Never before had Rawley seen Young Jess in a rage. A surly, ignorant fellow he knew him to be, and not too intelligent. A dangerous fellow, Rawley believed him; quite capable of killing any man who thwarted him or roused his fury. But Rawley did not move or attempt to placate him. He had learned that some natures must blow up a great storm before they can yield. He hoped that this was the case with Young Jess.
The old vulture craned his neck forward, his eyes piercingly malevolent.
“Think I’ve waited fifty year fer that gold, t’ be robbed of it now? They ain’t no gov’ment on earth can step in an’ take what’s mine! I’ll blow ’em to hell first! I’ll—”
As once before, when he thought his gold was threatened, Old Jess ran the full gamut of anathema. Nevada fled from the sound of his cracked voice shrieking maniacal threats and maledictions. He shook his fist under Rawley’s nose and stamped his feet and raved. Young Jess was over-ridden, silenced by the old man’s insane outburst.
As once before, Peter said absolutely nothing until Old Jess had reached the zenith of his rage. Then he rose deliberately and without excitement, took the old man by the collar and headed him toward the door.
“Go and cool off,” he advised dispassionately. “You old vulture, you can’t scream any louder than the Eagle. You, too, Jess,” he added, turning harshly upon his half-brother. “You’re a pretty good man when it comes to swinging a single-jack, but you’re a damn poor hand at thinking! This thing is away beyond your depth. You can’t holler the government down. Get out!”
Young Jess blustered and threatened still, flailing his fists and mouthing oaths.
“That’s about all from you,” grated Rawley, stung to action by some vile threat against the government.
“Is, hey?” Young Jess advanced upon him.
Then Rawley went for him, the blue eyes of the Kings gone black with fury. The fight, if it could be called that, was short and undramatic. No tables were overturned, no glass was shattered. Young Jess aimed a sledge blow at Rawley, got one on the jaw that spun him so that he faced the other way, and Rawley forthwith kicked him off the porch. Young Jess rooted gravel, looked over his shoulder and saw Rawley coming at him again, and started off on all fours. When he regained his feet he went away, blathering blasphemy. He was going for his gun,—so he said.
Peter stood looking after Young Jess, his brows pulled together. A slim figure slipped past him and went straight to Rawley, who was pulling at his tie, which had gone crooked. She was pale, breathless with the fear that looked out of her big eyes.
“Oh, you must go—now,” she breathed, clasping her two hands around his arm. “You think he’s just like any other bully, all bluster. He’ll kill you, just as sure as you stand here. Grandfather, too. Uncle Jess will shoot you in the back—oh, anyway! He’s the worst of the Indian blood; once you rouse him, there’s nothing he’ll stop at! Get him away, Uncle Peter! It isn’t brave, to stay and be killed. It’s the worst kind of cowardice; the kind that is afraid to show itself. Uncle Peter!”
“We’re going, Nevada. I know Young Jess. A rattlesnake’s a prince alongside him when he’s mad. Son, you should have left him to me. I can handle him pretty well, no matter how mad he gets. Come along; he’ll not be above potting you from ambush, Injun style.”
He left the porch at the farther end, pulling Rawley after him; and much as Rawley hated the thought of retreat, he was forced to believe that Nevada and Peter, neither of them timid souls, must know what they were talking about.
Nevada disappeared, with no word of farewell to Rawley. Young Jess could be plainly heard bawling at Gladys because his “shells” had been misplaced.
Peter chuckled.
“One of the kids shot himself through the hat, a month or so ago,” he explained his amusement. “Since then the guns are kept unloaded. Jess is hunting cartridges; God bless Gladys for a poor housekeeper!”
He still held a firm grip on Rawley’s arm, leading him down the path to the river. But suddenly, keeping an ear cocked toward the sounds behind him, he swung away from the trail toward the bluffs.
“He’s found them, from the way things have quieted down, back there. He’ll be hot on your trail, now—unless Nevada can stop him, which I doubt. He’s Injun enough to hold women in contempt when it comes to a show-down. Here.”
He pulled Rawley down between two great, upstanding bowlders standing black against the stars. Rawley felt a movement of Peter’s arm, and knew that Peter had pulled a gun from somewhere and was aiming it across a ridge of rock. Rawley himself could hear nothing but the crying of the wakened baby in the shack, the yelp of a kicked dog.
For a long time, it seemed to Rawley, they waited. He could not hear a sound. But Peter still held his gun leveled across the rock before them, and Rawley could feel how Peter’s muscles were tensed for a struggle.
Two greenish lights showed faintly as a star-beam struck the eyeballs of a dog. A shuffling sound approaching through the weedy gravel, a sniffling at Peter’s hand. Rawley felt a crimple down his spine, though he did not think that he was afraid.
A pebble plunked into something close beside him, and the dog shied off with a faint, staccato yelp. Young Jess, then, was close. A muttered curse reached the ears of the two between the bowlders. Immediately afterward, Nevada’s whisper came distinctly.
“I think he’s hidden here, somewhere in the rocks. His car is down in the canyon, but he wouldn’t go that way—he’d expect you to follow. Watch the dog. He hasn’t any gun—I know. Can you creep back toward the hill—”
“Sh-sh. You call him. Quiet, as if you was scared. Make out you’re sweet on him—”
“I can’t. He knows—I hate him. We quarreled to-day. I hate his snobbish ways—I told him so.”
“Call his name if you run onto him. Then duck. I’ll—”
“Sh-sh—he may be near!”
The two were standing close together, just beyond the bowlder that reared its bulk beyond Peter. Rawley bit his lip, straining his ears to hear more.
“You call him. He won’t s’spect—” Young Jess urged in a whisper.
“He’d be a fool if he didn’t. I tell you he knows—”
“He’s stuck on yuh. That makes a fool—”
“Sh-sh. He’s not—”
Inch by inch, Rawley was drawing himself backward, until now he was free of the bowlder and Peter. From the sounds, he knew that the two were standing close to the rock. He thought that they were facing the river, though he could not be sure. It did not greatly matter. He inched that way until he could faintly distinguish two upright blots in the darkness of the bowlder’s shadow.
Upon the taller of the two he launched himself, reaching instinctively for the gun he knew was there. His hand closed on the cool steel of the barrel, and he gave a mighty wrench as he went down. Young Jess, caught unawares from behind, had no chance to save himself. Rawley landed full on his back, his chest forcing the face of Young Jess into the gravel. His left hand gripped the back of Jess’s neck.
“Peter, please take this fighting squaw to the house and lock her up somewhere. Then come back here. I want to have a talk with you before I go,” he said hardly. “I can handle this vermin, but I leave the squaw to you.”
“As you like,” Peter’s voice was noncommittal. “Come, Nevada.”
Rawley had expected some outburst from her, some bitter reply to his taunt. But she went away with Peter and spoke no word to any one. So Rawley pulled off his necktie and tied Young Jess’s hands behind him, and made himself a smoke while he waited Peter’s return.
“I’ll git you, and I’ll git you right!” gritted Young Jess, when Rawley had his cigarette going. “You better kill me now, or you’ll see the day you’ll be begging me to kill yuh. I’ll ketch yuh and take yuh back in the mine, an’ I’ll—” He amused himself for some minutes, making up the programme of his revenge. He would finish, he decided, by building a bed of powder kegs and placing Rawley full length upon it, with a ten-foot fuse spitted just before Young Jess bade him good-by.
“You ought to have lived fifty years ago,” Rawley commented indifferently, and blew smoke in his face. “Why don’t yuh squeal for that old buzzard of a dad? Maybe he could help yuh out, right now.”
Young Jess, having just made up his mind to shout for Old Jess to come, shut his mouth so hard his teeth clicked like a dog cracking a bone.
“Any fool can plan the things he’d like to do,” Rawley taunted. “What counts is the fact that you’re on your back, right now, and that I put you there—and you with a gun in your hands! I could kick you in the slats and make you howl like a kicked pup. I could drive your teeth in, so you’d feed yourself in the back of your head the rest of your life! Don’t talk to me—about what you’d like to do! I’m liable to experiment on yuh, just to see how it works.”
Then Peter returned, and further social amenities were postponed to some future meeting.