by Max Brand
But Peter shook his head. He said calmly and aloud so that all could hear: “I’ll have you, Soapy, if that’s your name. I need somebody strong enough to handle me, and you look fit for the job. Will you try it?”
“I’ll see you cursed!” shouted Soapy, reaching for his gun as though he expected that he would have instant need of it.
But Peter Hale made no gesture toward his own hip. He merely said in the same calm tones: “Come inside with me, Soapy. I want to give you a few reasons. This isn’t to be the sort of a job that would shame you. An easy bit of work and a respectable life, I hope, is what I can offer you. Will you come inside for a minute?” He turned his back and swung himself into the house on his crutches.
Soapy remained glaring at the retreating back of the cripple. “He can bulldoze the white folks,” snarled Soapy, “but he ain’t gonna manhandle this Negro. Go inside? Who says that I ain’t gonna go inside of the house with him? Who says that I’m scared of him?” He glared wildly around him. Fear of the unknown and wild rage made his face almost too terrible to be watched.
There was no answer from those around him, who saw that he was only looking for a chance to find trouble closer at his hand.
He went on in the same savage murmur: “I’m gonna go inside with him, and, if I don’t like the way that he talks, I’m gonna break him wide open, boys, and I’m gonna see what it is that makes him tick.” So saying, he advanced upon the house with his enormous stride. He passed the door, closed it with an echoing crash, and left Jarvin walking nervously up and down on the porch, always with his eyes fastened upon the crowd, but with his thoughts obviously busy with the two men who were inside the room.
All that could be heard was the loud tone of the mulatto declaring as he entered the room: “I’m here. An’ I want to know what in the devil you got to say to me that you can’t say in the open, with other folks to watch?”
The reply of the stranger was as smooth as the current of slow water by night. They could not distinguish his words.
But inside the house Soapy was finding himself confronting a peril that, he felt, was more vital and certainly stranger than anything that he had yet encountered in his roving life. The cripple sat on the farther side of the table, nearest the wall, and, with that table in front of him, his useless legs were screened from view. Soapy was aware only of the erect body and the squared shoulders of the other — the most supple and formidable torso, he felt, that he had ever seen in his life — aside from his own swelling bulk. It seemed to Soapy, also, as he faced this stranger, that he had been most foolish in his recent way of living. He should take more care of himself; he should make it a point to do a bit of sledge-hammer work every day and so strip the loose fat away from his body and harden himself for a test, as this stranger seemed to be hardened.
For the face of Peter Hale was as cleanly drawn as that of an athlete about to step into a prize ring. Perhaps the labor of swinging himself along on his clutches was enough to keep him fit. Yet Soapy felt rightly that was not all. To be sure, the legs were nothing. They were worse than useless. But now all that Soapy saw were the long, muscular arms, with the swelling cords of strength bulging against the sleeves; at the points of the shoulders were hard lumps. Above all this might of hand and shoulder there were thinking eyes buried beneath a deep brow.
From the shadow the eyes watched the mulatto, and Soapy felt more and more ill at ease. He wanted to bring this matter to a quick test, to have the battle over in one crucial struggle — and be out and away in the fresh, open air, because inside this house he felt that the breathing was not easy.
Said Peter Hale: “Now, sit down, Soapy, and tell me why you’re so angry, will you?”
“Ain’t it enough to make any self-respecting man mad?” Soapy asked, making his teeth grit in fury. “Me to be a sort of a body servant. What d’you take me for?”
Said Peter: “Sit down, Soapy.”
“Cursed if I will!” roared Soapy. “You hear me say it?”
“I hear you say it.”
“Then what are you gonna do about it?”
“Are you afraid to sit down?” asked that quiet voice of Peter.
It was a new way of putting the matter. Soapy had only one religion, and that was that he was unafraid of anything that walked the earth — except the two Buttricks. His religion made him sink into the chair opposite to Peter. He regretted it the instant he was in that position — for he was much shorter than was Peter. The latter seemed to tower above him on the farther side of the table. No, Soapy wanted to be up and on his feet but he did not see, at once, how he could scramble out of the chair and still retain any of his dignity.
In the meantime, there was a constant pressure being exerted upon him. He could never have defined that strain upon his nerves. But he only knew that those restless, working eyes of Peter were constantly prying at his own. He forced himself to meet that gaze; yet he could only manage the thing with a savage stare — while the white man was at ease.
The calm eyes of Peter passed through the burly roughness of Soapy and made his very heart quake. Hypnotism — did it not begin in such a fashion, with the commanding pressure of eye upon eye? The thought brought cold perspiration out, beading the glistening forehead of Soapy.
“Now here I am,” said Soapy, “and what is it that you want out of me, and will you snap it out quick? Because I ain’t one that can be worked upon the way that the Buttricks was. I’m up to your tricks, stranger. I tell you that I’m up to your tricks.”
He said it with a savage leer of cunning, jabbing his rigid forefinger at Peter, as much as to say that he had discerned the fiend behind the human guise. He half expected that Peter, when he heard these words, would tremble and turn pale. To his amazement, Peter did nothing of the kind. There was and instant flash through his shadowed eyes, then a faint smile appeared and disappeared on the corners if his mouth. Soapy felt that he was being laughed at by the superior might of the spirit of evil that certainly resided in the heart of this white man.
Bitterly Soapy regretted that he had entered that house; terribly did he regret that he had settled himself at that table. For now it seemed to him that invisible hands encircled him, and his strength was running out of him. Where not his great hands already shaking so that he could hardly held a gun? Did not even the accusing finger that he had pointed at Peter quiver more uncertainly?
He turned still paler, and watched with fascination the smile of the big white man. He had quite forgotten that Peter was a cripple, now. The idea had melted from his brain. He was sitting in the presence of a giant of might and of cunning, also. And Soapy felt that he was lost — but not lost without a struggle. No, he was still prepared to fight for the honor of his manhood.
“Listen to me,” said Peter. “I want you to understand that I mean you no harm. I offer you this work because I need someone with arms and shoulders like yours around me. In return for that, Soapy, I think that I can raise your position in the world a few degrees. I don’t intend that you should have disagreeable or disgusting duties. Rather, like a friend on whom I can rely. Someone to watch my back, since in this camp it seems that a man’s back needs watching. And on that understanding, I wonder if you wouldn’t shake hands with me, Soapy?”
The fear of Soapy increased. He stiffened in his chair. “No, curse me if I will!”
“What?” said the other, with that same flashing hint of a smile. “You’re not afraid, Soapy?”
“Afraid? I’m afraid of no man!”
And Soapy thrust out his long arm and his great hand was closed upon by the smaller fingers of Peter Hale. They were so much smaller that a sudden feeling came to Soapy that in one instant, now, he would crush the pride and the strength of this weird monster. He closed the vise of his grip — a famous grip that had done prodigious things in the matter of crushing porous pine wood and other matters. He closed it now with all his might and he felt the grip of Peter relax slowly under the mighty pressure — relax and give and give,
but always with an increasing slowness, until the point suddenly came when Soapy could crush no more. The thinner fingers of Peter bit into his very flesh like narrow rods of iron. Although the jaw of Soapy set and his monstrous arc quivered with effort, he could not make the other yield.
Magic, thought the mulatto. For no mere human hand, so much smaller than his, could have withstood that grip. Magic!
The instant that that idea came home to him the strength seemed to pass from his fingers. Or was it that the other with marvelous suddenness increased his own pressure?
The smaller, bony fingers bit hard into the flesh of the mulatto’s hand — and suddenly his grip gave way; his great hand straightened and folded under the power of Peter Hale.
CHAPTER XXIII
THAT INSTANT, THE hold of the cripple relaxed and he said: “Now, Soapy, I think that you and I shall understand each other very well. We shall get on, Soapy, like old friends, eh?”
These words were, only partially heard by the mulatto. He was staring down at his hand as though it were a diseased part of him or as though, like a traitor, it had refused its duty to its master. It lay upon the table, crushed and weakened and numbed, a fiery red except where four snowy-white bands crossed it — in symbol of the four fingers of Peter Hale that had done their work so well. Soapy had been beaten, although he would never have suspected it, not by a superior might, but simply by the fear of something supernatural.
The force that, it had seemed to him, had crushed his hand as though it were that of a child or a woman had not been the might of the cripple, but the crumbling weakness in Soapy himself. Now, as he dragged that hand from the table, he moistened his shapeless white lips and looked at Peter like a poor martyr being thrown to the lions.
“Yet,” Peter said again, “I don’t wish for an instant to force you into a service which may be unpleasant to you. The fact is, Soapy, that I need a strong and brave and clever man to help me in this work. And it seems to me that you are the fellow for me. Am I wrong?”
Soapy pushed himself back in his chair and rose. “You got any need of me right now, boss?” he asked.
“No,” said Peter, “no need of you at all.”
Soapy slunk sidewise toward the door.
“But I’ll expect you back here before dark, say?” called Peter.
Soapy marked that fact by rolling the yellow of his eye toward his new-found master, and then issued from the house. Those who still lingered on the outside looked with wonder as they saw him pass with staring eyes and drawn face. Soapy had aged by ten years, so it seemed. He skulked across the open part of the circle like one who glides away from a beating, inflicted by a superior force.
“He’s killed Hale!” cried Jarvin. “Curse him, he’s throttled Hale!”
He tore the door open. But there was Peter in the act of swinging himself lightly to his feet.
“You’re safe, Pete?”
“I’m safe, Mike.”
“Curse it... then what did you do to Soapy? It’s all right, boys!”
It was something more than all right. The point of the matter was that, from the bearing of the mulatto, they had felt that some desperate deed had Just been done — if not by Soapy, then by the cripple. Those who wandered after Mike, filled with grinning, yet breathless curiosity, were just in time to see the great shining body of the stallion, Larribee, flash down the back trail from the camp, with the mulatto stooped low on his back, as though to avoid any random bullets that might be sent in pursuit.
That news was brought back to Jarvin at once, and it threw big Mike into a fury. He went storming to Peter Hale. “Now what in the devil d’you mean by that?” he shouted. “Have you throwed a scare into Soapy that’ll make him run and never stop? Have you throwed away with your cursed college-made, thick- headed... ?”
There was a chair of formidable weight standing close to the wall. It suddenly lurched up and whirled over the shoulder of the cripple, darting straight at the head of Mike Jarvin, who leaped backward with a scream from the path of the flying danger. It would be death if that heavy weight struck his head, he knew, and Mike loved life most desperately. As he leaped, he hurled the door shut with a slam.
It mattered not to Jarvin that he tripped and fell backward down the short flight of steps. It mattered not to him that half a dozen of his startled and grinning men saw this sudden fall of his. All that was of importance was to find out whether or not the sudden devil that had transformed the face of the cripple was now sending him in grim pursuit.
So he scrambled to hands and knees and made sure that the door was still shut. It was. But so terrible was the violence and the true aim with which that chair had been flung, that one leg had splintered the solid panel, and another, in the center, had thrust itself bodily through the door. Mike shuddered to imagine that, instead of the tough and senseless wood, his own tender, mortal flesh had been opposed to that thunderbolt.
Mr. Jarvin sat down on a distant tree stump and fanned his hot face for some time, until the tremor departed from his limbs. He considered various ideas, in the beginning. What seemed to him, at first, the only sensible proceeding was to touch a match to the shack and let it go up in a mass of flames, bearing the soul of Peter Hale to heaven along with its smoke.
Later on, he felt that it could be an excellent thing if he called in some of his men to tackle this big fellow and give him a thorough disciplining. Jarvin decided that he would make an example of Peter Hale — an example that would be remembered through the rest of Jarvin’s life. However, even this had to be paused upon. He recalled that most of his own men were only waiting for a good opportunity to stick a knife in his back. And as soon as the shadows closed upon this day, would they not set about gratifying their wills on him?
The Buttricks were gone. Had not his own men welcomed the dissension that had begun between their boss and his new defender? Heartily did Mike Jarvin curse the day when he had had the Burtricks discharged. Most violently did he groan when he remembered the day on which it had come to him as an inspiration to replace the two hopeless scoundrels with one fairly honest man.
However, in the meantime, the sun was riding down the western sky. If he were to make his peace with the cripple, it must be soon. If he did not make his peace with big Peter Hale, what would happen? A murder before the sun of the next day rose over the cold eastern mountains? Jarvin had no doubt of that. He saw himself fallen, and none to lament him. Who would inherit his mine and all of its riches? Mr. Jarvin began to perspire. He decided that the thing for him to do was to saddle a horse and flee from the camp at once. Yet, if he went to the stable, would he not be placing himself in the hands of those fellows to whom he paid wages, and who hated him with such a cordial might?
Jarvin rose. He walked to the verandah of his house, cleared his throat, and then ventured a polite tap at the door. “Well, Hale?” he called gently.
A most cheerful voice responded: “Come in, Mike!”
He opened the door by inches until there was revealed to him the Herculean torso of Peter Hale reclining upon the Morris chair, the one luxurious article in the furnishing of that room.
“Come in, Jarvin! I’m glad that chair missed you, really.”
Mike gasped as he looked down at the shapeless mass of wreckage that was all that remained of the chair upon the floor. Peter, apparently, did not intend to stir himself to clear up the mess.
“Well, Hale,” said Jarvin, “the main thing is for us to see that we both been sort of foolish, eh?”
“Not a bit,” said Peter. “Little things like this will always be apt to happen, unless we know just how to treat each other, eh?”
Jarvin stared. There was something about this speech that he did not like. He ventured cautiously: “Matter of fact, Peter, that temper of mine, it sure does run away with me. I never know where it’s gonna take me. You’ll get used to that, won’t you?”
“I don’t know,” said Peter. “The fact is, Mike, that when people talk roughly to me, my hand
s begin to do things without asking my permission. I really didn’t know that I was going to throw that chair at you, however. And I’m sure that I won’t do such a thing again... unless your tongue runs away with you, once more.”
CHAPTER XXIV
THAT SEEMED TO the mine owner a rather lopsided bargain — if he continued to talk with a flawless politeness to this young man, the young man would refrain from murdering him. However, he took a great breath, beginning to feel that there was in Peter even a greater value than he had at first attached to him. But it was most patent that the youth was an edged tool, to be handled with the utmost caution. Otherwise the master would himself be injured. Certainly it would be foolish to throw away the services of this terrible fellow, until it were first known whether or not he could be thoroughly controlled.
He said: “Now, Peter, I ain’t aiming to bother you none. But I got to say that Soapy was about the best man that I had working for me. Matter of fact, Pete, it would be a bad blow to me to know that he’s sneaked away. Besides that... he’s taken along that hoss of yours with him.”
“Why,” said Peter, “that’s nothing at all. I sent him away on a little errand, but he’ll be back by sunset, you can depend upon it.”
“Why in heaven’s name didn’t you tell me that before?” shouted Jarvin.
At that roar in his voice, the big hand of Peter stole out and wrapped itself around the back of a chair — but Jarvin leaped through the door with a grunt of fear and went off to sit in the sun, once more, and consider what was good and what was bad in life. What was of account as a good to Jarvin was that which gave him profit and pleasure; what was bad, in his world, was all that gave him personal danger or discomfort.
He felt that this universe was a place where sweets and sours were oddly commingled. For instance, yonder was the black and gaping maw of the mine, swallowing the labor of toiling scores of men. In return for the bitterness of that painful exertion, it rendered up rich are that was trundled down the long incline by the rails which he, Jarvin, had built, until it came to a low road from which it could be hauled to the nearest shipping point. From the mine, therefore, came the shining jewel of wealth that increased and increased with such a steadiness that Mike Jarvin began to think not in terms of his present hundreds of thousands but in the scope of future millions.