Mavericks
kitchen porch and talked with One Hop, and he could hear the music of a
slow waltz. He wondered who Mary was dancing with this time. Pink loved
to waltz, and he had dreamed of waltzing with Mary. He got to his feet
and leaned against the corral fence, looking toward the open doorway
where the lamplight streamed out on the white-clad cook, bent over the
freezer.
Suddenly a gun flashed in the dark. The bullet thudded into a post
behind Pink and almost before the echo had been thrown back from the
side of the house, Pink had drawn his gun and fired at the flash. It was
all done so quickly that the two guns were discharged but a few seconds
apart. Men were coming out from the kitchen, crowding on to the porch,
looking for the cause of the shots. One Hop jabbered in Chinese and
tried to tell them.
They were running down toward the corral before Pink left the fence.
“Down here!” he yelled hoarsely. “Somebody shot at me!”
“Is that you, Pink?” asked the sheriff. “What was it? Who was shooting?”
“I shot once, Dud. Somebody took a shot at me in the dark. Bullet hit
the fence behind me. No, I don’t know who it was. They got away, all
right.”
“No, they didn’t!” called one of the boys near the stable.
“Get a light; somebody got hurt.”
They moved to the spot, where the sheriff lighted a match, illuminating
the features of Jim McGowan. He was flat on his back in the dirt, his
right arm outflung, his fingers gripping a heavy Colt revolver. One of
the men ran to the stable and secured a lantern.
“He’s dead, boys,” said Dud softly. “My Gawd, what a dead-center shot!”
He removed the gun from McGowan’s fingers and shoved it inside the
waistband of his trousers. By that time all the men were down there, and
the women were out on the porch, trying to get answers to their
questions.
“This is awful,” said Steve Pelliser.
“He shot at me first,” said Pink hoarsely. “I didn’t even know who it
was.”
“That’ll do to tell,” said Scotty McGowan.
“Drop all that kinda talk, Scotty,” said the sheriff warningly. “This is
no time to make bad breaks. One dead man is enough at a time.”
“I can look out for myself.”
“Damn’ right,” growled Sam Hall.
“The sheriff is right, boys,” said Pelliser quickly. “Cool off first.
There was no reason for McGowan to shoot at Pink.”
“No-o-o?” Scotty’s voice was high-pitched. “When a girl—”
“Drop that!” snapped Pelliser quickly.
“Oh, well, I reckon we all know.”
* * * * *
They carried the body up to the house and placed it on the porch. Even
Uncle Hoddy and Caliente were sobered now.
Pink stood apart from the rest. He had his six-shooter shoved inside the
waistband of his trousers now, and he kept his eyes on Scotty and the
rest of the Diamond R outfit. The sheriff had sent a man to town to get
the coroner.
Aunt Ida audibly blamed the liquor for all this trouble. It was a
wonderful opportunity for a temperance lecture and she was about to
avail herself of the big chance when her daughter intervened.
“Ma, don’t be a fool. For goodness’ sake, keep still. Nobody wants or
needs your views of the matter.”
“That’s right, Julie,” said Uncle Hoddy, fervently mopping his brow.
“You!” snorted Aunt Ida indignantly.
“Oh, Gawd!” said Caliente piously.
“Won’t you never learn to not use kerosene to put out a fire, Hoddy?”
“Folks,” said Ed Hart gently, “let’s take this easy. Jim McGowan is
dead, and all the recriminations in the world won’t bring him back. It’s
unfortunate, and we’re all sorry. But it is one of the things that
happen. Please think calmly about it.”
“He was my brother,” reminded Scotty grimly.
Scotty was much smaller than his brother, black-haired, swarthy, with a
slightly hooked nose and prominent cheekbones. He was less than forty
years of age.
“I respect your feelings,” said Hart slowly.
“That’s fine—” sarcastically. He turned to Pink. “I reckon you’ve got
more friends around here than I have, Lowry. I’ve never felt very
popular around here, and I suppose they’ll excuse you for what you
done.”
“I dunno,” replied Pink. “Friendship ain’t got a thing to do with it,
Scotty. I dunno why Jim McGowan shot at me in the dark. I didn’t shoot
at him—I shot at the flash of his gun, without knowin’ who was behind
it.”
“That’s fine. Any jury would believe that, I suppose.”
The women all went upstairs to get their wraps. Uncle Hoddy and Caliente
sneaked to the kitchen for another drink. One Hop was humped over in a
chair, staring at the floor. One Hop had always liked Uncle Hoddy, and
One Hop wanted to talk with somebody. He drew the old cattleman aside.
“You _sabe_ what Pink say?” he asked nervously.
“Shore.”
“He say he no see who shoot?”
“Shore. Pink was over by the corral fence, and we found McGowan between
the corral and the stable. In that dark, they couldn’t see each other,
Hop.”
“Yessa. Pink not see who he shoot; Pink not go jail, eh?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“Good. Pink velly nice boy.”
One Hop poured generous drinks and they drank deeply.
“We better git back before Aunt Ida cuts loose agin’,” advised Caliente.
“I’ve heard you say you was the captain of your own soul, but you ain’t.
As far as that’s concerned, you ain’t even a cabin boy.”
“I know it. I’d admit it to you, but never to anybody else.”
“It would shore be a shame, if everybody else found it out.”
The coroner came—old Doctor Carmichael—white-haired, blunt of speech,
but loved by everybody in the Valley. His examination was brief, his
questions pointed; and then they loaded the body into one of Steve
Pelliser’s rigs and took it back to town.
The party was over almost before it began. Steve Pelliser and Mary stood
on the porch and watched their guests drive and ride away. Scotty
McGowan was one of the last to leave. He led his horse up to the porch,
while his men waited for him.
“This ain’t the end of this deal, Pelliser,” he said ominously. “I know
a lot more than you think I do. Good night.” He swung into his saddle
and rode away.
“What did he mean, Daddy?” asked Mary, shivering a little in the cold
breeze.
“I don’t know.”
“The law can’t touch Pink Lowry, can it?”
“The inquest will decide that, Mary. I don’t think it can.”
He didn’t tell her that Jim McGowan had asked for her hand.
“Jim McGowan asked me to dance the first quadrille with him,” said Mary.
“I told him I already had a partner—but I didn’t. He knew I didn’t,
because I almost had to drag Pink on to the floor. He hadn’t asked me to
dance, and he didn’t understand. I—I just didn’t want to dance with
McGowan.”
“I don’t think that would have made any difference. Run along to bed and
forget all that. You were not to blame in any way. It—it was just one of
those things that happen.”
The body was taken to the coroner’s office, where it was to be held
until after the inquest. Pink had nothing to say until he and the
sheriff were alone in their living quarters. They took off their coats
and vests, sat down and rolled cigarettes.
“What was you doin’ down there by the corral?” asked the sheriff.
Pink studied his fingernails for several moments before he replied.
“Cussin’ this damn’ suit of clothes.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“I guess we made a pair of fools out of ourselves, Dud. I didn’t think
much about it until I saw the expression on Mary’s face. I knew
somethin’ was wrong right then. And Jim McGowan—you was out in the
kitchen when he made his remarks. He asked me if I was tryin’ to be
funny.”
“Tryin’ to be funny?”
“Yeah. I didn’t understand yet. And then he said that this wasn’t no
masquerade. He said it loud enough for everybody to hear.”
“McGowan was tryin’ to make fun of your clothes, Pink?”
“Of _our_ clothes.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Well, I danced the first dance with Mary. I dunno why she picked me. It
wasn’t ladies’ choice, but she dragged me on the floor, with McGowan
lookin’ on. Oh, he was mad. I wanted to get away from there and as soon
as the dance was over I went down by the corral. That’s all there was to
it, Dud, except that a gun went off in the dark and the bullet didn’t
miss me more than a few inches. I shot right back at the flash, as near
as I could judge. You know the rest.”
“He didn’t say nothin’ before he shot at you?”
“Not a word. He shot first.”
“That’s easy to prove, ’cause he couldn’t have shot after you did. Mac
wasn’t drunk. In fact, they told me he hadn’t taken a drink out there.
Well—” the sheriff yawned widely—“they’ll hold an inquest tomorrow.
Better keep an eye on Scotty and the rest of his gang. The law can’t
soak you for defendin’ your own life, as far as that’s concerned, but
Scotty and Jim was always pretty thick—and I wouldn’t trust Scotty too
far.”
“I won’t, Dud. I shore hope that clothes drummer comes back here again.”
“That’s right. Anyway, we can wear the pants, even if they did cost us
eighty dollars. Well, there’s no use cryin’ over spilled milk. Might as
well fold up in a blanket and take a chance on tomorrow.”
CHAPTER III — A STRANGE QUEST
William Allen (Wild Bill) McGill sat in a lawyer’s office, gazing
moodily at the stream of traffic on Market Street, San Francisco. The
cognomen had been conferred upon him by some of his classmates at
Stanford for the same reason that they would call a fat boy “Splinter.”
William Allen McGill was most certainly not wild.
He was fairly well built, blond, with wide, inquiring blue eyes and a
delicate complexion. His mouth was a trifle stubborn, his chin square.
The gum-chewing stenographer over by the other window decided that
William Allen was a good looking boy, even if he did act absent minded
by not paying any attention to her. She knew him to be the son of old
Dr. Andrew McGill, who had died recently. The papers had mentioned the
fact that the good doctor had died, leaving little or nothing. He had
been one of the old time doctors.
A man came from the private office, nodded to the stenographer, and went
out. A buzzer whirred softly.
“Mr. Mahler will see you, Mr. McGill,” said the girl.
“Eh?” The boy turned from the window. “Oh, yes; thank you.”
As he entered the room a pleasant-faced, oldish man smiled at him from
across the polished top of a desk.
“Good morning, William,” he said.
“How do you do?” the boy said precisely. “Nice morning, Mr. Mahler.”
“As a matter of fact, it is both foggy and raining.”
“Yes, I believe it is. But no matter. Thank you.”
He sat down on the edge of a chair, rubbing his hands together
nervously.
“You handled some of my—er—father’s affairs, Mr. Mahler.”
“Yes, I did, William. Quite a lot of them, as far as they went. As you
know, from the amount of your legacy, the good man had little left.”
William Allen nodded violently. His legacy had been a bare thousand
dollars—one-fiftieth of what the old doctor was believed to have left.
Mortgages covered everything. William’s mother had died ten years ago,
when William was little more than ten years of age. Since then he had
spent the most of the time in boarding schools, two years in Stanford.
“I didn’t mean about his property,” faltered William. “This, it seems,
was a more personal affair.”
“Yes?” The lawyer’s brows lifted slightly. “As a matter of fact, Dr.
McGill did not confide any personal matters to me. Strictly business,
and I was much surprised at the limited—”
“I’m sorry,” said William, interrupting, “this is something— You see, my
father kept a small safe at home, and this morning I accidentally
discovered the key. There were a few old papers, some mining stock,
which I believe is defunct, and a few old letters. Mr. Mahler, did it
ever occur to you that Dr. McGill was not my father?”
The lawyer stared for a moment at William, removed his glasses and