Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “Too damned fair,” said Kilduff. “I say: String him up an’ drill the skunk full of holes.”

  Without a word Buck turned on his heel.

  “One moment,” said Haines.

  “He ain’t your meat, Lee,” said Silent. “Jest keep your hand out of this.”

  “I only wish to ask him a question,” said Haines. He turned to Buck: “Do you mean to say that after Barry’s wolf cut up your arm, you’ve been giving Whistling Dan a shelter from the law — and from us?”

  “I give him a place to stay because he was damned near death,” said Buck. “An’ there’s one thing you’ll answer for in hell, Haines, an’ that’s ridin’ off an’ leavin’ the man that got you out of Elkhead. He was bleedin’ to death.”

  “Shot?” said Haines, changing colour.

  Silent broke in: “Buck, go take your place and say your prayers.”

  “Stay where you are!” commanded Haines. “And the girl?”

  “He was lyin’ sick in bed, ravin’ about ‘Delilah’ an’ ‘Kate.’ So I come an’ got the girl.”

  Haines dropped his head.

  “An’ when he was lyin’ there,” said Silent fiercely, “you could of made an’ end of him without half liftin’ your hand, an’ you didn’t.”

  “Silent,” said Haines, “if you want to talk, speak to me.”

  “What in hell do you mean, Lee?”

  “You can’t get at Buck except through me.”

  “Because that devil Barry got a bullet for your sake are you goin’ to—”

  “I’ve lived a rotten life,” said Haines.

  “An’ I suppose you think this is a pretty good way of dyin’?” sneered Silent.

  “I have more cause to fight for Barry than Buck has,” said Haines.

  “Lee, we’ve been pals too long.”

  “Silent, I’ve hated you like a snake ever since I met you. But outlaws can’t choose their company.”

  His tawny head rose. He stared haughtily around the circle of lowering faces.

  “By God,” said Silent, white with passion, “I’m beginnin’ to think you do hate me! Git down there an’ take your place. You’re first an’ Daniels comes next. Kilduff, you c’n count!”

  He stalked to the end of the room. Haines lingered one moment.

  “Buck,” he said, “there’s one chance in ten thousand that I’ll make this draw the quickest of the two. If I don’t, you may live through it. Tell Kate—”

  “Haines, git to your mark, or I’ll start shootin’!”

  Haines turned and took his place. The others drew back along the walls of the room. Kilduff took the lamp from the table and held it high above his head. Even then the light was dim and uncertain and the draughts set the flame wavering so that the place was shaken with shadows. The moon sent a feeble shaft of light through the window.

  “One!” said Kilduff.

  The shoulders of Haines and Silent hunched slightly.

  “Two!” said Kilduff.

  “God,” whispered someone.

  “Three. Fire!”

  They whirled, their guns exploding at almost the same instant, and Silent lunged for the floor, firing twice as he fell. Haines’s second shot split the wall behind Silent. If the outlaw chief had remained standing the bullet would have passed through his head. But as Silent fired the third time the revolver dropped clattering from the hand of Haines. Buck caught him as he toppled inertly forward, coughing blood.

  Silent was on his feet instantly.

  “Stand back!” he roared to his men, who crowded about the fallen long rider. “Stand back in your places. I ain’t finished. I’m jest started. Buck, take your place!”

  “Boys!” pleaded Buck, “he’s not dead, but he’ll bleed to death unless—”

  “Damn him, let him bleed. Stand up, Buck, or by God I’ll shoot you while you kneel there!”

  “Shoot and be damned!”

  He tore off his shirt and ripped away a long strip for a bandage.

  The revolver poised in Silent’s hand.

  “Buck, I’m warnin’ you for the last time!”

  “Fellers, it’s murder an’ damnation for all if you let Haines die this way!” cried Buck.

  The shining barrel of the revolver dropped to a level.

  “I’ve given you a man’s chance,” said Silent, “an’ now you’ll have the chance of—”

  The door at the side of the room jerked open and a revolver cracked. The lamp shivered to a thousand pieces in the hands of Bill Kilduff. All the room was reduced to a place of formless shadow, dimly lighted by the shaft of moonlight. The voice of Jim Silent, strangely changed and sharpened from his usual bass roar, shrilled over the sudden tumult: “Each man for himself! It’s Whistling Dan!”

  Terry Jordan and Bill Kilduff rushed at the dim figure, crouched to the floor. Their guns spat fire, but they merely lighted the way to their own destruction. Twice Dan’s revolver spoke, and they dropped, yelling. Pandemonium fell on the room.

  The long riders raced here and there, the revolvers coughing fire. For an instant Hal Purvis stood framed against the pallid moonshine at the window. He stiffened and pointed an arm toward the door.

  “The werewolf,” he screamed.

  As if in answer to the call, Black Bart raced across the room. Twice the revolver sounded from the hand of Purvis. Then a shadow leaped from the floor. There was a flash of white teeth, and Purvis lurched to one side and dropped, screaming terribly. The door banged. Suddenly there was silence. The clatter of a galloping horse outside drew swiftly away.

  “Dan!”

  “Here!”

  “Thank God!”

  “Buck, one got away! If it was Silent — Here! Bring some matches.”

  Someone was dragging himself towards the door in a hopeless effort to escape. Several others groaned.

  “You, there!” called Buck. “Stay where you are!”

  The man who struggled towards the door flattened himself against the floor, moaning pitifully.

  “Quick,” said Dan, “light a match. Morris’s posse is at my heels. No time. If Silent escaped—”

  A match flared in the hands of Buck.

  “Who’s that? Haines!”

  “Let him alone, Dan! I’ll tell you why later. There’s Jordan and Kilduff. That one by the door is Rhinehart.”

  They ran from one to the other, greeted by groans and deep curses.

  “Who’s that beneath the window?”

  “Too small for Silent. It’s Purvis, and he’s dead!”

  “Bart got him!”

  “No! It was fear that killed him. Look at his face!”

  “Bart, go out to Satan!”

  The wolf trotted from the room.

  “My God, Buck, I’ve done all this for nothin’! It was Silent that got away!”

  “What’s that?”

  Over the groans of the wounded came the sound of running horses, not one, but many, then a call: “Close in! Close in!”

  “The posse!” said Dan.

  As he jerked open the door a bullet smashed the wood above his head. Three horsemen were closing around Satan and Black Bart. He leaped back into the room.

  “They’ve got Satan, Buck. We’ve got to try it on foot. Go through the window.”

  “They’ve got nothing on me. I’ll stick with Haines.”

  Dan jumped through the window, and raced to the shelter of a big rock. He had hardly dropped behind it when four horsemen galloped around the corner of the house.

  “Johnson and Sullivan,” ordered the voice of Monte sharply, “watch the window. They’re lying low inside, but we’ve got Barry’s horse and wolf. Now we’ll get him.”

  “Come out or we’ll burn the house down!” thundered a voice from the other side.

  “We surrender!” called Buck within.

  A cheer came from the posse. Sullivan and Johnson ran for the window they had been told to guard. The door on the other side of the house slammed open.

  “It’s a sla
ughter house!” cried one of the posse.

  Dan left the sheltering rock and raced around the house, keeping a safe distance, and dodging from rock to rock. He saw Satan and Black Bart guarded by two men with revolvers in their hands. He might have shot them down, but the distance was too great for accurate gun-play. He whistled shrilly. The two guards wheeled towards him, and as they did so, Black Bart, leaping, caught one by the shoulder, whirling him around and around with the force of the spring. The other fired at Satan, who raced off towards the sound of the whistle. It was an easy shot, but in the utter surprise of the instant the bullet went wide. Before he could fire again Satan was coming to a halt beside Dan.

  “Help!” yelled the cattleman. “Whistling Dan!”

  The other guard opened fire wildly. Three men ran from the house. All they saw was a black shadow which melted instantly into the night.

  36. FEAR

  INTO THE DARK he rode. Somewhere in the mountains was Silent, and now alone. In Dan’s mouth the old salt taste of his own blood was unforgotten.

  It was a wild chase. He had only the faintest clues to guide him, yet he managed to keep close on the trail of the great outlaw. After several days he rode across a tall red-roan stallion, a mere wreck of a horse with lean sides and pendant head and glazed eye. It was a long moment before Dan recognized Silent’s peerless mount, Red Pete. The outlaw had changed his exhausted horse for a common pony. The end of the long trail must be near.

  The whole range followed that chase with breathless interest. It was like the race of Hector and Achilles around the walls of Troy. And when they met there would be a duel of giants. Twice Whistling Dan was sighted. Once Jim Silent fought a running duel with a posse fresh from Elkhead. The man hunters were alert, but it was their secret hope that the two famous outlaws would destroy each other, but how the wild chase would end no one could know. At last Buck Daniels rode to tell Kate Cumberland strange news.

  When he stumbled into the ranch house, Kate and her father rose, white- faced. There was an expression of waiting terror in their eyes.

  “Buck!” cried Joe.

  “Hush! Dad,” said Kate. “It hasn’t come yet! Buck, what has happened?”

  “The end of the world has come for Dan,” he said. “That devil Silent—”

  “Dan,” cried old Joe, and rushed around the table to Buck.

  “Silent has dared Dan to meet him at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon in Tully’s saloon in Elkhead! He’s held up four men in the last twenty-four hours and told them that he’ll be at Tully’s tomorrow and will expect Dan there!”

  “It isn’t possible!” cried Kate. “That means that Silent is giving himself up to the law!”

  Buck laughed bitterly.

  “The law will not put a hand on them if it thinks that they’ll fight it out together,” he said.

  “There’ll be a crowd in the saloon, but not a hand will stir to arrest Silent till after the fight.”

  “But Dan won’t go to Tully’s,” broke in old Joe. “If Silent is crazy enough to do such a thing, Dan won’t be.”

  “He will,” said Kate. “I know!”

  “You’ve got to stop him,” urged Buck. “You’ve got to get to Elkhead and turn Dan back.”

  “Ay,” said Joe, “for even if he kills Silent, the crowd will tackle him after the fight — a hundred against one.”

  She shook her head.

  “You won’t go?”

  “Not a step.”

  “But Kate, don’t you understand — ?”

  “I couldn’t turn Dan back. There is his chance to meet Silent. Do you dream any one could turn him back?”

  The two men were mute.

  “You’re right,” said Buck at last. “I hoped for a minute that you could do it, but now I remember the way he was in that dark shanty up the Bald-eagle Creek. You can’t turn a wolf from a trail, and Whistling Dan has never forgotten the taste of his own blood.”

  “Kate!” called her father suddenly. “What’s the matter, honey?”

  With bowed head and a faltering step she was leaving the room. Buck caught old Joe by the arm and held him back as he would have followed.

  “Let her be!” said Buck sharply. “Maybe she’ll want to see you at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon, but until then she’ll want to be alone. There’ll be ghosts enough with her all the time. You c’n lay to that.”

  Joe Cumberland wiped his glistening forehead.

  “There ain’t nothin’ we c’n do, Buck, but sit an’ wait.”

  Buck drew a long breath.

  “What devil gave Silent that idea?”

  “Fear!”

  “Jim Silent don’t know what fear is!”

  “Any one who’s seen the yaller burn in Dan’s eyes knows what fear is.”

  Buck winced.

  Cumberland went on: “Every night Silent has been seein’ them eyes that glow yaller in the dark. They lie in wait for him in every shadow. Between dark and dawn he dies a hundred deaths. He can’t stand it no more. He’s goin’ to die. Somethin’ tells him that. But he wants to die where they’s humans around him, and when he dies he wants to pull Dan down with him.”

  They sat staring at each other for a time.

  “If he lives through that fight with Silent,” said Buck sadly, “the crowd will jump in on him. Their numbers’ll make ’em brave.”

  “An’ then?”

  “Then maybe he’d like a friend to fight by his side,” said Buck simply. “So long, Joe!”

  The old man wrung his hand and then followed him out to the hitching-rack where Buck’s horse stood.

  “Ain’t Dan got no friends among the crowd?” asked Cumberland. “Don’t they give him no thanks for catching the rest of Silent’s gang?”

  “They give him lots of credit,” said Buck. “An’ Haines has said a lot in favour of Dan, explainin’ how the jail bustin’ took place. Lee is sure provin’ himself a white man. He’s gettin’ well of his wounds and it’s said the Governor will pardon him. You see, Haines went bad because the law done him dirt a long time ago, and the Governor is takin’ that into account.”

  “But they’d still want to kill Dan?”

  “Half of the boys wouldn’t,” said Buck. “The other half is all wrought up over the killings that’s been happenin’ on the range in the last month. Dan is accused of about an even half of ’em, an’ the friends of dead men don’t waste no time listenin’ to arguments. They say Dan’s an outlawed man an’ that they’re goin’ to treat him like one.”

  “Damn them!” groaned Cumberland. “Don’t Morris’s confession make no difference?”

  “Morris was lynched before he had a chance to swear to what he said in Dan’s favour. Kilduff an’ Jordan an’ Rhinehart might testify that Dan wasn’t never bought over by Silent, but they know they’re done for themselves, an’ they won’t try to help anybody else, particular the man that put ’em in the hands of the law. Kilduff has swore that Dan was bribed by Silent, that he went after Silent not for revenge, but to get some more money out of him, an’ that the fight in the shanty up at Bald-eagle Creek was because Silent refused to give Dan any more money.”

  “Then there ain’t no hope,” muttered Cumberland. “But oh, lad, it breaks my heart to think of Kate! Dan c’n only die once, but every minute is a death to her!”

  37. DEATH

  BEFORE NOON OF the next day Buck joined the crowd which had been growing for hours around Tully’s saloon. Men gave way before him, whispering. He was a marked man — the friend of Whistling Dan Barry. Cowpunchers who had known him all his life now avoided his eyes, but caught him with side glances. He smiled grimly to himself, reading their minds. He was more determined than ever to stand or fall with Whistling Dan that day.

  There was not an officer of the law in sight. If one were present it would be his manifest duty to apprehend the outlaws as soon as they appeared, and the plan was to allow them to fight out their quarrel and perhaps kill each other.

  Arguments be
gan to rise among separate groups, where the crimes attributed to Whistling Dan Barry were numbered and talked over. It surprised Buck to discover the number who believed the stories which he and Haines had told. They made a strong faction, though manifestly in the minority.

  Hardly a man who did not, from time to time, nervously fumble the butt of his six-gun. As three o’clock drew on the talk grew less and less. It broke out now and again in little uneasy bursts. Someone would tell a joke. Half-hysterical laughter would greet it, and die suddenly, as it began. These were all hard-faced men of the mountain-desert, warriors of the frontier. What unnerved them was the strangeness of the thing which was about to happen. The big wooden clock on the side of the long barroom struck once for half-past two. All talk ceased.

  Men seemed unwilling to meet each other’s eyes. Some of them drummed lightly on the top of the bar and strove to whistle, but the only sound that came through their dried lips was a whispering rush of breath. A grey-haired cattle ranger commenced to hum a tune, very low, but distinct. Finally a man rose, strode across the room, shook the old fellow by the shoulder with brutal violence, and with a curse ordered him to stop his “damned death song!”

  Everyone drew a long breath of relief. The minute hand crept on towards three o’clock. Now it was twenty minutes, now fifteen, now ten, now five; then a clatter of hoofs, a heavy step on the porch, and the giant form of Jim Silent blocked the door. His hands rested on the butts of his two guns. Buck guessed at the tremendous strength of that grip. The eyes of the outlaw darted about the room, and every glance dropped before his, with the exception of Buck’s fascinated stare.

  For he saw a brand on the face of the great long rider. It lay in no one thing. It was not the unusual hollowness of eyes and cheeks. It was not the feverish brightness of his glance. It was something which included all of these. It was the fear of death by night! His hands fell away from the guns. He crossed the room to the bar and nodded his head at the bartender.

  “Drink!” he said, and his voice was only a whisper without body of sound.