by Brand, Max
“You shall be glad I am with you,” said Silver, “every time you eat the food I cook.”
He bowed again, and, looking up through the overhanging of his forelock, he studied the face of the man who within this week had sent a rifle bullet inches from his head. There was murder in that thin, handsome face. There were infinite possibilities of treachery in the uncertain brightness of the eyes. And behind all, there was a quick flame of intelligence. If he were to pull the wool over these eyes continually, Silver knew that he would have to be on guard constantly. He would have to live like a dog with a wolf, never knowing when the teeth would be in his throat.
But behind this man, somehow and somewhere, loomed the form of the girl. Perhaps it was in the handwriting of Lorens that the words had been written: “-out fail in Kirby Cr — ” And perhaps through this man, also, Silver could come in touch with him who had encompassed the death of Buck, and whose name began with “Nel — ”
Danger breathed now out of the very air, but opportunity was in it, also.
Chapter 11
Luck favored Silver in the execution of his first domestic duties for Lorens. He took the rifle of Lorens, a beautiful weapon, and walked ten minutes, straight through the woods, when a stag sprang out of a covert hardly twenty yards from him. Silver let it run until his bead was perfect. and then sank the bullet behind the shoulder.
The stag was young, but when all the less choice parts were discarded, there remained more than two hundred pounds of good, edible meat. Silver loaded himself with half of it and brought it close to the shack of Lorens. He went back and got the other half. After resting, he put the whole crushing burden on his shoulders. He stepped out from among the trees and came up to the shack with a swinging stride.
Lerons was sitting cross-legged under a tree, smoking a pipe. He sprang up with an exclamation.
“Venison, man? Venison, Juan?”
“It is not veal,” said Silver, putting down the load.
“That’s something Jose could never get for me,” said Lorens. “He said that the deer were all frightened out of the valley, long ago.”
“You know, señor,” said Silver, “that we never find what we do not hope for. But I, Juan, will keep you in venison.”
“There’s enough there for a whole camp!” exclaimed Lorens.
He tried to pick up the burden, and it slipped out of his straining hands.
“Great guns!” said Lorens under his breath, and with profound awe stared at Silver askance. He had heard the rifle crack in the far distance; he had seen his new man come swinging in with a light, long stride, carrying that weight and hardly breathing under it. He began to look now at the lean shanks of Silver.
“Some men are different,” Silver heard him mutter. “The way mules are smaller and stronger than horses, or cats are stronger than dogs!”
On venison steaks broiled to crust outside and of a melting tenderness within, they dined that night, with potatoes fried crisp, and cress from the edge of the running water, and thick, strong black coffee. And Lorens declared that he had not properly eaten since he had left—
The name of the city remained unspoken, but Silver did not think it would be hard to fit in the name of the metropolis where this gambler had been plying his trade. For all his good looks, the man had the manner and something of the look of a rat that had lived underground most of its days.
He said, as they sipped coffee — Silver sitting farther from the fire than his employer as though out of respect, but in reality because he wished to have his face studied as little as possible: “Juan, tell me something of your old life down there in Mexico, will you?”
Silver pretended a distress which was not altogether unreal. Then he said: “Ask me for my blood, señor, but do not ask me for my past. The old days are rope that is made: the new days are rope that is in the winding; my past may not please you, but the new rope may be what you want.”
“For hanging myself?” asked Lorens.
The question was so apt that Silver started, but Lorens was already laughing at his own remark.
“You’re right, Juan,” said Lorens. “The fellow who talks about his past is not likely to have much of a future. Here’s a poor devil who’s had a past, I suppose. A batch of these posters came to town to-day. Fast work on the printing press, eh?”
He put on the ground before Silver a picture of a man of not more than thirty, with a strong, dignified, even a refined face, with every capacity of thought and feeling indicated in it. But the big print offered a reward of five thousand dollars for the apprehension of this man dead or alive. The name was David Holman, and Silver remembered hearing that this was the criminal who had recently broken out of the penitentiary, less than a hundred miles away.
“What d’you think of that face?” asked Lorens.
“He is too strong to be only a little good, or a little bad,” said Silver. “He must be everything or nothing.”
Lorens picked up the poster, and looked from it suddenly and piercingly at Silver.
“You’re no fool, Juan,” he said.
Then he added, half to himself: “Dead or alive! Dead or alive! Think of that! These fellows around here will hunt for a week, every day, for the sake of bagging a timber wolf that only has a ten-dollar bounty on his scalp. Dead or alive, and five thousand dollars for the lucky fellow who draws a dead bead and pulls the trigger! Eh, Juan?” he said, making his voice suddenly cheerful. “That would be a handsome bit of money to have down yonder in Mexico, where things are cheaper!”
Silver shook his head with real distaste.
“Blood money, señor!” said he. “I have killed men, but never for money.”
“No?” said Lorens.
“No,” said Silver. “Never for money. And I never shall.”
“But five thousand dollars! That’s a fortune!”
“It would all taste of blood!” said Silver.
Lorens began to brood again, the lower part of his face propped up in the flat of his hand, and his eyes lifting suddenly, now and again, to his companion. At last he said: “Juan, I have to be in two places at once to-night.”
“Yes, señor,” said Silver.
“One place is in Kirby Crossing. One is right here in this camp. Understand?”
“A man’s body cannot be in two places at once,” said Silver.
“One of me will have to be you.”
“Yes, señor.”
“Juan, I’ve known you only for a few hours, but I’m going to trust you. I want you to go into Kirby Crossing and at ten o’clock stand across the street from the hotel. You hear me? At ten o’clock. And stay there the rest of the night if you have to. Can you do that without closing your eyes?”
“Once,” said Silver dreamily, “for four days there were men around a little nest of rocks. If I so much as nodded, they knew it and crawled closer.”
Lorens grinned, a quick contortion of the face that became still again at once.
“As you wait there,” said Lorens, “two or three times an hour you’ll be smoking a cigarette.”
“Yes, señor.”
“Well, then, every time you light a cigarette, take two matches under your finger and scratch them both — so that the two will burn at the same time.”
“I hear you, señor.”
“After a time — I don’t know when — I think that a woman will come up to you. She will ask for Charlie. You’ll tell her that you come in his name.”
“Does she speak Spanish, señor?”
“Enough to understand that.”
“How shall I know that she is the right woman?”
“If she’s young, pretty, and holds her head high, with her chin up a bit, you’ll know that she’s the right one.”
“I understand,” said Silver, his heart beginning to beat fast. For who could it be except Edith Alton Kenyon, that cunning trickster? And he wished, in a sudden moment of savage rage, that poor Ned Kenyon could be sitting here to listen to the words from Lorens.<
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“You can go now,” said Lorens. “Buy two horses and two saddles. How much will they cost — two mighty good ones?”
“Five hundred dollars apiece,” said Silver.
Lorens grunted. “That’s worse than blood money. I mean something around a hundred and fifty dollars.”
“It can be done, señor. There are horses for gentlemen and there are horses for Juan. I shall buy two horses for Juan.”
“That’s it. Put the girl on one of ‘em, and bring her out here.”
He took out a wallet and counted the money, while Silver scowled at the fire. He liked this very little. The man was, in fact, trusting him. And to betray the trust even of a fellow who had tried to put a bullet through his head, went sore against the grain.
“Here’s four hundred,” said Lorens. “And that’s a lot of money for me just now. Do your best with it.”
“I shall bring a hundred dollars back,” said Silver, “And still you’ll be satisfied.”
“I don’t want a hundred back. Spend all of it. Or if you can satisfy me with less, put the change in your pocket. You can go now. Buy the horses, and be opposite the hotel at ten o’clock, ready to wait there until the morning, if it should so happen you have to.”
“In all things, as you please, señor,” said Silver.
He took the money and counted it, and rose to his feet.
“One more thing,” cautioned Lorens harshly. “I’m giving you enough money to tempt you a little, perhaps. But you remember this: You’ve been a big man in your own country, but you’re not a big man in this one. And if you try to run out on me, I’ll have the scalp off your head and the marrow out of your bones — I’ll have it, and there are plenty who’ll help me to get it!”
His thin face wrinkled like an old leaf with sudden malice as the mere thought of his promised vengeance passed through his mind.
“Señor,” said Silver, “only a fool promises. A wise man waits to have judgment passed on his deeds.”
“All right, all right,” muttered Lorens. “You sound like a copy book. I’ll see what you bring home to me from Kirby Crossing!”
Chapter 12
Silver went back to Kirby Crossing on the run. He only slackened his pace to walk with his long stride through the town, and he lingered an instant to watch the strange spectacle of the building of a bridge by night, for the work was being pressed twenty-four hours a day. Lanterns hung in a long festoon over the timbers. The great underlogs were being wedged and bound in place, and the bridge began to look like a skeleton of what it would finally appear.
Silver went on past it. He entered the dark of the open country in the lower part of the valley, and here he sprang again into his Indian trot that shifted ground rapidly behind him. When he was not far from the lean-to which he and One-eyed Harry had put on, he whistled. And from the dark of the brush sprang Parade, and came racing, with a whinny.
He went round and round Silver like a bird in the air about to settle on a nest. He was dancing and snorting, with the hand of his master on his shoulder, when big Harry Bench came out of the lean-to. In the dark he looked more gigantic than ever.
“Silver?” he called. “Man, man, that hoss has been about crazy while you was away. He’s come smelling around the shack, and he’s still-hunted your trail down the valley. Where you been, brother?”
Silver went into the lean-to and sat on a homemade stool in the corner. The stallion stood with head and shoulders intruding through the doorway.
“I’m up the valley on the other side of the Crossing,” said Silver. “Take a look at me! I’m Juan, the greaser, who works for a fellow named Lorens. I’ve got two minutes to spend here, and no more than that. I have to get back. I’m working for a fellow with an eye like a hawk and the wit of a prairie coyote. One day, when I was wearing a white skin, this same Lorens put a bullet inches from my ear and then ran out on me. Just now he doesn’t know me, but if he guesses that I’m lying to him, or that my skin is not as dark as it seems to be, he’ll take the first good chance to shoot me in the back.”
“What in the nation do you wanna waste your time on him, then?” said One-eyed Harry, lifting his huge voice.
“Because,” said Silver, “I’m on the outside edge of a regular whirlpool, old-timer. Lorens is the edge of the whirl, and if I stick to him, I think I may be drawn into the middle of the pool.”
“And who the devil wants to be drowned in a whirlpool?” demanded Harry, staring.
“Call it a dance instead of a whirlpool,” said Silver, “and all of the dancers wear knives, and I’m blindfolded, and I never know what tune they’ll strike up next, or where they’ll step. But there’s a lying crook of a woman, a murderer, and somebody who’s tried to murder me. They’re all elements in the job, and I don’t know how many other forces are behind ‘em. You can see that it’s a pretty picture, Harry!”
“You like it!” exclaimed One-eyed Harry Bench. “Doggone me if you don’t like it a lot. Kind of makes your eye shine just to think of that dance, eh? That kind of a job is just like pork and beans to you, ain’t it?”
“Like it?” said Silver. “Of course I don’t like it. I’m likely to lose my hide any minute, and my head along with it.”
“You like it,” said Harry Bench, pointing with his huge, grimy hand. “That’s the game for you, the way poker is the game for the small-time gambler. You ain’t happy, by thunder, unless your life is on the table as the stakes.”
He took a step toward Silver and shook his hand at him. A sort of horrified realization came over that rugged face as Bench said:
“You’re goin’ to keep after them, you’re goin’ to keep playin’ that game till you’re killed. You know that, Silver? You’re goin’ to play with the fire till you’re burned to the bone. What makes you such a fool? You can’t keep ten knives in the air all your life. One of ‘em is bound to fall sometime and stick right into your heart. Hear me talk?”
“Hear you?” said Silver, apparently irritated. “Of course I hear you, and you’re talking like a half-wit, Harry. I’m not up there with that tiger cat, Lorens, for pleasure. I’m up there because there’s a crooked game in the wind, and because a friend of mine has suffered on account of it already. That’s why I’m there!”
“If you’re not in that mess, you’re in another one. It’s always the frying pan or the fire for you, Silver!”
Silver started to deny the charge, but as he parted his lips to speak, his glance went inward upon his life and showed him the crowded story of his past in such pictures that he was suddenly mute. It was true. All of his days he had played with fire. He could tell himself that he was simply following the courses which chance led him into, but why was it that every trail he put his feet on was a trail of danger?
So he was mute for an instant, seeing those pictures, and out of the past reading the future. For what big Harry Bench had said was indubitably true. No man could continue to play with fire without being finally burned to an ash.
Gradually he drew himself out of the dark humor and scowled up at One-eyed Harry. Bench was pacing back and forth, taking the breadth of the little room in three strides, and whirling on his heel and toe. For all the size and the bulk of that man, he as as active as a big cat. Silver vaguely admired the magnificence of that physique, so swift and yet so massive. He himself had the strength of two men in his arms, but he knew that in the grasp of this giant he would crumble like sand.
“Somebody has oughta watch out after you,” said Bench. “There had oughta be friends to keep you hobbled. Even your hoss has to stay and worry about you!”
Silver looked toward the sooty muzzle, the beautiful, deerlike eye of the stallion, and smiled. “Harry,” said Silver, “maybe there’s a lot in what you say. The more I think about it, the more I agree with you. I’ve got to stop my crazy ways. And I’m going to do it. Believe me, partner? This is the last job that I take over on my hands, no matter how the luck tries to drag me into trouble.”
“S
ure!” growled Harry Bench. “That’s what you say now. But you’ll be changing your mind one of these days. If you got sense, you’ll stay here and let Lorens go hang.”
“He won’t go hang, and I want the job of the hanging,” said Silver. “If I don’t hang him myself, I want to point him out to the hangman, and turn him over with his hands tied behind his back, if he’s the sort that I think I can prove he is! Now stop talking about me. I want to ask you a question.”
“Fire away.”
“There’s a fellow named David Holman — ”
“That just escaped from the death house at the prison. Yeah. I know about that.”
“I’ve an idea that my friend, Lorens, up the valley, has a sort of an interest in Mr. Holman. What put Holman in the death house? What did he do?”
“Oh, nothin’ much,” said One-eyed Harry. “He come out from the East to be a cashier in a bank over in Tuckaway. Pickin’ up experience, you see? But he wanted to pick up some hard cash, too. And he took it out of the vaults. After a while he was pretty far in the hole, and so this here Holman, he planned to have the bank robbed, and, of course, the robbery would cover up what he’d stole.
“So he got a pair of yeggs to work with him, and one night him and them robbed the bank, all right. But it happened that Sheriff Bert Philips was riding back into town that night, after chasin’ a half-breed hoss thief a coupla hundred miles and never sighting him. And he seen three men sneakin’ out from the rear of the bank, and he hollered out to them. They ducked away to their horses and run for it. He followed and yelled for help, and some gents who were havin’ a late night of it at a saloon, they come out and joined in the chase. And then there was a long run and the three of ‘em got away for the time being.
“But the chase was so long that this here Dave Holman didn’t have a chance to fill in his plan, which was to be back in his home in bed when the day begun, with his split of the swag stowed away somewhere safe. He was still on the run at sunup. And then he says to himself, that as long as he’s goin’ to be found out, he’d better be caught for a sheep than for just a lamb. So he ups and murders them two gents, and takes their share of the loot, and lights out with it. And the sheriff and his posse comes along while there’s still a spark of life in one of the dyin’ gents, and this feller tells about the holdup, and how Holman had planned it, and how Holman had murdered them. And the sheriff, he follers on, and gets a sight of Holman on a dead-beat horse, and runs him down and hauls him in.