by Max Brand
“Which it shows the fool nature of a hoss,” moralized Sam. “That stallion would be willin’ to lay right down and die for the man that’s jest rode him up to the front door of death, but he wishes everlastingly that he had the strength to kick the daylight out of you an’ me that’s been tryin’ to take care of him. You jest write this down inside your brain, Buck: a hoss is like a woman. They jest nacherally ain’t no reason in ’em!”
They found Dan in a heavy sleep, his breath coming irregularly. Mrs. Daniels stated that it was the fever which she had feared and she offered to sit up with the sick man through the rest of that night. Buck lifted her from the chair and took her place beside the bed.
“No one but me is goin’ to take care of Whistlin’ Dan,” he stated.
So the vigil began, with Buck watching Dan, and Black Bart alert, suspicious, ready at the first wrong move to leap at the throat of Buck.
CHAPTER XXVII
NOBODY LAUGHS
That night the power which had sent Dan into Elkhead, Jim Silent, stood his turn at watch in the narrow canyon below the old Salton place. In the house above him sat Terry Jordan, Rhinehart, and Hal Purvis playing poker, while Bill Kilduff drew a drowsy series of airs from his mouth-organ. His music was getting on the nerves of the other three, particularly Jordan and Rhinehart, for Purvis was winning steadily.
“Let up!” broke out Jordan at last, pounding on the table with his fist. “Your damn tunes are gettin’ my goat. Nobody can think while you’re hittin’ it up like that. This ain’t no prayer meetin’, Bill.”
For answer Kilduff removed the mouth-organ to take a deep breath, blinked his small eyes, and began again in a still higher key.
“Go slow, Terry,” advised Rhinehart in a soft tone. “Kilduff ain’t feelin’ none too well tonight.”
“What’s the matter with him?” growled the scar-faced man, none too anxious to start an open quarrel with the formidable Kilduff.
Rhinehart jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
“The gal in there. He don’t like the game the chief has been workin’ with her.”
“Neither do I,” said Purvis, “but I’d do worse than the chief done to get Lee Haines back.”
“Get Haines back?” said Kilduff, his voice ominously deep. “There ain’t no chance of that. If there was I wouldn’t have no kick against the chief for what he’s done to Kate.”
“Maybe there’s some chance,” suggested Rhinehart.
“Chance, hell!” cried Kilduff. “One man agin a whole town full? I say all that Jim has done is to get Whistlin’ Dan plugged full of lead.”
“Well,” said Purvis, “if that’s done, ain’t the game worth while?”
The rest of the men chuckled and even Kilduff smiled.
“Old Joe Cumberland is sure takin’ it hard,” said “Calamity” Rhinehart. “All day he’s been lightin’ into the girl.”
“The funny part,” mused Purvis, “is that the old boy really means it. I think he’d of sawed off his right hand to keep her from goin’ to Whistlin’ Dan.”
“An’ her sittin’ white-faced an’ starin’ at nothin’ an’ tryin’ to comfort him!” rumbled Kilduff, standing up under the stress of his unwonted emotion. “My God, she was apologizin’ for what she done, an’ tryin’ to cheer him up, an’ all the time her heart was bustin’.”
He pulled out a violently coloured bandana and wiped his forehead.
“When we all get down to hell,” he said, “they’ll be quite a little talkin’ done about this play of Jim’s—you c’n lay to that.”
“Who’s that singin’ down the canyon?” asked Jordan. “It sounds like—”
He would not finish his sentence as if he feared to prove a false prophet. They rose as one man and stared stupidly at one another.
“Haines!” broke out Rhinehart at last.
“It ain’t no ways possible!” said Kilduff. “And yet—by God, it is!”
They rushed for the door and made out two figures approaching, one on horseback, and the other on foot.
“Haines!” called Purvis, his shrill voice rising to a squeak with his excitement.
“Here I am!” rang back the mellow tones of the big lone rider, and in a moment he and Jim Silent entered the room.
Glad faces surrounded him. There was infinite wringing of his hand and much pounding on the back. Kilduff and Rhinehart pushed him back into a chair. Jordan ran for a flask of whisky, but Haines pushed the bottle away.
“I don’t want anything on my breath,” he said, “because I have to talk to a woman. Where’s Kate?”
The men glanced at each other uneasily.
“She’s here, all right,” said Silent hastily. “Now tell us how you got away.”
“Afterwards,” said Haines. “But first Kate.”
“What’s your hurry to see her?” said Kilduff.
Haines laughed exultantly.
“You’re jealous, Bill! Why, man, she sent for me! Sent Whistling Dan himself for me.”
“Maybe she did,” said Kilduff, “but that ain’t no partic’lar sign I’m jealous. Tell us about the row in Elkhead.”
“That’s it,” said Jordan. “We can’t wait, Lee.”
“Just one word explains it,” said Haines. “Barry!”
“What did he do?” This from every throat at once.
“Broke into the jail with all Elkhead at his heels flashing their six-guns—knocked down the two guards—unlocked my bracelets (God knows where he got the key!)—shoved me onto the bay—drove away with me—shot down two men while his wolf pulled down a third—made my horse jump a set of bars as high as my head—and here I am!”
There was a general loosening of bandanas. The eyes of Jim Silent gleamed.
“And all Elkhead knows that he’s the man who took you out of jail?” he asked eagerly.
“Right. He’s put his mark on them,” responded Haines, “but the girl, Jim!”
“By God!” said Silent. “I’ve got him! The whole world is agin him—the law an’ the outlaws. He’s done for!”
He stopped short.
“Unless you’re feelin’ uncommon grateful to him for what he done for you, Lee?”
“He told me he hated me like hell,” said Haines. “I’m grateful to him as I’d be to a mountain lion that happened to do me a good turn. Now for Kate!”
“Let him see her,” said Silent. “That’s the quickest way. Call her out, Haines. We’ll take a little walk while you’re with her.”
The moment they were gone Haines rushed to the door and knocked loudly. It was opened at once and Kate stood before him. She winced at sight of him.
“It’s I, Kate!” he cried joyously. “I’ve come back from the dead.”
She stepped from the room and closed the door behind her.
“What of Dan? Tell me! Was—was he hurt?”
“Dan?” he repeated with an impatient smile. “No, he isn’t hurt. He pulled me through—got me out of jail and safe into the country. He had to drop two or three of the boys to do it.”
Her head fell back a little and in the dim light, for the first time, he saw her face with some degree of clearness, and started at its pallor.
“What’s the matter, Kate—dear?” he said anxiously.
“What of Dan?” she asked faintly.
“I don’t know. He’s outlawed. He’s done for. The whole range will be against him. But why are you so worried about him, Kate?—when he told me that you loved me—”
She straightened.
“Love? You?”
His face lengthened almost ludicrously.
“But why—Dan came for me—he said you sent him—he—” he broke down, stammering, utterly confused.
“This is why I sent him!” she answered, and throwing open the door gestured to him to enter.
He followed her and saw the lean figure of old Joe Cumberland lying on a blanket close to the wall.
“That’s why!” she whispered.
“How does he come
here?”
“Ask the devil in his human form! Ask your friend, Jim Silent!”
He walked into the outer room with his head low. He found the others already returned. Their carefully controlled grins spoke volumes.
“Where’s Silent?” he asked heavily.
“He’s gone,” said Jordan.
Hal Purvis took Haines to one side.
“Take a brace,” he urged.
“She hates me, Hal,” said the big fellow sadly. “For God’s sake, was there no other way of getting me out?”
“Not one! Pull yourself together, Lee. There ain’t no one for you to hold a spite agin. Would you rather be back in Elkhead dangling from the end of a rope?”
“It seems to have been a sort of—joke,” said Haines.
“Exactly. But at that sort of a joke nobody laughs!”
“And Whistling Dan Barry?”
“He’s done for. We’re all agin him, an’ now even the rangers will help us hunt him down. Think it over careful, Haines. You’re agin him because you want the girl. I want that damned wolf of his, Black Bart. Kilduff would rather get into the saddle of Satan than ride to heaven. An’ Jim Silent won’t never rest till he sees Dan lyin’ on the ground with a bullet through his heart. Here’s four of us. Each of us want something that belongs to him, from his life to his dog. Haines, I’m askin’ you man to man, was there any one ever born who could get away from four men like us?”
CHAPTER XXVIII
WHISTLING DAN, DESPERADO
It was an urgent business which sent Silent galloping over the hills before dawn. When the first light came he was close to the place of Gus Morris. He slowed his horse to a trot, but after a careful reconnoitring, seeing no one stirring around the sheriff’s house, he drew closer and commenced to whistle a range song, broken here and there with a significant phrase which sounded like a signal. Finally a cloth was waved from a window, and Silent, content, turned his back on the house, and rode away at a walk.
Within half an hour the pounding of a horse approached from behind. The plump sheriff came to a halt beside him, jouncing in the saddle with the suddenness of the stop.
“What’s up?” he called eagerly.
“Whistlin’ Dan.”
“What’s new about him? I know they’re talkin’ about that play he made agin Haines. They’s some says he’s a faster man than you, Jim!”
“They say too damned much!” snarled Silent. “This is what’s new. Whistlin’ Dan Barry—no less—has busted open the jail at Elkhead an’ set Lee Haines free.”
The sheriff could not speak.
“I fixed it, Gus. I staged the whole little game.”
“You fixed it with Whistlin’ Dan?”
“Don’t ask me how I worked it. The pint is that he did the job. He got into the jail while the lynchers was guardin’ it, gettin’ ready for a rush. They opened fire. It was after dark last night. Haines an’ Dan made a rush for it from the stable on their hosses. They was lynchers everywhere. Haines didn’t have no gun. Dan wouldn’t trust him with one. He did the shootin’ himself. He dropped two of them with two shots. His devil of a wolf-dog brung down another.”
“Shootin’ at night?”
“Shootin’ at night,” nodded Silent. “An” now, Gus, they’s only one thing left to complete my little game—an’ that’s to get Whistlin’ Dan Barry proclaimed an outlaw an’ put a price on his head, savvy?”
“Why d’you hate him so?” asked Morris curiously.
“Morris, why d’you hate smallpox?”
“Because a man’s got no chance fightin’ agin it.”
“Gus, that’s why I hate Whistlin’ Dan, but I ain’t here to argue. I want you to get Dan proclaimed an outlaw.”
The sheriff scowled and bit his lip.
“I can’t do it, Jim.”
“Why the hell can’t you?”
“Don’t go jumpin’ down my throat. It ain’t human to double cross nobody the way you’re double crossin’ that kid. He’s clean. He fights square. He’s jest done you a good turn. I can’t do it, Jim.”
There was an ominous silence.
“Gus,” said the outlaw, “how many thousand have I given you?”
The sheriff winced.
“I dunno,” he said, “a good many, Jim.”
“An’ now you’re goin’ to lay down on me?”
Another pause.
“People are gettin’ pretty excited nowadays,” went on Silent carelessly. “Maybe they’d get a lot more excited if they was to know jest how much I’ve paid you, Gus.”
The sheriff struck his forehead with a pudgy hand.
“When a man’s sold his soul to the devil they ain’t no way of buyin’ it back.”
“When you’re all waked up,” said Silent soothingly, “they ain’t no more reasonable man than you, Gus. But sometimes you get to seein’ things cross-eyed. Here’s my game. What do you think they’d do in Elkhead if a letter came for Dan Barry along about now?”
“The boys must be pretty hot,” said the sheriff. “I suppose the letter’d be opened.”
“It would,” said the outlaw. “You’re sure a clever feller, Gus. You c’n see a white hoss in the sunlight. Now what d’you suppose they’d think if they opened a letter addressed to Dan Barry and read something like this:
“‘Dear Dan: You made great play for L.H. None of us is going to forget it. Maybe the thing for you to do is to lay low for a while. Then join us any time you want to. We all think nobody could of worked that stunt any smoother than you done. The rest of the boys say that two thousand ain’t enough for the work you’ve done. They vote that you get an extra thousand for it. I’m agreeable about that, and when you get short of cash just drop up and see us—you know where.
“‘That’s a great bluff you’ve made about being on my trail. Keep it up. It’ll fool everybody for a while. They’ll think, maybe, that what you did for L.H. was because he was your personal friend. They won’t suspect that you’re now one of us. Adios, “‘J.S.’”
Silent waited for the effect of this missive to show in Morris’s face.
“Supposin’ they was to read a letter like that, Gus. D’you think maybe it’d sort of peeve them?”
“He’d be outlawed inside of two days!”
“Right. Here’s the letter. An’ you’re goin’ to see that it’s delivered in Elkhead, Morris.”
The sheriff looked sombrely on the little square of white.
“I sort of think,” he said at last, “that this here’s the death warrant for Whistlin’ Dan Barry.”
“So do I,” grinned Silent, considerably thirsty for action. “That’s your chance to make one of your rarin’, tarin’ speeches. Then you hop into the telegraph office an’ send a wire to the Governor askin’ that a price be put on the head of the bloodthirsty desperado, Dan Barry, commonly known as Whistlin’ Dan.”
“It’s like something out of a book,” said the sheriff slowly. “It’s like some damned horror story.”
“The minute you get the reply to that telegram swear in forty deputies and announce that they’s a price on Barry’s head. So long, Gus. This little play’ll make the boys figger you’re the most efficient sheriff that never pulled a gun.”
He turned his horse, laughing loudly, and the sheriff, with that laughter in his ears, rode back towards his hotel with a downward head.
* * * *
All day at the Daniels’s house the fever grew perceptibly, and that night the family held a long consultation.
“They’s got to be somethin’ done,” said Buck. “I’m goin’ to ride into town tomorrow an’ get ahold of Doc Geary.”
“There ain’t no use of gettin’ that fraud Geary,” said Mrs. Daniels scornfully. “I think that if the boy c’n be saved I c’n do it as well as that doctor. But there ain’t no doctor c’n help him. The trouble with Dan ain’t his wound—it’s his mind that’s keepin’ him low.”
“His mind?” queried old Sam.
“Listen t
o him now. What’s all that talkin’ about Delilah?”
“If it ain’t Delilah it’s Kate,” said Buck. “Always one of the two he’s talkin’ about. An’ when he talks of them his fever gets worse. Who’s Delilah, an’ who’s Kate?”
“They’s one an’ the same person,” said Mrs. Daniels. “It do beat all how blind men are!”
“Are we now?” said her husband with some heat. “An’ what good would it do even if we knowed that they was the same?”
“Because if we could locate the girl they’s a big chance she’d bring him back to reason. She’d make his brain quiet, an’ then his body’ll take care of itself, savvy?”
“But they’s a hundred Kates in the range,” said Sam. “Has he said her last name, Buck, or has he given you any way of findin’ out where she lives?”
“There ain’t no way,” brooded Buck, “except that when he talks about her sometimes he speaks of Lee Haines like he wanted to kill him. Sometimes he’s dreamin’ of havin’ Lee by the throat. D’you honest think that havin’ the girl here would do any good, ma?”
“Of course it would,” she answered. “He’s in love, that poor boy is, an’ love is worse than bullets for some men. I don’t mean you or Sam. Lord knows you wouldn’t bother yourselves none about a woman.”
Her eyes challenged them.
“He talks about Lee havin’ the girl?” asked Sam.
“He sure does,” said Buck, “which shows that he’s jest ravin’. How could Lee have the girl, him bein’ in jail at Elkhead?”
“But maybe Lee had her before Whistlin’ Dan got him at Morris’s place. Maybe she’s up to Silent’s camp now.”
“A girl in Jim Silent’s camp?” repeated Buck scornfully. “Jim’d as soon have a ton of lead hangin’ on his shoulders.”
“Would he though?” broke in Mrs. Daniels. “You’re considerable young, Buck, to be sayin’ what men’ll do where they’s women concerned. Where is this camp?”
“I dunno,” said Buck evasively. “Maybe up in the hills. Maybe at the old Salton place. If I thought she was there, I’d risk goin’ up and gettin’ her—with her leave or without it!”
“Don’t be talkin’ fool stuff like that,” said his mother anxiously. “You ain’t goin’ near Jim Silent agin, Buck!”