Читать книгу Silvertip's Trap - Max Brand - Страница 5

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THE cabin stood in a secluded corner between two hills, with a thick stand of trees all around it. There was only one drawback, and that was that Bill Naylor had to travel a distance to get water. On the other hand, the absence of water was what secured them from intrusion. For no man looking for a deserted camp was apt to go to a place where water had to be dug for.

So for five days Naylor patiently nursed Barry Christian through a quick, violent fever, and then saw him start to progress toward good health. Every day that brought him closer to normalcy was a day that brought Bill Naylor closer to a golden reward. He could not say how much there would be in it, but legend said that Barry Christian despised money—used it like water, in fact! And how he would pour it forth on a man who had saved his life and then nursed him back to health! It was a subject of day-dreams which soothed the hours for Bill Naylor.

He had plenty to do, what with changing the bandages, and cooking, and washing, and shaving the sick man, and then making trips to town every day in order to pick up news. And of news that was interesting to Christian, there was a great store.

Above all, he wanted to know the fate of Duff Gregor and of the next moves of Jim Silver.

About Gregor, the fact was that the evidence against him was certain to send him to prison. But the trial would not come for a number of days.

"Well," said Naylor, "money will get a slick lawyer, and a slick lawyer will help Gregor, if you wanta help him."

Christian looked at him with eyes of mild wonder.

"Why, Bill," he said, "Duff Gregor worked with me. I can't let him down."

"Aw, sure. I know," said Naylor. "A gent sticks by his partners, all right. But what can you do? You can't crack the world open like a nut, can you? You can't crack it open and give the insides of it even to your best friends."

"Is that the way you feel about it?" asked Christian.

"Why," said Naylor, "I'd stick by a partner. But when a gent is working outside the law, he's gotta take what's coming to him, don't he?"

"True," said Christian. "But if Duff Gregor goes to jail, part of my reputation goes to jail with him. There was a time, not so long ago, when I could say that some of my friends had been bumped off. Nobody can help a bullet from hitting its mark now and then. But I could also say that none of my crew was rotting in prison. It's different, now. It's a lot different, since Jim Silver got on the trail!"

He was silent, and the gloom which Naylor rarely saw in his face now clouded it darkly.

"I know," said Naylor. "Silver's a devil. Everybody says that. And he's hounded you for a long time. But you've about used up your bad luck, and the next trick may be yours."

"Aye," said Christian. "There'll be no doubt of that. The next time I get a chance, a bullet goes through the brain of him. I won't wait to do a fancy job. Once, Naylor," he added bitterly, "I had him tied in a chair with a fuse burning and enough dynamite under him to blow up a hundred men. I walked out of a locked house and left him to go smash. And that was the time that Taxi walked in through the locks and turned him loose again. And just the other day, because of the way I played the game, I had Silver locked in a jail for another man's crooked work, and a whole town of armed men hungry to lynch him. And Taxi walked into that jail and took Silver out. But, of course, you know well the story of that.

"I've been like a king, Naylor. I've had men around me, every one of whom was fit to lead a gang. But where are they now? Prison, most of 'em. Some of them haven't been caught, but they're scattered. And those that have wangled their way out of prison are scattered, too. The last thing they want is to work with me again.

"Again if Duff Gregor goes to the pen, then the rest of the crowd will be surer than ever that I'm bad luck for the fellows who are my partners. But if I can get Duff Gregor out of prison now that the eyes of the whole world are on him—if I can get him out safe and sound and put him on his feet as a free man again, every one of the old partners will begin to think of the golden days before the pack was broken up. They'll want to run with the old leader. You understand?"

"Aye," said the other. "You have a long head, Barry." He added: "But you could make plenty of money all by yourself. Why do you want to team up with anybody? You could be rich and safe, all by yourself. It's having partners that gets a fellow into trouble. There's Gregor, now. You got him on your mind. But if you were playing a lone hand, you wouldn't worry about anything except about your own cards."

Christian nodded. "But what's the pleasure, Bill?" he asked. "To drift about by oneself and do a fat job now and then and rake in a load of money? Is that exciting? No, it's only a cheap game."

Naylor blinked as he listened. A great deal of this was far above his head.

Christian explained: "But when I had my organization built up, I could speak a word in Butte City and start a man moving in old Mexico. I had big lawyers on my pay roll. I had safe crackers, second-story workers, and every kind of a handy man you could ask for. They were scattered, but they were always with an ear to the ground, waiting for orders. And around me I had a dozen men always, the pick of the land, every one of them hard as steel and true as steel. Men like you, Bill."

A shudder of joy ran-through the body of Bill Naylor He swallowed and said nothing.

"I want to build the great machine again," said Christian. "And I'm going to wangle it. But the first step is about Duff Gregor. I've got to get him free. My reputation isn't worth an egg till Gregor's free again."

"I see," said Naylor vaguely.

"Silver!" exclaimed Christian. "What's the latest news about him? Now that the whole town of Crow's Nest is making a god of him, I suppose he'll settle down there and marry the banker's millions and get fat."

Naylor squinted his eyes and shook his head.

"Men say," he remarked, "that Silver and the girl have been a whole lot together. But now he's disappeared again. All at once he was gone, and didn't leave a thing except a letter behind him. And no forwarding address."

Christian closed his eyes and nodded.

"That clears the field for me a little," he said. "But as long as Silver stays on the trail, I know that his eyes are going to be sharp and his hand quick. And the moment he settles down—yes, for as much as six months—I'll come down on him and find him only half the man that he used to be! But I'm glad to have him out of the way in Crow's Nest."

"Look at him, what kind of a crazy gazoo he is," said Bill Naylor, still shaking his head. "There he goes and has more'n anybody could ask for in his hands. And he don't take it! He won't even take the cash reward that they wanted to give him. He won't even let his partner, Taxi, know where he's gone. He just fades out of the picture, and that's all there is to it. His hands are as empty right now as they were before there was all the trouble. What does he get?"

"He gets reputation," said the other man gloomily. "There's not a boy in the whole West that doesn't dream at night and think that he's Jim Silver, riding Parade. There's not a lad on the whole range that doesn't tell himself he'd be willing to die if he could be Jim Silver for ten days. Think of Crow's Nest, now. The fathers are telling their sons that Jim Silver is the right sort of a man. The women are telling Jim Silver stories to their babes. And Barry Christian is lying here in a ragged little shack in the woods, realizing that he's got to start almost at the beginning."

His voice changed suddenly as he looked toward Bill Naylor.

"No," he said. "I'm not as far back as at the beginning. I have you, Bill."

"Yes," said Naylor with emotion. "You have me, partner."

Christian held out his hand and gripped that of the other man.

"I don't thank you," he said. "The time hasn't come for that. Besides, words don't mean a thing. But I have you, Bill, and the knowledge of that makes me feel strong. I have you, and I have one other thing."

"What's that?" asked Bill Naylor.

"Something I'm going to ask you to get for me. It's only two days' ride away."

"Can you fend for yourself?" asked Naylor.

"I can," said Christian. "I can sit up, and I can move about, slowly. You can cook up some grub before you start, and I'll take care of myself."

"All right," said the other. "Put a name to it, and I'll try my hand."

"I want you to ride south," said Christian, "till you come to the Blue Water Mountains. I want you to ride up the Blue Water River till you get to the town of Blue Water. I want you to go into a certain old house there, and down in the cellar of it you'll find a certain room, and in the room there's a brick floor, and under some of those bricks there's a hole, and in that hole there's a parcel wrapped in canvas and oiled silk. Will you get it for me and bring it here?"

"I'll get it," exclaimed Bill Naylor with a savage earnestness. "I'll get it, Barry, if I have to wade though fire for it! And if it held a diamond that weighed ten pounds, I wouldn't as much as look inside the wrappings. I'll bring it back to you exactly the way it is when I find it!"

He was half blinded by his enthusiasm, and therefore he did not see or attach any significance to the slight smile that stirred the lips of Barry Christian before this speech had ended.