Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  He waited. A pause of solemnity had come in the talk of the room. And in that solemnity he knew that every one of the stem and strong brothers was resolving that the battle must be fought out man to man. So his last hope was thrown away.

  V. WORDS FOR THE WEAK

  SLEEP CAME TO him that night as a most unexpected guest. And the morning dawned and found him twelve hours nearer, not to death, but to his humiliation. For all thought of standing for the trial of courage against Harry Main had left him. But, knowing that in the crisis he would not be present, he was able to put on a smile when he went down to breakfast. The others greeted him with a forced cheerfulness that made him feel they already thought him as good as dead. Only his mother did not smile but sat very sternly erect, her eyes looking far away. What schemes might be passing through that formidable brain of hers, equal to any man’s?

  After breakfast, Peter called him to one side. “Here’s that Winchester of mine that you’ve always liked, Chris,” he said. “I want you to have it.”

  Peter hurried away, leaving Christopher more thoughtful than ever. For his brother, Peter, was a great hunter, and this was his favorite rifle of which he had often said that the gun had a will and a way of its own in shooting straight to the mark. Such a gift meant a great deal. It was more than a rifle. It was as though Peter had parted from some of the strength of his very soul.

  To be sure, Harry Main was as apt to fight with a rifle as with a revolver. Various stories of his prowess passed through the mind of Christopher. He remembered that old tale of how the four Brownell brothers had gone on the trail of Harry Main and shot him from behind, and how he had dragged himself from his fallen horse to a nest of rocks and bandaged his wound, and fought them off through all of a hot, windless day among the mountains. Three of the Brownell boys he killed outright. And Jack Brownell, with a bullet through his shoulder, rode fifteen miles to get to a doctor. As for Harry Main, he had needed no doctor but cured his own hurts.

  That was one eloquent testimonial to the skill of Harry with a rifle. And Christopher’s face contorted a little in unwilling sympathy as he thought of the injured man dragging himself about among the rocks and firing at some momentarily exposed bit of an enemy among the adjacent rocks.

  However, though rifles were a possibility, revolvers were far more likely. And as for the examples of the hardihood of Main with a Colt, there were a dozen to select from, each well-nigh as incredible as the other. Perhaps none was quite so startling as that tale of how, when he was little more than a boy, he had followed three Mexican cattle thieves who had raided his father’s little ranch — followed them over a thousand miles, until the trail crossed the Rio Grande, and on the other side of that famous river had encountered them in broad daylight, unexpectedly, at a bend of the road. All three had opened fire. But Harry escaped without so much as a wound, laid the three dead with three bullets, and then turned and began the long march back toward the ranch, driving the lean cattle ahead of him.

  That had been revolver work, and upon a revolver it was most likely that Harry would depend now. So Christopher took a pair of Colts and a loaded ammunition belt. He went back behind the house to a quiet little dell where the poplars walked in their slender beauty along the banks of a winding stream. It was an unforgettable spot in the mind of Christopher, because at this place he had first told Georgia Lassiter that he loved her, and she had said so frankly and joyously that she had always loved him.

  It gave him seclusion now. With his heavy knife he sliced a blaze on the faces of six posts and then, at twenty paces’ distance, he walked rapidly past those posts and put a shot in each.

  He examined them afterward. A bullet had cut through the heart of each white spot except for one, where the pellet had torn through the margin of the blaze. But even so it would have touched the heart, had that post been a man.

  He was infinitely pleased with this exhibition of skill. Not that it determined him any the more strongly to remain and wait for the coming of Harry Main into the valley, but, because he had worked for so many years to make himself expert with weapons, there was a meager satisfaction in seeing to what a point his skill had attained.

  He went on to other little bits of marksmanship. He would select a tree, mark it with a blaze, and then turn his back upon it, close his eyes, and, whirling rapidly around, look and fire all in an instant. It was terribly trying work. He missed the blaze three times out of four, but still he always managed at least to strike the tree trunk.

  Then he had another little exercise of skill which he often worked at. If you knock a man down with your first bullet, he may still shoot and kill you while he lies, bleeding and sprawling on the ground. So he marked trees with a double blaze, one head-high and one against the roots, and he began to fire his shots in pairs, and the sap oozed from the wounds that he made in the tender saplings.

  He changed from that to picking up bits of wood, or stones, and tossing them high in the air — then whipping out a revolver and firing at the flying target. Once in three times he hit with his first shot. And half of the remainder he managed to smash with a second shot. But one in three fell to the ground untouched. However, such shooting could never be made perfect. It was just a wonderful test and training for speed and accuracy of hand and eye combined.

  Three times in succession he tossed high into the air a stone no larger than his palm in size, and three times in succession he blew it into a puff of powder with a well-planted bullet. As the last bit of sandstone dissolved in the sunshine into a glimmering mist, there was a little burst of hand-clapping from the side of the meadow, and Georgia Lassiter rode out to him on the little white-stockinged chestnut that he had given to her the year before.

  She was the last person in the world he wanted to see. All the rest he could give up and endure their loss — even his mother. But Georgia was different.

  She swung down from the saddle and into his arms, and she stood there, holding him close and straining back her head a little from him to look up into his face.

  “You’ll beat even Harry Main!” she declared. “You can’t fail. It really isn’t in a Royal to fail, Christopher.”

  “Mother has told you, then?” asked Christopher gloomily.

  “Your mother didn’t need to tell me, because everyone in the valley is talking about nothing else, and last night the telephones were simply humming with the news. Everyone says the same thing, Chris... that you’ll beat him! Because an honest man is stronger than any scoundrel and thief.”

  “Is Harry Main a thief?” he asked rather blankly.

  “He is! He is!” cried Georgia, who never failed to defend her opinions with vehemence. “A man who picks pockets is a thief when he only takes away a watch or a wallet. Then what about a villain who uses his greater training and cleverness to steal the lives of other men? Isn’t he a thief... a murdering thief?”

  “He always uses fair fight, Georgia.”

  “I know, and there’s something grand and terrible about Harry Main. But still... when I stood there and watched you practicing, Christopher, I couldn’t see how any man in the world could safely face you.”

  “There’s a difference between target practice and practice at a living target, you know.”

  “You seem so pale and gloomy, dear.”

  He looked vaguely at her, like a child, hardly seeing her, and yet keenly aware of details, such as the depth of tan in the hollow of her throat, and the trembling in the wind of the cornflower at her breast.

  “I’m not very cheerful,” he told her anxiously. And he waited, to see if that would make her guess anything. She was merely a little irritated.

  “There’s Lurcher, too,” she said, “looking as if you’d just beaten him!”

  Lurcher was a melancholy crossbred hound, a very ugly beast that had strayed down the road to the Royal ranch and stayed there, adopting Christopher as his particular sovereign deity. But he would never follow Christopher farther than the limits of the ranch, which he seemed t
o know by a peculiar instinct. Even when there was a hunt, he would not follow a trail beyond the borders of the Royal estate. Lurcher had passed through many a dreadful trial, it seemed, in his earlier life, and he was fixed in his determination to remain as much as possible on the soil where he had found freedom from persecution. Now he skulked in from the edge of the meadow and lay down in the shadow of his master, raising his mournful eyes toward the girl.

  “I never beat Lurcher,” explained Christopher, a little hurt by her tone.

  “I wish that you would,” she said in one of her petulant moods. “It might do him good. It would stop him from thinking so much about his troubles by giving him something to worry about.”

  “He’s not a bad dog,” said Christopher. “He does things, you know.”

  He drew his hunting knife and threw it dexterously so that it stuck in a poplar trunk thirty feet away. “Get it, Lurcher!” And the hound trotted obediently over, worked the blade from the trunk, and came back, wagging his tail with joy to lay the knife at his master’s feet and then raise his sorrowful eyes in worship toward the face of Christopher.

  “Without cutting himself!” cried Georgia.

  “You see, Georgia, he’s not such a bad dog.”

  “But he’s a coward, Chris. I never could understand how a Royal could endure any cowardly creature near.”

  This was pressing him very close, and he winced from the thought. “He’s not cruel or treacherous or unkind or bullying or underhanded or disloyal, Georgia,” he argued. “You have to admit that’s a good deal to say for any character.”

  “Is it?” She shrugged her shoulders and then burst out: “I’ll tell you, Chris, it really doesn’t amount to anything. What’s the good of friendship that doesn’t dare to fight for the sake of its friend? What’s the good of love that won’t die for the thing that’s loved? Can you answer me that?”

  VI. A WOMAN OF STEEL

  HE WENT BACK to the house with Georgia at his side, sitting lightly in her saddle.

  “All the rest seem to think that it’s the same as sure death to have Harry Main go on the trail of a man, but I don’t feel that way,” said Georgia Lassiter. “I know that courage and the right have a force in the world. I thank heaven for that faith. And... I want to have our engagement announced tomorrow... before anything can happen to you.”

  He caught at the bridle of her horse, but she reined the chestnut dexterously out of his reach.

  “Georgia! Georgia! Do you mean that?”

  “Why, of course I mean that, silly.”

  “And then... suppose that something happens...?”

  “Something may happen to you, but that won’t kill my love for you, dear. You don’t suppose that because a bit of a bullet might strike you down, Chris, it would strike down my love also? No, I laugh at such an idea. I’ve no fear of myself! And once I’ve let the world know that I love Christopher Royal and intend to marry him, I’ll never change my mind. Nothing can change it. I tell you, Chris, that I’d be as true to your ghost as to yourself”

  She said it with a fiery enthusiasm, her nostrils dilating a little. He thought that there was something rather more knightly than womanly in her bearing. It seemed odd to Christopher that his mother and this girl, both so deeply in his life, should have such a strength between them. And he such a weakness!

  “Georgia,” he breathed, “I wish... I wish...”

  “What do you wish?”

  “I wish that there didn’t have to be any change, but that the two of us could just go on like this forever... no tomorrow... no yesterday...”

  “You’d get hungry after a while,” observed Georgia.

  “That’s the way that the gods live,” said Christopher. “Always in the present, with no sorrow for what has been and no dread of what is to come.”

  “Chris, you’re talking like a pagan priest.”

  “To be like this, Georgia dear, with you on your horse, within the sweep of my arm, and I walking here beside you, and the good rich yellow sunshine pouring down on us both, and the face of that river always silver ahead of us... don’t laugh, if you please!”

  “I won’t laugh. You frighten me when you talk like that.”

  “Frighten you? You?”

  “Do you think that I can never be frightened?”

  “Yes, I’ve always thought that.”

  “I’ll tell you what, Chris. If something happens... oh, why should I beat about the bush? I mean... suppose that Harry Main actually kills you, I’ll have to go the rest of my life like this... I mean, with my back turned on what’s around me and always looking away on the times when you and I were together and alone. There aren’t many of those times. I suppose that I’ll begin to wonder why I didn’t spend every moment with you while I had the chance, and why I didn’t beg you to marry me quickly, and why I didn’t have a baby to keep after you. And... I’m getting so sorry for myself that I’ll be crying in another minute!”

  Christopher could not answer, for such a coldness of dread and of sorrow had grown up in him that he felt the very nerves of his knees unstrung, and a horrible weakness of spirit passing over him. “Georgia, you’d better go on home.”

  “No, I want to talk to your mother first.”

  “There’s no good in that. You understand? I don’t want to talk about Harry Main. I don’t want to think about him... until I have to.”

  She swung the chestnut closer and dropped her arm over his shoulders. “I know,” she said. “That’s the right way... not to worry about the game until it has to be played. But heaven won’t dare to let Harry Main win.”

  He looked up to answer her. She kissed him, and then galloped the chestnut away. He watched her across the fields. Lurcher, who had followed the galloping pony to the first fence, stood up with a forefoot resting on the lower rail and looked after her with a low whining which was the nearest approach to a voice of any kind that people had ever heard him use.

  There was something wonderfully touching, to Christopher, in the dumb excitement and grief of the dog. He called Lurcher back to him, and went on into the house where he found the letter that laid the last stone in the wall of his misfortune.

  It came from Harry Main, and it said simply:

  They’ve brought me news about how Cliff died. I’m coming down into your valley as soon as I can. That ought to be by about Thursday. I suppose that you’ll want to meet me somewhere around Royal Town. Wherever you say will suit me fine. I’m coming to Yates’s Saloon to talk to old Yates. And you could leave a message with him for me.

  Yours very truly,

  Harry Main.

  It was all so very quietly written, and so rather gentle in a way, that Christopher could hardly believe that the quiet words which he had been reading could have flowed from the pen of the man whose terrible guns had brought him such a crimson fame throughout the land. But, after all, Christopher knew perfectly well that the loud-mouthed and cursing heroes are of a very inferior breed compared with the silent and workmanlike gunfighters who build their fame by actions rather than by boasts.

  He read and re-read that letter, and then he showed it to his mother. She read it with care, as though it were a much longer document.

  “I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Royal, “because I’d hoped that you would not be destroying such a thorough man as this letter seems to be from. I’d hoped that you would simply be facing a vagabond and a bullying scoundrel. But it seems that Harry Main is not that sort. It’s a very good letter, Chris. Don’t you think so, dear?”

  He could nod in answer to this.

  “One feels so much assured strength and self-reliance in it,” she went on. “And no cursing, and no boasting, and no threatening. In fact, it’s just the sort of a letter that I would hope to see you write, Chris, if you were in a similar position!”

  He said, “if one of my brothers were killed, would you want me to ride down to murder the murderer, Mother?”

  He was curious, and listened to her with a sort of detached
interest, although he knew her answer beforehand.

  “No,” said Mrs. Royal, “I shouldn’t expect you to do anything like that... not trail until your older brothers had ridden out first, l mean to say!” She added this as a sort of afterthought.

  “But suppose that they all went down, one after the other...?”

  “Oh, of course, you would go! Why do you ask such a foolish question?”

  “Because in some parts of the country they think that the law should be left to handle such work as this.”

  “In some parts of the land,” she replied, “the law is a grown-up force, but it’s not grown-up out here. It’s simply a child. And one poor sheriff has less chance of keeping order among the wild men of these mountains than a single little boat would have of policing the seven seas. So that’s why there’s a different code. And there has to be. Manhood is the mainly important thing. Just sheer manhood. That’s what we have to worship out here.”

  He could see that there was no use trying to persuade her into another viewpoint, for she had lived so long in this land and had grown so inured to its strange ways that she could not feel or think in any fashion other than this. She believed in the lynch law for cow and horse thieves, for instance, and there was on record a case when she masked herself and rode with the mob to see justice done. And yet there was very little of the iron to be seen in her face. She was rather a small woman, delicately made, and her hand was smaller, indeed, than the hand of Georgia Lassiter’s. Her carriage was as daintily erect as Georgia’s, too, and her laughter had almost as young a ring in it. Youth might wear a different face in Mrs. Royal, but its heart was not greatly altered.

  “There are still forty or fifty years for growing old,” she loved to say, “and I’ll never use them all.”

  “What do you mean?” someone would always ask her.