Sunset Trail (16 page)

XXII

Corrigan took the Burlington road out of town, pushing his horse as hard as he could. He knew it would be touch and go, that
it was almost twelve now and the tension would be tightening the nerves of the three outlaws in the Dugan house.

He wasn’t sure he could make it back in time to be in the barn when Matt came into the house with the money. Alone, Matt would
have no chance at all if he tried to smoke it out with the outlaws, but the fat would be in the fire and they’d be sure to
take Jean with them.

Then he saw Dick Miles’s rig top the ridge ahead of him and he breathed a little easier. Maybe luck was running his way now.
He kept on up the road, holding his right hand over his head for the rig to stop. It kept coming and he motioned wildly. For
a minute he thought Miles was going to run him down, but he finally stopped, yanking the horses back on their haunches and
slamming on his brake.

“Get out of the way, Corrigan!” Miles bawled furiously. “I figured I was gonna make it to town by the skin of my teeth, and
here you are holding me up.”

Aman with a white beard sat in the back seat beside a smooth-shaven young man. Both had rifles, and both seemed a little uncertain
about whether they should start shooting or not. The bearded man would be Governor Ben Wyatt, but Corrigan had no idea who
the other one was.

“Who is he?” Wyatt asked.

“The sheriff,” Miles answered. “Jerry Corrigan.”

“Well, young man,” Wyatt said, “we were stopped once before this morning by three men who intended to shoot me. Why are you
stopping us?”

“I’m trying to keep you from getting shot,” Corrigan “I’m trying to keep you from getting shot,” Corrigan said quickly. “I
haven’t got much time to explain it to you, but Matt Dugan’s family’s safety is involved. Matt’s, too, if I don’t get back
in a hurry. Just a few minutes ago we learned of a conspiracy to murder you when you get on the platform and start speaking.”

Miles’s expression showed he didn’t believe it. He snorted: “Come off it, Corrigan. Matt’s family would be. . . .”

“I told you we should never have come here!” the young man beside Wyatt shouted. “We should have got on the train in Burlington
and gone back to Denver.”

“I figure this one is a lot of hogwash, Governor,” Miles said, “though I can’t see what Corrigan’s up to.”

“Shut up, Miles,” Corrigan said angrily. “I don’t know why you’re talking that way. All I want to do is to save the governor’s
life. I’m asking you to stay here for at least half an hour. Matt and me think that’ll give us time to clean the outlaws.
. . .”

“Hold on, Sheriff,” Wyatt interrupted. “I’ve got something to say. Tom, we’re not going back. I keep telling you that, and
you keep talking about going back. Now then, Miles, do you know the sheriff pretty well?”

“Yeah, I know him, all right,” Miles said grudgingly. “He’s a purty fair lawman for a young buck, but there’s some cowmen
around Amity who don’t want this dam project to be finished up. This might be their scheme to keep. . . .”

“My God, Miles,” Corrigan said, “I knew you weren’t smart, but I didn’t think you were an idiot. I’m not going to stay here
arguing. I’ve got to get back to town because Matt’s heading for his house in a few minutes and he’ll get shot all to hell
if I ain’t there to give him a hand.”

“How did you hear about this conspiracy?” Wyatt asked, still unconvinced.

“An old man named Pete Fisher was in on it,” Corrigan said. “I mean, it was Denver men who put it together, but Fisher was
the one who told ’em about you coming and how easy it would be to shoot you from the front upstairs window of the Dugan house.
He got religion this morning. Claimed he was sorry he ever got into it, so he told Matt all about it and wants it stopped.
He’d been drinking enough for his tongue to be oiled up good. Matt had put up three strangers in his house since midnight,
but they told him it was a scheme to rob the bank.”

Wyatt nodded, obviously believing Corrigan’s story now. “It makes sense. We received a warning to stay out of Amity. It’s
my guess Fisher sent it. When the time grew near for me to arrive, he got cold feet. I know Fisher and I know what he thinks
of me, but I can understand why he wanted it stopped. He’s not a killer. I think I know the Denver men you mention. They are
killers. I suspect we’ll find their names in Fisher’s house and we’ll have them arrested.”

“Then you’ll stay here for half an hour?” Corrigan demanded.

“We will stay a few minutes,” Wyatt said stubbornly. “Not half an hour. I don’t have that much time, and I don’t want to disappoint
the Amity people by keeping them waiting. If you haven’t arrested these men by the time we reach town, I won’t get up on the
platform. I’ll just. . . .”

“All right,” Corrigan said, and whirled his horse and dug in the steel.

Time
, he thought. Somehow Miles and the governor just couldn’t understand how much each second counted. He should have ridden
off and let them do what they pleased as soon as he had warned them, but, no, he’d waited until he had Wyatt’s assurance they’d
stay there for a while.

Matt would say he’d done right, that Wyatt had to be persuaded to stay because his life was the important one, but Corrigan
would never agree to that. If any life was more important than the others’, it was Jean’s.

Well, it was too late now to change what he’d done. As he rocketed down the slope and into the alley that ran behind the Dugan
house, he glanced at the sun. If it wasn’t high noon, it was within minutes of it. He didn’t know just when Matt would take
the money to the house, and, of course, there was no way of knowing how long the men would wait for the governor to show up.

Corrigan pulled his horse to a stop and dismounted. He turned the animal into a corral belonging to one of Matt’s neighbors.
He didn’t want to stir up any dust or ride his horse back of the Dugan house. One of the men might be watching the alley from
the kitchen window. It wouldn’t take much to trigger an explosion if the outlaws were as jumpy by this time as he expected
them to be.

He ran along the alley, then slowed up, reminding himself again that he didn’t want to stir up any dust. He mentally cursed
Dick Miles for not believing him. He had never liked Miles and was well aware that Miles didn’t like him, mostly because Miles
had courted Jean and lost.

Miles was a fool for thinking Jean would love a man twice her age, but being a fool was beside the point right now. Miles
had not believed him, and that had made the governor doubtful, so several minutes had been wasted. Even worse was the possibility
that, after they thought it over, they might decide it was just scare talk and come on into town.

Reaching the back of the barn, Corrigan slipped quickly around the corner, his revolver in his hand. Hugging the wall, he eased
along it to the door, opened it, and stepped inside. He was following Matt’s orders. He hadn’t liked the idea in the first
place and he still didn’t like it. What was he supposed to do while he was here?

“Jerry, I sure am glad to see you.”

Corrigan wheeled toward the far end of the runway. Bud Dugan was coming toward him, white-faced and trembling. He was covered
with litter from the straw-covered floor of a stall. Corrigan, staring at him, was stunned by his appearance here in the Dugan
barn.

“How’d you happen to be here?” Corrigan demanded. “I thought they had. . . .”

“The woman who was riding herd on me got scared and left after tying me up in Uncle Pete Fisher’s soddy,” Bud said. “I got
loose and ran here as fast as I could, but I didn’t know what to do after I got here. I was going to hunt for you ’cause I
knew you’d figure out what to do, but that Sammy came out and saddled their horses.” Bud swallowed.

“I didn’t have a gun. Jerry, I never was so scared in my life. I figured he seen me come in and was gonna kill me. He hadn’t
seen me, though. I hid in the last stall and he never went back that far, so he didn’t find me.”

“I’m glad you’re safe,” Corrigan said. “Your dad’s been worried about you.”

He turned to the window and stared at the back of the house. He didn’t see anyone. Nothing moved, but Jean was inside. She
had to be. They wouldn’t turn her loose. He could only hope she was still alive and unharmed. Now that it was too late, he
could blame himself for not doing something about it this morning when he’d been in the house with her.

Bud gripped his arm. “What are you gonna do, Jerry? I wanted to get loose so I could come and tell you what was going on,
but I guess you know.”

“I know, all right,” Corrigan said dully, “but that don’t tell me what to do.”

Here he was, fifty feet from the back door of the house, and he couldn’t risk showing himself until he knew where Jean was.
He had to do something. For a few seconds he was sick with the agony of indecision. If he could slip through a neighbor’s
yard until he was opposite the porch and then run to the back door . . . if he could just get inside so he could see Jean
and know that she was all right, he. . . .

He heard a rifle shot, the sharp, brittle
crack
coming from inside the house as he could judge. He had no idea what it meant unless Miles had come on into town with the governor
and the outlaws had seen him and shot him.

But it couldn’t be that way, he told himself. It couldn’t be. That was what Matt was trying to prevent.

XXIII

John Smith looked at his watch. One minute until twelve o’clock. He noticed that his hand trembled slightly as he shoved the
watch back into his pocket. He had never really been nervous in his life before as a critical moment approached, but he was
nervous now. He felt hollow all the way down deep into his belly.

So much depended on these next few minutes, and yet it was a situation that could not be pinned down to an exact minute. There
were too many variables. The big one, of course, was the time it would take the governor to drive from Burlington to Amity.

Another point that bothered him a little was the time Dugan would arrive at the house with the money from the bank. He didn’t
care if Dugan was late, or even if he didn’t come at all. The instant the governor was shot, the three of them would pull
out in a hurry, but if Dugan got here before Ross Hart fired the fatal shot, someone would have to watch him as well as Jean.
The simplest way to handle it would be to tie him up. It would take a few minutes for him to free himself and a few minutes
was all they’d need.

Jean was baking something in the kitchen. She was humming, apparently unconcerned about what was happening and might even
happen to her. She glanced at him and smiled and kept on with what she was doing. She was a cool one, he thought, a lot cooler
than her mother was.

The morning had passed without any trouble once the young squirt of a sheriff was out of the house. Smith had been afraid he’d
come back. He was the kind of man Smith feared because he was young and in love with the girl and likely to be jumpy. But
he hadn’t returned. Jean hadn’t give them any trouble at all, and now the moment they’d been waiting for was here, or would
be here any second and they’d be on their way.

Smith turned and walked back into the front room. Sammy Bean was slouched on the couch, his legs stretched in front of him.
He had just come back from saddling the horses. All clear in the barn, he’d said. Nobody in the alley. There wouldn’t be,
of course. Anyone who could walk was in front of the courthouse by this time, waiting to see the governor.

“We could take the girl,” Smith said. “That would be one way to keep the sheriff and Dugan from giving us a run.”

“No,” Sammy said. “She’d slow us up. They won’t give us a run on account of the boy. If they do, we’ll take him along.”

Smith nodded, knowing that Sammy was right. He wasn’t sure why he had even suggested it because he had thought of it before
and discarded the idea for the very reason Sammy had mentioned. He guessed that he was more nervous than he had realized.
The number one objective was to get out of Amity in a hurry once the governor was taken care of and he’d better remember it.

“Keep an eye on the girl,” Smith said. “I’m going up to see Ross.”

He turned toward the stairs and climbed to the hall on the second floor. He decided that it wasn’t nervousness that had made
him suggest taking Jean when they left. The real reason was he didn’t fully trust Dolly. If the boy got away from her, or
if she panicked and left him in the soddy, he’d get clear and they wouldn’t have a hostage.

Even if that happened, Jean would still slow them up and the loss of even two or three minutes at that point might be fatal.
No, they’d play it out just the way it had been planned. They had spent hours going over every move they would make. Now he
was surprised at himself, the cold, calculating John Smith, for even suggesting the change in plan to Sammy Bean.

Ross Hart sat close to the open window, his Winchester in his hands, his gaze on the crowd that was milling around in front
of the platform. The band was playing a toe-tapping tune of some kind. Smith thought it was “Arkansas Traveler,” although
he wasn’t sure. He’d never had much music sense and often had trouble naming a tune that was familiar.

Hart glanced at him and quickly turned his gaze back to the crowd. He said: “The old booger’s late.”

“It’s a long ways to Burlington,” Smith said. “They couldn’t call it right to the minute.”

“No, guess not,” Hart said. “Well, one thing is sure. Old man Fisher picked the right house for us. I couldn’t miss at this
distance.”

He was a cold one, this Ross Hart. He looked as if he were actually going to enjoy killing a man. Smith took his handkerchief
out of his pocket and wiped his face. Hart didn’t notice. If he had, Smith would have passed it off with a remark about the
day being hot. But it wasn’t the heat. Damn it, the thing was he wanted it over with and he wanted to get out of this stinking,
one-horse town. For that matter, he wanted to get clear out of Colorado.

He thought of all the years he had lived in Denver and walked the narrow line between the underworld and the world of legitimate
business, with one foot in each. He had let himself be used by stronger, tougher men than he was, and they were the ones who
had made the profit. He was always the front man, the smooth-tongued one, the go-between.

Smith reminded himself that he had never in his whole life made a really big deal, enough to get out of the country and stay
out, enough to go to South America and live like a king. This time he had the big deal; he had bargained to kill a man. That
was the reason he was able to force the size of pay-off that he had.

It had been dangerous, damned dangerous right from the moment they had walked into the back of the Dugan house and made a
prisoner of Nora Dugan. Because all of them knew it would be dangerous, he had been able to drive a hard bargain, and now
he would have the money to go anywhere he wanted to.

He wiped his face again, his thoughts coming back to the job that had not yet been done. Wyatt was indeed late. Too late,
and now a new worry began working into Smith’s consciousness. Suppose someone had caught on and was keeping the governor out
of town? No, it didn’t add up. Dugan or Corrigan might figure out what was happening, or make a wild guess, but both would
play it out as ordered because neither wanted Jean to be harmed.

“You haven’t seen a rig come into town?” Smith asked.

“No.”

Hart said the word sharply as if the waiting was finally getting to him. Then, seconds later, he leaned forward in his chair.
He whispered: “There he is.”

Hart brought the Winchester to his shoulder, held it there a moment, and squeezed off a shot. “Got him,” he said with satisfaction,
and was up and out of his chair and halfway across the room to the door before Smith could move.

They ran along the hall and down the stairs, boot heels cracking sharply on the floor. Sammy Bean was already in the kitchen,
calling back: “I’ll get the horses!”

For the moment Smith had completely forgotten about the money Matt Dugan was to bring to the house, but now, as he rushed
across the front room, he saw Dugan standing in the hall doorway, staring at him as if he were completely bewildered. Asatchel
was in his hand. Smith whirled to him and yanked the satchel away from him.

“Don’t come after us,” Smith warned. “Don’t forget we’ve got the kid. If I see any dust behind us, I’ll put a bullet through
his head.”

He wheeled away and raced into the kitchen. He plunged headlong across it and on to the back porch, suddenly realizing that
Jean should have been standing there beside the range, but she wasn’t in sight.