In his absorption he did not hear the door click open and shut again and it was not until a shadow fell across the table, cutting out the sun that streamed in from the window, that he became aware someone stood before him.
He glanced up and saw the lanky, wiry form. For a moment he did not know the rawhide face and then he remembered the eyes. Stony eyes that glittered even when the man’s back was against the sun. A pair of eyes that one could not forget. Plimpton’s foreman.
«Hello, Mapes,» he said. «Sit down.»
«I didn’t come in to sit down,» said Mapes and his voice was flat and toneless.
«Plimpton send you?» asked Carter.
Ernie Mapes hooked his thumbs in the armpits of his vest, spat on the floor without moving his head.
«No one sent me,» he announced. «I came on my own hook.»
Carter dropped his eyes back to the plate, carefully mopped up the last bit of egg, reached out for the coffee cup.
«Start talking,» said Mapes and the voice still was toneless and just a pitch above a whisper.
Carter let go of the coffee cup, looked up at the man again.
«I haven’t anything to talk about with you.»
«You better have,» said Mapes.
«You mean about the ruckus this morning?»
Mapes nodded, his eyes still flinty bright.
«I haven’t got a thing to say about it,» Carter said. «If Plimpton wants to talk about it, tell him to come himself and not send a hired hand.»
Mapes put his hands on the table top and leaned down so that his eyes were almost on a level with Carter’s. «I’m tryin’ real hard to be patient with you,» he declared. «If you wasn’t a sawbones I’d gun you where you sit.»
«Look here, Mapes,» said Carter, «it’s all quite simple if you consider it. Plimpton swung at me and missed. I swung at him and didn’t miss. That’s the story. What could be simpler than that?»
«Doc,» declared Mapes, «you’re sticking your snoot in where it don’t belong. You’re getting too damn curious. We sort of like you out at the ranch and we’d hate to have anything happen to you, sudden-like, let’s say.»
«Like a bullet, perhaps?»
«Right between the eyes,» said Mapes.
Carter shrugged. «That’s all you have to say?»
He eyed Mapes and Mapes didn’t speak, just stared back with those stony eyes.
«Because if it is,» said Carter, «I have business to attend to. I’m going down to the land office and ask Grant about filing on a quarter section right smack in the center of Plimpton’s valley land.»
Mapes started, but the steady eyes held. «You’re loco,» he finally said. «You can’t file on that land.»
«That’s what I’m going to find out,» Carter declared. «Whether I can file on it or not. Grant may be able to bluff these poor kicked-around nesters who come in here, but he can’t bluff me. If the land’s open for entry, I’m finding out about it.»
Mapes hunched forward, pushed his face closer. «If I were you, doc, I wouldn’t do that. You might find out too much.»
«I see,» said Carter, soberly. «Then the land really doesn’t belong to Plimpton.»
Mapes’ right hand left the table, deliberately reached back to his belt.
Carter’s hand shot out, grasped the coffee cup, hurled the steaming contents into Mapes’ face.
With almost the same motion he was on his feet, grasping the chair back, lifting it from the floor. Mapes was staggering backwards, gun dangling from one hand, other hand clawing at his face.
With effortless ease, Carter swung the chair, brought it down with vicious force. Too late, Mapes tried to duck.
The chair smashed against his head. Rungs sprung out of place, sprayed on the floor. Mapes went down as if he had been axed. The gun spun from his hand and clattered on the floor.
Carter dropped the few sticks of chair that still remained, bent over to pick up the fallen gun.
Charlie stood in the door that led into the kitchen, yellow face squeezed with dismay.
«How much do I owe you, Charlie?» asked Carter.
Charlie took in the situation. «Ham and eggs, six bits. Chair, five dollar.»
«Little high on the chair, aren’t you?» asked Carter.
«Good chair,» said Charlie. «Lots of fun.»
Carter paid, swung back to the room. Mapes was stirring, sitting up, groaning.
«I’ll kill you for this, doc,» he declared and it was a calm statement, almost as if he were talking about the weather.
Carter flipped the gun. «I’ll leave this at the Gilded Lily,» he said. «You can pick it up.»
CHAPTER FIVE: NIGHT CALL—TO DEATH!
The first thunderstorm of spring was threatening. Through the window beside his bed, Carter could see the play of lightning across the western horizon, heard the dull mutter of thunder rumble across the land.
Carter drew the blanket up around his shoulder, shut his eyes. Sleep rolled in a black wave to engulf him and he thought, foggily, that it was funny he had awakened. Never had a storm shook him out of sleep before.
Then he was sitting up, tensed and listening. Listening for the tiny sound that had crept into his brain between the rolls of distant thunder.
It came again, a muffled rapping.
Carter swung his feet out on the floor, cautiously stood erect, eyes trying to pierce the darkness of the room. The window glowed momentarily with a distant lightning streak and for a second the room flickered and he could see that there was nothing there. Nothing that would have made a noise.
The rapping came once more and for the first time, Carter recognized it for what it was. Someone was knocking at the door.
Reaching for his dressing robe, he grimaced in the dark, berating himself for his jumpiness. A doctor should get used to being routed out of bed at all hours, he told himself.
«I’m coming,» he shouted.
He found the lamp and fumbling in the dark, located the tumbler of matches that stood beside it. Lighted, he carried it into the office, swung open the door.
A stranger blinked at the light.
«You the doctor?»
Carter nodded. «What can I do for you?»
«My partner’s awful sick,» the man told him. «I’m plumb scared he won’t make it.»
«Where is your partner?»
«Up on Snow mountain.»
«That’s a long ways.»
«Sure is. But you’re the nearest doctor. We trap in the winter and do some prospectin’ when we can’t trap.»
«What’s the matter with your partner?»
«It must have been them peaches, doc.»
Carter nodded grimly. «Stood around in the can for a day or two.»
The man agreed with him. «That’s right. Opened a can and figured we’d eaten ’em all. Then Ted found there was one left in the can and guzzled it. Made me madder’n hell. I wanted that peach, my own self.»
The trapper-prospector, Carter saw, was a small man, scarcely more than a kid. He had freckles on his nose and untrimmed blond hair stuck out under his battered broad-brimmed hat. His shirt was torn and his jeans muddy. His hands were none too clean. The cartridge belt around his middle was a plain strip of leather with cartridge loops—no fancy trimmings. The six-gun matched it. Plain handle.
«We got to hurry, Doc,» he said.
«I guess we do,» Carter agreed. «You go to the livery barn and get my horse. You know where it is?»
The man nodded. «Been in town once or twice,» he said.
Back in his living quarters, Carter dressed hurriedly, took the heavy riding cloak off the nail. He was waiting at the foot of the stairs, bag in hand, when the man came down the street, leading his horse.
The night was pitch dark, except for the lightning flashes and the air was muggy. One could almost smell the brewing storm.