Black Towers to Danger by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Galaxy Press
Published: 2013-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Bill Catches a Killer

BILL had very few illusions as to what would happen to him if they caught him. They would naturally think that he had knifed George Henderson so that he could don his disguise without being detected.

That would be enough evidence for Herrero and the courts of Maracaibo. They would make an example out of a man who dared take a punch at that saint among saints, that great religion, Big Business.

And although Bill was pretty sure what had happened, he had no way of proving it.

Somehow he had been spotted in Ledeaux’s hut, or maybe they had made Ledeaux talk. His murder had then been ordered.

But in the dark of night, when a white suit and gray mustache were just that and no more, George Henderson had been marked out as being Bill Murphy.

It was, thought Bill, running very hard along an alley, quite a remarkable mixup. He remembered, as he vaulted a wall and rushed through a court, upsetting a table and tripping over a fountain, that Marcia had thought him to be Henderson.

“Shucks!” cried Bill, shying around a corner and knocking over two startled gentlemen in whites. “She ain’t in it at all!”

That made him feel so good he almost stopped and waited for the troopers.

A gun barked behind him and plaster came off a wall like snow. Bill took to his heels again, heading for the edge of town.

So Marcia wasn’t in it after all. No sir, he had been right all along. There was something more than Marcia’s hand in this. Bill prided himself that he had known it all along.

Something about this smelled badly to Bill. Something was up far bigger than either Marcia or himself. He was not sure about anything, but now that he knew he really wasn’t fighting that brave young lady he loved so well, he had enough courage to do some attacking on his own.

Funny, thought Bill, to think at all of attacking when you were running as fast as your legs could carry you through a scorching tropical night toward an objective which might or might not prove your undoing.

Attacking was somehow out of the question when a bullet missed you on the average of one every two minutes.

His lungs were bursting when he finally reached the outskirts. He didn’t intend to leg it through jungle and he would have to stay off the main roads. Somehow he had to get back his horse and rifle and his own clothes.

Bill turned into an alley and pressed himself against the black shadows under the wall. Feet were hammering up the street he had just left. Men were yelling out to one another and acting like so many beagles on the trail of an exhausted rabbit.

The troopers charged by, sabers clanking, revolvers ready for the execution. Herrero was puffing and blowing but still going strong, his white teeth bared the better to catch his breath.

Bill watched them go and grinned. When they rounded another corner and swept out of sight, he stepped back to the street.

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