by Max Brand
“Come on in, then. She’ll be back, soon.”
“I wanta see her real bad,” muttered Willie.
“Well, then, you traipse on across the field, yonder, and likely you’ll find her. She went out walkin’ toward the old shack. You can see the roof of it there between the trees—no, not that way. Look there! Can’t you see?”
“I got dust in my eyes,” said Willie.
His voice was uncertain.
“Whacha been cryin’ about?” asked the gruff voice of the man. “Whacha cryin’ about now? You’re a mighty lot too big a kid to be cryin’. Y’oughter be ashamed of yourself!”
Willie did not answer.
He knew that the quaver in his voice was weakness, not tears, but the hot shame he felt at the reproof flushed him with a new strength. It cleared his eyes, and enabled him to see the pointed roof of the old shack between the trees, in the dusk before him. Toward it he aimed the horse.
The bushes washed about him; they scratched his bare knees cruelly, but he was glad of the pain, because it helped to rouse him for the words which he must speak when he found the girl.
If he found her!
The thought of failing made the frantic panic leap straightway into his brain. He fought it back. But another thought now beset him. Friend to Destry though she was, still what could a woman do in such an affair as this? He should have found a man. He should have told his story to Pete and Jack. They were too kind to be dishonest. They would have believed——
So he rode on in a torment, and saw the trees and the bushes divide before him. The old house lay just before him, with the front door open, hanging from one hinge.
Above the door, one deep, empty attic window looked out at him like an eyehole from a skull. There was no life about the place.
“Miss Dangerfield!” he called.
It seemed to Willie that he heard an echo pick up the name and whisper it; or was that a stir in the bushes around him?
“Miss Dangerfield!” he called again.
A quiet voice spoke to him; he saw a woman come around the corner of the building, and slipping out of the saddle, he tried to go to her, only to have his knees buckle beneath the impact of his weight.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Now his body was hardly more than a bundle of limp string, but his brain remained clear enough. The girl ran to him, caught him beneath the shoulder, her fingers gripping the flaccid flesh with the strength of a man’s hand.
But as for that, he remembered, she was the woman who loved Destry—not to be expected like other women! His faith in what she might accomplish soared suddenly.
“Who are you, son?” she asked. “And what d’you want of me. Why, you’re sick! You’re hot as fire with fever!”
“I gotta say something!” said Willie Thornton. “Will ya listen?”
“I’ll listen! Poor youngster!”
She kneeled on the ground by him, supporting him still beneath the shoulders. Neither she nor the boy was conscious of the form that stepped silently from the shrubbery and loomed beside them, listening.
“You’re Charlie Dangerfield?”
“Yes.”
“You b’long to Destry?”
She hesitated not an instant.
“I b’long to Harry Destry,” she admitted. “Why?”
“You swear you’ll b’lieve what I’m gunna tell you?”
“I’ll believe!”
“Destry didn’t kill Clifton!”
“Ah, ah!” he heard her gasp. “Thank God!”
He raised a hand and gripped weakly on her arm. His head fell back with mortal weakness, but she passed a hand beneath it and held him close to her like a helpless child. He would have resented that support fiercely at any other time, but now he was glad of it, for out of her cool hands strength flowed into him, greater than the strength which pure air gives; and he breathed a delicate scent of lavender, held close against her breast.
“He didn’t kill Clifton. I seen. I was in Bent’s house. I seen Bent steal the knife from Destry’s room.”
He could make his lips move, but suddenly his voice failed him; his eyes closed.
“Make your strength hold out one minute,” he heard the girl appealing to him.
Her face pressed close to his.
“Try to tell me the rest!”
“I follered Bent and Clifton out of Bent’s house. I was scared, but I follered. There was murder’n the air! I come to Clifton’s house behind ’em—garden gate—dog——”
His voice trailed off.
“Try, honey, try!” she whispered eagerly.
“I got up to the window. I seen Bent talk to Clifton. I heard him say something about money he owned Clifton. I seen Clifton beg for his life, mighty horrible. I seen him crawl like a dog. I seen—I seen——”
“One more word—then I’ll take care of you. I’ll make you well again, poor boy!”
“I seen Bent grab him by the hair——”
“Clifton?”
“Ay, I seen him grab Clifton by the hair and yank back his head, and stab him in the hollow of the throat, and I heard Clifton gag, like a stuck pig, and fall, and twist his legs on the floor and——”
The life went out of Willie Thornton suddenly. He hung limp in the arms of the girl, breathing so faintly that she scarcely felt the stir of it against her cheek.
And now, as she looked up from him, ready to call for help to carry him to the house, she saw the silhouette of the second listener beside her.
“Harry?” she gasped.
“It’s me,” said Destry.
“Did you hear?”
“I heard.”
“Is it true, Harry? Could Chet have done such a thing?”
“I’m plumb turned to stone,” said Destry. “But the kid wouldn’t lie. He’s give my life to me once; tonight he’s give it to me agin! It’s Willie Thornton.”
The voice of the boy began again in a fluttering gasp:
“He seen me at the window and hunted me through the dark. Him and the dog. Jumped—the water was mighty cold. But Jack and Pete they caught me—go on, old hoss, because I ain’t gunna fall!”
“He’s out of his head, poor kid!” said the girl. “He’s tremblin’ with the fever, Harry. God keep him from no harm out of this!”
“Give him to me,” said Destry. “I’ll carry him into the house. You go fetch over some blankets and more help, then we’ll pack him over there!”
The voice muttered softly, barely audible to them both:
“You b’longin’ to Destry, I didn’t dare to tell nobody but you. It was a long way, between dyin’ and livin’. One side of the road dyin’, one side livin’— the old hoss kep’ movin’—which I didn’t fall——”
Destry stood up, with the youngster in his arms, holding him gently, holding him close.
“He’s out of his head,” said the girl.
“Quick!” said Destry, and she turned and ran swiftly from the shack, through the brush, and toward the house of her father.
Destry went on into the cabin where he managed to support the boy with one arm while he took out a match with the free hand and prepared to scratch it.
As he did so, something of an incredible lightness touched his face, like a spider’s web, but falling toward the floor. He looked up, bewildered, and again there were several light touches against his skin.
“You’re mighty strong,” said the boy. “You’re the one for Destry. You go tell the judge; you swear what I said was true. Them that are dyin’ don’t lie, which Pop always said in the old days. Me dyin’, I’m tellin’ the truth. I seen it. I seen him kill Clifton—not Destry—he ain’t no murderer——”
“Son,” said Destry, “it ain’t Charlie that’s holdin’ you here. It’s Destry. I——”
He felt the slim body stiffen.
“Hey! Is it you, Harry?”
“It’s me, old timer! You ain’t dyin’. Charlie’ll get you well.”
“Why, I wouldn’t care much,”
said Willie, “me bein’ tolerable sleepy, right now. Lemme get down, Destry. I can stand pretty good, I reckon—only bein’ a mite sleepy——”
Destry struck a light, and looked down at a face white as the death of which Willie had spoken, and wildly staring eyes, rimmed with black; and pale lips, purple gray, as though they were coated with dust.
Such a horror struck through the man at the sight of this, that he jerked his head up, and saw, as the match flame spurted wide, the thin gleam of a fleck of straw falling from the ceiling above him.
But straw does not sift through cracks in an old ceiling unless it is disturbed. By wind, perhaps. But there was not a mortal touch of wind in the air, this evening! What else was above them in the attic?
He dashed the match to the floor and leaped to the side. That moment, from the trap door, the sawed-off shot gun of Cleeves roared like thunder and lightning.
The flare of the double discharge showed the whole shack lighted, and, behind the leveled barrels of the gun, the contorted face of the marksman.
Destry, springing aside, had snatched his Colt out; now he fired at the point where the pale face had glimmered in the dark of the attic above him, and next stood still.
The boy had fainted. His legs and head dragged down feebly, loosely, but as Destry held the small body close, he felt the uncertain, slow flutter of the heart. Fortune and his own quick foot had enabled him to side step the double charge even at this close range. Too close, perhaps, for the purpose of the sawed-off gun; five feet farther away the charge would have spread out inescapably wide!
What was the marksman above them doing now? Destry poised his gun to shoot a second time, but he feared that the flash of his weapon would illumine him as a target for another shot; furthermore, if he strove to glide back through the doorway, he would similarly be placing himself against a light, no matter how dim a one it seemed. So he stepped back against the wall and waited through a long moment, lifting the head of Willie Thornton until it rested comfortably against his shoulder.
Now he heard, at first too softly to be sure of it, but presently distinctly, a sound which might have been the soft and regular movement of someone crossing the floor, or the creaking of the ladder as someone cautiously descended it, lowering himself softly from rung to rung.
There was this peculiarity about the sound, that it was quite regular, and yet that it seemed to come from different parts of the room, sometimes from the window, or again from the door, or rising out of the very floor, as it were.
The nerves of Destry were firm enough—none firmer in all of the world, perhaps—and yet they began to shudder a bit under this suspense.
He could not stand still. Moreover, there must be something done for the boy, who hung limply in his arms. This might be no fainting spell, but death itself, for he no longer felt the beating of the feeble heart against his breast!
So Destry started moving toward the doorway, and as he did so, a warm drop struck the back of the hand with which he held his Colt ready for a second shot. He stopped with a leap of nerves. Then, passing his hand over the same place, again the warm drop fell upon it.
And then he knew!
His first shot had gone home, and Hank Cleeves lay dead in the attic, whose loosened straw had sifted down and betrayed the presence of something living within the house. Cleeves lay dead. That was the reason there had been no stir of the man as he reloaded his double-barreled weapon. That was the reason that there had been no second shot, and the first spurt of blood, soaking through the crack in the floor, had made that singular tapping sound which had almost frightened Destry forth from the shack.
He shook his head to drive away the concern from his mind. As he did so, he heard a stifled voice just outside the door exclaiming: “Hank! Hank!”
There was a pause, and then the voice repeated: “Hank, did you get him?”
And Destry grinned in the darkness and felt the hot blood thrill along his veins. More than Hank had come to make this trap and more than Hank might pay for its catch!
Chapter Thirty-nine
Somewhere yonder in the darkness, Fiddle waited for him; somewhere away from him, Charlie Dangerfield was calling together her men who were to carry poor little Willie Thornton to the house. But there was another danger close at hand. He heard voices at the door and a little outside it.
“Hank doesn’t answer.”
“Call again, then.”
“Hey, Hank!”
Louder they called: “Hello, Hank!”
There was no answer from Cleeves. He never again would answer any man. His lips were cold. Until Judgment Day, a thousand trumpets might blow, and Hank never would reply. He whom a hundred thousand eyes had seen now had vanished. He was gone. He was away. Deeper than the seas he was buried, and deeper than the mountains could hide him. The impalpable spirit was gone, and only the living blood remained to tell of him, dripping down into the silence of the old shack, drop by drop, softly spattering, like footsteps wonderfully light and wonderfully clear. Hank Cleeves was ended, and his long fingers and his hairy hands would never again do wonders with hammer and chisel, with saw, and wrench. The boys would no longer stand around and admire the mechanic. They would no longer yearn to grow up to such a man. The chips would no longer fly, nor the nails sink home for Hank Cleeves, nor the rafters ring under his hammer.
He was gone. Yonder lay his body, perhaps with the heavy forty-five calibre slug of lead smashed through the breast and into the vitals. Perhaps the bullet had beaten through brain and brainpan, and so the body lay lifeless. But he was ended; that cunning machine could function no more; that ineffable spark was extinguished.
And Destry stood below in the darkness, still between life and death, with the limp body of the boy in his arms.
He heard from the lips of Willie the faintest of sighs, and it made his breast lift, as the breast of a mother stirs when the infant moves beside her, at night. He felt all of paternity, all of motherhood, also, since both qualities lie mysteriously buried in the heart of man; since he strives to be himself, and also to reproduce physically what cannot physically be born to the world. His ideas, his spirit, his heart and soul he would put into flesh, but they must remain forever unfleshed, ideal, impalpable, here glimpsed at with paint, here staring out of stone, here charmed into words, but always hints, glimpses, and nothing to fill the material arms as a child fills the arms of its mother.
So these mysteries softly thronged down on the sad soul of Destry, and he touched them in their flight as a child might hold up its hands and touch moths flying in the night, without comprehension, with only vague desires and emotions.
But one thing he could know, in the feeble rationalization of all men, with which they strive to reduce the eternal emotions to concrete “yes” and “no,” that this boy had once almost died for him, and now actually might be dying for him in very fact. He knew it, and wonder filled him. He became to himself something more than a mere name and a vague thing; he for the first time visualized “Destry” as that man appeared before the eyes of others, striking terror, striking wonder, filling at least the eyes of a child with an ideal!
Knowing this, he felt a sudden scorn for the baser parts that were in him, the idler, the scoffer at others, the disdainful mocker at the labors of life. He wished to be simple, real, quiet, able to command the affection of his peers.
It seemed to Destry that, through the boy, for the first time he could realize the meaning of the word “peer.” Equal. For all men are equal. Not as he blindly had taken the word in the courtroom, with wrath and with contempt. Not equal in strength of hand, in talent, in craft, in speed of foot or in leap of mind, but equal in mystery, in the identity of the race which breathes through all men, out of the soil, and out of the heavens.
So it was that hatred for his enemies left him.
In another day, he had derided them, he had contested with them, he had conquered them; for those defeats they had avenged themselves by confining him for six years for
an offense of which he was innocent; but, at the same time, of another offense he had preeminently been guilty, for he had looked down upon them, and from a tower of self-content, he had laughed at them.
Why?
Because they were less swift in unsheathing a six-shooter!
Because they stuck less firmly on the back of a horse!
Because there was more weak flesh and less leather in them!
Because they faltered in the climb, weakened under the weight, staggered in the crisis, looked for help where no help could come! So he also had faltered, had weakened, had staggered, had looked about him in the prison.
They were not different. They were made of one flesh and spirit and therefore they were his equals, his “peers.” To them the world in which he had been free was to them, in a sense, a prison.
These understandings, rushed suddenly upon him, made him slip back closer against the wall, and hold the limp form of the boy more tenderly in his arms. He, too, had been a child; so were they all, men, and women, children also, needing help, protection, cherishing, but capable now and then and here and there of great deeds inspired by love and high aspiration. It was such a power that had come upon little Willie Thornton. He with his small hand had snatched a life from the shadow of the law and thrown another man in the peril of the gibbet!
So Destry stood close by the door and waited, more stirred with sudden, deep striking thoughts than in all his life before; so that it seemed to him there was a pure, thin light of beauty falling upon the world and upon all of the men in the world, except only Chester Bent. He, like a shadow, lay athwart the life of Destry, and there arose in the latter no boyish and irresponsible hate, no transient hunger for vengeance, but a vast and all possessing disdain and disgust.
With it came a fear, also. For if Bent had deceived him, then he knew that Bent was such a power as he never before had tried his strength of mind and hand against.
He heard the voices continue, close beside him.
“There ain’t any answer.”
“He’s there.”