The Slickers (7 page)

Ahead was a shallow gully, scarcely more than a shadow against the bluish white carpet. Bill Lacy saw it, but misjudged its depth. He went through the brittle willows at its edge expecting to cross the obstruction in a short leap. But the snow was crusted and an oxford went through. Bill tripped and sprawled through space. His head was down when he struck the soft bottom, but that didn't save his ankle, and when he tried to struggle to his feet he found that he couldn't stand. With a grunt he sank down and shut off his light. It was impossible to go far on a twisted ankle.

Through the whisper of sleet and the low sigh of the wind he tried to catch the sound of the running ape. He knew that the warning would do him little good for he was a helpless prisoner, trapped by a damaged foot. He would have to lie there and wait for death to overtake him. Bill Lacy had never felt so all alone.

A shadow came and stood on the rim of the gully, looking down. A shadow which was five feet tall and whose arms reached down to the snow-packed ground. The orangutan stood still for several seconds.

Under that scrutiny, something in Bill Lacy snapped. He tried to struggle up to his feet, but the ankle wobbled and let him down again. Sick with apprehension, he did not even feel the pain of his effort. Helplessly he lay back and threw his arms across his face.

The ape was struggling down through the willows and the snow was crunching harshly under his heavy weight. Bill heard it, but couldn't bring himself to look up. In an instant those arms would go around his neck, he'd feel bristly hair against his face and that would be the end of the world for him.

Sniffing filled the night about him. He caught the strong smell of the ape as it circled him. Occasionally he could feel the brush of an arm against his rigid body. Time was standing still. Once or twice, Bill attempted to cry out, but the effort caught in his tight throat. No use of that. It would merely enrage the brute.

And then a low sigh came to him. Something was trying to lift a corner of his tight-buttoned overcoat. A great, shaggy body was pressing against him—gently.

Bill Lacy was incredulous that he was still alive. Cautiously he stretched out a wet hand and felt of Joe's matted shoulder. And Joe reached up with a long, black hand and pulled Bill's arm around him.

Reaction caused the newspaperman's chest to heave in silent laughter. No sound passed his lips, for he was still too taut for that. Instead he lay there in the silence of the whispering sleet and shook with racking chuckles. It was not for some minutes that he found his own voice.

“What's the matter, Joe?” asked Lacy. “Did you get cold?”

For answer Joe pressed tight against him and tried once more to crawl under Bill's overcoat. He grunted a great ape grunt.

So that was it. Joe had smelled him downwind and had given pursuit in the hope his friend could do something for him. And after all, why not? Bill had found
durian
nuts for Joe to eat and Bill had been the only one who saw something besides a curiosity beneath Joe's shaggy hide.

Bill touched Joe's mouth and then turned the flashlight on his fingers. He saw the reddish foam clustering there, but no alarm was in it now. He examined Joe's lips and found that several cuts were in prominence.

“Got hacked up, somehow, didn't you, old boy? I wonder …” But whatever Lacy wondered about was suddenly silenced by a pain which shot up his leg.

The newspaperman unbuttoned his overcoat, though that meant exposing his own chest to the sleet, and passed a corner of it around the orangutan's shoulders. And then, using Joe as a handhold, Bill managed to get up.

Painfully, he pulled off the offending shoe and inspected his chilled ankle. He moved it back and forth and discovered to his vast relief that it was only a slight sprain. He took his silk scarf and wound it tightly about the joint, giving it a measure of support.

Joe pressed close against him and watched intently, and then Joe inspected his own feet. The gesture made Bill smile until he remembered that Joe's feet were bare and that snow is a cold thing.

Forgetting his own ailments, Bill Lacy took a great handful of flakes and began rubbing Joe's cold right foot. Joe chattered at him and tried to push the white stuff away, giving the newspaperman looks which held great, but mock, rage. And Bill, rubbed on until he thought the circulation had been restored. After that he gave Joe's other foot a like treatment.

Bill shucked off his overcoat and then his suit coat, utterly disregarding the fact that the night was bitter. He took the suit coat and made Joe put it on. It was not a new coat, and even if it was, he couldn't have Joe catching pneumonia and dying on him. Back in his car there was a pint flask of whiskey. He'd make Joe take on some of that.

At the thought of his own coupe, Bill remembered that O'Connor and Morris, and perhaps Hartman would soon be on the spot if they weren't already. And if they were, Joe would be shot down on sight. Bill didn't want that to happen. If Joe had choked a man to death it had probably occurred through ample provocation, and apes didn't have any knowledge of the law codes. Besides, Joe was entitled to some sort of a trial.

Bill decided to let the problem of getting Joe back to town intact take care of itself. He bent his efforts to making Joe as weatherproof as possible. With this in mind, Bill put his spare oxford on Joe's right foot, and Joe didn't seem to mind. Evidently that little girl down in
Oleleh
, Sumatra, had often indulged in the sport of dressing her pet orangutan. Around the left foot Bill wrapped his silk handkerchief.

Joe gave him an occasional questioning glance out of his great brown eyes, but it was evident that anything Bill wanted to do was all right with Joe. The ape's face looked incredibly old and incredibly wise, and his red hair, standing straight up above his black face, made Bill think of an ancient Irishman. All Joe needed was a pipe and a
“begorrah”
between his teeth.

And then they were ready to travel. Bill placed an arm across the ape's shoulders and made Joe understand that he had to walk toward the road, and by making Joe bear all the weight which rightfully belonged to Bill's right foot, they made fairly rapid progress.

They had gone perhaps three hundred yards through the filtering sleet when Bill heard the muffled sound of a shot.

“The cops,” said Bill. “Shooting at shadows and scared to death.”

That meant that they would have to reach the road below the position of the body, cross it and come upon the coupe from the other side. Bill didn't quite know what he meant to do, but he did know that he wouldn't let Joe be shot down in cold blood. Even if Joe had killed a man there must have been ample provocation. Bill told himself that over and over, and Joe, lurching steadily along with an amiable grunt here and there, hardly put him in mind of a murderer. Besides, Bill Lacy had an idea about this thing.

Bill placed no blame on the orangutan for the sprained ankle, for it was not like Bill to blame animals for things they couldn't help. Instead, Bill thanked the night that he had Joe there to help him back to his car. Otherwise he would have had to crawl.

An occasional shot sounded in the trees but none of them were even close. Bill surmised—and rightly—that nobody would think to follow Joe's trail. That trail would be covered by drifting snow and countless other prints by this time. The woods were swarming with police who carried their revolvers at full cock.

At last they came to the road and felt the concrete under the rutty snow. No police had come down this far, and evidently no searching parties were at work on the other side. In a moment they had entered the woods and were again out of sight.

The wind was coming down the road to them and now Joe stopped in a listening attitude. His great nostrils quivered and his sniffs were gruff.

“What's up?” asked Bill.

But Joe merely sniffed again and then started on in the direction Bill wanted to go. Occasionally, Joe sent a slit-eyed glance toward the source of the man odor.

As they approached their destination, Bill swore at himself for placing the car so close to the obvious headquarters of the police. If they spotted Joe, they'd shoot in spite of anything he could do. And Bill didn't want Joe to die.

The newspaperman made Joe slow down and Joe seemed to sense some of the alarm which beat in Bill's heart. The ape stopped now and then to test the wind and for him it seemed to carry great warning.

Lights flickered ahead of them through the trees, making the gaunt branches stand out spectrally against the white. Bill could see his coupe and sighed when he ascertained that no one stood within a hundred feet of it. If they walked silently, he could smuggle Joe into the car without being seen.

Scraps of conversation were coming to them, but they had no meaning for Bill. One thing at a time. Together the pair crept in closer to the coupe.

At last Bill steered the ape into the covering shelter of the car and stopped for a moment, listening. Joe's great nostrils quivered and his jaws flecked out bits of foam.

Bill opened the coupe door and made Joe climb in. Joe hoisted himself up on the seat, and then with an intelligence which was startling, hunched himself down out of sight.

“That's a good boy,” whispered Bill.

The pint was in the side pocket where it had lain for such emergencies and Bill brought it out and took a small swallow. Joe watched him and reached for it. Debating for a brief moment the wisdom of giving the ape strong drink, Bill decided that drunkenness was preferable to pneumonia and handed the bottle over.

Whatever Joe had expected the bottle to contain, he made no objections now. He took a large swallow and coughed. With great care he handed the bottle back to his friend.

“Stay right there,” whispered Bill. “I'll be back.”

And then Bill Lacy took a notch on his nerve and forced himself to walk into the crowd. O'Connor saw him, gaped and then snatched at his arm. “Okay, wise guy. Now who's holding aces?”

“Hands off,” said Bill. “If I'm wrong you can arrest me and if I'm right I'm free. You got to give me a chance. I can't get away now.”

Doubtfully, O'Connor scowled at him. “You know something? You know where that damned ape is?”

“Maybe,” said Bill. And he sat down on the running board of a police car to ease his ankle while Morris stood guard over him.

The coroner was there with two others of his staff, and police were in great evidence. Three
newshawks
, one of Bill's
Star,
stood around staring into the shadows in case the ape showed up. In the headlights their breath was like cigarette smoke.

And then Bill Lacy saw Hartman, president of Para Rubber. Hartman was not beating his arms or stamping his feet. He was gazing into the woods with fear-widened eyes.

“Hello, Hartman,” said Bill and saw Hartman jump. “I wouldn't be afraid of Joe if I were you. I don't think he'd hurt anybody.”

Hartman looked at the still corpse and laughed harshly. “No? I suppose he was playing with this poor devil.”

O'Connor, glaring at Bill, snapped, “Keep out of this, jailbird. You can't save your own neck by fogging this up!”

“Maybe I know something,” said Bill.

O'Connor looked doubtful again.

Bill pointed to the dead man. “Who is he?”

The coroner answered that through lips which were ice blue. “No identification. Even has the clothes marks ripped out of his coat.”

“I suppose Joe did that,” said Bill, his face very straight.

The coroner made a rough sound in his throat. “This isn't any time for joking, Lacy. I'm about scared out of my skin waiting for that brute to show up.”

“You needn't be,” replied O'Connor. “He'll be dead before he gets back here.”

The coroner looked over his shoulder and the gesture caused Hartman to look over his.

“I think I'll go back to town,” said Hartman. “There ain't no use staying around here. That thing …”

“It's your gorilla, isn't it?” snapped O'Connor.

Hartman closed his thin mouth and looked about him nervously.

“I think,” said Bill Lacy, “that I'll look over the corpse. Any objections?”

“No,” said the coroner. “We've finished with it.”

“Any fingerprints?” asked Bill.

The fingerprint expert snorted. “Who in hell expects a gorilla to have fingerprints!”

“It isn't a gorilla,” replied Bill. “It's an orangutan.”

“What's the difference?” snapped the coroner. “If you want to look over the stiff, go ahead.”

Bill dragged himself across the intervening ten feet and sat down in the snow beside the blue dead man. Hartman watched him narrowly.

“I think I'll go,” said Hartman. “I'm getting cold as hell.”

“Stick around,” remarked Bill. “The cops will have Joe in no time at all.” And then he bent over the dead man and turned the head.

Bill Lacy's cold fingers worked at the coat and finally opened it up. He reached inside and found the label over the inner breast pocket torn out. From there he went on through the garment with careful thoroughness. But he found nothing.

“Where's his hat?” asked Bill.

The coroner tossed him the article in question. “What's eating you, Lacy?”

Bill said nothing. His entire concentration was given to the sweatband. His chilled fingers went around under it and turned it inside out. He placed his flashlight close against it and then grunted.

“Find anything?” asked O'Connor.

For answer the newspaperman held up the sweatband, but he did not offer to release it. “Initials in here,” he said. “G.H.G. Mean anything to you?”

“No,” said O'Connor. “Where are they?”

“G.H.G. means George Henry Greyson,” continued Bill. “This corpse here is Greyson.”