Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  So they pitted the face of the stones with a hundred bullet scars, but Lew Borgen tugged himself up to the edge of the cliff, kicked up his heels, and swung himself to safety. He whirled about at once and emptied his revolver at them, cursing and snarling. He was not a good shot, but one lucky try went through the boot of a member of the posse. He leaped for cover, hopping upon one leg, and yelling in his agony. It was too much for Lew Borgen. He rolled upon the ground, hugging himself, and shouting with laughter until a stabbing pain in his cheek reminded him. He drew out the bit of stone from his flesh, looked at the reddened point curiously, and then rose to face the sober work which lay before him.

  First of all, it was necessary that he at once strike out toward a point at which he would be most apt to secure a good horse and a saddle. And he must steal that horse — for he was broke! He stopped and ground his hands together. He had had a small fortune in the instant before; and now his hands were empty, and he had to steal a horse. It was the one thing he had vowed that he would never do; he would rather murder a man, by far.

  “By the heavens!” cried Lew Borgen, throwing up his two long arms, “I ain’t going to steal no hoss now! They can find me and they can hang me fust, and be damned to ’em! I ain’t going to be that low!”

  This resolution filled him with a sort of ecstasy of courage and power. He strode on vigorously, crossed the crest of the range in the dusk of the day, and dipped into the night toward the desert beneath him, which was blackening when the summit was still in the alpenglow.

  He came to the lower slopes, and among the foot-hills he reached a ranch, found the barn, found the shed where the saddles were kept — even spotted in the starlight a tall gray gelding in the corral — a horse after his own heart. But Lew Borgen stuck to his oath. He felt, in an obscure way, that he was making a bargain with fate, or luck, or God — whatever one chose to call the ruling power in life — and that having refrained from stealing a horse, luck would refrain from striking him down.

  Then, with a mild pleasure in himself, he went into the ranch house, stole an ample back load of provisions, and having stocked his cartridge belt with ammunition, retreated into the night again.

  He made a small fire between two rocks, cooked coffee, ate some bacon between slices of bread, and rolled over in the sands for a sleep.

  He did not need an alarm clock. For though he was half perishing with exhaustion, yet he knew perfectly that the subconscious self which watched over him would rouse him in case of peril coming near, and that he would waken when the time came to march.

  Waken he did while the stars were still bright, before the first hint of the coming dawn. He did not look to his watch, as a lesser man might have done. Neither did he groan in the cold of the morning, or because his head was ringing and whirling with an ache, but instead, he rekindled his fire, reheated some of the coffee left from the night before, drank enough to have poisoned any ordinary man, and tramped away upon that day’s journey.

  How long would it be before he drank coffee again? For he could not carry with him the pot he had stolen from the ranch house. He prepared philosophically for the struggle, and though he had never before made a journey of any length on foot, he struck away at a steady pace and maintained his gait throughout the day. He kept within the line of the foothills, just as a wild beast, coming down from the heights, will lurk among the hills for a long time before it ventures onto the plains, where mere speed may prove more formidable than sheer striking power and skill in battle — where the wolf tribe is more dreaded and more at home than the cats.

  It was a bitter march for Lew Borgen, but he stuck manfully by his guns until the dusk came. He had been marching a mighty total of hours, and even such a poor walker as he had by dint of painful patience set many a mile behind him. Then, as he came over a hill in the early evening, he dropped suddenly upon his face as though a bullet had felled him, for in the hollow beyond him he saw four men riding with rifles under their knees and their heads high, as are the heads of men who are hunting a crafty game.

  They rode onto the next hilltop, and thence they surveyed the country, but they did not see Lew Borgen, lying not fifty yards away and praying that no dog had accompanied the party. Finally he watched those bodies, so clearly outlined against the brightness of the west, sink into the dark of the hollow as into a black lake. Borgen rose wearily to his knees and rested there a while, slowly rubbing his aching legs; for he knew that these fellows were hunting no animal inferior to man, and that he was the object of their great solicitude.

  He did not grin as he thought how he had escaped them. Mounted as they were — and how bitterly well he remembered the gaunt and racy outlines of those cow ponies — they could drift about through the night as softly and as swiftly as the terrible loafer wolves. They could comb the hills in circles, hunting for him, and there was no doubt as to the final issue. They would catch him beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  So Lew Borgen surrendered. He went up on the top of a hill, kindled a fire to make him warm — for a sharp wind was cutting down at him from the snows on the mountain-tops above — and waited for that signal light to draw his enemies in upon him. In the meantime, he ate a supper joylessly and then rolled a smoke. But it seemed that the very boldness of the situation of that fire had robbed the man hunters of all suspicion.

  It was a full hour after it first flamed before a voice spoke behind him.

  “Steady, Borgen, and don’t look round!”

  III. A MYSTERIOUS SCHEMER

  MECHANICALLY, STRANGELY WITHOUT emotion, Borgen pushed his hands above his head. What he was deciding at that instant was that when he was taken to the jail he would make a clean breast of the whole story — leaving out certain unfortunate affairs where he had been forced to kill his man — and startle the authorities by the detailed list of his crimes. How the papers would bulge with the copy they gleaned from him! The Sunday supplements would flare with color for the sake of Lew, and many a cowpuncher up and down the range would mutter thoughtfully: “Well, I’ll be darned! It was Lew Borgen, was it?”

  “Steady, Lew,” the voice behind him was saying, coming nearer and nearer, though without the slightest accompanying sound of a footfall. “You don’t have to keep those arms up. I ain’t troubled about that when I got the drop of a gent from behind. But just sit quiet and look to the front.”

  Then Lew Borgen thought of something else. How could this stranger in the darkness know him? For certainly his face had not yet been seen. How could it be, unless in some fashion his identity had become known, and the whole world had already spotted him?

  “How did the news blow round that it was me?” rumbled Lew, dropping his hands accordingly and removing the cigarette from his lips. “Who got the tip that it was Borgen that done the work?”

  The strange voice answered, and still in a murmur which had a secret quality in it, as though this soft-footed person dreaded lest any one should overhear what he had to say. Indeed that guarded speaking voice had the quality of a whisper.

  “Nobody knows except me, Lew Borgen. If anybody else knowed, I wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t be no use to me.”

  “Nobody but you? Who the devil might you be?”

  “A friend of yours, maybe.”

  “No friend of mine has a voice like yours. But if you’re a friend of mine, for heaven’s sake lend me your hoss to beat it before they close in on this here fire.”

  “They ain’t closing in on this here fire,” replied the other. “They ain’t half interested in closing in on this here fire.”

  “Are they all drunk — or sleeping early, then?”

  “I’ll tell you how it was,” said the other. “There was a hoss stole out of a corral about three miles from here, about half an hour back. That hoss was saddled and bridled and sneaked out of the corral, and then along come a cow- puncher, seen what was happening, and give the alarm.

  “The whole bunch says: ‘It’s that crook getting him a hoss.’ They hop out and feed th
eir hosses the spur as soon as they get into the saddle. They get going fast enough to see the way the crook was heading, and they seen that he had a lead hoss with him, in case that the other one should give out.

  “Pretty soon the sheriff and all the boys that was hunting for the robber, they all hear about the chase and start heading in. But though the hoss keeps right on running, there ain’t any rider in the saddle. He’s picked the wildest hoss in the corral, and one that ain’t been any more’n half broken. When he gets a mile from the ranch, he hops out of that saddle and gives the hoss he stole a cut with his quirt, and that there mustang ain’t going to stop running inside of a hundred miles, and the boys will be busting their hearts right along its trail all the time.”

  He paused, chuckling softly. “And then,” he went on, “I came straight back to you, Borgen, to let you know that you can take my hoss and ride on after you’ve had a sleep to-night.”

  “In the name of heaven,” muttered Borgen, “who might you be that would give a gang a run like that for the sake of helping me out?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” said the other. “I saved you because I wanted to use you. I seen that you was about to get your neck stretched”

  “That’s a lie! What they got agin’ me that would get my neck stretched? Trying to throw a little scare into me, partner?”

  “I’m telling you the truth. The cashier died, Borgen. The sight of that gun of yours was too much for his bad heart. He dropped half an hour after you left town. I think they’d hang you for that, don’t you?”

  “I didn’t know,” whispered Borgen. “I didn’t know.”

  He rubbed his face furtively, but the blood would not come back under the cold skin.

  “Well,” he said, “how’d you manage to spot me?”

  “I’ve spotted you for a long time. I been following you, Lew, and watching your methods!”

  “Say, partner, who the devil might you be? Will you open up and tell me?”

  “I’m a gent that’s going to turn into a business man, and the business I’m going to follow is your line, Borgen. That’s why I’ve saved your neck tonight.”

  “H’m,” muttered Borgen.

  “I’ve followed your trail for a long time, from the Tuolome robbery to this last little affair”

  “What? Who hitches me up with the Tuolome case?”

  “I do, Borgen!”

  “This here is a trap, but you don’t get me to talk. I’m mum. I wish to heaven I could have a look at you!”

  The other laughed. “I saw the whole play,” he told Borgen. “I saw the man drop. When he tumbled, he reached out, and his hand grabbed the shelf and pulled it down on top of him. You put that shelf back, and all the things that went on it, before you went through his pockets. Seemed like you was more cut up about knocking that shelf down than about killing your man.”

  Borgen remained agape, for an instant, staring into the darkness. He was realizing many things. He had always thought that the reason he hated to have his crime traced was because he feared the penalties of the law, but now he saw that it was even more because he did not wish to have the shame of his guilt known to a single human being. With all the energy in his soul he was wishing to whirl about and pump a bullet into the body of this quiet-spoken man behind him, and so rub out the one eyewitness.

  “I’ve learned some very important things from watching you,” continued the stranger.

  “I’ve learned, for instance, that it is above all foolish for a man to have partners in crime if he wishes to go along without being caught up. Because one partner will be pretty apt to turn State’s evidence if he gets in a pinch. Ain’t that right?”

  “Are you trying to pump me?”

  “I’m telling you facts, not asking you questions. In the first place, I say, a gent has to play a lone hand. That’s why you’ve worked for ten years without being spotted a single time.”

  Borgen started; then he set his teeth and flushed. It was maddening to think that this stranger, whoever he might be, had been able to throw a light upon all his past.

  “But,” went on the man behind, still keeping to that secret and cautious tone, “the trouble is, it looks to me, that a gent that plays a lone hand ain’t going to make no big killings. Look at yourself. You’ve robbed fifty times. You’ve never been caught once; you’ve never even had your face seen. I don’t know of a record like it in history!”

  “There ain’t any, son,” said Lew Borgen proudly.

  “But how much money have you today?”

  “I’ve made plenty”

  “That’s not straight. You’ve only made one big haul, and that was the last one. The others, you’ve bungled, or else you’ve played for small stakes. You’ve taken a lot of time, but you haven’t taken time enough, d’you see?”

  “Maybe you know,” sneeringly replied Borgen.

  “I’ll show you I do before I’m through with you!”

  A little silence fell after this remark; a screech owl passed startlingly close overhead with a whoop.

  Then the stranger continued: “Now I’ll tell you a plan that’s worth a million!”

  It was an odd plan indeed. He unrolled it slowly, carefully, answering a hundred questions with perfect patience, until the whole details were in the hands of Borgen. This rider in the darkness, this strange and crafty fellow, had completed an outline for a new system of depredations. Having noted that the lone agents were those who succeeded in escaping without detection, he had also noted that the profitable crimes were those in which a partnership was made use of. One or more men studied the lay of the land, got on the inside of the “lay,” as it were, and then their confederates arrived, and the job was completed, after which the whole party decamped.

  The plan of the night rider was much more complex. He himself determined to be the head of a whole gang of marauders. But many of these would not even be known to one another. A dozen tried and hardened men, all of them past the flush of restless youth, were to be enrolled in the plan.

  These were to be located in a number of different towns among the mountains, some of them in pairs, some singly, according to their temperament. These were to work up the details of the robberies, planning every inch of the ground with the greatest care; and when a plan had been perfected, it was to be communicated to the lieutenant — the man who had secured each of the rogues, and who also passed on the orders of the invisible chief.

  “But how,” broke in Borgen at this point, “are you going to keep unknown to me? If I’m the lieutenant, I got to see you, don’t I?”

  “You’ll never see me except at night, and you’ll find me masked and talking soft. Would you know me tomorrow, Borgen, if you heard me talk nacheral?”

  Borgen had to admit that he would not. Having received the details of a plan, the lieutenant was to pass the word on to the chief, who in turn would select two or three men, as many as were needed, from some most distant point in his chain of towns and bring them, when all was prepared, swiftly across the mountains to the place to be struck. Then, having committed the crime according to the carefully detailed plans of their confederate, they were to sweep away out of town, but their confederate remained quietly behind in the town until all the fuss had blown over, after which he would quietly start away, and go to the place where he was to receive his equal share of the loot — perhaps a month after the crime had been committed.

  Every bit of plunder was to be equally divided among the entire gang, except that the chief was to receive three shares, and the lieutenant two.

  The beauty of the plan was obvious. To put the matter on a large scale, one man planned a crime in Arizona, communicated his scheme to the lieutenant, Borgen, in Idaho, who gave it to the invisible chief at one of their regular meetings. The chief looked over the scheme, and, if he approved, took two of his operatives from Montana and swept south some two thousand miles to the little town in Arizona. There they completed the carefully planned work at a single stroke, and then sped north as
fast as they had come, using the railroads wherever possible.

  “Because what is a hoss good for?” said the night rider. “Except to get himself caught by other hosses?”

  There was a truth in this which Borgen could not deny.

  In fact, the more he pondered the scheme, the more perfect it seemed to him. There was not to be a wild orgy of crime. Each man would not be asked to plan a crime or to take part in the execution of one, more than once a year, in all probability. In the meantime, he could reside in one locality, if he chose. He could build a home, marry, raise children — all of this was possible. The invisible leader, in fact, told Borgen that he would have in his service none saving men close to middle age who wished to have dollars rather than excitement.

  “Suppose that the gents won’t fall in line?” asked Lew Borgen.

  “You know a dozen up and down the ranges,” said the man in the night, as calmly as ever, and without leaving that singular hushed murmur in which he chose to speak. “There are Tirrit, Monson, Nooney, Doran, Anson, Lambert, Oliver, Champion, Montague, and others who are outside of their spring days and ready to settle down, except that they been drifting so long that they ain’t got the nerve to start in with honest, steady work. Well, Borgen, when you come and talk to them, they’ll listen. Every one of ’em knows that you been on the crook, but they know that you been smart enough to keep folks from talking about you; you never been pinched, and that counts. I tell you, Borgen, it ain’t a question of whether they’ll come in, or not; it’s only a question which ones we want to ask. Spot the ones that I’ve told you about and come back inside of a month. Come back four weeks from tonight and tell me how things have gone.

  “Here’s a hoss that’ll carry you; not a very big one to look at, but a mighty man-sized hoss for you to ride. He learned mountain climbing from the mountain goats, and then throwed in some tricks of his own making to improve on ’em. He’s a gold-plated wonder on a narrow trail, friend! Take this hoss. Inside of the saddlebag you’ll find a wallet, and inside of the wallet you’ll find three hundred dollars in honest money. Take hold of that money and spend it like it was your own. It’ll pay your expenses until you come back to me four weeks from tonight.”