The Spook Hills Mystery/Chapter 13

Vida made her way in the face of the freshening wind to where her father stood guard over the empty sheep wagon and waited impatiently her return. Behind her tagged Walt Smith, puffing and pasty-white from the scare he had gotten.

"Poppy, either you or Walt will have to go and stay with the sheep," she announced firmly, when she came near and the lightning split the darkness and revealed him to her. "Burney killed one of the dogs—but you needn't be scared, either one of you. I put him on the run, shooting at him. He won't bother again to-night—he never has, after he has been shot at."

"He oughta be killed!" snarled her father ineffectively. "A man that'll murder"

"You can suit yourself which one goes back to the sheep. It's going to storm pretty quick—and storm hard, too. I've got to git me something to eat, and rest up. I'm about done up, as it is." She started to climb up into the wagon, but stopped in the doorway and turned toward the two. "Where's the sheriff at?" she asked. "And what's he going to do about Burney?"

"I ain't runnin' the sheriff," her father retorted, with the petulance of the weak-souled. "How sh'd I know where he's at? Went back to town with the cor'ner, I guess, after we buried Jake, He couldn't do nothing about Burney—not after the cor'ner's jury let him off. Sheriff can't run a man in without a warrant," he explained, in the tone of weary tolerance for a woman's ignorance which some men love to assume. "He didn't have no warrant. Yuh got to git something on Burney 'fore he c'n be 'rested."

"Yes, and he'd run loose a good long while before you ever done anything about it—but talk!" she accused bitterly. "'N it was your own brother, too. And your sheep. Walt Smith, you git back there and look after 'em! What you gitting paid for? You needn't be scared-a Burney. All you gotta do is shoot if he shows up, and he'll run. You seen how quick he headed the other way when I shot? He won't show up, though. He's halfways home by this time."

She waited until she saw Walt turn reluctantly and go off toward the sheep. She upbraided her father again for his weak passivity that spent precious minutes in useless clamor, and told him to keep watch while she slept. In the morning, she declared, she meant to get out after Burney herself, seeing no one else had the nerve to do it.

When she had made her feelings and her intentions perfectly clear to him—and thereby claimed [sic] and clarified her own mind—she ate hungrily of cold, fried bacon and some very good bread which she herself had baked, and finished with a dish of stewed, dried apples and a cup of cold tea.

After that she lay down upon her hard bed, with her six-shooter cuddled under her pillow and her fingers touching the cool butt of it, and listened to the grumbling mutter of the storm and watched the searing lightning flash intermittent glares of light upon her bowed, canvas roof.

She fell asleep so. For she was young and healthy and sturdy of spirit, and she had seen Burney, the giant, turn and run from her and her gun—and she had lost her fear of him.

The rain came suddenly, and pelted the sageland with great globes of cold water hurled earthward. Sheets of it, like a gray wall, with the gashing sword-thrusts of the lightning and the splitting crash of thunder—and still she slept. All her life she had known those terrific thunderstorms of the plains country, and the shelter of that twelve-ounce canvas over her head spelled security to her nerves.

Her father pottered peevishly about, piling harness and saddles under the wagon and lifting his blankets up under the canvas top. He muttered querulously to himself at the vileness of fate and the passionate fury of the storm, while he spread his bed upon the floor between the stove and the hinged table, and, with a grunt, laid himself down at last for his belated rest. And Vida slept quietly, heavily, utterly worn out and gathering strength for what was to come.

In the morning came Shelton and Spider to see how she had fared, and to learn whether they had seen or heard anything of the murderer of her uncle. That, at least, was their professed errand; probably they merely made that an excuse for riding over.

Spider had been made a deputy before the sheriff left, so that he might feel behind him the authority of the law in case an emergency rose. The sheriff, he explained to Vida apologetically, would have stayed and hunted the hills over—if he had known who, or what, he was to search for.

"He's plumb up ag'inst a mystery," Spider asserted, "and he ain't got the time to turn out and play detective. Shep and me's going to try our hands at that. And if we get anything that looks like a clew, we're to let him know. You see, since Burney's proved he never done it"

"That'll take a' lot more proof than he's furnished yet," Vida cut in stubbornly. "He tried to kill poppy last night, but he got hung up trying to get under the wagon. He tore poppy's shirt, and then he run. And he went down to the band and killed a dog, and tried to kill Walt Smith. But"

"How do you know?" Spider moved closer, and his eyes were sharpened while he stared into her face. "How do you know it was Burney?"

"Because I seen him, and poppy seen him. I seen him chasing Walt, and I took a couple of shots at him. He turned and run then, like a scared rabbit."

"You're sure it was Burney?" Spider still stared hard at her.

"Of course I'm sure! Do you think he's easy to mistake? He wasn't more'n fifty yards away when the lightning lit up everything, and I shot at him. He was as plain as you are this minute."

"What time was that? It started in to lightning about half past ten"

"And it was the first bright flash that showed him up. It was moonlight till then, and then the storm rolled up in front of the moon. Poppy seen him by moonlight"

Spider turned and looked inquiringly at Shelton. "You know what time Burney came home," he said.

"Then he was gone last night?" Vida stood up. quivering for the hunt. Till then she may have had a subconscious doubt of Burney's guilt in spite of the evidence of her eyes.

"He was gone," stated Shelton mystifiedly, "but he came back just after the storm started. Spider and I were going to follow and see where he went. But we didn't miss him till just before the storm came up, because he'd left a candle burning after we'd all gone to bed. Spider got up and looked, and the light was out. And we went down and found out that his horse was gone—and that was just when it begun to thunder and lightning. And we were going to saddle up and come over here, anyway, when it started to rain like all get-out. We were waiting for it to let up a little, when Burney came back. We saw him ride down the hill—it was lightning something fierce by that time—and we beat it back to the bunk house before he came up. We didn't want him to know we were watching him, you see." Shelton had still a purple-and-green lump on his forehead, but he was otherwise his old, cheerful self.

"You don't know how long he'd been gone?" Vida was plainly puzzled. This might prove another alibi.

"Not more than an hour or two. Because I made an excuse to go to the cabin just about nine o'clock, and Burney was in bed then, reading a novel by candlelight. He'd acted pretty gloomy—didn't he, Spider?—after we all got home. Didn't eat any supper, but sat and smoked and looked at his toes as if he were thinking pretty hard about something. So when I saw him reading in bed, Spider and I kind of made up our minds that he had settled down for the night. So we went to bed. We meant to put in the day looking around, whether Burney liked it or not. And then Spider saw the light go out, and got up to make sure—and Burney was gone. So"

"How about the other fellows?" Vida was putting bacon sandwiches in a flour sack with the evident intention of spending the day in the hills.

"Oh, they claim that Burney don't know a thing about the—killing. They're off riding the other way to-day." Spider took it upon himself to explain. "I'm supposed to be, too. I just pulled out with Shep and never said a word to anybody. I'm liable to git my time—but that'll be all right. There's other jobs. I might herd sheep for a change," he said, with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Well, if you're going into the hills, I'm going with you," Vida announced decisively. "I ain't afraid of Burney any more, and"—she gritted her teeth over the thought—"I'd just like to have a hand in rounding him up. I ain't afraid of him. I've found out that a gun is bigger than he is—and he knows it. And I can shoot just as well as either of you. So I'm going."

"It'll be pretty hot," Spider objected weakly. "And it's rough going, too—where we're going."

"It won't be any hotter in the hills than it will be in this wagon," Vida argued. "And I was raised on rough going."

"Well, we'd like to have you with us, all right"—Spider flushed over the admission, which to him sounded extremely significant—"but we ain't going after Burney exactly. We don't know what we're going after. That spook, maybe. Put it any way you like, Miss Williams, it's a cinch Burney never killed your uncle. He couldn't, when he was in Pocatello all that day."

"The sheriff lied, maybe." Vida had a streak of stubbornness that was slow to yield.

"No, he never. And there was the coroner, too. He seen Burney in Pocatello, and talked with him, and they was together. Him and the sheriff was both down there from Shoshone, and your herder went there after 'em, 'stead of waiting at Corona till they come up. He'll tell you himself he seen Burney in Pocatello. No, we got to look for some one else that's hiding out in these hills."

"There's last night, too," Shelton pointed out to her. "How do you suppose Burney could ride twelve or fifteen miles in less than an hour?" This was secondhand wisdom which he had picked up from Spider's deductions on the way over.

"How could there be another man the size of Burney in the country and nobody know it?" Vida came back at him. "Tracks and everything prove—and, besides, didn't I tell you I seen him?"

"At night," said Spider patiently. "Always at night. Why, I could strap a pair of stilts onto my legs and fix to look like Burney—at night. Lord!" he ejaculated. "I believe I've fell onto the answer to the whole blame thing!"

Vida looked at him with her lips parted. Inwardly she was seeing how plausible that solution was, after all. She herself had gone striding over this very country on crude, homemade stilts, just for fun, when she was a child. Still

"How would stilts make a man so—strong in his hands?" she questioned, with a catch in her voice over the horror her words called up.

"There's tricks to help a man seem a whole lot stronger'n what he is," Spider told her, with something approaching cheerfulness. "There's somebody prowling around these hills trying to git something onto Burney," he declared boldly. "Why, it'd be a cinch, the way he's worked it—only he can't be in two places at once, and he can't watch Burney and do his dirty work all at the same time. So Burney slips alibis over on him now and then, and that kinda spoils his play. Come on, folks!—we'll see what we can figure out on this trail. Anyway, I'll bet money I've got the answer right here—that it's just a common-sized man we want to look for that hates Burney and wants to get him in bad."

"But who'd want to?" Vida persisted in her doubts. "It would take a man half crazy with hate to think up a scheme like killing sheep and—folks—that way, and making big tracks around over the country" She brought the package of sandwiches and gave it to Spider. "That would take the worst kind of an enemy to do that."

"Well, it don't take much to start some men loping along the hate trail," Spider asserted confidently. "Lots of men hate Burney. He's so ungodly big he's got a cinch in everything but a gun fight, and he's kinda queer in his ways, all right. He don't mix with folks, and he don't try to make friends with nobody. So he ain't got so awful many. Well, I'll go git your pony and we'll drift—if you're bound to come with us."

"Poppy's going to be out with the sheep all day. And that's where I draw the line—at sheep-herding. I'll feel lots safer with you boys."

That, of course, settled any lingering reluctance to take her with them. She mounted the pinto pony which Spider saddled and led up to her, and they rode toward the hills. There was no encouragement to look for tracks, after that heavy, pelting rain; they loped along in silence for the most part until they reached the first real climb and were compelled to go slowly.

Vida was studying the mystery from the new angle which Spider had taken with his theory. For that matter, so was Shelton and Spider himself. Spider pulled a foot free of the stirrup, slid over in the saddle so that he was resting mostly on one thigh for relaxation, and sifted tobacco into a cigarette paper.

"Yes, sir, that accounts for pretty nearly everything," he said, apropos of their thoughts. "If we can locate that cave that Shep went prognosticating around in, I'll bet you money we'll nab the gentleman that's been doing all the mischief. Chances are that's where he hangs out. And between you and me, I've got a notion I could name the man. I won't, because I ain't dead sure, and it's a nasty proposition, tacking a crime like that on a fellow till you're dead certain he done it. But there's one fellow, and only one, that might frame up a deal like this and put it through. He's strong as a bull, pretty middling big, and he hates Burney worse'n a schoolma'am hates a worm down her back. He's on the dodge for a killing he done in Hailey a year ago last winter. It was Burney's evidence that put the diamond hitch on him—and he broke jail and ain't been seen since. He left word he'd git Burney and git him right."

"Would he be afraid of a gun?" Vida put the question quite seriously.

The twinkling devil showed in Spider's eyes when he looked at her.

"My experience is that 'most any man is afraid of a gun when he ain't behind it," he informed her dryly. "Everybody knows that Burney never packs a gun, so he couldn't very well produce one and go on acting the part of Burney—sabe? And he wouldn't be crazy about being shot, either. It would be up to him to drift, unless he wanted to give the whole deal away."

"Is he in this country?" Shelton studied the hills before them with that frank curiosity which was almost childish.

"If he's the man, he sure must be in this country. I don't hardly think he's in South America. Ask another one, Shep."

Shelton flushed, glanced quickly at Vida, and refrained from asking another question.

They worked their way up the more open slopes until they were in the heart of Spook Hills. All about them the steeps rose sheer above cañons whose roughness was hidden beneath the deep green of pines, mottled along the middle with the lighter foliage of cottonwoods that told where flowed the tiny streams which never reached the desert beyond.

"It's a great place to hide out in," Spider observed once when they stopped on a high, bare ridge and gazed out over the jumble. "And it's an almighty poor place to find anybody in. It's just a case of ridin' by guess and by gosh, and taking a chance on runnin' acrost anything."

"What about the cave? Aren't you going to hunt around there?" Vida asked him somewhat diffidently. She might bully Shelton and assert her wider experience and laugh at his ignorance, and she might—and did—order her father about like a hired man; but with Spider she was all woman, who recognized man as the leader. Save when she argued over the guilt of Burney, her deference to Spider's masculinity was perfectly noticeable.

"We are if we can find it. Shep, he went and lost it out of his pocket after he got through playin' with it, and he ain't found it again." Spider was finding it easy to joke over the matter now, since he had a theory that left Burney clear of guilt.

"I'll bet I could find it," Vida declared, quite suddenly. "What kind of a place was it, Shep—on the outside? Did it open out onto a rocky knoll, like that over there?" She pointed with her quirt.

"No, it didn't. It was under a ledge on the side of a cañon. It was down east of that ridge where I left you that day—and it went straight back like a long tunnel, and then there were branches, after one went in quite a long way."

Vida studied the hills frowningly. "Lots of caves are like that," she retorted, her eyes smiling across at Spider in a way that Shelton did not find pleasurable to himself. "I could show you a dozen long tunnels that open under ledges in cañons. The hills are full of them. Wasn't there anything else to remember it by?"

Shelton twisted his lips ruefully. "Several things: I lost old Dutch there, and had to walk home, for one. And I met that old Indian squaw that By Jove!" He turned to Spider eagerly. "If we could find her again, she might know whether there's anybody else living here in the hills, don't you think?"

"I thought you said she was crazy." Spider's enthusiasm seemed to conserve itself for his own ideas. "And blind."

"Well—yes, she was. But still"

"If she's blind, she couldn't see him, and if she's crazy, we couldn't depend on anything she said. So what's the use? If you know any caves that might do for a hang out, Vida, let's take a look at 'em. I've got candles."

"I know lots of them. Not on this side, though." Vida examined the nearest bluffs critically. "We'll have to get across this ridge first. It's just like these hills was piled up hot, and before they got cold they crumpled all down on one side and left lumps and hollows all through them. Over on the other side is where 'most all the caves are."

That meant a wide detour, because they were already up so high in the hills that the cañons were not to be crossed except afoot. Shelton wanted to keep straight on, but the other two did not pay much attention to his opinions or his wishes. After all, he was a tenderfoot, and they two were Western to the bone; and, say what you will, there is a certain clannishness among rangefolk, a perfectly natural drawing together of congenial spirits, even when there is no sex attraction to emphasize the partiality. Shelton felt it and became moody, and rode by himself quite pointedly, which did not displease Vida, so far as one could tell by her manner, and which visibly elated Spider, who wanted her to himself, anyway.

Thus they reached again the lower country some distance apart, and, in crossing a series of low ridges, became separated. Shelton did not mind that in the least; in fact, he had assisted the accident by loitering behind a ridge and in letting Dutch climb at a slant that would eventually land him in the home trail. Shelton was sulking as much as it was in his nature to sulk. He had been overlooked in the conversation; he had seen Vida smile at Spider as she had never smiled at himself, and he had been laughed at when he offered suggestions which he considered perfectly good. He had begun to suspect that the quest of the murderer was, after all, secondary in importance to their pleasure in riding through the hills together. A lot they cared about finding clews, so long as they could ride side by side and make eyes at each other, he criticized sharply. He was out to solve the gruesome mystery of these hills, and he could do it a lot easier without those two along making objections to everything he wanted to do. He saw a spooky-looking gorge, all jutting ledges and deep crevices along the sides, off to his right. He turned deliberately into it in spite of the fact that it led straight away from where he had last seen Spider and Vida.