Man From Mustang

by Brand, Max

  “Come on!” cried Bench, “or I’ll start draggin’ him by myself!”

  He began, in fact, to stride forward, trailing one end of the poles behind him.

  “Go on,” said Kenyon. “It’s what I want you to do!”

  Still, for an instant, she hesitated.

  “Heaven will never forgive me for what I’ve done to you! But can you forgive me, Ned?” she asked him.

  Holman was crying out wildly, ordering Bench to drop the litter, swearing that he would not accept a life given to him in this fashion. Kenyon took the girl by the arm and waved her toward Holman.

  “He’s a better man than me,” said Kenyon. “Go help him. Forgive you? They’re ain’t anything to forgive. God bless you; good-by!”

  She seemed to Kenyon, suddenly, like a child that stared up with incredulous wonder, and awe. What she said, he could not understand, because her voice was choked. And then she was gone, and Kenyon stood looking down at the hand which she had kissed.

  He saw her pick up the dragging poles of the litter, and so the group disappeared around the corner of the wall of the ravine, and the protesting voice of Holman grew faint. At the same time, the clanging hoofs of many horses came roaring into the upper end of the valley.

  Kenyon looked up at the sky, where the moon made it pale with light. He looked down at the walls of the canyon, one black as ink, one shimmering softly with the moonshine. He felt that he was about to die, and this picture was in some manner entering his very soul.

  There was only one bit of shelter for him — a fallen boulder that projected two feet or more above the sand. Behind that he stretched himself and put the rifle to his shoulder. And then he saw them come pouring — a great sweep of horsemen, darkly silhouetted against the moonlight wall of the ravine. He fired three shots and waited.

  They were not aimed shots. He was no good with a rifle. Besides, he had no intention of shooting to kill. And he drew a great breath of relief when he saw the cavalcade split away to either side, suddenly, as though the prow of an invisible ship had cloven a way through them, pushing them back under the shadows of the cliffs. He saw one man dismount and begin to climb by a crevice up the sheer face of the ravine wall. That would be the end — when that fellow gained the top of the wall and could shoot down at an easy angle into the body of the man who blocked the passing of the ravine. But Ned Kenyon did not turn and run for his life. If there were fear in him, he could not recognize its presence, but all he felt was a calm happiness that had no regard whatever for the future.

  Chapter 25

  It took one hour for a horseman to get from Tuckaway to Kendal Mountain. It took forty minutes for Silver to rush out from the town on the back of Parade. As he reached the abandoned camping place, he heard the rifles open in the ravine below. So he swept down from the heights like a hawk from the upper air, and came into the narrow ravine where the guns boomed like small cannon. Then, at an elbow turn of the wall, he had a chance to view the scene in detail, without being looked at himself.

  Close under the walls of the ravine, chiefly on the side where the shadow made a black apron, a dozen or fifteen men were taking shelter behind brush, or behind fragments of rock that had fallen from the cliffs above. Their rifles spurted little jets of fire, now and then. In answer to them there was an occasional shot from a point where the canyon narrowed until the wall of it seemed to be leaning together. Those solitary shots were fired by big Harry Bench and Kenyon, of course, and beyond the narrows of the ravine would be the wounded Dave Holman, and the girl.

  Now Silver saw the greatest threatening danger — the small silhouette of a man who was climbing the eastern wall of the ravine, working himself up on the jags of a deep crevice. In a few moments, the fellow would be on the upper lip of the canyon cliff, and could destroy the defenders with ease and security.

  Silver dismounted, and pressing close to the corner of the rock so that little of his body would show, he made his voice great and thundered:

  “Kirby Crossing! Who’s there to talk to Jim Silver? I’ve got news from Tuckaway. The sheriff’s on the run to get out here. Buster Wayland has confessed he did the job of robbing the bank. Holman has clean hands. He’s cleared.”

  There was a chorus of surprised shouts, and then a yell in which he recognized the snarling, high-pitched voice of Nellihan:

  “He lies! It’s a bluff! Why isn’t the sheriff here before him? Boys, stand tight. We’ll bag the whole lot of them in another minute. Lorens is on top, and we’ve got the lot of them!”

  A yell of triumph ran in on the last of his words, for now the man who climbed the eastern wall had reached the top, and was running forward to gain a better position from which to shoot down into the ravine. That savage yell told Silver that he had come too late to use words. Only his rifle would help him now, and whipping it out of the saddle holster, he lay flat and drew a careful bead. First he ranged his eyes down the side of the ravine to estimate the range, then he caught the dark silhouette of the target in his sights, and began to squeeze his hand over the trigger.

  At that moment, Lorens disappeared behind some upjutting rock on the verge of the cliff.

  Sweat streamed down the face of Silver. But what could he do? If he rushed with Parade, he might escape the gantlet of fire on either side of the ravine, but when he reached his friends in the narrows, he would simply be swallowed in the same trap that held them.

  A moment later, the ravine was hushed, and immediately after that, he heard the clang of a rifle, fired from the top of the cliff. That shot had told, for Lorens, in excess of triumph, suddenly leaped to his feet with a yell that rang from far off, coming to the ears of Silver like the cry of a bird of prey from the central sky. It was a fatal mistake for Lorens. In rising to brandish his rifle so that it flashed in the moonlight, a meager, whirling streak of brilliance, he had jumped right into the sights of Silver’s gun.

  Nellihan’s howling voice shrilled a warning, but it was heard too late. Silver fired. And the body of Lorens leaned slowly out. The rifle dropped before him. Then he shot out into the air in a graceful arc, like a high diver, and plunged from the height.

  A great yell of rage and of horror came from the men of Kirby Crossing. Before it died out, Silver was in the saddle again and sending Parade down the ravine like a glimmering bolt of lightning.

  The watchers were taken totally by surprise. A few turned their guns on him, but the shots they fired were random bullets, before he plunged into the shadows of the narrows. And as he went by, he saw the body of poor Ned Kenyon, spread-eagled behind the rock.

  Dead?

  He ranged Parade close against the canyon wall beyond the reach of the bullets; then he ran forward, stooping low, and gained the side of Kenyon. A faint muttering sound came from the lips of his friend. He turned the limp body, and saw a patch of darkness high on the breast of Kenyon, a patch that grew.

  “Arizona?” said Ned Kenyon faintly. “I might ‘a’ known that you’d get in on the thing before the wind-up. Have they blotted me?”

  Silver thumbed the wound. The bullet had entered high on the shoulder, close to the base of the back of the neck; it had ranged forward and come out by the collar bone.

  “Take one deep breath — and say one word!” said Silver.

  Kenyon obediently breathed and said: “Damn!” clipping his teeth together as he spoke.

  Silver sighed with relief. “If that bullet had got the lungs,” he said, “there’d be bubbles of blood in your mouth when you talk. Ned, if I can get you out of this trap, you’ll live! Try to lift your left arm. No? It’s broken, then; the collar bone’s broken, at least. But that’s nothing. Where are the others?”

  He had an answer from behind for that. They heard the crunching of a heavy footfall, and the great bulk of One-eyed Harry cast itself down beside them. He gasped:

  “Thank Heaven you’re here, Jim. I came back as soon as I got the girl and Holman stowed away in a little canyon that rips back from this here, a short w
ays down. Holman is raisin’ the devil, and tryin’ to break away and crawl back here, so’s he can die with the rest of us; and the girl’s praying for you out loud, Kenyon; and Holman says he never was worth one of your old boots. Who’s that out there, looking at the moon?”

  For not far in front of the rock there was the body of Lorens, stretched on its back and staring steadily up at the moon, which glinted on the dead eyes.

  There was no chance for Silver or Kenyon to answer the question, for the voice of Nellihan, raised to an animal howl, was now urging the men of Kirby Crossing to close in and rush the defenders. And a great, bull voice made answer:

  “Where’s yourself, Nellihan? Close in and lead up, instead of talkin’ from the back row of the church!”

  “I’m here!” shouted Nellihan. “Boys, all together, now. Keep shooting as we go in on ‘em. And then — ”

  “Wait a minute!” called Silver. “All you fellows from Kirby Crossing — if you rush us, we’ve got three rifles to blow the tar out of a good many of you. If Nellihan wants us, I’ll stand out and fight him. If he drops me, you can have the rest of them. They’ll surrender. If I drop him, you back up and take a rest till the morning. Does that sound fair to you?”

  No one answered for a moment, because there was only one man who could speak, and that was Nellihan. Suddenly his long, misshapen body appeared, striding with long steps from out of the shadows near the wall. He was desperate, as Silver knew, for on this night he was playing his last cards to ruin the life of a girl and get his hands on the fortune.

  “I’m here,” said Nellihan. “Where are you? Stand out here and show us your face. Are you yellow?”

  Silver rose and stood out before the eyes of all those enemies. His hands were empty, and so were the hands of Nellihan, who walked straight up to him and glared into his eyes with a hellish malice.

  “You’ve spoiled everything for me. You’ve smashed every plan, and you’ve killed Lorens. You won’t hang for that, because I guess he’s wanted for more than one killing. But you wouldn’t have a chance to hang, anyway. Because I’m going to split your wishbone for you tonight, my friend! Are you ready to start?”

  Silver looked at him with a shrinking of the flesh. The man seemed neither old nor young. He was a thing of poisonous evil.

  “I’m ready,” said Silver. “We’ll stand back to back, if you want, and walk away till somebody sings out to shoot. Does that suit you, Nellihan?”

  Nellihan peered into his face, as though trying to find the source of the mysterious strength that sustained this man in the time of danger.

  “Anything suits me,” he said. “You’re as good as a dead man, right now. Hey, Baldy! Sing out when you think we’ve walked far enough!”

  They stood back to back. Silver, glancing down, saw that his shadow was sloping well out before him. That meant that when he turned, the moon would be in his eyes. But that was a small disadvantage — if only he could subdue the sick shuddering of his flesh, as he thought of this half-human animal, who would soon be whipping a gun from under his coat and turning to fire. To fight men, Silver felt himself capable; but it was impossible to think of Nellihan failing. The devil he served would support him.

  “Start!” shouted the voice of “Baldy.”

  The murmuring of many other voices died down like a wind passing out of trees. Slowly Silver stepped away, straining every nerve to an electric tension.

  “Shoot!” screeched the voice of Baldy. Silver whirled, snatching his gun from beneath his arm. He saw Nellihan drawing a revolver and leaping far to the side at the same instant. Fast as Silver was, that snaky hand had been faster still. The gun in Nellihan’s grip exploded. The brief breath of the bullet fanned the face of Silver as he fired in turn, with his gun hardly more than hip-high.

  He thought he had missed, and that Nellihan had deliberately fired a bullet into the ground, for his second shot. It seemed almost — as he held his fire, with his man covered — that Nellihan was slowly dropping on one knee to take a more careful aim. But when he had come to one knee, his body continued to collapse, until he lay face down on the ground.

  Death had simply laid its numbing hand upon him gradually.

  And before this horror ended, or the silence after it had ceased, the ravine was echoing with the beat of the hoofs of horses. Out from the shadows at the upper end of the valley came three riders, and he who galloped in the lead was Sheriff Bert Philips, bringing up the authentic hand of the law, at last.

  All was not as simple as Silver had hoped and even expected. It had looked easy enough on that night, when the men of Kirby Crossing gave up the prey that had baffled them so long, and even helped to take care of the two wounded men. There was no trouble afterward about Nellihan or Lorens, either. Because it was clear that Silver had represented law against mob violence. Furthermore, against Lorens, it was discovered, that there were many counts; and when the character of Nellihan was exposed, the world looked on his death as deliverance from a plague.

  Ned Kenyon, too, had a simple role. When he was well enough to ride, he went into Nevada to get the divorce that was necessary, and he went without any soreness of the heart. He said to Silver:

  “The misery just kind of leaked out of me with my blood, after Lorens had sent the slug through me!”

  “You’re going to be sensible, I hope,” said Silver. “You’ll take the help that she and Holman want to give you?”

  “Well,” said Kenyon, “now that I’ve got over bein’ foolish about her, I guess there’s something in what she says — that I worked enough to deserve some pay. So I’m goin’ to take the coin. She wants to give me a regular cattle king’s layout. But I’ll stick just to the ten thousand that she wanted to give me in the beginning. Small things are better for small men, Jim, and I never was as big as my inches.”

  All of these matters went very well, but it was a full six months before Holman was able to shake off the hand of the law. Not that any one doubted his story, now, but there were complications which might never have been solved, had it not been that the governor of the State stepped in to cut all the red tape with a complete pardon.

  But Silver was far away in the north-land when this happened, and he only heard of it through a letter that had followed him from one forwarding address to another.

  It was from David Holman, and he said in part:

  We’ve put our heads together, but we don’t know what to do. We’ve owed our happiness to three people — one part to One-eyed Harry Bench, and nine parts to Ned Kenyon, and ninety parts to you. Edith has been able to content Harry and Ned. But we are sorry we can’t offer you hard cash, or even a ranch. If we could think of anything you need, we’d like to offer it. But a horse and a gun seem to make you a complete man. All that we can give you is gratitude.

  Now that I’m free, and the divorce has been granted, we’re going to be married quietly and go for a long trip. When we come back, we’ll hope that one day you’ll drop in on us. And stay the rest of your life, if you find the place comfortable. The best of all, would be to have you at the wedding. You saw Edith at a wedding once before. That was a marriage in the dark. We hope that this one will be in the sun, with not even a shadow on its future, no matter how much wretchedness may be in its past.

  When you write to us, if you ever will, we wish that you could tell us where you are riding. Or do you know yourself, but simply drift with the wind or let Parade follow his fancy?

  It was a cold day, and as Silver read that letter in the little post office and then crumpled the paper, he echoed that last question in his own mind. Where was he bound? He could not tell. The ancient melancholy descended upon him, and he fell into long reflections from which he awakened, suddenly, remembering that he had left Parade shivering in the street.

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  ISBN 10: 1-4405-4940-0

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4940-3

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-4938-9

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4938-0