WILD BILL THINKS HARD--AND HEARS NEWS
Wild Bill stretched himself drowsily. It was noon. He knew that by the
position of the patch of sunlight on the floor, which he gazed at with
blinking eyes. Presently he reached out his long arms and clasped his
hands behind his head. He lay there on his stretcher bed, still very
sleepy, but with wakefulness gaining ascendancy rapidly. He had
completed two successive nights of "sentry-go" over Scipio's twins,
never reaching his blankets until well after sun-up.
For some minutes he enjoyed the delicious idleness of a still brain.
Then, at last, it stirred to an activity which once again set flowing
all the busy thought of his long night's vigil. Further rest became
impossible to a man of his temperament, and he sprang from his
blankets and plunged his face into a bucket of fresh water which stood
on an adjacent bench. In five minutes he was ready for the business of
the day.
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once given, was rarely, if ever, rescinded.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 associates 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,
passionate 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 hit '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 bum 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 molasses 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. Nobody 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."
"Them kids'll cost money, too."
Bill nodded, but no one could have detected any interest in his
movement.
"How'd it be to get that claim worked for him--while he's away?"
Bill shrugged.
"Mebbe Zip'll be gettin' back," he said.
"An' if he don't."
"You mean?"
There was interest enough in Bill now. His interrogation was full of
suppressed force.
"Yes. James."
Bill sprang to his feet and kicked back his chair. The sudden rage in
his eyes was startling, even to Minky, who was used to the man.
However, he waited, and in a moment or two his friend was talking
again in his usually cold tone.
"I'll jest git around an' see how Sunny's doin'," he said.
Then he drew out a pipe and began to cut flakes of tobacco from a
black plug.
"See here, Minky," he went on, after a moment's pause. "You need to do
some thinkin'. How much dust have you got in the store?"
"'Bout twenty thousand dollars."
"Whew!" Bill whistled softly as he packed the tobacco in his pipe. "An
elegant parcel for strangers to handle."
The storekeeper's face became further troubled.
"It sure is--if they handle it."
"Jest so."
Bill's pipe was alight now, and he puffed at it vigorously, speaking
between the puffs.
"Y'see, this feller James plays a big game. Cattle duffin' and
ord'n'ry stage-robbin' ain't good enough, nor big enough, to run his
gang on. He needs gold stages, and we ain't sendin' gold stages out.
Wal, wot's the conclusion? I ast you?"
"He'll hev to light out, or--"
"Jest so. Or he'll get around here to--look into things. Those
strangers last night were mebbe 'lookin' into things.' You'll need to
stow that dust where the rats can't gnaw it. Later we'll think things
out. Meanwhile there's one thing sure, we don't need strangers on
Suffering Creek. There's enough o' the boys around to work the gold,
an' when they get it they mostly know what to do with it. Guess I'll
get on up to Zip's shack."
The two men walked out into the store. Minky in a pessimistic mood
passed in behind his counter. This question of gold had bothered him
for some weeks. Since the first stage-robbing, and James' name had
become a "terror" in the district, he had opened a sort of banking
business for the prospectors. Commercially it appealed to him
enormously. The profits under his primitive methods of dealing with
the matter were dazzlingly large, and, in consequence, the business
became a dominant portion of his trade. Nor was it until the quantity
of gold he bought began to grow, and mount into thousands of dollars'
worth, that the difficulties of his traffic began to force themselves
upon him. Then it was that he realized that if it was insecure to
dispatch a gold stage laden with the property of the prospectors, how
was he to be able to hold his stock at the store with any greater
degree of security.
The more he thought of the matter the greater the difficulties
appeared. Of course he saw possibilities, but none of them offered the
security he needed. Then worry set in. History might easily repeat
itself on Suffering Creek. James' gang was reported to be a large one.
Well, what if he chose to sweep down upon the camp, and clean the
place out. Herein lay the trouble. And in consequence his days and
nights were none too easy.
He had never spoken of the matter before. It was not a subject to be
discussed with anybody. But Bill was different from the rest, and, for
several days, Minky had sought an opportunity of unburdening himself
to his friend. Now, at last, he had done so, and, in return, had
received small enough comfort. Still he felt he had done the best
thing.