Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  I looked at him with amazement.

  “What else is there to do, Charlie?” I asked.

  “I have an idea,” said he. “Come with me.”

  “You may take me to the devil, Charlie,” said I.

  “What do you care, Poker-face?” said he. “You are a man without fear.”

  Suddenly I said: “No, Charlie. The boys are entirely wrong about me. They’ve given me a great reputation that I don’t deserve. My nerves are in a worse state right now than those of any man in the party.”

  I heard him laughing.

  “They’ll be in a lot worse state before you’re through following me,” said he.

  “I won’t follow you, Charlie,” said I.

  “You will, though,” said he, “because you won’t be able to fight off your curiosity. You won’t be able to help that!”

  “What do you plan to do?” I asked.

  “I’ll show you as we go along,” said he.

  “I’ll not budge a step with you,” said I.

  “You will, though,” he insisted with an odd surety.

  It angered me a little, it excited me a good deal more, to think that he had some secret plan of importance on hand. Finally he said:

  “Well, you give your orders. Those boys down there are having their first sleep and their hardest one. Tell the men to start working toward the horses.”

  I got the men around me, and I told them how to drift their horses down the gully, and, walking beside their horses, work in among the horses of the Makerites, cut their hobbles, and be prepared to rush the entire herd down the valley.

  “It’s a cinch,” said Harry. “This here is goin’ to be one of those easy things that folks talk about afterward. They’ll make us out a lot of big heroes. And it ain’t nothing at all. When shall we start the rush?”

  “We’ll fire a gun to let you know,” said the breed, suddenly speaking up.

  “Ain’t you goin’ to be with us?” snapped Slim Jim.

  “The chief and I,” said the breed, “will be down there in the middle of the camp.”

  “You’ll be what?” shouted Dan Loftus.

  “What?” groaned Steve Cole.

  “The chief hates to get this close to Sid Maker without leaving his card for him,” said Charlie.

  The whole gang of boys looked at us. I could have cursed the breed, but somehow shame kept me from speaking. If he really had conceived such a crazy plan — but no, I felt sure that not even a dying man, careless of his life, would dare so far as to go among the armed men of that camp.

  But there I was, hand-tied as it were, and placed in the hands of a man who, I rather felt, was more than half insane.

  Shame kept me still.

  Steve Cole came up to me and said:

  “It’s not true, Jerry. You won’t go down there like a madman. What on earth for? Do these barbarians take scalps?”

  But that was the way the thing was managed. We even left our horses behind us, at the dictates of that rascal of a Charlie. And the other men were to bring the nags along with them.

  “Charlie,” I said as we started down into the gully, and the others of my gang slipped on beside their walking horses, “how can we possibly get away without horses?”

  “I’ll show you an idea,” said Charlie, “that’s worth ten of the best horses.”

  “If you mean to run,” said I, “you may be able to manage it. But I couldn’t sprint a hundred yards without falling dead. That’s a fact.”

  “I don’t mean to run a step,” said Charlie.

  “What do you mean to do?” asked I.

  “You will see,” said he, and began to chuckle.

  I stopped short. This sounded more and more like madness.

  “I won’t go,” said I.

  “Good-bye, then,” said he.

  He walked straight on.

  Then I hurried after him and caught his arm.

  “Charlie,” said I, “have you got your wits about you?”

  “Never clearer in my life, such as they are,” said he.

  I went on beside him, muttering, cursing.

  “That’s right,” said Charlie. “Keep on swearing, but keep on coming. That’s the best way for it!”

  He laughed again.

  “The more a man swears, the lighter his heart will be,” went on Charlie.

  Somehow I felt, suddenly, that there was no madness, except that of extreme daring, about my companion. I looked back, however, toward the dark outlines of my gang and their horses coming down the gully well behind us. Every one of those men, beyond a doubt, thought that I was the leader in this foolhardy excursion. Every man of them was holding his breath. Most of them, no doubt, were wondering where I could get such colossal nerve. Not a single man would dream how weak and shaking were my knees!

  Well, I decided that it was foolish to look back, or to think of anything except the way of putting my feet forward upon the ground in the most silent fashion. So we went steadily down that gully and then turned out among the boulders and the brush of the floor of the big ravine.

  It was a comfort to me to see the size of the obstacles.

  For, when I had looked down on them from the ridge above, the rocks and the bushes had seemed very tiny indeed, but now I found that they gave the most excellent cover. With the advantage of this we forged on until, as we neared the trail, I saw the stage looming before us on the crest of the rise.

  “That’s what we want,” said Charlie, touching my arm and pointing.

  “What?” said I, unable to believe my ears.

  “The stage,” said he.

  “The stage?” I exclaimed. “What are you talking about, man?”

  “I’m talking sense.”

  “What’ll we do? Pull it along by hand?”

  “We’ll manage to take it,” said Charlie, nodding his long head.

  “Man, man,” I exclaimed, “we’ve no horses along with us.”

  “We won’t need horses, either,” said Charlie, and began to laugh softly.

  “Will you explain?” said I.

  “Seeing will be quicker than hearing,” said the breed, and walked on.

  I wanted to stop and protest, argue, ask questions — anything to kill time. But he was as relentless in his forward movement as a boulder rolling downhill. I went after him. I never felt so like the useless tail to a kite.

  When I caught up with him, I whispered: “There’s a guard posted in that stage!”

  “Of course there is,” said he. “But only one!”

  The significance of that gave me a distinct and vital chill. However, I was almost out of breath with excitement, fear, and the effort of keeping up with his long steps. I could not talk any more. My heart was thundering in the hollow of my throat.

  In the meantime, the breed began to stalk, no longer walking erect, but bending well over, and moving like a cat from one bit of cover to the next. Smooth and fast work it was, and soundless. For my part, I shamelessly walked behind him and tried to put my feet exactly down where he had stepped. Even so, it was impossible for me to avoid making a few noises as pebbles rolled under my tread.

  However, that devil of a Charlie would not stop, but went weaving on until the stage was like a house almost beside us, and I dared not look to the side, where I knew that many men were lying in their blankets. I could hear the snoring of them beside me, behind me. We were now well inside the trap.

  And was it not a trap?

  Suppose that Charlie the breed had decided that he would make more than fifty dollars a day — he could make several thousand, no doubt, by betraying me in the midst of the camp of the Makerites!

  You can believe that this thought did not soothe my nerves particularly!

  Then I saw the breed make a gesture and sink to the ground. I did the same.

  We were in an almost open space close beside the stage. There were only a few small stones, some little bushes, between us and it. An eye, looking in our direction, was sure to spot us, even i
n the dimness of the starlight.

  But would we pass for sleeping forms, the fellows of the rest? That seemed the only hope if any one were up and stirring, or if the guard looked out from the stage.

  And some one was up and stirring.

  I saw a dark form rise and move toward the stage. I heard him say:

  “All right, Ed.”

  “Is that you, Will?” growled the voice from the stage.

  “Yeah. It’s me.”

  A man opened the door of the vehicle and stepped to the ground.

  “It’s cold in there,” he said.

  “Shut up. Don’t wake up the boys.”

  “I’m not waking anybody up. Listen to Doc snorin’. He’s got a special tune that he plays, and he always winds it up with a whistle. I recollect once I was up in Carson with him, and”

  “Sid is pretty happy, ain’t he?” broke in the other.

  “Yeah, and why not? This puts Makerville on the map.”

  “The copper put it on the map,” said Will.

  “The lies of Riggs, they put us on the map. His lies about Makerville standin’ on gravel, ready to slide into the gulch!”

  “Yeah. That’s true, too. I’ll bet he’s gnawin’ his thumbs when he thinks of that.”

  “Him and that Poker-face, too.”

  It was odd the thrill I had when I heard them refer to me.

  “Poker-face, he don’t care none. He’s in the game for the cash and the excitement. I like his nerve, that devil!”

  “They’re goin’ to put up a statue to him in Piegan, I’ve heard.”

  “Well, I’m goin’ to turn in. I wish that Poker-face could see our layout.”

  “Maybe he’s seeing it now!”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  And Ed went off to find his blankets.

  CHAPTER XXXIII. STEALING THE STAGE

  WILL WALKED UP and down for a time beside the coach. I saw him yawn, and the shadow of his arms against the stars. I saw him push back his big-brimmed hat and scratch his head. Then he worried at something — a plug of tobacco, I dare say, for presently I heard him spit.

  He began to hum as he walked back and forth, and, pausing very near me, he put back his head and stared long and hard at the stars. As he did so, another shadow arose to the side a little and behind him. It was the breed, moving with such dreadful caution that to this day I see the breathless and hanging deliberation of his attitudes. But at length he was straightened, and moved softly forward.

  At the last moment, something troubled Will, the guard, and he whirled rapidly around, a gun gleaming in his hand.

  The sight of that got me to my feet. Distinctly I heard the clank of the blow of the long barrel of the revolver as it glanced off the hardy skull of my friend, the breed. He had been in the very act of springing in, one arm outstretched to hook the fork of it about the throat of Will. In that moment the latter had wheeled and struck, moving all in an instant, with a wonderful adroitness and readiness.

  He did not fire, did not shout, but stood for a moment with poised revolver, watching Charlie Butcher go through all of the steps of a drunken reel. Any other man in the world surely would have fallen, brained by that stroke, but Charlie’s head was apparently of gun metal itself.

  Then I heard Will muttering: “What drunken fool are you, anyway?”

  I understood, as I came up behind in my turn. Will took it for granted that the other was a member of the Maker party. He could not conceive of an enemy having walked in upon them; such a conception was too much like madness, to be sure.

  But just then I laid the muzzle of my own Colt against the small of Will’s back.

  He did not turn, but I felt the shuddering of his body from my hand to my shoulder. I whispered in his ear:

  “It’s all right. Be a mouse. Don’t even mutter; don’t even step hard, or I’ll have to part this backbone of yours.”

  He nodded. I reached a hand in front of him, and he silently put his revolver into the fingers I presented. So with two guns touching his body, I held him until Charlie came up. He had recovered as by magic from the terrible effects of that blow.

  Charlie said, in the most hushed of voices: “Now we’re all comfortable again. Slog him on the head and put him away, or sink a knife between his ribs, Poker-face.”

  “It’s Poker-face!” I heard Will murmur.

  His knees sagged as he said the word. What a lot of nonsense was believed about me, at that time, in Makerville!

  “I’ll not murder him or slug him, either,” said I in an answering whisper.

  “The devil you won’t,” said Charlie Butcher. “Then herd him inside of that stage and sit there with him with a gun at his head.”

  “Inside the stage?” I repeated.

  He already had turned his back and was stepping to the vehicle.

  Certainly this was no place to pause for argument. I was still as blank as ever as to the intentions of Charlie.

  So I pushed little by little ahead with Will, the prisoner, and got him into the stage, on top of the piles of harness, which almost filled the interior. For that harness was harness, so to speak. There were pads and silver-gilt back pieces, and the leather was so rich and heavy and strong that it bent hardly more easily than wood.

  In the meantime, I heard things grating under the wheels of the stage, but I could not make out, still, what was in the mind of Charlie. Yet I submitted blindly to whatever might be in his mind. It shows how the ready and quick- witted man will take charge of a situation. No private in an army could obey a major general more humbly than I obeyed that iron-nerved breed.

  Then a voice spoke up, not very far away, and said: “What are all you boys doing there?”

  I recognized the voice of Maker himself, and it nearly paralyzed my brain. I nudged Will in the ribs with the muzzle of my gun and told him to speak up, and he drawled:

  “Nothin’, Sid.”

  “Whatcha mean, nothin’?” said Maker angrily. “There’s three of you scrapin’ around and makin’ enough noise to rouse an army. We ain’t an army, but I’m going to show you — Hold on there, and tell me what the—”

  He stopped. My own heart almost stopped at the same instant, for suddenly the stage had begun to move, and now in a stroke I half understood what had been in the mind of Charlie. He wanted to steal the stage itself right out of the midst of the camp, and for that purpose, he would try to run it down the grade away from the Makerites. Without horses, how would he steer the big, lumbering vehicle?

  Well, that was another problem for Charlie, and I would not attempt to solve it.

  What he had been doing was simply to pull the stones from under the wheels, and now we were getting under way down the slope, which continued for I could not tell how many miles!

  At the same instant, the explanation seemed to come to the mind of Maker, for his voice rose into a yell that brought every man in his party up from the ground. They stood like so many prairie dogs which had suddenly popped up out of as many different holes, and just as prairie dogs bark, that crowd started to make a racket.

  I looked over the edge of the coach and saw Maker leveling a rifle, and ahead, I could see the breed pulling at the tongue of the stage, giving it needed momentum.

  Then the rifle spoke from the hands of Maker, but the breed did not go down. Instead, he leaped back and got on the cross-trees at the base of the wagon pole. That tongue, you must understand, was propped up high into the air, held by a natural stiffness in the joint that crossed the double-tree. Otherwise, I don’t know what kept it there in the air.

  And now we were going forward at a walk, at a dogtrot, at a run.

  I heard Maker yelling to his men to stop us, capture us, murder us, and suddenly twenty guns unlimbered. Or so it seemed to me. The roar of those guns will never be quite out of my mind, and I heard a number of the bullets crash through the woodwork of the coach.

  “Don’t spoil the wagon. Stop it!” screeched Maker.

  And he set the example of spri
nting toward us.

  Others started with him, and gained upon him, because he was a short-legged man. It seemed to me that the infernal rolling coach was simply crawling over the surface of the road, but by the slowness with which the runners overtook us, we must have been traveling already at a good clip when the runner in the lead leaped up on the side of the coach, on my right. He had to catch on with both hands to keep from falling. In one hand he had a revolver clutched, but for the instant in his struggle to maintain his place, he was helpless. I used that instant to jerk a sharp elbow into his face. He threw up his hands, dropped his revolver, and fell with a loud shout into the road.

  Another fellow landed on the opposite side of the coach, just then, with a gun ready leveled at me, and perhaps I would have been a goner, but the stage happened to hit a good-sized rock, just then, and heeled sharply over. The Makerite fired into the air blindly, and then fell back, reaching at thin air to hold himself up.

  By that time we were roaring along down the hillside, and at the same moment, I heard loud yelling up the left-hand slope of the valley. I hardly needed to look there, for I knew. And now I saw that the boys had done their work, for the whole herd of Makerite horses was being stampeded in our direction. I could hear the lads yelling, whooping at the top of their lungs. Above all, I heard them laughing with half-hysterical joy.

  And after them some of the robbed people were running foolishly, shooting as they ran. But whoever heard of targets being struck by excited men who were on the run?

  These fellows, at the least, hit nothing. We learned that later, and now our coach was leaping like a bronco down the rough mountain trail, bounding from hummock and rock.

  It was the roughest ride. There was no question about keeping a gun ready for my prisoner. He had his hands full, hanging on, and so did I. It needed a good grip or we would both have been flung out onto the road. If I fell, and the Makerites found me, there was no question in my mind about what would happen to me. No matter under what obligation I had put Maker himself, his whole party would be maddened, and it was lynching or nothing, for me!

  Then I forgot all about Maker and the bullets which still whined through the air around us, for our whole attention was given to the mad course of that stage.