CHAPTER XV—ESCAPE
That night Jim Parker seemed unusually serious during supper. Lila noticed that he looked often at her, and there was a gloomy expression in his eyes. Lila knew Rance McCoy had been arrested, and she wondered if this had anything to do with Jim Parker’s demeanor.
Mrs. Parker noticed it too, and finally she asked him if he felt well.
“Well enough, mother,” he said slowly. “We had a meeting this afternoon—the school trustees.”
Lila lifted her head quickly and Jim Parker was looking at her.
“It was two to one,” he said heavily. “I done the best I could, Lila, but they voted me down. I hated to have to tell yuh, but they ask yuh to quit teachin’.”
“To quit teaching my school?” said Lila, hardly believing her own ears.
Jim Parker nodded sadly.
“That’s it, Lila.”
“The very idea!” exclaimed Mrs. Parker. “Why, Jim?”
Parker shook his head.
“It was the things they’ve heard,” he said. “They called Angel in on it. He repeated what was in that letter. That made no difference to me—but they’re kinda funny. And after Rance was arrested—they thought they’d change.”
“That letter about my—my father and mother?” asked Lila, a catch in her voice.
“Yeah!” snorted Parker. “One of them old fools talked about heredity. What does he know about it? Oh, I did the best I could, Lila. You can stay right here and live with us until yuh know what yuh want to do. We’d sure like to have yuh, Lila.”
“Heredity?” whispered Lila. “He meant that—my mother was insane. Oh, that’s what he meant.”
“Don’t you believe it, honey,” assured Mrs. Parker warmly. “Nothin’ to it. I’d like to talk to them trustees.”
I talked to ’em,” said Parker. “They’re going to ask me to resign from the board. I’ll be glad to, and I told ’em so.”
Lila left the table and went to her room. Jim Parker filled his pipe moodily, and while Mrs. Parker was clearing off the table Slim Caldwell came. He had talked with one of the trustees about Lila, and Slim was mad.
Lila came down the stairs. Slim was almost incoherent in his wrath, and afraid Lila would blame him for the arrest of Rance McCoy.
“I staved it off as long as I could. I didn’t want to do it, if only for your sake,” he told her. “Merkle demanded his arrest, and there wasn’t anythin’ I could do, Lila. Right now I’m lookin’ for Angel. He talked with them trustees. You heard him, Jim. He didn’t need to say the things he did. The things old Rance has done for the fool!”
“He’s his son,” said Lila wearily.
“And blood is thicker than water,” quoted Parker.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Lila—“I mean, about me. I’m sorry for him. I don’t believe he ever robbed anybody.”
“He practically confessed it,” sighed Slim. “Told Hale he’d never put a cent of it in the bank.”
“What does he have to say now?” asked Parker.
“Nothin’. Oh, he’s sober now. He realizes what he’s up against. Merkle tried to get him to talk, and he laughed at Merkle when Merkle told him he’d let him off easy if he told where the money was cached. Then he got mad and cursed Merkle up one side and down the other.”
“Has Angel been down to see him?” asked Mrs. Parker.
“No. Oh, he probably will—if I let him. Mebby I won’t. No use rubbin’ it in on the old man. He’ll have his hearing in a few days, and they’ll bind him over to the next term of court. Merkle says he’ll convict Rance.”
“They tell me that old Chuckwalla was sore,” said Parker.
“I guess he was! Swears he’ll dynamite the jail.”
“Well, look out for him, Slim,” seriously. “He’s capable of doing just that thing. What’s this I hear about Kid Glover stealing Hartley’s horse in Welcome?”
“It’s true, Jim. The Kid left the Half-Box R and traded horses in Welcome. Nobody knows where he is now.”
“Does Hartley expect him back?”
Slim smiled over the manufacture of a cigarette.
“Nobody knows, Jim. That tall cowboy listens all the time, and when he talks it’s to ask questions. Pretty much of a human being, that Hashknife Hartley. Thinks a lot. Thinks about everything, I reckon. Well, I’ve got to be gettin’ back, folks. I was so danged mad, I had to come over and blow off steam.”
“Thank you, Slim,” said Lila, trying to smile. “It was something that couldn’t be avoided. We’ll all live through it. It was hard to believe, at first, but now it doesn’t matter so much.”
“That’s a good way to look at it,” said Slim. “You know how I feel about it. If I had a school in my pocket, it’d be yours, Lila.”
“And I appreciate it, Slim. Please don’t tell Rance McCoy about it. He has troubles enough of his own now.”
“I won’t tell him, Lila. Be good, folks.”
It was nearly dark when Slim opened the gate. A man was coming toward him, and he looked up to see Angel McCoy, evidently coming to the Parker home. Neither of them spoke. Angel reached for the latch of the gate, but Slim swayed in front of him. And without any preliminary motions of any kind, Slim smashed Angel square on the point of the chin with his right fist.
It was a knock-out punch, perfectly timed and executed. Angel simply folded up and went sprawling in the dust. Slim looked at him for several moments, turned and went on toward his office, trying to rub some feeling back into his right knuckles.
Angel was “out” for more than a minute. He finally got to his feet, braced himself against the fence, and waited for his mind to clear. He had intended having a talk with Lila, but just now his jaw was half-paralyzed and there was a chunk of skin missing from his closely shaven chin. As soon as his legs would permit of safe locomotion, he went back toward the main street.
It was about nine o’clock when Chuckwalla Ike came back to Red Arrow. He was cold sober and wanted to see Rance McCoy, but Scotty McKay, alone in the office, refused his request.
“I have an or-rder to let no one see him,” said Scotty. “Ye might come tomorrow, Chuckwalla.”
“Yeah, I might,” agreed Chuckwalla, and went away. He had a drink at the Red Arrow, and it was there that he learned that Lila had been asked to resign as teacher of the Red Arrow school.
It took Chuckwalla quite a while to digest this information, because of the fact that the bartender tried to explain heredity, which neither he nor Chuckwalla knew anything about.
“Anyway,” declared the drink-dispenser, “I hear them trustees decided that she wasn’t the woman they wanted to teach the kids; so they fired her.”
“I dunno what her ancestors have got to do with her learnin’ the kids,” said Chuckwalla sadly.
“Me neither. Have another drink?”
“I don’t guess I will, pardner. See yuh later.”
He left the Red Arrow and walked past a restaurant, where he saw Slim, Chuck, Hashknife, and Sleepy busily engaged in eating their supper. For several moments Chuckwalla debated with himself whether to go in and talk with them or not. He finally decided not to, and went on.
For the first time since he had been in Red Arrow Hashknife talked at great length with Slim Caldwell about the robbery. There seemed little doubt that old Rance McCoy had pulled the job, but there were certain phases of the case that made Hashknife doubt.
Slim told him all about it, and answered questions until he became more interested himself.
“I dunno what yuh expect to learn,” he declared, when Hashknife wanted all the details of the gambling incidents of the night of the robbery.
Slim went back several days previous to the robbery and told of old Rance losing twenty-five hundred dollars in the Eagle.
“You don’t think Angel had any hand in it, do yuh?” asked Slim.
“I’d hate to say that. But isn’t Angel the one who needed the money? Went broke, didn’t he?”
“And he’s still broke, Hashknife.”
“Are yuh sure?”
“Well, he closed up his place.”
“And old Rance borrowed money from the bank.”
“Sure. But couldn’t that have been a bluff? Why, we all know he drew seventy-five hundred from the bank; and he busted the Eagle. Don’t tell me he’s broke.”
“Don’t look as though he would be. You say the express messenger picked up his gun and emptied it at the robber after the robber left the car?”
“Yeah. Of course, he was shootin’ wild in the dark.”
“And one of his bullets killed the horse, eh? That meant that the robber would have to walk.”
“It ain’t over two miles to the Circle Spade ranch. We were over there that mornin’, and old Rance had a big bump on his head. Looks as though a horse might have spilled him. He didn’t have much to say. We didn’t mention the horse to him, but it looks as though him and Chuckwalla beat it right down there and tried to destroy the evidence. Anyway, somebody was there ahead of Scotty, and danged near shot him. They held him off until they skinned out the brand and got away with the saddle.”
“Looked as though there had been two men, eh?”
“Prob’ly was.”
“How about Chuckwalla the night of the robbery?”
“Pretty drunk; too drunk to do anything.”
They finished their meal and wandered down to the Red Arrow. Business was not very brisk.
“Old Chuckwalla was here a while ago,” offered the bartender.
“Sober?” asked Slim.
“So damned sober he refused a second drink.”
“Have anythin’ to say about Rance?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Where’d he go from here?”
“Dunno that either.”
They sat down at one of the tables and had a smoke. Hashknife noticed that Slim’s right hand was bruised and swollen a little, and that Slim kept it concealed as much as possible.
Later on they sauntered back to the office, which was in darkness.
“Scotty must ’a’ gone to bed,” said Chuck.
“He’s shore a sleepy son-of-a-gun.”
The door was unlocked. They walked in and Slim headed for the table, intending to light the lamp, when he tripped and fell sprawling across the floor.
“Why don’tcha pick up yore feet?” laughed Chuck.
“Light the lamp!” snorted Slim, picking himself off the floor. “By God, I fell over somebody!”
Hashknife quickly scratched a match and stepped over to the table, where he lighted the oil lamp. Stretched out on the floor, between the table and the door, was Scotty McKay, with blood oozing from a bruise on his head.
As they stared at him he groaned and tried to lift himself up. Quickly they placed him on a cot, and Slim ran to the jail door, which was sagging open. The cell was empty—Rance McCoy was gone.
Slim came back and looked at Scotty, who was staring blankly at them and trying to feel of his head.
“Rance is gone,” said Slim. “How bad are yuh hurt, Scotty?”
“What in hell happened?” asked Scotty painfully.
“What do you know?” asked Slim.
Scotty looked blankly around, shaking his head.
“I dunno, Slim. I’m all blood! Who hit me?”
“There’s some whiskey in my desk, Chuck,” said Slim.
Chuck got the bottle and gave Scotty a big drink. It brightened him up quickly.
“I was at the desk,” he told them. “There was a noise outside near the door, so I went to see what it was. And then somethin’ hit me, I guess. Gimme another dr-r-ink, Chuck.”
Slim sighed and looked inquiringly at Hashknife, who was sitting on a corner of the desk, squinting thoughtfully.
“What do yuh make of it, Hashknife?”
Hashknife shrugged his shoulders.
“Chuckwalla Ike!” exclaimed Chuck. “By God, he kept his word!”
“Looks like it,” agreed Slim slowly. “You better go with Scotty to the doctor’s place and get that head all fixed up. Can yuh walk, Scotty?”
“I don’t walk on me head,” retorted Scotty. “I’ll be all right, Slim. I might have it looked into, though.”
“Judgin’ from your looks, it’ll be easy to look into,” grinned Chuck. “C’mon, old Painted Face.”
“And when yuh come back, stick around the office,” ordered Slim. “I’m goin’ out to the Circle Spade.”
“And we’ll go along,” said Hashknife, after the two men had departed. “This makes me kinda curious.”
“I hoped you’d go, Hashknife. I’m curious too.”