Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “I ain’t here to argue with you. I’m here to point out facts. My boy is shot down; your son Charlie is the one that done it. How d’you explain it?”

  “By the fact that your boy Joe ain’t as handy with his gun as my boy Charlie. That’s a tolerably clear explanation, I figure.”

  “Tolerable clear for some, maybe, but it ain’t the fact. The hand that held the gun was Charlie’s, but the mind that directed it was Mary Valentine’s.”

  “All these here remarks,” declared Valentine, “is considerable compromising, which maybe I’ll be asking for more talk later on. But now, keep right on. Charlie shot Joe, but you say that Mary had a hand in it? Where’s Mary now?”

  “She’s taking care of Joe; your boys, Charlie and Louis, is both there, too; up at my house.”

  “She’s taking care of Joe?” echoed Valentine.

  “Listen, Morg, while I go back a ways in this story. You remember that there was a dance last Saturday night at Dinneyville?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Anyway, there was. Well, did Mary say anything to you the day after that dance about her and my boy Joe?”

  “She didn’t.”

  “Then, sir, she knows how to keep a lot to herself. But Joe had something to say to me on Sunday. He says: ‘Dad, I’m the luckiest gent on the ranges. I’m going to marry Mary Valentine.’ I was struck all of a heap by hearing that. But Joe tells me that they can’t be no mistake. She’d as good as promised to be his wife. He’d never knowed her much before the night at that dance. But he took a liking to her right off; and it seemed she done the same by him. He smiled at her; she smiled right back. It kind of went to his head. He started talking to her real serious; and she seemed just a wee bit more serious than him. Well, she scarce danced with anybody but him the rest of the night, and when he come home the next morning after the dance, he was like drunk. Couldn’t think, couldn’t talk of nothing but how beautiful Mary Valentine was and how quick he was going to marry her, couldn’t hardly wait to get started with an outfit of his own.

  “I spoke to my wife about it. The old woman didn’t say nothing. She just grinned at me. Pretty soon she allows that it’s all right. But maybe Joe had better make sure of the girl before he got out any wedding license. That sounded like funny talk to me, but I didn’t pay no attention.

  “Well, along comes the dance at Salt Springs school-house tonight. My boy goes over. He don’t see nothing nor speak to nobody until he sees Mary Valentine come in. Then he goes straight for her.

  “Then something mighty queer happened. They was another man with her. His name was Henry Sitterley; Hank Sitterley’s boy. And when Joe goes up to her and starts talking sort of foolish, the way a boy will when he’s in love, she looks right through him. Acts the way she’d hardly ever met him before. And pretty soon she goes dancing off with young Sitterley, and Joe can see her talking to him and knows that she’s making a mock out of him — my son!

  “Well, it gets into Joe’s head and starts him seeing red, and it gets into his heart and starts his heart aching. He don’t think it’s really no ways possible. He waits till the dance is over. He tries to see her ag’in. But she sees him coming and slips away into the crowd and laughs back at him.

  “Then it comes into Joe’s head that she’s jilting him, and—”

  “Wait a minute,” broke out Valentine. “Did she promise to marry him that other Saturday night?”

  “They’s other ways of promising things than with words, friend Valentine. She sure promised Joe with her eyes and her smiles and her sighs. So when she give him the go-by like that tonight, he mighty near went crazy. He goes out into the hall where they was some of the other boys standing smoking, and there he busts out with something about Mary being a flirt.

  “Quick as a wink, your boy Charlie takes him up — like a bulldog, he was, Joe says. Besides, Joe was too mad and sad not to fight it out. First thing you know, guns is pulled?”

  “Who pulled his gun first?” cut in Valentine, snapping his words.

  “Joe.”

  Valentine sighed.

  “Joe pulled his first, and Charlie beat him to the draw. But here’s the point. Your girl starts flirting with my boy; she gets him so he can’t sleep for a week, thinking about her — and then when she meets him ag’in she don’t know him, or lets on that she don’t.

  “Then my boy says something he shouldn’t of said; they’s a fight; he gets shot through the arm — thank Heaven it wasn’t no worse! — and I tell you that it was Mary that had him shot, and not Charlie Valentine! Because why? Because when Mary and Charlie drive my boy back home in their buckboard and while they’re fussing over him, and after Joe has told me what happened, I go to my wife and tell her I think Joe was crazy the first time he seen Mary. He was crazy with love — calf love. But she just grins at me. ‘Why,’ she says, ‘don’t you know she’s the worst flirt in the country?’

  “And that’s why I’m here, Valentine. Two inches more to one side and that bullet would of gone through my boy’s heart. And the murderer would of been your girl Mary. Valentine, I’m new to the country; I don’t know your folks nor your ways, but I know that in the part of the country that I come from a girl like that ain’t allowed to run around loose. She’s kept up close, and if her dad can’t look after the way she handles her eyes and her smiles, then her ma goes along to watch out for her; and if her ma can’t do it, then she ain’t allowed to go out where they’s young men to be made fools of and their hearts broke, if it don’t come to no other thing. I’m a tolerable reasonable man, Valentine, and that bullet wound don’t amount to nothing.

  “Two weeks, and it’ll be all healed up; but what if it had struck two inches away? So I come here straight to you and say, ‘Something has got to be done!’ I leave it to you, what.”

  During the latter part of this talk Morgan Valentine had abased his head and stared at the floor of the veranda, but now he raised his head, and even through the shadow the other could see the black frown on the forehead of the rich rancher.

  “You got a reason for your talk, Norman,” he admitted. “Now step inside and I’ll tell you just how this matter stands. You ain’t the first that’s had cause to complain. I wish you could be the last; but come on inside and we’ll talk.”

  CHAPTER 2

  BUT GUS NORMAN shook his head.

  “In my part of the country,” he said stubbornly, “we like to talk in the open air; it keeps us cool.”

  “Not a half-bad idea. But before we start talking serious, maybe you’ll tell me just what you’re aiming to do?”

  “I’m aiming to keep out of bad trouble, Valentine. I don’t like trouble; I’m a peaceable man; but I ain’t the only Norman around here. They’s a lot of us and some of ’em take this shooting sort of to heart. They want blood for blood. My brother and my nephew are at my house, and they want action. But I talked to ’em and told ’em to keep quiet till I come back.”

  The other considered his visitor gravely in the dim light. Short time though this clan of Normans had been in the mountains, they had established a name for bulldog ferocity in fighting.

  “Look over yonder,” he said at length. “You see that house?”

  “Yep. What has that to do with it?”

  “A whole pile. That’s the house my brother built. He started building it and stopped halfway. All through his life he was starting things and stopping halfway. Well, Norman, his girl Mary is the same way. She’s always starting things and stopping when they’re halfway done. When she was a youngster, she was a regular tomboy. Doing everything that my kids did. When Charlie first got interested in guns, she started practicing, too; and she got so she could beat Charlie with a light rifle or a light revolver. She’s still almost as good as Louis, but she got tired of fooling with guns in a couple of months. Same way with hosses. Long as a colt was a wild one, she’d go riding every day and fight it. But as soon as the hoss got tame, she was done with it. And it’s the same way with men. She’s
interested in every strange man that she meets. Shows ’em that she’s interested, and thinks they’re the finest in the world until they begin to think she’s in love with ’em. But after a while she gets tired of ’em. Now d’you understand about her, Norman?”

  The other shook his head and growled: “Guns is one thing and hosses is another; but my boy is something more’n either; and he’s got to be treated human.”

  “D’you aim to make me force Mary to marry him?” asked the other calmly.

  “I ain’t forcing my boy on no girl. Speaking without no offense, Valentine, I wouldn’t have your girl in my family. But I think you ought to keep her in hand. They’s other young men in my family. Maybe another’ll fall in love with that girl when she makes eyes at ’em. And then there may be another fight. And the next time it may be your boy that gets drilled. Luck is always changing. But if she was my girl, I’d use the whip, Valentine.”

  For some reason Valentine smiled at this, but the darkness covered the expression.

  “They’s another side to her,” he said gently. “She’s a true-blue girl, Norman. No malice in her. Keeps to her friends. Plays square — every way except where some strange young gent is concerned, and then she runs amuck with her eyes and her smiles, just as you say. What can I do? Whip? Why, she’d murder me and then kill herself out of shame and spite if I so much as touched her. Don’t you suppose I’ve thought of this before? Haven’t I got most of the people around here down on me because of the way Mary has treated the boys, one time or another? Ain’t she always making trouble for me? And ain’t my boys in peril of their lives because she keeps making places where they got to fight for her sake and their own?”

  “Then send her away.”

  “Ah, man, blood has got a feeling for blood! Can I turn out my brother’s daughter?”

  The other was silent for a moment, breathing hard. He was a wild-looking man, with unshaven face and a beard that began at his eyes and ran ragged until it terminated in a shaggy point beneath his chin. He was a lean, hard man, and he had reddish eyes as bright as the eyes of a ferret and as restless.

  “The day’ll come when you’ll have sorrow in your home for keeping this girl here,” he announced gloomily. “The day’ll come when you’ll wish you’d sent her off.”

  “She’s been away to school, man, but nothing changed her.”

  “Sometime, Valentine, she’ll find a man that’ll be her master. Mark me when I say it. And when that man comes, she’ll go to him and foller him whether he be good or bad. If she could find a hoss that would never be safe under the saddle, she’d never want to ride nothing but that hoss, I figure; and when she finds a man that won’t pay no attention to her, she’ll be following that man, Valentine, you mark my word. She’ll love the man that laughs at her; she’ll follow the man that runs from her; she’ll kneel to the man that beats her.” He paused again.

  For Morgan Valentine had shifted so that the moonlight struck abruptly across his face, painting the wrinkles and his frown black and making the rest deadly white. He stood with his jaw set, and through the shadow of his brows the eyes glittered. He spoke nothing, but Gus Norman saw enough to make him wince back a step. He put out his hand in a conciliatory gesture.

  “I don’t wish her no unhappiness and I don’t speak out of no malice. I ain’t come to talk hard, neither, nor to make no threats. But I’m here to put my case in front of you. You got a big reputation around these parts, Valentine, for being a square shooter. Put yourself in my boots and figure out what you’d do. My folks are a tolerable tempery lot, and they’re a pile cut up about this fracas; but I’m holding ’em back. I don’t want ’em to run foul of Charlie; most of all I don’t want ’em to run foul of you. Think over what I’ve said. Good night.”

  He turned on his heel, strode across the veranda, went down the steps, and once more sent his horse up the road.

  Before he disappeared into the moon haze, Valentine was walking up and down the veranda with a short, quick step. And of all the people in the world only his wife, no doubt, could have read the meaning behind his manner. Only his wife did know it; for the loud voice of Norman had wakened her in her room just over the veranda, and she had gone to her window. From it she had overheard the conversation, and now she knew the meaning of that pacing, that short, quick, decisive step. She gathered her dressing gown about her, put her feet in slippers, and hurried downstairs. Her husband was coming in just as she reached the lowest range of the stairs, and she paused with her hand on the rail. It was a lovely hand in spite of her forty-five years and the hard labor which had been hers during the early part of her married life. Her slippered foot, too, would have been the pride of a debutante; and the dressing robe fluttered about her in graceful lines. She was still beautifully formed; her skin retained its glow and purity of texture. But cover her hands with winter gloves, her feet with boots, her body with a heavy coat, and Maude Valentine became a homely farmer’s wife. There had been a fine spirit in her face, but never beauty; and now that the grace and hope of youth was gone there remained only the lines of the unloved wife and the unheeded mother of two wild sons and one headstrong daughter.

  “Are you up, Mother?” he asked from the hall beneath.

  “I couldn’t sleep, Morgan.”

  “Read a bit; then you’ll sleep.”

  “I wish to talk to you just a little minute, Morgan,” she replied. Her voice had the gentleness of long sorrow.

  “Come on into the library, then.”

  They went into the big room ranged high with books, for John’s library had been brought here after his death, and it was a rare collection. How few had been opened since his hand last touched them!

  “Are you warm, Mother?”

  She looked up at him quickly as she slipped into the big chair, a furtive glance. For one brief moment at the time of their marriage — whether it were a matter of days or weeks did not count — she had felt that he loved her truly, with a fire concealed by his customary self-restraint. And ever since those passionate days of happiness she had been probing him with these half- frightened glances in search of the vanished tenderness. And though she lived with him a hundred years there would still be a hope in her heart. But he was hardly glancing at her now as he asked the question, and settling back into the chair, she smiled at him a still and quiet smile, for pain may take on the gentlest seeming.

  “Now, Mother, what is it?”

  “I guess maybe I shouldn’t have said that I couldn’t sleep. It was Gus Norman’s voice that waked me up.”

  “He talks like a roaring bull. Some of these days maybe a ring’ll be put through Norman’s nose and he’ll be led about!”

  “I heard all he said.”

  “Well?”

  At his carelessness she fired a trifle.

  “And I heard that Charlie shot a man!”

  “His third man. He’s starting well.”

  “Morgan Valentine, do you know what lies ahead of your son one of these days? Murder! I’ve seen him getting angry in the house and reach natural for his hip. And someday he’ll get in trouble — and shoot — and kill!”

  Her voice had raised very little, but her changing expression answered a similar purpose. Indeed, Morgan Valentine looked sharply at her, so astonished was he by any variation in her monotone.

  “He’s sowing his wild oats, that’s all. No cause for worry.”

  “He’s never worried you, Morgan.” There was a bitter emphasis on the pronoun. “None of your children have. Seems like you don’t care, sometimes.”

  The remarkable fact that his wife was actually complaining finally reached the understanding of Valentine, and now he watched her calmly, waiting. His quiet made her flush.

  “Charlie, nor Liz, nor Louis — they none of them worry you, Morgan. You act — you act — as if Mary was your daughter, and my children didn’t have your blood in ’em!”

  “Mother!” murmured her husband.

  “I ain’t going to make a scene, Morg
an,” she assured him, and she gathered her robe a little closer to her as if to cover her trembling. “I’m just going to tell you a few facts. This ain’t the first time that Mary has made trouble for me and mine. She—”

  “You don’t like her, Mother. You get a bad light in your eyes every time you think of her. I’ve seen that for a long while.”

  “I’ve done what’s right for her,” said Mrs. Valentine stubbornly. “They ain’t nobody can say I haven’t mothered her as much as the wild thing would let me — after her father died.”

  Again he was silent, and again the silence spurred her on more than words.

  “And here she is paying me back. She’s putting my boys in peril of their lives. That’s what she’s doing. And who but her has made my girl Liz unhappy?”

  “Why, Mother, Mary is always kind to Liz — always doing little things for her — taught her to ride, taught her to shoot, taught her to dance, even!”

  “That’s it. She’s always led the way. Now Liz can’t do anything out of her own mind. When she’s in trouble, she don’t come to her own mother. She goes to Mary. If she wants advice, she goes to Mary. And half the time — half the time — her and Mary has secrets that they’re keeping from me. I come on ’em whispering together, and they break off as soon as I come. Mary makes a mock of me in my own house — with my own boys — my own girl!”

  He had taken his pipe from between his teeth. He held it now in his stubby fingers until the wisp of smoke that curled out of the bowl dwindled.

  “Besides, what is they ahead for Liz? Who’ll she ever have a chance to marry so long as Mary is around? Nobody looks at her except because they think it might make Mary smile at ’em. At parties, they only dance with Liz because maybe then Mary’ll dance with ’em. They wouldn’t ask Liz except to get Mary. And — and I can’t stand it no longer. Ain’t Liz pretty? Ain’t she gentle and kind? Ain’t she got winning ways? But as long as Mary is here, she’ll have a secondhand life. That’s what she’ll have. I’ve watched and watched and watched, and my heart was — breaking all the time. But I wouldn’t talk until tonight — but now I see where things is leading. I see what Mary is doing — she’s bringing into my house — murder!”