Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “A mill for what?” asked the Kid.

  “For what? Why, to grind all of the wheat into flour.”

  “What wheat, Bud?”

  “Why, ain’t you rode up through the fields of it. Thousands of acres, over in yonder. Irrigated, too, from the dam up there in the middle of the ravine. And the mill runnin’ with the overflow water. You must of seen all of them things! Or maybe they’re just an idea that the old man had. Forewitted is what the old man is, and was. Me, personal, I’d rather have the cows and the wheat than the wits. I’d do my thinkin’ behindhapd, if I had something to think about. C’mon in, Kid, and rest yourself.”

  “No,” said the Kid, “I’m making a long march. Here’s Davey with the shoes.”

  The dozen or so shoes were cast down in the dust in the circle of the lantern light, and from the lot, the Kid instantly picked out two. At his word, the mare lifted her foot, the moccasin was removed, and the old, rusty shoes were measured against it. One of them came near fitting.

  “There you are,” said Bud. “That shoe’s made for her.”

  “That’s a rough cast for her,” answered the Kid. “She’s a tailor-made lady, the Hawk. She won’t have any of these quick-fits, old son. Where’s that forge?”

  There were chickens roosting on the forge, but they were scattered, squawking loudly, the dust was puffed from the old, tattered bellows, and the charcoal raked together, while they lighted the shavings above the draft.

  The family came out to see the famous wanderer at work as a blacksmith. Old Mr. Trainor stood by, offering advice. Young Davey worked the bellows. Bud held the lantern in the right place, and his mother came out with dough on her hands and flour on her nose to give the Kid a withered smile and the promise of a hearty meal.

  Old Mr. Trainor could not keep his hands away from the work. As he saw the fire glow and heard the light cracking of it at work, with the upward curling of the fumes, he began to spit on his hands and shake his head. And as he did so, he picked up an eight-pound hammer. He looked like a sheep, a shaggy, long-haired, tangled, unclean sheep of the west coast of Scotland. For he was bearded almost to the forehead, and from the tangle, as through a mist, his eyes looked out with an uncanny brightness.

  “I’ll hold and strike. You can tap if you will, man,” said he.

  He took charge of the business completely, while his big son snarled at him viciously: “Leave it be, will ya? The Kid knows his own mind about the makin’ of that shoe!”

  “A fitted shoe is a right good shoe,” said the old man, enthusiastically. “I’ll fit that shoe to the breadth of a hair.”

  “And you’ll be all the night about it,” declared the son.

  “Better a late start than a never ending,” said the father.

  “There he goes with his blamed proverbs,” said the other. “There’ll be no stoppin’ him now, Kid, unless you take the hammer out of his hand!”

  The Kid, however, said nothing at all, but looked at the old man with a singular fascination, as though he saw a story in his bushy face.

  In the meantime, old Trainor fell to shaping the shoe. He worked fairly slowly, to be sure, but with the utmost nicety. And even-when the critical Kid declared that all was well and that the shoe would do perfectly, still the old fellow labored, with sweat running brightly down his nose and his eyes agleam.

  “A thing half done is a game not won,” said he. “If there’s only one window in the house unlocked the devil may fly through it as easy as if the whole place was open.”

  “Hark at him,” said the son. “Now he’s well started, and there’ll be no stopping of him, as I told you before. That’s why we’ve gone to pot out here. He never could finish the first thing to his own content, and so he never got through to the end of anything.”

  The old man, shaping the shoe with many light, delicate blows, and drawing out a small nose calk in the front of the bend, on either side, regarded his work with a most judicious eye. Now and then, holding the shoe on a cold chisel, he stooped above the foot of the mare and she, nervously aware of every movement, would raise her leg to show the hoof. Over it, making the shoe hover closely, he strained his eyes.

  “Oh,” said old Trainor, “I’ll tell you what, Kid, it takes a wise man to learn from a fool, and that’s what my son would never do. I been a failure and a great failure. I’ve kept his ma and him cooped up in a shed all their lives. Well, I ain’t proud of it. I’m ashamed. But I’ve ate honest bread, and—”

  “Shut up, will you?” shouted the son, savagely, so that Davey winced with fear at the bellows, where he watched all with great eyes.

  The Kid waved his hand, for he saw that this last interpolation was to save his own feelings.

  “It’s all right,” said he. “The whole world knows that I’ve been a thief. You don’t hurt my feelings, Dad.”

  At this, old Trainor stepped from the anvil a short pace and dropped a hand upon the shoulder of the other.

  “Good lad!” said he. “As if I would ever harm you, even with talk. But then, there’s a thing that’s harder to watch than a sword or nitroglycerin. It cuts and it tears — a tongue does!”

  He struck himself lightly across the mouth with the back of his hand, and then shook his head as he turned back to the fitting of the shoe.

  “Polite, you are,” said Trainor to his father. “Always thinkin’ about the right thing to make folks comfortable.”

  “I’ve spoke of the wrong that I’ve done him,” said the other patiently. “What more can I do, son?”

  “Keep your face shut, is what you can do!” thundered the other.

  At this, the Kid lifted his brows, and suddenly looked down again, as though he saw that the business of his were done.

  And old Trainor, bending over the hoof of the mare for the last time, began to trim it to a smooth, fiat surface, using the knife gingerly, as though he were afraid that blood would follow the least touch that went too deep.

  “Aye,” said he. “Shut my mouth and be still. Listen to them that have made money, that ride fine hosses and wear fine clothes. Listen to them that have a big purse and something in it. They can talk, but old Trainor is not a long step ahead of a beggar. And therefore, he has no right. Let him talk to the prairie dogs and the squirrels, and the hens in the yard, but not man talk to men — not man talk to men!”

  His mutterings did not force him to neglect his work, however, and finally he nailed on the shoe, cutting and clinching the nails with as much care as he had shown through all the rest of the work.

  “A good handy blacksmith would of shod a boss all around in the time you’ve took to fix one foot,” said the son, growling as usual.

  Then the Kid interrupted.

  “He wouldn’t have done a job to suit me,” said he. “Not if he’d gone a bit faster. She’s worthy of good shoes to stand in, is the Hawk. I’m thanking you, Dad.”

  Dad Trainor smiled suddenly on him, like a light shining through a fog.

  “Aye,” said he, “for them that has diamonds won’t set them in brass. You understand, son! It ain’t every hand that can move as fast as the eye can jump, and faster. But patience climbs the highest hill and—”

  “And finds it bare at the top!” broke in the angry son. “I’m tired of hearin’ such rot!”

  He left the shed suddenly and strode off into the night in the direction of the house.

  11. CALLERS

  YOUNG DAVEY, LEAVING the bellows, remarked: “It sure fits her to a turn. That’s what I’m gunna be when I grow up. I’m gunna make things. I’m gunna be a blacksmith.”

  “Don’t go makin’ no mistake,” said Dad Trainor. “Hands that are strong enough to work in iron ain’t strong enough to work with people. Don’t you aim to work with iron. Aim to work with men. They’re what need the bendin’. They’re what it pays to shape. Heat ’em and temper ’em. Hammer ’em and form ’em. If you break one of ’em, here and there, it don’t make no difference. Throw the pieces outside the shop. Leave ’e
m there to be tramped in the dirt by everybody that goes by. Go on with your hammerin’ and shapin’. If you break two for every one that you shape for yourself, you’re a mighty successful man. You’ll have money in the bank. Pretty soon, folks that hated you for meanness will be glorifyin’ you for strength. They’ll take their hats off and when they shake hands, their palms will be turned up. Be a man-handler, not a blacksmith, Davey!”

  The cold irony of this speech caused the Kid to look attentively and somewhat sadly on the old man, but before any of them could speak again, a horse neighed loudly somewhere near by.

  The Kid sprang from the shed to listen.

  But the sound had died down instantly. It was full night, now, and the stars thickly stippled the sky, setting out the black, heavy forms of the hills and more dimly, of the mountains beyond. He turned his head a little from side to side, trying to locate the sound, but it was not clear enough in his mind.

  “Here, girl!” he called softly.

  The mare instantly stepped from the shed to his side, and there he watched her as she lifted her head high and stared straight across the ravine.

  “It was over there,” said the Kid thoughtfully, nodding in the direction at which the mare was still looking. “What would you say, Dad,” he added to the old man. “Was that neigh in the ravine or up on the bluff, there?”

  “It was up there,” said Dad Trainor.

  “Nope, it was down in the ravine,” broke in Davey instantly. “I heard the echo break.”

  “I think I did, too,” said the Kid.

  “It was off of the bluff,” said Dad insistently. “Sure you’d hear some echo, but not loud, and bangin’ back and forth from side to side of the ravine, like it would ‘a’, if the critter had been down on the floor. A noise like that, it’s like a whangin’ in a dish pan, I tell you.”

  “Any stray horses around here?” asked the Kid, his ear canted a little, his eyes still struggling with the darkness.

  “Yeah. Pretty often some of the Milman stock, it straggles here across the badlands. Most likely was one of them out there on the rim of the valley.”

  “Yeah. I’ve seen ’em there a lot,” said Davey.

  “Milman lands run this far?”

  “Pretty nigh,” said Dad Trainor. “He’s been buyin’ up and buyin’ up all the time. Them that have enough money is like stones rollin’ downhill. The longer they live, the faster they go. He’s gunna own most of the countryside around here, before long. They’s trouble ahead for him!”

  “Because he is so rich?”

  “A rich man with a pretty daughter is like a gent smeared with honey, when they’s wasps flyin’ in the air, on a hot August afternoon. Pretty soon he’s gunna get stung bad, I can tell you! Stung right to the bone, so’s he’ll ache good and plenty.”

  “I’ve seen her,” said the Kid, looking ‘aimlessly across the night.

  He seemed to begin to forget the alarm which he had been feeling the moment before.

  “Scout out there and see if there’s anything moving,” he said to Davey. “Get close to the ground, and look at the sky line, will you?”

  “Sure!” said Davey, delighted, and he bounded away.

  “What are you suspicionin’ about?” asked Dad Trainor suddenly.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” answered the Kid. “You never know. In a way, I’m the honey that attracts a kind of wasp, too. The humming of them, Dad, is a thing that has waked me up in the night, a good many times.”

  “If you got any doubts,” said Dad Trainor, “you wouldn’t be sendin’ out a wee kid like that one, would you? Kind of half town raised, too! If I could have him out here all the time, his eyes and ears would sharpen up, maybe.”

  “They’re sharp enough,” said the Kid, easily. “If so much as a partridge whirs within a mile of him, he’ll hear it and he’ll see ft. I’ll trust Davey. He knows how to look at a man in the clay, and he’ll know how to look for a man in the night. My bet is on Davey.”

  “Well, he’s a good lad,” said Dad Trainor. “Bright and quick, and I gotta say that town livin’ ain’t made his fists soft. The tannin’ that he give to little Harry Michaels one-two year back, it was a beauty. He handed Harry a ten- pound handicap and a lickin’ that was worth watchin’. But still, if they’s any doubt about what’s out there in the dark of the valley—”

  “There’s always doubt, Dad,” said the younger man. “But if a fellow has nightmares by day as well as by night, what’s the use of living at all, I say.”

  “Aye, and a true thing that is,” said Dad. “Them that takes chances and changes horses is them that makes the round trip through life, and the rest of us, we just travel along one road and never see nothin’ — but dust!”

  He shook his head violently, and led the way on toward the house. They only stopped outside to give the mare a nose bag of barley, and then they went into the little shack where Ma Trainor greeted them with a smile and a face shining with the steam of cookery. She declared that she had some sour-milk biscuits in that oven that would warm the heart of any man in the world. In the meantime the stove enriched the air with a multitude of vapors, while the Kid went over to lift lids, sniff contents, and discuss the properest ways of seasoning and baking in a Dutch oven. In these matters, Mrs. Trainor was a mint of information.

  “Where you been keepin’ yourself, Kid?” she said.

  “A little bit of all around,” said he. “But mostly south. What What have you been thinking since I last saw you?”

  She accepted the question with a smile.

  “Mostly tasting the first part of my life over again,” said she. “That’s what you do when you get my age, Kid. Them biscuits oughta be ready now. Kick that dog off that chair and sit down. Where’s them other two?”

  There was only one small lamp, the chimney slightly yellowed with smoke, and when this was placed on the table and the glass still further obscured with the steam of the food, it gave the room new dimensions, and a sort of gloomy dignity. In the corner, the ladder which led to the garret now climbed quite out of sight. As the food was piled on the table, which sagged a little to one side even under this light weight, the missing two now came in.

  “I met Bud,” said Davey, “and he told me that he’d already scouted around.”

  “Yeah,” said Bud, rather gloomily. “When I heard that hoss nicker, I just took a look around, but it ain’t nothin’ but one of the Milman cayuses up there on the bluff. Them Milmans, it ain’t no wonder that they lose a lot of stock by rustlers. They go and shove their hosses and cows right down your throat, sort of.”

  “A loose horse, eh?” asked the Kid.

  “Yeah, a loose horse.”

  “I’m glad to know that. I thought that one hadn’t whinnied himself out at the finish.”

  “Can you tell when a hoss has had his fill up of neighin’?” demanded Bud, somewhat sulkily.

  “Pretty close,” replied the Kid. “There’s something about the way that he tunes up at the start that can tell you whether he’s going to wheeze, snort, cough, or squeal at the finish.”

  “Well, I never could read the mind of a hoss that close,” said Bud. “Throw me a coupla them biscuits, will ya?”

  The Kid, silently, passed the plate, and while Bud helped himself, the eye of the Kid lingered for a moment, thoughtfully, upon the gloomy face. He shifted his glance, then, over his shoulder toward the door and seemed for an instant uneasy, but in a moment shrugged his shoulders and settled himself to his meal.

  He had begun a little story of Yucatan in which the very steam of the jungle of that southland appeared, when, into the doorway behind him, stepped two men, silent as shadows. The Kid had his back fairly turned, but something made him stiffen as though he actually had seen the naked guns in their hands, leveled upon him.

  But, little Davey, who hardly had been able to shift his eyes from his hero, up to this moment, now slowly rose like a ghost from his stool.

  “Jimmy!” he breathed.

 
; “Jus’ take it quiet,” said a voice from the doorway.

  “Aye, take it slow and easy, Kid,” said the second man. “And give a jury a chance at you!”

  12. NOTCHED GUN

  THE KID RESTED his elbows upon the edge of the table.

  “You wouldn’t object if I was to stretch my arms — so long as I stretched ’em up?” he asked.

  “Leave ’em be. Leave ’em still. We know you, Kid. It ain’t where your hands are that counts. It’s the way that you can move ’em. Watch him now!”

  “Heck! Ain’t I watchin’ till my eyes ache?” said the other. “Go up and fan him for his armory. I’ll keep him covered.”

  Old Dad Trainor had recovered from his stupor and had risen again.

  “What’s the meanin’ of this, boys?” he demanded.

  “Why,” said the Kid, “it’s just two old friends of mine dropped in for a little call. It’s Sam Deacon and Lefty Morgan. How’s everything, Deacon?”

  “Right now,” said Deacon, “it’s pretty good. I reckon I can tell how good things is with you, though.”

  “You, Morgan and Deacon,” said Dad Trainor. “What kind of jamboree d’you reckon that this here is, anyway? You ain’t gunna do nothin’ to the Kid, in my house!”

  “Ain’t we?” asked Morgan.

  He had come well into the dull circle of the light, showing a death’s- head, all bones, scantly covered with a tight-drawn parchment skin. His teeth were so prominent that the pale lips constantly grinned back from them, and they flashed brightly in even that dull illumination.

  “Watch that old fool,” said Morgan.

  “You handle the Kid, then,” said Deacon.

  He had cone up to his partner’s shoulder, a great contrast to the other. He was one of those little, heavy-shouldered men with legs so bowed that they waddled like ducks in walking. He looked like a sailor. There was something free-swinging, frank, and easy about his hearing, and about his face.