by Max Brand
He held out the spurs so that the sun flashed on them. The horse stiffened with a shudder, and that forward look of a horse about to bolt came in his eyes.
“No, no!” cried Elizabeth.
But Terry laughed and dropped the spurs back in his pocket.
The stallion moved off, and Terry waved to them. Just as he turned, the mind of Vance Cornish raced back to another picture — a man with long black hair blowing about his face and a gun in either hand, sweeping through a dusty street with shots barking behind him. It came suddenly as a revelation, and left him downheaded with the thought.
“What is it, Vance?” asked his sister, reaching out to touch his arm.
“Nothing.” Then he added abruptly: “I’m going for a jaunt for a few days,
Elizabeth.”
She grew gloomy.
“Are you going to insist on taking it to heart this way?”
“Not at all. I’m going to be back here in ten days and drink Terry’s long life and happiness across the birthday dinner table.”
He marvelled at the ease with which he could make himself smile in her face.
“You noticed that — his gentleman’s agreement with Le Sangre? I’ve made him detest fighting with the idea that only brute beasts fight — men argue and agree.”
“I’ve noticed that he never has trouble with the cow-punchers.”
“They’ve seen him box,” chuckled Elizabeth. “Besides, Terry isn’t the sort that troublemakers like to pick on. He has an ugly look when he’s angry.”
“H’m,” murmured Vance. “I’ve noticed that. But as long as he keeps to his fists, he’ll do no harm. But what is the reason for surrounding him with guns, Elizabeth?”
“A very good reason. He loves them, you know. Anything from a shotgun to a derringer is a source of joy to Terence. And not a day goes by that he doesn’t handle them.”
“Certainly the effect of blood, eh?” suggested Vance.
She glanced sharply at him.
“You’re determined to be disagreeable today, Vance. As a matter of fact, I’ve convinced him that for the very reason he is so accurate with a gun he must never enter a gun fight. The advantage would be too much on his side against any ordinary man. That appeals to Terry’s sense of fair play. No, he’s absolutely safe, no matter how you look at it.”
“No doubt.”
He looked away from her and over the valley. The day had worn into the late afternoon. Bear Creek ran dull and dark in the shadow, and Mount Discovery was robed in blue to the very edge of its shining crown of snow. In this dimmer, richer light the Cornish ranch had never seemed so desirable to Vance. It was not a ranch; it was a little kingdom. And Vance was the dispossessed heir.
He knew that he was being watched, however, and all that evening he was at his best. At the dinner table he guided the talk so that Terence Colby was the lion of the conversation. Afterward, when he was packing his things in his room for his journey of the next day, he was careful to sing at the top of his voice. He reaped a reward for this cautious acting, for the next morning, when he climbed into the buckboard that was to take him down the Blue Mountain road and over to the railroad, his sister came down the steps and stood beside the wagon.
“You will come back for the birthday party, Vance?” she pleaded.
“You want me to?”
“You were with me when I got Terry. In fact, you got him for me. And I want you to be here when he steps into his own.”
In this he found enough to keep him thoughtful all the way to the railroad while the buckskins grunted up the grade and then spun away down the long slope beyond. It was one of those little ironies of fate that he should have picked up the very man who was to disinherit him some twenty- four years later.
He carried no grudge against Elizabeth, but he certainly retained no tenderness. Hereafter he would act his part as well as he could to extract the last possible penny out of her. And in the meantime he must concentrate on tripping up Terence Colby, alias Hollis.
Vance saw nothing particularly vicious in this. He had been idle so long that he rejoiced in a work which was within his mental range. It included scheming, working always behind the scenes, pulling strings to make others jump. And if he could trip Terry and actually make him shoot a man on or before that birthday, he had no doubt that his sister would actually throw the boy out of her house and out of her life. A woman who could give twenty-four years to a theory would be capable of grim things when the theory went wrong.
It was early evening when he climbed off the train at Garrison City. He had not visited the place since that cattle-buying trip of twenty-four years ago that brought the son of Black Jack into the affairs of the Cornish family. Garrison City had become a city. There were two solid blocks of brick buildings next to the station, a network of paved streets, and no less than three hotels. It was so new to the eye and so obviously full of the “booster” spirit that he was appalled at the idea of prying through this modern shell and getting back to the heart and the memory of the old days of the town.
At the restaurant he forced himself upon a grave-looking gentleman across the table. He found that the solemn-faced man was a travelling drummer. The venerable loafer in front of the blacksmith’s shop was feeble-minded, and merely gaped at the name of Black Jack. The proprietor of the hotel shook his head with positive antagonism.
“Of course, Garrison City has its past,” he admitted, “but we are living it down, and have succeeded pretty well. I think I’ve heard of a ruffian of the last generation named Jack Hollis; but I don’t know anything, and I don’t care to know anything, about him. But if you’re interested in Garrison City, I’d like to show you a little plot of ground in a place that is going to be the center of the—”
Vance Cornish made his mind a blank, let the smooth current of words slip off his memory as from an oiled surface, and gave up Garrison City as a hopeless job. Nevertheless, it was the hotel proprietor who dropped a valuable hint.
“If you’re interested in the early legends, why don’t you go to the State Capitol? They have every magazine and every book that so much as mentions any place in the state.” So Vance Cornish went to the capitol and entered the library. It was a sweaty task and a most discouraging one. The name “Black Jack” revealed nothing; and the name of Hollis was an equal blank, so far as the indices were concerned. He was preserved in legend only, and Vance Cornish could make no vital use of legend. He wanted something in cold print.
So he began an exhaustive search. He went through volume after volume, but though he came upon mention of Black Jack, he never reached the account of an eyewitness of any of those stirring holdups or train robberies.
And then he began on the old files of magazines. And still nothing. He was about to give up with four days of patient labor wasted when he struck gold in the desert — the very mine of information which he wanted.
“How I Painted Black Jack,” by Lawrence Montgomery.
There was the photograph of the painter, to begin with — a man who had discovered the beauty of the deserts of the Southwest. But there was more — much more. It told how, in his wandering across the desert, he had hunted for something more than raw-colored sands and purple mesas blooming in the distance.
He had searched for a human being to fit into the picture and give the softening touch of life. But he never found the face for which he had been looking. And then luck came and tapped him on the shoulder. A lone rider came out of the dusk and the desert and loomed beside his campfire. The moment the firelight flushed on the face of the man, he knew this was the face for which he had been searching. He told how they fried bacon and ate it together; he told of the soft voice and the winning smile of the rider; he told of his eyes, unspeakably soft and unspeakably bold, and the agile, nervous hands, forever shifting and moving in the firelight.
The next morning he had asked his visitor to sit for a picture, and his request had been granted. All day he labored at the canvas, and by night the work w
as far enough along for him to dismiss his visitor. So the stranger asked for a small brush with black paint on it, and in the corner of the canvas drew in the words “Yours, Black Jack.” Then he rode into the night.
Black Jack! Lawrence Montgomery had made up his pack and struck straight back for the nearest town. There he asked for tidings of a certain Black Jack, and there he got what he wanted in heaps. Everyone knew Black Jack — too well! There followed a brief summary of the history of the desperado and his countless crimes, unspeakable tales of cunning and courage and merciless vengeance taken.
Vance Cornish turned the last page of the article, and there was the reproduction of the painting. He held his breath when he saw it. The outlaw sat on his horse with his head raised and turned, and it was the very replica of Terence Colby as the boy had waved to them from the back of Le Sangre. More than a family, sketchy resemblance — far more.
There was the same large, dark eye; the same smile, half proud and half joyous; the same imperious lift of the head; the same bold carving of the features. There were differences, to be sure. The nose of Black Jack had been more cruelly arched, for instance, and his cheekbones were higher and more pronounced. But in spite of the dissimilarities the resemblance was more than striking. It might have stood for an actual portrait of Terence Colby masquerading in long hair.
When the full meaning of this photograph had sunk into his mind, Vance
Cornish closed his eyes. “Eureka!” he whispered to himself.
There was something more to be done. But it was very simple. It merely consisted in covertly cutting out the pages of the article in question. Then, carefully, for fear of loss, he jotted down the name and date of the magazine, folded his stolen pages, and fitted them snugly into his breast pocket. That night he ate his first hearty dinner in four days.
CHAPTER 5
VANCE’S WORK WAS not by any means accomplished. Rather, it might be said that he was in the position of a man with a dangerous charge for a gun and no weapon to shoot it. He started out to find the gun.
In fact, he already had it in mind. Twenty-four hours later he was in
Craterville. Five days out of the ten before the twenty-fifth birthday of
Terence had elapsed, and Vance was still far from his goal, but he felt
that the lion’s share of the work had been accomplished.
Craterville was a day’s ride across the mountains from the Cornish ranch, and it was the county seat. It was one of those towns which spring into existence for no reason that can be discovered, and cling to life generations after they should have died. But Craterville held one thing of which Vance Cornish was in great need, and that was Sheriff Joe Minter, familiarly called Uncle Joe. His reason for wanting the sheriff was perfectly simple. Uncle Joe Minter was the man who killed Black Jack Hollis.
He had been a boy of eighteen then, shooting with a rifle across a window sill. That shot had formed his life. He was now forty-two and he had spent the interval as the professional enemy of criminals in the mountains. For the glory which came from the killing of Black Jack had been sweet to the youthful palate of Minter, and he had cultivated his taste. He became the most dreaded manhunter in those districts where manhunting was most common. He had been sheriff at Craterville for a dozen years now, and still his supremacy was not even questioned.
Vance Cornish was lucky to find the sheriff in town presiding at the head of the long table of the hotel at dinner. He was a man of great dignity. He wore his stiff black hair, still untarnished by gray, very long, brushing it with difficulty to keep it behind his ears. This mass of black hair framed a long, stern face, the angles of which had been made by years. But there was no sign of weakness. He had grown dry, not flabby. His mouth was a thin, straight line, and his fighting chin jutted out in profile.
He rose from his place to greet Vance Cornish. Indeed, the sheriff acted the part of master of ceremonies at the hotel, having a sort of silent understanding with the widow who owned the place. It was said that the sheriff would marry the woman sooner or later, he so loved to talk at her table. His talk doubled her business. Her table afforded him an audience; so they needed one another.
“You don’t remember me,” said Vance.
“I got a tolerable poor memory for faces,” admitted the sheriff.
“I’m Cornish, of the Cornish ranch.”
The sheriff was duly impressed. The Cornish ranch was a show place. He arranged a chair for Vance at his right, and presently the talk rose above the murmur to which it had been depressed by the arrival of this important stranger. The increasing noise made a background. It left Vance alone with the sheriff.
“And how do you find your work, sheriff?” asked Vance; for he knew that Uncle Joe Minter’s great weakness was his love of talk. Everyone in the mountains knew it, for that matter.
“Dull,” complained Minter. “Men ain’t what they used to be, or else the law is a heap stronger.”
“The men who enforce the law are,” said Vance.
The sheriff absorbed this patent compliment with the blank eye of satisfaction and rubbed his chin.
“But they’s been some talk of rustling, pretty recent. I’m waiting for it to grow and get ripe. Then I’ll bust it.”
He made an eloquent gesture which Vance followed. He was distinctly pleased with the sheriff. For Minter was wonderfully preserved. His face seemed five years younger than his age. His body seemed even younger — round, smooth, powerful muscles padding his shoulders and stirring down the length of his big arms. And his hands had that peculiar light restlessness of touch which Vance remembered to have seen — in the hands of Terence Colby, alias Hollis!
“And how’s things up your way?” continued the sheriff.
“Booming. By the way, how long is it since you’ve seen the ranch?”
“Never been there. Bear Creek Valley has always been a quiet place since the Cornishes moved in; and they ain’t been any call for a gent in my line of business up that way.”
He grinned with satisfaction, and Vance nodded.
“If times are dull, why not drop over? We’re having a celebration there in five days. Come and look us over.”
“Maybe I might, and maybe I mightn’t,” said the sheriff. “All depends.”
“And bring some friends with you,” insisted Vance.
Then he wisely let the subject drop and went on to a detailed description of the game in the hills around the ranch. That, he knew, would bring the sheriff if anything would. But he mentioned the invitation no more. There were particular reasons why he must not press it on the sheriff any more than on others in Craterville.
The next morning, before traintime, Vance went to the post office and left the article on Black Jack addressed to Terence Colby at the Cornish ranch. The addressing was done on a typewriter, which completely removed any means of identifying the sender. Vance played with Providence in only one way. He was so eager to strike his blow at the last possible moment that he asked the postmaster to hold the letter for three days, which would land it at the ranch on the morning of the birthday. Then he went to the train.
His self-respect was increasing by leaps and bounds. The game was still not won, but, starring with absolutely nothing, in six days he had planted a charge which might send Elizabeth’s twenty-four years of labor up in smoke.
He got off the train at Preston, the station nearest the ranch, and took a hired team up the road along Bear Creek Gorge. They debouched out of the Blue Mountains into the valley of the ranch in the early evening, and Vance found himself looking with new eyes on the little kingdom. He felt the happiness, indeed, of one who has lost a great prize and then put himself in a fair way of winning it back.
They dipped into the valley road. Over the tops of the big silver spruces he traced the outline of Sleep Mountain against the southern sky. Who but Vance, or the dwellers in the valley, would be able to duly appreciate such beauty? If there were any wrong in what he had done, this thought consoled him: the ends
justified the means.
Now, as they drew closer, through the branches he made out glimpses of the dim, white front of the big house on the hill. That big, cool house with the kingdom spilled out at its feet, the farming lands, the pastures of the hills, and the rich forest of the upper mountains. Certainty came to Vance Cornish. He wanted the ranch so profoundly that the thought of losing it became impossible.
CHAPTER 6
BUT WHILE HE had been working at a distance, things had been going on apace at the ranch, a progress which had now gathered such impetus that he found himself incapable of checking it. The blow fell immediately after dinner that same evening. Terence excused himself early to retire to the mysteries of a new pump-gun. Elizabeth and Vance took their coffee into the library.
The night had turned cool, with a sharp wind driving the chill through every crack; so a few sticks were sending their flames crumbling against the big back log. The lamp glowing in the corner was the only other light, and when they drew their chairs close to the hearth, great tongues of shadows leaped and fell on the wall behind them. Vance looked at his sister with concern. There was a certain complacency about her this evening that told him in advance that she had formed a new plan with which she was well pleased. And he had come to dread her plans.
She always filled him with awe — and never more so than tonight, with her thin, homely face illuminated irregularly and by flashes. He kept watching her from the side, with glances.
“I think I know why you’ve gone away for these few days,” she said.
“To get used to the new idea,” he admitted with such frankness that she turned to him with unusual sympathy. “It was rather a shock at first.”
“I know it was. And I wasn’t diplomatic. There’s too much man in me,
Vance. Altogether too much, while you—”