Destry Rides Again (19 page)

It was not that her stride was shorter or more labored, or less swift, but through her body, through the long rhythm of her
gallop, it seemed to him that he could discern the slightest faltering, the slightest wavering from side to side. And he knew
that she was gone, beaten, broken, perhaps ruined from that moment, perhaps doomed to die, even if he reined her in now!

Of the posse, there was not a man in sight except the two who rode the fine horses. Durable as iron they seemed, and though
they could not gain on Fiddle, at least they were holding her even.

Destry turned down the first short valley on the left, and wound up it to a rough tableland above, in the hope that this might
make the two realize that they were hunting dangerous quarry alone. And he even turned and tried his rifle at them, shooting
perilously close. But still they kept pounding on! They began to shoot random shots, in return, but the most of their energy
was given to driving the horses ahead.

Even looking back from the highlands, Destry could not see the rest of the posse and he guessed that they had been so hopelessly
distanced that even the sound of firing probably would not bring them up. No doubt they were telling one another, as they
rested far away, that the two lucky fellows who had such horses beneath them might let their nags take them up with the quarry—and
then what?

Then what, indeed!

He needed only to pull the mare into the first clump of trees, and, leaping down, open fire with
his Winchester. If he could not bag two birds as large as these, and so close, then his hand and eye had lost all skill.

But he knew that he could not shoot them. If only he really had had murder charged against him, then simple, simple to add
another two to the list. One cannot be hung more than once, even for a thousand crimes!

But he could not fight them off, and close shooting would never do to frighten these fellows. By something in the swing of
their shoulders, by something in the slant of their bodies as they came around curves, he knew that they were young boys,
and he knew that they were ready to die for glory. It was no thought of the reward that drove them on, he could swear, but
a resistless impulse toward great deeds!

He smiled as he thought of that, but the smile was sour. A bullet sang by his ear; he drew on the reins, called to Fiddle,
and pitched himself forward along her neck!

She came rapidly to a halt. As she paused, he felt her trembling, her knees sagging and straightening beneath the pressure
of his weight, almost as though the swing of the gallop had been easier for her to endure than to stand still, here, oppressed
by her own weight and by that of her rider! Then he heard the pounding of swift hoofs behind him, and a pair of whooping Indian
cries of exultation.

“
I
nailed him!” said one. “I got him clean through and through.”

“Ay, it was you, Chip. But go mighty soft and slow, now, because he might be playin’ possum.”

“I’m gunna sink another slug into him and make sure.”

“Doncha do it, Chip. He’s never shot no helpless people himself, no matter what else he done.”

“You’re right,” said Chip. “I didn’t really mean it, anyway. Is he clean dead? Why don’t he drop?”

“Because he happened to fall straight, forkin’ the hoss. We’d better go slow, though, because you never can tell. These old
timers are mighty foxy.”

“Sure they are, but I got this old timer covered so doggone tight that he couldn’t be got out of this here fix with a can
opener! Step up slow. Doncha go forgettin’ that this is Destry himself that we got under our hand!”

“Am I likely to be forgettin’ that? Folks are gunna remember us for this day’s work, if we never don’t do nothin’ else afterwards,
as long as we live!”

“It was me that shot him. Doncha forget that!”

“I’ll remember that, all right, Chip. I ain’t gunna steal any of your glory from you—only, it was a kind of a lucky shot,
I reckon. Keep him covered, will you, while I dismount?”

From the corner of the eye Destry saw the lad dismount. He was a tall, magnificent youngster, with a fine, brown face, and
the clearest and most cheerful of eyes. His companion, Chip, was as brown as his companion, but he was prematurely old, with
a sallow look and a sneer already forming on his lips.

He kept his rifle at the ready, but yet not completely at the ready, for the muzzle was turned a trifle away from the target,
so that the stock of the weapon turned somewhat broadside on to Destry’s eye.

He, watching with the most covert care, wondered if with a snap shot he could strike the stock of that gun and knock the weapon
out of the hands of the marksman? If he missed the stock, he was reasonably
sure to drive the bullet through the side of the boy; and that would be death for the youngster, a thing which Destry mortally
shrank from dealing out.

“Go take that Fiddle by the head,” the rider was directing. He appeared to have taken command and direction of the operations
from his taller and handsomer companion. “She’s sure done run a mighty fine race today. I’m gunna match you to see which one
of us had oughta have her!”

“Would she come to one of us?”

“Sure she would! I’ll wrastle you for her, Skinny.”

“
You’ll
wrastle me for her?” said the tall fellow, stopping short in his advance towards the mare. “Why, you sawed off runt, what
chance would you have if I laid a hand on you?”

“The bigger they are, the quicker that I cut ’em down to my size,” declared Chip.

“You talk like a fool!” declared the other boy. “You happened to get in a lucky shot, and now to hear you a gent would think
that you was Kit Carson!”

“You’d think that I was before ever I got through with you, young feller!”

“I’m young, am I? Chip, you oughta listen to yourself and get ashamed. Which I never heard nobody talk so ornery and mean
as you’re doin’.”

“Didn’t you?”

“No!”

‘Are you aimin’ at trouble, Skinny?”

“I told you once that I’d lick you, if you didn’t stop callin’ me Skinny.”

“You did. What you say don’t make no difference to me. If I can’t handle you with hands, I can do it with guns!”

“Hey, Chip, you don’t mean that? You don’t mean that you’d shoot me?”

“Like a skunk. Why not?”

“I pretty nigh believe that you would!”

“You believe right! I don’t care nothin’ about you, Skinny, or what you think, or what you want! I’m gunna have Fiddle, because
I oughta have her. You can get half of the money, but I’ll take Fiddle——”

“You be damned! You take
all
the money, and I’ll have the hoss!”

“So’s you can ride up and down through Wham and tell folks that you’re the one that really beat Destry, and the proof is that
you got his mare between your knees, right that minute?”

Destry had heard enough, and had made all of his preparations. He had been able to steal back his right hand and draw out
a revolver; now Chip was turned almost at right angles to him, making the shot he wished to attempt twice as simple as it
had been before.

Yet still it was difficult, for he knew that he would have to make the first bullet a snap shot, and a snap shot at any distance
at such a thing as the stock of a rifle is a hazardous matter. If he failed in the first shot, the second would have to be
for the life of Chip, the third for that of Skinny!

Twice he flexed his fingers on the handles of the Colt, then he flicked it across the hanging neck of Fiddle and fired.

He saw the rifle explode in the hands of Chip as it jerked sidewise and fell to the ground, while Chip, with a yell of pain,
caught his right hand in his left.

The revolver bullet, striking the hard wood of the stock, had slithered down it, and thrust a great splinter into the hand
of Chip.

Destry sat erect in the saddle, now. The gun in his left hand covered Chip, and the revolver in his right
covered young “Skinny,” whose own weapon was half drawn.

“We don’t oughta have no luck,” said Skinny with a wonderful calmness. “We was countin’ chickens! Destry, you sure done us
fine!”

“I wanted to put a slug through him and make sure of him!” wailed Chip. “Damn me if I ever go even huntin’ chipmunks with
a fool like you, agin, Skinny!”

“Young feller,” cautioned Destry, “if it wasn’t that I hadn’t wanted to murder the pair of you, I’d of ducked into a grove
and picked the two of you out of the saddle. Don’t talk killin’, Chip. You can shoot pretty straight, but you see you didn’t
get me today. You didn’t even nick me! Killin’ talk generally gets them done up that does the talkin’, and that’s a fact for
certain sure! Unbuckle that gun belt and let her drop, if you don’t mind. That’s it. Now you slide down off’n your hoss—this
side, please. You, Skinny, back up the road, and keep on backin’ up till you hear from me to stop. That’s better. Boys, I
gotta borrow your hosses, because my Fiddle is plumb fagged. I’ve gotta ask you one question, though, before I start. How
did you get onto my trail?”

“Why, there ain’t any secret about that. Some of the old heads figgered that Bent would be tryin’ to see you and let you know
how things stood, after the killin’ of Clifton. We laid guard watchin’, and when Bent left in this here direction, we sure
come along his trail on the lookout. That’s all that they is to it!”

“That’s enough. Boys, keep your hands up, and keep on backin’. That’ll do, thanks! Who was leadin’ you?”

“It was——” began Chip.

“Shut up, you fool!” barked Skinny. “You wanta get somebody in trouble, do you?”

“Skinny,” called Destry, “you’re all right, son. I leave your gun belt here for you, hopin’ that you sure won’t try to snag
me while I’m ridin’ off. Chip, you need a little agin’ in the wood, but you’re sure plumb poisonous just now. Don’t you go
to eatin’ iron till you know that your stomach will up and stand that kind of a diet!”

Of the two horses, he selected a tough appearing buckskin for his mount, and swung into the saddle.

“Good luck to you on my hoss!” called Skinny. “You might of dropped us both, Destry, and I’m sure thankin’ you.”

Destry waved his hand, and glancing back, he saw that Chip was still scowling with furious hate.

Of such were murderers made, he was sure!

That morning, Willie Thornton slept; they roused him at noon only to have him stare sleepily at them, and turn his head away
from the proffered food. They did not try to force him to eat. It was Pete who declared that sleep was better for him than
nourishment, and so the boy was allowed to fall into a profound slumber.

He wakened, with a tremor and a shock, late in the afternoon. The blood gushed audibly in his temples, from the force of his
frightened heartbeat, and he was oppressed with a cold sense of guilt.

It was Destry. He should have done something long before this to save the great man from danger, and now he sat up suddenly
in his bunk. The movement made his head spin. He gritted his teeth and forced down deep breaths until his brain cleared, then
took stock of the room which hitherto he had seen only as in a dream: the stove, the rusted pipe, the pans, the homemade broom,
the cluttered corners, filled with old clothes, boots, traps, guns, fishing tackle, saddlery, harness. It was a junk shop,
odds and ends invading the center of the floor.

Near the head of the bunk, depending from nails, were his ragged clothes. These he pulled down and began to dress. It was
not easy. When he leaned, dimness rushed over his eyes, and a pain throbbed at the back of his skull. Weakness was in him
a physical thing, like a thin tide of water ebbing and flowing in his veins. Sometimes it washed as low as his knees and made
them shake. Sometimes it surged up to his armpits and made his arms shudder. It
reached his head, and covered his eyes with a film of darkness.

Yet he persisted until he was dressed, and went to the doorway, feeling his way along the wall. The strong blast of the westering
sun struck him like a hot hand in the face, and, piercing his shirt, it scorched his body.

He had to blink his eyes against that brilliance, but yet the force of the sun drove strength into his body, and the air seemed
to fill him with more life.

He smiled at the weakness which he left behind him!

An old horse was grazing in the corral, wandering around the edges of the fence and reaching under for the grass that grew
outside. It was a lump of a creature with a shapeless head and thick legs, but Willie guessed that there might still be too
much life in it for him to handle in his present condition. However, he dragged out a battered range saddle, from which most
of the leather had been worn away, or rat-eaten. It was a struggle for him to manage the clumsy weight of it. The effort sent
sweat rushing out all over his body; his mouth twitched as though an electric spasm controlled the muscles.

Yet those who have known the pain of labor are schooled in endurance. So the boy endured.

When he got a rope from the shed, he had to follow the old mustang patiently for half an hour. Sometimes it would allow him
to put his hand upon the mane, before it whirled away and darted off, throwing its heels into the air. He forced himself to
be patient, setting his teeth hard, telling himself that this waste of his strength would not exhaust him too much for the
work that lay ahead—if only the devil of a horse could be caught.

Snared at last it was, and then came reluctantly on the rope toward the fence, halting, jerking back, thrusting out its long,
stiff upper lip with a foolish expression unmatchable except in the face of a horse.

Willie Thornton endured, snubbed the rope around a post, and so at last worked on the saddle with a mighty heave, then struggled
until his head swam to force the bit into the stubborn mouth of the brute. At last that work was ended, but he had to sit
down on a bar of the gate to steady himself before he could mount. This he only managed by climbing up on the fence and scrambling
into the cup of the saddle from a height.

The mustang went off with a rush, rearing, pitching, while Willie reeled from side to side, his lips grinned back with the
agony of effort to keep a grip with his short legs upon the barrel ribs of the horse. The kinks were soon out of the veteran
mustang, however, and it developed a rocking lope which surprised Willie with its softness.

Once on the road, he looked back toward the shack with a touch of shame to think of what would fill the minds of Pete and
Jack when they considered that their good Samaritanship had been repaid by the theft of a horse. But the future would have
to be trusted to put all of that straight!

He came into Wham as wild a little figure as ever appeared in even that town, with his hair on end, clotted with dust, his
face pale, his cheeks hollow, his eyes staring with the fever that burned him and froze him in turns.

At the blacksmith shop he asked the way to the Dangerfield place, and the smith came out to stare at him and point out the
correct trail.

“You look kind of done up, kid,” said he. “Better
get down and rest yourself a mite. Ain’t that Jack Loughran’s hoss that you’re on?”

“I’m goin’ on an errand for Jack,” said Willie, and thumped the big ribs of the horse with his bare heels.

He rode into a queer fairyland, for it was the golden time of the afternoon, and hills and trees to the fevered eyes of the
boy were enwrapped with mists of rich fire, shot with rose. The dust that puffed up under the hoofs of the horse rose as a
magic vapor; the wind struck it away, or tossed it high and thin in weird shapes. The world was possessed of motion—the hills
rolled in waves, the trees swayed, the road itself heaved and fell gently before him.

Willie began to laugh at the strangeness of this universe, and then found himself listening for another voice—so far away
and elfishly thin did that laughter sound upon his ear.

Then he discovered that the rolling might not be of the landscape around him, but his own uncertain undulation in the saddle.
When he tried to grip with his knees, they gave way from the hips, weakly. He could not control himself; the very reins shook
in his hand.

Now it appeared to him, as the mustang seemed pausing between steps, that he was a fool to have come out from the town. The
blacksmith, for instance, had had an honest face and might have believed the truth of what he said concerning the murder of
Clifton. As it was, he probably would fall from the back of the horse long before it reached the house of the Dangerfields!

All was now so dim before his eyes that it was as though he rode through a storm, and when the sun sank, he was in dread lest
he should be lost in the utter dark.

Then a great whirling seized his brain and he felt his senses sinking, as a boat whirls and sinks in the grip of a vortex.

When he recovered, he was sprawled forward across the pommel of the saddle and the neck of the horse, his head hanging down
and the blood heavy as lead in it.

The mustang was contentedly grazing at the side of the road!

Pushing himself back into the saddle with both shaking arms, the boy looked desperately around him into thick darkness on
every hand, a wall of impenetrable black. He was lost—he would die he knew, if help did not come to him, since he could not
find his way to it! But his own death seemed a small thing to Willie. It was the great man, the hero of whom he thought most,
Destry!

Now as he concentrated his thought upon that glorious image of Destry, the blackness that had covered his eyes lifted wonderfully.
He saw that it was not thick night, but only the time of old gold and tarnished russet, faintly streaked along the horizon.
The trees looked as huge as houses; he had to tell himself that the black outline he wanted to find would be marked by a few
lights. Then he hammered weakly against the sides of the horse, and it went on, tossing its head until the bridle jingled,
stepping out long and free as a horse will do when it feels that the end of the day’s work must be near.

He dared not put the animal to a jog or a lope, because he knew that the swift motion would roll him promptly from the saddle,
and, once out of it, he doubted his ability to so much as crawl. So greatly had the weakness increased upon him.

Then, with a turn of the road, he saw before him
the shining of a lamp through an open window, its rays fanning out in brilliant, trembling clusters. Toward that light he
went, when a form seemed to rise before him out of the ground.

It was a man who was saying: “Hullo, kid! Where you from?”

“I’m lookin’ for the Dangerfield place.”

“Here’s the house. Whacha want?”

“I wanta see Miss Dangerfield!”

“Come on in, then. She’ll be back, soon.”

“I wanta see her real bad,” muttered Willie.

“Well, then, you traipse on across the field, yonder, and likely you’ll find
her. She went out walkin’ toward the old shack. You can see the roof of it there between the trees—no, not that way. Look
there! Can’t you see?”

“I got dust in my eyes,” said Willie.

His voice was uncertain.

“Whacha been cryin’ about?” asked the gruff voice of the man. “Whacha cryin’ about now? You’re a mighty lot too big a kid
to be cryin’. Y’oughter be ashamed of yourself!”

Willie did not answer.

He knew that the quaver in his voice was weakness, not tears, but the hot shame he felt at the reproof flushed him with a
new strength. It cleared his eyes, and enabled him to see the pointed roof of the old shack between the trees, in the dusk
before him. Toward it he aimed the horse.

The bushes washed about him; they scratched his bare knees cruelly, but he was glad of the pain, because it helped to rouse
him for the words which he must speak when he found the girl.

If
he found her!

The thought of failing made the frantic panic leap
straightway into his brain. He fought it back. But another thought now beset him. Friend to Destry though she was, still what
could a woman do in such an affair as this? He should have found a man. He should have told his story to Pete and Jack. They
were too kind to be dishonest. They would have believed——

So he rode on in a torment, and saw the trees and the bushes divide before him. The old house lay just before him, with the
front door open, hanging from one hinge.

Above the door, one deep, empty attic window looked out at him like an eyehole from a skull. There was no life about the place.

“Miss Dangerfield!” he called.

It seemed to Willie that he heard an echo pick up the name and whisper it; or was that a stir in the bushes around him?

“Miss Dangerfield!” he called again.

A quiet voice spoke to him; he saw a woman come around the corner of the building, and slipping out of the saddle, he tried
to go to her, only to have his knees buckle beneath the impact of his weight.