by Max Brand
I looked up quickly from my shelter, and there I saw, on the edge of the cliff, five hundred feet above my head, a rider on a big mule outlined against the sky.
No matter who it was, I felt that I was safe for the moment, at least. The cliff was almost sheer, and from that distance rifle fire could not harm me behind my broken wall of rocks. Then a yell of amazement and alarm tore its way out of my throat, for the mule pitched head-first over the edge of the height!
I could not help blinking my eyes shut. But when I looked out again, toward the base of the cliff, expecting to see a confused, shapeless heap of beast and man, I found that the base of the rocks was still clean. Far up above me was mule and man, and still pitching down through thinnest air — yet not falling!
No, as a great mountain sheep pitches from a ridge and bounces down a frightful wall of rock, striking its feet here and there on almost imperceptible ridges to check the impetus of its descent, so that weird mule dropped out of the sky above me and zig-zagged to the table-land immediately before me.
I watched the face of the rider during the latter part of that wild descent. He was a Negro; but he was not showing the whites of his eyes. He had leaned himself far back in the saddle, of course, to keep from overbalancing his mount, but otherwise he showed no more concern than I would have shown in taking my chestnut for a gallop across prairie land!
When they were safe below, however, trouble began. The mule — it was a big, mouse-colored animal close to sixteen hands in height — seemed to be in a sort of happy frenzy, and having swooped like a bird through the air. it seemed to disdain its rider. It began to dance and side jump with pricking ears, while the Negro clung to the saddle with both hands, yelling: “Hey, you, Roanoke, you fool mule! Hey, Roanoke! Ain’t you got no sense? How’m I botherin’ you now? Hey, Roanoke! Quit it-or-”
Here Roanoke performed a maneuver something like the snapping of a whip. The Negro shot from the saddle, turned a somersault in the air, and landed unharmed — by good luck — on his hands and feet. As for the mule, since it had shaken off its rider, it started for the nearest outcropping of bunch grass, with which the little plateau was dotted, and began to feed.
Its master stood up and licked his scratched hands. Then he burst into a torrent of cursing. Finally he took Roanoke by the reins and drew a gun.
“Roanoke,” said he, “I’ve knowed you, boy and man, for five years, and I ain’t seen nor heard tell no good about you. If they was ever a dog-gone man- killin’, wuthless mule, it’s you. Roanoke, you is coming to your last day!”
He raised the gun.
I stopped him with a shout which startled him, so that he jumped away and whirled around on me with the gun leveled. When he saw my face he uttered a wild yell and dropped the gun to the rocks.
“Oh, Mr. Porfilo!” cried he. “I ain’t meanin’ you no harm! For de Lawd’s sake, don’t shoot, sir!”
All this time he had his two long arms stretched high above his head, and he was fairly dancing with terror.
Roanoke was already back at his cropping of the bunch grass. As for me, I had not made so much as a motion toward my gun.
“I’m not going to harm you, friend,” said I. “Have you ever heard of me doing an unprovoked murder?”
“I ain’t heard no harm about you, Mr. Porfilo,” said the Negro, and he quaked more than ever.
“Put your hands down and take up your gun,” said I. “Will you tell me if Roanoke makes a habit of coming down cliffs like that one?”
When he saw that I really meant him no harm, he recovered his spirits a little, but he refused to touch his gun, and merely kicked it to a greater distance, as if he feared that while it was near him I might misunderstand some chance gesture of his hands. I offered him the “makings,” and he accepted them with a grin. His spirits began to rise at once.
“This here is something that I didn’t never expect,” said he. “I never thought that old Pete Garvey would be sittin’ on a cloud smokin’ with Leon Porfilo. I never thought of that!”
Below us there was a thin mist blown on the wind, so that there was some semblance of reason for this metaphor.
“Why do you want to kill your mule, Garvey?” said I.
“Because,” said he, “I never know whether I’m gonna be sittin’ in the saddle or standin’ on my head on a rock, the next minute, while I’m ridin’ that fool Roanoke.”
I looked at the mule again. Even its head was smaller and better formed than I had ever seen in another of its kind, and it had the strong, sinewy neck of a stallion, with the body and legs of a thoroughbred. I pointed out those qualities to Pete, and he grinned again.
“That mule is what you might call a mistake, Mr. Porfilo,” said he. “I was workin’ for Mr. Morris Carney, takin’ care of some of his fine hosses, and one of the mares went roamin’ too far afield, you might say. Well, sir, when the time come, Roanoke come out in the world, and he’s got all the brains and the meanness of a blood hoss and a jackass rolled into one! He’s mean because he knows too much, not because he’s a fool!”
I smiled at this idea, and then I asked him if the mule often made such a cliff as this one which he had just descended as an ordinary trail.
“He seen a mountain goat dancin’ in the air one day,” said Peter Garvey, “and he didn’t never rest till he tried the same thing. First time it happened, I was huntin’ along the edge of a cliff, and this dog-gone son of an eagle, he jest dipped over the side. I give one look to the sky, because that was where I hoped I’d be goin’ when that mule got through drivin’ a hole in the rocks of the valley that was half a mile under us.
“But he didn’t drive no hole; he just went bouncin’ and slidin’ and glidin’ down like he was half on wings and half on rubber. We come down, and when I looked back behind me from below, I says to myself that the good Lord, he sure done hitched a rope onto Roanoke and me. But about the next day he done the same thing. Dog-gone me if the nerve strain ain’t plumb wore out this nigger!”
“Does he ever make a misstep?” asked I.
“Misstep? He’s got some sort of glue in his feet, Mr. Porfilo,” said Pete. “They ain’t no way for him to slip. Now he could turn right around and run up that cliff with me on his back and think nothin’ of it. It ain’t what he does goin’ up or down that I mind — it’s what he does after he gets to the flat. He gets so riled up and proud of himself playin’ buzzard and eagle that when he gets a chance, he does a dance like an Indian and lands me mostly on my head!”
He rubbed that powerfully constructed dome with great sympathy, and I cut short his sorrow by interrupting him and offering him a perfectly manageable — but lame — mare for the mule as it stood.
By the way of Pete Garvey in approaching that mare, I knew that he understood horseflesh. She was not a real beauty. Her head was spoiled with a Roman nose, and at that time she was thin enough to show every rib, which is apt to spoil the looks of a veritable Eclipse. But Pete Garvey was not bothered by superficials. First he examined the lame leg and then looked at me with an irrepressible grin which told me that he very well understood that it was only a minor ailment which could be cured by another day’s rest. Then he went over the rest of the chestnut inch by inch. Before he finished, his grin clove his face squarely in two.
“Mr. Porfilo,” said he, “I been always a mighty good friend, unbeknownst to you, and I dunno but that I might take this here mare off your hands to please you — and give you my Roanoke mule for nothin’!”
“Pete, you scoundrel!” said I, “that’s a five-hundred-dollar mare, and you know it. Did you ever see a mule that was worth that much?”
“Did you ever see a wall-climbin’ mule?” said Pete.
He was very much at his ease now. His life had been spared, and money had been put into his pocket. No wonder, then, that his chest enlarged, but his very next speech made me glad that I had brought him to a talkative mood, for he said:
“You bein’ up here ain’t because Mr. Andrew Chase i
s callin’ on you, Mr. Porfilo?”
I presume that I changed color, for I felt the eyes of the Negro fixed curiously upon me.
“Tell me what you know about Chase,” said I.
He told me what he knew, which was brief enough. Andrew Chase had entered the mountains freely proclaiming upon all sides that he intended to hunt me down and meet me single-handed. I felt, with a gripping chill about the heart, that Andrew would accomplish his purpose. The mere thought of failure could not be connected with his name.
I left Pete Garvey with thanks for his tidings, and I mounted the mule after I had transferred saddle and bridle to it. Pete assured me that that mule knew far more than any human being he had ever met, and before another hour was out I was inclined to agree with the Negro. Roanoke knew exactly what slope he could climb and what slope was too steep for him. He knew what cliff he could descend like a bouncing mountain goat, and he knew what one did not supply a sufficient number of footholds to check the downward rush.
How my spirits soared! By the cut of Roanoke’s body, I knew that he had speed over the flat enough to keep off the rush of any cow pony; but I knew, also, that no mule ever bred could face the rush of a thoroughbred sprinter such as some of the outlaws and the men of the law kept in the mountains. However, unless one intended to fly straight down one of the long valleys, there were not very many opportunities to use a horse over easy terrain, and when it came to mountain work, those who pursued me had better try to catch a mountain sheep!
All the rest of that day I was gayly employed remapping, in my mind, all the trails that I knew in the region round about. Many and many a dizzy short cut was marked out for future use.
Not until the dark came did the thought of Andrew Chase return gloomily upon me.
For Andrew, in the meantime, had advanced into the heart of my country, and that very afternoon he had his first historic interview with Mike O’Rourke. It was not odd that he should have known that she was probably aware of my whereabouts; it was only rare that he should have had enough self-assurance to think that she would be apt to betray to him anything that she knew about me.
For the whole reach of the mountains understood very well that Mike and I were friends. They had known it well for more than a year, when I betrayed my hand by making a foolish present to her.
She had lost a pet horse — a beautiful little pinto with the eyes and the legs of a deer. It had broken a leg in a hole in the ground and had been destroyed. I, full of her sorrow, swore to myself that I would find something to take her trouble away, and I had in mind the very horse.
Old “Cam” Tucker, who had a small ranch near Buffalo Bend, in the river bottom, knew horses better than most men know themselves, and the prize of his whole outfit was a dainty little cream-colored mare, not a shade over fifteen hands high, but made like a watch for compact strength and beauty. When I saw her silver mane and tail shining in the sun, I had thought of Mike on her back; when I heard that the pinto was dead, I struck straight back for Buffalo Bend and got at night to the place of Cam Tucker.
I bought a beautiful little mare off him which I presented to Mike. I had not thought that he would talk, but he did, and the tale of my purchase spread like wildfire.
So it was not remarkable that Andrew should have heard of the affair, but how could he have had the effrontery to go to her for information?
There is another way of explaining it. He may have gone, not in the hope of getting immediate information, but simply to find out how true the report of her beauty might be. If he satisfied himself that she was worth a little trouble
Ah, well, that thought came to me afterward, when the damage had been done!
XXI. APPEALING TO MIKE
HOW MUCH I would have given to be near when handsome Andrew Chase stood over little Mike O’Rourke, bowing to her as if she were a great lady, while the black charger, Tennessee, tossed its head in the background!
Ah, what a horse was Tennessee, and what a man was Andrew! How they were intended by Providence to set off one another! I suppose that Mike had never seen such a horse. Certainly she had never seen such a man, for though the best young men of the range dropped in to pay their respects to her, they were fellows who could not help polishing themselves up before they went to call.
They made themselves as gaudy as Mexicans, almost, but when Mike looked up to Andrew she looked up to a gentleman, and there is something in a woman which responds to that mysterious quality in a man. Not that she is always won by courtesy and the other qualities which go with gentility, so subtle, most of them, that they lack a name; indeed, she may prefer some rough-and-ready fellow.
She may like a good-natured clown; but she will know the real gentleman when she sees him, unless her eyes are already blinded by love. Then a tinsel imitation may do for her.
However, when Mike saw him I know that she knew him. I suppose that, under all the dust of riding, and in spite of the sweat and the grime, he seemed cleaner to her, in a nameless way, than all the other men she had known.
He introduced himself in the following way: “I am Andrew Chase, an old acquaintance of Leon Porfilo. But I see that you have heard of me, Miss O’Rourke.”
For she had stiffened like a dog that finds bear written most legibly in the bodiless wind.
“I’ve heard of you,” said Mike coldly. “I’ve heard of you from — him!”
No doubt she said it in a tone that implied a great deal. But it took even more to shake the calm of Andrew Chase. He merely smiled at her.
“I suppose that he has given me a rather black name,” said he.
“He’s a queer fellow,” said Mike, “as I suppose you know — if you’ve had much to do with him.
“I’ve always thought him very queer,” said Andrew.
“And square!” said Mike.
“Oh, very,” said Andrew lightly.
She grew so angry that her eyes were dim. “Do you know what he has told me about you?”
“I have an idea,” said he.
“Your idea,” answered Mike, “is that he’s said you are an underhand sneak who hired that Niginski to try a gun at his head; a rich man’s son who used your father’s money to beat him and run him out of the county so that he wouldn’t get your brother into trouble; a bully who used your age and your strength to knock him senseless, once, after he’d fairly beaten that same brother!”
Even Andrew could not quite keep his face under such an attack, but he said:
“I haven’t guessed that he would say all of that. I didn’t know that Porfilo had such — an educated and lively imagination!”
“Oh, let’s be frank,” said Mike; “the same way that Leon is frank. He could have said those things about you, but he didn’t. He simply told me that you are the best-looking man he knows, and the man with the best mind, and the strongest and bravest man he knows, and the man he’s most afraid of in the world!”
She had a way, of course, of knowing how to startle people, and there’s no doubt that she startled Andrew Chase with this talk. He only blinked at her and rubbed his chin.
“I know that you’re joking,” said he very feebly.
“But I’m not,” said she. “I’m telling you the very honest truth!”
To this he replied gravely: “Then I have to revise what I’ve thought of him. He’s just what you say — an unusual man!”
“Will you tell me why you came to see me?” said she.
“Because I expect to spend a good deal of time in this part of the mountains.”
“Trailing poor Leon!”
“Exactly!”
This was her own frankness sent back to her, and she squinted at the handsome face of Andrew to make out what might lie in his mind.
“You’ve picked an odd person to tell it to,” said Mike, beginning to glow again.
“I suppose some might think so,” said he. “But since I’m to be around this part of the mountains so long, I wondered if you and I might not be friends — in a way — not re
al friends, perhaps — but friendly enough to say ‘How do you do?’ when we—”
She held up a finger at him. “You expect Leon to come down here to see me, and then you’ll be waiting! But I’ll warn him, Mr. Andrew Chase!”
“If you warn him, will that keep him away?” said Andrew.
She drew in her breath and then checked the words that were about to come out. She saw tragedy very near, and it frightened her.
“I don’t know what to say,” said Mike.
“Why,” he suggested, “just say that, no matter what a war there may be between Leon and myself, so long as I fight fairly, man to man, single-handed, against him, there is no real reason why I shouldn’t sit on your front porch once in a while or help you water the garden.”
From almost any other person such talk would have made her suspicious, I have no doubt. But one couldn’t very well accuse such a man as Andrew Chase of making foolish proposals to a girl he had met only a minute before — and under such conditions! If Mike was shocked at first, she was interested afterward.
“Well,” said she in her open way, “you rather beat me, Mr. Chase.”
“I’m sorry for that,” said he. “But perhaps you’ll let me explain why I have to go after Leon Porfilo?”
“I will,” said she, “of course!”
“There is a great deal of ugly talk afloat,” said he. “Some of it is absurd. Such as the rumor that I bribed Niginski to go after Porfilo. That rumor has so much body to it that even a clear-headed person like yourself has taken it to heart a little, I’m afraid. Although I hope to convince you that I’m not the sort of a person who hires others to do his fighting for him!”
I think no one could have looked squarely into his calm, courageous eyes, as Mike was doing at that moment, and then accuse him of being a sneak and traitor. She shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m beginning to feel that I don’t know what to think,” said Mike.
“That’s something for me to build on,” said Andrew. “In the meantime, those rumors have grown and grown, until I had to end them one way or another. The only way I can find is to come single-handed into the valley and try to find Mr. Porfilo. Then, to be blunt and brutal, I intend to fight it out with him, man to man. In the opinion of the world, the survivor will be right. No, I think after such a fight, no matter what they have said of me before, they will agree that I wouldn’t have undertaken such a thing if I were a sneak or a coward.”