by Max Brand
The Kid, for his part, looked away from them and across the waters of Hurry Creek. They were brightly lighted by the leaping flames from the woodpile, and the same illumination glittered on the eyes of the cattle massed beyond the fences. Stil! at those fences, guards went up and down. Beyond the masses of the cows, the Kid saw, or thought he could see, dim shapes wandering along the hills. It might not be his imagination, but actually the forms of the men of the Milman ranch.
Shay raised a hand, suddenly.
“Now, boys,” said he, “we’re gonna have some voting on this here. We’re gonna find out what we’ll do.”
“Why,” said another, “I suppose that we’ll stay right on here and have cold water for breakfast and cold water for lunch and cold water for supper. We can smoke cold water, too. Yeah, that looks like the right thing for us to do.”
This was Three-finger Murphy, a sour and evil-looking man. Shay turned on him in a quiet fury.
“You talk like a fool!” said he. “Are there any men here in this bunch?”
“Pick your words a little finer when you wanta talk to me,” said Murphy. “I ain’t here to soak up any of your back talk, old son!”
“Soak up some of mine, then, will you?” asked Dixon. “Or d’you think that your ugly mug is popular around here with me?”
“Gonna gang me, are you?” asked Murphy, almost good-naturedly. “Well, boys, I’ll take you, one at a time.”
“You are a fool, Three-finger,” said another voice. “Shut up and let’s talk sense. Of course, we ain’t gonna stay on here.”
“If we move, we move at a walk,” said Jip. “What I wanta know is, do I get salvage for that gray gelding that the Kid rode to death, out there?”
“I paid eight hundred bucks for that bay mare of mine,” broke in Peg Garret. “If that means something to you, tell me when I get paid off for that?”
“If some of you,” said Billy Shay, “had had your eyes open and the wool out of your ears, you’d’ve seen the Kid walkin’ up into the camp, dripping water as he come. Jip did see him, and played the blockhead. I never told any of you that I’d guarantee the hosses that you was riding.”
The Kid bowed his head and smiled a little.
The trouble which had started in that camp was likely, it appeared to burn even longer than the pile of wood.
“I’m talkin’ about the Kid, first,” said Shay. “What’re we to do with him?”
“Turn him loose,” said the voice of young Dolly Smith suddenly. “Turn the Kid loose.”
All heads turned suddenly toward the speaker, and Dolly was seen to he highly excited, and flushed of face.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Dolly, “there ain’t anybody that’s done what he’s done tonight. He’s all off by himself. The rest ain’t nowheres. I say, turn the Kid loose. He’s raised hell with us, but he’d’ve got clean away, if he hadn’t had a touch of bad luck. I seen the cow that started up and tripped the gray gelding for him. Aside from that, we’d all be out of luck.”
“Is there anybody,” said Shay, “who feels about it the way that Dolly Smith does?”
The voice of Three-finger Murphy unexpectedly said: “I feel that way about it. The Kid ain’t no friend of mine, as you all of you know, if you know anything. But a gent with the nerve and the brains that he’s got, had oughta have a chance to try his luck again. I say, turn the Kid loose.”
The Kid, frankly astonished, turned a more or less bewildered eye upon the last speaker.
“Three-finger,” said he, “you’re all right, Right here I take back what I said about you and Buck Stacey.”
“It was Buck that put the light out,” explained Three-finger. “I believe you,” said the Kid.
And Three-finger smiled with profound pleasure.
“All right,” went on Shay, very calm, now. “There’s two that vote for turning the Kid loose. What do the rest of you say?” This question met with a deadly silence.
Suddenly Peg Garret exclaimed: “You boys think that you know something about the Kid. Well, I know something, too, and what I know is that he’s one that never forgets. He’s agin’ us now, and he’ll always be agin’ us. They’s gonna be a time, if he gets loose, when he’ll pick up some of us by ones and twos, and them that he picks up ain’t gonna get home none too quick, and they ain’t gonna feel none too good on the way.”
“Peg is agin’ turnin’ him loose,” said Shay. “Who else?”
A big man, gray before his time, with a battered, evil face, exclaimed in his deep voice: “I’m agin’ turnin’ of him loose.”
“Hollis, he says that he’s agin’ it, too,” said Shay, nodding. “Who else? You see that I’m givin’ you your fair chance, Kid?”
“Yeah, I knew beforehand just what sort of a chance I would have,” said the Kid.
His voice was not bitter, and his manner was simply that of a man who is mildly interested, mildly curious in the procedure that went on all around him.
Then three or four more said hastily that they thought it was folly to turn the Kid loose. He had proved himself their enemy. Gratuitously, he had taken the part of the rancher against them, though they were really his kind. He had gone out of his way to injure them, and he had taken a desperate chance, this evening, to ruin all their work. He had succeeded, but he ought to pay a penalty.
That appeared to be the consensus of opinion.
“All right,” said Shay, with a wicked glint of pleasure in his eye, as he glanced toward the Kid. “And what’ll we do with him now that we have him?”
“Aw,” said Peg Garret, “you better put him in a glass case and show him around the towns, at a quarter a look. People’ll be glad to see a killer like him, and they’ll pay dead easy for the chance.”
Young Jip, his lips sneering and his eyes hard, broke in: “He busted the neck of my gelding. I’d like to see his own neck busted. He’s asked for trouble. He’s got trouble, And if I was you, I’d certainly hang him!”
Dolly Smith broke out: “I won’t stand for it. He’s a better man than you ever were, Jip, you curl I’d—”
“Why, dang you—” began Jip, reaching for a gun.
The hand of Dixon, however, already was filled with a weapon.
“The first sign I see of a gun play,” said he, “I’m gonna turn loose on both of the fools that start anything You hear me, boys? Now, let’s have some sense talked, here. Jip says to hang him. Who else votes the same way?”
“I do,” said Garret.
“And me!” said Dixon.
“And me,” said Shay.
Then, in a chorus, came in several of the others.
“Otherwise,” said Shay, “we’ll never have him off our trails. Kid, I’d almost like to ask you if you didn’t swear that you’d get me, one day?”
“I swore it,” said the Kid, “and I sent you word that I was coming.”
“You’d likely be breaking your oath, now?” demanded Shay, with his white- faced sneer of malice.
“I never broke my word in my life,” said the Kid, without emotion. “If I live though this, I’m going to get you, Shay, as surely as you got my old partner!”
“You see what he is!” exclaimed Shay. “Now, boys, what’s the answer?”
“Shoot him,” said Dixon. “He’s been a brave man. He deserves something better than hanging.”
“I’d drown him,” said Shay, with horrible malice. “I’d drown him like a blind puppy, if I had my way, but I’ll do what the crowd says. Shooting it is. Some of you stand him up.”
“Oh, I can stand, all right,” said the Kid, rising to his feet.
“Stand back, all of you,” said Shay. “I ain’t gonna ask any of you to take this job and dirty your hands by the shootin’ of a helpless man. But since it’s gotta be done, I’ll manage to do it myself.”
“You’re a fine, public-spirited fellow, Billy,” said the Kid. And, throwing back his head, he smiled straight at the gun which was being lifted in the hand of the gambler.
> 39. DAVEY RIDES
WHEN MILMAN LEFT his ranch house on the dead gallop, the horse straining and struggling forward under the spur, there was very little care in his heart except to finish the miserable business of life at once. But when he came in the darkness to the rim of the hills which overlooked Hurry Creek, he had a sudden change of heart.
Here was his father’s work and his own, represented by those milling thousands of cattle. The stinging dust which rose unseen from the hollow to his nostrils was to him as bitter as poison, and as he stared at this dim picture beneath him, and the red streak of the camp fire across the face of the river, there was another fierce desire in him, coming before that of death.
He would die, and gladly, but first he must do his best to solve this situation; cut this Gordian knot.
One of the punchers who drifted up and down the hills, on guard, challenged him, and instantly recognized the voice of the rancher.
He had news that was news indeed!
Bud Trainor had seen him and reported that the Kid, single-handed, had descended by a rope into the upper ravine of Hurry Creek, in the hope of reaching the camp of the enemy.
The mind of Milman whirled in infinite confusion.
This youth whom he dreaded, this same youngster who in a day had ruined Milman in the eyes of his family, this was the same who now ventured his neck most desperately to defeat the Shay-Dixon crew and rescue the water-starved cattle in the hollow!
Milman strove to fit the two halves of this idea together, but it was a puzzle beyond his ability.
“He went down Hurry Canyon?” said Milman. “But I tell you, there’s no way for a man to get down Hurry Canyon!”
“That’s what I said. That’s what Bud Trainor thinks, too, but he won’t let himself be honest. He says that the Kid has got to live. It ain’t possible for him to die.”
The puncher chuckled.
“From some of the things that I’ve heard about him,” said he, “I reckon that there’s a little truth in that!”
“The walls are as slick as the walls of a house!” exclaimed the rancher. “And they’re wet with the spray of the creek. How could anybody be crazy enough to tackle such a job?”
“I dunno,” said the other. “It ain’t my style of a job, I know. I can ride any rope and brand. I can’t be a fly and walk on a wall, though, or a ceiling. But the Kid ain’t like the rest of us, chief.”
“No,” said the rancher solemnly. “He’s not like the rest of us. He’s different flesh, and has a different brain and soul, I think, as well. What else did Trainor say?”
“Not much. Trainor is half out of his wits. He’s pretty fond of the Kid, I reckon.”
“Will you tell me, if you can, how any man could be fond of a striped tiger of a man like that boy, the Kid?” asked Milman, the words breaking from him.
“Why, I dunno,” answered the puncher. “But I’ve heard that the Kid’s word is better than another man’s bond; that he never took an advantage; and that he sticks by a bunky to the end of time. They’s a lot of men inside the law that you couldn’t say that much about!”
“True!” exclaimed Milman. “There are a lot of men inside the law who can’t claim such qualities. What else did Trainor say? Did the Kid have a plan of any sort?”
“He had a plan,” said the other, “but he wouldn’t tell Bud. I think he told Bud that if he got to work in the Dixon camp, there’d be a signal that we all could see. Trainor has gone around to the other side of the hollow, so’s to be near to the scene if it comes to a fight.”
“I’m going to the same place,” answered Milman, and straightway cantered off toward the south, to find the main road that bridged the lower canyon of Hurry Creek.
He rode steadily, and he rode hard, the good horse stretching out gallantly beneath the weight of its master. And so the road rang under the iron hoofs, the bridge thundered underneath, and the rancher, over the rail, got one glimpse of the dark and roaring hollow of the canyon.
He thought of a man working with hand and foot through the spray and the darkness of such an inferno. And for what? For the cattle owned by another man!
Bewilderment again surged in a wave over the brain of Mil-man.
At the first gate, he turned in from the road, and headed across the bills until he came out on the verge of them, after making the long detour. From that verge, as he drew the horse down to a milder gait, he could see the camp fire in the hollow, and the dust from the moving cattle blew again to his nostrils.
A moment later, he saw a swift shadow speed across the lowland, and a crackling of the rifle shots welled up to him, sounding wonderfully faint and far away, almost like bells of an unseen village.
He hurried on again, his heart in his throat. It seemed to him that the final fight might be about to commence, and he doubted the end of it. He had good men — men who could shoot straight enough at a deer, but men are not deer, and the best of game hunters may make the worst of soldiers.
Sweeping down to the lower plain, he found, beyond the outskirts of the massed cattle, several of his riders, and Bud Trainor among them.
They reported that a rider had come in from the outside and slipping through a gap among the cattle, had safely reached the lines of the Dixon camp, in spite of their shooting. Who the stranger was, they could not guess, unless he were simply a hired gunman sent up from Dry Creek by Shay, perhaps bearing a message of some importance to the camp to maintain the spirit of the defenders of those two lines of barbed-wire fences that controlled the priceless waters of Hurry Creek.
Bud Trainor, in the midst of this explanation, began to argue with another rider, a very small figure of a man, as it seemed to Milman, and mounted on a mere pony of a mustang.
“You get the dickens out of here and go home!” commanded Bud. “Whatcha doin’ away up here, anyway? Get out of here and go back, as fast as you kin!”
“You can’t chase me out of here,” said the piping voice of a child. “You ain’t got a chance to chase me out of here! Not all the way back home. I heard that the Kid was up here and that’s why I come, because him and me is partners!”
“Who is it?” asked Milman.
“It’s a fool kid cousin of mine,” declared Bud Trainor. “This kid Davey is always up to his neck in trouble. And here he is ag’in. He couldn’t fill one leg of a pair of trousers, but he thinks that he’s a man. I never see such a young fool!”
Milman, in spite of his manifold troubles, began to laugh a little.
“You’d better cut back to the road, young fellow,” said he, “and then follow it up to my ranch house. You’ll be welcome there, and you can turn into a good bed. My wife and daughter wil! take care of you. But tell me one thing. What makes you a partner of the Kid?”
He asked with the keenest curiosity. Once before, on this night, he had heard a testimonial to the many qualities of the Kid. Here was a boy, finally, to add his word.
“Why, I dunno,” said Davey, after an instant of thought, “but him and me, we just sort of hit it off, together!”
The punchers laughed uproariously.
“All right,” said Davey fiercely, “you laugh, but I’d be in at the death to help the Kid when a whole lot of you would be scratchin’ your noses and holdin’ back!”
They laughed again, but not quite so loudly.
“Now, you get out of here. They’s likely to be trouble, and bad trouble!” said Bud Trainor.
But, before he could speak another word, a thing happened which took the attention of every one quite away from Davey Trainor and his odd affairs.
For, from the center of the heaped shadows of the Dixon camp, a column of bluish flame shot up, and then the whole mass of the big woodpile put up an arm of towering fire that clutched at the very sky.
“What in the name of thunder is happenin’ there?” asked one puncher.
“It’s an explosion,” guessed Milman. “Some of their gunpowder has caught fire—”
“It’s an explosion, all rig
ht!” shouted Bud Trainor. “And it’s the Kid that’s exploded it. It’s his signal. It means that he’s at work! Heaven bless him, there ain’t another man like him in the world. He’s gone and done it ag’in! He’s gone and done it, d’you hear? He’s in there raisin’ the devil with the whole crowd of them!”
Here there arose a prolonged rattling gunfire from within the camp, or from that direction, the sounds coming back from the hill faces like hollow hands clapping violently together. An odd time and an odd scene for applause!
Then, through the mass of the cattle, which divided a little to this side and that before the charge, streamed thirty or forty swiftly galloping horses, with no visible riders on their backs. Many of these took a noble header over some cow which could not get from the path, but, rising again, the band streamed on up the bottom of the hollow, cleaving a way as they went, like a flying wedge.
“It’s the Kid! It’s the Kid!” screamed little Davey Trainor.
All the punchers in the Milman service on that side of the hollow were riding, now, toward the point at which the frightened horses were issuing from among the cattle masses.
But Davey was there the first of all, and bending low, so that he could examine the silhouettes of the animals one by one, more closely, he strained his eyes to make out the form of a rider on one of them.
There was nothing to be seen. There was no rider, however flattened on the back or, Indian fashion, along the side of one of those racing horses, that could have escaped the glance of the sharp-eyed boy.
In the meantime, the inferno of flame continued to whirl upwards into the air from the camp of Dixon, throwing out long arms which vanished almost as quickly as they appeared.
“It’s the Kid’s work,” said Milman suddenly. “No other man could have done so much, and the fire and the escape of the horses cannot both be accidents!”
“But where’s the Kid now?” demanded Bud, excited. “He ought to’ve been on the back of one of those horses. And where’s Davey? Davey, you little fool, where are you?”