“From public view, yes. Not necessarily from the Owyhees. And the two of them were acquainted.”
“You’ve found that out, have you?” Coffin gave him a long, calculating look. “You know, you’re rather a persistent and inquisitive fellow for a drummer. You act more like a lawman — a detective I once knew in Kansas City.”
Quincannon laughed. “Hardly that, Mr. Coffin. My tolerance for violence is much too low and my fondness for whiskey much too high.”
The answer had its desired effect: Coffin laughed, too, and seemed to dismiss the notion, at least for the time being. He said, “Well, you do seem overly concerned about Dixon’s death — a man you hadn’t seen in a good many years.”
“Whistling Dixon and I were very close when I was a youngster,” Quincannon said, making his voice and his manner intense. “His murder
… well, it was quite a shock, happening as it did the very night I arrived in Silver City. I can find myself just a bit obsessed with identifying the man or men who killed him. You can understand how I feel, I’m sure.”
“I suppose I can.”
“I haven’t spoken to Marshal McClew. Has he uncovered any leads of his own, do you know?”
“He hasn’t,” Coffin said. “I had a drink with him not two hours ago.”
“How did he feel about your editorial?”
A wry smile. “He didn’t like it. He is of the opinion that I’m trying to foment racial strife, which is ridiculous. He thinks the damned heathens are a peace-loving bunch and ought to be left alone.”
Quincannon’s estimate of the marshal rose a notch; McClew might after all be a man whose confidence he would want to enter into. He said, “Then the marshal doesn’t share your certainty of their guilt?”
“He says he has no proof either way. He even refuses to interrogate Yum Wing, much less close down his filthy opium-peddling operation. I am beginning to believe that Oliver Truax is right: vigilante action is the only sure course of action open to us.”
“Violence is seldom the answer to any problem, Mr. Coffin.”
“Are you a pacifist? Not that it matters. I have no intention of debating the matter with you. You are not the victim of Oriental harassment and I am.”
There was no arguing with the man; Coffin’s prejudice acted on his judgment as a pair of blinders acted on a horse’s vision, making it impossible for him to take any but the narrowest view. Quincannon said, “As you wish, then,” and got to his feet. “I’ll be leaving now. With thanks for your time and hospitality.”
Coffin made a dismissive gesture. “I’ll show you out.” At the door he said, “I wish you success in your quest, Mr. Lyons. Nothing would please me more than to write a story for the Volunteer about justice served.”
“Justice usually is served,” Quincannon said, “in one way or another.” He started out onto the porch and then paused. “Before I go, would you happen to know a man named Conrad who works for Jack Bogardus at the Rattling Jack mine? He’s a shirttail cousin of Whistling Dixon’s, I’ve learned.”
“Conrad? No, I can’t say I do.”
“You do know Bogardus, though?”
“I know him,” Coffin said with distaste. “A ruffian and a fornicator.”
“But a successful miner for all of that. Oliver Truax told me the Rattling Jack’s new vein assays at one hundred dollars the ton.”
“I suspect that sum is a gross exaggeration. Bogardus certainly doesn’t freight out much silver.”
“He doesn’t?”
“No. The man who runs the Poison Creek station is a personal friend of mine. He has told me that he seldom sees Bogardus’ wagons on the Boise or Nampa roads.”
Quincannon took his leave. As he started downhill to Morning Star Street, he considered what he had learned from Coffin. The information about Bogardus and the Rattling Jack coincided — with his suspicions. It also tended to eliminate the possibility of a link between Coffin and Bogardus; if Bogardus was the leader of the koniakers, it seemed unlikely that Coffin, in view of the man’s candor, was the engraver of the plates for the counterfeit notes. Jason Elder was still the most probable candidate.
But what had happened to Elder? And what, if Quincannon’s hunch was correct, could he have possessed that had prompted a ransacking of his shack and the illegal entry of the newspaper office and Coffin’s home? Helen Truax’s shares of stock in the Paymaster Mining Company were one possibility; the searchers had evidently overlooked the certificate at Elder’s shack. Yet the stock seemed a minor prize, hardly worth the effort and risk of three separate break-ins. It seemed important only to Helen Truax, her husband, and Jason Elder himself.
Whatever the object of the hunt, what had Elder done with it? The man had had no friends in Silver City. He hadn’t given it to his employer. And assume for the moment that he hadn’t hidden it where he lived. Was there anyone else to whom he might have entrusted such a valued object?
Yum Wing.
Quincannon cursed himself for being slow-witted, too befuddled by whiskey to see the obvious truth of the matter long before this. Elder was or had been an opium addict; who better to take into his trust than the man who supplied him with his daily ticket to the land of celestial dreams. And Yum Wing had plainly been hiding something behind his Oriental stoicism yesterday: his refusal to discuss Elder proved that.
At Jordan Street, Quincannon turned uphill toward the Chinese colony. Not surprisingly, considering the hour, he found Yum Wing’s store closed and dark. Across the street and a dozen yards farther uphill, excited Chinese voices and the click of Mah-Jongg tiles came from inside the meeting hall. He considered going there to ask where Yum Wing lived, but he had spent enough time among the Chinese to know that he would not be welcome in such a place and that his questions might not be answered. Instead, he turned along the uphill side of the store, thinking that he might find a way inside at the rear. He was not above nocturnal breaking-and-entering himself, if it might serve a useful purpose.
The darkness was thick and clotted back there, forcing him to move slowly. But when he came to the rear corner, starshine and the pale wedge of a moon let him see that there was a second building tucked in behind a knobby outcrop. It was connected to the store by a long, narrow shed that would probably serve as a covered passageway between the two and keep Yum Wing dry during the heavy winter snows. Because of the outcrop, neither the second dwelling nor the shed could be seen from downhill on Jordan Street.
Quincannon moved along parallel to the shed, out away from it to avoid the heaviest shadows that crouched there. There was light inside the house; he could make out the glow against the darkness around back, where the outside door must be. The near side wall was empty of windows or doors. He turned the corner. One window in that wall, but it was curtained in monk’s cloth; the light came through the partially open door beyond. He took a step toward the door, putting his hand on the Remington holstered inside his coat.
Something moved in the shadows behind him.
He heard the sound, knew it as the scraping of a bootsole, and came around swiftly, drawing his weapon as he did. But he still was not quick enough. There were two of them, blobs of black rushing toward him from the side wall; the smaller one hit him first, a glancing blow over his right eye. He grunted and staggered sideways with the stench of the man’s rancid breath in his nostrils. The second one slashed him across the side of the neck with what must have been a gun barrel. He went to his knees, his senses jarred awry. Tried to get up and couldn’t find the strength.
The smaller man kicked him in the side, toppling and rolling him, then kicked him twice more and drove him up against the building wall. The pain brought a groaning sound out of his throat. Distantly, through the blood pulsing in his ears, he could hear the two of them talking in low, urgent whispers.
“That’s enough. We make any more noise, some of the other Chinamen might hear.”