Читать книгу Silvertip's Trap - Max Brand - Страница 7

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WHEN he got back to the shack in the woods, two days later, in the afternoon, he found Barry Christian walking up and down in front of the lean-to, smoking a cigarette. Christian's greeting was a marvel of nonchalance.

"Good time, brother?" was all he asked.

"It was all right," said Bill Naylor, rejoicing in equal calm. "Those bozos are printing some queer up there. There's about a million of 'em littered all around."

"Are there?" asked Christian indifferently.

"And here's that parcel," said Naylor.

Well, the nerves of Barry Christian were of the best steel, but the shock of pleasant suprise was too great for him to keep all emotion concealed. He could not help that flash of the eyes and that upward jerk of the head.

He took the parcel and unwrapped it right under the eyes of Bill Naylor. It contained only three small packages. One was of unset jewels. The other two were well-compacted sheafs of greenbacks.

Christian divided that loot into two heaps of equal size. Then he pushed them out on the top of a fallen log that lay across the door of the shack.

"Take either half you want, Bill," said he.

Naylor walked up to the treasure and stared down at it. Then he looked at Christian.

Bill Naylor felt that he was going to be a fool again. He could tell by the tremor of nerves up his spine. And suddenly the words came flooding out of his throat, past the unwilling tightness of his jaws.

"You grabbed this honey, and you cached it," he said. "I just went and collected it for you; that's all."

Barry Christian stared at him with troubled eyes.

"It's all right," said Bill Naylor. "You take that and put it in your kick. I've had plenty of cash out of you already. Take that and forget about my little job."

"No," said Christian in a queer, small voice. "I won't forget."

He wrapped up the money slowly, his eyes fixed on the distance. There was something in all this which baffled the great Barry Christian. It might mean money in his pocket, but there was something about it that he did not like.

Naylor wondered what it could be. There was something about what he himself had done—he, Bill Naylor—that Christian did not like. And that was strange! What had he done except do the most dangerous job he had ever tackled in his life? He had done that job, and he had got away with it. What more did Christian want?

This problem disturbed the mind of Bill Naylor. He was shaken literally to his soul with wonder.

He went off to cut some wood for the cooking of supper, and all the while that he was cutting the wood he was saying to himself: "What's wrong?"

But he solved the puzzle by merely deciding that he was just a "dumb mug," and that the case was over his head.

After supper they sat about in the gloaming, and he told Barry Christian everything. You could talk to a fellow like Christian. You could even say how afraid you were. With a fellow like Christian it was always better to be out in the open and not try to put anything over. So Bill Naylor didn't try to put anything over or play the hero. He told the truth.

He found that it was pleasant to tell the truth. He had never talked so much truth before, in such a short space, in all the days of his life. When you tell the truth, you don't have to work the old brain. You just sit still and see things again the way they were. You see them clearly, and the re-seeing is a good deal of fun. He even told how he had repeated all the way: "A step at a time."

"How old are you, Bill?" asked Christian.

"I'm old enough to know better."

"No, I'm serious. How old are you?"

"Thirty. Old enough to know a lot better."

"Young enough to learn," said Christian. "Young enough to learn a lot."

"A step at a time?"

"Yes," said Christian. "A step at a time, of course. Until you start jumping instead of stepping."

And yet Christian did not seem altogether pleased. All through the story he was squinting at the narrator as though he were seeing things at a great distance. And Bill Naylor was amazed indeed.

Before they turned in, Christian said: "You know Sheriff Dick Williams?"

"That hombre back there in the Crow's nest?"

"Yes."

"I know him. But what's more, he knows me."

"Well, they have nothing on you just now."

"No. But they can always dig something up. You know what they are like."

"I know. But would you go and talk to him for me?"

"Yeah. And why not?"

"Suppose you drop in and see the sheriff and ask him what he would do if the ghost of Barry Christian dropped in and had a chat with him. And while you're in Crow's Nest, find out how things are going with Duff Gregor, will you?"

"I'll make the trip tomorrow," said Bill Naylor.

He went over the next morning, jogging his horse. He had a strange sense of comfort that ran all through his being. He felt indeed that he could look any man in the world in the eye? Why? Well, because he had fetched that parcel back to Christian without so much as looking at the contents—and because he had refused to take his split of the stolen money. He never had done such a thing before in all his days. He could not recognize himself. It seemed that a ghost wearing his name must have performed these things.

When he got into the Crow's Nest, he saw the sunshine gleaming on the big hotels that faced each other from the divided peaks of the double mountain, and the town lying in the dimness of the hollow between.

He went by the Merchants & Miners Bank, which Henry Wilbur had built into such a great institution. Wilbur had done much for it, and the spectacular robbery which had been performed by Christian and Duff Gregor, parading as Jim Silver, had done still more. The robbery had advertised that bank all over the West, and men knew that Henry Wilbur had been on the point of sacrificing his personal fortune, and even his house and the books in his library for the sake of reimbursing his depositors. Well, such things make a bank strong. A good many people swore that they never would do banking of any kind from this time forward except through honest Henry Wilbur.

Well, there is a strength in honesty. It keeps you out of jail, for one thing.

Bill Naylor thought of that as he pulled up his horse in front of the jail. He had dismounted, and was about to tie his horse at a hitch rack when the man he wanted spoke just beside him, saying:

"Hello, Bill Naylor. I thought we'd always have to fetch you here. Didn't know that you'd come of your own accord!"