by Max Brand
Such thoughts made the miles shorter. His mind gradually grew clearer: his legs bore him up more strongly. He began to feel once more the bitter heat of the sun and he pulled his ragged, old felt hat lower down over his eyes. It was a different hat from that which he had put upon his head in going to the town. Then, it had been a rag; now it was something more, for kind hands had picked it from the dust where it had fallen. The dust had been brushed from it by another touch than his, and it had been offered back to him as a fallen helmet might have been proffered to a hero returning from the wars.
Yes, he knew now for certain that he was something more than ordinary clay. He knew now that there had been a reason behind the awe with which the world had looked at him from the beginning. He was the son, the true son of Jack Slader. Yet, if only Heaven had made him a little bit more — made him a man to conquer Rooster — made him a man to fill the whole eye of the girl!
He reached the abatis of shrubbery which fenced the hotel grounds to the south, toward the town. He passed through the woods upon which the shrubbery abutted to the north and he came again into the sight of the lands which he had labored over so often and which he had made so much of.
Here was his home — for a few months more. Here was the home of Rooster, too. He turned and looked at the tall stallion — and then shook his head in despair.
CHAPTER XVI
ROOSTER, NOW QUITE his old self, stood with head raised and ears pricked, staring far across toward the distant horizon, quite overlooking his present owner, as though, like the Arab proverb, he wondered when his real master would come riding down into this world of men!
Poor Phil Slader, staring at the proud monster, told himself that all his efforts and all of his patient labor would never gain this haughty spirit, never prevail upon it to do more than completely scorn him. However, he put Rooster into the barn and straightway employed himself with fixing another bar all around the adjoining little corral, to make sure that the stallion should not leap out and gain freedom by a short cut.
Then he turned Rooster loose. The big horse danced out into the corral, swept the bars with a single glance, and then poised himself in the center of the inclosure, uttering a great neigh. If you had been there to see him, with such a head, so grandly posed, the marvel of his dappled body, the silver arc of his tail and the wind-ruffled brightness of his mane, you would have felt as Phil Slader felt, that this was not a horse at all, but a veritable god of horses come into the hands of Phil.
Out of the distance came the long, wavering howl of a wolf. Of course it was mere chance that let some wandering lobo give tongue at this instant, but it seemed to Phil that it was something more — the wild giving voice to the wild — the free wolf to the imprisoned one.
However, there was still a good deal of the day remaining; so Phil harnessed his team to the plow and began again on the alfalfa lands. For half a furrow all went well, and then the plow struck a snag. He twisted it around the bad place, but he did not send the horses ahead, again. After a time, he was aware that he had been standing there leaning on the handles of the plow and dreaming.
He forced himself ahead with the labor. But, for the first time, it seemed to him that the sun was sticking in a certain place halfway from the zenith to the far western horizon; it seemed to him as though the end of the day would never come. Hitherto all days had been too short for him!
However, the day ended in due time. The horses were put up. He fed the stallion and saw the great creature disdain the food. Yes, not until the man who had put down the fodder had apparently disappeared did Phil, from covert, see Rooster touch a few straws and then toss up his head, suspicious, dreading lest he had been seen accepting charity from the hand of an enemy!
It moved the man greatly, and he went soberly on toward the house. He felt no exultation in his prize. Rather, he felt a shame. For he knew that by right the stallion should be given freedom to range as he would across the hills, to form a band and pass through a career beautiful and free.
In that moment he formed a lasting resolution. He himself had some scant months remaining of prison life under the control of big Magruder. When that time ended, if he had not subdued the stallion, he would set him free to do as he would — whether that was to range at large or come again under the domination of another man.
When he had made the resolve, he felt far easier in spirit and he went in to take his place at the table for supper.
What followed was no easy time for Phil Slader. Magruder knew that the time during which he was to possess this unpurchased slave had nearly drawn to a close. Here was an event which threw his possession into a high light, and he was determined to take the utmost advantage of the fact. That riding of the stallion at the rodeo, impromptu though it had been, had attracted an enormous lot of attention. If cowpunchers had formed the habit, before this, of coming to the Magruder hotel to see young Slader and compare him with the pictures and the reputation of his dead father, there was now a sudden influx of people of all kinds.
They sat on the fence and they watched Phil drive his horses to the plow. They sat at the same table with him and stared into his face until his grave eyes were raised to their own and made them shift their glances with a guilty suddenness. There was one red-nosed old gentleman who said that he represented a circus, and that if Phil cared to undertake a horse-riding job . . . .
“Nothing really so bad, kid. You know how it is. Some old nags fixed up to look dangerous but really not! You dig one spur into them to make them throw a few stiff-legged capers. And you come in with a spotlight on you and the band playing and a swell rig on you — with a silk sash and all that sort of stuff — and the crowd goes wild. You know — Phil Slader, the Slader, the only one of his kind now . . . .”
That sentence remained unfinished as the slow glance of Phil rose and steadied upon the speaker.
“Oh, well,” said the little old man with the red nose. “Of course, if you feel that way about it there’s no use — pass the ham again, will you, Magruder?”
They were hard days for Phil, and one gathering followed another until, about a week later, there was an interruption of an unexpected sort. It was at the lunch table. There were a fat dozen around the board, all eating at Magruder’s most fancy prices, when there was a noisy clattering of hoofs on the dust-muffled road, a slamming of the outer door, and a banging of high heels on the passage. Then a cowpuncher broke in upon them, his hat pulled firmly down over his eyes, as though he were still breasting the high wind of a strong gallop.
“Mitch Holmer wants everybody turned out,” said the stranger. “He’s rounded up Lon Kirby at last. It’s the finish of Kirby, and you fellows had better try to get in on it. It’s the finish of Kirby, I tell you, if we just get out enough of the boys to round him up and rope him. He’s given us trouble enough, and riding enough, but we’ve got him now!”
Of course, there was a general rising and the sound of many voices.
“Who’s done it? What’s happened, Jake?”
“I dunno who did it,” the messenger replied. “Maybe me. Maybe Bert Stillwell. We both were trying for him with our rifles at the time. But it was a long-range chance, and you couldn’t tell who had the luck. Only, all at once there was Lon Kirby’s hoss dropped dead, and Lon rolling head over heels in the stubble . . . .”
This brought a yell from every throat. Here was news indeed!
“We rushed Kirby, then,” went on Jake. “But there was some bushes near the spot, and he had crawled into them. Then he must of sneaked off down one of the sloughs. Only one chance in a hundred that he would get away from us, but he did. Chances are that he’s cut for the hills and the rocks. He knows that part of the country like a book. But he’s on foot, and if we can turn out enough gents to comb the hillsides and head him off, he’s our meat. He’s on foot. Think of that!”
It was a good deal to think about, indeed. One had only to stretch one’s hand into the white-hot sun which was pouring through the open window t
o realize the pain of the man in riding boots who tried to struggle across much of this burning countryside. Every Westerner could appreciate such facts as these. And every man at the table was a Westerner.
They rushed out of that room like hornets from a nest which had just been tapped with a pole. In a trice, down to big Magruder himself, they were in their saddles!
Of course, Phil Slader was not the last to mount. Here was a chance for which he had waited many and many a year. Here was a chance where violence would not be held against him but listed to his credit. And if he were to meet Lon Kirby and shoot it out with him — even if Phil Slader were left dead upon the ground, no one could venture to say that he had not died as an honorable man should — in the attempt to go straight — go straight — go straight!
He paused in the hall just long enough to snatch from the rack an old Colt. It was a gun that he had had in his hand more than once before. He had never carried it, for it was against his principles to carry shooting weapons. Guns were poison; guns were apt to bite the hand that fed them; guns, most of all, were taboo for a Slader with such a father as he must call his own! However, here he was in the saddle, with a Colt in his saddle holster, and the sun-whitened country before him to range through!
First of all, he turned toward the hills, toward which the others were riding, some of them in groups, and some of them one by one, each in the particular direction which struck his fancy as being apt to be the one in which the famous outlaw might have ridden. When he reached the high ground which first lay before him, he drew rein and looked around him.
It did not seem to Phil a time in which to make haste in any way except slowly. Kirby had a long start in minutes. Other hard riders were already combing the hills. What if they were wrong? What if Kirby were riding in a different direction?
Phil turned toward the river. The tangled woods along the course of the Crusoe were an ideal shelter. To be sure, they were very far from the spot where Lon Kirby’s horse had been shot down. But a very desperate and cunning man, accustomed to taking long chances, might have taken advantage of the first shallow gully to run from the brush in that direction, and then venture to skulk across the wide stretch of perfectly open country toward the river lands.
That idea had no sooner come to Phil Slader than he tried to put himself in the place of the outlaw, followed by hard-riding pursuers, all ready to shoot and to shoot to kill. Beside him lay a dead horse; there was only the partial and scanty shelter of a patch of brush to avail him at the present moment. In such a case as that, Phil felt sure that only one thing would keep him from making for the distant brush along the river — that would be the lack of sufficient nerve to carry him across the open space which lay between. But no one could ever accuse Lon Kirby of lacking enough nerve for the attempt of any enterprise, no matter how hazardous.
So Phil turned the head of his horse toward the river and spurred the mustang into a hard, pounding gallop. He crossed the next low swale; he dipped the mustang into the gulch and forced it upon the dry and crumbling side of the slough beyond. It was hard work; twice the little animal fell back and had to be sent snorting and plunging to the task once more. However, it climbed out at length, and just as Phil was about to send it on with renewed speed, something like the hum of a monstrous bee whirred past his ear, followed instantly by the loud and smashing report of a rifle.
He did not have to think; something in his heart of hearts told him what to do. With every muscle relaxed, he let himself fall from the saddle, lying in a crumpled heap upon the ground. Certainly it was not a suspicious circumstance that he had happened to fall with his revolver in his hand!
He had been fired upon, treacherously, from behind, and in his soul there was a strong prophecy as to who might have done that bit of work. But he waited, not daring to stir, though constantly scanning the woods behind him — until he saw the figure of the man ride out into the open — Doc Magruder himself!
CHAPTER XVII
ON THE FARTHER bank of the slough which separated him from the fallen body of his ward, Magruder checked his horse, put his rifle to his shoulder, and drew a careful bead.
The first impulse of the boy was to roll over with a shout and squirm into safety behind the next stump of a tree. The second impulse was to send a bullet from his revolver at the head of that same Magruder. But the third impulse was the one which he obeyed. No matter what he tried to do, Magruder was not apt to miss a shot at such point-blank range as this. At any range, as Phil had cause for knowing, Magruder was a deadly shot, who kept himself in constant and professional practice. It required all of Phil’s endurance and all the will power in his body. But he managed to keep himself quiet through dreadfully long seconds until the rifle was finally jerked down from the shoulder of the big man — and he could see Magruder nod with satisfaction, as though he had made up his mind that nothing but a dead body could possibly have held that awkward position in which Phil Slader lay.
Magruder shoved the Winchester into the pocket along the side of the saddle and rode hastily forward to examine his work more in detail. So he dipped down into the gully, and Slader was instantly on his feet.
His head was a little confused, naturally, owing to the length of time he had lain in such a constrained position. But it was clear enough, by the time that he reached the bank of the slough, to permit him to shove his Colt into the face of Magruder as that gentleman forced his horse up the shelving and crumbling bank. There was a choked gasp from Magruder — and then his big arms went up above his head:
“Phil — for Heaven’s sake!”
“Is it for Heaven’s sake? I was only thinking about my own sake,” said Phil Slader. “How come that you’re shooting at me, today, Doc? Nothing else do you for a target?”
“Shooting at you. Shooting at you? Heavens about us — shooting at you? Boy, don’t talk like a jackass. And lower your voice. Talk soft! Yonder lies Lon Kirby, I tell you. Dead, I think, but maybe only shamming death! I dropped him from behind — a neat shot — and now I want to see. . . .”
Perhaps it was all pretending. But there was just a ghost of a chance that Magruder was sincere.
“Tell me, Doc,” said Phil Slader, “just what sort of a looking man is Lon Kirby?”
“You’ve seen his pictures,” said Magruder, “and outside of his long, lean, pale face — curse him! — he’s got about your build, I’d say, Phil.”
“Keep your hands up!” said Phil Slader.
“Why, Phil, boy,” said the older man, “what the devil do you mean by this? Do you . . . .”
“Nothing I guess. You can put ’em down. But be careful with them. If you move a mite too close to the handle of a gun, I’ll kill you Doc. You hear me talk?”
“I hear you talk — but I can’t understand you.”
“Aye, it must be a terrible shock to you, but keep on being shocked, Doc. I’m dangerous, just now.”
“You look it, and — why, you act like I had done something to you, son!”
“Go easy, Doc,” said Phil Slader. “I’m pretty simple. And I love you so much that it would be hard for me to figure you for any dirty trick at all. But, just the same, I’m watching you, and trying to work this thing out. It was me that you did something to. You missed my ear about a quarter of an inch and then . . . .’”
“By merciful Heaven!” cried Magruder. “You mean to say that you were . . . .”
“Yes, that I was the gent that you fired at.”
“And you played possum — and let me — but, Phil, when I drew that second bead at you, at point-blank range . . . .”
“I thought that you wouldn’t waste the price of another bullet on carrion like me,” said Slader. “Not when there was crows to shoot at on the wing. And it seems that I was right!”
“Heaven knows that I’m grateful that I missed!” said Magruder, “but just for a minute there, I thought that I might of had the luck to . . . .”
“You knew that Lon Kirby is on foot,” said the boy, crisp
and stern.
“I knew that a bunch of fools had said that he was on foot. But how did I know that he hadn’t laid about and taken his first chance to knock one of the boobies off a horse and ride on with the horse?”
Phil Slader hesitated. It was all probable enough, from one viewpoint. Lon Kirby was perfectly capable of having done the very thing that Magruder said he suspected. And Magruder was not the man to hesitate, when he thought that he recognized the rear view of fifteen thousand dollars. That was the reward which had accumulated upon the precious head of Lon Kirby.
However, there were other details which had to be considered, and Phil voiced them slowly, one by one.
“I hate to embarrass you any, oldtimer,” he said to Magruder, “but if you was to tell me that you didn’t know that cayuse wonder, that I was riding, as well as I know my own hat . . . .”
“Know the horse you were riding? Curse it, Phil. I wasn’t out to shoot horses. I wasn’t out for that, like the sheriff’s men. I was out to kill Lon Kirby, if I could. And I thought that I had done it, for a minute! I thought that the skunk might have tried to get to the woods along the river and that maybe . . . .”
“Wait a minute,” said Phil Slader. “I got about two months left before I slide away from you, Doc. You know that. You know that when I get away, the first thing I do will be to cut for headquarters.”
“Headquarters?” echoed Magruder.
“I mean — the place where my father was killed. And when I get there, I’m going to start drumming up the facts connected with the killing of my father. I’m going to talk to a few of the eye-witnesses. And you know what I suspect — that there was dirty work in that killing. I say, Doc, that you know I’m going to start this sort of an investigation two months from now — and so maybe it would be a pretty handy thing for you to have me out of the way right now, when there isn’t much longer for me to work for you, any way that you look at it!”