Now, staring across the room at him, Neal saw a different Ben Darley than the stockholders saw when they talked to him about the project. He was homely enough, for nothing could change his rough, irregular features. In every other way he was changed. He was not stooped. He spoke without the slightest difficulty. And there was nothing awkward about the way he held his gun.
For a moment panic gripped Neal. Darley could murder him with reasonable safety. He could claim self-defense and people would believe him, for everyone knew how Neal felt. All Darley needed to do was shoot him, fire the gun in Neal’s pocket, drop the gun on the floor, and get Joe Rolfe.
The panic passed as quickly as it had come. Darley, a careful man, wasn’t one to take chances. Neal said: “You can’t pull it off, Darley. You’ll have a little trouble proving it was self-defense to Joe Rolfe.”
Darley’s indecision held him motionless for a time. He chewed on his upper lip, then he said: “Why did you come here, Clark?”
“I’d like to kill you, Darley,” Neal said. “Don’t make any mistake about that, but I’ll never get you into the street for a fair fight.”
“Shelton will oblige you,” Darley said.
“It’s got to be you,” Neal said. “Shelton may be the brains of your outfit, but you’re the man people believe in.”
It was a left-handed kind of compliment, and Darley seemed amused. “I’ll ask you again. Why are you here?”
“I wanted to talk,” Neal said, aware that there was nothing he could do but play for time and hope to leave here alive.
“Talk,” the promoter said hotly. “Well, mister, I’ve had too damned much of your talk already. You’ve done everything you could to block us from the day we moved in here.”
“And I’ve just heard too much of your talk,” Neal shot back. “The secondhand kind. Jud Manion told me Tuttle and Sailor claim they’ve seen a letter from me asking to buy fifty thousand dollars’ worth of your stock. Somebody’s lying and I figure it’s you.”
To Neal’s surprise Darley laid the gun on his desk and sat down. He motioned to a chair. “Sit down, Clark. We’ll talk, but I don’t know what good it’ll do you. Sure I lied. I forged your name to a letter for Tuttle and Sailor to see. They gave you a cussing, mister, a hell of a good cussing.”
Neal dropped into the chair across the desk from Darley. He said: “I’ll say one thing for you, Darley, you’re a good actor. You’d have to be to convince people you’re a saint when actually you’re a liar and a thief.”
Darley’s thick lips thinned in a grin. “Now I’ll tell you what I think of you. You’re stupid, Clark, too stupid to run a bank. If you made the loans folks want, and if you’re right about me, you could take over every farm in the county.”
“Maybe a stupid man sleeps better than a crook.” Neal leaned forward. “How much would it take to get you and Shelton to return the money you’ve taken in and leave the county?”
“More than you’ve got.” Darley laughed. “You’re wasting your time. You don’t have an ace in your hand. People don’t like you, and, before this is over, they’ll hang you.”
“They’ll hang you first,” Neal said, “because you’re wrong about me not having an ace. The figures you’ve been quoting for construction of a ditch are phony. I’ve got a survey crew working out there now. They’ll be finished in a day or two, and then I’ll have the information I need to prove you’re a crook.”
For a moment Darley’s surprise shattered his composure, then the mask was in place again. “You’re bluffing. News like that gets around and I haven’t heard it.” He rose and moved to the end of the desk, his gun still within easy reach. “I’m busy.”
Neal glanced at the big safe in the corner, remembering what a job it had been to pull it up the stairs and get it into place here. At the time he’d wondered why Darley and Shelton needed such a heavy safe, but now he thought he knew. The money that had been collected was right there, not in a Portland bank as Darley claimed.
“What happens if someone cracks that safe and cleans you out?”
“They won’t. Shelton sleeps here every night. Don’t try it, Clark. It’s all the boys would need to string you up.”
“When are you starting work on the ditch?”
“When do you think?”
“Never.”
Darley’s patience suddenly snapped like a frayed rope. “You seem able to answer your own questions. Now get the hell out of here and let me alone.”
Still Neal didn’t move. He stood with his feet spread, eyes on Darley. He had been afraid when he’d come in and faced a gun in Darley’s hand. Darley had been scared and was therefore dangerous, but he’d ceased to be dangerous the moment he’d laid his gun down. Now, thinking about what had been said, fury suddenly boiled up in Neal. With no one to hear, Darley had tacitly admitted that everything Neal suspected was true.
“I’ve lost almost every friend I had in the county on your account,” Neal said, “and that includes Jud Manion. He was in the bank today, talking about hearing his baby cry because he was hungry. If you get away with this, there’ll be babies crying all over the county.”
“You trying to make me cry like the babies?” Darley motioned toward the door. “Damn it, get out of here before I throw you out.”
“Try it,” Neal challenged. “You’re a bastard, Darley, a stinking, lying, stealing son-of-a-bitch.”
One moment Darley was standing there, his hands at his sides. The next he had exploded into action, a fist catching Neal on the chin and sending him reeling. If Darley had followed up, he might have whipped Neal, but the blow seemed to be an expression of his anger and he was satisfied to let it go at that. Neal wasn’t. He rushed the promoter, smashing Darley’s defensive fists aside and driving home a roundhouse right that knocked Darley flat on his back.
Darley got up and charged back. They stood there for a time exchanging blows, both willing to take one to give one. That was another mistake on Darley’s part because he lacked the hatred that had grown in Neal for months. He was a madman, not feeling Darley’s fists as he hammered wicked punches to the promoter’s face, then his stomach, then the face again. A better man than Darley could not have stood up under that kind of punishment. He backed up, got his feet tangled in a wastebasket, and fell headlong, shaking the floor and rattling the pictures on the wall.
Darley rolled and got to his feet, whimpering like a hurt pup. He lunged toward the desk, shoved the chair back, and, crawling under the desk, rolled up into a ball, his head buried in his arms.
Neal got him by the coat collar and hauled him to his feet. Darley grabbed for the gun on the desk, but didn’t quite reach it. Neal hit him again, spinning him back toward a file cabinet. It went over with a tremendous clatter, papers spilling all over the floor, Darley falling across it.
Darley got up and charged Neal again, swinging both fists wildly, but he had been hurt too much for his blows to be effective. Neal ducked and drove at Darley, pumping a right and left into the promoter’s middle, then catching him squarely on the jaw with an upswinging right. This time Darley went down and stayed down.
Neal would have hauled Darley to his feet and hit him again if Shelton had not called from the door: “That’s enough, Clark!”
Neal straightened, wiping a coat sleeve across his face. Blood was pounding in his head with pulsating throbs. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them. He could see Shelton clearly then, standing in the doorway, a gun in his hand.
“Don’t make a fast move, Clark.” Shelton glanced at Darley’s battered face and shook his head. “You did quite a job, but don’t try it with me, or I’ll kill you.”
Shelton backed into the front office, motioning for Neal to follow, the gun not wavering from Neal’s chest. He seemed completely impersonal about this, but there was no doubt in Neal’s mind that Joe Rolfe’s estimate of the man was right. Under ordinary circumstances he was the most colorless man in town, the kind who could be in a crowd and afterward everyone would
swear he hadn’t been there at all. But right now he was a killing machine.
Shelton moved behind Fay Darley’s desk, motioning toward the door that opened into the hall. Neal walked past the big map on the wall to the hat rack near the door, his gaze fixed on Shelton’s face. There seemed to be more white in his eyes than ever; he was nervous and jumpy as if fighting a compulsion to kill Neal where he stood.
When Neal reached for his Stetson, Shelton said: “Keep going, friend. Right on out of town. Ben won’t forget this. Neither will I.”
His face was not ordinary now. It was contorted by a feral bitterness such as Neal had never seen on the face of any man before in his life. He left the office quickly, closing the door behind him, and went down the stairs. He knew he was lucky to be alive, that it would have taken only the slightest wrong move on his part to have made Shelton pull the trigger.
Neal dropped a hand into his coat pocket and felt of the gun. He considered going back and shooting it out with Shelton, but gave up the thought at once, remembering that Shelton’s death would change nothing.
His fingers closed over a folded piece of paper. His pocket had been empty when he’d put the gun there earlier in the morning. He drew the paper out and unfolded it. A note had been printed with a dull pencil.
A man never escapes from what he did yesterday. When the time comes, I’ll get square with you for what you done to my father and brother.
Ed Shelly
Neal leaned against the wall, staring at the note. For a moment he wondered if he were asleep, if this were part of the nightmare that was so terribly familiar. Then he began to tremble and shoved the note back into his pocket. No, this wasn’t a nightmare. He was very much awake, and he had the weird feeling that he had lived through this moment before, a moment he had been sure for eight years would come sooner or later. But coming just now, on top of everything else . . .
Very slowly he went down the steps, one hand clutching the rail.
Chapter Five
When Neal reached the boardwalk at the foot of the stairs, he saw that the crowd of men that had been in front of the Signal Butte Inn was gone. No one was in sight except Joe Rolfe, who stood at one end of the horse trough, his hands in his pockets, the afternoon sun reflected in the star he wore on his shirt.
This was the same star Rolfe had worn as long as Neal could remember, and it was as shiny now as it had been years ago when Neal had stared admiringly at it as a child. Rolfe’s long term as sheriff was as shiny bright as the star. In Neal’s mind he was the only man in Cascade County with the exception of Doc Santee whose honesty and integrity were above suspicion.
“What have you been into now?” Rolfe asked.
“Had a fight with Darley.”
Neal handed the sheriff the paper he had found in his pocket and walked on past him to the horse trough.
“You’re having a right busy day,” Rolfe said, not looking at the paper. “A ruckus with Tuttle and now one with Darley.”
“And Jud Manion trying to hold me up for a thousand dollars,” Neal said, “and Tuck Shelton throwing his gun on me and running me out of their office. Now that.”
Neal sloshed water over his face, and dried with his bandanna. When he looked at Rolfe, the sheriff was staring at the note, as motionless as if he were paralyzed. Two townsmen walked by, both nodding at Rolfe and ignoring Neal. One was Dick Bishop, the jeweler, the other Olly Earl, who owned the hardware store. Neal had known them as long as they’d been in town, but now they passed him as if he were an unwelcome stranger in Cascade City.
Neal watched the two men until they disappeared into O’Hara’s bar, but the old smoldering anger that had been in him for weeks since he had been ostracized by both farmers and townsmen did not break into flame as it had so many times. A man had to do what he had to do regardless of petty opposition, and this was hardly even petty after what Neal had been through today.
Still Rolfe stood staring at the note as if he were hypnotized by it. He was nearly seventy, his back as straight as a plumb line, and slender without the slightest hint of a paunch. When it came to trailing a fugitive, he could outride a man twenty years younger. His face, as withered and brown as an apple that had hung on the tree after a hard winter, betrayed no emotion when he folded the paper and slipped it into his coat pocket. He pinned his dark eyes on Neal, right hand coming up to curl a tip of his sweeping white mustache.
“Where’d you get it?” Rolfe asked.
“It was in my coat pocket. I didn’t know it was there until after I left Darley’s office just now.”
“You trying to say somebody shoved it into your pocket without you knowing it?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Who had a chance to do it?”
“It wasn’t there when I left home this morning,” Neal said. “Must have happened today. Could have been any of a dozen people. Jud Manion. Henry Abel. Sailor or Tuttle. Missus Darley. Maybe Shelton.” He frowned, thinking of Mrs. Darley. She’d had the best opportunity of anyone. She could have dropped a rock into his pocket without him knowing it when she’d stood close to him in her husband’s office. “Missus Darley,” he said thoughtfully. “Joe, I think she was the one.”
Rolfe got his pipe out of his pocket and began to fill it. “Any stranger who comes to this burg is going to hear about that Shelly business,” he said thoughtfully. “Folks still like to talk about it. Now if Darley or Shelton could get you to thinking about that and worrying enough, you’d quit fighting them. It makes sense, Neal. It’s almost clean-up time for them two bastards, and you’ve been a burr under their tails right from the first.”
“Could be, all right,” Neal admitted. “I suppose I might as well forget it. Joe, a while ago Darley practically admitted they have no intention of digging a ditch.”
“That ain’t news,” Rolfe said irritably, “but you didn’t prove nothing by going up there and scrapping with Darley.”
“I know it. I aimed to kill the son-of-a-bitch if I could get him to go for his gun, but it didn’t work that way.”
“Lucky for you it didn’t,” Rolfe said. “If you’re figuring to smoke it out with Darley, you’d better have a crowd of witnesses.” He held a match to his pipe, looking at Neal through the smoke. Then he added: “You think you’ve got trouble. Well, I’ve got some, too. I can’t do nothing but sit here and wait for them two buzzards to clean out their safe and run. Just knowing what they’re gonna do ain’t enough to arrest ’em for.”
“Let’s go get a drink,” Neal said.
“I need one, all right,” Rolfe said, “but I’ve got some advice to give you before I forget it. Stay out of trouble. You’ll get yourself killed the way you’re going. It’s my guess Darley and Shelton will fly the coop before long. When they do, I’ll need you. Nobody else I can count on.”
Neal was silent until they went into O’Hara’s bar. Bishop and Earl glanced at Neal, finished their drinks, and walked out.
Neal said: “I must smell pretty bad.”
“I’ve got the same stink on me,” Rolfe said. “Same with Doc. He was telling me the other day that for the last three months he’s had about half the calls he had a year ago. Anybody who can travel goes to Prineville.” He motioned toward O’Hara. “Whiskey.”
“The same,” Neal said.
O’Hara waddled toward them, set a bottle and two glasses in front of them, then leaned forward, fat hands palm down on the bar. “You two and Doc Santee have bucked Darley from the first. Nobody can figure out why. It ain’t as if they was taking water out of the river and maybe coming up short. Or spending money to build a reservoir. It’s a surefire proposition, with Darley giving us a chance to make a profit on our investment. All he’s trying to do is to develop the community and give homes to a hundred families.”
O’Hara straightened, wiped his hands on his apron, and pointed a finger at Neal. “You’re the one that’s stopping it. Darley was saying just this morning that they don’t need more’n
another ten thousand to start work. Your bank could loan that much without hurting nobody. I’ve tried to borrow a little . . .”
“Sure, I know, O’Hara,” Neal broke in. “I’m the dog in the manger.”
For a time they glared at each other across the bar, Neal fighting an impulse to grab the saloon man by his fat neck and shake some sense into him. But he hadn’t knocked any sense into Alec Tuttle. He wouldn’t do any better with O’Hara.
“You’re a hell of a lot worse’n a dog in a manger,” O’Hara muttered and, walking to the other end of the bar, began polishing glasses.
For a moment Neal stared at his drink. He wondered, as he had so many times, how much a man could take before he went crazy or killed somebody or ran away.
“I’ve known O’Hara for years,” he said, “but he’d rather believe a crook who came here six months ago than me.”
“You can savvy why they feel that way . . . O’Hara and Manion and all of ’em,” Rolfe said. “They know the irrigation companies along the river have made money. Darley’s promised ’em bigger profits with his deal because he’s fixing to tap the lakes. Won’t have the expense of building reservoirs. Just human nature to want something for nothing.”
Neal nodded and took his drink. The sheriff’s explanation didn’t make it any easier. A solvent bank was as essential to the prosperity of a community as a fire department or a supply of drinking water. If he backed Darley and Shelton and the bank went broke, he’d be criticized more bitterly than he was now. On the other hand, if he made the loans that were being demanded, and then had to go to the law to collect what was owed, it would be worse.
Rolfe put his hand on Neal’s shoulder. “I know how you feel, son. I’ve been in the same boat more’n once. So was your dad. You just can’t please everybody. Take Sam, now. He was proud and pushy and bossy as hell, but he had some damned fine dreams. He used to say we’d have a town of fifteen thousand people here on the Deschutes, with a railroad coming up the river and sawmills slicing up the pines.” He dropped his hand and turned to the bar again, adding: “You inherited them dreams along with the bank, boy. Don’t lose ’em.”
The Man from Yesterday Page 4
