The Max Brand Megapack

by Max Brand

  “Partner,” he said rapidly, “you’re clear now—you’re clear of more hellthat you ever dream. Now climb that hoss of yours and feed him leather till you get clear of Brownsville—and if I was you I’d never come within a day’s ride of the Three B’s again.”

  The mild, brown eyes widened.

  “I don’t like crowds,” murmured Barry.

  “You’re wise, kid,” grinned the bartender—“a hell of a lot wiser than you know right now. On your way!”

  And he turned to follow the crowd into the saloon. But Jerry Strann stood at the swinging doors, watching, and he saw Barry linger behind.

  “Are you coming?” he called.

  “I got an engagement,” answered the meek voice.

  “You got another engagement here,” mocked Strann. “Understand?”

  The other hesitated for an instant, and then sighed deeply. “I suppose I’ll stay,” he murmured, and walked into the bar. Jerry Strann was smiling in the way that showed his teeth. As Barry passed he said softly: “I see we ain’t going to have no trouble, you and me!” and he moved to clap his strong hand on the shoulder of the smaller man. Oddly enough, the hand missed, for Barry swerved from beneath it as a wolf swerves from the shadow of a falling branch. No perceptible effort—no sudden start of tensed muscles, but a movement so smooth that it was almost unnoticeable. But the hand of Strann fell through thin air.

  “You’re quick,” he said. “If you was as quick with your hands as you are with your feet—”

  Barry paused and the melancholy brown eyes dwelt on the face of Strann.

  “Oh, hell!” snorted the other, and turned on his heel to the bar. “Drink up!” he commanded.

  A shout and a snarl from the further end of the room.

  “A wolf, by God!” yelled one of the men.

  The owner of the animal made his way with unobtrusive swiftness the length of the room and stood between the dog and a man who fingered the butt of his gun nervously.

  “He won’t hurt you none,” murmured that softly assuring voice.

  “The hell he won’t!” responded the other. “He took a pass at my leg just now and dam’ near took it off. Got teeth like the blades of a pocket-knife!”

  “You’re on a cold trail, Sam,” broke in one of the others. “That ain’t any wolf. Look at him now!”

  The big, shaggy animal had slunk to the feet of his master and with head abased stared furtively up into Barry’s face. A gesture served as sufficient command, and he slipped shadow-like into the corner and crouched with his head on his paws and the incandescent green of his eyes glimmering; Barry sat down in a chair nearby.

  O’Brien was happily spinning bottles and glasses the length of the bar; there was the chiming of glass and the rumble of contented voices.

  “Red-eye all ’round,” said the loud voice of Jerry Strann, “but there’s one out. Who’s out? Oh, it’s him. Hey O’Brien, lemonade for the lady.”

  It brought a laugh, a deep, good-natured laugh, and then a chorus of mockery; but Barry stepped unconfused to the bar, accepted the glass of lemonade, and when the others downed their fire-water, he sipped his drink thoughtfully. Outside, the wind had risen, and it shook the hotel and carried a score of faint voices as it whirred around corners and through cracks. Perhaps it was one of those voices which made the big dog lift its head from its paws and whine softly! surely it was something he heard which caused Barry to straighten at the bar and cant his head slightly to one side—but, as certainly, no one else in the barroom heard it. Barry set down his glass.

  “Mr. Strann?” he called.

  And the gentle voice carried faintly down through the uproar of the bar.

  “Sister wants to speak to you,” suggested O’Brien to Strann.

  “Well?” roared the latter, “what d’you want?”

  The others were silent to listen; and they smiled in anticipation.

  “If you don’t mind, much,” said the musical voice, “I think I’ll be moving along.”

  There is an obscure little devil living in all of us. It makes the child break his own toys; it makes the husband strike the helpless wife; it makes the man beat the cringing, whining dog. The greatest of American writers has called it the Imp of the Perverse. And that devil came in Jerry Strann and made his heart small and cold. If he had been by nature the bully and the ruffian there would have been no point in all that followed, but the heart of Jerry Strann was ordinarily as warm as the yellow sunshine itself; and it was a common saying in the Three B’s that Jerry Strann would take from a child what he would not endure from a mountain-lion. Women loved Jerry Strann, and children would crowd about his knees, but this day the small demon was in him.

  “You want to be moving along,” mimicked the devil in Jerry Strann. “Well, you wait a while. I ain’t through with you yet. Maybe—” he paused and searched his mind. “You’ve given me a fall, and maybe you can give the rest of us—a laugh!”

  The chuckle of appreciation went up the bar and down it again.

  “I want to ask you,” went on the devil in Jerry Strann, “where you got your hoss?”

  “He was running wild,” came the gentle answer. “So I took a walk, one day, and brought him in.”

  A pause.

  “Maybe,” grinned the big man, “you creased him?”

  For it is one of the most difficult things in the world to capture a wild horse, and some hunters, in their desperation at seeing the wonderful animals escape, have tried to “crease” them. That is, they strive to shoot so that the bullet will barely graze the top of the animal’s vertebrae, just behind the ears, stunning the horse and making it helpless for the capture. But necessarily such shots are made from a distance, and little short of a miracle is needed to make the bullet strike true—for a fraction of an inch too low means death. So another laugh of appreciation ran around the barroom at the mention of creasing.

  “No,” answered Barry, “I went out with a halter and after a while Satan got used to me and followed me home.”

  They waited only long enough to draw deep breath; then came a long yell of delight. But the obscure devil was growing stronger and stronger in Strann. He beat on the bar until he got silence. Then he leaned over to meet the eyes of Barry.

  “That,” he remarked through his teeth, “is a damned—lie!”

  There is only one way of answering that word in the mountain-desert, and Barry did not take it. The melancholy brown eyes widened; he sighed, and raising his glass of lemonade sipped it slowly. Came a sick silence in the barroom. Men turned their eyes towards each other and then flashed them away again. It is not good that one who has the eyes and the tongue of a man should take water from another—even from a Jerry Strann. And even Jerry Strann withdrew his eyes slowly from his prey, and shuddered; the sight of the most grisly death is not so horrible as cowardice.

  And the devil which was still strong in Strann made him look about for a new target; Barry was removed from all danger by an incredible barrier. He found that new target at once, for his glance reached to the corner of the room and found there the greenish, glimmering eyes of the dog. He smote upon the bar.

  “Is this a damned kennel?” he shouted. “Do I got to drink in a barnyard? What’s the dog doin’ here?”

  And he caught up the heavy little whiskey glass and hurled it at the crouching dog. It thudded heavily, but it brought no yelp of pain; instead, a black thunderbolt leaped from the corner and lunged down the room. It was the silence of the attack that made it terrible, and Strann cursed and pulled his gun. He could never have used it. He was a whole half second too late, but before the dog sprang a voice cut in: “Bart!”

  It checked the animal in its very leap; it landed on the floor and slid on stiffly extended legs to the feet of Strann.

  “Bart!” rang the voice again.

  And the beast, flattening to the floor, crawled backwards, inch by inch; it was slavering, and there was a ravening madness in its eyes.

  “Look at it!” cr
ied Strann. “By God, it’s mad!”

  And he raised his gun to draw the bead.

  “Wait!” called the same voice which had checked the spring of the dog. Surely it could not have come from the lips of Barry. It held a resonance of chiming metal; it was not loud, but it carried like a brazen bell. “Don’t do it, Strann!”

  And it came to every man in the barroom that it was unhealthy to stand between the two men at that instant; a sudden path opened from Barry to Strann.

  “Bart!” came the command again. “Heel!”

  The dog obeyed with a slinking swiftness; Jerry Strann put up his gun and smiled.

  “I don’t take a start on no man,” he announced quite pleasantly. “I don’t need to. But—you yaller hearted houn’—get out from between. When I make my draw I’m goin’ to kill that damn wolf.”

  Now, the fighting face of Jerry Strann was well known in the Three B’s, and it was something for men to remember until they died in a peaceful bed. Yet there was not a glance, from the bystanders, for Strann. They stood back against the wall, flattening themselves, and they stared, fascinated, at the slender stranger. Not that his face had grown ugly by a sudden metamorphosis. It was more beautiful than ever, for the man was smiling. It was his eyes which held them. Behind the brown a light was growing, a yellow and unearthly glimmer which one felt might be seen on the darkest night.

  There was none of the coward in Jerry Strann. He looked full into that yellow, glimmering, changing light—he looked steadily—and a strange feeling swept over him. No, it was not fear. Long experience had taught him that there was not another man in the Three B’s, with the exception of his own terrible brother, who could get a gun out of the leather faster than he, but now it seemed to Jerry Strann that he was facing something more than mortal speed and human strength and surety. He could not tell in what the feeling was based. But it was a giant, dim foreboding holding dominion over other men’s lives, and it sent a train of chilly-weakness through his blood.

  “It’s a habit of mine,” said Jerry Strann, “to kill mad dogs when I see ’em.” And he smiled again.

  They stood for another long instant, facing each other. It was plain that every muscle in Strann’s body was growing tense; the very smile was frozen on his lips. When he moved, at last, it was a convulsive jerk of his arm, and it was said, afterward, that his gun was all clear of the leather before the calm stranger stirred. No eye followed what happened. Can the eye follow such speed as the cracking lash of a whip?

  There was only one report. The forefinger of Strann did not touch his trigger, but the gun slipped down and dangled loosely from his hand. He made a pace forward with his smile grown to an idiotic thing and a patch of red sprang out in the centre of his breast. Then he lurched headlong to the floor.

  CHAPTER X

  “SWEET ADELINE”

  Fatty Matthews came panting through the doors. He was one of those men who have a leisurely build and a purely American desire for action; so that he was always hurrying and always puffing. If he mounted a horse, sweat started out from every pore; if he swallowed a glass of red-eye he breathed hard thereafter. Yet he was capable of great and sustained exertions, as many and many a man in the Three B’s could testify. He was ashamed of his fat. Imagine the soul of a Bald Eagle in the body of a Poland China sow and you begin to have some idea of Fatty Matthews. Fat filled his boots as with water and he made a “squnching” sound when he walked; fat rolled along his jowls; fat made his very forehead flabby; fat almost buried his eyes. But nothing could conceal the hawk-line of his nose or the gleam of those half-buried eyes. His hair was short-cropped, grey, and stood on end like bristles, and he was in the habit of using his panting breath in humming—for that concealed the puffing. So Fatty Matthews came through the doors and his little, concealed eyes darted from face to face. Then he kneeled beside Strann.

  He was humming as he opened Jerry’s shirt; he was humming as he pulled from his bag—for Fatty was almost as much doctor as he was marshal, cowpuncher, miner, and gambler—a roll of cotton and another roll of bandages. The crowd grouped around him, fascinated, and at his directions some of them brought water and others raised and turned the body while the marshal made the bandages; Jerry Strann was unconscious. Fatty Matthews began to intersperse talk in his humming.

  “You was plugged from in front—my beauty—was you?” grunted Fatty, and then running the roll of bandage around the wounded man’s chest he hummed a bar of:

  “Sweet Adeline, my Adeline,

  At night, dear heart, for you I pine.”

  “Was Jerry lookin’ the other way when he was spotted?” asked Fatty of the bystanders. “O’Brien, you seen it?”

  O’Brien cleared his throat.

  “I didn’t see nothin’,” he said mildly, and began to mop his bar, which was already polished beyond belief.

  “Well,” muttered Fatty Matthews, “all these birds get it. And Jerry was some overdue. Lew, you seen it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Some drunken bum do it?”

  Lew leaned to the ear of the kneeling marshal and whispered briefly. Fatty opened his eyes and cursed until his panting forced him to break off and hum.

  “Beat him to the draw?” he gasped at length.

  “Jerry’s gun was clean out before the stranger made a move,” asserted Lew.

  “It ain’t possible,” murmured the deputy, and hummed softly:

  “In all my dreams, your fair face beams.”

  He added sharply, as he finished the bandaging: “Where’d he head for?”

  “No place,” answered Lew. “He just now went out the door.”

  The deputy swore again, but he added, enlightened; “Going to plead self-defense, eh?”

  Big O’Brien leaned over the bar.

  “Listen, Fatty,” he said earnestly, “There ain’t no doubt of it. Jerry had his war-paint on. He tried to kill this feller Barry’s wolf.”

  “Wolf?” cut in the deputy marshal.

  “Dog, I guess,” qualified the bartender. “I dunno. Anyway, Jerry made all the leads; this Barry simply done the finishing. I say, don’t put this Barry under arrest. You want to keep him here for Mac Strann.”

  “That’s my business,” growled Fatty. “Hey, half a dozen of you gents. Hook on to Jerry and take him up to a room. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  And while his directions were being obeyed he trotted heavily up the length of the barroom and out the swinging doors. Outside, he found only one man, and in the act of mounting a black horse; the deputy marshal made straight for that man until a huge black dog appeared from nowhere blocking his path. It was a silent dog, but its teeth and eyes said enough to stop Fatty in full career.

  “Are you Barry?” he asked.

  “That’s me. Come here, Bart.”

  The big dog backed to the other side of the horse without shifting his eyes from the marshal. The latter gingerly approached the rider, who sat perfectly at ease in the saddle; most apparently he was in no haste to leave.

  “Barry,” said the deputy, “don’t make no play when I tell you who I am; I don’t mean you no harm, but my name’s Matthews, and—” he drew back the flap of his vest enough to show the glitter of his badge of office. All the time his little beady eyes watched Barry with bird-like intentness. The rider made not a move. And now Matthews noted more in detail the feminine slenderness of the man and the large, placid eyes. He stepped closer and dropped a confidential hand on the pommel of the saddle.

  “Son,” he muttered, “I hear you made a clean play inside. Now, I know Strann and his way. He was in wrong. There ain’t a doubt of it, and if I held you, you’d get clear on self-defense. So I ain’t going to lay a hand on you. You’re free: but one thing more. You cut off there—see?—and bear away north from the Three B’s. You got a hoss thatis, and believe me, you’ll need him before you’re through.” He lowered his voice and his eyes bulged with the terror of his tidings: “Feed him the leather; ride to beat hell; never sto
p while your hoss can raise a trot; and then slide off your hoss and get another. Son, in three days Mac Strann’ll be on your trail!”

  He stepped back and waved his arms.

  “Now, vamos!”

  The black stallion flicked back its ears and winced from the outflung hands, but the rider remained imperturbed.

  “I never heard of Mac Strann,” said Barry.

  “You never heard of Mac Strann?” echoed the other.

  “But I’d like to meet him,” said Barry.

  The deputy marshal blinked his eyes rapidly, as though he needed to clear his vision.

  “Son,” he said hoarsely. “I c’n see you’re game. But don’t make a fall play. If Mac Strann gets you, he’ll California you like a yearling. You won’t have no chance. You’ve done for Jerry, there ain’t a doubt of that, but Jerry to Mac is like a tame cat to a mountain-lion. Lad, I c’n see you’re a stranger to these parts, but ask me your questions and I’ll tell you the best way to go.”

  Barry slipped from the saddle.

  He said: “I’d like to know the best place to put up my hoss.”

  The deputy marshal was speechless.

  “But I s’pose,” went on Barry, “I can stable him over there behind the hotel.”

  Matthews pushed off his sombrero and rubbed his short fingers through his hair. Anger and amazement still choked him, but he controlled himself by a praiseworthy effort.

  “Barry,” he said, “I don’t make you out. Maybe you figure to wait till Mac Strann gets to town before you leave; maybe you think your hoss can outrun anything on four feet. And maybe it can. But listen to me: Mac Strann ain’t fast on a trail, but the point about him is that he never leaves it! You can go through rain and over rocks, but you can’t never shake Mac Strann—not once he gets the wind of you.”

  “Thanks,” returned the gentle-voiced stranger. “I guess maybe he’ll be worth meeting.”

  And so saying he turned on his heel and walked calmly towards the big stables behind the hotel and at his heels followed the black dog and the black horse. As for deputy marshal Matthews, he moistened his lips to whistle, but when he pursed them, not a sound came. He turned at length into the barroom and as he walked his eye was vacant. He was humming brokenly: