by Noel Loomis
“You find some of the same breed in every town of any size. With that, Kate threw down the gauntlet and announced it far and wide she intended to live her own life as she saw fit and anybody who didn’t like it could go jump in the lake, or words to that effect. Myself, I figure she was a mite rash, but then I can’t blame her. I’ve talked to Lish. He wanted to marry her at once. Kate allowed she wasn’t going to let any pack of old mewling tabby-cats force her into marriage. She and Lish quarreled, and I happen to know she refused to marry anybody else around here. It had got so she felt she had to remain single to retain her independence—at least so far’s concerns suitors around here.”
Ingram lighted another cigarette, puffed a minute, then, “Meanwhile somebody had written Gene an anonymous letter telling him the state of things. Gene came home in a hurry. Kate wanted him to return to school. They’re both right stubborn on occasion. They ended up by quarreling too, but Gene stuck on at the ranch, doing what he could, but his heart wasn’t in it. I guess he sort of turned into a sort of housekeeper at the ranch, looking after Wyatt and such, while Kate carried the man’s job. Next thing that happened, Lloyd Porter dropped into town. He allowed he was looking into business opportunities. I don’t know how he met Kate, but the next thing I heard he was calling regular. I’ll admit he had a pretty smooth lot of palaver. Maybe Kate was getting man-lonesome by that time.”
“And I suppose the tabby-cats started pushing out their poison again,” Quist said.
“You hit the nail on the head. Gab-gab-gab, from morning to night. You’d hear all sorts of wild rumors, chief of which was that Lloyd Porter would never marry Kate, once he learned the sort of woman she was. Natural the word reached Porter and Kate both. So then the girl really took the bit in her teeth and married him. I suppose she thought she’d spite her detractors. Matter of fact, she just hurt herself. It wasn’t long before people realized Porter was no good. He was looking into business opportunities all right. I think he had visions of taking over the Rocking-T. Next he tried to wangle a big job at the bank. Maybe you didn’t know that Wyatt’s brother, Yarnell Thornton, owns the bank. Kate put her foot down on that in a hurry—”
“No, I hadn’t heard that—”
“Word got around—Porter was a right free talker on occasion—that Kate’s marriage was headed for the rocks. I reckon she was a pretty unhappy girl. Gene had tried to stop her from marrying Porter. So had Wyatt. There were more quarrels. Now that Porter’s dead, Gene seems closer to Kate than he has in some time. And all this time the nasty tongues were going clickety-clack, clickety-clack with vitriol in every word. And the more the talk, the greater Kate’s defiance. She went out of her way to stir up things, foolishly, of course. I remember the day she came striding along Main, smoking a cigarette—and I happen to know that she doesn’t give a damn about smoking. But she was just out to show people she’d act just as she pleased and to hell with them. And all the time she was getting a little harder and more arrogant. I tried to talk some sense into her, but it didn’t do any good. I knew it wasn’t natural for Kate to act that way.”
Ingram waited while Quist drank some beer, then continued, “Well, maybe you can get an idea how things stand. When Porter disappeared a month or so back, there were those who hinted Kate had had something to do with it. Matter of fact, the way things been going it wouldn’t have surprised me any—nor could I have blamed her. Porter was a skunk, a woman-chaser from the word go; he didn’t pay his gambling debts. Drank a lot too, though I can’t say I ever saw him under the weather. Just made him sort of ugly. I mind the time he started some sort of argument with Kate down in front of Hawkins’ Drug Store. She gave him as good as he sent and a mite more. Finally he lost his temper, and handed her a back-handed slap across the face.”
“And I suppose a dozen gallant males rushed to her rescue and started more gossiping tongues to waggling.”
“It caused plenty talk all right. What she did was a direct affront to gentle womanhood, not lady-like the tabby-cats smirked. But none of it was due to the ‘dozen gallant males,’ you mentioned. Before even one male could take a hand, Kate had hauled off and given Porter a wallop that knocked him clear over a derail. Then followed around the rail to the street and gave him a couple of slashes across the face with a quirt she wore at her wrist.”
Quist’s eyebrows shot up. “Woof!” he exclaimed. “What a woman!”
Ingram nodded. “She’s all of that. You must remember that Kate’s a pretty husky specimen. Hard physically. As you can imagine, a crowd gathered. I was in that crowd. Kate swept us all with a glance, and two or three laughs that had started fell quiet. Then she turned back to Porter and told him, very deliberately, that if he ever laid a hand on her again, she’d put a bullet through him. At that moment, I think she meant it too. Then with nary a glance at us, she climbed into her saddle, and rode out of town, chin up, back straight as a ramrod. It wasn’t long after that, that Porter disappeared. Can you see now why I want Kate to testify at that inquest?”
“Yeah. With her under suspicion, as you might say, you feel it is better for her to put in an appearance, than stay away and have people say that she was afraid to appear because she’d killed him. At least she’ll prove she’s not afraid to answer questions.”
“That’s right.” Ingram yawned. “I’m dog-weary. I’ve got to be getting along to bed.” The two talked a few minutes longer, then the doctor rose, returned the partly empty bottle to Mickey, laid some money on the bar and accompanied Quist outside. Here they parted, Quist heading in the direction of the Clarion House.
CHAPTER 9
THE DEVIL’S DRUM
Quist had finished breakfast in the hotel dining room before eight the following morning. He stood a moment in the lobby gazing out on the street, bathed in morning sunlight. People passed on both sides of Main. Two women carrying sun-parasols and market baskets, crossed diagonally toward Hockaday’s General Store, their long skirts stirring dust in the roadway. A rider walked his pony toward a hitchrack in front of the Warbonnet Saloon. Two men driving wagons pulled their horses to a halt and paused to chat a few moments. Quist drew his sombrero more firmly to his head and stepped out to the gallery of the hotel and thence down to the sidewalk where the hot sun hit him like a blast from the desert the instant he emerged from the shadow. “Going to be hot today,” he told himself, as he crossed Main and turned down Austin Street headed in the direction of the T.N. & A.S. depot.
A train had just pulled out when he arrived, and a few wisps of black smoke still drifted against the cloudless turquoise sky, and the noise from the engine, far down the tracks by this time, came to his ears. On the depot platform, just starting inside, Quist saw a man wearing a stationmaster’s cap. He called to him and the man paused, frowning. He was middle-aged and wore a wide watch-chain across his vest. He was in shirt sleeves. Quist introduced himself and showed his credentials. The man’s name was Ott Nugent and the frown disappeared from his face when he heard Quist’s name.
“Sure, Mr. Quist,” he smiled, “glad to do anything I can to help. I knew you were in town, but missed seeing you get off the train yesterday. I had a telegram from Mr. Fletcher telling me to give you all possible cooperation. It’s about Number Twenty-four, I suppose—that train that was delayed by the landslide—that wasn’t a real landslide—”
“That’s it,” Quist put in. “I’d like—”
Nugent interrupted. “I feel bad about hiring Pardee and Callahan for that night’s work,” he said slowly, shaking his head. “But I’ve hired Callahan before for company hauling when something became necessary. He’d always been mighty reliable. Naturally, when I needed a man I turned to him. Still and all I can’t help feeling some responsibility for the deaths of those two teamsters. Of course—”
“None of it can be laid to your door,” Quist interposed. “As I understand it, you thought you were getting an order from old Tyrus Wolcott, and you jumped to carry out that order.”
Nugent forced a
wry smile. “If you’d ever had to take orders from Wolcott, Mr. Quist, you’d know how fast I jumped. Naturally, I didn’t doubt the genuineness of the order for a minute when it came over the wire. It didn’t seem quite right to me. Still coming—as I thought—from Wolcott, I didn’t dare question it. If that order had been authentic and I’d taken time to question it, I’d probably lost my job—at best I’d have got a lay-off.”
“I know what Tyrant Wolcott is, Nugent. He’s got everybody along the line afraid of him. I’m going to take it up with the directors and see if he can’t be toned down a mite.”
“If you do, you’ll have the gratitude of a lot of men working for the company. He just likes to bully anyone under him. I still don’t see how whoever sent that telegram knew what was being shipped on Twenty-four that night.”
“Somebody knew certain freight was being shipped and when. He—or they—tipped off somebody else in this section. Who, I don’t know. Do you have a copy of the way-bill and other papers?”
“Got ’em right here,” Nugent said, drawing some papers from a hip-pocket. “Thought you’d be around wanting to look at ’em, so I wanted to have ’em handy.”
Quist moved over against the end of the depot and leaning against the wall, scrutinized the data on the freight shipment which had been forwarded by the Drumm & Tidwell Company, of San Francisco, and consigned to the Uhlmann Wholesale Company, of Chicago, Quist scowled. “The shipment apparently consisted of Drum Brand preserves. Now what in the devil—?” He broke off and glanced through the papers again, then, ‘Two-hundred-forty cans of peach preserves. Same number cans plum jam. Four-hundred-eighty cans strawberry jam. Forty-eight cans shipped in each box. Cans? I thought this kind of fodder always came in glass jars of some sort.”
“That’s the case, generally,” Nugent said. “This Drum Brand stuff comes in cans.”
“I expect so,” Quist grunted, frowning. “What sort of looking cans are they?”
“Small can. I should say”—Nugent considered—“around three inches high and three and a half across. Sort of short and squatty—shaped about like a real drum. Just an ordinary tin can, with a label pasted around it showing a picture of a red and white drum, the name of the jam, company name, and so on. Oh, yes, I remember something else. It stated on the can the gross weight was fourteen ounces. Allow an ounce or so for the can; and there’d be around thirteen ounces of jam—”
“Yeah,” Quist nodded absent-mindedly, making some mental calculations. “With forty-eight cans to a box, a filled box would weigh in the neighborhood of fifty pounds. That is, box and all.”
Nugent looked vague. “Yes, I suppose so. I should have kept one of the cans to show you.” He paused, “You knew, didn’t you, that we recovered all the cans, except the strawberry?”
“You mean just the strawberry cans are still missing?” Quist asked sharply.
“That’s it. We forwarded the cans of plum and peach at once to the Chicago consignees. I suppose a claim has been entered for the missing goods—but that’s out of my realm. I couldn’t say for sure.”
Quist swore. “So all I have to do is find four-hundred-eighty cans of strawberry jam. Some thief must have got the wrong sort of information regarding that freight shipment. What sort of train was it, anyway? Do you remember?”
“Partly.” Nugent shrugged his shoulders. “It was a mixed train—box cars, flat cars and gondolas. The flats were loaded with lumber from the northwest. The box cars held the usual stuff—I remember there were a lot of cowhides. Couple of cars held machinery. Being shipped back for replacement or repairs or something, I expect. One car had a lot of furniture in it—folks moving east, probably. There were some tanks of whale-oil and a consignment of otter skins. Some dried fish. I don’t remember what else. Ordinarily I wouldn’t be able to give you that much information, except—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Quist said. “No, don’t bother to dig out what that freight carried.”
“The gondolas were loaded with sand,” Nugent said. “Cripes, don’t they have any sand back East?”
“This is a special sort of sand—white as snow. Best for making glass. Some glass company in New York buys it. What? No I don’t know exactly where it comes from. Some place along the California coast. That’s all I know.”
Quist shoved back his sombrero and perplexedly scratched his thatch of tawny hair. “Damned if it isn’t a puzzler,” he growled. Reaching for his “makin’s” he rolled a cigarette and lighted it. Thoughtfully, he took a couple of inhales; smoke spiraled from his lips as he glanced along the tracks, half consciously following them where they disappeared in the vicinity of the Clarin Mountain range to the west, bright under the morning sunlight. Something else caught his eye along the top of the undulating ridges. He said, “So that’s why they call this The Devil’s Drum country, eh?”
Nugent followed his gaze, then nodded. “Looks enough like a drum to be a real one, don’t it—if it wasn’t for the gawd-awful size of it?”
Rising from among the mountains was a huge rock formation, shaped very much like a drum, even to the wide parallel ridges at top and bottom which resembled to no small extent the hoops of a drum, even to the coloring, which was of reddish sandstone, in contrast to the rest of the rock which was of a brownish-gray cast. Running perpendicularly from top to bottom of the great formation were several strata of the same reddish-hued rock which an observer would immediately construe as the tension-rods of the drum. At one period the gigantic formation had undoubtedly possessed a rounded top, but eons of rains and winds had brought about the centuries of erosion that produced the flat surface. Possibly trees and brush grew there, but at this distance, Quist couldn’t see them.
Quist gave a short laugh. “At any rate, that’s no snare drum, Nugent. If that isn’t the grandaddy of all bass drums, I’m a liar.”
Nugent nodded. “How wide do you figure that is, across the top?”
Quist squinted toward the mountains. “Hard to say in this light. Everything appears nearer than it actually is. It’s my guess that big drum is at least twenty miles from here, and probably four or five miles across the top.”
“Nearer six,” Nugent informed him, “and flat as a mesa up there.”
“You ever make a ride to get a close-up look?”
Nugent shook his head. “Always intended to, but never seemed to get time—what with Tyrant Wolcott and other things to keep me busy. But I’ve talked to one or two old-timers who have, years ago. I guess nobody ever goes up there any more. Quite a climb for a horse, though I understand there’s a way up, on the far side. This side looks practically perpendicular.”
“I’d sure admire to hear some giant beat that drum,” Quist observed. “I reckon it would make considerable boom-boom.”
“You don’t know how it got its name, eh?” Nugent asked. Quist shook his head. Nugent explained, “I was told the Indians in this region—Comanches or Lipan Apaches—named it ages ago. They were mighty superstitious about that big drum, because when there’s a storm bringing thunder, the drum seems to take up the sound of the thunder and carry it along in big rolling reverberations.” He paused, then added seriously, “The Indians couldn’t figure that out, so they finally concluded an evil spirit—the devil—must be doing the drumming.”
Quist laughed. “That’s a lot of bosh, of course.”
“I’m not so sure, Mr. Quist. One old-timer I’ve talked with, claims to have heard that drumming during thunderstorms.”
“You ever heard it?”
The station master shook his head. “I can’t honestly say I have. Once or twice I sort of thought I caught a sound like a drum being rolled, but not being close, I’d hesitate to put thunder. Then, again, we haven’t had any real bad thunderstorms since I’ve been working on this division. And yet, I sort of find myself believing in it.”
“Could be you’re right,” Quist conceded. “Well, I’d better get my mind off the Devil’s Drum, and start concentrating on Drum Brand preserves.
Queer how the theft of those cans with the Drum trade-mark happened to take place in this Devil’s Drum country.”
“It’s a quincedence, all right,” Nugent said gravely. “It might even make you think there was something wrong about those cans of strawberry jam.”
“Exactly the way my mind runs,” Quist admitted, “but I can’t put my finger on it. What could be wrong about those cans?”
“It’s got me beat. Well, if there’s any other way I can help, just say the word, Mr. Quist.”
“I’ll do that. And thanks. I’d better be getting along back to Main Street. That inquest will be coming up right soon. And I’ve got a telegram to send first.”
Nugent nodded and departed in the direction of the freight shed adjoining the depot. Quist entered the station and sent a wire to Jay Fletcher asking for all information possible regarding the consignor and consignee of the canned preserves. Then he turned his steps back toward the main thoroughfare.
The County House, where the inquest was to be held, stood on the southeast corner of Main and Mesquite Streets, a large barn-like structure of rock and adobe, with a second story built of frame construction. By this time, Main was crowded on both sides with ponies and vehicles of all horse-drawn types. People, men and women, thronged the plank sidewalks from which resin welled under the hot sun. Quite a crowd, bulging out into the roadway, had gathered before the County House. As he approached, Quist spied Sheriff Lish Corliss, Ranger Arbuckle and two or three other men he’d met.
Arbuckle saw Quist first. “Thought maybe you’d slept in, Greg,” he smiled.
Quist shook his head. “I’ve been down to the depot, chewing the fat with Nugent about the Devil’s Drum.” He nodded to Corliss who stood near.
Corliss returned the greeting, then asked, “What about the Devil’s Drum?”
“Nothing in particular,” Quist replied. “Nugent was just telling me about superstitious Indians claiming, in the old days, it was beaten by a devil during thunderstorms. You ever heard it, Lish?”
