by Max Brand
He did not listen to her. He hardly heard her voice. He was filled with his own thoughts, which were already in a faraway country where dollars grew more readily than they grew in Brooklyn. He was thinking of the accounts which flooded newspapers and magazines from time to time of great fortunes scooped up by a single gesture of the wise men.
In crises we are apt to stop thinking and fall back upon superstitions, religion, fairy tales. So did young Sammy Gregg. He decided to follow his new vision. It was a “hunch,” and for the first time in his life he was about to do a risky thing. I had to explain all of this because without understanding a little of the background of Sammy, it would be quite impossible to make head or tail of him as he was when he appeared before the grinning populace of Munson, that rude little city in the Western hills.
But if Sammy performed at times feats which seemed well beyond his strength, you must remember that there was a spur driven constantly into his soul — the loss of Susie.
He was in a constant misery. For he was away from her!
CHAPTER II. IN MUNSON
THE TRAIN STOPPED, and Sammy swung down from the steps and reached for a platform, but unfortunately he found none. The sight of that swinging, pawing foot of his, and his skinny leg, was enough to catch half a dozen wicked eyes. He was already being laughed at before he dropped down to the ground and presented all of himself for the first time to the eye of Munson.
Before he had well landed, Lawson himself was in charge. The first thing he did was to let out a yell which so startled young Sammy that he almost leaped backward under the wheels of the slowly moving train.
Sammy, however, was perfectly lacking in the very thing of which Munson was full — self-consciousness. He did not dream, after a moment of reflection, that that yell had been meant for him. So he simply picked up his heavy grip and stepped forward toward the crooked little dusty street where the sign said “hotel.” He stepped forward, and as he walked he settled his hat more firmly on his head.
Alas it was a derby hat!
I cannot tell what made an “iron” hat a mortal offense in the West, but it was. It required an almost presidential reputation to enable a man to keep one on his head. And what reputation had poor Sammy Gregg?
Before he knew it, Lawson had loosed off a couple of bullets that struck the ground in front of Sammy and covered him with a stinging shower of dust and flying gravel. He jumped, of course, straight up into the air.
It brought a shout of willing laughter from everyone, because Lawson never appeared without his “gang.” I wish I could give a thorough picture of Lawson, but I can’t. Words become weak, speaking of the poisonous evil of such natures as his. He was that most gruesome combination — weakness and wickedness combined. He was a coward, a bully, a tyrant, a sneak, a moral wreck of a man; but he was a hero, in Munson, because he could shoot straight. And the consciousness that he could shoot straight always made him brave.
Cowards always make the most horrible tyrants simply because they are so familiar with the emotion which they wish to inspire — fear.
Now the weak mouth of Lawson stretched in a grin. And his little, close-set eyes gleamed under the shadow of his sombrero. He put another bullet neatly in the ground just where the feet of Sammy were about to land, and when they did land, Sammy naturally bounded into the air again.
“Dance, confound you!” yelled Lawson.
But Sammy stood still. He said nothing for a moment, but when another bullet struck the ground at his feet, he said calmly, “I don’t think I’ll dance.”
Lawson was staggered, for suddenly he saw that this little man was not afraid. Then he broke out in a savage roar, “When you speak to a man, take off your hat, tenderfoot!”
He did not wait for Sammy to obey. His gun spoke, and the bullet tore the hat from the head of Sammy. It was very close shooting, no one could deny that. It brought another roar of applause and laughter when the crowd saw Sammy instinctively duck. But then he leaned and picked up his hat and settled it, dusty as it was, upon his head once more.
“You’ll come and liquor with me, kid,” said Lawson. “I’m going to see how your insides act when you get some of Mortimer’s poison inside of you. And bring the other dude along with you, boys!”
Sammy could not keep the center of the stage very long. Not with such a counter attraction as had dismounted from the same train. It was a tall man, a tall, wide-shouldered, handsome man of thirty, perhaps, dressed in a fashion which Munson could not tolerate for an instant, in those days. He wore riding boots, to be sure, but the boots were not under his trousers, and that was a sin, of course. And above the boots rose neat whipcord riding breeches. There was a well-fitted gray coat, and a gray shirt with a shining white stiff collar and a natty bow tie, and this gentleman was finished off with a small gray felt hat on his head. He carried a suitcase of large dimensions with “C.O.F.” stamped in big letters on the side of it.
He made the counter attraction. He looked just as much of a tenderfoot as Sammy did, and there was more of him. The crowd surrounded him in an instant, and he and Sammy were huddled off toward Mortimer’s saloon in a trice.
Huddled off with this difference, that whereas many hands were laid upon Sammy, urging him along, beating his derby hat down over his eyes, cuffing and pawing him, there was not so much as the tip of a finger laid upon the tall man. I cannot tell why. Perhaps it was the calmness of his face and eye. Perhaps it was the wrinkle of his coat between the shoulder blades, telling of ample muscles there. At any rate, though they milled about him, yelling and cursing and laughing, no one touched him, and so the procession burst into Mortimer’s.
He was the headquarters for such affairs, was Mortimer. He was also the gambling partner and the partner in secret murders who worked with my friend Lawson. And he was only just a trifle less savory than Mr. Lawson. He greeted the new victims with a veritable yell of delight and instantly the glasses were set chiming upon the bar. And the big black bottles were spun out.
Lawson stood at one end of the bar and gave directions.
“To the top, kid. To the top, both of you. Fill up them glasses to the top, I tell you!”
Sammy set his teeth and obeyed. He didn’t like it, but neither did he throw away his life for such a small affair as this. So he filled as he was ordered.
But, after that, a deadly hush fell over the bar-room, for it was seen that the tall man, in spite of the order from Lawson, had not touched the waiting bottle to pour his drink.
He spoke before the wrath of Lawson could descend upon him.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “I shall be charmed to drink with you, but first I’d like to give you my name, if you don’t mind.”
He spoke so mildly that they could hardly help but misunderstand him, and the snarl of mockery awoke instantly. However, Lawson appeared to scent an opportunity for further mischief than usual, and he raised his voice to control the murmur.
“All right,” said he. “Let’s hear your name, and darned if I don’t think that it ought to begin with Percy!”
A poor jest, but Lawson did not have to invent very witty remarks in order to win the applause of his fellows. While the laughter was still ringing, however, the big stranger sauntered to the stove. It was a raw spring day with a whistling wind from the snow-tipped mountains of the north, prying through the cracks and sending long, chill fingers of draft waving through the rickety saloon.
The stove was packed with wood; the stove itself was red hot, and the door was open to throw out a greater draft. And in that open door the poker lay, just as it had been dropped when the wood was last stirred and replenished. To this stepped the tall man and drew forth the poker, and with it in his hand he approached the bar.
He raised it, and with the white point he began to write upon the wood. He had half completed the first word of his writing before Mortimer intervened, for this audacity had paralyzed our saloon keeper with rage and wonder. When his voice returned to him, it was like the challenging be
llow of a bull. He clapped the muzzle of his revolver on the edge of the bar. Then from the ample throat of Mortimer throbbed a stream of cursing that filled the room with storming echoes.
The tall man calmly laid down the poker, where it burned a deep gouge in the wood. His left hand glided out unhurrying, but swift as the flick of a whiplash. It laid hold upon the barrel of Mortimer’s gun, so that the bullet of that gentleman hummed idly under the arm of the tenderfoot. And, at the same time, with his right hand he drew forth a hidden Colt revolver, long and heavy and black, placed the muzzle against the breast of Mortimer, and fired.
Mortimer, dead before he struck the floor, collapsed in a pool of crimson behind the bar.
The silence which followed was so intense that the crowd could hear the ticking of a clock in the back room and the hissing of the wood beneath the hot end of the poker as the tall man wrote the rest of his name upon the bar.
“Chester Ormonde Furness,” he wrote, and stood back and dropped the poker to the floor while his name still smoked upon the bar.
“That is my name, gentlemen,” said he. “I trust that you are glad to see me. Gladder, at least, than I am to see you. Because I have been over a considerable section of this little world, and not even in Singapore, where the scum of the world is dropped after it has been skimmed from the pot — not even in Singapore, or in Shanghai, nor in the New York slums, from which I think a good many of you have come, have I seen such a worthless lot of cowardly, sneaking riffraff, fakers, sham giants, cur dogs wearing lion skins. And about the worst in this very bad lot seems to be Mr. Lawson. Will you step out, Mr. Lawson?”
Mr. Lawson had not turned white. His complexion did not permit that color. But he turned a very pale greenish-yellow. He did not step forward. He whirled, instead, toward the door, and tried to spring through it. But, just at that moment, a gun cracked behind him, and a .45-caliber Colt’s bullet cracked the door from top to bottom.
Mr. Lawson did not make the mistake of imagining that it was a missed shot. He stopped in his tracks and turned slowly back to face Chester Ormonde Furness.
“Do you know my name?” said the stranger.
“Yes, Mr. Furness,” said Lawson.
“Why I don’t finish you,” said Furness, “I hardly know. I suppose it’s because there is a sporting instinct in me, and I like to have a little fun with my shooting. I like to give the game a start, so I am going to give you a start, Lawson. Go through that door and start up the street. I’ll follow you with my gun!”
Lawson did not wait for a second invitation. He sprang back through the door and Furness glided after him. And then the rest of awestricken Munson had sight of the terrible Lawson sprinting with all his might down the street while a tall “dude” stood in the road behind him and emptied a Colt, missing him by neatly calculated distances which the crowd could appreciate. For every time Furness fired, Lawson leaped to one side or the other with a wild howl until he found a corner to dodge around into safety.
When Mr. Furness finished his shooting he put away his gun, swiftly and neatly, so that no lump showed where it rested. Then he turned upon the gaping crowd — a tamed, humbled crowd, now grinning sheepishly in anticipation at him.
“I detest trouble,” said Mr. Furness. “I always strive to avoid it. And I want you to remember what I say. I want you to remember it and repeat it to your cronies wherever you may meet them. Tell them that I expect to stay for a considerable time in this town. I expect to become well acquainted with Munson and the neighborhood around it. But I expect to live here in peace. When I say ‘peace,’ I mean it.
“I intend to rent a house and to live quietly in it on the edge of town. I do not wish to have my sleep disturbed at night. And, if there is a noisy riot, I shall come out and put an end to the good time if I can. If a stray bullet from a brawl happens to find its way through my window, you may trust that I shall find the man who fired it.
“Beyond this I wish to say that I desire to have my name handled gently. If there is any vicious talk, I want you to know that I possess an exceedingly sensitive nature, and I shall find the vicious talkers, gentlemen, and I shall kill those vicious talkers if I am able. I am well aware that there is no law in Munson, at the present moment. And I hereby give notice that my own laws I shall enforce with a gun. And now, gentlemen, I want you to understand, finally, that I quite sympathize with the error into which you have fallen concerning me. To you I looked rather soft. If you have found that I am not soft, and if you desire to be my friends, come back with me into the saloon and have a drink at my expense.”
Not a man held back. They were afraid to, perhaps. Or perhaps there were so many of them that they were not ashamed. Because crowds are usually devoid of all noble feeling, even of shame. They went back with the tall man, and he himself went behind the bar and served them, stepping over the body of the dead man that lay on the floor, while he passed out glasses and bottles.
He drank with them most cheerfully, and they noted that he put down the “red-eye” without blinking an eye and without a chaser. They noticed, too, that he paid punctually for the drinks, leaving a bright new gold piece shining upon the bar as he passed out.
The crowd remained behind to chat about this new wonder, to lift the body of Mortimer and give him a dog’s burial just as he had died a dog’s death.
In the street the tall man met the little tenderfoot. He smiled down at little Sammy Gregg, and he found the steady, unshaken, pale-blue eye of Sammy Gregg surveying him gravely.
“Does a man have to be like you to get on in this part of the country?” asked Sammy.
“Not a bit,” said Furness, “but it’s a good thing to be able to take care of yourself. Have you a gun?”
“I never fired a gun in my life.”
“There’s a store. You’d better go buy one, the first thing you do.”
Sammy Gregg shook his head. “I’m no good at a bluff,” he said. “If I wear a gun, it’s a sign that I pretend that I can use it. But I can’t. And I never could afford the time to learn. I’m pressed for time, you see.”
The tall man did not smile. He began to regard the little man more seriously.
“May I ask what your business is?” he said.
“I have no business,” said Sammy, “except to make ten thousand dollars in six months out here. Do you think it can be done?”
“That depends,” said Furness.
“Honestly, I mean.”
“Ah,” said Furness, “that is another story! No, frankly, I’m afraid that you can’t.”
The ferret gleam of eagerness came into the eyes of little Sammy Gregg. “I think that I will, though,” said he.
“Finding a gold mine, then?”
“No, I don’t know what I’ll find. All I want is an opportunity, not a gold mine. And fellows like those,” and he gestured toward the bullet-cracked door of the saloon, “are liable to leave a whole lot of opportunities lying around loose without anybody really claiming them.”
He added: “I ought to thank you, though, for getting me out of that mess.”
“Don’t say a word about it,” said the big man genially. “I was fighting my own battle, and not yours. Affairs have come to such a horrible point around here that a man has to take a killing on his hands whenever he enters a new town, or very nearly that!”
He said this in rather a jesting tone, but still there was something in his manner that made little Sammy open his eyes, and he thought he knew now what he had only guessed in the bar-room, that Mr. Furness was the veteran of a hundred hand-to-hand encounters. And awe and dread filled Sammy, and with it, a certain instinctive dislike.
Others were to feel that same dislike for Furness later on, but Sammy was the first man to sense the danger and the evil in the big fellow. He said goodby rather briskly and swung away down the street.
Opportunity! To really and truly turn five thousand dollars into fifteen in six months!
But one could not examine such country as this on
foot. And there must be horse and saddle procured at once. He went to the store for the saddle and got a secondhand one, a badly worn and tattered one.
“It won’t give you none too comfortable a seat,” the storekeeper advised him frankly.
“I’m not looking for comfort,” said Sammy Gregg. “Now, where can I get a horse and what do I have to pay for it? I hear they have ten-dollar horses out West?”
“Texas is what you mean,” said the storekeeper. “But around here they gobble up everything in the shape of a hoss for fifty dollars. And, up at the Crumbock Mines they’ll pay seventy-five!”
CHAPTER III. SAMMY’S BIG IDEA
THAT WAS ENOUGH for young Sammy Gregg. He was looking for an opportunity, and here, it seemed, was one shoved under his very nose.
Horses cost ten dollars in Texas, in Crumbock they cost seventy-five. Ten from seventy-five left sixty-five dollars for clear profit. Allow fifteen dollars a head for transportation, and the profit was still fifty dollars a head. Very well. For the sake of caution, suppose that he invested only half of his available capital and turned twenty-five hundred dollars into horses. That would give him two hundred and fifty head at ten dollars a head. But fifty times two hundred and fifty was twelve thousand five hundred dollars!
Twenty-five hundred more than the profit he needed and already at hand! Fire began to burn in Sammy Gregg, but he masked it carefully from his face.
“I should think,” said he, “that a lot of people would be in the business of buying Texas horses and selling them in the Crumbock mining region.”
“You would think that,” nodded the storekeeper, “unless you knowed.”
“Knew what?”
“Knew what Texas mustangs is like, for one thing.”
“Well?”
The storekeeper closed his eyes in strained thought, as he reached for a superlative. “Keeping hold of a herd of mustangs,” he said at last, “is like trying to keep hold of a handful of quicksilver. The harder you try to hold it, the farther it spurts away.”