Chapter nine
“NO, SIREE, ol’ Screwloose Pete wasn’t as screwy as most folks thought,” Cal Strenk said firmly. His faded blue eyes held a knowing gleam. He drank noisily through lips flattened against toothless front gums and wiped beer foam from drooping mustaches with the back of a gnarled hand. “Reckon I knowed Screwloose better’n most, and Mister, you git to know a man when you prospect these hills ’longside him for nigh on ten years.”
The aged prospector sat opposite Shayne and Sheriff Fleming in a booth at the rear of a musty beer joint on Main Street. The din of a string orchestra and the bang and whir of slot machines from an adjoining building almost drowned his nasal twang. Across the aisle from the booths, the crowd at the bar were mostly natives, with a sprinkling of tourists who had dropped in for local color.
Strenk was bareheaded. Thin, gray hair framed his parched face in wispy locks. Above a straggly growth of gray mustaches his faded eyes held the sly look of an unfrocked priest as he hunched forward, nursing his mug of beer in calloused hands.
Shayne asked, “Didn’t Pete ever speak of the past — didn’t he ever tell you that his name was Dalcor and that he had a family?”
“Nope, Never did. But shucks, that don’t mean nothin’. Not in these here parts. Plenty hereabouts that’d jest as soon not answer questions, eh, Sheriff?” Strenk cackled a toothless laugh and squinted at Fleming.
Sheriff Fleming pushed his hat back and scratched his forelocks.
Shayne asked, “Do you mean you think he had something to hide? A criminal record, perhaps?”
“Wouldn’t want to say that, Mister. I jest mentioned there was some others, mebby, wasn’t usin’ their right names.” Cal Strenk screwed up his face and appeared to be deep in judicial concentration. “I allus had me an idee Screwloose put on a hull lot of his actin’,” he went on, “to keep from answerin’ fool questions. He was quiet-like, you might say. I recollect onct we was gone three months together, packin’ on burros above timber-line, an’ we didn’t have but two talks in the hull of them three months.”
Shayne bent forward, folding his knobby hands. “What did you talk about those two times?”
“Waal, one time Screwloose tol’ me the pack burros had got their hobbles off an’ we’d have to hunt fer ’em. T’other time was when we was comin’ in after bein’ out prospectin’ fer four days an’ he ast me for a chaw off my plug. He’d run plumb out o’ tobaccy. Nossir, Screwloose weren’t one fer wastin’ words when ’twant no need.”
“And you were his closest friend?” Shayne asked, amused.
“Reckon I was his only friend. We batched together in a shack up back o’ town when we wa’n’t out diggin’ around in the hills.”
“Did he have any personal possessions — anything that might possibly connect him with his past?”
“Nary a thing that I knowed about. Ol’ Pete wa’n’t one fer havin’ things. One wearin’ o’ clothes at a time was all he had use for.” Strenk greedily emptied his beer mug and peered over the tilted edge at Shayne. He set it down, pursing his parched, bloodless lips at its emptiness.
Shayne shoved his empty mug beside it and called for a refill.
“No more for me,” the sheriff declined hastily. “I’ve got to set an example tonight. If folks see me drinking more than one or two beers they’ll swear I was staggering drunk and I’d have trouble.”
“Guess you’re right at that,” Shayne agreed. He lit a cigarette, studying the old miner in silence while they waited. He had an uneasy feeling that Strenk was intentionally drawing him on — holding something back. For a price, perhaps, or out of perverse delight in forcing a detective to probe for information which no one else could give.
When the beers came, Shayne asked Strenk, “What’s your idea about what happened to Pete tonight? Who had a reason to murder him?”
Strenk shook his head warily, buried his whiskers in beer foam and drank. He wiped his mouth carefully before answering, “I sure dunno, Mister Shayne. It beats me. Ol’ Pete was as harmless as a steer in a herd of bullin’ cows. Most folks hereabouts was mighty happy for the ol’ coot when he fin’ly struck it rich.”
Shayne detected a faint emphasis on the word “most.”
He looked sharply at Strenk, but the old miner’s eyes were looking past him, reminiscent and far away. He bent his head over the beer mug and started drinking again.
Shayne asked impatiently, “How many are in on Pete’s discovery? How many besides you will share the mine?”
“How many?” The old man appeared to come back to reality with a jolt. “Why, jest me an’ Pete and Jasper Windrow. Me an’ Pete located the claims side by side, an’ Jasper was grubstakin’ us both. Jasper gets a third,” he ended with the suspicion of a whine.
“Jasper deserves it, too,” Fleming said after a long silence. “He has been grubstaking half the prospectors in Central City for years. It’s high time he got something back. A man can’t keep on doing credit business.”
“Wall, I dunno ’bout that.” The slyness came again to Strenk’s pale eyes. “Notice he still gets to N’York every year on what he calls buyin’ trips. I reckon he ain’t so doggone broke.”
Shayne was conscious of a tension between the sheriff and the aged prospector. Though the words of both had been spoken without stress, there was the impact of a clash across the narrow wooden table. More than ever, he recognized his inability to gauge these men of the West by their spoken word.
Sheriff Fleming said, “Jasper figures he gets better discounts buying direct from New York than in Denver.”
Wrinkled lids veiled Cal Strenk’s watery eyes. He wiped foam from his mouth with elaborate unconcern. He gazed absently past both Shayne and Fleming and said, “Mebby so. Feller like me wouldn’ be knowin’ much about business. There’s some that think Jas is doin’ right well by hisself. Seems like he does some smart steppin’ with the swells durin’ Festival time.”
“A man’s got a right to have some fun once a year like we do in Central,” the sheriff said indulgently. “If you’d put on a clean shirt, Cal, and scrape off your whiskers you might sport some of the ladies around.” He grinned amiably.
Strenk was unresponsive to his humor. He drained the last drop of beer from the glass and sucked noisily at the foam. Shayne ordered a third round for the two of them.
Strenk’s grizzly chin sunk against his chest and his blue-lidded eyes were half closed. He began talking drowsily:
“Funny thing about Pete since we come back an’ filed our claims. Seemed like he got all over hatin’ to have folks come to the cabin. He ast ’em in, b’gosh, an’ sometimes talked hull sentences. Seemed like he got a kick outa havin’ his pitcher took an’ hearin’ Eastern folks say how quaint he was. Quaint, by God. Makes a he-man sick to his stummick. Me, I had to move out.”
“That was after news got around about Pete’s rich strike,” Sheriff Fleming explained to Shayne. “There was a piece about him in the Register-Call with his picture, and the Festival crowd pestered him a lot. You got to admit that striking it rich changes a man a little,” he ended apologetically.
Shayne said, “Yeh. That’s natural, of course. Any particular people you can mention?” he asked Strenk.
The old miner’s expression changed quickly from disgust to one of sly pleasure. The provocative hinting at untold secrets filmed his eyes again. He waggled his head and said, “Don’t know’s I can name any of ’em — me not takin’ any part in it and not bein’ quaint enough for pitchers to be sent back home.”
“Could you describe any of Pete’s visitors?” Shayne asked.
“Waal — yes. A couple of flashy sports an’ a older one not so flashy. They was allus buyin’ drinks for Pete ’round town.”