Crooked Trails and Straight, Page 4

  CHAPTER IV

  THE CULLISONS

  Curly was awakened by the sound of the cook beating the call to breakfaston a triangle. Buck was standing beside the bed.

  "How're they coming this glad mo'ning, son?" he inquired with a grin.

  "Fine and dandy," grinned back Flandrau.

  So he was, comparatively speaking. The pain in his arm had subsided. Hehad had a good sleep. And he was lying comfortably in a clean bed insteadof hanging by the neck from the limb of one of the big cottonwoods on theedge of the creek.

  A memory smote him and instantly he was grave again.

  "How is Cullison?"

  "Good as the wheat, doc says. Mighty lucky for Mr. C. Flandrau that he is.Say, I'm to be yore valley and help you into them clothes. Git a wiggle onyou."

  Buck escorted his prisoner over to the ranch mess house. The others hadfinished breakfast but Maloney was still eating. His mouth was full of hotcakes, but he nodded across at Curly in a casual friendly way.

  "How's the villain in the play this mo'ning?" he inquired.

  Twenty-one usually looks on the cheerful side of life. Curly had forgottenfor the moment about what had happened to his friend Mac. He did notremember that he was in the shadow of a penitentiary sentence. The sun wasshining out of a deep blue sky. The vigor of youth flowed through hisveins. He was hungry and a good breakfast was before him. For the presentthese were enough.

  "Me, I'm feeling a heap better than I was last night," he admitted.

  "Came pretty near losing him out of the cast, didn't we?"

  "Might a-turned out that way if the stage manager had not remembered theright cue in time."

  Curly was looking straight into the eyes twinkling across the table athim. Maloney knew that the young fellow was thanking him for having savedhis life. He nodded lightly, but his words still seemed to make a jest ofthe situation.

  "Enter the heroine. Spotlight. Sa-a-ved," he drawled.

  The heart of the prisoner went out to this man who was reaching a hand tohim in his trouble. He had always known that Maloney was true and steadyas a snubbing post, but he had not looked for any kindness from him.

  "Kite just got a telephone message from Saguache," the Bar Double M manwent on easily. "Your friends that bought the rustled stock didn't getaway with the goods. Seems they stumbled into a bunch of _rurales_unexpected and had to pull their freight sudden. The boys from the ranchhappened along about then, claimed ownership and got possession."

  "If the men bought the stock why didn't they stop and explain?" askedBuck.

  "That game of buying stolen cattle is worn threadbare. The _rurales_ andthe rangers have had their eye on those border flitters for quite sometime. So they figured it was safer to dust."

  "Make their getaway?" Curly inquired as indifferently as he could. But inspite of himself a note of eagerness crept into his voice. For if the menhad escaped that would be two less witnesses against him.

  "Yep."

  "Too bad. If they hadn't I could have proved by them I was not one of themen who sold them the stock," Flandrau replied.

  "Like hell you could," Buck snorted, then grinned at his prisoner in ashamefaced way: "You're a good one, son."

  "Luck has been breaking bad for me, but when things are explained----"

  "It sure will take a lot of explaining to keep you out of the pen. You'llhave to be slicker than Dutch was."

  Jake stuck his head in at the door. "Buck, you're needed to help with themtwo-year-olds. The old man wants to have a talk with the rustler. Doc sayshe may. Maloney, will you take him up to the house? I'll arrange to haveyou relieved soon as I can."

  Maloney had once ridden for the Circle C and was friendly with all the menon the place. He nodded. "Sure."

  A Mexican woman let them into the chamber where the wounded man lay. Itwas a large sunny southeast room with French windows opening upon a longporch. Kate was bending over the bed rearranging the pillows, but shelooked up quickly when the two men entered. Her eyes were still gentlewith the love that had been shining down from them upon her father.

  Cullison spoke. "Sit down, Dick." And to his prisoner: "You too."

  Flandrau saw close at hand for the first time the man who had beenArizona's most famous fighting sheriff. Luck Cullison was well-built andof medium height, of a dark complexion, clean shaven, wiry and muscular.Already past fifty, he looked not a day more than forty. One glance wasenough to tell Curly the kind of man this was. The power of him foundexpression in the gray steel-chilled eyes that bored into the youngoutlaw. A child could have told he was not one to trifle with.

  "You have begun early, young fellow," he said quietly.

  "Begun what?" Curly asked, having nothing better to say.

  "You know what. But never mind that. I don't ask you to convict yourself.I sent for you to tell you I don't blame you for this." He touched thewound in his side.

  "Different with your boys, sir."

  "So the boys are a little excited, are they?"

  "They were last night anyhow," Curly answered, with a glimmer of a smile.

  Cullison looked quickly at Maloney and then at his daughter.

  "I'll listen to what you've been hiding from me," he told them.

  "Oh, the boys had notions. Miss Kate argued with them and they saw thingsdifferent," the Bar Double M rider explained.

  But Cullison would not let it go at that. He made them tell him the wholestory. When Curly and Maloney had finished he buried his daughter's littlehand in his big brown fist. His eyes were dancing with pride, but he gaveher not a word of spoken praise.

  Kate, somewhat embarrassed, changed the subject briskly. "Now you'retalking too much, Dad. Doctor Brown said you might see him for just a fewminutes. But you're not to tire yourself, so I'll do the talking foryou."

  He took his orders with the smiling submission of the man who knows hismistress.

  Kate spoke to Curly. "Father wants me to tell you that we don't blame youfor shooting at him. We understand just how it was. Your friend gotexcited and shot as soon as he saw he was surrounded. We are both verysorry he was killed. Father could not stop the boys in time. Perhaps youremember that he tried to get you to surrender."

  The rustler nodded. "Yes, I heard him holler to me to put my gun down, butthe others blazed away at me."

  "And so you naturally defended yourself. That's how we understand it.Father wants it made clear that he feels you could have done nothingelse."

  "Much obliged. I've been sorry ever since I hit him, and not only on myown account."

  "Then none of us need to hold hard feelings." The girl looked at herfather, who answered her appeal with a grim nod, and then she turned againto the young rustler a little timidly. "I wonder if you would mind if Iasked you a question."

  "You've earned the right to ask as many as you like."

  "It's about---- We have been told you know the man they call Soapy Stone.Is that true?"

  Flandrau's eyes took on a stony look. It was as if something had spongedall the boyishness from his face. Still trying to get him to give away hispartners in the rustling, were they? Well, he would show them he couldtake his medicine without squealing.

  "Maybe it is and maybe it isn't."

  "Oh, but you don't see what we mean. It isn't that we want to hurt you."She spoke in a quick eager voice of protest.

  "No, you just want me to squeal on my friends to save my own hide. Nothingdoing, Miss Cullison."

  "No. You're wrong. Why are you so suspicious?"

  Curly laughed bitterly. "Your boys were asking that question about Soapylast night. They had a rope round my neck at the time. Nothing unfriendlyin the matter, of course. Just a casual interest in my doings."

  Cullison was looking at him with the steel eyes that bored into him like agimlet. Now he spoke sharply.

  "I've got an account running with Soapy Stone. Some day I'll settle itlikely. But that ain't the point now. Do you know his friends--the bunchhe trails with?"

  Wariness sti
ll seemed to crouch in the cool eyes of Flandrau.

  "And if I say yes, I'll bet your next question will be about the time andthe place I last saw them."

  Kate picked up a photograph from the table and handed it to the prisoner."We're not interested in his friends--except one of them. Did you ever seethe boy that sat for that picture?"

  The print was a snapshot of a boy about nineteen, a good looking handsomefellow, a little sulky around the mouth but with a pair of straight honesteyes.

  Curly shook his head slowly. Yet he was vaguely reminded of someone heknew. Glancing up, he found instantly the clew to what had puzzled him.The young man in the picture was like Kate Cullison, like her father toofor that matter.

  "He's your brother." The words were out before Flandrau could stop them.

  "Yes. You've never met him?"

  "No."

  Cullison had been watching the young man steadily. "Never saw him withSoapy Stone?"

  "No."

  "Never heard Stone speak of Sam Cullison?"

  "No. Soapy doesn't talk much about who his friends are."

  The ex-sheriff nodded. "I've met him."

  Of course he had met him. Curly knew the story of how in one drive he hadmade a gather of outlaws that had brought fame to him. Soapy had brokenthrough the net, but the sheriff had followed him into the hills alone andrun him to earth. What passed between the men nobody ever found out. Stonehad repeatedly given it out that he could not be taken alive. But Cullisonhad brought him down to the valley bound and cowed. In due season thebandits had gone over the road to Yuma. Soapy and the others had sworn toget their revenge some day. Now they were back in the hills at their oldtricks. Was it possible that Cullison's son was with them, caught in atrap during some drunken frolic just as Curly had been? In what way couldStone pay more fully the debt of hate he owed the former sheriff than bymaking his son a villain?

  The little doctor came briskly into the room.

  "Everybody out but the nurse. You've had company enough for one day,Luck," he announced cheerily.

  Kate followed Maloney and his prisoner to the porch.

  "About the letters of your friend that was shot," she said to Curly."Doctor Brown was telling me what you said. I'll see they reach MissAnderson. Do you know in what restaurant she works?"

  "No. Mac didn't tell me." The boy gulped to swallow an unexpected lump inhis throat. "They was expecting to get married soon."

  "I--I'll write to her," Kate promised, her eyes misty.

  "I'd be obliged, Miss. Mac was a good boy. Anyone will tell you that. Andhe was awful fond of her. He talked about her that last night before thecamp fire. I led him into this."

  "I'll tell her what you say."

  "Do. Tell her he felt bad about what he had done. Bad companions got himgoing wrong, but he sure would have settled down into a good man. That'sstraight goods, too. You write it strong."

  The girl's eyes were shiny with tears. "Yes," she answered softly.

  "I ain't any Harvard A. B. Writing letters ain't my long suit. I'm alwaysdisremembering whether a man had ought to say have went and have knew.Verbs are the beatingest things. But I know you'll fix it up right so asto let that little girl down easy."

  "I've changed my mind. I'll not write but go to see her."

  Curly could only look his thanks. Words seemed strangely inadequate. ButKate understood the boy's unspoken wish and nodded her head reassuringlyas he left the room.