Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “It was Jess Dreer,” said the girl faintly, “And — he got away, Charlie?”

  “You must of known when you asked him to help me that there wasn’t any way for him to get loose. Not with a whole line of men stretched around the saloon waiting for him — and Normans, all of them! You must of knowed you was asking him to step in and die! And him being that kind of a gent” — the voice of Charlie trembled— “he wouldn’t say no to a woman.”

  “Charlie, you aren’t speaking true? He isn’t caught?”

  She had broken through the circle now and was clinging to him, pleading with him.

  “Don’t hold onto me, Mary,” said the boy coldly. “I swear that I’d rather be back there lying dead on the floor of Dan Carrol’s place than to have Dreer die for me.”

  “Hush,” broke in Morgan Valentine.

  He was looking at Mary, not at his rescued son.

  “Mother, take Mary inside.”

  “Oh, Mary! That was what you done for us? Oh, Mary, and all the bitter things I been thinking of you!”

  “I won’t go, Aunt Maude,” said the girl steadily. “I want to know just what happened. After Boone dropped, what did Jess Dreer do?”

  “He turned his gun in his hand and caught it by the barrel.

  “ ‘Boys,’ he says, just as quiet as I’m talking now. ‘Boys, I guess you know who I am. I’m Jess Dreer. They’s about one chance in three that I could rush the lines outside and get clear. But I’m sort of tired. So I give myself up. Who’ll take my gun?’

  “Nobody moved. I called out: ‘Jess, I’m with you. I’m at your back. We’ll try it together.’ I meant it. I’d of died for him. I still would! But he says: ‘Go easy, boy. I know you’re white, but don’t you go making a mess of things for yourself.’”

  “Charlie,” said Mary Valentine in the same calm voice in which she had spoken before, “I’ll never forget what you said to Jess Dreer and the offer that you made.”

  He went on, unheeding: “Then he goes up to Harrison and puts out his gun: ‘Pardner,’ he says, ‘I figure you for a man-sized man. Take my gun and lead me to the lockup. They’s a pretty fat little price on my head. It’s all yours — and you can give it to charity.’

  “But Harrison took Dreer’s hand, not his gun. ‘You’ve done a mighty fine thing,’ he said. ‘I dunno what your record is, Dreer, but here’s one that would back you. And we’ll see that you get a clean deal in Salt Springs.’

  “But just then Sheriff Clancy comes through the door.

  “‘Will you make the same offer to me, Dreer?’ he says, with his hand on his gun.

  “I could see something flicker in the eyes of Dreer. He had his gun in a bad position — by the muzzle — but I thought for a minute that he was going to flip it and try to get Clancy first — and I think he could of done it.

  “But he says: ‘It ain’t such a pretty party with you on the receiving end, Sheriff. Speaking personal, sheriffs ain’t been my bunkies, generally. But here’s the gun, Clancy.’

  “‘How d’you know me?’ asked the sheriff.

  “ ‘I can tell you by the scar on your forehead,’ says Jess.”

  There was a cry of pain from Mary Valentine.

  “Aye,” said the boy fiercely, “cry and wring your hands, Mary Valentine, but that won’t save Jess Dreer. And he’s going to be saved!”

  “Charlie,” pleaded the girl, “let me have a chance to help!”

  “Keep away, Mary. I’ll tell you why. I been thinking about you all the way home. I been thinking about you ever since Jess Dreer talked to me that way and gave me that message for you. It was on account of you that he done it.

  “And who was the cause of the whole thing? It was you! You made the fight between me and Joe Norman. And that fight laid the plan for this. It’s on account of you that Jud Boone is dead just when he was trying to get a new start and be a decent man. It’s on account of you that the finest man that ever wore a gun is waiting in jail for a rope. And I say that you ought to be punished some way for it.”

  He had risen on tiptoe; his whole body had swelled to a greater size as he poured out the denunciation. “I don’t know how, but—”

  Morgan Valentine stepped in between them.

  “You’ve talked enough,” he interrupted.

  “Let him talk,” said the girl, and she smiled in a singular manner. “But I want you to know that I’m punished already, Charlie. More than I can bear. Because I love Jess Dreer!”

  There was a stifled exclamation from Elizabeth.

  But Charlie turned his rage into a sneer.

  “You love him?” he said scornfully. “Well, you’ve had considerable practice loving men!”

  And Mary bowed her head.

  CHAPTER 25

  “YOU SEE,” WAS the manner in which Claney greeted his brother sheriff from the southland, “that you was wrong, Caswell, and that Jess Dreer wasn’t taken near the Valentine ranch.”

  “But the theory was right enough,” protested Caswell. “And it was on account of the Valentines that he got into this mix-up.”

  Sheriff Claney smiled benevolently on his companion.

  “Theory is one way, but practice may be a mighty long ways off from it. It was this time.”

  “Well, I’m free to say that you’re right. I ain’t one that falls in love with my mistakes, pardner. Besides, you’re a gent with a pretty good head, Clancy, which makes it a whole pile easier to be beaten out by you.”

  It was a very neat little tribute, and it was delivered in a voice so sincere that Sheriff Claney had the grace to blush.

  “Here I was,” pursued Caswell, “after follering this Jess Dreer for years, and knowing him like I knew myself, almost, and yet you step in at the right minute and grab him. It’s a pretty piece of work. I thought you’d be miles away from Salt Springs hunting for the trail of him.”

  Sheriff Claney cleared his throat; it would be long before he explained the purely adventitious circumstances which had brought him to Salt Springs that day.

  “But,” ran on the man from the southland, “now that you got him, you want to look sharp that you keep him. I looked over your jail and it don’t look none too man-proof, to say nothing of being Dreer-proof!”

  “Leave all that worry to me, pardner, because I ain’t going to let my bird get away ag’in.”

  “What you doing to him?”

  “Got an iron on his feet and got his hands shackled in front of him.”

  Sheriff Caswell whistled.

  “That’s kind of harsh.”

  “The hound tried to make a mock of me, Caswell. He had worse’n the irons coming to him. But — tomorrow morning I start south with him, so I won’t have to bother with him long in that paper-walled jail. And while he’s there he’s got to grin and bear the irons.”

  Sheriff Caswell was deep in thought.

  “Well,” and he sighed, “I wouldn’t be in your boots for considerable money if he was to get away. He’d most likely drop in for a call.”

  “Let him call,” replied the sheriff stoutly, though his mouth tightened a little. “I ain’t been a sheriff such a short time that I’m afraid of lawbreakers. They ain’t none of them that can get the jump on an honest man.”

  “H’m,” remarked Sheriff Caswell.

  At this, the other became markedly uneasy.

  “Matter of fact,” he said, “I’d like to have you look him over. You know him better’n I do. You might look him over in the cell and see if you think he’s safe there. I got to go out in the country now, but this afternoon—”

  “I’ll be on my way south this afternoon maybe.”

  “Well, go over by yourself, Caswell.”

  “All right. But they ain’t any real call for it, I guess.”

  “I’d like to have you.”

  And that was the reason that Sheriff Caswell entered the Salt Springs jail that day.

  It was a little square, squat building of homemade brick. It looked like a fort of the primitiv
e days. Through such narrow, barred windows the defenders could have fired at Indians, say. A battered old fort, for the weather had nicked and chipped and scarred it as much as a prolonged musketry fire. In reality it was not ten years old. The sheriff had his office here. Behind the two rooms which served for that purpose, there were two rooms fenced with the finest tool-proof steel both on the sides and above. Sheriff Claney had refused to run for reelection unless he was given the proper cage for his prisoners, and Claney was so valued as a man catcher in Salt Springs that the citizens provided him with his man-proof trap. Beyond these two cells was a narrow passageway in which the citizens could flock to look over the captives.

  There were not many on this day, for Claney feared that some one of the sympathizers — and for some reason Salt Springs was singularly interested in the southland outlaw who had killed Jud Boone — might convey to Dreer a tool with which he could effect his escape. For this reason he allowed only those who carried special passes signed by himself to enter the jail today. The mob stayed outside.

  Sheriff Caswell found one of the favored coming out as he entered. It was Mary Valentine, whose father was too powerful near Salt Springs for the requests of his children to be denied. She walked with her head high, her face white, her eyes starry, and her mouth so firmly set that the sheriff knew she would burst into tears as soon as she was beyond the public eye.

  But at sight of the sheriff the tears were whipped from her eyes and a color of anger mounted into her cheeks.

  “You’re one of those who’ve hounded him down to this,” she said softly and fiercely. “And I want you to know one woman’s opinion — that he’s worth a thousand of men like you — ten thousand!”

  The sheriff looked mildly upon her. He took off his hat and turned it thoughtfully in his hands while she spoke. Then he said with his one-sided, whimsical smile: “My dear, you’re not alone. You’ll find Salt Springs full of people who agree with you about Jess Dreer. And all of them aren’t girls.”

  She was about to break out in a storm of scorn again, but something in the patient eyes of Sheriff Caswell made her stop, look at him very closely, and then go on without another word. At the end of the passage she turned again — he had not moved foot or hand — and looked back at him. One might have said that there was a misty appeal in the eyes of Mary Valentine.

  For some time longer the sheriff remained in this singularly devout attitude — just as if he were standing before the painting of some difficult and high-priced master. At length he sighed, and replacing his hat on his head, far back, he sauntered on into the interior of the jail.

  He was amazed at the precautions with which this rare prisoner was surrounded. At the door to the inner passage past the cells were two guards, each with a pair of revolvers swung at his belt and each with a sawed-off shotgun.

  That was intended, no doubt, to check a rush which might be made by friends of Dreer — other outlaws, perhaps, though it was known that Dreer usually rode alone. The sheriff looked with a bright eye on those shotguns. In his experience with men of action he had never found anything with quite such a sedative effect as the sawed-off shotgun with its big bullets and scattering murder at short range.

  These two guards examined the slip of paper which Sheriff Claney had signed. They both had seen Caswell before, but they were exceedingly strict in their surveillance. Finally, when he was admitted, the sheriff remarked two other guards walking up and down in the passageway, both equally armed to the teeth.

  And all this on account of a man lodged behind tool-proof steel bars and beneath bars of the same nature, with a floor beneath him of closely set stones of huge size. Suppose a man could loosen one of those stones, he would have to call for help before he could budge it. But even if he budged it, there was still a trick remaining; the outer edge of the walls were projected deep into the ground with the same tool-proof steel, covered with tar paint.

  One might have turned a giant loose in such a prison and scoffed at his attempts to escape. No human force could either cut that steel or bend it, and unless one of these things were done, the only possible means of entering or leaving that cell was through the door with its ponderous lock which only one key could turn.

  Yet Sheriff Claney was not satisfied with surety. He added something more. He had locked the ankles of Jess Dreer to a hundred-and-fifty-pound iron ball and his hands were shackled before him with the most approved manacles. And in this wise Dreer sat on his cot smoking a cigarette of his own making. It was an odd thing to see him raise both ironed hands and laboriously place that little cigarette between his lips and remove it again.

  “So,” said the sheriff, “here you are, Jess!”

  Jess Dreer started; then his long, lean face wrinkled into a kindly smile.

  “Why, Caswell, I’m glad to see you again. Wait till I work my way over to the bars, and we’ll shake hands.”

  “Never mind, Jess. I’ll come inside.”

  “No, you won’t,” put in one of the guards.

  “Look here,” explained the patient sheriff. “I’m Sheriff Caswell. I’ve followed that man for years. Do you think they’s any danger of me helping him to get loose?”

  “Pardner,” said the guard, scratching his head, “I dunno but what you’re right, but orders is orders, and Claney was downright positive about what he said. Nobody is to go into that cell. Nobody, not even to take him grub. It’s all got to be passed through the bars.”

  Jess Dreer was already standing up. The manacles on his ankles gave him a play of about four inches, and that was the length of his step. Moreover, every time he took a step, the weight of the iron pried at him and often nearly toppled him to the floor. Only the exercise of the greatest leg power enabled him to struggle painfully across the floor. Yet he maintained the greatest good nature. And though the perspiration started on his forehead, he chuckled whenever the tug of the iron ball nearly threw him off his balance.

  Sheriff Caswell cursed softly, and the guard, flushing, declared that this was none of his work.

  “Claney ain’t taking no chances,” he declared. “And the sheriff says that if anybody can get something to Dreer with four of us gents looking on, he’s welcome to it.”

  At this Sheriff Caswell grinned.

  “I’m glad to see Claney has the sporting spirit,” he said. “A little chance is better’n none at all.”

  CHAPTER 26

  WITH THIS, SINCE Dreer was now close to the bars, the sheriff went forward and held out his hand. But he was caught at the same time by either shoulder and flung strongly backward.

  “None of that!” cried the two guards who paced the passage. “None of that, Caswell! Nobody’s to pass nothing through them bars.”

  The sheriff remained silent for a moment. His hat had been knocked down over one eye by the violence of that jerk, and now the muscles at the angle of his jaw bulged. But at length he smiled and quietly straightened his sombrero.

  “Not even a bare hand?” he asked, showing that inoffensive member.

  Sheriff Caswell looked from the face of one guard to the other. Something about his look appeared to be intensely interesting to Jess Dreer.

  “Well,” said the sheriff, “I see you boys are a mighty smart pair. Claney must of picked you out real special. And if that’s the way you work it, I’ll play with the same rules.”

  He turned to the prisoner.

  “I dunno just why I came, Jess. It wasn’t sure to look you over and gloat on seeing you behind the bars. You believe that?”

  “Pardner, I know it.”

  “Matter of fact,” and the sheriff nodded, gratified by this admission, “I’m mighty sorry for you, old man. Wish it had been a different end. Wish you’d gone down for the last time with your boots on, and two guns working.”

  “You forget, Caswell. I’m not a two-gun man. I ain’t got that many talents.”

  The sheriff grinned again.

  “You got enough talent to pass,” he declared. “But when I think
of what lies in front of you, Jess?” He stopped abruptly. “I suppose I shouldn’t talk about them things, though.”

  “It’s all right. No harm done. I’ll tell you how it was. I might of busted through the boys, but I didn’t have the nerve. I got sort of tired. Didn’t seem like it was worthwhile taking the long chance — and killing a pile of boys I’d never had a grudge agin’. But here I am, and no whining, Caswell. But I’m sorry for you.”

  At this the patient man gasped. He was openly astonished.

  “Sorry for me. Now, is that a joke, Dreer?”

  “It ain’t. You hear me talk straight talk today, pardner. Of all the gents that ever took my trail, you’re the squarest shooter, the cleanest hand, the best head. Of the whole gang I’d rather of been taken by you. Caswell, I mean that so much that I sort of hanker to shake hands on it!”

  “Clancy had his own ideas about that,” said the sheriff very quietly.

  “Speak up, gents!” exclaimed one of the guards. “Speak up so the four of us can hear you.”

  The sheriff turned deliberately and looked them one by one in the eye; then he said to Jess Dreer: “You must be pretty young, Jess; they got you chaperoned to a finish.”

  “Yep,” nodded Dreer, and he also looked with singular attention at the four, “they got a lot of thoughtful gents around Salt Springs. I’ll try to remember ’em all. Well, I don’t kick. This is a pile drier night than the time you run me through the hills down by Lawson, Sheriff.”

  “Speaking of Lawson, I’ve always wondered how you got past me through them hills, Jess.”

  “Didn’t go through the hills, Sheriff. I tried to twice and then I found that you’d got your posse strung out about one man every hundred feet.”

  “Well, that made it sure you couldn’t come through, Jess.”

  “Sure it did. I couldn’t come through as myself, so I come through as somebody else. You know how you had your scouts out ahead of the rest? I rode right back to the line like I was one of the scouts. It was along about evening; pretty dim. I sings out that you want ’em to close up — rode back part ways with ’em — and then ducked away. Went straight on through Lawson with Angelina trotting or walking, and nobody even looked crosswise at me. They expected I’d be going the other way as fast as the old hoss would take me.”