CHAPTER IV
SONS OF THE DEVIL
By eight o’clock the following morning, every seat in the courtroom was taken; men crowded the aisles and perched on the window sills. At eight thirty the sheriff closed the doors and refused to allow any more to crowd in. Exactly at nine Judge Ransom stepped from his house and walked slowly down Main Street toward the courthouse. As he passed State Street, Dutchy and Silent Moore stepped up and followed him. The judge did not look back, but he knew they were there. He quickened his pace, for their presence reminded him forcibly of his danger.
The crowd before the Red Queen grew silent as the judge approached. He nodded to several friends on the porch of the Comfort Hotel, as he cut across Depot Street toward a small door which led to his chambers. At his knock it was opened by the sheriff. The judge and his two shadows passed in, and the door was locked behind them.
A few minutes later he entered the courtroom and took his seat on the bench; outwardly he was calm, inwardly he twitched with nervousness.
The prisoner was brought in, the charge was read, and the trial was on. Pete Cable, a big brute of a man, grinned insolently. The judge realized with something of a shock that, in spite of the prisoner’s pale skin and American name, he was a Mexican; he understood now why the Mexican vote would be against him in the next election.
The Honorable J. T. Williams, the defense lawyer, had been imported from Washington at great expense. He towered over Bill Herrick, the little prosecuting attorney, who was obviously nervous and frightened. The judge wondered if Herrick, too, had been threatened, and, if so, if he had weakened.
Tom Powers had seen to it that there was no chance to fix the jury. He had collected his panel only the night before, and no man knew he was to serve until given a summons, when he was straight-way conducted to the jail and locked up in a large room.
From the first it was apparent that Williams sought delay. He did all in his power to make the trial drag and to encumber it with technicalities. He offered objection after objection, forced the judge to rule on a fine point of law at every opportunity.
One by one the jurymen were called, and Williams challenged them peremptorily. He had no idea of the size of the panel called by the sheriff and hoped to force him to call another. If he were successful, the defense would not be caught napping again and would see that among those called there were several who would bring in a verdict of acquittal, no matter what the evidence.
But by late afternoon Williams saw his challenges mostly used up, and still there was no sign of the end of the panel. The jury box was full before the court adjourned for the day.
The judge was thoughtful as, followed by his two shadows, he walked home that evening. The die was cast; he had clearly shown that he was in the camp of justice. He refused to think of the consequences.
Bill Anderson was waiting for him when he arrived at his house. The political boss apologized for losing his temper the evening before. His regret appeared so sincere that the judge almost forgot that momentary flash he had seen of the man’s real character.
A little later Mac Kennedy and Ace Cutts arrived. Kennedy was a frequent visitor at the house and a great favorite of Mrs. Ransom’s. Ace Cutts was a sleek-haired young fellow of twenty-three, who went in for flashy clothes and handmade boots. He had full charge of the Bar X, and the judge had brought him up as his own son, although he had never adopted the boy legally. At times Ace’s wildness bothered him. Now Ace drew his foster father aside.
“Look here, dad. Why lean over so straight you fall over backward? Be sensible. Take things easy. They can’t possibly acquit Pete Cable. Why not work things to have a hung verdict? Then you grant a new trial. You can be in Washington, and another judge will hang him.”
“I’m sorry to hear you talk like that, my boy,” the judge said severely.
Ace flared up.
“Rats! It’s sense. They’ll break you,” he cried angrily.
“Ace, come on, if you’re going to dinner with me!” Kennedy called sharply.
Kennedy said good night to the judge and departed, followed by the sulky Ace.
The judge watched them thoughtfully. He wished Ace would get control of that temper; he said foolish things when he was angry, and people might misunderstand him.
About ten that night Toothpick and Jim Allen arrived back in town. All day they had lain flat on their stomachs, under cover of brush, and watched the lava fields with a pair of powerful binoculars. Now they had circled the town and entered it from the north.
Toothpick went to the jail, where he held a long, whispered conference with the sheriff. Powers’ expression changed from surprise to delight as he listened. Allen went to Maria’s cantina. He staggered as he arrived, but he had money to pay for a bottle, so Maria allowed him to remain. He chose a table close to the rear door; here he drank the first bottle and called for another. He was halfway through this when Dutchy and another man entered. They argued drunkenly for a time, and ended in a fist fight.
A table and a chair crashed over. Maria screamed. She left her bar to stop the fight and assailed the two men with furious words. They mumbled and staggered out. When she returned to the bar she looked about for Allen; he had vanished. Puzzled, she stared about for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders with indifferent indolence.
Allen had slipped, under cover of the fight, out of the back door. He found, as he expected, another door beyond, that led from the storeroom into a path. This, in turn, led to an alley, which cut the block in two and was lined by shacks, little better than hovels. Directly opposite from the intersection of the path and the alley lay a corral.
“That’s where Mr. Anderson got straw on his feet. He comes by that narrow alley so he won’t have to go by them greaser shacks, ’cause, if he did, they might talk. Let’s see what he comes for.” Allen chuckled to himself.
He removed his blue glasses, took a Colt from his shoulder holster, and tucked it inside his belt. Then he flitted across the alley and ducked under the corral bars, silent as a ghost. He crossed the corral to a wall on the farther side. Music within told him that this was the rear of the Red Queen Saloon. There was no door here, so he slipped over to the barn and examined that. He passed the double doors that led to the stable. Beyond these he found a small door which was locked. He recrossed the corral, slipped under the bars, and tiptoed down the alley toward Depot Street. In one or two of the shacks there were lights, and once he passed two slovenly Mexicans seated in a doorway. They called to him, but he hurried by.
Back on Main Street he fell into his rôle once more, staggering and singing softly to himself. He peered through the doors of the Red Queen, not daring to enter, because of the danger of being thrown out. Yet if he found Anderson, he had a plan that he thought would reinstate him in the Red Queen. He waited until several men clattered in to the bar and slipped in after them. He ducked through into the dancing hall, unseen by the bartenders. By good luck he found Anderson watching a poker game. He plucked his sleeve.
Anderson scowled at him.
“Say, mister,” he whined, “don’t let that sheriff jug me. They tell me you’re a good guy that don’t kick a guy just ’cause he’s down on his luck.”
Several other men who heard the hobo’s appeal looked curiously at the tattered figure and laughed.
“You just stick in here, an’ Powers dasen’t come in after yuh,” one of them said.
“But them gents out front will give me the bum’s rush,” the hobo complained.
Anderson grinned good-naturedly. “I’ve been down on my luck myself. Tom Powers can’t touch you, if you have a job.”
The hobo drew back suspiciously.
“I ain’t very strong, mister.”
Again the others laughed, and the political boss smiled.
“I wasn’t thinking of anything that would hurt your health,” he said. “How about doing odd jobs about the Red Queen?”
Anderson went over to the Toad and talked to him for a moment. The Toad grinned and assented. Allen had known there was no love lost between Anderson and Tom Powers, but, even so, things had worked out better than he had hoped. Now he was hired as handy man about the Red Queen.
He took up his new duties on the spot. And between errands he kept his ears open.
“Ace is sure shootin’ ’em high to-night. I bet he’s lost over a thousand,” he heard a man say.
“It must come easy to him, because he lost more than that last night,” another laughed.
Allen wandered over to the poker table. Ace Cutts’ face was sullen. Ace was a poor gambler, for he became angry and forced his luck. He bluffed wildly and tried to outdraw the other players. Allen watched his chips melt away until the last one was gone. Ace leaped to his feet and went over to Bill Anderson.
“I’m busted, Bill; let me have five hundred,” he demanded.
Anderson’s face grew flinty, his eyes hard.
“And you’ll pay me back out of the sixty a month the judge gives you,” he said with a harsh laugh.
Ace Cutts’ dark face flushed; his eyes grew stormy. He leaned forward as if to whisper something, but Anderson turned away. Ace glared at him, then jammed on his hat and went out to the bar.
“Where the hell does he get his money?” some one asked Anderson.
The political boss shrugged.
“Maybe he signs the judge’s name to papers,” he suggested.
The other nodded. But Allen was not satisfied with this explanation, for he knew that Anderson knew the judge was broke. A little later he walked out of the Red Queen and headed toward the Ransoms’ house. As he passed it he whistled softly, then stopped in the shade of some bushes a little farther on. There he was joined by Dutchy.
“That was sure a realistic scrap yuh pulled in Maria’s,” Allen said by way of greeting.
“Yuh got what yuh was after?” Dutchy asked.
Allen nodded. They whispered together for a few minutes, until Toothpick rode up and dismounted. Without a word he handed his bridle to Allen, who mounted and trotted down the street.
“Damn the little cuss! Why doesn’t he tell a fellow what he’s doin’?” Toothpick said irritably.
“So yuh can tell the folks in the Red Queen about it?” Dutchy was scornful. “I’m bettin’ he’ll find a way through them lava fields.”
The following morning, when court opened, the room was again packed. The judge took his seat, and the first witness took the stand. The prosecuting attorney, visibly upset, began the questioning. It was apparent at once that the attorney had been “fixed”; he might as well have been the defending lawyer, for he asked only questions that were favorable to the prisoner. The witness looked disappointed when he was excused. He had had something to tell and had not the chance to do it. He had been asked many questions, but none of importance.
Another witness took the stand, and the district attorney followed the same tactics. The judge saw Williams frown. The local attorney was making the thing too obvious. The jury glanced at one another and whispered among themselves. But this witness was a pugnacious Irishman, and when he was excused he refused to leave the chair.
“Ain’t yuh goin’ to ask me if Oi seen Pete Cable down that dude?” he roared.
The district attorney paled. He glanced appealingly toward Williams. Before he could determine on a line of action, the foreman of the jury decided to question the witness himself.
“Did yuh see the prisoner down that dude?” he asked.
“Shure Oi did. The dude was skeered stiff whin Pete yanked out his gun. Pete said deliberate: ‘Oi’ll learn yuh to call me a card cheat.’ Thin he plunked the dude twice in the stomach.”
Williams shouted: “I object!”
The spectators began to move restlessly and mutter in low tones. The judge hammered on his desk. When silence was restored, he overruled Williams’ objection.
The district attorney met the belligerent eye of the foreman; he sensed the angry restlessness of the spectators. He was between the devil and the deep sea. A coward at heart, he yielded to the present menace. He had started this trial crooked, but he would have to finish it straight. Instantly he did a right-about face and changed his tactics. He called witness after witness, and his questions were now keenly edged.
When the prosecution rested, not a man in the room would have taken the short end of a thousand to one that Pete Cable would not hang. The straight stories of those witnesses seemed already to have placed the rope around his bull-like neck. Confidence had left even the prisoner; pasty yellow mantled his usually red face.
Williams did what he could; he called witnesses who flatly contradicted the first evidence, but under cross-examination they floundered and contradicted themselves. By five o’clock the rival attorneys asked time to prepare their summing up, and court adjourned.
That night the district attorney made a wise decision; he slept in the jail. And two deputies reënforced the judge’s usual escort of Dutchy and Silent.
Late that night Allen attacked the mysterious little door in the barn with a large variety of keys. It gave at last, and he slipped inside. A ladder led to a hayloft, and he went up. He had no light and fumbled for many minutes before he found another door in the farther end of the loft. More key manipulation and it, too, yielded. Cautiously he crept along the short hall beyond and listened at the door at the end.
“I’ve done all I will to save that fool,” an unfamiliar voice rasped.
“He’s your brother.” Allen knew that heavy guttural. It belonged to Francisco Garcia, the Toad.
“You and he are alike. You lose your temper and kill,” the other man replied.
Allen searched his memory. Where had he heard that voice? At the risk of missing something he hurried to the door at the other end and listened. If any one came in through the barn he would be caught like a rat in a trap. Five seconds later he was back again, straining his ears.
“We’ll talk about that when he comes,” the unknown man said. “We have got to start a clean-up pronto. It’s our only chance. We got to get these gents out of the way.” He read a list of names, which Allen carefully noted. When the man had finished, he added: “Jim Allen’s in town!”
“The Wolf!” A chair crashed as the Toad leaped up.
“Skinny saw him and those grays of his over near the lava fields,” the other added. “Skinny’s downstairs waiting.”
“Dios! The man who killed our father!” the heavy voice of the Toad cried.
“There’s two people in town who may know where he holes out – Toothpick and that girl Snippets.”
“Then we have to – ”
Like a flash Allen slipped back along the hall. Already his exit was barred! A blurred figure stood at the top of the ladder. He waited, knowing that whoever it was had seen him in the shadows. The figure vanished behind a post.
“Francisco!” the man called. “There’s some one out here.”
The inner door to the room was flung open, and Allen heard a voice bawl for Baldy and the Yuma Kid. Noiselessly Allen circled the post which hid the man. He was within five feet of the square hole which led to the floor below when he heard steps pounding upstairs as the two killers answered the call of their boss. He picked up a board and hurled it across to the opposite wall; he knew that the man behind the post would look instinctively in that direction. He leaped for the trapdoor. He plunged through before the man had time to turn and fire. Allen landed on his feet, agile as a cat. The outer door was blocked now by another man. A Colt roared, and the door was empty. Allen slipped through the corral bars.
He ran down the alley and five minutes later entered the Red Queen. He was once more the hobo as he slouched into a chair where he could watch the door that led into the Toad’s private quarters. He considered his discoveries. He had learned that there was another brother mixed up in this affair. He would see to it that Toothpick was sent out of danger and that Snippets was guarded. He had a suspicion as to who this other brother was, but no proof. As a matter of fact, he had no proof of anything. He would have to get that, and there was very little time to be lost.
Fifteen minutes later the Toad, followed by his killers, entered. Allen waited for some time and then decided that the unknown man had left the barn by the back way. Shuffling, with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, he went to the bar. Here he had a couple of drinks, which, as usual, went, not down his throat, but into the cuspidor.
He staggered out to the sidewalk and commenced to sing. As he neared the jail Tom Powers came out and seized him by the arm.
“I told yuh I’d run yuh in if I caught yuh again,” he cried, and, to the amusement of several spectators, he dragged the cursing little hobo to the jail door. When this was closed behind them the sheriff released Allen’s arm and led the unresisting tramp into his own private office.
“I’m glad to meet yuh, Mr. Allen,” the sheriff said as he studied the tattered figure opposite him.
Allen grinned.
“We sure worked that pretty. Yuh got to keep me in jail a couple of days. I found the way through them lava fields, and I want to see where it goes to, so I’m lightin’ out for there to-night, and I don’t reckon I’ll be back until after to-morrow.”
“And the people over in the Red Queen will think yuh’re in jail,” the sheriff chuckled. “A good alibi.”
“I suppose yuh want to learn what I found out. Maybe yuh recollect a hombre what used to hang out along the Texas border about seven years ago what called himself ‘le Diable à Cheval?’”
“Yuh betcha – and he was some devil, too,” the sheriff said.
“He used to steal girls over the border and hold ’em fer ransom,” Allen went on. “I followed the gent – the Devil on Horseback – for near a month, then I ketched him and downed him.”
The sheriff stared.
“He had four sons by four wives, and all four sons is right here in town. One of ’em ain’t far from us here.”
“You mean Pete Cable?” the sheriff demanded.
“Sure. That’s why the other three are raising such hell to keep Pete from stretching hemp. I betcha yuh could guess another if yuh thinks hard enough.”
Without a moment’s hesitation the sheriff answered. “The Toad! An’ I’d say I knew the third if he weren’t white.”
“Didn’t I tell yuh they had different mothers?” Allen grinned.
“Then Anderson did fix those bandages!” the sheriff cried with an oath. “Who’s the fourth?” he asked.
“I ain’t got no idea – don’t even know what he looks like. But I did hear once that a gent in Texas who was called ‘Cupid Dart’ was a son of the Devil.”
“The two-gun sheriff and bad man?”
“The same.”
Briefly Allen told the sheriff about the death list he had heard the unknown man read out in the secret room.
“Two nights from now yuh have Tim Lynch, the Hogg brothers, Doc Robinson an’ yourself meet me at the judge’s, an’ I’ll have somethin’ to tell yuh,” he promised. “An’ yuh can warn them gents that the bunch they calls the Lava Gang is goin’ to down ’em, ’cause if they can get the judge’s crowd out of the way, they can run things as they choose. With Anderson controllin’ the white vote, and the Toad the greaser vote, they’d sure break this country wide open and plenty. Yuh and yuhr friends be careful.”
The sheriff shook his head. As yet they had no proof against their enemies. Yet there was something in the matter-of-fact way Allen spoke that made him hope their difficulties would be over soon.
“Yuh got a back door here?” Allen asked.
The sheriff led him to the small door that opened into a vacant lot behind the jail.
“Yuh tell Dutchy not to let Snippets out of his sight,” Allen gave his final warning. He vanished into the night.
Scarcely had the door closed on him when some one pounded on the front door. The sheriff opened it to an excited news bearer.
“Some one knifed Doc Robinson,” gasped the man.
The sheriff called two of his deputies and ran to the doctor’s house. The doctor had been knifed in bed. No one had seen the murderer come or go.
With a sick feeling, the sheriff remembered Allen’s story of the fatal list. He left the deputies in charge and went to warn the others of that death list. Each took it seriously and quietly, with the exception of Jim Hogg, who sputtered and insisted he had a right to know who was going to attack him and why.
“I don’t know who, but the why of it is because yuh’re an honest man,” Tom Powers told him.
The sheriff found Dutchy in his usual place before the judge’s house. When the sheriff gave him Allen’s message his only reply was a grunt of reassurance.