The Twins of Suffering Creek Part 16

It was to be a day of activity. He felt that. Yet he had made no definite plans. Only all his thoughts of the previous night warned him that something must be done, and that it was "up to him to get busy."

A long wakeful night is apt to distort many things of paramount interest. But the morning light generally reduces them to their proper focus. Thus it is with people who are considered temperamental. But Bill had no such claims. He was hard, unimaginative, and of keen decision. And overnight he had arrived at one considerable decision.

How he had arrived at it he hardly knew. Perhaps it was one of those decisions that cannot be helped. Certain it was that it had been arrived at through no definite course of reasoning. It had simply occurred to him and received his approval at once. An approval, which, once given, was rarely, if ever, rescinded. This was the man.

He had first thought a great deal about Scipio. He felt that the time had come when his fate must be closely inquired into. The blundering efforts of Sunny Oak were so hopelessly inadequate in the care of the children, that only the return of their father could save them from some dire domestic catastrophe.

Sunny apparently meant well by them. But Bill hated well-meaning people who disguised their incompetence under the excellence of their intentions. Besides, in this case it was so useless. These two children were a nuisance, he admitted, but they must not be allowed to suffer through Sunny's incompetence. No, their father must be found.

Then there was his mare, Gipsy; and when he thought of her he went hot with an alarm which no threat to himself could have inspired. This turn of thought brought James into his focus. That personage was rarely far from it, and he needed very little prompting to bring the outlaw into the full glare of his mental limelight. He hated James. He had seen him rarely, and spoken to him perhaps only a dozen times, when he first appeared on Suffering Creek. But he hated him as though he were his most bitter personal enemy.

He had no reason to offer for this hatred, beyond the outlaw's known depredations and the constant threat of his presence in the district.

At least no reason he would have admitted publicly. But then Wild Bill was not a man to bother with reasons much at any time. And it was the venomous hatred of the man which now drove him to a decision of the first importance. And such was his satisfaction in the interest of his decision, that, for the time being, at least, poker was robbed of its charm, faro had become a game of no consequence whatever, and gambling generally, with all its subtleties as he understood them, was no longer worth while. He had decided upon a game with a higher stake than any United States currency could afford. It was a game of life and death. James, "Lord" James, as he contemptuously declared, must go. There was no room for him in the same district as Wild Bill of Abilene.

It would be useless to seek the method by which this decision was reached. In a man such as Bill the subtleties of his motives were far too involved and deeply hidden. The only possible chance of estimating the truth would be to question his a.s.sociates as to their opinion. And even then such opinions would be biased by personal understanding of the man, and so would be of but small account.

Thus Minky would probably have declared that his decision was the result of his desire for the welfare of the community in which he claimed his best friends. Sandy Joyce would likely have shaken his head, and declared it was the possibility of something having happened to his mare Gipsy. Toby Jenks might have had a wild idea that Bill had made his "pile" on the "crook" and was "gettin' religion." Sunny Oak, whose shrewd mind spent most of its time in studying the peculiarities of his fellows, might have whispered an opinion to himself, when no one was about, to the effect that Bill couldn't stand for a rival "boss" around Suffering Creek.

Any of these opinions might have been right, just as any of them might have been very wide of the mark. Anyhow, certain it is that no citizen of Suffering Creek would, even when thoroughly drunk, have accused Bill of any leaning towards sentimentalism or chivalry. The idea that he cared two cents for what became of Scipio, or his wife, or his children, it would have been impossible to have driven into their heads with a sledge-hammer. And maybe they would have been right. Who could tell?

His decision was taken without any definite argument, without any heroics. He frankly declared to himself that James must go. And having decided, he, equally frankly, declared that "the proposition was up to him." This was his silent ultimatum, and, having delivered it, there was no turning back. He would carry it out with as little mercy to himself as he would show to any other concerned.

The men of Suffering Creek thought they knew this man. But it is doubtful if anybody, even the man himself, knew Wild Bill. Probably the nearest approach to a fair estimate of him would have been to describe him as a sort of driving force to a keen brain and hot, pa.s.sionate heart. Whether he possessed any of the gentler human feelings only his acts could show, for so hard and unyielding was his manner, so ruthless his purpose when his mind was made up, that it left little room for the ordinary observer to pack in a belief of the softer side to the man.

Ten minutes after performing his primitive ablutions Wild Bill was eating breakfast in the dining-room at the store, with Minky sitting opposite to him. The storekeeper was telling him of something that happened the night before, with a troubled expression in his honest eyes.

"I was wonderin' when you'd get around," he said, as soon as Birdie Mason had withdrawn to the kitchen. "I'd have given a deal for you to have been playin' last night. I would sure. There was three fellers, strangers, lookin' for a hand at poker. They'd got a fine wad o'

money, too, and were ready for a tall game. They got one with Irish O'Brien, an' Slade o' Kentucky, but they ain't fliers, an' the strangers. .h.i.t 'em good an' plenty. Guess they must ha' took five hundred dollars out of 'em."

Bill's sharp eyes were suddenly lifted from his plate. He was eating noisily.

"Did you locate 'em--the strangers?" he grated.

"That's sure the pinch," said Minky, wiping his broad forehead with a colored handkerchief. The heat in the dining-room was oppressive.

"I've never see 'em before, an' they didn't seem like talkin' a heap.

They were all three hard-lookin' citizens, an'--might ha' been anything from b.u.m cowpunchers to--"

"Sharps," put in Bill, between noisy sips at his coffee.

"Yes."

Minky watched a number of flies settle on a greasy patch on the bare table.

"Y'see," he went on, after a thoughtful pause, "I don't like strangers who don't seem ready tongued--none of us do, since the stage-robbin'

set in."

"You mean--" Bill set his cup down.

Minky nodded.

"We ain't sent out a parcel of gold for months, an' I'm kind o' full up with dust about now. Y'see, the boys has got to cash their stuff, and I'm here to make trade, so--wal, I jest got to fill myself with gold-dust, an' take my chances. I'm mighty full just now--an'

strangers worry me some."

"You're weakenin'," said Bill sharply, but his eyes were serious, and suggested a deep train of swift thought. Presently he reached a piece of bread and spread mola.s.ses on it.

"Guess you're figgerin' it 'ud be safer to empty out."

Minky nodded.

"And these strangers?" Bill went on.

"They've lit out," said Minky ruefully. "I ast a few questions of the boys. They rode out at sun-up."

"Where did they sleep?"

"Don't know. n.o.body seems to know."

Minky sighed audibly. And Bill went on eating.

"Ain't heerd nothing o' Zip?" the storekeeper inquired presently.

"No."

"'Bout that mare o' yours?"

Bill's face suddenly flushed, and his fierce brows drew together in an ominous frown, but he made no answer. Minky saw the change and edged off.

"It's time he was gettin' around."

Bill nodded.

"I was kind of wonderin'," Minky went on thoughtfully, "if he don't turn up--wot's to happen with them kids?"

"I ain't figgered."

Bill's interest was apparently wandering.

"He'll need to be gettin' around or--somethin's got to be done," Minky drifted on vaguely.

"Sure."

"Y'see, Sunny's jest a hoboe."

"Sure."

"Don't guess Zip's claim amounts to pea-shucks neither," the storekeeper went on, his mind leaning towards the financial side of the matter.

"No."