Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “I taught myself to live as the beasts live. I learned to hunt, trap. I became an expert marksman. Then I conceived the scheme of drawing in these four men — for by this time I had been able to guess at their identity — to a mysterious gang of which I could be the chief, while still remaining unseen and almost unknown.

  “That was the origin of the gang you heard of when you signed the bill that put a price on my head. My plan worked. I drew in the four men I suspected of being the ones who had killed Charles. But I did not destroy them at once. I spied upon them all in turn until I was certain of their identity as the guilty men. I waited even longer than that. I waited until they were false to me and the gang. Then I killed them, one by one. When they were killed I resigned from my leadership, as you also should know. For my work was done. I went back to the girl of whom I told you. Then, while I was with her, I was arrested by a private detective. You know the rest.”

  “Mr. Richards, you are accused of a hundred murders, well-nigh.”

  “Every man who was hurt on the range, if the guilty man was not known, put the blame on The Whisperer. But I have told you the truth.”

  “No court would believe you.”

  “That is why I have told it to you.”

  “Richards, you actually expect to win a pardon from me by telling me this story?”

  “Not at all. I am here to show you that I am a human being who made a mistake; I am not a villain. Also, I want you to know that it is possible for me to become a good citizen — to settle down and raise a family. Will you believe that?”

  “That may possibly be believed. But you told me that you would drive a bargain with me. What, Richards, can you possibly offer to the State as an inducement to give you a pardon?”

  The answer came promptly.

  “A cessation from crime!”

  “You are mad!”

  “Not at all. I have killed only four men. I have never yet profited to the extent of a penny, myself, from any crime which I have committed. But if you turn me back into the mountains again, who knows what will happen? What kept me from running amuck before was the hope that eventually, when my work was done, I could return to live as a peace-loving man. If that hope is taken away from me forever, I’ll be apt to turn into a man destroyer.”

  “Such destroyers are always taken in time.”

  “But sometimes a long time. Sometimes ten, sometimes twenty years! With me, it might be even longer. I can live without companions to betray me. I have no vices, such as drink or gaming. Why should I not survive, just as I have done before? And, surviving, my gun would talk for me whenever my path had to cross that of other men!”

  “Mr. Richards, you could never do that; you are not bloodthirsty enough for that.”

  “Am I bloodthirsty enough, then, to be hanged?”

  “Mr. Whisperer, you talk like a man. But there is only one way that I can be expected to consider your case — not, mind you, to promise you a pardon!”

  “Well, sir?”

  “Go to prison and await what justice has to say to you. When justice has finished talking, and when I have examined her verdict, if she condemns you, it may be that I shall find grounds to pardon you. It may be that I shall not. But remember — I make no promises, and if I think you guilty, of which there is more than a probability, I would have you killed as readily as I would have a mad dog killed in the streets.”

  “I shall be content,” said the outlaw.

  “Then render yourself my prisoner, sir!”

  “I shall gladly do it.”

  “Give me your guns.”

  They were surrendered.

  “Now, walk with me to that house!”

  So it was that the governor came in with the greatest prize of the criminal history of that decade. They came in walking shoulder to shoulder, and under the governor’s arm, as he walked, were tucked the two long, black guns of the man killer.

  EPILOGUE — HAPPINESS

  THE WHISPERER WAS convicted. He was voted guilty by the jury without a dissentient voice. But that same jury also strongly recommended that the prisoner be shown mercy because of the strange story which the governor had made public of the outlaw’s confession to him. That story had been repeated at the trial. Though a fiery and cunning State attorney had hammered and banged away at the evidence, he could not beat it. From day to day, the people read in the papers the thrilling and strange testimony of this man’s life in the wilderness.

  There was no doubt about what would happen. The very judge who condemned The Whisperer to be hanged by the neck until he was dead, spoke with a smile. He said to The Whisperer that he was sorry he could not do what the governor would probably see fit to accomplish.

  What the governor did, however, was a surprise to every one. For, instead of pardoning the criminal, he offered him a choice of a term of a year’s hard labor or death. The labor was accepted and the term was served out.

  “Because,” said the governor, “if the social State is generous enough to pardon an offender, he must be taught to respect the weight of her hand, just the same.”

  So The Whisperer served out his term. When he was through, he came out from the jail door, married Rose at the first minister’s they could reach, and then went to call on the governor, as soon as he could dodge the multitude of photographers who thronged to try to snap their pictures.

  For the crimes of Jack Richards, alias The Whisperer, alias Jeremy Saylor, were soon forgotten. The wild romance of his life was all that was remembered and loved by the people. For, after all, the people by the unit are stern and wise and clever, but the people by the million are simply so many gentle, passionate children, sometimes terrible in cruelty, to be sure, and sometimes just as foolishly sentimental. They chose to make a hero out of Jack Richards and a heroine out of his bride.

  The governor, when he saw them, apologized to the new Mrs. Richards for keeping her husband away, and then he took Jack into his closet and talked with him long and earnestly. What the governor said to him during that conference could never be learned from jack, but he came out wearing a perpendicular wrinkle between his eyes; and through the rest of his life he never lost that wrinkle and a certain gravity and sense of care. Had he grown to be old, he would have carried a solemn air into his old age. But no man who had made for himself so many enemies and upon whose head the guilt of so many crimes were wrongly heaped could have expected to survive very long.

  The rich rancher, in fact, outlived both his son and his daughter. And he used to tell his grandchildren, in the days that came after, about their wild and magnificent father, and the strange deeds of The Whisperer.

  The only part of the story which he failed to repeat was that which concerned his own ridiculous episode in the jail when he had been forced to free his prisoner; an episode, it may be added, which showed the people of the range that their sheriff was not a lion after all, but only a lamb, and a very mild one. They had as much affection for Percival Kenworthy, after that, as they had ever had before. But now, when they thought of him, they were apt to smile a little.

  As for Rose and Jack, they were gloriously happy for a few short years. But, after all, is it not true that sometimes one day is as long as a lifetime? For their parts, they were sure that every day together was richer than a life.

  THE END

  The Black Rider (1925)

  CONTENTS

  I. BEGINNING THE JOURNEY

  II. THE FLUTE PLAYER

  III. TAKI

  IV. A WAGER THAT TAKI WINS

  V. BEGINNING A FORTNIGHT OF SERVICE

  VI. LUCIA’S SERVANT INTERVIEWED

  VII. GUADALMO

  VIII. THE BLACK RIDER

  IX. FLASHING BLADES

  X. TRAPPED

  XI. THE CHASE

  XII. LUCIA FACES THE MASTER

  XIII. THE SEVENTH ENCOUNTER!

  XIV. A RESCUER

  XV. ESCAPE

  I. BEGINNING THE JOURNEY

  IF SEÑOR FRANCISCO Torreño had be
en a poor man, the bride of his son would have been put on a swift horse and carried the fifty miles to the ranch in a single day, a day of a little fatigue, perhaps, but of much merriment, much light-hearted joyousness. However, Señor Torreño was not poor. The beasts which he slaughtered every year for their hides and their tallow would have fed whole cities. Sometimes he sold those hides to English ships which had rounded the Horn and sailed far and far north up the western coast of the Americas. But he preferred to sell to the Spaniards. They did not come so often. They offered lower prices. But Torreño was a patriot. Moreover, he was above counting his pence, or even his pesos. He counted his cattle by the square league. He counted his sheep by the flocks.

  To such a man it would have been impossible, it would have been ludicrous to mount the betrothed of his only son and gallop her heedlessly over the hills and through the valleys to the great house. Instead, there were preparations to be made.

  The same ambassador who negotiated the marriage with the noble and rich d’Arquista family in Toledo had instructions. If the affair terminated favorably, to post to Paris out of Spain with all the speed of which horseflesh was capable, and from the same coach builder who supplied the equipages of Madame Pompadour to order a splendid carriage. About the carriage Señor Torreño mentioned every detail, except the price.

  Chiefly he insisted that the exterior of the wagon should be gilded with plenty of gold leaf and that in particular the arms of the Torreño family — that is to say, an armored knight with sword in hand stamping upon a dying dragon — should appear on either side of the vehicle.

  All of this was done. The sailing of the Señorita Lucia d’Arquista was postponed until the carriage was completed and had been shipped on a fleet-winged merchantman for the New World. And, when the lady herself arrived, she was ensconced in that enormous vehicle as in a portable house. For it was hardly less in size!

  Twelve chosen horses from the estate of Torreño drew that carriage. They had been selected because they were all of a color and a size — that is to say, they were all glossy black without a single white hair to mar their coats, and their shining black hides set off the silvermounted harness with which they were decked. In the front seat, lofty as the lookout on a ship, was the driver, a functionary of importance, shouting his orders to the six postilions who, with difficulty, managed the dancing horses, for these were more accustomed to bearing saddles than pulling at collars.

  In the van of the carriage rode a compact body of six men from the household of Torreño, mounted upon cream-colored steeds. Six more formed the immediate bodyguard around the coach itself. And, finally, there was a train in the rear. These were composed, last of all, of ten fierce warriors, well trained in Indian conflicts, skillful to follow trails or to take scalps, experts with musket and pistol and knife. In front of this rear guard, but still at a considerable distance from the coach, journeyed the domestics who were needed. For, at every halt, and on account of the wretched condition of the road, the carriage was sure to get into difficulties every three or four miles, and a tent was hastily pitched, and a folding cot placed in it so that the señorita might repose herself in it if she chose. There was a round dozen of these servants and, besides the animals they bestrode, there were fully twenty pack-mules which bore the necessities for the journey.

  In this manner it will be seen how Torreño transformed a fifty-mile canter into a campaign. There were some three score and ten horses and mules; there were almost as many men. And the cavalcade stretched splendidly over many and many a rod of ground. There was a great jingling of little silver and golden bells. And the dust cloud flew into a great flag of flying cloud from beneath the many hoots as they mounted each hilltop, and settled in a heavy, stifling fog around them as they lurched down into every hollow. They marched eight hours a day, and their average was hardly more than two miles an hour, counting the halts, and weary, slow labor up the many slopes. Therefore it was a march of fully three days.

  All of this had been foreseen by the omniscient Torreño. Accordingly, he had built three lodgings at the end of the three separate days’ riding. Some flimsy structure, you would say, some fabric of wood and canvas? No, no! Such tawdry stuff was not for Torreño! He sent his ‘dobe brickmakers and his builders ahead to the sites months before. He sent them not by the dozen, but by the score. They erected three spreading, solid buildings. They cleared the ground around them. They constructed commodious sleeping apartments. And the foresters of Torreño brought down from the foothills of the snowtopped Sierras young pines and firs and planted them again around the various halting places, planted them in little groups, so that they made groves of shade, for the season of her arrival was a season of summer heat. And where in the world is the sun more burningly hot than in the great West of the Americas?

  Shall it be said that these immense labors strained the powers of the rich Torreño? Not in the least! For the servants of the great man he numbered by whole villages and towns — Indians who had learned to live only to labor, and to labor only for their Spanish masters. He had almost forgotten the commands he had given until, riding down to the port, he had passed through the lodges one by one and, with the view of each, the heart of Torreño had swelled with pride. For the glory of his riches had never grown strange to Don Francisco. His father had been a moneylender in Barcelona who had raised his son in abject penury and left him, at his death, a more than modest competence. Don Francisco had loaned it forth again, at a huge interest, to a certain impoverished grandee, a descendant of one of those early conquistadores who considered the vast West of North America as their back yard. The grandee had been unable to pay interest. In short, in a year Don Francisco foreclosed and got for the larger half of his money — a whole kingdom of land. He sailed out to explore his possessions. For days he rode across it, league after league, winding up valleys with rich bottom lands, climbing well-faced mesas, struggling over endless successions of hills.

  “What will grow here?” he asked in despair.

  “Grass, señor, you see!”

  They pointed out to him sun-cured grasses.

  “But what will eat this stuff?”

  “It is the finest food in the world for either cattle or horses,” he was told.

  He did not believe, at first. It was a principle with him never to believe except under the compulsion of his own eyes; but, when he extended his rides through the neighboring estates, he indeed found cattle, hordes of them — little, lean-bodied, wild-eyed creatures as fleet as antelope, as savage as tigers. They, indeed, could drink water once in three days and pick a living on the plains. So Don Francisco, half in despair, bought a quantity of them — they could be had almost for the asking — and turned them loose on his lands. He gave other attention to the bottom grounds and farmed them with care and at the end of ten years his farm land was rich, to be sure, but the cattle had multiplied by miracle until they swarmed everywhere. Each one was not worth a great deal — nothing in comparison with the sleek, grass-fed beeves which he remembered in old Spain; but they were numbered, as has been said, by the square league. They needed no care. They grew fat where goats would have starved. They multiplied like rabbits. In short, it took ten years for Don Francisco to awaken to the truth; then he got up one morning and found himself richer than his richest dreams of wealth. He went back to Spain, bought a palace in Madrid, hired a small army of servants, dazzled the eyes of the city and, as a result, got him a wife of his own choosing, high-born, magnificent, loving his money, despising him. She bore him this one son, Don Carlos, and then died of a broken heart among the arid hills of America, yearning ever for the stir and the bustle and the whispers of Madrid. In the meantime, Don Francisco grew richer and richer. He began to buy his own ships and employ his own captains to transport the hides and the tallow back to Europe. He sent expeditions northward along the coast an incredible distance into the frozen regions, and they brought back furs by the sale of which alone he could have made himself the richest man in Barcelona. But
he no longer thought of Barcelona. He thought of the world as his stage. When he thought of kingdoms and of kings, he thought of his own wide lands, and of himself in the next breath.

  Such was Señor Don Francisco Torreño.

  Now he had brought back from Spain another lovely girl, this time to become the wife of his son, Don Carlos. Men had told him that she was not only a d’Arquista, but that she was also the loveliest girl in all of Spain; and, although he had not believed the last, when he saw her now, swaying and tilting in the lumbering carriage like a very flower, he could not but agree that she was worthy to be a queen.

  And was not that, in fact, the destiny for which he was shaping her? In the end he found that he could give her the highest compliment which it was in his power to bestow on any woman — she was worthy to be the wife of the son of Francisco Torreño!

  As for Don Carlos, he was in a seventh heaven, an ecstasy of delight. He could not keep his eyes from touching on his bride to be and, every time they rested on her, he could not help smiling and twirling the ends of his little mustaches into dagger points. He went to his father.

  “Ah, sir,” he said. “Where can I find words in the world to tell you of my gratitude? In all the kingdoms you have found the one lady of my heart.”

  Torreño was pleased, but he would have scorned to show his pleasure.

  “Bah!” he said. “You are young; therefore you are a fool. Remember that she is a woman, and every woman is a confederacy of danger in your household. When the married man locks his door, he has not closed out from his house his deadliest foe!”