by Max Brand
Harry Main listened and positively gaped with childish wonder, and with horror also, for he could not feel that this was stage playing. There was a ring of such tremendous sincerity and honesty about the words of Christopher that a more skeptical man than Harry Main would have been convinced.
Main said: “I’m about to finish you off, Royal. I dunno that it’s any pleasure to me to have to kill you, but you took that out of my hands and left me no choice in it. You murdered poor Cliff...”
“That was a perfectly fair fight,” declared Christopher.
“Fair?” cried Main, his hot temper rising. “Why everybody knows that Cliff was only a kid!”
“He was two years older than I,” answered Christopher.
The heat of Harry Main increased. For, having found no ready answer, he was naturally all the more enraged, and he exclaimed: “You ain’t gunna be allowed to sneak out of that blood this way, Chris Royal!”
“Sneak out? Sneak out?” said Christopher. “Why, man, I’ll tell you an honest fact... I was never so glad of anything as I am of the sight of you tonight!”
“The hell you are!” growled the gunfighter, and he stared more closely at Christopher Royal.
But it was true. Yes, it was very true. He would have been the worst sort of a blind man not to see that Christopher meant all that he said and had not the slightest fear of his famous antagonist.
“Oh, yes,” said Christopher, “but since you seem a decent fellow, Harry, I rather hate to have to send you after your brother.”
“D’you hate to do that?” snarled Main. “Why, I’m ready to tear your heart out, if you got the guts to stand up to me!”
Another cross passed like a shadow over the face of Christopher. And then he shrugged his shoulders, as though to get rid of the idea.
“Well?” asked Main sharply.
“I’m thinking of the long stretch after I’ve dropped you, Harry, as drop you I surely shall. And, besides, I’m wondering if we wouldn’t both be happier if we had sunlight instead of moonshine for our work.”
“Moonlight is good enough,” declared Main.
Christopher nodded. “You’re getting nervous, I see,” he said very kindly. “And if that’s the case, why, we’ll have it out now, man, of course. I suppose that you might become rather a nervous wreck if you had to wait until the morning.”
“To the devil with your coolness!” cried Harry Main. “Me turn into a nervous wreck? I ain’t got a nerve in my body, and, when it comes the time for the guns to work, I’m gunna show you I mean what I say.”
“You shoot very well, I hear,” said Christopher.
“That’s best told,” said Harry Main darkly, “by them that ain’t no longer got a voice in this here world.”
“By the dead, you mean?” interpreted Christopher, nodding. “You’ve killed a great many people. I’ve heard that you’ve killed all of fourteen men, Main?”
“Up to tonight, and not counting the greasers, yes. And you’ll be the fifteenth white man.”
“I shall?”
Christopher looked at Harry Main and then smiled brightly and carelessly, as though to announce that he did not care to argue such an absurd suggestion. And a little mist of perspiration — a cold sweat — came out upon the forehead of Harry Main.
“All right,” said Christopher, “if you’re not afraid to wait until the morning...”
“Do you think that you can bluff me out? I’ll have your nerves all frazzled out if you wait that long in the same house with me.”
“Will you?” murmured Christopher, stretching his arms out luxuriously. “Well, you watch me.”
And he threw himself down on the bed, took a turn in the blanket, and was almost instantly asleep, leaving Harry Main standing by the door, with the killing power still gathered in his face and a strangely empty and foolish feeling in his heart.
XIII. READY
IT MUST BE admitted that it was a most peculiar situation for Harry Main. He had most certainly prophesied to himself that Christopher Royal, in spite of the shooting of Cliff, had turned yellow when he started up toward the higher mountains and, with that sense of surety supporting him, Harry Main had proceeded with a sort of contemptuous carelessness on the trail of revenge. He had never started out on a manhunt without feeling that he was superior in his skill with guns to any other man on the range.
And now this surety had been snatched out of his hands. He sat down and watched the pale, slow hand of the moonlight stretch across the floor and find the hand and then the face of Christopher. He stood up, leaned over the sleeper, and saw that he was smiling as in the midst of a happy dream.
No wonder that Main scratched his unshaven chin in great anger and perturbation. Such coolness was absolutely inexplicable to him, because it never occurred to him that Christopher had been existing in this cabin under the shadow of a fear so much more awful than that of any human being that it made even the hostile presence of Harry Main not a terror but an actual comfort. And having no key to the situation, Harry Main began to feel that, so far from having reached a craven fugitive, he had come up with the bravest man he had ever known.
But to have fallen asleep in the presence of the gunfighter the great and celebrated Harry Main — that surely was a thing not to be believed. And sleeping — yes, and snoring — that lad most certainly was. Why, then, had Christopher left the valley? Simply because he wished to take the ugliness of battle away from the vicinity of his home? It had seemed a most hollow sham and pretext to Harry Main, at the first, but now he began to believe that there must be something to it.
He began to regard Christopher Royal more closely, and there was much about him that deserved the narrowest scrutiny. He watched the heaving of the high-arched chest while the young fellow slept, and he regarded the wide and smooth slope of the shoulders, and the strength of the jaw, and, above all, the long-fingered hands. Men said that there was both infinite might and great speed in those hands, and Harry Main, who was an expert in such affairs, could well believe it. The weight of a Colt, for instance, would be no greater than that of a feather to the power of this man, and the round wrist and the tapering fingers promised the most flashing and dazzling speed of execution.
Now it seemed to Harry Main, at about this time, that the hours of the night were marching along with a very painfully slow step, and that the morning lingered with disgusting persistence beneath the edge of the eastern sky.
He himself tried to lie down and to rest, but, when he had stretched himself out in a resolute composure and closed his eyes, it always seemed to Harry Main that his terrible young companion was slowly opening his eyes, then peering sidewise, and then sitting up and reaching for a gun... At that point of his imaginings Harry Main would be snatched out of semi-slumber and sit up with a jerk, only to find Christopher Royal sleeping most peacefully.
Two or three times this was repeated, and at last Main abandoned all attempts at resting. He stood by the door, or he walked up and down outside it, watching a pale mist that had boiled across the face of the moon and that was now gathering under the heads of the great forest trees. Frequently, however, he had to drag himself away from his thoughts and peer through the open door at young Christopher.
Rage began to grow up in the breast of Harry Main. He felt that by a low trickery Christopher Royal was enjoying a heartening and strengthening rest, whereas he, Harry Main, who had entered that house with the drop on the man he wanted and who had surrendered that advantage willingly because he did not choose to murder but preferred to fight — he, Harry Main, walked up and down through the night fog and wondered what the devil had ever entangled poor Cliff with this cold-nerved devil of a boy!
Why not end the matter, now that there was no eye to watch? Main strode through the door with the Colt ready in his hand. But, when he leaned over the sleeper, his finger withdrew from the trigger. Once before, and long ago, just such a crime as this had attracted Harry Main, and on that occasion he had not resisted temptation.
But he had long since vowed that he would never have another such stain upon his conscience.
So he went back to the door, stealthily, without making a sound, as he thought. Then, turning around, he found the eyes of the supposed sleeper fixed steadily upon him. It was far from a pleasant experience for Main.
Christopher sat up and yawned in his face.
“It was better not to do that,” he nodded. “I see that you’re all shot to pieces, Main. And look here... if you want to postpone this business until the nerves have had a chance to settle down again, of course I’m agreeable to that. I don’t want to hurry you ahead, you understand.”
“Hurry me ahead? Hurry me ahead?” snarled Main. “Why, if the daylight would only come, I’d polish you off in half a second.”
“Polish me off?” smiled Christopher, standing up and stretching forth his arms. “Well, man, the day has begun.”
“What!”
“It’s a thick mist. We often have ’em in this hollow. And that’s what blankets the sun away. But... look here. It’s seven o’clock. And let me know, old fellow, if you want to fight now, or after breakfast?”
There was such a world of good humor in his voice that Harry Main felt his heart shrink into a cold, small knot.
“Now,” said Main steadily. “You can bring in the gun work now, and I’ll be contented. But damn me if I’ll wait for another five minutes to play the nurse to you!”
“Nurse?” laughed Christopher Royal. “Well, well, the odd thing about it all, from my viewpoint, is that when I left the valley I was actually afraid of you, old fellow. Frightened to death of you. And now, as a matter of fact, I’m almost sorry that I shall have to turn loose a gun upon you.”
Harry Main lowered his head a little for the purpose of scowling out beneath his gathered brows at the other, when he suddenly realized that no facial expressions were apt to daunt the very composed self-sufficiency of this young man. He could not help saying suddenly: “Royal, when you left the valley, it wasn’t to meet me up here. I dunno why you sent me the letter. But I know that you never intended to meet me here.”
“What letter?” asked Christopher.
“What letter? Why, the one where you told me that you’d be waiting for me in this cabin... the one that the Chink brought down to Yates’s place for me.”
It took the breath of Christopher to hear this. Certainly he had dispatched no such letter, and there was no one in the world who knew where he intended to hide himself with the exception of his mother. But could she have done such a thing, and betrayed him to his enemy? Then, in a blinding flash, he understood everything, and the prayer which she must have breathed to have her son dead rather than shamed — her blind hope, too, that when the crisis came he might find a mysterious strength to meet the emergency. And he had done so. For, whether he could master Harry Main or not he could not tell, but master himself he certainly had.
So he looked up again to Main and said gently: “You’ve guessed the facts. I was afraid of you when l left.”
“Then what happened?”
“Something that you wouldn’t understand. There’s no use in trying to talk about it or to explain.”
“I’d like to judge that for myself.”
“I’ll tell you this,” said Christopher suddenly. “After what has happened to me up here, I feel as though there’s no real harm that can be done by a bullet.”
“All right,” said Harry Main. “I guess that’s beyond me.”
“And there,” said Christopher, “is a bit of blue sky for you. It’s broad enough day, and I suppose that we have to go through with this thing.”
“We do,” said the gunfighter solemnly.
“Notwithstanding that I wasn’t at fault with your brother?”
“You?”
“I give you my word of honor, Main, that I tried to back out of the fight. I didn’t want his blood on my hands. I didn’t want to fight with anybody, as a matter of fact.”
Harry Main listened with a thoughtful frown, and again he felt the transparent honesty of this youth and felt a shudder go through him. “That ain’t what matters,” he said at last. “The only fact that counts is that you stood up to poor Cliff and killed him, and now everybody expects me to stand up to you and kill you... or to do my best. And that’s what I’m here for.,,
“I understand,” nodded Christopher. “Your reputation for being invincible is worth more to you than your life. You’ve got to risk that to protect your good fame. Well... there’s nothing that I can say to that.”
“No,” declared Harry Main, “there ain’t anything you can say. But are you ready?”
“Ready,” said Christopher, and they walked out of the little cabin side by side.
“It ain’t much better than moonshine, though,” said Main, regarding the fog which hung in dense clouds through the trees. “We’ll have to stand close to each other with our guns, old-timer.”
“Yes, that seems logical.”
“But, by heaven, kid, you’re the coolest hand that I ever had to shoot at. We’ll take ten paces.”
“All right. Which way?”
“Stand here. I’ll measure off the distance.”
He stalked ten strides away, halted, and spun about toward Christopher.
“Are you ready, Royal?”
“Ready!”
XIV. BEYOND FEAR
NO MATTER WHAT doubts had been passing through the mind of Harry Main during the long hours of the night, they deemed to disappear, now that he faced his foe in the open, and it seemed to Christopher that the very body of the other man swelled with passion. A gathering battle fury glittered in the eyes of the gunfighter. He was like a bull terrier that seems to have a ten-fold power poured into it by the mere chance to bare his teeth at an enemy.
As for Christopher, he felt no passion, and certainly least of all did he feel fear. The fury that was rising in the other would have appalled him beyond words only the day before, as he well knew. But now he was possessed of a perfect calm, a cool indifference, and, though he stood on the ground at point-blank range from this proved man slayer, he had the attitude of one who looks on a strange scene from a great distance. Instead of fear, out of that calmness a great sense of superior might flowed through him. He looked at the terrible Harry Main and looked down on him. He remembered what the Indian had said, and of how as a young brave he had careened through the ranks of the enemy, laughing at their bullets, because he was conscious of a stranger and more deadly fate than mere bullets or arrows could deal out to him.
So it was with Christopher Royal. As he stared at Harry Main, he could not help wondering where that other and haunting shadow might be, and was it not ever present, watching the man who had been marked down for it? And the instant that Harry Main was gone, would not that devilish film of a creature be at his heels once more?
“Harry,” he called.
“Go for your gun!” said the other, trembling with a dreadful eagerness. “Go for your gun, kid. I give you the first chance!”
It was like a wrestler offering his hand openly to a weaker foe, but Christopher merely smiled.
“Go for your gun!” yelled the gunfighter again.
“I want to ask you for the last time,” said Christopher, “to think the thing over, will you? I don’t fear you, Main. But there’s no reason I should try to kill you, and there’s no reason why you should kill me. Do you think that you will ever be taunted for not having butchered me? No, people know you too well, and your record is too long.”
“My record is a fighting man’s record,” said the killer, growing momentarily more savage. “I’m no damn chattering jay... like you. I’ve give you warning, Royal!”
“I’ve heard your warning, and I take it,” said Christopher, “but I won’t go for my gun first.”
“What?”
“I mean what I say. Make the first move, if you will. I’ll never shoot except in self-defense, man!”
“By heaven!” cried the other, “your bl
ood is on your own head, for being a fool. I offer you the free chance. There ain’t nobody here to report it on you.”
“Except one’s conscience,” said Christopher, “and that’s enough!”
A wolf howled up the valley, and a sudden shudder went through the body of Christopher. It seemed that the other noted it, for he said instantly: “That varmint is going to yell again in a minute. He’s got something cornered! He’ll yell again, and, when he yells, that’ll be the signal for us, Royal. You agree?”
“Yes,” said Christopher, feeling that there was a sort of hidden fate in this arrangement, “I agree to that. He’ll howl a death yell for one of us!”
“Exactly. Afterwards, kid, I’ll treat you fine. I’ll see that you don’t lie here and rot in the middle of the woods. I’ll cart your body down into the valley where somebody can find you on the road and let your folks know.”
“Thank you,” said Christopher.
He looked a trifle away. He raised his head boldly and looked up to the smoke-white mist, now riven away in the heart of the sky so that dim, delightful blue shone through.
“Are you prayin’, kid?” asked the gunfighter savagely.
“No, no,” said Christopher. “I’m only pitying you, Main.”
He said it so impulsively and so gently that Harry Main started convulsively. He had been in a hundred battles but never before had he seen a man in the presence of death conduct himself in such a manner as this. He was amazed, and the awe took possession of the very nerves of his fingers and made them half numb. He rubbed the knuckles of his right hand swiftly into the palm of his left — swiftly, for at any moment the fatal cry of the wolf might ring up the hollow.
“And if the bad luck should come to you, Harry,” said Christopher Royal, “where shall I take you, and where shall I send your last message?”
“Cut out all this fool’s talk!” snarled the other. “I don’t want to hear no more of it!”
“What, man? Is there no one to whom you want to send your last thoughts? Is there no kindness for any one?”