The Heart of Unaga Part 56

"Say, you're asking me to partner in this thing whatever it is," Keeko said in a disarming fashion. "You're asking me to act the grown woman, and treating me like a foolish kid. You guessed just now I was smart.

Well? Let's be reasonable folk. Here, listen. You're talking of big money. I guess I know all about big money in this country. The only feller north of 60 who can handle and pay big money is Lorson Harris.

And he only reckons to pay big money for something he's looking for bad.

The thing he needs bad generally has a deal of dirt in it. Well, how much dirt is there to this trip while I sit around? Guess I'm either a woman or a kid. If I'm a kid I can't run the layout with you away. If I'm a woman I'll be treated that way. There's nothing in the North to scare me, not even your bluff, any more than Lorson Harris. But tell it all. We'll stand even then. Anyway it's not good betting blind, and I don't feel like acting that way."

The girl's smile robbed her determination of its offence. And Nicol fell for it. The bully in him was struggling with those purposes, that pa.s.sion which was his greatest weakness. The struggle was brief enough as such a struggle is bound to be. In a moment he capitulated.

"Say," he cried, "you'd break up the patience of Satan. Here, the thing's worth a hundred thousand dollars."

"A hundred thousand dollars?"

The startled tone, the amazement in Keeko's eyes, were genuine enough, and the man grinned his enjoyment.

"Sure," Nicol laughed in the delight of his success. "Do you know what it means? How'd you fancy living like a swell woman on the world's best, and with folks around you to act the way you say? How'd you feel with pockets stuffed with dollars, and wearing swell gowns instead of the darn buckskin that hides up half the woman in you? How'd you like living where you've as much chance of snow as eating ice cream in h.e.l.l, and supping your tea without needing to blow aside the dead flies floating on top to make a place for your dandy lips? It means that--all that--and more, and it's for you and me."

The girl had recovered from her surprise. Her worst suspicions were confirmed. Her wits were alert, sharpened by the hideous necessity of placating this amazing creature she dared not openly flout.

She smiled again. She threw into her smile all the blandness her s.e.x alone can command.

"I guess you're right. It's Lorson all right. It's too good to let slip.

Well?"

"Too good? Well, I'd smile. Too good? Gee!" Nicol was wholly deceived as Keeko intended him to be. He turned abruptly away to the counter where the bottle of rye whisky stood and helped himself to a full measure of it. He drank it down at a gulp. He had won the day. He had swept aside the antagonism he had felt threatened his ultimate purposes. He was on the high road to achieving all he had promised the dead mother in her tortured moments. He felt that Keeko was dazzled. He was buying her as he believed he could buy any woman. The rest would be easy. It only needed a little patience, a little care. So he drank without fear of the potent spirit he loved.

He staggered back to the stove and stood swaying beside the girl. And he rested one powerful hand on her buckskin-clad shoulder while his lewd fingers moved, gently caressing the soft flesh underneath. A wild, panicky desire set Keeko half mad to fling his filthy hand from its contact. But she resisted the impulse. She knew she dared not risk it in his present mood and condition. Filled with unutterable loathing she submitted to it.

"Well?" she demanded, while she forced the smile to her eyes again.

The man leered down at her out of his inflamed eyes. He shook his head with maudlin indulgence.

"You don't need to know any more," he said thickly. "What's the use?

You're a gal with clean notions. Guess my hands are used to the dirty sort of work Lorson needs."

"Then it is Lorson?"

"Lorson? Sure it's Lorson. Is there any other dirty swine in the North ready to buy the lives of men?"

"Life?"

"Oh, h.e.l.l! Yes," the man cried, with a gesture of tolerant impatience.

"Of course it's life. Lorson! A hundred thousand dollars! It couldn't be for a thing less than life. It don't rattle me any."

Suddenly he flung caution to the winds. His pa.s.sions were aflame, and his bemused brain was incapable of reckoning cost.

"It's some folks up north," he went on. "They've a secret trade. Lorson needs that trade. He's had 'em trailed, but they're wise, and they've fooled him all the time. He's crazy about it, and----"

Keeko had risen abruptly from her seat. The movement had rid her of those hideously searching fingers. She could stand them no longer. She stood up with one foot resting on the bench she had vacated, tilting it, and holding it balanced. Her smile had gone, but she was searching the bleared eyes of the man.

"He wants them--murdered!" she said.

But her tone, her look conveyed nothing to the man who had been her step-father. He went on ignoring the interruption completely.

"He means to get them. He set it up to me to locate 'em last summer while you were on the river. It was a tough trip, but I beat all I needed out of the hides of an outfit of the Shaunekuk, and I got the location of their post all right. Gee!" He laughed drunkenly. "Oh, yes, I got all the word I need, an' I guess there ain't a soul but me knows it. Well, I'm going along up north this opening, and I'm going to finish the job, and when it's done, and Lorson's handed the cash-pappy over, and it's set deep in my dip, why, then I'll pa.s.s him all he needs. He can get all I know--then. It's a cinch that hundred thou----"

"Who are the folks Lorson means to murder? Do I know them? Have I----?"

The man shook his head. The change in the girl's tone was lost upon him.

"Guess not. I'd say no one knows 'em except Tough Alroy and Lorson.

They're an outfit carrying on a trade under the name of Brand--Marcel Brand----"

The bench under the girl's moccasined foot crashed to the ground.

Instantly she was stooping over it.

When Keeko finally looked up the bench was under her foot again, balanced as before, and she was smiling. She was pale under the weather tanning of her face. That was all. Her mouth was set, and sharp lines were drawn about it. But she smiled. Oh, how she smiled.

Her lips parted. Her parching tongue moved in a vain effort to moisten them. She cleared her throat which was dry--dry as a lime kiln. When she spoke it was with effort, and her voice had lost its usual quality.

"Marcel--Marcel Brand," she said. "It--it sounds foreign. Maybe it's French-Canadian."

The man shrugged. The nationality of the name did not concern him. He was not even thinking of the murder for which he was to receive a price.

It was of the girl he was thinking with all the animal there was in him.

The alcohol he had consumed was driving him to let go all control.

"Don't know. Can't say," he said indifferently. "It don't matter two cents to me. It's the dollars when I've done and what they'll buy me.

Say, kid--" he drew a long breath like a man preparing for a plunge--"what's the matter with us two making out together? I'll be able to buy you----"

"You're my step-father!" Keeko's eyes lit curiously.

"Step-father?" The man laughed as if he had just listened to something profoundly humorous. "Step-father?" He shook his head. He moved a step nearer, his swaying body ill-balanced as he approached. "I'm no step-father to you, kid. There ain't a sign of relationship. You're your mother's kid by her man, the man she married, and she and I never saw the inside of a church together. She couldn't have married me if I'd felt that way. Her man's alive I guess. Leastways, we ain't heard of his death. I'm no step-father of yours. That's the stuff she handed you so you wouldn't think bad of her. I couldn't marry her and didn't want to, but I can marry you. See? And this hundred thousand dollars makes it so I can hand you----"

He lurched forward, his arms out-held. And as he came Keeko sprang back.

"Quit it!" she threatened. "Quit! A step nearer and----"

But the man's pa.s.sions were aflame. He laughed roughly.

"Quit nothing," he cried. "You can't fool me. I'm out to make good for you, and you're standing in. You're going to----"

"You fool man!"

Keeko's tone was cold and her words full of contempt. The white ring of her gun barrel covered him squarely. It was directed at the pit of his stomach, while her eyes, alight with cold purpose, stared unflinchingly into his drunk and pa.s.sion-distorted face.

The man's movement ceased. The animal shining in his eyes changed to a sudden, livid fury. The standing veins at his temples visibly pulsed, and Keeko knew he was only gathering afresh the forces which her action had momentarily paralyzed. With lightning impulse she seized the chance afforded her.

"You cur! You filthy brute!" she cried fiercely. "Do you think you can play me as you play the miserable women of the Shaunekuks? Get sense as quick as you know how. Get sense. Do you hear? Get out and do the work you reckon to do, but don't dare to make an inch towards me, or you'll never live to do the murder you're reckoning on."

It was the promptness, the strength and nerve of it all that achieved the girl's purpose. There was no pretence now. Her eyes were alight with a sober, frigid hate and determination.

The man understood. His fury was that of a man whose l.u.s.ts are thwarted, but his helplessness before the threatening gun was sufficiently obvious.