Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  The sneer of the sheriff suddenly made it impossible for the glib tongue of the district attorney to wind itself around a plausible lie. He could only moan: “I’ll make him suffer for this.... I’ll make him sorry for the day he was born!”

  “Look here,” said the sheriff, staring mildly at the district attorney, “I guess I didn’t see you kneeling over there in the corner and begging Jack not to hit you? I guess I didn’t see nothing like that. If I did, I’d try to forget it, but listen to me, Mister Hang-’em-quick Lavigne ... if you lay a hand on him again, I’ll have to do a pile of remembering. What’s more, I’ll have you and your two thugs laughed out of town for yaller-livered skunks... which you are. District attorney? Bah! You ain’t worthy of licking the boots of Jack. Maybe he’s done a killing, here and there, but he’s been a man, according to my lights. That’s more’n you and the two of ’em there can say. Now get out, and don’t come sneaking back to raise trouble here. I’m running this jail, and I’ll keep on running it!”

  The two slipped without a word through the door. Dick was jerked to his feet, kicked into semi-consciousness, and pushed after them. Then the sheriff, turning his back on the terrible man-killer, asked him to follow. And Jack did follow very meekly back to his cell, where the manacles were gravely unlocked and removed. There the sheriff spoke to him for the first time.

  “I’m sure sorry,” he said, “that you got your lip all cut up.”

  He proceeded to the front door of the jail, took from one of the white-faced guards a double-barreled shotgun and, with this terrible weapon under his arm, stepped out in full view of the milling crowd. He waited until the hoarse roar subsided. In that roar they were demanding Jack, the murderer of old men.

  “Gents,” said the sheriff, “I’m plumb tired out today, and I’m trying to get a nap. You folks bother me a lot. Matter of fact, I got to have sleep, and you’re disturbing the peace. So... get off this street ... pronto!”

  Up went the shotgun, and the sheriff looked about him. It seemed to every man in the mob that Larrabee’s keen eyes were glaring at him, as at a ringleader, and then the gaping mouth of the gun pointed down at him. The crowd wavered, split in the center, rolled away on both sides, and vanished. The sheriff spat upon the steps and reëntered the jail.

  IX. UNFORESEEN SUCCOR

  THE LATE OCTOBER day dawned with a warm, steady breeze out of the south. The air was soft as the air of latter May, and the sun as kindly warm and bright. Mary Larrabee, in honor of the tender, blue sky above her, put on a dress so white that it dazzled, so crisp that it rustled with every step like an autumn wind among the gay leaves. And, while she smiled at her pretty face in the mirror, she knotted at her breast a red ribbon to match the red feather that flowed along the side of her white hat. Then she went forth like some ancient warrior to battle, conscious of invincible armor.

  Her own neat little buggy, with her own span of bright-eyed bays dancing before it, waited in front of the house; they whirled her off down the road so fast that the heart of her mother came into her throat. She would have called a warning after her girl, but in her heart was a sublime conviction that no living creature could possibly have the will or the power to injure Mary Larrabee.

  As for Mary herself, in those rounded young arms of hers there was ample power to keep the bays in hand, or, if they wished to dash off at too reckless and bounding a trot, she could soothe and control them with her voice. For she had owned them since the day they were foaled, and she had raised them to know and to love her whistle, her voice, and her hand. She could have brought them back to a more sedate gait, but there was no love of sedateness in Mary Larrabee. That clear tan on her face and on her small, strong hands told of many a wild drive and many a wilder gallop through all weathers and over all manner of roads. And across the bridge of her tip-tilted nose there was still a suggestion of the mottling of freckles that had been so prominent during her girlhood.

  Sedate? She only waited until she had turned the corner of the hill, and then she let her dainty-footed mares go. And they went like the wind, while she laughed them on to greater efforts. She darted around sharp curves on two wheels, and with a shout she roared across shaking bridges. She flashed through Boonetown, joyously conscious of drawing eyes after her on either side of the one real street. When she stopped before the jail, the bays were dripping and entirely willing to pause, but still, as she tied the hitching strap to the rack, they pricked their ears and tried to reach her hands with their foamy muzzles.

  She ran lightly up the steps of the jail and whisked through the dark hall and carried into her father’s office a rustle like the wind of the honest outdoors, a brightness like the kind sunshine.

  Sheriff Larrabee, as usual, had his heels perched on top of his spur-scarred desk, and he turned his slow-moving eye upon her. Since she had grown up to pretty, young womanhood he had made a point of making no fuss over her, as a sort of antidote to the atmosphere of admiration through which she moved. But today she bore such a radiance about her that a very Diogenes might have dropped his lantern and his cynicism into his tub and stood forth to answer her smile.

  So the sheriff asked: “How come? Going to get married?”

  She merely laughed at him, as he ran his eye over the whiteness of the frock. He worshipped every turn of her head, every rise and fall of her voice; all the profound kindliness of his heart poured forth around her — in silence. Mary understood.

  “I’ve come to see the insides of this old jail,” she declared.

  “I’ll call Bud,” said the sheriff, yawning. “He’ll show you around the place. How come? Want to take up my business after I quit?”

  “I might,” she answered. “I hit nine out of ten with my twenty-two, yesterday. I beat Jud, and he hasn’t hardly spoken to me since.”

  “Hmm,” said the sheriff. “I’ll call Bud.”

  “But I don’t want you to call Bud.”

  “All right, go around by yourself.”

  “You know what I really want. I want to see this terrible man... Jack?”

  “You do?”

  “Of course.”

  “Want to see what a real, honest-to-goodness murderer looks like, eh? Well, I guess Jack will be glad to see you and have you stand around and look him over like a wolf in a cage. That’ll be a pretty fine party for Jack, right enough.”

  She sat forward in her chair, regarding his grave face intently. “Isn’t he worse than a wolf, a man that’s done a murder?” she asked. “Does he deserve to be treated kindly?”

  “How d’you know he killed Benton?”

  “Why, everybody knows it!”

  “Then everybody knows more’n I do! And I’ll tell you this... he’s going to be treated like a white man, right up to the time that twelve men say he’s done a murder. After that, while he’s waiting to be hung, he’s going to be treated like a white man again. If a girl or a boy of mine....” He broke off in his tirade, staring ominously at her.

  Mary Larrabee sat back in her chair, nodding. “You like him, don’t you?” she asked. “Why?”

  “He’s a man,” said the sheriff. “He had your brothers and me under his gun once, and he didn’t shoot to kill, but just to warn off. Keep that idea in your head, Mary.”

  She grew pale at the thought.

  “You still want to see him?”

  “I want to see him and thank him,” she said eagerly. “Why, Dad, how could such a man be a murderer?” She did not quail before the grim accusation which the world had placed against Montagne. Suddenly she was asking: “Has he a ghost of a chance of proving himself innocent?”

  “I dunno,” replied the sheriff, “but he don’t seem to care. He’s stopped hoping, what with the crowd yowling to get at him, and that little sneak, Lavigne, badgering him. Jack don’t seem to care whether he lives or dies. When a gent stops being interested in life, he’s about through.”

  She bowed her head. In the Boonetown paper she had read every word of the damning evidence against Mon
tagne. Now she ran over it, bit by bit. Truly it seemed a perfect case against the stranger, unless her father’s prejudice in favor of Jack might be based on good grounds.

  “Will you introduce me to him?” she asked gently.

  “Sure,” said the sheriff. “If you’re going to meet him like that, I’ll take you in.”

  He led the way to the rear of the jail, to the cell of Montagne, where the latter was rolling a cigarette with careless skill.

  “This is my daughter, Mary,” said the sheriff. “I’ve been telling her how you played white, when we were giving you a run, and she thinks she’s got something to thank you about. I’m going back in front, Mary.”

  As the sheriff sauntered away, he saw Jack Montagne rise and nod to the girl. He heard him say: “No call for thanking me... matter of fact, I took the sheriff quite a bit out of his way.” And he grinned as he spoke.

  “There’s nerve,” muttered the sheriff. “Enough for ten ordinary men.”

  But Mary Larrabee was unable to answer that careless speech for a moment. She stared steadily into the lean, brown face of the man, the straight-looking eyes, remembering what her father had said: He’s a man. That, after all, summed it up. And, when the prisoner merely nodded to her, she suddenly stepped close to the bars and stretched her hand through them.

  “I do want to thank you,” said Mary Larrabee, “and I want to say how sorry I am that you’re in trouble.”

  His carelessness disappeared. He straightened, flushing to the roots of his hair, and, advancing slowly, took her hand. “Mighty good of you to come in to say that,” he said huskily.

  She waved that idea away. “First of all,” she said, still probing him and finding nothing sneaking or elusive about his return glance, “I want to know what you’re doing to protect yourself?”

  “Nothing,” he answered, “because nothing can be done.”

  “Because you have no money?”

  “That’s partly it.”

  “Dad would help you, I know,” said the girl, “but, as the sheriff, he can’t very well do that. However, I can, and I have money. I know the lawyers in town, too... and I can get one to work for you.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve always been dead set against taking charity,” he replied.

  “Will you tell me only one thing?” she pleaded. “Will you simply tell me that you didn’t do this horrible, impossible thing?”

  He watched her for a moment, with a singular hunger, but at length he shook his head with decision. “It’s no use,” he said, “because there’s nothing that can help me, and I’ve made up my mind not to speak again.”

  “That’s a final decision?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then,” she answered, “I’ll tell you that I’m perfectly convinced that you didn’t do it. I know you didn’t do it, and... and I’m going to prove to the world that you didn’t.”

  The flush grew darker and darker on his face, as his eyes expanded. “It’s plumb easy to see,” said Jack Montagne, “that you’re your father’s daughter. He’s the squarest shooter I ever met, and you sure take after him. Why, if you were a man....”

  He paused, but she urged him on with: “Well?”

  “You’d be the sort I’d tie to, the sort I’d want to have around in a pinch. But the way it stands... well, there’s just one good thing you can do, and that’s to forget all about me.”

  He was so calm about it that the tears rushed to her eyes. To hide them she turned abruptly away, waved her hand to him, and ran out to find her father. The latter was walking up and down outside the jail, scuffing up the sand and studying it absent-mindedly.

  “I’ve made up my mind to fight for him,” said the girl, on fire with enthusiasm. “There must be some way.”

  “Most like,” said her father carelessly. “Most like there is. Never can tell when something will turn up.”

  Up and down they walked, past the side of the long, low building. She knocked her shoe against a bright bit of metal and stooped and picked up an old house key. She pocketed it automatically, as some people do in such cases.

  “How,” asked the girl, summing up the case with energy, “can twelve men with good sense look at Jack and think he could commit a crime?”

  “Hmm,” replied her father. “It’s pretty rare to get twelve men together and get good sense out of ’em... and it ain’t hard for that little snake, Lavigne, to hypnotize an average jury. No, Mary, you sure got no hope... not against Lavigne. He’s a man-killer, but he uses the law to do his killing.”

  She stamped in her anger. “How many other men is he going to hang?” she asked furiously. “How many other men are in the jail there, waiting until that little rat has time to come out and worry the lives out of them?”

  Her father smiled a little at this vigorous denunciation. “We’re having dull times,” he said. “Only one other gent in the jail, and that’s the hobo, Mississippi Slim.”

  At this the girl stopped short. “Where’s Mississippi?”

  “In the jail.”

  “I know... I know, but what cell?”

  “Got an idea?”

  “I don’t know, but, for heaven’s sake, tell me. What’s his cell?”

  “Right yonder.” He pointed to a grating a few paces away. “He may be hearing us now.”

  “Oh,” exclaimed Mary Larrabee, “it’s turning my brain upside down. Is there a chance?”

  “Of what?”

  “Nothing,” said Mary, and she bolted for her buggy in front of the jail, running with the speed and the grace of a boy.

  X. THE KEY TO THE DOOR

  SHE WHISKED OUT of Boonetown, as she had whisked into it, the bays sweeping the light rig along at a terrific clip. Presently she turned onto a dim country road, made by the wear of travel, but never graded. Straight out of it she drove until she came to a sight of the house of the Zellars. She drew back her horses to a slower gait and finally pulled up behind the house. Instantly her eye met a reminder of the crime — two parts of a door, split cleanly down the center, were leaning against the wall near the kitchen window. This was the door that both young Zellar and Jack Montagne claimed to have broken through, in an effort to get at the room of the dead man.

  She tied off her horses and, turning away, found Mrs. Zellar, in the act of wiping a milk tin, standing at the door of the house.

  The big, ugly face of the woman stirred a reluctant smile of welcome. “Mary Larrabee!” she exclaimed. “How long since you come this way? Pretty nigh onto three years, I guess.”

  “I’ve heard so much about this murder,” said Mary, as she shook hands, “that I wanted to see the place. May I, Missus Zellar?”

  “A terrible thing,” replied Mrs. Zellar. “The shock it give me... I ain’t over yet. Gus was hit pretty hard, too. You want to see the room?”

  “If you please.”

  “Come right up,” she started to lead the way. “A terrible thing,” she repeated. “And me and Gus sure was fond of old Mister Benton. I know some folks didn’t like him much. He had his ways, but all old folks do. We were used to him and knew how to make allowances. Yes, we were fond of old Benton. They’s an empty feeling around the house, now he’s gone.”

  Mary Larrabee shivered with disgust. One glimpse of Benton’s face would be sure warrant that no human being could ever find a spark of affection to waste on the old fellow. They stood at the door of the room.

  “There’s the place,” said the woman. “There’s where he laid, with his head turned a little to one side. Do you see the mark? Soap and hot water... nothing does any good to take that stain out. I’ve worked till my arms ached, and still it won’t come out. Poor Mister Benton. I hope they hang that Jack as high as the moon!”

  “You really think he did it?”

  “Think? Child alive, don’t I know? Didn’t I hear him talk? Didn’t I see the way he looked, when he heard that the poor old man had money in his room? Right then I says to Gus... ‘There’s no good in this man, Gus, there�
��s no good in him.’ And it sure turned out that there wasn’t any.”

  “Well,” replied Mary Larrabee solemnly, “may the guilty man hang.”

  She turned away, sick from what she had seen, and went slowly down the stairs. Down those stairs Jack had fled, according to his story. Up those stairs old Benton had dragged himself for the last time, on that terrible night. Every detail of that night of storm and horror came back to her.

  In the open air she drew a great breath of relief, and, approaching the broken door, she drew out the key, that she had picked up beside the jail, and tried it hastily. The lock turned smoothly under the pressure and turned back again. Mary Larrabee drew it forth and dropped the key back into her pocket, her heart racing with excitement.

  “How come?” asked Mrs. Zellar, following with aggressive curiosity.

  “I forgot to say,” said the girl glibly enough, “that my father asked me to bring back the lock of the door to Benton’s room. Will you let me saw it out?”

  Mrs. Zellar fixed her big, startling eyes upon the face of Mary Larrabee, frowning. Evidently she was not at all pleased.

  “It don’t sound like your father, sending you around on jobs like this,” she declared. “It don’t sound the least bit like him.”

  “He knew I was coming out here, anyway,” explained Mary.

  “Hmm,” said Mrs. Zellar gloomily. “You want the lock, but why d’you want it?”

  “I never could make any sense out of these legal matters,” said Mary, managing to smile in the face of that dark suspicion, “but that’s what Dad asked me to bring. Of course, if you don’t want to part with it, I’ll simply go back and have him....”

  “It ain’t that,” protested Mrs. Zellar, “but it’d be more regular, if the sheriff was to send out a written order for it, or a request for it, being that he wants it for evidence.”

  “I suppose it would,” said the girl, “but I’ve already done what he told me to, by asking you for it.”

  She made as if to turn away, but Mrs. Zellar, in a quandary, called her back. “I don’t want to hinder the law none,” she said. “If this’ll help to hang Jack, why, take it and welcome to it. I’m sure I ain’t got any purpose in keeping things back. I ain’t got anything to hide from your father... or any other sheriff.”