I finally got rid of him, and faced Small again.
“You boys want to take a tumble to yourselves, Buck. The wild and woolly days are over. You’re in the clear so far. ’Nacio jumped you, and you did what was right when you massacred his riders all over the desert. But you’ve got no right to fool with my prisoners. Peery wouldn’t understand that. And if we hadn’t shot him, he’d have swung later!
“For Milk River’s end of it: he doesn’t owe you anything. He dropped Peery under your guns—dropped him with less than an even break! You people had the cards stacked against us. Milk River took a chance you or I wouldn’t have taken. You’ve got nothing to howl about.
“I’ve got ten prisoners in there, and I’ve got a lot of guns, and stuff to put in ’em. If you make me do it, I’m going to deal out the guns to my prisoners and let ’em fight. I’d rather lose every damned one of them that way than let you take one of ’em away from me!
“All that you boys can get out of fighting us is a lot of grief—whether you win or lose. This end of Orilla County has been left to itself longer than most of the Southwest. But those days are over. Outside money has come into it; outside people are coming. You can’t buck it! Men tried that in the old days, and failed. Will you talk it over with the others?”
“Yeah,” and he went away in the darkness.
I went indoors.
“I think they’ll be sensible,” I told Milk River, “but you can’t tell. So maybe you better hunt around and see if you can find a way through the floor to our basement hoosgow, because I meant what I said about giving guns to our captives.”
Twenty minutes later Buck Small was back.
“You win,” he said. “We want to take Peery and Dunne with us.”
XV
Nothing ever looked better to me than my bed in the Canyon House the next—Wednesday—night. My grandstand play with the yellow horse, my fight with Chick Orr, the unaccustomed riding I had been doing—these things had filled me fuller of aches than Orilla County was of sand.
Our ten prisoners were resting in an old outdoor storeroom of Adderly’s, guarded by volunteers from among the better element, under the supervision of Milk River. They would be safe there, I thought, until the immigration inspectors—to whom I had sent word—could come for them. Most of Big ’Nacio’s men had been killed in the fight with the Circle H.A.R. hands, and I didn’t think Bardell could collect men enough to try to open my prison.
The Circle H.A.R. riders would behave reasonably well from now on, I thought. There were two angles still open, but the end of my job in Corkscrew wasn’t far away. So I wasn’t dissatisfied with myself as I got stiffly out of my clothes and climbed into bed for the sleep I had earned.
Did I get it? No.
I was just comfortably bedded down when somebody began thumping on my door.
It was fussy little Dr. Haley.
“I was called into your temporary prison a few minutes ago to look at Rainey,” the doctor said. “He tried to escape, and broke his arm in a fight with one of the guards. That isn’t serious, but the man’s condition is. He should be given some cocaine. I don’t think it is safe to leave him without the drug any longer. I would have given him an injection, but Milk River stopped me, saying you had given orders that nothing was to be done without instructions from you.”
“Is he really in bad shape?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll go down and talk to him,” I said, reluctantly starting to dress again. “I gave him a shot now and then on the way up from the rancho—enough to keep him from falling down on us. But I want to get some information out of him now, and he gets no more until he’ll talk. Maybe he’s ripe now.”
We could hear Rainey’s howling before we reached the jail.
Milk River was squatting on his heels outside the door, talking to one of the guards.
“He’s going to throw a joe on you, chief, if you don’t give him a pill,” Milk River told me. “I got him tied up now, so’s he can’t pull the splints off his arm. He’s plumb crazy!”
The doctor and I went inside, the guard holding a lantern high at the door so we could see.
In one corner of the room, Gyp Rainey sat in the chair to which Milk River had tied him. Froth was in the corners of his mouth. He was writhing with cramps. The other prisoners were trying to get some sleep, their blankets spread on the floor as far from Rainey as they could get.
“For Christ’s sake give me a shot!” Rainey whined at me.
“Give me a hand, Doctor, and we’ll carry him out.”
We lifted him, chair and all, and carried him outside.
“Now stop your bawling and listen to me,” I ordered. “You shot Nisbet. I want the straight story of it. The straight story will bring you a shot, and nothing else will.”
“I didn’t kill him!” he screamed. “I didn’t! Before God, I didn’t!”
“That’s a lie. You stole Peery’s rope while the rest of us were in Bardell’s place Monday morning, talking over Slim’s death. You tied the rope where it would look like the murderer had made a getaway down the canyon. Then you stood at the window until Nisbet came into the back room—and you shot him. Nobody went down that rope—or Milk River would have found some sign. Will you come through?”
He wouldn’t. He screamed and cursed and pleaded and denied knowledge of the murder.
“Back you go!” I said.
Dr. Haley put a hand on my arm.
“I don’t want you to think I am interfering, but I really must warn you that what you’re
