Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  Yet he rose from his table, reached the floor with a few steps, and touched Landis lightly on the shoulder. The challenge was passed. Landis stopped abruptly and turned his head; his face showed merely dull astonishment. The current of dancers split and washed past on either side of the motionless trio, and on every face there was a glittering curiosity. What would Landis do?

  Nothing. He was too stupefied to act. He, Jack Landis, had actually been tagged while he was dancing with the woman which all The Corner knew to be his girl! And before his befogged senses cleared the girl was in the arms of the red-haired man and was lost in the crowd.

  What a buzz went around the room! For a moment Landis could no more move than he could think; then he sent a sullen glance toward the girl and retreated to their table. A childish sullenness clouded his face while he sat there; only one decision came clearly to him: he must kill Donnegan!

  In the meantime people noted two things. The first was that Donnegan danced very well with Nelly Lebrun; and his red hair beside the silken black of the girl’s was a startling contrast. It was not a common red. It flamed, as though with phosphoric properties of its own. But they danced well; and the eyes of both of them were gleaming. Another thing: men did not tag Donnegan any more than they had offered to tag Landis. One or two slipped out from the outskirts of the floor, but something in the face of Donnegan discouraged them and made them turn elsewhere as though they had never started for Nelly Lebrun in the first place. Indeed, to a two-year-old child it would have been apparent that Nelly and the red-headed were interested in each other.

  As a matter of fact they did not speak a single syllable until they had gone around the floor one complete turn and the dance was coming toward an end.

  It was he who spoke first, gloomily: “I shouldn’t have done it; I shouldn’t have tagged him!”

  At this she drew back a little so that she could meet his eyes.

  “Why not?”

  “The whole crew will be on my trail.”

  “What crew?”

  “Beginning with Lord Nick!”

  This shook her completely out of the thrall of the dance.

  “Lord Nick? What makes you think that?”

  “I know he’s thick with Landis. It’ll mean trouble.”

  He was so simple about it that she began to laugh. It was not such a voice as Lou Macon’s. It was high and light, and one could suspect that it might become shrill under a stress.

  “And yet it looks as though you’ve been hunting trouble,” she said.

  “I couldn’t help it,” said Donnegan naively.

  It was a very subtle flattery, this frankness from a man who had puzzled all The Corner. Nelly Lebrun felt that she was about to look behind the scenes and she tingled with delight.

  “Tell me,” she said. “Why not?”

  “Well,” said Donnegan. “I had to make a noise because I wanted to be noticed.”

  She glanced about her; every eye was upon them.

  “You’ve made your point,” she murmured. “The whole town is talking of nothing else.”

  “I don’t care an ounce of lead about the rest of the town.”

  “Then—”

  She stopped abruptly, seeing toward what he was tending. And the heart of Nelly Lebrun fluttered for the first time in many a month. She believed him implicitly. It was for her sake that he had made all this commotion; to draw her attention. For every lovely girl, no matter how cool-headed, has a foolish belief in the power of her beauty. As a matter of fact Donnegan had told her the truth. It had all been to win her attention, from the fight for the mint to the tagging for the dance. How could she dream that it sprang out of anything other than a wild devotion to her? And while Donnegan coldly calculated every effect, Nelly Lebrun began to see in him the man of a dream, a spirit out of a dead age, a soul of knightly, reckless chivalry. In that small confession he cast a halo about himself which no other hand could ever remove entirely so far as Nelly Lebrun was concerned.

  “You understand?” he was saying quietly.

  She countered with a question as direct as his confession.

  “What are you, Mr. Donnegan?”

  “A wanderer,” said Donnegan instantly, “and an avoider of work.”

  At that they laughed together. The strain was broken and in its place there was a mutual excitement. She saw Landis in the distance watching their laughter with a face contorted with anger, but it only increased her unreasoning happiness.

  “Mr. Donnegan, let me give you friendly advice. I like you: I know you have courage; and I saw you meet Scar-faced Lewis. But if I were you I’d leave The Corner tonight and never come back. You’ve set every man against you. You’ve stepped on the toes of Landis and he’s a big man here. And even if you were to prove too much for Jack you’d come against Lord Nick, as you say yourself. Do you know Nick?”

  “No.”

  “Then, Mr. Donnegan, leave The Corner!”

  The music, ending, left them face to face as he dropped his arm from about her. And she could appreciate now, for the first time, that he was smaller than he had seemed at a distance, or while he was dancing. He seemed a frail figure indeed to face the entire banded Corner — and Lord Nick.

  “Don’t you see,” said Donnegan, “that I can’t stop now?”

  There was a double meaning that sent her color flaring.

  He added in a low, tense voice, “I’ve gone too far. Besides, I’m beginning to hope!”

  She paused, then made a little gesture of abandon.

  “Then stay, stay!” she whispered with eyes on fire. “And good luck to you, Mr. Donnegan!”

  CHAPTER 21

  AS THEY WENT back, toward Nelly’s table, where Jack Landis was trying to appear carelessly at ease, the face of Donnegan was pale. One might have thought that excitement and fear caused his pallor; but as a matter of fact it was in him an unfailing sign of happiness and success. Landis had manners enough to rise as they approached. He found himself being presented to the smaller man. He heard the cool, precise voice of Donnegan acknowledging the introduction; and then the red-headed man went back to his table; and Jack Landis was alone with Nelly Lebrun again.

  He scowled at her, and she tried to look repentant, but since she could not keep the dancing light out of her eyes, she compromised by looking steadfastly down at the table. Which convinced Landis that she was thinking of her late partner. He made a great effort, swallowed, and was able to speak smoothly enough.

  “Looked as if you were having a pretty good time with that — tramp.”

  The color in her cheeks was anger; Landis took it for shame.

  “He dances beautifully,” she replied.

  “Yeh; he’s pretty smooth. Take a gent like that, it’s hard for a girl to see through him.”

  “Let’s not talk about him, Jack.”

  “All right. Is he going to dance with you again?”

  “I promised him the third dance after this.”

  For a time Landis could not trust his voice. Then: “Kind of sorry about that. Because I’ll be going home before then.”

  At this she raised her eyes for the first time. He was astonished and a little horrified to see that she was not in the least flustered, but very angry.

  “You’ll go home before I have a chance for that dance?” she asked. “You’re acting like a two-year-old, Jack. You are!”

  He flushed. Burning would be too easy a death for Donnegan.

  “He’s making a laughingstock out of me; look around the room!”

  “Nobody’s thinking about you at all, Jack. You’re just self-conscious.”

  Of course, it was pouring acid upon an open wound. But she was past the point of caution.

  “Maybe they ain’t,” said Landis, controlling his rage. “I don’t figure that I amount to much. But I rate myself as high as a skunk like him!”

  It may have been a smile that she gave him. At any rate, he caught the glint of teeth, and her eyes were as cold as steel points. I
f she had actually defended the stranger she would not have infuriated Landis so much.

  “Well, what does he say about himself?”

  “He says frankly that he’s a vagrant.”

  “And you don’t believe him?”

  She did not speak.

  “Makin’ a play for sympathy. Confound a man like that, I say!”

  Still she did not answer; and now Landis became alarmed.

  “D’you really like him, Nelly?”

  “I liked him well enough to introduce him to you, Jack.”

  “I’m sorry I talked so plain if you put it that way,” he admitted heavily. “I didn’t know you picked up friends so fast as all that!” He could not avoid adding this last touch of the poison point.

  His back was to Donnegan, and consequently the girl, facing him, could look straight across the room at the red-headed man. She allowed herself one brief glance, and she saw that he was sitting with his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand, looking fixedly at her. It was the gaze of one who forgets all else and wraps himself in a dream. Other people in the room were noting that changeless stare and the whisper buzzed more and more loudly, but Donnegan had forgotten the rest of the world, it seemed. It was a very cunning piece of acting, not too much overdone, and once more the heart of Nelly Lebrun fluttered.

  She remembered that in spite of his frankness he had not talked with insolent presumption to her. He had merely answered her individual questions with an astonishing, childlike frankness. He had laid his heart before her, it seemed. And now he sat at a distance looking at her with the white, intense face of one who sees a dream.

  Nelly Lebrun was recalled by the heavy breathing of Jack Landis and she discovered that she had allowed her eyes to rest too long on the red-headed stranger. She had forgotten; her eyes had widened; and even Jack Landis was able to look into her mind and see things that startled him. For the first time he sensed that this was more than a careless flirtation. And he sat stiffly at the table, looking at her and through her with a fixed smile. Nelly, horrified, strove to cover her tracks.

  “You’re right, Jack,” she said. “I — I think there was something brazen in the way he tagged you. And — let’s go home together!”

  Too late. The mind of Landis was not oversharp, but now jealousy gave it a point. He nodded his assent, and they got up, but there was no increase in his color. She read as plain as day in his face that he intended murder this night and Nelly was truly frightened.

  So she tried different tactics. All the way to the substantial little house which Lebrun had built at a little distance from the gambling hall, she kept up a running fire of steady conversation. But when she said good night to him, his face was still set. She had not deceived him. When he turned, she saw him go back into the night with long strides, and within half an hour she knew, as clearly as if she were remembering the picture instead of foreseeing it, that Jack and Donnegan would face each other gun in hand on the floor of Milligan’s dance hall.

  Still, she was not foolish enough to run after Jack, take his arm, and make a direct appeal. It would be too much like begging for Donnegan, and even if Jack forgave her for this interest in his rival, she had sense enough to feel that Donnegan himself never would. Something, however, must be done to prevent the fight, and she took the straightest course.

  She went as fast as a run would carry her straight behind the intervening houses and came to the back entrance to the gaming hall. There she entered and stepped into the little office of her father. Black Lebrun was not there. She did not want him. In his place there sat the Pedlar and Joe Rix; they were members of Lord Nick’s chosen crew, and since Nick’s temporary alliance with Lebrun for the sake of plundering Jack Landis, Nick’s men were Nelly’s men. Indeed, this was a formidable pair. They were the kind of men about whom many whispers and no facts circulate: and yet the facts are far worse than the whispers. It was said that Joe Rix, who was a fat little man with a great aversion to a razor and a pair of shallow, pale blue eyes, was in reality a merciless fiend. He was; and he was more than that, if there be a stronger superlative. If Lord Nick had dirty work to be done, there was the man who did it with a relish. The Pedlar, on the other hand, was an exact opposite. He was long, lean, raw-boned, and prodigiously strong in spite of his lack of flesh. He had vast hands, all loose skin and outstanding tendons; he had a fleshless face over which his smile was capable of extending limitlessly. He was the sort of a man from whom one would expect shrewdness, some cunning, stubbornness, a dry humor, and many principles. All of which, except the last, was true of the Pedlar.

  There was this peculiarity about the Pedlar. In spite of his broad grins and his wise, bright eyes, none, even of Lord Nick’s gang, extended a friendship or familiarity toward him. When they spoke of the Pedlar they never used his name. They referred to him as “him” or they indicated him with gestures. If he had a fondness for any living creature it was for fat Joe Rix.

  Yet on seeing this ominous pair, Nelly Lebrun cried out softly in delight. She ran to them, and dropped a hand on the bony shoulder of the Pedlar and one on the plump shoulder of Joe Rix, whose loose flesh rolled under her finger tips.

  “It’s Jack Landis!” she cried. “He’s gone to Milligan’s to fight the new man. Stop him!”

  “Donnegan?” said Joe, and did not rise.

  “Him?” said the Pedlar, and moistened his broad lips like one on the verge of starvation.

  “Are you going to sit here?” she cried. “What will Lord Nick say if he finds out you’ve let Jack get into a fight?”

  “We ain’t nursin’ mothers,” declared the Pedlar. “But I’d kind of like to look on!”

  And he rose. Unkinking joint after joint, straightening his legs, his back, his shoulders, his neck, he soared up and up until he stood a prodigious height. The girl controlled a shudder of disgust.

  “Joe!” she appealed.

  “You want us to clean up Donnegan?” he asked, rising, but without interest in his voice.

  To his surprise, she slipped back to the door and blocked it with her outcast arms.

  “Not a hair of his head!” she said fiercely. “Swear that you won’t harm him, boys!”

  “What the devil!” ejaculated Joe, who was a blunt man in spite of his fat. “You want us to keep Jack from fightin’, but you don’t want us to hurt the other gent. What you want? Hogtie ’em both?”

  “Yes, yes; keep Jack out of Milligan’s; but for heaven’s sake don’t try to put a hand on Donnegan.”

  “Why not?”

  “For your sakes; he’d kill you, Joe!”

  At this they both gaped in unison, and as one man they drawled in vast admiration: “Good heavens!”

  “But go, go, go!” cried the girl.

  And she shoved them through the door and into the night.

  CHAPTER 22

  TO THE PEOPLE in Milligan’s it had been most incredible that Jack Landis should withdraw from a competition of any sort. And though the girls were able to understand his motives in taking Nelly Lebrun away they were not able to explain this fully to their men companions. For one and all they admitted that Jack was imperiling his hold on the girl in question if he allowed her to stay near this red-headed fiend. But one and all they swore that Jack Landis had ruined himself with her by taking her away. And this was a paradox which made masculine heads in The Corner spin. The main point was that Jack Landis had backed down before a rival; and this fact was stunning enough. Donnegan, however, was not confused. He sent big George to ask Milligan to come to him for a moment.

  Milligan, at this, cursed George, but he was drawn by curiosity to consent. A moment later he was seated at Donnegan’s table, drinking his own liquor as it was served to him from the hands of big George. If the first emotions of the dance-hall proprietor were anger and intense curiosity, his second emotion was that never-failing surprise which all who came close to the wanderer felt. For he had that rare faculty of seeming larger when in action, even when actually near m
uch bigger men. Only when one came close to Donnegan one stepped, as it were, through a veil, and saw the almost fragile reality. When Milligan had caught his breath and adjusted himself, he began as follows:

  “Now, Bud,” he said, “you’ve made a pretty play. Not bad at all. But no more bluffs in Milligan’s.”

  “Bluff!” Donnegan repeated gently.

  “About your servant. I let it pass for one night, but not for another.”

  “My dear Mr. Milligan! However” — changing the subject easily— “what I wish to speak to you about is a bit of trouble which I foresee. I think, sir, that Jack Landis is coming back.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “It’s a feeling I have. I have queer premonitions, Mr. Milligan, I’m sure he’s coming and I’m sure he’s going to attempt a murder.”

  Milligan’s thick lips framed his question but he did not speak: fear made his face ludicrous.

  “Right here?”

  “Yes.”

  “A shootin’ scrape here! You?”

  “He has me in mind. That’s why I’m speaking to you.”

  “Don’t wait to speak to me about it. Get up and get out!”

  “Mr. Milligan, you’re wrong. I’m going to stay here and you’re going to protect me.”

  “Well, confound your soul! They ain’t much nerve about you, is there?”

  “You run a public place. You have to protect your patrons from insult.”

  “And who began it, then? Who started walkin’ on Jack’s toes? Now you come whinin’ to me! By heck, I hope Jack gets you!”

  “You’re a genial soul,” said Donnegan. “Here’s to you!”

  But something in his smile as he sipped his liquor made Milligan sit straighter in his chair.

  As for Donnegan, he was thinking hard and fast. If there were a shooting affair and he won, he would nevertheless run a close chance of being hung by a mob. He must dispose that mob to look upon him as the defendant and Landis as the aggressor. He had not foreseen the crisis until it was fairly upon him. He had thought of Nelly playing Landis along more gradually and carefully, so that, while he was slowly learning that she was growing cold to him, he would have a chance to grow fond of Lou Macon once more. But even across the width of the room he had seen the girl fire up, and from that moment he knew the result. Landis already suspected him; Landis, with the feeling that he had been robbed, would do his best to kill the thief. He might take a chance with Landis, if it came to a fight, just as he had taken a chance with Lewis. But how different this case would be! Landis was no dull-nerved ruffian and drunkard. He was a keen boy with a hair-trigger balance, and in a gunplay he would be apt to beat the best of them all. Of all this Donnegan was fully aware. Either he must place his own life in terrible hazard or else he must shoot to kill; and if he killed, what of Lou Macon?