by Brand, Max
“I got it here,” answered Plug.
He took out a wallet, opened it, and passed over a sheaf of bills inside a brown wrapper.
“That’s exactly it,” said Kennedy. “But you count it.”
Pudge made a magnificent gesture.
“I ain’t going to count it,” he said. “If you held out something, you’re welcome to it. It’s a present, brother. That’s how glad I am to see you taking this bundle of meat out of Horseshoe Flat.”
He turned back to Taxi.
“Silver’s going to be in the soup before long, kid,” he said. “When we spotted your sign around Barry’s old shack, we knew that you’d hit for Horseshoe Flat, and we knew that Silver would be hopping along the line you’d traveled. Maybe they’ve got him already, because the whole gang is sure to be back on the job at the old hangout by this time. There was more of the stuff that you know about. There was more of it to rake in; so they’re back on the job, and they’ll take in Silver for the extra profit.”
He began to laugh, and rub his big, wrinkled hands together. So he followed them to the door and stood holding it open after they had gone out into the night.
“The train starts in fifteen minutes,” said Pudge. “Don’t be late for it. If you try to hold that hombre over in this town for one night, no one knows what’ll happen. Hang onto him, Plug. Hang on hard. We don’t want him back here!”
The door closed. They walked rapidly by dark alleys toward the railroad station, and Taxi found himself standing under the flare of the big gasoline lamp on the station platform while a crowd of idle hangers-on who were waiting for the Overland to come through, stood close up, staring at the handcuffs that proclaimed his status.
He kept looking down at the ground, according to his custom, merely noting their faces through the dark fringe of his lashes.
Then the Overland came, roaring. It seemed to Taxi that his heart speeded up as fast as the whirling of the wheels. This was almost his last moment of hope. There was still man power about him to sweep him out of the hands of Kennedy, if there were only something to set that man power in motion. But nothing happened. The wheels groaned against the brakes and the sanded tracks. The train shuddered to a stop, and Plug hurried Taxi up into a big Pullman.
Some passengers on the platform gave back with horror in their eyes when they saw the handcuffs. A whisper started that seemed to run the length of the entire train. And then the porter, with popping eyes, was showing them into their compartment.
Once in it, Plug Kennedy relaxed utterly.
As he flung himself down on the stiff cushions and bristling plush of the seat, he said to Taxi beside him:
“What puts you on edge, Taxi? Might as well relax, son. All the way across, I’m the one that has the hard luck. I can’t close my eyes more’n half a minute at a time. I have the rotten luck on the trip. I cash in at the end of it, and you go to jail. But what the hell? You been here before! It’ll be kind of restful for you, I’d think. A bird like you out in the big open spaces — why, it’s bad for your nerves, I’d think!”
“Would you, Plug?” asked Taxi.
He smiled a little. Kennedy was silent, staring at him. The square face of Plug Kennedy was built like that of a bulldog, for receiving hard shocks with the least surface damage. It was hard for much emotion to register in that face, but a sort of brooding content that was almost like affection appeared in his eyes as he examined Taxi.
“So it’s over, Taxi, eh?” he said. “A long rest for old Taxi now. When I take and look at you, kid, it does seem funny — what I mean is, the reputation that you’ve grabbed for yourself while you’re still a pup! That’s what eats me. That’s what flabbergasts me!”
The train was still laboring up a long grade. Now it went over the top with a sudden quickening, a lessening of wheel noises and an increased roar of their running.
“What’s the charge?” asked Taxi.
“Aw, what d’you care, Taxi?” asked Kennedy.
“Not much. I’m curious, is all. Who framed me?”
“Doheney. You might as well know.”
“Old Rip Doheney, eh?”
“That’s the boy that did it.”
“It’ll please Rip to see me behind the bars again. Or is he going to try to shove me up Salt Creek?”
“Not this journey. Just burglary, son. Just fourteen or fifteen years.”
Plug laughed, as he finished.
Taxi, for a dreaming moment, forgot his own future as his mind reverted to another picture — Jim Silver returning to the house of Barry Christian on the trail of Taxi and finding the house a dark trap set for him. What was it that Silver had had in his mind? What was it that the girl had meant?
She had called Silver the finest man in the world. Well, she had been willing to throw her life away to help Taxi. She had proved that in the split part of a second back there in her own kitchen on this very night. It made Taxi dizzy when he remembered.
And suppose that Jim Silver were made of the same stuff?
Taxi ruled the thought out of his mind. There could only be one person in the world capable of doing something for nothing. And that one person happened to be a girl. He had found her. She was a dazzling brightness in his mind.
And yet, if only he were free to leave this train and fly back like a homing bird straight for the house among the hills —
He heard the voice of Plug Kennedy saying: “They’ve got some brains out here, sending the flash on to us as soon as they spotted you. They wanted you out of the way.”
“They want me out of the way,” admitted the soft voice of Taxi. “Rip Doheney, eh? What sort of a job does he want me for?”
“Big diamond robbery in Pittsburgh.”
“I haven’t been in Pittsburgh for three years.”
“That’s all right. The boys know that you’re fond of the ice. And this was a big job done in a big way by one man working all alone. Exactly the sort of a job that you’d be likely to tackle, Taxi. Nice and clean and neat and no clews left. Nice and neat. That house was opened up like an oyster shell and cleaned out and closed up again. So they’ll soak you for the job. Something had to be done about it. The people that lost the diamonds were big birds. They raised a holler. Doheney saw he couldn’t get a clew, so he decided, when we heard you were out here, to try to get you and slam you for the job. It’s business, Taxi.”
“Yes. It’s business,” murmured Taxi.
“Too bad, in a way,” said Plug Kennedy. “Maybe you can hitch out of it if you have enough hard cash to hire a good lawyer.”
“No,” said Taxi. “My record’s too long. No use wasting money on a lawyer, because they’re sure to soak me anyway, in the long run. They’re used to slamming me, so they’ll slam me again. And Rip Doheney knows how to bring on the cooked-up testimony.”
He fell into deeper thought than ever.
Then he said: “Tell Rip something for me, will you? Tell him that when I’m out of this mess, I’m going to get him.”
“Hey!” cried Plug. “What’s the idea? What’s the new, big idea? You never go gunning for the cops, Taxi. You use your ammunition on the other yeggs. You know that!”
“The trouble is,” said Taxi, “that now my time means a lot to me.”
There was a long pause in the talk, after this.
“I’ve talked too much,” said the detective finally.
He was gloomy about it. He kept shaking his head.
“Rip would have showed up in the case, anyway,” said Taxi, in the tone of one giving comfort. “You don’t need to blame yourself too much.”
“That’s true,” agreed Plug. “He would ‘a’ showed up. But you’re different, Taxi. You used to take it on the chin without batting an eye, but now you’re all worked up.”
“I’m seeing things,” said Taxi. “I’m seeing that you private detectives are as bad as the yeggs, most of you. Watch me carefully, Plug, because if I manage to find a way out of these cuffs, I’m going to open you up before
I leave the train.”
Plug leaned forward and stared at him.
“You are changed,” he muttered. “You’re ready for Salt Creek, at last! If I had my way, I’d railroad you up the Creek on this here job!”
“Thanks,” said Taxi, and lifting the dark shadow of his lashes, he smiled at his companion with the full brightness of his pale eyes.
Afterward, he sat back against the seat and fell into profound thought. If there were a possible way of doing it, he had determined in the course of these few minutes that he would break away from Plug if it cost him his life to do so. Back yonder among the hills, only the devil himself could tell what danger Jim Silver was approaching.
Even the Barry Christian outfit, even Pudge, seemed to feel confident that there was nothing Silver would not dare for the sake of a friend. But would Silver risk his neck for the sake of a man who had deserted him and ran away? The thing seemed impossible, but a vast, hungry curiosity ate up the soul of Taxi.
There was something new out here in the air of the West. The breathing of it was different. The taste of the ozone was cleaner and went deeper in the lungs. There was more for the eye to grasp inside the circle of a vaster horizon, and perhaps it was also true that the souls of men were cut to larger dimensions?
“Fairy tales! Bunk!” said Taxi aloud.
“Yeah? What?” asked his companion.
Taxi said nothing. He kicked his toe into the plush of the opposite seat and looked at the dust mark that was raised from the plush.
“And I’m going to take you at your word, Taxi,” said Plug Kennedy. “Mind you, I’m going to take you at your word and the first time I even think you’re raisin’ your hand, I’m going to drill you, kid.”
“Better take the burglar kit off me,” said Taxi. “Better take it out of my clothes. I can do a lot with tools like the kind I have in my duds, Plug.”
“Thanks,” said Plug. “That good advice can go with you, too!”
“Hard words,” said Taxi.
“Right here with my eyes open I sit,” said Plug. “And if you can work something on me, kid, while my eyes are right on you, you’re wonderful. I’ll write a book about you!”
“You forget, Plug,” said Taxi, “that if I get loose, the first thing I do will be to rub you out.”
Kennedy stared at him.
“You’ve changed since you’ve gone and got yourself a girl,” said Plug. “I’ll tell you how you’ve changed. You talk too much.”
Taxi laughed. He kept on laughing softly while he almost closed his eyes. The matter of his mirth seemed to endure.
He scratched his leg. From the outside seam of the trousers, he took out a small picklock between the second and third fingers of his left hand.
The train flashed by a small town, streaking out the lights into tiny comets.
“Scratch my right wrist where the handcuff is,” said Taxi. “Those steel cuffs are always able to start me itching.”
“Scratch your own wrist,” advised Plug Kennedy, growing more ugly.
“All right,” said Taxi.
“And mind you, I’m watching.”
“Look close, Plug,” said Taxi. “Because something’s likely to happen to you at any minute.”
“Yeah?” said Plug. He dropped his right hand into his coat pocket. “I’ve got a little iron lady here ready to talk to you, boy. I know you’re kidding now. But I just want you to know that I’m not kidding.”
“All right,” said Taxi. “But keep your eyes open.”
He put his left hand over on his right wrist and scratched carefully under the steel of the handcuff. That slow, wobbling movement enabled him to insert the picklock into the keyhole.
“You’re getting like a dog — gotta scratch your skin, eh?” said Plug. “Why don’t you — ”
He broke off with a grunt of terrified surprise and jerked the gun out of his pocket, for his ear had heard a faint, metallic sound as the lock of the handcuff gave way and the steel snapped outward, worked by its spring.
Taxi jerked up both his manacled hands at the same moment and landed them under the chin of Plug.
It was a good punch with so much lift in it that it brought Kennedy to his feet.
There he wavered, the gun pointing straight at Taxi’s breast.
The handcuffed youth stepped in, clubbed his two hands, and brought them chopping down on the chin of the detective. Plug Kennedy dropped the automatic on the carpet and slumped to the floor.
Taxi kicked the gun aside. Plug was quite right — the straps of those leather handcuffs were hard to work. But his fingers were steel springs, and in a moment he was free. Plug, in the meantime, had begun to groan and kick out. As his senses returned to him, he seemed to think that he was in the middle of a fight and grappled the legs of Taxi.
Butting the muzzle of the automatic against the temple of the detective, Taxi said: “It’s all over, Plug.”
Kennedy lifted his amazed face and stared.
“Something happened,” said Plug. “I dunno what. But something happened, and — ”
“Get up and sit down over there,” said Taxi. “I picked that lock while I was scratching my wrist.”
Kennedy rose from the floor and sat down. Taxi tossed the automatic on the other seat and leaned over the detective, proceeding to bind and gag him.
It was an open invitation for Kennedy to grapple with him, but Plug Kennedy was not such a fool. He knew too many stories of men bigger, stronger, better-trained than himself who had tried their bare hands on Taxi, and the stories all ended in just one way.
Kennedy sat still and allowed Taxi to tie him up.
“And I had my eyes open,” said Kennedy. “That’s what eats me. I had my eyes open!”
XXII
The Trail To Danger
When the emergency signal stopped the Overland, it was a moment before the excited conductor got to the compartment of Plug Kennedy and entered, shouting:
“What fool sort of a joke — ”
Then he saw Plug lying on the floor, where he had rolled from the seat in his frantic efforts to get to the door and make a noise, though the omniscient Taxi had assured him that struggles would get him nowhere. But Plug was a determined man. Now he lay on the floor with his eyes peering out over the swelling of an apple-red face.
When the conductor pulled out the gag, the voice of Plug issued in a siren screech:
“Get Taxi! He’s on that other train! He’s on that freight that just pulled past out of the station. He’s on that and — get him, or he’ll wreck half the Rocky Mountains before sunrise!”
But Taxi was already scooting back toward Horseshoe Flat as fast as a strong engine could take him and a lean train of empties. Yet it seemed slow progress to him, so that he was tempted, now and again, to get off the train and take to his feet. All his muscles twitched and strained as he crouched on the floor of a box car and saw, through the open door, the slow procession of the hill against the distant, bright, unheeding stars.
Over and over again he saw the great form of the golden stallion looming through the night among the trees that surrounded the house of Barry Christian among the mountains; he saw Jim Silver coming slowly out of darkness to explore the place. But not even the prescience of a Jim Silver could equip him with skill to read the dangers of an unlighted house where enemies might be lurking. He would need more than the eyes of a cat.
At last the train entered the long, swift down grade toward Horseshoe Flat. But still there remained the getting to the horse and then the ride through the hills. And after he arrived there, what could he do?
In fact, Jim Silver had gone on the trail of Taxi, though not without some misgivings. The sense of kind had not been in him when he was with the man from the underworld but rather an immense curiosity that drew him from moment to moment. It had seemed incredible that a man could have the qualities of Taxi, the courage, the nerve, the brain and heart of steel without at the same time possessing some of the gentler characteristi
cs. But the man had seemed incapable of deep emotion. He was like an Indian — able to remember a grudge forever, to keep to a blood trail with unshakable determination, and to endure the worst torture with locked jaws and a vacant eye. He was like a tool with an edge of the finest temper, able to work in hardest steel and in fact never used for anything else.
What made Silver finally take up the way of the fugitive was, as a matter of course, not purely a regard for this man whom he could hardly call a friend but rather a point of pride that intrigued him and led him on; for Taxi had plainly inferred that there must be some secret motive and some hidden spring of action that induced Silver to undergo such danger for him. It would be an ironic satisfaction to do Taxi one more good turn and then bid him good-by.
That Taxi would be in need of further aid, Silver had not the slightest doubt, because he knew enough of the nature of the man to understand that he would never rest content until he had repaid the torments which he had endured at the hands of Christian’s men. Taxi would certainly go on the back trail to get at them, and if he did, he could hardly humanly hope to handle such a crew. His skill might be great but so was theirs. Besides this, he knew the genius of Barry Christian which was able to work in the dark of other men’s intentions.
So Silver, after much time spent in brooding, finally took up the trail.
It was a hard task. He was busy until dusk getting the dim footmarks off the ground until he was able to strike out the line which Taxi had followed in coming to the farmhouse. The old man of the ranch told him freely enough about the manner in which Taxi had picked out the roan horse.
“You can’t tell a man’s brains by the clothes he’s wearin’,” said the veteran. And he pointed out how Taxi had ridden away, and indicated the gap among the hills through which he had disappeared.
“The sort of a gent,” said the old man, “that you’d expect to see turnin’ up again, somewheres — in a book, or his picture in the newspaper, maybe.”
Jim Silver could agree with that.
When he came through the gap in the hills and made sure that the line Taxi was riding led almost straight back toward the house of Barry Christian, he shook his head and brought Parade to a halt.
