Play a Lone Hand

by Short, Luke;

  The land office, cool and shaded against the late afternoon sun, was deserted save for the Mexican clerk working at his desk. She saw Deyo through the open door of his office and a faint blue haze of cigar smoke betrayed Sebree’s presence there too. Lifting the counter gate, she nodded to the clerk and entered Deyo’s office.

  Sebree rose at her entrance and courteously placed a chair for her, then moved over to the door. Mary, with her back to him, did not catch his glance at Deyo, nor the brief movement of his head.

  Deyo rose, gathered some papers together, and said stiffly, “I’ve got to go over these with my clerk. Excuse me.” He went out, trailing a faint odor of bay rum.

  Sebree walked over to the chair Deyo had vacated and sat down. Looking over the desk, he complained mildly, “Why won’t some men put an ash tray in their office.”

  Mary was watching him closely. He seemed in his usual serene spirits, she thought, and she found herself hating him again, not for his rich clothes, his fine cigars, nor for what he represented, but this time for his bland and affable front.

  Sebree tilted back in his chair and regarded her a brief and friendly moment before he said, “I didn’t bring any money and I’m not going to pay you any more. You’ve been on the merry-go-round long enough and now you’re getting off.”

  The mildness of his words in contrast to their content was confusing for a moment. When Mary understood their full meaning, she felt a nameless excitement. She had often wondered how she would handle this very situation and had rehearsed it in her mind. Remembering, she rose and said coldly, “Suit yourself, Grady.”

  Sebree said quietly, “Don’t be in such a hurry. You haven’t heard all I have to say.”

  “I’ve heard enough.”

  “I think not. The second thing I have to tell you is that I want your copy of the Free Press.”

  Mary stared unbelievingly at him, then she said tartly, “You can get it tomorrow by taking it away from Dixon. He will have it.”

  Sebree began to shake his head slowly from side to side. “You’re wrong about that. Dixon won’t have it by tomorrow morning for the simple reason that I’ve got Dixon.”

  Mary stood utterly still, terror seizing her. Then she sat down and Sebree read the torment in her face and smiled.

  “You’ve got Dixon?” Mary echoed slowly.

  Sebree nodded. “Unhurt and very well guarded.”

  Mary waited many seconds before she could trust herself to speak. “What are you going to do with him?”

  “Why, trade him to you,” Sebree said in mild astonishment at her lack of perception. “You give me your copy of the Free Press and I’ll turn him back to you unharmed.”

  “Yes!” Mary said quickly. “Yes! I’m willing.”

  Sebree smiled, and said, “At your house at nine, say.” When she nodded, he could not resist a last thrust. “Maybe he won’t have you, once he knows you are a blackmailer.”

  “Maybe,” Mary said quietly.

  7

  Giff had been sleeping when he was aroused by the trap door slamming back on its hinges. Carrying the lantern ahead of him, Traff stepped into the stifling attic and then moved aside to make way for Giff’s two guards. They were carrying ropes and wordlessly they rolled him over on his face and bound his hands behind him. Then Traff motioned with his gun for him to stand.

  Giff rose unsteadily to his feet; the hot fetid air of his prison was like a drug and he stared stupidly at Traff. His mind worked with difficulty and he knew that he should be concerned now with this new move, but the heat, his thirst, and the pain of his aching head, had robbed him of all vitality.

  “You’re too heavy to carry,” Traff said curtly. “Walk down.”

  One of the guards slipped down the ladder and Giff, as he approached the trap door with its blessed current of fresh air, could see him waiting below in the dim light of the corridor lamp. Uncertainly and awkwardly he made his way down the ladder and then Traff prodded him down the stairs and into the empty saloon.

  Save for his guard and Traff, there was no one about. He had never seen Bentham after his first appearance in the attic. The lamps were all burning brightly and he blinked against the unaccustomed light. He turned his head to ask for water and, out of the corner of his eye, saw Traff’s movement.

  Putting a booted foot in the middle of Giff’s back, Traff shoved. Too late Giff saw him and then he was off balance. He fell heavily to the floor and tried to roll over on his back in time for Traff’s attack, but Traff approached him slowly and looked down at him.

  “Want another kick?” Traff asked.

  “Another won’t matter,” Giff said quietly. He knew Traff saw the cold, sustained hatred in his eyes, and he didn’t care.

  Traff only turned to the guards and said, “Tie his feet.”

  When that was done and his hat mashed down on his head, three of them lugged him out into the night and down the steps. He was thrown in a waiting buckboard and a tarp pulled loosely over him. Then began the long jolting journey. Giff had no idea of where he was being taken or for what reason. He could hear a horseman on either side of him, but there was no conversation. Sometime during the first half-hour, he heard the up-stage clatter full-tilt past them, raising such a racket that he could not have been heard even had he shouted.

  Later they left the sound of the creek and achieved a smoother and less rocky road. Were they headed for Torreon, Giff wondered? For the past twenty-four hours, he had tried to fathom the reason behind his kidnaping and had not succeeded. He was fairly certain that if they intended to dispose of him as they had disposed of Albers, they would have done it by now. A lifeless body was much easier to haul along mountain roads and dim trails to its final resting place than a live man with a voice. The anger at his own gullibility the night he was seized had never ceased rankling. Beyong it was the deep and murderous hatred of Traff. Either Traff must kill him or he would kill Traff, and he wondered if the man knew that.

  More than two hours had passed, he judged, when the buckboard and its outriders slowed from a mile-eating trot into a walk. In some way the sounds of the wagon tires and the hoofbeats were altered and seemed almost muffled. Giff listened closely, his senses alert, trying to interpret the change. Their pace slowed and finally they came to a halt.

  “Everything all right?” Giff identified the voice as Sebree’s. He heard Traff’s voice say, “Sure,” and then the sound of the two guards dismounting.

  The canvas was yanked off him and above him he saw great arching trees against the night sky. His feet were grabbed and he was hauled halfway out of the buckboard, then raised to a sitting position. Immediately he saw he was in town and then, only an instant later, that the buckboard was pulled up in front of Mrs. Wiatt’s.

  A quick alarm came to him. What had Mary to do with any of this? He heard Traff’s surly voice beside him in the dark. “Open your mouth and I’ll belt your teeth out. Get down!”

  Giff slipped to the ground and one of his guards undid the rope binding his feet while the other steadied him. He could make out Sebree’s tall form standing by the gate before Traff’s gun prodded him into movement. Abreast of Sebree he halted and said, “What are we doing here?”

  Sebree laughed softly and said, “Go inside and find out.” Sebree pushed past and they followed him up onto the porch where he rang the bell.

  The door was opened immediately by Mary. She stood motionless only long enough to identify Giff. He could barely see a smile on her face at sight of him and he did not speak, only looked at her in a puzzled way that seemed to remind her of the others. She stepped aside and said, “Come in.” The neat parlor was brightly lit and as they entered, Sebree was the only one to remove his hat. Giff was watching Mary for a clue to the cause of this strange meeting; she was excited and nervous, Giff saw, and oddly there was a happiness in her expression, too.

  She came up to him and touched him and said, “My room is across the hall, Giff. Go in there for a minute.”

  Giff
glanced from her to Sebree, who was regarding them with an amused tolerance. “No,” Giff said. “What is this?”

  “Please go, Giff.”

  “No,” Giff said stubbornly. “Whatever’s going on, I want to see it.”

  Mary turned her head to look at Sebree and the glance she exchanged with him meant nothing to Giff. He saw Sebree shrug, then heard him say to Mary, “I’ll untie him if you want.”

  “Get those gunmen out of here first,” Mary said coldly.

  Sebree turned to his men. “Untie his hands and then get out on the porch by the door. Leave it open.” The closest puncher released Giff from his bonds and then he, along with Traff and the other guard, moved out the door.

  Sebree spoke to Mary now, “I have no gun with me, but I’ll call them back if he moves.” He shuttled his glance to Giff. “Is that understood?”

  Mary only nodded and then turned and vanished into the dark dining room. Giff, totally bewildered by now, regarded Sebree with mounting suspicion and bafflement. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  Sebree said dryly, “I wouldn’t spoil it for worlds.”

  Mary entered then and in her hand was a newspaper.

  She walked straight to Sebree and handed it to him. Sebree could not entirely conceal his haste to receive it and immediately he turned it over and read aloud, “April 17, 1882. That’s the one I want.” Then he discovered the second newspaper under the first. “What’s this?”

  “The true copy and the one Albers set up for Deyo,” Mary said. “I did more than keep my word.”

  With a stunning force it came to Giff then what he was witnessing. Mary was trading the evidence that would ruin Sebree for his own freedom.

  “No! Mary, no!” he shouted, and he moved instinctively toward her.

  Sebree backed away saying sharply to Mary, “Make him behave!”

  Swiftly Mary wheeled and barred Giff’s way. “Be still! Be quiet!” she demanded sharply. Then she swiveled her head and still holding him, said to Sebree, “Get out!”

  Sebree lunged for the door and was gone.

  Roughly Giff seized Mary as if to move her aside and follow, a wild reckless anger upon him.

  Mary said harshly, “Are you asking them to kill you?”

  Giff checked himself and looked down at her and then slowly removed his hands from her shoulders. It was true; he was unarmed and now that Sebree had retrieved the evidence that would ruin him, he would cheerfully kill before letting it go.

  Only now did the full implication of Mary’s act come to him. He scrubbed his unshaved cheek with the palm of his hand and then laid his accusing glance on Mary. She was standing close to him, watching him with sober eyes.

  “You had them all the time,” Giff accused.

  “Ever since I found them months ago,” Mary agreed quietly. “I’ve been blackmailing Sebree with them.”

  Giff said nothing, only watched her.

  “Say it,” Mary invited bitterly.

  Giff shook his head slowly. “You’ve said it all.”

  “Not all,” Mary said miserably. “To say it all, I’d have to tell you how my father fawned on him. I’d have to explain to you how good I felt when I demanded money from him and got it. I’d have to explain to you how his money is a special kind of money, not like other money, because he gave it to me in fear.”

  There was no pity in Giff’s face as he listened. He said with a bitter mockery, “I’m surprised you let them go when they were making money for you.”

  Mary flushed at his words, but she didn’t answer.

  “Why didn’t you give them to me in the first place?”

  “I asked myself that yesterday.”

  “Then what changed your mind?”

  Mary gave him a searching look and then said, “You can ask that, but I don’t have to answer it, do I?”

  Giff shook his head in bewilderment, “You’re a strange girl,” he said bitterly. “You’re hard at the wrong times and soft when you should be hard.”

  “Like tonight?”

  Giff sighed, “Like tonight. Why couldn’t you have kept the papers? Why couldn’t you have told Sebree you’d turn them in to Welling if he didn’t free me?”

  “I could have done that,” Mary said slowly and then she added in an almost inaudible voice, “I guess that’s what I should have done.”

  Giff said bitterly, “Well it’s too late now.”

  “Too late for a lot of things,” Mary murmured.

  They faced each other almost with defiance, then Giff said, “All it means is that I’ll have to get them back.”

  Mary said nothing and Giff turned and walked out of the house. In the deep shade of a tree by the front gate, he halted and looked back through the open door. Mary was standing the way he had left her and for a baffled and uneasy moment he watched her. He knew he had been rough and unkind, and that he should return and admit it.

  But his pride and his haste checked him, as he thought of Sebree’s triumph. He moved then, and not back toward the house, his mind already scheming ahead.

  An unreasoning and furious stubbornness was upon him now. First of all he must get hold of a gun. Then someway, anyway, he must get the papers back from Sebree. Passing Henty’s saloon he glanced at the horses lining its tie rail; by the dim light of the saloon’s lamps, he saw the Torreon brand on the hip of the horse closest to him. Halting, he moved over and saw a second and a third horse, both branded Torreon. Turning now, he moved over to Henty’s window and looked into the crowded saloon. There was Sebree seated at one of the card tables with Deyo and Kearie. Traff and another man made up the five-handed game of poker that Sebree seemed to be enjoying. At the bar Giff saw his two guards in conversation with the trio of punchers Giff recognized as Torreon hands. There could have been other Torreon hands in the crowd; probably there were.

  The sight of half Torreon celebrating sobered Giff. The thought of taking the papers away from Sebree seemed impossible now. Surrounded by the pick of his toughest men, Sebree could afford to linger over his cards. Giff knew that if he walked into Henty’s, he would never make it half way to Sebree’s table.

  But turning away from the window, his black stubbornness returned. I’m going to try it anyway. He passed the land office and saw the lantern hanging in the livery archway ahead. Stepping into the office, he saw Cass seated at his desk reading an old Stockman’s Gazette. At his entrance, Cass looked up and then pitched the magazine to the floor. “Where’ve you been?” Cass demanded.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Giff said shortly, and then added, “Same old question—got another gun?”

  Cass said softly, “Oh, oh!” and watched him a long moment. Then he rose and moved over to the wall. On the nail was a holstered gun and shell belt which Cass took down. He said, walking toward Giff, “This is my hostler’s. Don’t lose it.”

  While Giff was belting on the gun, Cass watched him soberly. “Need any help?”

  Remembering the line up of Torreon riders in Henty’s, Giff shook his head. This wasn’t Cass’s fight and Giff said, “Not this time.”

  He was turning toward the door when Cass said, “That fellow showed up.”

  Giff halted and looked at him, puzzlement in his dark, stiff face.

  “Jim Archer. He showed up. He’s at the hotel.”

  “Thanks,” Giff said and stepped out into the runway. By the time he had reached the plankwalk, his pace was slowing and then he halted. The idea taking shape in his mind seemed an unlikely one, but as he stood there pondering it, memory of what Henty’s held for him came to him again. Maybe, he thought.

  Wheeling, he turned upstreet toward the hotel. At the desk he asked of the clerk, “Which room is Archer’s?” and was told. Tramping up the stairs, there was scant hope in him and for a moment his impulse was to turn around and give up the idea; but he went on and tramped down the corridor to the room named him by the clerk and knocked on the door.

  He heard movement in the room and then the door opened.
Confronting him was a middle-aged, mild-looking man, dressed in clean range clothes. He was of ordinary size with colorless, clean-shaven features. A saddle of thinning black hair crossed his pale bald head. He might have been any barber in any town—faceless, pleasant, trusted.

  Giff asked, “Did anyone get in touch with you yet?”

  Archer shook his head slowly. Giff stepped in and closed the door behind him, leaning on it. “You know your job?”

  Archer seemed to think that question not worth answering. He said, “I’ve been paid for it. Just show me the man.”

  Giff felt a sudden almost sickening hatred of the man. Beyond that he felt a dread of what he himself was about to do. Here was a killing contracted for and paid for; all that remained was for him to choose the man to be killed. He thought of Sebree’s crew at Henty’s. Neither his wrath, his cunning, nor his courage would get him past them to Sebree, whereas this little man would go unnoticed.

  All that remained was for him to give the word. Yet he felt a deep reluctance within him. The murderous irony of the situation did not escape him, but appreciation of it didn’t help. Cold reason told him that this was only simple justice to Sebree. Instinct told him that it was the wrong way. Again memory of Sebree’s crew came unbidden to his mind, pushing him to his decision. Right or not, that’s the way it has to be, he thought, and he moved into the room, making his voice coldly matter-of-fact. “Your man is sitting in Henry’s saloon now. Do you know the place?”

  “I had a drink there this evening,” Archer replied in a mild voice.

  “Good,” Giff moved over to the bare bureau top and Archer watched him closely.

  “Pay attention now,” Giff said. “Here’s Henty’s door.” And then on the bureau top, he sketched out the location of Sebree’s table. Then he said, “Your man is facing the door. He’s tall, well-fleshed and his full mustaches are turning gray. He’s wearing a black coat and a new dust-colored Stetson. He has dark eyes and a florid complexion. He wears a heavy gold ring on the fourth finger of his left hand; he’ll be smoking a good cigar.”