Oh, it is excellentTo have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannousTo use it like a giant.
Oh, it is excellentTo have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannousTo use it like a giant.
Tyrant, he called himself.Damned high-hander! And Ben Vickers is a slave-driver. And Coons a crackpot. And we are all working hard at it.
As he reached the hotel, someone called his name from across the street. It was Whisky Willie Silverknife, who fell into a dog-trot and arrived waving a folded paper.
"M-m-message for you. From M-Miss Persia."
Tesno had the note unfolded by the time Willie got the words out.
Dear Mr. Tesno:The council meeting is at seven. Will you join me for dinner afterward?Persia Parker
Dear Mr. Tesno:
The council meeting is at seven. Will you join me for dinner afterward?
Persia Parker
"S-she s-said to t-tell me yes or n-no," Willie said.
"How come you're running her errands?"
"I hit her for a j-job, like you s-said." Willie blushed under his freckles. "She d-didn't have one, not right away, b-but she s-said maybe she'd think of s-something. She s-said if I was b-broke, which I am, to come around to the k-kitchen for m-meals. After l-lunch she g-gave me that n-note."
Willie slid the flask from his hip pocket and took a short drink. Tesno re-read the note, searching for the sound of Persia's voice in every word.
"Tell her yes."
Willie nodded, taking a deep breath to chase the whisky. "She's r-right interested in you. When she found out I rode up here with you, she asked all about you. I told her when I first s-seen you, you was laying in the grass naked as a p-pup p-possum."
Tesno gave him a murderous look. Willie grinned.
"She l-laughed like hell," he said.
The council meeting took place in a large, unpainted room in the townhouse. Persia presided, just as if she were the legitimate mayor. She sat at one end of a table, wearing a dark serge suit and looking both businesslike and beautiful. Sam Lester sat at the other end, inscrutable behind the crystal mask of his spectacles. The four council members sat in between. Tesno drew up a chair to one side of Persia.
He listened impatiently while the members quibbled over the location of a town watering trough. A rasp-voiced man named Parris, who operated the hotel, did most of the talking. The three saloonkeeping councilmen kept glancing at Persia as if she would make the decision and the debate was a mere formality. Pinky Bronklin sat with his talonlike hand on the table where all could see it and said hardly a word.
Persia introduced Tesno with some little formality. He stated his demands as concisely as possible. He tried to avoid a dictatorial tone, yet he made it clear that one way or another he intended to see a drastic change in the town. When he had finished, the saloonkeepers sat sullenly quiet. It was Mr. Parris who spoke up, and he was angry.
"I agree that we could stand some improvement around here," he said. "But to request co-operation is one thing, to tell us what to do, another. Begging your pardon, Persia, I move that we tell Mr. Tesno to go to hell and then face our problems in our own way."
"That'll suit me fine, if youwillface them," Tesno said. "But you'll clean up or I will. Take your choice."
"You'll clean up! Have you forgotten there's law in the land—and in this town. And it's on our side!" Mr. Parris slapped the table and glared.
"Law?" Tesno said icily. "You were elected by the drifting labor that built this town. You run a town full of thugs and card sharks. And you talk about law! Bring it on, Mr. Parris. While you're doing it, I'll close your town down tight. And I'll guarantee you you'll wind up with your charter pulled out from under you!"
"This won't do," Persia said. "You two agree that we ought to do something. Mr. Tesno is willing to let us do it in our own way—provided we do get results. Right, Mr. Tesno?"
"Right," he said.
"Then I don't see what you are arguing about. Mr. Tesno, now that you've told us what you want, would you mind leaving us and letting us thrash this out?"
"Fair enough," he said.
She had spoken crisply, almost hostilely. Now she said with a smile and in an entirely different tone, "Wait in my parlor."
He followed a long hall that led to the other part of the house. He entered the parlor and sat down to wait, musing about his abrupt dismissal. He had the impression that Tunneltown council meetings were little more than a mockery, that the members gathered to receive instructions rather than to make their own decisions. Even Mr. Parris had seemed to be arguing out of mere cantankerousness and not with any real hope of seeing his views prevail if Persia was against them.
Probably Persia was now telling them exactly how far they would go in co-operating with him. Or would it be Sam Lester who was doing the telling? That Lester was a power behind the throne seemed a real possibility. In any case, the council was a convenient device to avoid the pinpointing of responsibility on an individual.
Annoyed, he strolled into the dining room and poured himself a glass of brandy from a bottle on the sideboard. He could hear voices in the kitchen—Stella's and a stammering tenor that could belong only to Willie Silverknife. Returning to the parlor, he lighted a cigar and sat sipping the strong and fragrant liquor.
Persia appeared sooner than he expected. She was alone, and he wondered if Sam Lester would join them later. She insisted on getting him another brandy, and she poured herself a glass of wine, which she scarcely touched.
"You're going to get your blue-nosed town," she said gayly. "All I ask from you, Mr. Tesno, is a small amount of patience."
He frowned, but before he could reply she went on.
"We passed a couple of ordinances. Midnight closing. No liquor sold to drunks. We also agreed that a one-man police force isn't adequate, so we're going to hire a deputy. Satisfied?"
"How about the gambling?"
"That's where the patience comes in."
He shook his head. "The gambling has to go, Persia."
She smiled at him very slightly, as she might at a stubborn child. "I suppose you'll have your way, but, I shouldn't tell you this, Jack, but I will." She used his first name so naturally that he didn't notice for an instant. "Duke had to borrow heavily to build Tunneltown. He left me broke and in debt. The town brings in quite a little money now—though maybe not as much as most people think. But when I've made a monthly payment on the debts, there's very little left. If the town didn't give me my living expenses, I could scarcely get by. Now if the gambling goes, at least two saloons will have to close. If I lose the money from those leases, I'm ruined. There won't even be enough even to make the payments to my creditors."
He made a small gesture of helplessness. "The last thing I want to do is hurtyou. But the gambling...."
"If we could just have a little time, we might find other kinds of business that would lease those buildings."
"It isn't my time to give away," he said. "It's Ben's. And he hasn't got much of it. How much do you need?"
"I've no idea."
"The crooked gamblers have to go right now along with the rest of the riffraff. There can be no delay about that."
She nodded to this. "If I'd had my way, they'd have gone long ago."
"Don't you always have your way, Persia?"
She seemed mildly startled. She gave a little shrug. "How do you tell which are crooked?"
"I can spot them for you."
"Jack, please. Keep out of it entirely. I ... I can't have Vickers' man butting in. You can understand that."
"Yes." It stung him to have her call him somebody else's man, though it wouldn't have bothered him if another person had said it.
She seemed to sense that he was hurt, and she gave him a long, sympathetic, almost maternal look. She didn't speak, and it pleased him to feel a communication between them that needed no words. They would put aside their differences now and speak of other things.
"I'll tell Stella we're ready for dinner," she said.
As she passed his chair, she laid her hand on his shoulder as she had the night before. Now he laid his over it. She stopped beside him, and her eyes were gold-flecked as they caught the lamplight, and she squeezed his fingers and moved away.
Hours later when she had gone to the door with him, he touched her arms and drew her to him. She came against him willingly, her arms slid around him, but she turned her head to avoid his kiss. She buried her face against his shoulder, and he laid his cheek against her hair.
"Persia," he said, "I've known little in life except roughness. You represent something that I didn't know could exist for me."
She pushed firmly away. "I've been a widow less than three months, Jack. I've no right to listen to such talk. Not now."
Her face was faintly flushed, her eyes dancing. Her smile carried a reprimand and a promise that was as old as womankind.
"You leave right now,Mr.Tesno," she said.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" he said.
"Yes!" she whispered. "Yes!"
She closed the door the instant he was over the threshold. He stood there a long moment, sure that she, too, was waiting only inches away. His fingers touched the doorknob, then fell to his side. He drew the restless night air deeply into his lungs and walked into the darkness.
Off to the west, lightning shattered the sky, and the town leaped fleetingly into being. Thunder pulsed distantly, and, swelling, rolled into the gulch.
Tesno circled the buckboard in the wide street and pulled it up parallel to the hitchrail in front of the Pink Lady. Not liking his errand, he swung slowly out of the seat and fussed over the tying of the team.
As always, Tunneltown depressed him. Midnight closing was observed now, but rather loosely. As far as he knew, only one gambler had been invited to leave, and he, Tesno suspected, had been cheating the house. Aside from a sarcastic quip or two about the council's half-hearted progress in doing what it had agreed to do, Ben Vickers had said nothing. But there were signs that his patience was nearing its end.
Tesno vaulted the hitchrail and moved toward the open doorway, the hum and stench of the saloon setting his nerves on edge. A voice called his name, and he found himself gaping at the figure approaching along the boardwalk.
"Howdy," Whisky Willie Silverknife said. He was wearing a black vest with a star pinned on it. He was grinning from ear to ear. The star flashed mirror-bright in the afternoon sun.
"Howdy," Tesno said.
"I got me a d-d-deputy m-marshal job."
"I see. When did you start?"
"L-last night. Not that I arrested anyb-body yet."
"Madrid hire you?"
"Yes. Miss P-Persia had it all fixed." Willie frowned. "I d-don't know how I'm going to get along with Madrid. I mean, he d-don't give me instruction or anything. He says, 'Sit on your d-duff, d-draw your p-pay, k-keep your mouth shut and your nose c-clean.' Mr. Tesno, c-could I have a t-talk with you?"
"About what?"
"I want to l-learn this b-business of b-being a p-p-peace officer."
"I've got a chore to do right now," Tesno said. "How about tomorrow?"
"F-fine. I'm off d-duty in the morning."
Willie's hand slid around to his hip and came up with the flask he carried there. It was filled with a colorless liquid, of which he took a long swig.
"Lemon soda," he said, licking his lips. "Miss Persia says st-stammer or not, a deputy can't go around nipping whisky all day."
He seemed to be completely serious, and Tesno suppressed a laugh. "Does it work as well?"
"Miss Persia says it will. She says the important thing is to w-wet my wh-wh-whistle."
Persia hand-picked this kid for the job, Tesno thought.Why?He said, "See you tomorrow," and pushed on into the saloon. He stood blinking after the bright sunlight of the street, searching the big, dim room till he spotted Vickers' general superintendant, Keef O'Hara, who was seated alone at a back table behind a bottle and glass.
O'Hara was a tall, muscular man with wild gray hair and wild blue eyes. When he was sober, he had an air of competence and of bouyant energy that commanded respect. Now he sat slumped forward on one elbow, slack-faced and limp.
"And what'll the trouble-man be wanting?" he said when Tesno approached. "Surely it'll not be whisky with the dew still on the grass and the sun scarce clear of the ridgetops. Only the Irish drink at this hour."
"It's three in the afternoon, Keef," Tesno said. He pulled out a chair and sat down across the table.
O'Hara sighed alcoholically and poured himself a fresh drink. "And ye've come to sober me up for the night shift, eh, laddy-buck? I might've expected it. What Ben Vickers can't do himself, he sets his man to."
"Ben didn't send me, Keef. Far as he knows, you're asleep in your cabin." Tesno extended a hand to restrain O'Hara from lifting his glass. "Time to break it off now, get some coffee."
"I can stand another nip or two, lad." O'Hara slyly transferred his drink to his other hand and sloughed it down. "Don't ye know I've been working all night?"
"I know. You and a bottle. You're due back on the job in three hours, and you've had no sleep."
O'Hara stared belligerently and reached for the bottle. Tesno beat him to it and kept it out of his reach. The superintendant seemed about to leap for Tesno's throat, then he was suddenly meek.
"Keef O'Hara a slave to the demon rum! 'Tis a sad end for a man."
"Keef, you've bossed tricky construction jobs all over the world. If your skill was ever needed, it's here and now. You know what Ben's up against. Now let's get out of here and sober up."
"Lad, why do you think I signed on with Ben Vickers?... For the same reason half the terriers came up here. We're a breed apart, lad—superintendant or shovel bum. We can't live with civilization. We're boozers or fighters or skirt-chasers or wife-beaters or all of those. Try to live in a town and we wind up in jail or sick or dead. So we seek out a camp where there's work and good air and no temptation, where a man can sweat off the blubber and save his pay and be at peace with himself. And what did they do to us here amidst the wildest mountains in the land? They built a town! A fine manner of town with all the temptations...."
Tesno stood up impatiently. "We've finished with the preliminaries, Keef. Now we're going back to camp."
O'Hara got to his feet, drawing himself up straight. His big frame teetered and he almost fell. "I'll fight ye another day, Bucko," he said. "When the spirits are better and I've not been the night on the job."
He allowed himself to be led away.
At the far end of the bar a nattily dressed little man drained his glass of buttermilk and dabbed at his beard with a silk handkerchief. Pinky Bronklin removed the empty glass.
"J. Keef O'Hara," Mr. Jay said, tucking the handkerchief into his breast pocket. "He's still the best engineer in the Northwest. I'll wager he's the only man here who's had experience with compressed air drills."
"Except you, Mr. Jay," Pinky said.
"Except me," Mr. Jay said.
That evening Tesno had dinner with Persia, as he often did now. Sam Lester was there, too, and he spent the whole time with them instead of returning to his office when the meal was finished. He sat, sipped brandy, read a newspaper; once in a while he even entered the conversation. When they had moved into the parlor and were sipping brandy, Persia mentioned that they had put on a new deputy.
"I know," Tesno said. "I'm wondering why you picked Willie."
"The council thought him suitable."
"He said you recommended him."
Persia shrugged. "He's a nice boy. He seems qualified."
"A breed kid who stutters?"
"What do you mean?"
"He's part Indian."
"He's not a reservation Indian. He's a citizen, and—"
"Then you did know," Tesno said.
"He doesn't look Indian," Sam put in. "He'll be all right if he keeps his mouth shut."
"If you know him at all, you know he won't," Tesno said. "And that bottle of lemon pop! Seems to me you went out of your way to pick a man nobody will listen to."
"You wanted a deputy," Sam grumbled. "The town will be better patrolled. Aren't you ever satisfied?"
"Never!" Persia said, laughing. "That's one of the things I like about him." Her eyes sought his, and they were amused and affectionate and possessive. "How about a game of three-handed euchre?" she said.
Tesno was rousted out of bed the next morning by Ben Vickers, who had spent a good part of the night translating his troubles into arithmetic. He was waving a sheaf of papers which recorded exactly how bad things were going in terms of dollars and cents, mean feet, and work days.
Among other things, the figures spelled out what everybody knew already: with every day of hand drilling, the odds against the tunnel being finished on time went up. The huge boiler necessary to the use of compressed air still hadn't arrived at end of track. Even when it did, there would be the slow and tricky problem of dragging it forty miles into the mountains.
"What I want you to do is get down to Ellensburg and get on the telegraph," Ben said. "Find out where that thing is. And on the way, study the road. Figure out where the trouble spots are going to be. Maybe we can save time by doing some grading, building a bridge or two."
Tesno agreed grumpily, wondering why Ben couldn't send somebody else. When Ben had left, he dressed leisurely and went down to the restaurant for a late breakfast. The thought of the long ride and several days away from Tunneltown didn't appeal to him. He lingered for a time over coffee and a cigar, wondering at his own reluctance to get started, thinking that he might stop by and see Persia before he left.
He had returned to his room and was shaving when Whisky Willie came in. Willie turned a chair around backwards and straddled it.
"That Madrid p-p-protects crooks," he asserted.
Tesno beat up a lather in his shaving cup. "For instance?"
"There was this feller b-bucking the t-tiger in the P-Pink Lady. He called me over real polite and orderly and said the dealer was double-dealing and that he could prove it by the case board. Before you could say J-J-Jack R-R-Robinson, Pinky had him by one arm and a barkeep had him by the other and he was out in the s-street. Nobody paid any at-t-tention to me. I told Madrid about it. He cussed me and said we leave the dealers alone."
"Which table was this?"
"S-second from the d-door. The d-dealer's name's Cardona."
Tesno stropped his razor vigorously. "A mechanic. He uses an odd-even setup."
"A what?"
"I'll demonstrate," Tesno said. He waved the razor toward the saddlebags that hung over the foot of his bed. "There's a pack of cards in there. Get it and separate the odd cards from the even. This afternoon we'll call on Mr. Cardona."
"What we g-g-going to do?"
"Not we,you. I'll show you the trick. Then you'll expose Cardona and run him out of town. In order to pull it off you're going to have to be well rehearsed. Got anything to do for an hour?"
"Not till three this afternoon. I'm on d-duty from then till eight in the morning."
By the time Tesno finished shaving, Willie had the cards separated. Tesno squared up the two packets and pressed their ends together, interlacing the cards evenly.
"You shuffle like a dealer," Willie said.
"Not quite so well. A good mechanic can get a perfect dovetail. That means the odd and even cards will alternate all the way through the deck...."
As it turned out, the marshal was among the players at Cardona's table when Tesno entered the saloon. Pinky Bronklin gave Tesno an evil look and sent the other barkeep to wait on him. Tesno ordered a cigar and stood smoking it with his back to the bar, watching the game.
Madrid was standing behind the seated players. He was wearing the pink shirt and a black bow tie. After a few turns, he won a bet on the queen and placed another on the four. When this also came up a winner, he played the ten.
He was playing only even cards, and Cardona was letting him win. It seemed plain that he was onto the grift and was collecting a payoff.This is going to be interesting, Tesno thought grimly.
The marshal collected another bet, cashed his checks, and dropped his winnings into his pocket. He saw Tesno, nodded, and after an instant of hesitation came over and joined him.
"Quitting while you're ahead?" Tesno said.
"A man can beat the game sometimes if he isn't greedy," Madrid said. He signaled the barkeep. "How about the house buying a couple, cowboy?"
"Not for me," Tesno said.
The barkeep slid Madrid a bottle and glass, saying nothing. The marshal muttered an obscenity about the man's surliness and poured himself a drink.
Whisky Willie came in then. He walked straight to Cardona's table and drew himself up importantly.
"Th-th-this is a c-crooked g-g-gug-game," he announced. He had a terrible time getting the words out, and Tesno winced for him. The players looked amused and then startled. Cardona, a little bald man with a handlebar mustache, stood up. Willie went on doggedly, "I'm c-c-closing it d-down. P-pick up your b-b-buhuh-bets."
"What the devil does he think he's doing?" Madrid said.
He slammed his glass on the bar and started for the table. Tesno restrained him firmly with a hand on his shoulder. "Let's see what's on the kid's mind," he said.
Cardona was speaking to Willie, his tone jocular. "You better take a swig of that word medicine you carry and calm down."
Willie slapped the layout with his palm. "R-right n-now! This g-game is closed, Cardona. And you'll be out of town in t-twenty-four hours or you'll be in j-jail. P-pick up your b-b-bets, men."
"Hold it!" Madrid said, striding forward now. "This is an honest game, kid. I told you that the other night. Now for—"
"The g-game is crooked!" Willie said. "I can prove it."
Cardona moved toward the card box, but Willie beat him to it and slapped his hand over it. Madrid caught Willie's arm and tried to pull him away, but Willie shook him off. Customers from other parts of the saloon moved in to see the show. Madrid swore violently.
"Get out of here, kid! Clean out of the place," he said.
He stood with his jaw thrust forward, his pink-striped elbow bent as his hand gripped the handle of his pistol. Tesno was suddenly close behind him with one hand on Madrid's shoulder and the other on the wrist of his gun hand.
"Let the kid make his play," Tesno said. His grip tightened as the marshal started to pull away. "Go ahead, Willie."
"The cards in this deck alt-t-ter-n-nate odd and even," Willie announced. He slid the top card out of the box and turned it face up. It was an eight.
"The n-next will be odd." Willie turned a three. "The n-next, even ... the next, odd." He turned a four and a jack. He went on, calling another half dozen cards correctly.
The spectators stared in fascination, muttering ugly, barely audible phrases. Tesno released Madrid. The marshal had no choice now but to watch quietly as if he were as surprised as everyone else.
"This is a frame up!" Cardona asserted. "Somebody planted that deck!"
"You put it in the box your own self," a spectator snarled.
"You can s-see how it works," Willie continued. "If most of the money happens to be on odd cards, the even ones c-come up winners. The dealer can ch-change this any time he wants by d-double-d-dealing."
Willie brought a card out of the box and showed that it was a king. Squeezing it between his thumb and finger, he slid a deuce out from behind it. He dropped the cards on the table.
"Twenty-four hours," he said to Cardona.
"Marshal," Cardona said, appealing to Madrid, "I swear this is a trick. You know I've always run an honest game. You—"
"You do like he says," Madrid said. "Get out of town."
One of the players suddenly dived over the table and crashed into Cardona, falling to the floor with him. Madrid drew his gun and ran around the table. Another player grabbed the cash box, dumped its contents on the table and tried to preside over a fair distribution of the money to Cardona's victims; but it was scramble and grab. The money was gone by the time Pinky Bronklin got there, striking out in all directions with a beer bottle.
Tesno pulled Willie out of the melee as the table collapsed, Pinky Bronklin being among those who went down with it. Madrid had gotten Cardona to one side and was standing in front of him, gun in hand. He fired into the ceiling.
"Break it up!" he kept bellowing. "Break it up!"
Men began to hurry out of the saloon now, some with their hands full of money. Several stopped to slap Willie on the back on the way.
"I'm for firin' the marshal and givin' you the job!" one said.
The last man on his feet was Pinky Bronklin. His nose was bleeding, and he clutched his apron to it. He started for a small stairway at the back of the saloon, then he saw Tesno and came close.
"You set this up," he said, lowering the apron from his blood-smeared face. "I know you. I know you, Tesno."
Tesno threw back his head and laughed. He clapped Pinky on the shoulder and spun him toward the stairway. "I'll make an honest man of you yet, Pinky," he said.
Cardona followed Pinky up the stairs. Madrid holstered his gun and came over. He was grinning, but his black eyes held Tesno's coldly. "I'll take it from here. My job."
Tesno matched the marshal's grin. He touched Willie's arm and they walked out of the saloon. Willie reached for the lemon soda.
"Whew! You th-think he'll f-fire me?"
"No chance of it," Tesno said. "Everybody in town would know the reason. He's got to pretend he thinks you did a good job."
Willie laughed aloud. "I g-guess you're right."
"Right now this is more your town than his. But make one mistake and the same men who slapped your back in there will talk against you. And Madrid will land on you with both feet."
"I don't see why Miss P-Persia p-puts up with him," Willie said. "I got no respect for the man."
"You'd better have. He has to play the politician now, but he belongs to a special race that lives in a different world from other men. You stay in this business, you'll learn to recognize them quick enough. They are not only capable of killing, they not only enjoy it, theythinkin terms of it."
Willie took a moment to digest that. "I g-guess I see what you mean. He's c-c-cougar-fast with that gun. And his first in-st-stinct is to reach for it."
They had reached the hotel. Tesno clapped Willie on the shoulder and halted in front of the doorway.
"I'm going to be in Ellensburg for a few days, Willie. You walk easy, and stay alive. And stick to the lemon pop."
"I'm s-sick of the s-stuff."
"There's a favor you can do for me," Tesno said. "You know Ben's superintendant, Keef O'Hara? He gets on the booze, and I've been nursemaiding him. I'd like you to take over."
Five nights later, Tesno returned, riding into the town shortly before midnight. He dismounted wearily across the dark street from the Pink Lady and entered the Big Barrel, needing a drink before going on to the camp and getting Ben out of bed.
The saloon was smaller than the Pink Lady and crowded. He found a place at the end of the bar, ordered cigars and whisky, and was immediately joined by Willie, who had been in the street and had seen him arrive. Tesno poured a drink, sniffed it, tasted it.
"You're still wearing the badge," he said.
"I just delivered Mr. O'Hara back to the j-job," Willie said. "He's s-sure kept me busy."
"He left the job?"
"He d-does it every night. Sneaks into town to wet his wh-whistle, he says. The first night you were away, he g-got soaked g-good. I had to t-take him b-back in a wagon. Since then I b-been w-watching for him and c-catching him before he's had more'n a couple of b-belts. I've t-told every barkeep in town not to s-serve him, but most of 'em do when I'm not around."
"Hell of a thing," Tesno said. He bit off the end of a cigar and held a match to it. He wondered if Ben knew about Keef's boozing. "How you getting along with Madrid?" he asked Willie.
"J-just the s-same. He c-closed two more games."
"Madrid did?"
Willie nodded.
"He's smarter than I took him for," Tesno muttered. "He's not going to let you be the big duck in the puddle."
"I th-think Miss Persia t-told him to close those games," Willie said thoughtfully. "Or S-Sam Lester. Madrid d-don't t-take a deep breath unless somebody tells him. Anyhow, he and Pinky had a m-meeting with Miss Persia and Lester the d-day after you left. Stella t-told me."
"Who really calls the tune, Willie? Sam or Persia? What does Stella say about it?"
Willie frowned painfully. "It s-seems like there's s-somebody else. S-somebody who t-tells them all what to d-do."
"Stella said that?"
"She says there's s-somebody mysterious whose name is never mentioned when she's around. They c-call him 'Mr. You-know' or s-something like that. Sam Lester c-contacts him, Stella thinks."
Tesno found Ben sitting behind his desk in his nightshirt, sleepily staring at a paper covered with figures. When he saw Tesno, he snatched off his glasses and tipped back in his chair.
"You sure took your time. Is the news good or bad?"
"Bad." Tesno sank into a chair. "I telegraphed the boiler factory in Connecticut as soon as I got to Ellensburg. Your damned boiler still wasn't shipped yet."
Ben looked as if he had been struck. He got slowly to his feet. "Hadn't been shipped!"
"I was on the telegraph for three days getting it straightened out. It seems they had a wire a couple of weeks ago, signed with your name. It requested that they hold up shipment till they got further word from you."
Ben leaned heavily on the table. For a moment Tesno was afraid he was going to collapse. Then he thumped his fist on the table, began to swear, and they both felt better.
"Somebody deliberately tried to delay you, Ben. Who would it be?"
"How would I know?"
"Jay?"
"I don't know. I've heard he's shifty—but a stunt like that! If I could pin it on him, I could get him blacklisted by every railroad in the West."
"The message was sent from North Yakima, so I rode down there. The operator had the original copy. It was printed in block letters on plain paper. As he remembers, the man who brought it in was dressed like a rancher or a cow hand."
Ben sank into a chair. He wagged his head sadly. "Is that boiler on the way now?"
"It is."
"It'll be at least two weeks before it gets across the country," Ben said. "Then we've got to drag it up here from the end of track."
Tesno extracted a thick fold of paper from his shirt pocket and began to open it up. "Made a map of the supply road with the bad spots marked. There are a dozen places where we'll have to use block and tackle, Ben."
"I suppose we'll do well to make five miles a day," Ben said wearily. "Even with twenty-horse teams.... This is going to be your kettle of stew, Jack, from the time that boiler hits end of track till it's unloaded at the portal."
Tesno walked back to the town through the heavy darkness of the forest road. Reaching the street and turning up the walk toward the hotel, he had a glimpse of the townhouse a hundred yards away. Forgetting that he was dirty and unshaven, he swung instinctively toward the soft invitation of its lighted windows.
Sam Lester answered his knock and grumbled for him to come in. Persia sprang up from the sofa to meet him, taking both his hands. They both sat down. She looked him over possessively.
"Jack, it seems like ages. Was it a rough trip?"
"Lots of riding, not much sleeping."
Sam asserted petulantly that he was going to bed. He slammed the door behind him as he stalked off to the other part of the house.
"I interrupt something?" Tesno asked.
"The usual evening overture," Persia said tiredly. "He thinks he's in love with me. Friendship isn't possible. Why can't we be like—well, you and me, for instance?"
"And how is that?"
They had never sat so close before. He touched her hand. She squeezed his fingers and smiled. Then she withdrew her hand.
"I want to talk, Jack. Everything is going so badly. Income has fallen off and my debts are just overwhelming. It seems that by trying to clean up the gambling games we've given the impression that they are all crooked. Play has fallen off terribly and...." She broke off and smiled suddenly. "I keep forgetting that you're really the one responsible for my troubles. I promise I shan't say another whining word."
"Say all you like."
"Oh, Jack, it's such a ridiculous thing to be a woman!"
He took her hand again and reached across her and embraced her shoulder. Their eyes met and she came against him and her lips were warm and fervent. Far away in the other part of the building, a door slammed and they were alone in the night and in the world.
Willie Silverknife sat in Tesno's room with eight slips of paper fanned out in his hands. Tesno lounged on the bed with his hands behind his head. Willie was doing the talking.
"This d-dealer don't fool around with anything so easy as that odd-even arrangement. He can bring up any one he wants by shuffling the way you showed me. I watched him for d-days and wrote down the cards as they come up. I d-did it with a stub of pencil inside my c-coat p-pocket. I g-got all eight arrangements here."
"And you figure to bust him."
"I'll p-prove the g-game is crooked by dealing out the deck and calling every card—exact, not just odd or even. I figure to d-do it when the place is crowded."
Willie tapped the papers into an even packet and buttoned them into a shirt pocket. Tesno regarded the ceiling in silence.
"I wanted to ch-check with you," Willie said. "I want to be s-sure there's nothing wrong with the way I got this s-studied out."
"It's a fine piece of studying. But hold off, Willie."
"Wh-why? If I show up another c-crooked g-game in the Pink Lady, it ought to just about f-finish the p-place."
"Hold off," Tesno said irritably. "The town is running pretty tame—compared to what it was."
"T-tame? You sh-should s-see what I s-see. Last night—"
"All right! But don't put on a show this time." Tesno swung his feet off the bed and sat up. "Go to Pinky quietly and tell him to get shed of that dealer. He probably doesn't know he's got a card mechanic there."
"You know b-better than that!" Willie stood up and gripped the back of his chair. "That Pinky never does anything honest if he can do it crooked. That place is rotten as hell's swill b-bucket, and I should th-think you'd be glad to s-see it go b-bust!"
Tesno got slowly to his feet and stretched. "I have no love for Pinky. But he owns only a small chunk of that place."
Tesno threw an arm around Willie's shoulders and led him to the door. "For the time being, Willie, keep your eyes open and don't stir up trouble."
Willie turned in the doorway with hurt written on his face.
"I'll be d-damned if you don't sound exactly like M-Madrid!"
Tesno laughed and closed the door. Turning to the washstand, he soberly regarded himself in the small square mirror above it.
Nobody ever knew exactly what happened that night or exactly who was to blame. But it seemed clear that dynamiter Heinie Hinkleman got his fuses fouled up and also that the foreman of the shoring crew was lax about getting his men to safety. The heading crew got clear in plenty of time and warned the bench gang on the way out; but when Heinie came jogging along in his leisurely flat-footed way, half a dozen workers were still putting up shoring. Heinie told them for cripes sake the fuses were lit, and he herded them ahead of him toward the portal.
The fuses were cut for six minutes, he said, which would have been more than enough time to get the hell out of there. But Heinie had miscalculated for the first and last time in his career, and the blast caught them before they had gone a dozen yards. Rock hurtled out of the heading like shot from a gigantic gun barrel. An egg-sized splinter caught Heinie in the back of the skull and buried itself in his brain. Two of the others were dead when the dust cleared enough for rescuers to get to them. The other four were carried out stunned and just a whisper away from suffocation.
Dawn was flaring over the hills to the east when Ben Vickers reached the scene, wild-eyed and half dressed. Keef O'Hara, who said he had been over the mountain at the other portal, arrived a few minutes later. Together, they questioned the heading crew, who were scared and mad and eager to blame somebody. Heinie, one of them volunteered, had lost two months' pay at faro that afternoon, which might account for his mind not being on his work, even if he hadn't taken a few nips to console himself.
This, along with the fact that O'Hara's breath would back off a polecat, was enough for Ben. When he had seen the injured men to the camp hospital and got the doctor's report, he summoned Tesno to his cabin and read the riot act.
Except for some rump-blistering profanity, which got monotonous, Ben spoke in a flat, controlled manner—which was a bad sign. Tesno sat with his chair tipped back and listened.
Briefly, Ben said that he had jumping-well expected Tesno to establish authority in Tunneltown and kick it into line, and Tesno had jumping-well expected to do that, too, judging by the way he had started out. But he had changed his mind and had left the clean-up to the town itself, which was nothing but a jumping booze camp, and what booze camp ever cleaned itself up? Nevertheless, Ben had kept hoping for the best until this morning. With three men dead and another probably dying, his patience had run out, and there jumping-well was going to be a change....
"Now hold on," Tesno said, when Ben showed signs of running out of wind. "You said you'd settle for regulation, and you're getting it. It's come slowly, but—"
"Don't recite your list of half-butt improvements to me," Ben said. "I know it by heart—right down to that stuttering clown of a half-breed deputy, who has done his job a jumping lot better than you have, at that!" Ben poked the tabletop with a forefinger. "And as for what I said I'd settle for, I told you clearly that the gambling had to go—all of it."
"Damn it, Ben, you blame the town too much. If that dynamiter hadn't lost his stake at faro, he probably would have dropped it to some bunkhouse sharp at poker."
"I'm not going to argue about it," Ben said icily. "I want the gambling stopped. Altogether."
"That will close at least a couple of the saloons."
"That would break my heart," Ben said. "Now do I get it or not?"
Tesno stood up and sauntered toward the door. Anger, guilt, a sense of injustice, rose in him and laid harsh words on his tongue, but he did not speak them. He needed time to calm down, to think things out.
"You'll get it," he said through clenched teeth, "or you'll get my resignation."
He put his back to Ben and trudged out of the cabin and through the camp toward the town road. Dave Coons stepped out of one of the bunkhouses and fell in beside him.
"Johnny Favery just died," Coons said.
Tesno closed his eyes briefly. "That's four," he said.
"He was just a kid," Coons said. "Just here a few months from the old country. He had nineteen cents in his pocket."
"Hell of a thing," Tesno said.
"Can you tell me where the blame lies?" Coons said. "The men have a right to know. So it won't happen again."
"Ask Ben."
"Thought I might get a straight story from you. O'Hara wasn't at the west portal as he claimed, I know that. He was at the cookhouse trying to sober up on coffee."
"No reason why he should be on hand for every blast," Tesno grumbled.
"Vickers is, during the day shifts. If O'Hara had been there, he probably would have seen that Hinkleman had the fuses wrong. Even if he hadn't, he'd have got that shoring gang out of there earlier."
"All right," Tesno said. "Blame O'Hara."
"I do blame the town. If it weren't so handy and so wild, O'Hara wouldn't have been drunk and Hinkleman broke and upset."
Tesno made no reply. They had walked a little way along the forested road, chilly and damply fragrant at this hour. "When are you going to do something about the town, Jack?" Coons said, and abruptly turned and headed back toward the camp.
Tesno lingered over eggs and coffee at a restaurant counter, then he went to his room and stretched out on the bed. He wanted to be alone an hour or so; after that, he wanted to see Persia. Her company would dull the shock and ugliness of the accident, he told himself, and he would be able to think clearly.
Persia sat primly at the secretary which stood in a corner of her parlor. She frowned, checked her addition. It was nice to have bank accounts in three different towns, but she wished that just once they would total as much as she had expected. The town was busier than it had ever been and on paper she was making a good deal of money; but it was all going to pay off Mr. Jay.
She shifted her chair to face Sam as he came into the room. He regarded her as placidly as ever through his lenses, but she knew him so well that she could sense a mild urgency about him.
"Mr. Jay is in my office," he said shortly.
"Oh?" Mr. Jay never visited the townhouse unless his business was very urgent indeed. "Sam, is anything wrong?"
Sam moved his head negatively. "He has some instructions he wants to give you personally. It's a simple matter, but he wants it done just right."
They went at once to the office. Mr. Jay sprang up to take Persia's hand in both of his. "Charming! More charming than ever!" he said, throwing his head back to look her over. His alert little eyes danced and his beard framed a smile as he devoted a second or two to looking charmed. He led her to a chair as Sam slid into another. Mr. Jay stood between them, hands clasped behind his back. He glanced from one to the other and drew in his breath noisily.
"There are two men upstairs in Sam's rooms that I don't want seen around town. They have been riding all night and are hungry. Now—" Mr. Jay paused to smile crisply at Persia—"I want you to feed them. Have your maid throw together a meal; soup, ham and eggs, left-overs—anything that can be prepared quickly. You might say that Sam has some old friends visiting him, something like that. Then you or Sam take the food up to them—not the maid. In the meantime, Pinky Bronklin will bring a bag of supplies here. These two men will take it and leave. Their horses are tied out back."
Persia smiled faintly. "Aren't you going to tell me what nefarious connivance I'm a party to?"
"Oh, it's underhanded," Mr. Jay said, "completely underhanded. If I were suspected of being connected with it, my career would be finished. But you'll guess it anyway, in the light of future developments; so you might as well know now. Ben Vickers' big boiler reached Ellensburg yesterday. He had a crew and a huge wagon waiting for it, so I expect that by this time it's on the road. I—well, there's going to be an accident."
"I wish now I hadn't asked," Persia said. "No one will be hurt, I hope."
"I certainly hope not."
"I don't like this, Mr. Jay."
"Of course not. I don't like it either."
"Does Vickers know the boiler's arrived?" Sam asked.
"Not yet, I think," Mr. Jay said. "My information is that his messenger was delayed. I dare say that he will get word, though, before the day is out. And I dare say he will send Mr. Tesno down there at once."
Finding no comfort in the solitude of his room, Tesno left the hotel and strolled aimlessly up the street. His big Raymond watch showed only a little after eleven. He would wait till noon, he decided, before dropping in on Persia.
He stopped at the new tobacco store and bought a handful of cigars. Lighting one, he sauntered past the livery barn and up the slope behind it. Most of the timber had been logged off here, and brush and ferns were already claiming the ground. Finding a degree of solace in the faint warmth of the sun, he pulled himself up on a stump and found he had a view that drew him out of himself.
It was a cloudless day, and the range jutted its ragged vertebrae into a sky as blue as a mountain lake. Below him, the town seemed a naked, ugly fungus sprung newly from the earth. The camp, almost hidden by pines, was less intrusive. Beyond the gulch, above it, the crisp black arch of the tunnel scarred Runaway Mountain.
Here it all is, he thought,spread out in front of me. I've either got to become a part of it or get the hell out.He tried to plan what he would say to Persia. He would tell her flatly that the time had come for the gamblers to go, he guessed. He would ask her to have Madrid clear them out, all of them. If she stalled or refused—well, he would do it himself. Or resign.
The townhouse lay off to his left, and he found himself staring at it, thinking that she was in there somewhere, wondering what she did with her mornings. He watched two men come out of the back of the far part of the building, each carrying a small bundle. At this distance he could tell little about them except that they must have come up from the cattle country east of the mountains. One wore woolly chaps. Both wore Stetsons and walked with the peculiar swagger of men in high-heeled boots. They disappeared behind one of the outbuildings, and when they came into sight again, they were mounted on horses. He watched them ride eastward out of the gulch. He supposed they had come to sell beef or hay, or on some such business, and he quickly forgot them.
When his watch read almost noon, he started downhill, avoiding the street and heading for the townhouse. Persia answered his knock, smiling when she saw him. It wasn't the polite and pretty company smile now but a special one, personal and tender, an eager doorway closed quickly behind him as she came into his arms.
"I'm glad you came," she said. She drew him into the parlor.
"It's been a bad morning."
"I heard about the accident," she said. She detached herself from him and sat down on the sofa, crossing her long legs and smoothing her skirt over them. "Is there anything anyone can do?"
"Not for the dead men."
Her eyes touched him warily. She said, "For you then? You ought to get your mind off it."
"No," he said. "I ought to think about it. I ought to think a great deal about it."
She nodded slowly, frowning. He seized the back of a chair and leaned over it moodily. After a moment, she said, "I've been wishing all morning you'd drop by. Jack, it's such a beautiful day. Could we—I suppose it isn't a good idea, but couldn't we pack a lunch and have a picnic? I know a spot where there's a creek and a little waterfall. We'd be a million miles away from everything."
"It sounds fine," he said.
"We'll have to sort of sneak away," she said. "I wouldn't want Sam to know. He'd want to come, too, I'm afraid."
It was after sunset when they came back into the gulch along a forgotten skid road. They reached the kitchen door of the townhouse at a remarkable moment when the entire sky was aglow, burning scarlet beyond the bleak western peaks and cooling down to a grayish pink in the east as night seeped into it. The buildings of the town, the trees, the earth itself were suspended in a pinkish haze. Persia caught Tesno's hand and halted him.
"It's almost frightening!" she said. "It gives you the feeling something strange is about to happen."
He knew what she meant, but he grinned and said artlessly, "It will be a clear day tomorrow."
Stella was at the back door then, saying dinner was ready and going stale. Sam Lester met them in the kitchen. He gave Persia a questioning look and turned to Tesno.
"Vickers is in there," Sam said, jerking his head toward the parlor. "He's been combing the town for you. He finally learned from Stella that you'd gone off somewhere with a basket of food—she didn't know where. He's been camped in there ever since."
Tesno found Ben dozing in a chair. He leaped to his feet wild-eyed when he heard his name.
"The boiler's on it's way up here!" Ben said. "It will move fast enough until the road hits the mountains, and I expect it's damn near to Cle Elum by now. If you ride all night, you can be there by dawn. Where in the merry hell have you been?"
"Picnic," Tesno said.
"You could leave word where I could find you."
"I've been trying to think things out, Ben. I've decided to quit."
Ben clapped a hand to his forehead. "Not now! Not with that boiler down there!"
"You could send somebody else."
"This job might need special talent, Jack. It just might be a dirty one." Ben fell silent as Persia and Sam came into the room. He nodded curtly at Persia. Suddenly he gestured violently and continued. "The thing arrived yesterday. I had a crew standing by to unload it and start it up here. A man left at once to bring me the news—should have been here before daylight this morning. But he was overtaken by a pair of toughs who beat him up, tied him to a tree, shot his horse. He worked loose and walked eight miles in the middle of the night to a ragcamp, where he borrowed another horse. He didn't get here till well after noon."
"You think they did this just to delay the news?"
"Seems like it. And when you remember that phoney telegram—well, that boiler needs you down there alongside of it, night and day, a gun in your hands."
"All right," Tesno said. "I'll chaperone the boiler for you. After that...."
"We'll see, we'll see," Ben said quickly. "Once I get that thing up here and the compressors working, life ought to be a little easier for everybody. I've got your blue roan saddled and waiting outside. You can start right now."
"Not till he's had something to eat!" Persia said. She stepped up and grasped Tesno's arm possessively.
Ben grunted. "Just so he's at Cle Elum by daylight." He located his hat, clamped it on his head, and headed for the door. Sam Lester went with him.
"Actually," Persia said, "I think that man is mad. Sit down and have a drink, Jack. I'll have Stella get dinner on the table. Sam has already eaten."
"I'll have to hurry," Tesno said. "Maybe...."
"Nonsense. Sam has work to do, and I refuse to be left alone. Not tonight, Jack."
The first dozen miles lay in relatively flat sagebrush country. The twelve-man, thirty-horse boiler-hauling outfit covered them the first day, reaching the first real grade at dusk and halting there to spend the night and give the boss time to figure out what he was going to do in the morning.
He was a glary-eyed man named Rejack, who treated his horses with a kindness rare among teamsters and was consequently considered a simpleton by his crew. His problem was to get his huge wagon over a bridge almost exactly as wide as its wheel spread and then up a road with hairpins in it so sharp and steep that the top-heavy load was almost sure to overturn. He finally decided that it couldn't be done. The only chance was to ford the creek and pull the wagon straight up the hillside with block and tackle.
Shortly after sun-up, the crew dragged it across the creek without too much trouble. Rejack then anchored his pulley block on a big cedar, put six men on the wagon tongue to steer, and had ten span of horses hitched to pull down-grade as the wagon moved up. He inspected the teams, the rope, the lashings on the boiler and finally gave the order to start. The wagon moved along nicely for the first hundred feet. Then a man walked out of a clump of trees with a shotgun, aimed at the rope from four feet away, and fired both barrels.
The wagon reversed its direction so suddenly that the man walking near the rear of it with a wheel block had time only to toss it and jump. The wheel missed it. The wagon hurtled down the hillside, skidded sideways, made one complete roll, stopped abruptly in the creek, and collapsed under its load like a berry box.
In the confusion, the man with the shotgun had disappeared into the pines. Some of the crew considered going after him but were promptly discouraged when a rifle cut loose from somewhere above, its bullets ricocheting through the brush between them and the trees. It was plain to everybody that the saboteur had a partner up there covering him.
Rejack took off his hat, scratched his head, and reacted to catastrophe with casual acceptance that the crew later recounted with hilarity.
"If that isn't one hell of a way to cut a rope!" he grumbled. "Did any of the buckshot hit the horses?"
The rifleman fired three rapid shots, obviously not trying to hit anybody, and called it a day. Rejack jounced down the slope to inspect the damage, followed by most of the crew. As far as anybody could tell, the boiler, for a wonder, wasn't even scratched. The wagon was beyond repair. Rejack sat down on the creek bank to figure out what to do next.
It was midmorning and Tesno was five miles above Cle Elum when he met the rider on his way to report the disaster to Vickers. Tesno would have passed with a nod and greeting, but the other recognized him and stopped to pour out the story.
"The boiler isn't damaged?" Tesno demanded.
"Sound as a dollar," the hard-faced little teamster said. "The boss started back to Ellensburg to try and scare up another wagon big enough to haul the damn thing. In the meantime it's setting in a crick about a mile and a half below Cle Elum."
"Somebody's guarding it?"
"Well, yes. The boss ordered a four-man guard on it, but there didn't seem much sense in that since there was only one gun in the whole outfit. So one man's there now. The rest went on up to Cle Elum."
"All right," Tesno said. "Now the first thing you tell Ben is that the boiler is in good shape. That might save him from apoplexy. Then tell him I said not to worry. I'll get the thing up to him."
Guilt welled up in him as he jogged on down the road. If he had left Tunneltown when Ben wanted him to—or even immediately after dinner—he would have been on the scene when calamity struck. With a little luck, he might have prevented it. At least, he would have bagged the hooligan who severed the rope.
Cle Elum consisted of a sawmill, a pond full of logs, and one of the temporary camps Ben Vickers had set up here and there along his supply line. Tesno passed without stopping and rode on to the scene of the wreck. Here he found the guard sitting against a tree sound asleep—a sixteen-year-old kid armed with an ancient revolver with two shells in it. He jerked the boy to his feet and shoved him toward the boiler.
"You keep your eye on that thing every minute," he snapped.
After questioning the kid about what had happened, he made a quick scout through the pines and found where the vandal had tied his horse. Following the hoofprints upgrade, he soon came to a place where they were joined by another set. The two riders had headed straight into the timbered hills without so much as a deer trail to guide them. Apparently, they were men who knew the country well.
He rode back to Cle Elum then, where he found the boiler crew lounging around the mess tent, sipping coffee and playing poker.
"Holiday's over," he announced. "We'll go down there and get the boiler ready to load when the wagon arrives. We'll need about twenty horses to drag it out of the creek."
"Morning will be time enough," a bull-necked, bullet-headed freighter growled, clutching his poker hand close to his stomach. "You were sent down here to guard that damn teakettle, not to give orders. Rejack left me in charge, and I say you can go hang yourself. Where in the black damnation were you when those rascals surprised us, anyhow?"
Tesno remarked that he was in no mood to quibble. Placing the sole of his boot against the edge of the table, he kicked it into the man's stomach, got an armlock on him, and pitched him out of the tent on his face. The crew laughed uneasily and drifted off toward the corral to get harness on the horses.
After several hours of preparatory work, they maneuvered the boiler out of the creek on logs that had been peeled and greased. When they had skidded it onto two logs set along the bank like rails, they dug a cut under one end of these for the wagon to back into when it arrived. It was dark when they finished.
In the meantime, Tesno borrowed a Winchester from the camp 'general' at Cle Elum and another from the mill owner. He also found a Klickitat mill hand who knew the country and whom he set off on horseback to trail the saboteurs.
When the digging was finished and the boiler ready to load, Tesno announced that they would camp on the spot. He divided the men into pairs and assigned them to watches.
"Just don't get jumpy and shoot each other," he said, handing the rifles to the men on the first watch. "If you see or hear anything unusual, let me know. I'll be within calling distance all night."
Supper consisted of stew made of bacon, jerky, onions, and potatoes, chased by black coffee. When he had wolfed his down, he settled himself at one end of the boiler with a blanket over his shoulder and his own rifle beside him. From time to time, he rose to check on the guards, but mostly he sat and smoked, dozing very little.
He was restless and uncomfortable, his supper heavy in his stomach, and his thoughts were like a windblown deck of cards he tried to sort out and put in order. He looked back at his life, at the callousness of it, the probing out of human weakness that could be turned to his advantage, the careful building of a reputation among the contractors. What had he been seeking all these years? Money? A stake that would buy and stock a ranch? Of course. But there had been more to it than that. There had been the satisfaction of seeing steel push into the wilderness. Even if he sometimes had doubts about the true importance of the railroad, it had been something a man could give his life to. It was the giving that had been important.
And now it was not important. Not since that long-ago night in May when he had interrupted Persia Parker's dinner. Gray-green eyes, a soft voice, an eager smile, a lithe body—these were Persia. But what else was she? And in this black and lonely time with his back against the cold bulge of a boiler that was a key piece in a wild game of steel and gold, he dared to doubt the thing he wanted most. To doubt in order to prove. He had to know.
There had been a nervousness in her last night, he thought. She had smiled even more often than usual, had touched him at every opportunity, as she had stubbornly insisted that he stay with her. She had known about the boiler, of course; she had been there when Ben told him of its arrival. But could she have known earlier—before the picnic?No, he told himself,it wasn't like that. It couldn't have been....
A voice rang out in the blackness, a challenge, and another answered bluntly. Tesno was on his feet, working the lever of his rifle. Two figures up in the liquid forest night—one of the guards with his gun on the Klickitat mill hand.
"It's all right," Tesno said to the guard. "Go back to your post."
The Indian, who answered to the name of Muckamuck Charlie, gave his report in a mixture of reservation English and Chinook jargon.
"Them son-of-a-guncooleyover mountain. Split up. One come back tohooihut.Nika till.You got whisky?"
"One of them circled back to the road?" Tesno said, trying to get it straight.
"Damn right. Maybe go by here, take look.Halo nikamoney. You pay now?"
"Where did the other one go?"
"Halo chako.Him wait. By and by come together. Go totenashouseipsootin woods." Charlie made a gesture toward the southwest. "Four-five mile."
As near as Tesno could make it out, one of the men—no doubt the one who had shown himself—had waited while the other rode up the road like any honest traveler, passing the boiler to see how much damage had been done. This could have happened soon after the smash-up, likely as not while that sleepy kid was on guard. Then the pair had joined up again and ridden to a cabin hidden in the woods four or five miles away.
"They're at the cabin,tenas house, now?"
"I listen," Charlie said. "They make sleep noises. I smell whisky."
"Can you take me there? Right now?"
Charlie grunted. "You pay now. Two dollar. We gotenas house, you pay more."
Tesno drew two silver dollars from his pocket and passed them over. "Two more when you take me to the cabin."
Charlie studied the coins in his palm. "Nika till.I sleep now. Eat. Drink some whisky. Pretty soon daylight. We go then."
"We go right now," Tesno said.
As it turned out, they were delayed by the arrival of Rejack, who came rumbling up the road with a new freight wagon as Tesno was saddling his horse. He inspected the boiler and then backed the wagon into the cut by lantern light before he unhitched the team.
"We'll be loaded and moving by sun-up," he said, looking pleased.
"No," Tesno said. "Load, but don't start the boiler up that grade till I get back. Those rascals know it wasn't damaged, and if I should happen to miss them, they might try the same stunt all over again."