by Max Brand
“You confounded interloper, you … you … Get out before I throw you out. Start moving while you still can move!”
Bill Ross backed down the steps, scowling heavily. But the man he faced was not Charlie Mark. He was watching the stern face of Jim Curry standing to one side. There, he sensed, was the gravest danger.
“I’ll vamoose now,” he said slowly. “I can’t stand up against odds like these here ones. But if you gents think that I’m leaving this trail now, you’re plumb crazy. I’m after you, Charlie Mark. If you’ve had dealings with the Red Devil once, you’ll have dealings with him again. And I’m going to get you and follow you on the trail to meet him. Lay your money on that.”
He climbed into his saddle, then turned and faced them once more.
“The minute I seen the fob,” he said, “I’d knowed that I’d strike something behind it. And I have! Goodbye, gents. Lady, I’m plumb sorry that I’ve had to come out here and make all of this excitement.”
He removed his hat, bowed to the group, and then was gone down the road at a rocking lope.
Charlie Mark instantly became the center of attention. All heads turned suddenly upon him. And he, in turn, attempted to meet them with a laugh, but the sound died in his throat. He did the worst thing he could possibly have done by turning on his heel and retreating through the front door into the house, and there they heard him stamping up the stairs one by one.
Not a sound came from the wretched group on the veranda until the last of those climbing footfalls died out and the door slammed heavily from the second story of the house. Then Henry Mark, his lips parted, his face fallen into sagging lines of weakness, caught Jim Curry by the shoulder.
“Jim,” he gasped out, “what does it mean?”
“I dunno,” said Jim. Then he saw the eye of the girl fixed upon him in pleading, and he went on. “It’s just that Charlie is mad because we didn’t back him up right away. That’s why he’s gone inside. He’s sulking like a kid, and he won’t talk, simply because he knows we expect him to make some explanations. He’ll sit up there in his room until one of us goes and makes up to him.”
“Do you think that’s it?” breathed the old man. “Do you think that’s it?”
He hung on the reply of Jim. Ever since Jim has been given the place as foreman on the ranch a couple of weeks before, and in that capacity had demonstrated his worth both in handling the men and the cattle, his word had meant a great deal to the aging rancher.
“Of course that’s it,” said Jim, watching the face of the girl. “You go up, and you’ll find him in a grouch.”
“I’ll go,” answered Henry Mark. “Just for a minute, Jim, my heart pretty near stopped, because I thought that … that … heaven knows what. I didn’t suspect Charlie, of course. But I was afraid … young men do fool things now and then … and maybe …”
He blundered through the front door, and they heard his hurrying but irregular step go up the stairs.
Jim Curry turned and confronted the white face of the girl. But it was Little Billy who spoke.
“Well,” he said, “when I get growed up, I’m going to practice a pile … but I know right now that I’ll never get as good at lying as you are, Jim.”
“Get out!” snapped Jim Curry. “You hear too much and you see too much and you talk too much for a kid your size. Go on, now.”
The half-serious and half-jesting threat of his raised hand sent Little Billy scampering off the porch. It left Jim and Ruth Mark together.
“Do you think …?” she began.
“I don’t think,” said Jim. “Today I’ve laid off thinking. I’m leaving it to wiser folks than me. Just now I’m busy wondering what’s going on inside of your head.”
“The same thing, I imagine, that’s going in inside of yours.”
“Well?”
“That there’s something in what Mister Ross said.”
“Eh?” exclaimed Jim. “You think that?”
The girl came close to him, her color changing under the stress of her emotion. “I don’t like Charlie,” she said. “You know that. But you don’t know still more … that I actually hate him. I’ve never known anything good about him. Even when he was a little youngster, he was the cruelest, cleverest, most sneaking chap in the whole countryside. I haven’t changed my opinion about him in the meantime. He’s gone from bad to worse. He covers his trail much better than he once did. But under the surface he’s just the same Charlie Mark … vindictive, selfish, mean. I … I never have trusted him. I don’t trust him now. And … and I think that perhaps Mister Ross may be right. Charlie may have had dealings with the Red Devil.”
“You think he’s as bad as that?”
“I do.”
“But then maybe all we hear about the Red Devil isn’t true. I’ve heard of outlaws who were not near as bad as their reputation. Haven’t you?”
“Perhaps some of them aren’t. But not the Red Devil. Why, he’s proverbial.”
Jim Curry bent his head a little. His plea had been for himself more than for Charlie Mark. He saw now how completely the mind of the girl was made up. Once she should connect him with his true past—once she should identify him as the man who had made the name and fame of the Red Devil so terrible throughout the mountains—then her liking for him, which was, he felt, rapidly warming into something more than liking, would be destroyed. Not only would it be destroyed, but in its place there would be substituted the same aversion with which she looked on her foster brother.
“But what I wanted to talk to you about,” said the girl, “is not what Charlie may be. I’ve known a good deal about him for a long time. What I want to do and want to get you to promise to help me in is to keep Father from finding out the truth.”
It was a request that shocked Jim Curry.
“You see,” explained the girl, “I expect to have a hard time to persuade you. I know that you hate Charlie even more than I hate him.”
“You’re sure? But, Ruth, he’s …”
“Never done anything to you? That doesn’t matter. You hate him. Don’t deny it. I’ve seen it in your face. I’ve seen it in his face. You hate him and despise him. And he hates you and fears you. Why if another man had gripped his wrist as you did when he struck Little Billy … the coward! … a moment ago, Charlie would have drawn a gun. But he was afraid to try a weapon against you. He fears you … just why, I can’t make out. I never knew him to be afraid of anything before.”
“All right,” said Jim, “you’ve made out that I hate him. I won’t argue. All I’ll say is to ask you why you want to save him from your father.”
“Because,” said the girl thoughtfully, “I think Father is too old to stand the shock of the truth. Did you see him just now when Mister Ross accused Charlie, and Charlie’s eyes began to glance from side to side like the eyes of a cornered rat? Well, I was hoping that Father would show a flash of suspicion and anger. I watched him closely, but all I saw in his face was horror and fear. No … he’s accepted Charlie as a member of the family so long that I think he’s almost forgotten that Charlie isn’t his own son. And Charlie has grown into his heart for so long that I think it would kill him to have Charlie uprooted and taken out now. And I want you to promise that you’ll do what you can to keep Father from finding out the truth … if that truth is what I think it must be.”
Jim Curry bowed his head. It was a great deal to ask, a great deal more than the girl could dream that she was asking. It was, in a way, asking him to sign away his own hopes of her. And he signed then. He raised his head with a sigh.
“I’ll do it,” he said. “But listen to that. The snake has doubled back into safety again and got Mister Mark’s good opinion.”
A door was thrown open upstairs. Two hearty voices rolled out to them, laughing together.
“Can you beat that?” asked Jim Curry in disgust.
“
No,” admitted the girl.
They turned and went slowly into the house, and no sooner were they gone than the head of Little Billy popped around the corner of the veranda and watched them depart. He had lain in covert, still as a frightened rabbit, and heard the entire conversation.
“If this keeps on,” said Little Billy, “I sure got to take a hand myself.”
IX
A way out of the difficulty came slowly to the mind of Charlie Mark that night, and in the morning he put it into execution. He mounted his horse and rode into the little town of Hampton again, cursing that former day when he had mounted the same horse and gone in to advertise the fob in the pawnshop. Who could have thought that the fob would not be picked up by someone who had not the slightest claim to it, but who could find a way around Josiah Watkins by dint of cunning lies? Yet even if it were found by one who had known the owner, how could guilt be brought down upon his head? The impossible had happened, and in spite of everything the guilt had descended upon his head—not in the eyes of the public, perhaps, but in his own.
It seemed to Charlie Mark that there was only one way in which to avoid further danger. And he took that way.
He went to the hotel the moment he was in Hampton, and in the hotel he strode to the lobby and looked about him. It was a most prosperous and up-to-date hotel, and was the only town within a radius of fifty miles that could boast such a public room as this. There he saw at once what he wanted. Bill Ross sat in a corner brooding over a wrinkled and much-worn daily paper.
Charlie Mark stepped across the room and took an adjoining chair. He said, as Bill looked up, “Thought I’d drop in to see you, Ross. I wanted to talk things over with you, and show you that I mean to be friendly and make all the first steps to getting over our little difficulty of yesterday.”
He said this in a loud voice that carried to half a dozen of the bystanders, even causing them to look carefully at Charlie Mark. He was not in the habit of showing such extreme friendliness to men of the neighborhood. But before the startled look had entirely died out of the eyes of Bill Ross as he recognized his companion, Charlie Mark continued in a voice pitched so low that only Bill could hear, “That’s for the blockheads hanging around. And what I mean is blow your fool head off.”
Bill Ross had turned gray, but his eyes did not falter.
“Well, son,” he said in a voice as level and as controlled as that of Charlie Mark, “ain’t you making a good deal of a fool of yourself to go around saying things like that? Can’t I just call the notice of folks to you?”
“But you won’t,” said Charlie Mark. “I know your kind. You’re going to stay right here and let me finish my talk.”
“How d’you figure that?”
“Because, Bill, there’s one thing you’re more afraid of than you’re afraid of death, and that is of losing your reputation as a brave man. Am I right? You wouldn’t whine and call for help if any one man in the world jumped you … not even the Red Devil.”
“Maybe not,” said Bill Ross steadily. “I ain’t showed the white feather yet, and I figure that I’ll get along for a time still without showing it. You’re right that far, kid. I ain’t going to holler for help … not if ten the like of you should jump me.”
The sneer froze on the lips of Charlie Mark. “Aren’t you?” he said. “Listen to me, my friend. I’m going to make you sweat for a minute or two. Do you know me?”
“I know you for a promising young scoundrel, if my suspicions are right,” said Bill Ross. “And my suspicions, Charlie Mark, are that you’ve been playing hand in glove with the Red Devil. He’s needed ways of keeping in touch with men. He’s needed some place where he could collect information. Why couldn’t you be the man? You’re a free spender. Where do you get the money? In fact, Charlie Mark, I think I’m going to make you do the sweating.”
Charlie Mark chuckled softly. “You fool!” he said. “You thick-headed idiot … I’m the Red Devil myself.” Adding, as Bill Ross drew back blinking, “I’m not joking. I mean it.”
“You mean you’d come to me and put your neck in a noose?”
“Not a bit. Try it. Stand up and get on your legs and tell the folks here that I’m the Red Devil because I’ve just told you so. What will they do? They’ll put you in an asylum and never let the crazy man out.”
“And they’d have a right to keep me there if I’d believe such a crazy yarn as that. You mean for six years you have …?”
“Not six. Suppose that I met the Red Devil and that he and I had a talk and I finally wound up by stepping into the shoes of the bandit. Think of that, Bill.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I’ll prove to you in a minute that I’m not. What was in your brother’s wallet when he died?”
“Money in bills,” said Ross, fascinated by this new and terrible turn to the conversation that was still carried out in careful murmurs.
“And what else?”
Ross shivered. “Do you know?”
“A picture of the family.”
“The Red Devil told you,” muttered Ross, moistening his colorless lips.
“Bah!” sneered Charlie Mark. “I’ll prove it another way. Here’s something the Red Devil wouldn’t have been apt to tell me even if he and I were as thick as you seem to think we must be. Here’s something that only you and I would have been apt to know and notice and remember. When you threw your revolver on the ground at my command, the butt pointed to me and the muzzle at you.”
The last vestige of color left the face of Bill Ross.
“Are you the devil?” he gasped out.
“The Red Devil,” said Charlie.
“By heaven, I think …”
“Hush,” said Charlie Mark. “Utter one whisper of what you think, and they’ll arrest you for a madman.”
“It’s not I that is mad,” said Bill Ross. “It’s you … it’s you that are mad for telling me this.”
“You think that I have no reason for talking to you as I have been doing?”
“No sane reason.”
“Wrong … all wrong. Bill, I had to tell you this to kill your nerve. You’re a steady man with a gun. I could tell that by one look at you. And though I’ve been known to take chances, I don’t wish to if I can avoid it. I’m not taking chances now. I’ve told you what I am and you’re done, Bill. Your color’s gone, and your hand shakes. You’re sick inside, and you look sick on the outside. I almost pity you.”
In fact, the honest-hearted miner was white and trembling, although still he was able to keep his eye fixed on the sneering face of Charlie Mark.
“Pity be hanged,” breathed Bill. “There ain’t enough bullets in the world to kill me before I get you.”
“Hush,” warned Charlie Mark. “They’ve heard you say that. They’ve heard your tone at least. And now the people around here will think that you are the aggressor.”
“Eh?”
“I’m going to stand up, Bill, and smash you across the mouth with my left hand …”
“You coyote.”
“And when you pull your gun, I’m going to draw my own Colt with my right hand and fill you full of lead. Understand?”
“You can’t bluff me,” said Bill Ross. But the sweat was streaming down his face.
“Can’t I? Just watch. You have to go for your gat … you don’t dare take water from me. That’d be worse than death. You’ll go for your gun, but your nerve is gone now, and you wouldn’t hit the side of a barn. You’re no better’n dead, Bill Ross.”
“You are the Red Devil.”
“Aye, and that’s why I have to kill you. You know too much.”
“You … you …”
“No words bad enough for me? Perhaps not. But not a hand will touch me for killing you. A dozen men will swear that they heard me come in and tell you that I’d come in to smooth things up. A dozen men will s
ay that, as we talked together, you began to raise your voice and swear, while I kept cool until at last I was insulted, jumped to my feet, and slapped you. Then you drew your gun or made a pass for it … and I killed you before the gat was out of its leather. Does that seem clear to you, Ross?”
“You can’t do it,” said Ross.
“Watch.”
With that word he sprang up. Bill Ross folded his arms.
“You can’t say that to me!” cried Charlie Mark so that every head in the room was turned toward him. “You can’t say that. I’ll take that from no man. Even if I don’t know the name of my father, nobody can accuse …”
And to complete the sentence, he whipped his open hand across the mouth of Bill Ross so that the sound was like the smacking together of two palms.
At the same instant he went for his gun and brought it out with a marvelously dexterous flip. But he did not shoot. And the muscles of the other men in the room, drawn taut to meet the sound of the exploding gun, gradually relaxed. Bill Ross had not gone for his own weapon.
With arms still folded, sitting erect in his chair, he allowed a crimson flush to mount his face and to bring out in bold relief the white print where Charlie Mark’s fingers had struck; still he did not stir. When he did move, it was to rise slowly, very slowly, and face the little crowd, a crowd horror-stricken at the sight of a man who had once been brave but who now, in public, had taken water.
The faces that watched Bill Ross were sick with disgust and horror.
“Gents,” said Bill Ross, “I got to ask you to give me a chance. Some of you have heard of me. And you’ve never heard of me playing yaller yet. And sooner or later I’ll show you why I had to show the white feather today. The yarn is too long for telling. And it wouldn’t be believed when it was told. But someday, so help me heaven, I’ll hang Charlie Mark higher than the ceiling of this room … and, when he hangs, it will be the public hangman that does the work.”
There was something so solemn and so deliberate in this denunciation that the disgust vanished from the faces of his listeners, and astonishment took its place. Bill Ross walked slowly out of the room. A deathly silence was left behind him, only slowly broken as whispers began here and there, and someone murmured, “Look at Charlie Mark.”