The Benevolent Liar/Chapter 5

It was quite dark when Josh made his way up the hillside to Specimen Jones' cabin and found that worthy placidly smoking his pipe on a bench in front and admiring the heavens and the visible stars therein.

“Oh, it's you, is it, Josh? I thought, when I heard you comin' up through the brush, it was an eight-legged mule. Well, how are you?”

The prospector lost no time in coming to his subject.

“Specimen, what are you doin' for yourself?” he demanded. “Got any ground? Got a job? Or are you just putterin' around and makin' a dollar here and there?”

Jones spat judicially into the darkness and grunted.

“I did have some ground,” he said, “and I laid off on it because I ran out of funds. I did have a job over at that old scalawag Vance's—the Horseshoe, he calls it—and I couldn't stand for him. I called him some names one day when he got too strong, and—now I ain't got no job.”

“Fine!” said Josh. “I got one for you. I want you to go in and win the heart and confidence of that yallerhead, Clara Montague. There's five dollars a day in it, which I understand is above union scale for that kind of work.”

Specimen Jones snorted with indignation.

“You ain't in earnest, are you, Josh?” he asked.

“Sure as shootin'! I want you to get to know her so well that she can't take a scratch without your markin' it down.”

Specimen grew more indignant.

“Things ain't breakin' well with me,” he remarked tartly, “and I need work; but I ain't goin' to take the job on because I've got a good reputation in this country.”

“Lawsee! How you have changed!” exclaimed Josh admiringly. “You 'most always had a reputation, down in Arizony; but, by gosh, I can't say as it was a good one!”

He suddenly dropped all banter and became serious.

“Specimen,” he said, “I'm only half fooling. There's a lot more to what I want than I can tell you. It's not on my account, but it goes for me just the same because I've got a hard job in front of me and I need all the friendship and help I can pull. I'm payin' off a debt I owe to a dead man who was white. Some day I'll tell you all about it. I can't now, because I haven't a lot of time. What I've got to know is this: Where Cotton-tail Burke went—without him suspectin' that any one is after him.”

Specimen looked around and peered at the prospector's chiseled face through the gloom. Josh was leaning forward on his elbows and knees, and his heavy chin and straggling mustache, his high brow, high cheek bones, and thin, commanding nose were outlined against the dim light. A sense of ruggedness, as complete as the ruggedness of the dark hills, emanated from him.

“I believe you do want to know—somethin',” said Specimen, in a serious tone. “It's always been mighty hard to tell when you were jokin' or in dead-sober earnest; but, Josh, if I can help you, I'm there. Never mind the five. You've done a lot of things for me in the old days, and you've done a lot for others that didn't appreciate it. You're white! You're a nasty customer when you get down on anybody, but you do stick by a friend. We're friends; that's understood. Now, what do you want? I'll do it.”

The prospector deliberated for a moment, as if selecting words.

“The fact is,” he said quietly, “that I've got an idea Burke toted off in a couple of grips the gold that was taken from the Horseshoe pay wagon. I ain't dead positive that he did. I think so. But I've got reasons of my own for wishin' to make sure. The only way I can do it, without tellin' the officers, is to play my own game. The only way I can find out is to keep my eye on Clara Montague. They were”

“Yes, I know all about that,” interrupted Jones. “And you're right. If he got that clean-up, sooner or later she'll join him. Say, do you see that dark spot—down there to the left, next to the trail?”

He put one hand on the prospector's knee, bent forward, and pointed with the other:

“That's her cabin. From here I can keep an eye on it by days, and—I can get closer by nights. If it'll do you any good, Josh, to know every move she makes, you shall know it. And it ain't worth five a day, or anything a day, unless I get a job.”

“No, that don't go. You get day wages. I don't want you thinkin' of anything else. I want to know what she does, and if Cotton-tail Burke is waitin' for her, and she starts from here, where she meets him.”

“All right; that's my job. Now, where does old Vance come in on this?”

“He don't. I've got no more use for him than I have for a rattler.”

“Me neither.” He sat for a moment thoughtfully pulling at his pipe, and then said: “Say! Was that pardner of yours any relation to Bill Rogers, that used to be here a long time ago?”

“Yes. Son.”

“Does he know that his father found what he called the Washoe—and old Vance renamed the Horseshoe?”

“Yes?”

“Does Vance know that he's Bill's boy?”

“Yes?”

“Did Bill ever tell you how they beat him out of his claim?”

“Perjury.”

“Right again. Now, here's what I'm gettin' at: Vance may try some shinanigan with that pardner of yours. I don't know nothin' about the statutes of limitation, but I reckon it's too late to open the old case up again, anyhow, ain't it?”

“Yes, it's pretty late to fool with anything that way, and, besides, Vance has got money to fight clean through to the United States supreme court with the smartest lawyers that money could hire, which is more than me and Tommy Rogers could do. Why?”

“What I'm thinkin' about is that one of the fellers that swore to a lie for old Vance is dead, and the other one Guess I told you I worked up at the Horseshoe? Well, the time I had that fuss with him and got fired I was mighty sore. Thinks I, that night, as I got my blankets out of the bunk house, 'I'll just slip around up the back way to Vance's cabin, and I'll pound him to a pulp just to show him he fired the wrong man.' His cabin is up on the top of a hill, all by itself, where he can look down over the whole plant. Nobody's ever there with him. He sleeps there and takes his meals down at the mess house after the gang's been fed and cleared out. There's a path comes down the ridge behind, through the redwoods, right square up against his cabin. Easy enough to come that way and not be seen, even in daylight, till you're right at his back door. I wasn't takin' any chances of his gettin' away or givin' an alarm, so I got around on to that path and laid in the brush alongside until I could see him light his lamp. About ten o'clock he came, and I was just waitin' a minute for him to get settled, when along comes another feller, and I saw by the way he acted he was headin' for the same place. I was right annoyed. I slipped off my gum boots and follered him, thinkin' to go for Vance as soon as this feller left. I sneaked up to the window, that was wide open, and heard the two of 'em havin' a prodigious row. This visitor had come for money, and it seemed he'd already had quite a lot from Vance, and Vance swore he wouldn't dig up another cent. Then this feller gets hotter and hotter and says: 'If it hadn't been for me and Joe, swearin' to the lies about you locatin' this mine first, you'd never have got it. And you promised us we was to have a quarter interest each.'

“'You did get it. And you sold out your shares to me,' yells Vance.

“'When you got us rotten drunk!' says the other feller.

“'And you blew that five thousand in, and since then you've held me up for that much more, pretendin' it was a loan. You'll never get another cent out of me. And, what's more, the next time you come here, I'll drill a half dozen holes in you if I swing for it!'

“I took a chance and peeked in. It was a lowbrow called Karluk Pete that was with Vance. He ran a doggery down at the end of Main Street that had got such a reputation for knock-out drops that nobody was goin' there any more. Well, they yowled and cussed each other backward and forward until Vance gives in a little bit. He gives Pete a thousand dollars, with the agreement that Pete's to get out of Shingle and never come hack. In the meantime, Vance had got so sore he'd pulled a big gun and laid it on his table while he talked, and, as I didn't want to have a killin' on my hands, I gave up the idea of wallopin' him a few for luck, and sneaked away. Hadn't got back to the path when this Pete comes along, mutterin' to himself, and, sure enough, the next day he sold his place for a hundred dollars and disappeared.”

He stopped, and Josh said impatiently: “But I can't see what all this has to do with Tommy Rogers.”

“Why, it's this way: Pete landed back here this. afternoon, drunk, and busted again, and I think Vance turned him down, because Pete is swaggerin' around town threatenin' what he's goin' to do to Vance, and all that sort of stuff. The town marshal, on Vance's request, found Pete and told him if he heard any more talk of that kind he'd run him out of town. Pete closed his jaw; but if it wasn't for that statute-of-limitations business, Pete would probably turn State's evidence now for a piece of real money.”

“Yes, but if it's too late”

“Why, then, here's another way: If Vance goes after Tom Rogers' scalp, maybe Pete, with an affidavit, might be used as a bluff against Vance to make him pull his horn out of Tommy and leave him alone. Don't you see, if Vance found out that Pete had some one behind him that would put up a fight, he might go slow?”

Josh meditated in silence for a long time, turning the possibilities over and over in his mind. A self-confessed perjurer, he decided, would scarcely go far as a credible witness, even if the statute of limitations did not intervene; but there was, of course, the chance that Pete's affidavit might be used as a weapon, though a poor one, in case Vance attempted to harass Tommy. Mentally he used strong expletives because Tommy had the flaw in his armor caused by the robbery of the pay wagon. If that had not taken place, and the son of his old partner was armed with innocence, to fight Vance in any way would be a pleasure.

He shook his head doubtfully and said: “No. Much obliged, Specimen, but I'm afraid it's no good. I don't want this Pete hangin' onto me for money and support from now till doomsday. I would give him a couple of hundred, though, for that affidavit, just in case of accidents. And at the same time I'd tell him that if ever he came after me for another cent I'd put it in the hands of the district attorney to bring a case against him for perjury.”

“Limitations again!” exclaimed Specimen Jones.

“Yes, but bluff again!” responded Josh. “If he's as ignorant as you say he is, it might scare him off me in the future.”

“I'll see if I can get it for you,” volunteered Specimen. “And in the meantime I'll look after Burke and the blonde.”

Josh walked thoughtfully down the hill, but he could not see any very promising future for clearing up the robbery and making restitution. The trying part of the situation was that while a return of the gold would, in his code, effectually wipe Tom's slate, there was no way to make the restitution and render the holdup a harmless joke in the eyes of the camp, unless he could recover the original gold. Having shouldered the fight, the deeper he entered the more determined he became; for the proverbial bulldog was a slack-jawed beast compared with him. It was his boast that he had never “started anything” that he “didn't finish.” Moreover, he felt a vast personal responsibility, as far as his protégé was concerned, and Tom's remorseful melancholy disturbed him, inasmuch as he feared the culprit could never be himself again until the stain had been erased.