by Zane Grey
Knell had spoken hurriedly and low, now and then with passion. His pale eyes glinted like fire in ice, and now his voice fell to a whisper.
“Who do you think Fletcher’s new man is?”
“Who?” demanded Longstreth.
“BUCK DUANE!”
Down came Longstreth’s boots with a crash, then his body grew rigid.
“That Nueces outlaw? That two-shot ace-of-spades gun-thrower who killed Bland, Alloway — ?”
“An’ Hardin.” Knell whispered this last name with more feeling than the apparent circumstance demanded.
“Yes; and Hardin, the best one of the Rim Rock fellows — Buck Duane!”
Longstreth was so ghastly white now that his black mustache seemed outlined against chalk. He eyed his grim lieutenant. They understood each other without more words. It was enough that Buck Duane was there in the Big Bend. Longstreth rose presently and reached for a flask, from which he drank, then offered it to Knell. He waved it aside.
“Knell,” began the chief, slowly, as he wiped his lips, “I gathered you have some grudge against this Buck Duane.”
“Yes.”
“Well, don’t be a fool now and do what Poggin or almost any of you men would — don’t meet this Buck Duane. I’ve reason to believe he’s a Texas Ranger now.”
“The hell you say!” exclaimed Knell.
“Yes. Go to Ord and give Jim Fletcher a hunch. He’ll get Poggin, and they’ll fix even Buck Duane.”
“All right. I’ll do my best. But if I run into Duane—”
“Don’t run into him!” Longstreth’s voice fairly rang with the force of its passion and command. He wiped his face, drank again from the flask, sat down, resumed his smoking, and, drawing a paper from his vest pocket he began to study it.
“Well, I’m glad that’s settled,” he said, evidently referring to the Duane matter. “Now for the new job. This is October the eighteenth. On or before the twenty-fifth there will be a shipment of gold reach the Rancher’s Bank of Val Verde. After you return to Ord give Poggin these orders. Keep the gang quiet. You, Poggin, Kane, Fletcher, Panhandle Smith, and Boldt to be in on the secret and the job. Nobody else. You’ll leave Ord on the twenty-third, ride across country by the trail till you get within sight of Mercer. It’s a hundred miles from Bradford to Val Verde — about the same from Ord. Time your travel to get you near Val Verde on the morning of the twenty-sixth. You won’t have to more than trot your horses. At two o’clock in the afternoon, sharp, ride into town and up to the Rancher’s Bank. Val Verde’s a pretty big town. Never been any holdups there. Town feels safe. Make it a clean, fast, daylight job. That’s all. Have you got the details?”
Knell did not even ask for the dates again.
“Suppose Poggin or me might be detained?” he asked.
Longstreth bent a dark glance upon his lieutenant.
“You never can tell what’ll come off,” continued Knell. “I’ll do my best.”
“The minute you see Poggin tell him. A job on hand steadies him. And I say again — look to it that nothing happens. Either you or Poggin carry the job through. But I want both of you in it. Break for the hills, and when you get up in the rocks where you can hide your tracks head for Mount Ord. When all’s quiet again I’ll join you here. That’s all. Call in the boys.”
Like a swift shadow and as noiseless Duane stole across the level toward the dark wall of rock. Every nerve was a strung wire. For a little while his mind was cluttered and clogged with whirling thoughts, from which, like a flashing scroll, unrolled the long, baffling order of action. The game was now in his hands. He must cross Mount Ord at night. The feat was improbable, but it might be done. He must ride into Bradford, forty miles from the foothills before eight o’clock next morning. He must telegraph MacNelly to be in Val Verde on the twenty-fifth. He must ride back to Ord, to intercept Knell, face him be denounced, kill him, and while the iron was hot strike hard to win Poggin’s half-won interest as he had wholly won Fletcher’s. Failing that last, he must let the outlaws alone to bide their time in Ord, to be free to ride on to their new job in Val Verde. In the mean time he must plan to arrest Longstreth. It was a magnificent outline, incredible, alluring, unfathomable in its nameless certainty. He felt like fate. He seemed to be the iron consequences falling upon these doomed outlaws.
Under the wall the shadows were black, only the tips of trees and crags showing, yet he went straight to the trail. It was merely a grayness between borders of black. He climbed and never stopped. It did not seem steep. His feet might have had eyes. He surmounted the wall, and, looking down into the ebony gulf pierced by one point of light, he lifted a menacing arm and shook it. Then he strode on and did not falter till he reached the huge shelving cliffs. Here he lost the trail; there was none; but he remembered the shapes, the points, the notches of rock above. Before he reached the ruins of splintered ramparts and jumbles of broken walls the moon topped the eastern slope of the mountain, and the mystifying blackness he had dreaded changed to magic silver light. It seemed as light as day, only soft, mellow, and the air held a transparent sheen. He ran up the bare ridges and down the smooth slopes, and, like a goat, jumped from rock to rock. In this light he knew his way and lost no time looking for a trail. He crossed the divide and then had all downhill before him. Swiftly he descended, almost always sure of his memory of the landmarks. He did not remember having studied them in the ascent, yet here they were, even in changed light, familiar to his sight. What he had once seen was pictured on his mind. And, true as a deer striking for home, he reached the canon where he had left his horse.
Bullet was quickly and easily found. Duane threw on the saddle and pack, cinched them tight, and resumed his descent. The worst was now to come. Bare downward steps in rock, sliding, weathered slopes, narrow black gullies, a thousand openings in a maze of broken stone — these Duane had to descend in fast time, leading a giant of a horse. Bullet cracked the loose fragments, sent them rolling, slid on the scaly slopes, plunged down the steps, followed like a faithful dog at Duane’s heels.
Hours passed as moments. Duane was equal to his great opportunity. But he could not quell that self in him which reached back over the lapse of lonely, searing years and found the boy in him. He who had been worse than dead was now grasping at the skirts of life — which meant victory, honor, happiness. Duane knew he was not just right in part of his mind. Small wonder that he was not insane, he thought! He tramped on downward, his marvelous faculty for covering rough ground and holding to the true course never before even in flight so keen and acute. Yet all the time a spirit was keeping step with him. Thought of Ray Longstreth as he had left her made him weak. But now, with the game clear to its end, with the trap to spring, with success strangely haunting him, Duane could not dispel memory of her. He saw her white face, with its sweet sad lips and the dark eyes so tender and tragic. And time and distance and risk and toil were nothing.
The moon sloped to the west. Shadows of trees and crags now crossed to the other side of him. The stars dimmed. Then he was out of the rocks, with the dim trail pale at his feet. Mounting Bullet, he made short work of the long slope and the foothills and the rolling land leading down to Ord. The little outlaw camp, with its shacks and cabins and row of houses, lay silent and dark under the paling moon. Duane passed by on the lower trail, headed into the road, and put Bullet to a gallop. He watched the dying moon, the waning stars, and the east. He had time to spare, so he saved the horse. Knell would be leaving the rendezvous about the time Duane turned back toward Ord. Between noon and sunset they would meet.
The night wore on. The moon sank behind low mountains in the west. The stars brightened for a while, then faded. Gray gloom enveloped the world, thickened, lay like smoke over the road. Then shade by shade it lightened, until through the transparent obscurity shone a dim light.
Duane reached Bradford before dawn. He dismounted some distance from the tracks, tied his horse, and then crossed over to the station. He heard the clicking of th
e telegraph instrument, and it thrilled him. An operator sat inside reading. When Duane tapped on the window he looked up with startled glance, then went swiftly to unlock the door.
“Hello. Give me paper and pencil. Quick,” whispered Duane.
With trembling hands the operator complied. Duane wrote out the message he had carefully composed.
“Send this — repeat it to make sure — then keep mum. I’ll see you again. Good-by.”
The operator stared, but did not speak a word.
Duane left as stealthily and swiftly as he had come. He walked his horse a couple miles back on the road and then rested him till break of day. The east began to redden, Duane turned grimly in the direction of Ord.
When Duane swung into the wide, grassy square on the outskirts of Ord he saw a bunch of saddled horses hitched in front of the tavern. He knew what that meant. Luck still favored him. If it would only hold! But he could ask no more. The rest was a matter of how greatly he could make his power felt. An open conflict against odds lay in the balance. That would be fatal to him, and to avoid it he had to trust to his name and a presence he must make terrible. He knew outlaws. He knew what qualities held them. He knew what to exaggerate.
There was not an outlaw in sight. The dusty horses had covered distance that morning. As Duane dismounted he heard loud, angry voices inside the tavern. He removed coat and vest, hung them over the pommel. He packed two guns, one belted high on the left hip, the other swinging low on the right side. He neither looked nor listened, but boldly pushed the door and stepped inside.
The big room was full of men, and every face pivoted toward him. Knell’s pale face flashed into Duane’s swift sight; then Boldt’s, then Blossom Kane’s, then Panhandle Smith’s, then Fletcher’s, then others that were familiar, and last that of Poggin. Though Duane had never seen Poggin or heard him described, he knew him. For he saw a face that was a record of great and evil deeds.
There was absolute silence. The outlaws were lined back of a long table upon which were papers, stacks of silver coin, a bundle of bills, and a huge gold-mounted gun.
“Are you gents lookin’ for me?” asked Duane. He gave his voice all the ringing force and power of which he was capable. And he stepped back, free of anything, with the outlaws all before him.
Knell stood quivering, but his face might have been a mask. The other outlaws looked from him to Duane. Jim Fletcher flung up his hands.
“My Gawd, Dodge, what’d you bust in here fer?” he said, plaintively, and slowly stepped forward. His action was that of a man true to himself. He meant he had been sponsor for Duane and now he would stand by him.
“Back, Fletcher!” called Duane, and his voice made the outlaw jump.
“Hold on, Dodge, an’ you-all, everybody,” said Fletcher. “Let me talk, seein’ I’m in wrong here.”
His persuasions did not ease the strain.
“Go ahead. Talk,” said Poggin.
Fletcher turned to Duane. “Pard, I’m takin’ it on myself thet you meet enemies here when I swore you’d meet friends. It’s my fault. I’ll stand by you if you let me.”
“No, Jim,” replied Duane.
“But what’d you come fer without the signal?” burst out Fletcher, in distress. He saw nothing but catastrophe in this meeting.
“Jim, I ain’t pressin’ my company none. But when I’m wanted bad—”
Fletcher stopped him with a raised hand. Then he turned to Poggin with a rude dignity.
“Poggy, he’s my pard, an’ he’s riled. I never told him a word thet’d make him sore. I only said Knell hadn’t no more use fer him than fer me. Now, what you say goes in this gang. I never failed you in my life. Here’s my pard. I vouch fer him. Will you stand fer me? There’s goin’ to be hell if you don’t. An’ us with a big job on hand!”
While Fletcher toiled over his slow, earnest persuasion Duane had his gaze riveted upon Poggin. There was something leonine about Poggin. He was tawny. He blazed. He seemed beautiful as fire was beautiful. But looked at closer, with glance seeing the physical man, instead of that thing which shone from him, he was of perfect build, with muscles that swelled and rippled, bulging his clothes, with the magnificent head and face of the cruel, fierce, tawny-eyed jaguar.
Looking at this strange Poggin, instinctively divining his abnormal and hideous power, Duane had for the first time in his life the inward quaking fear of a man. It was like a cold-tongued bell ringing within him and numbing his heart. The old instinctive firing of blood followed, but did not drive away that fear. He knew. He felt something here deeper than thought could go. And he hated Poggin.
That individual had been considering Fletcher’s appeal.
“Jim, I ante up,” he said, “an’ if Phil doesn’t raise us out with a big hand — why, he’ll get called, an’ your pard can set in the game.”
Every eye shifted to Knell. He was dead white. He laughed, and any one hearing that laugh would have realized his intense anger equally with an assurance which made him master of the situation.
“Poggin, you’re a gambler, you are — the ace-high, straight-flush hand of the Big Bend,” he said, with stinging scorn. “I’ll bet you my roll to a greaser peso that I can deal you a hand you’ll be afraid to play.”
“Phil, you’re talkin’ wild,” growled Poggin, with both advice and menace in his tone.
“If there’s anythin’ you hate it’s a man who pretends to be somebody else when he’s not. Thet so?”
Poggin nodded in slow-gathering wrath.
“Well, Jim’s new pard — this man Dodge — he’s not who he seems. Oh-ho! He’s a hell of a lot different. But I know him. An’ when I spring his name on you, Poggin, you’ll freeze to your gizzard. Do you get me? You’ll freeze, an’ your hand’ll be stiff when it ought to be lightnin’ — All because you’ll realize you’ve been standin’ there five minutes — five minutes ALIVE before him!”
If not hate, then assuredly great passion toward Poggin manifested itself in Knell’s scornful, fiery address, in the shaking hand he thrust before Poggin’s face. In the ensuing silent pause Knell’s panting could be plainly heard. The other men were pale, watchful, cautiously edging either way to the wall, leaving the principals and Duane in the center of the room.
“Spring his name, then, you—” said Poggin, violently, with a curse.
Strangely Knell did not even look at the man he was about to denounce. He leaned toward Poggin, his hands, his body, his long head all somewhat expressive of what his face disguised.
“BUCK DUANE!” he yelled, suddenly.
The name did not make any great difference in Poggin. But Knell’s passionate, swift utterance carried the suggestion that the name ought to bring Poggin to quick action. It was possible, too, that Knell’s manner, the import of his denunciation the meaning back of all his passion held Poggin bound more than the surprise. For the outlaw certainly was surprised, perhaps staggered at the idea that he, Poggin, had been about to stand sponsor with Fletcher for a famous outlaw hated and feared by all outlaws.
Knell waited a long moment, and then his face broke its cold immobility in an extraordinary expression of devilish glee. He had hounded the great Poggin into something that gave him vicious, monstrous joy.
“BUCK DUANE! Yes,” he broke out, hotly. “The Nueces gunman! That two-shot, ace-of-spades lone wolf! You an’ I — we’ve heard a thousand times of him — talked about him often. An’ here he IN FRONT of you! Poggin, you were backin’ Fletcher’s new pard, Buck Duane. An’ he’d fooled you both but for me. But I know him. An’ I know why he drifted in here. To flash a gun on Cheseldine — on you — on me! Bah! Don’t tell me he wanted to join the gang. You know a gunman, for you’re one yourself. Don’t you always want to kill another man? An’ don’t you always want to meet a real man, not a four-flush? It’s the madness of the gunman, an’ I know it. Well, Duane faced you — called you! An’ when I sprung his name, what ought you have done? What would the boss — anybody — have expected of Poggin? D
id you throw your gun, swift, like you have so often? Naw; you froze. An’ why? Because here’s a man with the kind of nerve you’d love to have. Because he’s great — meetin’ us here alone. Because you know he’s a wonder with a gun an’ you love life. Because you an’ I an’ every damned man here had to take his front, each to himself. If we all drew we’d kill him. Sure! But who’s goin’ to lead? Who was goin’ to be first? Who was goin’ to make him draw? Not you, Poggin! You leave that for a lesser man — me — who’ve lived to see you a coward. It comes once to every gunman. You’ve met your match in Buck Duane. An’, by God, I’m glad! Here’s once I show you up!”
The hoarse, taunting voice failed. Knell stepped back from the comrade he hated. He was wet, shaking, haggard, but magnificent.
“Buck Duane, do you remember Hardin?” he asked, in scarcely audible voice.
“Yes,” replied Duane, and a flash of insight made clear Knell’s attitude.
“You met him — forced him to draw — killed him?”
“Yes.”
“Hardin was the best pard I ever had.”
His teeth clicked together tight, and his lips set in a thin line.
The room grew still. Even breathing ceased. The time for words had passed. In that long moment of suspense Knell’s body gradually stiffened, and at last the quivering ceased. He crouched. His eyes had a soul-piercing fire.
Duane watched them. He waited. He caught the thought — the breaking of Knell’s muscle-bound rigidity. Then he drew.
Through the smoke of his gun he saw two red spurts of flame. Knell’s bullets thudded into the ceiling. He fell with a scream like a wild thing in agony.
Duane did not see Knell die. He watched Poggin. And Poggin, like a stricken and astounded man, looked down upon his prostrate comrade.
Fletcher ran at Duane with hands aloft.