The Third Western Megapack

by Barker, S. Omar

  With a roar of rage, Calico sprang for his throat. Then began the most terrific fight the Yellow Metal ever knew, and it had known many. The table crashed to splinters under the weight of the two giants. They struggled clear of the wreckage and met in the open. The slender young stranger went in either to separate them or to help his friend. No one ever knew which, and it didn’t matter. Calico caught him on the side of the head with an openhanded slap that sent him spinning across the room to bring up against the wall, permanently out of the fight. Minute after minute, battered and bleeding, the two men fought with their bare fists. Meantime, the storm increased in violence, until its roar could be heard above the crash of blows and smashing furniture in the gambling room.

  At last, the big stranger began to give back, and Calico drove him steadily into a corner. Then it happened. From somewhere the stranger drew a derringer, The shot sounded faintly in the roar of the storm, but at a distance of two feet the bullet tore its way into the vitals of Calico Capen. With the snarl of a beast, Calico sprang forward and clutched the stranger’s throat with his great hands. The man’s tongue protruded, and his eyeballs started from their sockets. With a mighty heave, Calico swung his enemy’s head against the wall, and cracked it like an eggshell, Then with that grip released, the body fell one way, and Calico fell the other. No one ever knew anything about the two strangers, for when the battle was over and they looked for the slender young man, he had disappeared. A few there were who noticed, without comment, the resemblance between the condition of the dead stranger, with his crushed head and staring eyes, and that of the two men who had been found dead in the street in front of Calico’s Castle.

  Calico Capen was not quite dead. When the storm blew itself out, they carried him through the litter and wreckage to his house and summoned a doctor. But there was much for doctors to do, in Gold Center that night, and it was daylight before one got to Calico. He was still alive, but going rapidly. The doctor examined the wound and stood listening to the low, incoherent babble that poured incessantly from the dying man’s lips.

  “Tree, I tell you—tree—don’t you know what a tree is? I want to show you—” And then he’d trail off into rambling, meaningless gibbering.

  “What does he mean?” the doctor asked Mrs. Kingsley.

  “I have no idea,” she replied. “He’s been saying that over and over, ever since they brought him in. There’s only one tree on the place, and that’s the big wild cherry tree that stands against the bluff. It was a pet of his, and the wind broke it down last night; but he couldn’t know anything about that.”

  “Half an hour. Possibly an hour,” the doctor replied to a question, a little later. “Nothing can be done.”

  * * * *

  The doctor left the woman and child there alone with the dying old gambler. Whether Calico Capen came out of his delirium and talked before he died, no one ever knew Mrs. Kingsley was little more talkative than her father had been. Calico died within an hour, as the doctor had predicted. The proprietor of the Yellow Metal and a few gamblers buried him.

  Among Calico’s meager effects was found a properly executed will, leaving all his estate to his daughter, Mrs. Eula Capen Kingsley. It was duly probated; but the only estate found was the grim old castle. The Yellow Metal estimated the amount that Calico and the stranger had on the table between them, and gave that to Mrs. Kingsley. After that, the incident was closed, so far as Tightwad was concerned, and the rest of Gold Center knew nothing about it.

  Mrs Kingsley took stock of her inheritance There appeared to be nothing of it except the old house, two hundred dollars that were found in Calico’s pockets, and the stake on the table that the gambling house had given her out of charity, when they found that he had left her nothing. They wondered for a while what had become of Calico’s money, and then they forgot all about it.

  Began then the bitter years for Mrs. Kingsley. How bitter they were is evidenced by the fact that she seemed to almost forget her beautiful little daughter, who was now ten years old. When Calico had written to his daughter, he had told her he had plenty, and if she would come and live with him, he would leave her everything at his death. He had sent her a liberal supply of money for the journey. She knew that her father was then past seventy. Her thought was that she would know a few hard years out there on the edge of the world, and then, at his death, she would take the money, and she and Leota would go back to civilization and really live. She had known little enough happiness. Now, Calico was dead, and the fortune she had expected to inherit was this old house, the two hundred that was on Calico’s body, and the stake money, which was, she knew, the bitterest kind of charity. It was given to her in gold coin, in an old leather pouch, and she kept it in the house.

  There was enough of it to have taken her and her daughter back to civilization. She could have sold the house for something, too; but no. She had come to Gold Center for a fortune. She believed Calico had a fortune and had hidden it somewhere. She believed he was trying to tell her about it, when he talked about the tree, just before he did. She went out and looked at it.

  It had been a monster wild cherry tree, fifty feet high or more. The storm had snapped the trunk twenty feet above the ground, and carried the top clear over the wall and on to the next lot. It was later cut up and carried away for wood, but not until Mrs. Kingsley had examined it carefully and found no trace of a hollow in it, where anything could be hidden. She was thus obliged to give up the theory that the old tree had anything to do with the hidden money, but she was surer than ever that Calico had been rich and had hidden his money somewhere. She searched everywhere, but found nothing. Brooding over the lost fortune, she became more a recluse than ever. Little Leota began doing the scanty shopping; and, being a bright child, she did it well, so that for Several years Mrs. Kingsley didn’t leave the old house. She had an idea that someone knew where the money was hidden, and she stayed there to watch.

  Mrs. Kingsley seemed to forget the tender age of Leota. She knew the unwritten law of that rough place, and that no real man would hurt the little girl. What she overlooked was the kind of neighborhood she lived in. A few shacks had been built back around the Yellow Metal. Every time the child went out the narrow gate from the alley to the street, she saw slatternly drabs and heard them talk. She saw the painted girls from the Yellow Metal dancehall. For several years she came and went among them. When she was twelve, she could and did curse like a drunken sailor, though she wisely refrained in the presence of her mother. There was but one end in prospect for her; and that was, when she was a little older, to love some man who was a frequenter of Tightwad, and become as the others were.

  * * * *

  But strange things happen. Just when Leota was budding into womanhood, a gold strike was made in a gulch a mile or two below town. The whole of Tightwad stampeded to the new field. The Yellow Metal was dismantled, and Mrs; Kingsley and her daughter were left in sole possession of the gulch, except for a few drifters and cripples that were so poor they couldn’t get away.

  Leota was now sixteen and a fully developed, beautiful girl, though her eyes had grown hard from seeing evil, and her tone was sharp and vicious. One evening she was coming up the hill from town, carrying a bucket of lard and several packages. As she passed one of the last tall buildings at the edge of the business district, a man came down a ladder that was leaning against the front of the building.

  “Don’t pass under that, lady. It’s bad luck!” a voice said, very near her.

  “You go to he—” she began, then looked up into a pair of laughing blue eyes, and saw a young fellow not more than twenty-one, standing with a paint bucket in one hand and a brush in the other, so she changed the remark to, “Huh? Whatcha mean?”

  “Why, it’s bad luck to pass under a ladder.”

  “Oh, it is. Well, what luck I’ve had has been plenty damn’ bad, and I ain’t passed under no ladders, n
either.”

  “Do you live in this town?”

  “Yes. What’s it to you?”

  “Why, all that load’s too much for you. Wait till I put up this paint bucket and move the ladder, and I’ll carry it for you.”

  She waited, without saying a word, or having any idea why she waited. He took the ladder away, and when he came back, she was gazing up at an unfinished sign he was painting, far up on the front of the tall building. When he spoke to her, she hardly recognized him. His paint stained clothes and cap were gone, and he was neatly clad.

  “Now, I reck’n we ought to be introduced,” he said. “Jerry Borden is my name.”

  “Leota Kingsley’s mine. Sounds fine, don’t it?”

  “Sounds all right to me,” smiled Jerry, as he took the bucket of lard in his left hand, stuffed a bundle in each pocket, then made the mistake of his life, by reaching out with his right hand and taking hold of Leota’s arm above the elbow.

  The effect was electrical. She swung her right hand and gave his face a slap that rocked his head and brought red welts to his cheek, where her fingers struck.

  “Why—why—what—” stammered Jerry.

  “Keep yer paws off’n me, and give me back my things!”

  “But, see here, Leota. You have no call to lam me like that. Where I come from, a gentleman always takes hold of a girl’s arm when he walks with her.”

  “Where I come from, they don’t. Not decent ones; and I’m decent,” snapped Leota. “Gimme here my things.”

  “Just a minute, sister. I don’t aim to be misunderstood, and not be given a chance to square myself. If I didn’t think you were straight and right, I wouldn’t walk up the street with you. I’m going to carry these things home for you, just to show you that I’m honest about it.”

  At the alley gate of the grim old Calico’s Castle, Jerry yielded the bucket and packages. Leota, who had not spoken since they left town, looked up at him and said, “I reck’n you think l’m a hell of a girl, Jerry. I don’t know nothin’ about how to act.”

  “You’ll learn. Can I come to see you some time, regular, like anybody else?”

  “I don’t know. How long you going to be painting that sign?”

  “Long as you want me to be,” grinned Jerry. “Why?”

  “Be painting on it tomorrow evening?”

  “Sure I will.”

  “I’m sorry and ashamed about slapping you that way. Goodby,” and she darted through the narrow gate and was gone.

  Mr. Borden was a very much puzzled young man, as he walked back to town. He grinned at thought of what had happened, then rubbed his face, which hadn’t quit stinging yet. Miss Leota Kingsley was one queer girl. There was no doubt about her being straight, even if she was rough. And pretty! Why, she was the prettiest thing he had ever seen in his life. And so, he went on wondering

  Jerry Borden had no idea that Leota watched him from a doorway across the street for an hour, the next afternoon, as a wonderful picture grew under his brush. She had never seen a painter at work before, and Jerry was a real artist.

  He had reached the bottom of his ladder, and was wondering about Leota, when she spoke, almost at his elbow, “Howdy, Jerry. You going to quit, now?”

  “Yes, if you’ll let me walk home with you”

  “All right.”

  Such was the beginning of acquaintance between these two young people, out there on the edge of the world. When they reached the narrow gate in the stone wall where she had left him the day before, Leota invited him in. Jerry had never seen a place just like that, but he was game, and he went in. They walked on around to the back of the house, and there they met Mrs. Kingsley.

  “Mamma, this is Jerry Borden, that I told you about,” said Leota, simply.

  * * * *

  Jerry Borden wasn’t a drifting sign painter. He was a real artist, and a gentleman. He had drifted into Gold Center, gone broke, and was painting signs for enough money to get out of town, without writing home for it. After he met Leota, he didn’t want to get out of town; so he just went on painting signs. After all, he was seeking adventure in the West, and this was an adventure very much to his liking. A month passed, and he had called on Leota a dozen times. Then Mrs. Kingsley began to appear uneasy and distraught. It was on a Sunday afternoon that she said, “Jerry, have you a pistol?”

  “No ma’am. I never carried one. Why?”

  “Why, I—need one—I think. Someone has been prowling around here, peering at the place, in the daytime, and —and I’m afraid he’ll come to the house at night.”

  “Have you seen him?” asked Jerry.

  “Yes. Several times. He’s a slender, middle aged man, and I saw him this morning early, peeping over the wall back of the house. He was there quite a while, and then went away toward town.”

  “Why don’t you tell the officers about him?”

  “Oh, I—I don’t want to do that. Could you—”

  “I can get a pistol for you. Better than that, I can get a gun and stick around here and watch for a while, if you want.”

  “I wish you would do that.”

  Jerry Borden was from the East. He knew how to load and fire a pistol and could probably hit a house—if he were inside and the door shut; but he had no intention of admitting that to Mrs. Kingsley. Her appeal to him made him feel chesty. His interest in Leota, under whose rough, hoydenish manner he had discovered a character as beautiful as her face and figure, caused him to want to make a good showing with her mother. Accordingly, he went to his boarding house, borrowed a pistol from a friend, and returned to the Castle promptly.

  He had barely got into the house on his return, when Mrs. Kingsley said to him, in a low tone, “Pull the curtain aside, and peep out the back window!”

  Jerry peered out the back window, and saw a rather shabby looking, middle aged man, peering over the wall on the south side of the yard, back near the bluff. The man made no effort to enter the grounds, but seemed deeply interested in the old cherry tree. Thick shoots had put out from the old stump, and in the passing years it had grown into a bushy topped, low tree. Jerry knew the drifter had no business peering into an inclosed back yard, but by his standards it was nothing for which to shoot a man. As he stood pondering just what to do, the man got down from the wall, stole along to the street, then went on toward town.

  “That’s the same man,” said Mrs. Kingsley, in troubled tones. “I’ve seen him half a dozen times, when he thought no one noticed him. He’s seeking something, and I’m afraid. Not so much in the daytime, but that he may try to search the house at night.”

  “Then I’ll sit in the shadows, outside the house, tonight, and watch for him,” offered Jerry.

  “If you only would do that,” and there was a note of gratitude in the woman’s voice. “I haven’t been able to sleep for a week on account of fear at night.”

  “Don’t you think it would be better to have officers come here, and see what—”

  “Oh, no, no! I’m as much afraid of the officers as I am of this stranger. They’d ask all sorts of questions about a man prowling about a house where only two women lived. If you’ll only stay part of the night, and watch while I get some sleep, and then leave the pistol—”

  Very much puzzled at the woman’s behavior Jerry agreed. A little later, he and Leota went out to the old tree, as any other two youngsters would have done, since there was no private place that they could talk. What interested them might sound quite foolish to Leota’s mother. There was a pyramid of steps built around the tree, with flat rocks. They sat down on one of the steps, in the shade of the tree, but Jerry was preoccupied and silent.

  * * * *

  “Jerry,” said Leota, “you’re puzzled about mamma and that man. I—you—I can trust you with a secret, can’t I?”

  �
��You can trust me with anything. I have come to hope, lately, that some day you’ll trust me with yourself.”

  “No, no! Don’t talk about that now, Jerry, please. I’ve grown up all wrong, and I’d never be good enough for you until I get away from this place, and get civilized. I didn’t know there was anything wrong with me, until I met you; but I know it now.”

  “I don’t want you any different from what you are now, but I don’t want you at all unless you love me, and can come to me willingly. Promise me that you’ll tell me when you are willing for me to talk to you about such things, and until then we’ll just go on being friends, like we have been.”

  “Yes, I’ll tell you, if—but, I’m going to trust you with the secret, now. It isn’t really so much of a secret. Plenty of people knew all about it when it happened, but they have forgotten it. Or rather, most of those who lived here then, are gone.”

  Leota then went on to tell as much as she knew about her grandfather’s life and death, including her mother’s belief that there was a large sum of money hidden somewhere about the old castle.

  When she finished, Jerry said, “Queer old coot,” in a musing tone, and then realizing how such a remark might sound to Calico’s granddaughter, “Forgive me, Leota, but that’s the queerest story I’ve heard in a long time. In fact, it is a hard yarn to believe.”

  “You have no need to apologize. All that I recall about my grandfather is that he was a grim old giant, and that I was desperately afraid of him. I don’t think he ever spoke a dozen words to me from the time we came here, until his death. As for the story, I know that a great part of what I have told you is true, and I believe the rest of it. Mamma thinks grandfather had a fortune hidden somewhere, and was trying to tell her about it when he was dying. She thinks, too, that this man who keeps prowling about the place, either knows, or thinks he knows where it is, and wants to look for it.”