Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  A short-barreled musket was instantly thrust against his breast. Yet the voice of the guard was muffled, for fear lest he needlessly disturb the slumber of his master.

  “Who is this?” he asked.

  “I am the new man.”

  “I know of no new man.”

  The footfalls of the other sentinel, who kept guard around the corner of the wall, paused at the end of his beat. In a moment he would be back and in view of them. Taki drew in his breath and tensed his muscles.

  “I have ridden all afternoon up from the harbor.”

  “Ah?”

  “You are Giovanni?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have brought you a message.”

  “From whom?”

  “Naples.”

  “Diablo!” breathed the other. “Are you from Naples?”

  And he lowered the muzzle of his gun a trifle. In that instant Taki struck the other with bone-crushing force on the base of the jaw, and he slumped gently forward on his face. Taki stepped over him.

  “Giovanni?” he heard the other guard murmur as he approached the corner of the wall.

  And then the second man turned the corner and came full against Taki. He had no time to cry out. The left hand of the Indian, like a steel-clawed panther’s foot, was fixed instantly on his throat. And as his breath stopped, he snatched a knife from his belt. But Taki struck with the hilt of his rapier, and the guard turned limp in his grip.

  After that, in a single minute of swift work, as one familiar with such things, he gagged them with their own garments and bound them back to back. Then he flattened himself against the wall and looked around him.

  All was quiet in the house; only from the distance came an amiable, musical hum of voices from the tents; a reassuring sound of men at peace with one another and with the world. And Taki’s teeth glinted white as he smiled at the moon. Then he turned, adjusted the silken mask, laid a hand on the sill of the open window, and drew himself softly into the room.

  Señor Don Hernandez Guadalmo slept but lightly; and even that silken smooth entrance of the Indian’s had roused him. Now, as Taki turned from the window, he faced Guadalmo, who was sitting bolt upright in his bed, but so paralyzed with nightmare horror that he could not move his hand. Before he recovered, he had clapped a pistol to his head.

  “Don Hernandez, son of a dog,” he said, “for the sixth time we have met.”

  “God receive my soul!” murmured the wretched man.

  “The devil will receive it,” said the other. “But not from this room. You must step out with me, señor!”

  “If you have murder to do, do it here! But first, let me see your face!”

  “Before you die, you shall see it, I promise. And if I fail, you may use your discretion upon me. Here, Señor Guadalmo, is your favorite sword. I make free to borrow it. Now, step before me through that window. If you cry out, if you attempt to run, I send a bullet through your back... or an ounce of lead to mingle with your brains, my friend!”

  “What reward is there in the end?”

  “A chance to fight with me fairly, point to point, sword to sword, and die like a murderer, as you deserve, but also like a gentleman.”

  Guadalmo fairly trembled with joy. “Is it true?”

  “On the honor of one whose faith has never been broken.”

  “I go as to a feast!” said the duelist. He paused only to draw on a few garments. Then he slipped through the window before Taki and was rejoined by him on the ground.

  “The guards?” he queried in a whisper.

  Taki pointed to a tangled heap of shadow at the corner of the wall.

  “They will not notice your going, señor.”

  “You have confederates who have done this?”

  “Confederates? Yes, my two hands. Walk straight ahead, señor. I shall remain just half a pace behind you.”

  “My friend, the Black Rider,” said Guadalmo, “this promises to be a notable and happy night.”

  And he walked straight forward down the slope and into the hollow beneath.

  IX. FLASHING BLADES

  “HERE,” SAID THE Indian, “we will be very comfortable.”

  Guadalmo paused. He found himself in a little level-bottomed clearing surrounded by the squat forms of oak trees, each with a dim, black pattern printed beneath it on the brown grass.

  The moon was bright. A cool sea wind stirred across the hollow and brought to it the indescribable freshness of salt water. And from the highlands came the additional scent of the evergreens.

  Guadalmo cast off the light cloak from his shoulders.

  “I am ready, señor,” he said.

  “Your sword,” replied the other, and presented it to him by tossing it lightly through the air. Guadalmo caught it with considerable dexterity and made the blade whistle in the air.

  “Now God be praised. Señor, the Black Rider,” he said, “I see that I have to do with a gentleman and not with a cutthroat.”

  “Be assured, friend,” said the Indian dryly, “that if I were a throat cutter, yours would have been slashed at our first meeting. This is to be a fair fight with equal weapons.”

  “However, you still carry a pistol at your belt.”

  The Indian tossed that weapon behind him and into the shrubbery.

  “We are now even forces.”

  There was a ring of joy in the throat of Guadalmo.

  “Fool,” he said, “you are no better than a dead man! If you dare to stand up to me for ten breaths, I promise you a swift road to heaven. But as for equal forces... if I am hard-pressed, I have only to shout, and a dozen men will come for me.”

  Taki started, then shook his head as though to reassure himself.

  “I have thought of that, of course,” he said calmly, “but I think that I know you too well. For you had rather die, Guadalmo, than have men know that you cried out for help against a single man!”

  “Come, come!” exclaimed the Spaniard. “The time flies. If the bound guards are found and I am missed, there will be a noise at once!”

  “That is true. Señor, on guard!”

  Their blades whipped up in a formal salute; continuing the same motion, Guadalmo passed on into a murderous lunge. Only a backward stroke saved Taki from that treacherous move.

  “Ah, murderer!” he breathed. “This is your beginning!”

  “Save your breath for your work. You shall have plenty of it!” said Guadalmo, and attacked instantly.

  He came in with the reckless abandon of one accustomed to looking upon his narrow rapier as a secure wall of steel against his enemy’s point. And the blade of Taki met his with a continual harsh clattering. Neither would give back. They pressed on to half sword length.

  “Ha!” cried the Spaniard through his teeth, and delivered an upward thrust at the throat against which there seemed no possible ward.

  But Taki found one. With his bare hand he knocked aside the darting weapon. He stepped in with the same movement and crushed Guadalmo against his breast. The hug of the bear could not have been more paralyzing.

  “I am a dead man! God receive me!” gasped out Guadalmo as the point of the shortened sword appeared at his throat.

  “With that stroke, señor,” said Taki, “you killed Antonio Cadoral in Padua. Tonight it has failed you. What else have you left?”

  He cast the helpless man away.

  “Breathe again, Guadalmo,” he said. “Now, señor, your utmost skill.”

  “Devil!” groaned Guadalmo. “You have only a minute to live!”

  And he attacked not recklessly, but with the utmost deadliness of finesse, working as though a picture were being drawn by the point of his weapon. It became a play of double lightning, the two blades flashing in the moonshine.

  But the minute passed and Taki still lived, and without giving ground. He began to talk again as they worked, as one who held his task lightly.

  “Señor Guadalmo, there is a grove near Toledo where a gallant gentleman, Juan Jaratta, met
you without seconds. You killed him with foul play... a sudden thrust when by mutual agreement you had lowered your swords to take a breath.”

  “It is false!” snarled out Guadalmo. “Besides, there was no human eye near to take note of such a thing.”

  “I, however, was nearby, and watched.”

  “You are the devil, then!”

  “As you please. But beware, Guadalmo! For the sake of Jaratta, I am about to touch you over the heart!”

  “I defy you!”

  The rapier in the hand of Taki darted out as the hummingbird darts toward the deep mouth of a flower — and as the hummingbird stops dead in mid flight and then shoots forward again, a mere flash of rainbow color and sheen, so the blade of Taki paused and drove beneath the parry of Guadalmo and the keen point pricked him on the breast.

  “Damnation!” gasped out Guadalmo, and quickly leaped backward with all his power.

  He began to perspire with the weakness not of exhaustion, but of despair and fear.

  “We have only begun,” said Taki. “There was in Nice, on a time, a young gentleman from the American colonies of England. He had loaned you money, Guadalmo, and when your time came to repay it, you found a quarrel with him and met him outside the city on a broad green lawn. There were great flowers planted around the lawn. As the dawn grew clear, you could see their colors... golden-yellow, bronze, and deepest scarlet. Do you remember?”

  “If I remember, you shall soon forget. So!”

  “A good thrust,” said Taki, putting the stroke aside with a flick of his own blade. “And a favorite in Bologna. With it, in fact, you killed the poor gentleman. And, for his sake, another touch above the heart...”

  Who can escape the leap of the lightning? Señor Guadalmo was tense with dreadful anxiety, and yet he could not avoid the sudden flash of Taki’s sword. And again there was a bee sting in the flesh above his heart. He felt a little warm trickle of blood run down inside his shirt — warm blood over a body that had turned to ice.

  He gave ground. He looked wildly up the slope above the trees, where the roofs of the house of Torreño were faintly visible. There was succor, in ample scope, so near, so near! He thought of turning and fleeing toward it, but as he watched the tigerish smoothness of the advance of Taki, he knew that he would be overtaken in a single leap. There was no escape that way. He thought of crying out — but before the sound had left his lips, the inescapable mischief which played so brightly in the hand of the tall man would be buried in his heart! And the cold perspiration streamed down the face of Guadalmo. His body was dank with it.

  “There are still others,” said Taki. “You have covered your way with killings, damnable murders made legal. You have picked quarrels with young men who had scarcely left their fencing masters after a month of practice. But above all, there was one man who had never held a straight sword in his life. He was an honest sailor, Guadalmo. An honest man, do you hear me? A breath of his was worth more than your eternal soul. He was a kind, bluff man. All who knew him, loved him. He had behind him a young wife and two small children. Ah, Guadalmo, my friend, what a devil it would have taken to murder that honorable man? And yet there was such a demon in the world. There was such a murder done. All honorable! He was challenged and met with rapiers. He was forced to fight, he thought, to defend his honor. His honor against a rat, a snake, a wolf! Think of it, Señor Guadalmo. Can you conceive it?”

  “Are you done?” snarled out Guadalmo, perceiving that the end was near. “Are you done whining? Yes, I killed him. And you are his brother? Hear me, friend. When the steel went through him, he screamed like a woman!”

  Taki groaned. “He screamed with agony of sorrow because he thought of his wife and his family... with bewilderment that such a tiny needle of a weapon should have taken his life... but never with pain or with fear. For he was a lion, Señor Guadalmo! And it is for his sake that I am about to touch you for the third time, and this time, you are to die! Think of him, and how he lay in your patio, panting and gasping. He had messages which he begged you to send to his wife. He would forgive you, pray for you, if you would send them. Did you send them, Guadalmo? Did you send them? A word, only, to his widow or his orphans?”

  “Bah!” gasped out the Spaniard, and lunged with all his force.

  It was attacking a will-o’-the-wisp. He closed again with a shout of despair. Then a limber hand of steel closed around his sword. He felt a wrench that twisted his wrist far to one side. Out of his wet fingers the sword was drawn, and flipped high into the air, spinning over and over, brilliant against the moon, in its fall. And Guadalmo followed it with eyes of horror and of bewilderment.

  He looked down at the leveled blade of his opponent. And then, from the rear of the clearing, a pistol spoke, a bullet hummed past and thudded heavily against the body of an oak tree, and into the open ran three men. There was a wild cry of rage from Taki. He leaped at Guadalmo with a final lunge, but the latter fell groveling upon the ground and missed death by a fraction of a second. Over him leaped Taki — no time for a second stroke.

  Another bound brought him among the shadows of the trees — and he was gone, with a final volley whirring about him.

  And, in the meantime, it seemed that a hundred voices had suddenly begun to shout at the same time, before him and behind him.

  There was no pursuit on the part of the valiants, however. They did not care to follow the tiger into his lair among the crowded trees; they preferred to make a close guard around Guadalmo and shout for help. So Taki paused to drop the rapier into a shallow bed of leaves. He snatched the black mask from his face.

  Just before him a body of six men broke in among the trees.

  “Who is there?” they shouted to him.

  “Taki,” he said. And he joined in the hunt.

  X. TRAPPED

  IT WAS A matter not to be mentioned in the presence of Señor Torreño. It was well enough if some rascally brigand dared to hold up passersby upon the great highway. But when they ventured into his very presence and there committed their villainies, it was high time that an end were put to these proceedings. Señor Torreño ordered his entire household to mount. He left at the house a mere guard of half a dozen men. With the rest, he scoured the country. And, conspicuous among the foremost riders was Taki, the Navajo, who distinguished himself by being the only man of the party who thought he saw a fugitive vanishing among the hills. However, they could not trace the vision of Taki, and therefore they eventually turned back to the house, gloomy and disgruntled. The lips of Torreño flowed curses faster than a well gives forth water. He damned the entire world in general and the Black Rider in particular. He began again with the Black Rider and went backward, damning the entire world. He would burn the entire region of California to a crisp, but in the end he would have this reckless manhunter who ventured upon his kill in the very lair of the Torreño himself!

  The story of Guadalmo was simple and clear. He had been wakened from sleep by having a cord thrown around his body. Therefore, he awakened helpless. He was forced to dress in haste and climb down through the window, and so was taken to the hollow where he was eventually found. There he was about to be murdered, but he had managed to excite the pride of the Black Rider sufficiently to make the outlaw begin a single-handed duel in the course of which he was about to spit the Black Rider like a chicken, and so put an end to that sinister public plague, when they were broken in upon by fools who thought they were running to the rescue. It made no difference that the rescuers, according to what their eyes had told them, vowed that they did not notice any sword in the hand of Guadalmo. They were not believed to have seen what was before them. For, though it was conceivable that the great Guadalmo might be conquered in fight, it was notably ridiculous to conceive that he had been so overmastered that he was actually disarmed!

  Señor Guadalmo, however, made light of the whole matter when they sat together to break their fast in the morning, after the futile manhunt had ended.

  “Now that I have
seen this ghost face to face, and noted the color of his eyes,” said Guadalmo, “I assure you that there will soon be an end to him. Oh, fool, fool, fool that I was!”

  He struck his palm across his forehead and sighed.

  “What is wrong, Guadalmo?” asked his host.

  “When I think that I might have put this monster out of the world with a mere touch... and that I allowed him to live! Alas, Torreño, I am covered with shame and with fury.”

  “Tell us, Guadalmo.”

  “No, no! It sickens me to think of it! Fool, fool that I was!”

  “We must hear it, señor”

  “It was in this manner. We had closed. We were at hardly more than half sword distance. I threw him off balance with a strong parry and at the same instant I closed on him and took him by the throat. The dog lost heart at once. He dropped his sword and fell on his knees and babbled out a prayer for mercy! Mercy has ever been my besetting sin. I could not kill that wild beast even when I had him in that position.”

  Lady Anna d’Arquista fairly trembled with admiration. To think that at the same table with her sat a man who had been able to crush the famous Black Rider to his knees was enough to make her shudder. She said to her niece: “Did you ever see such a gallant and noble gentleman, Lucia?”

  Lucia wasn’t always graceful in her manners. Now she grunted as a man might have done, and a very rough man at that.

  “He has a sick look,” she said.

  “Guadalmo?”

  “He has had troubles enough to last him out the month,” said the girl, nodding her head sagely.