Whispering Smith Part 28

Before Baggs could think Du Sang was shooting him down. It was wanton. Du Sang stood in no need of the butchery; the escape could have been made without it. His victim had pulled an engine throttle too long to show the white feather, but he was dying by the time he had dragged a revolver from his pocket. Du Sang did the killing alone.

At least, Flat Nose, who alone saw all of the murder, afterward maintained that he did not draw because he had no occasion to, and that Baggs was dead before he, Karg, had finished his cigarette. With his right arm broken and two bullets through his chest, Baggs fell on his face. That, however, did not check his murderer. Rising to his knees, Baggs begged for his life. "For G.o.d's sake! I'm helpless, gentlemen! I'm helpless. Don't kill me like a dog!" But Du Sang, emptying his pistol, threw his rifle to his shoulder and sent bullet after bullet cras.h.i.+ng through the shapeless form writhing and twitching before him until he had beaten it in the dust soft and flat and still.

Banks's men came up within an hour to find the ranch-house deserted.

They saw a lantern in the yard below, and near the corral gate they found the little boy in the darkness, screaming beside his father's body. The sheriff's men carried the old engineman to the house; others of the _posse_ crossed the creek during the evening, and at eleven o'clock Whispering Smith rode down from the south pa.s.s to find that four of the men they were after had taken fresh horses, after killing Baggs, and pa.s.sed safely through the cordon Banks had drawn around the pa.s.s and along Deep Creek. Bill Dancing, who had ridden with Banks's men, was at the house when Whispering Smith arrived. He found some supper in the kitchen, and the tired man and the giant ate together.

Whispering Smith was too experienced a campaigner to complain. His party had struck a trail fifty miles north of Sleepy Cat and followed it to the Missions. He knew now who he was after, and knew that they were bottled up in the Cache for the night. The sheriff's men were sleeping on the floor of the living-room when Smith came in from the kitchen. He sat down before the fire. At intervals sobs came from the bedroom where the body lay, and after listening a moment, Whispering Smith got stiffly up, and, tiptoeing to still the jingle of his spurs, took the candle from the table, pushed aside the curtain, and entered the bedroom.

The little boy was lying on his face, with his arm around his father's neck, talking to him. Whispering Smith bent a moment over the bed, and, setting the candle on the table, put his hand on the boy's shoulder. He disengaged the hand from the cold neck, and sitting down took it in his own. Talking low to the little fellow, he got his attention after much patient effort and got him to speak. He made him, though struggling with terror, to understand that he had come to be his friend, and after the child had sobbed his grief into a strange heart he ceased to tremble, and told his name and his story, and described the two hors.e.m.e.n and the horses they had left. Smith listened quietly. "Have you had any supper, Dannie? No? You must have something to eat. Can't you eat anything? But there is a nice pan of fresh milk in the kitchen."

A burst of tears interrupted him. "Daddie just brought in the milk, and I was frying the ham, and I heard them shooting."

"See how he took care of you till the last minute, and left something for you after he was gone. Suppose he could speak now, don't you think he would want you to do as I say? I am your next friend now, for you are going to be a railroad man and have a big engine."

Dannie looked up. "Dad wasn't afraid of those men."

"Wasn't he, Dannie?"

"He said we would be all right and not to be afraid."

"Did he?"

"He said Whispering Smith was coming."

"My poor boy."

"He is coming, don't be afraid. Do you know Whispering Smith? He is coming. The men to-night all said he was coming."

The little fellow for a long time could not be coaxed away from his father, but his companion at length got him to the kitchen. When they came back to the bedroom the strange man was talking to him once more about his father. "We must try to think how he would like things done now, mustn't we? All of us felt so bad when we rode in and had so much to do we couldn't attend to taking care of your father. Did you know there are two men out at the crossing now, guarding it with rifles?

But if you and I keep real quiet we can do something for him while the men are asleep; they have to ride all day to-morrow. We must wash his face and hands, don't you think so? And brush his hair and his beard.

If you could just find the basin and some water and a towel--you couldn't find a brush, could you? Could you, honestly? Well! I call that a good boy--we shall have to have you on the railroad, sure. We must try to find some fresh clothes--these are cut and stained; then I will change his clothes, and we shall all feel better. Don't disturb the men; they are tired."

They worked together by the candle-light. When they had done, the boy had a violent crying spell, but Whispering Smith got him to lie down beside him on a blanket spread on the floor, where Smith got his back against the sod wall and took the boy's head in his arm. He waited patiently for the boy to go to sleep, but Dan was afraid the murderers would come back. Once he lifted his head in a confidence. "Did you know my daddy used to run an engine?"

"No, I did not; but in the morning you must tell me all about it."

Whenever there was a noise in the next room the child roused. After some time a new voice was heard; Kennedy had come and was asking questions. "Wake up here, somebody! Where is Whispering Smith?"

Dancing answered: "He's right there in the bedroom, Farrell, staying with the boy."

There was some stirring. Kennedy talked a little and at length stretched himself on the floor. When all was still again, Dannie's hand crept slowly from the breast of his companion up to his chin, and the little hand, feeling softly every feature, stole over the strange face.

"What is it, Dannie?"

"Are you Whispering Smith?"

"Yes, Dannie. Shut your eyes."

At three o'clock, when Kennedy lighted a candle and looked in, Smith was sitting with his back against the wall. The boy lay on his arm.

Both were fast asleep. On the bed the dead man lay with a handkerchief over his face.

CHAPTER XXIX

WILLIAMS CACHE

Ed Banks had been recalled before daybreak from the middle pa.s.s. Two of the men wanted were now known to have crossed the creek, which meant they must work out of the country through Williams Cache.

"If you will take your best two men, Ed," said Whispering Smith, sitting down with Banks at breakfast, "and strike straight for Canadian Pa.s.s to help Gene and Bob Johnson, I'll undertake to ride in and talk to Rebstock while Kennedy and Bob Scott watch Deep Creek. The boy gives a good description, and the two men that did the job here are Du Sang and Flat Nose. Did I tell you how we picked up the trail yesterday? Magpies. They shot a scrub horse that gave out on them and skinned the brand. It hastened the banquet, but we got there before the birds were all seated. Great luck, wasn't it? And it gave us a beautiful trail. One of the party crossed the Goose River at American Fork, and Brill Young and Reed followed him. Four came through the Mission Mountains; that is a cinch and they are in the Cache--and if they get out it is our fault personally, Ed, and not the Lord's."

Williams Cache lies in the form of a great horn, with a narrow entrance at the lower end known as the Door, and a rock fissure at the upper end leading into Canadian Pa.s.s; but this fissure is so narrow that a man with a rifle could withstand a regiment. For a hundred miles east and west rise the granite walls of the Mission range, broken nowhere save by the formation known as the Cache. Even this does not penetrate the range; it is a pocket, and runs not over half-way into it and out again. But no man really knows the Cache; the most that may be said is that the main valley is known, and it is known as the roughest mountain fissure between the Spanish Sinks and the Mantrap country. Williams Cache lies between walls two thousand feet high, and within it is a small labyrinth of canyons. A generation ago, when Medicine Bend for one winter was the terminus of the overland railroad, vigilantes mercilessly cleaned out the town, and the few outlaws that escaped the shotgun and the noose at Medicine Bend found refuge in a far-away and unknown mountain gorge once named by French trappers the Cache. Years after these outcasts had come to infest it came one desperado more ferocious than all that had gone before. He made a frontier retreat of the Cache, and left to it the legacy of his evil name, Williams. Since his day it has served, as it served before, for the haunt of outlawed men. No honest man lives in Williams Cache, and few men of any sort live there long, since their lives are lives of violence; neither the law nor a woman crosses Deep Creek. But from the day of Williams to this day the Cache has had its ruler, and when Whispering Smith rode with a little party through the Door into the Cache the morning after the murder in Mission Valley he sent an envoy to Rebstock, whose success as a cattle-thief had brought its inevitable penalty. It had made Rebstock a man of consequence and of property and a man subject to the anxieties and annoyances of such responsibility.

Sitting once in the Three Horses at Medicine Bend, Rebstock had talked with Whispering Smith. "I used to have a good time," he growled. "When I was rustling a little bunch of steers, just a small bunch all by myself, and hadn't a cent in the world, no place to sleep and nothing to eat, I had a good time. Now I have to keep my money in the bank; that ain't pleasant--you know that. Every man that brings a bunch of cattle across Deep Creek has stole 'em, and expects me to buy 'em or lend him money. I'm busy with inspecters all the time, deviling with brands, standing off the Stock a.s.sociation and all kinds of trouble.

I've got too many cows, too much money. I'm afraid somebody will shoot me if I go to sleep, or poison me if I take a drink. Whispering Smith, I'd like to give you a half-interest in my business. That's on the square. You're a young man, and handy; it wouldn't cost you a cent, and you can have half of the whole shooting-match if you'll cross Deep Creek and help me run the gang." Such was Rebstock free from anxiety and in a confidential moment. Under pressure he was, like all men, different.

Whispering Smith had acquaintance even in the Cache, and after a little careful reconnoitring he found a crippled-up thief, driving a milch cow down the Cache, who was willing to take a message to the boss.

Whispering Smith gave his instructions explicitly, facing the messenger, as the two sat in their saddles, with an importunate eye.

"Say to Rebstock exactly these words," he insisted. "This is from Whispering Smith: I want Du Sang. He killed a friend of mine last night at Mission Springs. I happened to be near there and know he rode in last night. He can't get out; the Canadian is plugged. I won't stand for the killing, and it is Du Sang or a clean-up in the Cache all around, and then I'll get Du Sang anyway. Regards."

Riding circ.u.mspectly in and about the entrance to the Cache, the party waited an hour for an answer. When the answer came, it was unsatisfactory. Rebstock declined to appear upon so trivial a matter, and Whispering Smith refused to specify a further grievance. More parley and stronger messages were necessary to stir the Deep Creek monarch, but at last he sent word asking Whispering Smith to come to his cabin accompanied only by Kennedy.

The two railroad men rode up the canyon together. "And now I will show you a lean and hungry thief grown monstrous and miserly, Farrell,"

said Whispering Smith.

At the head of a short pocket between two sheer granite walls they saw Rebstock's weather-beaten cabin, and he stood in front of it smoking.

He looked moodily at his visitors out of eyes buried between rolls of fat. Whispering Smith was a little harsh as the two shook hands, but he dismounted and followed Rebstock into the house.

"What are you so high and mighty about?" he demanded, throwing his hat on the table near which Rebstock had seated himself. "Why don't you come out when I send a man to you, or send word what you will do? What have you got to kick about? Haven't you been treated right?"

Being in no position to complain, but shrewdly aware that much unpleasantness was in the wind, Rebstock beat about the bush. He had had rheumatism; he couldn't ride; he had been in bed three weeks and hadn't seen Du Sang for three months. "You ain't chasing up here after Du Sang because he killed a man at Mission Springs. I know better than that. That ain't the first man he's killed, and it ain't a' goin' to be the last."

Whispering Smith lifted his finger and for the first time smiled. "Now there you err, Rebstock--it is 'a goin' to be' the last. So you think I'm after you, do you? Well, if I were, what are you going to do about it? Rebstock, do you think, if I wanted _you_, I would send a message for you to come out and meet me? Not on your life! When I want you I'll come to your shack and drag you out by the hair of the head. Sit down!" roared Whispering Smith.

Rebstock, who weighed at least two hundred and seventy-five pounds, had lifted himself up to glare and swear freely. Now he dropped angrily back into his chair. "Well, who do you want?" he bellowed in kind.

A smile softened the asperity of the railroad man's face. "That's a fair question and I give you a straight answer. I'm not bluffing: I want Du Sang."

Rebstock squirmed. He swore with shortened breath that he knew nothing about Du Sang; that Du Sang had stolen his cattle; that hanging was too good for him; that he would join any _posse_ in searching for him; and that he had not seen him for three months.

"Likely enough," a.s.sented Whispering Smith, "but this is wasting time.

He rode in here last night after killing old Dan Baggs. Your estimable nephew Barney is with him, and Karg is with him, and I want them; but, in especial and particular, I want Du Sang."

Rebstock denied, protested, wheezed, and stormed, but Whispering Smith was immovable. He would not stir from the Cache upon any promises.

Rebstock offered to surrender any one else in the Cache--hinted strongly at two different men for whom handsome rewards were out; but every compromise suggested was met with the same good-natured words: "I want Du Sang."