Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “Stand back there against that wall,” directed Cobalt.

  He helped me to get to that comparatively sheltered position. In the meantime one of the thugs had scrambled to his feet and ran off up the street, staggering. The second one was beginning to stir also, and Cobalt picked him up by the nape of the neck as a laborer might pick up half a sack of oats. The fellow was still loose and limp, but he rapidly recovered his consciousness. It was the yegg who had attempted to brain Cobalt from behind. A smear of blood was on one side of his face, and the flesh was already swelling. Plainly that was where the fist of Cobalt had delivered a hammer stroke. I noticed, as he got back his wits, that he showed less fear than sullen anger.

  “Today ain’t the last day,” he said to Cobalt. “They’s gonna be another turn, old son.”

  “Today may be the last day for you,” said Cobalt. “I don’t know. It depends on how well you talk.”

  “I don’t talk,” said the yegg.

  “You’re likely to be dead, then,” said Cobalt. “Look at me, you!”

  “Well,” said the thug, “whatcha want? Gonna eat me?”

  “I’ll break you up small enough for eating, unless I find out who started you on my trail.”

  “You looked like you’d have a fat poke. That’s all.”

  Cobalt with a jerk twisted the man’s arm behind his back. “I’ll tear that arm out at the shoulder, unless you tell me straight — who put you on my trail?”

  “Leave go!” gasped the yegg. “You’re gonna break my arm, you! Leave go, will you?”

  “I want the name!”

  “There ain’t any name. I swear there wasn’t anybody that put me on the job, but—”

  “Take another minute to think,” advised Cobalt, and gave the arm a fresh twist.

  Once I was tormented like that by an older lad, when I was a youngster at school. I still can remember the blinding pain. Now, the face of the other wrinkled as though he felt flames.

  “Soapy!” he breathed.

  Cobalt released his arm. “You’re number two from Soapy. Go back and tell your boss that I’m mighty flattered by getting so many messages from him. Tell him that the first chance I get, I’m going to call on him in person. I hope that he’ll be ready to stage a good party.”

  The thug lingered a moment, held by the sheer excess of his misery. He was massaging the twisted, tortured shoulder as he said: “You’ll have your party, you fool! You’ll have a party. So will that other sick-faced rat that grabbed me from behind. If it hadn’t been for that, you’d be having a fine long sleep right now, Cobalt!”

  “That’s pretty,” said Cobalt. “Now run along, my friend.

  The next time we meet, I’ll start, and I won’t stop. You tell Soapy that I have all the information that I need. That’s all!”

  The thug went up the street, still bending forward and nursing his injured shoulder.

  “He won’t slug a blackjack with that arm for a few weeks,” mused Cobalt with satisfaction, stepping up beside me. “How are you now?”

  “I’m all right,” I assured him. “He must have been an ex-pug. I never felt such a sock.”

  “He’s tough,” agreed Cobalt, “or his arm would have broken just now.”

  I saw that he was smiling a little, and that his eyes were bright. He kept watching me curiously. Plainly he had enjoyed the adventure.

  “Chalmers, I don’t quite understand you.”

  “Why not?”

  “I thought you were against me.”

  “I never was against you,” I told him.

  “You never were?” he asked me, lifting his brows.

  “I never was against you. I helped to keep Sylvia Baird away from you. That’s true. But I never was against you.”

  “What would you call that? I mean, when a man carts a girl the most part of a thousand miles just to spite a friend of his — a funny kind of friendship, I’d call that.”

  “Maybe you would. You ought to see how it is, though, Cobalt. If I help a man to do a wrong thing, I’m not his friend from my way of seeing it. If I keep him from doing a wrong thing, that seems to me to be the real part of friendship.”

  “Oh, I see the point,” he said, an ugly glint in his eye. You’re one of the old-fashioned moralists, eh?”

  “I’m not a moralist. I’m just a common or garden kind of a fellow. That’s all.”

  “Look here, you saved me from having my head split open today.”

  I felt rather modest about it, my part had been so small. “Not so much as that. You know, the rap would probably just have put you down and out for a minute.”

  “Not when Soapy sends his boys out to collect a scalp,” declared Cobalt. He shook his head. “Are you cold?” he asked.

  “No,” I answered.

  “Will you stay here and talk to me for a minute?”

  “All right.”

  “I want to stay here,” he explained, “because before long I hope to see one of Soapy’s bright boys come back to pick up the trail.”

  “Well, I’ll stay here with you.”

  “I want to know this. What made you grab the arm of that yegg? If he’d slugged me, everything would have been easy for you and for Baird. You could have got Sylvia out then, and nothing to bother you.”

  I nodded. “I don’t know. The truth is, I like you, Cobalt. I couldn’t help trying to bother the thug when he was about to hammer you over the head. It was just an impulse. Don’t you go and make too much out of it.”

  He nodded, watching me, seeming to make a rapid mental calculation. “The trouble with you is that you don’t add up right.”

  “What do you mean by that, Cobalt?”

  “Well, I mean, knowing what I know about you, when I put you together, it doesn’t make sense. There’s something missing that I don’t know.”

  “Perhaps, but don’t make any mystery out of me. I’m as simple as they come.”

  “Maybe, but tell me another thing. What does Sylvia mean to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  Cobalt raised a forefinger. “Don’t lie!”

  XXVII. SOME QUESTIONS

  IT WAS NOT a pleasant subject. “I’m not lying, Cobalt. She means nothing to me.”

  He merely smiled and said: “I want to believe you. I want to like you, Chalmers. You know what Soapy Jones means in this town, and you’ve got yourself into his bad graces by helping me in a pinch. I want to like you. I want to trust you. But you ought to be straight with me.”

  “I am being straight. She means nothing to me.”

  “You think that she’s ugly maybe, or just merely pretty?” he said, half sneering.

  “She’s the loveliest thing that I ever saw, with one exception.”

  “What’s that exception?”

  “A half-bred yearling filly that I saw at an Arizona horse fair.”

  Cobalt started. “Come, come! Are you comparing a woman to a horse?”

  “Yes. The horse had her beat.”

  “All right. Go on and make a joke.”

  “I’m not joking, man. Just because I differ from you, it does not mean that I’m joking.”

  “Well, maybe not, but I find you mighty hard to understand.”

  “You’ve said that before, but you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. There’s nothing unusual about me.”

  “I’ll try to take you at your word. But about Sylvia. You don’t mind my talking to you about her, do you?”

  “I’d rather that you didn’t.”

  “Well, tell me why you’d rather not talk about her?”

  “Because she has a right to be consulted,” I suggested.

  “Oh, come, now,” he replied. “Let’s not split hairs. You know that Sylvia’s everything to me.”

  “I don’t know that.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I know that she’s a lovely picture to you. She’s equal, say, to a fine emerald. Or have you changed your mind about that, perhaps?”

  “No, I haven’
t changed my mind. I see what you mean — that everyone is apt to have a different view in looking at her.”

  “That’s about it.”

  “And your point of view is that she doesn’t mean anything to you. You think she’s lovely, but she doesn’t mean anything. Not to you. Is that it? You don’t think that she’s clever, perhaps?”

  “She’s as keen as a whip. She’s a lot too clever for me to handle, I can tell you. She has brains enough, if you want that.”

  “You don’t want brains in a woman. Is that it?”

  He hung on like a bulldog, and I began to grow a little irritated. Besides, my feet were numbing rapidly as I stood still. “Brains or no brains, I don’t want the woman, if that’s what you mean. If you’re going to be a jealous fool about her, I’ll give you the answer straight off. I don’t want your woman, Cobalt. I hope that you’ll believe me.”

  He was not offended. He looked at me in rather a dazed way. “But everybody wants Sylvia. You must be half crazy, Tom. What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you care about her the way other people do?”

  “I like to be with her. That’s true. I like to be with her. She’s good company. She’s as good a sport as any man. She’s tough. She does her share. She can walk like a man. She has a good nerve. She’s clean, and she’s gentle. She’s amusing about everything that you could name. But I don’t want her. You can have her, Cobalt, as far as I’m concerned. It’s only her own preference that I’m considering.”

  “By the jumping thunder! I sort of believe that you mean what you say.”

  “I mean it. You can bet that I mean it.”

  “I want to believe you because there have been times when I wanted to tear your heart out. Do you know that?”

  “I’ve guessed it. I’m glad that you passed us on the trail without seeing us.”

  “I’m glad, too. In the open country a man gets pretty hard. I was hard when I was marching down from Circle City. I wanted your blood, Tom. But that’s over. To put it in one word, you don’t love Sylvia.” He waited eagerly for the final confirmation.

  I had to search my mind when I was on the verge of replying. “Of course, I love her,” I stated.

  “Hello! What are you doing? Trying to make a fool out of me?”

  “No. Don’t you see what I mean? Sylvia’s a darling. But she’s a child. I’m old enough to be her father.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I am. Almost. You don’t understand, Cobalt. Women don’t mean anything to me any more. I’m done with all that.”

  “You have me beat,” answered Cobalt. “I try to follow you, but you’re too far away. I don’t see what you mean. You haven’t taken a vow or something, have you?”

  “I’ve got a pair of children back home. All the woman part of life is finished for me. You ought to be able to see that.”

  “Well, I don’t, quite.”

  “I’m sorry if you don’t understand, but I don’t want to talk any more about it.”

  “I’d think,” said Cobalt, hanging on to the subject with his usual determination, “I’d really think that if you had a couple of kids down there — who’s taking care of them?”

  “An older sister of mine. She takes care of them for me.”

  “Well, I should think that you’d be looking for somebody to take their mother’s place, you know, and who could be better than—”

  “Oh, shut up, Cobalt! I don’t want to talk about it any more. Are you trying to make me fall in love with Sylvia? Let me tell you all over again, I’m ten years too old for that.”

  He stopped there. He only added a final, rather startling thing to end our talk. “Well, partner, I hope that she doesn’t decide to lift those ten years off your shoulders one of these days!”

  I grinned a little. It was the sort of remark at which one has to smile. But I was glad the subject of Sylvia was out of the way, for the time being at least. How the man carried on about her.

  He explained: “Maybe I’m a fool, but I was jealous. I don’t see things the way you do. You have a different slant. You make me feel like a silly kid, Tom. But I hope we can shake on this.”

  I hesitated with good reason. “If I shake hands, it means a lot to me. It means I’m your friend. And how can I call you my friend when I’ll still be trying to block you?”

  “You’re going to keep it up. You’re going to try to stop me, even now?”

  “Yes. I’ll have to try to. I’m pledged to stop you, if I can.”

  “Oh, it’s all a confusion and a mess. Tom, here’s my hand, if you want to take it. Here’s my hand. I’ll be a friend to you in every way I can, except in one way.”

  You can imagine how glad I was to take that famous hand of Cobalt’s and grip it with all my might. “We’re friends. And this puts another ten years on my life, I think!”

  “Do you? Have you been noticing the yegg on the far side of the street who’s watching me?”

  I saw the fellow now. He was standing with arms folded, wearing a big parka and puffing at a pipe. About all I could see of his face was a bristling mustache, sticking straight out. “D’you think he’s watching us?”

  “Nothing much else for him to see,” replied Cobalt. “Let’s move along. Believe me, Tom, what you’ve done today for me has tangled you up pretty badly. They’ll all go out for you much as they’re going for me.”

  I nodded. Speaking was not so easy for me just then. “What should we do about it?” I asked him.

  “Are you packing a gun?”

  “No.”

  “You’re not! What sort of a fellow are you, Tom?”

  “Not much with a gun for one thing.”

  “Here. Take this.” He shoved a Colt into my hand.

  “I can’t take your gun.”

  “Don’t worry. I have another. Don’t worry a bit. But keep your eye sharp. I’m going to try to get at Soapy Jones, old-timer. I’m going to try to get at the tap root of his institution and cut it so that the tree will die.”

  Suddenly he began to laugh. I stared at him, bewildered, but as a matter of fact he seemed to think that this was a grand party he had embarked on, and he went up the street with that light, aspiring tread of his, head held high. I followed along with him.

  A gust of wind struck us in the face. He merely laughed louder and started to whistle through the blast. I wished, with all my might, that I could have borrowed certain qualities of nerve and mind from this master of men. At the door of the hotel, he said good bye.

  “Hold on, old fellow,” I said. “Why don’t you room here?”

  “They wouldn’t want me. Sylvia wouldn’t want me. Neither would her father, and neither would you, for that matter. Good bye again. Keep your eyes open and your gun ready. You may need it one of these days.”

  He simply had escorted me home, do you see, and now he was going off into a veritable sea of dangers. I began to wish for one thing only, and that was the arrival of the ship that would give us all a chance to escape from Skagway and travel toward the south, toward law and order. My mind was on this as I entered the hotel lobby.

  XVIII. THE LION’S DEN

  WHEN I PASSED the desk, I spoke to the proprietor. He merely grunted and did not raise his head to return the greeting but pretended to be busy with the summing up of an account. I was not fooled. Something had turned him against me, and was it not the swift-winged rumor which must have gone forth, saying that I was opposed to Soapy Jones? I had not the slightest doubt that the fellow was really a member of the gang which was plundering and murdering in Skagway.

  There was this new weight on my mind when I got upstairs. Sylvia smiled at me in her charming way when I entered after knocking on the door. I found that, while she was awake, she still looked sleepy, yawning from time to time. Even the wild tales which her father had been telling her were not enough to get the weariness out of her eyes. She was sitting at one end of the bed, with a blanket twisted around her, for the wretched room was a mere house of cards, and the wind wa
s whistling through a thousand cracks.

  “Father has been telling me everything,” she said. “Don’t you feel like a page out of the Arabian Nights or something? And what became of friend Cobalt?”

  “He left me at the door of the hotel.”

  “Is he taking a room here?” asked her father in an ominous voice.

  “He’s not taking a room. He’s gone on. He only brought me here to see that no one bumped me over the head while I was on the street.”

  “Come along, man,” chided Baird. “You mean that he was really friendly?”

  “Yes, he was friendly.”

  “He’s changed,” remarked Baird. “He’s quieter, older, sourer.”

  “Sylvia’s ripened him a good deal.”

  She gathered her ankle in one hand and looked seriously at me. “You’re sympathizing with Cobalt, just now.”

  “A wee bit,” I told both of them. “The gang is after him, hot and heavy. They tried to brain him! I managed to help him a little.”

  “What?” cried Sylvia. “Have you got mixed into a fight?”

  I stared darkly at her, for I saw that she was stinging me again with her own peculiarly subtle malice.

  “Be quiet, Sylvia. Stop this confounded wrangling, will you?” commanded her father. “Chalmers, will you tell me what’s happened?”

  “Cobalt and I have shaken hands We’re friends.”

  “Have you gone over to him?” queried Baird.

  “No. I’m still free to help you.”

  “It sounds a little twisted,” observed Sylvia.

  “Well,” I admitted, “no doubt it is twisted, but I’ve told you the facts. However, you don’t have to worry about Cobalt. He won’t interfere with you much longer. He’ll be a dead man before another day comes around.”

  I watched Sylvia as I said this, to see if she would show any fear. She did not. Neither did she show any pleasure in hearing that the man’s death was so imminent.

  “You’re guessing?” she suggested.

  “It’s no guess. It’s about as clear truth as I’ve ever seen. No man can live in Skagway after Soapy Jones has decided that he must die.”