The False Rider

by Max Brand

  There was a good wind blowing up the valley, and Silver had taken off his hat to enjoy the coolness of it, and Gregor saw above the temples the two spots of gray hair like horns beginning to push through the hair. Men said that that was how he had first got his name of “Silvertip” or “Silver.”

  They shook hands, and then Gregor marched down the slope and up the other side. Before he had gone far on his way, Silver had disappeared. The great waste of the mountains had received him again. Where would he reappear? Only where the needs of some unlucky man or the outrage committed by some criminal called him out of his quiet seclusion.

  Gregor climbed on into Allerton, went into the first saloon, and leaned a heavy elbow on the bar until he had poured three drinks under his belt. After that, he was able to stop thinking.

  “To blazes with Jim Silver!” he said under his breath, and went to a restaurant to find food. Finally, when he had well filled himself, the thought of that lonely soul who drifted through mountains hunting for happiness with a deathless and futile hope grew dim in his brain.

  He looked over Allerton, decided that it offered few opportunities for a man of his genius, and, therefore, took the two-o’clock stage for Crow’s Nest, which was far off in the blue of the next range toward the west. Crow’s Nest was a big town, a booming town, men told him. There were mines not far from it. Lumbering went on near by. Moreover, a certain number of tenderfeet were attracted by the mineral waters of a hot spring that bubbled up in the center of the town, and a good many sick people were constantly in Crow’s Nest, taking a cure.

  It was exactly the sort of a spot that Gregor liked to haunt, for wherever you find invalids, you find reckless spending. No one, he knew, spends so much money having a good time as the man who expects that he may be dead before morning. The death house atmosphere of such a town would be exactly suited to the peculiar talents of Gregor.

  So he took the two-o’clock stage and found himself with six other passengers. Every one of them seemed to be a step up from the average population of Allerton. Their baggage looked like “money inside.”

  When he was sure of this, he felt more at ease than ever. It was a new part of the range, for him. He had never been within five hundred miles of it before he had come to Piute, and Duff Gregor liked new things. He liked new faces, new whisky, new money, and new guns. He liked everything new except new jails.

  He felt that this world is a comfortable place. The sun was a shade more brilliant, more warm, more pleasing to the soul, with its golden radiance, than ever before. It shone alike upon the just and the unjust, but he felt that the unjust had just an edge of advantage. How many crooks in this world, for instance, could say that they had twice eaten food cooked by the immortal, man-slaying hands of Jim Silver, lived with him for a day, and parted from him a hundred dollars up?

  It was only fifty miles to Crow’s Nest. The first part of the journey spun out behind the heels of the galloping horses at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, but the long up-tug toward the town in the next range had to be taken at a walk, and the afternoon had worn away toward sunset, with the sun drifting beside them like fire in the branches of the pine trees, and the sweeter scent and the cooler breath of evening was already coming into the air when, as they turned a corner, a rifle shot clanged like two heavy sledge hammers struck face to face.

  The near leader of the team dropped dead. From behind a rock rose the head and shoulders of a masked man who was peering down a very steady rifle.

  “Stick ’em up, boys,” he said. “Keep ’em right over your heads. Try to touch the sky all the time, and step out on this side, please. Driver, watch yourself, or—”

  The rifle spat thin smoke. Its muzzle jerked. The driver cursed and grabbed his right shoulder.

  “Sorry,” said the highwayman. “You shouldn’t have made that move, brother.”

  There was no mistaking his professional manner. Gregor and all the rest gave up hope of resistance on the spot. Nothing discourages action so much as the sight of blood. Gregor was muttering quietly, “My rotten luck!” as he climbed out to the ground and stood in line with the others.

  CHAPTER 3

  Barry Christian

  The stage driver seemed to be a fool. He insisted on going forward to look at his near leader. The masked man warned him grimly:

  “Brother, if you budge one more step, I’ll shoot a few inches inside that first slug.”

  The driver turned and scowled at him. He was a big fellow, that driver. He had rusty red hair and a big, saber-shaped mustache.

  “I ain’t got a gun,” he said. “I was reachin’ for a chaw of tobacco a while back, not for a gun. Go and fan me for a Colt, if you wanta, but I gotta see if you been and murdered Molly.”

  With that, he walked right past the leveled gun of the robber and went to the dead horse. The rifle of the masked man hesitated just as his mind must have hesitated. Then he said:

  “Perhaps you’re right, old-timer. Now, boys, kindly turn your backs, while I make a change.”

  The “change” consisted of tossing the rifle aside and at the same instant pulling out a revolver. This weapon he held only hip-high and did not aim with his eye on the sights. There were no sights, in fact, and instead of curving a forefinger around the trigger, the right thumb of the robber rested on the hammer of his gun. It was perfectly plain that here was a fellow who knew how to fan a revolver, and such men are not the ones to take liberties with.

  Everybody in that party seemed sufficiently experienced to know all about the trick and the quality of the man who can perform it. Not one of the passengers attempted violence with the robber. All turned their backs obediently, and the highwayman went down the line, clapping the muzzle of the gun against the spinal columns, while with a marvelously rapid left hand he “frisked” every pocket. No pocket, in fact, was too secret for him to find it. He threw on the ground everything he secured—guns, wallets, knives—except the big, fat gold watches, which he dropped into his own pockets. He found stickpins and gold cuff links. Everything was secured with wonderful skill and rapidity by this master hand.

  Then he told the youngest of the party to climb up behind the stage and cut the straps that held the baggage. Down into the road tumbled the luggage. A cloud of dust rose, and with it groans from two or three of the unlucky passengers.

  “Sorry, boys,” said the robber. “I have to go through this stuff to see what’s what, but nothing is going to be spoiled on purpose. I want valuables, not clothes, and if you’ll send back here for the stuff after an hour, you’ll collect what’s left. If anyone tries to come back before an hour, I’ll show him that when I touched the driver on the shoulder, I was doing it on purpose—not missing my mark. I’m a man of a quiet temper, fellows, but I’m apt to lose hold of myself it any of you rush back to this place. Driver, cut loose that off leader. He only unbalances your team now, and besides I need him.”

  The driver, without a word, unhooked the off leader, pulled the harness off it with his left hand—the right hung helpless from his wounded shoulder—and unhooked the double-trees from the fifth chain. Then he paused and looked down at the dead gray mare.

  “There’s a mare,” said the driver, “that never said ‘No.’ There’s a mare that knew every curve of the road from here to Crow’s Nest. I been drunk behind her, and she’s made better time when I was drunk than when I was sober. If a gent had the sense to use the brake, she had the sense to take the curves. There’s a mare, boys, that was a lady, and I loved her.”

  He came back toward the stage. One of the men offered to tie up his wound.

  He answered: “Climb up there and haul on the brake for me, when I speak up. I’ll take care of the line. I don’t need no doctor till I get to Crow’s Nest. I dunno that I wanta be touched by any one of the seven skunks that’ll let one crook stick ’em up. There’s too much yaller poison in your systems. I wouldn’t wanta risk some of it runnin’ into mine.”

  Tears were on his face as he spoke. He l
et them roll, unheeded. He climbed back into the seat, and the rest of the men prepared to follow. The youngster of the lot got up to handle the brake. Then the voice of the robber said:

  “You, there—back up! You stay with me!”

  All turned. The muzzle of the revolver definitely picked out Duff Gregor from the lot.

  “You want me?” exclaimed Gregor, with a chill in his soul.

  “You!” said the robber. “And keep your hands up! If you try to move, I’ll plaster you. You fool, I know you!”

  What did that mean?

  With dull eyes, Gregor watched the stage start off. With ringing ears, he heard the departing curses which the passengers hurled behind them at the robber.

  The masked man knew him? Well, there was a great deal in this life of Gregor. There was enough to fill ten columns of fine print, and nothing but facts mentioned. Some victim of a card game, someone who had been “rolled” by Gregor when the victim was drunk?

  The stage rumbled out of view behind the next bend of the road. Then the highwayman came up and shoved the muzzle of his revolver into Duff’s middle. He said, in a voice which emotion made ring like a bell: “I’ve had you in my hands twice. This is the third time, and it’s the last. Don’t you know me?”

  “I don’t know you,” said Gregor.

  There was silence.

  “You’re changed,” said the highwayman. “You’re almost so changed that I wouldn’t know you. But I really believe that you don’t recognize me. If I were you, I’d know by the voice alone, but if you want to see my face, take a look at it, Jim Silver!”

  With that he ripped the mask away.

  Gregor’s starting eyes stared into a finely made face, a long, handsome face. It had a sensitive, a mobile and almost delicate look, except that there was something infinitely cruel about the mouth and the bright, steady eyes. And the long, silken hair flowed back after the style that so many artists affect.

  “It doesn’t look so good to you, Jim, eh?” said the stranger. “It doesn’t seem possible that the great Jim Silver would shove up his hands in a stage-coach and let any one man rob him, eh? But here you stand, ten seconds from death, Jim! I can’t believe that it’s the end of the long trail, at last. And if I hang for this tomorrow, I’ll die a happy man!”

  And Gregor knew, with wonderful certainty, that he was, in fact, hardly a scant ten seconds away from the future world. He had to think fast, and his mind was luckily one that fear stimulated and did not benumb.

  “Brother,” he said, “you got me wrong. I’ve got a shadow over my face just now, but lemme turn west into the light, and then see if I wear the scars of Jim Silver.”

  “Ah?” said the other, and started violently.

  He took Gregor by the left shoulder and turned him hastily toward the west, where the light fell more closely on his face. Then he snarled with disgust and rage.

  “I should have known!” he said. “I should have guessed it wasn’t Jim Silver standing for a one-man play like mine. But who gave you a face so much like his?”

  “Brother,” said Gregor, “my face may be like his, but I’ve never made one phony dime out of the resemblance.”

  “It’s not so like, either, now that I take another look,” said the robber. “I suppose that hope was making me blind. But,” he added, “you’re close enough to turn your face into a mint! At least, it would be good for a million in this part of the world!”

  “Because I look like Silver?” said Gregor. “Hold on, old-timer. A little confidence work, you mean? Maybe, in the end, I’m going to be glad that you stopped that stage. All at once some ideas seem to begin to soak into my brain.”

  There was silence between them, each man reading the mind of the other.

  “What’s your lay?” asked the robber shortly.

  “Anything,” said Duff Gregor, with a frankness which he felt would do him no harm, under the circumstances. “Anything from a jimmy to a gun is good enough for me, and I know how to make a mold with yellow soap and run the soup in it, if you come to cases.”

  There followed another silence, then the stranger asked: “Have you got an idea who I am?”

  “Not the foggiest idea,” said Gregor. “You might be Barry Christian, for all I know.”

  “Might be?” said the other. “Everyone knows my face has been published up and down the land. Everyone knows the publishing of it—and Silver’s dirty work—has started me on the road like a common tramp of a stick-up artist. But if you have half an eye in your head, you’ll see that I am Christian.”

  CHAPTER 4

  A Foundation Stone

  Afterward, they sat by a fire twenty miles away, on the farther side of Crow’s Nest. Christian had had his own mount of course, and the stage line horse had carried Gregor from the scene of the hold-up. Those twenty miles, Barry Christian had insisted upon, and Gregor knew better than to dispute the will or the way of that famous man. For Barry Christian was a master of the art of breaking the law with impunity, as he had proved many times during the long course of his celebrated career. No penalties had fallen to his share, except those which had become his through that still greater man, Jim Silver.

  It had not taken long for Christian and Gregor to come to an agreement. One of the most amazing parts of the affair was the speed with which Christian looked through the mind of his new acquaintance. It was as though he knew all about the furnishings of the mind of Gregor and exactly how far Gregor would go. He repeatedly turned his back on Gregor, as he was working about the campfire or attending to the horses.

  That was a risky business, because, no matter how awed Gregor might be by the reputation of his new friend, it was also true that there were fifteen thousand dollars on the head of Barry Christian. And for the cost of one little leaden bullet, all of that fortune would be transferred to the hands of Gregor!

  It would not take much—a flick of the hand and a jerk of the thumb or forefinger, and Barry Christian and all his famous past and all of his great deeds would lie dead on the ground. It would not only make Gregor rich for the time being, but it would swell his reputation into a formidable size. His own past would be forgiven. He would be mentioned in every newspaper. Reporters would travel three thousand miles for the sake of shaking his hand and snapping his picture, and picking up a few of his wise sayings. Men would write the story of his life, adroitly covering over the evil, and changing sheer crime into clear adventure, for this is undoubtedly true—that the world loves an adventurer and has an almost unsurpassable wish to believe well of him.

  These conclusions kept working in the mind of Gregor, but still his hand was held. The same thought had been in his mind when he was with Jim Silver, to tell the truth. To be known as the slayer of Silver would give him a vast name among crooks all over the world. But a certain freezing awe had numbed the powers of his hand, when he thought of murdering Silver. It was a similar awe that prevented him from attacking the great Barry Christian, and it annoyed him to see that Christian seemed to understand his superiority and that the outlaw was able to count on it.

  After a time, the irritation passed out of the mind of Gregor. He was soothed and pleased by what he could call his great good luck. Fate, he considered, does not mean badly by the man whom he brings to the side of Jim Silver one night, and Barry Christian the next. It even occurred to Gregor that it was like one of the old legends in which the hero is brought to the crossing of the ways and told to select either the straight and narrow path or the rosy way to evil. Gregor had two sorts of life to choose from—that of Jim Silver or that of Barry Christian.

  There was no doubt in his mind as to which course he would take. The mere thought of Silver’s way of existence made an arctic ache of cold grip his soul, but with Barry Christian he lolled in comfort. He understood the man more nearly.

  For one thing, Christian was not the fellow to live like an ascetic. He brought out a good cooking set of pots and pans, and he prepared as delightful a supper as one could ask for in a camp.
There was even pan bread, instead of tooth-cracking hardtack.

  What pleased Gregor more than the good food was the pleasant manner of Barry Christian. The man’s handsome, mobile face was continually smiling, and his soft voice was a music in the ears of Gregor. Also, Christian talked with disarming frankness.

  As they smoked cigarettes and sipped the good strong coffee which Christian had made, while the firelight tossed far-traveling gleams through the corridors of the pines and a troubled squirrel came out to argue angrily from a branch above, Christian said:

  “You see that I’ve dropped a long distance downhill, Gregor. I’m reduced to common stick-up work, these days. I used to do better things. I used to be able to sit back and plan real jobs in a real manner. But that’s changed. D’you know why?”

  “No,” said Gregor.

  “Jim Silver broke me,” said Christian, looking Gregor straight in the eye. “He beat me twice, and the second time that he smashed me, all my old men lost confidence in me. It began to look to them as though I were no good for rainy weather. They got out from under. However, I managed to make out.”

  He had been sorting the loot that he had collected from the stage, as he talked. It had been a pretty good haul, on the whole. After the suit-cases had been searched—and then, according to promise, neatly reclosed and stacked beside the road—there was a total of over five thousand dollars in hard cash, to say nothing of a good heap of watches and stickpins and other jewelry. Christian put a thousand dollars and a portion of the “hardware” into the hands of Gregor.

  “What for?” asked Gregor, gasping.

  “You were on hand for the finish,” said Christian. “I always make a split with anyone who’s on my side.”

  “On your side? I would have plastered you with a ton of lead, if I’d seen my chance,” said Gregor frankly.

  “That was before we really knew one another,” answered Christian. “Don’t argue, Gregor. You’re in the game with me, and you’re welcome to a split. It isn’t hard cash that I look for so much as other things, in this work. I don’t want a lone hand. I want to build from the bottom until I’m bigger than I ever was before, and you’ll be my first foundation stone, if you want to come in.”