Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  She crouched a little toward the stage driver, whipped out the revolver, and fired, — but a louder explosion blended with the very sound of her shot. The revolver spun out of her fingers and exquisite pain burned her hand.

  Her rage kept her from screaming. She groaned between her set teeth. This was an ill day for Frederick Montgomery!

  “For God’s sake!” breathed a voice from the stage behind her. “He’ll kill us all now! It’s Black Jim!”

  “Down to the road with you,” cried the bandit, in the same deep voice, “and the next of you-all that tries a fancy trick, I’ll drill you clean!”

  Warm blood poured out over her hands and the pain set her shuddering, but the white-hot fury gave her strength. Jerry was the first to touch the ground.

  “You fool!” she moaned. “You big, clumsy, square-headed, bat-eyed, fool! They’ll stick you in the pen for life for this!”

  “Shut up!” advised a cautious voice from the stage, where the passengers stood bolt upright, willing enough to descend, but each afraid to move. “Shut up or you’ll have him murdering us all!”

  “Sorry, lady,” said the masked man, and still he maintained that heavy voice. “If I had seen you was a girl I wouldn’t have fired!”

  “Aw, tell that to the judge,” cried Geraldine, “You’ve shot my hand off! I’ll bleed to death and you’ll hang for it! I tell you you’ll hang for it!”

  He had reined his horse from his position in front of the leaders and now he swung from his saddle to the ground, a sudden motion during which he kept his revolver steadily leveled.

  “Steady in there!” he ordered, “and get the hell out of that stage or I’ll blow you out!”

  He gestured with his free hand to Jerry.

  “Tear off a strip from your skirt and tie that hand up as tight as you can! Here, one of you, get down here and help the lady. You can take your hands down to do that!”

  But there was another thought than that of La Bella Geraldine in the mind of the practical stage driver. His leaders stood now without obstruction. He had lost one passenger, indeed, but the gold in the boot of his stage was worth a hundred passengers to him. He shouted a warning, dropped flat on his seat and darted his whip out over the horses. At his call the other passengers groveled flat, which put the thickness of the boot between them and the bullets of the bandit. The horses hit the collars and the stage whirled into the dusk of the evening.

  To pursue them was folly, for it would be a running fight with two deadly shotguns handled by men concealed and protected. The masked man fired a shot over the heads of the fugitives and turned on Jerry. She was weak with excitement and loss of blood and even her furious anger could not give her strength for long. She staggered.

  “I’m done for, all right—” she gasped, “As a bandit, you’re the biggest cheese ever. My hand — blood — help—”

  Red night swam before Jerry’s eyes, and as utter dark came, she felt an arm pass round her. When she woke from the swoon her entire right arm ached grimly. She was being carried on horseback up a steep mountainside. The trees rose sheer above her. She strove to speak, but the intolerable weakness flooded back on her and she fainted again.

  She recovered again in less pain, lying in a low-roofed room, propped up on blankets. A lantern hung against the wall from a nail, and by its light she made out the form of the man who stooped over her and poured steaming hot water over her hand. He still wore the mask. She closed her eyes again and lay gathering her wrath, her energy, and her vocabulary, for the supreme effort which confronted her.

  “So you did your little bandit bit, did you?” she said at last with keen irony, as she opened her eyes again, “You had to pull the grand-stand stunt with a fine audience of ten to watch you? You had to—”

  “Lie still; don’t talk!” he commanded, still in that deep, and melodramatic bass which enraged her. “You have a fever, kind of; it ain’t much. Just keep quiet an’ you’ll be all right.”

  It was the crowning touch! He was still playing his part!

  “Deary,” she said fiercely, “this is the first time in my life I ever wished I was Shakespeare. Nobody, but the old boy himself could do you justice — but I’m not Billy S. and I can only hint around sort of vague at what I think of you. But of all the tinhorn sports — the ham-fat, small-time actors, you’re the prize bonehead. Honey, does that begin to percolate? Does that begin to get through the armor plate down to that dwarfed bean you’re in the habit of calling your brain?”

  He went on calmly pouring the hot water over her hand. She had not credited him with such self-control. He did not even blush as far as she could make out. It made her throat dry with impotence.

  “An old woman’s home, that’s where you belong,” she went on. “Say, you’re wise to keep that mask on. You’d need a disguise to get by as a property man on small-time. Deary, you haven’t got enough bean to be number-two man in a monologue,”

  He stared at her a moment and then went on with the work of cleansing the bullet wound in her hand. Evidently he did not trust himself to speak. It was not a severe cut, but it had bled freely, the bullet cutting the fleshy part between the thumb and forefinger. To look at it made her head reel. She lay back on the pile of blankets and closed her eyes.

  When she opened them again he was approaching with a small bottle half full of a brownish-black fluid, iodine. She started, for she knew the burn of the antiseptic. She tucked her wounded hand under her other arm and glared at him.

  “Nothing doing with that stuff, cutie,” she said, shaking her head. “This isn’t my first season, even if I’m not on the big-time. You can give that bottle to the marines. Go pour that on the daisies, Alexander W. Flathead, it’ll kill the insects. But not for mine!”

  She saw his forehead pucker into a frown above the mask. He stopped, hesitated.

  “Take it away and rock it to sleep, Oscar,” she went on, “because there’s no cue for that in this act. It won’t get across — not even with a make-up. Oh, this will make a lovely story when I get back to Broadway. I’m going to spill the beans, deary. Yep, I’m going to give this spiel to the papers. It’ll make a great ad for you — all scare-heads. You can run the last musical comedy scandal onto the back page with a play like this. Here! Let go my arm, you big simp — do you think—”

  He caught her wrist and drew out the injured hand firmly. She struggled weakly, but the pain in the hand unnerved her.

  “Go ahead — turn on the fireworks, Napoleon! Honey, they’ll write this on your tombstone for an epitaph.”

  He spread her thumb and forefinger apart, poured some of the iodine onto a clean rag, and swabbed out the wound. The burning pain brought her close to a faint, but her fury kept her mind from oblivion. She clenched her teeth so that a tortured scream became merely a moan. When she recovered he was making the last turn of a rather skilful bandage. She sat up on the blankets.

  “All right, honey, now you’ve played the music and I’ll dance. What’s the way to town from here?”

  He shook his head.

  “Won’t tell me, eh? I suppose you think I’ll stay up here till I get well? Think again, janitor.”

  She rose and started a bit unsteadily to the door. Before she reached it his step caught up with her. She was swung up in strong arms and carried back to the blankets. While she sat dumb with hate and rage, he took a piece of rope and tied her ankles fast with an intricate knot which she could never hope to untie with her one sound hand.

  “You’ll stay here,” he explained curtly.

  “Listen, deary,” she answered between her teeth, “I’m going to do you for this. I’m going to make you a bum draw on every circuit in the little old U. S. I’m going to make you the card that doesn’t fill the straight, that’s all. Get your shingle ready, cutie, because after this all you can get across will be a chop-house in the Bowery.”

  “Lie still,” growled the deep voice. “There ain’t any chance of you getting away. Savvy?”

  He tu
rned.

  “Deary,” she cried after him, “if you don’t cut out that ghost-voice stunt, I’ll—”

  The rickety door at the back of the shack closed upon him.

  “I never knew,” said Jerry to herself, “that that big Swede could do such a swell mystery bit. He ought to be in the heavies, that’s all.”

  She settled herself back on the blankets again more comfortably. The last sting of the iodine died away and left a pleasant sense of warmth in her injured hand. Now she set about surveying her surroundings in detail. It was the most clumsily built house she had ever seen, made of rudely trimmed logs so loosely set together that the night air whistled through a thousand chinks.

  Two boards placed upon saw horses represented a table. A crazily constructed fireplace of large dimensions was the only means of heating the shack. Here and there from pegs and nails driven into the wall hung overalls, deeply wrinkled at the knees, heavy mackintoshes, and two large hats of broad brim. On the floor were several pairs of heavy shoes in various states of dilapidation. In the corner next to the hearth the walls were garnished with a few pots and pans. On the table she saw a heavy hunting knife. There were three doors. Perhaps one of them led to a second room. To know which it was, was of vital significance to her. If it was the door through which the masked man had disappeared then he was still within hearing distance. If that were true she could hardly succeed in reaching that knife upon the table unheard, for she would make a good deal of noise dragging herself across the floor to the table. She determined to make the experiment. If she could cut the bonds and escape she made no doubt that she could find the road to Three Rivers again, and even to wander across the mountains at night with a wounded hand was better than to stay with this bungler. Moreover, there was something in his sustained acting which made her uneasy. She knew his code of morals was as limited as the law of the Medes and the Persians and of an exactly opposite nature. On the stage, in the city, she had no fear of him. He was an interesting type and his vices were things at which she could afford to shrug her shoulders. But in the wilderness of the silent mountains even the least of men borrows a significance, and the meaning he gave her was wholly evil.

  She commenced hunching herself slowly and painfully across the floor toward the table. Half, three-quarters of the distance was covered. In another moment she could reach out and take the knife.

  A door creaked behind her. She turned. There he stood again, still masked and with his hands behind him. He started. His mouth gaped. She made another effort and caught up the knife. At least it was a measure of defense, even if it were too late for her to free herself.

  CHAPTER IV. BLACK JIM

  “JERRY!” SAID, IN a strange, whispering voice.

  She eyed him with infinite disgust.

  “Playing a new role, Freddie, aren’t you?” she sneered.

  He merely stared.

  “You’re versatile, all right,” she went on. “First the grim bandit, and then the astonished friend. Say, deary, do you expect ‘warm applause’? No, cutie, but if I had some spoiled eggs, I’d certainly pass them to you.”

  “Jerry, you’re raving!”

  She gritted her teeth.

  “I’m through with the funny stuff, you one-syllable, lock-jawed baby. Now I mean business. Get me out of this as fast as they hooked you off the boards, the last time you tried out in Manhattan.”

  “Do you — have — will—”

  “Bah!” she said. “Don’t you get next that I’m through with this one-night stand? Drop the curtain and start the orchestra on ‘Home, Sweet Home.’ Talk sense. Cut this rope. I’m starting and I’m starting alone.”

  “For God’s sake, Jerry—”

  “Lay off on that stuff, deary. If words made a cradle, you’d rock the world to sleep.”

  “How — how did you come here?”

  She stared at him a moment and then broke into rather sinister laughter.

  “I suppose you’ve been walking in your sleep, what? I suppose I’m to fall for this bum line, Freddie? Not me! You can’t get by even in a mask, Mr. Montgomery.”

  “Geraldine.”

  “Call me Annie for short.”

  “Upon my word of honor—”

  “Can the talk, cutie. You can tell the rest to the judge.”

  “But how can I help you?” he asked. He turned and she saw his hands tied securely together behind him!

  While she still stared at this marvelous revelation, the door opened again and another Montgomery strode into the room. He was the same build as the other man. He wore the same sort of mask. His hair was black. He could not be Montgomery. It was only when they stood together that she felt a significant difference in this man.

  Seeing Jerry with the hunting knife in her hand, he crossed the room and learned above her.

  “Give me the knife,” boomed the musical bass voice.

  She shrank back and clutched the heavy handle more closely.

  “Keep away,” she cried hoarsely.

  “Give me the knife.”

  “Black Jim!” breathed Jerry, for the first time wholly frightened, while her mind whirled in confusion, “Is the whole world made up of doubles or am I losing my brain? Keep off, Mr. Mystery, or I’ll make hash of you with this cleaver!”

  She held the knife poised and the man observed her with a critical eye.

  “Fighter,” he decided.

  He leaned again; his hand darted out with the speed of a striking snake. She cut at him furiously, but the hand caught her wrist and stopped the knife while it was still an inch from his face. He shook her hand, and the numbing grasp made her fingers relax. The knife clattered on the floor and he carried her back to the pile of blankets. When she opened her eyes she saw Black Jim loosing the hands of Montgomery.

  “No use in we-all stay in’ masked anymore,” said the bandit, “I’ve been down an’ seen the other boys. I thought maybe they’d vote yes on turnin’ the girl loose agin. I told ’em she was too sick to see anything when I brought her in. I told ’em I’d blindfold her when I took her out to the road agin. But they-all sort of figure she’d be able to track back with a posse followin’ jest a sense of direction like a hoss. They vote that she stays here, an’ so it makes no difference what she sees.”

  He finished untying Montgomery’s hands, and drew off his mask.

  Her faintness left Jerry. She saw a lean-faced man with great, dark eyes, singularly lacking in emotion, and forehead unfurrowed by worries. Montgomery, likewise withdrew his mask and showed a face familiar enough, but drawn and colorless.

  “All I’m askin’,” said Black Jim, “is have you got anything against me?”

  “I?” queried Montgomery, and he drew a slow hand across his forehead as if he were partially dazed.

  “Yes, you,” said the other, and the dark eyes dwelt carefully on Montgomery’s face. “If you’ve got any lingerin’ suspicion that there’s something coming from you to me, we’ll jist nacherally step out an’ make our little play where there’s room.”

  “Not a thing against you, my friend,” said Montgomery with a sudden heartiness for which Jerry despised him. “You had the drop on me and I guess you had special reasons for wanting that stage.”

  The outlaw shrugged his shoulders. “I got to go out agin,” he said, “an’ I’m goin’ to ask you to watch this girl while I’m gone.”

  “Glad to,” said Montgomery.

  Black Jim turned, paused, and came back.

  “If anything happens to her, my friend.” He hesitated significantly. “The boys seemed to be sort of excited when I told them about her bein’ in my cabin,” he explained. “If they-all come up here, don’t let ’em come in. You got a gun!”

  He stepped to the door and was gone. The eyes of Jerry and Montgomery met.

  “Quick!” she ordered. “Talk out and tell me what has happened, Freddie, or I’ll go crazy! I’m half out of my head now!”

  “It’s Black Jim!” he said heavily.

  “I
knew that half an hour ago. Your brains are petrified, Freddie. Start where I’m a blank. How’d you come here?”

  “He held me up!”

  “Black Jim?”

  “Yes. I was waiting behind the rock with my mask on. I heard a horse coming up the road from behind and when I turned I was looking into the mouth of a pistol as big as a cannon. I put up my hands. I just stared at him. I couldn’t speak. He said he was sorry he couldn’t leave the job to me. He said there were two things clear to him. He went on thinking them over while his gun covered me. Then he told me that he couldn’t leave me alive near the road. He had to take me up to his camp. Then he came up behind me and tied my hands behind my back. Jerry, I felt that if he hadn’t thought me one of his own sort, he’d have dropped the curtain on my act forever!”

  He shuddered slightly at the thought.

  “He made me ride before him up here,” he went on, “and he put me in this cabin. As far as I can make out we’re in a little gulch of the mountains. It’s a sort of bandits’ refuge — the sort of thing that paper told about. When we rode over the edge of the hill and dipped down into the valley, I saw some streaks of smoke down the canon. There must be a half dozen places like this one, and some of the outlaws in every one. What’ll we do, Jerry, for God’s sake, what will we do?”

  “Shut up!” she said fiercely, and her face was whiter than mere exhaustion could make it. “Lemme think; lemme think!”

  Montgomery had no eye for her. He strode up, and down the room with a wild eye. He seemed to think of her as an aftermath.

  “What happened to you? Was it Black Jim again?”

  “I pulled my gun and shot in the air. He shot the pistol out of my fingers and put my hand on the blink. I fainted. He brought me up here. That’s all.”

  Her thoughts were not for her troubles.

  “I’m going to make a break for it!” he cried at last. “Maybe I can get free!”

  She recognized him without emotion.