Death Waits at Sundown Read Online Free Page A

prisoner’s boot touched gave forth a hollow,
dismal sound which echoed across the silent crowd.
    When Frank reached the platform, the new planks creaked
and that sound too was abnormally loud. A few in the crowd found their voices
and yelled but they too fell silent after a moment.
    McCloud was spreading the noose, fondling his hangman’s
knot with loving care. He had a black cap tucked in his belt and when Frank
came up to him he pulled it out.
    Frank Taylor’s young face was beginning to show a trace
of worry. His eyes grew restless as they searched the face-paved expanse on all
sides.
    â€œYou won’t find him,” said McCloud in a whisper. “I took
care of that.”
    Frank faced him, suddenly white with anger. “You’ve
murdered him!”
    McCloud went into action. He tried to slip the black cap
over Frank’s head but he could not. Three guards leaped up the steps to hold
Frank in firm grips. The cap was pulled down in place. Roughly they shoved
Frank to the trapdoor and then McCloud, with help, slid the noose over his head
and drew it tight.
    â€œLadies and gentlemen,” said McCloud with pious
intonation. “I hope this’ll be a lesson to you. This’s the fate of evildoers in
Pioneer. We ain’t had no justice here in a long time, but by God we’ve got it
now! This gent tried to grab all the cows and all the gold in sight and so we
ain’t got no use for such an unrespectable citizen in a respectable town and
here and now we are about to terminate his youth after a fair and legal trial
durin’ which he was proved guilty as hell of all them things that’s been
happenin’. The law has tooken its course. Amen. Boys, the . . .”
    There came a shriek from the outskirts of the crowd and
then a mad rush away from the east end of the street. Suddenly the cry spread
with the wings of terror and men leaped hastily for cover.
    Fifty longhorns, horn rattling on horn, hurtled toward
the gallows, excited by the yells about them but terrified by the shrieking
fiend behind them who slashed them with a quirt and made a whirlwind with a serape .
    â€œYee-yip-yipyip-yippi yi !”
yelled Lynn.
    And the crowd fled before the approaching wall of beef.
They were afoot and the consequences of that fact swept away all reason. Long
before the front rank of the herd touched the gallows, all spectators had
vanished and could be seen clinging precariously to roofs and false-fronts on
either side of the square while others peered from doorways, ready to bolt
again.
    Isolated on the gallows were McCloud, three guards and
their victim.
    McCloud instantly thought
of fight as the steers rumbled by on either side. He grabbed his Colt and
started to snap down on the rider made phantom by the billowing dust. A shot
drove the steers even faster, but it had come from their wake. McCloud’s gun,
with a bright gash in the stock, flipped to the platform and McCloud was
holding his wrist.
    The three guards felt needlessly exposed, not sure but
what the next shot would down any one of them, uncertain that the gallows was
safe from the steers who shook it to its foundation in their passage.
    Enwrapped in the dust now, the guards took the wiser
course and threw up their hands.
    With drawn guns, Lynn charged up the steps on the
buckskin. He leaned out of the saddle and took the rope from around Frank’s
neck and slashed the bonds which confined the boy’s arms. Frank yanked off his
black hood and grabbed up McCloud’s fallen gun.
    â€œStay where you are!” warned Lynn. And with Frank up
behind him he rode down the steps and up the front of the general store. Men
went out the back door when the two came in the front.
    Presently all was quiet in Pioneer and the steers, no
longer driven, quietly searched out the grass on the plain beyond. Two by two
and ten by ten, cattlemen ventured forth into the street. The guards, not
certain but what they were still covered