Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

“He just had time to twich the gun around and shoot at Jack, as Jack reached for the Colt. Two inches more, said the greaser, and Slader’s hands would have been at the Colt, and, of course, that would have meant the death of Magruder.

  “But that goes to prove to you that Magruder has brains. He’s a big and a hard-fighting man, as everybody knows; but he had the wits to know just the difference that lies between him and such a man as Jack Slader. He counted it down so fine that he managed just enough handicap to beat Slader — and to kill him. Because that’s the way that your father was killed.”

  At this, all eyes shifted suddenly to Phil, and there was a real pity in the glances that fell upon him.

  “But it seems very strange to me,” said Phil, “that a man like my father could have laid dying and asked any favor from a cur such as Magruder had just proved himself to be!”

  “Why not? Only him and Magruder knew how much was owing to him from Magruder. And he thought that maybe Magruder might have something like a conscience. Anyway, that’s what happened. And then there came the sound of the feet running and voices from the camp outside of the shack and Magruder remembered about the greaser. He looked daggers at the kid and would have murdered him if he dared. But there wasn’t time for that. He had to work fast even the way that it was. And so what he did was to slash the ropes with which he had tied Diego Pasqual. After that, he reached into his pocket and flashed a whole handful of gold pieces before Diego’s eyes. Then he crammed them into his pocket and threw him out of the room.

  “The greaser was only a kid, but he was enough of a wise head to think about the money while he was lying on the ground, and he knew that if he kept his mouth shut, he could drain the white man the rest of his born days by blackmail. And that was exactly what he did. He laid low, and he heard the others run into the shack; but he kept his mouth shut, and he told me that he had made Magruder pay through his nose to his dying day. Aye, but Magruder, in the end, found a way of making Diego pay back.”

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  SO THE STORY which Phil Slader had waited fourteen years to hear was told to him in detail, at last; told to him, as he could not help noticing, not by honest men but by thieves, who were standing him as friends in this all-important moment. He went up to the fat man and gripped his hand.

  “Remy,” said he, “I may live a long time or a short one, but I’ll never owe any man more than I owe you right now!”

  And he started for the door.

  “Wait a minute, Phil!” called the outlaw, Kirby.

  “I’m stepping outside for just half a minute,” said Phil. “And then I’m coming right back, Lon.”

  And he disappeared through the door.

  “I wouldn’t be Magruder now,” said Don Remy, rubbing the fingers of the big hand which the youngster had just gripped. “My hand understands the way that that iron felt when he was petting it. Darn such a kid, I say! He don’t know his strength! Kirby, how did you pick up with him? And what are you gunna do with him?”

  “Give him a chance to do the thing that he’s been working for all of his life — give him a chance to go straight,” said Kirby.

  There was a universal muttering of assent around the room, for even the most degraded vagabonds and tramps have little pleasure in seeing an honest man brought down to their level.

  “That sounds pretty sweet,” said Buck, the Italian-born youth with the handsome face, “but I’d like to know what real chance there is that he can go straight, while folks are remembering that he’s the son of Jack Slader?”

  “You talk like you had good sense,” said Kirby. “It’s not easy. But there’s a way that’s growing up in my head — a way of handling the business so that the kid can go straight.”

  “Did the greaser really try to murder him?”

  “No doubt about it at all.”

  “What makes you think so? The word of Slader?”

  “No. You know that he hasn’t talked about it to me. He hadn’t had a chance when I made up my mind by the story of the thing just the way that I heard it. No, Diego Pasqual tried to sashay in and murder him when he was in his bed. I’d as soon try to sneak into the room of a wild cat and surprise it asleep. Anyway, that’s what happened. But I got a way in mind of making Magruder confess that he sent Pasqual to do that murder. And I got a way in mind of making Magruder die, too, after he’s made the confession. But it will take quick acting. Because I can see this: The kid has had enough taste of the wild life to like it pretty well. Give him another few days, and he’ll start to be an incurable. I know the symptoms and I can see them growing in him.”

  “Go on,” said Don Remy. “Tell us your plan, will you?”

  “The first part is that we’ve got to stop the kid while he’s here. Don, I’m going to leave that part of it to you and the boys that you got here, with you. I want a five-hour start. And after that, you can let the wildcat scratch his way loose. Only, you’d better be in hiding when he gets away, because he’s liable to make some fur fly. Can you hold him, Remy?”

  “And you’ll do the rest?”

  “I’ll do the rest.”

  “I don’t like my part of the job,” said the fat man. “If I had a hoss that would carry me, I’d rather ride down to Crusoe and do the work with Magruder than handle this young devil. But — since there ain’t any other help for it, I’ll do what I can.”

  He stepped from his place to the wall and took down a Mexican lariat, made of rawhide, nicely sun-cured, supple with oil. He shook the noose open and stood close by the wall, with the corner of his eye fixed upon the door.

  “Kirby and Buck,” he growled at them, “you be ready to tackle him and tackle him hard when he comes in.”

  They took their places instantly and they had barely stepped into them when the door opened, and Phil Slader stepped in, busy in settling his hat more firmly above his eyes. That moment the heavy rope left the hand of the fat host. It shot through the air with a faint humming whisper and, brief as the time was, Phil Slader heard it and leaped forward.

  Instead of settling around his shoulders, the rope caught him by the neck, and the jerk of big Remy landed him flat upon his back — flat upon his back, but with a gun already in his hand. He had flipped the Colt back for a snap shot at Remy, when Kirby reached the fray in true football style, literally hurling himself through the air and upon the prostrate form of the boy. His strong hand gripped the wrist of Phil, and Buck, at the same moment, cast himself upon the other arm of the fallen youngster. As for Blinky Rosen and the others, they cast themselves upon the legs of Phil, and he was buried under a human avalanche.

  In a moment, he was helpless. The rawhide rope was worked around his arms, tying them securely to his sides, and then he was hoisted into a sitting posture with his back against the wall.

  He had not spoken in surprise or in protest since this brief work of treason had begun. But now his black eyes burned like coals at Kirby and at Don Remy. Kirby occupied the focal point of his attention; Phil realized that none of the others, by themselves, would have dared to initiate such an attack against him.

  Lon Kirby stood back, dusting his hands and nodding with satisfaction. “Here we are!” said he. “Damned if I had hoped that it could be done so quick. I thought that one of us would be pretty sure to catch the devil while we was trying this little game. But you got a fast hand with a rope, Remy. I got to tell you that. You done a fine piece of business, just now! Kid, I’d like to explain all of this to you, but I can’t. I give you my word that we have in mind nothing but your own good. I’d like to ask you to believe that we don’t mean you any harm, but just the opposite. And now — I got to start!”

  “Kirby,” said Phil Slader. “I’ve played a square game with you ever since I first met you — and I’ll still play square. I’ll tell you man to man what you ought to know — that I got business that takes me to see Magruder, and that if I miss him because of what you’ve done here, I’ll go on your trail, Kirby, and I’ll never stop till I’ve run
you down, curse you! You hear me talk? While your friends keep me here, how can I tell but what some other gent might pull a gun on Magruder and bump him off?

  “If that happened I’d never live a happy minute the rest of my life. I’ve waited fourteen years to see a clear path ahead of me to the killing of Magruder.”

  There was such a world of emotion pent in these words that Lon Kirby blinked as he turned to Don Remy. “You see what I mean, Don,” said he.

  “I see what you mean, and we’ll do our best to keep him here. But work fast, Kirby. Work fast, I say!”

  “I’m off now,” said the outlaw.

  “Good luck!” said the host.

  Outside, in the stable, Buck stood at the side of the famous outlaw.

  “Well?” said Kirby, jerking the saddle onto the back of his horse.

  “I’ve done my share of rotten things,” said Buck. “But I’d like to have a chance to square up some of them now. Let me ride along with you, old-timer. If you miss with Magruder, maybe I would have a mite of luck.”

  But Kirby merely dropped his hand on the shoulder of the youth and pressed it.

  “Why, Buck,” said he, “I take this to be right kind of you, and it’s a thing that I’ll remember for a long time — no fear of that! But what I want you to do now is to stay right here and help Daddy Remy to take care of that Slader who’s inside. He may keep your hands full. Will you stay and do that, Buck?”

  “I’d rather go along with you, chief,” said the youngster.

  “I tell you, kid,” said the outlaw, “that the biggest half of the job is the one that you’re staying behind to finish. So long, Buck. Best of good luck to you!”

  He swung into the saddle. Outside the shed, the horse fidgeted among the sharp rock for a moment, daintily, getting into its stride, and accustoming its feet to the hard going. Then it struck off with a bold canter that rocked the outlaw rapidly out of sight.

  But Buck turned back into the hostelry — if it could be given that name. There he found Phil Slader sitting still with his back against the wall and letting his bright black eyes rove ceaselessly across the faces of the others, as though he were writing them down in letters of fire in his memory, to be consulted again upon another day, to the cost of them all!

  The Italian stood beside Daddy Remy and said: “It looks to me as though we’ll have to keep a guard over that kid day and night.”

  “Two guards, Buck,” said the fat man; “two guards, son. I’m one — and I’ll never close my eyes so long as he’s in this here house. And one of the rest of you will keep awake in four-hour stretches.”

  “And in spite of that,” said Buck, “I’ve got a sort of an idea that maybe he’ll be able to give us the slip.”

  “Humph!” said Remy. “You talk big right now as though you had almost your full share of brains, kid. And you’ve said what’s in my mind, right enough. Buck, you can have the first watch. We need eight hours guarding of him, at least so that old boy, Kirby, can have enough start.”

  “Eight hours?” gasped Buck, “Why, a four-hour start to Crusoe . . . .”

  “Shut up!” said the fat man. “You’d know what I meant if you’d seen the horse that this kid rides.”

  CHAPTER XXXIX

  THE HORSE “THAT this kid rides,” however, was constantly in the mind of Lon Kirby as he rode fiercely down from the mountains toward the town of Crusoe and the farm of Magruder beyond it. His own mount was a good one, but it was a matter of principle and almost of conscience with Kirby, never to hesitate in changing a good tired horse for a fresher and poorer one. Ten fast miles are often better than twenty slow ones.

  He had a hundred and twenty miles before him, and he took the best course for the spot. He covered a solid fifty miles of rough going before the dawn had showed its hand in the east, and then he stopped at a ranch house and wandered into the horse pasture.

  There was not much light, but even by the stars, Kirby could tell a good horse from a bad one. That rancher was relieved of a strong-standing young gelding whose canter in the pasture gave token of speed on the road. The fine animal which Kirby rode was left here to take the place of the other. Then, with saddle changed, he drove away toward his mark again.

  Perhaps he could have taken a slightly more direct course by dipping down into the valley, but after the sun rose, he ran the risk of being seen and recognized, for his face was published abroad in that section of the land, though it had never reached the dangerous popularity of Jack Slader’s, say. However, he could not afford to take too many chances on much-traveled roads. Therefore he dipped to the side and kept among the rocks and the copses of the hills as he pushed on.

  In the mid-morning, he reached a schoolhouse, with all the school children inside, busy at their work. And, since there were no windows on one side, from that side he approached the building. He left the strong young gelding here and took to himself an excellent gray mare with a promise of endurance in her pony-built body.

  She was not a very good animal, but in a school yard one could not be too particular. She served him very well, at that, pounding along with a racking gait from mid-morning until mid-afternoon. And in the middle of the afternoon, he left the pony-built gray and took in her place a cow pony, with no points at all, except to one who knew that difficult and dangerous breed. Kirby knew them, and he was not disappointed in his choice. It had the gait of a broken wagon, but it knew not exhaustion, and it held to a gallop or a sharp trot all the time between mid-afternoon and early evening. When the sun went down, it brought the outlaw through a clump of trees in the sight of the twinkling lights of big Doc Magruder’s hotel.

  Here the outlaw paused and considered matters. He was exhausted by the long, long ride. His body was shaken to numbness by the pounding which he had received in the saddle. In addition to all of this, he had not closed his eyes during two entire days.

  He decided that this was the time to make haste slowly. He lay down on the edge of that copse and slept soundly for an entire hour. When he awakened he was thoroughly chilled, but his muscles were relaxed, and the journey down to the hotel would take care of the cold. So he mounted and flogged the mustang to a furious gallop, and in the midst of a cloud of dust, he drew up in front of the veranda of the hotel. The idlers were gone to supper. There was only a Negro servant idling there, and he called to him:

  “Run inside and tell the boss that I’m in a powerful hurry to see him, George!”

  George disappeared through the door, and Kirby was instantly out of the saddle and standing in the gloom beside the doorway. He heard the quick, heavy step of Magruder approach, in another moment, and as the proprietor reached the threshold of the building, Kirby stepped out before him gun in hand.

  There was no attempt at resistance on the part of Magruder. He thrust his hands above his head when he saw the flash of the gun in the dusk.

  “Well?” he gasped.

  “I’ve come for a little friendly chat,” said Kirby. “Will you come with me, Magruder?”

  “I’ve heard your voice before,” said Magruder. “Who are you?”

  “You’re wrong,” said the outlaw. “You’ve never heard my voice before. Walk ahead of me, Magruder, and start for that shed behind the barn. We’ll have our talk out there.”

  Whatever the faults of Magruder, he could recognize the inevitable when it stood before him in such a form as this. He marched ahead without a word of protest until they reached the shack behind the barn. A lantern hung inside the door, and with the hard muzzle of the Colt in the small of his back, Magruder obeyed the command which forced him to take down the lantern and light it.

  Then, with the light on the peg once more, he turned and recognized the long, pale, ugly face and cold eyes of Lon Kirby.

  “Kirby!” he said. “Kirby, by all the gods!”

  “It’s Kirby, well enough,” said the outlaw.

  “Where did you drop from?”

  “Out of Hades, so far as you’re concerned,” said the outlaw, s
miling. “I’ve brought you a piece of paper and a fountain pen, and I want you to do a little writing for me.”

  He passed the writing materials to the other.

  And Magruder, shaking his head in the wonder at what this could portend, uncapped the pen and prepared to write at Kirby’s dictation.

  “Begin: ‘I hereby state and confess that when I met Jack Slader, I killed him by an unfair play . . . .’”

  Magruder groaned. “But that’s a lie, Kirby!”

  “Son,” said the outlaw, “I’ve got the whole story from the mouth of Diego Pasqual. Diego didn’t die as soon as he should have died, so far as you’re concerned!”

  Magruder closed his eyes.

  “Start in,” said Kirby, “and write down the facts fast and hard — about how you got there and tied the kid — and how Slader came in — and how you played the dog until he gave you the chance to do a murder on him. Then say how you paid Pasqual to kill the boy. Write it all down, and write it fast. Because they may come asking for you, at any minute.”

  “Is that all that you want out of me?”

  “Ain’t that enough?”

  “Enough, Heaven knows. I can never live in this country after this thing is known, Kirby!”

  “I hope not. And you can’t — not if you got any shame in you. But go ahead and write, old-timer!”

  And Magruder wrote, and his writing drew a groan from him now and again as he penned the shameful words. He finished and he passed the paper back to Kirby and saw him pocket it.

  “No,” said Kirby, “there’s one more thing. You’ve got a pretty sharp taste for money, Magruder. You like it pretty well, and you’ll fight to get it. Now I’m going to give you a chance to get the price that they’ve put on my head. I don’t know what they’ve boosted it to since I got away from the pen. But it’ll be high enough to be worth your while.”

  “I don’t follow you,” said Magruder sullenly.

  “Think again. You’re going to stand there in front of me and make a fair-and-square try for your gun, while I try for mine. The best man lives, and the loser dies. You understand?”