The Vagrant Duke Part 42

"'Don't be pokin' jokes at the Gila Desert, my little man,' say Hawk, polite as you please. 'It's h.e.l.l that's here and here it will remain.'

And then we said we were short of water--which we were not--and had he any to spare? But he waved us on with his rifle, never sayin' a word. So we moved down the gulch a quarter of a mile and went into camp. There was ore here, too, but nothin' like what Ben Cameron had.

"Hawk was quiet that night--creepin' about among the rocks, but he didn't say what was on his mind. In the mornin' he started off to talk to Ben Cameron an' I went with him. The man was still sittin' on his rock, with the rifle over his knees--been there all night, I reckon. But he let us come to hailin' distance.

"'Nice claim you got there, pardner,' says Hawk.

"'Is it?' says he.

"'Ain't you afraid of rubbin' some o' that verdigris off onto your pants,' says Hawk.

"'They're my pants,' says Cameron. 'You ain't here for any good. Get out!' And he brings his rifle to his hip. We saw he was scared all right, maybe not so much at what we'd do to him as at sharin' what he'd found.

"'The Gila Desert ain't _all_ yours, is it, pardner? Or maybe you got a mortgage on the earth!' says Hawk, very polite. 'You ain't got no objection to our stakin' alongside of you, have you? Come along, now.

Let's be neighbors. We see what you've got. That's all right. We'll take your leavin's. We've got a right to them.'

"And so after a while of palaverin' with him, he lets us come up and look over his claim. It didn't take any eye at all to see what he'd got.

He wasn't much of a man--Ben Cameron--weak-eyed, rum-dum--poor too. You could see that by his outfit--worse off than we were. Hawk told him we had a lot of friends with money--big money in the East. Maybe we could work it to run a railroad out to tap the whole ridge. That kind of got him and we found he had no friends in this part of the country--so we sat down to grub together, Ben Cameron, like me, unsuspectin' of what was to happen.

"My G.o.d, Nichols, I can see it all like it had happened yesterday. Hawk Kennedy stood up as though to look around and then before I knew what he was about had struck Ben Cameron in the back with his knife.

"It was all over in a minute. Ben Cameron reached for his gun but before his hand got to it he toppled over sideways and lay quiet.

"I started up to my feet but Hawk had me covered and I knew from what had happened that he'd shoot, too.

"'Don't make a fuss,' he says. 'Give me your gun.' I knew he had me to rights and I did what he said. 'Now,' he says, 'it's yours and mine.'"

McGuire made a motion toward the gla.s.s. Peter filled it for him and he drank.

"And then--what happened?" asked Peter quietly.

"Hawk Kennedy had me dead to rights. There was only one thing to do--to make believe I was 'with him.' We buried Ben Cameron, then went down and brought our outfit up, Hawk watchin' me all the while. He'd taken my gun and Ben Cameron's and unloaded them and carried all the ammunition about him. But I didn't know what I was in for. That night he made me sit down while he drew up a paper, torn from an old note book of Ben Cameron's--a partners.h.i.+p agreement, a contract."

McGuire broke off suddenly and got up, moving nervously to the safe, from one of the drawers of which he took a blue linen envelope and brought forth a paper which he handed to Peter.

"That's the h.e.l.lish thing, Nichols," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "That's why I'm afraid of Hawk Kennedy. A lie that he forced me to sign! And there's another paper like this in his possession. Read it, Nichols."

Peter took the paper in his fingers and looked at it curiously. It was soiled and worn, broken at the edges, written over in lead pencil, but still perfectly legible.

AGREEMENT BETWEEN HAWK KENNEDY AND MIKE McGUIRE

Us two found Ben Cameron on his copper claim in Madre Gulch.

We killed him. Both of us had a hand in it. This mine is Hawk Kennedy's and Mike McGuire's and we are pardners in the same until death us do part, so help us G.o.d.

(Signed) MIKE MCGUIRE.

HAWK KENNEDY.

"He wanted it on me----" McGuire gasped. "You see? To keep me quiet."

"I understand," said Peter. "This is 'what you've got and what I've got'

referred to in the placard."

"Yes," said McGuire. "A partners.h.i.+p agreement and a confession--of something I didn't do."

Peter's eyes were searching him through and through.

"You swear it?"

McGuire held up his right hand and met Peter's gaze without flinching.

"Before G.o.d, I do."

Peter was silent for a moment, thinking.

"And then, you left Hawk Kennedy there to die," he said slowly, watching the man.

McGuire sank into his chair with a sigh, the perspiration now beaded on his pale forehead.

"I didn't know what to do, I tell you," he almost whispered. "He had me. I was unarmed. I'd 'a' killed him if I'd had a gun. But I waited a few days after we buried Cameron--makin' believe I was satisfied with everything and he believed me, and at last he fell asleep tired with keepin' watch on me. He was all in. I bored holes in Ben Cameron's barrels, lettin' the water out down the rocks, then took the three horses and the mules with all the water that was left and got away before he woke up.

"It was a terrible thing to do, Nichols--call it murder if you like. But it served him right. It was comin' to him--and I got away with it. At first when I reached water I had a thought of goin' back--to save him before he died--to get that paper I couldn't get that was inside his s.h.i.+rt."

McGuire leaned forward, his face in his hands for a moment, trying to finish.

"But I didn't go back, Nichols. I didn't go back. That's the crime I'm payin' for now--not the other--not the murder of Ben Cameron--I didn't do that--the murder of Hawk Kennedy--who has come back."

"What happened then?"

"I turned Ben Cameron's horse and burros loose where there was water and gra.s.s and went on to Bisbee. I told them my buddy had died of a fever. I thought he had by now. They didn't ask any questions. I was safe. The rest was easy. I filed a claim, found some real money and told what I'd found. I waited a month, then went back to Madre Gulch with Bill Munroe, the fellow that helped stake us. There was no one there. We searched the rocks and plains for miles around for signs of Hawk Kennedy's body, for we knew he couldn't have got far in that heat without water. But we found nothin'. Hawk Kennedy had disappeared."

"Then," said Peter, "you built a railroad in and sold out for half a million dollars----?"

McGuire looked up, mystified.

"Or thereabouts," he muttered. "But Hawk Kennedy was alive. I found that out later when he wrote from London. We steered him off the track. But I knew he'd come back some day with that paper I'd signed. That's what's been hangin' over me. An' now it's fallen. I've told you the truth. I had to. You believe me, don't you?" he asked appealingly.

Peter had watched him keenly. There seemed little doubt that what he told was the truth. There was no flaw in the tale.

"Yes," he said after a pause. "I believe you've told me the truth. But you can hardly blame Hawk Kennedy, murderer though he is, for hating you and wanting what he thinks is his."

"No. That's true."

"And you can't blame me for being angry at the trick you played me----"

"I was desperate. I've been desperate since I saw him in New York.

Sometimes I've been a bit queer, I reckon--thinkin' about Peggy hearin'

this. I wanted to kill him. It was a good chance last night. n.o.body would have blamed me, after his being around the place. It was an easy shot--but my hand wasn't steady----"

"Pity you didn't know that before you put me in danger."