The Seventh Man | Page 9

perhaps Glass had something on him; perhaps the manhunter
thought that Vic had had a part in that Wilsonville affair two years back.
That was it, and he wanted to make Vic talk when he was drunk.
"Don't mind if I do," Lew said, slapping both hands on the bar as if he
owned it; and while he waited for his drink: "What are they going to do
with Swain?"
The doddering idiot! Swain was the last man Glass had taken, and Lew
Perkins should have known that the sheriff never talked about his work;
the old ass was in his green age, his second childhood.

"Swain turned state's evidence," said Pete, curtly. "He'll go free, I
suppose. Fill up your glass, partner. Can see you're thirsty yet."
This was to Gregg, who had purposely poured out a drink of the
sheriff's own chosen dimension to see if the latter would notice; this
remark fixed his suspicions. It was certain that the manhunter was after
him, but again, in scorn, he accepted the challenge and poured a stiff
dram.
"That's right," nodded the sheriff. "You got nothing on your shoulders.
You can let yourself go, Vic. Sometimes I wish"--he sighed--"I wish I
could do the same!"
"The sneaky coyote," thought Gregg, "he's lurin' me on!"
"Turned state's evidence!" maundered Lew Perkins. "Well, they's a lot
of 'em that lose their guts when they're caught. I remember way back in
the time when Bannack was runnin' full blast--"
Why did not some one shut off the old idiot before he was thoroughly
started? He might keep on talking like the clank of a windmill in a
steady breeze, endlessly. For Lew was old-seventy-five, eighty,
eighty-five--he himself probably did not know just how old--and he had
lived through at least two generations of pioneers with a myriad stories
about them. He could string out tales of the Long Trail: Abilene,
Wichita, Ellsworth, Great Bend, Newton, where eleven men were
murdered in one night; he knew the vigilante days in San Francisco,
and early times in Alder Gulch.
"Nobody would of thought Plummer was yaller, but he turned out that
way," droned on the narrator. "Grit? He had enough to fit out twenty
men. When Crawford shot him and busted his right arm, he went right
on and learned to shoot with his left and started huntin' Jack again.
Packed that lead with him till he died, and then they found Jack's bullet
in his wrist, all worked smooth by the play of the bones. Afterwards it
turned out that Plummer ran a whole gang; but before we learned that
we'd been fools enough to make him sheriff. We got to Plummer right
after he'd finished hangin' a man, and took him to his own gallows."

"You'd of thought a cool devil like that would of made a good end, but
he didn't. He just got down on his knees and cried, and asked God to
help him. Then he begged us to give him time to pray, but one of the
boys up and told him he could do his prayin' from the cross-beam. And
that was Henry Plummer, that killed a hundred men, him an' his gang."
"H-m-m," murmured the sheriff, and looked uneasily about. Now that
his eyes were turned away, Vic could study him at leisure, and he
wondered at the smallness of the man. Suppose one were able to lay
hands on him it would be easy to--
"See you later, boys," drawled Glass, and sauntered from the room.
Lew Perkins sighed as the most important part of his audience
disappeared, but having started talking the impetus carried him along,
he held Vic Gregg with his hazy eyes.
"But they didn't all finish like Plummer, not all the bad ones. No sirree!
There was Boone Helm."
"I've heard about him," growled Vic, but the old man had fixed his
glance and his reminiscent smile upon the past and his voice was soft
with distance when he spoke again.
"Helm was a sure enough bad one, son. They don't grow like him no
more. Wild Bill was a baby compared with Helm, and Slade wasn't no
man at all, even leavin' in the lies they tell about him. Why, son, Helm
was just a lobo, in the skin of a man--"
"Like Barry?" put in Lorrimer, drifting closer down the bar.
"Who's he?"
"Ain't you heard of Whistlin' Dan? The one that killed Jim Silent and
busted up his gang. Why, they say he's got a wolf that he can talk to
like it was a man."
Old Lew chuckled.

"They say a lot of things," he nodded, "but I'll tell a man that a wolf is a
wolf and they ain't nothin' that can tame 'em. Don't you let 'em feed