by Max Brand
It was small wonder that that story kept running through Jerry’s head day by day as his inheritance melted through his prodigal, shiftless fingers. Before long, little would remain except The Voice of La Paloma, and, whenever Jerry thought of that time of destitution, he looked at the revolver and remembered the carefree life of La Paloma; there were no shackles on his existence. His commission to a free life was this little weapon, and for a signature of authority it bore eleven notches, neatly filed.
II
The crisis drew near in Jerry’s life; the people of Sloan almost held their breath while they watched developments. The mortgages on the old Peyton place were to be foreclosed and neither man, woman, nor child in the town expected the son of Hank Peyton to look quietly on while the land and the house changed hands. The men who held the mortgages had lawyers for agents; the lawyers had Sheriff Edward Sturgis; Sheriff Sturgis had a posse of good men and true at his call; yet for all that he was observed to wear a look of concern. The sheriff was not a student, but he had a natural belief in inherited characteristics, and he had known Hank Peyton when Hank was in his prime. Nevertheless, the storm broke from an unexpected quarter.
Jan van Zandt held one of the outlying alfalfa farms near the Peyton place, and one day he found Jerry’s buckskin mare lying with a broken leg in his largest irrigation ditch; she had come through a rough place in his fence and slipped on a concrete culvert. Jan van Zandt sent a Mexican to tell the tidings to young Peyton. In the meantime he got on his fastest horse, made a round of his neighbors, and returned with a dozen men at his back. They sat down with shotguns and rifles near at hand to wait for Jerry.
He came alone and he came on foot, for there was nothing on his place except the buckskin that he deigned to ride. At first he paid no attention to the men, but sat for a long time holding the head of the patient, suffering horse before he shot her through the temple. Only then did he turn to Jan van Zandt. Jan stood with a double-barreled shotgun in both big hands and from a distance he kept shouting that he knew he was to blame for letting the fence fall into disrepair, and that he would settle whatever costs the law allowed.
“You fool, do you think your money can buy me another Nelly?” Jerry asked. Then he went to Jan van Zandt, took the shotgun out of the big hands, and beat the farmer until he was hardly recognizable. The friends of van Zandt stood by with their guns firmly grasped, but they did not fire because, as they explained later, they might have hurt Jan by mistake.
Afterward Jerry refused to bring suit for the value of his horse, but, as soon as Jan was out of bed, he filed a suit for damages in a case of assault. And he won the suit. The cowpunchers rode in singly and in pairs to Jerry and offered their assistance against the dirty ground hogs, but Jerry turned them away. He sold most of the furniture in his house and the rest of the horses to pay the fine, but, with the money, he sent a note to Jan van Zandt warning him fairly that Nelly was still unpaid for and that in due time he, Jeremiah Peyton, would extract full payment. He only waited until he discovered how such a payment could be made.
It was another occasion for Jan van Zandt to mount his fastest horse—he was quite a fancier of fine breeds—and this time he rode straight into the town of Sloan, thrust Jerry’s note in front of the sheriff, and demanded police protection. The sheriff was a fat, shapeless man with a broken nose, little, uneasy eyes, and a forehead that jagged back and was immediately lost under a coarse mop of hair. His neck was put on his round shoulders at an angle of forty-five degrees, and, as he was continually glancing from side to side, he gave an impression of a man ducking danger, or about to duck. It was strange to see big Jan van Zandt lean over the desk and appeal to this man, and of the two the sheriff seemed by far the more frightened. His twinkling, animal eyes looked everywhere except at Jan van Zandt until the story was over.
Then he said: “You got some fine horses out there, haven’t you, Jan?”
“The best in the county,” Jan replied readily, “and, if you pull me through this, you can take your pick.”
“You got me all wrong,” the sheriff said. “I don’t want any of your horses. But if I was you, I’d not feel safe even if I had six men with guns around me day and night. I’d get on my fastest horse and hit straight off away from Sloan.”
The big man turned pale, but it was partly from anger. “Are you the sheriff of this county, or ain’t you?” he asked.
“Just now,” answered the sheriff, grinning, “I wish to heaven that I wasn’t.”
From anyone else that speech would have been a damaging remark, but the record of the sheriff was so very long and so very straight that not even the farmers of Sloan had dared to think of displacing him. He was a landmark, like the old Spanish church in Sloan, and his towering reputation kept the gunmen and wrongdoers far from the town. The admission of Sturgis that he feared young Peyton, therefore, made Jan van Zandt set his jaw and stare.
“You want me to move?” he said at length. “You want me to give up my home?”
The sheriff looked at him curiously. Sturgis was not accustomed to these homemakers, as yet, but he dimly realized that Jan van Zandt’s hearth was his altar and that he would as soon renounce his God as leave his house.
“I don’t want you to give up nothin’,” the sheriff said. “I want you to take a vacation and beat it away. Stay away three months . . . and before the end of that time Jerry will be gone . . . the only thing that keeps him here now is you.”
“Go away,” repeated Jan van Zandt huskily, “and leave my wife and my girls out there . . . alone?”
“Good heavens, man!” burst out Sheriff Sturgis. “D’you think Jerry Peyton is a Mex? D’you think he’d lay a hand on your womenfolk? I tell you, van Zandt, the boy is clean . . . as my gun.”
“He’s a bad man,” Jan van Zandt solemnly said. “Sheriff, I’ve seen him as close as I see you now, and I’ve seen him worked up.”
The sheriff noted the black and blue patches on the face of van Zandt, but he said nothing.
“He’s bad all through, and, when a man is crooked in one thing, he’s crooked in everything.”
“Listen to me,” the sheriff said. “I’ve lived . . .”
“Right’s right,” interrupted van Zandt stubbornly. “One bad apple’ll spoil a whole barrel of good ones. That’s true, I guess, and if it’s true, then, if there was ever any good in Peyton, the bad has turned him all rotten long ago.”
Sturgis looked at the pale, set face of the farmer with a sort of horror. He felt tongue-tied, as when he argued with his wife on certain subjects, and all in a breath he hated the narrow mind of van Zandt that used maxims in place of thought, and, at the same time, respected a man who was determined to stay by his home even if he had to die there. The little, bright eyes of the sheriff looked out the window and followed a rolling, pungent cloud of dust down the street; in the narrow mind of the farmer he had caught a glimpse of certain rock-like qualities on which a nation can build. He sprang to his feet and banged his fist on the desk.
“Get out of here and back to your home,” he said. “I’ve seen enough of your face. Peyton says he expects payment for his mare, does he? Well, he has a payment coming to him, I guess.”
“I’ll give him what the law grants him,” said van Zandt, backing toward the door but still stolid.
“Aw, man, man,” groaned Sturgis. “You come out of smooth country and smooth people. What kind of laws are you goin’ to fit to a country like this?” He waved through the window toward the ragged mountains that lifted to the east of Sloan Valley.
Jan van Zandt blinked, but he said nothing and he thought nothing; he saw no relation between law and geography.
“Go back to your home,” repeated the sheriff. “How do I know Peyton is going to try to harm you? I’m here to punish crimes, not read minds. Get on your way. What do I know about Peyton?”
“You told me yourself that if you was in my place . . .”
“But I ain’t in your place, am I? What a man thi
nks don’t count on a witness stand, does it? Legally I know Peyton is a law-abidin’ citizen.”
“Sheriff Sturgis,” said the farmer sternly, “leastways I’ve learned something out of this talk with you. You call him law-abidin’? I know he’s young, but he has a record as long as my arm. D’you deny that?”
The sheriff swallowed. “Mexes don’t count,” he said. “S’long, van Zandt.”
He stood at the window, scowling, and watched the big farmer mount his horse. It was a chestnut stallion, a full sixteen hands tall, clean-limbed, straight-rumped, with a long neck that promised a mighty stride. He made a fine picture, but what good would he be, thought the sheriff, in a twenty-four-hour march across the mountains? Or how would those long legs, muscled for speed alone, stand up under the jerking, twisting, weaving labor of a roundup. The chestnut was a picture horse, decided the sheriff, made for pleasure and short, easy rides. Jan van Zandt disappeared down the street, borne at a long, rocking gallop, and the sheriff turned his glance to his own little pinto, standing untethered, with the reins thrown over his head. The pinto had raised his lumpish head a trifle and opened one eye when the stallion started away with a snort, then he dropped back into his sullen slumber, his ears flopping awry, his lower lip pendent, one hip sagging. The pinto was six, but he looked sixteen; he appeared about to sink into the dust, but, if a choice was to be made between that pinto and the chestnut stallion for a sixty-mile ride, the sheriff would not have hesitated for a second in making his decision. He was so moved as he thought of these things, that he leaned out the window and cursed the mustang in a terrible voice, and the pinto raised his head and whinnied softly.
III
Three days went slowly, slowly, over the head of the sheriff. During that time he was as profane, as slovenly, as smiling as ever, and yet every minute he waited for the crash. His mind reverted to a period fifteen years before when Hank Peyton had been a black name around Sloan. There were two men of might in those days. . . .
Peyton and La Paloma—and only by an act of grace was Sloan rid of them when Peyton killed the more famous bad man and was himself so terribly shot up that he could never draw a weapon again with a sure hand. After that epic battle he had lived on his savage reputation alone, peacefully, but the picture in the sheriff’s eye was the old Hank Peyton. Side-by-side with it he saw the son of the gunfighter, equally large, stronger, cleverer, and possessing one great attribute that his father had never known—a sense of humor. Hank had been all fire, all passion, but his son knew how to smile and wait—in fact, the sheriff knew that he was waiting even now to take the life of Jan van Zandt, and the suspense of that expectation was more terrible to him than the most violent outrage Hank himself had ever committed. Looking into the future, the sheriff found himself already accepting the death of Jan van Zandt as an accomplished fact, and his concern was wholly for his own troubles when he should have to take the trail of young Peyton. But sometimes a sinister, small hope was mixed with his worry—a hope that Peyton was waiting so that he could make his kill with impunity. After all, that was the only satisfactory explanation of the long wait.
It was on the third day that the unexpected blow fell. Six men rode into Sloan. They raced their horses straight to the office of the sheriff, and from the window he smiled when he saw the horses mill about as soon as the masters dismounted. They had saved two minutes by racing, he saw, and now they wasted an equal amount of time tethering their nervous horses, for they rode the type of horseflesh that Jan van Zandt rode—blooded fellows with which they hoped to build up a fine stock for saddle and harness. New horses, new men, decided the sheriff calmly, as he recognized Rex Houlahan, Pete Goodwin, Gus Saunders, Pierre la Roche, and Eric Jensen. He decided that the blow had fallen when he saw the hulking form of Jan van Zandt himself in the background, and never was a sight more welcome to the sheriff. The six men came for his door in a bunch, wedged in the frame, and struggled for a moment before they sprawled into the room. It gave the sheriff time to finish working off an ample chew of Virginia tobacco, for which he was duly grateful.
“It’s happened,” said Pete Goodwin.
“He’s up and done it,” said Rex Houlahan.
“The thing, it is finish’,” said Pierre la Roche.
They said these things all in one breath; the sheriff turned and blinked at Jan van Zandt to make sure that he was not a ghost. But he hated to ask questions, so he said nothing. Van Zandt worked his way to the front, and Sheriff Sturgis saw in his face the pallor of a coward cornered or a peaceful man with his back to the wall and ready to fight. He had never seen another man who looked exactly like that and it troubled him.
“Prince Harry,” began the big farmer, and then stood with his mouth working while the sheriff wondered what on earth the chestnut stallion’s name could have to do with six armed men. “Prince Harry,” continued Van Zandt, exploding, “the skunk has got him . . . and I’m goin’ to get his hide. Peyton got him . . . Prince Harry.”
“Killed him?” asked the sheriff, seeing light.
“Stole him. There’s a law around here about horse thieves, ain’t there? Well, we’re here to use it.”
“Young Peyton has a rope comin’ to him,” added Houlahan, “and we’re here to use it.”
“There’s a law about horse thieves,” admitted the sheriff with grim satisfaction, “but it ain’t a written law.”
There was a chorus of disapproval. It reminded the sheriff that there is one power more terrible and blind and remorseless than the worst gang of outlaws that ever raided a town, and that is a number of peaceful, law-abiding citizens who rise en masse for their rights. The sheriff lost all desire to smile.
“Gents,” he said, “if I was to see with my own eyes young Peyton climbin’ on the back of another man’s horse, I’d disbelieve my own eyes. Horse stealin’ ain’t up to his size. That’s all.”
Big van Zandt leaned over the desk, resting his balled fists upon it. “How d’you know?” he said. “Seems to me like you’re too fond of this Peyton.”
“I got to ask you to take your hands offen my desk,” said the sheriff coldly. “You’ll be messin’ up all my paper pretty soon.”
In spite of his rage, van Zandt knew enough to obey.
“Who saw Peyton take the chestnut?” went on the sheriff.
“Who else would take him?” asked six voices. And the sheriff gave up all attempts to reason with them.
“Even if he ain’t got the horse now,” van Zandt said, “it only shows that he’s passed Prince Harry along the line to some of his friends in the hills. It ain’t the first horse that’s been lost around here . . . and the others have gone the same way. Besides, where does Peyton get all the money he blows around town? We have to work . . . he don’t do a tap. I ask you, what does that mean?”
The sheriff looked into each face in turn and saw that he could not answer. He only said: “Boys, you may be right. I hope you ain’t, but you may be right.” There was a deep-throated growl in response, but they were somewhat pacified by this admission. “I ask you to do this . . . take the road down the valley and try to ride down the gent that took Prince Harry.”
“They ain’t a horse in the valley that could catch him,” said van Zandt with gloomy pride.
“I got some money that would talk on that point,” said the sheriff calmly. “But all I say is . . . will you do what I want?”
“We’ll go down the valley,” said Houlahan, combing his red beard, “but who’ll go up the valley? We got six here to go down the valley, but where’s six to go the other way?”
“I’ll go,” said the sheriff, buckling on his belt. Their breath of silence admitted that it was a sufficient answer.
“And if neither of us get him?” they asked.
“Then”—the sheriff sighed—“it’s up to me to hit the trail. We’ll start botherin’ about that when the time comes. Now you better be gettin’ on your way.”
“But what if Prince Harry was taken across the hill
s?”
“Nobody but a fool would take that horse through the hills,” said the sheriff sharply. “He’d bust his skinny legs in the rocks inside of two miles. Now, get on your way.”
He followed them through the door, watched them tumble into the saddle, and then race down the street, shouting. Then the sheriff climbed into the saddle on the pinto. He used neither spurs nor quirt to start his mustang into a racing gait, but the pinto, as soon as the reins were drawn taut, broke from a standing start into a long, lazy lope, unhurried, smooth as the rocking of a ground swell. His head hung low, his leg muscles were relaxed, he seemed to fall along the ground, and he could keep close to that pace from sunrise to sunset. Sheriff Sturgis paid no attention to his surroundings for some distance out of the town. He was thinking of the man who took Prince Harry. If he were a man wise in horseflesh, he would keep far from the hills and go straight along the road. The chances were large that he would give his horse the rein for some distance out of the environs of the town; in fact, he would go at full speed until he had passed the forking of the roads, far up the valley—if he were traveling in that direction. Once there, he would be in sparsely filled range land where there were no houses within a day’s ride ahead of him, and also where he would have small chance of getting a fresh mount. Realizing this, if he were at all familiar with the country, the thief would dismount and let his horse get his wind, preparing for the long grind through the foothills. After the pause, there was a great chance that the chestnut, winded by the hard riding and soft from the sort of work that Jan van Zandt gave him, would be stiff and almost broken down. The greatest difficulty before the sheriff was to decide on which of the roads the criminal would follow when he reached the forking. That is, granted that he took this direction up the valley.