Читать книгу Black John of Halfaday Creek - James Beardley Hendryx - Страница 4

Other drinks were had. One-Armed John strolled in with a nice string of fish which Beezely, pretty well oiled, purchased for a five-dollar bill.

“Now,” he stated, holding the string up to admire it, “if we only had some means of preparing these we could have a good old-fashioned fish fry.”

Old Cush nodded. “I feel kind of fish-hongry myself,” he admitted and turned to One-Armed John. “Take ’em out back an’ gut ’em,” he ordered, “an’ give ’em to the klooch. Tell her to fry ’em good an’ brown, an’ fetch ’em in here along of some bilt spuds an’ some bread.”

“In the meantime,” suggested Black John, his thoughts on the thick roll that Beezely had returned to his pocket after peeling off One-Armed John’s five, “there ain’ nothin’ in the book that says we couldn’t be passin’ away the time with a little stud.”

“Ah, stud—a great game—a great game, indeed!” cried Beezely, with enthusiasm. “By all means let us play. It seems, my friends,” he beamed, “that at last my peripatetic feet have borne me to a safe haven amid congenial surroundings.”

“What did you say ailed ’em?” inquired Cush solicitously.

“Ailed them? Ailed what?”

“Why, yer feet. I’ve got some corn medicine that my third wife had. Yer welcome to try it. Her feet ailed her somethin’ fierce. She claimed it done ’em good.”

“There ain’t nothin’ the matter with Beezely’s feet,” explained Black John. “What he meant was that at last he figgers he’s lit in a spot he likes.”

“Oh,” grunted Cush. “Why in hell didn’t he say so, then? Them big words you eggicated folks uses only leads to the confusal of them that don’t onderstand ’em. Wait till I dig out a deck of cards.”

“Yeah,” said Black John, “an’ you better toss me a sack of dust out of the safe—an’ fetch along one of yer own, too—an’ the chips. This here game is liable to git good. I’ll fetch the bottle an’ glasses so you won’t have to be jumpin’ up all the time servin’ drinks.”

As Cush swung open the door of the old-fashioned iron safe, Black John noted that the beady black eyes of the attorney seemed fairly to bulge from their sockets at sight of the tiers of neatly-piled gold sacks and the thick packets of paper currency that nearly filled its interior. As a gold sack thudded onto the bar before Black John, Beezely reached out and lifted it in his hand.

“Gosh, it’s heavy for the size of it!” he exclaimed. “About how much gold would you say that it contains?”

“Oh, somewheres around eighty ounces,” Black John replied.

“And gold is valued at about twenty dollars an ounce, isn’t it?”

“Twenty sixty-seven at the mint,” replied Black John. “It passes around here fer sixteen.”

“Nearly thirteen hundred dollars in this little sack!” the other exclaimed. “Why, there’s a sizable fortune in that safe.”

“Yeah,” replied Black John indifferently. “Mostly it’s in bills, though. There ain’t a hell of a lot of gold in there now. It’s too bulky—takes up too much room, so every little while we take a batch of it down to Dawson an’ trade it off fer big bills. Must be clost to half a million in the safe, all told.”

The game proceeded and the chips piled steadily up in front of Beezely as both Cush and Black John consistently lost, so that when they cashed in, as the Indian woman deposited the platter of fried fish on the bar, the lawyer was some fifteen hundred dollars to the good.

“Just a little run of luck,” he smiled, as he counted up his chips, “and, if it’s just the same to you, I’d rather have paper money than gold. Your turn next,” he added, as he wrapped around his roll the bills which Cush counted out on the bar. “And now we’ll attack the fish—they certainly look appetizing, fried to a golden brown. That Indian woman of yours must be a wonderful cook.”

“She’s all right,” Cush admitted, “onct I got the idee into her head. But it was a hell of a job to learn her. When she first come, her notion of makin’ bread was to slop a dipperful of water into the top of the flour sack an’ mix around in it with her hands, an’ then lift out everythin’ that stuck together an’ lay it on the top of the stove to bake. But she finally ketched on after I’d shoved her face in the mess three er four times. You kin learn a klooch, if you’ve got patience.”

“Now, in the matter of an abode,” began Beezely, after the last of the fish had disappeared and he had cleansed his fingers and lips upon a handkerchief. “I was wondering if there is an empty cabin of some sort that I could occupy until such time as I may procure a suitable habitation of my own?”

“Well,” replied Black John, “there’s several shacks along the crick that’s be’n abandoned, fer one reason er another. Some of ’em’s on pretty good claims, too. My cabin’s right clost, an’ I’ve got an extry bunk. You better jest throw in with me till you kin look around a little. Bein’ as yer residence on Halfaday is liable to be more or less permanent, you don’t want to make no hasty mistake. Come on over an’ you kin make yerself to home, an’ we’ll come back later. Some of the boys’ll be driftin’ in this evenin’, an’ we kin mebbe git up a game of stud.”

Beezely readily accepted the invitation and, swinging his packsack over his shoulder, he followed Black John out the door where he paused and glanced toward the well-beaten trail that slanted steeply downward to the landing.

“The Indian who brought me turned back a few miles down the creek as soon as we came in sight of the fort,” he said. “I came on alone from there, and when I got here I was too tired to carry my pack up the bank. This sack I have here contains only a few—er—personal belongings.”

“Hold on a minute, an’ I’ll git yer pack,” said Black John, and stepping down the trail, returned a moment later with a well-filled packsack and led the way to his cabin on the bank of the creek, a short distance above the fort. Swinging the door open he motioned for the other to enter, and following him in, deposited the packsack on the floor and indicated a bunk made up with clean blankets. “That’s yourn,” he said. “Jest throw yer stuff in under it an’ make yerself to home.” As he spoke, the big man set a bottle and a pair of glasses on the table and indicated a rude chair. “Draw up,” he invited, “an’ we’ll have a little drink whilst you go ahead an’ explain what you meant by this here organization you mentioned. I figgered it would be better to kind of talk it over here—on account of Cush.”

“Mouthy, eh?” asked the lawyer as he seated himself and filled his glass.

“Well—no, I wouldn’t say Cush was exactly mouthy. Fact is, he don’t run off at the head no more ’n the average mud turtle. But he ain’t no hand to grasp new idees onlest they’re set before him in words of one syllable—er less. He’d be pesterin’ us with questions, an’ besides that, some of the boys might drift in an’ interrupt the flowin’ of our thoughts.”

“Quite right,” agreed Beezely. “I much prefer to talk man to man. A long and varied experience at the bar has taught me the danger of a witness. Now, I mean to cast no aspersions, but let us assume, man to man, that we have here on Halfaday Creek at least the nucleus of an extremely potent mob.”

“Meanin’?”

“Meaning that there are men here who would not balk at—well, for instance—robbery. Provided, of course, that the venture were well planned and carried out at some point far enough away from Halfaday so that no suspicion would fall upon any resident of the creek.”

“W-e-e-l-l,” replied Black John, drawing the word out reflectively. “I don’t know as I’d go so far as to say that any of the boys would actually an’ personally participate in no major crime. There’s some, mebbe, that I might suspect would possibly wink at some minor infringement of the law. But, fer the sake of argument we’ll assume that the material you would be needin’ could be sifted out.”

“Quite so. Of course, I realize that I can make no headway in this matter without your approval and co-operation. The plan is very simple. Merely, that we select a few—say a dozen or twenty men among whom would be specialists along different lines—and organize them into a mob. You would be in command at this end while I would go on to Dawson and look the ground over—find out where gold or currency is concentrated in quantities sufficient to interest us, and then case the job—find out all about the conditions under which it is held and the habits and character of its custodians. This information I would relay here to you, and your part would be to select the proper men for the job and send them down to me. In the meantime, of course, I would have established myself as an attorney in good standing, so that no suspicion could possibly fall upon me or upon anyone seen consulting me. The job would be pulled, and later the proceeds divided, all members of the mob participating in the profits. Of course, we would have to provide a fund—a fall-fund—which I would have at my disposal, for fixing the police, and in the event that something should go wrong, conducting the defense. How does the idea appeal to you?”

Black John hesitated, apparently in deep thought. “This here fall-fund that you would have,” he asked, at length, “would want to be a fairly good jag of ready cash, wouldn’t it?”

“The more the better. A mob with cash enough behind it can pull anything.”

“An’ where would we raise this here fall-fund?”

“Why, we would assess each member of the mob. Everyone would have to kick in with his share.”

“S’pose there would be some of the boys that wouldn’t have enough to kick in?”

Beezely’s thin lips smiled. “I guess we won’t have to worry about that. I saw enough in that old safe there in the saloon, gold and packages of bills, to finance a dozen mobs.”

“Yeah,” agreed Black John, “there’s considerable wealth in there, but——” He paused, and regarded the other with a smile. “An’ I don’t aim to cast no aspersions, no more than you did. Fer all I kin see yer motives is upright an’ honorable as mine is. But you kin see as well as I kin that if we dug up the fall-fund out of the safe—us Halfaday Crickers would be furnishin’ all of it—an’ you’d have the handlin’ of it an’ share in the profits of these here ventures. What I’m drivin’ at is—would you be in a position to put up a part of this fund?”

The attorney’s smile widened as he indicated with a jerk of his thumb the small packsack that lay on the bunk behind him. “No offense, I assure you. And, regarding my ability to put up my share, I will tell you that in that bag I have exactly ninety-six thousand dollars in currency.”

“You mean,” exclaimed Black John, “that you’ve got that much on top of the roll yer carryin’ around in yer pocket?”

“That flash roll is mere spending money—chicken feed. There’s not more than six or eight thousand in it. Are you satisfied? What do you say?”

“Well,” grinned Black John, “knowin’ the Northwest Mounted Police like I do, an’ Corporal Downey in partic’lar, I’d say that if our fall-fund was twict as big as what we could make it, we couldn’t even spit on the sidewalk in Dawson without gittin’ pinched. In fact, Beezely, the whole scheme is cockeyed. A mob like that wouldn’t git nowheres in the Yukon. It’s all right down in the States where you kin shift around amongst crooked policemen, an’ politicians, an’ prosecutors, an’ judges—but down here it’s different. There ain’ no politicians—an’ the Mounted is policemen, prosecutors an’ judges—an’ they ain’t crooked.”

“Every man’s got his price,” Beezely retorted.

“Yeah?” grinned Black John. “Well, when you find out Corporal Downey’s price, would you mind lettin’ me know what it is?”

“If you think the scheme is cockeyed, why were you so interested in knowing whether or not I could put up my share of the fall-fund?” asked the attorney.

“Merely fer yer own good,” the big man replied. “An’ mebbe fer our good, too. You see, when you come in to Cush’s I seen that you took good care that yer small pack, yonder, didn’t git no further than arm’s reach away from you at no time. Whilst we stood at the bar, it was right beside yer elbow, an’ when we went over to the table to play stud, you laid it beside yer chair. So I figgered that it contained somethin’ of value. I didn’t like to say nothin’ over there, on account of One-Armed John er the klooch might of listened in, so I invited you over here. The invitation stands—you kin stay here as long as you like—ontil you find a location of yer own—but I wanted to warn you that if you had anythin’ of much value in yer pack, you better deposit it in Cush’s safe. You took notice, I suppose, that the safe ain’t exactly empty—there’s better ’n a half million in it right now—an’ that’s because it’s the only place on Halfaday where a man kin keep his gold er his cash where it will be absolutely safe, an’ where he kin git it the minute he wants it. It’s a damn good, four-bolt safe. There can’t no one bust into it. Jest between me an’ you, I don’t mind admittin’ that there’s certain characters on the crick whose morals in regard to property is open to question. An’ I’d hate like hell to see one of ’em git their hands on yer ninety-six thousan’, nor yet on the roll you’ve got in yer pocket. Not only you’d lose the money but you’d immejitly an’ rightly report the loss to the police, an’ we’d have ’em up here on the crick, snoopin’ around till they found who done it. Like I told you, we keep Halfaday moral.”

“How about hiding the stuff some place?”

Black John grinned. “You could try cachin’ it if you want to. But, as the Good Book says, when in Rome, do as the roamers do. You seen fer yerself that Cush’s safe is the repository fer the wealth of Halfaday—an’ there’s a reason. Several has tried cachin’ their stuff, but somehow, no matter how careful they was, it always turned up missin’. If a man is suspected of havin’ a cache, he’s a marked man, an’ there ain’t no minute that there ain’t someone’s eyes on him. If they can’t locate it no other way, they watch him till he goes to it. Mebbe he goes to it only onct—when he’s pullin’ out of Halfaday—but that onct is enough.

“Sometimes we find his body; an’ sometimes we don’t—but in no case do we ever find his property. Of course, if it was only me an’ Cush that know’d you had the money, that would be different. But there’s One-Armed John an’ there’s the klooch. They seen what me an’ Cush seen—an’ don’t you fergit it. An’ from the time you walked out of that saloon ontil sech time as you’ve deposited yer property in the safe, there’ll be eyes on you every minute.”

“Do you mean, now?” asked Beezely, with a swift glance about the room. “You mean that someone is watching us now?”

“Well, not here in the cabin. But you kin bet on it that someone is watchin’ the door, an’ they’ll know if you carry that small pack when you go out er not—an’ I shore don’t want that much wealth cached around here. My advice is to carry it back an’ stick it in the safe—an’ most of that pocket roll along with it. I wouldn’t advise carryin’ around no more than a thousan’ at the outside. There wouldn’t hardly no one stoop to murder a man fer a mere thousan’.”

Beezely tossed off his drink and rose nervously. “Let’s be getting back to the saloon,” he said. “I’m obliged to you for giving me this tip. You think we can make it, do you? That is—there’s no danger of anyone bumping us off between here and there?”

“Oh hell, no! There won’t no one pull nothin’ whilst I’m around. It’s the stuff that’s pulled while I ain’t here that’s got me worried. Fetch yer pack an’ we’ll be goin’.”

The man stepped to the bunk, loosened the straps of the two packs and hastily slipped a package from the smaller into the larger one. Then he secured the smaller pack, and accompanied Black John to the saloon, keeping close beside him all the way as his beady eyes darted swift glances into the bush on either side of the trail.

Old Cush set out bottle and glasses as the two entered. When the glasses were filled, the attorney loosened the straps of the sack he had set upon the bar.

“I have considerable cash here,” he said, addressing Cush, “and my friend advised me to deposit it in your safe. I wish you would take it, and if there is any charge I’ll be glad to pay it.” As he spoke he lifted out packet after packet of bills of large denomination and piled them on the bar.

“There ain’t no charge,” Cush replied, his eyes widening at sight of the ever-increasing pile. “I’ll count it an’ give you a receipt.”

The counting took some time and, at its conclusion, the man pulled the thick roll from his pocket and counted off seven thousand more. “There you are,” he said, “one hundred and three thousand in good cash.” He paused and frowned as his eyes lingered on the pile. “And it should be more than double that!” he snapped. “I left Chicago in a hurry with plenty of hot bonds on my hands and hit Seattle without having made proper connections. The result was that I was forced to dispose of them to those damned coast crooks at a terrible sacrifice. I wanted to deal quickly, and the dirty thieves took advantage of me. But I’ll square the account sometime!”

Black John shook his head solemnly. “Tch, tch, tch,” he uttered. “Don’t it beat hell how some folks carries on? It’s almost enough to make a man lose faith in human nature.”

“Sure it is,” agreed Beezely indignantly. “I could have got twice that amount out of those bonds if I could have stayed on for a few days longer in Chicago, or had time to slip down to Frisco. It’s a damn shame how they’ll take advantage of a man. But, of late, it seems that every man’s hand is against me. Why, gentlemen—I haven’t even a relative in the world to turn to!”