THOMPSON'S CARDS: AND SKUNK'S MISERY
For that second I thought Macartney was dead. But as I jumped to him I
saw he had only fainted, and that nothing ailed him but a bullet that
had glanced off his upper arm and left more of a gouge than a wound. Why
it made him faint I couldn't see, but it had. I left him where he had
dropped and turned to the four men he had been standing over. But they
were past helping. They were decent men too, for they were the last of
our own lot,--and it smote me like a hammer that they might have been
alive still if I had not interfered with Paulette that night and kept
her from meeting Hutton.
I knew as I knew there was a roof over my head that it was he who had
fallen on Macartney, and I would have chased straight after him if
common sense had not told me he would be lying up in the bush for just
that, and all I should get for my pains would be a bullet out of the
dark that would end all chance of me personally ever catching Hutton. I
took stock of things where I stood, instead. Whether he had a gang or
not, I knew he had been alone in the thing to-night, and he had done a
capable job. Our four men had been surprised, for they were all shot in
the back, as if they had been caught coming in the office door.
Whether Macartney had been surprised or not I could not tell. The
revolver he had dropped as he fainted lay beside him empty, and there
were slivers out of the doorpost behind the dead men. None of them
seemed to have been much help to him. Three had not fired a shot; the
fourth had just one cartridge missing from his revolver, where he lay
with his face to the door--and I saw it accounted for by a tearing slash
in a blue print stuck on the wall to the left of the doorway. I turned
to the inside wall to see where the bullet that had glanced off
Macartney had landed, and as I swung round he sat up.
"You may well look--it was one of our own men got me," he said thickly,
and his curse turned my stomach; I never knew any good come of cursing
the dead. I told him to shut up and tell how the thing had happened. And
he grinned with sheer rage.
"It was plain damn foolery! I told you I believed I'd seen some one
spying around the mine, and after I'd left you I didn't feel so sure
that I'd cleared him out. I woke those fools up," his glance at the dead
matched his curse at them, "and said if they heard any one prowling
round my door they were to lie low in their own shack, let him get in at
me here, and then bundle out and cut him off from behind. And what they
did was to lose their heads. They heard some one or they didn't--I don't
know. But the crazy fools piled out of their shack and ran in to me; and
a man behind them--_behind_ them, mind you--came on their heels and
plugged every son of them before they were more than inside my door! It
was then I yelled for you."
"D'ye mean you saw him--when he shot them?"
"I didn't see what he _looked_ like," scornfully, "with four yelling,
tumbling men between him and me. But I guess he was the man I'd been
looking for. I fired and missed him, and when I lit for him over the men
he'd killed he was gone. I emptied my gun into the dark on chance and
yelled some more for you, and it was then I got it myself. As I turned
around in the doorway, Sullivan," he pointed to the only man whose gun
had been fired, "that I thought was _dead_, sat up and let me have it in
the arm." He pointed to the ripped blue print. "You see what I'd have
got if it had caught me straight! And that's all there was to it."
"D'ye mean"--I bit back Hutton's name. I had no time to hatch up a lie
about him, and I was not going to drag in Paulette--"that--whoever was
there, never even fired at you?"
"How do I know who he fired at?--I couldn't see inside of his head! I
know he _hit_ those chumps who could have got him if they had obeyed
orders--let alone that if they'd stayed out I'd have got him clean
myself when he came in. As it was, he cleared out before I could do it,"
said Macartney blackly, but the excitement had gone from his voice.
"Call a couple of the bunk-house men to carry these four back to their
shack and clean up this mess, will you? And come into my room while I
tie up this cut. It's no good going after whoever was here now."
I knew that: also that I could get after him better single-handed at
Skunk's Misery, where he would not expect me; or I would have been gone
already. But I didn't air that to Macartney as I followed him into the
partitioned-off corner he called his room. He had the last two clean-ups
in his safe there, and he nodded to it as he hauled off his shirt for me
to bind up his arm.
"With what's there, and what you and Wilbraham have in his office, we've
too much around to be healthy," he observed succinctly, "and I guess
some one's got wind of it. I don't know that it'll be any healthier for
you to try running it out to Caraquet and get held up on the road! But I
suppose it's got to go."
I nodded. I knew it was hand to mouth with Dudley: he had no cash to
call on but the mine output, and immediate payments had to be made on
the machinery we were using. But I was not excited about being held up
on the Caraquet road,--after I'd once been to Skunk's Misery. I was not
red-hot about hurrying there, either; I wanted to give Hutton time to
get back to his lair and feel easy about pursuit after his abortive
raid. "I expect we'll worry along," I said idly. "Gimme that clean rag
for your arm!"
But Macartney cast down the handkerchief in his hand. "This fool thing's
too short! Open that box, will you? There's a roll of bandage just
inside."
There was. But there was something else just inside, too. I stared at a
worn leather case, that pretended to be a prayer-book with a brass clasp
and tarnished gilt edges, a case I had seen too often to make any
mistake about. "By gad," I cried blankly. "Why, you've got old
Thompson's cards!"
Macartney was poking at his wounded arm, and he winced. "Hurry up, will
you? I can't stop this silly blood. Of course I have Thompson's cards;
I can't help it if you think I'm an ass. I liked the old man, and I
didn't fancy the Billy Joneses playing cribbage with the only thing in
the world he cared for. I took the cards the day we buried him--saw them
lying in the kitchen."
"I expect you needn't have worried about Billy," I commented absently.
"He was going to give those cards to me, only he and I couldn't find
them."
"Do come on," snapped Macartney. He was set-eyed as usual, but I guessed
he was ashamed to have had me find him out in a sentimental weakness.
"I'd have told you I had them if I'd known you cared. You can take the
things now, if you want them."
It was not till that minute that I remembered Macartney could not know
why I wanted them, nor anything about the sort of codicil I'd torn off
the envelope of Thompson's letter to Dudley: for there had been nothing
about cards in what he'd read in it, or in the letter itself. But as the
remembrance of both things shot up in me, I didn't confide them to
Macartney, any more than I had to Dudley himself. I had a queer sort of
idea that if Thompson's pencilled scrawl had meant anything more than
the wanderings of a distressed mind, I'd better get hold of it myself
first. I said: "All right," and pocketed Thompson's cards. Then I did
up Macartney's arm, and the two of us went up the road to Dudley. He and
his dry nurse, Baker, who'd promptly arrived from the bunk house,
stumped straight back to the assay office with Macartney to fuss over
the men who'd been killed. I was making for my own room, to see if
Thompson's resurrected cards would shed any light on his crazy scrawls,
when I heard a poker drop in the living room. Somebody was in there,
raking up the fire.
Charliet had gone after Macartney, with Dudley and Baker. I guessed
Paulette had got up and was trying to start the fire,--for she was
always working to keep things comfortable--if I haven't mentioned
it--even for me. I once caught her darning my rags of socks and crying
over them--the Lord knew why! I went in to stop her now--and it was I
who stopped dead in the doorway. It was not Paulette inside: it was
Marcia! Marcia in a velvet dressing gown, poking the ashes all over the
hearth. I could have sworn I had seen Paulette burn the letter she had
signed with Tatiana Paulina Valenka's name, but all the same the look of
Marcia's back turned me sick. And her face turned me sicker as she flung
around on me, with her fingers all ashes,--and Paulette's letter in her
hand!
I kept back a curse at the raw fool that was me. I might have seen it
was not a tightly folded wad of stiff paper I had watched burn up, but
just the light torn scraps Paulette had thrown in with it. What was
more, I had been alone with the thing under my very nose in the light
ashes into which it must have sunk and never had the sense to burrow for
it. It was too late even to snatch for it: Marcia had read it! She held
it up to me now,--and Tatiana Paulina Valenka, black on the yellow of
the scorched paper, hit me on the eyes.
"Who was right, Nicky Stretton?" she demanded triumphantly. "I told you
I'd seen _Paulette Brown_ before! Only I never thought of the Houston
business. I could kill Dudley; how dare he bring me out here with a
thief! I won't have her here another day."
"What thief?" I snapped. "I don't know what you mean! Why on earth are
you poking in the ashes? What are you up for?"
"Only a Paulette Brown could stay asleep, with Dudley yelling at you and
Macartney," scornfully. "But if you want to know what I was poking in
the ashes for, I had no matches, and my fire was out, so I came in here
for a log to light it up. And I found this!"
"Well, burn it," said I furiously. But she had begun to read it out, and
I would have been a fool to stop her, for what Marcia knew I had to
know. But it knocked me silly. The something Paulette had "wanted to
make clear" was just a letter to Hutton! And the Lord knows it made me
more set than ever on getting to Skunk's Misery before Hutton could know
that Tatiana Paulina Valenka had given in! Because she had. She was not
only going to meet him; she was going away with him, Marcia's hard voice
read out baldly, if only he would give up the plan in his head. But it
was the last sentence that bit into me:
"Oh, Dick, have some mercy! I know you hate me now, but have some
mercy; don't do what I'm afraid of. I'll give you all you
want--myself--everything--if only you'll let that be. Go away, as I
begged you, and I'll leave Dudley for you, and go too." And it was
signed, as I knew Paulette Brown had not meant to sign anything,
"Tatiana Paulina Valenka."
I never even wondered how she had meant to get it to Hutton, if she had
not supposed she burned it. Every drop of my blood boiled in me with the
determination that she should never pay Hutton's price with her lips
against his that she hated, and his cheek on her soft hair I had never
touched; all the gold Dudley Wilbraham could ever mine was not worth
that. But I kept a cold eye on Marcia. "A half-burnt letter--that
wasn't going to be sent--isn't anything but girl's nonsense," I swore
contemptuously.
"Isn't it? We'll see--when Dudley reads it!" Marcia looked like a devil
hunched up in her dressing gown, with her gums showing as she grinned.
"I told you she never meant to marry him. Now we'll see if he marries
her--when she writes letters like this!"
"I won't let you show it to Dudley!"
"You are like--everybody: cracked about a Paulette Brown!" Marcia
retorted; and if I had only known what the "everybody" was going to mean
I think I could have managed her, even then, by coming out with it. But
I didn't know, and I did the best I could.
"Marcia Wilbraham, if you dare to show that thing to Dudley, or so much
as speak of it, I'll pay you out,--so help me," I said; and if it was in
a voice no decent woman knows a man can use, I meant it to be. It scared
Marcia, anyhow, though heaven knew I didn't see how I could ever pay her
out, no matter what she did. She let go of the letter, which she had to,
for I had her by the wrist. I would have burnt it up, only I had no
match. Marcia leaned forward suddenly, electrically, and tapped the "Oh,
Dick" in the last sentence, that was the only name in the letter.
"Well, I'm damned," said she coolly. "Why, the thing's to you! Do you
mean you're going to run away with that--that girl?"
"No," I said furiously and then saw I was an ass, "I mean, not now!"
"Since I know about you," Marcia cut me off sweetly. But she stared at
me calculatingly. "H--m," said she, "I beg your pardon for mistaking
your N for a big, big D, Nicky darling, but you see I never heard any
one call you plain, short Nick! I don't exactly see why she had to write
with you in the house, either, but you needn't be nervous. I'm not going
to use my cinch on you--not now, anyway! I've changed my mind about
telling Dudley. It won't do me any harm to keep something up my sleeve
against you, if ever I want to do anything you don't admire. It wasn't
the least bit of use for you to snatch that letter; I learned it off by
heart before you came in on me. And I can always threaten Dudley now
that I'll tell who Paulette Brown really is, if he tries to bully me
about any one I have a fancy for!"
Of course I knew she was thinking of Macartney. I didn't believe Dudley
would have cared if she had married him ten times over. But he might
have been making some unreasonable objection to Macartney, at that, for
all I knew.
"I don't care one straw about your knowing I was going to take Paulette
Brown out of this. But if you don't hold your tongue on it, I'll know
it, so you mind that," I observed with some heat. Yet I was easier. She
could not talk that night, anyhow, and she was welcome to come out with
her crazy lie about Paulette and myself, once Hutton was dead,--because
he and a snake would be all one to me, once I got my hands on him. After
that I had no qualms about being able to make Dudley see the truth
concerning that letter, and that it had been written to save his
gold,--and his life, likely enough! I let Marcia believe the name in the
letter was mine, and that Paulette had been going off with me. All I
wished was that she had been. I went off to my room and left Marcia
sitting over the dead fire,--not so triumphant as she'd meant to be, for
all the good face she put on it.
Paulette's letter had pretty well knocked out all the interest I had in
old Thompson's cards, but I got out the torn scrap of paper I'd put
away. There was nothing on it but what I'd read before: "For God's sake
search my cards--_my cards!_"--and it looked crazier than ever with the
things in my hand. The cards had been water-soaked and were bumpy and
blistery where Billy Jones had dried them, even though they were
flattened out again by the pressure of their tight case; but there was
nothing _to_ them, except that they were old Thompson's beyond a doubt.
If I had thought there might be writing on them there was not so much as
the scratch of a pencil. There seemed to be a card missing. I thought it
was the deuce of hearts; but I was too sick over Marcia's discovery
about Paulette to really examine the things and make sure. I shoved them
into my coat pocket beside what was there already, just as Dudley came
into my room.
He had enough to worry him without hearing that Marcia had found out
about Paulette. He sat on my bed, biting his nails; and said--what
Macartney had said--that we had too much gold at La Chance to run the
risk of losing it by a better organized raid on it: and--what I had
known for myself--that the mine output represented his only ready money
for notes that were past renewing, and that it had to go out to
Caraquet. When I said why not, he bit his nails some more, and said he
was afraid of a hold-up: what he wanted me to do was to ride over to the
Halfway and scout around from there to clear the Caraquet road, before I
started out from La Chance with an ounce of gold.
The idea suited me well enough. It would cover my expedition to Skunk's
Misery. But I did not mention that, or Hutton, to Dudley; and never
guessed I was a criminal fool! I did not mean to waste any time in
scouting around the road, either, when I knew just where my man would be
sitting, with the half dozen wastrels he had probably scraped up. But
first I wanted five minutes, even two minutes, with Paulette, to warn
her of what Marcia knew. So I said the afternoon would be time enough to
start.
But Dudley would not hear of it and blazed out till I had to give up all
idea of warning Paulette, and get out. And as I rode away from La Chance
the last person I saw was Macartney, though I might not have remembered
it, if I had not turned my head after I passed and caught the same grin
on his face he had worn there the night his own man shot him. I rode
back and asked him what the mischief he was grinning at.
"Grinning--because I'm angry," Macartney returned with his usual set
stare. "I'd sooner go with you than stay here, burying men and talking
to Wilbraham. I'm sick of La Chance, if you'd like to know. I came here
to mine, not to play in moving pictures. But I guess I've got to stick,
unless I can hurry up my job here. So long--but I don't expect you'll
see anything of last night's man on the Caraquet road!"
Neither did I, nor of any one else. But I was not prepared to find the
Halfway stable empty, when I rode in there just at dark. The house was
as deserted as the stable, though the fire was alive in the stove, and
taking both things together, I decided Billy and his wife had taken a
four-horse team into Caraquet for a load. I had meant to borrow one of
his horses to go on to Skunk's Misery,--for this time I intended to ride
there. But with no horse to borrow, there was nothing to do but to ride
my own, and it was toward ten that night when I left him to wait for me
in a spruce thicket, within half a mile of the porcupine burrows that
Skunk's Misery called houses.
As I turned away, the cold bit a hundred times worse for the lack of
snow in the woods, and the bare ground made the pat of my moccasins
sound louder than I liked; but on the other hand I should leave no track
back to my waiting horse, if I had to clear out without getting Hutton.
The thought made me grin, for I had no fear of it.
Hutton would be asleep, judging from the look of things; for as I got
fairly into Skunk's Misery, it lay still as the dead. The winding tracks
through it were deserted; silent between and under the great rocks and
boulders; slippery in the open with droppings from the pine trees that
grew in and on the masses of huddled rocks. The wind rose a little,
too, and soughed in the pine branches, to die wailing among the stones.
It did not strike me as a cheerful wind for a man in Hutton's shoes, for
it covered the light sound of my feet as I went past the hut of the boy
I had nursed and through the maze of tracks his mother had shown me, to
the new log lean-to the Frenchwoman's son had built and never used. But,
as I reached it, I was suddenly not so sure Hutton was there!
The lean-to looked all right. The door was open, just as I had left it.
But, as I crossed the threshold, I knew I was too late, and there was
nobody inside, or in the cave underneath it where men had been when I
slept there. The place had that empty feeling of desertion, or late
occupancy and a cold lair, that even a worse fool than I could not
mistake now. I shut the door on myself without sound, all the same;
snapped my pocket lantern; and stared,--at just what I had known I was
going to find.
There was nothing in the place now but the bare lean-to walls and the
rock they backed on; but twenty men had been living there since I left
it. The black mark of their fire was plain against the rock face; the
log floor was splintered by heavy boots with nails in them--which did
not speak of the moccasined return of the Frenchwoman's son--and in the
place where I had once made a bed of pine boughs and carried it away
with me there lay a flurry of litter that spoke volumes: for among it
was a corned-beef can that was no product of Skunk's Misery, where meat
meant squirrels and rabbits, and--a corked bottle of wolf dope! That I
laid gingerly aside till I had poked around in the rest of the mess, but
there was not much else there besides kindling. I got up to leg it for
the underground cave, blazing that I had missed Hutton and half hoping
he might be there,--but I dropped flump on my knees again, dumbfounded.
Underneath the displaced litter, stuck sideways in a crack of the log
floor, was a shiny, dirty white playing card. I pulled it out. And in
the narrow white beam of my electric lantern I saw the missing two of
hearts out of Thompson's pack!
I saw more, too, before I even wondered how one of Thompson's cards had
ever got to Skunk's Misery. The deuce of hearts was written on--closely,
finely and legibly--with indelible pencil. And as I read the short
sentences, word by word, I knew Thompson had never got to Caraquet,
never got anywhere but to the cave under the very lean-to I knelt
in--till he had been brought up from it, here--to be taken away and
drowned in Lac Tremblant, as a decent man would not drown a dog! And I
knew--at last--where Hutton and his gang were, and who Hutton was!
But I made no move to go underground to the cave to look for them. And
the only word that came to my tongue was: "_Macartney!_"