by Max Brand
So we had a meal together, but my guests did most of the eating, for my heart was a little too full for that. “And everything goes on pretty well?” I asked at last.
I looked at the gloved hand, and Cobalt stretched it out.
“Everything’s going beautifully!” he said. “Look at this.” He wriggled his fingers a very little, stiffly. “It will be as good as ever, one of these days.”
“I always knew it would.” I managed to steal a glance at Sylvia. She tried to turn her eyes down in time, but I saw the tears in them.
Well, everything was very well with them in one sense. Cobalt was in business and prospering. He was smashing stocks instead of men. He insisted one day they were coming West to join me. He would buy all the rest of the range. We’d live together always. I listened and pretended to believe.
They could not stay long. I rode back with them part way to show the shortcut into the valley. There we said good bye, and Sylvia kissed me again. I held her in my arms for a moment and whispered: “Is everything well, my dear?”
“Oh, Tommy,” she said, “I try and try, and maybe one day he will be what he was when he first met me.”
“Trust yourself,” I said, “you can make wild things love you. And everything will end well. Heaven bless you both!”
They went on. I watched them riding over the rimrock, the rim of my world, brilliant with light, and then they passed into the shadows of the quieter valley and were dimmed a little, as memory is dimmed by time.
THE END
The Short Stories
Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank – one of the many studios where Brand found lucrative work. Brand increasingly favoured working for Hollywood studios, as the price he received for new magazine stories declined, while his personal debts mounted.
Miscellaneous Stories
CONTENTS
CONVALESCENCE
THE HOUSE OF RULAKI
HOLE-IN-THE-WALL BARRETT
JOHN OVINGTON RETURNS
OUT OF THE DARK
THE GHOST
THE SECOND CHANCE
EAGLES OVER CROOKED CREEK
HONOR BRIGHT
THE KING
CONVALESCENCE
MAX BRAND’S FIRST PUBLISHED PIECE OF FICTION
“I’M GLAD YOU gave him this private room, Miss Allen,” said the doctor. “I should have mentioned it myself if I had thought. He must be kept quiet... absolutely.”
They leaned over the still figure on the bed, his head swathed in bandages to the bridge of his nose, no sign of life about him save that one hand gripped the coverlet on which it lay.
“Absolute quiet,” repeated the doctor.
“Yes, doctor,” said the head nurse.
“The bullet just missed the brain. Very unusual case, but with perfect care he may live through. Must have perfect care, though. Put a good nurse on this case. Let’s see. What about that girl with the red hair... I mean the one who had red hair when she began training?”
The head nurse controlled a smile. “Margaret Flanders,” she said, “yes, I think she is the one for this case.”
“Put her on during the nights.”
She stepped into the corridor outside the room and spoke to an orderly. In a few moments Margaret Flanders entered. The hair which had once been red was now soft brown and waved demurely under the white cap, and the steady purposefulness of her eyes belied the rather unusual pallor of her face. She received the directions of the doctor with the usual hospital formula of “yes, Doctor,” and failed to show any excitement as he waxed emphatic with particulars toward the end.
Left alone with the patient, she first drew the window shade so that a shadow fell across his face, then she stood by the bed and regarded him fixedly for several minutes. Something on his wrist startled her attention. She leaned over and drew back his sleeve, revealing a narrow white scar which curved for several inches up his arm.
Margaret Flanders closed her eyes and stood for a time with a thoughtful frown. She raised the curtain again so that the full light of the sun fell on the unconscious man’s face and leaned over him, as though she were trying to look up under the bandages. But they concealed his identity as fully as a mask.
Half an hour later she was speaking with the clerk of the storage room. “I want to see the property of that man who was brought in last night, shot through the head, Jim,” she said to the clerk. “What’s his name?”
“Don’t know,” he answered. “They filed the stuff here under the name of John Doe. Nothing on him to identify him except a blackjack.” He smiled wisely into her expressionless face. “Guess he’s a hard one, all right,” he went on, as he laid a little cloth bag on the door counter. “Here’s the stuff they took from his pockets. Will he live?”
She fumbled the contents of the bag one by one, a roll of bills, a pocket knife, a watch, a wallet, the blackjack (innocent seeming enough in its snug leather cover), and a large bunch of keys. She held the keys for a moment in the hollow of her hand. They were of many sizes, some of them Yale keys, some plain keys, and nearly all filed curiously about the edges.
As the clerk turned a little away, she dropped the bunch of keys into the pocket of her apron. When he looked up again, she was busy tying up the mouth of the bag. “There’s nothing here to identify him,” she said as she gave back the bag. “Yes, I think he will live.” She paused a moment and stared vaguely into a far corner of the room. “I am quite sure he will live.” As she walked back toward her patient’s room, she was smiling strangely, and her head was bent forward.
It was a bitter watch by day and night for the next two weeks to save the wounded man, but at the end of that time Margaret Flanders, a little thinner and paler than before and with a trace of purple shadows under her eyes, received orders to remove the bandages about the upper part of her patient’s face. She went about the task with even more delicacy and hesitation than the condition of her patient demanded. She had undone the first roll when his hand went up and caught her fingers firmly.
“Now tell me straight,” he said. “When this bandage comes off my eyes, will I see you as pretty as I’ve been imagining you all these nights? Are you like your voice and like the touch of your hands?”
“My hands and my voice are both part of me,” she answered with a low, brooding laugh, “but I haven’t the least idea whether or not you’ll find me pretty.”
He drew a deep breath. “Don’t think I’m faking any funny stuff,” he said.
“Not a bit,” she answered, “all sick men have queer imaginations.”
His hand remained steadfastly prisoning hers. “You may think me a bit queer,” he replied, “but I’m not. I’m handing you the cold dope. When I lay here all this time, I’ve had a mighty big chance to think things over. At first I wasn’t very keen whether I lived or not, but, while I lay here, I got to listening to the sound of your dresses swishing about and to your voice... which is some voice, take it from me... and then the easy way you have with your hands... which, I may also remark, are some hands.... Well, say, lady, I’ve got a picture of you cached away in my brain that’s a cross between a rising moon and a saint on a stained-glass window pane. Now, put me right. What am I going to see when I look at you?”
She laughed softly again. “I can’t describe myself,” she said. “I haven’t a mirror here, and my memory is very short.”
“All I want to know,” he persisted, “is whether I’ll have to forget your face and remember that you’ve got a beautiful soul, and then close my eyes again, and think back to the short stories I’ve read so I can say nice things to you.”
“Well,” she replied, “I hope you won’t think about my soul.”
With deft hands she removed the last roll of bandage, and he lay looking up to her. His eyes grew suddenly wide, and a faint blush on his cheeks answered the sudden color of her face.
“It is seven o’clock,” she stated. “The day nurse will be here any moment, and I must go.”
He caught at he
r dress. “Don’t go,” he pleaded. “I’m remembering things so fast now that my head is dizzy.”
She extricated her dress from his hands and walked to the door, smiling back at him.
“You’ll come back?” he called.
“Yes, tonight,” she answered.
“If you don’t come back, honest, I’ll tear off the rest of these bandages while the day nurse is not looking.”
The door closed upon her half-mocking laughter.
That day was a hard one for the day nurse. Her patient rolled and tossed uneasily, and suddenly he would lie still, and she would be conscious of the unfaltering stare of eyes that had given defiance too often to danger, a glance that made her turn almost unawares, as if to seek for some protection. As the evening drew on, he grew feverish as if with excitement.
“Tell me what’s the matter?” she pleaded. “Does your head pain you very much?”
A brief smile relaxed the stem lines of his face. “My head’s all right,” he answered. “It’s something inside my head that bothers me. Say, what time is it?”
“Fifteen minutes to seven.”
“That’s when the night nurse comes on, isn’t it?”
“Margaret Flanders? Yes. She’s a lovely girl, don’t you think?”
“Sure,” he said, “Margaret... what did you call her?”
“Margaret Flanders.”
“Oh,” he said, his whole figure relaxing somewhat under the bedclothes, and a frown came on his forehead. “Do you ever call her Madge for short?” he continued, the frown disappearing.
“Don’t you think she’s much too dignified for a nickname?”
“Hmm,” he growled, “I suppose so. Sure she is. Say, tell me on the level, is she late ever?”
“No, nurses aren’t often late in this hospital.”
“Does she live far away?”
“What a lot of questions,” laughed the nurse. “I’m sure I don’t know.”
“She might be late,” he mused heavily. “I sure hope she’s on time. Say, what time is it now?”
“Thirteen minutes to seven.”
“Thirteen more minutes. Say, did she always look the way she does now?” He closed his eyes with grim determination and tried to while away the time by counting sheep jumping over a stile. At last the door opened; he heard a murmur of voices; and then he knew the day nurse had gone and that the night nurse had come. He welcomed her with a sudden smile and open eyes.
“Gee,” he said, stretching out his hand, “it’s great to see you again. This has been a rotten long day. Rotten long. You’ve no idea.”
She made no answer, and he continued to study her with dumb satisfaction as she moved about the room.
“Come over here a moment, won’t you?” he pleaded at last. “Say,” he continued, when she stood by the bed, “do you know that, if you had red hair instead of that soft brown, and if you were a little different around the eyes... I don’t know how, I’d feel like calling you Red Madge?”
She smiled on him inscrutably. “And if you were not in a hospital,” she replied in a level voice, “and if you wore a cap a bit to one side of your head and pulled down over your eyes, I’d feel like calling you Jimmy Erickson.” His face grew paler and his eyes suddenly wide with astonishment. “Red Madge,” he whispered, then he dropped one hand back to cover his eyes. “It can’t be you! Your hair was red, bright red, and your eyes were different. Say, Madge, is it you, honest?”
“Sure it’s me, silly.”
“But in a hospital?” He raised himself suddenly on one elbow. “What’s the game? Aw, go on, you can trust me. You know I’m a silent guy.”
“There isn’t any game.”
He leaned back on the pillows and smiled on her complacently. “Anyway, it’s mighty fine to see you again, Madge. Put her here.”
They shook hands silently. They were both smiling now, but each in a different manner.
“So you’re not here on a game?” he mocked.
“No.”
“Say, Madge, you always were a peach on the silent stuff, but I should think you’d loosen up to me. I never did a pal dirt, did I? Maybe there’s some way I can help. Is there?”
“You’re on the wrong track, Jimmy,” she smiled. “There’s nothing but red lights ahead on that line. Switch over and get a new start.”
He grinned at her contentedly. “You’re a wonder, all right,” he acknowledged. “I’m sure enjoying your little act, and, believe me, I’m some critic of this sort of a show. But cut the silky stuff, Madge. If you keep on kidding me, I’ll laugh myself sick again. All right, if you won’t loosen up, I’ll leave you alone.
“But tell me this, Madge, where have you been all this time? The old gang is all busted up, the best old gang that ever made life hell for the New York bulls. It was you that held us together, old girl. The count swore you’d double- crossed us when you disappeared two years ago when we was in the midst of our biggest game. You remember the John Gleason stunt we were pulling when you went out of sight? Say, loosen up a couple of notches and give me the straight of it. Why did you cut and run? Or did someone make you run?”
“I want to know first how you came to be laid up here,” she answered.
“Then you’ll tell me why you ditched us?”
“Sure I will.”
“It was that rotten Bull McDonald. You never had no use for him, and I guess you had the dope. You could always sort of smell out a phony crook, Madge. Well, this guy McDonald... God, I get crazy when I think of it.” His eyes left her face and his lips narrowed to a thin, straight line. “This guy McDonald,” he continued after a pause, “got Jess Wildcome for his lady, and he was sure strong for her.”
“That pale-eyed thing?” remarked Margaret scornfully.
“Sure,” grinned Jimmy, “he never had no taste. He never had no eye for the right thing. He knows about as much about girls as I do about Shakespeare.” He paused to gloat over his metaphor. “I got a hunch that’s about as close to nothing as there is,” he continued. “But that’s not all. Not by a lot. No, the sweetest part of it was that that fat-headed burn thought I wanted Jess. Why, if he’d get a pair of glasses, he wouldn’t want her himself.” He laid a hand upon Margaret’s, and his eyes went soft. “Besides, you know where I’d hang out if I got a chance.”
She drew her hand away, and her eyes were vague.
Jimmy sighed. “Anyway,” he went on, “once this mutt got the bulge of the idea that I was pining away for Jess, he went the limit. I happened to have a glass of beer with her in McCarthy’s one night and in come Bull McDonald and pipes us off before we got past the foam. He went up to Jess and grabbed her by the shoulder like he owned her. Maybe he did.
“Anyway he got pretty rough. He wouldn’t look me in the eye, but he says: ‘What the devil are you doing in here with Jimmy? Doing me dirt on the side, eh?’ It made me pretty sore to hear a full-grown guy talk to a Jane like that, even if she does look like an advertisement for the Salvation Army. I says very soft to Bull, and speaking like a gentleman: ‘Cut out the rough, Bull, and stow the Bluebeard stunt. She ain’t got no key to no secret chamber.’
“At that, Bull turns on me and begins to cuss me. I guess he was a sailor or something once, or maybe he used to drive mules... anyway the way he swore sounded like Billy Sunday on a drunk. It got under my skin more than it should have, maybe. Anyway, I planted him on the chin while he was still going full blast.
“That busted the music box, all right. He went down in a heap. Jess screamed, of course. She never had no sense. But I got her by the arm and kidded the bouncer along with a five-spot, and we managed to get out of the place.
“The next day I heard that Bull McDonald was on my trail with a gun. Happy Pierson tipped me off. But I didn’t pay any attention to him. Happy has a way of handing out the bull, you know. Well, that’s all there is to it. I was coming out of the alley when it happened. The yellow dog didn’t give me a chance. Stepped up behind me and says down low: ‘I go
t you, Jimmy, damn you, and you’ll never have to be got a second time!’ I whirled around, and the gun went off at the same time. I woke up here.
“Did I tip off the police? Say, am I a rotter? Not me. The police are all right, but once in a while they happen to get track of things. They might get Bull before I do, that’s all. And when I get Bull....” He closed his eyes and smiled.
“Bull is a cur,” said Margaret. She clenched her hands fiercely. “Sometimes I wish I were a man. God, how I wish it.”
“You’re all right as you are,” stated Jimmy critically. “I wouldn’t have you changed. Not any way. No. But say, let me in on the Gleason stunt, will you, and how you disappeared?”
“It’s a long story, Jimmy.”
“I hope it takes all night,” he grinned. “Won’t it be rich to tell the straight stuff to the boys when I get out of this?”
She strummed the slim fingers of one hand meditatively against her chin, and a faint smile of reminiscence touched her lips. “It seems as if I have to dream back into another life just to remember it,” she began. “You recall we were trying to get from this John Gleason the paper containing the assay of a mine in California?”
“Sure,” said Jimmy. “Didn’t the count and I trail him all the way across the continent? The game of it was that he knew that our gang was on his track, and he knew both the count and me. I’ll bet he didn’t close his eyes half an hour at a time all the while we were tracking him. He sure looked dead for sleep when he hit the Grand Central in this little old town.”
“You boys did a good job, all right,” she said. “You’ll know just how good it was when I get through with my story. But the point was that he reached New York, and I rented a swell apartment opposite his hotel.”
“Sure,” said Jimmy, “you were to keep watch on him, and a bad job you made of it, too, Madge. I guess it was the first bad job of your life.”
“The best job I ever did,” she said with a strange smile. “The very best, Jimmy, and yet I was trying my hardest at the rottenest game I ever tried. Oh, it seems a long, long time ago, Jimmy.”