The Red Well

by Max Brand

  The total savings of his life had been poured into this great adventure in Lonesome Valley, Quick knew. If this was wiped out, death itself would hardly be bitter to the taste of Finnegan.

  Quick said: “Take your family and move, Finnegan. But I can see one thing through this whole mess. I’ve got to kill Slade, or Slade has to kill me.”

  Finnegan, staring, said nothing at all, but he turned and went down the stairs into the house.

  Quick followed him. When he reached the front of the house, he heard Finnegan telling the latest news to his wife, and it was the woman who exclaimed, now.

  “I been looking inside my head for guidance, but I might’ve knowed that it would come from outside. Jerry, if this place is good enough for Quick to stay in, it’s good enough for you and me and Jimmy. If Quick is ready to die here, so are the rest of us. And four pairs of hands is better than one pair for a fight or a frolic.”

  That declaration brought a cheer from Jimmy. “And we ain’t licked!” he cried. “We ain’t nowhere near licked, Pop. We’re gonna find Slade and take his scalp. We’re gonna beat them all, I tell you. I know we’re gonna do it!”

  He kept crowing like this until the silence of the elders quieted him suddenly.

  And out of the distance, gradually increasing as more thirsty steers came running up from the dry pastures to find that they could not slake their thirst, rolled the lowing of the cattle, a death song that was never ending.

  V

  “We’re going to catch hell,” said Quick to Jerry. “Unless you start to round up those dying cattle and get them out of the place, Slade will come here and try to murder us all. As a matter of fact, he may murder us, anyway. It may not suit his plans to let a single one of us get out of the place. They’re going to close in. How much food have you got in the house?”

  “Enough canned stuff and bacon and flour to feed us for a month,” said Finnegan.

  “There’s no kitchen pump for water? There’s nothing but the one-man well?”

  “That’s right.”

  “If they get hold of the well, they’ll have our water supply.”

  “We’ll fill everything in the house with water . . . and then wait and hold on,” answered Finnegan.

  “One man will have to be on guard day and night . . . and there are only two of us, Jerry.”

  “There’s four of us,” answered Finnegan proudly. “Sarah’s better than any man, and Jimmy’ll hold up his end. He’s got eyes and ears, anyway. And if he shoots as straight at a man as he does at a deer, he’ll give them what for.”

  That was how they agreed to remain and fight out the battle. Jimmy was posted on his horse to ride in circles around the place while water was brought into the house. There were not many pots and pans in the place to hold the precious stuff. Therefore, Quick thought of taking an old cart body and dismounting it, and working it sidewise through the kitchen door. This was done with a good deal of sweating and straining. But finally it was worked into a corner of the kitchen. The innumerable cracks and holes in the rickety affair were then plastered over with adobe mud, by Quick. Thick layers of the sticky soil covered the interstices of the cart body, and, while the mud was still fresh, the water was poured in, bucket after bucket, until the container was brimming. To be sure, the stuff was very yellow as the mud mixed with the water, but in time the sediment would settle and leave the liquid pure enough.

  It was while this work was ending that young Jimmy came in for a moment to report that the coast was still clear and that he had an idea.

  “Leave me take Pinto and line out for the pass,” he said. “I’ll sure get through them, and I could bring help.”

  “Son,” said Jerry Finnegan, “that’s mighty fine and sporting, but they’d sure chaw you up with bullets before you got ten steps away from the house. No. We’re all here and we got to stick here. There’s four sides to this house, and there’s four of us to watch ’em. If we leave one side blank, we’ll sure catch hell in a hurry.”

  There was such logic in this that even Jimmy could see it at once.

  Now that the water supply was prepared, Quick and Jerry Finnegan climbed again to the top of the house through the kitchen, where Sarah was stacking the tough mesquite roots in high piles along the wall. She had the fire going full blast to boil cornmeal and rice. For a big supply of that food might see them through any famine.

  From the roof, they could see that the forces of Slade were preparing for a comfortable stay, also. Down by the empty tanks that their own villainy had destroyed, the men were digging short, shallow trenches. Into these, of course, the water would seep and run clean from the filtering through the soil.

  These were not the only preparations. As the pair watched from the roof, they saw three steers shot down and quickly butchered. Altogether, they could number no fewer than eight men employed off there in the valley.

  Finnegan watched this slaughter of the stock with the singular calm that had made him so dangerous as a fighting man.

  “Them steers is the lucky ones,” he said. “Fact is that the others are gonna stop singing their song, before long, and fall down and die another way.”

  * * * * *

  The increasing chorus of the thirsty cattle had called others of the herd into view.

  Gradually they gained numbers, milling stupidly about in circles, raising a dust that obscured them, while from under the dust rose the ceaseless, moaning call of pain.

  “It’s gonna be hard to do any sleeping, even if Slade gives us a let-up, now and then,” said Finnegan.

  The piping voice of the boy called up: “They’s a gent comin’, wavin’ a white flag or something! Shall I let him get close up?”

  “Let him come,” said Finnegan.

  They could see, now, a dapper man on a light-stepping black horse, a paragon of beauty and daintiness. The rider fairly blazed with Mexican splendor, from the silver ornaments that flashed on his hat to the flare of the crimson silk sash that was bound about his waist. He smoked a cigarette that he held high with an indescribable jauntiness. A white handkerchief he waved in the other hand. For the management of the fine horse the pressure of his knee was alone sufficient, it seemed.

  Jimmy’s shrill voice piped out a permission to come up to the house. And the dandy now was reining his horse close to the dwelling.

  “Mister Jeremiah Finnegan, I believe?” said the gallant, looking up toward the pair on the roof.

  “Yeah. I’m him,” said Finnegan. “What are you, outside of being a crook?”

  “I represent Slade,” said the other. “He wants to make a little proposition to you, Finnegan.”

  “What kind of a proposition could he make to me?” said Finnegan.

  “He offered to buy the dirty mud flat that you call a ranch,” said the messenger. “He offered you five thousand dollars. And he’ll still pay that price.”

  “He’ll still pay, will he?” gasped Finnegan.

  “He’ll still pay,” said the messenger, “and all you have to do is to start your cattle on a drive before they die of thirst. Most of ’em could reach the Wilson River marshes, all right. You’ll get clean off with your cattle and your cash. And what the hell more than that can even a Finnegan ask?”

  Finnegan muttered to Quick: “Look, he’s got us in the palm of his hand . . . and still he wants to make a bargain. What you understand by that?”

  “Why, Jerry, it’s not so easy to make sure of killing four people. And unless he kills us all, the word is going to get to the law . . . and the law will come out here and mop up Mister Slade and a thousand more like him. Jerry, he wants this place bad, but he doesn’t want it just for a little while. He wants it forever.”

  “Then it’s likely some big scheme that he’s got in mind?”

  “Some pretty big scheme, all right.”

  Finnegan turned back to the messenger. “What do I give him in turn for the money?” he asked.

  “All you do is to sign your name to a bill of sale. I got the
paper with me, all made out clear and clean.”

  “Tell him to bring the paper inside the house,” said Quick.

  “Bring the paper into the front room. We’ll meet you there,” said Finnegan, and straightway he went down with Quick.

  Sarah Finnegan went with the others into the little front room. With its floor of compacted dirt and its whitewashed walls of adobe bricks, it was not much of a parlor, but it had a small, round center table, with a family photograph album and a Bible on top of it, and there were three chairs covered with moth-eaten red plush. Sarah Finnegan was insisting on all the culture that she was able to cram into her frontier home.

  The splendid fellow now came through the front door and took off his sombrero and bowed deeply to Sarah. Quick stood back in a corner, very conscious of the weight of his two guns, watching constantly. A fast, two-handed gunman was apt to start anything against such small numbers as the Finnegan house contained.

  “Here’s the bill of sale,” said the messenger. And he laid the paper flat on the center table.

  “I’ve seen one of these here,” agreed Finnegan as he leaned over it. “And this looks mighty legal, all right. I sell out and I get five thousand dollars, eh?”

  “You get the full five thousand,” said the messenger.

  “Sarah, what do you think?” asked Finnegan. “We could save a lot of the cows by makin’ a quick drive to the marshes.”

  “We’d lose a lot, too,” answered Sarah. “But I suppose that we got to knuckle under.” She sighed as she spoke.

  “We don’t have to do nothing of the sort,” said Finnegan. “We’re ready to fight it out, and that’s what we’ll do. It’s up to you to make the answer.”

  At this, she looked around her with anxious eyes. On the wall hung some old framed photographs. “Indians and greasers never was able to make Pa move from his home,” she observed finally.

  The heart of Quick expanded with a deep admiration.

  “Then you wanna turn down the five thousand dollars?” asked Finnegan.

  “It ain’t right and it ain’t fair,” she said. “It’s being forced on us. This here is our home. And there’s been murder tried to get us out of the place. But after you take the money and sign your name, there, you won’t be able to lift a finger against those people. They’ll have the land, and you’ll be out of it with a lot of sick cows.”

  “Five thousand dollars,” observed the messenger, “is a whale of a lot better than a hole in the ground.”

  “We’ve got better chances of dying than of being buried,” snapped Sarah. “We know what you people are.”

  “You take an answer back to Slade,” said Finnegan suddenly. “We’ll never move out for him or for any slice of the money he’s stole.”

  The messenger was so amazed that he stared, agape. He could recover himself only gradually. “D’you really think that you got a chance?” he asked.

  “I may not have a chance,” said Finnegan, “but I’ll fight without a chance, and so will the rest of my people. Tell Slade that.”

  The face of the other darkened. “How you’re going to groan before you’re through with this,” he said.

  Quick stepped across the floor. “Your name is Sid Randal,” he said.

  “Maybe,” said the messenger. “I know you, Quick.”

  “You ought to,” said Quick. “I looked for you in Chihuahua long enough to have you look at me a few times out of dark alleys.”

  “I never dodged you,” said Randal.

  “You lie,” said Quick calmly. “You ran like a dog.”

  Randal, stiffening, jerked both hands down to his guns. But there his grip froze, although Quick had not stirred to make a draw. “There’s a pair of you in here,” said Randal huskily.

  “Is that the reason?” said Quick, smiling. “I want you to take a message for me, Randal. Go to Slade and tell him that I want to see him. I’ll meet him anywhere between his camp and this house, in the open where there’s no chance for crooked work. If he’ll meet me, man to man, we’ll shoot our little argument out to a finish. And if Slade’s dead, I guess the rest of you won’t be so hungry to finish this job.”

  “And if you’re dead,” said Randal, “I guess this shack will belong to us pretty fast.”

  “Go give Slade my message,” said Quick.

  “I’m gonna be close enough to see that fight,” said Randal. “I’ll see you while the blood’s still running out of you, Quick.”

  “Thanks,” said Quick. “I always knew your heart was in the right place. Now get out, and don’t come again. You can tell Slade, though, that we’ve got enough food and water inside the house to keep us for a month.”

  “Food and water?” exclaimed the other.

  “Come and see,” said Quick, and led the way into the kitchen.

  There the messenger looked long and earnestly at the filled cart body before he turned on his heel and went, without a word, from the house.

  VI

  Word came back from Slade rapidly. A big, red-faced man on a tough little mustang came up with the usual white cloth waving and sang out: “Quick, Slade is ready for you. He’ll fight you close to the house, so’s your friends can look on and see that it’s fair. You done your talking. Now let’s see if you can handle a gun with Slade. Ride straight down toward the south tank, a couple or three hundred yards. Your friends can see from the top of the house if anybody but Slade comes to meet you.”

  The red-faced man rode away again, his thick shoulders shaken by the jarring of the trot.

  Quick merely called after him: “I’ll be out in ten minutes!” Then he turned toward the stricken faces of the Finnegan family.

  Jerry growled: “I ain’t gonna let you do that, Quick. No one man can face Slade. Everybody in the world knows that.”

  Quick said: “When I saw him the other day, I knew that we’d have to have it out. Jerry, if I’m lucky and flatten him, this whole trouble goes away like smoke.”

  Finnegan started to argue. But Sarah took him by the arm and said: “You can’t stop him, Jerry. Why keep on trying?”

  Quick said: “Jimmy, will Pinto stand under fire?”

  Jimmy had to try twice before he could get out words. Then he replied: “Old Pinto’s a regular rock. You can sit him like a chair while you shoot.”

  “Is he a return horse, Jim?”

  “He sure is. If you get off him without throwing the reins, the first time you’ll see him again will be back here at the house.”

  “I’ll take Pinto, then,” said Quick. He waved to the family and went out to the mustang.

  The Finnegans followed him to the door. Then they hurried up to the roof to overlook the battlefield. The face of Sarah was gray stone; Jerry Finnegan kept his head down, and his breathing was a semi-audible groan. But Jimmy, as he lengthened the stirrups to suit the new rider, managed to smile.

  “If they don’t crook you, Quick, you’re gonna win. Pinto’s carrying the man that’s gonna kill Slade.”

  It was like a voice from the future, the expression of posterity, and a warm glow of confidence came over Quick. He patted the shoulder of Jimmy, and then rode out from the house.

  The wide plain, hardly troubled by an undulation except for the two shallow draws where the tanks had held water, made a perfect place for such an encounter. Whatever the crooked devices of the great Slade, it seemed impossible that he could use his forces to cheat in this battle.

  But no doubt he would not need to cheat. Many legends drifted out of the past into the mind of Quick, and in them all the great Slade was the destroyer. He never failed. Men said that there was not so much as a single scar on his body.

  Through the ruins of San José, Quick rode out into the open. Once he looked back and saw the three Finnegans waving to him from the roof. And it seemed to him that the mournful, droning call of the thirsty cattle spoke the mind of the besieged family.

  When he looked again to the front, he saw a tall rider on a red horse, and he knew that it was Slade
who came. No one else could sit a horse with exactly this sang-froid; no one else could master a spirited animal with such a casual hand.

  The loose brim of the sombrero furled upward with the wind of the strong gallop. Slade halted his horse with a cruel hand that threw the chestnut back on its haunches.

  No one but Slade would have dared to approach an enemy in this random manner. No one but Slade would have known how perfectly Quick could be trusted to make no attempt to gain the advantage.

  Slade wore a blue silk shirt and a vest over it, one of those loose garments that are popular in the West and that never were intended for wear beneath a coat. He had a heavy golden earring that pulled down the lobe of one ear, and that touch gave him a barbaric look.

  He was very happy and assured. That smile of his flecked the blood of poor Quick with cold.

  “Here you are, kid,” said Slade. “I wouldn’t’ve thought it. I wouldn’t’ve guessed that you’d be fool enough to try your hand on me.”

  “I’m that kind of a fool,” said Quick. “I’m such a fool that I think I’m going to kill you, Slade.” His look reached for the eyes, the spirit of Slade, but he could not capture the full regard of the tall man.

  “I’ve always knowed that you’d be my fruit,” said Slade. “I knowed from the first time I seen you that I’d have to shake you down off the tree and smash you, someday. This here is the day. You’re a dead man, kid.”

  “Tell me how we’re to go about it,” suggested Quick.

  “We stay in the saddle and ride away from each other, back to back. One of us counts ten. That gives us distance and a fair break.”

  Quick smiled. The overflowing assurance of Slade still troubled him, but he could at least see through a device as transparent as this one. “Do you think I’d trust you with my back turned, Slade?” he asked.