The Lawless West (10 page)

“In your cabin this winter?” cried Alice Cary with great eyes of astonishment.

“In my cabin? Why, yes,” said Joe. “But, come to think about it, I guess I didn’t write that he was there.”

Jack Trainor was utterly astonished. He had never dreamed that the big, honest trapper had such possibilities. Taking it all in all, it was as roundly delivered a lie as he had ever heard told. And this from slow Joe Bigot!

“Write to me about him? You certainly didn’t! But how long was he there?”

That vital question was avoided deftly by Joe Bigot. Just as it began, he blurted out some remark to the trapper about the severity of the winter and then expressed a desire to see him soon and declared that he would look him up. With that and a farewell wave, they passed on. Alice Cary repeated her question.

“How long was the stranger with you, Joe, and
who was he? And what was he doing in a storm in the mountains?”

Again Jack Trainor was breathless. Again he felt the eyes of Bigot fumble hopelessly toward him, then, realizing that there was no succor in his companion, he searched about in his own brain for a sufficient answer. How much better it would have been if, at all costs, those letters had never been written, and if the pure truth could be told!

“He was a Russian, I think,” said Joe Bigot. “His name was Rasmussen. He was running a line of traps up north of mine. But he was new to the country. One day a norther caught him out when he was hunting south, away off from his line. He’d seen my smoke, so he decided that it would be easier to make for my place than it would be to turn around and buck the wind and the snow to get back to his own lean-to. So he came down my way and got there just about froze.”

“Poor fellow!” cried Alice. “Was he very far gone?”

Jack Trainor heaved a faint sigh of relief. It seemed that the great crisis was passed. Then he turned a little and looked at Larry Haines. That worthy had fastened his ferret eyes upon the face of Joe Bigot, and, although he never spoke, a subtle disbelief, a subtle mockery, had overspread his features. Apparently he had arrived at more of a conclusion than the girl had been able to come to in seeing through the untruths that Joe was telling.

Joe Bigot was continuing his new story with a great deal of fluency that more and more surprised Jack Trainor.

“He wasn’t very far gone. But he thought he was. He wasn’t used to the cold, you see.”

“Not used to the cold! But I thought you said that he was a Russian?”

“I did. But he came out of the south of Russia.”

“But don’t they have cold winters every place in Russia?”

“Not down by Turkey, I think,” put in Trainor calmly.

Larry Haines, who had been pricking his ears during these remarks, now flashed upon Jack an absolutely wolfish glance, and then forced his eyes deliberately away, as though he feared to reveal too much of his own malignance through that look.

“He came out of the south of Russia, down by Turkey,” went on the big man glibly with a flash of gratitude toward Jack. “He wasn’t used to the cold, and he was scared because he’d got numbed in places. But I brought him around. It didn’t take long. There’s some think that the only thing to do when folks are frozen is to rub them with snow. But I’ve always figured that to be fool talk. First I use cold water, and then I take water that’s a little warmer and a little warmer, and that way I get the circulation going gradual again. I’ve tried rubbing with snow, and I’ve tried the other way. There ain’t any comparison, I think. He came around fine, and after that I saw a good deal of him.”

“He lived with you…and left his own trap line? That old fellow said that somebody was really living with you.”

“Yes, I told them about it at the store once.”

That unlucky day when he had told the storekeeper of the arrival of the stranger! How many details did the other trapper in the town know?

“He left his trap line because he thought that it was worth his while to learn what he could about
setting out traps from me. Him and me used to walk my line of traps together, and so he picked up a good deal that I knew and that he didn’t.”

Here the girl laughed. “Joe,” she confessed, “when he spoke at first about somebody being with you, I thought that there was a secret about it.”

“Secret?” muttered Joe Bigot with an assumption of a vast innocence. “Why should there be any secret about it?”

Indeed, more and more Trainor began to feel that there had been possibilities of intelligence and quick wit in Bigot that he had completely overlooked. He had quite smoothed the matter over for Alice Cary, so it seemed, and it only remained to see how far Larry Haines could press his suspicions.

On the whole, Jack would have been happier had Haines taken an opportunity to cross-question the big trapper on the spot. But this he showed no intention of doing. He made no effort to corner Bigot. But the tiger was nevertheless in view in the face that Trainor saw. Sooner or later he would get on the trail of Joe, and then he would be merciless should he run him down.

A moment later, Haines parted from them, shaking hands with Joe again and saying that he was glad to see him back, and shaking hands with Trainor, also. But he did this silently, and the eyes that they raised to each other were dark with enmity.

After that, they went on to the girl’s house, and there they would both stay for supper. They were alone for a moment when she ran in while they were putting up their horses.

“I’m done for!” gasped Joe Bigot, turning white the instant they were by themselves.

“You’re not done for,” said Trainor hotly. “You’re
as safe as though you’d never told anything but the truth if you stick to what you’ve said. Keep going over it until you’ve got it safe in your head. Remember what you said…Rasmussen is a good name. It sounds like the sort of name that a man would never make up. The trouble with it is that it’s a hard name to remember and keep straight. Then there’s the yarn about Russia. Why the devil you had to make him a Russian, I can’t tell.”

“I can’t, either,” said Joe wretchedly. “That name Rasmussen…it popped out of somewhere in my head. After I’d used it, I thought that I’d have to explain it. So I just said that he was a Russian. You see? And then the stuff about his trap line…”

“That’s all right, because you had to have some reason for him being out there in the snows. And, taking it all in all, Joe, I want to say right here that it was about the best lying that I’ve heard in my life.” He laughed softly at the thought. “I’ve been cornered myself once or twice, but I’ve never been able to invent things as fast as you did today, Joe. Why in the name of the devil, though, didn’t you tell me that you’d mentioned me to somebody?”

“It was the storekeeper. I spoke about you after that first time. And then I plumb forgot what I’d said. Storekeeper went right out of my head. Talking to him ain’t like talking to other folks, anyway. Sort of takes it for granted that when you go into the store you’ll tell him everything you know. It’s like talking to yourself. And listening to him talk is just like reading a newspaper. Nobody would ever think of wondering where he learned what he knows. He just seems to get all the gossip out of the air. But now the point is that it’s done and can’t be helped. I’ve told ’em that I’ve only knowed you a couple of days.
What’s to be done now? Jack, hadn’t I better confess everything to Alice?”

“What!” roared Jack.

“I know. Sounds queer. And she’d be mighty mad! But I can’t get along very well carrying this lie on my shoulders, Jack. I don’t feel no ways nacheral.”

“Listen to me,” said Trainor solemnly. “If she finds out about this, she’ll be through with you for good. You think that the lie is a terrible thing to her. I don’t agree with you. She sort of would admire a man with the brains to get away with a good lie once in a while. And I don’t think that she’d be any too much shocked if she knew that you’d told something that wasn’t true but had had the brains to cover it up pretty well. It’d open up a new side of you to her. And, Joe, what she’s looking for, it seems to me, is excitement.”

“And that’s where she’ll find me out,” said the unfortunate trapper. “I can never keep her entertained.”

“I dunno,” answered Jack. “Seems to me that you’ve made a pretty good start.” He grinned as he spoke. “Haines is the rat that we’ve got to watch,” he went on, “or he’ll gnaw a hole in the ship and sink you before you know it.”

“Aye, he hates me,” said Joe, “I could see that.”

“That ain’t the important thing. The important thing is that he loves Alice. And he’d sell his soul to spoil your chances with her.”

“If he should do that,” said the trapper slowly, “I would kill him, Jack, I’m afraid.”

That quietly spoken sentence stayed in the ear of Trainor with a strange ring. It was as though the threat had been spoken to him in person. It showed him, in a glimpse, other and unexpected depths in
the nature of the giant. And the ability to hate profoundly was apparently one of these.

At the supper table that night, Trainor found that the girl’s family was hardly distinguishable from many families that he had known in his own country. A sort of happy-go-lucky carelessness pervaded the talk and the manners. The talk this evening, of course, turned very largely upon Joe and his experiences during the winter. Most of all, the questions were directed toward the strange Russian who had appeared in the storm. But upon this one subject, strangely, Joe was very reticent, not as though reluctant to talk about the Russian, but as though the subject wearied him.

The meal was concluded happily enough, then Jack started for his hotel, and Joe walked part of the way with him.

“Tonight,” said Trainor as they went down the quiet street with the dim sounds of voices coming from the houses on either side, “Joe, I’ve got to get under way. I’ve got to leave town.”

“Tonight?” protested Joe eagerly. “But you can’t do that, partner. I can’t let you. You haven’t had a chance to get to know folks. You haven’t had a chance to get to know Alice.”

“I’ve seen enough of her,” said Jack with a peculiar heaviness of voice that caused the other to look at him in amazement. “I’ve seen enough,” he went on, qualifying his statement, “so’s I can get a good picture of her when I’ve gone along. I know how happy you’ll be with her, partner.”

At this, Joe clapped him on the shoulder. Still he could not understand the purpose of Jack in leaving at once.

“It’s Haines,” explained Jack. “It’s Haines that bothers me. I can’t get him out of my head.”

“Haines? I thought he was perfectly quiet.”

“That’s it. Too quiet. He bothers me for that reason. He’s got some plan in his head, and, when that plan begins to take shape, I think it’d be better for me to be out of town. I know too much. He’s liable, some way, to corner you about me. Better for me to be gone, son.”

Joe Bigot nodded. “He’s a bad one,” he admitted. “But you’ll come back, Jack?”

“Sure,” lied Trainor. “I’ll be back. Keep a thought for me, Joe.”

“I’ll never forget you,” said Joe Bigot simply. “I’ll think of you every minute of my life. And if I marry Alice, I’ll know that it’s been on account of you. But still, it looks as though I’m getting something I don’t deserve.”

And with that he turned and went slowly up the street.

To Jack Trainor, following with his eyes as the gigantic trapper swung down the street, it seemed that he was watching Joe Bigot march ahead to a great happiness, the greatest that had come to any man he had ever known. For himself, he felt that he was doing the only honorable thing in leaving the town and leaving it forever. It was not Haines. Haines was only a partial reason, although a strong reason, at that. But the real impulse came from the thought that he must not see too much of the girl. She was too beautiful for him to feel safe. He could not trust himself. There was a dash of headlong recklessness in his nature that had not been checked by the freedom of his life during the past few months, and that recklessness was tingling in his soul now. He knew that, given a fair opportunity, he would be swept off his feet.

It was this knowledge that made him go. But, in obeying all that was best in his heart, he was gloomy indeed as he turned around and faced the little
shack of a building that did duty as a hotel in the little town. He had not yet reached the doorway of the small building when a hand was laid gently upon his shoulder. He whirled like a shot and found himself looking into the face of no other person than Larry Haines himself.

Larry Haines had apparently recovered from his deep gloom.

“I’ve a story to tell you,” he said, “and there’s such a laugh to it that I guess you’ll forgive me for stopping you in the street with it.”

“Go ahead,” answered Jack, and waited uneasily. On the whole, he felt that he would have preferred frowns or even open threats to this continual smiling.

“Well,” said Larry, “I’d better put it up to you to decide for yourself. When a bear goes off and starts barking like a fox, is it reasonable to suppose that he has actually turned into a fox, or sha’n’t we conclude that there is a fox at hand doing the barking for him?”

“I don’t get the drift of that,” said Trainor coldly.

“I didn’t think you would. But you’ll get a laugh out of it by tomorrow at the latest.”

There was such an open and defiant insolence under this apparent good nature that Trainor saw the other was simply aching for a fight and was perfectly confident of his ability to end the battle in his favor. It brought a flush into the head of Jack. Never in his life—and he had done many a deed of violence in his time—had he been so desirous of annihilating a man root and branch. But two things held him back. The first was a sudden knowledge sweeping over him that poor Joe Bigot would never get married to Alice Cary so long as this cunning devil was around to interfere. The second, speaking very frankly, was
a decided doubt as to his ability to cope with Haines. He decided that he must not venture a battle until his back was against the wall. But first of all, he must find out what Haines knew and what he merely guessed. That was of the very greatest importance.

“Maybe I’ll be laughing tomorrow, then,” he said. “But I don’t get the bear story.”

Haines nodded. “I can’t make you understand,” he declared, “so I’ll drop the fable and get down to facts. My friend, I’ve made up my mind to several things. The first is that Mister Rasmussen of wintry memory is a myth.”

“Rasmussen? Well, that’s strange. But why would Bigot invent a yarn like that?”

Haines shook his head. “You are Rasmussen,” he said. “That’s plain, whatever your real name may be.”

“Wait a minute,” said Trainor. “I don’t keep up with you. I’m a Russian trapper, you say? Well, Haines, I guess I’ll get my laugh out of you without waiting until tomorrow.”

“Bah!” snapped Haines, suddenly in dead earnest. “You know what I mean. I mean that you’re the man who stayed with Bigot this winter. You must think I’m a fool not to see through it? You’re the man who wrote the letters.”

“Partner,” said Trainor softly, “something has happened to your head. What letters?”

“All right,” said Haines. “I was going to make a little proposition to you. But, if I can’t do that, I’ll turn around and go to Alice Cary in the morning and tell her what I suspect.”

“And that is?”

“Why, simply that you were marooned in a storm, found Joe’s cabin, had good reasons for wanting to stay quiet during a month or two, and so remained
with him. While you were there, Joe tells you what a hard time he’s having keeping up his end of the correspondence with Alice. You offer to take a hand. He tells you about her. You get interested. He shows you her picture. You sit down and start writing love letters on your own account, you might say, and you let him copy them and sign his name.”

The narrative was so wonderfully faithful, so nearly exactly the truth, that Trainor was floored. He could neither laugh nor grow angry for an instant, and during that moment he knew that the ferret eyes of Haines had burrowed into his face and seen the truth in his confusion.

“By thunder!” cried Haines. “It is true, then. It’s more than a guess. I couldn’t believe it. But now I know that it’s true.”

Trainor ground his teeth. He had mistaken Larry’s assumption of certainty for the fact. Now he must pay the penalty.

“And what’s more,” went on Haines, thinking aloud now, “if you stayed all winter with Joe, you did have a reason for it. And, if there was a reason for you to stay there, maybe there’s a reason for other people to want you somewhere else, eh?” He was fairly rushing upon a complete discovery. “I think,” continued Haines, “that, if I were to telegraph to certain places in the States, they’d be pretty interested in a description of you, eh?”

Trainor meditated quickly. It was plain that Haines felt his first step in destroying Bigot’s influence with the girl must be to get rid of Joe’s new friend. No matter if he intended to leave the next day and never return again. Haines would not believe that, and straightway he would bring the powers
of the law down upon the head of Trainor. But what could he do to checkmate the younger man?

“Haines,” he said, “you’d never find out anything in time to stop the wedding.”

Haines started. “You admit everything, then?”

“That’s not the point. I say you’ve started on the trail too late.”

“Not a bit too late.”

“What could you do? How could you stop things from going on the way they’ve started now?”

“Very easy. I get Joe Bigot and the girl together. Then I tell them that you have confessed, and I recount the whole story. Do you think that old pigheaded Bigot will have brains enough to laugh the story down? No, he’ll blurt out a confession of his own and leave Alice and me laughing at him.”

Jack Trainor saw that it was not more than the truth. Still he fought against that belief.

“You forget,” he said, “that Joe’s improving. Look at the nice little series of lies he’s just told today. And he was taken by surprise, at that. But now I’ll get him prepared for you. I’ll even work up his counter story.”

“No,” said Larry Haines. “You’ll do nothing like that.”

“No?”

“Certainly not. You and I, my friend, are coming to an understanding!”

“Impossible, Haines. I’m Bigot’s friend.”

“You are? You’ll be more my friend than you are his before I’m through with you.”

Trainor shrugged his shoulder. A slight chill was creeping over him. He could not estimate what strength the other might have in reserve.

“I can pay a high price,” went on Haines calmly.

“You can? Not high enough,” answered Jack.

“Good!” said Haines. “I’m glad to see that you’re not going to start by talking virtue and end up by talking dollars. I’d rather have the dollars talk from the first. It’s cheaper that way. I can begin, you see, by offering to keep away from the telegraph.”

“You start with that. What that means I can’t tell.”

“I’m not asking you to confess anything about that. I’m asking you simply to listen to reason after you’ve heard me state my terms. The first of them is that I won’t try to get the law on your shoulders. The second one is that I’ll give you a fat little stake for yourself. Understand?”

“A stake for myself and no jail,” said Trainor curtly. “That sounds good to me!”

“Now we’re beginning to talk business, eh?”

“Looks that way. How much of a stake, though?”

Haines hesitated. “A thousand…” he began.

Trainor laughed. “I thought we were going to talk business?” he said.

“How much do you want?”

“A pile more than a thousand.”

“Why should you get it?”

“Because I’m going to give you a signed confession telling you everything from the first.”

Haines jerked back his head and laughed softly to himself.

“I’ll boost it over a thousand, then,” he said. “Nobody has ever had to call me a miser.”

“How high above? Remember, you’re bidding for a wife.”

There was an angry snarl from the other at this implication, but he said no articulate word.

“I’ll make that two thousand dollars cold, my friend! Will that do you?”

“That’s about right. That gives me a little leeway.” He paused. “Suppose you give me a check for that right now?”

“Well, I can give you my note for it. Step into the hotel.”

“Come up to my room. I’ve got to get a room, and we can talk things over there, eh?”

Accordingly Larry Haines followed into the hotel where Jack secured a room and went up to it in the company of the other. There he sat down to the little table in the center of the room and took paper and pen and ink out of the drawer.

“Now,” he said, “I’ll sit here and watch you do it, and you sit right over there, opposite, and write out the confession. And, when you’re through with it, I’ll give you an I.O.U. Will that do?”

“Certainly,” said Trainor.

He stepped to the table, dragged up a chair, and stooped as though to sit down. Instead of lowering himself into the chair, however, he shot out his right fist. It landed high along the side of Larry’s head. The latter had seen the shadow of the arm dart out across the top of the table and had flinched. Even in that infinitely slight moment, he had been able to reach the gun that he wore concealed in his clothes, for, when he toppled to the floor and Jack rushed around the table to pick him up, he found that the long Colt was lying in the loose fingers of the fallen man. It was such a tribute to his speed that it sent the shivers again flying up Trainor’s back. Suppose it had been gunplay?