Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  To the left, then, Magruder turned, and as he came into the broken lands, he put his horse forward at a stiff trot. For he knew how Phil Slader would be traveling, jogging along with the smooth, tireless gait of an Indian runner. Indeed, there would not be much difference between the speed of the active youngster covering such territory, and the speed of the trotting horse. For it was seldom that Magruder could send it along at a canter.

  Moreover, each time that the land rose to a commanding crest he halted for a moment, and with his glasses pitched to his eyes, he swept the country with a brief and cunning survey. Gullies opened here and there, but Magruder, after an instant’s survey in each case, took the wildest-appearing gorge which opened even vaguely toward the south. For such, he felt, would be the selection of the boy.

  He made a halt to rest his horse and eat a handful of dried raisins. Then he pushed ahead again and in the middle of the afternoon he came across a light print of a set of naked toes at the margin of a little stream. For there, it seemed, some one had kneeled to drink. He dismounted, studied that print for a long moment, and then drew in a sharp breath of satisfaction. It was the print of the boy’s foot, he knew and, as he pushed his horse farther along, he wondered at the truly wolfish skill with which Phil had been able to mask his trail as far as this point. Luck more than skill had kept Magruder on the right trail up to this point, as he well knew. But that sign of the boy looked very fresh and new-made, and a definite hope of making the capture that day rose high in the heart of the hunter.

  There was another hour of strenuous riding, however, before he came to a pine-covered crest, and sweeping the country before him, he saw a figure jogging steadily and tirelessly not a quarter of a mile before him. Magruder took good heed of the course that the boy was following.

  It pointed toward a trail down the side of a mountain, and there was another way of getting to the farther side of the mountain by riding down a shallow gorge on the right and then spurring up the slope to gain the same trail, and so meet the boy face to face. That is to say, all would be well if the course were not too strewn with rough rocks.

  He sent his weary mustang into the gorge with a crashing of loosened stones rolling down behind him. He found the bottom of the gully fairly open and got footing, so with quirt and spur he sent the horse storming along its course. Even the rise up the side of the mountain beyond was easy enough, and in a few minutes Magruder had reached the very trail which his eye had picked out before.

  It was narrow, but it was deeply worn. And the eye could pick it out easily as it wound across the mountains by the little white streaks and spots, here and there — the skeletons of animals dead a century since, perhaps. For this was an old route by which the Indians for centuries and the Spaniards for generations had crossed the highlands.

  But there was no romance in the mind of Magruder. He paid no heed to the lofty beauty of the mountain, and to him the deep voice of the river that curved about the mountain’s foot was a mere song of rejoicing in token of the victory that should be his.

  In the meantime, he made as sure of everything as he could. He posted the horse, with thrown reins, behind a great boulder which would safely mask it. Then he himself crouched near the base of an old twisted pine that jutted out above the trail. The trunk gave some shelter to his body, and the rising rock also screened him from view, except directly from the trail beneath him.

  In this place he waited until he saw Phil Slader work to the top of the ascent and then come at the usual swinging trot down the slope. He was drawn of face from the long and steady effort which he had made in the past few days. Besides, the sun was growing hot, and the rocks threw back the heat with redoubled effect. Beyond all of this the trail had taken a heavy toll by pitching up and down from slope to slope among the hills.

  It looked, surely, as though the boy would go headlong past the place where Magruder was crouched, but when he came within half a dozen strides from the place, something must have stirred to attract his attention.

  It could not have been anything he saw. Neither was it anything that Magruder, at least, had heard, for the deep, soft voice of the river, swelling ominously from beneath, masked all the casual noises of stirring and breathing. But something, certainly, had come to the ear of the boy, for now he stood alert, with his keen eyes flashing toward the rock and the pine behind which Magruder was hiding. The man himself, though he was peering through the narrowest of slits between the rocks, felt that his very eye might be seen and shrank down.

  He himself could see nothing, now, and he had to depend upon a chance ally — the sun, which now stood low in the sky and cast the heavy shadow of the pine tree and of the rock across Magruder as he waited, crouched upon hands and knees. At the same time it threw forward the shadow of the boy as Phil advanced little by little.

  Once and again he came to a brief halt and retreated, as though in much doubt as to what he should do. But the way had been long, and the mountainside was steep, both above and below the danger point. Certainly reason must have told the boy that there could be no danger here except in his imagination. So, at the third start, he swung boldly forward and straight past the leaning rock.

  Before he was well in view, Magruder leaped. He came like a springing catamount that launches itself wildly and well through the air. But fast though his movement was, and silent, also — Philip Slader heard and saw. He turned like a top when the string jerks it, and the long, keen hunting knife was in his hand. Another tenth part of a second and that knife would have been at work, but the time was not granted him. Magruder, reaching with a long arm and a fist rough as a rock and almost as solid, struck the boy along the side of the head, and dropped him as though with the blow of a club.

  He fell backward and lay, slipping over the edge of the trail. A little more and he would have started on a rolling fall for the river, hundreds of feet below. This Magruder noticed, but with no particular horror. He caught the fallen body by one foot, jerked it back into the old trail, and then made a hasty search through the ragged clothes of Phil. There was nothing that could possibly serve as a weapon.

  The hunting knife, which lay in the trail had now been appropriated by the man, and all that remained to Phil, was a little twist of salt, done up in oiled cloth, together with a slender flint. By dint of many an artifice he would manage to catch game of some sort — or steal it, perhaps, where he could. The salt would season his meal. With the back of his knife he could raise a shower of sparks from the flint. It was a small equipment, yet with it the youngster was able to traverse the mountains freely and boldly.

  To a city-bred man it would have been a miracle of no small size, but Magruder had known these qualities of young Slader too long to waste time in wonder now. Once he was sure that there was no further weapon in the possession of the boy, he simply set about methodically tying the ankles and the wrists of Philip together. When he had finished, the lad lay in a shapeless, helpless heap on the pathway.

  Magruder let him lie. He lighted his pipe and, sitting back on the nearest rock, he puffed quietly at his smoke. He looked down at his captive with as much complacence as though this had been some great grizzly bear which he had brought down by dint of his hunting prowess.

  The skin had split along the side of the boy’s head, where the hard knuckles of Magruder had landed, but even the trickle of crimson and the swelling lump did not interest Magruder. He watched them with even a faint smile of satisfaction and, glancing down to his hand, he balled it into a fist again, turning it slowly back and forth, admiring its size and its strength.

  At length, Phil Slader stirred without a groan and twisted himself at once into a sitting posture. For one instant he looked wildly about him as his brain strove to put him in touch with the realities of his situation. Then he saw big Magruder sitting solemn and silent beside and above him, and understanding came instantly and completely into the boy’s face.

  CHAPTER VI

  IF MAGRUDER WERE familiar with many of the ways of
his young charge, a great many of the characteristics of the youngster never lost their fascination for him. The physical abilities of Philip Slader were not such a miracle to him as they would have been to others. Magruder was a big, rough fellow, who was perfectly at home in the mountains — perfectly capable of taking care of himself with little more than Phil required on a long cross-country trip. He, too, had a quick hand, though it never could attain to the snaky speed which already belonged to the boy. He, too, was clothed with strength, and by virtue of his bulk and his maturity, that strength was far beyond the reach of the boy. What Phil Slader could do with eye and voice and foot and hand was no longer of paramount interest to Magruder.

  He was more intrigued by the mental and spiritual qualities of the youngster. For instance, to the very roots of his soul he felt the silence with which Phil opened his eyes and looked about him, after having been knocked down and completely stunned, in the open trail.

  Silence at such a time as that would have been beyond Magruder, the man. His lips fairly worked in sympathy and soundlessly framed the curses and invectives which he would have poured forth if he had been in the place of Phil Slader, and such an enemy had been before him. But to Magruder the greatest miracle of all was the steadiness of nerve with which the youngster was able to look straight up into the face of his captor.

  Even now that Magruder sat there in the pride of his strength and the satisfaction of his conquest, he was not able to meet the steady black eye of the boy. His own was forced aside and down, and he pretended to busy himself in retamping the burning tobacco in his pipe bowl, and in shaking the ashes from the top of the glowing coal.

  Perhaps it may seem to you that shame had some part in this behavior of the man? It did not. If Magruder knew nothing else in this world, he knew that no one was too old or too wise or too strong to be proud of having captured this will-o’-the-wisp upon the open trail. He had worked long and hard for his part, and he felt that he would like to publish his labor and his success to the entire world. Only the world would never understand. No one, indeed, could ever enter into his mind and understand the thing that he had done except, oddly enough, Phil Slader himself. For he, at least, did not underrate himself. It was not outraged dignity and scorn and shame that appeared in the eye of Phil, it was merely the calm acceptance of defeat at the hands of an equal.

  “All right,” said Magruder, “here we are again.”

  “Here we are again,” said Phil calmly.

  “And you’ve broke your promise to me.”

  “What promise?” said Phil.

  “That you would never leave me.”

  “When did I give you any promise like that?”

  “Why, it’s handy for you to pretend to forget. But I know that you don’t forget nothing, Phil. I know that pretty good.”

  Phil regarded the other for a long moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “Reach me my hat, will you?” said he. “The sun is sort of hard on the eyes.”

  “You ain’t going to argue, eh?” said Magruder, disregarding this request. “You’re above arguing with me, are you?”

  “I know you,” said Phil, “so why should I argue with you? You can think what you want and you can claim what you want, but I know you, Magruder!”

  Magruder balled his fist, but as though he knew that there would be no use in attempting physical brutality, he relaxed his hand again.

  “You’re rare,” said he. “Cursed if you ain’t all by yourself when it comes to queerness. You know me, do you?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Phil Slader. “You ain’t so hard to learn. Not hard at all.”

  You could not have called it impertinence, even to an older man like Magruder. It was simply a grave statement of facts.

  “All right,” said Magruder. “I dunno why I don’t pick you up and heave you into the river, though! But you might tell me what it is that you know so well about me!”

  “Sure,” said the boy. “I don’t mind telling you the main thing which is that telling the truth just plain hurts you. You can’t do it without pretty near crying, you like to lie so bad.”

  “Curse your sneaking hide!” cried the man with a snarl.

  “No, I’m bad but I’m not a sneak,” said Phil, gravely considering his own virtues and faults as though they were the merest intangible abstractions. “I don’t lie, either. You know that, Magruder.”

  “Ain’t I taught you to call me Uncle Doc?”

  The boy smiled. “We’re alone now,” said he, “and it don’t make no difference.”

  “It gets you into bad habits,” said Magruder.

  “Habits don’t mean nothing so far as you’re concerned with me now,” said Phil Slader. “I ain’t gunna be living with you now.”

  “You ain’t, eh?”

  “No.”

  “You’re gunna break that promise that you give me, four years ago?”

  “You keep comin’ back to that. But you ought to remember what I said when we talked things over. You said that my father wanted me to go to you. There’s others that heard him say the same thing. So I said that I would go, though I couldn’t see why. I wouldn’t be much use till I was ten. I would stay on two years after that, working at chores, and such, for my keep. And after that I would be free. Four years was what we agreed on, and I stuck by my promise to the day. I don’t break my word!”

  Mr. Magruder seemed a little put out by the definiteness of these statements.

  “I see how it is,” said he. “You think that during the last two years you’ve done enough to pay me back for all of the trouble and the care and the money that I’ve put out on you. You figure it that way, eh?”

  “Look here,” said Philip Slader, as calm as ever, “it sure beats anything the way that you talk. A fellow would think, to hear you, that I didn’t know you, or that you didn’t know me. But we do. I know you, and you know me. There ain’t any use whining to me. You can make other folks think that you mean what you say. But I know you, Magruder. You never would of brought me home, no matter what my father said, if it hadn’t been that you see how you could use me. Oh, I didn’t see through it first. But long ago I knew what it meant, of course. You’ve had me there like a signpost to draw folks. It seemed queer and generous on your part to take in the son of an old enemy of yours. Folks was talking about you, Magruder. You had never done anything worth while so long as you lived, except to kill Jack Slader. But all that they could remember was that you had finished him. And you wanted to make the most of that. That’s why you took me in.”

  Magruder reached out a hasty hand to strike the mouth which was making these condemning assertions. But his hand was checked as it had been a thousand times in the past by the unmoved expression of Phil.

  “You got the brain of a rat,” said Magruder, “always working out the darkest and meanest reasons for everything. You wouldn’t give no credit to God for making the world. You would only say that He did it when He couldn’t think of nothing better to do!”

  To this half-snarling complaint Phil listened thoughtfully — not meditating on the speech so much as upon the speaker, as though he were letting the true conception of Magruder sink deep and deeper into his mind.

  “But it ain’t the fact,” said Magruder. “It was just bigness of heart that made me take you in, and the whole world knows it, except you!”

  “Jiminy,” said Phil softly, “I should think it would be a terrible relief to you to know that I understand you for what you are — and to know that it wasn’t no use for you to try play acting around me. I should think that it would make you glad, because it would be so restful. But you won’t let down. You still got to act up to your part all the time! Well, fire away. I’m listening.”

  “Why,” shouted Magruder, “I ask God to witness me — what good could I get out of a useless brat like you?”

  “All right,” said Phil, “just tell me why it was that you stopped trying to ranch and opened up your hotel, right after you got hold of me?”

  �
�That?” said Magruder, writhing as though the rock he sat on had turned white hot. “Why, the ranch wasn’t paying me. And I thought of a hotel. Nothing strange about that!”

  “No,” said the boy, “but pretty sudden and pretty pat it come in — right after you got hold of me to draw the crowds for you. Ain’t that a fact?”

  Magruder merely sat and stared. He tried to speak, but when his lips parted, no sound would come. He seemed more than half strangled by what he heard.

  The boy continued: “And they come to you well enough. Every puncher that rides through the country within ten miles of your place, he goes out of his way because he wants to see the man that killed Jack Slader — and that then started in taking care of Jack Slader’s son. You get your glory and you get your money too. But if I left, you wouldn’t have such an easy time for long!”

  “Curse you for a lyin’ ingrate!” muttered Magruder. “You’ll be saying before long that I didn’t kill Jack Slader and in a fair fight!”

  “You killed Jack Slader well enough,” said the boy. “More folks know that than know you. But how could it of been in fair fight?”

  This shot brought Magruder to his feet with a roar. “You doubt that?” he shouted like a true believer hearing the first tenet of his faith denied.

  “I dunno,” said Phil. “I don’t see how you could ever of stood up to him, seeing that you’re so afraid of me, even!”

  “I’m afraid of you, am I?” asked Magruder.

  The boy nodded.

  “And why should I be afraid?” asked Magruder, dangerously quiet in turn.

  “Because,” said Phil Slader, “one of these days I might get hold of the news about the real way that you fought my dad. And if I found out that it wasn’t fair. . . .”

  “Well?” said Magruder.

  “I’d kill you, Magruder.”