“Looks that way,” agreed Kane, the younger Markham. “And do you note he’s looking mighty pleased with himself?”
“Maybe he’s got reason to be happy,” shrugged Garth Markham, “and maybe not. With these old loners, you can never tell.”
He stood an inch taller than his kinsman. At forty, he was heavyset and running to fat, a keen-eyed man with an extra chin and flecks of gray in his lank black hair. His nose was bulbous, his mouth thick-lipped, In his shirt-sleeves and with his thumbs hooked through his suspenders, he lounged in a chair tilted against the open doorway of the premises he shared with his brother. The shingle hanging from the awning was brightly painted, the inscription reading: “MARKHAM BROS. ASSAYERS.”
Kane Markham was three years his brother’s junior. The features were similar, except that no gray showed as yet in the well-oiled thatch. The frame was different, as lean as Garth’s was flabby. There was a hungry look to the lynx-eyed Kane. He gnawed on a Long 9 cigar and eyed the oncoming prospector with more than casual interest.
“Sooner or later,” he quietly opined, “some old loner is going to find his way to Moon Mountain—and all that silver.”
“When that happens,” his brother calmly assured him, “we’ll be ready.”
“Worth a king’s ransom, they say,” muttered Kane.
“It’s no rumor, boy,” drawled Garth. “Settlers got the word from the Indians, years before any jasper found silver in the Calaveras. There is such a place as Moon Mountain, and the walls of that mountain shine so bright as to blind a man—because there’s more raw silver than rock.” He grinned slyly. “All we have to do is wait. A lucky striker has to check his loot with an assayer, doesn’t he?”
“Who is that old joker?” frowned Kane. “The face looks familiar.”
“I never forget a face or a name,” said Garth. “That’s Jordy Cabot. And, come to think of it, he’s been gone from Blanco Roca damn near two vears.”
“A long time,” mused Kane.
“Quite a spell,” agreed Garth. He watched the old man trudge past the office and move on downtown. Then,
“Maybe I ought to keep an eye on him,” suggested Kane.
“No need,” grinned the elder brother. “We have two mighty important citizens all set to cooperate with us—a lawyer and a deputy. Like I told you before, boy, all we have to do is wait.”
“Gitting rid of that old fool,” opined Kane, “wouldn’t be any problem at all.”
“If he needs killing,” muttered Garth, “we’ll not dirty our hands. Better to let Bowes and his pards handle it. For a handful of dollars, they’d knife their own mothers.”
A half-block further down the bustling main street, the old timer accosted a passer-by. When last he had seen Blanco Roca, the boom was just beginning. Silver had been found in the foothills of the Calaveras Mountains, to the west of what had once been an isolated cattle-and-farming community. What followed was as inevitable as the rising of the sun. In their hundreds, prospectors had flocked to the new strike, seeking to make their fortune fast. Several big combines had established branch offices and smelters and had brought in their own labor force. Nowadays, locals were wont to assert that Blanco Roca was ‘boomin’ fit to bust.’
In response to Jordy’s query, the towner scratched his head and did some deep thinking.
“Anna Cabot, you say? Purty gal with yaller hair, used to work at the Farraday hash house? Sure, I recall her, but you won’t find her at Farraday’s anymore. She works for Eddie Bennett now.”
“Whereabouts?” demanded Jordy.
“Why,” frowned the local, “Bennett owns the Bonanza Saloon. I guess you must be new around these parts—if you don’t know Bennett’s Bonanza.”
“I been here before, friend,” mumbled the little man, “but that was quite a time back.”
“Keep headed downtown,” shrugged the local. “You couldn’t miss the Bonanza.”
Jordy Cabot continued his slow progress downtown, winning never a second glance from the many passers-by. He was undersized, puny and nondescript, maybe more so than most lone-wolf prospectors. And he was far beyond middle-age; not yet seventy, but long past sixty.
When he reached the big double-storied saloon, he hesitated to leave his laden burro unattended. As a compromise, he unslung the bulky sack before tethering the animal to the rack. Hefting the sack, he climbed to the porch and tagged the miners and townmen barging through the batwings.
The Bonanza offered everything it took to keep a miner entertained, provided he could pay the price. Bewhiskered miners and locals were cavorting on the dance-floor with the garishly gowned women hired by the management. Others were lined up three-deep at the long bar. Others were crowding into the area to the right of the bar, reserved for games of chance.
Jordy ignored these attractions and made straight for the young woman wearily moving toward the stairs. She was blonde and uncommonly pretty, trim-figured in her snug-fitting satin gown. He reached her, placed a gnarled paw on her bare arm. She smiled in wistful welcome, and murmured, “I have a room upstairs. Come on up and talk with me.”
The proprietor materialized and offered an observation heavy with innuendo. Eddie Bennett was the flashy kind, well barbered, sharply-tailored, and addicted to cheap jewelry and high-smelling pomade.
“Takin’ your friend upstairs, Anna,” he challenged. ‘Well, well, well! The high and mighty Anna—changing her ways at last.”
“You got it wrong, Mr. Bennett,” sighed Anna.
“Damnitall, child,” growled Jordy, “you don’t have to say ‘mister’ to the likes of him.” He fixed a steely glare on the saloonkeeper. “This little lady happens to be my daughter—so you keep your sassy mouth shut up tight—savvy?”
“No offence.” Bennett shrugged and grinned, drifted away.
Two – The Man from Moon Mountain
The room was small and stuffy, containing naught but the bed, a couple of chairs, a small table, the wash-basin and the dresser, with Anna’s few articles of baggage stacked in a corner. After ushering the old man in, she closed the door and gestured for him to seat himself. He straddled a chair, dumped his sack on the floor, gazed about him and asserted, “This ain’t right for you, child. Nothin’ but the best is good enough for my little gal.”
“When a girl is on her own in a town like Blanco Roca,” she retorted, “she has to take what she can get. Farraday fired me. You can guess why.”
“So you came to work in this hell-house,” frowned Jordy.
“I had to eat,” she pointed out. “Last time you went away to make your fortune, I was left with only a few dollars.”
“I know what you’re thinkin’,” he muttered. “When your ma died—a long time back—I swore I’d take good care of you.”
“You’ve done your best, Dad.” She came to him. He doffed his Stetson and she kissed the top of his balding pate. Then she murmured, “You could never change, Dad. Always you had to be chasing the rainbow, trying to find that pot of gold. I couldn’t hate you for it before, and I can’t hate you now.”
“Well ...” He patted her hand affectionately, “… it’s gonna be different from here on—that’s for sure.”
“You’ve said that before,” she sighed.
“This time,” he declared, “I mean it.”
“You always did mean it,” she shrugged. “Please, Dad, make me no more promises. I don’t mind if I have to go on working here at the Bonanza, singing to Eddie Bennett’s roughneck friends. It’s the only work I could find, and ...”
“No.” Jordy shook his head vehemently. “You’ll be quitting Bennett real soon—just as soon as I can get myself a wagon and haul back a payload from my claim. Only—uh—it ain’t my claim yet. I got to get it registered legal and check my samples with the assayer.”
“What are you trying to tell me?” she demanded.
“Well,” he chuckled, “I didn’t find that pot of gold, Anna, but what I did find is better. You got any notion how many fel
lers have tried to find Moon Mountain?”
“I’ve heard of Moon Mountain,” she frowned, “but I thought it was a myth. I mean—like a legend ...”
“It’s real,” Jordy assured her. “I know for sure—because I found it.”
“You?” She retreated to the bed and sank to the edge of the mattress, eyeing him dubiously. “You found a way into Moon Mountain?”
“Ain’t sayin’ it was easy,” he grinned. “Many a hombre got his heart broke tryin’ to find a way. Well, I found out how, and I brought back samples of the ore, so now I can register on it and, purty soon, we’re gonna be rich.”
“It’s hard—hard for me to believe,” she breathed.
“It’s the gospel truth, Anna,” he muttered. “I swear it on your mother’s grave.” He fished something from a pocket of his jacket. “Handle this careful.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“Map,” he grunted. “I scarce had any paper at all, and just a stub of pencil. Lost the pencil after I got through drawin’ the map.” He passed the paper across to her. “That’s it, child. With that map, any fool could find his way to a fortune, so you take good care of it—hear? I’m givin’ it to you now, to prove I aim to do right by my little gal. Couldn’t make a copy. No more paper and, like I say, I lost the pencil. Maybe you better make a copy.”
With hands that trembled, she held the folded sheet a few moments. Then, as she secreted it in the V of her gown, she murmured, “I’ll take good care of it—but it’s still hard for me to believe.”
“And I’m tellin’ you it’s the truth,” said Jordy. The lined, stubbled face creased in a triumphant grin, as he rose from his chair and donned his hat. “Got to attend to important business now. I’ll be back later, and we’ll talk some more.”
“Before you go,” she sighed, “I have something to tell you.”
“All right.” He came over to the bed, put a hand on her trembling shoulder. “Say your piece, child.”
“You’ve been gone so long,” she murmured, “it’s only natural you wouldn’t know—wouldn’t know I was married.”
“Married?” Jordy stared down at her anxiously. “You got a husband—here in Blanco Roca?”
“I had a husband,” she sadly corrected.
“Make that plainer,” he begged.
“His name was Chip Layton,” she told him. “That’s my name now, Dad. I’m Anna Layton. We were married legally, and ...”
“What kind of a hombre was he?”
“Well—I thought he was a good man, at the start. He was a gambler, working here at the Bonanza and, when he said he wanted to settle down, I thought ...”
“But he wasn’t the kind to settle, huh?”
“He couldn’t bear to be tied down. And then—I was going to have a baby—and that made it worse. When I told him, he was furious. He just—just walked out of the Bonanza and never came back.”
“Ran out on you! Damn his ornery hide ...!”
“Don’t, Dad. He’s dead!”
“Dead? You mean he ...?”
“Just a few weeks before—before I had my baby—I got a telegraph from a sheriff in Utah Territory. Chip was killed in a saloon brawl.”
“You’ve sure suffered.” Jordy flopped down beside her, gathered her into his arms. “And me not here to help.”
“I was ill for a while after the baby came,” she said, as she pressed her face to his chest. “Well,” she sighed, as she sat up, “I never even saw my baby. He was stillborn. I had—some kind of a nervous collapse, the doctor called it. My nerves are still a little shaky, Dad.”
“It’s good that I came back now,” he decided. “I’ll get you strong again, child. We’ll go east and you’ll have the best doctor money can hire, because we’re gonna be rich—plenty rich.” He stood up, flashed her an encouraging grin, then turned towards the door. “Everything’s gonna be just fine for you, from here on.” At the door, he paused with his hand on the knob. “You’ll be all right while I’m gone? It’ll only be for a couple hours—three at most.”
She nodded. “Do whatever you have to do, then come back here. I finish at midnight. We could have a late supper, talk some more.”
“I’ll be back real soon,” grinned Jordy, “and that’s a promise.”
From the Bonanza, the little man led his burro uptown to the office of a local attorney and public notary, one Tyler Halsey. Lawyer Halsey, like all other Blanco Roca professional men, was always open for business.
He was a slim, sharp-featured man in the late thirties, sandy haired with pale gray eyes, a scrubby mustache and receding chin. A will? Why, certainly. He could draw up a will in double-quick time and for a very reasonable fee.
Twenty minutes was all it took, because Jordy’s wishes were simple. All his worldly possessions, including such profit as could be won from any claim registered to his name, were bequeathed to his only kin, his daughter.
When he left the lawyer’s office, he was in possession of a copy of the will, duly witnessed. This he took to the town jail, which was fronted by the office of Blanco Roca’s marshal the middle-aged, mild-mannered Corey Fames. He was a veteran lawman considerably tougher than his gentle exterior suggested. He liked an orderly, law-abiding community. His three deputies were constantly reminded that “there’s more than one way to skin a cat—or arrest a troublemaker. Always talk gentle. Don’t bat ’em with a six-gun unless you have to.”
The marshal’s junior deputies were patrolling Main Street when Jordy stopped by the office. Wade Stabile, Fames’ senior deputy, was lounging on the old black leather couch, cleaning and oiling a shotgun. He was somewhat younger than his chief, a saturnine individual garbed in black broadcloth, with a pearl-handled Colt slung to his right leg and his badge of office gleaming bright at his coat-lapel. Unwinkingly, he studied the aged prospector. To Fames, Jordy cheerfully voiced his request.
“Something you want kept in my safe?” frowned Fames. “Well, all right, old-timer, but you could just as easy keep it in the bank.”
“I’d as lief leave it with you, Marshal,” said Jordy. “It’s my last will and testament, you know? Be obliged if you’d seal it in an envelope and write on it. To be opened in—uh ...”
“To be opened,” prodded Fames, “in the event of your death?”
“That’s it,” grinned Jordy.
Fames returned his grin, and observed, “You look mighty healthy to me.”
“Never felt so spry in my whole doggone life,” asserted Jordy. “Just ain’t takin’ no chances is all.”
“All right, friend.” Fames saw no reason to refuse the request. “I’ll be glad to oblige.”
Jordy placed the document on the desk, watched the marshal seal it in an envelope, scribble the vital words and lock the envelope in the office safe. Then, picking up his sack, he cheerfully announced, “I got to find me an assayer now.”
“Struck it lucky, have you?” asked Fames.
“Some,” shrugged Jordy, as he turned toward the doorway.
Stabile spoke up. His voice was flat and nasal, as expressionless as his deep brown eyes.
“You ought to look in on the Markham brothers,” he drawled. “They’d take good care of you.”
“Well,” said Jordy, “any assayer would do.”
“A block uptown,” said the deputy. “Between Hill’s Hardware and the Bowman Livery Stable.”
“Obliged to you,” nodded Jordy, as he made his exit.
Five minutes later, he was ambling into the assay office, airily saluting the brothers Markham. They greeted the little man cordially, listened to his request.
“Why, certainly,” smiled Garth Markham. “We’re authorized to handle all aspects of a claim. You can register here and have your samples assessed.” He gestured to the large map tacked to the wall behind him. “If you’ll indicate the general position of your claim ...”
“Well, now,” drawled Jordy, “I ain’t about to advertise.”
“Can’t say as I blame you, f
riend,” muttered Kane. “A man can’t be too careful.”
The formalities of registering Jordy’s claim proceeded. Garth secured the old man’s signature to the necessary papers, the while his brother covertly studied the bulky sack on the floor near the prospector’s scuffed boots. And then came Jordy’s big moment. He lifted the sack, dumped it on the counter and untied the thongs.
“Got to check my samples, huh?” he challenged. “Well, by glory, here they are!”
He upended the sack. Several large slabs of the gleaming metal thudded on to the counter. Kane rose up quickly, his eyes widening. Garth, struggling to maintain control of his feelings, picked up one of the slabs and began the routine examination. Quietly, he declared, “You’ve done it, old-timer. I knew it would happen sooner or later. Only one place these samples could come from.”
“You guessed it—Moon Mountain.” Jordy was walking on air now. “Where else could a man cut the pure stuff from the rock?”
“I surely congratulate you,” breathed Garth.
“How do you tally it?” his brother demanded.
“I’m not exaggerating,” muttered Garth, “when I say our friend is filing claim on a fortune.”
“When you say fortune,” grinned Jordy, “you’re puttin’ it mild.”
“You could find your way back there again?” demanded Kane.
“For me,” asserted Jordy, “it’d be dead easy.”
“About your map,” frowned Garth. “You made a map, of course ...”
“Ain’t sayin’ I did,” shrugged Jordy. “Ain’t sayin’ I didn’t.”
“I was about to suggest,” said Garth, “that you’d better have copies made and locked in a safety deposit box at the' bank.”
“Well ...” Jordy became furtive now, “I’ll think about it.”
“Assessment of these samples will take some little time,” explained Garth. “I’ll get to work on it right away.”
He maintained his pose of affability until the prospector had departed. Then, briskly, he muttered orders to his kinsman, “You know what to do now. Don’t let the old fool out of your sight. Be ready to point him out to Bowes.”
Larry and Stretch 5 Page 2
