William MacDonald - The Battle At Three-Cross

The clerk nodded. “Oh yes. His room is just down the hall from the one you’ve taken…. No, I’m afraid you can’t see him now. He’s out, I believe, riding with his niece. You know, studying cactus——” The clerk smiled a bit superciliously. “Why anyone should bother with such plants is more than I can understand. Now, a nice geranium in a window pot—that’s different——”

“Everybody to his own taste, I reckon,” Lance commented. “The professor goes in pretty heavy for cactus, eh?”

“More than seems reasonable.” The clerk nodded. “He’s already packed three boxes with plants and has them stored in our storage room until he leaves.” The clerk whirled the register around and read Lance’s name. “Oh, Mr Tolliver. You’re the one who found that murdered man, aren’t you?—Frank Bowman?”

Lance nodded and started to turn away. “Tell the professor I dropped in, will you? I’ll be back later on——”

He stopped short as a new voice broke in, “I’m a friend of Professor Jones’. Perhaps I can help you out if you’ll let me know what you want. It may save you a trip back here. I’m Malcolm Fletcher. Did I understand you to say you’re Tolliver?”

“I’m Tolliver.” Lance shook hands with Fletcher, whom he’d noticed seated at the far end of the hotel lobby. Fletcher was a broad-shouldered, slim-hipped man with a lantern jaw, piercing eyes and brown hair, somewhere in the vicinity of thirty or thirty-five years of age. He wore high-heeled boots and corduroy trousers. A black sombrero was shoved to the back of his head. He had the appearance of a cowman, though Lance felt he hadn’t worked at that trade for some time. There was an air of affluence about Fletcher.

“… and if you care to state your business,” he was saying, “I may be able to help you out.”

“No particular business to state.” Lance smiled. “I just met the professor on the street this morning, and he asked me to call. I’ll see him later.”

“It wasn’t about a job as a guide you wanted to see him?”

Lance shook his head. “Why should I?”

Fletcher laughed. “No reason at all,” he replied. “I just thought you were after that job Bowman had before his death. Just in case you were, I can tell you now it’s not open.”

“The professor decide he doesn’t need a guide any more?”

“He actually doesn’t, of course, around here, but he had hired Bowman to take him down into Sonora.”

“I see.” Lance nodded. “Has Professor Jones given up the Mexico trip?”

“Just about,” Fletcher answered. “I’ve been against it from the first, of course. I think he’ll take my advice.”

“There’s nothing final been decided yet, then?”

“It’s practically settled.”

“Why have you advised against the trip?”

“Mexico is pretty wild country,” Fletcher explained. “I don’t think it any place to take a girl—at least, a girl like Professor Jones’ niece. There are a large number of Yaquente Indians through the section in which Jones wants to travel. The Yaquentes are peaceful enough now, but”—Fletcher shrugged his shoulders—“a man never knows what may turn up.”

“You certainly said something then,” Lance agreed. He turned to leave. “Well, much obliged for the information. If you’ll tell the professor I called——”

“I’ll tell him,” Fletcher said, “though there’s no chance of you getting that job even if you knew that country down there. I hope you see how it is.”

“I reckon,” Lance said noncommittally. He nodded to Fletcher and left the hotel. On the street he said to himself, “I’m not sure if I do see how it is. I wonder who that Fletcher hombre is, and is he making all decisions for Jones? For some reason he’s none too keen for Jones to head down into Mexico. Oh well, I’ll see Jones later. Maybe a mite of conversation will bring out something.”

Lance next bent his steps in the direction of the railroad depot. As he entered the station old Johnny Quinn glanced up and grunted sourly. “You agin, eh?” he squeaked. “Well, I ain’t remembered no more than I did this mornin’, so ye’re wastin’ my time and yours if ye insist on hangin’ round——”

“There’s no law against sending a tele gram, is there?”

“A telygram?” Johnny Quinn stiffened like a soldier coming to attention. “Ye want to send a telygram? Whyn’t ye say so in the first place? Here’s a pad o’ paper. Write ’er out plain, and I’ll shoot ’er off.”

Lance smiled inwardly and proceeded to “write ’er out plain.” When he had finished he shoved the paper across to old Quinn. Quinn snatched at the paper and started to read it. He got as far as the address, then glanced up over his spectacles at Lance, saying, “You’re sendin’ this to Washington, D.C., hey? Hmmm. Thet’s where the President of these United States lives.”

Lance nodded. “I’ve heard rumors to that effect before. Howsomever, it isn’t being sent to him.”

“Shucks all tarnation!” Old Quinn sounded exasperated. “I know thet much.” He started to read on, then stopped. A frown gathered on his forehead. He squinted through his spectacles, took them off, wiped them on his bandanna, replaced them, took them off again. Finally he gave up. “Are ye drunk?”

“Haven’t had a drink today.”

“There’s somethin’ wrong with ye!” Quinn snapped. “I can read your words separate, but they don’t make no sense strung out in a line. Can’t make head ner tail what ye’re aimin’ to send.”

“You can send the words just as they are, can’t you?”

“ ’Tain’t usual!”

Lance laughed. “It is back in Washington. That’s the way folks talk back there. If you’re interested I can tell you what the message is about. You see, my aunt Minnie is back there suffering from a bad case of hemoglobinuria and——”

“What’s thet?” Quinn’s jaw sagged.

Lance laughed suddenly. “Of course, of course. I might have known you’d had that disease some time or other, so there’s no need of me going into details about Aunt Minnie’s case. Probably you know more about the ravages of hemoglobinuria than I do. What’s that? You got it back in sixty-five? Well, well, imagine that! That’s the very year Aunt Minnie was took down with it. What? You don’t say so! A poultice of axle grease and horse liniment, eh? And it cured you? I’ll sure write Aunt Minnie about that if she doesn’t get well——What? A glass of bourbon three times a day prevents a recurrence of the disease? Sa-ay, it’s lucky I ran into you. Aunt Minnie will probably owe you her life.”

Johnny Quinn’s eyes were glassy; his jaw hung open. He was gasping like a fish out of water. So far he hadn’t said a word, but Lance’s swift monologue had swept him from his feet. His brain swirled dizzily, and he was already convinced he had had the disease Lance mentioned.

“… and I’ll sure remember,” Lance flowed on, “to bring you a bottle of bourbon when I come back for the answer to my tele gram. I wouldn’t want you to come down with hemoglobinuria again. You see, when that answer comes through I’ll know if Aunt Minnie is recovering or not, so shoot my message off pronto. I’ll be back later for the reply—and I won’t forget your bourbon.”

Five minutes after Lance had left the station old Quinn was still scratching his sparse gray hair and panting for breath. His brain whirled. “Lemme see,” he gulped, “was it in sixty-five I had that hemo disease?” His thin frame trembled. “By grab! I’d better get this telygram sent right to once. A case of life or death ain’t to be ignored.” He stumbled toward the sending apparatus muttering, “Life or death, life or death, life or death.”