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"Trevallion?" Manfred said. "I've heard stories about him."
"You'll hear aplenty of them. He's the kind of man who makes stories wherever
he goes, and without tryin', too. I mean, he minds his own affairs."
"Does he have another name?" Grita asked.
"Never heard any other." The stage driver spat. "He don't need any other,
ma'am. Folks just say Trevallion an' ever'body knows who they mean. They ain't
another like him in the goldfields."
Grita turned to Hesketh, who stood near. "Have you met him, Mr. Hesketh?"
"No. I have had no occasion to meet him. He is a miner, I hear, and they say
he is a good one. I hire miners occasionally, my foreman does. I rarely meet
them."
Hesketh turned his back and walked back to the stage. The driver chuckled. "I
reckon he don't like Trevallion none," he spoke softly, "kind of stole a march
on him, Trevallion did.
"There's a mine," he explained, "called the Solomon, rich as all get out.
Hesketh there, he was bookkeeper for Will Crockett, who owned it, or thought
he did. All of a sudden his bookkeeper turned up with a controlling interest,
and he kicked his boss right out.
"Kicked him out of his own mine, and he taken over. Seems all the time he was
keepin' books for Will, this Hesketh was workin' to take over.
"Then all of a sudden one morning Hesketh goes to his mine and finds that
Trevallion had moved in the night before and staked a piece of rich ground,
maybe the richest, that Hesketh thought belonged to the mine. Trevallion
staked it in his name and Crockett's, although I don't think Will knows a
thing about it. So you can see why Al Hesketh doesn't care much for
Trevallion!"
He looked around. "All right! Board up, ever'body! We got a long run ahead!"
"Driver?" Grita asked suddenly. "This man Trevallion? Did they ever call him
Val?"
"No, ma'am, they never. Not that I heard of. He's just Trevallion. Called so
by one and all."
XXXI
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THE PASSENGERS WERE boarding the stage. The driver turned away but she put a
hand on his arm. Surprised, he turned. Speaking in a low tone she said, "Be
careful. I am afraid there will be trouble."
He had started to step up on the wheel, now he put his boot down. "What d'you
mean, ma'am?"
"There are people who want something I have. I am sure they will try to get
it before we reachVirginia City ."
He took his time, knocking some mud from his boot against the wheel. "You got
any indication of that? I mean, that there will be trouble?"
"There have been several attempts to rob me. InSan Francisco they broke into
my flat, and I was attacked in the theater there."
"You got any idea who's after you?"
"I do not. Richard Manfred, who is an actor in our company as well as stage
manager, knows of it. So does Mr. Hesketh."
"What's Hesketh got to do with it?"
"Nothing that I know of. Except, well, he has been paying me a lot of
attention."
The driver smiled, his blue eyes amused. "Now, ma'am, that can't come as any
surprise. Most any man would pay his respects to you, given the chance."
"Thank you, but I suspect he has other interests." She turned toward the
stage where the last passenger was stepping in. "I wished you to know as I
want no one to be hurt."
"If they get what they're after, they'll "
She turned. "Please understand me. I do not intend to be robbed, now or
ever."
She got into the stage and the driver stared after her, swore softly, then
climbed to his seat and took up the reins.
There was forest about them now, gathering clouds above. Under the trees,
patches of snow; on the shaded side of the road there was a bank of snow. The
air was crisp. A few lingering aspen leaves brushed their pale brown palms
together in wistful memory of past beauty. The air smelled of pines.
"More than five thousand wagons working this road now, six to eight horses to
the team, sometimes more."
They climbed steadily, the stage horses at a walk.
Hesketh had his eyes closed and seemed to be sleeping; Grita was sure he was
not. A cold, methodical man, precise in his ways and movements, he gave her
the impression of a man who walked a ragged edge, of a man somehow brittle.
What she knew of acting she had learned by observation. First there had been
her natural instincts, followed by suggestions from her aunt and friends of
her aunt, then a word here or there from an old-timer, and then studying other
performers. Yet most of what she knew she had learned by observing people,
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picking up their mannerisms, gestures, and expressions. By watching people who
were self-conscious, assertive, dogmatic, or conniving.
From the first she had the impression that the face Hesketh turned toward the
world was in no way the true man. Always he seemed in control, in command. His
decisions were quick, sharp, definite. His workers, she suspected, were afraid
of him, and she detected, or believed she detected, a streak of cruelty under
it all. Yet even that cruelty took second place to his contempt for all about
him.
Now he seemed asleep, but there was no repose in his hands and their subtle,
unconscious movements. His right hand he kept near the opening in his coat.
Without doubt he had a gun.
The stage rumbled and rattled over the hard road, slowing occasionally for a
patch of sand or a slight grade.
"Getting deeper into the wilderness," Manfred commented, and Grita knew she
was being warned. She needed no warning. Several times her fingers had touched
the derringer.
"Better let me handle it," Manfred said, quietly.
"It would not be fair. The trouble is mine."
"You are a woman."
"If women can be killed, women can fight. My own mother was murdered. She had
no chance to fight."
"You never told me."
"There was no reason to tell anyone. It was a long time ago, inMissouri ."
Albert Hesketh opened his eyes. Suddenly she was sharply aware of his
attention. "InMissouri ?" he said.
"We were starting west. My father had bought a covered wagon, and we were
ready to go."
His eyes were unblinking, but his lips smiled a little. "You are sure it was
murder? After all, you must have been very young."
She looked right into his eyes. "It was murder. I was there."
They were all looking at her now. The heavy man in the brown suit shifted a
little. "Ugly," he said, "an ugly experience for a young girl. It is fortunate
you were not killed, too."
"I would have been if it had not been for a boy who was with me. He hid
me."And held me,she thought.
For the first time she really looked at that memory with all her attention.
He had held her. Held her tight, shielding her eyes, whispering to her. For [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]