by Max Brand
CHAPTER NINE
WITH THIS PERORATION, the sheriff rose from the table and sauntered to the door. There, standing to one side, he jerked the door suddenly open, and into the room stumbled a startled, blinking youngster.
“Hey!” said he. “What’s the idea?”
He rallied himself, as the sheriff looked down sternly upon him, and in silence.
“Mr. Ogden, I come up here to tell you that I been rolled in Mortimer’s Saloon. They fixed me up and trimmed me proper, and—”
“What’s your name?”
“Hovey.”
“Hovey, what did they roll you for?”
“My whole wad! Two hundred and twenty-five dollars.”
“Who rolled you?”
“I dunno. I was a little woozy with booze yesterday and I—”
“I’ll keep you in mind. If anybody comes around here with two hundred and twenty-five dollars that needs an owner, I’ll take it for granted that it belongs to you. So long, Hovey.”
Mr. Hovey slunk from the room, and the sheriff, turning the key in the lock, came slowly back to the table and sat down. He had his back to the wall, and his face toward the door.
“I never know when that glass will be smashed through and the nose of a rifle poked in at me,” he declared. “They’ll get me some day, of course. You saw how that young cur was spying on me?”
“Why didn’t you collar him?” asked the boy hotly. “Why didn’t you collar him and find out what he meant by trying to eavesdrop?”
“What good would it do?” answered the sheriff wearily. “I know who sent him, I think.”
“Who, then?”
“Fitz Eagan, probably. No, Fitz is above that sort of thing. But some of the other Eagans are not. One of them sent him.”
“And what was he to learn?”
“What I said to you, of course. Do you suppose that every man and woman and child in Monument doesn’t know at this instant that there’s a new deputy come here to file his claim on a grave?”
The youngster pricked his ears at this cheerful speech.
“You have to know the truth,” said the sheriff. “I’ve had three deputies inside of the past year. They’ve all been hard-fighting, straight-shooting men. They’ve all gone down. They’ve all been salted away. You’d better know that before you go any further.”
“I’ve sworn myself in,” said the boy, sourly.
“I’ll swear you out again, my lad. Don’t let that stand in your way. Don’t let any false pride stop you.”
“Four other men heard you swear me in,” protested Signal gloomily. “I didn’t know that Monument was as poison as all this — but now that I’m in the job, I’ll stay with it!”
The sheriff chewed off the end of his cigar and blew it accurately at the spittoon. Then he puffed again for a moment of silence.
“You saw how I had to turn that kid away?” said he. “Rough, wasn’t it?”
“Not if he was a spy.”
“How can I tell that?”
“Sneaking at your door!”
“He might be an honest fellow who came up here and I simply happened to jerk the door open under his nose. The chances are, in any other town, that that would be the right explanation of him. But here in Monument it’s a great deal different.”
Signal nodded.
“The law says that every man is innocent and must be so treated and so regarded until it’s proven that he’s guilty. That’s what the law says, and I try to obey and respect the law. But in Monument you have to look at things from another viewpoint: Every man in Monument is guilty, or else he wouldn’t be here — and in any sort of trouble.”
“That explains!” murmured the boy.
“Explains what?”
“The way people treated me when I asked questions on the street when I first rode in.”
“Ask nothing! That’s the first rule in Monument. Everybody knows what you’re after. If they want to tell you what they know, they will. If they don’t want to tell you, they won’t.”
Signal nodded.
“Now, then,” said the sheriff, “you’ve been introduced a little to Monument ways. I’ll give you the map of the land as it lies today, seven years since Billy Shane found his mine and called it Monument.”
“Because it was on a ledge where an Indian monument had been piled up?”
“You know that much? Well, Billy Shane’s strike started loose into the world a lot of money, and a lot of hell. This is the way that things are lined up here. Monument is marshaled on two sides; I’m the weight that tries to keep things balanced in the center of the scales!
“On one side there’s the Bones and their crew. You’ve heard of the Bones?”
“Never.”
“You have had a mountain range between you and Monument, son. Old Bone has a long white beard. It’s fifteen inches long. He’s killed a man for every inch of it, they say. And he has a pair of sons who are growing up to follow in papa’s footsteps. Jud and Billy. Jud is a liar, a bully, and sometimes a coward. Other times, he’s a fighting devil. And that’s one thing to learn. The man you can bluff with a wooden gun one day will charge a gatling and its whole crew the next. Usually whisky makes the difference. These fellows are usually drunk and foolish; or weak with getting over the liquor; or normal in the times between sprees. You never know how you’ll catch them. Some men fight sober. Most men fight drunk. You have to know your man. Then there’s Charlie Bone. He’s dead game by nature. He laughs when he fights. A wicked sort of a scrapper that makes, as you may be able to guess for yourself.
“Along with the Bone tribe, we count in Doc Mentor and Joe Klaus, whom most people call Santa Claus. They’re a pair of crooks who have done everything from stage robbery to Mexican raiding. They’re great pals of the Bone family. But the biggest card that the Bone outfit has in its pack is Colter, of course. You’ve heard of Henry Colter, at least?”
Young Signal said not a word, but his eyes grew a little brighter, and he nodded.
“Colter is a great man in this part of the world. He can snap his fingers and call twenty hard-riding, straight-shooting fellows to follow him. Some of them are worthy of hanging. Others are young fools who simply like adventure. They’re apt to be the most dangerous of all. Others are honest men who follow Colter because he has the whip hand over them. But what makes Colter feared and worth fearing is that he has the ability to win the confidence of the men behind him. They’ll steal or kill exactly as he bids them. In short, Colter is the Napoleon of this town of Monument.”
“A fellow like that,” said the boy, “is surely an outlaw. How can he live in Monument?”
“I’d need five regiments of United States regulars,” said the sheriff, “to arrest every recognized outlaw in this town. We run on different rules. We arrest the men who commit crimes in Monument, if we can find them. As for what happens outside, we have to blink our eyes at it.
“Now I want to tell you the other side of the story. There’s the Eagan faction. Fitzgerald Eagan is a famous man. He tamed down Dodge City when it was boiling hot. He’s the town marshal in Monument at this minute, and he wants my job as sheriff!”
He paused to allow this information to sink in. Then he went on:
“Behind Fitz Eagan is Major Paul Harkness. He’s a consumptive gambler and all around crook. There’s only one good spot in his whole rotten heart, and that’s his love for Fitz Eagan. Those fellows have saved each other a dozen times. Behind Harkness and Fitz are the four other Eagan boys. They are Dick, and Jimmy, and Harry, and Oliver, who’s older than the rest. Every one of the Eagan tribe has accounted for at least two men during the course of his life.
“The Eagans, led by Fitzgerald Eagan, hate the Bone tribe. The Bone tribe hate the Eagans.”
“It seems to me,” suggested Signal, “that the Eagans are the better crew. But why shouldn’t the whole crowd of both sides be run out of town?”
“I couldn’t do it,” answered the sheriff. “Neither could you.
Neither could any man. There’s hardly a man in Monument who isn’t lined up on one side or the other. Take your friend Sim Langley, for instance. He’s a devoted Bone advocate, and one of the most dangerous. That will probably throw you on the other side.”
“I’ll be on no side at all,” said the boy fiercely. “I’ll be on the side of law, against everyone.”
“In that case, you won’t live two days.”
Signal was silent, breathing heavily, and all the fight in him mounted to his head and made his face a burning red. Yet there was no answer that he could make to the sheriff. Plainly he could not fight every gunman in Monument single handed.
“On one side or the other,” said the sheriff, “you will certainly find yourself. Pick your party as you please. For my part, I’m inclined toward the Bone party, and most people know it!”
At this strange statement, Signal fairly gasped.
“You think the Eagans are a cleaner lot,” said the sheriff, “and in many ways they are. But one can’t tell. Men say that Fitz Eagan is responsible for most of the stage robberies around here, that Dick Eagan is the expert yegg who has been cracking safes. And we know that the whole tribe are killers. In the meantime, through the Bone-Colter faction I’m able to lay my hands on the new crooks who drift into the town. Everybody has to take a party here. So do the papers. The Ledger writes always for the Eagan party. The Recall works for the Bone group. And there you are! Walk out and take the air, young man, and try to pick your side of the fence!”
CHAPTER TEN
SO JOHN SIGNAL went out into the air to pick a side. He had no more idea of how to go about it than an eagle would have a thought about the best way to dig a mine. Of one thing, however, he was perfectly sure, and that was that the roan horse would be waiting for him at the hitching rack. And there, in fact, he found him. Sim Langley had not rushed into town to take vengeance.
But no, he was wrong. A hand touched him on the shoulder. A voice whispered in his ear:
“Sim Langley is in Mortimer’s Saloon swearin’ that he’s gunna shoot the eyes right out of your head!”
He half turned and saw a lean, yellow, weak face, now half drawn with fear and half ecstatic at the thought of the mischief which was in the air.
“Where is Mortimer’s Saloon?” asked Signal. “I’ll go there and talk to my friend Langley. I’ve been wanting to see him, in fact.”
“You’ll — go — there!” ejaculated the newsbearer. And he turned and dipped into the crowd, doubtless intent on carrying back this fine tidings to the saloon.
A little pool of people had collected to overhear as many of these words as possible. Not that they halted, but they slowed their steps so that they could listen in passing; and by so doing, they built up a small swirl of humanity, and all the eyes flashed cornerwise glances at the youngster.
John Signal is our hero. We frankly avow it. In many ways, such a man is a less desirable citizen than a Royal Bengal tiger; such a man is like a roaring fire among lofty trees. Sooner or later the wind is apt to blow that fire into the great pines, and then there will be a conflagration that will waste millions in dollars, and the work of ages in noble beauty. But still John Signal is our hero in spite of his faults, or perhaps to a certain extent on account of them. Too many of us are little, twinkling points of half discernible light; only now and again one finds a beacon.
But it is with shame that one must admit that Signal was pleased by this attention from all around him. It pleased him so much that he stiffened his neck and looked straight before him, trying to appear unconscious of all the questioning, half admiring and half frightened glances. Hard faces and fighting men, as they passed, gazed at him with the same expression as the mildest boys. Definitely, he had stepped upon the stage of Monument and was somewhere near the center of public attention!
And John Signal was only twenty-two!
“If you go to Mortimer’s Saloon you’re a fool,” said a quiet voice. The tall, thin, consumptive form of Major Paul Harkness stood before him. Upon the thin lips of the sick man there was a slight, ever-present sneer. He wore it now, as he stood before Signal.
“What’s wrong with Mortimer’s Saloon?” asked Signal, very surprised and depressed.
“You want to go there and break into a couple of columns of print by killing Langley.”
“I haven’t said that.”
“You don’t have to say it. Why else would you be going there?”
That silenced the boy.
“Mortimer’s place is the hang-out for Langley and all the rest of the crooked tribe of Bone!” declared the major.
And, saying this, he turned his head a little, and raised his voice, so that the words could be heard plainly through all the slowly drifting mass of bystanders.
“I said that I’d go there. I sort of have to keep my promise,” said Signal.
“Go and be damned!” said Paul Harkness, contemptuously. “At least, I don’t have to buy your coffin!”
He regarded Signal from head to foot, with the coldest pale gray eyes that ever fell upon a human countenance, and the boy was chilled to the marrow of his bones. Then Harkness turned away and moved through the crowd, turning neither to the right nor to the left, but although he was heading through the thickest mob of the lingerers, yet in some manner a way was opened before him, deftly and mysteriously. He walked on with a slow dignity, and presently disappeared.
The boy, rousing as from a dream, asked of a bystander:
“Do you know the way to Mortimer’s Saloon?”
“Mortimer’s Saloon?” asked the other, startled. “Of course — right down that next street, about three blocks, I suppose!”
John Signal went out to his horse and mounted, while he heard a secret little murmur behind him:
“He’s going to go! He’s going down to find Langley. In Mortimer’s Saloon!”
He heard those whispers and knew, now, that nothing could prevent him from going down there; and therefore that nothing could possibly keep him from dying in Mortimer’s Saloon. For it never occurred to him to doubt the truth of what the cold-faced major had said. The very essence of deadly truth was breathed forth by that chilly presence.
So, hating the foolish pride that drove him on, John Signal untethered the roan and swung into the saddle. He hardly had dropped into it, when the roan gave him something else to think about.
There had been a day when that roan was considered a most promising young outlaw, with a broken fibula, half a dozen cracked ribs, and as many cracked collar bones to his credit. At the cost of a dozen hard tumbles and with infinite patience, Signal had been able to master that vicious spirit, but it left Grundy with a brain packed full of subtle invention, and with a lasting contempt for all mankind tucked somewhere in a corner of his soul.
All those inventions of the devil, all that hearty contempt, now suddenly exploded. Grundy lurched into the air as though a gigantic springboard had been released beneath him. He came down in true sun-fishing style upon one stiffened foreleg and thereby snapped the startled and unprepared John Signal half out of his saddle.
This flourish thoroughly awakened him, but he had no good chance to get back into the saddle. The yell of delight from the onlookers stabbed into his ears. He told himself with a grim humor that it hardly mattered whether Grundy killed him here in the open street, or the Bone murderers disposed of him in Mortimer’s Saloon. And then he strove to wriggle back into the saddle.
Grundy, however, was not waiting for developments. He bucked for two blocks as fast as another horse could have run; and then he began to spin like a top flung from a boy’s hand. Presently the feet of the rider were disentangled. His body began to stream out to the side. And then a convulsive pitch settled the business.
The world, comprised of blue sky, a shining white cloud, a hitching rack, faces of houses, faces of humans, and the devilish fighting head of Grundy — all this world was shuffled before the eyes and in the brain of young John Signal like a pack of cards.
He struck the ground heavily — heavily enough to have broken his back, had not the blow been glancing, so that he was merely rolled over and over at tremendous speed, beating up the dust into a great cloud about him.
He lay still, then, his wits spinning; and heard the boom of a revolver; and dust spat against his face. He rose swaying, upon one arm, and promptly his hat rose from his head, jerked off by a bullet, and sailed some feet distant.
He managed to bring out his revolver, but he dared not shoot into that spinning sea of faces, although he marked the would-be assassin with perfect clarity. It was a man whose face was puckered up on one side with a great red scar, a never to be forgotten vision of perfect ugliness.
Then a tall fellow, a mighty man, stepped from the crowd to the gunman and struck up his Colt, so that the third bullet whistled harmlessly, high above the head of Signal. A brief scuffle — and then the scar-faced warrior had disappeared, and the deliverer was alone.
This — and then a crowd washed out into the street and surrounded him. He got to his feet, pushing away the hands which offered to assist him, and went with a weaving course and a staggering gait.
Grundy, snorting with excitement, actually pranced up to the master he had just discarded, and while the onlookers shouted with delight, allowed Signal to take the dangling reins and support some of his weight on them. So they came up together to the big fellow who had routed the killer.
“I don’t know you, stranger,” said Signal.
“You don’t?” smiled the big man.