The loot of the Lazy A
Cultus smiled widely. “Nothin’ like a steak to make a person change
their mind.”
Another couple had entered the restaurant, and came up to the next
booth. The man was fairly young, sleek-haired, flashily dressed. The
woman was wearing a brown traveling suit, trimmed with expensive
furs, and was wearing a small hat. She was young and beautiful, in an
artificial way, but just now her face was contorted with indignation,
as she faced the young man.
“I suppose you think that was a smart thing to do!” she fairly snapped
at him. “Is it any of your business if I want to take a little trip?
Explain yourself!”
The man deposited a suitcase beside the one Cultus had placed near the
booth entrance and took the girl by the arm.
“Don’t talk so damn’ loud,” he advised. “Get in there and sit down,
Janice. I just wanted to be sure you wasn’t doin’ a runout on me. This
don’t look right to me. I happen to know that your lawyer friend has
been up to see you twice in two days, and I know you haven’t any need
of legal advice. Sit down!”
They sat down in the next booth, but their voices were pitched loud
enough for Cultus and Mary Smith to hear what was said.
“I’ll explain nothing,” declared the girl. “Let that pocketbook
alone!-- Well, are you satisfied?”
It was evident that the man had investigated her bag.
“You’re not very well heeled, that’s true. But that don’t mean you won’t
meet somebody at the Ferry Building. I heard you tell the taxi driver
where to take you. Now, come clean, Janice. You were going to leave me
flat. I’ve bought you clothes, diamonds, paid your rent, furnished you a
car--and you run out on me.”
Came a few moments of inaudible conversation; the man’s voice was raised
in anger.
“What do you care how I make my money? You’re getting rather prudish,
it seems. I suppose you think that if the police get me, you’ll go
along, because you spent my money, eh? Well, my money is as good as the
money of that dirty bum of a lawyer! He’s as crooked as anybody in the
district. Sa-a-ay! Are you giving me the gate for that welcher?”
“Your opinions do not interest me,” said the girl. “Call me a taxi. I’m
sick of your insinuations.”
“Aw, pull that stuff and get a vaudeville contract! Why, you little bum,
anybody would think you was Bernhardt! Snap out of it! Get away from me?
Ha, ha, ha, ha! Fine chance. Na-a-aw! Sit still, or I’ll knock you for a
loop!”
Cultus was not so interested that he failed to see two men come in. One
was the big man he had knocked into the street, while the other was of
the same type as the man with the girl. They halted midway of the room,
ignoring the gestures of a waiter.
Then Cultus heard the man in the booth say, “There’s that dirty welcher
now! Leggo me!”
A dish crashed to the floor, as the man jerked away from the girl and
stepped out beyond the curtains of the booth. The two men had turned
toward it, and the big man had stepped forward, his hand reaching
inside his overcoat, as the woman’s companion emerged.
There were no preliminaries. It seemed to Cultus that both men knew
what this meeting would mean. He saw the man at the booth whip out a
snub-nosed gun. The other man was just as quick, and both guns spat
rapidly, filling the room with short, snappy reports, both men
shooting as fast as they could press the trigger. It was all done in
the space of a few seconds. The man at the booth entrance dropped
his gun, turned around, as though to re-enter the booth, but his
grasping hands tore down the hanging curtains, pulling them down on
top of him, as he fell.
The other man was on the floor, trying to stay on his hands and knees. A
frightened waiter had dropped a filled tray, and was running toward the
back of the room.
“My God, they hit that girl, too!” someone yelled.
And then somebody cut off the lights. Cultus and Mary had got to their
feet and were at the booth entrance, when the lights went out,
plunging the room in darkness. But Cultus had located the exit, and
now he grasped his suitcase in one hand, while with the other he clung
to Mary Smith, fairly dragging her to the top of the stairs, tearing a
way through the frenzied mob.
At the top of the stairs he lifted her up with one arm, fending the
strugglers away with his suitcase, and plunged down the rickety stairs
and out into the rain, where he let her down. Cultus knew it would only
be a minute or two until the police would be there; so he hurried Mary
Smith down the street, around a corner, where they found a taxi.
Into this they went, and Cultus told the driver to take them to the
Ferry Building. Mary had said nothing, and by the dim light of the
cab, Cultus could see that she was very white. He patted her on the
shoulder, and she tried to smile.
“Hang onto yore nerve,” he whispered, and then his eyes happened to fall
upon the suitcase at their feet.
It was not Cultus’ bag at all; it was the other one!
Cultus looked at it closely. Only in the dark could it have been
mistaken for the battered suitcase Cultus had owned. This one was of
fine finish--an expensive thing--and was filled to capacity. But
Cultus did not mention it to Mary Smith.
They got out at the Ferry Building and went inside. Cultus bought
tickets to Oakland. It would be ten minutes before ferry time; so he
led Mary Smith to a secluded seat, putting the suitcase on his lap.
It was not locked. He unfastened the nickel buckles and opened the
case, while Mary gasped with astonishment. It was filled with women’s
clothes; dainty things which seemed to arise from the depths of the
case, as they were released from pressure.
On the top were two envelopes. The first contained a ticket and Pullman
accommodations to Oreana, Arizona and a hundred-dollar bill. The other
was sealed in a plain envelope. Cultus ran the blade of his knife under
the flap and opened the envelope without damaging it. Together he and
Mary Smith read:
Dear M:
Introducing Janice Lee, alias anything you want to call
her. She knows part of the game, and is a fair actress,
if you can keep her sober.
Good luck to you.
Yours,
L.
P. S. I only gave her a hundred out of that five you sent;
so you only owe me a hundred, if it pans out all right.
Better see that she gets hers, because I won’t swear to
her playing on the square, unless you do.
Cultus looked sideways at Mary Smith, as he sealed the letter and
replaced it in the suitcase. He removed the envelope, containing the
tickets and hundred-dollar bill, which he handed to Mary Smith.
“Why give it to me?” she asked, looking queerly at him.
“Does fate scare yuh, Mary Elizabeth?” he asked softly. “I was going to
Arizona, when yuh made me miss my car. I wasn’t headin’ for Oreana, but
it’s on my way.”
“But I’m not going to Arizona.”
“Listen to me, Mary Elizabeth Smith. Yuh can’t buck fate. If I’m any
judge of things as they look, that big feller was the one that was
sendin’ that girl, Janice Lee, out to Oreana, Arizona.
“The big feller is plumb full of lead, and I heard somebody say that the
girl was hit. She was behind him, yuh remember. A lot of lead was used
this night. You was headin’ for the bay, wasn’t yuh? Here’s a suitcase
full of clothes, and I’m sure I seen a trunk check stickin’ down in a
corner. There’s a hundred-dollar bill. From now on, yo’re Janice Lee, a
pretty fair actress, as long as yuh stay sober. And they better pay yuh
what’s comin’ to yuh, or you’ll yelp. Sabe what it means?”
“But--but wouldn’t it be wrong?” faltered Mary.
“It started wrong, Mary.”
As Cultus fastened up the shining buckles, the ferry-boat passengers
came crowding out. He picked up the suitcase, held out his hand to
Mary Smith, and they went out together.
And while they listened to the throb of the engines and the eery wail of
the foghorns a police officer reported to a desk sergeant:
“It was all over when we got there, Sarge. Two dead men and a girl
they say can’t live. They sure did a good job. Everyone else was out
of there, but we got a suitcase, which one of the waiters said ‘Speed’
Evans brought in. Loring, the lawyer, was all shot to pieces.”
Another officer came in, carrying the battered suitcase, and the
detective bureau assisted in its examination. They found two pairs
of overalls, several socks, a red shirt, a lariat rope and several
packages of tobacco.
“If that belonged to Speed Evans, it’s too bad he got killed,” observed
a hard-bitten detective, grinning.
“Why?” asked the desk sergeant.
“Why? Because the blamed crook must have been starting out to do
something useful in the world.”
“What do you know about Loring, the lawyer?”
“Enough,” said the detective, “to shed very few tears over his demise.”
“And the girl?”
“Speed’s girl, Searg. Maybe Loring tried to get her. She’s badly shot
from liquor. Got two automatic bullets through her, besides. No use
investigating. They cleaned up everything for themselves. My gosh,
that dump is a wreck.”
“Somebody else took a wallop at Loring tonight,” said an officer, who
had been at the restaurant. “He was all over mud, and his hat was in
the street. He tried to tell me what it was all about, but I told him
to go home and wash his face.”
And thus ended the incident, as far as the police were concerned. Cultus
Collins’ suitcase was thrown on a shelf, along with a lot more derelict
bundles, and the officers went back to their work.
* * * * *
Oreana City was a typical cattle town of the Southwest; an old place,
where the original settlers had builded with adobe, and was still half
adobe. Most of the houses were one-story, arranged along a single
dusty street, and the alignment of the buildings would have driven an
engineer frantic. In early days they had builded along a crooked road,
and the crooked road was still the main street of Oreana City.
It was located at the end of a branch railroad line, which served thirty
miles of cattle and mining country. An irregular freight and passenger
train made daily round trips over the line, making little pretense of a
schedule. Oreana City, like the majority of cattle towns, was more
unmoral than immoral. The honkatonk was the main center of amusement,
and gambling was taken as a matter of course.
A stage line ran from Oreana City to the gold mines of Welcome Creek,
thirty miles away. Being an outfitting center for both cattlemen and
miners made Oreana City somewhat the pivotal center of that little
universe. It was also the county seat.
Three miles northwest of Oreana City was the ranch of the Lazy A: three
miles southwest of Oreana City was the ranch of the Star X. Between
these two outfits was a feud which had lasted so long that no one paid
much attention to it any more.
That is, they hadn’t, until the funeral of old Jud Ault, owner of the
Lazy A. Over a year previous to the funeral, Jud Ault had been shot from
ambush, the bullet injuring his spine and causing partial paralysis.
Since then he had never been able to walk. It was generally believed
that the bullet was fired by one of Eph Wheeler’s Star X outfit, if not
by old Eph himself. But there was no evidence to convict them.
The feud had started so long ago that no one seemed to know just what
had caused it. Some said it started over a card game, in which whisky
played a prominent part; others said it was over the woman who married
Jud Ault and died when their little girl, Faith, was but a tiny slip of
a child. At any rate, Jud Ault and Eph Wheeler had been bunkies before
this trouble, but had not met, face to face, in over twenty years.
Jud Ault, even before his injury, which finally killed him, was a