Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  It is an old trick, after all, and as a rule is not a particularly good one. It varies in value according to the person who acquires it. It is based upon the fundamental truth that most people, when they point at an object, point quite straight — an unstudied directness. Some, indeed, are remarkably accurate and a few will point with a forefinger as certainly as an expert can level a rifle and, of course, much more easily and swiftly. For these the trick has the greatest value. When a revolver is drawn from the holster in close fight, there is not time, of course, to raise it shoulder high and drop it on the mark. As a matter of fact, a great many gun fighters have filed the sights entirely off their guns, so as to be reasonably sure that there will be no friction in drawing the Colt from the holster. Before a man could raise his revolver high and discharge it — in a close fight — he would have received at least three bullets in his body. And Allan, fatally slow in the draw itself, must at least fire from the hip the instant his muzzle was clear of the holster. That became possible for him when it was discovered that he was one of those fortunate people who point straight naturally. The forefinger he placed along the barrel of the weapon as he fired, pulling the trigger with the second finger of either hand. And, as straight as he could point, so straight could he shoot.

  The results were amazing. His snap shooting had been as ridiculous in aim as in speed until the idea of pointing was explained to him by Jim. Then, at a distance of thirty feet, he planted four out of six shots somewhere in the body of a tree which was hardly more than a foot in diameter — and this while working the trigger as fast as it could be pulled!

  Of course it was by no means a very brilliant display — except for a beginner. And when it came to firing at very small or very distant objects, Allan was uniformly poor with a gun. With a rifle, m fact, he could do nothing. It was only with a revolver, shooting at close range at a fairly large object, that he was effective, but when all the conditions favored him, the results were truly surprising. He became so expert that as he and Jim cantered down a trail and fired for practice at the trees nearby, he actually struck the target more frequently than his tutor! But if he lamented his inability to shoot at distant marks, Jim Jones gave him the grim reassurance that men did not die in open battle under the sky but by sudden explosions of hatred or rage across a card table, or on meeting in the street. A ten-pace duel was generally a long distance one! For the simple reason that the duels were always impromptu.

  Thus encouraged, Allan devoted every spare moment to the perfecting of his newly acquired art. How much he might have to depend upon it no one could tell, since he had taken upon himself the duty of protecting the brother of Frances. Nor was that all, for since he broke open the jail at El Ridal he was outlawed from the society of all law-keeping citizens as much as Jim Jones or even Harry Christopher himself.

  So, as he rested his back against the tree trunk, he worked diligently. Over and over again he twisted the gun as fast as his fingers could fly, out of the holster, covered a target without raising the weapon above the height of his hip, and fired. His targets consisted of a black-faced rock which scarred white whenever a bullet drove against it, a rotten fence post whose fellows had long since disappeared, and the trunk of a sapling.

  The nearest was within twenty paces, and the farthest within twenty-five, yet in twenty rounds he scored only one miss and was telling himself, with a sort of quiet savagery which was new to his nature, that had there been men before him they must all have been struck down. Then suddenly, he felt, rather than heard or saw, something stirring behind him.

  It must be Jim, returned from the head of the valley to which he had ridden on before to see Harry Christopher and arrange for the bringing in of a recruit. But when Allan turned, he saw not the handsome features of Jim, but a swarthy, broad man with a weary expression. Altogether, there was a shade of the profoundest gloom on his brow. He leaned against one among a cluster of tall rocks, his arms folded. Seeing that he was observed, he nodded to Allan not a greeting, but a concession to the habit of courtesy.

  “Keep right on, son,” said he.

  He could not have been more than three or four years older, and yet his tone and his manner was that of middle age. To be sure, his hair was gray, and his face deeply lined, but he had the unmistakable appearance of ruined youth rather than of broken-down middle age.

  “I’m through shooting,” said Allan, putting up his revolver.

  “You don’t clean a gun when you’ve finished usin’ it?” asked the stranger sharply.

  One might have thought that the weapon belonged to him and that it was a personal injustice to him if the Colt were not treated in the correct manner. However, Allan made no difficulty about answering the most impertinent questions. Besides, this man looked like one who had been a little unhinged, mentally, by the falling of many sorrows upon his shoulders.

  “I’m told not to clean my guns,” said Allan, “until I’m by myself — or with people whom I know.”

  His mildness made the other only the more irritable, to all appearances. “Meanin’ that I’d cut your throat if your back was turned to me, I suppose?”

  This was ill nature so causeless and so gross that Allan lifted his head and stared at his companion; he did not reply a single syllable. Yet his restraint was by no means favorably noted by the gloomy man:

  “Talk out what’s bitin’ you,” he commanded. “Don’t sit there mopin’ about it. You don’t like what I said?”

  “Friend,” said Allan, still as gentle as ever, “you seem to have been in trouble lately. I’m a peaceable man, sir, and I have no wish to add to your troubles.”

  “Add to ’em?” thundered the other, red with irresponsible rage. “What could you add to me?”

  Again Allan was forced to be silent.

  “Some of you kids,” went on the other sneering, “have a way of thinkin’ like that. You blaze away with a Colt for a couple of hours and you think that you know somethin’ about it. Lemme tell you that handlin’ a Colt right is like paintin’ a picture. Partly it’s born inside of you and partly it’s got to be learned with half a lifetime of dog-gone hard work.”

  “I suppose so,” said Allan. “For my part, I make not the slightest pretext of being an expert with weapons. I only feel that I’m extremely lucky to have hit the targets as often as I have just done.”

  “Targets? What targets?” roared this implacable quarreler. Allan pointed them out.

  “Them ain’t targets,” snarlingly came back the stranger. “Why not start in shootin’ at the hills themselves?”

  “But,” said Allan, “those targets are as large as men. In a fight—”

  “You’d be able to do a murder. There ain’t any doubt about that. But gents don’t practice all their lives so’s they’ll be able to use a gun; they practice so’s they’ll never have to use it!” Over this peculiar maxim Allan brooded for some time, without hurry, deeply involved in the intricacies of the suggestions. At length he nodded and regarded his companion with much admiration.

  “That’s a peculiar way to put it, but I think I understand.” “I say you practice so’s you won’t have to shoot to kill. Suppose you, now, was to try to make a gun play agi’n me. Would I kill you because I’m faster on the draw than you? Nope. I’d simply put a ball through your hip that’d teach you not to talk so smart to the next gent you met up with.”

  And, stepping forth from the rock a little, he looked with a sort of cruel hunger upon Allan. The latter dared not reply. In the first place, he had not the slightest doubt but that this fellow was capable of shooting him to bits. In the second place, a chilly atmosphere breathed from this stranger. There was no encouragement for rash advances when one was in his presence.

  “Here,” said the gloomy stranger, laying a hand upon the butt of his gun, “is what I’d call shootin’. Look yonder at the bird on that dog-gone branch—”

  He jerked his head in the designated direction and he saw that a bird, perhaps frightened away from the place
in the beginning by Allan’s fusillade directed against the three targets, had returned to discover the cause of all of this noise and its cessation.

  “Are you going to kill it?” asked Allan sadly.

  “Not without givin’ it a fightin’ chance. I ain’t no murderer — not even of birds!”

  So saying, he whipped out his gun, fired, and the little twig on which the bird had been sitting fell to the ground. The bird itself dropped a foot or so into space before it recovered and darted off. Once more the gun spat and tossed its nose. The bird dodged sharply; two or three tiny feathers, knocked adrift, floated downward as slowly as if the still air had been a well of water.

  There was an oath from the marksman; there was a sigh of relief from Allan.

  “By heaven!” thundered this strange fellow. “I think you’re glad that the darn bird got away!”

  Mildness, as it has been seen, was the leading feature in the soul of Vincent Allan, but now he felt an electric irritability spring up in his heart. He found himself examining the stranger carefully and focusing his attention upon two points — the pit of the stomach and the point of the jaw. Little nervous ripples ran through the striking muscles along his arms and his thick shoulders twitched. But he only sighed again. For he told himself that to attack this fellow, no matter what the latter’s insolence, was to invite death. Yet it would almost be worth death to have the privilege of striking him once. His conduct was almost intolerable.

  “You’re angry,” said Allan. “You’re trying to pick trouble with me; but I- don’t want to have any trouble.”

  “I knowed that you wouldn’t,” sneered the other, with obvious meaning.

  “In fact,” said Allan, rising to his feet, “I think I’ll leave you.”

  “Wait a minute,” said the bully. “I ain’t said that you could go.”

  There was a shortening of breath in Allan; by the peculiar sensation in his cheeks he knew that he was smiling, although he had no desire to, and blood surged into his brain until his temples throbbed.

  “My friend,” said Allan, measuring his words and his voice, “it will be much better for me to go now. I have no desire to do you any harm.”

  The other gaped at him. “You ain’t got — no desire — kid, have you gone dippy?”

  “Keep back from me,” said Allan.

  “D’you mind telling me how you could do me any harm?”

  “With my hands,” said Allan a little huskily, and he took half a pace forward. “With my hands, sir!”

  “And how would them hands get a chance to grab me?”

  “I am not ignorant of your skill,” said Allan, “but if the first bullet did not instantly kill me — if I lived to place my hands upon you — I assure you that you would die with me.”

  Something made the other leap suddenly back.

  “Heaven help me!” he cried, half laughing, half astonished, and certainly with an entirely new voice. “I believe you mean it, and I believe you could do it. Hey — Jim! Come call him off!”

  And here Jim Jones came hastily from behind the rocks, smiling, but a little pale.

  “You ran that race too dog-gone close to the finish to suit me,” he said. “D’you believe what I was tellin’ you?”

  “I do,” said the stranger solemnly. “And you might introduce us, Jim.”

  “Al, this here is Harry Christopher. Harry, this is Al Vincent.”

  They shook hands, looking one another closely in the eye, as men do who have seen enough of one another to respect what they know and desire to know more.

  The manner of Christopher had become greatly altered. He was still smiling as he shook the hand of Allan.

  “When Jim come up with word that you wanted to join us,” he said, “I figured that I’d come down and try you out. They ain’t no place in a gang like mine for a gent that ain’t got some iron in him. Well, Al Vincent, you look like the right stuff to me. If you want to join us, come in and welcome. We’ll drink to him now, Jim, eh?”

  He drew a flask from his pocket, tipped it at his lips, and then passed it to Jim, coughing and choking over the fiery strength of the stuff. Jim, in turn, pledged the new member most heartily, and the third turn was that of Allan. But he paused with the flask in his hand.

  “What’s wrong,” asked Harry Christopher. “Are you changin’ your mind, Al?”

  “I never drink,” said Allan. “It makes my head so dizzy, you know!”

  14. TRUE SPORTSMANSHIP

  THERE WERE SIX blanket rolls around the edges of the room, but there were only five men seated about the stove, a patched and shattered stove, eaten through with rust here and there so that the flames gleamed now and then and puffs and curls of smoke were constantly rising. Above it the pipe staggered up to the roof, bound about and secured with bits of wire. But for all the smoke which rose from it, the stove was the most necessary bit of furniture in the chamber. Even when it was kept roaring day and night, the dampness soaked up through the boards of the flooring and cold wet winds, filled with the harvest of cold which they had gathered from the snows of the summit, swept in under the big pines and whistled through the chinks of the wretched walls of the shack, stabbing the men with icy drafts which made them shudder from time to time.

  An hour of work would have patched those walls and made them proof against the storm, but the five had greater things to occupy their minds than the mere patching of a rickety house. They preferred to alternately roast and shiver in this damp house while they conned over and over the scheme which held them there. And though the cold weather might be unfortunate, at least they were secure, here, against a greater danger, and that was from the long arms of the law which were reaching out for them, fumbling constantly to find them. Here near the crests of the mountain, wrapped about in the gloom of the pine forest, they could develop their plans and let the law fumble and reach in vain toward them.

  Jim Jones was the least significant of the five. Next to him was the long and lank form of Hank Geer, perpetually swallowing a triangular, jutting Adam’s apple which perpetually rose again. He was a famous man, was Hank. He was useful in the extreme to any criminal society for the very good reason that there was nothing which he would not attempt. He was reckless, it might be said, by calculated principle. For when a man has the burden of half a dozen murders upon his head he knows, as Hank Geer knew, that the recompense is coming and will not be long delayed. He had done enough to warrant many deaths; therefore he was willing to keep on doing, convinced that to reform would now be impossible and that to hide from the law was also too great a task. Sooner or later he must be searched out and he must go down; in the meantime, his one overmastering desire was to die in action. He dreaded not the death by a pistol shot, but the death by the rope, with the trial, condemnation, and the grisly wait in the condemned cell. Upon these things his mind constantly brooded; they would not out; and the more dare-devil the adventure which was proposed, the better he liked it; for even if he failed in all else, he would gain if he could find death in action.

  Beside this gloomy figure was the yegg, Lefty Bill Mason, who had cracked safes in every part of the country and who was convinced that there were many more which must succumb to his wits. He had a magic way with steel doors. And some men said that those pointed, foxlike ears of his were able to read the heart of a combination! He was a bundle of good nature and nerves and the vital soul of every enterprise which he entered. His companion on the other side was no less a person than Sam Buttrick, who had graduated from the ranks of the prize fighters and brought his small head and massive blunt jaw to greater works of art. Guns were not altogether at home in his huge hands; the knife was his favorite weapon, but better even than the knife was it to get his square- tipped fingers upon an enemy. He was outlawed not because he loved crime, but because he needed the stimulus of terrible danger. Sitting about a house he was a most lethargic individual, but when the time came for the commission of the crime, he blossomed like flowers under a warm May sun and became
most gay. It might be said of Sam Buttrick that he was not vicious out of malice but because viciousness was inborn in his nature. The last member of the group was Harry Christopher

  They sat in a semicircle before the stove with a large piece of paper upon the floor which they dwelt upon with their eyes There was a map sketched upon it by the skillful hand of Lefty Bill Mason; from time to time he stooped to make some alteration. He seemed more interested in the map as a work of his art than in the crime which they were now projecting with such consummate care.

  For all things were done carefully under the management of Harry Christopher. He succeeded by the detailed elimination of evil chances.

  The scheme now under consideration was of the first magnitude. It embraced an attempt upon a cash shipment of three quarters of a million, and the minor details had been arranged to the last stage. Harry Christopher delivered a brief resume.

  “Here’s where we got to get in our work,” he said. “When the train hits Gully, they’re goin’ to switch the guards, and one of the new guards is Tom Morris. Understand?”

  “Who done that?” asked Sam Buttrick. “Who got Tom in as a guard?”

  “One of the smartest gents in the world,” said Harry Christopher. “His name is Money.”

  He tilted back on the box which served him as a chair, chuckling with the greatest satisfaction.

  “I’ll tell you what money can do! It can pass a gent through the eye of a needle, if it wants to. It can make black look white. It bought the news about how much money was goin’ to be in this here shipment. It bought the news about what train it would be shipped on, and how many would guard it and what would be their names. But almost the most important of all was to get one of my boys named among the guards; and what d’you think? It cost only a hundred bucks!” He laughed with a venomous content. “It ain’t what you spend. It’s the way that you spend it. I’ve put out twenty thousand in flat cash here and there to get the news that I wanted; but only a hundred was all that I needed to put Tom Morris inside of that car as a guard.”