Play a Lone Hand (15 page)

Giff nodded. “So that's around town by now?”

“Is it true that the paper you advertised for will put Sebree, Deyo and Kearie in jail?”

Giff said it was.

Cass thought about that a moment. “You'll never get it now, you know. Sebree will have a man watching in the hotel lobby. A man would be signing his death warrant to ask for Welling.”

“I know,” Giff said glumly.

Cass removed the straw from his mouth and looked at it, speculatively, “How did you ever get that reward notice in the
Free Press
to begin with?”

“Mary Kincheon.”

Cass looked sidelong at him, “Think you could do it again?”

Giff didn't know. Mary had never mentioned any trouble between Kearie and herself over the placing of the notice; and thinking of it now, he considered it strange that she hadn't. Had Kearie, once the harm was done, accepted it philosophically as an employee's mistake and never mentioned the matter to her? Giff did not, however, know what Cass was driving at and he said, “Suppose I could?”

“Well, if a man had a copy of that paper you wanted, he could write and tell you so, and you could come and get it. Sebree would never know he'd written.”

Giff considered this a brief moment, liking it. If the invitation to write Welling were published, it would cancel the implicit threat to anyone helping him, he knew. He said, “It might work, Cass. We'll try it.”

They talked then about other things as the town came to life around them. A barefoot boy drove a cow, her heavy udders swinging, past them to the morning milking. An occasional merchant or clerk, enjoying the cool of this morning hour and the sight of Cass's planting, passed them, giving Cass good morning.

Presently Giff rose and Cass hauled himself to his feet and together they walked back to the livery. Giff parted with him there and headed for the
Free Press
office.

He found himself liking the prospect of seeing Mary again; and he wondered, in view of what had passed between them yesterday, if she would be the same. The front office of the
Free Press
was empty, and from the rear came the same soft chunking of metal upon metal that he had heard on his first visit. Walking back, he halted by the type stand.

Mary, seated on the stool, had heard him enter and was waiting to identify her visitor. He saw the small start of pleasure in her eyes as she recognized him.

“What'll it be, flowers or horses?” she asked, putting down the stick of type in her hand.

Giff remembered their parting yesterday and he touched his hat and gave her a spare smile. “Can we put that off?”

“So, it's business again.”

Giff didn't answer. He looked around the shop and said, “I thought Kearie promised you a new printer.”

“He's on order. But you know printers—they are a little brighter than your boss, but they are just as thirsty. I ought to know; my father was one.” She wiped her ink-stained hands on the front of her heavy apron and then came around the stand and walked to her desk saying, “This new one is probably drinking up his pay in a Vegas saloon. He'll be along.”

This was the first clue Giff had to her past and as he followed her across the office, he asked curiously, “Did your father run a newspaper?”

Mary sat down, and she grimaced wryly, “Yes, he ran them and from them. From Indiana to California and back here. I learned to set type because I had to if we were to eat. Sometimes we didn't”

“He owned the
Free Press?
”

Mary nodded. “Years ago. He took it over for five months' back pay. And it was his big chance.” She shrugged. “He missed it.”

“Booze?” Giff asked.

Mary nodded. “It was that finally, but not to begin with. When he first took it over, it meant a great deal to him. He'd been printing other men's opinions for so long that he almost forgot he had any himself. When he first took over, he remembered those opinions and spoke up—for a while.”

“What changed his mind?”

Mary looked searchingly at him. “Grady Sebree.”

Giff's interest quickened. Perhaps she would tell him now the real reason for hating Sebree. He said nothing, waiting for her to go on.

“Oh, it's not what you think,” she said quietly. “Grady never threatened him or even told him he didn't like what Dad printed. He shut him up another way.”

Giff watched her in puzzlement.

“Dad started out by sticking up for the homesteader, and the little rancher. Sebree never whined when Dad hit him in print. As a matter-of-fact, he would come in and talk it over. He flattered Dad by asking his advice.”

“On what things?”

Mary shrugged. “Oh, nothing important. Did Dad think it was time to ship, or should Torreon wait? Who did Dad think would make a good Sheriff? Did Dad like the government policy toward the Indians? It was just anything—but Dad was flattered.”

She paused and Giff waited, and presently Mary went on, her voice bitter. “Pretty soon, Dad got to talking like Sebree. He copied his opinions after Sebree. He forgot the ordinary man, and started beating a drum for the big cattle interests. He wasn't his own man any more. Sebree's flattery and friendship had corrupted him. He borrowed money from Sebree, who was glad to lend it to him. No bribes were ever paid and no threats were made, but he wound up a fawning tool of Sebree's.” She looked at him. “Do you see how that could happen to a weak man?”

Giff nodded.

“He began to drink in earnest, once he realized he'd been neutralized and put on Sebree's shelf. It killed him, finally. I sold the paper to Kearie to pay off the money Dad had borrowed.”

“And then stayed on to work for him?”

Mary shrugged. “It was the easiest thing to do.” She gave a short laugh. “The easiest thing to do,” she repeated. “I guess I am my father's daughter!” She looked up at him almost soberly as if this talk were not pleasant, “Is this instead of horses or flowers?”

Giff put a leg up on the desk, looked down at her and nodded. “It's a subject I like better.”

Mary looked pleased. “Then trade with me,” she said. “All I know about you is that Dr. Miller pried a pound of buckshot out of your front.”

Giff scowled, although he was not aware of it, and a look of uneasiness came into his dark face. “Well, I can't ever remember not being around cattle. I grew up North-South, from Texas to Montana. It doesn't matter where, because they were all alike.”

Mary said, “I'll bet you were in school more than I was.”

“I learned the alphabet from directions on a baking powder can,” Giff challenged.

“There are worse teachers,” Mary said. “For one, a sheriff's summons.”

They both smiled at this and were both silent a moment, as if this sharing of their hard childhood years opened a new and friendly intimacy between them.

Mary asked suddenly, “Where do you go when this is finished?”

“I haven't thought,” Giff answered slowly, almost reluctantly.

“Don't you want something of your own, something besides a horse?”

Giff nodded, “I have for a long time, but you don't start a herd on trail driver's wages. You can get awfully hungry just watching calves grow up.” He realized then that his voice had dropped to a sour roughness; he could see the dislike of it in Mary's eyes and he knew this moment of confession was ended. He was just as glad; he had never meant to get into it anyway.

Sliding off the desk, he reached in his shirt pocket for his sack of tobacco, wondering how to frame his request for another advertisement. He took a long time to fashion his cigarette and before it was finished the door opened and Earl Kearie stepped in. When Giff turned and saw him standing there, his black suit smeared with the chalk dust of a thousand billiard games, his bony, sallow face holding an iron-hard dislike, he knew he had waited too long.
She wouldn't have taken it anyway
, he told himself. but the thought of Kearie's ill-timed entrance rankled.

From beside the door, Kearie demanded, “What are you doing here?”

“Always the businessman,” Mary cut in sardonically to Kearie. “Give him a chance to tell me.”

“I saw him come in ten minutes ago. He hasn't any business with you,” Kearie said flatly. “If this is social, you can save it till later. If it isn't, then the answer is no more reward notices printed. Tell him to get out.”

Giff said softly, “Tell me yourself.”

Kearie came over closer to the desk and halted. “You won't get away with it again, Dixon.” His voice was flat and angry. “We accept nothing from Welling to be printed in this paper. You were lucky to get by with it once. If I'd been here, you wouldn't have.”

“Try being here sometime,” Mary taunted.

Giff asked dryly, “Are you having her watched now?”

“That's right.”

Giff glanced at Mary and then back at Kearie. “Is she obeying your orders?”

A slow smile lifted Kearie's upper lip. Watching Giff, he said, “Mary, I want you to run this notice tomorrow. Have you got a pencil?”

“Is that the notice?” Mary jibed.

Kearie continued as if he had not heard, “This is the notice: Five hundred dollars reward will be paid for the delivery of each and every complete copy of the April seventeenth, 1882, issue of the
San Dimas County Free Press
to the undersigned. Grady Sebree, Torreon Ranch, Corazon, Territory of New Mexico.”

Giff felt a sudden discouragement then. If this offer were printed, it, coupled with Welling's disclosure of yesterday, would end all hope of them getting the April seventeenth copy. Five hundred dollars was a sum the land office could not match in its reward offer. Both fear of Sebree and the amount of money he was offering would insure Torreon's getting any issue of that date that existed. It was a clever move and one that cut the ground from under Welling.

When he looked at Mary, there was a lingering surprise still in her face. He asked, “Are you going to print that?” He did not understand the lingering look Mary gave Kearie then. It held something secret and challenging, as if Kearie's words carried more and different meaning to her than it had to him. Finally she glanced up at him and said tonelessly, “He has to say on that.”

She would have to print it, Giff knew, and for a moment, watching the open malice in Kearie's face, he tasted the bitter flavor of defeat. An offer of five hundred dollars would send every housewife in this corner of the Territory scurrying to the attic to see if she had saved the copy. Prodded by the size of the reward, someone was sure to turn it up—to be delivered into Sebree's hands.

Kearie said then, smugness in his tone, “There's such a thing as being so sharp you cut your own throat. Sebree would never have thought of the reward except for your reward notice.”

Giff didn't answer; he was wondering how to prevent Sebree's reward offer from being published. A few days' grace might mean all the difference in the world to the success of Welling's investigation. Sebree's news would kill it.

Suddenly, he found himself remembering his first meeting with Mary and her derisive description of Kearie and his neglect of his newspaper.
He can't set type
, Giff thought,
and there's no printer. It has to be Mary
.

He looked searchingly at Mary, wondering. No, he couldn't ask her to refuse. She had a living to earn.
But what if I make it impossible for her to set it
. He glanced idly back into the shop, and his glance settled on the type stand.

Then he rammed his hands in his hip pockets, stared at the floor and began to slowly pace the room.

Kearie chuckled. “Thanks for the idea.”

On his slow circle, Giff looked up at him, then away. When his circle reached the rear of the type stand, he acted swiftly. With a savage lunge, he hurled his shoulder against the type stand. The upper case tray tilted over, and then the whole stand rose on its front legs, teetered and crashed into the composing table where the forms were laid out. The falling case took the composing table with it too; there was a mighty crash, and then the thousands of pieces of type from the case and from the forms cascaded onto the floor in one discordant metallic jangle.

He wheeled and saw Kearie, his mouth open, rooted in his tracks. Mary had come to her feet, a look of consternation on her face.

“Can you sort out type, Kearie?” Giff asked quietly.

Kearie found his voice then. “Why you damned idiot! We have a paper to get out! We …” Kearie understood it then; his wrath was controlled as he said, “All you've done is make a night's work for Mary.”

Giff watched Mary as she moved past him and halted beside the shattered case, her stance uneven from the scattered type underfoot. Then she looked up at him and he saw that she too understood the reason for his act. Kearie could not sort out this tangle in a week. Unless Mary labored at it, there would be no paper for days. The choice was squarely up to her. For long seconds she seemed to be considering this and then she regarded Kearie. “Say that again,” she said coldly.

“I said it only meant a night's work for you,” Kearie repeated and there was undisguised threat in his voice. Mary began to laugh then. It started softly and grew into a wild, almost uncontrolled laughter. She moved past Giff to the desk and sat down. Giff listened for a note of hysteria in her laughter and found none; it was a laugh of pure hilarity and he was reassured.

Kearie looked at her as if she had gone mad. He came over to the desk finally and put both bony hands on it and said, “Stop it! Stop it! You hear?”

Mary's laughter slowly ceased, and when she could talk she said to Kearie, “Even if you knew the alphabet, it would be funny, Earl. But the letters will be upside down to you. Even the final proof notices set up in the forms are pied. And they're six-point, so small you'd need a magnifying glass to read them—if you could read.” She began to laugh again, and this time Giff smiled. The deep flush in Kearie's sallow face was a measure of his bafflement and rage. Mary stopped laughing again long enough to say, “It would take me three or four days to sort it out. It'll take you a month. Happy hunting.”