by Max Brand
With that last picture to cheer him, Allan felt a sort of glory fall upon him. It became so ridiculously easy to die that he almost laughed aloud, and indeed he was smiling steadily as he passed through the darkness toward the jail.
9. ALLAN GETS GUN PRACTICE
SINCE THE EVENTS of that night have become of historic interest and since the tale is told over and over again with many variations, it is well to be most careful and begin at the foundation of the narrative, that is to say, with the two men who, on that night, sat guard over the person of Jim Jones.
It may be taken for granted that they were not ordinary fellows. Even had Jim Jones no allies in the town he would have been guarded with particular care lest he should have broken his way through the rotten bars of the El Ridal jail. But Jim Jones was not unaided or unseconded. Certainly he had allies in the very town itself, since it could only have been through a townsman that news of the arrival of his sister had been brought to him. Friends he had in the town, then, and outside of the town it was freely rumored that he had most efficient helpers who were no other than the ruffians who rode at the bidding of infamous Harry Christopher. Such friends as those villains made to one another were to be dreaded by all who tampered with a single member of the gang. Men were not sure, but it was guessed that Jim Jones must be one of the crew. Therefore the extra precautions were taken to guard the prisoner. Under all ordinary circumstances, either Walter Jardine or Elias Johnston would have been considered more than ample security for the safety of any prisoner, or of any half dozen prisoners, for that matter.
For they were both famous as men of war; each distinguished as an upholder of the law, dauntless in the face of all odds. Each was many times proven. Neither had ever been beaten in fair fight, and among the citizens of El Ridal it could be said that no three of the fiercest and the most determined gun fighters could have stood for a moment against these two warriors. Such were the two against whom Allan was now proceeding.
He rapped at the door of the jail which was presently opened, and there stood before him, dim in the shadow, a small man with a thin face of which the only important feature was a very long and thin nose whose end was a brilliant red — a color so intense that it was almost painful. He recognized the visitor at once and nodded to him with a grin.
“I been waitin’ for you to show up, Al Vincent,” he said. “Dog-gone modest for you to keep away while the crowd was hangin’ around, I’d say!”
He waved Allan inside.
“I’m Elias Johnston,” he said by way of introduction. “I’m mighty glad to meet up with the gent that caught Jim Jones. I always been figuring that it would take a whole crowd of us to land that Jones. Here comes a stranger and takes him with one hand, might say!”
His admiration was wholly genuine and unaffected. He was a little man, hardly above five feet in height, and as thin as he was short, but short time as he had been in El Ridal, Allan had heard of some of the feats which those bird- claw hands had accomplished, and he regarded the little man with the glistening nose and the pale eyes with much admiration.
“I was lucky,” he said frankly to Elias Johnston. “Besides, if it had come to a gun fight, I could have done nothing. I know nothing about guns.”
Elias stared at him as, in another part of the country, one would stare if an apparently cultivated gentleman announced that he was unable to read or write, or signed his name with a cross. So Elias stared at Allan, blinking, abashed, unable to speak. Finally he said weakly: “Come on inside. My old partner, Walt Jardine, is inside.”
Presently Allan stood before the second and the greater of the pair. He was a round dozen years younger than Johnston. He was in his early twenties, but his record was already long as a man of violence. From beneath a smooth rounded forehead a pair of dull eyes, like the eyes of a bull in a quiet moment of grazing, looked forth at Allan. And even the great president of the bank in the midst of his highest burst of eloquence had never seemed so formidable or so great to Allan as did this rudely clad cow-puncher hardly out of his teens.
“Here’s the gent that caught Jim,” said Elias Johnston. “He tells me that he got Jim by luck, Walt.”
Walter Jardine smiled. His smile made his face seem foolishly fat. Then his smile changed to a chuckle, and the laughter forced out the thick, blue veins upon his forehead and along his throat. He heaved out of his chair, squat, huge of torso, and yet with a wonderful springiness of foot. For after all, the very greatest of all sprinters are heavy, low men. So it was with Walter Jardine. Allan felt of him that there was no feat beyond his power. Their hands met, and over his fingers those of Jardine closed softly, more firmly, with increasing pressure, then as his own grip began to resist, Jardine used all his might — a might which made his right arm quiver to the shoulder. And he said to Allan at the same time: “I’m mighty glad to see you, Vincent. I guess it ain’t luck that landed Jones here. I’ve heard about what you done in old Dan Marberry’s shop with the barrel of junk iron.”
So he spoke holding the hand of Allan as though in great cordiality, so that Elias Johnston looked on with smiling pleasure to see this kindly greeting between two men so famous for physical might. He could not detect the stir and quiver of laboring muscles up the forearms, drawn taut and more taut until they threatened to tug the tendons out of place. It only lasted for an instant, after all — that strange trial of strength. Then Allan, who only now understood the game which Jardine was attempting to play with him, closed his hand steadily, easily — as one might close one’s hand through resisting butter. So he pressed the power out of the famous right hand of Walter Jardine and made it relax and brought the metacarpal bones crunching together. In another effort he could have broken them, perhaps. But now, when resistance had ceased, he also ceased, and without a word released the hand of Jardine.
The latter instantly shoved his right hand into his pocket and sat down, whistling a tune. But above the puffed cheeks and the merry run of the notes his eyes were like those of the bull which lifts its head from the grass and sees, far off, the leader of a rival herd breaking down the fence and coming into its own preserve.
All of these things came about in the passage of ten seconds, in quietness, and the murmur of pleasantly spoken words, but Allan knew that he had gained for himself the most implacable of enemies. Something moist in the palm of his right hand made him look down. It was a red smear of blood, not his own, but blood which had spurted from the fingertips of Walter Jardine!
“Dan Marberry will never get over havin’ his best story spoiled — about what a dog-gone strong man he was when he was a kid! No, sir, he’ll never get over that!”
How grateful was Allan to Johnston for making talk during that brief interim when neither he nor Jardine was able to speak!
“But, take it by and large,” went on Elias Johnston, “doggone me if I see how a gent like you, that can do the other things you’ve done, can get on without knowin’ how to handle a gun!”
“Ah!” murmured Walter Jardine. “Ain’t you much with a gun, Vincent?”
“I have never so much as fired one,” said Allan.
“And you wear no gun now?” said Jardine, staring.
“No.”
“With Harry Christopher and his gang lyin’ low an’ waitin’ for a chance to get at you? Vincent, El Ridal ain’t no place for you! You better be movin’ along!”
“Wait!” said Elias Johnston. “Take this here Colt, partner. Take a grip on it. No! Dog-gone me if it ain’t easy to see that you never handled guns before! Hold her like you loved her. You can’t dance good with a girl that wants to hold you off at arm’s length. Ain’t that right? You got to get sort of close. Well, old son, it’s that way multiplied with ten with a gun. You got to grab onto ’em. Squeeze that butt like you was shakin’ hands with the best friend you ever had in the world. And you can lay to it, that a sweet, clean, straight- shootin’ Colt like that one is as good a friend as anything that ever wore flesh. It’s a silent friend; all the
talkin’ that it does is right to the point!”
He laughed as he spoke, and in the meantime, he was arranging the hand of Allan on the butt of the revolver, arranging it with the utmost care, and at the same time qualifying his first instructions. The gun was to be held firmly, but not with such a strain that the muscles of the forearm would begin trembling or twitching.
“The main part of usin’ a gun, some folks say, is ten years practice. I ain’t one that agrees with ’em. Ten years of wrong practice ain’t worth one week of good practice. And that’s a fact. They’s two things needed by nacher — an eye that can see straight to a mark, and a hand that ain’t got no shaking in it — a hand like the hand of Al Vincent. Look at that, Walt!”
Allan was holding the weapon out at arm’s length when his instructor stepped back with an exclamation of surprise and admiration.
“Look how steady that is, Walt! Look at the streak of the light along the barrel. There ain’t no tremble to that line of light. That gun is more steadier’n rock!”
Walter Jardine had leaned forward out of his chair. He now removed his right hand from his pocket. The blood had been wiped from the fingertips, but the entire hand was swollen and discolored by the terrible grip of Allan. Jardine hastily returned the hand to hiding, and shifting a little in his chair he dropped his left hand to the butt of the gun which hung upon that hip. For he was a two-gun man, in the true sense of the term. That is to say, many wear two guns for the sake of having a second to fire when the first is emptied, but how many are there who can fire accurately with both hands at the same time? It was this ambidexterous talent of Jardine which made him celebrated among his compeers as a dreadful fighter indeed. He now studied the steady hand of Allan with a sort of hungry interest.
“He’s steady,” he admitted presently.
Johnston looked sharply at his partner, surprised at the apparent reluctance which was in the voice of the younger man.
“He’s steady,” said Jardine again with a little more heartiness, “but how fast is he?”
“Give him time to learn how to pull a gun.”
A faint and disagreeable smile came upon the lips of the other. He took from the wall a cartridge belt with a revolver hanging in the holster. This he buckled about the hips of Allan. Then he stepped back.
“They’s a man with two guns standin’ in the doorway right behind you ready to fill you full of holes! Stop him, Vincent!”
At that sharp cry of Jardine, with a little start of fear, although he knew well enough, reasonably, that it was a test and not a fact, Allan wheeled and snatched the Colt from the holster. It seemed to him that he acted both smoothly and swiftly, but before he had finished wheeling or dragging the Colt forth, the rapid voice of Johnston was barking: “Dead! Dead! Dead! Dead! Turn back ag’in, Al. Nope, you ain’t fast! You don’t think that way.”
“What should I have done?”
“Dropped flat for the floor, twistin’ over while you fell, twitchin’ out the gat while you was in the air, and firing once or twice before you ever hit the boards. That’s what a real fast man can do. That’s what I’ve seen Walt Jardine do. Of course you ain’t had practice. But still you’re slow. You’ll always be slow.”
He shook his head sadly, as though the masterpiece which he had guessed at and which he had been striving to realize as a fact, had now been blurred and spoiled past all recovery.
As for Walter Jardine, the disagreeable smile was at the corners of his lips again, and his bold eyes looked through and through Allan as though he were saying to himself: “This fellow has strong hands, but what do the strongest hands in the world matter compared with a forty-five caliber slug in action — or six slugs flying all at once!” Such were doubtless the thoughts of Jardine, but little Elias Johnston was already upon another track.
“Speed ain’t the main thing, Walt.”
“What is, then? A kind heart, old-timer?”
“Don’t get hard. I say, straight shootin’ is better’n slow shootin’.”
“But straight fast shootin’ is better’n straight slow shootin’!”
“Sure, but is there any gent that can really be sure of where his guns are workin’ when he’s makin’ a fast play?”
There was a little pause.
“I reckon there is,” said Jardine soberly at last.
His companion shrugged his shoulders.
“I seen a time when Laurie Blackmore and Tom Gant and Bill Greening and some of their pals was all throwed into one saloon up on old Gaffney Creek about five years back when that little gold rush started — I mean the time they started for gold and didn’t get none! Well, havin’ rushed and got nowheres, they was all set for trouble, and when the lot of ’em was jammed into one room it was like putting giant powder into a fire. They exploded.
“I was about two blocks away. The shootin’ kep’ up all the time that I was running to the saloon. Must of been two hundred shots fired. When I got through the doors, the crowd had scattered. The saloon was wrecked. The mirrors was junk. The windows was bashed out. Even the flooring was all splintered up, not sayin’ nothing of the ceilin’ bein’ all raked across.
“One man was sittin’ in a corner, tyin’ up a cut in his left arm where a slug had grazed him. There was a dead dog in another corner.
“There’s what come of fast shootin’. A dozen gents that had used guns all their lives was jammed into one room. They all started out to massacre everybody else as fast as they could pull their triggers. All they done was to bust furniture — and kill one dog I Yet there wasn’t a man there that couldn’t of killed three men in six seconds if he’d took his time. Nope, slow work can be the best work. You’re slow, Al. Maybe you’d ought to be glad of it!”
At any rate, in that speech he had given to Allan the nickname which clung to him ever after.
10. ON THE BACK OF MUSTARD
SUCH A CONCLUSION would by no means be accepted by a man so famous for the lightning celerity of his draw combined with amazing closeness in shooting. Jar dine frowned and shook his head.
“Besides,” he said, “they ain’t one man in twenty that can work slow without losin’ his nerve. Suppose that you and me was to fight. You’re fast as chain lightnin’, say, and I’m mighty slow. Before 1 get my gun unlimbered, you’ve planted a couple of slugs in me, or else I’ve heard one slug chew into the floor and another whistles by my ear. Maybe you think that’ll help me a lot? Maybe you think that I’ll be able to take a cool, easy aim, partner? Nope. I’ll tell you what, Elie, the gent that’s fast with the draw has always won out nine times out of ten, and he’ll keep right on winnin’.”
“I ain’t denyin’ that,” said Elias Johnston slowly. “I guess that you got the right of that, old-timer. But hear me what I say: there was a man that took his time, that stayed all calm and cool and didn’t tighten up none when the time for the fight come, he’d kill the fast gent nine times out of ten. Am I right?”
“You’re askin’ for a gent that ain’t been born yet and that never will be born,” insisted Jardine. “They ain’t nobody that can stand up to close gun fire without startin’ in to dodge.”
“I dunno,” said Elias. “I couldn’t. Maybe you couldn’t. But they’s a terrible lot of queer folks in this little old world, son. You don’t want to forget that. Wait a minute. It’s time to take a walk around the shack and see that all’s clear. I’ll be back in a jiffy, and we’ll talk some more.”
So saying, he planted a sombrero on his head and swung away through the door; his heels tapped lightly on the front steps; and then the sand could be distinctly heard gritting under his feet as he walked about the place. So flimsy were the walls of the jail and so small was the circuit around them that he would hardly pass out of hearing at the farthest point in his journey. But in the slight interval, Allan knew that he must make his attempt. He must make his efforts against Jardine while little Elias Johnston was away from the room. But Jardine alone was enough to puzzle him. He stared down at the floor, wo
ndering how he could begin; and while he stared down, he felt the glance of Jardine fixed steadily upon his face, reading it rapidly, hating him with all his heart because of the defeat which he had suffered in that mute duel of strength a few moments before.
“Hear me talk, Vincent!” cut in Jardine at last. “They’s something on your mind. What is it? What d’you want?”
At this, Allan looked up and he saw that the other was grinning in a savage mockery at him, as though all of his hopes were clear to Jardine and were despised by him. Only one retort, and that a brutal one, came into the mind of Allan.
“I was wondering when you would wish to shake hands again?” he asked.
The veins swelled again in the face of Jardine. “A darned trick!” he said. “But there’s more than one trick in the world, old son!”
“Try with the left hand, then?” proffered Allan, rising.
“Dam your hands!” snarled Jardine, his fury now showing in the ferocity of his eyes. “Keep off me, or I’ll—”
He had no time to say more. The left hand which Allan had extended toward him and from which he had drawn back, now thrust out. The fingers condensed into a compact fist. The fist struck Jardine low on the ribs. Soft and casual as that blow seemed to be, it had behind it such crushing weight that it expelled the wind from Jardine’s body and doubled him up. He clawed at his revolver with his sound left hand, but even as the fingertips touched the butt of the gun, he was struck heavily across the temple and dropped into darkness.
One half — and what seemed at the instant the greater half of Allan’s work — was now accomplished. The famous Walter Jardine was helpless on the floor. It only remained to secure him completely and then to turn to the reception of little Elias. But there was very little time — hardly a moment in which to work. He managed to twist the victim upon his face, snap a pair of handcuffs over his wrists, and then wedge a bandanna between his teeth. So secured against any violent movement and against any warning outcry, he wheeled from Jardine and leaped to the door just as Johnston stepped inside.