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Title: Romanced to freedom

Author: Murray Leinster

Illustrator: Nicholas Eggenhofer


        
Release date: September 30, 2026 [eBook #79690]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Street & Smith Corporation, 1923

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79690

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCED TO FREEDOM ***


                          ROMANCED TO FREEDOM

                           By Murray Leinster
                   Author of “High Jinks in Denver,” etc.


A bullet plunked neatly between the horse’s legs and spattered into a
shapeless mass of lead against a boulder, from whence it went whining
off into nowhere. That was one second. The next, the very young sheriff
was off his mount and was jerking it behind an outcrop of rock. His head
peered cautiously around it a little later, but with perfect caution. He
could see, but he would not be seen. A long blue barrel came around the
ledge.

The valley was empty. All raw red earth and barren rocks, there was no
trace of vegetation save down at the very bottom, where a stream might
run if it rained, which was improbable. The naked rocks were just
beginning to cool a little from their midday heat, and on the farther
side the shadows began to take on those strangely beautiful purple tints
that come in high, thin air at nightfall.

Suddenly the sheriff’s horse stirred, and its shod hoofs clinked
musically. As if it were a signal, there was a shot from below. The
sheriff heard it sing above his head, and then it spitefully hissed into
red clay. The crack of the rifle the other man was using echoed and
reëchoed thinly among the cliffs. The sheriff fired, and fired again,
then squinted wisely at the sun. Two hours more of daylight, perhaps—no
more.

Now he began to survey the ground before him. The other man would wait
for nightfall, if he were wise—holding the sheriff here by rifle
fire—and then make a bolt for it. And that was something the sheriff did
not propose to allow. He began to map out a course for himself, so that
he would have cover in his proposed journeying, and yet manage to get
close enough to spoil the other man’s plan.

He was a very young man, the sheriff. A day of hard riding had not tired
him, nor did he look upon his present task with either the phlegmatic
calm of an older man, or the nervousness of the inexperienced. He was
possibly twenty-five, and his attitude was eminently businesslike and
yet pleasurably excited. Even in the least tamed of communities, a man
hunt is not so common as to be altogether devoid of thrill. The man
below had killed a Mexican deliberately. Therefore the sheriff was after
him, and therefore he picketed his horse and wriggled carefully away
from his first hiding place.

The location of the fugitive had been fairly well indicated by his
shots. Modern firearms no longer emit a cloud of dense white smoke on
being fired. A faint blue cloud that instantly dissipates is the most
one can expect, but even that will show up to a watchful eye. The
sheriff had placed his man behind a mass of detritus, fallen from the
cañon sides. There would be room there even for a horse.

Pleasurably excited, the sheriff was not looking for unnecessary
heroics. His object was to capture the man as promptly as possible and
with the least damage. Therefore, instead of trying to make a frontal
attack, involving a descent of the cañon wall under fire—which would
have been sheer suicide—he actually moved back for some little distance
and then walked cautiously for nearly a quarter of a mile. It was a
pocket cañon, with a deep slide, where the sheriff’s horse was waiting,
and a narrow opening just opposite that spot.

Once he got down on hands and knees and crawled to the edge. In the
gathering shadows he could just make out a huddled mass in the place he
had picked out. As he watched, it moved slightly, and his suspicions
were confirmed. The man was there. The sheriff drew back and walked
quietly enough to a spot where he could clamber down unseen by his
quarry. No more than half an hour after the first interchange of shots
he was intrenched behind a huge flat rock on the cañon floor, completely
commanding the entrance, with his repeating rifle. And then he settled
himself comfortably, even lighting a cigarette. As he thrust back his
sack of tobacco, a comforting little rustle in the same pocket, just
over his heart, made his expression soften a trifle.

The sun sank down and down. It was gone, with a bewildering flash of
momentary green that sometimes shows above mountains on the far horizon.
And then the shadows deepened. Darkest purple and palest lavender, they
made the gloomy rocks and forbidding cliffs into places of colorful
beauty. Mystery was there and allurement, in the crenelated turrets of
naked rock and strange fortresses of gullied clay. And romance was
there, too, in the person of a young man who smoked behind a flat rock
on which he rested a rifle and dreamed dreams concerning a small letter
that rested in his pocket. From a girl, of course. He became lost in
formless thoughts of her, while he waited for a murderer to come out,
for the night to be stabbed by spiteful flashes of crackling flame, and
for whining bullets to come about his ears.

Far in the east the horizon lightened the barest trifle. Soon the moon
would rise. Now would be the time, of course.

Like a ghost he came, his horse’s feet making no sound. He rode swiftly,
bent low in the saddle, expecting futile shots from behind him to
follow. Instead, the young sheriff dropped his cigarette.

“Damn!” he said softly. “Muffled his horse’s hoofs.”

There was no time for a hail or stern command to halt. The young sheriff
fired quickly and heard the impact of his bullet, so still was the
night. And then he heard a queer sound from the horse’s throat, and it
pitched forward clumsily and lay sprawled out, kicking more and more
feebly.

Flinging himself at the heap of horse and man, his rifle discarded, but
a revolver ready, the sheriff dragged a writhing figure from the mass.

“Easy!” he said curtly. “I’ve got you!”

He drew out the other man’s gun and felt him for other weapons. He was
curiously silent, the fugitive.

“Guess we’ll camp,” commented the sheriff a moment later. “Hike back in
the morning.”

A sudden curiosity made him strike a match, and then an exclamation was
wrenched from him at the sight of the bearded, sun-tanned face that was
smiling oddly at him.

“Dick!”

The match dropped and went out in its fall, leaving the two men staring
at each other with momentarily flame-dazzled eyes in a world gone black.
There was silence for perhaps half a minute, then a queer noise. The
sheriff was shivering.

“My Lord!” he whispered. “Dick!”

The prisoner smiled whimsically in the darkness.

“You’ve no idea, Jerry, what a temptation it was to plug you when you
first showed up. You made a beautiful target, but I tried for your horse
and wanted to be sure of missing you, so I fired too low.”

The sheriff’s voice was strained.

“But are you—are you the—the Andrews that killed that Mex?”

“I’m afraid I am, Jerry.” The tone was not mocking, nor even light. It
was curiously sympathetic. “There are times when I regret being a black
sheep. It must be pretty tough to go out after a murderer and find him
your own brother.”

The sheriff turned suddenly. His words were muffled.

“We’ll make camp. Here, let me take off that rope.” He stumbled away
after loosening his captive’s bonds. “You—you’ll wait here until I lead
my horse down. Supplies on my saddle.”

Dick heard him going clumsily, and Dick seemed to be debating a bolt in
his absence. He glanced at the desert beyond the cañon, but then shook
his head.

“Couldn’t make it,” he murmured to himself. “And he’d track me in the
morning.”

There were quite forty miles of desert ahead of him, if only a dozen
behind him. He could not cross that waterless country without more than
one canteen of water, and it would be a terrible journey without a
horse. He went over to his mount. It was still now. He ran a hand
caressingly down the horse’s stiff muzzle.

When the sheriff came back, Dick was sitting on a flat rock, puffing
soberly on a cigarette.

“Some yucca over yonder, Jerry,” he said soberly. “Light one and camp by
it?”

The young sheriff nodded and followed in silence. His horse ambled
contentedly behind him. When the prickly, oily bush began to flare up,
his face was haggard. There were new deep lines about his mouth.

The prisoner glanced up gently, as his brother flung himself down.

“What’re you going to do, Jerry?”

The sheriff flung out his hand.

“Take you in,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve got to!”

Oddly enough the prisoner seemed to be the less moved of the two. He was
grave, yes, but he seemed to be thinking more of the sheriff than of
himself.

“And what do you suppose will happen, Jerry?”

“They’ll probably hang you.” The sheriff was speaking through stiff
lips. “I don’t know what defense you’ve got, but they told me a man
named Andrews had ridden into Potosi, looking for a Mex named Pedro
Cordoba. He found the Mex in a _cantina_, and the Mex and Andrews
clinched. Andrews went for the Mex with bare hands, roaring that he was
going to kill him. The Mex drew a knife, and Andrews got it away from
him and killed him—with his hands.”

Dick nodded soberly. “That’s right, Jerry. Just what I did. But will
they hang me for that?”

“I’m afraid they will, Dick. You were looking for him. He was trying to
defend himself.”

There was silence for a time, while the leaves of the clump of Spanish
bayonet flared up and died, and only the oily stalk in the center burned
on with little licking flames. The flickering light shone weirdly upon
the two figures, dusty and travel-stained. The young sheriff’s eyes were
dark and full of pain. The prisoner was smiling gravely at the fire.

“You couldn’t let me go, Jerry?”

“No, I couldn’t let you go. If I’d known it was you, Dick, I’d have sent
a deputy after you. Why did you let me catch you?”

A moment’s pause.

“I knew you were the sheriff,” said the prisoner gently. “I couldn’t
kill you very well. I tried for your horse, but fired too low. I wanted
to be sure of missing you.”

“You might have winged me, Dick! Oh, if you only had!”

The prisoner looked up somberly.

“You’re thinking it will hurt dad and mother?”

Again the sheriff groaned. The prisoner stirred.

“I’m the black sheep, Jerry,” he said slowly. “They expect something of
the sort from me, you know. But it will be tough.”

Perhaps in the firelight, perhaps in the thin smoke, perhaps in the
purple shadows that were slowly being lightened by the first pale rays
of the thin sickle moon, a picture seemed to form. It was of a ranch
house shining in the sunlight, nestled among a grove of cottonwood
trees. There was water there and grass, and there were cattle in herds
about it, grazing. It seemed that the lazy contentment and perfect peace
of the place added a certain glamour to the vision. Even the noise of
many hoofs, that faint and indefinable sound of cattle grazing
contentedly, came to the sheriff through the dimness.

And then his brother moved suddenly, and the vision vanished. But the
sheriff could still feel the atmosphere of his home, and he could
foresee with pitiless clarity what his brother’s hanging would mean to
his parents. Pride humbled and fresh disgrace—and even Dolores would be
pained. She had liked Dick, though she had shyly promised to marry
Jerry. She would find it difficult to understand the conception of duty
that would make him take in his own brother to be hung. And her father,
Don Luis, would storm and greet Jerry with a perfect Castilian courtesy
that would somehow fail of being convincing.

There was no great happiness ahead for the sheriff. He stared at the
fire, while his mouth twisted, as if he were tasting something of
surpassing bitterness. His brother, across the fire, shot a look at him
that was whimsical and curiously tender, the tenderness of which only a
man is capable. He opened his mouth, hesitated, and then spoke.

“Heard from home lately, Jerry?”

“Last week,” said the sheriff weakly. “All well.”

Dick looked away.

“Dolores?”

“I heard from her at the same time.”

There was a long silence, and then the prisoner shrugged oddly.

“I’d better tell you, Jerry. I was at home a few days ago.”

His expression was of one who speaks against his will and hating to say
a thing that will be painful. The sheriff listened dully.

“You were home?”

“I’d gone back,” said Dick gravely, “to tell them I’d quit. To tell them
I was going to try to face the music and straighten up. Not very easy
for me, Jerry; because there are a few things I’d have to pay for,
answer for, before I could come out in the open. I wish you’d let me go,
old fellow. Dad would like it.”

The sheriff clenched his hand tightly and drew a deep breath.

“Dick,” he said steadily, “I’ve caught you. I wish I hadn’t, but I have.
And I—I took an oath of office. If you try to get away, Dick, I’ll try
not to kill you, but I’ll have to get you again, and I’ll do it.”

A ghost of a smile showed in the prisoner’s face.

“Thought so, Jerry. That’s the way we were raised.” He paused, and
looked at the dim glow of the burning yucca root. “But at home,
there—you’d never heard of this Cordoba I killed, had you?”

In the paling light the sheriff’s face could barely be seen. The moon
had risen behind him and lightened the broad brim of his hat, casting a
faint shadow even in the firelight’s circle. His prisoner seemed not to
need a reply. He went on, staring at the fire.

“He had been there, at Don Luis’ hacienda. He was a low-class Mexican,
and you know that Don Luis is a real Spaniard, _gente de razon_, he
calls himself. But this Cordoba had the impertinence to make eyes at
Dolores.”

At the sudden movement of the sheriff, a note crinkled softly in his
shirt pocket. The other man stared into the fire.

“Don Luis had him kicked off the place. His _vaqueros_ handled him
pretty roughly. Cordoba vanished. Two or three days after that, Dolores
started to ride over to see dad and mother. Don Luis, as you know,
allowed her a lot of freedom.”

An inarticulate sound came from the sheriff. Beads of perspiration came
out upon his forehead.

“She didn’t come back. They found her with a bullet through her heart.
Sorry, Jerry.”

For a full minute there was a dead silence. The sheriff barely moved,
but his eyes closed tightly. A little later the breath rasped sobbingly
in his throat.

“And you see, Jerry, I knew what you’d do. You’d have followed him and
killed him, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes!” The sheriff’s voice was very strange.

Dick nodded quietly, staring into the fire.

“There wouldn’t have been much thought of the law for you, old fellow.
But it wouldn’t have done. One killer in the family was bad enough. You
are an officer of the law, sworn to uphold it. If you’d gone and killed
him—as you would have done—it would have looked rather bad for us.
There’d have been two black sheep, both of us outlawed most likely, and
you’d be in particularly bad because an officer of the law isn’t
supposed to exact private revenge. So I—well, I’m not much good, Jerry.
I know it. I made them promise at home not to let you know for a little
while. Then I started after Cordoba. I found him, Jerry.”

Silence again. When the sheriff spoke, it seemed as if his throat were
swollen.

“I—I see. You killed him to—keep me from doing it.”

The moon, climbing over a grotesque mass of rock shaped in the form of a
goblin’s castle, saw the two men seated by their dying fire. A single
horse browsed in the shrubbery, not far away. One man gazed at the
expiring flame. The other was very, very still.

It was a long time later that the sheriff found his voice, and then it
was thick and dulled.

“You’ll have to ride on to-night, Dick,” he said with difficulty. “I
left word for my two deputies to follow me. They’ll trace our trails
without any trouble, and they ought to be here early to-morrow. Take my
horse and go.”

Slowly the prisoner rose. Slowly he picked up his weapons, the sheriff
watching apathetically. He moved off into the darkness and came back
leading the sheriff’s horse. He looked down at his brother.

“Jerry!”

The sheriff looked up and smiled in a fashion that was pure agony.

“Good-by, Dick, and good luck. But I wish you’d let me kill him.”

A moment’s pause, and Dick’s mouth twisted queerly.

“I can’t do it!” His voice broke. “Blast you, Jerry——”

The sheriff started up, and his late prisoner swung quickly and
powerfully for his jaw. The sheriff was flung back and down and lay
still on the earth. And then Dick threw himself upon him.

A trickle of water down his throat and a hand working expertly at the
third vertebra—which will bring a man out of any unconsciousness that is
not coma—were his first sensations, as the sheriff came slowly back to
the world. His brother’s face was above him, and there were tears in the
older man’s eyes.

“I couldn’t do it, Jerry. I lied to you.”

The sheriff struggled to move and could not. His brother erect, smiling
queerly.

“Old fellow, I’m the most worthless human being in the universe, but I
couldn’t go away and let you believe that yarn, even for an instant. I
haven’t been home, Jerry, and I followed Cordoba from Chihuahua. He
hasn’t been there, either. Dolores is all right—she must be all right.”

There was a moment in which the sheriff drank in the assurance, and then
he struggled with his bonds. Dick watched him. He relaxed.

“I did kill Cordoba, Jerry,” said Dick slowly, “because three months
ago, down in Chihuahua, just what I told you of Dolores, happened to
another girl. She was going to marry me the next day, but Cordoba put a
bullet through her heart to keep me from having her. I’m going back
there now. Her father and I—well, her father is a very proud old
gentleman, like Don Luis, and he looks on me rather as his son. But I
had to get Cordoba.”

Slowly, in spite of his bonds, the sheriff managed to smile.

“I wouldn’t have let you go, except for that yarn.”

“And I couldn’t take it, Jerry. But I could knock you out and rope you.
There’s no disgrace in losing a prisoner.”

The sheriff was still smiling wryly.

“No, Dick, I guess there ain’t. And there’ll be no come-back to dad.”

Dick hesitated and then said somewhat wearily.

“Don’t expect you to believe me, but that’s my only reason for wanting
to get away. The girl that Cordoba killed—I loved her, Jerry.”

He stood up and climbed into the saddle.

“You said your deputies would be here early to-morrow. In case they
don’t, I’ve fixed that rope so you can wriggle free in a couple of
hours. And there’s a canteen. It’s only twelve miles to a ranch where
you can get a horse. ’By, Jerry.”

The sheriff managed to grin faintly.

“Good-by, Dick. And—and——” A sudden wave of comprehension came over him.
His brother felt now, just as he had felt when he had believed the tale
that was told him. His tone was sincerely sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Dick.
Good luck!”

The thudding of the horse’s hoofs died away in the distance, and then a
long time later the sheriff began to work on the ropes that bound him.


[Notes on the Text: This story appeared in _Western Story Magazine_,
January 27, 1923. It is believed to be in the public domain in the
United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.]



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