"Yo Chai,” he said, "there's some golden lining for you. And here's thanking you for a pleasant evening."
There was a little hum of approval, almost stern, from the bystanders. Clung rose and bowed deeply.
"It is true," he said, "but it is not the last."
"No?" asked Kirk sharply.
"You will come again to Yo Chai," said Clung, "for the luck may run another way. It is like water. It cannot always run uphill."
And he made a little smiling gesture to indicate the inferiority of his height.
"You will come," said Clung, smiling still, and nodding, "again and again, and still again. Tonight there was a time when Yo Chai had only ten chips — ten pieces of gold — one hundred dollars — that was all."
"By God," groaned Kirk, "did I come as close as that?"
"Ah," smiled Clung, "the heart of Yo Chai was cold many times tonight."
"I believe," frowned Kirk, "that you're mocking me, you old scoundrel, but I am coming back, Yo Chai, and I'll bring more money the next time — a check book, Yo."
"It is very good,” sighed Clung, "your paper is better to Yo Chai than another man's gold. It is true."
"There's a double meaning in you,” mused Kirk, "but I'll think it out some other time. Adios."
He turned and strode from the room. There were men who stopped him, who clapped him on the shoulder, and every touch went through his heart like a bullet. He had been beaten, and the thought kept him writhing. Kept the automatic smile steadily for his well-wishers, and buried the murder in the shadow of his heart. In the dim shade of the door, away from the crowd, he looked back and let his hatred twist his face. Already they were flowing back to the games around the tables. He saw Yo Chai standing at the central table welcoming a group of players in the usual draw-poker. He had been the sensation of half a day and already he was forgotten.
Grinding his teeth, he swung on to his horse and spurred him savagely up the valley towards the shanty where they lived. He was hardly past the outskirts of the town when a growing light to the east drew his head to the side. It was the rising moon.
Chapter 36
And though the valley in the daytime swarmed with a thousand laborers, in the moonlight it showed only a blank and sandy waste. The little huts scattered everywhere showed not at all, or only as blacker spots against the grey background; the hum and faint clangor of iron against rock had died away, the silence of night was complete. And by that night all things were magnified. The mountains grew taller, rougher, blacker. So black that by contrast with them the dull sky overhead took on a shade of mysterious blue.
This in turn changed, for as the moon rose the stars went out by hosts and myriads, like camp-fires of a great army, extinguished at a signal. The dull sky was now a metallic grey and from the mountains thick shadows swung out and across the ravines.
Even at night there was no peace among those mountains. The eye of William Kirk swept up their jagged summits or plunged down dizzy heights to the floor of the valleys in swift change. Those crests lunged against the sky like spearpoints. They were a revolt against eternal order; they nodded their heads against the sky like a menace, and they roused a fellow-feeling in the heart of Kirk.
He, also, needed action, sudden and strong and terrible, to pacify the sullen fire within him. He wanted to destroy, overthrow. For he stood at the end of his third stride in the primitive. That night he had been baffled and beaten in the gaming house of Yo Chai, and since he could not wreak his hate on the gambler he cast about for another object which he could seize and crumble. It was the rising of the yellow moon as it rolled like a wheel up the steep side of an eastern mountain, that gave the hint to him, for he remembered then Charlie Morgan, who by this time must be riding with his pack mule up the valley. A challenge to the Night Hawk!
And in a sudden outburst of exultation and rage, Kirk threw back his head and shouted. The sound was muffled behind his clenched teeth and came like the roar of a beast. It would have frightened Kirk in any other humor to feel this madness rising in him. Now it stimulated him to a sort of hysteria of joy. He whirled his horse, plunged the spurs deep and galloped at full speed down the valley, fast, fast, and faster. He took off his sombrero and brandished it against the stars, and yelled drunkenly; and the thunder of his heart kept pace with the clangor of the hoofs of his racing horse against the rocks of the ravine.
Out of the upper ravine he turned into the lower, with no more boulders to dodge and a straight path for the cave of the Night Hawk. In a moment he was there, swung from the saddle, and stumbled down the passage.
It was strange how easily he entered it now. He knew by instinct every turning of the rough rock walls. In the apartment within he found at once the matches, kindled his tinder, and flung the saddle upon the back of the black stallion. And the horse turned his head to watch the process, and as the light shone full in his fine face, his eyes seemed to glow yellow in fierce anticipation of the coming battle. He whinnied; he caught the shirt of Kirk at the shoulder with his teeth and pulled at it softly as if to urge his flying hands to a still greater speed.
There was no need to lead the charger out of the tunnel. He had been many days standing without exercise, and now he followed at the heels of Kirk like a trained dog. His forehoofs rapped many times against the hurrying heels of Kirk; his hot breath whistled down the back of the man.
At the entrance, the stallion crouched and crawled through the low hole with uncanny agility. Once outside Kirk vaulted into the saddle, and the black reared straight up and struck at the air with fighting forehoofs.
There followed a wild burst of pitching here and there. Not the stiff-legged bucking of a horse which strives to throw its rider, but rather the overflow of joyous energy. And Kirk laughed and shouted encouragement, and struck his hat across the eyes of the black, and enjoyed the wild sport to the tips of his toes.
Then he realized that it was time for action, for by this hour Charlie Morgan, if he had made good his boast and his challenge to the Night Hawk, would be far up the lower ravine, and making good time on the level going. He called in a stern voice to the black, and the horse, as if it realized that the hour for playfulness had passed, stood instantly still — an image — a horse carved of shining black rock in the moonlight. His head was high — his ears flat back on his neck. It needed only a slight loosening of the reins and he was off at once down the canyon with a gait as swift and easy as the dipping flight of a sea-gull.
Moreover, the stallion seemed to know every foot of the way and chose a path where the sand was hard and smooth, fit for rapid travel. That long, elastic stride, also, muffled the beat of the hoofs, and, comparatively speaking, they moved down the valley as silently as a great black shadow, rider and horse one creature bent on destruction.
The impulse which had made Kirk wave his hat and shout to the stars was still hot in him, but now it kept him silent. He held the spirit in behind his teeth until it gave a cold purposefulness to him; his eyes swept the valley before him. He seemed to have gained the power, in that brief ride, to pierce the darkness of the night and search out the objects of his prey with the eyes of a wolf.
How else could he have seen, so far away, the small shape which moved up the ravine, close to the wall, under the very shadow of the eastern rock? But he saw it, and knew at once that it was Charlie Morgan, already past him and heading at a dog-trot up the ravine. His hurry seemed to tell William Kirk that the old gun-fighter somewhat regretted the vaunt he had made in the town of Kirby Creek that day. To be true he was making his boast good, but the touch of haste showed something of uneasiness.
The upper lip of Kirk writhed back in a grin of malicious joy. He had no more thought of failure than the mountain lion has when it scents a solitary calf, lagging far behind the driven herd in the night — a calf not large enough to race away, just large enough to flesh the teeth of the lion.
Kirk swung his horse around and galloped to the western wall of the ravine. Once in the sha
dow he urged the stallion again to full speed, and the fine animal, as if it guessed the purpose of the master, hugged the course of the rock wall closely, and never once went half a dozen yards from the edge. Still Kirk could make out across the narrow floor of the valley the moving shadow of Charlie Morgan and his horse and pack mule. He himself might be more easily visible, for he had no shadow over him to shelter him from the keen and experienced eye of the trapper. But he trusted with absolute certainty that even at this distance his shape would be blent with the wall of the valley and he would escape notice. He felt the superiority, indeed, of the night hawk which sees unseen.
The point he made for was a narrowing of the ravine some distance ahead. Here, among a cluster of mesquite he left the horse, and slipped on foot to a point of vantage among the shrubbery. His hand struck one of the sharp thorns, but he felt the little warm trickle of the blood with not a vestige of pain.
Then came a crunching sound of the jogging animals, the creak of saddle leather, the grunt of the horse as the rider swung it sharply back and forth through the sharp-thorned bushes, the low voice of Charlie Morgan cursing at the lagging mule behind. A low voice — almost trembling — as if the man hated the mule for the noise which it forced him to make. And Kirk knew that he was the cause of this fear — the heart and center of it. It was a reversion of all the course of his life. He remembered with chilly distinctness the times in his boyhood when he had lain awake at night listening — all ears — to the creaks of the stairs, regular, approaching sounds so distinct that he could even visualize the form of the night-walker, could see the size of his bony hand on the banister, the mask across his eyes. But now he was himself the walker of the night and the terror which he had felt in those old days had fallen upon other men, upon Charlie Morgan, hunter and trapper and familiar of the wilds.
Out from a dense growth of mesquite came the trapper; his quirt cracked loudly on the side of the horse, which broke into a canter and passed Kirk in his hiding-place so close that he could have reached out his hand and touched the flank of the animal, or seized Charlie Morgan by the leg and dragged him from the saddle. A maddening temptation came to do the thing; and then another temptation to yell aloud in exultation for the danger which was coming.
That temptation also he restrained as he stepped boldly out into the narrow path which Morgan was following.
"Charlie Morgan!" he cried, "I'm here!"
And he waited with his revolver poised.
All at once he knew that he could not fire on the fellow first. He would wait until Morgan had drawn and blazed away. And a perfect certainty came to him that Morgan would miss. Then he would shoot — and he could not fail.
At his shout Morgan whirled in the saddle; his steel gleamed very brightly in the moon, and by the same light Kirk glimpsed the teeth of the man. His lips were twitched back in a hideous grimace of terror.
"Who?" shouted the trapper, and his voice was a scream of harsh uncertainty and the will to kill.
"The Night Hawk!" answered Kirk, and still he stood with his revolver poised.
It seemed that there were minutes between everything that happened — the curse of Morgan — the leveling of the revolver — the spurt of flame from the mouth of the gun — the hum of a bullet beside his arm — giving the cloth a little tug.
There were other minutes of pause while his own gun descended, while his finger pressed on the trigger, and then the bark of the bullet, kicking up the muzzle of the gun. Charlie Morgan threw up his arms. His revolver dropped through the moonlight like a bit of fire from the hand of the trapper. Then Morgan leaned forward, struck the pommel of the saddle with a grunt of suddenly expired wind, and flopped heavily on the ground.
Kirk twirled his gun. His first emotion was merely joy in the easy action of the weapon. No wonder that the Night Hawk had killed many with such a gun. He shoved it leisurely back into the holster, and went humming to examine his work of the night. The horse sidled uneasily away and stood snorting and sniffing at the figure fallen in the path. There was gold in the pack of the mule, but Kirk had no desire for it. His purpose in coming out there that night had merely been to uphold the honor, in a way, of dead Dave Spenser. He kicked the saddle-horse brutally in the stomach and the poor brute lashed out once with its heels and then started off at a broken gallop, tugging the pack mule after it. All at once a panic seemed to seize on the two animals. They burst into a racing pace and fled crashing through the shrubbery Kirk watched them with a grin and then leaned down over the fallen body.
It lay on its face. He turned it. There, exactly where he had intended, was the red mark of the bullet. It had passed through the chest, directly in the center, or a little to the left. If he had located the spot with a line and compass he could not have planted the shot more carefully.
"A bull's-eye,” grinned Kirk, and with his toe caught under the shoulder of Morgan he slopped the body back upon its face.
"And so," finished Kirk, "exit Charlie Morgan."
A soft whinny came to him through the night.
"And so," he muttered to himself thoughtfully, "re-enter the Night Hawk?"
He shrugged his broad shoulders and the burden of the murder before him slipped off his conscience.
"After all," he said, "perhaps the Englishman was right."
And he went back to the black stallion.
Chapter 37
All that afternoon there had hung before the mind's eye of John Sampson a problem like a problem in geometry, one of those perplexing things in which the lines and circles are simple enough, but in which the axioms of explanation refuse to come to mind. The problem was a certain relationship between Clung and Yo Chai. It had dwelt in his memory since the evening when Yo Chai shot down the two Mexicans and thereby gained a proud name in Kirby Creek, that there was some connection between the gambler and the outlawed man-killer.
Ever since that time he had turned and twisted the thing back and forth in his mind, but it had never become an object of vital interest until today, when he learned that Winifred had been going regularly at night to the house of the gambler. Now he sat for hours with his head dropped between his hands and tried to work out the puzzle. It was like the man who sat in the robbers' cave and strove to think of the magic name which would open the door, but all that he remembered was that the name was that of some grain, so he sat calling: "Open barley, open, wheat, open, oats" — but he could not think of the right one — the "Open Sesame." So he remained perforce in the cave until the robbers returned and cut him to pieces with their sabres.
In such a quandary was John Sampson. He could not find the little watchword which would admit him to the secret. All that he knew was that the relation between Clung and Yo Chai, if he could call it to mind, would prove the undoing of Yo; and with a lever to work on the Chinaman he could gain the reason of Winifred's coming and goings to the house of Yo Chai in the night.
Evening came, but still the key to the locked room was not his. He and Winifred ate supper in silence, gloomy on his part and gay on the part of the girl. Now and again her eyes went through the window to dwell on the rapidly dimming outlines of the hills. There was complacency in her gaze, and a certain expectation which stopped the heart of John Sampson in mid-beat.
It was some time after supper before his sharpened ear heard a stir in the room of Winifred, to which she had retired under the pretext of a headache. A headache! she who had never known a sick day!
A stir and then a sound suspiciously like the creak of a slowly raised window. Still he waited. Far off he caught the snort and stamp of a horse from the barn. A little later, listening with the front door a little ajar, he caught the hoofs of a horse crunching faintly upon soft sand. That was all.
The weight of fear turned to a burden of despair in the heart of John Sampson. He felt helpless, disarmed; and this in conjunction with a wild hatred of all the world, and particularly of the patient half-smile of Yo Chai. Finally he could stand it no longer, and went out of doors. Befor
e him, further down the hill and the side of the ravine, glimmered the thousand evil lights of Kirby Creek. For a time he walked up and down in front of the house. Then he started down the ravine. Not with any purpose, but because he could not bear to be too close to the lonely little shack from which Winifred had stolen away.
His hands were clasped behind him and his head bent sadly as he entered the first street of the village. It led, like all the streets of the town, to the gaming house of Yo Chai, and down that street John Sampson strolled. He was quite heedless of all around him, yet every picture that he saw this night was imprinted forever, indelibly, in his subconscious brain. In the door of one hut stood a very tall woman, her figure swaying out in front, her arms akimbo. One lock of her hair straggled down her cheek, plastered against it with sweat. She chuckled at the sight of a little boy rolling and wrestling with a big shaggy dog in the center of the street, and her laughter was like a succession of grunts, a struggle between weariness and mirth. Further on a group of youngsters, having found a streak of clayey ground which would hold the peg, were playing mumble-the-peg, and their faces were besmeared with mud. The heart of John Sampson ached in envy of the parents who had these thoughtless youngsters for their own. At least they were too mindless to lock secrets inside their hearts.
A crowd had gathered before the jeweler's window. And in front of the window was a large group. They were all talking at the same time; they were picking out the stones they would buy on the morrow, or when they made their big strike. They were all happy, and Sampson hurried past. Happiness in others was painful to him this night.
Now the distant roar of the gaming house reached him plainly, like the sound of distant surf. Straight to the door of the house he went and looked in towards the central table with a malevolent eye. But Yo Chai was not there. That was the meaning, then, of the early hour at which Winifred had left the house.
Brand, Max - 1924 Page 16