Читать книгу Trails Meet - B.M. Bower - Страница 5

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JESS heard the sibilant sound of a man exhaling a breath under stress of emotion. It may have been Ritchie or the cowboy, Bob Francis; he rather thought it was Bob. He also fancied that there was some wordless message passing behind his back. Then he pushed the thought away as sheer nerves; the two moved up beside him, wet slickers rustling as they walked.

Ritchie pulled off his streaming Stetson. "My God, he's done it, Bob," he said in a low, shocked tone,

"Only for the storm, we'd maybe have found him in time to stop him," Bob muttered, pulling off his own hat in tardy remembrance of his manners.

It was all Greek to Jess,—Parsons with his frantic terror of some unnamed enemy seeking to kill him, and now these two plainly assuming that Parsons had killed himself. While they stood staring in stunned silence, he studied them with swift observant glances. He noted the sleek gloss of wet hair against temple and cheek, the high light on noses, chins, cheek bones, the shine of downcast eyes glinting between their lids. Caught within the momentary spell of line and color, he forgot the dead man lying in sodden inertness before them. Ritchie's inscrutable mouth was compressed with some sterner emotion than grief for a fellow employee. Bitterness touched those corners, Jess thought. Bitterness, perplexity, certain other hidden things were there—but not grief.

Ritchie reached a long, deliberate arm, pulled a fold of gray blanket over those snaky black eyes staring so fixedly at nothing, and turned sharply away toward the fire. As though released from some hateful restraint, Bob Francis sighed deeply and followed his boss.

"How the devil did he get here?" Ritchie asked with abrupt harshness, and dropped his hat on a bench that he might unbutton his slicker and let warmth in to his chilled body.

Jess set the lamp on the log mantel in the exact position it should occupy to make a balanced picture, and was only subconsciously aware of the effect afterwards. "On my back," he said, and moved an old brass tobacco jar half an inch to the left.

"On your back?" Ritchie's voice had a strained sound as if he were holding it rigidly under control.

"Yes. I heard what seemed to be signal shots just down around the first turn. I went down there and it was Parsons, lying all humped up in the middle of the road."

"You heard—down around the turn—" Bewilderment rode Ritchie hard. He turned and looked at Bob Francis, who kicked a brand back into the fire and muttered something under his breath. Ritchie turned back to Jess. "You heard him—shoot himself that close to here?"

"I didn't say that. I said I heard three or four shots. One, and then three more. Just as I came up with the lantern, he fired again, into the air."

"Hunh." Ritchie glanced toward the bunk and lowered his voice in deference to the dead. "I don't get it. Damned if I do. Here's how it is, Jess. This thing has been building for over a week. Al's been drinkin' like a fish lately. Last day or so I thought he was in for a spell of snakes, but he went off his nut about enemies trying to kill him. This morning he got up wishin' he was dead. Said for half a cent he'd blow himself to hell. I didn't think so much of that—he's talked that way before, after a spree."

"That's right," Bob interjected into the pause.

"Most generally Al'd take another drink or two and forget it. To-day, though, he turned sulky. Kept muttering things like how he'd be better off dead, and so on. Right after dinner he ordered his horse and rode off down the valley. Bob, here, knows the frame of mind he was in—" He broke off, glancing at young Francis.

"Yeah," Bob responded, "he sure wasn't in no condition to be off by hisself with a shootin' iron handy. I thought at the time—"

"You should of come and told me when he went," Ritchie reproached him. "I'd 'a' kept him home if I had to hog-tie him." He looked at Jess. "He must have had a bottle with him. Sure smells loud enough."

Jess moved his head slowly from left to right and back again. "What you smell is some whisky I gave him. Two drinks. Chuck had some in camp."

"Ain't got any left, I s'pose?" Bob hinted broadly, but Ritchie stopped him with a frown.

"Didn't Al have a flask on him? You went through his pockets, didn't you?"

Anger flared and as quickly subsided in Jess's greenish hazel eyes. Probably Tom Ritchie failed to realize how that sounded. One had to make allowance at a time like this.

"No," he said quietly, "I most certainly didn't go snooping in his pockets. I was busy trying to keep him alive." He glanced over his shoulder toward the shadowed corner. "I couldn't do much. No one could, I think. He was too far gone when I found him."

"Wasn't he able to talk—explain himself? Didn't he give any reason for doing it?" Ritchie had his slicker off and was lighting a cigarette. Jess wondered if it were only the match blaze which gave that strange shifty look to his eyes. "He said something, didn't he?"

"Not much. A few disjointed sentences—I was too busy to pay much attention."

"Well, what kinda sentences?" Ritchie's narrowed eyes watched Jess fixedly.

"Oh, he called me by name when I found him and he said he was shot. He asked me to get him in out of the storm. Of course he was groaning a great deal. Getting him on my back must have hurt him most damnably. I can see that now. At the time, I thought he was making more fuss than was necessary."

"He must of said more than that," Ritchie objected. "He was able to recognize you by lantern light; what else did he say?"

"Oh, he said his boots hurt him, so I managed to pull them off. It was after that I gave him the whisky. He asked for more. He was muttering—all incoherent, nothing lucid except that he kept telling me to stay with him. I'm sure he felt he couldn't last long, though he didn't say so."

Ritchie's cigarette was cold. He lighted another match and held it up, but his hand shook so that he could scarcely set the tobacco afire. Jess watched him, wondering what thoughts went shuttling back and forth behind that studying frown.

"Damn funny he didn't have more to say than that," he said finally, flipping the burnt match into the fire with an impatient gesture. "You hear what he muttered about?"

"I was on the jump, remember. He was suffering terribly, groaning and moaning. And it really wasn't long; not more than an hour, perhaps not that long. I had no thought of time, just of doing what I could to ease him."

"Nobody to blame but himself," Bob Francis volunteered. "He—"

"Cut that out, Bob," Ritchie growled savagely. "I hate a coward same as you do, and a suicide ain't nothing but a damn coward. But he's gone now—and anyway, he must of been crazy."

"He sure was," Bob made emphatic agreement.

"Well, the thing's done, and what we've got to do is play up. I know damn well the Senator would do anything in the world to keep this out of the papers. His old friend and ranch manager committing suicide would sure look bad right now, just when they're tryin' their damnedest to frame something on him."

"That's right," Bob Francis echoed. "It sure would be bad right now."

"We've got to make out it was some accident." Ritchie eyed Jess sidelong. "Out hunting—gun went off accidentally—what d'you think, Jess?"

"You might possibly get away with it, Tom."

"We've got to get away with it. There's a bunch out to get the Senator any way they can. Knife him in the back, if they thought they'd get by with it. They're afraid of him, that's why. He's too honest and too powerful. They know they can't buy him, so they aim to do the next best thing and bust him. They sure would love to get hold of something like this."

Jess pulled his gaze away from the fire. "I don't see how they could use this against Senator Wolsey. Isn't he still on the Coast?"

"Yeah, but that wouldn't stop 'em. Al and the Senator's been cronies for ten years and more. You got no idea what raw deals they try to pull nowadays. Politics is sure rotten."

"Well, listen here," said Bob Francis. "Far as me and Jess knows, Al was out huntin' and shot himself accidental. Ain't that right, Jess?"

Jess lifted an elbow from the mantel, pushed back an unruly lock of brown hair and said nothing at all.

Ritchie's nostrils suddenly flared like a fractious horse. "He didn't say he meant to kill himself, did he?"

Jess's fingers lay still on his right temple. "No. He said, 'I'm shot.'"

"Well, that could mean an accident, couldn't it?"

"Certainly."

Ritchie sighed heavily. "Al was about as careless with a gun as any man I ever saw. For all I know or you know, it was an accident. About where—?"

Jess lifted his head and looked at Ritchie. "Do you want to see the wound?"

Something in Ritchie's eyes retreated. He seemed to wince, though Jess saw no movement. A mental flinching, he thought it was. "Where was he—shot?"

"In the side," Jess said simply. "A little to one side and below the heart. Do you want—"

"N-no, I'll take your word for it. Damn it, I hate to think—he was such a—"

"A crazy man isn't responsible for his acts."

"Sure. That's right." Ritchie covered a shudder with a swift shrug. "Sure, that's right." He seemed to be studying something and he seemed to be relieved. "There'll be an inquest, of course. But that's all right. I'll fix that." His spirits rose almost to cheerfulness. "You won't have to be called, even. Unless—how about it, Jess? You want to get mixed up with this, or not?"

"Not if I can help it, Tom. I—never did swear to a thing I didn't believe was the truth." He looked from Tom to Bob. "If I had to testify before a coroner's jury, I'd tell the truth."

"Any different from what you just told us? That sounded like an accident to me; why you so damned sure it wasn't?"

"That isn't the way I put it, Tom. As a matter of fact, I don't know anything except that he was shot and that he's dead. I am entitled to my opinion, I hope. And I certainly don't think it was accidental. Nothing he said gave me that impression."

Ritchie was watching every line and expression of his face, but Jess was well schooled in keeping his thoughts from revealing themselves without his consent. Ritchie turned, baffled, and looked at Bob.

"Maybe Jess didn't tell all of it," Bob shrewdly hazarded.

"Parsons means nothing to me. Why shouldn't I tell all he said?"

"That's for you to answer yourself. Put us under oath and about all we could tell for a fact was that we started out looking for Al because he wasn't able to ride out by himself. Wasn't safe, rather. We get caught in this storm and head for your camp, and we find Al here dead and you alone with him. He's been shot. Now, that's as much as we know. We don't think you had anything to do with it, because we both know you. But a bunch of strange men could take them facts and think something entirely different. So you see, all you can tell us won't be a damn bit too much."

"I've already told you why I went out and brought him in and what he said. He was suffering terribly, remember. I feel sure he was dying when I found him, but at the time I was peeved because I had an idea he could have walked if he had wanted to make the effort. He couldn't. I know that now."

"Didn't he say any more than just what you told us?"

"A little. I told you he mumbled about his boots hurting him, and then when I said I'd get help, he understood that, for he said, 'Stay here!' And again, 'Don't leave me.' And he asked for whisky."

"All that don't prove a damn thing about how he come to do it."

"No, it doesn't." Jess stooped to thrust a fallen stick back into the blaze. "But if it had been an accident, I think he'd have said so. People are always wanting to tell exactly how it happened when they have an accident. The suddenness excites them into talking."

"College notion. Sounds like psychology. But it's the bunk when you come to real life." Ritchie became silent, frowning at the fire. Bob Francis waited anxiously, trying to keep his eyes from straying toward the corner where Parsons lay dead.

"Well, we oughta be comin' to some kinda agreement," he ventured nervously at last.

"Agreement's made," Ritchie said shortly. "If Jess keeps his mouth shut, we'll pack Parsons home and I'll do the rest. How about it, Jess?"

"You asked that once," Jess retorted. "It's your affair, not mine. All I did was carry him in here and do what I could for him; which was mighty little."

"If we handle this like I said we'd oughta, you'll have to forget the whole thing. No need to blab around about carrying him in here. We'll claim we found him out on the trail somewhere. We would of, if he'd been left where he was at."

Jess turned and looked straight into his face. "I'm not in the habit of blabbing what doesn't concern me. And if you think I'd leave a hurt dog out in all this storm—"

"Now, you got me all wrong. No need to get sore. Maybe I spoke outa turn, but this burns me up. Coming right now, it'll do the Senator more harm than murder. The opposition wouldn't like anything better than to say his ranch manager got guilty conscience or something and killed himself. They'd sure spread it all over the front page of every paper in the country."

"I don't see—"

"'Course you don't see. You don't know the dirty double-crossing deals the Senator has been side-stepping. He's too many for 'em or they'd have had him railroaded or put on the spot long ago. That's why this has got to be kept outa the papers. I can make it stick with the coroner as an accident. I'll have to pull a fast one, but I can do it if you forget you know anything. Being friendly with the family, you oughta help protect the Senator."

Jess turned away. "I still don't see how this would affect him, but maybe I'm just dumb. Go ahead, call it what you please. I sha'n't say anything unless I'm dragged into it—and I don't suppose it matters to Parsons."

"Be a favor to him. You know that. I'll have to tell the Senator the truth—after the danger's all past. He'd sure appreciate your help, I know that. And I can tell you one thing, old kid, Senator Thomas Wolsey is a man that never forgets a kindness. You may never know just all this'll mean to him, but you can be damn sure you won't lose nothing by it."

"I certainly don't expect to profit anything by it," Jess said shortly. "I don't want to."

"Maybe you will more'n you know. You don't know what it's all about, but politics is a cutthroat game. A man as square as the Senator has got to keep his back to the wall and both eyes peeled every minute. Enemies on every side ready to knife him in the back—frame-ups—wheels within wheels—"

Jess bent quickly to the hearth, hiding the start he gave. Wheels within wheels—it almost seemed like the dead man's voice repeating the words. He stole a glance toward the bunk as he stood up, but his voice was calm and unconcerned. "Coffee's boiling. A good hot cup will just about hit the spot, I should think."

"Damn right. We've got to beat it away from here with the body, storm or no storm."

"Slackin' up some," Bob Francis grunted. "Better not wait too long. Let the rain wash out our tracks."

"That's right. You got a head on you. Me, I ain't used to these secret p'formances." Ritchie smiled bleakly at Jess. "Wouldn't chance it for anybody else. Hope I'm never called on again for a job like this, but so long as we all think the same, I'm satisfied."

Jess filled two straight-sided white enamel cups with strong black coffee. As for himself, he felt that it would choke him now while that grim figure lay so quiet in the shadowed corner. He wondered how these two could be so unconcerned, and at the thought he lifted his eyes and studied them shrewdly.

Ritchie was still remarking upon the simplicity of covering up the facts so that no harm would come of the suicide, but even while he declared his certainty, Jess noticed that his hand shook like an old man with palsy. And Bob Francis, bending his head thirstily to the cup, was pasty gray and his mouth was loose, his lips trembling. A shock of complete understanding rippled along Jess's nerves. Say what they pleased, Tom Ritchie and Bob Francis were scared, terribly scared of something which neither had mentioned at all.