“You see some people in town?” he asked.
Burns nodded.
“Man with scar across his face,” said Raymond. “Call himself Gunderson, maybe. Maybe something else.”
“What about him?” asked Burns.
“He get us into this,” snarled Raymond. “He come to us, he say easy pickings here. So we come and we have easy pickings and then one day he leave us and the sheriff come.”
Raymond made a motion with his forefinger across his throat, made a noise like a spurting jugular.
“We think he sell us out,” he said.
“You think he’d still stick around here if he’d sold you out?”
Raymond’s face wrinkled like a worried hound dog’s. “Something funny,” he said. “Something smell. Judge, he won’t let us tell about this man in court. Judge, he won’t let us say a thing. Like maybe judge he know about this man and don’t want us to spill the beans.”
“Red headed man?” asked Burns. “Scar across his face. Finger missing on his left hand.”
“That’s him. That’s him. You know him.”
“He jumped me this afternoon,” said Burns.
“And you? Of course, you kill him?”
“Of course,” said Burns.
Raymond let the breath out of his lungs slowly.
“You hear that?” he asked the other three.
He swung back on Burns.
“Name of Gunderson? You sure?”
“Name of Kagel,” said Burns. “But that doesn’t make any difference. I knew him once before and his name was Taylor.”
“Man of many names,” said Raymond quickly.
“He sure took you for a ride,” Burns told them. “Helped Carson hang it on you. Carson had to find some scapegoat to explain the range terror that he used to drive the ranchers out and so he got Kagel or Gunderson or whatever you want to call him to fix you fellows up as the fall guys.”
Raymond’s eyes narrowed. “Tricked?”
“That’s it,” said Burns. “Carson’s outfit stole and burned and killed and you were blamed for it—they’re hanging you for it.”
Raymond rocked quietly on his toes and laughed softly to himself.
“No, we not hang. We got it all fixed up.”
He rose to his feet. “Come,” he said.
He shuffled toward the other end of the room and Burns followed, trailed by the other three. A packing box stood near one corner and Raymond indicated it.
“Table,” he said. “Play the monte on him.”
He laid hands on the box, grunted, shoved it to one side.
“Look,” he said, pointing.
Burns knelt on the dirt floor, staring. A dark hole gaped up at him. Behind him he heard Raymond chuckling.
“We dig,” said Raymond. “We dig like hell. Use old pie plate. Hide dirt under blankets. Tonight we finish him. Now we go.”
He clapped a friendly hand on Burns’ shoulder.
“You kill the gringo dog. You go, too.”
“A while ago,” said Burns, “you talked of money.”
Raymond spread his hands, embarrassed. “But that was before we know about this gringo. You save us the trouble of finding him and doing what was needed. You leave with us. You ride with us.”
“I leave with you,” said Burns, “but I won’t ride with you. I got other things to do.”
“As you wish,” said Raymond. “I go first. You follow me.”
The tunnel was small—just big enough for a man to squeeze his way, dark and earthy. Slowly Burns worked his way along with clawing hands and kicking boots, thrusting himself along the downward dip, along the level run that passed beneath the walls of the jail, then up, with the stars shining through the opening above him.
Raymond reached down a hand and Burns caught it and was hauled up. The hole emerged a matter of six feet or so beyond the rear of the building, just within the limit of the shadow cast by the moon that now was sliding down the western sky.
Burns squatted on his heels, ears alert, eyes busy with the shadows, while Raymond hovered over the hole, lending help to his three companions.
Getting to their feet the five of them moved into the deeper darkness next to the building.
“We go now,” Raymond said softly. “We get some horses. You sure,” urged Raymond, “that you stay here?”
“I have to stay,” Burns told him. “I got some folks to see.”
Raymond held out his hand. “Adios,” he said.
“Adios,” said Burns, “and look. Lay off the gray horse. He’s mine.”
“You betcha,” said Raymond. “We pass up the gray one.”
“And take it easy,” warned Burns. “Don’t bring the whole town down on top of us. Better ride east. That west country, toward the hills, may be full of Carson’s gunslicks.”
“Sure Mike,” said Raymond.
He moved away and his three companions followed. Burns stood watching them. A few yards away they stopped again, lifted hands in salute. Burns waved back at them, then turned and cat-walked swiftly through the darkness behind the buildings.
A smoky lantern set on the dump burned dimly in the back room of the Tribune. Humphrey, perched on a high-legged stool, was busy setting type, the bulldog pipe clenched between his jaws.
Standing just outside the window, Burns stared in at the editor, then moved softly to the back door.
From down the street came a startled yelp, a shot, then the wild clatter of hoofs building up some distance. Another shot boomed hollowly and silence came again, a thick and breathless silence that hung above the town.
The back door shrilled open on screeching hinges and Humphrey appeared within the frame staring at the darkness.
“I’m coming in,” Burns told him softly, “and don’t make a squawk.”
Humphrey started, then saw Burns.
“Oh, it’s you again.”
Burns strode across the doorway, shut the door behind him.
“I thought I heard some shooting out in back,” said Humphrey.
“It was up in front,” Burns told him. “The cow thieves just escaped.”
He clacked his tongue. “And that pretty gallows, standing out there waiting.”
Humphrey relit his pipe, eyes fixed on Burns, face lighted up by the flaring match.
“You haven’t got a gun back here?” asked Burns.
“Nope,” said Humphrey. “Got one up in front.”
“Just was going to warn you not to try to use it if you had,” Burns told him. “I came to do some talking.”
Humphrey motioned at the pot-bellied stove in the center of the room and the battered coffee pot that perched on top of it.
“How about a cup?” he asked.
Burns nodded.
Humphrey paced to the stove, lifted the pot.
“Don’t ever be a newspaperman,” he said. “Hell of a job. You work all hours of the day and night.”
“I just sort of wanted to ask you,” declared Burns, “why you stepped in and saved my hide tonight.”
Humphrey wrinkled his brow. “Revulsion, I guess. Get tired every now and then of Carson’s high handed ways. Runs the town, you know. Have to play ball with him, but shooting a man in cold blood is just a bit too much.”
“Aren’t you just a bit afraid he’ll think it over some and get hostile about you pulling a gun on him?”
“Maybe,” admitted Humphrey. “But, hell, that’s the only kind of language a hombre like Carson understands. And if he wants to argue about it, he knows where to find me.”
Humphrey sucked noisily on his pipe, squinted quizzically at Burns. “Aren’t you taking a chance, my friend? Sitting around like this with me.”
“You mean you figure I’d ought to be building up some miles—why I’m still hanging around these parts?”