by Max Brand
“You’re John Alias?” he said cheerfully.
“Yes.”
“Alias, I see that you didn’t take on with big Eagan?”
Signal narrowed his eyes.
“What makes you think that?”
The other said with astonishing openness:
“I was watching you through a glass. The way you shook hands was no ‘see you later and we’ll arrange things’ farewell. You said good-by in earnest. Respect on both sides. Everybody happy. Good friends for ever. But not partners!”
He laughed in appreciation of his own cleverness, and even Signal could not help smiling at the accuracy with which these deductions had been drawn.
“Well?” he asked shortly.
“My name is Charlie Bone. You’ve heard of me?”
“I’ve heard of your family,” said Signal most sourly.
“And you haven’t heard anything very sweet, eh? As a matter of fact,” went on Charlie Bone, “when we thought that you were going to make trouble, we would just as soon have put you out of the way.”
“You fellows arranged to have me dropped, then? You had the burr stuck under the blanket of my horse?”
“I don’t know a thing about that,” said Charlie Bone. “But now that you’ve had a chance to talk things over with big Fitz Eagan — grand man, isn’t he? — and since you haven’t come to terms with him, we want you on our side!”
Signal merely stared.
“You don’t understand what it would mean to you! A hundred hands and a hundred guns ready to work for you any minute. Nothing demanded from you except to be kind to your friends who are kind to you! That’s all! Everyone buries the hatchet. You see what it would mean? Besides, we’d show you all of the ropes immediately, and there’s nothing more worth knowing while you’re holding your present job.”
Signal cut short this glibness.
“I don’t want to insult you,” he said, “but I think that the Bone party stole my horse, and I think that since that, they’ve tried to murder me. I want nothing to do with your tribe.”
“That’s short. That’s sweet. That’s final!” said Charlie Bone. “I’m glad it turned out this way. I have to do something to make a bigger and a better reputation!”
“Here’s a grand opportunity for you!” offered Signal fiercely.
“Tut, tut!” smiled the other. “Here on a lonely street? With no witnesses? I want a crowd, old fellow, when I’m to die — or when I’m to kill the killer!”
He waved his hand and rode straight back toward the trees which had been sheltering him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A TRAINED EYE is an almost omniscient tool. And, walking to the office the next morning, John Signal read the papers as he went down the street. His eyes were continually lifting from the print — returning, fumbling at the place they had left off, and continuing for a flash — then another glance which printed upon his mind all that was near him, and all that was far.
In part he wanted to know what was in the papers, and in part he was practicing, for he knew that he walked in the midst of the most constant danger and he strove even to print upon his mind the faces that appeared behind windows, blurred and streaked by the unevenly rolled glass. The very footprints in the dust before him might have a vital meaning!
So, in the midst of this danger which strove to wear the face of an ordinary morning in an ordinary city, Signal, being what he was and very young, rejoiced in the city, in the danger, and in the stern work that lay before him. How much, said he to himself, people of Monument would be amused when they learned that their new deputy sheriff was, in fact, a man with a death already credited to his gun! That would be the time for him to flee away to fresh pastures!
So said the boy to his heart as he stepped into the business section of Monument. He had a copy of the Ledger under his arm; he was reading the Recall. The account of the Ledger was friendly from the first line. That of the Recall was astonishingly hostile.
Said the Ledger:
UNEXPECTED BOOST FOR LAW AND ORDER
And as a sub-head it declared: “Sheriff Ogden gets the right man by mistake.”
These pleasant sentiments the Ledger reporter expanded all down a column on the first page of the newspaper, so that young John Signal rivaled in the morning papers the tidings of a new and rich strike in the mining hills, and the suicide (?) of Monument’s most influential banker.
Said the paper, in part: “He came, he saw, and he made himself wanted. He called himself John Alias, with a straight face.
“On the other hand, notorious Sim Langley came, and saw and mounted the roan horse of John Alias. The latter pursued. He took his horse back again, ran Langley, bellowing with fear, into the Pineta house, and scattered half a dozen of Mr. Langley’s ruffian Mexicans. Mr. Alias, as he chooses to be called for the present, then rode back to town and called the sheriff’s bluff.
“Ogden had sworn to give the young stranger a place as deputy sheriff — though at a beggarly small salary — in case he should bring in his horse from Langley. The sheriff thought it would be impossible. For him it would have been. But back came John Alias.
“The sheriff was sick at heart. The last thing he wanted in his office was an honest man. But he had to have this one. At times there is a grim look in the eye of young John Alias. The sheriff saw it yesterday, and was bluffed into keeping his word — an extraordinary state of affairs!
“Going to print at a late hour last night, we rejoice to know that our brave young deputy is still alive, and that the knives and the guns of the Bone faction have not yet reached his heart.
“Long life and happiness to you, John Alias, and may you give us at last a taste of honesty in the execution of the law!”
So spoke the Ledger, and though he was familiar with the efforts of small town journalism, and all its petty spites and wrangles, still it appeared to Signal that this was carrying the liberty of the press to a singularly advanced point. It could be seen that the Ledger, supporting the Eagans, wished to be friendly without complimenting the sheriff; and it had succeeded so well that Signal could be reasonably sure of finding trouble not far before him.
But the Recall made the effort of the Ledger seem puny. It roared and thundered for the opposing faction.
MYSTERY MAN GETS MYSTERIOUS JOB
In this manner it began.
Hastily it shielded the sheriff while preparing to attack his new assistant.
“The heart of our sheriff is as big as a house. Yesterday it moved him to take into his office a nameless wanderer who chooses to call himself John Alias!
“Remember, Peter Ogden, that kindness is sometimes out of place in the sheriff’s office!
“We want to know something about this stranger who is now given power over life and limb in this fair city.
“Where does he come from?
“What has he done before?
“What doctor operated on his name and removed the last part of it?
“We humbly propose these questions to Mr. John Alias. Not that we expect a reply!
“The first thing the new deputy did was to fall into a brawl with our well-known fellow citizen, Simeon Langley. The excuse which John Alias trumped up was that Langley had stolen his horse!
“At this, the Recall is forced to smile.
“We interviewed Simeon Langley. Mr. Langley was quiet and dignified. He merely said: ‘I have heard that the so-called John Alias has spread a scandal about me. All I have to say is that the next time I meet the low hound, I am going to run him out of town.’
“We compliment Sheriff Ogden on the excellent work he has done for Monument, but we are forced to say: Put your house in order, Peter Ogden! And remember the man who brought the snake back to life!”
It was very hard for the boy to realize that these words had been written about him. He had been raised with a great deal of reverence for the printed word. What appeared in a newspaper had, to him, a peculiar dignity and truth, and he flushed and grew cold
in turn as he read the tirade. This was his proper introduction to the life of Monument!
He turned a corner and stepped aside to avoid a crisply pretty girl walking beside a middle aged man of fine, soldierly bearing.
“That’s the new ruffian who’s been made deputy sheriff,” he heard the man say. And the face of the boy burned hotly.
He was glad that few people were in the streets. Monument remained awake very late at night and rose correspondingly tardily to begin the day. In the entire office building where the sheriff had his rooms, there was only a yawning janitor at work when he arrived. But the yawn disappeared in a broad grin when Signal came in. With a pass key the sheriff’s door was opened. Then, in the open doorway, the janitor lingered for a single instant.
“Keep ’em backing up!” said he, and suddenly closed the door and was gone.
It heartened Signal enormously to have this kind word, but he settled down straightway at the roll-topped desk. There was much to be learned and, most valuable to him, there was a complete picture gallery of snapshots of all the most prominent men in Monument. In this gallery there were many gaps, several pages of the big book being empty because of death or removal, but enough remained to give him a busy morning printing in his mind the features of all the Bone crew and their adherents, as far as he had heard the names; and all the Eagan tribe, much fewer in numbers.
The sheriff arrived a little before noon, bustling in with the morning papers under his arm and his usual fat black cigar in a corner of his mouth. He seemed highly pleased with the two reports. The abuse which the Ledger had heaped upon him did not move him at all.
“You have to keep your name before the people,” he assured Signal. “Give them a chance to forget you, and you’re dead in a day. Keep them stirred up. Keep fire under the pot. That’s the way to get on in this little old world of ours. If I could get this much space, I’d hire a new John Alias every day!”
He was much amused, also, by the manner in which the Recall had handled, or rather juggled, the case of Langley and the stolen horse.
“Sim isn’t such a bad fellow,” said the sheriff. “I’ve had him twice in my posse rounding up rustlers, and I never saw a man fight harder or ride better. By the way, Charlie Bone tells me that you’ve refused to talk friendship with him, or to bury the hatchet. Is that right?”
“How could I?” asked Signal. “I’m not here to make trouble for anyone, but I’m not going to be gathered into either side of this affair. You’ve made me a deputy sheriff; well, I’m going to stand for the law. That’s all!”
The sheriff listened with attention, and amusement.
“You’re going to clean up Monument?” he asked.
“I can’t do that,” admitted Signal. “But I can do the jobs that come my way. I can do them straight. That’s all!”
The sheriff answered obliquely: “You’ve only been here a day, and that’s not a long time in any town. Have you learned those faces?”
“I’ve learned them! I mean, I’ve an idea of them, mostly. I’ve studied the Eagans and the Bones.”
Here feet clattered noisily down the hallway and the door to the office was flung open. The same meager fellow who had apparently been spying at the door the preceding day now appeared again, exclaiming: “They’re bringing in a wounded man here, sheriff.”
“What’re they bringing him in here, for?” asked the sheriff with irritation. “Ain’t there a hospital in this town?”
“He wants right bad to see you. He’s been shot up!”
“We’re going to have a dying confession, I suppose,” said the sheriff. “There’s the weak point of all these crooks. They fade away and lose all their resolution when it comes to rubbing elbows with death. They have to talk! They have to talk!”
Stumbling, burdened steps approached. Two men, carrying a third between them, squeezed through the doorway.
He whom they bore was a boy of no more than sixteen, his face streaked with blood, blood dripping from one leg, also.
“Lay me flat,” he gasped in Spanish. “If you keep me tipped up all the blood will run out of me — and all the words I have to speak!”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE INDIFFERENCE OF the sheriff disappeared instantly.
“It’s young Pancho Pineta,” said he. “You — Bill — run for Doc Hotchkiss, will you?”
“It’s only a greaser, Pete,” said Bill to the sheriff. “And he’s leakin’ his life away as fast as water through a sieve. What’s the good of bothering the doc? He hates to get up before noon.”
“The poor old doc is bucking faro, lately,” commented the second of the pair who had borne the wounded boy into the office.
The sheriff, busily cutting away the clothes of the boy, merely shouted: “For God’s sake, one of you two move, will you? Call Doc Hotchkiss and say that I want him on the run. Maybe we can stop up this flow of blood—”
Young Pineta had fainted. He lay on the center table. Blood ran from him over the edge of the table and dripped upon the floor. It splattered the boots of the sheriff with a fine red spray. But the sheriff, in the meantime, was working like a Trojan.
“Only a greaser!” he muttered. “Ain’t a greaser a man, the same as you and me? Ain’t he been born of a woman, and can’t he die like a man? Look at this here kid! Drilled through and through. But he had the guts to keep from laying down to die, the way that most white men would of done!”
John Signal said not a word, for the sight of so much blood made his brain spin and he was in deadly fear lest he should faint. A fine article that would make for the Recall — the fainting of the new deputy sheriff at the mere sight of blood! He had to grit his teeth and hold himself hard, and a sort of a tune began to beat with his failing pulse through his mind, saying like a voice with words, that he was too young for Monument; he was far too young for the horrors of this city!
They stripped the Mexican boy. Through the left shoulder and through the right thigh he had been cleanly shot. The sheriff worked those limbs anxiously and muttered that no bones had been broken. There was only the loss of blood to fear; and at this point the doctor arrived.
He was very old, very withered, but straight as a string and with an eye as bright as the eye of a bird.
Iodine poured in the wounds brought a groan from the unconscious boy. Then bandages were swiftly applied, and the doctor leaned with a stethoscope over the heart of young Pineta.
“Tush!” said he. “He’ll live without any doubt at all. Men don’t die out here from flesh wounds. They’re like grizzlies. The heart and the brain, yes. But nothing else matters, very much. Yesterday I cut out of the back of a man a bullet he’d been carrying about with him for five years. Good-by, sheriff. I’m going back to sleep. Faro needs a fresh eye! Give this lad a shot of whisky!”
Whisky, accordingly, was poured down the throat of Pancho Pineta, and it revived him almost at once. He asked to have his head supported; a rolled coat was placed beneath it. Then he rallied himself, his eyes half closed.
The sheriff said gently:
“You take your time, son. You’re not going to die. You’ve got lots of time to say what’s on your mind!”
“Every moment they are riding farther away; every moment they are closer to safety!” said young Pineta. He opened his eyes. “It was the San Real Ca¤on,” said he.
“What hell broke loose there?” asked the sheriff. “I’ve been waiting for years for something to bust loose there!”
“All the mules were coming up the San Real with their aparejos filled. It was our greatest expedition, se¤or! We came well up into the ca¤on. It was time to think about the next camping ground and we hoped to be up to the plateau. So we came to a place where the ca¤on grows very narrow, and it begins to twist like a snake.”
“I know the spot as though I’d built it,” said the sheriff.
“In this place the trail was very narrow, also. As narrow, se¤or, as the trail where you and your men surprised us, two years ago!”
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He chuckled a little as he said this, and the chuckling turned him suddenly black in the face. He choked, and it was only after a moment that his breathing became natural, as he lay back in a dead faint.
“This boy is walking a tight rope,” said the sheriff. “He ain’t got more’n a quarter of an inch of rope beneath him and he’s walking over a whole doggone gulf. He’s a game little devil.”
“Is he related to the Pinetas who—”
“Who live near town? Langley’s friends? He’s a cousin. He and his two brothers have been smuggling from Mexico and back for years. The older two are Manuelo and Gregorio. Tough nuts. But I cracked ’em all, one day. I laid for ’em and scooped up eighteen thousand dollars worth of stuff in cash and goods. I thought that that would of broke the boys, but inside of a year they were back at work agin! Oh, a smart greaser is the smartest thing in the world!”
The boy suddenly opened his eyes again.
“Down the trail toward us came a tall man on a mule. He was a gringo — I beg your pardon, se¤or!”
“Go on, kid. You ain’t stepping on my toes. Go right ahead and tell your yarn.”
“He was very good-natured. He saw that the trail was narrow and that the sides of our mules bulged with the packs. He moved aside among the rocks and watched us go by. To every man he had something to say. Every word that he spoke was cheerful. We all laughed. We talked back to him and were glad to see him. We thought that perhaps he would follow on to our camp, that night, and buy some of our goods.”
“I understand,” said the sheriff.
“I asked Gregorio if that was it, and if he knew the man. Gregorio, se¤or, was always a suspicious man—”
“Was?” asked the sheriff.
“Alas, that is what I am about to explain. Gregorio said to me that he had seen that tall man somewhere, but he did not know where; and that he would not trust him. You know, se¤or, that Gregorio always had a very dark mind!”