by Max Brand
Macfarlane took off his hat and gaped at his employer. “The white mare,” he said. “And then…the girl….”
Dunstan held the eye of the other with a glance like a bar of iron.
“The girl is out of it,” Dunstan said. “That boy is a half-wit, as you know.”
“He’s a half-wit, or worse. He’s plain batty, by my way of thinking. But…are you dead sure?”
“I’m sure that he’s got Elena Blanca. There’s no doubt about that. He’s coming down here to find me and turn that mare over to me.”
“You lucky devil,” the cowpuncher muttered. “You’re the one that gets….”
“And what he is going to ask for after he asks for me is the puppy. Do you get this?”
“Every word!” exclaimed Macfarlane. “That’s why that dog was so important, eh? He was the pay that fool, Sweyn, got for bringing down that….”
“You can do all the thinking that you want to, Mack,” Dunstan said. “I can’t keep you from it, and you’re too smart not to think things out pretty straight. But do your thinking to yourself. I’ve got no time to explain things to you, or I would. The fact is that when he comes down here and asks about the dog, you are to tell him that I’ve gone off with Chris. Is that clear?”
“Yes. I’ve got that, right enough.”
“And then if he says that he’s brought the mare for me and wants to know where to find me…and the dog…you’re to try to get him to leave the mare here with you. If he’ll do it, you’re to put a pair of ropes on her and put her in that high-fenced corral, and then mount one of the boys guard over her, night and day.
“Right. Because she means something to you.”
“She does, of course. But perhaps Sandy won’t want to turn her over to anyone other than myself. If you can’t persuade him to part with Elena, then you’ll have to tell him that I’ve gone…to Chorleywood.”
“Chorleywood!” gasped out Macfarlane. “Chorleywood?”
“That’s what I said, man. Chorleywood.”
“Chief,” the other gravely said, “you ain’t forgot that the boys over that way don’t look on you as being any uncle of theirs.”
“I’ve not forgotten them any more than they’ve forgotten me,” declared big Peter Dunstan. “But the thing for you to remember, Macfarlane, is just this…that I’ve gone to Chorleywood, and that I’ve taken the dog, Chris, along with me. When you remember that, you can stop working your brain. And for the boys here on the ranch, you don’t know even that much. You only know that I’ve ridden off, and that I’ve taken the dog with me. One thing more, Mack, if this thing goes through smoothly, you’re not going to lose anything by it. Here’s a twenty to stick in your hip pocket. And there’ll be a good deal more than that when the deal is all finished. So long, Mack.”
Not waiting for any reply, he turned on his heel and strode away, with Macfarlane staring helplessly after him.
That one word had frozen his brain and made him incapable of thinking. All that he could see, at that moment, was a time five years before, when the rustlers and crooks at Chorleywood had dared to lay hand upon some of the cattle of the chief. The result had been a stern campaign. Dunstan had gathered all his cowhands. He brought in recruits at the handsome tune of $10 a day, and keep. With a little army of fifty, all told, he started for the outlaws without asking leave of the state. He did not need to ask leave. Three governors had admitted that Chorleywood was a sore spot on the political map; yet three governors had been unable to deal with the menace, from which a score, or more, of criminals had been in the habit of issuing forth at their pleasure and executing their schemes before they returned to their well-known hole-in-the-wall country.
The fifty hard riders of Peter Dunstan had labored during a whole month. It was their boast that they made Chorleywood too hot to hold the crooks. They lost two good fighters, and half a dozen were more or less badly wounded, and an uncounted number injured, carrying back with their column no fewer than four men upon each of whose heads there was a handsome reward placed by the state or by the federal government. It was said that the government had had to pay for Peter Dunstan’s little hunting party, and had given him all his fun and a little surplus of cash besides.
Not only had he effectually broken up the gang for the moment, but he had well-nigh ruined their morale. For a long time hard-pressed criminals in distant parts of the country forgot to look toward Chorleywood as a haven of refuge.
However, five years on the borderline of the law is a long time. Before it had half lapsed, the old gathering of yeggs and bad ones of one sort or another commenced to reassemble. As they gathered, they made one eternal rule, that no matter where they trespassed, it must not be upon the lands of Peter Dunstan.
Having been burned once, they rightly feared the fire, but, following the same rule, was not Peter Dunstan a madman to venture his head in such society?
Twenty-Five
As a matter of fact, Peter Dunstan had not made up his mind on the spur of the moment. It was only after the most mature consideration that he had decided that he would have to go to Chorleywood. The impulse that drove him was not, excepting even his love of money and power, the greatest that had ever entered his life. It was the love of little Catalina Mirandos.
When he came in sight of the mountains of Chorleywood, like a mighty green ocean, with all the waves torn to jagged edges by the pressure of a gale, he paused in doubt. Yonder, he knew, were men who would ask for nothing better than to put a pistol to his head. At last, he drew from his pocket the newspaper clipping that contained the picture of pretty Señorita Mirandos. One sight of her face was enough to remove all his doubts.
He dismounted and looked to his horse. The way had been long and dusty, but the gelding had stood the labor well. Its head was still high, and its eye bright. If Dunstan had to ride for his life, the horse could give a good account of itself, beyond any reasonable doubt.
Next, he examined his weapons. Since in his methodical life he had never gone forth in the morning without seeing that his guns were in perfect condition, there was nothing to be done to rifle or revolver now—except that the trigger of the latter was half an ounce too heavy in the pull. This he remedied by working it back and forth a few times, so freeing it of some unseen particle of dust.
When all was ready, he swung himself back into the saddle and entered Chorleywood.
It was not like any of the surrounding country through which he was in the custom of riding every day of his life. Raised from the flat or the lower, rolling hills, these stiff crests caught the warm southern winds and distilled from them all the moisture that they carried. The mountains of Chorleywood were generally distinguishable from the distance—when the south wind blew—by the broad cap of vapors that continually rolled around the summits.
Where the lower lands nearby had only the brief seasonable rains to raise the new grass crops, Chorleywood was replenished with moisture all the year through. Peter Dunstan found himself riding under great evergreens, with a thick, soft matting of pine needles beneath. Where the trees ceased, green grass began.
He had not been here in five years, and then he had ridden with fifty fighting men at his back. There was a reason, therefore, in the care with which he proceeded. When he rounded a forest-clad shoulder of a steep mountainside and saw a little shack before him, he reined his horse sharply back into the shadows of the pines again. However, he had not come to avoid men, but to find them. This was as good a spot as any in which to begin. He sent the gelding forth again.
It was a most dilapidated shack. The little hut at the back, which might have served as a cattle or a horse shed once, had been pressed flat by time and neglect. For a building, that might stand for three generations in the dry air of the desert, would rot to shaky softness in three years of this frequent rain in summer, and brittle frost in the winter of the year. The house itself was not large enough for m
ore than one room. When Dunstan came opposite the open door, he saw that this was all that it actually contained. Kitchen, bedroom, living room were here, all in one.
When he leaned from the saddle, and tapped the wall with the handle of his quirt—holding the whip in his left hand, as a natural precaution that left his gun hand free—no one answered.
He was relieved, for a moment. When he dismounted and stepped through the door, he saw that a fire burned in the stove and a kettle steamed upon it. There had been men in that room hardly a minute before. The air was still thick with the smoke from their pipes. Yonder was half a side of bacon, in the act of being turned into thick, white, gleaming slices.
His coming had frightened the inhabitants away. Certainly here was enough proof that he was in the center of Chorleywood, where every stranger was a danger to every other man. There was only one vital consolation—the men did not know him. Otherwise, they might have begun with rifle bullets at him. As it was, they were lying low, somewhere, watching him from the edge of the trees, striving to make out what manner of man he might be.
He set their doubts at rest in the most eloquent fashion known to a Westerner. He issued from the cabin once more, unsaddled and unbridled his horse, hobbled him, and turned him loose to graze. Then, carrying saddle and bridle, he reëntered the house and stood in the doorway, holding the bridle over his left arm. To men west of the Rockies, it is the age-old method of demanding hospitality. Where this custom commenced, few men could guess, but perhaps it was a hint of Indian lore, transmitted by long usage to the white inheritors of the land.
The response to this summons, delivered as it was by silent gestures only, was in keeping with the character of Chorleywood. Suddenly Dunstan was aware of a shadow standing nearby, at the corner of the house.
Yet he did not turn his head. He steeled himself with a great effort, though he was aware that another shadow had come up on the far side of the shack and stood at the opposite corner of the house.
“Well?” asked the man on his right suddenly.
Peter Dunstan allowed his head to turn slowly toward the speaker. He saw a low, broad-built fellow with a fat body and great shovel-shaped feet. His face was strangely pale and intellectual—in contrast to his body and the clothes in which that body was equipped.
“Well,” Dunstan said, “how’s things?”
“Slow,” the fat man said, “but pretty easy. How’s things with you, stranger?”
“Fast,” Dunstan replied, “and not so easy.”
A sudden smile flashed upon the face of the other. A smile of infinite understanding. He felt that he was recognizing a real blood brother in crime.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Pete,” said Dunstan.
“Aye, but what Pete? Denver Pete? Cheyenne Pete? Chi Pete, or what?”
“Tomorrow,” Dunstan said, “maybe I’ll be one kind or other of Pete, but tonight I’m just that.”
The other nodded. “I’m Lawrie,” he said. “And this is Mike.”
Dunstan turned about and faced a villainous-looking rascal with a week’s red beard like thick rust upon his face. Mike blinked his eyes at the stranger and nodded; there was no word said between them. Turning into the house, Dunstan put the seal upon his claim for hospitality by hanging his saddle by a stirrup from a peg on the wall and his bridle over the horn. After that, he lent his hand to the cooking. They were hungry, all three, and until they had finished frying bacon, and eating it between cold, thick slices of pone, washed down with coffee, black as night and strong as lye, there was no further talk.
When the meal was ended, and the claim of Dunstan upon the hospitality and friendship of the others thus established, Lawrie leaned across the rickety table and said: “Now, Pete, you’ve got us where you want us. We can’t pull a knife or a gun on you when your back is turned, not unless we want the same thing to happen to us, the next time that we run for cover. So what’s your name?”
Mike stared at Dunstan out of bleared eyes.
“My name,” the guest said, “is Peter Dunstan.” He sat back to watch the effect of the hurling of this bomb.
It made Mike stiffen in his place, with rapidly blinking eyes, but Lawrie sprang to his feet, with a gun leaping from cover faster than thought.
“You’re Dunstan?” he exclaimed. “You’re Dunstan?” Then, remembering how fast the laws of hospitality bound him, he thrust the revolver back into its holster. “And I might have drilled you clean while you stood in the door of the shack! I wanted to drill you, because I thought that there was a look about you that meant trouble. And now here you are…and safe from me.”
Even the steady nerves of Dunstan were troubled by this violent outburst. “I’ve never met you before, Lawrie,” he said. “How have I ever managed to step on your toes?”
“Five years ago I had a pal here in Chorleywood,” Lawrie said, eying the other with a fixed malevolence. “And you and your gang did for him…as you’ll be done for, before ever you see your way clear of the trees again.”
“Will they be hot to get at me?’ asked Dunstan.
The other grinned with concentrated satisfaction. “I don’t need to use my own hands on you, or my own guns,” he said. “I can keep clean out of it…except just to spread the word that you’re here. Only…I’d like to know what sort of a fool you are to put your head right into the fire, like this.”
“Would you?” Dunstan said steadily. “Then, I’ll tell you. I put my head into the fire, partner….”
“You’re no partner of mine!”
“I came here to Chorleywood because I need help.”
“And the boys here having been old chums of yours…and you having done such a lot for us…you know that you can get what you need out of us?” Lawrie asked sarcastically.
“I know,” Dunstan said, “that I kept my hands off you until you began to bother my cows. And then I raised the devil for you. But after that, we’ve let each other alone. I know another thing. By doing me a good turn now, you boys can make a neat little haul in hard cash. You understand? When I need help, I’m willing to pay for it.”
Lawrie nodded. He was fairly white with scorn and with rage. “Money’ll buy anything,” he said, “starting right in with man. So you’re going to buy us?”
“I’ll buy you afterward,” Dunstan said. “But I’ll fight you first. When you spread the news around that I’m here, tell the boys that, if any of them have a grudge against me that won’t stand wear, I’m here to meet him fair and square. I’ve got a gun, and the other fellow will have a gun. We’ll fight it out here in the clearing in front of your shack, until I finish them, one by one, or until one of them drops me. And that goes for you, Lawrie, along with the rest. If you ache for a fight to clear your conscience, I’m the last man in the world to make things hard and slow for you. There’s lots of room outside, and we have our guns at our hips. Step out with me, Lawrie, if you want a square deal. If you down me, that’s the end. If I down you, my friend, Mike, here, will take the word through Chorleywood that I’m here, and that I’m ready to pay.”
He hesitated a long moment, seeing the hate flicker out of the cunning eyes of Lawrie, and cunning brighten them instead.
“You’ve had chuck in my house,” Lawrie said, “and you ought to know that you’re safe from me. But the other boys…there’ll be some of them that’ll take it in another way, your being here. I’m starting now, old-timer. And maybe you’ll have new callers before sunset.”
Twenty-Six
A man without fear is usually a man without sense, and no one could accuse the rancher of being a fool. It was a long and anxious time that he spent in the shack, in the company of Mike. He spent that time in talk—the talk of Mike, not his own. Finding himself with a celebrity, Mike was glad of an opportunity to unbosom himself of his thoughts and his deeds. That is the way of the lesser spirits. They expose thei
r littleness and their crimes to the eyes of the discerning as though a passion for confession seized upon them when they were in the presence of the strong.
So it was with Mike. In the two hours that followed, he trailed his listener with him from a little Ohio town through a hundred scrapes and disgraces, up and down the Mississippi, through two state prisons, and finally into the far West, where reputations tarnish more slowly and are scoured clean more easily. Even here Mike was a known man—mean, cheap, vicious, dangerous, most of all to his friends, and only significant because of the rat-like venom and courage with which he fought when he was cornered.
“They’ve got me twice and got me good,” Mike said, hunching his narrow shoulders up to his ears. “But they’ll never get me again, so help me. Not while my gun will work…not while I got the wits to keep a last bullet for my own head. That reminds me of a time that a smart dick got onto my trail down in N’Orleans. He’d got himself a reputation by knocking a yegg by name of Sanderson on the head, while poor Sanderson was asleep in an empty boxcar. This dick gave Sanderson a fractured head what he died of afterward, in the hospital. You know…resisting arrest…but one of the hospital orderlies heard Sanderson tell the real truth before he went West. Well, when I heard that this dick was after me, I was down in a joint kept by a….”
He stopped the easy flow of his narrative. Big Peter Dunstan had risen from the chunk of log that he was using as a stool. As he rose, he turned toward the door and brought out a Colt. He was wearing a broad, heavy felt hat, of a pearl gray in color—for fine hats were the one vanity that had entered the life of Dunstan. Unless horses were counted as vanities, also. This hat, caught over the muzzle of his Colt, he extended cautiously past the doorjamb—held it there for a moment—and then hastily withdrew it.