'Firebrand' Trevison Part 31

"Well, you're a puzzle!" he said. She saw him leap into the saddle, and she ran to the lamp, blew out the flame, and returned to the open door, in which she stood for a long time, listening to rapid hoof beats that gradually receded. Before they died out entirely there came the sound of many others, growing in volume and drawing nearer, and she beat her hands together, murmuring:

"Run, n.i.g.g.e.r--run, run, run!"

She closed the door as the hoof beats sounded in the yard, locking it and retreating to the foot of the stairs, where Agatha stood.

"What does it all mean?" asked the elder woman. She was trembling.

"Oh, I don't know," whispered the girl, gulping hard to keep her voice from breaking. "It's something about Trevison's land. And I'm afraid, Aunty, that there is something terribly wrong. Mr. Corrigan says it belongs to him, and the court in Manti has decided in his favor. But according to the record in Trevison's possession, _he_ has a clear t.i.tle to it."

"There, there," consoled Agatha; "your father wouldn't permit--"

"No, no!" said the girl, vehemently; "he wouldn't. But I can't understand why Trevison fights so hard if--if he is in the wrong!"

"He is a desperado, my dear; a wild, reckless spirit who has no regard for law and order. Of course, if these men are after him, you will tell them he was here!"

"No!" said the girl, sharply; "I shan't!"

"Perhaps you shouldn't," acquiesced Agatha. She patted the girl's shoulder. "Maybe it would be for the best, dear--he may be in the right.

And I think I understand why you went riding with him so much, dear. He may be wild and reckless, but he's a man--every inch of him!"

The girl squeezed her relative's hand and went to open the door, upon which had come a loud knock. Corrigan stood framed in the opening. She could see his face only dimly.

"There's no occasion for alarm, Miss Benham," he said, and she felt that he could see her better than she could see him, and thus must have discerned something of her emotion. "I must apologize for this noisy demonstration. I believe I'm a little excited, though. Has Trevison pa.s.sed here within the last hour or so?"

"No," she said, firmly.

He laughed shortly. "Well, we'll get him. I've split my men up--some have gone to his ranch, the others have headed for Levins' place."

"What has happened?"

"Enough. Judge Lindman disappeared--the supposition is that he was abducted. I placed some men around the courthouse, to safeguard the records, and Trevison broke in and set fire to the place. He also robbed the safe in the bank, and killed Braman--choked him to death. A most revolting murder. I'm sorry I disturbed you--good night."

The girl closed the door as he left it, and leaned against it, weak and shaking. Corrigan's voice had a curious note in it. He had told her he was sorry to have disturbed her, but the words had not rung true--there had been too much satisfaction in them. What was she to believe from this night's events? One thought leaped vividly above the others that rioted in her mind: Trevison had again sinned against the law, and this time his crime was murder! She shrank away from the door and joined Agatha at the foot of the stairs.

"Aunty," she sobbed; "I want to go away. I want to go back East, away from this lawlessness and confusion!"

"There, there, dear," soothed Agatha. "I am sure everything will come out all right. But Trevison _does_ look to be the sort of a man who would abduct a judge, doesn't he? If I were a girl, and felt that he were in love with me, I'd be mighty careful--"

"That he wouldn't abduct you?" laughed the girl, tremulously, cheered by the change in her relative's manner.

"No," said Agatha, slyly. "I'd be mighty careful that he _got_ me!"

"Oh!" said the girl, and buried her face in her aunt's shoulder.

CHAPTER XXV

IN THE DARK

Trevison faced the darkness between him and the pueblo with a wild hope pulsing through his veins. Rosalind Benham had had an opportunity to deliver him into the hands of his enemy and she had not taken advantage of it. There was but one interpretation that he might place upon her failure to aid her accomplice. She declined to take an active part in the scheme.

She had been pa.s.sive, content to watch while Corrigan did the real work.

Possibly she had no conception of the enormity of the crime. She had been eager to have Corrigan win, and influenced by her affection and his arguments she had done what she could without actually committing herself to the robbery. It was a charitable explanation, and had many flaws, but he clung to it persistently, nurturing it with his hopes and his hunger for her, building it up until it became a structure of logic firmly fixed and impregnable. Women were easily influenced--that had been his experience with them--he was forced to accept it as a trait of the s.e.x. So he absolved her, his hunger for her in no way sated at the end.

His thoughts ran to Corrigan in a riot of rage that pained him like a knife thrust; his l.u.s.t for vengeance was a savage, bitter-visaged demon that held him in its clutch and made his temples pound with a yearning to slay. And that, of course, would have to be the end. For the enmity that lay between them was not a thing to be settled by the law--it was a man to man struggle that could be settled in only one way--by the pa.s.sions, naked, elemental, eternal. He saw it coming; he leaped to meet it, eagerly.

Every stride the black horse made shortened by that much the journey he had resolved upon, and n.i.g.g.e.r never ran as he was running now. The black seemed to feel that he was on the last lap of a race that had lasted for more than forty-eight hours, with short intervals of rest between, and he did his best without faltering.

Order had come out of the chaos of plot and counterplot; Trevison's course was to be as direct as his hatred. He would go to the pueblo, take Judge Lindman and the record to Santa Fe, and then return to Manti for a last meeting with Corrigan.

A late moon, rising from a cleft in some distant mountains, bathed the plains with a silvery flood when horse and rider reached a point within a mile of the pueblo, and n.i.g.g.e.r covered the remainder of the distance at a pace that made the night air drum in Trevison's ears. The big black slowed as he came to a section of broken country surrounding the ancient city, but he got through it quickly and skirted the sand slopes, taking the steep acclivity leading to the ledge of the pueblo in a dozen catlike leaps and coming to a halt in the shadow of an adobe house, heaving deeply, his rider flung himself out of the saddle and ran along the ledge to the door of the chamber where he had imprisoned Judge Lindman.

Trevison could see no sign of the Judge or Levins. The ledge was bare, aglow, the openings of the communal houses facing it loomed dark, like the doors of tombs. A ghastly, unearthly silence greeted Trevison's call after the echoes died away; the upper tier of adobe boxes seemed to nod in ghostly derision as his gaze swept them. There was no sound, no movement, except the regular cough of his own laboring lungs, and the rustle of his clothing as his chest swelled and deflated with the effort. He exclaimed impatiently and retraced his steps, peering into recesses between the communal houses, certain that the Judge and Levins had fallen asleep in his absence. He turned at a corner and in a dark angle almost stumbled over Levins. He was lying on his stomach, his right arm under his head, his face turned sideways. Trevison thought at first that he was asleep and prodded him gently with the toe of his boot. A groan smote his ears and he kneeled quickly, turning Levins over. Something damp and warm met his fingers as he seized the man by the shoulder, and he drew the hand away quickly, exclaiming sharply as he noted the stain on it.

His exclamation brought Levins' eyes open, and he stared upward, stupidly at first, then with a bright gaze of comprehension. He struggled and sat up, swaying from side to side.

"They got the Judge, 'Brand'--they run him off, with my cayuse!"

"Who got him?"

"I ain't reckonin' to know. Some of Corrigan's sc.u.m, most likely--I didn't see 'em close."

"How long ago?"

"Not a h.e.l.l of a while. Mebbe fifteen or twenty minutes. I been missin' a lot of time, I reckon. Can't have been long, though."

"Which way did they go?"

"Off towards Manti. Two of 'em took him. The rest is layin' low somewhere, most likely. Watch out they don't get _you_! I ain't seen 'em run off, yet!"

"How did it happen?"

"I ain't got it clear in my head, yet. Just happened, I reckon. The Judge was settin' on the ledge just in front of the dobie house you had him in.

I was moseyin' along the edge, tryin' to figger out what a light in the sky off towards Manti meant. I couldn't figger it out--what in h.e.l.l was it, anyway?"

"The courthouse burned--maybe the bank."

Levins chuckled. "You got the record, then."

"Yes."

"An' I've lost the Judge! Ain't I a box-head, though!"

"That's all right. Go ahead. What happened?"