by Max Brand
CHAPTER XIV
DELILAH
Haines muttered at Kate's ear: "This is the man. Now keep up yourcourage."
"He doesn't like this," went on Haines in the same muffled voice, "butwhen he understands just why you're here I think he'll be as glad asany of us."
Silent beckoned to him and he went to the chief.
"What about the girl?" asked the big fellow curtly.
"Didn't Rhinehart tell you?"
"Rhinehart's a fool and so are the rest of them. Have you gone locotoo, Haines, to let a girl come here?"
"Where's the harm?"
"Why, damn it, she's marked every man here."
"I let her in because she is trying to get hold of Whistling Dan."
"Which no fool girl c'n take that feller off the trail. Nothin' butlead can do that."
"I tell you," said Haines, "the boy's in love with her. I watched themat Morgan's place. She can twist him around her finger."
A faint light broke the gloom of Silent's face.
"Yaller hair an' blue eyes. They c'n do a lot. Maybe you're right.What's that?" His voice had gone suddenly husky.
A russet moon pushed slowly up through the trees. Its uncertain lightfell across the clearing. For the first time the thick pale smoke ofthe fire was visible, rising straight up until it cleared the tops ofthe willows, and then caught into swift, jagging lines as the softwind struck it. A coyote wailed from the distant hills, and beforehis complaint was done another sound came through the hushing of thewillows, a melancholy whistling, thin with distance.
"We'll see if that's the man you want," suggested Haines.
"I'll go along," said Shorty Rhinehart.
"And me too," said a third. The whole group would have accompaniedthem, but the heavy voice of Jim Silent cut in: "You'll stay here, allof you except the girl and Lee."
They turned back, muttering, and Kate followed Haines into thewillows.
"Well?" growled Bill Kilduff.
"What I want to know--" broke in Terry Jordan.
"Go to hell with your questions," said Silent, "but until you go thereyou'll do what I say, understand?"
"Look here, Jim," said Hal Purvis, "are you a king an' we jest yourslaves, maybe?"
"You're goin' it a pile too hard," said Shorty Rhinehart.
Every one of these speeches came sharply out while they glared atJim Silent. Hands were beginning to fall to the hip and fingers werecurving stiffly as if for the draw. Silent leaned his broad shouldersagainst the side of his roan and folded his arms. His eyes went roundthe circle slowly, lingering an instant on each face. Under that coldstare they grew uneasy. To Shorty Rhinehart it became necessary topush back his hat and scratch his forehead. Terry Jordan found amysterious business with his bandana. Every one of them had occasionto raise his hand from the neighbourhood of his six-shooter. Silentsmiled.
"A fine, hard crew you are," he said sarcastically at last. "A greatbunch of long riders, lettin' a slip of a yaller-haired girl makefools of you. You over there--you, Shorty Rhinehart, you'd cut thethroat of a man that looked crosswise at the Cumberland girl, wouldn'tyou? An' you, Purvis, you're aching to get at me, ain't you? An'you're still thinkin' of them blue eyes, Jordan?"
Before any one could speak he poured in another volley between windand water: "One slip of a girl can make fools out of five long riders?No, you ain't long riders. All you c'n handle is hobby hosses!"
"What do you want us to do?" growled swarthy Bill Kilduff.
"Keep your face shut while I'm talkin', that's what I want you to do!"
There was a devil of rage in his eyes. His folded arms tugged at eachother, and if they got free there would be gun play. The four menshrank, and he was satisfied.
"Now I'll tell you what we're goin' to do," he went on. "We're goin'out after Haines an' the girl. If they come up with this Whistlin' Danwe're goin' to surround him an' fill him full of lead, while they'retalkin'."
"Not for a million dollars!" burst in Hal Purvis.
"Not in a thousan' years!" echoed Terry Jordan.
Silent turned his watchful eyes from one to the other. They were readyto fight now, and he sensed it at once.
"Why?" he asked calmly.
"It ain't playin' square with the girl," announced Rhinehart.
"Purvis," said Silent, for he knew that the opposition centred in thefigure of the venomous little gun fighter; "if you seen a mad dogthat was runnin' straight at you, would you be kep' from shootin' itbecause a pretty girl hollered out an' asked you not to?"
Their eyes shifted rapidly from one to another, seeking a way out, andfinding none.
"An' is there any difference between this hero Whistlin' Dan an' a maddog?"
Still they were mute.
"I tell you, boys, we got a better chance of dodgin' lightnin' an'puttin' a bloodhound off our trail than we have of gettin' rid of thisWhistlin' Dan. An' when he catches up with us--well, all I'm askin' isthat you remember what he done to them four dollars before they hitthe dust?"
"The chief's right," growled Kilduff, staring down at the ground."It's Whistlin' Dan or us. The mountains ain't big enough to hold himan' us!"
* * * * *
Before Whistling Dan the great wolf glided among the trees. For a fullhour they had wandered through the willows in this manner, and Dan hadmade up his mind to surrender the search when Bart, returning fromone of his noiseless detours, sprang out before his master and whinedsoftly. Dan turned, loosening his revolver in the holster, andfollowed Bart through the soft gloom of the tree shadows and themoonlight. His step was almost as silent as that of the slinkinganimal which went before. At last the wolf stopped and raised hishead. Almost instantly Dan saw a man and a woman approaching throughthe willows. The moonlight dropped across her face. He recognizedKate, with Lee Haines walking a pace before her.
"Stand where you are," he said.
Haines leaped to one side, his revolver flashing in his hand. Danstepped out before them while Black Bart slunk close beside him,snarling softly.
He seemed totally regardless of the gun in Haines's hand. His mannerwas that of a conqueror who had the outlaw at his mercy.
"You," he said, "walk over there to the side of the clearing."
"Dan!" cried Kate, as she went to him with extended arms.
He stopped her with a gesture, his eyes upon Haines, who had movedaway.
"Watch him, Bart," said Dan.
The black wolf ran to Haines and crouched snarling at his feet. Theoutlaw restored his revolver to his holster and stood with his armsfolded, his back turned. Dan looked to Kate. At the meeting of theireyes she shrank a little. She had expected a difficult task inpersuading him, but not this hard aloofness. She felt suddenly as ifshe were a stranger to him.
"How do you come here--with him?"
"He is my friend!"
"You sure pick a queer place to go walkin' with him."
"Hush, Dan! He brought me here to find you!"
"_He_ brought you here?"
"Don't you understand?"
"When I want a friend like him, I'll go huntin' for him myself; an'I'll pack a gun with me!"
That flickering yellow light played behind Dan's eyes.
"I looked into his face--an' he stared the other way."
She made a little imploring gesture, but his hand remained on hiships, and there was no softening of his voice.
"What fetched you here?"
Every word was like a hand that pushed her farther away.
"Are you dumb, Kate? What fetched you here?"
"I have come to bring you home, Dan."
"I'm home now."
"What do you mean?"
"There's the roof of my house," he jerked his hand towards the sky,"the mountain passes are my doors--an' the earth is my floor."
"No! no! We are waiting for you at the ranch."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Dan, this wild trail has no end."
"Maybe, but I know t
hat feller can show me the way to Jim Silent, an'now----"
He turned towards Haines as he spoke, but here a low, venomous snarlfrom Black Bart checked his words. Kate saw him stiffen--his lipsparted to a faint smile--his head tilted back a little as if helistened intently, though she could hear nothing. She was not a yardfrom him, and yet she felt a thousand miles away. His head turned fullupon her, and she would never forget the yellow light of his eyes.
"Dan!" she cried, but her voice was no louder than a whisper.
"Delilah!" he said, and leaped back into the shade of the willows.
Even as he sprang she saw the flash of the moonlight on his drawnrevolver, and fire spat from it twice, answered by a yell of pain,the clang of a bullet on metal, and half a dozen shots from the woodsbehind her.
That word "Delilah!" rang in her brain to the exclusion of all theworld. Vaguely she heard voices shouting--she turned a little and sawHaines facing her with his revolver in his hand, but prevented frommoving by the wolf who crouched snarling at his feet. The order of hismaster kept him there even after that master was gone. Now men ran outinto the clearing. A keen whistle sounded far off among the willows,and the wolf leaped away from his prisoner and into the shadows on thetrail of Dan.
* * * * *
Tex Calder prided himself on being a light sleeper. Years spent inconstant danger enabled him to keep his sense of hearing alert evenwhen he slept. He had never been surprised. It was his boast that henever would be. Therefore when a hand dropped lightly on his shoulderhe started erect from his blankets with a curse and grasped hisrevolver. A strong grip on his wrist paralysed his fingers. WhistlingDan leaned above him.
"Wake up," said the latter.
"What the devil--" breathed the marshal. "You travel like a cloudshadow, Dan. You make no sound."
"Wake up and talk to me."
"I'm awake all right. What's happened?"
There was a moment of silence while Dan seemed to be trying forspeech.
Black Bart, at the other side of the clearing, pointed his nose atthe yellow moon and wailed. He was very close, but the sound was socontrolled that it seemed to come at a great distance from some wildspirit wandering between earth and heaven.
Instead of speaking Dan jumped to his feet and commenced pacing up anddown, up and down, a rapid, tireless stride; at his heels the wolfslunk, with lowered head and tail. The strange fellow was in somegreat trouble, Calder could see, and it stirred him mightily to knowthat the wild man had turned to him for help. Yet he would ask noquestions.
When in doubt the cattleman rolls a cigarette, and that was whatCalder did. He smoked and waited. At last the inevitable came.
"How old are you, Tex?"
"Forty-four."
"That's a good deal. You ought to know something."
"Maybe."
"About women?"
"Ah!" said Calder.
"Bronchos is cut out chiefly after one pattern," went on Dan.
"They's chiefly jest meanness. Are women the same--jest cut after onepattern?"
"What pattern, Dan?"
"The pattern of Delilah! They ain't no trust to be put in 'em?"
"A good many of us have found that out."
"I thought one woman was different from the rest."
"We all think that. Woman in particular is divine; woman in generalis--hell!"
"Ay, but this one--" He stopped and set his teeth.
"What has she done?"
"She--" he hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice did nottremble; there was a deep hurt and wonder in it: "She double-crossedme!"
"When? Do you mean to say you've met a woman tonight out here amongthe willows?--Where--how----"
"Tex----!"
"Ay, Dan."
"It's--it's hell!"
"It is now. But you'll forget her! The mountains, the desert, andabove all, time--they'll cure you, my boy."
"Not in a whole century, Tex."
Calder waited curiously for the explanation. It came.
"Jest to think of her is like hearing music. Oh, God, Tex, what c'n Ido to fight agin this here cold feelin' at my heart?"
Dan slipped down beside the marshal and the latter dropped asympathetic hand over the lean, brown fingers. They returned thepressure with a bone-crushing grip.
"Fight, Dan! It will make you forget her."
"Her skin is softer'n satin, Tex."
"Ay, but you'll never touch it again, Dan."
"Her eyes are deeper'n a pool at night an' her hair is all gold likeripe corn."
"You'll never look into her eyes again, Dan, and you'll never touchthe gold of that hair."
"God!"
The word was hardly more than a whisper, but it brought Black Bartleaping to his feet.
Dan spoke again: "Tex, I'm thankin' you for listenin' to me; I wantedto talk. Bein' silent was burnin' me up. There's one thing more."
"Fire it out, lad."
"This evenin' I told you I hated no man but Jim Silent."
"Yes."
"An' now they's another of his gang. Sometime--when she's standin'by--I'm goin' to take him by the throat till he don't breathe no more.Then I'll throw him down in front of her an' ask her if she c'n kissthe life back into his lips!"
Calder was actually shaking with excitement, but he was wise enoughnot to speak.
"Tex!"
"Ay, lad."
"But when I've choked his damned life away----"
"Yes?"
"Ay, lad."
"There'll be five more that seen her shamin' me. Tex--all hell isbustin' loose inside me!"
For a moment Calder watched, but that stare of cold hate mastered him.He turned his head.