Gunman's Reckoning Part 16

"I knew you when I laid eyes on you for the first time," said Donnegan.

"You have the hands of a craftsman, but your eyes are put too close together. A coward's eyes--a cur's face, G.o.dwin. But you, George--have you heard what he said?"

No answer from George but a snarl.

"It sounds logical what he said, eh, George?"

Dead silence.

"But," said Donnegan, "there are flaws in the plan. G.o.dwin, get out of your clothes."

The other fell on his knees.

"For heaven's sake," he pleaded.

"Shut up," commanded Donnegan. "I'm not going to shoot you. I never intended to, you fool. But I wanted to see if you were worth splitting the coin with. You're not. Now get out of your clothes."

He was obeyed in fumbling haste, and while that operation went on, he succeeded in jumping out of his own rags and still kept the two fairly steadily under the nose of his gun. He tossed this bundle to G.o.dwin, who accepted it with a faint oath; and Donnegan stepped calmly and swiftly into the clothes of his victim.

"A perfect fit," he said at length, "and to show that I'm pleased, here's your purse back. Must be close to two hundred in that, from the weight."

G.o.dwin muttered some unintelligible curse.

"Tush. Now, get out! If you show your face in The Corner again, some of those miners will spot you, and they'll dress you in tar and feathers."

"You fool. If they see you in my clothes?"

"They'll never see these after tonight, probably. You have other clothes in your packs, G.o.dwin. Lots of 'em. You're the sort who knows how to dress, and I'll borrow your outfit. Get out!"

The other made no reply; a weight seemed to have fallen upon him along with his new outfit, and he slunk into the darkness. George made a move to follow; there was a m.u.f.fled shriek from G.o.dwin, who fled headlong; and then a sharp command from Donnegan stopped the big man.

"Come here," said Donnegan.

George Washington Green rode slowly closer.

"If I let you go what would you do?"

There was a glint of teeth.

"I'd find him."

"And break him in two, eh? Instead, I'm going to take you home, where you'll have a chance of breaking me in two instead. There's something about the cut of your shoulders and your head that I like, Green; and if you don't murder me in the first hour or so, I think we'll get on very well together. You hear?"

The silence of George Washington Green was a tremendous thing.

"Now ride ahead of me. I'll direct you how to go."

He went first straight back through the town and up the hill to the two tents. He made George go before him into the tent and take up the roll of bedding; and then, with George and the bedding leading the way, and Donnegan leading the two horses behind, they went across the hillside to a shack which he had seen vacated that evening. It certainly could not be rented again before morning, and in the meantime Donnegan would be in possession, which was a large part of the law in The Corner, as he knew.

A little lean-to against the main shack served as a stable; the creek down the hillside was the watering trough. And Donnegan stood by while the big Negro silently tended to the horses--removing the packs and preparing them for the night. Still in silence he produced a small lantern and lighted it. It showed his face for the first time--the skin ebony black and polished over the cheekbones, but the rest of the face almost handsome, except that the slight flare of his nostrils gave him a cast of inhuman ferocity. And the fierceness was given point by a pair of arms of gorilla length; broad shoulders padded with rolling muscles, and the neck of a bull. On the whole, Donnegan, a connoisseur of fighting men, had never seen such promise of strength.

At his gesture, George led the way into the house. It was more commodious than most of the shacks of The Corner. In place of a single room this had two compartments--one for the kitchen and another for the living room. In vacating the hut, the last occupants had left some of the furnishings behind them. There was a mirror, for instance, in the corner; and beneath the mirror a cheap table in whose open drawer appeared a tumble of papers. Donnegan dropped the heavy sack of G.o.dwin's winnings to the floor, and while George hung the lantern on a nail on the wall, Donnegan crossed to the table and appeared to run through the papers.

He was humming carelessly while he did it, but all the time he watched with catlike intensity the reflection of George in the mirror above him.

He saw--rather dimly, for the cheap gla.s.s showed all its images in waves--that George turned abruptly after hanging up the lantern, paused, and then whipped a hand into his coat pocket and out again.

Donnegan leaped lightly to one side, and the knife, hissing past his head, buried itself in the wall, and its vibrations set up a vicious humming. As for Donnegan, the leap that carried him to one side whirled him about also; he faced the big man, who was now crouched in the very act of following the knife cast with the lunge of his powerful body.

There was no weapon in Donnegan's hand, and yet George hesitated, balanced--and then slowly drew himself erect.

He was puzzled. An outburst of oaths, the flash of a gun, and he would have been at home in the brawl, but the silence, the smile of Donnegan and the steady glance were too much for him. He moistened his lips, and yet he could not speak. And Donnegan knew that what paralyzed George was the manner in which he had received warning. Evidently the simple explanation of the mirror did not occur to the fellow; and the whole incident took on supernatural colorings. A phrase of explanation and Donnegan would become again an ordinary human being; but while the small link was a mystery the brain and body of George were numb. It was necessary above all to continue inexplicable. Donnegan, turning, drew the knife from the wall with a jerk. Half the length of the keen blade had sunk into the wood--a mute tribute to the force and speed of George's hand--and now Donnegan took the bright little weapon by the point and gave it back to the other.

"If you throw for the body instead of the head," said Donnegan, "you have a better chance of sending the point home."

He turned his back again upon the gaping giant, and drawing up a broken box before the open door he sat down to contemplate the night. Not a sound behind him. It might be that the big fellow had regained his nerve and was stealing up for a second attempt; but Donnegan would have wagered his soul that George Washington Green had his first and last lesson and that he would rather play with bare lightning than ever again cross his new master.

At length: "When you make down the bunks," said Donnegan, "put mine farthest from the kitchen. You had better do that first."

"Yes--sir," came the deep ba.s.s murmur behind him.

And the heart of Donnegan stirred, for that "sir" meant many things.

Presently George crossed the floor with a burden; there was the "whish"

of the blankets being unrolled--and then a slight pause. It seemed to him that he could hear a heavier breathing. Why? And searching swiftly back through his memory he recalled that his other gun, a stub-nosed thirty-eight, was in the center of his blanket roll.

And he knew that George had the weapon in his big hand. One pressure of the trigger would put an end to Donnegan; one bullet would give George the canvas sack and its small treasure.

"When you clean my gun," said Donnegan, "take the action to pieces and go over every part."

He could actually feel the start of George.

Then: "Yes, sir," in a subdued whisper.

If the escape from the knife had startled George, this second incident had convinced him that his new master possessed eyes in the back of his head.

And Donnegan, paying no further heed to him, looked steadily across the hillside to the white tent of Lou Macon, fifty yards away.

16

His plan, grown to full stature so swiftly, and springing out of nothing, well nigh, had come out of his first determination to bring Jack Landis back to Lou Macon; for he could interpret those blank, misty eyes with which she had sat after the departure of Landis in only one way. Yet to rule even the hand of big Jack Landis would be hard enough and to rule his heart was quite another story. Remembering Nelly Lebrun, he saw clearly that the only way in which he could be brought back to Lou was first to remove Nelly as a possibility in his eyes. But how remove Nelly as long as it was her cue from her father to play Landis for his money? How remove her, unless it were possible to sweep Nelly off her feet with another man? She might, indeed, be taken by storm, and if she once slighted Landis for the sake of another, his boyish pride would probably do the rest, and his next step would be to return to Lou Macon.

All this seemed logical, but where find the man to storm the heart of Nelly and dazzle her bright, clever eyes? His own rags had made him shrug his shoulders; and it was the thought of clothes which had made him fasten his attention so closely on the man of the linen suit in Lebrun's. Donnegan with money, with well-fitted clothes, and with a few notorious escapades behind him--yes, Donnegan with such a flying start might flutter the heart of Nelly Lebrun for a moment. But he must have the money, the clothes, and then he must deliberately set out to startle The Corner, make himself a public figure, talked of, pointed at, known, feared, respected, and even loved by at least a few. He must accomplish all these things beginning at a literal zero.

It was the impossible nature of this that tempted Donnegan. But the paradoxical picture of the ragged skulker in Milligan's actually sitting at the same table with Nelly Lebrun and receiving her smiles stayed with him. He intended to rise, literally Phoenixlike, out of ashes. And the next morning, in the red time of the dawn, he sat drinking the coffee which George Washington Green had made for him and considering the details of the problem. Clothes, which had been a main obstacle, were now accounted for, since, as he had suspected, the packs of G.o.dwin contained a luxurious wardrobe of considerable compa.s.s. At that moment, for instance, Donnegan was wrapped in a dressing gown of padded silk and his feet were encased in slippers.

But clothes were the least part of his worries. To startle The Corner, and thereby make himself attractive in the eyes of Nelly Lebrun, overshadowing Jack Landis--that was the thing! But to startle The Corner, where gold strikes were events of every twenty-four hours, just now--where robberies were common gossip, and where the killings now averaged nearly three a day--to startle The Corner was like trying to startle the theatrical world with a sensational play. Indeed, this parallel could have been pursued, for Donnegan was the nameless actor and the mountain desert was the stage on which he intended to become a headliner. No wonder, then, that his lean face was compressed in thought. Yet no one could have guessed it by his conversation. At the moment he was interrupted, his talk ran somewhat as follows.