Flint (1960) (2 page)

"This I have not mentioned to anyone, nor do I want it mentioned, but last week in Saratoga my wife tried to have me killed -- my wife and her father. You will find the reports from the Pinkerton Agency and my own statement among the papers in my safe-deposit box."

"There is divorce."

"They would fight it, and I might not live long enough. Also, I believe they will try again to have me killed, for I have not told them how much I know, and her father desperately needs money for some financial manipulations of his own."

He shuffled the papers together. "I never had a family, sir, and knew little of women. I was a lonely man, and she made me very comfortable before we were married, and I suddenly began to want a home."

"I am afraid I was very easy," he added, "and I now know her father led her to marry me hoping to get inside information on some of my activities. What they did not realize is that all my business I carry in my head. I never discuss business, and keep no records where they can be seen."

Returning to New York he screened all his actions with care. He liquidated some more stocks, purchased several pieces of land, and bought suddenly and heavily in railroad shares. He deposited money where he would have access to it in case of need, and selected a name under which to receive mail if that should be necessary. Then he shipped to himself, at two different addresses, using this name, a box of books and two other cases of various articles he might require.

With the Baltimore attorney he arranged a code name, a code for special dealings, and certain transfers of property. He also wrote checks closing his various accounts on specified days following his disappearance.

Announcing casually, as he often did, that he was going to Virginia for the shooting, he left New York.

As his wife had never wanted to go anywhere with him he was not surprised that she asked no questions. He had not told her that he knew of her plot to have him killed and, although they lived in the same house, they did not live together.

Neither she nor her father had any idea of the sort of man with whom they were dealing. The killing was planned to occur during a card game. The man hired was a Mississippi riverboat gambler who was promised his freedom on a plea of self-defense.

The gambler knew the story of the gunfight at The Crossing, but there was nothing to connect the youngster of that shooting with the immaculate New York financier.

The gambler received his first hint that all was not as he had expected during the early part of the game. Kettleman played shrewdly and with icy control, and the gambler quickly grasped that he himself was being studied with cool, calculated interest As part of his scheme, the gambler deliberately invited an accusation of cheating whenever a showdown developed between Kettleman and himself, but Kettleman ignored the opportunity, and the gambler grew worried.

Nothing was going as planned, and he began to realize that his opponent knew what he was trying to do, and was deliberately avoiding it. So anxious was he to lead Kettleman into an argument that his mind was not on the game, and suddenly he lost a large pot.

Startled, he looked at the table and realized that he himself had been cheated, with coolness and effrontery. He had been stripped of more than six thousand dollars with the skill of a professional. His eyes lifted to Kettleman's.

"You have been looking for trouble," Kettleman said quietly. "I am offering it to you."

The gambler was nervous. He touched his tongue to his lips and felt the sweat beading his forehead.

"You are looking for trouble," Kettleman said. "Why?"

There was no one close by. "I am going to kill you," the gambler said.

"If you wish to leave the game, we can divide the pot, and I will forget what you have said."

It was there then -- a way out. As a gambler he knew he should take it, but gambling was only a part of his business and he had his pride.

"I cannot. I have been paid."

"There are other ways to make a living and you have chosen the wrong one. I am offering you your last chance. Get out."

"I gave my word. I took their money."

Kettleman had seemed almost negligent. "When you are ready, then."

The gambler stepped back quickly, overturning bis chair. "If you say I cheat," he said loudly, "you are a liar!" And he grasped his gun.

Everybody saw him grasp the gun, everybody saw him start to draw it, and then he started coughing and there was blood on his shirt, blood dribbling down his chin, and on his face the realization of death.

Kettleman leaned over him. He looked down at the gambler and knew this man was only a step away from the man he was himself. "I didn't want to kill you," he said. "Who hired you?"

"Your wife," the gambler said. "And her father."

Kettleman realized then that he had known something like this would happen. He started to rise but the gambler caught his wrist. "I must know. Who are you?"

Kettleman hesitated. For the first time since that night he spoke of it. "I was the kid at The Crossing."

"God!" The gambler was excited. He started to rise, began to speak, and then he died.

Kettleman turned away. "I saw it, sir." The speaker was a man powerful in the state government. "You had to do it."

Seeing an acquaintance, Kettleman said, "I am sorry for this. Will you see that he is buried well? I will pay."

At the estate in Virginia he wasted no time. He changed clothes, repacked his bags, and caught the ride with the peddler he knew would be coming through. He also knew it would be months before the peddler came that way again.

From a distant town he took a stage, and then a train.

By the time they discovered his absence, he would be safely in the hideout in New Mexico.

It was very cold. He sat up in his blankets and put fuel on the fire.

His thoughts returned to the girl on the train. She had been singularly self-possessed, with a quiet beauty not easily forgotten.

Thinking of her made him remember his own wife, and he was amazed at how gullible he had been. His life had not fitted him for living with people. As a predatory creature he had been successful, as a human being he was a failure. He had invited no friendships and offered none.

He had entered business as he had life, to fight with fang and claw. Cool, ruthless, intelligent, he subordinated everything to success, and confided in no one, prepared to protect himself at all times, and to attack, always attack.

He had moved swiftly but with the sharp attention of a chess player, leaving nothing to chance. Nor had he ever attacked twice in the same way. He had developed an information service of office boys, messengers, waiters, cleaning women. They listened and reported to him, and he used the information.

It was a time of gamblers, a period of financial manipulation when fortunes were made and lost overnight. Mining, railroads and shipping, land speculation and industry -- he had a hand in them all, shifting positions quickly, negotiating behind the scenes, working eighteen to twenty hours a day for days on end.

There had been periods of vague disquiet when the yearning within him reached out toward the warmth of others, but he fought down the impulse, stifling it. Occasionally, with subordinates or strangers, he had done some sudden, impulsive kindness, and was always ashamed of the lapse.

Of his early years he had only vague recollections. The one real thing in those years had been Flint.

That he had been found beside the burned-out wagon train, he knew. There were vague recollections of a woman crying, and of a man and woman who bickered and drank constantly. She had been kind to him when sober, maudlin when drinking, and there were times when she forgot all about him and he went hungry.

When he was four he heard the shot that destroyed the only world he knew. He had gone into the next room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, to find the woman sprawled on the floor. He had often seen her like that, but this time there was blood on her back and side. Then people had come and taken him away.

After that he lived two years on a dry farm where there was little to eat and a losing battle was fought against big cattlemen. One day the farmers, fighting their own brutal struggle to survive, abandoned him on the street of a town.

He was sitting there at daybreak, shivering with the long night's chill, when a cold-eyed man in a buffalo coat rode into town, went past him, then turned back.

He remembered the cold, gray eyes, the unshaven jaw, and the questions the man asked. He had answered directly and simply, the only way he knew. The man had leaned down and lifted him to the saddle, and down the street in an all-night saloon and stage station, the man bought him a bowl of hot stew and crackers. He was sure he had never eaten anything that tasted so good. He had eaten, then fallen asleep.

When he awakened he was on the saddle in front of the man. They rode for several days, always by the least-traveled trails.

The man took him to a house in a city and left him there with a woman. The next morning, Flint was gone.

The woman was kind, and she took him to a school where he was admitted. He remained there for eight years.

The studies were hard. The other students complained often. But for the first time he slept in a decent bed and had regular meals. He dreaded the day when he might have to leave, and somehow he got the idea that if he failed as a student he would be taken out of school.

When he was ten he made two discoveries at the same time, the first was the library, and the second was that the teachers at the school were curious about him. He found that by reading in the library he could anticipate lessons and find background for the essays the teachers constantly demanded. In this way he discovered the wonderful world of books.

The other students came from wealthy or well-to-do homes, but his tuition came from a variety of Western towns. He was asked many probing questions, but replied to none of them.

During the long days of riding before they reached the house of the woman, Flint had taught him things that remained in his mind and, he now realized, had shaped his entire life.

"Never let them know how you feel or what you are thinking. If they know how you feel they know how to hurt you, and if they hurt you once, they will try again."

"Don't trust anybody, not even me. To trust is a weakness. It ain't necessarily that folks are bad, but they are weak or afraid. Be strong. Be your own man. Go your own way, but whatever you do, don't go cross-ways of other folks' beliefs."

"Keep your knowledge to yourself. Never offer information to anybody. Don't let people realize how much you know, and above all, study men. All your life there will be men who will try to keep you from getting where you're going, some out of hatred, some out of cussedness or inefficiency."

When the day came that the headmaster sent for him he fought down his panic. The headmaster was a severe, cold New England man. "We will be sorry to lose you," he said. "You have been an excellent student. As of now you have a better education than many of our business and political leaders. See that you use it." The headmaster paused briefly. "You came to us under peculiar circumstances, recommended by people whom we respect. We know nothing of your family."

For the boy there had been no vacations. When others went to their homes, he had stayed at school, sitting for days alone in the library, reading.

"I would continue to read, if I were you. Books are friends that will never fail you. You are going into a hard world. Remember this: honor is most important, that, and a good name. Keep your self-respect."

"You lack, I believe, an essential to happiness. You do not understand kindness." The headmaster shuffled papers on his desk. "I know that because I have never understood it myself, and it is a serious fault which I was long in appreciating. I hope it takes you less long."

From his desk the headmaster took an envelope. "This was enclosed in the letter which terminated your schooling."

Kettleman did not open the letter until he was alone. It was brief and to the point.

You was settin on the street when I seen you, and you was hungry. I fed you. Figgered a boy needed schoolin, so I sent you. Ever year I paid. You are old enough to make out. I got nothing more for you.

Come to Abilene if you want.

Flint Five twenty-dollar bills were enclosed. He packed his clothes and, with nothing better to do, went to Abilene.

There was no one there named Flint.

After several days of inquiring he met a bartender who gave him a careful look and then suggested he stick around.

At school he had learned to ride, for it had been a school for young gentlemen. He got a job riding herd on some cattle, fattening for the market. It was not cow-punching, just keeping the cattle from drifting. The others were cowhands, however, so he learned a good deal.

After three months the cattle were sold. He went to work in a livery stable. He was there when Flint came.

The wind moaned in the pines. He replenished the fire, and lay back in his blankets again. The boughs bent above him, the fire crackled, and far off a horse's hoofs drummed. The coals glowed red and pulsing. Looking up through the pines he could see a single star.