I told him I wanted to look at some Indian blankets, so he showed me his stock.
Then I got to talking about business and told him I’d like to see the pawn room.
You know those pawn rooms. The Indians go broke and take their silver finery, maybe a turquoise belt or necklace, their spurs, their guns, anything they happen to have, and pledge it for grub.
Those pledges are always redeemed. The trader keeps a separate little room for ’em. Maybe it’ll be months, maybe it’ll be a year, but the Indian always comes back and pays up, gets his finery, and goes away. Maybe he’ll have to hock it again within a week.
The trader shook his head.
“I’ve got no pawn room,” he said.
Whereupon I knew I was at the right place.
“You wanted Indian blankets,” the trader said, looking as though somebody’d slipped a lemon in under his tongue.
I grinned and stuck out my hand.
“Flint’s my name,” I told him, “Jim Flint, and I’m just roaming around, looking the country over. I was wondering what sort of blankets these redskins made. They seemed to be a pretty shiftless bunch around here.”
He took my hand, but his clasp did not have any warmth in it. He just stuck his paw into mine and then let it drop as soon as I opened my fingers.
“Goin’ to be here long?”
“Maybe a week or two.”
He thought for a minute. “Well, Mr. Flint,” he said, “the Indians ain’t shiftless.”
I yawned as though I wasn’t much interested.
“If you want any grub I can sell it to you,” he said, after a bit.
“Later on, not right now.”
The trader nodded and went back into the tiny office where he’d been when I came in.
That left me nothing to do except go out. I’d liked to have talked awhile, but he wouldn’t talk.
I strolled over to the edge of the ditch where the artesian water went down into the little alfalfa patch, and there I made camp.
The Indians came past and looked me over. I bought a little grub from the trader, but that was all that happened in a week.
Then I sneaked up one night and looked the place over, the trading post. I wanted to see that mysterious back room where the cash transactions took place.
I’d found out about the trader. He was McLaren, a hard-bitten old Scot who could keep his mouth shut in fourteen different languages. He was a naturalized citizen and was always discussing the sanctity of the Constitution. But that was all he’d talk about.
This night the moon was old, and I took advantage of the darkness before moon-up. I sneaked around the place, looking for the room. I found it, all right. It was a little back room, to one side of the office, adjoining the cubbyhole of a kitchen where McLaren lived and did his own cooking.
I could see from the partition studding and the nails that there must be a room there. Also, I could see where there had been a knot hole, but it was filled up with putty now, and a sheet of something was nailed on the inside. Tin, I guess. I poked the blade of my knife through, and it felt like tin.
It was ticklish business. I started boring a small hole right where two of the boards came together. I had to work slow, so as not to make a noise, and I rubbed dirt in it, so it wouldn’t show from the outside where the boards had been scraped.
I didn’t finish that hole for two nights, what with having to work slow, and the moon coming up and all. At last I got the job done. Then I started watching. Every night after dark I’d go up and put my eye to the hole and wait.
But I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Once or twice I saw McLaren walking through the room. But I never saw an Indian come in the place.
I found out McLaren had some booze hidden there, though. Twice I saw him break out a bottle. I made up my mind I’d ask him some day about how it happened he believed in the Constitution so hard and yet kept a stock of hooch in his place.
After a couple of days, when it got slap dark of the moon, McLaren said he was going away to get some stock for his store. I offered to run the place for him while he was gone, but the old fellow shook his head and didn’t even thank me.
“It’s dark of the moon,” said he.
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“The Indians won’t trade during the dark of the moon. It’s some sort of a religious business with ’em.”
I pretended to be awfully glad.
“Then I’ll ride down on the truck with you and pick up some little stuff I need. It’ll be company for you, and if you should have a breakdown you wouldn’t have to leave the truck and go for help.”
He wasn’t cordial, but the code of the desert’s a strange thing-something that a man don’t dare run against — and so he agreed.
I made up my mind I’d see what sort of money he used in paying for his stuff. Not that I was going to take any advantage. It was simply a business proposition. I thought there might be gold in that Indian country. I did not want any of McLaren’s gold. I wanted to find some of my own, but I didn’t want to go on any wild-goose chases.
He went to San Diego for his provisions. Why he went there I don’t know. Maybe because of wholesale prices. He went to a bank first. I told him I wanted to cash a check. He nodded and introduced me to his banker.
I’ve never seen a banker with such fishy eyes or such a cordial handshake. That banker started shaking hands with me while McLaren started for an inner office with the cashier. He was still working my arm up and down like a man jacking up a car when McLaren came out.
And then McLaren got cordial. He acted like he didn’t have a care in the world. He cracked Scotch jokes, and he endorsed the check I wrote on a Los Angeles bank, and he kidded the banker. He was like a two-year-old colt just turned into pasture.
Quickly the cashier came out of the little inside room, rubbing his hands.
“Your credit is one thousand four hundred and ninety dollars, Mr. McLaren,” he said in a low voice.
McLaren made some figures.
Now, why should a banker have to wait a while to tell a man how much he had deposited? There was only one answer. The cashier must have been weighing out gold dust in that inner room.
I didn’t say anything, McLaren didn’t say anything. But McLaren gave a guarded glance at the banker, and the banker replied with a slight nod of his head.
I remembered how the banker had held me with his long handshake, keeping me from following McLaren into that inner room. And I remembered how the banker’s cordiality had vanished into thin air when McLaren came out.
I got my check cashed, after which McLaren and I went out of the bank, went to a wholesale house where McLaren bought a bunch of stock. He paid for it with a check. I wanted to start back. McLaren wanted to go to Tia Juana. We went to Tia Juana.
McLaren was not the Scotchman of the joke magazines when it came to the booze. We swapped treats for a while, and then McLaren started to spend. Not that he was throwing any money away, but he was buying all the drinks.
I switched to beer. Even then I was feeling a little uncertain about the sidewalk when we got started back, and Mac insisted on stopping in one of the cantinas for a last shot of oil.
Then was when he did the funny thing.
He pulled out his purse, couldn’t find any small change, turned the purse upside down, and some gold nuggets fell out.
There were only three of ’em, and they wouldn’t have run over five dollars, but they were virgin gold.
He scooped ’em up quick and dropped ’em back in his purse.
After a bit he started to explain.
“Pocket pieces I’ve had ever since I used to be a prospector, years ago. I’ve carried ’em in that purse for years and years.”
He leered at me like an owl Jeering at a titmouse.