RATTLESNAKE POLLARD
IT was barely noon, the air clear, the sky cloudless, when Winifred
Waverly rode into Hill's Corners. She had shaken her head at the
suggestion of further escort. Here, in the open country and in the full
sunlight, she was grateful for the opportunity of being alone.
At the foot of a gentle eminence she entered the narrow, winding street
of the town, a crooked little town physically both in the matter of this
meandering alley-like thoroughfare and in the matter of the hastily
builded, unprepossessing houses; a crooked town in its innermost
character, it was easy to believe. On either hand as she rode forward
were low, squat, ugly shacks jammed tight together or with narrow
passageways between their unlovely walls, these spaces more often than
not cluttered and further disfigured by piles of rusty tins, old
clothing and shoes and other discarded refuse. As she rode farther she
saw now and then the more pretentious buildings, some with the false
fronts which deceived nobody, the houses appearing shoddy and aged and
sinister, one here and there deserted and given over to ruin,
disintegration and spiders spinning unmolested in dark corners.
The next peculiar impression created upon her was that some evil charm
was over the place, that in the sweet sunlight it lay drugged, that in
those rows of slatternly shacks where the sunlight did not enter men
either hid in dark secrecy or lay in some unnatural stupour. The whole
settlement seemed preternaturally quiet; the fancy came to her that the
town had died long ago and that she merely looked on its ghost.
She had shrunk before now at the thought of men coming to the doors to
stare after her, and perhaps even to call coarsely after her; now it
seemed the dreariest thing in all the world to ride down this dirty,
muddy street and see no man or woman or child, not so much as a saddled
horse at a hitching pole. She came abreast of the most pretentious
building of Hill's Corners; its swing doors were closed, but from within
she heard a low, monotonous hum of languid voices. Upon the crazy false
front, a thing to draw the wondering eye of a stranger, was a gigantic
and remarkably poorly painted picture of a bear holding a glass in one
deformed paw, a bottle in the other, while the drunken letters of the
superfluous sign spelled: "The Brown Bear Saloon." Almost directly
across the street from the Brown Bear was a rival edifice which though
slightly smaller was no less squat and ugly and which bore its own
highly ambitious sign: a monster hand clutching a monster whiskey glass,
with the illuminating words beneath, "The Here's How Saloon." That the
two works of art were from the same brain and hand there was no
doubting. In the inscriptions the n's and s's were all made backwards,
presenting an interesting and entirely suitable air of maudlin
drunkenness.
The girl hurried by. There were other saloons, so many, so close
together that, used as she was to frontier towns, she wondered at it;
she saw other buildings whose signs informed her they were store and
post-office, drug store, blacksmith shop and restaurant. And now the
first visible token of life, a thin spiral of smoke from "Dick's Oyster
House." She passed it, pushing her horse to a gallop. She had seen the
two or three men upon the high stools at the counter taking their coffee
and bacon. They had swung about quickly, like one man, at the cook's
grin and quiet word. One of them even called out something as she
passed; another laughed.
As she rode down the tortuous street, fairly racing now, the blood
whipped into her face, she caught a glimpse of a man standing by his
horse, preparing to swing up into the saddle. His eyes followed her with
a look in them easy to read and unpleasant; something too ardently
admiring to be trusted. She had seen the man's face. He was a big man,
broad and straight and powerful, builded like a Vulcan. He was branded
unmistakably as a rowdy; his very carriage, a sort of conscious swagger,
the bold impudence of his face told that. The laughing face stood out
before her eyes as she rode on, evil and reckless and handsome, with
very bright blue eyes and hair curling in little yellow rings about the
forehead from which the hat was pushed back. It was her first glimpse of
the youngest of the Bedloe boys, the worst of them the "Kid."
She knew that she would find her uncle's house at the end of the street.
Mr. Templeton had told her that, and had described it so that she could
have no trouble in knowing it. And as she rode on, making the curve of
the long, crooked lane which had come to be known as Dead Man's Alley,
she found time to wonder that such a town could be so silent and
deserted with the sun so high in the sky. For she had not learned that
here men did in their way what men do in larger cities, that they turned
the day topsy turvy, that the street seethed with surging life through
late afternoon and night and the dark hours of the morning, that the
saloons stood brightly lighted then, that their doors were filled with
men coming and going, that games ran high, voices rose high, while life,
as these men knew it, ran higher still.
At last she came to Henry Pollard's house. It stood back from the street
in a little yard notable for the extreme air of untidiness the rank
weeds gave it and for its atmosphere of semi-desertion among its few
stunted, twisted, unpruned pear trees. The fence about it had once been
green, but that was long, long ago. The doors were closed, the shades
close drawn over the windows, the house still and gloom-infested even in
the sunlight.
Stronger and higher within her welled her misgivings; for the first
time she admitted to herself that she was sorry that she had tried to do
this thing which Mr. Templeton had told her was madness. She hesitated,
sitting her horse at the gate, with half a mind to whirl and ride back
whence she had come. And then, with an inward rebuke to her own
timidity, she dismounted and hurried along the weed bordered walk, and
knocked at the door.
There came quick answer, a man's voice, heavy and curt, crying:
"Who is it?"
"Are you Mr. Pollard?" she called back, her voice a little eager, more
than a little anxious.
"Yes." There was a note as of excitement in the voice. "Is that you,
Winifred?"
"Yes, uncle. I ... I ..."
She faltered, hesitated, and broke off pitifully. She had heard the
eagerness in Pollard's voice, guessed at what it was that he was
thinking, knew that now she would have to tell him that she had failed
in the errand which he had entrusted to her, that she had let a man rob
her of the five thousand dollars of which he stood so urgently in need.
Oh, why had she attempted to do it, why had she not listened to Mr.
Templeton? And, now, what would her uncle say?
"Just a minute, Winifred. I'm a little under the weather and am in bed.
Now." She heard no footsteps; yet there was the noise of a wooden bar
being drawn away from the door. "Come in. You'll pardon me, being in
bed, my dear. And fasten the door after you, will you, please?"
She stepped across the threshold and into the darkened house, her heart
beating quickly. As she slipped the bar back into its place she saw that
there was fastened to the end of it a cord which passed through a pulley
over the door and then ran down the hallway, disappearing through
another door at the left. So, following the cord, she went on slowly.
The outside of the house had given her a certain impression. Now, in a
flash, that impression was superseded by a new one. Here was the home of
a man of means, the heavy, rich furniture spoke of that, the painting
there in the living room into which she glanced, the tastefully papered
walls, the thick carpet muffling her footfalls. If only the curtains
were thrown back, if only the sun were looking in upon it all!
And now the man. Henry Pollard, whom she had not seen since she was a
very little girl and then only during his short visit at her father's
house, struck her as being in some way not entirely unlike this
habitation of his. A gentleman gone to seed, was that it?
His manner was courteous, courtly even, his speech soft, his eyes gentle
as they rested upon her, gentle and yet eager. There was something fine
about his face, about the eyes and high forehead, and yet alongside it
there was something else which drove a little pain into the girl's eyes.
The mouth was hard, there were deep, set lines about it and about the
eyes there was a hint of cruelty which not even his smile hid entirely.
And though she strove to smile back bravely as she came forward to kiss
him, she knew that she was disappointed, and a little uneasy.
She knew that Henry Pollard must be about fifty; she saw that he looked
to be sixty. He had pulled himself up against his pillows and had drawn
on a dressing gown to cover his shoulders. He was well groomed; he had
had a shave yesterday; he did not look sick. But he did look old, like a
man who had aged prematurely and suddenly; and he did look worried and
tired, as though he had not slept well last night.
"I am alone just now," he smiled. "Mrs. Riddell is keeping house for me,
but I heard her go out a little while ago. For something for breakfast,
I suppose. You are looking well, Winifred. I knew you would be pretty.
Now, sit down."
No word yet of her errand, no query as to its success. She was grateful
to him for that. She wanted a moment, time in which to feel that she
knew him a little bit, before she could tell him. But she saw in his
eyes that he was curbing his eagerness, and that she would have to tell
him in a moment.
"I am sorry that you are sick, Uncle Henry," she said hastily, taking
the chair near his bed. "It isn't anything serious, is it?"
"No, no." His answer was as hasty as her question had been. "Just
rheumatism, Winifred. I'm subject to it here of late."
Then she saw that he had sat stiffly, that his shoulder, the left
shoulder, was carried awkwardly and was evidently bandaged.
"I'm sorry," she said again. And then, determined to tell him before he
should ask, "Uncle, I...." Oh, it was so hard to say with him looking at
her with those keen, bright eyes of his! "You should have got some one
else to help you. I have failed.... I have lost your money for you!"
She dropped her face into her hands, trembling, striving to keep her
tears back, feeling now, as she had not felt before, as if she had been
altogether to blame for all that had happened, as though it had been her
carelessness that had cost her uncle his five thousand dollars. And when
at last he did not speak and she looked up again, she saw that his eyes
had not changed, that there was no surprise in them, that if he felt
anything whatever he hid it.
"Don't cry about it, my dear," he said gently. He even smiled a little.
"Tell me about it. You were robbed of it? Before you had more than got
out of light of Dry Town?"
"How do you know?" she cried.
"I don't know, my dear. But I do know that the stage came on through,
with no attempt at a hold-up, and I guessed that our little ruse didn't
fool anybody. When I got the empty strong box from the bank I knew
pretty well what to look for."
"But," she told him, flushed with her hope, "we'll get it back! For I
know who robbed me, I can swear to him!"
Pollard's hand, lying upon the bed spread, had shut tight. She noticed
that and no other sign of emotion.
"And _I_ know!" he said harshly. "Yes, I'll get it back! Now, tell me
how it happened."
"It was a man named Buck Thornton...."
She saw the quick change of light in his eyes and in the instant knew
that if Buck Thornton hated Henry Pollard he was hated no less in
return. Further, she saw that back of the hatred there was a sort of
silent laughter as though the thing she had said had pleased this man as
no other thing could have pleased him, that in some way which she could
not understand, this information had moved him as he had not been moved
by news of his heavy loss. And she wondered.
"You are ready to swear to that?" he asked sharply, his eyes searching
and steady and eager upon hers. "You will swear that it was Thornton who
robbed you?"
"Yes," she cried hotly as she remembered the insult of a kiss and in the
memory forgot the robbery itself.
"I'll get him now," he muttered. "Both ways; going and coming! Tell me
all about it, Winifred."
She began, speaking swiftly, telling him of her meeting with Thornton
at the bank, of her suspicion that he had overheard her talk with the
banker. Then of her second meeting with the man after she had seen him
on the trail behind her, the encounter at the Harte cabin.... A sudden
banging of the kitchen door, and he had stopped her abruptly, putting
his hand warningly upon her arm.
"Later. It can wait. That is Mrs. Riddell. She will show you to your
room. And it will be better, my dear, if you say nothing to her. Or to
any one else just yet."
She got to her feet and went to the door. Turning there, to smile back
at her uncle, she saw that his pillows had slipped a little and that
under them lay a heavy revolver. And she surprised upon the man's face a
look which was gone so quickly that she wondered if she had seen right
in the darkened room, a look so filled with malicious triumph. Instead
of being profoundly disturbed by the tidings of her adventure, the man
appeared positively to gloat.... Now, more than ever, did she regret
that she had come to the town of Dead Man's Alley.