Who Wants to Live Forever?

started the engine. Along back streets the car took a roundabout way to the jail. While going there, Nuney talked into the ear of their unwilling passenger.

All Rogers had to do was to call to the jailer that he had come to pay the three dollars he owed. Webster would be surprised and pleased to get this news and he would come to the door to receive it. Rogers need bear in mind only two things. The first was that if he did not speak in a perfectly natural voice, it would be too bad for him, and the other that he had better forget what any of them looked like since they were a tough bunch of bad hombres who would certainly not forget what he looked like if he tallied.

The car was stopped fifty yards from the jail, an old square brick building set well back from the street. The hill men stood close to the building by the door when Rogers called to the jailer. After the third call, Webster came to a window and asked who wanted him. Rogers told who he was and why he had come.

Webster was certainly surprised. 'Where did you get the three dollars, Shep?' he asked.

'I found a wallet with five hundred dollars in it belonging to a dude from Boston. He gave me twenty-five bucks for returning it.'

The jailer knew that there had been two or three tourists from Massachusetts in town. It did not occur to him to doubt the story. He came down wearing slippers, his nightgown thrust into the top of his trousers. As soon as he opened the door and saw the three masked men, he knew he had been trapped.

'We want Brick Fenwick,' Nuney told him.

'Now — now, boys, you can't do anything like that,' Webster remonstrated. 'A little fun is all right, but—'

Mullins pushed a gun into his back. 'Don't talk,' the outlaw snapped. 'Move along and get yore keys. Stick right here with us, Rogers, till we turn you loose.'

The jailer made one more attempt to dissuade the masked men. 'I don't know any of you, but you're going to get in bad if you pull off a jail break.'

'Don't argue,' Nuney said. 'Unless you want to be pistol-whipped. Get yore keys and take us to Fenwick's cell.'

Webster got the bunch of keys and led them upstairs. He opened the outer cell and let the rescuers into it. From the inner cage Brick Fenwick growled at his rescuers.

'Where the hell you been all this time?' he demanded. 'Does Black think he can let me rot in this hole and do nothing about it?'

'We're doing something about it, Brick,' Nuney answered mildly. 'We didn't know till this morning you were here. Did you expect us to come in open daylight and bust the calaboose open? You got no kick coming. You haven't been here forty-eight hours yet.'

'It seems like forty-eight years,' Fenwick complained. At Webster he yelped, 'Hurry up and get that door open, or I'll break you in two when I get out.'

'He's doing his best, Brick,' expostulated Nuney. 'Soon as he picks the right key, he'll get it open.'

The steel door swung open and Fenwick stepped out. He took the key-ring from the jailer and swung the heavy bunch of keys against the man's forehead. The knees of Webster buckled and he slid down the metal door to the floor.

'No need of doing that, Brick,' said Nuney. 'He treated you all right, didn't he?'

'Don't tell me what I'm to do,' Fenwick snarled. 'I do as I please… Fling the fellow into the cell and see how he likes being locked up.'

Mullins and Vallejo picked Webster up by the head and the heels and dropped his unconscious body on the cot inside.

'What about Rogers?' Mullins wanted to know.

'Who is he?' Brick asked tartly.

'The fellow we used to get Webster downstairs,' explained Nuney. 'I owe him five dollars more. He won't bother us any.'

Fenwick caught the man by the back of the neck and flung him into the cell with the jailer. He locked the door and made for the stairs. 'Let's go!' he barked.

Bill Nuney stayed long enough to peel another five-dollar bill from his roll. This he pushed between the bars where Rogers could get it.

As the car crossed a bridge on the edge of town, Fenwick reached out of the window and dropped the keys into the stream. Five minutes later he woke up to the fact that they were not on the right road for the Rabbit Ear Gorge country.

'Where we headin'?' he questioned.

'For Casa Rita,' Nuney told him.

'No. Black can't order me around like a slave. I'm going back into the hills.'

'Better stop the car, Carlos,' the lank cowboy said, 'Brick wants to get out.'

'I don't either,' Fenwick denied. 'Take me home.'

Bill Nuney was fed up with the rescued prisoner's surliness. Like other men he usually walked around the young killer carefully rather than run the risk of angering him. But Bill was a bold young scamp who did not intend to be trampled upon even by a man with Fenwick's reputation.

'I'm not lookin' for any trouble, Brick,' he said quietly, 'but we have our orders and I reckon we'll carry them out whether you go along or not.'

Carlos unexpectedly backed Nuney up. 'Si, senor,' he nodded. 'But if Mr. Fenwick say no, he do not wish to go, I will run the car back to town and let him get out.'

'Is Black at Casa Rita?' Fenwick inquired sourly.

'No,' Nuney replied. 'Cash is there.'

'And Frawley?'

Bill shook his head. 'Jim is at the ranch nursing his wound. He acts like a Jap rifle had ripped him to pieces.'

'What wound? Did that wolf Stevens get him?'

There was subdued mirth in Nuney's voice as he gave information. 'The little lady who used to be his boss put a pill in him for not remembering how to treat a lady. It punctured his laig and Jim is an interesting invalid, you might say. Doc Hinman figures that with careful nursing he'll continue to cumber the earth.'

'Was he shot bad?'

'Hell, no! But to listen to Jim, you'd think we had better be ordering his coffin. He squawks plenty.'

Carlos came back to the question that had been raised. 'Do I turn the car and go back to let Mr. Fenwick out?' he asked.

'I'll go to Casa Rita,' Brick decided. 'But if I don't like the layout, I won't lift a hand. I'm tired of playing Tick Black's game for him. He sits up there in the hills getting richer every year and the guys that have done his dirty work are either dead or broke. Me, I'm getting sick of it.'

Mullins was by nature a malcontent. 'That's sure enough so, Brick. We run the risk and he rakes in the dough.'

'Not all of it,' Nuney mentioned. 'On this deal there is a cut-in for us.'

'What is the deal?' Fenwick asked sullenly. 'I'm not reaching in to pull something sight unseen out of a grab bag.'

'Some dude beef is coming into Casa Rita tonight. From the J Bar outfit. We're to receive it and do some branding.'

'Where?'

'In the draw above the Montoyo Flats.'

'And after we have done that?'

'Why, I reckon we beat it back to the hills.'

Brick's jeering laughter was offensive. 'You're certainly easy, Bill.'

'Meaning what?'

'Ever hear of a fellow called Arnold, who claims he is a tenderfoot with t.b. and rides for Stevens? Well, Tick thinks he is a Government man checking up on a black market. Soon as we have done the branding, Cash will drop it gently to us that Arnold is to be bumped off. Of course that's a nice easy job, not half as hard as touching up the J Bar brand. You won't mind it a bit, Bill.'

'I won't have a thing to do with it,' Nuney said bluntly. 'I'm no killer.'