Читать книгу Black John of Halfaday Creek - James B. Hendryx - Страница 6

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The following morning Beezely took leave of Black John. “I’m greatly obliged to you,” he said, as he departed from the cabin with his pack, “for the tip about depositing my money and for your royal hospitality. I only hope that I may someday be permitted to return the favors.

“I rather like that place of Whisky Bill’s and I may like mining. At least I’ve decided to stay here until fall. The life in the open will do me good. In the meantime, I shall endeavor to get down to the fort at least on Saturday nights for the stud game. I shall, of course, keep in touch with you, and should you reconsider that matter of organization we can doubtless embark on a very prosperous enterprise. If not, in the fall I think I shall move on to Dawson and open an office for the practice of law. I engaged a man I ran across up the creek—Breckenridge, he said his name was—to assist me in moving my supplies up the creek in my canoe. He will doubtless be waiting for me at the fort. Good-by, my friend. I’ll be toddling along now. I have a long trail ahead of me—and a rough one.”

“I’ll say you have,” muttered the big man as the other turned from the door. “Mebbe not sech a long trail; but a damn rough one.”

Promptly at ten o’clock on Saturday night, Black John temporarily checked out of the stud game and, stepping out the door, passed around to the rear to find Breckenridge waiting for him in the black shadow of the storeroom.

“Got yer plans all laid?” he asked.

“We did have, but we’ve got to change ’em, or there’s sure as hell goin’ to be a murder on Halfaday.”

“Who,” asked Black John, “would murder who?”

“Peanuts Landowski an’ the Dook will murder old Quince. Listen—did Quince give you the low-down on why he took it on the lam out of Chi?”

“Yeah. He claimed that he’d got disbarred, an’ besides that, there was a matter of some indictments the grand jury found agin him. Spite work, he claimed it was, amongst the prosecutor an’ some other lawyers.”

“Disbarments an’ indictments—hell!” scoffed the other. “That old fox would of beat all them raps with his eyes shut. But his eyes wasn’t shut by a damn sight, an’ when he picked up his newspaper one mornin’ an’ seen where there’d be’n a crush-out down at Joliet, an’ Peanuts Landowski an’ the Dook was on the loose, he know’d it was either lam or croak fer him—an’ he know’d, too, that Joliet ain’t no hell of a ways from Chi.

“So he gathers what’s loose an’ handy, an’ fades. You see, Peanuts an’ the Dook is two of that mob he double-crossed. An’ take it from me, either one of ’em’s plenty tough. An’ no one knows that any better ’n old Quince Beezely. It was Peanuts that blasted that cop when they took the mob, an’ the Dook has knifed two guys that I know of. He’s a killer,” added the man, with a shudder. “He kills jest fer fun—er else he’s nuts er somethin’. These guys was both knifed in their own house when the Dook was h’istin’ their wife’s joolery—an’ there wasn’t no need of it. An’ in the hang-outs the Dook bragged about it, an’ laughed.”

“An’ you think these two characters is on Halfaday?” asked Black John. “That they followed Beezely here?”

“Think! I know damn well they’re here. I talked to ’em. As fer followin’ Quince—partly they did, an’ partly they didn’t. It’s like this—when they crushes out of stir there’s eight of ’em in it—an’ two screws is bumped off. They scatter, an’ it takes Peanuts an’ the Dook two days to make Chi, on account they got to git clothes an’ heel theirself. The heat’s on, an’ they see by the papers how five of the boys ain’t had no luck. One is shot an’ four is back in Joliet—two in the hospital.

“Peanuts an’ the Dook knows they’re takin’ a big chance but they try to git to old Quince. The Dook was tellin’ me about it—an’ believe me, if you could of seen his eyes when he told it, you would hate to be old Quince Beezely—if he found you er not! He claimed he’d of carved Quince up if he know’d he’d step on the trap the next minute—an’ he would.

“But they couldn’t find Quince, an’ Chi was pretty hot fer ’em—what with neither one of ’em standin’ in too good with the boys an’ all. So they reads in the papers about this here Klondike, jest like I done, an’ decides to fade out here. They figgered if there was gold here like the papers claimed, there’d be pickin’s. They finances theirself with a couple of jobs on the north shore an’ lams.

“In Seattle they run acrost old Quince’s trail. They had to git rid of some stuff from them two jobs they pulled, an’ they found out how Quince had took a big loss on a lot of bonds—the bonds that they’d got on the mail-car job.

“Well, if a guy is in Seattle, turnin’ off his stuff at a loss, it’s a cinch he’s hittin’ fer the Klondike—like everyone else in Seattle is, except a man would live there. So Peanuts an’ the Dook takes on a new hope about Quince. But when they git to Dawson, Quince ain’t there—an’ no one has saw him. They hangs out at the Klondike Palace an’ contacts all the boys that’s on the make around Dawson, but no one has saw Quince—but he might be out on some crick. So they hangs around an’ cases some jobs but they don’t pull nothin’, an’ some of the Dawson boys puts ’em hep to that old can of Cush’s. They claimed it could be took like takin’ candy from a baby. Claimed they damn near took it one time but the job went wrong on account that a fat guy which they sent on ahead to case the job sold ’em out, an’ they was scairt they was goin’ to git hung by a miners’ meetin’, but the miners’ meetin’ turned ’em loose on account of no evidence, an’ they hung the fat guy theirself, on a crick back in the mountains.”

Black John nodded thoughtfully. “So that’s what become of him, eh? I kind of mistrusted they would, at that. But go ahead with yer story.”

“Well, there ain’t much more to tell. None of them Dawson boys wanted in on the job, but they told Peanuts an’ the Dook how to git here an’ that there wasn’t no cops here, nor nothin’, so they decided to come up an’ take the box alone.”

“How come they got in touch with you?”

“That was by accident. You see, old Quince he’s be’n moseyin’ up an’ down the crick, casin’ it, while he’s pretendin’ to look fer a location, an’ he looks over a cabin, down the crick, that used to belong to some guy named Olson, er some Swede name like that, an’ he figgers that this cabin would be a good place fer him to wait in while I was pullin’ the job, an’ then I would come down there with the stuff, an’ we could pull right out fer the big river, with a good start. So today I takes them supplies Quince bought off’n Cush—the ones I was supposed to help him up to Whisky Bill’s shack with the other day—an’ who in hell do I walk into but Peanuts an’ the Dook, which they jest got there this mornin’ an’ is figgerin’ on hangin’ out there till they kin case this job. Well, they both know’d me the minute they lamped me, an’ knowin’ that a job like this is right down my alley, they votes me in. I try to duck it, but settin’ there lookin’ at the Dook kind of fingerin’ that long-bladed knife of his whilst he was tellin’ about old Quince, I didn’t put up no hell of an argument—jest kind of stalled along. I sure as hell hate a knife—an’ I hate the way the Dook handles one—kind of lovin’ like while he touches the blade here an’ there with a little hone. So I’m counted in, an’ we leaves it that we’ll wait a few days an’ kind of case the job, an’ the git-away, an’ all.”

“Did you tell ’em about Beezely bein’ on the crick?”

“Hell—no! I know you don’t favor murder on Halfaday—an’ the way they feel about Quince, there’s no tellin’ what they’d do. They didn’t even know about the supplies I took down there. When I seen someone was in Olson’s cabin I left the supplies in the canoe, an’ when I come away I shoved up the crick a ways, an’ cached ’em in the brush, canoe an’ all, an’ come on up the foot trail.”

“That’s good,” approved Black John. “You done right.”

“But it leaves me in a hell of a spot—a damn sight worse than before. If I don’t throw in with Quince, he’ll turn me in. If I do, I git hung by miners’ meetin’. If I don’t throw in with Peanuts an’ the Dook, I git that long thin blade shoved between my ribs, an’ if I do, there’s that hangin’ again.”

Black John grinned. “Yeah,” he agreed, “it does look kind of ‘out of the fryin’ pan into the fire’ as the Good Book says, no matter which way you jump, don’t it? In sech case, if I was you, I’d pursue a middle course.”

“What do you mean? Damn it!” the man suddenly exclaimed. “You know—since I be’n up here, workin’ that claim of mine, I’ve felt better ’n ever I felt since I was a kid. I like it—like takin’ out that gold. I like to look at it an’ feel of it—an’ I like to think that it’s damn good an’ clean—it’s mine—an’—an’——Oh hell! I don’t know. Seems like I’ve kind of got a different slant on things, I guess. I was feelin’ fine till that damn Quince showed up—an’ now these two guys. I know’d ’em all before, back there in the States—an’ while I never really, what you could say, liked ’em—they seemed sort of all right. But now, listenin’ to ’em talk an’ all, I kin sort of see what a rotten lot of sons of bitches they are. But that don’t git me nothin’. ‘Once a crook always a crook’ is a true sayin’, I guess. No matter where a man goes, he can’t git away from ’em.”

“Oh, I don’t know, son,” Black John replied. “I guess mebbe it’ll work out all right, in the long run. Hell, I used to be more er less shady in my ethics, myself, an’ look at me now! You jest go ahead an’ do like I said—sort of let things drift. Cush will close up early Sunday night—but you won’t have to rob the safe. Beezely’ll be down the crick—waitin’ till you git there. Jest go ahead like he planned it—an’ let nature take her course.”

“But he’ll hit for Olson’s shack to wait! An’ that’s where Peanuts an’ the Dook are!”

“Yeah—that’s what you said.”

“But—they’ll kill him sure as hell—jest as soon as he sticks his nose in the door!”

“That,” said Black John dryly, “is merely a conjecture—simply an expression of opinion, on your part. To twist an old sayin’ around, if ‘better comes to best,’ an’ they should happen to knock him off—I wouldn’t know of no one that needs it more—except, mebbe, the two that killed him—would you? If they knock Beezely off, that will be their business. But, in doin’ so, they’d be committin’ a murder, an’ that would be our business. Murder ain’t condoned on Halfaday. We’d have to call a miners’ meetin’. An’ if they was found guilty, it looks like we might go the Good Book one better, an’ kill three birds with one stone instead of two.”