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High Hander

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<h2>XVI</h2> They had nothing to eat except the can of beans Muckamuck Charlie had pocketed, some rock-hard biscuits from Tesno's saddlebags, and a few trout snagged with a hook made from a horseshoe nail. Palma's trail circled, zigzagged, doubled back. Surprisingly, he made no attempt to ambush them—although they were slowed again and again as they made roundabout approaches to places where he might be lying in wait. Finally, it seemed a safe conclusion that he had used up his ammunition sniping at horses and the boiler crew. On the afternoon of the second day, Charlie announced that Palma had doubled back toward the road. He had entered a deep, cliff-guarded valley that led nowhere else, Charlie said. Tesno felt a little stab of alarm. Could Palma plan to take another crack at the boiler? Alone and without ammunition? Charlie didn't think this likely. "Hit road high up now," he said. "Boiler siah. Far away." Still, the possibility couldn't be ignored. Tesno decided that they would graze the horses for an hour and then ride all night. They came upon the road at midmorning. They had given up trying to follow Palma's trail; they didn't know if he was still ahead of them or if they had passed him in the night. Since Charlie knew Palma by sight, Tesno sent him on up to Tunneltown. "If he shows up there, go see Ben Vickers," Tesno said. "Vickers. Nobody else. He'll get word to me." He turned his tired horse down-grade as Charlie jogged off in the other direction. He came upon the boiler two hours later, only a few miles above Cle Elum. It was pulled off the road preparatory to another haul by block and tackle. It had made only three miles the day before, Rejack reported, and he guessed that was going to be about the average. "You look like you need a meal and a bed," he told Tesno. "The meal will help," Tesno said. He felt as if he were in danger of dropping in his tracks, but he couldn't sleep—not yet. Even if Palma weren't lurking in the woods, waiting his chance, there was the possibility that he would come riding boldly down the road on his way to Ellensburg, believing himself still ahead of Tesno. Of course, he might already have done that.... A few minutes later, Tesno got a chance to check this latter possibility. He was eating a plate of beans at the cook wagon when Whisky Willie Silverknife came riding up the road from the direction of Ellensburg. Tesno hailed him, and he rode over, not getting out of the saddle. "I'm in a huh-hurry," he said. He was red-eyed and looked as sleepy as Tesno felt. Three pairs of handcuffs dangled from his saddlehorn. Tesno asked if he had met anyone on the road who might be Palma. "I don't rightly know what he looks like," Tesno said. "He's dressed like a cowhand, and he might be wounded. Nothing very serious, but he might have a bandaged arm, something like that." Willie hadn't seen him. "What are the handcuffs for?" Tesno asked. "Where have you been?" "I'm m-mad," Willie said. "M-Madrid fired me." "You're still wearing a badge." "T-take a g-good look at it. It's a county deputy's badge. Mr. Vickers gave me a letter to the sheriff, and I rode down and g-got s-sworn in this morning." "And you're going back and get even. Is that it?" "I'm going to close that Pink Lady up tight. I'm going to send Pinky to p-prison. If Miss P-Persia gets hurt, too, I c-can't help it. She wouldn't b-back me up." "Willie, you get off that horse and have some food," Tesno said. "I want to hear about this." Willie sullenly dismounted and accepted a plate of beans. He gave Tesno an account of his rescue of O'Hara, the hearing before Judge Badger, his appeal to Persia. He pulled a folded paper from a hip pocket and waved it in Tesno's face. "This is a wuh-huh-warrant for Pinky Bronklin's arrest, issued by the district court." Tesno took the warrant and unfolded it. Willie produced an inch-thick bundle of similar papers from the other hip pocket. "I got some m-more d-documents," Willie said. "Closing orders, warrants, subpoenas. Some of them are b-blank. The district attorney said to fill them in ac-c-cording to my j-judgment." Tesno muttered an exclamation as he read the warrant. "Looks like you've got Pinky dead to rights," he said. "This charges him with illegal possession of drugs, illegal administration of drugs, operating a gambling hall.... That must have been some letter Ben wrote!" "The p-people down in Ellensburg are beg-g-ginning to take an interest in Tunneltown," Willie said. "Teamsters and drummers and such have been complaining." "How do you figure to prove this drug charge?" "J-jail Pinky, then search the place. I'll take Vickers' doctor with me. Ch-chances are we'll find the kn-knockout drops." "Willie, you wait till I get back there before you start closing saloons," Tesno said. "N-not much. I figure to d-do it tonight. I'm m-m-mad." "You know that Persia is the principal owner of the Pink Lady?" "I can't help that. It's a rotten p-place and I'm going to sh-shut it up." "Damned if I don't believe you're a bluenose," Tesno said. He said it jovially; then reproach crept into his voice. "Damn it, Willie, it's not a small thing to sit in judgment of others. You're mad. You've got yourself some official backing. But you've no right to be high-handed." "My g-god! That from you?" "From me," Tesno said. "You t-took it on yourself to judge everything and everybody in Tunneltown the day you arrived." "I judged nobody," Tesno said. "I was just doing a job for pay." "You said this was a rotten town preying on Vickers' c-crew. You even jailed the marshal. You said the hell with authority. Then Miss Persia wrapped you around her f-finger like a Christmas ribbon. N-now you're in with the rest of them!" "The town council agreed to go along with me, Willie. That changed things." "M-maybe you don't know it," Willie said. "B-but it was the other w-way around. Miss Persia rustled her skirts at you and you w-went along with the town." "We'll leave Persia out of this," Tesno said with a steel edge of anger in his voice. "We c-can't—even if you beat the peewallopus out of me. I g-guess you could do it easy enough. You're tougher than anybody I kn-know." Willie laid his plate on the tailgate and looked Tesno squarely in the eye. "And you've g-got no more spine than a rag d-doll!" He put his back to Tesno, caught up his reins, and swung into the saddle. He poised a rein end above his horse's rump and said, "I'm m-mad. M-maybe I didn't m-mean all that." Tesno wanted to tell him to come back and finish his dinner. Instead, he found himself saying gruffly, "You meant it. And be damned to you." The handcuffs hanging from Willie's saddlehorn clinked dully as he pivoted the horse and headed back to the road at a trot. An hour later the boiler had been inched up the hillside and was back on the road. Rejack called a halt just above a small bridge, and the crew clustered around the cook wagon for a late dinner. Something about the bridge interested Tesno; then suddenly he recognized it. He turned his horse up the creek and followed it to the grassy place where he had nooned on his first trip to Tunneltown, the place where Willie had surprised him. He got off his horse and washed his face in the chill, singing water. He stretched out in the soft grass then, knowing that he had to sleep if only for an hour. Yet sleep did not come at once, and he lay staring at a ragged patch of sky. I can stay till this boiler gets up to the job, he thought. I can do that much for Ben. Then there's nothing to do but quit. I'm finished as a troublebuster. Willie made me see that clearly enough. He had never really believed in the railroad; but he had taken his living from it, and he had given what it asked in return. Willie had said he was tough. I've made a profession of toughness, he thought, but I've made it an honest profession. I've laid my life on the line to do what I've been paid to do. That's all I've ever been, an honest tough. It wasn't much, but it was something. Now I am a man in love. And I am nothing at all. There was still the ranch he had dreamed of for so long—or was there? Persia had spoiled that for him, he realized. In spite of her show of interest, she would want no part of the modest spread he would have, of the years of frugal living while he built up a herd. No, there was not even that now. There was only the soft dream of a lovely woman whose eager tenderness absorbed a man ... and left him nothing of himself. It was tenderness itself that was his enemy, he thought. He had toughened the shell around his loneliness to the point of brittleness; he had made himself defenseless against love for a woman when it had finally come to him.... He slept and woke and overtook the boiler a mile on its way. It was in little danger, he judged, as long as it was rolling along the road. And after another short pulley haul had been made with no attempt at interference, he decided that Palma probably was not in the vicinity. That night he rolled up in his blankets under the wagon with the great weight of the boiler above him. He slept deeply and was wakened by one of the guards shining a lantern in his face. A messenger had arrived with a note from Ben Vickers: <blockquote> Jack Some drunken Indian says I got to get a message to you, I can't make out why. Something to do with a man named Palma. </blockquote> <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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