by Max Brand
“I don’t. In your boots, I’d do the same things.”
“But,” said Morgan Valentine, “the point is this: he’s not square in the eyes of the law, and he never will be. I have wires through which I can reach some of the political heads, and I’ve been working night and day at two governors, Sheriff. I’ve been trying to get them to call off the dogs and let this man live his life without being forced into harm to himself and the rest of the world. But they won’t do it. In fact, they know what Jess Dreer is. He has a character that makes good talking, and every one of ’em knows that Jess would go straight if he had the chance — and that he never would have gone wrong if it hadn’t been that he fell into a bad hole with no way out except by breaking the law.”
“That’s what I’ve told a thousand people, most like.”
“Well, they know all these things as well as you and I do. But Dreer is too big a gun. He’s too notorious. Here and there and the other place he’s shot up the second son of some rich family. Or he’s made a fool out of some sheriff who’s strong in politics. I’m not hitting at you, Caswell.”
“It’s all right if you are. I’d rather be made a fool of by Dreer than praised by most men.”
“The end of the story is that the governor who pardoned Dreer would be ruined in politics. He’d have a host of enemies, and most like he’d be accused of having taken a bribe. They’ll hear reason. They’d even be glad to have Dreer taken in some state outside of their own. But when it comes to a pardon, they won’t hear of it. I’ve tried ’em all.”
“You look worked out, Valentine; they ain’t any doubt of that.”
“Yes. Because I’ve worked harder for him than I would have worked for myself. But he can’t be saved. And besides?”
He stopped.
Now Sheriff Caswell was by no means an old acquaintance of the rancher, but he knew him well enough to understand that Valentine was not a man of many words. For that reason this sudden outburst of talk surprised him, made him suspicious. After the first moment he had begun to wait for some unusual climax to the talk, and now he said frankly: “Valentine, what is it?”
“I’m talking pretty free,” said the other.
“You’re talking free to a man that keeps things to himself.”
“Well, it’s this: If I can’t save Dreer, I’m going to ruin him.”
The blow had fallen, but though the sheriff was prepared to be startled, he was nevertheless aghast at this revelation.
“That’s free talk, and it’s queer talk,” he said slowly. “I’m a sheriff and my chief job is to get Dreer. But I sort of think that I’d rather you hadn’t said that, Valentine.”
“Do I sound like an ungrateful hound, Sheriff?”
The latter shook his head.
“A gent like you has reasons for what he does. They ain’t any yaller streak in you. But maybe some of your reasons is wrong, Valentine. And why do you tell me all this? What’s behind it?”
“Because I can’t very well touch Dreer with my own hand.”
“I’ll tell a man!”
“And I have to use someone else.”
“That’s clear.”
“And you, Sheriff, are the man!”
Once more the sheriff gasped.
Then: “Go on, Valentine. This sounds like a fairy tale.”
“Walk on down the street with me. I get nervous standing still. First, tell me your plans about Dreer.”
As they sauntered along, Caswell outlined his theory briefly. Dreer had headed north, in spite of the fact that other people were sure he was then riding south. He was heading north into a fresh country where his face was still unknown. He would travel slowly, not anxious to cover a great distance, for a man traveling too fast would be sure to excite suspicion. He might even stop here and there and work a few days. Such were the habits of Jess Dreer when he was on the road. Caswell intended to follow alone, weaving across the country loosely, like the line of a lariat tossed carelessly on the ground, until he found some traces of a tall man with exceptional arms, wide shoulders, and a long, lean face.
“Once seen, Dreer is never forgotten. And that’s why I’ll get him in the end — unless he gets me.”
The rancher waited until he was through and then said: “Caswell, you’re wrong. Your first theory was right. Dreer will come back.”
He explained: “Out at my house my niece, Mary Valentine, is a changed girl. She doesn’t go out to parties. She doesn’t play around the house with the boys. When she’s inside, she sits by herself with her hands in her lap, very grave. When she goes out, she rides alone.”
“She’s grieving for Dreer, Valentine.”
“I know that. She gave up the trip East. When I pressed her, she said that rather than go she’d open up her father’s house and live by herself, if I didn’t want her.
“I was telling you that she spends a good deal of time out by herself on her horse. I thought at first that she was out to meet Dreer, who might be in hiding somewhere in the hills. So I had her trailed a few times. But she never met anybody. She’d get to the top of a high crest and sit her horse without budging for an hour. Always looking one way.”
“North?”
“North,” the rancher nodded, surprised by this interruption.
“I knew it.”
“She acts, Caswell, like a half-breed wolf you’ve tried to raise as a dog. Tame while they’re young, but some spring when they begin to rove around at night and stay away from the other dogs. And then one day they’re gone, and you find a fine calf or two with its throat cut. You know what I mean?”
“That she’s going to cut loose and go after Dreer?”
“That, or he’ll come back to her. The two of ’em are a good deal alike in ways. The way one acts tells you what’s going on in the other. Why, the girl is as silent as though her mind were a hundred miles away.”
He grew excited, but graver than ever, and his face, as he talked, withered into the face of an old man.
“She’s got to be stopped, Caswell, and you’re the man who must do it. You have the hand of the law. I tell you, if the girl were mine — I don’t know — I might let her follow her own nature. But she’s not mine. She was given to me as a trust, and I’ll give her a chance at happiness in spite of herself. There’s the spirit of her father in her, Caswell. He was a man of whims and impulses. His first thought was his last thought. I was the only living human being who could change him.
“But nothing on earth can change the girl. She’s like fire when she sets her mind on a thing.”
They walked on again through a moment of silence. Both of them were thinking hard.
“I’ll tell you,” said Caswell. “They may be fate behind all this. I ain’t seen much of that girl, pardner, but what I’ve seen, I’ve liked. Just the way I like a hoss that may of throwed a dozen men. Along comes the right gent, and when he can ride that hoss he’s got something to keep for life. Now, look at the way that girl’s flirted around. They ain’t anything else to call it. They say she’s made eyes at everything that wears pants inside of fifty miles and fifty years. One hour — she’s tired of that gent and throws him for another. And she keeps right on. Then along comes Jess Dreer. She sees him — more’n half an hour. But she’s still interested. After a while he’s gone, and she sits down and mourns for him. Or else she goes out on her hoss and waits to see if Jess won’t come sloping over the hills. Valentine, if I wasn’t so old, that’d put a tear in my eye!”
But the face of the rancher was set.
“Fate or no fate,” he said, “it can’t happen. Go to a man like Dreer — lead the life of a wolf — hunted. No home — no children — my brother’d rise out of the grave, friend! Caswell, it’s between Mary and Dreer, and Dreer has to go down. I’ll strike him with you, if I can. If you fail, I’ll try my own hand. But if she sees the man once more, it’s fatal. Nothing’ll hold ’em!”
CHAPTER 31
BETWEEN THE DUSK and the dark of this night a lone horseman
halted on a cattle path which led to low lands, and in the midst of the hollow was a broad, low barn. Even by that uncertain light the traveler could see that one end of the structure had fallen in. He shook out a white strip of cloth which he had kept in his pocket until this time, he tied the rag around his left arm close to the shoulder, peered about him as though he feared this simple action might have been seen, and rode his horse to the barn.
It was a gingerly progress. Coming a little closer, he saw that a faint light was burning in the barn. It made the structure seem huger than before and vastly more ruinous. At this discovery he checked his horse completely and studied the place.
At length, as though summoning his resolution, he pulled his sombrero so low that it quite covered the upper part of his face and raised the flap of his neckerchief so that it equally concealed his mouth and chin. This done, he pushed on briskly.
Not until he had dismounted before the great door of the barn did his former diffidence return. He slipped to the door and pressed his ear against a crack, but he could hear nothing.
Finally he knocked in a peculiar manner. Twice close together, a pause, and then three short raps. With this, the big door was seen to move slowly, a voice said softly from within: “Who’s there in need?”
The first man started.
“A friend in need,” he said in a low and hurried voice.
“And your name?”
“Gus Norman.”
“Come in. And bring the hoss.”
He now pushed the door wide open, so that Gus Norman could see, far in the interior of the huge, empty mow of the building, a scattered group of men and their horses around a single lantern.
Gus Norman went in, leading his horse, and looked sharply at the doorman. The latter was similarly disguised by means of a lowered hat and raised neckcloth, but now he lifted his hat for an instant.
“Sam!” said Gus Norman. Then: “What’s up?”
But the doorman made a gesture commanding silence and Gus went on toward the group.
They were equipped, like him, each with masklike neckcloth and each with the strip of white cloth around the left arm, close to the shoulder. None of them seemed eager to stand close to the lantern, but each had drawn back beside his horse so that he was wrapped in the shadows as with a cloak. There was a general turning of heads toward the newcomer, but no one spoke. And Gus Norman seemed as undesirous of having the others know his face as he was eager to learn their own. He paused at a considerable distance from the lantern and leaned silently against the shoulder of his horse.
There were twenty men present, so far as he could count, and each was armed to the teeth. Now and then one of them spoke softly to a restive horse, but these deep murmurs only accentuated the common silence.
Presently, after an intermission of some five or ten minutes, another horseman advanced from the door, leading his mount, and this time the doorman, Sam Norman, came with the last arrival. He went gravely to the middle of the empty space from which the lantern light had driven the others, and he looked from side to side.
“I’ve counted as you come in,” he said, “and they’s no one left out. Every Norman that’s old enough to carry a gun and shoot from a hoss is here.” He kept his voice so low that there was a general cautious approach from all sides to hear him. “Now,” he said, “I’ve done my duty. I’ve kept the door that I was called on to keep, and him that’s to speak next, according to custom, let him step out — the man that called this meeting of the family.”
He waited, turning slowly from side to side, but no one stirred.
Finally a voice called guarded from the rear circle: “The leader can’t speak till the roll is called. Call the roll, doorman.”
“Right,” and Sam Norman nodded. He closed his eyes, as if to summon the list into his mind, and then began calling the names — first names only. One by one there was a deep murmur of “Here!” from the listeners.
When this was finished, the doorman paused again and looked expectantly about, but still no one spoke or moved.
“Brothers,” said Sam Norman, “him that called this meeting has got to stand out. Fifteen years has gone since the last meeting was called by these signs, and they’s some here that knows the signs but never seen a meeting before. And I’ve been hoping that they would never come such a meeting as long as I lived. Him that called us, let him talk now.”
Still only the heavy silence prevailed. There was a restless movement, then a murmur through the circle.
“Someone may of known the signs and called us for a joke.”
“Brother,” said the doorman sternly, “him that made that joke’ll never make another. Still, him that called the meeting is wrong, because the law stands that they was never to be another called until a Norman was killed by wrong. That law was made while we was still living in Kentucky — before some of you was born. And they ain’t any Norman been killed by numbers or by wrong since we come to the West. Remembering all that, let him that called the meeting stand out and say why he called it.”
So intently had the circle attended these words that no one noticed, near the beginning of the speech, that the big door of the barn had been softly opened, and another member had come in. But now this stranger approached, leading a horse. The figure was in every respect like those of the others, but there was a general murmur, a general movement of weapons at its approach.
Sam Norman went farther than the rest. He whipped out a revolver and went a few steps to meet the newcomer.
“Who’s there?” he called.
“A friend in need,” answered the other faintly.
“Halt, friend. The number’s been counted, and it’s full up, and every face has been seen by me. Halt, I say!”
For the other, abandoning the horse, had refused to halt and had come straight on — a slender, short figure of boyish outline, and now, in the immediate circle of the lantern light, the hat was snatched off and hair tumbled across the shoulders of a girl. The neckerchief was lowered, and the circle found itself looking into the face of May Norman. Her father uttered an exclamation of dismay.
“That law,” said the girl, “was spoke wrong. The meeting can be called for any Norman that’s killed by wrong. And it can be called for any man that dies for the Normans. And that’s why this meeting is here. That’s why the signs was sent. They’s a man dead, brothers!”
She was a pale, round-faced girl, all her features diminutive except the mouth and chin. Her tone was a disagreeably harsh nasal. Neither in voice nor in face was she attractive, but there was an air of such dignity about her, and the raising of her hand was so solemn, that for a moment no one replied.
Then, from her father: “What man is dead?”
“What man is dead?” she cried, turning fiercely on him. “D’you stand there and ask me that? Well, speak up, Gus Norman. You tell ’em what man is dead that died for us!”
Gus Norman stirred, advanced a step, then shook his head.
At that she cried out: “It’s Jud Boone that’s dead fighting for our cause. I was the price that bought him to fight for us. You know that, Dad. The rest of you know it. He fought and died, and I seen him put in the ground. I waited while you was trailing him, but when I seen you all stop the trail, I called this meeting. It’s my right, because I’m the one that was most hurt by a killing. Now I call for the law of the family to help me!”
She swayed them with her vehemence.
Yet her own father said: “He died, but he was killed in a fair fight.”
“Does that change it?” she answered hotly. “If he was one of us and fought his own fight, it would be different. But he wasn’t one of us. He fought our fight. Where was you-all when a man was wanted to face Charlie Valentine? You wasn’t home. You was away. They wasn’t nobody would do it. Then you went out and got a better man than you — you got Jud Boone. And Jud come and fought your fight and done what was asked of him — and now he’s dead. He’s dead! And I’m here calling to you and saying I want a d
eath for a death!”
Her shrill voice filled the great spaces of the barn.
And in the pause, while the echo whispered back from distant recesses, she added: “I want Jess Dreer!”
Every man stood with his head bowed, thoughtful. At length Gus Norman came forward and stood beside the girl.
“She’s right,” he said gloomily, turning his hairy, wolfish face from man to man. “It means a feud, maybe. And maybe it don’t. Dreer is an outlaw. We got a right to hunt him. And May is right. Come in, brothers. We need your heads, all of ’em. Step in and show your faces. This ain’t work that’ll be done tonight, but the plans for it has got to be laid. Sam, you’re the doorman. Take charge.”
Without a word the circle closed. And the hats were raised, the neckerchief flaps lowered from mouth and chin. Many a time in the past there had been gatherings such as these in the hills of Kentucky — the same dark, lean faces, the same bright eyes and savage mouths. The tie of blood was law to them — a deathless fealty to one another, a suspicion of all strangers.
Each, as he came into the circle of the lantern light, took the hand of May Norman and spoke the solemn formula: “Your cause is my cause; my hand is your hand.”
And the younger men spoke the phrase eagerly. Something they had learned and spoken in whispers before. But all the older men, who had one time spoken the phrase aloud, were grave and downhearted.
CHAPTER 32
SHERIFF CLANEY HAD one virtue worth ten ordinary qualities. This virtue was that he hated his enemies with a truly Old Testament virulence. Personal hatred, indeed, for another man, had been the reason that he first sought election as sheriff. And once in office he had very cleverly so arranged it that his personal enemy was found to be an offender of the law. Whereupon an arrest was made, resisted, and the sheriff in the exercise of his legal functions had shot the other squarely between the eyes and washed his hands of the old grievance.