Tonkin nodded in agreement to this, then he pushed a few crowding townsmen back and walked to where Al Cody lay. He turned Cody over with his boot and snarled down on him. Then he crossed to Muller, did the same to him and after mumbling curses to himself, said, “Put them all in the jailhouse. A couple of you take Luke Wicker’s body and lie it gently in the first cell. By hell, he proved himself today, and nobody better ever say different.”

  Millie drew back into the jailhouse as the townsmen came across to her carrying their burdens.

  “Careful now, damn you!” Josh Tonkin yelled as Luke Wicker’s feet banged against the overhang post. “Ain’t you got no respect for the dead, and a hero at that?”

  As the men shuffled into the jailhouse, Millie Borden went back to her cell. She sat on the edge of the bunk, watching the men come in, strangely afraid to be seen there, although Jud Wicker had ordered her brought here. Josh Tonkin personally supervised the laying out of Luke Wicker. Then, mopping at his sweating bald head, he caught sight of Millie.

  “What are you doin’ here?” he bawled out.

  Millie held his stare calmly, knowing enough about Josh Tonkin to be unconcerned by his blustering. “Resting,” she said. “Is there anything wrong with that, Mr. Tonkin?”

  “Hard to say now,” Tonkin grumbled and went across to her. “How long you been here?”

  “Since Sheriff Wicker left town. I was here right through that terrible trouble outside. I saw everything.”

  “Then you saw it was Harvey Lamont?” put in a townsman at Tonkin’s side.

  “I certainly did, the murdering swine,” said Millie. “The deputy, rest his soul, was told not to go outside, no matter what happened, but when he saw the bank being robbed, he rushed out, regardless of the risks or the consequences. What you should do now, Mr. Tonkin, instead of worrying about me, is get some men together and chase that hellion until you run him down and hang him.”

  Tonkin scowled blackly at her. “Don’t go tellin’ me my business, ma’am,” he said. “If Sheriff Wicker said you could stay here, all well and good. I guess he figured it was for your own good. Peculiar though, ain’t it, that Lamont, who you claim has been after your hide all week, missed the chance to settle his differences with you while he was in town?”

  “Perhaps he didn’t know where I was, Mr. Tonkin,” Millie replied sharply.

  Tonkin said something under his breath and then he had the jailhouse cleared. Standing in the doorway, he regarded Millie thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “You’ll be all right here, Mrs. Borden?”

  “No,” Millie said. “I don’t want to stay in a room with three dead men.”

  “Figured you mightn’t like that. There’s a room at my place, top of the stairs. Number seven. You can have it for the night or for as long as you’re ailin’. No cost.”

  “Thank you,” Millie said. Then Tonkin went on his way and Millie collected her shawl from the bunk and flung it about her shoulders. She realized suddenly that the pain in her head had lessened a great deal. Perhaps she was going to be all right. She went out to the boardwalk and closed the door behind her. Tonkin was waiting for her. Together they walked to the saloon, went around the back and up the stairs. But as Tonkin was unlocking the door to room seven, Millie saw Andy Hogan cross the yard below. He had dirt on his white shirt and blood streaked his face. She let out a gasp.

  Tonkin said, “Don’t take no heed of him, Mrs. Borden. Andy got drunk tonight and went berserk.”

  “Andy Hogan did?”

  “Guess he got too upset about this Lamont business and the raid on Doc’s place and Doc’s killing. Andy and Doc were close, real close.”

  Millie Borden didn’t know anything about Andy Hogan’s friendships in the town. In fact, she knew him only as a man who treated her courteously whenever she came to town with Cass Borden. And since Cass had shown no liking for the man, Millie decided he couldn’t be all bad. “Well, I think I’ll turn in,” she said.

  “Stay in as long as you like in the morning, Mrs. Borden. Gonna be a lot of buryin’ to be done and questions asked and Jud Wicker to console when he returns. I guess it’ll be a bad day for the town, one we’ll all be glad to forget as soon as possible.”

  “Isn’t anybody going to do anything about getting the bank money back, Mr. Tonkin?” Millie asked, removing her shawl and holding the door of the room open. “I mean, is everybody just going to let that monster, Lamont, rob the bank, kill Luke Wicker, and get clean away?”

  “What else is there for now?” Tonkin asked. “I’m not a gun hand and I’ve got a business to run. It’s up to the banker, Jollison, to work something out in that regard, and Jud Wicker, when he comes back, to get cracking on it. Don’t you worry your pretty head about it, though. This is a man’s worry, not a pretty woman’s.”

  Millie saw the barkeep’s stare sweep up and down her body. Tonkin revolted her with his pretense of being a big man, when she knew how fickle and cowardly he could be.

  She went into her room, locked the door behind her and crossed to the window which looked out into the shadow-darkened yard. She saw Andy Hogan leaning against the fence at the very end of the yard, seemingly still dazed, uncertain of himself. She pulled the blind across, undressed and went to bed.

  Blake Durant reached the town in the early hours of the morning. Jesse Borden had not caught up with him and he was glad of that. He had some idea now of the reputation Borden had left behind in this town, a name so black that his sister-in-law didn’t want any part of him, and a name that had caused Jud Wicker to be suspicious of him without having met him. How Jesse Borden had kept away from his brother and the town which had reared him, he couldn’t understand. If Borden wanted a fight later, he’d give it to him. But for the moment he had other things on his mind.

  He rode into the main street but kept to the dark shadows thrown down by the boardwalk overhang. Nearing the jailhouse, he stopped, seeing a man leaning against the post outside. Blake turned his horse towards him and the man straightened, then tried to slink back into the dark.

  Blake said, “Hold it there, mister. I’m looking for the deputy.”

  “Durant?” the townsman said. “I thought you’d cut out.”

  “Where’s Luke Wicker?”

  The townsman pointed at the door of the jailhouse.

  “Inside.”

  Blake was coming out of the saddle when the townsman added:

  “But he ain’t gonna do no talking tonight, Durant. Or any other night. He got himself killed.”

  Blake studied the man very intently. He’d seen him in the saloon a couple of times and in the street, but he didn’t know him by name.

  “He’s dead?”

  “That’s right,” the townsman said, and then he went on to tell Blake about the night’s activities. Blake pushed past him finally and entered the jailhouse. A single lantern burned on a low wick on Jud Wicker’s desk. Blake crossed to the first cell, made a brief examination of Luke Wicker’s body and then he looked at the corpses of Muller and Cody.

  Turning back to confront the townsman who had introduced himself as Will Hastings, Blake said, “What’s been done about the robbery?”

  “Nothing, Durant. Tonkin took over things, but with the deputy dead and Jud outa town, none of us knew what to do. I stayed out here I guess in respect for young Luke ... didn’t want to see nobody messin’ about with his body till Jud came back and claimed it.”

  “Tonkin took charge?” Blake asked.

  “Yeah, and he did a damn good job, too. Gave Mrs. Borden a room in his place, free of charge, and then he organized it so everybody should turn in. A hell of a night, eh, Durant?”

  “Yeah, a hell of a night,” Blake Durant said and took Hastings outside again. He had just closed the door when a rider came into the street from the prairie. Blake pushed Hastings behind him, drew his gun and when the rider came close enough, he showed himself and called: “This way, Borden.”

  He heard the townsman gasp behind him.

  Jesse Borden drew rein and his hand flashed down to his gun.

  Blake said, “That’d be loco, mister.”

  Borden’s hand froze an inch off the gun butt, then slowly lifted. He let his horse walk across to Blake Durant. Ordering Borden from the saddle, Blake dismissed Hastings and took Borden inside. After he had shown him the dead men he said:

  “What do you think about Wicker’s trail-riding now?”

  Jesse Borden’s brow rutted deeply and he looked stupidly at Blake Durant until enlightenment suddenly showed in his grey eyes.

  “Wicker out there and Lamont here in town, Durant? You got to be foolin’.”

  “Work it out for yourself, mister,” Blake said, then he removed Borden’s gunbelt and hung it on the wall. He then made him sit in Jud Wicker’s chair, and he himself drew up the deputy’s chair. They sat opposite each other, silent, each man caught up with his own thoughts.

  Chapter Ten – The Devil Pays Out

  SHERIFF JUD WICKER led his posse into town under the first grey streak of daylight. Weary almost to the point of collapsing in the saddle, he hadn’t spoken a single word all the way across the prairie. The posse, all-in to a man, followed him, loosely bunched, each man eager for bed. Only Holmes seemed in the least energetic, although he had ridden after the lone rider near the foothills but had lost him when the rider cut through timber. Holmes had sensibly quit the chase and had waited for the posse and Jud Wicker to catch up with him.

  Blake Durant heard them coming. He told Borden to sit quiet and then he walked into the jailhouse doorway. Jud Wicker saw him a moment later and kicked his horse across.

  “What the hell are you doin’ in my place, Durant? You got a nerve, haven’t you?”

  “We’ll all need nerve today, Wicker,” Blake told him. “And nobody more than you.”

  Jud Wicker straightened in the saddle, scowling. “What does that mean?”

  Blake Durant didn’t spare him. “Your boy’s dead. Harvey Lamont came into town last night and robbed the bank. Luke got killed when he tried to stop the gang. Luke did you proud, Wicker; he got two of them.”

  Blake saw the sheriff’s face sag. He also noticed that Jud Wicker’s hands started to tremble. The old man shook his head slowly. “No ... it can’t be.”

  “It’s the truth, Wicker. He’s inside.”

  Holmes and the rest of the posse had drawn up behind Wicker. Holmes was the one to speak. “Hell, Jud, if this is true, I—I’m damned sorry. Hell, I been badgerin’ you all the time out there last night. I’m sorry, real sorry.”

  But Jud Wicker didn’t seem to hear him. He came out of the saddle, brushed past Blake Durant and walked into the jailhouse. He went straight across to his son on the bunk and took Luke’s hand in his. Tears formed in his eyes but he fought them away.

  Turning, he asked Durant for the full story and as Blake gave it to him, he nodded grimly. He then drew his gun, checked it and left the cell.

  Holmes was coming through the doorway then. His face grey with shock and sympathy, he said, “Hell, Jud, if I’d only known, if I’d had some way of knowin’. If I can help in any way at all, just you—”

  Jud Wicker grabbed Holmes by the shirt and wheeled him away. Holmes would have fallen if Blake Durant hadn’t caught him and held him up.

  “Leave him be,” Blake said.

  “Hell, I was only—”

  “Keep the others here, too. Borden, come with me. Get your gunbelt.”

  Holmes swung about and gaped at Borden. “Jesse Borden,” he said. “I remember you. What the hell’s this all about, Durant? What are you up to?”

  “I’ll be up to plenty if you fools don’t keep out of this, mister,” Blake told him. “Nobody follows us. You hear me?”

  Most of the men had seen or heard about Blake Durant’s exploits in this town. A man good enough to beat Ty Colbert to pulp and to send Harvey Lamont and three gun hands running was to them a man to be heeded.

  Blake went out and Jesse Borden, puzzled by the reactions of the posse men, slipped past Holmes and hurried after him. On the boardwalk, he said:

  “A gunbelt ain’t no use without a gun, Durant.”

  “Your turn will come later,” Blake told him. “When we meet up with Lamont.”

  “When we what? You got too much moonlight in your eyes maybe?”

  “Shut down and do as I say.”

  Blake led the way along the boardwalk. When he saw a stiff-legged, unhurrying Jud Wicker turn into the saloon laneway he put a hand against Borden’s chest.

  “Wait,” he said.

  Borden didn’t argue; something in Blake Durant’s face told him it wouldn’t be wise to. Durant was no longer the quiet-talking drifter he had come to know. He was now grim-faced, looking like a judge about to call the jury’s decision of death to a law-breaker.

  The wind up the tunnel of the saloon laneway wasn’t loud enough to drown the steady thump of Jud Wicker’s boots on the powdered dust. Nor was it loud enough a moment later to cover the words of someone meeting Jud Wicker in the darkness.

  “Jud, thank God you came back. I got somethin’ to tell you. Somethin’ real important.”

  Blake moved to the top of the laneway. He saw Andy Hogan then, his face still carrying streaks of blood. Wicker had stopped, tolerant of Hogan’s grip on his arm, but looking past him towards the back of the saloon.

  “Jud, it’s Tonkin. He beat me up tonight. I—I don’t know why. All I wanted to do was talk to him, because he looked so upset. I figured him for a friend and wanted to help. I insisted and he beat me up, sent me walkin’. I couldn’t understand it, Jud, till I saw him swingin’ a lantern on his top verandah and later on Lamont rode in and robbed the bank. I tell you, Jud, Tonkin gave a signal to them scum, tellin’ ’em sure and plain that you was out of town and the town was ripe for pluckin’. It’s the truth, Jud, and I’ll say in court what I seen and what I know. Josh and Lamont are in cahoots, no mistake.”

  Jud Wicker shifted Hogan aside but when Hogan still grabbed at him, Wicker cursed and smashed him down. Hogan’s back hit the fence. He dropped to the ground and sat there, stunned and bleeding anew, unable to speak.

  Jud Wicker walked on. Blake Durant and Borden waited for him to go around the back corner of the saloon before Blake lifted Hogan from the ground. Hogan fought out of his grip and looked on the verge of screaming with fright when Blake said:

  “It’s all right, Andy. It’s Blake Durant. I heard what you said and I believe you. I’m here to see justice done.”

  Borden gaped at him. “You believe that rot, Durant? Hell, you’d believe anything if you’d believe a tinhorn cardsharp like Hogan. Hell, as I remember him—”

  “Go on home, Andy,” Blake said, and moved ahead of Borden. He took Borden’s gun from his gunbelt and handed it back.

  “On one condition, Borden,” he said, still holding onto the gun as Borden tried to wrest it from his grip. Their eyes met.

  “What condition?”

  “You give Wicker his chance,” Blake said.

  Borden thought about that for a moment, then he smiled thinly. “His boy bein’ dead, you mean?”

  “Something like that, Borden. Later we’ll head after Lamont. I think we’ll learn tonight where to find him.”

  Borden’s frown deepened as Blake Durant went ahead. They turned the corner and found the back door of the saloon open and a key in the lock. Blake stepped inside. He could hear the thump of footsteps on the stairway and when they died and moved into the passageway, he led the way up, making no noise at all. By the time he stopped Borden in the passageway, Jud Wicker was hammering on a door down from them.

  When the door opened, Wicker pushed past a startled Josh Tonkin and said, “Where’s Lamont, Josh? Tell me. And no lies.”

  “Jud, hell, it was a mistake. But no matter, everything else worked out fine. It coulda happened to Luke any time by anybody at all. In his job there’s risks to be taken and—”

  “Lamont,” Jud Wicker said. “Where do you have to meet up with him?”

  Blake could almost see the sweat running down Josh Tonkin’s face. He thought about his earlier suspicions, about Colbert testing him out in the saloon and later trying to cut him down. Then there’d been the second attempt at the stables when Tonkin had come and talked to him, making him an offer to work for him. He hadn’t put much importance on Tonkin wasting his time out there in the open sunlight until now. He knew all of it now.

  “Listen, Jud,” Tonkin was saying. “Come on inside. For hell’s sake, don’t stand there talking so the whole town can hear. We did it! There were no slip-ups.”

  Blake heard a fist hammer home, then the thud of a body against a wall. A glass fell and broke. Josh Tonkin called out, “Are you loco, Jud? Hell, risks have got to be taken. Think of the money. There’s plenty for you to retire on, to go back east where you ain’t known.”

  There was another sound of a blow hitting home and another thud of a body against the wall. Blake moved forward, motioning a stunned Borden to stay back. Then there was a scuffle.

  “Tell me, damn you! Tell me, or I’ll kill you, Tonkin!”

  Tonkin croaked out, “The Lassiter Gorge, Jud. Noon today. He’ll be there, he swore he would. Ain’t gonna be the only time. We got it set to work from the Borden place like you figured was best. Three, four more strikes and all of us are set for life. Jud, for hell’s sake!”

  Blake moved into the doorway in time to see Josh Tonkin hurled back against a dresser. The dresser rocked over on two legs and came down to the floor with a resounding thud. Jud Wicker turned and saw Blake Durant. His mouth went thin.

  “Damn you, Durant! You been messin’ things up from the start!”

  Blake watched his eyes, saw hate building there. He was looking at a man who had cheated a town, a man who would come to realize his foolishness later. A son dead, a killer on the run, and money that no longer meant anything to him. Blake reached for Jud Wicker, but Wicker dodged back and whipped out his gun.

 

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