Red Fire

by Max Brand

  “Did it take you all this time to walk there and back?” asked the yegg.

  “No,” replied Friedman slowly, “it wasn’t that. When I first got out and faced the wind, it seemed to blow the ideas out of my mind. I figured that it was best just to drift with the wind right out of the ravine. And I had gone quite a long distance, when there was a howling in the wind . . .”

  “Ah?” said Hagger, stiffening a little.

  “A sort of wailing, Hagger, if you know what I mean . . .”

  “Yes,” said Hagger. “I know what you thought, too.”

  “No, you couldn’t guess in a million years, because I never had such a thought before. I ain’t a dreamer.”

  “You thought,” said Hagger, “that it was the wail of the dog, howling behind you. Sort of his ghost, or something, complaining.”

  Friedman bit his lip anxiously. “Are you a mind-reader?” he asked.

  “No, no,” said Hagger, “but, when I started to leave the valley, I heard the same thing, and I had to come back. Maybe, Friedman,” he added in a terrible whisper, “maybe, Friedman, this here dog ain’t just what he seems . . . but . . .”

  “Cut out the spooky stuff, will you?” snarled Friedman. “How could a dog do anything like that?”

  “I dunno,” said Hagger, “but suppose that . . . well, let it go. Only he never seemed like any other dog to me, and no other dog could do to you what he’s done.”

  “You talk like a fool,” said Friedman, his anger suddenly flaring.

  “Who’s the biggest fool?” sneered Hagger. “You’d have to ask the dog.”

  X

  The ankle grew strong again. It should have kept Hagger helpless for a month, but, by the end of a fortnight of constant attention, he could walk on it with a limp, and it was high time for him to move. The weather that had piled the little ravine with snow had altered in a single day; a Chinook melted away the snow and filled the little creek with thundering waters from the mountains. The haze and the laziness of spring covered the earth and filled the air. It would be muddy going, but go they must—Friedman back to his shop in far-away Manhattan, and Hagger to wherever fate led him on his wild way.

  On the last night they sat at the crazy table with a pine torch to give them light and played cards, using a pack they had found forgotten in a corner. They played with never a word. Speech had grown less and less frequent during the past fortnight. Certainly there was no background of good feeling between them, and all this time they had lived with an ever-present cause for dispute sharing the cabin with them. That cause now lay near the stove, stretched out at ease, turning his head from time to time from the face of one master to the other—watching them with a quiet happiness.

  The dog was no longer the shambling, trembling thing of bones and weakness that first had snarled at the yegg. Now, sleek and glistening, he looked what Hagger had named him—a king of his kind. Two weeks of a meat diet were under his belt—all that he could eat, and days of work and sport, following through the snow on those hunts that never failed to send Friedman home with game, for the ravine had caught the wildlife like a pocket, the deep, soft snows kept it helpless there, and even the uncertain hand of Friedman could not help but send a bullet to the mark—had made the dog wax keen and strong.

  Now and again, briefly and aslant, the two men cast a glance at the white beauty, and every time there was a softening of his eyes and a wagging of his tail. But those looks seldom came the dog’s way. For the most part the pair eyed one another sullenly, and the silent game of cards went on until Friedman, throwing down his hand after a deal, said: “Well, Hagger, what about it?”

  It was a rough, burly voice that broke from the throat of Friedman, but then the jeweler was no longer what he had been. The beard made his narrow face seem broader, and the hunts and exercise in the pure mountain air had straightened his rounded shoulders. Hagger met this appeal with a shrug of his shoulders, and answered not a word, so that Friedman, angered, exclaimed again: “I say, what about the dog . . . tomorrow?”

  The keen eyes of Hagger gathered to points of light. For a moment the men stared at one another, and not a word was said. Then, as though by a common agreement, they left their chairs and turned in for the night.

  The white dog slept on the floor midway, exactly, between the two.

  * * * * *

  Dawn came, and two hollow-eyed men stood up and faced one another—Friedman keenly defiant and Hagger with gloomy resolution in his face.

  He jerked his head toward the bull terrier. “He and me . . . we’d both be dead ones,” said Hagger, “except for you. You take him along, will you?”

  Such joy came into the face of Friedman as nothing ever had brought there before. He made a quick gesture with both hands as though he were about to grasp the prize and flee with it. However, he straightened again. As they stood at the door of the shack, he said briefly, his face partly averted: “Let the dog pick his man. So long, Hagger.”

  “Good-bye, Friedman.”

  Each knew that never again would he be so close to the other.

  They left the doorway then, Friedman turning east, for he could afford to return through the towns, but Hagger faced west, for there still was a trail to be buried by him.

  And behind Friedman trotted the bull terrier. The sight of this, from the tail of his eye, made Hagger reach for his automatic. He checked his hand and shook his head, as so often of late he had shaken it, bull-like, when the pains of body or of soul tormented him.

  Every day, when Friedman went out to hunt, the terrier, after that first day of all, had trailed at his heels. Habit might have accounted for choice now, but to Hagger that never occurred. In a black mist he limped forward, reaching once and again for his gun, but thinking better of it each time.

  He heard a yelping behind him, and, glancing back, he saw that the terrier was circling wildly about Friedman and catching him by a trouser leg, starting to drag him back in the direction of Hagger.

  Friedman would not turn. Resolutely, head bent a little, he went up the wind through the ravine as if nothing in the world lay behind him—nothing worthy of a man’s interest.

  Then a white flash went across the space between the two. It was the dog, and, pausing midway, he howled long and dismally, as if he saw the moon rising in the black of the sky.

  There was no turning back, no pleading from Friedman, however, but, as though he knew that the dog was lost to him, suddenly he threw out his hands and began to run. Running, indeed, to put behind him the thing that he had lost.

  Hagger faced forward. There was happiness in his heart, and yet, when the white flash reached him and leaped up in welcome, he was true to his contract, as Friedman had been, and said not a word to lure the terrier to him. There was no need. Behind his heels, the dog settled to a contented trot, and, when after another hour of trudging Hagger paused and sat on a rock to rest his ankle, the terrier came and put his head upon his master’s knee.

  All the weariness of the long trail, and all the pain of the last weeks vanished from the memory of Hagger. He was content.

  XI

  He killed two rabbits and a pair of squirrels that day. Never had his aim been better, not even when he spent a couple of hours each day tearing the targets to bits on the small ranges in New York. He and the terrier had a good meal, and that night the dog curled up close to his master and slept.

  Hagger wakened once or twice. He was cold in spite of the bed of fir branches that he had built, and the warmth of the dog’s body. But he was vastly content, and, putting forth his hand, he touched the white terrier softly—and saw the tail wag even in the dog’s sleep. He had the cherishing feeling of a father for a child.

  When he wakened in the early dawn, he turned matters gravely in his mind. He could go back to the great cities for which he hungered, where crowds were his shelter, and whose swarms made the shadow in which he retreated from danger. But how should he get to any such retreat with the dog? How could the dog ride th
e rods? How could the dog leap on the blind baggage?

  For some reason that he could not understand, but which was simply that the dog had chosen him, he was forced to choose the dog. It was vain for him to try to dodge the issue and tell himself that he was meant for the life of the great metropolitan centers. The fact that was first to be faced was the future of the dog. He decided, therefore, that he would take time and try to settle this matter by degrees, letting some solution come of itself.

  For two days he wandered and lived on the country, and then he saw before him a long, low-built house standing in a hollow. He looked earnestly at it. There he could possibly find work. The mountain range and its winter lay whitening behind him, shutting off his trail until the real spring should come, and, in the meantime, should he not stop here and try to recruit his strength and his purse? Little could be accomplished without hard cash. So he felt, and went on toward the ranch house.

  There were the usual corrals, haystacks, sheds, and great barns around the place. It looked almost like a clumsily built village, in a way. So he came up to it with a good deal of confidence. Where so many lived, one more could be employed.

  He met a bent-backed man riding an old horse.

  “Where’s the boss?”

  “G’wan to the house. He’s there, of course.”

  He went on to the house and tapped at the door. A Negro came to the door.

  “Where’s the boss?”

  “Whatcha want with ’im?”

  “Work.”

  “Well . . . I dunno . . . I’ll see. What can ya do?”

  “Anything.”

  The Negro grinned. “That’s a long order,” he said, and disappeared.

  At length, a young man stepped from the house and looked Hagger in the eye.

  “You can do anything?” asked the rancher.

  “Pretty near.”

  “A good hand with a rope, then, of course.”

  “A which?” said Hagger.

  “And, of course, you can cut and brand?”

  “What?”

  “You’ve never done any of those things?”

  “No,” said Hagger honestly, beginning to be irritated.

  “Have you ever pitched hay?”

  Hagger was silent.

  “Have you ever chopped wood?”

  Hagger was silent still.

  “You’d be pretty useful on a ranch.” The rancher smiled. “That’s quite a dog,” he added, and whistled to the bull terrier.

  The latter sprang close to Hagger and showed his teeth at the stranger.

  “A one-man dog,” said the rancher, and he smiled as though he approved. “How old is he?” he asked at length.

  “Old enough to do his share of killing.”

  “And you?” asked the rancher, turning with sudden and sharp scrutiny on Hagger.

  Again Hagger was silent, but this time his eyes did not drop. They fixed themselves upon the face of the rancher.

  The latter nodded again, slowly and thoughtfully.

  “I can give work, and gladly,” he said, “to any strong man who is willing to try. Are you willing to try?”

  “I am,” said Hagger.

  “To do anything?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your dog, here . . . I have some very valuable sheep dogs on the place. Suppose that he meets them . . . is he apt to kill one of ’em?”

  Hagger stared, but he answered honestly: “I don’t know.”

  At that there was a little silence, and then the rancher continued in a lowered voice: “I have some expert hands working on this place, and they have a great value for me. Suppose you had some trouble with them . . . would you . . .?” He paused.

  After all, there was no need that the interval should be filled in for Hagger, and he said slowly and sullenly: “I don’t know.”

  The dog, worried by his master’s tone, came hastily before him and, jumping up, busily licked his hands.

  “Get down, you fool!” said Hagger in a terrible voice.

  “Hmmm,” said the rancher. “The dog seems fond of you.”

  “I got no time to stand here and chatter,” said Hagger, reaching the limit of his patience. “What can I do? I don’t know. I ain’t weak. I can try. Rope? Cut and brand? I dunno what you mean. But I can try.”

  The rancher looked not at the man but at the dog. “There must be something in you,” he said, “and, if you’re willing to try, I’ll take you on. You go over to the bunkhouse and pick out some bunk that isn’t taken. Then tell the cook that you’re ready to eat. I suppose you are?”

  “I might,” said Hagger.

  “And . . . what sort of a gun do you pack?”

  “A straight-shooting one,” said the yegg, and he brought out his automatic with a swift and easy gesture.

  The rancher marked the gun, the gesture, and the man. “All right,” he said. “Sometimes a little poison is a tonic. I’ll take you on.”

  So Hagger departed toward the bunkhouse.

  * * * * *

  It was much later in that same day—when Hagger had finished blistering his hands with an axe. At that time the wife of the rancher returned from a canter across the hills and joined her husband in his library, where he sat surrounded by stacked paper, for he was making out checks to pay bills.

  “Richard!” she said.

  “What’s happened, dear?”

  “How did that dreadful man come on the place? He has a face like a nightmare!”

  “Where?”

  “You can see him through the window . . . and . . . good heavens! . . . Dickie and Betty are with him! Your own children . . . and with such a brute as that! I want him discharged at . . .”

  “Hush,” said Richard. “Don’t be silly, my dear. Look at the man again.”

  “I’ve looked at him enough. He makes me dizzy with fear.”

  “Does a master know a servant as well as a servant knows the master?”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Well, my dear, when you look at the man, look at the dog.”

  It was a busy and tangled bit of play in which Hagger was employed in an apparent assault upon the son of the family, and, although Dickie was laughing uproariously with the fun, the white bull terrier had evidently a different view of the matter, for, taking his master by the trousers, he was attempting with all his might to pull him away from mischief.

  “What a blessed puppy,” said the wife.

  “Aye,” said the rancher, “there’s more in dogs than we think.”

  Red Fire

  This final installment of the four-part saga of Paul Torridon, a character known as White Thunder among the Cheyennes, was originally published in the June 30, 1928 issue of Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine under Faust’s Peter Henry Morland byline. Each installment is able to stand alone and yet, taken together, they comprise a coherent narrative. The first part, “Torridon,” can be found in Gunman’s Rendezvous (Skyhorse Publishing, 2015); the second, “The Man from the Sky,” in Peyton (Skyhorse Publishing, 2015); and the third, “Prairie Pawn,” in The Steel Box (Skyhorse Publishing, 2015).

  I

  It was a small band of buffalo, an offscouring or little side eddy from one of the black masses of millions that moved across the plains, and, when Rushing Wind came on their traces, his heart leaped with the lust for fresh meat. Parched corn and dried buffalo flesh, tasteless as dry chips of wood, had been his diet for days during a lonely excursion upon the prairie. He had gone out from the Cheyenne village like some knight of the olden days, riding aimlessly, praying for adventure, hoping greedily for scalps and for coups to be counted. But no good fortune had come his way. For ten days, patient as a hungry wolf, he had dogged the way of a caravan of white men, pushing west and west, but he had had no luck. In the night they guarded their circle of wagons with the most scrupulous care. In the day, their hunting parties were never less than three well-armed men. And though their plains craft might not be of a very high order, it w
as an old maxim among the Cheyennes that all white men shoot straight with a rifle. The Indians were apt to attribute it to bigger medicine. As a matter of fact, it was simply that the whites had infinitely more powder and ball to use in practice. The red man had to get his practice out of actual hunting or battle. Accordingly Rushing Wind had at last turned off from the way of the caravan and struck at a tangent from its line across the prairie, and now he had come upon the trail of the buffalo.

  When he first came on the trail, he leaned from the saddle and studied the prints. The grass was beginning to curl up and straighten again around the marks of the hoofs. So he knew that the animals had passed within a few hours. He set off after them cautiously, creeping up to the top of every swale of ground.

  It was a typical plains day, bright, warm, and so crystal-clear that the horizon line seemed ruled in ink. Presently he saw the moving forms far off. They were drifting and grazing to the south. The wind lay in the southeast. Therefore, he threw a long, loose circle to the north and west, coming up cautiously in the shelter of some slightly rising ground.

  Coming to the crest, he dismounted, and lay flat in the tall grass. This he parted before his face and looked out. He was very close to them. There was a magnificent bull. He admired the huge front, the lofty shoulders of the animal, but he knew that the flesh of such an experienced monster would be rank to the taste and so tough that teeth hardly could manage it—not even such white, strong teeth as armed the mouth of this Cheyenne. Then he slid backward through the grass.

  As he did so, a second rider to the rear, a man on a silver-flashing gray mare, dismounted and sank into the grass, and his horse sank down with him.

  Rushing Wind sat up and looked all around him, as though some shadow of danger had swept across his mind, like the dark of a cloud across the ground. It was not fear of immediate danger, however. It was merely the usual caution of a wild thing hunting in the wilderness, and, therefore, in constant dread of being hunted. For just as he had wandered across the plains in search of adventure and scalps and coups and plunder, so many another individual was cruising about the prairies, as keen as he, as crafty, as clever with weapons, as merciless.