“And you figured that we didn’t.”
Egan grunted in disgust and as he grunted, Parker moved … one quick step forward, arms straightening, heaving the saddle with all the power of his twisting body.
The gun in Egan’s fist barked, splashing fire, and Parker heard the muffled chug of the bullet smashing into the leather of the saddle.
Parker leaped, hand slashing at the waving gun wrist as the saddle crunched into Egan’s body, felt the impact of his fist crack against the arm and send the sixgun flying.
And even as his left fist struck the wrist, his right was coming back, gathering power for the blow that whistled forward, straight and clean. The fist spattered with a crunching sound and Egan staggered, blood spurting on his beard.
The bearded man was slowly rising. Parker stepped forward. Deliberately, mercilessly, he swung his fist, smashed Egan down again.
Bewildered, eyes half glazed, Egan struggled to his feet, lurched one uncertain step. Bending forward, almost as if fighting for his balance, he stared at the man before him.
“I’ll kill…” he mumbled and tried to rush. Parker stepped aside and Egan, legs folding beneath him, tumbled to the floor.
Parker strode forward, reached down and grasped Egan’s collar, hauled him to his feet, twisted him around. The man’s battered lips made moaning, pleading sounds behind the blood-soaked beard.
“Egan,” said Parker, “I want to talk to you.”
“Don’t hit …” Egan mumbled.
Parker cocked his fist, shook it in Egan’s face.
“Listen first,” he told him. “Then talk!”
Parker let go of the collar and Egan slumped to the floor, sat upon it with his legs sticking straight out in front of him. Parker squatted beside him.
Egan lifted a hairy hand, rubbed his beaten face.
“What you want?” he asked.
“You remember about Campbell being killed?”
“Sure,” said Egan. “Sure, I remember. Luke done it.”
“Luke didn’t do it,” snapped Parker. “Campbell was either shot from far off or with a small caliber gun. If Luke had shot him from behind the tree where the cartridge was found, the bullet would have gone through his body. Would have torn a hole straight through him. That gun of Luke’s is a heavy job. Bone would never stop one of its bullets, fired at thirty feet.”
Egan sat mumbling.
Parker reached out and shook him savagely.
“Do you understand?” he snarled.
Egan repeated, “Luke done it.”
Parker slapped him, an open-handed blow that rocked his head.
Egan stared at him in dazed terror.
“Got to say Luke done it,” he declared.
“Why?”
“Betz said so. Said for me to say …”
“Betz was the one who did it?”
Egan hesitated and Parker lifted his hand. Egan recoiled.
“Go on,” said Parker. “What about Betz?”
“Betz did it,” mumbled Egan, clawing at his beard with one jerky hand.
“Shot his own boss. What did he have against him?”
“Nothing. Just shot him. Paid to do it.”
“Why?”
“Good way to start a fight.”
“Figured the little outfits would rise up,” said Parker, “and it would be an excuse to wipe them out.”
“Sure,” said Egan. He leered through the bloody beard. “Smart, eh?”
“Smart enough to hang you,” said Parker, viciously.
“It was coming anyhow,” said Egan.
“Sure, it was coming, anyhow,” said Parker. “Only Betz helped it along a bit. Tell me, who paid Betz?”
Egan’s mouth clamped shut and defiance crept into his eyes.
“Who paid him?”
Egan shook his head. Parker slapped him, first one side of his face, then another. Egan moaned.
Parker waited.
“It was Hart.”
“And Danielson?”
“That’s right, sheriff. Hart and Danielson.”
“What about Horton? Did Horton pay him, too?”
Egan shook his head.
“You’re sure of that? Horton wasn’t in on it?”
“Horton didn’t even know about it,” mumbled Egan. “Couldn’t trust him. Too damn soft-hearted.”
Parker rocked on his toes, staring at the man.
So the Hashknife and Bar C were the ones that had engineered it. Hart and Danielson had signed the death warrant of their fellow-ranchman to touch off a range war, using the Turkey Track as a cat’s-paw to do the dirty work. Hart and Danielson had deliberately murdered Campbell to carry out their plans. Not that either of them, likely, had anything against him, but it was an easy way, a simple way to do it.
And it had one extra angle—Campbell and Luke had been at guns’ point for months. If it could be made to seem that Luke had done it, they figured, it might compromise the sheriff—might drive him out of office. And with the small outfits wiped out and the sheriff gone, the whole range would be theirs.
Egan made whining, mewing sounds.
“Look, sheriff, you ain’t going to hold this against me. You’re going to let me go. After all, I helped you. I was the one that …”
“Shut up,” snapped Parker.
His hand reached out slowly and gathered in Egan’s shirt front, twisted it tight.
“And now tell me about the cartridge that was found behind that tree.”
“Oh, that,” said Egan. “That was put there. I found the cartridge …”
“You mean you hung around and watched until Luke shot the gun, then sneaked in after he was gone and picked it up.”
“I found it,” protested Egan. “I just was riding along one day …”
“And you saw something shining on the ground.”
“That’s right, sheriff,” said Egan, pleased. “You hit it right on the head.”
“You’ll have a hell of a time making a jury believe that,” said Parker.
Feet crunched outside and Parker swung around, reaching for his gun.
Old Matt’s shadowy form blotted out the moonlight in the doorway.
“Thought I heard a shot,” he said.
“You took your sweet time coming,” Parker told him.
“Hell,” said Matt, disgustedly, “I had to get my pants on. Couldn’t come out just in my shirttail. I came just …”
He stopped, staring at Egan.
“Tried to bushwhack me,” Parker explained.
“Sort of looks like it backfired on him.”
Parker nodded. “Spilled his guts,” he said. “Told me Betz was the one that killed Campbell. That .45-70 shell was planted so it would look like Luke had done it.”
“And now that you got the varmint, what are you going to do with him?”
“Got to take him along with me while I hunt up Luke,” said Parker. “Can’t let him out of my sight.”
“Take him back to jail,” said Matt.
Parker shook his head. “Sawyer’s in with them. He’d get word to the Turkey Track and they’d either have him out or kill him before I could get back.”
Matt shucked up his gunbelt. “Leave him here with me,” he suggested. “I’ll take downright good care of him.”
“Not a chance,” said Parker. “You got other things to do.”
“Like what?”
“Like getting together a bunch of the boys to wait for me in town. When I get back I got work to do.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Hideaway in Hell
Dawn was breaking over the Rattlesnake hills, the darkness rising from the ground against the inroad of thin morning light that revealed the shapes of trees and boulders.