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High Hander

<h1>THE HIGH HANDER</h1> by WILLIAM O. TURNER <hr class="chap" /> <h2>I</h2> Jack Tesno had been riding into the timbered Cascade Mountains since dawn. Now, consulting a biscuit-thick Raymond watch, he reined off the writhing new supply road and followed a creek through the pines till he found a sun-freckled ellipse of grass that would make a suitable nooning place. Knowing that his blue roan wouldn't stray from this spot of pasture, he unsaddled the animal and turned it loose, reins dragging. He dug cold biscuits and a wedge of cheese from his saddlebags and lunched stoically; a lean, catlike man with eyes the color of blue agate and a splash of gray in his black hair that made him look older than his thirty-two years. He lay on his belly to drink of the flashing mountain water. Then, impulsively, he peeled off his clothing and plunged into the stream. He bathed himself, splashing and rolling like a boy, lying still in the icy current till he began to feel numb. Teeth chattering, he found a sunny place on the bank and stretched out in faintly warm grass. After a while he felt a part of something big and good, and the affairs of man seemed of little consequence. It didn't really matter much of a hoot, if the railroad got pushed across these mountains on schedule, he decided. Not when you lay with the earth against your skin and the sun drying you from a pine-fringed patch of sky. What mattered was that you made up your mind to see the job through—to lay your life on the line, if necessary, to do your part in pushing it through. That was the difference between you and weaker men. When you come right down to it, he thought, that's all I get paid for—making up my mind. Troublebuster, the contractors called him. The job embraced a score of delicate and dangerous tasks, but on the whole he thought of himself as a peace officer without legal status. He found himself forever laying down the law to tough and often influential men: usually when there was no law to lay down except what he made up to fit the circumstances. He had long since ceased to be surprised that he could get away with this. Yet he knew he could not get away with it forever. Making up my mind, he thought. A strange process. He knew what he would decide, he guessed, but it took a little time and a little solitude to do it. He was on his way to see old Ben Vickers about a job. It was a top-paying job. That meant it would be a tough one. Yet he didn't need the money badly. He had stashed away enough for the start in the cattle business he had always wanted. I ought to quit, he thought. Now, before I get a bullet in the guts or a pick-point between the shoulder blades, or maybe just crack under the strain and wind up in the foolish house.... The sound of hoofs, muffled on the soft forest floor, brought him to his feet. He reached for his clothes as a rider wove through the trees and reined to a halt. The man was young, round-faced, and freckled. He wore boots, jeans, and a faded checked shirt. He was plainly startled by Tesno's nudity. He pushed his Stetson to the back of his head to reveal a shock of dark red hair. "You t-taking a bath or s-something?" Tesno picked up the gunbelt that lay on top of his clothes. Feeling ridiculous, he swung it aside and began to struggle into his underwear. "What if I am?" he said irritably. "D-didn't mean to intrude on your p-privacy." Tesno continued to get dressed. The young man eased down from his saddle and dropped the reins. He produced a pint flask from a hip pocket and took a drink. He offered the flask to Tesno, who shook his head. "T-too early in the d-day," the young man admitted. "I only take the stuff account of this d-damn stuttering. Like medicine." Tesno flicked him with amused appraisal. "It helps?" "S-some. Only if I get too much, I s-stutter worse than ever. Only I d-don't give a d-d-damn." He returned the bottle to his pocket and extended his hand. "Name's William Silverknife. Folks call me Whisky Willie." Tesno sat down to pull on his boots. He reached up awkwardly and shook hands. He said, "I can see why." "Hell, I t-take it like medicine. I only been what you'd call drunk once in my life. Stole a loco-m-motive on the Coeur d'Alene spur and run it plumb off the end of the track." "Seems like I heard about that. But the way I got the story, it was some crazy Indian." "M-me." "You're Injun?" "Three-eights." Tesno studied him closely now, matter-of-factly. Under the freckles, the kid's skin was maybe a bit darker than you noticed at first, and the cheekbones in the round and boyish face were maybe a trifle prominent. But it was the steady little black eyes that confirmed the touch of the moccasin. "That's a hell of a percentage," Tesno said. "Pa was half Yakima. Ma was a q-quarter-breed Cayuse. It figures out." "Nobody'd know it if you didn't mention it," Tesno said. "I g-generally mention it. What did you say your name was, mister?" "Tesno." "Jack Tesno? Hell, you headed for Tunneltown?" "This road go any place else?" "J-just my luck. I heard Ben Vickers is looking for a troublebuster. I f-figured to hit him for the job. Reckon I wouldn't have a chance against you." No, Tesno thought, you wouldn't have a chance. Even if Ben hadn't already made me an offer, he would never trust a stammering, whisky-sipping breed kid to tie on a gun and do his tough-work. But he found himself clapping Willie on the shoulder as he moved past the boy to pick up his saddle. He caught the blue roan and stroked its neck with the saddle blanket. "I haven't signed on yet," he said. "Hell, I'll wind up as water boy or some d-damn fool thing," Willie said. He grinned and added, "As usual." "Maybe you could charm that town boss-lady into giving you a job. That Persia Parker they talk about." Willie blushed at the mere idea. "Ch-charming ain't among my talents. Not that I wouldn't l-like to. You ever seen her?" "No, but I'll lay odds she isn't the looker the rumors have her. She's probably a fat, mannish type or a tired-faced little tart with dollar signs for eyes." "You'd lose the bet," Willie said. "I saw her down to Ellensburg. She's a kn-knockout. And a real lady." "How do you tell that?" "Well, she ain't no honky-tonk gal or anything like that. She was a lady married to Duke Parker, who was a gentleman. He t-took out townsite papers and built that town up there. Then he got k-killed in an accident and she's been running things." "That's about the way I heard it, too," Tesno said. "But I knew Duke Parker at Sandpoint, before he got married. He might have been a gentleman by education, but he was about as slippery a cuss as I ever met." "That don't make her a non-lady," Willie persisted. "Wh-what k-kind of a job you think she might give me?" Tesno saddled up, and they rode together the rest of the day, following the raw new road that looped and plodded through rock and timber to the very backbone of the range. They passed a slashers' ragcamp, a supply train of a dozen heavy wagons, a stagecoach stalled with a broken wheel and loaded with laborers. With the sun haloing snow-veined peaks ahead and the chill of an early-May twilight lurking in the shadows of the pines, they topped a writhing, ragged ridge and looked down on the place called Tunneltown. It lay in a stump-studded gulch, a double row of log buildings neatly toeing boardwalks along a wide, rut-scribbled street. Tesno whistled through his teeth. He hadn't expected a solid-looking town here eighty-five miles ahead of track—though the why of it was plain enough when a man stopped to think. The workmen here had a tunnel to ream through the rock of Runaway Mountain, two miles of it. They would be here two years, more or less. For that long, Tunneltown was assured of a population with money to spend. And it was assured of a steady stream of transient spenders—freighters, engineers, inspectors, salesmen. The horses had fallen into an eager trot on the down-grade, sensing food and rest ahead; now they slowed to a walk in the heavy mud of the short, broad street. Tesno made out another cluster of buildings now, six or eight large ones among the pines on the far slope of the gulch. That would be Ben Vickers' camp, he concluded. He reined toward a hitchrail in front of a long, false-fronted building from which floated the tinny notes of a piano. Above the doorway a sign bore the words PINK LADY, painted in red letters against a black background. "I'll buy a drink," he said to Willie. "N-no, thanks," Willie said. "D-drinking for pleasure don't agree with me." He nodded toward a livery barn at the head of the street. "You want me to s-stable your horse for you? He'll get better care there than in a construction camp corral." Tesno dismounted and handed him the reins. "Buy him a quarter's worth of oats. See you around." He pushed through the batwing doors into the saloon. Men near the end of the long bar turned to look him over, their eyes darting from his face to the Colt on his hip and back again. Gambling tables, mostly faro layouts, were scattered about the large, smoke-layered room. Tesno moved along the bar to a place near the second of two bartenders, who started toward him, then stopped to stare. He was a plump, red-faced man with a white scar on one cheek. He spoke one word, making a question of it. "You?" "Howdy, Pinky," Tesno said tonelessly. "I'll serve you liquor like anybody else," Pinky Bronklin said. "I don't have to say howdy to you." "Whisky," Tesno said. Pinky set a bottle and a glass on the bar. His bloodshot little eyes combed Tesno with a look of pure malice. "This your place?" Tesno asked. Pinky nodded. "I own a share of it." "Quite a come-up from the tent saloon you had over in the basin." Pinky laid a hand on the bar, a hand that was missing the three fingers between the little one and the thumb. The bloodshot eyes were fixed on Tesno's face. "You'd like to bust me down to nothin' again, wouldn't you, Mr. Tesno?" "Depends," Tesno said. "You wouldn't do it here. This is a patented town. I got important people behind me. The authorities will protect me." "You're rushing things," Tesno said. "I haven't hired out yet." "You will," Pinky said. "Vickers will meet your price and you'll hire on. I hope you do. You've been riding for a fall for a long time." The bloodshot eyes shifted briefly. Tesno was aware of a man standing a few feet to his left. He turned slowly and saw a lean, dark-eyed young man dressed to present the general aspect of a barber pole. He wore black boots, trousers, and hat, and a silk shirt with wide pink stripes. The ivory handle of a revolver curved out from his hip like a misplaced tusk. A badge gleamed on his chest. He took a step forward, right hand resting on gun handle. "You can't wear a gun in this town, cowboy," he said sternly. Tesno squarely turned his back and picked up his drink. Pinky Bronklin looked faintly amused now. "This here is town marshal Pete Madrid," Pinky said. "Meet Jack Tesno, Pete. The famous bully-boy." "I don't care who he is," Pete Madrid said with an ugly purr in his voice. "He's got ten seconds to shuck that gun." Tesno tossed down his drink and set the glass on the bar. "Town ordinance?" "You might say so. Five seconds, cowboy." Tesno had a lopsided grin that brought a dimple to his left cheek and none to his right. He flashed it on Pinky now and moved his hands to the buckle of his gunbelt. He let the belt fall free and swung it toward Madrid, still not looking at him. The marshal caught the belt with a little flourish and stepped up to the bar. "How about the house buying, Pinky," he said in a new tone. Hostility seemed to have left him. "No thanks," Tesno said. "No hard feelings," Madrid said. "None. When I start drawing Ben Vickers' pay, I'll be around for that gun." "Sure," Madrid said. "Just don't wear it in town." "Depends," Tesno said. "I'd just take it off you again." "No. If I put it on again, you won't take it off me." Tesno flashed the lopsided grin and walked out of the saloon. Pinky poured Madrid a drink. "Congratulations, Pete. It takes a man to face down that ringtail." Madrid laid Tesno's gunbelt on the bar, trying not to seem too pleased with himself. "Wish the man had been friendlier. I like to get along with everybody. Makes my job easier." "He ain't the friendly kind," Pinky said. "You tangled with him before?" "Idaho. I had a tent saloon; big wall tent, cost me four hundred dollars. Had another thousand in liquor and gambling equipment. Set up close to a construction camp. Tesno come along, said to move. I had a territorial license and wouldn't do it. He knocked down the tent and worked it over with a disc harrow. Nothing left but a pile of whisky-soaked rags." "You should have blasted him," Madrid said. "Law would have been on your side." "It would? Listen, four reservation bucks come along, wrung out the rags, and got crazy drunk. Tesno brought out the sheriff, and I got arrested for peddling booze to Indians!" "Hell of a thing," Madrid said, picking up the gunbelt and moving away. "Well, I got work to do." Pinky knew what he meant. There were folks who ought to be notified that Tesno was in town. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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