by Max Brand
“When I come here, what do I find? The Eagans and the Bones running everything. Every other stage that run out of town was stuck up. The silver couldn’t be shipped out, the half of it. Everything was going to hell! Business was stopped. Two of the biggest mines was shut down, the owners waiting. There was three men killed — in self-defense! — the first day that I arrived here. Monument ate three men a day. Everybody packed guns — the honest men included. Well, what did I do? Kill and hang all of the Bones and the Eagans? No, I couldn’t do that. But I balanced ’em one agin the other. I made ’em run the other crooks out of town. I got Fitz Eagan, the grandest fighting man in this world, made the city marshal. I cleaned up the gambling dumps. There ain’t a crooked roulette wheel in this town! I made the saloons chuck the rotten bartenders that would feed booze to a man till he was crazy drunk. I had Monument started on the way to being a decent town. But — I didn’t keep it fast enough and entertainin’ enough to suit Mr. John Alias! I couldn’t do that. And when he come along, he seen his duty plain, and he done it — with a gun in each hand. Hell, kid, d’you think that I couldn’t use guns, too? D’you think that I’m afraid of guns? I got my record. Look it up! But there never was a decent job done with gunpowder and lead, and there never will be, and it’s good for nothing but murder, and murder is what you’ve raised up in these here streets again!”
The boy was thunderstruck. He never had taken this attitude towards the sheriff. He never had heard people speak of him with any vast respect. It seemed generally admitted that, under his régime, Monument was a better and a quieter town than it had been ever before, but that was all. But now he could look a bit beneath the surface and see that everything that had been said by the older man probably was the gospel truth. He was shamed and he was startled. He could see, now, that there might have been a half-way. The sheriff was right. The girl had been right, too; and the higher courage worked without guns! So he sat dumbfounded, while the sheriff exclaimed:
“I want no more of you! You’ve smashed all my work. You’ve put the Eagans and the Bones at each other’s throats. You’ve killed one. You’ve thrown the law in on the side of the other party. I wish to God that I’d never seen you. I’ll pay you a month’s salary, and you can get out, and the farther that you get, the better for you — and for me!”
John Signal stood up in the thickening gloom of the office.
“Look here,” he said quietly, “I’ve done wrong, perhaps. But I meant to do right.”
He lighted the lamp. He wanted to see the sheriff’s face, and he was rather relieved to find nothing but honest indignation on it.
“Hell,” quoted the sheriff, “is full of gents that wanted to do right.”
“It’s not true,” said the boy, “and you know it. And how can you tell that your way is the best? You make the law a joke. People laugh at it. All they respect in this town are Henry Colter and Fitz Eagan. And you ought to drive them both out — and you know it.”
“You want to run the office for me, eh?”
“You swore me into this job. I’ll stay.”
“You’ll stay? I fire you now — on the spot!”
“Do you? Then I’ll walk down to the street and call every man in town together, and I’ll tell them that I’ve been fired. And I’ll tell them why. For killing Jud Bone, instead of lying low, like a scared coyote. I’ll tell them that. Where will you stand then?”
The sheriff turned purple with fury. He could only glare for a moment, utterly baffled. Then he muttered:
“You want to stay? You want to be kept busy, eh? I’ll keep you busy. Tomorrow you start out and collect the taxes outside of Monument. I’ll tell you where!”
And he laughed, brutally, heavily, with triumph in his eye.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE MINDS OF some men cannot be at ease unless their hands are occupied. The sheriff, having delivered this ultimatum, smiled with a grim triumph at the boy; then he took out of his pocket a little golden trinket and began to spin it into the air — not a coin but something the size of a double eagle.
“You’ll go to Hanford and collect the taxes there,” he said. “I’ve got the list here of all the payments due!”
He went to his desk and from a drawer he took out an envelope. “You’ll find everything that you want to know about Hanford taxes in here!” said he. And he smiled again at the youngster and spun the golden trinket a second time in sheer excess of spirits. However, he missed catching it in its descent. It slipped from his hand and rolled across the table, tumbling to a stop in front of John Signal.
The latter stared at it hopelessly, as a man will stare when his mind is troubled with problems to which he finds no solution. It was, he saw, no coin at all, but a group of two figures in gold, a man walking with a staff and carrying a small child upon his shoulder, the whole group embraced with a circling band. In another instant, he recognized the figure — that of St. Christopher carrying the Christ child; and suddenly his heart stopped.
From the dead brother of Pancho Pineta in San Real Ca¤on just such a trinket had been taken — the patron deity to which the smugglers had prayed in their journeyings. It was most unlikely that a second figure such as this should exist in one community, and the thought that came home with stunning weight upon the mind of the boy was that Sheriff Peter Ogden himself might have been a figure in the robbery and the slaughter of the smugglers! He closed his eyes. Monument, he felt, was growing a little too complicated for his understanding.
He picked up the ornament and pretended to admire it.
“This is a good bit of work,” said he. “I never saw anything better.”
“You don’t know the Mexicans,” said the sheriff. He added with a careless gesture: “Take it along. Maybe it’ll give you luck at Hanford! I’m going home. You lock up the office after you!”
He left the place, and the boy, as bidden, locked the office as he departed. He did not go straight back to the boarding house, however, but went first to the hospital by the side of the river, where he found young Pancho Pineta lying pale and still, but well beyond danger and promising a quick recovery, as the nurse assured him. Yes, he could speak with the Mexican for two or three minutes.
“Pineta,” he said, standing by the bed. “Do you know me?”
The youngster looked quietly up at him. “No, I don’t know you.”
“My name is John Alias. I’m the deputy sheriff—”
The other smiled in instant appreciation.
“I’ve been hearing nothing else all day, se¤or, except about what you have done. Jud Bone was a dog. A cruel dog! I am glad to see your face, se¤or, to remember a man!”
“Thank you. I’ve come to speak about San Real.”
“So does the sheriff. Everyone is willing to talk about San Real, but nothing is done, nothing is done until I can ride and shoot again!”
His face flushed with angry determination.
“I’ve come to ask you a particular thing. You remember the figure of St. Christopher that your brother wore in his hat?”
“How could I forget it? My poor brother used to say a prayer to it, night and morning.”
“Was there anything about it that could make you identify it? There might be other figures just like it!”
“There are, of course. But that one was marked. Once a bullet grazed the hat of my brother. St. Christopher saved him, of course, but there was a furrow left across the breast of the saint.”
Signal took out the small image. Plainly across the form of the giant was a notch cut by the bullet.
“Is this the one?”
“Madre de Dios!” breathed the wounded man, and lay still, with eyes of fire.
“Listen to me,” said Signal. “If you want that trail run down and the murderers caught, forget what I’ve showed you. Rub it out of your mind. Don’t let yourself whisper even in your sleep, because, if it’s known that I’ve identified it, there will be an end to that trail. You understand?”
The Mexi
can held out his hand and gripped that of Signal with a surprising strength.
“I understand,” said he. “My soul rides with you. Good fortune, Se¤or Alias!”
Signal left the hospital and stood in the cool of the evening by the river. In Mortimer’s dance hall, behind his saloon, the orchestra was running over a new piece for the evening, and the music sounded wonderfully sweet in the ear of the boy. From the gardens along the river front there was a fragrance of many flowers. The honeysuckle was blooming, and its breath walked out strongly upon the quiet air, for nothing stirred except sound and scent. All men were home at dinner; no horses clattered over the bridges; the wagons for once were still, with their far-heard creakings silenced. Neither did the tall trees stir a leaf, and the golden faces of the lights along the shore fell with never a wrinkle upon the broad black water.
In the tumult of Monument, there was this pause, not for thought and reflection, but for bacon and eggs! And then it seemed to John Signal that a new sense of life poured suddenly in upon him. It was as though he had turned a corner, not long before, hardly knowing what he did; now he found himself in a new street, and far from home, a beautiful street, let us say, of splendid houses, but none of them was his!
And then he knew that he had in fact turned out of the old way of his life and come to a new; he was no longer a boy. Somewhere between Polly and the slaying of Jud Bone, he had left that lesser self behind him, and it was not a new world in which he stood; it was simply a new self that stood there breathing the odors of the flowers, watching the golden barred river.
It sobered John Signal. He had galloped into Monument with little care. But suddenly he was crushed under a load of apprehension and of care; for it seemed that, whatever hand he tried to play, all men were against him — even the sheriff, now, must be hunted down!
He, being of such stuff as should compose men, did not even contemplate giving up the battle, but he was daunted, and hurt, and mystified. It is harder to charge the enemy at a walk than at a gallop!
He went back to the boarding house, walking, the roan, Grundy, following him at his heels, like a dog. Grundy, too, had changed since the arrival in Monument. He was no longer so apt to use his teeth or his heels. The devil in Grundy, by the devil in the town, seemed to have been shamed into flight.
He encountered not a soul in the streets on the return journey, put up the horse in the shed, and went into the house for supper. It was already in progress. A dozen men sat around the table, and two waitresses served them as rapidly as possible with thin-cut steaks and fried potatoes and corn bread and great cups of black coffee.
When he came in, all heads jerked up or around and stared at him. When he said good-evening, there was a deep-voiced rumble of response. When he sat down, all men looked fixedly at their plates and went on feverishly with their business of eating.
Polly brought him his plate — Polly with a face of the utmost indifference, as though bored at waiting upon him.
He ate mechanically, slowly, his thoughts on other things — on the great tangle which made up this day’s adventures, perhaps not yet ended! The others broke up quickly. Their last cup of coffee and piece of apple pie consumed, they scraped back their chairs and went out without saying a word. Their voices then sounded in the distance of the hallway. He was left alone with two rows of scattered, emptied plates and coffee-stained cups before him. Polly was clearing them away, taking out great armfuls. At last he said to her:
“Polly!”
She paused at the kitchen door, glanced over her shoulder, and then disappeared without an answer. Polly, too, had disowned him! And this, somehow, cut much deeper than all the danger in which he was living and all the hostilities which were grouped around him. She came back and paused, close to him.
“Well,” said Polly.
“These fellows,” said he — he would not speak to her about her own attitude— “these fellows — they all stopped talking when I came in. They wouldn’t talk to me. Why?”
Polly canted her head a little to one side, as though thought unbalanced it.
“Suppose that a dozen house dogs are eating in the back yard, and a big loafer wolf comes along and stands in among them?”
“I don’t follow that!”
“No, you wouldn’t. But just supposin’. Well, the first dog that started barking might have his head snapped off. Ain’t that a fact?”
“I suppose so. Am I a wolf, Polly? Do I snap at people?”
“You’re John Alias. You’re the man from Nowhere. You’re the gun-fighter — the new one. What d’you think? Do people get chummy with dynamite?”
“I’m dangerous, am I?”
“Ask yourself. Be honest,” said the girl.
“I’ll be honest, then. All I see is that I’ve fought when I had to fight.”
“You went out hunting trouble. You got it. But, oh,” said Polly, “I’m not gunna be your conscience! You can handle that for yourself! I — I gotta clear the table!”
And she fell to work noisily and went out with another staggering burden. When she came back, he asked her impersonally:
“D’you ever hear of a place called Hanford?”
“Of course I’ve heard of it.”
“What is it?”
“Hanford,” said she, “is the headquarters of the crooks; Monument is just their playground!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
IT BEGAN TO give some point to the remarks of the sheriff in sending him out upon this mission.
“Do they pay taxes?” asked he.
“Taxes? Why should they? Who’d make them — except the United States army!”
“No one man could do it?”
“Except Colter. He could, of course.”
He stood up, burdened with this fresh information.
“Polly,” he said softly, “I want to explain about today. I had to go, I couldn’t of called myself a man, if I hadn’t. It didn’t mean that I thought any the less of you.”
“What did you think of me in the first place?” she asked.
“I liked you — a lot. I still do! I mean to take you down to the opera house for that singing, Polly. I mean to take you down tomorrow morning!”
She merely answered sharply:
“You better take yourself out of Monument. That’s the best thing that you can do!”
She started to turn away, but he touched her shoulder.
“You’re tired of the thought of me, Polly, I suppose?”
“Aw,” said Polly, frowning, “can’t a poor girl spend five minutes a day flirting without having to go to jail for it afterward?”
He drew himself up, taking the blow in quiet.
“Well,” said he, “I didn’t understand. That’s all. I’m sorry that I’ve been a fool.”
She turned and laughed carelessly in his very face.
“Say, look here,” said she. “D’you suppose that me or any other girl would go nutty about you two minutes after seein’ you for the first time? What sort of a guy are you, anyway?”
“A fool,” said he, standing motionless and pale before her. “I’m a fool. It took you to show me how much of one I am. Good-night, Polly.”
“So long,” said Polly. “Sweet dreams.”
She went off toward the kitchen, and he saw her shoulders still quivering with inward laughter as she went. He, going up to his room, fell at full length upon his bed and lay sweating and hot with shame. He felt that he had revealed his soul to a stranger, and the stranger had laughed. But even this agony could not keep him awake. For John Signal was only twenty-two, and he was a very tired boy, and all the events of that day — from San Real Ca¤on and the broken horseshoe through the blacksmith shop and the gathering enemies, and the trip to Esmeralda Pineta’s house, and the arrival of big Fitz Eagan, and the cowardly shot which Langley had fired, and Pete Graham, and Polly, and the fall of Jud Bone, and the manner in which he had fronted the hosts of Bone, and the fury of the sheriff, and the cold cruelty of Polly in the e
nd — thoughts about all these drove through his mind like a herd of wild horses, all with trampling hoofs, and a sort of reverberation filled his mind like a hollow cave — and suddenly he slept.
When he wakened, he was not refreshed. It was the cool of the morning, the rose of the morning, but he got up with a heavy head, as though he had been drinking. His hands hung heavily at his sides; his eyes were dim. And all night long, though he could not recall a single dream, he knew that he had been fumbling with trouble and had found no solution to it.
He went down to breakfast before anyone else in the house, and there he found Polly, laying out the long table. She looked at him with a smile and a nod, as though all were perfectly well between them, and he, staring at her with hollow eyes, wondered at her, and at all womankind.
Yes, he could have an early breakfast. The cook had the coffee ready. It would take only a minute to fry bacon and eggs.
“And where does Hanford lie?”
“Straight west, in the hills. Ten trails in, and one trail out, they say. You know what that means! Are you going there?”
“I may.”
She nodded at him cheerfully.
“That’s the way with a lot of fellows,” said Polly. “They make a break at staying on the side of the law, but when they get into a pinch, they see that they belong on the other side of the fence. Of course, you can make a lot more easy money working with Colter than you ever could working for the county!”
That was her understanding of him, then!
“I’m to go out and join ’em, eh?” said he.
“Well, why else would you be going?” she asked.
He put that question aside with another.
“Which is Colter’s hang-out in Hanford?”
“He changes from one place to another. You never can tell, they say. But the big white barn — it’s barn on one side and house on the other — is where you’d most likely find him.”
He finished his breakfast.
“Are you paying your bill before you leave?”
“I’m coming back,” said he.