CHAPTER XVI

 

MICHAELA BENT OVER the injured man, gently pressing hot damp towels to his head. Having lighted the lamp, Brand closed the door and hunkered down to gaze at the unconscious man and puzzle it out. “It doesn’t make sense,” he said.

“What doesn’t?”

He decided, in that brisk moment, to trust her entirely. It was not really a matter of decision; it was a feeling that had come to him. He watched the graceful way her slim body moved and he said, “McCasford was in the bar with you all the time, wasn’t he?”

“Until he left a little while ago.”

“Zane’s been out longer than that. And if it had been Elias, it would have been a knife wound, not a club on the head.”

“Why would it be those two?”

“Zane’s a marshal,” he said. “He was after two men who held up a mail-carrying stagecoach. Elias and McCasford.”

“You’re sure ”

“It all seems to fit in.”

“Well,” she said without emotion coloring her voice, “I expected it was something like that.”

“So,” he said, “those two would be the only ones with a reason to try and kill Zane.”

“How would they know he was a marshal?”

“Elias seemed to partway recognize him. Or maybe he gave himself away somehow. Still, it doesn’t add up. McCasford couldn’t have done it, and it’s not Elias’ way.”

“Maybe he can tell us,” she said, “when he comes around.”

“If he comes around. That was a hard sock.”

“He’s got a good chance.”

“I hope so,” Brand said. He owned strong respect for men like George Zane, who daily pitted themselves against hostile men and guns and defended the principle of law against all attackers, and all for a meager salary at best. He said, “Of course, as far as everybody else is concerned, I might have been the one who hit him. My gun butt’s as solid as any, and for all you know about me I might have had a reason to dispatch him.”

“No,” she said. “I know more than that.”

“You do?”

She dipped the towel into the bucket of hot water and pressed it to Zane’s head. “This is enough hot compresses—I’ll need cold ones now. See if you can make a sack out of a towel and bring me a load of snow.”

He picked up one of the towels, squeezed excess moisture out of it into the bucket, and turned through the door. As he entered the hallway, a movement down the hall arrested him and his hand flicked up with the black-barreled gun.

Then McCasford stepped out of his door and came forward, regarding Brand’s gun curiously. “What’s wrong?”

“Somebody belted Zane.”

“What for?”

Brand gave the one-armed youth a searching stare and found nothing revealing in McCasford’s expression; he took the towel toward the front of the corridor, holstering his gun.

After a brief look into Zane’s room, McCasford followed him. “I’m getting spooky. There’s a lot of things going on I don’t understand. Why would anybody poke the stranger?”

“Maybe to somebody he wasn’t a stranger.”

McCasford nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe so.”

They passed through into the main room. The fire had subsided; on his way by, McCasford threw fresh logs on it. At the far end, the stove was out.

Brand said, “I need some snow for a compress,” and regretted that he had not thought to bring his mackinaw. The wind wheezed outside, making shingles shudder.

McCasford said, “That door opens outward. “You’ll never push it open against the pile of snow outside.”

“That’s so,” Brand agreed, and wondered what the kid was doing hanging on to his coat tails this way. He turned toward the tackshed door and went that way. The stove was still warm when he passed it. The kid caught up and opened the door, and followed him into the tackshed, carrying a lantern.

“Obliged,” Brand said, going into the stable. McCasford was beside him, the lantern swinging from his grip, and now McCasford swung around to face him, stopping in his tracks. Brand’s free hand hung cautiously close to his gun; he said, “What’s wrong?”

“I want to talk.”

“Go ahead then,” Brand said, feeling a trifle standoffish.

“I want you to leave the girl alone,” McCasford said, without bluster, and immediately Brand felt a certain distant pity for the kid’s blundering. “You’re no good for her,” McCasford told him. “Maybe you can persuade her with your fancy gambler talk, but when you ain’t around to influence her, she knows enough not to trust you.”

“Well,” Brand said, “let’s say that’s all true, for a minute. Where does it leave you?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, what makes you any better for her than I am?”

He saw the confused light behind McCasford’s shifting eyes, and he said more quietly, “At least I haven’t robbed any stagecoaches lately.”

McCasford’s face snapped around. “Where’d you learn that?”

“From a friend.”

“Don’t fool with me, Brand. How many people know about it?”

“Three,” Brand said promptly. “But I won’t say which are the other two, you see? So you’re just as bad off as you were before. You going to kill all of us?”

“I’m not going to kill anybody,” McCasford said softly, his eyes cast down. “The whole thing went sour the minute we called down that stage driver. It’s tasted bad ever since. I don’t want to kill anybody on top of it.”

“You’re in it now, and you don’t like it, so you want to get out. That it?”

McCasford made no answer, but his silence was reply enough. Brand said speculatively, “If it wasn’t for Elias you’d probably be willing to go back and turn the money in and surrender yourself.”

“Maybe.”

“But Elias is in the way, and he’s got good eyes and a good gun and a quick knife.”

“All right,” McCasford said. “I sucked myself into this deal—nobody forced me. So now I don’t like it and I’m scared. What the hell can I do about it?”

Brand gave him a quick and quiet answer. “Where’s the loot you stole?”

Hot anger flamed in the youth’s eyes. “Why should I tell you that?”

“What did you get?”

McCasford’s shoulder’s slumped. “Gold bullion. Maybe twenty thousand dollars. You want me to give all that up?”

“You’ll likely be giving it up anyway,” Brand drawled. “To the law or to Elias.” He fingered the damp towel. “Where’d you hide the stuff? It’s in Elias’ saddlebags, isn’t it?”

“If you know that much, maybe you can figure out the rest.”

“All right,” Brand said easily. “He took the saddlebags off and carried them and buried them somewhere. They must be pretty heavy, so he wouldn’t have taken them far. It’s a sure thing he didn’t take them into the saloon where everybody could see them. So either the two of you buried the gold before you got here, or it’s right around the stable somewhere. And I doubt you’d have buried it out in the storm—no landmarks to find it by.”

“Why,” McCasford said, “you’re pretty shrewd, ain’t you?”

“You’ve got to see a lot across a poker table. Where’d you hide it, kid?”

McCasford still had a stubborn, uncertain look, and so Brand continued his thoughtful calculations: “It was cold when you got here. The storm had already reached this place. You wouldn’t have had the stomach to go outside into that muck again just to bury a couple of sacks of gold. That means it’s probably right inside this room. All right. I’ll search the place as soon as I can—and I’ll probably turn up your loot.”

McCasford was looking down. “In the loft,” he said. “Under the hay.”

“Fine and dandy,” Brand said, a little wryly. “When I get this compress inside for Zane, we’ll dig the stuff out of there and hide it somewhere else, where Elias can’t find it.”

“What good will that do?”

“When the storm blows over, he’ll either want to take you with him or he’ll kill you. Either way, he’ll want that gold. If he can’t find it, he’ll stick around long enough to hunt for it. We can pin him down them. Otherwise he could sneak off any time—maybe leaving you in a dark room with a knife in your back.”

“Sure,” McCasford breathed. “Listen to that—you think it’s lettin’ up?”

Brand could hear no diminishing of the storm’s wail; bracing himself, he took the towel toward the big outside door. The lantern threw crazy shadows along the dirt floor.