by Max Brand
“I’LL CUT OUT all of the little things that go into the making of this here yarn,” said the fat man, “and I’ll come down to the facts that there I was, one day, sitting in an upper level of an old mine. I had come busting through from one side, on the search for an old silver pocket that my lead was pointing at. When I got through, there I found a young Mexican just polishing off the last of that ore! He had just outguessed me and he had got away with the cream of the stuff.
“I was just able to laugh, instead of braining him, and we sat down and had a smoke together. And we got to talking about the funny coincidence that it was — that old mine having laid there for hundreds of years, just the way that it was when the Spaniards got through with working it with Indian labor, and then along comes two gents and they starts in and works up leads. And almost at the same minute, they arrives at the same pocket.
“We was talking about that, and about other coincidences, that led up as how I had seen a strange thing in Chicago, where I had run into, on the street, a pickpocket that had gone through me in a street crowd in Singapore. And I dipped into his pocket and the first thing that I pulled out was a match safe that belonged to me!
“Well, when I got through talking about that, we turned on to more spooky subjects, and finally the Mexican kid, whose name was this same Diego Pasqual, turns loose and tells me the strangest thing that he had ever seen in his life.
“He said that a long ways back, fourteen or fifteen years, he had gone up north and he had a job working for a gent that has a shack on the edge of a river.”
“The Crusoe, eh?” put in Phil Slader.
At that, the fat man lifted his big, yellow, expressionless eyes. “The Crusoe it was,” said he and frowned, as though he would have liked to stop all further interruptions. “The Crusoe it was, right enough. There this Diego Pasqual settled down, and he was working pretty peaceful and contented and more industrious than he had ever been before, in his whole life. And he says that his boss was the best and the easiest gent to work for that he ever met with in his life.”
“It was my father,” said Phil Slader.
“It was,” said the host; “it was your father.”
He tamped his pipe down with another scowl. “The kid had a good reason, of some kind, for not wanting to ramble around none too much. This was a good, wild, quiet spot. And the kid wanted wildness and quietness. Just what he had done back in Mexico, I don’t know, but I think that it had something to do with running a knife between somebody’s ribs back in old Mexico. Anyway, there he was, happy and comfortable, with nothing much to do except some fishing, a little cooking, now and then, and sweeping up the shack. And all the time, his boss was extra special kind and easy with him.
“Well, things went along like this, all hunky dory, for a long time, until finally the trouble busted on them right out of a cloud, as you might say. For he come back from a trip up through the hills, trying to get berries, one day. And he had a hat filled with the berries right up to the brim. His arms was aching with that load, and he was hurrying down before the sun and the heat of his hands should have made all of these berries begin to wither up, y’understand?”
He paused again to lean back his great bulk against the side of the house, and the broad boards creaked and bent under the heavy weight which was thus thrust against them.
“Well, when the kid come through the door of the shack and started to close it, something grabbed him from behind, and he was pretty near choked. There was a gag jabbed into his mouth. And then he was throwed in under the bunk.
“He lay there, choking and nearly dying. Fact of the matter was that he would have died, and the big fellow that was there in the shack with him, leaned down and took a look at his face and then shrugged his shoulders — not giving a hang whether or not the kid lived or died!”
There flashed back upon the mind of Phil Slader a certain moment when he had lain in the trail, tortured by the sun, and the calm, indifferent face of Magruder above him.
“That was Doc Magruder?” he suggested.
“Aye, that was Doc Magruder. And Magruder looked the kid over, as I’ve said, not caring whether he lived or died, and perhaps preferring that he should of died and so been out of the way. But he couldn’t quite make up his mind to murdering the kid. Anyway, the kid didn’t choke. He managed to shift that gag a little by working the muscles at the root of his tongue, and then he could lie there and breathe more comfortable, though still feeling more than half stifled all the while.
“After a time, the day began to turn dark, and the kid, staring out from under the bunk, saw the big Magruder sitting there with his revolver in his hand, all ready and fixed. Then the revolver didn’t seem good enough for him, or sure enough as the darkness got thicker. So he took up his rifle, and he oiled that up, and looked to the loading of it, and he sat there with the rifle, ready to shoot the minute that the door opened.
“Well, after a time some voices come down, echoing across the water, pretty loud, and there wasn’t the voice of the owner of the shack in that number.”
“Jack Slader owned that shack, then?” asked Phil.
“You’ve spotted all of the names,” admitted the fat man. “Slader’s voice wasn’t among those that was paddling down the stream in a canoe. But they landed near to the shack, and they come up and opened the door of it.
“Everything was pitch dark inside, and some of them was for coming in and making themselves at home; and then somebody spoke up and said that he thought he knew who owned that shack, and that it would be a poison-bad business for anybody to be found in there by the owner. When he mentioned the name of Jack Slader, that was enough. They didn’t even so much as light a match to look around in the shack and to see what was there.
“Well, when they went off, the kid could hear Magruder groan with relief, because he had been pretty scared for fear that he might have been found there, rifle in hand, waiting to do a plain murder — even if it was only the murder of an outlawed man.
“Now things went along like this for a time, and the kid could hear the new party of folks settle down not far off, and he could hear the blows of their axes as they chopped down the trees that they wanted for their night camp or for their fire. A rifle popped here and there, as though that some one of them might be off shooting at rabbits by the moonlight — which it is as good a time to kill rabbits as any that I ever knew about. Anyway, those sounds from the near camp sounded so cheerful that the kid began to feel that all of this might turn out pretty good.
“And, just then, the back door of the shack was pulled open, and somebody stepped in as silent as a shadow. You see, what had happened was simply that Slader had heard the camp so close up to his, and he was going to sneak into his cabin and see that the strangers hadn’t disturbed anything there. And he took the back entrance as a matter of course, in case that any of the gang might be watching the front door. He stepped in, and must have seen the shadow of Magruder bulking there like a shadow inside of a shadow.
“Magruder had shifted his position. He was watching only the front door at that moment. He tried to whirl around, but he had the grip of Jack Slader on him, and any of the old-timers that rode through the mountains in those days, could have told you what the Slader grip was like, I suppose.”
“There!” murmured Lon Kirby with his lips, whispering. And he pointed a sudden hand.
They saw young Phil Slader sitting with a thick bar of iron between his hands — a ponderous bar, used by Don Remy for the purpose of shifting and freshing the fire in the great old stove. It looked like a gun barrel, melted down into a single clumsy rod.
The rod, under the enormous pressure of the hands of Phil Slader, was bowing into an arc. As he had listened to the tale of his father’s peril, he had sought this dumb employment of his strength as an outlet for his emotions.
The host, staring in the indicated direction, looked askance at Phil, and then across to Lon Kirby.
“It’s the Slader grip,” said Lon
Kirby. “And now you’ve seen for yourself.”
“I’ve seen!” said Don Remy. “I’ve seen. I dunno that his dad could do a thing like that — but he could do enough. And he mastered Magruder and laid him flat on the floor of the shack. And Magruder, he began to gasp and ask what it all meant, and beg for his life like a whipped cur . . . .”
“Are you sure of that?” broke in Phil Slader.
“I’m telling you what the greaser told me, word for word. Nothing changed from what he said!”
“All right,” said Phil Slader. “I didn’t think that Magruder could be as low as that — but now I’ll believe it!”
“Son,” said the narrator, “this here which I’m telling you, it’s a study in lowness and meanness, and you got to get yourself ready to believe a lot more things than this, before I’m through with you, because I’m going to show you how Magruder was the lowest and meanest skunk that ever stepped and that ever breathed!”
CHAPTER XXXVII
BY THIS TIME the interest in the shack, which had been at a high point long before, had grown to a feverish intensity. And they pressed on into a close and closer circle. The center was Don Remy, and the rim was composed of six eager listeners, all bent upon hearing an incredible thing.
Then said Don Remy: “This here is a yarn that I don’t like to tell. I’ve just hinted at it before, but I’ve never given out the facts. And I’ll never do it again, because it makes me pretty sick, y’understand? Anyway, this is the way that the layout was:
“There was the greaser kid lying there under the bunk, scared to death, but pretty happy because that his boss had come along and got the upper hand with Magruder. He was only hoping that Slader would wring Magruder’s neck or give the kid a chance to do it for him.
“But the kid couldn’t move. He was tied hand and foot. And he was tied by Magruder so hard that he had turned numb, long ago. There wasn’t any sensation in his arms and his legs below the shoulders and the hips, and so he just lay there, unable to move, without nothing living in him except his brains. He lay there and he saw his boss light a candle wick that throwed just enough light to see a ghost’s whiteness, as the saying is. And when Jack Slader saw the face of Magruder, he was a good deal cut up, and he says: ‘Doc, by Heaven, I can’t believe that you really have tried to murder me! I can’t believe it!’
“Magruder, he just tried to wriggle himself through the floor, and he began to beg again and he told Slader that he hadn’t meant him any harm. But Jack Slader just smiled. Jack was never any man’s fool. And you can’t very well explain away sitting in the dark of a man’s shack with a rifle bare in your hands. That takes a good deal of explaining, and a lot more than Magruder had the tongue or the wit for, and yet he was always a powerful liar, according to what I’ve heard.”
Here Lon Kirby put in: “I hate to interrupt you, Remy, but it makes me boil a little to think how many honest folks in this here world really believe with all of their hearts that that snake, that Magruder, really waltzed into the house of Jack Slader and had the nerve to fight him, hand to hand, and had the nerve to beat him and kill him.”
“Wait a minute,” said Remy, “because you’ve got to understand that they’re partly right. He did fight Jack Slader in his own house, and he did kill him. And this was the way of it.
“After Slader had looked down at Magruder for a time, he says to him: ‘Folks know that I’ve been a friend to you, Doc. And over yonder is some gents that I’ve got a mind to call in and let them hear the story of what’s happened between you and me, so that they can make up their minds for themselves as to what had better be done with you!’
“Even Magruder, that had no shame, he felt shame at this, and he begged Jack to kill him if he wanted to, but not to turn him over to the boys to hear what sort of a murdering skunk he had tried to be on that night.
“And Jack, he was always a goodnatured gent that loved to have a joke and that loved to have friends around him. He was plumb kind and gentle, the way that I remember him, and he couldn’t keep malice against nobody. He says to Doc that he wouldn’t call in the others. And with that, he cuts the ropes with which he had tied Magruder’s hands, and he lets Doc loose and free to stand up. But Magruder wouldn’t stand up. He just sat on the ground and asks Jack:
“‘What d’you aim to do, Jack?’
“Slader says: ‘I aim that you are going to have as fair a chance as though you deserved it, which you don’t, and which you know that you don’t!’
“‘I don’t deserve anything,’ says Magruder. ‘Only — what do you mean by a fair chance?’
“‘A chance to stand up here and get an equal draw for your gun, Doc.’
“Well, at that Magruder just melted back into the floor, and he says: ‘It’s murder!’
“‘You lie!’ says Jack Slader. ‘And you know that you lie, because I’ve promised you that I’d give you an even chance and not take any advantage of you, and there was never a Slader yet that would break his word!’
“Well, that didn’t ease up the spirit of Doc Magruder none. He pointed out in a whimper that there was nobody in the world, hardly, that could stand up to Jack Slader in a gun fight from an even start, and he told Jack that it was simply murder to ask him to do such a thing, and Jack couldn’t argue him into standing up and fighting like a man.
“It threw Jack Slader into a terrible temper. When he got mad he was a devil to face, and you can believe me when I say it, because I’ve seen him raging, a couple of times. It was something worth remembering.
“He says to Magruder: ‘I’ve treated you like a brother, Doc, you rat. And now you’ve come here to gnaw away at me and get fat on my death. You came here to murder me.”
“‘No,’ says Magruder, ‘only to capture you, Jack!’
“‘You lie,’ says Jack Slader, ‘because you know that I’ll never be captured alive — but they’ll have to take me dead! You know that, and that means that you came here to do a murder on me. I loathe your rotten heart, Magruder. I would like to burn you inch by inch, and in another minute I’ll swear that I’ll do it, unless you stand up here and fight me like a man. Hand or knife or club or gun — I’ll take you any way that you say!’
“Magruder, he sat there on the ground, turned into ice, he was so badly scared, and he kept shaking his head and moaning with every breath that he drew, like an unhappy puppy that wants to get out of its kennel. And he says:
“‘There’s nobody that can stand to you, hand to hand. You know that. You got the strength of a devil in your hands. And you got the speed of a devil in those hands, too. No, if you’re going to murder me, Slader, go ahead and do it — because I won’t raise a hand to help myself!’”
At this point in the story, there was a sudden snarl of disgusted disbelief, and the sound came from most of the men in the room, but the fat host merely shook his head.
“I felt that way, too,” said he, in perfect sympathy with his hearers, “but the greaser swore that that was the way that it was, and I had to believe him. After all, it was to his advantage to make the yarn better than it really was and not worse — as I’ll explain to you in a minute more.
“Well, when Magruder showed that he wouldn’t fight that way, like a white man, Jack Slader yanked a revolver out of its holster in that flashy way that he had of handling a gun, and he seemed about to shoot Magruder on the spot. And would you believe what Magruder done?
“Well he crawled across the floor of that shack and he put his arms around the knees of Slader and begged him not to kill him!”
Here the host was forced to stop and wipe his brow, and every man in the room was looking down to the floor, in silent rage and horror that such a creature should ever have been able to call himself a man.
“Slader listened and tried to kick him away, but when he saw that Magruder wouldn’t turn into a man, whether he were kicked like a dog or not, he finally said: ‘I’ll give you a handicap, Magruder, if you’ll start fighting and stop whining!’
&n
bsp; “‘What can you do for me?’ asks Magruder.
“‘I’ll let you have your gun in your hand while my gun is still inside of the leather,’ says Slader.
“But Magruder wouldn’t hear of it. After all, the way that Jack got a Colt out of its leather was a caution to watch, and Magruder didn’t hanker to take any chances, as you’ll see later. He kept on whining and begging Jack to give him a chance to prove that he was a friend and not an enemy, until finally Jack Slader says to him:
“‘I’ve thought of a way that even a skunk like you could never refuse. We’ll take off all of the guns that we have on us. And then we’ll put just one gun on the little table there, in the middle of the room, and then we’ll step back one step from the table, and at the signal, when we’ve counted three, we’ll dive for that gun. You hear me?’
“Magruder all at once showed a little sign of life, after this. He stood up and let the thing be done, and the Colt was put on the table between them. But when they stood there and Slader begun counting, Magruder lost his nerve again and fell on his knees and said that it was murder and that he wouldn’t fight. Then Slader asked him what he could want more even than this. And Magruder said that everybody in the world knew that Slader was as fast as lightning on his feet, and that there wouldn’t be anything to such a thing. Because Slader would be sure to reach that gun first.
“After that, Slader seemed beat, for a minute. But he was plain raging for the fight, as the greaser told me. He couldn’t wait and hold himself off. Finally, he was fool enough to consent to move back a whole pace further away from the table than Magruder.
“After that, he began counting, and you would say that Magruder now had enough advantages to play the rest of the game fair and square. But he didn’t. He wanted to crowd every advantage that he could into this game before he would play it at all. When the count was only at two, he left Slader flat and dived for the gun. Even at that, he was only a flash ahead of Slader.