by Max Brand
That game, little man twisted his legs together, kicked out once, and lay still.
IX
There was Rance, the ex-sailor, between him and the door, still, as Bristol came to his feet, charging. The axe was raised again on high, but when Rance saw the leveled revolver, he shrank back against the wall with a groan and threw up a hand before his face.
Bristol, disdaining to touch a man so helpless, ran past him into the open.
Dirk van Wey—where was he? The rest had fought hard enough, but where was Dirk van Wey? It seemed to Bristol that the giant was about to step out from behind the trunk of the big tree. And as the door of the horse shed was torn open, surely Dirk van Wey would spring upon him with his irresistible hands—or a straight tongue of flame would dart at him from the muzzle of van Wey’s gun.
He reached the place of the stallion and found Pringle just lurching to his feet, the last of the horses to rise. A saddle and a bridle hung from the peg on the wall. There was no time for the saddle. Even the seconds used for pulling the bridle over the head of the horse were moments in which all the blood in Bristol’s heart seemed to flow away. He blessed the stallion for parting its teeth to receive the bit, and with the throatlatch still unfastened, he ran toward the door of the shed again, with the horse trotting willingly behind him.
He saw the form of Harry Weston come running through the doorway of the house opposite him, with a rifle in his hands. And as Bristol swung onto the back of the stallion, he saw the rifle go to Weston’s shoulder.
Twice the gun barked, but the bullets sang nowhere near Bristol. As he straightened out the stallion to full speed up the gap, he saw Weston rub a hand across his forehead, as though trying to wipe away the cloud that hung over his eyes. No doubt he was still more than half stunned by the blows that he had received from powerful fists.
Again and again the rifle barked, and this time the bullets stung the air close to Bristol’s head. Then the maze of trees and great rocks received him and shut him off from danger.
But where was Dirk van Wey? That question haunted him on the way down the pass. Every moment he seemed to hear the beating of the hoofs of horses behind him. The wind rose and howled through the gap. And it was to Bristol the voice of the giant.
Yet no van Wey appeared.
The stallion went under him like silk. One hardly needed a saddle. For though withers and backbone thrust up, the gait of this daisy cutter was like the motion of a boat down a smooth current.
Leaving the steep descent, he opened up Pringle to a sweeping gallop that poured the hills behind them like moving waves of the sea. With hardly a break, the tall horse maintained that gait until, far before them, Bristol saw the old, squat outline of the ranch house of Joe Graney. The moon was far up the sky now, whitening the hills, and when he came close to the house, he saw the hoof-marked dust in front of it as bright as water under that steady light, with little shadows as black as ink outlining the hollows where horses had stamped at the hitch rack.
There he dismounted and threw the reins. At once the ugly head of Pringle dropped low. He pointed a back hoof and seemed instantly to fall asleep on his feet.
At the door of the house, Jimmy Bristol paused and looked over the sweep of the landscape. The hills swept away in steady succession, and the mountains were half hidden in the moon haze. It seemed impossible that he had started not many hours ago toward the Kennisaw Gap. That must have been in another life, or in a dream.
Yet he could feel a lump on the side of his head and another on his cheek, where the hard fists of Harry Weston had gone home. His whole body was bruised and sore from that tumble down the stairs, and where the grip of Dan Miller had lain on his flesh, it burned as though it had been scorched.
Then he tried the latch, found the door open, and walked into the dimness of the house.
It was not like the damp cold of the stone-and-log building in the Kennisaw Gap. A faint, half-stale odor of cookery hung in the air of the hall. There was a gentle hush, as of sleep. He could almost hear the breathing of the sleepers.
He thought of the girl then and smiled. Weariness could be permitted to come over him now. He could relax for a few moments—although not for long.
Dirk van Wey by this time must know what had happened to his money, his horse, and his men. And Dirk van Wey would follow him around the world to be quits for the defeat. It was only the first trick of a long game that Bristol felt he had won.
In the meantime, he was hungry. He would get to the kitchen, start the fire, and heat some coffee. After that he would have to waken Joe Graney. It would be worthwhile to see the face of the rancher when he looked again on Pringle.
He was almost at the end of the narrow hallway when a door opened. It was the girl.
“Hush, Margaret. It’s Bristol,” he whispered.
“Ah, thank God,” he heard her answer softly. “This will make Dad the happiest man in the world. Look …” She pushed open the door to the dining room. A lamp was burning, and through the doorway, big Jimmy Bristol saw the rancher sitting with his head bowed upon one arm, asleep. His mutilated hand was extended before him, palm up. It was like the last act of one in despair, asking alms from an unheeding world.
Something pinched the heart of Jimmy Bristol.
“He wouldn’t go to bed,” said the girl. “He was in misery. He wanted to ride after you and make you come back. I told him it was too late … that he’d never overtake you. And here you are … safe.” She called: “Father!”
He groaned in his sleep. It was like an echo, to the ear of Bristol, of the sick moaning he had heard from the wounded Lefty Parr on that same night.
The girl rounded the table and touched the shoulder of Graney.
He wakened with a start, jumping to his feet, exclaiming, still half in his dream: “Don’t go, Bristol! Don’t …”
“He’s back. He’s safe,” said the girl.
He rubbed his eyes in confusion, and she began to laugh with such a happiness in her eyes that Bristol seemed invited to join in the mirth.
Joe Graney came to him and gripped him with that deformed hand of his. “Well, this is pretty good. This is pretty good,” he said. “I half thought that I’d never … Margie, she thought that you wouldn’t have the nerve to go right on ahead … but I was sure you would. I’m glad that she was right. I kind of thought that I’d sent you off to be murdered. That was the way I felt … like a murderer. And here you are back, son.”
He blinked his eyes, and there was a moisture in them that stung the heart of Bristol again. But he muttered: “Margie thought I wouldn’t go, eh?” He looked at the girl, and she frowned a little, shaking her head.
“No one man could do it. No one man could walk in on them. I knew that, Jimmy.”
“Anyway,” said Jimmy Bristol, “I brought back some luck for you, Graney. Here’s a part of it.”
“Hush,” said the girl, “or you’ll wake him. The stranger.”
“Who?” asked Bristol, with his hand in his pocket.
“A man dropped in last evening. We put him up, of course, for the night.”
It was on the tip of Bristol’s tongue to ask what man it might be, or a description of him, but the act he was engaged in was too important for that. He pulled out the gold pieces and spilled them on the table. “That’s only one year’s rent,” he said. “Van Wey didn’t seem to be able to spare any more than that for the moment.”
Joe Graney picked up one of the coins, turned it in his hand, and stared helplessly at it.
Then Margaret Graney caught Bristol’s arm and shook it a little. Her eyes were starting out. There were white patches of fear in her face. “You went … into the Kennisaw Gap?” she breathed.
“Sure,” said Bristol, “and Dirk van Wey was glad to see me. I suppose he’d been anxious to pay that rent for a long time. He forked it right out. And the horse, too.”
She looked carefully into his face. “There’s been a fight!” she gasped. “You’ve been hurt! Fat
her, do you see that?”
“Wait a minute,” said Graney. “Did you say the horse, too?”
“Yes.”
“You brought back Pringle with you?”
“He’s out at the hitch rack in front of the house.”
“Great Moses,” murmured Joe Graney. He shook his head, but could not seem to clear the cloud of astonishment that possessed it.
“We’ll go out and see the horse,” said the girl. There was no joy in her face—only trouble and anxiety.
That was the woman of it, thought Bristol. The terror of the unknown was on her and would take many words to dispel.
“We’ll go out and see Pringle. I don’t know how you did it, Bristol. I can’t even ask yet. But maybe it’s the turning point. Maybe it’s the beginning of a change …” He turned, as he spoke toward the door into the hall, but paused. “We’ve waked him up. That’s too bad,” muttered Joe Graney. “Here he comes now.”
All that Bristol saw at first was a dim shape that moved among the dense shadows of the hall, obscure as a fish that stirs in dusky waters.
But now the form of the man crossed the doorway into the light of the dining-room lamp, and Bristol recognized the battered face of Sheriff Tom Denton, who stood there with a gun in his hand.
X
What Jimmy Bristol was aware of later was that neither the girl nor her father uttered a single exclamation. But all he was conscious of at the time was the thunderclap in his own brain as he saw the sheriff emerge from the shadows, carrying the gun that was pointed at Bristol’s body.
“Just stick ’em up, Jimmy,” he said.
And Jimmy Bristol, inch by inch, fought with his hands to make them rise as high as his head.
“Is this right?” said Graney suddenly. “It’s in my own house, man.”
“It’s in your house, but it’s in my county,” said Denton. “I’m the sheriff, Graney. I didn’t tell you when I came, because this gent is the kind that makes friends and keeps them. It’s a good thing for the law that I didn’t talk too much, either, by the look of things. Bristol, turn your face to the wall.”
Jim Bristol obeyed. In the despair that came over him, he pressed his forehead and the flat of his hands against the wall, while he felt the muzzle of the sheriff’s gun lodge against the small of his back. All was of the recognized procedure. A large revolver was taken from Bristol’s person, to say nothing of a very capable jackknife.
The sheriff stepped back a little. “Turn around, Jimmy,” he ordered.
Jimmy, turning, saw the revolver still covering him closely, while in the sheriff’s left hand dangled a pair of manacles.
“Hold out one wrist,” commanded Tom Denton.
Jimmy Bristol did not move. And now the color was gone from his eyes, and they were a blaze of light.
“You’re helpless, and the sheriff means business,” said the girl calmly.
He looked suddenly at Margaret Graney and saw that the white of her face denied the smoothness of her voice.
“I mean business, all right, son,” said Tom Denton. “I don’t wanna do you no harm, but you know what you’re wanted for.”
Jimmy Bristol held out his wrists, and the handcuffs were rapidly snapped in place.
“That’s that,” said the sheriff. “And now I guess you’re as good as in the death house, Bristol, and God help your soul. I’m sorry for you, at that.”
“Death house?” cried Joe Graney. He reached for the arm of the sheriff, who exclaimed: “Don’t touch me, Graney! I can see that the boy’s done you a good turn. But don’t touch me. I belong to the law, just now, and so does he. I’ve got my job to do, and I’m going to do it.”
“Yes,” said Bristol bitterly. “Five thousand dollars’ worth of a job.”
“It ain’t the money so much,” answered the sheriff, flushing, “but it’s the way you made fools of us back there in the town. Beginning with me, you made fools of us all. You might’ve known that we’d do some riding to get onto your trail.”
“I knew. I took the wrong chance,” admitted Bristol.
“You knew,” said the girl, “and yet you came back here, when you might have ridden on?”
Bristol made a sudden gesture that caused the manacles to clank musically. “Sooner or later my sort of a trail comes to this windup,” he told her. “I’m not so sorry.”
“That’s what you say,” said Joe Graney. “But what I know is that I’ve been the bait in the trap for you. And God forgive me. Sheriff, what’s this boy charged with?”
“Murder,” said the sheriff bluntly. “The shooting of a gent in Tombstone about three months ago. After that, stealing a few hosses to help him along his way. That’s about all.” He smiled sourly and added: “Winged a fellow back in town yesterday. Fellow that had trailed him all the way from Tombstone. And made a fool of me, too. The biggest fool that I’ve ever been. How come you to drill that gent in Tombstone, Bristol?”
“Poker,” said Bristol. “The deck of cards on the table wasn’t enough for him. He helped himself to extra deals out of his sleeve.”
“That so?” murmured the sheriff. “Well, in this part of the world, shooting comes to folks that fool too much with the deal in a poker game. Too bad for you, Bristol. But maybe the jury will do some considering.”
“Maybe,” said Bristol shortly. “But I’ll tell you who’ll have to do the considering for all of us if we stay here long.”
“Who?” asked the sheriff.
“The coroner,” answered Bristol. “That money comes from Dirk van Wey. And outside the door is the horse that Dirk likes better than anything else in this world. Dirk left me to be trimmed by some of his boys. He was testing the lot of ’em. But the test went bad, and I had the luck. He won’t let the stuff go, though. If he can guess my back trail, he’ll be here before long, and he won’t be alone.”
“We’ll see that horse,” said the sheriff.
The whole group moved out into the moonlight, with Bristol marched at the head of the line, the sheriff at his back. So they came into view of the stallion, which stood with hanging head still, and pendulous lower lip.
“That nag?” said the sheriff.
“It’s Pringle!” exclaimed Joe Graney. “Pringle, d’you know me, boy?”
The stallion lifted its head suddenly, tilted its long ears forward, and actually whinnied a faint greeting to its master.
Joe Graney began to laugh aloud. “He knows me, Margaret!” he called to the girl.
“Aye,” said the sheriff, standing at the side of Pringle and looking over the long lines, the whipcord muscles. “I can get the idea of him better, now. No wonder that van Wey liked him.”
“He’s ridden nothing but Pringle for two years,” said Graney.
“If van Wey’s in danger of coming down here, we gotta move,” said Tom Denton. “Graney, will you saddle that chestnut and that mule in the barn … and my horse? You’ll have Pringle, here, and Bristol can take the mule.”
The girl ran with her father toward the barn, and the sheriff muttered to Bristol: “I’m sorry about this, son. A low hound of a yaller-toothed coyote that cheats at poker deserves being salted away with lead. I’m mighty sorry. Never heard anything about the crooked poker at the start of your trail.”
“There were four of them framing me,” said Bristol calmly. “Nothing can be done about it now. They’ll all swear black’s white. They have to, to save their own hides.”
“If you’ve been up and fronted that thug, van Wey, it’ll tell in your favor.”
“Of course it will. Life instead of the rope. That’s about all the good that it will do me.”
“You saw van Wey face to face?”
“I shook hands with him.”
The sheriff whistled. “How many went with you?” he asked.
“I went alone.”
“Well,” said Tom Denton, “either you’re a cut above the rest of us, or you’re a little light in the head. I’ve tried three times to get a posse together and
clean out that devil of a van Wey. But I never managed to raise three men at a time. It’s because everybody knows that van Wey isn’t in the game for the money he makes, but for the number of his killings. It’s hard to go ag’in a fellow who kills for the fun of it. Here come the horses. Maybe we’ll all be glad when we reach town, eh?”
Bristol looked up at the brilliance of the moon and said nothing. He was considering that the moon already had moved forward in the sky since he arrived at the house of Joe Graney, and if Dirk van Wey was the man and the brain that Bristol felt him to be, the outlaw might ride over the nearest hill at any time.
“How many men would he have with him?” asked the sheriff.
“Three, I suppose, or perhaps only two. One of his crowd is sick, and another one has the prison shakes. Here are the horses.”
They mounted at once, Bristol on the mule, whose bridle was tied to the horn of the sheriff’s saddle, and Graney on the back of the stallion. The girl rode the chestnut, and the sheriff his own low-built, powerful mustang.
The girl passed close to the side of Bristol and whispered: “Do you want to face a trial or to escape tonight on the way?”
He looked closely at her. There was hardly a chance to answer, unless he had been able to think like lightning. So he merely replied with a shake of the head. Whatever happened, he wanted her hands to remain clean.
They went off at a canter, from which the mule continually broke down into the sort of a trot that comes from straight shoulders and the stiffness of age, so that Bristol was continually lagging to the rear. The sheriff kept beside him and urged the mule along with an occasional lash from the quirt. The two Graneys rode ahead on the dim trail.
But the whole party had not gone two miles when Bristol felt, rather than heard, a vibration of hoofs in the distance.
“Somebody’s coming, and coming fast,” he told the sheriff. “Keep your eyes open. Not many people are likely to be in the saddle at this time of the night.”
They dipped from the top of a low hill into a wide hollow, and so climbed the side of a higher eminence beyond. As they angled up the shoulder of it, they gained a wider view of the rolling land behind them, only rarely broken by patches of trees and groups of rocks that glistened in the moonlight. And now, not a mile behind them, they saw three riders come over the brow of a hill, clearly outlined for an instant against the sky, and then lost in the next hollow.