Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  And as Joe stared at the tall man, he saw that the other’s smile was set, mirthless, derisive.

  “Because you got a pile of ability to remember things that never happened.” He dropped his right hand a little and leaned in his chair so that he had a perfect chance for his revolver. But Joe Norman made no move to fight. The blow had fallen and stunned him. And he remembered again — for the hundredth time — that he was actually in the presence of the slayer of Jud Boone. And how many others!

  “Speaking personal,” continued the big man, “I’ve known Dan Carrol for a long time, and I’ve never heard him tell a funny story. And it wasn’t me that rode the bull. And Dan Carrol wasn’t never in Lawson.”

  The last remnant of his smile was gone.

  “And so?” he said and waited.

  Only one thing did Joe Norman see, and that was the bulge and fall of the muscles at the base of the outlaw’s jaw as he set his teeth. And he knew that when he faced the leveled gun of Charlie Valentine, he had not been so near death as he was now. He was cornered, hopeless. Out of his very hopelessness he found the nerve to do what he did.

  He leaned back in his chair and laughed — laughed straight in the set face of Jess Dreer. And from between his wrinkling eyelids he saw the outlaw wonder.

  “I’ll tell you what, Dreer,” he said, sobering, and with a sudden burst of confiding. “I’ve made a mess of this. I guess I done wrong. But I’ll tell you how it was. When the chief wanted to come up here with the letter, I begged him to let me bring it. You see, I wanted to be the first to see you. I sure begged to come, and the old man let me take the letter. He wasn’t none too sure he was right to let me go, and now I see that he was right in doubting. Then when you got to talking, I thought I could bluff you — well, I was a fool. I don’t hardly know Dan Carrol, but he knows the rest of the gang and he knows I’m straight. Does that clear me?”

  He laughed again. His very hysteria made the laughter more real.

  “I sure got tripped up quick, Dreer!”

  The big man rose to his feet. He was frowning, in a quandary, and he stared down at Joe Norman.

  “Hank,” he said slowly, “I sure got an idea that you’re double-crossing me. Dan named you — and Dan’s got to be straight! Well, I’m going to take the chance. Take the chance on you. But I tell you now, son, you been near a bad time. But you go back to Salt Springs. Tell Dan Carrol that I don’t like this game. That it ain’t in my line. He ought to know that. But tell him that I know the luck was agin’ him the last time we was together. He’ll know what I mean by that even if you don’t. And now, if he thinks it would sort of square accounts for me to play this game, I’m his man. I’ll do the job. But the profits goes to Danny and not to me. Will you make that clear?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, be on your way, then. I guess they ain’t any too much time.”

  He held out his hand and gathered that of Joe Norman in the lean, powerful fingers.

  “Son,” he said quietly, “are you straight?”

  “Why,” gasped Joe, “sure I am.”

  The tall man let the hand fall.

  “I guess you are,” he said slowly. “Anyway, you showed a pile of nerve a minute back — because I meant business. I thought — no matter what I thought. So long, Hank!”

  And Joe Norman heard the door close behind him as he turned away. Once more it made him think of a trap, but this time it was closing upon Jess Dreer. And he, Joe Norman, was pulling the levers that closed on the famous outlaw.

  CHAPTER 35

  IN THE DAWN of the next day Joe Norman took horse and rode again for Salt Springs with a rested mustang under him; and in the first dark of the night he reached the town once more. A great many things may happen in the mind of a man between dawn and dark, and a very great many had happened to Joe Norman. Vague motions were passing through his small soul all that time, troubling, overwhelming him, almost.

  For he began to lose the malignant hatred of the Valentines which had spurred him on at first. He was seeing himself in a different light. The whole thing sprang out of the smile of Mary Valentine at that dance. It had gone to his head. It had robbed him of his senses. Then the pang that had gripped him when she turned away from him the next time they met; the hasty word that burned his tongue the moment he had uttered it; then the meeting with Charlie Valentine. And out of that the affair went on into other hands.

  Still it was the smile of Mary Valentine that was the starting point. It dazed the boy to think how much had come from flirting with that slip of a girl. It was because of that flirtation that he had fallen. And then, to avenge him, Jud Boone, the man-killer, had been called in to strike down Charlie. And to meet the power of Jud Boone, the Valentines had appealed — through Mary herself, perhaps — to a still more dreaded name, Jess Dreer himself. So Jud Boone had died, but still that smile of Mary worked. It was poison running through many minds.

  Jud Boone was dead, and now the cause was taken up anew. There was another goal — Jess Dreer himself, against whom all the power of the Normans, all the cunning and strength of the law, was turned. And what was the cause? Because Mary had smiled!

  One man shot, others brought to the verge of death, one killed in the midst of his prime as a fighter, a jail broken, a town cast into confusion, and twenty men ready to take the trail for the head of Dreer — all this out of the smile of a girl.

  Two things connected themselves in the mind of the boy, at the end of all this remembering — Jess Dreer and Mary Valentine. They were the beginning and the end. He felt that there was also a kinship between them. She was more beautiful than other women. And Dreer was stronger than other men. And surely there had been no spite or malice in Mary. He was able to recognize that, at this distance. He saw that she had simply been playing a game that other people, without her will, turned into deadly earnest. Truly, it was not fair to accuse the girl. No more than it was possible to accuse Jess Dreer of sneaking crimes.

  A dozen times he jerked back on the reins and brought his horse to a stand as he remembered those words: “Son, are you straight?”

  And he had lied. Something told him that another man, the moment the first deceit was known, would have gone for his gun. But Jess Dreer had waited. He had put his trust in Carrol, and Carrol had sold him. Vaguely, Joe Norman wondered how any human being could sell such a man as Dreer. His right hand tingled still, in memory, where those bony fingers had closed over it. And he felt that the glance of the outlaw, plunging into his soul, had found good metal there, and something clean, and he had been trusted for his own sake as well as for that of Carrol.

  His head would jerk up when that occurred to him.

  Suddenly he was in Salt Springs. And he was sorry. He wished that what lay before him could be postponed. He wished that the trail still stretched far ahead of him, so that he could think, his thoughts keeping time to the sway of the mustang.

  But now the horse was put up, and he was in the sheriffs office at the jail, with his father before him and Clancy at one side. He was seeing them both in a new light, and a filmy figure was between them and him — the face of Dreer.

  His father took one look at him and then growled: “Bad news!”

  “It can’t be bad news,” said Clancy. “He’s just fagged. Sit down, Joe.”

  And Joe sat down. His mind was working dimly, but like lightning. He was seeing many things, but none of them clearly. Chiefly he felt that what had at first been a natural thing, the carrying on of a feud just as he had heard the family used to do in the old day in Kentucky, was now different. It was cheap, false, dirty — it was the betrayal of a fine man.

  “Well,” said the sheriff at last, “bad news or good news — out with it!”

  “Bad news,” said Joe slowly.

  “Well?”

  “I didn’t find Dreer.”

  That was all he could think of. It gave him a moment for further thought.

  “Then why the devil did you come back? Why ain’t you
up there looking for him?”

  That from his father.

  “I done what you told me,” he said stubbornly. “And he wasn’t there.”

  “Did you ever see such a boy? And why didn’t you hit his trail and find him? Afraid?”

  “They wasn’t any trail. He ain’t the kind that leaves a trail.”

  The two older men silently glared at him. Then they stared at one another.

  Suddenly Claney leaned forward and stretched out his left arm on the desk. He began to count off his questions with the forefinger of his right hand, touching each of his left-hand fingers one by one and then curling them back so that at length a clenched fist was shaking under the face of the boy. That was his attitude of public questioning. That was the attitude under which more than one sneaking cattle thief had wilted.

  “Where’d you go first?”

  “The only place they was to go.”

  “That ain’t answering me. Where’d you go?”

  “To the hotel.”

  “And you asked for Jess Dreer?”

  “I ain’t fool enough for that.”

  His father put in: “The boy has some sense, Sheriff.”

  “Shut up,” said Claney, “I’m doing this! Well, who did you see?”

  “Looked over the bartenders and picked out the wisest-looking gent of the bunch. Then I stood off by myself at the bar and fooled with my drink till he seen I was waiting for something. Finally I got him over to one side—”

  “And asked him where Dreer was?”

  “Nope, I asked him where they was a game going on.”

  “Good!” chuckled the father.

  “Shut up!” cried Claney savagely. “What did he say?”

  “That if I went down the hall I’d find a game — I could hear the boys talking.”

  “What did you say to that?”

  “That I wanted to find a game that wouldn’t make so much noise. Then he loosened up and asked me what I wanted. I told him I wanted to find a gent that looked like Dreer, and I told him what Dreer looked like.”

  “And?”

  “And then he looked me over for a minute and finally he made up his mind I was on the inside and he told me all about it. Dreer had been there playing a game pretty steady. But the day before he hit the trail.”

  “What trail?”

  “I dunno, and the barkeep didn’t know.”

  “Why not?”

  “I dunno.”

  The sheriff gritted his teeth. “Then — we’re done! The whole game’s off, and Carrol is in five thousand!”

  “Take him the letter,” said Gus Norman, “and make him give back the coin.”

  “Couldn’t be worked — but I’ll try. Let’s have the letter, Joe.”

  “Why — I — burned the letter, Sheriff.”

  “You what?” interrogated the sheriff angrily.

  “Was I going to keep packing around a letter to an outlaw that’d be about enough to hang me, after the letter wasn’t no good any more?”

  The sheriff settled back in his chair.

  “What’d you do to it?”

  Gus Norman was about to explode, but the raised hand of Clancy stopped him.

  “I — burned it, of course.”

  And he fought the critical eye of the sheriff. Claney began to smile.

  “Joe,” he said, “you’ve done noble — but not noble enough. You been lying!”

  “Me?”

  “Don’t stand up. Don’t pretend to get mad. You changed color the minute I mentioned the letter, son, and I seen it. Talk turkey, now. What happened between you and Dreer?”

  Gus Norman cursed and exclaimed. “He’s been bought off! I’ll—”

  “You’ll forgive him if he tells us the straight of it. Now talk, Joe. You’re among friends. But if you double-cross us, we’ll make it hot for you.”

  “It’ll be the last day he spends under my roof,” declared Gus Norman fiercely.

  “Steady, Gus. Here, Joe. Have a drink. That’ll help you.”

  The nerve of Joe Norman had remained steady up to this point. The offer of the drink — the tacit assumption of friendly superiority, crumpled his powers of resistance. And all in a minute the lies of the interview were torn to pieces and thrown away. The truth was blurted from his lips, and the trap from which he had tried to free Jess Dreer was set and cocked by his own hand.

  CHAPTER 36

  FROM HER WINDOW, Mary Valentine watched the moon go up. She could have named every hill as the pale light picked it out, but her mind was too absent for that. Voices sounded in other parts of the house, but she heard them as from a great distance. All the world was blurred for her and had been blurred for many days. Sometimes she found herself wondering at the change that had come over her; sometimes she would waken in the middle of the night with an old hunted feeling. But there was nothing on which she could put her finger and say: This or that has happened. It simply seemed that she had drifted into a new life, misted with unhappiness.

  No wonder then that the knock was twice repeated before she called, and the door opened to Morgan Valentine. He came slowly across the room to her.

  “Sitting here in the dark?” he asked.

  “It is dark. I was watching the sunset. I didn’t notice how the time ran.”

  He waited a moment. Then: “They’s a caller for you, Mary.”

  “I’m not feeling like callers, Uncle Morgan.”

  “Honey, I wish you’d make an exception.”

  “Well, if you wish it.”

  She rose. After all, it made little difference. Except that she had grown to have a singular preference for being alone.

  “I do wish it. You’re going to fly out at me for asking you to see him when I tell you his name.”

  “I won’t fly out at you. I’ll promise that.”

  “Oh, girl, sometimes I almost wish you would have the old tantrums. Well, it’s Joe Norman.”

  “Joe Norman?”

  “There you go!”

  “I — I couldn’t help it. Joe Norman!”

  An intolerable disgust crept into her voice.

  “He’s a pile changed, honey. He asked me to see Charlie first. He shook hands with Charlie — told him he knew he’d been in the wrong — that he was sorry so many things had come out of it. Charlie shook hands right off and now they ain’t any malice between ’em. Will you see him, Mary?”

  “You want me to?”

  “I’ll tell you why. I sort of feel that if you shake hands with Joe Norman and call it quits we’ll all get back to the old standing. Same as we used to be before all these things happened — all these things that begun with the shooting of Joe Norman.”

  She shook her head, but in the darkness he did not see.

  “I’ll go out and see him, then.”

  “Thank you, Mary.”

  They went out through the living room.

  “Joe’s in the parlor. He said he’d wait in there alone.”

  CHAPTER 37

  MARY PASSED DOWN the hall and paused a moment at the door. Joe Norman was the man who, indirectly, had exiled Jess Dreer. But finally she opened the door and stepped in with a calm face. Joe rose to greet her.

  He was so changed that she almost cried out. The youthful curves were gone from his face. He seemed suddenly to have grown up. His eyes were dull and very deeply shadowed.

  All her anger, all her loathing melted away. She went straight to him and took his hand.

  “If I’d known it would be as easy as this,” said Joe Norman, smiling faintly, “I’d of come before.”

  She brushed that remark away.

  “But you’re changed, Joe. What’s happened?” She checked herself suddenly.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” murmured Joe. “You’re changed, too, Mary. Thinner. Not so much color. But — it sort of makes your eyes look bigger. And you’re quieter, too.”

  She was wondering why there was no sting in seeing him. “Do you know, Joe,” she said suddenly, “we were b
oth too young. And what’s happened has waked us up, changed us both. If there’d been any bad feeling, it’s all gone now.”

  “I’m glad to know that,” said the boy soberly. “I’m leaving Salt Springs and going off. I wanted to shake hands and know that it was square between us before I started.”

  “But where are you going, Joe?”

  “I’m cutting loose. I don’t know where I’ll land.”

  “You’ve been in trouble, Joe.”

  “Pretty bad. You see — me and my folks — you’ll hear about it, anyway, so you might as well hear it from me. We had a difference, and they sort of threw me out, Mary.”

  “I’m sorry, Joe. Very sorry.”

  “Thanks. But between you and me, I have an idea that it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was different all the time, and just lately I’ve found it out.”

  He began to study the floor, hunting for something to say and finding nothing; and the girl was silent likewise.

  “I suppose I’ll be going. But we don’t see you around much lately. I hear folks talking about it.”

  “I’ve settled down. I stay about the house. You’d think I were waiting for something to happen to see me. Good-by, Joe.”

  He took her hand, but at the door he turned again.

  “Something sort of bothers me about what you said just now, Mary.”

  “You can talk straight out to me, Joe. We’re old friends.”

  “I was wondering — if you really wasn’t waiting for something or for somebody?”

  She flushed at that.

  “You ain’t mad, Mary?”

  “No — I guess not. What put the idea in your head?”

  “Well, people say a good many things. I won’t believe ’em, if you say they’re wrong; I haven’t believed ’em up to now. But what they say is that it was you that got Dreer away from the house that night. And that it was because of you that Dreer met?”

  “We won’t talk about it.”