the leveled gun and then shook his head.
“No, I ain’t going back,” he said.
He wagged his head toward the town.
“They’d sort of claw me up,” he said calmly.
Not one of those townsmen had joined in the pursuit, even with Silvertip to lead them, but Silver could well understand that if a helpless prisoner were brought back among them, he might be “sort of clawed up.”
“You’re in my hand, Butch,” said he.
“Well, go ahead and close your hand,” said Butch. “But I ain’t going back. You shouldn’t need more’n one shot to finish me, I guess.”
He contemplated, with odd satisfaction, the steadiness of the gun in the hand of Silvertip. The high light on top of the barrel did not waiver.
“Why did you kill Granger?” asked Silvertip.
“Is he dead, sure enough?” asked Lawson.
“I guess he’s dead enough,” answered Silver.
“I’m dog-gone glad of that.”
“You hated him, eh?”
“Me? Why, no. I didn’t hate him.”
“But you’re glad he’s dead?”
“Well, I’m going to die now, and nobody would wanta die for a job that he hadn’t finished.”
“If you didn’t hate him, why did you kill him?”
“Why? Orders, you fool! What other reason would I be having?”
“Orders from whom?”
“You dunno, eh?” asked Butch.
“No,” said Silvertip.
“Well, I ain’t going to tell you, then.”
“If you’re going to die, Butch, what difference does it make if you tell the truth?”
“Because if I tell you, they’ll find a way to make hell hotter for me. Besides, why should I talk to you?”
Silver stared at him. A solitaire, that loveliest songster of the West, exploded its pent-up melody from the top of a bush not far away.
“You’re a good hand with a revolver, Butch?” said Silver.
“Fair to middling,” said Lawson.
“So am I,” remarked Silver. “I’m going to give you an even break.”
He caused the gun that was in his hand to disappear under his coat. At once the hand of Lawson jerked back toward the right hip, but paused. He seemed bewildered.
“I dunno that I make it out,” declared Lawson, shaking his head.
“What don’t you make out?”
“Suppose that I put a slug in you, it’s all right. But suppose you shoot me, it ain’t going to do you no good. They’ll get you afterward. They’ll get you if it takes ten years and a million dollars.”
“Who’ll get me?”
“I’ve told you something, and you wanta know what. I tell you something more — haul out of here — get off my trail — clear out of the country, and maybe no more trouble’ll come down on you.”
“Thanks,” said Silver. “Now, will you listen to me?”
“Yeah. I’ll listen, I guess. For a minute. Then I’m starting.”
“The next time that solitaire starts its song, we go for our guns. Does that suit you?”
“Sure,” said Butch. He broke into a violent laughter suddenly, though still he kept his chin down, as one prepared for instant action. “You wanta die to music. And that’s all right by me.”
“Are you ready?” asked Silver.
“Ready and right,” said Lawson.
“Then be still, and wait for the song.”
They waited. All the sounds from the valley drew suddenly in upon the ears of Silver, as though he were flying down through the air toward the ravine. Or was it simply that every sense had grown more tensely alert? Then the sweet whistle of the solitaire burst out again.
He shot Butch Lawson through the chest while Lawson’s gun was still swinging up. Butch fired into the ground. A spray of gravel dashed against the knees of Silver. He saw Lawson staggering, losing balance, falling backward, and it seemed a horrible thing to let the body strike the ground.
He got to Lawson in time to catch him beneath the armpits and so lower him till he was prone.
Lawson looked straight up into the sky.
“I got enough,” he said thickly. “I give up.”
The red was running over his chest. Lawson put his two hands over the spot, lifted them, and the blood dripped down into his face while he looked at his crimson hands.
“Am I going to die?” asked Lawson.
“You’re going to die,” said Silvertip. He was a sick white. He added: “I wish that I’d never seen Crowtown!”
Then: “Lawson, nobody can help you. You’re passing out fast. But if there’s any message I can take for you, if there’s any word you want to send — I’ll take it.”
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
“No matter where I wanta send it?”
“Yes.”
Lawson pulled out a flat gold watch; earned money could never have bought it for him.
“Gimme a knife,” he directed.
Silvertip took out and opened a pocketknife. With the point of the knife, with a staggering hand, Lawson carved a scroll on the back of the gold case.
“Take it to Copper Creek. Give it to Doc Shore,” said Lawson. “He’ll understand.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all,” said Lawson.
“No personal message that you want to send? No friend — ”
“I ain’t such a fool!” said Butch harshly. “What would I want of a friend — ”
He began to pant, saying “Ha-ha-ha,” rapidly with every outgoing breath. He opened his mouth, but could not get enough air. He began to bite at the air. He lifted himself on one elbow, and then turned on his side.
His panting turned into another sound as he tried to speak.
Silver dropped to one knee, waiting for the words.
Then the panting stopped, and Butch Lawson lay down softly, pressing his face against the ground.