Inside the jail, Little Joe Bodie drank three cups of hot java and toyed with the grub the jailer had brought in. He admitted to himself he was scared. Sebore had a motive all right. He had lost considerable dinero in the late Solitaire’s place at stud and ended up with a near-shooting row in which he claimed he had been cheated.
And King Riner, one of whose ponies had been found dead up there in the badlands, had a motive, too. Some years back his younger sister had run off with Solitaire Tice and married him. When they returned to town, the haughty Riner refused to speak to her. Less than six months ago she had died in childbirth. The rumor was that Solitaire was drunk in a card game and didn’t send for a doctor until too late. Riner had a reason to hate the dead man all right.
Little Joe’s thoughts returned to Blackie Sebore. In that last election, it was the sudden swing of Sebore and his outfit to him that had put him in office over Luke Shore, the former deputy. Since back in the early days of Lusker when it came out that a marshal and his appointed deputy had worked in cahoots in a series of stage-line holdups, the rule in the town had been to elect the deputy as well. Shore had been an experienced veteran at the job. The one charge against him was wounding the wrong man so he was crippled for life by mistake once. Little Joe on the other hand, though a dead shot, had a rep for thinking twice before he slung hoglegs. On the other hand there were some who hinted he was a little lily-livered and apt to sidestep trouble. But Sebore’s surprise support had gotten him the job.
He heard mumblings of the old short-on-nerve charges as he moved through the town that afternoon. He caught cold-eyed looks from all sides. Murdock stomped into the air at the Lucky Deuce and bluntly demanded to know why he was not hunting down King Riner.
“Something’s going to be done damn pronto or some of us will be taking the law into our own hands,” a saloon tough snorted.
“I’m wearing the badge,” Little Joe told them dryly. “Don’t forget that. And my guns are ready to back its authority.” On the way back from the futile chase he had cut off from the rest to a hoeman’s place and ordered the latter to go to the Loop-Y and tell Riner he wanted to see him. Little Joe understood the proud Riner well. If he went out and tried to arrest him, Riner would have made a fight. On the other hand, Riner was no back-shooter. His honor and pride would compel him to ride in at the request to prove he feared nothing.
* * * *
It was sundown when King Riner did appear at the jail. He was a slim, tall man with prematurely white hair that capped his eagle-like profile. With him he had Doc Banes from the Junction. Riner had already heard of the killing. He offered the Doc as his alibi. Banes swore he had been called to the Loop-Y late yesterday and had spent the night with Riner. Riner, he asserted, had suffered a severe heart attack.
“All right. Don’t leave the country in case I want you,” Little Joe said. But when they marched out, they had to pass through an angry throng in front of the jail. Riner stared them down without putting a hand on his gun butt, and the bunch stayed for some time to hurl jeers and insults at the deputy marshal. Inside he was still walking furiously, weighing every angle of the case in his brain.
It was about midnight when the shot spattered on the drone of the still angrily buzzing town. Little Joe hustled out of the jail and got down near the Lucky Deuce. He was just in time to see Yager, foreman of Riner’s Loop-Y, come backing out with drawn smoking gun. “Nobody’s going to call my boss a dry-gulching killer,” he was shouting.
Pot-bellied Dab Tice, the late Solitaire’s cousin, was in the doorway, swinging his gun up slowly. Little Joe, hands already filled, sprang forward and blasted two shots into the gilt-lettered sign just over the doorway.
“Pen them smokepoles, you gents!” he snapped as he plunged into the light from the gambling hell. “Pen ’em—or I’ll take you in dead if I have to!”
Yager was a law-abiding sort and nodded as he raised his arms halfway. Dab Tice was a tinhorn braggart. He took one look at the deputy marshal’s bleak white face and backed water, holstering with some sullen muttering.
Little Joe strode into the place and ordered a drink at the bar. It was a follow-up gesture to assert his authority. Sebore was there and tried to buy him a drink. The deputy plunked his coin loudly on the bar.
“Say, did Solitaire say anything afore he cashed his chips?” somebody asked. “Murdock says you got to him fust—just as he expired.”
Little Joe let his eyes sweep the place, looking at Blackie Sebore a long moment. Something jumped in the deputy’s mind. He tossed down his drink, said quietly, “Next time somebody gets the idee they’re the law here, I’m shooting first and parleying afterwards,” and walked out. He had his clue.…
It was the next forenoon when he dropped into the Lucky Deuce again. Feeling against him was running high in the town. Men were saying that if Ellard were there the killer would already be captured, and as good as strung up. Solitaire Tice had been well liked because of his generosity. He was always good for a sawbuck for a poor devil who was in hard luck. And when times had been hard in a family, a big basket of food supplies would be left at the door. Everybody knew Solitaire was the one responsible for that, too.
“If that lily-livered Bodie hadn’t been afeared to rush that ledge they’d have got the killer,” men said.
At the gambling hall bar, Little Joe looked around, and then dropped his announcement casually. Sebore was present. He said he was staying in town till he saw justice done. Joe Bodie spoke almost directly to him.
“Got a note this morning from a gent who was passing through here the night of the killing,” Little Joe said. “He saw the killer and can identify him. Seems like his conscience is botherin’ him and this gent is coming back. He’ll be coming in on the Saturday stage—two days from now. I’m waiting for him.”
* * * *
Later he left and rode out of town. It was the next afternoon when Sebore dropped into the jail at his summons. “Sebore,” Little Joe said, tossing a shell in his hand, “if they’s trouble here when the killer is pointed out, I’m depending on your help with the marshal away. And I got a hunch you don’t believe this hombre coming in can pick the killer.”
“Now, Bodie, I’m plumb behind the law. Of course—”
“I want you to see something, anyway,” Little Joe said as he led the way out. Mounted, they took the trail eastward on the stage run toward Pully’s Gulch. At the head of it, they got down at the deputy’s order and he started up the wooded side of it. Sebore was panting when they got halfway up. And then Little Joe pulled aside some foliage to reveal a small cave. Just around the end of the gulch so a man could come and leave it unobserved by anybody in the gulch, yet it commanded a view of it.
“Say, Bodie, if you’ve dragged me all the way up here to show me some old Injun relics or—”
“Look in here,” Little Joe bade, having stepped inside. He fussed in the dirt then held up two ends of wire that came out of the earth. Sebore blinked. “Well?”
“Don’t you savvy? Put these two ends of wire together and you complete the circuit. There’s a battery somewheres and a load of dynamite with a percussion cap. The dynamite’s probably planted up in that big chunk of overhanging rock ’cross the gulch there.” He pointed to the face of seamed bare rock across the way. “The stage comes down the line. The gent hidden up here puts the wires together, completes the circuit and—boom! the dynamite goes off and the stage is crushed under a landslide of rock. Tons of it. And in the stage will be that gent who saw the killing of Solitaire Tice. See? You just put the wire ends together like this and—”
Sebore leaped forward and caught at Little Joe. “Hey, don’t! You—you’ll—” He was pale.
Little Joe put down the wires. “Well, it proves my point. Somebody’s afraid. I reckon I’ll let drop that this gent spent a considerable time up at Deer Lodge and can point out a few other wanted men in this town.”
They