by Max Brand
In the meantime, the prisoner in the jail tied his chains high on his legs and upon his arms and then, when they were thus more commodiously arranged, he left the room and went down the stairs.
Even from outside the building, there was not a voice. One would have thought that the heat of the noon sun had put the place to sleep. Yeoville had not yet recovered the use of its wits, and how long would it be before Yeoville did recover?
That was something, also, that no man could tell.
No one was more aware of all of these possibilities than was Single Jack Deems. But he did not hurry.
He went out the back way from the jail, and in the adjoining pasture were a dozen horses running about. An old man hurried from one wing of the building toward the other.
“Hello,” said Single Jack.
The old chap whirled, saw him, and then dropped upon his knees. “My God, Deems, don’t kill me!” he cried.
“I’m not going to touch you,” said Jack Deems. “But I want you to catch me a horse in that pasture. I don’t care which one. Get me a horse and put a saddle on its back. The saddles are in that shed, aren’t they?”
The other ran to obey this order with trembling haste.
But why did no one come? What had happened to the brave and true men of Yeoville? Why did they not pour out and sweep down upon the daredevil? There was no sight of them, but telltale sounds began to sweep up and down through the village.
When the work was done, Jack asked of the old fellow: “What’s your name?”
“Jay Greenfield.”
“Greenfield, I’m a thousand times obliged to you. Remember me kindly to all your grandchildren. So long!”
He climbed into the saddle rather awkwardly, because there was a burden upon each hand and upon both feet. Also, because he had never managed to become a really good horseman. Then he turned his back upon Greenfield, and jogged the horse past the jail and straight on out into the center of the street.
Greenfield himself followed at a run, not able to believe his ears because they did not hear a universal roar of weapons at the first sight of the badman.
But there was no roar of guns. No, not a glimmer of steel was exposed to the sun of the early afternoon, and even the whispers of talk died away as Single Jack rode up the street calling out gravely and quietly as he went: “Gentlemen, there’ll be fame enough even for the man who has the nerve to shoot me through the back. I think that you all need a little encouraging! I hope to see a bit more action from you, my friends!”
He maintained a running streak of talk, in this manner, as he went up the street, until, when he was opposite the blacksmith shop upon one side and the vacant lot on the other, a young calf in the lot threw up its tail, flourished its heels, and ran bawling to the other end of the lot.
The roan horse gave one sharp, quick buck, and even that bit of unruliness was enough to drop Single Jack in the dirt.
Now was the time for the guns to roar. Now was the time to avenge on Single Jack the language and the deeds they had endured from him on this day.
He himself surely expected it, and, dropping his rifle, he landed on his knees in the dust with a revolver flashing in either hand. There were a dozen gleams of metal up and down the street—but no one quite dared to shoot.
They allowed him to catch the horse, to mount again—and to ride deliberately toward that side of the town where the Grange cottage stood.
Chapter Forty-Two
Neither did they pursue Single Jack. Not a single rider left the town to win money or glory at the expense of the famous outlaw. So he rode unmolested through the streets, and reached the Grange cottage. There he was met by Steve Grange who rushed out from the house and shouted with joy at the thing that he saw.
They did not have much time for congratulations.
In a little trench, under the apple tree in the Grange garden, Deems exposed the paper that he had made Dr. Myers write out and sign.
“Where’s Hester?”
“You’d want to know that, of course. She’s gone uptown to buy some groceries. But wait a minute . . . I thought that I heard shooting. Jack, aren’t you going to tell me what happened?”
“Shodress is dead. That’s what really matters. I did what I told him I’d do, and with his own gun. If I have to die tomorrow, Steve, I’ll think that I’ve done enough good by killing Shodress to make up for all the wrongs I’ve committed. How’s young Apperley?”
“Sitting up in bed. Looks halfway like himself. He’s a fine fellow at heart, Jack. But you can’t wait to see him. They’ll be after you . . .”
“I don’t think that they’ll be after me,” said Single Jack gravely. “I think that they’ve had enough of me for one day. I’ll see the face of Dave Apperley before I go on.”
“Go on in then,” said Steve. “You’ll find Oliver in there. Oliver says that you’re the greatest man that ever lived. I’m going to get a saddle on my Winnie mare, and, when you ride off, I’m going along with you, if I may.”
“With an outlaw?”
“I’ve got a jail sentence over my head, anyway, and I’ll never serve it unless they catch me with a trap. You and I together to fight out the rest of this game, Jack.”
He ran for the barn, and Single Jack went across the verandah and stood in the window and looked in upon David Apperley.
At the sight of Single Jack, he uttered a great shout. “Jack! Jack Deems!”
Single Jack slipped through the open window and stood beside the bed.
“Don’t ask questions. I’m in a hurry. You can guess why. Shodress is dead, though. That’s the main thing. And that’ll leave the rest of the people that hate the Apperleys . . . and me . . . without a leader. I want a justification for what I’ve done, and this is the confession of Doctor Myers. You keep that. You’re a lawyer and you’ll know when and where to use it. In the meantime, I cut for the mountains with Steve. So long. I’ll see your brother and let him know what’s happened.”
* * * * *
So he rode from Yeoville and went with Steve Grange in perfect safety down the roads and across the mountains until they came to the home grounds of Andrew Apperley.
In the dusk of a long summer evening, they stood together outside the house in the new garden, where the little sapling fruit trees were daintily silhouetted against the sky and the rising moon.
“Listen to me,” said Andrew Apperley, “you have done enough for me to make me want to use every power in my control to help you, Deems. If you’ll only tell me what I can do . . .”
“I used to think,” Deems said gravely, “that I could never be anything other than a wild man. But Comanche taught me different. Nothing was ever any wilder than he. But he finally met me, and I tamed him. And then I met someone who was able to tame me . . . or make me want to be tame.”
“No man, though,” suggested the rancher.
“No. You’ve heard the facts from Steve.”
“I’ve heard them.”
“Well, Apperley, I’ll go straight now if the government will give me half a chance. If they push me to the wall, it’ll cost them a good many lives, and a great many thousands of dollars to capture me. But if they’ll give me a chance to be good, they’ll never have trouble with me again. You have friends in Washington. You can talk to them. Talk to them over the telegraph. Get me half a chance. Because I want to settle down.”
“Where, man?”
“Right here. This is going to be the most peaceful part of the West, now that Shodress is dead and his gang has been scattered. It will be a good place for me to settle . . . with my wife.”
* * * * *
Affairs at Washington moved slowly, and for months Jack Deems led a wretched life of suspense.
But at last suspense ended like all bad things, however long, and the countryside buzzed with the news that Single Jack Deems had been pardoned for all offenses, East and West.
“Good sense,” said friends.
“Crooked politics,” said enemies.
/>
But Single Jack did not care to listen to their criticisms. He had headed south and west for the Apperley range where a ranch house had already been built on the knoll by the river and where Oliver and Hester Grange had already opened the place to wait for his coming with Steve, and with Comanche.
THE END
About the Author
Max Brand is the best-known pen name of Frederick Faust, creator of Dr. Kildare, Destry, and many other fictional characters popular with readers and viewers worldwide. Faust wrote for a variety of audiences in many genres. His enormous output, totaling approximately thirty million words or the equivalent of five hundred thirty ordinary books, covered nearly every field: crime, fantasy, historical romance, espionage, Westerns, science fiction, adventure, animal stories, love, war, and fashionable society, big business and big medicine. Eighty motion pictures have been based on his work along with many radio and television programs. Perhaps no other author has reached more people in more different ways.
Born in Seattle in 1892, orphaned early, Faust grew up in the rural San Joaquin Valley of California. At Berkeley he became a student rebel and one-man literary movement, contributing prodigiously to all campus publications. Denied a degree because of unconventional conduct, he embarked on a series of adventures culminating in New York City where, after a period of near starvation, he received simultaneous recognition as a serious poet and successful author of fiction. Later, he traveled widely, making his home in New York, then in Florence, and finally in Los Angeles. Once the United States entered the Second World War, Faust abandoned his lucrative writing career and his work as a screenwriter to serve as a war correspondent with the infantry in Italy, despite his fifty-one years and a bad heart. He was killed during a night attack on a hilltop village held by the German army. New books based on magazine serials or unpublished manuscripts or restored versions continue to appear so that, alive or dead, he has averaged a new book every four months for seventy-five years. Beyond this, some work by him is newly reprinted every week of every year in one or another format somewhere in the world. A great deal more about this author and his work can be found in The Max Brand Companion (Greenwood Press, 1997) edited by Jon Tuska and Vicki Piekarski. His website is http://www.maxbrandonline.com/.