Dawn crept into the world drearily and then lavishly as they made a slow and sinuous ride through tangled gulches and trailless forest, up horse-crippling grades and down shale-slippery slopes. After a good hour of this roundabout traveling, Muckamuck Charlie halted at the foot of a rounded, thickly timbered hill. He sniffed the air and announced that thetenas house, the cabin, was on the far side of this.
"Them son-of-a-gun wake up," he said, sniffing again. "Cook breakfast. When we gonna eat?"
As they wound up through the trees, Tesno, too, could smell smoke. When they were over the crest, had tied the horses and were proceeding on foot, it was visible, lying in motionless layers among the pines.
"Fire out now," Charlie said.
They were within a few yards of the cabin before Tesno saw it through the foliage, a ten-by-twelve log shack set into the hillside. It was weathered and saggy-roofed, built by some trapper or prospector heaven knew how many years ago.
Charlie drew Tesno behind a tree, pointed a finger at the ground as an indication that he was to wait, and angled off on a scout. After a few minutes he walked around the end of the cabin, eating a biscuit with a piece of raw bacon draped over it.
"Them son-of-a-gun wake up early. Go 'way," he said.
The air in the dark interior of the cabin was still warm from a fire in the crumbling clay fireplace. It had been doused with water but was still smoking faintly. The occupants couldn't have left more than a few minutes earlier. Gear and supplies piled along the walls indicated that they expected to be back.
Charlie led the way down the hillside to a little open place where they had picketed their horses. After circling around and studying several old sets of tracks, he announced that he had found the fresh one.
As he and Charlie strode upgrade toward their own horses, Tesno grew increasingly anxious. This pair of hooligans knew that the boiler wasn't damaged. It stood to reason that they would make another try at it. He said as much to Charlie.
"You keep on their trail, Charlie. Try to get a look at 'em. I'll be with the boiler. If they come anywhere near it, you let me know. You got all that?"
"Two dollar," Charlie said.
"Five dollar, Charlie. Five dollar, you stay with 'em till I catch 'em."
Rejack had the tackle rigged, the teams hitched, and was impatient to begin the haul. Tesno had him wait till he had scouted out the pine clusters that dotted the lower part of the hillside, then told him to go ahead. The wagon groaned and inched upward. Two men walked behind it now, swinging a squared timber on ropes between them. They held this close behind the wheels so that they had only to drop it to block them. Rifle in hand, Tesno took a position where he could cover the rope on both sides of the tackle blocks.
Slowly, protestingly, the great wagon and its monstrous load crept up to the anchor tree and was lashed to it. Rejack had already chosen the course for the second leg of the ascent and had had brush and saplings cleared away. This would be a longer haul than the first. There were two or three trees that the men on the tongue would have to guide the wagon around, and the slope was uneven, mottled with rock outcroppings. Moreover, the forest pressed in from both sides before claiming the top of the hill entirely, just beyond the place where the wagon would rejoin the road.
"If they'd waited yesterday and hit us up here, there wouldn't be enough left of the boiler to hold a drink of water," Rejack said.
Tesno scouted the trees as best he could. But this was deep woods. A wary man could easily avoid being seen or heard among the maze of trunks growing out of carpetlike duff.
Again, the long double file of horses pulled slowly down the mountainside and the wagon groaned upward. It had climbed barely twenty yards when Muckamuck Charlie appeared below, working his horse zigzag up the slope. Tesno yelled for the team to halt and the men behind the wagon to block its wheels.
Charlie slid off his winded horse. "Them son-of-a-gun close by," he grunted. "They watch."
"Where?" Tesno demanded.
They moved a few steps into the woods. Charlie pointed to a little butte that rose out of the pines half a mile to the west. Its face was sheer rock cliff, but it could well have a sloping approach on its far side.
"They go up there," Charlie grunted. "Halo chako.Wait. Watch. By and by one go 'way. Come down here someplace. One stay."
Tesno squinted thoughtfully up at the butte. "You get a look at 'em, Charlie?"
"Damn right. Jim Palma.Cultusno good son-of-a-gun."
"You know 'em?"
"Know one," Charley said with stubborn serenity. "Jim Palma. Stomp Umatilla boy down to Selah, one-two year ago. Boy die. Don't know other one."
Rejack came trotting through the trees and demanded to know what was going on. "Maybe we ought to back the thing down, lash it to that cedar," he said when Tesno had explained.
Tesno considered this, then shook his head. "Go ahead with the haul. Let them make their try. Just be sure those boys with the wheel block are on their toes. If—"
A rifle shot rang out from the butte, not much louder than a finger snap, and a ricochet screamed its weird song above them.
"Damn fool," Rejack muttered. "He's giving us a warning. I don't get it."
The rifle cracked again, and now a horse whinnied, plunged in his harness, went down.
"My god," Rejack gasped. "He's shooting at the horses!" He dashed out of the woods, waving his arms and yelling to get the team to cover. As he did so, another shot sounded, and another horse plunged and went down.
Tesno studied the butte, estimating that its top was at least six hundred yards away. Even at that range, it didn't take an expert to hit a twenty-horse team. As he watched, a man stepped into sight at the very brink of the cliff, fired a quick shot which hit nothing, and disappeared into brush and scrub timber.
"Jim Palma," Muckamuck Charlie grunted.
"He didn't have to show himself," Tesno muttered. He began to understand the plan now.
Another shot rang out. A horse screamed and started to buck, a brilliant red streak across his rump. Rejack barked orders and waved his arms as teamsters jumped around frantically, trying to quiet down the horses and unhook the harness of those that were down. The men who had been posted on the wagon tongue to steer now were streaking up the slope to help with the animals.
Jim Palma could sit up there and pot horses till confusion reigned completely, Tesno thought. But of course, the man had an additional purpose. He meant to draw whoever was guarding the boiler up there after him to give his partner a chance to strike. He stepped into the open to fire a quick shot again now. And this time Tesno was ready for him with his rifle rested against the trunk of a tree. He aimed and fired. Palma faded from sight.
"You gottem!" Muckamuck Charlie said.
"I doubt it," Tesno said. "Not at this distance. But he knows we've seen him. Let's go, Charlie."
He hurried down to his horse, mounted, and joined Charlie at the road. They rode down it a few yards and were out of sight of the butte.
"You keep after him," Tesno said, waving Charlie on as he reined off the road. "I'll maybe catch up to you later."
Palma's partner would certainly have been watching, would have seen them leave and would assume they had been decoyed after Palma. He would make his move now—any second, Tesno thought as he worked his horse up through a stand of trees toward the suspended wagon. When he came to more open ground, he dismounted and continued afoot. Within a hundred yards of the wagon he knelt in brush cover.
He waited, wondering why Palma's partner didn't make his play. Then he realized that the man would wait for the horses to be unhitched and moved to cover so the rope would have only the weight of a doubletree at its end. There would be only the wheel block to deal with.
The shooting from the butte came rapidly now, badly aimed. The crew frantically untangled harness and ran the horses into the woods in pairs. Tesno kept his eyes on the wagon. Only the wheel blockers were left with it, and they were standing together watching the pandemonium above them.
A man was suddenly crossing the hillside a few yards from the rear of the wagon. He was a lean, quick-moving man in woolly chaps, and he carried a shotgun. His appearance was so sudden that he could only have been lying in the brush there, not far above Tesno.
He barked something at the pair near the rear of the wagon, covering them with the shotgun as they turned. He gestured with the gun toward the wheel block. The men hesitated, then one stooped to remove it.
"Hold it!" Tesno yelled. "Drop the gun!"
He fired as the man whirled toward him. A sickening weakness seized him as the man flounced and the shotgun discharged wildly at the sky. The boiler-wrecker rose on his toes and pitched forward on his face. The man who had stooped over the wheel block straightened without touching it.
Tesno walked swiftly up the hillside, reaching the scene as the crewmen rolled the body on its back.
"He was dead when he hit the ground," one of them said weakly.
Tesno studied the gaping, vacant face, the blood-stained denim shirt, the shaggy, stained chaps. Here was the end of a life. However shabby, there must have been good in it somewhere, he thought, and regret seized him like a sickness. Yet he hid it, denied it, and as men gathered round he said roughly, "Anybody know him?"
Nobody did. Tesno continued to stare, frowning. The limp, long-legged form stirred a slippery memory that he couldn't quite get hold of.
A bullet rang dully against the boiler, spattering harmlessly against the heavy iron. An instant later, the bark of the distant rifle reached them.
Tesno motioned to the men to move around the boiler so it would shield them from the rifleman. As he did so, another bullet made a little explosion of dust two yards below him. He turned his eyes toward the butte and said, "He saw what happened. He's out for blood now."
Rejack bustled up, red-faced and wild-eyed with anger. He took a quick look at the dead man and seemed to grow calmer. He said, "We can't hitch up till that murdering devil stops shooting. Aren't you going after him?"
"I think I know where he'll head for," Tesno said. "I can get there first, I guess. Maybe I can take this one alive."
He strode down-grade to his horse and headed over the hill in the direction of the hidden cabin. He followed the same course he and Charlie had taken that morning, annoyed at its tedious winding and thinking that there might be a shorter way.
When he was near the cabin, he hid his horse well back in the woods and approached on foot.
Everything was just as he had left it. He closed the door behind him and sat down to wait, rifle on his knees. His lack of sleep caught up with him now, and several times in the space of a few minutes he got up to stretch and move about to ward off drowsiness. He couldn't get the dead man out of his mind. He was reasonably sure he had never seen the face before; yet something about that figure sprawled out on the hillside nagged him.
His eye fell on two canvas bags of supplies resting against the wall. And it all came to him then. Two bags of supplies. Two men. One in woolly chaps. The dead man and Jim Palma were the pair he had seen come out of the back of the townhouse two days ago! It seemed a long guess, on the face of it; yet he was sure.
All right, he told himself.They came out of the far end of the building, the office end. That means that Sam Lester is involved, not Persia.
But why Sam? What did he have to gain by wrecking Ben Vickers' boiler? A little longer life for the town, no doubt. But Persia would profit by that as much as Sam. And it was after the men had left that she had suggested a picnic....
There was the soft sound of hoofs outside. He rose and moved quietly to one side of the door. A saddle creaked as a man dismounted. The door was pushed quietly open.
"You here, Boss?" Muckamuck Charlie asked.
Tesno groaned and stepped forward. "Where's Palma?" he demanded.
Charlie stepped into the cabin, looking past Tesno at the canvas bags. "Cooley tenas house.Come this way. See youelip siah. Far ahead. Watch. You come to cabin. Him go 'way."
Charlie pushed past and began to rummage in the bags. He extracted a can of beans and held it up admiringly. "Bullet hittum," he said.
"Hit who?"
"Jim Palma. You shoot. Hittum."
"I couldn't have," Tesno said. "He went right on shooting at the horses."
"Pil-pil.Him bleed. Maybe just scratchum. You catch other one?"
"He's dead."
Charlie nodded approvingly. He produced a hunting knife from somewhere under his coat and jabbed the blade into the can of beans. He pried back the metal untidily, poured out a handful of beans and tasted them. He drew another can out of the bag and shoved it into a coat pocket.
"We'll go after Palma," Tesno said. "You find trail?"
"Damn right," Charlie said.
Eating beans as he rode, Charlie found the trail a few minutes later. It wound down one gulch and up another, over the spur of a mountain and back through still another gulch.
"Where's he headed, Charlie," Tesno asked finally.
"No place. Him know country. Work into mountains. Maybe by and by go back totenas house, get food."
A little later the tracks led into a shallow creek and disappeared. After several minutes of scouting, Charlie announced that Palma had gone upstream.
"Him know we follow," he said. "Maybe wait, shoot you."
Tesno nodded. There were a dozen places for an ambush every way you looked. He grinned. "Maybe miss me. Hit Charlie."
For the first time since Tesno had known him, Charlie grinned. "Cultus he-he," he said, reining upstream along the bank. "Bad joke."
Tesno laughed and followed, grateful for the luck that had provided his guide. Here in this brutal and majestic wilderness the ten thousand years between white civilization and savagery had no meaning. He and Charlie were just two hunters, friends now, following a trail. It was going to be a rough one, but Muckamuck Charlie would do to ride it with.
Pinky Bronklin unlocked the door of the storeroom on the second floor of the Pink Lady, lighted a candle, and went in. Pushing a wooden box close to a tier of cluttered shelves, he climbed up to examine an array of bottles on the top one; carbolic acid, cough syrup, Dr. Partrey's Male Restorative and Blood Tonic, toothache remedy, Princess Cleopatra's Egyptian Love Stimulant, iodine, linament.... He selected a small blue bottle without a label, uncorked it, sniffed it. Holding it delicately in his crab-claw of a hand, he dribbled two drops into a shot glass. Two drops was the dose. It would hit quick, put a man out for hours. Pinky tipped the bottle again and added three more.
Climbing down from the box, he inserted the shot glass into one of the special pockets sewn to the back of his bartender's apron. There were two of these, a small one inside a larger one. The small one was just the size of the doped glass and held it upright. You took a glass from the back bar and pretended to polish it on the apron. What you really did was drop it into the large pocket and bring out the doctored glass.
Pinky snuffed the candle, locked the storeroom door, and went back down to the bar. It was the busiest part of the night with a fair crowd at the bar and a nice little business at the tables. Pinky motioned to the other two bartenders to move down and began to work the back end of the bar.
After a few minutes, Pete Madrid came in and had a drink. As usual, he didn't pay.
"You sure he'll come in?" Madrid asked, keeping his voice down.
"No, I'm not sure," Pinky said irritably. "How can I be sure? But he almost always does. You got that crazy Willie out of the way?"
"Gave him the night off."
"Only thing is, Mr. O. might go to the Big Barrel. They serve him in there in spite of Willie told 'em not to."
Madrid pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I'll drop in there," he said. "I'll see that they give him a couple of drinks and then cut him off. That'll bring him over here."
Pinky's eyes followed Madrid as he sauntered to the door, his blue silk shirt shimmering in the lamplight, his fingers touching the ivory handle of his low-slung gun with every step. A dangerous man to have for an enemy, Pinky thought—and maybe dangerous to have for a friend, too. Not what you'd call a bright man, he was sure of his ability to kill, and of not much else. He needed somebody else to do his thinking for him, even about small matters, and so far he had seemed to realize this.God help us if he ever starts thinking for himself, Pinky mused.
Half an hour later, Keef O'Hara showed up, and Pinky sighed inwardly. He didn't much like what he was going to do to O'Hara; but Mr. Jay wanted it done, and it would be. O'Hara came directly to Pinky's end of the bar.
"Slip me a pint, ye black scoundrel," he said, "before Deputy Willie catches up to me."
"I hear Willie's off duty tonight," Pinky said. O'Hara must have visited the Big Barrel first, he thought. The big Irishman had had a drink or two.
"Willie off duty?" O'Hara looked alarmed. "First time that's happened."
Pinky took a glass off the back bar and appeared to polish it on his apron. "It's a night to celebrate," he said. He made the switch and set the glass in front of O'Hara, along with a bottle.
O'Hara looked uncertainly at the table in a far corner where he usually did his drinking. "Sure, if I've got the sense God gave geese, I'll walk out this minute while I've still got the use of my legs. Give me that pint, Pinky m'lad, and I'll be gone. With Willie off duty, I don't trust myself in this den of iniquity."
Pinky looked under the bar and shook his head. "I got no pints out here. Have to get one from the back room. Sit yourself down, Mr. O'Hara, and I'll bring it to you."
As he left the bar, he saw with relief that O'Hara was filling the glass. He entered the small downstairs storeroom and watched from its dark interior as the Irishman sloughed down the drink and then another. O'Hara looked vacantly around the saloon, started for a table, and just barely made it. He sat for a few seconds with his head in his hands, then slumped forward with his face against the tabletop.
Pinky returned to the bar with a pint of whisky in hand. Nobody was paying any particular attention to O'Hara. Pinky gave him a glance and stowed the pint under the bar. "I guess he ain't going to need that," he said loudly.
He busied himself with the customers, apparently giving no more thought to the unconscious O'Hara. After a few minutes, he consulted a watch that lay on the back bar. "Fifteen minutes to closing time, gents," he announced, chuckling. "Official closing time, that is. I reckon we'll run a bit over tonight."
There was a low cheer of approval from the customers in the immediate vicinity. Pinky stared past them at O'Hara, making a little show of it. "Still here," he muttered and walked around the end of the bar.
He shook O'Hara, spoke to him, shook him again. Finally, he gestured to a couple of the men who were watching.
"Give me a hand, boys, and we'll tote him upstairs to my room, lay him on my bed."
The bystanders set down their glasses and came over. Pinky helped them lug two hundred pounds of sagging Irishman up the narrow stairway. They took him to the large room that served Pinky as living quarters and laid him on the bed. Pinky lighted a lamp, turned it low. He muttered something about the need for air and opened a window wide.
"He's a nice gentleman," Pinky said. "Just drinks too much sometimes."
"He sure musta took on a hell of a load this time," one of the assistants said. "He don't even move."
"He'll sleep it off," Pinky said. He herded the men back downstairs and bought them a drink, secure in the knowledge that O'Hara wouldn't move for hours.
Whisky Willie woke and sat erect, panicked by the thought that he should be on the job. Then he remembered that Madrid had told him to take the night off, and he sank back with a sigh. A sixteen-hour night shift caught up with you, all right. You could doze a bit in the marshal's office between rounds, but that kind of sleep didn't do a man much good.
Now, however, sleep failed to return. His room was above the stage office, smack in the middle of town, and the sounds of the saloons drifted up through his window. He consulted his watch and saw that it was after closing time. Peeved, he went to the window and leaned out. All the saloons were still showing lights. The piano in the Pink Lady was jangling merrily. Well, he decided, he wasn't going to make a fuss about it. He would close the window and.... His train of thought was interrupted by the sight of the mule at the Big Barrel hitching rack. O'Hara was down there, somewhere. He would be soused to the gills by this time, no doubt. Somebody had to see that he got back to the job.
Willie dressed quickly and went down to the street. O'Hara wasn't in the Big Barrel, although a bartender said he had been in earlier. Willie gave orders to close up and crossed the street to the Pink Lady. As he pushed through the batwings, Madrid came clumping up the boardwalk and called to him.
"What the hell?" he said, following Willie inside. "I gave you the night off so you could catch up on sleep."
"I'm l-looking for Mr. O'Hara," Willie said.
"That whisky-head engineer? I'll keep an eye out for him. You get your tail into bed."
Willie surveyed the line at the Pink Lady bar. O'Hara wasn't there. He wasn't at any of the tables. Willie turned and walked into the street.
Madrid ambled up to the bar and beckoned to Pinky. "You better close up, pronto."
Willie checked the Silver Slipper and then the Western Star. O'Hara was at neither one. Pausing in the shadows, he watched Madrid saunter down the street to his office. Willie had a growing conviction that something was wrong and that the marshal knew what it was.
The Pink Lady was closing, and little knots of men straggled out of it, making their way to other saloons or toward the road back to camp. Willie stopped several men and asked if they had seen O'Hara. Finally, he found one who had.
"Hell, he's at the Pink Lady," the man said. "He passed out in there. Bronklin and some others carried him upstairs."
By the time Willie reached the Pink Lady it was locked and dark. He rattled the door and got no response. He made his way round in back and had no better luck at the door there. There was a light in an upstairs room, and the window was wide open. Willie cupped his hands to his mouth to call but something warned him not to.
He ran back to the street, crossing it to the Big Barrel, where O'Hara's mule still stood at the hitch rail. He untied the animal, mounted, and rode back to the alley behind the Pink Lady. Shadows crossing the lighted window told him that somebody was moving around up there. Gently, he worked the mule close to the wall, directly under the window. He carefully knelt and then stood in the saddle. This brought the windowsill within reach. He grasped it, and as quietly as possible he pulled himself up.
When the last customer was out of the Pink Lady and the bartenders were washing glasses and tidying up, Pinky checked in the dealers. Each brought his cash in a canvas bag, which Pinky stowed into the heavy safe under the back end of the bar. First thing in the morning, Sam Lester would be in to count up.
Pinky unbarred the heavy front door to let the dealers and bartenders out, then he swung this closed behind the batwings and slid the bar into place. Alone now, he returned to the bar, tipped up a bottle and took a long drink. He picked up a lamp, the last light in the place, and trudged up to his room.
Keef O'Hara was breathing raspingly. He hadn't moved an inch, and Pinky chuckled softly at the potency of those knockout drops. Setting down the lamp, he moved to the end of the bed and took off O'Hara's shoes. This was a perfectly natural thing to do for a drunk you were taking care of, he assured himself. If the drunk happened to get crazy ideas in the night and wander around and fall out a window and be found with no shoes, well, nobody could criticize the man who had tried to make him comfortable.
Pinky edged around to the side of the bed and rolled O'Hara off it on his face. Dragging so big a man to the window and stuffing him through it was going to be heavy work, but he guessed he could manage it. First, though, there was the other matter to be taken care of. A man falling from a second story window might injure himself quite a bit, but you couldn't quite count on it.
"I don't want him killed," Mr. Jay had said. "There's no need for that. But I want him knocked off that job. Vickers' doctor isn't equipped to deal with anything complicated and he ships bad cases off to the Ellensburg hospital. That's where I want O'Hara to go."
Mr. Jay had gone on to explain that it would take weeks for Ben Vickers to find another man who knew how to set up a compressed-air operation properly. Well, you had to hand it to Mr. Jay for seeing a thing through. Soon as he got word that his hired hooligans had failed to wreck the boiler, he had come up with this plan to knock O'Hara off the job. A smart, smooth operator, Mr. Jay. A good star to hitch your wagon to. Only Pinky wished he hadn't looked so tired and upset....
Pinky made a trip to the storeroom and came back with a two-foot length of iron pipe. He bent over O'Hara's feet, feeling the bones around the ankles. It wouldn't take much of a blow to break some of these. Two broken ankles plus any injuries that might be caused by the fall ought to put O'Hara in that Ellensburg hospital for a good long time. Probably be a good thing for the man, too, when you came to think about it. Keep him off the booze.
Pinky slipped his claw of a hand under one of O'Hara's heels and lifted the foot. He raised the pipe over his head, and he about jumped out of his skin as a voice rang out behind him.
"Hold it, you b-bastard!"
Whisky Willie had one leg over the windowsill. Pinky flung the length of pipe. He flung it backhanded and it caught Willie on the shoulder as he dived into the room, falling flat. The pipe crashed to the floor and rolled toward Pinky, who scrambled after it. Willie reached a chair, flung it against Pinky's shins, and bounced to his feet. Pinky stumbled forward, reached for the pipe. Before he could get his balance, Willie was on him, knocking the pipe aside and aiming a blow at Pinky's head with the only weapon he carried. The bottle of lemon pop caught Pinky neatly behind the ear and dropped him like a bundle of rags.
Judge Badger, who kept the general store and acted as town magistrate on the side, was tall, bespectacled, and busy-browed. He gave the impression of being a thoughtful and scholarly man, which he was not. He was, however, reasonably honest. Consequently, as Mr. Jay pointed out to Pete Madrid, he was not to be trusted. He was to be managed rather than conspired with.
This morning he entered the small townhouse courtroom and took his seat with great dignity. He surveyed the half dozen persons present and addressed himself to the marshal.
"Pete, what in tunket is this all about?"
"The marshal's office is guilty of an embarrassing mistake," Madrid said, reciting the words as if he had memorized them carefully. "As you know, I have an inexperienced deputy. Last night he...."
"If you made a mistake why don't you correct it?" the judge demanded. "Why waste the time of this court?"
Madrid pointed at Willie with his thumb. "Because this mule-head won't admit it. He insists on this hearing."
The judge turned sternly to Willie.
"I want P-Pinky B-Bronklin ch-charged and t-tried," Willie said.
"Charged with what?"
Willie told what had happened the night before. The judge asked a question or two and then told Pinky to tell his side of it.
Protesting that he was in this trouble because of his kindness to a drunk, Pinky rattled off a remarkable story. When he went up to his room after closing the saloon, he said, he had forgotten about O'Hara's being there. He had maybe had a nip too much himself, he admitted, and he had been given a scare by something or somebody crawling around in the dark. He had grabbed a length of pipe which happened to be handy and had cautiously approached the crawler, who was now lying still. Just then Willie had come through the window.
"There were t-two l-lamps burning in that room," Willie put in.
"You're a liar!" Pinky said.
"Now, now, now!" Judge Badger said. "We won't have any more of that."
"You're another," Willie said.
The judge struck an angry blow with the wooden nutcracker he used for a gavel. He appraised Willie witheringly, then he asked quietly if Willie had any concrete evidence that a crime had been committed, and if so, what it was.
Willie had brought Vickers' doctor to the courtroom, and he now stepped forward and said that in his opinion O'Hara who was too sick to appear, had been drugged. He couldn't say for sure what the drug was.
The judge asked a few more questions and then pointed out that there was no evidence that the drug had been administered in the Pink Lady and no grounds for a charge against Pinky.
"Howsoever," he said, "surreptitious administration of drugs is a serious offense, and this court directs the marshal's office to further investigate this matter with a view to discovery of guilty party or parties. Upon presentation of evidence that will warrant a bill of indictment, this court will order the arrest of said guilty party and he will be taken to Ellensburg and the matter will be prosecuted in district court."
Willie left the courtroom with anger a seething molten pressure in him. He trudged toward the main street beside the doctor.
"The marshal cooked your goose at the very beginning when he told the judge you'd made a mistake," the doctor said. "If he'd backed you up, the judge might have agreed to a charge."
"I kn-know," Willie said bitterly. "They're all in together."
Pinky and the marshal reached the street ahead of them, Pinky angling off toward the Pink Lady and Madrid going into the hotel. It was the second time that morning that he had visited the hotel.
Willie went to his room and stretched out on the bed. After a few minutes, Madrid barged in without knocking. Willie didn't move from the bed.
"All right, cowboy," Madrid said. "I'll take that badge."
Willie unpinned it and handed it over. Madrid stuffed it into the pocket of his bright blue shirt.
"You're all in together," Willie said. "You're a b-bunch of crooks in together."
"Now don't get me mad," Madrid said. "You're getting out of this lucky. Get over and get your pay from Sam Lester. Then get your tail out of town. Today."
Willie said nothing. Madrid glared and said, "Do you understand that? Today."
Willie nodded.
"If you aren't gone by dark, you'll get hurt. Hurt bad." Madrid turned on his heel and went out.
After a while Willie got up, walked to the townhouse, and knocked on the door of Sam Lester's office. Sam seemed to be expecting him. He plunked a little pile of gold and silver on his desk.
"Sixty-six dollars," he said. "That includes a full day's pay for today. Sign this, please."
While Willie was signing the receipt, Sam added a double eagle to the pile of money. "I understand you're leaving town," he said. "This is for traveling expenses."
Willie silently pocketed the money. He left the building and walked around back to Persia's kitchen. Stella was dividing a batch of bread dough into loaves and putting it into pans. He asked if Miss Persia was in, and Stella said she was in the parlor.
Willie found her seated at the secretary. "I been f-fired," he said.
"I'm sorry," Persia said. "But there's nothing I can do, Willie. You made a serious mistake."
"You're in it, t-too! You're all in t-together!"
"Would you like a letter of recommendation?" Persia said. "I'd be glad to give you one. It might help you get another job."
"I hoped you'd l-listen to my s-side of the s-story," Willie said.
"Willie, you accused a member of the town council of a serious crime without one speck of evidence. I'm sure it was an honest mistake, but...."
Willie put his back to her and walked out. Stella offered him a cup of coffee and a piece of pie, and he ate silently, thanked her, and left.
He marched straight across town and took the road to Vickers' camp.
They had nothing to eat except the can of beans Muckamuck Charlie had pocketed, some rock-hard biscuits from Tesno's saddlebags, and a few trout snagged with a hook made from a horseshoe nail. Palma's trail circled, zigzagged, doubled back. Surprisingly, he made no attempt to ambush them—although they were slowed again and again as they made roundabout approaches to places where he might be lying in wait. Finally, it seemed a safe conclusion that he had used up his ammunition sniping at horses and the boiler crew.
On the afternoon of the second day, Charlie announced that Palma had doubled back toward the road. He had entered a deep, cliff-guarded valley that led nowhere else, Charlie said.
Tesno felt a little stab of alarm. Could Palma plan to take another crack at the boiler? Alone and without ammunition?
Charlie didn't think this likely. "Hit road high up now," he said. "Boilersiah. Far away."
Still, the possibility couldn't be ignored. Tesno decided that they would graze the horses for an hour and then ride all night.
They came upon the road at midmorning. They had given up trying to follow Palma's trail; they didn't know if he was still ahead of them or if they had passed him in the night. Since Charlie knew Palma by sight, Tesno sent him on up to Tunneltown.
"If he shows up there, go see Ben Vickers," Tesno said. "Vickers. Nobody else. He'll get word to me."
He turned his tired horse down-grade as Charlie jogged off in the other direction. He came upon the boiler two hours later, only a few miles above Cle Elum. It was pulled off the road preparatory to another haul by block and tackle. It had made only three miles the day before, Rejack reported, and he guessed that was going to be about the average.
"You look like you need a meal and a bed," he told Tesno.
"The meal will help," Tesno said.
He felt as if he were in danger of dropping in his tracks, but he couldn't sleep—not yet. Even if Palma weren't lurking in the woods, waiting his chance, there was the possibility that he would come riding boldly down the road on his way to Ellensburg, believing himself still ahead of Tesno. Of course, he might already have done that....
A few minutes later, Tesno got a chance to check this latter possibility. He was eating a plate of beans at the cook wagon when Whisky Willie Silverknife came riding up the road from the direction of Ellensburg. Tesno hailed him, and he rode over, not getting out of the saddle.
"I'm in a huh-hurry," he said. He was red-eyed and looked as sleepy as Tesno felt. Three pairs of handcuffs dangled from his saddlehorn.
Tesno asked if he had met anyone on the road who might be Palma. "I don't rightly know what he looks like," Tesno said. "He's dressed like a cowhand, and he might be wounded. Nothing very serious, but he might have a bandaged arm, something like that."
Willie hadn't seen him.
"What are the handcuffs for?" Tesno asked. "Where have you been?"
"I'm m-mad," Willie said. "M-Madrid fired me."
"You're still wearing a badge."
"T-take a g-good look at it. It's a county deputy's badge. Mr. Vickers gave me a letter to the sheriff, and I rode down and g-got s-sworn in this morning."
"And you're going back and get even. Is that it?"
"I'm going to close that Pink Lady up tight. I'm going to send Pinky to p-prison. If Miss P-Persia gets hurt, too, I c-can't help it. She wouldn't b-back me up."
"Willie, you get off that horse and have some food," Tesno said. "I want to hear about this."
Willie sullenly dismounted and accepted a plate of beans. He gave Tesno an account of his rescue of O'Hara, the hearing before Judge Badger, his appeal to Persia. He pulled a folded paper from a hip pocket and waved it in Tesno's face.
"This is a wuh-huh-warrant for Pinky Bronklin's arrest, issued by the district court."
Tesno took the warrant and unfolded it. Willie produced an inch-thick bundle of similar papers from the other hip pocket.
"I got some m-more d-documents," Willie said. "Closing orders, warrants, subpoenas. Some of them are b-blank. The district attorney said to fill them in ac-c-cording to my j-judgment."
Tesno muttered an exclamation as he read the warrant. "Looks like you've got Pinky dead to rights," he said. "This charges him with illegal possession of drugs, illegal administration of drugs, operating a gambling hall.... That must have been some letter Ben wrote!"
"The p-people down in Ellensburg are beg-g-ginning to take an interest in Tunneltown," Willie said. "Teamsters and drummers and such have been complaining."
"How do you figure to prove this drug charge?"
"J-jail Pinky, then search the place. I'll take Vickers' doctor with me. Ch-chances are we'll find the kn-knockout drops."
"Willie, you wait till I get back there before you start closing saloons," Tesno said.
"N-not much. I figure to d-do it tonight. I'm m-m-mad."
"You know that Persia is the principal owner of the Pink Lady?"
"I can't help that. It's a rotten p-place and I'm going to sh-shut it up."
"Damned if I don't believe you're a bluenose," Tesno said. He said it jovially; then reproach crept into his voice. "Damn it, Willie, it's not a small thing to sit in judgment of others. You're mad. You've got yourself some official backing. But you've no right to be high-handed."
"My g-god! That from you?"
"From me," Tesno said.
"You t-took it on yourself to judge everything and everybody in Tunneltown the day you arrived."
"I judged nobody," Tesno said. "I was just doing a job for pay."
"You said this was a rotten town preying on Vickers' c-crew. You even jailed the marshal. You said the hell with authority. Then Miss Persia wrapped you around her f-finger like a Christmas ribbon. N-now you're in with the rest of them!"
"The town council agreed to go along with me, Willie. That changed things."
"M-maybe you don't know it," Willie said. "B-but it was the other w-way around. Miss Persia rustled her skirts at you and you w-went along with the town."
"We'll leave Persia out of this," Tesno said with a steel edge of anger in his voice.
"We c-can't—even if you beat the peewallopus out of me. I g-guess you could do it easy enough. You're tougher than anybody I kn-know." Willie laid his plate on the tailgate and looked Tesno squarely in the eye. "And you've g-got no more spine than a rag d-doll!"
He put his back to Tesno, caught up his reins, and swung into the saddle. He poised a rein end above his horse's rump and said, "I'm m-mad. M-maybe I didn't m-mean all that."
Tesno wanted to tell him to come back and finish his dinner. Instead, he found himself saying gruffly, "You meant it. And be damned to you."
The handcuffs hanging from Willie's saddlehorn clinked dully as he pivoted the horse and headed back to the road at a trot.
An hour later the boiler had been inched up the hillside and was back on the road. Rejack called a halt just above a small bridge, and the crew clustered around the cook wagon for a late dinner. Something about the bridge interested Tesno; then suddenly he recognized it. He turned his horse up the creek and followed it to the grassy place where he had nooned on his first trip to Tunneltown, the place where Willie had surprised him.
He got off his horse and washed his face in the chill, singing water. He stretched out in the soft grass then, knowing that he had to sleep if only for an hour. Yet sleep did not come at once, and he lay staring at a ragged patch of sky.
I can stay till this boiler gets up to the job, he thought.I can do that much for Ben. Then there's nothing to do but quit. I'm finished as a troublebuster. Willie made me see that clearly enough.
He had never really believed in the railroad; but he had taken his living from it, and he had given what it asked in return.
Willie had said he was tough.I've made a profession of toughness, he thought, but I've made it an honest profession. I've laid my life on the line to do what I've been paid to do. That's all I've ever been, an honest tough. It wasn't much, but it was something. Now I am a man in love. And I am nothing at all.
There was still the ranch he had dreamed of for so long—or was there? Persia had spoiled that for him, he realized. In spite of her show of interest, she would want no part of the modest spread he would have, of the years of frugal living while he built up a herd. No, there was not even that now. There was only the soft dream of a lovely woman whose eager tenderness absorbed a man ... and left him nothing of himself.
It was tenderness itself that was his enemy, he thought. He had toughened the shell around his loneliness to the point of brittleness; he had made himself defenseless against love for a woman when it had finally come to him....
He slept and woke and overtook the boiler a mile on its way. It was in little danger, he judged, as long as it was rolling along the road. And after another short pulley haul had been made with no attempt at interference, he decided that Palma probably was not in the vicinity.
That night he rolled up in his blankets under the wagon with the great weight of the boiler above him. He slept deeply and was wakened by one of the guards shining a lantern in his face. A messenger had arrived with a note from Ben Vickers:
JackSome drunken Indian says I got to get a message to you, I can't make out why. Something to do with a man named Palma.
Jack
Some drunken Indian says I got to get a message to you, I can't make out why. Something to do with a man named Palma.
Persia Parker sat in her usual place at the head of the council table and listened demurely while Sam Lester outlined a plan for the town to issue scrip. She didn't know if the plan had originated with him or with Mr. Jay. She didn't thoroughly understand it, but Sam had assured her that there would be considerable advantage in it, if it was done right.
When Sam had finished speaking, she turned the meeting over to him and left the room. This had been agreed on beforehand—there seemed to be certain hidden profits in the plan that were best discussed in her absence.
She walked along the long hall and entered her parlor, halting in surprise as a man rose slowly from the sofa.
He was stocky, brute-faced, and wore a pointed blond mustache and several days growth of pale stubble. He was dirty and looked exhausted. There was a large dark stain on his jeans—a bloodstain. She felt a little stab of panic.
"There's a meeting in there," he said, gesturing with his hat toward the other part of the building. "The door was open and I couldn't get past to Lester's rooms, so I come in here."
She recognized him now as one of the pair who had hidden in Sam's rooms a few days ago. She had taken food up to them.
"I got a bullet scratch on my leg," he said. "It wouldn't amount to nothing if it had been took care of, but I been on the run three days. It's got to be dressed. I got to have some food."
He sank down heavily. A blood-stained bandage showed through a tear in the faded cloth of his jeans. He would get the sofa dirty, she thought, and she frowned her annoyance.
"I'll go back to the meeting and close the door so you can get up to Sam's quarters," she said.
"My horse has got to be took care of. He's out back."
"Tell Sam about it." She turned back toward the hall.
"It's got to be done quick. I got two men on my tail."
"Twomen?"
"I take one to be a Injun, the other Vickers' troublebuster."
Whisky Willie reached Tunneltown shortly after dark. He left his horse at the livery, unhooked the handcuffs from his saddle and walked stiffly to the marshal's office.
Madrid was at his desk behind an oil can and a mound of rags, cleaning his revolver. He leaped to his feet as Willie walked in and dumped the handcuffs on the desk.
"I told you, cowboy," Madrid said, swallowing his amazement. "I warned you."
"This is a c-c-county badge I'm wearing," Willie said.
Madrid gaped at the badge. "What the hell are you trying to pull?"
Willie drew the stack of papers from his hip pocket, selected one and slapped it on the desk. "That's the document that goes with the badge, Marshal. You better read it. The sheriff of Kittitas County requests that you give me the use of your jail and your c-co-operation."
Madrid made a shaky try at seeming amused. "You really pulled this off, kid?"
"You know what c-co-operation means? It means you try to interfere j-just once and I'll jail you like T-Tesno did."
Madrid slid shells into his revolver and dropped it into his holster. Grabbing his hat from a peg in the wall, he left the office without another word. Willie watched him from the doorway till he entered the hotel, then followed.
When Willie entered the lobby, it was empty except for the clerk, who was sorting mail.
"Where d-did the m-marshal go?" Willie demanded.
"I thought you got f-f-fired," the clerk said insolently.
Willie picked up an inkwell and smashed it on the floor at the clerk's feet. The clerk opened his mouth in outrage, but he saw Willie's hard little black eyes and said nothing at all.
"I asked a q-qu-question," Willie said. "I want a b-better answer."
"Third floor, I guess. That's where he usually goes."
"Who's on the th-third floor?"
The clerk consulted a chart. "Jackson, Dockeray, Smith, Jay, Lewis, Mann, Parce, Oliver...."
"Who's permanent?"
"Mr. Jay keeps his rooms on a monthly basis. He's the only one on that floor who does."
"Th-thanks."
Willie marched out of the hotel and made straight for the Pink Lady. Pinky Bronklin, who was working the far end of the bar, called loudly to the barkeep who stepped up to serve Willie.
"Tell him we don't serve Injuns!"
"You an Injun?" the barkeep said and immediately moved away.
Feeling the eyes of the crowd center on him, Willie pushed away from the bar and walked down to where Pinky was.
"Get the hell out of my place," Pinky said.
"T-take a good l-look at my badge," Willie said. "You're t-talking to a county deputy."
Pinky scowled at the badge. His eyes lifted to Willie's face. He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and abruptly turned his back.
Willie moved up the bar, pulled the wad of papers from his pocket, and threw one of these on the bar with a slap that brought Pinky around.
"The Pink Lady is closed as of right now!" Willie proclaimed. "Everybody out!"
Pinky unfolded the paper and dropped it like something hot. He motioned to the barkeep nearest the door. "Get Madrid here! Quick!"
"B-bring Mr. Jay with him," Willie said.
Pinky gave Willie a sick, sagging stare. Willie began to herd customers into the street. Two minutes later the place was empty except for Pinky, one barkeep, and the dealers. Willie waited while Pinky checked in the cash and stowed it into the safe. Then he dismissed everybody except Pinky.
"J-jail for you t-tonight. T-tomorrow I'm taking you to Ellensburg."
He marched the saloonkeeper into the marshal's office, finding that Madrid hadn't returned. He locked him into the cell, pocketed the key, and returned to the street.
A weariness rose in him now. The worst was over, he guessed. In the morning, he would take Vickers' doctor to the Pink Lady and they would search it for knockout drops....
Something moved against the dark wall ahead of him. He stopped stark still. A man stepped out of the shadows, staggering a little. Willie brushed past, smelling whisky; then he whirled in surprise at hearing himself addressed in the Yakima tongue.
"It is Silverknife, the grandson of my mother's brother."
Willie peered closely at the dark face. He, too, spoke in Yakima, stuttering not nearly so badly as he did in English.
"It is Red Iron of the Kilickitats. He sees better in the darkness than I, even when he is drunk."
Muckamuck Charlie touched Willie's badge admiringly. "It seems you have become atyeeamong the white men. But then you have their blood."
"What are you doing here?" Willie asked.
"I am to be givenchikaminfor watching a man...."
Willie listened tensely while Charlie explained about being hired by Tesno, their pursuit of Palma, and his coming alone to Tunneltown. Charlie had taken it upon himself to examine the hoofs of all the horses in the livery barn, and he had found the animal whose shoe marks he had been following for three days. So Palma was here, and Charlie had been watching the street for him. He had discovered a place where an Indian could buy whisky, so he had been able to keep his stomach warm while he watched.
"Did you ask the man at the livery about the horse?" Willie said.
"It was not brought in by Palma but by atyeeof the town who lives in the big house with two doors. The one called Sam Lester. You got whisky?"
Willie took him to a restaurant and bought him a meal, tapping his badge when the waitress protested about serving Indians. Charley said he would sleep in the livery barn, where he could keep an eye on the horse. Reluctantly, Willie lent him a dollar for a stomach-warmer.
Willie went to his room and crawled into his sagging cot. He sank almost at once into thick slumber. The door to his room was without a lock, and he did not hear it open. Nor was he disturbed by the dark, cat-careful figure that stole about the room.
When he woke at daylight, his badge was missing—along with his precious stack of court papers.
He went at once to the marshal's office and found it deserted. The cell door stood open. Its padlock—picked or forced—lay on the floor. Pinky Bronklin was gone.
Willie sank down at the desk, feeling foolish. Without evidence of authority, he was nothing. Pinky Bronklin would laugh in his face. If he rode back to Ellensburg and reported what had happened, they were likely to laugh at him there, too. He asked himself what Tesno would do.Damn it, he would go ahead anyway. He never did have authority.
When Willie returned to the street, the town was coming to life. Stores and saloons were opening. Workers from the night shift trudged the boardwalk, hunched against the early chill. The big door behind the Pink Lady's batwings had been swung wide....
Willie found Ben Vickers at the cookhouse, bent over a stack of flapjacks. Ben listened eager-eyed as Willie outlined a plan.
Ten minutes later Willie entered the supply building and handed the clerk a note signed by Ben. The clerk issued one stick of dynamite, one cap, one fuse. Willie fitted on the cap and fuse, shoved the dynamite into a hip pocket and walked back to town.
There were two customers at the Pink Lady bar. One faro game was going with three players at the table. Pinky Bronklin sat nearby and sipped coffee. "We don't serve Injuns!" he called when he saw Willie.
Willie stepped up to the bar. "I want a cigar," he said. He faced Pinky. "Two more charges against you. J-jailbreaking. Failure to obey a c-c-closing order."
"You b-been warned," he said.
Customers, faro dealer, and barkeep plunged for the door, colliding as they reached it, careening into the street. Pinky Bronklin seemed petrified. When he managed to speak, he stuttered worse than Willie.
"Y-you c-can't b-bluff me," Pinky said.
"Who's b-bluffing?" Willie said.
He touched the cigar to the fuse, which began to sputter merrily. He gave the stick of dynamite another flip in the air as Pinky tore for the batwings with hands straight out in front of him and hit the street screaming for Madrid.
Willie waited till the fuse had burned down a bit; then he laid the dynamite on the bar and strolled through the door. A crowd was gathering a little way down the street. Pinky had almost reached the marshal's office and was gesturing wildly to Madrid, who was coming out of it. They both started toward the Pink Lady at a trot.
Willie met Pinky head on and spun him around.
"B-back to that cell," Willie said. "This t-time, I'm going to handcuff you to the b-bunk."
The roar shook the town. Afterward, there was a lingering tinkle of falling glass. Kind of like music, Willie thought.
Stella stood by the swinging door that led from the kitchen into the dining room and pushed it open a few inches. This enabled her to hear much of what was said in the living room.
She didn't often eavesdrop. But judging from the way Mr. Jay, Mr. Madrid and Mr. Lester had descended on Persia all at once, they considered themselves up against crisis, which was almost certain to concern Willie. Stella had sort of a crush on Willie, even though he never gave her any real encouragement.
Mr. Jay was doing most of the talking. The way his voice rose and fell, Stella judged he was pacing the floor.
"I have failed completely in my efforts to buy the tunnel contract," he was saying. "This is due largely to the stupidity of people I have paid to help me. I have spent a tidy sum on the project, and I'm not giving up. If I don't get the contract, at least I have the town, and I will make it pay as never before. I don't intend to be stopped by this ridiculous little clown who has got the authorities in Ellensburg interested in us."
Stella snorted softly. Mr. Jay talked as if he were God, she thought.
"I have a plan for getting those authorities off our backs," he went on. "It is simple enough. Persia and the council will publicly recognize that Tunneltown has got out of hand. They will ask a man of position and integrity to take over and clean up the mess. This man will be me. The council will call the election that it has postponed. I shall be elected mayor.
"Of course, it must not be known that I am—for all practical purposes—the proprietor of the town. I will confer with the politicians as an outsider brought in in an emergency. I assure you I can handle them. The sure way to make a politician lose interest in anything is to try to interest him in it." Mr. Jay paused and there was a low, dutiful surge of laughter.
"What about Pinky?" Mr. Madrid asked. "Like I told you, Willie means to take him to Ellensburg for trial."
"We can't permit this to happen. With his jail record and all those charges against him, the prosecuting attorney is likely to offer him a deal—and Pinky will tell all he knows about me."
Persia spoke now for the first time. "How can we avoid this, Mr. Jay?"
"Willie has shown himself to be a reckless fool," Mr. Jay said. "A regrettable accident is quite within the realm of possibility."
"He's lost his badge and papers," Madrid said. "As far as I'm concerned, he has no business taking Pinky out of town, I'll stop him—for good."
"No," Persia said. "I don't want that."
"It mustn't happen in town," Mr. Jay said. "That would require a great deal of awkward explaining. It must happen on the road. Pinky Bronklin will have a concealed gun and will make his escape."
"What will happen to Willie?" Persia asked.
"That's in the lap of the gods," Mr. Jay said quickly.
"I don't think you mean that," Persia said. "You mean to have Willie killed. I won't agree to that."
"My dear." Mr. Jay's tone was tiredly patient. "Must I remind you that you are the principal owner of the Pink Lady? A few repairs, a new stock of liquor, and you'll be in business again—if Willie doesnotget to Ellensburg. If he does you'll lose your license—and that'll be the least of it. You'll quite possibly have to face charges yourself."
A door slammed and there was the clump of boots as newcomers came in from the other part of the building. There was a great deal of stirring around and exclaiming. Then Stella gasped as Willie's voice rose above the others.
"I found this r-rascal upstairs in Mr. Lester's rooms. I'm t-told he's wanted for b-boiler-wrecking and such. I'm arresting him and taking him to Ellensburg along with Pinky."
There was a great deal of confused talk then, and Stella could sift nothing out of it. She knew that a stranger had spent the night in Sam Lester's quarters, but she had not seen him. Willie must have barged up there and arrested him, she realized.
She got a glimpse of Willie and his prisoner as they passed the dining room doorway on their way to the front door. Madrid and Mr. Jay came into view behind them. Madrid had his hand on his gun, but Mr. Jay gave him a look and a quick little shake of the head. The front door slammed heavily, and Willie and his prisoner were gone.
"He's gone crazy!" Madrid said. "Plumb paper-doll crazy!"
"Actually, it's working out well," Mr. Jay said. "Withtwoprisoners to guard, Willie will be taking a foolish risk. A break will be that much more plausible. Don't you agree, Persia?"
"I don't want anything to do with it," Persia said, a languid thickness in her voice. "I don't even want to hear about it."
Mr. Jay and Madrid walked together to the main street.
"I've already got a horse for you," Mr. Jay said. "It's tied behind the hotel."
"Must say you think of everything," Madrid muttered.
"This must look like a break—surely you understand that. Don't forget to take an extra gun."
"What for? If one of the prisoners had a hidden gun, he'd take it away with him, wouldn't he?" Madrid protested.
"Palma and Bronklin have to go, too, Pete."
They walked in silence for a few yards, Madrid staring at the ground. "I guess I can do it," he said somberly. "But three of 'em!"
Mr. Jay halted suddenly and pointed at a rider who had just entered the town and was swinging into the road to Vickers' camp. "Tesno!" Madrid said.
"He's headed for the camp," Mr. Jay said. "If Willie gets out of here with his prisoners without meeting him, there's no need to change our plan."
Five minutes later, wearing a coat over his blue and white silk shirt, carrying an extra revolver in his pocket, Madrid rode quietly out of town.
Muckamuck Charlie woke to the sound of an argument below him. He lay almost completely submerged in hay. His head ached. He was feelingsick tumtum. He felt around in the hay for a bottle and found none. He asked himself where he was and what he was doing here. After a moment, he remembered he was watching a horse.
Slowly, stifling groans, he worked himself out of the hay to his hands and knees and peered over the edge of the loft. He saw with satisfaction that Palma's horse was still in its stall. Nearby, two men were arguing. One was the stableman. The other was Willie Silverknife.
As near as Charlie could make it out, Willie wanted to take the horse, but the stableman wouldn't let him without permission from the man who had brought it in. Charlie got to his feet. Teeteringly, he worked his way along the edge of the loft to a ladder. By the time he reached its bottom, the argument had stopped. Willie seemed to have settled for three other horses, which he and the stableman were saddling.
When he saw Charlie, Willie said, "Ho!" and made a joke in English which Charlie didn't understand.
"Sick tumtum," Charlie said. "You got whisky?" Willie swung a saddle to the back of a horse, and Charlie saw that his hip pockets were empty. "You got dollar?"
"I have taken your man, your Palma," Willie said, speaking now in the Yakima tongue. He gave the horse a punch in the ribs to make him deflate himself, then he tightened the cinch. "He is in the jailhouse. I will take him to Ellensburg."
Charlie absorbed this silently. Willie went on to say that he expected to meet Tesno on the road. He said Charlie ought to ride along with him, if he was able, and rejoin Tesno.
Charlie replied that he had a great sickness in his head and stomach, was having trouble seeing clearly, and was quite likely going to die unless he could get hold of some whisky. Besides, Willie's capture of Palma put an end to Charlie's responsibility in the matter, and he might as well get drunk.
Willie said crisply that he would lend no more money. Charlie retired to an empty stall and sat down. The livery man caught the reins of Willie's horse and led it outside. All at once, Charlie was aware of a young white woman in the barn. She had appeared so miraculously that Charlie considered the possibility she might be a spirit, but Willie seemed to know her.
"Stella!" he said.
"Villie," she said in strangely accented English, "you must not leave. They vill kill you. I heard them."
"Now just c-calm d-down," Willie said. "What did you hear?"
"Marshal Madrid said he vould stop you from leaving town. I think he meant he vould kill you. Mr. Yay, he said no. He said it vould happen on the road. The prisoner vould have a gun and escape. You vould be dead, I think. At first, it vas only vun prisoner. Then you took the other vun. Mr. Yay said so much the better...."
Stella was extremely excited, and her accent made it doubly hard for Muckamuck Charlie to understand what she was talking about. He gathered that she was warning Willie someone would kill him if he tried to take Palma to Ellensburg, but Charlie doubted that this could be taken literally. She probably wanted to keep Willie in town for reasons of her own. It was disappointing to see that Willie was sobered by her jabbering.
"Thanks, S-Stella," Willie said.
"You'll not go?"
"I g-guess I'll go. I'll be as safe on the road as I am in t-town. But I'll search those prisoners before I start out, Stella."
Willie touched her elbow and they walked together through the big barn door into the sunlight. Charlie got up and watched Willie ride to the marshal's office, leading the two extra horses. Stella hurried off toward the big house behind the town. Willie went into the office and reappeared with two handcuffed prisoners. All three mounted and rode out of town.
The sight of Palma stirred an ugly hatred in Charlie and a fear for Willie. True, Willie had a gun in his belt and the prisoners were handcuffed. But Jim Palma was a strong and wily man. He had stomped that Umatilla boy to death down at Selah, and Charlie had heard other bad things about him. He wasn't sure that Willie was a match for Palma. Maybe that jabbering squaw was right, after all, Charlie thought.
He made his way up a cleared hillside above town, feeling a little better as he walked. He had staked his horse up here—no sense in wasting whisky money on a livery fee. After a day's grazing, the animal looked to be in fair condition. Saddle and bridle were in a clump of brush where Charlie had cached them. He fought a brief battle with the temptation to sell these for whisky money; then he saddled up and cut behind the town to the Ellensburg road.