Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “You talk wild — plumb wild!” said the hotel owner. “I tell you, kid, there isn’t much longer for you to work for me, but there’s plenty of time for you to work with me. You don’t think, Phil, that I’ve let you work for me all of these years for nothing!”

  “No,” said Phil, “maybe I just dreamt that, and all the time you’ve been putting money in the bank for me?”

  “Amounts to the same thing, or better. You’ve furnished the work and the brains. I’ve furnished the land that gave you the chance, and some other things that you needed, such as horses, and the rest. Well, now you’ve worked up a fine thing, on this here place of mine, and what I have always wanted to invite you to do — was to come in with me as partners — half and half, Phil. You and me, half and half!”

  He spoke with a truly Falstaffian heartiness, and Phil Slader squinted hard at him but could not make his glance bore through to indubitable truth.

  “I’d like to know,” said Phil. “I’d sure like terrible well to be able to tell whether you’re halfway square or not. I don’t want your partnership. Not for a million! I donate the work that I’ve done — and I give you half a year before you’ve let the place go to ruin, straight! However, that ain’t my party. But I want to tell you one more thing!”

  “Son,” said Magruder, “dog-goned if it don’t shock me to hear the way you talk to me. It shocks me and it cuts me pretty deep. Makes me feel pretty sad, Phil. But I’m listening. What is the other thing that you want me to hear?”

  “I’ll tell you straight enough. I want you to hear this. From now on, while I’m with you, I’m going to pack a gun. And the reason that I’ll pack that gun is because I don’t trust you Doc. I don’t trust you a bit, and I want you to know it. I’m going to pack a gun, and the first time that I see you making a pass that looks queer to me, I’m going to up and kill you. You understand?”

  “Phil!” cried the older man.

  “Oh, I mean it. I mean it straight as a die. I think that you knew me, today, and I think that you knew my horse. And I think that you want to murder me, Doc, before I get out of your hands. Now we understand each other. Maybe I’m a swine to suspect you of this. And maybe I’m just a fool for letting you go, now that I’ve got it all right. But I’d hate to be outlawed on account of killing a pup like you, Magruder. I sure would!”

  So said Phil Slader, speaking slowly and calmly. And Magruder swallowed the insults as though they had been delicious wine. The boy had more to say — much more — but instead of stopping to hear what the continuation might be, Phil reined his mustang back and when he reached the shelter of the trees, quickly whirled the animal away into a gallop.

  There was no following sound of hoofbeats behind him, and he could guess that, no matter what Magruder might have in mind, he had done enough for this one day.

  So Phil Slader shut the thought of his guardian from his young mind and turned whole-heartedly to the work which was before him — the search of the river woods for the elusive form of that famous man, Lon Kirby.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  NO DOUBT MANY a man had gone out before to the man hunt with a lifted heart and great expectations, but surely no one ever rode forth with such pure joy as that which filled young Phil Slader on this day of days. In his life, he had been forced to exercise a constant self-control. The hand which yearned, on a day, to knock Sammy Newell flat upon his back, had been tied to his side by the knowledge that all acts of violence upon his part would be wrongly construed by the rest of public opinion. So he had proceeded through these years of young life with more inhibitions than channels of expression — a dangerous condition for any youngster, and above all for a powerful nature like his own. But, knowing that he must pay most dearly the first indication of physical violence, he had controlled himself.

  Today he was free. He had before him a quarry which he was free to hunt down, if he could. Therefore, his heart was merry indeed! He forgot his encounter with Magruder and all the trouble which that meeting might create. He lived for the moment, for one thing only.

  Phil Slader drove his mustang rapidly toward the Crusoe River, with the murmur of the upper falls growing louder each moment. Yet, when he came to another good outlook which surveyed a considerable sweep of the stream, he paused again and considered. If he had been in the boots of Lon Kirby, what would he have done? Would he have turned upstream, through the dense thickets or would he have gone down?

  In either case, there were considerable difficulties. If he turned upstream, he had rapidly rising ground before him; but he had, in addition, the sheltering hills not far away, among whose broken surfaces, when the night came, he could surely contrive to slip away out of the circle of the man hunters.

  If he went down the stream, his course would be easier with the falling ground, but he would have no particular goal. Phil Slader was, however, reasonably sure that that was where Lon Kirby must have gone. For Kirby would know that the pursuers were searching the hills for him in preference to all other places. He would go down the stream, working his way painfully through the brush.

  Another idea came to Phil. It was all well enough to wade through those tangles of underbrush. But what mileage would a strong man make in a day? Phil knew all about those thickets. Certainly it was no district for speed. Nothing, saving the waters of the stream, worked easily down the valley — and there was always that five-mile current swinging down.

  It was this that brought the next inspiration to Phil. Five miles an hour was a reasonably good gait. As fast as even a good walker could maintain over any space of time. Suppose that he, himself, had been forced into that covert, would he not have been tempted to expend a little time in gathering dry driftwood along the banks of the stream, and then let himself float serenely with the Crusoe River until the night came? Then, in a region many and many a welcome mile away, he would come forth and take horse and saddle from the unlucky rancher who happened to have a house nearest to his point of exit from the marshes?

  When that thought came to Phil Slader, he decided to act as though it was a certainty. He headed, then, not straight for the river, but far down its course. If the bandit had really taken to the water, he had been some time afloat; so Phil Slader made his mustang maintain a heartbreaking gait for a full hour, then, when he was well down the valley, he turned in toward the stream. At the outer edge of the marsh, he tethered his horse — just deep enough to keep it screened from observation from the outside. Then he struck in toward the water working fast and hard.

  It was not a pleasant marsh, even as marshes go. There were stretches of water covered with thick-crusted slime, of a pea-green color. Out of this slime rose stumps and half-fallen trees, covered with the same incrustation and of the same deadly color. At every step, rotten wood crunched beneath his heel. When he paused to listen, he would hear stealthy whispers, here and there, as though other creatures had heard his coming and now were moving carefully away. And now and again, with a light slipping sound, more hidden than a whisper, a snake slipped from a wallowing log and dived through the hideous water.

  It seemed to Phil, after a time, that he was not the hunter, but the hunted. Vague motions of panic rose in his heart. Again and again he had to check a foolish impulse to retreat in all haste toward the bright, white sun which shone beyond. And when he looked through that decayed forest and past the acephalous trees, toward the blue of the sun-washed sky, he felt as though the green stain of the bog were entering his own soul forever.

  Yet he kept on his way, sometimes slipping into the horrible muck deeper than his waist but wading out again and working his way as much by force of hand as by leaping from log to log. At length he came to the higher ground immediately beside the course of the Crusoe. There he had barely kicked some of the muck and water from his feet and wiped some of the clinging slime away from his hands, when he heard a cheerful whistling coming down the stream toward him.

  It seemed to blot out all of his labors at once. He cursed his foolish work and his d
isappointed hopes, at the same instant. He had come hunting for the fugitive from justice. And instead, here was a gayly whistling man . . . . He had a gloomy desire to locate the source of this whistling. No doubt it came from some boy who was fishing in the waters of the river. So Phil Slader stepped under the arch made by a bowed tree which leaned like an abutment against a taller and stronger brother. Through the arch he peered out over the flashing waters until he saw the music maker approaching.

  It was no boy in a boat. The craft was a rudely constructed raft made of a dozen or more sizable logs which were held together with twisted withes cut from creeping vines. It was a sluggish and half water-logged structure but it traveled very nearly as fast as the current which drifted it along, and now, as the current at a curve gripped it, the craft went forward with such impetus that the man had much difficulty in steering safely with his oar. This was no more than a length of the tough outer rind torn from some rotten stump of a tree.

  There was a broad, shady beach, on the inner side of the bend — the side next to Phil Slader, in fact — and in attempting to veer his clumsy ship away from the shallows at the edge of this, the stranger gave his vessel such strong paddling that it twisted awry and began to turn end for end, spinning in the current. An instant later, it had slid through the slush at the edge of the beach, and there sat the stranger with his arms folded, very much at his ease, in spite of this misadventure. Indeed, he had not stopped the tune which he had been whistling, even while he was paddling most vigorously!

  Phil Slader looked upon him with amazement and with delight. For this was Lon Kirby, at last! This was Lon Kirby’s long, narrow face; this was Lon Kirby’s build, so like his own, as Magruder had said — not overly tall, but formidably wide of shoulder and long of arm. Indeed, there was more than a little excuse for the mistake that Magruder had made, and Phil was glad that he had not pushed matters to an extremity in his interview with Doc.

  The pale, ugly face of the fugitive turned slowly from place to place. One would have thought that he was making up his mind whether or not he ought to accept the dictates of luck, and land here permanently from his little boat. Indeed, he finally stood up and stepped ashore, and began to examine the big rocks which were scattered here and there along the sands of that bend.

  They seemed to please him, these big boulders, and he examined them, finally, with so much care that it seemed to Phil Slader, the outlaw must be noting the mark of the point to which high water came. At length, he picked out a stone which was beyond that danger point and he began to work and pry at it. It was far too deeply rooted for his strength.

  He tried another and this time by a vast effort, he overturned the stone. He turned up its jagged, massive roots and straightway he dropped upon his knees and began to examine the dirt under the stone and then to scoop it out. He sifted the first handful or so through his fingers, and seemed much pleased with the dryness of the gravel.

  At length, when he had been digging for some time, he took a little parcel from his inside coat pocket, dropped it into the hole in the ground and presently set about the labor of erecting the big stone over its former site. It was hard labor, to be sure, but eventually he managed it. Then he began to scatter the dry, white surface sand over the spot, and to brush out all traces, as well as he could by working over the sand’s surface with the palm of his hand.

  He had seemed the very height of carelessness, up to this point, but now he appeared the very acme of scrupulous exactness. All the while, the wonder in Phil Slader grew greater and greater. For he knew that Kirby could not but be aware of the frightful danger in which he stood. Capture meant no mere trial and polite prison sentence. Capture meant for him certain hanging at the hands of the law — if not at the hands of some over-zealous mob.

  Yet here was the man whistling gayly and calmly, as he floated down the river, with life or death in the making. Here he was whistling still as he worked at burying his money. Oh, there had never been such another man as this, since the days when joyous Jack Slader rode and fought and prospered along the frontier and left a certain amount of laughter and of tears in his wake.

  It was as if Lon Kirby cast the greater part of the burden of worry upon the knees of the gods. They could save him, if they would and they would damn him if they chose. But as for the little matter of a bit of additional noise — why, if there were any man hunter near enough to hear that whistling, he was near enough to nearly see him anyway!

  Such, it seemed plain, must be the reasoning of Lon Kirby, and it seemed to Phil Slader dangerous reasoning enough, but filled with wonderful charm to him. He knew before half of the work had been finished, that he could not march down and present his gun at the head of Kirby. It seemed to Phil, now, that there would be a species of cowardly treachery involved in such a procedure. It would be the casting of a certain reflection back upon Jack Slader — the outlaw, and his son, the captor of outlaws!

  So reasoned Phil, faultily, no doubt, but with all of the honesty which he could summon. And he sat in his place and watched fifteen thousand dollars, in the shape of human flesh and blood, finish the burial of the treasure, and then push off the rickety raft, step onto it, and finally drift, still whistling, down the farther bend of the current:

  “Charlie is my darlin’, my darlin’, my darlin’,

  Charlie is my darlin’, the young . . . .”

  And the rumbling of the waters and the distant hushing of the great waterfall, drowned the sound of the song maker.

  CHAPTER XIX

  AFTER THAT, AS the whistling died out, it seemed to Phil Slader that he had doubtless been a great fool to allow this valuable criminal to slip through his hands. No doubt there was a certain duty that he owed society in apprehending the outlaw; moreover had he not started forth with the greatest keenness, bent upon finding and crushing this very man? But the joy had been in the finding of him and there would be no particular pleasure, so it seemed to him, in simply presenting a gun and ordering him to throw up his hands — and then destroying him if he refused to obey.

  At any rate, to capture the bandit had become an impossible thing — all the more impossible because he had been so completely at the mercy of Phil. Yet, now that all sound of him had disappeared, Phil came forth shame-faced and went to the spot where, as it appeared, the outlaw had buried his treasure.

  He laid hold upon that same rock which the great Lon Kirby had barely been able to move. To his joy, it came away easily in his hands. It might be that Lon Kirby was a cunning and dreadful warrior, but it was certain that his careless and free life had not given his arms and shoulders the same power that lived in Phil Slader, who had been nurtured by hard work and endless work, all the days of his young life.

  He raised that rock and, rejoicing in his might, he carried it bodily several steps, though the huge weight drove his feet deep, deep into the sand over which he walked. In the cavity beneath it there was a thin covering of dry pebbles, and when these had been brushed away, he found the small package which he had noticed before, produced from the pocket of the outlaw. A very ordinary package, indeed, and it seemed impossible that anything of worth could be in it. To be sure, when he had cut away the strings, there was oiled-silk to unwrap, first of all, and after that, the sight which he had expected — a stack of bills.

  It was far smaller, however, than the stack which he had anticipated! This was merely of the size of a handful. Yet it was wadded firmly together, and when he detached the first note, he saw that it called for the payment of five hundred dollars!

  He was amazed by this; he had realized, dimly, that money of such a denomination was indeed printed by the government, and yet it had hardly seemed a credible fact that five hundred dollars could be wadded, if he chose, into a ball hardly larger than a pea — that five hundred dollars could be tossed into the air by the pressure of his breath, and so carried away in the wind forever, to fill a corner, perhaps, in the nest of a hawk or to soften the bed of the squirrel?

  But what wa
s five hundred dollars as he had always thought of it in the past? It meant the wages of a year of labor as a cowpuncher, when he was able to attain to the dignity of such free employment. It meant, moreover, what a cowpuncher’s wages would be if they were all saved and treasured up, and not a penny expended for clothes or tobacco, for guns or ammunition, or to buy trinkets to present to a friend’s children for Christmas — above all, to supply the ways and means for any true cowpuncher’s celebration, which gave a little touch of salt to life! If not a penny were spent in the year, there would be at the end of it, twenty dollars less than the sum which this first bill that he lifted from the stack represented!

  For this sum could not all the horses of Magruder be clad in the new harness they needed so much; the blacksmith shop could be refitted completely and turned into a place where, with his strength and craft of hand he could make almost anything that the heart of a farmer could desire? All of this was most undubitably true. Beyond this there was to be considered that for a mere miserable eight dollars he could buy that perfectly good plow from Jackson — that one which had only been damaged by a little exposure to the weather. In addition to this, for merely eighteen dollars he could buy the good two-ton wagon which young Caldwell offered for sale; for twenty-two dollars he could get him the buggy which Greenwich no longer wanted. It had cost a hundred and fifty, new, rubber tires and all — with only a repainting job to be done, which he knew perfectly well how to manage himself! He scanned the limitless possibilities which lay in that single sheet of printed paper.

  But no, this was money stolen from the bank. It must be returned therefore, to the place from which it was taken. He conjured up before his eye the form of that admitted scallywag, Alden Turner, president of the Crusoe bank. He could almost hear the oily smoothness with which the phrases would be turned off the tongue of the banker, and the unction with which he would pronounce limitless grace over the head of the brave and honest man who returned this money to its rightful owner. In the conclusion, he would offer some ten or twenty dollars reward . . . .