CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE SAILOR WITH ONE HAND
At this moment the heavy beat of the storm on the roof ceased withmiraculous suddenness, leaving the outside world empty of sound savefor the DRIP, DRIP, DRIP of eaves. Nobody ventured to fill in thepause that followed the stranger's last words, so in a moment hecontinued his narrative.
We had every sort of people with us off and on, and, as I was lookoutat a popular game, I saw them all. One evening I was on my way homeabout two o'clock of a moonlit night, when on the edge of the shadow Istumbled over a body lying part across the footway. At the sameinstant I heard the rip of steel through cloth and felt a sharp stab inmy left leg. For a minute I thought some drunk had used his knife onme, and I mighty near derringered him as he lay. But somehow I didn't,and looking closer, I saw the man was unconscious. Then I scouted tosee what had cut me, and found that the fellow had lost a hand. Inplace of it he wore a sharp steel hook. This I had tangled up with andgotten well pricked.
I dragged him out into the light. He was a slim-built young fellow,with straight black hair, long and lank and oily, a lean face, and bighooked nose. He had on only a thin shirt, a pair of rough wool pants,and the rawhide home-made zapatos the Mexicans wore then instead ofboots. Across his forehead ran a long gash, cutting his left eyebrowsquare in two.
There was no doubt of his being alive, for he was breathing hard, likea man does when he gets hit over the head. It didn't sound good. Whena man breathes that way he's mostly all gone.
Well, it was really none of my business, as you might say. Men gotbatted over the head often enough in those days. But for some reason Ipicked him up and carried him to my 'dobe shack, and laid him out, andwashed his cut with sour wine. That brought him to. Sour wine is fineto put a wound in shape to heal, but it's no soothing syrup. He sat upas though he'd been touched with a hot poker, stared around wild-eyed,and cut loose with that song you were singing. Only it wasn't thatverse. It was another one further along, that went like this:
Their coffin was their ship, and their grave it was the sea, Blow high, blow low, what care we; And the quarter that we gave them was to sink them in the sea, Down on the coast of the High Barbaree.
It fair made my hair rise to hear him, with the big, still, solemndesert outside, and the quiet moonlight, and the shadows, and himsitting up straight and gaunt, his eyes blazing each side his big eaglenose, and his snaky hair hanging over the raw cut across his head.However, I made out to get him bandaged up and in shape; and prettysoon he sort of went to sleep.
Well, he was clean out of his head for nigh two weeks. Most of thetime he lay flat on his back staring at the pole roof, his eyes burningand looking like they saw each one something a different distance off,the way crazy eyes do. That was when he was best. Then again he'dsing that Barbaree song until I'd go out and look at the old Coloradoflowing by just to be sure I hadn't died and gone below. Or else he'djust talk. That was the worst performance of all. It was likelistening to one end of a telephone, though we didn't know whattelephones were in those days. He began when he was a kid, and he gavehis side of conversations, pausing for replies. I could mighty nearfurnish the replies sometimes. It was queer lingo--about ships andships' officers and gales and calms and fights and pearls and whalesand islands and birds and skies. But it was all little stuff. I usedto listen by the hour, but I never made out anything really importantas to who the man was, or where he'd come from, or what he'd done.
At the end of the second week I came in at noon as per usual to fix himup with grub. I didn't pay any attention to him, for he was quiet. AsI was bending over the fire he spoke. Usually I didn't bother with histalk, for it didn't mean anything, but something in his voice made meturn. He was lying on his side, those black eyes of his blazing at me,but now both of them saw the same distance.
"Where are my clothes?" he asked, very intense.
"You ain't in any shape to want clothes," said I. "Lie still."
I hadn't any more than got the words out of my mouth before he was atopme. His method was a winner. He had me by the throat with his hand,and I felt the point of the hook pricking the back of my neck. Onelittle squeeze--Talk about your deadly weapons!
But he'd been too sick and too long abed. He turned dizzy and keeledover, and I dumped him back on the bunk. Then I put my six-shooter on.
In a minute or so he came to.
"Now you're a nice, sweet proposition," said I, as soon as I was surehe could understand me. "Here I pick you up on the street and saveyour worthless carcass, and the first chance you get you try to crawlmy hump. Explain."
"Where's my clothes?" he demanded again, very fierce.
"For heaven's sake," I yelled at him, "what's the matter with you andyour old clothes? There ain't enough of them to dust a fiddle withanyway. What do you think I'd want with them? They're safe enough."'
"Let me have them," he begged.
"Now, look here," said I, "you can't get up to-day. You ain't fit."
"I know," he pleaded, "but let me see them."
Just to satisfy him I passed over his old duds.
"I've been robbed," he cried.
"Well," said I, "what did you expect would happen to you lying aroundYuma after midnight with a hole in your head?"
"Where's my coat?" he asked.
"You had no coat when I picked you up," I replied.
He looked at me mighty suspicious, but didn't say anything more--hewouldn't even answer when I spoke to him. After he'd eaten a fair mealhe fell asleep. When I came back that evening the bunk was empty andhe was gone.
I didn't see him again for two days. Then I caught sight of him quitea ways off. He nodded at me very sour, and dodged around the corner ofthe store.
"Guess he suspicions I stole that old coat of his," thinks I; andafterwards I found that my surmise had been correct.
However, he didn't stay long in that frame of mind. It was alongtowards evening, and I was walking on the banks looking down over themuddy old Colorado, as I always liked to do. The sun had just set, andthe mountains had turned hard and stiff, as they do after the glow, andthe sky above them was a thousand million miles deep of pale green-goldlight. A pair of Greasers were ahead of me, but I could see only theiroutlines, and they didn't seem to interfere any with the scenery.Suddenly a black figure seemed to rise up out of the ground; theMexican man went down as though he'd been jerked with a string, and thewoman screeched.
I ran up, pulling my gun. The Mex was flat on his face, his armsstretched out. On the middle of his back knelt my one-armed friend.And that sharp hook was caught neatly under the point of the Mexican'sjaw. You bet he lay still.
I really think I was just in time to save the man's life. According tomy belief another minute would have buried the hook in the Mexican'sneck. Anyway, I thrust the muzzle of my Colt's into the sailor's face.
"What's this?" I asked.
The sailor looked up at me without changing his position. He was notthe least bit afraid.
"This man has my coat," he explained.
"Where'd you get the coat?" I asked the Mex.
"I ween heem at monte off Antonio Curvez," said he.
"Maybe," growled the sailor.
He still held the hook under the man's jaw, but with the other hand heran rapidly under and over the Mexican's left shoulder. In the halflight I could see his face change. The gleam died from his eye; thesnarl left his lips. Without further delay he arose to his feet.
"Get up and give it here!" he demanded.
The Mexican was only too glad to get off so easy. I don't know whetherhe'd really won the coat at monte or not. In any case, he flew pocopronto, leaving me and my friend together.
The man with the hook felt the left shoulder of the coat again, lookedup, met my eye, muttered something intended to be pleasant, and walkedaway.
This was in December.
During the next two months he was a good deal about town, mostly doi
ngodd jobs. I saw him off and on. He always spoke to me as pleasantlyas he knew how, and once made some sort of a bluff about paying me backfor my trouble in bringing him around. However, I didn't pay muchattention to that, being at the time almighty busy holding down my cardgames.
The last day of February I was sitting in my shack smoking a pipe aftersupper, when my one-armed friend opened the door a foot, slipped in,and shut it immediately. By the time he looked towards me I knew wheremy six-shooter was.
"That's all right," said I, "but you better stay right there."
I intended to take no more chances with that hook.
He stood there looking straight at me without winking or offering tomove.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"I want to make up to you for your trouble," said he. "I've got a goodthing, and I want to let you in on it."
"What kind of a good thing?" I asked.
"Treasure," said he.
"H'm," said I.
I examined him closely. He looked all right enough, neither drunk norloco.
"Sit down," said I--"over there; the other side the table." He did so."Now, fire away," said I.
He told me his name was Solomon Anderson, but that he was generallyknown as Handy Solomon, on account of his hook; that he had alwaysfollowed the sea; that lately he had coasted the west shores of Mexico;that at Guaymas he had fallen in with Spanish friends, in company withwhom he had visited the mines in the Sierra Madre; that on thisexpedition the party had been attacked by Yaquis and wiped out, healone surviving; that his blanket-mate before expiring had told him ofgold buried in a cove of Lower California by the man's grandfather;that the man had given him a chart showing the location of thetreasure; that he had sewn this chart in the shoulder of his coat,whence his suspicion of me and his being so loco about getting it back.
"And it's a big thing," said Handy Solomon to me, "for they's not onlygold, but altar jewels and diamonds. It will make us rich, and a dozenlike us, and you can kiss the Book on that."
"That may all be true," said I, "but why do you tell me? Why don't youget your treasure without the need of dividing it?"
"Why, mate," he answered, "it's just plain gratitude. Didn't you savemy life, and nuss me, and take care of me when I was nigh killed?"
"Look here, Anderson, or Handy Solomon, or whatever you please to callyourself," I rejoined to this, "if you're going to do business withme--and I do not understand yet just what it is you want of me--you'llhave to talk straight. It's all very well to say gratitude, but thatdon't go with me. You've been around here three months, and barring ahalf-dozen civil words and twice as many of the other kind, I've failedto see any indications of your gratitude before. It's a quality with ahell of a hang-fire to it."
He looked at me sideways, spat, and looked at me sideways again. Thenhe burst into a laugh.
"The devil's a preacher, if you ain't lost your pinfeathers,"' said he."Well, it's this then: I got to have a boat to get there; and she mustbe stocked. And I got to have help with the treasure, if it's likethis fellow said it was. And the Yaquis and cannibals from Tiburon isthrough the country. It's money I got to have, and it's money Ihaven't got, and can't get unless I let somebody in as pardner."
"Why me?" I asked.
"Why not?" he retorted. "I ain't see anybody I like better."
We talked the matter over at length. I had to force him to each point,for suspicion was strong in him. I stood out for a larger party. Hestrongly opposed this as depreciating the shares, but I had nointention of going alone into what was then considered a wild anddangerous country. Finally we compromised. A third of the treasurewas to go to him, a third to me, and the rest was to be divided amongthe men whom I should select. This scheme did not appeal to him.
"How do I know you plays fair?" he complained. "They'll be four of youto one of me; and I don't like it, and you can kiss the Book on that."
"If you don't like it, leave it," said I, "and get out, and be damnedto you."
Finally he agreed; but he refused me a look at the chart, saying thathe had left it in a safe place. I believe in reality he wanted to besurer of me, and for that I can hardly blame him.