CHAPTER XXXVIII
INTO THE NORTH
THE moon had not yet risen, and in the darkness of Boney Street Smith walked slowly toward his room. The answer to his question had come. The rescue of Seagrue made it clear that Sinclair would not leave the country. He well knew that Sinclair cared no more for Seagrue than for a prairie-dog. It was only that he felt strong enough, with his friends and sympathizers, to defy the railroad force and Whispering Smith, and planned now, probably, to kill off his pursuers or wear them out. There was a second incentive for remaining: nearly all the Tower W money had been hidden at Rebstock’s cabin by Du Sang. That Kennedy had already got hold of it Sinclair could not know, but it was certain that he would not leave the country without an effort to recover the booty from Rebstock.
Whispering Smith turned the key in the door of his room as he revolved the situation in his mind. Within, the dark was cheerless, but he made no effort to light a lamp. Groping his way to the side the low bed, he sat down and put his head between his hands to think.
There was no help for it that he could see: he must meet Sinclair. The situation he had dreaded most, from the moment Bucks asked him to come back to the mountains, had come.
He thought of every phase of the outcome. If Sinclair should kill him the difficulties were less. It would be unpleasant, certainly, but something that might happen any time and at any man’s hands. He had cut into the game too long ago and with his eyes too wide open to complain at this time of the possibility of an accident. They might kill each other; but if, escaping himself, he should kill Sinclair
He came back in the silence always to that if. It rose dark between him and the woman he loved—whom he had loved since she was a child with school-girl eyes and braided hair. After he had lost her, only to find years afterward that she was hardly less wretched in her life than he in his, he had dreamed of the day when she might again be free and he free to win a love long hoped for.
But to slay this man—her husband—in his inmost heart he felt it would mean the raising of a bar as impalpable as fate, and as undying, to all his dreams. Deserved or not, whatever she should say or not say, what would she feel? How could her husband’s death in that encounter, if it ever came, be other than a stain that must shock and wound her, no matter how much she should try not to see. Could either of them ever quite forget it?
Kennedy and his men were guarding the Cache. Could they be sent against Sinclair? That would be only a baser sort of murder—the murder of his friends. He himself was leader, and so looked upon; the post of danger was his.
He raised his head. Through the window came a faint light. The moon was rising, and against the inner wall of the room the straight, hard lines of the old wardrobe rose dimly. The rifles were within. He must choose.
He walked to the window and pushed the curtain aside. It was dark everywhere across the upper town, but in the distance one light burned. It was in Marion’s cottage. He had chosen this room because from the window he could see her home. He stood for a few moments with his hands in his pockets, looking. When he turned away he drew the shade closely, lighted a lamp, and unlocked the wardrobe door.
Scott left the barn at half-past ten with a led horse for Whispering Smith. He rode past Smith’s room in Fort Street, but the room was dark, and he jogged down to the Wickiup square, where he had been told to meet him. After waiting and riding about for an hour, he tied the horses and went up to McCloud’s office. McCloud was at his desk, but knew nothing of Whispering Smith except that he was to come in before he started. “He’s a punctual man,” murmured Bob Scott, who had the low voice of the Indian. “Usually he is ahead of time.”
“Is he in his room, do you think?” asked McCloud.
“I rode around that way about fifteen minutes ago; there was no light.”
“He must be there,” declared McCloud. “Have you the horses below? We will ride over and try the room again.”
Fort Street back of Front is so quiet after eleven o’clock at night that a footfall echoes in it. McCloud dismounted in front of the bank building and, throwing the reins to Bob Scott, walked upstairs and back toward Smith’s room. In the hallway he paused. He heard faint strains of music. They came from within the room—fragments of old airs played on a violin, and subdued by a mute, in the darkness. Instinct stayed McCloud’s hand at the door. He stood until the music ceased and footsteps moved about in the room; then he knocked, and a light appeared within. Whispering Smith opened the door. He stood in his trousers and shirt, with his cartridge-belt in his hand. “Come in, George. I’m just getting hooked up.”
“Which way are you going to-night, Gordon?” asked McCloud, sitting down on the chair.
“I am going to Oroville. The crowd is celebrating there. It is a défi, you know.”
“Who are you going to take with you?”
“Nobody.”
McCloud moved uneasily. “I don’t like that.”
“There will be nothing doing. Sinclair may be gone by the time I arrive, but I want to see Bob and Gene Johnson, and scare the Williams Cache coyotes, just to keep their tails between their legs.”
“I’d like to kill off half a dozen of that gang.”
Whispering Smith said nothing for a moment. “Did you ever have to kill a man, George?” he asked buckling his cartridge-belt.
“No. Why?”
There was no reply. Smith had taken a rifle from the rack and was examining the firing mechanism. He worked the lever for a moment with lightning-like speed, laid the gun on the bed, and sat down beside it.
“You would hardly believe, George, how I hate to go after Murray Sinclair. I’ve known him all my life. His folks and mine lived across the street from one another for twenty years. Which is the older? Murray is five years older than I am; he was always a big, strong, good-looking fellow.” Whispering Smith put his hands on the side of the bed. “It is curious how you remember things that happened when you were a boy, isn’t it? I thought of something to-night I hadn’t thought of for twenty years. A little circus came to town. While they were setting up the tent the lines for the gasolene tank got fouled in the block at the top of the centre pole. The head canvasman offered a quarter to any boy that would climb the pole and free the block. One boy after another tried it, but they couldn’t climb half-way up. Then Murray sailed in. I was seven years old and Murray was twelve, and he wore a vest. He gave me the vest to hold while he went up. I felt like a king. There was a lead-pencil in one pocket, beautifully sharpened, and I showed it to the other boys. Did he make good? He always made good,” said Whispering Smith gloomily. “The canvasman gave him the quarter and two tickets, and he gave one of the tickets to me. I got to thinking about that to-night. As boys, Murray and I never had a quarrel.” He stopped. McCloud said nothing, and, after an interval, Smith spoke again:
“He was an oracle for all the small boys in town, and could advise us on any subject on earth—whether he knew anything about it or nothing about it made no difference. I told him once I wanted to be a California stage-robber, and he replied without an instant’s hesitation that I ought to begin to practise running. I was so upset at his grasp of the subject that I hadn’t the nerve to ask him why I needed to practise running to be a stage-robber. I was ashamed of appearing green and to this day I’ve never understood what he meant. Whether it was to run after the stage or to run away from it I couldn’t figure out. Perhaps my being too proud to ask the question changed my career. He went away for a long time, and we heard he was in the Black Hills. When he came back, my God! what a hero he was.”
Bob Scott knocked at the door and Whispering Smith opened it. “Tired of waiting, Bob? Well, I guess I’m ready. Is the moon up? This is the rifle I’m going to take, Bob. Did Wickwire have a talk with you? He’s all right. Suppose you send him to the mouth of Little Crawling Stone to watch things a day or two. They may try to work north that way or hide in the wash.”
Walking down to the street, Whispering Smith continued his suggestions. “And by the way, Bob, I want you to pass this word for me up and down Front Street. Sinclair has his friends in town and it’s all right—I know them and expect them to stay by him. I expect Murray’s friends to do what they can for him. I’ve got my friends and expect them to stay by me. But there is one thing that I will not stand for on any man’s part, and that is hiding Sinclair anywhere in Medicine Bend. You keep him out of Medicine Bend, Bob; will you do it? And remember, I will never let up on the man who hides him in town while this fight is on. There are good reasons for drawing the line on that point, and there I draw it hard and fast. Now Bob and Gene Johnson were at Oroville when you left, were they, Bob?” He was fastening his rifle in the scabbard. “Which is deputy sheriff this year, Bob or Gene? Gene—very good.” He swung into the saddle.
“Have you got everything?” murmured Scott.
“I think so. Stop! I’m riding away without my salt-bag. That would be a pretty piece of business, wouldn’t it? Take the key, Bob. It’s hanging between the rifles and the clock. Here’s the wardrobe key, too.”
There was some further talk when Scott came back with the salt, chiefly about horses and directions as to telephoning. Whispering Smith took up a notch again in his belt, pulled down his hat, and bent over the neck of his horse to lay his hand a moment in McCloud’s. It was one o’clock. Across the foothills the moon was rising, and Whispering Smith straightening up in the saddle wheeled his horse and trotted swiftly up the street into the silent north.