The big-shouldered man raised a stubby hand. He had an air of one who deprecates, and at the same time lets another into a secret. He moved across the room with short steps that made no sound, and gave him a peculiar appearance of drifting rather than walking. He picked up a chair and placed it down on the rug beside the bed and seated himself in it.
Aside from the words he had spoken, since he entered the room he had made no more noise than a phantom.
“You're him, all right,” he repeated, balancing back in the chair. But he gathered his toes under him, so that he remained continually poised in spite of the seeming awkwardness of his position.
“Who am I?” asked Terry.
“Why, Black Jack's kid. It's printed in big type all over you.”
His keen eyes continued to bore at Terry as though he were striving to read features beneath a mask. Terry could see his visitor's face more clearly now. It was square, with a powerfully muscled jaw and features that had a battered look. Suddenly he teetered forward in his chair and dropped his elbows aggressively on his knees.
“D'you know what they're talking about downstairs?”
“Haven't the slightest idea.”
“You ain't! The old lady is trying to fix up a bad time for you.”
“She's raising a crowd?”
“Doing her best. I dunno what it'll come to. The boys are stirring a little. But I think it'll be all words and no action. Four-flushers, most of 'em. Besides, they say you bumped old Minter for a goal; and they don't like the idea of messing up with you. They'll just talk. If they try anything besides their talk—well, you and me can fix 'em!”
Terry slipped into the only other chair which the room provided, but he slid far down in it, so that his holster was free and the gun butt conveniently under his hand.
“You seem a charitable sort,” he said. “Why do you throw in with me?”
“And you don't know who I am?” said the other.
He chuckled noiselessly, his mouth stretching to remarkable proportions.
“I'm sorry,” said Terry.
“Why, kid, I'm Denver. I'm your old man's pal, Denver! I'm him that done the Silver Junction job with old Black Jack, and a lot more jobs, when you come to that!”
He laughed again. “They were getting sort of warm for me out in the big noise. So I grabbed me a side-door Pullman and took a trip out to the old beat. And think of bumping into Black Jack's boy right off the bat!”
He became more sober. “Say, kid, ain't you got a glad hand for me? Ain't you ever heard Black Jack talk?”
“He died,” said Terry soberly, “before I was a year old.”
“The hell!” murmured the other. “The hell! Poor kid. That was a rotten lay, all right. If I'd known about that, I'd of—but I didn't. Well, let it go. Here we are together. And you're the sort of a sidekick I need. Black Jack, we're going to trim this town to a fare-thee-well!”
“My name is Hollis,” said Terry. “Terence Hollis.”
“Terence hell,” snorted the other. “You're Black Jack's kid, ain't you? And ain't his moniker good enough for you to work under? Why, kid, that's a trademark most of us would give ten thousand cash for!”
He broke off and regarded Terry with a growing satisfaction.
“You're his kid, all right. This is just the way Black Jack would of sat—cool as ice—with a gang under him talking about stretching his neck. And now, bo, hark to me sing! I got the job fixed and—But wait a minute. What you been doing all these years? Black Jack was known when he was your age!”
With a peculiar thrill of awe and of aversion Terry watched the face of the man who had known his father so well. He tried to make himself believe that twenty-four years ago Denver might have been quite another type of man. But it was impossible to re-create that face other than as a bulldog in the human flesh. The craft and the courage of a fighter were written large in those features.
“I've been leading—a quiet life,” he said gently.
The other grinned. “Sure—quiet,” he chuckled. “And then you wake up and bust Minter for your first crack. You began late, son, but you may go far. Pretty tricky with the gat, eh?”
He nodded in anticipatory admiration.
“Old Minter had a name. Ain't I had my run-in with him? He was smooth with a cannon. And fast as a snake's tongue. But they say you beat him fair and square. Well, well, I call that a snappy start in the world!”
Terry was silent, but his companion refused to be chilled.
“That's Black Jack over again,” he said. “No wind about what he'd done. No jabber about what he was going to do. But when you wanted something done, go to Black Jack. Bam! There it was done clean for you and no talk afterward. Oh, he was a bird, was your old man. And you take after him, right enough!”
A voice rose in Terry. He wanted to argue. He wanted to explain. It was not that he felt any consuming shame because he was the son of Black Jack Hollis. But there was a sort of foster parenthood to which he owed a clean-minded allegiance—the fiction of the Colby blood. He had worshipped that thought for twenty years. He could not discard it in an instant.
Denver was breezing on in his quick, husky voice, so carefully toned that it barely served to reach Terry.
“I been waiting for a pal like you, kid. And here's where we hit it off. You don't know much about the game, I guess? Neither did Black Jack. As a peterman he was a loud ha-ha; as a damper-getter he was just an amateur; as a heel or a houseman, well, them things were just outside him. When it come to the gorilla stuff, he was there a
