Chapter Seven: ELECTION NIGHT

When the stranger withdrew from the rim, Hank stayed where he was. He saw the man get his horse and ride west, past the very butte on which Hank was lying. For a long moment, Hank regarded the vanishing horseman with puzzlement. None of this made sense—or very little of it—but Hank was a stubborn man.

He got his horse and started to follow. In an hour’s riding, he was off the ridge and down in the shallow canyon. Presently the tracks crossed the dusty road, and Hank pulled up to investigate. Here the stranger had also paused to look at tracks—buckboard tracks—but instead of clinging to the road, he crossed it, heading northwest. Now Hank could see that the man had put his horse into a steady trot. Hank followed suit. The country was so broken and up-ended here with shale hills and clay dunes that the going was slow and tortuous. It was also dangerous, for if it once occurred to the stranger that he was being followed, it would be simple to pull off behind a dune and wait for his pursuer. But that was a chance Hank was willing to take.

Trying to figure out the rider’s destination, Hank recalled the country as best he could. He remembered the road continued west for a few miles, then turned at right angles north to skirt the edge of this dune country and the desert. In other words, the rider must be taking a short cut.

As he approached the edge of the dunes, Hank went on with a little more caution, his hand riding close to his gun. And then, rounding one of the dunes, Hank saw the man’s horse ahead of him. Shuttling his gaze to the peak of the tallest dune, Hank saw the stranger bellied down, facing the far side. Even as he watched, the stranger raised a rifle to his shoulder and sighted it. For one full second, Hank was locked in indecision, and then his hand swept down toward his gun. The stranger’s rifle crashed sharp and loud in that stillness, and on the heel of it, Hank’s six-gun roared. The stranger made a move to rise, to push himself erect, then fell down on his face, slacked over on his back, and continued to roll down the side of the dune until he lay stretched in the powdery clay at the bottom.

Hank regarded him with sober distaste, then urged his horse forward. He did not stop at the man’s body but circled the dune until he could see beyond. There the road snaked along paralleling the dunes only a hundred feet away. Up the road, a buckboard was traveling at a smart clip, and Hank could see the shapeless form of a body on the seat.

Spurring his horse, Hank overtook the buckboard and pulled alongside the off-horse. Leaning out, he got a short grip on the reins near the bit and pulled the team to a stop. Dismounting, he walked back to the buckboard and examined the man lying face down on the seat. He was shot through the chest and must have died immediately. To Hank he looked like an old desert rat, dirty and unshaven and tattered.

“But he can’t be,” Hank mused. “Why’d this jasper want to kill an old hard-shell desert man?”

The gunny sacks on the floor of the buckboard beneath the seat caught Hank’s attention, and he clawed down among them, hoping for something to give a clue to the killing. And there, just beneath the sacks, Hank discovered the bars of bullion. He whistled in exclamation, admiring their rich sheen, and then turned back to the dead man. In his pockets, Hank found the insurance papers, and immediately he understood. It was Esmerella gold, and the insurance company had tried to sneak it safely out of the country. Some hardcase at the stamp mill had given this bushwhacker the tip-off, and he had followed the agent to kill and rob him of the bullion.

Hank rolled a smoke and considered all this. Whether he wanted to deny it or not, he couldn’t escape the fact that this bushwhacker had been in conference with Major Fitz only five hours ago, and that he had come from the Bar 33 straight to this killing. Was Fitz behind it? Hank couldn’t believe it. He thought he knew Fitz well enough to feel sure that he would never be a party to a coldblooded killing, but on the other hand, Hank remembered that conference he had witnessed through the glasses only this morning.

And suddenly, Hank thought of Johnny Hendry. By nightfall, he might be the new sheriff. Why not take the matter to him? For Hank knew without having to be told that his days with the Bar 33 were over.

It was nearly dark when Hank pulled in the alley behind the sheriff’s office with his strange burden of forty-eight thousand dollars in gold and two dead men. His entrance was practically unnoticed, for he chose the side streets. Besides, the town was too busy with election hilarity to pay any attention to him. He slipped the bars into a gunny sack and hoisted them on his shoulder. The sheriff’s office was locked and dark, and he could not leave the bullion here in the alley.

On the street, he picked his way through the milling crowds looking for Johnny, stopping to rest occasionally. He found Johnny seated on the porch of the Cosmos House in one of the deep chairs in a dark corner. Just as Hank dumped his load beside Johnny, there was a fanfare of shots and chorus of yells upstreet. That would be another demonstration for Blue.

Johnny said, “What’s that? The Bar 33 votes?”

“Take a look,” Hank advised.

Johnny dragged out a bar and looked at it, noting the Esmerella stamp, and then shifted his somber, questioning glance to Hank, who told him what had happened. But Hank neglected to mention that the murderer had stayed the night at the Bar 33.

When he was finished, Johnny said shrewdly, “How’d you come across him, Hank?”

“I was ridin’ in from the spread, and he was ahead of me,” Hank said carefully. “He kept lookin’ around. Finally I didn’t see him on the road. Then I noticed where his tracks turned off. I pulled off the road, myself, farther on, and hid, and pretty soon he come along. I was curious, is all.”

“You liar,” Johnny murmured calmly, smiling a little. “Where did you really pick him up?”

Hank grinned sheepishly, and then the grin died. “At the Bar 33.” He told Johnny the true story, and Johnny did not comment immediately. Hank took a chair beside him, and they sat there in silence, rolling smokes. When the match flared, Hank could see Johnny’s face, and it was stamped with a somber scowl.

“What do you make of it, Hank?” Johnny asked quietly.

“I dunno. I ain’t even tryin’ to make anything out of it. All I know is what I told you. Did Fitz want to get me out of the way so he could talk to that hardcase?”

“It looks like it.”

“It does. It looks enough like it that I’m quittin’ the Bar 33. I don’t like the feel of it.”

Johnny considered a long moment. What Hank had told him was more than significant in the face of those six notes naming Fitz as an undesirable, and the bushwhacker who tried to get him the other day. But proof! Nothing was any good without proof. Besides, Johnny wanted to be fair. Setting aside his own real affection for Major Fitz, he wanted to make sure of his facts before doing anything—providing the election put him in a position to do anything. None of it made sense—or rather it did make sense, but the wrong kind.

While he was sitting in silence, the hotel door opened and Tip Rogers came out. Johnny called to him, and Tip walked over. Johnny pointed to the bars. “Those yours?”

It was so dark Tip could not immediately make out what he was pointing at, but he stopped and examined them. Then he took one bar over to the light and checked the stamping. Back beside Johnny, he said quietly, “Yes. Where did they come from?”

“Your agent was killed,” Johnny murmured. “Hank Brender here killed the man who did it.”

For a moment, Tip said nothing, and then he turned his attention to Hank, asking for details, and Hank told him. When he was finished, Tip thanked him, and then was silent a moment.

“Well, Johnny,” he said finally. “It rests with you whether or not the Esmerella shuts down. If you clean out this riffraff, we can operate. If you don’t, we’re closing.”

“I’ve done all right so far,” Johnny murmured.

“You?” Tip asked, surprise in his voice. “What did you do?”

“It was my deputy who got your gold back for you.”

Tip peered at Hank, whose face was as surprised as his own. Luckily, the dark hid Hank’s expression. “Deputy? Is he your deputy?”

“He is. Unofficially right now. Officially when I get elected.”

Tip said resentfully, “I suppose you’re going to claim that you’re entitled to take Nora to the dance, now?”

“Not at all,” Johnny murmured. “I’ll earn that on my own hook.”

Tip grunted and said, “Will you watch this gold until I can get hold of Turnbull to open the bank for me?”

Johnny said he would, and Tip left. When he was gone, Johnny looked over at Hank. “How about it, Hank? Would you like the job?”

“I couldn’t handle it, Johnny,” Hank said gravely. “I don’t know anything about the business.”

“So much the better. The only thing you need is honesty. You’ve got that.” He told Hank about hiring Turk Hebron, and the circumstances which prompted him in his choice, and Hank agreed with him. “What I want now is a deputy to police this town in place of a marshal. It’ll take a tough man and a scrapper, and a man that this wolf pack of hardcases will respect.” He grinned. “I don’t want to give you a swelled head, Hank, but you fit that bill pretty good. You’ve quit your job. Furthermore, it’ll make it easier for you to quit Fitz, since I’ll be offerin’ you twice what he’s payin’. What about it?”

Hank, after a moment’s thought, said dubiously, “All right.” Johnny felt pleased now; he had acquired his deputies. All he needed now was the election, and that was out of his hands.