Play a Lone Hand (18 page)

One of the Torreon hands, ringed by a circle of ashes and cigarette butts, sat with his chair tilted back against the wall. At Bentham's approach, he rose and said, “I'll take that to him.”

Bentham eyed him coldly, “Get out of the way, son.”

The young puncher backed up a step but he was not giving away, Bentham knew. He only wanted room for anything that could happen.

Bentham took a chance then. He said dryly, “I knew Sebree when you had to climb a fence to get on a pony. Now get out of my way and pull that ladder down.”

The younger man said softly, “Pull it down yourself, Pop.” But he went back to his chair.

Bentham set the tray on the floor, pulled the ladder down, held it with his foot and ascended to the attic. The light here was dim and he could barely make out the form of Dixon lying on the shuck mattress. Walking over to him, he halted and said, “Are you awake?” in a low voice.

“Put it down,” Dixon whispered hoarsely.

As Bentham knelt to put the tray beside him, Dixon said in the same soft bitter voice, “You got a gun on you?”

“No.”

“How many down there?”

“Four,” Bentham lied.

“Bring me a gun next trip.”

“What does he know about me?” Bentham asked.

“Nothing,” Dixon whispered. “Don't worry. Just get me a gun.”

Bentham rose and looked down at him for long seconds, “Are you too hurt to handle one?”

“I'll handle it. Just get it to me.”

Bentham said all right and turned and descended through the trap door. To the puncher seated below, he said in passing, “Wake your friend and then one of you come down to breakfast.”

He did not go downstairs, but went to his corner room and softly closed the door. It was only rarely that Bentham smoked, but now he went over to his dresser, took from its top drawer a sack of tobacco and neatly rolled a thin cigarette and lighted it. Then he sank into the rocking-chair, put his feet on the bed and stared thoughtfully at the wall. This was his moment of choice. He could get a gun to Dixon with no difficulty.
But should I?
he wondered. His whole future lay in how he would answer that question.

Suppose he got the gun to him. Dixon could kill one of his guards for certain, and with any luck, the other; but what Dixon would do afterward was what was deeply troubling Bentham. If he read Dixon's character rightly, Dixon would make a try for Sebree. It would be a wild, reckless and deadly try.
But will it work in time to save my hide?

For long minutes Bentham considered this with a dismal foreknowledge of what his answer would be. He was a gambler by profession, he reflected, and he should be expert in assessing odds. What were Dixon's chances of success?
About forty to one
, he thought.

It was at that moment that Bentham knew the answer. A man was a fool to gamble at those odds. A young and reckless man might, but he was old and tired.
And afraid
, he thought calmly.
I've always been afraid, and I still am
.

He lost track of the time he spent in pondering this. Only a sharp knock on his door brought him into the present. Rising, he moved over and opened the door to find the same cold-faced young guard standing before him.

“He wants you to bring him another pitcher of water, Pop.”

This was his last chance, Bentham knew. He could make his gamble and take the gun up to Dixon.

“All right,
you
take him one,” Bentham said, and he closed the door.

When he came downstairs an hour later, he complained to Sarita of a toothache. By noon, he was groaning in his room so that the Torreon hands could hear him.

By that evening, his cheeks were pouched out with wadded paper and he reeked of oil of cloves. Nobody thought it strange, least of all the two Torreon hands, that he should take the stage that night to Taos and a dentist.

Cass put up his tools in a corner of the livery office and then with only mild regret at leaving his farm, faced the day's work. Sitting down at his desk, he fumbled around among the litter of papers, found a stub of pencil and, after some hunting, an envelope whose back was not scribbled on. Tilting back in his chair, he began to make a list of things he must do that day. There were oats to order and he'd be lucky if he found any between here and Vegas. There were two rental saddles that had to be taken to Burts for repairs. Who was it that had promised him a pair of kittens to help out old Benny, the stable Tom, with his mousing?

He was trying to remember this when, through the long-unwashed front window, he made out the figure of Fiske turning into the runway of the livery. Fiske halted at the door, said good morning and came in. Cass, glad of any interruption that would get a pencil out of his hand, threw his list on the desk and watched Fiske sink into one of the chairs by the door. Fiske was wearing his duck jacket and ancient derby but he had forsaken the laced boots today in favor of a pair of flat-heeled, wide-toed, and heavy farmer's shoes that Cass silently admired.

“Seen Giff this morning?” Fiske asked.

“Nope. Are you after horses?”

Fiske shook his head and said idly, “Not today; tomorrow maybe.” He crossed his leg and felt gingerly the spot on his cheek where he had shaved too closely that morning. “It's town work today.”

Cass laced his fingers, placed his hands on the back of his neck, tilted his chair back, swung his feet to the desk top and asked curiously, “What do you people find to do in town? Just peck at Deyo?”

Fiske smiled fleetingly. “No, it's mostly dull stuff. This morning I'll spend with the county clerk looking over the list of deeds recorded the last couple of years. Maybe for a drink and a cigar, the clerk will tell me which deeds were recorded by Sebree's men.”

“I doubt that,” Cass said.

“So do I.” Fiske grinned again. “Funny how scared these county people are when you go to check on anything of Sebree's. They know damn well you'll find what you're after anyway, but it's surprising how short their memories for names and dates are.”

“Not surprising,” Cass growled. “They know who feeds them. Torreon does and Welling doesn't.”

Fiske grunted agreement.

“How is Welling making out with Torreon?” Cass asked.

Fiske shrugged impatiently, “All right, I suppose. But as big as Torreon is, the way Sebree has covered his tracks and the way he's trained his boys to disappear at sight of us, I might as well buy a horse here.”

Cass said nothing and the two men fell silent. Cass, looking out the window saw a passerby halt, then remove his hat and face the street. Curiously Cass came out of his chair, passed Fiske on his way to the runway. Fiske, curious too, rose and followed him out.

Coming down Grant Street was a black and dusty hearse followed by four or five buggies and surreys filled with mourners. The two men watched the procession until it was abreast of them and then they, too, briefly removed their hats.

“Who's that?” Fiske asked after it had passed.

“Old codger named Miles, a clerk over at Edwards,” Cass replied. “Shot himself the other night. Funny thing,” he went on musingly, “he used to own Edwards' store, but his real business was bucking the tiger at Henty's. Joe Henty wound up with his store finally, and Edwards bought it from him for a dime on the dollar. This fellow went back to work as a bookkeeper in his own store and he's never missed a night at Henty's since.”

Fiske said without much interest, “That's the way it goes.”

They talked a few moments longer about nothing in particular and then Fiske headed across the road toward the Plains Bar.
To pick up Welling
, Cass thought.

Cass went back to work. Before he was seated he suddenly remembered who promised him the kittens; along with that came memory of the small chore Giff had asked of him yesterday. Out in the stable, he picked up the two saddles, swung one over each shoulder and tramped down the alley, headed for Burts. After he had deposited them there, he walked up Grant Street in the warm midmorning sunshine. The sight of Welling and Fiske leaving the Plains Bar reminded him of Giff; he wondered if Giff had succeeded in placing the new reward notice in the paper that was to be out today. He doubted it, although Dixon was a lucky man.
Or is it luck?
Cass wondered. One thing sure, if Welling ever finished his investigation with solid proof that the government could use to prosecute Sebree and Deyo, it would be thanks to Dixon alone.

On the hotel steps Cass paused for a word with a rancher he knew from Isbell Canyon way. As he talked, he noticed the sign on the door of Edwards' store across the street. Even at this distance, Cass could read, “Closed for funeral.” There was a bow of black satin tied to the door handle.

He crossed the lobby and went up to the desk. Arch Newson, the clerk, was a man Cass did not like and seldom bothered to speak to. Without greeting him, Cass turned the big ledger, which served as a hotel register and lay open on the desk, so that he could read its open pages.

Newson said, “Expecting somebody?”

“Uh-huh,” Cass said not looking up. “Drummer for an implement company.”

“What's his name?”

“That's it, I've forgotten. If I see it, I'll remember it.” With a small feeling of pleasure Cass saw the name of James Archer on the register at the tail of the list. He murmured, “Archer—Archer—No, that's not it. What's this Archer look like?”

“He's no drummer,” Newson said disdainfully. Then he frowned and thought. “Funny thing,” he said, “damned if I remember what he looks like. Cowman, though.”

Cass thanked him and went out. On the plankwalk he halted, remembering Giff's further request. He supposed there was no immediate hurry to tell Giff of Archer's presence but now that the man was here, Cass began to speculate in earnest as to Giff's whereabouts. He wondered if it had occurred to Fiske to look in Giff's room.

Backtracking through the lobby, Cass climbed the stairs to the second floor and halted far down the corridor before the door of room nine. He knocked and, receiving no answer, tried the door handle. The door was unlocked and Cass poked his head inside the room. The bed blankets were in mild disarray but the bed had not been slept in. What next caught his attention was the lamp on the dresser. It was alight.

For a puzzled moment Cass considered this, gently closing the door, and then he started downstairs. It was obvious Giff had left the room last night and had not yet returned. For a fleeting moment Cass wondered if Giff might still be in one of the saloons. It had happened to him a couple of times that late at night he had placed the change from his last drink on a bet in a gambling game only to find that he had started on a run of luck lasting well into the next morning. Accordingly, he tramped down to the Plains Bar, found it almost deserted, with no games in progress, and moved on to Henty's. Giff was not there.

Cass moved across the street and had a cup of coffee at the Family Cafe but memory of Giff's room kept teasing at him. What had started out as innocent speculation was becoming a mild obsession. If Fiske was surprised enough at Giff's absence to ask his whereabouts, it meant that he was not on a land office errand. Cass speculated on who else in town would know anything of Giff's movements and he thought immediately of Mary Kincheon. So far as his own present knowledge went, Mary was the last person Dixon saw. Perhaps he could trace his movements from there.

He finished his coffee and went downstreet to the
Free Press
office. Stepping inside from the sunlit street, he halted in astonishment, his hand still on the door. Earl Kearie had cleared the big desk under the window of all its papers. Atop the desk was a foothigh pile of metal slugs that Cass only belatedly identified as type. Kearie was seated in a chair at the far side of the desk, beside him was an empty type stand. His coat was off and in his left hand he held a large magnifying glass; in his right was a piece of type. Propped against the window were two big type charts to which he was referring when Cass entered. Kearie's expression, always surly, was one of wrathful exasperation. He glanced at Cass and then through the glass at the piece of type he held in his fingers.

Cass asked, “What's the matter? Are they dirty?”

Kearie said almost snarling, “What do you want?”

“Mary Kincheon.”

“I fired her!” Kearie said in a shout of anger. “I don't know where she is and I don't give a damn!”

A sudden calculation came into his face as he looked at Cass and asked almost civilly, “Can you set type?”

Cass shook his head in negation.

“Do you know anybody in town that can?” Kearie persisted.

Again Cass shook his head.

Kearie, with a gesture of disgust, threw the reading glass on the pile of type and shoved his chair back. He started to rise, then settled back in his chair, put both hands on his knee and regarded the pile of type with a lost and baffled look.

Cass asked, “Where's your printer?”

Kearie winced visibly. “I've sent for one,” he said shortly.

Cass looked at the heaping pile of type and was still uncertain as to what Kearie was attempting to do. “Why've you got all this stuff up here?” Cass asked. “Don't that belong back there in the shop?”

Kearie's look was murderous. He said, “You run your stables and let me run my newspaper.”

“This is your press day, isn't it?” Cass asked shrewdly.

His question seemed to move Kearie to a decision. Kearie rose, put on his coat, clapped his black hat on his bony skull, booted the type stand aside and started for the door. Halfway there he halted and then returned to the desk. From a drawer on its near side, he lifted out a cube of cue chalk and slapped it into his vest pocket. Then turning to the door, he said harshly to Cass, “Step outside. I'm locking up.”

Cass stepped outside, watched Kearie lock the door with a savage impatience and then head across the street toward Henty's saloon and its billiard tables. Turning, Cass went on down the street, headed for Mrs. Wiatt's. Although he was uncertain as to what had happened at the
Free Press
office, memory of Kearie's wrath brought a smile to his face. Mary Kincheon had quit him. Over what, Cass could not guess, but with her leaving, Kearie's days of indolence were over. The whole town had wondered why she had worked for him in the first place and in the second place why she had tolerated the overwork and the drudging hours while he idled.