Comanche

by Max Brand

  “Eighty men?” The proprietor favored his guest with one glance, half wildly startled and half quizzically doubtful. Then he fled to find the fat man. A moment later he was shouting down the stairs: “Hey, Blagden!”

  The latter hurried up and was shown into the private sanctum of the great Shodress, where Shodress himself sat in a pivot chair, with his huge flat feet hung upon the edge of his table, whose edges were deeply scarred by the old marks of burning cigarette butts.

  “Blagden, how are you?”

  “I’m fair. So’s Andy Apperley.”

  “What’s his move . . . and what’s this nonsense about eighty men?”

  “I counted ’em,” said the other. “I counted out myself. I laid up behind the rim of a hill, and I turned my glass on ’em and I picked ’em off, one by one. Eighty gents with more gats on ’em than an army would need, and all drifting this way.”

  “It’s young Dave,” said Shodress. “He’s heard how Dave got himself shot up brawling in the streets of this town. It’s a shame, Blagden, that the Apperleys ain’t contented with damning me black and trying to run me off of the range, but they got to come in here and start shooting up Yeoville. I say, it’s a shame.”

  “Sure it is,” said Blagden, with a faint grin, for this was the usual attitude of Shodress. “They ain’t got no conscience, particularly when they start in working on three men at a time . . . three fine, peaceable, quiet, upstanding gents like McGruder and Westover and Mandell.”

  Shodress sighed. “And after that, the old hound hired a sort of a magician . . . a gun juggler . . . to murder me.”

  You mean Single Jack?”

  “Yes. I’ll never rest peaceful until I’ve downed that poisonous rat. Now tell me about the eighty men and Apperley. They were headed this way?”

  “They were.”

  “How far off are they now?”

  “I killed a horse getting to you. But they can’t be many miles back.”

  Shodress rolled the cigar in his fat mouth and half closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was smiling on both sides of the cigar, and the smile made a bulge of fat appear in either cheek. “It ain’t so bad, Blagden,” he said. “It ain’t really so bad. I got to admit that it sort of sounds queer to me, because, between you and me, he’s put himself right into my hands. I never thought that he would be fool enough to start a mob war. But now that he’s done it, I’ll wipe him right off the face of the earth. I ain’t even going to leave the grease spot where he stood.”

  He jumped up from the chair, and the floor quaked under his flabby weight. “Wait a minute, Blagden. I want you. I need you. But first, there’s the price of that horse. A good horse, wasn’t it?”

  Blagden shrugged his shoulders. “Just an Indian pony, Alec.”

  “No!” exclaimed the other. “Because it couldn’t be anything worse than a thoroughbred that could bring me in such good news as this. It couldn’t be. Here . . . you take this for the horse, will you?” He snatched from his pocket a wallet stuffed with bills of large denomination and jerked out a number that he stuffed into the hand of Blagden.

  “Well,” said Blagden, “this is the best day’s work that I’ve ever done.”

  “Go down into my corrals and pick out the best-looking nag in ’em. That horse belongs to you, kid. And get your saddle onto its back and be ready to ride quick. Y’understand?” There was a wave of the hand.

  Blagden, quite overcome with gratitude and excitement at such good fortune, had set his jaw harder than ever, determined to show his gratitude by fighting to the death, if necessary, in this good cause. He fled down the stairs, and behind him the voice of the fat man was thundering: “Phil! Harry! Locke! Chalmers! Slim Jim!”

  A pounding and rattling of feet answered from all parts of the house as the voice continued to thunder. And at last, as though mere vocal summons were not enough, Shodress jerked out his revolver and began to punch neat holes in the ceiling of the hall. That roar of the gun brought others scurrying.

  In the dimness of the hallway, there gathered around Shodress a dozen of his firmest adherents, his chosen gunfighters.

  “Boys,” he said to them with a ring in his voice, “you’re riding, tonight, and I’m riding with you. I’m gonna show you that I ain’t too fat for a saddle, and that I ain’t too slow with a gun. And I’m going to wipe Andy Apperley off the range, tonight!”

  There was such a joy in his throat that it choked him. And in the brief pause that he made, there was a stern murmur of excitement and content from the others.

  Then he went on: “How many people in Yeoville?”

  “Near nine hundred,” somebody answered.

  “And how many grown-up men?”

  “More’n five hundred.”

  “And how many that’ll wear guns and shoot straight and ride hard for me?”

  “Every man in Yeoville, chief.”

  “Get out and scatter, all of you, and pass the word. Ride through every part of the town, and turn the boys out. It’s the battle for all of us. And remember, once we start riding, that we got the clear and clean law on our side. There ain’t no doubt about that. We got the law on our side. The fool started it first. The fool!” Joy choked him again, and then he gasped: “Tell ’em their best horses . . . and rifles and Colts for every man. And everything in my corrals is free. And get me young Chance. Tell him that I’m waiting for him in front of the hotel. And Steve Grange . . . oh, he’s in jail. But what’s the jail? There ain’t any Apperley to stop me from running this town, now. Split the jail open like it was a tomato can and bring me Steve Grange. And tell him on the way, and let the others know that, after we’ve smashed Apperley, we’re gonna have some sweet picking on everything that used to be his on the range. Now get out, boys, and get fast. Every man for himself and me.”

  They answered with a joyous shout, and in an instant they were swarming out upon their errand. Who could have been more cheerful than they, at this moment? For they knew that they were riding out upon a trail on which they would have overwhelming odds in their favor, and three men to one, at the least, would be striking beside them against the doomed band of Andrew Apperley.

  Chapter Thirty

  Through Yeoville went a cyclone of confusion and noise. It reached the jail and put forth an eddying current that, like the arm of a tornado, smashed in the door and howled over the frightened jailer.

  There were two men in that jail as prisoners. One was a tattered, dirty tramp, jailed because he had made himself a public nuisance by asking through the streets for alms. After he was liberated, he had cringed in a corner until these bold, shouting men were gone. The other prisoner was Steve Grange, and he was hailed with enthusiastic voices, and a rifle and a pair of revolvers were thrust into his hands. In another moment he was out in the street and mounted on the back of a good horse, capable of bearing his sturdy weight along.

  A few seconds more, and that winged cavalcade was streaking out of Yeoville, and, as they galloped, a kind moon rose in the east and showed them their way.

  There had been no delay in gathering every possible recruit for the campaign. Now several hundred rough riders rushed from Yeoville with Alec Shodress at their head. Not a man in that lot who had not been daily familiar with guns for many years. Not a man that did not know his horse well. Not a man that did not love a fight. Otherwise, what would they have been doing in Yeoville among the ranks of the adherents of Alec Shodress?

  He himself, mounted on a broad-hipped brown gelding capable of bearing even his fat bulk, cantered in the lead, and his men were wild with enthusiasm at having him with them. They had almost forgotten the stories of that earlier and slenderer Shodress who had performed his share of deeds of daring along the range before increasing weight and power induced him to retire and leave his work to the hands of lither and younger spirits.

  Near Shodress went Steve Grange, with a hearty greeting from the big man: “Steve, I’d rather have you with me tonight than any twenty men I know.”
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  “Chief,” said Steve with emotion, “I was beginning to go crazy in that jail.”

  “Why, son,” said the leader, “do you think that I’d ever have let you come to any harm there? No, I was simply waiting for the right time to get you out, and this is the night. What a fool Andy Apperley is to start this business. To put his head in the lion’s mouth. Why, Steve, we’ll tear him to pieces.”

  Steve Grange, looking back over the following host of riders that bobbed through the mist of their own dust, nodded with agreement and satisfaction, until he saw a horseman riding with a familiar lilt in the saddle. He reined back instantly and was beside his brother Oliver. The latter would have worked his way off, but he could not escape. He was hemmed in by the press of riders, and Steve, leaning from the saddle, shouted angrily: “What are you doing here, kid?”

  “I’m in the game,” answered Oliver. “I had to come.”

  “Go back home, you fool!” called Steve. “Are you leaving Hester alone at a time like this?”

  “She can take care of herself.”

  “Oliver, you hear me? Go back!”

  “I won’t.”

  “Kid, there’s going to be trouble before the sun comes up.”

  “I’ll be there for my share of it. I’m not worried.”

  “You want to break Hester’s heart? Go back or I’ll make you.”

  “You’re not man enough to make me.”

  For a moment, the pair glared at one another through the swirling dust, and then Steve Grange, realizing that this task was for the moment beyond his power, and that the boy was really committed definitely to this wild work, turned his horse and spurred up to the head of the procession again.

  He was just in time to receive the command of a contingent of fifty men detailed to sweep down the right side of the broad valley through which they were riding. A similar number rode on the left. And with well more than a hundred men in the main body, big Shodress pursued his course along the center of Shingle Cañon.

  It was narrowing rapidly, now, and soon there would be no possibility for the body under Apperley to slip through the masses of horsemen from Yeoville.

  And just now, far ahead, one of the leaders spied a solitary rider slipping rapidly over the brow of a hill and speeding away up the valley.

  The news was broadcast at once.

  “It’s one of Apperley’s outriders!” exclaimed big Shodress. “And’s he’s turned back to tell his boss what is coming! There’s five hundred dollars to the lad that rides down that devil!”

  The word passed with a whoop, and a dozen of the lightest riders on the fastest horses whipped out in front and left the main body as though it were standing still.

  The whole body of the men from Yeoville quickened their pace, and, as they rode between the rocky, echoing walls of the gorge, they presently had a second sight of the fugitive. It was only a glimpse, but they could see their own men rapidly gaining upon the lone rider, and the next instant, as he slipped from view into a depression in the valley floor, they saw that he was not quite alone. There was another form beside the horse, a smaller, easily skimming body.

  “It’s the man with the wolf. It’s Single Jack and Comanche!” shouted Shodress, suddenly going almost mad with excitement. “Now, boys, we have him! There’s one thing that he can’t do, and that’s ride a horse. Get him, and there’s nothing that I won’t give. He’s worth any price.”

  The tingling yells of the dozen in the lead was ample testimony that they, too, had recognized their quarry. They were redoubling their efforts, and, being far better mounted, they gained hand over hand upon the other.

  “I’d rather have that man dead than all the fools that are following Apperley, and Andy along with them. I’d rather have Single Jack dead, boys, than a million dollars in my wallet, because, one of these days, either he kills me, or I kill him. I feel it in my bones.”

  He did not need to talk further. All that was in the power of humans or of horseflesh was now being done to overtake the outrider who might bear the warning back to the main body of the Apperley host.

  And then guns began to crack, and the ringing echoes flew back past the iron walls of the valley and clanged faintly from wall to wall over the heads of the riders.

  They could see Single Jack’s rifle flashing, now, and one of his pursuers was down, and then another. It was long-range work, but such marksmanship as never had been seen in those mountains before.

  “Will he get free?” groaned fat Shodress, seeing his leading group of hunters spread out in the shape of a fan, so that they might present a less united group target to their deadly foe.

  “No,” said one of Shodress’s lieutenants. “Look at those boys ride. There ain’t one of them that wouldn’t risk his neck, free and willing, to have the glory of bringing down Single Jack. Look at ’em ride in.”

  In fact, they went on gallantly, bending low over the necks of their horses, and now and then sending a shot after the outlaw in the hope of crippling either the rider or his horse. Luck was not with them. The distance was too great, and they were firing from the bobbing backs of galloping horses, a thing always fatal to marksmanship—except such uncanny craft as that of Single Jack.

  But, brave as they were, they dared not rush straight in upon that deadly rifle. Instead, they pushed their racing horses to one side and then to the other in the hope of squeezing past Jack Deems and taking him from the flanks with a crossfire.

  So the race was prolonged, while those in the rear checked their speed a little, and those on the sides urged their horses still more wildly forward.

  A slight dimness overcast the mountains, for the moon was now blown behind a flying host of clouds that left it a dull and tarnished face, and the darkness beneath the valley walls became so great that Shodress’s men could push in with little to fear from the rifle fire of Deems.

  A shout of triumph came from all the riders of Yeoville. As for Andrew Apperley and his little army, they were well-nigh forgotten. This one rider was the arch-enemy.

  All the rest, perhaps, might be considered velvet. And it hardly seemed to them unfair that so many should be matched against a single fighter—so enormously had the fame of Single Jack exaggerated his figure to heroic proportions. Men said that he fired by instinct, and by instinct he could not fail to strike his target. And had they not witnessed, on this night, two spurts of flame from the muzzle of his rifle, and, in answer, had not two stricken horses rolled on the floor of the valley and nearly broken the necks of their riders?

  The wind scattered the clouds before the face of the moon again. Suddenly the tawny veils were torn apart, and now the broad, yellow moon looked brightly down upon the mischief that was about to take place in those mountains.

  Single Jack was indeed well back toward the others, now, but here an unexpected element was added to complicate the work. For two other riders, as the procession turned a corner of the valley, were seen to swing in beside Deems and to urge their nags along. They were the advanced outposts of the Apperley riders. Would Deems, then, gain the host in time?

  A yell of disappointment and rage crashed up against the placid face of the smiling moon, and an echo hurled the cry back again with a wailing close. But after that, all settled more fiercely than ever to the pursuit. For it was seen that the two new companions of Deems were upon horses that were very, very tired, or else they were of the very worst quality. No, it was far more likely that they were merely exhausted by the long march through the mountains, and therefore all the rest of the mounts of the Apperley men would be in the same condition. And the host of Yeoville was still whirled along in dust and triumph on fresh ponies.

  No matter if Apperley received the warning, how could his little army escape from such a winged vengeance as this which was drawing out from the town?

  Never was such a straining of horseflesh. Never was such a whir of quirts and such a jingling of spurs. Never was such a chorus of rips and yells as that procession made as it went up Sh
ingle Cañon.

  And if the fugitive three galloped hard, still they could not gallop hard enough. Faster and faster the Yeoville enthusiasts were gaining. Faster than ever, for now men marked with wonder that Single Jack did not press his mount to the limit, but reined it in to keep pace with his two new companions. Such good-fellowship was not to have been expected in him.

  And yet, no matter for that. No matter what gave him into the hands of these head-hunters, heaven bless the cause. They wanted blood, and the blood money that went with it. And they were on the right trail.

  Then a yell of horror passed through the whole band.

  Upon the right hand, urging a fleet horse, some young cowpuncher was riding for fame and fortune so successfully that he had gained far before his friends and was drawing up fast upon the trio. He had unlimbered his rifle and was about to fire at pointblank range when a shadow swept behind him, and horse and rider rolled head over heels in the dust.

  And the shadow loped away. Comanche!

  And what was it to the wolf dog except the easy hamstringing of another horse?

  Chapter Thirty-One

  If that deed of Comanche’s seemed rather the work of the devil than of a mere dog, it put wonderful heart into the three riders down the valley. For here were Charley Johnson and Les Briggs, each on a horse that had been badly fagged by the hard work through the mountains, and particularly because they had had to push on ahead of the rest of the band. They were failing at every stride, now, and Les Briggs had just called to Charley that he could not keep going and killing his horse uselessly.

  “I’ll get in the rocks, there, and hold ’em back . . . !”

  “Talk sense, man,” interrupted Charley Johnson. “They’ll ride right over you.”

  And then the shadowy Comanche had clipped in from the side and bowled over one of the leading riders of the pursuit.

  It gave fresh heart to Johnson and to Briggs. Even their horses seemed to realize that a wonderful thing had been done in their behalf and they appeared to gallop a little more lightly. But as they swung around the next curve of the long cañon, where the walls grew narrower and narrower, still the long vista ahead of them gave them no sight of the wished-for fighters of Apperley.