The Stolen Gold Affair by Bill Pronzini

Author:Bill Pronzini
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

16

QUINCANNON

On his own after leaving the undertaking parlor, Quincannon spent the rest of Sunday afternoon and evening in his room at Miners Lodging House #4, nursing his sore head, planning strategy for the morrow, and pining for Sabina. Now that the end of his investigation was in sight, he yearned to rejoin her in San Francisco, to be making renewed plans for their wedding and once again sharing a bed.

The pistol O’Hearn had procured for him, which arrived by messenger wrapped in heavy paper, was not one he would have chosen for himself. A nickel-plated Sears, Roebuck .22-caliber Defender, it could be bought for sixty-eight cents new. At least it was a seven-shot weapon and all the chambers were filled, though it would need to be fired at close quarters to do much in the way of defending.

In the morning he tucked the revolver into his right boot before going down to the dining room. Cold, mistrustful silence greeted him, and he was left to eat alone. Not that he’d expected any different. O’Hearn had kept his promise to spread the word that J. F. Quinn was considered innocent of McClellan’s murder and would be returning to his work in the mine, but that didn’t exonerate him in the eyes of the hardrock men. Why, they’d be asking one another, would the mine superintendent have vouched for J. F. Quinn unless he’d been a spy in their midst all along?

The morning being cool, Quincannon walked uphill to the mine instead of waiting for one of the wagons. In the yard a few of the topmen gave him hostile looks and one muttered a slanderous allusion to his masculinity, all of which he steadfastly ignored. Few of the day-shift crew had assembled yet; it was still more than an hour shy of the whistle. He crossed directly to the gallows frame, where he found Joe Simcox in conversation with the hoist tender.

“You’ve no right to be walking around free,” Simcox said with a belligerent glare, “after what you done to Frank McClellan, much less allowed to go back down into the hole.”

Quincannon paid that no heed, either. “Open the cage,” he said to the hoist tender.

“Graveyard shift’s still working.”

“I’ve no intention of bothering any of them. Open the cage, if you value your job.”

“Goddamn company mole,” Simcox said, and spat juicily at Quincannon’s feet.

Quincannon neither moved nor commented, matching Simcox’s glare with one of his own. It had been many years since he had lost a staredown, and he didn’t lose this one. Simcox muttered an obscenity, spat again, and turned his attention elsewhere.

The hoist tender likewise thought better of any further argument. He went ahead and opened the cage. Quincannon barely had time to lower the safety bar before the brakes were released, and the descent was no less than what he’d expected— a fast downward hurtle and a jarring stop that rattled his teeth and popped his ears. As he stepped out into the station on twelve-hundred, he saw no one in the immediate vicinity.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.