Brand, Max - 1924

by Clung (v1. 1)

  "Pick it up," said Clung, his voice shaken a bit from the wildness of that night gallop. "Pick it up, Kirk, and begin. Clung will wait!"

  Clung will wait! And Kirk remembered how not long before he also had waited — waited with an absolute certainty that Charlie Morgan would miss his shots. He knew what was passing now in the mind of Clung — what fierce and subdued exultation that made him tilt his head in the old way so that Kirk could guess at his smile. And Clung was right. Kirk knew it perfectly; his hand was shaking like a leaf!

  "Shoot and be damned!" said Kirk in a sudden frenzy, and he threw his arms high above his head.

  The cold voice of Clung cut through him. "You murdering dog,” said the voice. "You murdering cur!"

  And then the revolver was tossed to the rocks from the hand of Clung.

  "Your big hand against my hand, Kirk. Will you fight that way?"

  "What way?" repeated Kirk, incredulous.

  And then he made a cautious step nearer. Still Clung made no effort to recover his revolver. In fact, it now lay an impossible distance away.

  "God!" whispered Kirk, and his fierce joy nearly choked him and cast a haze before his eyes. "God!"

  And he raised his big hands and slowly clenched them; the sense of physical superiority.

  "You crazy — Chink!" he said at last, and laughed, bending back his head. "You suicidal fool! Ha, ha ha!"

  And in the middle of his laugh the slender man leaped into action. At his forward spring the broad-brimmed hat was blown from his head. Kirk glimpsed a lean, marvelously pallid face, and then the grip of a thin hand tore like a hot iron at his throat.

  He beat the hand away and smashed at the white face. His hand lunged through empty air, and a bony fist crashed twice against his face. He turned, grappled, lifted the slender body above his head with absurd ease, and dashed it on the ground; but the body twisted, cat-like, in the air, landed on hands and feet, and recoiled like a bounding spring in the face of the big man. Once more those bony hands tore at his throat like the talons of a bird, and when Kirk, gasping, tore that murderous grip away, skin came with it.

  Clung, whining softly like a fighting dog in his eagerness, leaped in again. Again Kirk struck, and again his fist missed that swerving figure. The constricting fingers were at his throat. With a yell he clubbed his huge fist and beat it down on the head of Clung.

  The very weight of the blow drove the other away, staggering, but as Kirk rushed in pursuit, again the two bony fists crashed against his face with audible impacts, cutting the skin like knives.

  "Charlie Morgan!" said Clung, as he slipped away and circled, ready for another leap in. "Think of Charlie Morgan, Kirk!"

  "Damn you and him!" cried Kirk and rushed again with swinging arms.

  The agile form, as if the wind of the blows beat it away from the path of the burly fists, ducked under the swinging arms: the grip was at his throat. And at that moment the foot of Kirk rolled on a pebble and he dropped to his knees. There, a little to the right, he saw the gleam of the revolver which Clung had thrown away the moment before. He lunged with his whole weight forwards and down and managed to lock his fingers around the barrel of the gun. No time to reverse his grip and take the weapon by the butt. For the fingers at his throat were working towards the windpipe, and once they seized it — Kirk raised the revolver and smashed it down on the head of Clung.

  He flattened on his back — limply. And Kirk rose and stared at the helpless form. Then he laughed, like thunder, and the side of the steep ravine caught up the sound and rolled it back on him with inhuman force. He dropped to his knees beside the figure which lay with arms thrown out, crow-wise; he set his hands on the slender throat; how slender it was! — one grip would crush it to the neck-bone! — and he shook the prostrate form furiously. He would bring the fellow back to consciousness before he throttled him, make him look his death in the face before he went to it.

  And he succeeded in bringing back Clung to life. His eyes opened and he groaned.

  "Look up!" said Kirk. "Look up at your master and beg, you swine, beg for your life!"

  But the fingers of Clung, as his arms lay extended, had closed around a stone — a stone which fitted comfortably into the palm of his hand — a stone with rough edges.

  "How shall I beg?" he gasped, and drew in the hand, bearing the stone, to his shoulder.

  "Offer money!" snarled Kirk, "or offer service all the days of your life. Offer, and see what Kirk will do!"

  "Good!" said Clung, and he smote with the stone between the eyes of Kirk.

  A weight of suffocating hugeness dropped upon him, almost strangled him, and blood ran hot across his face. He managed to wriggle out from beneath. Kirk lay prone upon his face, and Clung leaned over him and listened with an ear pressed against the back for a heart-beat. He caught no sound. So he straightened and stood up, wiping the blood from his face.

  "It is good," whispered Clung again, "it is very good."

  The black stallion, which had stood with pricking ears and head high during the combat, now approached cautiously, sniffed at the fallen figure, and then with flattened ears pawed at Kirk's body. That alone was a sufficient proof, to Clung, that the man was dead. Clung swung into his saddle and headed north up the ravine — and never once turned his head back towards the body of Kirk nor to the right towards Kirby Creek.

  Chapter 47

  Yet Kirk was not dead. The blow had not fractured the skull as Clung hastily concluded, but had merely stunned the giant. He lay for some time longer, prostrate; it was a sharp blow on the shoulder which roused him to sensibility — a blow so painful that he twitched his head to one side in a daze and saw the great black stallion with forefoot raised to strike again, and ears flattened back like a demoniac. Fear brought complete sensibility back to Kirk. He rolled swiftly from beneath the impending stroke and started to his feet, but the horse was upon him with a leap, reared and struck furiously.

  But the rage of defeat and the torment of the pain in his head gave Kirk the strength and agility of a madman. He leaped in and to one side, grasping at the reins and jerking them down with a force that pulled the stallion down upon all four feet. Before he could rear again and strike Kirk had planted one foot in the stirrup and was swinging into the saddle. His other foot, however, in that awkward effort to mount, was passing over the back of the animal, heel down, and the whirling rowel caught and slashed the hide of the stallion from the hip down towards the flank. The big black leaped forward, throwing Kirk off his balance. He strove frantically to regain his position, gripping with both legs, and in so doing driving the unstirruped right foot, with its spur, deeply into the flank of the horse. The stallion, snorting with pain and fear, leapt up into the air and came down stiff-legged. The jar shook Kirk completely from his seat and he floundered to the earth, falling towards his left side, and back, while the stallion, at the same instant, lunged forward at a racing speed, and the left foot of Kirk, twisting in the stirrup, was firmly jammed.

  He was jerked forward and through the air, landing several yards away with a terrific crash that deprived him of his senses. The stallion, frantic with fear of the weight which flew behind it, lashed out with both heels. They landed; the man screamed. Again the stallion raced on through the rocks, and now the weight behind him dashed continually from rock to rock, crashing and rebounding. Straight up the ravine and towards the cave of the Night Hawk the stallion raced, crept through the mouth of the tunnel and into the dark recess where the silver Virgin reigned by the flicker of a dying torch. Here he drew up at last and stood still and turned his small, fine head, and stared with yellow eyes at the formless thing which still dragged behind him.

  And it was at about this time that John Sampson and Winifred, sitting in tearful silence in the shanty, heard the clatter of a galloping horse stop before the house, heard steps mount the front steps, saw the door swing open, and in the lighted rectangle stood a slender man with a very white face, doubly white because of the red smear across
the forehead. His eyes were fixed steadily upon the girl.

  She rose, her lips parted and her eyes staring with a wide and bright fascination.

  "Winifred!” called John Sampson.

  The steady eyes of Clung turned upon her for a single instant and he could not speak again; the words were frozen in his throat. The girl crossed the floor, and passed through the door, and the door closed behind her.

  Instantly the gallop of a horse began, and rattled away over the rocks. Then life returned to John Sampson.

  He rushed to the door, threw it wide, and running out into the moonlight he cried at the top of his voice: "Winifred!”

  There was nothing in sight but the shadows of the rocky walls; and all he heard was the far, departing rattle of hoofs upon rocks.

  "Winifred!” he called again.

  The side of the ravine gave back the word like a mocking whisper close to his ear.

  About The Author

  Max Brand™ is the best-known pen name of Frederick Faust, creator of Dr. Kildare,™ Destry, and many other fictional characters popular with readers and viewers worldwide. Faust wrote for a variety of audiences in many genres. His enormous output, totaling approximately thirty million words or the equivalent of 530 ordinary books, covered nearly every field: crime, fantasy, historical romance, espionage, Westerns, science fiction, adventure, animal stories, love, war, and fashionable society, big business and big medicine. Eighty motion pictures have been based on his work along with many radio and television programs. For good measure he also published four volumes of poetry. Perhaps no other author has reached more people in more different ways.

  Born in Seattle in 1892, orphaned early, Faust grew up in the rural San Joaquin Valley of California. At Berkeley he became a student rebel and one-man literary movement, contributing prodigiously to all campus publications. Denied a degree because of unconventional conduct, he embarked on a series of adventures culminating in New York City where, after a period of near starvation, he received simultaneous recognition as a serious poet and successful popular-prose writer. Later, he traveled widely, making his home in New York, then in Florence, and finally in Los Angeles.

  Once the United States entered the Second World War, Faust abandoned his lucrative writing career and his work as a screenwriter to serve as a war correspondent with the infantry in Italy, despite his fifty-one years and a bad heart. He was killed during a night attack on a hilltop village held by the German army. New books based on magazine serials or unpublished manuscripts continue to appear. Alive and dead he has averaged a new one every four months for seventy-five years. In the U.S. alone nine publishers issue his work, plus many more in foreign countries. Yet, only recently have the full dimensions of this extraordinarily versatile and prolific writer come to be recognized and his stature as a protean literary figure in the 20th Century acknowledged. His popularity continues to grow throughout the world.