“GIT OUT DE WAY, OLE DAN TUCKER”
Hugh was no hero of romance, but a normal American youth whose education from childhood had fitted him to meet the emergencies that might confront him. The school of the frontier teaches self-reliance. Every man must stand alone. He is judged by the way he assays after the acid test of danger.
At the Crystal Palace Hugh had not been conscious of any fear. His brother’s life had depended upon his coolness, the smooth efficiency with which his nerves and muscles coördinated. Not until after the peril was past had he felt any hysteria, and then only because he thought he had killed a man.
The situation was different now. He had to meet alone the most notorious man killer of Nevada, not when he was strung up for action by the clash of a sudden encounter, but after a day and night of suspense in which his imagination would play him unkind tricks and show him ghastly visions. He saw pictures—horrible pictures in which Dutch loomed up a huge apelike superman towering over him as a prostrate victim. He saw himself playing the poltroon, dying, dead, every detail of the scene sharp as the lines of an etching. The little boy in him—the child that had for years been dormant—crept out and wailed with fear. Yet all the time he wore a wooden face that told no tales to curious men who watched him.
When at last he was alone Hugh did the wisest thing possible. He borrowed a page instinctively from twentieth-century psychology not then in vogue. He faced the fact that he was afraid, dragged his fears out into the open, examined them, and jeered at them.
“What’s ailin’ you, Hugh McClintock?” he demanded of himself. “Ain’t you got any sand in yore craw a-tall? Who’s Sam Dutch, anyhow? What if he has got a dozen men? Didn’t he kill half of them when they weren’t lookin’ for trouble? Didn’t he pick on four flushers who wouldn’t stand the gaff? Say he is big as all outdoors. Easier to hit, ain’t he? What do you care if he’s a wild man from Borneo and chews glass, like he claims? All men are the same size when they get behind a Colt gun.”
He oiled his revolver while he fought out his fears aloud. “Whyfor should Sam Dutch hang the Indian sign on you? He’s the same scalawag they had to carry feet first outa the Crystal Palace after you got through with him. He’s the same false alarm Scot ran outa Virginia not so long ago. He should do the frettin’, not you.”
With the thought of Scot, courage flowed back into his heart. He knew that somehow Scot would in his place face this fellow down or blot him from the map. “Trouble with you is you’re scared, Hugh. But you’re goin’ through, ain’t you? Sure. You got to. Then buck up an’ throw the scare into the other fellow.”
His mind stuck to that last thought. What were his brains for if he could not make them more useful than the craft and brutishness of Sam Dutch? His mind began to work out a practical plan of action. When he arose from the bench where he sat cleaning the revolver his eyes were bright and shining. The fear in him, which had for hours been lying like a heavy weight on his subconscious mind, no longer repressed but frankly admitted and examined, had now vanished into thin air.
As soon as it was dark Hugh slipped out of his shack and crept along the side of the gulch toward Main Street. He stopped behind a cabin of whipsawed lumber and edged forward to the back of it. The hut had one room. Except the front door there was no way of entrance but by one of the two windows. Hugh had no intention of entering. He was satisfied that Dutch would not come home till late. Probably he would bring a companion with him as a protection against the chance of being ambushed.
For five minutes Hugh worked at one window, then gave his attention to the other. After this he stole back to the edge of the gulch and busied himself among the branches of a little scrub tree which stood at the point of intersection between a small gorge and the main gulch.
Hugh’s guess had been a good one. It was close to one o’clock in the morning when Dutch returned to his cabin. With him was a companion whom Hugh, lying huddled in the sage close to the cañon’s rising slope, recognized as William Buckley, one of Sam’s boon toadies.
The man killer took no chances, at least no more than were necessary. It was quite on the cards, as he understood the business of murder, that his foe might lie in wait for him and shoot from ambush. He did not come down the road, but by way of an alley that brought him to the rear of his shanty. Quickly and stealthily the two men dodged inside. Once in, Dutch bolted the door and pulled the window blinds. Before going to bed he moved both cots so as to put them out of range of one who might crawl up to either window and take a wild shot at the place where one of the beds had been.
Dutch was slipping out of his long army coat when there came a gentle tap—tap—tap at one of the windows. The big bulk of a man stood crouched, eyes glaring, head thrust forward, every sense alert to meet the danger which threatened. He slid out of the coat and dragged a revolver from his hip.
Again there came a slow tap—tap—tap, this time on the opposite window. With incredible swiftness Dutch whirled and fired. His gun was still smoking when the tap—tap—tap, clear and measured, sounded a second time at the first window. Straight at the sound the killer flung another shot. He rushed to the window and drew back the sack used for a curtain. There was nobody at the window either alive or dead, nor was it possible for anybody to have slipped away in that second between the sound of the tapping and the moment when Dutch had torn aside the sack.
As he stood there, frightened and bewildered, there came a sound that turned his flesh to goose-quills. Down the wind was borne a sobbing scream like the wail of a lost soul. Dutch knew that no human voice had uttered that cry. It rose and fell, died down, broke out again, weird and unearthly as a banshee’s whimper.
Tiny beads of perspiration stood out on the man’s forehead. His hands shook. He had no thought but that his call from the world beyond had come, and with the blood of a dozen men on his atrophied conscience he yielded to the rising tide of terror in him.
The slow tap—tap—tap sounded a third time on the window.
The gun-fighter trembled. “Goddlemighty, Bill, I—I done got my call.”
Buckley felt none too comfortable himself, but he managed a laugh. “Sho, Sam! Nothin’ but the wind.”
“The wind can’t tap on the window for me, can it? It can’t——”
The sentence died out, for a second time the ululation of that sobbing shriek came faintly.
Dutch collapsed on a cot, covering his ears with his hands. The man was of a low order of intelligence, as full of superstition as a plantation Negro. His mind did not even seek for a rational explanation of the phenomena that startled him. He was a coward of conscience. The clock was striking twelve o’clock for him. He accepted that without debate.
With an uneasy glance at the window Buckley offered such sorry comfort as he could. “The wind plays damn queer tricks, Sam. You buck up an’ get a bottle out. We’ll play seven up for a spell.”
A high mocking laugh, thin and sinister, trembled out of the night as though in answer to Buckley’s suggestion. The two men looked at each other. Each read fear in the eyes facing his.
“It—that sounded like—like Al Morford the day I shot him,” gasped Dutch, clutching at his companion’s sleeve. “He—he was laughin’ at me when I drew on him and asked him where he’d have it.”
“You don’t want to get to thinkin’ about that now, Sam,” advised Buckley, moistening his dry lips with the tip of his tongue. “Let’s hit the grit back to the Glory Hole. We’ll feel better once we get outside of a few drinks.”
“He—said he’d come back an’ ha’nt me,” whispered the man killer abjectly. “Said it while they was takin’ his boots off, right before he passed in his checks.”
“Al Morford’s been dead an’ buried for years,” said the other man shakily. “Forget him. An’ le’s get outa here, sudden.”
Another wail soughed down from the gorge. Dutch shook like an aspen. “I—I can’t go out—there.”
“You gonna stay here all night? I ain’t.” Buckley mopped the sweat from his forehead and drew a revolver. He trod softly to the door, then turned to his companion. “Come on, Sam.”
Buckley had no mind to take the night walk alone, nor had Dutch the courage to stay without his ally. The big ruffian, his nerves a-quiver, crept after the other man.
They slipped from the cabin toward the road. A gust of wind swept the gulch, bringing with it a menacing jangle of horrible laughter. The fugitives threw away the remnant of their pride and stumbled through the sagebrush at a run. Their hearts were in their throats. When they looked back it was with the expectation of seeing hobgoblins burst from the chaparral in pursuit.
Presently Hugh McClintock stole up to the cabin and removed a tick-tack from each of the shattered windows. He cut down from the scrub pine at the mouth of the gorge a kind of æolian harp he had made out of violin strings and a soap box. The wind, whistling through this, had given out the weird wail which had shaken the nerves of Dutch. The falsetto laughter had been an histrionic effort of Hugh’s own vocal cords. It happened that just now his voice was changing.
The youngster went home to bed and to sleep. Meanwhile Dutch, to restore his weakened self-esteem and courage, drank heavily through the night.
In the morning Hugh made his few preparations. He wrote a letter to his father and another to Scot. He ate a good breakfast. He examined carefully his revolver and a sawed-off shotgun loaded with slugs.
By way of back alleys he reached the Glory Hole and slipped through the back entrance to a small table in the darkest corner of the saloon. Except for the bartender Hugh was almost alone in the place. Two men, their feet on the rail, were discussing the bonanza in Last Chance Hill. They were comparing the merits of the Real Del Monte and the Wide West, both of which mines were producing very rich ore. Occasionally somebody else drifted in and out again.
The bartender looked curiously at the young fellow with the sawed-off shotgun on the table in front of him. He was a little puzzled to know what to do. He did not want to intrude in anybody’s private affairs, but he did not want any trouble in the Glory Hole. Perhaps this youngster was going hunting and had agreed to meet someone here.
The attendant drifted that way on pretense of wiping a table with a towel.
“Serve you anything?” he asked casually.
“No, thanks.”
“Waitin’ for someone?”
“Yes.”
“Can I take care of the gun till yore friend gets here?”
“Thanks. It’s no trouble.”
“Live here?”
“Yes. Wood contract for the Real Del Monte.”
The young stranger’s manner was so matter of fact that the bartender’s suspicions, not very strong, were lulled to rest. It was not likely, anyhow, that this boy with the golden down on his cheeks could be looking for trouble.
There came an irruption of patrons and the man with the apron became busy. Then another group swept into the place. There were five of them. In the van was Dutch. Hugh recognized Buckley, Daily, and Three-Fingered Jack. They took noisily a table close to the one where Hugh sat.
Daily, about to sit down, gripped the back of his chair hard and stared at the man behind the sawed-off shotgun. He did not take his seat. Instead, out of one corner of his mouth, he dropped a word of warning to Dutch. Then, as though moved by a careless impulse to speak to the bartender, he sauntered to the front of the room.
Dutch slewed round his head and looked at Hugh. Neither of them spoke a word. The killer was not drunk. He was in that depressed state of mind which follows heavy drinking after the stimulus has died down. One glance was enough to make clear to him his carelessness. By the crook of a finger his foe could fill him full of buckshot.
The ticking of a clock behind the bar was the only sound in the room. The gun-fighters with Dutch dared not rise to slip out of the line of fire for fear McClintock might misunderstand the movement and blaze away.
Hugh broke the silence. “If any of you gentlemen have business elsewhere Mr. Dutch and I will excuse you.”
All of them, it appeared, had matters needing their attention. They moved swiftly and without delay.
Dutch begged for his life. His ugly face was a yellowish-green from fear. “I was jes’ a-foolin’, young fellow. I didn’t aim to hurt you none. Only a li’l’ joke. Ole Sam don’t bear no grudge. Le’s be friends.”
The man with the shotgun said nothing. With the tip of his forefinger he tapped slowly three times on the wooden top of the table.
The bad man gave a low moan of terror. He had no thought but that he had come to the end of the passage. His brain was too paralyzed to permit him to try to draw his revolver. Nemesis was facing him.
“Hands on the table,” ordered Hugh.
The big hands trembled up and fell there. Abjectly Dutch pleaded for the mercy he had never given another man. He would leave camp. He would go to Mexico. He would quit carrying a gun. Any terms demanded he would meet.
Hugh sat in a corner with his back to the wall. He was protected by his position from any attack except a frontal one, in case the companions of Dutch moved to come to his rescue. They had, in point of fact, no such intention. Though Dutch belonged to their gang, he had always been an obnoxious bully. He was a quarrelsome, venomous fellow, and more than once had knifed or shot those of his own crowd. Nobody liked him, least of all those who had accepted him as leader.
Three-Fingered Jack leaned back with his elbows hitched on the bar and grinned cynically as he listened to the whining of the huge ruffian.
“He claims to be a man-eater, Sam does,” he whispered to Daily. “Calls himself Chief of Main Street. Fine. We’ll let him play his own hand. He sure wouldn’t want us interferin’ against a kid. All night I’ve listened to his brags about what all he’d do to this McClintock guy. Now I’m waitin’ to see him do it.”
“What’s eatin’ the kid?” demanded Daily, also in a whisper. “Why don’t he plug loose with the fireworks? You can’t monkey with Sam. First thing he knows he won’t know a thing, that kid won’t. He’ll be a sure enough corpus delinqui.”
But Hugh took no chances. He knew what he was waiting for. Thirty minutes by the watch he held the desperado prisoner. When Dutch got restless he tapped the table three times with his finger tip, and the man began to sweat fear again. The big bully never knew at what moment the boy might crook his finger.
“You’re goin’ on a journey,” Hugh explained at last. “You’re takin’ the stage outa town. The Candelabria one is the first that leaves. So you’re booked for a seat in it. And you’re not buyin’ a return trip ticket. Understand?”
Dutch understood humbly and gratefully. His gratitude was not to this fool of a boy whom he meant to destroy some day, but to the luck which was bringing him alive out of the tightest hole he had ever been in.
Under orders from Hugh the bartender disarmed Dutch. Still covered by the shotgun, the sullen dethroned chief climbed into the stage that was about to leave.
From a saloon farther down the street a Negro’s mellow voice was lifted in song:
“Ole Dan and I, we did fall out,
An’ what you t’ink it was about?
He tread on my corn an’ I kick him on de shin,
An’ dat’s de way dis row begin.
So git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,
Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,
Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,
You’re too late to come to supper.”
A crowd had gathered on the street. It watched with eagerness the taming of this bad man. In the old fighting West nobody was more despised than a cowed “man-eater.” The good citizen who went about his business and made no pretensions held the respect of the community. Not so the gunman whose bluff had been called.
On the outskirts of the crowd a quiet man—he was Captain J. A. Palmer and he had nerves of steel—took up the chorus of the song derisively. Others began to hum it, at first timidly, then more boldly:
“Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,
Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,
Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,
You’re too late to come to supper.”
Before the last verse the song was going with a whoop. Nearly everybody present had sidestepped Dutch. Many had gone in fear of his vicious, erratic temper. It was a great relief to see him humiliated and driven away.
Dutch looked neither to the right nor to the left. He sat hunched in his seat, head down and teeth clenched. At any moment the demonstration might turn into a lynching bee now that Aurora had lost its fear of him.
The stage rolled away in a cloud of dust.
Hugh turned, to find himself facing Captain Palmer.
“Don’t you know better than to let Sam Dutch get away alive after you’ve got the drop on him?” Palmer asked.
“I couldn’t kill him in cold blood.”
“Hmp! He’d have killed you that way, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes. But I’m no murderer.”
Palmer looked the youth over with a new respect. “Shoot straight?”
“I’m a pretty good shot.”
“Kill if you had to?”
“Yes.”
“Young fellow, I want you. What you doing now?”
“Wood contract.”
“Finish it. Then come see me. We want a shotgun messenger to ride with the stage. Got to stop these hold-ups. Big pay and little work.”
Hugh smiled. “Guaranteed as a nice safe job, is it?”
“Safe as running Sam Dutch out of town,” Palmer answered, meeting the smile with another.
Young McClintock shook his head. “Got another job waiting—one with Uncle Sam.”
“Going to join the army?”
“Yes.”
The Captain nodded. “Good enough. Your country has first call. Go to it, boy.”