The Lone Ranger and Tonto (14 page)

He moved to the end of the bar nearest the windows, and wiped away an almost imaginary smear from the polished mahogany surface. Then he studied the glass window itself. There appeared to be a flyspeck there that had escaped his previous examination. He devoted his attention to this until he was satisfied. All the while he kept a furtive watch on the figure of the gambler who sat at the table.

Baldy expected a question momentarily. He tried to anticipate the mood that Steve Delaney might be in when he inquired where Jeb Larkspur was that day. He tried to formulate a half dozen replies to the question, each one a plausible excuse for Larkspur's absence from the job. Delaney might be in almost any frame of mind. His face gave no indication of what it might be. If he were expansive and genial, he would think nothing of Jeb's apparent neglect of duty. If he were in one of his surly moods, he might decide to fine the manager of the Royal Flush, or worse, discharge him. Baldy felt loyal to Jeb Larkspur and wanted to protect him from the wrath of the man who had won the Royal Flush in a game of cards a few nights back.

The clock on the wall ticked on, while Baldy waited and tried to keep busy. Still Delaney made no comment. He saw the gambler glance once at his watch, and compare it to the time indicated on the wall clock.
Now
, he thought,
it's comin'
. But still Delaney said nothing. Baldy's uneasiness increased with each passing moment.

Baldy and the Lone Ranger were the only occupants of the Royal Flush. Baldy wished that someone would come in, anyone, for any purpose, to occupy him for a time.

But the place remained deserted.

Baldy himself did not know where Jeb Larkspur was. It was well past the usual time for his appearance, and still there was no sign of him. Jeb was probably still home, sleeping late to make up for the all-night shift. But Baldy wasn't sure of this. A new idea began to gnaw at his brain. Suppose Steve Delaney had met Jeb and fought with him. Suppose there had been a row about the new ownership of the Royal Flush, and suppose that row had resulted in the death of Larkspur. This would account for the fact that Steve Delaney failed to inquire about the former owner of the café. The notion gave Baldy further reason to be uneasy.

Finally, he could stand the uncertainty no longer. Surely, he thought, Steve would have asked about Jeb before this, unless he
knew
why he wasn't on the job.

Baldy reached beneath the bar and brought up a new deck of playing cards. He circled the end of the bar and walked toward Delaney's table. The Lone Ranger paid no attention to the barman. He kept his gaze fastened on the hotel diagonally across the street. He didn't turn, when Baldy placed the cards on the table, and he didn't reply to the barman's query, "Somethin' tuh drink, Mister Delaney?"

Baldy returned to his post and watched the gambler. Delaney was certainly acting strangely today. Never before, in all the time that Baldy had been working there, had he seen Delaney ignore a pack of playing cards. The gambler instinctively would reach for them with one hand, rifle them, fondle them, and manipulate them in his long, lean fingers. But now the cards lay there on the table without being noticed by Steve Delaney. Baldy sighed and scratched his head. This was more than he could understand. Once the right hand of the man at the table reached up and touched the deck of playing cards, but he merely brushed them to one side, then allowed his hand to drop back to its former place, his thumb hooked in the lower pocket of his gaudy vest.

Baldy hung up his towel in disgust. What was the use of trying to appear busy when Delaney wouldn't notice him? He perched himself on a high stool at the end of the bar where he could watch the door and Steve Delaney at the same time. He recalled that Steve had seemed queer all morning. It was unusual to see the gambler deign to speak to an Indian, and yet he had brought an Indian to his favorite table and discussed something at great length with him. Prior to that the gambler had met the Sheriff and the deputies in front of the café and talked at length with them.

There was another thing that Delaney had done that struck Baldy as unusual. He had gone through the entire morning without ordering food. Try as he would, the barman couldn't find any explanation for the gambler's curious actions. It could not be because Ma Prindle had been killed. Steve had been quite himself the previous day. It was not the fact that the prisoner had escaped from the jail. Things of this sort had always been taken by the gambler with a fatalistic attitude. "What," asked Baldy of himself for the hundredth time, "ails Steve this mornin'?"

Then something happened that gave Baldy a change of thoughts. Shots rang out from somewhere in front of the Royal Flush. They were muffled as if fired inside a building, but they were unmistakably shots. Baldy slid from his stool, hurrying to the door of the café. He looked out above the swinging doors, in the direction of the hotel. There was no sign of activity there. He watched, and then saw the front door of the dilapidated structure open and a man run out. Before he could see who the man was, he heard the crisp voice of the gambler calling him. "come here," Delaney said.

Baldy grumbled beneath his breath.
He would have to call me right at this time
, he thought, as he headed toward the table. There had been a resemblance to the Indian, in the man who hurried from the hotel, but Baldy had not had the chance to make sure.

"Yes, sir," he said to Steve Delaney.

"Was that a shot?"

"Sounded like it, sir."

"Where did it come from?"

"I dunno, Mister Delaney."

"Did you see anything across the street?"

"Thought I seen a redskin, that one you was talkin' to a little while ago, runnin' from the hotel."

Steve Delaney nodded slowly. "Where did he go?"

"I didn't git the chance tuh notice, Mister Delaney, you was in a position where you could see a lot better'n I could. Didn't you see nothin' of what happened?"

The man who looked like Delaney didn't reply. He merely gazed steadily at the barman who shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

"Maybe," said Baldy, "I shouldn't have been so curious. Sometimes it ain't good sense to see things that happen just after gunfirin'."

"You're right, Baldy," replied the tall man with the moustache, "sometimes it isn't good judgment to see too much."

"I-I guess," muttered Baldy, "I didn't see nothin' at all."

For another moment he stood there without speaking, and then asked, "Ain't there somethin' I could git fer you, Mister Delaney? I ain't seen you take no grub today. Maybe you'd like some eggs an' bacon, or somethin'."

The other shook his head. "Nothing, thanks."

Baldy felt a sudden inspiration. It came to him with stunning force and he couldn't have told the reason why. He determined to make an attempt to prove the vague suspicion that had suddenly turned into a firmly fixed idea. "Mister Delaney," he said, "I reckon you plumb fergot your usual drink o' salt water this mornin'."

The Lone Ranger looked up quickly. "Salt water," he said.

Baldy nodded. "Sure, Mister Delaney, I forgot it myself in all the excitement of what's been happenin' these past twenty-four hours. I'll git it fixed fer you right away."

"Very well."

Baldy shuffled away while the Lone Ranger watched him.
Salt water
, he thought. He wondered if this was one of the gambler's regular habits. If he refused to take the healthful but unpalatable beverage, it might betray him. At least it would create suspicion in the barman's mind. There were so many little details that he should know and that he did
not
know about Steve Delaney. Habits that had been long established, and that must be adhered to if he were to avert suspicion. He would drink the salt water.

Baldy, on the other hand, had played a trump card with commingled feelings. If this man were really Steve Delaney, he took a long chance when he mentioned salt water as a habit. If it were the imposter, that he suddenly thought it might be, then the salt water ruse would prove the point.

He unscrewed the top of a shaker of salt and dumped some of the white crystals into a glass. He filled the glass with water and stirred slowly. While he waited for the salt to dissolve, he stopped behind the bar and gripped the handle of a .44. He tucked the six-gun in his belt beneath his apron, then picked up the glass and took it to Delaney's table.

He knew that one thing Steve Delaney could not stand was salt. He knew that if the man at the table drank the liquid, it would be conclusive proof that his hunch was right. In that case, he would act.

Baldy was a heavy man, and a patient one. His profession made him slow to anger and far more tactful and diplomatic than the average man. Barmen who were otherwise did not survive long in the land of quick tempers, sudden fights, and violent death.

Baldy rarely had occasion to fight, but he was none the less dangerous because of this. There were times when he had to eject troublesome men from the café; times when his own quick hand on a six-gun was all that averted gunplay in the Royal Flush. Frequently he had had to get the drop on both parties in an argument, remove their firearms from their gunbelts and put them out until they cooled down. So Baldy felt quite confident of his ability to handle the situation he was about to face when he took the salt water solution to the gambler's corner table.

"There you are," he said, without any sign in his voice that he was hanging on the action of the next half minute.

The Lone Ranger nodded and picked up the glass. He knew that salt water was a splendid thing for men who kept irregular hours and thought it quite likely, in fact quite logical, that Delaney might make it a daily routine. He drank the saline solution slowly but emptied the glass before removing it from his lips. As he swallowed the last of the liquid, he could see the figure of Baldy, slightly distorted, through the bottom of the glass. And Baldy's right hand held a heavy gun.

The Lone Ranger lowered the glass without emotion. He saw that the barman's grip on the six-gun was steady and unwavering.

"Sit right where y'are, mister," commanded Baldy, "I dunno who you are, but I do know that you ain't Steve Delaney. I'd as soon shoot you as not, so don't make no fast moves or I'll let daylight through yuh."

"Aren't you taking a pretty big chance?" asked the Lone Ranger. "Do you know what you'll get for drawing a gun on me?"

"I know that Steve Delaney will likely reward me handsome fer findin' you out. Now speak fast, mister, who are yuh?"

The steely eyes of the Lone Ranger studied the bartender carefully. He had known all types of men with guns. He knew that when a man's gunhand trembled he was far more likely to shoot spasmodically than was a man like this bald-headed chap. Baldy was not nervous.

Had Baldy been nervous, the Lone Ranger would have had to risk jerking Steve Delaney's gun from the holster and trying to disarm the other with a well-placed bullet. But Baldy wasn't nervous. The Lone Ranger's own familiar guns were not available and he wasn't confident of his ability to draw and fire the gambler's weapon with such perfect aim that he would hit the barman's gun without killing the barman. He therefore chose to exchange words while he stalled for time in the hope that Tonto would arrive.

He rose to his feet and faced the bartender.

"Git yer hands up," snapped Baldy, jerking his gun slightly to emphasize the command.

The Lone Ranger lifted his hands to shoulder level. "What makes you so sure I'm not Steve Delaney?" he asked in the same voice that Delaney used.

"Yer disguise was pretty slick," the barman said, "an' even yer voice sounds like Delaney, but Delaney don't like salt an' he'd drink coal oil sooner than he would salt water. What's more, now that I see you face to face, I'm more sure than ever you ain't Delaney. His eyes are brown while yore's are gray."

"You're pretty smart," complimented the Lone Ranger.

"I'm smart enough tuh know that you're stallin' fer time an' I ain't goin' tuh let yuh git away with it. Now you talk or I'll let my gun do the talkin'. I seen yuh send the Sheriff away from town an' I seen yuh palaver with a redskin that ran outen the hotel just after some gunplay. I ain't foolin' with yore kind, so
talk fast
!"

The Lone Ranger said, "Let me ask you one question, bartender. Do you think I expected to get away with this disguise indefinitely? If I hadn't figured on you seeing through it, sooner or later, do you suppose I would have waited here where you could study every move I made?"

"I dunno about that," replied Baldy.

"I could have very easily kept away from you," went on the Lone Ranger, "but I didn't want to."

"Maybe you stayed here on account of havin' to meet someone," reasoned Baldy somewhat confused by the calm manner of the tall man who faced him. "Anyhow, I see through the disguise now an' if you wanted me tuh do that same an' call on yuh to do some mighty fast explainin', you sure as thunder got what you wanted. Now tell me who the heck are you?"

The Lone Ranger moved a step forward to approach closer to the man who held the gun. He did this so unobtrusively that the bartender did not notice his advance. "Perhaps," the Lone Ranger said, "if you'll look in the rooms in back, you'll find the explanation you want. Steve Delaney is tied and gagged in there, waiting for you or someone else to find him."

"He is?"

The tall man nodded.

"You march right in there ahead of me then," commanded Baldy, "an' we'll see about Mister Delaney."

"Very well." The Lone Ranger had maneuvered Baldy into such a position that the barman's back was toward the door to the back rooms. In order to proceed to that door in advance of Baldy, the Lone Ranger would have to pass him, and in doing so, he hoped to get within a few feet of the bartender. The bartender in turn would have to revolve on the spot on which he stood to keep the Lone Ranger covered by his weapon.

The Lone Ranger frequently had to gamble his life on split-second action. As he passed the barman, he dropped suddenly to the floor with his knees bent. In the same motion, he lunged sideways, straightening his legs to charge head-on beneath Baldy's heavy gun. Baldy saw the plan too late. In the instant that the Lone Ranger charged, Baldy tried to lower his .44 but he wasn't quick enough. The Lone Ranger hit the barman in the stomach with his shoulder. The six-gun barked and flames brushed the Lone Ranger's cheek. He felt the force of the bullet as it missed him by a scant inch, then both men hit the floor and rolled.