"Could I go downstairs with you and get some coffee, Lew? I don't think Clara would mind."
"Wipe your eyes a bit first." He grinned at her. "Clara is a very understanding woman."
He took her by the arm and they went down together.
But his mind was still puzzling over the strange actions of Ace Saunders. The slim gunman had got the drop on him flat-footedly after helping trail him all the way from Yuma. He could have forced Kerrigan out of the house, or smashed him over the head and got him away in the hopes of finding the secret of Apache renegade gold.
Instead, he'd appeared to be more concerned about Kitty. He'd found out to his satisfaction what he wanted to know. Then, instead of killing Kerrigan on the spot, he'd turned his back and gone downstairs and out through the kitchen.
It made one thing certain in Kerrigan's mind anyhow: Saunders was confident that when they met again under even circumstances he'd still be on his feet with a gun in his hand afterward.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Joe Stovers, looking straight ahead, had not spoken a word to his prisoner as they moved away from the former parade ground. With the reins of his led horse in one hand he walked beside a man now fully revealed as a criminal.
Harrow had regained his aplomb and now he looked over at the sheriff with a faintly amused smile. "No use to get yourself upset, Joe," he remarked suavely. "If it will help remove that outraged thundercloud from your slightly apoplectic features, I'm glad I didn't kill Lew Kerrigan."
"I'll bet!" Stovers almost spat out. "Still haven't given up hope about grabbing yourself another Dalyville, eh?"
"I regret it, of course. With another such strike to back me up I could go East again and sell a cool million dollars' worth of stock. I could make you rich, Joe."
"I know where you're going and it ain't east. It's south, where Lew just came from with your crummy pack of wolves on his trail."
"That's where you're very much wrong, my righteous friend. I'm not going to any penitentiary. I paid the governor of the territory a twenty-thousand-dollar bribe to get Kerrigan out of prison. Regardless of what charges I'm brought to trial for, I'll have full freedom within two or three days. Just long enough to get word to the right person."
"Maybe," grunted Stovers shortly.
He knew Harrow probably was right. The Territorial Governor had sold offices right and left during his administration, receiving a kickback percentage of their state salaries for the favors. But if every paper in the territory knew the full story of Tom Harrow, freedom for him under any legal technicalities would be tantamount to political suicide.
And there was Judge Eaton. The ex-minister had the complete approval of far-seeing men in Arizona who were backing him in his avowed campaign to clean the northern part of the territory of every tough character who came before him while riding circuit court. Stovers had always thought that Eaton was just a mite crazy, but this was one time it might pay off. The Governor already had Harrow's bribe for freeing Kerrigan, and Dalyville was finished as a source of further income. Harrow was through as a mining man with money, and a wily politician afraid of his next election might be somewhat reluctant to give Harrow a clean bill when the facts were laid before him.
Stovers walked on, suddenly feeling very much better.
Under the trees beside the old road several men, armed and nervous, waited. The sheriff told them what had happened, and added a blunt warning to stay on guard at their cabins in case he needed them.
"Where's Judge Eaton?" he demanded.
"Over there in the Pine Knot, Joe," a man replied and nodded toward a low building of chinked logs. "Having a brandy and bellowing about lawlessness in the territory."
"I reckon he'll have a chance to bellow some more," Stovers growled. "Get going, Tom."
"Take these handcuffs off me," Harrow replied angrily. "I'm no common criminal, and I'm not going to run away."
"You ain't no common criminal," the sheriff agreed, "and you damn' sure ain't going to run away."
They walked over to the crude pole porch and found the tall, black-coated figure of the judge. Beside him stood Jeb Donnelly. It was hard to tell what lay back of those eyes above the dirty bandage covering the lower part of the ex-marshal's heavy face. But he looked uneasy.
Stovers said to him almost belligerently, "That shooting over in the old fort was Lew Kerrigan settling accounts with LeRoy and Pete Orr. Seems like he had a friend among them bronco Apaches and didn't get his hair singed. LeRoy and Pete are both dead and Lew is over at Clara's, a place you damn' well better stay away from. That badge you're wearin' don't mean a thing up here, Donnelly. You make one false step after what I've just found out and I'll have you behind log walls."
"You say the murderer Kerrigan is over at Clara's house?" demanded Judge Eaton ominously.
"Yep," replied Stovers.
"Then why haven't you arrested him?" thundered the judge, his thin face darkening. "I appointed you a U.S. Marshal to handle prisoners for a U.S. Court."
"I can only catch me one bird at a time and right now I got my net on the prize of them all."
"On Tom Harrow? Have you lost your senses, Sheriff?"
"Just getting 'em back, maybe," retorted the sheriff. "Come along with me over to my place, Judge, while I put Tom in the log jail. There's been an injustice and I thought you might want to straighten it out." He looked at Jeb Donnelly again, his eyes glinting. "You heard what I said, Donnelly. You walk soft until I talk to the judge. If he says what I think, I just might be back after you."
The sheriff left the horse in front of his modest home and the three of them went through the front yard with its beds of carefully tended flowers. His wife had always loved mountain flowers and Stovers still grew them in profusion during summer. In the front room he removed the handcuffs from Harrow's wrists and nodded for him to sit down.
Judge Eaton sank his gaunt frame into a deep chair, thinking it would soon be time for supper at Clara's, and took a cigar from a box on the table. He lit it and leaned back, drawing slowly on the long cheroot; listening while the sheriff told him the whole story as he had reconstructed it from the very beginning.
Stovers told it with a blunt, steadily rising anger. He reminded the judge that he had wanted to hang Kerrigan and that he, Stovers, had threatened to resign as United States Marshall and wire President Grant.*
* Author's note: This was a common occurrence in those days when there was no Appellate Court to appeal to. It was the only recourse left to a man condemned to the gallows, and President Grant received many such appeals from men condemned by U.S. judges in the various Territories.
Tom Harrow smiled and smoked his own cigar and said nothing. Eaton glanced at him now and then, but mostly he watched the sheriff's blazing eyes.
"So that's about it," Stovers finished. "I've been digging away at this thing for two years, but never could get any concrete proof of what I knew to be the truth. Not until Tom got caught in a corner down there in the old fort a little while ago and admitted the whole business in front of witnesses, after which he figured to kill Lew and then make a run for it. I couldn't get hold of any bronco Apaches to prove he sold them guns and ammunition to kill innocent men and women and kids. Not any more than I can prove he shot Bear Paw Daly after the old fellow led him to the new strike. Judge, you drove down here in your buggy and brought the U.S. prosecutor with you and held awful damn' quick court when I sent you word I'd captured Lew Kerrigan. I told you Tom had collected the territorial reward for some reason that turned out to be the strike, but you refused to admit it in court as evidence. Now what I want to know is where's the prosecutor and how soon you're going to bring him down here again to hold trial?"