The Complete Novels of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

every rubbish pile, every shaded crevice. Some doors were shut, some swung ajar. The street seemed cleared for ambush, yet if Redmain were hidden there, no sign or portent rose to warn Denver. As he considered this he looked aside and found Hominy's men advancing from the high trees. At once he gathered his reins and walked into the clearing, the following men spreading fan-wise to either side of him. Hominy accelerated the pace and deployed his party to command the Wells from behind. Lyle Bonnet, having less room to maneuver on the far side of town, elected to speed up and so reached the street in advance of the others. Denver spurred by the first building and jumped to the high porch of the saloon. Watchfulness gave way. He yelled suddenly. "Spread out! Smash down the doors! Don't bunch up!" And he plunged into the saloon one pace ahead of Lyle Bonnet, gun lifted to debate his entry. The oncoming riders carried him a dozen feet before he hauled short, surprised at what he found.

      There was no opposition, no renegades ranked along the walls. Behind the bar the black giant lolled, saying nothing. A dozen oldish men and six or seven women clustered sullenly at the far end of the place and stared back with apathetic hatred. Half expecting trickery, he turned about. But he could hear the others of his party running from building to building, calling down their signals. Hominy roared a savage challenge. "Where is that skunk-stinkin' pirate? Knock hell out o' the joint!" A woman laughed, shrill and scornful.

      "You better get up earlier in the mornin' to find anybody here, Mister Denver!"

      He swung on the drab group. "Well, where are they?"

      "You'd like to know, wouldn't you?" retorted the woman. "Go and find out!"

      He aimed for a rear door, went through it at a stride, and found himself in a hall. A stairway climbed to dim upper regions. Bonnet and a few others pursued him.

      "Careful," muttered Bonnet; "this is a damned fine slaughterin' pen!"

      Denver struck the banister with his gun barrel and listened to the echo run blankly through upper emptiness. That seemed to convince him. He sprang along the stairs three at a time, arrived at the second-floor landing, and saw more doors yawning into a hall. His men filed in either direction covering these dingy rooms One room at the end seemed larger than the rest, and Denver went in. The bed was made, and a trunk and some personal effects indicated occupancy, but from the open bureau drawers and the scattered tills of the trunk he guessed what Redmain had done.

      "They've scattered," he told the incoming Bonnet. "Took their travelin' gear and departed. Redmain knows he never would be safe a minute with this for headquarters."

      He dropped the top of the trunk and stared at the "L. R." burned in the wood ribs. Bonnet found grim amusement in that. "The high card's own private roost, uh? By golly, he'll sleep in harder places than this from now on."

      Denver only heard part of his foreman's comment. He had found half of a book page tacked to the wall with this fragment of verse on it:

      Into this Universe, and Why Not Knowing

       Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;

       And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,

       I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.

      Denver ripped the page from the wall and crushed it in his blackened fist. "The poor condemned fool! What couldn't a man like that do with a drop of honest blood in his veins? Don't tell me he can't tell what's right and what's wrong. He knows the difference. He'll travel the crooked trail with fire in his heart just because he knows the difference too damned well! And there's the fellow who's going to be hunted like a rat, shot at, starved, brought to stand, and knocked over! He knows better!"

      A woman came, breathless and defiant, to the door; the same one who had scorned him. There was still a trace of prettiness about her. "Can't you keep your dirty hands off his things?" she cried. "Get out of here! You'll never catch Lou Redmain by prowling through his trunk! Leave it alone."

      "It's your room, too, ma'm?" asked Denver.

      "Well, what if it is?"

      "My apologies," said Denver gravely. "I don't make it a habit of enterin' a lady's room. Not even if it's about to be destroyed." He passed her and went down the stairs.

      She followed him. "What's the meaning of that?"

      He crossed the saloon hall again and found Hominy waiting, morose and restless. "Well, they ain't here, that's plumb clear. What about these guineas left behind? Why not pack 'em to Sundown and let the county treat 'em for a while? Otherwise they'll get word to Redmain and tattle. When he comes back—"

      "He won't come back," broke in Denver softly.

      "I ain't sure about that."

      "No. He'll have nothing to come back to. We're putting him on the country for good."

      "What're you driving at?" insisted the woman.

      Denver raised his voice to the uneasy camp followers of the outlaw bunch. "You've got five minutes to pull your belongings out of doors. I am burning the town."

      "Not a bad idee," grunted Bonnet. "I never did burn a town afore. Be somethin' new in a short but sweet life."

      "Lou will kill you!" cried the woman.

      "That's one of the two possibilities," said Denver. "The other is that I may kill him. I reckon you'll only have about four minutes left. It ain't my desire to burn any of your possibles, so I'd suggest you hurry."

      The rest of the riders followed him to the street. "Set fire to four or five places at the same time," said Denver. "This joint is dry as pitch, and it'll go in one quick roar."

      "Ready?" inquired Bonnet.

      "Give these poor devils their chance, Lyle."

      The black barkeep walked from the saloon barehanded. "I come here without nothin' and I'll leave without nothin'. Ain't takin' no favors from you, Mister Denver."

      "That's too bad," drawled Denver. "But maybe you'll do me one. Maybe you'll take a message to Redmain for me."

      "I do nothin' for you, Mister Denver. Never."

      "Just as well. You'd be too slow. Now I see horses in that barn yonder and a wagon. Hitch up the wagon and turn out the rest of the animals."

      The denizens of this condemned town straggled from the buildings. Denver moved down to the end of the street and sat quite still in the saddle. His attention reverted to the stable, and he spoke casually to the nearest hand. "The big boy takes too long to hitch a wagon. Go down there and let him smell the end of your loop." Instead of one, three men galloped off to carry out the chore. Denver felt the restlessness of his party, and he knew they wanted to do the job and be away. But he tarried until he thought all of the people had retrieved their possessions. They came toward him, a shabby, disreputable set that stirred him to faint pity. Aimlessly they milled at the street's end. Out of the stable came the wagon and team, the giant lashing the beasts into a dead run. He had three loops around his neck and three riders spurring ahead, threatening momentarily to haul him out of the vehicle. Denver raised his arm and the ropes slacked away. The giant halted the wagon and rolled his eyes at Denver.

      "'Fore God, you'll suffer fer this!"

      "Somebody suffers," was Denver's laconic answer. He raised his gun to the sky and fired a single shot in warning to whoever might have loitered in the buildings. Then he called out to those men waiting to apply the match. "Let her burn."

      The woman who had enough spirit to defy him ran against his horse. "You—you'll find a day to regret this!" she cried. Of a sudden Denver bent down, one arm sweeping her aside. There was the flat, startling report of a gun. The woman's right hand was wrenched up, revealing the weapon. Denver seized it and threw it far aside; and even then the tight calm remained on him.

      "Can't say I blame you," he muttered. "Was I in your place I reckon I'd do the same."

      The smell of smoke drifted down the street. A sinuous tongue of fire licked up a porch rail. The woman screamed at him.

      "Now I know why they call you Black Dave! You call yourself a man—and