The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

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СКАЧАТЬ clear," observed Chaffee. "Why worry?"

      But Fancher went right on as if he hadn't heard. "This come out four-five days ago. It's traveled like the stink of a stockyard on a windy day. Everybody knows it; everybody's been talkin' about it. It's sorter snowballed up. At first it sorter seemed to miss fire. A homesteader asked Woolfridge about it. Woolfridge laughed in the man's face. Yeah. And what he said was that plenty of people would try to throw a monkey wrench in his business. Get the idea—persecution, jealousy, plain meanness. Uhuh. It seemed to satisfy these birds for a while. I give the man credit for cold, cast-iron, double-riveted nerve. But pretty soon folks got together. Talked about it, figgered it out. It's been growin' stronger every day. They was around fifteen homesteaders here when the news broke. Thirty-forty more came since—all from the adjoinin' counties. I've watched 'em gather from the window here. And I tell you the look that's settlin' in their faces makes me cold."

      Chaffee was going around the edges of this business, testing it for himself. "Woolfridge could say that the power company was only denying the story about the dam because of policy. That they didn't want to commit themselves until work was actually started."

      "Which he later did say," answered Fancher. "But how does that excuse stack up against the fact that the power company wrote to the governor and the governor made it his personal business to have that letter printed? Folks have been doin' some heavy thinkin'. The governor ain't goin' to mix up with the power company if it's only a bluff. Folks have decided that much. All right. And they've been lookin' back over Woolfridge's record hereabouts. Satterlee dyin' sudden. Stirrup S being froze out. Your own case. Each of them things didn't look like so much at the particular time. Put 'em all together and they seem mighty funny. It leaves a bad taste. The homesteaders are out money. They're in a state of mind. The old-timers around here recollected all the hell raisin' that went on. And they're a long ways from peaceable. It only needs one match to light up the bonfire. From what I been hearin' this afternoon I think the match is lit."

      "What's that?"

      "You," was Fancher's succinct answer.

      "Me?" demanded Chaffee. "Shucks, those homesteaders don't know me. Never saw me."

      "Yeah, but they've been hearin' a lot about you recent. That's another item to build up a feelin' against Woolfridge. Well, they've heard you're back. A mob is funny. Anythin's apt to send it on a stampede. Woolfridge has put up a bold face. He had the situation under his hand. He's powerful. But here you are back again and that takes the play out of his control. The crowd feels the change. That's all it needs."

      "Here," protested Chaffee, "I'm not going to lead any lynch party."

      "Don't you try to stop none, either," Fancher warned him. "Men ain't reasonable at a time like that. Your best friend is just apt to spit in your face and knock you down."

      "Which I know blamed well," agreed Chaffee, remembering the time Stirrup S was set to hang the gambler Clyde. Dusk was coming unannounced through the window. Chaffee was reminded that he had set himself a chore. "I'm goin' out a minute, Doc. Stay till I come back, will you?"

      "Now listen—" began Fancher. But Chaffee shook his head, opening the door and pulling it behind him. He went down the stairway. The walk was deserted at that particular point and he swung himself into the adjoining alley and ran along to the back end of the buildings. The Gusher was beginning to show lamplight, the kitchen door stood open and a flunkey leaned in the aperture smoking a cigarette. Chaffee knew that flunkey. He also knew the Gusher cook. So he walked on and confronted the flunkey; the latter snapped his cigarette through the air, muttering: "Great guns, where you come from?"

      "Who's in the kitchen, Joe?"

      "Bill"—who was the cook—"and a coupla girls."

      "Get the girls out of there a minute."

      The flunkey disappeared. There was a short interval. He heard the flunkey say: "All right. Clear," and he slid into the kitchen quickly. The flunkey had his back to the swinging door leading into the dining room. He was grinning and seemed excited. So did the cook who winked at Chaffee. Chaffee dropped a word and turned aside to the small stairway leading up from the kitchen to that part of the second story housing the help. He went down a hall, opened another door, and arrived at the main hall. A light broke through a transom at occasional rooms, and there was a murmur of talk. He walked casually toward the hall's far end. In front of room 101 he paused. A light came over this transom, too, but he heard no conversation. Testing the knob carefully, he dropped his free hand to his gun and pushed the door before him.

      Woolfridge stood by a window, looking down to the street. He turned at the sound of Chaffee's entrance, and when he saw who confronted him his face seemed in the lamp's glow to become harsh and triangular. But he said nothing, nor did he show surprise; he had trained himself too long to give way now. Instead, his arms moved together, hand gripping wrist, and he stood with the preciseness of carriage that always marked him; stood like this and somberly studied the man he had watched and harried so persistently in the last two weeks.

      "Sit down," said Chaffee as if this was an everyday occurrence. "Hustle it."

      Woolfridge moved to a chair and settled.

      "Pull off a boot—either one."

      He saw the blood spilling up into Woolfridge's neck; he saw the compression of lips and the queer, uncanny shifting of character. At once there was a different look on Woolfridge's face—the emergence of emotions long hidden, carefully suppressed. Emotions that had driven him through the course of the past few months and caused him to become in the end relentless, unscrupulous, and astonishingly reckless.

      "Hurry the boot," suggested Chaffee. "Throw it over here."

      Still wordless, Woolfridge obeyed. Chaffee reached for the boot and backed to the door. "That," said he with an admirable sang-froid, "will be all for a little while. If I want you later I'll drop around. If you ain't here"—and the leisurely quality of his words was broken by the snap and ring of rising anger—"I'll come and find you."

      Woolfridge shrugged his shoulders and spoke for the first time. "That," said he, "will be interesting."

      Chaffee let himself out of the door. A moment later he was squirming down the stairway; he crossed the kitchen, careless of the waitress watching, ran rapidly back to the alley beside Tilton's, and with one scant moment's hesitation to inspect the street ducked up to Fancher's office. Fancher had lighted the lamp and drawn the front window blind. Chaffee was somehow bothered by the drawn lines on the man's face and the sadness in the eyes. He threw the boot on Fancher's table.

      "Where are those models?"

      Fancher moved back to a corner of the room. "Them blamed models have been awful strong bait. Somebody's suspected I got 'em. They've rummaged my premises two-three times lately while I was gone. I figured something like that would happen, so I moved 'em out of the cabinet." Two pair of high boots stood against the wall, each boot stuffed with a heavy stock. Fancher pulled out the socks and turned the boots over and picked out that model with the broad arch and flat heel; he laid it on the table and placed Woolfridge's boot against it, Fancher looked at the mating just once and raised his head.

      "It's a fit. I always figured that flat heel must've come from a cavalry style boot. There she is. But the job ain't done yet. We still got this splay-toed model we ain't identified."

      "Mark Eagle's—he told me he was there that night. Nobody but an Indian has got a fan-shaped foot. It's complete."

      "So," murmured Fancher. СКАЧАТЬ