The High Graders

by Louis L'Amour

  Chapter 13

  WHERE WAS Ray Hollister now? Three men were thinking about that.

  Mike Shevlin, riding back to the claim in the canyon, was asking himself that question. Ben Stowe, in his office, was worrying about the same thing; and Wilson Hoyt, turning his mind from his recent words with Shevlin, thought again of Hollister.

  Not one of them believed he was through. Mike Shevlin, riding warily, and well off the trail, knew that Ray Hollister would never be able to convince himself he was through in Rafter. The thought of going elsewhere would not occur to him, or if it did, it would be dismissed.

  Like many another man, he was committed to the home grounds. He could not bring himself to move, although all the world offered a fresh start—notew ranges, new towns, places where he was unknown, and where his abilities might have made a place for him.

  Right now Hollister was sitting beside a fire in a remote spot among the bare hills. He was alone except for Babcock, and Babcock was for the first time looking on his boss with some doubt.

  Only a part of his doubt was the result of his conversation with Shevlin in the stable. His loyalties were deep-seated, and he hesitated, feeling uncertain for the first time in years.

  “Where the hell is Wink?” Hollister said, looking up.

  “He’ll be along.”

  Winkler had gone down to the Three Sevens to pick up some grub. They had nothing to eat and he knew the cook there. Winkler would have to be careful, for there would be no friendly feeling for them at the Three Sevens. Nor at any of the other ranches, for that matter.

  Ray Hollister looked haggard, his face was drawn, his eyes deep sunken. “Bab,” he said, “they’ve got to move the gold. And if they try to move it, we can get it.”

  Babcock straightened his thin frame and went over to the nearby brush to pick up sticks for the fire.

  “If we can get that gold,” Hollister went on, “we’ll have them where the hair’s short.”

  “How’ll they move it?” asked Babcock.

  “Gentry’s freight outfit. That was why he was set up that way.”

  Babcock had squatted on his heels to pick up the sticks, but now he turned his scrawny neck and looked back at Hollister. “That’s good figurin’. How’d you know that?”

  “I know plenty.”

  Babcock came back to the fire and added some of the fuel to it. Then he squatted down beside it.

  Ray Hollister had forgotten, for the time being, that Babcock knew nothing of his previous arrangements with Ben Stowe. He was thinking aloud rather than planning; and weariness as well as the defeats of the past days had dulled his senses.

  Babcock had room for two loyalties and no more, and he believed them to be one and the same. He was loyal to Hollister, and he was loyal to the cattle business. He had grown up around cattle, had worked cattle since he was a child, and had never considered anything else. The discovery of gold at Rafter was a personal affront. He disliked the miners, disliked the camp followers, and most of all he disliked the dirty machinery and the pound of the compressor. When the mines began using great quantities of water and returning some of it muddy and filthy, he was deeply angered.

  He had known of the firm of Hollister and Evans, but he had believed it to be a land and investment operation. He had largely ignored it, for Ray was always going off on some new scheme, but he always came back when the scheme proved to be a swindle or a fool notion. While Ray Hollister took off on his other activities, Babcock was minding the cattle.

  After the water was polluted, it had been necessary to drive the cattle back from the stream where they had always watered, something it was not easy to do. The only other water was too far away for the good of the stock, and the grass there was poor. He could have used Hollister’s help then, for they were short-handed; several of the newer boys had gone off prospecting ... as if they knew anything about finding gold!

  With the hands that remained Babcock had pushed the cattle back from the water with only a few lost, and there had been a time when he had been up to his ears in work far on the other side of the range. Anyway, Babcock himself had never been much of a hand for raising hell in town.

  Now, Babcock’s mind had not let go of Ray Hollister’s comment on why Gentry had been set up that way. Of course, he thought, it was something a man might guess at, or figure out. He looked across the fire at Hollister, considering him thoughtfully, and remembering what Shevlin had said.

  He was a man slow to arrive at any conclusion, and he was taking great care in trying to think this matter out. But as he considered it, little bits and pieces of half-forgotten conversations returned to mind.

  “They’ve got to move it!”

  Hollister exclaimed again suddenly. “They daren’t take a chance on running short of cash, or being caught with the gold.” He looked shrewdly at Babcock. “Bab, we could have a piece of money out of this.”

  “I’m no thief.” Babcock spoke irritably, for he did not like to have his thinking interrupted. “That money ain’t mine.”

  “It’s not theirs, either,” Hollister protested, and then added, more slyly, “Without that money those mines won’t operate long.”

  That made a kind of sense, Babcock agreed. “It would be guarded,” he suggested.

  Hollister dismissed that with a wave of the hand. “Of course it would. But we’d have surprise on our side, and that counts for a lot.” He paused. “We’d need a couple of good men, aside from you and Wink and me.

  “There’s Halloran ... and John Sande.”

  Yes, they were good men. Ray Hollister considered the route the gold would be likely to take. Understanding the problem, as probably nobody else did quite so well, he knew the gold must go east. On the west coast the channels of finance were narrow, and there would be too much chance of talk. California was filled with rumors upon rumors, everybody was agog for discoveries, and the slightest suggestion of gold appearing from a new source would set off a rush. Such an amount of gold as this might be more easily handled if it could be shipped to the East.

  One by one he went over the routes in his mind, and one by one he eliminated them until only two were left, and of these one was very doubtful.

  Winkler rode in before midnight. He sat down on a rock and listened to Hollister’s plan. “All right,” he said, “count on me. ... What about Halloran and Sande?”

  “They’ll go,” Babcock said.

  Suspicion was not a normal attitude for Babcock. He was a man who did his job, whatever it was, did it simply and directly, and with no nonsense, nor did he allow any nonsense from anyone else.

  The handling of cattle was not only his job, it was his vocation; it was the biggest part of his life, and aside from the problems of cattle, nothing had ever seemed important for any length of time. He was always concerned with range conditions, water supplies, noxious weeds, and the amount of beef that could be packed on a steer’s frame.

  From the hour of rising, usually before sunup, until dusk or after, he lived, breathed, and thought cattle. If Babcock ever dreamed, it was only of greener pastures, clearer water, and a short drive to market. He had never taken time out to consider Ray Hollister as anything but a boss who permitted him freedom in the job he knew best; but now the ugly thought was growing in him that Hollister might actually have been involved with Ben Stowe.

  The arrival of Jess Winkler had interrupted his thoughts. He had a sort of respect for the wolfer, but had never liked him, for, as is often the case, the hunter had taken on some of the qualities of the creature he hunted. Winkler could not approach anything—a strange camp, a house, a person, or an idea—without circling warily and sniffing the breeze from every angle. He was a man with the suspicions of a wolf. He had trapped, so he feared traps.

  Winkler had held a rough affection for Eve Bancroft, but he had considered her too notional, too feminine. He did not trust Hollister, and he also did not trust Babcock, nor anybody else he could think of at the present time. He was a hard old man whos
e rifle was an extension of himself.

  It had not yet occurred to him that his stake in the game had gone with the death of Eve Bancroft. The idea of taking gold away from the mining outfit appealed to him, and gave direction to his days, at least for a little while.

  Two days later, Halloran and John Sande rode in, and as Babcock had promised, they were ready. Winkler would ride in to town to nose about and see what he could discover. The others, after some discussion, decided upon a rendezvous at Boulder Spring. It was close enough to Rafter, had good grass and water, and yet was out of the way.

  ****

  ALL WAS quiet at Parry’s claim cabin when Mike Shevlin returned. But Parry was nowhere to be seen, nor was there any indication that he had been around the place for hours. Mike went back into the mine tunnel, but no further work had been done there.

  Suddenly feeling uneasy, he came back to the cabin. The canyon was utterly still ... unnaturally so.

  Seated on a bench outside the cabin door, Mike Shevlin cleaned and oiled his Winchester, and then his pistols, working steadily, but with one of the guns always at hand and in operating order. Carefully, he sorted over in his mind all he knew of Burt Parry, and it was very little.

  Where did Burt Parry go when he left the claim. Shevlin wondered. The question had been at the back of his mind, but now for the first time he brought it out into the open to consider.

  He certainly had not gone to town, though he had ridden in that direction. Aside from the fact that he had disclaimed any interest in the difficulties of the people around Rafter, and had even disclaimed any interest in the gold or the high-grading, he had said very little. However, one thing stuck in Shevlin’s mind. The first time he had seen Parry in the cafe, he had been in conversation with Clagg Merriam.

  That in itself need not mean anything at all. Parry seemed a man of some education, appeared to be of eastern background, and he might have some things in common with Merriam.

  Shevlin glanced up the canyon now, his eyes resting on the dump at the mouth of the old tunnel that marked the discovery claim, Parry had said.

  Coming back to his mind was Hoyt’s comment that the high-grade lay between the two mines, and that at the first hint of discovery the approach tunnels would be blasted shut. Those explosives should be found and removed, but that was not up to him. First, he must find the cache of gold bullion.

  Feeling restless, he wandered back into Parry’s tunnel, considering the idea of drilling a round of holes. He scanned the walls, and realized for the first time that the rock showed no evidence of minerals, no quartz, nothing at all but ordinary rock.

  Returning to the outside, he backed off to the edge of the bench and studied the slope above the mine. He saw no promising outcropping, nor any sign of work; yet Parry’s ore was supposed to have been located by a find somewhere on that slope.

  Suppose there was no ore there? Suppose this operation, this mining claim of Parry’s, was a fake, a blind, just a useful cover for some other operation? What, then, would it be? An investigator of some kind? It was possible. Or ... suppose Parry was put here to watch something? Suppose during those mysterious absences he was keeping guard over something?

  Mike Shevlin sat down on the bench and lit a cigar. Suppose, then ... suppose just for the sake of argument that Burt Parry was guarding the gold itself. Was he guarding it for the combine? Or for one of them against the others?

  Stifling his excitement, Shevlin began to consider this new possibility. Actually, it was of no importance to him just why Parry was watching the gold, if that was what he was doing. What was important was the obvious fact that if he was watching the gold it must be close by. The mining claim must have been located just where it was for a reason.

  Parry always went down the canyon, but did he continue in that direction? Or did he return under cover of the brush in the canyon bottom?

  Shevlin had once seen him standing on the dump at the mouth of the old discovery tunnel.

  The old discovery tunnel! He got up, his mouth suddenly dry. Suppose ...?

  He turned away sharply, and picked up his rifle. No use saddling his horse. The tunnel was only a few minutes walk up the canyon.

  He had not reached the spring when he heard a clatter of horse’s hoofs on the trail from Rafter. He hesitated, swore softly, then turned around, and retraced his steps.

  As he got to the cabin, the rider came into the open area on the bench. It was Red ... the miner with whom he had had trouble the day he arrived in Rafter.

  “Get your horse,” Red said abruptly. “Ben Stowe wants to see you!”

  Mike Shevlin looked at him calmly, then took the stub of the extinguished cigar from his pocket and put it between his teeth. He struck a match with his left hand and lifted it to light the cigar.

  “If Ben Stowe wants to see me, he knows where to find me.”

  Red looked surprised. “You want me to tell him that?”

  “You tell him whatever you’ve a mind to.”

  Red stared at him. “I got a damn’ good notion to take you in,” he said.

  “All right,” Shevlin replied, “go ahead. You take me!”

  Chapter 14

  RED HESITATED a moment, then backed down. “The hell with it! If you don’t want to come, that’s your hard luck. I’ll tell Ben.” He wheeled his horse and started away, muttering to himself. From the top of a rise in the narrow trail he glanced back. Mike Shevlin was gone. “Now where the devil—”

  Red drew rein and turned in his saddle. Where could Shevlin have gone so suddenly? As far as that went, where had he been coming from when he rode up? He had acted surprised, and he had seemed hurried.

  Red pulled his horse over against the rock wall where they would be less visible, and he watched the canyon for some time. Then he saw a figure appear on the dump of the old discovery claim. It was Mike Shevlin, and he vanished into the tunnel.

  When several minutes passed and he did not emerge, Red swung his horse and cantered off toward town.

  All was quiet when he rode up the street. Hoyt was standing in front of his office, and Doc Clagg was walking along with his sister and that Tennison girl who was visiting them.

  The door of Ben Stowe’s office was locked, so Red went across to the Nevada House, where he found Stowe eating.

  “He wouldn’t come,” Red said. “He said if you wanted to see him, you knew where he was.”

  Surprisingly enough, Ben Stowe did not seem angered at that. “All right,” he said mildly. “I’ll ride out that way.”

  “You won’t find him,” Red said. “He’s prowling around up the canyon. I saw him going into the old discovery tunnel.”

  Ben Stowe’s features stiffened, and the hand that held the fork gripped hard. But when he spoke, his voice was casual.

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Long as it took me to ride in. I came right along.”

  “Thanks, Red. You hang around town, d’you hear? I might need you.”

  When Red had gone, Ben Stowe put his fork down slowly. His appetite was gone completely. He had been a fool to allow Shevlin to go to work up there, but Clagg Merriam had said there was nothing to worry about. Working for Burt Parry would keep him out of trouble, and nobody ever saw anything that was right under their nose, anyway. It had seemed a good idea at the time. Maybe it was still a good idea.

  He had planned to offer Shevlin the place Gentry had held; now he was not so sure. It was unlikely that Shevlin would find anything; and if he did, they might still make a deal. But why was Shevlin nosing around? What was he looking for? And where was Burt Parry?

  It would not do to move hastily, and above all, Red’s suspicions must not be aroused. Of course, he had told Red he would ride out and talk to Shevlin, and so he would. There are some things a man had better do himself.

  He forced himself to eat a little more, and to take his time over another cup of coffee.

  What he did within the next few hours could mean the difference between succe
ss and failure, between wealth and poverty, even between life and death.

  For the first time in his life he felt haunted by uncertainties. His life until this minute had been relatively simple, but within a matter of days, hours even, the certainties had vanished.

  With Gib Gentry’s death, the keystone of his plan was gone. He had come to despise Gentry, but the man had been essential to their plan, with the freighting company carefully set up for the purpose. His death, through Lon Court

  ’s mistake, left a gaping hole in the carefully planned structure.

  And that girl at Doc Clagg’s— which was she? What was she?

  Irritation mounted within him, an irritation that was born of panic, a panic he stifled. There was no reason to get stirred up. First, he must find Mike Shevlin, find out how much he knew, and whether or not he would go along with Ben Stowe.

  Thinking of Shevlin’s suggestion that Stowe ride out of town to see him, he swore bitterly, hating the idea of approaching Shevlin with a proposition. Unfortunately, he knew of nobody else who might get that gold safely to its destination, nobody at all.

  He had an uneasy feeling that things were getting out of hand, yet, despite the unfortunate killing of Eve Bancroft, nothing really seemed amiss that couldn’t be taken care of.

  Ray Hollister was out of it ... he was finished. Ben Stowe should have been pleased about that, but Hollister had been a gathering point for his enemies. As long as Hollister was around, Stowe had always known where the cattlemen would be.

  He went now to the livery stable, strolling casually along the street. He wanted his manner to be remembered: he was a man going for a little ride after lunch, something he had done occasionally over the years. That he was going to win an ally or kill a man before the day was over was something nobody must guess.

  Brazos was not at the stable. Ben Stowe had grown accustomed to service, and he disliked saddling his own horse. Irritably, he saddled up, led the horse outside, and stepped into the saddle. Where was that damned hostler, anyway?