The Trail of the White Mule

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER SIX

  Casey awoke under the vivid impression that some one was driving agadget into his skull with a "double-jack." The smell of baconscorching filled his very soul with the loathing of food. The sight ofJoe calmly filling his pipe roused Casey to the fighting mood--with nopower to fight. He was a sick man; and to remain alive was agony.

  The squalid disorder and the stale aroma of a drunken orgy stillpervaded the dugout and made it a nightmare hole to Casey. Hank cametittering to the bunk and offered him a cup of coffee, muddy from toolong boiling, and Joe grinned over his pipe at the colorful languagewith which Casey refused the offering.

  "Better take a brace uh hootch," Joe suggested with no more than hisnormal ill nature. "I got some over at the still we made awhile backthat, ain't quite so kicky. Been agin' it in wood an' charcoal. Thattones 'er down. I'll go git yuh some after we eat. Kinda want abrace, myself. That new hootch shore is a kickin' fool."

  Paw accepted this remark, as high praise, and let three hot cakes burnuntil their edges curled while he bragged of his skill as a maker ofmoonshine. Paw himself was red-eyed and loose-lipped from yesterday'sdebauch. Hank's whole face, especially in the region of his eyes, waspuffed unbecomingly. Casey, squinting an angry eye at Hank and the cupof coffee, spared a thought from his own misery to acknowledge surprisethat anything on earth could make Hank more unpleasant to look upon.Joe had a sickly pallor to prove the potency of the brew.

  For such is the way of moonshine when fusel oil abounds, as it doesinvariably in new whisky distilled by furtive amateurs working insecret and with neither the facilities nor the knowledge for itsscientific manufacture. There is grim significance in the sardonichumor of the man who first named it White Mule. The kick is certainand terrific; frequently it is fatal as well. The worst of it is, younever know what the effect will be until you have drunk the stuff; andafter you have drunk it, you are in no condition to resist the effector to refrain from courting further disaster.

  That is what happened to Casey. The poison in the first half-pint,swallowed under the eye of Joe's six-shooter, upset his judgment. Thepoison in his further potations made a wholly different man of CaseyRyan; and the after effect was so terrific that he would have swallowedcyanide if it promised relief.

  He gritted his teeth and suffered tortures until Joe returned and gavehim a drink of whisky in a chipped granite cup. Almost immediately hefelt better. The pounding agony in his head eased perceptibly and hisnerves ceased to quiver. After a while he sat up, gazed longingly atthe water bucket and crawled down from the bunk. He drank largely ingreat gulps. His bloodshot eyes strayed meditatively to the coffeepot. After an undecided moment he walked uncertainly to the stove andpoured himself a cup of coffee.

  Casey lifted the cup to drink, but the smell of it under his nosesickened him. He weaved uncertainly to the door, opened it and threwout the coffee--cup and all. Which was nature flying a storm flag, hadany one with a clear head been there to observe the action and the lookon Casey's face.

  "Gimme another shot uh that damn' hootch," he growled. Joe pushed thebottle toward Casey, eyeing him curiously.

  "That stuff they run yesterday shore is kicky," Joe ruminatedsympathetically. "Pap's proud as pups over it. He thinks it's thereal article--but I dunno. Shore laid yuh out, Casey, an' yuh nevergot much, neither. Not enough t' lay yuh out the way it did. Y' looksick."

  "I AM sick!" Casey snarled, and poured himself a drink more generousthan was wise. "When Casey Ryan says he's sick, you can put it downhe's SICK! He don't want nobody tellin' 'im whether 'e's sick 'rnot.--he KNOWS 'e's sick!" He drank, and swore that it was rottenstuff not fit for a hawg (which was absolute truth). Then he staggeredto the stove, picked up the coffee pot, carried it to the door andflung it savagely outside because the odor offended him.

  "Mart got back last night," Joe announced casually. "You was dead t'the world. But we told 'im you was all right, an' I guess he aims t'give yuh steady work an' a cut-in on the deal. We been cleanin' uppurty good money--but Mart says the market ain't what it was; too manygone into the business. You're a good cook an' a good miner an' apurty good feller all around--only the boss says you'll have t' cut outthe booze."

  "'J you tell 'im you MADE me drink it?" Casey halted in the middle ofthe floor, facing Joe indignantly.

  "I told 'im I put it up t' yuh straight--what your business is, an'all. You got no call t' kick--didn't I go swipe this bottle uh boozefor yuh t' sober up on, soon as the boss's back was turned? I knowedyuh needed it; that's why. We all needed it. I'm just tellin' yuh theboss don't approve of no celebrations like we had yest'day. I got upearly an' hauled that burro outa sight 'fore he seen it. That's howmuch a friend I be, an' it wouldn't hurt yuh none to show a littlegratitude!"

  "Gratitude, hell! A lot I got in life t' be grateful for!" Caseyslumped down on the nearest bench, laid his injured hand carefully onthe table and leaned his aching head on the other while he discoursedbitterly on the subject of his wrongs.

  His muddled memory fumbled back to his grievance against traffic cops,distorting and magnifying the injustice he had received at their hands.He had once had a home, a wife and a fortune, he declared, and what hadhappened? Laws and cops had driven him out, had robbed him of his homeand his family and sent him out in the hills like a damned kiotey,hopin' he'd starve to death. And where, he asked defiantly, was thegratitude in that?

  He told Joe ramblingly but more or less truthfully how he had beenbetrayed and deserted by a man he had befriended; one Barney Oakes,upon whom Casey would like to lay his hands for a minute.

  "What I done to the burro ain't nothin' t' what I'd do t' that hound uhhell!" he declared, pounding the table with his good fist.

  Homeless, friendless; but Joe was his friend, and Paw and Hank were hisfriends--and besides them there was in all the world not one friend ofCasey Ryan's. They were good friends and good fellows, even if theydid put too much hoot in their hootch. Casey Ryan liked his hootch witha hoot in it.

  He was still hooting (somewhat incoherently it is true, with recoursenow and then to the bottle because he was sick and he didn't give adarn who knew it) when the door opened and he whom they called Martwalked in. Joe introduced him to Casey, who sat still upon the benchand looked him over with drunken disparagement. Casey had a hazyrecollection of wanting to see the boss and have it out with him, buthe could not recall what it was that he had been so anxious to quarrelabout.

  Mart was a slender man of middle height, with thin, intelligent faceand a look across the eyes like the old woman who rocked in the stonehut. He glanced from the bottle to Casey, eyeing him sharply. Drunkor sober, Casey was not the man to be stared down; nevertheless hisfingers strayed involuntarily to his shirt collar and pulled fussily atthe wrinkles.

  "So you're the man they've been holding here for my inspection," Martsaid coolly, with a faint smile at Casey's evident discomfort. "You'restill hitting it up, I see. Joe, take that bottle away from him. Whenhe's sober enough to talk straight, I'll give him the third degree andsee what he really is, anyway. Guess he's all right--but he sure canlap up the booze. That's a point against him."

  Casey's hand went to the bottle, beating Joe's by three inches. He didnot particularly want the whisky, but it angered him to hear Mart orderit taken from him. Away back in his mind where reason had gone intohiding, Casey knew that some great injustice was being done him; thathe, Casey Ryan, was not the man they were calmly taking it for grantedthat he was.

  With the bottle in his hand he rose and walked unsteadily to his bunk.He did not like this man they called the boss. He remembered that inhis bunk, under the bedding, he had concealed something that would makehim the equal of them all. He fumbled under the blankets, found whathe sought and with his back turned to the others he slipped the thinginto his sling out of sight.

  Mart and Joe were talking together by the table, paying no attention toCasey, who was groggily making up his mind to crawl into his bunk andt
ake another sleep. He still meant to have it out with Mart, but hedid not feel like tackling the job just now.

  Mart turned to the door and Joe got up to follow him, with a carelessglance over his shoulder at Casey, who was lifting a foot as if itweighed a great deal, and was groping with it in the air trying tolocate the edge of the lower bunk. Joe laughed, but the laugh died inhis throat, choked off suddenly by what he saw when Mart pulled openthe door.

  Casey turned suspiciously at the laugh and the sound of the dooropening. He swung round and steadied himself with his back against thebunk when he saw Mart and Joe lift their hands and hold them there,palms outward, a bit higher than their heads. Something in the sightenraged Casey unreasoningly. A flick of the memory may have carriedhim back to the old days in the mining camps when Casey drove stage andhold-ups were frequent.

  "What 'r yuh tryin' to pull on me now?" he bawled, and rushed headlongtoward them, pushing them forcibly out into the open with a collisionof his body against Joe. Outside, a voice harshly commanded him tothrow up his hands--and it was then that Casey Ryan's Irish fightingblood boiled and bubbled over. Unconsciously he pushed his hat forwardover one eye, drew back his lips in a fighting grin, stepped down offthe low doorsill with a lurch that nearly sent him sprawling and wentweaving belligerently toward a group of five men whose attitude wasanything but conciliatory.

  "Casey Ryan! I'm dogged if it ain't Casey!" exclaimed a familiar voicein the group, whereat the others looked astonished. Through his slitsof swollen lids Casey glared toward the voice and recognized BarneyOakes, grinning at him with what Casey considered a Judas treachery.He saw two men step away from Joe and the boss, leaving them inhandcuffs.

  "Take them irons off'n my friends!" bellowed Casey as he charged."Whadda yuh think you're doin', anyway? Take 'em off! It's Casey Ryanthat's tellin' yuh, an' yuh better heed what he says, before you'retore from limb to limb!"

  "B-but, Casey! This 'ere's a shurf's possy!" The voice of Barney rosein a protesting 'squawk. "I brung 'em all the way over here to yourrescue! They brung a cor'ner to view your remains! Don't you knowyour pardner, BARNEY OAKES?

  "Ah-h--I know yuh think I don't? I know yuh to a fare-yuh-well! Brunga cor'ner, did yuh? Tha's all right--goin' t' need a cor'ner-but hewon't set on Casey Ryan's remains--you c'n ask anybody if any cor'nersever set on Casey Ryan yit! Naw." Casey snarled as contemptuously aswas possible to a man in his condition. "No cor'ner ever set on CaseyRyan, an' he ain't goin' to!"

  The men glanced questioningly at one another. One laughed. He was alarge, smooth-jowled man inclined to portliness, and his laugh vibratedhis entire front contagiously so that the others grinned and took itfor granted that Casey Ryan was a comedy element introducedunexpectedly where they had thought to find him a tragedy.

  "No, you're a pretty lively man for me to sit on; I admit it," theportly man remarked. "I'm the coroner, and it looks as if I wouldn'tsit, this trip."

  Casey eyed him blearily, not in the least mollified but insteadswinging to a certain degree of lucidity that was nevertheless governedlargely by the hoot he had swallowed in the hootch.

  "There's part of a burro 'round here some'er's you c'n set on," Caseyinformed him grimly, and fumbled in his coat pocket for his pipe. Hedrew it out empty, looked at it and returned it to his pocket. One whoknew Casey intimately would have detected a hidden purpose in hismanner. The warning was faint, indefinable at best, and difficult topicture in words. One might say that an intimate acquaintance wouldhave detected a false note in Casey's defiance. His manner wasrestrained just when violence would have been more natural.

  "Damn a pipe," Casey grumbled with drunken petulance. "Anybody got acigarette? I'm single-handed an' I ain't able t' roll 'em."

  It was the coroner himself who handed Casey a "tailor-made." Caseynodded glumly, accepted a match and lighted the cigarette almost as ifhe were sober. He looked the group over noncommittally, eyed again thehandcuffs on Mart and Joe, sent a veiled glance toward Barney Oakes andturned away. He still held the center of the stage. Fully expectingto find him dead, the sheriff and his men were slow to adjustthemselves to the fact that he was very much alive and very drunk andapparently not greatly interested in his rescue.

  Casey halted in his unsteady progress toward the dugout. The sheriffwas already questioning his two prisoners about other members of thegang; but he looked up when Casey lifted up his voice and spoke hismind of the moment.

  "Brung a cor'ner, did yuh, lookin' for some one to set on! Barney Oakesis the man that'll need a cor'ner in a minute. You're all goin' to need'im. Casey Ryan never stood around yit whilst his friends was hobbledup by a shurf--turn 'em loose an' turn 'em loose quick! An' git backaway from Barney Oakes so he won't drop on yuh in chunks--I'll fix 'imfor yuh to set on!"

  His hand had gone up to his cigarette, but only Joe knew what waslikely to follow. Joe gave a yell of warning, ducked and ran straightaway from the group. The sheriff yelled also and gave chase. Thegroup was broken--luckily--just as Casey heaved something in thatdirection.

  "I blowed up a jackass yesterday when they thought I couldn't--I'llblow up a bunch of 'em to-day! Yuh c'n set on what's left uh BarneyOakes!"

  The explosion scattered dirt and small stones--and the sheriff's posse.Casey sent one malevolent glance over his shoulder as he stumbled intothe dugout.

  "Missed 'im!" he grumbled disgustedly to himself when he saw nofragments of Barney falling. His ferociousness, like the dynamite,annihilated itself with the explosion. "Missed 'im! Casey Ryan'sgittin' old; old an' sick an' a damn' fool. Missed 'im with the lastshot--drunk--drunk an' don't give a darn!"

  He slammed the door shut behind him, pushed his hat forward soviolently that it rested on the bridge of his nose, and wabbled over tohis bunk. This time his foot found the edge of the lower bunk, and hescratched and clawed his way up and rolled in upon the blankets.

  He was asleep and snoring when the sheriff, edging his way in as if hewere an animal trainer's apprentice entering the lion's cage, sneakedon his toes to the bunk and slipped the handcuffs on Casey.