Читать книгу Timber-Wolf - Jackson Gregory - Страница 4

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A normal census gave Big Pine a population of about one hundred and twenty inhabitants, and the most normal thing which any census does is to exaggerate. But within forty-eight hours after the tearing of Mexicali Joe's coat pocket between nine and twelve hundred people, variously estimated, poured into the settlement. Wood-choppers and timber jacks and lone prospectors hurried down from the mountains; storekeepers and ranchmen came up from far below Rocky Bend and Red Oak; that strange medley of humanity which always rushes first in the wake of gold news filled Big Pine to overflowing, men and even women; all straining to one purpose back of which lay many motives. Spring was verging on summer; nights were cold, but the air was dry; they found rooms where they could, and when they could not they builded great camp-fires and found what comfort they might in the edges of the pine groves. Gallup doubled his prices and then doubled them again, and still his house was full. There were half a dozen empty houses, ancient disreputable shacks long in disuse; these found usurping tenants the first day. There were some few who had had forethought and took the time to bring tents. Almost in an hour a quiet, sleepy little mountain town was metamorphosed into a noisy, clamorous and sleepless mining camp.

Among the first to arrive was a young man named Deveril. Very tall and good-looking and gay and slender he was, making himself look taller by the boots he wore and the way he pinched his soft hat into a peak. Babe Deveril he was called by those who knew him, saving one only, who called him Baby Devil and jeered at him with a pair of mocking eyes.

Deveril had been in Big Pine before, though not for some years. Also he had seen his share of mining camps through Arizona and New Mexico and Nevada, and knew something of congested conditions and the hardships which accompanied the short-sighted. Before his arrival was ten minutes old, he had cast about him for a shelter. Already the Gallup House was full, but not yet had the disused, tumbled-down shacks been thought of. He found a dilapidated building which once, long ago, had been a log cabin; it stood in the pines set well back from the place of Mexicali Joe; it had a fireplace. Deveril preempted it coolly, neither knowing nor caring who the owner might be; he brought his slim bed-roll here, followed it up with frying-pan, bacon, and coffee-pot and considered himself established. Further, being just now in funds and always yielding to the more fastidious impulses at moments when fortune was kind, he secured a serving-maid. Maria, the dusky daughter of Mexicali Joe, consented gladly to come in and cook and make the bed and keep things tidy. He gave her a couple of silver dollars and made her a bow to bind the bargain, tossing in for fair measure a flashing smile which left the half-breed girl thrilling and sighing. Thereafter, bending his mind to the main issue, he sought to find out for himself how much of fact underlay the glittering rumors which had been pouring forth from Big Pine like rays from the sun.

This heterogeneous mass of humanity occupying Big Pine had broken up into numerous small groups, after the fashion of men who are so prone to break large units down into smaller ones. Cupidity, jealousy, and suspicion flaunted their banners on all hands; men watched one another like so many thieves. The old inhabitants went about bristling, resenting the presence of these outsiders who were rushing in to steal the golden secret. Among themselves they were divided into two antagonistic factions; there was the Gallup crowd, including Gallup and Sheriff Taggart and the men who did their bidding; and there were those who had heard Barny McCuin's tale and who were out to block the game of Gallup and Taggart, or know the reason why.

Babe Deveril, sauntering here and there, identified himself with no group; it was his preference always to hunt singly. But he went everywhere, his mind and ears and eyes co-ordinating in the work he set them. He listened to rumors and sifted them and went on to newer and always contradictory rumors. It was said that Mexicali Joe had been killed, his body found in a ravine three miles from town; that Gallup had spirited him off last night into the mountains; that Joe had made his strike in the old and long-deserted mining camp of Timkin's Bar; that his specimens had come from Lost Woman's Gulch; that Joe had never stirred a mile from Big Pine in his latter prospecting, and that, therefore, at any moment any one of the thousand gold seekers might stumble upon his prospect hole. It was said that Joe's pay-dirt would run twenty dollars to the ton, and while this was being advanced as though by one who knew all about it, another man was saying that it would run a thousand dollars. Deveril, when he had heard a score of empty though colorful tales, turned at last to the Gallup House; Gallup and Taggart knew all that was to be known, and, although they had the trick of the shut mouth and steady eye, there was always the chance of a sign to be read by the watchful.

He came upon Gallup himself standing in his doorway, looking out thoughtfully upon the road jammed tight with restless men.

"Hello, Gallup," he said.

Gallup regarded him briefly; again his gaze flicked away.

"Don't remember me, eh?" queried Deveril lightly.

"No," said Gallup, curt in his preoccupation. "I don't."

"Must have something disturbing on your mind," suggested Deveril as genially as though Gallup's attitude had been exactly opposite what it was. "Haven't looked in on you for half a dozen years, but you ought to remember." Gallup's eyes came back slowly, a frown in them, and the other concluded: "Known as Deveril ... Babe Deveril, formerly of Cherokee...."

Gallup showed a quick, unmistakable sign of interest and Deveril laughed. But Gallup's frown darkened and there came a sudden compression to his lips.

"I got you, Kid," he said sharply. "You said it: There is a thing or two on my mind and I've got no time for gab. Just the same, take this from me: A certain Bruce Standing has been sent word the town can get along without him showing his face; and maybe, being his cousin, you'll trail your luck along with him."

"So you and Bruce Standing are still playing the nice little parlor game of slap-the-wrist, are you?" Deveril jeered at him. But, still highly good-humored, he went on: "He's no cousin of mine, Gallup. You've got the family tree all mussed up. What fault is it of mine if a thousand years ago Bruce Standing and I had the same murdering old pirate for ancestor? At that, Standing descended from him in the straight line and I am somewhat less directly related."

Gallup snorted.

"None of Standing's breed is wanted in my place," he said emphatically.

Deveril, though his eyes twinkled, appeared to be musing.

"So you sent him word to stay away? Didn't you know that he'd come, red-hot and raging, as soon as he got your message? Oh, well, you and my crazy kinsman fight it out to your liking; it would be a great thing for the community if you'd both do a clean job, cutting each other's throats.... By the way, where does Taggart fit in? How does he work it to be hand in glove with both of you at the same time?"

"You heard what I said just now?"

"I did. Say, Gallup, where's Mexicali Joe? I've got some business with him."

Gallup, brooding, appeared not to have heard. Then, making no answer, he turned and went back into his house and into the big main room, where a crowd of men had foregathered. Deveril, his hat far back, his dark eyes keen and bright, followed him, almost at his heels. Gallup saw him out of the tail of his eye but for once gulped down his first hot impulse; his hands were full as things were and there were large stakes to play for, with nothing to be gained just now by a rough-and-tumble fist fight with a man who was obviously highly capable of taking care of himself. So he pretended to let Deveril's entrance go unnoted and thereafter ignored him.

For the first time in many days there were no drinks being served in Gallup's House. With so many strangers in town, one did not know how many federal agents might be snooping about. And, again, this was no time for the main issue to become befogged with side issues; Gallup did not want any unnecessary ruction on his hands. Nevertheless some of the men drank now and then, but from pocket flasks which they had brought in with them; flasks which for the most part came originally from Gallup's stock but which had been sold on the street by Gallup's man Ricky. The room was thick with heavy tobacco smoke; most of the men remained strangely quiet, watching Gallup or Barny McCuin, who glowered in a corner, or the sheriff who came and went among them. Deveril spent not more than ten minutes here; once more he returned to the street and to his passing from knot to knot of men.

"I'll bet a hat Gallup was lying about that warning to my mad kinsman," he told himself thoughtfully. "I don't believe he's man enough to get rough with Bruce Standing."

It was almost at the moment that Deveril came out of Gallup's place that the first shock of genuine news burst along the crowded road; Mexicali Joe had been located. He was in the stone jail, not five hundred yards from the thickest of his seekers, and had been there since last night, locked up by Taggart! The crowd split asunder as cleanly as though some gigantic axe had cloven its way between the two fragments; one group at full tilt ran to the jail, to prove to their own senses that here at last was a word of truth; the other streamed down to the Gallup House, seeking Taggart and an explanation. With the latter went Babe Deveril, who meant to keep his eye on Taggart and Gallup.

There were three steps leading up to Gallup's side door through which at last came Taggart, when the crowd clamored for him. He stood on the top step, looking stolidly at the faces confronting him. He was a big man, massive of physique, hard-eyed, strong-willed; he had been sheriff for a dozen years and after long office as the chief representative of the law bore in his look the stamp of that unquestioned authority which is the unmistakable brand of the mountain sheriff. He had looked straight into the eyes of many men in many moods and his own glance never wavered. Never a great talker, he stood now a moment in silence, tugging slowly at his heavy black mustache.

"Mexicali is my man right now," he said at last. "I got him in jail."

That was all. There was no belligerence in his tone; his look remained untroubled. Babe Deveril, beginning to understand something of what had happened and casting his own swift horoscope of the likely future, wondered to what extent it was in the cards that Jim Taggart should stand in his way. There was big game in the wind, or men like Gallup and Taggart, who were always big-game men, would not be taking things upon their shoulders thus. And to-day Jim Taggart was at his best; he stood as solid and unmoved as a rock, with never a flick of the eyelid, as he made his quiet announcement and awaited the breaking of any storm which his words might evoke.

There was a short lull while men murmured among themselves, and yet, digesting Taggart's statement, impressed by his manner, hesitated to speak the thought which was forming in dozens of brains simultaneously. Presently, however, a man at the far edge of the crowd shouted:

"What's he arrested for, Taggart? What did he do?"

Before the man had gotten his ten words out, the sheriff's keen eyes found him where his lesser form was half hidden by the bigger men in front of him.

"I hear you, Bill Cary," he said quietly. "And the only reason I'm answering a regular none-of-your-business question is that all of you other boys that have stampeded in here on a wild say-so will be worrying your heads off until you know what's what. I pulled Joe on two counts: First for disturbing the peace."

An uproar of laughter boomed out at that and even Jim Taggart smiled. But he went on evenly:

"Of course that was a blind until I got the goods on the second count. And I only got that a few minutes ago. This ain't any trial, exactly, and still I guess it will save trouble if you know all about it. So I'll let Cliff Shipton step up and testify."

Suddenly he stepped aside and a tall, hawk-faced man who had been holding his place at Gallup's side, just behind Taggart's massive bulk, stepped forward. Men craned their necks and crowded closer; nearly all of them knew Cliff Shipton. He was a Gallup man and always had been a Gallup man; for the last two years he had been in charge of a profitless "gold-mine" which Gallup pretended to operate at the head of the Lost Woman's Gulch; a property which, it was generally conceded in and about Big Pine, was merely the proverbial hole in the ground intended for sale to a fool.

"Last week, gents," said Shipton in his easy style, "we hit it rich out at the Gallup Bonanza. Pocket or ledge, we're not saying which right now. But we got the stuff. We been keeping it quiet until we got good and ready to spring something. I had the choice specimens in a box in my shack. That Mexican's been prowling around; I couldn't be sure until I'd glimpsed the specimens, but I just looked 'em over. That's the story; Mexicali, being half drunk and stupid generally, made his haul out of my specimen box."

As the first slow murmur, gathering volume, began, Jim Taggart threw up his hand and shouted:

"Now, men, go slow! I've seen a pack of gents before now get all het-up because they was sore and disappointed. And I can read the eye-signs! But pull off and think things over before you make a lot of howling fools out of yourselves. If you want me any time.... Well, I'll be right on hand!"

He stepped back swiftly, in through the open door, and it closed after him.

For a little while the men remained uncertain. Jim Taggart represented the law; further, he was no man at any time to trifle with. He had offered them an explanation and the worst of it was that it might be the truth. Discussions began on every hand; those who believed were in the minority and lost voice as the other voices, becoming heated, grew louder. Babe Deveril was turning away when a man caught at his sleeve.

"You know those men, Taggart and Gallup and the rest. What do you make of it? What had we ought to do?"

Deveril shook the man off.

"Go slow until you know what you're doing," he admonished curtly. "Then go like hell."

He skirted the crowd and went up to his cabin to be alone and do a bit of thinking on his own part.