Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “By that old fool, Borg.”

  “You swallowed his judgment.”

  “I swallowed nothing. A man has gotta back down when there’s a dozen hired guns ready for him. But what Borg decided didn’t make no difference to me.”

  “You agreed to it,” said Massey.

  “And what if I did? I never meant agreeing in my heart.”

  “No, that’s your way,” admitted Massey.

  There was a good deal of sting in their words, but so far they had kept their voices gentle. This did not greatly surprise me in Massey. I knew him and the iron grip he kept on his nerves at all times. But it did surprise me in Calmont; there was so much brute in him.

  He looked more the wolf than ever, now. His beard and whiskers had been unshaved for a long time, and so his face was covered almost to the eyes with a dense growth, clipped off roughly and fairly short. Through this tangle his lips were a red line, and his eyes glittered.

  This hair of Calmont’s did not grow straight and orderly, as the hair of ordinary men grows, but it snarled and twisted a good deal like the coat of an Airedale, and increased his beast look a thousandfold. That, and the bright animal look in his little eyes.

  I had only had, before, two good looks at him in all my life, but they had been on such occasions that the face of this man had been burned into my mind — a thing to dream of.

  Now I looked at him partly as a human, and partly as a nightmare come true.

  He did not pay much attention to me. Only now and then his glance wandered aside and touched on me. And I would rather have had vitriol trickled across my face. It was almost like having his big hands jump at my throat.

  “That’s my way,” said Calmont, “and it’s the right way. If ever there was a court of real law, what chance would you have agin’ me, to claim Alec the Great?”

  “The Alaska way is a good enough way for me,” said Massey.

  “Yeah? Well, we’ll see.”

  “Very quick we’ll see, too. This is gunna be decided forever, and right now!”

  “All right,” said Calmont, “it’ll have to be decided, then.”

  To my amazement, he smiled a little, and this shocked me so much that I glanced quickly over my shoulder toward the door. It was closed, however. No silent partner of Calmont was standing there, to give him an unsuspected advantage. But, from the look on the man’s face, you would have said that he had the upper hand, and that we were helpless before him.

  “Are you wearing a gun?” said Massey.

  “No,” said Calmont.

  “You lie,” retorted Massey.

  “Do I?”

  “Yes. But we’re going to see how long your lie will last. First of all, I want to chat with you for a few minutes.”

  “About sore eyes?” asked Calmont curiously.

  At that temptation, I suspected that Massey would lose his self-control and murder the man straight off, but his shoulders merely twitched a little.

  “About Alec,” he said.

  The lip of Calmont lifted like the disdainful lip of a wolf.

  “I’ll tell you nothin’ about him!” he said.

  XIII. A BARGAIN IS MADE

  AFTER THIS, MASSEY waited for a moment. Just how this odd duel between them was going to turn out, I could not guess.

  “Put some wood into the stove,” said Massey to me.

  I did as he directed me, stepping around carefully so that I should not come between them. I put some wood into the stove and moved the damper so that the draft began to pull and hum up the chimney. Then I moved back where I could watch them both from the side. They were as different as could be, Calmont still with his snarling look, and Massey fixed and intent and staring. Wolf and bull terrier, one might say.

  “You’ve lost Alec and you want him to stay lost?” queried Massey.

  “That’s my business,” answered Calmont. “I’ll gather him in when I want him. He’s out to pasture.”

  “You know where he is, eh?”

  “I know where he is,” nodded Calmont.

  Massey drew in a quick little gasping breath.

  “Arnie,” he said, “I’ve got you here in the hollow of my hand. But I’ll give you another chance. I’ll give you a free break for your gun. I’ll put up this Colt and give you an equal break to get out yours.”

  “And how do I pay for the chance?” asked Calmont.

  “It’s free as can be. Tell me where to find Alec. Where he’s running, I mean,” answered Massey.

  Calmont looked deliberately up to the ceiling, and then back at Massey. He was wearing the most disagreeable of sneers, as usual.

  “I dunno that I’ll do that,” he said.

  “What good would Alec be to you?” asked Massey calmly. “No matter if you know where he is. If he’s running wild, you’ll never catch him. He’s too wise to be trapped. He’s too fast to be caught by huskies; and he’s too strong to be stopped by hounds. He’s gone, as far as you’re concerned.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” said Calmont sullenly.

  “Even when you had him with you, what good was he to you, Arnie?”

  “A dog don’t have to do parlor tricks for me,” answered Calmont in anger.

  “You had to keep him muzzled. He hates you. What good is he to you, man?”

  “The good of keepin’ him away from you,” answered Calmont. “You thief!”

  “I’m a thief, am I?”

  “Aye, and a rotten low one!”

  “I’ve stolen what?”

  “Alec, first. Then the girl. Then you sneaked away your own life through my hands, when I should’ve had you, and found you blind!”

  His voice rose. He roared out the last words.

  “I understand you,” said Massey. “You’re complaining of the way I’ve treated you. Did I ever try to murder you? Did I ever strike foul in a fight, as you did? Did I ever tie you hand and foot and leave you to starve or freeze to death without so much as a match near by to make a fire?”

  “D’you think that I regret that?” answered Calmont. “No, I only wish that I’d been able to do what I wanted with you and leave you there to turn to ice.”

  “You were a fool,” said Massey. “When the spring brought in the prospectors they would have been sure to find my body, and that would have meant hanging for you!”

  “Would it? I’d be glad to hang, Massey, if I could send you out of life half a step ahead of me!”

  I think that he meant what he said, there was such a brutal loathing in his face as he stared at Massey. Evil always seems more formidable than good, and I wondered that Massey dared to sit there and offer to fight Calmont on even terms.

  “Let’s get away from ourselves,” said Massey, “and talk about the dog. Alec — what earthly purpose have you in wanting that dog, man? He hates you. He has hated you nearly from the first.”

  “You tricked him into it!” declared Calmont.

  “I? You had a fair chance at him, out there in that igloo. You know that you had a fair shot at him, Calmont!”

  “You lie!” said Calmont with the uttermost bitterness. “You’d put your hands and your words onto him. How’d I have a chance? I couldn’t talk dog talk, the way that you can! You tricked me out of my right in him!”

  “You’ve had time since. What have you managed to do with him?”

  “You think I’ve done nothin’, eh?”

  “Not a thing, I’d put my bet.”

  “Then you’re a fool!” said Calmont. “It takes time. Time is all that I need with him. He’s my dog, and down in his heart he knows that he’s mine. He’s like a sulky kid, that’s all. But I can see through him. I know that he’s mine at bottom and will be all mine, in a little time.”

  “He never so much as licked your hand!” said Massey.

  “You lie!” shouted Calmont, in one of his furious rages. “He did when he was a pup, even.”

  “Before he was old enough to know better!”

  “I tell you,” shouted Calmont �
��that if it hadn’t been for that fool Sam Burr, I would have had that dog talking my talk. I had to wait to let the rot you’d talked to him get out of his mind. But he was comin’ my way. He was gunna be my dog ag’in. I tell you he ate out of my hand, the very mornin’ of the last day that he was here!”

  He cried this last out in a triumph. He was greatly excited. His eyes shone and his smile was like the smile of a child. All at a stroke, half of my fear and loathing of this man turned to pity. He had induced the dog actually to eat out of his hand, and this triumph still put a fire in his eyes! Yes, poor Calmont. He was simply not like other men.

  “Tell me where he is,” said Massey, “and you’ll have an even break to polish me off. I’ll put my gun on the ground. Then you can tell me!”

  I saw Calmont measure the distance from the ground to Massey’s hanging hand.

  Then he shook his head.

  “You’re a trickster. You’re a sleight-of-hander! Bah, Massey! D’you think that I’ve lived with you so long and don’t know your ways?”

  Massey waited, and watched him. Then, slowly and deliberately, he raised his revolver and covered the forehead of Calmont.

  “I should have done it long ago,” he said. “It’s not a crime. It’s a good thing to put a cur like you out of the world. You’re a fiend. You’re a cold-blooded snake, Calmont. You tried to murder me. Now I’m going to do justice on you.”

  “Hugh! Hugh!” I shouted. “It’s murder!”

  “Shut up and keep away from me!” said Massey, as cold as steel.

  Calmont, in the meantime, did not beg for his life, did not flinch. I never hope to see such a thing again. He merely leaned a bit forward and looked with his usual sneering smile into the eye of the revolver, exactly like a man staring at a camera when his picture is about to be taken. His color did not alter. There was no fear in Arnold Calmont when he looked death in the face, and that is a thing worth remembering.

  I saw the forefinger of Massey tighten on the trigger. He was actually beginning to squeeze it, with the slowness of a man who wants to prolong a pleasure as much as possible, and this time I ran in front of the gun.

  It was a wild thing for me to do, but I was so excited that I forgot the gun might go off any second. I simply could not stand by and see such a frightful thing done. Yet I don’t remember that there was a look of evil in the face of Massey. His attitude was that of an executioner. He detested Calmont so much that I think it was something like a holy rite — the slaughter of that wolf-faced man.

  At any rate, I got in there between them on the jump and yelled out: “You’ll never find Alec, if you shoot him! Alec will be gone for good, Hugh! Will you listen?”

  I saw him wince. He snarled at me to get out of the way. But a moment later he stood up — it had been one of the chief horrors that these fellows were seated all through that talk, making the affair so utterly casual. Then he said: “You’re right! Why should I throw away my chances at Alec for the sake of butchering this animal? Step away, son. I won’t pull the trigger.”

  He dropped the gun to his side as he spoke, and I side-stepped gladly from between them.

  What immediately followed, I only vaguely know, because the instant the excitement was over, my knees fairly sagged under me. I had a violent sense of nausea, and dropping down on a stool, I held my head in both hands. There is shock from a punch or a fall; there is a worse shock from mere horror, and every nerve in me felt this one.

  I remember that Massey finally said: “Calmont, there’s no good throwing away a great thing because we hate each other. We both want that dog. If you won’t tell me where he is, come along with me and we’ll hunt him together. The man who gets him, turns him in to the fund, so to speak, and then we’ll fight it out for that. You don’t think you’re quite my size with a gun. Then we’ll have it out with bare hands, if you want. How does that sound to you?”

  I groaned a little as I thought of this possibility. The two of them, I mean, turned into beasts and tearing and beating at one another.

  “We hunt for Alec first and, when we’ve got him, we fight for him? Is that it?” asked Calmont, with a new ring in his voice.

  “Aye, that’s it.”

  “Massey,” said the wolf man, “there’s something in you, after all. You got brains. I’ll shake with you on that!”

  “I’d rather handle a rattler,” said Massey.

  “Dang you!” burst out Calmont. “I’ll choke better words than that out of you, before the end!”

  They glared at each other like wild animals for a moment, but there were bars between them now — that is to say, they were kept from murder on the spot by the knowledge that they needed one another. There was such a gigantic will in each of them that I felt thin and light as an autumn leaf, helped up in the air by the pressure of adverse winds.

  “Cut some bacon,” said Massey to me.

  I went to do it. My knees were still sagging under me, and my hand shook when it grasped the knife, but I was eager to have this accomplished. I got that bacon sliced into the pan in short order, and when it was cooked and the flapjacks frying afterward, then I laid it on tin plates and served coffee.

  They each picked up some bacon and a cup of the coffee at the same time, and at the same instant they were about to drink, when I saw their eyes meet and their hands lower. Each had the same thought, I suppose, that if they ate and drank together in this manner, then it would be necessary for them religiously to respect the truce until Alec was taken.

  Then they drank at the same instant, watching each other fiercely above the rims of the cups.

  For my part, I made a prayer that Alec should never be caught.

  XXIV. HONORS ARE EVEN

  IT IS BY no means an unusual thing for men to fall out in the North and still to continue in a form of partnership, for the mere good reason that man power is worth something up there in the frozen land. You will see partners together who really hate one another for everything except muscle worth. But that was very different from the way of Calmont and Massey, now that they were together.

  Their hatred was so uniquely perfect that sometimes I had to rub my eyes and stare at them. I could not realize that they were there before me, one of them making trail, and one of them driving the dogs and working the gee pole. But one thing I found out at once — that they traveled like the wind.

  Calmont had no dogs at all. They had been either run off or killed by wolves, he said; and, when he admitted this, Massey had grown suddenly thoughtful.

  “Your dogs were all run off before Alec left?” he asked.

  “No. After,” said Calmont.

  “And what about the wolves?”

  “I know what you mean,” said Calmont gloomily.

  “Well, d’you think that it’s right?”

  “He’s gone wild,” said Calmont. “There ain’t any doubt of that. I know that he’s gone wild and that it’ll be the dickens to get him back. There’s a lot of wolf blood in him, Hugh. You know that. His ma was mighty treacherous before him.”

  “You think that he’s gone back to some wolf tribe, Arnie?”

  “I reckon he has. Or else he’s leadin’ those four huskies of mine and getting them back to the wild. Any way you figger it, he’s gone.”

  “What makes you think you know where to find him?”

  “There come in an Injun here one day, and he talks to me a little while he eats my chow. He’s seen a white wolf, he tells me.”

  “Alec?”

  “Alec sure!”

  “Where did he see him?”

  “A good long march over the ridge.”

  “And how did he see him?”

  “He was out with a pair of dogs, and goin’ along pretty good one day when he come to dark woods and while he was in the thick of the shadow of ’em, out comes a rush of wolves, with a big white one in the front, and those murderin’ brutes they killed and half ate his dogs right under his eyes.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Alec!”
r />   “He ain’t the same!” said the other. “When Alec was with you, he was only a pup. But now he’s grown up, and he’s growed bad — in spots. The wolf in him has come out a good deal lately!”

  He suddenly saw that this, in a very definite sense, was a criticism of himself, and he bit his lip. Wherever Alec was concerned he was as thin-skinned as a girl, though in all other matters he was armored like a rhinoceros.

  “Did this white wolf have Alec’s marking?”

  “He had black ears.”

  “No black on his muzzle and tail tip?”

  “His muzzle was red by the time that Injun got a fair look at it, and I reckon that Alec was moving so fast that his tail tip couldn’t be seen very clearly.”

  “There’ve been white wolves before, and even white wolves with black ears. What makes you think that this was Alec?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you that, too. The Injun said that one of the wolves behind the white leader had a long strip of gray down its right shoulder, and a squarish head for a wolf, and by the rest of that description I made out a pretty good picture of Bluff, my sled dog. So I figgered that the band of wolves that jumped that outfit was simply Alec and my team behind him, runnin’ wild.”

  Massey, at this, considered for a moment.

  “And you’re heading now for the place where those wolves were seen?”

  “No, I sent that Injun back on good, fat pay, to trail that pack and find out what he could about it. He went off with his one-dog sled, and he came back without it. He said that after he got over that ridge, he had been tackled in the middle of the night by the same pack, and that he himself had seen the white leader cut the throat of his one dog as if with a knife. He was pretty excited, that Injun, when he came back here. He wanted most of the world, to pay him back for that sled and the dog that he had lost.”

  “You gave him some cash, I suppose,” said Massey.

  “Yeah, I give him some cash to square himself, for one thing.”

  Suddenly, Massey grinned.

  “And you gave him a licking for the rest of what he wanted?”

  Calmont grinned in turn.

  “You know me pretty good, Hugh,” he said.