Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  But, when the door was pushed open, a big man strode in and at once closed the door behind him again and secured the lock and the bolt. There was no glimmer of a gun in the darkness.

  “Where are you, Al?”

  “Who are you?” asked Al Rankin.

  “A friend.”

  “What name?”

  “One you won’t want to hear. But first, to show you I’m here in good faith, take this gun.”

  Something in the quality of the whisper that he heard brought a wild surmise to the outlaw, but he dismissed it at once as an absurdity. Then in the darkness he made out the butt of a weapon extended toward him. He clutched it eagerly; it was dearer to him than the touch of the hand of any friend had ever been. It meant safety. It meant, at least, a glorious fighting chance against odds. At once his heart stopped thundering. He felt that he was himself again.

  “I’m going to light the lamp,” said the stranger, feeling his way toward the bedside table and taking off the chimney with a soft chink of glass. “When you see my face, think twice before you jump.”

  A sulphur match spurted blue flame between his fingers, the wick of the lamp was lighted, and, as the chimney was replaced, the room brightened. Al Rankin found himself looking into the eyes of Bob Lake. Only the warning that had been given him before — and, in addition, the fact that Lake stood with his arms folded, his hands far from his holster — kept the outlaw from a gun play.

  “You,” he exclaimed softly. “You... Lake!”

  “I’m here,” said Lake dryly.

  “You’ve come for an accounting, eh?” asked Rankin fiercely. “You can have it, Lake, on foot or in the saddle. With fists or guns or knives. I’m ready for you.”

  “You’re a kind of man-eater, ain’t you?” Lake sneeringly retorted. “But I ain’t here for trouble. Besides, you got enough on your hands.”

  “Trouble?”

  Lake pointed significantly at the floor.

  “Those blockheads downstairs?” Rankin in spite of his mocking tone changed color.

  “Those blockheads know who you are,” said Lake.

  “The mischief!” He set his teeth over the next part of his exclamation. “I had the idea of it,” he muttered. “I should have jumped, when the hunch first hit me.”

  “You should have,” assented Lake calmly. “There’s a reward out.”

  “A reward!” Rankin felt his skin prickle.

  “Who offered it?” he said huskily.

  “The gent whose horse you stole. Sid Gordon.”

  “How much?”

  “Three thousand.”

  Al Rankin cursed as the perspiration streamed out on his forehead. He knew what three thousand dollars as a reward meant. In that hard-working community, where a man would labor all month for wretched “found” and fifty dollars a month, how many hard riders and sure shots would turn out on a trail that ended with three thousand dollars — sixty months’ savings — a fortune to most of the men he knew. The country would be alive with those who pursued him. His hand closed hard on the handle of the revolver.

  “They heard of the reward? But how did they locate me? They don’t know my face down this way.”

  “There’s a description of you and of your horse. Bill White wired it all over the country and the amount of the reward. Maybe they figured the way I did... that you’d come back home this way.”

  “They knew I’d come home?”

  “The first guess was that you would, the second that you’d be too clever to make that move... but there was a third guess that you’d count on them figuring you for the foxy move. I made that third guess, and they’s a pile of men around here that’s smarter than I am.”

  “They told you downstairs that I’m here?”

  “It’s all they’re talking about. They wanted me to join in with ’em. I told ’em I didn’t give a hang about rewards. What I wanted was sleep. So I came up to my room. Then I sneaked out to yours.”

  “How many are there? Have they sent out for help?”

  “No, they don’t want to split the reward up too much. They figure they’re strong enough. There’s the landlord and five others. Two of ’em are pretty handy in a fight, two ain’t much, and one is yaller. I could tell it by the twitching of his hands.”

  “Six to one, ain’t that enough?”

  “Sure. But six to two ain’t so bad.”

  “Six to two?”

  Rankin crossed the room with a long light step. He had never walked like that before. He had never talked like this before. But now loud sounds had become abhorrent to him. They prevented him from listening to what was going on outside the room. They kept him from marking and interpreting every creak, every rustle of the wind in the old building.

  “Now, Lake,” he demanded in that new, soft voice, “who in blazes are you, and what’s behind all this? Who are you? Where do you come from? How do you figure in on me and what I do? What made you save me at Everett? What’s brought you down here, pretending to play in on my side? Can you tell me? Do you think I don’t know that you’re trying to trick me so’s you can turn me over to those skunks downstairs? Out with it!”

  “I’ll out with it,” answered Bob Lake. “It’s the girl, Al. Not you, you dirty, sneakin’ coyote. Not you, you treacherous, man-killing, life-stealin’ hound! But it’s the girl. Keep your hand away from your gun. You’re a fast man with a gun, Al. Maybe faster’n I am. But I’d kill you. There ain’t any shadow of a doubt in my head. I’d kill you, if it come to a pinch. And why I don’t kill you is because the girl loves you. I ain’t going to have her face hauntin’ me. If keepin’ you safe is going to make her happy, safe you shall be, if I can make you.”

  “Fairy stuff,” said Rankin, but he stepped back. There had been a conviction in that steady, low-pitched voice that was still thrilling him. “Now what’s your plan?”

  “A dead simple one. First we switch bandannas. Yours is blue and white... fool colors. Mine is red. Then gimme your sombrero for this Stetson. We’re about the same size. They won’t look close, and they won’t see much by this light.”

  He tore off the big bandanna as he spoke and tossed it to Rankin, and then he took Rankin’s and knotted it about his throat.

  “You go right downstairs, Al, hummin’ to yourself, and don’t speak to nobody. Head for the stables. They’ll think that you’re going for somethin’ you forgot in your saddlebags... somethin’ I forgot, I mean. When you get in the stables, saddle my horse. It’s the big gray, and it’s a sound horse, if there ever was one. Then saddle your own horse... Gordon’s bay. Take that horse out behind the barn and leave him there. Will he stand with the reins throwed over his head?”

  “Sure he will.”

  “Then leave him there like that. After you’ve done that come out the front of the barn with my horse, climb on him, and lope off up the road, up the valley. You can break through, and before morning you’ll be at your home. Keep off the main trail. They’ll be watching there for you, but they won’t watch at your house. Now, get out!”

  “Lake,” began Rankin, “after what I’ve done to you, this....”

  “Don’t talk,” cut in Bob Lake. “When I hear you talk, Rankin, it sort of riles me. I ain’t doin’ this for you. I’d be glad to see you planted full of holes or swingin’ from a tree. That’s where your happy home had ought to be. Get out. I’m sick of your face.”

  “All them kind things,” murmured Al Rankin, “I’ll remember. Someday I’ll pay in full. S’long.”

  Without another word he adjusted the Stetson on his head and slipped softly out of the room. His first steps were soundless, but then Lake heard his heel striking heavily and caught the burden of a tune the outlaw was humming. It was very good acting, but would someone downstairs see his face and halt him? Bob Lake waited breathlessly. Any moment there might be the report of a revolver. But the moments passed. There was the clatter of a back door swinging shut, and then, peering out the window, he saw a shadowy figure move toward the barn th
rough the starlight. It was outlined distinctly against the whitewashed wall of the barn and then was swallowed in the blackness of the open doorway. The first step had been successfully taken.

  Next he studied the shrubbery opposite the window. He had heard them say that this was the point at which Rankin, if alarmed, might attempt to break out, and two of them — the landlord and another — were posted yonder among the trees, keeping a vigilant watch on that window.

  Yet through that window he must attempt to escape. For it was two-thirds of his plan to make them think that he was Rankin and to draw their pursuit after him. That would give the outlaw a clear break up the valley and toward his house. It would give him a chance to see his wife for the second time since their marriage, equip himself with plenty of funds, supply her with the location to which she should send him further relief, and, in short, give Al Rankin a flying start in his career of outlawry. Later, no doubt, the Rankin estate could buy off Gordon and the heirs of Hugh Smiley, and the prosecution would be dropped. Then Rankin could return and, accepting a short term in prison, could make a fresh start in life.

  All of this was perfectly plain, but the difficult thing was to make that escape from the window. To attempt to pass down through the house would be madness. At this point in his thoughts he saw Rankin bring the gray out of the barn and climb into the saddle. Someone spoke to him from the hotel, and he returned a loud and cheery answer. There was no doubt that the fellow had plenty of nerve. But what if he had again betrayed his benefactor? In that case, even supposing Lake ran the gamut and reached the back of the barn in safety, it would only mean that he would be run down later on by odds of six to one. The thought made him cringe closer to the wall.

  In the meantime, the tattoo of the departing horse sounded fainter and fainter in the distance and finally died out altogether. Then very softly Lake pushed up the window to its full height. Fortunately, there was no protesting squeak. He passed his legs through the window and sat on the sill, making ready for his start. They would not see him against the black square of the window; not until he began running would they note him.

  He waited. The longer he delayed the farther away Rankin was riding, and the closer he drew to his goal. The longer he delayed the more this keen cold of the mountain air would be numbing the arms and fingers of the watchers who sat as sentinels yonder in the dark. That same cold was eating into him, and finally, for fear it should numb his own muscles, he determined to make the break for safety. It was no longer a game. If he were found in the clothes of Rankin, even though he were discovered not to be the wanted man, his shrift on earth would be short. What was the punishment for assisting an outlaw? If he were caught, it would be by a bullet that would ask and answer all its own questions.

  He slipped completely out of the window and rose and lowered himself until his leg muscles were unlimbered. Then, crouching low so as to make a less important mark against the gray of the house, he started running, aiming his flight at the lower and farthest corner of the roof of the shed. The first step betrayed him. He had not counted on that and had hoped to cover most of the distance to the edge of the roof before he was noted by the watchers, but with the first fall of his foot the dry shingles crashed and crackled beneath him with a sound almost as loud as the report of a gun.

  His alarm was answered by a yell from the shrubbery. Two bits of fire flashed like great fireflies, and at the same instant two deep reports came barking through the night. There was an ugly, whining whisper beside him. He knew that sound, and by its nearness he knew that expert marksmen were shooting.

  He raced on with the smashing of the shingles beneath him, the yells of the sentinels beyond, and now a rapid fire of shots. Rifle shots, he supposed, by the depth of the tone. Yet he reached the corner of the roof before something swept across his forehead like the cut of a red-hot knife, moving at an incredible speed. There was no pain, but a stunning shock that cast him off his balance, and he floundered forward into thin air.

  Only by luck he landed on sprawling hands and knees instead of on his feet. And that fall gave him a new lease on life. The marksmen had seen the fall, and now, ceasing fire, they ran toward him with yells of triumph.

  He was up on his feet and racing away again like the wind. He saw them drop to their knees, heard their cursing, and once more the sing of bullets whipped around him. But this time the surprise had unsteadied them, and they shot wildly.

  A moment later he had turned the corner of the barn, and one breathing space of security was left to him. But the horse? Had Al Rankin done as he was bidden, or had the selfish devil gone off without a single thought of the man he left behind him? That heart-breaking question was answered an instant later. Whipping around the farther corner of the barn, he saw the form of a tall horse, glimmering under the stars, and on his back he recognized the bunched outlines of a saddle.

  He reached that saddle with a single leap, and, sweeping up the hanging reins, a second later he was rejoicing in the first spring of the horse as the spurs touched his flanks. That very first leap spoke volumes to Lake as to the animal’s running power. A fence shot up before them out of the night. Before he had well noted it, the horse rose and took it splendidly, the lurch of the jump hurling Lake far back in the saddle.

  Yells and bullets came from the direction of the barn, but they were random shots. He shouted his defiance back at them and fired his revolver foolishly in the air. For they must know his direction. They must know that he was fleeing not up the valley toward the Rankin house, but across it toward the higher mountains. For that would give Al still further respite and make him certainly safe.

  New sounds began behind him. He swung low in the saddle and listened away from the hoofbeats of his own horse. It was a steady drumming. The pursuit had already begun.

  XI.— “WRONG — ALL WRONG!”

  TWENTY-FOUR HOURS PERCEPTIBLY changed the outlook of Paul Sumpter. He had an eye of not inconsiderable shrewdness for men, but with him men and money were inextricably entangled. He had been a banker on a small scale all his life, and property to him had an almost human appeal. The broad face of a meadow with a furrow turning black behind the plowshare was to him like beauty in a woman. A dense stand of yellow wheat with the wind rattling through it was a perfect symphony.

  His opinion of Al Rankin began to change insensibly before he had been in the house a full hour. In the first place, it seemed a shame that the owner of such a property should be so evil. And that thought fathered the next, which was that the young fellow might not be entirely evil, and this in turn gave rise to the idea that there might be explanations. He had begun by insisting that Anne return with him to his home. He ended by blushing, when he remembered the folly of his advice.

  Let it not be thought that the heart of Paul Sumpter was no larger than his money bags. He was a generous man. But he had thought in terms of dollars for so long that, like many a rich man, an oil painting could be actually beautiful to him because fifty thousand dollars had been paid for it and the pedigree of a Thoroughbred became an entrancing study because its appeal to the bank account was so intimate and real.

  He would have been the first to denounce such an attitude, but unconsciously he had come to feel that poverty was a sin. Naturally wealth became a virtue. He was very humble about himself, because his own affairs in money were very moderate.

  In a word Paul Sumpter, having denounced Al Rankin and all that appertained to him, looked out the window and beheld the noble pine trees marching up the mountains — timber to build a whole city — and the violence of his rage abated. He turned from the window, and his heel, that was intended to crash against the floor, was muffled in its fall by a rug of exquisite depth. Sinking thoughtfully into a chair, its softness embraced him and wooed him to stay, while his fingers strayed idly over the delicacy of the velvet upholstery. When he sat at the table that night opposite his daughter — how far she was removed by the noble length of that table — it seemed to him that her beauty acquired a
new luster from the beauty of the silver and the shimmer of the glass. From the luxurious depths of a chair, a little later, he expanded his hands toward the blaze of a great fire and accepted with sleepy pleasure a long and black and thick cigar that his daughter brought him in a fragrant humidor. He noted the white turn of her wrist as she lighted that cigar for him.

  “By heaven, Anne, dear,” he said, “you were cut out for the wife of a rich man. And what’s more,” he added, drawing strongly on the cigar, and then pausing to let the smoke waft toward the ceiling, “what’s more, you’ve found him. You waited, and you found him.”

  Wrinkles of amused understanding came at the corners of her eyes. She knew him and understood his frailties. Sometimes it seems that a woman loves a man actually on account of his faults. Saints are usually loved by posterity alone. Paul Sumpter was by no means a saint, and Anne, knowing it, gained her power over him by never letting him see that she understood. Nothing is so ruinous to domestic peace as that. When a family man feels that his native mystery has vanished, he cringes behind his newspaper.

  “I suppose I have,” she said, and went back to her chair so that she could indulge herself in a smile while her back was turned. Her face was perfectly grave, when he saw it again.

  “Just now,” went on Paul Sumpter, “things look a little blue. But we’ll have them out of that. Oh, yes, we’ll straighten affairs. There are ways.”

  She remembered his mingled indignation, despair, and rage earlier in the day. And again the wrinkles of mirth came around her eyes. Her father did not see; he was watching the cigar smoke mount in fat, blue-brown wreaths.