Read Ebook: The High Hander by Turner William Oliver

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Ebook has 1085 lines and 72042 words, and 22 pages

"Damned if I'll ride down there just to get a badge."

"Suit yourself. I'll put you on the payroll as of tomorrow."

"I figure to start tonight," Tesno said.

"What you going to do tonight?"

Tesno grinned one-sidedly. "Call on Persia Parker."

Ben pursed his lips and made a little gesture of resignation. Both men got to their feet.

"There's room in the east bunkhouse," Ben said.

"How's that hotel in town?"

"Fair enough. No bugs."

"I'll stay there, send you the bill."

"Now hold your horses," Ben said. "When did you get too persnickety to sleep in a bunkhouse?"

"Hotel's handier."

Ben glared. "All right, you damn bandit. Anything else?"

"Just tell me where to find the Parker woman."

"Lady," he corrected. "She runs a rotten town, she hates my liver, but she's a lady." Ben appraised Tesno narrowly. "If you don't know what that is, Jack, you're damn well going to get educated."

Tunneltown had only one thoroughfare that attained the stature of a street. It had a network of lanes, wagon tracks, and alleys. They slid between buildings, twisted around woodpiles, lumbered over ditches on makeshift bridges. Many of these wound back to the main drag or meandered off into the woods. Others converged on a large log building of chalet-like aspect known as "the townhouse." This structure had two identical front entrances, one near each end. The southernmost of these led to the town offices and a small courtroom. The other end of the building provided a spacious residence for Duke Parker's widow.

Tesno's thump of the ornate, pear-shaped knocker was answered by a trim young woman in a maid's cap. As soon as she heard his name, she swung the door wide and stepped back as if she had been expecting him.

Surprised, he followed her into a large living room. Simple maple furniture and light blue draperies gave the room a touch of luxury without seeming out of place up here in the wilderness. A wide doorway led to the dining room, where he glimpsed two persons seated at a table.

"I vill tell Mrs. Parker you are here," the maid said. She had a slight Swedish accent.

"Have him come in, Stella," a feminine voice called.

Tesno followed the maid into the dining room. Persia Parker was having dinner with Sam Lester, the town treasurer, whom she promptly introduced.

"Will you join us, Mr. Tesno?" she said. "We're having duck."

Silverware and stemmed goblets glistened on a snow-white tablecloth. Red wine sparkled in the goblets. The duck looked delicious.

"Thanks," Tesno said, "but this is a business call, Mrs. Parker. I'm sorry to interrupt...."

"You haven't had dinner; I can sense it. Sit down, Mr. Tesno."

Persia Parker smiled deliciously, and he sat down. Stella immediately set a place for him. He grinned and said, "You have a sixth sense, Mrs. Parker."

"At breakfast and lunch I just grab and gulp," she said, "so I like to make a little ceremony of the evening meal. So it's a treat to have a guest--oh, Sam doesn't count."

Thin-haired, hunch-shouldered Sam Lester looked up from his plate. He wore shot-glass-thick lenses that hid his eyes and gave his face a froglike placidity.

"She feeds me," he said. He put down his fork and reached for a wine bottle. Persia shook her head in refusal. He filled Tesno's glass and then his own.

"Sam lives above the offices in the other part of the building," Persia said, smiling again.

She had white, even teeth, the complexion of an angel, and hair as pale as Montana gold. Her eyes were a mysterious shade that Tesno couldn't decide about, but they were frank and friendly.

"I drag him in to dinner most every night," she went on. "Sometimes I think he would prefer to bolt down a sandwich and get back to his precious bookkeeping. What part of the country are you from, Mr. Tesno?"

The wine was mellow, fragrant with the scent of some fertile, faraway valley. "I was born in New Mexico Territory," he said. "Got into railroading when the Santa Fe was fighting the Denver & Rio Grande for Raton Pass."

Stella set a plate before him with half a roasted duck on it. He was hungry, but he ate without tasting, captivated by the charm of Persia Parker.

She pried him with questions about himself, touching him with eyes that were green or gray or hazel, smiling when he smiled, making him feel that every word he said was important to her. He was not a talkative man, but now he talked as he seldom had before.

He told about his parents being killed by Comanches when he was a few months old, about the whisky-running renegade who had bought him from the Indians and raised him. He told how he had hired out as a wrangler when he was twelve, how a rancher's wife had taught him lessons and lent him books to read. And Persia Parker laughed and frowned and touched him with her eyes, warily now, as if afraid of the tenderness he saw there, afraid he might misunderstand.

Sam Lester seemed content to be ignored. He finished his coffee quickly, muttered that he had paper work to do, and left them alone.

Persia lead Tesno into the parlor. She was taller than he had expected. She wore a simple, black, ankle-length dress, and he remembered that her husband had been dead less than three months. Yet black set off her pale hair, and he couldn't picture her in anything more becoming. She indicated a chair for him and sat down on a sofa two feet away.

"I expect you're a busy woman," he said. "I'd better get to the point."

"I'm not half as busy as you'd think, Mr. Tesno," she said. "The town pretty much runs itself. And my position is entirely unofficial, you know. My husband was mayor, and after his death, I took over some of the more ceremonial duties of the office--temporarily, I thought. But the town council likes the novelty, and I'm afraid, the notoriety, of having a 'lady mayor.' This is no ordinary community, and they seem to feel that anything that adds to its uniqueness is good for business. So they keep postponing the election of Duke's successor."

"You also own most of the business property in town," he said. "Isn't that true?"

She nodded readily. "Duke didn't try very hard to sell lots because when the tunnel is finished, the town will fade away. At least, that's the probability. So he put up buildings and leased them to businessmen on a percentage basis. A few businesses he operated himself, of course."

"So as heir to his estate, you're in a position to tell the town council what to do."

"You know I work for Ben Vickers?"

"I presumed you did."

"You must know what the town is doing to his men. A booze town and a construction job don't mix."

"It isn't a nice town," she admitted soberly. "But it makes money. And I owe Ben Vickers nothing."

Tesno's eyebrows went up. "Without him there'd be no town."

"He's fought us every step of the way," she said, emotion creeping into her voice. "If it hadn't been for Ben Vickers, my husband would be alive today."

Tesno was startled. "I didn't know that."

"Duke brought a crew of workmen up here to build Tunneltown. Ben Vickers coaxed most of them away by offering them a bonus to work for him. That left us awfully short-handed, and Duke pitched in himself. He wasn't used to that kind of work, and he got killed.... Oh, I know that Vickers was only playing a rough game the way it's played. I don't want to be bitter. I'd give a good deal to have a cleaner town."

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