Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “And if I were to see more of her, no doubt—” He broke off with: “But I’m not apt to see much more of any of you, Mr. Pollard. If I can’t stay here and work off that three-hundred-dollar debt—”

  “Work, hell! No son of Black Jack Hollis can work for me. But he can live with me as a partner, son, and he can have everything I got, half and half, and the bigger half to him if he asks for it. That’s straight!”

  Terry raised a protesting hand. Yet he was touched — intimately touched. He had tried hard to fit in his place among the honest people of the mountains by hard and patient work. They would have none of him. His own kind turned him out. And among these men — men who had no law, as he had every reason to believe — he was instantly taken in and made one of them.

  “But no more talk tonight,” said Pollard. “I can see you’re played out.

  I’ll show you the room.”

  He caught a lantern from the wall as he spoke and began to lead the way up the stairs to the balcony. He pointed out the advantages of the house as he spoke.

  “Not half bad — this house, eh?” he said proudly. “And who d’you think planned it? Your old man, kid. It was Black Jack Hollis himself that done it! He was took off sudden before he’d had a chance to work it out and build it. But I used his ideas in this the same’s I’ve done in other things. His idea was a house like a ship.

  “They build a ship in compartments, eh? Ship hits a rock, water comes in. But it only fills one compartment, and the old ship still floats. Same with this house. You seen them walls. And the walls on the outside ain’t the only thing. Every partition is the same thing, pretty near; and a gent could stand behind these doors safe as if he was a mile away from a gun. Why? Because they’s a nice little lining of the best steel you ever seen in the middle of ’em.

  “Cost a lot. Sure. But look at us now. Suppose a posse was to rush the house. They bust into the kitchen side. Where are they? Just the same as if they hadn’t got in at all. I bolt the doors from the inside of the big room, and they’re shut out agin. Or suppose they take the big room? Then a couple of us slide out on this balcony and spray ’em with lead. This house ain’t going to be took till the last room is filled full of the sheriff’s men!”

  He paused on the balcony and looked proudly over the big, baronial room below them. It seemed huger than ever from this viewpoint, and the men below them were dwarfed. The light of the lanterns did not extend all the way across it, but fell in pools here and there, gleaming faintly on the men below.

  “But doesn’t it make people suspicious to have a fort like this built on the hill?” asked Terry.

  “Of course. If they knew. But they don’t know, son, and they ain’t going to find out the lining of this house till they try it out with lead.”

  He brought Terry into one of the bedrooms and lighted a lamp. As the flare steadied in the big circular oil burner and the light spread, Terry made out a surprisingly comfortable apartment. There was not a bunk, but a civilized bed, beside which was a huge, tawny mountain-lion skin softening the floor. The window was curtained in some pleasant blue stuff, and there were a few spots of color on the wall — only calendars, some of them, but helping to give a livable impression for the place.

  “Kate’s work,” grinned Pollard proudly. “She’s been fixing these rooms up all out of her own head. Never got no ideas out of me. Anything you might lack, son?”

  Terry told him he would be very comfortable, and the big man wrung his hand again as he bade him good night.

  “The best work that Denver ever done was bringing you to me,” he declared. “Which you’ll find it out before I’m through. I’m going to give you a home!” And he strode away before Terry could answer.

  The rather rare consciousness of having done a good deed swelled in the heart of Joe Pollard on his way down from the balcony. When he reached the floor below, he found that the four men had gone to bed and left Denver alone, drawn back from the light into a shadowy corner, where he was flanked by the gleam of a bottle of whisky on the one side and a shimmering glass on the other. Although Pollard was the nominal leader, he was in secret awe of the yegg. For Denver was an “in-and-outer.” Sometimes he joined them in the West; sometimes he “worked” an Eastern territory. He came and went as he pleased, and was more or less a law to himself. Moreover, he had certain qualities of silence and brooding that usually disturbed the leader. They troubled him now as he approached the squat, shapeless figure in the corner chair.

  “What you think of him?” said Denver.

  “A good kid and a clean-cut kid,” decided Joe Pollard judicially. “Maybe he ain’t another Black Jack, but he’s tolerable cool for a youngster. Stood up and looked me in the eye like a man when I had him cornered a while back. Good thing for him you come out when you did!”

  “A good thing for you, Joe,” replied Denver Pete. “He’d of turned you into fertilizer, bo!”

  “Maybe; maybe not. Maybe they’s some things I could teach him about gun- slinging, Pete.”

  “Maybe; maybe not,” parodied Denver. “You’ve learned a good deal about guns, Joe — quite a bit. But there’s some things about gun fighting that nobody can learn. It’s got to be born into ’em. Remember how Black Jack used to slide out his gat?”

  “Yep. There was a man!”

  “And Minter, too. There’s a born gunman.”

  “Sure. We all know Uncle Joe — damn his soul!”

  “But the kid beat Uncle Joe fair and square from an even break — and beat him bad. Made his draw, held it so’s Joe could partway catch up with him, and then drilled him clean!”

  Pollard scratched his chin.

  “I’d believe that if I seen it,” he declared.

  “Pal, it wasn’t Terry that done the talking; it was Gainor. He’s seen a good deal of gunplay, and said that Terry’s was the coolest he ever watched.”

  “All right for that part of it,” said Joe Pollard. “Suppose he’s fast — but can I use him? I like him well enough; I’ll give him a good deal; but is he going to mean charity all the time he hangs out with me?”

  “Maybe; maybe not,” chuckled Denver again. “Use him the way he can be used, and he’ll be the best bargain you ever turned. Black Jack started you in business; Black Jack the Second will make you rich if you handle him right — and ruin you if you make a slip.”

  “How come? He talks this ‘honesty’ talk pretty strong.”

  “Gimme a chance to talk,” said Denver contemptuously. “Takes a gent that’s used to reading the secrets of a safe to read the secrets of a gent’s head. And I’ve read the secret of young Black Jack Hollis. He’s a pile of dry powder, Joe. Throw in the spark and he’ll explode so damned loud they’ll hear him go off all over the country.”

  “How?”

  “First, you got to keep him here.”

  “How?”

  Joe Pollard sat back with the air of one who will be convinced through no mental effort of his own. But Denver was equal to the demand.

  “I’m going to show you. He thinks he owes you three hundred.”

  “That’s foolish. I cheated the kid out of it. I’ll give it back to him and all the rest I won.”

  Denver paused and studied the other as one amazed by such stupidity.

  “Pal, did you ever try, in the old days, to give anything to the old

  Black Jack?”

  “H’m. Well, he sure hated charity. But this ain’t charity.”

  “It ain’t in your eyes. It is in Terry’s. If you insist, he’ll get sore. No, Joe. Let him think he owes you that money. Let him start in working it off for you — honest work. You ain’t got any ranch work. Well, set him to cutting down trees, or anything. That’ll help to hold him. If he makes some gambling play — and he’s got the born gambler in him — you got one last thing that’ll be apt to keep him here.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Kate.”

  Pollard stirred in his chair.

  “How d’you mean tha
t?” he asked gruffly.

  “I mean what I said,” retorted Denver. “I watched young Black Jack looking at her. He had his heart in his eyes, the kid did. He likes her, in spite of the frosty mitt she handed him. Oh, he’s falling for her, pal — and he’ll keep on falling. Just slip the word to Kate to kid him along. Will you? And after we got him glued to the place here, we’ll figure out the way to turn Terry into a copy of his dad. We’ll figure out how to shoot the spark into the powder, and then stand clear for the explosion.”

  Denver came silently and swiftly out of the chair, his pudgy hand spread on the table and his eyes gleaming close to the face of Pollard.

  “Joe,” he said softly, “if that kid goes wrong, he’ll be as much as his father ever was — and maybe more. He’ll rake in the money like it was dirt. How do I know? Because I’ve talked to him. I’ve watched him and trailed him. He’s trying hard to go straight. He’s failed twice; the third time he’ll bust and throw in with us. And if he does, he’ll clean up the coin — and we’ll get our share. Why ain’t you made more money yourself, Joe? You got as many men as Black Jack ever had. It’s because you ain’t got the fire in you. Neither have I. We’re nothing but tools ready for another man to use the way Black Jack used us. Nurse this kid along a little while, and he’ll show us how to pry open the places where the real coin is cached away. And he’ll lead us in and out with no danger to us and all the real risk on his own head. That’s his way — that was his dad’s way before him.”

  Pollard nodded slowly. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I know I am. He’s a gold mine, this kid is. But we got to buy him with something more than gold. And I know what that something is. I’m going to show him that the good, lawabiding citizens have made up their minds that he’s no good; that they’re all ag’in’ him; and when he finds that out, he’ll go wild. They ain’t no doubt of it. He’ll show his teeth! And when he shows his teeth, he’ll taste blood — they ain’t no doubt of it.”

  “Going to make him — kill?” asked Pollard very softly.

  “Why not? He’ll do it sooner or later anyway. It’s in his blood.”

  “I suppose it is.”

  “I got an idea. There’s a young gent in town named Larrimer, ain’t there?”

  “Sure. A rough kid, too. It was him that killed Kennedy last spring.”

  “And he’s proud of his reputation?”

  “Sure. He’d go a hundred miles to have a fight with a gent with a good name for gunplay.”

  “Then hark to me sing, Joe! Send Terry into town to get something for

  you. I’ll drop in ahead of him and find Larrimer, and tell Larrimer that

  Black Jack’s son is around — the man that dropped Sheriff Minter. Then

  I’ll bring ’em together and give ’em a running start.”

  “And risk Terry getting his head blown off?”

  “If he can’t beat Larrimer, he’s no use to us; if he kills Larrimer, it’s good riddance. The kid is going to get bumped off sometime, anyway. He’s bad — all the way through.”

  Pollard looked with a sort of wonder on his companion.

  “You’re a nice, kind sort of a gent, ain’t you, Denver?”

  “I’m a moneymaker,” asserted Denver coldly. “And, just now, Terry Hollis is my gold mine. Watch me work him!”

  CHAPTER 27

  IT WAS SOME time before Terry could sleep, though it was now very late. When he put out the light and slipped into the bed, the darkness brought a bright flood of memories of the day before him. It seemed to him that half a lifetime had been crowded into the brief hours since he was fired on the ranch that morning. Behind everything stirred the ugly face of Denver as a sort of controlling nemesis. It seemed to him that the chunky little man had been pulling the wires all the time while he, Terry Hollis, danced in response. Not a flattering thought.

  Nervously, Terry got out of bed and went to the window. The night was cool, cut crisp rather than chilling. His eye went over the velvet blackness of the mountain slope above him to the ragged line of the crest — then a dizzy plunge to the brightness of the stars beyond. The very sense of distance was soothing; it washed the gloom and the troubles away from him. He breathed deep of the fragrance of the pines and then went back to his bed.

  He had hardly taken his place in it when the sleep began to well up over his brain — waves of shadows running out of corners of his mind. And then suddenly he was wide awake, alert.

  Someone had opened the door. There had been no sound; merely a change in the air currents of the room, but there was also the sense of another presence so clearly that Terry almost imagined he could hear the breathing.

  He was beginning to shrug the thought away and smile at his own nervousness, when he heard that unmistakable sound of a foot pressing the floor. And then he remembered that he had left his gun belt far from the bed. In a burning moment that lesson was printed in his mind, and would never be forgotten. Slowly as possible and without sound, he drew up his feet little by little, spread his arms gently on either side of him, and made himself tense for the effort. Whoever it was that entered, they might be taken by surprise. He dared not lift his head to look; and he was on the verge of leaping up and at the approaching noise, when a whisper came to him softly: “Black Jack!”

  The soft voice, the name itself, thrilled him. He sat erect in the bed and made out, dimly, the form of Kate Pollard in the blackness. She would have been quite invisible, save that the square of the window was almost exactly behind her. He made out the faint whiteness of the hand which held her dressing robe at the breast.

  She did not start back, though she showed that she was startled by the suddenness of his movement by growing the faintest shade taller and lifting her head a little. Terry watched her, bewildered.

  “I been waiting to see you,” said Kate. “I want to — I mean — to — talk to you.”

  He could think of nothing except to blurt with sublime stupidity: “It’s good of you. Won’t you sit down?”

  The girl brought him to his senses with a sharp “Easy! Don’t talk out. Do you know what’d happen if Dad found me here?”

  “I—” began Terry.

  But she helped him smoothly to the logical conclusion. “He’d blow your head off, Black Jack; and he’d do it — pronto. If you are going to talk, talk soft — like me.”

  She sat down on the side of the bed so gently that there was no creaking.

  They peered at each other through the darkness for a time.

  She was not whispering, but her voice was pitched almost as low, and he wondered at the variety of expression she was able to pack in the small range of that murmur. “I suppose I’m a fool for coming. But I was born to love chances. Born for it!” She lifted her head and laughed.

  It amazed Terry to hear the shaken flow of her breath and catch the glinting outline of her face. He found himself leaning forward a little; and he began to wish for a light, though perhaps it was an unconscious wish.

  “First,” she said, “what d’you know about Dad — and Denver Pete?”

  “Practically nothing.”

  She was silent for a moment, and he saw her hand go up and prop her chin while she considered what she could say next.

  “They’s so much to tell,” she confessed, “that I can’t put it short. I’ll tell you this much, Black Jack—”

  “That isn’t my name, if you please.”

  “It’ll be your name if you stay around these parts with Dad very long,” she replied, with an odd emphasis. “But where you been raised, Terry? And what you been doing with yourself?”

  He felt that this giving of the first name was a tribute, in some subtle manner. It enabled him, for instance, to call her Kate, and he decided with a thrill that he would do so at the first opportunity. He reverted to her question.

  “I suppose,” he admitted gloomily, “that I’ve been raised to do pretty much as I please — and the money I’ve spent has been given to me.”

  The
girl shook her head with conviction.

  “It ain’t possible,” she declared.

  “Why not?”

  “No son of Black Jack would live off somebody’s charity.”

  He felt the blood tingle in his cheeks, and a real anger against her rose. Yet he found himself explaining humbly.

  “You see, I was taken when I wasn’t old enough to decide for myself. I was only a baby. And I was raised to depend upon Elizabeth Cornish. I — I didn’t even know the name of my father until a few days ago.”

  The girl gasped. “You didn’t know your father — not your own father?” She laughed again scornfully. “Terry, I ain’t green enough to believe that!”

  He fell into a dignified silence, and presently the girl leaned closer, as though she were peering to make out his face. Indeed, it was now possible to dimly make out objects in the room. The window was filled with an increasing brightness, and presently a shaft of pale light began to slide across the floor, little by little. The moon had pushed up above the crest of the mountain.

  “Did that make you mad?” queried the girl. “Why?”

  “You seemed to doubt what I said,” he remarked stiffly.

  “Why not? You ain’t under oath, or anything, are you?”

  Then she laughed again. “You’re a queer one all the way through. This

  Elizabeth Cornish — got anything to do with the Cornish ranch?”

  “I presume she owns it, very largely.”

  The girl nodded. “You talk like a book. You must of studied a terrible pile.”

  “Not so much, really.”

  “H’m,” said the girl, and seemed to reserve judgment.

  Then she asked with a return of her former sharpness: “How come you gambled today at Pedro’s?”

  “I don’t know. It seemed the thing to do — to kill time, you know.”

  “Kill time! At Pedro’s? Well — you are green, Terry!”

  “I suppose I am, Kate.”