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

Black John hesitated, apparently in deep thought. “This here fall-fund that you would have,” he asked, at length, “would want to be a fairly good jag of ready cash, wouldn’t it?”

“The more the better. A mob with cash enough behind it can pull anything.”

“An’ where would we raise this here fall-fund?”

“Why, we would assess each member of the mob. Everyone would have to kick in with his share.”

“S’pose there would be some of the boys that wouldn’t have enough to kick in?”

Beezely’s thin lips smiled. “I guess we won’t have to worry about that. I saw enough in that old safe there in the saloon, gold and packages of bills, to finance a dozen mobs.”

“Yeah,” agreed Black John, “there’s considerable wealth in there, but——” He paused, and regarded the other with a smile. “An’ I don’t aim to cast no aspersions, no more than you did. Fer all I kin see yer motives is upright an’ honorable as mine is. But you kin see as well as I kin that if we dug up the fall-fund out of the safe—us Halfaday Crickers would be furnishin’ all of it—an’ you’d have the handlin’ of it an’ share in the profits of these here ventures. What I’m drivin’ at is—would you be in a position to put up a part of this fund?”

The attorney’s smile widened as he indicated with a jerk of his thumb the small packsack that lay on the bunk behind him. “No offense, I assure you. And, regarding my ability to put up my share, I will tell you that in that bag I have exactly ninety-six thousand dollars in currency.”

“You mean,” exclaimed Black John, “that you’ve got that much on top of the roll yer carryin’ around in yer pocket?”

“That flash roll is mere spending money—chicken feed. There’s not more than six or eight thousand in it. Are you satisfied? What do you say?”

“Well,” grinned Black John, “knowin’ the Northwest Mounted Police like I do, an’ Corporal Downey in partic’lar, I’d say that if our fall-fund was twict as big as what we could make it, we couldn’t even spit on the sidewalk in Dawson without gittin’ pinched. In fact, Beezely, the whole scheme is cockeyed. A mob like that wouldn’t git nowheres in the Yukon. It’s all right down in the States where you kin shift around amongst crooked policemen, an’ politicians, an’ prosecutors, an’ judges—but down here it’s different. There ain’ no politicians—an’ the Mounted is policemen, prosecutors an’ judges—an’ they ain’t crooked.”

“Every man’s got his price,” Beezely retorted.

“Yeah?” grinned Black John. “Well, when you find out Corporal Downey’s price, would you mind lettin’ me know what it is?”

“If you think the scheme is cockeyed, why were you so interested in knowing whether or not I could put up my share of the fall-fund?” asked the attorney.

“Merely fer yer own good,” the big man replied. “An’ mebbe fer our good, too. You see, when you come in to Cush’s I seen that you took good care that yer small pack, yonder, didn’t git no further than arm’s reach away from you at no time. Whilst we stood at the bar, it was right beside yer elbow, an’ when we went over to the table to play stud, you laid it beside yer chair. So I figgered that it contained somethin’ of value. I didn’t like to say nothin’ over there, on account of One-Armed John er the klooch might of listened in, so I invited you over here. The invitation stands—you kin stay here as long as you like—ontil you find a location of yer own—but I wanted to warn you that if you had anythin’ of much value in yer pack, you better deposit it in Cush’s safe. You took notice, I suppose, that the safe ain’t exactly empty—there’s better ’n a half million in it right now—an’ that’s because it’s the only place on Halfaday where a man kin keep his gold er his cash where it will be absolutely safe, an’ where he kin git it the minute he wants it. It’s a damn good, four-bolt safe. There can’t no one bust into it. Jest between me an’ you, I don’t mind admittin’ that there’s certain characters on the crick whose morals in regard to property is open to question. An’ I’d hate like hell to see one of ’em git their hands on yer ninety-six thousan’, nor yet on the roll you’ve got in yer pocket. Not only you’d lose the money but you’d immejitly an’ rightly report the loss to the police, an’ we’d have ’em up here on the crick, snoopin’ around till they found who done it. Like I told you, we keep Halfaday moral.”

“How about hiding the stuff some place?”

Black John grinned. “You could try cachin’ it if you want to. But, as the Good Book says, when in Rome, do as the roamers do. You seen fer yerself that Cush’s safe is the repository fer the wealth of Halfaday—an’ there’s a reason. Several has tried cachin’ their stuff, but somehow, no matter how careful they was, it always turned up missin’. If a man is suspected of havin’ a cache, he’s a marked man, an’ there ain’t no minute that there ain’t someone’s eyes on him. If they can’t locate it no other way, they watch him till he goes to it. Mebbe he goes to it only onct—when he’s pullin’ out of Halfaday—but that onct is enough.

“Sometimes we find his body; an’ sometimes we don’t—but in no case do we ever find his property. Of course, if it was only me an’ Cush that know’d you had the money, that would be different. But there’s One-Armed John an’ there’s the klooch. They seen what me an’ Cush seen—an’ don’t you fergit it. An’ from the time you walked out of that saloon ontil sech time as you’ve deposited yer property in the safe, there’ll be eyes on you every minute.”

“Do you mean, now?” asked Beezely, with a swift glance about the room. “You mean that someone is watching us now?”

“Well, not here in the cabin. But you kin bet on it that someone is watchin’ the door, an’ they’ll know if you carry that small pack when you go out er not—an’ I shore don’t want that much wealth cached around here. My advice is to carry it back an’ stick it in the safe—an’ most of that pocket roll along with it. I wouldn’t advise carryin’ around no more than a thousan’ at the outside. There wouldn’t hardly no one stoop to murder a man fer a mere thousan’.”

Beezely tossed off his drink and rose nervously. “Let’s be getting back to the saloon,” he said. “I’m obliged to you for giving me this tip. You think we can make it, do you? That is—there’s no danger of anyone bumping us off between here and there?”

“Oh hell, no! There won’t no one pull nothin’ whilst I’m around. It’s the stuff that’s pulled while I ain’t here that’s got me worried. Fetch yer pack an’ we’ll be goin’.”

The man stepped to the bunk, loosened the straps of the two packs and hastily slipped a package from the smaller into the larger one. Then he secured the smaller pack, and accompanied Black John to the saloon, keeping close beside him all the way as his beady eyes darted swift glances into the bush on either side of the trail.

Old Cush set out bottle and glasses as the two entered. When the glasses were filled, the attorney loosened the straps of the sack he had set upon the bar.

“I have considerable cash here,” he said, addressing Cush, “and my friend advised me to deposit it in your safe. I wish you would take it, and if there is any charge I’ll be glad to pay it.” As he spoke he lifted out packet after packet of bills of large denomination and piled them on the bar.

“There ain’t no charge,” Cush replied, his eyes widening at sight of the ever-increasing pile. “I’ll count it an’ give you a receipt.”

The counting took some time and, at its conclusion, the man pulled the thick roll from his pocket and counted off seven thousand more. “There you are,” he said, “one hundred and three thousand in good cash.” He paused and frowned as his eyes lingered on the pile. “And it should be more than double that!” he snapped. “I left Chicago in a hurry with plenty of hot bonds on my hands and hit Seattle without having made proper connections. The result was that I was forced to dispose of them to those damned coast crooks at a terrible sacrifice. I wanted to deal quickly, and the dirty thieves took advantage of me. But I’ll square the account sometime!”