Читать книгу Valley of Vanishing Men - Max Brand - Страница 6

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PASSION was strong in young Ben Trainor, and it almost mastered him now. The tide of it made him want to drive straight at the fellow of the black mustache. Then he remembered that, like a fool, he had not brought a gun. For that matter, he was no expert with a revolver. He could shoot his share of meat with a rifle, but a revolver, in his life of work, was an almost useless adornment. And such fellows as this one of the mustache were fairly sure to be experts. He had the look of a fighter. The long scar that jagged down a side of his cheek was the sort of a thing that a knife stroke might have registered.

Besides, there were other ways of getting hold of a knife than by murdering the owner.

He stepped to the next table, saying:

"Pardon me, stranger. That's a good-looking knife you have there."

The fellow was smoothing absently, with the tips of his fingers, the stick which he had been whittling. Now he looked up rather askance at Trainor, and the turn of his head brought out the bulging strength of his neck tendons.

"Yeah," he said. "It's a pretty good knife."

His paw gathered the knife, his thumb clicked the blade shut, and he dropped it into his pocket. There was profound insolence in the action, as though to stop with it any further talk on the subject. And the suspicions of Trainor burned up to a white heat.

"Can a fellow buy knives like that in this town?" he asked, controlling his voice.

"Yeah, if you know which pawnshop to try in," said the other.

He stood up from his chair and looked Trainor up and down. Then he turned his back to stride away toward the bar.

"Wait a minute," said Trainor, touching his shoulder.

That shoulder was hard-padded with muscles. The chunky man spun around at the touch.

"Yeah? Yeah?" he queried angrily. "What's the matter now? Wanta know something more? Wanta find out where you can buy some soap and give yourself a clean start?"

Two or three of those idlers at the bar began to laugh loudly.

"Wake him up, Blacky," said one of them.

And that bartender with the twisted face was smiling—on one side only.

"You're talking pretty hard talk, partner," said Trainor.

"If I was your partner," the man called Blacky said, "I'd change my job and get a new kind." And he opened his mouth and laughed in Trainor's face.

It was a great deal too much. The hand of Trainor moved like a flash beyond his control. The flat of it struck squarely across the open mouth of Blacky.

"Hi!" yelled two or three voices at the bar. "Let him have it, Blacky!"

Blacky had accepted the blow and stopped laughing. He was smiling now, instead. And then, putting up his guard, he moved in at Trainor with little dancing steps, the left fist jerking out in feints at the head, the right hand poised for serious business. He had his jaw tucked down behind the shelter of his massive left shoulder, and Trainor knew that he had on his hands an artist in fisticuffs.

Well, Trainor was no such artist, but he could stand blows and give them. He tried the effect of a hearty right swing for the head followed by a smashing straight left. Blacky blocked the first, ducked the second, and as he straightened, exploded a punch on the chin of Trainor that dropped him into a deep well of darkness.

He wakened with an acrid smell of dust in his nostrils, and found himself lying on his face in the street. They had flung him out there like a dog, and inside the saloon he could hear the noisy, laughing, cheerful voices.

He turned, ready to plunge in through the swing doors and fight to a finish. But he checked himself before he had taken a step, for a tall, sallow man who leaned against a hitch post near by was saying:

"It's no good, kid. They've got you licked once. Why give 'em a chance to lick you a second time?"

The advice was good and true, and Trainor walked slowly down that street, rubbing the sore lump that was rising on his jaw.

These men of Alkali were hard. They were very hard. They were too much, perhaps, for a fellow of his caliber to compete against. Mere strength of nerve and hand would not turn the trick against them. Instead, there would have to be brain work, and perhaps the power of the law would help.

He went to the office of John Mahan, the deputy sheriff.

John Mahan was a little man with a big chest and a big head. He was standing, now, saying to one of those black-coated fellows of the gambling ilk:

"And if I go down there and start looking over your roulette wheel, I'm going to look deeper than the floor. I'm going to root up the whole damn place. I've heard too much talk about you, and if I hear any more, you're going to get news from me that'll scorch you up. Now get out of here and get good."

The other man went out with a sick smile that was intended for defiance. Mahan turned to Trainor and demanded:

"Now, what's eating you?"

"I've just swallowed a punch on the chin," said Trainor calmly, "but that's not why I'm here."

"Just in to pass the time of day?" asked the aggressive deputy. "Is that it?"

"My name is Benjamin Trainor," he answered. "I have a brother named Clive Trainor. He left this town more than three weeks ago intending to be gone only a few days. He went into the desert and he hasn't come back."

"Sorry," said the deputy sheriff. "Who went with him?"

"I don't know."

"Well," said Mahan impatiently, "what do you want me to do about it?"

Anger flushed the face of Trainor.

"I want you to listen to what I have to say without jumping me at every second word," he exclaimed.

Mahan looked him over calmly.

"All right, all right," he said, with a gesture. "I'll listen. But I can't listen long. This job of mine ain't a sitting-and-listening job. It's an up-and-doing job. Go ahead."

"Back there in the Golden Hope saloon," said Trainor, "I saw a fellow with a bushy pan of black mustaches—short, heavy chunk of a man—and he was whittling a stick with my brother's knife. Blacky, they called him."

"Blacky?" said the deputy sheriff. Then he pursed his lips and whistled.

"I tried to find out where he got that knife, and I collected a punch on the chin instead."

"Blacky's been in the ring," said the sheriff.

"I picked myself out of the street and came down here to see what the law will say about things."

"The law says that Blacky is a tough hombre," said Mahan. "It says that he has some tough backing behind him. But the law says that if it can get a grip on Blacky, it'll sure put him behind the bars. Where do you hang out?"

"At Wilbur's Hotel."

"Go back there and wait. I'll try to get some news for you. Maybe I'll get Blacky while I'm getting the news."