Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  He knew even as he fired that he had missed his target. But he had the satisfaction of seeing the four leap to their feet with a shout and fade into the shrubbery, which crashed about them as they leaped to safety. Those same yells were echoed from three other quarters of the compass, and he could hear the noise of rapid retreat. The whole gang of Ramsey’s men must have been drawn up to make a desperate effort, but feeling themselves discovered, they had no desire to charge into the face of a gun fire delivered by practiced hands.

  29. DANGEROUS DECISION

  THE MEAL WAS interrupted; there was a rush for the doors and windows, weapons in hand. But they had time only to put in two or three random shots at disappearing figures. Then they came back more soberly to finish their eating.

  “If those skunks had rushed in when they heard the kid’s gun,” said “Denver Charlie,” scowling, “they’d of had us fine and easy. Lefty, for a general you ain’t commandin’ this here army none too well.”

  All eyes focused with a reproof upon Lefty Bill — all saving those of sturdy Tom Morris, who, since the part he had played in the hold-up of the train, had a right to be considered at all times.

  “There ain’t any general except our empty stomaches, right now,” he declared. “Keep off of Lefty. He’s done good enough. Here’s the rest of us that should of give it a thought. But none of us had the idea. It took a kid — a tenderfoot!” And he turned with a sort of admiring affection to Allan.

  “Al,” he said, “dog-gone me if I ain’t glad to say that you’ve surprised the whole of us. You keep us from starvin’ one minute. You keep us from havin’ our throats cut by the half-breeds the next! Son, put it there!”

  He shook hands with Allan most solemnly, and the others followed his example. It was not a casual thing, such as Allan had seen performed every day of his life while he was in the bank. This was done grimly, carefully, gripping the hand hard and looking long and deeply into his eyes, they murmured at the same time such things as: “Kid, you ain’t the worst I ever met,” or “Old-timer, you’ve done noble.” But there was the air of a religious rite behind their roughnesses of voice and of word. They meant a great deal above and beyond what they expressed, and he could not help understanding that he had now been admitted into a select fellowship, a brotherhood of gentry who would stand by him to the bitterest of ends, give him the last water in their canteens, stay by his side till the last cartridge was fired, stand at his back in the face of a world of enemies. He felt all of this, and he was deeply and warmly grateful for it.

  He felt a little like one who receives great praise for a small deed. No doubt they thought it was quite wonderful, but as he looked back to the passage of the gates of Salisbury Canon and the ride up the valley and the passage of the line of watchers at the end of that ride, it seemed that he had been favored by ignorance and luck. There had been nothing remarkable in what he had achieved.

  So, when he had received their thanks and seen them open their hearts to him, he did not therefore enter into the discussion which followed like one who has a right to express himself and to be listened to. He sat back in a corner and let the others thrash out the message which he had brought to them from their absent chief. And, for his silence, he was more highly regarded by the others than ever for the heroism of his services to them. For, above all, be he good or bad, a Westerner loves modesty in his companions.

  That message was now first read silently to himself by Lefty Bill. Next he read it aloud to his companions, and they listened to it dubiously. When the reading was ended, they sat about silently. Someone had to begin the discussion. Who would it be?

  Sturdy Tom Morris spoke up at last. “Looks to me,” he said, “like Harry was sick. That there don’t sound like his line of talk most usually sounds.”

  “He don’t aim to take no chances like that, usually,” said Denver Charlie in whole-hearted agreement. “Start out at daybreak — when Ramsay’s dogs can see to shoot straight — and they sure can shoot by daylight, no matter how many times they might miss at night!”

  Here he nodded at Allan, as though the latter might congratulate himself that he had not attempted his feat of reckless courage during the shining of the sun. And Allan, shuddering, nodded his head in return. Those bullets which had touched him and a score of others whose humming was yet in his ear would not have missed striking home had there been anything less treacherous than starlight when they were fired.

  “Start out at daylight,” continued Tom Morris, “and start trampin’ down the whole dog-gone canon. Start walkin’! Mind you that! Suppose that Harry and his boys didn’t arrive in time? We’d get shot up fine before we’d gone half a mile!” -The others nodded — except Lefty Bill. He had waited until the other side expressed itself. Then he said quietly: “Charlie, you’ve got quite a little coin stowed away in a bank some place. I’ve heard you say that you had.”

  “What’s that got to do with it? Sure I ain’t been a fool and blowed everything.”

  “You’ve put away something, too, Tom, ain’t you?” went on Bill.

  “I been a little lucky, I guess.”

  “Well, boys, did you have a cent when you joined up with Harry Christopher?”

  He waited for that shot to find its target. Then he continued: “Neither did I have a red cent when Harry picked me up. I’d done a few good turns, but they never come to nothin’ in the long run. I’d make a hundred here and another few hundred there. But when I joined up with Harry I started in makin’ money faster’n I could spend it. So did the rest of us. He’s brought in the coin. We might think that we could do just as well by ourselves. That’s because we forget what Harry’s turned up since we joined.”

  “If we’ve made something, how much has Harry made?” put in Charlie, adding hastily: “Mind you, I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ ag’in Harry. He’s a card, of course.”

  “He buys the news that we turn into money,” said Bill promptly. “It’s right that he should get his share of the loot, ain’t it?”

  There was no answer to this.

  “How’d we ever have got on the track of this coin that we got with us now?” added Bill.

  There was a pause, after which Tom Morris said: “I don’t see why the chief didn’t have us all meet up at one place. If we hadn’t been split in two, we could of handled Ramsay easy enough.”

  “Suppose that the Cranston gents had stuck to our trail, where would we of been?” answered Lefty Bill. “And if we’d all rode together, you can lay to it that we’d of left a track behind us that they’d of followed.”

  Here was another answer which could not very well be controverted. “The long and short of it is,” went on Lefty, “that we’re stuck in a bad hole and we want to blame somebody for it. How would Harry of knowed that we’d bump into Ramsay? He figured on things so that we’d be able to beat out the gents that followed us up from Cranston County. And he figured it right. We got away clean. You got to admit that. He simply couldn’t know that Ramsay would pop up in between.”

  Neither Charlie nor Tom could speak a word in answer to this. It was too apparently just to be controverted. And, having made his opening, Lefty went on with his argument.

  “This here walk down the canon in the mornin’ looks risky. It is risky. Any fool could see that. But ain’t we in a risky position right now, and every minute we stay here, ain’t it going to be riskier? We would of given a bad nickel for our lives an hour ago. Along comes the kid and brings us in chuck. We got our stomaches full and now we feel mighty fine. But how much of the chuck is left? In another day we’ll be starvin’ again. And Ramsay and his swine can live on the rabbits they shoot, if they ain’t got nothin’ better.

  “Boys, maybe the chief wants us to try this game just because it is risky. Anyway, let’s not think no more about it now. I’m for doin’ what he wants us to do. If it don’t work, then we can take our chance and die, with our guns talkin’ for us. If it does work, we’ll all think that Harry is the greatest gent that ever come al
ong. Go sleep on it. I’ll wake you up in time in the morning for us to have another talk about things before sunup. We’d better bury the coin here in the shack and then come back for it when we’ve joined up with Christopher.”

  So it was done. Tom Morris had his turn at standing guard that night. The others, and Allan among them, rolled up in their blankets and were soon asleep. To Allan it was a long time. Several times the ache and the fever in his wounds wakened him. And he was glad when, at last, the deep, weary voice of Tom Morris called: “Gents, roll out. We got half an hour till sunup. Roll out. We got no time for sleepin’ now!”

  They sat up yawning. Then, in a trice, remembering all that lay before them on this day of days, they stood up and looked to their weapons. They stood about in a circle, as grim a set of fighting men as ever stood in silence and debated a matter of battle. Then Lefty Bill put the question to them in a fashion which he had first carefully considered by himself.

  “Gents,” he said, “are we goin’ to stay here sittin’ while Harry and the rest come into the valley? Are we goin’ to sit here and let Ramsay shoot ’em all down an’ then come back here and finish us? Or are we goin’ to turn out like gents that live up to their word, and are we goin’ to march down there an’ join our mates?”

  It would have been hard to return a denial to such a proposition. Three voices spoke in assent. The silence of the others showed that they had submitted.

  30. ON THE TRAIL OF ALLAN

  A LONG TIME had passed since that first clash between Walter Jardine and Elias Johnston and Allan, and how far the reputation of those gallants had sunk in their two encounters with Allan and Jim Jones it would have been hard to estimate. This much was certain, that if Johnston had run for sheriff before the first clash, he could have unanimously been elected, and if he had run since the second time he encountered him who was known as Al Vincent, he could hardly have polled a single vote.

  The result of that second clash had been that a coldness grew up between the two companions. No matter that Elias had proven a true prophet and that “Al Vincent” had indeed returned to El Ridal. What counted was that the outlaw had come and gone again. From that point onward, Walter Jardine refused to listen to his friend’s counsel. And he insisted that they take the trail at once.

  They heard, shortly, afterward of the train robbery, and since they were reasonably certain that Allan was a member of Christopher’s gang, they started at once in that direction and rode steadily for Cranston. There they arrived to find that the whole county was buzzing with the tale of what the robbers had done. And, particularly, they heard one man blamed and blamed again. It was poor Bill Tucker, who had been taken prisoner by the four outlaws and who had been used by them as a tool. Not that many men could tell themselves that they would have done differently under the compulsion of leveled revolvers, but there had to be some scapegoat, and Bill was the only possible one.

  The Cranston posses had returned from the mountains where they had ridden their horses lame in a furious endeavor to find the trails of the missing outlaws. The whole county was black with gloom. For it was said that, having been once the prey of criminals, crime would spring up again as it had done before. To Bill Tucker, accordingly, the pair of warriors went, and they found him sunk in the profoundest gloom. It was broken by the adroitness of Elias Johnston.

  “Partner,” he said, “all we want to know is: was there a gent in that gang that went by the name of Al Vincent?” And at this, the face of Tucker lighted strangely.

  “If there hadn’t been,” he said, “I’d be rotting by this time out in the woods. It was him that took me and it was him that kept the others from murderin’ me when they wanted to, half a dozen times. Al Vincent is sure with ’em. But why a gent as white as him should herd with them mavericks I can’t make out. Can you?”

  “He’s goin’ to leave ’em pretty soon,” said Elias Johnston with a profound meaning. “He’s goin’ to leave ’em as soon as we can persuade him to quit. That’s why we’re on the trail — just to meet up with Al Vincent. All we wanted to find out was if he was with ’em. Thanks a lot!”

  And he and Jardine rode off on the trail to the mountains.

  They had no definite plan, except to reach the upper mountains. There the outlaws must have taken refuge. There they would divide the loot, no doubt, and remain quietly for some time until the countryside had settled down and the posses ceased to comb the hills for them. They camped among the peaks on the shoulder of a mountain the first night, and it was well past midnight when a horse neighed in the valley and the neighing brought them bolt upright in their blankets. The cold moon was high in the heavens, well past the full, now, but still shedding that bright light which only those who have seen the moon in the mountains know of. And, in the hollow beneath them, they saw a troop of men riding in single file along a difficult trail, leading with them a number of horses.

  They flattened themselves instantly upon the ground and, having reduced their size, they stared again, until the troop was out of sight around the corner of the mountain. Then Jardine spoke.

  “Elie,” he said, “did it look to you like you’d ever seen the hoss that that first gent was riding?”

  “I didn’t recognize no hoss.”

  “Well, old son, I’d bet a thousand to one that that’s Harry Christopher’s nag. And if I’m right, them was Christopher’s men.”

  Johnston drew a great breath. “Then Vincent is with ’em!” “Maybe. But what would the empty saddles mean?” “I can see through that. It simply means that when they was dividin’ the stuff they got from the train, they got to arguin’. There was guns pulled. Them that shot quickest and straightest lived. Them that shot too dog-gone slow didn’t live. They was left to lie in the moonshine. «And here’s the rest of ’em goin’ along takin’ the hosses of them that dropped. Could anything be easier than that?”

  It seemed a reasonable explanation, though Jardine pointed out that the rule of Harry Christopher was so exact that it was unlikely that any of his gang would rebel at the division of the spoils which he had ordered.

  “That would be right enough most times,” answered Johnston, “but they never had so much loot before. Near a million dollars was took, the papers say.”

  “Divide that in two. Papers always multiply, dog-gone ’em. When I met up with ‘Bad Sim’ Harper, the papers come out an’ said that I shot him five times before he died. Which was all a lie. I hit him once in the leg, and then I shot him through the heart as he was fallin’. You’d of thought, to read that paper, that I didn’t know how to use a gun — havin’ to shoot a man five times before I finished him!”

  Johnston smiled at his outburst of temper, for there was ever a great deal of the child in Jardine. But, in a trice, they had decided that these must indeed be Christopher’s gang, and that they must follow, not for the sake of coming to sword’s point with the whole crew, but in the hope that they might be able to encounter Allan lingering behind the rest, or at least to spot him among the crew when the sun rose.

  Accordingly, they saddled swiftly and hurried their horses down to the trail. It is rare to find a group which can make as much speed as the individual. And though the horsemen in front were urging their mounts, it was easy for the two who followed to remain in touch. They rode carefully far to the rear. As a rule, they did not even have to keep in distant sight of the others, but as the trail wound and twisted sharply through the mountains, they could follow the strangers by the noise which the armed hoofs of the cavalcade made against the rocks, reflected back from the hillsides in many far-traveling echoes.

  So they journeyed on until the gray of the dawn came, and then the moon grew pale as a tuft of cloud while the eastern light increased. They had been descending from the upper level for some time, and now they began to climb, and twisted rapidly up the side of a steep slope.

  “D’you know these parts?” said Jardine to Johnston. “Or where the devil they can be heading for? Is there anything to be reached
up here?”

  “That’s Salisbury Mountain, and here’s Salisbury Canon down below us. If we was to ride a hundred yards to the left, you could see it easy. What they’re aimin’ at, I dunno. The right trail, if they want to go in this direction, is right up Salisbury Canon, where there’s one as round and smooth and as easy as a road. Old-timer, they got something up their sleeves!”

  They continued now for some time straight ahead, and then turned to the left and descended into sharp-sided, stumbling hills. But, before they went down in the rear of the party, the two could see the canon stretched beneath them, long and narrow as a square-walled trough. And they could see down its length, all revealed in the limpid purity of the morning air, the jotted shrubbery, the circling nests of rocks, the old shack, staggering to one side like a falling man — and above the shack a slender wisp of smoke rising from the chimney. They saw this and wondered at it. It was strange that such a ruin should be inhabited. And in the desolate and the cold beauty of that morning light they wondered who could have chosen to stay there.

  “It’s some tramp that blowed in the canon and stopped there for the night. Most like he’ll touch a match to the old shack and warm his hands at the fire when he goes this mornin’.”

  With that, they passed on down from the hill and so came into the narrow ravine which led up from the head of the canon. There the abruptly rolling hills shut out their view of the canon and at the same time they saw a rosier radiance fall upon the other side of the ravine.