by Brand, Max
Maria looked at her with wide, dark eyes.
“You were right,” she said. “There will be a killing. And Bandini will be the dead man!”
Then she fell to her work again.
But out in the garden, there never was a more tranquil face than that of Silvertip as he passed under the high grape arbors until he found a small corner table. All the rest of the little garden was filled with family groups, Americans, flavoring their food with hearty portions of the red, home-made wine of Martinelli. No one paid any attention to Silvertip as he passed. Americans lack the public curiosity of the Latins, and only unhappiness makes them aware of the outside world. A contented party is surrounded by an impenetrable wall of its own pleasure, as it were, and that wall is rarely peered over. So those ranchers, miners, town tradesmen and shopkeepers of Cruces, with their families about them, talked high or low, and paid no heed to Silvertip as he went by.
He, apparently, had no more eye for them, and yet he studied every face in turn, analyzed it, shaved a mustache here to see if the naked skin might bring out a dangerous likeness; put on a beard there for the same reason. By the time he had reached his corner table, he was fairly well convinced that he knew none of them, and that none of them knew him.
Still, as he sat down, he was by no means willing to relax. He measured the height of the wall behind him. He regarded the thickness of the arbor foliage, behind which a man might easily hide.
For Bandini was near, and Bandini would kill him by courage or by craft, if possible.
Antonio Martinelli came hobbling on his crippled leg. He embraced one of Silvertip’s hands in both of his. He leaned over Silver’s table, and beamed upon him.
“How are things?” said Silvertip.
“How can anything be bad with me? How can I ever complain?” said Martinelli. “I have a leg and a half, instead of no legs at all. Therefore we all thank God and Silvertip every day of our lives. Look! Here is the wine. If it is not beautiful, every drop, you shall have the blood out of my heart.”
Silvertip made him sit down at the table. They tried the wine together, Martinelli smacking his lips.
“What’s happening in there between Bandini and his friend?” asked Silvertip.
“It’s no friend that’s with Bandini,” said Martinelli. “All I know is that Bandini wants something out of that young Mexican, and can’t get it. But there’ll be trouble! There’ll be trouble!”
“I think so, too,” said Silvertip, with a voice filled with quiet meaning. “I wish you’d watch and listen as much as you can. And let me know if a break seems to be coming on.”
“You would help? You would stop the trouble?” asked Martinelli. “You know what one gun fight does — it spoils the name of a place. It takes away the cheerfulness. If people say: ‘Martinelli’s, where the man was killed the other day’ — if they say that, they will come to me no more. I’ll go and watch them like a hawk. I would give twenty dollars to have them under my eye as well as under my ear. I can only hear mumblings through the door, and very few words.”
He went off, and Maria came, bearing a plate, the grated cheese, the Bolognese sauce, and a great platter of spaghetti. She put all the dishes down, deftly, and arranged them without making a clatter, and yet all the time her thoughtful eyes were on the face of Silvertip, not on her automatic work.
She paused one instant, watching Silvertip lift from the platter the first white-dripping forkful of spaghetti and bring it over to his plate.
“You think of him still,” said the girl. “But he will not harm you if you keep away from him.”
She hurried away, as though frightened by her own boldness in giving an opinion, and the hazel-gray eyes of Silvertip watched her out of sight, before he moved his hand again.
He finished the spaghetti slowly. The goodness of the food to one who had eaten little except meat for many weeks, filled him again with that sleepy content against which he had to be so on guard. Finally he roused himself, as Martinelli came hobbling up the path, ducking under the trailing green of the arbor.
His face beamed a brighter red than before, as he exclaimed: “It is all finished; it is all well; and they’re in the saloon drinking together like brothers!”
“Are they?” said Silvertip. “Then the trouble is right on the verge of breaking. I know the sort of brotherhood there is in Bandini!”
He looked at his watch. It was nine thirty.
He finished his wine with a gulp, and rising from the table, with a swift, secret gesture he touched the revolver that hung under his coat. Martinelli gaped vaguely at the form that strode so quickly before him, and started to hobble in pursuit.
But Silvertip entered the barroom far ahead. One glance showed him that Bandini was not there, in the long irregular line of noisy drinkers. He called the bartender with a crooking of his forefinger.
“Bandini?” he said.
“Bandini’s just gone out with a young fellow, a friend who — ”
Silvertip waited to hear no more. He felt sure that the young fellow was now indeed in grave danger, so he slipped out of the swinging doors onto the street. He whipped that street from end to end with a rapid glance, and saw the mere fluttering of a cloak as a man passed from view. Bandini, after all, was awaiting him in the street!
That was enough for Silvertip. He ran like a greyhound to that corner. A dark, narrowly winding alley moved away on his left. He winced back a little from that darkness, as a kennel terrier might wince from the black tunnel of a fox’s earth. Then he hurried straight forward, stepping long and light, every nerve in his body made acute, every sense working with electric surety and speed.
Something moved before him. Heels ground against the earth. He saw the swaying of a cloak, dimly seen through the shadows.
“Are you ready?” cried Silvertip. “Then fill your hand!”
The form whirled toward him, the cloak fanning well out to the side. One hand rose, as if to let go with the gun it seemed to hold. The other did not rise.
“Take it then, damn you!” muttered Silvertip, and drawing, he fired.
The finger of red fire flicked out of the muzzle of the gun, as though pointing the way for the bullet with the death it carried. That flash showed Silvertip not the face of Bandini, but a dark-skinned, handsome youth. The horror in those wide eyes flashed at Silvertip for an instant, and then the inflooding darkness covered the falling body.
Silvertip could not move; he could not catch that weight before it struck solidly against the ground. The dust that puffed out under the impact rose in a cloud, acrid against the nostrils of Silvertip.
He kneeled and put his hand over the heart of the fallen body. There was no beat. The coat was wet and warm with blood.
Silvertip, still kneeling, lifted his head as though to listen, but he was not heeding any human sound, far or near. He had killed the man he would have protected. A vow was forming in his heart, filling his throat.
CHAPTER III
Cross and Snake Brand
WHEN Silvertip rose, he was carrying the loose weight of the body in his arms. He felt the sway of the hanging head, the swinging of the feet with every step he took. There was still the warmth of life coming out of the body. The weight made his own step loud and heavy, like the footfall of a stranger, to his ear; and already his heart was heavier, too, with the double burden which he had taken upon himself.
He rounded to the rear of the restaurant of Martinelli, and through a side door carried the dead man straight into the small room where, only a few minutes before, this youth and Bandini had been at dinner. Two crumpled napkins lay on the table, now, and a scattering of soiled dishes, and glasses dimly stained by wine.
He put the body down in a chair. The form sagged helplessly against him, the head hanging, the arms dropping straight down toward the floor. Still supporting the inert thing, he cleared half the table with a few sweeps of his arm; then he laid out the young Mexican in the free space.
The puncture in the coat
was a neat little round hole. There was not much blood anywhere on his clothing.
He straightened the legs and the arms. They did not seem to lie naturally along the side, so he folded them across the stomach of the dead man. The lips were still parted, as though in a gasp; the eyes of horror stared upward, unwinkingly, at the ceiling.
A footfall paused at the door; then Mrs. Martinelli’s scream rose in shrill, endless waves that cut ceaselessly through his whirling brain.
Other people came, running. He regarded them not at all. He closed the eyes, and they remained closed. He touched the tip of the chin, still soft and warm, and brought the lips together.
It was as though he had dragged the soul of the dead man up from hell to heaven, for it was a faintly smiling face, a happy, dreaming face. He was not more, this handsome young Mexican, than twenty or twenty-two; and the features were beautifully carved. There was strength and manliness in the face, also; and Silvertip felt that Fate, with sinister malice, had driven his bullet into one of the chosen men of the earth. If there had been a garden of weeds with one priceless flower blooming, he, like a blind gardener, had felled the once choice plant.
In a hundred years of striving, what could he do for the world that would equal the value of the life he had canceled?
Silvertip, stirring from his dream, took a handkerchief, and wiped the dust from the black, silky hair. There was still warmth in the brow, also. With every touch it seemed to Silvertip that the life could not actually have gone, that the forward running of the years could not have ended, as a river ends at the sea.
Silvertip himself was not so many years the senior of this dead man, yet he felt like an old man beside a child.
What would that child have grown into? Upon what labors would it have set its hands?
He regarded the soft, slender tapering of the fingers — far unlike his own hands.
And now, as he looked down at the still face, he laid his grip on the two hands which he had joined, and groaned.
Some great purpose burns in every soul; if only he could penetrate into the dead mystery of that mind, he swore, in that solemnity of silence, that he would undertake the unfinished labor of this life.
A voice broke in upon him. He looked up. People were staring at him, not at the dead man, for there was something in the face of Silver that filled them with awe.
It was the sheriff speaking.
“Silvertip, can you tell us about this?”
“I found the dead body in the alley one block down from the restaurant,” said Silvertip.
“Bandini!” cried the voice of young Piero Martinelli. “José Bandini was with him all the evening, right here in this room. Bandini did it.”
“Bandini?” said the sheriff. “Where is he?”
“Not Bandini,” said Silvertip firmly. “I saw him going down the street a minute or two before the shot was fired. It certainly wasn’t Bandini.”
“No,” said the bartender. “It couldn’t have been Bandini. He may have been arguing with this poor kid, but he stopped the arguing before they left the barroom. I seen them make up and shake hands. I seen Bandini go and take off his cloak and put it around the shoulders of this dead kid. I seen him do it, kind of like a gift, to show that he meant to be friends, honest and straight.”
Silvertip looked up, slowly, into the eyes of the bartender. The trick of Bandini had been too simple for belief. By that simple change of dress he had made another man walk in his own footsteps to meet a death that should have been his own.
It was not just chance that had killed this victim. It was not the hand of Silvertip, either, though he had fired the shot. It was Bandini’s craft that had performed the murder!
Silvertip drew in a great, slow breath.
The sheriff said again, slowly: “Silver, I know that it ain’t like you to be shootin’ gents in dark alleys. It ain’t your style or your cut. But you’ve used guns, plenty. Where was you, all the evening?”
“He was in there in the barroom,” said the bartender. “When the gun went off, I heard the shot. I heard it, but I didn’t think much about it. Silvertip hadn’t hardly got through the door.”
Silvertip looked into the broad, red face of the bartender and silently thanked him for that He.
“It’s goin’ to be one of them mysteries,” said the sheriff sadly. “We don’t even know who he is. Does anybody here know who he is?”
No one knew. So the sheriff started a careful examination of the pockets.
They revealed very little. There was a small pearl-handled pocket-knife which made some of the men smile a little. There was a little .32-caliber revolver of a bulldog model that would fit neatly into almost any pocket. There was a bill fold containing a hundred and forty-seven dollars. There was a gold watch of a fine Swiss make, with a delicately worked gold chain that had been simply dropped into the pocket that held the watch.
The sheriff pried open the back of the watch, examined it with care, and replaced it with the little heap of belongings.
He turned his baffled eyes upon Silvertip.
“Silver,” he said, “you look kind of cut up. Wasn’t he a friend of yours?”
“No,” said Silvertip. “He’s just so young — that’s all!”
He added: “Have you looked at his horse?”
They trooped out to the stable and found the horse. It was a high-headed queen of a mare, a blood bay with four black silk stockings on her legs and eyes like liquid diamonds that turned and shone in the lantern light. On one of her quarters was burned a cross with a wavering line under it.
“That’s the Cross and Snake brand of old Arturo Monterey, down in the Haverhill River country,” said the sheriff. “I know that brand! Maybe down there I could pick up a clew to the name of this gent. Why, it’s a fifty-mile ride.”
Silvertip touched the sheriff’s shoulder.
“I’ll go,” he said. ‘I’ve never been down there, but I know the way. I’ll take the outfit of that poor fellow; I’ll take his horse along, too.”
“Would the outfit and the horse arrive if you started with ’em?” asked the sheriff tersely.
Then, under the steady eye and the faint smile of Silvertip, he flushed.
“I didn’t mean that. It just sort of come popping out,” he explained. “Silver, no matter what some say about you, I’ll trust you around the world and back. When will you start?”
“Now,” said Silvertip.
“You mean in the morning?”
“I mean — now!”
The sheriff nodded slowly. “Something about this job has sort of burned you up, Silver, eh? Take the lot and start now, then, if you want to. Find old Arturo Monterey if you can. They say he’s a hard case; I dunno in what way. But find out if he remembers selling a hoss like this to anybody, and the name of the hombre that got it. That’s all. Then you’ll come back here and let me know?”
“I’ll come back,” said Silvertip.
He was lifting his saddle off a peg as he spoke, and the sheriff, after pausing for a last glance at his messenger, went back to the restaurant and the dead body, the curious crowd following him. Only the red-faced bartender remained.
“I would have been in the soup,” Silvertip told him curtly. “Thanks for that lie.”
“You did the job, eh?” said the bartender, leaning against the manger on one hand and peering into the face of Silver.
“I did the job.”
“Thinking it was Bandini?”
“Yes.”
The bartender nodded his head slowly. “A kind of an idea come over me,” he said. “A kind of an idea that there was a dirty trick in the brain of Bandini when he give that kid his cloak. He ain’t the kind that gives something for nothing.”
“You saved my neck,” said Silver.
“That’s all right,” said the bartender. “But I’d kind of like to ask you a question.”
“Anything you like.”
“You got something in your mind, Silver. What’s dragging
you down into that hell hole, the Haverhill?”
“Because there’s a brand on the boy’s horse; and the brand come out of the Haverhill Valley, they say.”
“Yeah, that’s all right. But there’s something more on your mind than that. What’s on your mind, Silver?”
“I’ve killed a man,” said Silver.
“According to yarns, he ain’t the first.”
“I’ve had fights with men who were born with guns in their hands,” said Silvertip. “I’ve fought in the dark, too, as far as that goes. But this was no fight. It wasn’t murder, either. There can’t be a murder except when there’s murder in your mind. I was sure he had drawn on me. What was it, then?”
“It was just a kind of a wiping out of the poor young gent,” suggested the bartender.
“I wiped him out,” said Silvertip slowly. “And by the look of him, he was a better man than I’ll ever be. What can I do? Two things, partner, and, by heavens, I’m going to do them!”
“Two things?” said the bartender.
“If I can find out his name and the lives that he fitted into, I can find out at the same time what he was meant to do in the world. By the look of him, that would be something too fine for my hands. But whatever his job was, I can try to do it, partner.”
The bartender shrugged.
“I see what you mean, Silver,” said he. “And a doggone strange thing it seems to me. Now, supposing that this here gent, maybe, has got a wife and a coupla brats stowed away somewhere? What would you do? Marry the widow?”
“Work for her and the youngsters,” said Silvertip solemnly, “till I rubbed the flesh off the bones of my hands.”
“Would you?” said the bartender. “Well, you beat me. But that ain’t queer. You beat most people. Well, that’s the first thing you wanta do. Mind telling me the second?”
“I’ll tell you,” said Silvertip, through his teeth, and suddenly in a cold rage. “You ought to be able to guess, though.”
“I know,” agreed the bartender, “Bandini is the bird that fixed up this job on you. You never would ‘a’ picked out the kid for a gun play except that he was wearing the cloak — and Bandini must ‘a’ known that. Are you going after him?”