Mavericks
polished them carefully.
“Well, I—there has never been anything to cause me to suspect such a
thing.”
“Read this, please.”
William handed him two sheets of old writing paper, faded badly, almost
ready to fall apart at the creases; evidently paper from a cheap tablet.
The lawyer adjusted his glasses and read aloud:
“Dear Andy:
I just got your letter yesterday and I’m glad you and your wife
have decided to keep the kid. As I told you up here, I called him
Bill. I’ll be damned if I know what the rest of his name is. Why
not give him your name, Andy? I’ll send you money to use for him
because I kinda feel that I ought to do this much. I’d keep him
myself, but I’ve found the woman I want to marry. She’s living
at a little place south of here, and I don’t want to answer
questions about the kid. You understand what I mean. Your wife
seemed to kinda like the kid, and she said she always wanted one.
Maybe it all works out right. Anyway, I thank you both.
Give her my regards and thanks.
Yours truly,
—ED
“Sounds mighty queer,” muttered the lawyer. He picked up the other
paper. It was evidently only half of a letter. He read:
“Dear Andy:
Haven’t heard from you for a long time and I wondered how Bill
is getting along. Must be quite a kid by this time. I am doing
well here. This place is kinda new, but I’m going to stick and
make some money for myself. I guess it don’t pay to knock
around. I hope you and your wife are both well and that you
are selling lots of pills these days. My wife is a mighty good
woman. I guess I needed her to make me settle down and quit
being a wild man. I never did tell her about the kid, because
it would make me explain a lot of things that I want to forget—”
And there the page ended.
“No postmark or anything,” said the lawyer. “Not even a date.”
“Not a thing,” said William gloomily. “Here is the old mining stock.”
The lawyer looked it over. The date of issue was nearly twenty years
ago, capital stock of the Willow Valley Copper Company.
“And here is a letter from a man, asking about it,” said William. “It
would seem that Dr. McGill was one of the promoters.”
The lawyer read the letter, nodding slowly.
“Yes,” he agreed, “it would seem so, although the certificates were not
signed by him. I just wonder if you could be the Bill referred to.”
“Why not? I am the only child.”
“Yes, that is true. William, I am sorry, but you have made out an
airtight case against yourself.”
“Then who am I?”
“Who knows? Who was Ed? Is he alive—and where? He admits that he does
not know your name. He says he named you Bill. According to the letter,
it would do you no good to find the man named Ed. William, if you will
take my well meant advice, you will continue to be William Allen
McGill.”
But William shook his head, a stubborn expression on his mouth.
“The name of Bill was given to me by a man I do not know; a man who was
ashamed to tell, or afraid to tell, where he got me. The name of Allen
is the family name of the only mother I ever knew, and the name of
McGill is something I am not entitled to use.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. I can’t go back to college. Lack of funds would prevent
that, even if I wanted to go back. I have less than a thousand dollars
to my name. To my name!”
“Names don’t mean so much, William.”
“Perhaps names don’t, but an identity does. I want to know who I am. If
the man who gave me to Dr. McGill was afraid and ashamed to tell—what
kind of a creature am I?”
“Oh, look at it in a calm way. You are you. After all, what does it
matter? You have no past to be ashamed of. Nearly twenty-one, with the
world ahead of you. Keep on being William McGill. It’s a good old name.
Dr. McGill was a good father to you. Stick to his name and forget the
rest.”
“Would you? Wouldn’t you do everything to find out who you were?”
“I suppose I would. But suppose the discovery hurts more than the
uncertainty?”
William shut his lips tightly as he got to his feet.
“That won’t matter; I’ll know who I am. Goodby, Mr. Mahler.”
“Are you going away so soon?”
“I think so.”
They shook hands gravely and William walked back to the door, where he
paused.
“I’ll let you know where I am.”
“Do that, William—and the best of luck.”
“Thank you.”
William ignored the smile of the pretty stenographer and went down to
the misty street. He stood for a while in the protected doorway and
looked at the old mining stock certificates. He tucked them back into
his pocket, turned up the collar of his coat.
“I guess I better go to the library and find out just where Willow
Valley is located,” he told himself. “Twenty years late is rather a poor
time to pick up a trail, but I’ve got to have a starting point.”
CHAPTER IV — THE HARDLUCK STRANGER
The inquest over the body of Jim McGowan was held the evening following
his death. The courtroom was crowded. The testimony was very brief. Pink
took the stand and told the same story he had told following the
shooting. That is, he had shot at the flash of the other man’s gun. The
sheriff and the coroner had gone out to the SP ranch that day with Pink
and had located the bullet which had nearly struck him.
It was deeply imbedded in one of the old posts, shoulder high to a man,
and as near as they could judge was of the same caliber as McGowan’s
gun—a .45. This was put in evidence. The rest of the testimony consisted
of the discovery of the body. There did not seem to be any reasons for
McGowan’s attack on Pink. Not a Diamond R man had been impanelled in the
jury, which brought in a verdict of justifiable homicide.
Scotty McGowan was mad. He stood up in court and told them he was not
satisfied with the verdict.
“Jim was shot down,” he declared. “Self-defense, hell!”
It required several men to silence Scotty, who took his crowd and went
outside. Steve Pelliser watched Scotty go out, and the tall, gaunt
rancher looked worried. Pink was mad. He wanted to go out and poke
Scotty in the nose.
“And start another killin’, eh?” said the sheriff. “One’s enough.”
“It’ll probably come to that anyway, Dud.”
“Then wait for the proper time.”
“Aw, you give me a cramp.”
But Pink obeyed orders. He realized that there was no sense in his
starting trouble with all of the Diamond R outfit. Scotty took his men
over to the War Paint Saloon, and Steve Pelliser went to a restaurant
with Dud and Pink, near the War Paint.
“Scotty is unreasonable,” declared Steve, as they sat together.
“He’s crazy,” said Pink disgustedly. “What does he know about it? He was
in the house when the shootin’ took place. He don’t even know as much as
I do about it, and I don’t know but danged little. He’ll shoot off his
face until I knock his jaw out of kilter. I didn’t have no reason to
shoot Jim McGowan, except that he shot at me.”
“Did he follow you down there?” asked the sheriff.
“I suppose he did.”
“It’s shore funny. By golly, it was so dark, I don’t see how he even
knew where to shoot. You couldn’t see him, could you, Pink?”
“I could not. All I saw was the flash.”
“Must have shot at you from sixty feet away, too. Queer thing.”
“Yeah, and he didn’t miss me far, I’ll tell you that much.”
Steve Pelliser shook his head thoughtfully.
“I don’t think we’ll ever know,” he said slowly. “McGowan is the only
one who could ever tell, and he’s gone.”
“Are they goin’ to bury him here?” asked Pink.
“I dunno. That’s up to Scotty and his outfit.”
“Where did McGowan come from?”
“I don’t think I ever heard,” replied Pelliser.
“I never did,” said the sheriff. “Jim was never a man to talk much.”
They ate their meal, while more cowboys drifted in. Old Caliente Smith
came in. He had imbibed a few drinks and was loquacious.
“Scotty’s talkin’ big in the War Paint,” he told them. “You’d almost
think he was the one who got shot. If he don’t look out, somebody’ll hit
him so hard he won’t even be able to answer Saint Peter’s questions.”
“Don’t pay any attention to him,” advised the sheriff. “How’s Uncle
Hoddy today?”
“Oh, he went home with Aunt Ida. She shore rides herd on him. She tells
me I’m one of the devil’s mavericks and a bad example for Hoddy. Well,
he’s sixty years old, they’ve been married forty years, and she’s been
preachin’ temperance to him all them years. His mind is shore clear on
the subject—but it never killed his thirst, as far as I can see.
Example, hell! He’s led me astray oftener’n I have him.”
“I guess that’s right,” laughed Pelliser, as he and the two officers
went out.
They halted in front of the restaurant. Just to the right of them,
bordering the sidewalk, was a long hitching-rack used by patrons of the
War Paint and the restaurant. Just beyond was the wide front of the
saloon, ablaze with yellow lights.
The rack was fairly well filled with horses. Among them was a tall
sorrel belonging to Steve Pelliser, a half-broken animal. Steve was
telling Dud and Pink about the horse when a rider came from the south
and swung in at the rack. It was too dark to distinguish his features.
There was a space between Pelliser’s sorrel and another horse, which the
newcomer rode in to take.
As he started to dismount, something happened suddenly. Came the flurry
of startled horses, a sharp cry, the snapping of a tie rope, dust and
confusion. The three men ran to the rack, trying to see what had
happened. The man was on the ground with the sorrel kicking viciously
over him, the rest of the horses jerking and snorting. Two loose horses
milled around behind them.
Quickly they ducked under the top pole of the rack, shoving the sorrel
away, while they dragged the man away. More men came and they carried
the injured man into the saloon.
“His own saddle turned with him,” said someone.
“Flung him under my sorrel,” panted Pelliser.
They laid him on the floor in the saloon, while a man went running to
get the doctor. None of them knew him. He was an oldish man, grizzled of
hair, dressed in range clothes. But so far as identification was
concerned, even his best friend would have had difficulty in recognizing
him. He had been kicked full in the face by a shod hoof, luckily a
smooth shoe; otherwise he would have been killed.
“Been hit more than once,” decided the sheriff. “It’s a wonder he’s
alive.”
The doctor came and made a quick examination.
“No bones broken,” he decided. “Don’t think there’s any fracture. But
he’ll be wearing a different face from now on. Help me take him down to
my office. I’ve got an extra bed down there, and this man needs care.
Who is he?”
Nobody knew.
“The horse is from Newton,” said a cowboy. “Got the O Box H brand.”
“Fix him up if you can, Doc,” said Pelliser. “I’ll foot the bill. It was
my sorrel that done the job, and I feel kinda responsible.”
“We’ll not worry about the pay,” said the doctor.
“I’ll put the horse in the livery stable,” offered the sheriff. “We can
probably find out who he was from the O Box H, in case they sold him the
horse.”
“Oh, he will probably wake up and tell us,” said the doctor. “Outside of
being knocked cold and having his face busted out of shape, I don’t
think he’s badly hurt. Of course, it’s too early to tell all about it.”
They took the man down to the doctor’s office, where his cuts and
bruises were taken care of; but he was still unconscious when the boys
came away. The sheriff searched his clothes, looking for identification,
but found nothing except a few dollars and some loose revolver
cartridges. Later he found an old Colt revolver half buried in the dust
near the rack.