“Maybe I was. Maybe Mother was too, the way she was affected by what happened to Dad. But the way it ended with her was worse than the way it ended with him. Did you ever try to put yourself in the place of someone feeling so terrible she wants to kill herself and does it? Did you ever try to feel it? And it was my mother, my own mother!”
Pellett said harshly, “She was my own sister, wasn’t she?”
Delia only looked at him. He looked at her and their eyes met, and then separated. After a little she said, “I have a sister, too. She’s being cheerful and brave. She has lost her job. Jackson fired her.”
“The hell he did. When?”
“Yesterday. Ending Saturday noon. It’s unspeakable. All the money they ever made, they made grubstaking, and Dad made that for them. Didn’t he?”
“I guess so. I guess he mostly handled it. What’d he fire her for?”
“He said something about it’s being as much for her good as his because there’s no future for her. It’s an alibi. I’m going to see him and find out. She has an appointment at Atterson’s office at four o’clock and I’m going while she’s away. That’s what I came for, anyhow one thing, to ask you to go with me.”
“To see Jackson?”
“Yes.”
“What are we going to say to him?”
“We’re going to remind him of the facts and tell him he can’t fire Clara.”
Pellett shook his head. “He knows the facts, and one of them is that he can fire Clara. He and Lem Sammis own the shebang, don’t they?”
Delia flared. “They shouldn’t! He has no right to!”
“Legal right, yes. Moral right, maybe not. But that kind of an argument won’t get you anywhere with Dan Jackson if he’s made up his mind. It wouldn’t help any for me to go there with you. I have an appointment to see him on another matter and I’ll have to go at him myself. By the way, it’s not Jackson you’re getting ready to shoot, is it?”
Delia’s head jerked around at him. “Who told you?”
Her uncle regarded her sourly. “That young partner Phil Escott’s got. Dillon. He came around to see me and ask me to help head you off. He thinks you mean it. He don’t know you as well as I do. Still got the gun in your bag?”
“Yes.”
“Dillon said you said it’s your father’s.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re still wearing the paint and feathers?”
“Yes.” Delia was gazing at him, her eyes burning as they had burned at Marvin Hopple across the counter. She said, “You think you know me, Uncle Quin.”
“I know darned well I know you. Haven’t I seen a lot of the exhibitions you’ve put on? Dillon wanted to know if I thought there was any chance you were faking and I told him no. I never knew you to fake. What you do, you work yourself into a fix like a prospector crawling an old tunnel he’s never tried before. But his fix may end by his starving to death, while yours is only in your mind. You’re just like a man that’s been hypnotized, only you hypnotize yourself. But a man that’s been hypnotized can’t be persuaded to do anything really violent or dangerous, and neither can you. You may persuade yourself to go around toting a gun and buying cartridges and scaring young lawyers, but when it comes right down to it you’ll get a cramp in your trigger finger. See if you don’t.”
“I’ll see,” Delia said calmly, with only a suggestion of steel in her voice.
Her uncle nodded. “That’s one reason you fool people, you don’t go raving and yelling around, you just make quiet statements. Mostly. You use your eyes more than your tongue. I’ll give a little proof that I know you as well as I say I do. I know who you’re getting ready to shoot.”
“You said Jackson.”
“Oh, no, that was just palaver. It’s the Reverend Rufus Toale.”
She stared an instant, then sprang to her feet, and confronted him, rigid. “You...” she gasped. “You told... you told—”
“Now take it easy. Sit down.”
“You told Ty Dillon...” She gasped again.
“I told you and nobody else. Our family troubles have been on the front page enough without me trying to put them there again.”
“How did you know?”
“That it was Toale?” Pellett lifted his rounded shoulders and let them drop. “Who else would it be? Didn’t I see what was going on the last two months of your mother’s life as well as you did? Maybe not as much as you, but I saw enough. I saw what was in your head, too, and I saw you put your foot down and refuse to let him preach the funeral sermon, and I knew you were working yourself into a fix. Though I had no idea you would go so far as to buy cartridges and so on. But when Dillon came here today and told me what you were up to, naturally I knew.”
Delia was still rigid. “You didn’t tell him.”
“No. All I said to him was that I would have a talk with you as soon as I could.”
“Well, you’ve had it.” Delia took three quick paces, stooped and got her hat and bag, and set out for the door.
Her uncle, without getting up, called after her in exasperated alarm, “Godamighty, Delia, now! Hey now, I only said—”
But she was gone. For a full minute he sat looking at the door which she had closed behind her, slowly shaking his head, then he lifted his handkerchief to his face and began mopping again.
Chapter 3
The new Sammis Building, at 214 Mountain Street, was the imposing structure where Delia had gone that morning to call on Tyler Dillon. The old Sammis Building, bought by Lemuel Sammis many years before he had attained state-wide eminence both economically and politically, and much less imposing, was over on Halley Street. Its ground floor was occupied by The Haven, the biggest and most popular gambling room in the city. Walled off from The Haven, making a separate entrance, were the narrow hall and equally narrow stairs which led to the second floor, where an even narrower hall, so dark in the daytime that strangers almost had to grope, afforded only two doors. The one in the front bore on its glass panel an old dingy inscription: Evelina Mining Co. — left there as a matter of sentiment by old man Sammis because it had been named in the distant days after his wife Evelina, who had once been a beanslinger at a lunch counter in Cheyenne. The door at the rear had a much fresher labeclass="underline" Sammis & Jackson, with no designation of function. About midway of the hall stood an old wooden bin, half-filled with jagged chunks of ore, some smaller than an egg and some larger than a big man’s fist; and an ancient discolored card tacked to the bin conveyed the invitation: Solid silver — help yourself to a souvenir — Evelina Mining Co. It had been probably close to two decades since the invitation had been accepted by anyone.
When Delia parked the car in the neighborhood of the old Sammis Building that afternoon, she chose a spot fifty yards away because she had a reason for not parking directly in front even if there had been a space. It still lacked twenty minutes till four o’clock when she arrived, and she didn’t want to be seen by her sister Clara as she left for her appointment at Atterson’s. Also she didn’t want to enter the building until she was sure Clara had gone, so she sat in the car with her eyes glued to the entrance. Ten minutes passed before she saw Clara emerge and strike off in the other direction, mingling with the sidewalk crowd. She waited a minute or two and then climbed out.
She was at the head of the narrow stairs, in the dark upper hall, before she realized that she didn’t have her handbag. She stopped, frowning. She knew very well her wits were wandering. She concentrated. Yes, she had taken it with her from Uncle Quin’s place; she remembered it beside her in the car as she drove. Then she had left it on the seat. She turned to go back after it, then turned again. She was hot and the sun outside was hotter. She remembered distinctly now that the bag was at the end of the seat, against the door. No one could see it from the sidewalk, and no one was apt to snoop around that old car in search of valuables. She went to the door at the rear of the hall and stood there a moment before opening it, gazing at the inscription on the panel and thinking of the time when it had been Brand & Jackson instead of Sammis & Jackson. Then she became aware of voices within, a loud voice especially, raised in anger. So Jackson wasn’t alone. But she knew Clara wasn’t there, so she pushed the door open and entered.