Old Carver Ranch

by Max Brand

  This last was called forth by the hasty rising of Jerry from his chair as though he would seek refuge in flight—anything to avoid facing the deadly eyes and the low, muttering voice of Tom. But he slumped back at once and sat, half cowering in terror, half crouched in rage, and Tom guessed, and guessed correctly, that if his own head turned for the slightest part of a second the slender hand of Jerry Swain would fly for the revolver on his hip. For what could be easier than to avoid any ill consequences from the shooting of an ex-criminal such as he? No court would convict him.

  But not for a moment did his glance waver from the evil and contorted features of the rich rancher’s son.

  “Look me in the eye, Swain,” he ordered. “I’ve gone through eight years of a pretty steady torment. Do you think I’ll let you stand between me and the Carvers now? No, no, man. Think again. I’ll break that expensive back of yours first. You hear?”

  Jerry gasped and winced back. It was impossible for him to think of gun play now. His hands were trembling far too much.

  “When she comes in next, Swain,” went on Tom, “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to say to her … ‘Mary, I’ve been talking to Mister Kenyon, and I’ve changed my mind. I can’t marry a cook.”

  “Say that to her? I’d rather have my tongue torn out.”

  “That’s what you think now. But you’ll think otherwise in a moment. If you don’t, at the least I’ll turn in what I know about you to the sheriff tomorrow. That’s the least, and that least means arrest and jail for you.”

  “It means exposure of you as a jailbird, also.”

  “What is exposure to me, Swain? It’s nothing. I only assumed a different name so that I could get the Carvers into my power. Now the name means nothing to me. But to you, Jerry? What would your father say if that arrest should take place?”

  Jerry Swain started in his chair, and his eyes became as bright as the eyes of a cornered rat.

  “Keene,” he said, “you devil … you fiend.”

  “But more than that,” Tom said. “If you should fail to say to her what I’ve told you to say, you would have an immediate reckoning with me, Swain. And that might be worse than facing your father, even.”

  Jerry Swain stared at him with eyes so eager that they would have pierced to the meaning behind a mask, but Tom Keene, trained in the deception of prison guards, trained by living a lie for five years, a lie from which he never deviated a step, presented an unreadable face to him.

  And, before Swain could speak again, Tom poured a brimming glass of whiskey and pushed it toward his guest. “Drink!” he commanded.

  Automatically the other obeyed. The whiskey disappeared. And, as though at a signal—as though this were her cue to come out upon the stage—Mary entered from the kitchen. The lifting of Tom’s forefinger furnished the signal, and then, as though infuriated by the predicament in which he found himself, Jerry Swain grew spotted white and red with rage. It gave a wonderful reality to his tone and to his words.

  “I’ve been talking things over with my friend, Mister Kenyon,” he said, “and I’ve made up my mind, Mary, that I can’t marry a cook. I suppose you’ll understand.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  In justice even to Jerry Swain it must be said that he had no sooner spoken than the full horror of what he had done rushed upon him. He scowled down at the table, then reached hastily for the bottle and filled himself a glass of whiskey unbidden.

  Tom Keene glanced with grim satisfaction at Mary Carver. She had halted in the middle of the floor, but, as the meaning of the words of Jerry Swain reached her, it seemed to Tom that her first reaction was one of astonishment, then joy. Only after this did she feel shame.

  When she had gone out again, Jerry Swain pried himself up from the table, resting heavily upon his hands. The whiskey had all at once taken possession of him. His face was bestial.

  “This isn’t the end,” he declared. “You and I will settle this account later on. My father … he’ll take a hand … and then …” He could no longer speak, but, turning away, he stumbled for the door.

  And Tom, following lest the other should turn around as soon as he was in concealment and attempt a shot from behind, saw his victim stagger down the steps, drag himself up the side of his horse, and slump heavily forward in his saddle. No sooner had the dark of the night closed behind his form than Tom turned back to the table and rang the bell for Mary Carver.

  She came at once and stood just inside the door. Plainly she had spent the interval in thinking hard upon the probable consequences of what Jerry Swain had just done, for now she was whiter than ever, and that wretched, haunted look was in her eyes. Tom motioned her forward, and she came a little closer before she halted, always with her eyes fastened upon him in dread.

  He observed this without concern. That he was being brutal in the most vicious sense of the term did not at all disturb him. What was of importance in his estimation was simply that he had succeeded in reducing her to the proper state of subjection, and that he could now use her as a tool at his will. Also, he felt he had turned the first great counterattack of the enemy with the most consummate skill. He had made Jerry Swain destroy himself.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to her, “but a man can’t prevent his guests from making beasts of themselves. I’m sorry that Swain hurt you. You can be sure that he’ll never have the opportunity to do so again.”

  She did not answer. She merely watched him. And that quiet watching seemed to Tom more eloquent than words. He would see that terrified and horrified glance again, he was sure; he would see it in his unhappy dreams. And yet there was an unfathomable patience about her. It was as though she had some resource of strength that was hidden away from the observation of the world, but that was nevertheless real.

  “You can talk out to me,” he said. “I know you want to talk. Then tell me what’s going on inside your mind. Did you ever dream that there was a man in the world low enough to conceive such a thing … to jilt the woman he was engaged to at the table of another man? Tell me, Mary, did you dream that there were men of such caliber in the world?”

  She still paused. Her glance went down to the floor, then flickered up to him. “I might as well tell you now,” she said. “When you sit on this side of the table … where you are now … the other side of the room acts as a sounding board. And it throws the sound of every voice clearly in the kitchen. I heard you tell him what to say.”

  That was all. She spoke without raising her voice. She spoke apparently without malignant hatred. Yet, Tom felt as though he had been struck on either cheek with a light but stinging hand, so hot was his flush.

  “I had a reason for it,” he said gloomily, to justify himself. “I had to make him show you what a hound he is. Good Lord, Mary, you couldn’t be married to a fellow like him. It would be absurd. There’s more manhood in five minutes of you than in five years of Jerry Swain. And that’s why I made him break with you. But what will you do when he comes cringing and crawling to you and trying to make up?”

  “I don’t think he will,” said the girl.

  “You don’t?”

  “I do not.”

  It thrilled him strangely to hear her talk. “Come,” he said, “sit down here at the table and tell me what is going on in that strange mind of yours. Sometimes I feel that you’re not thinking or feeling at all. But then, again, something like this happens and makes me know that you are thinking, thinking, thinking, all the time. Sit down.”

  She moved hastily to obey him. But she paused before she sat down. “It will be much better for me to stand here,” she told him.

  He did not insist. “Tell me why you think he won’t come back?”

  “Because,” she answered, “cowards are ashamed to show that they are cowards.”

  “Cowards are … By heaven, that’s deep.” He leaned his heavy head upon his doubled fist.
“You see he’s a coward, well enough. But cowards are proud. Yes, that’s true. They’re proud. They dare not allow themselves to believe that the world knows what they are. So you’re sure about it? He won’t come back to you?”

  “I think not.”

  “But if he did come back … a yellow-livered hound such as he’s proven himself … what would you do then, Mary?”

  “Go with him,” she answered without the slightest hesitation. “I should follow him if he came to me.”

  “What? Follow him? You’d do that? Why, Mary, life with him would be torture for a proud, brave girl like you.”

  “There are others to think of,” she said. “There are others to whom I owe a great deal.”

  “Your mother and father, eh? You would marry him. And then, through his father’s money, they would be saved from me. Is that the way your thought runs?”

  And she astonished him beyond measure by replying with the most perfect calm: “Yes.”

  It actually brought him up out of his chair, and he went around the table with great strides until he stood before her and towering above her.

  “What the devil do you mean by that, Mary? What do you think I am here for?”

  She did not answer, but neither did she wince. She faced him steadily, her eyes held firmly upon his. He could not press that question home, and he reverted to another.

  “You’d go with him … and yet you don’t love him, Mary.”

  “No.”

  “I can’t make you out. It’s blasphemy for you to marry a man you don’t love.”

  She did not answer. He felt that he could only drag words from her now and then. And he felt, also, the ceaseless movement of her brain, weighing him and judging him and seeing through and through him.

  “The whole truth is,” he guessed suddenly, “that you are already in love. Is that it?”

  “Yes.” Once more she shocked him with astonishment.

  “You are? In the name of … how long have you been?”

  “For several years.”

  “For several years? Something carried out of your girlhood, then? Someone of whom you have never told a soul?”

  “I have never spoken of him … only to you.”

  “Not even to your mother?”

  “No.”

  “Then why is it you tell me?”

  “Because it is better that I should tell you everything I can.”

  “That will make it easier when things come up that you can’t tell me?”

  “Yes.”

  He fell back a half pace so that he could study her with greater care, but she baffled him still further. There was a thousand times more to her silence than he had been able to guess. His imagination began to reach at the truth about her in great strides, but still he fumbled vaguely and could not be sure. Only he felt that there was something unique in her, something that no other woman in the world possessed.

  “In the old days,” he said at length, “you would have been a martyr, I guess. You would have been one of those who died singing … at the stake. That’s all.”

  He dismissed her with a wave and went out under the stars. He could not have remained another moment in that room without pain.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  It was a sobered and trembling Jerry Swain that reached his home later that night. In the first place, he had never arrived at a point of drunkenness so complete that he did not realize what would happen if his father saw him in such a condition. Not that the stern old rancher was a teetotaler, but he despised beyond measure those who could not put a limit upon their desires for food and drink.

  So he had diverted his horse from the home road and gone on a roundabout way. Before he had ridden half an hour, he dismounted beside a trough and put his head under a faucet. This refreshed him, and, when he rode on, the water, evaporating from his head and face, cooled him wonderfully.

  Only one grisly danger faced him, and that was that he had to encounter his father before he went to bed. It was an old rule and an inviolable one in the Swain household that, no matter how late he came home, he must say good night to his father. He could not shrink from it. Moreover, Jerry Swain Sr. was quite apt to be up, for, as age and disease rapidly weakened him, and as he was in constant pain, he dreaded the loneliness and the long anguish of his bed and cut his portion of sleep shorter and shorter. And still to the very last he was clinging to the regime that, in the opinion of his preceptor, was to make him die a cultured man even if he did not live to enjoy that quality. Therefore, he stole long and vitally needed hours from his sleep and gave them to his study. And here it was, in fact, that his son found him on this dreadful night. He strove to pass off the meeting casually.

  He simply opened the door, depending upon the distance and the dimness of the lamplight to veil his face from his father, and upon the great effort that he made, to cover any inequalities in his voice.

  “Well, sir,” he said, “here I am back. Nothing important to report, though. Besides, I’m horribly fagged. I’ll tell you about the trip in the morning, if you don’t mind.”

  “Certainly, Jerry,” his father said kindly. “Good night.”

  “Good night,” breathed Jerry.

  He closed the door, feeling that heaven had interceded for him. But, even as he closed it, he heard the small, sharp voice calling, “Jerry! Oh, Jerry!”

  It was the breathless quality of the tone in which he said, “Good night,” that caught the watchful ear of the other. He opened the door once more, grinding his teeth. Then he mustered himself for a strong effort.

  “Well, sir?” he asked cheerily.

  He found that his father, suspicious, was sitting erect in the chair, but, at the sound of that cheerful, steady voice, he sank back again. But still he glared from beneath knitted brows at his son.

  “Did you see Mary?” asked Jerry Swain Sr.

  “Yes. But in the morning …”

  “Well …” began the father.

  And then something caught his eye. It did not make him sit up, but he settled even deeper into his easy chair and with a gesture bade the younger man approach. Jerry Jr., with a feeling that the greatest crisis in his life was upon him, went slowly, slowly across the room. And still he acted a part as well as he could. He covered a yawn.

  “Tired out from riding all day and talking,” he remarked through the yawn, and he dropped his hands upon the back of a chair and rested there, directly in front of his father but, in a cunningly chosen position, deeply buried in shadow.

  The long, lean-fingered hand of Jerry Swain Sr. went out and lifted the shade from the lamp. At once the son shrank from that blasting, betraying flood of radiance. He knew, as he bowed his head, that his father had seen the stains where the water had dripped across his coat and shirt, and that the cool eye of the old man had dwelt upon the tousled, uncombed hair. He was lost, utterly lost. And he waited for the blow to fall. To his amazement, the shadow rushed again over him as the shade was replaced on the lamp. He heard his father saying, almost gently, “Sit down, Jerry.”

  He slumped into a chair, more unnerved by surprise and anticipation than he would have been by the actual berating that he felt to be hanging over his head.

  “Look at me.”

  He dragged his glance up and forced it to reach to the face of his father.

  “Jerry, you’ve been drunk.”

  “Drunk?”

  “That’s what I say. I say that you’ve been drunk again … you’ve made a beast of yourself again.”

  The alcohol half paralyzed the brain of Jerry, not by its presence, but by the aftermath. He felt a sense of weakness running to his fingertips. He knew that he was beginning to shake. Unless he got away quickly, he would be utterly lost. But what could he say? What could he do?

  “You found Mary?” asked his father, suddenly leaving the subject of t
he drinking incomplete, and bewildering Jerry the more by the shift.

  “Yes,” he breathed.

  “And she said?”

  “Yes.” The word slipped from Jerry against his will. He would have given thousands to recall it, but it was spoken.

  The effect upon his father was magic. He leaped out of his chair, rejuvenated. He ran to Jerry, caught both his hands, and wrung them.

  “Heaven be praised, Jerry!” he cried. “This one good day’s work outbalances all the bad ones that you’ve done before. No wonder you’ve celebrated … and if you’ve gone too far, I can forgive you this once. It’s human to err. Go up to bed, then, and sleep until you’re fit to walk and talk again. Then we’ll go over things in detail. I want to know each scruple of everything that happened.”

  He fairly lifted Jerry from the chair and urged him toward the door, but, just as they reached that door and apparent salvation for Jerry, there was another change on the part of the suspicious father.

  “You seem all-fired calm about it,” he declared. “What’s wrong with you, Jerry? What’s going on inside your head?” Suddenly he stopped and halted his son. “Jerry, have you lied?”

  It seemed to Jerry that he would go mad unless he escaped at once from that prying tongue.

  “I haven’t lied. She said she’d marry me. But then she changed her mind … I mean I told her …”

  “By heaven, I think you changed yours!” He flung the taller and younger and stronger man from him. “What sort of fool are you?” he panted out.

  Jerry was fast falling into a state of collapse. “It was Keene,” he said, only desperately eager to shift the blame to the shoulders of another. “It was that devil, Tom Keene.”

  “What? Tom Keene? The White Mask?” shouted his father. “What has that murderer to do with Mary Carver?”