by Max Brand
“Well?” he said.
The old heart gave a jump like a frightened antelope. I muzzled it down and choked it into submission. I told myself that this would be all right.
“Well?” said the big fellow sharply, his voice rising.
“Aw, shut up,” said I. “Who d’you think I am? Riggs?”
“You might be,” said he. “Just shove up your hands, will you, and let me have a look at you.”
“I’m the other man that Sid hired,” said I. “Don’t be a fool.”
“Yeah, maybe I’m a fool,” said he, “but I’m going to have a look at you. I never heard nothing about another man, except Pete. And you ain’t Pete. Shove up your hands, you!”
I shoved them up, with a Colt in my right hand, the barrel down, slipping into the cuff of my right arm. It’s a simple trick. I had practiced it before, but never had used it. Dick Stephani taught me how to do it. A great old sleight-of-hand artist was Dick.
I held up my arms rigidly, as far as I could stick them.
“That’s better,” said the giant gruffly.
He was a giant, all right. He measured about seven feet six to my eyes, just then.
“Now turn in there and walk right into that shaft of light,” said he.
As he spoke, he made a gesture with the rifle, and as he made the gesture, I socked him. Right alongside of the head I caught him with the heel of the gun. It seemed to sink in, and he wobbled and went down slowly, as though his will were fighting against the weakness in his legs.
By the way he fell, I knew that I hadn’t really cracked his skull and I was mighty glad of that. He lay in a heap, all piled up, a mountain of a man. But I had some tie rope in my pockets, of course, and I lashed his hands and feet. He began to groan, so I shoved some cloth torn off his coat into his mouth and made a gag. Still he groaned, deep down in his throat — a sure proof that he could still breathe. After that, I got him under the armpits, and pulled him over into the brush, and when I had him there, I lashed his ankles to one trunk, and his wrists to another.
Then I leaned over and whispered in his ear.
“Listen, partner,” said I, “I’m going to be busy around here for a while. If you make a noise, struggling, I’ll come back and bash in your head.”
He said nothing, of course, but I thought that I could see him try to nod his head in a convincing way. So I judged that he had understood.
I went off from him toward the light from the window, but the hammering of my heart told me that I would have to stop. I dropped to one knee and pressed one hand against the ground. It had taken something out of me, that brief struggle with the guard in the darkness. I could feel my lips grinning back hard, and the stretch of my nostrils as I breathed.
But I told myself that that was nothing and that I would be all right in another moment.
Well, it was true. The longer I lived with my disease, the more I came to know how the will power can control the body. And in a minute I was straight enough. I stood up, leaning on the rifle I had taken from the guard. I fumbled at the lock of it and saw that it was ready to use. Then I went on again.
When I came to the window, I saw that it was open, and voices rumbled out of it, as if out of a cave.
One fellow was saying: “I’ll see that and raise you fifty.”
“Not enough,” said another. “Here’s a hundred to fatten your winnings, Willie.”
“And a hundred more, and another hundred on top of that,” said another voice.
“Hey, who heard from you before, in this hand?” said one of the first speakers.
“Oh, I been in all the time,” said the last fellow. “Only I ain’t been talking so much. I’m going to win this little old show.”
I got up to the window. I could stand on tiptoe, I found, and look over the whole room, because the sill was low down to the ground. A bad idea, I’ve always thought, to have windows as low as all of that.
What I saw was the conventional layout — five men at a table, and one fellow off in a corner, pretending to read a paper, but really listening to the game. He’d been busted long before, I judged.
He was one of those long, dark, slim, sallow-faced men, who always look as though they have consumption. Of the five at the table, four hardly counted. One had huge ears that fanned out from his head, and bristling, whitish hair. “Swede,” they called him. “Willie” was a fat fellow, with a lot of stomach in front of him, and a cheerful smile. But just opposite to the window sat the man I wanted. I mean, there was Sidney Maker.
Yes, I knew him at once. They had described him enough when they said that he was a bulldog, because the name fitted him all the way from head to foot. He had the thick shoulders, the width of neck, the muscular jowls, the disappearing nose, and the frowning forehead. He frowned, and yet he looked good-natured, too, if you know what I mean.
I judged him to be quite a man. Right then I wished that my luck had thrown me in with Sid Maker, instead of that knock-kneed crane of a man, Riggs.
Maker was the fellow who had just said that he had been staying all the time.
“Yeah, you’ll win it, all right,” said Willie. “You always win, when the pot gets big enough. Teach me how you talk to the cards, and you can keep the other things that you know.”
“No, I’ve got no luck to-night,” said Maker.
And he frowned harder, and tossed his head over his shoulder, like a dog biting at a fly.
“You got something on your mind,” said one of the set.
“Here’s a five-hundred raise on top of that,” said one.
He was little, thin, sandy-haired, quiet. But I knew that he was a man. At the first glance I couldn’t tell which was more of a man — Maker or this small chap.
“Hey, Chuck,” said one of them, “you’re shooting the sky.”
And right away they threw down their hands, all except Maker.
He hesitated. Then he said:
“Well, I won’t let you hold a hand like that for nothing. I’ll see you.”
He shoved in his money. The table seemed to be covered with stacks of it.
“Thanks, Sid,” said “Chuck” quietly. “This is what you’re seeing.”
He laid down a full house, queens high. I could see the starched faces of the ladies even from the window and at the angle from which I had to look. I could see the flash of them, if you like.
Well, with that betting, a full house, even queens up, was not so much, and I half expected Maker to put down four of a kind, but he only slipped his hand into the discard and muttered:
“Yeah, I knew it would be something like that.”
“You’ve got your mind on something else,” said Chuck. “You’re not in the game, Sid.”
He raked in the money as he spoke.
“That’s all right, Chuck,” said Maker. “I don’t mind paying. But you’re right. You’re always right, Chuck. I’ve got something on my mind.”
“What is it?” asked Chuck, gathering his cards as the next hand was dealt.
“That ringboned son of trouble, that McGinnis,” said Maker. “I been waiting to hear from him.”
“What about?” asked Swede.
“Oh, a job. A big job. I been waiting to hear from him. If I don’t hear pretty soon, I gotta go downtown. And I don’t want to pull out on you boys.”
“Don’t you do it,” said Chuck. “Your luck will turn.”
I liked the way Chuck said it. I could guess, somehow, that the winning or the losing of money did not mean a great deal to that fellow. He was all right. He was a man, as I’ve said before. He sat sidewise to me, and he wore no suggestion of a gun, but I was sure that he was well heeled. Yes, he was a fighter; he was the real thing. I wouldn’t have liked to get into trouble with that little man, I tell you. I knew it the first flash that I had of him, and everything that I had to do with him later proved that the first flash was right.
“McGinnis, he’s got a head,” said Swede.
“Yeah, he’s got a head,”
admitted that bulldog, that Maker.
His tone admitted less than his words.
“McGinnis got a big job on hand?” asked the man in the corner, putting down his paper.
“Pretty big job,” answered Maker, without turning his head.
“You know something, Sid,” said Swede.
“Well?”
“I think about the way that you sit here, facing the window, and anybody could step up to that window and shoot you through the head.”
“Have you tried the height of that sill above the ground?” asked Maker.
“Yeah, I’ve tried it,” said the Swede, and he grinned, and had the grace to blush a little.
Everybody laughed, but it was rather hard laughter. I gathered that Swede was not the softest person in the world.
“McGinnis got a Riggs job on hand?” asked the man over in the corner.
“Always asking questions! Whatcha ask so many questions for, Bert?” demanded Sid Maker.
“Well, a man wants to know, don’t he?” said Bert.
“Yeah, maybe.”
They played that hand. I don’t remember what happened in it. When they were dealing the next one, Chuck said:
“If you’re worried about McGinnis, I’ll go down and look him over. Only I don’t like to pull out when I’m such a winner. I’ve picked a couple of thousand out of this little game already.”
Maker laughed. His laughter sounded like a growl.
“Don’t worry about money. None of you boys worry about money. We’re going to roll in it, if we want to. I’ve got everything fixed.”
“If you got the election fixed, it’s all right,” said Swede, jerking up his head.
“I’ll have that fixed, too, by to-morrow,” said Maker.
“Sure?” asked every voice in the room.
The chorus boomed on my ear.
“Yeah, by to-morrow.”
“Then Riggs is licked,” said Swede with a grin.
“I had him licked from the start,” announced Maker. “I always had him licked. He’s got nothing behind him!”
“He’s got a pretty good pot of money,” said Chuck, shaking his head in doubt.
“Money isn’t men, always,” said Maker. “I’ve got men. I’ve got you boys. I’ve got more in this room than Riggs has, with all of his brains and his planning. The trouble with Riggs is that he’s got nobody that he can trust things to. That’s the trouble with him.”
He said this not with the air of boaster, but calmly, thoughtfully, cocking one eye up to the ceiling.
Then he added: “Blast that McGinnis. I ought to hear from him. I never should have trusted this job to him. He looked scared when I told him about it. I never should have trusted it to him. I should have given it to one of you boys. Chuck, maybe. Chuck never has fallen down.”
“Chuck’s so small that he can’t fall very far,” said Swede.
Chuck lifted his head and looked.
“I ain’t so small as all that,” he said softly.
“Oh, wait a minute, Chuck; you ain’t so big, either,” said Swede.
He grinned again. I hated his grin and the pale bristling of his hair. He looked like a bad one.
“Maybe I’m big enough, though — for the jobs that may be on hand,” said Chuck, continuing to look straight at Swede.
“Are you?” said Swede, suddenly thrusting out his jaw.
“I think — maybe,” said Chuck.
“Everything ain’t cards,” suggested Swede, glaring.
“No. There’s guns, too,” said Chuck.
He leaned forward, just an inch or two.
“I dunno that I’ll take that, Chuck,” said Swede.
“I don’t care what you take,” said Chuck, his voice gentler than ever.
“I say — I won’t take it,” said Swede, turning red and white in spots.
“Hey, shut up, all of you,” broke in Maker angrily.
He banged his hand on the table. Slowly Swede shifted his eyes toward his boss, but Chuck never moved his glance from the face of the big man. There was no ferocity in his stare, but a calm, cold consideration. It scared me, somehow, just to stand there and look at this little fellow. There was poison in him, I knew.
“I don’t want any more of this talk,” said Maker. “You know me, all of you boys. I’m for everybody, until the gang begins to split, and then I’m against the ones that start the break. I’m against them with everything that I’ve got. Don’t forget it. Swede, don’t say a word, and you, Chuck, shut your face, will you?”
“I wasn’t taking anything, that’s all,” said Swede. And he scowled down at his cards.
Little Chuck said nothing. He kept looking hungrily, thoughtfully, at Swede. I knew that one day that look of his would develop into something bad.
However, I had heard enough for the moment. I went around to the front of the house, thinking on the way. It was a hard lay, a hard deal. I didn’t see how I could crack this layout. There was Maker, and he was a handful. There were five other men, and every one of them, by the look, was a hand-picked fighter. I never had done much work with guns, but I had had some experience with my fists, and I knew something about the look of men. These all had the right slant.
When I got to the front of the house, I banged a couple of times on the door.
I waited while the echo ran back through the house. After a time, I heard footfalls. The door was opened, and a flash of light smeared across my face so fast that I jerked up my hands.
“Whatcha want?” said the voice of Bert.
“I want Maker,” said I.
“What for? Starch?” said he.
“Yeah, starch,” said I.
“Well,” he said, “Maker is busy. Good night!”
He started to close the door. I wedged my foot in it.
“Take your foot out of that!” said Bert, his voice cold and small.
I snarled at him: “You thickhead, I said that I wanta see Maker. I mean it. Take me in to him.”
“Who told you that he’s here?” said Bert.
“McGinnis told me.”
“Oh, McGinnis?”
“Yeah.”
He paused for a moment.
“Well, come in then,” said he.
I heard him step back, and I walked in through the door. Suddenly the cold muzzle of a revolver was tucked into the hollow of my throat.
“You lying skunk!” said Bert.
There was always that heart of mine to consider first. I told myself that I had to keep cool. No matter what happened, my heart had to be considered. No nerves. One touch of nerves and I was the worst kind of a failure, and a dead failure, at that.
“Oh, shut up,” said I. “What sort of a play is this? Are you taking me to Maker, Bert?”
He grunted. “Who told you my name?” he asked.
“You think that nobody knows you, eh?” said I.
“Well, who told you?”
“Aw, Bert,” said I, “take a tumble. You’re not in the papers, but you’re known. Take me in. Or better still, bring Maker out here. I want to talk to him. I’ve got to talk to him.”
“McGinnis sent you, eh?” said Bert, considering.
“Yeah, McGinnis. Who else? Why else would I be here when I’d rather be in bed?”
He muttered something and then he said that perhaps I was all right.
“Oh, I don’t care what you think about me,” said I. “Not any of you. When I get rid of my message from McGinnis, I’ll be glad to be shut of the whole works.”
“Has something gone wrong?” asked Bert anxiously.
“Yeah, and damned wrong.”
“McGinnis, I never put any faith in him,” growled Bert. “Here, come along, you. No, you go first. Mind you, I’m watching you. There’s no chances taken in this house.”
“I’ll take no chances when I get out of it,” said I. “The farther from this town, the better I’ll be pleased!”
“How come McGinnis to send you?” said Bert.
�
�I don’t please you, eh?” I asked him.
“Oh, shut up,” he answered.
But his voice had relief in it. This touch of heat on my part seemed to convince him more than anything that I had said before. So he steered me down a big hall and when we came to the door at the end of it, he called out:
“Hey, Sid!”
“Well?” growled a voice inside.
“Here’s somebody that says he comes from McGinnis.”
“Bring him in then,” said Maker.
“Open the door, you,” said Bert.
I opened the door, and walked into the lions’ den.
CHAPTER XI. BLUFF
NOW THAT I was in the room, I felt a good deal better.
It was like taking a dive — I might never come up, but at the least I was in the water.
The five of them looked calmly at me, like people who had seen a man before, even after midnight, if you understand my drift.
“You — McGinnis, he sent you?” said Maker.
“He sent me,” said I. “He told me to get to you, Maker, if I had to tear the house down.”
“That’s a good way to tear a house down,” said Maker, “banging on a front door in the middle of the morning.”
He was mad and he showed it.
“You’ve got no neighbors,” said I, “and it won’t start any gossip, anyway.”
Because it made me a little mad, too, to hear him talk like this. He flushed, turning a purplish red right up his forehead to the roots of his hair. He had a bull’s temper all right.
“What does McGinnis want?” asked Maker.
“Something I’ll tell you in private,” said I.
“This is private. These are my partners,” said he.
“They’re not mine,” I answered.
“Who the devil are you, anyway?” asked Maker.
Well, there was no use faking up a name. I told him straight.
“My name is Jerry Ash.”
“Anything for short?”
“Poker-face. Is that short enough to suit you?”
“You’re one of these chesty fellows, are you?” asked Maker.
It seemed time to get some action out of him. I couldn’t afford to wait too long. I felt that I could manage my nerves for a short patch of time, but over a long rub, they’d wear thin.