Annister

“ The third man, as Annister could see, was tall and heavily built, with broad shoulders and a curiously small head. He had a sharp, acquisitive nose, and a mouth tight-lipped and thin. Annister, versed in reading men, was abruptly conscious of an instinctive and overmastering repugnance. For the man’s eyes were cold and cruel, sleepy-lidded, like a snake’s, roving between Annister and the conductor in a furtive scrutiny. ”

“ Annister, in the passage of an eye-flash, understood. This was the man whom he had encountered in the vestibule of the smoker, and, of a sudden, memory rose up out of the past, and, with it, a picture: a padded ring under twin, blazing arcs; the thud and shuffle of sliding feet; a man, huge, brutish, broad, fists like stone mauls, yet, for all his bulk, a very cat for quickness. ”

“ He did it openly, turning to face Ellison, who, stripped to an athletic undershirt and trousers, regarded Annister with a grinning assurance.
He was big; perhaps twenty pounds heavier than Annister, with wide shoulders and a deep arching chest; with his forward-thrusting jaw and bullet head, with its stiff fell of pig’s-bristles, the long arms like a gorilla’s, he towered over his antagonist like a cave bear, a grizzly waiting for the kill, and like a cave bear, at Rook’s snarling call of “Time!” he was upon the lesser man like a thunderbolt, fists going like flails. ”

“ Fair against the bars of a window, low down at their right, there was a dark smudge; the ribbon, black under the moon. Annister’s heart leaped up in answer, as, with a quick word, he halted his companions in the shadow of a tree. A moment they conferred; then Ellison—and Annister could almost see his grin in the darkness—spoke beneath his hand:
“Why, that’ll be easy! I’ve got m’ tools; they’re right here in my pocket, Mr. Annister! Those bars ought to be easy! For a fair journeyman sledge-swinger, it’ll be easy an’ you can lay to that!” ”

“ For if Rook had sent that midnight visitor, then there were no lengths indeed to which he might go—for the hand, like a beast’s paw, upon the window-sill, had been, as Annister had known upon the instant, the hand of the Thug, the Dacoit, the Strangler.
Warnings, thrice repeated; a hand in the dark; a waitress who was not all she seemed; an invitation, suave, and, as Annister conceived it, ironic—it was a situation not without its possibilities for action. ”

“ Then, standing in the doorway, Annister's eyes narrowed; he stood rigid, tense.
For the man facing him across the stained and battered desk, lean head like a vulture’s set upon wide shoulders; mouth like a straight gash with its thin, bloodless lips; cold eyes fixed upon him in a silent, ophidian brightness—was— the "third light," as he had called him —the man whom he had met for a moment back there in the smoker of the Transcontinental. ”

“ And the chance meeting with the bearded stranger at the corner of the street: consider how he would, Annister’s mind kept turning backward to that meeting and those eyes that were like the eyes of a damned soul, malignant, cold, in their abysmal, cold cruelty of discarnate Evil.
Discarnate! That was it; that would express it; for the man, as he recalled him, seemed somehow less than human ”

“ Annister had a glimpse of a blonde head beneath a close-fitting toque, as the girl passed him, disappearing in the doorway.
And there, on the flooring at his feet, was a square of white.
Annister, stooping, retrieved it, holding the card upward to the light:
“Stay on board. Dry Bone is not safe—for you. Be warned—in time.”
There was no signature. Annister made a little clucking sound with his tongue, his face set like flint. He was alone in the car. ”

“ Thinking of his father, together with the remembrance of that unholy and unspeakable horror that he had witnessed, born of the stinking shadows of that dark street in a city foul and old, its people furtive worshipers of strange gods, Annister felt again that crawling chill which had assailed him with the passing of the tall man with the eyes of death.
With Annister, to decide was to act. Dispatching a brief telegram in code to a certain office in a certain building in Washington, he went now to keep his rendezvous with Rook and the rest. ”

“ There had been something in that snarling speech to daunt a man less brave than the man on that narrow stair, but Annister went upward, lightly now, [43] to meet whatever waited behind the door set with its narrow panel that he could see merely as a dark smudge of shadow in the encircling gloom.
He rapped, twice, and the door fell open silently, disclosing the long room in which, as he remembered, he had sat, but a few nights in the past, to listen as the lawyer and his crowd had waited for the man called “Bull.” ”

“ Annister, though you have guessed something from the change in the expression of his countenance. For years he has been like a carrier of typhoid, spreading the contagion of his own sinful nature wherever he went, himself unpunished, even admired, looked up to and patterned after. Do you want to keep such a man alive? Do you think, do you really believe, Dr. Annister, that the genius of such [Pg 327] a man as that, whatever it is, could make amends to the world for all the evil that he does?”
“You forget, Mr. Gordon, that it is no part of my purpose to keep him as he is. ”

“ A shot would bring discovery; they dared not risk it. Annister could see the great head, the wide ruff at the neck, the grinning jaws.... Then, the giant’s hands had gone up and out; there came a straining heave, a wrench, a queer, whistling croak; Ellison, rising from his knees, looked downward a moment to where the beast, its jaw broken by that mighty strength, lay stretched, lifeless, at his feet. ”

“ Annister's face continued impassive, save for the keen eyes, veiled now under lowered lids. Rook continued:
"Annister," he said suddenly, as if he had abruptly come to a decision, "I'll lay my cards on the table with you: I need a man, and he can not afford to be too—scrupulous, do you understand? ”

“ THE FACE IN THE MOONLIGHT
Annister had thrown in with Rook, but he trusted him no further than he would have trusted a cougar, a mountain cat.
At the club, as the afternoon wore on to evening, he had met four or five men: Beaton, the county judge, a red-faced tippler with, on the surface, a heartiness that was repellant; Lunn, the hotel proprietor, a vast, asthmatic man with a small, porcine eye; Daventry, the Land Commissioner, whose British accent, Annister noticed, would on occasion flatten to a high, nasal whining that was reminiscent of Sag Harbor or Buzzards Bay. ”

“ His voice rose to a shriek as there came a rush of feet along the corridor: a compact body of men, at their head a tall man at sight of whom Stephen Annister flung up a hand.
“Well, Childers,” he said. “I’m glad!”
Childers spoke pantingly, in quick gasps:
“We just made it, old man,” he said. “A day ahead at that. The station agent put us on the track. We got ’em all—Lunn, and the rest; all but Rook—”
He paused, at Annister’s inquiring look, turning his thumb down with an expressive gesture.
“We found him—strangled—in his office ... a queer business....” ”

“ Now the lean head thrust forward like a striking snake; there came a sudden, brief explosion of movement, a darkening flash, as the hand, holding the heavy automatic, swung upward level with his visitor, point-blank.
At such a distance it would be impossible to miss.
There was a curtain just behind him; Annister had noticed it upon entering. Now at his back it rippled suddenly along its length as if at the passage of a heavy body just behind. The lawyer smiled thinly.
“Ah, my friend,” he said, “it is so easy to be indiscreet! And one must meet force with force. ”

“ Annister frowned thoughtfully, his mind upon that canceled check in his pocket. And he was remembering one other thing, and that was the square of paper which he had found among his father’s effects, for on it had been a name, or, rather, two: the name of Hamilton Rook, and of another, unknown to Annister. And as to that Axworthy case, it was common knowledge that lunatics, for instance, entertained frequently the delusion that they were people of importance. ”

“ For it had been as if the man had looked through rather than at him; those eyes had glowed suddenly in the darkness, gray-green like a cat’s, in an abrupt, ferocious, basilisk stare.
Annister, in his day, had seen some queer corners and some tight places; in Rangoon, for example, he had penetrated to a certain dark house in a dim backwater stinking and dark with the darkness of midnight even at high noon.
And it was there, in that dark house, with shuttered windows like blind eyes to the night, that he had seen that which it is not good for any white man to have seen: the rite of the Suttee ”

“ I warned you because I knew Hamilton Rook.... I know him even better now. He meant to kill you, Mr. Annister, and now he schemes—”
“—To use me—is that it?” interrupted Annister dryly; then, at her slow head-shake, he stiffened.
“He would have finished you even after your—agreement—but that is not his way. But he will not make use of you in the way that you think. That careful plan of which he told you—that was just a blind; there are no ranches near enough. ”

“ At a long table, midway between door and windows, five men were seated: Lunn, his fat face gray with a sort of eager pallor, was chewing nervously at an unlighted cigar; he glanced up now at Annister’s entrance, turning to a big man on his right. At the head of the table, his veiled glance like the stare of a falcon, sat Rook, but it was upon the big man next to Lunn that Annister’s glance rested with an abrupt interest as the lawyer spoke:
“Welcome to our city, Mr. Annister!” he said, in a voice that reminded Annister of molasses dripping from a barrel. “I want you to meet—Mr. Bull Ellison ”

“ And then, even as Rook spoke, Annister abruptly understood: this gang of thieves, as he knew now—“Plunder, Limited,” as Cleo Ridgley had called them—Annister knew them now, under the leadership of Rook, for an outfit which would stop short of nothing to attain its ends. His eyes, roving the long room up and down, searched now for that dark face, with its black, forking beard, but he was not really expecting to see it, but that, if Rook was the actual leader, Black Beard was “the man higher up,” Annister was, somehow, convinced. ”

“ Alone in his cell beneath the court-house, Black Steve Annister sat in silence, gazing northward through the barred window to where, invisible in the thick darkness just across the street, the road ran, straight as an arrow from the bow, to that dark forest brooding in a changeless silence where lay the House of Fear.
Childers would have had his wire long since; but by the time that help could come it would be—too late. Annister, fatalistic after a fashion, felt this to be the fact even as he hoped against hope. ”

“ Annister had seen that safe; it was scarcely more than a strong-box, a sheet steel, but thin; a “can-opener” could have ripped it from end to end, easily, in no time at all. Rook must feel secure indeed, he thought, to put his trust in so flimsy a repository unless, perhaps, he had other means. The Indian, for instance; the savage who, but a few hours ago, had missed with his long talons for Annister’s throat by inches. ”

“ And then, abruptly, as if materialized out of the air, a face grinned into his, lips drawn backward from the teeth in a soundless snarl. It was the big man with the cauliflower ear.
“Hombre,” he said, without preamble, in a hoarse, carrying whisper, “take an old-timer’s advice: go back—an’ set down—you savvy? This place—it ain’t exactly healthy for a young fellow like you, I’m tellin’ yu! For if you don’t—”
Annister’s cold stare was followed by his voice, low, incisive:
“You’re blocking the doorway,” he said, with a sort of freezing quiet.
The giant’s hard mouth twisted in a sneer ”

“ Annister, backing nimbly before the giant’s rush, realized that he must avoid a clinch; at in-fighting the giant would have the edge: those mast-like arms and massive shoulders, the huge bulk—they would, at close quarters, with the drumming impact of the great fists, have spelled a quick ending with the sheer, slugging power of the attack. ”

“ But he ain’t goin’ northwest of nothin’, he ain’t.... Now, you dam’ short-horns, show some speed!”
But there was no fight in Rook, Lunn and Company. Glowering, their hands in plain sight, weaponless, they sat in a sullen silence, as Annister, backing to the doorway, was followed by Ellison and Kane. Outside, under pale stars, the giant spoke:
“I don’t aim to be too all-fired honest, Mister Annister,” he said. “I throwed in with Mister Rook, that’s so, but he’s played it both ends against the middle with me, I guess.... I reckon I’ll be movin’ out o’ Dry Bone in two—three hours.” ”

“ Annister's part in it was to be simple. He was to do nothing as yet until the lawyer should give the word. But a man was wanted: a gun-fighter; a man bred to violence who would not consider too closely the method or the means. For, as Rook had said, his eyes upon Annister in a sudden, biting scrutiny:
"If, as a first step, say, the owners of these outfits should—ah—disappear. ”

“ Annister. You’ve relieved my anxiety very much, indeed. And I’m so glad you think as you do, for I dreaded doing anything about it for fear it might get into the papers and there’d be all that horrid publicity and the reporters coming and catechizing me every day.”
“Wait a bit,” he said as she rose to go. “I want to ask you more about this Gordon. He seems to you an honest, straightforward sort of man?”
“Oh, entirely, Dr. Annister! He is so frank and sincere and direct that you can’t help believing in him. He seems to know [Pg 187] Mr. Brand very, very intimately, too. ”