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Chapter IV. I Hear A Bullet · The House of Skulls

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  Chapter four of the House of Skulls by H. Bedford Jones. This LibriVox
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  recordings in the public domain read by Ben Tucker. Chapter four. I hear
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  a bullet out of sheer decency. I had to seek another hotel. Naturally,
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  I did not pay much attention to m J B's warning at midnight after
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  a tremendously hard day's ride in a car, after a stiff shock and fainting
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  spell, the girl would be in pretty bad nervous condition. I took for
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  granted that she was overwrought and let it go at that. As I wanted
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  to reach Lakeport the next night and had a plenitude of bad roads ahead,
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  I was up and off at seven the following morning. Ferrying over to Saucelito
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  delayed me, and before getting to San Rafael, I was off on a
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  detour which took me around nearly to Petaluma. The road was fair, but
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  outside Pedaluma I picked up a tenpenny nail held upright by a scalp of wood,
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  and it took one of my cord tires and a jiffy fixing that held
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  me up a little while. I got to Santa Rosa in time for an
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  early luncheon and discovered that I was going to make Lakeport in the afternoon,
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  barring accidents. This was good news. I also discovered that the last place
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  I could get any liquid refreshment was at the famous tavern kept by one mc
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  gray on a head. So about one o'clock I drew up before the wide
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  spreading place in the shade of the immense oaks that shade the tavern grounds,
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  and went in to get a long, slim drink. In view of the
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  after developments of that same day, it might well be to set down that
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  I had one drink and one only. Upon returning to my car, I
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  came to an abrupt halt in some astonishment. A young man was standing by
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  the off rear wheel, and he was not observing me at all. He
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  was well dressed, but rather swarthy in complexion. This country was full of
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  Italian, French and Swiss grape specialists, as I had learned coming north,
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  so there was no stating the antecedents of the young man. What interested me,
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  and seemed to be absorbing him, was the fact that he had a
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  knife in his hand and was industriously ticking away at one of my rear tires.
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  At times I yield to impulse, and this was one of those times.
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  I reached that young man in two jumps and banged him solidly into the
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  car, then jerked him upright and planted my fist rudely against his nose,
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  allowing him to sprawl in the dust. He picked himself up and went away
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  in a hurry, swearing as he went of all the infernal deviltry, I
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  exclaimed as he vanished among the trees, that Fellow certainly had his nerve.
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  I was relieved to find that he had effected no damage beyond a hole in
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  the casing that had not yet reached the breaker's strip. Taking for granted that
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  he had had a drop too much, I climbed into the car and departed.
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  Within no long time I had reached the village of Hopland, my destination
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  on the Highway. From here a toll road ran over the hills to Lakeport,
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  and I turned off without pause in the village, thankful that the end
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  of my trip was in sight, as I thought that road was a brute
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  thick with dust, barely wide enough for two cars to pass, and with
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  crumbly edges and a sheer drop at that and a steep upgrade for five solid
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  miles. In places it was a very beautiful road, winding up between forested
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  growths of redwoods and giant conifers. As I nursed the Paragon up that road
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  at fifteen miles an hour, I had plenty of time for reflection. Back
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  to questions. Again. Out of the general muddle, these had resolved themselves
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  into certain distinct and coherent queries, And they fell under two heads John Balliol.
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  One, whom had he been afraid of? And why? Unknown?
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  Two? What had brought him to suicide? Not poverty certainly? Three?
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  What had he done with my checks when they were cashed? I would know?
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  Four? Why had he needed the money by a certain night? The
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  night he was to meet m J B. The knight he killed himself unknown?
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  M J B. The Fair Unknown? One What was her connection with
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  Balliol? Mystery? Two? Did his suicide hinge on his meeting with her?
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  Three she had said they killed him? Were they microbes or gunmen?
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  Unknowable? Four? Why her warning against my going to the ranch? My
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  answer to that final query was because she liked me. It was a satisfactory
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  answer too. It made me glow happily. I had always been a sedate
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  bachelor. But I must say that m. J. B. Was the
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  most attractive girl I had ever met, and to find her interested in me
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  was, to say the least, very pleasing. My only regret was that
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  I had left her in San Francisco. I thought of going back to the
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  city as soon as I had inspected my ranch. Just then I observed that
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  my radiator was boiling, what with the grade and the hot sun. And
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  ahead of me was a spring beside the road with the turnout. I halted
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  the car at the turnout, baled cold water into the radiator with a rusty
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  tin can, and sat down to smoke and let my engine cool off.
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  It was a cool and pleasant spot under lofty pines. I was just knocking
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  out my pipe when I heard voices and the creaking of a vehicle around the
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  sharp bend. Ahead came a horse and buggy, the latter occupied by three
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  men. All three carried rifles and knives, and beneath the buggy trotted a
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  big hound. They nodded to me and drove to the spring, letting the
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  horse have a mouthful. Obviously they were natives. Good afternoon, I returned
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  their greetings. Why the artillery sheriff's posse. They grinned and laughed. Deer
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  season opened yesterday. One of them replied, thought you had come up from
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  the city for the same reason. Not I was my answer. Plenty of
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  deer around here, that's what they say, but there ain't none when we
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  want to get em. Most of the folks in Lake Port are out from
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  the chink laundryman to the sheriff. They drove on down the trail, but
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  as they went I could see they were looking back and making observations, probably
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  on my car. Until they passed out of sight at the next curve,
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  they were still staring backward and discussing something, either me or the car.
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  I took for granted that it was the car and it was the dear season
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  did not interest me, particularly because I have no taste for hunting. Cursing
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  the foot thick dust in the road, I got into the car and went
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  on. At last, to my deep relief, I attained the summit of
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  the divide, where the toll gate was located. I paid my dollar fifty
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  and had a magnificent view of clear Lake in the distance amid the hills.
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  Then started downward. The descent was steep, enough and winding, but three
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  miles of it brought me to the floor of the valley, in a region
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  of jack pine and brush and hog backs. And as I turned a quick
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  curve, there before me and the road stood too dear doze. For the
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  fraction of an instant they gazed at me. Then they flung away like brown
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  streaks. They went over the nearest hill and were gone. Instinctively, I
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  halted the car, gazing after the graceful creatures. A moment later I shoved
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  my foot towards the starter, but I was still staring at the hillside.
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  Instead of touching the starter, my foot touched the accelerator and touched it with
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  a particular pet corn. I smothered an oath and leaned far forward to clutch
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  my aching toe, for the stab of pain was acute. And as I
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  leaned over thus a bullet came exactly where I had been sitting, at about
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  the height my head had been. I know it was a bullet because I
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  heard it, and because the effect was terrific. It plumped through the rear
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  of the top on one side, it passed above me, and its shrill
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  song was lost in a rattling smash of glass as it took the top half
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  of my windshield into slivers. Then came the crack of a rifle to prove
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  that it was a bullet. If I had not happened to lean over,
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  and to lean over pretty far, that bullet would have finished me. Sure.
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  My first instinct was to start the car and get away. Then I
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  checked the impulse and slid out to terra Firma. Some one not very far
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  off was shooting recklessly, and it made me angry. Hopping out into the
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  road, I stared around. Naturally, I saw nobody. If any hunter
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  had mistaken that maroon top for a deer, he was not advertising his mistake
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  to me. Show for home, balliol cried out a rough voice. Shove,
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  quaker, He'll give you a closer one. The voice came from somewhere
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  behind and to the left of the car. Balliol I was being mistaken for
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  Balliol and there was no mistake being made. As this astonishing fact percolated to
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  my brain, I wasted no time asking questions, but climbed into the car,
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  started her up, and rolled away from there in a hurry. Balliole,
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  who in the name of goodness, was trying to assassinate John Balliol,
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  and that rough voice from the hillside had been a deadly earnestness which had impelled
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  me to flight. It brought home to me in a flash that I was
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  up against something serious under the blue sky, under the hot August sunlight.
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  The thing was extremely matter of fact. I thought again of the young man
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  who had been jabbing my tire, and of the warning administered by m J
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  B. The sequence was pretty plain absurd, as it seemed this land cruise
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  of mine was actually taking me into perilous waters. It was the fault of
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  the car, of course, people thought that Balliol was driving it. As
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  I rattled across a bridge and entered upon excellent dirt roads, the realization cheered
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  me immensely. Balliol had admitted that he had gotten into trouble up here of
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  a private nature. Well, the men at his enemies discovered that I was
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  not John Balliol but York Desmond. I would be left alone. Yet,
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  why in such case had the girl warned me? I gave it up with
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  a suddenness for which I was unprepared. Lakeport jumped into my immediate foreground.
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  I had anticipated a county seat of some importance, but I found it a
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  village struggling along the lake shore, with a single main street and outlying residences.
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  The valley had been settled by Missourians back in the fifties, and they
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  were still here presently. I descried a charming square and court house with a
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  fine new Carnegie library down by the lake front. Except for a couple of
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  docks and some moored launches and house boats, the lake front consisted of reed
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  beds and was not beautiful, but the lake itself, with the mountains opposite,
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  was magnificent. Volcanic action had done its work well in this place,
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  and it was the sweetest spot I had seen in California. Once the town
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  was wakened from its sleeping repose, it would be a second Geneva, As
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  the deed to my ranch been sent on here for recording. I drove directly
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  to the court house, left the car and walked up to the county Recorder's
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  office on the right of the main building. There I found everything in order
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  in awaiting me. I inquired for the sheriff, meaning to set him on
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  the trail of my near assassin, but found that he was hunting deer,
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  so was every one else in town who could get away, even as my
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  hunter informants had stated. I walked half a block to the bank, with
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  whom my Los Angeles bank had corresponded. The bank was closed, for it
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  was after four o'clock, but I telephoned and obtained admission. I presented my
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  credentials to the banker an extremely cordial chap, and asked directions to my property.
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  He showed me exactly where my ranch lay and outlined the road. Tell
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  me one thing confidentially, I inquired, do you know why Balliol left here?
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  Do you know anything against that property? Any reason why I shouldn't have
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  bought it? Certainly not, He answered, with evident surprise. Balliol left
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  because of his health, I believe, and for no other reason. The
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  property is absolutely good, and the giveaway at the price, mister Desmond,
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  you got a good thing. He was in earnest beyond a question. But
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  as I sought the street again, I found myself wishing that he had phrased
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  it in some other fashion than because of his health. After my late experiences,
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  it had an ominous sound. End of Chapter four