Bad Man's Gulch

by Max Brand

  The shade was not drawn. She could look plainly through the glass and see everything in the room—a big living room, roughly but comfortably furnished, the sort of a room where men would be a good deal more at ease than would women. There were elk and deer horns mounted along the walls. There were big, deep-seated chairs. There was a yawning fireplace in which a few embers of the evening’s logs were still smoldering. The man who owned that house and furnished that room was prosperous, uncultured; so much she could read with her active eye.

  And the girl? She came back into the room at that moment, and behind her was the towering bulk of big Billy Angel. She looked a mere child, at first, with low-heeled slippers on her feet, and a rose-colored kimono with long, flowered sleeves, swaying about her as she retreated backward before Angel, inviting him in. She closed the door behind him. She turned—and Sue Markham sighed. No, this was not a girl. She was among women what Billy Angel was among men. As he was handsome in a glorious way that raised him above his fellows, so she was wonderfully lovely. And, like Billy, she had black hair, black eyes beneath level, beautifully penciled brows. She was small, but she was full of dignity as she was full of grace. To be sure, she was young, but at nineteen or twenty she had an air of maturity—she was old enough to have turned the head of any king in the world.

  The girl, who stood beside the window, made a swift comparison between herself and the other woman. She could not stand for an instant contrasted with the beauty of the girl. She had not the grace, she had not the regal, confident manner, she had not that commanding air that goes with a perfect loveliness. At least, if Billy Angel had been indifferent to Sue and had treated her as he might have treated any man, here was a good reason for it. She did not need an introduction. That delicately lovely face had been photographed a thousand times. Her picture was everywhere in the towns through the valley and through the mountains. It was the daughter of the rich rancher; it was Elizabeth Wainwright herself!

  If one is despised, it is a little soothing to have been despised for the sake of a queen, and a queen was Elizabeth Wainwright!

  But what did the queen do now? She flung her arms about his neck; she drew down his head and kissed him! If Sue Markham, red with shame and with scorn of herself for having remained to be spy-witness of such a scene, turned away in haste, she as hastily turned back again.

  It’s my right! It’s my right! she thought savagely to herself. Why it was her right, she could not for the life of her have said. But, in turning back to the window once more and pressing closer to it, she felt that she would have given ten of the richest years of her life to have heard the words that passed between these two. But she could not. The window was closed, and the wind kept up a constant sighing through the trees. Only occasionally she heard a hint of the high, sweet voice of Elizabeth Wainwright, and now and then she felt a tremor of the deep, strong bass of Billy Angel.

  XI

  CAPTURE

  Tears clouded her eyes, although why they should be there she could not know. Burning tears, that blinded her, and, when she had wiped them hastily away and looked again, she saw a thing that stopped her heart with shame and with rage. For big Billy Angel had drawn out a wallet, took from it a whole handful of money, and offered it to Elizabeth Wainwright.

  She who stood in the night, watching and wondering, could not believe the thing, but there it was before her eyes, most palpably. She saw Elizabeth push back the money and shake her head—saw Billy Angel persist, speaking gravely, almost with a frown—and at last the girl took the greenbacks in her hand.

  Sue Markham could wait to see no more. She hurried back to her mare and swung into the saddle. She reined back among the poplars, wondering what she should do now. There was no question about it in her mind. Billy Angel was a villain and must be destroyed. He had won the heart of this lovely girl by his good looks, and he was bribing her further with money. Oh, incredible thing, that the daughter of the rich rancher, Wainwright, famous for his prodigality, should have fallen so low that she accepted money at the hand of a shameless fellow.

  She had no chance to carry on the burden of her thoughts. There was a guarded sound of a door closing; then Billy Angel came back, striding swiftly, mounted the gelding, and rode quickly away. He took the road by which he had come, and the girl only waited to make sure that he was fairly committed to it. Then she herself went back by a different route.

  He was taking the upland course. She herself followed the longer road over the easier country, knowing that the mare would take three swift strides at full gallop to every labored stride of the gelding over the rough country. Through the night she flew on the back of the willing horse, and with every stride of the mare she told herself that she would not weaken in her determination. She would press straight on, until she had seen, as a result of her work, Billy Angel locked in strong fetters and in the hands of the law.

  Very strange, indeed, that she had known him as a murderer, that she had seen him as a thief, but that it was a tender scene with a girl that convinced her that he was worthless. She thought of everything but this, however. And, with a swelling heart, she rode on, pressing the mare relentlessly until she reached the last long pitch up that carried on to the town of Derby, winding back and forth among the giant boulders.

  She gained the outskirts of the village with the horse staggering beneath her, and she went straight to the house of Tom Kitchin. With the handle of her loaded quirt, she banged against the front door. Instantly there was a stir inside; the door was jerked open, and Tom Kitchin was saying hastily: “Well, what’s up?”

  He changed instantly when he made out, in the dimness of the starlight, who his visitor was. She broke in sharply: “Tom, get all the men you can . . . go down the upper valley road. Hide there and wait. Billy Angel is coming up that way! Billy Angel!”

  “Sue, how . . . ?”

  “Don’t ask me how I know . . . go! Go! Quick, Tom, or he’ll get to the mountains . . . he’ll . . .”

  He turned on his heel without a word and sprinted for the paddock behind his house where he kept four fast, strong horses. Even these were worn down constantly by his unusually hard riding.

  She did not wait to see him saddled. She felt that, if she remained, she would have to speak again and say things that should never have been spoken. So she turned the mare homeward. At the corral, she dragged off the saddle and turned the mare into the little fenced enclosure. That tired animal did not even go at once to the watering trough, but stood with her head down, panting hard.

  As for Sue, she felt as the horse felt—broken in strength, broken in spirit. She went back to the house. But there she stood in the open doorway, waiting with her heart in her mouth. Then she heard the thing for which she had been waiting. Here, there, and again, voices sounded. She could distinguish the clear tones of Tom Kitchin as he called his chosen men, then a banging of doors. Other voices were calling from windows and doors many inquiries, but those inquiries were not answered. There was only the bustle of saddling and catching horses.

  All that while a wild spirit was swelling in her to rush down to them, to reach the sheriff, to tell him that it was only a joke—that Billy Angel was not on that road—tell him anything rather than let him go and set the trap. She saw, as in a painted picture, the bulky outlines of Billy Angel against the stars as he rode calmly, confidently up the path, talking to the gelding, or whistling to the wind. Men started out before him. He drew a gun. Harsh challenges rang across the stillness. Guns began to speak in barking voices. Here, there, and again men fell, and at last the big rider swayed and toppled from his saddle.

  She ran out suddenly into the night, crying at the top of her power: “Tom! Tom Kitchin!”

  For answer, she heard the rapid thundering of hoofs begin down the street and sweep away toward the hills. They were gone! Tom Kitchin and the rest were gone past her recall.

  So she went wearily, slowly back to the lunchroom. She built the fire in the stove, not because of the chill of the
night, but because she must have something to do to employ her hands, if her mind were to be kept from maddening her with pictures of bloodshed.

  The fire burned hot; it cast a widening circle of warmth through the room, but still she could not be quiet. She went on with the work of cleaning the place—hating the work, hating the place, but forced to be busy.

  It was all in vain, for every instant new pictures darted into her brain and made her shrink. She saw Billy Angel once more enter her place, lift his hat to her, and pass on. She saw him collapse in his chair. She saw the struggle by which she had brought him, at last, up the stairs to her room. She saw him in the madness of delirium catch at her and hold her with hands of iron. She saw his gradual progress from day to day. She felt again his silence and his steady, brilliant black eyes fixed upon her.

  How slowly, slowly the time went on. Then a new thought struck her. He had broken through the cordon of the men of the law. Long before this, if they had succeeded in shooting him down, they should have returned, bearing his dead body lashed on the back of a horse. But still there was no sign of him. Perhaps he had smashed through them, leaving dead and injured men on either side and had plunged away through the night, his pistol flashing back death at the sheriff’s posse.

  That thought in her was not a fear—it was a burning hope. She felt that, if she could unsay the words she had spoken to the sheriff, she would have laid down her life, smiling. Not for the sake of Billy Angel. No, not that, but because it was treason, low treachery to spy on a man and betray him in this fashion.

  Then, down the street, she thought she heard voices. She went to the door, and leaned there, panting. Yes, they were coming. She heard them more clearly. They came on slowly. Why at such a snail’s pace? Because the dead man was with them? Because they were bringing back their own wounded and dead? That was it! A hot triumph shot through her. They were bearing away their injured and their dead, and their slowness was the slowness of defeat, which has a snail’s foot.

  “Hello!” called someone, for in the pale dawn the town was wakening. “How did it go?”

  “We got him! We got Billy Angel!”

  She shrank back from the door. She fumbled for a support, and, finding the edge of the counter, she clung to it. Gradually the mist cleared from before her eyes. She was weak and sick with horror. Billy Angel lay strapped on the back of a horse. His great arms hung feebly down the shoulders of the animal. This was the end and it was she who had put out that light.

  There was a pause. Then men came to the door and passed in. What a cheerful lot they were, and how she hated them for their joy. Their faces were lighted. They were smiling upon one another. Not one bore the brand of Cain upon his brow. Then they were crowding around the counter. They wanted food. They wanted hot coffee, black, and lots of it. Still they laughed, she thought, like madmen. And still, as they talked, they smote one another upon the shoulder.

  But where were the dead? Surely he had not fallen without striking one blow in self-defense. If he struck, it must be fatal. He was not the kind to deal small wounds.

  Then two stragglers came in, each fumbling at a bandage on his face. One was plastered across the upper lip. The other had a great patch over one eye and the other was discolored.

  She said finally: “Tell me what happened.”

  “Tell her, Sam,” they said to one of their number. “You could talk it up the best.”

  “Well,” he said, “we got him. That’s the whole of it!”

  “You got him,” she repeated with stiff lips. “But how?”

  “The sheriff had a tip from somebody. He wouldn’t say from who. He got us out on the upper valley road. Then he put up behind the brush. Joe Smythe took all the hosses down the hill and kept ’em there. We waited twenty minutes, and then we seen him comin’, lookin’ twice as big as a man.”

  “He did that,” broke in a second.

  “The sheriff, he gave the word, and we busted out at Angel when he was right on top of us. Somebody just showed himself in front. The rest of us dived at him from behind. It was in the pass, where there wasn’t much light, and there was as much chance of hitting one of our own boys as there was of hitting Angel. We didn’t use guns. We went at him with our hands.”

  “He killed . . . who?” she breathed.

  “Killed? What chance did he have for killing? There was six men at him from behind before he could say Jack Robinson. They pulled him off the hoss and got him down.”

  “Ah,” she cried, “then who . . . ?”

  “He was up again in a jiffy. I seen the boys spill away from him like he was a stone, and they was drops of water. Think of that! I reckon there wasn’t one of us that wasn’t able-bodied as much as most men. But he shook us off like we was nothin’. In another minute he was jumpin’ out of the heap of the men that he’d knocked down. And the sheriff, run-nin’ in behind with his gun. . . .”

  “Ah, heaven forgive Tom Kitchin!” moaned the girl, covering her face with her hands.

  “For what? He slammed him along the side of the head with the gun. He didn’t have no chance to get his finger on the trigger. And down went big Billy Angel. He was clean out, but by the time we reached him, he was half recovered again. He started for his feet. He took a couple of the boys and knocked their heads together. But after that we hit him solid. Everybody cottoned onto some part of him . . . a couple of us on each of his legs, a man or two on each arm, and the rest catchin’ where they could. Well, not even Billy Angel could make much headway with a ton of gents hangin’ onto him. Down he went, and in a jiffy we had him tied so’s he couldn’t move. We strung him on a hoss and brung him back.”

  “Alive?” she gasped out.

  “Sure. That’s the best part of it. But say, Sue, d’you know what hoss he was ridin’? The skunk had stole your brown geldin’ that your father used to ride.”

  She did not hear. She was merely saying over and over again in a sort of intoxication of joy: “Thank God! Thank God!”

  XII

  SUE’S REWARD

  All of Derby was awake in a moment. They thronged about Tom Kitchin’s house, where the prisoner was kept tied hand and foot, and still under a strong guard. The overflow of the crowd washed back into the lunch counter for coffee and pie to talk over the details as they had heard them and to quiz the members of the posse.

  But the girl left them to help themselves and pay as they pleased. She went to Tom Kitchin, and, when he heard her voice, he broke through the crowd of congratulating admirers. He was a made man, was the sheriff. He had done well before, but nothing had been a success as great as this. The county would never have another sheriff so long as he chose to continue running for office.

  “I want to talk to you . . . alone,” she breathed to Tom Kitchin.

  He brushed the others aside and took her into a little front room in his house that served him as a sort of informal office, with saddles and bridles and guns hanging from the walls.

  “It’s all due to you, Sue,” he told her. “If you say that I can, I’ll let the boys know that you get the credit.”

  “Credit? I don’t want it! I don’t want it! But . . . tell me what’s going to happen to him?”

  “To Billy Angel?”

  “Yes, yes!”

  “Why, there ain’t a jury in the mountains that would let him off with anything less than hangin’. A rope is too good for a dog that’d stab another man in the back!”

  “You’re sure, Tom?”

  “Mighty sure of that. A gent that helped to acquit Mister Angel wouldn’t lead no happy life around these parts ever afterward!”

  “Oh, Tom, mightn’t a lawyer help him? Lawyers can do queer things.”

  At this, he took her strongly by the shoulders and turned her face suddenly to the light.

  “Lemme see,” he said, “why you’re so all-fired particular about what a lawyer could do for him. Why, Sue, heaven help me if it don’t look like you want to help him.”

  “I’d never be able
to sleep,” she whispered to him, “if I knew that I’d been the means of a man’s death.”

  He tried to smile at her and shake his head, but the smile died. “Sue,” he said sternly, “what d’you know about this Billy Angel? How come you to care what happens to him?”

  “Don’t ask me . . . but a lawyer . . .”

  “He’s broke. He wouldn’t have a cent to hire a good lawyer. There’s no chance of that. Some young kid right out of law school with nothin’ much on his hands, he’ll step out and try to rig up some sort of a defense. That’s all there’ll be to it. Just a form, you see, that they’ll go through. Then they’ll hang him.”

  She cried out, and the sheriff started a little. “Sue,” he said, “by the Lord I figger that there’s something else in your mind.”

  “I’ve got to see him,” she said. “I’ve got to see Billy Angel, and see him alone where nobody’ll overhear what I have to say to him.”

  The sheriff flushed. “Sue,” he said slowly, “I owe him to you. But I got a queer sort of an idea that if you was to see him now you might. . . .”

  “Might what? What could I do?”

  “Touch a knife to the ropes, and the devil would be loose again!”

  “My word of honor.”

  “Will you shake on that, Sue?”

  “There.” She gave him her hand and he took it with a long, firm pressure, looking hard at her, as though he were still full of doubts that he was ashamed to put into words.

  “Sue,” he said, “will you tell me why you turned him over to me, and now you . . . ?”

  “Don’t ask me. I’m half mad. I can’t talk. But I have to see him, Tom!”

  He drew a long breath, and plainly it was much against his will. “Stay here,” he said, and left the room.

  He came back at the end of a few moments and, opening the door, showed Billy Angel in before him. She half expected to see on the face of the man some sign of the desperate adventure that he had been through that night. But there was absolutely no token. There was not a mark on his face. It seemed that the united force of the posse, although it had been enough to overwhelm him, at last, had not been able to injure him in the slightest. His hands were tied together before him. His legs were secured with irons. He could only move his feet a few inches at a time.