by Max Brand
Lee heard him in dim distance through a fog of his own thoughts, for the face that confronted him in the mirror and that sat on his own shoulders was the face of a stranger. Smooth-cheeked, boyish, sullen of mouth had been the fence rider of that range far south, but now a lean, grim, straight-eyed man stood before him in the mirror. It was like falling asleep and waking with mind and soul wrapped in a new body. Somewhere in the quest for Moonshine, one self had died, and a new self gripped the whiskey glass at the bar in Crooked Creek. The man in the mirror raised the glass, and Lee lowered it slowly.
“Fill ’em up!” he said to the bartender, and turned to look over Crawford’s Place. It consisted of two sections. The first to be built had been the barroom itself, a sprawling shack of raw pine lumber that was now jammed with men. But the rear end of the original building had been knocked out and opened onto a long dance hall, with little tables and scores of stools along the sides and a narrow dance floor down the center. It was not the hour for dancing, however, and here and there a random game of poker was in progress. The walls and roof of this second and larger portion of the establishment were canvas. Patterson pointed out Crawford himself, a burly ruffian who looked the part of an ex-pugilist, standing now between his dance hall and his bar, in a position from which he could overlook the entire crowd. He wore two guns and rested his hands upon the butts with what seemed to Lee an undue aggressiveness.
But as Patterson explained readily: “He’s got to show ’em that he’s on the job every minute. They’re only waiting to take an advantage. There’s a dozen gunfighters in here this minute. Look yonder — there comes Bill Devine, looking for more trouble. And there’s Charlie Kirk, the murdering hound! And there is King Peters himself. By heaven, I didn’t know he was in town!”
He designated with awe a handsome youth who could hardly have turned his eighteenth year, but whose lordly manner and the elbow room he was given at the bar proclaimed him a man of distinction.
“Why King Peters ain’t hung, I dunno,” muttered Patterson. “But with a gang of killers like that around, you can’t blame Crawford for packing two guns and Sidney came along — got him interested in irrigation — and he sunk the whole wad in three years. There was Hamilton Coster. He was the regular cattle king. He went broke about a year after Billy picked up with him. There’s a long line of ’em. Never failed to be a Jonah wherever he went. But Crawford seems to be an exception. Billy found Crawford a bum, picked him up, got him on his feet, and now Crawford is making about a thousand a day out of this place and other things. He’s made Crawford into a white man. There’s a yarn that.—”
His voice melted away in a hearty roar of applause that had risen from every throat in the room as the swinging doors were dashed apart and a huge man strode in carrying a boy perched on one shoulder.
“That drink sure rode well,” said Lee to Patterson. “Sat right down in the saddle. Let’s have another, and tell me why they’re busting their throats for that fellow.”
But Patterson was gone from him and was working his way through the crowd to get closer to the giant.
In the meantime, the latter had advanced to the bar and deposited the boy upon it, while dry-throated miners abandoned their drinks on either side to make ample room. Why such precious space should be turned over to the youngster was bewildering to Lee, for all he saw was simply an over-petted, over-pampered, overdressed little invalid of six or eight years. He was turned out like a miniature cowpuncher more gaudy than a rich Mexican. A sombrero of bright, blue velvet was belted with gold, worked into arabesques. A scarlet bandanna surrounded his throat, and beneath it was a vest of soft fawn skin held together with big pearl buttons. About his meager hips sagged a cartridge belt mounted richly in gold, and the same metal appeared in the chasing on keeping ’em in sight. There he’s sending old Bad Luck Billy Sidney to ask somebody to step out of the place till some of his liquor has evaporated. Good thing about Crawford. He don’t let ’em get mad drunk in his place.”
Glancing again toward the proprietor of the saloon, Lee saw that he had just waved off on a mission an ancient fellow whose silver hair and shrunken body spoke of a full seventy years, at least. Yet, he carried his tall frame as straight as any youth, the smile of a youth still in his little pale-blue eyes. Lee looked curiously after him until he was lost in the crowd which momently thickened. Every instant the swinging door flashed open, and newcomers arrived from the mines. And one of the new arrivals was no other than little Buddy Slocum, now dressed in complete miner’s costume of heavy boots and dirty slouch hat, with his shirt open at the throat. Every article was sized too large and emphasized the more the wizened body of the ex-jockey. He caught sight of Lee at once, and his face contracted into a snarl of malevolence as he turned to mutter to his companion. The latter looked straight at Lee with the unmistakable glance of one examining a dangerous man. There was no doubt that Buddy would noise Lee abroad as a crooked gambler.
To crowd that disagreeable thought out of his mind with another topic, he turned back to Patterson. “How does Bad Luck Billy get that name?” he asked.
“You ain’t heard of him? Well, almost everybody has. Been around for thirty years. Finds a man to tie to and starts making himself useful. Ain’t got the gumption, somehow, to work by himself. And every man he comes to goes down and out sooner or later. That bad luck of his is catching. There was old Hugh Gummere. He dug so much gold he didn’t know what to do with it all. But Billy the butt of the tiny revolver that the belt supported, while the holster was red morocco, with a pattern worked on it in small emeralds. Below the gun, silk-corduroy riding trousers disappeared into red boots to match the holster. To top off an outfit that would have made the heart of an African king leap with envy, the tiny fellow carried a quirt whose handle was roughened with a profusion of jewels that flashed as he pushed back his heavy hat with the whip.
But clothes could not longer make the child happy. His colorless, sullen mouth did not curve to a smile as he turned here and there and surveyed the smiling, cheering crowd with eyes at once fever-bright and weary. He was guarded against a fall by the great encircling arm of his companion. The latter measured from the floor well-nigh as high as the lad standing on the bar. He was as roughly dressed as any man in the room, with only one point of foppishness, this being the extreme nicety with which the black beard that covered most of his face below the eyes was brought to a sharp point below the chin. For the rest, the upper part of his cheek shone like a red apple with the coursing of healthy blood. It seemed that the least fraction of his enormous overplus of health would have sufficed to cram the little body of the child with energy and high spirits. He took his hat from a head tousled with dense, black curls and waved it to the crowd.
“Charlie’s struck it rich again, boys,” he cried in a voice that made Lee start with many memories. “Charlie’s landed in bonanza once more, and he’s come to set ’em up for the crowd.”
A growing bellow of applause nearly drowned the last of these words, and yet there was no reflection of the cheer in the sad little face of Charlie.
“Set ’em, barkeep,” continued the bearded man, “and hark to this, boys. Charlie tells me he knows they’s some in camp that ain’t had his luck, and he wants ’em to have another chance. He’ll grubstake ten men today — the first ten that shake hands with him. Come on, boys. Who wants backing?”
The steady flow of high-priced liquor across the bar had seemed to indicate that everyone was well enough found in money, but now a score of men came to vigorous life and squeezed, shouting, through the crowd to get at the outstretched hand of Charlie. They closed with a rush around him, and, as their huge brown hands reached toward the boy, for the first time Lee saw him flush with pleasure. He danced back on the bar as far as the thick arm of his father would permit him, laughing and clapping his hands together, holding them high above his head so that no one could quite come to grips with him. The giant father looked up to the child, his face suffused with such joy that
the black beard trembled. Looking into his face from this angle, Lee Garrison remembered. It was Olie Guttorm, disguised only by the semi-foreign cast that the pointed trimming of his beard gave him. It was Olie Guttorm as he had been when he disappeared over the hilltop with the chunk of rose quartz in his hand and his dark eyes ablaze on the trail of gold.
XIV. THE FIGHT
HE REMEMBERED STILL more. No wonder these mountains had seemed dreamily familiar, for the vision dream in which he had seen them first was the nightmare of pain when he trudged among them on the trail of Moonshine. Had he not seen, at the head of Crooked Creek, the hill with the crown of white rocks? Yes, beyond question that was the place where he had picked up his sample. His directions had pointed the way to a fortune for Olie Guttorm, and Olie Guttorm’s discovery had brought a gold rush into the hills. Lee felt very much as one who picks the small hole in the dam and in a moment sees it widened to a roar of water. No wonder that the crowd gave way, then, for Guttorm must be the patron saint of Crooked Creek, the fountainhead of all the riches of money and happiness that might pour from it.
A sigh escaped him. All this wealth, then, had been his for the choosing, and he had given it all for Moonshine. But the very thought conjured a mind- filling picture of the horse. And Lee was content. The first poison taint of envy had slipped out of his mind, and he was even able to look around the barroom with an almost paternal satisfaction. He had more than money could buy. Money? All the money in the world would hardly be worth the joy of honest Olie Guttorm when he met his benefactor. There is no wine like self-satisfaction to warm the heart. Lee Garrison could not help thrusting his hands in his trousers pockets and teetering back on his heels.
Shouting with laughter and eagerness, every down-at-the-heel gold seeker in the room crowded toward little Charlie Guttorm. One by one they dragged down his pipe-stem arms and enveloped his fists in great, brown hands.
“That’s ten!” he shrilled presently. “There ain’t no more! There ain’t no more!”
And, shaking his head, he clasped his hands behind his back. Others were still herding in toward him, but Olie Guttorm, with a sweep of his thick arm and a bellow, stopped them short.
“Charlie says no,” he declared, “and what he says goes. Being denied ain’t good for him, is it, Doc?”
The being so appealed to now sauntered forward from the outskirts of the crowd, slowly twirling a glass of whiskey between thumb and forefinger. He seemed to Lee Garrison one of those men who pride themselves, above all else, on their coolness, unfailing in every situation. He had one of those round, small-nosed faces that never quite lose the boy look and that persisted in Dr. William McLeod in spite of his fifty years and his gray hair, so thin that the red of his scalp showed through. He was jauntily dressed in knickerbockers and a tweed coat in which such blues and reds were woven that purple resulted, a cheerful and almost violent purple. The miners gave back before him, such was their respect for everything appertaining to Charlie Guttorm, and even the doctor’s unseasonable nature of attire did not cause them to pass the wink and grin. Perhaps, decided Lee, they were accustomed to the doctor and his ways.
The latter had now paused, spreading his legs and tossing off half his glass before he spoke.
“Within limits, Mister Guttorm,” he said. “Everything in measure. You continually ask me for an absolute yes, or an absolute no. My dear Mister Guttorm, how often have I told you, that in such a case as that of little Charlie, the absolute is precisely what must be most avoided. Discretion is what we must have, and the middle ground is that on which we must take our stand.”
“What the devil, Doc!” groaned Olie Guttorm, but in a tone rather of pleading than anger. “I sort of get your drift, but I always got to look through a blizzard of words to make out where you’re heading. Right now—”
The doctor halted further speech by removing his left hand from his coat pocket and holding it up in protest. He then drank off the remainder of his potion and continued: “If you want brevity, by all means. Charlie has had enough excitement. Take him home at once!”
Olie Guttorm swept Charlie off the bar and into the cherished strength of his arms.
“Right away quick, Doc,” he said. “I’m sure sorry!”
He seemed to be apologizing, but the doctor with a shrug of his shoulders turned his back on his patron and started for the bar. Little Charlie writhed in the grasp of his father until one fist was free, and he shook this in the direction of the retreating doctor.
“You big hog!” screamed Charlie. “I hate you! An’ I’ll get even — you wait! I’ll get even with you, and.—”
Here his rage relaxed sufficiently to permit him to pass into a wail of grief. He turned on his father and beat his fists, small and bony as the claws of a bird, into the face of Olie. The big man merely blinked under the rain of blows and then rendered Charlie helpless by pressing him gently into the hollow of his shoulder.
“It ain’t nobody’s fault but mine,” declared Olie sadly to the nearby men who were protesting that they hoped Charlie would feel no ill effects. “I should have knowed better than to bring him down here. But he wanted to show off his new clothes, and.—”
Charlie writhed halfway around. “It’s everybody’s fault!” he cried. “An’ — an’ I don’t want you to give one of ’em a single cent of money, Dad, you hear me? If you give one of ’em a single cent, I — I’ll cry all night long an’ make myself.—”
“Hush up, Charlie. Don’t you worry none about nothing, Son,” said Olie. “I ain’t going to do nothing that’ll hurt your feelings, Son. They ain’t going to get a cent of money out of me.”
Charlie relaxed to a whine, while the father, reassuring the stake-seekers with a wink, started again toward the door. Around him rose a chorus of thanks and kindly farewells that set the eyes of the simple fellows gleaming with happiness. It was while he looked around to collect this tribute of applause that his glance fell on Lee Garrison. All joy was wiped from his face. He hurried on with his head a trifle inclined.
Undoubtedly he had recognized Lee, but why that recognition should affect him so strangely the latter could not imagine, so he slipped into the path of Guttorm near the swinging doors and approached him with a smile.
“Olie Guttorm!” he said. “I guess you remember me?”
“Know you!” roared Guttorm so violently that his beard shook. “Sure, I know you, and I don’t know no good about you. Get out of the way and lemme pass!”
His thick arm brushed the other aside; the swinging door clicked behind him and fanned a warm breath of air into the face of Lee.
“Why, damn your thick hide, I’ll teach you to remember.—” Half a dozen hands gripped him as he sprang in pursuit. They tore him back and jammed him against the wall.
“You’ll teach him nothing!” growlingly answered one. “You wait till Guttorm has got his kid off of his hands, and then he’ll handle you. But right now, you’ll leave him he.”
The knowledge that he was so completely in the right and Guttorm so completely in the wrong stifled Lee, as though he had been discovered in an act of most shameful imposture. They were honest men, these fellows, and, as he confronted their hostile faces, he knew that his story would never be believed no matter how many oaths he swore to it. He could never dare to stand up before sane men and tell them that he had given up a gold mine for a pipeful of tobacco and liberty to pursue a mustang — on foot! An hysteria of rage made his wits spin. Olie Guttorm was far away and barred from him, moreover, by the devotion of every hardy man in the town, but within arm’s reach were six or seven who had just laid hands on him.
The places where their fingers had gripped burned him, and by ill chance in that instant of quiet he heard a voice saying: “That’s him who caught Moonshine. They been telling me that he’s a gambler, too, and crooked as a snake!”
It was one of those murmuring voices that is meant for a single ear only, but it was the spark that ignited all the gunpowder of Lee’s fury. T
here was no volition in it. His fist of its own accord doubled, his arm lashed out, and he struck into the nearest face. He felt the knuckles bite through flesh to bone. His arm jarred from wrist to shoulder with a numb tingle, and under the shock the other went down. From around him a dozen men sprang, not at Lee, but to clear a space, for when a blow had been struck, guns must follow. But as for Lee there was no thought of another weapon than his bare hands, so much had rage blinded him, and, when he saw the fallen man twitch a revolver from its holster, his passion became pure madness. He ran straight in on the leveled Colt.
For an instant fate waited. The blind god of chance saved him from the bullet that hummed past his ear. He tore the gun from the prostrate man and jerked the half-dazed fellow to his feet.
“You yellow-bellied hound!” shrilled Lee. “Get out of this place and get out of town. If I see you again, I’ll break your murdering neck for you. Start moving!”
Not until he had spoken did his brain clear, and his eyes. He saw that he was confronting no other man than that youth of wild fame, King Peters himself, and a prickle of fear worked up his spine. But King Peters was a man transformed. It is not a small thing, at the tender age of eighteen, to be looked upon askance by the law-abiding, to have one’s lightest word or gesture noted, to discover a magic in one’s glance that makes the eyes of strong men fall, to be robed with a repute that shakes the nerves of even the brave. And here was a stranger, an unknown, who had leaped on him like a tiger, knocked him to the ground, run in upon his leveled gun, escaped his shot by enchantment, torn the weapon from his fingers, and now threatened him with death, if they met again. It was a glimpse into a new world for King Peters. That lordly courage which had been founded upon a knowledge of superior nimbleness of fingers and wrist, superior steadiness of eye, melted like a ghost at break of day. Fate, he felt, had overtaken him, and with a fallen head he shrank from the barroom.