CHAPTER XI
THE FIGHT AT LA CASA BLANCA
It was something after six o'clock when Jim Galloway rode into SanJuan. Leaving his sweat-wet horse in his own stable at the rear of theCasa Blanca he passed through the patio and into a little room whosedoor he unlocked with a key from his pocket. For ten minutes he satbefore a typewriting machine, one big forefinger slowly picking out theletters of a brief note. The address, also typed, bore the name of atown below the border. Without signing his communication he sealed itinto its envelope and, relocking the door as he went out, walkedthoughtfully down the street to the post-office.
As he passed Struve's hotel he lifted his hat; upon the veranda at thecooler, shaded end, Virginia was entertaining Florence Engle. Florrienodded brightly to Galloway, turning quickly to Virginia as the big manwent on.
"Do you actually believe, Virginia dear," she whispered, "that that manis as wicked as they say he is? Did you watch him going by? Did yousee the way he took off his hat? Did you ever know a man to smilequite as he does?"
"I don't believe," returned Virginia, "that I ever had him smile at me,Florrie."
"His eyes are not bad eyes, are they?" Florrie ran on. "Oh, I knowwhat papa thinks and what Rod thinks about him; but I just don'tbelieve it! How could a man be the sort they say he is and still be aspleasant and agreeable and downright good-looking as Mr. Galloway?Why," and she achieved a quick little shudder, "if I had done all theterrible deeds they accuse him of I'd go around looking as black as acloud all the time, savage and glum and remembering every minute howwicked I was."
Virginia laughed, failing to picture Florrie grown murderous. ButFlorrie merely pursed her lips as her eyes followed Galloway down thestreet.
"I just ask you, Virginia Page," she said at last, sinking back intothe wide arms of her chair with a sigh, "if a man with murder and allkinds of sin on his soul could make love prettily?"
Virginia started.
"You don't mean . . ." she began quickly.
Florrie laughed, but the other girl noted wonderingly a fresher tint ofcolor in her cool cheeks.
"Goosey!" Florrie tossed her head, drew her skirts down modestly overher white-stockinged ankles and laughed again. "He never held my handand all that. But with his eyes. Is there any law against a mansaying nice things with his eyes? And how is a girl going to stop him?"
Virginia might have replied that here was a matter which depended verylargely upon the girl herself; but instead, estimating that there waslittle serious love-making on Galloway's part to be apprehended andtaking Florrie as lightly as Florrie took the rest of the world, shewas merely further amused. And already she had learned to welcomeamusement of any sort in San Juan town.
But again here was Galloway, stopping now in front of Struve's, drawinganother quick, bright smile from the banker's daughter, accepting itsinvitation and coming into the little yard and down the veranda. Onlywhen he fairly towered over the two girls did he push back the hatwhich already he had touched to them, standing with his hands on hiships, his heavy features bespeaking a deep inward serenity and quietgood humor.
It would have required a blinder man than Jim Galloway not to havemarked the cool dislike and distrust in Virginia's eyes. But, thoughhe turned from them to the pink-and-white girl at her side, he gave nosign of sensing that he was in any way unwelcome here.
He had greeted Virginia casually; she, observing him keenly, understoodwhat Florrie had meant by a man's making love with his eyes. His look,directed downward into the face smiling up at him, was alive with whatwas obviously a very genuine admiration. While Florrie allowed herflattered soul to drink deep and thirstily of the wine of adulationVirginia, only half understanding the writing in Galloway's eyes,shivered a little and, leaning forward suddenly, put her hand onFlorrie's arm; the gesture, quick and spontaneous, meant nothing toFlorrie, nothing to Galloway, and a very great deal to Virginia Page.For it was essentially protective; it served to emphasize in her ownmind a fear which until now had been a mere formless mist, a fear forher frivolous little friend. Galloway's whole being was so expressiveof conscious power, Florrie's of vacillating impulsiveness, that itrequired no considerable burden laid upon the imagination to picturethe girl coming if he called . . . if he called with the look in hiseyes now, with the tone he knew to put into his voice.
Social lines are none too clearly drawn in towns like San Juan; oftenenough they have long ago failed to exist. A John Engle, though sixdays of the seven he sat behind his desk in a bank, was only a man, hisdaughter only the daughter of a mere man; a Jim Galloway, though heowned the Casa Blanca and upon occasion stood behind his own bar, mightbe a man and look with level eyes upon all other men, their wives, andtheir daughters. Here, with conditions what they always had been,there could stand but one barrier between Galloway and Florrie Engle,the barrier of character. And already the girl had cried: "His eyesare not bad eyes, are they?" A barrier is a silent command to pause;what is the spontaneous answer of a spoiled child to any command?
Galloway spoke lightly of this and that, managing in a dozen littleways to compliment Florrie who chattered with a gayety which partook ofexcitement. In ten minutes he went his way, drawing her musing eyesafter him. Until he had reached his own door and turned it at the CasaBlanca the two girls on Struve's veranda were silent. Florrie'sthoughts were flitting hither and yon, bright-winged, inconsequential,fluttering about Jim Galloway, deserting him for Roderick Norton,darting off to Elmer Page, coming home to Florrie herself. As forVirginia, conscious of a sort of dread, she was oppressed with thestubbornly insistent thought that if Jim Galloway cared to amusehimself with Florrie he was strong and she was weak; if he called toher she would follow. . . .
Virginia was not the only one whom Galloway had set pondering; certainof his words spoken to the sheriff when the two faced each other on theTecolote trail gave Norton food for thought. For the first time JimGalloway had openly offered a bribe, one of no insignificantproportions, prefacing his offer with the remark: "I have just begun toimagine lately that I have doped you up wrong all the time." IfGalloway had gone on to add: "Time was when I didn't believe I couldbuy you, but I have changed my mind about that," his meaning could havebeen no plainer. Now he held out a bribe in one hand, a threat in theother, and Norton riding on to Tecolote mused long over them both.
In Tecolote, a straggling village of many dogs and swarthy, grimy-facedchildren, he tarried until well after dark, making his meal of coffee,_frijoles_, and _chili con carne_, thereafter smoking a contemplativepipe. Abandoning the little lunch-room to the flies and silence hecrossed the road to the saloon kept by Pete Nunez, the brother of theman whom it was Norton's present business to make answer for a crimecommitted. Pete, a law-abiding citizen nowadays, principally for thereason that he had lost a leg in his younger, gayer days, swept up hiscrutch and swung across the room from the table where he was sitting tothe bar, saying a careless "Que hay?" by way of greeting.
"Hello, Pete," Norton returned quietly. "Haven't seen Vidal lately,have you?"
Besides Vidal's brother there were a half dozen men in the room playingcards or merely idling in the yellow light of the kerosene lamp swungfrom the ceiling, men of the saloon-keeper's breed to the last man ofthem. Their eyes, the slumbrous, mystery-filled orbs of their kind,had lifted under their long lashes to regard the sheriff with seemingindifference. Pete shrugged.
"Me, I ain't seen Vidal for a mont'," he answered briefly. "I see JimGalloway though. Galloway say," and Pete ran his towel idly back andforth along the bar, "Vidal come to la Casa Blanca to-night. I dunno,"and again he shrugged.
Norton allowed himself the luxury of a mystifying smile as Pete Nunezlifted probing eyes to his face.
"Jim Galloway has been known to lie before now, like other men," wasall of the information he gave to the questioning look. "And," hisface suddenly as expressionless as Pete's own, "it wouldn't be a badbet to look for Vidal in Tres Robles, would it? Eh, Pete?"
With that he went out. Quite willing that Pete and his crowd shouldthink what they pleased, Tres Robles lay twenty miles northeast ofTecolote, and if Pete cared to send word to Galloway that the sheriffhad ridden on that way, well and good.
Half an hour later, with the deeper dark of the night settling thickand sultry over the surface of the desert lands, he rode out of townfollowing the Tres Robles trail. He knew that Pete had come to hisdoor and was watching; he had the vague suspicion that it was quitepossible that Vidal was watching, too, with eyes smouldering withhatred. That was only a guess, not even for a man to hazard a betupon. But the feeling that the fugitive was somewhere in Tecolote orin the mesquite thickets near abouts had been strong enough to send himtravelling this way in the afternoon, would have been strong enough forhim to have acted upon, searching through shack after shack, were itnot that deep down in his heart he did not believe that Jim Gallowayhad lied. Here, while he came in at one door Vidal might slip out atanother, safe among friends. But in the Casa Blanca Norton meant thatmatters should be different.
For an hour he rode toward the northeast. Then, turning out of thetrail and reining his horse into the utter blackness offered by thenarrow mouth or an arroyo, he sat still for a long time, listening,staring back through the night toward Tecolote. At last, confidentthat he had not been followed, he cut across the low-lying lomasmarking the western horizon and in a swinging gallop rode straighttoward San Juan.
He had had ample time for the shaping of his simple plans long beforecatching the first winking glimpse of the lights of the Casa Blanca.He left his horse under the cottonwoods, hung his spurs over the hornof the saddle, and went silently to the back of Struve's hotel.Certain that no one had seen him, he half-circled the building, came tothe window which he had counted upon finding open, slipped in, andpassed down the hall to Struve's room. At his light tap Struve called,"Come in," and turned toward him as the door opened. Norton closed itbehind him.
"I am taking a chance that Vidal Nunez is at Galloway's right now," hetold the hotel keeper. "I am going to get him if he is. I want you towatch the back end of the Casa Blanca and see that he doesn't slip outthat way. A shotgun is what you want. Blow the head off any man whodoesn't stop when you tell him to. Is Tom Cutter in his room yet?"
While Struve, wasting neither time nor words, went to see, Nortonunbuttoned his shirt, removed the thirty-eight-caliber revolver fromthe holster slung under his left arm, whirled the cylinder, and keptthe gun in his left hand. In a moment Struve had returned, the deputyat his heels.
"What's this about Vidal being here?" Cutter asked sharply.
Norton explained briefly and as briefly gave Tom Cutter his orders.While Struve mounted guard at the rear, Cutter was to look out for thefront of the building.
"Going in alone, are you, Rod?" Cutter shook his head. "If Vidal isin there, and Galloway and the Kid and Antone are all on the job, thechances are there's going to be something happen. Better let me comein along with you."
But Norton, his mouth grown set and grim and chary of words, shook hishead. Followed by Struve and Cutter he was outside in the darknessfive minutes after he had entered the hotel.
Struve, a shotgun in his hands, took his place twenty steps from theback door of the Casa Blanca, his restless eyes sweeping back and forthcontinually, taking stock of door and window; a lamp burning in a rearroom cast its light out through a window whose shade was less than halfdrawn. Tom Cutter, accustomed to acting swiftly upon his superior'ssuggestions, listened wordlessly to the few whispered instructions,nodded, and did as he was told, effacing himself in the shadows at thecorner of the building, prepared when the time came to spring out intothe street whence he could command the front and one side of the CasaBlanca. Norton, before leaving Cutter, had drawn the heavy gun fromthe holster swinging at his belt.
"It's some time since we've had any two-handed shooting to do, Tommy,"he said as his lean fingers curved to the familiar grip of the Colt 45."But I guess we haven't forgotten how. Now, stick tight until you hearthings wake up."
He was gone, turning back to the rear of the house, passing close toStruve, going on to the northeast corner, slipping quietly about it,moving like a shadow along the eastern wall. Here were two windows,both looking into the long barroom, both with their shades drawn downtight.
At the first window Norton paused, listening. From within came a man'svoice, the Kid's, in his ugly snarl of a laugh, evil and reckless anddefiant, that and the clink of a bottle-neck against a glass. Norton,his body pressed against the wall, stood still, waiting for othervoices, for Galloway's, for Vidal Nunez's. But after Kid Rickard'sjarring mirth it was strangely still in the Casa Blanca; no noise ofclicking chips bespeaking a poker game, no loud-voiced babble, no soundof a man walking across the bare floor.
"They're waiting for me," was Norton's quick thought. "Galloway knewI'd come."
He passed on, came to the second window and paused again. The brief,almost breathless silence within, which had followed the Kid's laugh,had already been dissipated by the customary Casa Blanca sounds; aguitar was strumming, chips clicked, a bottle was set heavily upon thebar, a chair scraped. Norton frowned; a moment ago something happenedin there to still men's tongues. What was it? It was Galloway whogave him his answer.
"So you came, did you, Vidal?" There was a jeer in the heavy voice."Scared to come, eh? And scared worse to stay away!" Galloway's shortlaugh was as unpleasant as ever Rickard's had been.
"Si; I am here," the voice of Vidal Nunez was answering, quick, eager,sibilant with its unmistakable nervous excitement. "Pete tell me whatyou say an' I come." He lifted his voice abruptly, breaking into asoft Southern oath. "Like a cat, to jump through the little window an'roll on the floor an' by God, jus' in time. There is one man at theback with a gun an' one man in front an' another man . . ."
"Let 'em come," cried Galloway loudly, a heavy hand smiting a table topso that a glass jumped and fell breaking to the floor. "Only," and hesent his voice booming out warningly, "any man who chips in unasked andstarts trouble in my house can take what's coming to him."
So then Vidal had just arrived, it had been his sudden entrance whichhad invoked the silence in the barroom. Norton merely shrugged; therehad been a chance of taking Vidal alone, intercepting him. But thatchance had not been one to wait for; now it was past, negligible, notto be regretted. At last he knew where Vidal Nunez was and it was hisbusiness to make an arrest and not to wait upon further chance. Theman who is not ready to go into a crowd to get his law-breaker is notthe man to stand for sheriff in the southwest country.
"Coming, Galloway!" Norton's ringing shout came back in answer.Suddenly the steady pulse of his blood had been stirred, the hot hopestood high in his heart again that he and Jim Galloway were going tolook into each other's eyes with guns talking and an end of a longdevious trail in sight. For the moment he half forgot Vidal Nunez whomhe could fancy cowering in a corner.
Then when he knew that every man in the Casa Blanca had turned sharplyat his voice he ran from the window to the street, turned the corner ofthe building and in at the wide front doorway. A short hall, a closeddoor confronting him . . . then that had been flung open and on itsthreshold, a gun in each hand, his hat far back on his head, his eyeson fire, he stood looking in on a half dozen men and three glintingsteel barrels which, describing quick arcs, were whipped from thewindow toward him. A gun in Galloway's hand, one in the hand of VidalNunez, the third already spitting fire as Kid Rickard's narrowed eyesshone above it. The other men had fallen back precipitately to rightand left; Norton noted that Elmer Page was among them, a pace or twofrom Rickard's side.
The Kid, being young, had something of youth's impatience, perhaps theonly reminiscence of youth left in a calloused soul. So it was that hehad shot a second too soon. Norton, as both hands rose in front ofhim, answered Kid Rickard with the smaller-caliber gun while the Coltin his right hand was concerned impartially with Galloway and VidalNunez, stand
ing close together. The Kid cursed, his voice rose in ashriek of anger rather than pain, and he spun about and fell backward,tripping over an overturned chair.
"Shoot, Galloway!" cried Norton. "Shoot, damn you, shoot!"
Now, as for the second time that day the two men confronted each other,naked, hot hatred glaring out of their eyes, each man knew that hestood balancing a crucial second, midway between death and triumph.Jim Galloway, who never until now had come out into the open indefiance of the law, must swallow his words under the eyes of his owngang, or once and for all forsake the semi-security behind his ambush.Again issues were clear cut.
He answered the sheriff with a curse and a stream of lead. As he firedhe threw himself to the side, the old trick, his gun little higher thanhis hip, and fired again. And shot for shot Norton answered him.
Though but half the length of a room lay between them, as yet, neitherman was hurt. For no longer were they in the rich light of theswinging coal-oil lamp; the room was gathered in pitch darkness; theirguns spat long tongues of vivid flame. For, just as Kid Ricard wasfalling, while Jim Galloway's finger was crooked to the trigger, whileAntone was whipping up his gun behind the bar, there had come a shotfrom the card-room door shattering the lamp. Neither Norton norGalloway, Rickard nor Vidal Nunez, nor Antone nor any of the other menin the room saw who had fired the shot.
As the light went out Norton leaped away from the door, having littlewish to stand silhouetted against the rectangle of pale light from theouter night; and, leaping, he poured in his fourth and fifth and sixthshots in the quarter where he hoped to find Galloway. But always heremembered where he had seen Elmer Page standing, and always heremembered Antone behind the bar, and Vidal Nunez drawn back into acorner. His forty-five emptied, he jammed it back into its holster andstood rigid, staring into the blackness about him, every sense on thequi vive. Galloway had given over shooting; he might be dead or merelywaiting. Vidal had held his fire, seeming frightened, uncertain, halfstunned. Antone would be leaning forward, peering with frowning eyes,trying to locate him.
It swept into Norton's mind suddenly that thus, in utter and unexpecteddarkness, he had the upper hand. He could shoot, the law riding uponeach flying pellet of lead, and be it Jim Galloway or Antone or Vidal,or any other of Galloway's crowd who fell, it would be a man who richlydeserved what his fate was bringing him. They, on the other hand,being many against one, must be careful which way they shot.
He had come for Vidal Nunez. The man he wanted was yonder, but a fewfeet from him. Duty and desire pointed across the room to the obscurecorner. He moved a cautious foot. The floor complained under hisshifting weight and from Galloway's quarter came a spit of fire. Twinwith it came a shot from behind the bar. That was Antone talking. Andnow at last came the other shot from Vidal himself.
Rod Norton's was that type of man which finds caution less to hisliking than headlong action; furthermore, in the present crisis,caution had seemed the acme of foolhardiness. There are times whentrue wisdom lies in taking one's chance boldly, flying half-way to meetit. Now, as three bullets sang by him, he gathered himself; then,before the sharp reports had died in his ears, he sprang forward,hurling himself across the room, striking with his lifted gun as hewent, missing, striking again and experiencing that grinding, crunchingsensation transmitted along the metal barrel as it struck a man fairupon the head. The man went down heavily and Norton stood over him,praying that it was Vidal Nunez.
Then it was that Julius Struve, having deserted his post at the rear,smashed through a window with the muzzle of his shotgun, sending theshade flipping up, springing back from the square of faint light as hecried out sharply:
"All right, Nort?"
"All right!" cried Norton. "I'm against the north wall; rake the otherside and the bar with your shotgun if they don't step out. You andCutter together. I've got Rickard and Nunez out of it. Drop your gun,Galloway; lively, while you've got the chance. Antone, Struve's got ashotgun!"
Antone cursed, and with the snarl of his voice came the clatter of arevolver slammed down on the bar. Galloway cursed and fired, emptyinghis second gun, crazed with hatred and blind anger. Again, shot forshot Norton answered him. And again it grew very silent in the CasaBlanca.
"Out through the window, one by one, with your hands up and your gunsdown," shouted Struve; "or I start in. Which is it, boys?"
There was a scramble to obey, the several men who had taken no partleading the way. As they went out their forms were for a momentclearly outlined, then swallowed up in the outer darkness. At Struve'scommand they lined up against the wall, watched over by the muzzle ofhis shotgun. Antone, crying out that he was coming, followed. ElmerPage, sick and dizzy, was at Antone's heels.
Tom Cutter had gathered up some dry grass, and with that and achance-found bit of wood started a blaze near the second window; in itswavering, uncertain light the faces of the men stood out whitely.
"Galloway is not here yet," he snapped. And, lifting his voice: "Comeon, Galloway."
A crowd had gathered in the street, asking questions that wentunanswered. Other hands added fuel to Cutter's fire. The increasinglight at last penetrated the blackness filling the barroom.
"Come out, Galloway," said Struve coldly. "I've got you covered."
Since things were bad enough as they were, and he had no desire to makethem worse and saw no opportunity to better them, Jim Galloway, hishand nursing a bleeding shoulder, stumbled awkwardly through theopening.
"Is that all of 'em, Roddy?" called Cutter. Norton didn't answer. Thedeputy called again. Then, while the crowd surged about door andwindow. Cutter came in, a revolver in his right hand, a torch of aburning fagot in his left, held high.
Vidal Nunez was dead; not from a blow upon the head, but from a chancebullet through the heart after he had fallen. Kid Rickard, his sulleneyes wide with their pain, lay half under a poker table. Lying acrossthe body of Nunez, as though still guarding his prisoner, was the quietform of Rod Norton, his face bloodlessly white save for the smear ofblood which had run from the wound hidden by the close-cropped, blackhair.