Brand, Max - 1924

by Clung (v1. 1)

  "There is nothing I can do,” she said. "I see that, and all my hunt has been foolish. But if you should ever be taken again, I want you to send for us and we will get everything for you that money can buy — the best of

  He bowed until the pig-tail once more tapped on the floor, and it was the sight of that shining, silken length of hair that convinced her of the unsurpassable barrier between them.

  "When a white man wishes to show that he bears no ill-feelings for another man,” she said, "he shakes hands when he departs. Will you shake hands with me, Clung?”

  "It is good,” said Clung, and held out his hand. The fingers were cold and lifeless to her touch; she withdrew her hand hastily and turned to the door. But there an overwhelming sadness stopped her. She went back to him with quick steps.

  "I know now why I have hunted so hard for you, Clung,” she said. "It isn't because I can give you anything, but because you can give me so much. Tonight we are parting. I shall never see you again. Can't we have one talk like the ones we used to have?”

  He said: "Many words have little meanings.”

  And she laughed: "That is just like the old times. If you don't want to talk, let's have one of our old silences, Clung.”

  He bowed, and pointed on the floor to a comfortable heap of cushions facing his own. They took their places, and for a time the silence went on like a river. At length he picked up a little stick and struck a musically tingling note on the gong beside him — once, then rapidly two more strokes. The shivering notes had scarcely sunk away before a little, bent Chinese, so hollow-cheeked and narrow of throat that it seemed as if every ounce of living blood were dried from his body by age, shuffled into the room bearing a tray. From this he produced two little tea sets which he placed on the small tables near them. Besides the tea there were little cakes, thin, and with a delicate, aromatic taste that gave added flavor to the tea.

  She drank the tea; she tasted the cakes, the silence held. Once more Clung smoked his pipe in solemn-eyed, meaningless peace. The faint, blue drifts tangled before his face so that he was removed as if to a great distance, and looking up through the higher streaks of smoke she found herself staring into the face of a great, ugly image, squat, misshapen, grinning with the same heavy, unbroken, meaningless peace. It was a place for endless meditation, and the world which she knew slipped away from her like a cloak, and around her fell the silken influence of the world of Clung.

  "Speak to me,” he said at last.

  "What shall I talk of, Clung?"

  "It makes no difference. Clung wishes to hear your voice."

  Once more he was smiling into dim distance, but his eyes dwelt finally upon her, more and more steadily, drawing his face closer to her through the wraith of smoke. It had seemed impossible that she could have any meaning to him. Now she thrilled mightily and her lips parted as she listened.

  "The voices of men — the white men — are like the braying of donkeys; the voices of Chinese are like snarling dogs; the voices of white women are like scolding parrots. But once Clung rode for his life over the hills and he came about sunset time within sight of a mission church and all the bells were pealing. Then Clung heard you speak; and it seemed to Clung that he was once more riding over the hills, and the hills went up closer to the sky, and the red sky came closer to the hills, and in between there was the voice of the bells, sometimes deep and humming, and sometimes quick and high, but always music. If Clung were a rich white man, he would buy a woman with such a voice and she should speak to him every night just before he slept.”

  "But white men can't buy women, Clung."

  "It is true," said Clung calmly, "they have no pleasure in life. In all things they are clumsy. They buy a horse and when it is old they sell it; they buy clothes and when they are old they give them away; but they take a woman for nothing. She is a gift. See, because she is a gift when she is old and withered the white man cannot sell her and he cannot give her away, for what man would take her?"

  "Then you would sell the woman you bought — the woman with the musical voice, Clung?"

  He pondered the question a moment.

  He said at length: "When the bell in the temple is old and broken, do they throw it away? No, because the rich metal is good. Do they sell it, then, for the price of the metal? No, because it has made much music and it is a holy thing. Who can find the price of a holy thing?"

  "But if you would not throw the woman away or sell her, why not take her as the white man takes a white woman — as a gift from the first, Clung?"

  "Because a gift is like a saddle. At first it is pleasant but soon it wears away the skin. Who will have a saddle that is tied on the back of a horse always?"

  She laughed at the naive explanation.

  "It kills the horse and the horse is worth more than the saddle. Also, I, Clung, have seen white women kill the spirits of their white masters. It is not good to see."

  "You've never seen a happy married couple, Clung?"

  "One pair. Marshal Clauson and his wife. But they have a great sorrow which keeps them together. They may have no children, and the grief for that is like a chain that holds them together."

  "I can't understand you, Clung. Well, I'm glad of it. If I understood you, I suppose I never should have followed you."

  He nodded.

  "Yes. The book that I know by heart I put away on the shelf and the dust comes and covers it; but the book that I do not know is like the voice of a wise friend. I am always asking and it is always answering. And see: I have sat with you many times in the morning and in the midday and at evening, and each time the day was different. But after I left you the days ended. They have rolled all into one — one morning, one noon, and one night. It is very strange. But now you sit here again and time begins for me. I feel the ticking of the clock and every second has a new sound; I feel the beating of my heart, and every beat is happier. Is it not strange?"

  "It is very strange," she nodded, and she leaned a little to peer at him, for he seemed to have been describing the very thing she felt. He laid down the pipe; his frail fingers interlocked; his smile no longer went far past her but dwelt on her and around her like the warmth of a fire on a chilly night.

  "You have made me rich with your coming,” he said, "for night after night I shall sit here; I shall sip my tea and smoke my pipe and imagine you opposite me. It will be as clear as something that I touch with the tips of my fingers; it will be like something that I see with my eyes; it will be like the things I hear with my ears."

  And she knew suddenly that this was love; she knew it not with revolt, but with a sharp and painful curiosity; there was fear somewhere in it. She stood up and found that her knees were not strong. And it seemed to her that the eyes of Clung, behind the veil of smoke, had grown all at once strangely glowing, like the eyes of a beast of prey, aggressive, reaching out for her. She felt that if she stared into them too long she would be helpless to leave.

  "I must go,” she said.

  He rose, he bowed once more until the pig-tail slipped over his shoulder and tapped the floor.

  "It is true."

  "And I'm so happy, Clung, that we are friends."

  "It is true."

  "But may I never come again?"

  "Clung does not know."

  And an instinct made her know that he was fighting against a great hunger within him. She could not keep from tantalizing him.

  "Do you wish me to come, Clung?"

  "Clung cannot tell. He has learned one page of the book by heart."

  "And the rest of the book?"

  "What does it matter?" he said, and he smiled a little sadly, making a gesture of abandon, palms up. "All the days of Clung's life, if he were to turn a page every day, he could never learn them all. It is true!"

  She stopped. She frowned high overhead, and her glance went inwards, examining her very soul.

  "Do I dare come again?" she whispered to herself.

  And aloud she said: "What is there to fear? I sh
all come again. Why not? I am never so happy as I am with you!"

  And afterwards, Clung, from his open door, watched her go out to her horse and swing into the saddle. As she started down the road a large man on a tall horse came towards her. Clung saw the girl swerve her mount

  to one side and gallop off. The man followed, and Clung whipped out his revolver. But the distance was too great, the dark too blinding. He turned with a little moaning sound of anxiety and raced through his house to the stables where his horse stood ready saddled night and day. There, also, were riding clothes hanging ready and he literally jumped into them. An instant later his horse tore from the stable door and swept circling around into the streets of Kirby Creek in a pungent cloud of dust. It would need hard riding indeed to distance Clung tonight. But he had much ground to make up.

  Chapter 25

  When Kirk left their shanty, a little distance from the outskirts of Kirby Creek, he had ridden fiercely down the ravine towards the heart of the town. He had little hope of gaining upon Winifred; he was not even sure of her destination, but he felt reasonably certain that the same impulse which had taken him out of his bed was that which sent the girl on ahead of him. So he headed at a racing pace straight for Yo Chai's gambling house and pulled up before it with clattering hoofs.

  From the door he scanned the house swiftly but could not catch a glimpse of Winifred.

  It seemed impossible that the girl could have gone to any other place, but nevertheless she was not in view. Wherever she had gone he had wasted too much time in the gaming house of Yo Chai to be able to trail her in a night such as this. He decided, finally, that she had followed some nervous womanly impulse and ridden out into the night to find quiet. He did not understand her — he understood no woman, for that matter — and he readily dismissed the matter from his mind. There was little danger that she could come to any positive harm at the hands of these chivalrous Southwesterners.

  Perhaps Kirk would have made a more extensive search, but it happened that as he completed his first round of the gaming house his eye caught on the whirling glitter of the roulette wheel and he stopped, fascinated. No one won; the man behind the wheel raked in several piles of money which lay stacked on the board before the wheel. Between the vast sombrero of a Mexican and the cap of a Portuguese laborer, he pushed his way to the roulette wheel and watched the next chance. The wheel stopped, and as if it were a plea for him to remain, the number was the red eleven. This time at least half the gamblers were playing the colors and a number of them cashed in on the red. Kirk watched them with keen interest.

  The eyes of the little Portuguese bulged with a permanent excitement and he was continually moistening the palest lips Kirk had ever seen. As for the Mexican, he, also, kept an unchanging gaze fixed on the bright wheel, and his eyes glittered like a snake's. Yet he played with a sneer, as if he scorned to either win or lose. He was staking everything on one number, the black five, and his stake was invariably a five-dollar gold piece. He never won. That accounted for the steady sneer with which he played; it accounted also for the terrible glitter of his eyes. His money was nearly gone, yet he had carried to the gaming house that night all his own little fortune and the plunder of a robber and murdered comrade. Here the price of the murder was slipping from him. Even as Kirk stood there the Mexican fumbled in vain through his pockets, and at last produced a beautiful gold watch for which the man behind the wheel allowed him a hundred dollars. It was a last glorious stake. It went the way of the rest. The Mexican turned and stalked silently away; before morning another murder would lie to his credit; before twenty-four hours he would be swinging from a tree with a dozen men pulling on his rope.

  Some sense of all this flashed through the mind of Kirk. Also a touch of scorn. He felt a supreme confidence that he would beat this game. He pulled two twenty-dollar gold pieces from his pocket and placed them on the red eleven. The wheel spun, whirred to a stop. It was on his number; and the man behind the wheel made a little pause while he counted out the win. A stake on a single number paid thirty-six to one. Nearly fifteen hundred dollars in gold was counted with lightning speed and shoved across the board to him. And Kirk, in his exultation, stared from face to face in a grinning search for envy or wonder. He found neither. One or two blank eyes glanced up to him, but no one acknowledged his luck; there was merely a general discontent that the game should have been delayed to pay this winning; someone suggested in a growl that there should be two payers on the wheel.

  Kirk waited for four spins of the wheel. Then he laid a hundred dollars on the red eleven. Once more he won, and this time the house man glanced up sharply and considered the gambler with a moment's care before he paid. Slowly, this time — most painfully. He passed thirty-six hundred dollars across the board to Kirk. And in the meantime every eye was upon him and there were no complaints for the waste of time. To have won once, no matter what amount, was nothing. Blind luck accounted for that, no doubt. But to win big twice in succession and on the same number — it bore a suggestion that something more than luck was involved — a system, the dream of the gambler's heart. The very possibility warmed everyone's heart. For every man's hand is against the house. The men nodded to William Kirk; they smiled; they bade him good evening as if they saw him for the first time.

  And a tall, blond man, fully as large as Kirk, said: "A few more wins like that, my friend, and you'll have a little chat with Dave Spenser before you get home tonight."

  A chuckle answered this sally.

  "And who's Dave Spenser?" asked Kirk, carelessly.

  "Why," said the blond man, who stood apart from the game rolling cigarette after cigarette and looking on at the losses and the winnings, "why, they say he's a chap about your size, and he seems to know all about who wins big money here at Yo Chai's. But haven't you heard of Dave Spenser?"

  "I think I have," nodded Kirk, and as he spoke, with careless ostentation he piled a thousand dollars on the red to win. "Bandit

  "I'll tell a man,” said the big blond fellow with a sort of dry enthusiasm. "I’ll say he's a bandit, eh?"

  A snarl answered him from the players. The snarl was cut short for William Kirk had won again; they looked at him now with a wonder half anxious and half joyfully expectant. As if with one accord everyone ceased laying wagers. Kirk had won three straight ventures.

  "For that matter,” said Kirk, thrilling to the sensation he was causing, and allowing his original stake and his late winnings to lie still upon the red. "For that matter, sir, Fd rather like to meet this Dave Spenser. I think they call him the Night Hawk, also?"

  "You'll know him when you see him," said the blond man coldly. "He rides a black horse — and I hope you'll be able to tell us what he looks like. Nobody's ever seen his face. I wouldn't be surprised," he added, for the wheel once more stopped on the red. "I wouldn't be surprised if you do meet the Night Hawk tonight. Every man who goes out of here with more than five thousand seems to be in danger. But of course you'll stay close about camp tonight?"

  "Do you think so?" said Kirk scornfully, and without more than glancing down he raked up the gold of his winnings in hand-fuls. "I ride out of camp and up the ravine, and I do it tonight. What's more, my friend, Fll be taking about ten thousand with me.

  "Well," said the big blond stranger, and he shrugged his shoulders carelessly, "I've warned you. The Night Hawk is fast with his gun."

  "Perhaps," answered Kirk, "but he can't beat my luck tonight."

  "I wonder if he couldn't?" said the other. "But I've a mind that Spenser would try his hand."

  Kirk, for answer, chuckled scornfully and placed his next wager, a veritable little amount of gold. It was on the black, and the black won. By this time news of the big gaming had spread about in a whispering rumor and men stood in ranks six deep to watch Kirk rake in his winnings. The houseman was sweating with anxiety and he stared at the newcomers in a way half-baffled and half-defiant. Yet he kept his voice cheerful. Once more," he called, grinning at Kirk. Let the coi
n lie, stranger, and try your chances once more. The wheel's with you tonight and you've got an even break."

  "Not me," answered Kirk. "I've made a night of it."

  He crammed the last of his winnings into his money belt.

  "Besides,” he continued, as he turned away, "I've got enough bait to make the Night Hawk bite, partners. So I'm off."

  Chapter 26

  He shouldered his way through the spectators, a murmur of applause following him, for they love nothing in the Southwest so much as a graceful winner, or vice versa; when an old beggar woman stretched out her hand to him at the door of the house, he brimmed it with gold, and it was as if he placed a crown on his own reputation. The applause behind him was almost a cheer.

  It set a tingling in the ears of William Kirk to hear it: it made him square his massive shoulders and walk with something of a swagger; he would never have dreamed that the applause of these rough men could mean so much to him. But he was to make three steps backward toward the primitive and he had already taken the first step. After all, the need for careful English and proper clothes is a shallow necessity. He was breaking from the conventions rapidly. Two great strides remained before him.

  The thought of the Night Hawk was before him as he swung into his saddle, and he reined his mount to enjoy the elastic prancing of the steed. It was a fine animal, as fast and as durable as money could buy in Kirby Creek. He was about to touch his horse with the spurs and set out for home when the door of a house at the rear of the gaming establishment opened and the figure of a woman passed down the front step. Into the lighted square stepped the figure of Yo Chai, bowing until his long pig-tail swept towards the floor; and now the woman turned, the light struck her face in profile, and Kirk recognized Winifred.

  If his heart went cold, its beat also quickened amazingly. It was beyond comprehension: why had she gone to talk with the squint-eyed Oriental? Then he knew. It was because of Clung. And it meant, moreover, that she wanted to see Yo Chai in secret; that she did not trust either her father or himself. At that William Kirk swore with a sudden violence and bared his teeth in the night. Winifred was in the saddle, waving back to the Chinese in the doorway, and Kirk spurred his horse alongside.