American Gun Mystery (4 page)

The girl went out, wiggling her hips; Grant stared after her appreciatively.

He chewed his frayed cigar. “Ever play the rodeo circuit, Miller?”

Miller’s shoulders shuddered. “No, sir! I been on the range all my life. Never did nothin’ fancy.”

“Bulldog?”

“Some. I used to be purty good in my young days, Mr. Grant.”

Wild Bill grunted. “Can you ride?”

The man flushed. “Listen here, Mr. Grant—”

“No offense meant,” drawled Grant. “Well, we’re full up, Miller, an’ this ain’t no
remuda;
don’t need no cattlepunchers. …”

Miller said slowly: “So you ain’t got a job fer me?”

“Didn’t say that,” snapped Grant. “If yo’re Buck Horne’s friend, I’ll take you on. You can trail along with the posse aroun’ Buck t’night. Got any gear? Got yore hull?”

“Nos’r. I—I hocked most ev’rything in Tucson.”

“Uh-huh.” Grant squinted at his crumbling cigar; the door opened and a weazened little cowboy rolled in, his bowlegs wobbly and his bandana knot set at a rakish angle. “Oh, Dan’l, you loco son of a cross-eyed maverick! Come on in here.”

The little cowboy was very drunk. He cocked his Stetson forward and lurched to the desk. “Wil’ Bill—Wil’ Bill, I’m here at yore command. …What the hell you want, Bill?”

“Yo’re tanked again, Dan’l.” Grant fixed him with a disapproving eye. “Dan’l, this is Benjy Miller—friend o’ Buck’s. Joinin’ the outfit. Show him the ropes—the stable, where he bunks, the arena. …”

Boone’s bleared eyes took in the shabby visitor. “Friend o’ Buck’s? Pleased t’meet ya, Miller! Shome—some outfit we got here, feller. We—”

They passed out of Grant’s office. Grant grunted and, after a moment, put Buck Horne’s note in one of his pockets.

As they tramped down a long runway leading to the heart of the
Colosseum,
Boone tottering along, the man Miller said: “How come he calls you Dan’l? Thought I heard ’m say Hank to the girl.”

Boone guffawed. “Shmart—smart filly, ain’t she? Fresher’n new fodder! Well, I’ll tell ya, Miller. I wash—was born Hank, but the ole man, he says: ‘Maw, you kin call ’im Hank after yore mother’s secon’ husband’s brother, but by hell! I’m callin’ him Dan’l after the best damn Boone that ever drawed a bead on a red Injun!’ An’ Dan’l I been ever since. Haw, haw!”

“You sound like you come from the Northwest some’eres.”

The little cowboy nodded gravely. “Do I? Fact ish—is, my paw he punched cows in Wyoming. Ole Sam Hooker, he used to say: ‘Dan’l,’ he says, ‘don’t you never disgrace the fair name of yore native state,’ he says, ‘or me an’ yore paw we’ll come a-ha’ntin’ ya.’ I been trailed by ghoshts—ghosts ever since. …Well, Miller ole hoss, here we are. Some range, hey?”

It was a huge amphitheatre, illuminated by thousands of harshly shedding bulbs. Its twenty thousand seats, arranged in an oval, were unoccupied. The arena, a long ellipse, was almost three times as long as it was wide, separated from the amphitheatre proper by a concrete wall, on the inner side of which ran the track, a fifteen-foot runner of tanbark. Inside this oval track lay the core of the arena, a bare expanse. It was here that steers were roped from running horses, wild broncos were “busted” by expert horsemen, and other rodeo events were staged. At each end of the oval—on east and west—a huge doorway led to the backstage of the arena, in one of which Miller and Boone stood. Other exits, many rigged with special chute gates for the equine events, dotted the concrete wall. High above—and yet not so high as that immensely distant roof of steel girders—the tiny figures of workmen crept along the tiers, manicuring the stadium for the evening’s performance, which would officially open the New York stand of Wild Bill Grant’s Rodeo.

In the hard-packed earth of the arena core a number of men in Western regalia lounged, smoking and talking.

Boone staggered forward into the arena, turning his woeful little eyes on his companion. “Reg’lar rodeo man, Miller?”

“Nope.”

“Down on yore luck, hey?”

“It’s hard times, cowboy.”

“Shore is! Well, you gladhand the gang an’ you’ll perk up. Got boys here come all the way from the Rio.”

Boone and his charge were greeted hilariously by the chapped and sombreroed men in the group. The ugly little fellow seemed a favorite with them; he was instantly the butt of friendly jeers and jibes. In the hubbub Miller was forgotten; he stood silently by, waiting.

“Uh—damn if I ain’t gone an’ fergot my manners!” cried Boone, after a moment. “Waddies, meet an ole bunkie o’ Buck Horne’s. Benjy Miller is his handle, an’ he’s joinin’ up with the outfit.”

Dozens of steady eyes took in the newcomer, and the talk and laughter died away. They surveyed his shabby clothes, his crooked heels, his frightfully mutilated face.

“Jock Ramsey,” said Boone soberly, introducing a tall dour cowboy with a cleft upper lip.

“Meetya.” They shook hands.

“Texas Joe Halliwell.” Halliwell nodded briefly and began to roll a cigaret. “Tex is God’s gift to the workin’ gals, Miller. Here’s Slim Hawes.” Hawes was a dumpy, jolly-faced cowboy with unsmiling eyes. “Lafe Brown. Shorty Downs.” Boone went on and on. Famous rodeo names, these; of men who followed the big circle with their well-worn gear, hopping from rodeo to rodeo, working for prize-money, paying their own expenses, most of them penniless, many scarred by the hazards of their profession.

There was an interval of silence. Then Lafe Brown, a powerful man in colorful costume, smiled and dipped his fingers into his pocket. “Roll yore own, Miller?” He proffered a little sack of tobacco.

Miller flushed. “Recken I will.” He accepted the “makin’s” and slowly, with unconscious facility, rolled a cigaret.

At once they broke into speech; Miller was accepted. Someone scratched a match on the thigh of his trousers and held it to Miller’s cigaret; he lit up and puffed silently away. They closed in about him and he merged with them, disappearing into the group.

“Now you take this here c’yote,” said Shorty Downs, a vast stalwart, as he crooked a horny finger at Boone. “You want to cinch tight when he’s bellyin’ aroun’. Steal the pants offen you, Dan’l will. His ole man was a horsethief.”

Miller smiled rather tremulously; they were trying to make him feel at home.

“How,” said Slim Hawes gravely, “how d’ya stand on the plumb earth-shakin’ question of the hackamore versus the snaffle-bit, Miller? Gotta know that first off. Hey?”

“Always used the hackamore in bustin’ raw broncs,” grinned Miller.

“He ain’t no pilgrim!” someone guffawed.

“Totes his weepens low, too, I bet!”

“Gittin’ down to cases,” began a third voice, when Downs held up his hand.

“Pull up,” he drawled. “Somethin’s wrong with Dan’l. Look sorta down in the mouth, Dan’l. Off yore feed?”

“Do I?” sighed the little cowboy. “Ain’t no wonder, Shorty. Busted my Injun arrowhead this mornin’.” Silent fell at once; smiles faded; like children’s their eyes grew round. “Damn squealin’ palomino stepped on ’er. Bad med’cine, boys. Somethin’s primed to happen powerful quick!”

“My Gawd,” breathed three of them in unison; and Downs with a swift look of concern fumbled for something beneath his shirt. Other hands dipped into the pockets of their jeans. Each one, in his superstitious way, furtively fingered his charm. This was serious; they regarded Boone with troubled eyes.

“Tough,” muttered Halliwell. “Shore is tough. Better play ’possum t’night, Dan’l. Hell, I wouldn’t even fork a circus cayuse with a busted lucky piece in my jeans!”

Ramsey reached into his back pocket and produced a flask, which he tendered to Boone in grave sympathy.

Benjy Miller’s purple cheek twitched. He stared across the arena at a platform built on wooden trestles, upon which a number of conventionally clad city men were busy in a clutter of peculiar apparatus.

They were obviously motion picture photographers. Tripods, cameras, sound-boxes, electrical equipment, boxes of many sizes lay scattered on the platform, which stood ten feet above the floor of the arena. Several were unreeling thick smooth cables sheathed in rubber, which snaked from a large and complicated machine on the floor. On each piece of equipment was lettered in bold white paint the name of a famous motion picture newsreel company.

A small slight man in dark gray stood in the dirt of the arena and directed operations; he wore a sleek black military mustache, very carefully trimmed and brushed. He paid no attention whatever to the group of picturesquely garbed Westerners some distance away across the oval.

“All set for the long shots, Major Kirby,” yelled a man on the platform.

The small man below said: “How are you fixed for sound, Jack?” to a man with earphones clamped about his head.

“So-so,” grunted this man. “Going to be a picnic, Major. Listen to the damn echo!”

“Do the best you can. It will be better when the place is full of people. …I want plenty of action, boys, and all the crazy sounds that go with this rodeo racket. There’s a special on it from the Chief’s office.”

“Oke.”

Major Kirby cast his very bright little eyes over the field of empty seats and naked concrete, and lit a cigar.

“And that,” said Ellery Queen as he thoughtfully blew smoke at the ceiling, “was the wheel at rest. Now see what happened when the wheel began to whirl.”

N
OT THE LEAST PIQUANT
feature of the Queen
ménage
was its major-domo. Now this inestimable word, which with our Nordic genius for plagiarism we have appropriated from the Spanish, invariably evokes visions of regal splendor, solemnity, and above all pomposity. The true major-domo must have (besides the crushing dignity of years) a paunch, flat feet, the vivacity of dead codfish, an emperor’s stare, and a waddle which is a cross between a papal procession and the triumphal march of returning Pompey. Moreover he must possess the burnished knavishness of a Mississippi gambler, the haggling instinct of a Parisian
marchandeur,
and the loyalty of a hound.

The piquancy of the Queens’ major-domo lay in that, except for loyalty, he resembled no major-domo that ever lived. Far from evoking visions of splendor, solemnity, and pomposity, sight of him called forth nothing so much as a composite picture of all the gamins that ever prowled the gutters of Metropolis. Where a paunch should have been there was a flat and muscular patch of tight little belly; his feet were as small and agile as a dancer’s; his eyes were bright twin moons; and his mode of locomotion can only be described as a light fantastic tripping in the best pixy-on-the-greens-ward manner.

And as for his years, he was “between a man and a boy, a hobble-de-hoy, a fat, little, punchy concern of sixteen.” Except, alas for Barham! he was neither fat nor little; but on the contrary was lanky as a spider and as lean as adolescent Cassius.

This, then, was Djuna—Djuna the Magnificent, as Ellery Queen sometimes called him; the young major-domo of the Queen household, who had early evinced a genius for cookery and a flair for new gastronomic creations which had for all time settled the domestic problem for the Queens. An orphan, picked up by Inspector Queen during the lonely years when Ellery was at college, Djuna came to the Queens a beaten little creature with no surname, a swarthy skin, and a fluid cunning which was undoubtedly a heritage from Romany ancestors.

In time he ruled the household, and with no light hand.

Now, so strange is fate, had there been no Djuna there might have been no mystery—at least insofar as Ellery Queen was concerned. It was Djuna’s gypsy hand which innocently moved the pieces that brought Ellery to the
Colosseum.
To understand how this came about it is necessary to reflect on the universal character of youth. Djuna at sixteen was all boy. Under Ellery’s subtle guidance he had pushed his dark heritage into a locked closet of his brain and expanded; he became a refined gamin, which is paradoxically the essence of all so-called “well-bred” boyhood; he belonged to clubs, and played baseball, and handball, and basketball, and he patronized the movies with an enthusiastic passion which more often than not taxed his generous allowance. Had he lived a generation earlier he should have appeased his rabid appetite for adventure by devouring Nick Carter, Horatio Alger, and Altsheler. As it was, he made his gods out of living people—the heroes of the silver screen; and particularly those heroes who dressed in chaps and Stetsons, rode horses, flung lassos, and were “fast on the draw, pardner!”

The connection is surely apparent. When the press-agent of Wild Bill Grant’s Rodeo caused the New York newspapers to erupt with a rash of hot red stories about its history, purpose, aims, attractions, stars,
ad nau
s
eam,
he was playing directly to that wide unseen audience which makes its appearance in public only when the circus conies to town, and then fills the big tent with treble screams, the crackle of peanut-shells, and the gusty wonder of childhood. From the moment Djuna’s burning black eyes alighted on the advertisement of the opening, the Queens knew no peace. He must see with his own eyes this fabulous creature, this (reverently whispered) Buck Horne. He must see the cowboys. He must see the “buckin’ broncs.” He must see the stars. He must see everything.

And so, with no premonition of what was to come, Inspector Richard Queen—that little bird of a man who had guided the Homicide Squad for more years than he cared to recall—telephoned Tony Mars, with whom he had a speaking acquaintance; and it was arranged without Djuna’s foreknowledge that the Queens should survey the gladiatorial ruckus from Mars’s own box at the
Colosseum
on opening night.

Tugging on the leash of Djuna’s impatience, Inspector Queen and Ellery were constrained to “go early; come
on!
” Consequently, they were the first of the Mars party to arrive for the performance. Mars’s box was on the south side of the arena near the eastern curve of the oval. The
Colosseum
was already half full; and hundreds were streaming without cessation into the building. The Queens sat back in plush-covered chairs; but Djuna’s sharp chin was thrust over the rail, and his eyes smoked as they hungrily engulfed the broad terrain below, where workmen were still packing the hard earth of the arena’s core, and the cameramen on Major Kirby’s platform were still busy with their apparatus. He barely noticed the entrance of the great Tony Mars, a fresh derby on his poll and a fresh cigar clenched by his brown teeth.