Gunman's Reckoning Read online

  8

  The colonel stiffened in his chair, and under his bulk even thoseponderous timbers quaked a little. Once more Donnegan gained animpression of chained activity ready to rise to any emergency. Thecolonel's jaw set and the last vestige of the smile left his eyes. Yetit was not anger that showed in its place. Instead, it was rather ahungry searching. He looked keenly into the face and the soul ofDonnegan as a searchlight sweeps over waters by night.

  "You are a mind reader, Mr. Donnegan."

  "No more of a mind reader than a Chinaman is."

  "Ah, they are great readers of mind, my friend."

  Donnegan grinned, and at this the colonel frowned.

  "A great and mysterious people, sir. I keep evidences of them alwaysabout me. Look!"

  He swept the shaft of the reading light up and it fell upon a red vaseagainst the yellow hangings. Even Donnegan's inexperienced eye read aprice into that shimmering vase.

  "Queer color," he said.

  "Dusty claret. Ah, they have the only names for their colors. Think!Peach bloom--liquid dawn--ripe cherry--oil green--green of powderedtea--blue of the sky after rain--what names for color! What other landpossesses such a tongue that goes straight to the heart!"

  The colonel waved his faultless hands and then dropped them back uponthe book with the tenderness of a benediction.

  "And their terms for texture--pear's rind--lime peel--millet seed! Donot scoff at China, Mr. Donnegan. She is the fairy godmother, and we arethe poor children."

  He changed the direction of the light; Donnegan watched him, fascinated.

  "But what convinced you that I wished to keep you here?"

  "To amuse you, Colonel Macon."

  The colonel exposed gleaming white teeth and laughed in that soft,smooth-flowing voice.

  "Amuse me? For fifteen years I have sat in this room and amused myselfby taking in what I would and shutting out the rest of the world. I havemade the walls thick and padded them to keep out all sound. You observethat there is no evidence here of the storm that is going on tonight.Amuse me? Indeed!"

  And Donnegan thought of Lou Macon in her old, drab dress, huddling thepoor cloak around her shoulders to keep out the cold, while her fatherlounged here in luxury. He could gladly have buried his lean fingers inthat fat throat. From the first he had had an aversion to this man.

  "Very well, I shall go. It has been a pleasant chat, colonel."

  "Very pleasant. And thank you. But before you go, taste this whisky. Itwill help you when you enter the wind."

  He opened a cabinet in the side of the chair and brought out a blackbottle and a pair of glasses and put them on the broad arm of the chair.Donnegan sauntered back.

  "You see," he murmured, "you will not let me go."

  At this the colonel raised his head suddenly and glared into the eyes ofhis guest, and yet so perfect was his muscular and nerve control that hedid not interrupt the thin stream of amber which trickled into one ofthe glasses. Looking down again, he finished pouring the drinks. Theypledged each other with a motion, and drank. It was very old, very oily.And Donnegan smiled as he put down the empty glass.

  "Sit down," said the colonel in a new voice.

  Donnegan obeyed.

  "Fate," went on the colonel, "rules our lives. We give our honestendeavors, but the deciding touch is the hand of Fate."

  He garnished this absurd truism with a wave of his hand so solemn thatDonnegan was chilled; as though the fat man were actually conversantwith the Three Sisters.

  "Fate has brought you to me; therefore, I intend to keep you."

  "Here?"

  "In my service. I am about to place a great mission and a great trust inyour hands."

  "In the hands of a man you know nothing about?"

  "I know you as if I had raised you."

  Donnegan smiled, and shaking his head, the red hair flashed andshimmered.

  "As long as there is no work attached to the mission, it may beagreeable to me."

  "But there is work."

  "Then the contract is broken before it is made."

  "You are rash. But I had rather begin with a dissent and then workupward."

  Donnegan waited.

  "To balance against work--"

  "Excuse me. Nothing balances against work for me."

  "To balance against work," continued the colonel, raising a white handand by that gesture crushing the protest of Donnegan, "there is a greatreward."

  "Colonel Macon, I have never worked for money before and I shall notwork for it now."

  "You trouble me with interruptions. Who mentioned money? You shall nothave a penny!"

  "No?"

  "The reward shall grow out of the work."

  "And the work?"

  "Is fighting."

  At this Donnegan narrowed his eyes and searched the fat man thoroughly.It sounded like the talk of a charlatan, and yet there was a crispnessto these sentences that made him suspect something underneath. For thatmatter, in certain districts his name and his career were known. He hadnever dreamed that that reputation could have come within a thousandmiles of this part of the mountain desert.

  "You should have told me in the first place," he said with some anger,"that you knew me."

  "Mr. Donnegan, upon my honor, I never heard your name before my daughteruttered it."

  Donnegan waited soberly.

  "I despise charlatanry as much as the next man. You shall see the stepsby which I judged you. When you entered the room I threw a strong lightupon you. You did not blanch; you immediately walked straight into theshaft of light although you could not see a foot before you."

  "And that proved?"

  "A combative instinct, and coolness; not the sort of brutevindictiveness that fights for a rage, for a cool-minded love ofconflict. Is that clear?"

  Donnegan shrugged his shoulders.

  "And above all, I need a fighter. Then I watched your eyes and yourhands. The first were direct and yet they were alert. And your handswere perfectly steady."

  "Qualifications for a fighter, eh?"

  "Do you wish further proof?"

  "Well?"

  "What of the fight to the death which you went through this same night?"

  Donnegan started. It was a small movement, that flinching, and hecovered it by continuing the upward gesture of his hand to his coat; hedrew out tobacco and cigarette papers and commenced to roll his smoke.Looking up, he saw that the eyes of Colonel Macon were smiling, althoughhis face was grave.

  A glint of understanding passed between the two men, but not a spokenword.

  "I assure you, there was no death tonight," said Donnegan at length.

  "Tush! Of course not! But the tear on the shoulder of your coat--ah,that is too smooth edged for a tear, too long for the bite of ascissors. Am I right? Tush! Not a word!"

  The colonel beamed with an almost tender pride, and Donnegan, knowingthat the fat man looked upon him as a murderer, newly come from adeath, considered the beaming face and thought many things in silence.

  "So it was easy to see that in coolness, courage, fighting instinct,skill, you were probably what I want. Yet something more than all thesequalifications is necessary for the task which lies ahead of you."

  "You pile up the bad features, eh?"

  "To entice you, Donnegan. For one man, paint a rosy beginning, and onceunder way he will manage the hard parts. For you, show you the hardshell and you will trust it contains the choice flesh. I was saying,that I waited to see other qualities in you; qualities of the judgment.And suddenly you flashed upon me a single glance; I felt it clashagainst my willpower. I felt your look go past my guard like a rapierslipping around my blade. I, Colonel Macon, was for the first timeoutfaced, out-maneuvered. I admit it, for I rejoice in meeting such aman. And the next instant you told me that I should keep you here out ofmy own wish! Admirable!"

  The admiration of the colonel, indeed, almost overwhelmed Donnegan, buthe saw that in spite of the genial smile, the face suffused with warmth,the
colonel was watching him every instant, flinty-eyed. Donnegan did ashe had done on the stairs; he burst into laughter.

  When he had done, the colonel was leaning forward in his chair with hisfingers interlacing, examining his guest from beneath somber brows. Ashe sat lurched forward he gave a terrible impression of that reservedenergy which Donnegan had sensed before.

  "Donnegan," said the colonel, "I shall talk no more nonsense to you. Youare a terrible fellow!"

  And Donnegan knew that, for the first time in the colonel's life, he wasmeeting another man upon equal ground.