by Max Brand
Considering these things, it was not strange that The Whisperer regarded himself as no better than lost, but he still fought his best. He turned into a narrow defile among the hills. Its upper head was the entrance to a sort of hole-in-the-wall country, full of trees and boulders, full of narrow passes and blank canyons. He knew all of that district as a student knows his book. If he could reach the head of that little valley he had a chance — say one chance in ten, of winning.
Having entered upon this final course, like the fox heading for its earth, he gave both whip and spurs to the black, and flattened himself to reduce the wind pressure against his body. The resulting increase in speed was sickeningly small. He had been riding far closer to the top speed of the horse than he had imagined. When he turned his head over his shoulder to look back, he saw that the others, indeed, were able to do what he could not succeed in performing. They were crushing out from their horses a spurt of racing speed, and they were closing in on him as swiftly and as surely as a hawk stoops to get at the bird which flutters beneath it.
He could not reach the head of the little valley. No, he could not even go half its distance! Then, to shut the last small door of his hope, a gun boomed up the valley, sounding from its very head, not the hoarse, sharp bark of a revolver, but the ringing report of a rifle, like two sledge hammers clanging face to face. He had not heard the bullet hiss past his head, however. Apparently the first shot had gone wide.
“It will be better luck next time,” said The Whisperer to himself. “Better that it should end in this way. There’s no other hope!”
So he sat up straight in his saddle, that he might present a fairer mark for the rifleman who lay among the rocks. But that marksman was wild indeed in his work! The bullet which The Whisperer would have welcomed to put an end to his career did not come near him. He groaned as the suspense increased.
But there arose, from the pursuit behind him, a sudden chorus of angry shouts. Then a volley of bullets whistled around him, not from the marksman up the valley, or any companions with him, but from the pursuit behind The Whisperer.
He turned his head and looked back, and he beheld a strange sight. A gray horse was running in the van, far in the van of the others. But its saddle was empty. And in the distance, well, well to the rear, was the late rider sitting upright on the ground, clasping his thigh with both hands. Beside him kneeled another — his bunkie, perhaps, or his brother, who let the chase go hang that he might attend to the injured man.
The eight were reduced, in this fashion, to six. Six men were more than enough to do the work which lay before them. But one of the six had dropped his reins and was clutching at one shoulder with the other hand, and the other five, with shortened speed, had brought out their own rifles from the cases beneath their knees and were opening a rapid fire upon The Whisperer.
Now, at last, he understood. That marksman who was firing from the head of the valley was not an enemy planted there by chance to cut off his flight. It was a friend, and the targets he had aimed his two long-distance shots at were the posse. How well he had succeeded with each shot The Whisperer had just seen for himself. And the rest of the posse, to avoid the deadly skill of this concealed enemy, had stopped trying to catch their man, and were content to risk their luck with a chance shot.
But chance is not very favorable to men who, having worked until their hands are shaking with excitement, their lungs panting, their eyes stinging with the speed of their riding, begin to shoot from the uncertain position of a saddle, on a dancing horse’s back!
Fine shots though they all were, their first volley went hopelessly astray. Then a third shot from the hidden rifleman at the head of the valley snapped the sombrero of one of them cleanly from his head. That was not to be borne, and, one and all, flinging themselves from their saddles, they dropped to the ground, lay prone there, and, resting their rifles upon rocks, they began to take cool and careful aim.
Small chance for The Whisperer now, with six deadly marksmen at work upon him! But he had placed some priceless yards between himself and the danger. Furthermore, he was now riding in a zig-zag course, swinging the black from side to side with as much agility as that weary beast could show.
One bullet sliced through his coat just under the pit of the arm. Two more sang at his ear. Then he saw that they had drawn their beads too closely upon him. He could not hope to escape from a second volley at such hands. He threw himself from the saddle just in time to have a slug nip his left ear at the rim.
But he was among the rocks, and he went forward at a rapid gait, running doubled over, to diminish the target in case the posse should see him as he fled, and dodging in and out and back and forth among the rocks and the boulders.
For a time the air fairly lived with bullets, singing about him. Then all firing ceased; they were waiting until they had an opening for a sure shot presented to them. That opening never came, for presently The Whisperer stood among the rocks at the head of the valley and saw, standing behind a great gray stone, no other than his old acquaintance, Lew Borgen, who had so effectually discharged his debt of his own life which he had once owed to The Whisperer.
It was Lew Borgen who was calling and waving to him, and, almost as welcome a sight as Borgen himself, there stood beside the big fellow two stalwart horses. It was as though The Whisperer had seen himself given wings to escape from the terrible danger which had been closing in upon him.
They said not a word to one another at that time. But they flung themselves into the saddle and rode like madmen until they had put ten rough miles behind them. Then they drew rein to breathe their horses and give them a swallow of water at a little rivulet.
Now Borgen stared wonderingly at his chief, whom he had followed vainly and blindly for so long.
“In the name of Heaven, Borgen,” said The Whisperer, “what put you there to save my life and drive back the posse?”
“The mountains,” said Borgen without hesitation. “I knowed that if you made a break it would be straight for the mountains. By the lay of the land I thought that a hoss would travel faster coming along up the valley than any other ways. Besides, I knowed that I couldn’t be no good to you in the town. But outside, this way Say, chief, now that we’re together and know that we can trust each other, we’ll start the main clean-up, eh?”
The other shook his head. “The Whisperer is dead, Borgen,” he told his lieutenant. “You’ll never see his face again. Go back to your store. Live quiet. Go straight. You’ve got the makings in you of something a lot better than the greatest crook in the world — you can be an honest man, Borgen.”
XXXIII. SURRENDER
THE GOVERNOR, LIKE most politicians, had been a lawyer in the beginning of his career. Unlike most politicians, he remained a lawyer to the very close of it. He lived not to win cases, but to advance the cause of Equity, that most difficult and unapproachable goddess.
He had become such a famous lawyer that a stricken and often-beaten political party, unable to face the next election with any prospects of success, had determined as a sort of drunken boast in the face of ruin, to nominate not one of its own men, whose stained and well-known consciences would keep them party tools even while they were governors, but to nominate a man who would have not the slightest chance of winning. Thus they could say that they had failed in the support of a good and a notoriously honest man.
So they nominated Peter Clark, simple as his name, little, withered of face and body, his whole physical existence dominated and overbalanced by the great brow which rose towering above his pale-gray eyes. He could not make a speech. He could only string together statements of facts; he had no opinions about mysterious things such as “government of the people by the people,” et cetera, or about “the damnable trusts, who throttle our commercial life.” For, in fact, he was used to prying into testimony, and he was not a man who surrendered easily to pressure, or who made up his mind easily or quickly.
This good and simple man had accepted the nomination
not because he wanted it, but because his wife wanted it. He had never given way to his wife in his life because, dear simple soul, she had never made a request of him since their marriage. Therefore, this single wish he considered holy. He shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and accepted, and allowed his thin, cold fingers to be gripped by the pudgy fists of the politicians.
They made no attempt to support his campaign and fight him into office. They knew that such an attempt would be foolish. Their man was beaten before he ran. But the opposition, the political party which had been triumphant for five straight elections, knew only one way to conduct an election. That was to smash at the enemy with obloquy and fierce abuse and slander, and to praise their own man. So they fell upon poor little silent Peter Clark. They abused him viciously through their hired papers. They sent a reporter to him who asked him insolently face to face what he knew about politics.
“Nothing, may God be praised!” said the good lawyer.
That statement elected him. The middle classes, who are ordinarily too busy making money to pay any heed to elections, were attracted by that phrase. Here was a man who knew nothing about politics. Here was a man of integrity as formidable as Gibraltar. Here was a man whose triumphs in the law extended through thirty years of victory. Suddenly the middle classes wakened. They formed themselves into voting clubs. They called to their aid that tremendously potent power of school children and school-teachers. They showed them the face of the swollen political boss who had already governed the State to its shame for two terms, contrasted with the lean features of Peter Clark, kept lean of body by intellectual strife.
The political swine rooted at the foundations of his strength in vain. They found his honesty was far stronger than steel. Their blasphemies did not need to be answered. Those who slandered him were ruined by their lies, and the governor was elected, though by a small majority.
For six months he did nothing. Then he ejected the entire corps of “bought-and-paid-for” officials, smashed to a thousand bits the elaborate political machines of the great corporations by exposing one or two weak links in their chains, and then declared that the ground was being cleared for work.
What work it was! All was done with the same care. He never moved until he had examined a case to the bottom. But when he had made up his mind, he went before the legislature as he had formerly gone before juries, and men were ashamed not to agree with one who so patently burned with the fires of justice and the mighty and holy love of goodness. They voted, one and all, for the measures. Step by step the State was purged. A thousand little grafts and iniquities were rooted out and done away with. Taxes began to pay for something other than their collections; roads, courts, public buildings began to be completed. Peter Clark became a political giant. He was one who existed without a party!
He lived in the most simple fashion in the world. He rose at the chill hour of six each morning. He worked at his studies — for he was still studying at the age of sixty! — until a half after eight, and then breakfasted more simply than a poverty-stricken laborer. After this, he read and wrote until noon. It was not until noon that he was prepared to labor for the public. But, once started, he continued without abatement from that hour of noon until midnight — a long and mighty stretch of twelve hours. There was only one break in that period. Between eight and nine — for he partook of only two meals a day — he ate a repast as simple as his breakfast, and after it walked in his garden for a half hour.
There was only one thing he demanded during the entire day: he must not be disturbed during that walk after his dinner. For it was to the governor the one brief moment during all the day when his fancy escaped from his body, and his soul from the facts which surrounded it. Then, letting his thoughts fly away over the tops of the old trees, he sailed the Spanish Main of imagination.
It was more vitally necessary to the governor, in fact, than the brief six hours of sleep to which he limited himself each night.
It was during this very half hour that, upon this night of nights, he was broken in upon! Indeed, there were not six minutes of his time remaining when his old negro servant would come to the garden and call: “Sir, it is now nine o’clock.” The dread of that voice was already falling upon the poor old man, when he turned a corner of the path down which he was walking and came upon the motionless figure of a man facing him. The governor halted. He had not the courage to speak, at first, so angry was he when he saw the shadowy form of the stranger, but eventually, when the passion left him at having his leisure broken — for he never uttered a word when he was out of temper — he said in his usual crisp and curt manner: “Well, sir?”
“How do you do,” said the voice of a young man. “Are you Governor Clark?”
The governor grunted. Then he said as mildly as he could: “I am Clark. Who are you?”
“My name is Jack Richards.”
“Mr. Richards, you have come to me in a time which I reserve out of all the day for my privacy.”
“Sir,” said the man in the dark, “I know it; and I have come because this is the only time in which I could see you.”
“You are a very busy fellow, then?” observed the governor with an irrepressible touch of irony.
“I am,” said the man in the dark.
“Doing what, Mr. Richards?”
“Avoiding your men, sir.”
“Ah? What do you mean by that?”
“What I said, sir. Mr. Clark, I am generally called The Whisperer; and I suppose that name will explain to you why I have not come to you at another time.”
“The Whisperer? The Whisperer?” the governor repeated growlingly. “Who the deuce — I mean, I have not heard of that name, Mr. Richards!”
There was a little silence.
“You have not heard of me — really?”
“No.”
“But you have signed a blood warrant for me.”
“Eh?”
“The State offers ten thousand dollars for me, dead or alive.”
Here the governor clucked softly to himself.
“By the Eternal!” said he. Then he added: “You are the notorious outlaw!”
“I am.”
“What do you expect to do here?”
“Make a bargain with you.”
“Listen to me, Mr. Richards,” said the governor, “I am a man who has never touched a weapon in his life, but if you think that I may be intimidated”
“Sir,” said the man in the darkness, “I give you my honor that I am not a fool. Only a fool would try to threaten you.”
“Well, well! Come to the point, then. What does all this mean? What prevents me from stepping to that wall and pressing a certain bell which will surround that wall on the outside with secret-service men”
“Your honor prevents it. You could not take an advantage.”
“I see that you are unique. Come, sir. What is it?”
“A bargain, as I said before.”
“To what effect?”
“To the effect that you grant me a pardon for my offenses.”
“Ha?”
“I have said it.”
“Sir, you are a notorious murderer.”
“I have only killed four men.”
“Only four? Only four? In the name of all that is sacred, Mr. Richards, do you confess that you have parted four human souls from their bodies and their blood?”
“I have had cause”
“There are always causes. When a man denies my right to be governor, it irritates me; I may even wish him out of my way. I have had bad thoughts about a man who elbowed me on a street car. There are thousands of causes, but what cause can justify one for crushing in his hand that miracle of divine workmanship, a man?” His voice thrilled with emotion.
“Nothing.”
“You admit it?” said the governor, stepping back a little, and seeming almost alarmed.
“I do, sir.”
“Yet you say you have reasons?”
“When I was a fool, I thought I
had reasons. I have repented.”
“Ha?” said the governor again. “What made you repent?”
“A woman.”
“The devil! I thought you were going to tell me a new story.”
“No really good story has a new plot, sir.”
“Mr. Richards, I fear your crime grows blacker. I might have some sympathy for an uneducated fellow, a man of wild brute passions, who knew no better. But you are a thinking man.”
“You talk to me like a lawyer, sir, and not like a judge — or the governor I came to talk to.”
The governor used a moment to swallow his anger. “It is true,” he said a little huskily. “I have been talking rather like a child. Let me hear your reasons, then, like a judge.”
“No, rather like the kind and wise man I know you to be. Here is my story. I was an invalid in a California village where I lived with my good mother and my wild young brother, Charles. He was as strong and as healthy as I was weak. He was my protector from the roughness of the world. That was why I loved him more than brothers are usually loved.
“He fell into wild ways. He was killed at last, in a gambling room in San Francisco, but he saved enough strength to live until he had seen me. Then he took one of my hands, and I saw him spending the last bit of his strength to tell me that four men, four Western cheats and rogues who dressed and acted the parts of cow-punchers, had enticed him into a crooked game, and then killed him when he discovered that the cards they used were marked. He described them; he gave me the nicknames they called one another. He begged me not to let him die without being avenged.
“I thought that the law would handle them. But when I had waited for a month and the law had no trace of the killers, I made my plan. I decided that I should make myself a man and a formidable man in the same sense that those expert gunmen and sneaks were formidable when they killed my brother. So I went to that part of the West where the criminals were who had killed Charles, and as I could not afford to have myself become known, I began to live by night, obscurely.