“I don’t savvy it,” Sam said, riding along beside him. “Clay was always a mighty good cow-man. If they did get home from town too late to milk her last night, I cain’t see why him an’ Dick would both ride off this mawnin’ without even turning the calf in to suck.”

  Pat dropped his reins as they neared the front door of the house, and Sam swung out of the saddle and ground-tied his own mount and joined him. Pat mounted the wooden porch and knocked perfunctorily on the closed door, then pushed it open and called loudly, “Bill! Bill Freeman! Where are you?”

  No answer at all came from the interior of the house. His own voice was eerily echoed back at him and then there was silence.

  Pat shrugged his shoulders and pushed the door wide open. He entered a littered and unswept living room with Sam right behind him, and paused a moment to mutter, “This is damned funny. Maybe Bill ain’t so sick he couldn’t ride out with the boys today.”

  “An’ maybe he’s had a bad attack an’ is layin’ in bed and can’t answer us,” Sam snapped out. “Right through here used to be Bill’s bedroom.”

  He led the way through the living room and along a narrow hall to a closed doorway at the back and on the left. He opened the door of a large bedroom, filled with bright sunlight from the double windows on the east.

  Standing in the hall behind him, Pat saw Sam’s squat body stiffen, and then he stepped toward the bed saying hoarsely, “Bill! Wake up. What in tunket …?”

  His voice dropped suddenly as he leaned over and put his hand on the shoulder of the old man lying doubled up in bed in a contorted position beneath a single thin coverlet.

  Sam straightened slowly and drew his hand away, turning to Pat and muttering in an awestricken voice: “He’s dead, Pat. Plumb cold an’ stiff. Bill Freeman is dead!”

  Pat stood beside him looking down at the old man’s body. He leaned forward and gently pulled aside the coverlet to disclose his gaunt face. The features were twisted in an indescribable expression of pain and horror; the tongue was thickened and it protruded from bluish lips, his eyes bulged in their deep sockets as though they vainly sought to burst from the confinement of tightly closed lids.

  Pat looked down at him steadily, and then touched his fingers to the cold flesh. He pulled the coverlet down again and said harshly, “He’s been dead twelve hours or more. Do you reckon Clay an’ Dick didn’t even come back to the ranch last night?”

  “Bartender at the Gold Eagle said they left town right after we saw ’em at the hotel. Sold Clay a quart of whiskey for him to bring out to Bill.”

  “Looks like they didn’t get here,” Pat muttered. He went to the windows and pulled down the shades for it seemed more fitting for a death-room to be in semi-darkness, and then he went out into the hallway and with a queer expression on his face, headed toward the kitchen.

  Sam followed him silently. In the kitchen they found a few dirty dishes stacked up on the kitchen table while the rest of the room was in perfect order.

  “Stove’s plumb cold,” Pat reported. “Hasn’t anybody cooked any breakfast here this morning.”

  “One dirty plate an’ set of eatin’ tools here on the table,” Sam said. “Left over from supper last night, I reckon. An’ there’s two dirty cawfee cups, Pat.”

  “That one plate’d be left from Bill’s supper, I reckon. Looks like Clay an’ Dick must of ate in town before they came back,” Pat muttered. “Maybe they both drank some coffee afterward. But where in hell are they? Do you reckon they’d both go ridin’ off leaving Bill dead in bed? And not fix any breakfast?”

  “It don’t seem fittin’,” Sam agreed. “Most generally a feller feels like somebody should stay with a corpse. How long would you say Bill’d bin dead, Pat?”

  “I’m not a doctor, but at least twelve hours. Maybe a lot longer. It’s a gut cinch he didn’t die and get that stiff and cold since they got up and rode off this morning.”

  “If they’d found him like that last night when they got back, one of ’em would sure have rode to town with the news an’ there’d be someone here,” Sam argued. “Looks tuh me like there’s somethin’ mighty funny about this.”

  “He didn’t die easy.” Pat spoke quietly but his voice was taut and hard. “He fought it plenty. You can see that from the way he’s twisted up and the look on his face.”

  “Yeh. It’s a damn shame too. Jest when his gal come out from the city to make up to him after all these years.”

  They slowly moved out of the kitchen. There was a roll-top desk at the far end of the living room beside the stone fireplace. The top was rolled back and there was a litter of papers on the desk. Pat went toward it, muttering, “That don’t look like the way Bill would leave his desk. He always seemed mighty neat and orderly to me.”

  “He was,” Sam assented quickly. “Two or three times I’ve seen him open that desk up all the papers was allus put away careful in them little boxes at the back.”

  Pat stood over the desk looking down at it carefully. Most of the pigeonholes were empty. Some of them contained papers that had obviously been carelessly crammed back. He pointed out a fresh scar made on the oak surface in front beside the lock, and showed Sam a corresponding mark on the bottom edge of the roll-top.

  “Looks like the desk was locked and somebody pried it open,” he told Sam. “Then they went through all his papers looking for something.”

  Standing close beside him, Sam Sloan stiffened. He turned his head in a strained position to look over his shoulder at the door leading into the hallway, and his hand dropped to the butt of his gun. “Did you hear that?” he whispered tensely.

  “What?”

  “I dunno.” Sam kept his voice low. He was breathing hard. “Sounded like bedsprings squeakin’. Like somebody gettin’ up or turnin’ over in bed.”

  Pat said, “There’s nobody back there but a corpse.”

  “That’s what I was thinkin’.” Sam pulled out a bandana and mopped sweat from his face with a trembling hand. “Spirits maybe. Old Bill’s ghost!”

  Pat said, “I didn’t hear anything. Rats, I reckon.” He turned his attention back to the desk, began meditatively pawing through the papers cluttering it. “I wonder what anybody …”

  Sam shuddered and grabbed his arm violently. “I never knowed a rat that put on his boots. D’yuh hear that?”

  Pat frowned. He had heard something. And it had sounded like a man stamping his foot into a too-tight boot. He said impatiently, “Must be a pack-rat has drug in a stick of wood to leave in place of something he’s stole. You know good an’ well …”

  “I know good an’ well somebody or something is moving back yonder.” Sam’s dark face had turned ashen and he had his .45 in his hand. “If it’s a rat, he’s big as a man.”

  Pat heard the unmistakable creak of bedsprings now. It certainly wasn’t caused by any rat. But ghosts were supposed to be formless and weightless, so he didn’t see how a spirit could make bedsprings creak like that.

  He muttered, “I know Bill was dead. I felt of him, dang it.”

  He began to move quietly toward the door leading out of the living room, and without quite realizing what he was doing, he drew his gun also.

  Sam Sloan tiptoed along beside him. Pat grinned for one fleeting instant, realizing how funny they would look if anybody could see them: two grown men stalking a ghostly sound with drawn guns in a house inhabited only by a corpse.

  But he stopped grinning as they reached the doorway and were able to look down the hall. The door on the opposite side of the hall from Bill Freeman’s bedroom was opening.

  There wasn’t any doubt about it. The knob was turning and now the door was being drawn inward by an invisible force, slowly and with maddening deliberation.

  He and Sam stood stockstill and fascinatedly watched the door open inward. Their guns were cocked and they both covered the doorway.

  Then a figure lurched out into the hall and confronted them. It was Dick Freeman.

  His coarse black hair was uncombed and hung down over his bloodshot eyes. His clothing was rumpled and disarranged from having been slept in all night, and his big mouth hung open slackly.

  He staggered against the wall and stared at the two grim-faced men and the muzzles of their guns, and croaked weakly, “What thuh hell’s matter? Whatcha doin’ here an’ lookin’ at me like that?”

  Pat holstered his gun and stepped forward. Five feet from the swaying youth, he caught the rank odor of stale whiskey mingled with the foul breath from an upset stomach. He demanded harshly, “What’re you doing here, Dick?”

  “Jush … just woke up,” the boy mumbled. “Whassa matter? Who’s bin breakin’ rotten eggs in my mouth?” He shuddered and retched violently. “Gotta get a drink. M’burnin’ up.” He staggered past Pat down the hallway, holding himself erect with one hand against the wall.

  Pat stepped to the open door of the bedroom and looked in. The windows were tightly closed and the atmosphere was fetid and nauseating. An empty quart whiskey bottle lay on the floor beside the bed. Sometime during the night, the boy had vomited on the covers.

  He turned and went slowly back to Sam who stood just inside the living room. Dick had made his way into the kitchen, and they could hear the hand-pump wheezing as he primed it to get a fresh flow of cold water started.

  Sam shook his head and said, “He looks like a mighty sick boy.”

  “He’s due to be a lot sicker,” Pat said angrily, “before I finish with him.” He strode forward purposefully toward the kitchen.

  5.

  In the kitchen, water was gushing from the iron spout of the pump into a tin basin. When the basin was half full, Dick stopped pumping and bent over, spraddle-legged, to douse his head and face in the water. He came up puffing and blowing, reached out blindly for a dirty towel hanging on a nail beside the back door.

  After partially drying his face and hair; he pumped a dipperful of the cold well water and drank it in thirsty gulps.

  From the doorway, Pat Stevens and Sam Sloan watched in stony silence until he was through. His eyes were still bloodshot and his face was a sickish gray color when he turned toward them, but he looked a lot better than when he first arose.

  He essayed an attitude of grinning bravado and he tried to swagger as he turned toward the two men, but it didn’t quite come off. Beneath the outward semblance of manhood he was still a sick and frightened boy.

  “I sure got me a hell of a hangover this morning,” he announced unsteadily. “What time is it? What’s … happened?”

  “What d’yuh mean—what’s happened?” snapped Pat.

  “Where is everybody? Dad and Clay? What’re you doing here so early? An’ how come you both had your guns throwed down on me when I came out of my room?”

  Pat said, “Don’t you know where Bill and Clay are?”

  “No. I don’t know nothin’.” Dick groaned dismally and pressed his hands to his forehead. “My head feels like it’s full of blacksmiths pounding on the inside with sledgehammers.”

  He came across the kitchen toward them, swaying weakly and holding his head.

  They stepped aside and Pat took his arm to lead him to a chair in the living room and thrust him down into it ungently. Standing over the wretched boy, he growled, “What time’d you get home las’ night?”

  “I dunno.” Dick shook his head dismally. “Couldn’t of been so very late. Clay an’ me left town right we saw you-all at the hotel.”

  “Come straight home?”

  “Yeh.”

  “What did you do when you got here? Was Bill up when you got home?”

  “I dunno. I don’t remember it very good,” the boy whined. “Things are all sorta mixed up. Whatsamatter anyhow?”

  “You’ll find out about that soon enough,” Pat told him evenly. “Right now I’m askin’ about last night. You and Clay were drinking, huh?”

  “I was.” The boy shuddered and licked his dry lips. “I don’t rightly recollect whether Clay drank any out of the bottle or not. Mostly not, I reckon. I done it all myself. Gee Whillikers,” he went on with a note of youthful awe creeping into his voice. “I reckon I drank most a whole quart of whiskey. No wonder I don’t remember much.”

  “What’d you do when you got home?”

  “Come in an’ went to bed,” Dick muttered. “Leastwise, I don’t recollect nothin’ else. Seems like Clay unsaddled my hawse for me, an’ I come on in.”

  “Did you talk to Bill any?”

  “Not that I know of. It’s all mixed up,” the boy confessed weakly. “I guess I sorta passed out when I got off my hawse. I know I’d drunk more’n a pint just ridin’ back from town,” he added proudly.

  “Where’s Clay this morning?” Pat persisted.

  “I dunno. I just woke up. You oughtta know that. You were here when I got up.”

  “Where does Clay sleep?”

  “In a cot on the back porch. Since we let the other hands go. We closed up the bunkhouse an’ he’s been staying here.”

  Pat turned to Sam and growled, “Go take a look.”

  Sam went out toward the back porch and Pat continued his probing, “Doesn’t Clay eat here too?”

  “Sure he does. He does mosta the cookin’.”

  “Eats a hearty breakfast, huh?”

  “Flapjacks most generally. With fried sowbelly an’ coffee. What’re you askin’ all these here questions for?” demanded Dick, his voice rising shakily. “What’s wrong? Where is Dad an’ Clay? What’re you and Sam acting so funny about?”

  Sam Sloan came back into the room with a scowl on his dark face. He shook his head and reported, “Looks like the cot ain’t been slept in last night.”

  Pat nodded as though he wasn’t at all surprised by this news. “You better ride to Dutch Springs, Sam. Lay the leather to your cayuse an’ bring Doc Trimble back with you in a hurry. And if you see anybody along the way,” he added significantly, “pass the word out that Clay Porter is wanted here bad. If he don’t wanta come, anybody that sees him is deputized to bring him in.”

  Sam said grimly, “I getcha.” He strode to the outer door, paused to ask over his shoulder, “You want I should keep this quiet in town? Or d’yuh want I should maybe say somethin’ about it to a certain party at thuh Jewel Hotel?”

  “Don’t say nothing about it,” Pat ordered. “She’ll be findin’ out soon enough.”

  Sam Sloan went out and slammed the door shut behind him. A moment later the pounding hoofbeats of his horse receded at a gallop down the road toward Dutch Springs.

  As the hoofbeats of Sam’s horse faded away in the distance, Dick Freeman lifted his head and stared up at Pat with puzzled and frightened eyes. “Why’re you sending for Doctor Trimble? What … has happened?”

  “Don’t give me that stuff,” said Pat roughly. “I figure you know as well as I do.”

  “But I don’t,” the boy cried out. “I’ve told you I drank that whole bottle of whiskey and passed out.”

  “I don’t believe you were that drunk,” Pat told him grimly.

  “How drunk? What do you mean? Has somethin’ happened to Clay? Where is he?”

  “Something’s happened, but not to Clay.”

  “To Dad then? Is that it?” Dick pulled himself up from his chair.

  “Where do you think he is?” Pat asked caustically. “You an’ Clay were mighty bent on tellin’ how sick he was last night. Yet you haven’t been near enough surprised that he’s not around here this mornin’.”

  “I’ve asked you two or three times,” the boy mumbled, passing a trembling hand over his forehead. “Things’re going around in my head funny. Where is he?”

  “Dead.”

  “Dad? Dead? Why’re you looking at me like that? I didn’t know it. I swear I didn’t hear any shot. I was too drunk to hear anything. Who did it?”

  “I didn’t say he was shot.”

  “But … you said …” the boy faltered.

  “I said he was dead. You claim you didn’t know anything about it, yet you said right off you didn’t hear any shot. What made you think he’d been shot? Why didn’t you just think he’d died natural?”

  “I don’t know. The way you’re acting, I guess. First thing I thought of was that maybe somebody killed him.”

  “Why did you think that first?” Pat asked angrily. “Las’ night you and Clay said he was too sick to have company. A man that sick could rightly be expected to die without being shot. You were lying about how sick he was, weren’t you?”

  “No. We weren’t lying. He was mighty sick. But I just didn’t think about him dying from it. Is that how it was?”

  “He’s laying back in his bed,” Pat said gruffly. “Maybe you better come back and take a look.”

  “I don’t feel so good,” the boy groaned. “I think I’m going to be sick again.”

  “He ain’t a nice sight,” Pat agreed grimly. “But I reckon you better look at him just the same.” He reached down and got hold of Dick’s arm, lifted him bodily from his chair and propelled him back along the hall to the death-room opposite the boy’s bedchamber.

  Dick cast one frightened look at the contorted face and figure of the corpse when Pat threw back the cover, and then backed away, retching violently and sobbing at the same time.

  Pat followed him back disgustedly, and let him go out the front door until the attack of sickness had passed.

  When Dick came stumbling back, looking greenish about the mouth and holding his stomach with both hands, Pat told him angrily, “I don’t know just what happened around here last night, but I sure aim to find out. Looks like Clay has took a run-out powder, leavin’ you behind to face this alone. Surprises you, doesn’t it? You thought Clay Porter was your friend?”

  “He is. I don’t know where he is. Maybe he had an accident last night. Maybe one of the hawses kicked him. That roan I was ridin’ is kind of mean.”

  Pat said, “Maybe. And maybe not. Do you still claim you didn’t even know Bill was lying in there dead? Still claim you don’t remember nothing after you got home last night?”