The Max Brand Megapack

by Max Brand

  The first goal was the big blue cloud on the northern horizon—a good week’s journey ahead of him—the Little Canover Mountains. Among the foothills lay the cordon of small towns which it would be his chief difficulty to pass. For, if the printed notices describing him were circulated among them, the countryside would be up in arms, prepared to intercept his flight. Otherwise, there would be nothing but telephoned and telegraphed descriptions of him, which, at best, could only come to the ears of a few, and these few would be necessarily put out by the slightest difference between him and the description. Such a vital difference, for instance, as the fact that he now rode a chestnut, while the instructions called for a man on a pinto.

  Moreover, it was by no means certain that Hal Dozier, great trailer though he was, would know that the fugitive was making for the northern mountains. With all these things in mind, in spite of the pessimism of Henry Allister, Andrew felt that he had far more than a fighting chance to break out of the mountain desert and into the comparative safety of the crowded country beyond.

  He made one mistake in the beginning. He pushed the chestnut too hard the first and second days, so that on the third day he was forced to give the gelding his head and go at a jarring trot most of the day. On the fourth and fifth days, however, he had the reward for his caution. The chestnut’s ribs were beginning to show painfully, but he kept doggedly at his work with no sign of faltering. The sixth day brought Andrew Lanning in close view of the lower hills. And on the seventh day he put his fortune boldly to the touch and jogged into the first little town before him.

  CHAPTER 16

  It was just after the hot hour of the afternoon. The shadows from the hills to the west were beginning to drop across the village; people who had kept to their houses during the early afternoon now appeared on their porches. Small boys and girls, returning from school, were beginning to play. Their mothers were at the open doors exchanging shouted pieces of news and greetings, and Andrew picked his way with care along the street. It was a town flung down in the throat of a ravine without care or pattern. There was not even one street, but rather a collection of straggling paths which met about a sort of open square, on the sides of which were the stores and the inevitable saloons and hotel.

  But the narrow path along which Andrew rode was a gantlet to him. For all he knew, the placards might be already out, one of the least of those he passed might have recognized him. He noticed that one or two women, in their front door, stopped in the midst of a word to watch him curiously. It seemed to Andrew that a buzz of comment and warning preceded him and closed behind him. He felt sure that the children stood and gaped at him from behind, but he dared not turn in his saddle to look back.

  And he kept on, reining in the gelding, and probing every face with one swift, resistless glance that went to the heart. He found himself literally taking the brains and hearts of men into the palm of his hand and weighing them. Yonder old man, so quiet, with the bony fingers clasped around the bowl of his corncob, sitting under the awning by the watering trough—that would be an ill man to cross in a pinch—that hand would be steady as a rock on the barrel of a gun. But the big, square man with the big, square face who talked so loudly on the porch of yonder store—there was a bag of wind that could be punctured by one threat and turned into a figure of tallow by the sight of a gun.

  Andrew went on with his lightning summary of the things he passed. But when he came to the main square, the heart of the town, it was quite empty. He went across to the hotel, tied the gelding at the rack, and sat down on the veranda. He wanted with all his might to go inside, to get a room, to be alone and away from this battery of searching eyes. But he dared not. He must mingle with these people and learn what they knew.

  He went in and sought the bar. It should be there, if anywhere, the poster with the announcement of Andrew Lanning’s outlawry and the picture of him. What picture would they take? The old snapshot of the year before, which Jasper had taken? No doubt that would be the one. But much as he yearned to do so, he dared not search the wall. He stood up to the bar and faced the bartender. The latter favored him with one searching glance, and then pushed across the whisky bottle.

  “Do you know me?” asked Andrew with surprise. And then he could have cursed his careless tongue.

  “I know you need a drink,” said the bartender, looking at Andrew again. Suddenly he grinned. “When a man’s been dry that long he gets a hungry look around the eyes that I know. Hit her hard, boy.”

  Andrew brimmed his glass and tossed off the drink. And to his astonishment there was none of the shocking effect of his first drink of whisky. It was like a drop of water tossed on a huge blotter. To his tired nerves the alcohol was a mere nothing. Besides, he dared not let it affect him. He filled a second glass, pushing across the bar one of the gold pieces of Henry Allister. Then, turning casually, he glanced along the wall. There were other notices up—many written ones—but not a single face looked back at him. All at once he grew weak with relief. But in the meantime he must talk to this fellow.

  “What’s the news?”

  “What kind of news?”

  “Any kind. I’ve been talkin’ more to coyotes than to men for a long spell.”

  Should he have said that? Was not that a suspicious speech? Did it not expose him utterly?

  “Nothin’ to talk about here much more excitin’ than a coyote’s yap. Not a damn thing. Which way you come from?”

  “South. The last I heard of excitin’ news was this stuff about Lanning, the outlaw.”

  It was out, and he was glad of it. He had taken the bull by the horns.

  “Lanning? Lanning? Never heard of him. Oh, yes, the gent that bumped off Bill Dozier. Between you and me, they won’t be any sobbin’ for that. Bill had it comin’. But they’ve outlawed Lanning, have they?”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  But sweet beyond words had been this speech from the bartender. They had barely heard of Andrew Lanning in this town; they did not even know that he was outlawed. Andrew felt hysterical laughter bubbling in his throat. Now for one long sleep; then he would make the ride across the mountains and into safety.

  He went out of the barroom, put the gelding away in the stables behind the hotel, and got a room. In ten minutes, pausing only to tear the boots from his feet, he was sound asleep under the very gates of freedom.

  And while he slept the gates were closing and barring the way. If he had wakened even an hour sooner, all would have been well and, though he might have dusted the skirts of danger, they could never have blocked his way. But, with seven days of exhausting travel behind him, he slept like one drugged, the clock around and more. It was morning, mid-morning, when he wakened.

  Even then he was too late, but he wasted priceless minutes eating his breakfast, for it was delightful beyond words to have food served to him which he had not cooked with his own hands. And so, sauntering out onto the veranda of the hotel, he saw a compact crowd on the other side of the square and the crowd focused on a man who was tacking up a sign. Andrew, still sauntering, joined the crowd, and looking over their heads, he found his own face staring back at him; and, under the picture of that lean, serious face, in huge black type, five thousand dollars reward for the capture, dead or alive—

  The rest of the notice blurred before his eyes.

  Some one was speaking. “You made a quick trip, Mr. Dozier, and I expect if you send word up to Hallowell in the mountains they can—”

  So Hal Dozier had brought the notices himself.

  Andrew, in that moment, became perfectly calm. He went back to the hotel, and, resting one elbow on the desk, he looked calmly into the face of the clerk and the proprietor. Instantly he saw that the men did not suspect—as yet.

  “I hear Mr. Dozier’s here?” he asked.

  “Room seventeen,” said the clerk. “Hold on. He’s out in the square now.”

  “’S all right. I’ll wait in his room.” He went to room seventeen. The door was unlocked. And dr
awing a chair into the farthest corner, Andrew sat down, rolled a cigarette, drew his revolver, and waited.

  CHAPTER 17

  He waited an eternity; in actual time it was exactly ten minutes. Then a cavalcade tramped down the hall. He heard their voices, and Hal Dozier was among them. About him flowed a babble of questions as the men struggled for the honor of a word from the great man. Perhaps he was coming to his room to form the posse and issue general instructions for the chase.

  The door opened. Dozier entered, jerked his head squarely to one side, and found himself gazing into the muzzle of a revolver. The astonishment and the swift hardening of his face had begun and ended in a fraction of a second.

  “It’s you, eh?” he said, still holding the door.

  “Right,” said Andrew. “I’m here for a little chat about this Lanning you’re after.”

  Hal Dozier paused another heartbreaking second, then he saw that caution was the better way. “I’ll have to shut you out for a minute or two, boys. Go down to the bar and have a few on me.” He turned, laughing and waving to them. Then the door closed, and Dozier turned slowly to face his hunted man. Into Andrew’s mind came back the words of the great outlaw, Allister: “There’s one man I’d think twice about meeting, and that—”

  “Sit down,” said Andrew. “And you can take off your belt if you want to. Easy! That’s it. Thank you.”

  The belt and the guns were tossed onto the bed, and Hal Dozier sat down. He reminded Andrew of a terrier, not heavy, but all compact nerve and fighting force.

  “I’ll not frisk you for another gun,” said Andrew.

  “Thanks; I have one, but I’ll let it lie.”

  He made a movement. “If you don’t mind,” said Andrew, “I’d rather that you don’t reach into your pockets. Use my tobacco and papers, if you wish.” He tossed them onto the table, and Hal Dozier rolled his smoke in silence. Then he tilted back in his chair a little. His hand with the cigarette was as steady as a vise, and Andrew, shrugging forward his own ponderous shoulders, dropped his elbows on his knees and trained the gun full on his companion.

  “I’ve come to make a bargain, Dozier,” he said.

  The other made no comment, and the two continued that silent struggle of the eyes that was making Andrew’s throat dry and his heart leap.

  “Here’s the bargain: Drop off this trail. Let the law take its own course through other hands, but you give me your word to keep off the trail. If you’ll do that I’ll leave this country and stay away. Except for one thing, I’ll never come back here. You’re a proud man; you’ve never quit a trail yet before the end of it. But this time I only ask you to let it go with running me out of the country.”

  “What’s the one thing for which you’d come back?”

  “I’ll come back—once—because of a girl.”

  He saw the eyes of Dozier widen and then contract again. “You’re not exactly what I expected to find,” he said. “But go on. If I don’t take the bargain you pull that trigger?”

  “Exactly.”

  “H’m! You may have heard the voices of the men who came up the hall with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “The moment a report of a gun is heard they’ll swarm up to this room and get you.”

  “They made too much noise. Barking dogs don’t bite. Besides, the moment I’ve dropped you I go out that window.”

  “It’s a good bluff, Lanning,” said the other. “I’ll tell you what, if you were what I expected you to be, a hysterical kid, who had a bit of bad luck and good rolled together, I’d take that offer. But you’re different—you’re a man. All in all, Lanning, I think you’re about as much of a man as I’ve ever crossed before. No, you won’t pull that trigger, because there isn’t one deliberate murder packed away in your system. It’s a good bluff, as I said before, and I admire the way you worked it. But it won’t do. I call it. I won’t leave your trail, Lanning. Now pull your trigger.”

  He smiled straight into the eye of the younger man. A flush jumped into the cheeks of Andrew, and, fading, left him by contrast paler than ever. “You were one-quarter of an inch from death, Dozier,” he replied.

  “Lanning, with men like you—and like myself, I hope—there’s no question of distance. It’s either a miss or a hit. Here’s a better proposition: Let me put my belt on again. Then put your own gun back in the holster. We’ll turn and face the wall. And when the clock downstairs strikes ten—that’ll be within a few minutes—we’ll turn and blaze at the first sound.”

  He watched his companion eagerly, and he saw the face of Andrew work. “I can’t do it, Dozier,” said Andrew. “I’d like to. But I can’t!”

  “Why not?” The voice of Hal Dozier was sharp with a new suspicion. “Get me out of the way, and you’re free to get across the mountains, and, once there, your trail will never be found. I know that; every one knows that. That’s why I hit up here after you.”

  “I’ll tell you why,” said Andrew slowly. “I’ve got the blood of one man on my hands already, but, so help me God, I’m not going to have another stain. I had to shoot once, because I was hounded into it. And, if this thing keeps on, I’m going to shoot again—and again. But as long as I can I’m fighting to keep clean, you understand?”

  His voice became thin and rose as he spoke; his breath was a series of gasps, and Hal Dozier changed color.

  “I think,” said Andrew, regaining his self-control, “that I’d kill you. I think I’m just a split second surer and faster than you are with a gun. But don’t you see, Dozier?”

  He cast out his left hand, but his right hand held the revolver like a rock.

  “Don’t you see? I’ve got the taint in me. I’ve killed my man. If I kill another I’ll go bad. I know it. Life will mean nothing to me. I can feel it in me.”

  His voice fell and became deeper.

  “Dozier, give me my chance. It’s up to you. Stand aside now, and I’ll get across those mountains and become a decent man. Keep me here, and I’ll be a killer. I know it; you know it. Why are you after me? Because your brother was killed by me. Dozier, think of your brother and then look at me. Was his life worth my life? You’re a cool-headed man. You knew him, and you knew what he was worth. His killings were as long as the worst bad man that ever stepped, except that he had the law behind him. When he got on my trail he knew that I was just a scared kid who thought he’d killed a man. Why didn’t he let me run until I found out that I hadn’t killed Buck Heath? Then he knew, and you know, that I’d have come back. But he wouldn’t give me the chance. He ran me into the ground, and I shot him down. And that minute he turned me from a scared kid into an outlaw—a killer. Tell me, man to man, Dozier, if Bill hasn’t already done me more wrong than I’ve done him!”

  As he finished that strange appeal he noted that the famous fighter was white about the mouth and shaken. He added with a burst of appeal: “Hal, you know I’m straight. You know I’m worth a chance.”

  The older man lifted his head at last. “Andy, I can’t leave the trail.”

  At that sentence every muscle of Andrew’s body relaxed, and he sat like one in a state of collapse, except that the right hand and the gun in it were steady as rocks.

  “Here’s something between you and me that I’d swear I never said if I was called in a court,” went on Hal Dozier in a solemn murmur. “I’ll tell you that I know Bill was no good. I’ve known it for years, and I’ve told him so. It’s Bill that bled me, and bled me until I’ve had to soak a mortgage on the ranch. It’s Bill that’s spent the money on his cussed booze and gambling. Until now there’s a man that can squeeze and ruin me any day, and that’s Merchant. He sent me hot along this trail. He sent me, but my pride sent me also. No, son, I wasn’t bought altogether. And if I’d known as much about you then as I know now, I’d never have started to hound you. But now I’ve started. Everybody in the mountains, every puncher on the range knows that Hal Dozier has started on a new trail, and every man of them knows that I’ve never failed before. Andy
, I can’t give it up. You see, I’ve got no shame before you. I tell you the straight of it. I tell you that I’m a bought man. But I can’t leave this trail to go back and face the boys. If one of them was to shake his head and say on the side that I’m no longer the man I used to be, I’d shoot him dead as sure as there’s a reckoning that I’m bound for. It isn’t you, Andy; it’s my reputation that makes me go on.”

  He stopped, and the two men looked sadly at each other.

  “Andy, boy,” said Hal Dozier, “I’ve no more bad feeling toward you than if you was my own boy.” Then he added with a little ring to his voice: “But I’m going to stay on your trail till I kill you. You write that down in red.”

  And the outlaw dropped his gun suddenly into the holster. “That ends it, then,” he said slowly. “The next time we meet we won’t sit down and chin friendly like. We’ll let our guns do our talking for us. And, first of all, I’m going to get across these mountains, Hal, in spite of you and your friends.”

  “You can’t do it, Andy. Try it. I’ve sent the word up. The whole mountains will be alive watchin’ for you. Every trail will be alive with guns.”

  But Andrew stood up, and, using always his left hand while the right arm hung with apparent carelessness at his side, he arranged his hat so that it came forward at a jaunty angle, and then hitched his belt around so that the holster hung a little more to the rear. The position for a gun when one is sitting is quite different from the proper position when one is standing. All these things Uncle Jasper had taught Andrew long and long before. He was remembering them in chunks.

  “Give me three minutes to get my saddle on my horse and out of town,” said Andrew. “Is that fair?”

  “Considering that you could have filled me full of lead here,” said Hal Dozier, with a wry smile, “I think that’s fair enough.”

  CHAPTER 18

  As Andrew went down the stairs and through the entrance hall he noticed it was filled with armed men. At the door he paused for the least fraction of a second, and during that breathing space he had seen every face in the room. Then he walked carelessly across to the desk and asked for his bill.