by Tim Champlin
Fletcher Hall could hardly stand he was so stiff. Jay had shifted his weight to first one buttock and then the other as the mule had jolted along with a stiff-legged gait. This had minimized the effect, but he was still rather sore.
The four men herded them up onto the wooden porch and Bowlegs took off his hat before he rapped respectfully on the plank door. The place was a one-story, rambling type house with a shake roof, Jay noted as they waited for someone to answer the knock. He glanced at Hall, but the aeronaut’s face was impassive as he stared straight ahead. He glanced quickly around. There was a pole corral off to one side, and he had seen a bunkhouse and a long barn as they rode up. He had noted a few hundred cattle grazing during the several-mile ride, but nowhere near the numbers he had expected, based on what Gorraiz had said about the range being overcrowded. But then, he remembered it took a lot more land to support one cow than it did back in Iowa or Illinois.
The door was jerked open abruptly by a spare, middle-aged woman in a plain dress. Her graying black hair was pulled back into a severe bun. Without a word she stood aside and motioned them in. The room was dark after the sunshine. The small, glassed windows that faced the porch admitted the only light. The back of the house was shut off by intervening rooms. The parlor was furnished with heavy, rudely made furniture, upholstered with horse blankets. No rugs covered the wide plank floor, and no curtains graced the windows. The only decoration on the walls was an old Sharps rifle hanging on a pair of polished buffalo horns. Nowhere was a woman’s touch evident. Jay’s confidence slipped a notch when all this was impressed on him in a matter of seconds. The six of them stood in the middle of the room while the woman disappeared down a hallway. In a few seconds she was back.
“Go on in the library.” She pointed.
Jack Bowlegs and Rafe Coyote-face herded Jay and Hall toward the hallway, while the other two took this as their cue to leave by the front door.
Bowlegs lifted the wooden latch and pushed open the polished pine door. Jay and Hall followed, with Rafe bringing up the rear. Three walls of the room were lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling. Seated behind a homemade wooden desk in a dark leather armchair was a tiny man with carefully slicked-down black hair, wearing gold, wire-rimmed spectacles. He was clean-shaven with a smooth, oval face.
“Shut the door,” the man ordered, crisply. Rafe obeyed and then came to stand, hat in hand, before the desk with Jack. They seemed in awe of this small man.
“This is the Wells Fargo messenger and this is the aeronaut, Mr. Wright,” Bowlegs said, pointing at each of them in turn.
“Did you get the message?” Wright snapped.
“Yes, sir, it’s right here. It was with the stuff from the express box, just like you said it . . .”
His voice trailed off at the hard look Wright gave him, and he fumbled in a side pocket of his vest for the bamboo tube, handing it over quickly.
Wright glanced briefly at the address on the side and then slid a thin forefinger into the tube and extracted the paper. He unfolded and read it quickly, then smoothed the square of paper on the desktop and looked at it carefully. His face was a mask. He folded the paper and slipped it deftly back inside the tube.
“This has been opened,” he stated flatly, staring at Bowlegs.
“It was like that when we found it, Mr. Wright,” Jack hurriedly explained.
Jay suspected that the august Jacob Wright had no more idea what this cryptic note meant than anyone else did, but would not dare let his ignorance show in front of his own men. Jay had a sudden, irrational urge to laugh, but bit his cheeks to keep from it.
“Did you remove anything from this package?” Wright asked, fixing them with a hard stare.
“Nothing. That piece of paper was all there was,” Jay answered. He hoped he sounded convincing.
Wright tapped one end of the small tube on his open palm, making a clicking sound with his mouth as he did so. Then he laid the tube on the desk and leaned back in his chair, carefully studying Jay and Hall for the first time. Jay noted that his eyes looked slightly larger through the lenses. This man looks less like a rancher than anyone I’ve ever seen, Jay thought as he stared back at the figure who sat with his small hands folded in his lap. His pale, olive complexion looked as if it had never seen the sun. He was wearing a soft, white cotton shirt and some sort of tan whipcord trousers. A large ledger lay closed on the desk by a green-shaded coal-oil lamp, but Wright had apparently been reading another book when they arrived, as a leather-bound volume lay closed in front of him, with a bookmark between its pages. Afternoon light, from the room’s only window, flooded in behind him.
“Well, if you gentlemen are going to be my guests for a time, I suppose I should introduce myself. I am Jacob Wright, in case you didn’t already know that. This is my ranch you are on, and I suppose you saw some of my cattle on your way here. They are scattered all around for miles.”
Jay caught himself trying to anticipate what the man would say, and was preparing to defend himself and his companions concerning the flock of sheep, when the monologue took quite another direction.
“You have read the note in this container.” It was a flat statement with no hint of friendliness in it.
Jay nodded.
“It is apparently in code. Can you tell me what it means?”
“No.”
“Why did you open it?”
Jay and Hall looked sideways at each other. Jay did not know what was going on, but he was determined to be very careful with his answer. Jay had been in the habit of nearly always telling the truth, and the consequences be damned. As a result, he was not a convincing liar when he felt constrained to alter the truth. And lying to criminals did not seem wrong to him.
It was obvious Hall was not going to answer, so Jay shrugged and said, “I wanted to find out what we were carrying that train robbers would go to such great lengths to get.”
“Were you not carrying a good deal of paper money and gold?” Wright asked, probing.
“Yes. But I would estimate it was not over thirty or forty thousand.”
“And you do not think that amount of wealth worthy of great effort?”
Jay shook his head. “Possibly, but hardly likely. There are Wells Fargo express boxes on nearly every train. And there are banks and stages that still carry mine payrolls to places in Nevada . . .” He shrugged. “There are plenty of other opportunities for robberies that are easier and less risky. We had gotten away clean in that balloon. If they hadn’t shot it full of holes, who knows? And then, when your men didn’t take the money . . .”
“Ah, yes. Like shooting a deer and then following a trail of blood until he falls, exhausted. Easy pickings.”
Wright got up and came around the desk. He was wearing knee-length, shiny riding boots. The flat heels were a good two inches thick, but still the man stood no more than five feet, three. He leaned his buttocks against the front edge of the desk and folded his arms.
“But you are right,” he continued. “It was not the money. The few thousand you might be carrying was small change. And besides, it belongs to bankers and small investors, maybe a miner or rancher. I couldn’t steal from them.”
Strange morality, Jay thought. Apparently, dynamiting trains, shooting innocent people, and kidnapping were not on his list of forbidden actions.
Jay decided to take the initiative. “Well, now that you got that note, or whatever it is, we’ll be on our way. It’s a long ride back on that mule.”
Jacob Wright allowed himself just the faintest trace of a smile. “Surely, Mr. McGraw, you are not as naive as that. You have seen my men robbing a train, shooting at you and others, stealing a package from Wells Fargo. Do you actually think I’m going to let you walk out of here? Hardly. There is much at stake here. I will do whatever I have to do.”
A cold chill ran up Jay’s back as he heard what amounted to his death sentence pronounced. But what really chilled him was the fact that this man knew his name. Jay McGraw’s name h
ad not been mentioned up to this point. He glanced at Fletcher Hall whose expression had not changed, but the color appeared to have drained from his florid complexion.
Jay swallowed hard and ran a hand across his forehead which was perspiring in spite of the cool air flowing into the room from the partially open window. He tried to keep his voice from shaking as he replied, “Then you won’t mind telling us what all this is about.”
Jacob Wright took a sheet of paper from the desk drawer and carefully printed a message on it in pencil. Then he folded it and gave it to Rafe Coyote-face. “Get this message to the telegraph office in Rawlings as fast as you can push a horse.” Turning to Bowlegs, he said, “Wait in the parlor.”
The two men departed, closing the door behind them.
Jacob Wright seated himself once again in the leather armchair, leaving Jay and Hall standing. Jay would have bet the partially open desk drawer contained a pistol.
“You may be surprised to learn that we also have Marvin Cutter in our custody.”
Jay tried not to show any surprise. He didn’t look at Hall.
“My men intercepted him not two miles from here. Apparently, he had taken off and left you to your own devices.” He smiled faintly for the second time. “In fact, he told us where to find you—after a little persuasion.”
Then his face grew solemn. “But I am digressing. Time is wasting. I am a man of business. First of all, since your lives are forfeit, I feel you at least deserve to know why you will be leaving this world shortly.”
We won’t go quietly, Jay was thinking, but his face revealed nothing as he stared at the cold black eyes of the diminutive rancher.
“You will remember the big robbery of the San Francisco mint some months ago,” he began. “As you no doubt recall, about half of that gold was recovered, and our leader, Yen Ching, was sentenced to a long term in prison.”
Jay must have visibly started, because Wright’s eyes widened and he leaned forward slightly. “Oh, yes, Mr. McGraw, I know what part you played in capturing Yen Ching and finding those sacks of gold coins.”
Jay’s mind was racing. Wright had said, “our leader, Yen Ching.” This man, then, was connected somehow to the huge tong leader from San Francisco who masterminded the great mint robbery to finance a revolution in China. And Wright also knew his, Jay’s, role in solving the crime.
“. . . seeking revenge,” Wright was saying as Jay focused his attention once more. “I am told that you were initiated into the Chee Kong Tong and given the opportunity to help our cause by leading the men with the gold safely to Mexico, but you escaped and betrayed them. When you were brought into the tong, you swore an oath to never betray your brothers in the tong or your blood would soak the earth, no matter how far you ran or tried to hide. So you see that the arm of the tong is long and now we have you. And this time there will be no escape.”
Jay felt Hall’s curious glance on him. His mouth was dry and his knees weak, but he put on a bold front.
“Was all this trouble just to get me?” he demanded. “Hell, any tong member could have shot me down from ambush a hundred times in San Francisco.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Mr. McGraw. You are only a tasty morsel in a much larger banquet.” He pulled the middle desk drawer open farther, extracted a storekeeper’s model Colt .45 and placed it on the desk top in front of him.
“That’s just in case you have any insane idea of trying to overpower me and escape. I am small, but, I assure you, I am very quick and accurate with this. And, speaking of my size, you have no doubt noticed that I am not the robust outdoor type you might have expected in this rugged wilderness country. I am half Chinese. My father, Asa Wright, was a prospector who made a small stake and purchased a Chinese slave girl from San Francisco who became my mother. My father was not a bad man, but arrogant and overbearing, as most white men in this part of the country are. He could not have dealt with a woman who was his social equal. I think that is why he purchased a slave girl. But he left us after a few years and my mother brought me up in the traditions of her own people, and I adopted their ways. We were very poor, and my mother worked hard to support us. But, when I was twelve, she contracted pneumonia in a Nevada mining camp and died, leaving me alone in the world. The white population shunned me as the skinny, weakling half-breed son of a slave girl, and for that I will always hate them. I worked, and stole my food when I had no work. I became very cunning and adept at the art of survival.” He turned to stare blankly at the walls of books surrounding him, and was silent for a few seconds.
“Ah, but I digress again,” he continued briskly. “Suffice it to say, I managed and grew up and acquired some measure of wealth and power in the white man’s world. But my heart has always been with my mother’s people, and with the suffering of the Chinese in their homeland. That is why I became affiliated with the Chee Kong Tong and supported Yen Ching’s plan to take the white man’s gold from the mint to finance a peasants’ revolution in China against the Manchu rulers.”
Maybe he is finally getting to the point of his story, Jay thought. He glanced sideways at Fletcher Hall whose expression clearly showed bewilderment at what he had gotten himself into.
“Even though half of that gold was recovered by the U.S. Government, we managed to conceal the rest of it—some million and a half dollars in double eagles—throughout Chinatown. But it was impossible for us to take it out because of the Law’s close scrutiny of everyone coming and going from the Chinese quarter at that time. We finally made arrangements with a man whose bank was failing—a Mr. Julian Octavian Brown—to take the money for us and keep it until we could safely smuggle it out of the country. For a hefty fee, of course. You whites will do anything for money,” he sneered, looking at Jay.
“You’re half white yourself,” Jay retorted. “Does that make you only half corrupt?”
For the first time, Jacob Wright showed some emotion. His face darkened and his hand reached for the gun on the desk. Behind the gold-rimmed glasses, pure hate shone from the hooded black eyes.
But he mastered himself with an obvious effort of will and slowly withdrew his hand and leaned back.
“The wealth of the world is like the tides of the world,” he said. “It’s never really gained or lost. It just ebbs and flows. At times there is a little more of it here and a little less of it there. My purpose is to direct more of it from the hands of the white hoarders to the cause of improving the lives of thousands of Chinese peasants. Gold—to pay for arms and soldiers to overthrow the Manchu dogs who have ruled my mother’s people for more than two hundred years.”
He took a deep breath and continued, “And, as I was saying, the banker agreed to take the money and keep it, for a price, until we deemed it safe to take it out of the country. We slipped it out of the Chinese quarter a little at a time after the searches were discontinued, and brought it to him. Two weeks ago, the tong leaders met and decided it was finally time to move the gold. But a strange thing happened. We had underestimated the greed of Mr. Brown. Instead of settling for his agreed fee, he decided he wanted to keep it all. He tried to stall, saying that the money had been invested and it would take time for him to collect it all again in gold. He tried to get us to accept his mining properties in Nevada in exchange for the gold we had entrusted to his care. Our leaders believed that he still had all the gold intact somewhere and was planning to abscond with the entire amount, leaving his bank to fail while he went to live in luxury in some remote paradise. So we sent the boo how doy, what you refer to as ‘hatchet men,’ to his estate to kidnap him and force him to reveal the whereabouts of the gold. Some of our boo how doy are very adept at wringing information from even the most recalcitrant of men. They have developed some ingenious, exquisite tortures that no human flesh can withstand. But, thanks to the warning of an old Chinese houseman, they were unable to take him by surprise, and by the time they had disposed of this servant, Brown had managed to write a note and slip it out by way of a boy who was working in his g
arden, and send the boy to the city on his fastest horse.
“By the time our men took Brown and learned that the note was bound for some business associate in Chicago, the message was already on its way. Then we wasted more time discovering that the message was going by Wells Fargo instead of the telegraph or the mail. To complicate things still further, your traveling companion, Marvin Cutter, notorious sneak thief, was on the grounds, apparently attempting to steal from Brown, and witnessed one of the boo how doy split the skull of the Chinese houseman and grab Mr. Julian O. Brown.
“Cutter managed to elude us, but the tong found out a few hours later that he had been jailed for picking pockets. One of our best men was sent to silence him in jail, only to discover that he had escaped about two hours earlier and vanished. Now we know, of course, where he went, don’t we?” He allowed himself one of those smiles that did not touch his eyes and was as mirthless as the grin of a jackal.
“If I believed in a power higher than myself, I would have to say that some god had arranged all this. We have Cutter, we have the note, albeit in code, telling us of the gold, and we have you, who have grievously betrayed your blood brothers. It has all come together in such a neat package.”
“I was forced to go through that ridiculous initiation ceremony into the tong when I was a captive,” Jay said, irritably.
“No matter.”
“Why do you need this note decoded? Why don’t your hatchet men, who are so expert at torture, just force the information from Brown?” Jay asked. His fear had been dulled by strain, fatigue, and lack of sleep. For the moment he just wanted to fasten his mind on this puzzle—a puzzle that had been getting more complex since Cutter had shown up in his express car. His tired brain still saw some missing pieces, and since there was no hope of escaping here and now, he let his curiosity have free rein.
“There was a slight problem with that,” Wright answered. “One of our men got a little over-enthusiastic and Mr. Brown died. Of course, that man paid with his life for so drastic a mistake. But, nevertheless, it left us with only this note to give us a clue as to the location of the million and a half in gold.”