by Max Brand
“Thanks,” said Curry. I’m not having chow. Not hungry.” So saying, he stepped past the other and advanced slowly down the cave with a sauntering step as though he enjoyed looking over the place once more.
The moment he had gone past and his back was turned on Charlie, the latter’s fingers closed around his gun butt, but he refrained from drawing the weapon more than halfway out of the holster. A mysterious power, a mysterious fear forced the gun back again. He could not shoot at that courageous back turned so carelessly upon him.
“You’ve got more horses, I see,” said Jim Curry conversationally. Going deep into the shadows, he reached two horses tethered against the wall of rock, their heads turned and their eyes glistening faintly among the shadows. “That bay,” he went on, “is a likely stepper, Charlie, and the roan ain’t so bad, either. How d’you manage to give ’em both exercise?”
“They get enough,” said Charlie Mark, moving back to his store of money that had been stolen from the sheriff.
“Hmm,” said the other doubtfully. “I don’t see how you manage it. All I could do to keep one horse out in the fresh air enough. Horses ain’t going to thrive down here underground, Charlie. You can lay to that.”
“They thrive enough,” said Charlie Mark. He was keen to take up his money and remove that temptation from sight, but he dared not do it. It would be entirely too pointed, he felt. “And what do you think of ’em for speed, Jim?”
Curry was going about them, running his hands over their legs, feeling the bone and the muscle. “Sprinters,” he said. “Both of ’em. They got plenty of foot, but how about their staying qualities, Charlie? They don’t look like mountain horses to me.”
“That roan,” exclaimed Charlie Mark indignantly, “stepped a mile within three seconds as fast as the white mare! I sent her over a stretch of good road last week and held a clock on her.”
“Sure.” Jim Curry nodded. “She done the first mile fast enough, but what about the second mile … and what if both of them miles had been done over hills, instead of the level?”
Charlie Mark was silent, biting his lip. It was true that the second mile had shown a great falling off.
“Plenty of horses,” said Jim Curry, “could walk away from Meg. I ain’t denying that. I never denied it. Take any thoroughbred that’s trained for sprinting, and they’ll leave Meg behind for the first three or four miles on the level. But races ain’t what you want a horse for. You want a horse that can stay all day. You want a horse that can hit a stiff gait and keep to it. Why, in five miles across rough country Meg would kill both them horses, and you’d ought to know it.”
Charlie Mark grew dark of brow, but he said nothing; he only murmured unintelligible words.
“You’ve lost Meg, I see,” said Jim Curry in addition. “And I tell you, Charlie, that, without her, you’d a pile better give up the job and get out of the mountains and burn that there red wig.” He went on with a growing emotion: “You’ve lost Meg! Did you ride her to death, Charlie?”
Charlie Mark stepped back into the shadow. There was infinite danger masked behind the gentle tone of Jim Curry. “No,” he said hastily. “I didn’t ride her to death. What sort of a man do you think I am?”
“Are you lying, Mark?” said Jim, breathing hard.
“I’ll swear to you, Jim.”
“You don’t have to,” said Curry. “You’re as hard a gent as I ever heard about, but not even you could ride Meg down and leave her. Not even you. What become of her?”
“They had me cornered. I rode her to the top of West Rock and left her there. I climbed down the cliff, and, when they came to the top, I sent a couple of shots up to bother ’em. I think I may have dropped a couple of them, at that.”
His eyes glistened at the thought, and Jim Curry shivered.
“You left her, eh? Well, Charlie, you left your own chance of staying on as the Red Devil when you left her. She’s gone, and you’re done. D’you see that? She’s what saved me. She’s what saved you all these days. Best thing for you to do is to pack up and go, Mark. Go East and stay East, because once you’ve run amok in the West, it ain’t a place for a gent like you to stay.”
“Bah!” answered Charlie Mark, for during the conversation he seemed to have lost much of the awe of his companion that had bothered him after Jim first arrived. “Meg’s gone, but I’ll go down in a couple of days and steal her back. Watch me, Jim!”
“She’ll be guarded.”
“Never mind the guards. I need her. And what I need, I take. That used to be your way, and now it’s my way. They have Meg now. But I’ll have her back inside of a day or two.”
“I’ll make a bet with you on that,” said Jim slowly.
“Which way?”
“That you don’t get her.”
“You will, eh? And why?”
“Because I’m going to get her for myself. Don’t you suppose I’ve been aching for her, Charlie? Why, she and me have been pals.” He drew back his head and laughed exultantly. “Don’t you see,” he explained, “that the only reason I ever let her go was because I had to if I wanted to leave my old life and get back with law-abiding folks? And the only reason I ever let you take my old place was because of Meg … there had to be somebody that would care for her … and that meant there had to be somebody that would carry on as the Red Devil. But that’s ended. You’ve let her out of your hands. You’ve let them capture her. And now, when I get her from the sheriff, nobody can ever suspect me of having been the Red Devil.”
“But how’ll you get her from the sheriff?”
“Can’t I buy her? Isn’t there enough money there?” And he pointed to the money stacked on the table.
IX
Instantly Charlie Mark became rigid. There was no mistaking the meaning in the glittering eyes of Jim Curry. He meant battle—fierce and sudden battle. And Charlie Mark glared back. He was not afraid. Fear had left him after that first night when as the Red Devil he had taken the first life. Thereafter he had forgotten what fear could be, except once or twice when he was in the presence of Jim Curry. But even Jim Curry became an obstacle not impossible to overcome tonight. He had seemed invincible at first. But now he was only a man. It was a proof that Charlie Mark had advanced very far indeed since the first day when he took up the work of the Red Devil where Jim Curry left it off.
Nevertheless, he wanted time, and for the sake of time he would fence with the other, but he must fence in such a way that he would never be suspected of fearing the conflict.
“That’s a rather foolish remark,” he said to Curry. “Mighty foolish, Jim, almost any way that you look at it. If you pull a gun, I’ll shoot you full of holes. You know that.”
Curry shrugged his shoulders. “Listen to me, Charlie,” he said. “I ain’t up here hankering to do a killing. I never have killed yet, and I don’t want to begin now … not so much for your sake as for the sake of old man Mark. But if it came to a pinch and I had to make my choice between a dog and you, I’d pick you, Mark. You’re a bad one all the way through. I’ll tell you what I …”
“Just a minute,” said Charlie Mark. “I know that you have learned quite a bit of respectable lingo, Jim. But don’t spring it on me. I’m not interested. Wait till you find some blockhead that would believe you.”
“I’m going to finish. It won’t take long.”
“Thanks for that.”
“I started up here because I’d heard that half of the money you stole from the sheriff was money that belonged to a widow and her daughter who’d put their savings with the sheriff’s for safekeeping …”
“And you wanted to ask me to give back their half?” Charlie Mark laughed at the absurdity of the idea.
“I was going to make you give it back, and let you keep the rest.”
“And let me keep it?”
“That’s what I mean. Now I’ve changed my mind.�
��
“You’re going to take it all, eh?”
“Exactly.”
“You fool, d’you think that I believe for a minute that you’d give back a cent to the old woman?”
“I don’t expect you to believe. But it’s the truth.”
“Besides, Curry, you’re a greater fool still for thinking that you can make me do anything. You aren’t man enough for the job, my friend. You were in the old days, I admit. But we’ve changed places in more than name. I’m where you used to be when it comes to fighting, and you’re where I was.”
“That so?”
“It certainly is. I’ve practiced every day with rifle and revolver. I took the advice you gave me in the first place, Jim. I followed that advice carefully. I worked for hours every day. I’ve lived with a revolver until I’ve got the feel of it. I’ve labored over the draw and the balance and the whole matter like a musician practicing to become a virtuoso. Understand?”
“That word’s a little big for me, son.”
“I suppose so. What I mean is that I have worked over the squeeze of the trigger as the violinist works over the technique of bowing. I’ve learned how to shoot quick and shoot straight. I’m telling you all this, Jim, not because I expect you to believe that I’m a better shot than you are, but just to make you understand that I’m nearly as good, even in your own eyes. Besides, I’ve shot to kill from the first, and a man who has done that is better than a man who hasn’t. You have to admit it.”
In fact his discourse had made Jim Curry a trifle thoughtful.
“You talk quite a pile about yourself,” said the ex-bandit, smiling at last. “Too much talk and too little action.”
“There’ll be enough of that when we get started. Don’t worry. What I want you to see, Jim, is that I’m not anxious to add you to my list. You’ve done too much for me for me to pay you back that way now.” He consulted his inward sense of danger for an instant and then continued: “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Jim. I’ll split that pool with you fifty-fifty. You must admit that it’s money I got in a way that even you never would have had the nerve to try in your palmiest days. But I’ll split that with you and call it square, for the sake of what you did in setting me up in business, as one might put it.”
He chuckled contentedly at his own expression. But he saw that Curry was not listening. He was simply studying his companion gravely and in a detached manner, as though there were thin air before him rather than a human being, thin air with a stain of smoke in it.
“It’s no good, Charlie,” said Jim Curry. “I let you go for the sake of Meg when I seen you at the house this evening. Now I see a way of getting the mare safe without you. And I see it’s time that the Red Devil should stop riding the mountains. Understand, Charlie?”
“You mean you’re firm that you won’t listen to reason?”
“I mean this, Charlie. Sooner or later I think you and me would have to fight. Partly you’re right in what you say about you getting better and me getting worse as a fighter. I’ve found out that a gent can’t live quiet and peaceable and away from danger without having his eye get slow and his hand like lead. You see? And here you are up in the mountains living like a wildcat. After a while, if we crossed, we might well be different. You’d be the one with the quick hand and the sure eye, and I’d be the slow one. Maybe that’s the way we are right now … but I think I have a fighting chance against you, Charlie, and I figure on using it. Are you ready?”
He had spoken so gently and quietly that Charlie Mark was not at all prepared for the sudden revelation of purpose contained in the last words. And then his cunning brain conceived a trick simple enough and the more deadly because of its simplicity. He stretched forth his left hand argumentatively.
“I’m ready,” said Charlie. “Still I have one more thing to say, Jim, and that is …”
As he spoke, he flicked the revolver from the holster with his right hand and fired from the hip—once, twice. And for the first time Jim Curry, alias the Red Devil, was beaten to the draw. The trick, no doubt, had much to do with it, but unbelievable speed of finger and wrist also played its part.
Something more than speed is necessary in gunplay, however. The revolver of Jim Curry came like a laggard from its leather sheath in comparison with the gun of Charlie Mark, but it exploded just as the second bullet from Mark’s gun clipped the hair beside Jim’s forehead.
There was no occasion for a fourth shot to be fired. Charlie Mark spun on his heel and lunged forward. The impact of his body against the smooth, rock floor was like the clapping of two hands.
Jim Curry, with an exclamation of horror, ran forward. For the first time in his life he had aimed for his life. And now, he felt, he had killed his first man. He turned the limp body face uppermost. There in the exact center, and high up, was a crimson splotch. Curry turned hastily away and braced himself against the wall, sick at heart. The first death is a heavy burden on the brain and the heart.
He remained in that posture until his nerve returned and the tremor passed from him, but he was still weak when he went about the remaining work that had to be performed.
In the first place the horses must not be allowed to perish here in this subterranean stable. He loosed them, led them out through the entrance to the cave, and then gave them a sharp cut with his quirt to start them away toward freedom.
After that he came back and hesitated a moment over the body of the fallen man. To be sure, there had been nothing worth saving in the brain or the soul of this fellow, and yet the remorse and the horror of Jim Curry were hardly the less. Henry Mark, at least, would grieve for this extinguished life, and, for the sake of the old rancher, Jim Curry felt that he had taken a load of guilt upon his shoulders.
Should he bury the body outside under the stars? No, he had not time for that. Should he take the body back to the town and leave it where it might be found? No, because that would call up in the mind of Mark the belief that his adopted son had been murdered foully, and he would sanctify the memory of the outlaw and robber and man-killer. Better to leave him here where he had fallen.
With this conclusion the conqueror scooped up the money that still lay on the table with the firelight playing gently over it. He crammed it into his coat pocket and left the cave, carefully fitting back in place that large, thin, well-balanced stone that served as a door. Outside, he cast up a grateful glance to the bright, free stars, and then, swinging into the saddle on his uneasy horse, he touched it with the spurs and went rapidly down the gorge on the way to the home ranch.
He rode with a false sense of guilt, for in that cave behind him, Charlie Mark was not dead. The bullet had made a grisly wound high on his forehead, a wound that seemed to show the entrance of the bullet to the brain, but, as a matter of fact, it had veered quickly upward in a course concealed by the growth of the hair. It was a deep wound, cutting a furrow in the skull, but it was by no means mortal. Stunned though he was, in the first moment of his half-recovered senses, Charlie Mark raised himself on one elbow and dragged himself to a corner of the cave where he pried up a flat stone and thrust his hand into the aperture beneath. Then he lay back with a grin of relief and triumph, for his fingers had closed over the precious rustling of paper money. Jim Curry had achieved only a half victory.
Besides, there would come another day. It was worth waiting for.
X
“You talk,” said the sheriff, “like a gent that’s been grievin’ over a thing till he was plumb off his nut about it. I never heard such foolish talk, man.”
He spoke with the calm of a very angry man who is controlling his anger only with the greatest difficulty. The flood of speech was hardly dammed up behind his teeth. It was very early in the morning, besides—that time when even the best of men are apt to be a bit hostile even to their best friends. And as for the sheriff, he had not closed his eyes since he returned from the hunt that had given hi
m—as guardian—the possession of Meg until she were sold at public auction. It had given him Meg, the peerless, but it had not brought to him any portion of the money, his own or that of Mrs. Carrigan. And the loss of the widow’s money weighed more heavily on the heart of the honest sheriff than did the loss of his own. No wonder, then, that there was a touch of irritation in the voice of the sheriff as he answered the insinuation of the tall cowpuncher, Lang, that they ought to go to the Mark place and hunt for the Red Devil in his house.
But Lang insisted.
“I ain’t saying for sure,” he said. “I’m only saying that I’d like to have the search made. I ain’t saying that him that robbed you last night, Sheriff, is the gent that’s staying out at the Mark place. But I’m saying that they’s sure something between them two. You come out there with me, and we’ll take a look. If we don’t find something …”
“Well?” cried the sheriff. “What then?”
“If we don’t find something,” insisted Lang, coloring, “then I’m deaf and blind. I didn’t see the eyes of the gent that stuck me up … I didn’t look at his frame … I didn’t hear his voice, nor nothing.”
“If you watched him particular close,” said the sheriff, “you’re the first gent I ever heard of that could see so many things accurate and hear so many things accurate when a hold-up artist had a gun on him, ready to talk business with powder and lead.”
The tall man scowled blackly. “I could do that, and I could pull my gat and make a play for him, too,” he said, and instinctively he touched the arm that had been wounded on the day of that hold-up as the penalty for daring to draw a weapon on the Red Devil.
The sheriff was moved in spite of himself. Beyond question Lang had showed nerve in plenty on that day, and a man who was willing to exchange shots with the Red Devil was a man for whom the sheriff could cherish a charitable share of patience.
“Suppose I go out there with you,” he said, “will you shut your face after that about the man at the Mark place and stop bothering me?”