The Red Well

by Max Brand

  “Jerry!” she called.

  He stood up as one amazed. Then he seemed to see her, and, taking off his hat, he stood near the edge of the porch.

  “Jerry Gannon . . . or Garlan . . . or whatever your name may be,” murmured Georgia, “I’ve learned the whole truth about you. You’re the man who was with Genniver . . . you’re the man who helped him . . . when poor Dad . . . I’m going now to tell the sheriff. You have that length of time for a start from the town. And in case you should think I’m trying to save my money . . . there’s the thousand dollars that you wanted!”

  She flung a heavy envelope at his feet. He looked down to it with the same vague, stunned eyes, and from his hand the telegram that he had been pondering over slipped, fluttered, and came to rest on the edge of the porch. It was turned toward her and she could not help reading the capital letters in which it was typed:

  ALICE DIED THIS MORNING. MONEY NOW NO USE. I SHALL TAKE CARE OF FUNERAL.

  This message was signed: Harry.

  And, having read it, she looked up at Garlan again, with tears starting to her eyes. She saw a face utterly witless and dull. Then her anger strangely returned and seemed bitterer than before. “I’ve given you my warning!” she cried, so that the loungers on the porch could hear her.

  She turned and galloped her horse at full speed straight down the street to the sheriff’s house and down the alley to his shop. There she sprang to the ground and ran in to find Sheriff Dan Tilly at work sawing a length of timber and becoming terribly hot in the course of his labor. His face was like a deformed beet when he looked up at the girl.

  “Danny, I’ve found him!” she cried.

  “You’ve found who, honey?” asked the sheriff.

  “I’ve found the man who killed Dad!”

  “He’s lyin’ in his grave off in the woods, ain’t he?” said the sheriff.

  “I don’t mean Genniver . . . I mean the other scoundrel!” cried the girl. “I mean the other man, who stood by and helped. I mean that I’ve found him, and I dare you to guess who that man is.”

  The sheriff took out a bandanna and mopped his face. Then he opened his collar and mopped his throat, also. “You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “Because I know.”

  “Do you know?” she gasped. “How could you?”

  “You mean that young scalawag, Garlan?”

  She stared, dumbfounded. “You knew?”

  “I knew.”

  “And yet . . . good gracious, Danny, you sent him out to the ranch to work for me!”

  The eye of the sheriff wandered a little wildly. “It takes a thief to catch a thief,” he said, somewhat ill at ease. Then, gathering confidence: “And it takes fire to fight fire.”

  “But how could you?”

  “Why not use them for what they’re worth?” asked the sheriff. “Put ’em out to labor when you can. That’s what the state does with them after they’re captured.”

  “The lying, treacherous . . .,” began the girl, and fairly sobbed with indignation.

  “You’re in a state, ain’t you?” said the sheriff. “Here, now, sit down on this chair.”

  “I don’t want to sit down . . . but I just want to know what could have been in your mind when you . . . ?”

  “You’d better sit. You take when a girl stands up and talks, her tongue’ll sort of run away with her ideas. Now, you take my advice and sit down here, and I’ll call to Maria to bring you out some sort of a coolin’ drink and . . .”

  She caught his arm. “Daniel Tilly, you’re trying to run away from me!”

  “I’m not,” he protested indignantly.

  “You are! Secretly you sympathize with that villain.”

  “Me?” cried the sheriff. “I should say not! I was just waitin’ until he had done all the work that you needed out there on the ranch, and then I would clap him into the jail.”

  “You weren’t,” said the girl. “You really hoped . . .”

  “Don’t tell me what I hoped,” said the sheriff, “because I’ll tell you what I knew . . . that Jeremiah Garlan has got to hang by the neck till he is dead!”

  “Oh, no!” breathed the girl, aghast. “Not hanged, Danny! Punished, of course! Put in prison for a year or two, but not hanged and . . .”

  “Hanged by the neck until dead,” said the sheriff. “That’s what’s gonna come of him. Now, I want you to tell me where he is and where I can find him. Because I’ve heard that he’s already done the business for you out at the ranch pretty good and thorough.”

  She sank down on a beam of raw timber and stared at him, grown helpless. “Hanged,” she said. “But he only stood by . . . he didn’t actually fire a shot or anything . . .”

  “Case of criminal conspiracy and plot with malice aforethought for the murderin’ of a respectable . . .”

  “But how do you know that Garlan consented beforehand?” asked Georgia.

  “How do I know? Wasn’t he there?”

  “But that proves nothing!”

  “Lemme put the scoundrel in front of a jury of twelve good men and true,” said the sheriff, “and I’ll soon be showin’ you what’ll come of him. Death is the only thing. But most likely it wouldn’t be by hangin’, after all.”

  “How, then?” she asked hoarsely.

  “Why, you take a case like that, there’s no controllin’ the mob. They’ll bust open the jail. They’ll take that young gent out and drape some tar over him and burn him alive.”

  “Ah!” gasped Georgia.

  “I don’t blame you for bein’ glad,” said the sheriff.

  “Burned alive,” said Georgia, utterly white and still.

  “Yes, sir,” said the sheriff inaccurately. “Gonna have him turned into a bonfire that’ll warn away the other sneaks and skunks and crooks and murderers.”

  “But, Danny . . .”

  “Where is he?” cried the sheriff in a terrible voice.

  “Will you wait?”

  “Only long enough to hear you tell me where he is.”

  “But just consider. Suppose it had been any other man . . . Genniver never would have been caught.”

  “But Genniver was killed,” insisted the sheriff.

  “Only by Jerry Garlan!”

  “What of that?”

  “And Jerry Garlan killed him . . . I know . . . because of the horror of that murder that Genniver had done. Jerry took his life in his hands to do justice on the murderer, and then . . . you know that he restored every penny of the money to you.”

  “What of that?” snarled the sheriff. “The law, it can’t be bothered by wastin’ time over such like things. What’s a few thousand dollars to me? What’s a few thousand dollars to the law? It’s the blood of Garlan that I want and that I’m gonna have.”

  “Danny . . . dear Danny,” pleaded Georgia, barely able to speak. “It suddenly rushes over me. Oh, heavens! He did want money most desperately, and yet he wouldn’t use a penny of that stolen fund. Don’t you see that it proves that he’s a good man, after all?”

  “Is murder good?” shouted the sheriff. “What sort of nonsense did you learn in school, Georgia Dixon?”

  “Danny . . .”

  “Don’t talk to me. Tell me only where I can find him. I’ve been wirin’ East and learnin’ a whole lot about him. You say you know that he wanted money. I know, too.”

  “You know?” she moaned.

  “I know all about it.”

  “What, Danny . . . ? No, I don’t want to know.”

  “You gotta listen,” he told her. “You gotta listen. It’s your right to hear the sort of a gent that he was . . . this here Garlan that had the nerve to lift up his eyes to you . . .”

  “Danny!”

  “He did!” declared the sheriff in a greater rage than ever. “I seen his eyes on fire when he looked after you and you went out of the room. I never seen a wilder and a more hungrier look than he had in his eyes when he looked after you.”

  Georgia clasped her hands over her ears. “I don�
�t want to hear any more!” she pleaded. And tears stood foolishly in her eyes.

  “You gotta hear,” said the sheriff. “You want the truth. I’m gonna tell the truth. I’m gonna tell you how lowdown that a man can be. You wanna know why he came West?”

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  “Well, he came because of a woman.”

  “Danny!” groaned the girl.

  “Because of a woman that he wanted to support. She was ailin’. He come all the way West. Take a desperate young feller like him, what did he care about the way that he raised the money that he needed for this here woman?”

  She, wringing her hands, raised to the sheriff a white face. “But there is such a thing as overmastering love!” she cried.

  “There’s such a thing as villainy and gents that had oughta be in prison!” shouted the sheriff. He actually raised his clenched fist. “I’m gonna smash that young hound! I’m gonna see him danglin’ at the end of a rope . . . or, better still, I’m gonna see him burnin’ in tar!”

  Georgia had risen to her feet. But she could not speak. Her emotion seemed suddenly to be too great.

  “He never cared nothing about how he was gonna make all of this here money that he needed,” declared the sheriff. “No, sir, that didn’t hold him up none. Couldn’t make money quick and honest, so he decided that he’d sell his soul and make money as a crook. And that’s what he went ahead and done. He got hold of a skunk of a man, Genniver. And he got Genniver to help him and to teach him, and then he started out with Genniver to be a crook and to share in the profits.”

  “Can that be true?”

  “I learned all about it,” said the sheriff. “I learned all about it. I been burnin’ up the wires. I got a lot of information about him that would surprise you. Good family, too. Son of an honest father. Business reverses. Then this. It makes my blood boil.”

  “But,” said Georgia, leaning sick and white against the wall, “please listen to me, Danny. Listen to me . . . I feel as though I’m going to faint . . . only I want to say . . . that for a poor girl lying desperately ill . . .”

  “What girl?” barked the sheriff.

  “She that Jerry tried to steal for and to . . .”

  “I dunno what you’re talkin’ about,” said Tilly. “There ain’t any girl at all, in this here business.”

  “No girl? But you told me . . . you told me that it was for the love of a . . .”

  “For the love of a woman, I said. That was all I said. I didn’t say a word about a girl.”

  “Does it make any difference?”

  “Difference?” repeated the sheriff. “Nothin’ could make a much bigger difference, I’d say. This here woman was his mother. She died last night. Word came this morning.”

  XVI

  Georgia did not actually faint, but she came near to it. And she pitched into the arms of the sheriff and cried upon his shoulder.

  “Oh, Danny!” she said over and over again. “What have you done to me . . . what have you done to me?”

  “Steady, steady,” said the sheriff. “I’m sorry that I acted this way to you, but you sort of heated me up, when you come here askin’ for the scalp of Jerry Garlan, after I’d found out what sort of a man he was. How could I help but get sort of mad? And so . . . well, I’m sorry for it.”

  “But I . . . you don’t know what I’ve done. I asked what I could do for him. He’d been a hero. He’d driven that terrible Ruhlan away. He’d made the rest of those ruffians as gentle as lambs, Danny. And then . . . I asked him what he wanted . . . and he said a thousand dollars . . . and it sort of upset me.”

  “You wanted him to ask for your hand and half your land, maybe?” said the sheriff.

  She freed herself indignantly from his arms. “You’re torturing me on purpose, still,” she said.

  “Honey,” said the sheriff slowly, “since me and Maria was married there’s been only one thing that her and me have agreed about. But, anyway, that ain’t to the point, maybe. Go on with your story.”

  “It angered me terribly. I was foolish. Of course what he had done was worth ten thousand dollars. But it was sort of like putting a cash value on that splendid heroism. I mean . . . when I heard the story of what he had done . . . it made my heart leap. There was such a mist across my eyes that I hardly could see Jerry when he came in to breakfast.”

  “Was you in love, by any chance?” cut in the sheriff dryly.

  “I was,” said the girl. “Do you think I care if you know? Oh, yes, I was in love, desperately, desperately.”

  “You was in love,” said the sheriff.

  “And then I took him to town. I wouldn’t speak to him on the way. I couldn’t say a word to him. And while I was in town, I delayed getting the money. I let him wait for hours. And then, as I was bringing the money, that scoundrel Tom Quail met me and told me that Garlan was the right name of Jerry, and that he had been the other man when my poor father . . .” She choked.

  “Go on,” said the sheriff in a harsh voice.

  “And I went . . . and found . . . Jerry . . . and flung the money at his feet . . . and then I came to you. And I’d seen the telegram when it fluttered down from his hand. But it only said ‘Alice’ . . .”

  “It was sent by his older cousin,” said the sheriff very gently.

  “And he wanted the money,” sobbed the girl, “for his own mother! It was to try to save her life. Oh, Danny, I’m going to die of shame, and misery, and grief.”

  “Wipe your eyes,” said the sheriff tersely. “You wipe your eyes and come along with me.”

  “Where?”

  “Right back to the post office.”

  “No, no!”

  “To see Jerry, if we can find him.”

  “I never would dare. I never would dare to come before his face again,” said Georgia, “even if I were to crawl on my knees . . . never, never!”

  “Are you gonna do what I tell you to do?” asked the sheriff fiercely.

  And Georgia obediently went by his side, and they walked down the hot, dusty street until they came in sight of the post office, and on the porch sat Jerry Garlan, with the yellow telegram in one hand and the unopened envelope of money at his feet. His head was sunk. He did not stir.

  Georgia covered her face with her hands. “I can’t go on, Danny,” she whispered.

  “You gotta.”

  “Yes, I have to. I will, I will. But please will you go first?”

  “Not a dog-gone’ step. You gotta do this by yourself.”

  “But people will see me . . . and . . . and . . . I can’t help crying. I’m going to make a terrible scene, and everybody will see it.”

  “Do you care about that?” asked the sheriff sharply.

  “No!” she cried, throwing her head up, regardless of the tears that streamed down her face. “I don’t care, I don’t care at all.”

  “You’re right for not caring,” said the sheriff. “But just wait here for a minute and steady down a bit before you go on to tell him about yourself. This here is a small sacrifice that you’re makin’. And by sacrifice the world runs on . . . the world of decent folk, Georgia. I’ve laid down something for the sake of law and order myself, and I’m proud of it. That’s my money in the bank. And Jerry tried to do his part, and tried to lay down his life, or his honor, for the sake of his mother. He sure deserves the lion’s share. He’s won it. You see he gets it. And now you march ahead and do what you can for him . . . and always remember that it’s for yourself, too. Georgia, never let him go. Because I was tellin’ you that me and Maria, since marryin’, never agreed but on one thing . . . which is, that Jerry Garlan is white.”

  This news seemed so important to Georgia that she ran to whisper it right into Jerry Garlan’s ear.

  “And will you marry me, Georgia?” he asked, when she had finished, holding her clasped in his arms.

  “Yes, Jerry,” said the amiable girl. “I meant to all along, you know. And . . . and . . . just in order to please the sheriff . . . let
it be as soon as you like.”

  The Red Well

  “The Red Well” was the last of Faust’s twenty-five short novels and stories to appear in 1934. It was published in Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine on December 29th. It appeared under Faust’s Hugh Owen pseudonym. In the story, Quick Kimball risks losing the woman he loves when he heads to Lonesome Valley to help save the land of an old friend, only to find himself pitted against the one man he fears, Slade. This is the story’s first appearance since its original publication.

  I

  “This young fellow who you call Charlie,” said Major Thomas Chalmers to his daughter Eunice, “has a few other names as well.”

  She looked up with apprehensive eyes at her father. “There’s no good arguing about it,” she said. “You’ve made up your mind already. And a third of the time has passed.”

  The major set his jaw and looked over the width and height of the long porch of the ranch house, and at the billowing trees that swelled around the hill that held up the house. In the distance he could see the red triangle of the top of the nearest barn, which held two hundred tons of the best sort of hay against the needs of winter. Beyond that barn he could see other hills extending like the unending waves of the sea, and here and there appeared little stipplings of red—the grazing cattle of Major Chalmers.

  “I know that I made the bargain,” he said, “and I’ll stick to it. If your friend stays here on the ranch, without leaving it once, for three months, he can marry you. You . . . and all of this, eventually . . . it’ll go to him.” He waved his hand toward the great prospect. Here was everything that the heart of a cattleman could wish—grass of the best, rolling leagues of it, groves of great round-headed trees to shade the cattle in midsummer, and the crooked silver flashing of watercourses everywhere among the hills. Wood, water, grass, and the railroad a scant fifty miles away. What could a man wish more?

  “All of this he gets with you,” said the major, looking down at his only child, “if he remains on the ranch for three months without any interruption. But El Tigre never can stay that long in one place.”