James Beardley Hendryx - Black John of Halfaday Creek (James B. Hendryx) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

“In the meantime,” suggested Black John, his thoughts on the thick roll that Beezely had returned to his pocket after peeling off One-Armed John’s five, “there ain’ nothin’ in the book that says we couldn’t be passin’ away the time with a little stud.”

“Ah, stud—a great game—a great game, indeed!” cried Beezely, with enthusiasm. “By all means let us play. It seems, my friends,” he beamed, “that at last my peripatetic feet have borne me to a safe haven amid congenial surroundings.”

“What did you say ailed ’em?” inquired Cush solicitously.

“Ailed them? Ailed what?”

“Why, yer feet. I’ve got some corn medicine that my third wife had. Yer welcome to try it. Her feet ailed her somethin’ fierce. She claimed it done ’em good.”

“There ain’t nothin’ the matter with Beezely’s feet,” explained Black John. “What he meant was that at last he figgers he’s lit in a spot he likes.”

“Oh,” grunted Cush. “Why in hell didn’t he say so, then? Them big words you eggicated folks uses only leads to the confusal of them that don’t onderstand ’em. Wait till I dig out a deck of cards.”

“Yeah,” said Black John, “an’ you better toss me a sack of dust out of the safe—an’ fetch along one of yer own, too—an’ the chips. This here game is liable to git good. I’ll fetch the bottle an’ glasses so you won’t have to be jumpin’ up all the time servin’ drinks.”

As Cush swung open the door of the old-fashioned iron safe, Black John noted that the beady black eyes of the attorney seemed fairly to bulge from their sockets at sight of the tiers of neatly-piled gold sacks and the thick packets of paper currency that nearly filled its interior. As a gold sack thudded onto the bar before Black John, Beezely reached out and lifted it in his hand.

“Gosh, it’s heavy for the size of it!” he exclaimed. “About how much gold would you say that it contains?”

“Oh, somewheres around eighty ounces,” Black John replied.

“And gold is valued at about twenty dollars an ounce, isn’t it?”

“Twenty sixty-seven at the mint,” replied Black John. “It passes around here fer sixteen.”

“Nearly thirteen hundred dollars in this little sack!” the other exclaimed. “Why, there’s a sizable fortune in that safe.”

“Yeah,” replied Black John indifferently. “Mostly it’s in bills, though. There ain’t a hell of a lot of gold in there now. It’s too bulky—takes up too much room, so every little while we take a batch of it down to Dawson an’ trade it off fer big bills. Must be clost to half a million in the safe, all told.”

The game proceeded and the chips piled steadily up in front of Beezely as both Cush and Black John consistently lost, so that when they cashed in, as the Indian woman deposited the platter of fried fish on the bar, the lawyer was some fifteen hundred dollars to the good.

“Just a little run of luck,” he smiled, as he counted up his chips, “and, if it’s just the same to you, I’d rather have paper money than gold. Your turn next,” he added, as he wrapped around his roll the bills which Cush counted out on the bar. “And now we’ll attack the fish—they certainly look appetizing, fried to a golden brown. That Indian woman of yours must be a wonderful cook.”

“She’s all right,” Cush admitted, “onct I got the idee into her head. But it was a hell of a job to learn her. When she first come, her notion of makin’ bread was to slop a dipperful of water into the top of the flour sack an’ mix around in it with her hands, an’ then lift out everythin’ that stuck together an’ lay it on the top of the stove to bake. But she finally ketched on after I’d shoved her face in the mess three er four times. You kin learn a klooch, if you’ve got patience.”

“Now, in the matter of an abode,” began Beezely, after the last of the fish had disappeared and he had cleansed his fingers and lips upon a handkerchief. “I was wondering if there is an empty cabin of some sort that I could occupy until such time as I may procure a suitable habitation of my own?”

“Well,” replied Black John, “there’s several shacks along the crick that’s be’n abandoned, fer one reason er another. Some of ’em’s on pretty good claims, too. My cabin’s right clost, an’ I’ve got an extry bunk. You better jest throw in with me till you kin look around a little. Bein’ as yer residence on Halfaday is liable to be more or less permanent, you don’t want to make no hasty mistake. Come on over an’ you kin make yerself to home, an’ we’ll come back later. Some of the boys’ll be driftin’ in this evenin’, an’ we kin mebbe git up a game of stud.”

Beezely readily accepted the invitation and, swinging his packsack over his shoulder, he followed Black John out the door where he paused and glanced toward the well-beaten trail that slanted steeply downward to the landing.

“The Indian who brought me turned back a few miles down the creek as soon as we came in sight of the fort,” he said. “I came on alone from there, and when I got here I was too tired to carry my pack up the bank. This sack I have here contains only a few—er—personal belongings.”

“Hold on a minute, an’ I’ll git yer pack,” said Black John, and stepping down the trail, returned a moment later with a well-filled packsack and led the way to his cabin on the bank of the creek, a short distance above the fort. Swinging the door open he motioned for the other to enter, and following him in, deposited the packsack on the floor and indicated a bunk made up with clean blankets. “That’s yourn,” he said. “Jest throw yer stuff in under it an’ make yerself to home.” As he spoke, the big man set a bottle and a pair of glasses on the table and indicated a rude chair. “Draw up,” he invited, “an’ we’ll have a little drink whilst you go ahead an’ explain what you meant by this here organization you mentioned. I figgered it would be better to kind of talk it over here—on account of Cush.”

“Mouthy, eh?” asked the lawyer as he seated himself and filled his glass.

“Well—no, I wouldn’t say Cush was exactly mouthy. Fact is, he don’t run off at the head no more ’n the average mud turtle. But he ain’t no hand to grasp new idees onlest they’re set before him in words of one syllable—er less. He’d be pesterin’ us with questions, an’ besides that, some of the boys might drift in an’ interrupt the flowin’ of our thoughts.”

“Quite right,” agreed Beezely. “I much prefer to talk man to man. A long and varied experience at the bar has taught me the danger of a witness. Now, I mean to cast no aspersions, but let us assume, man to man, that we have here on Halfaday Creek at least the nucleus of an extremely potent mob.”

“Meanin’?”

“Meaning that there are men here who would not balk at—well, for instance—robbery. Provided, of course, that the venture were well planned and carried out at some point far enough away from Halfaday so that no suspicion would fall upon any resident of the creek.”

“W-e-e-l-l,” replied Black John, drawing the word out reflectively. “I don’t know as I’d go so far as to say that any of the boys would actually an’ personally participate in no major crime. There’s some, mebbe, that I might suspect would possibly wink at some minor infringement of the law. But, fer the sake of argument we’ll assume that the material you would be needin’ could be sifted out.”

“Quite so. Of course, I realize that I can make no headway in this matter without your approval and co-operation. The plan is very simple. Merely, that we select a few—say a dozen or twenty men among whom would be specialists along different lines—and organize them into a mob. You would be in command at this end while I would go on to Dawson and look the ground over—find out where gold or currency is concentrated in quantities sufficient to interest us, and then case the job—find out all about the conditions under which it is held and the habits and character of its custodians. This information I would relay here to you, and your part would be to select the proper men for the job and send them down to me. In the meantime, of course, I would have established myself as an attorney in good standing, so that no suspicion could possibly fall upon me or upon anyone seen consulting me. The job would be pulled, and later the proceeds divided, all members of the mob participating in the profits. Of course, we would have to provide a fund—a fall-fund—which I would have at my disposal, for fixing the police, and in the event that something should go wrong, conducting the defense. How does the idea appeal to you?”