Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  So scores of eyes were watching as the big man walked down the single street of the village. He had never seemed taller. He had never seemed more sedate. He carried with him that unconscious air of importance which goes with men who have seen or suffered much.

  He paused at the corner, where the corral from the hotel bordered the street. There he leaned against the fence and called. And the big red stallion came running to the voice of his new master. A dozen men swore that they saw Macdonald pass his arms around the neck of the horse and put his head down beside the head of Sunset.

  Then he went on again with as light a stride as ever. When the watchers thought of Rory Moore, their hearts shrank within them. For it seemed impossible that such a force as Macdonald could be stopped by any one man.

  More than one hardy cowpuncher set his teeth at the thought and looked to his gun. If anything happened to Rory, it would take all the desperate nerve and skill of a Macdonald to get out of that town. For they had determined that, fair play or not, the time had come to finish this destroyer of men.

  In the meantime Macdonald had passed the general merchandise store. He had come to the Perkins place, and there he paused to speak to an old Mexican beggar woman who came with a toothless whine to ask for money. They saw him take out a whole wad of rustling bills and drop it into her hand. The bills overflowed. She leaped upon them like an agile old beast of prey. When she straightened again, he was half a block away, and she poured out a shrill volley of blessings. Her borrowed English failed her, and to become truly eloquent she fell back upon the native Spanish and filled the air with it.

  But her benefactor went on without a glance behind him.

  “He’s superstitious,” said the beholders. “He’s trying to get good luck for the meeting with Rory... and the devil take him and the old beggar!”

  But now he had come in sight of the blacksmith shop. A cluster of men fell back. One or two lingered beside Rory Moore, begging him to the last minute not to throw away his life in vain. But he tore himself away from them and strode well out into the street, where the fierce white sun beat down upon him. Nearer drew Macdonald, and still his bearing was as casual and light as the bearing of any pleasure seeker.

  “Macdonald!” cried Rory Moore suddenly in a wild, hoarse voice.

  “Well, Rory,” answered the smooth tones of the man-killer, “are you ready?”

  “Yes, curse you, ready!”

  “Then get your gun!”

  And Rory, waiting for no second invitation, reached for the butt of his Colt. It was an odd contrast that lay between the two, as they faced one another, Rory crouched over and taut with eagerness, and the tall and careless form of Macdonald. And it seemed that the same carelessness was in the gesture with which he reached for his weapon. Yet such was the consummate speed of that motion that his gun was bare before the revolver of Rory Moore was out of the holster. His gun was bare, but there seemed to be some slip. Carelessness had been carried too far, for the gun flashed in his hand and dropped into the dust.

  And Rory? His own weapon exploded. It knocked up a little fountain of dust at the feet of the giant. He fired again, and Macdonald collapsed backward, like a falling tower. The big sombrero dropped from his head, and he lay with his long red hair floating like blood across the dust.

  And yet so incredible was it to all who watched that Macdonald should indeed have fallen, that there was a long pause before a yell of triumph rose from a hundred throats, and they closed around the big man, like wolves around a dead lion.

  And when the wonder of it was faded a little, they picked up his gun, where it had fallen in the dust. They picked it up, they examined it, as one might have examined the sword of Achilles, after the arrow had struck his heel, and the venom had worked. They broke the gun open. But not a bullet fell out. And then they saw that it was empty, and that Macdonald had come so carelessly down that street not to kill, but to be killed!

  It was a thunderstroke to the townsmen. It was as though the devil, being trailed into a corner, should turn into an angel and take flight for heaven!

  “There ain’t more’n one way of looking at it,” said the sheriff, when he came into the town that evening on a foaming horse. “Macdonald didn’t want to kill young Moore. But he had to face him, or be called a coward. And there you have it! He’s been a hound all his life, but he’s died like a hero!”

  And that was the motive behind the monument which was built for Macdonald in that town. Although partly, perhaps, they simply wanted to identify themselves with that terrible and romantic figure. But, while the turmoil of talk was sweeping up and down the town, two women were the first to think of striving to untangle the mysterious motives of Macdonald by something which he might have left behind him in his room — perhaps some letter to explain everything.

  It was Mrs. Charles Moore who led the way, and with her went her niece, the sister of Rory. They found the room undisturbed, exactly as it had been when Macdonald left. But all they found was his rifle, his other revolver, his slicker, and his bed roll. There was nothing else except a few trifles. So they began to look around the room itself.

  “And look yonder!” cried Mrs. Charles Moore. “There’s the place he dumped out the bullets from his gun... poor man... right underneath the picture of your poor dead Aunt Mary! And, child, child, how astonishingly you’ve grown to be like her! I’ve never seen such a likeness... just in the last year you’ve sprouted up and grown into the very shadow of her!”

  “Oh,” cried the girl, “how can you talk of such things!”

  “What in the world...” began the other.

  “Here in this very room... and... here where he thought his last thoughts!”

  “Heavens above, silly child, you’re weeping for him!”

  “But I saw him when they carried him in from the street,” said Mary softly, with the tears running slowly down her face. “And even in death he seemed a greater man than any I’ll ever see. And one great arm and hand was hanging down... I shall never forget!”

  The Tenderfoot (1924)

  CONTENTS

  1. A WEAKLING?

  2. NATURAL MUSCLE

  3. THUNDER IN BOTH FISTS

  4. ALLAN WINS MUSTARD

  5. THE COMPANION

  6. JIM JONES IS WANTED

  7. ALLAN’S GREAT BLUNDER

  8. THE RESCUE

  9. ALLAN GETS GUN PRACTICE

  10. ON THE BACK OF MUSTARD

  11. JIM’S STORY

  12. “YOU’RE AN ACE”

  13. SLOW ALLAN MEETS CHRISTOPHER

  14. TRUE SPORTSMANSHIP

  15. THE LETTERS FROM AL

  16. CHRISTOPHER HOLDS A GRUDGE

  17. AL DARES DANGER

  18. HANDCUFFS ARE NEAR

  19. THE HOLDUP STAGED

  20. PURSUIT

  21. AL’S STUNT

  22. THE KID IS RIGHT

  23. A TRUMP CARD

  24. MURDER NOT AN ADVENTURE

  25. OUTLAWS AFTER OUTLAWS’ GOLD

  26. TO SACRIFICE ALLAN

  27. SLOW AL ENTERS THE RACE

  28. TO THE STARVING

  29. DANGEROUS DECISION

  30. ON THE TRAIL OF ALLAN

  31. “DO YOU SURRENDER?”

  32. A FIRST-CLASS FOOL

  33. COMPLETELY REFORMED

  1. A WEAKLING?

  HE WAS A sleek young man, not flabby, but with that same smooth-surfaced effect which a seal gives as it swishes around in a pool. He had a round neck which filled out a sixteen-inch collar with perfect plumpness, a round chest, and a pair of long arms. He had pale, mild blue eyes, and a little smile of diffidence played about the corners of his mouth. Yet that gentle smile brought to him only troubles, for sometimes when men saw it they thought that Vincent Allan was deriding them with quietly controlled contempt. The president was one who made that mistake.

  He was not the president of the little uptown branch bank where Vincent Allan for five years had inscribed swift, delicately made
figures in big ledgers or worked an adding machine with patient deftness. That branch bank was only a tiny little link in the chain of financial institutions of which the great man was the chief, but nothing in his organization was too small for the personal attention of the president. His favorite maxim — and he was a man of many maxims — was: There is plenty of time for everything that one really wishes to do! He not only applied his maxims to himself, but to everyone else, and because he could get along with four hours of sleep per day, he felt that all other men should be able to do the same. He even begrudged the four hours of unconsciousness. He considered sleep a habit, and a most pernicious one.

  On this day he had time to attend a luncheon at which the people of his little branch bank were present. After lunch, he made them a speech. He had several speeches which he could use. He had one on honesty, and where it leads! He had another on he who saves. He had another on faithfulness, the golden virtue. He could talk also on the topic: Conscience, the master of us all! But to-day he chose quite a different topic. Usually he was moral, but he liked to surprise people, and on this occasion he chose to speak of the body.

  “We are given by God two great things,” said he. “We have a mind which we cannot help using if we wish to survive. We are given a body also, almost equally divine. But how many of you young ladies and young gentlemen use your bodies as they should be used?”

  He stabbed a rapid forefinger at them all, one by one, driving home the bitter point of his remark so that the weak knees of those city dwellers quaked; and the president himself quivered with his intensity — every bit of his hundred and twelve pounds trembled.

  “Find a gymnasium,” he said. “In this machine-driven age, there are few practical uses for bodily strength. But find a gymnasium. Be brave to admit your weaknesses. Out of such admissions comes strength. It is the strength of the weak — humility! Humility of body, humility of mind, and a devout resolution to make the best of what we have by the careful culture of it—”

  He broke off suddenly, flaring red.

  “You, young man, may smile. But the scoffers are damned, and the reverent spirits go on to great victories!”

  This blast was delivered against poor young Vincent Allan. It wiped the fluttering smile completely off his lips.

  Seeing that one among them was being martyred, the other clerks grinned behind their hands. Only the manager of the branch bank grew a little hot of face. He knew the true worth, the shrinking modesty of young Vincent Allan; however, he did not quite dare to speak up to the great man before all these people. He might draw a counter blast upon his own head and be shamed before those whom he employed.

  “Stand up!” went on the president. “Stand up that we may see what manner of man dares to mock me when I speak of the culture of the body!”

  Vincent Allan rose. His face was flame. Any other would have looked miserably down at the table, but Vincent Allan had this peculiarity — that when he was most shamed and most afraid, he always looked straight into the eyes of that which shamed or that which frightened him.

  “How old are you?” asked the president.

  “Twenty-three, sir,” murmured Vincent Allan.

  It was the meekest, softest voice that ever issued from the throat of a man. The president knew instantly that he had made a mistake and that instead of a hardy cynic there stood before him only a lamb. However, he could not break off so suddenly from the purpose on which he had started. He had prepared the fire, and now he must complete the sacrifice.

  “Twenty-three,” sneered the president, frowning at that answer as though it were an admission of the greatest guilt. “Twenty-three years old. And how tall are you, young man?”

  “Five feet nine inches, sir.”

  “Five feet nine inches? And what do you weigh?”

  “A hundred and seventy-five pounds, sir.”

  “Fat!” thundered the president. “You are fat. You have twenty-five pounds of fat on you, at least. Perhaps you have forty pounds of fat upon you. Do you know what fat is? It is a sin. It is to the body what idle hours are to the day, what sin is to the soul! You must strip that fat off. You must show your true self. Be yourself. Don’t sit back and scoff. That earnest young man sitting beside you who seems to listen to my words, may very well outstrip you in the race. He may very well do it!”

  The earnest young man grew crimson with joy. It was the greatest moment of his young life. It was the greatest moment that he was ever to have in all the long vista of future years.

  “Leave idleness and mockery to fools!” thundered the president. “Go to the gymnasium. Learn to know your bodies as you know your brains! You, young man — how many games can you play?”

  “None, sir,” murmured the miserable Vincent Allan.

  “None! What? Have you never played catch?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Were you an invalid in your boyhood?” asked the president, relenting a little.

  “I — I was working my way through school,” said Vincent Allan faintly. “I — I didn’t have much time, sir, to play.”

  “No time to play! No time! Young man, young man, there is time enough for everything that men really want to do. What were you doing at recesses? Why couldn’t you play then?”

  “I stayed in the schoolroom, sir.”

  “In the schoolroom. The teacher was pretty, I suppose?”

  At this feeble jest there was a great uproar of laughter.

  “No, sir,” said Vincent Allan, blinking. “But my lessons were always very hard for me. I was slow, sir.”

  The president bit his lip. Here was a young man whom he would much rather have held up as an example than as a failure. But he had gone so far that to retreat would be difficult and awkward.

  “For the sake of shame, my young friend,” he concluded, “strip the fat off your body and the sleep out of your mind. Be awake. Be alive. Be humble but never stop endeavoring. There is a great goal ahead. A great goal for endeavor! Find a goal. Cleave to it. Now sit down!”

  He passed on to his main topic, but Vincent Allan heard only a blur of words. He felt that he had been found out in the commission of the cardinal sin. Just where his great guilt lay he could not be sure, but guilt there was. He felt the burning shame of it hot upon his face and like fire in his heart. He wanted to shrink away from the table, but, as always, he could do nothing but sit and look steadily, expressionlessly, into the face of the president across the long table.

  After the luncheon ended he went back to his high stool in the bank. He tried to work, but only an automatic part of his brain was fixed upon his labor. The rest of his consciousness was filled with the certainty that, in some mysterious manner, his existence was for nothing, his life had been thrown away.

  Even the back of his neck was still pink with his shame. The other clerks, passing back and forth, saw that color and pointed it out to one another with subtle chucklings. He knew that they were laughing at him. Perhaps they had wanted to laugh all the time. They had seen that he was flabby and fat. No doubt he was a weakling, but if God gave him life, he would make himself as strong as his frame permitted. He would, as the president said, strip the fat from him and leave the reality. So, looking down at his rather small, compact hand and at the feminine roundness of his wrist, he sighed. It seemed plain that there were small possibilities in his physique.

  For that matter, there were small possibilities in his brain, either. He was a dull fellow; he had been dull from his birth. His memory of school was a long nightmare. Hardly had one difficulty been overcome before another was to be mastered, and from the brutal struggle with short division he had passed into the intricate mysteries of long — of numerators, denominators, divisors; grammar school had been bad enough, but high school was a long four years of slavery. The very name of algebra still made him shudder. Chemistry was a haunting demon. He always was at the foot of the class until examinations. But when examinations came he did very well. For, slavery though it was, he never shrank from a labo
r until it was overcome. What he learned was his forever. So it had been in the bank. For the first six months the manager had been on the verge of dismissing him every pay day, but somehow he could not look into the gentle blue eyes of Vincent Allan and speak unkindly. Against his conscience he retained poor Vincent. But at the end of the sixth month he found that Vincent was doing better — astonishingly better. To use a forced simile, he was like a rock which grew. He was only a pebble at first, but that pebble could be built upon. Little by little it became more important. Others might make mistakes, but after Vincent Allan had mastered the intricacies of a job, it seemed almost impossible for him to make a mistake. Of these things the manager thought when he returned to the bank after lunch.

  “I was a little hard on that young man,” said the president on parting.

  “You were,” said the manager. Then he added: “As a matter of fact, he is the surest, soundest person in the bank!”

  He was astonished at himself when he said this, but emotion had forced him to discover the truth even to his own mind. On the way to the bank, he thought it over, but his reflection simply made him more certain. Vincent Allan was the best man on his staff!

  So he paused behind the lofty stool of the young clerk in the middle of the afternoon.