He had brushed aside such thoughts before; what was bringing them to mind now? Was there deep within him a realization of death? Was he really going to pay it out now?
He had never been in love, and so far as he knew he had never been loved by a woman. Here and there he had known women, some of them with affection, but it had gone no deeper than that. He knew he was a one-woman man, and had always known it; and he shied away now from the face that appeared sharply before his eyes. Not for him. Not for such as he, was a girl like Laine Tennison.
In the back of his mind there had always been the vague idea that someday he would find the girl he was looking for. He would buy himself a nice little spread, fix it up shipshape and cosy, and maybe they’d have a couple of youngsters…. He was a hell of a person to have such ideas.
Mike Shevlin considered the present situation with care. He had really kicked over the applecart, and no mistake. Wilson Hoyt would not sit still. He would at least make inquiries, try to take some steps to avoid trouble. That Ben Stowe would also take steps would be quite in keeping with the man as he remembered him.
At the livery stable Shevlin got his horse and rode out of town, then circled around and came up behind Dr. Rupert Clagg’s place. There were tall cottonwoods behind the house, rustling their leaves in the faint stir of air.
Swinging down, he tied his horse well into the deepest shadow of the trees. He must see Laine. He must warn her, and he must get her out of town if possible.
He moved toward the house and paused by a thick old tree, listening into the night. From the kitchen came the faint clatter of dishes and the momentary sound of a girl’s voice lifted in talk.
Something stirred in the grass near him, and a moment later a voice spoke. “All right, what do you want?” “I want to see Laine Tennison.” “Rather late for that, isn’t it? If she knows you and wishes to see you, come around tomorrow.” Laine’s voice interrupted. “It is all right, Rupert. I want to see him.” Mike Shevlin lifted the latch of the gate and came into the back yard. The light in the kitchen had been blown out, and the rear of the house was dark.
He stood uncertainly inside the gate. “All right,” the man’s voice said, “if Miss Tennison wishes to see you.” There was a pause.
“I am Dr. Clagg.” Shevlin turned his head, listening for any sound of a possible ambush. “Related to Clagg Merriam?” he asked.
“A distant cousin.” “Ah?” “Will you come into the house?” Mike hesitated, then followed them into the house. They went through the dark kitchen and along a lighted hall into a comfortable living room.
“Drink?” “No, thanks.” Dr. Rupert and Mike Shevlin measured each other. “Coffee?” the doctor suggested.
“We’re tea drinkers ourselves, but we always have coffee.” “I’ll have tea,” Mike said. “I spent a winter one time in a horse camp with an Englishman. I got to like it.” Laine had come into the room and Clagg turned to go. “I’ll let you talk,” he said. “I must tell Dottie what’s going on.” “You stay.” Shevlin did not mean to speak so abruptly, but he suddenly realized that Clagg was a solid citizen, and a fighting man. “You’d better hear this. You’ll know it all in a day or so, anyway.” Dottie came down the stairs and into the room.
“Ma’am,” Shevlin said, “I’m Mike Shevlin, and all hell’s about to break loose.”
CHAPTER 7
Ben Stowe chewed angrily on his cigar. That damned, gunhandy saddle tramp, drifting in here to ruin everything! Why couldn’t he have stayed in Texas, or wherever he had come from?
The years bring about many changes in the characters of men. Gib Gentry had always been a careless, rough-and-ready cowhand, never too honest in any dealings, yet a man who was, generally speaking, without malice. He had never stolen anything but cattle, and the West looked with tolerance upon branding loose stock. If a man happened to be so unlucky as to be caught in the act, he would probably be hung or shot, but it was generally understood that any maverick was taking its own chances as long as there was a running iron, a cinch ring, or a twist of barbed wire lying about handy.
Gib Gentry, who appreciated a good joke, had once made the rounds of a roundup camp and surreptitiously checked all the saddles. Of the forty men present–ranchers, cowhands, and stock inspectors–thirty-one of them had cinch rings on their saddles that showed signs of fire. At the time it caused considerable embarrassment, followed by a run on the nearest harness shops for extra cinch rings, but afterward it became a standing joke on the range.
In Gentry’s book, high-grading gold was not too far afield from cattle rustling. The gold was in the earth, the fact of discovery was an accident; why shouldn’t he profit as well as the next man? Neither kind of theft disturbed whatever moral code Gib possessed… either kind was taken for granted, and nothing more thought of it.
But the murder of Jack Moorman was something else, and Gib had never really gotten over that.
No ghosts haunted him in the night, and he carried no aura of guilt, visible to himself or others. He simply drank a little more, ate a little more, softened up physically a little faster, and avoided the subject even in his own mind. Whenever the memory of old Jack’s brutal killing came to him he quickly averted his thoughts and tried to think of something else. As there was a very busty young Irish waitress down at the restaurant called The Sump, he found this a relatively easy thing to do.
Ben Stowe was another kind of man entirely.
He, too, was without malice in whatever he had done. He would have laughed at the idea that society owed him a living, or owed him anything.
Gentry was reckless, immature, and took what he wanted; Stowe was cold, calculating, intelligent, and thought the law was for damned fools.
As Gentry had deteriorated, Stowe had grown in evil. As he was cold, so he had become colder; as he was a thinking man, he had become an executive in crime, which he conducted as any business operation should be conducted.
He was utterly ruthless.
He would never murder a man just for the sake of killing. He would never indulge in rape or in casual theft. He would have fallen into few of the categories that fit criminal types. He was simply a totally selfish man with a complete disregard for the rights of others to either life or property, if in some way these rights interfered with his own plans.
Once his mind was made up, he wasted no time. And his mind was made up now about Mike Shevlin.
He had planned that Shevlin should die, but he had planned to arrange it to happen in such a way as no blame could attach itself to the town or to anybody in it. There were ways to do such things, and he had used them before. Now there was no time for that.
Turning on his heel, he walked back to the Nevada House and into the saloon. Red was there, as Stowe had known he would be. Red was never far from people, for he was too much involved in a romance with the sound of his own voice.
Stowe caught his eyes, and Red came over.
Stowe bought drinks for both of them.
“There’s a man out at Boulder Spring,” he said. “You ride out there. Say nothing of this to anybody… not to anybody at all. You just ride out there and tell him to scratch the first name.” When Red was gone, Ben Stowe took his bottle and walked to a corner table. Now he must think. Every move must be planned.
The ledgers in his office told him just what each mine was taking out, and each was permitted to show a small profit occasionally. There was another book he kept hidden that told of each deposit of gold in the cache.
Now, like it or not, they were going to have to ship some of the gold to an eastern market. Stowe had made plans for this over a year ago. Gentry would handle the shipment, and it would arrive at the eastern market as though shipped from another mine than this.
Money was necessary to continue the operation of the plan, and they must have sufficient capital to make a payment on the purchase price of the mine if a deal could be arrived at. It was unfortunate that Mike Shevlin had appeared at this time with his talk of blowing the lid off, but he would be out of the picture within a matter of hours.