by Max Brand
“Walk beside me, Soapy. I want to talk to you.”
“Some son-of-a-gun might jump you from behind, Mister Hale.”
“Why would they jump me and not you, Soapy?”
“Why, what good would it do them to get me down, as long as you was left, sir?”
Peter turned with a little laugh. “Don’t take that too seriously, Soapy. I simply took those fellows by surprise and clubbed them away from you. They weren’t expecting anything like that.”
Soapy merely smiled, and a light glistened fitfully in his eyes, for he understood it all perfectly. When a god performed a deed of heroism or of might, he referred to it thereafter not at all, or else with easy modesty. So it was with Peter Hale. To have scattered those raging Canadians — that was a mere nothing.
A sort of dizzy joy flooded the childish heart and soul of the mulatto. For, having lunged about the world from the days of his childhood from one mischief to another, he now felt that he had found a haven and a refuge. Thereafter he need fear nothing. For he had met with a savior and with a guide. Indeed, when he looked back upon his first meeting with Peter, he could remember that there had been a singular gentleness in the manner of the white man, always.
Only he, Soapy, had forced on the contest. He fairly shuddered when he thought of it. How well it was for him that the mighty man of wisdom had not chosen to blast him and shame him forever. Poor Soapy, having entered into this trance mood, hardly knew where they were wandering, until they arrived at the flare of the big gasoline lamp in front of the hotel.
“Now,” said Peter, “suppose that you go back to the horses... and get the buckboard ready... and get the saddle horses ready, too. I’ll find the governor and bring him out as fast as I can. But be ready, Soapy.”
“Mister Hale, I’m gonna be right on the spot, now and always.”
“I’ll tell you this one reason to make you hurry... the thing that made me start down the street was just a breath of rumor that Mike Jarvin’s Soapy was in town and raising the devil. If they have coupled you and Jarvin together... and if some people are guessing that Jarvin is in town, this may be a very serious affair. Jarvin is not supposed to risk taking the air so far away from his home,” He said this with another smile.
Soapy blinked and ran away toward the stable. He was beginning to see the other sides of this unlucky matter, and there were so many of those sides that it fairly made his head spin to contemplate them. They had linked him with Jarvin, then. They had recognized him. He recalled some of the ringside shouts. Yes, they had accused him of throwing the fight away on a foul, so that his master could win crooked bets.
It seemed that one could fall into other dangers than those which one actually deserved, and, for the first time in his life, a feeling of innocence went through the soul of the mulatto.
He found the boy he had paid to watch the horses soundly asleep at the edge of the fence, with the horses almost trampling upon him. Some of the new-found virtue melted from Soapy, and he raised the boy by the nape of the neck and kicked him into outer darkness. Then he secured the heads of the team, which had so luckily been kept from falling into some mischief or other, and he went to the saddle horses.
They were refreshed enough by their few hours of rest, to all appearance. Larribee was lying down — a sure sign that he would be practically as strong as ever when wanted. He prepared them hastily for immediate use and returned to the buckboard to find that the cripple was waiting for him there.
“Have you seen Jarvin?” he asked.
“Not here,” said Soapy.
“He’s not at the hotel,” Peter said in some trouble.
“Let him go and be cursed,” said Soapy. “This here is a time for us to be saving our own hides, Mister Hale.”
He saw the hand of Peter raised to check him, and therefore he pointed anxiously toward the street.
“What’s that crowd of folks gathering out yonder for, Mister Hale?”
“I understand you,” replied Peter. “But I won’t budge from the town without another search for Jarvin. Perhaps the old scoundrel has got into some new trouble and had to vanish suddenly.”
He went back to the hotel, and the mulatto waited in great concern at the heads of the horses. For the crowd that he had pointed out in the street had now grown. And yonder was someone on a bench, making a speech to them. Only an occasional word reached the ears of Soapy, but he knew that, when a crowd stands patiently to be harangued by a leader, there is danger in the air. So it seemed to be gathering now, and he could hardly watch them without turning cold with bitter fear.
Meanwhile, Peter had found a clue as he was turning onto the verandah of the hotel again. “Have you seen,” he began, addressing a passing cowpuncher, “a fat fellow, rather oldish, with big...”
“You mean Jarvin, don’t you?” asked the other, turning upon him with a cold eye. “You’re one of Jarvin’s men, ain’t you?”
“Perhaps,” Peter said, growing a little red. “Do you know where he is?”
The cattleman had already turned away, letting fall over his shoulder: “No, I dunno that I know where he is.”
The hand of Peter caught his shoulder, and he spun around — and did not draw his Colt. He was very near to the verge of drawing his gun, but he changed his mind, for certain wild rumors were now flying thick and fast about the manner in which the cripple had rescued the giant mulatto from the hands of numbers. One of those rumors had lodged in the ears of the cowpuncher. So, although he hated Jarvin with the clean man’s loathing of the unclean, yet he looked upon Jarvin’s man with more respect.
“He’s back yonder at the other hotel. He’s sitting in at a poker game... but maybe he won’t be sitting long.” As he spoke he pointed with a somewhat malicious grin in the direction of a cluster of men who were hurrying down the street.
Others trailed behind them and well to the rear came the less aggressive element in the crowd. Just what they were headed for Peter did not know for certain, but he very shrewdly guessed. He knew that this pack had been already fought and rebuffed. So he feared for the worst, if a crash came.
CHAPTER XXXV
NOW THAT THE grip of big Peter had relaxed, the cowpuncher withdrew his shoulder deftly and hurried on into the hotel. But Peter watched events maturing with a wonderful speed down the street, where the crowd was formed in a thick mass before the hotel. Some of its leaders were entering. If they were indeed bent on the capture of big Mike Jarvin, how sadly would events go for that worthy, captured by such a throng, in such a humor.
Peter was in no little danger. Behind him he overheard a murmur of voices:
“Are they overlooking the big stiff on the crutches?”
“What about him?”
“He’s been wandering around the town, bashing gents over the head with that crutch of his. Besides, he’s one of the Jarvin outfit.”
“The devil he is. Is Jarvin picking up his men from the hospitals, maybe?”
“Jarvin has him, and that’s enough to make any man with good sense lay odds that he’s a crook and a bad one. I’d like to know how he got wrecked. That’s what I’d like to know, old pal. I’ll lay my bet that it would make a story that would interest some of us, including the sheriff.”
“If he belongs to Jarvin, why don’t they round him up?”
“Yes, and it was him who pulled that Soapy out of the hands of the boys... when they was about to give him a lesson that his yellow hide would never forget.”
These remarks were never intended to be heard by Peter, but his ears were supernaturally acute on this evening. He heard this, and he heard, moreover, that there was much talk of taking big Mike Jarvin and riding him on a rail, after his capture — and then trying him for various and sundry crimes that were laid against him, including even that old but unforgotten death of Sam Debney. Assuredly the air of this town was growing hot for Mike and for his prot‚g‚s.
Peter waited to hear no more. It was reasonably certain that that crowd meant th
e torment of Jarvin. And, richly as Mike might have deserved trouble, still he was the patron of Peter, and Peter had been hired to protect his skin. So he swung himself about on his crutches and he went back behind the hotel to the stable, where Soapy waited with the horses — a very nervous Soapy, whose teeth glinted in his wide mouth as he spoke.
“It’s the boss, ain’t it, Mister Hale?”
“It’s Jarvin, right enough. They’ve gone down there to get Mike at the next hotel. What can we do, the pair of us, to help him?”
It amazed Soapy to hear his master ask such a question — he who had shown such godlike powers. But apparently here was something beyond even the hands of big Peter Hale.
So Soapy said with much fervor: “Mister Hale, it looks to me like the right and reasonable thing for us two to do is to get right out of this here town. As you say, what can we do for old Jarvin by staying here? Nothing but get throwed into the same jail that he’s put into. Or get our necks stretched on the same rope alongside of his. Because these folks is fractious. I heard some cowpunchers going by a minute ago and talking big and bad about a lynching... laying down that it would do a power of good to the town to have a real, first-class lynching here, y’understand?”
“I understand!’ Peter sighed. “And that’s exactly the atmosphere that I’ve been guessing at in the place. And so, Soapy, of course, we can’t desert him.”
“Jarvin?”
“No.”
“Curse him! He’d desert us quick enough.”
“We didn’t hire him to take care of us,” Peter reminded mildly. “You must never forget that.”
“Humph!” said the mulatto. “I dunno that I follow your line of thinking, Mister Hale, but I’d just as soon be throwed into the corral, yonder, with that flock of wild Nevada hosses, as to get laid hold of by that crowd again. They was only playing when they first met up with me. But, believe me, they’d be in earnest now.”
“They would, and they’d be in deadly earnest. However... something...”
His voice died away. For, down the street, they could see where the crowd had surged with a sudden violence straight into the hotel. In another moment there was a distinct sound of crashing and splintering.
“There goes a door down,” Soapy said through his set teeth.
Instantly the crowd pressed back from the hotel into the street — and there was the form of a bulky man dangled high and light upon their shoulders, with many an angry hand reaching for him. It was Jarvin; the angry roar of the crowd testified to that. Jarvin! They would have the truth of his wickedness out of him, and they would tear him to rags and to tatters.
But who needed to wait for his confession? Did not every sensible man really sense the truth about this matter? Of course — and, therefore, let them live up to the standards that their ancestors set when they had brought law and order into a wild land. So thought the crowd, and Peter Hale, reading their minds, watched their numbers and their fury grow with every instant.
Now that Jarvin was in their hands, everyone wanted to join himself to the list of the men of justice. And yonder was a rail for the taking. It was of new, strong wood. And it was nailed into oaken posts with strong, new spikes, countersunk.
But so many hands laid hold upon the three-by-six beam that it was torn away as though it were nothing. Jarvin was mounted a little higher, perhaps, than any horse had ever carried him, certainly upon the most narrow saddle.
Twenty willing shoulders crowded under the stick. And Jarvin was brought along with a swelling voice of triumph that made even the wild Nevada horses tremble and quake in their corrals. They were a grim-looking lot of horses, having been brought down by some venturesome horse dealers for men who wanted tough saddle animals — tough in both spirit and flesh. But there was too much devil in these creatures to make much of a sale possible, and there still remained fifty of the brutes in the corral, rolling their eyes and flattening their ears as they heard the roaring voices of men. Peter, observing them, felt that here was a chance for him either to kill his employer outright or else to set him free.
He said to the mulatto: “Soapy, stand by on this side of the road. I’m going to let those horses out. When they come piling through the gate, start shooting and yelling... shooting with both hands and yelling as loudly as you can. Do you understand?”
“Mister Hale, you ain’t gonna fool with those wild horses, are you?”
“Will you do what I ask?”
“Yes, sir, I will!”
Peter left him and reached the lofty corral fence, while the throng of horses shrank from him and then rushed closer along the fence with a perverse desire to catch him with their teeth. He shot back the bolt and let the gate swing wide with a screech of rusty hinges, as their breasts pressed it back. Instantly they had bulged out into the street.
There stood Soapy. From either hand issued a series of rapid explosions as he waved his flaming guns above his head, and from his throat was poured out a dreadful series of wails and yells. The mustangs recoiled from this fire- breathing monster. They swayed this way and then that, and finally they surged, with snorting and squealing, straight down the street toward the avenging crowd that was riding Jarvin on a rail to a just trial and a quick vengeance for his ill deeds. With their heads and tails tossing and the dust flying around them, the horses ran.
Peter saw Mike Jarvin disappear from the rail on which he was carried. No doubt he was dropped straight into the dust as the men who had carried him bolted for their lives.
Peter shouted: “Back to the buckboard, Soapy! Back as fast as you can fly, man!”
Soapy flew. He reached the buckboard fast and leaped into the seat. But he had hardly gained it before the cripple swung past him on the crutches. The saddle horses were tethered at the back of the buckboard. Two of these — Larribee and Jarvin’s own horse — were detached by Peter. He swung into the saddle on Larribee just as the wagon gathered headway. Soapy did not need to be told what to do. He knew that Peter intended to take a most desperate chance, and to take it right at the heels of that fighting, smashing herd of wild horses. Therefore he loosed the reins on that fresh mustang team and gave them the whip. They flew forward at a gallop into the thick dust cloud that the wild horses had raised.
Peter himself was not far behind, gaining with every sweep of the long legs of Larribee. Now, before him, he saw a thing that he had half expected but had not wholly dared to believe might happen. A solitary man was waddling toward them, up the street, as fast as he could leg it, with a swinging glimmer of steel shining from either hand.
That was none other than big Mike Jarvin, rushing for safety up the street, and ready, now, to be killed before he would let himself be taken.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THERE WERE NO figures of men lying in the street; Peter Hale could thank the Providence which had whisked them out of danger as the herd of horses roared by. But that charge had accomplished its purpose admirably. The crowd, so solidly formed and so intent on its purpose, had been torn to shreds and scattered here and there in doorways, on verandahs, and behind picket fences.
And here was Jarvin, who had torn himself clear and was bolting for safety. He saw the familiar buckboard with Soapy at the helm and started for it with a shrill scream of satisfaction. But others had seen the coming rescue and had fixed their minds on the destruction of Mike. Even wild horses could not tear the idea away from them.
A big man ran out from a doorway — a tall, cleancut fellow, poising his gun. Peter spurred Larribee ahead, and the great horse took wings, leaving the buckboard behind. The big man ahead fired. Mike Jarvin’s gun flashed in response, and then Peter struck the tall fellow and rode him down — not under the hoofs of the great stallion, but striking him in straight-arm, football fashion. As his victim went down with a shout and rolled headlong in the dust, Peter saw that it was his own cousin, Charles, who he had felled in this summary fashion.
He had time for one mental commentary — which was that it was very odd that
Charles should be so hot for the death of a man who, so far as Charles could know, had most generously returned to him a whole fortune won at the cards earlier in the evening. However, there seemed to be many qualities in Charles that were a matter for wonder.
People were pouring out into the street in increasing numbers, but Mike Jarvin had reached the buckboard and had pulled himself up into it. And now Soapy was whipping the mustangs into a frantic gallop.
Peter reined hastily back to the side of the flying wagon, for in the hands of Mike he saw the short, terrible, two-barreled shotgun. If that weapon were ever discharged into the faces of such a crowd as this, there was no telling how many men would go to the last accounting. It would be hanging for Mike, afterward. It would be hanging for Peter and Soapy, also.
So Peter shouted in stentorian tones: “Mike, if you fire that gun, I’ll drive a bullet through your head. Remember!”
Mike, his face convulsed with fury, cast one dreadful glance at Peter and even waved the muzzles of his weapon toward the big rider. He returned no other response, but, standing braced in front of the seat, like a sailor who defies the lurching of his ship, Jarvin turned his shotgun first to this side and then to that.
This crowd that had regathered was not composed of fools. They knew what such a gun meant, and they scattered back toward their houses with yells of consternation. There were perhaps half a dozen shots fired, but they were wild. Only one weapon was being fired by a steady hand, and that was held by a man who was posted on the steps of the general merchandise store. His hat had been lost in the confusion, and the wind fanned back his silvery hair. Peter had only a glimpse of it through the same dust clouds that were doubtlessly saving the lives of all three from this marksman. Twice bullets whistled from the man’s gun close by the head of Peter; three times leaden slugs tore through the body of the buckboard, luckily missing man and horse.
But that was the last danger, as they hurtled around the next bend of the street and headed out onto the road toward the creek. That was the last danger — for the moment. In a few seconds they would be mounting and riding hard behind them.