Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  There was no time for Johnston. The flying danger was already in the air, hanging above him and swooping irresistibly down at him as young Allan, desperate with haste and resolution, flung himself clear of the floor and swept at Johnston with extended arms. Yet in the tenth part of a second which remained to him, the little man thrust out a stiff left arm to ward off the attack and snatched out his revolver. His hard little bird-claw hand struck sharply into the lunging face of Allan. But before his revolver was clear of the holster he was crushed under the avalanche.

  At the first touch he ceased to struggle. He felt himself taken by hands which were not human — they were flexible steel. To wriggle against the grip of those fingers was simply to bruise one’s flesh. Therefore, in another moment, he was secured by handcuffs exactly as his companion had been. He was placed against the wall. A rifle was laid between his legs and the legs of Jardine, who sat facing him. Then they were secured to the rifle with intricate lashings of many- folded rope. The gag remained in the teeth of Jardine. But with Johnston, Allan struck a bargain.

  “Johnston,” he said, “when I say that it makes me sick to have to do this, I hope you’ll try to believe me. I had rather have injured almost any man than you.”

  Elias grinned and nodded, as much as to say: “This is really very foolish bluff, and what can it bring to you in the way of an advantage?”

  “Give me your word that you will give no alarm,” said Allan, “and I’ll use no gag on you.”

  “That’s fair,” said Elias Johnston quietly. “But tell me what in the devil you’re after, Al Vincent?”

  “Where are the keys to the cell?” asked Allan.

  “Yonder, in the right-hand upper drawer to the desk. But what the deuce do you want with the prisoner?”

  Allan made no reply. He opened the drawer, found out his bunch of keys almost at once, and then went toward the cell room followed by the horrified, whispering voice of Elias Johnston.

  “Al, you ain’t goin’ to do a murder on a helpless man?”

  Allan went hurriedly through the doorway into the cell room, and there he saw Jim Jones rise stiffly from his cot at the sight of his captor. Allan had no time to examine facial expressions, however. His fingers had to fly, now in the trial and the selection of the right key to unfasten the cell door and the right key to unfasten the manacles which confined the hands and the legs of Jim Jones. In the meantime, the two most famous men of El Ridal sat in the adjoining room bound with ropes and with iron, but what would these avail for very long against their flaming wits as they struggled to gain freedom? There must be fast work indeed. He could only gasp as he rattled at the cell door: “Jones!”

  “Well?” snarled the captive, his voice full of hate as he saw the man who had captured him.

  “If I can get you out of this jail and put you on your horse, will you swear to do nothing thereafter except what I shall advise?”

  “Is this a fake?” cried Jim Jones.

  Allan, opened the door to the cell at that moment, and, kneeling, he began to work at the irons which locked the ankles of the prisoner together. With two such famous men as the two who were now in the sheriff’s office and with so much strong steel to contain and hold one man, surely El Ridal had done its best to keep its prisoner secure!

  “Does it look like a fake?” asked Allan, thinking of the two fighters in the next room and trying key after key with desperate speed. “Promise me, Jones!”

  “To do what?”

  “Nothing except what I tell you to do after I get you out of this jail.”

  There was a gasp from the prisoner. “If you get me clean out of this,” he panted, “I belong to you, partner, if you got any use for me!”

  “Your word of honor?”

  “My word of honor ten times over!”

  The key turned in the lock. The ankles of Jones were free, and now the liberator turned to the handcuffs, but at the same time there was a knocking at the front door of the jail, and then a voice called: “Hello, Walt Jardine! Johnston!”

  The key turned; the handcuffs fell jangling to the floor.

  “Now a gun — quick!” pleaded Jim.

  “No shooting! Come with me!”

  He led the way at a run out of the cell and to the rear window of the jail.

  At the same time the front door slammed open and there was a confused shouting from the front of the little building. The window itself was jammed. Jim Jones kicked the pane to smithereens and then slid through to the outside, and as Allan prepared to follow, he saw the door fly open which led into the sheriff’s office. There stood the sheriff himself, and behind him another man. Their guns were out in a flash. Two reports boomed through the room, two heavy shocks struck against the wall inches from the body of Allan, but then he was through and stood on the ground beside Jim Jones. No matter how eager that man might be for freedom, he had waited for his liberator, true to his word, and the heart of Allan warmed suddenly to his companion. Perhaps Jim was guilty of all the crimes of which he was accused, but certainly there was a strength of loyalty in him which was worthy of the brother of Frances.

  Allan began to run at full speed for the saplings where the two horses had been left. Behind them there was a sound of stamping feet, guns exploding, wild shouts. Someone slid through the window by which they had made their exit and raced in pursuit. Others were coming around the jail, yelling to rouse the town.

  But in the meantime they reached the clump of saplings, and Allan groaned with dismay. The horses were not there!

  It was the despair of a moment only. Then, very few yards away, he saw they had strayed slightly from the first spot. Jim Jones was instantly in the saddle upon the gray stallion. Allan scrambled onto the back of Mustard and was presently fighting a furiously bucking horse. Twice he almost lost his stirrups; twice he was nearly whipped from his place. Then the leader of the pursuit came shouting up and opened fire. It was the discharge of that gun which saved Allan, for, frightened by the explosion. Mustard began to run as fast as her stout legs would bear her in the rear of the flying stallion.

  11. JIM’S STORY

  THEY HAD NOT covered a quarter of a mile before the entire town seemed to have awaked and taken to horse behind them, so great was the uproar and the rush of hoof beats out of El Ridal, and the hopes of Allan fell every moment, for though Mustard might have iron endurance, she could not hope to escape the first burst of speed of many fast horses and determined riders who knew the ground which lay before them, even by starlight. Still, though the mare was slow, Jim Jones did not give up his rescuer. Twice he reined back beside the struggling mare and entreated Allan to urge her to a greater effort.

  “You ain’t followin’ a plough — you’re ridin’ for your life, partner!” cried Jim.

  Which was not news to Allan, for he well could imagine that his shrift would be short if they could catch him. He brought the roan mare to the highest point of her efforts, but still it was not fast enough, and the men from El Ridal swarmed closer and closer.

  To take them where speed would count less than strength, Jim had led the way straight up the steep side of Mount El Ridal. He now drove the bay stallion through a tall clump of shrubbery and dismounted, ordering Allan to do the same. When he obeyed, he found himself in a narrow triangle of level ground, a tiny shoulder of the mountainside with a deep dark gulf of black beneath them. No horse could descend that precipice. Not even a man could have climbed it save with the greatest effort. Yet toward the corner of the dropping-off place Jim Jones, calling upon Allan to follow, led his horse and presently disappeared!

  But the yelling men of El Ridal were pressing in fast from behind, and it was as well to meet death in one way as another. So Allan went ahead, dragging the snorting, rebellious Mustard behind him until he discovered that the corner of the little plateau did not come to an abrupt end, as he had thought, but continued in a narrow ledge which ran around the corner of the mountin’s shoulder and out of sight. Here was the explanation. It was p
lain that Jim had led the bay out of sight in this direction, and Allan prepared to follow.

  It required all his courage to so much as set foot upon that dizzy path. It seemed to him scant inches wide, and it consisted of crumbling stone which threatened to roll underfoot or perhaps to break quite off. He could not have proceeded in any other situation, but with those riders yelling up the trail, he found the nerve to go on. With his right hand he led Mustard, snorting and trembling in the rear. With his left hand he gripped at the receding upper face of the cliff. So, leaning his weight inward, he went ahead with his teeth set and a sick feeling in the bottom of his stomach. Once his foot slipped. It was a scant half inch, but it seemed to take Allan halfway to eternity, and, glancing down he saw beneath him only the emptiness of air to receive his body, the polished ribs and jutting fragments of the cliff dripping with starlight, and far, far beneath the white streak of foaming water through the heart of the night. He had to stand through two or three deadly seconds before the trembling weakness left him and his brain cleared. Then he pressed ahead and in half a dozen strides turned the corner onto a level spot large enough to have built a house upon. There was Jim Jones, with the end of a cigarette pulsing through the dusk and putting two glinting high lights m the eyes of the bay stallion which stood nearby. “Why are you stopping?” cried Allan. “Don’t you hear them yelling up the trail? Every second counts! Why don’t you go on?”

  “Need wings to go on from this place,” said Jim Jones calmly. “This here is a little trap that I happen to know about.” Allan could only gasp: “You’re joking, Jim!” “I ain’t, though. I figured that we couldn’t ride away from that gang with a slow hoss like Mustard. Thought that we’d dodge in here, let ’em swarm by, and when they got tired chasin’ and yellin’, we could slip out and keep on our trip.” “But does no one else know of this place?” “Sure. Twenty men out of El Ridal most likely know about it.”

  Allan groaned. He could feel, already, the pressure of a muzzle against his ribs.

  “Then we are lost, Jim. They’ll be sure to come. Perhaps they’re filing along the ledge now!”

  “Maybe,” admitted Jim with the most singular calm. “Maybe they’re coming and maybe they ain’t. It’s all a chance. We couldn’t get away with heels like Mustard to run with. Only thing that we could do was to sit tight and wait.”

  Waves of cold were passing through the body of Allan, but he did not exclaim again, for he was beginning to see that the whole thing had been done for his own sake alone, and it was a revelation in unselfish courage on the part of Jim. That he could have risked so much when freedom and safety were his by simply loosening the reins on the matchless bay stallion, seemed a wonderful thing to Allan; but after all, that was the sort of stuff of which his sister was made. From that instant it was impossible for him to believe that any crime of cruelty or brutality could really be charged against young Jones. There must be extenuating circumstances. Now Jim was explaining quietly that it was quite possible that many of the pursuers might think of searching the ledge and the little shut-up to which it led, but there was a fighting chance that they might not Indeed, the place was so well known that perhaps no one would credit the two of them with such folly as to take shelter in this trap.

  There was hardly a doubt that this was the case, for now the hunt could be traced clearly as it wound up the mountain s face high, high above the place where they waited. A salvo of guns roared; then excited voices clamored; more guns exploded. “They’re killin’ shadows, now,” chuckled Jim Jones softly. “When they begin to do that, they’re about ready to quit the

  “And then?” asked Allan humbly, seeing that the wisdom of this youth, about such matters, was far greater than his own.

  “Then we’ll go back along the ledge, climb onto the hosses, and start ridin’. But lemme know how you managed to get to me in the jail that way? I thought there was two in the sheriff’s office? I thought that them two was Jardine and Johnston? Was I wrong?”

  “They were there,” said Allan. He paused a little, thinking back to all the emotions with which he had approached the jail, expecting death. This was surely far better than death — to sit back in the lap of the mountain watching the stars and listening to the muttering of the river beneath them. “But while I was talking to them,” he went on, “Johnston went out to walk around the jail and see that no friend of yours attempted to come up to the building from the outside, do you see? As soon as he was gone, I saw that I had my opportunity, and I was able to take it. I knocked down Jardine, handcuffed and gagged him—”

  “Knocked down Jardine!” cried the other in astonishment which was almost consternation. “Knocked down, Jardine! Handcuffed and gagged him!” .

  “And just as I finished, Johnston came in. Of course, he is so small and I was taking him by such surprise that it was easy to master him. After that I took the keys—”

  “Him bein’ so small. So’s a rattlesnake small! You took on them two one after another and cleaned ’em up — with your bare hands, Al?”

  “Of course,” said Allan. “I can’t use a gun, you know.”

  To this his companion returned no remark, and they sat for a time in quiet listening to the noise of the pursuit which was spending itself far up the mountain. Small groups of horsemen, besides, were hurrying up from El Ridal, and to any one of these it might occur to search the trap.

  “When we leave the trap, where do we go?” asked Allan.

  “Al, have you heard of Harry Christopher? He’d be mighty glad to have you with him!”

  There was an exclamation from Allan. “I’ve heard of him. He’s the last man we’ll join, Jim. We’ll simply ride out of this section of the country—”

  “I can’t, Al.”

  “I have your word,” said Allan slowly.

  The other groaned. “Al,” he said, “dog-gone me if I ain’t a skunk, but when I told you that I was your man for keeps I sure forgot somebody that come before you. I’ve swore to Harry Christopher that I’d do what he said for this year — ride, or fight, or—”

  “Or steal?” said Allan heavily.

  “Or steal,” admitted Jim with a sigh.

  “Jim, tell me how you happened to join such a fellow as Harry Christopher?”

  “I’ll tell you the whole thing. It’s a bad mess; but I’ll keep nothin’ back.”

  He made a pause, rolled another cigarette, and in the interim a squirrel which had been disturbed in its sleep chattered angrily from a stunted pine which clung to the steep mountainside above them.

  “It come out of gambling,” said Jim gloomily, at last. “When I hit El Ridal first I was doin’ fine, savin’ my money, hopin’ to be some sort of a help to the folks back home. But then I learned poker, and that was my finish. Every month my pay went across the table to some gent that had slicker fingers or better luck than I had. And there was always some such gent around. I got in deeper and deeper. Same time I was payin’ attention to Marie Prevost. Maybe you heard about her in El Ridal?”

  “I was there only a few hours, you know.” “Mostly you hear about Marie before you been there ten minutes. Marie Prevost is the queen of the town. One look at her would make you plumb happy for a half a year. And that ain’t exaggeratin’.”

  He said it soberly, and the face of Frances rose in the mind of Allan. He could well understand how one glimpse of a woman could make a man happy, or wretched, for half a year. “Things between me and Marie was goin’ along fine,” said Jim, “until I met up with her brother at a card game one night. I had a bit of luck while he was playin’. In an hour I cleaned him out of five hundred bucks and busted him flat. He left, lookin’ black and fumblin’ at his gun, but I’d seen gents do that before, and it didn’t mean nothin’ to me. I kept on playin’, and they cleaned me out just as bad as I’d cleaned out Charlie in the beginnin’.

  “That was that. The next night I went to call for Marie to take her to the dance over to the schoolhouse, and while I was sittin’ downstairs waitin�
�� for Marie to finish the powderin’ of her nose and the last tryin’ out of her smiles, down comes Charlie.

  “When he seen me he give a start, like he stepped on a tack.

  “‘Might I ask,’ said he, talkin’ real soft an’ mean, ‘what you’re waitin’ for here, Jones? You got a line on one of the hired men that’s got a chunk of money to lose?’

  “It was considerable talk to take from anybody, but I managed to swaller it. Him bein’ the brother of Marie, I’d of let him just about walk on my face, for that matter. I told him that I wasn’t there to make any trouble; I says that he’d lost his money fair and square the night before, just the way I’d lost mine after he left the place.

  “‘They’s kinds and kinds of crooks,’ says he at that. ‘I ain’t got any doubt that some crooks has more brains than you got.’

  “That was getting me pretty hot.

  “‘Shut up, Charlie,’ says I. ‘I ain’t here to start a fight. Not in Marie’s house.’

  “‘Come outside,’ says he. ‘There’s plenty of room there.’

  “‘Charlie,’ says I, hangin’ onto my temper as hard as I could, ‘I ain’t goin’ to fight.’

  “‘You’re wiser,’ says Charlie.

  “And when he said that, I heard somebody snicker. I dunno who it was to this day. Maybe it was Marie’s little kid sister, Ruth. She always had a way of hangin’ around to hear what the growed-up folks had to say to each other. Anyway, I didn’t wait to think. I only knowed that somebody had stood by and heard me takin’ water. I forgot whose brother he was. I just out with the ten best cuss words I knew and tossed ’em all in his face. Before I got half through he was after his gun. It came out fast as a wink, but mine came out a shade faster. I beat him by a wink, and he went down when I shot.