CHAPTER XVIII: SHREWD QUESTIONS
A short time after Hashknife had been ordered from Baggs’s office and had talked with the sheriff, he ran across Johnny Harris of the JP outfit, who imparted the information that Len had taken his boy out to the Box S. Johnny had seen Nan go to Baggs’s office and had also seen Len go there.
“I dunno what happened,” he told Hashknife, “but I saw Len go bustin’ into the office like he was goin’ to eat Baggs up. In a danged short time the girl comes out, lookin’ back, and then comes Len kinda backin’ out. The kid never did get all the way in. They piled into the buckboard with Whisperin’, and away they went, except Len, who piled on to his bronco and led the way.”
Hashknife got a grin out of this. He realised that Len had been the cause of Baggs’s scalded look about the face. That was the second time that Len had chastised Baggs. It was no wonder that Baggs was not in a gentle frame of mind.
After Johnny Harris left him, Hashknife sat on the sidewalk and tried to reason out the situation. Finally he gave up and went back to the sheriff’s office, where he tried to get the sheriff’s reactions on a few things. But Ben Dillon was not reacting just at present.
“Anyway,” he told Hashknife, “I don’t see why you’re so danged concerned. Yuh act as though you was sheriff, instead of me. If somebody wants to shoot Amos Baggs, that’s their business.”
“Do yuh feel the same about Charley Prentice?”
“Well, that ain’t such a hell of a mystery, Hashknife.”
“Then why don’tcha arrest the guilty man?”
“Not a speck of evidence.”
“Then why ain’t it a mystery?”
“’Cause it ain’t. Ask anybody.”
“Suppose I ask Len Ayres?”
“Yeah, that would be a sweet idea!”
Hashknife grinned at the fat sheriff.
“I’m goin’ to do that—to-night. I’ll betcha I’ll find out a lot more from him than I have from you.”
“I’ll make yuh a little bet on that.”
“Well,” grinned Hashknife. “if I find out anythin’ at all, I’d win. You can’t tell me a thing.”
Harry Cole of the Oasis was also looking for information, and a short time after Hashknife left the office he came in. He wanted to know what the sheriff had deduced on the attempted assassination of Amos Baggs. The sheriff was getting touchy.
“I don’t know a danged thing, Harry. I’m goin’ to get me an answer book so I can talk back to you jiggers.”
“I suppose Baggs is a little curious.”
“If he is, he keeps it to himself.”
“You don’t need to be sore at me, Ben.”
“I ain’t sore at yuh, Harry. I ain’t sore at anybody. Just before yuh left, Hashknife Hartley was in here, askin’ me a lot of fool questions, which nobody can answer. Said he was goin’ out to ask the same questions of Len Ayres, and he’d bet he’d find out more from Len than he did from me.”
“What’s his idea of askin’ questions, Ben?”
“Answer yore own question. I don’t know.”
“Ben, who is this Hashknife Hartley?”
“A damn nuisance! I wish he’d get a job and go to work. I’m tired of him hivin’ up in my office. Breezy likes him, so here he stays. Mebby I’ll have to fire Breezy to git rid of Hartley and his grinnin’ pardner. Half the time I don’t have a chair to set on around here.”
The big gambler grinned lazily.
“This shootin’ stuff is gettin’ on yore nerves, Ben.”
“Didn’t it git on yore nerves, when you was sheriff?”
“They wasn’t shootin’ at me,” grinned Cole.
“Well, they ain’t shootin’ at me—yet. When they do, I’ll quit. It’s bad enough to be questioned.”
Ben raked his spurred heel across the top of his desk.
“Must be a damn brave man who shot at Baggs,” he said savagely. “When yuh have to bushwhack fellers like him it’s shore sneakin’. Next time I hope they pick some other place for the killin’, instead of my office.”
“Have yuh talked to Baggs about it, Ben?”
“Nope.”
“Did yuh know that Len took his kid home with him?”
“Did he? That’s fine.”
The sheriff was about out of conversation; so Cole went back to the Oasis.
After supper that night Hashknife saddled his gray horse and rode out to the Box S alone. Sleepy had found it easy to beat Breezy playing pool; so he was content to stay in town. Hashknife met Sailor just outside Lobo Wells, and told him he was going to the ranch. Sailor told him about Nan’s spraining her ankle, but did not mention that he was carrying a message to Amos Baggs.
Hashknife found Len at the stable, riveting a buckle on the headstall of his bridle by the light of a lantern, and Len seemed a little surprised to see him. Hashknife sat down on a box and rolled a smoke. He told Len what Sailor said about Nan’s injury.
“If it ain’t better in the mornin’ I’ll get the doctor,” said Len. “She’s asleep now. How’s everythin’ in town?”
“All in good shape, except Amos Baggs.”
Len looked up quickly.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Oh, his face is kinda sore, I guess.”
“Yea-a-ah? Did he tell about me slappin’ him?”
“I don’t think he did,” grinned Hashknife, and told Len how Baggs had ordered him out of the office.
“Kinda funny about somebody shootin’ at Baggs, Hartley.”
“Wasn’t it? I wonder who it was.”
Len shook his head, tested the buckle and laid the bridle aside. He rolled a smoke and leaned back against the wall, the aroma of his cigarette mingling with the pungent odours of the stable. Moths skittered around the lantern, a horse stamped uneasily.
“You came out alone?” asked Len.
“Yeah,” nodded Hashknife. “I wanted to talk with you, Ayres.”
“Thasso?” curiously. “Talk about what, Hartley?”
“About you.”
Len smiled crookedly.
“Most folks talk about me to somebody else,” he said.
“I’ve talked about yuh to other folks,” said Hashknife seriously. “The whole danged trouble is the fact that they all feel too much alike about yuh, Ayres. Even those who say they like yuh a lot, admit that you got away to a mighty bad start in this country.”
“Even if that’s fact,” said Len grimly, “I don’t see where it’s any of yore damn business, Hartley. What do you care what people say about me? I can run my business.”
“I don’t blame yuh, Ayres. But listen to this, and you’ll know why this is my business: I’m here for the Wells Fargo. There, my cards are on the table. Mebby I’m a fool to tell you, but I’m takin’ a chance. The sheriff doesn’t know what I’m here for.”
“Wells Fargo, eh?” said Len softly. “So they’re doggin’ my trail, waitin’ for me to dig up that money so they can send me back to the rockpile.”
“They’re still curious about the ten thousand they lost.”
“Did they think you’d recover it for them, Hartley?”
“They’re not that foolish, Ayres.”
“So yo’re a detective, eh?”
“No; I’m a damn fool. No detective would be crazy enough to conceal his identity from the officers and expose it to the man he was to investigate.”
“That’s true. Well, suppose I tell yuh I don’t know where the money is?”
“I’d believe yuh, Ayres.”
“Would yuh? Yo’re a hell of a detective!”
“I know it,” grinned Hashknife. “Let’s go back a ways on this case. I heard that you turned bandit to furnish yore wife with more money than you could earn.”
Len got slowly to his feet and leaned against the wall, his face in the shadow now.
“That’s a new one,” he said grimly. “I suppose I threw away my hat in the bank to prove an alibi? What’s the use, Hartley? If I didn’t pull them jobs, you’d have a sweet time puttin’ the deadwood on somebody else, after all this time.”
“Don’tcha want it proved, Ayres?”
Len was silent a while. Then:
“Hartley, my son thinks I’m a thief and a murderer. Does that answer yore question?”
“It shore does. Did somebody tell him you shot Prentice?”
Len stepped away from the wall and walked to the stable door, where he looked out into the night. Hashknife puffed away on his cigarette and waited for Len to answer. Finally he came back and sat down again.
“Hartley,” he said softly, “yo’re a queer sort of a detective. You came here to spy on me, and yet you tell me who yuh are. I’ll shoot square with yuh. I’m as big a fool as you are; so I’m goin’ the limit with you. The night Charley Prentice was shot, my boy heard that knock on the door. When Prentice went to answer the knock, and threw the door open, my boy heard a voice say: ‘This is Ayres, you dirty dog!’ and then the shots were fired.”
“Yea-a-ah?” Hashknife leaned forward. “He told you he heard that?”
“Yeah, and that was why he didn’t want to come out here. To him, I’m a murderer. The squaw heard it too. They agreed to never tell anybody; but the boy told me. I reckon he wanted me to know why he didn’t want to come out here.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t bet with the sheriff,” said Hashknife.
“Bet what?”
“He wanted to bet that I wouldn’t find out any more from you than I already knew.”
Len laughed shortly.
“I don’t see what good it will ever do yuh.”
“I don’t either, Ayres; but it proves somethin’. Either you killed Charley Prentice, or the man who did kill him wanted the kid and the squaw to hear who was doin’ the shootin’. And another thing—if Prentice hadn’t died right away, he could have sworn who shot him.”
“Yeah, that’s true. If the sheriff knew what I’ve told you, he’d jail me too quick, Hartley.”
“Well, he won’t know it from me. But there’s another question, Ayres. This is pretty danged personal, but I mean it for yore own good. Was yore wife friendly with Prentice before you was arrested?”
Len shifted his position, but did not answer. He got to his feet and walked back to the door, where he leaned out and listened.
“I thought I heard somebody,” he said, as he came back. “I guess it was the dog. I don’t know how to answer yore question, Hartley. She had known Prentice a long time. We had a house in Lobo Wells, yuh know. My wife wasn’t the kind who liked to live out on a ranch. I’ll tell yuh the honest facts of the case; we didn’t get along so good. Mebby I was to blame. I worked hard to get a start, but she didn’t appreciate it, I guess.”
“What kind of a person was Harmony Singer?” asked Hashknife, going off on another tack.
“The best on earth, Hartley.”
“I’ve heard he was.”
“He stuck to me,” said Len softly, and added: “Like a father.”
“Did you know this niece of his before yuh came back?”
“No, I didn’t, Hartley.”
“Heard Harmony Singer mention her?”
“Well, he never spoke about his relatives. Harmony was kinda close-mouthed, yuh know. He was originally from New Mexico, and I guess he was a heller in his time. Died with his boots on, hung to a stirrup. But if Heaven is a place for white men, he’s there.”
Whispering came down to the stable. He was rather surprised to find Hashknife there.
“Nan woke up,” he told Len. “Says the ankle hurts quite a lot. Sailor ain’t back yet, is he? He’ll prob’ly get drunk again.”
“Come on up to the house, Hartley,” invited Len.
“I think I’ll be headin’ back for town,” said Hashknife.
Len walked over to Hashknife’s horse with him, and they shook hands, before Hashknife mounted. It was very dark along the road to Lobo Wells, so Hashknife did not hurry. He pondered deeply over what Len had told him, trying to figure some angle on which to work. It meant going back five years, and in five years many small details are lost.
He travelled along the dusty, sandy road, the tall gray horse eating up distance with a swinging walk. Less than a mile out of Lobo Wells the road crossed Manzanita River on an old bridge, a narrow old structure, which creaked threateningly. The river here was mostly a big pot-hole below the bridge at this time of year, where a few old cottonwood stumps stuck their tops above the pool of dirty water.
Just before he reached the south end of the bridge, the gray shied slightly. Hashknife jerked up the reins quickly, but was unable to see anything in the gloom. He rode on to the bridge and went slowly across.
The bridge sloped rather sharply on the north end, and as he rode down this incline he heard a sharp whistle, apparently some distance behind him; one sharp note. Instinctively he twisted in his saddle, looking back, and at the same instant he was blinded by a terrific flash, something hit him with a stunning force and he lost consciousness.
But even in his helpless, unconscious state, he seemed to hear voices. They seemed miles away, yet audible.
“Let me shoot him again.”
“He’s plenty dead right now.”
Then he seemed to be sailing through space, and he wondered whether a dead man was able to hear people talk. It seemed ridiculous, but who would know what a dead man could hear?