The Night Horseman

by Brand, Max

  "I started out this mornin' hatin' the ground you walked on, but now I see that they ain't no use to hate you. Is they any use hatin' a mountain-lion that kills calves? No, you don't hate it, but you get a gun and trail it and shoot it down. And that's the way with you."

  They heard the scratch of his match.

  "That's the way with you. I got my back to you right now because if I looked you in the eye I couldn't let you live no more'n I could let a mountain-lion live. I know you're faster with your gun than I am and stronger than I am, and made to fight. But I know I'm going to kill you. You've done your work—you've left hell on all sides of you—it's your time to die. I know it! You been lyin' like a snake in the rocks with your poison ready for any man that walks past you. Now your poison is about used up."

  He paused, and then when he spoke again there was a ring of exultation in his voice: "I tell you, Dan, I don't fear you, and I know that the bullet in this gun here on my hips is the one that's goin' to tear your heart out. I know it!"

  Something like a sob came from the lips of Dan Barry. His hands moved out towards Buck Daniels as though he were plucking something from the empty air.

  "You've said enough," he said. "You said plenty. Now turn around and fight!"

  And Kate Cumberland stepped back, out of line of the two. She knew that in what followed she could not play the part of the protector or the delayer. Here they stood, hungry, for battle, and there was no power in her weak hands to separate them. She stood far back and fumbled with her hands at the wall for support. She tried to close her eyes, but the fascination of the horror forced her to watch against her strongest will. And the chief part of that dreadful suspense lay in the even, calm voice of Buck Daniels as he went on: "I'll turn around and fight soon enough. But Kate asked me to smoke another cigarette. I know what she means. She wants me to leave you the way I done in the saloon that day. I ain't goin' to leave, Dan. But I'm glad she asked me to turn away, because it gives me a chance to tell you some things you got to know before you go west.

  "Dan, you been like a fire that burns every hand that touches you." He inhaled a long breath of smoke and blew it up towards the ceiling. "You've busted the heart of the friend that follered you; you've busted the heart of the girl that loves you."

  He paused again, for another long inhalation, and Kate Cumberland, staring in fearful suspense, waiting for the instant when Buck should at last turn and when the shots should explode, saw that the yellow glow was now somewhat misted in the eyes of Barry. He frowned, as one bewildered.

  "Think of her, Dan!" went on Buck Daniels. "Think of her wasting herself on a no-good houn' dog like you—a no-good wild wolf! My God A'mighty, she might of made some good man happy—some man with a soul and a heart—but instead of that God sent you like a blast across her—you with your damned soul of wind and your heart of stone! Think of it! When you see what you been, Barry, I wonder you don't go out and take your own gun and blow off your head."

  "Buck," called Dan Barry, "so help me God, if you don't turn your face to me—I'll shoot you through the back!"

  "I knew," said the imperturbable Daniels, "that you'd come to that in the end. You used to fight like a man, but now you're followin' your instincts, and you fight like a huntin' wolf. Look at the brute that's slinkin' up to me there! That's what you are. You kill for the sake of killin'—like the beasts.

  "If you was a man, could you treat me like you've done? Your damned cold heart and your yaller eyes and all would of burned up in the barn the other night—you and your wolf and your damned hoss. Why didn't I let you burn? Because I was a fool. Because I still thought they was something of the man in you. But I seen afterwards what you was, and I rode off to get out of your way—to keep your hands from gettin' red with my blood. And then you plan on follerin' me—damn you!—on follerin' me!

  "So that, Dan, is why I've come to put you out of the world—as I'm goin' to do now! Once you hated to give pain, and if you hurt people it was because you couldn't help it. But now you live on torturin' others. Barry, pull your gun!"

  And as he spoke, he whirled, the heavy revolver leaping into his hand.

  Still Kate Cumberland could not close her eyes on the horror. She could not even cry out; she was frozen.

  But there was no report—no spurt of smoke—no form of a man stumbling blindly towards death. Dan Barry stood with one hand pressed over his eyes and the other dangled at his side, harmless, while he frowned in bewilderment at the floor.

  He said slowly, at length: "Buck, I kind of think you're right. They ain't no use in me. I been rememberin', Buck, how you sent Kate to me when I was sick."

  There was a loud clatter; the revolver dropped from the hand of Buck

  Daniels.

  The musical voice of Dan Barry murmured again: "And I remember how you stood up to Jim Silent, for my sake. Buck, what's come between us since them days? You hit me a while back, and since then I been wantin' your blood—but hearin' you talk now, somehow—I feel sort of lost and lonesome—like I'd thrown somethin' away that I valued most."

  Buck Daniels threw out his great arms and his voice was broken terribly.

  "Oh, God A'mighty, Dan," he cried, "jest take one step back to me and

  I'll come all the way around the world to meet you!"

  He stumbled across the floor and grasped at the hand of Barry, for a mist had half-blinded his eyes.

  "Dan," he pleaded, "ain't things as they once was? D'you forgive me?"

  "Why, Buck," murmured Dan Barry, in that same bewildered fashion, "seems like we was bunkies once."

  "Dan," muttered Buck Daniels, choking, "Dan——" but he dared not trust his voice further, and turning, he fairly fled from the room.

  The dazed eyes of Dan Barry followed him. Then they moved until they encountered the face of Kate Cumberland. A shock, as if of surprise, widened the lids. For a long moment they stared in silence, and then he began to walk, very slowly, a step at a time, towards the girl. Now, as he faced her, she saw that there was no longer a hint of the yellow in his eyes, but he stepped closer and closer; he was right before her, watching her with an expression of mute suffering that made her heart grow large.

  He said, more to himself than to her: "Seems like I been away a long time."

  "A very long time," she whispered.

  He drew a great breath.

  "Is it true, what Buck said? About you?"

  "Oh, my dear, my dear!" she cried. "Don't you see?"

  He started a little, and taking both her hands he made her face the dull light from the windows.

  "Seems like you're kind of pale, Kate."

  "The colour went while I waited for you, Dan."

  "But there comes a touch of red—like morning—in your throat, and runnin' up your cheeks."

  "Don't you see? It's because you've come back!"

  He closed his eyes and murmured: "I remember we was close—closer than this. We were sittin' here—in this room—by a fire. And then something called me out and I follered it."

  "The wild geese—yes."

  "Wild geese?" he repeated blankly, and then shook his head. "How could wild geese call me? But things happened. I was kept away. Sometimes I wanted to come back to you, but somehow I could never get started. Was it ten years ago that I left?"

  "Months—months longer than years."

  "What is it?" he asked. "I been watchin' you, and waitin' to find out what was different in you. Black Bart seen something in you. I dunno what. Today I sort of guessed what it is. I can feel it now. It's something like a pain. It starts sort of in the stomach, Kate. It's like bein' away from a place where you want to be. Queer, ain't it? I ain't far from you. I've got your hands in mine, but somehow you don't feel near. I want to walk—a long ways—closer. And the pain keeps growin'."

  His voice fell away to a murmur, and now a deadly silence lay between them, and it seemed as if lights were varying upon their faces, so swift and subtle were the changes of expression. And they drew closer
by imperceptible degrees. So his arms, fumbling, found their away about her, drew her closer, till her head drooped back, and her face was close beneath his.

  "Was it true," he whispered, "what Buck said?"

  "There's nothing true except that we're together."

  "But your eyes are brimful of tears!"

  "The same pain you feel, Dan; the same loneliness and the hurt."

  "But it's going now. I feel as if I'd been riding three days without more'n enough water to moisten my tongue every hour; with the sand white hot, and my hoss staggerin', and the sun droppin' closer and closer till the mountains are touched with white fire. Then I come, in the evenin', to a valley with cool shadows beginning to slip across from the western side, and I stand in the shadow and feel the red-hot blood go smashin', smashin', smashin' in my temples—and then—a sound of runnin' water somewhere up the hill-side. Runnin', cool, fresh, sparkling water whispering over the rocks. Ah, God, that's what it means to me to stand here close to you, Kate!

  "And it's like standin' up in the mornin' on the top of a high hill and seein' the light jump up quick in the east, and there lies all the world at my feet, mile after mile of it—they's a river like silver away off yonder—and they's range after range walkin' off into a blue nothing. That's what it's like to stand here and look down into them blue eyes of yours, Kate—miles and miles into 'em, till I feel as if I seen your heart beneath. And they's the rose of the mornin' on your cheeks, and the breath of the mornin' stirrin' between your lips, and the light of the risin' sun comes flarin' in your eyes. And I own the world—I own the world.'

  "Two burnin' pieces of wood, that's you and me, and when I was away from you the fire went down to a smoulder; but now that we're close a wind hits us, and the flames come together and rise and jump and twine together. Two pieces of burnin' wood, but only one flame—d'you feel it?—Oh, Kate, our bodies is ashes and dust, and all that's worth while is that flame blowin' up from us, settin' the world on fire!"

  CHAPTER XXXV

  PALE ANNIE

  Even in Elkhead there were fires this day. In the Gilead saloon one might have thought that the liquid heat which the men imbibed would serve in place of stoves, but the proprietor, "Pale Annie," had an eye to form, and when the sky was grey he always lighted the stove.

  "Pale Annie" he was called because his real name was Anderson Hawberry Sandringham. That name had been a great aid to him when he was an undertaker in Kansas City; but Anderson Hawberry Sandringham had fallen from the straight and narrow path of good undertakers some years before and he had sought refuge in the mountain-desert, where most things prosper except sheriffs and grass. He was fully six inches more than six feet in height and his face was so long and pale that even Haw-Haw Langley seemed cheerful beside the ex-undertaker. In Kansas City this had been much prized, for that single face could lend solemnity to any funeral. In Elkhead it was hardly less of an asset.

  People came out of curiosity to see Pale Annie behind the bar with his tall silk hat—which he could never bring himself to lay aside—among the cobwebs of the rafters. They came out of curiosity and they remained to drink—which is a habit in the mountain-desert. A travelling drummer or a patent medicine man had offered Pale Annie a handsome stake to simply go about with him and lend the sanction of his face to the talk of the drummer, but Pale Annie had discovered a veritable philosopher's stone in Elkhead and he was literally turning whiskey into gold.

  This day was even more prosperous than usual for Pale Annie, for the grey weather and the chilly air made men glad of the warmth, both external and internal, which Pale Annie possessed in his barroom. His dextrous hands were never for a moment still at the bar, either setting out drinks or making change, except when he walked out and threw a fresh feed into the fire, and stirred up the ruddy depths of the stove with a tall poker. It was so long, indeed, that it might have served even Pale Annie for a cane and it was a plain untapered bar of iron which the blacksmith had given him as the price of a drink, on a day. He needed a large poker, however, for there was only the one stove in the entire big room, and it was a giant of its kind, as capacious as a hogshead. This day Pale Annie kept it red hot, so that the warmth might penetrate to the door on the one hand and to the rear of the room where the tables and chairs were, on the other.

  Since Pale Annie's crowd took little exercise except for bending their elbows now and again, and since the majority of them had been in the place fully half the day, by ten in the evening sounds of hilarity began to rise from the saloon. Solemn-faced men who had remained in their places for hour after hour, industriously putting away the red-eye, now showed symptoms of life. Some of them discovered hitherto hidden talents as singers, and they would rise from their places, remove their hats, open their bearded mouths, and burst into song. An antiquarian who had washed gold in '49 and done nothing the rest of his life save grow a prodigious set of pure white whiskers, sprang from his place and did a hoe-down that ravished the beholders. Thrice he was compelled to return to the floor; and in the end his performance was only stopped by an attack of sciatica. Two strong men carried him back to his chair and wept over him, and there was another drink all around.

  In this scene of universal joy there were two places of shadow. For at the rear end of the room, almost out of reach of the lantern-light, sat Haw-Haw Langley and Mac Strann. The more Haw-Haw Langley drank the more cadaverous grew his face, until in the end it was almost as solemn as that of Pale Annie himself; as for Mac Strann, he seldom drank at all.

  A full hour had just elapsed since either of them spoke, yet Haw-Haw Langley said, as if in answer to a remark: "He's heard too much about you, Mac. He ain't no such fool as to come to Elkhead."

  "He ain't had time," answered the giant.

  "Ain't had time? All these days?"

  "Wait till the dog gets well. He'll follow the dog to Elkhead."

  "Why, Mac, the trail's been washed out long ago. That wind the other day would of knocked out any trail less'n a big waggon."

  "It won't wash out the trail for that dog," said Mac Strann calmly.

  "Well," snarled Haw-Haw, "I got to be gettin' back home pretty soon. I ain't rollin' in coin the way you are, Mac."

  The other returned no answer, but let his eyes rove vacantly over the room, and since his head was turned the other way, Haw-Haw Langley allowed a sneer to twist at his lips for a moment.

  "If I had the price," he said, "we'd have another drink."

  "I ain't drinkin'," answered the giant monotonously.

  "Then I'll go up and bum one off'n Pale Annie. About time he come through with a little charity."

  So he unfurled his length and stalked through the crowd up to the bar.

  Here he leaned and confidentially whispered in the ear of Pale Annie.

  "Partner, I been sprinklin' dust for a long time in here, and there ain't been any reward. I'm dry, Annie."

  Pale Annie regarded him with grave disapproval.

  "My friend," he said solemnly, "liquor is the real root of all evil. For my part, I quench my thirst with water. They's a tub over there in the corner with a dipper handy. Don't mention it."

  "I didn't thank you," said Haw-Haw Langley furiously. "Damn a tight-wad, say I!"

  The long hand of Pale Annie curled affectionately around the neck of an empty bottle.

  "I didn't quite gather what you said?" he remarked courteously, and leaned across the bar—within striking distance.

  "I'll tell you later," remarked Haw-Haw sullenly, and turned his shoulder to the bar.

  As he did so two comparatively recent arrivals came up beside him. They were fresh from a couple of months of range-finding, and they had been quenching a concentrated thirst by concentrated effort. Haw-Haw Langley looked them over, sighed with relief, and then instantly produced Durham and the brown papers. He paused in the midst of rolling his cigarette and offered them to the nearest fellow.

  "Smoke?" he asked.

  Now a man of the mountain-desert knows a great many
things, but he does not know how to refuse. The proffer of a gift embarrasses him, but he knows no way of avoiding it; also he never rests easy until he has made some return.

  "Sure," said the man, and gathered in the tobacco and papers. "Thanks!"

  He covertly dropped the cigarette which he had just lighted, and stepped on it, then he rolled another from Haw-Haw's materials. The while, he kept an uneasy eye on his new companion.

  "Drinkin'?" he asked at length.

  "Not jest now," said Haw-Haw carelessly.

  "Always got room for another," protested the other, still more in earnest as he saw his chance of a return disappearing.

  "All right, then," said Haw-Haw. "Jest one more."

  And he poured a glass to the brim, waved it gracefully towards the others without spilling a drop, and downed it at a gulp.

  "Ben in town long?" he asked.

  "Not long enough to find any action," answered the other.

  The eye of Haw-Haw Langley brightened. He looked over the two carefully. The one had black hair and the other red, but they were obviously brothers, both tall, thick-shouldered, square-jawed, and pug-nosed. There was Irish blood in that twain; the fire in their eyes could have come from only one place on earth. And Haw-Haw grinned and looked down the length of the room to where Mac Strann sat, a heavy, inert mass, his fleshy forehead puckered into a half-frown of animal wistfulness.

  "You ain't the only ones," he said to his companion at the bar. "They's a man in town who says they don't turn out any two men in this range that could give him action."

  "The hell!" grunted he of the red hair. And he looked down to his blunt-knuckled hands.

  "'S matter of fact," continued Haw-Haw easily, "he's right here now!"

  He looked again towards Mac Strann and remembered once more the drink which Mac might so easily have purchased for him.

  "It ain't Pale Annie, is it?" asked the black haired man, casting a dubious glance up and down the vast frame of the undertaker.