Silvertip's Trap (3 page)

He got through the door into the darkened room. Again, through a splinter of light, he recognized the apartment in which the press was kept; he could hear the muffled clanking of the machinery.

They had nerve, fellows like these — right on the edge of a town to run a press like this and use the water power to operate it! They had brains and they had luck, or they would soon be closed down.

He opened the door on the room whose floor was littered with waste paper. No man was in it. He went stealthily across the floor. There was the open window beyond which ran the veranda, and beyond the veranda was the black of the swirling river.

He was nearly at the window when suddenly, without the sound of a door being opened, a voice behind him said:

“Goin' to take a swim, Pete?”

“Uh-huh,” said Bill Naylor, and walked straight past the window to the door. He opened it as the man behind him said:

“Watch out for the snags. I wouldn't swim this time of day, no matter what the chief says.”

Bill Naylor said nothing. He stepped out there into the darkness with one strong, yellow ray of lamplight from an upper window streaming down and rippling in pale gold across the face of the stream.

The two who had been talking on the veranda were no longer there. Naylor slipped through the brush. He walked up the edge of the stream, crouching low, as if there were a strong sun to light him, and eyes spying on his every movement.

He reached the horse. Still he could not believe that he had accomplished the thing.

He donned his clothes and lighted a match to examine the contents of the parcel. Then he remembered his promise, that he would not look inside. He remembered, too, that priceless advice — to make a step at a time.

Well, there was something in that. There was something in that worth more than gold and diamonds. The full beauty of the saying still was dawning on the soul of Bill Naylor. A step at a time, and he could climb all the mountains in the world.

He wrapped up the parcel again, dropped it into a saddlebag, and mounted.

W
HEN
he got back to the shack in the woods, two days later, in the afternoon, he found Barry Christian walking up and down in front of the lean-to, smoking a cigarette. Christian's greeting was a marvel of nonchalance.

“Good time, brother?” was all he asked.

“It was all right,” said Bill Naylor, rejoicing in equal calm. “Those bozos are printing some queer up there. There's about a million of ‘em littered all around.”

“Are there?” asked Christian indifferently.

“And here's that parcel,” said Naylor.

Well, the nerves of Barry Christian were of the best steel, but the shock of pleasant suprise was too great for him to keep all emotion concealed. He could not help that flash of the eyes and that upward jerk of the head.

He took the parcel and unwrapped it right under the eyes of Bill Naylor. It contained only three small packages. One was of unset jewels. The other two were well-compacted sheafs of greenbacks.

Christian divided that loot into two heaps of equal size. Then he pushed them out on the top of a fallen log that lay across the door of the shack.

“Take either half you want, Bill,” said he.

Naylor walked up to the treasure and stared down at it. Then he looked at Christian.

Bill Naylor felt that he was going to be a fool again. He could tell by the tremor of nerves up his spine. And suddenly the words came flooding out of his throat, past the unwilling tightness of his jaws.

“You grabbed this honey, and you cached it,” he said. “I just went and collected it for you; that's all.”

Barry Christian stared at him with troubled eyes.

“It's all right,” said Bill Naylor. “You take that and put it in your kick. I've had plenty of cash out of you already. Take that and forget about my little job.”

“No,” said Christian in a queer, small voice. “I won't forget.”

He wrapped up the money slowly, his eyes fixed on the distance. There was something in all this which baffled the great Barry Christian. It might mean money in his pocket, but there was something about it that he did not like.

Naylor wondered what it could be. There was something about what he himself had done — he, Bill Naylor — that Christian did not like. And that was strange! What had he done except do the most dangerous job he had ever tackled in his life? He had done that job, and he had got away with it. What more did Christian want?

This problem disturbed the mind of Bill Naylor. He was shaken literally to his soul with wonder.

He went off to cut some wood for the cooking of supper, and all the while that he was cutting the wood he was saying to himself: “What's wrong?”

But he solved the puzzle by merely deciding that he was just a “dumb mug,” and that the case was over his head.

After supper they sat about in the gloaming, and he told Barry Christian everything. You could talk to a fellow like Christian. You could even say how afraid you were. With a fellow like Christian it was always better to be out in the open and not try to put anything over. So Bill Naylor didn't try to put anything over or play the hero. He told the truth.

He found that it was pleasant to tell the truth. He had never talked so much truth before, in such a short space, in all the days of his life. When you tell the truth, you don't have to work the old brain. You just sit still and see things again the way they were. You see them clearly, and the re-seeing is a good deal of fun. He even told how he had repeated all the way: “A step at a time.”

“How old are you, Bill?” asked Christian.

“I'm old enough to know better.”

“No, I'm serious. How old are you?”

“Thirty. Old enough to know a lot better.”

“Young enough to learn,” said Christian. “Young enough to learn a lot.”

“A step at a time?”

“Yes,” said Christian. “A step at a time, of course. Until you start jumping instead of stepping.”

And yet Christian did not seem altogether pleased. All through the story he was squinting at the narrator as though he were seeing things at a great distance. And Bill Naylor was amazed indeed.

Before they turned in, Christian said: “You know Sheriff Dick Williams?”

“That hombre back there in the Crow's nest?”

“Yes.”

“I know him. But what's more, he knows me.”

“Well, they have nothing on you just now.”

“No. But they can always dig something up. You know what they are like.”

“I know. But would you go and talk to him for me?”

“Yeah. And why not?”

“Suppose you drop in and see the sheriff and ask him what he would do if the ghost of Barry Christian dropped in and had a chat with him. And while you're in Crow's Nest, find out how things are going with Duff Gregor, will you?”

“I'll make the trip tomorrow,” said Bill Naylor.

He went over the next morning, jogging his horse. He had a strange sense of comfort that ran all through his being. He felt indeed that he could look any man in the world in the eye? Why? Well, because he had fetched that parcel back to Christian without so much as looking at the contents — and because he had refused to take his split of the stolen money. He never had done such a thing before in all his days. He could not recognize himself. It seemed that a ghost wearing his name must have performed these things.

When he got into the Crow's Nest, he saw the sunshine gleaming on the big hotels that faced each other from the divided peaks of the double mountain, and the town lying in the dimness of the hollow between.

He went by the Merchants & Miners Bank, which Henry Wilbur had built into such a great institution. Wilbur had done much for it, and the spectacular robbery which had been performed by Christian and Duff Gregor, parading as Jim Silver, had done still more. The robbery had advertised that bank all over the West, and men knew that Henry Wilbur had been on the point of sacrificing his personal fortune, and even his house and the books in his library for the sake of reimbursing his depositors. Well, such things make a bank strong. A good many people swore that they never would do banking of any kind from this time forward except through honest Henry Wilbur.

Well, there
is
a strength in honesty. It keeps you out of jail, for one thing.

Bill Naylor thought of that as he pulled up his horse in front of the jail. He had dismounted, and was about to tie his horse at a hitch rack when the man he wanted spoke just beside him, saying:

“Hello, Bill Naylor. I thought we'd always have to fetch you here. Didn't know that you'd come of your own accord!”

I
T WAS
Sheriff Dick Williams, looking as he always looked — sawed-off and strong and competent of body and mind. He had long ago come to the gray years when time changes the body of a man very slowly, and his face seems wiser, not older, from year to year.

“Hey,” answered Bill Naylor. “What's the main idea? You got nothing on me now, Williams.”

“Haven't I?” asked the sheriff, his eye twinkling. “Well, I don't suppose I have for the moment. But I can always trust you to start something new before long. What's it going to be this time, Bill? Old line or new?”

Naylor rubbed his knuckles across his chin and frowned. He was neither complimented nor pleased by this banter. He had a feeling that the sheriff knew only part of him, and that there were other things he might show Dick Williams.

“Well,” he said. I wanta talk to you about something.”

“Blaze away,” said Dick Williams.

“I was just going to ask you: Suppose that the ghost of somebody walked into your house some night, what would you do?”

“Ask him to walk out again,” said the sheriff. “Why?”

“Suppose it was the ghost of Barry Christian?”

“Christian!” gasped the sheriff.

He kept staring at Naylor, and his eyes were as round as marbles. All at once he seemed a little boy with the mask of a middle-aged man set over his real features.

“What are you talking about?” demanded the Sheriff. “Barry Christian dropped off Kendal Bridge, and he went down the river — with his hands tied behind his back. And he went over the falls and was smashed to bits.”

“All right,” said Bill Naylor. “I'm just asking you something. I'm not saying that while he was in the water he managed to get his hands free from the rope that tied his wrists together. I'm not saying that he snagged on a rock and managed to get past the falls. I'm only saying — if the ghost of Barry Christian walked in on you, what would you do? Would you talk?”

The sheriff took a great breath.

“Barry Christian!” he whispered. Then he added: “If Jim Silver hears that that devil has come out of the dead again, he'll lose his mind!”

“Well,” said Naylor, “I asked you a question. What about it?”

“Talk to him? Why should I talk to him?” said the sheriff. “I've got guns, and I've got handcuffs. Why should I talk to him?”

“That's the point,” remarked Naylor. “Suppose that Christian was to walk in on you, would you want to talk to him — or something else?”

“Well,” said the sheriff after a moment of hesitation, “I don't know. I don't know what I
ought
to do — about a ghost. Listen to me. If Barry Christian should walk into my house some night, I'd talk to him.”

“That's all I wanted to know,” answered Bill Naylor, and he mounted and rode away.

When he looked back, he saw the sheriff rooted to the same spot, shaking his head in bewilderment.

At the First Chance Saloon, Bill Naylor paused to take refreshment. He stood at the bar, leaned his elbow upon it, and poured down two stiff drinks of whisky. After that he beckoned the bartender toward him. The bartender looked upon him with a judicial eye.

“No credit,” he said.

“Don't be a fool,” said Naylor, and he pushed a ten-dollar bill over the counter.

The bartender looked at that bill with attention. It was water-stained and pocket-chafed, but it seemed all right.

“Got your girl's picture on it?” Bill Naylor sneered.

“You know,” said the bartender, “there's a lot of phony tens wandering around the country just now. A gent has gotta have an eye. But this looks all right to me.”

“Thanks,” growled Bill Naylor. “What's the news, anyway?”

“About what?”

“Oh, about things. What's the news here in Crow's Nest?”

“I dunno,” answered the other. “Things are going along pretty good. Everybody feels pretty fine since Jim Silver saved the bank. Then he went and faded out. You know that?”

“I heard something about it. Why'd he do that? Somebody told me he was as good as married to Wilbur's daughter.”

“Maybe he was. They was around a lot together,” said the bartender. “But you know how it is. It hurts Jim Silver to stay long in one spot. There's a sort of a curse on him. He's gotta keep moving. So one day he's here, and the next day he's gone, and who knows where?”

“How's the girl feel about it?” asked Naylor.

“I never asked her!” said the bartender shortly.

Naylor understood. Since the recent great events, every one in Crow's Nest took a sort of family interest in Henry Wilbur and his daughter; just as Crow's Nest now felt that it had a sort of proprietarial claim to Jim Silver.

“Well, I been and seen her once,” said Bill Naylor. “She's got the kind of gray eyes that turn blue when a girl gets worked up. She's got the nerve all right.”

The bartender smiled faintly, as one who deprecates praise of a relative.

“I seen her cut into the crowd when they was after Jim Silver,” he said. “I seen her go sashaying right through the middle of ‘em with gents trying to paw her off her horse. She saved Jim Silver that day. And now — well, nobody's seen her since Silver left the town. But what're you going to do?”

He was silent, shaking his head.

“There's Gregor in the jail,” said Bill Naylor. “They'll chaw him up fine, I guess.”

“Yeah. He'll go down the throat. They got everything ready for him. His trial comes in three days. It'll be something like twenty years for Duff Gregor, I guess. That's what everybody says that oughta know. That's what the lawyers say. The town's hired a special fine lawyer to help the district attorney so's they can be sure to sock Gregor for everything that's coming to him.”

That was the news that Naylor carried back to Barry Christian. Christian moralized a little on the tidings about Silver and the girl. He said, in his deep, gentle, soothing voice:

“The trouble with Jim Silver is that you never know where to have him. He's not like the rest of us.”

“A jump ahead, eh?” suggested Naylor with a grin.

“He's beaten me three times,” said Christian calmly. “But the fourth time I think I might win. I think I might take him by surprise, Bill. At any rate, I'm going to try.”

“Ain't there room for the two of you?” asked Bill Naylor. “Couldn't you get some place where he wouldn't reach you?”

“Of course,” said Christian. “If I ran away, of course, there would be room for both of us.”

But by his manner of saying it, Bill Naylor knew very well that nothing in the world was farther from the mind of his companion than the thought of avoiding the conflict. He squinted his eyes as he thought of the thing — two giants, hand to hand. The day would come, and perhaps he, Bill Naylor, would be an eyewitness. For he felt that Barry Christian was going to take him into the presence of great events.