by Abel Short
"Somebody from Silver," Big Joe told himself.
He walked into the shore and stood under the trees. His head pounded as if something inside it strove to break out. He had gotten the picture again, and yet it meant nothing more, seemed to have no answer for him.
The bump against a tree stirred further along the bank. He was slaunchwise even as he hooked out a hogleg. His name came. "Pony." And then Marie was splashing through the edge of the water toward him. The long black coat flew behind and she swung a sombrero. She slipped on a root and he caught her.
"How'd you get here?" he asked gruffly, suspicions aroused.
She pulled herself straight, panting. When everybody in the dance hall had rushed down to the fire, she had gone up to the hotel third story galley to watch. Then there had been the gunfight around the bank. And afterward seen the white-hooded raiders slipping off to the barn behind.
"I had to find you, Pony. Now—"
His hand tightened on her wrist. "How did you know I was with them?"
Her eyes avoided his. "When you spoke to me behind the dance hall yesterday afternoon, part of the white hood was hanging from your pocket."
"You didn't say anything?" It was all twisted up inside him. By his remark, he meant she had told nobody, given no warning.
She shook her head. Above, the red willows mourned in the night with the soft swish of their supple branches. He let go of her hand almost roughly. "How'd you know we were here?"
Her eyes chilled as she caught the note of suspicion. "From the high hotel porch I could see over the other buildings. I saw the route you took. And—and I'd heard about Faley's place." The ending was weak.
He didn't want to suspect her. He wanted to believe she was the one decent, straight thing in this backwater of Hell. But—he said that the boys let her in. Maybe they knew her right well.
Her tones were as icy as his when she answered. "I told them Silver Linn sent me—to see you."
The thing wouldn't down in him. The perfume of her hair was in his nostrils and he could see the pulse beating in her throat. But she had seen him with the white hood, the badge of an outlaw. And she had made no move to have him apprehended, had known he was in the bank raid—yet ridden out here without bringing a posse. He wondered how she was playing… where she sat in this rotten game.
She turned and walked a few steps. He moved beside her. "You wanted to see me."
"That man at the back door of the dance hall —who waved to me. He asked me who you were. When I told him Pony Grimes, he said I was crazy. He wanted to larrup after you, but you'd gone."
Big Joe felt himself tightening.
"He said you weren't Pony Grimes, said he'd ridden with Pony Grimes for months some time back. Eaten and shared the same shakedown."
"What?"
"Yes, P-Pony. He said this—this other Pony Grimes was a card dealer."
It began to come back to Big Joe, then, like a far-off rustling sound. He knew the man was right, hadn't lied. He himself was not Pony Grimes, and vaguely he recalled something about a Pony Grimes who was a gambler-gunman. His great fists were knotted and hammering his skull.
"Pony, Pony," Marie cried.
It was coming, coming. The picture Silver had dropped in the bank, the picture of "Stan" his so-called brother. He could see it big and bright before him in the night.
"Marie, that locket. The one with the photograph of—of the girl. Where did you get it?" It was the final piece.
She was scared by the storm writhing within the man beside her, placed a hand on his arm. "The Countess gave it to me. I saw it on her bedroom table. I thought I might like to have it to put my picture in to give—to give to a man sometime."
"You don't know where she got it?"
Marie's voice was low and small. "I saw Silver Linn, your boss, give it to her one time."
It was like a blow between the eyes. And then the exploding stars in the brain that followed it. He knew who he was. The girl in the locket was Mary, his dead fiancee. The picture of alleged "Stan" was the jail photo of Snake Hallin, the man he had come into Maddox to track down. And he—he himself—was Big Joe Gannon, special officer of the governor's staff.
"Hey, Pony."
Quivering, Big Joe had taken a few running steps forward. He looked down the moon-dyed mudflat. Stub had come down from the store and was there. "Pony," he said again. He held out the photograph of Snake Hallin that Silver had dropped in the bank. "It fell outa your pants when I was fixing your leg, Pony."
Big Joe was laughing a little foolishly, he came forward, arm outstretched.
"Stand your ground, Pony," Stub said. There was gravel in his gullet. He had jerked a gun. "I'm killing you, Pony!"
Big Joe looked stupid. He stood reeling with the knowledge of what he had just learned. It was like being born again. "Killing—"
"Yeah, Pony." His head with batlike ears levered forward. "Because you killed Nick; Nick was my friend. Out at Lennore's that night. He was only scratched when we come on him, but when we returned, he was dead. And whoever'd been there had dropped this picture. I didn't know; now I do. You dropped it tonight. Now you—" His gun muzzle bit forward like a snake head.
Feet slapped the river bank mud. Out of the shadow Marie swept and threw herself in front of Big Joe. The lead stabbed from Stub's hand in a vivid spear of light. And Big Joe rammed down on his right gun; never drew, just rode that butt down. He had been at work converting that holster into a breed-type holster of late, open-tipped and rigged on a swivel at the belt. It spattered lead from the tip in one fiery gout.
Stub staggered backward and hit the mud. The shattered fragments of his gun splashed into the river. Joe's bullet had nailed that gun squarely… Stub crouched on his knees, gun hand paralyzed with the shock, helpless. Big Joe had swung Marie to one side. He walked forward, mouth ripped savagely. Then he let his holster sag down again.
Shots Mouger pulled up beside the store and lit running. "The Ventare pack are out," he called. "Scouting down about five-six miles below here. I saw 'em from that last rise back on the trail by the chimney butte."
CHAPTER 16
They were down in the dank cellar of Faley's store, Silver's gun spread and Big Joe Gannon. Daylight had come. With it went the chance of springing a trap on a bunch the size of the Ventare pack. They had to hide.
The girl had been sent off when Shots came in with the alarm. She would work her way downstream and then cut over to the trail back of the posse. Some of the men squatted about in the gloom spoke of her now. Perhaps she had led the posse their way. Big Joe wondered about her too.
Now that he knew what he was—a crack law officer instead of a lousy gun-slick—it made it more bitter. In the very first, when Yellow Head claimed he was a badge packer, she had done nothing to warn him. Yet, when he was about to be hung as an outlaw killer, she had stepped up and lied for him. When she had seen him with the white hood, she had done nothing. And a few hours ago, when it was plain he was a longrider, she had ridden out there to warn him a man had seen through his apparently false identity.
It was all a little locoed, and it made it look as if she were the kind who strung with lobos, possibly even working on the side and under cover with some kind of a bad bunch herself. He didn't want to think that. But when the cards are turned up you can't argue with the pictures on them.
"Where's that bottle of redeye Faley said he'd bring down?" one of the bunch groused.
"He'll come when he knows it's safe," Joe heard himself say. Somehow, without a word about it, he had taken over the lead.
There was another thing. Marie didn't belong in any dance hall. She wasn't the type to run with that cheap kind of skirt. Too good; too slick, and that only made her more suspicious.
Things were very clear in his own mind now about himself. He recalled how he had forked his pony into Maddox, seen Pony Grimes and a companion backing from the Golden Stirrup with drawn hoglegs, and the chase out among the sandhills. The fight. Then going out cold
when his head hit that rock, and coming to in that room with Doc Hilder working on him and Silver in the background.
He couldn't dope the angle on Silver yet. It wasn't of prime importance. He had sloped into the Spit country after his officer mate, Harrison Ord, had been found brutally murdered. After that last note of Ord's to headquarters stating he had cut the trail of the vicious Snake Hallin. And that was the man he was going to hang the deadwood on first. Snake Hallin. It didn't take any great stall-walking to know Snake had put out Ord's light.
Silver had lied to him, or else genuinely made a mistake in identity. Silver was a lobo, of course, working some kind of a game. And the more he weighed it up the better it seemed to string along with Silver. Silver might inadvertently lead him to the bald, bloodshot-eyed Hallin. Also, as Silver's henchman, identified by him as Pony Grimes, he could work under cover. A masking identity had been established for him. Now that he knew his own true identity the chances were better of cutting Snake Hallin's sign.
He wondered about the man Marie had said knew he wasn't Pony Grimes. She'd said he called himself Smith, and that it obviously wasn't his handle. All else she knew was that he had a thin white scar way up close under his chin; you could only see it when he lifted his head to drink or laugh. There was an outside chance that man might be running with Hallin, being a friend of the real now dead Pony's. The latter had been a great one to attach himself to some big-shot trigger slammer or owlhooter, like a tick feeding off a bull.
Faley opened the trap door and handed down a bottle of rotgut whiskey. They put their guns away and Mouger reached it down. "You dirty slobberhaid, it's only half full, you—" The trap was already closed.
Big Joe saw eyes spiking at him out of the gloom. They belonged to Stub. Stub was squatted on a box at his right. Stub said, "You could uh killed me like a down cow critter out there on the mud flat last night."
Big Joe shrugged. "Maybe I ain't built that way. Anyhow, I didn't kill Nick either."
Stub made an ugly sound in his throat. "Save the windies, Pony. I was there. I know skunk meat when I smell it."
"Why'd I want to snuff out Nick?"
"No tellin'. You might be a no-good John Law. I only know about the picture. What I'm wanting to say is this. You would uh burned me down. But when we're outa this, I'm calling you again pronto. Nick was my friend. He was ready to pull his pin and settle down and—"
Joe ground out his smoke. It stung his throat in the fetid air. "Silver killed him, Stub. The picture was there when we found Nick. Then Lennore bust in and when we looked back, it was gone. Silver picked it up, I know now."
Stub scratched his belly. "I know where I found the picture last night."
"When Silver came back to town with these new gents, you heard me asking him for the picture. He got horny about it. Remember? Wouldn't give it to me. Then he left to see the Countess."
Stub sat for a long time. He nodded once. "But it fell outa your pants last night," he said doggedly.
"Recall how Silver stumbled and fell a-rushing into the bank? All right. He dropped it then; I got it. You gotta admit you heard us arguing about it when he returned from the trip, Stub."
Some time passed. Shots Mouger was striding up and down. Over in a corner three men coaxed a candle stub into life and settled down with a greasy deck of cards.
Stub's wiry fingers hooked on Big Joe's arm. "By grab, you're right, Pony! You're right. I sabe it now. It musta been Silver. Musta!" He half rose, then dropped back. Groaned. "And he's the one man I cain't kill nohow."
Joe took it for granted Stub meant he wasn't capable of matching Silver Linn on the draw. After a while, Stub asked about the photo, wanted to know who it was. Joe told him Snake Hallin. Stub whistled softly, batlike ears working. "You run with his pack, Pony?"
"I gotta see him about a pard of mine."
"Plumb poison, that Snake," Stub said. "Bad. I know a fella who'd like to know where he is too." Joe didn't say anything. He was trying to weigh the setup in Maddox. Two powerful outfits—Silver and his pack and the Ventares—were fighting for control. Maybe the Countess was sitting in too. He'd like to know what the stakes were, what was the big prize that cost so much bloodshed. But first came Snake Hallin, that was why he had come here. Once before, the day he arrived, he had veered from his duty to chase that Pony Grimes. He wouldn't again.
Stub was talking again. But low and huskily so the others wouldn't hear. "Pony, I almost killed you last night. Might uh gunned that woman of yours, too. I don't waste a shell often… I'm with you now; I'm your pard. Let's pull our freight outa here. Silver's setup ain't so good."
"For where?" Joe asked idly.
Stub played with a big ear. "Wal—uh—I met that Jeff Arizona a coupla times. He's big potatoes. I figger maybe he might take me on with his outfit. You too, if I asked it. Figger I know where I might drop in on him, too. Now there's a fust-class bunch to trail your rope with…"
The morning after the attempted bank robbery, Silver Linn had still another string left in his bow. He worked it through Shandy. The bank was robbed last night; Shandy talked it up in his bar. The Ventares said the raiders had been driven off, but that was sweet-sounding chin music, no more. Who said there was any dinero left in the bank, any of the money that he and other men in Maddox had put in that bank?
It doesn't take long to start a thing like that building; no longer than it takes fire to lick through dried prairie grass with a following wind. Before the bank opened there was a howling, milling throng stomping the road dust up in a choking cloud before it. Folks wanted their money.
But the Ventares never had stampeded easy. Five minutes before the doors were due to open, Scar and Duke appeared on the front steps, no pack of hardware men to back them either, leastwise not in sight. Scar got silence and spoke.
"I'm going to be honest with you folks," he told them with his ever-present slick smile. "To avoid a panic and save the business of this town, last night I said the bank hadn't been robbed. I—"
"All right then," bawled Shandy, "if you got the money there can't be no objection to letting us come in and draw some! It belongs to us—if you ain't forgot!" The crowd took him up in a roar.
Scar pulled out a big hunting case watch. Smiling serenely, he said, "In three minutes, the bank opens officially for business. Then—you're welcome to come in and get your money!"
"You're bluffing, Ventare! The bank was robbed!"
Scar nodded. "Folks, it was. They opened the safe and got the money; I admit it now. Wait! Wait—please…" He hooked a thumb nonchalantly into the pocket of his flowered vest. "Early this morning I brought in certain fresh funds of my own. Yes-sir. Don't ask me where I got 'em, but right smack-dab now they are in the tellers' cages waiting to be paid out. Money outa my own pocket. 'Cause I said these good folks aren't going to be wiped out if I can help it."
He paused triumphantly as the talking died to a mutter.
"No-siree. That's right, Duke. So I'm guaranteeing to all the depositors they can have half their deposits back plumb on the nose here this morning… If that ain't square, tell me!"
A score or so of folks were lined up at the tellers' cages when the clock hit the hour. A line ran from the bank down the steps and up around the corner. Then the first ones began to emerge, waving handfuls of bills. Some men dropped out of the line. The Countess, who had come over in state with a Chinese houseboy holding a parasol over her golden head, paused halfway up the steps, then turned and went back to the hotel. Folks came sauntering out of the bank without having drawn.
Hell, if the Ventares were paying off, even half, why take your dinero out! The Ventares had it. Plain as day. Shucks, paying off even half was damn good after a bank's been robbed.
So Silver Linn lost another hand to the Ventares…
That was the way he told about it when he slipped into Faley's store and talked to them that evening. He was bitter. It had been like a knife in the back to find those vaults empty.
"But I ain't
done with 'em yet." His tongue ran around his lips and over the gap where the tooth was missing. "We're pulling something soon. Dang soon. And they'll be a fat bonus in it for you boys."
In moving, his sombrero brim nudged a post in the dim cellar. The hat was knocked askew. Silver caught at it quickly and yanked it down hard over his silver hair…
He told something else too, before he returned. Mouger and the others, they could come back. Just drift in quiet like in ones and twos. But Pony had to stay hid out here for a spell.
"The Ventares are saying you was one of the white hood bunch, Pony. I don't know how they know. But you lay out here till I say. They'll never think of hunting this close now."
"Reckon I better hang here with him," Stub mentioned. "He's wounded some and he wouldn't stand a chance alone was they to come. You wouldn't want him taken, would you?"
CHAPTER 17
The next day, Silver was out again. He looked harried and his brow kept purpling with the anger twisting inside him. Somebody had tipped off the Ventares. They had moved that money out of the vault themselves. It had him half crazy to have failed, and the Devil's brew was coming to a boil fast. Maddox was a-busting at the seams.
The night of the fire, Dinby, the marshal, had returned from the river to discover some drunken saloon tough had broken in and gotten at his daughter. The girl was out of her mind. Early the next night, Dinby was found hung by his own hand out in the horseshed back of the jail. And the lid had blown off.
Drunken packs roved the streets. There had been two gun brawls, both opponents struck fatally in one. Stores were being looted. A line of freighters had been caught the other side of the bridge by the burnt-out river colony pack and every item stripped from their wagons. Jack's Last Drink had been literally gutted and half of it burned when the bar boss got in an altercation with a customer who wouldn't pay.