Читать книгу Black John of Halfaday Creek - James B. Hendryx - Страница 3

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Black John Smith returned his empty glass to the bar and eyed the stranger who stood framed in the open doorway of the saloon. The man was tall and angular, smooth-shaven, with a thin, sharp nose, a pair of close-set, glittering black eyes. A light pack swung by its straps from the crook of his elbow.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “I trust that I have at last arrived at Cushing’s Fort on Halfaday Creek.”

“Sech trust as yourn has be’n rewarded this time,” Black John replied. “Step up. The house is buyin’ a drink.”

Old Cush set out bottle and glasses as the man advanced to the battered brass rail, swung the pack to the bar and faced the two with a thin-lipped smile.

“My name is Beezely, gentlemen—J. Q. A. Beezely, attorney at law.”

Black John regarded the man with interest. “A lawyer, eh? Well, we’ve had damn near every other kind of a miscreant there is show up on Halfaday, so I s’pose it was only a question of time till a lawyer would come.”

The thin-lipped smile widened. “Gentlemen, my appearance on Halfaday Creek may well prove a godsend to you.”

“In what way,” queried Black John, “could a lawyer be a godsend to a crick?”

“In other words, I may prove a blessing in disguise.”

“If the blessin’ is as good as the disguise,” retorted the big man, “we prob’ly won’t have no kick comin’. Smith is my name—Black John, to be exact. An’ behind the bar is Lyme Cushing, proprietor of the fort.”

The man regarded the two with interest. “So you’re Black John Smith, the king of Halfaday, are you? And you’re Cushing? I’m glad to make your acquaintance, gentlemen. I heard about you in Whitehorse.”

Black John frowned slightly. “Me an’ Cush will admit, fer the sake of veracity, that we’re gentlemen without bein’ reminded of it every time you open yer head. An’ as fer me bein’ king of Halfaday—it looks like you’d got off on the wrong foot, to start out with.”

“No offense, gent—no offense, I assure you. Quite the contrary! I was merely repeating what I had gathered in Whitehorse.”

“On Halfaday,” replied Black John dryly, “what a man gathers, he keeps to himself—if he kin. How did you git here? An’ why?”

“I hired an Indian in Whitehorse, and we made the journey in a canoe. Devilish trip—that long upstream grind. No wonder you men feel safe from the long arm of the law. My reason for coming is simple. It seemed to be common knowledge in Whitehorse that Halfaday Creek, lying as it is reported to lie, close against the international boundary line, affords a safe haven for numerous outlaws. I was headed for the Klondike—for Dawson. You see, I realized that, with thousands of people pouring into the fabulously rich gold field, innumerable disputes would be bound to arise, and the services of an attorney would be in great demand. Therefore, gen—therefore, I decided to locate there and to practice my profession.” The man paused momentarily and toyed with his glass of liquor. “But at Whitehorse I heard of Halfaday Creek and immediately I changed my plans. You see, g—you see, I specialize in criminal law.”

“Yeah,” observed Black John. “Quite a lot of the boys along the crick has took a crack at it, too—one way er another.”

“I mean that I practice criminal law.”

“Well, a little more practice wouldn’t hurt several of the boys which they ondoubtless bungled their job——”

“I practice at the bar——”

“Yeah, I see,” interrupted the big man impatiently. “But if you’ve practiced enough at this one, would you mind h’istin’ that drink—so we kin go ahead with another? This here licker of Cush’s was s’posed to have age enough onto it when it was bottled.”

“I have successfully defended some of the most notorious criminals in America,” boasted the man as he rasped the raw liquor from his throat and refilled his glass. “My fame as a mouthpiece has spread over half a continent. Crooks and super-crooks have paid me thousands, simply as retaining fees—and other thousands to free them when they became enmeshed in the toils of the law.”

“Why would you throw up a good business like that an’ hit fer the Klondike?” asked Black John, his blue-gray eyes resting for a fleeting moment on the light packsack that lay just beyond the man’s elbow on the bar.

“As I told you,” Beezely replied, downing his second drink and ordering another round, “I became intrigued with the possibilities of the gold field. But at Whitehorse I heard of Halfaday, and right then I changed my plans. Mining law may be—and doubtless is—remunerative in a high degree. But when the clients are at hand, so is criminal law. And, as criminal law is my specialty, why change? First, last and all the time, I am a criminal lawyer!”

“I kin well believe it,” admitted Black John, his eyes once more on the packsack. “Of course, it ain’t none of our business what any man done before he come to Halfaday, but I was jest wonderin’ what kind of crime it was that headed you north?”

“Let us all be frank——”

“Nope,” interrupted Cush. “It won’t work. Here a while back, everyone that come to Halfaday wanted to be John—John Smith—till it led to sech a mix-up that me an’ John invented the name can. It would amount to the same thing if we was all to be Frank. Drink up, an’ I’ll buy another.”

Black John and Beezely grinned broadly as the latter proceeded: “I mean, let us be candid. I first contemplated a change about six months ago when I became the victim of a disbarment proceeding, the allegations being that I had negotiated for the disposal of certain stolen property—hot bonds, in the vernacular. And, also, that I had been instrumental in the harboring of certain known criminals. The matter of my departure was abruptly precipitated by the fact that, not content with my disbarment, my persecutors, an irate prosecuting attorney, aided and abetted by certain members of the legal profession—my own colleagues, mind you—brought criminal charges against me, and preferred certain charges before the grand jury which, in some manner, they succeeded in sustaining, so that the jury indicted me on numerous counts—among which were harboring criminals, receiving stolen property, disposing of stolen property, accessory before the fact in several instances of robbery and burglary, subornation of perjury and several others. Thus, you can readily see that rather than become swamped in endless litigation, I departed from there.”

“Yeah,” agreed Black John. “Under the circumstances, it looks like it was your move, at that.”

“You see,” further explained the man, “my colleagues at the bar were actuated purely by motives of jealousy. They realized that I was getting what, in their opinion, was far more than my share of the criminal practice, and they took that cowardly means of putting a successful competitor out of business. The prosecuting attorney acted merely out of spite. I had beaten him so many times—won verdicts of acquittal so often against him, in cases that he had proclaimed were iron-clad—that he held a personal enmity toward me. It was the malicious revenge of a small soul.”

“An’ you wasn’t guilty of none of them allegations, I s’pose?” queried Black John.

“Well—yes—and no. I will enumerate. On the harboring of criminals count, for instance—I certainly did know where certain criminals were in hiding. In fact, in numerous instances where I had accepted a retainer, I had arranged in advance for their hide-outs. I considered it a duty that I owed to my clients. And I had to know where they could be reached for matters of conference.

“As to the receiving and disposition of stolen property—how is a criminal lawyer to be paid except from the proceeds of a crime? The fruits of crime are the only property with which the criminal can pay. And as for the disposal of such property—it is a well-known fact that the sooner a man gets hot bonds off his hands, the better it is for him.

“In regard to subornation of perjury—of course, it was necessary for me to instruct my clients and their various witnesses what to say on the stand and what not to say. How else could a man establish an alibi for a client when, as a matter of fact, that client was, at a certain particular time, engaged in committing a burglary or a robbery?

“As to the matter of being an accessory before the fact—I never really plotted any crime—in its entirety. It is true that in certain instances I did hint to clients of certain profitable jobs they could pull and advised them as to how to go about it. I advised them as to what evidence is admissible and what is not. And I coached them in regard to the destruction of valuable clews, confusing or destroying evidence, and, in fact, in numerous matters having a direct bearing upon the success of the enterprise. An attorney, my friends, who has not the best interest of his clients at heart, is sorely remiss in his duty.”

“Jest a good, square-shootin’ lawyer tryin’ to git along,” agreed Black John. “An’ this here advisory service—was it gratuituous? Er, was there a fee attached?”

“Oh, no fee! No fee at all! Of course, an attorney cannot be expected to render his services for nothing. I always arrange with the client for a remuneration somewhat commensurate——”

“My God,” exclaimed Cush. “What with them big words you use, you an’ John ort to git along fine!”

“—commensurate to the service,” continued Beezely, ignoring the interruption. “The payment to be made out of the proceeds of the venture, generally upon a percentage basis. I never could bring myself to accept a flat fee for these prearranged jobs because if my client, or clients, were unsuccessful in the venture the poor fellows would be out of pocket.”

“Looks all fair an’ reasonable,” admitted Black John. “It looks like if a man had a lawyer like that he could go ahead an’ pull most anything.”

Beezely’s beady black eyes snapped appreciatively and the thin lips smiled. “And you don’t know the half of it, my friend! For after the job is pulled there is old J. Q. A. Beezely with the hide-out all arranged, and ready to take over all the hot stuff and dispose of it to the best advantage—ready with a roll to cool the heat by certain judicious payments to policemen and politicians—sometimes, even, to prosecutors or judges. And, finally, if worse comes to worst, to defend his client at the bar of justice!”

“You must of be’n a comfortin’ thought to such as was criminally inclined,” opined Black John, tossing off his liquor and ordering another round. “But the facts is, P. D. Q.——”

“J. Q. A.,” corrected the attorney. “Named after John Quincy Adams, one of the greatest characters in American history.”

“Oh, one of them historical names, eh? I trust this here Adams was dead before you was named after him.”

“Long, long before. He was one of the earlier presidents.”

“As I was goin’ on to say, up to now we never had no lawyer on Halfaday—never felt the need of none. We ain’t got many laws on the crick, an’ sech as we have got, none of ’em’s brittle.”

“Brittle?”

“Yeah, you know—brittle—ones that’s easy broke. Our laws is few but tough an’ durable. Not wantin’ the police hornin’ in on us, we keep the crick moral by the simple expedient of hangin’ anyone that is found guilty of murder, larceny in any form, claim-jumpin’ er general skulduggery. Our verdicks is reached by the vote of miners’ meetin’s—an’ the meetin’ ain’t called till we’re practically shore the culprit is guilty. There ain’t no crime on Halfaday.”

“But,” queried Beezely, in apparent surprise, “what do you do here on Halfaday for a livelihood?”

“We’re miners. Halfaday is a gold camp.”

“Why, I understood, at Whitehorse, that this was a community of outlaws.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” replied Black John. “Of course, what any man done before he come to the crick ain’t none of our business, an’ it’s barely possible that some of the boys might of infringed some law, somewhere, in their past.”

After several moments of silence, Beezely smote the bar with his fist. “I’ve got it!” he cried. “What Halfaday needs is organization! Leave it to me! We’ve got a wonderful opportunity here—with the rich Klondike gold field within striking distance. Leave it to me. J. Q. A. Beezely will work out the details. Halfaday Creek looks like a permanent home for me!”

Black John nodded, his eyes once more on the packsack. “Yeah,” he agreed, a bit grimly. “It shore does, Beezely—damn permanent.”