Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “He wouldn’t trust the Americanos. Well, I don’t blame him. He’s had enough rocky deals from them.”

  The boy smiled on the man of the law.

  “It is easy to speak to you, Se¤or the Sheriff,” said he. “It is as easy as to speak to my father!”

  And Signal, standing by, curious and watchful, could not help agreeing. He wondered, indeed, if he had not found the key to Ogden’s character in the universal kindness which he appeared to feel for everyone, a kindness, therefore, that was a little too catholic, in that it embraced both sides, more or less, of every faction.

  “My brother Gregorio,” said the boy, “was so solemn that I told him that it was no good to have doubt about everything, and that there were many good men in the world — and that he was one of them! At that, he only shook his head.

  “‘For travelers and merchants,’ said he, ‘there is only one friend in the world, and that you should learn at once.’

  “‘What friend is that?’ I asked him.

  “‘This one!’ said he, and he touched on the band of his sombrero, in front, the golden image of St. Christopher which he always wore there.”

  “I’ve seen it myself,” said the sheriff. “St. Christopher with a staff, carrying the child on his shoulder.”

  “Yes,” said the boy, “carrying Our Lord upon his shoulder. He is in the middle of the stream. It is not big, but it is beautiful work, and all in gold. This my brother touched, telling me that St. Christopher was our only friend, and then he commanded me to go back to the rear of the mule train and see that the stranger did no harm as the tail of the herd went by.

  “Of course I did as he told me to do. I came to the rear of the train, but I paid no attention to the stranger. Why should I? There were eleven of us, altogether. There was only one man. How could he dare to do any harm to us? I hardly looked at him after I had waved as the last mule passed him. I was looking across the valley at a rabbit running up among the rocks and wondering if I could take a shot at it. But my brother Gregorio never liked to have shots fired along the way. A silent road was the best road, he would always say, and the most pleasing to travelers under the care of St. Christopher. Therefore I did not touch my gun, and the next instant a revolver spoke behind us. I saw the man just ahead of me throw up his arms and heard him scream, and then he began to topple to the side, still with his arms thrown over his head, and still screaming. It was as though he had frozen in that position, and died so.

  “I looked about, snatching at a revolver, but I was only in time to receive this bullet wound through the shoulder, and the shock of the bullet tipped me out of the saddle to the ground. There I lay still. I was half stunned by striking my head against a rock, but still I could see what had happened. From among the rocks rose many men with masks upon their faces. They fired rapidly from repeating rifles, and everywhere my friends were falling. The devil who had shot down us two at the rear of the procession now rode up and leaned from his horse above me and fired into my body!”

  “By the eternal God!” said the sheriff hotly.

  “By grace, he only shot me through the thigh. I did not stir. It was as though he had passed fire through my leg, but I dared not stir. And he went on, shooting at others who had fallen. I heard them shouting. They were murdering every one of the wounded. When I saw that, I got to my feet. There were several pack mules between me and the murderers. They screened me so that I was able to get into the saddle. I rode into the rocks. I tied myself into the saddle. I made a great prayer to God and St. Christopher that through me some sort of vengeance might come upon the murderers. And then I gave the horse the spur.

  “I began to grow faint. After a time, I was riding between sleep and a dream. At last, daylight rolled back across my eyes once more, and I saw that my horse was cantering wearily into a great city. I saw that it was Monument. I remembered then the great and good sheriff who keeps one law for Americans and Mexicans, both. See, se¤or, I am here. God and St. Christopher lead you to find the murderers!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THEY CARRIED YOUNG Pineta to the hospital, half a dozen volunteers for that work of mercy, and he was taken off, raving violently, and beginning to shout:

  “Todo es perdos! Todo es perdos!”

  Peter Ogden, in the meantime, was left behind with his deputy. The sheriff was in a great trouble and confusion of mind, apparently. He said, with bitterness:

  “They drive me to the wall, John Alias. They drive me to the wall. Hell, haven’t I showed them that I’ll put up with smaller things, but I won’t stand for murder?”

  And Signal could not help asking tersely:

  “Is it a lie that men are killed nearly every day in the streets of Monument?”

  The sheriff turned a clouded eye upon him.

  “And why not?” said he. “Isn’t it better that they should die every day — crooks killing crooks — poison fighting poison! But the honest men — and here are ten of ’em butchered, by heaven!”

  “How do you class smugglers?” asked Signal quietly. “Are they among the honest men?”

  “You can’t be too damn absolute,” answered the sheriff, sighing. “Of course they’re doin’ crooked work. But not so very crooked. I bust them up when I can, but I don’t hunt ’em too hard. They bring in goods that we need. They take out goods that they need south across the border. What harm did these Pinetas do? By their way of thinking, it was as honest work as any man could want, with just enough danger splashed in to make it fun! And ten of ’em murdered! Ten!”

  He raised his fist above his head.

  “I’m going to smash somebody for this!” vowed Peter Ogden. “I’m gunna smash somebody!” Then he turned to the boy. “Scatter down into the town. Keep your ears open. Find out what you can. Pick up some sort of a trail. Ride to San Real Ca¤on, if you have to. It’s only five mile out. Look over the ground!”

  Nothing was more to the mind of young Signal. He took the roan horse and rode out to the place, quickly directed by the first passers-by.

  He found it all that the boy had claimed. A narrow trail, worn deep into the rock, descended into the ca¤on, which wound back and forth uncertainly. It was a naked, sun-blasted place, with not a tree in sight, only shrubs which had taken a precarious finger hold here and there among the boulders. And along the trail the dead lay. Ten men, as the boy had declared, lay in their blood, all Mexicans, eight of them ragged peons, and two others — the brothers of Pancho, no doubt, dressed with more care. Every item of value had been stripped from them.

  On the trail was also a dead mule, and four others lay in the hollow of the ca¤on, where they had fallen, toppling from the trail above. All was silent. And overhead the buzzards were circling in narrow loops, ready to settle to the feast.

  But as for clues, they were hard to come at. There was a jumble of signs of men and horses. It was only by dint of careful trailing that he was able to find the place back among the big rocks where the horses of the killers had been held while the butchery went on.

  Anger such as had possessed the sheriff now was rising in the heart of the boy as well. With all his heart he searched the signs that remained between the rocks for some token worthy of following, but there was nothing to be discovered except, where the trail thinned out at the point where the victors had ridden off in single file, a small bit of iron — the caulk and end of one side of a horseshoe.

  It was recently broken. There was no doubt of that. The crystallized metal shone sparkling in the sun. So he sat down to think over the thing. It was a shoe for a right forehoof, snapped at this point by being planted with force on the face of a hard rock, and there was no doubt that very skillful trailing might enable Signal to run back this clue to some important source.

  He could hear men coming down into the ca¤on, now, men sent out by the sheriff from Monument, and the sheriff himself among them, but the boy did not waste time talking with them. He hoped that this great clue might lead him on to some deed of importance; that
he might prove to Monument that he stood definitely upon the side of law and order, and so choke off such further articles upon him as the Recall, in its venom, might be apt to print.

  For a quarter of a mile, he had no difficulty at all. Again and again, where the animals stepped on impressionable ground, he discovered the incomplete mark of the broken horseshoe. And his heart was beginning to rise high when the whole procession entered a region of well compacted gravel — hardly gravel, indeed, but rather a strewing of small rocks such as are rounded and milled by the action of running water. There he lost the trail forever.

  He rode in circles, beginning at the center, but though he found several of the trails again, issuing from the rocks, he could not find the sign of the broken shoe.

  Might it not be, indeed, that the rider had dismounted here and pulled off the telltale shoe?

  For two long hours he labored; and then, with deep disgust, he gave over his work and turned the roan back toward Monument. If that eagle-eyed man, his father, had been with him — ah, that might have meant a different result!

  Back to Monument, then, hungry, hot, and tired. For it was a blazing day, with no wind leaning across the hills. Where the big teams were hauling up and down the grade to Monument, the dust they raised mounted slowly straight up. Every wagon was lost in an unpleasant mist, with the leaders of the team walking continually out of it, powdered white. Monument itself glistened in the sun and the windows flashed blindingly where the rays struck them. And there appeared to the boy something so monotonous, so humdrum about this picture, that he felt despair of ever accomplishing any feat worth recording. Other men, wiser and stronger than himself, filled that city. Men wise and strong enough to murder ten men, and wound another, and come clean off. And this within an hour’s ride of the town!

  A downhearted man was John Signal as he entered the streets of the town, keeping to the shady side and using a bandana to mop his streaming forehead. And as the horse went on, he was aware of other riders coming behind him. He turned a little and saw that one was Charlie Bone, dressed as brilliantly as ever, snapping a quirt with his left hand and controlling his beautiful black horse by means of his knees alone. He seemed quite uninterested in Signal. For that matter, so did the man across the street from Charlie Bone. Never before had Signal seen the fellow, but he could recognize him well enough from the photographs which he had studied in the office of the sheriff in the morning of this day. It was Doc Mentor, famous among the adherents of the Bone tribe for relentless ferocity.

  What kept the two riders in this fashion just behind the deputy sheriff? He turned down a side street, and instantly there was a sharp whistle, twice repeated, behind him. He did not look back. He was tempted either to put the spurs to his horse or to back against the wall and draw his guns to settle the matter then and there. Instead, he took the more moderate course of bearing straight forward, not letting the roan hasten a step.

  He was half way down the block when he saw a rider jog on a piebald, ugly horse into the middle of the street at the next corner, where the anvil of a blacksmith shop was clanging. And this rider dismounted quickly, threw the reins of his horse, and stood at the head of the animal, resting on a rifle.

  It could not be said that in this town such a maneuver was suspicious. The man might simply have dismounted to enjoy the shade here, while waiting the turn of his horse to be shod. But then again, it was very doubtful if he had not some connection with that sharp and repeated whistle which Signal had heard from the rear.

  He turned his head enough to glance back down the street again; and there behind him, still riding as far apart as the width of the street permitted, he could see Charlie Bone and Doc Mentor.

  It was good tactics which separated them as much as the street allowed, of course. For in case the man they stalked should turn, he could not cover them both with one gesture. He would have to swing his gun in a wide arc, if he attacked one and then the other. Bitterly he wished, then, that he had mastered two-gun play. His father had spoken scornfully against it.

  “Two guns are like two tongues. If you had ’em, what would you do with ’em? Speed is mostly bunk, too. Accuracy, my boy. Accuracy is the thing. Hit a dime at twenty yards; punch a button through the chest of a man at the same distance. That’s what wins a fight!”

  He was plainly cornered. No matter what explanation might be made of the man who stood in the shade of the tree at the next junction, it was very odd that he should need to sling his rifle across the crook of his left arm, which was exactly what he was doing now!

  Signal grew cold. If a fight started against such odds, so skillfully placed, he would have to go down, and he knew it. And now he saw to his right a narrow, open gate which led into the rear yard of the blacksmith shop. He did not hesitate, but turned the roan straight into it. A convulsive shudder went coldly up his back as he approached the gate. From the tail of his eye, he saw Charlie Bone bringing his horse to a trot. But no bullet was fired, and he rode safely through the entrance.

  Once inside, however, he well understood why he had been allowed freely to pass into this cover, for the yard behind the shop was entirely closed around with a smooth wall of wood, six feet high.

  The roan could jump, but he could not jump that.

  He might, of course, abandon the horse, and go on alone over the fence, but he felt that this would wreck his reputation as a fearless man in this city of devils. So he dismounted, and walked straight into the shop itself, leading the horse behind him.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  IT WAS BY far the largest shop in Monument. Two thirds of the mule teams passed through the hands of the smiths here who stripped off the tattered shoes and trimmed the hoofs and hammered and banged the new shoes into place. When Signal stepped inside, he was caught on a wave of crashing sound that never died. Shouting voices — for ordinary speech would never be heard — and the screeching of bellows, and the trampling and snorting of horses, and above all the ceaseless shower of blows which fell, with eight or twelve pound hammers, upon six echoing anvils.

  In the bright sunshine of Monument, this shop was a sort of little Hebrides, perpetually dim with clouds of smoke that rose from the six forges as the flames bit through fresh feeds of coal. Blue-white, thick and stifling, the mist curled outside the chimney hoods which vainly strove to draw up the smoke, and the great rafters above were seen by glimpses, clotted with soot. The great double doors at front and in the rear were always open, and through them wisps and puffs of smoke continually rolled, so that the only sunshine which entered was sifted through that veil. It left the interior a place of shadow in which men and horses were confused silhouettes and through which the red pulse of the fires gleamed wildly.

  This babel of voices and action and hopeless confusion made Signal feel as though there had just been an explosion — the smoke of it was aloft, the ruin of it was scattered upon the floor.

  Along the walls appeared a tangled frieze of horses, ever shifting as they swung from side to side to avoid the blacksmiths, kicking, stamping, whinnying with terror. The smiths, hot iron shoes glowing upon their drill points, advanced upon their victims with one hand extended soothingly, and terrible curses upon their lips; and in the center of the floor were impatient cowboys and teamsters waiting for the completion of their individual jobs, bribing, entreating, threatening to have the thing pushed through more briskly.

  Signal, passing down the center of the place without haste, glanced back, and he saw behind him the outlines of Charlie Bone and of Mentor, with the gleam of their rifles still in their hands as they entered. They were following up to the finish, whatever that finish might be. And, staring forward, he saw the third rifleman standing with gun ready at the other mouth of this inferno.

  Panic jumped up in the throat of Signal. He set his teeth and quieted himself with an iron effort of the will. If the thing had to be fought out, what better time than now? He halted the roan, and put his shoulders against the ribs of the gelding. Then he dropped a h
and on his hip, conveniently near the handle of his weapon, and waited.

  One would have thought that a blacksmith shop would halt its business for the sake of looking on at a first rate murder; but not this place! The hammers clanged and the voices roared as loudly as ever.

  “Hey, goddam you brindle-faced fool! — Here’s half a dollar, old-timer, if you’ll — Jerry! Oh, Jerry — You said eleven. Look what time it is now — I told you calks! — You poison bronc! You damn jerrybuilt man-eater, stand STILL!”

  Roaring near by, or wildly shouted in the dim distance, so these voices rushed through the mind of Signal like the sound of the ocean among hollow rocks. He felt as one feels wakening from a delirium, or sinking into the fever again.

  And still the three advanced straight toward him, and still he waited. He could see their guns more plainly, now, and then he could make out their faces.

  He ought to begin! He made up his mind that he would take a snap shot at the single rifleman, first of all. Then, pitching forward upon his face along the floor, he would open upon the other two — and God send him luck!

  With danger walking so close upon him, finally some hint of what was coming dawned upon the other men who were grouped and clustered about him. For they gave suddenly back, with oaths and exclamations.

  “What sort of a place is this for a fight?” “Give ’em room! They’ll be some good hosses shot up before this is over!” “It’s the kid deputy! It’s that John Alias, the fool!”

  He heard such phrases as these, and they seemed to him detached sounds, without a human meaning — voices, let us say, out of the sea. For all that was in his brain, burning bright, was the advancing picture of those three warriors. Should he open fire now?

  Someone had said, somewhere: “Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes!” He remembered that, now. He would wait until they came as close as that. Then he would get one of them, first. Of course, two bullets would plunge through and through his body, but as he fell, he would be deliberate, certain, if there were any life in his body, and try to bring down all three before his death. That would be a fall worth while!