Silvertip's Strike (17 page)

Having taken one nip, the horse seemed content. It began to drift on away from the cactus, moving with very short steps. And Silver discovered that the brute was moving not away from the house but toward it!

It seemed to be trying to steal away from the other animals, by the shortness of its steps deceiving the eyes of the men who watched it.

One of them sang out, “What's the matter with that fool of a hoss?”

“That's Jerry's hoss. He's gone and cinched it up loose. Look at the way that saddle's turned over!”

“I better fix it. If that hoss has to be used, it's gotta be used fast and used hard.”

Steps came toward Jim Silver. He loosened the grip of his right hand, though thereby he made his hold on the horse very precarious.

“Wait a minute. Let Jerry do his own work. He's always sliding out from trouble,” said the other sentry.

The footfall paused.

“Yeah, maybe you're right,” said the second speaker, and turned back.

“I never seen a freckle-nosed son that was any good, anyway,” said the other. “And Jerry's all over freckles.”

“He's a lazy hobo,” said the other sentry.

Silver, using his right hand to pluck at the mane of the mustang, tried to pull it away from the house and turn the head of the horse in another direction. But the mustang was perceptibly braced against this weight which lay along its side and therefore it naturally moved in the opposite direction. That happened to be toward the house, and nothing that Silver could do would make the pony change his mind. He dared not reach for the reins, of course.

They were now steering past the corner of the house.

“That hoss is sure a drifter,” said one of the watchers. “He sure aims to stir around.”

“It's Jerry own fault,” said the other. “He oughta train a hoss to stand when the reins are once throwed on it.”

“Yeah, he'd oughta do that. I wonder is Delgas socking that old rye on the nose, right now?”

By this time the mustang had gone past the corner of the house. As it moved in closer to the wall, a new danger came to Silver, which was that he might now be seen by either of the guards if they chanced to make a single pace out from the wall. But now they were right beside the wall.

Silver softly dropped his feet to the ground, ducked under the neck of the mustang, and stood in front of the black, square mouth of an open window. The blaze of the lanterns struck full on him. He saw the guard off at the right, turn his head and apparently look straight at him. Yet the man in a moment turned his head once more and looked straight before him, whistling! He had seen nothing because he expected to see nothing.

Silver, the next instant, was through the black of the window and kneeling in safety on the floor of the room inside.

Safety? He could hardly call it safety to be in a house where every hand was against him, and where no hands were weak. He heard, very distinctly, the deep voice of Delgas, which was booming in another portion of the house. What a windfall it would be to Delgas and Rutherford if they could get their hands on him!

He smiled a little, as he thought of that.

Then, just outside the window, he heard a voice exclaim: “Look here! Here's a footmark in the dust. Look at it. Right where the mustang was standin'!”

Silver moved like a snake into a corner of the room and lay still.

“Yeah,” said the second sentry, joining his companion. “It looks like a footprint, all right.”

Then a silence followed in which the imagination of Silver conceived of the truth entering the brains of those fellows.

But presently one of them said: “Well, there ain't any footmarks leadin' up to it. You can see that for yourself.”

“Sure I can. But I wanta know how this here mark came.”

“I dunno. Maybe it dropped down out of the sky.”

“Don't talk like a fool. There ain't anybody around this house that'd be likely to go without boots, is there?”

“Well, how would a mark like that come there? You think that Silver made it?”

“I dunno. I ain't thinking.”

“I reckon you ain't, Slim.”

“All I know is that it's a funny thing that that mark's on the ground. I dunno what to make of it.”

“Maybe an angel made it. Jumped down out of the sky and stamped on the ground, and jumped up into the sky ag'in. Maybe there's an angel laughin' at us right now.”

“Aw,” said Slim gruffly, “shut up, will you?” His voice entered the room, as he spoke, and now he scratched a match. Silver, curled up in a corner behind a chair, covered his man with a Colt and prayed that he would not have to shoot.

The flame of the match revealed a long, sallow, evil face, and a gaunt neck with an Adam's apple that moved up and down like a fist.

Slim presently tossed the match over his shoulder and straightened.

“I was just thinking,” he said.

“That's likely to be kind of hard on you,” said the other.

“Leave me be,” said Slim. “I'm goin' to go and report this here.”

“Are you? You'll catch it if you do. There's some of the boys that think you ain't too bright already, Slim, and if you start in talkin' about angels that leave their footprints on the ground — well, there'll be trouble!”

“Hold your trap,” said Slim, “or I'll slam it shut for you. I'm goin' to tell Rutherford and see what he'll have to say.”

The footfall departed with a soft jingling of spurs.

Silver looked desperately about him in the dark of the room. He could not stay there. Where
could
he stay in the place when once the word was brought to the great Rutherford? The active wit of that man would not fail to hitch importance to the mystery of that footprint in the dust.

Silver found the knob of a door and opened it upon the dark of a hall. Through the darkness, voices came to him intimately, dwelling in his ear. He saw the long yellow-red slit of lamplight that showed where a door fitted poorly to its jamb.

Then, in farther distance, he could make out the sharp, high-pitched voice of Slim saying words which he did not understand, but which were undoubtedly about the mystery of that footprint. A moment later the house would be searched. There would be nothing for him except to fight as well as he could until they decided to burn him out. It would not take them very long to decide that, of course.

Another door, just a step down the hallway, yawned suddenly with a low groan of hinges. As he jerked back his head, he saw a lamp carried in the hand of Esther Maxwell, its light close to her tired face and the red blotches of her eyes.

He drew back from her sight still farther, but he called softly out of the darkness of his room, as the light walked toward him in regular pulsations down the hall.

“Esther! Esther! Do you hear me? It's Jim Silver.”

He heard the catch and the long take of her breath, like a soft moan. Then he ventured to step out before her. The lamp wobbled out of her hand. He caught it. He took her by the wrists and crushed them together.

“Take hold of yourself!” said Silver savagely.

She nodded, breathless.

“They'll be hunting for me through the house in another minute,” said he, returning the lamp to her hand. “Hide me somewhere. In your room is as good as the next place.”

He heard the voice of Rutherford calling: “Billy! Mike! Whisky Joe!”

“Quick! Quick!” he urged her.

She tried to run past him up the stairs to show the way. but he checked her. Whatever happened. no running footfalls must be heard by those who would soon be hunting through the place for him.

They went up the narrow stairway. It had no railing for safety or comfort and it was simply bracketed out from the wall, so that squeaking was unavoidable even when he walked close to the supporting wall.

There was no hallway, only a single landing and door at the head of the steps. He opened that and glided through in the lead as a trampling of many feet came into the hall beneath and the voice of Delgas boomed:

“Who's that?”

“It's I,” said the girl. “What's wrong?” Delgas imitated her stammering voice and roared with laughter.

“The little fool's goin' to fall down on her bean,” said Delgas. “She's scared pink and blue, already. Well, honey, there ain't nothing wrong — yet — but if there turns out to be a man in the house, there's goin' to be a whole lot wrong. Come on, boys!”

The girl entered the room behind Silver and closed the door behind her, the light staggering in her frightened hand. She turned and looked with ghostly eyes at him.

“What can we do?” said her soundless lips.

He went across the floor like a cat, took the lamp, and put it on the center table.

Then he looked around him.

For a window there was only a pair of square holes punched into the roof, each about a foot wide. The furniture consisted of a small wardrobe, the little center table, the washstand, two narrow chairs, and an iron bedstead. There was no paint on the floor, walls, or ceiling. It was simply a bare box. The air was hot. The sun of the long afternoon had turned the room into an oven. And as the sweat trickled down the face of Silver, seeing how perfectly he was trapped, he thought once more of dead Steve Wycombe who was reaching so strongly out of the grave to draw down after him the man who had taken his life.

Then Silver turned back to the white, staring face of the girl.

“There's nothing for me to do but hide,” he whispered. “There's no place for me to hide except under that bed. You do something. Sit down and write a letter. Do anything to show that you're occupied, and if they want to come in to search — don't oppose them!”

He slid under the bed. It was sufficiently wide and the shadow the lamp threw was sufficiently steep so that he would be hidden from the gaze of any except a man who leaned over and peered for him. But if they searched in the room at all, were they not sure to look carefully under the bed?

He could see the girl sitting at the center table. He could see her as far as her elbows; he could hear the rapid scratching of her pen.

“Where's Danny?” he whispered.

“Don't talk!” she gasped.

“They can't hear, if you whisper. Where's Danny?”

“In your room. With Mr. Rutherford.”

“What are they going to do with him?”

“Keep him. They're going to keep him to make sure that you do nothing and then — ”

Even her whisper was more than she could maintain, at that point.

And Silver understood. They would keep Dan Farrel with them until the drive into the mountains had been completed and then, instead of giving him freedom, they would put a bullet through his head and leave him for the buzzards and coyotes. They would be reasonably sure that Jim Silver would not interfere so long as his friend was in their hands. It seemed to Silver, as he lay there and ran his swift eye back over the pages of his life, that all his troubles had sprung from his friendships, and yet all of those labors had not yielded him a single friend whom he cared to take with him on his adventures. Where he met a man, there he left him. His partners remained where he had found them, fixed in his memory like the mountains; only Silver went on.

He heard the girl say: “I know what you've done, and no man ever did more for a friend. I've prayed for you when I prayed for Danny.”

“Hush!” breathed Silver, as he heard a footfall coming up the stairs.

It was a heavy step, stamping down on the boards, making the flimsy wood groan and squeak under the pressure.

Delgas beat once on the door, heavily, and then flung it open.

“Hello. What's in here?” he roared.

He came thumping into the room with the jingle of the spurs at his heels. The reek of his cigar was instantly in every corner.

“Just takin' a quiet little minute by yourself, eh?” said Delgas to the girl. “You ain't seen nothing of a long streak of poison called Jim Silver, have you?”

She said nothing. She must have been shaking her head.

“Scared stiff, eh?” said Delgas. “So doggone scared that she dunno what to do about it? Can't talk? Just stand there and wag your head? Well, I guess he ain't in here, unless he's under the bed.”

The big feet of Delgas crossed the room, and he kicked at the empty space under the bed. That maneuver came so unexpectedly that Silver barely flinched his face back in time enough to escape from catching the blow.

Delgas turned again.

“There ain't anything for you to be so shakin' about,” said Delgas. “He can't do you no harm, this gent Silver. Not while gents like me are around. You know why? Because I'd take care of you. You're an uncommon pretty girl, Esther, and I been noticin' you. You'd be a help to a gent. There's only one funny thing about you, and that's why you cotton to a doggone common gent like poor Danny Farrel. I'll tell you why. It's because there ain't anything to a feller like that. There ain't any sand to him, and there ain't any brains. He's in the soup, and the best way for you is to forget him and take a look around for something else in the way of a man. And when you're lookin', stop your eye a minute on Morrie Delgas. He ain't pretty, but he's got a silver lining!”

When he finished, he broke into a great, bawling laughter that filled the room and half deafened Silver. Then, still braying, Delgas went out of the room and creaking down the stairs, slamming the door behind him.

Through the flimsy partitions, Silver could hear Delgas saying: “No sign of him up there. No sign of nobody. It ain't likely he'd be fool enough to come into this house anyway, is it?”

“When you know enough,” answered the voice of Rutherford, “to read the mind of Jim Silver and say what he's likely to do and what he's not likely to do, I'll take my hat off to you and go to work for you, Morrie. You weren't long enough in that room to search it.”