Bad Man's Gulch by Max Brand Page B

engineer.
    â€œYes. Right after the sheriff went away . . . and the rest of the boys.”
    â€œDid he sneak out the back way?”
    â€œNo,” she said, lying desperately. “He walked right out the front door. . . .”
    He turned a dark red, and she knew, at once, that he must have been keeping a close watch upon that door and that he was certain no Billy Angel had passed that way.
    â€œWell,” said Hopper coldly, “I s’pose that there ain’t much I can do then?”
    â€œI guess not,” she answered, full of wretchedness, and hating Billy Angel with all her heart for the miserable tangle in which he had involved her.
    Twice Jack Hopper turned his hat in his hands; twice words came to the verge of his compressed lips. Then—“Good night!” he snapped out at her, and turned on his heel. The closing of the door behind him seemed to the girl the definite act that separated her from the rest of the law-abiding world.

IV
D ELIRIUM
    She closed the counter for the night now, then she went up to bed. There was a second room in the story above. It was hardly a room. It was rather a mere corner with a cot in it and a bit of cracked glass for a mirror on the wall, with a tiny dormer window peering out over the roof.
    There she lay down, but she had hardly closed her eyes when she heard talking in the building. She wakened and sat up, her heart thundering. It was Billy Angel, then, that they had come for. Jack Hopper, after all, had not been able to keep the terrible secret. She hastened to the door of her room in time to hear the speaking again, and this time she made it out as coming from her own chamber. It was a strange voice, raised high one moment, sinking the next, almost like two men in rapid conversation, yet she could tell that there was only one speaker. It was not Sheriff Tom Kitchin. Certainly it was not Jack Hopper, or any other man she knew. Who could it be, then?
    She crouched outside the door, listening. She heard the voice rumble on:
    â€œTake the second road and ride along half a mile . . . talk straight to him. Talk like you didn’t fear him none. Talk like you expect to get a square deal, and most likely you’ll get one. Steady! Steady! Look here, I’ve come talkin’ business, Charlie. Will you hear me? Go to the second house. Throw a stone up through the window. It’ll be open. I’ll do that.”
    The voice died with a groan. It was Billy Angel in helpless delirium. In the silence that followed, she strove to unravel the babbling and bring sense out of it, but she strove vainly.
    Suddenly the voice resumed: “Now, Charlie, here we are together, and there ain’t nobody likely to step in between us.”
    At this, a chill of deadly apprehension ran through the blood of the girl. For was this not a rehearsal of the murder scene in which he had struck down Charles Ormond? She had a wild desire to turn and flee, a terror lest she should hear him condemn himself with his own mouth.
    â€œA knife, old son, will do the trick as well. A knife is a handy thing. Look what a wolf can do with his teeth. Suppose that he had a tooth as long as this . . . made of steel . . . and with the strength of a man’s arm behind it . . . why, Charlie, he’d crawl into the caves of mountain lions and rip their bellies open when they jumped at him. And the best thing is . . . a knife don’t make a sound . . . only a whisper when it sinks into you and asks the soul out of you. If you . . .”
    There was no need of anything more convincing than this. To have denied his guilt after this would have been utterest blindness, she felt. But, in the meantime, that voice was rising every moment. Murderer though he was, he was helpless, and, moreover, she had gone too far to draw back now.She must bring back his strength to him if she could, keeping him secretly in her house.
    She opened the door and went hastily in. The lamp was turned so low