The Quest

by Max Brand

  As for the sheriff, he was supporting his chin with one hand while he considered Barney Dwyer, but finally he said: “Perhaps I’m wrong. But I’m going to believe you, Dwyer. Let me try my keys on those handcuffs, if you wish.” He took out a small batch of them, studied the locks of the manacles, and at the second try he made the wrists of Barney free. After that, he mounted his men, with Leonard Peary among them. And he said briefly: “Perhaps I ought to pick you up as a horse thief, Dwyer, because you’ve admitted taking two horses from McGregor. But things taken from McGregor don’t seem exactly stolen to me. Besides, that red mare ought to do you for any riding you have ahead. So long . . . and all the luck you deserve.”

  But Peary, as they rode off together, turned his head and looked with fixed, bright hatred toward Barney Dwyer. A dip of the ground and a bending of the trail took them presently out of sight.

  X

  Barney Dwyer sat on a rock by the edge of the bright, flowing water, and he pulled up his belt another notch. The raisins had restored his strength, somewhat, for hardly a food in the world contains such nourishment in such small bulk, but still hunger worked in him like a mine of fire. Yet hunger was nothing, compared to the pain of his failure. Success had been just before him. Would not the girl have opened the eyes of her mind, if he had done the thing she wished so bitterly? Would not Daniel Peary have banished all bitterness and contempt from his face? Would not those good fellows, those generous cowpunchers on the Peary Ranch, have made much of him?

  But he had failed, and now his heart was empty, and all the bright beauty of that mountain valley seemed to him an empty thing, also.

  He had failed, and yet if he had trusted to the red mare and to his own instincts, he would not have allowed Peary to fall into the sheriff’s hands. He would have been warned in time to turn far aside and flee from that danger.

  It was Leonard Peary who had laughed him out of his proper intention. They were wise, all these other people, all these other cunning, tricky men. And yet sometimes they made mistakes. Sometimes simplicity could see deeper and farther into the truth, it appeared.

  He was brooding on this, when he heard the rattling of hoofs coming down the trail. He remembered Big Mack, as he heard the sound, and suddenly was aware that once more he was unarmed.

  So he started up, and the red mare came to him as though she, also, knew the danger was rushing toward them. Beside him, she faced about, snorting and stamping. Oh, if he could sit the saddle on her, he could laugh at all riders in the world, he felt. He could leave them as though he wore wings that could carry him smoothly and swiftly over the mountains.

  The approaching horseman was out of sight beyond the trees, the hoof beats grew louder, and suddenly it was Susan Jones on a racing pinto pony that swept down on Barney. The tan collar of her blouse flew in her face; the brim of her sombrero curled with the speed of her going.

  When she saw Barney, she turned suddenly aside, and drew rein. The pebbles scattered and rattled far before her as the hoofs of the mustang slid to a halt.

  “Have you seen Len Peary? Has he been down this trail?” she called out.

  “Yes,” said Barney sadly.

  “Which way?” she exclaimed. She was wild with excitement. Her face was flushed. The bigness of her eyes made her look like a child. “Did he go down the trail, or up? Did he . . . ?”

  “That way,” said Barney, pointing across country. And all the time his heart was aching. For how many men have such women been in such agonies of fear? But there was no other woman like her, and there never would be. She was made to fill the eye and the soul and all the aspiration of a man at a glance, thought Barney.

  “That way? That side trail?” she repeated eagerly. “Thank heavens! The sheriff . . . he was going to block this trail . . . I couldn’t find Len to warn him that, if he happened to come down this way . . . oh, I’m glad.” Suddenly she was grave again, staring into the upturned misery of his face. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  He pointed toward the empty side trail for a moment before he could speak. “The sheriff has him,” he said.

  She slid from the horse as though all the strength had run out of her body.

  He looked at her pale, compressed lips, and tried to turn himself into steel, so that he could speak. “We ran straight into them. Right straight into them,” he said.

  “Were you with him, then?” cried the girl. “Is Len hurt?”

  “There wasn’t any fighting . . . Peary’s hands were tied,” said Barney. “I . . . I tied them,” he ended feebly, explaining: “There wasn’t any other way to bring him from Timberline. He’s too dangerous to leave with his hands free. He didn’t want to come away with me, you see.”

  She struck both her hands against her face, then jerked them down as far as her chin and cried: “What happened? What happened?”

  “I got him at McGregor’s house and carried him away, with a pair of McGregor’s horses. I lost the way and had to sleep in the woods, with Peary tied to me. Then we came down here . . . and the sheriff and some other men came suddenly out at us, with rifles. And Peary’s hands were tied, you see?”

  “Are you telling me that you, alone, were taking him away?” she asked.

  “You wanted him gone. You told me you wanted him away from Timberline and back on his ranch,” said Barney. “I don’t think that I ever would have touched him, except that you said that.”

  “And the sheriff . . . ?” groaned the girl. “God help me. Poor Len. You . . . you . . . you took him away with his hands tied? Are you mad? Are you a half-wit? Are you a simpleton? Why do you stand there speechless and goggle at me?”

  Every word struck Barney to the heart. “I’m not very clever,” he said. “I was trying to do what you wanted me to do.”

  She caught him by the thick round of his wrists, and shook his arms. “Is this still the same play-acting? Are you still trying to play your insane game with me?” she demanded. “Have you told me the truth? What . . . ?”

  She seemed to feel for the first time the heat of his swollen wrists, and, snatching away her hands, she looked at the bruised hands that had seemed so helpless in her grasp. From them she looked up into that frightened, grief-stricken face.

  “I’m going to be patient,” said the girl. “Will you tell me what happened, all of it?”

  “I’ve told you. They had me in handcuffs, Peary and McGregor. They thought that I was something important. They were going to starve me into saying what I was. But I’m nothing. There was nothing to confess, except what you’ve seen, just now . . . that I’m not very clever. I’m not as bright as other people.” He flushed miserably. “I managed to get away and take Peary with me,” he said. “That was what you wanted. I was trying to please you . . . I didn’t know that the sheriff would be here . . . ”

  His voice trailed away. He seemed to be waiting for her to strike him. And into her bright eyes, full of grief and terror for what she had heard, there rushed a sudden understanding that was like a shadow. She drew back from him a little, murmuring: “Oh . . . It’s really that.”

  He felt her judging him, pitying him; he felt scorn and anger and disgust, all combined. And this, he was sure, was all that he deserved from her. This was the way that most men and women looked upon him. When she poured anger and suspicion on him in Timberline, he had been closer to her than he was now, far closer. But he must give to her the entire bitterness of the truth.

  He said: “The sheriff charged Peary with holding up the Coffeeville stage and killing Buddy Marsh, the driver.”

  She got hold of the reins of her pinto, close to the bit, and steadied herself with that support.

  “I’d rather be dead than see you look all white and sick!” cried Barney suddenly. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do . . . I’ll go after them . . . try to get Peary free again.”

  “Hush,” said the girl. “Do you think that I can let you throw yourself away? You’ve tried to do what’s best. You’ve done all you could . . . for me.�
�� One sob rippled up her throat and broke from her lips. But not a tear fell. She mastered herself at once.

  “What could you do against all of them? No, no, I’ve got to find Big Mack. He’ll manage something. But, oh, the life of Leonard Peary thrown away by the blundering of a . . . ” Fury sparkled in her eyes for an instant. Then she swung lightly into the saddle and darted back up the trail.

  She left Barney standing with his head bent, his arms swinging a little forward, helplessly, like those of a man exhausted by the lifting of great burdens.

  She had said in effect: Oh, to think of the life of a man like Leonard Peary thrown away by a half-wit, a simpleton, a worthless fool!

  He looked down the trail along which the sheriff had disappeared with his men. He glanced wistfully at the mare. If he could only use her speed, he would soon be at the heels of the men of the law. As it was, all her strength was useless to him, and all he could do was to swing down that trail at an Indian’s dog-trot.

  The mare followed him, as usual, but, for once, he would almost rather have been alone. For he felt that he was running toward his doom, and that he was hurrying like water down a gorge toward the plunge of a waterfall.

  XI

  The sign of the six horses, that Barney followed, led straight away through the mountains and soon left the faint trail to blaze a more direct path. A mighty respect arose in Barney for both the sheriff and his men, and that respect grew as he saw the manner in which they slid their horses down great angling slopes, and toiled up the almost perpendicular sides of ravines. But over such terrain, a man like Barney Dwyer could more than keep pace with them on foot.

  In four hours he had sight of them. A wisp of dust was blowing on a mountain shoulder two miles away, and through the dust he saw the small forms of the riders.

  After that he went on more carefully through the day, afraid to get too close, afraid to stay far off lest he should lose all sign of the party when it turned down some naked, rocky ravine. And all this while the red mare followed him like a mountain goat over rough and smooth.

  The sheriff’s party halted for lunch. Barney Dwyer, from the top of a great slope, looked down through the trees and saw the party halted at the side of a glacial lake as blue as a bit of ocean. He saw their fire smoke, and hunger stabbed him through the midst of the body. He drew still nearer. Others had apparently camped there, and in a big tin boiler that had been blackened by many fires, the posse was cooking a stew, perhaps. Whatever they had managed to shoot on the way, rabbits or squirrels, would be cut up and mixed with chopped bacon, flavored with roots and herbs—if any of the party knew enough Indian lore to select the correct plants—and thickened with bits of hardtack or eaten with pone. Starvation searched Barney with many pains when he saw the party being served from that old boiler.

  Afterward, the group lolled about to complete an hour’s rest for man and horse, but finally they moved on into the opposite woods, and Barney came down like a ravening wolf on the camp. He had no hope—but when he looked into the boiler, he found that the sheriff’s party had actually left at least two quarts of a most delicious mulligan at the bottom of the boiler. That he ate with more infinite relish than anything he ever had tasted, and then, abandoning all precautions, he lay flat on his back beside the lake and slept for fifteen minutes.

  When he stood up, he was a man re-made. The absorbing hunger was pacified. He drank a final time from the lake, sparingly, and continued with the labor of that trail all through the afternoon until the evening descended, until the darkness came, until, finally, he had to keep close up and be guided more by the noise the posse made than by the starlight glimpses he could catch of them.

  A slender sickle of a moon rose in the east through a clear sky, and by that light, as he issued from the forest onto a bald, level, upland plateau, he now saw the procession winding before him. It seemed that the group intended to journey all through the night, although the slowness of their movements proved that their horses were utterly beaten. They dipped out of view over the edge of a ravine. Barney, coming to the edge of the rock, saw them descending far beneath him down the jags of a trail that hugged the precipitous face of the cliff. Below them ran a straight, narrow flume of water, sweeping fast, but through a channel so smooth that hardly a sound of rushing came up to the keen ear of Barney.

  At the bottom of the trail, the cliff gave back and afforded room between its foot and the edge of the water for a beach covered with shrubs and with big stones. There the posse halted, at last. There a fire was kindled, and the sight of it made Barney suddenly aware that the air of that mountain night was very cold.

  The red mare, at this moment, snorted and ran to him. Something had startled her. Now he saw the nature of the alarm, for close behind him came half a dozen riders whose approach had been muffled to silence by the noise of the wind. They were spread out in a line that permitted no escape to Barney. For that matter, they could hardly be enemies who would offer him any danger.

  One man rode a little from the rest, demanding calmly: “Who’s there?”

  “My name is Barney Dwyer” he answered. “And I am . . . ”

  “Dwyer!” suddenly exclaimed the familiar deep, ringing voice of McGregor. “It’s Barney Dwyer, for a fact. Close in on him, boys. Dwyer, don’t budge!”

  And the quick, frightened voice of Sue Jones added in haste: “Don’t harm him. I’ve told you what he is! Don’t hurt him, Mack!”

  They stood about Barney with their guns, and the moonlight slanted into savage faces, as naturally unkempt with unshaven beards as mountains with forests.

  McGregor stood among the rest. By his mere vague silhouette Barney could recognize him. He was saying: “Maybe you’re right, Sue. I’ll do him no harm, if he’s as simple as you say. Look here, Dwyer, what’s the game you’re up to now?”

  “It was account of me,” said Barney, “that poor Peary was caught by the sheriff. And so I’m following along. I’m hoping for a chance to get him free again.”

  “One to four . . . you’d try that, would you?” muttered McGregor. “You’ve been riding all day after ’em?”

  “I’ve been walking. Didn’t I tell you before that I can’t ride the mare?”

  “Wait a moment,” said McGregor. He leaned and felt the inside of Barney’s trousers from the calf of the leg to the heel. There was not a trace of perspiration from the horse. McGregor, straightening again, exclaimed, “Sue, you’re right! The poor devil keeps the horse with him for a mascot, or something . . . not to use. He is a half-wit, and I’ve been a fool about him. Dwyer, you really mean that you’d try to tackle the four of ‘em? How?” He asked it with a mild derision, pointing down toward the dim forms that, at the bottom of the cliff, were moving about the fire.

  “One man,” said McGregor, “can hold the narrowness of that trail. How would you get at Peary, for instance, through those four men tonight?

  Barney answered instantly, for the thought had come to him at the very first, making him shiver: “I’d try to get down to that run of water, above the camp, and then float with it down to the fire. They wouldn’t likely expect anyone to come in water as fast as that. I’d lie at the edge of the camp and wait for a chance to help Peary. That’s all.”

  “Yeah,” drawled McGregor, stooping back. “He’s only got a piece of a mind, not a whole one. But let me see you start the job, Dwyer. Boys, the rest of you scatter ahead. Ride straight on. You know where to cut through to the pass toward Coffeeville. We’ll lie for the sheriff there and give him hell, and get Peary away. Hurry on. I’ll stay here a minute to see what poor Dwyer is going to try.”

  Barney was already working down the dangerous face of the rock, and studying the narrow ledges that extended beneath him. He heard the voice of Susan Jones calling eagerly above him: “Come back, Barney! Please come back! This is only a way to kill yourself, not to do anything for Len Peary!”

  He answered briefly: “What does it matter? The life of a half-wit isn’t worth anything. There
’s no man or woman or child in the world that would miss me. There’s only the mare, poor thing.” For he could see the head of the red mare as she ventured to the very verge of the cliff to look down after her master. Something choked in the throat of Barney as he saw her, then down he went again.

  He heard the girl cry out, pursuing him with anxious words.

  “I care about you, Barney. I know you’re honest and kind. You can’t help the harm that you’ve done. Come back while you still can.”

  But he climbed down rapidly, hurrying his descent for fear that voice should overmaster his courage and charm him to a standstill, and then draw him back to that world where he was no more than a chopping block for the scorn of every jester.

  The wind, its strength gathered like liquid in a funnel, struck at him. He lost one handhold and swung like a pendulum over a sheer drop of a hundred feet, but, recovering his grip, he went on with the descent.

  The voice, above him, had ended. He could hear nothing, see nothing over his head except the sky, a few pale stars, and the gilded arc of the moon among them. Below him, the river shot by with a whisper. He clung to a rock on the verge of it, now, and saw it hurling past. In spite of its speed, in places it was so smooth that the shattered images of the stars appeared; again a riffle of foam whipped down the stream to mark the rate of its progress.

  He tried it with his hands. It was snow water fresh from the summits and of a power to spread numbness with electric speed through the body. But it seemed to Barney, as he leaned over the cold rush of the creek, that this was an easy way for a poor half-wit to pass out of this life into whatever nebulous region of bewilderment and sorrow is reserved for the souls of those who are not quick of mind.

  So he lowered himself into the stream, and was flung like a dry stick down the current. With hands stretched before him, he warded off a dozen times the dangers from sharp, reaching points of stone that leveled like bayonets at his breast. Then he saw the yellow gleam of firelight, the black shadows of stone and of human forms. So he caught one of those projecting points that threatened him. His grip held. His body streamed out with the force of the water for an instant, and then he drew himself, shuddering, out on the beach.