Brand Blotters

by Raine, William MacLeod

  Melissy reconstructed the scene in a flash. The Indian squaw was West. He had been rigged up in that paraphernalia to deceive any chance mountaineer who might drop into the valley by accident.

  No doubt, when he first saw Melissy, the railroad magnate had been passing his time in making notes about his plans for the system he controlled. But when he had caught sight of her, he had written the note, under the very eyes of the guard, had torn the envelope as if it were of no importance, and tossed the pieces away. He had taken the thousandth chance that his note might fall into the hands of the person to whom it was directed.

  All this she understood without giving it conscious thought. For her whole mind was filled with the horror of what she had learned. Jack Flatray, the man she loved, was to be killed. He was to be shot down in an hour.

  With the thought, she was at her door—only to find that it had been quietly locked while she lay on the bed. No doubt they had meant to keep her a close prisoner until the thing they were about to do was finished. She beat upon it, called to Rosario to let her out, wrung her hands in her desperation. Then she remembered the window. It was a cheap and flimsy case, and had been jammed so that her strength was not sufficient to raise it.

  Her eye searched the room for a weapon, and found an Indian tom-tom club. With this she smashed the panes and beat down the wooden cross bars of the sash. Agile as a forest fawn, she slipped through the opening she had made and ran toward the far cabin.

  A group of men surrounded the door; and, as she drew near, it opened to show three central figures. MacQueen was one, Rosario Chaves a second; but the most conspicuous was a bareheaded young man, with his hands tied behind him. He was going to his death, but a glance was enough to show that he went unconquered and unconquerable. His step did not drag. There was a faint, grave smile on his lips; and in his eye was the dynamic spark that proclaimed him still master of his fate. The woolen shirt had been unbuttoned and pulled back to make way for the rope that lay loosely about his neck, so that she could not miss the well-muscled slope of his fine shoulders, or the gallant set of the small head upon the brown throat.

  The man who first caught sight of Melissy spoke in a low voice to his chief. MacQueen turned his head sharply to see her, took a dozen steps toward her, then upbraided the Mexican woman, who had run out after Melissy.

  “I told you to lock her door—to make sure of it.”

  “Si, señor—I did.”

  “Then how——” He stopped, and looked to Miss Lee for an explanation.

  “I broke the window.”

  The outlaw noticed then that her hand was bleeding. “Broke the window! Why?”

  “I had to get out! I had to stop you!”

  He attempted no denial of what he was about to do. “How did you know? Did Rosario tell you?” he asked curtly.

  “No—no! I found out—just by chance.”

  “What chance?” He was plainly disconcerted that she had come to interfere, and as plainly eager to punish the person who had disclosed to her this thing, which he would have liked to do quietly, without her knowledge.

  “Never mind that. Nobody is to blame. Say I overheard a sentence. Thank God I did, and I am in time.”

  There was no avoiding it now. He had to fight it out with her. “In time for what?” he wanted to know, his eyes narrowing to vicious pin points.

  “To save him.”

  “No—no! He must die,” cried the Mexican woman.

  Melissy was amazed at her vehemence, at the passion of hate that trembled in the voice of the old woman.

  MacQueen nodded. “It is out of my hands, you see. He has been condemned.”

  “But why?”

  “Tell her, Rosario.”

  The woman poured her story forth fluently in the native tongue. O’Connor had killed her son—did not deny that he had done it. And just because Tony had tried to escape. This man had freed the ranger. Very well. He should take O’Connor’s place. Let him die the death. A life for a life. Was that not fair?

  Flatray turned his head and caught sight of Melissy. A startled cry died on his lips.

  “Jack!” She held out both hands to him as she ran toward him.

  The sheriff took her in his arms to console her. For the girl’s face was working in a stress of emotion.

  “Oh, I’m in time—I’m in time. Thank God I’m in time.”

  Jack waited a moment to steady his voice. “How came you here, Melissy?”

  “He brought me—Black MacQueen. I hated him for it, but now I’m glad—so glad—because I can save you.”

  Jack winced. He looked over her shoulder at MacQueen, taking it all in with an air of pleasant politeness. And one look was enough to tell him that there was no hope for him. The outlaw had the complacent manner of a cat which has just got at the cream. That Melissy loved him would be an additional reason for wiping him off the map. And in that instant a fierce joy leaped up in Flatray and surged through him, an emotion stronger than the fear of death. She loved him. MacQueen could not take that away from him.

  “It’s all a mistake,” Melissy went on eagerly. “Of course they can’t blame you for what Lieutenant O’Connor did. It is absurd—ridiculous.”

  “Certainly.” MacQueen tugged at his little black mustache and kept his black eyes on her constantly. “That’s not what we’re blaming him for. The indictment against your friend is that he interfered when it wasn’t his business.”

  “But it was his business. Don’t you know he’s sheriff? He had to do it.” Melissy turned to the outlaw impetuously.

  “So. And I have to play my hand out, too. It wipes out Mr. Flatray. Sorry, but business is business.”

  “But—but——” Melissy grew pale as the icy fear gripped her heart that the man meant to go on with the crime. “Don’t you see? He’s the sheriff?”

  “And I never did love sheriffs,” drawled MacQueen.

  The girl repeated herself helplessly. “It was his sworn duty. That was how he looked at it.”

  A ghost of an ironic smile flitted across the face of the outlaw chief. “Rosario’s sworn duty is to avenge her son’s death. That is how she looks at it. The rest of us swore the oath with her.”

  “But Lieutenant O’Connor had the law back of him. This is murder!”

  “Not at all. It is the law of the valley—a life for a life.”

  “But—— Oh, no—no—no!”

  “Yes.”

  The finality of it appalled her. She felt as if she were butting her head against a stone wall. She knew that argument and entreaty were of no avail, yet she desperately besought first one and then another of them to save the prisoner. Each in turn shook his head. She could see that none of them, save Rosario, bore him a grudge; yet none would move to break the valley oath. At the last, she was through with her promises and her prayers. She had spent them all, and had come up against the wall of blank despair.

  Then Jack’s grave smile thanked her. “You’ve done what you could, Melissy.”

  She clung to him wildly. “Oh, no—no! I can’t let you go, Jack. I can’t. I can’t.”

  “I reckon it’s got to be, dear,” he told her gently.

  But her breaking heart could not stand that. There must somehow be a way to save him. She cast about desperately for one, and had not found it when she begged the outlaw chief to see her alone.

  “No use.” He shook his head.

  “But just for five minutes! That can’t do any harm, can it?”

  “And no good, either.”

  “Yet I ask it. You might do that much for me,” she pleaded.

  Her despair had moved him; for he was human, after all. That he was troubled about it annoyed him a good deal. Her arrival on the scene had made things unpleasant for everybody. Ungraciously he assented, as the easiest way out of the difficulty.

  The two moved off to the corral. It was perhaps thirty yards distant, and they reached it before either of them spoke. She was the first to break the silence.

 
; “OH, NO—NO! I CAN’T LET YOU GO, JACK. I CAN’T. I CAN’T.” Page 294.

  “You won’t do this dreadful thing—surely, you won’t do it.”

  “No use saying another word about it. I told you that,” he answered doggedly.

  “But—— Oh, don’t you see? It’s one of those things no white man can do. Once it’s done, you have put the bars up against decency for the rest of your life.”

  “I reckon I’ll have to risk that—and down in your heart you don’t believe it, because you think I’ve had the bars up for years.”

  She had come to an impasse already. She tried another turn. “And you said you cared for me! Yet you are willing to make me unhappy for the rest of my life.”

  “Why, no! I’m willing to make you happy. There’s fish in the sea just as good as any that ever were caught,” he smirked.

  “But it would help you to free him. Don’t you see? It’s your chance. You can begin again, now. You can make him your friend.”

  His eyes were hard and grim. “I don’t want him for a friend, and you’re dead wrong if you think I could make this a lever to square myself with the law. I couldn’t. He wouldn’t let me, for one thing—he isn’t that kind.”

  “And you said you cared for me!” she repeated helplessly, wringing her hands in her despair. “But at the first chance you fail me.”

  “Can’t you see it isn’t a personal matter? I’ve got nothing against him—nothing to speak of. I’d give him to you, if I could. But it’s not my say-so. The thing is out of my hands.”

  “You could save him, if you set yourself to.”

  “Sure, I could—if I would pay the price. But I won’t pay.”

  “That’s it. You would have to give Rosario something—make some concession,” she said eagerly.

  “And I’m not willing to pay the price,” he told her. “His life’s forfeit. Hasn’t he been hunting us for a week?”

  “Let me pay it,” she cried. “I have money in my own right—seven thousand dollars. I’ll give it all to save him.”

  He shook his head. “No use. We’ve turned down a big offer from West. Your seven thousand isn’t a drop in the bucket.”

  She beat her hands together wildly. “There must be some way to save him.”

  The outlaw was looking at her with narrowed eyes. He saw a way, and was working it out in his mind. “You’re willing to pay, are you?” he asked.

  “Yes—yes! All I have.”

  He put his arms akimbo on the corral fence, and looked long at her. “Suppose the price can’t be paid in money, Miss Lee.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Money isn’t the only thing in this world. There are lots of things it won’t buy that other things will,” he said slowly.

  She groped for his meaning, her wide eyes fixed on his, and still did not find it. “Be plainer, please. What can I do to save him?”

  “You might marry me.”

  “Never!”

  “Just as you say. You were looking for a way, and I suggested one. Anyhow, you’re mine.”

  “I won’t do it!”

  “You wanted me to pay the price; but you don’t want to pay yourself.”

  “I couldn’t do it. It would be horrible!” But she knew she could and must.

  “Why couldn’t you? I’m ready to cut loose from this way of living. When I pull off this one big thing, I’ll quit. We’ll go somewhere and begin life again. You said I could. Well, I will. You’ll help me to keep straight. It won’t be only his life you are saving. It will be mine, too.”

  “No—I don’t love you! How could a girl marry a man she didn’t care for and didn’t respect?”

  “I’ll make you do both before long. I’m the kind of man women love.”

  “You’re the kind I hate,” she flashed bitterly.

  “I’ll risk your hate, my dear,” he laughed easily.

  She did not look at him. Her eyes were on the horizon line, where sky and pine tops met. He knew that she was fighting it out to a decision, and he did not speak again.

  After all, she was only a girl. Right and wrong were inextricably mixed in her mind. It was not right to marry this man. It was not right to let the sheriff die while she could save him. She was generous to the core. But there was something deeper than generosity. Her banked love for Flatray flooded her in a great cry of protest against his death. She loved him. She loved him. Much as she detested this man, revolting as she found the thought of being linked to him, the impulse to sacrifice herself was the stronger feeling of the two. Deep in her heart she knew that she could not let Jack go to his death so long as it was possible to prevent it.

  Her grave eyes came back to MacQueen. “I’ll have to tell you one thing—I’ll hate you worse than ever after this. Don’t think I’ll ever change my mind about that. I won’t.”

  He twirled his little mustache complacently.

  “I’ll have to risk that, as I said.”

  “You’ll take me to Mesa to-day. As soon as we get there a justice of the peace will marry us. From his house we’ll go directly to father’s. You won’t lie to me.”

  “No. I’ll play out the game square, if you do.”

  “And after we’re married, what then?”

  “You may stay at home until I get this ransom business settled. Then we’ll go to Sonora.”

  “How do you know I’ll go?”

  “I’ll trust you.”

  “Then it’s a bargain.”

  Without another word, they turned back to rejoin the group by the cabin. Before they had gone a dozen steps she stopped.

  “What about Mr. Flatray? You will free him, of course.”

  “Yes. I’ll take him right out due north of here, about four miles. He’ll be blindfolded. There we’ll leave him, with instructions how to reach Mesa.”

  “I’ll go with you,” she announced promptly.

  “What for?”

  “To make sure that you do let him go—alive.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “All right. I told you I was going to play fair. I haven’t many good points, but that is one of them. I don’t give my word and then break it.”

  “Still, I’ll go.”

  He laughed angrily. “That’s your privilege.”

  She turned on him passionately. “You’ve got no right to resent it, though I don’t care a jackstraw whether you do or not. I’m not going into this because I want to, but to save this man from the den of wolves into which he has fallen. If you knew how I despise and hate you, how my whole soul loathes you, maybe you wouldn’t be so eager to go on with it! You’ll get nothing out of this but the pleasure of torturing a girl who can’t defend herself.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he answered doggedly.

  * * *

  CHAPTER X

  THE PRICE

  MacQueen lost no time in announcing his new program.

  “Boys, the hanging’s off. I’ve decided to accept West’s offer for Flatray’s life. It’s too good to turn down.”

  “That’s what I told you all the time,” growled Buck.

  “Well, I’m telling you now. The money will be divided equally among you, except that Rosario will get my share as well as hers.”

  Rosario Chaves broke into fierce protests. Finding these unheeded, she cursed the outlaws furiously and threatened vengeance upon them. She did not want money; she wanted this man’s life. The men accepted this as a matter of course, and paid little attention to the ravings of the old woman.

  At the first news of his reprieve, Jack saw things through a haze for a moment. But he neither broke down nor showed undue exultation.

  His first thought was of relief, of profound comfort; his next of wonder and suspicion. How under heaven had Melissy won his life for him? He looked quickly at her, but the eyes of the girl did not meet his.

  “Melissy.” Flatray spoke very gently, but something in the way he spoke compelled the young woman to meet his eyes.

  Almost instantly the long lashes
went down to her pale cheeks again.

  MacQueen cut in suavely: “I reckon this is the time for announcements. Boys, Miss Lee has promised to marry me.”

  Before the stir which this produced had died away, Flatray flashed a question: “In exchange for my life?”

  The chief of the outlaws looked at him with insolence smoldering in his black eyes. “Now, I wonder when you ever will learn to mind your own business, sheriff! Nobody invited you to sit into this game.”

  “This is my business. I make it mine. Give me a straight answer, Melissy. Am I right? Is it for my life?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was so low he could hardly hear it.

  “Then I won’t have it! The thing is infamous. I can’t hide behind the skirts of a girl, least of all you. I can die, but, by God, I’ll keep my self-respect.”

  “It’s all arranged,” Melissy answered in a whisper.

  Flatray laughed harshly. “I guess not. You can’t pay my debts by giving yourself to life-long misery.”

  “You’re right pessimistic, sheriff,” sneered MacQueen.

  “What do you take me for? I won’t have it. I won’t have it.” The sheriff’s voice was rough and hoarse. “I’d rather die fifty times.”

  “It’s not up to you to choose, as it happens,” the leader of the outlaws suggested suavely.

  “You villain! You damned white-livered coward!” The look of the young sheriff scorched.

  “Speaks right out in meeting, don’t he?” grinned Lane.

  “I know what he is, Jack,” Melissy cried. “And he knows I think he’s the lowest thing that crawls. But I’ve got to save you. Don’t you see, I’ve got to do it?”

  “No, I don’t see it,” Flatray answered hotly. “I can take what’s coming to me, can’t I? But if you save my life that way you make me as low a thing as he is. I say I’ll not have it.”

  Melissy could stand it no longer. She began to sob. “I—I—Oh, Jack, I’ve got to do it. Don’t you see? Don’t you see? It won’t make any difference with me if I don’t. No difference—except that you’ll be—dead.”