by Max Brand
Colter bore this with a degree of good-humored impatience. At length he said:
“He ain’t the only hoss in the corral, Esmeralda. You might look around a little.”
“Don’t bother me, Henry,” said the girl. “I’m trying to get acquainted. Haven’t I known you long enough?”
“Esmeralda is like poker,” said Colter. “Everybody has beginner’s luck with her, but after a while she wraps ’em up and puts ’em on a shelf; and the dust begins to filter down on ’em, and the spiders, they come along and spin webs all over ’em, and it takes a doggone good man to get dusted off and brought to light again, once Esmeralda has got tired of him!”
“You’re rude, Henry,” said the girl. “You’d better go out and try to find Langley. He’s somewhere about. Keep him from blundering in while Se¤or Alias is here!”
She chuckled at the name, but Colter refused to budge.
“If Langley sees that roan hoss he ain’t gunna come near,” said he. “You take a dog that’s been stung on the nose, and he never takes kindly to bees. Look here, Esmeralda. You gotta take me off the shelf right pronto. I brought these out to get your eye, says the fly to the spider!”
And he took from his inner coat pocket a string of pearls that glimmered from his hand and then fell into his palm and made a pool of rich light.
The girl looked at them critically, from the distance.
“They’re fine old pearls,” she said.
“Fine they are, and old,” said Colter. “They oughta be old, I guess.”
“Family heirloom, Henry, I suppose?”
“It sure is,” he answered.
“And what family?” she asked.
“I disremember,” answered Colter. “I wasn’t properly introduced at the time that the lady give them to me. Afterwards, I seen the name in the paper, but I forgot.”
He leaned back in his chair, chuckling.
“You take a popular gent like me,” said Colter, “he can’t remember the names and the addresses of all the ladies that gives him presents!”
She, chin on fist, regarded him half soberly, and half in a sort of critical amusement.
“And I’m to wear these, Henry?”
“The minute that I seen them, I knew they belonged around your throat, Esmeralda. And here you are.”
He dropped them into her hand and then turned with a broad grin to the boy.
“Come over that in the line of conversation, if you can,” he invited. “Trot out all of your smart talk, young feller, but I aim to say that I’ve made the hit of the day with Esmeralda. Am I right,” he concluded, swinging back toward her.
“You almost always do,” said she. She held out the pearls toward him. “They’re as pretty as can be,” said she.
“Of course they are. But it ain’t a joke, Esmeralda. Those belong to you!”
She shook her head, still smiling.
“I can’t wear pearls — that have been given to you by admirers, Henry.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Suppose that she saw me wearing them? It would hurt her feelings, I suppose.”
He made a gesture of the utmost earnestness.
“You don’t understand, honey. The lady that gave me those was on a train. She just got off for a few minutes and gave them to me, and then she went on again. She wouldn’t of been stopping this side of Frisco.”
But the girl shook her head still.
“You have to understand, Henry. It’s the way such things are given that counts, you know. There’s so much associated with them — so much feeling, Henry. I couldn’t wear them, really!”
And she forced him to take them back, while young John Signal, entranced by her beauty before, was still more delighted by the mingled good-natured humor and cleverness with which she had finally refused the gift.
Colter groaned as he received them.
“I’d counted on this for a fine welcome, a smile or two, and a walk under the trees in the evening,” he said with his peculiar frankness, “me holding your hand and wanting to know when we’d take the same turning on the long trail, Esmeralda.”
In that oddly effective way which Signal had noticed before, she made her eyes gentle as she looked toward Colter, and that worthy stirred uneasily in his chair and flushed with pleasure.
“Of course we’re always glad to have an old friend like you here, Henry.”
“We!” said Colter. “Oh, damn it. Don’t talk to me like a doggone editor, Esmeralda! Save that for my pal John Alias, will you?”
At this, she straightened a little in her chair and looked straight at Signal, all softness gone, her glance wonderfully bright, and as direct as the stare of a strong man.
“You two are partners, then?” she asked.
“We’re friends,” corrected Signal.
He was uneasy. Colter, however, explained:
“He’s a deputy sheriff, Esmeralda. He’s nothing else. On no side, particular. Refused to hook up with me. Refused to hook up with Fitz Eagan, even. He wants to walk his own doggone straight path to glory, and I suppose it’ll take him all of three months to get planted where the other suckers have been buried before him. I only hope that don’t make you romantic and interested in him, honey.”
The girl listened to this mingling of banter and truth with her head canted a bit to one side and her eyes half veiled with thought as she watched the boy.
“I think I understand,” she said at last.
“What do you understand about him, Esmeralda?”
“That he’s an honest man.”
Colter sank back in his chair.
“You can always find a settler for me!” he admitted. “But this here honest man hasn’t got background that’s strictly Sunday school, y’understand?”
“I understood that from Langley,” said the girl, smiling again. “Henry!” she said sharply.
“Ay, ma’am!”
“You can give me something a thousand times more valuable than pearls!”
“Whether it’s in a safe or a wallet,” said he, “it’s yours, Esmeralda.”
“It’s in neither place. They’re in Monument, no doubt, drinking with stolen money.”
Colter sat rigid, saying not a word, but his face was wonderfully calm, though he must have guessed what was coming.
“Gregorio and his brother were raised with me, Henry! I loved them! They’ve been horribly murdered! You have men and cleverness to help you. Find the men who did the thing. That will be a present worth more than pearls!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
HOOFBEATS PAUSED BEFORE the house; steps came up onto the porch.
“That’s Fitzgerald,” said Esmeralda Pineta. “That’s Fitzgerald Eagan.”
“If you know him by his walk,” suggested Colter with some sourness, “you know him pretty well all around!”
She answered with her usual calm:
“A dog can learn that much about a man.”
“Sure,” said Colter, “if the man’s his master!”
Here followed the tap at the door and then the entrance of the mighty form of Fitzgerald Eagan. He paused there for an instant, blocking away the light except for what entered about his head, and it seemed to Signal that just as his shadow now was filling the room, so his personality pervaded the place and made other people seem pointless and weak. Even Henry Colter, famous for cunning, famous for crime, seemed no more important than a boy as the big man stood before him.
He looked deliberately at Colter and at young Signal, smiling and nodding at the boy. Signal, in the meantime, was sitting forward on the edge of his chair, very ill at ease. It was generally conceded that Colter was the leader of the Bone faction. Certainly he was their most outstanding figure, and the general talk in Monument was to the effect that all the warfare between the two factions would culminate and die when Colter and Fitz Eagan fought it out together. But there was no token of such a battle at hand now. Colter said:
“Hello, Fitz. How’s things?”
&
nbsp; And the great Fitz Eagan waved his hand almost cordially toward Colter. He said to Esmeralda:
“I brought out the kid. He’s been wanting to meet you for a long time. Be kind to him, Esmeralda.”
He stepped into the room as he spoke, and behind him came a boy of twenty, much shorter than Fitz Eagan, rather of a stocky build, but with the look of a brave man and an athlete. The stamp of the lion was upon him; it was no surprise to hear Fitz Eagan introduce the youngster as his brother, Dick. The boy flushed very red, bowing before Esmeralda, and she, with a light in her eye like the flicker of the sun on a sword blade, looked young Dick Eagan through and through. Very glad was John Signal that he had this opportunity to see her when, for a fraction of an instant, her guard was down. It made a great deal of his own enthusiasm about her evaporate.
Plainly she was a queen to all these rough fellows. Colter paid homage here, Sim Langley, and even that man of men, Fitz Eagan! The deputy sheriff, keen in observance, watched the girl and Fitz Eagan with all his powers of discernment, and it seemed plain to him that, though Esmeralda took the big man seriously, she regarded him with far less intense interest than he regarded her.
“You’re getting news from Colter, too?” he asked.
“Henry hasn’t a word of news for me,” said the girl. “Or perhaps he is holding something back. Perhaps he’s heard that you know something about San Real Ca¤on, Fitz?”
Fitz Eagan looked across the room at Colter, who said with some irritation:
“I’ve hinted at nothing like that, Esmeralda!”
“One of the two of you must know,” she insisted. “There’s nothing that happens in the whole range that one of you doesn’t know all about it. If I draw a blank with you, Henry, then surely Fitz can help me out!”
She leaned forward a little, her eyes keen and expectant; but Eagan replied:
“I don’t know a syllable. I know nothing whatever about it. But I came out here to tell you, Esmeralda, that I’ve had nothing to do with that butchery. My methods ain’t shaped that way, and if you can tell me what trail to follow, I’ll ride it! I’m the marshal of Monument, you know!”
He ended with a faint smile, as though ready to join in any mirth that might be aroused by his legal position. But no one laughed.
“You’d ride for me?” asked the girl.
“I would!”
“And, Henry, you’d help me?”
“I? Sure!”
“And you, John Alias?”
“It’s my business,” the boy assured her.
Dick Eagan said nothing. He did not have to. With his eyes he was drinking up the beauty of the girl; plainly he would be the first tool for any of her purposes.
“Then with all of this help,” said she, “I can’t fail. I simply can’t fail! And if any of you can find even one man who had anything to do with that — murder — I’ll never forget! I’ll be his friend to the death of me! Poor Pancho would take the trail, but he’s shot to bits. And because of Gregorio and Manuelo, someone has to die!”
She said this with a fiery enthusiasm that shook all her body, and again something in John Signal shrank from her. He thought that she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen; he felt she was also the most dangerous, like some wild mustang, hunted by every puncher of the range, but useless when caught, except to put a bullet through its wicked brain. Now she was gathering all her forces to send vengeance down the trail of the murderers of her cousins, and these fighters of Monument were all willing to ride in her behalf.
He looked again at Henry Colter. That gentleman was as cool as could be, as though he had not the slightest thought that any danger might be gathering upon his path. He now stood up.
“There’s no place for us here now, Alias,” said he. “When Fitz Eagan walks in, sensible gents walk out. Lemme know your dates with Esmeralda and I’ll call in the off seasons,” he added to Fitz Eagan.
Signal took the hint and rose in turn, but the girl would have stopped him. They had not had a chance to talk together. Or, if he went now, would he come again? There was no more danger of Sim Langley about the place, she assured him. Besides, Langley was not such a bad fellow — just a little overbearing, at times!
“Listen to her purring,” observed Colter. “Do you hear that, Fitz? She wants to have Alias on her staff, and I suppose that she’ll land him. But he’s fighting for his head, now. He’d even swallow the hook, if he can break the line afterwards. You’re right, kid. It’s better to have indigestion than Esmeralda!”
At this very pointed banter, she laughed, but her glance dwelt wickedly upon Colter as the two left the room. They stood on the porch for a moment, Colter mopping his forehead. He had maintained his poise perfectly, but there was no doubt from his compressed lips and his uneasy eye that he realized that the cloud of trouble which this girl was raising might very well soon blow in his direction. However, he merely said to his young companion:
“You’ve seen her, now. Better’n a view of the mountains at sunset time, eh? There’s only one Esmeralda; and there’s plenty of mountains, even of volcanoes!”
He waved his hand before him.
“Up here on this here veranda, there ain’t a man that would take a pot shot at us. Once down the steps, there’d be a plenty! There by that rosebush is the spot where young Sam Channing dropped and kicked up the dirt until he died. And where the walk turns a little, that’s where Push Aiken flopped when Langley shot him through the brain. Langley had been waiting out yonder where that brush stands. A grand killer is Langley. He’s got an Indian streak in him, and he takes no chances! Far as that’s concerned, he’s apt to be lyin’ out there now, with his rifle butt cuddled under his chin, waiting to raise a little hell for us! But so long as we’re in or on the house of Esmeralda, we’re safe!”
“Will you tell me why that is?”
“Why, the blood begun to flow too fast. There was four gents shot up and laid away in the hospital from gun-fights here, to say nothing of Channing and Aiken that was killed. After Aiken died, the boys all got together and agreed that, so long as Esmeralda was pulling the boys in like moths around a candle flame, we’d better make it a rule that her house was peaceful ground. That rule has held ever since. And a damn good thing. Some of the worst enemies in the world, that wouldn’t of spoke a first word outside of with a gun, have met up here at the Pineta place and have made up. She’s a great hand at getting the hatchet buried!”
As he spoke, he had been scanning every feature of the landscape before him, from the ground to the tips of the trees, as though he suspected that fighting men might be hidden away up there, waiting to kill him the instant his foot descended from the front steps of the veranda. However, he seemed assured, at last, and went down to the garden level. There he and his companion took their horses and rode down the driveway to the outer road. There, Colter shrugged his shoulders with a shuddering force.
“I always feel a pile better,” said he, “when I’ve sashayed down that avenue of trees and got into the clear again, where my rifle would have a chance to keep things at a distance! Now, tell me what you think of Esmeralda, kid.”
“She’s beautiful,” agreed the boy.
“Go on. That’s only a starting point.”
“I don’t know,” said Signal. “I’ve said that she’s beautiful. I don’t think that I could say anything more about her. I was a little afraid of her!”
“Afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Why, kid, she’s like velvet. Expensive, sure. Expensive kind of a wife, but for three years everybody around Monument has been trying to get her. Maybe — maybe you’ll be the lucky man.”
John Signal smiled and said nothing. In fact, he was unwilling to let his mind dwell upon the thought of this lovely, strange woman, as a man who loves wine too well dreads the tasting of the first glass.
“But you’re right,” said the other in a sterner voice. “You’re dead right! She’s dangerous. Velvet. So is a tiger’s paw. And as for the
price of her — why, I think that she’d throw herself at the head of the gent that managed to kill a couple of the boys that shot up her cousins. I never seen her worked up so much. Who would of thought it?” moralized he in wonder. “Who would ever of guessed that she was so dead keen on them greaser cousins of hers?”
And he looked up at the sky and shook his head, a little mournful at the strangeness of this world.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE HEART AND the brain of young John Signal still were heavy with his problem when he parted from Colter at the edge of town. He said to the outlaw seriously:
“They would have shot me to bits, today, except for you.”
“I dunno. Maybe they would,” replied Colter. “Take it another way. Maybe that was your chance to get famous. You might of tipped over all three of ’em, and after that, you’d of lived in books.”
The boy shook his head.
“Anyway,” said Colter, “don’t worry about gratitude. The most that I’ve done don’t balance what you did for me. I keep a pretty straight set of books about things like this, and I know that things still lean your way. It’s tit for tat.”
“And so we’re square?” asked young Signal.
“Of course we are. So long, and take care of yourself. Mind you, I can oar in and keep back the Bone tribe when I’m around, but not when I’m away. They want your scalp. They’re afraid of you, son! And there’s nothing more dangerous than a gunman that’s scared!”
With this, he rode off, and Signal found himself, in another few moments, at his boarding house. It was a plain wooden building, shingled on the outside, with one turret rising from a series of bow windows. Those were the select and most expensive rooms in the house. He had been surprised by the grandeur of one he had glimpsed in passing; but on the whole, he was well satisfied with his own chamber, in the third story and at the back of the house. It looked upon the laundry lines, the sun-faded, unpainted high board fences to the rear of the houses, the garbage cans, the wood and horse sheds, the dogs that wandered and the cats that stalked through this wilderness of wood. Above all, from his window, he could watch the door of the shed in which the roan horse was quartered.