Silvertip (1942)

by Brand, Max

  Chuck Terry came suddenly to life, stepped into the room, and closed the door behind him.

  "You never heard of Alligator Hank?" he repeated. "You never heard of Drummon?"

  "No," said Silver. "Never heard of either of 'em."

  With amazement, with long-drawn-out disgust, Chuck Terry regarded him.

  "Well, what's the use, then?" said Chuck. "What're you driving at in the valley, anyway? You slam a greaser, and yet you ain't throwing in with Drummon?"

  "Should I?" asked Silvertip.

  "You know your own business better'n I do," replied Chuck Terry.

  "What I want to do, first of all," said Silvertip, "is to find the place of Arturo Monterey."

  This announcement was so interesting to Terry that he came a step or two closer to Silver, peering earnestly at him all the time.

  "You wanta find out where Monterey lives?" he asked.

  "I've asked a lot of people already," said Silvertip, "and they laugh at me."

  Terry himself began to grin.

  "All right," he answered. "I'll tell you. You want to see Monterey, do you? Well, ride right on down the valley and take the first road that forks over to the left. Keep down that left fork till you sight a house that looks like a doggone old castle out of a fairy-story book. And somewheres around there, likely you'll run into this gent, this Arturo Monterey, all right."

  Terry struggled with a grin that would not be totally suppressed. It worked and twisted at his face.

  "So long, brother," he said. "You go and find Don Arturo."

  And, striding to the door, Terry cast it wide, slammed it behind him, and hurried down the hall. A noise of suppressed laughter, then a roar of it, came echoing back to Silvertip.

  He went to the window and looked out at the brightness of the day, at the roofs of the town with quivering heat waves dancing over them, and beyond were the muscular knees of the mountains and their bare upward shoulders. For the first time since his childhood he felt the cold fear of this physical world reach him and finger his very heart. He seemed to have entered a region of ironical Titans. Among them he was reduced to an absurdity, and that purpose which had brought him to the place became more dreamlike than ever.

  But his trail, he was sure, would take him far out of the Haverhill Valley. If he felt like a stranger in the place, it was certain that the slender fellow he had killed could never have lived here. It was merely to pick up some clew of him and then to be gone on the out trail that Silver lingered in Haverhill Valley. And with all his heart, he yearned to be gone at once!

  He went down to the stable, saddled his own mustang and the mare, and rode down the street with grinning faces at watch on either side of him. They knew where he was going. They knew all about it. And they foresaw disaster, which pleased them to the heart. A group of boys tumbling in a vacant lot jumped up and shouted and pointed at him. Even the children understood things that were curtained away from his understanding.

  He was glad to be out of that town, as if escaping from a curse, into the green, open arms of the country. The bright running of the river washed away some of the shadows that were pouring up in his mind. To his desert-bred eyes, the green undulations of the valley were more than waves of gold, and peace came to him as he watched the cattle grazing or lying in dim shadows under the trees. The strength flowed back, and that self-confidence which never had been lost to him for so many years until he entered the town of Haverhill.

  He found the branching road that ran to the left. It was worn more by hoofs than wheels, and it mounted into the throat of a narrow valley. Great walls of rock went straight up on either side, one blue with shadow, one on fire with the sun, and through the middle of the canyon a creek ran with a sound of rushing, like a wind. The way up the valley was half blocked by the house of Arturo Monterey.

  He knew it by Terry's description, for the road wound up a steep slope toward the entrance; on the other side was a precipitous fall of rocks, and above rose old adobe walls and one blunt tower of stone.

  Up the winding way, Silvertip came to the house itself, and a great stone arch across the entrance to the patio. A big Mexican appeared suddenly and stood in his way. Silvertip dismounted.

  "Amigo," he said, "I've come up here to find out, if I can, if Senior Monterey ever owned this horse, and who he sold it to. Maybe you can tell me and save me a lot of trouble?"

  The Mexican regarded him with a long side glance in silence. Then he turned toward the mare with a sudden start, as though there were something about the animal which had jarred home upon his memory.

  "Wait!" he said to Silver, and hurried back into the patio.

  Silvertip looked curiously about him. Chuck Terry's description had been a little from the point; the place was more like a fortress than a castle, and the weather-worn adobe had the look of immense age. The patio was flagged with great stones and surrounded by an arching arcade, under the shadow of which he could see doors of heavy oak. The faces of those doors were seamed and cracked by dry old age.

  His Mexican reappeared now, and not alone. Two other men walked briskly through the entrance arch, went by Silvertip, then halted suddenly. The man to whom he had spoken came up more slowly, with the look of a hunter who has marked down prey. A door opened on the farther side of the patio; more footsteps approached; and Silver knew that he was trapped.

  White men or Mexicans, the Haverhill Valley seemed to be filled with madmen! He glanced over his shoulder toward the first pair who had passed through the arch; they faced him now, one with a drawn gun, one with his hand on a revolver butt. He thought of mounting and trying to break through, and cast that hope away even as it entered his mind.

  Two newcomers loomed now at the side of the patio entrance. One of those he knew by the bull face and the sleek round of the neck, that same fellow whom he had pulled from a horse that morning, and to whom Terry had given the name of Juan Perez. He opened eyes and mouth, then grinned gapingly with joy.

  "The gringo!" he cried, and reached for his gun.

  Retreat was thoroughly blocked; Silvertip followed his normal instinct by advancing. He jumped like a scared cat at his first interlocutor, who had called out all this show of strength against him. The fellow's face convulsed, reaching for a weapon.

  "Stop!" cried a woman's voice. "Juan Perez, stop!"

  Nothing, could have nullified the motion which Perez had begun. There was a Colt already in the hand of Silver, but he held fire, and saw the fingers of Perez open, so that the revolver he had drawn flicked away and went spinning and rattling and slithering over the pavement of the patio.

  Other guns were burning in the keen sunlight all around Silver. If he had been in danger before in his life, it was never a greater danger than that which surrounded him now. The voice of the woman had saved him. The mellow sound of her words still lingered in his mind, tasted and retasted.

  She had suspended all the murderous action that had been in progress.

  Then Juan Perez was crying out as he turned to the side, gesticulating violently: "This is the man with the horse of Pedrillo! Look! Look for yourself, senorita!"

  Past the arch of the entrance a girl came into view. She wore sandals and a wide-brimmed hat of cheap straw, like any peon woman, but her dress was the white translucency of fine linen, and there was a dark Latin beauty in her face. A careless glance might have passed her over in a crowd; but a second look would be sure to dwell on her, and little else.

  She came straight toward Silver, and paused at a distance which maintained her dignity.

  "What is your name?" she asked.

  "Silver," said he.

  He took off his hat before her. The brilliance of the sun struck a dazzle across his eyes. He put on his hat again and looked steadily at her through the protecting shadow that fell across his eyes.

  "You have the horse of Pedro Monterey," said the girl. "How did it come to you?"

  "He is dead," said Silver.

  He heard them all cry out. He saw them
all surge in toward him and stop again, as though his words had first drawn and then repelled them, as the edge of a cliff draws frightened men. Only the girl remained motionless and well poised, though he could see the pain had gone through her wide eyes and was still working in her.

  He added: "I say that he's dead. I only know that the man who rode this horse was middle height, slender, handsome, dark, about twenty or twenty-two years old."

  "That was Pedro Monterey," said the girl. "His father will see you."

  She turned about. One of the vaqueros hurried to take her arm, but she paused and said in her distinct, quiet voice: "I can walk very well by myself. Call the senior."

  Then she passed out of view with the same unhurried step.

  Chapter VII

  Don Arturo SILVER looked around on the stricken faces of the Mexicans who surrounded him. That sorrow was not strange to him, nor the blow which the girl had received so calmly and so deeply. It was right that the man he had killed should have come from such a place as this, with the air of a manor about it. Perhaps the girl was his sister, and these were the adherents of the house. The dead face had been that of an aristocrat, and it was from such a setting as this that he must have come. Long generations of breeding and culture will carve the features with more delicacy, and refine the body itself.

  And the very soul of Silver expanded. If he had undertaken a great task, it was in a worthy cause. But more than ever he was baffled and bewildered. For how could he set his great hands to any task that had been important in the life of that dead man who now had a name-Pedro Mon-terey? Pedrillo, the vaqueros had called him, with an affectionate intonation.

  They still pressed close, watching Silver like so many wolves about a helpless elk. He had put away his useless gun. Against such numbers it was a folly to show any sign of resistance. The least gesture in such a moment as this would bring the end of him, he knew that perfectly well.

  He made a cigarette, lighted, and began to smoke it.

  The news he brought had entered the house. These vaqueros who stood on guard about him had endured the shock steadily enough, but there were women in the big, sprawling house, and now voices rang out here and there in wild peals of grief that came through the walls as though through compressed lips.

  The vaqueros began to be moved by those audible signs of woe. Some of them started swaying a little from side to side. Voices rose half audibly, bubbling and moaning, struggling in their throats, wordlessly.

  But other words came. He heard them say: "The gringo!" and again: "The gringo dog! The dog!"

  He was the messenger of bad news, and that was enough to insure him a bad reception. Lucky for him if the reaction consisted of words only.

  The hinges of a heavy door grated. And then a slow footfall came across the patio.

  "It is Don Arturo-God help him! God be merciful to him!" Silver heard one of the men murmur.

  All of the Mexicans drew back a little, as though in respect, and in sympathy, while an old man with sweeping silver hair and a pointed gray beard came out into the patio. Time had pinched his shoulders a little, and perhaps it was the flow of hair that made the head seem disproportionately large. All his features were accented, together with the whiteness of his hair, by a band of black cloth which passed across his forehead, to be lost immediately under the flow of his hair. He would be a more imposing figure seated than standing; but even as he stood, he was a man of mark. He walked with a slim cane in his hand, his meager fingers spread out on the round head of it. And as he came to a halt, he stood very straight, as if at attention.

  The blow had fallen on him, and, like the girl, he had received it calmly. The weight of it had not broken him. No doubt there was a deeper shadow under his brows now than there had been a few moments before. Perhaps his lips were pressed more tightly together. But his voice was calm as he said:

  "You are Senor Silver?"

  "I am," said Silver.

  "You come to tell me that Pedro Monterey is dead?"

  "The man who rode that horse-a young man-dark, handsome-" began Silver.

  But the other lifted his hand.

  "What was the manner of his dying, Senior Silver?" he asked.

  The girl had come out from the house. She stood in the shadow of the arcade that surrounded the patio. One fold of her linen skirt thrust forward, and flashed like snow in the sunshine that touched it. She looked like the dead youth; she must be his sister, in fact. But what manner of people were these, when a father and sister could take the news of a death in such a way?

  "May I speak to you alone?" said Silver.

  Arturo Monterey drew himself up a little.

  "In twenty years," he said, "no American has entered this house. May it be another hundred years before one of your race passes through my door. You stand in my patio; and even that is very much, indeed! But come closer to me, if you will. My sons, fall back."

  The vaqueros moved off a little distance, their spurs rattling. Silver moved forward until he was close to the older Monterey. And just at that moment the opening of a door, as it seemed, allowed a wild cry of lament to break out from the house, a single dreadful note of grief, shut away to dimness again, as though the door had been suddenly closed once more.

  Silver saw the chin of the old man jerk up, as he endured the thrust of that keening. But nothing seemed able really to shock Arturo Monterey.

  "It was in Cruces," said Silver. "Do you know the place?"

  Arturo Monterey made a slowly sweeping gesture.

  "The mountains of the Haverhill," he said, "are the boundaries of my life."

  "It's a small town," said Silver, "fifty miles from here, beyond the mountains. I was there, and I met an enemy of mine, who was with your son."

  "What was his name?" asked Monterey.

  "Bandini."

  "Bandini is an enemy of yours?"

  "So much so, that we agreed to meet at a certain hour, and fight out our arguments together. At that time, I went into the street to find him. I saw a man wearing Bandini's cloak. I followed him, and stopped him. Senor, a man does not pause to ask many questions, at such a time. I was sure that it was Bandini. I challenged him with enough words to give him a chance to draw a gun. It seemed to me that he drew. Then I pulled my gun and fired. And the fire that spurted out of the gun showed me not the face of Bandini, but that of a stranger. He fell dead! I took his horse and his possessions, and traced him through the horse to this house. And what I wish to say is-" "Perez! Juan!" gasped Monterey. He gripped his walking stick with both hands, and leaned a little on it.

  "Take him!" groaned Monterey through his teeth, as the men came running to him. "Take the cursed gringo! God told me, twenty-five years ago, that nothing but evil could come to me from them, and here is another proof! Take him-away from my eyes-out of my sight-where I shall not hear the death cry! Make of him what my son is-a dead thing!"

  They closed on Silver from either side, suddenly. Many pairs of hands gripped him with a force that ground the muscles against the bones, and paralyzed the nerves. In an instant he was as helpless as though he had lain for a month in benumbing fetters.

  What a savage joy there was in their eyes, in the twisting of their mouths as they grasped and shook him! The grip of their fingers on his body seemed to feed them, like so many dogs tearing at living flesh.

  And then he heard the girl calling out, not loudly: "Uncle Arturo, what are you doing?"

  "I am finding justice, justice, justice on the gringo!" cried Arturo Monterey. "Quickly, my sons-quickly! Juan Perez, you will take charge, for you have seen this man before, and know a little about him. No torments-let death kill with a sharp edge, suddenly!"

  There was bunding joy in the eyes of Perez, as though he looked upon a bright treasure, in beholding Silver.

  They swung their prisoner about. They began to sweep him down the roadway that led up to the house.

  Behind them, Silver heard the girl saying: "A man who trusted you, brought you the news of t
he death, and the horse of Pedro for the proof! Uncle Arturo, what has come of the honor of the Montereys?"

  "Where is there honor among the gringos?" thundered Monterey in answer. His voice swelled out enormously, from that withering body. "Do you speak to a Mexican of honor in dealing with them? Honor, in handling a brute who brings me the horse of my dead boy, and the word that he has killed him? Honor?"

  The Mexicans had come to the horse of Silver, and now they flung him upon it. They had taken his guns, his knife. Some held the bridle of the horse; others gripped the legs, the arms of the prisoner. Still more were riding up horses from the patio, coming on the gallop. But the voice of the girl, like a meager hope of salvation and life, still found the ears of Silver, dimly, through the tumult.

  She was saying: "He had faith in you. If you betray faith, God will never forgive you. What a man does innocently is not done at all. Uncle Arturo, you have only this moment to decide. They are taking him away-it will be too late-you will be shamed-and you will let in the law on us all. If you let him be killed, it is murder in the eyes of Heaven, and in the eyes of the law, also. Oh, if the ghost of Pedro is near us, it is giving an echo to what I say!"

  But now the cavalcade had formed, half on horseback and half on foot, bearing Silver with them resistlessly, carrying him forward toward the quick ending of his life. He could see the big barrier of the mountains surging in steep-sided waves across the sky before him. His horse was shaking its head, and making the bridle ring. One of the Mexicans had a broad red stain on the shoulder of his white shirt. A wild jumble of detached observations came flooding into the brain of Silver. And through it, the voice of the girl, raised by desperation as distance made it fade.

  Afterward, a dull cry reached them, calling Juan Perez. The man turned.

  "She has persuaded him," said one of the escort. "Perez, what do you say? Shall we sweep him away? Aye, or kill him here in the roadway! Kill him here, and have it done?"

  Perez, looking back up the road, saw something that made him fix on Silver the eye of a maniac. Then, with a gesture of despair, he halted the troop.