by Max Brand
“You see?” said Donnegan. “You would have been perfectly safe — even from Lord Nick’s ruffians. That was one of his men we passed back there.”
“Yes. I’m safe with you,” said the girl.
And when she looked up to him, the blood of Donnegan turned to fire.
Out of a shop door before them came a girl with a parcel under her arm. She wore a gay, semi-masculine outfit, bright-colored, jaunty, and she walked with a lilt toward them. It was Nelly Lebrun. And as she passed them. Donnegan lifted his hat ceremoniously high. She nodded to him with a smile, but the smile aimed wan and small in an instant. There was a quick widening and then a narrowing of her eyes, and Donnegan knew that she had judged Lou Macon as only one girl can judge another who is lovelier.
He glanced at Lou to see if she had noticed, and he saw her raise her head and go on with her glance proudly straight before her; but her face was very pale, and Donnegan knew that she had guessed everything that was true and far more than the truth. Her tone at the door of the post office was ice.
“I think you are right, Mr. Donnegan. There’s no danger. And if you have anything else to do, I can get back home easily enough.”
“I’ll wait for you,” murmured Donnegan sadly, and he stood as the door of the little building with bowed head.
And then a murmur came down the street. How small it was, and how sinister! It consisted of exclamations begun, and then broken sharply off. A swirl of people divided as a cloud of dust divides before a blast of wind, and through them came the gigantic figure of Lord Nick!
On he came, a gorgeous figure, a veritable king of men. He carried his hat in his hand and his red hair flamed, and he walked with great strides. Donnegan glanced behind him. The way was clear. If he turned, Lord Nick would not pursue him, he knew.
But to flee even from his brother was more than he could do; for the woman he loved would know of it and could never understand.
He touched the holster that held his empty gun — and waited!
An eternity between every step of Lord Nick. Others seemed to have sensed the meaning of this silent scene. People seemed to stand frozen in the midst of gestures. Or was that because Donnegan’s own thoughts were traveling at such lightning speed that the rest of the world seemed standing still? What kept Lou Macon? If she were with him, not even Lord Nick in his madness would force on a gunplay in the presence of a woman, no doubt.
Lord Nick was suddenly close; he had paused; his voice rang over the street and struck upon Donnegan’s ear as sounds come under water.
“Donnegan!”
“Aye!” called Donnegan softly.
“It’s the time!”
“Aye,” said Donnegan.
Then a huge body leaped before him; it was big George. And as he sprang his gun went up with his hand in a line of light. The two reports came close together as finger taps on a table, and big George, completing his spring, lurched face downward into the sand.
Dead? Not yet. All his faith and selflessness were nerving the big man. And Donnegan stood behind him, unarmed!
He reared himself upon his knees — an imposing bulk, even then, and fired again. But his hand was trembling, and the bullet shattered a sign above the head of Lord Nick. He, in his turn, it seemed to Donnegan that the motion was slow, twitched up the muzzle of his weapon and fired once more from his hip. And big George lurched back on the sand, with his face upturned to Donnegan. He would have spoken, but a burst of blood choked him; yet his eyes fixed and glazed, he mustered his last strength and offered his revolver to Donnegan.
But Donnegan let the hand fall limp to the ground. There were voices about him; steps running; but all that he clearly saw was Lord Nick with his feet braced, and his head high.
“Donnegan! Your gun!”
“Aye,” said Donnegan.
“Take it then!”
But in the crisis, automatically Donnegan flipped his useless revolver out of its holster and into his hand. At the same instant the gun from Nick’s hand seemed to blaze in his eyes. He was struck a crushing blow in his chest. He sank upon his knees: another blow struck his head, and Donnegan collapsed on the body of big George.
CHAPTER 44
AN ANCIENT DRUNKARD in the second story of one of the stores across the street had roused himself at the sound of the shots and now he dragged himself to the window and began to scream: “Murder! Murder!” over and over, and even The Corner shuddered at the sound of his voice.
Lord Nick, his revolver still in his hand, stalked through the film of people who now swirled about him, eager to see the dead. There was no call for the law to make its appearance, and the representatives of the law were wisely dilatory in The Corner.
He stood over the two motionless figures with a stony face.
“You saw it, boys,” he said. “You know what I’ve borne from this fellow. The big man pulled his gun first on me. I shot in self-defense. As for — the other — it was a square fight.”
“Square fight,” someone answered. “You both went for your irons at the same time. Pretty work, Nick.”
It was a solid phalanx of men which had collected around the moveless bodies as swiftly as mercury sinks through water. Yet none of them touched either Donnegan or George. And then the solid group dissolved at one side. It was the moan of a woman which had scattered it, and a yellow-haired girl slipped through them. She glanced once, in horror, at the mute faces of the men, and then there was a wail as she threw herself on the body of Donnegan. Somewhere she found the strength of a man to lift him and place him face upward on the sand, the gun trailing limply in his hand. And then she lay, half crouched over him, her face pressed to his heart — listening — listening for the stir of life.
Shootings were common in The Corner; the daily mortality ran high; but there had never been aftermaths like this one. Men looked at one another, and then at Lord Nick. A bright spot of color had come in his cheeks, but his face was as hard as ever.
“Get her away from him,” someone murmured.
And then another man cried out, stooped, wrenched the gun from the limp hand of Donnegan and opened the cylinder. He spun it: daylight was glittering through the empty cylinder.
At this the man stiffened, and with a low bow which would have done credit to a drawing-room, he presented the weapon butt first to Lord Nick.
“Here’s something the sheriff will want to see,” he said, “but maybe you’ll be interested, too.”
But Lord Nick, with the gun in his hand, stared at it dumbly, turned the empty cylinder. And the full horror crept slowly on his mind. He had not killed his brother, he had murdered him. As his eyes cleared, he caught the glitter of the eyes which surrounded him.
And then Lou Macon was on her knees with her hands clasped at her breast and her face glorious.
“Help!” she was crying. “Help me. He’s not dead, but he’s dying unless you help me!”
Then Lord Nick cast away his own revolver and the empty gun of Donnegan. They heard him shout: “Garry!” and saw him stride forward.
Instantly men pressed between, hard-jawed men who meant business. It was a cordon he would have to fight his way through: but he dissolved it with a word.
“You fools! He’s my brother!”
And then he was on his knees opposite Lou Macon.
“You?” she had stammered in horror.
“His brother, girl.”
And ten minutes later, when the bandages had been wound, there was a strange sight of Lord Nick striding up the street with his victim in his arms. How lightly he walked; and he was talking to the calm, pale face which rested in the hollow of his shoulder.
“He will live? He will live?” Lou Macon was pleading as she hurried at the side of Lord Nick.
“God willing, he shall live!”
It was three hours before Donnegan opened his eyes. It was three days before he recovered his senses, and looking aside toward the door he saw a brilliant shaft of sunlight falling into the room. In the midst
of it sat Lou Macon. She had fallen asleep in her great weariness now that the crisis was over. Behind her, standing, his great arms folded, stood the indomitable figure of Lord Nick.
Donnegan saw and wondered greatly. Then he closed his eyes dreamily. “Hush,” said Donnegan to himself, as if afraid that what he saw was all a dream. “I’m in heaven, or if I’m not, it’s still mighty good to be alive.”
THE END
The Long, Long Trail (1921)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 1
HE WAS POPULARLY nicknamed Morg, and it may be understood that strangers were apt to spell the name Morgue; yet his full name, as he signed it on the day of his wedding and never again, before or after, was Morgan Algernon Valentine. Someone discovered that hidden and forbidden signature and once addressed the rancher as Algie, and the result was a violent accident.
Yet Morgan Valentine was a peaceful man. He was one of those who accomplish romantic results in an everyday manner. Banish his mountains from his horizon, and he would have been a wretched man, and yet when he thought about the mountains at all, it was only to remember the trails that netted them and the sweat of the hard climbs. His labor in life had been noble and was apt to prove enduring. Thirty years before — he and his brother, John, followed the Crane River, where it splits through the higher mountains and comes out upon the lower, rolling hills on the farther side — it occurred to John Valentine, who was the dreamer of the family, that the slopes might not be too steep to preclude cultivation with the plow, and though the regions of the hill crests were a jagged soil, much broken by rocks, there might be enough grass to graze cattle on. Five minutes later he was painting a picture of the house which might be built there — one for Morgan and one for John, on opposite sides of the Crane River. There they could live in eyeshot, each with a broad domain separated by the arrowy, yellow waters of the Crane. There was ample room for both — a hundred thousand acres of hill and valley land.
And still another five minutes found John Valentine already tired of his dream and ready to spur on. But Morgan would not stir. There he resolved to pitch his tent. And though John tried valiantly to dissuade him, the tent was pitched and the two brothers remained. Forthwith, the empire which John had seen, the younger brother proceeded to build. Who are the greater men — the empire seers or the empire makers? At any rate the thing was done; front to front, a couple of miles apart, and with the noisy river splitting the landscape in the middle, rose the two houses. The house of John Valentine was planned as a nobly proportioned structure, and though it had never progressed beyond the columns of the entrance and the first story of the original, it was nevertheless beautiful even in the piece. On the other hand, practical Morgan Valentine built himself a plain shack and gradually extended it. Now it stumbled up the hills on either side, big enough to shelter a whole clan of Valentines and their supporters.
From which it may be gathered that John Valentine lived his life as Byron wrote his poems — he leaped once, tigerlike, and if he failed in the first attempt, or grew weary of labor, he was off to fresh fields and pastures new. He was the sort of man of whom people can easily expect great things; he could have sat on a throne; he could have painted pictures or written verse or made shoes for his own horses; but in accomplishment he was continually falling short. But Morgan Valentine seemed to have reached above his height; people wondered at what he had done. Yet perhaps his neighbors overlooked this fact: that simplicity may be profound; and though few thoughts came to him, those he had worked deep into the roots of his being.
For instance, there was only one human being whom he had ever truly loved, and that was his brother. And when John died, Morgan transferred a portion of that love to the orphan daughter of the dead man.
But Morgan’s own wife and children were merely incidents in his life.
It is necessary to be so explicit about this Morgan Valentine, because, in spite of his simplicity, this narrative could never have been written were it not that he did some astonishing things. Indeed, so unusual were some of the things that he did, that one is tempted to add fact to fact so that there will be no misapprehension — no tendency to call him a dream figure. On this night he was exactly fifty-one years and three months old. He stood five feet nine and three-quarter inches and weighed one hundred and eighty pounds; he had a gray head and a young, stern face; he was slow in speech and agile in movement; and at this particular moment he was smoking a stubby corncob pipe on the front porch of his house, with his heels cocked upon the top of the railing.
His wife was in bed; the servants dared not make a sound in the house even if they were awake; the songs and the laughter of the men in the bunkhouse had long since died out; but Morgan Valentine, who slept never more than five hours a night, was still wakeful at twelve.
But if his body waked, his mind slept indeed, and only his eye roved lazily through the valley. A broad moon, nearing the full, had rolled like a wheel up the side of Grizzly Peak, and it cast enough light for him to make out the details of his possessions. In the heart of each valley there was the black- plowed land in narrow strips — incredibly rich loam; and over the rest of the unfenced ground where the cattle ranged, the moon flashed here and there on a bit of outcropping quartz, or twinkled along a line of new-strung barbed wire. But far and wide, over the neighboring hollows, all to his right was his, over range after range of hills, rocking away toward a dim horizon. And looking straight ahead all was his to the silver streak of the river. Indeed, this was little more than an imaginary boundary, for though the great district beyond belonged to his niece, it would be, by all prospects, many and many a year before Mary Valentine was married, and until such a time, he was the executor, his will was law through all the rich region of that valley.
No wonder that the bowl of the pipe tilted up as he set his teeth, and he was filled with the solid sense of possession.
Into his quiet thought beat the swift tattoo of a horse coming across the valley road; it rounded the hill, and at once the hoofbeats rang loudly through the night with the speed of the fugitive — the speed of the pursuer — the speed of anger, perhaps. Now the horseman lurched into view, a black form, with a black shadow trailing beside it over the white road. Straight up to the front of Morgan Valentine’s house; then out of the saddle with a leap; then heavy heels and ringing spurs on the high flight of steps. He caught sight of the figure of Morgan.
“Morgan Valentine?” he called.
Now, midnight hushes voices and makes men walk lightly, but the ring in this question was uncontrolled, as if the fellow had a right to waken the entire house if he felt so inclined.
“Gus Norman?” queried the rancher, rising.
“That’s me!”
He came along the porch more slowly now, with the slowness of one who deliberates and prepares words. But when he came close, the calmness of M
organ Valentine snapped his self-control, and he burst out: “Valentine, it’s got to stop!”
“What’s got to stop?”
“That — that girl!”
He turned his head as he spoke mechanically and looked across the shining strip of the Crane River toward the unfinished house of John Valentine which stood on the crest of a hill, white under the moon, and with a solemn, Doric beauty.
“What girl?” persisted Valentine obtusely.
“What girl? Mary Valentine; your niece! That’s what!”
“Stop? How stop?”
“Stop her from going about — man-killing—”
“What!”
“That’s what it amounts to. It’s murder, Valentine!”
The ugly word came out with an ugly oath behind it, and the change in Valentine was instant.
“Seems to me,” he observed in his unhurried manner, “that you’re talking kind of foolish, Norman. Suppose I give you a minute to think that over and then say it again!”
The other shifted his position a little, but he rushed on with his speech of accusation.
“I don’t need no minute, nor nothing like it. My boy is lying home, bleeding; that’s why I’m here talking to you now. What I got to say won’t keep. He’s shot down, and it’s her that has it done!”
For a time the glance of Valentine traveled gravely up and down the form of the other.
At length he said quietly: “I’d sort of hate to have Mother woke up with news like this; mind talking sort of soft?”
“There’s no use talking soft,” said the other, but nevertheless he lowered his voice. “The whole world is finding out things about Mary Valentine, my friend, and the whole world won’t be talking in a soft voice about what it knows.”
“Ah?” murmured Valentine. Suddenly his tone changed, as though the idea had just filtered completely home in his brain.
“Now, what the devil d’you mean by that, Norman?”