by Max Brand
“Yes.”
“Here in Nome?”
“In Texas.”
“He knew you there?”
“Yes.”
This let in a flood of light of a different kind.
“He was a friend of yours there, Marjorie?”
“Friend?” she exclaimed, with a look and a voice of disgust. “Calmont, a friend?”
I thought I could see it. The pretty girl and the rough-looking man; he following, and she turning her head.
“Well,” I said, “it’s some of my business, too, because we ought to know just how set he’ll be on having you back.”
“Four years ago — oh, I was as tall as I am now, but I was a baby. Why, he would have married me then, if I had let him. Calmont! D’you know that I’ve seen him shoot down a man not ten feet from where I was standing?”
Her lips curled at the horror of the memory. It was plain that she hated this fellow as much as she feared him.
“It was a fair fight, I reckon?” I said.
“It’s never a fair fight,” she said, “when a gunfighter picks on a poor, ordinary puncher!”
That was true enough.
I said: “Look here, Marjorie, he really was pretty keen to marry you, and all that, and you wouldn’t look at him.”
“Of course I wouldn’t. I’d rather — I’d rather look at a wolf.”
“And then he happened to see you up here?”
“Yes. If I’d seen him there in the corner, at first, I never would have stood through the whole thing, because I might have known how it would turn out. He told me that day four years ago that he’d have me some time. And — and he’s the kind who gets what he wants.”
She seemed to crumple, all at once, the strength going out of her, and her head dropped on her breast so far that I could see the round, tender nape of her neck.
Poor girl! I pitied her with all my heart.
“Well,” I said, fumbling along the line which gradually had been straightening out before my mind’s eye. “Well, Marjorie, do you know any man in Nome who could stand up to Calmont?”
She raised her head, shook it instantly, and then added with a hasty afterthought: “Massey, you mean?”
Their names were always so coupled together in story and legend and gossip, that nobody could mention one without the other popping into mind.
“Yes,” I said, “Massey is the man I mean.”
“Massey to help me? Is that your plan?” she cried at me, half scornfully and half outraged.
“Why not?”
“Why not? Because Massey’s a worse brute than Calmont. Because there’s no heart in him at all. He looked at me there, tonight, as if I’d been an animal in a cage. Massey? He cares for nothing in the world — no woman, at least. He cares for nothing except the dog, and a chance to murder Calmont, one day!”
“Well,” I said, “perhaps that’s it!”
“What!” she exclaimed.
“Suppose Massey took your part and—”
“He never would!”
“I say, just supposing he took your part, what would happen to Calmont? Why, Calmont would go pretty near crazy, wouldn’t he?”
“Calmont? It would kill him, he’d be so mad.”
“And isn’t that what Massey’s waiting for?”
“Tell me what you mean, Joe!”
“Why, you know the story about them.”
“Yes, that Doctor Borg made them swear never to attack one another again.”
“And Massey will hang onto a promise. There’s no doubt of that. So will Calmont — onto that promise. At least he will until something big and strong comes along to break it. But it would be easier to get Calmont to attack Massey than it would be to make Massey attack Calmont. That’s what Massey is praying for, of course. That’s why he’s living here in Nome — not that he wants to be bouncer in a low dive, you see.”
“He’s living here to be near Calmont, you mean,” said the girl, “in the hope that some day he can taunt Calmont into attacking him? Is that what you mean?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s exactly what I mean!”
Well, up to that minute the thing had not been very clear in my mind. I had been fumbling along at it. First, I wanted to get her off the tundra and back to town. Then I took her into Massey’s house because there was no other place where I could safely take her. And finally, out of our talk there, and the sight of Massey’s clothes and guns, the whole idea grew up in my head.
It was a thing grim enough to chill my heart, I can tell you!
It chilled Marjorie, too. She stood up from the stool she had been sitting on and stared at me.
“Joe May,” she said, “what sort of a young demon are you, after all?”
I managed to smile back at her, a little. “A friendly demon, I hope,” I said.
“And I’m to try to get Massey to protect me, so that Calmont will attack Massey — and so — so that will be my way of paying back eleven thousand dollars to Calmont?”
“Did you give it all away?” I said.
She started. She came hastily over to me.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“I saw you give the sack to that fellow,” I said.
She put up her hand like a child, to cover her face from my eyes. Then she moaned softly.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s all given away.”
I stared hard at her, trying to make out what was what, and it seemed to me that it was not shame that I saw in her face, but sheer misery.
Just then the door opened, and Massey stepped in.
IX. MASSEY TAKES A HAND
WITH HIM, OF course, was Alec, because Alec never was far away. The dog gave the girl a look, that was all. Then he came and licked my hand and sat down near the stove, wagging his tail across the floor and smiling at us in a way that only Alec could smile, as though he were asking what the next romp, or trick, or meal was going to be. That dog really seemed to enjoy a game more than he enjoyed food. If he had been a man, he would have been a poker player, sure enough.
Massey was as disagreeable as any man could be. Like Alec, he hardly noticed the girl, but he walked over and stood in front of me.
“What’s this?” he said, and jerked his head toward Marjorie.
It was about the rudest action I ever saw on the part of any man. I could believe what the girl had said — that Massey cared for nothing but Alec, and a chance to kill Calmont, one day, if he had luck.
It appalled me to see the coldness of his eyes, and the anger in them, as well. Before I could answer, Marjorie was up and at the door. I darted after her, and Massey caught at my shoulder to hold me back.
I really think that he understood everything at a glance, even down to the suicide idea, and he was willing to let that girl go out and put an end to herself. But he missed his grasp at me, and I got to the door just in time.
“Let me through!” she muttered to me. “It’s no use. I won’t have it tried, anyway.”
I held onto the door and shook my head.
“Massey,” I said, “will you let me talk for half a minute?”
He glared at me. A vein stood out purple as an ink stain across his forehead, and for a moment I thought that he would throw me out that door and the girl after me.
“I knew that you’d spell trouble,” was all he said, however; and he turned toward the stove, and started preparing to cook.
The girl motioned me away from the door. He had said enough to rouse up her pride, of course. It never needed so much rousing anyway. Not more than a wild horse needs a spur.
But I stuck to my place. With Massey turned away from me, closing his ears and hardening his heart against anything that I could say, my job was a hard one, but I would not give up.
I said: “Massey, she offered me money this morning, there at Tucker’s place. She offered it because she saw that I was down and out.”
“That’s your business, not mine,” said Massey, without turning his head.
&n
bsp; And he began to scrape charred grease out of the bottom of a frying pan. There’s hardly anything that makes so much and such a disagreeable noise as scraping a frying pan, as anyone can tell you, and I had to talk on over that accompaniment.
I tried again:
“When she left The Joint, tonight, I followed her.”
“Because you’re a simpleton, and a young simpleton, and that’s the worst kind in the world!” he said.
Even this could not stop me.
“I saw her meet a man and give him what Calmont had given her.”
“Yeah?” said Massey, and yawned.
“She went out from the town, and I followed her.”
“A worse simpleton than before!” said Massey.
“Out on the tundra beyond town, she dropped in the snow and lay still!”
It was a high point. I expected that even Massey would be staggered by this, but I was wrong.
He merely said: “She knew you were close behind her, Joe!”
Imagine this, with the girl standing by to listen to it! Her head tipped back and her lips curled.
“Stand away from the door!” she ordered me, as proud as you please. “I want to get out!”
Of course she wanted to get out, and of course Massey wanted her to go; and I had to stand there, miserable and embarrassed, while I argued out that case and knew that I was losing it, every step of the way.
1 ‘I managed to get her to come back to town with me, because I said that I knew a way she could dodge Calmont,” I said.
“If Calmont hears of that, he’ll skin you alive,” said Massey, “and I won’t try to stop him.”
“Calmont saw her four years ago in Texas and swore that he’d have her, some day,” I said. “And he’s tried to buy her tonight, and it’s not right, Massey, and for Heaven’s sake do something about it! You’re able to. If you’re not afraid of Calmont.”
I stormed through that last speech, and got to the final phrase before I really knew the meaning of the words that I was speaking. But this final touch made Massey turn around to me. A great shudder went through his body. He smiled at me in a way that I’ve never seen any other man smile, before or since.
“Calmont’s wanted you for four years, has he?” said Massey.
The first touch of hope leaped up in me, leaped through me. I could have shouted with excitement — but I held my breath, waiting for the girl to answer.
But she did not answer.
Of course she would not answer, after what he had said before. Her pride, and his pride, and I a foolish weakling between two strong souls, matured minds — well, I was ready to throw up my hands when Alec, as curious as a small child, came over and stood beside me and watched my face, and then as though sensing that all this trouble had to do with the girl, he went to her next and pulled at her sleeve to ask, “Why?”
It was not a very great thing, considering what Alec was. But also keeping in mind that no one existed for him, really, except his master, it was a mystery, particularly at that moment.
Now, the girl had borne up very well through all that went before, but at this touch of dog sympathy, if one might call it that, she melted, and great sobs rose up and burst with a strange choked sound in her throat. She fairly ran to the door and tried to tear my hands away, so that she could go through and away into the night to hide herself and her emotion.
But I stood my ground and would not be budged by any strength that was in her. She gasped something at me — a sort of prayer to let her go. Still I would not stir, and at last she collapsed against the wall and buried her face in the crook of her arm.
There she leaned, sobbing bitterly, while I, with my eyes dim with tears also, looked across at Massey. For this was my proof that she was real, and no silly, trifling sham. Such tearing, throat-filling sobs could not have come from any but a great heart, and of course he must see that!
See it? Why, he was looking at her with the coldest of sneers, the bitterest of smiles, as though he despised everything about her, and particularly this breakdown. I could not believe what my eyes saw. There was nothing but contempt in him for that girl, and her breaking heart.
Finally he came to the door and took Marjorie by the arm. “Come over here,” he said.
“No!” she moaned back at him. “I want to get away. I don’t want to stay.”
He stepped back a little and I thought from his disgusted sneer that he would open the door and let her have her way about it, but he changed his mind, precariously, at the last moment. He freshened his hold on her and led her back to the stool near the fire. There he made her sit down, and a great burden, at the same moment, dropped from my shoulders.
“Look at me,” said Massey.
She was so far gone with grief and shame and despair that she obeyed without thinking. Her head rolled back on her shoulders, and her miserable, tear-stained face, and the swollen eyes and trembling lips looked up at him.
You would have thought that even Massey would melt then. But not at all. He studied her like a jeweler looking for a flaw, and by the look of him I guessed that he saw plenty of these. Hard? Cast steel, tool steel, diamond points, were all extremely soft compared with this sneering fellow of a Massey!
Then I looked down to Alec, who stood at one side, wagging his tail and watching first the girl, then his master, as though he wanted to be told what he should do. Some hope came back to me as I looked at the dog.
“Can you talk?” said Massey.
She swabbed at her face with a handkerchief. “Yes,” she said. “I can talk.”
“If I’m to help you — ,” said Massey.
“I don’t want your help!” she said.
“You do!” I shouted at her, at the end of my patience, desperate at seeing her throw away this chance. “Of course you do. Massey’s the only man in the world who can help you!”
Massey had stepped back, completely done, I thought. But the stuff in him was sterner than this. He came again, closer. He stood over her.
“Will you stop being foolish and childish?” said Massey. “Will you talk to me?”
She hesitated, trembling between her pride and her need, but finally she answered in a voice which she made suddenly calm: “Yes, I’ll talk to you.”
“Then tell me: Was that man to whom you gave the money — was that your husband?”
“No!” she said.
I could hardly tell whether she burst out with that in disgust or astonishment.
“He wasn’t your husband,” said Massey, beginning to pace up and down the floor. “He wasn’t your husband. Your lover, then?”
She did not answer.
“Ah?” said Massey. “Fellow you were engaged to, eh?”
Still she did not speak, but set her teeth.
And Massey laughed. Or, rather, the brute that was in him laughed with his throat and mouth at that moment, a most ugly thing to hear, and still uglier to see.
Massey, hanging in mid-step to get the answer, took the silence as a sufficient response. He continued to laugh in that snarling way, and through the laughter he said: “Exactly like the simpletons! Let a good man rot, and sell themselves for the sake of some low sneak, some utter cur of a man!” He paused and then went on. “Whatever he was, he has your money. Calmont’s, I ought to say. Now, what way do you see out of this? Death in the snow, apparently, was the only way. Touching, tragic idea! But hardly the thing to do. It answers nothing. It only beats Calmont out of money!”
He stretched out an arm at her, saying: “Calmont wanted you four years before?”
She managed to nod. She hated Massey, but he hypnotized her, as it were, into making answers.
“He wanted you four years ago. He bought you today, and paid high! That means that for four years you’ve never been out of his mind. By Heaven, it’s for you that he’s been saving his money like a miser, and working like a slave! You! You!”
X. ADVENTURE STARTS
THIS THOUGHT, OR discovery, made him laugh louder than ever, u
ntil he was fairly whooping, but always with that ugly, wolfish snarl underlying the sound of his mirth. It was the most insulting thing that I ever saw or heard. You would have thought that he could not talk even to a brute beast as he was talking to this pretty youngster by the stove.
She watched him, all this time, with a strange fascination in her face. I think I understand what it was. This man was so extremely hard, so cruel, so biting, that he suddenly had ceased to be, in her eyes, a real human being. He was simply a freak. She listened to him and to his insults, as she might have listened to the raving of a lunatic. She had hardly more than a scientific interest, now, in the opinions of Hugh Massey.
Massey, resuming his talk, still was laughing to himself, but in a more subdued tone.
“It’s for you that he starved himself, wore his hands to the bone, treasured pennies, cheated friends, robbed enemies, turned night into day. Always slaving away for the beauty off there in the Southland. And you’re the one! You, selling yourself to him!”
He struck his hands together. He tipped back his head and drew in his breath with a hiss.
“You that came up here, tagging on the trail of a lover who didn’t want you! You’re the one that ruined Calmont! I’ve seen the day when he was the best friend, the most honest man, the bravest standby, the straightest bunkie in the world. He’d never fail you on a march. Me — he’s nursed me on the rim of gunfire and brought me back to life. He’s carried me on his back when I was too weak to walk — carried and dragged me through the snow. He’s been my dog, and pulled me on a sled. He’s chewed willow slips, in order to give me the last fish and flour. He’s drunk hot water so that I could drink tea. He’s worked all day and sat up all night to take care of me. You could search the world from the east to the west and never find another like him. And then he turned wrong! Well, I’ve always wondered why. It wasn’t because of the dog. It’s because woman is a disease that sticks in the mind of a man and stays there, day and night. He wasn’t himself. It was woman that changed him—”
This began to frighten me. I’ve never heard anything like the rapid, quiet, convinced way in which he talked — to himself rather than to the girl. I began to understand another thing, too — which was that he really had loved Calmont, wolf though Calmont looked today.