It was in the strongbox that I had seen earlier in the morning, and I had to go through the dead man's pockets to get the key. After I got the box open, there it was, about five hundred adobe dollars.
“That will just about do it,” I said, and I sat down in Basset's chair and raked the silver coins into a canvas sack.
Kreyler was watching me, and he didn't look exactly brokenhearted because the fat man was dead. But I could understand that. With Basset dead, and the Indian dead, I had opened the road for the Marshal to sit down at the boss's desk and take over the business for himself.
“You really owe me a great deal,” I said. “I've done you two big favors since I've been in Ocotillo, getting rid of Basset and the Indian. To say nothing of not shooting you when I should have.”
“You haven't got the guts to shoot a United States marshal,” he said flatly.
Every man makes a mistake once in a while, and Kreyler made one right then. I had my money gathered up and was ready to leave everything just the way the Marshal wanted it—but when he opened his mouth he ruined it.
The idea must have been in the back of my mind all the time. Maybe it was even there when I shot Basset. I don't know for sure, but the idea jumped up too fast and too full-blown to have come from nowhere, and I guess I was just waiting for a chance to do something about it.
“Bama!” I yelled. “Come here!”
I was sitting at the fat man's desk, feeling pretty pleased with myself, as Bama came up and stopped in the doorway.
“Bama, how do I look?”
His eyes were puzzled. “You look all right, I guess. Why?”
“I mean how do I look sitting here at Basset's desk?”
“I guess I don't know what you're talking about.”
But Kreyler did. I grinned at him and he started swelling up like a toad and you could fairly see the angry fires behind those eyes of his.
“Bama,” I said, “I want you to go out and pass the word around that Basset is dead. Find all his men you can. Tell them I killed Basset and from now on I'm the boss of these smuggling raids. If they don't like it, just remind them what happened to the Indian. Oh, yes, and tell them that from now on they get the fair cut that Basset promised them but didn't give them, and that it will all be in silver or gold, whatever the smugglers have on them. But the thing I want you to impress them with is that I'm the boss. And I'll be the boss until a faster gunman comes along to change my mind.”
Chapter Six
IT WAS KIND of funny the way it all happened. One minute I was just another wanted gunman on the run, and the next minute I was all set up in business as the boss of a band of cutthroats. It happened so fast and so natural that I didn't have time to give it much thought. I just saw the opening and took it. That, I realized later, was the way bosses were made.
There was one thing, though, that complicated things, and that was figuring out what to do with Kreyler. The Marshal was the key to the whole thing here in Ocotillo. He gave the business the protection and the freedom to operate that it had to have, and without him the whole thing would fall down around my shoulders. However, that worked itself out along with everything else.
I started with the bartender, by putting him back to work as if nothing had happened. Then I marched the Marshal back into the office, and there we waited for things to begin to happen.
“You'll never get away with it, Cameron,” he kept saying.
But I would, and he knew I would. Then I began going through Basset's things again and finally I found the thing that would nail Kreyler down just the way I wanted him. It was a big ledger book that the fat man had used to make his bookkeeping entries in, and every penny of smuggled silver was accounted for right there, along with the money he had paid out to Kreyler and the Indian and all the rest. I looked at it and sat back and grinned, and the Marshal knew it was all over.
“Now,” I said, “I think we can do business together, Marshal. We'll keep things just like they were when Basset was running things. You furnish the protection and I'll see that you get a good share of the profits. What do you think about that?”
“I think you're crazy. You're wanted in every state west of St. Louis. It would be suicide for a United States marshal to try to do business with you.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but it would be slow and you'd have a chance to build up a stake.” I tapped the ledger. “Here's something for you to think about. Say I turned this ledger over to somebody in Tucson—say a lawyer that I could depend on, or maybe even a sheriff—with instructions that the book was to be turned over to the United States marshal's office if they didn't get the word from me once a month to hold onto it. Of course, I wouldn't ride into Tucson myself, but I could get somebody else to do it.”
He could cheerfully have cut me into pieces and thrown me to the dogs. But I had him where the hair was short. And he knew it. For a long while he just sat there, angry thunderheads boiling behind his eyes.
At last he said, “I'll have to think it over.”
“Think it over, but the answer better be yes. And in the meantime don't try to beat this ledger to Tucson and put the law on my tail.”
He didn't say anything, so I sat there and let him hate me until Bama got back.
“I don't know,” Bama said wearily. “Some of the men don't like it. They didn't care much for Basset, but they just don't like the idea of somebody coming in and shooting his way to the top.”
“Did you tell them about getting a full cut in silver?”
