Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “I can reach,” said the waif. Extending a half-naked arm he transfixed the heel of the loaf with his hunting knife and transferred it to his plate.

  Mrs. Newell was a little staggered, but she went on: “And give him the salt, Nelly. And you might find something to say to him!”

  “I can’t see his face to talk to him,” said Nelly, aged eleven. “He hasn’t taken his hat off!”

  Here the youngster removed his hat with the dignity of an Indian chief, wiped his long, sun-discolored hair back from his face, and fell to the serious work of eating. Now that the wide-brimmed felt hat no longer sloped across his face, the Newells saw eyes as black as the hair and the neck and chin and straight-lipped mouth of a man. They had hardly a chance to observe these features, they were so taken by the methods of eating which the stranger put in practice. The bread was used as a helpful wedge by which large quantities were piled upon the hunting knife and transferred to the waiting mouth with an admirable sense of balance, until Sammy broke into a peal of laughter.

  “Sammy!” cried his mother.

  “I can’t help it!” said Sammy. “I wonder how he does it without cutting his mouth.”

  He laughed again hugely. At this the steady black eyes lifted and were fixed upon him with such strange effect that the laughter died in a single gulp. A heavy breath of silence fell upon the table.

  “What might your name be, young man?” asked Newell at last.

  “Phil is my name,” said the other.

  “Thanks,” said Newell. “My name is John Newell. And I’m glad to know you. This is Mrs. Newell. And this is my son, whose name is Sam, also. And that is my daughter, Nell.”

  To each, in turn, as their names were pronounced, the stranger gave one penetrating glance. But though Sammy and Nell stood up to jerk their heads and smile perfunctorily in acknowledgment of this introduction, Phil made no other return than this silence, and these grave glances.

  Conversation dwindled again, and all the Newell family became conscious of the howling of the wind outside the house.

  CHAPTER II

  EVEN THOUGH MR. Newell did not pretend he was a man of extravagant culture and politeness, he felt that there was something wrong in an entire family sitting about and shifting their eyes up and down as the practiced knife of Phil rose and fell from plate to mouth. Moreover, the atmosphere became momentarily more depressed. Even though he sat in his own house, Sammy seemed oppressed with something closely akin to fear, and bright-haired Nell watched the stranger with an uncanny fascination. Even Mrs. Newell had changed color a little and sat nervously erect in her chair.

  So the rancher stepped into the heavy silence again. “Phil is a familiar name to me,” said he. “I had a cousin called that. He was redheaded, though. But what might your last name be, young man?”

  The stranger looked up from his plate again. “You won’t have no use for it,” said he. “I’m traveling on and I ain’t coming back this way.”

  Mr. Newell exchanged glances with his wife — a swift, covert interchange, for even when the eye of the boy was apparently fixed upon his plate, one gained an impression that he saw everything that happened in the room.

  “Traveling on, eh?” said Mr. Newell, without pressing the point. “Traveling where, may I ask?”

  “I’d tell you, if I knew,” said the boy. “All I know is that I’m drifting south. Sort of chilly up this way, eh?”

  “Yes,” said Newell, “the winters are pretty cold up here, I suppose. And — how old are you, Phil?”

  As though this were an unexpected query, Phil looked thoughtfully into space before he nodded and answered: “Twelve last month.”

  “Twelve!” exclaimed Mrs. Newell. “Why, then Sammy is a whole year older — and my Nell is only a year younger? It doesn’t seem possible!”

  “Her?” asked Phil, turning his head to the girl beside him. “Her eleven?”

  He reached out a brown paw as bigboned as the hand of a man and took Nell by the wrist. It was not a hard grip, but she winced back from him with a little gasp. At that a faint smile appeared rather in the eyes than on the mouth of Phil. Perhaps it was hardly a smile at all, but a mere softening of expression, which enabled Mr. Newell to see for the first time that this was really a handsome youngster. Yet he had been studying the little stranger every instant since his arrival.

  “Soft, ain’t she?” said Phil. “Like a baby, pretty near!”

  He replaced her hand on the table with care.

  Mrs. Newell had bit her lip with anxiety when she saw his hand touch her child. Now she exclaimed again: “Only twelve years old! Do you mean that, Phil?”

  “I don’t lie,” said Phil without offense, “except when it’s something important. I’m twelve. Why?”

  “Only — nothing!” said Mrs. Newell, and she looked appealingly at her husband.

  “Why,” explained the rancher, “it’s only that you look very strong and big for your years, Phil. You’ll be bulldogging the yearlings before much longer!”

  “Oh, yes,” said the boy. “I started that last spring.”

  “My!” exclaimed Sammy Newell, “what a—”

  The word “whopper” was framed by his lips alone. But he began to look sternly upon this youth. There is a certain pride of place of which all boys partake, and part of that pride is every youngster’s certainty that he knows a great deal more and is a great deal stronger than every other boy who is his junior by so much as a month. But nothing of his expression of scorn and doubt seemed to make an impression upon Phil, who smiled back at him, as a grown man might have smiled at an incredulous child.

  “It’s all a knack,” said Phil quietly. “You got to learn the knack, you know. Same as sticking in the saddle. It ain’t long legs you need; it’s the knack, it’s the balance. Ain’t that right, Mr. Newell?”

  So he shifted the burden of the conversation deftly over the head of Sammy to Sammy’s father, and Sammy felt the sting of that alteration without knowing how to resent it in deeds. But a spot of color was beginning to burn in Sammy’s cheeks, and there was a flare of danger in his eyes.

  Supper ended, and Mr. Newell sent the boys into the next room to amuse themselves while Nell and Mrs. Newell washed the dishes.

  He said to his wife:

  “I don’t like having him here, mother. I don’t like it a bit! He may be an honest kid, but he looks to me different — and maybe he’s bad. Shouldn’t be surprised if we woke up in the morning and found him gone with the best horse on the place! Shouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

  “John,” said his anxious wife, “I’m terrible glad to hear you say that. And — John — we got a telephone here, you know! Why not ring up to find out about—”

  “Ring who?”

  “The sheriff — and describe that boy.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Newell. Then he hesitated. “I can’t do it. Not about a poor kid that has been blown in out of the wet like this one. He’s done no harm that we’ve seen. And maybe he’s had no bringing up!”

  “Ah,” said the wife, “no woman would want to try her hand with him. He’s hardened and fixed. Bringing up would never change him. You mark my word. What he is now he was born to, and what he’ll be before he dies was written down, too!”

  Mrs. Newell had risen to an almost prophetic strain. Her husband nodded.

  “I feel more or less the same way,” he admitted. “I’m ashamed of it, but I can’t help feeling a good deal the same way. Where’s Nell? I don’t want her around that young brute. Where’s Nell since she finished wiping the dishes? No use in her seeing such a young wolf. No use at all!”

  “I’ll call her,” said his wife. “My, my, but it does me good to hear—”

  She stopped there. They heard the thud of a blow, and then the wild scream of Nell pitched in a key of horror and of fear.

  Neither the rancher nor his wife could move. What they saw first was Sam, walking backward through the door of the next room, like one who fears to take his
eyes from the thing that he sees. Then little Nell came with a rush and clung to her father, babbling something inarticulate.

  As for Newell he could not tell what to think. What he did, was to brush Nelly aside into the arms of her mother; then he drew a gun and stepped to the threshold.

  He saw Phil in the middle of the room, his hands gripped into fists, his face white and contorted with a perfectly devilish fury, and a thin trickle of red running down from his mouth.

  Whatever it was that the rancher had expected in the way of a horror, he felt that he had enough in this picture. He was a grown man, and there was a gun in his hand; yet he had at first an almost overmastering impulse to slam the door and leap backward into the warmth and the safety of the kitchen.

  He controlled himself at once. “Now what?” he asked Phil sternly. “Tell me what you mean by frightening my boy and girl within an inch of their lives!”

  A spasm crossed the face of Phil. He put up a hand and touched his mouth. Then, when he saw the crimson on his fingers, he closed his fist again and looked straight into the eyes of Mr. Newell.

  “And what happened to give you that?” asked Newell.

  “I stumbled and fell against the wall,” said Phil.

  “Stumbled!” exclaimed Mr. Newell.

  There was no good reason why such a thing might not have happened — except to this youngster. For some reason, it was as much folly to expect him to stumble as it would be to expect a mountain sheep to miss its footing.

  He strode back into the kitchen. “Now,” said Newell, “I’ll have the truth, out of this! Sammy, what happened?”

  “He — he stumbled — and hit his face — against the wall!” said Sammy, white with misery and with fear.

  Mr. Newell took his son by both shoulders. “Sammy,” said he, “I hate a lie and I hate a liar. Now tell me the truth!”

  “I — I thought I would see what he could do. I picked a fight and I hit him — and he didn’t hit back! He didn’t hit back, dad!”

  A cold, little thrill ran through the body of Mr. Newell.

  “Maybe he was afraid to,” said the rancher. “You’ve got muscles enough to knock a little sense into his head.”

  “Afraid? Him?” asked Sammy, and suddenly he clung to his father desperately.

  “Dad,” he gasped out, “I thought that he was gunna kill me! And I think he will still, before the morning comes!”

  Newell moistened his white lips, but he found no word to say. He looked across to his wife, who was soothing Nell. He knew that the same white, sick look which he found on the face of Mrs. Newell was on his own.

  It was a little thing. He kept telling himself that it was a mere trifle — a quarrel between children. No matter what reason could tell him, instinct spoke to a different effect. There was no childishness in this strange boy!

  He heard a slight rattling at the front of the house, and striding through the blackness of the hallway, he came on Phil, in the very act of unlocking the door, and going out into the night.

  There was nothing that he wanted so much as to see the last of that small person, but conscience shouted aloud in the heart of Mr. Newell.

  “Phil,” he said, “it seems that Sammy was in the wrong — and that he hit you—”

  Phil was silent.

  “I want you to come back inside,” said Mr. Newell. “You’ve — you’ve done nothing wrong — and I want you to spend the night here and—”

  “It was a funny thing,” said Phil. “It seemed to scare her. Why should it scare her, Mr. Newell?”

  CHAPTER III

  WHEN MR. NEWELL got Phil to go back into the kitchen with him, they found Mrs. Newell, with her two children on each side of her, Nell still sobbing and Sammy still white.

  “Now,” said the rancher, “I’m going to see that there’s justice done here. You struck this youngster when he was here in our house as a guest. And you’re going to stand out here and ask his pardon for it Sammy, d’you hear?”

  Sammy heard the bitter insinuation and swallowed hard. But he stiffened and strode forth to make the apology. The stranger, who had stood by watching all this with his calm, black eyes, said to the rancher: “Look here, Mr. Newell, d’you want to make him hate me all his life? And d’you want her to hate me?”

  He pointed solemnly at the girl. For Nell had stopped her crying and was watching this proceeding with a vindictive interest.

  Now she brushed the tears from her eyes and burst out: “It doesn’t matter! I hate you anyway! I’ll always hate you! I’ll hate you all my life!”

  “Hush, Nell,” said Mrs. Newell, but there was more sympathy than anger in her tone.

  Phil, watching the girl gravely, finally turned again to Newell. “It’s most always like this,” said he.

  “What is mostly like this?” asked the man.

  “Nothing,” said the boy, shrugging his shoulders. “Well, I’ll be drifting.” He turned to the door.

  However, Newell intercepted him. He did not take hold of him as he would have seized upon another youth. He merely stepped in front of him and spoke as though to a man, saying: “If you leave like this — before the boy has had a chance to apologize — and go out into a storm like this, it’ll make me feel pretty cut up, Phil.”

  “Will it?” asked Phil, his grave glance fixed upon the other. “Will it be like that with you? Why,” he went on, making a gesture toward Sammy, “it’s all right you know, about that. I was mad for a minute, but I’m over that. I don’t mind it. Not at all! I’ll shake hands with him to prove it.” And he walked forthwith up to Sammy.

  It was an uncanny thing to watch and a most unpleasant one. Here was a self-control that might have shamed most men who had reached to full maturity. In such a child it was strange indeed!

  Sammy was plainly afraid to stand before the stranger again, but he put forth an unwilling hand when Nell cried: “Don’t touch him, Sammy! Don’t touch him, please!”

  Sammy shrank back. Newell was beside himself.

  “Send Nelly to bed,” he cried to his wife, “and if you don’t give her a good dressing down before she goes to sleep, I’ll come and do it myself. You hear me?”

  His wife was one who knew perfectly well when it was safe for her to uphold her authority and place in that house, and when it was far better for her to walk in humble silence. Now, as she saw a certain vein swelling in the forehead of her husband, she took Nelly by the hand and walked hastily from the room. Sammy, after one frantic glance at his father, followed in the rear, but he was caught by the iron hand of Newell and forced to turn back.

  “I’ll skin you alive,” said the rancher through his teeth. “Confound it, if I’m to be checked and made a fool of in my own house — and can’t teach my own kids manners. Apologize this minute, or I’ll make you do it on your knees!”

  “I’m sorry!” whispered miserable Sammy. “I’m terrible sorry — that I hit you.”

  “Why,” said Phil to the rancher, “you’ve done it now! There ain’t no chance that I can ever come back to this ranch and find a friend. And,” he added to Sammy: “It’s all right. I’m sorry that this mess all happened.”

  Sammy sneaked from the room, and as Newell stood there, with his head hanging, there was a gentle touch at his arm.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Phil.

  “My son is a coward, and my daughter is a vixen! I see it in a flash of light!” said the rancher more to himself than to the boy.

  “No,” said Phil with equal gravity. “I tell you that that’s the way that I mostly make folks feel. The boys, they want to fight. And the girls, they hate to have me near them. I dunno why it is. Except that I’m nacherally mean.”

  Perhaps the part of generosity was not to believe a word that he had to say, but Newell was no more than human, and he had made many concessions on this night against his flesh and his blood.

  “Come upstairs,” said he to the boy. “I’ll show you a place to bunk. And no matter what else may turn out of this, I want
you to know that I’m your friend.”

  “Thanks,” said the boy. He raised his head and searched the face of Newell, but he did not seem to find there what he had been hoping for. A little pang of shame passed through the man, as though he had been detected in the act of committing some mean hypocrisy.

  However, he felt that something had been gained in the discharge of his debt of hospitality and honor to Phil by getting him up to the spare room and bidding him good night. After that he went to his wife and found her sitting in their room.

  “Where is Nell?” he demanded harshly.

  But Mrs. Newell merely looked at him with tears in her eyes.

  “I see!” said he. “You’ve let her slip again. You’re gunna raise her to be a spoiled woman, like the rest of these American girls. Because she’s got a pretty face, you’re gunna let her get in the habit of wiping her shoes on folks, chiefly men. I’ll not stand it, if I have to beat her black and blue every day of her life.”

  He hoped, in his heart, that his wife would have some stinging rejoinder, for the pain in his heart needed much spending. But there was no answer whatever. Mrs. Newell merely bowed her head, and the sight of its familiar grayness touched her husband.

  He went hastily to the little chamber of Nelly, and when he lighted a match, he found her lying with closed eyes, breathing deeply and regularly, with a faint smile upon her lips. He knew that his daughter was capable of sham; yet when he leaned closer the smile did not alter. There was not so much as a quiver of the eyelids. So he straightened again, with an imperceptible sigh of relief. He could not awaken her. Not from a sleep so beautiful and calm that death itself could not have been more hushed and solemn, it seemed. A religious wonder grew in him that a creature so beautiful should really be his.

  Here the match burned his fingers. He dropped it with a murmured oath and stole from the room. When he closed the door gently behind him, how could he know that the delicate smile of Nell had grown to a most impish grin? It had been a close call, this, but she had won again; and she had learned afresh the profound lesson that tears will disarm women, and smiles will disarm men.