by Max Brand
“Willingly,” said the Mexican. “From the hip, is it not, señor?”
And at the same time he snapped his revolver out and turned loose a rapid volley of shots. Four followed in rapid succession. Three landed so close that they spattered dust and gravel on the can and started it rolling. The fourth punctured it with a loud chime and knocked it flat against a stone.
“And now . . . .” said Pasqual, turning with a broad grin, while his flickering glance ran over the faces of the idlers and drank in their admiration.
So Phil took that revolver — standing for the first time in his life with a loaded weapon in his hand. He had shunned them all the other days. Many and many a time he had played, since his childhood, with an empty Colt. He knew the feel and the balance and the weight of the trigger pull and how to point the gun like a finger of the hand and how to draw a careful bead through the sights. He knew all of these things, and he knew, also, that the less skill he showed in firing his shot the better it would be for him. It was, in fact, a chance for him to demonstrate before the public eye that he was by no means the gun fighter that Magruder had made him out — by no means the secretly formidable warrior that many people believed him.
But, under the eyes of the keen, smiling Pasqual, he weighed the gun in his hand. It was a beauty, no doubt. A little lighter than Phil would have liked for a personal choice, perhaps, for it had been specially made more frail to suit the slender hand of the Mexican. On the other hand, its balance was so perfect that it fitted to the palm of his hand like his own flesh.
Phil liked the gun. He looked at the target, which was knocked some thirty paces away by the last shot of the Mexican.
And, as he fixed it steadily with his eye, he could feel a certain rigidity coming over him. His feet gripped the ground hard, his legs grew like stone, and all the nerves in his body seemed to die except those in his right hand and in his staring eyes. It was as though the tin can had been placed suddenly under a magnifying glass, which drew it far nearer to him. It increased in bulk, and, staring at it, it seemed suddenly to Phil Slader that he could not miss.
Indeed, there was almost something of a physical projection from his eyes to the target, a strong line of attraction. The murmur of the voices on the veranda died from his ears. The trees and the dead grass passed from his eyes. All of this increasing tension in him has taken long to describe, but in reality it was extended over hardly a second’s time. Then he raised the gun.
It seemed to Phil Slader that he raised the weapon slowly, slowly indeed. But his own nerves were now tensed to such a high degree that what seemed slow to him seemed to the others a lightning gesture. He did not try from the hip. For even instinct, no matter how keen, could not equip him with sufficient skill to shoot from the hip without much practice. But, the instant that the gun came even with the line from his eye to the target, he fired. And as he pressed the trigger an odd certainty passed, thrilling, through his veins. He knew that he could not miss! It was as though a divine power had been given to him. The gun flashed up, exploded, and the tin can was tossed with a clang into the air.
There was a little gasp from the others. He handed the gun back to the Mexican and found the little fellow exclaiming in excitement:
“It was not from the hip — it was not from the hip, amigos! You have not played fair with me, señor!”
“Do you need to shoot from the hip to kill a man?” asked Phil Slader.
And he strode past the Mexican, and past the silent figures on the veranda, and into the hotel.
CHAPTER XXVII
IT WAS ALL very wrong, no doubt — all very, very foolish. Such skill was the last thing which he should have showed to the world. At a stroke, all that Magruder had said about him seemed true; Magruder had said that young Phil Slader, for all that he avoided guns in public, was practicing with them in private and preparing himself for his great day.
Now he had showed something which he himself had not dreamed that he possessed. But by the possession of it, he felt himself raised to a new level. Yonder by the edge of the river there was a great treasure which he could make his, if he chose. That treasure seemed a small thing to him, compared with the power which he had just discovered in himself. The bank notes were something which he could only take by an act of theft. But this new thing which he had found was a part of his own soul; the cunningest thief in the world could never take that from him.
The warning of the sheriff became a dim thing, of no importance whatever. And the Mexican, Diego Pasqual, was a person not worthy of an instant’s consideration. All the problems of Phil Slader dropped into the background, and one grand and overwhelming truth remained — he had in himself the thing from which other men had shrunk. There had been cause, then, for the manner in which other men had always treated him. They had felt in him the thing which he himself did not know.
He sat in his room with his hands locked around his knees, his head thrown back, his eyes closed, and a swelling joy in him, such as he had never known before. And he began to laugh, though he was one to whom laughter had never been easy. It came of its own volition, softly and sweetly flooding his very soul, filling his heart with waves of light.
Phil sat for long moments, that drifted by him with all the speed of falling leaves in autumn; he was unconscious of their passing.
The evening came, and still he did not move until the door opened softly, and he found himself looking up into the awe-stricken face of Magruder.
“What’s the matter, Phil?” he asked huskily. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” said Phil.
“Why, son, it’s supper time, you know?”
“Supper time? Why, it’s not four o’clock!”
Then he looked aside and saw the shadows of the evening and the brilliant rose of the sky in the west.
He was startled and, turning to Magruder, he found that big worthy pale with trouble and confusion. There was nothing that Phil could put into words to explain that odd sojourn in his chamber.
At the table he found Pasqual and four other men there. All eyes lifted and looked a fixed instant on him. Then all eyes flashed down to their plates.
They knew! The power of Jack Slader was reborn in the world, indeed. But there was more and more which they did not know, and which they could not know. That was singing in the soul of Phil. He controlled himself as he looked around the table and saw that they were conscious of the mastering weight of his glance, even when their own glances dropped to their plates.
Diego Pasqual was the one exception. He, indeed, finally forced himself to look up, but he was under a tremendous strain, and he left the table before the meal was ended.
It was a miserable repast for the others. Magruder made some futile attempts at conversation. But they were not picked up or enforced by the others. And the time passed slowly, slowly. Yet for Phil, all was happiness, and he could not help smiling even upon the bowed heads of the others. They only guessed at the thing that was in him. They thought that it was a dreadful and destroying angel; they could not know that he felt nothing but gentle kindness toward them all. Even Magruder, out of the greatness of this good which had come to him, he could almost forgive.
His sleep was deep and untroubled that night. The next morning, when he had finished caring for the livestock, he mounted his mustang and cantered toward Crusoe.
He found Blinky Rosen at the exact spot where he had left him, and at the appointed minute. Rosen grinned and nodded at him as he came up.
“I see that you got it with you, kid,” said he. “I see that you got it with you. More power to you. You’ll never regret it. I’m gonna go back and tell the boys that old man Lon is doin’ business with a real comer from out this way. You never spent ten grand on a better business than this here. Y’understand?”
He took the money, seized the hand of Phil Slader with a hard claw, and wrung it. Then he turned and was gone. And Phil, raising his head, found himself looking fairly into the sad eyes of the sheriff.
He rode str
aight across to Mitchel Holmer.
“Holmer,” said he, “why do you look at me like that?”
“Son,” said the sheriff, “anything that makes a sneaking crook like that fellow Rosen happy, is sure to make me sad. I dunno what you gave to him, just then, and I’m not asking you. I really don’t want to know. I’m afraid to know, Phil!”
There was so much justice and kindness mingled in this speech, that Phil Slader sighed. He wanted with all his heart to lay everything bare before the sheriff, but that certainly could not be. Therefore he said:
“Holmer, I got this to say. I like you a lot. I respect you a lot. I want your friendship. You’re the only one of the gang that has any real use for me. And I’ll tell you this: The rest of them are right when they think that I’ve got it in me to raise the devil. But I’m going to fool them and I’m going to run up to the stuff that you hope out of me, sheriff. Only I’ve got to have my chance. And I’ll tell you this: If I get into a fight, it’ll be because it’s forced on me. You understand me, sheriff?”
“Forced on you, Phil?” echoed the sheriff, frowning. “And tell me, son, what fool would want to force a fight on you?”
“Pasqual!” exclaimed Phil.
“Pasqual? Phil, Phil, are you trying to prepare me for a fight with him? When I already been warned that you’re after him? Are you going to try to tell me now, that Pasqual would try to pick a fight with you?”
And Phil Slader bit his lip, seeing that he had nothing to say which could be believed. He could not point to any deeds, except the strange conduct of Diego Pasqual the afternoon preceding. And that was certainly not enough. Because, afterward, Diego had been meekness itself.
So Phil rode slowly back toward the farm again. But he could not remain depressed. No matter what the sheriff might say or how much truth there might be in those sayings, the fact remained that he had found such an aliment for his soul that it was growing greater and stronger every moment of every day.
He passed, now, into a happy trance in which hours and days and minutes passed with almost equal speed.
A week later he heard the next astonishing news in the papers.
Lon Kirby was loose. No one could tell how he had managed it, unless there had been a systematic bribing of the guards and the attendants at the prison, for he had been watched with the most scrupulous care and with a constant changing of the guards who had the keeping of him. Yet in spite of all of their attention, he had managed to get away from them, though his wound was hardly healed.
He had perhaps picked the locks of the vast irons which secured him. But though it was certain that he was a past master at such arts of trickery, it was hard to imagine how he could have freed himself without resorting to the covetousness of his keepers.
There was no doubt in the mind of Phil Slader, of course. He knew all too well what had happened, and perhaps there was very little of that money, which he had sent on by the crooked hands of Rosen, that was not spent in this jail breaking. He felt as though, with his own hand, he had reached out and plucked this man from prison.
Ten thousand dollars had done this. No wonder that Nell regarded money highly. Ten thousand had burst open doors of steel and stone and hewed through tool-proof bars and lifted a prisoner out into the safety of the underworld which had given him birth and which now had received him fondly back to its bosom.
He himself would regard money with a new eye, from this time forth.
In the meantime he prepared himself to face something of a duel with his conscience. For, if he were guilty of the release of the bandit, then every crime that Lon Kirby committed hereafter could really be laid to his own door. It was by no means a comforting thought!
CHAPTER XXVIII
IT WAS TWO days later, in the night, that he wakened and heard the neigh of big Rooster, restless in his corral.
It was hot in the room. And since he could not sleep again, he got up and dressed for a visit to the stallion. But he did not go to Rooster this night, for when he came near the corral, he saw two shadowy figures against the bars of the fence and against the clustered stars near the horizon.
It was Magruder and Diego Pasqual — he could distinguish their voices — speaking Spanish, a language with which Phil was only slightly familiar. He could make out, however, that they were speaking about the horse. Diego was holding forth at length and with enthusiasm, about the good fortune which such an animal would bring to the man who could master him.
“Not so much luck, either, Diego,” said Magruder, breaking into English. “Man with a horse like that under him would be too much tempted to raise the devil. He could do pretty much what he wanted and then get away from trouble. That big gray devil could carry two hundred pounds at a gallop all day long and never know that he had been busy. That’s what he looks like to me.”
“Is that what the boy is waiting for — to learn to handle Rooster before he starts?” asked Diego.
“Of course it is. I’ve told you that before. But he’ll never handle Rooster and neither will any other man until they make men in bigger sizes than any that I’ve ever seen.”
He added after a pause: “And what are you waiting for, Pasqual? Is the job going to be any easier by waiting for another time?”
“I have tried already,” said Pasqual. “But I could not get him to do anything. You know that.”
“I know that I’ve paid you good money and that I’m still paying it, Pasqual. And I’m tired . . . .”
“Hush,” said Pasqual, “you may be heard!”
And he turned around with a guilty start. But Phil was secure behind the corner of the wagon shed, and nothing was seen.
“No danger,” said Magruder. “He’s sleeping like a top. He’s sure to be . . . .”
The rest of this sentence was lost to Phil, for after the warning of the Mexican both began to talk in soft murmurs, no more intelligible to Phil than dim humming. Phil, at last, stole softly back to the hotel and into his room. He did not attempt to sleep. But lying down on his bed, he folded his arms under his head and strove to think this matter out.
Whatever the skill of Diego Pasqual was at the gaming table, it was plain that he was not kept at the hotel on that account. He was hired, in the first place, to make trouble for Phil Slader, and Magruder was reproaching him for having wasted so much time before executing his mission. That explained, accordingly, the manner in which Pasqual had repeatedly attempted to pick a quarrel with Phil in front of witnesses.
It gave Phil, moreover, a fairly sure proof that the bullet which Magruder had fired at him, those weeks before, had really been intended for his head, and not for that of Lon Kirby.
He had been in peril of his life all of this time, and he shuddered at the thought.
That he must leave the place at once, was clear. And when he left it, would he not be removing himself from the opportunity to get at the root of Magruder’s bitter fear and enmity? He dreaded Phil Slader with all his heart, and that dread must be founded upon the knowledge that he had murdered the boy’s father, not destroying him in fair fight, as the world had been led to believe.
Magruder feared, then, lest Phil should discover the truth. But how could that truth be learned, unless there were some hidden witness of the crime who could relate it to Phil, himself? Who might that witness be? Removed from the hotel and Magruder’s self, what chance would Phil have of learning the facts of the case? He thought of these things with a sigh.
Then he must have dropped off into a half sleep. Certainly when he roused it was from a semitrance to keen wakefulness. A little whisper of cooling air crossed his hot face, and he knew that the door of his room was opened.
That was not very strange, for the latch of that lock was weak, and any gust of wind, striking against it in a certain fashion, was apt to press it open. However, though there was a faintly stirring draft at the present moment, it seemed most odd to Phil that on this heavy, sluggish night there should have been enough force in any gust to open the door.
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br /> He did not sit up; he merely turned his head. And then it seemed to him that he saw a movement in the black shadows which filled the room. Ordinarily, he would have put it down for nothing. But that night he had heard something which sharpened his suspicions to a razor edge. Fear is an amaranthine blossom which never fades; and fear had been thrust into the very soul of Phil Slader on this night. So he was fully awake in an instant. Perhaps there was nothing, yonder in the darkness. Again, might it not be the stealthy form of Diego, the Silk Hand?
Phil Slader lay in his bed and thought he heard a faint ticking sound, as of a man’s weight crossing the floor little by little. He endured it until he could endure it no longer. There was no weapon in reach. Even the chair was too far from the head of his bed to be used as a missile. But he had the weight of his body to strike with — and, with a convulsive movement, he hurled himself from the bed and straight at the danger point in his fancy.
In his reasoning mind, he expected to get nothing for his effort. But as he plunged through the blackness he heard a sudden snarl, like the cry of a beast, close to the floor. A gun exploded, and the darting point of flame showed him the convulsed face of Diego Pasqual, set grimly for a desperate deed.
Where the bullet went, Phil Slader did not know. His own effort had placed such a roaring in his ears that he could hardly have heard the humming of a cannon ball. Then, true to his mark, he struck Diego Pasqual, and they both rolled, crashing against the farther wall of the room.
The gun exploded again, as they slid across the floor. And Phil, reaching out in haste, closed his hand upon the coat of the Mexican. It was like catching at the slippery bark of the willow twig. For Pasqual shed that coat instantly and leaped for the door, screaming:
“Help! He murders me! Help, Magruder — friends — oh, Heaven help me!”
For, fast as he sprang, Phil Slader was coming swiftly behind him. Diego might fly like a good sparrow hawk, but there was a long-winged falcon behind him. He plunged through the doorway into the hall, raising the wild echoes before him.