by Max Brand
Then he forgot his pity. It seemed to him that Hank had simply left the town and left that sad and stern message behind him because he wished to raise the hearts of the villagers against Chris. Five minutes before he had been condemning himself for his cruelty to Hank. But from this moment he began to hate the old fellow and wish that even the memory of him might perish from the face of the earth. His anger grew with brooding.
In the meantime, his niece had left her room not five minutes after her uncle left the house. She went to the corral, caught and saddled her own horse, and then flogged at full gallop across the hills and through the delicious fresh coolness of the morning air. Oh, how thin and still and how vast it was. Still it seemed to Jennie that the curve of the great earth’s surface was pressing her dizzily up into the sky.
There was no joy in her heart. She went savagely on to the house of Willie Merchant, and she met Willie at the door, just coming out, with his saddle resting against his hip and his head sunk.
She was too blind with anger and rage and disgust to do more than know that it was he. Had she looked any closer, she could not but have been touched by the despair in his eyes. But she saw nothing. There were too many tears in her eyes after she had spoken the first words.
Jennie told him, quick and plain, that she was done with him. She offered him back his ring, and, when he would not lift his powerless arms to take it, she dropped it in the dirt at his feet. She took out a dense packet of letters and tossed them down after the ring. Then she turned and rode away. When she crossed the next wave of ground and looked back, what did she see but poor Willie Merchant standing just as she had left him, with the white batch of letters at his feet, and the saddle resting against his hip, and the quirt dangling in his hand.
“A coward. A coward. A coward,” gasped out Jennie as the gallop of her horse rocked her along. And then she cried in the same voice: “I wish I were dead! I wish I were dead! I wish I were dead!”
She rode on blindly until her horse began to stagger. Then she looked about her and found that, instead of heading straight back for the ranch, this wrongheaded beast had turned aside and was veering toward his old home, which was the Jacobson Ranch. So she had to make a detour through rough ground before she could get back through the broken country and come within line of her uncle’s ranch again. Thus it was that she encountered old Hank Ballon.
She came over the first rise from which that old ranch house was visible and saw the deserted shack that old Bud Hervis had built there twenty-five years before, in the days of the cattle wars. But it was no longer deserted. Smoke, as gladdening to the heart as the flag of a man’s country, waved out of the patched and reërected chimney, and snapped away to nothingness in the morning breeze. The door was open, and a broad white piece of new pine showed where it had been recently repaired and held together with nails. Indeed, the old place had come into a sudden and not unpleasant life.
Then, looking down into the hollow, she was amazed by the sight of the bony bay gelding, Timothy, and the goat, Jud, which, as all the world knew, were the property of the good old man, Hank Ballon. She knew all about Hank’s faults. But she knew all about his virtues. Like everyone else, except her uncle, she loved him with all her heart.
In her astonishment, she forgot her own grief and rode up to the door and knocked against it with the loaded butt of her quirt.
“Hello,” said the familiar voice inside, and then the door opened and the old blacksmith was before her. He came out with a laugh and a wave and took both her hands in his big, bony fingers. “Jen, my darlin’,” he said, “how long and how long it is since you’ve been to see me an’ talk to me. Where have you put yourself? Into Willie’s pocket, doggone him.”
Hank knew, then, and that meant that everybody knew. It was going to be much harder than she had at first anticipated.
“There’s nothing in that, Uncle Hank.”
“I guess not,” he said with too much emphasis, and winked brightly at her.
“But what on earth are you doing out here, Uncle Hank?”
“Me? I’ll tell you how it is, honey. Doggone me if I ain’t been pondering and pondering, and I figured it out that there ain’t no chance for rest and quiet in a great big place like the town. So I decided that I’d come right out here and take a swing at . . . what you might call suburban livin’, eh?”
“But seriously, Hank, you rascal, what’s in your mind?”
“Nothing but a wish to get away from the noise, Jen. There ain’t nothing more than that. All I want is this little shack and you to talk to half an hour a day, and doggone me if I ain’t plumb contented.”
“But the village, Uncle Hank. Good heavens, what will it do without you? How can it get on?”
“I’m an old man, honey. Folks get along right tolerable well without old folks.”
“Uncle Hank!”
“Heavens, girl, I ain’t aiming to make you cry.”
“Who’ve you had trouble with?”
“Ain’t you going to believe nothing that I tol’ you?”
“Not a word.”
“This here comes from givin’ women votes,” pronounced Hank. “Doggone me if it don’t.”
She tried again to make him talk. “I’m just out here restin’ and waitin’,” was all that he would say.
But when she went on to the ranch, she heard more details. One of the cowpunchers had come on Uncle Hank in the old shack and had helped make him comfortable there.
The message that he sent by the cowpuncher to the world was that he was waiting, indeed—and waiting inside the sight of the ranch house of Chris Martin. Because, he said, when a man had done as much wrong to the world as old Chris had done, it was time that he began to pay for it.
“Someday,” he had concluded, “Chris will go smash, and everything that means the most to him’ll be lost. I’m just staked out here, waiting to see when it happens.”
Chapter 5
When Jennie heard this, she refused resolutely to believe that Uncle Hank could ever have said such a thing.
“Why,” she said. “I love Uncle Hank, and he loves me, Pete.”
“Sure he does.” said Pete the cowpuncher. “Sure he does. But nobody can love half as hard as he can hate. And here’s where your Uncle Chris comes in for some doggone’ hard hating.”
He went away and left Jennie by herself to digest this remark and all that it might imply. She decided at once that, when her uncle came home that night, she would have a long and most serious talk with him.
But a great deal was to happen that day before the night came on and the veteran drove his buckboard home with the dust sluicing off the wheels and the tires bumping over the humps that were hidden beneath the velvet of the dust. For before that time came, a white-faced Willie Merchant came on a foaming horse into the town and entered the office of the terrible Chris Martin.
He stood at the doorway and regarded the landowner as though the latter were a ghost. Chris had vowed not to lose his temper for another month, but he was angered by this interview, and, besides, he despised Willie for the whiteness of his face.
“What in the devil d’you want?” he asked of
Willie.
“You lied to me,” said Willie in a dead man’s voice.
“I lied? You rat-faced brat.”
“You lied,” Willie repeated.
And Chris saw, with the most utter amazement, that, in spite of all appearances which indicated it, Willie was not afraid. Not in the least. In fact, he was in a fighting fury, and would as soon pull out a gun as a handkerchief. To Chris it was hardly credible—for he prided himself on his ability to judge men. He could not believe that he had gone so far wrong with Willie. Not that he doubted his entire ability to handle Willie in a personal conflict of any kind. As for gunplay, although he seldom had a chance to indulge himself in the actual sport itself, he practiced his draw and his shot every day. When he drove home behind the rat-tailed sorrels every night as he bumped along the roads with no
one within hearing of him and no one within sight, he used to empty his revolver at least once at stumps and stones. So that old Chris was in perfect practice. Being in perfect practice, he considered himself as dangerous a fighter as any one in the world, with the exception, perhaps, of a few desperadoes.
He regarded Willie rather with a cold and scientific interest than with a passion of anger. He did not want to kill this boy simply because the boy could not put up a fight good enough to make the war interesting. Old Chris had arrived at that stage of mind.
“You’re talking big and brave,” he told Willie gently.
“I say that you lied when you swore that Jennie shouldn’t know about what you and I had talked over. Then you went and told her everything.”
“You ain’t remembering right, Willie. I said that you must not do any talking to her about this here talk we had. I didn’t say whether I’d do no talking or not.”
“You can’t speak behind that sort of a cover, Mister Martin.”
“I never speak anyplace, Willie. I’m always right out here in the open . . . and everybody in the world knows right where they can find me.”
“That’s why I’ve come down here to tell you that you’ve double-crossed me. She’s turned me down, this morning. She come, and give me back my letters and give me back my ring. She said that she was through with me because I was a coward, and because I thought a lot more of my cattle than I thought of her.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I guess she heard that from you, Chris Martin?”
“Maybe. Maybe she just made up her mind that she only wanted an excuse to break off with you, and any old thing would do.”
“That sort of talk don’t bother me none,” said Willie with a strange loftiness. “I know what she was yesterday, and I know what she was today. And you’re the one that done it.” He paused.
Old Chris did not move in his chair. He lighted a cigar and through the smoke peered earnestly into the face of Willie. With each instant he was making astonishing and most delightful discoveries about the rich mines of manliness in this round-faced youth. It always pleased Chris to find a man, under whatsoever guise. But not a gleam of his pleasure, of course, was allowed to appear in his face. The next thunderbolt, however, completely threw him off his guard.
“I been wishing that you was a young man,” said Willie. “But you’re old, and I can’t fight you. You’re old, and you’re safe from me. But for that, I’d have your gizzard out.”
It brought a sort of groan from Chris Martin. “You young fool,” he said. “If trouble is what you’re after, I can give it to you inches thick. First place, keep your cattle away from my water hole. Tomorrow, I fence it in. That’s a beginner. Then I’ll follow it right up. I ain’t ever started to show you what I can do. I’ll make this here country so hot for you that you’ll howl like the devil for help. Don’t forget that.”
Willie sighed. “I’m kind of glad that we know where we stand, each of us,” he declared. “Let me tell you that, if one of my cows dies because you starve her out of water that you ain’t got any need of yourself . . . I’ll come and take a fat cow of yours to fill her place.”
“You’ll steal, eh, kid?”
“I’ll take my rights and keep ’em.”
“You’ll bust the law?”
“When the law busts me.”
“That’s the sort of talk that makes for murder, Willie.”
“I’m rich an’ ripe for it, Chris Martin. You can lay to that. I’m all set for it. For heaven’s sake don’t give me no chances.”
Chris Martin laughed. “Get out, kid,” he said, and rose from his chair. He waved his arm as toward bothersome flies. “Out of this here room. Never come back. You? I’m going to bust you. If you raise a hand to hit back, I’ll have you pinched. If you swipe my cattle, I’ll have you lynched. Now get out. I’m tired of talkin’ to a fool.”
Willie Martin went most obediently. He retreated to the door, backed through it, and then went slowly and steadily down the stairs.
“He thinks that I’ll shoot him right in the back if I get a chance,” translated the older man slowly. “He don’t know me. He don’t know the half of me, that fool kid. But he’s game.”
Four revolver shots crackled through the air of the street. Old Chris hurried to the window, almost rejoicing. A fight was what he wanted most of all. To see one was the next best thing to being in one himself. But all that he saw was Willie sitting in his saddle in the street calmly putting up a smoking gun into his holster. He had fired the four shots himself, a pair close together and then another pair, just like two men exchanging a brace of shots at one another. After which the deathly silence sounded like a double murder.
He gained what he had wanted to gain. In five seconds the entire population of the town was assembled around him. He spoke quietly from his place in the saddle above them, and yet Chris could hear every syllable of his enunciation.
“Boys and friends,” he said, looking about him with no signs of stage fright before such an assemblage as this was. “I’ve just had a little talk with your boss, old Chris Martin. Him and me have agreed to fall out right here. What he aims to do is to shut my cattle away from his water. Well, boys, you know that I’ve soaked in three years’ work on that there little ranch. I’ve got my own cattle running pretty slick and fat. I’ve had no help from nobody, and showed that a gent don’t need no help in this here country. All I need is water. Martin ain’t got cattle enough within marching distance of that water to use it. You all know how it soaks away and goes rambling off into the sand and dies in the desert after it leaves the watering pool. But old Chris says that he’s going to shut me away from that there water. And I say that, whenever a cow of mine dies for the want of water, I’m going over and take one of his cows. And I mean it, every word.”
Willie paused. The faces beneath him were stunned with wonder and, as old Chris could plainly see, with admiration.
“How this’ll all come out,” Willie continued, “I dunno. I’ll be breaking the law if it gets that far. And then I’ll be run off my place, my cattle will die, and I’ll probably get grabbed by a sheriff or a deputy while I’m trying to get even with old Chris. But before they start in lying about me, I want to tell you the straight of what’s going to happen if Chris bars me from the water, and so help me God.”
He actually raised his hand as he swore it, his gun hand—his right hand—and looked up into the white-hot sky. Then old Chris knew that he could never draw back from this solemn engagement. It was a matter of honor—of pride. He had to crush this defiant young fool no matter how much his heart bled for him.
Chapter 6
After that, old Hank Ballon was not the only one who waited for the downfall of Chris Martin and the dénouement of this strange little war, for the whole range heard the tale and wondered heartily what the outcome of it could be. Of course, on the face of it, there was no hope for Willie Merchant. He had bid defiance to a giant, and therefore he would be crushed. Yet there is an element of suspense even in a lost cause. And the course of that battle was waited for with the keenest expectation. There was hope against hope that justice might somehow be done to the weaker of the two combatants and justice done at the expense of old Chris.
In the meantime, Chris could not help but go ahead. What he prized more than anything else in the world was the fear with which he was looked upon by his neighbors. That which he had spent his life working over was the subjugation of the men of the village so that they dreaded him more than they dreaded death. They were in the palm of his hand, and that sense of power was most delightful to Chris. He could observe the workings of his perfect system now. For no matter what black looks were cast upon him by the villagers, they dared not speak to him of what they thought. They were his men as absolutely as though he were a feudal lord and they his serfs. To maintain himself in that proud position, he must convince them that it was ruin to oppose him. And he could only convince them by promptly crushing young Willie Merchant.
He proceeded at once with the work at hand. He sent his men to erect stout fences that shut away the southwestern lands from his great water hole; now Willie might take care of himself as best he could. The gantlet was down.
After that, the contest was followed with the keenest anxiety in the town. The whole range heard of what was happening, and the whole range wondered how it would come out. Not a man, perhaps, who did not sympathize with Willie Merchant up to a certain point—but suppose that he were actually to cut fences and run off the cattle of the tyrant—what would happen then? What would the law do?
There was no appeal to the law for the time being, however. Willie saw his cattle grow wild of eye. They no longer ate. They waited in front of the fence that barred them from the water hole where they were so accustomed to go. Every day, Willie went out and watched them with an aching heart. Nothing tames the wild so much as thirst. It is more terrible than mere hunger, because it strikes sooner, and the pangs of its torments are sharper in the vitals. The thirsty cattle grew so gentle that they huddled together, but, when Willie dismounted and came among them, not a foot stamped and not a horn swung at him. It seemed to him that they turned their brute eyes upon him with a dumb appeal for help, he who had helped them so often, who brought them through the most terrible winters with a little extra forage, who got them up and scraped the chilling snow from their backs in hard weather, who pulled them from the bogs in spring, who was ever seen through the day, hovering somewhere against the horizon. And so long as that familiar silhouette was near, there was nothing to fear from the wolves. They dared not come near the eyes of the man.
Of course it was sheerest fancy, but it seemed to Willie that all of these things were running in the brains of his cattle as he walked among them.
At times the cowpunchers from the big Martin Ranch came down to the fence and sat calmly in their saddles there and viewed the dying herd. They tried to talk to Willie. But he could not speak a word to them. He knew that if he parted his lips, it would be to curse and rave like a madman. So he would not speak to them. Again he knew that, if he started to talk, his voice would break and he would weep like a woman—for he was very sensitive, very proud. He carried himself with a haughty air, with a chip on his shoulder, simply because he knew that his face was incurably boyish, and he was ashamed of that appearance. He loathed the weakness that made him come close to tears at every crisis. Shame is a terrible power that lives in the human soul, and it was what controlled the life of Willie Merchant.