The Everlasting Whisper Page 3

  _Chapter III_

  To have followed the pace which he set that day would have broken theheart of any but a seasoned mountaineer. No man in these mountains couldhave so much as kept him in sight, saving alone Swen Brodie, and he wasleft far back yonder, miles on the other, lower, side of the ridge. Bymid-forenoon King had outstripped the springtime and was among snowpatches which grew in frequency and extent; at noon he built his littlefire on a snow crust. He crossed a raging tributary of the American,travelling upward along the rock-bound, spray-wet gorge a full milebefore he came to the possible precarious ford. At six o'clock he made asecond fire in a bleak windy pass, surrounded by a glimmering ghostlywaste. Trees were stiff with frost; the wind whistled and jeered throughthem and about sharp crags, filling the crisp air with eerie,shuddersome music. He set his coffee to boil while meditating that downin the Sacramento Valley, which one could glimpse from here by day, itwas stifling hot, like midsummer. He rested by his fire with his canvasdrawn up about his shoulders, smoked his pipe, remade his pack, and wenton. He counted on the moon presently and a bed at a slightly loweraltitude among the trees; to-night Andy Parker was sleeping in his armyblanket.

  He crunched along over the snow crust which rarely failed him, andthough the daylight passed swiftly, the dead-white surface seemed tohold an absorbed radiance and shed it softly. By the time he got down tothe timber-line again the moon was up. He left the country of Five Lakeswell to his left, ignoring the invitation of the trail beyond down thetall walls of Squaw Creek canon. He went straight down the long pitch ofthe mountain, heading tenaciously toward the tiny lakelet which, so faras he knew, had been nameless until his old friend Ben Gaynor had builta summer home there two years ago and had christened the pond among thetrees. Lake Gloria! Mark King liked the appellation little enough,telling himself with thorough-going unreason that there was a silly nameto fit to perfection a silly girl, but altogether out of place to tie onto an unspoiled Sierra lake. Ben would have done a better job in namingit Lake Vanity. Or Self-Regard. King could think of a score ofdesignations more to the point. For though he had never so much as sethis eyes on either Gloria or her mother, he had his own opinion of bothof them. Nor did he in the least realize that that opinion was basedrather less on actual knowledge than moulded by his own peculiar form ofjealousy, that jealousy which one time-tried friend feels when the otherallows love of women to occupy a higher place than friendship.

  He made his camp at eight o'clock in a sheltered spot among the firs. Hebuilt a fire, made a mat of boughs, wrapped himself up in his canvas,and went promptly to sleep. He awoke cold, got his blood running bystamping about, put on fresh fuel and went to sleep again, his feettoward the blaze. Half a dozen times he was up during the night; beforedawn he had his coffee boiling; before the sun was up he was well on hisway again, driving the cramped chill out of him by walking vigorously.And at nine o'clock that morning he stood on the bench of a timberedslope whence, looking downward through the trees, he got his firstglimpse of Lake Gloria and of the rambling log house which Ben Gaynorhad been prevailed on to build here in the wild, a dozen miles from theLake Tahoe road.

  He noted, as he came nearer, swinging along down the slope and seeingthe little valley with its green meadow and azure lake, how Ben had hada log dam thrown across the pond's lower end, backing up the water andmaking it widen out; he saw a couple of graceful canoes restingtranquilly on their own reflections; a pretty bathing-house alreadygreen with lusty hop-vines. Ben Gaynor had been spending money, a gooddeal of money. And no one knew better than Mark King that Ben had beenclose-hauled these latter years. He shrugged, telling himself to pull upshort, and not find fault with his friend, or what his friend did, orwith those whom his friend loved.

  An hour later he came to the grove of sugar-pines back of the house.Here he paused a moment, though he was all eagerness for his meetingwith Gaynor. He had seen a number of persons coming out of the house, adozen or more, pouring out brightly, as gay as butterflies, men andwomen. Their laughter floated out to him through the still sunnymorning, the deeper notes of men, a cluster of rippling notes from agirl. He wanted to see Gaynor, not a lot of Gaynor's San Franciscoguests. No, not Gaynor's; rather the friends of Gaynor's womenfolk. Itwas King's hope that they were going down toward the lake; thus he wouldavoid meeting them. He'd come in at the back, have his talk with Ben,and be on his way without the bore of shaking a lot of flabby hands andlistening to a lot of gushing exclamations.

  He stood very still where he was, unseen as he leaned against alight-and-shadow-dappled pine. A girl broke away from the knot ofsummer-clad figures, ran a few steps down the path toward the lake,poised gracefully, executed a stagy little pose with head back and armsoutflung as though in an ecstasy of delight that the world was so fair.She was a bright spot of colour with her pink dress and white shoes andstockings, and lacy parasol and brown hair, and for a little his eyeswent after her quite as they would have followed the flight of abrilliant bird. Then, as in sheer youth, as one who during a night ofrefreshing sleep has been steeped body and soul in the elixir that isyouth's own, she yielded her young body up to an extravagant dance,whirling away as light as thistledown across the meadow. Hands clappedafter her; voices, men's voices, filled her ears with a clamour ofpraise as extravagant as her own dancing; the guests went trooping gailyafter her. King seized his chance and went swiftly toward the house. Ashe went he noted that the girl alone was watching him; she was facinghim, while the others had turned their backs upon the house. She hadabandoned her dance and was standing very still, obviously interestedin the rough-clad, booted figure which had seemed so abruptly tomaterialize from the forest land.

  Ben Gaynor had seen him through a window and met him at the door. Theirhands met in the way of old friendship, gripping hard. Further, Ben beatthe dust out of his shoulders with a hard-falling open palm as he ledthe way inside.

  "My wife has been saying for years that you're a myth," said Gaynor, thegleam in his eyes as youthful as it had ever been; "that you are no moreflesh and blood than the unicorn or the dodo bird. To-day I'll show her.They were up half the night dancing and fussing around; she will be downin two shakes, though."

  "In the meantime we can talk," said King. "I've got something to tellyou, Ben."

  Gaynor led the way through a room where were piano and victrola and fromthe floor of which the rugs were still rolled; through a dining-room andinto what was at once a small library and Gaynor's study; King notedthat even a telephone had found its way hither. A chair pulled forward,a box of cigars offered, and the two friends took stock in each other'seyes of what the last year had done for each.

  "You look more fit than ever, Mark--and younger."

  King wanted to say the same thing of his friend, but the words did notcome. Gaynor was by far the older man, King's senior by a score ofyears, and obviously had begun to feel the burden of the latter greyingdays. Or of cares flocking along with them; they generally cometogether. His were seriously accepted responsibilities, where Markgathered unto himself fresh hopes and eager joys; the responsibilitieswhich come in the wake of wife and daughter; a home to be maintained inthe city, the necessity to adapt himself, even if stiffly, to unfamiliarconditions. This big log house itself, it seemed to King, was carried onthe back of old Ben.

  They had been friends together since King could remember, since Ben hadbig-brothered him, carried him on his back, taught him to swim andshoot. Then one year while King was off at school his friend took untohimself a wife. This with no permission from Mark King; not even after aconference with him; in fact, to his utter bewilderment. King did not somuch as know of the event until Gaynor, after a month of honeymooning,remembered to drop him a brief note. The bald fact jarred; King was hurtand grew angry and resentful with all of that unreason of a boy. He wentoff to Alaska without a word to Gaynor.

  With the passage of time the friends had again grown intimate, had beenpartners in more than one deal, and the youthful relationship had beencemented by the years. But it
had happened, seemingly purely throughchance, although King knew better, that he had never met Gaynor's wifeor daughter. When Gloria was little, Mrs. Gaynor had been impressed bythe desirability of a city environment, had urged the larger schools,music teachers, proper young companions, and a host of somewhat vagueadvantages. Hence a large part of the year Gaynor kept bachelor'squarters in his own little lumber town in the mountains where hisbusiness interests held him and where his wife and daughter came duringa few weeks in the summer to visit him. At such periods King alwaysmanaged to be away. This year the wife and daughter, drawn by the newsummer home, had come early in the season, and King's business wasurgent. Besides, he had told himself a dozen times, there really existedno sane reason in the world why he should avoid Ben Gaynor's family asthough they were leprous.

  ... What King said in answer to his friend's approval was by way of abantering:

  "Miracles do happen! Here's Ben Gaynor playing he's a bird of paradise.Or emulating Beau Brummel. Which is it, Ben? And whence the fine idea?"

  Gaynor, with a strange sort of smile, King thought, half sheepish andthe other half tender, cast a downward glance along the encasement ofthe outer man. Silk shirt, a very pure white; bright tie, very new;white flannels, very spick and span; silken hose and low white ties.This garb for Ben Gaynor the lumberman, who felt not entirely at hisease, hence the sheepish grin; a fond father decked out by his daughteras King well guessed; hence that gleam of tenderness.

  "Gloria's doings," he chuckled. "Sent ahead from San Francisco withexplicit commands. I guess I'd wear a monkey-jacket if she said so,Mark." But none the less his eyes, as they appraised the rough garb ofhis guest, were envious. "I can breathe better, just the same, in bootslike yours," he concluded. He stretched his long arms high above hishead. "I wish I could get out into the woods for a spell with you,Mark."

  And he did not know, did not in the least suspect, that he was failingthe minutest iota in his loyalty to Gloria and her mother. He wasthinking only of their guests, whom he could not quite consider his own.

  "The very thing," said King eagerly. "That's just what I want."

  But Gaynor shook his head and his thin, aristocratic face was brieflyovercast, and for an instant shadows crept into his eyes.

  "No can do, Mark," he said quietly. "Not this time. I've got both handsfull and then some."

  King leaned forward in his chair, his hand gripping Gaynor's knee.

  "Ben, it's there. I've always known it, always been willing to bet mylast dollar. Now I'd gamble my life on it."

  Gaynor's mouth tightened and his eyes flashed.

  "Between you and me, Mark," he said in a voice which droppedconfidentially, "I'd like mighty well to have my share right now. I'vegone in pretty deep here of late, a little over my head, it begins tolook. I've branched out where I would have better played my own game andbeen content with things as they were going. I----" But he broke offsuddenly; he was close to the edge of disloyalty now. "What makes you sosure?" he asked.

  "I came up this time from Georgetown. You remember the old trail, up byGerle's, Red Cliff and Hell Hole, leaving French Meadows and Heaven'sGate and Mount Mildred 'way off to the left. I had it all pretty muchmy own way until I came to Lookout Ridge. And who do you suppose I foundpoking around there?"

  "Not old Loony Honeycutt!" cried Gaynor. Then he laughed at himself forallowing an association of ideas to lead to so absurd a thought. "Ofcourse not Honeycutt; I saw him last week, as you wanted me to, and heis cabin-bound down in Coloma as usual. Can't drag his wicked old feetout of his yard. Who, then, Mark?"

  "Swen Brodie then. And Andy Parker."

  Gaynor frowned, impressed as King had been before him.

  "But," he objected as he pondered, "he might have been there for someother reason. Brodie, I mean. Remember that the ancient andtime-honoured pastimes of the Kentucky mountains have come into vogue inthe West. Everybody knows, and that includes even the government agentsin San Francisco, that there is a lot of moonshine being made inout-of-the-way places of the California mountains. There's a job forSwen Brodie and his crowd. There's talk of it, Mark."

  "Maybe," King admitted. "But Brodie was looking for something, and notrevenue men, at that. He and Parker were up on the cliffs not aquarter-mile from the old cabin. They stood close together, right at theedge. Parker fell. Brodie looked down, turned on his heel and went off,smoking his stinking pipe, most likely. I buried Parker the nextmorning."

  "Poor devil," said Gaynor. Then his brows shot up and he demanded:

  "You mean Brodie did for him? Shoved him over?"

  "That's exactly what I mean. But I can't tie it to Brodie, not so thathe couldn't shake himself free of it. Parker didn't say so in so manywords; I saw the whole thing from the mountain across the lake, too farto swear to anything like that. But this I can swear to: Brodie was inthere for the same thing we've been after for ten years. And what ismore, it's open and shut that he was of a mind to play whole-hog andpushed Andy Parker over to simplify matters. In my mind, even though Ican't hope to ram that down a jury."

  "How do you _know_ what Brodie and Parker were after?"

  "Andy Parker. He was sullen and tight-mouthed for the most part untildelirium got him. Then he babbled by the hour. And all his talk was ofGus Ingle and the devil's luck of the unlucky Seven, with every now andthen a word for Loony Honeycutt and Swen Brodie."

  "If there is such a thing as devil's luck," said Gaynor with a soberlook to his face, "this thing seems plastered thick with it."

  King grunted his derision.

  "We'll take a chance, Ben," he said. "And, after all, one man's bane isanother man's bread, you know. Now I've told you my tale, let's haveyours. You saw Honeycutt; could you get anything out of him?"

  "Only this, that you are dead right about his knowing or thinking thathe knows. He is feebler than he was last fall, a great deal feebler bothin body and mind. All day he sits on his steps in the sun and peersthrough his bleary eyes across the mountains, and chuckles to himselflike an old hen. 'Oh, I know what you're after,' he cackles at me,shrewd enough to hit the nail square, too, Mark. 'And,' he rambles on,'you've come to the right man. But am I goin' to blab now, havin' kept ashut mouth all these years?' And then he goes on, his rheumy-red eyesblinking, to proclaim that he is feeling a whole lot stronger thesedays, that he is getting his second wind, so to speak; that comemid-spring he'll be as frisky as a colt, and that then he means to havewhat is his own! And that is as close as he ever comes to sayinganything. About this one thing, I mean. He'll chatter like a magpieabout anything else, even his own youthful evil deeds. He seems to knowsomehow that no longer has the law any interest in his old carcass, andbegins to brag a bit of the wild days up and down the forks of theAmerican and of his own share in it all; half lies and the other halfblood-dripping truth, I'd swear. It makes a man shiver to listen to theold cut-throat."

  "He can't live a thousand years," mused King. "He is eighty now, if he'sa day."

  "Eighty-four by his own estimate. But when it's a question of that, hesits there and sucks at his toothless old gums and giggles that it's thefirst hundred years that are the hardest to get through with and he'sgettin' away with 'em."

  "He knows something, Ben."

  "So do we, or think we do. So does Brodie, it would seem. Does oldHoneycutt know any more than the rest of us?"

  "We are all young men compared with Loony Honeycutt, allJohnny-come-lately youngsters. Gus Ingle and his crowd, as near as wecan figure, came to grief in the winter of 1853. By old Honeycutt's owncount he would have been a wild young devil of seventeen then. Andremember he was one of the roaring crowd that made the country what itwas after '49. He knows where the old cabin was on Lookout; he swears heknows who built it in that same winter of '53. And----"

  "And," cut in Gaynor, "if you believe the murderous old rascal, he knowswith sly, intimate knowledge how and why the man in the lone cabin waskilled. All in that same winter of '53!"

  King pricked up his ears.

&
nbsp; "I didn't know that. What does he say?"

  "He talks on most subjects pretty much at random. He knows that thesheriff only laughs at him, since who would want to snatch the oldderelict away from his mountains after all these years and try to fix acrime of more than half a century ago on him? But as the law laughs andat least pretends to disbelieve, his pride is hurt. So he has grown intothe way of wild boasting. You ought to hear him talk about the affair atMurderer's Bar! It makes a man shiver to stand there in the sunshine andhear him. And, with the rest of his drivelling braggadocio, to hear himtell it, hinting broadly it was a boy of seventeen who, carrying nothingbut an axe, did for the poor devil in the cabin."

  "And I, for one, believe him! What is more, I am dead certain--call ita hunch, if you like--that if he had had the use of his legs all theseyears, he'd have gone straight as a string where we are trying to get."He began to pace up and down, frowning. "Brodie has been hanging aroundhim lately, hasn't he?"

  "Yes. Brodie and Steve Jarrold and Andy Parker and the rest of Brodie'sworthless crowd of illicit booze-runners. They hang out in the oldMcQuarry shack, cheek by jowl with Honeycutt. I saw them, thick asflies, while I was there last week. Brodie, it seems, has even beencooking the old man's meals for him."

  "There you are!" burst out King. "What more do you want? Imagine SwenBrodie turning over his hand for anybody on earth if there isn'tsomething in it all for Swen Brodie. And I'll go bond he's givingHoneycutt the best, most nourishing meals that have come his way sincehis mother suckled him--Swen Brodie bound on keeping him alive until hegets what he's after. When he'd kick old Honeycutt in the side and leavehim to die like a dog with a broken back."

  "Well," demanded Gaynor, "what's to be done? With all his jabberings,Honeycutt is sly and furtive and is obsessed with the idea that there isone thing he won't tell."

  "Will you go and see him one more time?"

  "What's the good, Mark? If he does know, he gets lockjaw at the firstword. I've tried----"

  "There's one thing we haven't tried. Old Honeycutt is as greedy a miseras ever gloated over a pile of hoardings. We'll get a thousanddollars--five thousand, if necessary--in hard gold coin, if we have torob the mint for it. You'll spread it on the table in his kitchen.You'll let it chink and you'll let some of it drop and roll. If thatwon't buy the knowledge we want----But it will!"

  "I've known the time when five thousand wasn't as much money as it isright now, Mark----"

  "I've got it, if I scrape deep. And I'll dig down to the bottom."

  "And if we draw a blank?"

  But there was a step at the door, the knob was turning. Mark Kingturned, utterly unconscious of the quick stiffening of his body as heawaited the introduction to Ben's wife.