THE RIDDLE
"We'd oughta closed with Jack Harpe last night," said Swing Tunstall,
easing his muscular body down on a broken packing-case that sat
drunkenly beside the posts of the hotel corral. "What's the sense of
putting things off thataway, Racey? Now we'll lose two days' wages for
nothing."
"I had a reason," declared Racey Dawson, threading a new rawhide
string through one of the silver conchas on his split-ear bridle. "I
wanted to talk it over good with you first."
"Why for? What's there to talk over, I'd like to know? Why--"
"Because," interrupted Racey, "there's something up, if you ask me."
"What for a reason is that?" demanded the irritated Swing. "That ain't
a reason, no good reason, anyway. I'm telling you flat, y' understand,
that so long as we gotta take root here instead of going to Arizona
like we'd planned it out--so long's yo're gonna renig on the play
like I say, the best thing we can do is string our chips with Jack
Harpe's."
"That yore idea of a bright thing to do, huh?" questioned Racey, his
nimble fingers busy with the rawhide.
"I done told you," said Swing with dignity.
"Poor, poor Swing," murmured Racey as though to the bridle's address.
"The Gawd-forsaken young feller. It must be the devil and all to go
through life in such shape as he's in. All right in lots of ways, too.
He eats like a hawg, drinks like a fish, and snores like a ripsaw, so
you can see there's something almost human about him. But he hasn't
any brains, not a brain. He never has anything on his mind but his
hair and a hat. Yep, she's a sad, sad case. Lordy, Swing, old-timer, I
feel sorry for you. You got my sympathy. I'll always stick up for you
though. I won't let--"
"This here," cut in Swing, "has gone far enough. If you got anything
to say, say it."
"I been saying it. Ain't it sunk in yet? Hand me that axe, and I'll
make another try."
"Stop yore fool lallygaggin'," Swing exclaimed, impatiently. "Let's
have the whole sermon. Gawd, yo're worse'n a woman. Gab, gab, gab!
Nothing but. C'mon, tie the string to the latch, and slam the door.
This tooth has been aching a long, long while."
"It's thisaway, Swing," Racey said, soberly. "There ain't any manner
of use going into something we ain't got the whole straight of."
"What you talking about--the straight of?"
"Yep, the straight of. Don't you see anything funny about this
jigger's offer?"
"Looks like a fair proposition to me. Fifty per shore listens well."
"As if that's all of it."
"Well, what's a li'l fussin' round with Baldy Barbee and the Anvil
folks?"
"Nothin a-tall, _that_ ain't. But the li'l green pea ain't under
_that_ shell. Listen here, Swing, old-timer, I got a long and gashly
tale of wickedness to pour into those lily-white mule ears of yores.
Yep, if it wasn't me a-telling it I'll bet you'd think it was a fairy
tale."
"I might even so," said the sceptical Swing. "But I don't mind. I'm
good-natured to-day. I feel just like being lied to. Turn yore wolf
loose."
* * * * *
"What do you feed it on?" inquired solemn-faced Swing when he had
heard Racey to the bitter end.
"Feed which on what?" demanded the unsuspicious Racey.
"Yore imagination."
"Say, lookit here--"
"Yeah, I know. Oh, aw right, aw right, I didn't go for to make you
mad. I believe it. Every word. You're getting so dam touchy nowadays,
Racey, they's no living with you. I swear they ain't. Why, if a feller
so much as doubts one of yore reg'lar fish stories you gotta crawl his
hump. Aw right, I believe you. How big was he again? Ugh-h-h! Uncle!
Uncle! Get off my stummick! I said 'Uncle,' didn't I? Damitall, that
left ear of mine will never be the same again. You rammed it into a
rock with more points than a barb-wire fence. Nemmine no more foolin'
now. Are you shore you got Peaches fixed for three-four days? 'Cause
if you ain't--pop goes the weasel."
"This weasel ain't gonna pop. Not this trip. Peaches will stay put.
Don't you fret. By the time he does drift in we'll know all we need to
know, I guess."
"We," sniffed Swing. "Did I hear you say 'we'? Ain't you taking a
awful lot for granted?"
"Shut up. I couldn't keep you out of this with a ten-foot pole. Yo're
like Tom Kane thataway--always wantin' in where it's warm. Aw right,
that's settled. Lookit, we know there's some crooked work on the
towpath going on, and that Lanpher and Harpe are in it up to their
hocks. We know that Nebraska is one of Harpe's friends, and we know
that _after_ my fuss with Nebraska, Harpe comes to you and me and
offers us jobs--jobs at fifty per, wages to start when we say when,
and no work for a while, yet we're to stay round town till he wants us
to start in. And he talks of maybe a li'l trouble in the future with
Baldy Barbee and the Anvil boys, and he mentions Baldy and the Anvil
several times, and the last time wasn't necessary. And, furthermore,
he don't say anything a-tall about this Chin Whisker gent, who's old
Dale or I'm Dutch. So there y'are, and plain enough," added Racey,
holding up the bridle and turning it about. "From what Harpe said to
Lanpher, we know he's bound to get old Dale's ranch come hell or high
water. But he don't say anything about that to us. No, not him. It's
all Barbee and the Anvil, and he's as friendly as a dog with fleas.
His actions don't fit with the facts, and when a man's actions don't
do that they'll stand watchin', him and them both."
"Fifty per ain't to be sneezed at." Swing, whose heart had been set on
Arizona, was not prepared to give in without an argument. Besides, he
invariably objected on principle to anything Racey might see fit to
propose. Which was humanly natural, but more than maddening--to Racey.
"Shore not--unless it sets us against our friends."
"What you talkin' about?" persisted the wilfully blinded Swing.
"Neither Baldy Barbee nor the Anvil outfit are any friends of mine. I
don't even know 'em to speak to."
"But I tell you it ain't Baldy Barbee and the Anvil, you wooden-headed
floop. If it was them, why would Lanpher be in it? And Nebraska? And
Thompson? And Peaches Austin? I dunno exactly what it all means. But
whatever it is, it's gotta do with the country round Farewell--with
the ranches on the Lazy. Aw right. Besides Dale's and Morgan's there's
three ranches, ain't they, on the Lazy near Farewell?"
Racey Dawson held up three fingers, doubling a thumb and forefinger
behind them.
"Three ranches," he continued, "and the manager of one is in cahoots
with this Harpe of many strings." Here he doubled down his pinky
and waved the remaining two fingers in the face of his friend. "Two
ranches are left, the Cross-in-a-box and the Bar S. Jack Richie is
manager of the Cross-in-a-box. I used to ride for Jack, and he's my
friend. You dunno him, but you can take my word he's the pure quill
forty ways. Then there's the Bar S. Who's foreman of that? Tom Loudon.
You worked with him up at Scotty MacKenzie's Flyin' M ranch on the
Dogsoldier, and I've knowed him ever since I come to this country.
I ain't doing anything to make me bad friends with Tom Loudon. Then
there's Dale, this Chin Whisker party. He's a good feller, and had
a heap of hard luck, too. I ain't working against him, you betcha.
Nawsir. And if I don't miss my guess you don't, either."
"Aw, hell! They ain't no rat in that hole. Yo're seem' a heap o' smoke
where they ain't even a lighted match. I don't wanna do anything
against either Richie's outfit nor the Bar S, nor old Dale, but I
ain't satisfied--"
"You ain't! Good Gawdamighty! Ain't I been tellin' you? Ain't I been
explaining of it all in words of one syllable? Can't you see Harpe's
trying to pull us in with him is just a trick to get us shot by our
friends? Because his jumping old Dale's ranch will shore start a war
and you can gamble it's just as dangerous to be shot by yore friends
as it is by the enemy. Here I'm telling you over and over and you
ain't satisfied yet! I've heard of fellers like you, but I never
believed it was possible. Like the whiffle-tit, they were just a damn
lie. But it's all true. Swing, old settler, if you had a quarter-ounce
more sense you'd be half-witted."
"If I had a quarter-ounce more sense I'd quit you cold like that." So
saying Swing Tunstall rose to his feet and shuffled a guileful step or
two closer to Racey. The movement of his right arm passed unnoticed by
Racey. But the lighted cigarette that, following his movement, slipped
down Racey's back between his shirt collar and his neck did not pass
unnoticed.
Racey hopped up with a sharp exclamation and shucked himself out of
his shirt with the utmost despatch. He did not stop at the shirt, but
tore off his undershirt likewise.
"Better luck than I hoped for," Swing remarked from a safe distance.
"I didn't think it would slide down inside yore undershirt, too. Burn
you much, Racey, dear? You look awful cute standin' there with nothing
on but yore pants. All you need now is a pair of wings and a bow
n'arrer and you'd be a dead ringer for Cupid growed up. And there's
Mis' Lainey and Mis' Galloway looking at you from their kitchen
windows. They can hear what yo're saying, too. Fie, for shame."
But Racey Dawson had gathered up his clothing and fled to the back
of the corral. Muttering to himself he was pulling on his shirt when
Swing joined him--at a safe distance.
"Helluva trick to play on a feller," grumbled Racey.
"Served you right," was the return. "You hadn't oughta called me
half-witted. Do you know you look just like a turtle in his shell with
yore shirt half on half off thataway?"
"Aw, go sit on yoreself!"
At this juncture fat Bill Lainey wheezed round the corner of the
corral.
"What you been doin', Racey?" inquired the hotel-keeper. "Taking a
bath?"
"Naw, I ain't been taking a bath!" Racey denied ungraciously. "I do
this for fun and my health twice a day--once on Sundays."
"Well, it must 'a' been a heap funny whatever it was, or Swing
wouldn't be laughin' so hard. Yeah. Lookit, Racey--I meant to catch
you at breakfast, but you was through before I got back from Mike
Flynn's--lookit, I wish you'd go a li'l slow when yo're roughhousin'
round in my place. Rack Slimson, my most payin' customer, hadda sleep
on the dinin' room table all night because you druv him out of his
room."
"Bill, that was a joke," Racey intoned, solemnly. "I didn't like the
way the feller snored. Likewise he had too much to say. So naturally I
had to make him take it on the run. What else could I do? I ask you,
what else could I do?"
"Don't you believe him, Bill," cut in Swing, fearful that Racey would
get credit for an effort at humour where, in his own estimation, none
was due. "Racey hasn't got the guts to pick a fuss with a pack rat. It
was me that chased Rack Slimson downstairs."
"That's right," Racey assented, smoothly, suddenly mindful both of a
peculiar gleam in Bill Lainey's eye and a chance sentence uttered by
the hasher in his hearing at breakfast. "That's right. It was Swing
Tunstall what made so free and outrageous with Rack Slimson. You
go and crawl Swing's hump, Bill. Lord knows he needs it. He's been
getting awful brash and uppity lately. No living with him. Give him
hell, Bill."
"I don't wanna give nobody hell. Live at peace is my motto. All I
wanna know is who's gonna settle for six cups, eleven sassers, ten
plates, and a middle-size pitcher Rack Slimson busted when he rolled
off the table with 'em durin' the night. I don't think Rack oughta
hafta pay, because he wouldn't 'a' had to sleep there on the table
only bein' druv out thataway he couldn't help it like."
"Huh--how much, Bill?" inquired Swing in a still small voice, and
thrust his hand within his pocket.
"Well, seein' as it's you, Swing," was the prompt reply, "I'll only
say ten dollars and six bits. And that's dirt cheap. Honest, I'll bet
it'll cost me fifteen dollars and a half to replace 'em, what with the
scandalous prices we got now."
"And I hope that'll make you a better boy, Swing," said Racey,
observing with relish the transfer of real money from Swing's hand to
the landlord's palm. "There's such a thing, Swing, old settler, as
being too quick, as whirling too wide a loop as the man said when he
roped the locomotive. And it all costs money. Yep, sometimes as much
as ten dollars and six bits."
"... and one and one and two makes ten and six bits makes
ten-seventy-five," totalled Swing Tunstall, "and that makes all
square."
"Correct," said Bill Lainey, stuffing the money into a wide trousers
pocket. "'Bliged to you, Swing. I wish all the gents paid up as prompt
as you do."
"Oh, you needn't be surprised," chipped in the ready Racey. "Swing's a
fair-minded boy. He'll do what's right every time, once you show him
where he's wrong. Yeah. Say, Bill, has Nebraska Jones many friends in
this town?"
"More than enough," was the enigmatic reply.
"'Enough,' huh? Enough for what?"
"For whatever's necessary, Racey. But I ain't talking about Nebraska
and his friends. Not me. I got a wife and family to support, and
they's enough trouble running a hotel without picking up any more by
letting yore tongue waggle too much."
"Yo're right, Bill. Yore views do you credit. Is it against the law to
tell a feller where Nebraska's friends hang out when they're in town?"
"The dance hall and the Starlight," replied Bill Lainey, promptly.
"Might you happen to know any of their names, Bill?"
"What you wanna do, Racey, is look out for a jigger named Coffin,"
declared Lainey, coming flatly to the point. "Doc Coffin. Yop. Then
they's Punch-the-Breeze Thompson, Honey Hoke, and Peaches Austin.
They's a few more, but they ain't the kind to take the lead in
anything. They always follow. But Coffin, Thompson, Hoke, and Austin
are the gents to keep yore eye peeled for. I ain't talking about 'em,
y' understand. I ain't got a word to say against 'em, not a word. If I
was you, though, and I wanted to live longer and healthier Doc Coffin
is the one you wanna watch special--a heap special."
"Thanks, Bill, I--"
"No thanks needed," fended off the hotel-keeper, hastily. "I ain't
said nothin', and don't you forget it."
"I won't. Is the Starlight's owner, Rack Slimson, any friend of
Nebraska's, too?"
"We-ell, I dunno as he's a boom companion exactly, but Nebraska and
his bunch spend a pile of money in the Starlight, a pile of money. A
feller would be safe in saying that Rack Slimson's sympathy is with
Nebraska."