by Max Brand
Cheyenne said nothing. He picked up the letter and ripped it open. The address was in carefully formed, delicate writing. The brief note was written with the same school care, like a specimen for a copybook.
Dear Mr. Jones, or Cheyenne:
I thought you were a man. The Martins have no use for cowards.
Yours very truly,
D.M.
Cheyenne came out into the early darkness with the paper in his hand. On the edge of the village he read the thing again by match light. The matches kept shaking, and the paper kept shaking. He lighted a dozen matches, reading and re-reading the brief note.
I thought you were a man. The Martins have no use for cowards.
That, he thought, was because she was a thoroughbred. Common people have common reactions. They are open to pity and foolishness. So was she, until the crisis came. But in the pinch she would show the steel.
She was the sort to fill a man with a gentle happiness. But in time of need would she not be as stern and strong as any man? She would be like a child among her children, one day, until the emergencies came. And then they would see her ready for battle. He could see the picture of her altering, her head raising, her eyes changing. The Martins have no use for cowards.
He had no use for a coward, either. He pulled out the Colt and put the cold hard muzzle of it between his teeth. It was not fear that kept him from shooting, because everything was finished. His world was reduced to the horse that he rode on. But there was suddenly a good practical reason against this destruction of himself. Yonder there was that consummate traitor—Slip Martin—big and brown and blue-eyed and handsome. He was famous in his world, now. Would it not be better to die trying to repay Slip for the thing that had happened, for the perfection of Slip’s treachery? The more he thought of this, the more convinced he became that it was the thing to do.
Slip would kill him, of course. But if he could brace himself against the shock of the bullets—if he could stand straight against a wall so that the impact of the lead would not knock him this way and that—then he might, as he died, drive one bullet fired by the left hand through the heart of Slip. It was better to die trying. He turned the head of the mare toward Martindale, far away.
As he rode, he tried to keep his mind off the letter from Dolly. It was well enough to call it the fine scorn of the thoroughbred, but there was another name for it, also. “Coward” is strong language. After the cave and the dance at Martindale, “coward” was too strong. He put the letter inside his shirt. The crinkling of it there against his skin would help him, in the last moment, to stand straight against the wall, and shoot back.
So he drifted Sideways slowly through the night. It seemed to him that there would remain only one regret when he stood against the wall and fought his last fight. That regret would be for Sideways. Some other man would have her.
When Cheyenne came into the town, he let the mare swing into a canter, because it was not his purpose to be spotted in some ray of lamplight and so have the alarm spread before he was ready for it. The scene of his death he had selected with care on the way from Old Smoky. It was to be in Jim Rafferty’s saloon. He had had his beer in Rafferty’s many a time, back in the days when he was only a youngster, a growing name. Rafferty had been a friend, then. He was big, burly. He had been an ex-prize fighter, and at the end of his barroom there was a narrow blank wall. Against that wall, Cheyenne would stand and take whatever was coming to him.
When he pulled up in front of Rafferty’s, no other horses were standing at the racks. He got down, threw the reins—why make sure that Sideways waited for him in that spot, or in any spot?—and he lingered for an instant beside the good mare. There were enough splintered rays of lamplight to show him the outline of her head and the gleam of her eyes, like black glass. She and the girl were the only things that had ever stepped into his heart. She and the girl and Old Smoky. The girl had stepped out again of her own volition, although the bright ghost of her remained.
But horses and mountains—they are the things that a man can count on. Whatever love you give them, they give back, as a mirror by the nature that God bestowed on it must return all the light that falls on its face. If his life were not at an end, if he had a new start to make with two good hands, he would do things differently. But that—well, that was all gone—everything was finished.
So he rubbed the soft muzzle of the mare in farewell. He spoke a few foolish words over her, then walked into Rafferty’s.
Rafferty was not there. No one was in the barroom. It was empty. Empty as a coffin, say, with only the bright image of the bottles in the mirror behind the bar. He walked heavily to the bar. Rafferty came in from the back room, wiping a brightness of grease from around his mouth. He was still chewing, but his jaws stopped working as he looked at Cheyenne.
“You, eh?” he said.
“How are you, Jim?” asked Cheyenne, with that smile of his.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Rafferty. He came hastily around the bar and faced Cheyenne. His big jowls trembled with excitement. “You know what town you’re in?” asked Rafferty.
“Good old Martindale, eh?”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Rafferty again.
“I hope not,” said Cheyenne. “Let’s have a beer.”
“A beer?” muttered Rafferty. He drew one, ruled off the fine bubbles of the excess head. “You have your beer, but I’ll take a whiskey. I need it.”
He threw off his drink, filled his glass again, and emptied it the second time. Then he resumed his study of Cheyenne.
“This here bunk they been telling me,” said Rafferty. “About,”—he waved his hand—“about Crooked Foot . . . about Slip Martin . . . what’s there in that?”
“Slip Martin?”
“You know what’s being said?”
“That I took water from Slip?”
“By God, that’s what they’re saying, son. Knock me dead if that ain’t what they’re saying.”
“Jim, you’ve been here long enough to remember Danny Martin.”
“I knew the two-faced hombre,” agreed Rafferty.
“You remember that he and Chuck Martin jumped me, one night?”
“I remember the night, all right. I remember where Danny dropped dead . . . yonder . . . right in that corner.”
“You’re going to see another Martin die tonight, I think,” said Cheyenne. “Mind inviting him in?”
“Who?”
“Slip Martin. Is he in town?”
“Yeah. Where would he be except swelling around this town, drinking the free drinks. You want him here? You mean it?”
“Not if he’s drunk,” said Cheyenne. “If he’s sober, tell him that I’m waiting in here for him. Tell the other Martins, too.”
Rafferty tore off his bar apron. “I been sick at the stomach ever since I heard about Crooked Foot,” he said. “Cheyenne, what you say makes me feel like a man again. I’ll get Slip. I’ll get everybody. Leave it to me. And I’ll frame your getaway, afterward. There ain’t gonna be no murder on top of this here fair fight.”
XI
Earlier that same night, Dorothy Martin had slipped out of her father’s house by the side door. She went around through the corral and got hold of her bay mare. All the others scattered at her coming, stampeding into a far corner, where they swirled like currents of conflicting water for a time, then poured out again in a wild stream to either side.
The kitchen door opened. The loud, angry voice of her father bawled into the night: “What in hell’s wrong with those horses? Steady, boys!”
But her father was not likely to come out to investigate because he had with him, tonight, the very head and topmost authority of the Martin clan—old Jefferson Martin, who ruled his community like a king. His authority was much reinforced, just now, because of the glory that had come to Slip Martin, his son.
Dorothy led her mare by the mane, carrying her pack slung over her shoulder. When she came to the shed, she did not venture to l
ight a lantern. What she wanted, she could find. Her saddle always hung on the third peg from the door. She found it and swung it over the back of the bay. Usually she got one of the men to cinch up the girths tight. She did it herself tonight, patiently waiting for the bay to let out some of the air with which she swelled her chest against the pressure of the cinches. When she had the girths drawn up, she got the bridle on easily, the good mare opening her mouth and reaching for the bit as though she liked it.
There would be a frightful commotion when they found her note. There would be a still greater excitement when she returned. Perhaps her reputation would be gone after that single excursion into the wilderness. A breath can sully a mirror and a word can destroy a girl. She had thought of all that before she started from the house. She had added up facts and feelings, and she faced the cold of the future steadily and without fear.
Now that the mare was ready, she started toward the door, pulling the horse after her in the direction of that dim speckling of starlight. But the mare, pulling sidewise on the bridle, bumped against the open door. The flimsy wood sounded like a stricken drumhead, and the whole mass of horses in the corral began snorting and racing again.
As she lifted her foot to the left stirrup, she could hear the stamping feet of men and their raised voices inside the house. The kitchen door flung open again and her father strode out, swearing, a rifle in his hands.
“There’s some damn’ coyote around here,” he said, “and I’m going to settle it. Don’t go and disturb yourself, Jefferson.” Then he shouted: “You there! You on that horse . . . hold still or I’ll drill you clean, by God!”
She checked up the mare with a gasp.
“Get down off that horse and stick your hands up and come walking to me, dead slow!” shouted Ned Martin.
“Father,” said the girl. “It’s only I . . .”
“Hey, now what in thunder?” he demanded. “What are you doing out there at this time of night . . .?”
“I’m only going for a jog down the road,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Stop that horse!” he shouted after her.
She reined in again. Such a weakness came over her that she began to tremble. Now the tall silhouette of her father bore down on her.
“You’re going to jog down the road, this time of night, after dark? Dolly, what in thunder is in your head? What’s the matter with you? What’s been the matter with you, these last days? Get off that horse!”
She slipped to the ground. “Nothing’s the matter,” she said. “Only, I wanted to get out alone for a few minutes.”
“What’s tied on behind that saddle?”
His hands fumbled there. Afterward he faced her in the darkness, and she heard him breathe once or twice before his voice came.
“Dolly, you’ve tied a pack on behind the saddle. You were going some place.”
She did not need a light to see the pain in his work-starved face. The years of his tenderness and his love poured sorrowfully over her.
“I was going away for two days,” she said.
There was another pause.
“Going away? For two days, Dolly?” he asked her. “Where?”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
“Would you mind coming back into the house?” said Ned Martin.
She wondered why his broken voice did not bring the tears into her eyes, but there was a deeper sorrow in her heart, a coldness of misery that had lain there for days. She walked back silently beside that tall, long-striding form. She was thinking of her childhood and her big father coming in from the cold and the wet of a winter night, with the steam of his breath blowing over his shoulders. She was remembering, strangely enough above all, her first struggle with algebra, and how his huge hand had cramped itself small to hold the pencil as he labored beside her, not helping but at least suffering with her, as he made his figures fine and small, like copybook writing almost.
They went through the kitchen. The Chinaman grinned and bobbed his head at her. Chinamen never understand anything except how to be kind, she reflected. And that’s the lesson that the world needs most.
They went into the dining room, one end of which was usually the family living room, also. There, by the cold stove, sat “Uncle” Jefferson, the father of Slip. Because of his fatherhood, the girl could not look at him squarely.
“Jefferson,” said Ned Martin, “looks as though my girl was about to take a trip away from home. I thought that maybe you could reason with her.”
How strange that her father should ask Jefferson Martin to reason with her. He, the father of Slip!
“What kind of a trip away? Where you goin’, honey?” asked Jefferson Martin. He was a mountain. Time had worn away some of the sloping flesh, but the rocky frame remained, immense and awe-inspiring.
People said that he could be a savage when he was angry. But she looked into his craggy face without the slightest feeling of apprehension. Such blows had fallen on her, silently, that no words of Jefferson Martin could add to her burden.
“I can’t say where I’m going,” said the girl. “It would only make unhappiness.”
“Ned,” said Jefferson, “looks like you gotta bear down a mite on that gal.”
Ned Martin reached out his bony hand toward Dorothy, then smiled, and shook his head. “How would I bear down on Dolly?” he asked.
“By the ripping thunder!” shouted Jefferson, his wrath flowing suddenly as he smote the edge of the table, “I’d give her a command and I’d see that she yipped out an answer! Dolly, where you planning to go?”
She said nothing. She merely watched his face curiously, fearlessly. Other people knew nothing about pain. How could they know?
“By God, Ned,” said Jefferson Martin, “if it was a brat of mine, I’d up and lambaste her, is what I’d do. She ain’t too old for it. If she was, I’d make her younger, a damn’ sight. Stand there and look you in the eye and say nothing, will she?”
The hoofs of horses and the light rattling of wheels drew up in front of the house. In the silence, during which Ned Martin sorrowfully examined his refractory child, there came a knocking at the kitchen door. The Chinaman opened it. He never could learn to ask questions. Every inquirer, even the most ragged tramp, was instantly brought by Wong into the heart of the family. So Ned Martin strode hastily to block away this interruption. But he was too late. Already the stranger stood in the dining room doorway.
Ordinarily all that one sees at the first glance is eyes and mouth and nose, but what the girl saw in this stranger was a forehead so high and so wide, that it gave his face a bald look. The eyes glimmered rather vaguely behind thick glasses, and the lower part of his face was refined almost to femininity. His hands were pale and thin. He could be no hand on a ranch. But he had stamped on him an air of authority that would have made him pass as current coin—and gold at that—in any society.
“I’ve been looking for Mister Jefferson Martin,” he said, “and I was informed that I could find him here. I am Doctor Walter Lindus, from Martindale.”
“Hello, Doctor Lindus,” said Jefferson Martin, getting to his feet. “I’ve heard tell of you. I’ve heard fine things told of you. It’s a happy day for Martindale to have a doc like you in our town.”
They shook hands. The introductions went around, and, when the doctor shook hands with the girl, she felt his glance linger on her a little, as though in surprise. They were inviting this distinguished guest to sit down; they were assuring him that dinner would be on the table in a few moments. He cut straight through this hospitality.
“I can’t stay,” he said, “because I have to turn back immediately. I’ll have to wear out my team, as it is, and drive practically all night. I simply have five minutes’ talk on hand for you, Mister Martin.”
“We’ll step into Ned’s front room,” suggested Jefferson Martin.
“I can say it here just as well,” said the doctor. “I’d rather speak with more witnesses, in fact. I’ve come over here be
cause I’ve heard of the damnable outrage your son committed, Mister Martin.”
This sudden stroke, a blow in the face, caused the big rancher not to recoil or straighten, but to lean a little forward with a darkening brow.
The doctor was not deterred by this attitude of Jefferson Martin. He went straight on, with that wonderful air of a man who is in control. He said: “Murder is a horrible crime, Mister Martin. But there are worse things, it appears. Your son has been guilty of one of them. He has taken advantage, publicly, of a helpless man. I refer to his cowardly behavior in a saloon in the town of Crooked Foot.”
“Coward? Him a coward? My Slip a coward?” shouted Jefferson Martin, getting his voice up by degrees to a roar. “You mean my Slip . . . a coward? Him that faced down that man-murderin’ Cheyenne? What kind of fool talk are you makin’?”
The doctor lowered his head a little. The highlights danced slowly on the big, bald knobs of his forehead. All that the girl could feel about him was brain, brain, brain. He was a man who knew, and whose knowledge could not be wrong. And suddenly a wild hope had come up in her heart and was pouring out toward him, clinging to him and his next words.
He was actually shaking his finger at Jefferson Martin. “You mean to say,” he was exclaiming, “that you didn’t know that poor Cheyenne is a helpless man? You mean to declare to me that you and all your tribe didn’t know?” The doctor looked his disbelief. “I’ve been hunting for you,” he said, “because I was told that you’re in control of your clan. You mean to tell me, Jefferson Martin, that all of you are not perfectly aware that the right arm of Cheyenne is no better than half paralyzed?”
A dreadful stroke came in the throat and in the heart of Dolly Martin and beat her right down to her knees.
“What would you mean by that?” demanded Jefferson Martin. But the assurance was gone from him, now. “Paralyzed?”
“But, of course, you know all about it!” exclaimed the doctor. And he lifted his head, suddenly, and stared around him with a fine contempt for them all. “The eyewitness who told me about the thing distinctly described the holster that Cheyenne wore as being on his left hip. You must have been told the same thing. And your scoundrel of a son, sir . . . do you hear me? . . . I say that your coward of a son took a shameful advantage over a defenseless man whose spirit may have been broken forever, for all I know. And I am here to warn you Martins, individually and as a clan, that if a single finger is ever lifted against him in the future, I shall make it my business to publish the shameless facts all over this range!”