by Max Brand
Holden held up a hand “Never mind that,” he said firmly. “I can’t attempt to explain all of these things. You may even wonder, for instance, how I happened to know that you and Blinky were here, tonight?”
“Ain’t I been wonderin’ about that?” cried Venner. “Wouldn’t I give my eyeteeth to find out how you knew and who told you? Tom, who could of told you? Because nobody seen us come. Nobody could of seen us come!”
“Well,” said Holden, “I had a way of knowing.”
Venner threw up his hands. It was rather unfair to put the whip upon the credulity of such a simple fellow, but it amused Holden to exercise such an influence over this big, hard-faced man with the murder still fresh and reeking on his hands.
“You had a way,” said Chris Venner. “Well, I guess that’ll do for me. I ain’t gonna try to insist on knowin’. Only—you had no way of seein’ Blinky turn back through the woods and start his sneak on me!”
Holden shook his head. “Forget about that,” he said. “Here we are with a pair of sound skins. That’s the thing to keep in mind. The rain’ll see the insides of Blinky, and we’re still watertight.”
“That’s it,” said the big man.
“Well, Chris, what’ll you do with your money; all that money?”
“This here?” He took it all out in a pile in his huge hands and stared down at it. Then he laughed in an embarrassed way.
“Oh, a gent can always find a way of gettin’ rid of it.”
“I suppose,” said Tom, “that’s the reason you risked your life to get that stuff. So’s you could have a few days of fun spending it?”
At this, Chris Venner looked blankly at him. It was the sort of thought that crosses a man’s day as a nightmare crosses his sleep.
“Why,” he said, “when a gent is out of work—he’s got to do something.”
“Blinky was a smart fellow,” said Tom.
“Oh, sure. Blinky was pretty famous.”
“He had been at the game a long time.”
“Since he was a little kid, I’ve heard him say. A hobo took him away.”
“I know. Well, with all of Blinky’s brains, he couldn’t make enough money and keep it. And he may wait quite a while for a grave.”
Chris Venner writhed where he sat. “I guess there’s something in that,” he said slowly.
“Now,” said Holden, “a fellow like you, cut out for honest work—”
“Me!”
“Of course. Blinky and fellows like him have been telling you that you’re a smart crook and a bad egg. You’re not, Chris. You’re—” And here Holden paused, wondering how far he could go. “You’re a ridiculous failure,” he said at length. “They used you because you had courage and you were good-natured—and easily cheated!”
“Which is one way of callin’ me a fool!” thundered Chris.
The younger man looked quietly at him. “About such things,” he said, “do you think that you are really very bright, Chris?”
He watched the red die from the cheeks of Venner and the fire from his eyes. “I guess you know me,” muttered Chris.
“I guess I do—a little.”
“Well, then, what ought I do?”
“A fellow like you—a natural cow-puncher, who knows everything about the range and—”
Here Chris leaped to his feet, frightened. “Who are you?” he yelled. “Who’s been tellin’ you all this about me?” And he actually backed away from his companion. It was all that Holden could do to keep his face straight. Upon what simple things could miracles be built! He had seen a man handle a little bit of string for half a minute, and out of that sight he had gained enough information to stagger the very wits of the competent, mature man who had used the string as a lariat.
“I dunno that I’d better stay around with you,” protested Venner dubiously. “It’s sort of—queer! Darn queer!”
“All right,” murmured Holden, “you can do as you please. But in the first place, you take my advice.”
“Stranger,” said Chris in a deep voice, and he even cast a glance solemnly up to the stars as he spoke, “they ain’t nothin’ this side of purgatory that could keep me from doin’ exactly what you told me to do. They ain’t nothin’ at all! So you just speak out and lemme hear what you got planned up for me!”
“Stop this work,” said Tom Holden. “You have a stake now. Buy a ranch; or buy a share in a ranch. Settle down.”
“Swiped money don’t do no good,” suggested Venner.
“You’re wrong,” said the hypnotist. “That money you have in your hands will do you good if you try to live fair and square. But if you’re crooked, it’ll ruin you and buy your best friend to cut your throat!”
Chris Venner gasped. “What a man you are!” he said.
“You’ll do what I tell you, Venner, or inside of six months, I give you my solemn promise, you’ll be as dead a man as our friend yonder in the brush! Do you believe me?”
“Believe you?” gasped out Chris Venner. “Old-timer, I’d rather be caught handlin’ lightnin’ with my bare hands than to start in and doubt what you tell me is straight! And that’s a fact.”
CHAPTER 5
Man, take him by and large, is most notably good. But considering him in the individual he is apt to vary a good deal. Boys, taking them by and large, are most notably bad, and considering them as individuals each is apt to be worse than the other. Your benevolent, kind-hearted man, almost beyond doubt was a wolfish little beast of prey as a boy, cunning as a fox, cruel as a cat, fierce as a weasel.
The boys of the town of Larramee were in no wise different from the boys of other regions. They were just as good and they were just as wicked. On this particular occasion they were busied with a peculiarly delightful game. They had a large gray dog with a black face like a mask and black legs—a big, powerful brute whose fluffy tail showed that it was rather more wolf than dog in blood, no matter what it might be by training and habit. This was at their mercy, and they had rendered its trenchant fangs helpless—oh, brutal youngsters!—by winding a stiff twist of bailing wire around its muzzle! They had attached a long rope to the neck of the poor beast. When it attempted to flee, they had only to catch the rope with their hands or jump upon it. Sometimes the strength of the dog overturned them and they tumbled in the dust, to the tune of many cheerful shouts. But always the dog was dragged back into the center of the tormenting circle.
Finally he grew tired of making these desperate rushes toward the safety of the distance. He was too weary to more than stagger, and the twist of wire which prevented him from opening his mouth caused him to choke and wheeze with the dust. He was very far spent and stood motionless, head down, eyes closed, concentrating all of his attention in a great effort to breathe successfully.
Such inaction would not do. They goaded the poor half-stifled animal with stones and beating sticks, and someone brought out an excellent blacksnake. This was Jud Crogan. One might have said that Jud was too old to have enjoyed such a sport as this. He was fourteen and looked eighteen. He was a man’s height, and had a man’s spread of shoulders, and a man’s more stately bearing. But there were three or four others as old and as big as he in that circle. He ceased to be Jud Crogan. He was only one of a mob. And when he wielded the blacksnake, he yelled with joy to see the dog almost turn inside out in a frantic effort to get away from the flying torment. But the dog was captured and brought back. It made a last frenzied effort. In the greatness of its torture, its humiliation, its rage, it forgot two things—its fear of man and its impotence while that wrap of wire held its muzzle. It rushed at young Crogan and flung itself upon him. Young Jud yelled with fear and tumbled head over heels. He recovered himself at once, however, found that the dog had exhausted itself with the effort, and began to beat its body as it lay in the dust, too weak to rise.
The rest had been the tormenting before the kill. Here was the kill itself. And every boy—every little demon in the lot—all these future good citizens, kind friends, tender
husbands, gentle comrades, began to kick, beat and tear the life from the quivering body of the dog which could do no more than emit a choked groan or two. It was suffering so intensely.
Then, into the black of this storm, the lightning struck. It descended first in the likeness of a long and heavy stick upon the red head of the butcher’s son. It glanced from the stalwart dome of that youth and crashed upon his well-muscled shoulders so effectually that he bounded high into the air with a screech and leaped away. Half of the others did the same, until they saw that he who had dealt the blow was merely the figure of a dusty little man with great round glasses before his eyes, a frail wisp of a man who supported his weak steps with a long staff—the very staff which had struck this blow.
At this, half of their courage returned. There is nothing that a boy fears more than a man; therefore there is nothing that he more joyously plagues with the wasp stings of his impishness. In an instant they cast out a wing from either flank. And Holden was thinly but securely enveloped. And Jud Crogan, seeing that the enemy was taken in the rear and on both sides, stood his ground dauntlessly over the motionless body of the dog, who was either dead or else was playing possum with the greatest art. Its head was literally white with dust, but still it did not stir. Even its nostrils were coated with the dust. And Jud waved his blacksnake over the body of the victim.
“Stand back from the dog,” said Holden in his usual quiet voice.
“Stand back yourself!” cried Jud. Then, ecstatic with the thought that he was defying a grown and matured man, and further fortified by the reflection, which was obviously true, that he was as tall as this man and probably twice as strong, he added furiously: “Stand back yourself, or you’ll get what the dog’s gettin’ now!”
At this, Holden made a slight pause. One might have considered that he was about to retreat, and, in readiness to fall upon him the moment that he indicated the first signs of fear, the whole crowd of boys advanced nearer. But he did not retreat. He held straightforward upon Jud and the blacksnake, and all the circle of the boys held back, waiting, suspicious. There are mysterious powers in the brain of a mature man. A boy can never tell what dreadful danger may be masked behind a comparatively harmless form.
“You,” screamed Jud, his voice growing sharply falsetto, “look out what you’re doin’!”
He whirled the lash, but the lash did not fall true to its mark. It wavered wildly through the air to one side, because at that very moment Holden, instead of striking with his long cane, thrust the end of it into the face of Jud. It landed on his forehead, where the point made a glancing cut that brought a trickle of blood, and Jud leaped backward with another yell and dropped the whip.
Over the fallen dog leaned Holden, and unwound the fastened wire. There was a streak of blood where its cruel circle had bitten into the working jaws of the beast. And at this release, the closed eyes opened, and showed red, wickedly, as it glanced with snarling lips up to Holden. There never was so poisonous a glance. It would have made another man leap back to save himself. It made the whole circle of the boys gasp. But Holden, being a cripple, could not leap. He was forced to be brave, and in excess of necessity, he dropped his hand and patted the broad top of the wolfish head.
“Besides,” yelled someone in defense of their proceedings, “it’s a wolf. It ain’t a dog!”
Here was the lie given to the last speaker at once. A dusty, red tongue lolled from the mouth of the fallen brute and licked the hand of Holden; and the brushy tail began, pendulously, to sweep the dust. Its breathing was like that of a choked bellows. It was still more than half strangled. And it closed its eyes at once, concentrating all its energies to recover the lost wind.
“Who owns this dog?” asked Holden.
“Nobody,” came the answer. “Most like, it’s a sheep killer. It acts like a wolf.”
Jud Crogan took back the leadership by right of his wound. He advanced to the front rank and shook his left fist. His right hand was fixed on the butt of a borrowed revolver at his belt.
“Stan’ back from that wolf!” he yelled. “That’s ours. It ain’t yours. Stan’ back from it.”
The red trickled down his nose as he spoke, and the wound in his forehead stung and ached, and this action proved that Jud would be a very brave man, though perhaps a little of a bully, when he grew up. He had a face blotched with red and with white. He was ready to do a murder. He was also ready to cry. And the other boys gasped with joy and with terror.
“Very well,” said Holden. “I see that you and I are to have trouble. But I advise you to keep back. You see that this—wolf—as you call it, doesn’t like you!”
The big gray dog with its face like a black mask had indeed risen at the approach of its archenemy. The great welts which the whip in Jud’s hands had made rounded its body with circles of fire. And now, already more than half recovered from its beating and its exhaustion, it crowded in front of Holden, backing against his legs, only waiting for a word from him to hurl itself at the throat of their mutual foe, and determined with or without a command to keep him from the attack of his enemy. Holden quieted the dog with a word, and it cast upward to him a look of affection and of trusty comradeship which a thousand words could not have expressed with equal eloquence.
“All right,” said Holden. “You and I together, partner!”
“I’ll—I’ll kill that wolf!” screamed Jud.
“If you draw that gun—” began Holden.
He might have bluffed nine boys out of ten. But Jud was red-eyed with rage. And at the threat, he yanked the gun from its holster and jerked up the muzzle to cover, not the wolf dog, but Holden himself!
“I am a dead man,” said Holden to himself, and with that, he swung the staff with all his strength. There was not the slightest hope that his blow could forestall the discharge of the gun. It seemed that the staff had hardly begun to swing when the gun exploded and a bullet went on wasp wings past the ear of Holden and clipped a long gash in the brim of his hat. It seemed a very long time after that—time enough for a second shot, almost—before the staff collided with the head of Jud and tumbled him with a yell in the dust. Then Holden picked up the revolver and swung it in a loose half circle.
“Get out!” he commanded.
But what mere man could actually make boys run? These hurried back a few yards. There they waited. And the gray dog jumping astride over the body of the fallen boy, stood there bristling its mane, slavering with eagerness, but looking toward the man for permission. Holden, shivering with horror, called it off. It came toward him reluctantly, backing up, snarling a deep-throated frenzy of rage at the boy, while Jud coiled his legs under him and came staggering to his feet.
“I’ll—I’ll—kill you!” he shrieked. “Gimme back that gun!”
“You’re not old enough to have a gun,” said Holden. “Besides, I like the look of this one.”
He dropped it into a deep coat pocket. It was too big to disappear, and the heavy butt thrust up and swayed sidewise from the partial concealment.
“It ain’t mine,” breathed Jud Crogan. “It’s my dad’s—he’ll come and make you eat it!”
“Tell him to come,” said Holden. “I’ll be glad to say to him certain things that I cannot say to you. You’re too young to understand them.”
“Maybe I ain’t done with you yet,” answered Jud, and he scooped up a rock from the edge of the road.
Holden was in a quandary. If he discharged the gun, there was not the slightest chance that he could hit the target with it. He had never fired a weapon in all his life! And if he did not fire the weapon, what would come of him, except what had so nearly come to the wolfish dog which was now growling beside him? For all the circle of youngsters was gathering stones, with murmurs and with laughter, ready for the fray.
Here a voice cut in dryly from the side: “You better scatter, you scalawags! You better clear out!”
“Cheese it!” cried one among the youthful vandals. “It’s Miss Alexa’s Aunt Carrie.�
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That seemed a name of note among them. They were gone in the twinkling of an eye. And young Tom Holden found himself facing a tall woman with bent shoulders and a lean, ugly face who stood behind the nearest gate, with a pretty garden behind her, and behind the garden a white-faced house with green shutters, and a red roof. It was for all the world like the neat cottage of the fairy tale, and here was the old witch that guarded it with evil.
CHAPTER 6
“You’d better come in here and sit down,” said the witch.
“I’ll be going on, thank you,” said Holden.
“Are you afraid of Jud Crogan’s father, when he comes for that gun?” asked the witch with a hideous grin.
Holden’s dignity made him stiffen. “Certainly not,” said he.
“Very well,” said the witch. “If you come in, I’ll give you tea and toasted muffins and strawberry jam. Besides, there might be a crumb or two for that wolf.”
The latter, as though he understood only her last word, shrank closer to the master and snarled viciously.
“What an ugly dog,” said the witch. “Come in!” She opened the gate.
“My name,” said Tom, tucking his hat under his arm, as he had heard that young men should do, “is Thomas Holden.”
“Very well, Tom,” said the witch, holding her skirts aside from the dusty flanks of the dog as it skulked through. “I’m Aunt Carrie. Wipe your feet on the mat before you go in. My, my! Tom Holden, how’d you come to get all that dust on you?”
She added: “You can take that dog of yours—that sneak—in along with you.”
This was the baptism of Sneak, though he knew it not. He required much coaxing before he would consent to enter a human habitation, and when once he was persuaded to go in, he skulked with his tail between his legs and then lay down squarely upon the feet of Tom when the latter was in a chair. There lay the great dog and snarled wickedly whenever the witch came near with tea or food.
It was a very neat little house, furnished with old-fashioned things. Aunt Carrie left the kitchen door open so that she could talk while she prepared the tea. And Holden, looking through, could see her long, ugly arms darting out here and there, while she did many things with amazing speed and prodigious lack of noise. The tea was made and the muffins toasted almost before Holden was well settled in his chair, and at the same time the witch had learned that Mr. Holden had come down from the mountains merely for the sake of travel and to satisfy a certain wanderlust in his heart.