Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US, page 448
“Don’t go sheriff,” said Sinclair. “I need a chat with you.”
“I’m in no hurry. And here’s the gent we was talking about. Here’s
Arizona!”
The sheriff had waved his two companions out of the jail, as soon as the prisoner was securely lodged, and no sooner was this done, and they had departed through the doorway, than the heavy figure of Arizona himself appeared. He came slowly into the circle of the lantern light, an oddly changed man.
His swaggering gait, with heels that pounded heavily, was gone. He slunk forward, soft-footed. His head, usually so buoyantly erect, was now sunk lower and forward. His high color had faded to a drab olive. In fact, from a free-swinging, jovial, somewhat overbearing demeanor, Arizona had changed to a mien of malicious and rather frightened cunning. In this wise he advanced, heedless of the curious and astonished sheriff, until his face was literally pressed against the bars. He peered steadily at Sinclair.
On the face of the latter there had been at first blank surprise, then a gradually dawning recognition. Finally he walked slowly to the bars. As Sinclair approached, the fat cowpuncher drew back, with lingering catlike steps, as if he grudged every inch of his retreat and yet dared not remain to meet Sinclair.
“By the Eternal,” said Sinclair, “it’s Dago!”
Arizona halted, quivering with emotions which the sheriff could not identify, save for a blind, intense malice. The tall man turned to the sheriff, smiling: “Dago Lansing, eh?”
“Never heard that name,” said the sheriff.
“Maybe not,” replied Sinclair, “but that’s the man I—”
“You lie!” cried Arizona huskily, and his fat, swift hand fluttered nervously around the butt of the revolver. “Sheriff, they ain’t nothing but lies stocked up in him. Don’t believe nothing he says!”
“Huh!” chuckled Sinclair. “Why, Kern, he’s a man about eight years ago that I—”
Pausing, he looked into the convulsed face of Arizona, who was apparently tortured with apprehension.
“I won’t go on, Dago,” said Sinclair mildly. “But — so you’ve carried this grudge all these days, eh?”
Arizona tossed up his head. For a moment he was the Arizona the sheriff had known, but his laughter was too strident, and it was easy to see that he was at a point of hysterically high tension.
“Well, I’d have carried it eighty years as easy as eight,” declared
Arizona. “I been waiting all this time, and now I got you, Sinclair.
You’ll rot behind the bars the best part of the life that’s left to
you. And when you come out — I’ll meet you ag’in!”
Sinclair smiled in a singular fashion. “Sorry to disappoint you, Dago. But I’m not coming out. I’m going to stay put. I’m through.” The other blinked. “How come?”
“It’s something you couldn’t figure,” said Sinclair calmly, and he eyed the fat man as if from a great distance.
Sinclair was remembering the day, eight years ago, in a lumber camp to the north when a shivering, meager, shifty-eyed youngster had come among them asking for work. They had taken pity on him, those big lumberjacks, put him up, given him money, kept him at the bunk house.
Then articles began to disappear, watches, money. It was Sinclair who had caught the friendless stripling in the act of sleight of hand in the middle of the night when the laborers, tired out, slept as if stunned. And when the others would have let the cringing, weeping youth go with a lecture and the return of his illicit spoils, it was the stern Sinclair who had insisted on driving home the lesson. He forced them to strip Dago to the waist. Two stalwarts held his hands, and Sinclair laid on the whip. And Dago, the moment the lash fell, ceased his wailing and begging, and stood quivering, with his head bent, his teeth set and gritting, until the punishment was ended.
It was Sinclair, also, when the thing was ended, and the others would have thrust the boy out penniless, who split the contents of his wallet with Dago. He remembered the words he had spoken to the stripling that day eight years before.
“You ain’t had much luck out here in the West, kid, but stay around. Go south. Learn to ride a hoss. They’s nothing that puts heart and honesty in a man like a good hoss. Don’t go back to your city. You’ll turn into a snake there. Stay out here and practice being a man, will you? Get the feel of a Colt. Fight your way. Keep your mouth shut and work with your hands. And don’t brag about what you know or what you’ve done. That’s the way to get on. You got the markings in you, son. You got grit. I seen it when you was under the whip, and I wish I had the doing of that over again. I made a mistake with you, kid. But do what I’ve told you to do, and one of these days you’ll meet up with me and beat me to the draw and take everything you got as a grudge out on me. But you can’t do it unless you turn into a man.”
Dago had listened in the most profound silence, accepted the money without thanks, and disappeared, never to be heard from again. In the sleek-faced man before him, Sinclair could hardly recognize that slender fellow of the lumber camp. Only the bright and agile eyes were the same; that, and a certain telltale nervousness of hand. The color was coming back into his face.
“I guess I’ve done it,” Arizona was saying. “I guess we’re squared up,
Sinclair.”
“Yep, and a balance on your side.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I’ve followed your advice, Long Riley. I’ve never forgot a word of it. It was printed into me!”
He made a significant, short gesture, as if he were snapping a whip, and a snarl of undying malice curled his lips.
“As long as you live, Sinclair,” he added. “As long as you live, I’ll remember.”
Even the sheriff shuddered at that glimpse into the black soul of a man; Sinclair alone was unmoved.
“I reckon you’ve barked enough, Arizona,” he suggested. “S’pose you trot along. I got to have words with my friend, the sheriff.”
Arizona waved his fat hand. He was recovering his ordinary poise, and with a smiling good night to the sheriff, he turned away through the door.
“Nice, friendly sort, eh?” remarked Sinclair the moment he was alone with Kern.
“I still got the chills,” said the sheriff. “Sure has got a wicked pair of eyes, that Arizona.”
Kern cast an apprehensive glance at the closed door, yet, in spite of the fact that it was closed, he lowered his voice.
“What in thunder have you done to him, Sinclair?”
“About eight years ago—” began Sinclair and then stopped short.
“Let it go,” he went on. “No matter what Arizona is today, he’s sure improved on the gent I used to know. What’s done is done. Besides, I made a mistake that time. I went too far with him, and a mistake is like borrowed money, sheriff. It lays up interest and keeps compounding. When you have to pay back what you done a long time ago, you find it’s a terrible pile. That’s all I got to say about Arizona.”
Sheriff Kern nodded. “That’s straight talk, Sinclair,” he said softly.
“But what was it you wanted to see me about?”
“Cold Feet,” said Sinclair.
At once the sheriff brightened. “That’s right,” he said hurriedly. “You got the right idea now, partner. Glad to see you’re using hoss sense. And if you gimme an idea of the trail that’ll lead to Cold Feet, I can see to it that you get out of this mess pretty pronto. After all, you ain’t done no real harm except for nicking Cartwright in the arm, and I figure that he needs a little punishment. It’ll cool his temper down.”
“You think I ought to tell you where Cold Feet is?” asked Sinclair without emotion.
“Why not?”
“Him and me sat around the same campfire, sheriff, and ate off’n the same deer.”
At this the sheriff winced. “I know,” he murmured. “It’s hard — mighty hard!” He continued more smoothly: “But listen to me, partner. There’s twenty-five-hundred dollars on the head of Cold Feet. Why not come in? Why not split on it? Plenty for both of us; and, speaking personal, I could use half that money, and maybe you could use the other half just as well!”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Sinclair, “I’ll give you the layout for finding Cold Feet. Ride west out of Sour Creek and head for a flat-topped mountain. On the shoulder just under the head of the peak you’ll find Cold Feet. Go get him!”
The sheriff caught his breath, then whirled on his heel. The sharp voice of Sinclair called him back.
“Wait a minute. I ain’t through. When you catch Cold Feet you go after him without guns.”
“How come?”
“Because you might hurt him, and he can’t fight, sheriff. Even if he was to pull a gun, he couldn’t hit nothing with it. He couldn’t hit the ground he’s standing on with a gun.”
Sheriff Kern scratched his head.
“And when you get him,” went on Sinclair, “tell him to go back and take up his life where he left off, because they’s no harm coming to him.”
“Great guns, man! No harm coming to him with a murder to his count and a price on his head?”
“I mean what I say. Break it to him real gentle.”
“And who pays for the killing of Quade?”
Sinclair smiled. He was finding it far easier to do it than he had ever imagined. The moment he made the resolve, his way was smoothed for him.
“I pay for Quade,” he said quietly.
“What d’you mean?”
“Because I killed him, sheriff. Now go tell Cold Feet that his score is clean!”
26
TOWARD THE FLAT-TOPPED mountain, with the feeling of his fate upon him, Bill Sandersen pushed his mustang through the late evening, while the darkness fell. He had long since stopped thinking, reasoning. There was only the strong, blind feeling that he must meet Sinclair face to face and decide his destiny in one brief struggle.
So he kept on until his shadow fell faintly on his path before him, long, shapeless, grotesque. He turned and saw the moon coming up above the eastern mountains, a wan, sickly moon hardly out of her first quarter, and even in the pure mountain air her light was dim.
But it gave thought and pause to Sandersen. First there was the outcropping of a singular superstition which he had heard long before and never remembered until this moment: that a moon seen over the left shoulder meant the worst of bad luck. It boded very ill for the end of this adventure.
Suppose he were able only partially to surprise the big cowpuncher from the north, and that there was a call for fighting. What chance would he have in the dim and bewildering light of that moon against the surety of Sinclair who shot, he knew, as other men point the finger — instinctively hitting the target? It would be a mere butchery, not a battle.
Sending his mustang into a copse of young trees, he dismounted. His mind was made up not to attempt the blow until the first light of dawn. He would try to reach the top of the flat-crested mountain well before sunup, when there would be a real light instead of this ghostly and partial illumination from the moon.
Among the trees he sat down and took up the dreadful watches of the night. Sleep never came near him. He was turning the back pages of his memory, reviewing his past with the singular clearness of a man about to die. For Sandersen had this mortal certainty resting upon his mind that he must try to strike down Sinclair, and that he would fail. And failure meant only one alternative — death. He was perfectly confident that this was the truth. He knew with prophetic surety that he would never again see the kind light of the sun, that in a half-light, in the cold of the dawn, a bullet would end his life.
What he saw in the past was not comforting. A long train of vivid memories came up in his mind. He had accomplished nothing. In the total course of his life he had not made a man his friend, or won the love of a woman. In all his attempts to succeed in life there had been nothing but disastrous failures, and wherever he moved he involved others in his fall. Certainly the prospecting trip with the three other men had been worse than all the rest, but it had been typical. It had been he who first suggested the trip, and he had rounded the party together and sustained it with enthusiasm.
It had been he who led it into the mountains and across the desert. And on the terrible return trip he knew, with an abiding sense of guilt, that he alone could have checked the murderous and cowardly impulse of Quade. He alone could have overruled Quade and Lowrie; or, failing to overrule them he should at least have stayed with the cripple and helped him on, with the chance of death for them both.
When he thought of that noble opportunity lost, he writhed. It would have gained the deathless affection of Hal Sinclair and saved that young, strong life. It would have won him more. It would have made Riley Sinclair his ally so long as he lived. And how easy to have done it, he thought, looking back.
Instead, he had given way; and already the result had been the death of three men. The tale was not yet told, he was sure. Another death was due. A curse lay on that entire party, and it would not be ended until he, Sandersen, the soul of the enterprise, fell.
The moon grew old in the west. Then he took the saddle again and rode, brooding, up the trail, his horse stumbling over the stones as the animal grew wearier in the climb.
And then, keeping his gaze fastened above him, he saw the outline of the crests grow more and more distinct. He looked behind. In the east the light was growing. The whole horizon was rimmed with a pale glow.
Now his spirits rose. Even this gray dawn was far better than the treacherous moonlight. A daylight calm came over him. He was stronger, surer of himself. Impatiently he drew out his Colt and looked to its action. The familiar weight added to his self-belief. It became possible for him to fight, and being possible to fight, it was also possible to conquer.
Presently he reached a bald upland. The fresh wind of the morning struck his face, and he breathed deep of it. Why could he not return to Sour Creek as a hero, and why could he not collect the price on the head of Riley Sinclair?
The thought made him alert, savage. A moment later, his head pushing up to the level of the shoulder of the mountain, he saw his quarry. In the dimness of that early dawn he made out the form of a sleeper huddled in blankets, but it was enough. That must be Riley Sinclair. It could not be another, and all his premonitions were correct.
Suddenly he became aware that he could not fail. It was impossible! As gloomy as he had been before, his spirits now leaped to the heights. He swung down from the saddle, softly, slowly, and went up the hill without once drawing his eyes from that motionless form in the blankets.
Once something stirred to the right and far below him. He flashed a glance in that direction and saw that it was a hobbled horse, though not the horse of Sinclair; but that mattered nothing. The second horse might be among the trees.
Easing his step and tightening the grip on his revolver, he drew closer. Should he shoot without warning? No, he would lean over the sleeper, call his name, and let him waken and see his death before it came to him. Otherwise the triumph would be robbed of half of its sweetness.
Now he had come sufficiently near to make out distinctly that there was only one sleeper. Had Sinclair and Cold Feet separated? If so, this must be Sinclair. The latter might have the boldness to linger so close to danger, but certainly never Cold Feet, even if he had once worked his courage to the point of killing a man. He stepped closer, leaned, and then by the half-light made out the pale, delicate features of the schoolteacher.
For the moment Sandersen was stunned with disappointment, and yet his spirits rose again almost at once. If Sinclair had fled, all the better. He would not return, at least for a long time, and in the meantime, he, Sandersen, would collect the money on the head of Cold Feet!
With the Colt close to the breast of Jig, he said: “Wake up, Cold
Feet!”
The girl opened her eyes, struggled to sit up, and was thrust back by the muzzle of the gun, held with rocklike firmness in the hand of Sandersen.
“Riley — what—” she muttered sleepily and then she made out the face of
Sandersen distinctly.
Instantly she was wide awake, whiter than ever, staring. Better to take the desperado alive than dead — far better. Cold Feet would make a show in Sour Creek for the glorification of Sandersen, as he rode down through the main street, and the men would come out to see the prize which even Sheriff Kern and his posse had not yet been able to take.
“Roll over on your face.”
Cold Feet obeyed without a murmur. There was a coiled rope by the cinders of the fire. Sandersen cut off a convenient length and bound the slender wrists behind the back of the schoolteacher. Then he jerked his quarry to a sitting posture.
“Where’s Sinclair gone?”
To his astonishment, Cold Feet’s face brightened wonderfully.
“Oh, then you haven’t found him? You haven’t found him? Thank goodness!”
Sandersen studied the schoolteacher closely. It was impossible to mistake the frankness of the latter’s face.
“By guns,” he said at last, “I see it all now. The skunk sneaked off in the middle of the night and left you alone here to face the music?”
Jig flushed, as she exclaimed: “That’s not true. He’s never run away in his life.”
“Maybe not,” muttered Sandersen apprehensively. “Maybe he’ll come back ag’in. Maybe he’s just rode off after something and will be back.”
At once the old fear swept over him. His apprehensive glance flickered over the rocks and trees around him — a thousand secure hiding places. He faced the schoolteacher again.
“Look here, Jig: You’re charged with a murder, you see? I can take you dead or alive; and the shot that bumped you off might bring Sinclair running to find out what’d happened, and he’d go the same way. But will you promise to keep your mouth shut and give no warning when Sinclair heaves in sight? Take your pick. It don’t make no difference to me, one way or the other; but I can’t have the two of you on my hands.”
