Play a Lone Hand (3 page)

“Not all. Does he run a big or little outfit? Where's his place?”

A faint humor stirred in the puncher's sad eyes. “You point your horse northeast and ride two days and you'll still be on his land. Didn't you ever hear of the Torreon Cattle Company?”

Giff shook his head in negation and the puncher glanced wryly at the old man.

“Well, this whole damn town is just a Torreon loading pen. Everyone in it fits in Sebree's vest pocket with lots of room to spare.”

Giff said dryly, “But not you?”

The puncher shook his head. “I tried it once but the climate didn't agree with me. I'm forty miles back in the mountains now and the air smells better.”

Giff looked at the old man. “You feel that way about it too, Pop?”

The puncher said swiftly, “You were talking to me, weren't you?”

Giff understood then that where this maverick puncher could afford to speak the truth, old Burton could not. He picked up his saddle, said, “Thanks, Pop,” and went out. He was even surer, now, of Sebree's reason for hiring him; when a man had a lot at stake, bluntness was understandable.

He dumped his saddle in the livery office, then went on upstreet to the hotel and climbed the stairs. At Welling's door, he knocked and was bidden enter. Fiske was already at work. He had cleared off the table in the middle of the room, had a plat tacked down on its surface and was bending over examining it. Welling lay sprawled across the bed, his boots just off the coverlet, and he was sleeping.

Fiske looked up, said “Hello,” and went back to his work. Giff took the envelope from his pocket and laid it on the table. “You want me for anything?”

“No.” Fiske straightened up, looking at the envelope. “What's this?”

“The hotel clerk gave it to me to give to you.”

Fiske opened the envelope, took out the letter and read it. Finished, he gave Giff a searching glance, and read it again. Then, still holding the letter in his hand, he moved over to the bed. Putting a hand on Welling's shoulder, he shook him roughly, and Welling sleepily turned over. “What the hell, Bill?” Welling protested sleepily.

“Go duck your head in the basin, and then read this,” Fiske said, holding out the letter.

Welling sat up, reached for the letter and yawned, then gave it his half-fuddled regard. He read the letter through, shook his head as if to clear it of whiskey fumes, and read it through again. Then he looked over at Giff, who was watching this with a rising, impersonal curiosity. “Did you bring this?”

Giff told him about the clerk's handing it to him.

“Who's Perry Albers?” Welling asked.

“Careful, Vince,” Fiske cut in.

Welling looked up at him, but Fiske was watching Giff. “Why careful?”

“That letter was meant for you alone, and nobody else. Even I shouldn't have read it.”

Welling regarded him for a stupefied moment, and then he laughed. “Bill, you're crazy—crazier than the fool who wrote this. This is a grudge letter. I get them everywhere I go.”

“You don't believe it?”

“No.”

“Then you're a damn fool,” Fiske said quietly, finally.

Welling, far from being offended, scowled and looked again at the letter, then sighed, “All right, I'll go see him, then.”

“If you do that, you'll likely get him shot,” Fiske said dryly. “Why do you think he wrote you instead of coming to see you? He's being careful. In return, that's the least you can do.”

Welling heaved himself to his feet and said petulantly, “First, I don't take the letter seriously enough. Then when I offer to, you stop me. Make some sense, Bill.”

Fiske rammed his hands in his pockets and, head down, walked to the table, wheeled and came back. He raised his head sharply and regarded Giff “No offense, Dixon. We don't know anything about you.”

“That's right,” Giff said indifferently. “I'll be down in the lobby if you want me.” He moved toward the door, oddly relieved at a chance to escape.

“We want you right now,” Fiske said flatly. He took the letter from Welling's hand, then went back to the table. From the letter, he copied something onto a piece of paper, picked up the letter and the paper and came over to Giff, who had halted at the door.

“You know what a final proof notice for a homestead entry is?” he asked.

“No.”

Fiske explained to him that when a homesteader had lived on his homestead for six months of one year and had made the required improvements on it, he must publish notice for final proof in four consecutive issues of a newspaper, after which the publisher would sign an affidavit of publication for him to submit to the Register of the Land Office to complete his claim for title on the land. It was a newspaper form, Fiske said; surely he had seen the notices.

“I worked cattle. I didn't farm,” Giff said. “I've seen them. I never paid any attention.”

“Then pay attention now,” Fiske said dryly, and he thrust the paper into Giff's hand. “Go down to the newspaper office. It's called”—here he referred to the letter—“the
San Dimas County Free Press
. Ask for their files. Hunt up the April seventeenth copy of last year. That paper I gave you has the names of five entrymen on it. See if their final proof notices are in that issue.”

Wordlessly, Giff accepted the paper and put it in his pocket. Welling, behind Fiske, was looking sullen and still drowsy as he said, “Ask if their printer is named Perry Albers.”

“
Don't
ask!” Fiske contradicted flatly. He turned to Welling. “What's the sense in all this if we let them know we're looking for Albers?”

“All right,” Welling said sulkily. “It's damn foolishness anyway.”

Giff asked patiently, “Am I supposed to do this on the quiet?”

“No. Land Office investigators are eternally at newspaper files. Everybody knows it. Just don't tell them what issue you want.”

Giff went out, then, and descended to the lobby. He was amused and curious about what had just happened, but not overly. It was obvious that Perry Albers, the
Free Press
printer, had written them information Fiske thought valuable and Welling did not.

In his first chore on the new job, Giff reflected, it had been Fiske who made the decision, and Welling, fuddled with liquor, who fell into line with it. Oddly, Giff did not hold Fiske's suspicion of him against the older man; remembering Sebree's offer, he thought,
Fiske's right. Why tell me anything?
He was used to hard judgments, and took no affront.

The newspaper office was a narrow building wedged between two larger ones, and was in the block past the land office on the opposite side of the street. Its big window was painted white to half its height, on which in black, big letters was printed
San Dimas County Free Press
.

Stepping in from the sun-drenched street, Giff halted and closed the door, his eyes slowly adjusting themselves to the gloom of the long room. Presently, he made out a big flat-topped desk against the window. A couple of chairs, a tall clothes commode and a rusty safe made up the furniture. The room was in monumental disorder, the desk littered with papers, the floor cluttered with boxes and cartons, piled almost to the ceiling with bound files and yellowing newspapers.

The only sound came from the print shop in the rear where an overhead lamp was burning, and it was strange sound, the rapid chinking of metal against metal. Giff walked up to a tall cabinet whose back was to the street, and rounding it, came to an abrupt halt. A girl, wearing an ink-stained and oversized apron, was seated on a tall stool setting type; her hands moved with sure swiftness as she selected the type from the case and slapped it into the stick in the left hand.

Giff watched her a moment in mild wonderment, and then started as she addressed him in total unfriendliness without interrupting her work or even looking at him. “What do you want?”

His surprise held him mute a moment; the girl, getting no answer, ceased work and looked up at him, her face harried and without patience. When she saw him, her expression altered to one of mocking apology without any embarrassment at all. She was a small girl, almost frail-seeming, and her dark and curly hair was pinned in an unruly mass atop her head. Her green eyes, wide-spaced and direct, seemed large because of her small nose, and now her full lips relaxed in a crooked smile.

“I thought you were Earl,” she said, and leaned both hands on the type case. “Anyway, what is it you want?”

“I'd like a look at your back numbers,” Giff said cautiously.

The girl sighed wearily. “You picked a time, didn't you?”

“Did I?”

“The worst,” the girl said tartly. “The boss is shooting billiards over in the saloon. He's stepping over the printer, who's probably lying drunk on the floor. I've got a paper to get out, and who gives a damn about it besides me?”

Giff frowned a little in distaste, and the girl looked sharply at him. “Haven't you ever heard a girl swear?”

“None like you.”

“You don't see any of them doing my job either, do you?” she asked with instant truculence. When Giff didn't answer, she shifted her attention to the type case and stared at it for a moment. Then she said, “Did you see that broken down coat closet in the office? Well, pull a chair up to it, and
don't
put a foot through the chair seat when you stand on it. The bound files are on top of the closet. Take them down and
don't
pull down all that trash on top.” She grinned faintly, then, and added, “And keep out of my way or I'll stomp on you.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Giff said dryly.

His jibe was entirely lost on the girl; she was setting type again. Giff turned back into the office, a faint resentment at her stirring in him.
She'll make some man a fine husband
, he thought. Nevertheless, he followed her instructions, being careful not to put his foot through the worn cane bottom of the chair.

Lugging the files over to the desk, he cleared a space among the papers, and while the soft chunk-chunking noise of the girl's typesetting went on, he looked through the files. First, he identified the form of a final proof notice. Then he looked for last year's April seventeenth issue of the paper, and found it missing. Curious now, he leafed back and found other issues missing, even into the year before and the year before that. His search had come to full stop, and he speculated a moment on the reason for their absence. He shrugged then, and put the files back where they belonged. He'd done his job, and the results meant nothing to him.

Curiosity, however, drew him back to the girl. He stood patiently by the type stand while she finished a stick, and then she looked up at him inquiringly.

“Don't you keep a copy of all the issues of your paper?” he asked.

“In summer, we do. Then when winter comes, we have to have something to start fires.” When Giff didn't smile, she said, “You're a gay lad, aren't you? That was a joke, but don't smile for me.”

Giff shifted uncomfortably, watching her. She sighed and said, “What was it? Maybe I can remember it.”

Recalling Fiske's words, Giff said idly, “Oh, land office stuff. We have to look up a lot of it.”

The girl set down the stick of type gently, carefully, a sudden interest coming into her eyes. “Don't tell me you're that new boozehead agent by the name of Welling?”

“The name is Dixon,” Giff said coldly. “I'm working for Welling.”

“Well, happy headaches,” she murmured softly. “Here we go again.” She looked carefully at him. “Haven't I seen you around? Yesterday, say? With fur on your face?”

Giff nodded stiffly. “I've been here a month, staying at Doc Miller's.”

“Oh, the clay pigeon,” she said. “Well, well, at least you've had some practice.”

“What does that mean?”

“Getting shot at,” the girl said unemotionally.

Before he could reply, he heard the door shut behind him. At the sound of it, the girl raised her head and called, “Earl!” There was a grunt from the office, followed by the slamming of a drawer, then footsteps. At the other side of the type stand, a man appeared and halted. He was a thin, tall, mournful-looking man dressed in an unpressed black suit; his hat, pushed far back on his head, revealed a bald, bony skull. His face was sharp and almost cadaverous. Carefully, he tucked a handful of cigars into the breast pocket of his coat, regarding the girl.

“Where's Perry?” she demanded.

“Why—here, isn't he?” Earl answered idly.

“Why do you think I'm setting type if he is?” the girl demanded angrily. “Where's your billard game this afternoon?”

“Reno's.”

“Then he's likely flat on his face at Henty's!” she said angrily. She raised the stick of type and shook it at him. “I'll set this up, since he's probably so drunk he can't. But if you think I'm going to run that press tomorrow, you're crazy!”

Earl raised both thin hands in protest. “All right, all right, I'll get a boy in.”

“Get Perry in! He's your printer! You pay him! Leave your billiard game long enough to lug him out of that saloon and sober him up!”

“Oh, I haven't time,” Earl said idly. He looked without interest at Giff, then turned and started out.

“I hope you choke on chalk dust!” the girl called angrily. “I hope you get a sliver up to your elbow. I hope—” but the slamming of the door cut her off. She turned back to the type stand then, and saw Giff. “Are you still here?” she demanded angrily.

Giff watched her a moment, then said, “Tell me something.”

“No! All right, what?”

“Can you whisper?”

Amazingly, then, the girl broke into laughter. She threw her head back and laughed with a kind of wild and antic joy that brought an infectious grin to Giff's still face.