by Max Brand
Even a child could have strung these incidents into a chain of evidence which pointed toward danger. Obviously the danger was not directly hers, but then it must be directed at some one near to her. Her father? No, he was more apt to be the mainspring of their action. Lord Nick? There was nothing to gain by attacking him. Who was left? Donnegan!
As the realization came upon her it took her breath away for a moment. Donnegan was the man. At breakfast everyone had been talking about him. Lebrun had remarked that he had a face for the cards—emotionless. Joe Rix had commented upon his speed of hand, and the Pedlar had complimented the little man on his dress.
But at lunch not a word was spoken about Donnegan even after she had dexterously introduced the subject twice. Why the sudden silence? Between morning and noon Donnegan must have grievously offended them.
Fear for his sake stimulated her; but above and beyond this, indeed, there was a mighty feminine curiosity. She smelled the secret; it reeked through the house, and she was devoured by eagerness to know. She handpicked Lord Nick’s gang in the hope of finding a weakness among them; some weakness upon which she could play in one of them and draw out what they were all concealing. The Pedlar was as unapproachable as a crag on a mountaintop. Masters was wise as an outlaw broncho. Lester was probably not even in the confidence of the others because since the affair with Landis his nerve had been shattered to bits and the others secretly despised him for being beaten by the youngster at the draw. There remained, therefore, only Joe Rix.
But Joe Rix was a fox of the first quality. He lied with the smoothness of silk. He could show a dozen colors in as many moments. Come to the windward of Joe Rix? It was a delicate business! But since there was nothing else to do, she fixed her mind upon it, working out this puzzle. Joe Rix wished to destroy Donnegan for reasons that were evidently connected with the mines. And she must step into his confidence to discover his plans. How should it be done? And there was a vital need for speed, for they might be within a step of executing whatever mischief it was that they were planning.
She went down from her room; they were there still, only Joe Rix was not with them. She went to the apartment where he and the other three of Nick’s gang slept and rapped at the door. He maintained his smile when he saw her, but there was an uncertain quiver of his eyebrows that told her much. Plainly he was ill at ease. Suspicious? Ay, there were always clouds of suspicion drifting over the red, round face of Joe Rix. She put a tremor of excitement and trouble in her voice.
“Come into my room, Joe, where we won’t be interrupted.”
He followed her without a word, and since she led the way she was able to relax her expression for a necessary moment. When she closed the door behind him and faced Joe again she was once more ready to step into her part. She did not ask him to sit down. She remained for a moment with her hand on the knob and searched the face of Joe Rix eagerly.
“Do you think he can hear?” she whispered, gesturing over her shoulder.
“Who?”
“Who but Lord Nick!” she exclaimed softly.
The bewilderment of Joe clouded his face a second and then he was able to smooth it away. What on earth was the reason of her concern about Lord Nick he was obviously wondering.
“I’ll tell you why,” she said, answering the unspoken question at once. “He’s as jealous as the devil, Joe!”
The fat little man sighed as he looked at her.
“He can’t hear. Not through that log wall. But we’ll talk soft, if you want.”
“Yes, yes. Keep your voice down. He’s already jealous of you, Joe.”
“Of me?”
“He knows I like you, that I trust you; and just now he’s on edge about everyone I look at.”
The surprising news which the first part of this sentence contained caused Joe to gape, and the girl looked away in concern, enabling him to control his expression. For she knew well enough that men hate to appear foolishly surprised. And particularly a fox like Joe Rix.
“But what’s the trouble, Nelly?” He added with a touch of venom: “I thought everything was going smoothly with you. And I thought you weren’t worrying much about what Lord Nick had in his mind.”
She stared at him as though astonished.
“Do you think just the same as the rest of them?” she asked sadly. “Do you mean to say that you’re fooled just the same as Harry Masters and the Pedlar and the rest of those fools—including Nick himself?”
Joe Rix was by no means willing to declare himself a fool beforehand. He now mustered a look of much reserved wisdom.
“I have my own doubts, Nell, but I’m not talking about them.”
He was so utterly at sea that she had to bite her lip hard to keep from breaking into ringing laughter.
“Oh, I knew that you’d seen through it, Joe,” she cried softly. “You see what an awful mess I’ve gotten into?”
He passed a hurried hand across his forehead and then looked at her searchingly. But he could not penetrate her pretense of concern.
“No matter what I think,” said Joe Rix, “you come out with it frankly. I’ll listen.”
“As a friend, Joe?”
She managed to throw a plea into her voice that made Joe sigh.
“Sure. You’ve already said that I’m your friend, and you’re right.”
“I’m in terrible, terrible trouble! You know how it happened. I was a fool. I tried to play with Lord Nick. And now he thinks I was in earnest.”
As though the strength of his legs had given way, Joe Rix slipped down into a chair.
“Go on,” he said huskily. “You were playing with Lord Nick?”
“Can’t you put yourself in my place, Joe? It’s always been taken for granted that I’m to marry Nick. And the moment he comes around everybody else avoids me as if I were poison. I was sick of it. And when he showed up this time it was the same old story. A man would as soon sign his own death warrant as ask me for a dance. You know how it is?”
He nodded, still at sea, but with a light beginning to dawn in his little eyes.
“I’m only a girl, Joe. I have all the weakness of other girls. I don’t want to be locked up in a cage just because I—love one man!”
The avowal made Joe blink. It was the second time that day that he had been placed in an astonishing scene. But some of his old cunning remained to him.
“Nell,” he said suddenly, rising from his chair and going to her. “What are you trying to do to me? Pull the wool over my eyes?”
It was too much for Nelly Lebrun. She knew that she could not face him without betraying her guilt and therefore she did not attempt it. She whirled and flung herself on her bed, face down, and began to sob violently, suppressing the sounds. And so she waited.
Presently a hand touched her shoulder lightly.
“Go away,” cried Nelly in a choked voice. “I hate you, Joe Rix. You’re like all the rest!”
His knee struck the floor with a soft thud.
“Come on, Nell. Don’t be hard on me. I thought you were stringing me a little. But if you’re playing straight, tell me what you want?”
At that she bounced upright on the bed, and before he could rise she caught him by both shoulders.
“I want Donnegan,” she said fiercely.
“What?”
“I want him dead!”
Joe Rix gasped.
“Here’s the cause of all my trouble. Just because I flirted with him once or twice, Nick thought I was in earnest and now he’s sulking. And Donnegan puts on airs and acts as if I belonged to him. I hate him, Joe. And if he’s gone Nick will come back to me. He’ll come back to me, Joe; and I want him so!”
She found that Joe Rix was staring straight into her eyes, striving to probe her soul to its depths, and by a great effort she was enabled to meet that gaze. Finally the fat little man rose slowly to his feet. Her hands trailed from his shoulders as he stood up and fell helplessly upon her lap.
“Well, I’ll be hanged, Nell!” excla
imed Joe Rix.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not acting a part? No, I can see you mean it. But what a cold-blooded little—” He checked himself. His face was suddenly jubilant. “Then we’ve got him, Nell. We’ve got him if you’re with us. We had him anyway, but we’ll make sure of him if you’re with us. Look at this! You saw me put a paper in my pocket when I opened the door of my room? Here it is!”
He displayed before the astonished eyes of Nelly Lebrun a paper covered with an exact duplicate of her own swift, dainty script. And she read:
Nick is terribly angry and is making trouble. I have to get away. It isn’t safe for me to stay here. Will you help me? Will you meet me at the shack by Donnell’s ford tomorrow morning at ten o’clock?
“But I didn’t write it,” cried Nelly Lebrun, bewildered.
“Nelly,” Joe Rix chuckled, flushing with pleasure, “you didn’t. It was me. I kind of had an idea that you wanted to get rid of this Donnegan, and I was going to do it for you and then surprise you with the good news.”
“Joe, you forged it?”
“Don’t bother sayin’ pretty things about me and my pen,” said Rix modestly. “This is nothin’! But if you want to help me, Nelly—”
His voice faded partly out of her consciousness as she fought against a tigerish desire to spring at the throat of the little fat man. But gradually it dawned on her that he was asking her to write out that note herself. Why? Because it was possible that Donnegan might have seen her handwriting and in that case, though the imitation had been good enough to deceive Nelly herself, it probably would not for a moment fool the keen eyes of Donnegan. But if she herself wrote out the note, Donnegan was already as good as dead.
“That is,” concluded Joe Rix, “if he really loves you, Nell.”
“The fool!” cried Nelly. “He worships the ground I walk on, Joe. And I hate him for it.”
Even Joe Rix shivered, for he saw the hate in her eyes and could not dream that he himself was the cause and the object of it. There was a red haze of horror and confusion in front of her eyes, and yet she was able to smile while she copied the note for Joe Rix.
“But how are you going to work it?” she asked. “How are you going to kill him, Joe?”
“Don’t bother your pretty head,” said the fat man, smiling. “Just wait till we bring you the good news.”
“But are you sure?” she asked eagerly. “See what he’s done already. He’s taken Landis away from us; he’s baffled Nick himself, in some manner; and he’s gathered the mines away from all of us. He’s a devil, Joe, and if you want to get him you’d better take ten men for the job.”
“You hate him, Nell, don’t you?” queried Joe Rix, and his voice was both hard and curious. “But how has he harmed you?”
“Hasn’t he taken Nick away from me? Isn’t that enough?”
The fat man shivered again.
“All right. I’ll tell you how it works. Now, listen!”
And he began to check off the details of his plan.
CHAPTER 40
The day passed and the night, but how very slowly for Nelly Lebrun; she went up to her room early for she could no longer bear the meaning glances which Joe Rix cast at her from time to time. But once in her room it was still harder to bear the suspense as she waited for the noise to die away in the house. Midnight, and half an hour more went by, and then, at last, the murmurs and the laughter stopped; she alone was wakeful in Lebrun’s. And when that time came she caught a scarf around her hair and her shoulders, made of a filmy material which would veil her face but through which she could see, and ventured out of her room and down the hall.
There was no particular need for such caution, however, it seemed. Nothing stirred. And presently she was outside the house and hurrying behind the houses and up the hill. Still she met nothing. If The Corner lived tonight, its life was confined to Milligan’s and the gambling house.
She found Donnegan’s shack and the one next to it, which the terrible colonel occupied, entirely dark, but only a moment after she tapped at the door it was opened. Donnegan, fully dressed, stood in the entrance, outlined blackly by the light which came faintly from the hooded lantern hanging on the wall. Was he sitting up all the night, unable to sleep because he waited breathlessly for that false tryst on the morrow? A great tenderness came over the heart of Nelly Lebrun.
“It is I,” she whispered.
There was a soft exclamation, then she was drawn into the room.
“Is there anyone here?”
“Only big George. But he’s in the kitchen and he won’t hear. He never hears anything except what’s meant for his ear. Take this chair!”
He was putting a blanket over the rough wood to make it more comfortable, and she submitted dumbly to his ministrations. It seemed terrible and strange to her that one so gentle should be the object of so much hate—such deadly hate as the members of Nick’s gang felt for him. And now that he was sitting before her she could see that he had indeed been wakeful for a long time. His face was grimly wasted; the lips were compressed as one who has endured long pain; and his eyes gleamed at her out of a profound shadow. He remained in the gloom; the light from the lantern fell brightly upon his hands alone—meager, fleshless hands which seemed to represent hardly more strength than that of a child. Truly this man was all a creature of spirit and nerve. Therein lay his strength, as also his weakness, and again the cherishing instinct grew strong and swept over her.
“There is no one near,” he said, “except the colonel and his daughter. They are up the hillside, somewhere. Did you see them?”
“No. What in the world are they out for at this time of night?”
“Because the colonel only wakes up when the sun goes down. And now he’s out there humming to himself and never speaking a word to the girl. But they won’t be far away. They’ll stay close to see that no one comes near the cabin to get at Landis.”
He added: “They must have seen you come into my cabin!”
And his lips set even harder than before. Was it fear because of her?
“They may have seen me enter, but they won’t know who it was. You have the note from me?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a lie! It’s a ruse. I was forced to write it to save you! For they’re planning to murder you. Oh, my dear!”
“Hush! Hush! Murder?”
“I’ve been nearly hysterical all day and all the night. But, thank heaven, I’m here to warn you in time! You mustn’t go. You mustn’t go!”
“Who is it?”
He had drawn his chair closer: he had taken her hands, and she noted that his own were icy cold, but steady as a rock. Their pressure soothed her infinitely.
“Joe Rix, the Pedlar, Harry Masters. They’ll be at the shack at ten o’clock, but not I!”
“Murder, but a very clumsy scheme. Three men leave town and commit a murder and then expect to go undetected? Not even in the mountain desert!”
“But you don’t understand, you don’t understand! They’re wise as foxes. They’ll take no risk. They don’t even leave town together or travel by the same routes. Harry Masters starts first. He rides out at eight o’clock in the morning and takes the north trail. He rides down the gulch and winds out of it and strikes for the shack at the ford. At half past eight the Pedlar starts. He goes past Sandy’s place and then over the trail through the marsh. You know it?”
“Yes.”
“Last of all, Joe Rix starts at nine o’clock. Half an hour between them.”
“How does he go to the shack?”
“By the south trail. He takes the ridge of the hills. But they’ll all be at the shack long before you and they’ll shoot you down from a distance as you come up to it. Plain murder, but even for cowardly murder they daren’t face you except three to one.”
He was thoughtful.
“Suppose they were to be met on the way?”
“You’re mad to think of it!”
“But if they fail
this time they’ll try again. They must be taught a lesson.”
“Three men? Oh, my dear, my dear! Promise!”
“Very well. I shall do nothing rash. And I shall never forget that you’ve come to tell me this and been in peril, Nell, for if they found you had come to me—”
“The Pedlar would cut my throat. I know him!”
“Ah! But now you must go. I’ll take you down the hill, dear.”
“No, no! It’s much easier to get back alone. My face will be covered. But there’s no way you could be disguised. You have a way of walking—good night—and God bless you!”
She was in his arms, straining him to her; and then she slipped out the door.
And sure enough, there was the colonel in his chair not fifty feet away with a girl pushing him. The moonlight was too dim for Nelly Lebrun to make out the face of Lou Macon, but even the light which escaped through the filter of clouds was enough to set her golden hair glowing. The color was not apparent, but its luster was soft silver in the night. There was a murmur of the colonel’s voice as Nelly came out of the cabin.
And then, from the girl, a low cry.
It brought the blood to the cheeks of Nelly as she hurried down the hill, for she recognized the pain that was in it; and it occurred to her that if the girl was in love with Jack Landis she was strangely interested in Donnegan also.
The thought came so sharply home to her that she paused abruptly on the way down the hill. After all, this Macon girl would be a very strange sort if she were not impressed by the little red-headed man, with his gentle voice and his fiery ways, and his easy way of making himself a brilliant spectacle whenever he appeared in public. And Nelly remembered, also, with the keen suspicion of a woman in love how weakly Donnegan had responded to her embrace this night. How absent-mindedly his arms had held her, and how numbly they had fallen away when she turned at the door.
But she shook her head and made the suspicion shudder its way out of her. Lou Macon, she decided, was just the sort of girl who would think Jack Landis an ideal. Besides, she had never had an opportunity to see Donnegan in his full glory at Milligan’s. And as for Donnegan? He was wearied out; his nerves relaxed; and for the deeds with which he had startled The Corner and won her own heart he was now paying the penalty in the shape of ruined nerves. Pity again swelled in her heart, and a consuming hatred for the three murderers who lived in her father’s house.