Valley of the Vanishing Men (4 page)

E
VEN
without the nickname, Trainor would have known the pale, handsome face, the youth of it, the shoulders, the black coat, the wide black hat of the man who came into the room. The bed creaked as he sat down, and Trainor, from behind the dresses, could see everything. He could jump out at the fellow, now, but if he did that, he would be betraying the girl. He had a very grim certainty, moreover, that he would never be able to surprise this man sufficiently to beat him. It would be like trying to surprise a wild beast that never sleeps with both eyes shut.

Yates was smoking a cigar. The fine, thick flavor of it came at once to Trainor’s nostrils.

“I’ve got some news for you, Dolly,” he said.

“You’ve always got news, and it’s never good,” said the girl. She went over to her dressing glass and began to do her cheeks with dry rouge and a rabbit’s foot. “What’s the story this time?”

“You’re hitting the hooch too hard,” said Yates. “You ought to lay off that stuff.”

“To please you?” she snarled.

“I don’t care what you do,” he answered, “only I’m telling you something that may be worth while. To you.”

“Thanks,” said she. “Pass the sandwiches to the hungry, Doc.”

“You’re a mean little devil, aren’t you, Dolly?” commented Yates without emotion.

“Easy money and an easy boss to work for, why should I be mean?” asked Dolly. “That’s the question.”

“I’ve got a job for you,” said Yates.

“I’ve got a job for you, first,” answered Dolly.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a hard job. A bit of memory work. Tell me how many gals have broken their hearts on account of that handsome mug of yours, Doc?”

“I’m never a success with the ladies,” said Yates. “Look at you. You never had any use for me.”

“It’s a queer thing,” said Dolly. “You’re the only one that I ever saw through. I don’t understand it. Wait till I close that door into the hall. There’s a draft through here.”

“No, a couple of the boys are out there waiting,” said Yates. “They’d better keep an eye on me, if you don’t mind.”

“You’re fragile, eh?” asked Dolly. “Doc, I sure should think that you’d get tired of being trailed around by a pack of bloodhounds, licking your heels and ready to lick the other fellow’s blood.”

“I get my share of trouble outside of everything they can do for me,” said Doc Yates. “It’s years since I’ve had no bandages on a fresh wound. But it all pays, Dolly. Outside of the coin, it gives me a chance to talk to the bright little girls like you.”

“How I hate your rotten heart,” said Dolly gently.

“Do you, darling?” asked he. “But I never hate you. I never hate a useful thing. Now I’ll tell you what I want you to do. You see these?”

He held out three little white pills in the palm of his hand.

“Three sleeps for baby?” asked the girl, staring.

“That’s enough to put three men to sleep, all right,” said Yates. “But you use all three on one.”

“You’re a bright boy, Doc, but here you’re up the wrong alley. I take lots of chances, but never on Salt Creek.”

“Of course you don’t,” he agreed. “He’ll get well, after he puts this stuff down his throat, but he’ll sleep twenty-four hours, is all I have to say. And I want him to sleep.”

“What for?” asked the girl.

“You don’t mean that. You mean, what does he look like and where do you find him.”

She stared grimly at Yates.

“All right,” she said, “but what a hot hell you’re going to burn in, Doc!”

“He’s down in the dance hall, right now,” said Yates. “He’s drinking nothing but whisky straight, and his — ”

“Then let one of your bartenders dope him.”

“It can’t be done. He’s drinking the whisky from his own bottle, and paying full-size for the clean glasses. You’re going to drop one of these into each of his next three drinks. Understand?”

“Who’s he with?”

“Nobody. He’s watching the dancing. The girls don’t mean anything to him, but you’ll mean something to him, all right.”

“Maybe,” admitted Dolly, not without pride. “You want this hombre bad, Doc? But I’m not in it if there’s a whang on the head for him afterward.”

“We’re not going to bump him off, I tell you. Go down there and spot him. Blondy, the people call him. He’s as big as a house. Red hair on his wrists and yellow hair on his head. Five years too young to be in Alkali. Go down there and put him bye-bye, Dolly.”

“You’re not going to roll him, word of honor?”

“You little fool,” said Yates angrily, “it’s just a question of him knowing too much for his own good. He knows more than will ride well on his stomach. Can you make any sense out of that? He’s seen something that has to do with a new strike and black ore with gold beads in it. Does that tell you enough, Dolly?”

“All right,” said the girl.

A footfall ran up the hallway.

“Hey, Doc!” called a guarded voice. “He’s here.” A red, excited face appeared at the open door into the hall.

“Who’s here?” asked Yates.

“He’s here!”

“You don’t mean — Wait a minute. Bring him up here. This is as good as any place. It’s more unexpected. Bring him right up here! Dolly, go do your job!”

“All right,” said Dolly, “but I’d like to see you with your big boss on hand. I’d like to see you taking orders.”

“You know too much, and what you don’t know, you guess too much about,” stated Yates. “Now get out and do what you’re told.”

Dolly got out. From the doorway she threw one glance, half-curious and half-sneering, toward the flimsy “closet” that sheltered Trainor. And then she was gone.

Trainor’s whole mind and body tightened for the effort. This might be his one moment for leaping out at Yates. But when he was leaning for the spring, he saw another man come into the hall doorway.

He thought, at first glance, that the fellow must be a brother of Doc Yates, but then he saw the difference. This man was bigger. He had shoulders that reminded the hidden watcher of Jim Silver. His face was pale like that of Yates, but there was a difference. Ten days in the sun would put the bronze on Yates, but about this other fellow, Trainor felt that all the sun in the world would never be able to change the clear pallor of the skin. It was a very handsome face, perhaps a little too long, but the features were perfectly formed, sensitive as those of a fine artist, and above all there was a towering, massive, noble forehead. It was a face which one could not ordinarily have connected with evil, but seeing the man with Doc Yates, Trainor suddenly knew that all of the evil in the world might spring from that powerful but tainted intellect.

Yates hurried to meet the other and gripped his hand. He said:

“This is a surprise, Barry. I didn’t think you’d come into town. Come in and sit down. Sorry to bring you up here into a girl’s room, but I thought it might be just as well. No one would look for you here — if anybody should happen to be looking for Barry Christian, just now!”

Christian, lifting his head, looked suddenly, sternly around him, and Trainor winced back farther into his shelter. He thought nothing of the revolver in his hand. He felt totally helpless as he stared out at that man who, as the world very well knew, had been the great enemy of Jim Silver these many years. He had a strange feeling that mere bullets could not harm this devil.

“Use that name only when you have to, Yates,” said Christian. Then he added, stopping short the apology which Yates started: “You’ve already let too many people know that I’m in this part of the world. I told you not to do that!”

“I’m sorry,” began Yates, “but the fact is — ”

“Never mind the facts as you see them. I’ll tell you another fact. It has to do with you and it has to do with me. Jim Silver is in the Alkali Desert!”

“Silver?” repeated Yates stupidly. “Jim Silver — down here?”

He looked half-witted, as he spoke. His mouth opened. He stooped forward a little, exactly like a man who has received a heavy blow that has half-benumbed him.

“Silver is down here, somewhere in the desert. My men have seen his wolf. That means that I shall see Silver, before long.”

“Well, then we’ll smash him, when he comes! How many are with him?”

“He seems to be alone. But he’s enough, by himself. Pull yourself together, and try to start your brain working. I say that Jim Silver is somewhere near this town!”

“I follow that,” said Yates. “It’s a hard punch, but I can take it.”

“It means we have to hurry up. You’ve wasted time on that fellow, and now he has to talk. You’ve worked with your thumbs, and not with your wits,” answered Christian coldly. “There’s another way to tackle the thing.”

“How?” asked Yates.

“Through his sympathy,” said Christian. “Any one of these noble fools can be unnerved, if you know the right nerve to press on.”

“What nerve?” asked Yates.

“Use your imagination,” said Christian. “There’s the girl, isn’t there?”

The breath left Yates in a long, soft gasp.

“Yeah! I never thought of that!” he said.

“It’s time to think of it now,” said Christian. “We’ve got to get out there now. Are you ready?”

“Of course, I’m ready.”

He started toward the door, and Christian followed with a swift but leisurely step. There was such a grace about the motions of the man that Trainor found himself faintly wondering, faintly admiring. Then he saw the door close behind them, and he stepped out from his hiding place into the open room.

He had learned a vast lot; that mention of the black ore, beaded with gold, attached what he had heard to the mystery of his brother. He had a desperate suspicion that the man who must be made to talk was Clive Trainor. But he was still as far as ever from knowing where to turn himself in his quest. There was only a single dim clue, and that was “Blondy,” who was to be put to sleep by Dolly in the dance hall downstairs.

T
RAINOR
remained for a moment with his fingers fidgeting on the butt of the gun he had taken from Cormack, uncertain whether he should climb out through the window or else try to steal down through the hall and stairs, as he had come. Those nervous fingers of his made the metal rim on the center of the gun butt slide a little. He looked down immediately, half-expecting the time-worn old weapon to come apart in his hands, but now he saw that one part of the outer metal, right at the heel of the Colt, was no more than a sort of sliding clasp that played easily back and forth as soon as it was directly pressed by the finger. It revealed a hollow half the size of a walnut, and in that hollow was a closely wadded bit of paper. This he drew out, pulled it straight, and found a child’s picture of a man with a round head, a stick for a body, and other sticks for arms and legs. The features were very much awry, and the tongue seemed to be sticking out. There was one word scrawled across the forehead: “Baldy!”

Trainor felt a queer touch of interest that was almost remorse. It might be that Cormack was a married man with children. All of the scoundrels are not bachelors, after all! This might have been a farewell gift from Cormack’s son or daughter, and the rascal had stuffed it away in the hollow handle of his revolver. It might even be that he attached an extra importance to the scrawl, and that that was why he had been so anxious to get back his gun.

Trainor dropped the paper into his pocket and tried the window. It was well fastened, but he got it open and climbed out on the slanting roof of a shed that presently let him down to the ground just beside the dance hall. The music poured out of the shuttered windows like light; the continued whispering of the feet spoke messages to him, and every word was a warning to him to be gone. Instead, he got to a window in the rear which was open to let in a necessary draft at the expense of some privacy, and through that window he saw the picture.

There were seven or eight score of men and twenty girls. Some of the men lounged at the bar; some of them danced together, whirling rapidly; others were obviously waiting, each man, for a turn with the girls. But here and there, some girl sat out with a favored suitor, and Dolly was one, with a vast mountain of a blond man opposite her. With one hand he held her wrist. With the other hand he gripped the neck of a capacious flask. His face was bleared with a sleepy smile. He looked like a vast engine, burdened down by his own excess of weight; the sleepiness of that smile made Trainor feel that he had perhaps delayed too long already.

And suddenly he had stepped through the window. That was easy enough because it was close to the floor. The music was blaring, the dancers were a moving screen that helped to hide him from dangerous observation as he crossed to the table of Dolly. As he leaned above it, he saw her shoving a glass of whisky toward Blondy; she jerked up her head and glared at Trainor.

He knew what was in the whisky. He brushed it back from the grasp of Blondy.

“Hey!” said Blondy. “What’s the main idea! Who’s stealing my drinks? Who the hell is this, Dolly?”

“You big, flat-faced ham,” said Dolly through her teeth to Trainor. “Back up, or I’ll call a bouncer. I’ll have to call a bouncer, you fool!”

Trainor gripped the shoulder of Blondy. His fingers dug through the loose outer flesh and down to a solid core of powerful muscles.

“You’re being doped. Get out of here, Blondy!” he commanded.

“Hey, whatcha mean by that?” demanded Blondy.

“You’re seeing double already,” said Trainor. “Spread your hand and look at the fingers, and see for yourself! They’re doping you.”

“I’m going to squeal on you, you thick-wit!” gasped the girl. “I
gotta
squeal on you, if you don’t get out. Look! Blackjack Harry is coming this way now. Will you run and save your hide?”

“Dope?” said Blondy stupidly, staring down at his spread fingers. “You’re crazy, stranger!”

“You’ve seen too much — remember what you’ve seen!” said Trainor. “And this is the place where they’re going to put you to sleep so you can’t talk. Blondy, you’re going to sleep on your feet!”

The screech of the girl stabbed twice through the brain of Trainor.

“You have to have it! You asked for it — take it then!” she snarled at him. “Harry! Harry! Throw this bum out!”

But Blondy had heaved himself to his feet and stood with his great legs spread.

“What I seen? Doping me? I thought that whisky had a funny taste all at once. You black-eyed vixen,” said Blondy to the girl, “what you been doing?”

He reached for her, but Trainor knocked down the red fist, pulled the heavy arm over his shoulders.

Half of the dancers kept spinning on the floor. The other half had fallen into a confusion through which “Blackjack Harry” came on the run. He was that same bartender with the twisted face. He had picked up his apron as a girl might pick up her skirt to get through deep waters, and he was clawing back at his hip as he ran.

Trainor, with his free hand, scooped a chair from beside the table and flung it, underhand. Blackjack tried to duck, but he merely thrust his head into the path of the flying missile and went down, sprawling.

Then everyone started shouting. There was such a confusion of noises that Trainor felt a swirling dizziness before his eyes as he half led and half lugged the weight of Blondy toward the nearest door.

The girl grappled with Trainor. She was gasping:

“Hit me, kid! Slam me! I gotta be knocked out. I can’t be suspected!”

He struck wide, with the flat of his hand, and she crumpled on the floor right in the path of the charging bouncer. The man leaped her body. Trainor backhanded him, lodging the muzzle of his gun between the eyes. He saw, from the tail of his eye, how the fellow walked backward on his heels, falling for ten feet before he struck the floor.

Then he and Blondy turned out into the side alley that ran down past the dance hall.

The fresher air seemed to give Blondy more strength. He was able to break into a run, supporting most of his own weight. They turned the corner of the building with a hue and cry behind them. They could not escape, possibly, by means of fast running, and the best Trainor could think of was to jerk Blondy back against the wall of the house.

There he stood with his wabbling burden, while five men sprinted right past them into the dark.

It was a childish device, but it had worked. He took Blondy back down the alley, turned into the rear street, and got his man out there in the tree clump, where he had left his mustang. In the central clearing, Blondy went to pieces and spilled out of the arching grip of Trainor onto the ground.

Trainor got a canteen from his saddle and threw water into the big, hot, panting face of Blondy. Still there was no response. He heaved the bulk up by the loose of the shoulders and planted him against a tree trunk. With the flat of his hand he spatted the cheeks of Blondy until his palm was burning.

Dull, confused oaths were spluttering out of the man’s lips. He was going to have the heart’s blood of a hound, he said. Trainor took him by the hair of the head and shook the head back and forth, knocking it heavily against the tree.

“It’s life or death!” said Trainor. “It’s your life, too. Try to think, Blondy. They’ve doped you. Try to say three words. You saw something. You saw something, and they know it. They’ll murder you for it unless you tell me in time. I’m your friend, Blondy. I’m fighting for you. You saw something.”

“That’s why I gotta get drunk,” groaned Blondy. “I seen his face. It still keeps runnin’ at me, with the blood on it.”

“It’s not running at you. I’ve turned it away,” pleaded Trainor. “Tell me where you saw it! Where, Blondy, where did you see it?”

“Over Baldy!” groaned the other. “Over Mount Baldy.”

He groaned, and his body fell to the side.

Trainor lighted a match and looked into the swollen face. He lifted an eyelid. The eye was dull and dead-looking. He pushed Blondy on his back, opened his shirt, and listened to his heart. It beat along steadily enough, though very slowly. Probably the best thing in the world for Blondy was to be allowed to sleep out his jag, and the influence of the drug right here in the open air.

There had been only one useful word in what had been spoken — Baldy!

For that word matched the scrawl on the childish sketch which had been found in the handle of Cormack’s revolver. Baldy could be a mountain, no doubt.

Trainor scratched another match and by its light reexamined the paper in his pocket. The whole thing looked different, now that he regarded it with a clue. The long lines of legs and body and arms might be trails. The queerly marked features might be natural landmarks near Baldy or on it, and the chinless, pointed dome of the head was the mountain itself. That scrawled and wriggling line was a trail, perhaps, that worked through the breast of the mountain. That right arm was the trail’s continuation — for, after all, even the arm a child draws does not come out of the head of its subject. No, it might rather be a trail that went on to a forking where three trails branched out. The uppermost finger was the more extended. Yes, and at the end of it there was an arrow point, indicating that this was the right direction.

When Trainor had seen the arrow mark, he folded the paper with tender care and put it away.

He thought back over the clues as he had gathered them.

Because he had recognized his brother’s knife in the hand of a stranger, he had been thrown out of the Golden Hope. He had drawn down on his head the mighty danger that flowed from Doc Yates. He had been turned out of his hotel and broadly invited to leave town through the same agency. Moreover, he had heard that something Blondy had seen had to do with a mine whose ore was like the sample he had left at the assayer’s office. And Blondy had seen a frightful apparition, a man with blood on his face. Blondy was not a nervous type. He seemed to have no more sensitiveness than a great boar. And yet he had rushed for town and tried to drink himself into a stupor in order to crush the vision out of his memory.

That bleeding face began to wear, to the excited imagination of Trainor, the features of his vanished brother. He felt that his cause was lost before he embarked on the journey, because he knew that he could not hold up against such a pair as Yates and Christian, to say nothing of all their assistants.

But now he gave a farewell pat to the shoulder of the sleeper, mounted his mustang, and rode straight out of Alkali toward the hills.