by Max Brand
This, however, was quite a different thing. It should be remembered that the reputation of Bud, although he was not an old man, went back almost to the legendary days of the frontier. Ten years used to make a generation in the West. Bud was four generations old — and, from this viewpoint, he was older than Delapin.
All this time he had been despised as a shiftless and worthless ignoramus, but he had been respected as a terrible man of battle. And still his skill was as great as ever, but now that he was challenged, he knew that his nerve was gone. He shrank from the cold, blue eyes of young Delapin.
“I thought so,” said Pierre. “Just rotten inside as well as outside. Bud, who sent you?”
“Sent me?” quavered Bud, forgetting his cigarette until it dwindled out between his fingers.
“Yes, who sent you to me?”
“I — nobody.”
“You lie, Bud.”
Bud lighted his cigarette with a trembling hand.
“I say you lie,” said Pierre. “I’ve never harmed you. I’ve never spoken against you.”
“I was broke,” muttered Bud.
“Another lie,” said Pierre. “You’d never come to rob me of money. You’d ask me for it, the way the other bums do.”
In point of fact he had been an easy mark for the loafers ever since his days of prosperity began. He could remember too many hungry days in his own past to permit him to let others suffer, if he could help them with a few coins.
Bud could only shrug his shoulders again. His eyes were beginning to waver about the room — anywhere, so long as they did not have to rest on the face of Pierre Delapin.
“Now,” said Pierre, “I intend to hear you talk.” He stepped to the wall; he drew forth the long Colt.
“Are you ready, Bud?”
“For what?”
“To tell me who hired you for the dirty work?”
“Nobody — I’d swear—”
“I’m going to shoot, Bud. Not to kill, right away. I’m going to slide a bullet through your cheek and shave off the—”
“For heaven’s sake!” breathed Bud.
“Are you ready?”
Bud slumped to his knees. “Don’t shoot, Delapin!”
The muzzle of the black gun tipped up. “Well, Bud?”
“It was—”
“Quick!”
“He’ll hound me out of the country!”
“He’ll be dead before he hounds anybody. Who was it?”
“Purchass!”
XI. BLACKMAIL
IT WAS SAM Stevens who saw them first through the window.
“Delapin has come to call on you,” he called to Purchass. 153
The rancher started up. “What the devil do you mean by that?” he gasped.
Sam turned to him in the most open amazement. “Why, what I say.” He was astonished to see that Purchass was white and wide of eye.
“There he comes down the road, and a friend with him,” he continued and pointed.
Purchass shouldered him aside and pressed his face close to the window. “They’ve double-crossed me and put up a game,” he was heard to mutter. “The two devils have — I won’t see Delapin,” he growled, breaking off his former remarks and turning sharply from the window. “You — you go out and tell them that — no, why shouldn’t I talk to them myself?”
He began to walk up and down the room, muttering to himself. Sam Stevens wondered at him for a moment, then returned to the window in time to see Pierre Delapin take off his hat and bow to Rose — in time to see her blush and smile in a way that made her suddenly enchanting. And the heart of Sam sank. He was not overacute, but an instinct told him that he had lost infinite ground with Rose. When he turned again, Purchass was tramping out of the room. Just beyond the verandah he confronted the pair, Pierre cool and at ease, Bud with his eyes on the ground.
“Come out here with me,” said the rancher, and he led the way to a great mulberry tree out of earshot from the house. There he turned and faced them.
“I see what it is,” he said. “You two have cooked up a deal. You want blackmail, eh? Well, I’ll tell you, I’ll see you hanged before you get it! Not a cent from me!”
“Be quiet,” said Pierre Delapin. “I wish to talk to you no longer than necessary. I have only brought this hound along so that you could see his face and make sure that he had really called on me. Now get out, Bud!”
And Bud, crimson with shame and trembling with rage at his persecutor, turned his horse and literally fled. The rancher watched that retreat with amazement. Then he looked up at Pierre.
“What does it mean?” he asked. “What in the name of thunder has happened to Bud?”
“His bluff has been called,” said Pierre slowly. “He’s backed down. He’s told me everything.”
“What?”
“How you hired him for your job.”
“What job?”
“You can’t wriggle out of it, Purchass.”
“Do you think his word will stand up against mine in a court? Even if you add your word to his?”
“Good — good — ,” muttered Delapin.
“So, if you know that, you have only come for blackmail.”
“Certainly,” Pierre nodded.
“But if you cannot convince a court, can you expect to convince me that there is a necessity to pay you money?”
“In the first place,” said Pierre, “I have something more than a spoken word. I have a written document.”
“Let me see it,” said the rancher.
It was drawn from the pocket of Pierre and handed across. And Purchass, as he ran his eye down the scrawled words, saw his own damnation, if this account should ever come to the eye of a third person. For there was truth in the very raggedness of the writing and in its anxious haste, as though the muzzle of a gun were jabbing at his back as he worked. Suppose he were to rip the confession to shreds? He looked up and saw the hand of Delapin near a gun. He handed back the confession.
“So that,” he said, “is finished.”
“And the blackmail,” said Delapin, “begins.”
“I don’t mind being drawn on in moderation.”
“I am not moderate. I want more than half of everything you own.”
“Then I’ll see you hanged.”
“You’ll see me married, instead.”
“Married?”
“I understand everything, Purchass. You are afraid that Rose may make the mistake of marrying me on a sudden impulse. That’s why Bud was sent to call on me. You were a fool to do that, however. I had made up my mind to leave the country, because I knew that I was not good enough for her. But then came our friend, Bud. And after I had talked with him, I decided that there was still a chance for me. I might persuade her father to become more generous of her time with me.”
Purchass grew livid with anger and then red with shame. He cried suddenly: “Delapin, are you an infernal rascal of a crooked gambler, or are you not?”
“I never have cheated at cards in my life,” said Pierre.
“The devil you say!”
“Upon my honor.”
“You’ve—”
“I’ve used a gun — on men. But I never took another man at a disadvantage. I deceived Missus Winton. But what else could I do? It was my chance. I had to lie to get an opportunity to make myself civilized.”
“Hmm,” said Purchass, and suddenly he began to grin. “I’m cornered so that I have to believe you. But — you’re a cool-headed devil, Delapin.”
“No cooler than I have to be, sir.”
“You’d never forgive me for sending Bud—”
“If a gambler tried to marry a daughter of mine,” said Pierre, “I’d go myself to do the shooting.”
“Pierre,” said the rancher, “I may be making a mistake. And if I am, I promise you that I shall have the job that Bud didn’t do finished up later on. Good bye — but wait. There’s that Sam Stevens — ?”
Pierre, however, was already too far away to be calle
d back. He did not pause at the hitching rack. He ran straight to the gate, veered it to one side, and swung himself over the gate and onto the walk. In a few seconds he stood, panting, before Rose on the farther side of the house, all unaware that Sam Stevens had stealthily followed and was spying around the corner.
“Rose,” said Pierre, “your father has given me the privilege of — of asking you—”
“What?” asked Rose.
“To marry me, Rose.”
“If you have persuaded such a dragon as Dad, what earthly trouble could you have persuading a mere woman, Pierre?”
As for what followed, it made Sam Stevens set his teeth. Then he shrank back to the shady side of the house.
THE END
Outlaw Breed (1923)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER I
THE HISTORY OF Philip Slader did not originate on the day when he met the Newells, yet it took a definite turning point at that moment. Looking back for the best time to begin writing the narrative of Phil Slader, this time seems just the day one would want for introducing him.
There was a strong north wind beating sheets of rain against the colder face of Mount Crusoe. From the peaks of the big range, storm vapor came straight out to the south. Over that southern valley the clouds broke off in masses and whirled away toward the gray horizon.
The sun was not totally obscured. It shone through in warm patches and gave many golden moments during which the Newells looked up to the crags of Mount Crusoe and thanked the providence that had directed them to buy their land on the southern side of the range instead of the region of these tempests.
They had come so lately to this section of the land that they had not yet learned that one spoke there of a pitching horse instead of one who bucks. But John Newell knew as much about cows as could well be crowded into one mind, and since he came into the land well provided with funds, there was no doubt that he would succeed. The very first men from whom he bought cows agreed afterward that this was no tenderfoot. He knew beef when he saw it and he knew a right price from a wrong one. However, he began moderately, hesitating to show his hand or commit himself until he learned how cattle wintered in this locality. If all turned out as he hoped, he would invest heavily in the spring. In the meantime, as has been said, he was congratulating himself that he had not bought on the north side of the range. Then the brightness of the day ended; the evening stooped slowly upon them like a shadow leaning from the crests of Mount Crusoe, and with the blackness outside, and the windows trembling and the howling of the storm, they looked often at one another and smiled, half in fear and half in happiness as they tasted the full pleasure of their security.
The fire in the dining room was smoking badly; therefore the dinner table was spread in the kitchen. The family had finished soup and come to boiled beef and cabbage when they heard a knock on the door. Sam Newell, like a boy who knew his duties, rose to answer the summons, but his father called him back to his chair.
“You take a night like this,” muttered John Newell, and he glanced apologetically at his wife, “and you can’t tell who’ll be traveling around.”
As he stepped to the door and turned the knob, the wind struck the house so heavy a blow that the door pitched strongly back to the face of Newell. It left him staggered, half blinded with the force of the gale. He did not see, but he heard his wife crying:
“Why, John, it’s only a boy!”
Then Newell saw that it was only a boy. He was not more than fourteen, certainly, strongly built, and dressed in rags which the gusts of rain had drenched. He made no movement to step inside, but merely tilted his head back a little and looked quietly into the face of the rancher. Newell was startled. They were like the eyes of a man, and not of a young man, either. Such deliberation, such calm power should not lie in the eyes of a man until middle age.
“How’s things?” asked the boy.
“Why, dog-gone my heart!” muttered the rancher, and he took the youngster by the shoulder and pulled him inside.
He closed the door and turned to find the stranger as calm as ever, standing at ease with the water coursing down his clothes. His legs were bare from the knees down, and the smutch of mud, from a recent stumble in the dark, was now washing away from one tanned shin and turning to a muddy puddle around his naked toes.
But what his eyes saw was not the chief interest in the mind of Newell. In the tips of his fingers there was still a tingling feeling of the hard, sinewy muscles with which the shoulder of that boy was overlaid. A trained man, a hard-working man might have muscles like that, but never a child!
“What’s up? What’s up?” gasped out Newell. “Have your folks sent you here for help or something? What’s broke loose to send you out on a night like this, youngster? What brought you here?”
The stranger hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “The light,” said he, “and the smell of the chuck.”
Here his glance wavered toward the table with its loaded plates and platters. Then he looked back to his questioner; there was no sign of emotion in him except a faint, faint quivering of his nostrils.
Mrs. Newell stood up in her place. Her voice was rich with indignation directed against the entire human race which had allowed a child to reach such a condition as this. She had seen that glance and she knew hunger when she saw it. What mother does not?
“Sammy!” she cried to her son, “take him up to your room as fast as you can jump and get him into some of your dry clothes. Quick, do you hear me? Don’t stand there like a booby. Nell, fetch another chair here to the table.”
Sammy lurched out of his chair, keeping upon the strange boy the stare of one enchanted. “Come on!” said he. “I’ll fix you up,” he added, as the boy from the outer night stared back, as though not comprehending.
Then he said: “I see. I’m kind of sloppy, ain’t I. Well, I’ll fix that!”
He opened the door behind him and slipped out, and though the wind was raging in a veritable screaming hurricane at that moment, the door was closed against it smoothly, gently. Mr. Newell blinked, for he knew what power of arm and fingers such a feat required.
His wife had clutched him and drawn him apart. “John, John,” she was whispering, “don’t let the children hear — but — did you ever see such a creature in your life?”
“Humph’,” said Newell.
“So wild, I mean,” said his wife, “and such a look — like a little animal.”
“He’s a queer one,” admitted her husband, “but the main thing is that he’s hungry. Feed him up, but I wouldn’t be too strong on giving him a suit of Sammy’s clothes. The clothes might walk away before the morning — Sammy, mind what you’re saying!”
He was squelching a remark of Sammy’s to his sister, to the effect that the stranger was “a funny-looking guy. Barber’s never bothered him any.”
“Aw, dad,” said S
ammy, “I know. But look at that hair of his — clean down to his shoulders, and black and all sun-faded at the ends. Never seen such a mop of hair.”
“Saw, Sammy, not seen,” corrected his mother absently.
“Of course, we have to make the best of it,” she whispered to her spouse. “But couldn’t we send the children upstairs?”
“Rot!” said her husband. “The kid ain’t poison, is he? He’s not typhoid fever, I hope! Don’t be so finicky about your kids, mother!”
There was no chance for further discussion. The door was deftly opened and shut, and in the brief intermission, the stranger snapped into the room with a deft, gliding movement. You would not have said that he jumped. Few jumps could have meant such swift motion. He pointed to his clothes.
“They ain’t dripping now,” said he, “if that’s what bothered you, ma’am.”
“Gracious me!” cried Mrs. Newell. “The child has wrung them out. What an idea! Young man, would you sit all evening in sopping clothes like those?”
“Me? I’ve done it a million times, pretty near!” said the boy.
“Heavens!” exclaimed Mrs. Newell. “How could you?”
“Why, I’ve got a thick skin, I guess,” said the youngster.
She appealed to her husband with a desperate side glance.
“Let him have his own way,” said the rancher, more than a little relieved. “Sit yourself down here next to the stove, son.”
“Thanks,” said the boy, “but I fit in here pretty good. If you don’t mind, none.”
He drew the chair around to the farthest and the coldest corner of the table and there he sat down. Mrs. Newell began a noisy protest, but her husband stopped her. He himself had lived in rough countries and among rough men most of his life, and he understood. The place which the stranger had chosen, faced the door!
Something, therefore, was pursuing him. What could that be? If he were a runaway, from what home had this bundle of rags come? On this the rancher pondered while his wife heaped the plate of the waif. Mrs. Newell, feeling that she had been guilty of inhospitable thoughts, covered the breach with much talk.
“Sammy,” she said, “reach our new friend the bread plate.”