DISASTER GETS ORGANIZED

As Wallie descended the stairs after this talk with the masked man, his nonchalance crystallized into a grim resolve that transformed his personality. He paused at the bottom of the flight and glanced up. The enigmatic man with the mask apparently had returned to Bryant's bedroom. Then Wallie opened the front door and stepped to the verandah. Half a dozen of the ranch hands were there with ill-concealed curiosity.

Wallie spoke softly but without a trace of the careless ease that marked his style at other times. "Go back to whatever you were doin'," he ordered. "If you're needed, we'll send for you."

"But who was that masked man with Bryant?" asked one of the men.

"None of your damn business," retorted Wallie in a surly voice. "Get to work an' you'll be sent for later." He turned to another man. "Has Gimlet been buried yet?"

The lanky individual addressed shook his head slowly. "We jest tossed a blanket over him," he said. "We warn't shore what yore plans was. He's still in the bunkhouse."

Wallie nodded. "Leave him there for the time being." He swung through the door and headed for the upset living room. Had Penelope seen Wallie in his present mood, she would have revised her opinion of him in a hundred ways. He walked with a purposeful air instead of the familiar sauntering gait; his eyes, generally half-closed in boredom, were wide and divided by a perpendicular frown-crease on his forehead. And those eyes were hard. His hands were clenched with such intensity that the well-cared-for fingernails bit into the palms ... hard fists in place of hands that strummed soft tunes of romance on a guitar. The soft, full-lipped mouth was gone, and in its place there was the same hard line that Bryant Cavendish showed when angry.

Wallie was indeed a different person. A fop no longer; instead, a man of purpose with cruel ruthlessness in every feature. He went through the living room without a pause and halted only when he reached the kitchen. He closed the door without a slam.

Jeb sat with a woebegone expression on a heavy chair. Sawtell, as bland as ever, stood beside him, holding a heavy gun in one hand. At the sight of Wallie, Sawtell spoke. "He started to make some complaints a little while ago, an' I tapped him on the head. I don't think we'll hear any more from him."

Wallie glanced at his lean brother. There was a cut somewhere beneath the stringy hair on the left side of Jeb's skull. Blood, seeping from it, had dribbled down his cheek and stained his collar. Jeb's eyes held an unvoiced but pathetic plea. They resembled those of a hog-tied calf suffering the torment of a branding iron.

Wallie said, "Better gag an' tie him. I'll decide later what's to be done."

Sawtell nodded, dropped his pistol in a holster, and proceeded with the tying, while Jeb, who knew that a voiced complaint would simply mean another crack on the head, made no resistance.

Lonergan sat on the edge of the kitchen table, casually working on his fingernails with a carving knife. He glanced up, a question mark in his expression.

There had been two others locked in the vault beneath the living room. They, too, were present in the kitchen. Lombard and Vince, sullen, and dripping muttered curses as well as sweat, stood side by side, leaning against the wall with half-filled whisky glasses in their hands.

"Are you sure," began Wallie, "none of you knows who that masked man is?" He glanced from one to another, receiving negative headshakes.

"All I know about him," grumbled Lombard, "is that I spent a hell of a night in that damned wet cellar, an' I'm goin' to square it with him."

"What about me?" snapped Vince. "My joints'll ache fer a week after las' night."

"You," said Wallie, looking at Lombard, "stand at the foot of the stairs, an' make sure he don't come out of Bryant's room. Vince, you get close to the window an' keep watch on the Gap. Yuma will be here some time today with a warrant for Bryant's arrest, an' law men to act on the warrant."

"Why me? What's the matter with Sawtell or Lonergan?"

Wallie didn't reply, but his cold-eyed gaze was quite enough. Vince grumbled his way to the window, as if he resented being ordered about by his own brother in the same fashion that ordinary outlaws were commanded. He dragged a chair to the window and sat down.

"This'll do for the time," Sawtell suggested, as he tied the last knot in the ropes about Jeb's arms. "Now what'll we do with him?"

"Leave him where he is until I finish speaking, and then we'll decide later what we'll do with him. I told you that already."

"He knows too damn much," said Vince, "an' he's too dumb to be any good to us. Why worry about him?"

"Who," said Wallie, "is worrying?"

"What about that masked man? What was it you said about Yuma comin' with the law?" It was Lonergan, the lawyer-gambler, speaking.

Wallie explained briefly how Yuma's hat had been shot at by Bryant; how both Yuma and the man with the mask were convinced that Bryant Cavendish was the leader of all that went on in the Basin.

"That works out fine for us," he said. "We may have to lay low for a little while, but we've been needin' a rest anyhow. We'll sell off some of the cattle we've got here now, but wait till things cool off before we bring in any more." He went into detail, explaining how the masked man's plan was to persuade Bryant to confess before he went to jail. "And he figures," he continued, "on lettin' the law take you men back."

Sawtell shifted his weight uneasily, and Lonergan laid down the carving knife. "There's a rope just a little too tight for my neck waitin' for me if I go back to Red Oak," Sawtell said.

"None of you are goin' back," snapped Wallie. "Didn't I tell you, when I suggested that you come here and help me out, that I'd see you well protected?"

"Maybe," suggested Lonergan, "you've got some new scheme."

"I have."

"It better be good. Your idea was working out swell until Rebecca sent for the law. Then, instead of entertaining those Texas Rangers and convincing them that everything was all right here, you had to ambush them. As a lawyer, I advised against that massacre."

"I didn't ask for your advice, Lonergan."

"Well, it was a mistake to dry-gulch them anyway. That won't stop other Rangers from coming here to see what happened to them. I tell you, Wallie, there's a great big rope, speaking in the picturesque way of the story-writers, around all of us, an' that rope is bein' hauled in tight."

"Like hell it is," barked Wallie in a sharp reply. "If you'll button your lip for a few minutes I'll tell you how everything has worked out to put us in the clear."

"You weren't satisfied with that massacre," the lawyer went on accusingly. "You had to kill Rangoon, then Gimlet, and last night, Mort."

"My policy," replied Wallie, his voice cold with suppressed anger, "is to leave no loose ends. Rangoon couldn't be relied on. Gimlet already knew a few things, an' thought a lot more. Mort would have squealed his yellow head off to avoid bein' hanged. As for Yuma, it's a damned shame he didn't get a couple of slugs where they'd do the most good for us."

"I don't know why he was hired to work here anyway," said Lonergan. "He wasn't like the rest of the men."

"Bryant himself hired Yuma, an' God knows why. Anyway, it's the fact that Yuma is bringin' the law that'll put us in the clear."

"In the clear on what?" asked Lonergan.

"I don't know why in hell I take so much back talk from you, Lonergan," said Wallie.

"I do. It's because you wouldn't have a ghost of a show in handling things after Bryant dies, without my legal talents." The lawyer studied his fingernails with exaggerated concern, and again picked up the carving knife. "Now what is this big scheme of yours that's to put us in the clear? My own suggestion would be to go to Bryant's room and get the drop on this masked man, then—"

"I'll do the talking from now on," Wallie interrupted. "In the first place, there's the murder of Rangoon to be accounted for. Well, that masked man and the Indian friend that went to town with Penny were both in the clearing. All right, we blame Rangoon's death on them. As for Gimlet, Yuma had a lot better chance to kill him than I did. It's known that Yuma was on the ranch at the time. But no one knows that I came back from Red Oak by the Thunder Mountain route, knifed Gimlet, an' went back to town. We tell the law men it's Yuma who killed Gimlet. I'll accuse him of it when he gets here, and let him try to deny it. Penny herself, if need be, will have to say that Yuma was here at the time."

Lonergan nodded. "So far," he said, "you're doin' good—go on."

"As for Mort's death—hell, that's easy to blame on the masked man. Everyone in Red Oak has already accused him of murderin' Mort. Everyone in town heard him yell to that white horse of his when he carried Bryant away. Why, public sentiment is with us! There ain't anyone in town that wouldn't blame the masked man for killing, not only Mort, but Bryant as well!"

"It sounds swell to me," admired Sawtell, "all but for the fact that this masked man an' Bryant are both upstairs and livin'."

"That's a detail that's goin' to be taken care of pronto," stated Wallie. "My story, which Vince will back up, being that none of you others dare show yourselves, is that the masked man brought Bryant here, dead. I shot him for it after a hell of a fight." Wallie looked proudly at Lonergan. "Now what's the matter with that?"

Lonergan pondered and then said, "Those two are still alive. That's the only trouble."

"It won't take long to remedy that. We go up to Bryant's room, burst in, and start shootin'. Get Bryant and get the masked man. I took the trouble to bring the key with me, so the door won't be locked. By lookin' through the keyhole I'll make sure where the two of them are, an' then when we go into the room we won't be shootin' blind. We can't miss."

"The more I hear about it," said Sawtell, "the better it sounds. It'll be a big relief to have Bryant out of our way for keeps. He's been a nuisance around here."

"We had to let him live until we had things arranged," explained Wallie, "but now there's no more need of him."

"It'll not only get rid of Bryant," added Sawtell, "it'll clear up the murders around here. I suppose you've got some way all worked out to blame the killin' of those Texas Rangers on him?"

"The masked man will be blamed for those. It's well known that he an' that Indian are pards. Their footprints are both up there on Thunder Mountain where the buzzards are cleanin' off Rangoon's bones. The Indian's footprints are near the graves of the Rangers. Any law man could put an' two together an' get the answer that the masked man an' Indian killed 'em. If the Redskin tries to deny it, who'll listen to him against the evidence?"

Lonergan laid down the knife methodically and slid from the edge of the table to his feet. Wallie looked at him defiantly, as if daring the lawyer to find a flaw in the plans.

There was a mixture of surprise and admiration in the way Lonergan looked at Wallie. "I didn't think," he said, "you had it in you. I'm damned if it won't work."

Wallie's deep-rooted respect for the adroit brain of the lawyer made him glow with pleasure at a compliment from that man.

"As I see it," said Lonergan, "there's just one little flaw in the plans."

"What's that?" demanded Wallie.

"The story you figure on telling won't account for a lot of bullet holes around that bedroom of your uncle. Have you got a way around that worked out?"

"Of course. We tell the law that Bryant was shot in front of the house and that I shot the masked man for it in the same place. Both corpses will be on the porch, an' there won't be any reason to go into the bedroom until after we have the chance to clean it up."

"That," said Lonergan, "will do it."

"I've had a hunch," contributed Vince from his post at the window, "that Bryant's been suspectin' things for some time. I'll be damned glad to see him done away with. With him an' Penny out of here, we won't have to be so damned careful about every move we make."

Wallie nodded. "After the law is satisfied," he said, "we'll go on just as we have been. Vince will take charge of things while I'm tomcattin' around Red Oak an' playin' the part of a girl-crazy Romeo while I listen for news about cattle ranches that are just invitin' visitors like us."

The leader of the group sketched a few details of his plan, then said, "I want all of you to go upstairs with me. Keep your guns drawn an' keep still. We'll take Lombard as we go by him. When the fireworks are over with, me an' Vince will wait for Yuma to fetch the law men, an' the rest of you can hide. Now put Jeb down in the vault, then fix the room up as it should be. While you're doin' that I'll tell Lombard the plans, an' then we'll all go up to Bryant's room."

Jeb was still dazed from the ugly blow Sawtell had given him. He was limp and unresisting as the men picked him up bodily, hands and feet tied tightly, and carried him to the living room. They dropped him on the floor and replaced things where they belonged. Sawtell tossed the hunk of firewood to one side, then handed down the chair from its place on the table top. Lonergan kicked the chair toward a wall, while Sawtell stepped to the floor and hauled away the table. It was Vince who opened the trapdoor, then rolled his brother Jeb into the opening. He laughed as he heard Jeb's body strike the hard-dirt floor below. "Don't get intuh no mischief down there," he called; then he closed the door and pulled the rug in place to conceal it.

Meanwhile Wallie was with Lombard at the foot of the stairs. Lombard was grinning and nodded as the others joined the couple. He drew his gun and spun the cylinder to check it. A moment later, after a few last, whispered instructions from Wallie, the five were ready to go upstairs with disaster for the Lone Ranger.