Mack Nolan had just crawled into his bunk on Wednesday night when he
thought he heard a car laboring up the gulch. He sat up in bed to
listen and then got hurriedly into his clothes. He was standing just
around the corner of the dugout where the headlights could not reach
him, when Casey killed the engine and stopped before the door. Steam
was rising in a small cloud from the radiator cap, and the sound of
boiling water was distinctly audible some distance away.
Mack Nolan waited until Casey had climbed out from behind the wheel and
headed for the door. Then he stepped out and hailed him. Casey
started perceptibly, whirling as if to face an enemy. When he saw that
it was Nolan he apparently lost his desire to enter the cabin. Instead
he came close to Nolan and spoke in a hoarse whisper.
"We better run 'er under the shed, Mr. Nolan, and drain the darned
radiator. I dunno am I follered or not, but I was awhile back. But the
man that catches Casey Ryan when he's on the trail an' travelin, has
yet t' be born. An' you can ask anybody if that ain't so."
Mack Nolan's eyes narrowed. "And who followed you then?" he asked
quietly. "Did you bring any hootch?"
"Did yuh send Casey Ryan after hootch, or was it mebby spuds er
somethin'?" Casey retorted with heavy dignity. "Will yuh pack it in,
Mr. Nolan, whilst I back the car in the shed, or shall I bring it when
I come? It ain't so much," he added drily, "but it cost the trouble
of a trainload."
"I'll take it in," said Nolan. "If any one does come we want no
evidence in reach."
Casey turned to the car, clawed at his camp outfit and lifted out a
demijohn which he grimly handed to Nolan. "Fer many a mile it rode on
the seat with me so I could drink 'er down if they got me cornered," he
grinned. "One good swaller is about the size of it, Mr. Nolan."
Nolan grinned in sympathy and turned into the cabin, bearing the
three-gallon, wicker-covered glass bottle in his arms. Presently he
returned to the doorway and stood there listening down the gulch until
Casey came up, walking from the shed.
"'Tis a good thing yuh left this other car standin' here cold an'
peaceful, Mr. Nolan," Casey, observed, after he also had stood for a
minute listening. "If they're follerin' they'll be here darn' soon. If
they ain't I've ditched 'em. Let's git t' bed an' I'll tell yuh my
tale uh woe."
Without a word Nolan led the way into the cabin. In the dark they
undressed and got into the bed which was luckily wide enough for two.
"Had your supper?" Nolan asked belatedly when they were settled.
"I did not," Casey grunted. "I will say, Mr. Nolan, there's few times
in my life when you'd see Casey Ryan missin' 'is supper whilst layin'
tracks away from a fight. But if it was light enough you could gaze
upon 'im now. And I must hand it t' the Gallopin' Gussie yuh give me
the loan of fer the trip. She brung me home ahead of the sheriff--and
you can ask anybody if Casey Ryan himself can't be proud uh that!"
"The sheriff?" Nolan's voice was puzzled. He seemed to be considering
something for a minute, before he spoke again. "You could have
explained to the sheriff, couldn't you, your reason for having booze in
the car?"
Casey raised to one elbow. "When yuh told Casey Ryan 'twas not many
men you'd trust, and that you trusted me an' the business was t' be
secret--Mr. Nolan, you 'was talkin' t' CASEY RYAN!" He lay down again
as if that precluded further argument.
"Good! I thought I hadn't made a mistake in my man," Nolan approved, in
a tone that gave Casey an inner glow of pride in himself. "Let's have
the story, old man. Did you see Bill Masters?"
"Bill Masters," said Casey grimly, "was not in Lund. His garage is
sold an' Bill's in Denver--which is a long drive for a Ford t' git
there an' back before Friday midnight. Yuh put a time limit me, Mr.
Nolan, an' nobody had Bill's address. I didn't foller Bill t' Denver.
I asked some others in Lund if they knowed a man named Kenner, and they
did not. So then I went huntin' booze that I could git without the
hull of Nevada knowin' it in fifteen minutes. An' Casey's got this t'
say: When yuh WANT hootch, it's hard t' find as free gold in granite.
When yuh DON'T want it, it's forced on yuh at the point of a gun. This
jug I stole--seein' your business is private, Mr. Nolan.
"I grabbed it off some fellers I knowed in Lund an' never had no use
for, anyway. They're mean enough when they're sober, an' when they're
jagged they're not t' be mentioned on a Sunday. I mighta paid 'em for
it, but money's no good t' them fellers an' there's no call t' waste
it. So they made a holler and I sets the jug down an' licks them both,
an' comes along home mindin' my own business.
"So I guess they 'phoned the sheriff in Vegas that here comes a
bootlegger and land 'im quick. Anyway, I was goin' t' stop there an'
take on a beefsteak an' a few cups uh coffee, but I never done it. I
was slowin' down in front uh Sam's Place when a friend uh mine gives me
the high sign t' put 'er in high an' keep 'er goin'. Which I done.
"Down by Ladd's, Casey looks back an' here comes the sheriff's car hell
bent fer 'lection (anyway it looked like the sheriff's car). An' I
wanta say right here, Mr. Nolan, that's a darn' good Ford yuh got! I
was follered, and 'I was follered hard. But I'm here an' they'
ain't--an' you can ask anybody if that didn't take some going'!"
In the darkness of the cabin Casey turned over and heaved a great sigh.
On the heels of that came a chuckle.
"I got t' hand it t' the L. A. traffic cops, Mr. Nolan. They shore
learned me a lot about dodgin'. So now yuh got the hull story. If it
was the sheriff behind me an' if he trails me here, they got no
evidence an' you can mebby square it with 'im. You'd know what t' tell
'im--which is more'n what Casey Ryan can say."
Casey fell asleep immediately afterward, but Mack Nolan lay for a long
while with his eyes wide open and his ears alert for strange sounds in
the gulch. He was a new man in this district, working independently of
sheriff's offices. Casey Ryan was the first man he had confided in;
all others were fair game for Nolan to prove honest or dishonest with
the government. The very nature of his business made it so. For when
whisky runners drove openly in broad daylight through the country with
their unlawful loads, somewhere along the line officers of the law were
sharing the profits. Nolan knew none of them,--by sight. If he carried
the records of some safely memorized and pigeonholed for future use,
that was his own business. Mack Nolan's thoughts were his own and he
guarded them jealously and slept with his lips tightly closed. He
wanted no sheriff coming to him for explanation of his movements.
Wherefore he listened long, and when he slept his slumber was light.
At daylight he was up and abroad. Two hours after sunrise Casey awoke
with the smell of breakfast in his nostrils. He rolled over and
blinked at Mack Nolan standing with his hat on the back of his head and
a cigarette between his lips, calmly turning three hot-cakes with a
kitchen knife. Casey grinned condescendingly. He himself turned his
cakes by the simple process of tossing them in the air a certain kind
of flip, and catching them dexterously as they came down. Right there
he decided that Mack Nolan was not after all a real outdoors man.
"Well, the sheriff didn't arrive last night," Nolan observed
cheerfully, when he saw that Casey was awake. "I don't much look for
him, either. Your driving on past the turn to Juniper Wells and coming
up that other old road very likely threw him off the track. You must
have been close to the State line then and he gave you up as a bad job."
"It was a GOOD job!" Casey maintained reaching for his clothes. "I
made 'em think I was headed clean outa the country. If they knowed who
it was at all, they'd know I belong in L. A., and I figured they'd
guess I was headed there. They stopped for something this side of
Searchlight an' so I pulls away from 'em a couple of miles. They never
seen where I went to."
While he washed for breakfast, Casey began to take stock of certain
minor injuries.
"That darned Pete Gibson has got tushes in his mouth like a wild hawg;
the kind that sticks out," he grumbled, touching certain skinned places
on his knuckles. "Every time I landed on 'im yesterday I run against
them tushes uh his'n." But he added with a grin, "They ain't so solid
as they was when I met up with 'im. I felt one of 'em give 'fore I got
through."
"Brings the price of moonshine up a bit, doesn't it?" Nolan suggested
drily. "I rather think you might better have paid the men their price.
A fight is well enough in its way--I'm Irish myself. But as my agent,
Ryan, the main idea is to let the law fight for you. Our work is
merely to give the law a chance. I like your not wanting to explain to
the sheriff. Prohibition officers do not explain, as a rule. The law
behind them does that.
"And since the price seems to be rather hard on the knuckles--" He
glanced down at Casey's hands and grinned. "--I think it may come
cheaper to make the stuff ourselves. Licking two men for three
gallons, and getting the officers at your tail light into the bargain,
is all right as an experiment; but I don't believe, Ryan, we ought to
adopt that as a habit."
Casey cocked an eye up at him. "Did yuh ever make White Mule, Mr.
Nolan?" he asked grimly.
Nolan laughed his easy little chuckle. "Why, no, Ryan, I never did. Did
you?"
"Naw. I seen some made once, but I had too much of it inside me at the
time to learn the receipt for it. I'd rather steal it, if it's all the
same to you, Mr. Nolan." His hand went up to the back of his head and
moved forward, although there was no hat to push. "I've lived honest
all these years--an', dammit, it's kinda tough to break out with
stealin I what yuh don't want! Couldn't we fill them bottles with
somethin' that LOOKS like hootch? Cold tea should get by, Mr. Nolan.
It'd be a fine joke on Smilin' Lou."
"A good joke, maybe--but no evidence. It isn't against the law, Ryan,
to have cold tea in your possession. No, it's got to be whisky, and
there's got to be a load of it. Enough to look like business and tempt
him or any other member of the gang you happen to meet. If they caught
you with three gallons, Casey, they'd probably run you in and feel very
virtuous about it. Nothing for it, I'm afraid. We'll have to become
real moonshiners ourselves for awhile."
Casey ate with less appetite after that. Making moonshine did not
appeal to him at all. Given his choice, I think he would even prefer
drinking it, unhappy as the effect had been on him.
"We'll need a still, and we'll need the stuff. I'm going to leave you
in charge of the camp, Ryan, while I make a trip to Needles. I'll
deputize you to assist me in cleaning up this district. And this
district, Ryan, touches salt water. So if revenge looks good to you,
you'll have a fine chance to get even with the bootleggers. And in the
meantime, just kill time around camp here while I'm gone. If any one
shows up, you're prospecting."
That day, doubt-devils took hold of Casey Ryan and plucked at his
belief. How did he know that Mack Nolan wasn't another bootlegger,
wanting to rope Casey in on a job for some fell purpose of his own? He
had Mack Nolan's word and nothing more. For that matter, he had also
had young Kenner's word. Kenner had fooled him completely. Mack Nolan
could also fool him--perhaps.
"Well, anyhow, he never claimed to know Bill Masters, and that's a
point in 'is favor. And if it's some dirty work he's up to, he coulda
made it shorter than what he's doin'. An' if he's double-crossin'
Casey Ryan--well, anyway, Casey Ryan 'll be present at the time an'
place when he does it!"
Upon that comforting thought, Casey decided to trust Mack Nolan until
he caught him playing crooked; and proceeded to kill time as best he
could.