The cold beer washed the dust from the dry throat of Stevens.
'Hot,' the bartender said, mopping with a towel his fat face. 'Hottest summer in forty years. A hog got loose in Yuma the other day, and when the owner rounded it up, Mr. Pig had turned into a bucket of leaf lard. Jest melted down.'
'Funny how many hottest summers we've had in the last ten years,' Hal drawled. 'I haven't found one yet that's too cool for me.'
His eyes rested on the pitch-players. They had this in common, that they were dusty, unshaven, and tough-looking customers. Hal knew them all. He had several times met them riding down from the hills where they lived close to Rabbit Ear Gorge. The smallest of them, a wiry fellow with beady eyes black as shoe buttons, had been in the district ever since Hal had been a small boy. His name was Cash Polk, and he had the reputation of being both slippery and dangerous. The other two he was not so well acquainted with, but he knew them casually. Brick Fenwick and Cad Hanford they called themselves. The underground story about them was that they were bad men, killers. Their villainous deadpan faces justified the guess. Hal understood that they had come from Texas a year or two ago. If so, they had probably migrated because that habitat had grown too hot for them.
Cash Polk commented: 'Seems like it's always hotter in a town than out in the open country. We spent the night at Tucson and like to of smothered. Had a two-by-four room right under the roof of a rooming house. It never did cool off all night.'
'If you've just got back,' Hal said casually, 'maybe you haven't heard that the Seven Up and Down was raided again last night.'
Polk's eyes slid from one pitch-player to the other before they reached those of Stevens. 'Well, I'll be doggoned. Again. Don't that beat the Dutch!'
'Lucky you can prove you were at Tucson,' Hal replied dryly. 'I haven't as good an alibi as that.'
'We don't have to prove where we were,' Hanford said, his voice heavy and harsh. He was a solidly built man past his first youth. His slate-colored eyes had no more life in them than those of a dead cod.
'That's fine.' There was a touch of contempt in the cool look Stevens let rest on the pitch-players. 'Wish my reputation would stand up like that.'
'Meaning that ours don't?' demanded Fenwick. He was scarcely more than a boy in years, but in vice he was a hundred. His figure was neat and slender, his motions quick and sure. It was easy to look at him and believe the story that he was a killer untroubled by conscience, and probably a very efficient one.
Hal hooked his elbows on the top of the bar and smiled. 'If you are satisfied with them, Mr. Fenwick, why should I worry?' he asked.
'Don't,' advised the boy, the words so low that they came in almost a whisper. 'What we do is strictly our own business. Anybody buttin' in is asking for trouble. We wouldn't stand for it a minute.'
The eyes of Fenwick and Stevens locked and held fast. Those of the cattleman met the chill threat between the slitted lids of the other with a steady scorn.
'Am I treading on your toes, Mr. Fenwick?' he asked.
'By cripes, you better not try it. Don't get nosey.'
'Orders from Black?' Stevens inquired cheerfully.
The boy slammed a fist down on the table. 'I don't take orders from anybody. I won't let you tell me I do. Keep your mouth shut.'
'I talk too much, don't I?' the cowman said, and laughed.
He knew why this young killer had a chip on his shoulder. Yesterday Hal had met Tick Black and told him where he stood on this rustling of stock to supply an illicit market; that if any evidence came to his hand, he would use it to convict the thieves if possible. Tick had agreed with him suavely that all good men must support the Government in war measures, but his assent had come a moment too late, after he had rubbed from his thin and bitter face a venomous flash of rage.
'Those who mind their own business live longer,' Fenwick reminded him out of the corner of thin lips almost closed.
'Who wants to live forever?' Stevens retorted, his manner so indifferent that the other found it insulting.
'I've told you. Ride around my reservation.'
'I ride my own trail, no matter whose it crosses,' Hal said evenly.
'If it crossed mine, that — would — be — too — bad,' the Texan answered, menace in the spaced words.
'For me, I take it,' Hal suggested carelessly. 'Already I'm feeling awfully sorry for myself.'
Cash Polk made peace talk. 'Now, gentlemen, that's no way to talk. Brick, you hadn't ought to take up Mr. Stevens thataway. He wasn't slamming at us any. We hill folks have always been friends with the M K outfit. Many is the good turn it has done us.' Cash turned to Stevens. 'You mustn't mind Brick. He's a mite rough, but lots of good dogs bark.'
'Some of 'em bite too,' Hanford added. 'But if Mr. Stevens meant no offense, none is taken. Let's top off with a drink.'
'I'll have to take a raincheck on mine,' Hal said lightly. 'Too early in the day for much drinking.'
The stranger standing at the other end of the bar moved a step toward the cattleman. 'Like to speak to you a minute, sir,' he began. 'I'm looking for a job on a ranch. If you could use a man, maybe you would give me a try.'
'Are you a cowhand?' Hal asked skeptically.
'Well, no, I'm not. Fact is, I came here for my health — from Pennsylvania. But I'm a pretty good hand with horses. You need not pay me full wages at first — just what I'm worth, whatever that is.'
'Are you a sick man?'
'I had a touch of t.b. But the doctor says all I need now is to be out in the air and sunshine.'
'We've got quite a lot of both in Arizona.' Hal drummed on the top of the bar with his fingertips. 'The draft certainly has left me empty-handed.' He flung a question at the man from Pennsylvania. 'Are you a good rider?'
'Pretty good. I don't suppose I could stay on a bucker.'
'Not necessary. All right. You're hired. I can tell in a few days how much you are worth to me.'
'Mr. Stevens will treat you right,' Polk said smoothly.
'Thanks for the testimonial,' Hal returned shortly, and continued to give his attention to his new employee. 'When can you start?'
'Right now, soon as I can get my suitcase to your ranch.'
'I'll send a man in this afternoon. He'll pick you up at Flack's store. What's your name?'
'Randolph Arnold.'
Stevens let his eye range over the man once more. 'You're a city man, I take it. Do you think you can stand up to the work?'
'Give me a trial. If I'm no good, fire me.'
The cattleman and the tenderfoot walked out of the Rest Easy together and along the wooden sidewalk. They talked about the work. It was not until they reached a vacant lot that Hal said, 'When did you get in, Ranny?'
'Couple of hours ago. On the bus. You haven't changed much since our college days — except that you are browner and look tougher.'
'You've filled out a bit.' Hal grinned. 'Well, your problem jumped right up at you soon as you arrived. All you need to do is find out who is making this black market, spot the fellows who killed Curtis, arrest them, prove their guilt, and have them executed. Ought to be easy.'
'How did the criminals get onto it that Curtis was a Government man?'
Stevens shook his head. 'He must have made a slip somehow. I don't think anybody else here knows he was.'
They wandered down to the hotel, apparently in the most casual talk.
'How about that little set-to with the young ruffian Fenwick? Have you had trouble with him before?' Arnold asked.
'Not directly. His boss, Tick Black, knows how I stand. He has been watching me for some time. But he is too smooth a proposition to approve of the way Brick jumped me. Tick likes to set the time and place for settling accounts. The three beauties playing pitch were disturbed for fear I knew too much.'
'I judge you suspect them.'
'And they know I do. I was the first to discover last night's raid on the Seven Up pasture. I rode down and reported it to the Lovells. That ought to give you an
idea of what you are up against, Ranny. One of their gang must have seen me at the scene of the raid and followed me down the valley, must have watched me turn in to the Seven Up and then got the word down to Big Bridge, probably by phone. Nothing goes on in this valley Black does not find out sooner or later.'
'Fenwick was ordering you, hands off.'
'Yes.'
'You had better watch your step, Hal. If they are the men I am after, they are dangerous.'
Hal chuckled. 'You'll look after me now you are here.'
'Not I. My job is to find out where this black market is and who supplies it. From what I've heard this morning, I should think that might be easy.'
'Easy to guess. Not so easy to prove. It would take thirty men to stop up every hole these rats get out of.'
'This Brick Fenwick could have followed his own advice profitably. He also talks too much.'
'He didn't give away anything the whole valley has not guessed.' Hal frowned, his eyes narrowed in reflection. 'Most of these raids have been on the Seven Up and Down pastures. The outfit is owned by a family named Lovell. They have been here a great many years. Their foreman Frawley is an oldtime cowhand. I don't savvy how the rustlers can work the Seven Up spread so much and get away with it.'
'You think Frawley is lying down on his job?'
'I don't know. Another thing, young Frank Lovell has been playing poker with these scalawags and has lost a lot. So I've heard. The games have been going on ever since last winter, long before this rustling began. Frawley sometimes plays too. Since neither the kid nor the foreman is a fool, they must suspect this hill trash of stealing their stuff. If they do, why do they keep playing cards with them?'
Arnold offered a suggestion tentatively. 'Perhaps because the Seven Up and Down is selling its stuff to a black market and only pretending to have it stolen.'
'No.' Hal vetoed this decisively. 'Dale Lovell runs the outfit. She is a vixen, and she hates me as if I were the devil.
But when you meet her, you'll know she is on the level.'
Arnold shrugged his shoulders. 'When we've proved the crooks guilty, we'll know the whole story.'
'If these gunmen haven't done us in,' Hal excepted with a laugh.
The Government man looked at him appraisingly. Arnold himself was in an occupation where danger might leap up at him any day. But if he could he always discounted it in advance, took all possible precautions, sidestepped crises for which he was not prepared. Hal lacked altogether this deliberate prudence. Now a reckless light danced in his eyes. Randolph Arnold had seen it there in their college days. It always portended trouble ahead.
'Take this Brick Fenwick's advice, Hal. Keep out of this. I'm paid to handle it.'
'Fine,' Hal agreed. 'I'm not inviting myself in. But I just had an idea. A couple of years ago I sat in two or three times at the poker games my hill neighbors used to have. Think I'll drop in at Cash Polk's house tonight and take a hand again.'
'No,' Arnold vetoed bluntly. 'These scoundrels would think it a challenge. You might never get home alive.'
'If there is a tie-up between them and the Seven Up, I could maybe find out what it is. When those fellows report to Tick Black what took place at the Rest Easy, he will order them to hold their horses. Tick does not want any unnecessary killings. And I'll back his play by acting apologetic to Fenwick for crossing him.'
Arnold shook his head. 'This Fenwick is unpredictable. As he told you, Black hasn't got him on a leash even if he is the head of the gang. He might explode any moment. It would be foolish for you to break into one of their games.'
'It was just a notion I had, Ranny,' the cattleman said meekly. 'I dare say you're right.'
He glanced at his friend, but looked quickly away before Arnold caught his eye.
CHAPTER 4
Three Kings Beat Four Aces
AT THE M K RANCH the men ate dinner with the boss in the big house. It was a democratic set-up Stevens had continued from the days of his father, one that helped to make for solidarity in the outfit.
After he had eaten and smoked a cigarette, Hal rose and stretched himself in a yawn. 'About nine hours of shut-eye for me, boys,' he said. 'Mike, I'm putting Arnold in the cabin Steve had. Will you see he has blankets and anything else he needs?'
The lights of the big house went out and Hal lay down on his bed and slept for two hours. At the end of that time he rose, put his boots on, and slipped into a holster under his arm the .38 army special revolver he kept in a case on a shelf. He did not turn on the lights, but moved in the darkness. Keeping in the shadows of some live oaks, he stepped lightly to the car back of the house. On purpose he had left it at the top of the long slope which led to the house, its nose pointed down the road.
Releasing the brake, he started the car rolling down the hill and swung in beneath the wheel. Its momentum carried it a hundred and fifty yards before he had to engage the clutch. A quarter of a mile below the house, he took the first turn to the right along a narrow track that went up and down rocky hills and brought him to a small park into which he descended. From a cluster of pines a light shone.
It came from an adobe cabin set beside a small stream. Hal got out of the car and knocked on the door. Cash Polk opened. He stood there, his long jaw dropping with surprise. At a round table four other men with cards in their hands had suspended play and turned to look at the newcomer.
'I'll be damned if it isn't the buttinski,' Brick Fenwick said in a low voice.
Frank Lovell called to Hal. 'Come in and take a hand. Maybe you'll change my rotten luck.'
'Don't mind if I do,' Stevens answered cheerfully. 'Haven't been in a game for quite a while.' He nodded to Fenwick. ' 'Lo, Brick. No hard feeling from this morning. Perhaps I was a little brash.'
'Who invited you here?' snarled Frawley.
Hal smiled genially. 'Thought there might be a game and drove over. Afraid my horse owes you an apology, Jim. He's a little nervous when a stranger grabs the bridle rein. Hope he didn't hurt you.'
The Seven Up and Down foreman jumped to his feet. 'You can't come that guff over me, not after riding me down the way you did.'
'Sit down, Jim, and don't be a fool,' Lovell snapped. 'You scared the horse yourself.'
The fifth man, Cad Hanford, cut in gruffly. He was bearing in mind the instructions Tick Black had given them a few hours since. 'If Mr. Stevens wants to play, that's fine with me.'
'Of course.' Cash Polk's voice was smooth as cream. 'Honored to have him with us. Shove in that chair, Frank.'
Hal sat down with Fenwick on his left and Lovell on the other side. To the right of Frank was Hanford. The Seven Up foreman came next. Cash completed the circle.
After the hand that had been dealt was finished, Hal bought a twenty-dollar stack. It was a no limit game and took a dollar to open. The dealer decided whether they would play draw, stud, or Kansas City Liz.
Hal nursed his chips carefully, contrary to his usual custom in a poker game. He had not come here to enjoy himself, but to discover the tie-up between these hill nesters and the two from the Seven Up. Both Frank and the foreman were losing, neither of them cheerfully. Each time he lost a pot, Frawley called attention to the fact sourly.
Soon after Hal drew up a chair, the run of luck shifted. Frank began to win, at the expense of Polk and Hanford. The chips of the Seven Up foreman continued to drift from him.
Young Lovell was jubilant. 'Time I had a change of luck,' he said, drawing in a good pot. 'I've lost nearly two thousand here in three months.'
The furtive eyes of Cash Polk slid toward the boy. 'Sho, Frank, you're exaggerating that a heap, though you have had a spell of bad cards.'
Lovell started to defend the claim he had made. His eyes met those of Frawley. He said sullenly, 'Well, I've lost plenty.'
Hal could have sworn that was not what he had started to say.
'No more than I have,' the foreman growled. 'Haven't won a good pot for weeks. If I have three aces, some guy shows a small full.'
<
br /> 'I reckon the game breaks about even in the long run,' Polk commented. 'We all have those bad spells when we can't win… Open for a buck.'
The game seesawed, but Lovell's stack grew larger. Hal still had more than half of his original investment. Frawley bought again from the banker Hanford, loudly cursing his luck.
Hal observed, made mental notes. Frank was the sucker, and they had him somehow in a cleft stick so that all he could do was wriggle. Frawley protested too much at his losses. Even a poor sport did not howl about each pot he did not win. The change in Lovell's luck was being maneuvered because Hal was present. At least two of the players had refused to call the boy's raises and had flung better hands into the discard, the cattleman would have been willing to bet. His guess was that the size of the pots was being held down far below those usually played.
That he was an unwelcome guest to all of them except Lovell, he knew. More than once Fenwick had been ready to explode and Cash Polk had interfered suavely to divert his anger. This suited Hal. He meant to dynamite this party presently, but he wanted to choose the time and the occasion.
There was a bottle of whiskey at a side table. Frawley and Hanford helped themselves frequently. Lovell and Polk took one or two drinks. Neither Brick Fenwick nor Hal touched the liquor. Each of them was watching the other, Fenwick with open malice and the ranchman more casually.
Young Lovell dealt. Polk opened, Frawley threw in his cards, and Hanford raised.
Frank pinched his cards and looked them over slowly. 'Kick it five,' he said, and pushed in chips. 'To keep the grocery clerks out.'
'That means me,' Hal mentioned, dropping out.
'Here, too,' Fenwick said.
Polk showed his openers, kings and sevens. Hanford took his time. 'I'll see that raise,' he said at last. 'Gimme two cards, both aces.'
Who Wants to Live Forever? Page 2