Twister hesitated for a moment. The sheriff seemed to be an easy-going, fair-minded man and Twister had nothing to conceal. He lifted his gun slowly, looped his finger in the trigger guard and presented it to the lawman butt first.

  “I cain’t figure this any more’n you can,” he told the sheriff frankly. “It don’t make no sense fo’ a woman tuh put dinnuh on thuh table an’ then wa’k off. But I swear that’s thuh way things was when I got here aboot dark.”

  “Who came up the trail with you?” Kirk demanded. “We saw tracks of two horses as we come up.”

  Twister hesitated the briefest instant, thinking hard for an explanation for the two horses without revealing Chuckaluck’s presence outside the cabin. Now, more than ever, he knew there was trouble ahead, and his only ace in the hole was having his chunky partner out there ready to step in if necessary.

  “Oh shore,” he drawled. “Two hawses. I’m ridin’ a long trail an’ I got a lead hawse.”

  “A long trail to where?” the sheriff asked.

  “Headed down to thuh Big Bend an’ ’cross Mexico-way. Got a ol’ friend with a big hacienda down yonder, an’ I figured …”

  “He claims to be on the road to Marfa,” Jerry Kirk interrupted angrily. “You heard him say that, Sheriff. Ask him how-come he rode the trail up to my cabin.”

  “That’s right,” said the sheriff. “How’d you reckon to get to Marfa from here? There ain’t no trail out over thuh mountains.”

  “Now that there’s what’s got me plumb flabbergasted, Sheriff. Met up with a feller in the saloon at Fo’t Davis las’ night an’ when he found out I was ridin’ tuh Marfa he tol’ me aboot a short-cut acrost thuh mountains that’d save ten miles o’ ridin’. So I turned off on it like he said, an’ danged if it didn’ end up here.”

  “That short-cut to Marfa is up the road about a mile,” the sheriff told him. “You made a mistake and turned off too soon.”

  “Why, no-o-o,” said Twister thoughtfully. “There was a sign right there down b’low jus’ like thuh man in Fo’t Davis said. Big letters readin’ Marfa short-cut 4 miles. So I turned off. If this ain’t thuh road tuh Marfa, what thuh hell is that sign doin’ down there,” he ended dubiously.

  “Now we know he’s lying,” Jerry Kirk said hastily. “I just rode in over that short-cut and the sign is right there where it belongs … where it’s always been. You know that, Sheriff Morgan. You met me down below here at the turn-off and rode up with me. There never has been a Marfa sign where the trail leads up here to my homestead.”

  “He’s right,” Morgan told Twister grimly. “I just rode up from the bottom with Kirk. That’s a pore sort of lie to tell,” he added dispassionately.”

  “But I seen it with my own eyes,” Twister insisted. “Plain as I see yuh right now. A painted board nailed on a pine tree. Why in hell else do yuh think I’d be here?”

  The sheriff took off his hat and scratched his greying head. “That’s what I reckon we better find out. And we better find Lucy and yore young-un fust off, Jerry. I don’t know what this crooked-faced waddie’s game is, but if he hurt yore wife an’ boy he’s in for a powerful heap o’ trouble.”

  “We’ve got to find them.” Kirk leaped to his feet, his thin face pinched with impatience and fear. “Let me put a knife to his throat, Sheriff, while you hold a gun on him. I’ll get the truth out of his lyin’ mouth in a hurry.” He leaped toward Twister with a long-bladed clasp knife in his hand, his black eyes glittering with rage.

  “Stop that and stand back,” Sheriff Morgan growled, his bull-dog jaw tight. “Put that knife away. We’ll do this legal. He might be tellin’ thuh truth.”

  “You already caught him in one lie … about the Marfa sign,” Kirk argued bitterly.

  “That ain’t proved,” said the sheriff. “Could be some joker moved it down to yore private road until this jasper turned up here and then moved it back befo’ you rode over thuh short-cut.”

  “But why would anybody do that?”

  “I ain’t sayin’ anybody did. I’m just sayin’ let’s don’t go off half-cocked. We can check his story about bein’ in Fort Davis last night easy enough. It’s a hard eight hours’ ride to here, an’ when we find out when he pulled out of Fort Davis we can figure how long he’s been here.”

  “Kerrect. Man at thuh hotel an’ stable’ll tell yuh I didn’t leave till nigh on ten o’clock this mawnin’. I sorta overslep’ on that soft hotel bed.”

  “In the meantime, where’s Lucy?” Kirk demanded of the sheriff. “While you’re wastin’ time checkin’ this yahoo’s story she may be …” He choked over the words, threw his hands up to his face and swayed his head back and forth as a man frenzied by grief.

  “I’m thinkin’ about her,” Morgan told him soberly. “Go get some rope so we can tie this man up while we take a lantern and scout around. If Lucy and the boy ain’t on thuh mesa … well, that’ll be somethin’ else again.”

  Jerry Kirk jumped up and hurried out as Twister protested:

  “See here now, Sheriff, what yuh wanna tie me up fo’? I done handed ovah m’gun. I ain’t done nothin’ ’cept get off on thuh wrong road somehow. ’Tain’t no crime in these pahts to stop by an’ ast aboot a road an’ mebbe get some victuals in yore empty belly.”

  “Tyin’ you up won’t hurt none,” the sheriff told him when Kirk rushed in with a length of rope. “If yo’re tellin’ thuh truth you ain’t got nothin’ to worry about. Turn around and put yore hands behind yore back,” he ordered brusquely.

  Twister turned around, the unscarred side of his face drooping gloomily. Why the devil didn’t Chuckaluck step in and take a hand? It would be easy for him to get the drop on the sheriff from behind. He felt a stab of almost uncontrollable anger at his partner for not acting. It was Chuckaluck’s fault that they’d got into trouble … playing that tune, and not turning in another direction when he saw a woman’s scarf tied on that tree. And here was more woman trouble. Women!

  He mastered his anger and disgust in time to keep from calling loudly for Chuckaluck as Jerry Kirk looped the rope tightly around one wrist in a slipknot, threw a couple of half-hitches around the other wrist, then bound them together behind his back.

  “Just settle down here in a chair an’ take it easy,” the sheriff said. “An’ if you’ve done anything to hurt Missus Kirk or the boy you might’s well start sayin’ yore prayers.”

  They went out together with a lantern to duplicate the unsuccessful search made by Chuckaluck and Twister, and Twister waited unhappily for the explosion that would certainly come when they discovered the two saddled horses in the corral instead of one saddled horse and a lead horse he had lied about.

  Chuckaluck, however, was alert to this danger and was taking steps to prevent the discovery. Lurking in the darkness just outside the open front door he had overheard every word the three men said. His blue eyes were bright and his round face was puckered with a smile as he silently applauded Twister’s quick wit in explaining the two horses. He had moved carefully and quietly to the corral where the two sets of riding gear lay side by side on the ground. He picked up his saddle, bridle and blanket and carried them to the feed shed, hastily forked some dried hay over them just as the sheriff and Jerry Kirk came out of the house.

  With the light of the sheriff’s lantern as a guide, Chuckaluck kept to the shadows, strategically moving nearer to the front door as they searched the mesa to the rear. He didn’t dare step into the light, but pressed close to the door in the shadow. “His-s-t. Twister. If yuh can hear me, come clost to thuh do’ but don’t show yoreself in thuh light.”

  “I can hear yuh a’right,” Twister returned in a low angry growl. “C’mon in here an’ cut this danged rope off me.”

  “Then what?” asked Chuckaluck grimly.

  “Then we get thuh hell outta this cussed place,” fumed Twister. “Grab their hawses an’ take off whilst they’re down yonduh at the other end o’ thuh mesa. This ain’t no healthy place tuh be.”

  “Whereat’d we be stealin’ a sheriff’s hawse?” asked Chuckaluck disapprovingly. “There’d be a posse after us in a hour. They know that ugly face o’ yourn now. They know we’re headed fo’ thuh Bo’der. If we make a jump fo’ it now, they’ll be plumb shore we murdered that lady an’ her little boy, an’ it’ll be nooses fo’ two an’ no questions ast when they ketch us.”

  “What we gonna do?”

  “Take it easy. There’s somethin’ moughty funny aboot all this, Twister. I heard thuh hull thing. Somebody moved that sign on purpose tuh fool us … or tuh fool somebuddy … an’ it’s all tied up with what’s become of Missus Kirk an’ her boy … an’ why she walked off with dinnuh on thuh table an’ never come back.”

  “What yuh figger on doin’?”

  “Stay right here an’ lissen. That Sheriff Morgan seems like a straight-shootin’ hombre. He ain’t gonna let Kirk jump yuh till he knows what’s what. Soon’s he checks with Fo’t Davis he’ll know yo’re tellin’ thuh truth, an’ haven’t been here very long.”

  “He’ll more’n likely slap me in thuh calaboose fust off afore he starts checkin’ anything.”

  “More’n likely,” agreed Chuckaluck calmly. “’Twon’t be thuh fust calaboose yuh been in.”

  “An’ when he does get tuh Fo’t Davis he’ll find out there was two of us ridin’ together.”

  “Shore. But in thuh meantime I’m free tuh do some scoutin’ aroun’ an’ find out what’s goin’ on. They’re comin’ back now,” Chuckaluck went on swiftly. “I’ll slip out an’ saddle my hawse an’ lead him down to thuh rim an’ leave ’im there. Then I’ll be back an’ lissen aroun’ outside till they’re nigh ready tuh leave … an’ slip away ’thout then ever knowin’ I was here.”

  “They’ll find yore hawse gone,” Twister protested.

  “Yuh’ll hafta think up another lie fo’ that,” his partner chuckled softly from the shadows outside. “Tell ’em he’s a high-jumpin’ fool an’ musta got scairt by thuh lantern an’ jumped thuh fence.” His voice faded as he went quietly away.

  Twister heard Jerry Kirk’s angry and excited voice as he neared the house with the sheriff. “There’s not any other place she could be, Sheriff. You can see for yourself from the way things are inside the house she must’ve been here no later than suppertime to-night.”

  “But you got to admit she ain’t on thuh mesa now,” Sheriff Morgan in a weary and disheartened voice. “Not unless she’s buried here.”

  They were at the doorway now, and Twister saw Kirk’s deeply browned face pale at the impact of the sheriff’s words. “Don’t say that! You don’t actually think …?”

  “I dunno what to think,” the Sheriff admitted. “A woman an’ baby don’t walk off an’ leave dinner on thuh table to get cold less something’s wrong. Look here, Jerry,” he went on peremptorily, “you hinted that you expected mebbe we’d find somethin’ wrong when we met on thuh road an’ you ast me to ride up with you. What did you mean?”

  “It wasn’t.…” He stopped and swallowed hard and his black eyes seemed glazed when he stared at Twister who stood across the room with his hands bound.

  The sheriff sank into one of the rocking chairs and said gruffly, “You better tell me.”

  “Well, there was a rider come through San Angelo last week. He was from somewhere around here, and we got to talking when we was drinking some whisky. I told him my name, and then he asked me if I was any kin to a Mrs. Kirk that lived on a homestead up here in the mountains north of Marfa.

  “Well, I didn’t let on one way or the other, and he went on talking about how pretty Lucy was and how lonesome she was all by herself. Then I asked him how he knew so much about a Mrs. Lucy Kirk, and he said Frank Adams told him he was going to look in on her and …”

  “Frank Adams?” the sheriff broke in curtly. “What you talkin’ about? Hasn’t Frank been right neighbourly to you all since you moved in here?”

  “What if he was?” Kirk flared. “That don’t give him a right to look in on Lucy when I’m in San Angelo working myself half to death so I could buy chuck for Lucy and the kid to tide us over till I could come back and get a patch of vegetables growing this summer.” He sprang up and flung out his hands wildly. “I got to thinking about Lucy and how she must be lonesome up here, so I come back. And now she’s gone, damn it. She may be at Adams’ place right now.”

  “Stop it,” said Morgan sharply. “If she’s at Frank’s spread she’s all right. Lots o’ things could o’ happ’ned while you was gone. Mebbe she took sick or the boy got sick. Go see if any of her clothes are missin’.”

  “I’ve looked. Bobbie’s clothes are scattered around in his room like she’d just dropped ’em when she changed him. Lucy was hell on cleaning him up before he ate. Her folks in Ohio put on lots of airs. She made me wash and put on a clean shirt before she’d let me come to the table.”

  “You go look th’ough her things,” Morgan ordered. “Might tell a lot by what she was wearin’.” He got up as Kirk hurried from the room, went over to Twister and loosened the rope on his wrists and slipped it off.

  “That’s right nice o’ yuh,” said Twister sarcastically. He rubbed the red spots to restore circulation and asked, “Yuh decided I ain’t murdered no babies tuhday?”

  “I ain’t decided anything,” said Morgan quietly, “except that I’m taking you to Marfa an’ lockin’ you up tonight if we ain’t found Missus Kirk ’fore we leave here.”

  “Lockin’ me up fo’ what?” Twister snarled.

  “For yore own good maybe. You said you was hankerin’ to spend the night in Marfa, didn’t you?” He looked at Kirk as he returned to the room and asked, “How about her clothes?”

  “I can’t be sure, but I think the only thing missin’ is what she’d call a house dress. Cotton … with red flowers on it. I don’t know about Bobbie’s.”

  “Let’s all three of us set down an’ think this over,” suggested the sheriff. “Tell us yore part of the story again,” he directed. “Every plagued little thing you can remember after leavin’ Fort Davis this mornin’ like you claim.”

  Twister settled himself in a chair and slowly rolled a cigarette as he tried to decide how much to tell them. If Chuckaluck was to remain free to do his snooping around, Twister figured it best not to mention Jean Rangoon. She probably lived close by, and if the sheriff checked with her she would immediately tell him there had been two riders from Fort Davis. If he kept quiet about the girl there would be no way they could find out about Chuckaluck without going to Fort Davis, because they had met no one on the road that day.

  On the other hand, he felt it was urgent to tell them about the two-gunned stranger who had acted like a madman, molesting the girl and letting the water out of the tank. It was likely he was the one who was responsible for whatever had happened to Mrs. Kirk and her boy. A man who had taken advantage of an innocent young girl was exactly the sort of hombre who would attack a lone woman and her baby in an isolated cabin.

  Cautiously he began his story with a lone rider and a couple of thirsty horses coming upon the bunch of green willows, turning off to find water, and finally reaching the water tank. He did not mention Jean Rangoon, but graphically described the madman, his fall into the swift stream after drawing both his guns, his loss of the guns in the water, and the rescue of the man by himself.

  “I should’ve took time tuh tie ’im up, I reckon,” he went on regretfully, “but that watuh was comin’ out fast an’ I hurried tuh get thuh gate closed. Had tuh tromp on it heavy tuh get it down, an’ by thuh time I got thuh watuh shut off this hombre had got tuh his hawse an’ was ridin’ out o’ sight. Meanlookin’ critter, he were.”

  “I’ll be dogged,” said the sheriff excitedly. “Sounds like the Rangoon Three-Mile tank, Jerry. When we was out on thuh mesa I noticed the stream was cut back so it’s runnin’ into Rangoon’s range again. You an’ Rangoon was havin’ a big fight over the water rights las’ time I heard about it. You and him get it fixed up?”

  “No. He didn’t want to pay what it was worth,” said Kirk fiercely. “He was still holding out when I left home two months ago. I saw the water was cut back, too, when we rode up to-night. Maybe he made a deal with Lucy after I went to San Angelo.”

  “Who do you reckon that feller was openin’ the gate an’ lettin’ the water out?” the sheriff asked.

  “I don’t know. If I had been there I might’ve done it myself,” said Kirk angrily.

  “Shore you didn’t get word that Lucy had turned the water over to Rangoon when you was in San Angelo?” persisted the sheriff.

  “No, I didn’t. And if you’re hintin’ I hired some gunman to come here and empty Rangoon’s reservoir you’re guessing dead wrong.”

  The sheriff shrugged and turned his attention to Twister. “You say this rannie high-tailed it out of sight. Which way did he go?”

  “He was pushin’ his horse hard up the hill behind thuh watuh tank. Last I seen of ’im he went out o’ sight behind a stand o’ pine trees.”

  The sheriff frowned and shook his head. “Mighty funny. Ain’t any road out that way, an’ I doubt even a hawse could make it over the mountain there. Go ahead talkin’.”

  “That’s all. I got thuh gate shut an’ watuhed my hawses an’ rode back tuh thuh road. Couple o’ miles on I come to thuh trail leadin’ up here with a sign like the man in Fo’t Davis had said, pointin’ this a-way tuh Marfa, an’ I ended up here.”

  The sheriff said, “Dang it, Jerry, seems t’me like ever’thing he’s done is exactly what an innocent man would do supposin’ he walked into somethin’ like this, right down to puttin’ on that redicklus apron. An’ it ain’t what a man’d do if he had somethin’ to hide.”

  Jerry Kirk leaped up and raged around the room. “You believin’ his story about the sign being where he said … to put ’im on this road?” he demanded. “I tell you that sign is right where it ought to be.”