Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  For the sheriff improved on the word of the Scripture. Instead of tooth for tooth he was apt to extract two. But Claney loved his labors and loved his office. He loved to watch the face of a man upon whose shoulder the heavy hand of the law had fallen. Whether the fellow were defiant, sullen, pitiful, venomous, or despairing, the sheriff found a part of his palate which could relish any and all of these moods.

  So he had been continued in his office. He was known to be fairly courageous; very deft with a gun and very free in the use of it; and indefatigable in the pursuit of his duties. Never before had Salt Springs enjoyed the ministrations of a man who seemed in love with his work.

  He was elected; he was reelected. The men of Salt Springs were fond of showing off the industry of their sheriff compared with the sheriffs of neighboring counties.

  But all this changed.

  It was not that a prisoner had escaped. Not at all. Salt Springs was even rather glad that Jess Dreer was not to hang. But Salt Springs saw itself in the role of a town that has talked too soon and boasted too often. The invincible jail of which they had so often vaunted had been treated as a mule would treat a paper barn. Holes had been kicked in it, locks had been magically opened, and a man under special guard had been whisked away from beneath the noses of the sawed-off shotguns.

  From the first this thing was not pleasant. It became more distinctly annoying when men from neighboring villages drifted in in the course of the next few days and dropped random remarks, such as offers of a loan so that Salt Springs could build a really effective jail; and offers of the loan of a man who would make a real sheriff.

  This was putting the bur under the saddle, and Salt Springs began to buck. Every time it came down out of the air with bunched feet and humped back, it jolted on the thought of Sheriff Claney, the man who had been tied hand and foot by a prisoner and turned into a joke. Moreover, other murmurs were added to the rising tide. Men who had been wrongfully accused of various crimes came out with dark testimonies of the third degree harshly applied by the sheriff.

  In fact, things reached such a point that in Carrol’s saloon a man in the heat of liquor suggested that they tie the feet of the sheriff under the belly of a bucking horse and send him out to explore regions unknown. Others advocated a ride upon a rail to give him a new start in life. But though these proposals never got past the stage of talk, one and all agreed that strangers in Salt Springs would never lack subject of conversation as long as Sheriff Claney was in office.

  And to make matters worse, his new term was but newly begun!

  Friends called on the sheriff and suggested that he resign and go elsewhere to places where his undoubted talents could be employed and appreciated. But they did not know the sheriff. It was not that he wished to restore the affection of Salt Springs. He hated and despised them all, but he wanted to teach them to fear him again. He knew they were laughing at him and writhing because strangers joined in the mirth. It was dust and ashes upon the head of Clancy.

  Every day be bowed his heart in prayer that some gigantic crime would wipe out nine tenths of Salt Springs so that he could demonstrate his efficiency to the remaining one tenth. His dreams at night were filled with prodigies of shooting, and he walked the streets of the town hounding every man he met with a hungry eye that dared the other to smile.

  And no one smiled. A man who is drunk is dangerous; a man who is justly enraged will keep a whole town indoors; but a man who has been shamed is a devil incarnate.

  So he remained in Salt Springs, tormented by a dearth of crime, and burned away to a shadow by his shame and his hate.

  Gus Norman, entering the office in the jail one day, found Claney sitting bowed at his desk with his head buried on his arms and his fingers sunk in his hair.

  Gus Norman was not a fool.

  He retreated on tiptoe, and when he came again, he was whistling discordantly, but in great volume. This time he found the sheriff seated with hair neatly smoothed, rolling a cigarette. He finished licking and lighting the cigarette before he spoke. He wanted to know just what brought a man that ought to be honest to the jail.

  It was not a diplomatic opening to a prominent citizen, but the sheriff was far past diplomacy.

  “I’ve come,” said Gus Norman, “about something that’s partly my business and partly yours.”

  “You’re one of the thickheads that wants a new jail, eh?”

  Gus Norman set his teeth and his bushy face was like a cartoon of the devil — one of those child-book pictures. “I want a man in the jail, not a new jail,” he said.

  The sheriff snapped his cigarette across the room. It struck the wall in a shower of fire that was dead before the ashes fluttered to the floor. He leaned across his desk.

  “They’s something doing? You got something on somebody?” he whispered.

  Even Gus Norman was a little daunted by such ghoulish eagerness.

  “It’s something you already know. Jess Dreer.”

  The sheriff turned white.

  “Go on,” he said faintly.

  “I think I got a line on him.”

  At this, Clancy literally leaped to his feet.

  “Norman, have a drink — no, talk — no, drink, and then you’ll talk better!”

  But the rancher was methodical. He wanted to show all his strength.

  “First,” he said, “I got twenty men who’ll pack a gun in a posse that goes after Jess Dreer.”

  “Get to the point, man — where’s Dreer?”

  “Go easy, Sheriff, go easy. You ain’t the first that’s tried to hunt down Dreer with a public posse that everybody knows about. You ain’t the first, and all the rest have failed. Why? Because every one of ’em worked in the open. And Dreer has friends who let him know when the law is on his heels. He’s got a lot of friends. He’s got friends in this here town!”

  “D’you think I’m fool enough not to know that? Someday I’ll get the hound that gave Dreer the watch spring, and I’ll rope him to a tree. But — go on!”

  In an ecstasy of impatience he dashed himself back into his chair and thrust his nervous hands into his pockets.

  “You found a watch spring?” asked the curious cattleman.

  “Yes — but go on!”

  “My point is, that what you need is a gang that’ll work secret. When we get Dreer spotted, they’ll slip out of town one by one and collect wherever you say.”

  “I know that, don’t I? But men who have to be paid publicly have to be hired publicly. How can I work a secret posse?”

  “You don’t have to work it. I’ve worked it for you. And the gang don’t have to be hired. They’ll pay their way.”

  The sheriff stared.

  “What’s more, when you nail this gent, Sheriff, we don’t want none of the price that’s on his head. You get it all.”

  The sheriff was not mercenary exactly, but this generosity made him gasp.

  “What do you and your men get?”

  “I’ll tell you. We get the fun.”

  And there was such a collected, cold malevolence in his voice that even Sheriff Clancy was moved.

  “Norman,” he said at length, “they’s a lot more to you than I guess I’ve seen before. Now we’ll get our heads together and talk business.”

  “Not yet,” replied the cattleman.

  He left the office and went to his horse. He returned carrying a small canvas sack, black with oil stains. He tossed this on the desk, and the desk shook under the impact.

  “That’s dust, Sheriff. They’s about five thousand dollars in that sack.”

  By this time the sheriff was worked up to a high point of excitement. He touched the sack gingerly and snatched his fingers back as though they had been burned.

  “Five thousand dollars!” he murmured, and his eyes went from the sack to the stolid face of Gus Norman. “Go on!” he ordered abruptly.

  “That money is yours to use to get Jess Dreer. Me and my men have raised it. It didn’t come easy. Nobody give us that coin
for the asking. We earned it, and we dug into money that we got with sweat to give it to the cause.”

  He squinted his eyes, recalling the long deliberation at the meeting before the money had been raised.

  “I don’t quite foller you,” murmured the sheriff, now quite humble. “I don’t just see why we need this much money if your boys will work without hire.”

  “I’m coming to that, slow and sure. First, our line on Dreer.”

  “Yes, that’s first!”

  “You know on the day of the shooting of Jud Boone we tried to keep Dreer away from the saloon?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know that somehow he slipped through us?”

  “Yes?”

  “The fact was, Sheriff, that he was living right there in the saloon all the time.”

  “Then Carrol was in cahoots with him? What a fool I’ve been not to think of that!”

  “We all was fools,” said Gus Norman, showing his yellow teeth at the thought. “But here’s the point: Carrol kept him while he was in Salt Springs. Maybe Carrol knows where he is now. They ain’t any doubt of it to my mind. He travels free and easy up and down the ranges. They must be a reason for it. They’s places where he makes his money outside of what he steals. Carrol’s is one of them. They’re friends. Carrol knows where he is, and all we’ve got to do is to make Carrol talk.”

  “I’ll get him here and use some little tricks I know,” said the sheriff ominously.

  “Lemme talk,” said Norman. “He won’t be an easy gent to persuade. But they’s a way, Sheriff. I’ve figured it out. Carrol has a price.”

  “How d’you know that? His place makes a pile of money.”

  “But he puts it back in the game. Can’t keep away from the cards. Right lately somebody’s taken a pile of money from him. I know, because he borrowed money from me. He’s near broke, right now. And I’ve figured up that his price is just what you’ve got in that sack now. Sheriff, I’d go and talk to him myself, but he’s a hard man. I wouldn’t have a chance to get talking. It’ll be a pile different with you. He’ll have to listen. You’ll find out what you want to know, and after you find it out, you’ll have me and my gang to work on the trail. Good-by.”

  And without waiting for a word of reply he rose and left the office.

  CHAPTER 33

  SUPPOSE ONE WERE to lead a starved beggar to a loaded banquet table and then give him ten dollars to persuade him to sit down. The mood of Sheriff Claney as he stared at the canvas sack was the mood of the beggar. He had his first clue to the whereabouts of a criminal whose apprehension would not only restore his vanished prestige, but would even raise him up on a higher pedestal than before. To try and fail is human; to try again and then succeed is glory.

  Sheriff Claney felt that his lean strong hand was extending toward the green wreath.

  This time there would be no question of escape. If he came in range of the outlaw again it would be a matter of lead and powder and buzzard food left behind. Dead, he was worth as much as he was worth alive.

  But in addition to all this, to have a sack of five thousand dollars added for his personal use! He rubbed his hands; for the first time since the jailbreak the heart of the sheriff was warmed.

  But as for going to the saloonkeeper and gambler and thrusting the five thousand into his hands, this was not at all to the liking of the sheriff. He had another idea which was fully as good. As long as the correct information were exacted from Carrol, there was no good reason why the money should not remain in hands which would use it to far better advantage.

  He went straight to the saloon with the gold in a valise.

  “What’s in it?” was the gambler’s first question.

  “Something I can’t get here. Good booze.”

  The quip did not please Carrol. But he regarded the sheriff with a calm eye. If Claney had known parts of the gambler’s past — certain parts which Jess Dreer, for instance, could have told him — he would have put a gun to his head before he would have taunted such a man.

  But he ran on: “I’ve come on an unpleasant errand today, Carrol.”

  “Mostly you don’t come on no other kind of errands. What’s on your mind?”

  “To put it to you straight; your games are on my mind.”

  “My games are straight.”

  “Of course you’ve got to say that.”

  “It’s true, Sheriff.”

  “I been hearing stories. Lemme see. There was a gent that blew through town — little squat, fat, half-breed sort he was. Said you was working something that looked like a brake on your wheel. What about it?”

  The gambler flushed.

  “I had a fool working for me — that was six months ago. He come to me and showed me how he could fix up the wheel so it would make a pile of money for me. I told him I wasn’t running that sort of a game. He thought I was kidding. I told him straight. But I took him on and give him a job; he was busted.

  “Well, he was a snake. He knew how much I’d been used to making on the wheel. He fixes up a brake on the wheel, and of course he busts the boys for a great big percentage. He gives me what the house used to make right along, and he sneaks the rest of it into his pocket. In about a week I went over and watched the wheel one day. Seemed to me it was running queer. That night I looked it over and found the brake.

  “I called in Tommy, gave him the licking of his life and a hundred dollars for luck, and sent him on his way.

  “That’s the only crooked thing that they’s ever been about my house. I would of paid back the boys that lost their money. But how could I find ’em? And if they knew I was paying, would they of told me just how much they lost? No, they was nothing I could do. Besides, I didn’t get the coin. It was the thief that done that. So there you are, Sheriff, and that’s the truth.”

  There was no escaping from the sincerity of the man.

  “It’s the first time that I’ve ever been even questioned,” he said gloomily.

  “That’s the point,” said the sheriff hastily. “You been going on so long that some of the boys are kind of suspicious.”

  At this Carrol rose from his chair.

  “Look here,” he said quietly, “what are you here for, trouble?”

  “Sit down, Danny. Sit down. I’m a reasonable man, and I got your interests at heart. You’ll see that I have in a minute. Right off, I’m going to tell you that what some folks is kind of riled about. They don’t like the sort of gents that you bring in and put up at your rooms, Danny.”

  “My friends is my friends,” declared the saloonkeeper grimly, “and if you and the rest of the town don’t like ’em, you and the rest of the town can go to the devil. That’s straight!”

  “Is that fishing for trouble?” said the sheriff coldly.

  “You know it ain’t — but you can take it any way you want. Name some of the gents that ain’t been liked—”

  “Jess Dreer!”

  It shook Dan Carrol to his feet. Coming so smoothly, so unexpectedly, it was utterly impossible for him to control his expression, and his staring eyes had in a moment admitted everything.

  He saw at once that he was exposed. The sheriff had tilted himself back in his chair and was grinning complacently at the other.

  “It’s a lie,” was all he could say, more angrily than effectively.

  “Hush up, Danny. You done it smooth, all right, and I wouldn’t never have guessed it if it hadn’t been for one thing — Dreer himself.”

  “Jess done that?” muttered the saloonkeeper. “He told—”

  “I put him through the third degree, Danny, and he busted down and told.”

  Slowly, as though the strength were gradually melting from his legs, Danny Carrol sank into the chair.

  “He done that!” was all he could murmur.

  And he stared at the floor.

  “But I didn’t want to ride you about it,” went on the sheriff smoothly. “I’ll tell you why: I like you, Carrol. You look square to me, and I didn’
t see no good in making trouble for you for shielding an outlaw.”

  He paused to let the words soak in, then went on: “But now things are different. Dreer is gone from jail; I’ve got to find him; and I come to you and say: ‘Dan Carrol, you know where Jess Dreer is. Tell me!’”

  As he spoke the last words, he leaned over and thrust his fingers under the nose of the other, Dan Carrol raised his eyes slowly from the floor.

  “Sheriff,” he said, “I dunno. But — if Jess is a hound, then I’m worse’n a hound. And no matter what he’s done to me, I still got to stand behind him. And if I knew where he was today, you couldn’t drag it out of me.”

  “Carrol, go easy. I could bust you. It’d be a black case agin’ you. First, a charge of using a brake on the wheel.”

  “Would you scrape that up?”

  “Business is business. First the brake. Then this shielding of an outlaw.”

  “You can’t prove it.”

  “I’ll swear you’ve admitted it. Besides, I can prove anything on a gambler and saloonkeeper. You ain’t got a chance.”

  Perspiration broke out on the forehead of Carrol, but he shook his head stubbornly.

  “Me and Jess has been pals. Go ahead with your dirty work. I won’t blab on him. Besides — I’m tired of talk, Sheriff. I need a drink.”

  “So do I,” admitted the sheriff. “But I’m not through.”

  Carrol sighed and settled again into his chair. The strain had been great, and he was weary.

  “They’s one other thing I want to bring up in your mind, Danny. If you lose this place, you lose a lot. You wasn’t no church-attending saint a few years back. But you reformed. You settled down. You played square. You got a place for yourself in Salt Springs and people trust you. You’re willing to risk all that in order to shield Dreer. I’ll tell you why. It’s because you’ve had some bad luck, Danny, and you’ve blowed so much coin that now you ain’t got any more than a fingernail grip on your saloon.”

  Inspiration struck across the mind of the sheriff.

  “Carrol, who brought you the bad luck? Who busted you, mighty near? It was Dreer playing with you every night!”