by Max Brand
But Signal smiled upon him and shook his head.
“You fellows have one pistol between you. This isn’t your business. I’ve started it and I’ll finish it, and I don’t want help. You go back where you’ll be safe!”
They hesitated. Then the Irishman was seized by his friend and dragged away, protesting. And out of the dust cloud down the street men were riding, not any dozen, as Crawlin had declared, but seven bold horsemen, armed to the teeth, their rifles flashing, balanced across the pommels of their saddles. In the van and the center rode the father of the family, his white beard divided by the wind of the gallop, and blowing back over either shoulder. He came to avenge the death of a son, and he came fast.
John Signal raised his rifle, braced his feet, and waited. Prone upon the ground again would have been a better position, but seeing that his case was hopeless, it seemed to him, somehow, a better thing that he should meet death standing, rather than trampled under foot by charging horses.
He took his place firmly, therefore, and then he saw the charging cavalcade draw down to a trot, to a walk. They would not unsteady their aim by the motions of their horses! They were not thirty yards away — and still no bullet fired! — when from the corner of his eye, Signal saw a form move out upon the sidewalk.
He looked again. It was the tall, slender form of Major Paul Harkness, as dapper and calm as ever, but carrying now in his hand a double barreled shotgun, sawed off short. He came out from the arcade and waved his hand cheerfully toward Signal; then he faced toward the oncoming brigade.
Signal, confused by the shouts which began to pour out on either side of the street, turned in the other direction, and there he beheld the mighty form of Fitzgerald Eagan, with a naked revolver in either hand. One of those guns he waved toward Signal, and nodded.
And suddenly the heart of the boy leaped higher than ever. It would be no useless stand against numbers. He could not have found, by combing the world, two better fighting men than these who now flanked him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
AS HE LISTENED more closely to the uproar about him, he understood that it was the apparition of the added pair which the crowd commented upon. They had been watching to see the death of a very rash and very young deputy sheriff. Now they changed their minds. It was simply a battle of the first magnitude to which they would be the witnesses. Among the columns of the arcade lingered Crawlin, half-way between the two forces, so that he could not be suspected of favoring either, in an agony of terror because so much danger was about him, but while he wrung his hands in that chilly ecstasy, the attraction proved irresistible, and he could not go back from his place of peril.
The forces of the Bone faction, in the meantime, saw their purpose necessarily checked for the moment. It was one thing to beat down one rash youth. It was another to march in under the converging fire of three warriors, all of whom had proved themselves to be desperate fighters. The horsemen halted. They flung themselves from their horses, but still they tarried at about twenty-five paces.
Suddenly old Bone walked forward, a hand raised in signal above his head. He went straight up to the city marshal, Fitz Eagan, and exploded in the following manner:
“Eagan, I take it goddam low and mean of you to step in here like this! The kid deserves killin’; he’s been askin’ for trouble, and now he’s gunna get it.”
“What’s he done?” asked the marshal.
“He killed a man; he gets killed in turn. Ain’t that fair?”
This naive argument did not disturb big Eagan, who replied:
“He killed one of a pair; and the pair was out lookin’ for him. How does that sound to you?”
“It was my boy Jud that he killed, and you doggone well know it.”
“Wasn’t Jud looking for him with a gun, and wasn’t Charlie along with him?”
“What do I care about that? Ain’t I Jud’s pa?”
“I suppose that you are.”
“What kind of a skunk would you write me down if I didn’t try to scalp the gent that murdered Jud?”
“I don’t deny you got a right to be heated up for losing your boy. But Jud wasn’t shot from behind.”
“It was the damn low trick of fightin’ out of a cloud of dust. How d’you get around that?”
“You’re mad and you’re sore, Dad. You see this thing all crooked.”
“I don’t see it crooked at all. This kid is our meat, and you know it, and still you come hornin’ in! Is this here gunna be the end of the truce between us all that the sheriff has been workin’ so hard to keep up?”
“This has nothin’ to do with the sheriff,” insisted Fitz Eagan. “The kid played a good, square game. He’s got too much guts to run away even when seven of you come for him. He don’t shoot from behind walls, either!”
“What d’you mean by that?” shouted the other, apparently touched in a sore spot by this reference.
“You know pretty well what I mean. Now, Dad, you better let this job drop. The kid’s all right, and you ought to know that he is. He’s never looked for trouble from you and your gang. You know that, too!”
“He never looked for trouble? How did all of the trouble start, then?”
“Who stole the kid’s horse?”
“Who says that I did?”
“I don’t. But don’t Langley belong to you? Ain’t that Sim Langley over there right now?”
“That’s Sim, and I’m glad and proud to have him,” said Dad Bone, deftly shifting the point of view. “What I say is: Are you gunna undo all of the work of the sheriff and chuck Monument back into a doggone civil war the way that it was before he come in and took sides?”
“I’m not here because I’m against you,” said Fitz Eagan, with a good deal of conciliation in his voice and his manner. “I’m here because I’m the city marshal.”
“Aw, damn that kind of fool talk,” groaned the old man. “Don’t speak like that to me, Fitz. You’re too young. And I’m too old and know too much about you! That’s the fact of the matter!”
“It’s not the fact. I’m telling you the truth, and you’re aching to dodge it. The kid’s a sworn officer of the law. So am I.”
“And so’s Major Harkness, yonder?” sneered Dad Bone.
“Every good citizen ought to stand in behind the officers of the law.”
“Then they’s a lot of yaller hounds that I can see from down here!” exclaimed the old man, glaring around at the crowded windows which overlooked the streets.
“Leave the rest of them out of it,” answered Fitz Eagan. “Am I town marshal, or am I not?”
“I suppose that you are,” said the other. “What has that got to do with me?”
“You’ve come here with six more to get John Alias, and you’ve admitted it in them words. Well, as town marshal, I ain’t going to let you commit that murder under my eyes, and I order you to disperse and go home!”
Old Bone fairly sputtered with rage, for a moment. Then he roared, so that the husky voice bellowed with echoes from wall to wall:
“This here is the end of the peace in Monument, young feller! This here is the undoin’ of all of the sheriff’s good work, and this old town is gunna be painted red before many more days! Part of your blood is gunna be used in the painting, too! You hear me talk!”
“I hear you talk,” said Fitz Eagan earnestly. “Now you hear me. There are six more with you. That’s seven, by any man’s counting. There’s only three on this side. Why don’t you lead on in and start something? We’re here to be finished. Finish me and the Major off, and there’ll be no danger of that there civil war that you talk about so much. I make you my offer, Dad. You take it now, or show the world that you and the rest of the Bone tribe are a pack of sneaking cowards, and odds of two to one ain’t enough for you!”
Dad Bone recoiled a little, burying both his hands in his magnificent, snowy beard. It did not seem a sign of age in the old man, but a sort of token of reverend iniquity and hardy, seasoned vice of all descriptions.
“Three of you out here in plain sight!” he shouted, “and thirty more of you lyin’ away behind the windows! You call this a fair fight, do you? It’s a goddam trap!”
“It’s no trap,” answered Fitz Eagan. “It’s no trap at all. There ain’t a man laid away in hiding. There’s three of us alone, and if anybody else joins in on this here scrap, I’ll call him a skunk, and go for him myself, afterward. Lemme hear you talk to that!”
“I don’t want to talk to it!” shouted Dad Bone. “And I’ve done my last talkin’ to you, young Eagan. You’ve been livin’ pretty high. You’ve been lordin’ it over Monument. I ain’t cared. I wanted nothing but the peace. Fitz Eagan is just a young fool, says I to myself, and let you have your day. But that time is finished up and I’m gunna tear you to rags, Fitz Eagan. You hear me talk!”
“I hear you talk, and I know when I’ll be torn,” said Fitz Eagan. “I’ll be shot full of holes the first time that you and your ratty crew can shoot at me from behind a wall, the same as you’ve shot down better men than yourselves before me!”
Dad Bone waved both his clenched fists above his head in furious indignation, but, no words coming, he turned and half ran, half stumbled back toward the remainder of his party. Half way there, he wheeled about and delivered a few tremendous oaths at the head of the marshal. Then he went on, and the ranks of his men instantly closed around him.
Fitz Eagan called across to John Signal:
“Don’t you let up, youngster. Stand tight and keep your gun ready. Those rats are liable to turn and start biting, if they see that you’re off your guard!”
But Signal had not the slightest idea of abandoning his attitude of care and watchfulness. He keenly eyed the milling group of the Bone adherents and waited to see if the scorn of the crowd would urge them on to battle, for frequent bits of comment were hurled at them from the windows and doors:
“Now you got the Eagans where you want ’em!”
“Put three each on Alias and Fitz; that leaves one for the Major. Ain’t three to one good enough for you?”
“You’ve showed your bluff. Now call it!”
These and much more insulting cries were poured in upon the seven who, suddenly, mounted their horses and turned their heads down the street. But, at this, there was a great wave of derisive and mocking laughter and hate.
And Crawlin, overmastered by exquisite disappointment, in that no more blood seemed about to be shed upon this day, fell back against one of the pillars and beat his clawlike hands against his face. But he rallied himself immediately, for fear lest any sight or sound of trouble should escape from him, and stood against his pillar, turning his wicked head in birdlike activity up and down the street.
So the Bone tribe retreated in inglorious derision, with all Monument left laughing and scorning at them. And a host of congratulations were poured in upon Fitz Eagan and young Signal. Now the brutes of the town had been faced and had been shamed. Was it not the proper moment to strike hard in the interests of law and order? Was it not the moment to rally all forces and clean up Monument for good and all?
Fitz Eagan looked around the crowd and answered them to their faces — lion that he was!
“You talk law and order. You know that you ain’t ready for law and order, yet. You ain’t shot yourself out, yet, and your favorite judge is old Judge Colt. If you wanted law and order so bad, why did five hundred of you stand around and watch while one kid stood out there and faced seven murderin’ devils?”
To this the crowd did not attempt the slightest answer, and the marshal turned away, wading through the tangle of people slowly, with Major Harkness on one hand, and young John Signal on the other.
And behind them the cricketlike voice of Crawlin sang out:
“Watch ’em! Use your eyes! Three finer fighting men never stepped together before. Will they all be alive in the mornin’?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
MAJOR HARKNESS PROPOSED a drink, but young Signal merely wrung the hand of each of his newly proved friends.
“I’d better see the sheriff!” he said. “I hope to God that no trouble comes to either of you fellows for standing by me, this way. And night or day, I’m ready to ride with you. Is that understood?”
“That’s understood.”
“God forgive me if I ever forget,” said the boy with fervor.
Even the cold eye of the Major brightened and warmed a little as he stared at Signal. The Major was dying of consumption, slowly and surely; and that, men said, was why he advanced into the teeth of danger with such a calm unconcern. He clapped John Signal lightly on the shoulder.
“Don’t burn yourself up with too much gratitude,” said he. “Fact is, Fitz was playing his own game as much as yours. He wants to put down the Bone tribe as much as you do!”
“Of course,” said Fitz Eagan frankly. “You go and talk to the sheriff, if you can find him. He’s due back in town in a short time.”
So John Signal went straight to the sheriff’s office, and found it empty. Peter Ogden was not yet returned after an expedition into the country. So Signal sat at the window and watched the sunset colors beginning, and wondered if ever before a man had lived through such a thronged day as this.
Across the street stood Grundy the roan, tethered beside the watering troughs in front of the Metropolis Hotel. It tickled the very cockles of Signal’s young heart to see the people stop around that horse and point it out and nod to themselves as they discussed its merits, and turn away still in deep talk. Not of Grundy were their words, he knew, but of Grundy’s owner.
And then, darkening in his mind with the day, he remembered the words of Polly. What had she said of guns and gun-fighters? And what had she declared about him before he started for the fray?
“She’s only a girl!” he said to himself, and then he heard footfalls in the hall. The door opened, and the sheriff in person appeared before him against the blackness of the hall behind; for the room was a sea of twilight; in the deeps of it pulsed the cinder at the end of the sheriff’s eternal cigar.
He paused in the doorway, and then strode into the room, the flimsy floor quaking beneath his weight.
“You have been having quite a party, I hear,” said Peter Ogden.
To this, Signal returned no answer, for he could see that the way would not be easy before him.
“You been rousin’ up the town, I hear,” went on the sheriff in a voice more bland than before. “But I see how it is. You take back in your own home town, you found things more lively than we go ’em out here. Things are pretty sleepy for you, and you had to stir up a little fun. Was that it?”
Young John Signal said not a word, but he shrank a little in his chair. He had no very profound respect for the sheriff, but superior years have a certain weight of authority, and before it, Signal bowed.
The sheriff leaned on the back of a chair and puffed at his cigar.
“Monument has a new hero,” he went on at last, “and Monument has a new grave. Always gotta be that way, I suppose. One man can’t go up without another goin’ down!” He added, heavily: “Me, for instance. Young John Alias, he goes up. And Jud Bone dies. Dies young!”
He paused. There was such an obvious injustice in this remark that anger wiped from Signal’s mind half of his contrition and depression.
“And Monument has to go down, too,” said the sheriff in continuation. “Monument that was beginnin’ to float on an even keel, it’s struck the rough waters, again!”
“I don’t know,” murmured Signal. “I don’t see what I’ve done to put Monument on the rocks.”
“You don’t know! You don’t see! No, you wouldn’t! You ain’t got the eyes to see that far or that deep into things. You’re young!”
“I did nothing,” said the deputy sheriff, “except what seemed to me to be my plain duty!”
“You done nothing except what seemed to you your plain duty,” echoed the ironic sheriff. He laughed, a great, harsh laughter. “Your duty!” he said a
gain.
“Look here!” protested the boy. “You know what happened? Sitting in my window at the boarding house, they took a shot at me. The Bone people did.”
“You saw the man take the shot, did you?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“I found a man in the stable and made him tell.”
“You found a man in the stable — you made him tell,” sneered the sheriff. “He knew, didn’t he? He was able to look through the wall of the barn and see?”
“He knew!” said the boy quietly, sure of himself.
“Who was he?”
“His name is Pete Graham.”
“What!”
The sheriff was quiet for a moment.
“Who did he say did it?”
“Langley.”
The sheriff exclaimed — and then growled:
“The fool! The yellow livered fool!”
The boy continued:
“When I got back into the house after running outside, I met word that Jud and Charlie were in town saying that they were going to get me. I simply sent down word that I was coming to give them a chance. And they took their chance. And there you are! Wasn’t that my duty?”
“Oh, damn your duty!” cried the sheriff. “You wanted to make a grandstand play! You wanted to get onto the center of the stage where all the boys and the girls could see you and get to know you! Tell me the truth! Wasn’t that it?”
And John Signal answered meekly:
“Yes, there’s some truth in that, no doubt. I’m ashamed of it!”
This confession seemed to take a good deal of the wind out of the sails of the sheriff, but he gathered strength again as he continued:
“Then you smash everything that I’ve done! You throw in with the Eagans!”
“I didn’t. They stood by me to keep me from being mobbed! You weren’t there to help!”
“No,” said the sheriff, “and thank God that I wasn’t! You know what I’ve been doing in this here town?”
“I know that you’ve been the sheriff for a while, of course.”