by Brand, Max
He turned Parade, and the stallion moved down the slope over the edge of the mountain shoulder. He went carefully, for the voice of his master was hushing him, and Parade glided through the brush like a hunting cat, making never a sound.
Chapter 22
The house of “Buster” Wayland had formerly been the house of the leading banker of the little town of Tuckaway. Simonson had taken an entire block, planted an evergreen hedge around the outside of it, and a grove of trees inside. Within the trees he had established a lawn, and within the lawn stood the house and the stables. The house itself was a frame dwelling, square, plain, and dignified, because Simonson had taste as good as it was simple.
Silver rode his horse right in through the big open gate, but turned aside from the driveway into a dark cloud of trees close to the lawn. There he dismounted and spent a few moments patting Parade and giving him those whispering injunctions which would make him stand fast until his master’s whistle summoned him, or his master’s voice.
In the meantime, Silver himself was taking breath, and clearing his wits, as it were, by deep breathing. He was still dressed, of course, in the ragged, stained white clothes which he had worn before. And therefore no eye could fall on him without suspicion. He would have to move invisible to the very moment when he began action. And even what that action was to be, he had very little idea. He was like an actor who walks out before the curtain to entertain a crowd, and who must improvise his speeches on the spur of the moment.
He left the horse at last and made a circle of the house. All along the front and rear and one side it was lighted. On the fourth side there was not a light showing.
The ground windows were low, and the first one that Silver looked through showed him the dining room, with Buster Wayland and three guests at the table, and a Chinaman, humpbacked with anxious effort, gliding about to serve them.
It was not hard to guess that the man at the head of the table was Wayland. All of his nickname of “Buster” showed in his big, florid face, in the sheen of his eyes, in his continual smiling or laughter. He was big. He was so big that he overflowed his armchair. His gestures and his voice were of the overflowing type, also, and as Silver looked at him, he could not help having a flash back at the wounded man who lay on the shoulder of the mountain with only the vaguest of hopes of giving him comfort.
As for the guests, they were men worth seeing. One of them was none other than Sheriff Bert Philips, whom Silver had last seen in the town of Mustang. The other two, it came instantly to knowledge, were deputies who were assisting Philips in the man hunt. They were talking of that, and of nothing else, and the banker was assuring the sheriff that there would be an adequate reward paid outside of the promise of the law once young Holman was accounted for.
“How he’s kept away this long, nobody can make out!” declared Buster Wayland. He bumped the table with his fist. “But it’s a certain sure thing he can’t keep away much longer.”
“It’s nothing but Jim Silver, or Silvertip, or whatever you want to call him.” declared the sheriff. “He’s the fellow who has saved the scalp of Holman. And to think that I had him under my gun in Mustang, and didn’t shoot.”
“Aye, that was a mistake,” growled the raw-boned young deputy whose fierce eyes faced Silver from the opposite side of the table.
“A mistake,” agreed Wayland. “But I know how it is — a man wants to give the other fellow every chance, unless you’re dead sure!”
“There’s Silver’s record, besides,” said the sheriff. “He’s been at outs with the law before this, but he always turns up right and the law turns up wrong. He proves his case, and it aint’s always the law’s case.”
“One day he’ll wake up dead before his proving is finished,” said the deputy with the burning eyes.
“But there’s money behind that crowd,” said Wayland. “Silver, as you call him, may be honest most of the time, but that girl has money enough to bribe a saint.”
“Maybe so — maybe so,” said the sheriff. “But what counts with me is that Holman is still on the loose in the mountains.”
“We’ll hunt him out of there,” said the second deputy, an older and a graver man, with a thick red neck and a bristling mustache.
“I think,” said Bert Philips, “that maybe we’ll do a good job if we simply keep a lot of men riding on the lookout down in the plains, not so far from Tuckaway. Remember that Ned Kenyon is with ‘em, and Kenyon knows the lay of the land around here pretty good.”
The truth of this remark pinched the memory of Silvertip. Whatever happened, he must get back to the party in time to warn them that Kenyon’s suggestion would simply lead them into ruin. They must keep back among the mountains.
“If they’re in the mountains,” said Buster Wayland, “they’ll soon come out on the run. That fellow Nellihan that came in and talked with me to-day, he’s as keen as mustard, and he knows his business. He took all the best horses and the best riders out of this town when he scooted back for the hills. He’ll work all night, if there’s starlight enough to show him the difference between a rock and a bush.”
“We’ll get ‘em,” agreed the sheriff. “But only because Holman is wounded. It’s a good thing that Lorens shot straight that time. Because if Silver’s hands weren’t tied down by the moving of a wounded man, I don’t think that we’d ever see hide or hair of that party.”
The second deputy put in: “What I wanta know is this — who had the nerve to tell the lie that a horse ever walked across the bridge in Whistling Canyon? I know that bridge. I’ve been across it, and it’s made me sick at the stomach to go over. I’ve ridden twenty miles out of my way to keep from having to cross that bridge. And now some blockheads tell me that a big stallion up and crossed it -this fellow Silver’s horse!”
“Aye, but that horse is Parade,” said the sheriff. “You can’t judge him by ordinary horses any more than you can judge Silver by ordinary men.”
“How come?” asked Wayland.
“Parade was the hundred-thousand-dollar mustang that used to run wild up there in the Sierra Blanca Desert. Never hear of that?”
“Sure I have!” agreed Wayland.
“That’s the one. Seventeen hands of thunder and lightning, and all gold and twenty-four carats. That’s Parade. They say he’ll stand up and cakewalk when his master whistles. And it’s a sure thing that he did walk that bridge, because he wasn’t left on the near side with the other mustang.”
“We’ll have a drink,” said Wayland. “Hey, Sammy, bring in another bottle of that rye. We’re going to have a drink to the lucky man that crashes a slug of lead through the brain of that scoundrel of a thief, that David Holman. The man that has that luck is going to collect an extra two thousand dollars from me, and you’re all my witnesses!”
They looked at one another, and Silver gritted his teeth. To cow-punchers who worked for forty-five dollars a month, two thousand meant a huge fortune. Almost anything would be done for the sake of that money. Now it was stacked on top of the original five thousand that had been hung up as a prize, and nothing could save David Holman — nothing but some way of proving his innocence.
Silver kicked off his sandals. Even their light weight would be in his way now.
He rounded to the front of the houses, shinnied up one of the wooden columns that framed the Georgian porch, and so came to the second story of the big house. A balcony ran down the side of the building, and he could move at ease down this.
There were only two lighted rooms, one a big bedroom, and one an upstairs study with a big easy-chair in front of a fireplace, and a silk dressing gown and a pair of slippers laid out. Mr. Buster Wayland would probably take his ease here after dinner had been finished.
But the furnishings of the room did not end here — there was also a big steel safe in a corner of the room. It was hardly a decorative piece, but it had more interest for the owner of the house, no doubt, than all the rest of the place that Simonson had built.
The safe was not all. There was also an element of human interest, for in a corner of the room, seated beside the only lighted lamp in the chamber, was a guard.
Holman had said that Wayland knew how to attach things to his interest, and certainly this fellow was a perfect example and type of ruffian. He was reading a magazine with such interest that his brutal head was thrust far forward on his neck, and his face snarled with the emotions that worked in him.
Something that Silver did not hear in the least reached the ear of the fellow. Instantly he was out of the chair, crouching, a gun in his hand. He went cat-like to the door, opened it, and then came slowly back, his mouth still working, his eyes glaring.
He was not a man. He was simply a formidable beast. Once back in his chair, he remained for a time alert, in a singular way, reading, or pretending to read, and suddenly flashing his glance up and around the room.
Then the truth was borne in upon Silver. It was the gaze that he himself kept fastened on the gunman that made the fellow uneasy, the insistent force of that regard constantly bearing in upon his unconscious mind, and vaguely sending messages of warning to the consciousness itself.
The man wriggled and stirred as though he were seated too close to a hot fire. Never had Silver seen instinct work more powerfully and on so slight a cause.
Presently the man sprang out of the chair and walked straight across the room and to the window where Silver was watching. Silver flattened himself close to the wall of the house, raising in his right hand a revolver which he grasped by the barrel, the butt offering as the club.
And after a moment a bullethead came out through the window, not slowly, but with a quick, dripping motion so fast that the blow that Silvertip aimed at the base of the man’s neck found the very top of his head instead.
The weight of that shock drove his face down against the sill, but did not quite stun him. Silver, following his attack with wonderful speed, saw his man on one knee before the window, with a gun coming gradually into his hand. There was no need for another blow. Silver simply tapped him across the forehead and the gun slid to the rug.
The whole soul of the guard was striving to fight, but the numbed body and brain could not react. The face of the man was a frightful thing to see. It was like the twisted mask of an ape trying to bite.
He kept shaking his head to clear away the clouds that were gathering over his wits. Silver tied the vaguely struggling hands of the man behind his back before sense enough to cry out came to the thug. He tilted back his head, and his chest heaved before he let out the yell.
It was never uttered. Silver simply stepped in front of him and put the muzzle of the Colt into that open mouth. The apelike creature clamped his teeth down on the steel and gasped.
Silver removed the gun and looked over his captive.
“What’s your name, brother?” he asked. “And talk soft when you answer.”
“What the devil is my name to you?” snarled the captive. “What I’m goin’ to do to a sneakin’ slick of a second-story worker like you when I get my chance — ” He paused, as though realizing the futility of threats at this moment. His breath came straining and rasping in his throat. The butt of the gun had cut his scalp a little, and a crimson trickle, having worked through the hair, spilled down beside his right eye, and gradually worked in a crooked course toward the chin.
“What’s your name?” repeated Silver.
“Lefty some call me, and Soggy some call me,” said the yegg.
“All right, Soggy,” said Silver. “That name goes for me. Tell me when Mr. Wayland comes up to this room?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because he’s going to be wiped out of this town, Soggy,” said Silver. “He may be wiped off the face of the earth. I don’t know. The fact is that if I have to drop him, your own name will be mud around this neck of the woods. Am I wrong?”
“Soggy” said nothing. He merely lowered his head a little and glowered at Silver from beneath shaggy brows.
“It would be hard to explain,” said Silver. “Wayland is a big man in this town. If anything happens to him, it might be tough on his hired gunman. Lynching parties work pretty fast around here.”
Soggy pursed out his lips in thought. He said nothing.
“I’m going to tie you into that chair,” said Silver. “If I have to, I’ll choke you with a gag, but I’d rather give you a chance to breathe comfortably. Walk over there and sit down. Remember, I’m giving you a better break than you’d give me. And if you try to yell, I may have to sink a chunk of lead in you.”
Chapter 23
Soggy, without a word of protest, let himself be tied into the chair. And Silver even made a cigarette, lighted it, and put it between the lips of his captive. Thereafter, by ducking his head far down, Soggy could manage to transfer the cigarette from his mouth to his right hand, which was tied out on the arm of the chair in which he sat. Silver stood back and grinned at him, and Soggy grinned back.
“Hard lines!” sympathized Silver.
“I’ve seen worse,” said Soggy. “I’ve seen worse birds than you are, too. What’s your monicker?”
“I work with quite a batch of ‘em,” said Silver.
“I’ll bet you do,” agreed Soggy.
“Arizona Jim, some call me.”
“Arizona,” said Soggy, “you’re kind of white. What’s the game on Wayland?”
“He’s a thug and a crook,” said Silver. “He has a lot coming to him, and he’s going to get part of it, or all of it, tonight.”
“I like to hear you, kind of,” said Soggy. “The while I been workin’ for him ain’t been so sweet. Easy money -but he’s a bum. He’s a four-flusher.”
“He can fight,” said Silver tentatively.
“That’s what he says,” answered Soggy. He added: “If you hand him the rap, do you give me a break to get loose out of here?”
“If you don’t bother me,” said Silver.
“I’ll sit like a bird in a tree,” said Soggy. “Go ahead and blaze away, will you?”
“I’ll go ahead, and I’ll blaze away,” agreed Silver. “Know anything good about this fellow Wayland?”
“No. Nothin’.”
“Don’t even know when he’ll come up here?”
“No. Maybe in an hour. Maybe any time. He comes up here off and on to see how things go. He’s got his heart and his liver and his lights locked up in the safe yonder. Some mug that cracks that safe open will get a hand-out worth havin’! And if — ”
Silver raised a hand for silence. He heard something on the stairs beyond the room. He heard a rhythmic thing — a pressure rather than a sound — coming down the hall toward the door. Stepping close to the door, flattening his body against the wall, he saw the door suddenly swing open. Big Wayland, with a step surprisingly light and fast for a man of his size, strode into the room.
His first glance was for the face of the safe. But while he was taking it, he saw his gunman tied into the chair, and the ominous gun in the hand of Silver, just beside him.
There was good fighting stuff in Wayland, after all. With his right hand he reached for his gun. With his left he drove a long, straight, whipping punch at the head of Silver. The latter let the blow go past him. He stepped in and jabbed the muzzle of his Colt into the ribs of Wayland. With his left he caught the gun hand of the big fellow.
So for an instant they faced one another. Wayland glaring, the eyes of Silver utterly cold and remorseless. The thumb of his right hand was trembling with desire to let the hammer drop and ease this crooked life out of the world.
Wayland saw the expression and seemed to understand it. He said in a low, guttural voice: “All right. You’ve got me. Who are you? What do you want?”
“They’ve been talking about me down at your table,” said Silver. “They call me Silver, or Silvertip, but names don’t make much difference. This is a business call, Wayland. Give me that gun!”
He took the gun. It was the only weapon the banker c
arried, as Silver discovered by sliding his hand rapidly over the body of the man.
When he was disarmed, Silver stepped back from him and said calmly:
“You don’t need to hoist your hands over your head. Just remember that I’m watching you, Wayland. Now take a sheet of that paper, sit down at the table, unscrew your fountain pen, and write a little letter for me.”
“What sort? A letter of credit? Is that what you’re driving at?” asked Wayland.
“A letter to whomever it concerns,” said Silver. “Saying that you hired the two crooks who took young Holman down to the bank, that you went with them, that you helped yourself to one third of the loot, that when you saved the bank afterward, you were simply using money that you’d already stolen from it for that purpose, and for buying out poor Simonson before he died of a broken heart. Is that clear?”
Wayland showed not the least surprise.
“Write a little story that clears young Mr. Holman. Is that it?” he asked.
Then he turned toward the tied-up gunman.
“You let yourself be brushed out of the picture, did you, Soggy?”
“He socked me,” said Soggy. “But I dunno that I’m sorry, if I’m goin’ to have a chance to see him sock you, too!”
“You can’t go through with this,” said Wayland to Silver. “I have men down there waiting for me. They’ll be up to see what’s wrong if I stay here. Besides, you’re only making a fool of yourself. You’re going to force a confession out of me, and a forced confession isn’t worth anything, and I’ve got Soggy here as a witness to the force used. Look here, Silver, you’re a fellow with a bright eye. You’re the sort of a man who ought to be able to tell on which side your bread is buttered. And I’m an open-handed fellow, Silver, if people approach me in the right way. You could have a fair — ”
He stopped. Something in the face of Silver told him he was wasting time — a cold and profound disgust.
“Sit down,” said Silver, “and write. Begin with the date line, and go down to the finish. Understand? I know what the form should be, and so do you. Now write!”
