Ike Marsh rode in from Pinnacle and turned his horse into the corral. Ike had suffered another session of poker, which was one of his chief vices, but this time the Greenback Saloon took most of his previous winnings.
He came up to the house, where he found Hashknife and Big Medicine in the living-room.
“Wasn’t no mail,” he told Big Medicine. “Torres and Garcia came to Pinnacle last night, and Lee Yung came in on the stage yesterday mornin’. And that’s all the news.”
“That’s quite a lot,” observed Hashknife thoughtfully. “I wonder what will happen now, Hawkworth. Both parties have been gone quite a while.”
“That’s hard to tell. If Baldy Kern thinks that Torres killed Blair, he will probably try to kill Torres. If Torres did try to kill you, and finds that he failed, he will probably try again.”
“Sounds reasonable,” grinned Hashknife. “I reckon I’ll ride to Pinnacle this evenin’. If Mr. Torres wants another chance, I’ll sure give it to him, unless Kern beats me to it.”
“I’m goin’ back,” said Ike quickly. “I’ve got enough left to buy a couple stacks of white chips, and I ain’t so sure but what I profited by my lesson of last night. I reckon Musical and Cleve intends to go in tonight.”
Ike knew that neither Musical nor Cleve had any idea of going to Pinnacle that night, but he was paving the way for the Tumbling H to be well represented in case of trouble.
“This is not our trouble,” Big Medicine reminded him.
“Oh, sure not.”
Ike hadn’t the slightest idea of mixing into any trouble. He went out, rattling his spurs, as he hurried down to tell Cleve and Musical that they were going to Pinnacle that night.
Hashknife smiled softly at Big Medicine. They had become fast friends during Hashknife’s short stay at the Tumbling H.
“The boys are worth having at your back,” said Big Medicine.
“Thank yuh,” said Hashknife. “It kinda looks like there ain’t nothin’ in my hunch this time. The bunch from the K-10 seem as friendly as anyone could be to me. Lookin’ at it from the outside, all is serene.
“I’ve wanted to tell yuh for quite a while that me and Sleepy knew Sam Blair up in the Northwest. We rounded him up in a raid on a horse-thief gang, in which Blair was the only survivor. He escaped later, after shootin’ a deputy sheriff, and nobody up there knowed where he went.
“I can’t quite figure out what he was doin’ out here that night. I don’t think he knew that we were in this country. It is hardly possible that he recognized Sleepy, but started shootin’ because he knowed he was caught.”
“I wondered if you didn’t know him,” said Big Medicine. “Sleepy did not ask questions after the killing, and it seemed to me that he knew the man. But you have a poker face, Hartley. When you heard who had been killed, you did not change expression.”
“Mebbe I wasn’t quite right in the head,” grinned Hashknife. “I got quite a tunk that night. I reckon we’ll stick around till the last of the week, and if nothin’ happens we’ll drift.”
“Stay as long as you wish,” said Big Medicine quickly. “The Tumbling H is your home, Hartley, and it will be mighty lonesome when you leave. The boys like you and Sleepy, and I know how Lucy and Wanna feel toward both of you. Wanna isn’t the kind to say things, but I can tell. And let me tell you something”—Big Medicine smiled broadly—“Lucy says to me, ‘We must get more cattle.’ I asked her why we should get more cattle, and she said, ‘Hire two more cowboys.’”
Hashknife laughed softly over his cigarette.
“Mebbe she likes us because I talk a little of the language she ain’t heard for a long time, Hawkworth.”
“Perhaps. But she says nothing about that part of it. Lucy likes company. I’m English, Hartley. I was born of a family in which there was too much money and too many sons. I was educated in England, brought up with some queer traditions in my brain, some queer ideas, you might call them.
“You wonder why I married a squaw? God knows, I sometimes wonder why myself. Perhaps it was because I lost faith. But no matter. Lucy has been a good wife. I suppose I did not realize what I was doing when I married her, but the realization came later.”
Big Medicine hooked his hands over his knees and stared at the threadbare carpet, deep in thought.
“The realization,” he continued softly, “was the fact that my children would be half-breeds. They could never take their place with the whites. It seemed to me that the Indian blood would predominate, always. And one reason for that would be the fact that they would know that they had an Indian mother.
“You have known Indians and half-breeds, Hartley. And you know that the half-breed never measures up. They inherit the vices of both bloods and the virtues of neither. They are a weak-kneed, and often treacherous combination.
“And that realization hurt, Hartley. I suppose it is the old pride of ancestry cropping out; my inheritance of a hidebound pride, in which the children are the greater. It was like a blow in the face, when the realization came to me. Perhaps I might have left Lucy and married a white woman—but I didn’t. I’ve some of the instincts of a gentleman left, some honor. But I knew that my offspring would always work under the handicap of an Indian mother.”
“And knowin’ that would make ’em more red than white?” asked Hashknife. “Is that yore theory, Hawkworth?”
“Yes. I wonder”—he lifted his head and looked at Hashknife keenly—“I wonder if a child born of a white man and an Indian woman, brought up away from them and taught to believe that nothing but white blood flowed in his or her veins—would they not be the same as a pure breed?”
“The psychology of ignorance?” smiled Hashknife. “I don’t know, Hawkworth. But what satisfaction would that be to either the white man or the Indian squaw? It might be a good experiment, but goshawful tough on the parents. By golly, I’d raise my own kid—regardless of who or what its mother might be.”
“And not give the child a chance?”
“That’s yore hidebound English croppin’ out, Hawkworth. If the child was worth a damn, it would make its own chance. Suppose you had done that with Wanna. Would she be any better off?”
“No white man would marry her, Hartley.”
“No? Then let her pick a man to suit herself. If a white man won’t marry her, what’s the odds? You talk like there wasn’t any good men in the world except white men. I’m sorry to say that I’ve done battle with a lot of thieves, crooks, and murderers; many of them are lookin’ up at the grass-roots right now—and they were all white men, Hawkworth.”
“I get your viewpoint, Hartley. Perhaps you are right. It is only a theory, at best. Living here for twenty-five years, I have had plenty of time for theorizing. It has been a long time, my friend, longer than you can realize. Men say that Big Medicine Hawkworth is a queer person, and that he is unfriendly. Some of them hate me because I own Hawk Hole, and hold it.
“Since the town of Pinnacle was built, Hawk Hole’s morals have not improved. The Greenhorn Mines have brought the riffraff of the Southwest into this place, until it seems to be a happy hunting ground for high-graders, cattle-thieves, smugglers. Is it any wonder that I do not welcome a stranger to my home?”
“I figure we were lucky to get in,” smiled Hashknife.
Big Medicine’s eyes twinkled.
“Do you know what did it? When I asked you what you wanted, you said, ‘Not what he got,’ referring to Jim Reed, whom I had thrown out of my house. It struck me that your sense of humor was too keen to be owned by less than a gentleman.”
Hashknife laughed softly.
“Mr. Reed sure came out. He didn’t do any complainin’ at all either. Just grabbed his bronc and whaled away from here. I took one look at you, and says to myself, ‘Here’s the prophet Elijah, wearin’ high-heeled boots.’
“And you kinda had a habit of switchin’ from good English to cow-town United States, Hawkworth. It was interestin’ to me. Some folks had kinda warned us against comin’ out to see you; but that would make me come if nothin’ else did. If a man or a woman is worth sayin’ things against, they’re worth meetin’.”
“And you’ve been worth talking to, Hashknife,” said Big Medicine warmly. “I hope your hunch, as you call it, will keep you in Hawk Hole for a long time. My definition of the word ‘gentleman’ has changed so greatly that I hesitate to use it; so I feel more safe in calling you my friend than a gentleman. I have a bottle of very old whiskey, older than you are, my friend, and I think it is a proper time to drink a health.”
“To you,” said Hashknife, and Big Medicine went after the bottle.
Pedro Torres was just vain enough over his knifethrowing ability to feel sure that he had killed the man who had humiliated him. Until he came back to Pinnacle there was not a doubt in his mind but that Hashknife Hartley had not lived long enough to know what had struck him.
But discreet questioning had brought him the information that Hashknife Hartley had evidently entirely recovered from his attack of rheumatism and was again enjoying good health.
And it was a distinct shock to hear that Sam Blair had been killed that night halfway between Pinnacle and the Tumbling H Ranch, and that a long-bladed knife had been found at the scene of the killing.
Torres rubbed his chin and considered things. He hated to admit to himself that he had miscalculated his throw, but how did his knife happen to be found near Blair’s body? The description of the knife, meager as it was, convinced Torres that it was the one he had flung at Hashknife from the shadows of the bathhouse.
But how had it been found beside a dead man, far removed from the yard of the Tumbling H? Torres rubbed his chin some more and decided that there was some hocus pocus in the wind. He had seen his victim fall. He questioned the slow-witted Garcia.
“He died,” declared Garcia in Spanish.
“He lives,” retorted Torres. “Sam Blair died a mile or more from the place where I threw the knife, and my knife was found beside him.”
“That is evil fortune,” said Garcia. “Other men will see that knife and know who owns it.”
“Croaking buzzard!” Torres spat angrily. “I must have hurried my throw—and it was dark.”
“A mile is a long throw,” observed Garcia blandly.
“I will kill you some day for being such a fool,” replied Torres. “Still,” he reflected, “it was found there, and who would leave it beside the dead body of Sam Blair? He was shot to death.”
“Your knife did not kill him?”
“No.”
“Then you have nothing to fear. He was not killed with your knife.”
“If I was not there, how did my knife fall to the ground?” demanded Torres hotly. “Perhaps I shot him and lost the knife.”
“Perhaps.” Garcia was agreeable. “I think we will be safer across the border.”
But Torres shook his head.
“Not yet. Some of these days we might, but not now. There is too much money to be made here.”
“A slit throat does not taste wine,” said Garcia. “Money is of no value to a corpse. I would rather drink Guadalupe’s vile tequila in safety than to risk my neck for champagne.”
“There may be virtue in all that,” replied Torres.
“Go, if you are afraid. If not, stop croaking. I have business to attend to in Pinnacle. Guadalupe sent a message to Kern yesterday by that half-wit, Perez—who let me read it for the price of a quart of mescal.”
“It must have been of great value—to Perez,” grinned Garcia.
“We shall later discover its value. As for you, say nothing.”
Torres did no more questioning, and was doubly cautious. He felt sure that sooner or later someone would mention the knife to him, and he could not think of a single reason for losing that knife. The only thing he could do would be to deny that he had been near the spot where Blair had died, and swear that he had missed the knife when undressing at the Rancho Sierra.
It was very true that he had missed the knife. It was a favorite blade, and one he had carried a long time. One does not find a good throwing blade every day. He carried a revolver, under his sash and inside the waistband of his trousers; but he was not a gunman, preferring the more silent weapon.
Lee Yung, the fat, bland-faced Chinaman, sat stolidly in a chair at a poker table, pitting his wits against Faro Lanning. The rest of the players were of no moment to Lee Yung, who would bet a thousand dollars with about the same emotion as a sphinx.
Torres wanted to play poker, but not in such fast company, so he confined his efforts to trying to outguess the roulette wheel, where he could also keep an eye on the front door.
It was after dark that Hashknife, Sleepy, Ike Marsh, Musical Matthews, and Cleve Davis came in. They clanked up to the bar and greeted the bartender vociferously. Hashknife saw Torres and grinned widely. Torres tried to smile, but the effort was too great.
In his perturbation he made a foolish bet, and watched the dealer sweep away his money. Hashknife swung away from the bar and came toward the roulette game. He seemed entirely unconcerned, but his eyes took in every move made by the dandy Mexican.
Torres’ right hand moved nervously toward his sash, stopped, dropped back to his side. He knew that there was no use of him provoking trouble, so he proceeded to use discretion.
“How’s she goin’?” asked Hashknife pleasantly.
“Buena,” said Torres.
He watched Hashknife place several small bets, wondering why this tall cowpuncher, who had so blithely dumped him into the tub of dirty water, seemed to have forgotten it so soon. He wondered if it was ignorance or bravado.
Hashknife looked up from his bets and studied Torres’ clothes.
“You’ve been away quite a while, ain’t yuh, Torres?”
“Did you miss me?”
Torres lifted his eyebrows. Hashknife grinned and shook his head.
“No, I didn’t miss yuh, but I see yore clothes are dry.”
Torres flushed at the reminder. He did not want to be baited by this man; and yet he did not know how to prevent it, except by walking away. Hashknife was laughing at him, and it suddenly occurred to Torres that this man’s laugh was not derisive. The joke seemed to be on Torres, so he laughed with Hashknife.
“That’s a lot better,” said Hashknife. “There are things that are a lot better to forget, pardner.”
“I have forgotten them,” said Torres earnestly. “Perhaps I made a mistake.”
“Mebbe,” grinned Hashknife.
Garcia leaned against the wall near the roulette wheel, his arms folded under his dirty serape, feeling of the knife hilt inside his shirt. He heard what Torres said, and his hands came in sight to fumble with a cigarette.
Hashknife drifted away from the wheel and joined Sleepy near the bar.
“I kinda looked for that Mexican to make a break,” said Sleepy softly. “I had my eye on that jigger beside the wall, too. He’s got somethin’ under that dirty blanket thing he’s wearin’, and I reckon it’s a knife. I was just waitin’ for somethin’ to start and then I was goin’ to hang him to the wall on the hot end of a bullet.”
“I reckon I’ve kinda squared things with Torres,” observed Hashknife.
“Thasso?” Sleepy scratched his hand on his thigh. “What’s the idea of squarin’ things with him?”
“I’ve got to pry into things some way,” said Hashknife. “I’m bettin’ that there’s two outfits in on some kind of a deal, and I’ve got to dig my way into one of ’em.”
“If we showed any sense, we’d dig out of here,” declared Sleepy. “Prob’ly get ourselves into a jam over nothin’.”
“Somebody got Big Medicine’s money, Sleepy.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“And somebody tried to kill yore little playmate.”
“Well, go ahead, cowboy. I s’pose you could dig up a lot more reasons for stayin’ here.”
Hashknife laughed. He knew that Sleepy would never quit complaining if they rode out of Hawk Hole without finding out why certain things had happened. It was Sleepy’s nature to talk as if he were a prize pessimist.
At about nine o’clock Baldy Kern, Jack Baum, and Two-Fingers Kohler came into the Greenback Saloon. Baldy nodded to Hashknife as they came up to the bar, and Hashknife and Sleepy moved aside to give them more room.
The three men talked in an undertone, as they drank. It seemed that Baldy cautioned Kohler about something, and Hashknife heard Kohler reply angrily, “Oh, to hell with that Government spy.”
Hashknife wondered who Kohler meant, until he saw Jack Baum flash a sidewise look at him, and then he realized that possibly they were talking about him. It was sufficient to put him on his guard.
Baldy turned from the bar and scanned the room. Torres was at the roulette wheel, facing Baldy, but seemingly absorbed in the game. Baldy turned his head slightly toward Baum and spoke guardedly, but too softly for Hashknife to hear what he said.
Then he moved away from the bar, stopped for a moment at the poker table to speak to someone in the game, and sauntered toward the roulette wheel. Baum and Kohler moved away from the bar, keeping their eyes on Baldy.
“Look out,” whispered Hashknife. “Somethin’ is due to break.”
Baldy was only ten feet from Torres now, and they were looking at each other. The dealer called the winning number, but Torres did not look down at the table.
“You dirty Mexican!” snapped Baldy. “You killed Sam Blair!”
As Baldy spat his accusation he whipped out his gun. Baldy was fast on the draw, as deadly as a striking rattlesnake. But before he could pull the trigger the light flashed on a spinning knife-blade, which Garcia had thrown from beside the wall, and Baldy’s wrist was pierced just above the joint.
His hand splayed open and the heavy gun clanged to the floor as he jerked back, throwing up his wounded arm.
Kohler flung himself forward, drawing a gun, but stumbled over Hashknife’s outflung foot and lunged heavily to the floor, almost under the roulette wheel. Torres darted toward the front door, while Garcia chose to make his exit at the rear, and all the while Jack Baum was trying to get past the clumsy Sleepy, who seemed to be innocently trying to efface himself from the scene.
It was only a matter of seconds before it was all over. The room was in an uproar. Baldy was swearing painfully, as he tried to check the bleeding of his wrist, assisted by Lee Yung. Kohler was still trying to find his gun, which had flipped out of his hand, and Jack Baum was trying to make up his mind whether Sleepy blocked him intentionally, or whether Sleepy was the most clumsy lout he had ever met.
Kohler’s face was scarlet, as he painfully dusted his knees and peered under the roulette wheel, where he found his gun. He holstered it savagely and came back toward the bar. He faced Hashknife, shaking with rage.
“You tripped me!” he snorted. “Damn you, why did you do it?”
“Yore feet are too wide,” said Hashknife evenly. “How much room do yuh need?”
The crowd lost interest in Baldy’s injuries now.
“You tripped me on purpose!” roared Kohler. “I’ll show you how I pay——”
He drew back his right fist and let drive with a blow that was so obvious that Hashknife moved easily aside to avoid it and smashed Kohler square in the center of his wide throat. Kohler seemed to be falling almost before the splat of the blow, and he went flat on his face. Hashknife stepped back, his right hand swinging loosely at his side, and glanced around.
Jack Baum was standing almost against the bar, his hands half-raised, while Sleepy was very close to him, his gun-muzzle resting square against Baum’s waistline. Baldy’s face was gray with pain and anger, but he was in no condition to lend anyone assistance.
Some of the men turned Kohler over on his back, while the bartender poured a glass of water over his face. The knockout was so complete that many of the men ventured the opinion that Kohler was dead. Lee Yung examined him and shook his head.
“He is not badly hurt,” was Lee Yung’s opinion. “For a long time he will swallow with difficulty, I think.”
“Hashknife, you shore pressed his old Adam’s apple,” applauded Musical Matthews. “My God, what a complete cleanup!”
“You can put down yore hands,” said Sleepy to Jack Baum.
Baum lowered his hands, but was careful to keep them away from his gun. Kohler coughed and sat up, painfully massaging his throat, while his eyes squinted around, as if wondering what it was all about. Someone helped him into a chair, and the bartender asked him how he was feeling, but Kohler’s voice had fled.
“Tied a knot in his vocal cords,” observed Ike gleefully.
Baldy finished bandaging his wrist. Lee Yung found his gun and put it in the holster for Baldy, who came closer to Hashknife.
“I’ve been wonderin’ what you was doin’ down here,” he said slowly, and loud enough for everyone to hear. “I reckon yo’re rheumatism is near enough cured for you to vamoose. Take my advice and get out muy pronto, hombre.
“Torres killed one of my men, Hartley. You stopped me from payin’ him back for this murder, or rather you stopped my men from doin’ what I started in to do. Yore breed don’t thrive in this country, so take my advice, right now.”
Hashknife smiled easily.
“How do you know Torres killed Blair?”
“I know damn well he did!”
“All right. Tell me what Blair was doin’ the night Torres is supposed to kill him.”
“How in hell do I know!”
“Why would Torres kill him?”
“Well, I—I dunno, but——”
“The fact of the matter is—yo’re guessin’, Kern. I reckon Blair got what was comin’ to him. And as far as Hawk Hole bein’ unhealthy for my breed, I’ve lived and had my bein’ in some damned infested localities. I’ll remember what yuh said, Kern. Barkin’ dogs don’t bite, they say, but they kinda make yuh keep yore head up and yore eyes open.”
Baldy squinted at Hashknife and down at his throbbing wrist.
“Mebbe you know who killed Blair,” he said.
“Which shows that you don’t,” said Hashknife easily.
Baldy considered the answer for several moments, turned and walked out, followed by Jack Baum. Kohler followed them with his eyes, as if afraid to trust his legs to carry him out. Then he got up from his chair and went unsteadily out into the street.
No one spoke for several moments after they went out. The poker-players went back to their chairs, and the roulette started in where it left off. Faro Lanning came behind the bar to get a drink before renewing his game, and asked Hashknife and Sleepy to partake of his hospitality.
“It ain’t none of my business,” he said confidentially, “but perhaps you acted right in that matter. Baldy wasn’t sure, you see. Personally I don’t think that Torres killed Blair. Torres is a knife fighter, pure and simple. Unless it was an accident, Torres could never stick two bullets into any target as close as them two were stuck into Sam Blair. But look out for Kern. Well, here’s regards.”
They drank to each other and Lanning went back to his game. Lee Yung’s expressionless eyes considered Hashknife’s back, while they drank at the bar, but turned away as they finished.
Hashknife and Sleepy joined the three boys from the Tumbling H, and they went to the Welcome Saloon.
The K-10 horses were missing from the Greenback rack, which was conclusive evidence that Baldy had led his gang home.
“Wouldn’t have missed this evenin’ for a fortune,” declared Musical. “It was jist zip, boom, bang! Say, that Garcia shore is a knife-throwin’ devil, ain’t he? Pinned Baldy’s wrist as nice as yuh please. Probably figured that his hand or arm was the only safe place to throw at to stop the shot.”
“Makes me kinda twitch,” admitted Ike. “Dang a knife! They kinda slither, don’t they? If a feller ever comes after me with a knife, I’m goin’ to plumb forget that I know how to do anythin’, except run like hell.”
“Shore a nasty thing,” declared Cleve. “It ain’t none of my business, Hartley, but I was wonderin’ why yuh didn’t let Baldy go ahead. Somebody has got to kill Torres.”
“I reckon that’s right,” nodded Hashknife. “Somebody will have to kill him eventually, but I hope they’ll kill him for somethin’ that he done. Yuh see, he didn’t kill Blair.”
“I know it, but he tried to kill you.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t make good at it, Cleve.”
“Oh, hell!” Cleve shrugged his shoulders and offered to buy a drink. “You argue jist like Big Medicine does. Take a chance like that to save a danged Mexican, who o’rt to be hidin’ out from yore gun. I don’t sabe yuh.”
“I don’t know that Torres tried to kill me, Cleve. There’s a lot of folks that pack knives around here.”
“Aw, don’t argue with him,” advised Sleepy. “He’s got some awful queer notions in his head.”
“I ain’t goin’ to,” declared Cleve. “His notions may be queer, but his punch ain’t. I vote that we go home.”
“Home gits elected,” stated Musical. “C’mon.”