by Brand, Max
“If you want to see her, you shall,” said Silver suddenly. “I’ll take you out there to meet her. But I’d like to lay an eye on Mr. Nellihan, first.”
He said it in such a way that Kenyon started.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “You want me to take you over to him?”
“I want you to go over there and start talking to him,” said Silver. “Because there’s a chance that he knows the look of me, and if he does, he’s likely to out with a gun and pepper me. I want you to go in and take his eye, and then I’ll try to step inside and have a few words with him. Will you do that?”
“Does it mean guns?” asked Kenyon with a sigh. “I ain’t any hero, Arizona. I ain’t like you. I got nerves, and bad ones!”
“I don’t know what it’ll mean,” said Silver. “I want to talk to him. You understand? I have something to say to him. That’s all. He may start a fight. If he does, I’ll have to try to finish it.”
Kenyon bit his lip, then nodded.
“I’ll go in first, then,” said he. “You come when you’re ready. So long, Arizona.”
He went down the street with his long strides.
A moment later, big One-eyed Harry came out, singing from the bottom of his deep throat.
“Load up the stuff,” commanded Silver abruptly. “Get the horses ready. And take them down the street, slowly, mind you. Don’t go any farther than that white house, down there. When you get near that, find something to do about the saddle — a girth or something to fool with until you hear from me. Is that clear?”
“Clear as a bell,” said Harry Bench. “What new kind of deviltry is up now?”
“It’s all a part of one pattern that I don’t quite understand, but it’s almost clear, now,” said Silver. “Do what I say. Be ready to chuck the mule loose, because we may have to start moving faster than a mule gallop.”
By this time, the tall form of Kenyon had disappeared through the front door of the white-faced shack, and therefore Silver followed on at once. When he came to the steps that led up to the diminutive veranda, he was glad of the soft-soled sandals he wore. They carried him noiselessly to the door, and as he reached it, he could hear the voices inside.
The penetrating and disagreeable tone of Nellihan was saying: “Business is business, Mr. Kenyon. But to go back to the beginning, you’ve endured a terrible wrong. That wrong ought to be righted. A fraud has been practiced on you. A terrible fraud. That marriage should not lead to a divorce. It ought to lead to an annulment. As though it never had been. It was a piece of trickery on the part of that girl. And she should be made to suffer for it. Any man with a right sense of his own dignity would be sure to see that she suffered for what she’s done.”
The gentle voice of Kenyon answered, drawling: “I suppose that a lot of people would agree with what you have to say, Mr. Nellihan. But I dunno that I can see it that way. It ain’t the money that — ”
“Money!” said Nellihan his voice suddenly lowering. “Money? Do you know what I’m speaking about when I say money? Have you any idea of what you intend to throw out the window?”
“Not any clear idea,” answered Kenyon.
“Then listen to me — and I know what I’m talking about. It’s my business to know — and I know! It’s a matter of between eight and ten million dollars!”
Kenyon gasped very audibly; even Silver was shocked by the amount of the fortune.
“I’m putting my cards on the table, Mr. Kenyon,” said Nellihan, “I have to say to you that I was made the victim of a crooked will, a piece of fraud engineered by that same girl, and I want you to know that if I can prove that her marriage was an act of fraud, I can have the estate sealed up, make her repay the money she’s stolen from the bank, and have two chances out of three to have myself declared the full or the half heir of the whole business. There are my cards, sir. Now what do you think of ‘em?”
His hand slapped the table, evidently, at this point.
“Well, partner,” said Kenyon, “I dunno what I think. I only know what I feel when you tell me that you’re goin’ to accuse her of anything and try to prove it by something that I say or do. And I can tell you, man to man, with all the cards face up on the table, that you’re an infernal rascal, and that I’ll have nothing to do with you!”
“You fool!” gasped Nellihan.
And that was the moment when Silver pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Chapter 18
The gun of Silver appeared before his body, so the swift hand of Nellihan fluttered, but failed to complete its gesture. He stood in a rather ridiculous, namby-pamby attitude, as though he had been trying to shake mud off his fingers.
“Excuse me, señor, if you please,” said Silver.
“Back up into the corner, Kenyon!” breathed Nellihan. “If we’ve got him between two angles, we’ll make him jump! The greaser!”
Kenyon turned quietly to Silver.
“Shall I stay here?” he asked.
“Stand back here near the door,” answered Silver, “and wait till I need you.”
He kept his speech in Spanish, but Nellihan cried out in the same language:
“Is this a plot between the pair of you? Kenyon, are you a crook, after all? Here — you — what do you want?”
Silver looked at him with a curious penetration. He was seeing Nellihan clearly for the first time, and he thought the man’s face was the most detestable he had ever seen. There was something about the entire makeup of Nellihan that was revolting — a sort of cross between the bird and the beast. He had a long, gaunt pair of legs with a pair of great feet on the end of them. He had a hunched back which forced his shoulders forward and kept his head thrust forward at a sharp angle. But no bodily deformity matched his face — a sickly yellow-gray.
The colour was not all. The features could be called handsome, in a way, and a smiling way, at that, but there was a birdlike intensity of brightness about the eyes that turned the blood of Silver cold. The man was something more and something less than human. And if this were the antagonist of Edith Alton, Silver could pity her. It was no wonder that she had been driven to the wall.
“What do you want?” Nellihan was repeating.
“Señor,” said Silver, “One night not long ago you killed, in a saloon in Mustang a man named Buck.”
“You say I killed him,” said Nellihan. “Is there any reason on earth why I should have done it?”
“Yes,” said Silver. “The señor hired Buck to murder Señor Kenyon here. And when Buck was about to confess that he was hired, and who had bought him, the señor fired a bullet out of the darkness. He stood safe in the night, and killed this man. But Buck lived to write on the floor!”
“He wrote three letters on the floor, and because they’re the first three letters of my name, d’you think that that’s a proof against me?” asked Nellihan. “What would the law say to that? He might have been starting to write ‘Nelson’ or ‘Nelly,’ or I don’t know what!”
“There are not very many names that begin with those letters,” said Silver.
“You poor fool,” exclaimed Nellihan, “you think that you’ll get reward money if you take me back to Mustang and lay the charge against me? Why, the whole town would laugh. There’s no motive that could be charged to me!”
“No?” said Silver. “There was first the motive of hiring Buck — to prevent the marriage of the señorita with Señor Kenyon — and then the killing of Buck to close his mouth.”
Nellihan leaned over and gripped the edge of the table with both hands.
“That’s the case you’ll talk up, my Mexican friend, is it?” said he. “You might raise a mob — that’s all you could do against me. You never would have a grip on the law. The law would laugh at you. The sheriff would refuse to make the arrest.”
A change came over Silver. He stood straighter. The mop of black hair fell back from his eyes, and let the sheen of them strike into the very soul of Nellihan.
“The thing is
outside of the law, señor,” he said. “But, I, also, am outside of the law. I am going to put up my revolver. I know you carry one. If you can murder in the dark, perhaps you can fight in the light. Now, señor!”
Silver flashed his Colt back inside the looseness of his shirt, beneath the pit of the left arm.
But the fear that had been turning Nellihan to stone now was relieved, and the life gradually came back into his eyes. It had seemed to Kenyon, looking on at this strange scene, that the man had been taken into the hand of Silver’s greater mind and greater emotion, and crushed. But now he recovered a little, rapidly.
“I see what you are,” said Nellihan. “No more a peon than your eyes are black. No more a thug than a saint is. You’re one of these romantic fools, are you? Well, I won’t make a move to get my gun!”
“If you don’t — ” began Silver, and suddenly paused.
What could he do? There was nothing he wanted more than to rid the world of this poisonous monster. But he could not shoot down a man who refused to fight.
“I won’t,” said Nellihan, shaking his head, smiling and sneering. “Some other day — perhaps. Perhaps when I’m myself. But I’ve had a small shock, and I’m upset. Another day, when I’m myself, I might have the pleasure of putting a bullet through you — whoever you are behind your skin! But not now. I won’t lift a hand — and you won’t do murder!”
Silver stared hard. If ever there had been a temptation toward murder, it was working now in his blood. His breath left him, in the passion of his anger and his disgust, and it would have been hard to tell what his next act might have been, when a footfall sounded on the steps of the little house, and the door was flung open by — Lorens!
The gun of Silver flashed toward him instantly, and seeing the full picture of Kenyon, Nellihan, and Silver gathered together, Lorens slammed the door again and bounded back down the steps, with a yell.
That yell went ringing through the air: “Help! Help! Guns this way!”
Silver rammed the muzzle of his Colt under the chin of Nellihan, and with a swift hand snatched away his two guns.
And he was saying as he “fanned” Nellihan: “There’ll be another meeting, Nellihan.”
“In which I’ll send you to the devil!” said Nellihan.
He was perfectly calm about it. If there was no shame in the man, the lack of it was an added strength for him, it appeared.
“Get your horse!” called Silver to Kenyon. “Get your horse and ride like the devil after me. Keep the spur in its side!”
Then he leaped for the door and out into the street, in time to see Lorens darting into the hotel, still shouting.
The long legs of Kenyon bore him rapidly across the street, diagonally backward. Silver himself reached Parade, and as big Harry Bench mounted his own mustang, throwing the mule adrift, Silver flung himself on top of the pack.
He was working with both hands, as the great horse sprang away, and finally managing to reach down with his hunting knife, he cut the last strap that bound the pack and the saddle to the stallion.
The whole contraption fell crashing into the street, and left Silver on the smooth, rounded, powerful back of Parade.
Looking back, he saw Kenyon streaking a horse after him, with Harry Bench already midway between the two. Still farther back, there was a rout of men tumbling out of the hotel, and mounting their horses.
Silver thundered: “Harry, keep coming, I’m leaving you, but I’ll meet you again in five minutes up the road!”
And he left them — yes, as though they were standing still, for at his call, Parade went away on wings. The green trees blurred together in walls on either side of the road, so great was his speed. It seemed hardly an instant before Silver found himself nearing the shack where Lorens had lived, and as he did so, he saw David Holman ride out on the grey horse into the trail.
Silver waved his arm frantically, as a signal for haste.
“The girl! The girl! Both of you start on the run!” he yelled.
Holman twisted that cow pony around as though he were an old hand on a cattle ranch, and as Silver checked the stallion opposite the shack, he saw Edith Alton swinging up onto the roan mustang. Then, in one well-formed sweep, the five riders broke away on the trail together.
Silver lingered near the front only long enough to call to Holman to learn how Lorens had escaped, and he was told that the man had been left securely tied, while Holman walked out with the girl for a few minutes. When he returned, just now, he found Lorens gone, and fearing that danger would come, he had saddled both horses and started to ride back a little down the trail to see that all was well.
The story was simple enough. The damage that was done by the fact that might be the end of them all, and Silver knew it.
He reined back beside the girl. She gave him a sidelong look of agony out of her pinched face. Her look said to him clearly: “You’re Arizona Jim! You’re the friend of Ned Kenyon, and you’ve brought him here like a curse on me!”
He answered that look by crying out: “I’m here to help you. So is Kenyon. We’re for you, and for Holman, We’ll see you through!”
He fell back still farther, and waved cheerfully to One-eyed Harry Bench, who gave him a tremendous scowl and a shake of the head, as though knowing that his weight would wear out any horse, in a long chase.
Still farther back, along the single file, Silver ranged up beside the white face and the shadowy, sunken eyes of Kenyon. That was what the sight of the girl had done to him.
But Silver shouted at him, almost savagely: “Go up into the lead! You know all of this country like a book. Go up and lay a trail for us that will shake off the men from Kirby Crossing! Go on up to the lead, Ned, if you’re half a man!”
Chapter 19
There were many doubts in the mind of Silver, as he fell back to the place of rear guard on that procession, with the dust raised by the others whipping into his face.
With Parade beneath him, he could sweep away from all danger, easily; and the girl and Holman were well mounted, also. But the weight of Harry Bench was a ponderous load for a horse to bear, and Kenyon was a clumsy rider, and his mustang not very fast of foot. The speed of the party would have to be the speed of the slowest member in it, unless he could devise a way to split the group into sections.
What the men from Kirby Crossing wanted, of course, was David Holman, and the price that was on his head. If Bench and Kenyon, being the worst mounted of the group, could be shunted aside, it was not likely that any of the men of Kirby Crossing would tail after them. But now they left the trees and entered a great ravine where there was not even a bush or a rock to make a hiding place, and no canyons opened on either side. Perhaps a glacier, in the dead ages, had plowed out this enormous trench. At any rate, it seemed to Silver that Kenyon was leading the party into a hopeless trap, for the pursuers were rushing out from the trees in turn, and racing up the gorge.
He looked back, and gauged them. There were a full score of head hunters who had answered the call of Lorens and joined in the chase. Except for Lorens himself, five thousand dollars, even if divided into twenty parts, would give a handsome sum to each of those fellows. And if Lorens despised a cash reward as small as this, he would be gratified by revenge.
They made a formidable couple, hunting together — Lorens and Nellihan. And behind them, no doubt, was a hardy assortment of fighting men. Silver, scanning them, thought that every one of the lot rode like a vetran horseman.
He ranged Parade forward to the side of Kenyon, who galloped in the lead.
“They’re gaining on us, Ned!” he said. “Some of ‘em are eating up the ground. We’ve got to get into cover or broken ground before long, or they’ll scoop us up.
Kenyon pointed ahead.
“You can’t see it yet,” he said, “but half a mile ahead there’s a ravine opening on the right. It twists back into the mountains, and it’s filled with cover. Three men could hold off three hundred Injuns in that ravine.”
Silver pulled back to the rear again. David Holman joined him.
“Go back to the girl!” Silver commanded him. “I don’t need you.”
“You’ve turned from Mexican into white, Juan, have you?” said Holman. “She tells me that she’s recognized you at last — that you’re Arizona Jim — that you’re the friend of — of her husband!”
His face twisted as he said that.
“Whatever I am, and whatever Kenyon is,” said Silver, “we’re in here to help you. You get back beside the girl.”
“While you stay back and catch the bullets that fly?” asked Holman.
He smiled a little then, then eased the Winchester that slanted in a saddle holster under his right leg.
“I’ll stay back here with you,” said Holman calmly.
Silver protested no longer. Those men from the town of Kirby Crossing were gaining too rapidly, and the mustang that carried the bulk of One-eyed Harry was beginning to labor and grow unsteady of foot. Loud yells came from the pursuit. Each man rode as if for a prize. And the cold sweat beaded the forehead of Silver as he heard the whoopings.
But there, on the right, opened the mouth of a narrow canyon. It looked not so much water-worn, as simply a crack in the rocks. Kenyon led the way into it, and from behind, Silver heard a redoubled shouting that seemed to be of triumph. He looked back. He saw waving hats and hands, and one of the punchers shooting a stream of bullets into the air.
That was the way men acted when they rejoiced, but why should they be triumphant now?
For the entrance to the ravine seemed to Silver to promise them an ideal retreat. The little canyon wound crookedly back into the highlands, and the floor was covered with shrubs and with rocks that had fallen from the walls. But as they turned the first elbow bend, a shout of woe went up from Kenyon.
Silver saw the trouble at a glance, and an explanation of the exultation of the men of Kirby Crossing. For the lofty wall on one side of the valley had been shaken loose by an earthquake, perhaps, and now the gorge was choked almost to the top with a mighty confusion of broken rock, great stones that had broken square or jagged, and were heaped in ten-ton fragments.
