Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “We’d better go that way,” she said. “You never can tell—”

  So we headed to the left and immediately heard another rifle shot to guide us more accurately. Baird got out the small field glasses, which he carried, and Sylvia herself unlimbered the rifle. I went ahead, being more fit than Baird, and started to break trail.

  There was a new fall of snow, light, dry, flying like dust under the broad web of the shoes, and this sort of snow always makes heavy pulling for a sled. In addition we had a gradual slope to surmount, and the dogs made hard work of it until the girl fastened the Lightning Warrior in the lead. Then we hummed along with me staggering in advance, and the fangs of the wolf inches from my tired legs.

  In mounting that slope, I poured out the last of my strength as utterly as one pours out the last drop from a cup of water. I knew somehow that over the brim of it we would come on something of importance, and I gave myself in a last frantic outburst. The blood came surging into my head. My eyes thrust out until they ached. But we made good time right up to the brow of the hill.

  There the team stopped, for I had pitched into the snow ahead of them and sat there, bowed far forward, supporting some of my weight on shaking arms, nauseated and done for. I heard Sylvia say: “This is the place!”

  I looked rather vaguely about me, for there was a quiet emphasis in her voice. A treasure hunter might have spoken with just these words and in just this manner, arriving at the destined spot. This was the place?

  The white ground sloped from the brow of one hill into a wide hollow which was empty of all growth in the center, but to right and left low trees and shrubbery went away like rolling smoke across the hills and hummocks. The sky was comparatively clear, but it seemed to me a narrow horizon, a sky without an arch, flat as a floor and low above our heads.

  What Sylvia was pointing toward was a pair of sleds in the center of the hollow with five dogs attached to it. Three of them were standing and two seemed to be stretched in the snow, resting. As I watched, another dog dropped down and, immediately after, I heard the sharp ring of the rifle report, like a hand clap at my ear.

  XLII. THE LAST BATTLE

  BAIRD SPOKE FIRST. “It’s Cobalt!”

  He had the glasses fixed against his eyes. When I heard him say this, I reached over, and he handed me the glasses. The picture drew closer. It wasCobalt. He had dragged from the pack on his sled a rifle which he held to his shoulder with his left hand alone, and at this moment he was firing into some brush to the right of the sled.

  There was no answering shot at Cobalt, but another of Cobalt’s dogs went down. Then I understood. It was Jess Fair of course who had overtaken his man, and now from the secure shelter of the bushes he was playing with his victim. He would let Cobalt have a foretaste of death before death itself arrived. The dogs would go down first, and then the master would follow them at the leisure of Jess Fair.

  I dropped the glasses and tried to struggle to my feet, but my knees were unstrung. I could only kick feebly with my legs. “Give me a hand up!” I called. “He’s murdering Cobalt!”

  There was no answer. I turned my head and saw that Baird had taken the rifle and was aiming at something he saw in the brush the hidden assassin. The girl in the meantime was running off to the left, along the brow of the hill. She ran with all the strength she could muster. The Lightning Warrior was beside her.

  I heard the heavy, hollow click of the hammer of the rifle falling, but no report followed that sound. I heard a moan from Baird. Another report rang in the hollow, and the fifth and last of Cobalt’s dogs went down. Cobalt himself would be the next to follow.

  Baird was sobbing like a desperate child as he fought and struggled with the jammed cartridge. Then he took the weapon like a club, by the barrel, and ran down the slope with staggering steps. Somehow, I got strength enough to heave myself to one knee then to the next. I caught hold of the shoulders of the nearest dog. The Husky showed me his murderous teeth but endured enough of my weight so that I found myself presently standing erect but wavering. I began to move cautiously forward, down the slope. I was like a man drunk, with a mist before his eyes. Through that mist cut a streak of white.

  It was the wolf, running with nose down, hot on a scent that wavered a little from a straight line, and heading toward the shrubbery from which the hidden marksman was firing. Baird, overstepping on his exhausted legs, tumbled headlong into the snow before me. I overtook him and got the rifle away from him, and then I went on, stumbling, floundering, gasping for breath but always struggling with the infernal jam. I could do nothing with it, however.

  I saw a smaller form come up beside me. It was Sylvia, running desperately, and she went by me as though I were standing still. The last of Cobalt’s dogs was down. His turn would be next. Perhaps he might have sheltered himself behind the sled and fired his rifle, left handed, across the top of the pack, but I think Cobalt was tired of life. For now he stood up from the snow in which he had sunk upon one knee, shooting from the left shoulder, the bandaged right hand supporting the weapon. He cast the useless gun from him and charged at the patch of shrubbery which held the murderer.

  That, I think, is the way I shall always think of him when I ride the range alone of Cobalt’s running with all his might, leaning forward, throwing out his hands before him. Only one of them was useful, but that one would be enough, if ever he could come to grips. But how could he come to grips with that remorseless gunman?

  The rifle rang again, and Cobalt pitched on his face. Dead? No, he turned over in the snow, regained his feet, and went forward, hobbling. There was no use in his charging now, but he would not give up. He preferred to take his death while in action, his face to the foe. It was a noble thing to see.

  I saw Sylvia before me throw up her hands at the moment when Cobalt dropped. An instant later as he rose, the savage voice of the Lightning Warrior, baying on the trail, came back to my ears. There followed another rifle shot. I looked to see Cobalt fall again and lie still forever, since he was near the edge of the shrubbery, but Cobalt did not fall.

  Another gunshot followed and then silence. That silence held during the mortal seconds which elapsed before we got into the shrubbery together, Baird and I. For his greater strength at the moment had permitted him to overtake me. We went crashing through, regardless of what happened to our snowshoes, and so we came on the picture of the end. Jess Fair lay on his back with the Lightning Warrior on top of him. Both were dead, and each had slain the other.

  We turned our backs on them for there was something else to see. It was Cobalt, who sat in the snow with his back against a bush, his head hanging on his breast, his hands dangling into the snow, while Sylvia kneeled before him, cutting away the furs, trying to get at a wound between knee and hip.

  When we came up and spoke, Cobalt lifted his head. He gave us a blank look. His face was ghastly, and there seemed no recognition in his eyes. Then down rolled his head again, and the chin rested on his breast.

  Sylvia began to give us orders in a quiet, metallic voice. She never spoke to Cobalt or asked him how he felt. She didn’t comfort or question him in any way. She never expressed a regret for her past treatment of him or confessed her true feeling, but she went on with the work steadily and got a shelter prepared, a bed of boughs constructed, and a good fire roaring.

  It was a slow business. We wanted to second her in every way we could, but exhaustion had almost the best of us. I took three axe strokes to a branch which ordinarily I would easily have slashed in two with one. But the camping drew to an end. We had the wood in, the fire going, and the shelter tent up, and Baird was proceeding with the cookery, while I trimmed up odds and ends and drove in pegs to make the tent more secure in case a heavy wind should blow up.

  We heaped one mound of snow to make a temporary grave over Jess Fair and the dead wolf. That might seem strange, since they had slain one another, but there was a similarity in their faces for each had died for the love of a master.

  At th
is point the girl announced that the wound in Cobalt’s leg was dressed and that it would do very well, since it was only a clean, clipping hole through the thigh. Now she asked for hot water and more light, because she was going to dress the wounded hand. I was standing by, having brought the water, when I saw her begin to untie the bandage which Cobalt himself had clumsily wound around the hand. He seemed to start back, and suddenly he caught her arm with his left hand.

  “No!”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “I won’t have it touched,” he said by way of answer. “It’s doing very well. The air will be bad for it.”

  “Will you let go your hold on me, Cobalt?” she asked.

  “I will not, till you let me be.”

  “You’re breaking my arm,” said Sylvia.

  He continued to stare at her for a moment, then he relaxed his grip and surrendered. As he lay there, he closed his eyes and said a thing I shall never forget.

  “I’ve been cut down to your size, Sylvia,” he said.

  Ah, the bitterness in that quiet voice of his. He kept his eyes closed while she unwound the crooked, heavy, clumsy bandage which he had made. When it was off, she hesitated for a moment, holding the wounded hand back up, and I knew that she was gathering courage to turn it palm upward. She did at last, and she did it without flinching, though the red, horrible, puckering thing that I saw made my brain spin and my stomach turn.

  I managed to stand by while she washed and prepared the hand. Then she made five small pairs of splints, a pair for each finger, stretched the hand on them. It must have been a painful thing for Cobalt, but what was pain to him? He remained there on the bed of boughs, looking up into space with a faintly puckered brow, as though he were not aware we were doing anything at all to him.

  Afterward she went away, giving me a look that made me stay beside him, though I was groggy for the lack of sleep. We heard poor Baird begin to snore. Then there came a small, thin, wailing sound.

  “What’s that?” asked Cobalt sharply.

  “It’s the wind coming up.”

  I lied as cheerfully as I could, but I knew well enough what it was. It was the whining, high-pitched sobbing of the girl. Poor Sylvia! Poor Cobalt! The sound ended. It began again and was stifled.

  “Call her, will you?” said Cobalt.

  I went and called Sylvia. She said she would not come, but I urged her, and at last she came.

  “Are you here?” asked Cobalt.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Now, listen to me,” said Cobalt. “I hoped this would be the last day for me. Fair would have finished me off quietly enough, and there would have been an end. But you had to come in between and smash things. Very well! But let me tell you, though there’s only a third of me left, I won’t have your pity. I won’t have your whining.”

  I looked at Sylvia and wondered what she would say to this cruel speech, but she said nothing. She only stood there with a white face and big eyes and the look of a beaten child. I cannot say that I regarded her altogether with sympathy, since I could look back rather clearly through the events of this history which I have been writing, and all the sins were hers, I felt. There never would have been any trouble except for her. Yet my heart ached for her.

  She saw that his eyes were closed, after he had spoken, and she took advantage of being unseen by him to hold out her hands to him. I hardly knew what to do, but I tried the simplest thing. I got her by a hand and drew her down close beside Cobalt. I took Cobalt’s sound hand also and put Sylvia’s small one beside it.

  “I’m going to tell you the truth, Cobalt,” I said. “She’s about half wildcat but, if you don’t hold onto the hand that you’ve got hold of now, you’re missing what no other man ever can have.”

  “Say what you mean, Tom,” he said quietly.

  “Why, Cobalt, you blind fool! If you’d had your eyes open there in Circle City, you wouldn’t have fought with her. You wouldn’t have tried to crush her. You would not have talked rot about thieves and emeralds. You would simply have told her you loved her, and she would have answered that she loved you. For she’s honest, Cobalt. But she has her pride. Would you want her without pride as big as your own?”

  “Chalmers,” said Cobalt gravely, “I love you and I trust you, and no one else. You wouldn’t lie to me. Not now, I think. But say this again.”

  I got a look from Sylvia, however, that was enough for me. I did not repeat myself, but I got out of the shelter as fast as I could and stood outside. The sky was dark, without a star. The vague outlines of the trees were all around me; and out of the distance came a moaning, weeping voice. It was not Sylvia this time but, in fact, the wind.

  XLIII. REMINISCENT

  HOW WE TREKKED back to Dyea is no matter, or how we took shipping south, or how we parted. I would like to begin again with Talking Mountain, the land I bought, and the look of the children when I saw them again. How we built the shack and how we put a wing on it the next spring. I would like to talk about the cattle, too, and the way they fattened on the highlands, just as I had known they would. For I’ve a theory that never has played me false, that the higher the land, the better the grass. It grew sparsely in bunches on my range land, but it seemed sweet to a cow. They fed on it greedily, and they were never tired of rooting the snow away to get at the cured, dead-looking grass in the winter. It may be a false theory of mine. It may only be true of Talking Mountain, but I know that the cattle throve wonderfully well on those clean uplands.

  I would like to talk about my life with the children too and the school work of an evening. How they rode range with me, growing sturdily but never hard minded. For there again is the beauty of the highlands, that the pure air touches the spirit in some mysterious way I never have understood.

  However, I know that in such a history as this, one must cling to the main events of the narrative. One event is surely part of the main course. I had gone to town to buy bacon and flour and other necessaries in the pinch of the early autumn, when a man looks to his winter larder. As I jogged my span of buckskins down the street, I saw a fight whirl out of the door of a saloon, and three men came tumbling in the dust, two fighting one. One of them was too much for the other two. He left them writhing in the street and stood up, a pale-faced youngster with a great hulking jaw and heavy, square shoulders and long arms.

  I stopped the team. “Hello, Kid,” I said. “You’d better jump in here with me before they slam you in jail.”

  He gave me one look, and then he came with a leap and sat in the seat with me. I drove on without pausing for provisions this trip, for I understood that trouble might be coming in the rear of the Kid. He had not changed much since Skagway.

  After we got clear of town, he turned and gave it a look. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “Up high where the air’s better,” I told him.

  He looked at me, but he said nothing. On the whole journey he asked only one question, I think.

  “Him, he got married. Cobalt, I mean. He got married, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, he got married.”

  “And where is he now?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “You know how it is. Out on a ranch, your fingers get too stiff to handle a pen.”

  I thought the Kid might stay a week. I was wrong. He told me he had been looking for me and Talking Mountain all his life, only he hadn’t known our names. So he refused to budge and settled down and became a man I can trust my life to, this day or any other day hereafter. The good, sharp mountain winds blew him clean, as they have a way of doing.

  There is one more thing to add, the most important of all, I suppose. On a bright spring day, a May day, with all that May brings to the mountains, my girl spied two riders coming up the valley trail. She called to me. We have few strangers on Talking Mountain, and some of those who come our way need watching. So I put the rifle just inside the kitchen door and stepped outside into the bright sunshine.

  I watched them for a moment. The
wind was running in brilliant waves along the flowers of the mountainside, and then I saw they were a man and a woman.

  “It’s all right, my dear,” I said. “It’s a man and woman. Go put on the coffee pot and slice some bacon and clean a couple of the trout your brother brought in.”

  She went to do as she was told, while I stood there, shading my eyes until they rode straight up to me, and still I did not know them. It was so unexpected, and our foolish eyes will only see what they are taught to expect.

  In fact, they had both dismounted, and he had cried out: “Tom, by thunder, you’ve forgotten!”

  Then I saw the black, thick glove on his right hand.

  “Cobalt!” I said.

  He took me with his left arm alone. It was enough. He sprained every rib in my body with a bear’s hug. While I was still staggering and gasping, Sylvia kissed me and cried out about seeing me again.

  Before they would talk, they wanted to see everything. I showed them the haystacks, the new barn, the chickens, the corrals, and the pasture with the saddle stock in it enough to warm a man’s heart to see the beauties. The Kid was in there, gentling a four-year-old, but he drifted away from us.

  “He’s a little shy with strangers,” I explained. “We won’t bother him.”

  I showed them the spring, and the new stone steps we had made from it to the house, and I showed them where I was going to build the windmill that would pump water to the corrals and to the house also.

  Then we went into the house, and they saw the children, as brown as squirrels and as shy. Only once they saw Sylvia, they would not leave. They were always standing in the corner, in the shadow, worshipping her beauty.