A Shower of Silver - ebook

I. A WHISPER AND A WOMAN

THE last three months had been a dull time for Bob Lake. He had in the beginning coiled his rope, bidden a profane farewell to his favorite broncho, oiled up his best .45 Colt, planted a gray Stetson on his head, packed a grip, and started to see New York. And he saw it–at a considerable expense. Eventually he parted with everything except the gun and the Stetson, which were holy things to Bob, and, with his last five-dollar bill in his pocket, he sat in at a game of poker with a fat roll and an urgent desire to leave for the land of open skies and little rain. Two hours later he was bound West.

Impulse ruled Bob Lake. Give a man some hundred and ninety pounds of iron-hard muscle, a willingness to fight plus a desire to smile, no master except necessity, and no necessity except the wish for action, and the result is a character as stable as a hair trigger. He had one of those big-featured, but ugly, faces that have all manner of good nature about the mouth, and all manner of danger behind the eyes. He had both enemies and friends in legion, but they all united in the opinion that sooner or later Bob Lake was due to fall foul of the law.

At present Bob Lake was melancholy. This morning he had chuckled with joy to see the mountains of the land of his desire rolling blue against the western sky. It was now noon, and, although the train was rocking along among those same mountains, the joy had departed from the face of Bob Lake. The reason sat in the seat ahead of him.

A newly married couple had boarded the train at ten o’clock that morning at a town in the foothills. The party that accompanied them to the station had swirled about them, laughing, shouting, throwing rice, and out of the confusion had come the girl on the arm of her husband. He was a man as big and Western as Bob Lake, but the pallor of his face bespoke an indoor life. A very handsome fellow, although there were qualities of sternness in him. Bob would not soon forget the grim smile with which he shook the rice from the brim of his hat and looked back on the shouting crowd.

Then Bob Lake saw the girl. His first impulse was to pray that the seat of the pair would be in his car. His second impulse was to pray that the seat might be elsewhere. For he had a profound conviction that, if he had a chance to look into the eyes of this girl at short range, there would be trouble brewing in no time.

After they had climbed the steps he held his breath, and then straight down the aisle they came. A battery of smiles and chuckles on either side of them marked their progress, and the shouting of the crowd volleyed from outside. The girl was very conscious of it. She came timidly, and her little side glances seemed to beg them to look in another direction, and every step she made down that aisle was straight into the heart of Bob Lake.

Perhaps they would go on through to another car. No, they paused near him, and the crowd with flowers and candy and gay-colored parcels poured around Bob’s seat. He saw a gray-haired woman with tears streaming down her cheeks; he saw a gray-haired man with twitching lips that attempted to smile. When the warning–“All aboard!”–had sounded, and the crowd had swept out again, Bob Lake found that the pair were in the seat directly ahead of him.

When he made this discovery, he felt that it was fate. He was as certain of it as if he had seen a shadowy figure in retrospect bidding him rise from that poker table in New York and rush on board the train.

Ordinarily Bob Lake was the very soul of honor; he would rather have blinded his eyes than let them look twice at the wife of another man. But in this case he felt a shrewd difference. Something was taking him up and carrying him on against his own volition as a tide sweeps a man out to the open sea. The irony of it made him wince. Women had never been anything to him. A few had laughed their way into his life for an evening at a dance, but they had all yawned their way out again, and Bob Lake remained essentially heart free. At last it was the wife of another man.

It’s fate, he kept repeating to himself. If the thing had not been preordained, why that sudden mad rush from New York? Of course, Bob did not at the moment recall that everything he had ever done had been on spur of the instant. Why, he went on to ask himself, did her glance take hold on him like a hand, if there were not some weird power to blame?

He was glad of one thing–that she was not facing him. He could only see her hair. When he turned to shut out this sight by staring out of the window, the sound of her voice pursued him, tugged at him, made him turn to look at her again and listen with held breath to make out the words. He felt like an eavesdropper, but, nevertheless, he could not help damning the roar of the train. Something, he kept assuring himself, was going to happen. And when a hundred and ninety pounds of manhood feels that way, something usually does happen.

He made out snatches of the conversation. The marriage ceremony had taken place an hour before they boarded the train. The man’s name was Rankin, and the girl’s name was Anne. The most wonderful name in the world, Bob instantly decided. They were going into the mountains to Al Rankin’s country, which the girl did not know, and to his home there that she had never seen.

But what could happen? A train wreck, perhaps. There was a good deal of the boy in Bob Lake. An instant picture was launched in his mind of himself striding through smoke among smashed timbers, carrying the body of the girl. He brushed the dream away and concentrated on reality. For at any moment the train might stop among the mountains–the girl and the man might leave his life forever. The thought turned Lake cold.

Once he got up and walked down the length of the train in order to return a little later and approach the girl so as to see her face. But when he came back, he saw nothing. He was afraid to look. He, Bob Lake, afraid to look a girl in the face. But, although he saw nothing, there was an impression. It was as if a light had shone on him in the night. When he slipped back into his place, his pulses were hammering. And then it happened.

It was the end of a division, and, when the train stopped, a chunky man with a great spread of hat, with baggy-kneed trousers, and riding boots came to the head of the car and squinted down its length. At the same time a newspaper was raised before the face of Al Rankin and shaken out. The result was that Bob Lake did not see what immediately appeared until a pudgy, brown hand appeared over the edge of the paper, pulled it unceremoniously down, and the chunky little man stood looking down at Rankin. He leaned and murmured something.

In fact, his voice was most carefully guarded, but Bob Lake had been training his ear to catch whispers through the roar of the moving train. Now he made out one word: “Arrest.”

And he heard what Al Rankin answered: “What charge?”

The whisper which replied to this missed his ear, but Al Rankin immediately rose. His wife was on her feet at the same moment.

“Infernal nuisance,” Rankin told her calmly enough. “Meet Bill White... an old friend of mine. Bill has a message that takes me off the train here.”

“I’m ready, Al,” Anne stated.

“Ready for what?”

“To go with you, of course.”

“Nonsense! Break up the trip for this? Certainly not. You stay aboard. When you get to the station, old Charley will be waiting. You can tell him by his beard... just like a goat’s. He’ll take you out to the house and make you comfortable. I’ll be up tomorrow.”

He turned and nodded to Bill White, who was watching the girl steadily. He had bowed in a jerky fashion to acknowledge the introduction, and now he was looking at the young wife with a sort of hard sympathy.

“Al, there’s nothing wrong?”

Just a moment of pause. Something gathered in the face of Al Rankin. “Haven’t I told you there’s nothing wrong?” he said sullenly. “You stay aboard and don’t worry. They don’t make enough trouble in these parts to bother me.”

He had changed his tone toward the end of this speech and qualified the scowl with the beginning of a smile. But the blow had fallen. Bob Lake saw the girl wince and whiten a little about the mouth, but she made no further protest. Al Rankin turned with a careless wave of farewell and strolled down the aisle, followed by the little gray-headed man. It seemed to Bob Lake that the girl started impulsively to follow. Perhaps it was the memory of the gruff rebuke that stopped her short and made her sink slowly into her seat again.

From the window he saw Al Rankin sauntering away with his companion. Whatever their business might be, they seemed in no hurry to accomplish it. Then he saw the girl was not looking after them through the window. She sat close to the side of the car with her head turned straight before her.

Al, Bob Lake thought, you sure made a bum play with the rough talk... a rotten bad play.

He felt the preliminary lurch of the starting train, and it pressed him back against the seat–just as Al Rankin, he recalled, had lurched back when the chunky little man had whispered into his ear the charge on which he was being arrested. Bob Lake became solemnly thoughtful. There was only one charge which could have disturbed the fine calm of Al Rankin, he felt, and to himself Bob whispered the word: Murder! When the thought entered his mind, he glanced guiltily around the car, half expecting to see pitying eyes directed at the young wife. But, instead, everyone was settling back to sleep through that stretch of dreary mountains.

Murder! He was as certain of it now as though he had heard the whisper. And this was the thing for which he had waited to happen. A sudden self-loathing took possession of Bob Lake. He hated himself for the gleam of joy that he had felt as the first surmise came to him. What of the girl? Would she not go through life even as she sat now, looking straight ahead of her, fearing to meet the eyes of men and women in her shame? All the beauty of her smile would be straightened from her lips, he knew, and the thought made him grind his teeth.

The wheels were beginning to groan as the train slowly started.

And then Bob Lake acted. It was one of those sudden, mad, unreasoning impulses. Two sweeps of his arm planted his hat on his head and gathered up his suitcase. He fairly ran down the aisle and at the door turned for a last look.

She was, indeed, pale, unsmiling, as if she knew the doom that hovered over her. Her glance cleared a little, and, under the fierce probing of Bob Lake’s stare, her eyes widened, became aware of him with quiet wonder. The train was gathering headway, and still he lingered to throw all the meaning that was in his heart into his eyes. Everything that he felt was in his glance. Too much, perhaps, and too legible. For now she flushed, and she leaned forward, gazing at him in a sort of horror. It was almost as if she were going to cry out and call him back.

Then he tore himself away, pushed open the door, and poised on the lowest step. The ground was already shooting past with terrifying speed. Yet he gauged his distance, leaned back, and dropped free of the train. The blow crumpled his legs. He went down in a confused mass of whirling arms and legs and suitcase, yet he laughingly scrambled to his feet in time to see a white face pressed against the window as the car shot past. He waved his hand to that face. How much would she understand? That thought held him gaping, until the length of the train had rushed past, and the rear end was whipping off into the distance with a mist of dust drawing after it. Then he turned back to take up the adventure. Al Rankin must be saved from the law.