by Max Brand
“Not a bit,” Henry said, whose smile would not go off. “Matter of fact, I’d do almost anything to keep the marshal feelin’ cheerful.”
He was picking up the dishes as he spoke, and the marshal slowly lowered the weapon to its holster. He was infinitely sorry, for two reasons.
The first and least important was that he had exhibited a vicious and unmannerly temper in the presence of Marian, and having begun a job, he had not finished it. The second reason was that he had given to Duval a chance to time with his eye exactly the speed of his draw.
And Duval certainly did not appear dismayed by what he saw. On the contrary, the marshal could have sworn that his sly enemy was secretly smiling in content. He was infuriated, but he knew not what to do or what to say. He had delivered himself, he felt, into the hands of an enemy who was not really of his strength, but who was filled with wiles. He was the lion, and, behold, a fox could annoy him!
However, the end was not yet. He took that comfort to his heart and waited for the current of events to flow on. Somehow, he knew that before this evening had ended there would be a great crisis that would solve the problem with which he was confronted.
Old Henry had cleared away the soup and brought on the next course. But, the marshal hardly knew what was before him. Back in his mind rumbled his oath of office like distant thunder, and his head swam with this impossibility — that this fugitive from justice should be here before him, and yet untouched. And always there persisted the sense that he had been trapped.
There was more clearing of the table, rattling of washed dishes, and then the presentation of a great saddle of venison. The marshal heard Marian Lane exclaiming over it, and he stared at her heavily, for it seemed a miracle that she could abandon herself so heartily to the enjoyment of that dinner without feeling the danger that was in the air.
Yet, when he looked at her with a clearer eye, he saw that she, too, had forced her pleasure. And, in odd moments, her face grew grave and her eye apprehensive.
They came to coffee, at last, and as they reached this, the head of the marshal cleared entirely. He knew what he would do, and drained off the steaming hot contents of the cup at a draft. Then he struck the table with his hand, so that the dishes upon it jumped.
Charlie Nash started violently and uttered a low cry. Marian merely stiffened in her chair.
“Friends,” said the marshal, “it’s been a fine party, and I ain’t denying that. Never sat down to a better meal, but there’s a time come when I gotta go back to my job, and the first sign of it is that I gotta take Henry with me. Henry, put on your hat, because you’re coming back to the jail with me. We’ll make you right comfortable there.”
“Sure,” Henry said. “I’ll go along, if the boss can spare me from the job, here.”
“The boss,” the marshal said, looking not at Henry but at Duval, “ain’t the man for you to talk to now. It’s me that counts here, Henry.”
He rejoiced, for he knew that he had brought on the climax that had been impending in the air.
Duval was shaking his head. “I’d like to let you have him, Kinkaid,” said Duval, “but if you put yourself in my boots, you’ll see how it is...I can’t turn him over to the jail when there are still...so many dirty dishes to be washed, man.”
He smiled amiably at Kinkaid, and the latter flushed heavily.
“I dunno what you’re driving at, Duval,” he said, “if it ain’t trouble. And if that’s what you want....”
“Tut,” Duval said. “It ain’t trouble that I want, but trouble that I gotta have. My old man used to say that it was better to find trouble before trouble found you, and I reckon that he was right, eh?”
Marian Lane stood up from her chair hastily. “You don’t mean that you’ll force things, Dick?” she gasped.
“I’ve been brought here like a fool. I’ve been set down here with that crook, Henry, under my eye. Something’s been planned against me, and I dunno what. But I do know that Henry’s going back to the jail with me this night or else he....”
“Sit down, Marian,” invited Duval. “There ain’t gonna be no trouble until you’ve finished your coffee, and maybe that’ll take you another ten minutes. Let’s see. It’s twelve minutes to eight, now. Say we make it eight, Marshal?”
“Eight for what?” asked big Kinkaid.
“Wind up the clock, will you,” Duval said to Henry, “and set the alarm for eight o’clock. That ought to do for a signal, Kinkaid, eh?”
“A signal for what?” asked Charlie Nash.
“For the shooting,” Duval answered.
“Is that another of your bluffs and your fakes?” asked the marshal fiercely. “The thing that wore down Larry Jude will never wear me down.”
“That’s a tolerable ornery and hostile way of putting it,” answered Duval. “Why, I ain’t upsetting you. All I’m doing is saying that he’s gotta give Marian time to finish her coffee.”
Charlie Nash broke in: “Marian, I’m going to take you out of this. Duval means what he says.”
“No, no...,” Marian began.
“She’ll stay here,” Duval said, drawling the words. “Now that she’s started the fun, she’d better stay and see the game finish out.”
Chapter Forty
This suggestion struck everyone with amazement. There was a silence, broken only by the creaking of the alarm clock as Henry wound up the spring, and adjusted the hands.
It was he who first spoke. “It’ll go off in about ten minutes,” Henry said.
“Ten minutes makes a long time, when one wishes to settle up his last affairs,” remarked Duval. “You agree to that, Kinkaid?”
“I agree to anything,” said the marshal. “Except you’re a fool and a brute, if you wanna keep the girl here. This is between you and me. Marian, you go. Nash, take her away!”
“Charlie won’t take her away,” Duval declared, steadily looking into the white face of the girl. “He’ll leave her here where she belongs. I reckon that she even wants to stay. Don’t you, Marian?” He smiled at her.
“Do you mean that you’re going to stay here in this room and murder one another?” cried the girl. “Charlie...Henry...!” She paused, realizing that there was no appeal she could make that was strong enough to stop the clash of these impending forces.
“No murder...no murder,” Duval said. “Because I aim to state the two of us are both first-rate experts. Him that’s the fastest is the one that’ll win. The first bullet home will be the only bullet shot. It’ll be no double murder, I can promise you, Marian. You won’t have to sit there and see the room all spattered with red and the furniture shot up, and bullets whizzing around your own head, the way that you think. It’ll be neat, quick, and pretty. Only one of us will drop, and that’s likely to be me, the marshal being as you might say a professional...well, manhunter, you might call him. Bounty-getter. You must’ve piled up quite a considerable, Dick, taking scalps?”
“I’ve heard enough of your lingo,” said Kinkaid. “Get Marian out of the house. Nash can take her. Then you and me’ll finish it out, and the less talking the better.”
“Not with Marian gone,” Duval said. “You sure want to stay, don’t you?”
“Stay? I?” cried the girl. “David...Richard...!” She ended her appeal before it began. “Oh, Charlie,” she said, “is there nothing that can be done?”
“Listen to her,” Duval said admiringly. “Now, you’d think, to listen to her, that she hadn’t worked all this up in good style. You’d think that it wasn’t her that put Dick Kinkaid on my trail. You’d think that it wasn’t her that started all this trouble, and now that the showdown is about to come, she blanches a mite, and throws up her hands, and hollers how terrible it is, but down in your heart, Marian, you sure must hanker a lot to see this fight.”
“Leave her alone!” thundered the marshal. “You’re driving her sick wi
th your fool talk. You....”
She had, in fact, slipped limply down into her chair, white and shaking.
“You talk like a grandmother,” Duval said to the marshal. “Did she think that I was a soda fountain clerk, or a window-washer? She knew what I could do...she had some ideas about me. And she picked you up at the dance, Kinkaid, and pointed you on my trail. To find out who Duval was? Not a bit, partner. She wanted to see could Duval be licked, and now she’s gonna find out and watch with her own eyes.” He turned to the girl. “Tell us true, Marian. Ain’t that the fact?”
“No!” she cried at him. “I only wanted to know...but whatever my reason was, I see that it was wrong. It is my fault! David, if I go on my knees to you and beg you...?”
“Hush,” Duval said. “The old man used to say that after the kid set fire to the barn, he was sure sorry when he seen the flames wagging in the sky. I know you’re sorry. But now the game’s started, it has gotta finish. And you’ll sit there and watch. It’ll be something to tell your grandchildren, one of these days, how Kinkaid and Duval fought for you. Kind of primeval-like, and strong and wild, like the cave men that used to go courting, and him that had the longest arm and the knobbiest club, he cracked the skulls of half a dozen other gents, and then he walked off with the prettiest girl in the tribe, mostly taking her along by the hair of the head for a lead rope.”
He laughed as he ended and, turning to Henry, asked: “What’s the time now, Henry?”
“Six minutes left, sir,” said Henry.
“Thank you,” Duval said. “Now, Kinkaid, we got six minutes left, and maybe you got some affairs that you’d like to put in order?”
Kinkaid sneered broadly. “I see the game that you’re working,” he declared. “First, you’re gonna have the girl here, and Charlie. And second, you’re gonna make a long wait to break my nerve. It’d work with most, but it won’t work with me. I see through you, Duval.”
“Do you?” Duval asked patiently. “Well, even if I’ve led you to the water I can’t make you drink. But if you got friends, family, relations, you’d better think of ’em now. You could tell Charlie. Charlie would remember. Short messages would be the best, though.”
“Fill your hand,” answered the marshal. “And we’ll finish this off now.”
“There’s still coffee in her cup,” Duval advised him. “Besides, I ain’t in any hurry. Charlie, have you got a gun?”
“Yes,” Charlie said, barely able to speak.
“Pull the gun and stand over against the wall.”
“What for?”
“For seeing that this here fight comes off fair and square. There’s a time when that alarm begins that it makes a purring, like a cat lapping milk. Then comes the ring. If one of us was to draw a gun before the ringing begins, shoot him through the head, Charlie. You’ll be the judge. You been mighty interested in all of this here game, and now it’s your chance to take a part.”
Charlie did not hesitate. He walked like an automaton to the side of the room, and drew his long Colt, grimly ready for action.
“What’s the time, Henry?” asked Duval.
“Four minutes, sir.”
“Four minutes left,” Duval said. “You ain’t gonna accept my invitation after all, Dick?”
“Your invitation be hanged!”
The marshal sat stiffly in his chair, every muscle rigid, his jaws set, his eyes narrowed to needle points.
“All right,” Duval said, “but it looks to me like you’re pretty tense, old-timer. The old man used to say that even steel could get tempered too hard, and then you could break it in your hands. I wouldn’t like to see you break like that...not right here in front of Marian and Charlie. The other time, that was different. There was only me and Henry to watch that.”
He smiled genially, and the marshal flared up with hot anger.
“You lie!” he shouted. “There wasn’t no other time!”
“Huh?” Duval said. “There’s a lady with us, Dick.” He turned to the girl. “Now that I am a couple of steps from dying, maybe, I wanna say in front of the world that I loved you, Marian, mighty nigh from the first time that I laid eyes on you. But you threw a scare into me, at first. You knew a pile too much....”
“Leave her be,” Kinkaid snapped. “Your time’s drawn pretty fine. Leave her be, and if you’ve got talking to do, talk to me, Duval, you sneak, you thief, you faker!”
“What time is it, Henry?” Duval asked.
“There’s about a minute and a half left,” Henry announced.
“One moment,” Duval said. “I sure don’t wanna die like this...like a farmer just in from the plow, I mean to say. Gimme your neckerchief, Henry.”
He took one from the hand of Henry, whose eyes had grown luminous with fear and doubt, like the eyes of a frightened dog. Duval rapidly donned the neckerchief, and then jerked down and smoothed his coat. He passed his hand over his hair and turned his pale, smiling face to the girl.
“Do I look better now, Marian?”
She could not speak. Frozen with white horror, she watched him. He saw her swallow and make a mighty effort, but the words would not come.
Charlie Nash, also, was a form of stone against the wall, but with his teeth set and all his mind and body nerved for violent action.
“What time is it, Henry?” came the remorselessly polite voice of Duval.
“One minute, sir!”
“Now, Kinkaid, there’s one minute left for any message you might wanna send.”
Kinkaid caught his breath audibly. “Charlie!”
“Aye?” said Charlie Nash.
“My uncle, Tom Chalmers in Butte. Send him word that when I died, I said that I never set ’em on the right trail after his boy Les. But if I live, dang him if I’ll give him that comfort. He can think what he wants about me and....” He clipped off the words sharply, for he knew that the time was coming quickly, and he did not wish to be caught unaware.
“Even Dick Kinkaid had one message to leave behind him,” Duval said, and smiled. “What time is it now, Henry!”
“There’s less than half a minute,” Henry said softly, “and heaven help you, Mister....”
Even then the word was not spoken, not that Duval interfered, but because the alarm machinery began to purr softly, with light clicking.
Then Duval heard the girl cry out in a voice like that of a child, in protest. He himself leaned back a little, and made himself smile straight at the marshal, down whose face he saw the great drops trickling.
“Why blast the house to pieces?” Duval said. “One shot apiece had oughta be enough, Dick. Here’s my five.” He broke his gun and deliberately rolled five shells out on the table.
“Damn you!” Kinkaid hissed. His fingers fumbled and shook with nasty fear, but he accepted that last challenge, at that last instant, and, breaking his gun, shook out five of the trusty shells. Instantly he thrust the weapon back into its holster, to duly keep the rules of the game, and as he did so, he saw Duval fold his arms.
It was a final, consummate act of bravado on the part of Duval, or was it real contempt for his enemy, and confidence in himself? What the marshal decided was that the man was striving to lure him into a false impression that he would have a shade of extra time because of those idly folded arms. And Kinkaid decided that his draw must be fast as light, if he were to live.
That instant the alarm bell clanged. And with an explosion of convulsive speed, Kinkaid whipped out his revolver and fired, pointblank. Not five feet from the extended muzzle of his gun was the breast of Duval, but still he sat there, unscathed, smiling, his arms still lightly folded across his breast.
Chapter Forty-One
The horror-stricken eyes of the marshal turned down to the five shells that lay upon the table before him, then rose to the pale face of Duval, who was still smiling. Then he saw the hand of the other disa
ppear inside his coat and come forth again, bearing a revolver.
It was instinct that made the marshal half rise, and stand like a crouched bear, ready to rush in. But some deep sense of dignity and of how men should meet their death made him, instead, stand suddenly erect, his hands gripped at his sides, as the revolver swung up and leisurely covered him.
“That’s the manhunter, the man-killer, the bounty-getter,” said Duval, sneering. “I took your gun from you, once. I could take your life from you now...but I’d rather let folks see what you’re made of...and let you go. Get out!”
Once before, on a night of horror, the marshal had been sent in shame from that cabin. Now he went forth again with his head hanging on his chest. At the door, he gathered himself and, turning, cast a glance like that of a madman on Duval, then went slowly off through the darkness.
Old Henry, Duval himself, and Marian Lane remained with Charlie Nash.
It was Charlie who moved first and, saying nothing to anyone, poured himself a glass of water. His shaking hand spilled half of it on the floor; the rest he swallowed, and then he blundered out from the cabin and was gone.
“The horses, Henry!” Duval said huskily to Henry.
And Henry slipped away in turn, his eyes like those of men who have seen ghosts walk.
It left Duval and the girl alone, and the instant the others were away, he dropped his face in his hands and gripped the flesh hard with his fingers.
Seconds walked slowly over him, endlessly, as he fought to control himself and keep back the waves of hysteria that were rising.
“Here,” said a matter-of-fact voice, “is some hot coffee. You didn’t drink your first cup, David.”
The fragrance of it and the heat rose to his face. “Very well,” he said. “Thank you.” He had to make a pause between the words and speak very softly. Otherwise, he could not have been sure of the voice in which he spoke.
When he raised the cup, it chattered foolishly against his teeth. He closed his eyes to shut out the face of Marian, who stood by, watching.