Coroner Creek (19 page)

He looked at Chris' bandaged hand without interest, and Chris, not seeing Kate behind the desk, started back for the kitchen. He was well into the dining room when the kitchen door opened and she came out. There was an expression of happiness on her face which heightened, Chris noticed, as she saw him.

He touched his hat and as she came up to him, she said, “It worked, Chris. O'Hea has deserted Miles.”

Interest came into Chris' face. Kate, telling him of the meeting, sank into a chair at the nearest table and Chris, listening intently, took off his hat and sat down too.

As Kate told of O'Hea quietly puncturing Miles' story, a faint and fleeting smile crossed Chris' face and he felt a wicked pleasure. It had worked, but it was too late now. He had his chore to do.

He came to his feet and said now, “Will you take a message for Mrs. Harms? That Leach will be in for her this noon?”

Kate had started to rise, and now she sank back in her chair again. “She's going back for good? Now?”

“Della's quit,” Chris said, without any censure in his statement. “Falls Canyon was fired last night, and the bunch of two-year-olds was wiped out. Della's through fighting.”

“Was it Younger?”

“Yordy, I think.”

Kate was silent a long time, looking at him. “What do you do now?”

“I'm through there,” Chris said.

“But you can't leave Della now!” Kate said, passionately.

“She asked me to.”

Kate's glance fell away. She rose now and walked slowly toward the lobby door, and Chris, beside her, saw the disappointment in her face. She glanced obliquely up at him and said, now, “You're going off without doing it, are you? Without wrecking Miles, or killing him?”

Her words shocked Chris to a halt, and he asked warily, “When did I say that?”

“You've never had to put it into words. To me, anyway. That's all you've wanted to do since you came here. There's nothing else you've thought about.”

Chris didn't answer; his bafflement held him silent.

Kate inclined her head toward the street. “He's here today, with half his crew around him. It's a bad time, but I don't think that will stop you.”

Still Chris was silent, taking the measure of her knowledge while a slow caution and alarm grew in him. It was as if he had told her what was in his heart and mind, and he had no weapon of concealment.

“You hate him almost too much to kill him, don't you? Well, there's a way to hurt him now, and badly. But you're too stubborn to see it, so go kill him.”

A sudden anger touched him now as he turned and walked toward the lobby door. He was even with it when he slowed and then halted, thinking,
Damn your pride! Ask her
.

He turned and came back to her. “What way?” he asked.

Kate said unsmilingly, “Sam O'Hea's upstairs. He'll have to come down sometime, and he'll have to go to his office sometime. They're waiting for him—four or five or six of them. They'll be waiting for him from now on, every day, and he's a sick man. Go help him.”

Chris frowned, eyes intent.

“He's allowed money for a deputy. Go help him. You're the only one who can.”

She went back into the kitchen, then, and Chris presently turned and tramped out into the lobby. He halted once, and then walked to the street door and halted again, and presently he roused himself and walked over to the nearest chair and sat down. The drummer watched him, curious now.

Pulling out his sack of tobacco, he tried to roll a smoke with his good hand, but his mind wasn't on it, and he failed. He took out another paper and when the tobacco was in it, his fingers stilled and he stared at the paper, thinking,
I could crowd him every minute until I broke him
.

He was aware presently of someone standing in front of him and he looked up to see the drummer extending a cigar to him.

“You bother me,” the drummer said morosely. “Light this up so I can quit watching you try to make that cigarette. Compliments of Beeman's Wholesale Hardware.”

Chris took the cigar and the drummer went back to his chair, his face still morose.

Chris was moodily studying the street, his cigar dead in his fingers, when he heard the footsteps cease beside him and he looked up.

It was O'Hea, who said, “Hello, son. Hardison got ahold of you already?”

“Hardison? No.”

“He wants to see you, to send you to me,” O'Hea went on. “But hell, I don't think you're the kind that can be talked into anything, so I might as well ask you myself. Are you set on staying at Box H?”

“I'm through there,” Chris said.

“Then you better see Hardison,” O'Hea said. “He'll tell you about some changes around here before he sends you to me.”

“I heard about the changes,” Chris said slowly.

O'Hea looked squarely at him. “All right. I need a deputy, and I want you. Will you think it over?”

“I have. I'll work for you.”

“When?”

“Now.”

O'Hea's slow, unaccustomed smile came, and Chris rose. Together, in silence, they went out and Chris adjusted his pace to O'Hea's careful walk toward his office.

In the middle of the block, O'Hea said, “Just one thing. Miles is waiting for me at the office.”

“I figured that,” Chris said.

O'Hea looked obliquely at him and said nothing. They went on downstreet and waited for a freight wagon to pull past into the lumber yard, and then went into the sheriff's office.

Out of the habit, O'Hea tramped past the first door and entered the anteroom. Ernie Coombs, young Bill Arnold and Stew Shallis were seated in the anteroom. Ernie's chair was by the office door, back-tilted against the wall, and his heels were hooked over the bottom rung of it.

Ernie was already grinning derisively at O'Hea before he caught sight of Chris, and his grin still held as he said, “Go on in, Pop. You're goin' to get your head unscrewed.”

He brought his chair down on all four legs as O'Hea passed him and went into the office. He started to rise and Chris put out his hand and gently shoved him back into the chair.

“This is a waiting room. You wait.”

He paused long enough to see Ernie's mouth open a little in surprise, and Ernie looked at the other two Rainbow hands. They didn't move.

Chris stepped into the office and closed the door behind him.

Younger Miles was standing in the middle of the room. His glance, hot and bold, settled on Chris, and Chris put his back against the wall next the chair where MacElvey sat. Chris could tell Younger's anger over last night was mixed with his anger over O'Hea's desertion.

Younger said roughly to O'Hea, “Get that drifter out of here.”

“Meet my deputy,” O'Hea replied, with a quiet irony.

Younger looked long at O'Hea and then said gently, “So that's it?”

“That, and more,” O'Hea said quietly. “Abbie started work in her old job this morning. You annoy her just once. Younger, and I'll load up a shotgun with rusty nails and shoot you in the belly.” He paused a moment to let that sink in, then said, “Anything you have to say to me in an official way, you can say to Danning. I wrote my letter, you see, and I'm back on duty.” He smiled. “Now say it, and then get out.”

Miles' bull neck colored a deep red, but his face was composed, almost pleasant. “It'll keep,” he murmured, “until he's out of office.”

He looked once more at Chris, his eyes still hot and full of rage. “You brace me just once, drifter, and you're dead.”

He strode toward the corridor door and yanked it open and went out. Mac rose and quietly followed him, and then Chris pushed away from the wall and opened the door into the anteroom. Ernie and Bill Arnold and Shallis were standing in the center of the room, regarding the door.

“Go on,” Chris murmured. “Didn't you hear him whistle?”

The three of them headed slowly for the door. Chris stepped back in the office just in time to see O'Hea gather a pile of papers and an aged yellow slicker from the table and tramp over to the open corridor door.

When Bill Arnold, last out, was just passing in the corridor, O'Hea shoved the stuff at him and said, “These are Mac's. Give 'em to him.”

Arnold grabbed for the bundle, his face sullen, and a scattering of papers drifted off the bottom of the pile and spilled on the floor.

Bill hesitated and O'Hea said, “Get out!” and Bill went.

O'Hea started to bend to pick up the papers on the floor, and then grunted and stood erect, holding his side. Chris went out into the hall and picked up the papers and came back in with them. Looking at them, he saw they were fresh sheets of stationery with the printed letterhead, “Sulinam Mines, Inc.”

Both sides were blank, and he went over to the wastebasket and dumped them in. When he looked at O'Hea, the old man winked solemnly.

“Well, let's get you sworn in, son.”

Younger and MacElvey paused at Melaven's corner and waited for Ernie, Arnold and Shallis. Younger's face, Mac noticed, held the same expression as Ernie Coombs' when they all gathered on the corner. It was an expression of edgy, wild temper, as if the wrong inflection on a word might set off the explosion.

Ernie's greeting was indicative. He looked levelly at Younger, his bleach eyes wicked. “You goin' to take that?”

Younger didn't even bother to answer him. “You and Bill and Stew go up to Tip's shack and hold it. Move a big crew up tomorrow and finish it in a hurry. If Danning tries to stop you, that's all we want.”

Ernie grinned faintly before he and Shallis moved off down-street for their horses. Bill hesitated long enough to dump the papers O'Hea had given him in Mac's arms, and then followed them. Younger watched them moodily for a moment, and then his baleful glance shifted to the hotel. “She's going to get out of there, Mac,” he said grimly.

“You better stay away from her this noon,” Mac said quietly.

The glance Younger gave him was brief and wrathful. “I'm not eating any place where my wife is kitchen help.”

A puncher passed and spoke to him, and Younger didn't even hear him. He was again looking at the hotel, and now he seemed to have made up his mind.

He nodded toward Melaven's and said, “I'll be in here.” He looked full at Mac now, without anger. “The Petrie stage will be in at two. Bring the mail over.”

Mac nodded and Younger went on into the saloon. Mac went up street with his gear and turned into the store. Younger's reference to the Petrie stage, he knew, meant that this afternoon they would know if they had low bid on the Sulinam job. Mac stored his papers away in the bottom drawer of his desk, which he locked, and then went across to the hotel.

He was one of the last of the diners and he ate a leisurely meal by himself. When the last customer had left the dining room, he finished quickly and rose, but instead of going out into the lobby, he headed for the kitchen. There he spoke to the big, cheerful-seeming woman who was cook, and to the waitresses who were cleaning up the dishes, and then he poked his head in the door of the big room which was the pantry.

Abbie Miles was already laying out pans for the supper pies. She wore a full apron over her dress and her sleeves were rolled elbow-high. She heard Mac and turned, and when she saw him, she smiled. Mac noted with no surprise that the sullenness and defiance that had always been in her face was gone; she seemed cheerful and happy as she said to him now, “Hello, Mac. Are you the ambassador?”

Mac leaned against a counter and shook his head. “No, I just came to see how you were.”

“How do I look?”

“Beautiful,” Mac said simply.

Abbie flushed, and looked down at the pans. She said, without looking at him, “Please don't say that again, Mac. It doesn't get us anywhere. I'm still a married woman.”

“I know. I only answered your question.”

Abbie half smiled at him, and then her expression sobered. “What has he said about my leaving?”

“He says you're coming back.”

A look of faint alarm came into Abbie's face. “But I'm not. What can I do if he insists?”

“Your Dad had a pretty good idea. Load up a shotgun with rusty nails and shoot him.”

Abbie's hands stopped moving. “Did you say a ‘good' idea, Mac? That's the first time I've heard you say anything against Younger.”

“My tongue slipped,” Mac said dryly.

“If you feel that way, why do you work for him?” Abbie said slowly. “Did you take an oath to cherish him until death do you part, like I did? You can quit. Why don't you?”

“Money. Food. It's a living. It's exciting. I'm crazy. Take your choice, only let's not talk about it,” Mac said, wryly, and he smiled his faint, twisted smile.

“There seem to be a lot of things neither of us can talk about,” Abbie said softly.

“And I'll add one more to the list,” Mac said with quiet firmness. “We won't talk about liquor any more, Abbie. I've lived with that on my conscience long enough. If you've got to have it, get it from someone else. I've loved you enough so I'd do anything you ask, anything. But not that any more.”

“But I don't want it,” Abbie said proudly. “I don't ever want to see any again. I don't know why that's over with, but it is.”

Mac smiled and nodded once. “I know why. So do you.”

“All right, I do.”

“Keep it over with. Pretty soon, even the reason you once had will be gone.”

Abbie regarded him a long moment. “My marriage to Younger? Why do you say that?”

Mac straightened up and smiled faintly. “A hunch. Good-by, my dear.”

“Good-by, Mac,” Abbie said slowly, and she watched him go out, a puzzlement reflected in her face.

Passing through the lobby, Mac glanced at the clock and saw it was past stage time. He crossed to Melaven's, sought the other corner and walked on to Waycross' hardware store, a front corner of which, walled away by racks of pigeon-holes, was Triumph's post office. Stepping in line behind two other townsmen, he moved up to the wicket and when his turn came said to Waycross behind it, “Hello, Ed. What's for us?”