Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  It was only a sudden reflex of will that drove him out at length. He wakened one afternoon from a stupor. He hardly felt hunger now. A haze hung before his eyes. The same haze hung over his mind. But there was a sudden parting of the veil as he saw his hand raised before him, a mere, withered claw rather than a hand!

  The horror brought him erect. There he stood, shuddering in the cold, and realizing that when he lay down again it would be to fall into a sleep from which there was no waking. And fear drove him on more strongly than dread of the cold could keep him back. Presently, swathed in blankets, he staggered weakly out of the cave. A side draft of the wind caught him and knocked him flat. He rose again and went on blindly through the forest, the rifle dragging down in his hands as though it were of a ton’s weight. He knew that even if he saw a fur worth having he could not shoot the wearer, and yet on he went, driven simply by a horror of the cave and the death to which he would be returning if he went back to it.

  He found himself stumbling across a raw, bare patch of earth from which a recent landslide had torn the trees and shrubs. And, tripping on a loose stone, he fell headlong for the tenth time. He was stunned by the fall. When he roused again, he found that he was half frozen, so frozen that when he leaned and picked up the gun the weapon fell from his numbed fingers and, striking a rock, knocked out a bright spark.

  Tommy stared with vague agony down at the stone. In the very rock there seemed to be fire. He alone in all creation was without warmth. He was still half dazed, half stupid, but that spark had fascinated him. Regardless of the harm that might be done the barrel, he dropped the rifle again, and again the spark jumped from the piece of flat, black stone.

  Suddenly, he picked it up with a wild hope growing in him. Sparks will light fire. This must be a flint. What had the Indians used for centuries before him? With the stone hugged to his breast, with the rifle trailing behind him, he made on toward the cave as fast as his weak knees would support his strides.

  So, muddy from his falls, with a ringing as of bells in his ears, he entered the cave and looked about him for tinder. He found something excellent for his purpose - a pile of dried bark which he had used to start his fires while the matches lasted. Some of this he shredded to a bundle of small fibers, so brittle that they threatened to crumble to a powder. He gathered larger wood near by, and then he took the revolver, as a handier bit of steel, and, the flint dropped at an angle, he began to knock a shower of sparks upon the tinder.

  They fell all over the bark. A faint smoke arose, but when he ceased striking the flint the smoke died out. He worked until his weak arms ached. Then, as despair was coming over him, there was a new thought. He hammered again with all his might and main, tossed aside the battered gun as soon as he saw a small spot glowing on the bark, and began to fan this with his breath.

  He blew till his lungs threatened to burst, till his head grew dizzy, and behold, the smoldering spot of dark grew in width, ate into the bark. Hastily, he placed more shreds of the crumpled bark upon the spot. Again he blew. And now a thin column of smoke rose. To Tommy it was the most blissful sight he had ever seen. Literally, it meant life!

  Again he blew with all his might. The smoldering increased, grew audible. There was a faint sparkling, the smoke cloud increased tenfold. He began to fan the heap with a part of the blanket. And now the smoldering place became a vivid orange which lighted up his hands at work. Suddenly, a little tongue of flame shot up, quivered, while Tommy hung breathless over it, and then steadied into a swiftly growing blaze. He had made fire! He had made it of steel and stone and wood! And a great wave of gratitude flooded through Tommy. He cast up his arms. Tears streamed down his face.

  But he dared not wait. Quickly, he threw on the bits of wood. The smoke rose again as the fire worked. Then a new and stronger flame burst out. And, like a madman, he threw on more and more wood. A roaring blaze shook up toward the top of the cave. A soaring flame licked against the roof itself. And Tommy sat down with his blanket thrown away, unneeded, his arms put out to the heavensent heat!

  A month later, on a day, there blew up a warm wind. It was a true Chinook. It melted the snows in the lower valleys as though a fire had been built upon them. In a fortnight Tommy had dry footing for his hunting trips.

  He came out from the winter prison hollow cheeked, still weak in body from the great ordeal, but full of pride, full of invincible confidence in his strength to face any ordeals before him.

  CHAPTER XIII

  HE MADE HIS first trip to the cave of Madame Grizzly. The entrance was still blocked with brush. He exerted no effort to rouse them. He was wise enough to understand that there is no safety in interfering with mother nature when she is at her work.

  So he went back down the slopes, finding every trail crossed with rivulets fed from snows that were melting under the trees. It was on this trip that he made his first kill of big game. Something stirred in a thicket before him. He jerked out the revolver and stood eagerly waiting, and in a moment a little, brown-bodied deer stepped into view, and Tommy fired.

  He almost regretted what he had done as he stood over the beautiful little body a moment later, but life in the wilderness is a grim thing. It is kill or be killed, and Tommy had lived here long enough to understand it.

  Many times he had seen his father cut up deer. And now he set busily to work getting off the hide. There was many a slip of the knife, many a slit in the tender pelt, but eventually, after a weary task of tugging and pulling and cutting, the work was done, after a fashion. Then he cut the deer into quarters, hung three parts as high as he could on a shrub, and carried one ham back to the cave.

  To roast a quarter in the Dutch oven was a considerable task. Moreover, it was one which he had never performed before except under the strict supervision of his father. And it was dark in the cave before he peered at his cookery and decided that it was done. And what a fragrance greeted his nostrils as he opened the oven! Surely, that was worth waiting for.

  He had just sat back to enjoy the meal in prospect, when a human voice, the first he had heard in almost a year, spoke from the entrance.

  “Hello, son!”

  He leaped to his feet with a shout of astonishment. And he saw that a big, rough-bearded man had just crawled through the entrance to the cave and had risen to his height - a huge, thick-shouldered man in the later middle of life.

  There was one pang of disappointment, of unbearable sorrow, in Tommy as he saw that it was not John Parks come back to him. In that instant, hope of the return died forever in his breast. And, in another breathing space, he was wild with joy because a human being had at last crossed his trail. The long silence was ended. He went to the big man with a rush.

  “Oh,” cried Tommy, “how did you come - how did you come? How did you find me?”

  Here the big fellow stepped back from him, gathered his bushy brows, and peered down at Tommy with little black, bright eyes.

  “Look here, son,” he said, “you ain’t telling me that you’re living here alone, are you? Your pa ain’t here with you?”

  He said this with an eagerness which Tommy could not understand, and the boy told all his story in ten words. But, the instant he had learned that John Parks was dead, the stranger seemed to lose all interest in the rest of the narrative and the story of Tommy’s sufferings. He strode forward, lifted the cover, and inhaled the fragrance of the roasted venison.

  “We’ll eat now,” he said, “and we’ll talk things over later on.”

  And, so saying, his big knife instantly slashed into the vitals of the roast. He began to eat wolfishly, and Tommy, amazed and bewildered by such treatment, stood for a time in the offing. When he approached to take something for himself, the stranger lifted his eyes with a silent glare, and Tommy retreated again. Not until the big man had ended his meal, bolting the meat in great chunks, could Tommy take a portion in what he considered safety.

  By this time he was thoroughly frightened, but the black-bearded fellow had reclined agains
t a stone and spread out his legs toward the fire. He began to roll a cigarette.

  “Make yourself handy, son,” he grunted after a time when the cigarette was lighted and he had blown a cloud of smoke upwards. “Get some wood on that fire.”

  Tommy moved as though he had been struck with a whip, half choking on the mouthful he was eating. And, after he had obediently heaped on the wood and the flame was soaring, the fear of the taciturn stranger had increased in him to such an extent that his throat closed and he could not speak. He sat watching and waiting uneasily. And still the stranger did not stir, but seemed to drink up the heat of the fire, while his eyes bored into Tommy.

  The boy began to notice the equipment of the big man, now. He was wearing rough clothes which were plastered with mud and torn with a thousand small rents, such as come when one rushes recklessly through dense forest or climbs over rough rocks with many a slip and fall. Also, in spite of the bushy beard of the man and his stalwart frame, Tommy saw that the upper part of his cheeks were sunken and his eyes buried. Plainly, he had made a long and hurried march. He had made it on foot, and he had made it without so much as a blanket. Yet he had chosen to carry a perfect arsenal of guns and ammunition. He was weighed down with a Colt and a heavy cartridge belt crammed full of bullets, and now there rested beside him a repeating rifle of the newest and most expensive model. Tommy could see that it had been scrupulously cared for. There was not so much as a scratch upon the wood of the butt.

  From these things he began to make deductions actively. Men did not travel over the mountains hastily in the time of the thaw, equipped with only guns and bullets, unless they were either pursuing or fleeing. And something told Tommy that this was not a case of pursuit. Men who pursue are fearless, and the keen eyes of this fellow rested upon even a boy like Tommy with a world of suspicion and cautious reserve.

  “Look here, kid,” he said suddenly, “how long you been here?”

  “Almost a year,” said Tommy.

  “A year!” said the other. “And nobody ain’t been near you all that time?”

  “Nobody,” said Tommy.

  “Not a soul, eh?”

  “Not a soul.”

  The big man drew a great breath, and then, in silence, he stared off into vacancy. Presently, he began to smile. Evidently, what he had learned had pleased him immensely.

  “And,” said Tommy, “I’d like to know when we start on.”

  “What?” said the stranger. “When we start on?”

  “I - I thought,” said Tommy, “that you’d take me with you when you went.”

  The other laughed with a brutal abruptness.

  “Now, why,” said he, “are you aching to get back to other folks? What’ll they do for you? Nothing! Look at the way I been treated by everybody! Look at the way everybody has treated me!”

  He stopped suddenly and eyed Tommy in that keen way he had, until he apparently decided that there was nothing to fear. He shrugged his shoulders. His tongue loosened.

  “There ain’t no justice down among men,” he said in a voice half gruff and half whining. “They don’t give a man a chance. Look at me! Is a gent responsible for what he does when he’s got some hooch under his belt? No, he ain’t. No right-thinking man can say that he is. But I wake up with a headache, not knowing what I’ve done, and find about a dozen of ’em chasing me with dogs and guns. No questions asked. They just open fire when they sight me. Well, says I to myself, what’s all the fuss about? What have I done? But there ain’t any use waiting to get my questions answered with a slug through the head, so I foot it for the hills and give ’em the clean slip and have a dang hard trip - and finally I wind up here! And here’s where I’m going to stay, and here’s where you’re going to stay!” he added fiercely. “I ain’t going to have nobody sneaking out and telling where I am. If you’ve been here a year without nobody finding you, I guess I can stay here a year the same way. And by that time things will have cleared up a little, and I can go down and look around and see how the land lies. Ain’t that sense?”

  He seemed to be speaking to himself more than to Tommy, and the boy kept a discreet silence. Suddenly, the head of the fugitive jerked around, and the keen little brute eyes glared at Tommy.

  “Come here!” he roared.

  Tommy came, trembling. The big hand of the stranger shot out and clamped around Tommy’s wrist. The pressure seemed to be cracking the bones.

  “You’re going to stay right on here with me, kid!” he thundered. “Besides, if you can forage for one you can forage for two. So you start in and make me comfortable. And there ain’t going to be no getting away. If you try to run for it, I’ll start out and trail you, and I’m the outtrailingist man you ever seen. I’d run you down inside a couple of hours, and then I’d tear you to bits!”

  His eyes snapped, and his teeth gleamed behind his beard as he spoke. And Tommy’s heart turned cold.

  “Speak out!” roared the big man. “Tell me how you like me.”

  “Fine!” stammered poor Tommy. “I - I like you fine.”

  “You lie!” cried the big man, and with a sweep of his thick arm he knocked Tommy flat on his back.

  The sting of the blow on his cheek worked like a strange madness in Tommy. He had been accustomed to the gentle ways of John Parks. He could not understand a rough voice and a heavy hand. And, unreasoning, he came off the ground like the recoil of a cat and flew at the face of the stranger.

  The latter had barely time to erect a guard, and that guard was insufficient. He lurched to his feet while the stinging, small fists were cutting into his face with a rain of blows. Once erect, he pushed Tommy away with a long, extended arm. The wonder left his face. A cruel interest took its place. And he poised his great, right hand.

  “I’m going to lesson you,” he said savagely, drawing his breath in with joy at the prospect. “I’m going to give you one lesson for the sake of manners and showing you who’s the boss. Stand off, you imp!”

  The last word was a grunt of rage as Tommy slipped under the extended arm and struck savagely into the body of the big man. And then the blow fell. It came straight and hard, with the overmastering weight of the stranger’s shoulder behind it. It struck Tommy on the side of the head and rolled him along the ground.

  He lay there stunned with a sting along the side of his face and a warmth which told him that the skin had been broken by that brutal stroke.

  “Get up!” roared the big man. And he kicked Tommy with his heavy boot.

  That wild anger leaped into the heart of the boy again. He came off the ground, how, he could not say, and sprang into the face of the stranger.

  “You little wildcat!” gasped out the big man and recoiled, though driven more by astonishment than by his hurts.

  That instant of recoil, however, gave another opportunity to Tommy. He leaped to the pile of dried wood which he had heaped along one side of the cave, and a second later the billet cracked heavily along the sconce of the stranger. Again Tommy struck, and again he shouted with a wild satisfaction as he felt the wood bite soft and heavy into flesh. Then the stick was torn from his hand. He leaped away, and he raced for the entrance to the cave, knowing that now nothing could save him but flight. The big man was not cursing, and his silence meant strangely more than oaths.

  He was almost at the entrance when something told him to dodge. Down he dropped in a heap. And barely in time. The scooping arms of the big man swept over him, brushing his clothes. The toes of the stranger’s boot lodged with sickening force against his ribs. Then the other crashed against the rocks with a shout of pain and rage. But Tommy, rising hastily to his feet again, knew that his finish had come, for now the big man was between him and the mouth of the cave!

  CHAPTER XIV

  HE SLIPPED BACK into the very center of the cave where he would have more room. Yet he knew that even there he was playing a losing game. In speed of foot, in endurance, he could not compare with the grown man. Presently, he would be cornered, and the great, b
one-breaking hands would fall upon him. After that -

  His horrified mind grew blank. But, having picked up another stick of wood, he waited. He might strike and dodge at the same time and so gain another chance to get at the outlet. But that chance was only one in ten. And he glanced longingly up the side of the cave where he had laid away rifle and revolver on a higher shelf. Oh, fool that he had been to put his weapons in a place where they were not instantly accessible!

  The stranger seemed to have the same thought. He had risen slowly from the ground, drawing out his revolver as he did so. But a second of thought seemed to reassure him. He pushed the Colt back into its holster. And he began to advance slowly with such a face of fiendish rage that Tommy was paralyzed. No, there would be no dodging now! This cold fury would prove inescapable. He saw a tiny trickle of crimson down the face of the man and into the beard. That red mark would be warrant for his own destruction, beyond a doubt.

  “Now,” gasped out the other, “now - we’ll try something!”

  And he came with his great arms spread out, moving with long, stealthy strides as though he were stealing up on an unwatchful victim. And in that nightmare horror Tommy could not move.

  It was then he saw a dark form emerging out of the spot of black night at the mouth of the cave. With Jack and Jerry crowding behind her, in waddled Madame Bruin with as much assurance as though into her own cave. And a shout of joyous welcome, a cry of wildest relief burst from Tommy’s lips.

  That shout made the big man whirl on his heel. One instant he stood petrified with astonishment. Then madame reared up and stood immense on her hind legs, with a roar at this unexpected stranger. Another moment, and she would have taken to her heels. But the big man did not wait. He plunged to the side of the fire and snatched up his rifle and pitched the butt into the hollow of his shoulder. It happened all in a twinkling. The gun spoke, and madame pitched heavily forward and died before she struck the ground.