Five nights later, Tesno returned, riding into the town shortly before
midnight. He dismounted wearily across the dark street from the Pink
Lady and entered the Big Barrel, needing a drink before going on to the
camp and getting Ben out of bed.
The saloon was smaller than the Pink Lady and crowded. He found a place
at the end of the bar, ordered cigars and whisky, and was immediately
joined by Willie, who had been in the street and had seen him arrive.
Tesno poured a drink, sniffed it, tasted it.
"You're still wearing the badge," he said.
"I just delivered Mr. O'Hara back to the j-job," Willie said. "He's
s-sure kept me busy."
"He left the job?"
"He d-does it every night. Sneaks into town to wet his wh-whistle, he
says. The first night you were away, he g-got soaked g-good. I had to
t-take him b-back in a wagon. Since then I b-been w-watching for him
and c-catching him before he's had more'n a couple of b-belts. I've
t-told every barkeep in town not to s-serve him, but most of 'em do
when I'm not around."
"Hell of a thing," Tesno said. He bit off the end of a cigar and held
a match to it. He wondered if Ben knew about Keef's boozing. "How you
getting along with Madrid?" he asked Willie.
"J-just the s-same. He c-closed two more games."
"Madrid did?"
Willie nodded.
"He's smarter than I took him for," Tesno muttered. "He's not going to
let you be the big duck in the puddle."
"I th-think Miss Persia t-told him to close those games," Willie said
thoughtfully. "Or S-Sam Lester. Madrid d-don't t-take a deep breath
unless somebody tells him. Anyhow, he and Pinky had a m-meeting with
Miss Persia and Lester the d-day after you left. Stella t-told me."
"Who really calls the tune, Willie? Sam or Persia? What does Stella say
about it?"
Willie frowned painfully. "It s-seems like there's s-somebody else.
S-somebody who t-tells them all what to d-do."
"Stella said that?"
"She says there's s-somebody mysterious whose name is never mentioned
when she's around. They c-call him 'Mr. You-know' or s-something like
that. Sam Lester c-contacts him, Stella thinks."
* * * * *
Tesno found Ben sitting behind his desk in his nightshirt, sleepily
staring at a paper covered with figures. When he saw Tesno, he snatched
off his glasses and tipped back in his chair.
"You sure took your time. Is the news good or bad?"
"Bad." Tesno sank into a chair. "I telegraphed the boiler factory in
Connecticut as soon as I got to Ellensburg. Your damned boiler still
wasn't shipped yet."
Ben looked as if he had been struck. He got slowly to his feet. "Hadn't
been shipped!"
"I was on the telegraph for three days getting it straightened out. It
seems they had a wire a couple of weeks ago, signed with your name. It
requested that they hold up shipment till they got further word from
you."
Ben leaned heavily on the table. For a moment Tesno was afraid he was
going to collapse. Then he thumped his fist on the table, began to
swear, and they both felt better.
"Somebody deliberately tried to delay you, Ben. Who would it be?"
"How would I know?"
"Jay?"
"I don't know. I've heard he's shifty--but a stunt like that! If I
could pin it on him, I could get him blacklisted by every railroad in
the West."
"The message was sent from North Yakima, so I rode down there. The
operator had the original copy. It was printed in block letters on
plain paper. As he remembers, the man who brought it in was dressed
like a rancher or a cow hand."
Ben sank into a chair. He wagged his head sadly. "Is that boiler on the
way now?"
"It is."
"It'll be at least two weeks before it gets across the country," Ben
said. "Then we've got to drag it up here from the end of track."
Tesno extracted a thick fold of paper from his shirt pocket and began
to open it up. "Made a map of the supply road with the bad spots
marked. There are a dozen places where we'll have to use block and
tackle, Ben."
"I suppose we'll do well to make five miles a day," Ben said wearily.
"Even with twenty-horse teams.... This is going to be your kettle of
stew, Jack, from the time that boiler hits end of track till it's
unloaded at the portal."
* * * * *
Tesno walked back to the town through the heavy darkness of the forest
road. Reaching the street and turning up the walk toward the hotel,
he had a glimpse of the townhouse a hundred yards away. Forgetting
that he was dirty and unshaven, he swung instinctively toward the soft
invitation of its lighted windows.
Sam Lester answered his knock and grumbled for him to come in. Persia
sprang up from the sofa to meet him, taking both his hands. They both
sat down. She looked him over possessively.
"Jack, it seems like ages. Was it a rough trip?"
"Lots of riding, not much sleeping."
Sam asserted petulantly that he was going to bed. He slammed the door
behind him as he stalked off to the other part of the house.
"I interrupt something?" Tesno asked.
"The usual evening overture," Persia said tiredly. "He thinks he's in
love with me. Friendship isn't possible. Why can't we be like--well,
you and me, for instance?"
"And how is that?"
They had never sat so close before. He touched her hand. She squeezed
his fingers and smiled. Then she withdrew her hand.
"I want to talk, Jack. Everything is going so badly. Income has fallen
off and my debts are just overwhelming. It seems that by trying to
clean up the gambling games we've given the impression that they are
all crooked. Play has fallen off terribly and...." She broke off
and smiled suddenly. "I keep forgetting that you're really the one
responsible for my troubles. I promise I shan't say another whining
word."
"Say all you like."
"Oh, Jack, it's such a ridiculous thing to be a woman!"
He took her hand again and reached across her and embraced her
shoulder. Their eyes met and she came against him and her lips were
warm and fervent. Far away in the other part of the building, a door
slammed and they were alone in the night and in the world.
X
Willie Silverknife sat in Tesno's room with eight slips of paper fanned
out in his hands. Tesno lounged on the bed with his hands behind his
head. Willie was doing the talking.
"This d-dealer don't fool around with anything so easy as that odd-even
arrangement. He can bring up any one he wants by shuffling the way you
showed me. I watched him for d-days and wrote down the cards as they
come up. I d-did it with a stub of pencil inside my c-coat p-pocket. I
g-got all eight arrangements here."
"And you figure to bust him."
"I'll p-prove the g-game is crooked by dealing out the deck and calling
every card--exact, not just odd or even. I figure to d-do it when the
place is crowded."
Willie tapped the papers into an even packet and buttoned them into a
shirt pocket. Tesno regarded the ceiling in silence.
"I wanted to ch-check with you," Willie said. "I want to be s-sure
there's nothing wrong with the way I got this s-studied out."
"It's a fine piece of studying. But hold off, Willie."
"Wh-why? If I show up another c-crooked g-game in the Pink Lady, it
ought to just about f-finish the p-place."
"Hold off," Tesno said irritably. "The town is running pretty
tame--compared to what it was."
"T-tame? You sh-should s-see what I s-see. Last night--"
"All right! But don't put on a show this time." Tesno swung his feet
off the bed and sat up. "Go to Pinky quietly and tell him to get shed
of that dealer. He probably doesn't know he's got a card mechanic
there."
"You know b-better than that!" Willie stood up and gripped the back
of his chair. "That Pinky never does anything honest if he can do it
crooked. That place is rotten as hell's swill b-bucket, and I should
th-think you'd be glad to s-see it go b-bust!"
Tesno got slowly to his feet and stretched. "I have no love for Pinky.
But he owns only a small chunk of that place."
Tesno threw an arm around Willie's shoulders and led him to the door.
"For the time being, Willie, keep your eyes open and don't stir up
trouble."
Willie turned in the doorway with hurt written on his face.
"I'll be d-damned if you don't sound exactly like M-Madrid!"
Tesno laughed and closed the door. Turning to the washstand, he soberly
regarded himself in the small square mirror above it.
* * * * *
Nobody ever knew exactly what happened that night or exactly who was
to blame. But it seemed clear that dynamiter Heinie Hinkleman got his
fuses fouled up and also that the foreman of the shoring crew was lax
about getting his men to safety. The heading crew got clear in plenty
of time and warned the bench gang on the way out; but when Heinie came
jogging along in his leisurely flat-footed way, half a dozen workers
were still putting up shoring. Heinie told them for cripes sake the
fuses were lit, and he herded them ahead of him toward the portal.
The fuses were cut for six minutes, he said, which would have been
more than enough time to get the hell out of there. But Heinie had
miscalculated for the first and last time in his career, and the blast
caught them before they had gone a dozen yards. Rock hurtled out of the
heading like shot from a gigantic gun barrel. An egg-sized splinter
caught Heinie in the back of the skull and buried itself in his brain.
Two of the others were dead when the dust cleared enough for rescuers
to get to them. The other four were carried out stunned and just a
whisper away from suffocation.
Dawn was flaring over the hills to the east when Ben Vickers reached
the scene, wild-eyed and half dressed. Keef O'Hara, who said he had
been over the mountain at the other portal, arrived a few minutes
later. Together, they questioned the heading crew, who were scared and
mad and eager to blame somebody. Heinie, one of them volunteered, had
lost two months' pay at faro that afternoon, which might account for
his mind not being on his work, even if he hadn't taken a few nips to
console himself.
This, along with the fact that O'Hara's breath would back off a
polecat, was enough for Ben. When he had seen the injured men to the
camp hospital and got the doctor's report, he summoned Tesno to his
cabin and read the riot act.
Except for some rump-blistering profanity, which got monotonous, Ben
spoke in a flat, controlled manner--which was a bad sign. Tesno sat
with his chair tipped back and listened.
Briefly, Ben said that he had jumping-well expected Tesno to
establish authority in Tunneltown and kick it into line, and Tesno
had jumping-well expected to do that, too, judging by the way he had
started out. But he had changed his mind and had left the clean-up to
the town itself, which was nothing but a jumping booze camp, and what
booze camp ever cleaned itself up? Nevertheless, Ben had kept hoping
for the best until this morning. With three men dead and another
probably dying, his patience had run out, and there jumping-well was
going to be a change....
"Now hold on," Tesno said, when Ben showed signs of running out of
wind. "You said you'd settle for regulation, and you're getting it.
It's come slowly, but--"
"Don't recite your list of half-butt improvements to me," Ben said. "I
know it by heart--right down to that stuttering clown of a half-breed
deputy, who has done his job a jumping lot better than you have, at
that!" Ben poked the tabletop with a forefinger. "And as for what
I said I'd settle for, I told you clearly that the gambling had to
go--all of it."
"Damn it, Ben, you blame the town too much. If that dynamiter hadn't
lost his stake at faro, he probably would have dropped it to some
bunkhouse sharp at poker."
"I'm not going to argue about it," Ben said icily. "I want the gambling
stopped. Altogether."
"That will close at least a couple of the saloons."
"That would break my heart," Ben said. "Now do I get it or not?"
Tesno stood up and sauntered toward the door. Anger, guilt, a sense of
injustice, rose in him and laid harsh words on his tongue, but he did
not speak them. He needed time to calm down, to think things out.
"You'll get it," he said through clenched teeth, "or you'll get my
resignation."
He put his back to Ben and trudged out of the cabin and through the
camp toward the town road. Dave Coons stepped out of one of the
bunkhouses and fell in beside him.
"Johnny Favery just died," Coons said.
Tesno closed his eyes briefly. "That's four," he said.
"He was just a kid," Coons said. "Just here a few months from the old
country. He had nineteen cents in his pocket."
"Hell of a thing," Tesno said.
"Can you tell me where the blame lies?" Coons said. "The men have a
right to know. So it won't happen again."
"Ask Ben."
"Thought I might get a straight story from you. O'Hara wasn't at the
west portal as he claimed, I know that. He was at the cookhouse trying
to sober up on coffee."
"No reason why he should be on hand for every blast," Tesno grumbled.
"Vickers is, during the day shifts. If O'Hara had been there, he
probably would have seen that Hinkleman had the fuses wrong. Even if he
hadn't, he'd have got that shoring gang out of there earlier."
"All right," Tesno said. "Blame O'Hara."
"I do blame the town. If it weren't so handy and so wild, O'Hara
wouldn't have been drunk and Hinkleman broke and upset."
Tesno made no reply. They had walked a little way along the forested
road, chilly and damply fragrant at this hour. "When are you going to
do something about the town, Jack?" Coons said, and abruptly turned and
headed back toward the camp.
Tesno lingered over eggs and coffee at a restaurant counter, then he
went to his room and stretched out on the bed. He wanted to be alone an
hour or so; after that, he wanted to see Persia. Her company would dull
the shock and ugliness of the accident, he told himself, and he would
be able to think clearly.