You have been recommended to me as a man of discretion who could turn over a piece of property for a quick profit, and who could handle the negotiations with a buyer. I am writing for an appointment and will be in Silver Reef on the 12th. It is essential that my visit as well as the nature of our business remain absolutely confidential.
It was very little, yet a hint of something. The assayer’s report I copied swiftly, and put the original back in the desk. The letter I folded and placed carefully in my pocket. Dousing the candle, I returned it to the shelf where I had found it.
The long ride had tired me more than I had realized, and now I suddenly knew what I needed most was rest. Before anything else, I must conserve my strengh. The wounds had left me weak, and although the good food, the fresh, clear air, and the rugged living were quickly bringing back my vitality, I still tired easily.
Turning toward the door, I heard a low mutter of voices and steps on the stair.
Swiftly I backed away and felt for the knob of a door I had seen that led to an inner room. Opening it, I stepped through and drew the door softly closed behind me. I was barely in time.
My hand reaching out in the darkness touched some rough boards stacked against the wall. The room had a faintly musty smell as of one long closed.
Voices sounded closer by and a door closed. Then a match scratched and a light showed briefly around the door. I heard a lamp chimney lifted and replaced.
“Probably some drunken brawl. You’re too suspicious, Morgan.”
“Lyell didn’t drink that much.”
“Forget him. … If you were married to the girl it would simplify things. What’s the matter, Brennan cutting in there, too?”
“Shut up!” Park’s voice was ugly. “Say that again and I’ll wring you out like a dirty towel, Booker. I mean it.”
“You do your part, I’ll do mine. The buyers have the money and they’re ready. They won’t wait forever.”
There was silence, the faint squeak of a cork turning in a bottle, then the gurgle of a poured drink.
“It’s not easy … he’s never alone.” It was Morgan Park’s voice.
“You’ve got the Slades.”
A chair scraped on the floor. A glass was put down, and then the door opened and both men went out. Listening, I heard their descending footsteps. From a window I saw them emerge into the light and separate, one going one way, one the other.
At any moment, Booker might decide to return. Swiftly opening the door, I went down the steps two at a time. When I came back to the street it was from another direction, and only after a careful checkup.
There was nothing more for me in Silver Reef. I must be getting home again. Only when I was in the saddle did I sort over what I had learned. And it was little enough.
Nobody knew who had killed Lyell, but Morgan Park was suspicious. Yet he had no reason for believing that I was even in the vicinity.
Lyell had denied his presence at the killing of Ball, which might or might not be the truth. Dying men do not always tell the truth, but his manner when questioned about Park’s presence caused me to wonder.
Morgan Park and Booker had some sort of an agreement as to the sale of some property which Park could not yet deliver.
When he had said, “He’s never alone” he could not have meant me. I was often alone.
It was not much to work with, and riding along through the night I told myself I must not jump to conclusions, but the man who was never alone could easily be Maclaren.
Or it might be someone else. It might be Key Chapin. Yet the remark about being married to the girl would not fit Chapin … or would it? Certainly. Maclaren’s son-in-law would be a protected man in a well-nigh invulnerable position.
The more I thought of it, however, the more positive I became that the man must be Maclaren. That would be why the Slades were to kill Canaval.
When I was six miles from Silver Reef I turned off the trail into a narrow-mouth draw and rode back up some distance. There, under some mesquite bush, I made a dry camp.
It was after midnight … something stirred out in the brush.
This was lonely country, only desert lay to the north, and south the country stretched away, uninhabited, clear to the Canyon of the Colorado. It was a rugged country, split by great canyons, barred by pinnacled backbones of sandstone, a land where even the Indians rarely roamed.
In Silver Reef, I had stocked a few supplies, and over a tiny fire I fried bacon and a couple of eggs, then cut grass for Buck, and bedded down for the night.
In the moonlight the bare white stones of the draw bottom stood out clearly. The mesquite offered some concealment, and I was safe enough while the night lasted.
There was a tough sheriff in Silver Reef who might put two and two together if he talked to the bartender to whom I had talked.
When I awakened it was cold and gray in the earliest dawn-light. The clumps of brush were black against the gray desert … the sky was pale, with only a few stars. Over coffee I watched the stars fade out, then saddled up.
Buck moved out, eager to be on his way, and swinging wide, of the trail I rode toward the ridge that followed the trail but lay half a mile away from it. Morgan Park would be riding that same trail. I did not want him to know I had been in Silver Reef.
There was no sound but that of the horse’s hoofs and the creak of saddle leather. The black brush turned to green, the last stars faded, and the ridges stood out sharp and clear in the morning light. Great boulders lay scattered in the desert beyond the mountain’s base, and here there were occasional stretches of sparse grass.
Once, looking toward the trail, I saw a faint plume of dust … a rider passing there.
Morgan Park?
It could be … and he might have seen my tracks.
TWELVE
Several times I drew up, looking off toward the trail. That lone plume of dust seemed to be keeping pace with me, yet I doubted if the rider was aware of my presence.
Where I rode there was little dust. We circled and climbed and dipped, and we had the rocky face of the mountain in back of us. Against that background I could not be outlined nor easily seen, but I held to low ground.
The wall of the mountain grew sheer, reaching high and straight up, its face without crack or crevice. At the base were heaps of talus, the scattered fragments of rock falling from the eroded sand stone. At noon I made camp at a small seep among a clump of trees. There was no sound … I picketed the buckskin on a patch of grass and rested, chewing on a chunk of jerked beef.
Resting by the water, I tried to plan. If Park was actually plotting some move against Maclaren, I should warn him, but he would not listen to me. Nor would Moira … she had known Morgan Park for some time, while I was a new and troublesome visitor. Such a story coming from me, and without proof, might do more harm than good.
Canaval … Canaval was the man.
He might not believe me, but he would be cautious, for he was a naturally cautious man and, like most gunmen, he trusted no one.
I must warn him of the Slades.
When I came back to Cottonwood Wash and the Two-Bar, the wind was whispering among the cottonwood leaves and stirring the tall grass. It was good to be home, and under me I felt the buckskin’s gait quicken as he stepped into a trot despite his weariness.
Mulvaney stepped into sight as I rode past the boulder where I had waited on that day that now seemed so long ago, the day when I first saw old man Ball and waited for him to approach me.
“Any trouble?” I asked.
“No … some men came by, but the sound of my Spencer moved them along.” He turned back to the cabin. “There’s grub on the table.”
Stripping the saddle from the buckskin, I looked around. Mulvaney had not let up on the work while I was gone, and what he had done was a day’s work for two men. He was a good man, Mulvaney, and I owed a debt to Katie O’Hara for sending him to me.
“Trouble in Silver Reef?”