Читать книгу The Stage to Yellow Creek - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 5

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The money was not mine, of course, but, when I heard this, it was as though somebody had tapped me gently under the right ear with a chunk of lead in a nice, soft length of garden hose. As for George Vincent, he sank back in his place and shriveled up like an apple peel that’s been too close to the fire.

“Great heavens,” he whispered.

“Father,” said the girl, “in another moment they’ll really begin to think that you are traveling with all that money.”

It was a good stab on her part, but it was too late. Her father wriggled upright and attempted to laugh and only choked himself.

“Of course, there’s nothing in it,” he said. “A hundred and sixty thousand dollars! No man would be such a fool as to travel with so much money on him.”

I saw that a lot of harm might come out of this if Vincent thought he was pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes, so I said: “Nobody would carry that much money on himself unless he knew how often messengers go crooked and how often the mail is robbed.”

“Eh? What’s that, Woodstock?” said Vincent, blinking at me.

“Well,” I explained, “I’d swear that everybody on this stage is pretty sure that you’ve got the coin with you. Maybe you’d just as well know what we think.”

The girl gave me a long, level look, beginning pretty hostile but ending with a sort of friendly, hopeful expression in her worried eyes.

Vincent himself glowered at me and said nothing for a moment. Then he turned to Cactus again.

“What makes you think that a number of people know ... think, I mean ... that I’m carrying that fortune about the country with me?”

“You’ve got to look out for freckle-faced men,” said Cactus, in his gentle voice. “A freckle-faced boy is all right, but a freckle-faced man is apt to be pretty dangerous, I tell you. There was a clerk back there in the bank you had dealings with, who had freckles across his nose. Remember him?”

“A clerk? I remember, now. There was a man like that in the bank ... the scoundrel.”

“He’s a scoundrel, all right,” said Cactus. “He’s such a scoundrel that he wrote to some old chums that he used to play around with in this neck of the woods. He told them all about your movements, and he suggested that they stop your stage, get your dough, and then split with him.”

“Were you one of his former friends?” asked Vincent.

“I don’t herd with that kind of vermin,” said Cactus softly. “But when a bunch of the boys were talking the thing over in an abandoned shack, I was listening in from the attic, and, before they finished, I knew all about ’em.”

“And what did they intend doing?” asked Vincent, wriggling as though he were sitting on top of a hot stove.

“Why,” said Cactus, “they intended sticking up the stage, tonight. That was their idea.”

“Good God!” said Vincent. “Why didn’t you tell us all this before, man? Where are they now?”

“For a man in the hands of the law,” said Cactus, “and just about in jail already, there’s nothing so dangerous as talking. And I’m afraid that I’ve talked too much.”

“Heavens above us,” said Vincent. “Perhaps the ruffians are waiting down the road. Stop the stage, driver! Stop the stage!”

Mike Jeffreys stopped the stage, all right. We were all about as nervous as George Vincent by this time, and the Mexicans were showing the whites of their eyes. If we were stopped a second time, and by a gang, we might not get off so well as we had before. One volley to kill the horses and another to clear out the coach was the way some highwaymen worked.

Stuffy Bill said: “There had oughta be a law ag’in’ gents packing around the whole United States treasury in their vest pocket. Look at what it does to a lot of innocent gents that ain’t got more’n two bits between them and hell.”

At which point Vincent made us a little speech. He said: “Gentlemen, you can see that I’m in a terrible predicament. You also are in danger, so far as I can see. I suggest that we promise our friend, Cactus ... who, after all, has done us absolutely no harm ... complete freedom from the dangers of the law if he will reveal to us everything that he knows about the plot that other scoundrels have laid to stop this stage.”

Chick Dyne cracked right in with: “I’m dead ag’in’ it! When a gent steps out and takes a sock at the jaw of the law, he’d oughta have a broken hand. This here Cactus, he belongs in the jail. That’s all there is to it. He belongs in the jail, and that’s where I’m going to see that he goes.”

The driver pulled at his mustache, and said nothing.

The gambler cleared his throat and then said: “Undoubtedly there is something in what Chick says. I am the last man to wish any other fellow bad fortune, but our friend, Cactus, has broken an important law, and I think that he ought to suffer for it. As for the danger to the money, Mister Vincent ought to tell us where it is hidden, and we will all guarantee him security for it.”

I listened to that argument and would have hated him, if I hadn’t wanted to laugh. It was a pretty flimsy dodge that he was trying, and even Vincent, excited as he was, paid no attention. The Mexicans picked the idea right up, however. The tall cadaver said that all of our lives were in danger. He suggested that Mr. Vincent should be put on the horse of the highwayman and, together with his money, cut across the rough side of the country toward Yellow Creek. He, Pedro, a man of sense and honor, and a sure guide to all of this countryside, would accompany Mr. Vincent, and make sure that he safely reached his destination.

I looked at the girl. There was a faint smile on her lips, and a lot of thought in her eyes.

Stuffy and Chick both broke in here. They declared that there was something in what the trio had said, except that, of course, the life of a white man and a gentleman could not be trusted to a Mexican, alone in the night. They, however, Stuffy and Chick, were willing to be the guard and guides for Mr. Vincent.

It seemed as though everybody in the coach was suddenly all burned up with the desire to take care of Mr. Vincent—and his money.

Mike Jeffreys said, as he still pulled at his mustache: “You pair of tramps would be worse than the Mexicans as a bodyguard! Look here, Mister Vincent, have you really got that ocean of hard cash along with you?”

Vincent groaned and looked at the girl.

In that flash, I saw who was the real man of the family. She just nodded, and he admitted: “Yes, I’ve got it with me ... fool that I am.”

“Now, then,” said Mike Jeffreys, “it wouldn’t do any good to shell Vincent out of the stage, because if there’s a hold-up party farther down the road, they’ll stop the stage just the same and load a lot of lead into us, most likely. And if they don’t find Vincent, they’re likely to start breaking their teeth on our hides. The only thing to do is to keep together. But we’ve got to find out what Cactus, here, knows.”

Stuffy said it was a damned outrage for a freeborn, American citizen to be talked to the way the driver had talked about him and Chick, and that he, for one, would turn Cactus over to the law as soon as we hit Yellow Creek.

I admired the mean, out-and-out way that Stuffy talked. There wasn’t anything decent about him, and he hardly made any pretense of decency.

I said: “Of course, Cactus goes free if he’ll talk. You agree, Mike ... and Vincent and his daughter agree. That’s four of us. And I think that we’re the four that will have to swing this meeting.”

“Why,” said Pierre Vernon, the gambler, easy as could be, “I agree with you, too, Woodstock.”

“That makes five,” said Mike. “And that’s enough. Look here, Cactus ... will you out and tell us what you know?”

“Of course, I will,” said Cactus, “seeing as how you’re not going to turn me over to the sheriff.”

He pointed ahead, where two hills rubbed shoulders above the road and blotted out a couple of big half sections of stars.

“They’re down in that gorge,” said Cactus. “That’s about half a mile from here, I suppose. And some of the five of ’em are shotgun boys. One of ’em is Riley Mason, who already has half a dozen killings to boast about.”