Firebrand Trevison

by Seltzer, Charles Alden

  He went only a short distance. Emerging from an opening in one of the adobe houses he saw a parapet wall, sadly crumpled in spots, facing the plains, and he dropped to his hands and knees and crept toward it, secreting himself behind it and prodding the wall cautiously with the barrel of his rifle until he found a joint in the stone work where the adobe mud was rotted. He poked the muzzle of the rifle through the crevice, took careful aim, and had the satisfaction of hearing a savage curse in the instant following the flash. He threw himself flat immediately, listening to the spatter and whine of the bullets of the volley that greeted his shot. They kept it up long—but when there was a momentary cessation he crept back to the entrance of the adobe house, entered, followed another passage and came out on the ledge farther along the side of the pueblo. He halted in a dense shadow and looked toward the spot where the men had been. They had vanished.

  There was nothing to do but to wait, and he sank behind a huge block of stone in an angle of the ledge, noting with satisfaction that he could see the slope that he had set Levins to guard.

  “I’m the boss of this fort if I don’t go to sleep,” he told himself grimly as he stretched out. He lay there, watching, while the moonlight faded, while a gray streak in the east slowly widened, presaging the dawn. Stretched flat, his aching muscles welcoming the support of the cool stone of the ledge, he had to fight off the drowsiness that assailed him.

  An hour dragged by. He knew the deputies were watching, no doubt having separated to conceal themselves behind convenient boulders that dotted the plains at the foot of the slope. Or perhaps while he had been in the passages of the pueblo, changing his position, some of them might have stolen to the numerous crags and outcroppings of rock at the base of the pueblo. They might now be massing for a rush up the slope. But he doubted they would risk the latter move, for they knew that he must be on the alert, and they had cause to fear his rifle.

  Once he rested his head on his extended right arm, and the contact was so agreeable that he allowed it to remain there—long. He caught himself in time; in another second he would have been too late. He saw the figure of a man on the slope a foot or two below the crest. He was flat on his stomach, no doubt having crept there during the minutes that Trevison had been enjoying his rest, and at the instant Trevison saw him he was raising his rifle, directing it at the recess where Levins had been left, on guard.

  Trevison was wide awake now, and his marksmanship as deadly as ever. He waited until the man’s rifle came to a level. Then his own weapon spat viciously. The man rose to his knees, reeling. Another rifle cracked—from the recess where Levins was concealed, this time—and the man sank to the dust of the slope, rolling over and over until he reached the bottom, where he stretched out and lay prone. There was a shout of rage from a section of rock-strewn level near the foot of the slope, and Trevison’s lips curled with satisfaction. The second shot had told him that a fear he had entertained momentarily was unfounded—Levins was apparently quite alive.

  He raised himself cautiously, backed away from the rock behind which he had been concealed, and wheeled, intending to join Levins. A faint sound reached his ears from the plains, and he faced around again, to see a group of horsemen riding toward the pueblo. They were coming fast, racing ahead of a dust cloud, and were perhaps a quarter of a mile distant. But Trevison knew them, and stepped boldly out to the edge of the stone ledge waving his hat to them, laughing full-throatedly, his voice vibrating a little as he spoke:

  “Good old Barkwell!”

  * * *

  “That’s him!”

  Barkwell pulled his horse to a sliding halt as he saw the figure on the pueblo, outlined distinctly in the clear white light of the dawn.

  “He’s all right!” he declared to the others as they followed his example and drew their beasts down. “Them’s some of the scum that’s been after him,” he added as several horsemen swept around the far side of the pueblo. “It was them we heard shootin’.” The outfit sat silent on their horses and watched the men ride over the plains toward another group of horsemen that the Diamond K men had observed some time before riding toward the pueblo,

  “Yep!” Barkwell said, now; “that other bunch is deputies, too. It’s mighty plain. This bunch rounded up ‘Firebrand’ an’ sent some one back for reinforcements.” He swept the Diamond K outfit with a snarling smile. “They’re goin’ to need ’em, too! I reckon we’d better wait for them to play their hand. It’s about a stand off in numbers. We don’t stand no slack, boys. We’re outlawed already, from the ruckus of last night, an’ if they start anything we’ve got to wipe ’em out! You heard ’em shootin’ at the boss, an’ they ain’t no pussy-kitten bunch! I’ll do the gassin’—if there’s any to be done—an’ when I draw, you guys do your damnedest!”

  The outfit set itself to wait. Over on the edge of the pueblo they could see Trevison. He was bending over something, and when they saw him stoop and lift the object, heaving it to his shoulder and walking away with it, a sullen murmur ran over the outfit, and lips grew stiff and white with rage.

  “It’s Clay Levins, boys!” said Barkwell. “They’ve plugged him! Do you reckon we’ve got to go back to Levins’ shack an’ tell his wife that we let them skunks get away after makin’ orphants of her kids?”

  “I’m jumpin’!” shrieked Jud Weaver, his voice coming chokingly with passion. “I ain’t waitin’ one damned minute for any palaver! Either them deputies is wiped out, or I am!” He dug the spurs into his horse, drawing his six-shooter as the animal leaped.

  Weaver’s horse led the outfit by only three or four jumps, and they swept over the level like a devastating cyclone, the spiral dust cloud that rose behind them following them lazily, sucked along by the wind of their passing.

  The group of deputies had halted; they were sitting tense and silent in their saddles when the Diamond K outfit came up, slowing down as they drew nearer, and halting within ten feet of the others, spreading out in a crude semi-circle, so that each man had an unobstructed view of the deputies.

  Barkwell had no chance to talk. Before he could get his breath after pulling his horse down, Weaver, his six-shooter in hand, its muzzle directed fairly at Gieger, who was slightly in advance of his men, fumed forth:

  “What in hell do you-all mean by tryin’ to herd-ride our boss? Talk fast, you eagle-beaked turkey buzzard, or I salivates you rapid!”

  The situation was one of intense delicacy. Gieger might have averted the threatening clash with a judicious use of soft, placating speech. But it pleased him to bluster.

  “We are deputies, acting under orders from the court. We are after a murderer, and we mean to get him!” he said, coldly.

  “Deputies! Hell!” Barkwell’s voice rose, sharply scornful and mocking. “Deputies! Crooks! Gun-fighters! Pluguglies!” His eyes, bright, alert, gleaming like a bird’s, were roving over the faces in the group of deputies. “A damn fine bunch of guys to represent the law! There’s Dakota Dick, there! Tinhorn, rustler! There’s Red Classen! Stage robber! An’ Pepper Ridgely, a plain, ornery thief! An’ Kid Dorgan, a sneakin’ killer! An’ Buff Keller, an’ Andy Watts, an’ Pig Mugley, an’—oh, hell! Deputies! Law!——Ah—hah!”

  One of the men had reached for his holster. Weaver’s gun barked twice and the man pitched limply forward to his horse’s neck. Other weapons flashed; the calm of the early morning was rent by the hoarse, guttural cries of men in the grip of the blood-lust, the sustained and venomous popping of pistols, the queer, sodden impact of lead against flesh, the terror-snorts of horses, and the grunts of men, falling heavily.

  * * *

  A big man in khaki, loping his horse up the slope of an arroyo half a mile distant, started at the sound of the first shot and raced over the crest. He pulled the horse to an abrupt halt as his gaze swept the plains in front of him. He saw riderless horses running frantically away from a smoking blot, he saw the blot streaked with level, white smoke-spurts that ballooned upward quickly; he heard the dull, flat reports
that followed the smoke-spurts.

  It seemed to be over in an instant. The blot split up, galloping horses and yelling men burst out of it. The big man had reached the crest of the arroyo at the critical second in which the balance of victory wavers uncertainly. With thrusting chin, lips in a hideous pout, and with sullen, blazing eyes, he watched the battle go against him. Fifteen cowboys—he counted them, deliberately, coldly, despite the rage-mania that had seized him—were spurring after eight other men whom he knew for his own. As he watched he saw two of these tumble from their horses. And at a distance he saw the loops of ropes swing out to enmesh four more—who were thrown and dragged; he watched darkly as the remaining two raised their hands above their heads. Then his lips came out of their pout and were wreathed in a bitter snarl.

  “Licked!” he muttered. “Twelve put out of business. But there’s thirty more—if the damn fools have come in to town! That’s two to one!” He laughed, wheeled his horse toward Manti, rode a few feet down the slope of the arroyo, halted and sat motionless in the saddle, looking back. He smiled with cold satisfaction. “Lucky for me that cinch strap broke,” he said.

  * * *

  Trevison was placing Levins’ limp form across the saddle on Nigger’s back when the faint morning breeze bore to his ears the report of Weaver’s pistol. A rattling volley followed the first report, and Trevison led Nigger close to the edge of the ledge in time to observe the battle as Corrigan had seen it. He hurried Nigger down the slope, but he had to be careful with his burden. Reaching the level he lifted Levins off, laid him gently on the top of a huge flat rock, and then leaped into the saddle and sent Nigger tearing over the plains toward the scene of the battle.

  It was over when he arrived. A dozen men were lying in the tall grass. Some were groaning, writhing; others were quiet and motionless. Four or five of them were arrayed in chaps. His lips grimmed as his gaze swept them. He dismounted and went to them, one after another. He stooped long over one.

  “They’ve got Weaver,” he heard a voice say. And he started and looked around, and seeing no one near, knew it was his own voice that he heard. It was dry and light—as a man’s voice might be who has run far and fast. He stood for a while, looking down at Weaver. His brain was reeling, as it had reeled over on the ledge of the pueblo a few minutes before, when he had discovered a certain thing. It was not a weakness; it was a surge of reviving rage, an accession of passion that made his head swim with its potency, made his muscles swell with a strength that he had not known for many hours. Never in his life had he felt more like crying. His emotions seared his soul as a white-hot iron sears the flesh; they burned into him, scorching his pity and his impulses of mercy, withering them, blighting them. He heard himself whining sibilantly, as he had heard boys whine when fighting, with eagerness and lust for blows. It was the insensate, raging fury of the fight-madness that had gripped him, and he suddenly yielded to it and raised his head, laughing harshly, with panting, labored breath.

  Barkwell rode up to him, speaking hoarsely: “We come pretty near wipin’ ’em out, ‘Firebrand!’”

  He looked up at his foreman, and the latter’s face blanched. “God!” he said. He whispered to a cowboy who had joined him: “The boss is pretty near loco—looks like!”

  “They’ve killed Weaver,” muttered Trevison. “He’s here. They killed Clay, too—he’s down on a rock near the slope.” He laughed, and tightened his belt. The record book which he had carried in his waistband all along interfered with this work, and he drew it out, throwing it from him. “Clay was worth a thousand of them!”

  Barkwell got down and seized the book, watching Trevison closely.

  “Look here, Boss,” he said, as Trevison ran to his horse and threw himself into the saddle; “you’re bushed, mighty near—”

  If Trevison heard his first words he had paid no attention to them. He could not have heard the last words, for Nigger had lunged forward, running with great, long, catlike leaps in the direction of Manti.

  “Good God!” yelled Barkwell to some of the men who had ridden up; “the damn fool is goin’ to town! They’ll salivate him, sure as hell! Some of you stay here—two’s enough! The rest of you come along with me!”

  They were after Trevison within a few seconds, but the black horse was far ahead, running without hitch or stumble, as straight toward Manti as his willing muscles and his loyal heart could take him.

  * * *

  Corrigan had seen the black bolt that had rushed toward him out of the spot where the blot had been. He cursed hoarsely and drove the spurs deep into the flanks of his horse, and the animal, squealing with pain and fury, leaped down the side of the arroyo, crossed the bottom in two or three bounds and stretched away toward Manti.

  A cold fear had seized the big man’s heart. It made a sweat break out on his forehead, it caused his hand to tremble as he flung it around to his hip in search of his pistol. He tried to shake the feeling off, but it clung insistently to him, making him catch his breath. His horse was big, rangy, and strong, but he forced it to such a pace during the first mile of the ride that he could feel its muscles quivering under the saddle skirts. And he looked back at the end of the mile, to see the black horse at about the same distance from him; possibly the distance had been shortened. It seemed to Corrigan that he had never seen a horse that traveled as smoothly and evenly as the big black, or that ran with as little effort. He began to loathe the black with an intensity equaled only by that which he felt for his rider.

  He held his lead for another mile. Glancing back a little later he noted with a quickening pulse that the distance had been shortened by several hundred feet, and that the black seemed to be traveling with as little effort as ever. Also, for the first time, Corrigan noticed the presence of other riders, behind Trevison. They were topping a slight rise at the instant he glanced back, and were at least a mile behind his pursuer.

  At first, mingled with his fear, Corrigan had felt a slight disgust for himself in yielding to his sudden panic. He had never been in the habit of running. He had been as proud of his courage as he had been of his cleverness and his keenness in planning and plotting. It had been his mental boast that in every crisis his nerve was coldest. But now he nursed a vagrant, furtive hope that waiting for him at Manti would be some of those men whom he had hired at his own expense to impersonate deputies. The presence of the hope was as inexplicable as the fear that had set him to running from Trevison. Two or three weeks ago he would have faced both Trevison and his men and brazened it out. But of late a growing dread of the man had seized him. Never before had he met a man who refused to be beaten, or who had fought him as recklessly and relentlessly.

  He jeered at himself as he rode, telling himself that when Trevison got near enough he would stand and have it out with him—for he knew that the fight had narrowed down between them until it was as Trevison had said, man to man—but as he rode his breath came faster, his backward glances grew more frequent and fearful, and the cold sweat on his forehead grew clammy. Fear, naked and shameful, had seized him.

  * * *

  Behind him, lean, gaunt, haggard; seeing nothing but the big man ahead of him, feeling nothing but an insane desire to maim or slay him, rode a man who in forty-eight hours had been transformed from a frank, guileless, plain-speaking human, to a rage-drunken savage—a monomaniac who, as he leaned over Nigger’s mane, whispered and whined and mewed, as his forebears, in some tropical jungle, voiced their passions when they set forth to slay those who had sought to despoil them.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  THE DREGS

  When the Benham private car came to a stop on the switch, Rosalind swung up the steps and upon the platform just as J. C., ruddy, smiling and bland, opened the door. She was in his arms in an instant, murmuring her joy. He stroked her hair, then held her off for a good look at her, and inquired, unctuously:

  “What are you doing in town so early, my dear?”

  “Oh!” She hid her face on hi
s shoulder, reluctant to tell him. But she knew he must be told, and so she steeled herself, stepping back and looking at him, her heart pounding madly.

  “Father; these people have discovered that Corrigan has been trying to cheat them!”

  She would have gone on, but the sickly, ghastly pallor of his face frightened her. She swayed and leaned against the railing of the platform, a sinking, deadly apprehension gnawing at her, for it seemed from the expression of J. C.’s face that he had some knowledge of Corrigan’s intentions. But J. C. had been through too many crises to surrender at the first shot in this one. Still he got a good grip on himself before he attempted to answer, and then his voice was low and intoned with casual surprise:

  “Trying to cheat them? How, my dear?”

  “By trying to take their land from them. You had no knowledge of it, Father?”

  “Who has been saying that?” he demanded, with a fairly good pretense of righteous anger.

  “Nobody. But I thought—I—Oh, thank God!”

  “Well, well,” he bluffed with faint reproach; “things are coming to a pretty pass when one’s own daughter is the first to suspect him of wrong-doing.”

  “I didn’t, Father. I was merely—I don’t know what I did think! There has been so much excitement! Everything is so upset! They have blown up the mining machinery, burned the bank and the courthouse; Judge Lindman was abducted and found; Braman was killed—choked to death; the Vigilantes are—”

  “Good God!” Benham interrupted her, staggering back against the rear of the coach. “Who has been at the bottom of all this lawlessness?”

  “Trevison.”

  He gasped, in spite of the fact that he had suspected what her answer would be.