Silvertip's Roundup (12 page)

“Larue and three more of ‘em got me in the Round-up Bar. They took me out to a place where Barry Christian was living in the mountains. He set a mug called Babe to work beating me up to make me confess that I was working with Silver and tell Christian what Silver's plans were. Babe beat me to sleep, a couple of times. Then I found myself folded over the back of a horse. Silver was carrying me high, wide, and handsome, as you people say. Christian and some of his crew were chasing us. Even Parade couldn't carry double and beat that lot.

“Silver threw a dead tree trunk across a ravine, handed himself across it, and then called to Parade. He'd lashed me to the horse. Parade jumped the gap; and Silver hid me in a cave until the Christian outfit stopped searching for us. He took care of me till I could walk. I don't know what he had in the back of his brain. I don't know what he wanted to use me for. I asked him. He wouldn't say. So when I was able, I slipped away from him, got a horse, and then came straight back here. That's the biggest part of the story.”

“Taxi,” she cried, “what
would
Jim Silver have in the back of his mind except the wishing to help you?”

“Charity?” asked Taxi coldly. Then he shook his head and added: “Not in this world. When there were elves and fairies, maybe. But people don't throw away something for nothing in this day. Silver had something in the back of his mind. I don't know what.”

“Jim Silver,” said the girl, “is the finest man in the world!”

“Maybe,” said Taxi. “But not that fine. He — ”

The dining room door sagged softly open. The form of a man appeared there, vaguely seen, but there was plenty of light shining on the big automatic with which he covered Taxi.

E
YES
less sharp than those of Taxi would have seen the gun, also. But he made out even the face in the shadow and recognized “Plug” Kennedy, who for seven years had dogged him since the days when Taxi was a precocious boy of the underworld. Whatever chances were to be taken, there could be none risked on Plug's shooting abilities. He was famous with a gun. He was almost too famous to be on the side of the law.

The voice of Plug drawled out the familiar word: “All right. Hoist them, Taxi!”

The girl whirled about. She leaped straight between Taxi and the leveled gun, crying:

“Run, Taxi!”

He hit her out of the path of danger with a back stroke of his arm. She staggered off and crashed against the kitchen wall as Taxi lifted his hands till they were level with his ears.

“You fool!” said Taxi to her. “He'd shoot through ten like you to get at me.”

“Fast work, Taxi,” said the hard, slow voice of Plug Kennedy as he edged through the doorway and farther into the light. “One split part of a second more and she would have got something that was on its way for you.”

She stood by the wall, the breath knocked out of her, gasping. Taxi wanted to gasp, also.

Plug Kennedy was drawing closer. He took short steps as though he were carrying a glass of whisky filled to the brim. That was because he did not want to upset the silken fineness of his aim by jarring the gun out of line to the least degree.

“All right,” said Plug. “Turn around, kid.”

Taxi turned. He knew the technique and he turned slowly.

“Want ‘em behind me?” he asked.

“Never mind,” said Plug. “I've got a new idea for you. Just keep them up high. Touch the ceiling, Taxi.”

Taxi stretched his arms. Plug, with a painful accuracy, laid the muzzle of his gun against Taxi's backbone. Then he reached in front and with his left hand fanned Taxi for weapons.

“Hey! No gun?” he demanded.

“I've been a little hurried lately,” said Taxi.

“You're getting careless, kid,” answered Plug. “I know people back in the Big Noise that won't believe me when I tell ‘em that I found Taxi when he wasn't heeled. Looks like you're tryin' to make it easy for me, son!”

His left hand kept on fumbling. He drove the muzzle of the automatic harder directly against Taxi's spine.

“You got the old outfit in your clothes, the same as ever, eh?” said he.

“There's no better place for it, Plug,” said Taxi.

“No,” said Plug. “There's no better place, I guess.”

He stepped back, all his movements soft and easy. Sweat of a mortal anxiety, no matter what his advantages of position were, was running down his face. He was like a man in a cage, handling a tiger.

“Now turn around,” he said huskily. He took a pair of handcuffs out of a coat pocket.

Taxi, turning, slowly lowered his arms and held them out. The bright steel bracelets instantly clicked into place. The girl did not move, but she moaned aloud. He turned his head and looked at her.

“That's only a start,” said Plug. “I know how fast you can shed anything in the way of a steel fit, Taxi. I've got something better than that for you, old son.”

He drew out a pair of leather cuffs with a strong steel chain joining them. Clumsily, with one hand, he got one of the cuffs over the left wrist of Taxi and drew it tight with a buckle. The other cuff he used in the same way. There were four small, strong buckles on each of these leather cuffs, and he pulled each one tight.

When he had done that, he seemed to feel more at ease and unlocked the steel cuff that was on Taxi's left arm and snapped it over his own left wrist.

He began to sigh and smile.

“There!” said Plug. “Look over that system, Taxi. I thought it all out by myself. I worked the whole gag out by myself, old son, and it's a beauty, eh? You can shed the steel bracelets as fast as they're chucked on you, but nobody in the world can ever get these cuffs off without working the buckles. And look! The buckles are stiff, and the leather strap runs through three guards. Any child in the world could unbuckle those straps, but not without pulling and hauling. I keep that leather resined so that it sticks, almost like glue. And there you are, Taxi. You'll never get those off without high-signing me, eh?”

“It looks that way,” said Taxi.

“You're bright, Taxi, but you won't think your way out of those cuffs all the way to the Big Noise, and I'm telling you.”

“Perhaps not,” said Taxi.

“Perhaps not is right,” said the detective. “We'll barge along. Excuse me, lady. I'm sorry, but business is business, in these hard times.”

She had not moved. It seemed to Taxi that she was incapable of movement. He turned with Plug Kennedy and went toward the rear door of the kitchen.

“This is the quickest way out,” said Kennedy.

Then the girl came with a sudden rush.

“Hey, quit it! Back up!” commanded Kennedy.

She paid no attention. She had Taxi by the sleeves of his coat.

“I know that I'll never see you again,” she told him.

Something came over him. He looked beyond her with his pale, bright eyes and said: “There's no steel can hold me. They don't build walls thick enough or high enough. I'm coming back to you.”

He leaned over a little.

She made it easy for him, holding up her face, but he felt shy and awkward. His lips were trembling; he was trembling all over when he kissed her.

He was almost glad when he was outside of the room, at last, under the open sky, though he knew that he was on his way to prison. They went around to the front of the house, down the street, through an alley, and by a winding route came at last to a back door, through a cluttered back yard.

There Plug knocked three times, and the door was presently opened by none other than Pudge, the bartender.

W
HEN
Pudge recognized his visitors, he jerked the door wide open. He invited them into a little back room and started rubbing his hands with pleasure.

“You got him, Kennedy!” he said. “I told you that you and me would be able to do business together. You can see it in our names. Plug and Pudge. That sounds like a team. And I told you my tip would be right. I knew he'd come back there. When the tough mugs get an idea about a girl, they're weak. They're so weak that they're soggy.”

“They are,” said Plug. “What beats me is that there was any girl at all. That's why I thought you were batty. There's never been no girl before. But there's where old Father Time gets in. He softens up the hard ones. This girl is a peach, Pudge. Didn't she jump between him and my gun so's he could run or fight! And didn't he knock her out of the way instead of pulling a gun or a knife, or something! It's funny. He ain't the same as he used to be. He's all softened up.”

Plug talked so slowly that it took him some time to make this speech.

Taxi said: “Plug, I don't ask favors.”

“No, you don't,” admitted Plug. “What's up?”

“Shut your mouth about the girl, will you?”

Plug Kennedy laughed. “All right,” he said. “I'll shut up about her.”

He kept on laughing. “He's all softened up,” he said to Pudge again.

Pudge came close to Taxi. From his superior height he looked down on him carefully.

“Young feller,” he said, “I'm glad to get you out of this neck of the woods. I see Babe's thumb marks on you; and you've got a memorandum from Pudge on your skull, out of sight. But I been thinking that before the wind-up, maybe you'd leave some marks on the two of us, and that those marks would never rub off!”

He turned to Kennedy.

“We can settle now,” he said.

“I got it here,” answered Plug.

He took out a wallet, opened it, and passed over a sheaf of bills inside a brown wrapper.

“That's exactly it,” said Kennedy. “But you count it.”

Pudge made a magnificent gesture.

“I ain't going to count it,” he said. “If you held out something, you're welcome to it. It's a present, brother. That's how glad I am to see you taking this bundle of meat out of Horseshoe Flat.”

He turned back to Taxi.

“Silver's going to be in the soup before long, kid,” he said. “When we spotted your sign around Barry's old shack, we knew that you'd hit for Horseshoe Flat, and we knew that Silver would be hopping along the line you'd traveled. Maybe they've got him already, because the whole gang is sure to be back on the job at the old hangout by this time. There was more of the stuff that you know about. There was more of it to rake in; so they're back on the job, and they'll take in Silver for the extra profit.”

He began to laugh, and rub his big, wrinkled hands together. So he followed them to the door and stood holding it open after they had gone out into the night.

“The train starts in fifteen minutes,” said Pudge. “Don't be late for it. If you try to hold that hombre over in this town for one night, no one knows what'll happen. Hang onto him, Plug. Hang on hard. We don't want him back here!”

The door closed. They walked rapidly by dark alleys toward the railroad station, and Taxi found himself standing under the flare of the big gasoline lamp on the station platform while a crowd of idle hangers-on who were waiting for the Overland to come through, stood close up, staring at the handcuffs that proclaimed his status.

He kept looking down at the ground, according to his custom, merely noting their faces through the dark fringe of his lashes.

Then the Overland came, roaring. It seemed to Taxi that his heart speeded up as fast as the whirling of the wheels. This was almost his last moment of hope. There was still man power about him to sweep him out of the hands of Kennedy, if there were only something to set that man power in motion. But nothing happened. The wheels groaned against the brakes and the sanded tracks. The train shuddered to a stop, and Plug hurried Taxi up into a big Pullman.

Some passengers on the platform gave back with horror in their eyes when they saw the handcuffs. A whisper started that seemed to run the length of the entire train. And then the porter, with popping eyes, was showing them into their compartment.

Once in it, Plug Kennedy relaxed utterly.

As he flung himself down on the stiff cushions and bristling plush of the seat, he said to Taxi beside him:

“What puts you on edge, Taxi? Might as well relax, son. All the way across, I'm the one that has the hard luck. I can't close my eyes more'n half a minute at a time. I have the rotten luck on the trip. I cash in at the end of it, and you go to jail. But what the hell? You been here before! It'll be kind of restful for you, I'd think. A bird like you out in the big open spaces — why, it's bad for your nerves, I'd think!”

“Would you, Plug?” asked Taxi.

He smiled a little. Kennedy was silent, staring at him. The square face of Plug Kennedy was built like that of a bulldog, for receiving hard shocks with the least surface damage. It was hard for much emotion to register in that face, but a sort of brooding content that was almost like affection appeared in his eyes as he examined Taxi.

“So it's over, Taxi, eh?” he said. “A long rest for old Taxi now. When I take and look at you, kid, it does seem funny — what I mean is, the reputation that you've grabbed for yourself while you're still a pup! That's what eats me. That's what flabbergasts me!”

The train was still laboring up a long grade. Now it went over the top with a sudden quickening, a lessening of wheel noises and an increased roar of their running.

“What's the charge?” asked Taxi.

“Aw, what d'you care, Taxi?” asked Kennedy.

“Not much. I'm curious, is all. Who framed me?”

“Doheney. You might as well know.”

“Old Rip Doheney, eh?”

“That's the boy that did it.”

“It'll please Rip to see me behind the bars again. Or is he going to try to shove me up Salt Creek?”

“Not this journey. Just burglary, son. Just fourteen or fifteen years.”

Plug laughed, as he finished.

Taxi, for a dreaming moment, forgot his own future as his mind reverted to another picture — Jim Silver returning to the house of Barry Christian on the trail of Taxi and finding the house a dark trap set for him. What was it that Silver had had in his mind? What was it that the girl had meant?

She had called Silver the finest man in the world. Well, she had been willing to throw her life away to help Taxi. She had proved that in the split part of a second back there in her own kitchen on this very night. It made Taxi dizzy when he remembered.

And suppose that Jim Silver were made of the same stuff?

Taxi ruled the thought out of his mind. There could only be one person in the world capable of doing something for nothing. And that one person happened to be a girl. He had found her. She was a dazzling brightness in his mind.

And yet, if only he were free to leave this train and fly back like a homing bird straight for the house among the hills —

He heard the voice of Plug Kennedy saying: “They've got some brains out here, sending the flash on to us as soon as they spotted you. They wanted you out of the way.”

“They want me out of the way,” admitted the soft voice of Taxi. “Rip Doheney, eh? What sort of a job does he want me for?”

“Big diamond robbery in Pittsburgh.”

“I haven't been in Pittsburgh for three years.”

“That's all right. The boys know that you're fond of the ice. And this was a big job done in a big way by one man working all alone. Exactly the sort of a job that you'd be likely to tackle, Taxi. Nice and clean and neat and no clews left. Nice and neat. That house was opened up like an oyster shell and cleaned out and closed up again. So they'll soak you for the job. Something had to be done about it. The people that lost the diamonds were big birds. They raised a holler. Doheney saw he couldn't get a clew, so he decided, when we heard you were out here, to try to get you and slam you for the job. It's business, Taxi.”

“Yes. It's business,” murmured Taxi.

“Too bad, in a way,” said Plug Kennedy. “Maybe you can hitch out of it if you have enough hard cash to hire a good lawyer.”

“No,” said Taxi. “My record's too long. No use wasting money on a lawyer, because they're sure to soak me anyway, in the long run. They're used to slamming me, so they'll slam me again. And Rip Doheney knows how to bring on the cooked-up testimony.”

He fell into deeper thought than ever.

Then he said: “Tell Rip something for me, will you? Tell him that when I'm out of this mess, I'm going to get him.”

“Hey!” cried Plug. “What's the idea? What's the new, big idea? You never go gunning for the cops, Taxi. You use your ammunition on the other yeggs. You know that!”

“The trouble is,” said Taxi, “that now my time means a lot to me.”

There was a long pause in the talk, after this.

“I've talked too much,” said the detective finally.

He was gloomy about it. He kept shaking his head.

“Rip would have showed up in the case, anyway,” said Taxi, in the tone of one giving comfort. “You don't need to blame yourself too much.”

“That's true,” agreed Plug. “He would ‘a' showed up. But you're different, Taxi. You used to take it on the chin without batting an eye, but now you're all worked up.”

“I'm seeing things,” said Taxi. “I'm seeing that you private detectives are as bad as the yeggs, most of you. Watch me carefully, Plug, because if I manage to find a way out of these cuffs, I'm going to open you up before I leave the train.”

Plug leaned forward and stared at him.

“You
are
changed,” he muttered. “You're ready for Salt Creek, at last! If I had my way, I'd railroad you up the Creek on this here job!”

“Thanks,” said Taxi, and lifting the dark shadow of his lashes, he smiled at his companion with the full brightness of his pale eyes.

Afterward, he sat back against the seat and fell into profound thought. If there were a possible way of doing it, he had determined in the course of these few minutes that he would break away from Plug if it cost him his life to do so. Back yonder among the hills, only the devil himself could tell what danger Jim Silver was approaching.

Even the Barry Christian outfit, even Pudge, seemed to feel confident that there was nothing Silver would not dare for the sake of a friend. But would Silver risk his neck for the sake of a man who had deserted him and ran away? The thing seemed impossible, but a vast, hungry curiosity ate up the soul of Taxi.

There was something new out here in the air of the West. The breathing of it was different. The taste of the ozone was cleaner and went deeper in the lungs. There was more for the eye to grasp inside the circle of a vaster horizon, and perhaps it was also true that the souls of men were cut to larger dimensions?

“Fairy tales! Bunk!” said Taxi aloud.

“Yeah? What?” asked his companion.

Taxi said nothing. He kicked his toe into the plush of the opposite seat and looked at the dust mark that was raised from the plush.

“And I'm going to take you at your word, Taxi,” said Plug Kennedy. “Mind you, I'm going to take you at your word and the first time I even
think
you're raisin' your hand, I'm going to drill you, kid.”

“Better take the burglar kit off me,” said Taxi. “Better take it out of my clothes. I can do a lot with tools like the kind I have in my duds, Plug.”

“Thanks,” said Plug. “That good advice can go with you, too!”

“Hard words,” said Taxi.

“Right here with my eyes open I sit,” said Plug. “And if you can work something on me, kid, while my eyes are right on you, you're wonderful. I'll write a book about you!”

“You forget, Plug,” said Taxi, “that if I get loose, the first thing I do will be to rub you out.”

Kennedy stared at him.

“You've changed since you've gone and got yourself a girl,” said Plug. “I'll tell you how you've changed. You talk too much.”

Taxi laughed. He kept on laughing softly while he almost closed his eyes. The matter of his mirth seemed to endure.

He scratched his leg. From the outside seam of the trousers, he took out a small picklock between the second and third fingers of his left hand.

The train flashed by a small town, streaking out the lights into tiny comets.

“Scratch my right wrist where the handcuff is,” said Taxi. “Those steel cuffs are always able to start me itching.”

“Scratch your own wrist,” advised Plug Kennedy, growing more ugly.

“All right,” said Taxi.

“And mind you, I'm watching.”

“Look close, Plug,” said Taxi. “Because something's likely to happen to you at any minute.”

“Yeah?” said Plug. He dropped his right hand into his coat pocket. “I've got a little iron lady here ready to talk to you, boy. I know you're kidding now. But I just want you to know that I'm
not
kidding.”

“All right,” said Taxi. “But keep your eyes open.”

He put his left hand over on his right wrist and scratched carefully under the steel of the handcuff. That slow, wobbling movement enabled him to insert the picklock into the keyhole.

“You're getting like a dog — gotta scratch your skin, eh?” said Plug. “Why don't you — ”

He broke off with a grunt of terrified surprise and jerked the gun out of his pocket, for his ear had heard a faint, metallic sound as the lock of the handcuff gave way and the steel snapped outward, worked by its spring.

Taxi jerked up both his manacled hands at the same moment and landed them under the chin of Plug.