Gunman's Rendezvous

by Max Brand

  After that the long silence began once more and ran on into the morning. Yet Paul did not grow irritated by the blank time. His thoughts ran before him like a rapidly flowing river. He was seeing all the past of his race. Before that, the name of Torridon had had no content to him. The malice of Aunt Ellen with her recital of horrors had given him a history and his people a past. He was almost grateful to her for the torture of that story.

  XV

  Ten days of blackness, utter blackness.

  He was fed once a day. He was shifted into a corner room of the cellar. There it was damper, wetter. Twice during the ten days heavy rains came, and the water covered the floor on which he lay.

  He wondered profoundly why he did not sicken and die. But he had not so much as a cold in the head. It was not disease that troubled him. It was the constant misery of the wet, the dirt, the darkness, the scampering of rats, which repeatedly crossed his hands and face. And once, stretching out his hand at a noise, he passed his fingers along the sliding back of a snake.

  So ten days passed.

  Then he was visited by John Brett in person. The old leader threw the door back and came heavily down the stairs. He pushed his lantern into the face of the captive and leaned above him.

  “Are you awake?”

  “I’m awake,” said the boy.

  “I’ve brought news for you.”

  “Yes?” he answered calmly, for he had given up hope.

  “We offered you in exchange for Joe. But they say they don’t believe that we’ve got a real Torridon. No real Torridon would’ve lived twelve years with the Bretts.”

  He paused to allow this information to sink in.

  “They won’t give up Joe Brett for you,” he concluded. “So you see what they done for you? We gotta kill you, my boy. Duty to do it. Only it’s night now. We gotta wait for the mornin’ to have light to see the show. So long, Paul. I hope you keep your head up high in the mornin’, the way that a Torridon should.”

  He turned away. At the door he paused and threw over his shoulder: “She’s been here beggin’ for you, draggin’ herself at my knees, weepin’ and cryin’ for you. But though you might be able to make a fool out of the Brett women, you ain’t gonna make a fool out of me through their talk.”

  He slammed the door, turned the key with a screech in the rusty bolt, and then stamped away.

  Paul Torridon was almost glad that the waiting was over. It was not death, but the manner of it that was terrible. But at least he could depend on good old Jack. Jack Brett would never see him suffer, but would drive a bullet cheerfully through his heart, and so the merciful end.

  The wind came up. He heard its distant whining and moaning. And the rain drove against the house in rattling gusts. By fits and starts, the squalls of that storm rushed against the house, and Torridon was glad of the storm, too, because it would help to fill the long hours of the night. He hoped that it would rave and scream in the morning, too, when he was led out to die. For he had only that one grim hope left—that he might find the strength to die with a smile on his lips, as a brave man should. He even hoped that, before the end, he could be able to find a speech of sharp defiance, and taunting, so that the memory of how he had died might have a noble place in the mind of Nancy, since that was all that he could leave to her.

  A leak had sprung somewhere in the very center of the cellar. A quick, sharp rattling fall seemed to come at his very door. The wind howled far off; another gust of rain smashed on the house and again he could hear that clatter at his door.

  And then, was it not the faint, harsh murmur of the hinges, slowly turned?

  He braced himself. There was such a thing as a midnight murder to defeat the hand of justice, which was beginning to be extended more and more often into this region where the gun had been the only judge.

  Then a soft voice called: “Paul Torridon!” A man’s voice—quiet, pitched just with the fall of the rain.

  He said loudly: “Here I am. If you’ve come to murder me, strike a light. I want to see your face.”

  Something crouched beside him. His body turned to rigid steel,

  “Torridon, I’m Roger Lincoln.”

  That name dissolved the world and left the blackness and the cold and the dark of despair far off, and brought the prisoner suddenly into the light of warm hope and comfort.

  Roger Lincoln!

  The ropes were cut away from his hands, from his feet. He tried to rise, but Lincoln thrust him back again. There was wonderful power in the famous hand of that hero.

  “Lie still. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply, and relax.”

  He obeyed those quick orders with perfect attention.

  And then the strong hands began to move, rubbing his numbed muscles, bringing sense and power into his nerves, into his whole body. Paul began to tingle where the ropes had long worn at the flesh, until the tingling made him almost cry out.

  “Now,” said Roger Lincoln, ceasing from his labor. “Now, try your feet.”

  Paul stood up in the dark.

  He found himself ridiculously weak. His head went around. He would have fallen, but the other clutched and steadied him.

  “This is bad,” he heard Lincoln mutter. “This is very bad.” He paused, breathing hard from the work of that rubbing. Then he said: “I’ve brought an extra pistol. Can you use a pistol at all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Here it is. Double-barreled. It shoots straight and it’s not too heavy. Never fire till I give the word, and I won’t give the word unless it’s the last chance. And . . .”

  “Hush,” said Paul Torridon.

  He had lain those endless hours in the place until his ear could make out everything, everywhere in the cellar.

  Someone had raised the cellar door, the big, flat, massive door.

  Outside that was always at least one guard. John Brett took no chances.

  “How did you come in?” whispered Paul.

  “Through the door,” said Roger Lincoln. “The hail knocked them silly a little while ago. Then I went in when they hunted cover. They’re tired of their work.”

  “They know that you’re here,” said Torridon in an agony of conviction.

  “How can they?”

  “They’re opening the cellar door now.”

  “Follow me . . . straight behind me, if you can.”

  “I can, I think. If you go slowly, slowly.”

  He concentrated. He fought his reeling head, his clumsy, weak limbs, and made them go straight. So he marched ahead. They were through the door of the cell that had held him, and then a suddenly unhooded lantern flamed against their eyes. And behind the lantern light they saw the dim silhouettes of four men, guns in hand.

  XVI

  Long afterward, when he thought of that moment, Torridon went cold with fear and horror, but at the moment, overriding all else, was the knowledge that he had only two bullets in that double-barreled pistol, that he had nothing wherewith to load again, and that each of those two bullets must bring down a man.

  At the gleam of the lantern he had stumbled and fallen flat as its rays swept over them. Roger Lincoln had leaped to the side with cat-like suddenness. And three guns boomed and flashed from the hands of the Bretts—three rapid, long flashes that lighted up the dark of the cellar.

  At the left-hand and last flash, Torridon fired his right barrel. And he heard the slump of a body to floor. He had fired just beneath the flash—his bullet should have found the body, perhaps the heart.

  He remembered, afterward, how he had thought out those details. Roger Lincoln had fired two shots to his right.

  Then a vague form loomed above Torridon and hurled itself at him with a sound like the growl of an infuriated dog. Up at the head of the lunging shadow he fired. A heavy weight struck him, rolled loosely off. And he got to his hands and knees just as Roger Lincoln leaned above him.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Not hurt, Roger.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  To m
ake speed, Roger Lincoln caught up the youngster and heaved him over one shoulder. He rushed up the steps, with a sound of stifled groaning following him from the cellar. Two shots followed them. One bullet landed with a soft thud. Torridon was sure that it must have struck the flesh of his rescuer, but Roger Lincoln went on, unhesitating.

  The door of the cellar was cast wide.

  Out from the house rushed half a dozen forms, armed, shouting with excitement.

  “What’s happening? Who’s there? Stop those two men!” shouted the voice of John Brett. “Where’s a lantern?”

  There was no lantern. Through the dusk, Torridon thought they might escape, but Roger Lincoln did not attempt to avoid the group. Instead, he strode on straight toward them, straight through them.

  “It’s Roger Lincoln!” he called. “He’s down there with Torridon. He’s broken into the place . . . he’s killed Charlie, I think. And we downed one of ’em . . .”

  “Roger Lincoln!” cried John Brett.

  And all of them rushed like bulldogs toward the point of danger. Several others swarmed down from the house. The door was swinging and crashing.

  Then they turned the corner, and Roger Lincoln lowered Torridon to the ground.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “No,” said Torridon.

  “Come on with me then. My horse is near here.”

  They began to run, and no sooner did the strain of the muscles begin than Torridon felt a long, burning pain that went through his body and up his side.

  “The gray can carry you . . . I’ll run alongside,” said Roger Lincoln. “I started with a second horse . . . it went dead lame. I couldn’t wait till tomorrow . . .”

  “I would have been dead tomorrow,” gasped Torridon. They broke through a group of trees. “I’ll get Ashur.”

  “Aye, if we could get him.”

  “They’re after us!”

  A wave of angry shouting broke upward from the cellar door and spread abroad into the night.

  “I’m going to take the gray mare,” said Roger Lincoln. “I’ll ride across them and get them after me, if I can. You go on to the barn and get Ashur. Do you want to try that?”

  “I’ll try that.”

  They had reached the covert in which Comanche was hidden, and now Roger Lincoln flashed away on her, and Torridon ran for his life toward the stable.

  He could feel the blood slipping down his side now. It sent electric thrills of fear through him. What would happen to him? How far would his life last?

  He climbed the last fence. He was through the rear stable door and Ashur’s whinny of greeting met him in the dark. And here was Ashur, plunging, snorting with joy, like a dog long separated from a loved master.

  In all his life, Ashur never had failed to see young Torridon every day. Now he was frantic with pleasure. And nothing Torridon called in the way of softly muttered orders had any effect on him. He pitched off the saddle when it was dragged onto his back. Only when the bridle and bit had been given to him did he quiet, and then, from the distance, Torridon heard voices.

  And there was left to him only Ashur, and an unloaded pistol.

  Frantically he caught up the saddle and dragged it over the back of the stallion again. The cinches swung readily into his hand, and he jerked them home on the buckles.

  “Who’s there?” someone was calling. Lantern light began to turn the stall posts into myriad tall shadows, pitching to and fro like waves before a gale.

  “It’s someone at Ashur! Quick . . . it may be him!”

  Clearly, clearly rang that voice, freezing the heart of Torridon. No Brett could miss a target fairly seen. Only the night, which had covered him before, might cover him now.

  He climbed into the saddle. He had a certain nervous force in his hands. With that, he dragged his trembling, failing body. The light was rushing down upon him, like a ship driving through a sea. There were more than two. Three men were coming, and may heaven defend him.

  He twisted Ashur from the stall. The stallion heard his whisper. Like a human being, aware of danger, it slipped forward with stealthy steps, and the rear door of the stable was just before them, swinging half shut in the wind.

  And then the full tide of the lantern light washed over them.

  “There he is!”

  “Shoot!”

  “Shoot for the horse! Anything to get him!”

  Then Paul called: “Ashur!”

  And Ashur leaped for the half-shut door, with Torridon bending along his neck. It was too narrow a space for horse and man to go through, but Ashur turned his head and, like a man, gave the door his shoulder—gave it such a blow that it crashed open under the shock.

  Three guns filled the barn with thunder. Horses, frightened, began to neigh and stamp, and Torridon was out under the wet skies. Noise everywhere, from the house, from the stable.

  Had the stallion been struck?

  There was no way to tell at once. His great heart would not fail until his blood ran out. And he would tell time like an hourglass to the last running of the sand.

  Torridon turned the black toward the road. Three fences, big, black, shaggy with the night, rose before them. Strangely large they loomed, but Ashur went over them softly, lightly. Surely he was not struck. But what if he were laying down his life for his master? Was the life of any man worth such a price?

  They gained the road before the house. Other horsemen were pouring out from the door of the barn behind him. But there, glimmering through the dark before him, he saw a horseman—Roger Lincoln on his gray?

  He shouted, and the ringing voice of Roger Lincoln struck back to him. Then he was with that hero from the plains! And the pursuit was beating behind them.

  Let them come! Let them ride the hearts out of their horses; they would no more catch this pair than they would catch the eagles in the air with their bare hands!

  Swiftly they slid away. Like quicksilver flowed the mare. Like the wind ran the black. For a blinding mile they ran, and then the silver mare slipped behind. A neck back, a length back!

  “Steady!” called Roger Lincoln. “You’ll fly away from me, lad!”

  Torridon drew in the stallion. They ran more easily, with long bounds that devoured the distance. There was not even a sound of pursuit, now, behind them.

  * * * * *

  At moonrise they stopped.

  Then they looked to the horses. Ashur was untouched.

  “And you?” said Roger Lincoln.

  “I’m scratched along the side, I think.”

  It was only a scratch, a glancing cut that might have taken his life, if it had been a fraction of an inch deeper.

  Lincoln bound it up. “Now what?” he asked.

  “I must go to the right, down the next road. I . . . I have to see a girl, if I can, before I ride on, Roger.”

  “That’s pretty Nancy?”

  “Do you know about her?”

  “Everyone knows about her and you. Jack told me.”

  “Jack?”

  “She gave Jack my ring that you’d given her. It was Jack that found me and sent me back.”

  “Bless him! But . . .”

  “She’s not in her father’s house. She’s been sent away to the west . . . to the house of a cousin.”

  “Then west, west!” said Torridon feverishly. “How far will it be?”

  “Ten days of careful riding,” said Roger Lincoln. “Into a new world, lad.”

  “And can we find her?” Torridon persisted.

  “Perhaps, I don’t know.”

  “West, then,” said Torridon, “if you’ll take me.”

  “Look to Ashur,” said the plainsman. “Will he fail you?”

  “Never.”

  “He is only a horse,” said Roger Lincoln, “and I’ll hope to show you that I’m a man, Torridon.”

  Gunman’s Rendezvous

  In 1934 Frederick Faust published twelve serials and twenty-five short fictional works in various publications, including Harper’s Maga
zine, Argosy, Collier’s, and Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine, this last his primary and almost sole market from 1922 until 1932. “Gunman’s Rendezvous” appeared that year in the November issue of Star Western, a pulp magazine in which Faust had published eight stories—seven in 1934 and one in 1935. The age-old theme of legacy hunters is the focus of this story.

  I

  Henry Barnes, for the fourth time, lifted his Colt shoulder-high and fired three shots in rapid succession. Then he looked cautiously around him through the brush. It was so dense that he was reasonably sure of hearing a horseman or even a man on foot before anyone could draw very near to him. But there was no answer to his signal.

  He turned and went to the open door of the shack. It had the look of recent habitation. The blankets on the bunk lay in what seemed to be fresh folds. The odor of recently cooked food was in the air, the pungency of coffee, above all. And the traps that hung from the wall were not dusted over with rust.

  Old Jig Carter surely was somewhere near and sufficient waiting would bring him home, but Barnes did not want to wait. He ought to be starting now on the homeward ride. It was middle afternoon. He wanted to be home in bed by midnight. In that way, he would be on the job as usual in the early morning. He could show a fresh face to the dying man on the ranch. There would be little suspicion that he had been far away on a guilty journey.

  All that Barnes wanted was to preserve a good reputation in the world, a reputation behind which he could carry on his clever devices.

  He had not heard a sound, but, when he turned from the door of the cabin, he saw an old man with a long-barreled shotgun carried over the crook of his arm. He was not so very old in years—not more than fifty, perhaps—but the Western sun had dried him to a mummy.

  It seemed as though his face would crack if he opened his mouth. His eyes appeared as lidless, as unwinking, as the eyes of a snake. He was wearing a battered old black felt hat, a checked shirt, overalls belted low over his withered hips, and a revolver slung on his thigh. The presence of the second gun was strange.

  “Yeah?” he inquired, as Barnes turned and stared at him in surprise.

  “You’re Jig Carter, I guess?” said Barnes.