She mastered the quivering and said, “Mr. Dillon says you want to see me about something.”
Hurley nodded. “You or your sister.” Keeping his squint directed at her, he aimed a thumb at Ty. “We don’t need him. I don’t do much talking anyhow and I do it better with just one.”
“That’s all right. He’s my... my lawyer.”
Hurley grunted. “You’re starting in awful young to have lawyers. I don’t know, maybe I ought to wait for your sister. It’s a matter of business. I’ve got to get back into the hills and I want a stake. I know a place in the Cheeford range—”
“Mr. Dillon said you told him it was about my father.”
“Sure it is. But I’d like to mention about the stake first. You’re Charlie Brand’s girl and I’d trust you same as I would your dad. I’d go ahead and tell you and trust you for the ante, but what makes it hard to talk is this lawyer sitting here. I go on and tell you and then he begins to talk and when he gets through neither one of us has got anything.”
Ty said, “I’ll go out if you want me to. But if you tell Miss Brand something, and she wants to grubstake you, I not only won’t talk against it, I’ll help her put up the stake. It’s true I’m her lawyer, but also I’m... we’re going to be married.”
“Oh.” The prospector slowly shook his head. “That don’t make it any better. I expect you’ll find it makes it worse. But I’m no good as a trader — if I was, I wouldn’t be reduced to asking a woman for a stake at my age. Anyhow, I ought to tell it for Charlie Brand’s sake, and by all hell, I won’t tell it to that coyote up at the courthouse. I told him too much already.”
“You mean Baker? The county attorney?”
“That’s him. He had me in there yesterday and I mentioned maybe he would stake me, and from the way he took it you might think I was a desert rat. I had already told him that that day when I got to the cabin and found Charlie Brand there dead, when I turned him over there was a piece of paper under him with writing on it, and I stuck it in my boot lining the way I do, and when I put Charlie on his horse and took him out to Sugarbowl and Ken Chambers came and began to slobber his bile, I didn’t mention the paper because I knew it wouldn’t do any good and I thought I’d better hang onto it. I never did mention it. I would have to Lem Sammis later, but he treated me like a desert rat, too. So I never mentioned it to anyone till Tuesday morning this week when I showed it to Dan Jackson and give it to him and he put it in his wallet, and he staked me. Three hundred dollars. I paid a couple of debts, and that night like a jackass I went to The Haven with Slim Fraser and dropped it all on the wheel. So since Jackson had been glad to get that paper I thought he might put up another stake and I went upstairs to see him. That was when I found you there with that gun in your hand.”
He shifted his squint to Ty and declared, “You ain’t much of a lawyer or you’d be asking questions.”
“Go on and tell it.”
“I already told it. That’s all. That’s what I told that Baker yesterday. Except that Baker told me that the piece of paper wasn’t in Jackson’s wallet when they went over him, so whoever killed him must’ve took it, so since they didn’t even take his money from him it must’ve been the piece of paper they killed him for. So whoever killed Charlie Brand two years ago killed Dan Jackson Tuesday night. That’s plain reasoning. Then of course Baker wanted to know what was on the paper and I told him I couldn’t tell him because I could read reading but I couldn’t read writing. So I told him it was a piece of white paper about the size of my hand, and it had been folded up, and the writing on it was five or six words, and that was all I could tell him—”
“You couldn’t tell him what was written on it?”
“No, sir, I couldn’t.”
“And the paper’s gone?”
“It sure is. Took out of his wallet by whoever shot him.”
“And you say you found it under Charlie Brand’s body?”
“Yep. When I turned him over.”
“And now nobody knows what was written on the paper?”
“That’s the way it looks.”
“And this is what you came to tell Miss Brand?”
“That’s it exactly. To tell her all that, and then tell her what was written on the paper if she thinks she might like to know.”
They both stared. “But you said you couldn’t read it.”
“No I didn’t. I said I told that Baker I couldn’t read it. After he acted the way he did about the grubstake—”
“Oh.” Ty was squinting back at him. “I get you. You want a stake. If Miss Brand will stake you, you’ll tell her what was on the paper.”
“That’s about it.”
“What if there never was any such paper? What if you made all this up?”
Hurley grunted. “That would be too bad. It sure would. But I didn’t make it up. I lugged that paper around with me for two years.”
“What if Miss Brand refuses to stake you? What are you going to do then?”
“That’s just the hell of it.” Hurley looked disgusted. “I’ll have to tell her what was on the paper anyway. She’s Charlie Brand’s girl and she has a right to know. But I’m telling you that place I know down on the Cheeford range—”
“I’ll stake him, Ty,” Delia blurted. “I have enough saved up so—”
“I’ll stake him myself.” Ty pulled papers and envelopes from his pocket, dumped them on the table, and found a checkfold among them. From another pocket he took a fountain pen and laid it on the checkfold. “All right, Hurley. Tell us what was on the paper, and I’ll give you a check now, or if you prefer cash—”
“I don’t want it now. I don’t want it till they’re letting me leave this town.” The old prospector’s lips twitched with an eagerness he could not conceal, and the tips of his fingers, one missing, were rubbing the table cover. “You mean you’ll stake me? Up to three hundred dollars?”
“Yes.”
“Half and half?”
“Whatever is usual.”
“All right.” His lips twitched again. “You don’t sound much like a lawyer. All right. What was on that paper was ‘Mountain cat ready for prey four hundred and fifty WD.’ ”
Delia exclaimed, “Mountain cat!”
Ty said urgently, “Wait a minute! Was it written in pencil or ink?”
“Ink. Black ink.”
“Was it — would you know if it was in Charlie Brand’s handwriting?”
“It wasn’t. I knew Charlie’s writing. This was big and round and heavy.”
“Was the whole thing written right along on one line?”
“No. ‘Mountain cat’ was on one line and below that was ‘ready for prey’ and below that was the ‘four hundred and fifty’ and below that was ‘WD.’ ”
“Was the four hundred and fifty written out or in figures?”
“In figures. Just a four and a five and a zero, no decimals or anything. Then the ‘WD’ was in capital letters, at the bottom.”
Delia exclaimed, “Ty! I tell you the ‘mountain cat’ stood for Wynne Cowles! I tell you it did! She was after Dad just then, trying to find out about his business — he used to joke about it at home—”
“It might have,” Ty conceded, “or it might not. Wynne Cowles is certainly always ready for prey. But the ‘WD’ sounds like a signature, initials. WD?”
“I don’t know. But the ‘mountain cat’ is Wynne Cowles.”
“Possibly. Do you know anyone whose initials are WD, Hurley?”