by Max Brand
He circled Cartwright, his long arms dangling low, his step soft and quick as the stride of a great cat, and always there was thought in his face. One gained an impression that if ever he closed with his enemy the battle would end.
Apparently even Cartwright gained that impression. His own brute confidence of skill and power was suddenly tinged with doubt. Instead of waiting he led suddenly with his left, a blow that tilted the head of Sinclair back, and then sprang in with a crushing right. It was poor tactics, for half of a boxer’s nice skill is lost in a plunging attack. The second blow shot humming past Sinclair as the latter dodged; and, before the brown man could recover his poise, the cowpuncher had dived in under the guarding arms.
A shrill cry rose from Cold Feet, a cry so sharp and shrill that it sent a chill down the back of Sinclair. For a moment he whirled with the weight of his struggling, cursing enemy, and then his right hand shot up over the shoulder of Cartwright and clutched his chin. With that leverage one convulsive jerk threw Cartwright heavily back; he rolled on his side, with Sinclair following like a wildcat.
But Cartwright as he fell had closed his fingers on a jagged little stone. Sinclair saw the blow coming, swerved from it, and straightway went mad. The brown man became a helpless bulk; the knee of Sinclair was planted on his shoulders, the talon fingers of Sinclair were buried in his throat.
Then — he saw it only dimly through his red anger and hardly felt it at all — Jig’s hands were tearing at his wrists. He looked up in dull surprise into the face of John Gaspar.
“For heaven’s sake,” Jig was pleading, “stop!”
But what checked Sinclair was not the schoolteacher. Cartwright had been fighting with the fury of one who sees death only inches away. Suddenly he grew limp.
“You!” he cried. “You!”
To the astonishment of Sinclair the gaze of the beaten man rested directly upon the face of Jig.
“Yes,” Gaspar admitted faintly, “it is I!”
Sinclair released his grip and stood back, while Cartwright, stumbling to his feet, stood wavering, breathing harshly and fingering his injured throat.
“I knew I’d find you,” he said, “but I never dreamed I’d find you like this!”
“I know what you think,” said Cold Feet, utterly colorless, “but you think wrong, Jude. You think entirely wrong!”
“You lie like a devil!”
“On my honor.”
“Honor? You ain’t got none! Honor!”
He flung himself into his saddle. “Now that I’ve located you, the next time I come it’ll be with a gun.”
He turned a convulsed face toward Sinclair.
“And that goes for you.”
“Partner,” said Riley Sinclair, “that’s the best thing I’ve heard you say. Until then, so long!”
The other wrenched his horse about and went down the trail at a reckless gallop, plunging out of view around the first shoulder of a hill.
15
SINCLAIR WATCHED HIM out of sight. He turned to find that Jig had slumped against the tree and stood with his arm thrown across his face. It reminded him, with a curious pang of mingled pity and disgust, of the way Gaspar had faced the masked men of Sour Creek’s posse the day before. There was the same unmanly abnegation of the courage to meet danger and look it in the eye. Here, again, the schoolteacher was wincing from the very memory of a crisis.
“Look here!” exclaimed Sinclair. His contempt rang in his voice. “They ain’t any danger now. Turn around here and buck up. Keep your chin high and look a man in the face, will you?”
Slowly the arm descended. He found himself looking into a white and tortured face. His respect for the schoolteacher rose somewhat. The very fact that the little man could endure such pain in silence, no matter what that pain might be, was something to his credit.
“Now come out with it, Gaspar. You double-crossed this Cartwright, eh?”
“Yes,” whispered Jig.
“Will you tell me? Not that I make a business of prying into the affairs of other gents, but I figure I might be able to help you straighten things out with this Cartwright.”
He made a wry face and then rubbed the side of his head where a lump was slowly growing.
“Of all the gents that I ever seen,” said Sinclair softly, “I ain’t never seen none that made me want to tangle with ’em so powerful bad. And of all the poisoned fatheads, all the mean, sneakin’ advantage-takin’ skunks that ever I run up again’, this gent Cartwright is the worst. If his hide was worth a million an inch, I would have it. If he was to pay me a hundred thousand a day, I wouldn’t be his pal for a minute.” He paused. “Them, taking ’em by and large, is my sentiments about this here Cartwright. So open up and tell me what you done to him.”
To his very real surprise the schoolteacher shook his head. “I can’t do it.”
“H’m,” said Sinclair, cut to the quick. “Can’t you trust me with it, eh?”
“Ah,” murmured Gaspar, “of all the men in the world, you’re the one I’d tell it to most easily. But I can’t — I can’t.”
“I don’t care whether you tell me or not. Whatever you done, it must have been plumb bad if you can’t even tell it to a gent that likes Cartwright like he likes poison.”
“It was bad,” said Jig slowly. “It was very bad — it was a sin. Until I die I can never repay him for what I have done.”
Sinclair recovered some of his good nature at this outburst of self-accusation.
“I’ll be hanged if I believe it,” he declared bluntly. “Not a word of it! When you come right down to the point you’ll find out that you ain’t been half so bad as you think. The way I figure you is this, Jig. You ain’t so bad, except that you ain’t got no nerve. Was it a matter of losing your nerve that made Cartwright mad at you?”
“Yes. It was altogether that.”
Sinclair sighed. “Too bad! I don’t blame you for not wanting to talk about it. They’s a flaw in everything, Jig, and this is yours. If I was to be around you much, d’you know what I’d do?”
“What?”
“I’d try to plumb forget about this flaw of yours: That’s a fact. But as far as Cartwright goes, to blazes with him! And that’s where he’s apt to wind up pronto if he’s as good as his word and comes after me with a gun. In the meantime you grab your hoss, kid, and slide back into Sour Creek and show the boys this here confession I’ve written. You can add one thing. I didn’t put it in because I knowed they wouldn’t believe me. I killed Quade fair and square. I give him the first move for his gun, and then I beat him to the draw and killed him on an even break. That’s the straight of it. I know they won’t believe it. Matter of fact I’m saying it for you, Jig, more’n I am for them!”
It was an amazing thing to see the sudden light that flooded the face of the schoolteacher.
“And I do believe you, Sinclair,” he said. “With all my heart I believe you and know you couldn’t have taken an unfair advantage!”
“H’m,” muttered Riley. “It ain’t bad to hear you say that. And now trot along, son.”
Cold Feet made no move to obey.
“Not that I wouldn’t like to have you along, but where I got to go, you’d be a weight around my neck. Besides, your game is to show the folks down yonder that you ain’t a murderer, and that paper I’ve give you will prove it. We’ll drift together along the trail part way, and down yonder I turn up for the tall timber.”
To all this Jig returned no answer, but in a peculiarly lifeless manner went to his horse and climbed in his awkward way into the saddle. They went down the trail slowly.
“Because,” explained the cowpuncher, “if I save my hoss’s wind I may be saving my own life.”
Where the trail bent like an elbow and shot sheer down for the plain and Sour Creek, Riley Sinclair pointed his horse’s nose up to the taller mountains, but Jig sat his horse in melancholy silence and looked mournfully up at his companion.
“So long,” said Sinclair cheerily. �
��And when you get down yonder, it’ll happen most likely that pretty soon you’ll hear a lot of hard things about Riley Sinclair.”
“If I do — if I hear a syllable against you,” cried the schoolteacher with a flare of color, “I’ll — I’ll drive the words back into their teeth!”
He shook with his emotion; Riley Sinclair shook with controlled laughter.
“Would you do all of that, partner? Well, I believe you’d try. What I mean to say is this: No matter what they say, you can lay to it that Sinclair has tried to play square and clean according to his own lights, which ain’t always the best in the world. So long!”
There was no answer. He found himself looking down into the quivering face of the schoolteacher.
“Why, kid, you look all busted up!”
“Riley,” gasped Jig very faintly, “I can’t go!”
“And why not?”
“Because I can’t meet Jude.”
“Cartwright, eh? But you got to, sooner or later.”
“I’ll die first.”
“Would your nerve hold you up through that?”
“So easily,” said Jig. There was such a simple gravity and despair in his expression that Sinclair believed it. He grunted and stared hard.
“This Cartwright gent is worse’n death to you?”
“A thousand, thousand times!”
“How come?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“I kind of wish,” said Sinclair thoughtfully, “that I’d kept my grip a mite longer.”
“No, no!”
“You don’t wish him dead?”
Jig shuddered.
“You plumb beat me, partner. And now you want to come along with me?” Sinclair grinned. “An outlaw’s life ain’t what it’s cracked up to be, son. You’d last about a day doing what I have to do.”
“You’ll find,” said the schoolteacher eagerly, “that I can stand it amazingly well. I’ll — I’ll be far, far stronger than you expect!”
“Somehow I kind of believe it. But it’s for your own fool sake, son, that I don’t want you along.”
“Let me try,” pleaded Jig eagerly.
The other shook his head and seemed to change his mind in the very midst of the gesture.
“Why not?” he asked himself. “You’ll get enough of it inside of a day. And then you’ll find out that they’s some things about as bad as death — or Cartwright. Come on, kid!”
16
IT WAS A weary ride that brought them to the end of that day and to a camping place. It seemed to Jig that the world was made up of nothing but the ups and downs of that mountain trail. Now, as the sun went down, they came out on a flat shoulder of the mountain. Far below them lay Sour Creek, long lost in the shadow of premature night which filled the valley.
“Here we are, fixed up as comfortable as can be,” said Sinclair cheerily. “There’s water, and there’s wood aplenty. What could a gent ask for more? And here’s my country!”
For a moment his expression softened as he looked over the black peaks stepping away to the north. Now he pointed out a grove of trees, and on the other side of the little plateau was heard the murmur of a feeble spring.
Riley swung down easily from the saddle, but when Jig dismounted his knees buckled with weariness, and he slipped down on a rock. He was unheeded for a moment by the cowpuncher, who was removing from his saddle the quarters of a deer which he had shot at the foot of the mountain. When this task was ended, a stern voice brought Jig to his feet.
“What’s all this? How come? Going to let that hoss stand there all night with his saddle on? Hurry up!”
“All right,” replied the schoolteacher, but his voice quaked with weariness, and the cinch knot, drawn taut by the powerful hand of Jerry Bent, refused to loosen. He struggled with it until his fingers ached, and his panicky breath came in gasps of nervous excitement.
Presently he was aware of the tall, dark form of Sinclair behind him, his saddle slung across his arm.
“By guns,” muttered Sinclair, “it ain’t possible! Not enough muscle to untie a knot? It’s a good thing that your father can’t see the sort of a son that he turned out. Lemme at that!”
Under his strong fingers the knot gave by magic.
“Now yank that saddle off and put it yonder with mine.”
Jig pulled back the saddle, but when the full weight jerked down on him he staggered, and he began to drag the heavy load.
“Hey,” cut in the voice of the tyrant, “want to spoil that saddle, kid?
Lift it, can’t you?”
Gaspar obeyed with a start and, having placed it in the required position, turned and waited guiltily.
“Time you was learning something about camping out,” declared the cowpuncher, “and I’ll teach you. Take this ax and gimme some wood, pronto!”
He handed over a short ax, heavy-headed and small of haft.
“That bush yonder! That’s dead, or dead enough for us.”
Plainly Jig was in awe of that ax. He carried it well out from his side, as if he feared the least touch against his leg might mean a cut. Of all this, Riley Sinclair was aware with a gradually darkening expression. He had been partly won to Jig that day, but his better opinion of the schoolteacher was being fast undermined.
With a gloomy eye he watched John Gaspar drop on his knees at the base of the designated shrub and raise the ax slowly — in both hands! Not only that, but the head remained poised, hung over the schoolteacher’s shoulder. When the blow fell, instead of striking solidly on the trunk of the bush, it crashed futilely through a branch. Riley Sinclair drew closer to watch. It was excusable, perhaps, for a man to be unable to ride or to shoot or to face other men. But it was inconceivable that any living creature should be so clumsy with a common ax.
To his consummate disgust the work of Jig became worse and worse. No two blows fell on the same spot. The trunk of the little tree became bruised, but even when the edge of the ax did not strike on a branch, at most it merely sliced into the outer surface of the wood and left the heart untouched. It was a process of gnawing, not of chopping. To crown the terrible exhibition, Jig now rested from his labors and examined the palms of his hands, which had become a bright red.
“Gimme the ax,” said Sinclair shortly. He dared not trust himself to more speech and, snatching it from the hands of Cold Feet, buried the blade into the very heart of the trunk. Another blow, driven home with equal power and precision on the opposite side, made the tree shudder to its top, and the third blow sent it swishing to the earth.
This brought a short cry of admiration and wonder from the schoolteacher, for which Sinclair rewarded him with one glance of contempt. With sweeping strokes he cleared away the half-dead branches. Presently the trunk was naked. On it Riley now concentrated his attack, making the short ax whistle over his shoulders. The trunk of the shrub was divided into handy portions as if by magic.
Still John Gaspar stood by, gaping, apparently finding nothing to do.
And this with a camp barely started!
It was easier to do oneself, however, than to give directions to such stupidity. Sinclair swept up an armful of wood and strode off to the spot he had selected for the campfire, near the place where the spring water ran into a small pool. A couple of big rocks thrown in place furnished a windbreak. Between them he heaped dead twigs, and in a moment the flame was leaping.
As soon as the fire was lighted they became aware that the night was well nigh upon them. Hitherto the day had seemed some distance from its final end, for there was still color in the sky, and the tops of the western mountains were still bright. But with the presence of fire brightness, the rest of the world became dim. The western peaks were ghostly; the sky faded to the ashes of its former splendor; and Jig found himself looking down upon thick night in the lower valleys. He saw the eyes of the horses glistening, as they raised their heads to watch. The gaunt form of Sinclair seemed enormous. Stooping about the fire, enormous shadows drifted above and behind
him. Sometimes the light flushed over his lean face and glinted in his eyes. Again his head was lost in shadow, and perhaps only the active, reaching hands were illuminated brightly.
He prepared the deer meat with incomprehensible swiftness, at the same time arranging the fire so that it rapidly burned down to a firm, strong, level bed of coals, and by the time the bed of coals were ready, the meat was prepared in thick steaks to broil over it.
In a little time the rich brown of the cooking venison streaked across to Jig. He had kept at a distance up to this time, realizing that he was in disgrace. Now he drifted near. He was rewarded by an amiable grin from Riley Sinclair, whose ugly humor seemed to have vanished at the odor of the broiling meat.
“Watch this meat cook, kid, will you? There’s something you can do that don’t take no muscle and don’t take no knowledge. All you got to do is to keep listening with your nose, and if you smell it burning, yank her off. Understand? And don’t let the fire blaze. She’s apt to flare up at the corners, you see? And these here twigs is apt to burn through — these ones that keep the meat off’n the coals. Watch them, too. And that’s all you got to do. Can you manage all them things at once?”
Jig nodded gravely, as though he failed to see the contempt.
“I seen a fine patch of grass down the hill a bit. I’m going to take the hosses down there and hobble ’em out.” Whistling, Sinclair strode off down the hill, leading the horses after him.
The schoolteacher watched him go, and when the forms had vanished, and only the echo of the whistling blew back, he looked up. The last life was gone from the sunset. The last time he glanced up, there had been only a few dim stars; now they had come down in multitudes, great yellow planets and whole rifts of steel-blue stars.
He took from his pocket the old envelope which Sinclair had given him, examined the scribbled confession, chuckling at the crude labor with which the writing had been drawn out, and then deliberately stuffed the paper into a corner of the fire. It flamed up, singeing the cooking meat, but John Gaspar paid no heed. He was staring off down the hill to make sure that Sinclair should not return in time to see that little act of destruction. An act of self-destruction, too, it well might turn out to be.