The Hair-Trigger Kid, Max Brand [best classic literature TXT] 📗

Chapter 1 - Plain Poison

Two Things waited for John Milman when he got West. One was his family,

and the other was the spring. When he got to the end of the railroad, he

could see spring eating its way up the mountains, taking the white from

their shoulders and streaking the desert itself with green. But his

family was not on hand with means to take him out to the ranch, and

therefore he had to wait restlessly in the hotel, pacing up and down his

room, and damning all delays. Sheriff Lew Walters was in that room,

trying to help his friend kill time and uselessly pointing out that in an

hour or two, at the most, the wife and daughter of Milman were sure to

arrive. He might as well have read a chapter out of the Bible. Or better,

perhaps.

 

“I haven’t seen them for six months!” said Milman.

 

This was a proof that he was still, to a degree, an outlander. Real

Westerners will not give way to their emotions so readily. They have

picked up some of the manners of the wild Indians. But the sheriff, who

knew the worth of this man, merely smiled and nodded.

 

“A lot of things can happen in an hour,” said Milman. “I wonder what’s

kept them hack? Elinore’s as punctual as a chronometer, always. And

Georgia would never be late for me! A lot of things can happen in an hour

around this part of the world. How is Mr. Law, and old lady Order, his

wife, Lew? They’re still in your charge, I suppose?”

 

“They’re recuperatin’,” said the sheriff gravely. “They got a sort of

shock and a setback a while ago, but they’re recuperatin’.”

 

“What gave them the shock?”

 

“Well, typhoid fever, smallpox, diphtheria, delirium tremens and muscular

rheumatism all hit this town together, one day, when Billy Shay turned up

and opened his gambling house. I had old Law and Order out, taking the

sun and the air every day, but now they don’t dare to leave their beds

till the sun’s at nine o’clock, and they creep back in around about

sundown.”

 

“Who is Billy Shay?” asked Milman, willing to forget his trouble for a

moment.

 

“Shay is poison,” said the sheriff.

 

“What kind?”

 

“Skunk poison,” said the sheriff inelegantly. “He’s just one of those

mean, low-down, sneakin’ curs that has teeth and knows how to use ‘em.”

 

“Then why don’t you run ‘im out?”

 

“I can’t hang anything on him. I know that everything crooked in the town

depends on Shay, but still I can’t get any information against him. He’s

slick as a snake, and he could hide in a snake’s hole, if he wanted to.”

 

“How does the town take to him?”

 

“How does any town this far West take to a chance to spoil its health,

throw away its bank account, wreck its eyes, and quit work? Why, this

town of Dry Creek is crazy about Billy Shay.”

 

“Does everyone know that he’s a crook?”

 

“Of course, everybody does. That won’t hold your real hundred-per-cent

Westerner from going to that gaming house and tossing his money away.

Shay has such a good thing that he only has to use the brakes now and

then to stop somebody on a big run. As long as a fool wins once in three

times, he’s sure to come back for more. And one player out of ten always

makes something worth while. They do the advertising for Billy Shay.”

 

He extended his hand, pointing across the street.

 

“There’s Billy’s house. He’s gone and got himself the finest place in

town.”

 

“That’s Judge Mahon’s place, I thought.”

 

“The judge has sold out and moved up Denver way. Didn’t you know that?”

 

“News is six months dead to me,” admitted the rancher. “There’s somebody

piling down the street in a hurry.”

 

The horseman came with a rush and a sweep.

 

“Maybe news from the ranch—maybe bad news!” muttered Milman under his

breath.

 

“Why, it’s Billy Shay!” said the sheriff. “I never saw him ride in like

that before!”

 

Billy Shay appeared to Milman as rather a hump-shouldered man with a

long, lean, white face. As he got to the front of his house, he sprang

from the saddle, without pausing to throw the reins, and as the horse

dashed off down the street, Billy cleared his front gate with a fine

hurdle and fled to the door of the house.

 

Then, as he fitted the key into the lock, he cast a frantic glance over

his shoulder up and down the street and flattened his body against the

door like one who feels the eyes of danger in the center of his spine.

 

A moment later he had disappeared into the house.

 

“Yes, that’s a mighty hurried fellow,” said Milman. “He doesn’t act as

though he’s so dangerous as you’ve been saying.”

 

“No, he don’t,” replied the sheriff. “He don’t look bad enough to eat a

raw egg, right now. But I’ve seen him—” He paused and sighed. “I’d like

to know what’s after Billy!” he continued, shaking his head. “Whatever is

in his mind, I’d like to find out the nature of it. I’d like to discover

the kind of mongoose that makes that cobra run!”

 

Then, distinctly, across the road, they could hear the noise of furniture

being dragged—heavy articles which screeched against the floor. They

even saw the door tremble as these things were piled against it.

 

“Dog-gone me if he ain’t barricadin’ himself in that house of his!” said

the sheriff with a growing awe.

 

He laid his brown hand with withered, wrinkled fingers upon the shoulder

of his friend.

 

“I got an idea that maybe we’re going to see something, old-timer.”

 

“See what?” said Milman.

 

“I dunno. A mob, maybe, that’s after him. Once we can crack the shell and

get at the news that’s in that hound’s life record, we’d have enough to

raise the whole of Dry Creek, I suppose.”

 

“You think there’s a mob rising? I don’t hear a sound.”

 

“Mobs that mean real business don’t make no noise at all,” said the

sheriff. “I’ve seen a hundred and fifty men wearin’ guns and masks, and

as quiet as a funeral. Funerals was what they was providin’, as a matter

of fact. Cheap funerals and a quick way out of the world to them that

didn’t understand the ways of the West, as you might say. How that Shay

slicked off of his horse, eh? I never seen nothin’ like it!”

 

“He’s a badly scared man, all right,” said Milman. “If the crowd should

come to mob him, will you have to intervene?” At this the face of Lew

Walters turned grim.

 

“I’d have to,” he declared. “The old days is gone, and Law and Order is

supposed to be strong enough to walk right up and down the main street of

this town night or day. I’m the escort. I’ve swore to do that job, and I

intend to do it!”

 

He looked anxiously up and down the street as he spoke.

 

But there was nothing in sight that agreed with his grave imaginings of

danger.

 

“Look at that dormer window in the roof!” exclaimed Milman.

 

The house of the judge, having been built as pretentiously as possible,

had a roof like the crown of a Mexican hat, and on one side of it was a

dormer window. The window was open, and inside it a mirror flashed a

blinding ray of light, winking rapidly.

 

“There’s a signal—that’s heliograph work as sure as I’m a foot high,

Lew. Can you make out the dots and dashes?”

 

“I can’t make out a thing. I’m not a telegrapher. But I could guess the

name of the fellow who’s handling that mirror!”

 

“You mean Shay?”

 

“That’s who I mean. He’s sending out a message to pals of his somewhere,

and I’d put my money that it’s a howl for help.”

 

“If we could get at the meaning of that message, we might be at the heart

of Shay’s private affairs—information enough to enable you to make your

arrest, eh?”

 

“Aye, we might. Here’s somebody coming. The mob, I’d say. And a mighty

small mob to crack a nut with a shell as hard as Shay’s. He’s probably

got half a dozen armed men in that house.”

 

The dust cloud down the street dissolved, presently, to show two women

and two men riding abreast, with led horses directly behind them.

 

“That’s no mob, Milman,” said the sheriff after a moment. “That’s your

wife on the left, there, if I ain’t lost my eyes.”

 

Milman, with an exclamation, made for the door, but the sheriff remained

fixed at his post at the window, watching with curiosity-squinted eyes

the flickering light from the heliograph that played in the dormer

window. He quite agreed with Milman that this message might be useful to

him in his work of ridding the town of the gambling nuisance. But he knew

that by the time he had secured a telegragher the signaling would

probably have stopped. He could only sigh and watch, uncomprehending.

 

Still his mind struggled to guess at a solution of