RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Short Stories, 10 March 1929, with "Discovery Gulch"
The Gulch was goin' into its worst days, ready to sink under a load o' accumulated wickedness. The diggin's was played out, there was blamed near one crook for every honest man. Lights burned pritty red, murder was plumb organized, and there hadn't been a jury trial since God knows when.
—Narrative of Four-Finger Blackie, sole remaining resident of Discovery Gulch.
DISCOVERY GULCH, perched halfway up the canyon side, with its front door cut into the soil and its back door hanging over the abyss on stilts, had turned to evening pleasures—the hectic, strident pleasures of a thoroughly unreformed mining camp. From the Sweet Kitty Belle on along to the Lost Bonanza was a succession of smoky, glittering lights. Eight saloons, all full, were a-flood with brawling echoes, the cry of men in liquor, the slurred and tuneless speech of the professional gentlemen, the jingle of the piano intertwining with this Nellie's or that Fanette's rendition of the moment's favored song. The wall lamps, winking like fireflies, played down on humanity in one of its looser postures—upon swart faces glistening and animated, twisted with laughter or distorted out of rage; upon clay-plastered shirts and upon the white starched fronts of the gamblers wherein the diamond studs blazed; upon the tinsel of a dancing skirt. And it fell upon the gold in the pokes along the bars, creating molten puddles. Across those bars passed a ceaseless commerce of hands, all outstretched, all groping like talons.
Out and away from that bright bedlam stepped three gentlemen—each coming from a different spot in the town, each taking an obscure route through the darkness to converge at a point directly behind the Lost Bonanza. They were careful enough to challenge down the shadows as they met and to drop their voices to a whispering pitch; and although nobody saw them and there was no particular need for it, each drew a bandanna above the bridge of his nose and exchanged a quick and peculiar grip of hands. The parley lasted but a moment.
"Stage will leave half an hour earlier in the mornin'," said one. "Wells Fargo's got an idea to take somebody off guard. That's ten o'clock."
"All right. Collect the gang at the usual spot. We'll ride to Three Mile Creek and take it there."
"No," interposed a third. "That'd make the job happen before ten-thirty. Won't do. It's got to happen after ten-thirty. Understand."
"That's so. Well, at Hangman's ford, then. How's that?"
"Agreed."
That was all. They separated and slipped away, returning to the swirling lights of the saloons.
Neal Falk? Well, Neal was a terror to the Gulch. He done it deliberately. Either that or he'd soon been dead. Remember, every gunman in the state honed to try a draw with him. Every step he took was jus' one more tords death. Silent? Why, he was an enigma to the Gulch an' remained so to the very end of the story:—Four-Finger Blackie.
EXACTLY at half past nine in the morning Neal Falk, marshal of Discovery Gulch, emerged from the shanty that was his home and walked slowly toward the Lost Bonanza. At this hour it should normally have been deserted save for the swampers; all miners should have been at work on their claims. Yet the diggings were playing out and men had come to the dangerous pastime of idling the days away inside the saloons. So there were many witnesses when Neal Falk entered the Lost Bonanza, took a seat at a corner table, drew out both guns and laid them before him. From another pocket he found a home-made ramrod and a wiping rag. Picking up one of the weapons, he ejected the shells and began to clean the barrel with the scrupulous care of one vitally interested in the result. It was to be observed—as those present did observe with covert glances—that while he worked on one gun the other was within reach, ready for use. It was further noted that Neal Falk took his customary seat in the corner, in a position to command the door's entrance and the bar alike. With Falk thus seated, nobody could come up behind him unobserved.
He was a figure of fame in Discovery Gulch. His name and the legends associated with it were common property throughout the state. And whenever men talked of noteworthy gunfights they sooner or later dwelt upon one or more of the encounters in which Neal Falk had been a participant. In point of physique he failed to follow the accepted gunfighter type, for he was ruggedly built and in action seemed slow. His shoulders were the biggest part of him, his fingers quite stubby and apparently more fit for handling a rope than aught else. Therefore, it was an endless source of debate in the Gulch as to where, during the course of a battle, Neal Falk managed to assemble muscle, speed and judgment for that flaming second he faced his adversary. He owned a tanned, oval face and a broad forehead across which fell a black cowlick; and his eyes, blue in color, sat quite deep in the sockets. He had never been seen to smile, save after a duel, and then it was not so much a smile as a release of suppressed energy that drew back the muscles around his eyes and lips.
Yet he once had been a smiling man. Old-timers in the Gulch recalled that he had smiled easily two years ago. That was the date of his inaugural as marshal. Four marshals had preceded him in the office, and all had died within a month of their stewardship. Thus, Neal Falk had outlived by more than six times the allotted span, according to the law of averages, and each succeeding fight seemed to draw him nearer that grim conclusion, to that inevitable day when a faster man's gun would speak in the breathless street and he would pitch forward in the dust, gripping a silent weapon. It was ordained. The legend that surrounded him like a halo inevitably drew fighters toward Discovery Gulch as a magnet draws steel filings. One by one they had tried conclusions with him, and again and again the Gulch had the same picture of Neal Falk—stooping a little, shoulder swung aside as he stared across the wisp of his own powder smoke, his guns lying rigid along his palms as if to mark irrevocably the path of the bullet. Always he drew both pieces, yet never fired more than one of them. That was the mystery the opposing fighters never yet had solved—which gun he would use, which way his shoulders would swing. And always there would pass across his face the release of energy that looked like a smile, before he turned and walked off, a little grimmer than before.
He finished cleaning one gun and took the other. Those in the saloon watched him repeat the operation, and no matter how they hated him or feared him or loved him, a strange premonitory thrill passed through them like a cold breeze when he rose, set both weapons in the holsters and squared his shoulders. They might have set their timepieces by that rising, so unvarying had this custom become. It was ten o'clock sharp and his day had started. Next to the departure of the stage—which had left early this morning for some unaccountable reason—Marshal Neal Falk's ceremony was the most dramatic. A dozen reasons conspired to make it so. Out along the streets of the town were certain newcomers waiting for a time to test him; a full half of the town itself was set against him and most of the rest doubted him; but the thing that never failed to stir the Gulch profoundly was that Neal Falk, in using a table in the Lost Bonanza to clean his guns, entered the headquarters of his deadliest enemy. The Lost Bonanza belonged to Niger Duluth, and it was common knowledge that Niger Duluth only delayed the day when he, himself, would match bullets with Neal Falk. The Gulch had long believed this and long waited for the event; yet so sodden and corrupted with intrigue had the decadent mining town become that many men now doubted the enmity and wondered if in reality Neal Falk were not a part of Duluth's ring.
As Neal Falk stood by the table, a thoughtful, introspective figure, the outer door swung back and Niger Duluth came in, escorting a girl. Niger was a squat, broad and spider-like man, massive down to the watch chain he wore and the yellow gold rings on his fingers. Withal, he had a certain gallantry of appearance and he displayed it in his manner as he crossed the room with the girl and motioned her up along the stairway leading to the balcony booths. He was aware of Falk's presence yet gave the marshal no glance. As for Falk, his eyes followed the pair and his face seemed to settle a little, become older. The girl was not one of the Lost Bonanza dancers, nor of any other saloon in town. She wasn't of that type; she seemed fresher and she had no gay glances for the loitering miners as she passed. Falk caught a gesture of her arm as Niger Duluth took hold of it to help her on the stairs, and that gesture betrayed her. No dancing girl repulsed Niger.
It was an old and familiar scene. The two of them appeared in a booth above and Niger's swart face stared down upon the barkeep. "Champagne, Jerry, and two clean glasses." Then the man's gorilla arms swept the burlap curtaining together and closed the booth.
Falk watched the barkeep skipping up with the champagne; he watched the barkeep come down, grinning slyly. And all eyes turned to Falk as he moved across the room. Ordinarily his prescribed path led him to the street and to the restaurant for his breakfast. This time, he headed for the stairs. The crowd stopped its idle muttering to observe. The marshal rounded out of their sight and stood a moment in the corridor as if not yet quite sure of himself. It was only for a moment. He crossed to a door marked "I", and without bothering to knock, opened it and entered. The girl turned toward him as if in relief. Niger was in the very act of knocking the top off the champagne bottle. His muddy eyes settled on Falk—not in anger, for Niger seldom wasted anger on any man, but in a flickering watchfulness.
"Step outside, Niger," Falk said. "I'm talkin' to this lady before she seals any bargains."
Niger Duluth set the bottle carefully on the table. For so heavy a man he could command a surprisingly soft drawl. "It ain't hardly your play, is it, Falk?"
"You know me well enough, Niger. I ain't given to premature moves. I'll take the responsibility."
Niger's fist squeezed together on the table top. He studied the girl until she dropped her eyes. He stared at Falk. And still in the soft manner he answered the marshal. "Ain't exactly in line o' duty is it, Falk? Ain't a very good excuse to force an issue, is it? She any relation to you—any interest to you? Didn't think I was poachin' none."
"Step outside, Niger," Falk repeated. "No, your time ain't come with me yet. I'm just talkin' to the lady."
Duluth raised his pudgy fingers and even in the poor light the great diamonds sparkled. "Fair enough." He rose and passed to the door. Falk stood silent, listening to the man's footsteps creaking on the stairway; and presently he crossed to the curtains and ripped them back to command Duluth until the latter had left the saloon door. He sat down in the vacated chair, sweeping bottle and glasses aside. At close observation she was more mature than he had supposed, more in command of herself. About twenty-five, he judged. She had chestnut hair and eyes touched by recent tragedy. Her lips were pressing back some clamoring emotion—the bitter pent feelings of one who had struggled to keep some harsh, unnatural resolve and was even now attempting to maintain that resolve. It threw her face out of its line of comeliness, Falk decided. She had literally uprooted herself, or been uprooted, from gentle surroundings to come to Discovery Gulch, the last place in all the Territory for a decent woman.
"Ever drink champagne before?" he asked, quite grave.
"No. And I hadn't intended to drink it now."
"Ever been in a dance joint before?"
She shook her head. Falk bent forward to watch the light ripple across her eyes. For a long, long while he held that glance. At first it fell softly on her features; but as the moments lengthened it bore against her like a drill, causing something akin to physical pain, seeming to dredge down and down until her very secret was in danger of being torn out of her breast. In that silent booth he loomed larger and larger, a sinister, implacable figure surrounded by legends. She had heard of him before, never believing the tales told of him, doubting that any man could possess the power he was accredited with; but as he sat there she felt a wave of fear sweep through her and she dropped her eyes. The color flooded to her cheeks. She felt as if she were being stripped.
"I thought not," Falk murmured, relaxing. "You ain't that type. The tales of big money wouldn't interest you particularly, either. Ma'am, you've got something on your chest. Something that's drivin' you here and makin' you do what you don't want to do."
"How can you know that?" she cried, pulling back. "You don't know me. You've never seen me before!"
"That's true," said Falk. "But I've seen many men driven by desperation. Seen 'em come toward me to kill me. Not exactly wanting to kill me, understand, but forced to the attempt by somethin' inside. Seen the look in their eyes just before they died. Always the same look, the same acts, the same words. It's in you now. You want to be a dancin' girl to carry out some idea of yours. Well, you had better reconsider."
She moved an arm. Her hand dropped to the table, holding a derringer. "There's all the protection I need."
"Against men, yes," Falk agreed. "But not against waggin' tongues nor against gossip that'll follow you like a brand mark the rest of your life."
"I've got to live," she said. "I must stay in Discovery Gulch until— Anyhow I've got to live while I'm here."
"There's a job open in the restaurant for you," Falk said.
"No there isn't. I've asked there."
"The job's open now," Falk repeated. He got up and moved toward the door. "You come with me."
She was still in her chair, staring at a corner, half in anger, half in defiance. Falk watched her a moment. "It ain't polite to ask anybody's business in this place. I'm not askin' yours. But I will observe that if you're lookin' for somebody, you'll see him sooner or later in the restaurant. Or if you want to find a certain piece of information, you hear it sooner or later over pie and coffee. It's a better joint for that than a saloon."
That startled her. She dropped the derringer in her pocket and got up. "I believe what men say about you now, Neal Falk."
"What men say about me makes no difference. I've put the fear of God in 'em and so it will remain until I go down. If you will step over to the restaurant with me—"
"Oh, I'll come."
He bowed and led her downstairs. The crowd gave way to let them pass. Falk turned a moment to the bartender. "Go get that bottle of champagne, Jerry. The lady don't drink." Out in the street he looked around to find Niger Duluth, but the saloon man had vanished. Falk said nothing more, yet he was struck with the suppleness of the girl as she walked beside him. There must have been a time when gaiety came naturally to her clear face, when her eyes were bereft of the reflected glow of that fire burning inside her like the slow smoldering of a peat bed. He motioned inside the restaurant door. The owner, a thin, dyspeptic character, looked up warily.
"I brought you a lady for that job you got, Keeps," Falk announced.
"What job?" Keeps growled. But after a moment's inspection of the marshal's oval countenance he amended his attitude quickly. "Oh, yeah. All right, ma'am. Pleased to have you. Coffee an' sinkers as usual, marshal?"
Falk nodded. The girl disappeared through the kitchen door and only reappeared when Falk had finished his breakfast and was ready to leave.
"I suppose I should thank you, Mr. Falk. I suppose I ought to be grateful. But—that must wait." Her gaze fell to his wrists and remained there a moment.
Falk nodded, paid his bill and went outside. The bright sun slashed along the dusty street, unmercifully revealing all the town's ugliness. There was a woolly pup worrying at a bone by the restaurant door and for quite an interval the marshal watched it, head dropped forward on his chest. Everything this man did held drama for the citizens of the Gulch and more than one of them spied on him as he towered above the dog, engrossed in its antics. He who had extinguished so many lives was here spending his time, seemingly oblivious to aught else. Yet he had noted instantly a figure lolling in a shaded angle near the Sweet Kitty Belle; another stranger waiting to try guns, another man stalking him and watching for the unguarded moment; another readying himself to die.
Falk moved on and stepped inside his shanty, and again men might have set their watches by the swing of the shanty door. It was exactly ten-thirty and he would not reappear on the street until one. This was his custom, this was a part of the schedule he had so painstakingly built up for the benefit of those human wolves who lusted for his blood. At all indications he was inside the shanty, yet the Gulch knew from hard experience he was somewhere else. More than once some extraordinary turbulence at the ends of the town had brought him into sight, coming from unexpected angles, dropping right on their backs. Nobody understood how he transferred himself from the shanty to these odd points. They could only guess. And so he kept them in uncertainty, stalked them like an unseen presence and left them to grumble and worry. He moved around that town, a harsh and rugged figure of retribution, unsmiling and unsleeping. He was marked for death and he knew it. Every man in the diggings down to the humblest Chinese gravel picker knew it. Day by day they waited for the event while the very air grew choked with a tension that seemed on occasion to sing like strings on a taut instrument.
Was Neal Falk honest? Me, I didn't know. Nobody else knew except Neal Falk and he wasn't tellin'. At the beginnin' when the town was decent we figgered him to be square. But at the last the crooks got control and they was lots of folks to tell you Neal Falk had thrown in with 'em to save his life. He trusted nobody. Everybody feared him like the plague. He kept violence down, but it was a losin' fight and it come to be common knowledge that the big issue in the Gulch was whether Falk would die or whether he'd wipe out his enemies. You see, the Gulch was decayin' and it got to the point where Neal Falk was bigger than the towns:—Four-Finger Blackie.
IT was just around noon when the street began to fill with men from the diggings that the stage was seen careening down the canyon side. The fact that it was not due back from the railroad junction across the pass until late night, and the further fact that only one man sat up on the seat, was sufficient to draw the crowd to the sidewalks as the lumbering vehicle coasted along the ruts and stopped by the Lost Bonanza. The horses were heavy with lather, there was a scattering of bullet holes through the wood, and all eyes instantly fell upon the aperture beneath the seat where the strong box was ordinarily strapped. It was gone and the straps had been slashed with a knife.
The driver's left side seemed to be of no use to him. He seemed to hear none of the questions pouring up from the crowd. Quite methodically he wrapped the reins around the brake handle and edged over to dismount. But his body relaxed beneath him and he fell head first into outstretched arms, crying as he fell.
"Tell the Jessamine super they got the bullion—flagged me at Hangman's ford. Me, I got sense, but Josh Hinkle made a fight of it. He's dead with his head in the crick." The Jessamine was the big syndicate mine of the Gulch. Josh Hinkle had ridden out of town that morning as guard, with a shotgun propped between his knees. The stage driver murmured something else that nobody heard. Then he was so much dead weight in the arms of the miners. They packed him to the Lost Bonanza bar and stretched him out. Bedlam broke loose. A man took a full bottle of whisky and dripped it on the stage driver's face, nearly strangling the fellow before the bottle was knocked away and sent spinning like a top across the mahogany. Somewhere in that camp was a disgraced physician and him they sent for, while threat and counter-threat swirled through the room. The medico, it was presently reported, lay in the Sweet Kitty Belle, dead drunk. Thereupon a veterinary was sought. But before such quasi-professional aid arrived, the stage driver revived and called for a drink.
"Six in the party. Yeah, naturally they was all masked. Oh, I'm all right. Jus' sorta disconnected temp'rarily in m' shoulder. They figgered they'd crated me away. I sagged on the seat and played possum. Where? How the hell do I know where they went? Up in the hills, box an' all. Well, a fine time they'll have luggin' them bars over the landscape. Lemme down, I got hosses to take care of."
The crowd parted. Niger Duluth came swinging down the lane with the angular, sliding gait of a mammoth spider. The yellow dust sat on his blue coat, a blue bandanna neckpiece hung askew over one shoulder. The stage driver eyed the saloon proprietor warily, staring into the latter's eyes with a peculiar intensity. Duluth was booming at the crowd. "Well, boys, it's work for a posse, ain't it? Come on, come on. Git your hosses. We'll trail them road agents." He stopped in front of the stage driver. "Pinked you, huh? Masked, was they? Six? Think you'd know any of 'em, boy?"
The driver massaged his lame shoulder. A drop of blood ran down his finger tips. He seemed afraid of Duluth, which was not uncommon in the Gulch, yet he stood his ground, answering almost defiantly. "How would I know 'em?"
"Told Sheriff Tipstone about it yet?" Duluth pursued.
"Tipstone? Ha—Tipstone! What would I be tellin' him for?" And for all his uncertainty he managed an ironic grin. The driver was not very old and he had his moments of rashness. "I'm drivin' stage. It's what I'm paid for, not to identify crooks. I'll let you gents take care of that."
He shouldered by Duluth and headed for the door. But the door was nearly filled with the bulk of Neal Falk. The marshal had dropped out of the sky again, a grave and listening figure in all this turmoil. The crowd, turning to watch the driver depart, saw Falk for the first time. And as always happened, a semi-silence came over them. Niger Duluth's head rolled forward on his short neck as if to see the marshal better; his short, sardonic laugh rolled across the interval.
Falk paid no attention. He was speaking to the driver.
"Bullet lodge in your frame, boy?"
"No, it jus' pinked me, Falk."
"You go on home then and slap a little poultice on it. This soft-nose lead is apt to leave a poison. Tell you what—come on to the restaurant and we'll plaster some beefsteak on the raw spot."
Niger Duluth laughed again and turned a skeptical eye to the crowd. "The drinks is on the house," said he. "Ain't it too bad the marshal don't imbibe while on duty?"
Falk walked slowly along the sidewalk with the stage driver. "Know anything particular, boy?"
The driver looked up, still sullen. "I'm mindin' my own business, Falk. What I know ain't for consumption."
"My advice to you," Falk said gravely, "is to go home and stay there till dark. After dark you put your possibles on a horse an' leave the country. Waste no time about it."
"Sure. Sure! They meant to get me, but they didn't. Oh, I know I'm marked! They'll put a bloodhound on my trail. I'll go down. Damn 'em, they was masked, but I'd know one by a cataract—" He bit the sentence in the middle. He had strong white teeth, this driver, and when he drew his lips back from them he seemed like an animal at bay. "Why should I be tellin' you? And what's the idea of you wantin' to save my skin?"
Falk shook his head. "I don't want to see you die. The Gulch has devoured enough men. The hills is littered with broken bones. Better leave, son."
A man came down the street in long, shambling strides, swinging his arms like flails. He was as tall as Falk, but older—going on to middle age. His hair was rust-colored below the brim of his hat, his features gaunt and florid. A star swung loosely from his vest. This was Sheriff Tipstone coming on a summons to the saloon. He stopped by the two men, flashing a swift and narrow glance across them. "You come back with me," he said, indicating the stage driver. "Want to question you. Mebbe have you ride back with us."
"No, I ain't goin'," the driver grumbled. "Horses to take care of and m'self to fix. It ain't my fight. I tol' the boys all I knowed."
Tipstone's nose twitched. He shifted his look to Neal Falk, and the two of them, great-framed and taciturn, seemed to wage a silent struggle for possession of the slim youth standing between. "You takin' a personal interest in this, Falk?" Tipstone murmured.
Falk shook his head. "It's outside of my province, Sheriff. But would you be wantin' any particular help in this case?"
Tipstone refused to answer the question. "Gettin' a little information from the boy, eh? Mebbe givin' him a little in return?"
"He's keepin' his own counsel," Falk replied imperturbably. "As for me, I told him the country ain't healthy to live in."
"Sound—comin' from you," Tipstone muttered, and swung away. The stage driver went on toward the street end. Falk remained in a patch of shade. Somewhat beyond the Lost Bonanza he saw a stranger loitering in like shade—the same stranger he had observed once before. Presently the crowd came spilling from the saloon. Tipstone and Niger Duluth got into the saddle and a dozen men followed suit. Falk noted every one of these, silently calling their names. And when they had ridden off, apparently bound for the scene of the holdup, he inclined his head and walked leisurely toward his shanty. Certain witnesses saw him close the door and relayed that information to the Lost Bonanza. Presently a subdued query passed through the crowd. That holdup had been held some time between ten-thirty and eleven-thirty. Where had Neal Falk been then?
Falk passed to the back of his double-room shanty and stooped to lift a trap door out of the floor. Below him was semidarkness and he waited a moment to listen. Lowering himself, he pulled the trap door into place and ducked between the stilts supporting the shanty. This trestlework supported all the structures of Discovery Gulch and made a kind of tunnel. Nobody came here except Falk; there was no way to get into this gloomy burrow save by descending the scantlings of the back porches or by climbing the precipitous bluff side. It made an admirable covert. By crawling forward on his stomach he could even reach the under side of the town walks and thus listen to whoever stood above. Once he had done so and the knowledge gained had saved him from treading a certain alley after dark, where a gunman waited.
He traversed the length of the town thus and arrived at a thin path shooting into the full daylight. Once more he stopped to take in his surroundings. Far below, a creek unwound itself across the scarred canyon bottom like a silver ribbon. Ahead was a point of rock. He let himself partly down the slope, circled the rock and put the town behind him. He walked a hundred yards, clambered upward and over a ridge and to a small lean-to built of logs. He kept a horse saddled here. Presently he was riding up and into the pines and around the town. He struck a clearer path and went on at a full gallop.
At intervals the pines grew thin and he saw the road below, climbing the canyon wall. It crossed the summit and followed on over a flat. He kept well in the shelter, always paralleling the primitive highway. The flat sloped into a glen and the road shot down and up and out of sight. A bird streaked across the late sunlight, making a vivid colorful arc in the dusty droning air; the sound of its chatter merged with the drum of advancing horses.
Neal Falk came to a halt behind the trees just as Sheriff Tipstone and his hand-picked posse debouched from the woods. They had traveled very leisurely, else Falk never would have overtaken them. And they seemed in no hurry now. They came to a stand in the flat and dropped from their saddles. Tipstone and Duluth were arguing over something, or deciding something. Duluth covered the four corners of the compass with his arms, whereat the rest of the posse seemed to join the parley. Half an hour passed before they mounted again and swung directly back to town.
Neal Falk dropped into the glen and crossed up the far slope. Below was a deeper gulch, the road winding down in hairpin curves. A creek shot out of a constricting gorge, widened to a placid shallows and grew turbulent again as it raced beyond. The ford of Hangman's. Falk disregarded the road and reached the water's edge. He saw where the stage had left the road and turned about. He discovered the hoofmarks of the road agents circling the spot where the vehicle had stood. And lying on the ground, face half submerged in the water, was the body of Josh Hinkle.
He had no further business there. Still somewhat sheltered, he traced the retreating path of the bandits down the gulch and up along the slope until it stopped in a bayou of the pines. Here he dismounted and bent to all fours. They had dropped the strong box—one corner had gouged deeply into the sandy soil. Here it had been opened and emptied. Probably, if he looked into the deeper brush he might find that iron-bound receptacle. But he wasn't interested. All the story he wanted could be found here. The bullion bars were too heavy for any man to pack individually and too difficult to conceal. They had used a hacksaw to cut the gold ingots into more manageable sections; the glittering filings impregnated the earth and some day might mislead a prospector into believing he had at last found the mythical mecca—a claim rotten with gold up to the very grass roots.
Neal Falk studied the scene through narrowed eyes, and when he had imprinted the memory of it deep in his brain he got in the saddle and turned homeward. The sun slid over the western line, purple dusk swirled through the trees. The lights were blazing again along the Gulch when he rode his horse into the stable and walked toward the Lost Bonanza.
It was Falk's invariable habit to make the rounds of each saloon during the course of the evening. Starting at the Sweet Kitty Belle, he paused at the Pride of the Gulch, Faro Jack's, Cripple Creek Place, and the Blue Bucket. And when he had stepped out of the latter establishment he knew some strange portent bore up on the wind. He knew it by the tempo of men's talk, by the significant glances intercepted, by the hush that fell as he stepped across each doorsill and stood his usual moment at the edge of the eddying crowds. Men usually gave him the tribute of subdued talk when he appeared amongst them. Tonight it was more prolonged. Tonight he was aware of an indirect scrutiny—like the morbid curiosity mankind exhibits toward one about to die. Here and there he saw a man whom he knew to be a friend, and in each instance that friend seemed to launch a silent warning across the intervening space, trying to convey a message. No more than that, but to Neal Falk it was sufficient. All the uncanny power the Gulch attributed to him was but the ability to sense the imperceptible currents swaying a crowd, to read the set of their lips and the glow of their eyes.
He passed the restaurant, visited the Red Mill and O'Brien's Cup of Cheer. Next was the Lost Bonanza. He stepped into an alley's darkness before entering this last saloon and swept the street. Men moved across the walks, murmuring idly: The Jessamine was laying off a shift; Dutch Zinzebauer had made a cleaning and was in the Lost Bonanza showing his poke to all comers; there was a faro table in the Sweet Kitty Belle easy to buck; he heard his name mentioned, followed by a sibilant explosive phrase that eluded him.
Patiently, Falk's eyes quested along the angles and nooks and alleys wherein the shadows were deepest. A cigarette tip alternately glowed and grew dim somewhere near the harness shop. He marked that carefully, having previously noted the stranger slide out of the light and toward the shop. Well, the man was patient. Whatever fever burned in him, however strong his killing instinct, he was patient—and therefore the more dangerous. Falk stepped to the walk just as a man with a bronzed beard and one short foot came abreast. It was Four-Finger Blackie, heading for the strong cups of the Lost Bonanza. Falk's arm barred the way.
"At it again, Blackie?"
"Who's 'at? Oh, Marshal." Four-Finger Blackie's breath came tumbling out in relief. "Sorta started me, considerin' all the doggoned blackjack gents roamin' loose. Now, Marshal, I ain't had a drop all evenin'. It's gospel, I ain't." His voice grew plaintive, wheedling. "Here I been muckin' all month and I sorta hone for light an' strong speech. You wouldn't be denyin' me that, now would you?"
"Where've you prospected this time, Blackie?"
"Up Bannock Gulch, Marshal. Did right well, too. But I ain't heard a human voice so long I plumb forgot the sound. Ain't had a drop—wa'n't intendin' to imbibe. Jus' lookin' around."
Neal Falk knew better. The history of Four-Finger Blackie was a series of ups and down. In poverty he made pious resolutions and talked of going East. But when his poke filled with dust he grew parched of throat and the next morning was broke again. The marshal murmured something about the frailty of nature. "It's burnin' a hole in your pocket, Blackie. Give me that poke. I'm puttin' it in the Wells Fargo safe."
"One round. Jus' one round," pleaded Blackie.
"You've had it already, Blackie. It ain't water that odors up your breath. I guess I've got to see that you go East this time."
Blackie swore softly. "What if I spend it? There's more in the hills."
"And more for the barkeeps and the gamblers and the leeches of the Gulch, Blackie. No, Blackie, the gold is playing out. The Gulch has about drained dry. The foundations are rotten and some night, not far off, the sky will be red. You don't want to be caught in the wreck. There'll be enough dead men."
Blackie acquiesced to the inevitable. He passed over his poke. "I'd as soon have you keep it, Marshal, ruther'n put it in ary express company safe."
Falk shook his head. There was a slow rise of his shoulders. And though he said nothing, Blackie understood perfectly. Neal Falk had no illusions as to his own safety. He might be dead before the hour was gone. Blackie moved uneasily. There was something on the tip of his tongue that seemed hard to spit out.
"Gent over in the shadows, Marshal, though it's none o' my business. Thought I'd mention it. Goin' to the meetin'?"
"What meetin'?"
"Why, there's a meetin' at the lodge hall. Guess it's about the stage affair. Dunno who called it, but the Jessamine super an' Colonel Latourette are booked to say somethin'."
"Thanks, Blackie." Falk moved away toward the door of the Lost Bonanza. Blackie watched him turn in and the crippled miner's head described a slow and puzzled arc. "Now, didn't he know about that meetin'? Him a-talkin' about the gamblers and the crooks—an' hell bustin' loose. He'd ought to know. By Godfrey, I sure wish I knew whether he was in with that gang. I sure do. But crooked or honest, the man's got a heart."
The Lost Bonanza was brim full. Fanette Duval was singing up on the balcony to a crowd of men who drowned her words. But they saw Falk and for a moment the talk fell to a lull. Night after night he made his appointed rounds with that regularity that had come to be a part of the legend. A thousand times they looked up to find him in the doorway. And yet the situation perpetually held interest. There was something blood-stirring in the very attitude of the man as his big shoulders filled the door and his graven face looked through the smoke. There was something foreboding about his silence, about the temper that never rose yet rested sleepless back of the deep-set eyes. He was as solid and as visible as a rock, yet it was uncanny the way he faded out of their vision and later came upon them unexpectedly.
They moved uneasily. Niger Duluth leaned against the bar with a sardonic grin stretched across his swart face. Beside Duluth stood another character whom Neal Falk watched for a moment. This was Duluth's chief henchman, the Duke; a man dressed like a fop and carrying himself like one. He had the tapering fingers of an artist and a dead-white skin in which his eyes glittered. He had been smiling until he saw Falk; now the pallid face constricted and the Duke looked old and deadly.
Falk stayed but a moment, yet in that moment he clearly read his fate. Out of the wisdom of his profession—a profession unwillingly thrust upon him—he foretold what was to happen. They had made a figure of him, they had made him fight and scheme for his life until his deeds made a pedestal for him to stand upon. Once he had been only an official; now he bulked greater than the Gulch itself. Cold reason touched not at all by pride or vanity told him this. They were afraid of him, they were tired of him and they were about to pull him down.
He stepped into the street and tarried a moment beyond the light. Presently he observed the men of the town swing toward the lodge hall. A speaker's voice, ringing clear in the unaccustomed silence, carried outward and he went over and quietly slipped through the door. The stranger, he noticed, had moved up beyond the harness shop and now skulked in the opaque pall near O'Brien's Cup of Cheer. Yes, the man was patient, and very cautious. And it was just such a man who would, some day, bring Neal Falk down in the dust.
Law was a dead letter in the Gulch. A full half o' the crowd took orders from the ring. The rest was afeered to express a honest opinion. Men are plumb like sheep; in the beginning Neal Falk was believed in, but when the rumors got started folks doubted him. If he'd opened up, he could have made more friends. But he didn't dare. He was hemmed around by hungry wolves snappin' at his throat. All told they wasn't more'n a dozen stuck to him—stuck, not knowin' whether he was honest or not ner not carin'. I was one an' to the end of my days that'll allus be a pleasant thought:—Four-Finger Blackie.
STANDING at the doorway, Neal Falk saw Colonel Latourette before the crowd, talking in a dry, rasping voice. The colonel was a man of law, thin and small and ramrod straight. He had a goatee and frosty eyes. He executed such legal instruments as the Gulch needed and handled the local affairs of the syndicate's Jessamine; and alone in the town he spoke out boldly in favor of purity and reform. Since he was alone in so speaking, he carried no great weight and was thus tolerated and to some degree respected. Perhaps his immunity was further secured by the sword cane he always carried and a known accuracy with the revolver. Falk missed most of what the colonel said; he was not, in fact, greatly interested. Falk was bluntly practical and he measured the import of that meeting by the other actors present and what he knew of them. The Jessamine super sat to one side of the colonel, Sheriff Tipstone to the other.
Latourette sat down. Tipstone rose, his sorrel hair burning under the light. "The good colonel has stated the legal entanglements of this Gulch, which is most true. Now, coming to the more immediate subject in hand, I will say me and the posse swept the scene of the crime without results. Well, almost so—but there's one point about the affair which I ain't the first to mention. It's been rumored about the town there was a bay horse seen riding up the pines about half an hour after the holdup. I brought the stage driver with me to this meetin' and I'm askin' him to step up to answer some questions."
Falk nodded to himself, as if finding confirmation of his beliefs. They were not yet sure enough of themselves to mention his name out aloud. They crept softly around it by designating a bay horse, which was his horse. The stage driver moved reluctantly forward, uneasy under the weight of the crowd's attention. Falk squared his vast shoulders and walked into the light and straight down the aisle. The stage driver saw him and stopped instantly. Tipstone leaned forward, grim and displeased. And then it was as if the fact of Falk's presence touched the whole crowd at the same instant. The benches creaked to twisting bodies and a low, sibilant murmur rolled across the hall. Falk passed between them slowly. He turned at the foot of the platform, climbed the steps and took his seat in a vacant chair.
There he sat, a harsh lump of a figure that jammed the words back into the mouths of whoever had come to damn him. Tipstone swung his head from side to side. He pointed his finger at the stationary stage driver.
"You been sayin' that you knew somethin' about those road agents. You was overheard as not wantin' to talk to me. ‘Tipstone—ha,' was the exact comment. Now, boy, if you got a single clue of evidence it's your duty to give it."
The stage driver only shook his head. Tipstone ripped at him savagely. "Who's been givin' you advice?"
Falk's level voice rose. "Tipstone, if you aim to strike at me, do it direct. Don't fix to crucify that driver."
The sheriff flung his head back and turned until he faced Falk. "I will supply the answer, Marshal. You was the one to bid him to keep his mouth shut. Likewise to tell him this country wasn't healthful. Mebbe you can explain why all that sudden interest."
"That's plain enough," Falk said gravely. "If he knows somethin' and certain gentlemen discover he knows somethin' he'll die before mornin'. That's why, Sheriff."
"Who invited you here?" Tipstone challenged.
"Hold on," Colonel Latourette broke in. "That's irrelevant. Marshal Falk has the right to be present. Free meeting."
"Something like that," Falk agreed. "I might add that my chips are bein' played on the table and I'll stick around to see how they're distributed."
"I'm through," Tipstone muttered, and sat down. Silence held the hall. Falk let his attention stray along the front rows. Niger Duluth's dark face stared back with a trace of mockery. And beside him was the Duke, whose red eyes gleamed against the dead-white skin. The super of the Jessamine said, "Well, wasn't the purpose of this meeting to do something? Quit holding hands and do some plain talking."
Colonel Latourette turned a severe countenance toward Falk. "Marshal, you have admitted advising the driver not to talk, as well as to skip this country. That's a poor kind of advice from a duly constituted officer of the law. It sounds bad. I believe you owe an explanation."
Falk rose from his chair. And it seemed as if a cold wave of air scoured from one corner of the room to the other. He faced his enemies, and the whole crowd recognized that he knew he faced them. They gave him the tribute of grudging admiration as his eyes passed along the rows and appeared to count and measure them individually. He swung his body so that he half-commanded Colonel Latourette. "Colonel, are you aware of the purpose of this meeting?"
"Certainly am, sir. It's to discuss the holdup and to adopt some measures of pursuit, as well as to interest all good citizens in a more effective government of the town."
"That's what you think it is," Falk countered. He let his glance rest on the colonel until the very weight of it caused the other to move restlessly in his chair. "Colonel, do you know all of these men?"
"I can name them," Latourette asserted, visibly irritated.
"And what else do you know about them?"
"Dammee, sir, I don't read their letters or tap their conversation, if that's what you drive at!"
Falk nodded. He appeared to dismiss Latourette from his mind, turning toward the crowd. They waited. They could afford to wait, for anything Neal Falk might say or do would be worth witnessing. His heavy arm rose and pointed outward, and even the most unimaginative of them saw him in his fighting posture. Only the gun was lacking in his fist, only the trailing smoke absent. His words, deliberate and implacable rolled over their heads. "I know what you came here for. You're hungry for blood and you hear the pack howlin'. All right, here I stand. Now go on with the ceremony."
"By Gad, sir!" Latourette sputtered. But that was as much as a signal. A bench fell back and the crowd moved toward the door. Tipstone jumped from the platform and elbowed his way among them. The Duke had not yet risen from his seat. Niger Duluth raised his arm in a kind of salute, grinning. "All right, Falk. You win the pot."
Latourette plucked Falk on the arm, his voice like sandpaper cutting across wood. "Are you setting up to be the law in Discovery Gulch? By Gad, sir, you've got enough to answer for! I'm not satisfied. I am not!"
Falk brushed this aside with a brusque counter question. "What law are you talkin' about, Colonel? Law ceased here a long time back. There won't ever be any law here again unless it's Judge Lynch's kind. It's a queer thing you don't catch the meaning of all this. Three quarters of this crowd was set to follow a leader and take the blood cry from him. The rest would've followed just to be in at the kill."
"What leader?" Latourette snapped. "And what kill do you allude to?"
Falk, halfway to the rear door, looked over his shoulder. "Wake up, Colonel. You're the only man in the Gulch that don't know, I reckon."
He dropped into the outer darkness.
The Jessamine super was a more perceiving man and he watched Falk go with a shake of his head. "There is a gentleman, by Joe! There's power for you."
"I am not satisfied," the colonel repeated testily. "I have always given Neal Falk the benefit of the doubt. Rumor is poor proof, always. Nevertheless, he stands convicted by his own words."
"Convicted, perhaps, but not yet taken into custody," the super amended with a touch of levity.
"He will be, don't worry about it. The law must run—it will run in this gulch. No man is above it."
The super gave the colonel a curious, expressive glance. "You've been buried in your legal volumes too long, Latourette. I'm afraid you've lost touch with the muddy affairs of our disintegrating municipality. Let's go over to the Lost Bonanza and have a look at the fun. After all, the express company pays for that bullion, not me."
The crowd had sifted out of the hall and broken into eddying fragments along the street. Somebody quarreled just beyond the door. Latourette and the super moved toward it, the colonel shaking his head vigorously. "Not so out of touch as you believe. There are ways to clean the stables. There are ways. Remember, I lived in the Montana diggings. I saw the box knocked from under Slade and I heard him scream. It was his last breath. There are ways. Oh, well. I hear you're laying off a shift."
The super nodded. "On the quiet, my friend, but we're past the stage of cream. It's low grade right now. We'll be needing some process work pretty soon if we're to carry on. Don't believe the owners will bother with it. They want quick returns and no investment. Wouldn't be surprised to get closing orders."
But Latourette's mind was still on the scene. "Law must run," he muttered. "One way or another—"
They were at the door. A man came stumbling across the beam of light, bent over. His hat was off and his hair straggled down his face. He heard Latourette and turned his head; it was the youthful stage driver with the fear of death imprinted upon his drawn features. A shot spat out of darkness and the driver drew back his lips, crying, "I'd ought to've gone! I'm dead!" He relaxed, crumbled to all fours, and then rolled flat.
Latourette started down the steps. The Jessamine super knocked him back. "Keep out of this. Keep back! Eyes up, man!"
Men poured from the saloons like jets of water tumbling down the spillways of a dam. They milled around the body. A lantern swung through the darkness and there was a sharp order. "Step back!" Latourette pulled up his head to see Neal Falk shouldering out of the shadows. The super saw him too, but also noticed Niger Duluth converging from another angle. And the Duke's pallid face stood foremost in the crowd; the man was rubbing his palms along the sides of his trousers. Neal Falk dropped to a knee. His hand touched the driver's shoulder, slid around to the driver's chest. The lantern light glowed and flashed in the deep well of his eyes.
"Well?" Latourette challenged.
Falk stood up. "Just another man crucified, Colonel. Didn't you hear me say they'd get him? He knew too much."
Niger Duluth advanced and squatted on his heels. "Shot in the back. That bullet came from the alley beside the lodge hall." He sprang up, his squat, spider-like body drawing together. One arm fell accusingly on Neal Falk. "Where was you, Falk?"
"In the said alley," Falk droned.
"Let's see your guns."
"Not my guns, Niger," Falk replied somberly.
"By God, there'll be an empty cartridge in 'em!" Duluth shouted. He turned the circle, haranguing the crowd. "Why should he be afraid to show his pieces? Because they's an empty cartridge in one of 'em!"
"You don't want to see those guns," Falk said. He seemed to expand. "Your time ain't come yet, Niger."
"No, you bet it ain't. Nor never will from you. You're forcin' the bets too high, Falk. The luck won't hold much longer."
"I'm playin' my chips."
Latourette advanced toward Falk. "You know me to be honest, Marshal. Let me see the weapons."
Falk shook his head. "Don't let 'em make a decoy duck of you, Colonel. It's another roll of the same old loaded dice. Never play another man's game."
"You refuse, sir!" cried Latourette.
"No man touches my guns while I live. When I die it won't be empty-handed. Stand back, Colonel. There's no empty cartridges in either piece. Step back!"
And such was the weight of that command, such was the vibration of it, that Latourette gave ground. Falk studied the crowd solemnly. "Same old verdict. Death by accidental gunshot wound. Party or parties unknown. Boot Hill gets another body an' the candle burns a little lower. I told this boy to pull stakes because I knew plumb well he'd die. He knew somethin'. I know what that information was and I'm chalkin' up the score. Mark that well. I'm chalkin' up the score." He stopped. Someone in the crowd had muttered an oath and he turned toward the party. Silence clamped the circle tightly. Neal Falk's words fell one by one, harsh and premonitory. "Before the week is out, the boy's murderer will be dead. I never go back on my word."
"You figger to die soon, huh?" Niger Duluth said.
"Your time ain't come yet, Niger."
"Savin' me up, Falk?"
Falk's head dropped and rose. "Savin' you for the Gulch's last victim, Niger. When the bonfire's bright it'll be needin' the best fuel."
Duluth's laugh exploded like a bomb, ringing harsh and metallic against the wall of the night. "We'll make it somethin' to talk about a long time, Falk. A long time! Hell, the evenin's young, why waste it on a post mortem? Come on gents, back to pleasure."
Falk stood above the stage driver as the crowd sifted away. He seemed to be communing with himself. By and by he lifted the boy on his shoulders and strode off. The Jessamine super's breath whistled from his mouth. "By George! He's cold, he's like ice! Fear never touched him. Never!"
Latourette pivoted on his heel and hurried away like one bitten with a sudden idea. Over in the Lost Bonanza, Fanette Duval was singing and the clatter and the scrape of feet echoed into the street.
Neal Falk carried the stage driver to the building wherein all the Gulch's dead temporarily rested. Coming out, he stopped a moment and sought the shadows. He thought he saw somebody still stationed near the harness shop, but he wasn't sure. The stranger was not far removed—Falk's nerves told him as much. It was an old and infallible omen. Something piled up inside of him. The air seemed tainted. He had the same warning all wild animals have when a pursuing beast comes into the wind. Living as he had, in the very center of intrigue for two years, he had developed that sense to the point where he almost knew the step he must not take, the alley he must not pass, or the definite hour he must turn and fight back. He moved past the Cup of Cheer and went into the restaurant. The girl saw him come and she met him unsmiling, distant.
"Your order, Mr. Falk."
But the Chinese cook put his head through the kitchen door and popped back quickly. Falk's order was known, and always the same. The girl pressed her lips together, trying to measure this stolid figure who seemed to hold Discovery Gulch in the hollow of his stubby hand. "You give no orders, I see. People either know or are supposed to guess."
"Ma'am, it ain't usual for questions to be asked, but if it makes no difference to you I'd admire to know your name."
She cupped her chin in her hands. She was inscrutable when she chose to be. She had the gift of swift change. Falk was sure of only one thing about her: she belonged far above the level of the Gulch and only some great cataclysm could have brought her here. He thought she meant to refuse his question and, strangely, he admired her the more for it.
"Get no false ideas about me, Mr. Falk. I thank you for helping me to get this job. But I'd rather have taken my chances at the Lost Bonanza. There is something I must know—and I will know it, no matter what it costs."
"All things cost a price. Good or bad, ma'am, we've got to pay the ante."
"Then—you would not have marked me down for becoming a dancing girl?"
"It might be a fair price for what you want to know. Or it might not. I reckon I won't judge."
The cook came in with Falk's meal, beaming. "Yeh, old-timer he back. Yeh. You ketchum vest buttons, Falk. Ketchum tight." And he retreated to his domain.
Something in that by-play interested the girl. A word or a gesture or a fleeting expression can overturn a lifetime's belief. She came closer, voice dropping. "My name is Maryse Bridger."
Falk raised his face from the meal. "I'm obliged. It's a good name. Was a Bridger in the Gulch not long ago. They got him."
Her whole countenance changed. "That was my father! That's why I'm here. I'm going to find out who killed him!"
Falk nodded. "I'd sort of thought I saw somethin' in your face. Ma'am, he was a square gentleman, one of the last in town. Used to be our magistrate—in the days when we had one. But they got him."
"Why?"
"Oh, he struck a rich vein and the ring wanted it."
"The ring will pay, Mr. Falk," she said, dropping to a monotone. "It will pay me."
"It's been four months ago. Hard to locate the guilty party now. Anything you could use to pin it on a particular person?"
She hesitated. Even in the short day she had been here the rumor of Falk's bargain with the ring had reached her. It was inevitable; men seldom had his name off their tongues. She heard of his strength, she saw visible evidences of it. She heard of his weaknesses, though none of them appeared in his face. So he was to her what he was to all the rest—an enigma.
"I will find the man," said she. "There's one scrap of evidence. I am the only one to know of it, the only one who might identify it."
Falk nodded, not venturing to press further. He understood the doubt she harbored. And though he was a man who rode rough-shod over his own hopes and unfulfilled desires—a man who had schooled himself in misfortune and hardened himself against ever wishing a normal life—he had a small stirring impulse of regret as he looked at her. She was a fair girl. She had courage. Falk's glance rose imperceptibly. The coffee cup in his hand poised. "Ma'am," he said in a small, sing-song voice, "take that lamp on my right and put it near the door. Easy, now, and don't look surprised. On my other side, ma'am. That's right."
She obeyed, coolly, cleaning the counter as she moved. "What is it?"
"I never put myself in front of a light," Falk said.
She saw Falk then as few men ever saw him: on that borderland that divided the stolid townsman from the killer. There was an edge to his words, a congealing of his facial lines—and the fire danced far down, far within. He drank the last of his coffee, paid his bill and slipped from the stool. "I wish you luck," he observed gravely. He spoke with an exaggerated slowness. He moved in the same manner, as if to excite no suspicion. She saw, or thought she saw, wistfulness in his final glance; and the memory of it stuck to her like a thistle after he had gone. "I won't ask you to take my word for anything ma'am, but I will ask you not to take any other man's. Don't move near that door! You might stop a bullet. And if you should hear shootin' in the next fifteen minutes don't come outside. A man fresh dead is a bad sight."
He slipped into the kitchen. She heard the Chinese murmuring to him and she heard the back door slam. Somebody ran across the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. A swift, rising oath slapped across the night.
Why should I trust him? Maryse Bridger wondered.
He was going out to fight, to kill or be killed. The legends men told about him came rushing back to her. Once she had overheard her father—when he was back home from his mining ventures—saying that he never understood how so slow a man escaped being killed. "Why should I trust him?" she repeated aloud. But if he were slow he would some day meet his death. Suddenly she felt physically cold and a little heartsick. Despite all the legends and all the tales, he was brave. The door opened and in slouched the man she had heard called the Duke. His eyes burned with a strange brilliance against his pallid skin. His nose twitched as from protesting nerves. He said, "A cup of coffee. Black. An' move that light back—back so it won't shine through the window!"
Falk dropped from the rear of the restaurant straight down to the gulch side and traced his way through an alley. He came out by the Cup of Cheer and directly between a pair of whispering men who fell silent and crept off. The buzzards were out, waiting for the kill. He saw them lined along the sidewalks. Even the music in the saloons had stopped, even the boisterous uproar had subsided. The town knew. Falk raised and lowered his arms as if to collect and warn his muscles. The stranger slipped into momentary sight by the restaurant, faced the other way; all day he had been patient and a patient man was dangerous. Falk advanced to the middle of the street and sent his challenge along the interval.
"Turn around, stranger. I shoot nobody in the back."
The man whipped about with widespread arms. He took two mincing steps forward and thus left the glow of the restaurant.
"Were you lookin' for me?" Falk asked.
"I reckon."
"Hold your fire," Falk advised, "till you get close enough. I won't shoot till you cross the last lane o' light."
"I've heard o' your style an' your favors—but I don't need 'em, Falk."
Falk waited. The stranger traversed the yellow path that streamed from the Cup of Cheer. Falk marked him well in the instant and all that he saw was but a repetition of what had gone before. They looked the same, they acted the same. The stamp of death never varied. And, while he waited, his mind ran back along the corridor of time to recall the others who had died in front of him. No single twenty-foot space of this narrow, short street but what bore the stain of some man's blood. They came from all parts of the country, like moths attracted to a flame—and they rested together now up on Boot Hill.
"I ain't lookin' for you, stranger. There's time yet to draw off. That fever you got is better quenched some other way. Life is mighty fine an' sleep comes soon enough."
"I heard you was fast," the stranger muttered, obscured, yet advancing. "I hone to know how fast. I made a long trip to find out."
"It's a long trip ahead," Falk warned. There were men on the sidewalks close enough to see him and it appeared to them that he grew into the shadows, to be enveloped by their protective mantle. Such is the power of legend and such are the tricks of a strained eyesight. The stranger's breath came in one great gust.
"Let's have it out!"
And the watching miners heard Falk murmur softly, "By God, it's too bad." Then they lost sight of him. There was a soft padding of men on tiptoe in the dust, a rising of breath and that street seemed to sway and pull apart and roll like the sea. They saw Falk again in a dim patch of light just as the guns spoke. Twice. Each crackling, crashing echo followed into the other, the rose-purple jets appearing no more than a yard apart. Somebody fell with a weird and gagging breath—such a sound as to brand the memory of it upon the listener to eternity. But it was not Falk. He still stood in that dim patch of light, one shoulder thrown forward, his gun pointing into space. A wisp of powder curled back and his face was faintly silhouetted, as bleak and immovable as some age-old rock in the hills.
It was over. Falk's arm fell. He walked straight on, into the Lost Bonanza. They made a lane for him. The barkeep pushed bottle and glass toward him. Falk drank and slid the bottle away. He swept them at a glance, the temper sleeping beneath his brows. Niger Duluth was in front of him and at the first clash of eyes Niger looked like a whipped mongrel. Falk turned and strode out. One of the miners looked at his watch and shook his head in a kind of grim amusement. It was ten to the dot, the hour Falk invariably appeared in the Lost Bonanza to take his pony of rye. For him the duties of his office were over until the following morning.
Not twenty minutes beyond the hour, three men met in the alley beside the Lost Bonanza and challenged each other with a password. They wore bandannas, yet no kind of concealment could disguise their voices. It was Niger Duluth who broke through the silence.
"Well, that didn't work."
The Duke's reply was a kind of suppressed fury. "No more beatin' around the bush, Niger. I'll do this myself."
They waited for the third one to speak. He took his time, the while shifting his position. "No, that ain't the way. You're fast, Duke, but you can't match him. Yeah, I know you could try to ketch him in the back. But try is all. No man livin' can pull down Neal Falk. He wasn't borned to be shot in a face-to-face fight."
"That's what you say, Tipstone," the Duke growled. "But I'm about worked to a point—"
"Which is sure death, Duke. Falk calls it a fever. He'd ought to know, havin' cured plenty of them kind of fevers. You bide your time. They's a better way."
"Let's have it," Niger Duluth said. "He knows too much an' he's got me on his score sheet. Won't do."
"Here," Tipstone replied. "The town's against him. We've sowed plenty o' seed, ain't we? Well, that seed is sproutin'. He's got 'em all cowed, but they're a-mutterin'. All they need is a push in the right direction. Supposin' I go to Colonel Latourette on the quiet an' suggest he an' I start a secret committee. He don't nowise suspect my connections. Let him pick his own men to make up the committee. Then—"
"Post Neal Falk's name," Niger finished. "He rides out or he's lynched. That's a good idea, Tipstone. You fog over to Latourette's right away. He's feelin' hostile to Falk. Talk smooth to the old gent."
The Duke remained uneasy. Something bit him. "Hear him say the driver's murderer would be dead before the week was done? What does he know, huh? By God, that man ain't human! What does he know—he can't see through a board wall in the middle o' the night, can he?"
"I wouldn't bet no money against it," Niger Duluth answered. "You boys happen to know where he went this afternoon? Down to Hangman's Ford."
The news made Tipstone squirm. "Sooner we settle this the better. The situation is ripe. If we don't hit sudden he'll wipe us out. Niger, you sure you got everything well cached?"
"Sure. Well, let's sift. I don't feel safe as I used to. That damn Falk sorta shoots a man's nerves. It's how he wins his fights. The other fellow is licked before the guns go off. Imagine—me feelin' like that! Time to settle it."
"Supposin' this committee don't settle Falk?" the Duke asked. "Then what?"
"Then," Duluth said with a sudden accession of fury, "I'll call out every man I can command and we'll start shootin'. An' we'll keep shootin' till Falk drops. Now mosey."
They separated, each taking a different path. Tipstone, the most cautious of the trio by nature—and doubly so because of the star he wore—hesitated some time before leaving the alley. He went on past the Lost Bonanza, his tall and lank figure passing across the bar of light. He flanked the stable and a row of shanties sitting forlorn and suggestive at the street end. The last building was his destination. A light burned in it. The door stood open. Tipstone elected to circle and knock at a rear window. Latourette came to it, raising the sash.
"Colonel, close your front door and pull the shades. It's important."
The colonel complied. Tipstone crawled through the window and lowered it. He took off his hat and drew close to the colonel's desk. And for an hour they talked, Tipstone leading the conversation on and on. But he had less missionary work to perform than he supposed. Latourette's mind already dwelt on the same idea. The reformer's zeal in him had been fired by the fiasco at the lodge hall and by the death of the stage driver.
"How many men should we bring into this committee?" Latourette asked.
"The more the better," Tipstone replied. "Enough to represent the sense of the Gulch, Colonel. As to the particular ones, I'll let you name 'em. Of course, I can suggest some I think fit an' honest."
"Let's draw the list. We'll get in touch with them quietly and hold a meeting somewhere up on the hill."
"The law must run," Tipstone said, shrewdly echoing the colonel's own sentiment.
"It will," was the colonel's dry and rasping response. "No man is above it. I saw the box kicked from beneath Slade and I heard him scream. It was his last breath. There are ways of cleaning the stable."
At the end of the hour Tipstone left the colonel's office by the front door. He was careful to reconnoiter the dark angles of the street with a minute scrutiny. He saw nobody. And he also noted, with a kind of grim satisfaction, that a light burned in Neal Falk's shanty farther along. Very quietly he dropped into the Lost Bonanza and went about his secret chore.
But Falk was not in the shanty. He had stood no more than ten yards from the colonel's office during the interview. And he still stood there when certain designated men walked singly and furtively out of the street and up the slope of the Gulch. Thereupon he left his post and returned to the shanty. On the verge of entering he paused at the sound of a woman's voice. Maryse Bridger happened to be coming from the restaurant. Beside her walked Niger Duluth. And both of them were laughing.
Falk went in and turned out the light. Sometime in the early hours of the morning he heard his door give to a pressure. He sat bolt upright, gun rising. There was no more sound and he slept again. At daylight, when he opened the door, he found a square piece of cardboard hanging by a string to the knob. It said:
8 HOURS TO LEAVE OR THE
FORFEITURE OF YOUR LIFE. V. C.
I ain't a imaginative man. But that day it sorta seemed like the sky was pressin' down. It was hard to breathe. Nobody went to the diggin's—why work on a Roman holiday? Men drank heavy, they was a knifin' scrape in the Blue Bucket. They buried the stage driver an' I never saw men uglier-minded than after the earth was shoveled over the kid's box. It sorta grew—you know, like wind whippin' up a fire in pitch pine. Oh, they knew Falk wouldn't run! He'd stay an' go under fightin'. He did stay an' though I live to be as old as these here hills I won't forget the sight of him standin' before that crowd. By God! The pillars o' Discovery Gulch was rotten an' ready to fall. He put his big arms around 'em an' brought 'em thunderin' down:—Four-Finger Blackie.
FALK took the sign inside and sat on the edge of his bed. The ring had struck at last: struck directly and publicly, abandoning all subterfuges and all imported gunmen. It made no difference that this Vigilantes' Committee probably was headed by Latourette or that he had possibly picked his own men to back him. Latourette was a reformer immersed in a dream and the ring used him as a decoy. Latourette knew very little of the men of the Gulch and Falk well knew there were as many wolves in that committee as there were lambs. And behind the committee stood the ring, ready to see that the committee's edict was enforced. They were growing bolder, or they were growing desperate.
Both guesses right, Falk concluded.
He rolled a careful cigarette. Bereft of his hat he seemed a different man, milder, better looking. Or perhaps it was that he had not yet stepped into view and draped the professional manner about him. His clipped black hair was inclined to be a little curly and it fell forward on his broad brow.
Evidence, he thought. What more evidence do I need? What good will evidence do me, even if I've got it? To use evidence you've got to have a court and an impartial jury. Such ceased here long ago. No, it's beyond that.
He knew who the members of the ring were; knew every single one of them and most of what they had done. A man with a cataract in one eye had killed the stage driver. That would be the Duke, though nobody would notice the cataract unless they looked closely. And the Duke took care they should not look closely. He knew Tipstone's connection with the ring; he knew who had robbed the last sluice boxes and killed the last two miners. And he knew that all these incidents went to swell the power and the wealth of that one man who sat in the center of the web and issued his orders—Niger Duluth, Niger, the squat dark-faced saloonkeeper whose shape and walk even resembled that of a spider. And right at the present moment, Niger's safe in the Lost Bonanza held the bars taken from the stage and the hacksaw that had cut them into portable sections. So much for the evidence he had.
It did him no good. For Niger had quietly cut him off from all sources of help. Niger's men had voted the court out of existence. They would have voted Falk out of existence as well, save that the marshal had come to be too powerful a figure to touch. All else they had done until he had only the star and the theoretical power. Discovery Gulch was Niger's town to sway, to rob and to profit from. Falk moved through it as a solitary reminder of the decency that once had been. Only the legend surrounding him and the fear of his name and of his guns kept him from going down. And now the pack was on him.
He raised his great shoulders in a kind of fatalistic signal and looked toward the far wall of the room. It was a barren room with a chair, a table and a bed. Nothing relieved the monotony of the pine boards save one lone picture he had cut from an illustrated magazine. Upon this picture his eyes rested: a picture of a cowboy riding across the prairie, sitting loose and lazy in the saddle. But that cowboy had his head raised toward a sky that was a summer's blue. A single white cloud stood in the heavens like a ship. Sage grew along the land and far off cattle grazed. It seemed to Falk that the cowboy was drawing a deep breath. It seemed the man was glad to be alive and riding free and easy across that smiling expanse where life was but one day gliding into another, where the hot sun dripped over the snow peaks and the stars came out clear and frosty in the fathomless night sky.
Falk's fists gripped tightly together. The wrinkles grew around his eyes and furrowed his forehead. Wistfulness was on his face, a longing for something that might never again be.
That's where I belonged, he thought. I shouldn't ever have left it. That's what I sold for a mess o' pottage. So-long, cowboy.
Eight hours to leave. They knew he wouldn't leave. He couldn't leave. This thing had passed that point. Long ago he had ceased to be just a marshal enforcing the peace. That was gone. He was a man fighting for the right to live. He was the single landmark Niger Duluth had yet been unable to pull down.
Falk got up, put on his guns and his hat and faced the door. A harsh impassivity settled across the face that but a moment ago had shown a lonely fragment of human emotion. He opened the door and passed into the street.
With his presence, Discovery Gulch came to life.
He went into the Lost Bonanza. There was a man at the seat he always occupied. One of the ring. But as he looked at the fellow, all the latter's sullen and desperate resolution vanished and he vacated the chair. Falk went through the morning's ceremony, walked out and went to the restaurant.
As he stepped inside he saw that Maryse Bridger had something to tell him. There was another customer at the counter; Falk ate his coffee and doughnuts silently. When the man went out, Maryse Bridger bent toward Falk with a flash of triumph in her eyes.
"I've found the man who killed my father!"
"How?"
Overnight she seemed to have lost her doubts regarding him. "I know! On his birthday I sent him a set of cuff links with two small diamonds in them. He wrote back and told me he had put them on his cuffs. That letter was dated the very day of his death. And when all his belongings were sent to us every valuable piece of jewelry, including the cuff links, was gone. Last night, I found those links on a man of this town."
Falk nodded. "A man, maybe, who had dressed well and put on his finery to keep an appointment with you? I can see why you wanted to dance in the Lost Bonanza."
The girl moved away from him. There was no reason, as far as he could see, why her face should change so swiftly and so startlingly. The color went out of it and a kind of cold despair settled down. She spoke as from a great distance. "I will never ask you to believe me to be any better than I appeared to you then."
The man shook his head. "What does it matter, ma'am? I reckon I've already said we pay a price for everything we get. It's only a question of buyin' cheap—or sometimes gettin' stung on a bargain. Who's to know? Who's to judge?"
"I paid nothing, Mr. Falk. I was not that desperate, even though I seemed so. I—"
"Let it ride. Now that you know the gentleman, what's left?"
She came closer. All the fire was out of her. "I had thought to kill him. I can't. I wish I'd never found out who he was. I am going home."
"Nobody can be very bad if it ain't in their blood," Falk said gently. "You ain't cut out for the Gulch or for the ways of the Gulch. As for Niger Duluth—"
She started. A hand rose. "How—"
"As for Niger Duluth," Falk went on evenly, "the day may see him dead. There's a law of averages, ma'am. He's lived away past his time. So have I. The clock ticks on and somewhere in this world there's always a better man."
The color came back to her face. "Mr. Falk—Neal Falk—I have heard men saying things this morning. There is something in the wind. I think—I think you're in trouble. What could stop you from leaving the Gulch? Is there anything here to stay for?"
He thought that over a long while, staring out into the bright sun along the street. "Pride. Every man stands to his profession, I guess. I stand to mine—gunfightin'."
"You are not that!" cried the girl, suddenly angry. "Whatever else you may be, you are not a killer! Why should you let this evil town and all the evil men in it make a sacrifice of you?"
"Who's to care?" Neal Falk asked.
She had no answer for that. But after he reached the door he turned back and found her looking queerly at him. Queerly. And though he might read the heart of a man to the very core, he had no keys by which he could unlock the meaning of that straight and clear glance. So he met it for a grave, lengthening moment. She was above this town, above him, yet he walked out of the place unsteadied, stung by desires that he knew would never be realized.
He saw the Duke sliding into the Lost Bonanza. There seemed to be pickets on either end of the street. Four-Finger Blackie hobbled along the boards with a bright and bitter face. Falk looked straight on, but as he passed Blackie he murmured:
"Go north of town to the first shed. Wait."
Colonel Latourette came out of the Cup of Cheer and refused to recognize him. Falk paced the walk to its very end and swung back. The pack had not yet found its voice. But they were drinking hard and all they needed was a leader. It was ten-thirty, time for him to disappear. He returned to his shanty and closed the door. Once more he raised the trap door and, after a close inspection, dropped through. He followed around the flimsy underpinning until he reached the trail that shot into daylight. He saw a pair of miners—Duluth's henchmen—up above in the street, but the sudden rise of the gulch and the excavated earth hid him as he took the trail around the ledge and thus put himself beyond the town. Presently he left the trail and dropped into the hollow. Blackie crouched in the lean-to. Blackie had burned his bridges behind him.
"I'll stand or fall with you, Marshal. Just say what I'm to do."
"I'm obliged, Blackie. But it ain't gunplay. I want you to get drunk, Blackie. Drunk enough to wabble, but not too drunk to lose sense."
"Hell, gimme somethin' hard to do."
Neal Falk held a pouch in his hand. He tilted it upward and the free gold fell out—dust, pea-sized kernels, slugs the size of a thumb-nail. That was Falk's wealth, gleanings out of two years in a mining camp. He dropped it back in the sack and drew the string. He passed it to Blackie.
"Take that back to town. Drink a little, one saloon to another. And when the time comes, Blackie—when they close on me—you go to the Lost Bonanza and spill this over the bar. Understand?"
"So far—no farther," Blackie grunted.
"Then tell them, all of them and any of them who ain't yappin' at my heels, that this poke of dust came from Indian Creek. No more than that. Then shut up like you'd bitten your tongue."
"All right. But I tell you, Falk, I can play a better part. I can swap a slug an' die like a gentleman."
Falk shook his head. And Blackie marveled how even now, with all that came along on the narrowing hours, the temper slept so serenely in the big man. Falk gave no sign—none save one small twining note of wistfulness. Blackie heard it and cleared his throat. Falk's arm dropped on his shoulder. "You'll never play a better part, Blackie. By that sack of dust Discovery Gulch falls. The honest men and the leeches will swarm out and this festerin' sore will dry up."
"Not before they have their holiday," Blackie warned. "It's none o' my business, Marshal, but they've took the one weapon that'll level you. It's their holiday."
Falk turned. "I'll give it to them, Blackie. One more victim before the curtain comes down. One—maybe more than one." He slid over the gulch side and retraced his way to the shanty. They still had the end of the street picketed, and after he got to his room he heard men's boot heels dragging across the sidewalk at regular intervals. Measured from daylight, his eight-hour grace was drawing to a close.
Still, he sat there on the edge of his bed, his great shoulders bowed a little and a cigarette smoldering in his stubby fingers—a grim, hulking presence swayed and lashed by queer memories that rose out of his past—the night he had ridden through a stampede on the Flying Bell; a dance at a schoolhouse where Uncle Ike Finch's violin played the hours through; Maryse Bridger. Casually, he rolled another cigarette and studied the picture of the cowboy. There was a sweet land, a land he never should have left.
Suddenly there came a light drumming of knuckles on his door. Before he answered the portal swung open and shut. Maryse Bridger stood before him, one hand rising to her throat.
"Neal Falk, you must get out of here! They've thrown a rope over a rafter in the stable! They're ready to come after you!"
Falk nodded his head. "They won't have to come far, ma'am. I'll be where they can find me."
"Why do you stay?" the girl demanded, the words breaking in her throat. "Is it worth your life? There's the whole world to ride into, and only this evil Gulch to put behind. Haven't you served your time?"
"Pride," Falk murmured. "The kind of pride that kills fools, I guess. Niger Duluth has tried two years to whip me. The game's got harder an' harder, but he ain't never yet turned up the winning card. Well, nobody can ever say I didn't stick to the finish. I'll play it out."
He rose and went beside her. "You don't belong here, ma'am. If I was you I'd ride the next stage out. And I'm just askin' a favor. You'll hear a lot about me, most of it bad. Don't take another man's word."
"You don't have to ask that favor," said Maryse Bridger. "I have already judged you. I know."
He opened the door. Together they crossed the street to the restaurant, and there he left her, himself turning away quickly. The girl murmured, "Take care, Neal Falk."
He walked toward the Lost Bonanza with his head bent a trifle. Yet he saw the guards drawing in from the street ends and he saw how swiftly the saloons emptied to the telegraphic message of his presence abroad. He shouldered by them, giving them no more attention than he would have given a pack of stray dogs. Nor did they oppose his progress, though he overheard a low ground-swell of comment behind. They were waiting for a signal. The Duke slipped across the street and disappeared into the Lost Bonanza. Colonel Latourette showed himself a moment and vanished. Four-Finger Blackie came staggering from the Blue Bucket, singing out to the four corners of the town.
"Lemme be, lemme be! Dam't, I got to get my hawsses! Don't none o' you tin-eared coyotes try to foller me, neither. Don't try it. What I know is my own business!" And he passed into the Lost Bonanza.
Falk reached the stable and paused. They were ready for him, well enough. The rope swung from a rafter, a keg stood beneath it. Someone moved into the shadows, whispering sibilantly. There was a brittle snapping of words and when he swung about he saw men marching irregularly toward him, silent and dogged. Almost immediately he was hemmed in. Boots dragged across the stable flooring. He stepped aside until his back was against the wall of the building. Niger Duluth came ploughing through the crowd, face all aflame.
"Your time's up, Falk. Pass over the guns."
Falk raised his arm. "Stay where you are; Niger. Don't come any closer."
"Don't buck us," Duluth warned, slowing his pace. "You ain't dealin' with some raw gent. The Gulch has passed its verdict. Your time's up."
"Stay where you are, Niger," Falk repeated. His shoulders swayed slightly and the saloon man stopped dead in his tracks.
"Give up your guns!" Duluth roared. "If I raise my hand you'll get fifty slugs in your body!"
"You know my policy," Falk said. "Nobody touches my pieces while I live."
"Make way. Let me pass." Colonel Latourette forced himself through the circle and angrily faced Duluth. "What are you doing here, sir? What's all this about?"
"You ought to know," Duluth said. "He hangs, don't he?"
Latourette pulled a watch from his vest pocket and thrust it under Duluth's nose. "He's got fifteen minutes in which to exercise his option, Mr. Duluth. Give way."
"Give way, hell! What difference does fifteen minutes make? You don't suppose we'd let him escape, anyhow, do you?"
"This is not your business, Duluth," Latourette warned. "The organization will deal with this man. Don't interfere."
"Go back to your playthings," Duluth scoffed. "I'm expressin' the sentiment o' this Gulch."
"By Gad this will be done fairly! Sheriff Tipstone, step out here!"
Tipstone squeezed his way through the packed ranks. He stared at Latourette out of his gaunt and bony features. He looked about him. He met Niger's sardonic glance for a fleeting moment. And then he shook his head. "Falk's got to die, Latourette. It's right. What difference does fifteen minutes make?"
Latourette's little body grew rigid and his cold eyes tallied the crowd. "I will not permit myself to witness plain mob law. Gentlemen, stand by me. All those who believe in giving Marshal Falk his allotted time step to the front."
The crowd swayed and shifted, a rumble of excited protest running along the semicircle. "Are you going to allow Niger Duluth—a known and notorious character—to influence you!" cried the colonel.
"You have played the part of a cat's-paw, Colonel," Falk drawled. "Didn't you know, when you allowed Tipstone to talk you into this mess last night, that he belonged to Duluth, body an' soul?"
"I will see you burn in hell for that," Tipstone said, just above a whisper. He ducked his head. Latourette spun around, was caught by ungentle hands, and disappeared in the fringes of the crowd. The sheriff edged nearer Duluth. The Duke likewise crept up, and thus the three of them stood shoulder to shoulder. Uneasiness pervaded the circle. It was slowly forced nearer Falk by pressure from the rear. Those men along the outer rim were growing impatient and began to challenge Duluth to be on with the job; but the front row of miners struggled against the tide, for they were directly facing Falk and they knew that when Falk's guns rose from his holsters some of them would die.
Duluth turned and swore at them. "Take it easy. We'll skin this skunk!" Once more he raised his hand to Falk.
"Give up your guns, Falk. I'm countin' ten and when I reach the last number up goes my hand. Give up your guns."
Falk shook his head slowly. His shoulders seemed to expand, and as he stood there the crowd saw that gray, grim cast settle upon his face—the mask of battle. A hush came over them, the silence of men fascinated. It was always so when Falk was before their eyes. Drama touched his least move. He was a figure, he was an issue. All that they knew about him, his uncanny knowledge, the oppressive power of his presence, conspired to keep them at a distance. And now that the showdown had come and they were assembled to see him die, more than one was chilled by the stolid, immovable courage he displayed. He had made them walk humbly in his presence for two years, and the habit was not easily broken.
He stepped away from the wall, arms loose.
"Some of you boys are honest. Some are as crooked as these three renegades right in front of me. Well, if you're bent on your last Roman hohiday I guess you've got to have it. The Gulch is dyin', and maybe I'll die with it. But as long as I live, no man will touch my guns. If you want 'em you'll have to take 'em. And that little act will cost six lives. Niger, you fall first—an' Duke an' Tipstone will lay across you. That'll be the price of your holiday, boys. All right, Niger, start countin'."
"Back me up, boys," Duluth muttered.
"Oh, hell, get it over with!" the Duke ripped out. "I've had enough of this grandstand! Get it over with!"
"Start countin'," Falk droned.
Niger's mouth moved slowly along the numbers. Behind him, the fringe of the semicircle began to shift and break away. There was a sudden and brittle whispering. Men, retreating by slow steps, broke into a run, passing into the Lost Bonanza. And presently they ducked out again. A soft phrase broke along the ranks, "Indian Creek—rotten yaller!"
"Six," Niger mumbled, and turned with a querulous protest. "What's bitin' you gents? Hold steady!"
Then it broke with all the force of a tornado. "Indian Creek! Four-Finger Blackie's spilled it in his drunk!"
"Seven!" shouted Niger Duluth, wetting his lips. "Hold steady!"
But the crowd milled and stampeded and broke in a hundred fragments. The hint of a new strike touched them with a greater force than the killing of a man. Incredibly swift was their dispersal. To honest man and to leech alike came that fevered vision of riches. Discovery Gulch was about played out and for months the camp had been ready to dissolve. Always did the hint of a new find sway them thus; always were men ready to race away to stake beside a new Discovery. Many a pot had been left simmering over a fire and many a bucket, half up the windlass, been left to fall back as they followed some new whisper over the hills and down the gulches. A new lure, a new hope of wealth—it cut across every normal occupation, drained towns and left machinery to rust. And to all camps that had reached barren days, such as this one, it spelled doom. They never came back.
Four-Finger Blackie was in the street, crying futilely, "Where's my hawsses! It ain't so—I never found no pay streak! Damn a man, where's my hawsses." He went spinning to the dust, knocked there by the racing miners. Horses galloped south, out of town. A rig swept past, with men vainly trying to catch on. The mill whistle, high on the slope, began to shriek, maintaining its steady blast for a good five minutes. And then it seemed as if the man operating it had discovered he too was overlooking his chance for wealth, because it stopped abruptly. Miners afoot breasted the current, cursing thickly as they were elbowed and struck. Fanette Duval made a lane through them, whipping her horse to a dead gallop.
Niger Duluth had forgotten to count. He turned from side to side, watching this onrushing stream. He stared at the Duke and muttered something to Tipstone. Tipstone shook his head angrily, but Niger walked toward the Lost Bonanza and presently disappeared. Then the Duke withdrew and left Tipstone alone to face Falk. The latter stood silent, somberly witnessing the exodus. And before the dust had settled, they were gone and Discovery Gulch was only a shell, another scar on the green gulch side, another flimsy monument to the transitory works of man.
Tipstone stood rooted in his tracks, a gaunt and angular figure. He seemed to compress himself, to gather himself. And presently, at one sweeping motion of his arm, he snatched at his Stetson and sent it sailing far away, the sun striking his iron-shot hair.
"Well, Falk, I reckon I'm the only one left to pay the bill."
Falk seemed plunged deep in a study. He pulled himself from it with a kind of effort.
"I could have liked you, Tipstone, barring the fact you threw in with Duluth. Go on—it ain't too late. I don't want you. I want no man but Duluth."
Tipstone's thin lips curled upward. "I'm too old to change my tricks, Falk. I believe I can beat you to the draw. By God, I want your hide!"
"Many another man's wanted it," Falk murmured. "Take warnin', Tipstone. That fever ends on Boot Hill. I don't want to kill you. It's a big world. We won't be rubbin' elbows again. This town needs only one more sacrifice, and that's Niger Duluth."
"I'll chip in with him," Tipstone gritted. "Reach for it!"
At that moment the sun sank below the rim, leaving the street in shadows. And it seemed a prophecy that those shadows fell heaviest on Tipstone as his body weaved and rose. Balls of dust puffed up beneath stepping feet. White teeth flashed and there was a sharp blast of breathing. Then a single shot's echo careened down the desolated street. Falk was a rigid figure, standing above the sheriff. Thus he stood a moment while Four-Finger Blackie, crouched by the Lost Bonanza, yelled a warning.
"Watch it—watch it!"
The Duke and Niger Duluth appeared simultaneously on the street. The Duke came from the Lost Bonanza. Niger appeared a few doors farther removed. Both were firing as they came. Neal Falk walked out to the middle of the street and stepped forward, pacing slowly. The Duke fired wildly, a kind of frenzy overwhelming him. Each crashing echo beat over a flood of words, such words as a man might harbor through many months, until they were saturated and envenomed with hatred. So he weaved along the sidewalk, his red eyes burning against a pallid, unnatural skin, while Falk cruised forward. There was a sharp and solitary reply, and the Duke fell.
Niger Duluth had stopped firing during the Duke's fusillade. Now he raised his gun, giving ground. Falk spoke to him.
"Your time's come, Niger. Better stand an' take aim."
"Come and get me!" Duluth taunted. "You know how I shoot."
"I never underrated you, Niger," Falk called. "But the chapter don't close till one of us goes down. I reckon you'll be wearin' Old Man Bridger's cuff links, won't you, Niger?"
"None of your business!" Duluth snarled, still retreating.
"I'm makin' it so, Niger," was Falk's tuneless answer. "It was a mistake, Niger."
"Come an' get me!" Duluth screeched.
"You bet."
Four-Finger Blackie moved away from the sidewalk and watched. Duluth had reached the end of the town and was drawing Falk on over the rise of land. Presently both were lost to sight. Four-Finger Blackie started in pursuit. At the restaurant door he found Maryse Bridger crouched against the sill, staring out toward that rise of land. She wailed, "If Neal is killed—"
"If he's killed," Blackie broke in, "I'm ambushin' Duluth an' shootin' him in the back. Woman, I'd go to hell for Neal Falk!"
"If he is—"
Twin explosions over the hill; explosions reaching out against the canyon walls and reverberating back. The girl cringed. Blackie muttered a blasphemy and looked toward the evening sky.
"Them shots is a last salute," he said. "Discovery Gulch is done. Done. Done. Damn, my eyesight is sure gettin' poor, ma'am. Who's 'at comin' back?"
"Neal!"
"Then I believe in Providence," Blackie sighed. He straightened. "I think I'll go get me drunk tonight. Free liquor."
Falk trudged along the street. His shoulders were sagging and they saw the great weariness in his face. But as he looked to the girl, there was a flame in his eyes. "It's over. Now I can resign in honor. Thank God."
"They'll come back," Blackie grumbled. "When they discover Indian Creek ain't got no gold."
"They'll never come back, gold or no gold," Falk replied. "They never do. But there is gold in Indian Creek, Blackie. That's where the dust came from—in that poke I gave you."
Blackie jerked up his head. "An' you give it away?"
"I'm going back to cow country, Blackie," Falk said. "Do a chore for me. Go tell the Jessamine super he'll find the stage money in the Lost Bonanza safe."
Blackie turned on his heels. A yard away, he stopped. "I'd like to ask—how do you know that?"
But Neal Falk held his professional secrets to the very last. He only shook his head. The girl's arm touched him. "Come inside, Neal, while I get you a meal."
Blackie started for the Jessamine, but tarried in the deserted Lost Bonanza. And it was considerably along in the evening when he stumbled into the street to find a rig rolling out of the stable and a horse saddled and tied behind. The girl was up in the rig, bundled against the cold night wind. Falk held the reins.
"Now where?" Blackie demanded.
"We're pullin' out, Blackie," said Falk. "Out for the prairie. It's ten miles to James's settlement."
"Never comin' back?"
"Never. God bless you, Blackie. What's up your sleeve?"
"Oh," said Blackie, "I'll stay here. I got the whole town to myself, with ninety beds to sleep in. Reckon it's home." He stared at the girl. "Make him a good wife, ma'am. He's got one comin' to him."
"So-long."
Blackie stepped back and watched them go. There wasn't a smile on Neal Falk's face. A man can't erase the somberness of two years overnight. But it seemed to Blackie that Falk's countenance was more serene than he had ever seen it. His last picture was of Falk looking at the girl and of the girl sitting straight and proud beside him. And then they were gone and the squeal of the buggy wheels faded in the shadows. A coyote cried up on the slope, whereat Blackie shook his head. Damned lonesome in an empty town.
"Well, I got somethin' to remember in my old age," he said out loud, and turned back to the Lost Bonanza. "Good-by, fella. Now I'm goin' to get good an' drunk."
So he passed into the saloon, limping a little, carrying the legend of Neal Falk in his breast. That legend permeates the gutted relic of Discovery Gulch today—while far down in the prairie country, an ex-marshal rides the boundary lines of his range.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.