Hardcase (10 page)

“I'd as soon poke a skunk with a stick,” Dave murmured.

Beal's face smiled, but his eyes didn't. He said slowly, “There's a lot of sheriffs would like to be in my shoes right now, Coyle. I know a dozen of 'em that would give a hundred dollars to have you in their jail, just to beat it out of you. Me, I'll see you later.”

Dave said, “Better make it fast, Sheriff.”

“Why?” Ernie asked.

“Because I'm goin' to break out of here.”

Beal, cursing him, walked out, taking Ernie with him. Dave dropped his cigarette, stepped on it, then looked over at McFee. He was sitting on the cot, face in hands, utterly still.

“I told the truth,” Dave said.

McFee's hands fell away. He said, “I know you did. I don't know how I know, but I feel you did.”

“You're in here till you rot.”

“Nonsense!” McFee said sharply. “If you didn't kill Sholto and Will Usher took him from you, then Usher will get the ransom money from Wallace. Wallace will buy him back.”

Dave didn't say anything for a moment, then he came over to the connecting bars of their two cells and looked pityingly at McFee.

“Beal was right about you, I reckon,” he drawled insolently.

McFee looked up. “Right in what way?”

“You ain't got the brains of a six-year-old.”

McFee looked blankly at him, too surprised to be angry.

“Listen, McFee,” Dave said savagely. “Where are you now?”

“Where am I now? Why, in jail, of course!”

“Who stands to gain most if you stay here on the charge you're being held on?”

McFee thought a moment, then said, “Wallace.”

Dave said jeeringly, “Then don't tell me you think Wallace is going to buy Sholto back, so you can go free of a murder charge.”

McFee wasn't slow now. He bounded up off the cot and faced Dave. “What did you say?”

“I didn't say it, but I will now,” Dave murmured coldly. “Wallace don't want Sholto back. He'll kill him before he'll let him come back!”

The two men stood there, staring at each other between the bars. On Dave's face was a look of alert arrogance. On McFee's face was a look of consternation, of the earth dropping out from under his feet. He said in a sick way, “Let me alone,” and walked back to his cot. Dave went over to his cot, sat on it, drew up his knees, leaned against the wall, and watched McFee.

For fifteen minutes the older man sat there staring at the floor, clasping and unclasping his hands.

Then McFee looked up and his eyes were bleak. He said bitterly, “You started this, Coyle. I hope they hang you.”

Dave said, “When was your lawsuit supposed to begin in Santa Fe?”

“Today.”

“It ain't goin' on, is it?” he said arrogantly, triumphantly.

“No. Because I'm in jail, because I'll stay here!”

“Not unless you want to,” Dave said. He came off his cot and went up to the bars. “McFee, you ain't a fighter, that's all. Not the kind of a fighter I am, anyways. What's a jail? The jail hasn't been built that will hold me. You think I give myself up last night because I was sorry for you?”

“Why did you?”

“To get you out of here, if you got the guts to come!”

For a moment neither of them spoke. There was a challenge in Dave's eyes, and in McFee's was a moment of wild speculation. Dave seized on that and said wickedly, “You're an old man. Maybe you can't stand the ridin', the sleepin' every two days, the fightin', the bein' hunted.”

McFee said swiftly, “I can stand anything a runt like you can!”

“Then maybe you're scared of bein' named an outlaw,” Dave jeered. “Nice people won't speak to you.”

“I can take that too!”

Dave shrugged. “Then I reckon you just don't give a damn about your spread, what you leave your girl, or what happens to you.”

McFee's face looked grim as death. He came off the cot slowly and said, just as slowly, “Coyle, I don't like you. Next to Wallace, I'd rather look at you swingin' from a cottonwood tree than anybody I know. But you're shrewd. I'll give you credit for that. You've got gall—enough for a hundred men. And you've got a queer kind of reckless guts that I don't rightly understand. Someday when this is over I hope I get the chance to even up with you for getting me in this. But right now I need you. I'll go with you.”

“McFee,” Dave said gently, “I don't like you either. You're a hardheaded Scotchman without anything but money and a temper. Somewhere along the line you wrote your own Bible, and I reckon you live up to it. You're not as shrewd as I am. You're dumb. You're bull-headed and you're tough. But you're the wrong kind of tough, McFee. You're tough on the little people—the people that can't help themselves, like Lacey Thornton. I'll throw in with you too. Not because I need you. I'll throw in with you and help you because your girl is human, and she's in trouble, and you're too damn dumb to get her out of it!”

“If you ever touch that girl of mine I'll kill you!” McFee said softly.

“I wouldn't try,” Dave said tonelessly. “She's too good for me, and I know it.” He looked wickedly at McFee. “She's too good for you too.”

“I know it.”

They glared at each other a moment, hating each other, and then McFee said grimly, “If we do get out—and I said ‘if'—what can we do outside of hide? It won't help Carol if I live in a cave in the Corazon.”

“I said you were dumb,” Dave jeered.

“I'm askin' you,” McFee said stubbornly. “What can we do?”

“The first thing we can do is get Sholto's wife and hide her,” Dave said calmly. “Then we take Sholto away from Usher.”

“But I don't want Sholto!” McFee burst out.

“You do! You got to prove you didn't kill him! And after we've got him safe, then we're goin' to find out who's behind Wallace!”

McFee started. He said slowly, “Have you talked to Carol?”

“Lots of times,” Dave said, puzzled.

“I mean about who's behind Wallace. She thinks someone is too.”

“You think there ain't anyone?” Dave said dryly. “And him a tinhorn gambler three years ago?”

“I don't know.”

“I do,” Dave said. “When we find out who it is, then we'll put Wallace away and him away.” He smiled faintly. “Then you can go back to your spread and put another three thousand reward on my head.”

McFee smiled too. “I reckon I will,” he said grimly. “But right now we might as well shake hands, hadn't we?”

“No. Just keep your mouth shut and let me think.”

He walked back to his cot and lay down, his hands under his head. Sooner than McFee expected Dave said, “Is Carol comin' to see you this mornin'?”

“She's Miss McFee to a saddle bum like you!” McFee said shortly.

“Is she?” Dave asked, ignoring him.

“Yes. Pretty soon.”

“You and me will stage a fist fight through the bars when she gets here,” Dave said quietly. “Make it good, but don't bloody my nose. I'll save that till later. You got that?”

“I don't see—”

“Nobody asked you to,” Dave said shortly. “I'm bossin' this.”

He turned over and went to sleep, and McFee nursed his anger in silence.

A little after nine o'clock Carol, wearing a dark maroon dress, and Senator Maitland were shown into the cell block. Ernie See led the way, and he was carrying two chairs. He set them down in the corridor, motioned Carol and Maitland toward them, and said, “Nobody gets in that cell. Also, I'm goin' to watch you from the end of the corridor.”

Carol sat down, glancing swiftly at Dave, who was sleeping. Then she asked her father how he was, and they began to talk. Presently Dave raised up on his cot, and talk ceased. All three of them looked at him.

Dave's face was cross. “You got the whole outdoors to jabber in,” he said sourly. “I got a six-by-six cell. I'm tryin' to sleep. Shut up, will you?”

McFee said automatically, sternly, “Nobody talks to my daughter that way!”

“I did, didn't I?” Dave said truculently. He sat up and said to Carol, “Shut up, I said! I want to sleep.” He looked at McFee. “How do you like that?”

McFee was genuinely angry. He had forgotten Dave's instructions, and that made it all the more convincing. He came over to the adjoining bars and said, “When I get out of here I'll kick your pants clear up into your throat.”

“Listen to Grandpa,” Dave jeered.

Carol rose and said indignantly, “Stop that, Dave Coyle!”

Senator Maitland said gently, “Here, here!”

Dave said jeeringly to McFee, “You couldn't kick a mushroom over, Grandpa. Don't brag.”

“Step over here and see if I can't!” McFee cried.

Dave stepped over to him and grabbed his nose and twisted it. McFee yelled and lashed out at him through the bars. Dave ducked and came up and put his hand through the bars, the flat of his palm against McFee's face. He pushed. McFee backed across the cell and sat down. Carol screamed. McFee growled in his throat and rushed at Dave, who hit him. McFee kicked him, and then grabbed Dave's shirt and ripped it. Dave slugged him in the stomach, and McFee clouted Dave alongside the ear.

All that happened before Ernie See arrived. He shoved Carol out of the way, unlocked the door, grabbed McFee by the collar of his shirt, and yanked him away from Dave.

“Boys, boys,” Ernie said mockingly. He was enjoying this; Dave could tell.

“Take him away from me,” Dave said coldly. “I'll unscrew his head.”

Carol said hotly to Dave, “You—you bully, you beast!”

Dave looked at her. “Shut up, sister, or I'll spank you.”

Carol was so mad she couldn't speak. Senator Maitland's kindly face was distressed. “Please,” he pleaded. “Let's act like human beings and not dogs.”

Ernie See let go of McFee's shirt and said, “Keep away from him.”

“Take him out of there,” Dave repeated. “I don't want him around me.”

“That's just too bad,” Ernie drawled ominously. “We always aim to please our customers, but I'm a little deaf. But I got a nice drafty cell over there by the window that's empty. One more ruckus like this and you'll go over there, mister.”

Dave only sneered at him and went back to his cot. Ernie See said to Carol, “You better go, miss. I may have to work him over to show him some sense.”

“I hope you do!” Carol said indignantly, her eyes flashing. “He's—he's insufferable!”

She and Senator Maitland went out, and Ernie stood there in the cell block, watching Dave. “Tell me, sonny,” he drawled. “You still goin' to break jail?”

“I'll break jail and your head and McFee's head,” Dave said arrogantly. He turned over on his cot, his back to Ernie. Ernie laughed and went out.

When he was gone Dave sat up. McFee was rubbing his nose, and his eyes were angry. “You didn't have to insult Carol,” he said.

“It looked good, didn't it?” Dave challenged, grinning.

“Yes,” McFee said reluctantly. “I still don't see what you aim to do, though.”

Dave didn't say anything. He turned to his cot, a canvas-covered one on a wooden frame. He jumped on one side with both feet, and the frame broke. He pulled the canvas away, took the broken frame, and twisted it free of the end. What he held in his hand was a wooden club some three feet long and two inches thick. He hefted it, judged its weight, and then looked at McFee.

“I think we better stick together when we get out of here,” he said quietly. “You'd get caught if we split up and met.”

McFee looked curiously at him. “But we aren't out.”

“When we get out,” Dave went on patiently, “I want you to stick with me. Understand?”

McFee, baffled, only nodded.

Dave gave him the club in his hand. “When I give the word we'll start yellin' and cussin'. That will bring Ernie and maybe Sheriff Beal here. When they come in I'll be lyin' on the floor, my nose bleedin', and I'll be unconscious. They'll ask you what happened. Tell them we got to fightin' and that I broke the cot, grabbed a club, and started after you through the bars. Tell them you took the club away from me and let me have it alongside the head. Ask 'em if I'm dead and cuss me out. Make it look good. You got that?”

McFee nodded slowly, a scowl on his face. “But I don't understand—”

Dave cut in on him. “Hit me in the nose.”

“What?”

“Hit me in the nose.”

McFee fisted his hands, looked down at them, then up at Dave, and smiled. “I couldn't do that, not when—”

Dave drove a blow into McFee's face. The older man's head snapped back, and for one second there was a look of astonishment on his face, and then he lashed out at Dave through the bars. When it was done Dave had a bloody nose. His eyes were watering with the pain. He stood there a moment, letting the blood drip on his shirt. He said, “Muss your hair. Tear your shirt.”

While McFee was doing it Dave went over and jumped on the cot, and it collapsed with a crash. Then Dave began to curse aloud, motioning McFee to join in. McFee did, and they yelled a torrent of abuse at each other.

In approximately a quarter of a minute the first corridor door swung open, and then Dave heard the pounding of feet in the corridor.

He lay down on the floor, sprawled on his face, and looked up at McFee. McFee nodded grimly, and then Dave closed his eyes.

He heard the boots close now and then Ernie See's hard voice: “Put that thing down, McFee!”

Dave heard a clatter of wood on the floor, and McFee, panting, said, “Damn right I will! I'm through with it!”

“What happened?”

McFee said grimly, “Take a look at him! He started to argue with me and then slugged me, and then he broke the cot, hauled out a hunk of wood, and hit me!”