The Ridin' Kid from Powder River Part 45

"What's the time? 'Bout ten. Goin' to git up?"

Pete gestured as he described an imaginative incident relative to his supposed companion's behavior the preceding night. "Some folks been here askin' for you." Pete shook his head as though he had been asked who the callers were. He had turned sideways to the open window to carry on this pantomimic dialogue. He glanced at the restaurant across the street. The heavy-shouldered man had disappeared. Pete heard a faint shuffling sound in the hall outside. Before he could turn the door crashed inward. He leapt to his feet. With the leap his hand flashed to his side. Unaccustomed to a coat, his thumb caught in the pocket just as the man who had shouldered the flimsy door down, reeled and sprawled on the floor. Pete jerked his hand free, but in that lost instant a gun roared in the doorway. He crumpled to the floor. The heavy-shouldered man, followed by two officers, stepped into the room and glanced about.

"Thought there was two? Where's the other guy?" queried the policeman.

The man on the floor rose and picked up his gun.

"Well, we got one, anyhow. Bill, 'phone the chief that one of 'em got away. Have 'em send the wagon. This kid here is done for, I guess."

"He went for his gun," said the heavy-shouldered man. "It's a dam'

good thing you went down with that door. Gave me a chance to get him."

"Here's their stuff," said an officer, kicking Pete's pack that lay corded on the floor.

"Well, Tim," said the man who had shouldered the door down, "you stay here till the wagon comes. Bill and I will look around when he gets back. Guess the other one made for the line. Don't know how he worked it. Keep the crowd out."

"Is he all in?" queried the officer.

"No; he's breathin' yet. But he ain't got long. He's a young bird to be a killer."

Late that afternoon Pete was taken from the Emergency to the General Hospital. Lights were just being turned on in the surgical ward and the newsboys were shouting an extra, headlining a border raid by the Mexicans and the shooting of a notorious bandit in El Paso.

The president of the Stockmen's Security and Savings Bank bought a paper as he stepped into his car that evening and was driven toward home. He read the account of the police raid, of the escape of one of the so-called outlaws, the finding of the murdered man near Sanborn, and a highly colored account of what was designated as the invasion of the United States territory by armed troops of Mexico.

Four thousand dollars in gold had been delivered to him personally that day by the express company--a local delivery from a local source.

"Jim's man," he said to himself as the car pa.s.sed through the Plaza and turned toward the eastern side of the town. Upon reaching home the president told his chauffeur to wait. Slitting an envelope he wrapped the paper and addressed it to James Ewell, Showdown, Arizona.

"Mail it at the first box," he said. "Then you can put the car up. I won't need it to-night."

The surgeon at the General Hospital was bending over Pete. The surgeon shook his head, then turning he gave the attendant nurse a few brief directions, and pa.s.sed on to another cot. As the nurse sponged Pete's arm, an interne poised a little glittering needle. "There's just a chance," the surgeon had said.

At the quick stab of the needle, Pete's heavy eyes opened. The little gray-eyed nurse smiled. The interne rubbed Pete's arm and stepped back. Pete's lips moved. The nurse bent her head. "Did--Ed"--Pete's face twitched--"make it?"

"You mustn't talk," said the nurse gently. And wis.h.i.+ng with all her heart to still the question that struggled in those dark, anxious eyes, she smiled again. "Yes, he made it," she said, wondering if Ed were the other outlaw that the papers had said had escaped. She walked briskly to the end of the room and returned with a dampened towel and wiped the dank sweat from Pete's forehead. He stared up at her, his face white and expressionless. "It was the coat--my hand caught," he murmured.

She nodded brightly, as though she understood. She did not know what his name was. There had been nothing by which to identify him. And she could hardly believe that this youth, lying there under that black shadow that she thought never would lift again, could be the desperate character the interne made him out to be, retailing the newspaper account of his capture to her.

It was understood, even before the doctor had examined Pete, that he could not live long. The police surgeon had done what he could. Pete had been removed to the General Hospital, as the Emergency was crowded.

The little nurse was wondering if he had any relatives, any one for whom he wished to send. Surely he must realize that he was dying! She was gazing at Pete when his eyes slowly opened and the faintest trace of a smile touched his lips. His eyes begged so piteously that she stepped close to the cot and stooped. She saw that he wanted to ask her something, or tell her something that was worrying him. "What did it matter?" she thought. At any moment he might drift into unconsciousness . . .

"Would you--write--to The Spider--and say I delivered the--goods?"

"But who is he--where--"

"Jim Ewell, Showdown--over in--Arizona."

"Jim Ewell, Showdown, Arizona." she repeated. "And what name shall I sign?"

"Jest Pete," he whispered, and his eyes closed.

Pete's case puzzled Andover, the head-surgeon at, the General. It was the third day since Pete's arrival and he was alive--but just alive and that was all. One peculiar feature of the case was the fact that the bullet--a thirty-eight--which had pierced the right lung, had not gone entirely through the body. Andover, experienced in gun-shot wounds, knew that bullets fired at close range often did freakish things.

There had been a man recently discharged from the General as convalescent, who had been shot in the shoulder, and the bullet, striking the collar-bone, had taken a curious tangent, following up the muscle of the neck and lodging just beneath the ear. In that case there had been the external evidence of the bullet's location. In this case there was no such evidence to go by.

The afternoon of the third day, Pete was taken to the operating room and another examination made. The X-ray showed a curious blur near the right side of the spine. To extract the bullet would be a difficult and savage operation, an operation which the surgeon thought his patient in his present weakened condition could not stand. Pete lay in a heavy stupor, his left arm and the left side of his face partially paralyzed.

The day after his arrival at the General two plain-clothes men came to question him. He was conscious and could talk a little. But they had learned nothing of his companion, the killing of Brent, nor how Brevoort managed to evade them. They gathered little of Pete's history save that he told them his name, his age, and that he had no relatives nor friends. On all other subjects he was silent. Incidentally the officials gave his name to the papers, and the papers dug into their back files for reference to an article they had clipped from the "Arizona Sentinel," which gave them a brief account of the Annersley raid and the shooting of Gary. They made the most of all this, writing a considerable "story," which the president of the Stockmen's Security read and straightway mailed to his old acquaintance, The Spider.

The officers from the police station had told Pete bluntly that he could not live, hoping to get him to confess to or give evidence as to the killing of Brent. Pete at once knew the heavy-shouldered man--the man who had shot him down and who was now keen on getting evidence in the case.

"So I'm goin' to cross over?" Pete had said, eying the other curiously.

"Well, all I wish is that I could git on my feet long enough--to--get a crack at you--on an even break. I wouldn't wear no coat, neither."

The fact that Pete had bungled seemed to worry him much more than his condition. He felt that it was a reflection on his craftmans.h.i.+p. The plain-clothes man naturally thought that Pete was incorrigible, failing to appreciate that it was the pride of youth that spoke rather than the personal hatred of an enemy.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE SPIDER'S ACCOUNT

That the news of Pete's serious condition should hit The Spider as hard as it did was as big a surprise to The Spider himself as it could ever have been to his closest acquaintance. Yet it was a fact--and The Spider never quarreled with facts.

The spider of the web-weaving species who leaves his web, invites disaster unless he immediately weaves another, and The Spider of Showdown was only too well aware of this. Always a fatalist, he took things as they came, but had never yet gone out of his way to tempt the possibilities.

Shriveled and aged beyond his natural years, with scarcely a true friend among his acquaintances, weary of the monotony of life--not in incident but in prospect--too shrewd to drug himself with drink, and realizing that the money he had got together both by hook and by crook and banked in El Paso could never make him other than he was, he faced the alternative of binding himself to Pete's dire need and desperate condition, or riding to Baxter and taking the train from thence to El Paso--his eyes open to what he was doing, both as a self-appointed Samaritan and as a much-wanted individual in the town where Pete lay unconscious, on the very last thin edge of Nothingness.

The Spider's preparations for leaving Showdown were simple enough. He had his Mexican bale and cord the choicest of the rugs and blankets, the silver-studded saddle and bridle, the Bayeta cloth--rare and priceless--and the finest of his Indian beadwork. Each bale was tagged, and on each tag was written the name of Boca's mother. All these things were left in his private room, which he locked. Whether or not he surmised what was going to happen is a question--but he did not disregard possibilities.

His Mexican was left in charge of the saloon with instructions to keep it open as usual, tell no one where his master had gone, and wait for further instructions.

The Spider chose a most ordinary horse from his string and wore a most ordinary suit of clothes. The only things in keeping with his lined and weathered face were his black Stetson and his high-heeled boots.

He knew that it would be impossible to disguise himself. He would be foolish to make the attempt. His bowed legs, the scar running from chin to temple, his very gait made disguise impossible. To those who did not know him he would be an "old-timer" in from the desert. To those who did know him . . . Well, they were not many nor over-anxious to advertise the fact.

He left at night, alone, and struck south across the desert, riding easily--a shrunken and odd figure, but every inch a horseman. Just beneath his unb.u.t.toned vest, under his left arm, hung the service-polished holster of his earlier days. He had more than enough money to last him until he reached El Paso, and a plentiful stock of cigars. It was about nine o'clock next morning when he pulled up at Flores's 'dobe and dismounted stiffly. Flores was visibly surprised and fawningly obsequious. His chief was dressed for a long journey.

It had been many years since The Spider had ridden so far from Showdown. Something portentous was about to happen, or had happened.

Flores's wife, however, showed no surprise, but accepted The Spider's presence in her usual listless manner. To her he addressed himself as she made coffee and placed a chair for him. They talked of Boca---and once The Spider spoke of Boca's mother, whom the Senora Flores had known in Mexico.

Old Flores fed The Spider's horse, meanwhile wondering what had drawn the chief from the security of his web. He concluded that The Spider was fleeing from some danger---the law, perhaps, or from some ancient grudge that had at last found him out to harry him into the desert, a hunted man and desperate. The Mexican surmised that The Spider had money with him, perhaps all his money--for local rumor had it that The Spider possessed great wealth. And of course he would sleep there that night . . .