The White Streak, page 1
THE WHITE STREAK
A Western Duo
Max Brand®
“The Masked Rider” by Max Brand first appeared in Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine (1/3/25). © 1924 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. © renewed 1952. © 2020 by Golden West Literary Agency for restored material. The name Max Brand® is a registered trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and cannot be used for any purpose without express written permission.
E-book published in 2020 by Blackstone Publishing
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental
and not intended by the author.
Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-09-408641-5
Library e-book ISBN 978-1-09-408640-8
Fiction / Westerns
CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Blackstone Publishing
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Ashland, OR 97520
www.BlackstonePublishing.com
The White Streak
I
It is the instinct of Nordic humanity, since the days of John Calvin, that man must be rewarded for suffering on earth. The Deity becomes a sort of divine bookkeeper whose balance must always strike at the end, and therefore the man who has harvested pleasures on this earth cannot reasonably complain if he finds that he is facing a debit hereafter. By the same token, he who lives in misery may expect a reward. Something is coming to him, and come it must!
For this reason young Jimmy Babcock approached the office of the bank president with a perfect surety and a peace of mind. For two years he had been engaged to Muriel Aiken; for two years he had walked the cold corridors of the Merchant’s Bank; for two years he had endured pain. It was true that he expected to marry Muriel a little later—with his next promotion—but that was only a partial reward for what he had endured. As he stood in the outer room, waiting to be called to the great man at the latter’s pleasure, he heard the shrill, yipping voices of schoolboys playing in the vacant lot, and he stepped to the window to watch. There were a dozen of them with half of a stuffed sack for a football and the true fury of gridiron warriors in their hearts.
Jimmy Babcock smiled and nodded at the sight of them. On that same vacant lot, he once had been a hero, had run touchdowns, smashed lines, and punched noses at need. But he had gone on to greater things. On the high school team, he had raced to many a victory; he had become a triple-threat man; he could run ends of smash lines; he could pass uncanny distances and make the ball float down as of its own birdlike volition to the receiver’s arms; and also he had what the newspaper reporters referred to as an “inspired toe.”
As a result of that, when he finished his high school course two years before, Jimmy was not unnoticed. Six great universities told him that their front doors were trembling with eagerness to receive him. That is to say, the universities themselves did not say so, because of course that encourages professionalism. But elderly graduates dropped in to see Jimmy as he was working in his father’s laundry that summer, and they made suggestions. It appeared that they had a paternal interest in his welfare. They had heard of him, and that he was an upstanding youth without the necessary means to go to university. Each, in turn, would be glad to finance Jimmy for four long years, but only if he would go to a certain college, and if, while there, he saw fit to turn out and join the football squad.
Jimmy, listening, had grinned horribly, as with a devouring hunger, because he knew exactly what would happen if he went on to one of the upper institutions of learning. He knew, his playmates guessed it, his high school coach was certain. There was Red Brennan, last year’s halfback, who had gone east and was starring for the Red. Well, what was Brennan? An ice wagon, compared with Jimmy Babcock. And there was Arrowdale’s splendid star of two years back who was now making glorious history in the Last for the Blue! Well, what of Arrowdale’s Man of Mystery when Jimmy Babcock had played against him?
No, he knew beyond the mere deeds in his record. He knew by the pride of his muscles and the fury of his heart that to him all football lines would be as waving reeds, to be slipped through, or rudely broken and trampled underfoot! He had not yearned to go to college for the sake of greater learning, because he was not an ounce a student. But with a mighty yearning, his soul had stretched out its hands for the glory that was his for the taking. His deeds in Dresser High School might ring through the county. His deeds for the Blue, his chosen Holy Land, would have rung through the wide United States. He would have become a famous man, his actions, his words, his very thoughts occupying more space in the public print than those of the president of our land.
But he was nineteen. Muriel Aiken was seventeen. And even if he were willing to wait until the end of four long college years, something told him that she would not. She would have the best heart in the world, and the strongest will. But where there is honey, the bees will eat!
She was too pretty, too happy, too friendly—and too independent—to remain alone in life. And so one day, while he was driving his father’s laundry wagon, and balancing in his mind the Red on the one hand and the Blue on the other, and wondering whether he would go out for the squad of ends or for halfback—at that moment he had looked up from a dream and seen Muriel Aiken walking racket in hand toward the tennis courts and a handsome blond youth beside her. And he had seen how womanhood was swelling in the body of Muriel and shining from her eyes.
That evening he dressed in his best and stood nervously before the mirror, wishing that his ears did not stick out so far and that his nose had not been peeled by the fierce summer sun. Then he went to call on Muriel and told her with a trembling voice that he not only loved her and intended to marry her but he was going to sacrifice his career to do so. That evening, Muriel, overcome, said no, and meant yes.
Then a religious enthusiasm filled the heart of Jimmy Babcock. He became pure of poker and late hours. Once a week he saw Muriel Aiken. And every day he labored hard and long in the bank.
He hated figures and figuring. They swam and whirled before his eyes. His very stomach writhed into a knot of horror and protest as he cast up accounts. But this was the pain he must accept in order to be happy forever. Sometimes his soul shrank as he cast his eye forward into the future, even as far forward as assistant cashier. No doubt that man was successful. But he was thirty years old.
Thirty years! Nine years between that age and the age of Jimmy Babcock! The same infinity which lay between his twelfth year and his twenty-first!
Heartsick when he considered such prospects, Jimmy Babcock would not give in. Just as he had labored in the frost of the morning and the dusk of the day learning the baffling intricacies of the forward pass until his big hands had mastered it, so now he bent himself earnestly to his labors. He never let a day go by with a single duty undone. And thrice the president, in those three years, had called him into his office, and thrice there had been an advance in pay. Oh, not a great deal, but enough to prove that the eye of the great man has seen and that it had understood.
So Jimmy Babcock, in that waiting room, held his patience and weighed the long cost before him, the long sacrifice already behind him, and said that Muriel was worth it all.
Then the door opened, and there issued a smiling borrower, and behind him William Parker, the bank president, nodded at Jimmy, and Jimmy went in.
The president usually went behind his desk at once, because the breadth of that mahogany surface was just the margin which he needed added to his dignity of age. For William Parker was only thirty-five, yet for eight years he had owned this institution, lock, stock, and barrel, and made it grow as the town of Dresser grew. Neither did he look a whit more than his age, what with his sandy hair and his pale gray eyes. But when he sat behind the authority of his desk and looked at a client as down the barrel of a rifle, his years became of little importance, and his knowledge of business, and the money in his vaults, was the one thing of importance. He had proved his prescience over and over. He it was who first had imported a geologist, paid him a fat salary, and thereby located oil. Now there were a dozen wells near Dresser. The giant skeletons of the derricks were the promise of future wealth, and young William Parker had brought this to Dresser and to the county. All he needed was the passage of years to make him a state figure. He anticipated time, somewhat, by doing nothing to prevent the falling of his hair, and by combing it so that the bald spot showed its increasing margin. He wore a closely cropped moustache and a beard trimmed to a point. Upon the street he wore a derby hat, chamois gloves, unbuttoned and loose upon his hands; he carried a brightly polished malacca stick. In these ways he built up, as one might say, a personality which was worth an extra couple of hundred thousands of capital to his bank and to his business.
On this day, however, Parker did not sit behind his desk. Instead, he walked to a window and beckoned Jimmy to his side. Standing half a pace of respect behind the great man, young Babcock noticed for the first time that, to an inch, he was the height of the great man, his shoulders of the same breadth and depth, his neck of the same round, hard make. Before, he had always thought of William Parker as a man of business. Now he realized that, with ten years knocked from his shoulders
Parker was saying: “In one way, Babcock, this is a bank. In another way, it’s something else. Do you guess what I mean?”
He pointed out of the window to the far-off rim of hills. To the rippling lines that descended to the plains. To the irrigation fields, softly green with alfalfa growing. To the black gibbets yonder—three of the oil derricks that belonged to William Babcock and Company.
“I don’t guess what you mean,” said Jimmy frankly. “Unless you mean something about the future of Dresser county, Mr. Parker?”
The other turned abruptly from the window. “I mean that this county is a living body. This bank is the heart which pumps blood through its veins. Looked at in that light, one will come to regard the bank differently. A heart has certain muscles, certain valves. Suppose that one of the muscles were inefficient, Jimmy?”
“I would go to a doctor, I suppose you mean?”
“Yes. Exactly. You’d go to a doctor if your heart didn’t function right. Well, considering that this bank is the heart of the county, pumping blood through the arteries of its business … suppose that there is a valve in that heart not seriously out of order, but still not as good and strong as could be wished?”
Jimmy Babcock frowned in the intensity of his effort to understand this language. But his effort failed.
Parker raised a stiff forefinger and behind it his gray eyes were cold and steady, as behind an aimed gun.
“I mean you, Babcock. For two years I’ve watched you. I’ve given you promotions to encourage you. I’ve tried to bring the best out of you. I’ve hoped that you would grow and expand, just as Dresser County had changed in ten years from a cow range to oil and alfalfa country. But you’re not what I want. You’re a faulty muscle, a leaking valve in this heart. I’m going to discharge you this evening … with a month’s pay in lieu of notice.”
II
Jimmy Babcock went back to his desk, closed his ledger, took his hat and the folded newspaper which, carried in his hand, gave him a businesslike dignity as he walked home after work.
He was about to walk out of the cage without a word, but at the door he changed his mind. This was like running away from defeat. So at the door he turned and faced the others.
“So long, everybody,” he said. “The can has been tied on me!”
Then he went away, knowing, from the corner of his eye, that heads had been nodded as though the others were not surprised.
He felt sick and a little dizzy. He was glad when he got past the front door into the street, for the sight of the blue sky was a restorative, and the noise of traffic heartened him. He was a failure.
Those others in the bank had known it long before, and that was why not a glint of surprise had appeared in their eyes but, rather, a touch of satisfaction. Not one had followed him, shaken his hand. Nobody had said: “Too bad, old fellow.” Or some such words.
Not in such a manner had his teammates spoken on the football field when he failed to make yards through the line or was thrown for a loss around the end. Then there was always a hand on his back.
“We’ll split them open as wide as a barn door the next time, Jimmy! We’ll send you through a mile!”
But then, that was because he had known football. The knowledge of it filled him. To the most mysterious enemy formations, he had felt the key of understanding tingling in his fingertips. One instant to dance back—then straight and true at the heart of the play, ripping the secondary defense apart, lodging his hard shoulder against the runner’s thigh.
That had been his business. He knew that. But banking was quite another matter.
Well, he had failed. He set his teeth and had to draw a breath through them immediately. He could remember others who had failed. Young Josh Perkins had tried out a place in the Wilkins Syndicate and lost it after a year. Eyes had followed him around the streets; a bell seemed to toll behind him … failure! Who wanted young men who failed? Perkins had had to leave the town and go elsewhere to find an opening worthwhile. And yet Perkins was not a bad sort of a fellow—a little slow, but a dependable guard and a great help on a play inside tackle.
Jimmy Babcock went down the street with a smile carved upon his lips. The ice wagon went by with a red-shirted Irishman on the front seat, whistling. And with a good reason—he had not aimed too high, but had taken his proper place in the world, and accepted three meals a day and a room without misgiving.
He walked along by the vacant lot, and the shrill yells of the football players rang hollow in his ears. They might learn to be good players on that field, but they never would learn to be successful businessmen.
It was early autumn; the days were shortening, and already the western shadows covered half the streets as Jimmy Babcock began to walk across the town toward the Hill. All the best residences in Dresser were there. The Aiken house showed its brow over a screen of trees—a new forehead, brand new.
The Aikens had made a lot of money in the past four years. William Parker had showed them how to do it. That fellow … he could turn anything into money! So he had lifted the Aikens up there to the Hill, with the rest of the successes of Dresser. They were on the same street as the Wilkins place with its tower, and the broad rear of Parker’s own house showed, masked by some thin columns of real stone.
No fake about William Parker! A man came all the way from Denver to carve the capitals. Thorough, that was what Parker was. Nothing cheap about him, no four-flushing.
A block from the Parker house stood the Club. Parker had founded that. With its founding, social distinctions really began. Before, there had been the whites and the Mexicans. Now there were the Club Members —and the rest of the town.
That was like Parker again. To his own high level he had drawn up a few of the select spirits.
At the foot of the Hill, a wind came scurrying and covered Jimmy Babcock with dust and dead leaves. He brushed them off without anger or malice, for it seemed only right that he should be overwhelmed by some sign of displeasure when he went up the road to the Hill. He came from the lower half of the city where his father owned a laundry.
The Aikens had a wrought iron gate now. They had a lawn, too. It looked a bit mangey, so far, but there was a splendid iron deer in the corner, peeping from among the shrubs, and in the center there was a fat lady in limestone, with legs like the tails of fishes. From a conch she blew forth a spray of water. Jimmy Babcock knew nothing about art, and he always told himself that as he passed by the limestone mermaid.
The Aikens had a divided stairway to approach their front doorway, like an old French palace. And when Jimmy Babcock had climbed to the top of it and rung the bell, he had to wait a minute and look forth on the lower flats of Dresser, and across to the bars of water that appeared among the alfalfa fields in the irrigation ditches. Down there in the flat—that was where the Babcocks belonged, running laundries and things like that.
The door opened, and the face of a Negro servant appeared. The eyes wrinkled kindly at him. Jimmy Babcock went into the reception room, and presently a step rustled to the door. There was Mrs. Aiken in a dress of flowered silk. She wore gloves, too. She generally did, for time would not fade the red of her hands nor reduce the veins of labor upon their backs.
“How do you do, Jimmy?” she said. “Did you bring a message from Mr. Parker?”
Jimmy grew red, ashamed for her.
“I came up to see Muriel, if I may,” he said.
“Muriel? Muriel?” said Mrs. Aiken. “I think she’s busy. I’ll go myself to see.”
She went off. It was plain that Mrs. Aiken was not charmed to see him—she who received William Parker.
It showed Parker’s heart that he had been so kind to the Aikens. He even was forcing rough John Aiken through the doors and into the Club, it was said.
Then footfalls tapped in the distance, and he heard Muriel’s cheerful voice. He heard the voice of her mother, muffled, rapid. But here came Muriel, undeterred, and swept into the room.
