Silvertip's Trap (7 page)

B
ILL
N
AYLOR
found himself crouched in the brush with the shadow of the slicker covering him. When he stooped his head lower, he could look out beneath the skirt of the big rubberized garment and see the firelit scene.

Jim Silver had said only one thing in conclusion: “You've got your guns. Don't use them. You've only got them in trust while I try to handle this crowd.”

And the voice of Gregor had whispered in savage answer: “Yeah, the first shot I'd take would be at you, you — ”

The whispered curses were things that Naylor could not believe. There is such a thing as gratitude in this world. There has to be. Otherwise everything falls to pieces; there is nothing that a man can catch hold of. Substance turns to air unless there is gratitude.

For instance, Barry Christian must feel gratitude for what had been done for him by Naylor. He must recollect that Naylor had picked him out of death in the river; he must remember that the fortune in his hands at the present moment had been placed there by Naylor at the cost of hair-raising peril endured. And again, it was for the sake of Barry Christian, not of Barry's money, that Bill Naylor had met the jailbird Gregor and endured the peril of the river chase.

Those were the things that kept hunting through the mind of Naylor as he crouched in the brush while the new fuel was heaped on the fire by Jim Silver and the flames rushed upward, throwing shuddering waves of light through the green-and-brown obscurity of the trees. That is what the human soul is like — a dark, entangled jungle except where human faith and trust and affection illumine it. But such light could never penetrate the mind of Duff Gregor, Naylor felt.

Gregor was ready at this moment, at the first touch of danger, to crash a bullet through the heart of the man who had just spared him. And how great was the weight of the past to keep Silver from sparing Gregor. Next to Barry Christian, who was there in the world that Silver had so many reasons for hating?

It was a frightful turmoil that these things made in the mind of Naylor as he reflected upon them. He had the vast picture of Barry Christian in his mind's eye, a huge brain, a mighty power, endless in resource and craft. That man was his friend. He had bought the friendship of Barry Christian by such acts as he never had performed for any other human being in all of his days. But Barry Christian was a force all for evil. And here was another man greater than Christian, more powerful in brain and in body, but weakened only because he could not help having faith and trust in the goodness of his fellow man. And all the force and the weight of Silver was on the side of good.

Well, it was not strange, thought Naylor, that there were people ready to die for Jim Silver!

For his own part — well, Naylor was a crook by taste, by life, and by training. Therefore he would cling to Barry Christian. But —

He had reached that point in his reflections when the noise of the men of Crow's Nest came close to the place. They came stamping through the brush. The waves of their lantern light fought with the softer, wider waves of the firelight. They were scanning the trees and hunting every hole as they closed in. Then, with a sudden rush, they were through the trees, on one side of the clearing.

“We've got him!” yelled voices. “Hey! We've got Gregor! Up with your hands, Gregor! Up with ‘em!”

Gregor shuddered violently. Naylor looked out and saw the men swarming toward Jim Silver, who stood with his hands raised, very calm, saying:

“All right, boys!”

That reminded Naylor of what he had heard — that Silver was helpless against other honest men. That was why he had almost been pulled down by the Crow's Nest mob once before.

They went in at Jim Silver with a savage eagerness, till one of them shouted:

“Wait a minute! It's not Gregor! It's the real Jim Silver!”

“You fool,” said another, “Silver's gone away. This
is
Gregor. It's gotta be Gregor!”

“It ain't Gregor. It's Jim Silver. Look at the scars on his face.”

“Gregor made up once before with them same scars.”

“He ain't had time to make up with ‘em. Besides, it ain't the same face. It's Silver. Jim, I'm sorry we rushed you.”

“That's all right,” said Jim Silver.

“If it's Silver, where's Parade?” asked another voice.

Silver whistled. And out of the darkness beyond the fire, in the direction from which the rest of the men of Crow's Nest were hurrying toward the shouting, sounded a loud neighing. Brush crackled, and Naylor, his face close to the ground, peering out beneath the flap of the slicker, saw a great golden chestnut stallion leap into the circle of the firelight and rush for his master. Other men were in the way. They scattered with a yell of fear from the striking hoofs of the big horse. And now Parade stood at the side of Jim Silver, snorting, tossing his head, defying danger like one who had long been intimate with it.

Horses had always been to Naylor mere means of locomotion. Suddenly he saw that a horse could be to a man like a throne to a king.

Newcomers of the Crow's Nest men, wet and panting with their laboring through the marshes, scratched and stung by breaking through the dense brush of the island, now came blundering into view with excited faces.

Gradually they realized that it was not the man they had hunted for.

Sheriff Dick Williams suddenly appeared, soaked, bedraggled, looking like a man who had risen newly from a sick bed. He went up to Silver and held out his hand.

“Are we shaking, Jim?” he asked. “Or do you keep hard feelings about the way Crow's Nest treated you in the old days?”

Silver took the hand willingly.

“I'm not such a fool,” he said, and then took his stand right by the coat which covered the two fugitives. It was not the slicker; it was the great name and reputation of Silver that sheltered the pair, Naylor felt.

“Gregor got away,” said the sheriff. “I won't have the reputation of a yellow dog in the county. You and Taxi open the jail like an old tin can; and now Gregor gets hold of keys somehow and simply unlocks three doors and walks out while I'm forward in my office. Gregor, and there was another gent with him — the gent that had horses waiting. It's bad business for me, Jim!”

Silver nodded. Naylor, staring cautiously up into the face of the sheriff, wondered at the man. A few days ago he had been as straight and as honest as any man in the mountains. For his straightness and his courage he had been proverbial. Well, he was a bought man now — and he looked ten years older. He was bought, and Barry Christian's money had turned the trick.

“Every man has a price,” Christian had said — every man except Jim Silver. But that was not true, either. Silver had been bought and paid for on this night. A mistaken kindness and sentiment had undone his good intentions and made him harbor a pair of rascals.

The men of Crow's Nest seemed to forget about the man hunt that they had been engaged in.

A big fellow said: “Hey, Jim Silver; dog-gone me but it does me good to see you ag'in.”

“Thanks, Harry,” said Silver.

“But Gregor and the other are gone. We sure seen ‘em get onto the island, all right. Seen anything of ‘em, Jim?”

Silver said nothing. Another man cried, on the heel of the words of Harry:

“If he'd seen ‘em, wouldn't he ‘a' grabbed ‘em? If he'd seen Gregor living, we'd be looking at Gregor dead right now. Ain't you got any sense, Harry?”

“We'll have to scatter out, boys,” said the sheriff. “We'll have to get across on the far side of the island. The current's a lot shallower and weaker there. We can manage it, all right.”

“I'm wet enough for one night,” said Harry, leading one half of the sentiment with his loud voice. “Hey, Jim, what's brought you back again to Crow's Nest?”

“I'm not in Crow's Nest, Harry,” said Silver in his deep and quiet voice.

“Aye, but ain't you on your way? Tell us, Silver — you aint' on your way to a wedding, are you?”

There was no answer from Silver. One of the other men said:

“Shut up, Harry. Don't be such a loud mouth!”

Others grinned. Their grins were brief. It seemed that the respect in which they held Silver would not permit them to do otherwise than stare at the man with a consuming awe.

They began to divide into two parties. Half were returning to Crow's Nest. Others would push on behind the sheriff, who was reminding them that the two fugitives were not mounted. If there were any luck, the pair would be picked up before the night ended. At any rate, there was no use in wasting time on this spot, since the island already had been searched.

“Are you coming on with us, Jim?” asked one.

“I'm staying here — for a while,” said Jim Silver.

Then the two parties separated, a few not too cheerful insults being hurled by the resolute followers of the sheriff after the heads of the weaker members who were returning home to warm beds.

The sheriff shook hands with Silver in farewell.

He said in a quiet voice: “Remember, Jim, we want you in Crow's Nest. We're not the only town that wants you, but no other town owes you so much. There's no other crowd that you can count on so much, eh?”

“Thanks,” said Silver. “You look sick, sheriff.”

“Do I?” said the sheriff in a startled voice.

“You look as though you'd gotten up from a sick bed.”

“I'm all right,” said the sheriff. “Right as a trivet.”

“And the boy?” said Silver.

“Why,” murmured the sheriff, “he ain't so good.”

“I heard that he needed a change of air,” said Silver. “I got word about it, and, as a matter of fact, Williams, I remembered that I have a good bit of cash that's not working, and I wondered if you'd let me help you out with the boy.”

“You?” said the sheriff in a groaning voice. “You help me out, Jim?”

And he turned suddenly and fled as if wild wolves were after him. But Naylor understood. If the sheriff had waited one more day, he would have had honest money instead of a bribe to use.

Perhaps on that night, thought Naylor, the great event was not the freeing of Gregor or the great-hearted kindness of Jim Silver; it was the personal tragedy of the sheriff who had sold himself at the very moment when honest help was coming toward him.

It was a very queer thing. The queerest of all was that Naylor did not feel like laughing about it!

A
S THE
men of Crow's Nest scattered, Silver began to pace up and down beside the fire, careless of whether or not the rain came rattling down on his head and shoulders. After a time, when not a voice could be heard out of the distance, he said:

“Come out, boys.”

They came out into the firelight.

“You made a flock of fools of ‘em,” cried Duff Gregor. “That was the slickest that I ever seen, Jim! That was a beauty! Kind of too bad that they ain't ever goin' to know what a lot of fools you made of ‘em!”

Silver looked straight and hard at him.

“Perhaps they will know, one day,” said Silver. “Perhaps they'll know when you're caught up again, Gregor.”

“Me? The gang that ever catches me is goin' to have nothing but dead meat to handle, lemme tell you!” answered Duff Gregor, striking one hand into the palm of the other.

Silver looked steadily at him and said nothing. Bill Naylor, a little shamed by this desperate boast of Gregor, bit his lip and stared at the fire.

“It was the best job,” said Gregor, “that I ever seen, and it saved my hide. Here's my hand, Silver.”

Silver looked down at the proffered hand and shook his head. Gradually the smile of Gregor froze, and his hand fell away. It seemed to Naylor one of the most terrible things that he had ever seen.

Silver said, more gently than ever: “We'd better not shake hands, Gregor. There are too many things that we don't know about one another. Maybe I'm doing the worst thing of my life in letting you go. But Bill Naylor has done a job that I wouldn't want to spoil.”

The shudder caused by that speech was still working up and down the spine of Bill Naylor long after they were off the island, long after they had forded the narrower arm of the Kendal River and had floundered such miles through wind and mud that their clothes were beginning to grow dry on their tired bodies. He felt that he would far rather have had heavy leaden slugs tearing through his body than to have listened to the speech of Jim Silver.

But all that Duff Gregor did about it at the time was to fall silent. And all that he did about it now was to curse Jim Silver and all of his kind.

Naylor stopped him suddenly by halting in a lull of the storm and saying:

“Well, except for the way Jim Silver acted, the pair of us would be on the way back to jail — or dead — by now.”

Gregor had to consider this remark for a time before he ventured: “Look here, Bill. You beginning to think that Silver's the right kind of a gent?”

Naylor could not answer this. For if Silver was “the right kind of a gent,” then the entire life of Naylor was thrown away. No, Silver could not be “the right kind of a gent.” It was Barry Christian who must serve as the ideal.

They followed the course which Christian had prescribed for them if they did not meet on the island. He had told Bill Naylor to keep on a certain trail until he reached the remains of an old ranch. The ranch house itself was gone to ruin, and the sheds were sinking in corruption; but there remained the huge barn that had once housed hundreds of tons of wild hay against the winter season of scarcity. It was far into the night when at last those weary travelers saw the roof and the shoulders of the barn break across the smoothly running lines of the hills. Big Duff Gregor had been cursing the journey long before they reached this goal.

As the barn arose, huge and black, close to them, Bill Naylor whistled the signal which had been agreed upon. A moment later the whistle of Barry Christian gave answer, and Naylor could have groaned with relief.

As they came up they saw the vague outlines of Christian standing beside the big sliding door that closed one end of the barn. His voice gave them greeting:

“Hello, Gregor. Well done, Bill!”

He shook hands with Gregor, who exclaimed:

“They gave us hell! We needed faster horses than that pair.”

“You should have pulled out without being seen,” answered Christian.

“It was bad luck that gave ‘em a glimpse of me,” said Gregor, “and after that the whole town came on the run after us. They came like so many devils.”

“They thought they were running
after
two devils,” said Christian. “You two are fagged. Well, we can spend the rest of the night here — until the gray of the morning. By that time we ought to get away into the hills. Come in here and you can turn in.”

He showed the way into the barn. There were still heaps of the old hay on the floor, and behind a partition in a corner of the big building, Gregor and Naylor simply burrowed into the hay and prepared to close their eyes.

Christian sat down on his heels near by and talked to them for a moment. He had his horse hobbled out at a little distance from the barn, he said. One of them could ride it when they started the march in the morning; for his part, he would be glad enough to stretch his legs, walking. They would not have to go far into the hills before they would come to places where they could buy good horses. Because this was a district where the old days of Barry Christian were remembered, and where men would be glad to see them return — days when big amounts of ready cash could be secured in reward for very small acts of service done to the great outlaw or to his men.

“I showed myself to one man,” said Christian. “He thought I was a ghost come to haunt him, at first; but afterward he seemed to be glad that I was around. We are going to start something in this same neck of the woods. I‘m going to line the pockets of you fellows with gold!”

Gregor groaned with relief and comfort as the hay pressed close to him the warmth of his own body.

“We been through a lot to-night,” he said. “We'll talk about the next job in the morning. You know what we've been through? We've been through Jim Silver.”

The silence of Barry Christian was a throbbing thing that Naylor felt through the darkness. Then his voice, strangely flat, said:

“Silver again?”

“Silver again,” said Gregor, and told the story in some detail. He ended by cursing Silver for not being willing to shake hands. But Christian began to laugh. There was a snarl in his laughter.

“That's his weak side. That's where he's a fool,” said Christian. “One of these days I‘ll work on that weak side of his and get him down. I begin to know how to handle him. Make an appeal of a certain sort to him and he can't resist it. Here's Bill Naylor, half his life in prison, and on the way to join me; but Jim Silver lets the pair of you go because he takes it for granted that Bill has been a hero and helped you out because he's your best friend. The poor fool! He doesn't realize that my money walked Bill out of the town. Why, it makes me laugh!

“And Silver hears that the honest sheriff has a sick child, and he comes all the way back to Crow's Nest to lend him money, eh? Well, the honest sheriff has money of a different sort, right now — and he's going to repay it with his blood. I‘m not through bleeding him. But what pleases me is the fact that Jim Silver can be bamboozled like this. That's why I laugh. And that's why I'm going to have him down one of these days. No fool can stand up against me and keep on winning!”

There was truth in that remark, and Bill Naylor felt it. No mere fool could stand up against Barry Christian. Not even if he had all the skill, strength, and courage in the world. He could not succeed against Christian so long as he showed a really weak side, and that was what Silver was indicating. He was too corrupted by belief in the natural goodness of human nature. He could trust, actually, to a rogue like Bill Naylor, jailbird.

And yet perhaps there was something in the heart of Bill Naylor that had been touched more deeply than he himself knew. He closed his eyes and found himself picturing again the scene by the camp fire among the trees, and the formidable shape of Silver, glistening in the wet slicker. He could remember every tone of the man's voice. He could remember what Silver had said about friendship as the most sacred thing in the world.

Perhaps it was.

Naylor, opening his eyes suddenly, stared up at the blank and whirling darkness. Suppose, he thought, that the friendship of such a man as Jim Silver should come to him? What would he, Naylor, be willing to do for the sake of it when he had been willing to do so much even to be esteemed a man by Barry Christian, who always sneered at such ideas as those of friendship?

According to Christian, the mainspring of our actions is the desire for profit, and he had built up his formidable gangs in the trust that he, Christian, was more profitable to them than any other man could be. But still there was something working in the heart of Naylor.

Then, with a great, screeching voice, the sliding door at the end of the barn was thrust open. Men entered, and wide waves of lantern light washed through the blackness of the interior!