“Lookin’ for something?”
“I was looking for Anne. Tell her Milo Talon is here.”
“Never heard of you.”
“If you will just tell her, I think she will remember me.”
“She hasn’t got time for saddle-tramps. Just you take off down the trail.”
“Without even a cup of coffee? I treated her better than that when she stopped at our ranch.”
He hesitated, and I heard a voice from within say something. He seemed undecided. “You’re riding a Shelby horse,” he said.
“That’s right. I’ve got a herd of them right up on the hill, and a wounded man who needs some care. He’s been shot.”
“Shot by who?” He was interested now.
“Some riders from out of the country. Strangers. They attacked the Shelby horse-camp, scattered the stock, and wounded Pablo. He’s not bad off, but he needs care.”
Now, in western country no man was ever turned away who needed help. This man did not like the idea but he was worried now.
Anne suddenly appeared in the door and she was even prettier than I remembered. “Oh? Milo, I’m sorry. I had no idea. We’ve been having trouble around here so we’ve had to be cautious.”
“Trouble?”
“Rustlers. Some of the Mexican bandits who used to hide out here. You may have heard the story. There was a man named Maes.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of him.”
“You wanted some coffee? Get down and come in.” She turned to the big man. “It’s all right, Sam. I know him.”
There was a fire burning in the fireplace. The room was neat as could be, with curtains in the windows, and a square table, a redcheckered tablecloth, and dishes on it ready for a meal. Another man sat in a rocker near the fireplace. He wore a store-bought suit and a stiff collar. He had a sharp, shrewd face and hard little eyes that missed nothing.
There was a woman, a big woman who looked to be stronger than Eyebrows.
“Gladys? Will you serve Mr. Talon some coffee? And you might fry some eggs for him.” She looked at me again. “It’s been sometime since you’ve eaten, I suppose?”
“Yesterday,” I explained. “When they scattered the Shelby horses I was headed for his camp to eat with Pablo. Neither of us has eaten since.”
The food couldn’t have been better, and the coffee was the best I’d had, but something was completely wrong about this setup. Anne had been unusual in some ways, but being a city girl I’d sort of expected it. The setup here didn’t seem natural, and nobody was acting right. I had an idea there might have been a quarrel and I’d stepped into the middle of it. It was that sort of feeling, and it embarrassed me. Anyway, I didn’t think it was any place to bring Pablo.
“Ma’am? I don’t want to bother you folks, but Pablo’s wounded. If you could let me have a little grub and something to fix up that wound, I’ll be on my way.”
“Of course. You just finish eating, Milo, and we will put something together for you.”
Eyebrows went to the door and peered down the trail, shotgun in hand. It looked like they were expecting trouble and I’d had enough. With this crowd around there’d be no chance to talk to Anne, anyway.
Filling my cup a second time, I watched them hurriedly putting a package of food together, looking around for paper to wrap it up, then bringing it to me in a burlap sack that I could carry on my saddle.
“I’m sorry, Milo. We’ve had trouble here and everybody is a little tense. Next time you’re by this way, why don’t you drop in and see me?”
Gulping the last of the coffee, I stood up. As I did so something fell in the next room. The big woman gasped and the man with the eyebrows half-lifted his shotgun.
“Thanks, Anne, and thanks to you folks.” I put on my hat. I went down the step and walked over to where my horse was tied. Gathering the reins, I mounted, not looking back, but I knew that Eyebrows was standing on the step watching me go.
I waved as I turned away but he did not respond.
It wasn’t until I rounded a clump of trees that I started to wonder. Who was in that bedroom? What were they scared of? Or wary of?
None of my business. I had troubles enough.
CHAPTER 14
IT WAS LATE before I found my way back to where Pablo lay. He was sleeping, looking gaunt and worn. The Shelby horses were feeding on the meadow and I roped a horse for Pablo and caught up my own horse. Leading them back to camp, I stripped the gear from the horse I’d been riding and turned him loose. Then I picketed my horse and Pablo’s close by in case of need.
There were a few coals left of the fire so I added some bark and twigs, blowing up a small blaze. There was an old, beat-up coffeepot and a couple of cups in the things Anne’s people had sent along, so I made coffee, fried some bacon, and sliced some bread from the loaf.
“It is a good smell, the coffee.”
When I looked around Pablo was sitting up. I forked up several slices of bacon and put them on some of the paper the food had been wrapped in. “Eat,” I said, “the coffee will be ready in a minute.”
Then I added, “I went down to Fisher’s Hole. Do you know it?”
“Sí, we call it Maes’ Hole for a Mexican who lived there. Sometimes he was a bandit, but a friendly man if you came to his house. I knew him when I was a small boy.”
“Something’s bothering those folks down there,” I said. “They acted kind of jumpy.”
“Are they mixed up in your trouble?”
“Them? No, of course not. How could they be? There’s no connection. Living alone like that, it’s likely they’d be wary of some stranger riding up.”
“You knew this Anne?”
“Well, sort of. They came by the ranch, stayed to rest up. Anne’s a mighty taking girl. Beautiful. I don’t know what I expected. Hell, I only talked to her a couple of times but I sort of thought … well, you know how it is.”
“Sí, I know.”
“She was nice enough. About what you’d expect from a fine young lady like that. After all, that was a long time ago. I never even held her hand.”
“Maybe that was the trouble, amigo. You did not try, even?”
“Tell you the truth, I was kind of scared of her. She was eastern, looked eastern, anyway, and here I was just a cowhand—”
Pablo was amused. “A cowhand, sí. But your madre owns one of the finest ranches anywhere around. You are far from a simple cowboy, amigo.”
Lazing by the fire, drinking coffee, I told him all that happened down below, and as I repeated it to him I began to be bothered by it. I sat up and added sticks to the fire, worrying with it a little and thinking. The fire blazed up and I added some sticks. Come to think of it they had been mighty anxious to get rid of me, and when something fell in that other room, they all jumped like they were shot. What was going on, anyway? Well, it was none of my business. I had troubles enough.
“You get some sleep,” I said to Pablo, “and I’ll do the same.”
Tomorrow, with luck, I could get him down to town. I stretched out on the leaves, a saddle-blanket around my shoulders and my head on the saddle. Looking up through the trees I could see St. Charles Peak looming above us. Nearly twelve thousand feet, somebody had said.
Odd, a girl like Anne living in Fisher’s Hole. Last place on earth you’d expect to find a girl like that. Mr. Eyebrows now, I didn’t like him very much. He’d have shot me for a plugged two-bit piece.
What was wrong down there, anyway?
In the middle of the night I awakened and added some fuel to the fire, then lay back and listened into the night. There was nothing, nothing at all. Yet something was worrying me beyond the usual.
Shaking it off, I went over what I knew and what I had to do.
There were bright stars overhead and wind talking softly through the pines; higher on the slopes of the peak were the ragged battalions of spruce, harried by wind. Mentally I roamed through those dark forests trying to find a solution to my problems. Perhaps I was attempti
ng too much. Possibly it was beyond my skills to find such a girl through such a maze of detail. Somewhere I fell asleep and awakened in the morning resolved to continue. After all, I did not have to build a case, all I had to do was find one girl and I’d be finished, and girls were not that many in that country at the time.
Stop worrying about details and simply find the girl, that was what I told myself. What difference did it make that the motives of Henry, Topp, the men who killed Tut, and all the rest were obscure?
“We’re riding into town, Pablo,” I said. “I’ve got to get you where you can rest and recuperate. Then I’m going to find that girl and wind this thing up.”
We hit the trail before daybreak and came down off the mountain at a good speed, then turned east toward town. We switched horses several times but rode into town and pulled up at Maggie’s.
German came out as I was helping Pablo from the saddle. “Got word for you, boy,” he said. “Come on in.”
“All right, but I’ve got to find a place to let Pablo bed down.”
“I have friends,” the Mexican said. “They will come for me and care for me.”
How they got the word I do not know, but within minutes several Mexican friends were there to get Pablo back in the saddle and off to the Mexican shacks at the end of town.
“That railroad man Ribble,” German said, “he brought this for you.”
Taking the letter, I dropped into a chair. German waited, wanting to talk. “Something else,” he said, “I’ve got to talk to you.”
There were half a dozen people in the restaurant, and one of them was Topp. “All right,” I said, “in a minute.”
He hesitated, then walked off to the kitchen and after a minute brought me some coffee. “It’s mighty important!” he whispered.
“I’ve been riding for hours, German,” I said. “Let me catch my wind, at least.”
Reluctantly he went away to the kitchen. Glancing around, I wondered what had become of the Arkansawyer and was tempted to ask John Topp, but he remained his silent, inscrutable self. For a large man he ate piddling amounts, and I had never seen him speak to anyone except to order, nor read a newspaper. Of course, he might do all of those things when I was not around, and probably did.
German brought coffee and I opened the letter. As seemed obvious, it was from Portis.
There was a date but no salutation. He began writing without wasting time.
If you have persisted, as I suspect, in this dangerous project, the following items may be pertinent.
The first was a newspaper clipping, but no date indicated.
THE DEATH OF A DREAM
With the death this week of Nathan Albro we see the end of the dream for a Pacific Treasure Express R. R. from Kansas City to Topolobampo, Mexico, from the Mississippi-Missouri to the Gulf of California.
Nathan Albro was the last of the three who planned for this to be the first railway to reach the Pacific, not only to provide an easy transcontinental route but to open the mines of northwestern Mexico to development.
A mystery remains: what became of the five million in gold Albro was rumored to have ready to pay for the survey and to begin construction?
The second item was also a very old newspaper clipping:
BIRTHS
A daughter, 6 lbs. 9 oz. to Mrs. Stacy Hallett. Mrs. Hallett is the widow of Wade Hallett, well-known sporting man, of this city and points west.
For a moment I simply stared. Nancy was not Nathan Albro’s daughter but his stepdaughter! Stacy had been married before her marriage to Nathan!
Of the projected railroad to the Gulf of California, I knew nothing. Vaguely I recalled some newspaper comment on the subject from several years back, but the westward march of the Union Pacific had relegated it to the category of unfulfilled projects.
The dream of building such a railroad had evidently been discarded when the Union Pacific was completed, but what of the five million?
No doubt in time the idea of the railroad would be revived, for the idea was a good one even though the completion of the U. P. had taken the edge from the project.
Had the survey been made? Had preliminary work been done and the five million spent? What property, if any, had the Pacific Treasure Express owned?
It was high time I examined that notebook and the other letters. So much had been happening that I had almost forgotten them.
Topp suddenly arose and, leaving a silver dollar on his table, went outside. He stopped when he closed the door, evidently scanning the street. Why had he left so quickly? Was something happening that I missed? It was the first abrupt movement I’d seen him make.
From where I sat I could see nothing of the street. Almost involuntarily, I glanced up at the window where I had seen the movement. The curtain hung still, although the window was now open a crack at the bottom.
German Schafer came in, drying his hands on his apron.
“Talon, you’ve got to listen! Molly’s gone!”
It took me a moment to grasp what he was saying. My mind had been so intent on what might be happening in the street. I glanced again at the window. It was closed.
Because Topp had left? Why?
“What do you mean? She’s gone where?”
“That’s just it, I don’t know. You know how she is, conscientious and hard-working. Well, she never showed up for work yesterday afternoon. I figured she might be ailing, but when she didn’t come in this morning—
“Talon, I’m worried. She’s been scared, we both know that, but something’s happened.”
“I’ll check her room, German. You hold the fort and listen. You might overhear something. People do talk, you know.”
I thought about it. “Any strangers in town?”
“None as I know of. Yes, come to think of it, there was a young woman came in here. A mighty pretty one. She seemed to know Molly and they talked a bit, but Molly was saying no to something. I heard that much.”
“That was yesterday?”
“Yesterday morning, early. Then Molly never came back for dinner.”
Glancing again at the window, I slipped the thong from my six-shooter. “All right, I’ll have a look.”
Stepping to the door, I glanced up and down the street, then went back to the hotel and went up the stairs three at a time. Walking along the hall, I stopped at her door and knocked. There was no reply. I turned the knob and stepped in, closing the door behind me.
The bed had not been slept in although it appeared that somebody had sat on it briefly. There was no sign of disturbance of any kind. I looked around and then noticed that the smaller bag she’d owned, which I’d once seen, was missing.
A moment, I glanced into the hall. It was empty. Slipping out, I closed her door behind me and went on to my room. Stepping in, I closed the door behind me and propped the chair under the knob.
Quickly, I glanced around. Crossing the room, I opened the wardrobe and glanced in. My few clothes hung as they had been … no, not quite.
A coat had been rehung and in the wrong place. It was a heavier coat I kept for colder weather and I always hung it in back in the corner because I rarely wore it and wanted it out of the way. It was now hung right in front. It was also hung in such a way as to face the opening wardrobe door.
Carelessness? Or an attempt to catch my attention?
Taking down the coat, I went through the pockets. In the second pocket I found the note, hastily scrawled.
… Please! Help me! They are in my room now. I shall try to get past them but doubt if I can. If I can, I’ll go to Maggie’s. I saw them on the street this morning and came to my room to get something before they found it. I am hiding it here, now. If I can get to Mr. Schafer I will be safe.
Molly
But she did not make it. Probably she wanted to tiptoe past them and they would have heard her and looked out.
Why had she not stayed right here? She could have put a chair under the knob and stayed right here. She may not have thought of the chai
r, and she may not have wanted to let them know there was another place to search. Now she was a prisoner, or dead. But a prisoner of whom? If killed, killed by whom?
Suddenly I thought of the something that dropped in the room at Anne’s house. But that was nonsense. Anne knew nothing about this and had no hand in it. I doubted if she even knew such people as Albro, Henry, and their kind even existed.
Baggott? An unlikely kidnapper. Topp? Just maybe. But more likely those others, Bolter and his lot, who had wounded Pablo and come after me. But why? Who were they working for?
CHAPTER 15
SHE HAD BEEN taken away, but taken where? And by whom?
In a town of this size somebody must have seen her go. She had to be taken on horseback or in a rig of some kind. The railroad? Unlikely, although possible, and certainly easy to check.
The clerk was at the desk when I came into the lobby. “Miss Fletcher? Ain’t seen her today. She went out yesterday morning.
“Odd, too, because she never even said good-bye and she usually speaks. Mighty pleasant young woman since she went to work down at Maggie’s. Before that, well, she looked scared.”
“She bought a piece of Maggie’s,” I told him, “a one-third interest.”
“You don’t say!” I had known he would be impressed and probably more helpful. “Well, don’t that beat all!”
“Who did she leave with? Or was she alone?”
“Alone? No, she went out with some folks who came lookin’ for her. Two men came in to ask for her, but I seen a woman in the rig. Looked like a young woman.
“Those fellers, they went upstairs to meet her, said they was expected. I offered to call her for them but they said they’d get her, that she’d probably have an overnight bag or something.
“I asked if she’d be checkin’ out but they said no, that she’d just be out overnight.”
“You saw them go out?”
“Sure. Walked right by me. First time she ever went out without speakin’, too. Surprised me, that did. Wasn’t like her. But she was excited, seein’ her friends like that.”
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