by Brand, Max
The Overland, on whose route the town of Elsinore was no more than a flag station, came winding up toward the place through a narrow valley that had been cut out by a frothing, shouting creek. In that valley they were to stop the train and take their chance at getting to the safe which held the cash. The plans were all laid in detail.
They had camped for the evening in a dense pine wood where they could venture on building a fire and having a hot meal.
The dynamite had been cooked down, and the soup that was drawn off had been confided to the care of a yegg named Steve Cassidy. The rest of the men were gathered around the fire, except for two outposts, who walked on guard. And while the talk went quietly around, and Barry Christian worked sedulously on the drawing of a map of the surrounding country, there was a sudden outbreak of noise from the direction of one of the outposts.
The noise brought all the men to their feet. Naylor noticed that they gave only one glance toward Christian; after that, each was ready to stand on his own defense, and form his own plans. In truth, they were a hand-picked lot.
Then, running through the trees toward them, came the voice of Pokey.
He was calling: “Barry! Barry! Hell has broke loose!”
He came panting and gasping into the firelight. His white, sweating face was wild with fear and excitement. He was making gestures with both hands, as usual.
“Barry, there’s hell popping!” he cried, and ran up to his chief.
Christian changed a little in face and color, also. He said:
“There’s only one thing in the world that can make you act up like this, Pokey. It’s Jim Silver!”
The name struck cold chills down the back of Naylor. He saw the other men start, and he heard the quick, deep intake of their breath.
The name of Silver was lightning in every mind, it was plain.
Then Pokey was gasping out: “Yes! Jim Silver! It’s Jim Silver!”
“Where?” said Christian. “Get yourself together, you fool! Did you let him trail you out of Elsinore? I should have had more sense than to let you go into that town. Where is he now? On your trail?”
“No, he’s back there — back there in Elsinore!” said Pokey.
The courage of Pokey seemed to return, with his breath. It seemed to Naylor a wonderful thing that a mere glimpse of a man who remained now many miles away should maintain such terror in the heart of another. But that man was Jim Silver; Pokey had clashed with him once before, and those who had battled with Jim Silver once had sufficient cause to remember him forever.
Pokey, as he recovered his breath and his presence of mind, said: “It sort of hit me all in a heap. I turned around a corner, and there was Jim Silver! Right there in front of me!”
“And he saw you?” demanded Christian.
“There was a gang around him. There’s always a gang around Silver. The fools that want to shake hands with him, and the crooks that want to ‘borrow’ money from him. They were thick around Silver. He was sort of wading through them, smiling a little, the way he does. I side-stepped into a shadow and did a quick fade-away. All the way back, I’ve been seeing the ghost of him sliding along after me, not making any noise, stepping out easy and slow and silent, the way Silver does.”
“You marched out of Elsinore the minute you found out that Silver was in town, eh?” demanded Christian, with a certain quiet and sinister meaning in his voice.
“No, not just that,” sad Pokey. “I’m not such a fool as that. I went around to the hotel first, and found out that Silver was staying there. They’ve given him the best room in the hotel, looking over the main street, with three windows in it, and all of that!”
“Good work,” said Christian. “Because so long as I know that, I can know one other thing — that Jim Silver will die in that room to-night.”
Silence oppressed the others. With vaguely hopeful eyes that looked toward Christian, who was walking up and down beside the fire, the gang expected the plan of the action that was to wipe Jim Silver off the face of the earth.
Christian said: “You fellows expect something clever. But there’s no need to be clever. We have an edge on all the rest of the people that ever measured themselves against Silver. Because Silver thinks that Barry Christian is dead, and the result is that he’s stepping out big and bold. He’s been in the habit of sleeping with only one eye open for years — since he first met me. But now he thinks that he can take it easy. Well, he’ll find out that he’s wrong!”
He stopped in his walking and looked over the crowd.
“What ones of you fellows will volunteer to go with me to-night and take a crack at Silver?” he asked.
There was a dead silence. Of all those hardy fellows, there was not a single one who would willingly put himself in the peril of Silver. Not one, for the sake of praise and rewards from Christian, would volunteer to ride on that service.
Christian said slowly, but without contempt in his voice: “You understand what I’ve just been saying — that the game is practically in our hands, that Silver doesn’t expect danger of this kind, and that therefore we’ll be striking him doubly from the dark? Think it over, boys, and volunteer if you want to.”
Naylor felt a strange tug at his heartstrings; it was like the impulse a man feels to throw himself from a height.
Then Pudge Wayler was saying: “Well, a fellow can only die once. I’ve stood in front of Silver in the old days, and I reckon that I can stand there again. I’ll ride with you, if you want me, Barry.”
“You’re the best man that I could have along,” answered Christian. “You have a pair of hands, and you have a head. One more is all that I’ll ask for.”
Pokey broke out: “You think I’m scared to death. And I am. Anybody with sense is scared after he’s nearly rubbed shoulders with that man-eater and got off alive. But I’ll go back there with you, Barry. I may be shaking inside, but my hand won’t shake any, you can bet.”
Christian said: “I’d as soon have you and Pudge as any two men in the world. There’s no hurry. Pick out three good horses. We have plenty of time to get to Silver’s hotel room before he gets there to go to bed. He’ll die like Billy the Kid — in the dark.”
CHAPTER XVII
Naylor’s Plan
AN ODD, shaking nervousness possessed Bill Naylor. It was a thing that made time seem to rush past him as it speeds by a man condemned to death. It sent him quivering away to the place where the horses were picketed. It made him pick out the long-bodied, ugly-headed gray horse which Townsend had said was the pick of his mustangs. Bill Naylor had a saddle on the back of that horse before he realized with a clear brain that the imp of the perverse was driving him to do a deed of folly.
However, the impulse was a thing which he could by no means resist. He found himself in the saddle, and working the horse gradually away among the trees. Behind him, the voices of his companions in crime soon faded out. They would not be coming this way too quickly. Christian had said that there was plenty of time. But there was not plenty of time for Bill Naylor.
As soon as he was at a distance which would cover the beating of the hoofs of his horse from the ears of those wild wolves back there at the camp, Naylor put the mustang to a lope. The trees swayed steadily past him. They climbed the hill. They dropped into the shallow of the valley. There was no moon, and Naylor was glad of that. For he felt that by even the light of a candle he would be able to examine his heart and his mind and see that he was making an utter fool of himself. Yet he would not for anything give up the plan that he had already conceived.
He climbed the next hill. Off to his left the railroad tracks ran with a dull glimmering, like two narrow ribbons of water, toward the lights of the town, a handful of trembling yellow rays. Those lights spread out gradually and separated, and grew individually brighter as he approached Still the mustang kept up that steady lope, half trot and half gallop, the lazy swing of the hind legs seeming to trundle the forequarters effortlessly over the ground. Bill Townsend had been righ
t when he called this horse one of the best.
As Naylor came out of the sweet air of pines, the wind was blowing toward him from the town the acrid scent of wood smoke. It smelled to him like danger, the hot iron of danger. But he went on.
When he came to the edge of the town, he took lanes and alleys in order to work his way to the center of things. He tied the gray in front of the first saloon he encountered after turning into the main street. Into the saloon itself he sauntered, laid money on the bar, and asked for a drink. There was not another patron in the place.
“What’s the matter?” asked Naylor of the barkeeper. “This town going dry?”
The bartender was a sour little man with a twisted face. He walked the bottle of whisky down the varnished bar and halted it in front of Naylor.
“There’s a lot of half-wits in this town,” he said, “that would rather talk than drink, when anything happens. And with a gent like Silver in town, they’d rather stand around and shift their weight from one leg to another than stand at a bar and make themselves comfortable.”
“Well, Silver’s quite a man,” suggested Naylor.
“Yeah. He’s a man. But whisky’s always whisky,” said the barkeeper.
“True,” said Naylor. “Lemme have another. Where’s Silver now?”
The bartender laughed, his face twisting more than ever.
“Where none of these gents can see him,” said he. “Silver’s back in the rear room of Tod Wilson’s place with the door locked, drinking beer with Taxi. Nacherally, he don’t want no strangers around when he’s drinking with Taxi, does he? But Tod’s barroom is packed-just because they all aim to get a look at Silver when he comes out from talking with Taxi, I suppose.”
Naylor finished drinking his second whisky, which he had poured very small, and went to Tod Wilson’s place. It was not hard to find. The movements of the men in the street were all toward that saloon, and the sidewalk was filled with people who slowly oozed into the place, and slowly trickled out again.
For half a minute, Naylor stood still and considered the throng. That was what it meant to be an honest man. Others were willing to give up their minds, their time, their money for a mere glimpse of such a fellow as Jim Silver. But Silver had paid for this attention with blood. He would pay more blood, before very long. He might very well pay for it with his death before morning.
Naylor made no effort to get through the front door. Instead, he went down the side of the low shack, climbed a high board fence, and dropped into the back yard. All the rear end of the house was in darkness, except for one eye of light that leaked out at the corner of a shutter.
Naylor put his eye to that peek hole and found himself looking into a small room that had foot-worn linoleum on the floor, two or three small tables, and chairs around them. At one of the tables sat the Great Jim Silver, tilting a little back in his chair. Opposite him was a much smaller man, more slenderly made, with a dark and almost handsome face. The fringe of the long eyelashes made a distinct streak on his face, like a dark pencil marking. And he rarely looked up from his task.
That task was unique enough almost to identify him. For he had in front of him a small lock of polished steel, and as he worked over it, probing with a sliver of steel at the interior of the lock, sometimes he lowered his head and appeared to listen to the delicacy of the work which he was carrying on inside the lock.
That was Taxi, of course, the lock master, who could walk through the most complicated bolts and bars as if he possessed a magic gift. And now, as he sat opposite his best friend — who could tell how long they had been separated, and how many strange adventures had befallen each of them since the last meeting? — Taxi kept his attention riveted on the lock before him, and appeared to give very little heed to the words of famous Jim Silver.
Then, though there had not been a single sound, the head of Taxi turned with flashing speed, and he stared at the very shutter through which Naylor was peering. It was a startling thing to see those eyes, strangely pale and bright beneath the obscuring shadow of the lashes. It was like something in a dream, and a bad dream, at that.
That single, dangerous glance was all that Taxi gave toward the window. Then he returned his attention to his lock. One could not tell whether he were nodding and faintly smiling because of the pleasure he took in his task, or whether it was because of what the soft, grave voice of Jim Silver was saying.
It seemed to Naylor, as he looked in on those two celebrated fellows, that the difference between them was like the difference between panther and lion.
Naylor went to the rear of the house, found a door, discovered that it was unlocked, and pulled it open. He stepped straight into the room where Silver and Taxi had been seated. They were seated no longer. They were both standing, looking curiously toward the opening of the door.
There was no more chance of surprising that pair than of surprising a couple of wild cats, lean with hunger, in the winter of the year.
Naylor came slowly in toward them.
“The man who set Gregor free,” he heard the quiet voice of Silver say. “Taxi, meet Mr. Naylor.”
Taxi looked at Naylor with a curling lip. He seemed ready to spring at the newcomer’s throat. But he took Naylor’s hand and merely muttered:
“Jim, I can’t follow your ideas, half the time.”
“I want to see you,” said Naylor to Silver.
“Do you want to see me alone?” asked Silver.
“Yes, alone.”
“Outside?”
“That’s the best place,” said Naylor.
“All right,” said Silver.
He started toward the door, but Taxi exclaimed:
“Jim, what are you thinking about? Step out there into the dark with him? You might as well step into the mouth of a tiger!”
Silver lifted his hand with a faint smile.
“There are always chances, Taxi,” he said, “but I’ll bet on this one.”
Christian had said something like that, as Naylor could remember. Was there, after all, some kind of a peculiar affinity between the two great enemies?
Then Naylor found himself outside the house and standing in the dimness of the starlight beside Silver. He knew, as he stood there, that no matter what might come out of the future, he had been right in making the ride.
“Silver,” he said, “you did me a good turn, and I want to do you another.”
“Thanks,” said Silver. “What is it?”
“I want to ask you not to go back to your room in the hotel, to-night.”
“I’m not to go back to the room in the hotel,” echoed Silver quietly. “And why not?”
“Because there might be trouble waiting for you.”
“Ah? How soon will the trouble be there?”
“I’m asking you,” said Naylor, “not to go back to your room. If you fish around to find trouble — well, you may find it, all right, but you’ll land me in the soup. I’m asking you to take my word for it and let the thing go. Will you do that?”
Silver was silent. In the darkness, he looked bigger than ever, to Naylor. He looked so big a target that a child could hardly fail to hit him, even in the obscurity of an unlighted room. Starlight was enough for the shooting of a prize of this rating.
Suppose that he, Bill Naylor, pulled a gun and tried a point-blank shot for the heart — well, he would be famous forever. It hardly mattered how a man like Jim Silver was killed. To be his slayer was to go down in history. And, in the old days, Naylor felt that the opportunity would have been a sad temptation.
But he found himself saying to the big, silent man: “I can’t talk names to you. All I can do is to give you some advice — and ask you not to pull me into the soup.”
Silver said, at last: “All right. I had an idea when I left you before, that there’d be something good coming out of you, Naylor. I’m thanking you now just as though I could look inside my room in the hotel and see the men and the guns waiting for me. But” — here he sighed — “you do
n’t want me to trap ‘em?”
“No,” said Naylor. “I’d be a — a traitor, if you did.”
“I don’t want you to be that,” answered Silver. “Come in and have a drink with me.”
“I’m overdue in another place,” said Naylor. “I was overdue the second that I left it.”
“And your neck’s in danger now?” said Silver. “You’re in trouble on account of me?”
“I’m not in trouble on account of you,” said Naylor suddenly, the words taking command of him. “I’m in trouble because I’ve been a crook and a thug all the days of my life.”
He gripped the hand of Jim Silver with a sudden gesture and then hurried away into the darkness.
CHAPTER XVIII
Sally’s Decision
IN SPITE of Naylor’s hurry, in spite of the fact that there might be literal danger to his neck if he were missed during this long absence, he did not aim straight back at the camp, but swung a little to the south of the straight line and came out through the hills in sight of the Townsend ranch.
There was a moon, by this time. It stood in the east like a pale ship of an ancient design, and the light from it blanched the hills and painted long black shadows beside them.
Naylor rode down to the rear of the hay shed and there tethered the gray horse and pulled off its saddle After that, he went to the side of the little ranch house. He felt that it was a lucky break that had brought him into the house not many days before, so that now he knew in which room the girl slept. Standing at the low window, he tapped lightly on the sill.
When he had no answer, he leaned a little across the sill and listened. He could hear regular breathing, and there was a faint delicacy of perfume in the air. That was strange, he thought. She was not the sort of a girl to use perfume. But one never can tell about women. It is best not to waste time trying to foretell their characters.
He hissed, and rapped the sill of the window again.
The regular noise of the breathing ended; there was a creaking of springs, and then: