The Message to Buckshot Jim/Chapter 7
VII
On Tuesday afternoon, the warden of the State penitentiary at Canyon City was delighted to greet his old friend, James Edward Dacey, journalist. For some time the conversation dealt with the health of the latest occupant of the condemned cells, and kindred topics.
"Boss," asked Dacey casually, "have you let any one see Buckshot John lately? Any visitors?"
"Why, yes," said the warden. "Week before last, I think. Tall, nice-looking chap. He's a magazine writer, getting up a series of character studies of convicts. I sent him over to see Buckshot John myself."
"You?" interrupted Dacey. "Didn't he ask to see him?"
"He hadn't heard of him," said the warden. "You see, we had been talking about cases where the worst criminals made the best prisoners, and I mentioned John Moran as a remarkable example. You know, we can trust that old fellow absolutely. This Mr. Harrison was very much interested in the story, and I telephoned over to Connolly to let him see John alone and have a talk with him. Very intelligent fellow, with excellent ideas upon discipline in penal institutions. He gave me some hints which I shall certainly use. I imagine he must be quite a writer."
"I'll bet he is!" said Dacey. "It's funny in a way, because I'm after old John myself this trip. This makes my fourth crack at him. I suppose I can see him?"
"My boy," said the warden heartily, "there isn't a door in this place that will ever be locked to you!" He prodded Dacey playfully in the ribs. "Mind you don't steal Harrison's thunder!"
"Not his thunder," said Dacey, shading the last word almost imperceptibly. "You'll notify Connolly over at Sand Creek?"
"I'll do better than that," said the warden. "I'll have my son drive you over in the car."
When the road-makers returned to camp that afternoon, Dacey was sitting on a bench in front of the bunk-house. Buckshot John recognized him at once; but after the first glance, the convict turned his eyes away.
"Another visitor for you, John," said the guard. "You're popular these days!"
Moran approached slowly, and without any perceptible pleasure in the meeting. He did not smile as he took the reporter's hand.
"Well, here we are again, John!" said Jimmy heartily.
"Yes," said the convict stolidly. "What is it this time? Ain't you pestered me enough?"
"Not quite," said Dacey amiably. "Now, see here, John, you know me. You know I've always been fair with you, and have written the truth about what you said. Isn't that a fact?"
Buckshot John had seated himself on the bench and was looking out across the hills. He grunted by way of reply.
"All right!" said Dacey briskly. "I won't beat about the bush with you. I'll lay all the cards on the table." He lowered his voice confidentially, eying the convict narrowly as he continued. "I know the man who was here a week ago Thursday. I know he lied to the warden about his name and his business. Magazine writer! That fellow ain't any more of a magazine writer than you are. That was Doc Gilmore!"
Buckshot John closed his eyes. His face bore an expression of patient resignation. Dacey's first shot had missed the mark, and he felt it, without knowing why.
"John," said he suddenly, "I want to know what's coming off here. You needn't look so sanctified or shocked. I tell you, I know that fellow, and he isn't the sort to be wasting his time on a rusty old 'con' like you unless there's something in it for him—something big. You can believe me, Buckshot, old boy, the doc is no piker. How did he get at you, anyway?"
Buckshot John opened his eyes. They were vague and untroubled. He seemed hardly interested in the conversation.
"I asked him to come," he said simply. "I never saw him before, and he never saw me before. He didn't know me from Adam when he came here."
"What's that?" demanded the reporter sharply.
"I say," repeated Buckshot John patiently, "that he didn't know anything about me, or my record, or anything else."
Dacey began to laugh.
"Wake up, John!" he said. "Wake up! The doc didn't know anything about you, eh? He was here on a Thursday night, wasn't he?"
Moran held up one hand and ticked off the fingers slowly.
"Yes," he said at last. "What of it?"
"Oh, nothing!" said Dacey with a sarcastic grin. "Only he put in about half of the Wednesday night before up in our office, reading everything that was ever printed about the Bad Jake outfit. He didn't know you from Adam, eh? Why, John, he wrote it all down in a book! When he lit here he was loaded up with enough stuff about you to fill a freight-car! Didn't know you? Come on, now, what are you two trying to frame up?"
Moran sat perfectly still. His eyes were half closed; not a muscle of his face twitched. One might easily have believed that he had not been listening.
"Don't you fool yourself, John," persisted the reporter. "You're up against one of the smoothest confidence men in the country. I've known him for years, off and on, and this is the first time I've ever had a real line on him. He's been everything in the way of a grafter—hypnotist, conjurer, palmist, street faker—and as a trance medium there isn't his equal in the country. I've seen him, pull stuff at a séance that made my hair stand on end, and I was on to him at the time—ventriloquism, and all such stunts as that. Oh, he's a bird, John, a bird!"
"What's ventriloquism?" asked Buckshot John.
"Why," said Dacey impatiently, "he can throw his voice all over the room—he can make it come from anywhere. He's a marvel at that sort of thing. Used to be on the stage. Now, see here, John. Three days after he got back from seeing you, he closed up his place and disappeared. Putting all these things together, it looks bad, mighty bad. If you've told the doc anything—if you knew anything to tell him—"
Dacey paused. Buckshot John's face told him nothing. The convict was staring straight in front of him, expressionless as if he had been carved out of wood.
"If you think for a minute that you can trust a man of that kind, John," urged the reporter kindly, "you're making a mistake. If there was anything to be split up, and the doc had the ax, your end wouldn't be big enough to buy swimming-trunks for a water-bug. You're in bad, I tell you—awful bad. This fellow will shear you like a sheep. He makes his living trimming smarter people than you ever saw!"
Buckshot John rose and stretched himself wearily. Dacey, watching him like a hawk, was beginning to waver. The convict had not given him so much as the crook of a forefinger or the twitch of a muscle.
Now Moran began to speak, slowly and earnestly, weighing every word.
"It was writing that that man came to see me about. That's the truth, and you can believe it or not. And I'll tell you another thing that's true—he never asked me to tell him anything!"
"I've come too soon!" thought Dacey. "Gilmore is taking his time!"
He studied the convict a long time before he spoke. Buckshot John met the reporter's eyes squarely and without blinking. It was impossible not to believe that he was telling the truth.
"That's true, is it John?" Dacey asked at length.
The convict put his hand into his pocket and drew out a worn, black book.
"As true as this book!" he said solemnly.
Buckshot John took a few steps toward the bunk-house. Then he came back and held out his hand.
"Mister," said he with simple earnestness, "I'm trying hard to be square; and there ain't no more I can tell you."
Dacey held the convict's big paw for several seconds.
"All right, John!" said he. "If you won't, you won't, and that's all there is to it. But if you think I'm going to overlook the other end of this sketch, you're mistaken, that's all. The Great Gilmore for mine!"
As the warden's automobile whirled around a bend in the road. Buckshot John raised both his hands as high as his shoulders, and the great fists were clenched until they looked like knotted hammers. For a few seconds he stood unmasked, a statue of impotent fury and despair. Then the hands dropped at his sides, and he sank down on the bench with his head on his breast.
"The thieving skunk!" he muttered. "And I put it right in his hands! Right in his hands!"
Jimmy Dacey walked into Joe Lord's small sanctum at four o'clock the next afternoon. The city editor greeted him with a yelp of applause.
"Good boy!" he said. "I guess you landed it all right!"
"Landed—nothing! " growled Jimmy.
Joe Lord looked up with a puzzled expression on his round face.
"You started something, anyhow," he said, fumbling about his desk. Picking up a telegraph-blank, he read aloud: "‘The last man who talked with Convict Moran was J. E. Dacey, a Denver reporter.’"
The city editor looked up expectantly.
"The last man!" ejaculated Jimmy. "The poor old coot ain't dead, is he?"
"You bet the poor old coot ain't dead!" chuckled the city editor. "He's come to life! Vamosed, skipped by the light of the moon, escaped! You must have put a bee on him somewhere, Jimmy!"
Jimmy Dacey's knees gave way under him, and he dropped into a chair with a groan.
"Suffering mackerel!" he groaned. "And the story was at that end, after all!"