CHAPTER XXV
IN THE DARK
Trevison faced the darkness between him and the pueblo with a wild hopepulsing through his veins. Rosalind Benham had had an opportunity todeliver him into the hands of his enemy and she had not taken advantage ofit. There was but one interpretation that he might place upon her failureto aid her accomplice. She declined to take an active part in the scheme.She had been passive, content to watch while Corrigan did the real work.Possibly she had no conception of the enormity of the crime. She had beeneager to have Corrigan win, and influenced by her affection and hisarguments she had done what she could without actually committing herselfto the robbery. It was a charitable explanation, and had many flaws, buthe clung to it persistently, nurturing it with his hopes and his hungerfor her, building it up until it became a structure of logic firmly fixedand impregnable. Women were easily influenced--that had been hisexperience with them--he was forced to accept it as a trait of the sex. Sohe absolved her, his hunger for her in no way sated at the end.
His thoughts ran to Corrigan in a riot of rage that pained him like aknife thrust; his lust for vengeance was a savage, bitter-visaged demonthat held him in its clutch and made his temples pound with a yearning toslay. And that, of course, would have to be the end. For the enmity thatlay between them was not a thing to be settled by the law--it was a man toman struggle that could be settled in only one way--by the passions,naked, elemental, eternal. He saw it coming; he leaped to meet it,eagerly.
Every stride the black horse made shortened by that much the journey hehad resolved upon, and Nigger never ran as he was running now. The blackseemed to feel that he was on the last lap of a race that had lasted formore than forty-eight hours, with short intervals of rest between, and hedid his best without faltering.
Order had come out of the chaos of plot and counterplot; Trevison's coursewas to be as direct as his hatred. He would go to the pueblo, take JudgeLindman and the record to Santa Fe, and then return to Manti for a lastmeeting with Corrigan.
A late moon, rising from a cleft in some distant mountains, bathed theplains with a silvery flood when horse and rider reached a point within amile of the pueblo, and Nigger covered the remainder of the distance at apace that made the night air drum in Trevison's ears. The big black slowedas he came to a section of broken country surrounding the ancient city,but he got through it quickly and skirted the sand slopes, taking thesteep acclivity leading to the ledge of the pueblo in a dozen catlikeleaps and coming to a halt in the shadow of an adobe house, heavingdeeply, his rider flung himself out of the saddle and ran along the ledgeto the door of the chamber where he had imprisoned Judge Lindman.
Trevison could see no sign of the Judge or Levins. The ledge was bare,aglow, the openings of the communal houses facing it loomed dark, like thedoors of tombs. A ghastly, unearthly silence greeted Trevison's call afterthe echoes died away; the upper tier of adobe boxes seemed to nod inghostly derision as his gaze swept them. There was no sound, no movement,except the regular cough of his own laboring lungs, and the rustle of hisclothing as his chest swelled and deflated with the effort. He exclaimedimpatiently and retraced his steps, peering into recesses between thecommunal houses, certain that the Judge and Levins had fallen asleep inhis absence. He turned at a corner and in a dark angle almost stumbledover Levins. He was lying on his stomach, his right arm under his head,his face turned sideways. Trevison thought at first that he was asleep andprodded him gently with the toe of his boot. A groan smote his ears and hekneeled quickly, turning Levins over. Something damp and warm met hisfingers as he seized the man by the shoulder, and he drew the hand awayquickly, exclaiming sharply as he noted the stain on it.
His exclamation brought Levins' eyes open, and he stared upward, stupidlyat first, then with a bright gaze of comprehension. He struggled and satup, swaying from side to side.
"They got the Judge, 'Brand'--they run him off, with my cayuse!"
"Who got him?"
"I ain't reckonin' to know. Some of Corrigan's scum, most likely--I didn'tsee 'em close."
"How long ago?"
"Not a hell of a while. Mebbe fifteen or twenty minutes. I been missin' alot of time, I reckon. Can't have been long, though."
"Which way did they go?"
"Off towards Manti. Two of 'em took him. The rest is layin' low somewhere,most likely. Watch out they don't get _you_! I ain't seen 'em run off,yet!"
"How did it happen?"
"I ain't got it clear in my head, yet. Just happened, I reckon. The Judgewas settin' on the ledge just in front of the dobie house you had him in.I was moseyin' along the edge, tryin' to figger out what a light in thesky off towards Manti meant. I couldn't figger it out--what in hell wasit, anyway?"
"The courthouse burned--maybe the bank."
Levins chuckled. "You got the record, then."
"Yes."
"An' I've lost the Judge! Ain't I a box-head, though!"
"That's all right. Go ahead. What happened?"
"I was moseyin along the ledge. Just when I got to the slope where we comeup--passin' it--I seen a bunch of guys, on horses, coming out of theshadow of an angle, down there. I hadn't seen 'em before. I knowedsomethin' was up an' I turned, to light out for shelter. An' just then oneof 'em burns me in the back--with a rifle bullet. It couldn't have been nosix, from that distance. It took the starch out of me, an' I caved, Ireckon, for a little while. When I woke up the Judge was gone. The moonhad just come up an' I seen him ridin' away on my cayuse, between twoother guys. I reckon I must have gone off again, when you shook me." Helaughed, weakly. "What gets _me_, is where them other guys went, after thetwo sloped with the Judge. If they'd have been hangin' around they'd surehave got _you_, comin' up here, wouldn't they?"
Trevison's answer was a hoarse exclamation. He swung Levins up and borehim into one of the communal houses, whose opening faced away from theplains and the activity. Then he ran to where he had left Nigger, leadingthe animal back into the zig-zag passages, pulling his rifle out of thesaddle holster and stationing himself in the shadow of the house in whichhe had taken Levins.
"They've come back, eh?" the wounded man's voice floated out to him.
"Yes--five or six of them. No--eight! They've got sharp eyes, too!" headded stepping back as a rifle bullet droned over his head, chipping achunk of adobe from the roof of the box in whose shelter he stood.
* * * * *
Sullenly, Corrigan had returned to Manti with the deputies that hadaccompanied him to the Bar B. He had half expected to find Trevison at theranchhouse, for he had watched him when he had ridden away and he seemedto have been headed in that direction. Jealousy dwelt darkly in the bigman's heart, and he had found his reason for the suspicion there. Hethought he knew truth when he saw it, and he would have sworn that truthshone from Rosalind Benham's eyes when she had told him that she had notseen Trevison pass that way. He had not known that what he took for thetruth was the cleverest bit of acting the girl had ever been called uponto do. He had decided that Trevison had swung off the Bar B trailsomewhere between Manti and the ranchhouse, and he led his deputies backto town, content to permit his men to continue the search for Trevison,for he was convinced that the latter's visit to the courthouse hadresulted in disappointment, for he had faith in Judge Lindman'sdeclaration that he had destroyed the record. He had accused himself manytimes for his lack of caution in not being present when the record hadbeen destroyed, but regrets had become impotent and futile.
Reaching Manti, he dispersed his deputies and sought his bed in the_Castle_. He had not been in bed more than an hour when an attendant ofthe hotel called to him through the door that a man named Gieger wanted totalk with him, below. He dressed and went down to the street, to findGieger and another deputy sitting on their horses in front of the hotelwith Judge Lindman, drooping from his long vigil, between them.
Corrigan grinned scornfully at the Judge.
"Clever, eh?" he sneered. He spoke softly, for the da
wn was not far away,and he knew that a voice carries resonantly at that hour.
"I don't understand you!" Judicial dignity sat sadly on the Judge; he wastired and haggard, and his voice was a weak treble. "If you mean--"
"I'll show you what I mean." Corrigan motioned to the deputies. "Bring himalong!" Leading the way he took them through Manti's back door across arailroad spur to a shanty beside the track which the engineer in charge ofthe dam occasionally occupied when his duty compelled him to check uparriving material and supplies. Because plans and other valuable paperswere sometimes left in the shed it was stoutly built, covered withcorrugated iron, and the windows barred with iron, prison-like. Reachingthe shed, Corrigan unlocked the door, shoved the Judge inside, closed thedoor on the Judge's indignant protests, questioned the deputies briefly,gave them orders and then re-entered the shed, closing the door behindhim.
He towered over the Judge, who had sunk weakly to a bench. It was pitchdark in the shed, but Corrigan had seen the Judge drop on the bench andknew exactly where he was.
"I want the whole story--without any reservations," said Corrigan,hoarsely; "and I want it quick--as fast as you can talk!"
The Judge got up, resenting the other's tone. He had also a half-formedresolution to assert his independence, for he had received certainassurances from Trevison with regard to his past which had impressedhim--and still impressed him.
"I refuse to be questioned by you, sir--especially in this manner! I donot purpose to take further--"
The Judge felt Corrigan's fingers at his throat, and gasped with horror,throwing up his hands to ward them off, failed, and heard Corrigan's laughas the fingers gripped his throat and held.
When the Judge came to, it was with an excruciatingly painful strugglethat left him shrinking and nerveless, lying in a corner, blinking at thelight of a kerosene lamp. Corrigan sat on the edge of a flat-topped deskwatching him with an ugly, appraising, speculative grin. It was as thoughthe man were mentally gambling on his chances to recover from thethrottling.
"Well," he said when the Judge at last struggled and sat up; "how do youlike it? You'll get more if you don't talk fast and straight! Who wrotethat letter, from Dry Bottom?"
Neither judicial dignity or resolutions of independence could resist thethreatened danger of further violence that shone from Corrigan's eyes, andthe Judge whispered gaspingly:
"Trevison."
"I thought so! Now, be careful how you answer this. What did Trevison wantin the courthouse?"
"The original record of the land transfers."
"Did he get it?" Corrigan's voice was dangerously even, and the Judgesquirmed and coughed before he spoke the hesitating word that was anadmission of his deception:
"I told him--where--it was."
Paralyzed with fear, the Judge watched Corrigan slip off the desk andapproach him. He got to his feet and raised his hands to shield his throatas the big man stopped in front of him.
"Don't, Corrigan--don't, for God's sake!"
"Bah!" said the big man. He struck, venomously. An instant later he putout the light and stepped down into the gray dawn, locking the door of theshanty behind him and not looking back.