Destry Rides Again

by Max Brand

  “What did you do? When was it that this happened?”

  “About ten, I suppose!”

  “I’ll tell you who the ghost was! It was Destry. He went up to bed at exactly ten, I think!”

  “Hello! You mean that he opened the door and stood there waiting for us?”

  “Of course he was there in the hall, laughing at four scared heroes as they sneaked off. I was waiting downstairs, and waiting and waiting to hear gunshots. Then I thought that maybe you’d closed in on him and done it with knives. But I decided there wasn’t enough blood in you all for that sort of work!”

  “Did you?” asked the other blandly.

  “I did! And now you’ve foozled the entire thing, and Destry’s gone. He left me a note. Confound it, Jimmy, you’ve thrown away a golden opportunity!”

  The other nodded.

  “It was a great chance,” he said. “Of course I didn’t expect that the boys would get such a chill at the last minute. They were game enough for men, but not for ghosts, Chet. Not for that! They light-footed it out of the room, and they wouldn’t come back. That’s all there was to it.”

  “But to think!” groaned Bent. “Four of you—in the dark—and Destry in your hands!”

  “Tell me,” said Clifton. “What makes you hate Destry so like the devil?”

  “I’ll tell you, Jimmy, that you’d never understand why I hate him so completely. But let that go. The main point is that I see nothing will ever be done with him, no matter how many opportunities I give him, until I take up the work with my own hands!”

  “Is it the girl?” asked Clifton. “Is she still fond of him? With Destry out of the way, d’you think that you could have her?”

  “Jimmy,” said the other darkly, “that’s a confounded impertinence that I can’t take even from you!”

  The other waved his hand.

  “Let it go. I’m sorry. Only, we know each other so well, old fellow, that I thought I could talk out to you!”

  Bent shrugged his shoulders, but he added at once: “I’m sorry I lost my temper. You can see this is a blow to me. Now the bird’s escaped out of my hand, and God knows how I’ll get a string on him again! It’s a blow to the rest of you, also! He’s snagged six; the six who remain are apt to do a little sweating now!”

  “I’m sweating, for one,” said Clifton.

  “Then well have to put our heads together and try again. There’s another thing. When you got them into my house, you didn’t have to let them guess that I was with you?”

  “Not a bit,” said Clifton. “The boys thought you’d be almost as dangerous to them as Destry!”

  “I’m glad that you’ve kept me sheltered! A whisper of the truth would bring Destry down on me like seven devils!”

  “Of course. No fear of that. I’ve kept a closed mouth about you. And Destry will never know! People are a little afraid to be too curious about you, anyway, Chet.”

  “Afraid? Of me? That’s a joke!”

  “Is it? I don’t know,” replied Clifton. “There are some who say that there’s an iron fist under Bent’s soft hand. I’m a little afraid of you myself, old son! Or else I’d have talked before about something that I want to know!”

  “What’s that?”

  “The notes are due today, Chet.”

  “Hello! Those notes? But not the grace, Jimmy!”

  “The grace, too! The time’s up today.”

  “Forgot all about ’em,” said Bent rising. “But I’ll have the money for you in a day or two.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure!”

  “I need it, pretty badly,” said Clifton.

  “Are you pinched?”

  “Yes.”

  “Drop over to my house this evening, will you, and I’ll give you a check?”

  “Thanks,” said Clifton. “I’ll do that!”

  And Chester Bent departed with a little haste that was not thrown away on the observant eye of the smaller man.

  Back in his office, Mr. Bent sat for a long time at his desk, considering ways and means. His secretary, after one wise and sour look at him, left him strictly alone.

  It was not until the mid-morning that he ventured out on the street. Then he went straight to the bank and found the president in, a rosy, plump man of fifty, whose refusals were always so masked and decorated beneath his smile that most of their sting was taken away.

  He wanted to know what he could do for Bent, and the latter said instantly: “I have some deals coming up. I need twelve thousand. Can you let me have it?”

  The president’s eye grew rather blank in spite of his smile. Then he said with the Western frankness which invades even the banking world:

  “Bent, this is one of the times that I’m stumped. Look here. You’re a rising man in this town. You own property in mines. You own a good deal of real estate—-a lot of it, in fact. You’re what people consider a rich man. That’s the opinion I have of you, myself.”

  “Thanks,” said Bent, “but——?”

  “There is another side to it, too. That’s this. You’re young. You’ve made a quick success, out of nothing, apparently. You’ve rolled a big load right up the hill. But one can’t be so sure that you’re at the top of it!”

  “Go,” encouraged Bent. “I like to have frankness, of course.”

  “You’ll get that from me. On the one hand, I don’t want to antagonize a man whose patronage will probably mean a lot to this bank. Personally I think you’re all right. But a banker can’t let personalities enter too far into his business dealings.”

  “I understand that. But even banking has to be a gamble.”

  “Yes. That’s true, but with as narrow a margin of failure and chance as possible. Now, then, Bent, as I say, you seem to have gained almost the top of the hill, rolling up a big ball before you. How you made your start, I don’t know. But six years ago you seemed suddenly to come into your own. You extended in all directions. You got your hands on property. Almost like a man who had come into a legacy—”

  The glance of Bent strayed a little uneasily out the window.

  “You’ve done wonderfully well, but suppose that several things happened. Most of your property you don’t own outright. You have a lot of mortgages. Convenient things—they leave an operator with his hands free for more speculation. At the same time, they’re dangerous poison. Here you are, in need of twelve thousand. On the face of it, it’s not a large sum. But suppose, Bent, that Wham went bust? It’s a quick boom town; it may be a skeleton in another year. There’s a new town opening up on the other side of the Crystal Mountains. Seems to me to be better placed than this. Perhaps it’ll kill us. That would wipe out your real estate holdings in Wham at a stroke and fill your hands with heavy cash debts—because you haven’t bought in at the bottom of the market by any means! As a matter of fact, you’ve been pretty high in it! I suggest this to you, not because I haven’t confidence in Wham, but because I’m trying to explain to you why I don’t think it would be good banking to lend you twelve thousand dollars.”

  “Bad policy?”

  “It might be the best policy in the world, Bent. It might secure your faith in us and we’d grow as you grow in the world. But on the other hand there’s one chance in ten that you might break, and if you break it would be a serious loss for us. I don’t want to take that ten per cent chance. I don’t feel justified in doing so!”

  “That’s business luck,” he said. “I don’t blame you a bit. And I’ll manage this all right. Only a temporary need, old man.”

  He went out onto the street, and walked down it, still smiling a little, and envious glances followed his contented face. But as he went on he was seeing such a picture as would not have pleased most men, and which did not please Bent himself—a dead man was stretched before him, and the dead man wore the face of Jimmy Clifton.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Back at his office once more, his secretary, Sarah Gann, came in to tell him that a visitor was there
for him.

  “Send him away,” said Bent irritably. “I don’t wanta see him, no matter who it is.”

  “A boy,” said Sarah Gann.

  “Well, I’ve told you what to do with him.”

  “He’s come for something about Destry,” said she, looking back as she reached the door.

  “Destry? Then send him in!”

  A faint grimace that might have been triumph appeared on her lips as she went out, and presently at the door appeared as ragged a boy as Bent ever had seen. He had on a coat that reached to his knees, the two side pockets bulging. His feet were without shoes and apparently as hard as sole leather. All his clothing was that of a man, abbreviated and tattered. Yet he gave an impression of a swift, muscular young body beneath those drapings.

  “You carrying bombs in those pockets?” asked Bent, leaning a little forward in his chair and resting his elbows on the edge of his desk.

  For every man carries within himself a sympathy for free boyhood in which he can plunge and be lost; and Bent had reasons for wishing to be freed from the facts of the moment.

  “I got pecan nuts in this pocket,” said the youngster.

  He was a little frightened, a little awestricken, but a fine straightness of regard was in his eyes.

  “You like ’em?”

  “They don’t weigh much, and they last a long time,” said the boy.

  He took out a chamois bag and, opening it, revealed a quantity of kernels.

  “The other pocket’s pretty full, too, eh?”

  “Toothbrush,” said the boy, and, unconsciously smiling a little, Bent had a glimpse of snowy teeth. “Ma got me plumb in the habit,” he apologized. “Then they’s a change of socks, and a bandana, and a chunk of soap.”

  “You’re fixed for traveling,” declared Bent.

  “Yeah. I done a hundred and ten mile.”

  “In how long?”

  “Three days.”

  “Mountains?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s good time.”

  “My feet ain’t weighed down with shoes, none.”

  “I don’t see a hat, though.”

  A battered wisp of straw was produced from behind his back.

  “It don’t look very much,” said the boy, “but it sure sheds rain pretty good, account of it havin’ so much hog grease on it.”

  “Who are you, son?”

  “Name of Willie Thornton, sir.”

  “And what brought you here?”

  “Destry.”

  The man started from his leisurely posture, his leisurely thoughts.

  “Destry! What’s he to you?”

  “He said he wanted to see me agin; so I come to him. Home didn’t seem much after he been there. Nobody knows where he is unless you can show me the way. They say you’re his best friend.”

  “I’m his friend, Willie. Tell me. Are you the boy who stood by him when Sam Warren tackled him one night?”

  “I was around,” said Willie with diffidence.

  “Is that where you got the bump on the side of your head?”

  “It might of been. I got whacked that night,” said Willie.

  Bent suddenly realized that something was to be done. He left his chair with a start and held out his hand.

  “I’m mighty glad to see you, mighty glad!” he said. “So will Destry be when you show up. He’s talked a good deal about you. D’you want to start for him now?”

  “I’d like that pretty well, sir.”

  “You go home to my house, first of all. You need a couple of good meals under your belt and a sleep in an honest bed. Where have you turned in the last few nights?”

  “I found a farm once and made a bed of boughs the next night. It was tolerable cold, though.”

  “I’ll bet it was. Ask your way to my house, up at the end of the street. Wait a moment. Take this!”

  He scribbled a note on a piece of paper.

  “Give that to any one at the house; they’ll take care of you till I come home, and if they don’t treat you right, you tell me about it, Willie.”

  Willie shifted from one foot to another.

  “If I could find out the trail to Mr. Destry—” he began.

  “You’ll have that trail told you, Willie. There’s no hurry about that. In the meantime, I want to get to know you better. Remember that Destry’s my best friend, and I want to know you for his sake. Run along, Willie; I’ll be home before very long.”

  He took Willie to the door, patted his shoulder, and dismissed him; but the last upward flashes of Willie’s keen gray eyes unsettled Bent a little. The wolf on the trail is a sleepy thing, and the wildcat is totally unobservant, compared with the eye of a young boy; and Bent knew that he had been searched to the soul and found not altogether such a person as the best friend of the great Destry should be.

  Thinking of that, he turned back gloomily into his office. There appeared to be in Destry a force which frightened most people, but which attracted a few with an unexplainable power. Here was this lad, whose eyes grew larger and whose voice changed when he mentioned the great man; and there was Charlie Dangerfield who loved Destry still, as he very well knew. What was there lacking in himself that he failed to inspire such emotion in others? He had ten thousand acquaintances; but no man even called himself a near and dear friend to Chester Bent—no man except him whose death he desired above all things! The irony of this made Bent laugh a little, and the laughter restored his spirits.

  So he went on to the end of the day, until the unwelcome time came when he must go home and there face Jimmy Clifton. But he put that time off, ate at a small restaurant across the street wedged in at a lunch counter between a pair of huge shouldered cowpunchers and finally, after dark, went home.

  He found Jimmy Clifton in the library, deep in one of the books which he himself pretended to read, and the little man put it aside almost reluctantly, blinking his odd round, fiat eyes as he did so.

  “You’re late, Chet,” he observed, “but don’t say you’re sorry. I’ve had a good time. I brought the notes over with me. I’ll cancel ’em for your check.”

  The ease with which the visitor got to the heart of the business upset Bent in spite of the fact that he was hardening himself for more or less such a scene. But the matter of fact swiftness of Clifton disturbed him. He looked at the little sheaf of papers in the hand of the smaller man and, with all his heart, hungrily, he wished to have them. Or to touch them with the flame of a match, and let the fire work for one second.

  Instead, he had to say: “I want to talk to you a minute about those notes, Jimmy. Of course you can have the money, but as a matter of fact——”

  Clifton shook his head.

  “Don’t start it, old son,” he said. “Talk won’t help. If you have the money in the bank, I’ll take your check now. If you haven’t money in the bank, I’ll take it dated ahead. I don’t want to be short, but I want to keep us from embarrassing one another.”

  “Of course,” said Bent. “Of course.”

  But all of his wiles and his prepared persuasiveness shriveled up and became dead leaves in his hand. He could only say slowly: “It looks as if you think I’m not sound, Jimmy.”

  “Chet,” said the other, “in a business way, it’s pretty doggone hard, I think, to have to moralize about deals that have been made. When you wanted that money, I gave it to you, because I thought you were a good business man, not because you were my friend. Now the money’s due with interest. I want it back, not because you’re an enemy, but because the money’s due!”

  “But speaking only in a business sense——”

  Bent paused for a reply and got one straight from the shoulder.

  “In a business sense, then, I think that you’ve been flyin’ a hawk with a hen’s wings. Or to put it in another way, I think that you’re too high up in the air, and that you’re going to have a fall. Mind you, there’s no reproach to you, Chet. I like you fine. But I think you’ve extended yourself too much. If Wham
stopped booming tomorrow, I don’t think you could pay sixty cents on the dollar the next day! That sounds hard, but I want to be straight and open with you. Sorry as the devil if I hurt your feelings. But I want my money now.”

  Bent hesitated a little longer. All day he had seen the necessity of the thing for which he was now nerving himself, but still he needed a breathing space.

  “It hits me hard, Jimmy, as I don’t mind letting you see. However, to take a weight off your mind, I can pay you in full at once. But I’m going to take a walk with you—it’s too hot in the room here—and see if I can’t think up some good business reason for you to change your mind.”

  “All right,” said Clifton. “I’ve sounded pretty harsh, I know.”

  “Not a bit, I like to hear business from a business man.”

  He went to the door, saying that he would be back in a moment, and went up the stairs to Destry’s vacant room.

  This he entered, lighted the lamp, and closed the door.

  A dozen articles that belonged to the other were scattered here and there—an old quirt, for instance, lay on the bureau, a battered hat hung in the closet, in the top bureau drawer there was a hunting knife in a rawhide case, rudely ornamented, in the Indian style of decoration.

  This was what he wanted. He took it out, unsheathed it, and tried the edge with his thumb. As he had known beforehand, so it was—sharp as a razor. Of its own weight, well nigh, it would bury itself to the hilt in living flesh.

  He put the knife in his pocket and was starting for the door when distinctly he heard something stir. He whirled and ran back into the room, the naked knife instantly in his hand, but as he turned he heard a sound again, of the shutter outside, moved by the wind, and told himself that this was the same.

  Yet he was still not at ease as he went down the stairs, and still he felt a weight curiously cold in his heart, as though some human eye had observed him taking the knife of Destry from the drawer.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “We’ll take the short cut home,” said Clifton, as they walked out of the house together.