Silvertip's Trap (14 page)

I
T WAS
the sort of a thing that every one knows how to appreciate, for it was the sort of thing that every man of us hopes may be possible in himself — a change forever from the bad to the good.

They found out all about Bill Naylor while he lay flat on his back in the hotel room in the little, grimy town of Benton Corner. The newspapers found out; they lived on the trail until they had located his associates of older days — most of them in prison, and most of them willing to talk. They found the marshals and sheriffs who had arrested him in the past and the posses that had assisted on occasion. Some of these informants grinned and shook their heads, but most of them had pleasant things to say. A crook? Sure, Bill Naylor had been a crook, but he had always been the sort of stuff that can turn straight when the right time comes for turning.

Honest men, reading their newspapers of a morning, shook their heads and smiled, also. They were pleased. We have all done shady things, cruel things, evil things; and we all hope that we will never do them again. The story of Bill Naylor helped every man to believe in himself a little more, to have faith in that higher self which obscurely struggles with the baser.

But Bill Naylor, as he lay in his bed in the hotel room in Benton Corner, knew very little about all of this for many days.

The first thing that he was aware of when he opened his eyes and discovered with bewilderment that a weak pulse of life was still throbbing in him, was the almost handsome face of Taxi. The pale, bright, dangerous eyes were fixed steadily upon him.

“By thunder, Taxi,” said Naylor unevenly, “how come you're here?”

“I'm the wake,” said Taxi with a faint smile. “I'm waiting — and it seems as though you're going to wake up and live out the rest of your days. You've got to. If you don't, Silver will hound me around the world.”

Naylor looked at the ceiling. He wanted to shake his head, but there was hardly enough strength for even that gesture.

“That's funny,” he said. “Jim Silver, he wants me to pull through?”

“Jim Silver's not a hound,” said Taxi. “He wants you to live through. Because — I'll tell you a queer thing — Jim Silver is sort of fond of a man who's saved his life twice in a row!”

Naylor considered this thing curiously with a detached mind.

“Jim Silver's still on the out trail, I suppose?” he asked.

“And he'll never leave it,” said Taxi. “Not till he's run Barry Christian to the ground. If Barry Christian were the devil and could take a thousand forms, I think Silver would find ‘em one by one and strangle them all. It's the end for Christian.”

Taxi sat close beside the bed. His eyes were set back in deep, dark hollows. His face was drawn.

“You go to sleep again,” he said. “Because now I'm going to have a chance to do a little snoozing on my own account.”

And Naylor, dreamily smiling, went back to sleep.

It was a long time after that when he wakened again. Then he heard a girl's voice saying:

“I wouldn't bother him none. I just wanted to look at him.”

That was the voice of Sally Townsend, and the voice of her father muttered:

“Don't you be a fool, Sally. He's gone and got himself famous now. He wouldn't be wanting to see you.”

“Sally!” said Bill Naylor.

There was a whispering of clothes. She stood above him.

She looked better in overalls than in store clothes, with a foolish hat perched high on her head, and her hair pulled back so tight that her eyebrows were raised a little.

She looked like a small girl dressed as a grown-up. He had to squint and glance back into his memory before he could recall her to his mind as she was before — as she really was.

She was frightened. Her eyes were too big for the pupils. They showed a lot of white all around. And she had gloves on her strong brown hands. Suddenly he wanted to get her away from the sight of every one. Out on the range — that was where she belonged.

“Hey, Bill!” she said in a husky whisper.

“Hey, Sally!” said he.

“Shall I get out of here?” asked the soft voice of Taxi.

“Wait a minute,” said Naylor. “Meet Sally Townsend. How I wish that Jim Silver was here to meet her, too.”

“Jim would like to be here, I know,” said Taxi.

“This is Taxi,” said Naylor. “And this is Sally Town-send, who's promised that she'll marry me.”

“Jiminy!” said the girl. “Are you Taxi? Are you
the
Taxi?”

Taxi took her hand. He said that he was happy to meet her. He only wished that Jim Silver were there, too, because he said that Jim Silver thought a great deal of Bill Naylor and would want nothing so much as to see the girl he was going to marry. He said that they would all have to be good friends, because they all belonged to Silver's side of everything. It was quite a speech, quite a pretty speech. Taxi was capable of them, now and again.

Then he got out of the room, but big Townsend came and stood at the foot of the bed. He had shaved off his ragged beard, and his face looked boyish and rather pale, except for the dark tan around the eyes. And he had on a high stiff white collar that choked him. The necktie had worked down and showed the brass sheen of the collar button.

“Well, Townsend, I'm lucky I'm not up,” said Bill Naylor.

“Why?” asked Townsend, gaping a little.

“Well,” said Naylor, “if I was up, you'd lick me because I'm trying to get Sally. I'm a lot safer in bed.”

Townsend grinned. Sally sat down on the edge of the bed and took Naylor's hand.

“You've talked enough,” she said. “Dad, go on away.”

Townsend went away.

“When you get better, we'll talk a lot about things to come and the way we're going,” she concluded firmly.

“There's only one way to go,” said Naylor.

“What way is that?” asked the girl.

“Straight,” said Bill Naylor.

This edition published by
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Copyright © 1933 by Frederick Faust. Copyright © renewed 1960 by Dorothy Faust. The name Max Brand® is a registered trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and cannot be used for any purpose without express written permission. Published by arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency. All rights reserved.

Cover Images ©www.Clipart.com

This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 10: 1-4405-4985-0
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4985-4
eISBN 10: 1-4405-4983-4
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4983-0