Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US, page 278
He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, produced Durham and papers, and proceeded to light up. Lawlor, struggling still to re-establish himself in the eyes of Bard as the real William Drew, seized the opportunity to exert a show of authority. He smashed his big fist on the table.
“Jansen!” he roared.
“Eh?” grunted the Swede.
“Where was you raised?”
“Me?”
“You, square-head.”
“Elvaruheimarstadhaven.”
“Are you sneezin’ or talkin’ English?”
Jansen, irritated, bellowed: “Elvaruheimarstadhaven! That’s where I was born.”
“That’s where you was born? Elvaru — damn such a language! No wonder you
Swedes don’t know nothin’. It takes all your time learnin’ how to talk
your lingo. But if you ain’t never had no special trainin’ in manners,
I’m goin’ to make a late start with you now. Put out that cigarette!”
The pale eyes of Jansen stared, fascinated; the vast mouth fell agape.
“Maybe,” he began, and then finished weakly: “I be damned!”
“There ain’t no reasonable way of doubtin’ that unless you put out that smoke. Hear me?”
Shorty Kilrain, coming from the kitchen, grinned broadly. Having felt the lash of discipline himself, he was glad to see it fall in another place. He continued his gleeful course around that side of the table.
And big Jansen slowly, imperturbably, raised the cigarette and inhaled a mighty cloud of smoke which issued at once in a rushing, fine blue mist, impelled by a snort.
“Maybe,” he rumbled, completing his thought, “maybe you’re one damn fool!”
“I’m going to learn you who’s boss in these parts,” boomed Lawlor. “Put out that cigarette! Don’t you know no better than to smoke at the table?”
Jansen pushed back his chair and started to rise. There was no doubt as to his intentions; they were advertised in the dull and growing red which flamed in his face. But Kilrain, as though he had known such a moment would come, caught the Swede by the shoulders and forced him back into the chair. As he did so he whispered something in the ear of Jansen.
“Let him go!” bellowed Lawlor. “Let him come on. Don’t hold him. I ain’t had work for my hands for five years. I need exercise, I do.”
The mouth of Jansen stirred, but no words came. A hopeless yearning was in his eyes. But he dropped the cigarette and ground it under his heel.
“I thought,” growled Lawlor, “that you knew your master, but don’t make no mistake again. Speakin’ personal, I don’t think no more of knockin’ down a Swede than I do of flickin’ the ashes off’n a cigar.”
He indulged in a side glance at Bard to see if the latter were properly impressed, but Anthony was staring blankly straight before him, unable, to all appearances, to see anything of what was happening.
“Kilrain,” went on Lawlor, “trot out some cigars. You know where they’re kept.”
Kilrain falling to the temptation, asked: “Where’s the key to the cabinet?”
For Drew kept his tobacco in a small cabinet, locked because of long experience with tobacco-loving employees. Lawlor started to speak, checked himself, fumbled through his pockets, and then roared: “Smash the door open. I misplaced the key.”
No semblance of a smile altered the faces of the cowpunchers around the table, but glances of vague meaning were interchanged. Kilrain reappeared almost at once, bearing a large box of cigars under each arm.
“The eats bein’ over,” announced Lawlor, “we can now light up. Open them boxes, Shorty. Am I goin’ to work on you the rest of my life teachin’ you how to serve cigars?”
Kilrain sighed deeply, but obeyed, presenting the open boxes in turn to Bard, who thanked him, and to Lawlor, who bit off the end of his smoke continued: “A match, Kilrain.”
And he waited, swelling with pleasure, his eyes fixed upon space. Kilrain lighted a match and held it for the two in turn. Two rows of waiting, expectant eyes were turned from the whole length, of the table, toward the cigars.
“Shall I pass on the cigars?” suggested Bard.
“These smokes?” breathed Lawlor. “Waste ’em on common hands? Partner, you ain’t serious, are you?”
A breath like the faint sighing of wind reached them; the cowpunchers were resigned, and started now to roll their Durham. But it seemed as if a chuckle came from above; it was only some sound in the gasoline lamp, a big fixture which hung suspended by a slender chain from the centre of the ceiling and immediately above the table.
“Civilizin’ cowpunchers,” went on Lawlor, tilting back in his chair and bracing his feet against the edge of the table, “civilizin’ cowpunchers is worse’n breakin’ mustangs. They’s some that say it can’t be done. But look at this crew. Do they look like rough uns?”
A stir had passed among the cowpunchers and solemn stares of hate transfixed Lawlor, but he went on: “I’m askin’ you, do these look rough?”
“I should say,” answered Bard courteously, “that you have a pretty experienced lot of cattle-men.”
“Experienced? Well, they’ll pass. They’ve had experience with bar whisky and talkin’ to their cards at poker, but aside from bein’ pretty much drunks and crookin’ the cards, they ain’t anything uncommon. But when I got ’em they was wild, they was. Why, if I’d talked like this in front of ’em they’d of been guns pulled. But look at ’em now. I ask you: Look at ’em now! Ain’t they tame? They hear me call ’em what they are, but they don’t even bat an eye. Yes, sir, I’ve tamed ’em. They took a lot of lickin’, but now they’re tamed. Hello!”
For through the door stalked a newcomer. He paused and cast a curious eye up the table to Lawlor.
“What the hell!” he remarked naively. “Where’s the chief?”
“Fired!” bellowed Lawlor without a moment of hesitation.
“Who fired him?” asked the new man, with an expectant smile, like one who waits for the point of a joke, but he caught a series of strange signals from men at the table and many a broad wink.
“I fired him, Gregory,” answered Lawlor. “I fired Nash!”
He turned to Bard.
“You see,” he said rather weakly, “the boys is used to callin’ Nash ‘the chief.’”
“Ah, yes,” said Bard, “I understand.”
And Lawlor felt that he did understand, and too well.
Gregory, in the meantime, silenced by the mysterious signs from his fellow cowpunchers, took his place and began eating without another word. No one spoke to him, but as if he caught the tenseness of the situation, his eyes finally turned and glanced up the table to Bard.
It was easy for Anthony to understand that glance. It is the sort of look which the curious turn on the man accused of a great crime and sitting in the court room guilty. His trial in silence had continued until he was found guilty. Apparently, he was now to be both judged and executed at the same time.
There could not be long delay. The entrance of Gregory had almost been the precipitant of action, and though it had been smoothed over to an extent, still the air was each moment more charged with suspense. The men were lighting their second cigarette. With each second it grew clearer that they were waiting for something. And as if thoughtful of the work before them, they no longer talked so fluently.
Finally there was no talk at all, save for sporadic outbursts, and the blue smoke and the brown curled up slowly in undisturbed drifts toward the ceiling until a bright halo formed around the gasoline lamp. A childish thought came to Bard that where the smoke was so thick the fire could not be long delayed.
A second form appeared in the doorway, lithe, graceful, and the light made her hair almost golden.
“Ev’nin’, fellers,” called Sally jauntily. “Hello, Lawlor; what you doin’ at the head of the table?”
CHAPTER XXX
THE LAMP
THE BLUFF WAS ended. It was as if the wind blew a cloud suddenly from the face of the sun and let the yellow sunlight pour brightly over the world; so everyone in the room at the voice of Sally knew that the time had come for action. There was no vocal answer to her, but each man rose slowly in his place, his gun naked in his hand, and every face was turned to Bard.
“Gentlemen,” he said in his soft voice, “I see that my friend Lawlor has not wasted his lessons in manners. At least you know enough to rise when a lady enters the room.”
His gun, held at the hip, pointed straight down the table to the burly form of Jansen, but his eyes, like those of a pugilist, seemed to be taking in every face at the table, and each man felt in some subtle manner that the danger would fall first on him. They did not answer, but hands were tightening around revolver butts.
Lawlor moved back, pace by pace, his revolver shaking in his hand.
“But,” went on Bard, “you are all facing me. Is it possible?”
He laughed.
“I knew that Mr. Drew was very anxious to receive me with courtesy; I did not dream that he would be able to induce so many men to take care of me.”
And Sally Fortune, bracing herself against the wall with one hand, and in the capable grasp of the other a six-gun balanced, stared in growing amazement on the scene, and shuddered at the silences.
“Bard,” she called, “what have I done?”
“You’ve started a game,” he answered, “which I presume we’ve all been waiting to play. What about it, boys? I hope you’re well paid; I’d hate to die a cheap death.”
A voice, deep and ringing, sounded close at hand, almost within the room, and from a direction which Bard could not locate.
“Don’t harm him if you can help it. But keep him in that room!”
Bard stepped back a pace till his shoulders touched the wall.
“Sirs,” he said, “if you keep me here you will most certainly have to harm me.”
A figure ran around the edge of the crowd and stood beside him.
“Stand clear of me, Sally,” he muttered, much moved. “Stand away. This is a man’s work.”
“The work of a pack of coyotes!” she cried shrilly. “What d’ye mean?”
She turned on them fiercely.
“Are you goin’ to murder a tenderfoot among you? One that ain’t done no real harm? I don’t believe my eyes. You, there, Shorty Kilrain, I’ve waited on you with my own hands. You’ve played the man with me. Are you goin’ to play the dog now? Jansen, you was tellin’ me about a blue-eyed girl in Sweden; have you forgot about her now? And Calamity Ben! My God, ain’t there a man among you to step over here and join the two of us?”
They were shaken, but the memory of Drew quelled them.
“They’s no harm intended him, on my honour, Sally,” said Lawlor. “All he’s got to do is give up his gun — and — and” — he finished weakly— “let his hands be tied.”
“Is that all?” said Sally scornfully.
“Don’t follow me, Sally,” said Bard. “Stay out of this. Boys, you may have been paid high, but I don’t think you’ve been paid high enough to risk taking a chance with me. If you put me out with the first shot that ends it, of course, but the chances are that I’ll be alive when I hit the floor, and if I am, I’ll have my gun working — and I won’t miss. One or two of you are going to drop.”
He surveyed them with a quick glance which seemed to linger on each face.
“I don’t know who’ll go first. But now I’m going to walk straight for that door, and I’m going out of it.”
He moved slowly, deliberately toward the door, around the table. Still they did not shoot.
“Bard!” commanded the voice which had spoken from nowhere before. “Stop where you are. Are you fool enough to think that I’ll let you go?”
“Are you William Drew?”
“I am, and you are — —”
“The son of John Bard. Are you in this house?”
“I am; Bard, listen to me for thirty seconds — —”
“Not for three. Sally, go out of this room and through that door.”
There was a grim command in his voice. It started her moving against her will. She paused and looked back with an imploring gesture.
“Go on,” he repeated.
And she passed out of the door and stood there, a glimmering figure against the night. Still there was not a shot fired, though all those guns were trained on Bard.
“You’ve got me Drew,” he called, “but I’ve got you, and your hirelings — all of you, and I’m going to take you to hell with me — to hell!”
He jerked his gun up and fired, not at a man, for the bullet struck the thin chain which held the gasoline lamp suspended, struck it with a clang, and it rushed down to the table. It struck, but not with the loud explosion which Bard had expected. There was a dull report, as of a shot fired at a great distance, the scream of Sally from the door, and then liquid fire spurted from the lamp across the table, whipped in a flare to the ceiling, and licked against the walls. It shot to all sides but it shot high, and every man was down on his face.
Anthony, scarcely believing that he was still alive, rushed for the door, with a cry of agony ringing in his ears from the voice beyond the room. One man in all that crowd was near enough or had the courage to obey the master even to the uttermost. The gaunt form of Calamity Ben blocked the doorway in front of Bard, blocked it with poised revolver.
“Halt!” he yelled.
But the other rushed on. Calamity whipped down the gun and fired, but even before the trigger was pulled he was sagging toward the floor, for Bard had shot to kill. Over the prostrate form of the cowpuncher he leaped, and into the night, where the white face of Sally greeted him.
Outside the red inferno of that room, as if the taste of blood had maddened him, he raised his arms and shouted, like one crying a wild prayer: “William Drew! William Drew! Come out to me!”
Small, strong hands gripped his wrists and turned him away from the house.
“You fool!” cried Sally. “Ride for it! You’ve raised your hell at last — I knew you would!”
Red light flared in all the windows of the dining-room; shouts and groans and cursing poured out of them. Bard turned and followed her out toward the stable on the run, and he heard her moaning as she ran: “I knew! I knew!”
She mounted her horse, which was tethered near the barn. He chose at random the first horse he reached, a grey, threw on his back the saddle which hung from the peg behind, mounted, and they were off through the night. No thought, no direction; but only in blind speed there seemed to be the hope of a salvation.
A mile, two miles dropped behind them, and then in an open stretch, for he had outridden her somewhat, Anthony reined back, caught the bridle of her horse, and pulled it down to a sharp trot.
“Why have you come?”
Their faces were so close that even through the night he could see the grim set of her lips.
“Ain’t you raised your hell — the hell you was hungry to raise? Don’t you need help?”
“What I’ve done is my own doing. I’ll take the burden of it.”
“You’ll take a halter for it, that’s what you’ll take. The whole range’ll rise for this. You’re marked already. Everywhere you’ve gone you’ve made an enemy. They’ll be out to get you — Nash — Boardman — the whole gang.”
“Let ’em come. I’d do this all over again.”
“Born gunman, eh? Bard, you ain’t got a week to live.”
It was fierceness; it was a reproach rather than sorrow.
“Then let me go my own way. Why do you follow, Sally?”
“D’you know these mountains?”
“No, but — —”
“Then they’d run you down in twelve hours. Where’ll you head for?”
He said, as the first thought entered his mind: “I’ll go for the old house that Drew has on the other side of the range.”
“That ain’t bad. Know the short cut?”
“What cut?”
“You can make it in five hours over one trail. But of course you don’t know. Nobody but old Dan and me ever knowed it. Let go my bridle and ride like hell.”
She jerked the reins away from him and galloped off at full speed. He followed.
“Sally!” he called.
But she kept straight ahead, and he followed, shouting, imploring her to go back. Finally he settled to the chase, resolved on overtaking her. It was no easy task, for she rode like a centaur, and she knew the way.
CHAPTER XXXI
NASH STARTS THE FINISH
THROUGH THE WINDOWS and the door the cowpunchers fled from the red spurt of the flames, each man for himself, except Shorty Kilrain, who stooped, gathered the lanky frame of Calamity Ben into his arms, and staggered out with his burden. The great form of William Drew loomed through the night.
His hand on the shoulder of Shorty, he cried: “Is he badly burned?”
“Shot,” said Kilrain bitterly, “by the tenderfoot; done for.”
It was strange to hear the big voice go shrill with pain.
“Shot? By Anthony? Give him to me.”
Kilrain lowered his burden to the ground.
“You’ve got him murdered. Ain’t you through with him? Calamity, he was my pal!”
But the big man thrust him aside and knelt by the stricken cowpuncher.
He commanded: “Gather the boys; form a line of buckets from the pump; fight that fire. It hasn’t a hold on the house yet.”
The habit of obedience persisted in Kilrain. Under the glow of the fire, excited by the red light, the other man stood irresolute, eager for action, but not knowing what to do. A picture came back to him of a ship labouring in a storm; the huddling men on the deck; the mate on the bridge, shrieking his orders through a megaphone. He cupped his hands at his mouth and began to bark orders.
