Dead Freight for Piute

by Short, Luke;

  At the far sidewalk Cole said, “Juck, take Celia home and then come back to the Desert Dust.” And he touched his hat to her and walked off into the sidewalk crowd.

  He would have given a thousand dollars at that moment to be alone where he could think. But all around him was the swarm of miners and the boomtown trash. He walked among them, deaf to their talk, his head hung, his eyes musing. There were a lot of questions that needed answering, but there was one that needed immediate attention. If he hadn’t set fire to the Monarch then who had? It was only by the thin margin of Letty Burns’s alibi that he was a free man and not a jailed one this minute. That fire had been set to jail him. It almost had.

  It was foolish to suppose that Keen Billings had set it, for his anger was genuine. And no man would risk setting a whole town ablaze just to get another man in jail. Besides, it was he, Cole Armin, who was after vengeance and not Keen Billings. His forehead beaded with sweat as he thought what he might have done two hours ago. He was out to murder a man then, after he was satisfied with the proof. The fire had saved him. The anger wasn’t gone, but with it was mixed a little wisdom that had been forced on him by the peace bond. He smiled bitterly at that. He was like a fly who has blundered into a spider’s web that held him by one thin thread, and he could read his fate. Thread by thread, he was being trapped, made impotent. Soon he would be worse than useless to Western Freight. Already tonight he had cost the company five thousand dollars which it could not afford. He wondered bleakly if it would sink them.

  He shook these thoughts off as he came to the corner saloon on the side street where the Desert Dust was located. He put his shoulder against the wall there and waited for Juck, and his thoughts were somber. He must take this thing apart piece by piece. And the first thing would be to find out who set that fire.

  Juck came along presently, and Cole swung in beside him without a word. The Desert Dust was a howling, brawling bedlam, and when Cole came in his own teamsters let out a yell for him that could be heard for two blocks. He drank a round with them for courtesy’s sake, and then Juck beat on the bar top for silence.

  “Quit drinkin’ a minute and listen!” Juck bawled.

  Cole’s eight teamsters, to a man, were around him, and they sobered at Juck’s announcement, eying Cole.

  Cole prodded his hat back off his forehead and grinned at them. “Damned if I know how to start,” he began. “I’m comin’ to you boys for help.” He waited until they had nodded and bid him go on. “You heard about the Monarch fire tonight. Some of you saw it.”

  “Pity the hull damn thing didn’t go,” little Bill Gurney said.

  “I got blamed for that,” Cole said, and the men fell silent. The rest of the barroom did, too, for the other teamsters were listening.

  “I got blamed for it,” Cole repeated, “and I got out of it by the skin of my teeth. I also got put under a peace bond by Sheriff Linton. If I draw a gun, except in self-defense, I’m in jail, boys.”

  There was a murmur of protest that soon died.

  Cole said slowly, “I’m goin’ to make you boys a proposition. Maybe I’m wrong, I dunno. But here it is.” He paused, eying them. “If the man who set that Monarch fire will admit it I’ll guarantee to get him out of town ahead of the sheriff, pay his fare to the Coast and give him a hundred dollars besides.”

  His offer fell on complete silence. His teamsters looked at each other and then at the other teamsters. The silence ran on and on until Bill Gurney finally said, “How come you want to know, Cole?”

  “I’ve got to know,” Cole said quietly, “because if that man stays in this outfit he’ll get me hanged.”

  Bill said slowly, “Why?”

  “Because Sheriff Linton is watchin’ me. I answer for everything that happens to the Monarch. I got to play ’em close to the chest, Bill. Monarch will move against us again. I dunno how, but they will. And this man—the man who set the fire—won’t trust me to keep you boys safe. He wants to get even by himself.” Cole grinned. “I don’t blame him. Still I don’t aim to hang for what he does to them.” He looked around at the eight faces that ringed him. “Understand, I’m not blamin’ this man. He could have drawn Jim Rough’s wagon just like I could. And a man is goin’ to fight over somethin’ like that or he ain’t a man. But still he’s gettin’ me hung—inch by inch. Anybody want to talk?”

  There was utter silence. Cole let it run on for a moment, then he said, “I reckon not. All right. I got one favor to ask of you boys.”

  “She’s yours,” Bill Gurney said.

  “If you got any bright ideas that will wreck Monarch come to me with ’em before you try it.” And Cole smiled.

  The men laughed at that. Cole set up a round on the house, told the barkeep to send him the bill in the morning and went out alone. On the street he felt anything but festive. He was baffled, discouraged. He had a deep conviction that these men liked him and that they were loyal. They trusted him. If one of them were guilty he would have come forward, taken Cole’s offer and headed for the Coast on a bat. But since none of them spoke up the question was still unanswered. Who set the Monarch fire? He hated to face what he was going to have to face when he saw Ted and Celia.

  When he reached the house he trudged up the stairs, his step weary. Celia was waiting for him in the living room, and Cole took off his hat and said hello. “How’s Ted?”

  “He’s awake, waiting for you,” Celia said soberly.

  Ted’s long face did not smile as Cole walked into the room. “Sit down and talk,” he said gloomily. “And hurry, dammit!”

  Cole sank to the cot. He tried to work up a smile, but it didn’t come off. He began with finding Jim Rough drunk, mentioned that a sawed brake lever had almost wrecked them and went on.

  “Your brake lever, you mean,” Ted interrupted brusquely. “Juck told us.”

  Then Cole told about the fire, how Billings had accused him and how Letty Burns gave him his alibi. Ted knew about the peace bond, and after that Cole confessed his inability to discover from the teamsters who set the fire. He was sure Ted would worry about that. Instead Ted said as casually as possible, “So Letty Burns gave you your alibi?” and looked at Cole. “It was lucky you were there on business, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right,” Cole said. He felt Celia looking at him too, and he knew they were waiting for him to explain his presence at Letty’s. But he couldn’t. He was ashamed of suspecting her loyalty, and while it was done in anger it would sound shabby and small if he confessed it now. Besides, in the back of his mind he wasn’t wholly sure of her yet. And if he told them of his suspicions now and they were proven untrue later he would never forgive himself. So he stubbornly said nothing, and Ted’s glance, curious and almost resentful, fell away from him. Cole looked at his hands and said wryly, “Well, it looks like I’ve jinxed the outfit for fair, Ted.”

  “Why? You got the China Boy contract, didn’t you?” But Ted’s enthusiasm sounded hollow. What he’d left unsaid was that five thousand dollars of desperately needed capital was tied up in Cole’s peace bond.

  Cole said it for him, and his tone was bitter. “I did. Still I took half of it away by goin’ to that fire.”

  Celia said loyally, “You were trying to help, Cole.”

  Cole shook his head. “That don’t make it any better, Celia,” he said wearily. “We need to buy wagons with the China Boy money—light wagons that we can use in place of the big ones that the China Boy takes. We can’t get as many as we need now—and I’m to blame. And there’s another thing too.” He glanced at Ted and Ted looked away.

  “I’m under peace bond,” Cole said stubbornly. “When a man hits me I can’t hit back—or you lose the five thousand and I go to jail. We’re walkin’ a tightrope. If nobody pushes me we’ll make it. But you can be sure Monarch won’t pass that up. And we can’t fight back.”

  For a moment none of them spoke. Pared down to the bare bones, that was the situation, and they all knew it. The new yard was half finished.
They had expanded too fast, and now they were caught. There was a chance that they could pull through, but only a small one.

  Cole stood up and blurted out bitterly. “I’m no damn use to you now! I’ve been bullin’ around here not knowin’ what to do, and I’ve got you into this jam. I’m hog-tied now, and Western is, too, through me!”

  He brushed past Celia and went out into the living room. He picked up his hat and made for the door. When he tried to close it behind him he felt Celia tugging on the other side. He let go the knob, and she stepped out onto the landing beside him.

  “Cole, are you going to leave us?” she asked in a quiet voice.

  “No,” Cole answered tonelessly. “I might’s well play out the string.”

  “But there’s the China Boy contract!” Celia cried. “It’s money enough. We’ll pull through some way! And maybe Monarch is scared by this fire if they believe some of our men set it! Maybe they’ll let us alone.” She put a hand on Cole’s arm. “Isn’t it worth a try, Cole?”

  “I reckon,” he said.

  Celia laughed shakily. “You’ve pulled us through by hook or crook so far, Cole—you alone. You aren’t going to give up now?”

  Cole said in a low, bitter voice, “How can I go in there every day and face Ted and him helpless on his back? He’d know how to play it. He’d know how to swing it, how to keep out of trouble, how to lick them if he was on his feet. Me, I don’t!”

  “Cole,” Celia said calmly, “you mustn’t mind Ted. He was shouting with joy when he heard you swung the contract. But when Juck told him about the peace bond he was sunk in gloom. Tomorrow he’ll be out of it and all right again. But he’s grouchy and restless and discontented now.”

  Cole said, “With me, Celia. I could see it in his face.”

  “It wasn’t all disappointment, Cole. Don’t you know what it was?”

  “No.”

  “It was Letty Burns.”

  Cole tried to see her face in the dark, and he couldn’t. “Letty Burns?” he echoed blankly.

  “He’s in love with her, Cole. He doesn’t know it himself. When Ted learned from Juck that Letty told the sheriff you had been with her tonight Ted was angry—and hurt. It’s just that he’s jealous, Cole. He—he thinks you were courting her while he was in bed.”

  “So that’s it?” Cole said. He smiled in the dark, but Celia couldn’t see that.

  Celia said, “If you went in and told him your business with her, Cole, he’d be all right again.”

  Cole didn’t say anything, knowing there was nothing to say. More than ever, now that he knew Ted loved Letty Burns, he couldn’t tell him that his suspicions of Letty were responsible for his call. Better to let him remain jealous than tell the truth.

  His silence had been long, and now he said, “I better not, Celia.”

  Celia moved beside him. “I’m sorry, Cole. I—I’ve made a terrible mistake!” she said, her voice tight and choked with shame. “I didn’t know you were courting her. I honestly didn’t know!”

  “But—”

  “Don’t make it worse, Cole. I’m terribly sorry! Pretend I never said it.” Her voice was firmer now, but somewhere despair had crept into it. Cole didn’t hear that, though, as Celia said, “But you’ll stay, Cole?”

  “If you want me to.”

  Celia said in a small voice, “I do,” and went into the house.

  Cole stood there, cursing to himself, looking out into the wagon yard. He had piled blunder on blunder until now, in addition to all the rest of this misery, Celia thought he was in love with Letty. For a long and bitter moment he regretted his promise to stay. Why didn’t he get out and leave them?

  And then he knew he couldn’t and he wouldn’t. His mouth a grim line, he went back into the house to face heartbreak.

  14

  Breakfast next morning was awkward. Cole ate swiftly and went over to the new wagon yard. Ted was silent and did not want to talk. The whole air of the house was intolerable to Celia. It was an air of gloom and defeat, of polite suspicion and resentment and jealousy. She knew that because she shared it. For Celia was not fooling herself any longer now that it wasn’t necessary.

  She loved Cole Armin, and he didn’t love her. Those were plain, bitter facts. He was courting Letty Burns. Hadn’t he gone to Letty with the news of the China Boy contract rather than to her? Celia was a proud girl, but she was honest with herself too. Cole didn’t love her and never would. For a while she had fooled herself into believing that she was why Cole was here, why he was helping them and risking his life for them. But last night, when she had blunderingly trapped him into a situation where he couldn’t deny he was courting Letty, had shown her different. He was here because their gratitude over the return of the stolen money had forced him into the partnership. She remembered his reluctance that night, and she blushed. No, she and Ted had done nothing for him. He carried the burden, while they sat helplessly by and watched him fight.

  Celia came to a sudden decision then. She went into the living room, straightened her hair, put on her hat and went into Ted’s room. He was staring gloomily out the window.

  “I’m going shopping,” she said. “I won’t be long.”

  She bent and swiftly kissed him on the forehead, and he smiled wanly at her and patted her hand. There was nothing they could tell each other, and Celia left.

  But she didn’t go shopping. She crossed the street and went up the sidewalk to the Cosmopolitan House. At the desk she asked for Mr. Craig Armin’s room number and was given it. At suite 2-B she was let in by the Chinese servant, who led her through a short corridor into Craig Armin’s elegant study.

  When she stepped into the room Craig Armin looked up from his desk. He came slowly to his feet, amazement plain on his face.

  “Mr. Armin, I’m Celia Wallace, Ted Wallace’s sister,” Celia said.

  “I know,” Craig Armin said, then remembering himself, gestured politely to a chair. “Won’t you sit down?”

  Celia wouldn’t let herself be awed with the richness of the room nor the prepossessing manner of Armin. She sat down opposite the desk, and Armin sank into his chair.

  Celia smiled and began: “Mr. Armin, let’s forget each other’s names for a moment and be human beings. Will you?”

  Armin said obliquely, coldly, “I’m willing to listen to you, Miss Wallace.”

  “I have a suggestion to make,” Celia said stubbornly. “Both the Monarch and the Western are bent on destroying each other. Surely you can see what that means?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t.”

  “Why—that nobody will win! We’ll both be bankrupt!”

  “And you have a cure for that, Miss Wallace?” Armin asked, smiling faintly.

  “I have. It’s very simple, too.”

  “What is it?”

  “There are twenty-odd mines in the Piute field,” Celia said steadily. “Why can’t we divide them up—half to Monarch, half to Western?”

  For once Craig Armin was speechless. His impulse was to snarl a refusal at this girl, but something in her cool and direct manner told him he would come off the worse if he abused her. He shook his head and said, “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

  “You mean, you like seeing men killed?” Celia countered.

  Her level gaze disconcerted him. He pulled the lobe of his ear and wondered how to frame an answer. He knew he was blushing, and he hated himself for it. More than anything else he did not want to let a Wallace know that his steely surface could be cracked. When he realized he was pulling his ear and blushing, like a schoolboy caught in the jam pot, he lowered his hand quickly and composed his face.

  “Miss Wallace, I don’t like violence any more than you do. But I have no choice.”

  “But you’re the one who is using violence,” Celia said calmly.

  “I don’t want to contradict you, but the facts speak differently. Perhaps”—and he smiled faintly, inclining his head—“you didn’t hear that an attempt was made last night to burn Mon
arch.”

  “That wasn’t any of our doing!” Celia said hotly.

  Craig Armin raised both hands, smiled and shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ve been spared some brutal truths by your brother and my nephew, Miss Wallace. That’s all I can say.”

  “Then you refuse to be reasonable?”

  “If being reasonable means letting another outfit steal and burn and fight their way into my business, I do.”

  Celia stood up. The barefaced gall of this man angered her, and she could understand Cole Armin losing his temper so easily. She was losing hers, and she didn’t care.

  “Very well,” she said. “I can tell you one thing, though, Mr. Armin! Cole has been pushed too far already. He’s not a man for guns, but he will take to them soon.”

  “You forget the peace bond, Miss Wallace.”

  “It’s you who forget it!” Celia said hotly. “You forget that when Cole breaks his bond you’ll be dead!”

  She whirled, her skirts billowing out, and left the room, her back straight as a gun barrel. Out in the corridor she leaned weakly against the wall and put her hands to her eyes. She had lost her temper and made threats and for what? Craig Armin was inside, laughing at her. She went down the stairs, thoroughly chastened. This thing that had been set in motion was not as easy to stop as all that. For the first time she had got a glimpse of the implacable hatred of Craig Armin, and it was ugly.

  When she returned home the first thing she saw on the table was Letty Burns’s hat.

  Ted called to her the moment the door slammed. “Celia, come in here!” His voice was angry.

  When she went in Letty Burns was seated in a chair, her handkerchief to her eyes, sobbing quietly. Ted’s face was dark with wrath, and his eyes fairly sparkled. Celia looked from one to the other and said, “For heaven’s sake, what’s the matter?”