by Max Brand
It was evening, and he was back in the lobby before he came to all of those conclusions. And they were hardly formed, when his attention was sharply called by a silence that had fallen over the room. There was a soft and sudden shifting of positions. Macdonald, looking into a small mirror that was hanging on the wall in front of him—a little diamond-shaped affair meant to be a decoration—saw a big fellow striding through the door and into the room. He did not need more than one glance to make sure that this was a man come on desperate business. The pale, rather drawn face, the glaring eyes, the jaw set hard and thrust out a little, were all the features of a man on the verge of meeting death itself.
“Macdonald!” called the stranger.
As Macdonald rose slowly from his chair, he stretched his arms.
“Look out!” gasped the voice of the human jackal who had brought him so much news that day. “Look out! It’s Jack Gregory, and he’s a fighting fool!”
But Macdonald turned with glorious unconcern. “Calling me?” he asked cheerfully.
“I’m calling you. Macdonald, I want to talk to you outside the hotel.”
Macdonald hesitated. One who dreaded Macdonald’s speed and his accuracy with a gun often sought to equalize matters a little more by bringing him into the darkness. But, after all, he had fought a score of times in the light of the stars. He had made a point of doing as much target practice by night as by day, and the chances, which were heavy against any foe in the daylight, were even heavier against them in the dark. After that moment of delay he nodded and crossed the room to the other.
“I don’t think I remember meeting you,” he said.
“You don’t,” said the other. “My name is Jack Gregory.”
And, as he spoke, his body drew stiff and straight and his right hand trembled near to the butt of his gun. But such a killing was by no means in the mind of Macdonald. With the blandest of smiles he held out his hand.
“Very glad to meet you, Gregory,” he said.
His hand was disregarded.
“I want to talk with you outside. Will you come?”
“Certainly.”
They passed through the door and descended the steps. They stood in the street. Instantly the door of the hotel was packed with a blur of white faces, watching eagerly. Macdonald looked about him with infinite satisfaction. It was a moonless night, to be sure. The moon would not be up for another hour, but the sky was clear, and the stars were shining as clear as crystal. Certainly there was light enough for Macdonald to shoot almost as straight as by daylight, at such close range. But what was this Gregory saying?
“Macdonald,” he said, “I’ve come to beg you to leave town.”
“Beg me to leave it?” Macdonald asked with the slightest and most insulting emphasis.
“Just that,” said the other.
“And if I don’t go?”
“We fight.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Macdonald, and in the starshine he smiled evilly upon Jack Gregory. “But as for leaving,” he continued, “you must admit that this is a free country and a free town. Why should I leave, if you please?”
“Because,” Gregory explained, “my family has sworn that you cannot stay here.”
“Interesting,” said the mild, soft voice of the man-killer, “but unimportant, Gregory.”
“Macdonald,” pleaded the other, “it was some fool joking of mine that drove Bill Gregory, five years ago, to come in and have it out with you. I got his death on my conscience. Now some of the rest of the boys are going to try to get you out of town, but it ain’t their business. It’s mine. If you should kill them, their ghosts would haunt me. So I’ve come in to try to persuade you.”
“I’m listening,” said Macdonald.
“Everybody on the range knows that you’re a brave man, Macdonald. If you leave town, nobody’ll think any the worse of you, and I’ll let the folks know that I asked you to go and didn’t drive you out by threats.”
“Who’d believe you?” asked Macdonald grimly, as he saw the bent of the conversation. “You’d get a big reputation cheap. But what would I get?”
“A cold thousand. I’ve saved that much, and …”
“You fool!”
“Listen to me, Macdonald. I’m not trying to insult you, but I’m trying to think of everything in the world to persuade you. If you don’t want the money, forget that I mentioned it. But I’m desperate. I know that I can’t stand up to you, but if you won’t go by persuasion, I got to try my gun.”
It was a situation unique in the experience of Macdonald, and he hesitated. But what cause had he to love the world or trust or pity any man in it? From the very first his life had been a battle.
“If I gave way,” he explained coldly, “I’d have twenty men ready to bully me wherever I went. The story would go around that you’d bluffed me, Gregory. I’d rather be dead than be shamed.”
There was a groan from Gregory. “You cold-hearted devil!” he cried. “If there’s no other way, I’ll try my luck!”
Gregory reached for his gun. Even then there was time for Macdonald to seem to protest—for the benefit of those who were jammed in the doorway of the hotel. He raised a hand in that protest, and he called loud enough for the spectators to hear: “Not that, Gregory!”
Macdonald saw the gun of the other flash. It was shooting at ten paces, and even a poor shot was not apt to miss him. He dropped his right hand on the butt of his gun, making it swing up, holster and all, for the end of the holster was not steadied against his thigh. At the same instant he pulled the trigger. Jack Gregory spun and dropped. He had been shot squarely between the eyes.
VIII
No doubt, when all was said and done, it was as fair a fight as had ever been seen in the town of Sudeth. There was no shadow of a doubt that Jack Gregory had pressed home the battle. There was no doubt that he had reached first for his gun, and that the odium of beginning the fight rested entirely on him. But, in spite of this, there was a roar of anger from the spectators when they saw him fall.
They were out through the doorway in a rush, and every man had a drawn gun in his hand. A moment before they had been watching as spectators at a game. Suddenly they realized that in this game the prize was death, and that Jack Gregory had received it—Jack Gregory who every man there, perhaps, had known from his boyhood. His life was wasted, and yonder was the man of fame, the cool slayer, who had conquered again. And the horror of it took them suddenly by the throat.
One section of that little mob spilled out toward the body of Gregory, lying face down in the dust. The other section swarmed toward the slayer.
“Finish the murdering dog!” someone was crying.
“Hold him for the sheriff!” called another.
“And see him get free on self-defense?” was the answer. “No, we’ll be our own law! Macdonald, put up your hands!”
There had been no chance to run. In that clear starlight with a dozen guns covering him, Macdonald knew that he could not get away. Therefore he stood his ground, and at the order he obediently thrust his arms above his head, not straining them high up, as men in fear will do, but holding them only a trifle above the height of his shoulders, standing at ease and facing the rush of the mob.
“He’s dead!” cried voices from the rear. “Poor old Jack is dead. He’ll never speak again. That murdering hound has sure got to pay for this!”
They joined the circle around Macdonald.
“Get iron on his wrists.”
“No irons here. A rope will do. Where’s a rope?”
“Here’s one!”
“Your sheriff will hunt you down,” said Macdonald.
“Do you think that a jury could be found in this country that would convict a man for helping to lynch you?” someone asked, and Macdonald felt the truth of the query.
“Put down your hands, on
e hand at a time,” commanded the man with the rope. “Jab a gun into his middle, a couple of you, and kill him if he tries to move.”
Macdonald smiled down upon them. Perhaps this was a little more than he had bargained for, but it was not at all unpleasant. The old tingling joy in peril, which he had found so early in his life and loved so long, was thrilling in him now. They had his life upon the triggers of a dozen guns and yet, if he could strike suddenly enough, their very numbers …
He did not pause to complete that thought. He had been lowering his right hand slowly toward the rope, as though to show that he intended no sudden effort to escape. Now he jerked it down and knocked away two revolvers that had been thrust against his body. One of them exploded, and there was a yell of pain from a bystander when the bullet plowed through his leg. At the same instant half a dozen pairs of arms reached for Macdonald, but he spun around. Their fingers slipped on the hard bulk of his muscles. And now he drove ahead, crouching low, as a football player charges a line. They tumbled away before him like snow before a snowplow. Who could fire, when the bullet, nine chances out of ten, would find lodgment in the body of a friend?
They poured after Macdonald, but two or three had lost their footing and gone down. They entangled some of those who followed. Now there was a sudden thinning of the mass before Macdonald. Two men stood before him. He smote one on the side of his head, saw the head rebound, as though broken at the neck, and the man went down. His shoulder, as he rushed, crashed against the breast of the other, and the man fell with a gasp. There was an open way before Macdonald, and he went down it, like a racing deer with the sound of the hounds behind it.
With a sweep they followed, but before they had taken half a dozen steps, they saw he was stepping swiftly away from them, and the leaders stopped to shoot. But a fight, a scramble, a race, and the starlight, combined with the knowledge that one is shooting at a famous target, make a very poor effect upon the nerves. The shower of bullets flew wild. Macdonald ran on unscathed. He reached the corner of the hotel and whipped around it. He headed down the side of the building, then darted for the corrals, with the mob still in hot pursuit. But they lost at every fence, for he leaped them in stride, like the athlete that he was, and they had to pause to crawl between the rails or vault over.
He found Sunset at once. Onto his back he vaulted, and it seemed that the fine animal knew at once what was expected of him. A tap on the side of the neck turned him around, and a word started him away at a flying gallop. He took the fence with a wild leap that brought a yell of despair and rage from the pursuers and in another moment he was sunk in the outer blackness of the night.
They pursued him no more than one would attempt to overtake an arrow after seeing it leave the string. But Macdonald had not left to stay away that night. He galloped not half a mile, then returned and headed straight back to the hotel. Into it he ventured, stole up the back stairs, and got to his room. They had not touched his belongings. He packed them deliberately, returned down the stairs, went out to the shed and got his saddle and bridle, put them on Sunset, and was again ready for the journey.
As for the town of Sudeth, it passed through a sudden and violent transition. For two hours they raved against the cool-handed murderer and swore that they would run him to the earth, if it took them a life of labor to do the task. But at the end of the two hours, a committee went up to investigate the belongings of Macdonald and found them gone. On the plaster of the wall was written:
A very pleasant party.
—Macdonald
When the others learned, there was a storm of wonder and then of appreciation. For they had heard enough to convince them that there was something almost supernal in the courage of a man who could return on the heels of the very mob that was hunting his life. There and then the townsmen lost their interest in the chase of Macdonald. That was left to the Gregorys, and the Gregorys solemnly took up the trail.
IX
No seer was needed to tell Macdonald that the town of Sudeth was apt to lose its enthusiasm for war before long, but that the clan of Gregorys would never leave him until they had clashed at least a few more times. Nevertheless he had no desire to put a great distance between himself and his probable pursuers. There was first the little matter with Rory Moore that was to be settled. And he let Sunset run like a homing bird straight across the hills toward home.
They reached it nearly a day later, in the red time of sunset, with all the town as hushed and peaceful as a pictured place rather than a reality. He saw one old man smoking a pipe at the door of a shop. He heard in the weird distance one dog barking. But of living sights and sounds, these were the only two. The town might have died. It was like riding into the ghost of a place.
Of course it was easily explainable, Macdonald told himself. The people were simply at supper and, since they all kept the same hour for supper, they would all be off the streets at that time. And yet such a conclusion did not entirely satisfy him. There was a solemnity about this quiet, this utter silence, with the far-off wailing of the dog, that warned him back like the voice of the river in his dream.
At the hotel he found the same sleepy atmosphere that he had noted before in the place. The hotel, in short, was not paying. For in spite of its size and the comfort of its arrangement, there was a forbidding atmosphere about the place that had held the trade away. Macdonald felt it again as he stood in front of the desk in the hotel office and asked for a room. He would have given a good deal if he had not come to this hostelry where he had spent that terrible night so short a time before. He would have given a great deal if he had chosen, instead, the little shack that had been built at the farther end of the street, and which also went by the name of a hotel in the town.
But he could not withdraw, having come so far. He could not mumble and excuse and retreat. But his absent-mindedness, which was the curse of his life, having brought him on thus far, he must go on with the thing. He heard a cheerful promise that he should not only have a room, but that he should also have that very same room that he had occupied the last time he stayed there, the room that he had left so suddenly in the middle of the night.
And even from this proposal he could not dissent. He was kept quiet by the very violence of his feelings. How could he declare that the very last place on earth in which he wished to spend another night was the room where he had slept before? They might pin him down to the truth. They might discover—oh, monstrous joke to be roared at by the whole world—that Macdonald had run away from a dream like any brain-sick youth of fourteen years.
So he had to submit and was led upstairs to the room. When the door closed upon him, and he was left among its shadows, the old panic swept upon him. He could not stay there alone. Down the stairs he went again and out to the stable to look at Sunset. The stallion was digesting a liberal feed of grain and sweet-smelling hay. Half a dozen hungry chickens, roaming abroad in search of forage, were clustered around the outskirts of the pile of hay, scratching a quay into it and picking busily at the heads of grain. But the big stallion, when he had finished his grain and turned to the hay, made not the slightest objection to these small intruders. For he kept on steadily at his hay, merely cocking one sharp ear when the beak of a hen picked a little too close to that soft muzzle of his.
Macdonald hung over the fence of the corral, delighted, until the gathering of the shadows drove even those hungry chickens away from the hay and back to their roosting places.
“Yep,” said a voice to the side, “that’s a plumb easy-going horse, I’d tell a man.”
Macdonald looked askance with a scowl. It was by no means his habit to be so rapt in any observation that he allowed other men to stalk up beside him and take him by surprise. What he found was a little old man, very bent, so that his head was thrust far in front of his body, and he balanced himself with a round-headed cane on which his brown hands rested. He carried a short-stemmed pipe between his gums and puffed noi
sily at it. In a word he was like a figure out of a book, or off the stage.
“And who might you be?” asked the little man, and he had a quick, bird-like way of jerking his head toward the one to whom he was speaking, while he sucked on his pipe.
“Oh, I’ve just happened by,” Macdonald murmured smoothly enough.
“You’ve heard that he’s back again, I reckon,” said the other. “You’ve come like me to have a look at Sunset before that Macdonald man rides him away again. I disremember when I seen a finer horse than Sunset.”
“Nor I!” exclaimed Macdonald, and at the sound of his deep voice the stallion looked up, swung halfway toward his new master, and then allowed the greed of a big appetite to draw him back toward his fodder. But the heart of Macdonald was beating with a great new tenderness.
“The horse likes you,” piped the old man. “Well, I never seen a horse yet that would waste a look on a bad man. All that makes me sorry is to think about Sunset being wasted on a man-killing, law-spoiling hound like that Macdonald.”
“Is he as bad as that?” Macdonald asked slowly.
“He’s worse,” said the other with great venom, and he even removed his pipe from his mouth so that he might speak with more vehemence. Macdonald saw that the stem was wound with string to give a better grip to the old gums of the man. “He’s a pile worse. There ain’t nobody can say anything bad enough about him. What would you say about a gent that kills just for the sake of killing?”
“Why,” Macdonald responded, “I think that depends on how he kills. Every man is a hunter, if you come down to that. They’re all trying to kill one another, you know. But some are lucky, and some aren’t so lucky. It depends, I say, on how he kills. If he takes as big a chance as the next man, what’s so terribly wrong in that?”