Murder on Halfaday Creek

James B. Hendryx

Description

In the notorious colony of outlaws on Halfaday Creek, every newcomer draws his name out of a tin can, and old Cush at the saloon keeps more money in his safe than most banks ever see. Tough, cagey Black John Smith maintains law and order in the district, and in dispensing justice he never forgets the value of money.In this high-spirited, action-loaded series of stories about the Yukon-Alaska border country, he manages to rake in a profit with every adventure. He foils a plot dreamed up by as mean a gang of crooks as ever stacked a deck, exchanging twenty-five thousand dollars in fake bills for good ones; he runs a pair of swindlers out of town, after persuading them to leave their cash behind, in his name; and he doubles the twenty thousand he paid for some sacks of fool’s gold, and hangs a murderer in the bargain.

Sujets

• Westerns
• Pulp Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Altus Press
• Date de parution: 16 décembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788835346241
• Langue: English

Extrait

Murder on Halfaday Creek
by
James B. Hendryx

Altus Press • 2017
Copyright Information

© 2017 Altus Press

Publication History:
“Black John Turns a Trick” originally appeared in the April 25, 1946 issue of Short Stories magazine (vol. 195, no. 2). Reprinted by arrangement with the Estate of James B. Hendryx.
“Black John Wins a Bet” originally appeared in the September 10, 1948 issue of Short Stories magazine (vol. 205, no. 5). Reprinted by arrangement with the Estate of James B. Hendryx.
“Skin Game” originally appeared in the June 10, 1948 issue of Short Stories magazine (vol. 204, no. 4). Reprinted by arrangement with the Estate of James B. Hendryx.
“Miner’s Meetin’ ” originally appeared in the July 10, 1948 issue of Short Stories magazine (vol. 205, no. 1). Reprinted by arrangement with the Estate of James B. Hendryx.
“Permanent Resident on Halfaday” originally appeared in the November 25, 1948 issue of Short Stories magazine (vol. 206, no. 4). Reprinted by arrangement with the Estate of James B. Hendryx.
“Willie Shows Up on Halfaday” originally appeared in the November 10, 1948 issue of Short Stories magazine (vol. 206, no. 3). Reprinted by arrangement with the Estate of James B. Hendryx.

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Designed by Matthew Moring/ Altus Press

Series Executive Consultant: Richard Hall

Special Thanks to Robert Loomis, Richard Moore, Cynthia Whyte, & the Leelanau Historical Society
Black John Turns a Trick

OLD CUSH proprietor of Cushing’s Fort, the combined trading post and saloon that served the little community of outlawed men that had sprung up on Halfaday Creek hard against the Yukon-Alaska border, set out a bottle and two glasses as Black John Smith strolled into the room and crossed to the bar.
“Where’s the box?” the big man asked, as he noted the absence of the inevitable leather dice box.
“Out in the kitchen. I dropped it in the rinse tub an’ told the klooch to stick it in the oven an’ dry it out.”
“Shove out the dice, then. We can hand-roll ’em.”
“Listen—I’ve be’n a lot of kinds of damn fool in my time—but not that kind.”
Black John grinned. “So you think there’s tricks in hand-rollin’, eh?”
“I don’t know if there is, er if there ain’t. But I know damn well, if there is, you’d know ’em all. Fill up. I’ll buy a drink—but I won’t git beat out of one. An’ what’s more,” he added, as the glasses were filled, “I want you should git them damn counterfeit bills out of the safe—them ones you got on that there Frisco Nell, that time.”
“Hell, Cush—there’s plenty room in the safe for them bills. I just took a batch of dust down to Dawson. I saved ’em because a man can’t never tell when some sech stray chattel might come in handy. I used part of ’em to good advantage, didn’t I, when I bought the dust that Whitey an’ that damn female procuress stole off old Bill Ames? An’ I shore hope that woman got what was comin’ to her, when the secret service guys nailed her with them bills.”
“It ain’t the room that’s botherin’ me—it’s them damn bills.” Picking up a folded newspaper from the back bar, he spread it before the other, and indicated an item with his forefinger. “Read that there piece,” he said. “It tells about where some guy in Chicago got ten years when the police ketched him with ten thousan’ dollars in counterfeit bills hid in his house—not fer passin’ ’em, jest fer havin’ ’em. When I read that piece I got them bills out an’ counted ’em, an’ there’s twenty-five thousan’ dollars of ’em, an’ accordin’ to what they done to that fella, I’d git twenty-five years if Downey’d come along an’ find ’em there.”
“You know damn well that Downey ain’t goin’ to come snoopin’ around in the safe.”
“I don’t know no sech a thing—an’ you don’t, neither. I told you to burn them damn bills when you got ’em—er turn ’em over to Downey. An’ now, by God, if you don’t burn ’em, I will!”
As Cush spoke, he reached into the safe and tossed a package onto the bar. “An’ what’s more I ain’t goin’ to do no time fer havin’ them bills in my safe. So there they be—an’ if you’ve got any sense, you’ll shove ’em in the stove an touch a match to ’em.”
Black John picked up the package and riffled the edges of the bills with his thumb. “Pretty good job of printin’, at that,” he said. “Seems too bad to waste ’em. You know, Cush, it’s always be’n my thesis that jestice should triumph—in other words, that a man should get just about what’s comin’ to him—if not in one way, then in some other. An’ you know as well as I do that plenty of damn skulldugs foists themselves onto us here on the crick that are practically immune—”
“You’d ort to be’n a preacher, like yer pa,” Cush grunted.
“No, the theologians content themselves with warning folks that their crimes an’ irregularities will be punished in the hereafter—a mere theoretical concept, at best, and manifestly not amenable to proof. Me, I prefer a more concrete brand of jestice—one that you can see work. I believe that one stone prison, with good stout iron bars that you can see, an’ feel is far more effective in deterring inherent criminal proclivities than half a dozen hells that you can’t see an’ feel.”
“Good God!” Cush snorted in disgust. “Is them real words? Er do you make ’em up as you go along?”
“What I mean—if a man commits a crime on this earth he ort to pay for it on this earth—an’ not some other place. An’ the law holds a sim’lar view. But, owin’ to its crudities an’ technicalities, in many instances the law is powerless to act, an’ thus jestice is left blindly holdin’ her scales.
“Havin’ observed this fact, it is my firm belief that it is the end that counts—an’ not the means. An’ even if it’s in some roundabout or irregular manner that I can serve justice, I hold it my duty to do so. That’s why I’ve hung onto this queer currency. It’s an ace in the hole fer jestice—with of course jest a bare possibility of derivin’ some slight profit for myself.”
CUSH, who had been perfunctorily arranging the bottles and glasses on the back bar, turned, filled his glass, and shoved the bottle forward.
“Be you through?” he asked.
Black John filled his glass, as Cush made an entry in his day book. “Well—yes. I believe I’ve exhausted the subject.”
“Yeah—an’ me along with it, if I’d be’n listenin’. If that there oration means you want to leave them bills in my safe, it didn’t git you nothin’. They’re out—an’ they’re goin’ to stay out.”
The big man sighed heavily. “I might have known I was castin’ my pearls before swine, as the Biblical sayin’ goes.”
“Yeah? They ain’t nothin’ kin happen that you ain’t got one of them bibulous sayin’s to fit it. But them bills don’t go back in this safe.”
“You’re a stubborn man, Cush, onct your mind’s made up. You won’t listen to reason.”
“Reason, hell! Listen—I didn’t know anyone could git sent up fer havin’ queer money in their possession. I thought they had to git ketched passin’ it. But accordin’ to that there piece in the paper, one’s as bad as the other. An’ there ain’t enough big words be’n invented—even if you know’d ’em all—to auger me into puttin’ them bills back in the safe. An’ that ain’t stubborn. It’s common sense.”
Black John grinned. “I’m forced to the conclusion that you decline further custody of this spurious currency. I had hoped to, in some manner, further the ends of jestice by passin’ it on to some onworthy person, thereby givin’ the law somethin’ to set its teeth into.”
“If yer hell-bent on hangin’ onto them bills, why don’t you take ’em over to yer cabin?”
The big man shook his head. “I already have quite a collection of knickknacks there—odd bits of property that I’ve acquired here an’ there, and have at times found useful. I deem it inadvisable, however, to add these bills to the museum, although they’re a sort of work of art, at that. So I’ll just take ’em down to Dawson an’ turn ’em over to Downey. I’ll tell him I found ’em in a cache that some miscreant abandoned when we hung him. That way, he’ll get whatever credit police gets for recoverin’ counterfeit money, an’ we’ll be shet of it. I’ve be’n figgerin’ on runnin’ down to Dawson, anyway.”
“Hell—you was jest down there last month!”
“Yeah—but that was a business trip. I had to take the dust down an’ bank it for the boys. But with Doc operatin’ on the crick, an’ that damn cuss that called himself John Jones located in Olson’s old shack, I deemed it best to get back here as quick as I could. I had to forgo my usual fling at frivolity. Besides that, by goin’ down there I can inform Downey of Doc’s ontimely end.”
Cush eyed him sourly across the bar. “If I was you I wouldn’t go makin’ no business trip outa this one—like workin’ off them there queer bills.”
The big man scowled. “You don’t s’pose I’d be damn fool enough to try to spread no queer money around Dawson, do you?”
Cush shrugged. “Mebbe not. But neither you ain’t goin down there jest to hand over them bills to Downey, an’ tell him about Doc—both of which you could do the next time he showed up here on the crick. There’s a stud game goin’ on here damn near every night, and likewise I’ve got plenty of licker on hand, so you ain’t got to go to Dawson to do no frivolin’.”
Black John’s grin widened, as he picked up the package and turned toward the door. “There’s food for thought in what you say. Mebbe by the time I get to Dawson you’ll have it figger out. So long, Cush. I’ll be seein’ you anon.”

II
THE DAY was warm. Bright sunlight flooded the valley of the Yukon and streamed through the open door of the Klondike Palace where a ma