Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  And the gambler nodded gloomily.

  “Now listen to me, pardner. Will you talk turkey?”

  “Not in a thousand years, Sheriff; I’m busted, anyways.”

  The sheriff paused. He had worked hard to save the money for himself; but Dreer meant more than money to him.

  He pointed to the satchel.

  “Pick that up.”

  The gambler obeyed.

  “It’s dust. Five thousand. Carrol, that coin belongs to you — if you talk!”

  The big hand of the other tightened on the grip of the satchel.

  “He’s north,” he said huskily. “Windville.”

  Then realization of what he had done rushed on him. He hurled the bribe to the floor.

  “You skunk,” he cried. “Take the coin. I don’t want it. Besides, I told you wrong. He ain’t in a thousand miles of Windville!”

  But the sheriff stood at the door smiling.

  “Keep the money, Danny, and I’ll keep my word. So long.”

  He was gone, and Dan Carrol dropped into a chair.

  “Jess,” he whispered. “It kind of busted out. I couldn’t help it. Forgive me!”

  CHAPTER 34

  BUT THE RETIREMENT of Sheriff Claney was purely a feint. He understood perfectly that if he had remained another moment in the room he would have had the money hurled at his head with a bullet behind it perhaps. He knew, also, that temptation is like whisky. It needs time to work. It goes down raw and makes one shudder with repulsion at first taste. Afterward, a glow runs through the body and fire mounts to the head. The world is seen awry.

  In other words, the sheriff waited until the gambler had had time to estimate the value of that gold; he waited until Carrol, having finished the count, would have made up his mind to retain the satchel and its contents, for the sheriff was sure that once the man had actually fingered the contents, he could never let them go.

  In exactly one hour the sheriff returned, and at a single glance he knew that his purpose was accomplished. The glance of Dan Carrol was no longer straight and solemn. It flicked here and there, and there was a glitter in his eyes that pleased the sheriff enormously. Dan Carrol had no word to greet Claney. But the latter had seen at once that the satchel had been removed; it was locked in the gambler’s safe. It was also locked in his heart. He had estimated the sum. He had counted it. It was already a part of his life. Before the sheriff he backed into a corner and stood there like a savage animal, able to tear its keeper to shreds but held in awe of the trainer’s whip.

  This simile occurred to Sheriff Clancy and made him smile. He enjoyed such scenes as this. Just as a chemist loves to watch some sturdy amalgam melt under the touch of an acid, so the sheriff looked through the eyes of Carrol and saw the disintegration of his soul and his honor.

  After the opening pause the sheriff laid his cards frankly upon the table. He talked in a very businesslike manner. Not as one who is opening a proposition, but rather as one who has already reached an agreement and is now merely giving the details a final summing-up. He told Carrol what was wanted of him, not persuasively, but as if a refusal would have astonished him too much for words. He counted off his points on the tips of his fingers, and he kept looking at his hands instead of at Carrol’s face, for he knew that if he did the latter, shame might undo all that he had accomplished with talk, threats, money.

  After all, it was settled very briefly; one hour later Clancy went back to his office in the jail and sent for Gus Norman. The latter came at once and was met with this question: “Can you give me a man with an eye in his head and a tongue he can keep from wagging too much?”

  “Open up,” demanded Gus Norman. “Then I’ll tell you.”

  “I will. Here’s the way it stands. I’m not going to tackle Jess Dreer in Windville.”

  “That’s where he is?”

  “It is. And I know the hotel he’s living in — I guess they ain’t more than one hotel there, for that matter. But I don’t want to tackle Dreer in a town where he’s known and where they’s mostly his friends. I want to get him off by himself. Then I’ll gather him in.”

  “That takes time.”

  “And I got the time to put in on it. I understand he’s fixed fine in Windville and won’t be apt to leave for a long time. Windville is so far in the hills that it don’t hear nothing about what goes on in other places. It ain’t ever heard of Dreer, maybe. Anyway, he’s showing himself open up there, and everybody’s for him. That’s what Carrol says. First I want to send up a man and make sure he’s there, and then give Dreer a letter.”

  “To tell him you’re coming?” asked Gus Norman dryly.

  “It’s a letter from Dan Carrol,” said the sheriff.

  Gus Norman gaped; and then the two grinned in silent enjoyment.

  “My boy Joe is the one for you. He’s just up and around. And I guess he ain’t got any reason for loving the Valentines and them that stand in with the Valentines. I’ll bring Joe to you. Besides, riding is his long suit.”

  And Joe Norman was brought.

  He was a very short distance into his twenties; a dark, handsome boy. His eyebrows met in a straight, black line; but the eyes themselves were rather wide and weak. His chin, too, was of Grecian roundness and strength, but his mouth lacked decision. He was the sort of youth about whom one would not venture to predicate much that was good or much that was bad. He obviously needed ripening; ten years would tell the tale with Joe Norman.

  He had taken one great step toward full manhood in the past month. He had stepped up and faced his first gun fight without flinching. He had felt the tear and burn of a bullet through his arm. And now that he was himself again, the experience had fully doubled his self-reliance. Into his hands the sheriff, after a moment of explanation, delivered the letter, and the next morning in the early dawn Joe started north.

  There were two ways to Windville. One was a straight cut through the mountains, a journey up hill and down dale — dipping into little valleys where there were miserable ranches — and rising again to rocky heights. It was a leg- breaking short cut. The other means of approaching the town in the mountains was by no means simple. It would have wrecked the staunchest buckboard that was ever built, but it did not embrace half as many precipitous drops and back- breaking climbs. It was fifty per cent longer in time and a hundred per cent less in effort. So Joe took the roundabout way.

  He was a skillful judge of the strength of a horse, and he handled his mount so well that he reached Windville a short time after dark. He went straight to Windville’s one hotel.

  Not that this was any imputation against the size and wealth of the little city in the hills, but Jack Turner had gathered most of the business of the place into his own hands and he had built this rambling structure which contained blacksmith shop, general merchandise store; hay, grain and wood, saloon and hotel, all in shed after shed, shack after shack, story after story, a confused jumble of which the proprietor himself did not know half the details. It had grown up in the course of two or three generations as wildly and as freely as if it had sprung of its own strength and its own volition out of the rocky soil.

  To find a man in this place was like finding the proverbial needle. Joe Norman went straight to the source of all information — the bar; and to guide his inquiries he had only one bit of information — Jess Dreer was a gambler.

  It was an old situation that met him in the saloon. Two men were doing the spending. One stood at each end of the bar, each trying to set up more drinks than the other, and each drawing his own crowd of followers about him. Joe Norman instantly took a place in the exact middle — neutral ground, it might be called. And there he remained while the bartender served several rounds of drinks. He kept his own first drink untasted on the bar before him, and presently this sign that he wished to speak privately across the bar was noticed.

  The saloonkeeper approached and lent a hasty ear, for he was perspiring with his labors.

  “Is there a game running around
here?” he asked.

  “Sure,” and the other nodded, and lifted his eyebrows as he made the reply. “Go straight back. First door to your left. You’ll hear the noise where you start going down the hall.”

  The first impulse of Joe Norman was to follow this advice. But it occurred to him as singular indeed that Jess Dreer, no matter how bold, should be sitting in at so public a game. So he remained standing at the bar with his drink still untasted until the bartender bent close to him again, this time with a frown.

  “Anything wrong?”

  “Nope. But ain’t there a game where I won’t hear the noise?”

  The bartender returned no answer. He scurried down the bar and presently he flashed a keen glance at the stranger.

  “Harry!” he called, and to another man in a white apron he said: “Take my place for a minute, Harry. I see a friend.”

  He came from behind the bar. Joe Norman had already taken the hint and retired to an obscure corner.

  “Now, who are you, and what do you want?” was the first query.

  “I want a game, pardner.”

  “Sure you do, but why?”

  “Because I got a friend sitting in on it.”

  “Who?”

  “His name don’t matter,” said Norman cautiously. “Well, he’s a tall gent — three inches taller’n me. Broad shoulders, long pair of arms, long, lean face, steady sort of eye. Know him?”

  The bartender continued to dry his hands on his apron.

  “Hmm,” he said. “And who’ll I say is here?”

  “No name. Just tell him that a friend has got a message.”

  “Gimme the message, then.”

  Joe Norman hesitated. It might be that this fellow knew nothing, but he had to take the chance. Looking the bartender squarely in the eye, he smiled and waited in silence.

  It seemed that this smile meant many things. “Oh,” murmured the other. “Oh, that’s it, eh? Well, come along. Maybe you ain’t right, but I’m no mind reader.”

  He led past half a dozen little flights of steps, through many a crooked hallway, and came at length to a door which was totally black. No edging of light showed around it, yet on this he rapped. After a moment it was opened a little, and the light burst out. Joe Norman saw now that the edges of the door were padded with felt, the better to shut out light and sound.

  From within he saw nothing, heard nothing except the subtle whispering of card on card as someone dealt swiftly, and the fall was deadened by the cover of felt on the table. It was the most exciting sound Joe Norman had ever heard.

  In the meantime the bartender was conferring with an unseen man at the door, and in a murmur. At length the door was closed, and he turned to Joe.

  “Come here. He’ll see you in the next room.”

  He led the way to a dingy little square room with no light except a smoky lamp in a corner and there he left the spy. The sound of the door closing was to Joe Norman curiously like the click of a trap which held him in. He had been rehearsing his part all during the long ride of that day, but now his mind misgave him. It might be that Jess Dreer had seen him in Salt Springs. It might be that even the bartender had recognized him. That might have accounted for the sidewise rat look that the latter cast at him from down the bar on the occasion of his second question.

  At any rate, obeying a sudden impulse of panic, he hurried back to the door and tried the knob. It was locked!

  The blood rushed back upon the heart of Joe at that. There was a tingling at the roots of his hair, a deadly coldness on his face as though a breath of night wind had struck him. They knew him, then?

  He stepped lightly to the window. It was open, but there was no gallery across it. Below him was a sheer drop of how much he could not well estimate in the darkness. Thirty feet, perhaps. He was trapped beyond doubt. He felt something behind him now — something impalpably taking hold on him, and when he turned, he found that Jess Dreer had silently entered the room and stood at the other side of it, rolling a cigarette.

  He had never seen Dreer before; he had been refused admittance to the prison. But how could he tell that Dreer had not seen him? The rolling of the cigarette might mean anything. Perhaps the outlaw wished to appear careless at the very moment when he was striving most to throw the other off his guard. But there was no mistaking the man. He fitted so closely with the description of the broad shoulders, the singularly long arms, the active fingers, that Joe Norman felt that he had seen a photograph of the man — that he was remembering the lean, long face.

  “How are you?” the outlaw was saying. “You got a letter for me?”

  “Yep,” murmured Joe. He was wondering if it had seemed suspicious, having been found at the window in that manner.

  “Lemme have it, will you?” and with the same gesture in which he lighted his match, he nodded toward the table.

  On the table accordingly Joe put the letter. And it seemed to him that while one eye of the tall man dwelt on the burning match, the other was fixed on the visitor. Presently he inhaled the first deep breath and sauntered to the table. He paused with his hand on the letter.

  “I dunno whether I know you—” he murmured.

  “You don’t. But maybe you’ll find my name in the letter.”

  “You know what’s inside?”

  “Nope, but I think he put my name in at the bottom.”

  “How d’you know?”

  “I asked him to.”

  The outlaw hesitated another moment and then ripped open the end of the envelope and shook out the contents. He raised the paper.

  It was infinitely instructive to Joe to watch the reading of that letter. The tall man seemed totally absorbed in the contents, but he had raised the paper high, so as to catch the lamplight over his shoulder, and with his back to the light he was in a position to keep his visitor in the corner of his eye. By a certain tenseness about the face of the man, Joe knew that he was doing two things at once — reading on the paper and reading on the face of his messenger.

  A month before the thing would have unnerved the youngster. But during the month he had looked death in the face and now, setting his teeth, he waited calmly for the end.

  And this was what Jess Dreer read:

  DEAR JESS: I’m breaking the rule and sending you a letter. The reason why is that there’s a big deal ahead. I know it is not your system to team it with anybody, but I thought maybe you’d change your plans for a bunch of my friends.

  They want you. They want you bad.

  Here’s the idea. They got a can of money spotted. They got some experts with the soup and can openers. And they’ll have the whole job staked out. But if anything goes wrong, they want to have a good fighting head along to take charge. That’s why they want you. They’ll let you in deep. One third of everything. And nine chances out of ten you won’t have to lift a hand.

  If I thought they was any call for you to get mixed up in a scrap, I wouldn’t send these boys to you, but I think the thing is dead easy. Also, they won’t be any widows and orphans made out of this job. It looks like such a good thing that I had to let you in.

  Here’s another thing. You can trust these gents the same as you would me. Just say the word, and they’ll tip you off to what’s coming. The chief thing is to get a gathering place staked out near Windville. The idea is for you to find the place. Then one of the gents will go on ahead, meet you, find out where the shack is, and go back and meet the boys, who’ll be on the way. It’s a neat little scheme, and your trail will be covered inches deep. As ever, your pal,

  DAN.

  P.S. The gent that brings you this is one of the bunch, of course. His name is Hank Loomis. You can go as far with him as you would with me.

  D.C.

  Over the contents of this letter he cast his glance again, then thrust a corner of the paper into the lamp chimney until the flame leaped, the paper caught, and went up in a yellow blaze. He dropped the filmy cinder to the floor and crushed it to a black stain with his foot. Then for the f
irst time he gave his undivided attention to the messenger.

  “You’re Harry Loomis, are you?” he asked.

  The word tripped on the tongue of Joe, but he blinked and caught himself in time.

  “Hank Loomis,” he said.

  “Sure. I guess that was what the letter said. You know me?”

  “You’re Dreer, I guess.”

  “Sure. Glad to know you. Sit down—”

  “Thanks.”

  “You must of known Dan quite a while, eh?”

  “Tolerable long.”

  “Well, sir. I’m glad to know any old pal of Dan’s. Him and me has been pretty thick, off and on. Lots of good stuff in Carrol, eh?”

  “I’ll tell a man!”

  The blood was beginning to run warm and free in the veins of Joe Norman at last.

  “First look at Dan you’d think he was a sour sort. But he ain’t. No, sir, Danny has a sense of humor. Ever hear that story of his about the tenderfoot and the forty-foot rope?”

  Joe Norman chuckled.

  “Yep, that’s a good story, and they ain’t nobody can tell it like Carrol.”

  “That’s right. They ain’t. Well, old Dan and me has had our times together.”

  “I reckon you have, right enough!”

  “I remember one night down to Lawson — but maybe Dan told you about the time him and me rode the old spotted bull?”

  “Sure. I’d like to died laughing at that yarn.”

  “And the way that old bull jumped the fence, and I fell off?”

  “Yes, sir, he thought you was a goner.”

  “Tell you how it was. We’d been drinking just before.”

  “I remember Dan saying you’d blotted up some redeye just previous.”

  “And I didn’t no ways have no control over my legs.”

  “That’s nacheral enough.”

  “But I’ll tell you one queer thing, Hank.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Joe leaned forward, grinning. He had heard of taciturnity in this man, and such voluble and friendly talk astonished him.

  “Here it is,” continued Jess Dreer, smiling broadly in turn. “In my time, off and on, I’ve known some gents with pretty strong imaginations, but I never seen one to match you, Hank Loomis.”