Comanche

by Max Brand

  At the same time, the blinding brightness of the searchlight from the guard boat fell full upon the faces of the two brothers.

  “Now, Dave,” said his brother, “tell me what to do. Do we try to save this fellow?”

  “No, confound him! I don’t like the job. Anybody but Single Jack.”

  “I never heard of him.”

  “You never did? I forget that he hasn’t been going so very long. Seven or eight years, I suppose, and you’ve been away more than that. But Single Jack? I tell you, Andy, he kills a man as readily as you or I would kill a chicken.”

  “Tush,” said Andrew. “Seven or eight years? He’s not more than twenty-two.”

  “He began as a boy. Here’s the guard boat. Thank goodness we can soon wash our hands of him.”

  “Like Pilate?” asked the older brother.

  “Why, Andy, what mad stuff are you talking now? Pilate?”

  “Well, Dave, I don’t pretend to be logical. But I say that I’m not going to give that young rascal up if I can help it. There’s something about him that appeals to me.”

  “Like the dog strain in your wolf,” said David sarcastically, “you like the wolf strain in that man. Well, Andy, you can do the talking, because I’ll have no more to do with the game. Single Jack Deems needs hanging, and every good citizen ought to see that he gets it.”

  “I’m not a good citizen, then,” answered Andrew. “I’m only a man. But by the Eternal, Dave, when a man can win over a dog as he has won over Comanche, there has to be good in him, and a lot of it. His arm around Comanche’s neck. Did you see it?”

  “Very pretty,” growled David, “but I’ll have no more to do with this mess. You handle it by yourself!” Flinging himself into a chair, he bit off the end of a cigar with an angry click of his teeth.

  Andrew cast a single doubtful look back at his brother, then he shrugged his shoulders. For a good many years he had been half brother and half father to this young man, but he had never been so put out as he was on this night.

  He threw another look toward the black mouth of the hatch. Then he turned to face the inquisition from the guard boat, which was sliding smoothly alongside.

  Chapter Three

  “Yacht, ahoy!”

  “Hello, guard boat.”

  “We’re coming aboard you. Man a boat hook, forward.”

  The low-lying speedster came to a rest, its engines throbbing with impatient power.

  “Who’s in charge here?”

  “I am,” said Andrew Apperley.

  “A moment ago, one of the men on my ship thought that he saw the escaped man swimming toward your boat. Could he have reached you and stowed himself below?”

  “No chance for that,” said Andrew quietly. “There’s no port through which he could have climbed. If he came aboard, he would have had to come across the deck . . . and we’ve been here ever since the chase began.”

  “What is your name, please?”

  “Andrew Apperley. This is David Apperley, my brother.”

  “David Apperley . . . not the same one that shoots big game? I’ve read about you, Mister Apperley.” He nodded toward David with much admiration. “Only,” he went on, “the man we’re looking for is a lot worse than any tiger or lion that you ever have stood up to, Mister Apperley. Single Jack Deems . . . you know about him, of course.”

  “I’ve heard about him, but only through the newspapers. And they live by exaggeration, of course.”

  “They couldn’t exaggerate about Deems. He was born to make perfect newspaper copy.”

  “For what crime are they holding him at Blackwell’s Island?”

  “Nobody seems to know, exactly, but we guess that it has something to do with forgery, on the one hand, and an immigration scandal on the other. Some people high up have been behind Deems in this.”

  “And they were examining Deems?”

  “Trying to. As well examine a lizard or a snake, I say. A bullet is the only thing that can get acquainted with what goes on inside of the head of Single Jack. Now they’ve let him slide through their hands again. They’ll sack the warden on account of this job.”

  “Has he ever escaped before?”

  “They’ve never held him long enough to bring him to a real trial. He always cuts loose in short order. They had him five times before this, and this makes the sixth time. Everybody thinks that he has something on somebody high up, and that because of that he can get loose each time. But then again, you can’t tell. He’s just a slippery devil.”

  The police sergeant who commanded the boat strolled across the deck of the yacht and paused at the hatch.

  “Of course,” he said, “Single Jack can make himself almost invisible. He might have slithered across the deck while you were looking the other way. He might be down there now, listening to what I’m saying about him . . .”

  His own suggestion made him step back hastily from the mouth of the hatch.

  “Go wherever you like,” said Andrew Apperley, “except that if you go below in this boat, you’ll be carrying a good deal of risk.”

  “Risk? Risk?” snapped the sergeant, changing his tone abruptly. “Peters and Swain, get over here. Go down and man the cabin of this boat and see what’s what. Look around, you understand!”

  Andrew Apperley shrugged his shoulders, while David whispered in the wildest alarm: “What will happen if they find Deems down there? They’ll know that we’ve been sheltering him. They’ll make it hard for both of us, Andy.”

  “Hush, David. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Ah, I thought so.”

  For as the valiant Swain and Peters marched down the narrow flight of steps, one behind the other, there arose from the depths of the cabin a most hideous growling and snarling.

  Swain and Peters tumbled hastily back to the deck.

  “We’re looking for a man. There’s a lion or something down there,” said one of them.

  “What’s this, Apperley?” asked the sergeant, whose suspicions seemed to have been growing sharper for some time.

  “Nothing,” said Andrew, “except the danger that I was trying to tell you about a moment ago, when you wouldn’t listen. There’s a big dog of mine in that cabin. He broke his chain and skulked down there. And because he’s too wild to handle, we’ll have to starve him out before we can manage him. He’s a ravening devil, Sergeant.”

  “Devil, eh? Devil, eh?” snapped the sergeant, growing ugly. “Now, Apperley, no man has a dog that won’t come when it’s called. I say . . . call up that dog of yours at once, because we’re going to search that cabin.”

  “Comanche! Here, boy!” called Andrew obediently.

  For answer, out of the unknown darkness beyond the hatch there came forth the same fiendish sound that they had heard before, and even the stolid sergeant shuddered.

  “I’d give a good deal to see that dog,” he said.

  “It’s really more wolf than dog,” said Andrew. “And a very rare fellow he is. There’s the chain that he just broke to get away into the cabin.”

  The sergeant picked up the remnant and tested the strength of the links, and then examined the broken link, and the state of the steel that had snapped there.

  “I would have said,” remarked the sergeant, “that even a horse would have a job to break this chain. Did a dog really manage it?”

  “He did. A dog that weighs as much as I do.”

  The sergeant was impressed. In his soul of souls he was simply a hunter, and it was only chance that had made him a hunter of men, instead of a hunter of beasts.

  Now all of the hunting instincts welled up in him and took mastery.

  “I will see that brute,” he announced. “I’m coming back here by daylight and have a peek at it. But by the way, I suppose that where a brute like that is, there isn’t apt to be any stranger lingering about?”

  Andrew Apperley responded quietly: “I’ve seen Comanche kill a mastiff with one slash.”

  “Eh? Then what chance would there be
for a man that ran into him in the dark?”

  “No chance in the world, I suppose.”

  It seemed that Andrew had certainly won his point, and the sergeant returned to the rail of the boat. But there he lingered, ill at ease.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “I’ve a bit of a trick that will handle Comanche for you, most probably. It’ll drive him out into the open, you can be sure of that. It’s a little smoke bomb. Won’t do a bit of harm, but in half a minute it’ll fill that cabin full of smoke, and Comanche will have to come out to breathe fresh air. Then we’ll guarantee to handle him for you. Peters and Loren and Gregg, stand by half a dozen of you with ropes, and, Swain, go bring me a smoke bomb. One of you open the cabin door . . .”

  “And let that devil of a wolf out at me?” growled the man to whom the sergeant had nodded.

  “I’ll do it myself,” replied the sergeant with perfect cheerfulness.

  “Stop him!” gasped David Apperley.

  But Andrew was as cool as chilled steel. “He takes his own chances. It’s his own profession. Besides, I don’t think that this Single Jack is the sort of a man who’ll do a murder in the dark, if he can avoid it.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Hush. There he goes. Poor sergeant. Comanche will rip his throat in two. I can’t stand that.” He jumped up. “Sergeant, you’ll be killed by that dog, I warn you.”

  “Why, a man can only die once,” said the sergeant, still cheerfully.

  He flung open the cabin door and instantly leaped back to the deck, with a revolver in his hand to cover any advance that might be made upon him.

  But there was no response from the depths of the cabin. All was quiet there. The great wolf dog made not so much as a sound.

  “It may be creeping out at you now, Sergeant,” suggested Andrew Apperley.

  “We’ll soon have the big fellow,” said the sergeant. “Here’s the bomb. A moment after I’ve thrown it into the cabin, that hatchway will seem to be on fire. But don’t worry. It’ll make nothing but smoke. You couldn’t make a fire out of it to save you. Your permission, Apperley?”

  “I suppose that I haven’t the power to prevent you,”

  “Not while I’m searching for an escaped prisoner,” said the sergeant with an expressive wink. “So if you don’t mind, I’ll consider that I have your permission to throw this smoke bomb into your cabin, Mister Apperley.”

  “I suppose,” said Andrew, “that I must give way. It won’t do any harm to any of the furniture or hangings in the cabin?”

  “Not a whit. There are no acid fumes about the stuff. Nothing but harmless smoke, I assure you. There will be no danger.”

  The sergeant poised the bomb to toss it lightly into the cabin, but before the bomb could leave his hand, a slightly built man, moving as fast and soundlessly as a flying shadow, leaped from the cabin door straight past the sergeant and his men, and dived over the rail. Dived so deep and so far that he did not break the surface of the water again as he came up.

  The sergeant cried out in an agony. “It’s Single Jack! Jerry, you saw right. Get out the dinghy.”

  The sergeant did not think of stopping now to ask any further questions as to why the fugitive from justice should have been in the cabin of the Nancy Lou. He was instantly proceeding toward the shore in the direction in which the escaped man had swum.

  David and Andrew saw three men leaning on the oars, while the plump form of the sergeant stood in the prow, a revolver in each hand.

  Chapter Four

  The two brothers watched the boat of the manhunters swing on among the other craft between them and the shore. They saw that the excitement spread like wildfire along the docks.

  “How long before they’ll have him?” suggested David.

  “Never, Dave. They’ll never have that lad. Not tonight, at the least. It isn’t in them to get him back tonight.”

  “Is it instinct that informs you of that?” asked David dryly.

  “You may call it instinct, if you wish. But isn’t it an odd thing that we haven’t heard any more reports from Comanche?”

  “Very odd. They’re pealing an alarm on that church bell, aren’t they? And see the lanterns along the docks. They’re leaving nothing undone to catch this fellow.”

  “They’ll have no luck, however. They’ll have no luck, I tell you. Let’s go down and take a peek through the open door of that cabin.”

  “And have that brute spring out and take us by the throats?”

  “If he springs out, Dave, he’ll do us no harm.” He drew a Colt and held it before him. “You’ve seen me shoot with this little gun, old fellow. I won’t miss a target as big as the heart of a wolf, if Comanche thinks fit to tackle us.”

  “Very well, you go first. I’ve no desire for that sort of fame, old man.” And David followed in behind his brother.

  They went down the steps to the door of the cabin, which stood wide open, and then Andrew threw a lantern’s light into the interior and exposed a very odd tableau, indeed. For there lay the great wolf dog stretched upon the floor, with strips of bedding from the bunk used to tie his four legs together, while a bandage around his head securely muzzled and gagged him.

  “By heavens,” said David, “he managed that job alone. And in silence. But why did he bother to tie up the wolf?”

  “I’ll tell you, Dave, but you’ll laugh at me.”

  “Try me.”

  “He knew that when he bolted for freedom, the dog would follow him, and, if there were any other people on the deck, Comanche would go for their throats on the way to the waterside. So he made Comanche safe before he made his own bolt for freedom.”

  “Andy, you’ll have Single Jack turned into a saint before long.”

  “Well, there’s the fact. He tied Comanche. If you can find a better reason for the tying, let me hear it.”

  But David was silent, poking grudgingly at the mass of the prostrate beast with the toe of his shoe.

  “Look at the green devil showing in his eyes again,” said David. “He’s the same Comanche. And I admit that it completely baffles me. How did this fellow manage to do it? And in the first place, how did he ever call Comanche into the water to save him?”

  “I wouldn’t make as much of a mystery of it as all that. No, there’s no use actually inventing difficulties, when there are enough of them already about the thing. But I’ll tell you what, old fellow, it simply goes as an added proof of what I’ve said before concerning Comanche. There’s a broad dog strain in him, and the big rascal simply reverted to the dog characteristics when it came to the pinch. How else can you explain it? He hears a commotion, and presently he sees a man in the water, half dead, or more than half dead, and barely able to make any headway against the current. Comanche gets excited.

  “The life-saving instinct of his dog ancestors was working in him. Into the water he dived. He worked up to the sinking man, and brought him back to this ship, not because he prized this ship as a place of refuge, but simply because it was the point closest to him.”

  David listened and nodded. “All very well,” he said. “I admit that you have a touch of logic in that. But at the same time, Andy, I feel that there’s something else behind it. There’s something infernally mysterious about the whole affair. Such a devil of a dog couldn’t have been transformed into a handy pet in two seconds.”

  “Still, you want to have your little mystery out of this matter. But I tell you, Dave, that mystery isn’t needed. Just be logical and look at the facts. I say that the life-saving strain cropped up broad and big in Comanche. He couldn’t help jumping in to save Single Jack Deems, and, after he had been working for the man . . . why, Dave, you know that the blackest-hearted of us will love the thing that we’ve suffered for. You can’t explain mother love, for instance, except on the ground that the mother has suffered so much for the life that she has brought into the world. The same with this monster of ours. He couldn’t help having affection for a man whose life he
had saved.”

  David listened and nodded.

  “You have the logic,” he said. “I don’t pretend that I would say what I think in a crowd. But at the same time, I feel that there was something peculiar about the whole affair. Very peculiar, Andy. But let it go. We’ll put the new chain on him and get him back to the deck before we take the restraints off him. How neatly they’re laid on, as if he were taking care to hold the big dog without hurting him. And what a miracle, really, that the wolf dog would let Single Jack handle him in this fashion . . . no matter how he may have learned to love him. And all in a brief half hour.”

  He shook his head, and, indeed, even the matter-of-fact nature of Andrew was a little shocked by the thought of what had happened. For it considerably transcended the limits of the possible, as we are apt to conceive of that term.

  They put the new chain on the wolf dog and returned the animal to its place on the deck, where they fitted a sort of loose muzzle on the great head, and then removed the bonds. In spite of the muzzle, Comanche made a flying slash with his teeth at Andrew, and the latter reeled back suddenly, with a shout. Yet there was no harm done, and presently the two brothers were seated side-by-side on the poop of the yacht, as before.

  “Who would think,” said David gently, as though afraid to break the quiet that had settled over the river, “that there had been such a crashing and smashing of guns, and sweeping of searchlights, and hooting of horns. It’s all as quiet as a grave, now.”

  “They’re not quiet . . . the hunters, I mean. They’re still going along the docks. But they’ll never get him again . . . at least, not tonight.”

  “I think not,” agreed David. “He’s not the sort of a fox that can be run twice and caught in the same day. What did you think of him, Andy?”

  “I had an odd feeling about him. But that’s because I knew that he was Single Jack, of course.”

  “I had an odd feeling about him, too. What was yours?”

  “It’s hard to describe. I’ll tell you one part of it. Whenever I glanced at him, he was grave, and he was usually looking away from me. But the instant that I glanced away from him, I felt that he was looking straight at me and smiling, with a sort of superior strength, and understanding, and triumph. However, I haven’t been able to describe exactly what I mean. It escapes from the words.”