The Rider of Golden Bar

by William Patterson White

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THE FOOL-KILLER

The district attorney, having looked carefully to the fastenings of his windows, tucked a six shooter under his pillow and began to unlace his shoes. Came a rapping at his chamber door and the voice of his housekeeper.

"Say, Art, here's another of your infernal friends at the kitchen door. Says his name's Johnson."

The district attorney, jumping at a conclusion, immediately reached for his six-shooter. "I don't know any Johnsons. Not around here, anyway. What's he look like?"

"Middlin' tall, scrubby lot of black whiskers, talks sort of thick like."

"Pebbles under his tongue, most likely. Tell him to come into the kitchen, so I can get a look without him knowing."

"He won't come in. Says he wants you to come to the door your own self. Says it's important."

At which the district attorney was more than ever certain that the midnight visitor was Billy Wingo. "You go tell him that he'll have to come into the kitchen before I'll talk to him. Close the kitchen door most to. I can look at him through the crack."

The housekeeper departed, and the district attorney slipped off his shoes and tip-toed into the hall. The housekeeper, hair in curl papers and wearing a wrapper, met him before he reached the kitchen door.

"He says he won't come in," she told him, "and told me to tell you he wanted to see about a note for five thousand dollars he has in his pocket."

"Now I know who it is," said the district attorney. "You go to bed. I'll let him in."

After the district attorney heard the slam and following click of his housekeeper's door, he went into the kitchen, turned down the flame of the lamp and opened the kitchen door.

"That you, Rale?" inquired a muffled voice.

"Yes! Come in! Come in!"

The man in outer darkness spat out two pebbles. "Is that damn woman there?" he asked in the natural tone of voice of Jack Murray.

"No! Come in! I want to shut the door."

Jack Murray entered quickly.

"What in hell are you doing here?" demanded the district attorney, when he and the other were behind the closed door of the office. "Don't you know——"

"I wanted to see you," Jack Murray said, seating himself in the nearest chair. "Ain't you glad to see me?"

"Not very," the district attorney said frankly. "If you get caught——"

"I ain't gonna get caught. The man ain't born yet to catch me. I suppose you got the money for that note."

"No, I haven't."

"Why haven't you?"

"I couldn't raise it."

"What's the matter with you? Ain't you got any credit left?"

"Folks won't lend money unless they get security, and I haven't any security that hasn't already been put up."

"He didn't ask for security," thus Jack Murray with an indescribable leer.

"That—was—different."

"I guess it was. Yeah. I always had an idea you were a rich man."

"A lot of people thought so," the district attorney said bitterly. "As a matter of fact, I've been hard pressed for money all my life. I've always had a hand in too many deals."

"You were able to chip in on that reward for me without any trouble."

"I knew I'd never have to pay it. Some day, when all my different enterprises pan out, I'll have money, but now I haven't got any."

"How about that bribe in the Jacksboro range case last fall? Why, they must have paid you all of three or four thousand dollars."

The district attorney shook his head. "No, only twenty-five hundred, and two thousand of that went for some insurance I had to pay in January."

"Two thousand dollars for insurance!"

"That's what I said."

"You're lying. Whoever heard of two thousand dollars for insurance?"

"Oh, I wasn't the only one. Rafe had to pay the same. And Tip a thousand. Oh, never mind trying to understand it. It's too long a story now."

"I guess it is. I ain't carin' much about listening to any such stories, anyway. I didn't ride alla way north from Dorothy just for that. I want the money for that note."

"I haven't it, and you could have gotten that information by writing for it. You didn't have to take the trip. You——"

"The money ain't all I come for. I want to settle my li'l account with Bill Wingo."

"I thought that li'l account was closed," said the district attorney, with the shadow of a sneer that Murray did not catch.

"It won't be closed till Bill Wingo is pushin' up the grass," averred Jack Murray. "This territory ain't big enough for the two of us."

"If you had any sense it would be."

"Meanin'?"

"Meaning that Bill Wingo is a pretty cold proposition for you to handle."

"I'm better than he ever thought of being, and don't you let anybody tell you different. I'll get that —— —— if I have to follow him to hell! Damn his soul! If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be where I am now! If it wasn't for him, I'd be sheriff of this county! If it wasn't for him— Oh, I got a-plenty reasons for putting that Wingo where he belongs."

"Sally Jane, huh?" the district attorney supplied with malice.

"I didn't say anything about Sally Jane."

"I know you didn't. But I got eyes, man. I'll bet you like her still."

"Don't you lose any sleep over who I like."

"I ain't. I only thought you might be interested in knowin' that she and Bill are thick again, like they used to be. Thicker, you might say."

Jack Murray's thin lips became thinner. "Skinny Shindle told me somethin' about him switching to Hazel Walton."

"Don't you believe it," blattered the district attorney, continuing to rapidly pump the bellows on the fire of Jack Murray's hatred. "Hazel Walton was only a passing fancy. Sally Jane is the girl for him, you can gamble on it. Tough luck, Jack. I'll bet you'd have stood better than a fighting chance with her if she hadn't listened to his lies."

"He'll never have her!" snarled Jack Murray, wagging a vicious head. "By Gawd, he won't!"

"I guess she thinks he will—when this muss is cleared up," said the district attorney, with admirably simulated carelessness. "Hazel—I mean Sally Jane——"

"Yeah, Hazel! I'd say Hazel, I would. I should think her name would stick in your craw!"

"Well, never mind about that. I fixed it once to turn her loose, but here this Jonesy comes squallin' for her scalp to-night, and I had to promise to have her arrested to-morrow. What else could I do?"

"Just as if you wanted it any other way! Why, I'll bet you even fixed it with Jonesy to raise a roar so that you'd get this second chance at her. What did that li'l girl ever do to you? Not that I give a damn—just between friends."

"She cost me some money, if you want to know," snarled the district attorney, who saw red every time he thought of the two thousand dollars he had been taxed by Billy Wingo for Hazel's benefit. "And anybody that costs me money will pay for what they get. Look here," he added with an abrupt change of subject, "how did you find out Bill was still in this county?"

Jack Murray gripped the district attorney's wrist. "Do you know where he is?"

Rale shook off the restraining hand. "I don't know exactly where he is," he said coldly, "but I'm reasonably sure he's round here somewhere. Good Gawd, man, don't you suppose if I knew where he was, I'd have him dumped so quick his hair would curl?"

Jack Murray nodded. "He's round here all right, unless he's gone north beyond the West Fork. I cut his trail at Dorothy."

"Was he there?"

"Considerable. Yeah, him and another feller were there. Between 'em they caught Slike."

"Were you with Slike?"

"Not at the time he was caught, I wasn't. But a while before that I met him in Shadyside and I told him what Skinny Shindle wrote about the Horseshoe outfit needin' gunfighters. Slike, he didn't want to leave the country yet, anyway, and we decided to throw in with the Horseshoe a spell."

"But how did Bill——"

"Trailed us, I suppose. First thing I knew, here we found Skinny dead as Julius Cæsar alongside Fenley's Creek, and Slike he'd disappeared complete. There'd been a brush, and Shindle and a TU puncher had cashed."

"And where were you during the—brush?"

"I was on the other side of the range with a couple of the Horseshoe bunch payin' a visit to a nester. If I'd been with Slike and Skinny, the deal would have turned out different, and you can stick a pin in that."

"Yes, you'd have been downed or dumped too."

"Meanin' you wished I had been."

"I didn't say so," the district attorney hastened to assure him.

"You don't always have to say so," said Jack Murray, with heavy suspicion. "I'm reading you like a page of big print, you lizard!"

The district attorney forced a laugh. "You're too clever for me, Jack. Look here, what makes you think it was Bill Wingo caught Slike?"

"Because no posses from here went south so far, and because if anybody else but Bill had caught him, he'd either have been killed outright or brought into Dorothy or Marquis, and there'd have been a big time. Instead of that, there wasn't a peep. So it must have been Bill, see?"

"I see. And you're going to get this Bill?"

"You've got the idea,"

"And you trailed him here?"

"I didn't have to. I knew he'd bring Slike to Golden Bar, so I came along the shortest way. It'll be quite a joke on you, this Slike business. Will he snitch, do you think?"

"He'd better not."

"You frown at him thataway, and you'll scare him to death, Art. He's one timid fawn, that Slike person."

"He'll be——"

"Never mind what he'll be, Art. That's his business, and yours. I didn't come here to help Slike. I came here to get Bill and help yours truly. I want some money."

"I told you I haven't any."

"But you can get it."

"I told you folks want security."

"That will do to tell somebody else besides me. I've got my growth and cut most all my teeth a long time since. You'll have to raise some money—say about fifteen hundred."

"You might as well make it fifteen thousand."

"Maybe I will. Thousand sounds kind of good. Say about three of 'em. Three thousand dollars, Art, and I'll let you alone a while."

"But I tell you——"

"And I tell you that if you don't, that same identical note with a written account of what I know goes to Judge Donelson."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Think I wouldn't? You don't know me, feller. When it comes to money, I'm the most daring cuss you ever saw. That's me, Jack Murray. Three thousand dollars, Artie, or you'll wish you'd never been born."

"I can't raise it," the district attorney insisted despairingly.

"I kind of thought you'd stick to that poverty squeal," smiled Jack Murray, fishing a folded paper from a shirt pocket. "So I took care before I came here to write down what I know about this li'l deal. I thought you might like to see how interestin' it all looks on paper. Hang your eyes over it, feller. Never mind snatchin' at it! I'll hold it for you to read. See, there's my name signed to it all complete. How do you like it, huh? Gives you a thrill, don't it? I'll bet it will give Judge Donelson two thrills. And as an evidence of good faith, to show you I still got it safe, here's your note for that five thousand. It will go with the letter to the judge—unless you listen to reason and raise the three thousand— What's that?"

"That" was a rapping on the kitchen door.

"Go in the bedroom," whispered the district attorney with a very pale face. "You can slide out one of the windows, if I have to let him in."

"I'll go in the bedroom," Jack Murray whispered back, with a chilling smile, "but I ain't sliding out of any windows—not until you and I have come to an agreement about that money. I'll stick right there in the bedroom, Mister Man, right there where I can keep an eye on you. Now go see what's wanted."

"You don't think I've stacked the cards on you, do you?" grunted the district attorney.

"I don't," replied Jack Murray. "Not while I've got that note and the Donelson letter in my pocket, you bet I don't. I ain't worryin' a mite, not me. Run along now, there's a good boy. Papa will be right in the next room."

Thus adjured, the district attorney ran along. Yet not without heart-thumping misgivings. For his was a fearful soul that night. A great deal had happened to upset him.

On his demand that the late caller declare himself, a voice whispered, "It's me, Guerilla Melody. Let me in quick."

"What do you want to see me about?"

"I got a bargain to make with you—a bargain about Bill Wingo."

"Did Bill Wingo send you?"

"You can take it that he did."

After all, why not? What danger was there in listening to the details of Guerilla's bargain? Perhaps he would learn something. Quite so. The district attorney unlocked the kitchen door and opened it.

A tall man pushed in at once. The tall man had a sardonic gleam in his gray eyes, a ragged brown beard, and a derringer. The twin-barreled firearm was pointing directly at the stomach of the district attorney. The district attorney's gun arm hung up and down. The tall, brown-bearded man shot out a quick left hand and deftly twitched away the district attorney's weapon.

"You won't need that," he remarked in a hoarse whisper, tucking the six-shooter into his waistband. "Have you any other weapon on your person? Hold still while I look. No, I guess you haven't. We will now go into your office, Arthur. I have a li'l something for your private ear. I guess I'll lock the kitchen door, so we won't run any risk of being disturbed."

So saying he reached behind him, slammed the door shut, shook it, and turned the key in the lock. The key he dropped into a trouser's pocket.

"What are you waiting for?" he demanded, still in that hoarse whisper.

The district attorney found his tongue—and stood his ground. "Where's Guerilla?"

"I don't know. He left when you decided to let him in. You see, I thought you'd be more likely to open up if it was some one you knew, so I got Guerilla to do the honors. Just a li'l trick, Arthur, just a li'l trick. You're such a shy bird. No hard feelings, I hope. No? Yes? Well?"

"Whonell are you?"

"Me? Oh, I'm the Fool-Killer. Let us walk into your office says the fly to the spider, you being the spider, of course. And if the fly has to say it again, the spider will have something to think about besides the pitfalls of this wicked world. Thank you. I thought you would. And bear in mind that any wild snatches toward table drawers and so forth will be treated as hostile acts."

The district attorney continued to lead the way into the office. He started to sit down in his accustomed chair behind the table.

"Not there—there," said the brown-bearded man, indicating a chair on the other side of the table. "I'd rather sit on the drawer side myself. Not that I expect you to gamble with me, Arthur. But in my business we can't afford to take chances. Are you ready. Gentlemen, be seated."

He uttered the last three words in his natural voice. The district attorney failed to suppress a bleak smile.

"There's my old Arthur," approved Billy Wingo. "I knew he'd be glad to see me, give him time."

"Yes, indeed," declared the district attorney in a loud voice. "I'm always glad to see Bill Wingo. Bill Wingo, you bet."

Billy Wingo's gray eyes narrowed. "Not quite so loud," he reproved the district attorney. "No need to disturb the neighbors."

"Why, no, of course not." The grimy soul of the district attorney capered with joy. What luck! Here was his enemy, and there was his enemy's enemy in the very next room. It would make a cat laugh. It would indeed.

"Arthur," said Billy, "I've been hearing bad reports of you. I understand you've decided to have Miss Walton arrested. Is that correct?"

"Correct, sure. Sorry, but the law's the law, you know."

"You remember what I said I'd do to you."

The district attorney dismissed this with a simple wave of the hand. "Oh, that. A mere bluff."

"It may not be quite as mere as you seem to think. Let me argue with you, Arthur. Suppose I can prove that Dan Slike was at Miss Walton's the night Rafe Tuckleton was murdered. Would that help any?"

"You can't prove it."

"Oh, yes, I can. When he was there, he stole her hat, besides some other stuff, and inside the sweatband of the hat he stuffed the folded upper half of the front page of the Omaha Bee. The other half of the newspaper was found at the Walton ranch house by Shotgun Shillman. He has it now, and when Slike was caught, he was wearing Miss Walton's hat, and inside the sweatband was this particular folded upper half-page I'm telling you about. This evidence is in the possession of Guerilla Melody right now. When this comes out at the trial, why wouldn't that show that Slike was in the vicinity when Tuckleton was killed? And being in the vicinity, why——"

"Impossible!" snapped the district attorney. "I don't see how it could be hung on him."

"Won't you even have his presence there investigated?" Why, Bill was actually pleading. The district attorney swelled his chest like a turkey cock. He would show Bill that he couldn't be bluffed. Not he.

"No, I won't have his presence at the Walton ranch investigated. In the first place——"

"In the first place," said Billy, "I know he didn't kill Tuckleton."

"Then why are you trying to prove he did?"

"Just to see what you'd say. Just to see how dead set against investigating Slike you are. Just to double-cinch the proof against the real criminal. You know that Dan Slike didn't kill Tuckleton, but that isn't why you don't dare read his trail too much. One reason is that if you do, he'll be sure to blat right out how you and Felix and Sam Larder helped him to escape from the calaboose. Don't blush, Arthur. I know how modest you are. So we'll take it I'm right."

"Oh, you're welcome to what you think," said the district attorney. "But just for the sake of argument, how do you know that Slike didn't kill Tuckleton?"

"Because the initialed butcher knife Slike took with him from Miss Walton's was still on him when he was caught."

"There must have been two knives!"

"There were two knives, but only one belonged to Miss Walton. Rale, when you and Felix and Larder caught Red Herring in the draw a few minutes before you found the dead body of Tuckleton, why didn't you ask more questions about Red being there so handy?"

"Because Red couldn't have had anything to do with it."

"I know he couldn't, but you weren't supposed to know he couldn't. You were supposed to ask questions about any suspicious circumstances, and did you? Not a question did you ask in town as to Red's movements that evening. You simply took his word for it, which wasn't natural—except under a certain condition. A certain condition, you understand, and it never occurred to me until I found that second knife. It would have saved a lot of trouble if I had thought of it sooner. Rale, you didn't ask any questions either about Red being in the draw or Slike being at the Walton ranch house, and you gave out that Miss Walton herself had killed Tuckleton because you had planned ahead that she was the one you were going to hang the murder on. And why did you have it planned ahead? And how did you know it all so certain sure? How, damn you, how? Because you killed Tuckleton yourself!"

The district attorney sat perfectly still. His eyes stole toward the bedroom door. What on earth was the matter with Jack Murray? Why didn't he shoot?

"I don't know why you killed him," went on the inexorable voice, "but you did. I've found out that early last spring you went to Nate Samson and borrowed his hardware catalogue, Nate being the only storekeeper here handling hardware. Yes, Nate. I knew you must have gone to Nate, because you weren't out of town all winter, that's how. Nate said that you were the only customer to borrow the catalogue. He said too that you told him when you returned it that you hadn't found what you wanted. I sent a telegram to the supply house getting out this catalogue, and their answer stated that you had ordered from them back in February, a butcher knife, paying for it in stamps. They gave the catalogue number of this butcher knife, and the catalogue number is the same number as that of the butcher knife with which Tuckleton was killed. You cut TW on the handle of this knife, rusted it a little and ground it some, and then you—well, after you did for Rafe there in the draw near her house, you rode back to Golden Bar, gassed a while with Felix and Sam, and then you were in such a sweat to get the thing settled you couldn't even wait till next day. You had to ride out to question Miss Walton that same night. Another unnecessary circumstance. Rale, you rat, I've got you right where you can't even wriggle."

Billy leaned across the table to emphasize what he was saying, heard a slight sound in the bedroom and promptly blew out the lamp. With a heave of one arm he slammed the table over on the district attorney. The latter, taking the table to his bosom, went over backward, together with the chair he sat in, and wallowed on the floor.

Bang! a six-shooter crashed in the bedroom. A streak of yellow flame cut the darkness. A bullet snicked into the floor a yard from where Billy crouched. He emptied his derringer at the flash and changed position hurriedly. As he pulled his six-shooter, there was another shot from the bedroom, a shot that wrung an apprehensive yelp from the district attorney.

"Don't shoot so far to the right! Y'almost hit me! He's over to the left more. About where the red chair stands."

This would never do. Never. First thing Billy knew, he would be shot. He stretched forth a hand, and breathed an inward curse. There was certainly a chair not a foot from his face. Taking care not to make a sound he lifted the chair by one leg and lobbed it through the air in the general direction of the district attorney. The results were immediate. The chair arrived, the district attorney squawked, and the man in the bedroom fired again, not according to the orders of the district attorney, but toward the spot where the chair had fallen. Billy pulled trigger at the flash of the other's gun. Then he began to crawl toward the bedroom door. He was a thorough believer in the doctrine of "getting in where it's warm." He succeeded beyond his expectations. The occupant of the bedroom, who had removed his boots, tiptoed around the door jamb and stepped on Billy's hand.

Both guns exploded simultaneously. What happened next has never been clear in Billy's mind. He only knows that his head rang like a struck bell at the shot, and burning powder grains stung his ear and neck. He fired blind. A voice above his head cried aloud on the name of God, a hot and sweaty body collapsed upon him, and he dragged himself out from under precisely in time to glimpse the district attorney who, having torn open the door into the hall, was silhouetted for an instant against the dim radiance emanating from the kitchen.

Billy hunched his right shoulder, took a snapshot, and drove an accurate bullet through the right leg of the district attorney.

"He's comin' around," said Shotgun Shillman. "You shot too high, Bill. Y'ought to held lower, and you'd drilled his heart or anyway, a lung. Now he'll be a invalid nuisance for a while, like Rale."

"If I'd known you'd be so upset about it, I'd obliged you, Shotgun," returned Billy sarcastically. "As a matter of fact, I wanted both of 'em alive. You can't try dead men.

"That's so," assented Shotgun. "But what a waste of time, when— Oh, all right, all right, Bill. Have it your own way. You're the dog with the brass collar, even if you do have to sleep in the jail till the warrants against you are annulled."

"What's Jack trying to do?" Riley Tyler asked. "Here, take that out of your mouth!"

It was Billy who reached Jack Murray first. He snatched the wadded ball of paper from Jack before he could close his teeth over it. Jack groaned.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," apologized Billy. "But I had to grab your jaw. You were so quick."

"You didn't hurt me," snarled Jack Murray. "It was somethin' else."

"What is the thing?" queried Guerilla Melody.

Billy smoothed out the crumpled wad. It appeared to be a letter and a promissory note.

"I forbid you to read that!" cried the district attorney, attempting to drag himself across the floor toward Billy. "That letter is personal and my private property!"

"You lie quiet," directed Riley Tyler. "If you go busting those bandages open, I'll bust you. Lie back, lie down, and take it easy. There's nothing for you to get excited over. Everything's all right. Yeah. That's the boy. Do as Uncle says."

"What's the writing, Bill?" inquired Shotgun. "Read her off."

Billy read:

JUDGE HIRAM DONELSON,
Hillsville.

DEAR SIR:—The man who killed Rafe Tuckleton is the county prosecutor Arthur Rale. Rale owed Tuckleton five thousand dollars on a note and couldn't pay it. Rafe wanted his money. Early in the evening on the day he was killed, Tuckleton came to Rale's house where I was at the time, and demanded payment. He brought the note with him. Rale refused and they quarreled. Tuckleton had been drinking. Before Tuckleton left, he said he was going to the Walton ranch. After he left, Rale told me he had planned some time ago to kill Tuckleton and get the note back at the first opportunity. This looked like a good opportunity. Rale showed me a butcher knife. He said it was just like one at the Walton ranch. He had cut Tom Walton's initials on the handle so it would be like it. Rale said he had tried to get the original knife, but had not been able to. This one he had fixed up had to do. He said when his knife was found on Rafe's body, everybody would think Hazel Walton had killed him, and nobody would believe her if she said the knife wasn't hers. He had it in for Hazel anyway, he said, and by rubbing out Rafe and laying the blame on her, he'd win two bets at one throw. Suppose they found the regular Walton knife, I said. Rale said it wouldn't make any difference. Anybody might know she could easy have two knives. Well, he offered me two hundred dollars cash to kill Rafe with this knife. I wouldn't do it, so he had a couple of drinks and said he'd kill Rafe himself. He asked me to go with him. I went, and we hung around Walton's till Tuckleton came out, and then we followed him, and Rale stopped him down the draw and said, I've got the money for you, Rafe. And Tuckleton got off his horse and then Rale stepped up close to him and let him have it. He stuck the knife in him a couple of times after Tuckleton was down and wriggling round. When Tuckleton was dead, Rale took the note out of Tuckleton's pocketbook, and I held Rale up and took the note away from him. I thought maybe I might want to show him up some day, or sell it to him or something, when he got hold of some money. I was going to make him pay for it, one way or another.

Here is the note he took off Tuckleton.

The district attorney will tell you who I am if I don't, so I haven't any objections to signing my name. I'll be in Old Mexico by the time you read this, anyway. So long, and give Rale what he deserves.

Yours truly,
(Signed) JACK MURRAY.

Billy handed the letter and the Rale note to Shotgun Shillman, who folded both carefully and slipped them into an inner pocket of his vest. "And did you hear Rale say these were his private property?"

Shotgun Shillman nodded happily. "Even without 'em, there is enough evidence to hang him. But there's nothing like swinging a wide loop if you want to rope two at a clatter."

Billy's eyes followed Shotgun's side glance at Jack Murray. "You needn't look at me thataway," snarled Jack. "I'm no snitch! I only wrote that letter to throw a scare into Rale. I'd never have sent it to the judge a-tall!"

"Maybe you're no snitch," Billy flung back, with deep disfavor, "even if it does look like it, but you were skunk enough to let an innocent girl be blamed for murder."

"That was different. She hadn't ought to horned in on what was none of her business. If she hadn't— Oh, hell, what's the use? Gimme a chew, somebody."