Mavericks by William MacLeod Raine

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It was Phyl Sanderson's cry of horror that Healy heard. She had put her
horse up the steep at a headlong gallop, had seen the whole furious
struggle and the tragic end of it that witnessed two men hurled over the
precipice into space. She slipped from the saddle, and sank dizzily to
the ground, not daring to look over the cliff at what she would see far
below. Waves of anguish shot through her and shook her very being.

A man bent over her, and gave a startled cry.

"My heaven, it's Phyl!" he cried.

"Yes." She spoke in a flat, lifeless voice he could not have recognized
as hers.

"Where is he? What's become of him?" Healy demanded.

She told him with a gesture, then flung herself on the turf, and broke
down helplessly. The outlaw went to the edge and looked over. The gulf
of air told no story except the obvious one. No wingless living creature
could make that descent without forfeiture of life. He stepped back to
the girl and touched her on the shoulder.

"Come."

She looked up, shuddering, and asked, "Where?"

"With me."

"With you? It was you that drove him to his death, and I loved him!"

"Never mind that now. Come."

"I hate you! I should kill you when I got a chance! Why should I go with
you?" she asked evenly.

He did not know why. He had no definite plan. All he knew was that his
old world lay in ruins at his feet, that he must fly through the night
like a hunted wolf, and that the girl he loved was beside him, forever
free from the rival who lay crushed and lifeless at the foot of the
cliff. He could not give her up now. He would not.

The old savage instinct of ownership rose strong in him. She was his. He
had won her by the fortune of war. He would keep her against all comers
so long as he had life to fight. Night was falling softly over the
hills. They would go forth into it together to a new heaven and a new
earth.

He lifted her to her feet and brought up her horse. She looked at him
in a silence that stripped him of his dreams.

"Come!" he said again, between clenched teeth.

"Not with you. I don't know you. Leave me alone. You killed him! You're
a murderer!"

He stretched hands toward her, but she shrank from him, still in the
dull stupor of horror that was on her spirit.

"Go away! Don't touch me! You and your miscreants killed him!" And with
that she flung herself down again, and buried her face from the sight of
him.

He waited doggedly, helpless against her grief and her hatred of him,
but none the less determined to take her with him. Across the border he
would not be a hunted man with a price on his head. They could be
married by a padre in Sonora, and perhaps some day he would make her
love him and forget this man that had come between them. At all events,
he would be her master and would tie her life inextricably to his. He
stooped and caught her shoulder. She had fainted.

A footfall set rolling a pebble. He looked up quickly, and almost of its
own volition, as it seemed, the rifle leaped to both of his hands. A man
stood looking at him across the plateau of the summit. He, too, held a
rifle ready for instant action.

"So it's you!" Healy cried with an oath.

"Have you killed him?"

The outlaw lied, with swift, unblazing passion: "Yes, Buck Weaver, and
tossed his body to the buzzards. Your turn now!"

"Then who is that with you there?"

"The woman you love, the woman that turned you and him down for me,"
taunted his rival. "After I've killed you we're going off to be
married."

"Only a coyote would stand behind a woman's skirts and lie. I can't kill
you there, and you know it."

Healy asked nothing better than an even break. He might have killed with
impunity from where he stood. Yet pantherlike, he swiftly padded six
paces to the left, never lifting his eyes from his antagonist.

Buck waited, motionless. "Are you ready?"

The outlaw's weapon flashed to the level and cracked. Almost
simultaneously the other answered. Weaver felt a bullet fan his cheek,
but he knew that his own had crashed home.

The shock of it swung Healy half round. The man hung in silhouette
against the sky line, then the body plunged to the turf at full length.
Buck moved forward cautiously, fearing a trick, his eyes fastened on the
other. But as he drew nearer he knew it was no ruse. The body lay supine
and inert, as lifeless as the clay upon which it rested.

Once sure of this Buck turned immediately to Phyllis. A faint crackling
of bushes stopped him. He waited, his eyes fixed on the edge of the
precipice from which the sound had come. Next there came to him the
slipping of displaced rubble. He was all eyes and ears, tense and alert
in every pulse.

From out of the gulf a hand appeared and groped for a hold. Weaver
stepped noiselessly to the edge and looked down. A torn and bleeding
face looked up into his.

"Good heavens, Keller!"

Buck was on his knees instantly. He caught the ranger's hand with both
of his and dragged him up. The rescued man sank breathless on the ground
and told his story in gasped fragments.

"--caught on a ledge--hung to some bushes growing there--climbed up--lay
still when Healy looked over--a near thing--makes me sick still!"

"It was a millionth chance that saved you--if it was a chance."

"Where's Healy?"

Weaver pointed to the body. "We fought it out. The luck was with me."

A faint, glad, terrified little cry startled them both. Phyllis was
staring with dilated eyes at the man restored to her from the dead. He
got up and walked across to her with outstretched hands.

"My little girl."

"Oh, Larry! I don't understand. I thought----"

He nodded. "I reckon God was good to us, sweetheart."

Her arms crept up and round his neck. "Oh, boy--boy--boy. I thought
you were--I thought you were----"

She broke down, but he understood. "Well, I'm not," he laughed happily.
Catching sight of Buck's grim, set face, Larrabie explained what scarce
needed an explanation. "You'll have to excuse us, I reckon. It's my day
for congratulations."

Phyllis freed herself and walked across to her other lover. "My friend,
I know the answer now," she told him.

"I see you do."

"Don't--please don't be hurt," she begged. "I have to care for him."

The hard, leathery face softened. "I lose, girl. But who told you I was
a bad loser? The best man wins. I've got no kick to register."

"Not the best man," Keller corrected, shaking hands with his rival.

Phyllis summed it up in woman fashion: "My man, whether he is the best
or not. It's just that a girl goes where her heart goes."

Weaver nodded. "Good enough. Well, I'll be going. I expect you'll not
miss me."

He turned and went down the hill alone. At the foot of it he met Jim
Yeager.

"What about Brill?" the younger man asked quickly.

"He'll never rustle another cow," Buck answered gravely. "I killed him
on the top of Point o' Rocks after an even break."

"Duke has cashed in. Game to the last. Wouldn't say a word to implicate
his pals. But Tom has confessed everything. The boys slipped a noose
over his head, and he came through right away.

"Says he and Duke and Irwin helped Healy rob the Noches Bank and do a
lot of other deviltry. It was just like Keller figured. The automobile
was waiting for the bunch with the showfer, and took them out the old
Fort Lincoln Road. Dixon knows where the gold is hidden, and is going to
show the boys."

"That clears up everything, then. I judge we've made a pretty thorough
gather."

Jim looked up and indistinctly saw the lovers coming slowly down through
the grove. Dusk had fallen and soon the cloak of night would be over the
mountains.

"Who is that?"

Buck did not look round. "I reckon it's Keller and his sweetheart. She
followed us here."

"I told her not to come."

"I expect she takes her telling from Mr. Keller." He changed the subject
abruptly. "We'll go on down to the boys and see what's doing. They'll be
some glad, I shouldn't wonder, at making a gather that cleans out the
worst bunch of cutthroats and rustlers in the Malpais. Don't you
reckon?"

"I reckon," answered Yeager briefly.

THE END

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