by Max Brand
“Peyton,” he said.
The boy looked into the face of the big man and smiled, but did not answer. It was a needless insult, and the hands of the posse gathered their weapons closer.
“Peyton, we’ve come for you,” Houlahan said.
For the first time the meaning of the men came to Jeremiah Peyton. In truth, he had despised them all so heartily that up to this point he refused to let his reason tell him what the general silence and the guns meant. Even now as he stood up and stretched the muscles of his magnificent, lithe body from fingertips to toes, he felt that he could dispose of them all, his naked hands against their guns. But the puniest man in the world, if he is possessed of a rage that does not pour itself forth in words, will command the respect of the strongest man. Peyton looked again, grudgingly admitted that the six were picked men of their kind, and that they were dangerous.
“’Evening,” he said, running his eyes calmly from face to face. “Climb off your horses and rest yourselves.”
“We’ll rest when we’re through with you,” Houlahan replied. Up to that time he himself did not exactly know why he had led the way to confront Peyton, but, as soon as he spoke, the words struck fire in him. The growl of the posse behind him urged him on, and in another moment mob frenzy had them all by the throats.
“Particularly me,” interjected Jan van Zandt.
Perhaps if Jeremiah had returned the smooth answer, he might have turned away wrath. Instead of that he saw the spark of fire in all eyes and deliberately chose to pour oil upon the flame.
“Before you’re through with me,” he said, smiling in his odd manner straight at the brown-faced farmer, “you’ll be an old man or buzzard food. Get away from that door.”
For Houlahan had slipped over until he was near the front door of the house, thus hemming the master of the place against the wall. As he spoke, he swept his hand behind him, to the hip, and seemed to close his fingers over something.
“The rest of you hound dogs,” Jeremiah ordered, “get off my land before I drill you for disturbin’ my peace.” And, in the midst of the crisis and his bluff, he grinned at his own joke.
They had scattered back like fire before wind. Every man was behind his horse or getting there as fast as he could. Houlahan, with a moan of anxiety, reached one of the small wooden pillars that supported the roof of the verandah and seemed to be hiding there—hiding from the slug of a Colt .45 behind four inches of rotten pine. Even now Jeremiah would have been safe if he had used this moment of confusion to leap to the door and into the house. That would have begun a battle of which the mountain desert would still be talking, but with his big boy heart swelling with scorn he stood there and laughed in their faces and waved them away.
Then Houlahan saw from the side that there was no bulge of a gun on Peyton’s hip and he screamed in a voice gone thin and piping with exultation: “He’s bluffin’ without a gun! Take him alive!”
The posse waited for no second invitation. The alarm of the instant before had strung their nerves to the breaking force, and, now that the fear of bullets was removed, they flung themselves from their horses and plunged at Jerry. He would have stayed there to meet them even at these odds, but he had that Western horror of being overmatched by physical odds, of being reduced to impotence by numbers. He sprang like a tiger for the door, and Houlahan rushed to meet him with a wailing cry, like one who struggles in a lost cause. There was a base of bulldog in Houlahan. A driving blow met him as he came in, and the whipping knuckles of Jerry laid the cheek bone bare, slicing the flesh neatly away, but, although Houlahan fell, he fell forward and clutched blindly with both arms. The arms wound around the legs of Jerry, and, although he dropped Houlahan the rest of the way to the floor with a crushing blow behind the ear, the Irishman had done his work. Before Jerry could shake his feet clear and gain the door, the five were on him. He swung about as the avalanche struck. He broke the nose of Pete Goodwin; he slashed wildly at Pierre la Roche and Gus Saunders; he sent Eric Jensen rolling away with his arms clasped about his midriff, and then Jan van Zandt came up behind Jerry, raised his .45 like a club, grinning, and Jerry went down, inert.
After that, Jan stood guard over the fallen, with the muzzle pointed at the head of the cowman, while the rest of them picked up Houlahan.
Even after Jerry himself had recovered enough to sit up and sneer at the revolver that Jan van Zandt pointed at his head, Houlahan was still the object of main interest. At length they patched up the gashed side of his face, although blood still trickled beneath the bandage that they had made from one of Jerry’s sheets. But even after he had gained his feet, Houlahan came staggering, punch-drunk, and wavered before Jerry, the son of Hank.
“Ah, man, ah, man,” Rex Houlahan said. “That was a wallop ye handed me.” He grinned a lop-sided grin at Jerry, and then seemed to realize for the first time where he was and what had happened. “Tarnation!” he gasped. “I thought I was back in Brooklyn at old Rinkenstein’s saloon. Now you, get up on your hind legs.” And he stirred the captive with the toe of his boot.
“The spur’s the thing for that,” put in Jan van Zandt, and, although Jerry was already rising, he assisted by rolling the rowel of his spur across Jerry’s leg. Little pinpoints of crimson began to show through the cloth, and the posse laughed.
VIII
A moment later they were silent, stunned, as they realized that Jerry had risen to his feet in perfect silence. Neither the touch with the toe of the boot nor the spur or the burst of laughter had brought a word from him. One by one they began to realize that, unless they killed this man, he would most infallibly kill them.
“Get a rope,” Jan van Zandt ordered. It was not the first time in his life nor was it the last that he would seize the highest note of public opinion and give it a voice. A rope was found and a tree likewise, and they brought Jerry beneath a promising branch. Of the six men, five, at least, were anxious to get the thing done with as quickly as possible, but somewhere in the depth of Houlahan a spark of revolt rose.
‘‘Is this a lynchin’, maybe?” he asked, as Jan van Zandt placed the noose over the neck of Jerry Peyton. “It ain’t,” he answered himself. “This is justice. It being justice, he’s got a right to be heard. Ain’t that the law for horse thieves?”
“They ain’t any law for horse thieves,” remarked Gus Saunders. “But make him talk, if you want to. It’ll be amusin’ to hear him lie.”
“Sure,” Houlahan said. “All right, bud. Come out with the truth. Did you steal Prince Harry?”
The accused smiled in the face of the Irishman.
“Speak up,” said Houlahan. “If you can prove that you didn’t, which you can’t, we’ll let you go free.” He stepped back, astonished. “Are you goin’ to let yourself swing without sayin’ a word?” he asked. “Are you goin’ to give up a chance to talk for your life?”
The glance of Jerry Peyton went from face to face in the group and they stirred uneasily. They knew that he was examining their features so closely that neither time nor beard could ever mask them from him. If his destruction had been a matter of mob pleasure before, it now became a cold duty. They looked at each other, and they found the same answer in every eye.
“But he’s got to speak up,” protested Houlahan. He touched his bandaged cheek tenderly, and then went on: “If he don’t want to confess, make him. Listen to me, partner, talk out and you’ll have the weight of the crime off your soul. You’ll die so easy, you won’t feel the rope hardly.”
The same faint, derisive smile met him.
“Let me try him,” Jan van Zandt offered. “The things he don’t answer, we’ll figure is answered yes. You all take note of that because the sheriff may want to ask us some questions later on. Here, you.” The eyes of the prisoner were focused far above the head of the big farmer, and now he caught Jerry by the chin and twisted his head. “Look me in the eye and tell whatever truth there is in your lying heart. You hate me, don’t you?”
Not a muscl
e of Jerry’s face altered.
“You see?” said Jan van Zandt. “He admits that he hates me . . . Jan van Zandt, a peaceful, law-abidin’ citizen. That’ll be remembered. Next . . . did a horse of yours get killed by accident on my place?” He turned to the others. “He admits that a horse of his was killed on my place. Keep all this in mind because it’s leadin’ somewhere. Now listen to me, Peyton. Did you refuse to go to court like an honest man and get your price for the horse that was killed?” His triumph shone in his bronze face as he noted to the posse: “You hear that? Now listen! Did you write to me afterward that you would get your own price for the mare? You did. They’s other witnesses to that. Last of all . . . did you wait till you got the chance and then steal Prince Harry, that’s worth ten times anything your mongrel buckskin was ever worth?”
The smile of infinite contempt played again over the lips of Jeremiah. Jan van Zandt, with a sob of grief and hate, drew back his heavy arm and struck the prisoner across the mouth. It threw the body of Jerry back against the rope, but when he staggered erect again, although a white mark enclosed his mouth, there was still the ghost of the smile upon it. It was not the patience of the martyr; it was that sort of stifled rage that overwhelms a man and makes him cold. He found an unexpected intercessor here, for Rex Houlahan caught the arm of the big farmer and jerked him back.
“Don’t do that again,” he said savagely. “He’s got his hands tied behind him, ain’t he? He’s helpless. He’s goin’ to be hung like the horse thief that he is, but I ain’t goin’ to stand by and see him insulted. Not a man with a wallop like the one he packs.” He grinned at Jerry with something akin to affection. “Nobody can hit like that unless it’s born in him, Jerry. It’s a shame you can’t live to work in the ring. But there’s one thing more, boys. We can’t string him up until he’s confessed. It ain’t right, and I won’t stand for it. He’s got to say enough to save his soul . . . if it can be saved. Besides, we’ll need more than dumb talk when the sheriff asks his questions.”
“Make him talk, then,” said Jan van Zandt, “but don’t lay hands on me again. It ain’t healthy, not by a long ways.”
“I’ve laid hands on worse ones than you, son,” said the Irishman as he bent his attention on the prisoner. “Lad, I give you the last chance. Will you talk or do we have to make you talk?”
And when Jerry remained silent, Houlahan gave directions swiftly, and the others obeyed. They fixed running nooses in both ends of another rope, threw it over the branch, and tightened the nooses around the wrists of Jerry. One jerk brought him off the ground, his long body, with the arms above his head, swaying back and forth. He seemed gigantic. There were two men on one rope and three on the other. Houlahan stood in front of the prisoner and talked up to him. He had control, being the inventor of the expedient.
“Jerry,” he said, “I see you’re fighting hard. You’ll stave it off for a while because your arms are strong. But pretty soon the muscles begin to crack . . . they get that tired . . . and then they give way and the pull comes under your armpits. Then you feel it down your ribs and across your shoulder blades. Then it takes you in the joints of the shoulders and you begin to think your arms are comin’ out of the socket. You’re a heavy man, Jerry, and, when your muscles give out and your hands feel dead, you’ll have all that weight just hangin’ on the tendons around the shoulder. Boy, don’t be a fool. Talk up. Say what you done. Tell me the truth. Whisper it, if you don’t want the rest of ’em to hear, and I’ll never tell a soul. But you got to tell the truth before you die . . . you got to, or we’ll keep you up there by the wrists until you yell for the pain of it.”
As he approached the latter end of his talk, he grew more violent, raising his voice, but, when he ceased, there was still no response from Jerry. After that, Houlahan stood under the motionless form and watched with his own face twisted into an agony of sympathy. Presently the shoulders of Jerry slumped down, and all his weight rested with a jerk on the joint itself. His muscles had given away at last, and, although it brought a groan from Houlahan, there was not a sound from Jerry. Houlahan began to whisper advice—telling Jerry how impossible it was to resist—begging him to give up and speak. Then the head of Jerry, which had hitherto remained proudly erect, toppled forward with another jerk and remained hanging low. From behind, he looked like a headless form. Houlahan threw his arm across his face. He went toward the men at the ropes.
“Jan,” he begged, “go take my place. I can’t stand it.”
And big Jan van Zandt went and stood under the body they were torturing. At the first upward glance he blinked and shrank back a step, but he came close again and looked steadily into the face of Jerry. He was so fascinated by what he saw that his own expression escaped from his attention. For some time the men at the ropes watched his change of face, and then, incredulously, they saw a smile come on the lips of Jan van Zandt. Houlahan cried out. With one accord the others slacked away and the limp form crumpled against the earth, the legs and arms falling into crazy positions, as though they were broken. The Irishman straightened the limbs. Jerry had fainted. One by one the rest of the posse looked in his face and shuddered.
“There ain’t a thing to do but wind him up this way,” said Jan van Zandt, drawing his revolver. “He’ll feel no more pain and we’ll have done our duty. Stand away, boys, and turn your backs.”
There was a whine from Houlahan as the Irishman came between. He was sobbing with rage. “So help me,” he said, “but I think you like doin’ this dirty work.”
“I got a duty as a citizen to perform,” Jan van Zandt said.
“You got a duty to be a man.”
“D’you mean to say you want this . . . to live?”
“Let the law handle him. Turn him over to the law.”
“They’ll get no evidence. He’ll be turned loose. D’you want the son of Hank Peyton on your trail, Rex?”
“If they don’t keep him in jail,” said Houlahan firmly, “he won’t be able to use a gun for two weeks with them hands, and we’ll have a chance to think of what’s next. Heaven knows I don’t want Peyton on my trail, but I’d rather you turned me by inches than have that face hauntin’ me the rest of my life. Boys, get out the buckboard, and we’ll take Peyton in to the sheriff.”
They had spent their first fury in the rush on Jerry, and, for the blows he gave them, they had tortured him to senselessness. Pierre la Roche and Gus Saunders hitched two of Peyton’s own mules to the buckboard they found behind the house. They placed him in the body of the wagon. La Roche drove, and Houlahan sat in the wagon watching the inert captive. The others followed with the horse slowly, and, before they reached the town of Sloan, Eric Jensen and Pete Goodwin had dropped back and tried to fade away into the darkness. But the rest cursed them back into the procession. No one would be allowed to dodge his share of the responsibility.
“Suppose he dies,” Houlahan had shouted from the wagon, “d’you think I’m goin’ to be the only one to take his body in?”
So they closed up after that, and, taking that mysterious comfort that comes out of numbers in any crisis, they began to talk to one another about other things.
Finally the wagon reached the main street of Sloan. It was unavoidable. Before they had gone a hundred feet the word spread. Men, women, and children poured into the street. The word was taken up. The posse had caught the horse thief, and the horse thief was Jerry Peyton.
Men rode their horses beside the wagon and looked at the prostrate body within. Then they stared at the faces of the posse and raised a cheer. Five minutes before, the six farmers were beginning to drop toward despondency. Five minutes later, they were traveling in the midst of an ovation. Voices in the crowd of townsfolk took up a shout for a lynching. They wanted it then, and in the main street of the village. But Rex Houlahan stood in the wagon with his red beard blowing across his throat and no one made an attempt to seize the thief. The wagon halted before the jail.
IX
Usually mob scenes
did not attract the sheriff. It was a silent tribute to the remarkable noise that the crowd set up this day before the jail, that Ed Sturgis himself came through the heavy door and stood at the top of the wooden steps. His hat was pushed far back on his head, allowing his unruly hair to pour beneath the brim and straggle almost to his eyes. It was always a sign of weariness when Ed Sturgis wore his hat in this way, and when he was weary, he was not a pleasant man. The crowd was afflicted with the usual mob blindness, however. All it saw was the sheriff standing at the head of the steps with his hands on his hips, grinning down at them. The mob gathered itself up in a big wave that washed up the steps and deposited six heroes all about Sturgis.
“They done it!” cried scores of voices. “They put one over on you, Ed. They got the thief. They got Jerry Peyton!”
An unusual phenomenon followed. The wave of noise was met, now, by a contrary wave of silence that began in the immediate neighborhood of the sheriff and, spreading first to those about him, gradually worked its way over the hundreds in the street. Also a path opened before Sturgis down the steps and he went down through the opening with an acre of silent faces in the street tilted up to watch him. He climbed into the body of the wagon and was seen to bend over the body of Peyton. Then he stood up.
“Is Doc Brown here?”
A fat man pushed through the crowd and laid his hands on the edge of the wagon.
“Take this boy, Doc,” said the sheriff, “and do what you can for him.” The words carried distinctly up and down the length of the crowd.