Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  The glance of Magruder flashed from side to side.

  “But if it comes to begging off,” said Kirby, “begging won’t do with me. I’ve come to kill you, Magruder, not so much because I hate a dog like you, but because I don’t want the hands of a decent man to be dirtied with your murder. You got a good chance, I ain’t chain lightning and sure death with a gun the way that Jack Slader used to be. You’ve got a fair and equal chance against me. Here is my gun back in the leather. Here is yours at your side.

  “Start, Magruder, and give me the sign by making the first move!”

  CHAPTER XL

  MAGRUDER, THROUGH THE long moment that followed, found the eye of the outlaw and strove to master it, but the glance of Lon Kirby was utterly cold and steady.

  Then, listening sharply, Magruder heard far off the steady drumming of the hoofs of a galloping horse — a horse that moved with a long cadence. It came rapidly down the road toward the hotel. He raised his left hand slowly toward his forehead and rubbed it slowly toward his forehead and rubbed across the perspiration which had gathered there.

  “Kirby,” said he, “I would like to make you an offer.”

  “Offer away,” said Kirby. “But in ten more seconds if you don’t . . . .”

  In speaking those words he made a slight gesture with his right hand away from the hip where his holster hung, and that was enough for Magruder. It was only a small advantage, but he could not hope to get a much greater one. His own hand jerked up and brought the Colt from its holster; and Kirby flew for his own weapon.

  By a fifth of a second he was too slow. The gun of Magruder spoke first and filled the shed with the roar of its explosion. There was a tingle along the side of the head of Kirby as the bullet grazed the mark for which it had been aimed. Then the .45 slug from the Colt in the hand of Kirby tore through the body of the bigger man, and he sank to the floor, clutching at his breast and staring at Kirby with horror as though the outlaw had been turned into an incarnate devil, come for the soul of a condemned man.

  “You’ve got it, Magruder, I think,” said Kirby quietly.

  “Yes, yes. I’ve got it!” gasped Magruder. He clasped his head with his hands, and they came away crimson.

  “I’ve got it, Kirby, and God have mercy on my soul!”

  “What Pasqual said was true, then?”

  “All true! All true! And if — and if—”

  He broke off, gasping and staring, and Kirby flashing a glance over his shoulder, saw the form of Phil Slader standing in the entrance to the shed with a terrible twisted look of baffled rage upon his face.

  “Keep him away!” moaned Magruder. “Will you keep him away, Kirby? I’m dying! But not by him. I been ready and prepared and watching him all of these years. And he’s never got to me — save me from him now, Kirby.”

  “He won’t touch a dying man, Magruder,” said the outlaw. “He’s not your kind of a rat, Magruder. Here’s a flask of something that will help to let you out more easy and cheerful. Drink it down, Magruder!”

  “No, Kirby. I’ll live yet,” said the dying man, groaning. “Tie up the wound — I can’t die now. I can’t go down with all that I have on my conscience. You hear me, Lon? It ain’t my body that you’ve killed. It’s my soul — and I need — a chance to repent — and — make . . . .”

  “And there,” said Kirby, as the voice ended, “is the finish of the only gent that I’ll never regret killing.”

  “Kirby,” said Phil Slader, “back in the house of Remy I gave you warning that if . . . .”

  “Hold up, Phil,” said the outlaw. “I won’t have trouble with you and I don’t deserve it. I’ve got this to tell you. I’ve invested in a lot of bad actions and trouble of one kind or another ever since I can remember, hardly. And now what I want to do is to help to balance the books, a little. Phil, hold off till I’ve had a chance to talk to you a little — and until I’ve had a chance to write out something that’s worth your having!”

  Sheriff Mitchel Holmer had, among other things, been the man who had brought famous Lon Kirby to the prison sentence from which he had escaped by the miracle of bribe money. But matters were not all as the sheriff would have had them. His hold upon the affections and the respect of the men of his county was so strong and steady that there was no danger he would lose the next election — or the ones after that until he chose to retire, for that matter. Still, the conscience of the sheriff troubled him, and he wondered if a cleaner and more active man might not, perchance, be able to keep affairs in order in that county more thoroughly than he had done.

  For the crowning stroke had been the murder of Magruder, found lying in the shed behind his barn. And men had seen a rider on a great gray horse swinging through the dusk of the evening — so what could be more patent than that Phil Slader had committed the crime?

  He was pondering this, and wondering, indeed, how he could phrase a letter of resignation — and what comments people would have to make upon such a letter — and how he would be able to resist the foolish persuasions of his wife. He was pondering upon all of these things, when his door opened, and he saw against the black of the outer night, the form of the man he most wanted in his hands. Phil Slader himself!

  It took the sheriff something less than a fifth of a second to cover Phil Slader’s heart with a Colt. But the youngster raised his hands slowly above his head and stood smiling at him.

  “Take your time, Mitch,” said he. “I’ve come to surrender. Take your time. I left my guns behind me. So you won’t have to bother with them. But reach into my breast pocket, while you jam your gun into me and take out the papers that you find there!”

  The sheriff was cautious, and he was watchfully suspicious, as well, but when he had removed the papers and regarded a little red smudge upon the corner of them, he gave a groan of interest. A moment later, he was exclaiming: “But if Pasqual — bless me, Phil, are you clean handed in this game?”

  The paper seemed to answer all his questions. Presently he was sitting helpless in a chair and staring at Phil Slader with eyes wide.

  “Put down your hands, Phil,” said he. “And then tell me what sort of magic you used to make a crook like Kirby do a straight thing like this — a confession that he killed Magruder. But for that matter, when these things are published, Kirby will be a popular man for that killing! But tell me — what about yourself?”

  “I’ve come back to work my way along,” said Phil, “and I’ve got my ambition laid out straight as a road before me.”

  “And what is that?” said the sheriff.

  “To marry the finest girl in the world, in the first place,” said Phil. “And, in the second place, to learn how to show some of the folks that we call crooks, how to come back to the straight ways of doing things. That’s my business in life. Because where honest folks wouldn’t let me go straight, the crooks made me do it!”

  THE END

  The Quest of Lee Garrison (1923)

  CONTENTS

  I. THE FIRST ADVENTURE

  II. THE STAKED PLAINS

  III. JOHN RAMPS

  IV. THE FIRST SIGHT

  V. GUADALUPE

  VI. TRIAL BY FIRE

  VII. GOLD

  VIII. THE BATTLE

  IX. THE GREATER BATTLE

  X. THE MASTER

  XI. THE BACK TRAIL

  XII. CROOKED CREEK

  XIII. THE FIRST HOUR

  XIV. THE FIGHT

  XV. THE CHARLATAN

  XVI. THE LADY IN THE WINDOW

  XVII. ROULETTE

  XVIII. ALICE AGAIN

  XIX. THE TOUCH OF MIDAS

  XX. HE FINDS TRUE GOLD

  XXI. HE ACQUIRES A PARTNER

  XXII. THE CHALLENGE

  XXIII. THE MESSAGE

  XXIV. THE PROMISE

  XXV. SHEEP VALLEY

  XXVI. THE RACE

  XXVII. A VISIT FROM GUTTORM

  XXVIII. TO THE CAPTAIN

  XXIX. THE FATAL SHOT

  I. THE FIRST ADVENTUR
E

  ECONOMY, WHETHER OF money or of labor, was carried by Mrs. E. Garrison to the nth degree, for economy of all kinds was necessary to the maintenance of her family. She had eight sons and no daughters. Three of the sons had been born at one time, and two at another. She threw herself with devotion into the battle to support these eight lives decently. A remnant of youth and good looks she sacrificed first, then all her time, her temper, her powers of body and soul went into the endless struggle, and she was so far victorious that neither Mrs. Oldham, right-hand neighbor, nor Mrs. Taylor on her left could ever find spot or speck on the new-burnished faces of the Garrison boys when they herded off to school in the morning. Work turned her to a famine-stricken wraith. But her heart grew stronger as she saw the fruit of her agony, eight boys with straight bodies and fresh, clear eyes.

  On this wash Monday, having hung out the sheets and the pillowcases, the napkins, and the tablecloths, and all the whites, she dragged the clothes basket back to the kitchen to start the colored articles boiling in the same water that had served for the first batch. Time was when she had changed the water for each set of clothes, but now that her shoulders cracked under the weight of the boiler she moved it as seldom as possible.

  “Besides,” as she said, “clear water ain’t what cleans ’em — it’s the boiling and the soap and the blessed elbow grease.” Yet, on this day, having dumped the colored things into the boiler and opened the door of the stove to shovel in more coal, she discovered that the last live cinder was turning from red to black — the fire was out. It was a calamity, for already the afternoon wore on, and she must rush to finish the washing in time to cook supper. That was the only point on which her husband was adamant — meals had to be punctual. Then she thought of assistance, and remembered that her eldest son was home; the teacher of his class was ill, which accounted for the vacation.

  “The great lummox,” muttered Mrs. Garrison. “He ought to have been down here hours ago, helpin’ me hang out and rinsin’.” She went to the foot of the backstairs, narrow, unpainted, and dark, the one untidy place of the house.

  “Oh, Lee!” she called. “Lee!”

  From above, half whine, half growl: “Yes?”

  “Come down this minute and chop me some kindling. The fire’s out.”

  “Wait till I finish this page.”

  “I’ll wait for nothing. You come hopping, young man.”

  She heard the clap of the book being shut, the sound of heavy footfalls overhead, and she went into the dining room for an instant’s rest. It was a hot day in June, with just enough breeze to drag the smoke from the factories over the town, imperiling the washings that sparkled in a thousand back yards, and filling the air with a thick, sweet odor of soot. Mrs. Garrison relaxed in her husband’s armchair in the coolest corner of the room and bent her head to think over the dishes for supper. She closed her eyes, too, and in a moment she was asleep, but she kept on working in her dream, heard the kindling dumped with a rattle on the kitchen floor, and dragged herself from the chair to open the dampers so that the fire roared and the water began to foam in the boiler.

  In reality, Lee Garrison had not left his room. That noisy closing of the book, the thumping of his feet on the floor, all were a ruse. He had only sat forward in his chair and drummed with his heels. His thumb had kept the place, when he snapped the book shut, and now he opened it, still sitting on the edge of the chair, still bending to rise, while his eye swept through the rest of the adventure. For ten swarthy giants had just started into the path of Lancelot and barred his way to the perilous chapel with a voice of thunder. They scattered again as the good knight put forward his shield and drew his sword against such great odds as these, and Lee Garrison went with Lancelot into the chapel itself, where only one light burned and where the corpse lay “hylled in silk.” He did not change that cramped position, as if about to rise.

  * * * * *

  It was hours later when he heard the deep voice of his father downstairs, and his mother pouring out a protest. Then he laid aside his Malory with a sigh and stood up. Plainly he would never approach the height or the bulk of William Garrison, but he gave promise of the same broad shoulders, together with better proportions and, throughout, a fine workmanship of which there was little trace in either his father or mother. He was their first-born, coming in those days when the words “my wife” still were strange on the lips of William Garrison, and when the girl had not yet left all the life of Molly Doane behind her. They hunted reverently for a name, and at last chose Lee because his grandfather had fought at Antietam and Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg, wearing the gray. They looked on Lee with a quiet worship. When the other babies flooded the house with noise and care, they had less time for him, but his place was never usurped. The terror, the pain, the joy were all new with him, and the first note could never be quite repeated. Besides, he was different in many ways. All were fine boys, and Paul and William, Jr., probably would be even more huge than their father. They already out-topped Lee, but he was the choicer mechanism, the rarer spirit. Sometimes his mother thought, inarticulately, that the bloom of their youth, their first great joy, their hopes and dreams, had all gone into the body and soul of Lee. The eyes of the seven were straight and clear and misty with good health, but the eyes of Lee held both a black shadow and a light that were his alone. Even when he had been a tiny fellow he seemed to be thinking more than he spoke, and she had had an odd feeling that he often judged her. Therefore, she both dreaded and loved him. He was not demonstrative, otherwise his father would have idolized him. For the rest, he was the laziest boy in Waybury, rumor said. Books had been his world for five years now, but, although his father and his mother often lectured him about this all-consuming passion, they secretly respected it and hoped for great things.

  He turned over his situation calmly, for he had swept through so many crises in books that he had little enthusiasm left for the troubles of real life. His mother was accusing him bitterly. It would have meant a hard thrashing, if any of the other boys had been the culprit, but his father had always had a strange aversion for caning Lee, and now the worst he could expect would be imprisonment in a dark room without supper. That was the usual punishment, for he wisely never had let them know that it was almost as pleasant to dream in the dark as it was to read in the light.

  “Lee!” called his father. On his way downstairs he heard his mother reiterate: “I just told him to chop some kindling. Then I sat down for a minute and somehow — I don’t know just how it happened, but—”

  “That’ll do, Mother. The point is, supper ain’t ready, and Lee’s to blame. I got to eat, if I’m goin’ to work, don’t I?”

  “Hush up, William. Do hush up, or Lucy Ganning’ll hear, and it’ll be all over the neighborhood in a jiffy.” Lucy Ganning was a shrewd-eyed spinster, living across the street.

  “Damn Lucy Ganning!” cried the father. “Come here, Lee!”

  The kitchen was in deep shadow, and to Lee, coming down the stairs, it seemed as if his father towered to the ceiling. The soot of the forge was furrowed by perspiration; it was an ugly mask, rather than a face, the eyes looking out through holes rimmed with white. His father’s great black hand crushed Lee’s shoulder and lifted him from the floor.

  “Now,” said William Garrison, fighting to control himself, “tell me the straight of this.”

  “He slapped his book shut and made as if he was coming down,” cried the mother. “I went and sat down.—”

  Lee hunted swiftly for a convincing lie, and told the truth.

  “I just stopped to finish the page, Dad, honest. And then a minute later you came home.”

  His mother laughed hysterically. “Will you listen to that? Look at the stove. It’s cold, ain’t it? It’s been two hours long, that minute of Lee’s.”

  “D’you think I’d lie? Dad, it wasn’t hardly more’n a minute.”

  “Lee, how d’you dare say such things? And there he sat all day upstairs, never offering to help me
, while I was breaking my back with that boiler, and—” Her voice shook; she became mute with self-pity and rage.

  “So that’s what you been doin’?” said William Garrison. Lee looked sharply at his father and for the first time in his life was really afraid. The big man spoke quietly, but he spoke through his teeth, and he seemed a stranger. Through the dining-room door Lee saw seven white faces — little Jerry and Peter, twins, were clasping each other in terror.

  “You been up there with your books! Your mother was down here slaving. I was up to the forge with fire in my face!”

  They were silent, looking at each other, until Lee saw that his father was trembling.

  “William,” whispered the mother, “William, what d’you aim to do?”

  “Close that door!”

  She stared at him a moment and then went silently and shut the door across the seven white faces. She came back and reached out her hand, but she did not touch her husband with it.

  “William,” she whispered again.

  “I’m going to teach him.”

  She fumbled and caught the back of a chair.

  “Don’t look that way, Mother,” broke out Lee. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Hush!” she cried, but William Garrison had balled both his great fists.

  “You don’t fear me, eh?” he said, grinding out the words. “Well, by heaven, you will fear me. D’you hear that? My own son don’t fear me!” It was not the voice of his father so much as his mother’s eyes that froze the blood of Lee. She kept looking into her husband’s face, fascinated, and Lee began to feel that all this time she had known mysterious, terrible things about William Garrison and concealed them from the world.

  “Come here!” The big hands clamped on Lee’s shoulders and wrenched them about. “Listen to me. I been lettin’ you go your own sweet way. That’s ended. You’re no good, and you’re comin’ to no good end. I’m goin’ to make you or break you, and I’m goin’ to do it now.”