Smoke of the .45

by Harry Sinclair Drago

Gallup’s thoughts were no longer on the window. Johnny Dice no longer obsessed him. He knew there could be no connection between the boy and this shriveled shadow of a man confronting him.

And yet there was, and not so remote at that. But Johnny knew nothing of the man’s coming. The boy was playing a lone hand this night. He had already circled Gallup’s house several times. That a light should be burning in that same room again tonight looked suspicious to Johnny. It said all too plainly that he was expected.

Well, it is a poor general who has only one plan of attack. Johnny flattered himself that he was equal to this occasion.

The eastern freight had not pulled in yet. Two carloads of ore from the Black Prince mine stood upon the side track. They would have to be picked up and cut into the train. Very likely the freight would bring a car of merchandise from San Francisco for the Rock. That would take more time. Cars would be switched back and forth past the house. One should be able to see into that lighted upper story room from the top of one of those cars.

Gallup had not replaced the shattered glass as yet. With fair skill a man should be able to flip a piece of cardboard into the room. Johnny had such a thing to toss at Gallup’s feet—the picture of Molly which he had found in Traynor’s wallet.

The boy had the best of reasons for doing this. Surely if Gallup did not recognize the picture it would worry him sore just because he could not place the child’s face. A picture, delivered as this one would be, carried a message, a warning. And perhaps the man would fail to reason that it had been tossed into the room from the top of a passing freight car. If so, he would be at some pains to figure how it came there upon his floor.

If the incident produced no other effect than this, Johnny told himself he would be satisfied. It would be another straw added to Aaron’s load, and to break and unnerve the man was Johnny’s game.

But he stood to win more than this. He had made Kent admit that he had known Crosbie Traynor. If Gallup recognized that picture it was proof enough that he, too, had known the man. Then, Johnny felt that he would have discovered the reason for Kent’s subservience to Gallup.

As he walked the tracks to the head of the switch just this side of the shipping pens he told himself that he could not lose. No matter how the play went, he won.

The freight pulled in half an hour late, but Johnny’s calculation in regard to the amount of work the train crew would have to do proved correct. Swinging up to the top of one of the big box cars he stretched himself flat and waited for the switching to begin. In a few minutes he was rolling past Gallup’s house.