Chapter XV

“Good morning, Mr. Torrance,” said Sally Dawn.

“Good morning, Miss Cannon,” said Jim Torrance.

“It’s a lovely morning. And you’re looking just fine.”

“It’s more than a lovely morning. And you’re lovelier than any round dozen of lovely mornings. And--”

“You’re feeling--”

“Like being on top of the world. Ready to jump up and go prowling. Like singing you a song. It goes like this:

“‘Oh, hand me down my high-heeled boots,
And hand me down my hat;
And hand me down my long-tailed coat,
Likewise my silk cravat.’”

She laughed at him and wrinkled up her nose in the way she had, and he grinned at her and, for about two minutes, the world was a mighty nice place to live in. Then he started frowning.

“Pain?” she asked solicitously.

“Yes. The worst one I’ve had yet.”

“Where, Jim?”

“In my conscience. You’ve been doing too much for me. You’ve come all this distance and you’ve stuck here until you’re worn out. I want you to go home and get years of rest. I’ll ride down and see you later; I’ll bring you all my thanks then and--and a pinto pony.”

So she laughed at him again. His frown went away and his grin came back, but behind the grin, lurking in the dark depths of his eyes, was a sober thought. He said, looking at her steadily:

“I’ve been sort of sick. I’ve heard things said while I lay here, and they didn’t matter and most of the time didn’t even make sense. But now I’ve got to think ’em over, and--”

“Convalescents are not supposed to think,” said Sally Dawn. “It’s against the law.”

“Tell me this: In Canyon City, who are the two best friends?”

His hand had stirred slightly; hers sped to a meeting with it like a little dove coming home.

“We are, of course.”

“Right. And as I remember it, a friend can bank on a friend. Now tell me this: What’s wrong?”

“Wrong? Why--why, just that you’ve been hurt--”

“No. The way Doc Kibbee looks at me, the way the sheriff digs into me with those old fish-eyes of his--even the way Nancy Hamilton handles herself--dammit, the way that even Sally Dawn Cannon does sometimes!--all this has got me wondering about something.”

“About what, Jim?” she asked, getting ready to be brave.

“We’ll forget it. But there is something you can tell me: Why hasn’t Hasbrook dropped in?”

“Hasbrook?”

“Yes. Bill Hasbrook, the bank president. He hasn’t been in at all, has he?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Why? Where is he?” She started tucking her chin down, as though she could hide behind it, and he demanded sharply, “Well? Where’s Bill Hasbrook?”

“I’ve heard that he isn’t here. That he had to go away somewhere.”

His eyes grew more penetrating, began to grow suspicious.

“What about Gates? The cashier, Phil Gates?”

“Jim! They told me that you weren’t really to talk; not about anything that mattered, anything that might possibly upset you. And if I let you talk, Mrs. Hamilton will come in and send me away.”

“I hear tell they’ve got a sheriff up here in Coconambo County, that is a sheriff,” said Jim. “You, up and around, maybe might know? It would be kind of nice if he would drop in on me and say hello. Think he might?”

She didn’t want to say yes and she didn’t want to say no. She had never endured such a troublesome moment in all her life. But she had to look him in the eyes, so did his eyes insist on it, and at last she said:

“Yes. He will come to see you right away.”

He squeezed her hand.

“Thank you a lot, Sally Dawn,” he said.

Then, when she had darted out, with little delay Sheriff Walt Evans came stalking in. He said, as crisp as a new-baked biscuit:

“Well, Torrance? I hear you want to see me.”

“Squat, Sheriff,” said Torrance. “And tell me.”

“What’s on your chest, Stranger?” asked the sheriff, having drawn up a chair.

“Where’s Hasbrook? Why hasn’t he dropped in to ask me whether I was dead or alive?”

“Hasbrook? He ain’t here right now.”

“What about Phil Gates?”

“He ain’t here either. Happens he’s dead.”

Jim Torrance thought that over. Phil Gates had been very much alive not so long ago, and to be dead now meant that he was out of luck when the bank hold-up was pulled off and bullets got to roving wild. He didn’t have to ask Sheriff Evans. But he did have to swing back to Hasbrook, the bank president, and ask about him.

“What about Hasbrook?” he asked. “Let’s have it all, Evans.”

“Maybe you don’t know?” said the sheriff.

“No. I don’t know much of anything. Somebody hammered me over the head--”

“And a good job, too! That was a deputy of mine, a feller named--”

“Hell with his name! It ought to be John W. Jackass. Tell me about Hasbrook. They didn’t kill him too, did they?”

“You wouldn’t know, would you?”

“If I knew I wouldn’t be asking. Let’s have it. Is Hasbrook alive or dead?”

“Pretty much alive,” snapped the sheriff.

The man in bed filled his lungs; for a moment he had pretty well stopped breathing.

“Tell him I want him,” he said. “Tell him to get a move on. I’ve waited long enough. Get him here on the run.”

“No can do, Torrance. They’ve nabbed him. That gang of yours is holding him for ransom. Maybe you didn’t know that, huh?”

Torrance stared at him.

“Say it again. What gang of mine? What in hell are you talking about?”

“You’ll be telling me that you didn’t have anything to do with the hold-up? Just an innocent bystander when the job was pulled off?”

“You think I had a hand in that? That I was one of the crowd that stuck the bank up, killed Phil Gates and grabbed Hasbrook?”

“There’s not a man in Canyon City who doesn’t know it. What do you take us for anyhow? Blind men or just plain fools?”

“Both!” growled Torrance, and sounded downright disgusted. “Good Lord, man, I went to Hasbrook and told him to watch out for this very thing; I had a hunch that this was going to happen and--”

“I guess you did,” said Evans drily.

“And now Gates is dead and Hasbrook is gone--and your crazy deputy plugs me--and you figure me for one of that crowd of rats! Haven’t you got the sense of a little gray seed tick?”

“Maybe you know who the stick-up gents were?” said Evans, very sarcastic.

“Of course I know! It’s a gang of Sundown killers led by Steve Bordereau.”

“And you knew ahead of time that they were going to pull off this job?”

“No, I didn’t know. But I know Bordereau, I have an idea of what’s in his head, and it was an easy guess he’d strike here. His crowd is the same one that stuck up the Yellow Pine, Rock Valley and the Mountain City Bank. They’re out to make a big killing before they blow; and it was my guess that Canyon City would be next.”

“Just a wild guess on your part then, huh?”

“It wasn’t so wild, was it? And now you’re doctoring me, working to get me on my feet again, just to throw me in jail? That it?”

“There are a good many boys around here,” said Evans, “friends of Hasbrook’s and Gates’, that don’t think much of the jail idea. Maybe I’m going to have my job cut out, as soon’s you’re able to get around, to keep them from taking you off my hands.”

“Little hanging party?” grunted Torrance.

“Your guesses keep right on being good.”

Torrance lay still a while and stared at the ceiling.

“You think I’m lying to you, do you?”

Evans shrugged heavily.

“I just wish I knew, brother,” he said sourly.

That was about as far as they got at that time. But a couple of days later the sheriff dropped in again. This time he found Torrance dressed, sitting on the edge of his bed, looking gaunt and weak but with a clear, bold eye.

“Let’s talk, Torrance.”

“Shoot. What’s new?”

From his pocket the sheriff drew a couple of folded sheets of paper. One was that communication from Hasbrook which he had already shown to Sally Dawn. Jim Torrance read it carefully, then read the second note which Evans handed to him with the remark: “This one just got to me today. I don’t know who brought it; it was shoved under my door last night.”

When Torrance had finished reading it also there were spots of color in his cheeks showing a dull angry red through the dark stubble of beard, and his eyes were bright and hard. The words that Hasbrook had penciled were:

Dear Walt: You’ll have one more letter from me in another few days,
inside the week anyhow. Meantime I want you to raise fifty thousand
dollars in cash and have it ready against demand. That’s my ransom
money. Instructions for delivery will come in my last note to you.
And there is one other thing and, Walt, I’m depending on you for
this. The boys who are holding me have learned that Jim Torrance is
alive and getting well, and they insist that he be returned to them
the same time the money is sent. As I wrote you before, he is one of
the crowd and their leader. I know you won’t want to let him go, but
if you don’t send him back to his men they swear they’ll do me in
even if they lose the ransom. I feel sure I can depend on you, Walt.
So long.

Bill Hasbrook.

Jim Torrance didn’t speak immediately; he rolled a cigarette first and lighted it and sat there, staring for a while at the floor, then into Sheriff Evans’ gimleting eyes.

“Bill Hasbrook,” said Torrance at last, “is a dirty rat. On top of that he is a--”

“Never mind all that,” cut in Evans. “Hasbrook’s a friend of mine; he’s the squarest man you ever heard a man tell about.”

“Is that so? Why, a skunk wouldn’t come near him! He’s two things I hate, a sneaking cur of a coward and a double crossing sidewinder. After I went to him and put him wise, after I chipped in with him and damn near got myself killed in the mixup, look what the yellow louse is doing to me! Just to save his own dirty hide, he’ll be tickled pink to have me slaughtered. And I thought--”

“Easy, Stranger! What’s he doing to you, after all, but just save you from jail or hanging here, and send you back to your own men?”

“He knows better than that, and you’d know too, if you had sense enough to pound sand through a knot hole!” said Torrance hotly. “I tell you, that’s Steve Bordereau’s gang. Bordereau wants to have the fun of butchering me, and Hasbrook knows it.”

Evans made himself a cigarette, yet did not for an instant withdraw that penetrating gaze of his from Jim Torrance’s angry face.

“Take it from me, Torrance,” he said evenly, “Will Hasbrook is no coward, and he’s no crook; he’s known over a good many miles as a man you can tie to.”

A queer, puzzled look came into Torrance’s eyes.

“That’s what I thought,” he muttered. “I’d heard his reputation; I had a few good talks with him. Dammit, I’d have bet my life on that man--and I guess that’s what I did.”

“Yes, a man could bet his life on Hasbrook playing square,” said Evans.

Torrance got up and stirred about the room restlessly; then he came back and leaned on the head of the bed and looked down curiously at the sheriff’s hard-bitten face.

“You’ve got the name of being a square shooter too, Evans,” he said thoughtfully. “And I’d say you are. Suppose you tell me the truth about this bank president; how long have you known him?”

“Not very long,” said Evans. “Only about forty years.”

“And he’s neither a coward nor a crook?”

“The squarest. An old friend of King Cannon’s, if that means anything to you. And not afraid of all hell on wheels.”

“That’s how I made him out. And here he is, caving in to those bums, paying a ransom and letting them make a monkey out of him.”

“Well, maybe he figures he’d rather be alive than save that fifty thousand.”

“And you feel kind of sure that he isn’t the sort of man to save his own hide by letting another man take his place? A man who he knows played square with him?”

“Is this a cigarette I’m smoking? Might be a pipe, might be I’m not smoking at all but eating a watermelon! I’m just that sure.”

“Damn it then! He didn’t write these letters at all! They’re forgeries! I tell you there’s something phony about them!”

“He wrote ’em all right. I know Will’s hand-of-write; know it as well as I know my own hat.”

“Then--”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Evans sharply. He stood up and tapped Torrance on the shoulder. “Will Hasbrook wrote these letters, and just the same you’re right; there is something damn phony about them. It’s a little thing, but it’s something that hit me in the eye right off, and that stands out a mile after a feller does notice it. Here, squat; you’re looking white around the gills. I’m going to tell you something.”

Torrance came back to the bed and sat down. It was Evans’ turn to walk up and down for a while; his brows were dragged down in tangled thought and he was taking his last moment to consider all angles of a puzzle before he committed himself. Then he shrugged and stood in front of Torrance and spoke his piece.

“Look here, Torrance, maybe I’m the idiot you’ve called me, but I believe every word you’ve said to me. That’s partly because of what Sally Dawn Cannon told me; partly from sizing you up for myself; partly now for something in Hasbrook’s letters that makes me hunt around for just the sort of a queer set-up you’ve told me about. Like you said, there’s something phony here, and Hasbrook’s been to a lot of trouble to tell me so, and he’s figured it was up to me to find out about things.”

He put the two letters, spread out, on the bed.

“Look at this first one,” he said. “He calls me ‘Walt’ four times in it! And Will Hasbrook never called me ‘Walt’ in his life. Everybody else does, but since we were kids he’s always called me Walter. And I’ve always called him Will--and I guess I’m the only man in the county that ever called him anything but Bill Hasbrook. And now look at the second one. He’s got three ‘Walts’ in that. And both of ’em he’s signed ‘Bill.’ And if he’s not trying to fly some sort of signal for me I’m all that you’ve called me.”

* * * * *

By the time Sheriff Walt Evans left, Jim Torrance was ready to crawl back into bed and just lie there and try to be patient about getting stronger. They had gone into a conference, planning ways and means, that had lasted a solid two hours.

What was more, they had cooked up their plan that had enough hazard in it to have claimed all Torrance’s thoughts as long as he lay awake. But, as a matter of record, he wasn’t thinking of this present problem at all but a vastly more pleasant one. He was wondering when Sally Dawn would pop in again.