Milo Talon (5 page)

A puzzling letter, to say the least. “You will be taken care of” sounded like a bribe to counteract another offer, but why was Newton Henry so anxious not to be found?

Nancy would be “old enough to travel without her mother.” But why should she? Where would her mother be? And why was it important to keep the picture safe? Undoubtedly, it could be a keepsake, but the words sounded as if it were something more.

Taking up the picture, I examined it more closely. Behind them was a steep hill and the corner of a building, a few trees and some brush on a hillside.

The trees had long needles, frail and wispy. A large object with a rounded end lay on the ground at the back corner of the building. The pictures might or might not have been of any help to the Pinkertons but
they would be to me. Sometimes being a drifter can help and in this case it did.

Those long wispy needles could only be a Digger pine, and unless I was mistaken the rounded object was one of their pine cones which were often of pineapple size. The Indians ate the seeds.

Digger pines grew in a hot, dry climate but not right down in the desert. From the rocky outcropping on the hill behind the building I had an idea where it might be. Behind the building there was a tree that looked like a cottonwood, which meant there was water near, maybe a stream or spring.

Yet why would Newton go to such extremes not to be found? To follow a trail the hunter must have some idea of what is in the mind of the hunted. An animal is usually going to or from water and if frightened will often circle around, trying to stay in familiar territory.

Digger pines were found in some of the mining areas of California, and Newton Henry had said he had found a job in a remote area. All of a sudden I was wishing I knew more about Newton’s educational and employment background.

Putting the pictures away, I sat back and stared out of the window. Sunlight lay upon the street and there was movement now where none had been before. People were walking along the street or sweeping the boardwalk.

The door opened and Molly Fletcher came in. She was wearing a gray traveling outfit, somewhat worn, but suiting her style more than the clothes she had worn the previous day.

“Join me?” I suggested. “I’ll buy breakfast?”

She pouted. “You woke me up. After that I decided it was no use trying to go back to sleep.”

“You wake up mighty easy. You waste no time getting to the door.”

“I slept very little,” she confessed.

“Worried? You needn’t be. If you want a job, you have one. German Schafer said he could use you and he’s a good man.”

Schafer had come in. “Ma’am? I’ll do better than just give you a job. If you’ve got seventy-five dollars I’ll sell you a working third of the restaurant. It will be hard work, but you’ll be in business for yourself and that gives you a kind of position in the community.”

“Take it,” I advised. “This isn’t much of a place, but there’ll be cattle shipped from here and while it lasts you can make a little money.”

The door opened and the rancher and his wife came in. Evidently they had spent the night in town. There was no sign of the drummer.

When Schafer returned to the kitchen I told her about him. “If you are here nobody will bother you. The old camp cooks like German are a tough lot of men. They had to be, to keep a bunch of wild cowhands in line. He’ll be like a father to you.”

“I—I don’t know. I—I might have to go away. I mean I might not be able to stay.”

Was she running from something, as German suggested?

“You’d have nothing to fear with German around.”

“You don’t know! You just don’t know!”

“You can tell me,” I suggested, but she shook her head, obviously wanting to tell me nothing.

“German has fought Indians, rustlers, everything. Nobody in their right mind would tackle him.”

The truth of the matter was that although I did not know German Schafer very well, I did know the breed. And I remembered stories I’d heard about him. Or half-remembered them. I had no doubt that what I said was true.

“What about you?” Her eyes were almost pleading. “Would you be here?”

“I’ve got at least one trip to make.” I spoke casually. “To St. Louis.”

“Don’t go! Please don’t go!”

“Miss Fletcher, I—”

“Call me Molly. You’re my friend, aren’t you?”

“Of course. So is German.” Changing the subject, I asked, “Why shouldn’t I go to St. Louis?”

“I’d feel safer if you were here, that’s all. It isn’t anything else.”

Why did she believe there might be something else? I stared out the window, watching the people pass, yet I wondered again. Who was she? Why was she here? And why had Jefferson Henry chosen to meet me at this godforsaken spot?

“I have to go,” I said. “I’ve been hired to find a girl. She might be about your age.”

Watching her face as I spoke, I expected some reaction, but there was none. She was looking into her cup as I spoke and her eyes were down. If there had been the slightest change I could not see it.

Our food came and we ate, and I talked casually of things of every day, of what the life would be like here and of how to handle cowboys, who were mostly
young, good fellows at heart and just a little wild at being away from home.

As I talked I thought of that other girl, the girl for whom I was to search, for whom I was already seeking. She was out there somewhere, perhaps alone, perhaps in trouble. And she had a fortune awaiting her, a fortune and a good home.

Well, maybe. The more I thought of Jefferson Henry the more I wondered. He was not a really old man, too young, I thought, to be actually worried about who would inherit.

German came in and as he did so a thought occurred to me. “This place is called Maggie’s? What happened to her?”

“She’s here. She lives over yonder,” he jerked his head in a gesture. “She doesn’t come down much anymore. She sold a piece to me, and the way it stands we’ll own a third, a third, and a third. But she won’t be any bother. She leaves it to me to run.

“Stays inside,” he added, “reads a lot. She’s not much for people.”

Molly’s stiffness seemed to leave her. Little by little she loosened up, and she asked more questions about the town than I could answer, knowing all too little of the place. Although I tried to guide the conversation around to her, I got nowhere at all beyond discovering that she played the banjo a little.

She, on the other hand, tried to guide the conversation around me and had a good bit more luck.

I told her nothing about my mother, Em Talon, who had been born a Sackett, but a little about Barnabas, my well-educated brother. She found out that I’d
punched cows, had ridden shotgun for a stage-line, and was a deputy marshal for awhile. I told her about horses I’d known, a wolf that followed a cousin of mine, a wolf that remained wild but went wherever my cousin did; yet I learned nothing about her, nor did she tell me where she had come from or how she got where she was, nor what impelled her to come here, to this forlorn little town at the end of nowhere.

That was what worried me most. Why had she come here? Was it really circumstances? Or was there some other reason? And why had Jefferson Henry come here?

Suppose, just suppose there was more to that Pinkerton report than one could see at first study? Had the Pinkertons discovered more than they realized? Had they been taken off the case before they discovered too much? Suppose he had deliberately chosen me because I had what he might think was a doubtful reputation?

Now, I was no outlaw, but I’d ridden the Outlaw Trail and was accepted in their hideouts. I could go where no peace officer could, and his informants might have suggested that I was a shady character who might be used. Or even set up for something.

Somewhere in my subconscious there was the will-o’-wisp of an idea, something that barely eluded me, something the fingers of my thoughts could not quite grasp.

For the first time that morning I remembered the quiet step in the hall, the hand that tried the door.

A stranger who had simply come to the wrong door? Not for a minute could I accept that. He had
been too careful. Was he planning robbery or murder? And if murder … why?

“I shall stay,” Molly said suddenly. “Is it all right if I use the money you loaned me to buy a share of the restaurant?”

“I’d prefer it,” I said, “and I think you’d be showing uncommon wisdom if you did.” I smiled. “Naturally, if you have the money invested you’ll have a better chance of paying me back.”

“I don’t believe you even thought of that.” She looked up at me suddenly. “To tell you the truth, I had no idea where to go from here. I was frightened and I still am.”

“If you start running, Molly, there’s no place to stop. There are old outlaws hiding in the hills whom nobody remembers or cares about. Whatever crimes they committed were long ago and far away, but they are still running.”

The door opened and briefly was blocked by a dark bulk. I looked up.

He was a big man, broader, heavier, and thicker than I, with a long, hard-boned face with eyes that were gray and cold. The eyes looked at me, measured me at a glance, then shifted to her.

I knew at once this was John Topp.

He seated himself across the room, ordering breakfast. My eyes ignored him, my mind did not.

Was it only for breakfast? Or was he here to see what I might be doing? His attention lingered on Molly Fletcher and there was a prickling of the hair at the back of my skull. This was a dangerous man.

Molly was sitting very straight, white to the lips.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” I said gently. “He works for Jefferson Henry.”

When she did not respond, I inquired, “Do you know him?”

“No. Only—I think I’d better go to my room. I must unpack.” She glanced at me again. “Will I see you? I mean, are you staying here?”

“For a few days. I’ll be seeing you.”

She left hurriedly and John Topp did not look around or seem to notice. He was simply sipping coffee occasionally and staring out of the window, yet I was sure he had missed nothing.

Had it been he who tried my door last night? No, his weight would have made more of a creak. It had been someone else. And this man was no thief. There was something too elemental about him. He was as simple and direct as a boulder rolling down a hill.

Pushing thoughts of him aside, I considered St. Louis. It would mean several days by railroad to get there and return, days when I did not wish to be away. Despite what might be learned in St. Louis, I felt the focal point was here or in the vicinity.

It was then I remembered Portis. St. Louis was his town. When not there he revolved in an elongated orbit between there, Natchez, and New Orleans.

Portis was a man who lived by knowing. So far as I was aware he had not been involved in anything criminal, but I was sure he supplied information to criminals from time to time, and others as well. Including the law.

What Portis did not know Portis could find out, and he was a friend of mine.

We had met in El Paso when I had pulled three men off him in an alley. A long, thin man, slightly stooped, he had been an actor, a schoolmaster, a clerk for Wells Fargo, and an occasional journalist. When we talked we found much in common, and I came to like the man as I believe he did me.

Leaving the restaurant, I crossed to the station and glanced down the track toward the siding. The private car was gone.

Returning to the hotel I wrote a short note to Portis.

For the next two days I thought, drew diagrams on paper, reread the letters, and examined the photographs again and again. Then a wire was delivered from the railroad station.

My response was almost as brief.

Portis was a canny man. If he said “lay off” he must have reason. From him such advice was not idle.
Nonetheless, I’d no intention of quitting. Yet the advice was puzzling. What was there about searching for a missing girl that might call for such a warning?

Alone in my room with a chair under the knob, I lay back on my bed with hands clasped behind my head, I tried to think the situation through.

To find a child missing for all those years would seem to be a straightforward project. The task was one for patience, diligence, and some imagination, and simple enough. Yet nothing about it was proving to be simple.

Why had the child’s parents not wished to be found? Their only communication that I could find thus far was with two as yet strange people now deceased. Both had been reasonably young, hence the fact of their death left me faintly uneasy. How had they happened to die? How was it that both had died within what must have been a relatively short time? One might die, of course. But
two?
Such things happened, of course, and possibly I was unduly suspicious.

Perhaps I was developing a fervid imagination. The gold I was carrying was enough for an attempted robbery, and Molly’s reaction to the picture might be just what she implied. Portis might be simply trying to dodge a job he didn’t have time for.

The answers might all be simple, but I did not believe it. Something was wrong, all wrong. I had the feeling I was getting myself into something that was none of my business, something that could get me killed.

What
was
I getting into? I was no detective. I had no business getting involved in something like this. I
was a drifting cowhand who had worked at this and that, and although I had some minor experience as a peace officer, I’d never been involved in anything like this. Several days had passed and I had dipped into my expense money and had gotten exactly nowhere. Perhaps I should have gone to St. Louis myself, but Portis knew that city as I never would, even to the darkest and dimmest recesses of the underworld.