Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “Are you laughing at me, Anne?”

  He had never called her by her name before, and yet it came naturally upon his lips.

  She stood, indeed, with the same smile upon her lips, but her eyes were fixed and looked straight past him. And presently he saw a tear pass slowly down her face. Her hand remained without moving, with the watch in it exactly as he had placed it there.

  She had not stirred when he slipped without a noise through the window and was instantly swallowed in the rushing of the wind and rain.

  CHAPTER 33

  THERE WAS, AS Andrew had understood for a long time, a sort of underground world of criminals even here on the mountain desert. Otherwise the criminals could not have existed for even a moment in the face of the organized strength of lawful society. Several times in the course of his wanderings Andrew had come in contact with links of the underground chain, and he learned what every fugitive learns — the safe stopping points in the great circuit of his flight.

  Three elements went into the making of that hidden society. There was first of all the circulating and active part, and this was composed of men actually known to be under the ban of the law and openly defying it. Beneath this active group lay a stratum much larger which served as a base for the operating criminals. This stratum was built entirely of men who had at one time been incriminated in shady dealings of one sort and another. It included lawbreakers from every part of the world, men who had fled first of all to the shelter of the mountain desert and who had lived there until their past was even forgotten in the lands from which they came. But they had never lost the inevitable sympathy for their more active fellows, and in this class there was included a meaner element — men who had in the past committed crimes in the mountain desert itself and who, from time to time, when they saw an absolutely safe opportunity, were perfectly ready and willing to sin again.

  The third and largest of all the elements in the criminal world of the desert was a shifting and changing class of men who might be called the paid adherents of the active order. The “long riders,” acting in groups or singly, fled after the commission of a crime and were forced to find places of rest and concealment along their journey. Under this grave necessity they quickly learned what people on their way could be hired as hosts and whose silence and passive aid could be bought. Such men were secured in the first place by handsome bribes. And very often they joined the ranks unwillingly. But when some peaceful householder was confronted by a desperate man, armed, on a weary horse — perhaps stained from a wound — the householder was by no means ready to challenge the man’s right to hospitality. He never knew when the stranger would take by force what was refused to him freely, and, if the lawbreaker took by force, he was apt to cover his trail by a fresh killing.

  Of course, such killings took place only when the “long rider” was a desperate brute rather than a man, but enough of them had occurred to call up vivid examples to every householder who was accosted. As a rule he submitted to receive the unwelcome guest. Also, as a rule, he was weak enough to accept a gift when the stranger parted. Once such a gift was taken, he was lost. His name was instantly passed on by the fugitive to his fellows as a “safe” man. Before long he became, against or with his will, a depository of secrets — banned faces became known to him. And if he suddenly decided to withdraw from that criminal world his case was most precarious.

  The “long riders” admitted no neutrals. If a man had once been with them he could only leave them to become an enemy. He became open prey. His name was published abroad. Then his cattle were apt to disappear. His stacks of hay might catch fire unexpectedly at night. His house itself might be plundered, and, in not infrequent cases, the man himself was brutally murdered. It was part of a code no less binding because it was unwritten.

  All of this Andrew was more or less aware of, and scores of names had been mentioned to him by chance acquaintances of the road. Such names he stored away, for he had always felt that time impending of which Henry Allister had warned him, the time when he must openly forget his scruples and take to a career of crime. That time, he now knew, was come upon him.

  It would be misrepresenting Andrew to say that he shrank from the future. Rather he accepted everything that lay before him wholeheartedly, and, with the laying aside of his scruples, there was an instant lightening of the heart, a fierce keenness of mind, a contempt for society, a disregard for life beginning with his own. One could have noted it in the recklessness with which he sent Sally up the slope away from the ranch house this night.

  He had made up his mind immediately to hunt out a “safe” man, recently mentioned to him by that unconscionable scapegrace Harry Woods, crooked gambler, thief of small and large, and whilom murderer. The man’s name was Garry Baldwin, a small rancher, some half day’s ride above Sullivan’s place in the valley. He was recommended as a man of silence. In that direction Andrew took his way, but, coming in the hills to a dished-out place on a hillside, where there was a natural shelter from both wind and rain, he stopped there for the rest of the night, cooked a meal, rolled himself in his blankets, and slept into the gray of the morning.

  No sooner was the first light streaking the horizon to the east than Andrew wakened. He saddled Sally and, after a leisurely breakfast, started at a jog trot through the hills, taking the upslope with the utmost care. For nothing so ruins a horse as hard work uphill at the very beginning of the day. He gave Sally her head, and by letting her go as she pleased she topped the divide, breathing as easily as if she had been walking on the flat. She gave one toss of her head as she saw the long, smooth slope ahead of her, and then, without a word from Andrew or a touch of his heels, she gave herself up to the long, rocking canter which she could maintain so tirelessly for hour on hour.

  A clear, cold morning came on. Indeed, it was rarely chill for the mountain desert, with a feel of coming snow in the wind. Sally pricked one ear as she looked into the north, and Andrew knew that that was a sign of trouble coming.

  He came in the middle of the morning to the house of Garry Baldwin. It was a wretched shack, the roof sagged in the middle, and the building had been held from literally falling apart by bolting an iron rod through the length of it.

  A woman who fitted well into such a background kicked open the door and looked up to Andrew with the dishwater still dripping from her red hands. He asked for her husband. He was gone from the house. Where, she did not know. Somewhere yonder, and her gesture included half the width of the horizon to the west. There was his trail, if Andrew wished to follow it. For her part, she was busy and could not spare time to gossip. At that she stepped back and kicked the door shut with a slam that set the whole side of the shack shivering.

  At that moment Andrew wondered what he would have done when he lived in Martindale if he had been treated in such a manner. He would have crimsoned to the eyes, no doubt, and fled from the virago. But now he felt neither embarrassment nor fear nor anger. He drew his revolver, and with the heavy butt banged loudly on the door. It left three deep dents in the wood, and the door was kicked open again. But this time he saw only the foot of the woman clad in a man’s boot. The door remained open, but the hostess kept out of view.

  “You be ridin’ on, friend,” she called in her harsh voice. “Bud, keep out’n the kitchen. Stranger, you be ridin’ on. I don’t know you and I don’t want to know you. A man that beats on doors with his gun!”

  Andrew laughed, and the sound brought her into view, a furious face, but a curious face as well. She carried a long rifle slung easily under her stout arm.

  “What d’you want with Garry?” she asked.

  And he replied with a voice equally hard: “I want direction for finding Scar-faced Allister.”

  He watched that shot shake her.

  “You do? You got a hell of a nerve askin’ around here for Allister! Slope, kid, slope. You’re on a cold trail.”

  “Wait a minute,” protested Andrew. “You need another look at me.”

  �
��I can see all there is to you the first glance,” said the woman calmly. “Why should I look again?”

  “To see the reward,” said Andrew bitterly. He laughed again. “I’m Andrew Lanning. Ever hear of me?”

  It was obvious that she had. She blinked and winced as though the name stunned her. “Lanning!” she said. “Why, you ain’t much more’n a kid. Lanning! And you’re him?”

  All at once she melted.

  “Slide off your hoss and come in, Andy,” she said. “Dogged if I knew you at all!”

  “Thanks. I want to find Allister and I’m in a hurry.”

  “So you and him are goin’ to team it? That’ll be high times! Come here, Bud. Look at Andy Lanning. That’s him on the horse right before you.”

  A scared, round face peered out at Andrew from behind his mother. “All right, partner. I’ll tell you where to find him pretty close. He’ll be up the gulch along about now. You know the old shack up there? You can get to him inside three hours — with that hoss.” She stopped and eyed Sally. “Is that the one that run Gray Peter to death? She don’t look the part, but them long, low hosses is deceivin’. Can’t you stay, Andy? Well, s’long. And give Allister a good word from Bess Baldwin. Luck!”

  He waved, and was gone at a brisk gallop.

  CHAPTER 34

  IT WAS NOT yet noon when he entered the gulch, he was part way up the ravine when something moved at the top of the high wall to his right. He guessed at once that it was a lookout signaling the main party of the approach of a stranger, so Andrew stopped Sally with a word and held his hand high above his head, facing the point from which he had seen the movement. There was a considerable pause; then a man showed on the top of the cliff, and Andrew recognized Jeff Rankin by his red hair. Yet they were at too great a distance for conversation, and after waving a greeting, Rankin merely beckoned Andrew on his way up the valley. Around the very next bend of the ravine he found the camp. It was of the most impromptu character, and the warning of Rankin had caused them to break it up precipitately, as Andrew could see by one length of tarpaulin tossed, without folding, over a saddle. Each of the four was ready, beside his horse, for flight or for attack, as their outlook on the cliff should give signal. But at sight of Andrew and the bay mare a murmur, then a growl of interest went among them. Even Larry la Roche grinned a skull-like welcome, and Henry Allister actually ran forward to receive the newcomer. Andrew dropped out of the saddle and shook hands with him.

  “I’ve done as you said I would,” said Andrew. “I’ve run in a circle, Allister, and now I’m back to make one of you, if you still want me.”

  Allister, laughing joyously, turned to the other three and repeated the question to them. There was only one voice in answer.

  “Want you?” said Allister, and his smile made Andrew almost forget the scar which twisted the otherwise handsome face. “Want you? Why, man, if we’ve been beyond the law up to this time, we can laugh at the law now. Sit down. Hey, Scottie, shake up the fire and put on some coffee, will you? We’ll take an hour off.”

  Larry la Roche was observed to make a dour face.

  “Who’ll tell me it’s lucky,” he said, “to have a gent that starts out by makin’ us all stop on the trail? Is that a good sign?”

  But Scottie, with laughter, hushed him. Yet Larry la Roche remained of all the rest quite silent during the making of the coffee and the drinking of it. The others kept up a running fire of comments and questions, but Larry la Roche, as though he had never forgiven Andrew for their first quarrel, remained with his long, bony chin dropped upon his breast and followed the movements of Andrew Lanning with restless eyes.

  The others were glad to see him, as Andrew could tell at a glance, but also they were a bit troubled, and by degrees he made out the reason. Strange as it seemed, they regretted that he had not been able to make his break across the mountains. His presence made them more impregnable than they had ever been under the indomitable Allister, and yet, more than the aid of his fighting hand, they would have welcomed the tidings of a man who had broken away from the shadow of the law and made good. For each of the fallen wishes to feel that his exile is self-terminable.

  And therefore Andrew, telling his story to them in brief, found that they were not by any means filled with unmixed pleasure. Joe Clune, with his bright brown hair of youth and his lined, haggard face of worn middle age, summed up their sentiments at the end of Andrew’s story: “You’re what we need with us, Lanning. You and Allister will beat the world, and it means high times for the rest of us, but God pity you — that’s all!”

  The pause that followed this solemn speech was to Andrew like an amen. He glanced from face to face, and each stern eye met his in gloomy sympathy.

  Then something shot through him which was to his mind what red is to the eye; it was a searing touch of reckless indifference, defiance.

  “Forget this prayer-meeting talk,” said Andrew. “I came up here for action, not mourning. I want something to do with my hands, not something to think about with my head!”

  Something to think about! It was like a terror behind him. If he should have long quiet it would steal on him and look at him over his shoulder like a face. A little of this showed in his face; enough to make the circle flash significant glances at one another.

  “You got something behind you, Andy,” said Scottie. “Come out with it. It ain’t too bad for us to hear.”

  “There’s something behind me,” said Andrew. “It’s the one really decent part of my life. And I don’t want to think about it. Allister, they say you never let the grass grow under you. What’s on your hands now?”

  “Somebody has been flattering me,” said the leader quietly, and all the time he kept studying the face of Andrew. “We have a little game ahead, if you want to come in on it. We’re shorthanded, but I’d try it with you. That makes us six all told. Six enough, boys?”

  “Count me half of one,” said Larry la Roche. “I don’t feel lucky about this little party.”

  “We’ll count you two times two,” replied the leader. He added: “You boys play a game; I’m going to break in Lanning to our job.”

  Taking his horse, he and Andrew rode at a walk up the ravine. On the way the leader explained his system briefly and clearly. Told in short, he worked somewhat as follows: Instead of raiding blindly right and left, he only moved when he had planned every inch of ground for the advance and the blow and the retreat. To make sure of success and the size of his stakes he was willing to invest heavily.

  “Big business men sink half a year’s income in their advertising. I do the same.”

  It was not public advertising; it was money cunningly expended where it would do most good. Fifty per cent of the money the gang earned was laid away to make future returns surer. In twenty places Allister had his paid men who, working from behind the scenes, gained priceless information and sent word of it to the outlaw. Trusted officials in great companies were in communication with him. When large shipments of gold were to be made, for instance, he was often warned beforehand. Every dollar of the consignment was known to him, the date of its shipment, its route, and the hands to which it was supposed to fall. Or, again, in many a bank and prosperous mercantile firm in the mountain desert he had inserted his paid spies, who let him know when the safe was crammed with cash and by what means the treasure was guarded.

  Not until he had secured such information did the leader move. And he still delayed until every possible point of friction had been noted, every danger considered, and a check appointed for it, every method of advance and retreat gone over.

  “A good general,” Allister was fond of saying, “plans in two ways: for an absolute victory and for an absolute defeat. The one enables him to squeeze the last ounce of success out of a triumph; the other keeps a failure from turning into a catastrophe.”

  With everything arranged for the stroke, he usually posted himself with the band as far as possible from the place where the actual work was to be done. Then he
made a feint in the opposite direction — he showed himself or a part of his gang recklessly. The moment the alarm was given — even at the risk of having an entire hostile countryside around him — he started a whirlwind course in the opposite direction from which he was generally supposed to be traveling. If possible, at the ranches of adherents, or at out-of-the-way places where confederates could act, he secured fresh horses and dashed on at full speed all the way.

  Then, at the very verge of the place for attack, he gathered his men, rehearsed in detail what each man was to do, delivered the blow, secured the spoils, and each man of the party split away from the others and fled in scattering directions, to assemble again at a distant point on a comparatively distant date. There they sat down around a council table, and there they divided the spoils. No matter how many were employed, no matter how vast a proportion of the danger and scheming had been borne by the leader, he took no more than two shares. Then fifty per cent of the prize was set aside. The rest was divided with an exact care among the remaining members of the gang. The people who had supplied the requisite information for the coup were always given their share.

  From this general talk Allister descended to particulars. He talked of the gang itself. They were quite a fixed quantity. In the last half dozen years there had not been three casualties. For one thing, he chose his men with infinite care; in the second place, he saw to it that they remained in harmony, and to that end he was careful never to be tempted into forming an unwieldy crew, no matter how large the prize. Of the present organization each was an expert. Larry la Roche had been a counterfeiter and was a consummate penman. His forgeries were works of art. “Have you noticed his hands?”

  Scottie Macdougal was an eminent advance agent, whose smooth tongue was the thing for the very dangerous and extremely important work of trying out new sources of information, noting the dependability of those sources, and understanding just how far and in what line the tools could be used. Joe Clune was a past expert in the blowing of safes; not only did he know everything that was to be known about means of guarding money and how to circumvent them, but he was an artist with the “soup,” as Allister called nitroglycerin.