Silvertip (1942) (2 page)

"Now!" breathed Bandini. "And what do you want?"

"I want some news," said Silver. "I want to know abou
t
the fellow who's having dinner with you. I want to kno
w
what's in the air."

"Just a fool of a boy-that's all he is," said Bandini. after a moment. But there was that in his eyes that made Silvertip yearn to see the face. A single glint of light would have helped then, to reveal a story. "And what business is it of yours?"

"It ought to be every man's business," said Silvertip, "to watch you. No good ever came out of you, Bandini."

"Do you insult me?" snarled the Mexican.

"You don't understand me, Bandini," said Silvertip. "I don't insult you. A man doesn't insult a rattlesnake; he shoots it. And that's what will happen between us, before the wind-up."

He heard no answer-only the heavy, irregular breathing of the Mexican. Bandini was afraid-sick with fear- and Silver knew it.

"Every man who has ever seen you at work has reasons enough to wish you dead, Bandini. That's why I'm asking you what deviltry you're up to with that other young Mexican, to-night?"

No matter what fear there was in Bandini, he exclaimed suddenly: "Is every man to tell you his secrets-or be murdered?"

Silver, gritting his teeth slowly together, mused on that answer before he said: "I've seen you deal crooked cards; I've seen the scar of your knife left on a man's back; I knew some of the dead men you've left behind you. Now you're at some deviltry again, and you're not going through with it, if I can help it. I'm going to give you time to think it over. Pull yourself together and make up your mind.

"There's no reason why we should spoil our dinners about this. But by nine thirty I'll look for you in front of the restaurant-anywhere on the street in front of it. If you're there, I'll know that you want to have it out with me. If you're not there, I'll know that you've left town. But if you're neither in the street nor out of town, I'm going to start looking for you, Bandini, and I'll break down doors until I get at you. It was never intended that rats like you should go about the world gnawing at the lives of honest men!"

There was another moment of pause; he heard, again, the hurried breathing of the Mexican, like that of a man who has been running hard. Then Bandini turned on his heel. His cloak swished with a whispering sound through the air, and he passed back into the kitchen. As Silvertip entered in turn, the farther door banged behind Bandini
,
and Silver stepped into a strained moment of silence in the kitchen.

Silver turned with a sudden cheerfulness to Piero.

"If there's a corner table in the garden, I'm going to have it, Piero."

"Come!" said Piero Martinelli.

"No," said Silvertip. "Quietly does the trick. I'll find my way. I'm hungry for that spaghetti, Mrs. Martinelli."

Then he went out toward the garden. The bustling in the kitchen began again, behind him.

"Wake up!" cried Mrs. Martinelli to the kitchen maid. "Get the pepper sauce for that Bandini devil. Fan that charcoal and bring it to life. Do something! What's the matter with you?"

Maria looked at her with wide, dark eyes.

"You were right," she said. "There will be a killing. And Bandini will be the dead man!"

Then she fell to her work again.

But out in the garden, there never was a more tranquil face than that of Silvertip as he passed under the high grape arbors until he found a small corner table. All the rest of the little garden was filled with family groups, Americans, flavoring their food with hearty portions of the red, home-made wine of Martinelli. No one paid any attention to Silvertip as he passed. Americans lack the public curiosity of the Latins, and only unhappiness makes them aware of the outside world. A contented party is surrounded by an unpenetrable wall of its own pleasure, as it were, and that wall is rarely peered over. So those ranchers, miners, town tradesmen and shopkeepers of Cruces, with their families about them, talked high or low, and paid no heed to Silvertip as he went by.

He, apparently, had no more eye for them, and yet he studied every face in turn, analyzed it, shaved a mustache here to see if the naked skin might bring out a dangerous likeness; put on a beard there for the same reason. By the time he had reached his corner table, he was fairly well convinced that he knew none of them, and that none of them knew him.

Still, as he sat down, he was by no means willing to relax. He measured the height of the wall behind him.

He regarded the thickness of the arbor foliage, behind which a man might easily hide.

For Bandini was near, and Bandini would kill him by courage or by craft, if possible.

Antonio Martinelli came hobbling on his crippled leg. He embraced one of Silvertip's hands in both of his. He leaned over Silver's table, and beamed upon him.

"How are things?" said Silvertip.

"How can anything be bad with me? How can I ever complain?" said Martinelli. "I have a leg and a half, instead of no legs at all. Therefore we all thank God and Silvertip every day of our lives. Look! Here is the wine. If it is not beautiful, every drop, you shall have the blood out of my heart."

Silvertip made him sit down at the table. They tried the wine together, Martinelli smacking his lips.

"What's happening in there between Bandini and his friend?" asked Silvertip.

"It's no friend that's with Bandini," said Martinelli. "All I know is that Bandini wants something out of that young Mexican, and can't get it. But there'll be trouble! There'll be trouble!"

"I think so, too," said Silvertip, with a voice filled with quiet meaning. "I wish you'd watch and listen as much as you can. And let me know if a break seems to be coming on."

"You would help? You would stop the trouble?" asked Martinelli. "You know what one gun fight does-it spoils the name of a place. It takes away the cheerfulness. If people say: 'Martinelli's, where the man was killed the other day'-if they say that, they will come to me no more. I'll go and watch them like a hawk. I would give twenty dollars to have them under my eye as well as under my ear. I can only hear mumblings through the door, and very few words."

He went off, and Maria came, bearing a plate, the grated cheese, the Bolognese sauce, and a great platter of spaghetti. She put all the dishes down, deftly, and arranged them without making a clatter, and yet all the time her thoughtful eyes were on the face of Silvertip, not on her automatic work.

She paused one instant, watching Silvertip lift from the platter the first white-dripping forkful of spaghetti and bring it over to his plate.

"You think of him still," said the girl, "But he will not harm you if you keep away from him."

She hurried away, as though frightened by her own boldness in giving an opinion, and the hazel-gray eyes of Silvertip watched her out of sight, before he moved his hand again.

He finished the spaghetti slowly. The goodness of the food to one who had eaten little except meat for many weeks, filled him again with that sleepy content against which he had to be so on guard. Finally he roused himself, as Martinelli came hobbling up the path, ducking under the trailing green of the arbor.

His face beamed a brighter red than before, as he exclaimed: "It is all finished; it is all well; and they're in the saloon drinking together like brothers!"

"Are they?" said Silvertip. "Then the trouble is right on the verge of breaking. I know the sort of brotherhood there is in Bandini!"

He looked at his watch. It was nine thirty.

He finished his wine with a gulp, and rising from the table, with a swift, secret gesture he touched the revolver that hung under his coat. Martinelli gaped vaguely at the form that strode so quickly before him, and started to hobble in pursuit.

But Silvertip entered the barroom far ahead. One glance showed him that Bandini was not there, in the long irregular line of noisy drinkers. He called the bartender with a crooking of his forefinger.

"Bandini?" he said.

"Bandini's just gone out with a young fellow, a friend who-"

Silvertip waited to hear no more. He felt sure that the young fellow was now indeed in grave danger, so he slipped out of the swinging doors onto the street. He whipped that street from end to end with a rapid glance, and saw the mere fluttering of a cloak as a man passed from view. Bandini, after all, was awaiting him in the street!

That was enough for Silvertip. He ran like a greyhound to that corner. A dark, narrowly winding alley moved away on his left. He winced back a little from that darkness, as a kennel terrier might wince from the black tunnel of a fox's earth. Then he hurried straight forward, stepping long and light, every nerve in his body made acute, every sense working with electric surety and speed.

Something moved before him. Heels ground against the earth. He saw the swaying of a cloak, dimly seen through the shadows.

"Are you ready?" cried Silvertip. "Then fill your hand!"

The form whirled toward him, the cloak fanning well out to the side. One hand rose, as if to let go with the gun it seemed to hold. The other did not rise.

"Take it then, damn you!" muttered Silvertip, and drawing, he fired.

The finger of red fire flicked out of the muzzle of the gun, as though pointing the way for the bullet with the death it carried. That flash showed Silvertip not the face of Bandini, but a dark-skinned, handsome youth. The horror in those wide eyes flashed at Silvertip for an instant, and then the inflooding darkness covered the falling body.

Silvertip could not move; he could not catch that weight before it struck solidly against the ground. The dust that puffed out under the impact rose in a cloud, acrid against the nostrils of Silvertip.

He kneeled and put his hand over the heart of the fallen body. There was no beat. The coat was wet and warm with blood.

Silvertip, still kneeling, lifted his head as though to listen, but he was not heeding any human sound, far or near. He had killed the man he would have protected. A vow was forming in his heart, filling his throa
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CHAPTER III

Cross and Snake Bran
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WHEN Silvertip rose, he was carrying the loose weight of the body in his arms. He felt the sway of the hanging head, the swinging of the feet with every step he took. There was still the warmth of life coming out of the body. The weight made his own step loud and heavy, like the footfall of a stranger, to his ear; and already his heart was heavier, too, with the double burden which he had taken upon himself.

He rounded to the rear of the restaurant of Martinelli, and through a side door carried the dead man straight into the small room where, only a few minutes before, this youth and Bandini had been at dinner. Two crumpled napkins lay on the table, now, and a scattering of soiled dishes, and glasses dimly stained by wine.

He put the body down in a chair. The form sagged helplessly against him, the head hanging, the arms dropping straight down toward the floor. Still supporting the inert thing, he cleared half the table with a few sweeps of his arm; then he laid out the young Mexican in the free space.

The puncture in the coat was a neat little round hole. There was not much blood anywhere on his clothing. He straightened the legs and the arms. They did not seem to lie naturally along the side, so he folded them across the stomach of the dead man. The lips were still parted, as though in a gasp; the eyes of horror stared upward, unwinkingly, at the ceiling.

A footfall paused at the door; then Mrs. Martinelli's scream rose in shrill, endless waves that cut ceaselessly through his whirling brain.

Other people came, running. He regarded them not at all. He closed the eyes, and they remained closed. He touched the tip of the chin, still soft and warm, and brought the lips together.

It was as though he had dragged the soul of the dead man up from hell to heaven, for it was a faintly smiling face, a happy, dreaming face. He was not more, this handsome young Mexican, than twenty or twenty-two; and the features were beautifully carved. There was strength and manliness in the face, also; and Silvertip felt that Fate, with sinister malice, had driven his bullet into one of the chosen men of the earth. If there had been a garden of weeds with one priceless flower blooming, he, like a blind gardener, had felled the once choice plant.

In a hundred years of striving, what could he do for the world that would equal the value of the life he had canceled?

Silvertip, stirring from his dream, took a handkerchief, and wiped the dust from the black, silky hair. There was still warmth in the brow, also. With every touch it seemed to Silvertip that the life could not actually have gone, that the forward running of the years could not have ended, as a river ends at the sea.

Silvertip himself was not so many years the senior of this dead man, yet he felt like an old man beside a child. What would that child have grown into? Upon what labors would it have set its hands?

He regarded the soft, slender tapering of the fingers- far unlike his own hands.

And now, as he looked down at the still face, he laid his grip on the two hands which he had joined, and groaned.

Some great purpose burns in every soul; if only he could penetrate into the dead mystery of that mind, he swore, in that solemnity of silence, that he would undertake the unfinished labor of this life.