“You’re dressed kinda funny yourse’ff, Jeff,” he said acidly. He turned and stalked after Benny, pretending not to be in haste. Jeff roared with laughter and then went hurrying after them, to tell them what it was all about, to let them understand that he did not minimize what their bringing reinforcements had meant.
In the kitchen, “I didn’t know it was a ladies’ party,” growled Pete. “Why’n’t you say so? Me an’ Benny would of put on our glad rags. I’d of took time for a shave, too, an’ mebbe a hair cut. So those fellers were Warbuck killers, huh? Out in the open now?”
“Looks like it, Pete. Well, get back to bed; the party’s over for tonight anyhow. And tomorrow I’ll talk with you. You and Benny remember what I said: Keep an eye on our ponies all the time.”
Pete scratched his bony leg with his rifle barrel.
“Long’s we’re already woke up, why don’t we take a ride? Why don’t we drop in on the Long Valley boys an’ blow Bart Warbuck’s head clean off’n his beefy shoulders? We’d sleep better nights after that. So’d a lot of other folks.”
Jeff shook his head. “Thanks, Pete. Not tonight though. Sometime? Quien sabe?”
“Who’s that dame in there?” asked Pete. “She’s no Chink girl like you said.”
“She’s Arlene Warbuck,” said Jeff.
Pete whistled and his beetling brows shot up until they met strands of his straggling hair coming down.
“A Warbuck, huh? Say, that’s funny! Maybe that’s why—”
“’Night, boys,” said Jeff.
He returned to Arlene. The clock on his mantel, ticking on steadily and unconcerned though there was a gouged-out place in the adobe wall not three inches above its placid face where a bullet had spatted, told them that it was well after three o’clock. It would be morning in no time at all, so of course the thing to do was get dressed and start the new day.
“You see, Ah Lee—” said Jeff quizzically, and got no further. There she stood looking so tiny, looking like a little girl playing at being grown up, her hair all tumbled, her eyes shining as he had never seen them shine before, all bright with excitement, her cheeks flushed—his old black forty-five clutched in her fingers—He simply reached out, gathered her up in his arms, clean off the floor and kissed her. She gasped, utterly astounded. He let her go and they stood looking at each other—and Arlene began laughing. For, though she knew the sort of blank look which must be on her face, she saw that Jeff himself looked even more surprised.
“Arlene! Dammit, I didn’t mean—I just couldn’t—You bowled me over and—Do you know you’ve been fighting alongside me, fighting my fight against—Oh, hell! Forget it.”
“Maybe Ah Wong will make us some coffee?” said Arlene. “I’ll go get dressed.”
“And after that, what?” he asked. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going back to Halcyon. I’ll make a living somehow; maybe I’ll get a job at the hotel! They can’t take me away! If they dare try—”
“I’m hired as body-guard,” said Jeff.
“Body-guards work for hire. How would I ever pay you?” She was laughing at him.
Jeff looked at her and remembered their kiss. He said, “I’m paid in full for the rest of my life.”
Arlene looked happy: her color rose, her gray eyes turned blue. She ran to her room. At the door she blew him a kiss.
“I never underpay my staff,” she teased him. “I want no complaints, Mr. Body-guard. If you think—” He took a swift step toward her. Arlene, as pink as a peony and as incredibly pretty as a daydream wearing enormous flapping pajamas, ran into her room and closed her door hastily.
* * * *
They agreed that the living room with its wrecked window-panes was no place to be cozy in. There was a little room adjoining where there were an old leather couch and a couple of old leather chairs, where Jeff kept his few books and an unexpected guitar, and there was a table in a corner with a squatty table lamp and a couple of lead pencils and a rusty pen, and it was there that Ah Wong brought them coffee. He, like themselves, had decided that it wasn’t worthwhile to go back to bed.
He came in, heralded by the steamy aroma of his fragrant coffee, grumbling.
“Walla malla, Bossee Jeff’son?” he was muttering. “Allee time, bleakee window. Fix ’em las’ time, workee, workee lak hell. Now bleakee thlee mo’, wha’ for? Bettah so you go ketchee nodder boy, fixee window.”
It was almost day; they could smell the dawn in the air. Something, maybe the breeze just beginning to stir, awakened, a bird, and a few sleepy liquid notes, like little fragile bubbles, came floating in to them.
“It’s a fearsome world, Jeff, isn’t it?” said Arlene over her coffee cup. “I suppose that I never really understood what the world was, or what life meant, until now. It’s savage, so terribly savage.”
“It’s a pretty good world, as worlds go,” said Jeff. “There happen to be a lot of things we’d like to change; there are a few things maybe we can change. It’s a rough old world, a tough old world, a regular rough-and-tumble world—but I sort of like it, don’t you?”
“I wonder,” said a pretty badly lost Arlene.
It was scarcely full daylight when Ah Wong came pattering in again, blithe bringer of news; his grin was so wide that one thought of an open barn door.
“Plitty good luck anyhow, Bossee,” he chuckled. “Outside by big pine tlee, findee plenty blood. You shoot one man anyhow, velly good. Plitty sick man now, I guess, mebbeso dead man. Plitty good luck, Bossee.”
Arlene stiffened and her face went dead white; she went white even to her lips.
“I—I shot him!” she said steadily enough but so low that they could scarcely hear her. “I shot him. Maybe I have killed him. I heard him scream—and, God forgive me, I was glad! So glad that I wanted to laugh!”
Ah Wong regarded her in disgust.
“Walla malla?” he grumbled. “You like shoot him, you tly shoot him, you got good luck—and now you think, ‘Oh my, oh my, too bad, too bad!’ Wha’ for?”
“Dry up, Wong,” said Jeff. “Clear out.”
Wong departed, talking to himself in Chinese. But within ten minutes he was back, clutching something tightly in his hand. This thing he slammed down on the table. It was a flattened ragged piece of lead that formerly had been a bullet.
“Go find out sure who shootee that man,” he grunted. “Findee bullet stickee in pine tlee ’longside blood.” He snorted and went out again, but from the door called back contemptuously, “Missee Ah Lee plitty plitty gal, Bossee, but only gal, all samee. No can shoot good, no can hit barnside. You look-see bullet; your gun, Bossee. Good luck, you shootee heap good.”
Jeff took the thing up, looked at it narrowly and said, “He’s right, Arlene. This is a rifle bullet.”
Arlene started to say, “Oh, thank God!” but couldn’t be thankful that the thing she abhorred had to be laid at Jeff’s door, so said nothing. But she could not stifle her deep sigh of relief.
And Jeff presently found an excuse to go to the kitchen. There he demanded crisply of his Oriental retainer where the devil he had found that bullet. Ah Wong started to tell his same story over; Jeff said, “Forget it, Wong. If a rifle bullet had popped into one of those big yellow pines it wouldn’t have flattened out like that; it would have drilled in and, probably so far you’d have never dug it out. Where’d you get it?”
Ah Wong smiled like a cherub.
“Inside house, Bossee. Bullet come through door, mashee all to hell on iron pipe. Think bettah so tell Missee Ah Lee lilly bit lie. Ah Lee lookee sickee. Mo’ bettah now.”
“Ah Wong,” said Jeff, “right now they’ve set aside a harp for you in heaven, and a special pair of wings.”
Wong puzzled a moment, then understood and grinned.
“Think so ketchee hock-shop in heaven, Bossee?”
�
��I guess when you get there you can slip down the backstairs to the basement and find a place to hock ’em,” laughed Jeff, and returned to Arlene.
“Jeff,” she said, “I mustn’t stay here any longer. There’s no use and anyhow, I can’t put off forever finding out how to make my own way. I’m going back to Halcyon.”
So he went out for the horses and they rode down to Halcyon in the early morning and, though she knew nothing about it, Pete and Benny rode along behind them, just out of sight all the time but within rifle-striking distance. For, though Jeff did not think it likely, there was the remote possibility that the Warbuck ruffians who had attacked last night might be lying in wait for just such an expedition.
“It’s a funny thing,” said Jeff on the way. “My old gent and old Bill running the Pay Dirt bar together. Wonder how that happened?”
“Oh, don’t you know?” asked Arlene. “It is funny, Jeff. Bill told me something about it, enough so that I could guess the rest. You know they used to be partners—”
“Sure. For years. Until something happened. I never knew—”
“No one knows, I suppose. Well, anyhow, they owned most of Halcyon, together; and they owned the Pay Dirt Hotel, half and half. And they’ve kept up taxes and neither of them would buy from the other or offer the other anything for his share, so, bless the two, they’re still partners! And when the boom started—”
“Just what did start the boom? Nobody has found a mine yet, has he?”
“It’s talk, Jeff; the wildest sort of talk. Men seem so sure that there’s a Golconda coming up. And they all want to be on the ground when the truth comes out. When the gold that Charlie Carter found—nobody knows where it is—”
“Nobody? Your—Bart Warbuck knows!”
“I—I guess so, Jeff. Well, that’s all I know. And I suppose Halcyon will keep on getting bigger and bigger, while so many men wait and live on their hopes. Then, if nothing ever comes of it, Halcyon will go back to sleep. But in the meantime, I’m going to make Halcyon stand and deliver. For I really want two dresses, and two pairs of shoes, and two hats and—”
“Look out, Halcyon!” he laughed at her. “Here comes a young adventuress to slit your throat or anyhow your pocketbook, maybe both!”
“But how in the world am I going to do it?”
He didn’t know, either. Of course she’d have a session with Still Jeff, one with old Bill Morgan. Both the old boys, Jeff was inclined to suspect, had taken a fancy to her.
“It will work out some way,” he said, as a man who knew. Never mind just how until time came: Take it from him, it would work out.
They found Halcyon much as they had left it, save now it was noonday instead of the loafing hours of night. The town didn’t look so busy; there were a score of men in sight, going about this and that errand, and there were lazy smokes from old chimneys. At the hitching rack in front of the Pay Dirt were only three or four saddle horses and a decrepit old buckboard. They dismounted, left their horses at the rail and went inside.
The barroom was all but deserted. Behind the bar was Red Shirt Bill alone; he was leaning on his elbows, looking sleepy. But he came wide awake when he saw who they were.
“Welcome to town and name your poison,” he greeted them. “It’s on the house.”
“Meet the Spirit of Halcyon, Bill,” said Jeff. “A gay young adventuress out to do the world, and to make a fortune overnight. Where’s Jeff?”
“How the hell should I know?” said Bill Morgan, and turned to Arlene. “Thought you’d slipped away and gone back home, not even sayin’ good-bye,” he said.
Jeff left them talking and went over to Still Jeff’s cabin. He found Still Jeff making coffee and warming up a pot of red beans cooked with a ham-bone, and corn bread. He was surrounded by dogs. The orphans left behind by Charlie Carter looked well fed.
“Howdy, Jeff,” said Still Jeff. “Squat and eat.”
“I told you what happened here the other night, Jeff,” said Young Jeff, and squatted. “The powwow that Warbuck and the old woman was having was listened in on by three people; they were Jim Ogden, Arlene and your little boy.”
Still Jeff, having tasted his beans, said, “Salt, Jeff?” and shoved the can of salt across the table.
“Warbuck picked up Jim Ogden night before last. They went away together, but they had a talk first. Ogden told all he knew, I guess. So Warbuck’s out to shut a couple of mouths; Arlene’s, by dragging her back home, mine by sending some of his killers out to look for me. We had a scrimmage up at my place last night.”
Still Jeff nodded and looked thoughtful. He almost said something, then thought better of it and helped himself to a sizeable hunk of corn bread. He buttered it freely, then dunked it; his coffee thereafter looked a mess but that didn’t seem to bother him.
“I’ll stagger along trying to take care of myself,” said Young Jeff. “There is Arlene though. She’s back in town; talking with Bill Morgan now. She knows her old man for what he is, a killer and a skunk in general; and one sure thing is, she won’t go home.”
That was easy to grasp and Still Jeff nodded again. Then he lifted one shaggy brow in a question mark.
“Hell, I don’t know!” rapped out Young Jeff. “What’s she going to do? She’s as independent in her heart as a herd of Statues of Liberty. She’s out to turn an honest dollar; she wants to scrap every shoe and sock that Bart Warbuck ever bought for her and start out on her own. And she’d die before she borrowed a cent from you or me or Bill or the devil himself. What’s she going to do, Jeff?”
It was something to think about. What could she do?
For once, Still Jeff grew almost voluble.
“One of Warbuck’s killers is pretty sure to get you soon, Jeff,” he said. “Don’t let it worry you though; I’ll step right over and kill Warbuck.”
“Thanks a lot,” growled Jeff. “That’ll help!”
Still Jeff nodded again and did some more dunking, about the sloppiest dunking, thought Young Jeff, that was ever dunked.
“Dammit, Jeff,” said Young Jeff. And Still Jeff thoroughly agreed with him, though in silence; dammit was the very word.
Young Jeff shoved his chair back and stood up. “I’m worried about Arlene,” he said. “She’s a good kid, Jeff. If Warbuck drags her home—well, it’s going to break her heart or kill her outright. And I can’t stick here in Halcyon all the time, close-herding her. If you two old boys don’t step forward—Well, I hope you both choke to death.”
“Going, Jeff?” said old Jeff. “So long, Kid.”
There were times, many of them, as now, when Young Jeff was filled with a profound disgust for his paternal parent. If Still Jeff had been some thirty years younger—and not his old man—he was dead sure that nothing would have given him greater satisfaction than knocking the eternal daylights out of Still Jeff. So Young Jeff went out fuming. But—it always happened—he hadn’t taken the first step before he thought, “Dammit, the old boy’s right again. Not having anything to say, he didn’t say it. That’s all. He did rare up and speak his piece about going out for Bart Warbuck—and what more could a man do? If I ever come to have half as much sense as Jeff’s got, well, I’ll have twenty-seven times as much sense as I’ve got now.”
He turned back toward the hotel, having Arlene and her problem and her stress of mind bearing down heavy on him and as he did so a man—a gangling youth, rather, though fancying himself a man—came running. He was in the grip of such excitement, his eyes bulging and his tongue going thick, and he made such a mess of what he was trying to say, stammering and stuttering, that Young Jeff caught him by the shoulder and shook him and threatened to slap his face, before the boy managed to gulp out coherently what he was in such haste to tell.
“Bill Morgan, he sent me. He give me twenty dollars an’ he kicked me in the pants an’ he says run like hell! He says there’s more’n twenty men, War
buck men he calls ’em, jus’ rid up—an’ they’re hell-bent for stealin’ a girl away an’ shootin’ up Young Jeff—an’ he says if there was only twenty of ’em he could take care of them single handed, but there’s anyhow twenty-one, an’ for Gawd’s sake for Young Jeff to kick in. An’ he says not to tell the ol’ fool with the soup-strainer mustache, an’ that’s all he says, hones’ to Gawd so-help-me.”
From his place at the table Still Jeff had somehow got to the door like a streak of light; one hand gripped his old rifle, the other hand came up out of his pocket, full of silver coins. These he thrust into the gibbering messenger’s hands.
“You run back to Bill Morgan like the devil was after you,” snorted Still Jeff. “Tell him I’m giving you forty dollars to his damn twenty. Tell him for me I’ll be there before you are. Tell him if there are only twenty-one Warbuck killers all he’s got to do, if he ain’t scared, is shoot one of ’em in the back; he’s damn good at that. And I’ll take on the other twenty! Got it?”
“Y-y-yes sir,” stammered the youth.
“Then get to hell out of my way,” said Still Jeff, “or I’ll run over you!”
Young Jeff and Still Jeff ran, elbow to elbow.
Chapter Twelve
Young Jeff would have gone storming in at the front door. But Still Jeff snagged him by the sleeve and drew him elsewhere, and Young Jeff, not being altogether a blind bull, followed his father’s lead. They went in at a narrow back door, down a steep flight of steps into a crumbly, dark and mildewed cellar, and popped up via a ladder that lost a round or two under their weights—and a moment later were on the floor behind the bar.
“No hurry, Jeff,” said Still Jeff.
Young Jeff saw Red Shirt Bill Morgan with his old rifle laid across the bar instead of a bottle or a bar towel, and that was all he saw until his attention was drawn to what Still Jeff was busying himself with. Beneath the bar was a sliding panel, and Still Jeff, remembering old days and that sliding panel’s previously proven usefulness, was scrabbling for the handle that made the damned thing work. He found what he remembered and sought; the panel complained like old bones yet gave in and slid back; there resulted a long narrow slit through which one could peer out into the barroom if he but crouched low and put his eye to it. It was a slit only a couple of inches wide—still, one could see through it and also could slip the nose of his rifle or six-gun through.
The Fifth Western Novel Page 68
