Stagecoach

by Max Brand

  As a matter of fact, $650 was paid into the hands of Sammy’s Munson ticket agent for the first loaded coach.

  Chapter Twenty

  So, with the four stages all in operation, Sammy saw himself clearing $700 to $800 at least. Perhaps much, much more. And those were days, be it remembered, when money meant from three to five times what it means to the giddy 1900s.

  Oh, Sammy Gregg, those were moments of golden anticipation more thrilling than any reality. Those were the days to build dreams in the millions. Granted that the high prices could not be maintained indefinitely and that he must reduce his rates before a competing line entered—now that he had shown that the trick could be turned—granted all of that, still he would have a sweet harvest. In a fortnight, all his capital would be returned to his pocket and he would have a handsome profit besides.

  Such were the stakes for which men gambled in those days.

  However, this was the prospect. Now he was to make the trial of the fact. He had ten passengers, and all the luggage and freight that his coach could groan under. And the day for the trial came. Nine men and one woman advanced to enter the coach. And upon the driver’s seat sat the gray-headed driver and Sammy. Nine men and one woman, by whom there hung a story told in a letter that Sammy at that moment had in his pocket. It read thus:

  Dear Mr. Gregg: I am making reservations in your coach, which leaves Munson on Tuesday, for my daughter, Miss Anne Cosden, who arrives from the East on that day.

  She is a headstrong young person who refuses to wait until I can come to Munson to escort her over the mountains in person. She has formed a mad scheme for riding—alone—the trail from Munson to the lode.

  I have managed to dissuade her from that by suggesting a compromise. That compromise is your stage line. Forgive me for saying that I look forward to her ride over those back-breaking mountains in an unproved stage line with hardly less apprehension than if she were riding a pony alone through that wilderness.

  Nothing but the pressure of the most vastly important business and the interests of my stockholders prevents me from coming to Munson to act as her escort. As it is, I must leave her in your hands, knowing that she will receive the best of treatment from you.

  That was the important part of the letter. And Sammy, seeing himself with an only child, a headstrong but none the less precious darling of a millionaire miner’s heart put into his hands, had even done his best to select the remaining nine passengers from among the least rough of the applicants.

  Then he besought his driver, a bewhiskered buccaneer named Alec, to select from the herd at Munson the gentlest of the lot for the first trip. Alec gave him his oath that he would do so.

  “But,” Alec said, “when it comes to goin’ over a pack of powder and pickin’ out the grains that are not gonna explode, it’s a sort of a hard job, even with a microscope, Mister Gregg. But I’m gonna go over that lot of broncos with a microscope and see which I can pick out.”

  So Alec had done his best. For a whole day he had mingled with the Munson herd to pick out the gentlest horses of the lot, and now he was prepared to venture them in the harness where the lives of ten persons or more would be dangled at their flying heels.

  The day before the starting time, the only child of Hubert Cosden, miner and millionaire extraordinary, arrived in Munson. And Sammy, introducing himself to this perishable creature for whom her father worried, was struck with dismay.

  “Into his hands” the charge had been given. And what a charge. She stood not half an inch shorter than Sammy. And her pompadoured hair and a woman’s carriage made her look a great deal larger than he. She had, besides, a certain manner that made Sammy shrink in self-esteem and importance.

  But generalizations about Anne Cosden could never give more than the vaguest idea about her. She had lived nineteen years and a few months as the daughter of one of the rich and important men in the country. She weighed a hundred and forty-five solid pounds. Her foot took a woman’s size number eight—made large in every dimension. Her hand took a glove equally ample. She had red hair. There are kinds and kinds of red hair. Once upon a time all hair that was red was laughed at. And every red-headed person was hailed as “Brick Top” in youth. Then some genius invented a softer term—auburn. Who says that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet? The sheer influence of a word made a hair color popular, and brown-haired ladies straightway invested in uncertain dyes.

  However, the hair of Anne Cosden was not of the kind that could be softened with any pretty name. It was red—plain, unadulterated red. It was flaring, flaming red. Brick red. And it could not be disguised. There were silken tides and misty oceans of it.

  Beneath a low, broad brow—the brow of philosophers and prize fighters—was set a pair of eyes to match the hair. Blue eyes, that is to say. For all who have seen Irish red hair will know that Irish blue eyes are needed. No, not Irish blue, for that is dark and rich. But the blue of the eyes of Anne Cosden was pale, and liable to take fire—just as her hair would take fire in the sunlight.

  She had a good square chin that would have taken a considerable pounding without complaint. And there was a faint cleft in the center of it. I do not know what a cleft in the chin is supposed to mean. But the cleft in the chin of Anne Cosden meant something ominous.

  She was as straight as an arrow. And that is always a little disconcerting in a woman—especially for a small man, like Sammy. When he met her, he tried to make the most of his inches. But he felt that he was just about half a foot short of making any sort of an impression on her.

  She had an uncertain voice. That is to say, it was a voice with one of those large, large ranges. And one never knew just what section of her range she would choose to use. She had a gruff tone, for instance, that was almost as deep as the voice of a man. And she had a mellow midway tone in which she could talk and laugh and sing, when she felt so inclined. And she had a higher register as snarling and thin and edgy as the blast of a bugle. And she had, also, a roar—a lion’s roar. Or a lioness, if you please.

  In fact, as the people of Munson were instantly willing to admit, when they saw the young lady step off the train, she was a “considerable person.”

  Yet she remained a girl. She was as distinctly feminine as she was distinctly a person. On the side of that leonine head there was set an ear made of the most exquisite pale shell-pink and ivory. Her hand had size enough and there were callouses on the inside from driving and riding lunging thoroughbreds, but still it was a long hand, made with consummate grace. And although she wore a flat-heeled, blunt-nosed shoe, not even a blind man would have taken that for a man’s shoe.

  The first thing that Anne Cosden did when she got to Munson was to ask for a horse, because she wanted to have a look at the country around, having been, as she said, entombed in a train longer than she had ever been shut off from fresh air before. But when she asked the hotel proprietor where she could get a horse, he rubbed the stubble on his chin and announced that there were no ladies’ horses in that section of the country.

  “Heavens, man,” said Anne Cosden, “I’ve never ridden a lady’s horse in my life. Get me a man’s horse. A man-size horse, too.”

  The proprietor was a fellow with a mean disposition, and though it is most generally understood that no Westerner will take advantage of a lady, you can’t count hotel proprietors as typical of the land. He had a big rangy black, wild-caught, at four years of age on the range. And as everybody knows, a horse that has run wild on a Western range for four years is the devil’s twin brother, if not the devil himself. However, the proprietor introduced her to the horse and she liked the looks of it so well that she bought it on the spot. And the hotel man charged her $100 which, considering that it had to be broken over again every day of its life, was robbery. Five minutes later Anne Cosden was on the back of the black horse, Charlie.

  “I don’t care what kind of a saddle,” she had said.

  Five seconds later, Anne lay on her back in the dust of the corra
l. And Charlie would have prepared her for her grave, then and there, had she not recovered her wits soon enough to roll under the lowest bar of the fence. She picked herself up in sections, so to speak, and shook some of the dust out of her hair—her hat was reposing in the corral, and Charlie was busy doing to the hat the things he would have liked to do to the mistress thereof.

  But, a little later, Anne was in the saddle again. Three times she mounted with some pain. Three times she was deposited in the thick dust, but each time Charlie found the task of shedding her a little harder. The fourth time, while half a dozen men stood by in gaping wonder, Anne Cosden fairly rode the black out of his bad graces and into his good ones. Then she brought him up standing on the curb. She parted her lips and the lion’s voice roared forth: “Yank open that gate. I’m going to give this little lamb some air!”

  Five hours later she returned to Munson. When she dismounted, it was noticed that she walked with a limp, but so did Charlie.

  “I had a bully ride, and it’s a great country,” Anne Cosden announced. “Did you know that Charlie could jump? Yes, a regular fencer. I’m going to take him home and hunt him this fall. I don’t think he’ll buck any more.”

  And he didn’t—never again.

  Such was the Anne Cosden who Sammy Gregg handed to a place in the stage on this historic day, while the horses were being harnessed in their places.

  “I hope,” she said, “that there are enough level places for the horses to take a gallop, now and then. This hot air needs to be churned up a little.”

  A little dried-up man with far-away eyes murmured: “I don’t know that they’ll wait for the level going . . . exactly.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  In fact, those horses did not look to be the waiting type as they were produced from the corral. Produced is the word. They were not led forth, neither were they driven. But, since men were plentiful in Munson, the wise old driver distributed three or four men to every horse. And three or four more or less expert wranglers can usually make the worst of horses behave. Also, a half hitch taken in the long upper lip of a mustang is apt to make him mind his manners for the time being. So, pushed, dragged, and beaten into place, the horses were lined up—the six safest horses in the possession of Sammy Gregg.

  They looked a little less dangerous than lions. They looked a little less happy than hornets.

  The traces were hooked to the chains, and the chains to the singletrees. The horses were straightened out. The leaders took up the slack of the fifth chain. The swing pair leaned into the collar to straighten the tongue of the wagon. Alec gathered the six stout reins in his hands. He loosened the long brake with his foot. He shook out the deadly length of his whip, with which he could cut a horsefly off the hip of a leader without touching the skin of the animal.

  “All right,” Alec said. “Yank off them blinds.” And the blindfolds were removed. “Steady, boys,” Alec said gently. “Lean into them collars, pets. Hey, you, Blackie! Git back onto your own feet. Now . . .” The rest of Alec’s language soared from the earth and took wings to fiery regions. For the off-leader saw something about the make-up of the near-leader that he did not like and at once he proceeded, literally, to “climb his frame”. He gathered himself and tried to leap on top of his harness mate and bite the top of his neck off at the same time.

  The near-leader, objecting, backed up to get out of the way and jammed his rump into the nose of the near swing-horse. And the near swing-horse, being a cannon that shot in one direction only, resented this freedom by kicking the near-wheeler in the nose.

  Whereat the near-wheeler jumped over the tongue and bit the shoulder of the off-wheeler, who planted his heels in the body of the coach and then tried to jump through his collar. Which disturbed the off-swing, which, like a jack rabbit, turned end for end in his harness to find out what the trouble was all about.

  And that was only the beginning of the affair.

  Little Sammy Gregg, seeing six horses and his hopes of a fortune going to wrack, uttered a shout that was almost a scream.

  A stern voice behind him rumbled: “Keep quiet, little man. You’ll scare the horses.”

  He turned his head and had a vague glimpse of Anne Cosden. The face of the millionaire’s daughter was a study in contempt. But Sammy, at that instant, did not care. He was merely thinking that he had paid $1,300 for the privilege of seeing six mustangs kick a daydream into atoms and make a frontier town dissolve in laughter.

  However, they did not laugh themselves to helplessness. Before the six mustangs had smashed each other to a pulp, a crowd of staggering, shouting wranglers leaped at their heads. There was a wild uproar. Presently six horses lay on the ground with their heads pinned down under the weight of men.

  In the tremulous silence that followed, Sammy announced in a voice that fitted in with the pause: “I’m afraid we can’t make the start today, gentlemen.”

  “Nonsense,” the strong voice of Anne Cosden declared. “The fun is barely starting, and none of us would miss the ride for a thousand dollars.”

  Two young men, who were about to slide over the back of the coach and drop to safe terra firma, heard that calm announcement and sneaked back into their places, where they sat quivering, hoping that no one had seen them. And the rest of the passengers began to lift their heads from their bristling coat collars and look about as though wondering how they could still be intact.

  Sammy was silenced, but his dismay was not the less.

  It was Alec who spoke. “The lady wants to go on with the party,” he said. “Lemme get down and see how many patches we’ll have to make.”

  There were not so very many, after all. One singletree, tough hickory though it was, had been twisted neatly in two. And there were some broken straps about the harness, here and there. However, the omnipresent baling wire repaired those breakages, and presently the horses were dragged to their feet. The broken singletree was replaced.

  “Hold hard,” Alec cautioned. “I’m going to see if I can’t scare these boys into a little run.”

  So, when the blindfolds were removed, he whirled his whip, cracked the long lash, scourged each of the six, apparently, with one and the same movement of the lash, and uttered a ferocious scream. The six mustangs swung of one accord, curled like a snake, caught the coach with an abrupt cross pull, and yanked it flat upon its side.

  Sammy Gregg, being the lightest missile, sailed the farthest. He found himself pausing for an instant astraddle of the back of the off-leader. But from that point of vantage he was presently bucked into space again and landed once more—this time in a group of bystanders. When his senses came back to him, he saw the fat man in whose stomach his head had been buried, sitting with a stricken look where he had fallen. The rest of the crowd was busy righting the team and the coach. And the leader in the good work was Anne Cosden.

  Munson had wrecked the second hat that she had ventured to wear there. It sat now—or a fragment of it sat—atilt on one side of her head, and half of her bright red hair had slipped out and tumbled down her back. But she held the refractory off-leader securely by the nose, twisting his upper lip until the agony made him tame.

  “The third go will bring us luck, boys!” Anne Cosden sang out. “Drag out the baggage and heave the old wagon up on her legs once more. There’s enough of you to do it!”

  There was not a member of the party—not even Alec—who would not have relinquished all thoughts of the trip for that day, at the least. But men cannot let women see the white feather in their hats.

  Sammy Gregg, shaken from his fall and weak-kneed with terror, set doggedly about doing his share. And as he struggled with the head of the near-leader he heard her singing out encouragingly: “Get him by the nose . . . and twist!”

  The near-leader was pacified at last.

  “That was a bad fall you got,” Anne Cosden said good-naturedly. “I thought you’d never stop sailing.”

  “Where were you, to watch?”

  “Sailing, too
,” Anne replied, grinning. “But I happened to land in a thick spot of dust, so I’m all right . . . seems to have shaken you up a bit, though.”

  “I’m not hurt,” said Sammy, who believed in the truth. “But I’m scared . . . almost to death. And so are the rest of ’em . . . except that you’ve shamed them out of it.”

  She looked at him in amazement. It was the first time in her life that she had heard a man admit fear. And for that reason, I suppose, she suddenly liked Sammy.

  “You’re the owner of this mess, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Yes. I put up for it.”

  “Cheer up,” Anne said sympathetically. “A rainy morning makes a good fox hunt. And we’ll be in at the kill in Crumbock, after all. There . . . they’ve got the coach up.”

  Thirty pairs of willing, heaving, struggling arms had managed that trick, and the stage, stripped of baggage, was bolstered up—then rocked suddenly into an erect position. Minus a little paint, it was otherwise unharmed. For those wise Yankee brains and hands that planned and built the wagon had made it like a ship that is meant to travel through stormy seas. Not a spoke of a single wheel had been sprained. Not a single board had been broken. She was as sound as when the first attempt had been made to start the coach.

  Once more the baggage was piled in. The wan and silent passengers, each with a covert eye upon this slave-driving girl, climbed to their places. The blindfolds were snapped from the six heads, and once more Alec rose to his task. A little streak of crimson was dashed like war paint upon one cheek. He was covered with dust, but covered with courage, also. And the terrible lash of his whip cut a thin, deep gash in the hip of the boisterous off-leader.