There the king of Locust Valley worked all day and late into the night, establishing and strengthening his kingship.
The grim old warrior who had kinged it in the Valley in an earlier generation knew the men he had to deal with. He wore two guns in loose scabbards, and cold-eyed gunmen rode with him, night or day. Saul Hopkins had dealt in paper and figures so long he had forgotten the human equation. He understood a menace only as a threat against his money--not against himself.
He bent over his desk, a tall, gaunt, stooped man, with a mop of straggly grey hair and the hooked nose of a vulture. He looked up irritably as some one bulked in the door that opened directly on the street. Jim Reynolds stood there--broad, dark as an Indian, one hand under his coat. His eyes burned like coals. Saul Hopkins went cold, as he sensed, for the first time in his life, a menace that was not directed against his gold and his lands, but against his body and his life. No word was passed between them, but an electric spark of understanding jumped across the intervening space.
With a strangled cry old Hopkins sprang up, knocking his swivel chair backward, stumbling against his desk. Jim Reynolds--hand came from beneath his coat gripping a Colt .45. The report thundered deafeningly in the small office. Old Saul cried out chokingly and rocked backward, clutching at his breast. Another slug caught him in the groin, crumpling him down across the desk, and as he fell, he jerked sidewise to the smash of a third bullet in his belly. He sprawled over the desk, spouting blood, and clawing blindly at nothing, slid off and blundered to the floor, his convulsive fingers full of torn papers which fell on him in a white, fluttering shower from the blood splashed desk.
Jim Reynolds eyed him unemotionally, the smoking gun in his hand. Acrid powder fumes filled the office, and the echoes seemed to be still reverberating. Whistling gasps slobbered through Saul Hopkins--grey lips and he jerked spasmodically. He was not yet dead, but Reynolds knew he was dying. And galvanized into sudden action, Reynolds turned and went out on the street. Less than a minute had passed since the first shot crashed, but a man was running up the street, gun in hand, shouting loudly. It was Mike Daley, a policeman. Reynolds knew that it would be several minutes, at least, before the rest of the small force could reach the scene. He stood motionless, his gun hanging at his side.
Daley rushed up, panting, poking his pistol at the silent killer.
--ands up, Reynolds!--he gasped.--hat the hell have you done? My God, have you shot Mr. Hopkins? Give me that gun--give it to me.-- Reynolds reversed his .45, dangling it by his index finger through the trigger guard, the butt toward Daley. The policeman grabbed for it, lowering his own gun unconsciously as he reached. The big Colt spun on Reynolds--finger, the butt slapped into his palm, and Daley glared wild eyed into the black muzzle. He was paralyzed by the trick--a trick which in itself showed Reynolds--anachronism. That roll, reliance of the old time gunman, had not been used in that region for a generation.
--rop your gun!--snapped Reynolds. Daley dumbly opened his fingers and as his gun slammed on the sidewalk, the long barrel of Reynolds--Colt lifted, described an arc and smashed down on the policeman't head. Daley fell beside his fallen gun, and Reynolds ran down the narrow street, cut through an alley and came out on French Street a few steps from where his car was parked.
Behind him he heard men shouting and running. A few loiterers on French Street gaped at him, shrank back at the sight of the gun in his hand. He sprang to the wheel and roared down French Street, shot across the bridge that spanned Locust Creek, and raced up the road. There were few residences in that end of town, where the business section abutted on the very bank of the creek. Within a few minutes he was in open country, with only scattered farmhouses here and there.
He had not even glanced toward the rock jail where his friends lay. He knew the uselessness of an attempt to free them, even were it successful. He had only followed his instinct when he killed Saul Hopkins. He felt neither remorse nor exultation, only the grim satisfaction of a necessary job well done. His nature was exactly that of the old-time feudist, who, when pushed beyond endurance, killed his man, took to the hills and fought it out with all who came against him. Eventual escape did not enter his calculations. His was the grim fatalism of the old time gun fighter. He merely sought a lair where he could turn at bay. Otherwise he would have stayed and shot it out with the Bisley police.
A mile beyond the bridge the road split into three forks. One led due north to Sturling, whence it swung westward to Lost Knob; he had followed that road, coming into Bisley. One led to the north west, and was the old Lost Knob road, discontinued since the creation of Bisley Lake. The other turned westward and led to other settlements in the hills.
He took the old north west road. He had met no one. There was little travel in the hills at night. And this road was particularly lonely. There were long stretches where not even a farm house stood, and now the road was cut off from the northern settlements by the great empty basin of the newly created Bisley Lake, which lay waiting for rains and head rises to fill it.
The pitch was steadily upward. Mesquites gave way to dense postoak thickets. Rocks jutted out of the ground, making the road uneven and bumpy. The hills loomed darkly around him.
Ten miles out of Bisley and five miles from the Lake, he turned from the road and entered a wire gate. Closing it behind him, he drove along a dim path which wound crookedly up a hill side, flanked thickly with postoaks. Looking back, he saw no headlights cutting the sky. He must have been seen driving out of town, but no one saw him take the north west road. Pursuers would naturally suppose he had taken one of the other roads. He could not reach Lost Knob by the north west road, because, although the lake basin was still dry, what of the recent drouth, the bridges had been torn down over Locust Creek, which he must cross again before coming to Lost Knob, and over Mesquital.
He followed a curve in the path, with a steep bluff to his right, and coming onto a level space strewn with broken boulders, saw a low-roofed house looming darkly ahead of him. Behind it and off to one side stood barns, sheds and corrals, all bulked against a background of postoak woods. No lights showed.
He halted in front of the sagging porch--there was no yard fence--and sprang up on the porch, hammering on the door. Inside a sleepy voice demanded his business.
--re you by yourself?--demanded Reynolds. The voice assured him profanely that such was the case.--hen get up and open the door; it's me--Jim Reynolds.-- There was a stirring in the house, creak of bed springs, prodigious yawns, and a shuffling step. A light flared as a match was struck. The door opened, revealing a gaunt figure in a dingy union suit, holding an oil lamp in one hand.
--hat-- up, Jim?--demanded the figure, yawning and blinking.--ome in. Hell of a time of night to wake a man up--
--t ain't ten o--lock yet,--answered Reynolds.--oel, I--e just come from Bisley. I killed Saul Hopkins.-- The gaping mouth, in the middle of a yawn, clapped shut with a strangling sound. The lamp rocked wildly in Joel Jackson't hand, and Reynolds caught it to steady it.
--aul Hopkins?--In the flickering light Jackson't face was the hue of ashes.--y God, they--l hang you! Are they after you? What--
--hey won't hang me,--answered Reynolds grimly.--nly reason I run was there-- some things I want to do before they catch me. Joel, you--e got reasons for befriendin'tme. I can't hide out in the hills all the time, because there-- nothin'tto eat. You live here alone, and don't have many visitors. I-- goin'tto stay here a few days till the search moves into another part of the country, then I-- goin'tback into Bisley and do the rest of my job. If I can kill that lawyer of Hopkins--and Judge Blaine and Billy Leary, the chief of police, I--l die happy.----ut they--l comb these hills!--exclaimed Jackson wildly.--hey can't keep from findin'tyou--