BY HIS OWN HAND
In the Palace bar all was merry. To the casual eye Scanlon might
have appeared an exception, a frosted flower in a garden of flaming
blooms; but even his moroseness was giving way to a sly smile. Four
mysterious aces had but recently appeared in Stub Rawlings’s hand.
The Scanlon bank roll had been severely injured. The source of that
handful of cards had sorely troubled the red-headed boss of the
Palace. He had become conscious of the storm raging without, but he
had not so much as cast a glance at the streaming windows. Mr.
Rawlings’s play was of greater interest.
Lady Luck began to smile on the house. Scanlon’s stack of blue chips
increased to dizzy heights. He now held Mr. Rawlings’s aces. He
played them much better than Stub had. In fact, so well did he
maneuver that when the Diamond-Bar man called, the game was over as
far as Stub was concerned.
In the interval Scanlon flashed questioning eyes at the windows.
Impatiently then he called to Vin: “The windows, Vin! Upstairs—shut
the windows! This damn place’ll be floatin’ away if you don’t.”
Vin had been much the busier of the two. But that was as usual. He
scowled now, though. Scanlon had been piling straws on the Basque’s
back for some years. This threatened to be the one too many.
Tomorrow he would brood over any damage done to the hotel; but now
he was angry only with Scanlon. “_Madre de Dios!_” he growled. “I do
all these worries for theese firm. I scrub those floors, I mak’
those bed, I wash those window—by Chris’, I not close them.”
“Aw, go on, Vinnie,” the boisterous Stuffy exclaimed, “and be damn
glad you ain’t livin’ in Awregon where they really got rain.”
“That’s him!” Scanlon snorted. “Always tellin’ what he does round
here. Jest workin’ yerself to death, ain’t yuh? Humph! If it wasn’t
fer my brains we wouldn’t have no hotel.” He turned back to his
game. “Let ’er rain,” he roared. “I can swim.”
This indifference to their mutual prosperity seared the Basque’s
soul, but he rolled up his apron and started for the stairs, the air
blue with his cursing. “By damn, I soon git my own hotel, you Irish
gringo!” he hurled at his partner.
The crowd tittered. Vin’s troubles were well understood. A moment
later the Basque was back at the head of the stairs, white of face,
hands shaking.
“_Socorro_—help! Man ees keel heemself! I guess you come like hell
now, Scanlon.”
A hush fell upon the crowded barroom. Little noises were stilled
until only the soft slip-slip of the cards running through Scanlon’s
fingers broke the silence. Sudden, or mysterious, death was quite as
chilling in Standing Rock as in more sophisticated circles.
The tension held for a brief spell. Hobe Ferris was the first to
move. A moment later the crowd was pouring up the stairs.
Traynor lay as the killer had left him—half out of bed, his gun near
his lifeless hand.
Scanlon bent over and examined the powder marks on the man’s
forehead. “Never seen him before,” said he as he straightened up.
“This is Stuffy’s room, Vin. How’d _he_ git up here?”
“Man came ’fore supper. Say he only want to sleep till the rain ees
past. I say take theese room. What diff’rence eet make? Stuffy not
go to baid tonight.”
“You said somethin’, Vinnie. I ain’t ever goin’ to sleep in _that_
bed.”
“Dry up,” Hobe ordered. “We’d better git Doc Ritter. The doc and the
old man are playin’ pinochle in his office. I saw ’em across the
street. Run over and git him, Stub.”
“Ain’t no need gittin’ a doctor,” Scanlon said positively. “This is
a job for the coroner. The man’s as dead as a man can git. Gallup is
the only one that can be of any use here.”
“Yeh, I guess yo’re right, Scanlon. Fine lookin’ man, that. Wonder
where he came from? Ain’t none of y’u boys ever seen him?”
The crowd edged closer to the dead man; but no one seemed to
remember him.
“I’ll go for Gallup,” Stub offered. “He’ll sure be riled, gittin’
out of bed this time of the night. He goes to the hay with the
chickens.”
Stub’s going seemed to unloosen the crowd’s tongue. A dozen
conjectures were voiced, and either denied or affirmed. Hobe brought
them up, standing, by his discovery that no one had heard the shot
which had killed the man.
Scanlon turned on his partner, his mouth sagging a trifle. This
thing had a queer draw to it. “Vin,” he argued, “you ain’t been out
of the house. Didn’t you hear nothin’?”
“I don’ hear anyt’ing. But theese _señor_ have foony look in hees
eye. Mak’ me feel leetla chill in the back. I ask hees name;
_Caramba!_ He say he ees pretty well forget how to mak’ those
writings in book.”
“Sort of a mysterious gent, eh?” Scanlon asked, unpleasantly.
“His name’s his own business,” Hobe flared back. “He might have been
considerate enough to bump hisself off somewheres else; but I pretty
well wouldn’t like to have anybody tellin’ me my name wa’n’t my own
business.”
The Diamond-Bar foreman rightly suspected that Scanlon’s annoyance
was largely due to the fact that this affair would throw a wet
blanket on the spending of money. He had been waiting some three
months for this harvest.
Gallup, the coroner, and Stub returned at this moment, and Scanlon
was saved replying to the challenge in Hobe’s words.
“What’s all the trouble?” Gallup demanded when he had entered the
room.
“It’s a job for you, Aaron,” Ferris replied. “Vin just found him a
few minutes ago.”
Gallup surveyed the dead man.
“Humph! Did a good job, didn’t he? Guess he wouldn’t ’a’ been no
deader in the mornin’. Gittin’ so I can’t git a good night’s sleep
no more.”
“Yo’re still drawin’ down yore wages reg’lar, ain’t yuh?”
Old Aaron wiped his nose with the back of his hand at this query
from Ferris.
“Sorta reg’lar, Hobe,” Gallup answered with a wise little smile.
“All due to me, though. Any man that can git fifteen hundred a year
out of this county has earned it. If you folks ever start raisin’ my
wages I’m goin’ to quit cold.”
While he talked, Gallup had been examining the dead man’s clothes
and his gun.
“This bird sure knew what he was doin’,” he muttered. “Ain’t a mark
on him to identify him. Queer old gun he used. Well, we got men
enough here. I guess I’ll swear you in and git done right now.”
“We’re shy one, Aaron,” said Hobe. “Where’s Johnny? Ought to have
him, he’s so _up_ on these things.”
“Him and Tony’s over to the Bud. They’ll be comin’ soon as the news
gits round.”
“I got enough,” Aaron answered. “Johnny Dice ain’t law-abidin’ no
more, anyhow.”
Without further delay he began swearing them to the truth. Before he
had finished the jingle of spur chains below caught Scanlon’s ear.
“There’s someone now.” He went to the stairs and looked down. “Say,
Johnny, you’re just in time. Need another man up here.”
“Surest thing, old dear. What’s the limit?”
“No limit. It’s a dead man. Gallup’s here.”
“Do I know him?” demanded Johnny.
“No one’s ever clapped eyes on him ’cept Vin. But he don’t know
nothin’, either.”
Johnny had stopped to shake the rain from his hat. He turned now to
Madeiras. “Come on, Tony. What you grumblin’ about?”
Tony smiled. “I t’ought Scanlon say Gallup ees daid.”
“You sound disappointed. What you cookin’ up for old Aaron?”
“You forget my name, Johnny. I am a Madeiras. There ees lots of
Madeiras.”
“Still thinkin’ ’bout that, eh? You best tell your people not to
borrow no money from Aaron. He’s a money hound, boy. I tell yuh he
knows those gents on the greenbacks personal.”
Tony tapped his chest. “Somet’ings we don’t forget, Johnny.”
They were upstairs by this time. Aaron scowled at the Basque, but he
chose him in preference to Johnny.
“One of you is all I need,” the old man muttered. Johnny was
defeated, but not stilled.
“They certainly keep you busy, don’t they, Aaron?” he asked
provokingly.
“That’ll be enough talk from you, Johnny,” Gallup snapped. “If you
want to stay in the room you keep still.”
“Serves me right. The idea of a loose character like me tryin’ to
edge in on the law! Ain’t no hard feelin’s on my part, Aaron.”
The old man ignored this sally.
“Now, Vinnie, you tell us how you found this man,” he began in a
more or less official manner.
Vin explained how he had come up to close the windows, and so forth.
“You hain’t touched nothin’?”
“No, I call downstairs right away I see he ees daid.”
“Humph! Nobody here knows this man, either, eh?” He cleared his
throat importantly. “Well, gentlemen, there don’t seem to be no use
wastin’ any more time. This man came here intendin’ to kill himself.
It ain’t accidental-like for a man to go round without some mark of
identification on him. He cut off every sign by which he might be
traced. He’s got his watch and his money; so it wa’n’t robbery. And
you all see where the powder burned his forehead. The gun’s there on
the floor, just where he dropped it, too. Guess that makes the
answer plain. Best you bring in the usual verdict; death by his own
hand, this day and date. That agreed?”
A muttered chorus of assenting grunts greeted him as he began making
out the death certificate.
“Say, Aaron,” Johnny interrupted. “There’s somethin’ under the bed.
The man’s hat, I reckon.”
Aaron glanced at him over the rims of his glasses.
“Why don’t you wait a little longer? You ain’t tongue-tied, be yuh?”
“You told me to shut up.”
“Little good comes from tellin’ you.”
The old man grunted as he crawled beneath the bed to recover the
hat.
“It’s a hat, all right,” he grumbled. “His hat, no doubt. Ain’t a
mark on it, though.” He held it up for his jury to gaze at it. “Jest
about proves what I contend. The man wanted to die unidentified.”
Tony Madeiras’s eyes bulged as he saw the hat Gallup held aloft.
Pushing his way forward he took the hat in his hand. Gallup watched
him closely.
“Son of a gun!” Madeiras exclaimed slowly and turned to face his
friends. “I change my min’ about those daid man. I know thees hat!”
“What?” exclaimed Johnny.
“_Sí._ I know thees hat. Only t’ree, four days ago I see eet.”
“Yeh!” There was open doubt of the Basque puncher’s word in the
coroner’s voice. “You remember a hat without a band or mark on it
that you saw three or four days ago? It ain’t even a grown-up hat.
It’s just a little runt of a thing. But you remember it, Madeiras?”
Tony’s eyes narrowed as he answered the old man. “I said I remember
theese hat.”
“Well, you’ve got some memory, bosco.”
Big Hobe put his hand upon Gallup’s shoulder as the coroner gave
tongue to the western term of contempt for the Basque.
“Listen here, Aaron. You won’t make no friends for yoreself with
that kind of talk. This Diamond-Bar bunch don’t exactly like to hear
Tony called a bosco. It ain’t good for the health to say it more
than once. You git that? Now if Tony allows he remembers that hat it
ain’t up to you to call him a liar.”
“That’s all right, Hobe,” Tony smiled. “Maybe some time he find out
my people have pretty damn good memory. What he thinks, I don’t
care. But for you, Hobe: last Monday I was on the North Fork.
Evening time I come down to the river. Theese man be there. He have
plenty hair on hees face then. Big whiskers. He spik Spanish. Ask
lots of question. Me, I ask some, too. He come long ways theese
man.”
“You find out his name?”
“Tony Madeiras don’ ask man hees name.”
“Good for you, Tony,” Johnny called. “It ain’t bein’ done.”
Gallup turned on Johnny with face flaming.
“If I hear any more talk from you, out you go. This is your crowd,
but the law is the law, and I ain’t goin’ to stand no impudence from
you.”
Doc Ritter and Jackson Kent came in as Gallup admonished Johnny. The
coroner nodded to Kent.
“Maybe you can put some sense into him,” he said, pointing to Johnny
Dice.
“What’s the matter, Johnny?” asked Kent. “We just heard a man had
killed himself up here.”
“Nothin’ the matter with me. Gallup’s runnin’ things here. And he
ain’t makin’ no hit with it, either. Hobe had to call him a minute
ago.”
“Mr. Gallup’s a good man, boys. Don’t rear and tear too much. Jest
what is wrong, Aaron?”
When Gallup had finished explaining; the Diamond-Bar owner did his
best to restore harmony.
“Now you go on, Tony, and tell the coroner what you know,” he said,
pleadingly. “We don’t want no run-in with the law.”
“That’s sense,” Gallup seconded. “If you saw this man, and talked
with him, tell us what he said.”
“Well, he say—er—he say——” Johnny Dice was coughing so violently
that Tony could not go on. The Basque turned on his pal
questioningly. Johnny was bent nearly double; but Tony caught the
wink and the slight shake of the head which were meant for him. He
started to speak again:
“Well, he say how ees the cattle? How ees the water? How ees the
sheep? How ees——”
“I don’t care about that,” Gallup growled. “Did he say anythin’ that
has any bearin’ on this case? We ain’t interested in anythin’ else.”
“No—I guess not. All he say ees how ees these, how ees that?”
“Then all this talk’s been for nothin’. What do you say, men? Are
you satisfied it’s suicide or not? Raise your hands if you are.”
Tony saw that Johnny was telling him to say yes. When the Basque’s
hand went up, Gallup turned to Doc Ritter.
“Here’s your papers, doc. Take the body any time you want to.”
Aaron scrawled his signature and handed the certificate to the
town’s doctor and undertaker.
Gallup read aloud:
“Party unknown. Died this 4th of October by his own
hand; no reason given. The foregoing being the sworn
verdict of the jury convened by me on this day and date.
“(Signed) Aaron Gallup,
“Coroner of Shoshone County, State of Nevada.”
Aaron paused to glance at his listeners. “There it is, gentlemen; in
_my_ own hand.” He smiled superiorly. “Somebody count the man’s
money and we’ll adjourn.”
He glanced at Kent, but the old man was staring at the body.
“You oblige me, Jackson?” Gallup asked.
“No,” he muttered; “let Doc do it. I don’t fancy counting a dead
man’s money.”
Old Aaron smiled. “All right,” he drawled patiently. “Guess Doc
ain’t so finicky. He knows that dead men don’t hurt no one.”