Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 13, Number 9, DeMotte, Jasper County, 8 January 1943 — ACE IN THE MOLE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ACE IN THE MOLE

by JACKSON GREGORY

GREGORY

W.MU RELEASE

THE BTORY SO FAR: Old Early Bill Cole had known for six months that his days were numbered. Of late he had been up and about each morning earlier than usual, telling some part of his wide* spread acres, the King Cole Ranch, a last adlos. It was still half dark one morning as he was walking through his beloved pines, when a rifle shot rang clear through the stillness, and Early Bill felt a stab of pain. Leaning against an old pine he blazed away at a man crashing through the bushes. Then he laughed, for he had shot the man’s hat off! Staggering home Early Bill sent Gaucho Ortega, one of his Mexican hands, for “Doc Joe” and the “Judge.” Now continue with the story.

CHAPTER II Doc Joe and the Judge were at the King Cole Ranch almost as soon as the young Mexican. They found four of the ranch hands hanging around the house, scraping dirt with the toes of their lop-sided boots, looking as though they didn’t mean to look worried. At the sound of speeding hoofs and wheels they jerked up their heads, and one man came out of the house, a small, mahoganybrown man who looked as hard as nails and was harder than he looked, Early Bill’s foreman, Cal Roundtree. “Howdy, gents,’’ he said, and sounded surly as though he resented their coming. “Come on in.” They went in and found old Early Bill sitting in his big chair. He looked more dead than alive.

“You darned old fool,” snorted Doc Joe. He put his bag down, took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. “What did you shoot yourself for? Or, far as that goes, why the hell didn’t you do it long ago? Think I like to go skallyhooting all over the country for'the likes of you?” “Howdy—Judge,” said the old man, by way of most beautifully ignoring Doc Joe and all his words. “I’ve got to get you onto a bed, Bill,” said Doc Joe. “I can’t get at you right, this way, sitting on a chair.” “I ain’t going to bed. Most likely working me over, you’re going to kill me anyhow, and if I’ve got to get murdered I’d like it better sitting up.” “If the old buzzard won’t go to bed, Judge, being that superstitious and scared of dying because of the devil waiting to grab him,” said Doc Joe, “lend me a hand to heave his old carcass up on this here table. Now, Bill, you come off your high horse and do as I say or I’ll bat your brains out.” “If I had any brains, you pillroller,” grumbled Early Bill, “do you think I’d let you put your murdering hands on me?” The two helped him to stand and, with what small aid he could give them, got him stretched out on top of the table. Doc Joe’s skilful hands, whether or not murderous, swiftly denuded him from neck to bellyband and removed the make-shift bandage. Then for a time the physician—and there was not a more skilled within riding range of Bald Eagle—kept his tongue in his mouth and gave himself shrewdly to his work.

The Judge stood by, watching in a detached sort of way as though willing enough to stick around in case a hand were needed, but mildly bored. The men outside stood looking in at the open door; only Cal Roundtree came in; he didn’t know that he was walking on tip toes. Sometime later when Early Bill Cole returned to a misty sort of consciousness he made out that he was in his bed, undressed, bound about with what he judged to be a couple of miles of bandage, and stuffed into one of his long-tailed night gowns.

At the moment somehow he didn’t care. [ He had stirred very slightly and on the instant the two old cronies of his popped into his room. “Well?” he demanded as sharply as he could manage. “You sure bled like a stuck hawg,” Doc Joe told him. “Who shot you, Bill?” “I wouldn’t know, Doc; that’s the hell of it. Say! If you boys happen to see a feller wearing a light-col-ored Stetson with a hole in it—of wearing no hat a-tall—or one brand new out of the store —But let’s take up business before pleasure, as the feller says. Got my come-uppance for certain this trip, huh, Doc?” “I sort of reckon, Bill,” he said, pulling at his lower lip, “that it won’t be all-fired long now before this is a better, cleaner world—and me and the Judge will be winning a couple of bets.” “Hmf!” said Early Bill. Then that crooked and somehow endearing old grin of his came back, just a ghost of what it used to be but still there, like a flicker of winter sunlight. “Might be you lose out yet, you two scums of .creation. Might be your horses runs away and breaks your damn necks’before I check out! ” Nobody said anything for a little while. Early Bill was resting, Doc Joe stepped out to bring him something to swallow, mostly hot whisky, and the Judge appeared to be taking matters judicially under advisement. They lifted Early Bill and f got his drink down him. Then they had one apiece. The draft brought the sick and wounded man a flush of strength. He spoke more clearly. “Squat, you boys, and listen. Me, I’ll do the talking.” They dragged up chairs. “First, Doc, let’s know where we stand. I need a little time and'a mite of stren’th. I’m not going to pop off in a hurry like a candle blown out, am I? I feel pretty good after that drink.” ; .

“You’re a tough old bird, Bill,” said Doc Joe thoughtfully. “If you hadn’t been on the skids anyhow, this thing wouldn’t have done you in. It’s just hurrying things along some. No, there’s no rush. Say the word and I can keep boosting you along— Oh, how do I know? Anyhow, shoot the works and take your time.” “Fair enough and gracias, amigo,” said Early Bill. “Here we go.” It was a fairly long, one-sided talk, with Bill Cole now and then forced to silence and rest, and before the conference was over every man of them had taken several drinks. And pretty nearly every time that Doc Joe went for the drinks the Judge got up and went outside, and nearly every time the Judge played Hebe, Doc Joe stepped out into the patio. Fortunately both Doc Joe and the Judge knew pretty well what Early Bill Cole had in mind, though the definite thing the old fellow was going to do had yet to be told. Merely taking into consideration the facts of the case, the whole thing should be simple enough, since it was merely the making of a will But they saw the old familiar gleam in Early Bill’s eyes and were dead sure thaL right up to the last he was plotting some sort of devilment Hadn’t he said to them on one occasion, “I’m having me a barrelful of fun when I’m dead.” Both his listeners remembered that remark and were to recall it more than once in days to come. They figured that they knew Early Bill Cole pretty well, though they had to admit they’d had the pleasure of his friendship for something like twenty or twenty-five years only. And that much longer ago

than that he had had two friends who had meant much, very much to him. Forty years before, and more, there had rioted through the mountains a small company known far and wide as Hell’s Triplets: Early Bill Cole, Busty Lee, Buck Cody. Busty Lee and Buck Cody were haply dead these many years, having been swept away together in a night of violence, and about all that they had left behind them was their various offspring. Busty Lee had left a daughter with little dower save her loveliness, and Buck Cody had bequeathed to the world a son and not much to go along with him. They knew that little Ann Lee was teaching school somewhere or another and living with her Aunt Jenifer—her aunt living with her, rather; and that young Cody was trying to make a mining engineer out of himself. All this they knew because old Bill had told them—and that, wjth the first creeping of the shadow over him some months ago, he had piled into the stage and had been away for a couple of weeks—and had come

back with that devil-saint-Santa Claus gleam in his eye. “I looked ’em both over,” he announced triumphantly. “And they didn’t know me from Adam’s off ox either, because I didn’t happen to speak up. They’re aces, Busty’s and Buck’s pups, and me, I’m going to have me some fun with them!” “After you’re dead’’-’ they grunted at him. “Yep!” And now he was getting ready for his fun. i “In a minute, Judge, you’re going to make me a couple of wills—” “Hold on there, Bill! Just because there are two legatees you don’t need two wills!” He looked at Early Bill narrowly; maybe the old devil was too far gone already to know enough to make any sort of will! Then in that case, everything, lock, stock and barrel would go to Rance Waldron as nearest of kin—the only kin, so far as Early Bill knew, though luckily distant. “Who’s doing this?” Early Bill grunted. “I’m leaving everything I got to young Cody and the Lee

mine to one side and yank up a couple of loose boards and hand me what you find. Let’s go! Wages start when you start getting busy!” Doc Joe shoved aside a battered old leather trunk, scrabbled in the comer, got a couple of loose boards up and after some further scrabbling came up, red-faced with a small iron lock-box in his dusty hands. The box was eighteen inches long, about six inches in the other dimensions, and was provided with two locks, each set about six inches from the end. “I think it was that box of mine put the whole idea into my head,” Early Bill said. “Having two locks like, notice? Look at ’em good, Doc?” “What about ’em,” demanded Doc Joe. “They’re just two locks—” “By the way,” said Early Bill, “when you boys go out, send Cal Roundtree to me. Tell him to bring Gaucho. I’ve got me a great hunch! It’s my ace in the hole!” “You’re crazy like a hoot owl,” snorted the Judge. “Doc just asked

girl. He’s an upstanding young hewildcat and she’s the cutest trick and the nicest and —well, the sweetest you ever laid eyes on. So they get the works. The whole of the ranch and the whole of the cash. The money’s in your bank, Judge, if you haven’t stole’ it yet, anyhow a couple of hundred thousand dollars—about two five now, I reckon, in case the interest hasn’t et up all the principal, or you haven’t been losing heavy at draw!” The Judge, eyeing him, thought, “He knows what he’s talking about.” “Now,” went on Early Bill, “I’ve got a job for each one of you horn toads, and I’m paying each one of you a dollar a day and found, high wages for you two. Judge, you go in there and hunker down at the table and write me those two wills. Make ’em just the same, giving, granting and disposing and so forth all I got. In one will,* give everything to her. In the other give everything to him. And you date ’em both the same, as of today. You, Doc, you move that old trunk of

you a question: What’s this about two locks?” 4 “Look at ’em good!” “I am looking—They’re different, that what you mean?” “Takes two different keys to open ’em!” said a triumphant Bill Cole.

To two old porch-sitters in front of the Bald Eagle Hotel came a young man on horseback. The two, watching everything that went on, smoking their after supper stogies, took stock of him when he first rode into town down at the far end of the street. He rode straight to the hotel, dismounted and approached. He was young and lean and brown and tall. In the saddle he had been loosely graceful; one felt that for all that seeming carelessness in his way of riding, that if his horse had of a sudden sought to leap out from under him he would still have been sitting there in the saddle, confident and vaguely arrogant. Here where men dressed as they pleased, this young man struck a note. From flashy, high-heeled boots to the silk bandana, bright red, around his brown throat and on up to his forty dollar hat, he displayed a touch of elegance. A handsome young dark devil, too, when they saw his face. “Howdy, gents,” he greeted them, and sat on the porch, holding his horse’s reins. He removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair that was inclined toward length, rich darkness and curliness. , Civilly they returned his greeting: “Howdy,” they said. “I’m a stranger here,” he told them. “You look like you belonged here. Maybe you can tell me the way to Bill Cole’s ranch?” They directed him, telling him it was a couple of hours’ ride, indicating the short cuts to take on horseback. He said, “Thanks,” rolled a cigarette, smoked half of it, tossed the butt into the dust and stood up. “Only,” said Doc Joe, “I don’t know as they’re wide open for comp’ny right now. Bill Cole’s sick.” “Sick? Say—What’s wrong? Nothing bad, is it?” “He ain’t feeling any too good,” said Doc Joe. The young man eyed him in a penetrating sort of way. “You might be the doctor?” he judged. And Doc Joe nodded. “Well, all the more reason I should ride along. You see I’m his nephew. My name’s Rance Waldron.”

Waldron tarried a moment as though thinking some word might be added. When none was forthcoming he swung up into the saddle again, lifting easily and somehow gracefully, a man full of strength and youth and vitality, and rode away. They watched him out of sight. “Hmf,” said the Judge then. “He had a hat,’’ mused Doc Joe. “Yep. Wasn’t any hole in it, though.’’ “Nope. Wasn’t even a new hat, either.’’ “Not light-colored, either. Black.’’ “Too bad.’’ Doc Joe rolled his stogie and the Judge rolled his cud. They didn’t look at each other, just sat there and drew their eyelids down like two old roosters. After a while, “Rance Waldron, huh?’’ brooded Doc Joe. “Do you know, Judge, that old fool Bill Cole has sometimes struck me as a pretty fair judge of folks. This young Waldron. I don’t cotton to him much. I don’t like the cut of tjis eye.’’ “Me neither,’’ agreed the Judge. “I noticed we were both sorry he didn’t have a hole in his hat. Let’g go get a drink.’’ (TO BE CONTINUED)

“You sure bled like a stuck hawg,” Doc Joe told him.