The Mesa Trail Part 21

He had not opened the suitcase; ever since finding it, he had been on the go. Besides, the suitcase was locked, and Thady hesitated to smash it open.

"Likely it was bounced off some ranch car or buckboard," deduced Ross.

"Belong to that dead Injun? No chance. None whatever! You never seen an Injun with one o' them things, and anyhow, no Injun riding hossback would tote a suitcase along. No, none whatever! And that grip wasn't made to tie on a saddle, neither. Reckon you'd better look inside, and if there ain't any indication of the owner, then read the papers for an ad. Well, what ye going to do? Will ye come back to the ranch with me?"

Thady Shea did not know what he wanted to do. He wondered if he had fulfilled his extremely vague ideas of wandering and making good in the world. In a sense, he had done so. He realized it now, just as he realized that it is very difficult to view one's own immediate self and environment with any degree of cool detachment.

As to Mackintavers, as to any peril which he himself might bring upon Mrs. Crump, Thady Shea had long since abandoned that nebulous idea. He had met Mackintavers, and feared him no longer. Of Dorales he did not think particularly.

He had no great desire to return to the Ross ranch. Try as he would, he could see no purpose ahead of him save in the one place-Number Sixteen.

All that held him back was that strange feeling in his soul, a feeling that had been there twenty years and more; a feeling as though something were knotted somewhere about his soul, stifling him. What use to return to Mrs. Crump? Still, there was the only purpose he could see.

He had conquered the old enemy; of this he felt certain. Temptations would come, of course. Temptations were bound to come; they came at odd intervals; they came here in this hotel dining room, where he could catch some vagrant odour of whiskey from an indefinable source. Yet they would not overcome him anew, he was confident.

"I think," he said, slowly, staring at the tablecloth, "I think I'd better head for Mrs. Crump's mine, Ross."

There was that in his voice which admitted of no argument. Ross shoved back his chair.

"Well, wait a minute, will you? I want to speak to Bill Murray. Order me some o' that pie and another cup o' coffee, Shea."

Fred Ross opened the dining-room doors, which had been closed, and departed to the lobby of the hotel. He found genial Bill Murray just turning from the telephone, and wearing a look of puzzled excitement.

"Get the ranch?" asked Ross. The other nodded and glanced around cautiously.

"Yes. Talked to Old Man Durfee-he's manager for Sandy. He said that Sandy and Abel Dorales had just left for Magdalena; he admitted there had been a robbery but would say nothing except that it didn't amount to much. Injun relics, he said."

"Huh!" Fred Ross gazed at his friend, narrow-eyed. "I bet if it was Injun relics, it was some partic'lar kind, then. That sounds d.a.m.n'

fishy, Bill."

"Sure does, but she'll make a grand little story, played up. This here Shea just came from there, didn't he? And everybody knows about him and Dorales and the bad blood."

The two men looked at each other, surmise in their eyes. Ross thoughtfully rubbed his chin, remembering about that battered little suitcase on the hat rack. He did not entirely believe the tale told by Thady Shea, the tale about finding it in the road. That was too improbable, unless the dead Indian had been carrying the suitcase-which seemed, likewise, very improbable.

"I shouldn't wonder, now," said Ross, musingly. "Shea, he's the calm, h.e.l.l-nervy sort, he sure is. Likely Dorales or old Sandy tried to run a blazer on him, and he played merry h.e.l.l with them. Likely they had something he thought belonged to someone else, and he just up and took it. H'm! But the robbery had happened before he got there, he _said_.

Well, if he don't want to tell all he knows, that's his business. Eh?"

"I coincide," a.s.sented Murray, curtly. Fred Ross briefly told him about the suitcase, in so far as he knew about it.

"Now," pursued Ross, "you and I ain't blamin' him or any other man for gettin' old Mackintavers up on his ear. But Shea, in spite o' the stories goin' around about him, ain't no fighter, Bill. He's a downright honest man, and he's terrible when he gets roused, but I don't guess he could fight for little apples. _And_, he don't know Sandy and Dorales are comin' to town."

"I see," said Murray, thoughtfully. "But he ain't the kind to run away, Fred."

"C'rect. But why should he know anything about Sandy coming? We'd ought to see that he avoids 'em, so to speak. You're goin' west to-night. You got room, ain't you?"

"Oh!" Murray chuckled, admiringly. "So that's the game! Sure, I got room. Where is he goin', though?"

"Near as I got the location o' the mine he's aiming for, it's in the hills above them lava beds, down beyond Zacaton City and No Agua. You're goin' west by the highway, which is north o' there-a long sight north.

But if you were to run a few mile out of your way, you could hit down the Old Fort Tularosa trail, which is an auto road now; you could drop Shea by the Beaver Canon trail, down within thirty mile o' home, more or less. I'll send Sandy and Dorales on to St. Johns after you, savvy?"

For a moment the two men conferred eagerly.

Un.o.bserved by them, meantime, a man had entered the hotel and was standing at the cigar case, at one side of the desk. He was buying cigars. He was roughly dressed, but spoke perfect English. When he turned to the cigar lighter, disclosing his face to view, one could see that he was very swarthy, very dark of colour-an Indian, perhaps.

This man straightened up, puffing at his cigar. His eyes flitted to the little battered suitcase, which reposed on the hat rack, and dwelt there; thus dwelling, his eyes narrowed slightly. He turned and left the hotel.

"Who? Him?" said the hotel proprietor in response to a question from a man near by. "Why, he's Thomas Twofork; yep, an Injun, from Cochiti pueblo, I hear. Been in town two-three days now. Got money, they say, heaps of it."

Ignorant of what had transpired in the lobby, Thady Shea was glad when his companions rejoined him and sat down to their interrupted repast.

Fred Ross broached the subject of departure; he broached it with elaborate carelessness.

"Bill is headin' for home right away," he said, "and he goes within thirty mile, more or less, of where your mine's located, Shea. If you figger on walking, that would be a good lift. If you go back with me to-morrow, you won't get near so nigh home."

"Oh!" Thady Shea saw no guile; he looked gratefully surprised, and felt it. He had antic.i.p.ated a long trip via Zacaton City. That route would be attended with dangers from Dorales or the latter's men, besides having the expense of a car to take him to Number Sixteen.

"Oh! I'd be glad indeed-but do you have to leave to-night?"

"You bet," said Murray, emphatically. "The minute I get this here pie down. I got the ol' car all ready to hike, and I'm goin' to hike some. I aim to get home about sun-up, sleep two-three hours, then get to work on the paper. She's got to be run off to-morrow night, see? And I'd sure be glad o' your company, Shea. It's a lonesome trip at night from here over through Datil Canon and all."

Surely, thought Shea, here was fate aiding him! Barely had he resolved to seek Mrs. Crump and the mine, than this opportunity offered. A walk of a few miles did not worry him in the least.

"Thank you, Murray," he rejoined. "I'll go, with pleasure."

Ten minutes later, the three men left the hotel, walked up to the corner, and turned in to the garage behind the trading store. Bill Murray paid his debts to the proprietor and sought his own car.

"Well, Ross, I'll say good-bye for a while, at least." Shea turned and shook hands with his friend. "I'll see you again, that's sure. Oh-by the way, hadn't we better open that suitcase? I forgot about it. Let's get it broken open here, and--"

Ross interposed a hasty negation. He wanted only to get Shea safely out of town before Mackintavers and Dorales should arrive.

"No, don't get Murray nervous, hangin' around here, Shea. He's dead anxious to be off, and we better not give him any delay. I'm sure curious about what's in that case, just the same. S'pose you drop me a line when you find out, and give my regards to Mis' Crump! Maybe I'll drift over your way some time; if not, you know where to find me."

"You bet," a.s.sented Thady Shea, warmly.

Murray motioned Thady Shea into the front seat, and took the battered little suitcase to shove it into the rear of the car. An e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n almost escaped his lips as he felt its weight. It was heavy, tremendously heavy!

"Ore, likely," he muttered. "I bet he don't walk thirty mile with _that_!"

Thady Shea and Fred Ross parted with a last handshake. Each of them had probed deep into the other man; each of them had found the other strangely dissimilar, yet strangely attuned in spirit to himself; each of them had found the other to be a man. Their handshake was firm and quick and strong.

Ross cranked the car. Bill Murray backed her from the garage, roared a last farewell, and headed out into the west and the night.

Fred Ross went back to the hotel after calling upon certain friends of his; for Ross had a fairly good idea of what was coming next. His theories were not altogether correct, but they attained pretty correct results.

So, after a short time, Fred Ross returned to the hotel and sat down in the lobby, just under the big map of New Mexico that hung upon the south wall. Immediately around him the comfortable oak rocking-chairs were vacant; but to right and left, three chairs away, sat red-faced men who read newspapers-two on either hand. These four men displayed an ostentatious lack of interest in each other and in Fred Ross. Over that section of the lobby hung an ill-defined air of crisis, of expectation, of foreboding.

Over opposite, in a corner of the big front window, sat a man, a stranger to Fred Ross. This man had come into town on the late afternoon train. He was palpably a city man, palpably not of this part of the country; he had registered at the desk as James Z. Premble of New York.

Speculating idly as he waited, Fred Ross set him down as a high-cla.s.s drummer.

Thus waited the six men, as though they were awaiting some event about to happen: Ross, seated under the big wall map; the four red-faced men who read newspapers with marked absorption; and, in the corner of the window, James Z. Premble of New York.

Suddenly and abruptly it happened. It happened just as Fred Ross had antic.i.p.ated. The hotel door opened and into the lobby walked Sandy Mackintavers with Abel Dorales at his elbow. They had been to the livery stable, they had been to one place and another, and they had soon learned that Thady Shea, easily noted and remembered by all who saw him, had been in the company of Ross and Murray. Both Ross and Murray were known to Mackintavers and his field marshal.