The Race

Again the wind rattled the hard-leafed chaparral, first hot, then cold.

Suddenly he skidded off balance. He kicked a rock, which rolled noisily downhill.

A shot cracked, the bullet kicking dust fifteen feet below him. Bell instantly grabbed another rock and threw it far to his right. It landed with a clatter that drew more fire. Let Frost wonder which rock had been accidentally dislodged and which thrown. Bell started down again. The location from where Frost had fired his rifle was almost exactly where Bell had guessed. He was staying put in the thicket, which was now less than three hundred yards below him. But now Frost knew to look behind him.

Without warning, he exploded into action, shoving out of the dense undergrowth ru

Frost flung his arms high. His Marlin went flying. The distance was too long to hear him yell, but Bell thought he had hurt him badly until he saw Frost scoop his fallen rifle off the ground and disappear into the canyon.

Isaac Bell ran down the slope, bounding from hummock to hummock, leaping brush and boulders. He lost his footing, pitched to the ground, rolled on his shoulder, and sprang to his feet again, still ru

He sensed more than saw a flicker of movement at the mouth of the canyon and dove headlong to the ground. A pistol slug whistled through the air he had just vacated. He tucked the Winchester tight to his chest, rolled, and this time when he sprang to his feet he came up firing, levering slug after slug into the breech, spraying a deadly fusillade that sent Frost in retreat.

For some reason, Frost wasn’t using his Marlin. Bell guessed that his Winchester shot that had set it flying had damaged it, in which case Frost was down to sidearms. He burst into the canyon, which was no wider than a town house but appeared to bore deeply into the hillside. Thick brush clogged the mouth. Bell pushed through thorny chaparral. Pistol shots booming close at hand revealed Frost, crouching and firing his snub-nosed Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver with which he had almost killed Archie Abbott. The range was too long for the sawed-off barrel. The manstoppers flew wildly, scattering splinters of wood.

Bell tried to fire back. His Winchester was empty.

Frost charged, plowing through the brush like a buffalo, triggering his heavy pistol as he halved the range and burst from the thicket. It was Bell’s first close look at him. One eye was cloudy, the socket scarred where Bell’s Remington rifle shots had hurled stone chips in his face at the Chicago armory. The ear Bell had winged was a ragged appendage. The jaw Archie had broken was misshapen. But his good eye burned hot as a gasoline fire, and he ran with the unstoppable gait of a locomotive.

Bell dropped to one knee, pulled his throwing knife from his boot, and flung it hard. It slid between the bones of Frost’s forearm, and the deadly Webley-Fosbery fell from his convulsing fingers. Before it hit the ground, Frost pulled out a pocket pistol with his left hand.

Bell drew his Browning and triggered it twice. Their weapons echoed in unison. Frost’s vest deflected both of Bell’s bullets. One of Frost’s shots fa

Bell deflected some of the impact with his shoulder. But the giant’s punch rocked him to the core, knocked him halfway to his knees. White flashes stormed before his eyes. His hands felt heavy as lead. He sensed a second pile-driver punch coming at him, rolled with it, and hurled his own punch, aiming for the jawbone that Archie had broken.

His tightly clenched fist co

“Drop it!” he said. “You’re a dead man.”

Frost swung the rifle.

Bell squeezed the trigger.

A blaze of light and an explosion fifty times louder than a pistol shot sent the rifle pinwheeling forty feet. Frost was smashed flat on the ground. Six feet away, Isaac Bell remained on his feet, ears ringing, staring down at his fallen adversary in astonishment. The smell of burning flesh hung in the air. Frost’s face was black, his beard burned, his shirt and trousers smoldering, the soles blown off his boots.

Life was leaking from Frost’s eyes. He sucked air through his charred lips. But his voice was still strong, harsh and thick with scorn. “You didn’t get me. Lightning bolt hit my rifle.”

“I had you dead to rights,” answered Bell. “The lightning just happened to get you first.”

Frost croaked bitter laughter.

“Is that why Van Dorns never give up? You got weather gods on your side?”

Isaac Bell gazed down triumphantly at the dying criminal. “I didn’t need weather gods,” he said quietly. “I had Wally Laughlin on my side.”

“Who the hell is Wally Laughlin?”

“He was a newsboy. You murdered him and two of his friends when you dynamited the Dearborn Street news depot.”

“Newsboy?. . Oh yeah, I remember.” He shuddered with pain and forced out another jibe. “I’ll hear about it in Hell. How old was he?”

“Twelve.”

“Twelve?” Frost lay back. His voice grew weak. “Twelve was my grand year. I’d been a little runt getting used by every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Then all of a sudden I started growing and growing, and everything went my way. Won my first fight. Got my first gang. Killed my first man – twenty years old, he was, full grown.”

A hideous parody of a smile twisted Frost’s burnt lips.

“Poor little Wally,” he muttered sarcastically. “Who knows what the little bastard could have made of himself.”

“He made a memory of himself,” said Isaac Bell.

“How’d he do that?”

“He had a kind soul.”

BELL STOOD UP and gathered his weapons.

Harry Frost called after him. Suddenly there was fear in his voice. “Are you leaving me here to die alone?”

“You’ve left crowds to die alone.”

“What if I told you something you don’t know about Marco Celere?”

Bell said, “Marco Celere showed up in Yuma three days ago, fit as a fiddle. You ran from the only murder you didn’t commit.”

Frost levered himself up on one elbow and shot back, “I know that.”

Intrigued, Bell knelt beside the dying man, watching his hands for a hidden knife or another pocket pistol stashed in his smoldering garments. “How?”

“Marco Celere showed up at Belmont Park six weeks ago.”

“Celere gave me the impression he was in Canada six weeks ago.”

“He was right in the middle of the race,” Frost crowed. “Prancing around the infield like he owned it. You damned Van Dorns never knew.”

“Platov!” said Bell. “Of course!” Marco Celere was the saboteur, though proving it in a court of law would be next to impossible.

“A little late on that one, Mr. Detective,” Frost sneered.

“How did you happen to see him?”

“He spotted me one night I was trying to get near Josephine’s machine. Walked up to me, big as life, and offered a deal.”