by Max Brand
“And the sailors? You can’t tell me why they’re after you?”
“No, not a word about that.”
“You don’t know how these people might try to come at you? Guns, you say?”
“I don’t know,” replied Wilton. “I’ll tell you some of the things that I’m half suspecting . . . poison administered in food, with a blow arrow, or perhaps through the bite of a snake. Or again, there’s something to be feared from the thrust of a Malay knife. And, of course, I’ve already had a bullet through my hat.”
Sherry shrugged his shoulders. “Why shouldn’t you close yourself up in your steel box, here, and pretend that you’re being besieged for ten days. You have everything you need.”
“I have this place,” said Wilton, “because I can sleep here with a slightly greater sense of security. But no place is completely safe. Suppose a bomb loaded with poison gas were thrown through a port into this cabin, one night?”
“They’ll do anything to get at you?”
“They’ll do absolutely anything,” Wilton assured the cowpuncher. Suddenly he rose to his feet. For the first time he betrayed a real emotion. “There are people that I know of,” he explained, “who would sell their souls for the sake of shooting me through the head. Do you understand?”
Sherry nodded. Under those last words there had been an electric thrill of hysteria, and Sherry understood, in a startling burst of insight, that the calm of Wilton was totally affected and unreal. It was a calm surface with a storm beneath.
“Well,” said Wilton, “you’ve heard as much as I can tell you. What do you say to this proposal, Sherry?”
“A thousand dollars a day,” repeated Sherry. “And for the sake of that, I’ll have to get a partner, and then the pair of us will have to go on guard . . . and the moment we start work, we’ll both be targets for the same hands that are aiming principally at you?”
“You will, of course.”
“Well,” said Sherry, “the money . . . and the fun . . . interest me.”
“You’ll take the place?”
“Yes.”
Wilton sat down at a table and scratched a letter. Then he rose and passed it to Sherry, who read:
Riverside National Bank
Mr. H.A. Copley
Dear Mr. Copley:
If I am alive ten days from this date, please pay $10,000 to Lewis Sherry. If I am dead, destroy this letter.
Yours very truly,
Oliver Wilton
“Will that do?” asked Wilton.
“Of course,” replied Sherry. “When do I come up here?”
“At once!”
“We’re driving in a bunch of beef tomorrow morning at dawn. By nine o’clock I’ll be here, and I’ll have a man with me.”
“That leaves me another night,” muttered Wilton, “with only my own pair of eyes to keep watch. But I suppose that I’ll have to.”
“I’m going back to camp, then.”
“At nine tomorrow?”
“I’ll be back.”
“Good night,” said Wilton. “And if this talk keeps you awake tonight, don’t waste your time . . . spend it cleaning your guns, because you’ll need them before you finish working for me.”
VIII
Eighteen hundred steers dismayed by the sight of many houses, the snorting of a locomotive on the railroad, and the intricate, strong fences of the cattle corrals near the station, filled the air over Clayrock with booming and bellowing. As Pete Lang and Tiny Lew Sherry looked at the lashing tails, and listened to the clashing of the horns, Lane said: “Now, Tiny, we’ve done our job, and, if you ain’t particular hostile to the idea, I’m gonna let the watches run down while I lubricate my innards. The thirst that you were talking about the other night is a dog-gone lake of sparklin’ spring water compared with the charred wood and the white ashes inside of me. Just gimme a steer to the layout you found, and . . .”
“Drop it,” said Sherry with a grin, “you’re just getting ready to work.”
Pete Lang, recoiling his rope, stopped his hands to look at his friend. “Have you been exposed to the sun, partner?” he asked. “You ain’t scrambled your brains like a plate of eggs, I hope?”
“For ten days,” said Sherry, “you’re not going to so much as look sideways at liquor . . . you’re going to keep to a desert trail and thank heaven for water when you can find it.”
Pete Lang finished the coiling of his rope and tied it in place. “You got a terrible saddening influence over me, Tiny,” he said. “Now what do you want?”
“You,” said Sherry, and told him the complete story of his exploits in Clayrock—the strange death of Capper having already been described, as a matter of course. But now he went on to the details of his talk with Wilton, and the odd proposal that Wilton had made to him.
“Now, how do you size it up, partner?” asked Lang.
“I don’t know,” said Sherry. “Except that I know you and me are going to go up there and take that job.”
“Do you know that?” murmured Lang. “You know a brain full, then, and you got a long start on me. But what sort is Wilton?”
“I don’t know,” said Sherry.
“Is he a crook?”
“There’s a large chance of that. Otherwise, he would have told me why the sailors are after him, no doubt.”
“Is that your only reason? Why, Tiny, this gent is a hard-boiled skunk, most likely. He’s probably so mean that he could live on jerked coyote with cactus thorns for dessert. You’re still young, Tiny, and now you just foller along with papa and leave Clayrock when I leave.”
Sherry shook his head.
“Why, Tiny,” exclaimed the cowpuncher impatiently, “it’s a crooked frame! This Wilton is probably going to be bumped off, and you want to be in on the digestion of the bullets. Is that the way that you figure it?”
“Five thousand apiece for us, and ten days to wait,” said Sherry. “Doesn’t that sound to you?”
“Like funeral music, it sounds to me, Tiny.” He pushed his horse closer and tapped Sherry on the shoulder. “It ain’t the coin that pulls you in,” he said.
“What is it, then? The trouble?” Sherry grinned. “Am I being drawn in by the chance to chew lead, old fellow?”
Pete Lang reined his horse back again. “I never seen a ’puncher made high, wide, and handsome like you, Tiny,” he remarked, “that wasn’t a hit with the ladies. The bigger they come, the harder the girlies steps up and slams them. A little man like me,” said Pete Lang, looking down regretfully on a wiry body not more than a shade under six feet in height, “a little man like me,” he repeated, “has always got a streak of meanness in him that saves him from tons of trouble. By the look of the bait, the wise wolf knows the trap. That’s me, big boy. But a poor bison like you comes along and steps in and breaks off both legs at the knees.”
“Are you accusing me of being drawn into this by the girl, Pete?”
“Nothing but!”
“A girl actually likely to do a murder, old boy? Do you think that my tastes run in that line?”
“There’s only two things necessary for a girl to have . . . youngness and a pretty face.”
“I said nothing about her face. I only told you that she seemed tired, with circles around her eyes.”
“If she hadn’t been a beauty, you never would have noticed the shadows,” declared Lang. “Kid, keep away from that Wilton and all his crowd. He’s a bad actor.”
“You’ve never laid eyes on him,” said Tiny with some anger. “Why do you talk so much about a man you’ve never seen?”
“I can see him in the corner of your own eye,” answered Lang. “You’ve already been thinking the same things that I’ve been saying. Isn’t that true?”
“Let me alone, will you?” cried Sherry. “Confound it, are you afraid to tackle this job with me?”
“Scared as a rabbit,” replied Lang with the heartiest earnestness. “I don’t want any part of that bet. You come on with me and chuck the gi
rl. Besides, she’s got too much money to be good.”
“What do you mean by that?” demanded Sherry.
“Never give a starved dog too much raw meat,” said Lang.
Sherry laughed. “You’ve got to come along with me,” he said.
“Not on this trail, kid. My way leads toward moisture.”
“Well, so long, then.”
“Are you dead set?”
“Yes.”
“So long, Tiny. We’ve rode a good many trails together. I hate to see you barging off. But bullets and poison and knives make too big a shadow for me to see the girl that’s under it all.”
They shook hands, and presently Sherry had jogged his horse back up the street and swung it gloomily around the corner, in order to head toward the house on the cliff. It had been a great disappointment for him to part with Pete. Of all the men he had met in the West, no one had been revealed to Sherry as so keen a fighter, so true a friend, so keen an eye upon the trail—all qualities that in the house on the cliff seemed likely to be tested.
He had reached the first bend of the road leading up the cliff when hoofs clattered behind him, and Pete Lang drew rein at his side.
“You’d’ve let me go,” said Pete. “You cold-blooded fish, you! You’d’ve let me slide, an’ heaven forgive you for it. But I was made with a heart inside of me, and so I’ve got to foller along after you.”
“Old boy,” answered Sherry, “I was never gladder to see any man’s face.”
“But,” cautioned Lang, “I told you before and I tell you now. This is a bum steer that you’re following. You’re drifting in a blizzard, kid, and I only hope that you don’t hang us both up on barbed wire.”
To this, wisely, Sherry made no answer. They approached the gate of the Wilton place.
Before it, Lang drew rein again. “We gotta go in here?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Sherry. “This is the place.”
Lang sighed. “Well,” he said, “there’s no writing over the gate to tell us what kind of trouble we’re going into. Make a noise, cayuse, and scatter up that gravel.” With that, he whacked his pony with his quirt, and the mustang, with a snort, fled through the gate and up the winding way, the gravel and dust flying like smoke beneath the hoof beats.
Sherry followed at a more leisurely pace, so that he found his friend already dismounted, and tethering his horse to the hitching rack before the house. He followed that example, and heard Lang muttering: “I never seen a house in my life that looked like more trouble.”
Beatrice Wilton came out of the house in a wide-brimmed straw hat, with a gardener’s trowel in her hand. She paused near Sherry, and he looked at her with a fresh interest, for the strong, bright sun, seeping through the thin brim of the hat, tinted her skin with rosy gold.
“You’ve come to stay, I take it?” she said.
“I think I have,” said Sherry, and he introduced Pete Lang.
“And you, too?” asked the girl, looking straight at the cowpuncher.
“I foller along with Tiny,” answered Lang. “If he rolls down his blankets here, I suppose I stay along with him.”
She swung her glance back to Sherry. “I think that you’ll make Uncle Oliver feel quite safe,” she said, and, with a nod to them, she went off down the first walk of the garden.
Lang looked after her, and then grinned at his friend. “And that’s your girl with the shadows under her eyes, is it?” he commented.
Sherry sighed. “I didn’t remember that she looked like this,” he said.
“You’re a young liar, son,” said Lang. “But I’m here to make a statement. You got no chance with her. She’s a thinker, me boy, and none of her thoughts are gonna be about you, unless she finds you in the way. Now, let’s go in and see the gent in the trap.”
IX
They found Oliver Wilton fairly quivering with excitement in spite of the strict control that kept his voice steady. He could speak evenly enough, but he could not keep his hand from shaking. He made a brief examination of Peter Lang.
“You’re a friend of Sherry’s?” he inquired.
“We’ve daubed ropes in the same outfit for a spell,” was Lang’s characteristically oblique answer.
“You shoot straight, Lang?”
“I can hit a mark if it ain’t too small,” said Lang.
Wilton did not smile. He turned sharply upon Sherry. “Is this a first-class fighting man?” he asked.
“First-class,” said Sherry, emphasizing both the words.
“You know him?”
“I’ll tell you how I met him . . .” began Sherry.
“Never mind,” said Wilton with a sigh. “If you trust him, I can. And you haven’t come too soon, Sherry. Have you talked to Lang?”
“I’ve told him every word that you told me.”
“Before I’d agreed to him!” exclaimed Wilton, flushing with anger.
“If he hadn’t stayed, I wouldn’t have stayed,” answered Sherry. “And as for repeating what we hear, we don’t talk for our living.”
“No,” said Wilton, his teeth clicking together. “You’re going to fight for it, and you can begin fighting now. I’ve had word from the hotel that there’s another ruffian down there talking about me. His name is Fennel. Joe Fennel, he calls himself. He tells people in the hotel that he doesn’t have to work for a living. He declares that he knows enough about me to make me keep him in luxury for the rest of his life.” He raised his clenched fist shoulder-high and his face contorted with rage for an instant. Then the hand fell as he controlled himself again. “I want you to find out about that man,” he snapped.
“I won’t be very popular around that hotel,” said Sherry.
“On the contrary, I gather that the crowd is all for you. I think I arranged that little matter for you, Sherry.”
Sherry nodded.
“Find Fennel and talk to him. Don’t let him know that you come from me. Try to see if the fellow is real or a sham. Here’s the doctor now. He’s been telling me about Fennel.”
A tall man came into the room. He was partly bald—a premature baldness that, in fact, accentuated his youth, for he could not have been much past thirty years of age. The baldness, too, made his brows appear the more lofty; it was the commanding feature of his face—a great and swelling forehead that made him look to be an intellectual giant. He was introduced as Dr. Eustace Layman, and he shook hands with a firm, crisp grip.
“I was repeating what you told me about Fennel,” said Wilton.
“He’s a drunken old scoundrel who spends most of his time in his room, soaking up whiskey behind locked doors,” said Layman. “He’s a sailor and he’s certainly a bad actor.”
“I’ll persuade the hotel to throw him out as an undesirable,” suggested Wilton angrily.
“I wouldn’t,” replied the doctor. “I don’t think they’d do it. He seems to have plenty of cash and doesn’t care how he spends it. Besides, if you pay too much attention to him, people may think that there’s something in what he talks about. I mean . . . that he knows something black about you.”
“How do you happen to know so much about him?” asked Wilton. “You seem to have him by heart.”
“Because I’ve been called in to see him. He almost had a fit the other day.”
“Fit? I wish he’d strangled in the course of it.”
“Too much alcohol . . . that was his trouble. Depressed heart action and subnormal temperature . . . that sort of thing.”
“How far gone is he?” asked Wilton with an eagerness that quite broke through his usual easy manner.
“He’ll last indefinitely,” said the doctor. “He’s a tough fellow. A real old sailor, and bad weather seems to line them with leather, inside and out.”
“Will you go down to the hotel today?” asked Wilton of Sherry. “Will you try to see the old rascal and find out about him? I’ll show you your quarters first. After you’ve made yourself at home, perhaps you’ll go down and look things over.”
Lang paused in the smoothing down of his blankets. “We’re riding herd on a new range, kid,” he said. “We gotta take time to find out the natures of these steers. All I know is that there’s gonna be trouble.”
When they were fairly settled, they went down together to the hotel and almost the first person they found in the card room was their man. He looked the perfect part of a hardy sailor. His skin was like mahogany; around the cheek bones it had a polished, ruddy look, while the lower part of his face was clouded with unshaven brush. At the very moment of their entrance, Fennel was heard calling for a drink in a husky voice, as one whose vocal cords have been strained and frayed by constant shouting against the scream of the westerlies.
Lang said aside to his companion: “I’ll start talking with this fellow. You get a chance to slide up to his room. Get into it if you can.”
“If the door’s locked?”
“If the door’s locked, that may block us for today. Make a try.”
It was not hard to find the room of Fennel on the hotel register, and Sherry went up to it at once. It lay at the end of the southern corridor on the second floor of the hotel, and luckily the hall was empty as Sherry passed into it. He tried the door—it gave at once to his hand, but he paused, with a chill working through the muscles of his back. He had been in many an unpleasant situation; he had had to fight his way through many a tight corner, but never before had he gone unlawfully into the room of a stranger.
So, half guilty and half determined, he waited for an instant until he remembered the seamed face of Fennel, and then he pushed on into the chamber.
It was a little corner room that had two windows, but both of these were closed and the air was foul with the stale fumes of bad tobacco smoked in some ancient pipe. The chambermaid had not yet made up the bed, and Sherry told himself, with a sneer of disgust, that the sailor must have slept all the night in such an atmosphere.