XXIIIThe Killer
ON the morning following the raid which had failed to connect, Eben Grillage carried out his promise to side-track business and go a-fishing. David made the necessary arrangements, stocking theAthenia’slarder with provisions from the camp commissary, borrowing a tent and camping outfit from one of the grade subcontractors, and otherwise bestirring himself to expedite the departure of the anglers.
With theAtheniaout of its berth and safely on its way to some unannounced destination in the upper Timanyoni, a handicap of a sort was removed; a handicap and a restriction. As David phrased it for Plegg, he had gotten two non-combatants out of the range of the guns and the field was now clear for whatever battle of reprisals might be threatening.
Of the restriction removed he said nothing to Plegg or to any one. There be certain secret curtains of the heart which are not to be drawnaside for alien eyes to view what may lie behind them; and as yet, not even to himself would David admit that he was no longer able to see eye to eye with his father. None the less, it was with a distinct sense of relief that he waved good-by to the pair standing on the rear platform of the private Pullman as Callahan’s “mogul” snaked it out through the yard to make a flying-switch coupling with the outgoing stub train.
It was on this same morning that Plegg reported for the third time his inability to find the man Backus, and the report was made while he and Vallory were climbing the mountain on their way to make an inspecting tour of the western slope activities, including the tunnel drift which was slowly gnawing its way to meet Regnier’s bore from the eastward.
“I’ve had a dozen ‘trusties’ looking for him and they have combed Powder Can and every other mining-camp in a ten-mile radius,” was Plegg’s summing-up of the search. “He has disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed him.”
“If we could only be sure that the earthhasswallowed him,” growled the one for whom the restrictions had been removed. “But there is another fork to that road, Plegg. Maybe Lushinghas him hidden out somewhere. Had you thought of that?”
“Yes; that seemed to be the most reasonable explanation of his disappearance. But in a very short time I discovered that Lushing was also looking for him.”
“You are sure of that?”
“Quite sure. I have it from a number of different sources. He has even gone so far as to offer a reward—not publicly, of course, but the word has been passed among our workmen.”
“Which means that Lushing knows Backus has something to sell. We mustn’t let Lushing beat us to it, Plegg. You haven’t stopped your investigating machine, have you?”
“Not at all. I have even gone Lushing one better and raised his bet on the reward—though you didn’t authorize me to spend any real money.”
“You did right; and I’ll see to it that the money is forthcoming when it is needed.”
Here the matter rested for the time, and the two men spent the entire day on the western slope, tramping over the work on the desert cut-off, visiting the sub-headquarters in Lost Creek basin, and taking the lost motion out of the job wherever it was found. Cartwright, the sub-chief in general charge of the over-mountain work, wasmaking good progress, though he, too, complained bitterly of the obstructing activities of the railroad inspection staff. Lushing, as it appeared, had not yet been over the range since his return from the East, and Cartwright, a nervous little man with a harsh voice and a choleric eye, was explosively profane when he was told the story of the raid that failed.
“Some of us will have to ‘get’ that beggar yet, Vallory!” he rasped. “It’s gone a long way past any business vigilance on his part; he is simply a vindictive scoundrel, and he is making a personal fight upon the entire Grillage outfit. If he shows up on this side of the range, he’d better bring a bodyguard with him; that’s all I’ve got to say!”
On the return from the desert inspection, David and his first assistant had supper at Cartwright’s headquarters on Lost Creek, and afterward crossed the mountain by starlight. Plegg dropped out of the procession of two on the descent to the eastern tunnel entrance, ostensibly to see how Regnier was getting along, but really because the dangerous roof drew him with a mysterious fascination that was always making him go out of his way to take another look at it.
David Vallory kept on down the mountain alone, and in due time, with a number of brief pauses at the various working points, tramped into the Powder Gap yard at an hour not far from midnight. Learning from the yard boss that there had been no new developments during the day, he went across to the bunk car and let himself in. There was a fragrance of good tobacco smoke in the darkened interior, and as he struck a light he was wondering what member of the staff had been making free with Plegg’s carefully hoarded store of “perfectos.”
It was not until after he had snapped the lamp chimney into place, and was turning the wick to its proper height, that he had a shock that sent his hand quickly to the grip of the weapon slung by its shoulder-strap under his coat. Sitting quietly on Plegg’s bunk, and still smoking the cigar which had perfumed the stuffy interior of the little car, was the swarthy, cold-eyed master gambler of Powder Can.
Dargin was the first to break the surcharged silence.
“Been waiting for you,” he said shortly; and then: “You needn’t be feelin’ for that gun. If I’d wanted to croak you, you’d ’ve been dead a whole half-minute ago.”
David Vallory sat down on his own bed, the shock spasm subsiding a little.
“I hope I haven’t kept you waiting very long,” he ventured, not too inhospitably.
“About a half-hour. But I had some smokes in my poke, and the waiting didn’t cut any ice.”
Hastily David passed in review the various reasons why Dargin should come thus to lie in wait for him. There were two and possibly three; all of them warlike if Dargin chose to hold them so: the attempt to abate the man-traps, the attempt to persuade Judith Fallon to leave Powder Can, and for the third, the assumption that Dargin was in a partnership of some sort with Lushing. In the new recklessness which had come to him with the other transformations, he attacked the reasons boldly in their order.
“You’ve got a kick coming, Dargin, if you want to make it,” he began brusquely. “I’m out to wipe your Powder Can speak-easys off the map if I can swing the big stick hard enough.”
“I was onto that a month ago,” was the growling answer. Then, after a deep pull at the fragrant cigar: “I reckon they ought to be wiped out—though that ain’t sayin’ that I wouldn’t take a crack at the man that did it when it came to a show-down.”
“If you think the place ought to be cleaned up, why don’t you do it yourself?” David shot back.
“Huh! Maybe I will, some day—if you don’t beat me to it.”
“But if I should beat you to it, I suppose you’ll come after me with a gun. Is that the way of it?”
The shadow that flitted across the swarthy face of the man on the opposite bunk was scarcely a smile, though possibly it was intended for one.
“I might; but it’d be a heap like takin’ candy from a baby. You ain’t been carryin’ a gun long enough to get the hang of it. You’re a whole lot too slow to make it interestin’.”
“All right,” said David; “we’ll pass that up. The next thing may get a bit nearer to you. Judith Fallon has doubtless told you that she knew me back East, and that we went to school together and were good friends?”
“Uh-huh.”
“But perhaps she hasn’t told you that I have tried to persuade her to break off with you and leave Powder Can?”
“No; she ain’t told me anything like that.”
“Well, it’s so; I did it.”
“What for?”
“For common decency’s sake. If you admitthat the mining-camp dives ought to be wiped out, you’ll also have to admit the facts concerning that girl. I know you’ve been befriending her honestly—the only mistake you made was in not putting a bullet through Tom Judson before you turned him loose—but you must know that a man of your stripe can’t befriend any woman without making her pay the penalty.”
“A man of my stripe, eh?—well, I reckon that’s so, too.”
“Then you are not here to pick a quarrel with me over Judith?”
“Hell, no; not in a thousand years!”
“Then what did you come for? Did Lushing send you?”
“Jim Lushing? He can’t send me nowhere. He ain’t got the insides.”
David Vallory had reached the end of his resources. There was apparently nothing for it but to wait patiently until Dargin was ready to disclose the object of the midnight visit; and he seemed to be in no manner of haste.
David unbuckled his uncomfortable weapon and tossed it aside. “I can’t think of any other grouch that you might have,” he said, with the nearest approach to his former good-natured smile that he had been able to achieve since themoon of Virginia Grillage’s favor had gone into eclipse for him. Then he dug into Plegg’s locker and brought out the first assistant’s cherished box of “perfectos.” “Your smoke is about used up; have another,” he offered.
Dargin helped himself, and took the lighted match that David held out to him. Then the flitting shadow that passed for a smile began at the corners of the hard-bitted mouth and crept slowly up to the murderous eyes.
“I’m stuck on your nerve, Dave Vallory—damned if I ain’t!” he grated. “If you could only draw a fraction quicker and shoot as plumb straight as you can talk, you’d be some man. Now I’ll spill what I mogged over here to spill: ever hear of a duck named Backus?—Simmy Backus?”
“Yes,” said David.
“Well, he used to pipe off the easy marks for me—same time he was working for you-all.”
“I know.”
“You lose him, and you’ve been lookin’ for him, ain’t you?”
“Right, again.”
“Uh-huh; I thought so. Know why you couldn’t find him?”
“No.”
“Well, I can tell you, I reckon. I had him hid out.”
“Hid out? locked up, you mean? Why did you do that?”
“Because he’s a worm. He was aimin’ to give you the double-cross: tried to sell me a chance on it. I didn’t hate you-all bad enough to let him run loose; see?”
“Is that straight, Dargin?”
“Straight as a string.”
“But they tell me that you and Lushing have a stand-in together; and Lushing hates us heartily enough.”
“Maybe so; and maybe we have got a stand-in. But that ain’t no skin off’m this other thing. Backus is a worm.”
“I’m glad you don’t like worms. I have a feeling that way, myself.”
The master gambler got up and pushed his soft hat back to allow the forelock of Indian-black hair to fall over his brow. As he was moving to the door, he said, “Reckon that’s about all I had to spill—all but one little thing: that damn’ worm’s done dug him a hole and crawled out. Thought maybe you’d like to know. So long,” and he was gone.
For a long time after he was left alone, DavidVallory sat on the edge of his bed, buried in thought. With the spy, Backus, at large, it was only a question of time when Lushing would have another weapon in his hands. In odd moments David had made an estimate on the cost of shooting down the menace in the eastern tunnel drifting and concreting the gash which would be left by the blasting out of the fissure material. The figures were appalling. Not only would the profits on the entire contract be likely to disappear in the chasm; there was a chance that there would be a huge loss, as well, since nobody could tell how much of the fissure contents would come down in the blasting. As Eben Grillage had frankly confessed, the line-shortening job had been taken on a narrow margin, and there had been no provision made for untoward happenings.
There was but one conclusion to be reached, and by this time David Vallory had passed all the mile-stones of hesitancy. Backus, the worm, must be found and silenced, and there must be no fumbling delay in either half of the undertaking.