Whispering Sands by Earle Stanley Gardner

Author:Earle Stanley Gardner [Gardner, Earle Stanley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adventure Stories
ISBN: 0688004741
Publisher: Morrow
Published: 1980-12-31T21:00:00+00:00

Blood-Red Gold

I THE HUMAN JUGGERNAUT

Nobody knows all that happens, right at the finish, when the desert has her way with a man. It’s a grim secret that only the desert herself and the buzzards can tell.

But this much is certain. Right at the last, the victim tears off his shirt and starts digging with his hands. I’ve found my share of bodies in the desert, and I know others who have found their share. In every case shirts torn from backs, fingers shredded by the cruel sand-gravel of the desert.

That’s why we didn’t take so kindly to Harry Ortley’s story of what had happened—not after we found Grahame’s body.

I’d first seen Harry Ortley when he drove into Randsburg. It wasn’t any trouble to judge his character! He was one of those birds who played sure things. You couldn’t figure him taking a chance of any kind, or giving another fellow a break.

Stringy Martin was standing with me when Ortley drove into Randsburg. He had a sedan, and he parked it in front of the Palace Restaurant, locked the ignition, locked the transmission, rolled up the windows, and locked the doors.

Stringy’s lived nearly all of his life in the desert. He watched the performance, then turned to me with a grin.

“If that fellow ever raised a bet it’d be a cinch he held better than three of a kind,” he said.

And, somehow or other, it was the best description of the man’s character you could make. Stringy’s like that— always pulling some crack that hits a bull’s-eye.

Ortley walked into the restaurant.

He was fat, not paunchy fat, but the smooth, well-distributed sleek fat that comes to people who are accustomed to getting what they want. He was about forty, and his eye was as cold as the top of Telescope Peak in the winter. His cheeks were round, but his mouth was unusually small.

“Gentlemen,” he said, in a thin, reedy voice, “good afternoon.”

Stringy nudged me.

“He’s speakin’ to you,” he said.

“Howdy,” I said.

The cold eyes turned from Stringy to me, me to Stringy, and back to me.

“I am to meet a man named Sidney Grahame,” he said.

I couldn’t see how the information meant anything in my young life, but the cold eyes kept boring into mine as though I was supposed to do something about it.

“Don’t know him,” I said.

The eyes continued steady.

“I was to meet him here in Randsburg. He was to have a string of burros. I’d like to get started to-night.”

There wasn’t any apology in his tone, and there wasn’t any request. He was the type that was accustomed to make his wishes known, and have men jump to do his bidding.

“Stranger,” I told him, “you ain’t accustomed to the desert.”

The eyes never wavered.

“No. That’s why I felt you might secure some information for me while I was eating. I haven’t had a bite since breakfast. You should be able to find him by locating the string of burros.”

And he ignored the lunch counter, sprawled his bulk in a chair at one of the tables, and picked up the bill of fare.

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