by Brand, Max
Every moment counted, when the blood was running out of him like that, but Christian spared the time to look up from his work with a smile. And as he endured the agony and smiled at Naylor, it seemed to Bill that he had never seen a face so noble, so calm, or so great.
Never had such an emotion disturbed the dark soul of Naylor.
The sewing of the wound ended with Christian asking questions about where they could put up. Naylor offered his father’s house, but Christian pointed out that even in the best family in the world there was not apt to be enough honesty to conceal the presence of a man wanted by the law as he was.
“If you can trust one man in a million, you’re in luck,” said Christian. “I’ve found you, Naylor, and that’s luck enough for me. I don’t want to take chances.”
There were always deserted shacks in the mountains, and Naylor knew of one of these. So Christian directed him to cut down or break down two small saplings and make with them a litter which the horse could drag. In that way Christian could be transported to his new home.
Naylor worked hard and fast. He had dressed Christian’s wound with a bandage and wrapped him in two thick blankets brought from his house. Now he was soon able to drag the weight of the wounded man onto the litter — for Christian was now too weak to stir his own weight. He could only endure the pain in silence.
On the litter, Naylor lashed him with a lariat; then he raised the litter and tied it into the stirrups of the saddle. After that he led the horse carefully forward, stopping now and then to go back and look at his man. And on each occasion Christian smiled silently at him.
They reached the shack. And there, on a bed of evergreen boughs and saplings, Naylor stretched out the wounded man.
There was one long sigh from Christian. He said: “Leave me like this. Don’t offer me anything. Let me lie here till the morning. I’m going to sleep.”
Sleep, with those stitches gripping at the rawness of his flesh?
Well, it was true that he was able to do it. When Naylor twice looked in on Christian, he found him each time calmly slumbering. Once he could see by the moonlight. Once he could tell by the count of the evenly measured breathing.
So Naylor, in the gray of the dawn, made another hurried trip to the town of Kendal to make more purchases. He bought plenty of provisions. To the storekeeper, who was curious, he simply said:
“I’m going up and do a little prospecting for myself. There’s gold in those mountains.”
The storekeeper grinned. But, though he was curious, he was also discreet. He asked no more questions, but went on:
“There’s news just come up over the telephone from Crow’s Nest. The real Jim Silver’s back in town, and he brought the crooked Jim Silver along with him. Seems the fact is that the dumb-bells down there had the real Jim Silver in jail, all right, and the crook who robbed the bank was just a fellow by name of Duff Gregor that happened to look a good bit like Silver.”
“Hold on!” said Naylor. “Is that right? I thought that Silver had gone crooked at last. Is that wrong?”
For that was the story — that Jim Silver, the archfoe of Christian, had at last abandoned the ways of the law-abiding to plunder the rich bank of Henry Wilbur, in Crow’s Nest. It had been a great comfort to Naylor, who always felt that honesty is merely a matter of policy with most, and that every man has his price.
“He even had Silver’s horse, Parade,” said Naylor in a complaining voice. “It must ‘a’ been Silver that robbed the bank and got away with the loot.”
The other shook his head. “It was Duff Gregor, riding a hoss that looked considerable like Silver’s chestnut. But the real Jim Silver, after Taxi got him out of the jail, climbed on the trail, grabbed Duff Gregor, grabbed Barry Christian, who was behind all Gregor’s tricks, and got hold of the loot, too. But the biggest news of all is that Barry Christian, rather than go back to the death house, chucked himself off the bridge up the river and went over the falls!”
CHAPTER III
A Job for Naylor
THE cabin stood in a secluded corner between two hills, with a thick stand of trees all around it. There was only one drawback, and that was that Bill Naylor had to travel a distance to get water. On the other hand, the absence of water was what secured them from intrusion. For no man looking for a deserted camp was apt to go to a place where water had to be dug for.
So for five days Naylor patiently nursed Barry Christian through a quick, violent fever, and then saw him start to progress toward good health. Every day that brought him closer to normalcy was a day that brought Bill Naylor closer to a golden reward. He could not say how much there would be in it, but legend said that Barry Christian despised money — used it like water, in fact! And how he would pour it forth on a man who had saved his life and then nursed him back to health! It was a subject of day-dreams which soothed the hours for Bill Naylor.
He had plenty to do, what with changing the bandages, and cooking, and washing, and shaving the sick man, and then making trips to town every day in order to pick up news. And of news that was interesting to Christian, there was a great store.
Above all, he wanted to know the fate of Duff Gregor and of the next moves of Jim Silver.
About Gregor, the fact was that the evidence against him was certain to send him to prison. But the trial would not come for a number of days.
“Well,” said Naylor, “money will get a slick lawyer, and a slick lawyer will help Gregor, if you wanta help him.”
Christian looked at him with eyes of mild wonder.
“Why, Bill,” he said, “Duff Gregor worked with me. I can’t let him down.”
“Aw, sure. I know,” said Naylor. “A gent sticks by his partners, all right. But what can you do? You can’t crack the world open like a nut, can you? You can’t crack it open and give the insides of it even to your best friends.”
“Is that the way you feel about it?” asked Christian.
“Why,” said Naylor, “I’d stick by a partner. But when a gent is working outside the law, he’s gotta take what’s coming to him, don’t he?”
“True,” said Christian. “But if Duff Gregor goes to jail, part of my reputation goes to jail with him. There was a time, not so long ago, when I could say that some of my friends had been bumped off. Nobody can help a bullet from hitting its mark now and then. But I could also say that none of my crew was rotting in prison. It’s different, now. It’s a lot different, since Jim Silver got on the trail!”
He was silent, and the gloom which Naylor rarely saw in his face now clouded it darkly.
“I know,” said Naylor. “Silver’s a devil. Everybody says that. And he’s hounded you for a long time. But you’ve about used up your bad luck, and the next trick may be yours.”
“Aye,” said Christian. “There’ll be no doubt of that. The next time I get a chance, a bullet goes through the brain of him. I won’t wait to do a fancy job. Once, Naylor,” he added bitterly, “I had him tied in a chair with a fuse burning and enough dynamite under him to blow up a hundred men. I walked out of a locked house and left him to go smash. And that was the time that Taxi walked in through the locks and turned him loose again. And just the other day, because of the way I played the game, I had Silver locked in a jail for another man’s crooked work, and a whole town of armed men hungry to lynch him. And Taxi walked into that jail and took Silver out. But, of course, you know well the story of that.
“I’ve been like a king, Naylor. I’ve had men around me, every one of whom was fit to lead a gang. But where are they now? Prison, most of ‘em. Some of them haven’t been caught, but they’re scattered. And those that have wangled their way out of prison are scattered, too. The last thing they want is to work with me again.
“Again if Duff Gregor goes to the pen, then the rest of the crowd will be surer than ever that I’m bad luck for the fellows who are my partners. But if I can get Duff Gregor out of prison now that the eyes of the whole world are on him — if I can get him out safe and sound
and put him on his feet as a free man again, every one of the old partners will begin to think of the golden days before the pack was broken up. They’ll want to run with the old leader. You understand?”
“Aye,” said the other. “You have a long head, Barry.” He added: “But you could make plenty of money all by yourself. Why do you want to team up with anybody? You could be rich and safe, all by yourself. It’s having partners that gets a fellow into trouble. There’s Gregor, now. You got him on your mind. But if you were playing a lone hand, you wouldn’t worry about anything except about your own cards.”
Christian nodded. “But what’s the pleasure, Bill?” he asked. “To drift about by oneself and do a fat job now and then and rake in a load of money? Is that exciting? No, it’s only a cheap game.”
Naylor blinked as he listened. A great deal of this was far above his head.
Christian explained: “But when I had my organization built up, I could speak a word in Butte City and start a man moving in old Mexico. I had big lawyers on my pay roll. I had safe crackers, second-story workers, and every kind of a handy man you could ask for. They were scattered, but they were always with an ear to the ground, waiting for orders. And around me I had a dozen men always, the pick of the land, every one of them hard as steel and true as steel. Men like you, Bill.”
A shudder of joy ran-through the body of Bill Naylor He swallowed and said nothing.
“I want to build the great machine again,” said Christian. “And I’m going to wangle it. But the first step is about Duff Gregor. I’ve got to get him free. My reputation isn’t worth an egg till Gregor’s free again.”
“I see,” said Naylor vaguely.
“Silver!” exclaimed Christian. “What’s the latest news about him? Now that the whole town of Crow’s Nest is making a god of him, I suppose he’ll settle down there and marry the banker’s millions and get fat.”
Naylor squinted his eyes and shook his head.
“Men say,” he remarked, “that Silver and the girl have been a whole lot together. But now he’s disappeared again. All at once he was gone, and didn’t leave a thing except a letter behind him. And no forwarding address.”
Christian closed his eyes and nodded.
“That clears the field for me a little,” he said. “But as long as Silver stays on the trail, I know that his eyes are going to be sharp and his hand quick. And the moment he settles down — yes, for as much as six months — I’ll come down on him and find him only half the man that he used to be! But I’m glad to have him out of the way in Crow’s Nest.”
“Look at him, what kind of a crazy gazoo he is,” said Bill Naylor, still shaking his head. “There he goes and has more’n anybody could ask for in his hands. And he don’t take it! He won’t even take the cash reward that they wanted to give him. He won’t even let his partner, Taxi, know where he’s gone. He just fades out of the picture, and that’s all there is to it. His hands are as empty right now as they were before there was all the trouble. What does he get?”
“He gets reputation,” said the other man gloomily. “There’s not a boy in the whole West that doesn’t dream at night and think that he’s Jim Silver, riding Parade.
There’s not a lad on the whole range that doesn’t tell himself he’d be willing to die if he could be Jim Silver for ten days. Think of Crow’s Nest, now. The fathers are telling their sons that Jim Silver is the right sort of a man. The women are telling Jim Silver stories to their babes. And Barry Christian is lying here in a ragged little shack in the woods, realizing that he’s got to start almost at the beginning.”
His voice changed suddenly as he looked toward Bill Naylor.
“No,” he said. “I’m not as far back as at the beginning. I have you, Bill.”
“Yes,” said Naylor with emotion. “You have me, partner.”
Christian held out his hand and gripped that of the other man.
“I don’t thank you,” he said. “The time hasn’t come for that. Besides, words don’t mean a thing. But I have you, Bill, and the knowledge of that makes me feel strong. I have you, and I have one other thing.”
“What’s that?” asked Bill Naylor.
“Something I’m going to ask you to get for me. It’s only two days’ ride away.”
“Can you fend for yourself?” asked Naylor.
“I can,” said Christian. “I can sit up, and I can move about, slowly. You can cook up some grub before you start, and I’ll take care of myself.”
“All right,” said the other. “Put a name to it, and I’ll try my hand.”
“I want you to ride south,” said Christian, “till you come to the Blue Water Mountains. I want you to ride up the Blue Water River till you get to the town of Blue Water. I want you to go into a certain old house there, and down in the cellar of it you’ll find a certain room, and in the room there’s a brick floor, and under some of those bricks there’s a hole, and in that hole there’s a parcel wrapped in canvas and oiled silk. Will you get it for me and bring it here?”
“I’ll get it,” exclaimed Bill Naylor with a savage earnestness. “I’ll get it, Barry, if I have to wade though fire for it! And if it held a diamond that weighed ten pounds, I wouldn’t as much as look inside the wrappings. I’ll bring it back to you exactly the way it is when I find it!”
He was half blinded by his enthusiasm, and therefore he did not see or attach any significance to the slight smile that stirred the lips of Barry Christian before this speech had ended.
CHAPTER IV
The Old Mill
IT WAS sunset two days later when Bill Naylor had his first look at the town of Blue Water. He did not like it. He came in from the east, and the town was black cardboard against the smoke and fire of the west. It looked a dismal town, the sort of a town a man could expect to die in.
“This is a tough job,” Bill Naylor said to himself.
He had been saying that all during the two days of his riding. It was a tough job, and it was over his head. He had told the great man his opinion in direct and stinging language.
“What d’you think I am?” he had said to Barry Christian. “You think I’m a whole fire company and a brigade of U.S. cavalry? I ain’t. I’m only human. I can’t get away with a big thing like this!”
Barry Christian had simply laid a hand on Bill Naylor’s doubled fist and looked straight into his eyes, saying in that deep, rich, hypnotic voice:
“I know what you feel about yourself, Bill. And I know what I feel about you. There’s difference. You add yourself up and find a minus. I add you up and find that you’re an important man. There’s only one great thing that you haven’t learned. No man in the world can take a big job and do it in a minute; the thing to do is to go on step by step and don’t cross the bridges until your feet are wet with the water.”
That was what had proved the antidote for the miseries of Bill Naylor’s mind during the journey. Now that he was in sight of the goal and repeated the same words to himself, a great part of the comfort had departed from them. He watched the smoke going up from the town into the haze of the sunset as he sat the saddle with his horse panting beneath him, and the cinches creaking.
“I’m just an ordinary mug,” he had told Barry Christian. “I can do an ordinary job, but I’m nothing to write home about. I’m no headliner. Get that, because I mean it. I can ride a horse and shoot a gun. I’ve got a pair of hands, too. But I’m nothing fancy.”
Barry Christian had said: “I’d rather have a steady man who’ll take a step at a time than any of the fancy boys who are sure of themselves. I’d rather have a fellow who doubts himself before he starts working than a fellow who does his doubting after things begin to go wrong. Bill, you’ll get farther forward than you expect to.”
It was the exquisite comfort of this flattery that had spurred Bill Naylor all the way to Blue Water. Here he was in the town, and he was surprised that he had come this far. He was quite sure that he would not attempt the job that had been outlined for him,
but nevertheless he went on to look at the site.
He went straight through the town and came out well up the river until he found the old mill which had been repaired as a sort of cheap hotel. Only, as Christian had said, the word had gone out that it was not a hotel at all, but a hang-out for crooks of some gang. Nobody knew what they were driving at. It might even be that already they had discovered the mysterious parcel under the floor of the room in the cellar.
Bill Naylor, as he tethered his mustang in a grove nearby, began to shake his head. He was still shaking it as he came out and sat down at the verge of the brush, looking at the irregular outline of the gloomy building and at the way the last of the fire of the sunset was swirling down Blue Water Creek. Lights came on here and there in the small windows of the old mill. For some reason or other, though they were not millers, the occupants of the place still used the old machinery, and now the wheel was clanking with a monotonous and groaning and wooden sound. There is no noise more horrible than the grinding of wood against wood. It put the teeth of Bill Naylor on edge, no matter how little sensitive he might be.
“What does Barry Christian want? The world with a fence around it? He can’t get it out of me!” said Bill Naylor.
And then he grew suddenly afraid of what the imp of the perverse in his own soul might force him to do.
“Step after step” is what does the trick, Christian had said, and, step after step, Naylor found himself drawing closer to the mill. When he was near it, through the brush, he sat down on his heels again, for he saw a man strolling aimlessly up and down at the side of the mill, as though he were out to enjoy the air and the last of the sunset. But men who are enjoying the sunset do not, as rule, carry the weight of a double-barreled shotgun tucked under the arm.
Bill Naylor slowly pushed around the mill to the farther side, and again peered out from the edge of the brush, and again he saw a nonchalant figure of a man strolling up and down, up and down, with a double-barreled shotgun under the arm.
Naylor went far back into the brush and found the mustang.
