“Could be trouble over there at Hattan’s.” The bartender put his forearms on the bar. “That big feller, he went to see that shyster, Jake Booker.”
“Lawyer?”
“An’ a crook.”
The bartender was not disposed to let me go so easily. The saloon was empty and he felt like talking. Pushing my hat back on my head, I rolled a smoke, and listened.
Morgan Park had visited Silver Reef several times, but had not come to the Elk Horn. He confined his visits to the office of Jake Booker or to the back room of a dive called The Sump. The only man who ever came with him was Lyell, and the latter occasionally came to the Elk Horn.
The bartender talked on, and I was a good listener. He was no well of information, but the little he did know was to the point, and it helped to make a picture for me.
Morgan Park did not want to become known in Silver Reef. In fact, nobody knew his name. He had his drinks in the back room of The Sump, and if he was known to anyone aside from Booker, it was to The Sump’s owner. He rarely arrived during the day, usually coming in before daylight or just after dark. His actions were certainly not those of a man on honest busines.
When I left the saloon I went to the stage station and got off my message to Leo D’Arcy. Then I took pains to locate The Sump and the office of Jake Booker.
Night came swiftly, and with darkness the miners came to town and crowded the streets and the saloons. They were a rough, jovial crowd, pushing and shoving but good-natured. Here and there during the early evening I saw big-hatted men from the range, but they were few.
Silver Reef was booming, and money was flowing as freely as the whiskey. Few of the men carried guns in sight, and probably the majority did not carry them at all. Several times I saw men watching me with interest, and it was always my guns that drew their attention.
One hard-faced young miner stopped in front of me. His eyes looked like trouble, and I waited no action with anyone.
“What would you do without those guns?” he asked.
I grinned at him. “Well, friend, I’ve had to go without them a time or two. Sometimes I win … the last time I got my ears beat down.”
He chuckled, his animosity gone. “Buy you a drink?”
“Let’s go!”
He was urging a second one on me that I didn’t want, when a group of his friends came in. Carefully, I eased away from the bar as they moved up, and lost myself in the crowd. I went outside and started up the street.
Turning at Louder’s store, I passed under a street lamp on the corner, and for an instant stood outlined in all its radiance. From the shadows, flame stabbed. There was a tug at my sleeve and then my own gun roared, and as the shot sped, I went after it.
A man lunged from the shadows near the store and ran, staggering, toward the alley behind it. Pistol ready, I ran after him.
He slipped and went to his knees, then came up and plunged on, half running, half falling. He brought up with a crash against the corral bars and then fell, rolling over. Apparently he had not even seen the corral fence.
He got his hands under him and tried to get up, then slipped back and lay still. His face showed in the glow of light from a window. It was Lyell.
His shirt front was bloody and his face had a shocked expression. He rolled his eyes at me and worked his lips as if to speak. He had been hit hard by my quick, scarcely aimed shot.
“Damn you … I missed.”
“And I didn’t.”
He stared at me, and I started to move away. “I’ll get a doctor. I saw a sign up the street.”
He grabbed my sleeve. “Don’t go … no use. An’ I don’t want to … to die alone.”
“You were in the gang that killed Ball.”
“No!” He caught at my shirt. “No, I wasn’t! He … he was a good old man.”
“Was Morgan Park there?”
He looked away from me. “Why should he be there? Wasn’t … his play.”
He was breathing hoarsely. Out on the street I could hear voices of men in argument. They were trying to decide where the shots had come from. In a matter of minutes somebody would come down this alley.
“What’s he seeing Booker for? What about Sam Slade?”
Footsteps crunched on the gravel. It was a lone man coming from the other direction and he carried a lantern.
“Get a doctor, will you? This man’s hurt.”
He put down the lantern and started to run. I took the light and began to uncover the wound.
“No use,” Lyell insisted, “you got me.” He looked at me, his eyes pleading for belief. “Never ambushed a man before.”
I loosened his belt, eased the tightness of his clothing. He was breathing hoarsely and his eyes stared straight up into darkness.
“The Slades are going to get Canaval.”
“And me?”
“Park wants you.”
“What else does he want? Range?”
“No.”
He breathed slowly, heavily, and with increasing difficulty. I could hear the boots coining, several men were approaching.
“He … he wants money.”
The doctor came running up. In the excitement I backed away, and then turned and walked off into the darkness. If anybody would know about Park’s plans it would be Booker, and I had an idea I could get into Booker’s office.
Pausing in the darkness, I glanced back. There was a knot of men about Lyell now. I heard somebody call for quiet, and then they asked him who shot him. If he made any answer, I didn’t hear it. Either he was too far gone to reply, or had no intention of telling. Standing there in the darkness, I studied the situation.
The trip had been valuable if only to send the message, but I had also learned something of the plans that Morgan Park was developing.
But why … why?
He wanted to be rid of Canaval. That could only indicate that the Boxed M gunman stood between him and what he wanted.
That could mean that what he wanted was on the Boxed M. Was it Moira? Or was it more than Moira?
Park had seemed to be courting Moira with Maclaren’s consent… so why kill Canaval?
Unless there was something else, something more that he wanted. If he married Moira, Maclaren would still have the ranch. But if Maclaren were dead…? Lyell had said, though, that what Morgan Park wanted was money.
Booker’s office was on the second floor of a frame building reached by an outside stairway. Once up there, a man would be trapped if anyone mounted those stairs while he was in the office.
Standing back in the shadows, I looked up. I never liked tight corners or closed places … I was a wide open country man.
It was cooler now and the stars were out. There was no one in sight. Now was my chance, if there was one for me once I started up those stairs.
Up the street a music box was jangling and the town seemed wide awake. In a saloon not many doors away a quartet was singing, loudly if not tunefully, but in the streets there was no movement.
Booker had friends here and I had none. Going up those steps would be a risk, and I had no logical story. He was an attorney I had come to consult? But the lights in his office were out.
Yet, waiting in the shadows, I knew that I had to go up those stairs, that what I needed to know might be found there.
Glancing up the street, I saw no one. I crossed to the foot of the steps and, taking a long breath, I went up swiftly, two at a time. The door was locked, but I knew something of locks, and soon had the door opened.
It was pitch dark inside and smelled of stale tobacco. Lighting my way with a stump of candle, I examined the tray on top of the desk, the top drawer, and the side drawers. Every sense alert for the slightest sound, I worked quickly and with precision. Suddenly, I stopped.
In my hand was an assayer’s report. No name was on the report, no location was mentioned, but the ore that had been assayed was amazingly rich in silver. Placing it to one side and working swiftly through the papers, I came suddenly upon a familiar name.
The name was signed to a letter of one paragraph only … and the name was that of Morgan Park.