Part 8

Willie sank down at the desk, feeling foolish. Without evidence of authority, he was nothing. Pinky Bronklin would laugh in his face. If he rode back to Ellensburg and reported what had happened, they were likely to laugh at him there, too. He asked himself what Tesno would do. _Damn it, he would go ahead anyway. He never did have authority._

When Willie returned to the street, the town was coming to life. Stores and saloons were opening. Workers from the night shift trudged the boardwalk, hunched against the early chill. The big door behind the Pink Lady's batwings had been swung wide....

Willie found Ben Vickers at the cookhouse, bent over a stack of flapjacks. Ben listened eager-eyed as Willie outlined a plan.

Ten minutes later Willie entered the supply building and handed the clerk a note signed by Ben. The clerk issued one stick of dynamite, one cap, one fuse. Willie fitted on the cap and fuse, shoved the dynamite into a hip pocket and walked back to town.

There were two customers at the Pink Lady bar. One faro game was going with three players at the table. Pinky Bronklin sat nearby and sipped coffee. "We don't serve Injuns!" he called when he saw Willie.

Willie stepped up to the bar. "I want a cigar," he said. He faced Pinky. "Two more charges against you. J-jailbreaking. Failure to obey a c-c-closing order."

"You b-been warned," he said.

Customers, faro dealer, and barkeep plunged for the door, colliding as they reached it, careening into the street. Pinky Bronklin seemed petrified. When he managed to speak, he stuttered worse than Willie.

"Y-you c-can't b-bluff me," Pinky said.

"Who's b-bluffing?" Willie said.

He touched the cigar to the fuse, which began to sputter merrily. He gave the stick of dynamite another flip in the air as Pinky tore for the batwings with hands straight out in front of him and hit the street screaming for Madrid.

Willie waited till the fuse had burned down a bit; then he laid the dynamite on the bar and strolled through the door. A crowd was gathering a little way down the street. Pinky had almost reached the marshal's office and was gesturing wildly to Madrid, who was coming out of it. They both started toward the Pink Lady at a trot.

Willie met Pinky head on and spun him around.

"B-back to that cell," Willie said. "This t-time, I'm going to handcuff you to the b-bunk."

The roar shook the town. Afterward, there was a lingering tinkle of falling glass. Kind of like music, Willie thought.

XVIII

Stella stood by the swinging door that led from the kitchen into the dining room and pushed it open a few inches. This enabled her to hear much of what was said in the living room.

She didn't often eavesdrop. But judging from the way Mr. Jay, Mr. Madrid and Mr. Lester had descended on Persia all at once, they considered themselves up against crisis, which was almost certain to concern Willie. Stella had sort of a crush on Willie, even though he never gave her any real encouragement.

Mr. Jay was doing most of the talking. The way his voice rose and fell, Stella judged he was pacing the floor.

"I have failed completely in my efforts to buy the tunnel contract," he was saying. "This is due largely to the stupidity of people I have paid to help me. I have spent a tidy sum on the project, and I'm not giving up. If I don't get the contract, at least I have the town, and I will make it pay as never before. I don't intend to be stopped by this ridiculous little clown who has got the authorities in Ellensburg interested in us."

Stella snorted softly. Mr. Jay talked as if he were God, she thought.

"I have a plan for getting those authorities off our backs," he went on. "It is simple enough. Persia and the council will publicly recognize that Tunneltown has got out of hand. They will ask a man of position and integrity to take over and clean up the mess. This man will be me. The council will call the election that it has postponed. I shall be elected mayor.

"Of course, it must not be known that I am--for all practical purposes--the proprietor of the town. I will confer with the politicians as an outsider brought in in an emergency. I assure you I can handle them. The sure way to make a politician lose interest in anything is to try to interest him in it." Mr. Jay paused and there was a low, dutiful surge of laughter.

"What about Pinky?" Mr. Madrid asked. "Like I told you, Willie means to take him to Ellensburg for trial."

"We can't permit this to happen. With his jail record and all those charges against him, the prosecuting attorney is likely to offer him a deal--and Pinky will tell all he knows about me."

Persia spoke now for the first time. "How can we avoid this, Mr. Jay?"

"Willie has shown himself to be a reckless fool," Mr. Jay said. "A regrettable accident is quite within the realm of possibility."

"He's lost his badge and papers," Madrid said. "As far as I'm concerned, he has no business taking Pinky out of town, I'll stop him--for good."

"No," Persia said. "I don't want that."

"It mustn't happen in town," Mr. Jay said. "That would require a great deal of awkward explaining. It must happen on the road. Pinky Bronklin will have a concealed gun and will make his escape."

"What will happen to Willie?" Persia asked.

"That's in the lap of the gods," Mr. Jay said quickly.

"I don't think you mean that," Persia said. "You mean to have Willie killed. I won't agree to that."

"My dear." Mr. Jay's tone was tiredly patient. "Must I remind you that you are the principal owner of the Pink Lady? A few repairs, a new stock of liquor, and you'll be in business again--if Willie does _not_ get to Ellensburg. If he does you'll lose your license--and that'll be the least of it. You'll quite possibly have to face charges yourself."

A door slammed and there was the clump of boots as newcomers came in from the other part of the building. There was a great deal of stirring around and exclaiming. Then Stella gasped as Willie's voice rose above the others.

"I found this r-rascal upstairs in Mr. Lester's rooms. I'm t-told he's wanted for b-boiler-wrecking and such. I'm arresting him and taking him to Ellensburg along with Pinky."

There was a great deal of confused talk then, and Stella could sift nothing out of it. She knew that a stranger had spent the night in Sam Lester's quarters, but she had not seen him. Willie must have barged up there and arrested him, she realized.

She got a glimpse of Willie and his prisoner as they passed the dining room doorway on their way to the front door. Madrid and Mr. Jay came into view behind them. Madrid had his hand on his gun, but Mr. Jay gave him a look and a quick little shake of the head. The front door slammed heavily, and Willie and his prisoner were gone.

"He's gone crazy!" Madrid said. "Plumb paper-doll crazy!"

"Actually, it's working out well," Mr. Jay said. "With _two_ prisoners to guard, Willie will be taking a foolish risk. A break will be that much more plausible. Don't you agree, Persia?"

"I don't want anything to do with it," Persia said, a languid thickness in her voice. "I don't even want to hear about it."

* * * * *

Mr. Jay and Madrid walked together to the main street.

"I've already got a horse for you," Mr. Jay said. "It's tied behind the hotel."

"Must say you think of everything," Madrid muttered.

"This must look like a break--surely you understand that. Don't forget to take an extra gun."

"What for? If one of the prisoners had a hidden gun, he'd take it away with him, wouldn't he?" Madrid protested.

"Palma and Bronklin have to go, too, Pete."

They walked in silence for a few yards, Madrid staring at the ground. "I guess I can do it," he said somberly. "But three of 'em!"

Mr. Jay halted suddenly and pointed at a rider who had just entered the town and was swinging into the road to Vickers' camp. "Tesno!" Madrid said.

"He's headed for the camp," Mr. Jay said. "If Willie gets out of here with his prisoners without meeting him, there's no need to change our plan."

Five minutes later, wearing a coat over his blue and white silk shirt, carrying an extra revolver in his pocket, Madrid rode quietly out of town.

* * * * *

Muckamuck Charlie woke to the sound of an argument below him. He lay almost completely submerged in hay. His head ached. He was feeling _sick tumtum_. He felt around in the hay for a bottle and found none. He asked himself where he was and what he was doing here. After a moment, he remembered he was watching a horse.

Slowly, stifling groans, he worked himself out of the hay to his hands and knees and peered over the edge of the loft. He saw with satisfaction that Palma's horse was still in its stall. Nearby, two men were arguing. One was the stableman. The other was Willie Silverknife.

As near as Charlie could make it out, Willie wanted to take the horse, but the stableman wouldn't let him without permission from the man who had brought it in. Charlie got to his feet. Teeteringly, he worked his way along the edge of the loft to a ladder. By the time he reached its bottom, the argument had stopped. Willie seemed to have settled for three other horses, which he and the stableman were saddling.

When he saw Charlie, Willie said, "Ho!" and made a joke in English which Charlie didn't understand.

"_Sick tumtum_," Charlie said. "You got whisky?" Willie swung a saddle to the back of a horse, and Charlie saw that his hip pockets were empty. "You got dollar?"

"I have taken your man, your Palma," Willie said, speaking now in the Yakima tongue. He gave the horse a punch in the ribs to make him deflate himself, then he tightened the cinch. "He is in the jailhouse. I will take him to Ellensburg."

Charlie absorbed this silently. Willie went on to say that he expected to meet Tesno on the road. He said Charlie ought to ride along with him, if he was able, and rejoin Tesno.

Charlie replied that he had a great sickness in his head and stomach, was having trouble seeing clearly, and was quite likely going to die unless he could get hold of some whisky. Besides, Willie's capture of Palma put an end to Charlie's responsibility in the matter, and he might as well get drunk.

Willie said crisply that he would lend no more money. Charlie retired to an empty stall and sat down. The livery man caught the reins of Willie's horse and led it outside. All at once, Charlie was aware of a young white woman in the barn. She had appeared so miraculously that Charlie considered the possibility she might be a spirit, but Willie seemed to know her.

"Stella!" he said.

"Villie," she said in strangely accented English, "you must not leave. They vill kill you. I heard them."

"Now just c-calm d-down," Willie said. "What did you hear?"

"Marshal Madrid said he vould stop you from leaving town. I think he meant he vould kill you. Mr. Yay, he said no. He said it vould happen on the road. The prisoner vould have a gun and escape. You vould be dead, I think. At first, it vas only vun prisoner. Then you took the other vun. Mr. Yay said so much the better...."

Stella was extremely excited, and her accent made it doubly hard for Muckamuck Charlie to understand what she was talking about. He gathered that she was warning Willie someone would kill him if he tried to take Palma to Ellensburg, but Charlie doubted that this could be taken literally. She probably wanted to keep Willie in town for reasons of her own. It was disappointing to see that Willie was sobered by her jabbering.

"Thanks, S-Stella," Willie said.

"You'll not go?"

"I g-guess I'll go. I'll be as safe on the road as I am in t-town. But I'll search those prisoners before I start out, Stella."

Willie touched her elbow and they walked together through the big barn door into the sunlight. Charlie got up and watched Willie ride to the marshal's office, leading the two extra horses. Stella hurried off toward the big house behind the town. Willie went into the office and reappeared with two handcuffed prisoners. All three mounted and rode out of town.

The sight of Palma stirred an ugly hatred in Charlie and a fear for Willie. True, Willie had a gun in his belt and the prisoners were handcuffed. But Jim Palma was a strong and wily man. He had stomped that Umatilla boy to death down at Selah, and Charlie had heard other bad things about him. He wasn't sure that Willie was a match for Palma. Maybe that jabbering squaw was right, after all, Charlie thought.

He made his way up a cleared hillside above town, feeling a little better as he walked. He had staked his horse up here--no sense in wasting whisky money on a livery fee. After a day's grazing, the animal looked to be in fair condition. Saddle and bridle were in a clump of brush where Charlie had cached them. He fought a brief battle with the temptation to sell these for whisky money; then he saddled up and cut behind the town to the Ellensburg road.

XIX

Tesno made his report to Ben, listened in amazement to the contractor's account of Willie's closing of the Pink Lady, and they rode to the town and the townhouse.

Stella answered his knock. Instead of her usual dignified reception, she greeted him with emotion.

"Mr. Tesno! Did you meet Villie? He has gone to Ellensburg."

"Jack!" Persia darted into the hall and threw herself into his arms. She led him into the parlor, asking Stella to leave them alone.

Stella went into the dining room--Tesno had a feeling that she did not go on to the kitchen. Persia pulled him down beside her on the sofa, and he found himself holding her hand.

"So much has happened!" she said. "Did you hear about Willie? They say he has lost his mind. After all I did for him, Jack, he--"

"Persia, I'm looking for a man named Palma. Is he here?"

"That must be the man Willie arrested," she said quickly. "He came barging in here with a stranger and did some wild talking. I was meeting with ... some people. Willie said something about taking this man to Ellensburg with Mr. Bronklin."

"And they have already left?"

"I'm sure I don't know."

"They have left," Stella said, appearing in the dining room doorway. She drew herself up very straight. "I varned him, Mrs. Parker. I told him that Mr. Yay planned to have him killed. He said he vould be all right, but I am afraid. Vill he be all right, Mr. Tesno?"

"Stella, you have apparently been eavesdropping!" Persia said with an icy anger in her voice. "That is bad enough. But you've twisted everything you heard into a perfectly outlandish story. Stella, have you a crush on Willie? Is that why--"

"I have twisted nothing," Stella asserted. "It vas a plan they vere making, Mr. Tesno, Mr. Yay and the marshal. Mrs. Parker said no, she didn't vant it. I give her credit for that. After vile, she said she didn't vant to hear about it. She don't really care what they do, Mr. Tesno."

"Stella, you _liar_!" Persia was on her feet. Her eyes were blazing. There were shocking angry lines in her face. "You get out of this house! Immediately!"

"Yes, ma'am," Stella said.

"Wait," Tesno said.

Rising, he touched Persia's elbow, and she flounced violently away from him. For just a second or two, she pressed both palms to her face. Then she made a desperate effort at control, composing her voice but not getting the searing anger out of her eyes.

"I didn't mean that, Stella," she said. "You _misunderstood_ what you heard, and you've let your imagination run away with you."

"No, ma'am, I heard it straight. It vas a plan."

Persia turned away in exasperation. "What a day!" she said.

Tesno took her firmly by the shoulders and met her eyes. She lowered them and would have come against him, but he held her off. "Persia, I want the truth. From you. Is there a plan to kill Willie?"

"How do I know? They're hard men. There's a great deal at stake and--I told them I would have nothing to do with it!"

"Yes," Stella said. "She told them that. She said she didn't even vant to know about it."

Persia whirled and walked to the stairway. She halted there, face in hands; but he did not follow.

"I am afraid for Villie, Mr. Tesno," Stella said.

"How long ago did he leave?"

"Yust before you came. Ten, fifteen minutes."

Tesno regarded her gloomily. "I'll go after him," he said. He strode swiftly to the front door, and it closed heavily behind him.

XX

Willie's prisoners rode half a length ahead of him up the steep road out of the gulch. He had searched them both and found no hidden weapon. Both were handcuffed. He had assured them that if either made a false move, he was going to shoot. He meant it and they knew he meant it.

Still, the fact that he had got out of town with no challenge from Madrid seemed to confirm Stella's warning that there would be an escape try on the road. The marshal and Mr. Jay weren't going to let him get this pair of dandies to Ellensburg if they could stop it.

They crossed the first ridge and began a long, angling descent. Willie's eyes scoured the timber ahead for any sign of life. Now and then he raised himself in the saddle and glanced back. As they neared a bend in the road after a long straight stretch, he saw that a rider was following them.

He was a good quarter-mile away, and he was keeping his horse at a fast trot. He didn't look like Madrid, but Willie was afraid to take his eyes off his prisoners long enough to study him carefully. As they rounded the bend, Willie concocted a plan.

The road bore sharply to the right here. Half a mile below, it crossed a creek and then slanted back up the side of a massive range of hills and through a little saddle between peaks. Out of sight of the man behind them now, Willie ordered Palma and Bronklin to pull into the trees to the left.

It seemed to him that they could cut cross-country and reach the road again as it climbed the hills ahead. The riding would be rough, steep, and slow; they would gain no time by the shortcut. But the chances were that the man behind them wouldn't see their tracks leaving the road here--only Indians were apt to notice such things along a well traveled road. He probably wouldn't miss them till he had reached the bottom of the valley and crossed the creek. There was a straight piece of road there and he would suddenly find that they were no longer ahead of him. He would turn back to discover where he had lost them. At least, Willie hoped he would. He would eventually find their sign and follow it. But by that time Willie and the prisoners would be back on the road a mile and a half ahead. There was a ragcamp a bit farther along which they could reach without fear of being overtaken. Willie planned no further ahead than that.

Weaving through the big evergreens made keeping an eye on both prisoners difficult. When they were well off the road, Willie called a halt. While Palma and Pinky jeered and grumbled, he quickly cut a length of picket rope and tied the bridle of one of their horses to the tail of the other. Thus they were forced to travel pack-train fashion and keep together.

They wound sharply down-grade, dodging branches, holding the horses to a walk on Willie's order. The creek was deep and its banks were thick with brush and jutting dead-falls, but they finally found a ford and crossed. Then they worked up through forest again and came suddenly upon the road. They rounded the first bend and ran smack into Madrid, who was sitting his horses and waiting.

He was a scant ten yards away. He had been watching, had seen them first, and had his revolver in hand. If they had hit the road a hundred yards beyond this bend, they would have avoided him, Willie thought. As it was, he was beaten, and he knew it. He thought of wheeling his horse around and making a run for it. But he knew he would never make it. That revolver in Madrid's hand would drop him at twice the distance.

Pinky and Palma, still riding in file with Pinky ahead, had reined up. Willie kicked his horse forward and jumped it into Palma's. This sent the horses of both prisoners into a dance, and Madrid had to rein out of the way. Willie made a grab for his gun but barely got it clear of his belt. Swinging his horse aside with one hand, Madrid pointed his gun at the sky with the other, leveled it with a gentle chopping motion and fired. Willie coughed and teetered out of the saddle to the road. His startled horse trotted ahead of the others, and Madrid casually leaned over and caught the reins.

Pinky and Palma calmed their horses and regarded the motionless figure below them. Palma was the first to speak.

"And that'll be that," he said. He got down from the saddle with his manacles hands held awkwardly in front of him and unfastened the rope that held his horse to Pinky's. "I'll get the key off him," he said then and walked toward Willie's body. Madrid made the chopping motion with the gun again and shot him squarely between the shoulder blades.

Pinky stared in open-mouthed astonishment. He grinned shakily and said, "What's my move, Pete? Go back with you or skidoo?"

"Neither," Madrid said, speaking for the first time. He raised the gun again, and Pinky understood.

"Pete ... wait...."

"So long, cowboy," Madrid said as he pulled the trigger.

He drew the extra gun from his coat pocket, fired it in the air, and tossed it to the ground near Pinky. Dismounting he recovered Willie's gun, fired it twice, and dropped it near Willie. In the saddle again, he led the horses up and down the road past the bodies several times to assure a hopeless confusion of tracks. He then rounded the bend, left the road and headed through the forest toward Tunneltown. It wouldn't do to be seen on the road.

As soon as he was out of sight, Muckamuck Charlie emerged from the trees, leading his horse. He walked round the bend and, having heard the shots, was not surprised by what he found there. Mumbling to himself, he bent over each man and assured himself they were all dead.

Lifting Willie's body under the arms, he dragged it to the side of the road and straightened it out so it looked comfortable.

"You were a _tyee_ among them," he said in Yakima.

He climbed on his horse thinking that it was a bad business for an Indian to get mixed up in white men's quarrels. He knew of only one white man who would believe him when he told what he had seen. Tesno, as far as he knew, was still with the boiler--or maybe on his way to Tunneltown in response to Vickers' message. Charlie headed his horse eastward--toward Ellensburg--and rode away.

* * * * *

Prodding a tired horse, Tesno heard the shots distantly. He kicked the animal into a lope, couldn't hold him there, settled for a wobbly trot. A few minutes later, he met a riderless horse jogging along toward Tunneltown, head held high to keep dragging reins from underfoot. He waved an arm, turning the horse, and hazed it ahead of him. Almost at once, two more horses appeared with empty saddles. With a sense of disaster gnawing at him, he turned these, too.

He had an instant of hope when he first saw Willie stretched out beside the road; but even before he dismounted and knelt beside the boy, this faded. Willie was dead. Mr. Jay and Madrid had planned it. Persia might have stopped it and didn't....

He had seen his share of death; mostly, he had turned away from it with a shrug and maybe a muttered prayer, as a man must. Now he remembered the first he had seen, that of a childhood playmate, how he couldn't believe it, and this was like that. He brushed mud from Willie's face with his fingers; he looked around at the road and the forest and the sky. Willie was gone; but the world that he was a part of went on, and he was not gone. It seemed as if the cloak of Time were lifted momentarily and the illusion of past, present, and future dispelled.

_Nobody ever dies_, he thought. _Everything we are, everything we do, everything we've ever done, good and bad, goes on forever._

This struck him sharply, fleetingly. The cloak fell again, and he was angry.