Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US, page 555
He went out behind his guest. Under the trees Givain called, and Sally came softly to his side. The sheriff said not a word. Neither did he walk curiously around her. But having stared at her bright eyes for a time, he turned abruptly upon his heel and strode away through the dark, telling Givain to follow him.
The sheriff led them into a small stable, so well kept that it was fragrant with sweet hay. He opened a door upon a box stall and pointed inside, and then he tossed in a bundle of straw so that Givain could bed down his favorite. He climbed into the loft and gave her hay with his own fork, and he brought out a measure of oats for her. Givain divided the portion in two.
“She isn’t used to high fare,” he said. “It might upset her stomach. A thistle and a bit of dead grass is all she expects.”
“Made like a Thoroughbred and tough as a mustang,” commented the sheriff. “I’ve dreamed of hosses like that kind all my life, and I’ve tried to get ’em by crossing breeds and by careful raising. But it wasn’t no good. A good hoss is like a great man. You never can tell when they’ll spring up.”
They went back to the house and sat down with their cigarettes.
“But,” said the sheriff suddenly, “what the devil would folks think, if they looked in and saw me here with you? And what do you want with me now that your hoss is fed?”
“I’ve come to make a bargain.”
“To make a bargain you’ve got to have something I want.”
“I have,” said Givain.
“Only your freedom,” said the sheriff.
“You’re wrong. I can try to get rid of a man you’d much rather see go than myself. I mean Al Richards!”
“What the devil,” murmured the sheriff. “D’you mean that you’d have anything to do with Al Richards for love or money?”
“For neither,” said Givain not quite truthfully. “But he and I have an old grudge against one another.”
“I know,” said the sheriff. “Richards has been talking about it. When he heard how you had been to town before him, he said it was not the first time you had crossed his path. He told how his gun had stuck in the holster, and how that let you beat him. He told how he’s been chasing you ever since.”
“That,” said Givain, with a strange lifting of his upper lip, “was mighty kind of him. Well, Sheriff, I don’t like to be chased by any man except by a sheriff, with his badge on, and all that.”
“I see,” said Campton, grinning.
“What I want you to do is to make me free in this town three days from now.”
“Eh?”
“If I were to appear in the streets now, what would happen?”
“More things than you could count, I guess.”
“I want you to let ’em know that three days from today, in the morning at eleven o’clock, I’m not to be molested, when I ride into town and head for the blacksmith shop of Bob Mundy. Tell them that I’ve heard how Richards is talking, and that I’ve beaten him once, and that I swear that I can beat him again. I’m to be allowed liberty to ride freely to that blacksmith shop and have it out with Richards. Will you spread that word around?”
The sheriff merely gaped at him.
“You get rid of one of us for good and forever,” said Givain. “Maybe you get rid of both of us. What I’m asking you to do is to spread the news around the town.”
The sheriff rose, walked a gangling stride through the room, then turned, and laid his great hand upon the head of Givain.
“What game have you planned?” he asked.
“Sheriff, I have to get Richards out of this town.”
“For what?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It does, though. I’ve got to know.”
“For a girl, then,” said Givain, and neither flushed nor smiled.
“Ah,” said the sheriff. “Ah! I might’ve knowed that Rose Mundy’s smile would be behind this deviltry some place. I never could make out whether the smiling of Rose or the fighting of Bob would be doing the most harm in this world. But now I see what’s what. He ain’t armed with even a paper knife compared to her. She’s sending you to get killed by Richards?”
“I said nothing of that,” said Givain angrily. “I haven’t mentioned the lady’s name!”
“Tut, tut,” said the sheriff. “If I was ten years younger, I’d be a fool about Rose, too. Well, well — the young men hunt the pretty faces, and not what’s behind the faces — so go your own way to the devil and trouble, Givain.”
“What of the message?”
“Message?” The sheriff ran his fingers through his sparse hair and, thereby, made it stand straight up on end. “You couldn’t be headed off?” he said plaintively. “Because what would become of Sally once you was gone?”
“I leave her to the best horseman I know — to Sheriff Campton!”
The sheriff turned a fiery red. He clasped his great bony hands together.
“Man, man,” he murmured, “don’t be talking any faster than you mean.”
“Every word is the straight truth and nothing but the truth.”
“Well,” said the sheriff with a great sigh, “Sally aside, I think I got to spread that news around. It’ll make a lot of talk. And if you’re bound to be a fool, you can ride into town safe enough on a morning three days from this.”
IX. RICHARDS AND THE INTERLOCUTOR
IT WAS NEWS of such a quality which the sheriff had to spread that in half an hour the entire town had heard of it. He had merely to step from his house and pass on the tidings to one person. But the person the sheriff selected, after he had bid the gambler good bye, was chosen with wonderful care and forethought.
He watched Givain out of sight, and then he walked up the street and rapped at the door of a house perhaps a hundred yards from his own. He rapped not at the front door, but to the rear, where the light of the kitchen lamp and the fragrance from the kitchen announced that supper was in preparation.
A large woman, red-faced from many leanings over the hot stove, opened the door to him. Under one armpit was tucked the cloth with which she had been opening the oven. She was meditatively licking a finger of her hand that had been burned in the last adventure with the erratic oven door. At sight of the sheriff the frown of irritation was smoothed away. “If it ain’t the sheriff!” she cried, half mining her head so that her voice would pass resonantly throughout the house and perhaps reach the envious ears of Mrs. Murphy in the adjoining shack. “If it ain’t the sheriff, and just in time to have supper.”
“I ain’t for supper, ma’am,” said the sheriff, as he doffed his hat to her and, thereby, pulled a struggling gray hair forelock across his brown forehead. “I ain’t for supper, but I just chanced over to ask if you happened to have a mite of salt to spare. Dog-gone me, if I ain’t plumb run out!”
“I got a whole barrelful,” said Mrs. Snyder kindly. “Now ain’t it like a man to order everything, except what’s needed most of all for his cooking. I’ll have you a snack of salt fixed in a jiffy, Sheriff.” And she poured some into a cup and gave it to him.
“But food is going to waste in this house this night, Sheriff,” she assured him as she gave him the package. “I got more’n my man and my boys could ever in goodness eat up, and just room for another hearty eater at the far end of my table—”
“I got my own dinner, warming up on the stove,” said the sheriff, lying with perfect smoothness. “I’ll be getting on back before things burn all up.”
“Well, well,” said Mrs. Snyder, following him a step through the door, “these are busy times with you, Sheriff, what with all the carrying on in this here town.”
“What carrying on?” asked the sheriff, with the bland eye of an innocent child.
“What carrying on?” she cried. “Why, with young Bob Mundy run out of town, and maybe murdered by that horrible gambler, and then this man-murdering Richards come to set right down amongst us — don’t you call that something worth talking about?”
The sheriff raised his eyebrows noncommittally. “I dunno that I been paying much attention to that for the last hour,” he said. “Other news just come in.”
“Other news?” gasped out Mrs. Snyder. And she panted with eagerness.
“Yep. Just had word from Givain. He wants a safe conduct into the town three days from this, in the morning, at eleven o’clock—”
“In the name of goodness, Sheriff, what’s a safe conduct?”
“It means, he wants to know if he can come safe and sound into town and out again.”
“What in land’s sake is the rascal thinking of? Of course, you ain’t going to give it to him?”
“I dunno that I ain’t.”
“Sheriff!”
“You see, the idea is that he wants to come in at that time to meet Al Richards in front of the blacksmith shop that Mundy runs. And, somehow, I ain’t got the heart to keep them two from fighting it out together.” And with this he strode away.
Mrs. Snyder followed him almost to his door, forgetful of the burning roast in her oven, forgetful of everything, except that she wanted to know details and, above all, whether or not this news had as yet been generally spread abroad. She learned that it had not, and with that her cup of happiness was full.
Two minutes later her family was gathered about her, five young sons with skins no sun could bum, with eyes brimmed over with deviltry, and her husband, who filled seven mouths three times a day and wondered every nightfall how he had managed it, And in three minutes more they had the whole story, with embroiderings of Mrs. Snyder’s own invention. And, shortly afterward, seven Snyders were speeding on their way to seven different households to tell their story. Like the ripples from around the fallen pebble, the news washed through the town. The sheriff had chosen the right spot to let fall his talk.
It came to the ears of big Al Richards, where he sat in front of his borrowed house upon the side of the hill. An old man was the only one brave enough to carry the message up to him. He arrived in front of the warrior just as the latter had finished packing his pipe with plug tobacco, and just after Givain had slid into cover under the floor of the rotted verandah. From his place he could look out through the lattice work and survey both the tale bearer and the destroyer of men.
He who bore the message was both withered and bent. He went upon tottering legs and a crooked cane that shook in his hands, and a perpetual tremor of age kept his thin, white beard shivering as though in dread of the death that could not be many steps before him.
“Well, Mister Richards,” he said, “I see you’re enjoying a fine evening and a fine pipe by yourself?”
Mr. Richards eyed the veteran. Then he brought forth a match and scratched it on his overalls. Next, he sheltered it between his huge palms while the red, reflected light glowed upon his brutal features. When the sulphur fumes of the tip of the match had burned away, he held the flaming stick over the loaded pipe and drew mightily upon it. The noise of his puffing was like the noise of a small engine, and the cords stood out on his great neck and made the collar of the loose flannel shirt rise and fall. Finally the pipe was ignited, although the wedge of tobacco in it was almost as solid as wood. And now he puffed forth a cloud of the brown smoke and glowered upon the ancient.
“What the devil do you want?” he said.
“Nothing,” said the other, shrinking back a pace, and then bracing himself as he realized that his great feebleness made him as inviolable of violence as any weak woman.
“I don’t want nothing,” he added, catching his breath and steadying himself. “I was just coming up here to pass a word with you and the time of the day.”
“You lie,” said the monster. “You lie like the devil. You ain’t done much work as the climbing of this hill for ten years. And you won’t climb this far again till you go to — heaven.” And he laughed. He was so contented with his stern jest that he now wiped the mustaches away from the upper lip and looked forth with something approaching to good nature upon the octogenarian.
“What might your name be?” he asked.
“Si Dean.”
“Well, Si, the truth is that you just come up here to have a look at me, ain’t it?”
“You’re worth seeing, Mister Richards,” said the old fellow politely.
The giant reared up his full bulk. He was not so tall. But in breadth and in bulk he was monstrous, indeed, and, as he rose, his huge mustang in the neighboring field laid back his ears and snorted with hate.
“You’ve seen me and yet you ain’t seen me. If you was thirty years younger, I’d wring your neck for coming up here to look at me. But seeing as you ain’t more’n an old goat ready to tumble into a grave, look long and hard. You ain’t seen my likes before and you ain’t going to again. Look at this here hand!”
He thrust forth his left hand, the fingers gnarled with labor and with power. The little finger was as stubby and as blunt and as thick as the thumb of an average man.
“Look at that hand! It’s worth seeing. That’s the hand that throttled Sim Harper. Look at this other hand. That’s the hand that shot Buck Jerome and young Saunders, and Milt Jeffrey and a few more — a few more — And look here. Here’s the gun that dropped ’em. Look at them notches. Them are each a dead man. And them other notches you see — them are — just decorations!” He laughed hugely. “Yep, them are just decorations!” He laughed again.
Si Dean shrank away and held one shaking and claw-like hand before his face. Perhaps it was the nearness of those awful paws that made him tremble. Perhaps it was the brightness of the revolver. Perhaps it was the dreadful truth about this man sinking in upon his soul of souls.
“Well,” said the monster, “now that you’ve seen, git out and don’t come back.”
“I got one bit of news for you,” said the old man.
“News,” said the giant, resting an immense foot upon a large and jagged boulder, “news for me?”
It was as though he considered it impossible for tidings affecting him to come forth from so negligible a source.
“Yes,” quavered Si Dean.
“What in the devil about?”
“About — about — I’m afraid it will anger you, Mister Richards,” Si Dean told him.
“You old rag-chewer, will you say what you got to say?” Then he added, half meditatively: “Or I’ll take you by a leg and see how far you would sail down the hill.”
Si Dean glanced hastily below him. Down the steep descent were ragged-edged stones, like the upturned mouth of a shark. He drew a quick breath.
“It was about a — a gent that sent a message to the sheriff.”
“Well?”
“That he was coming to town three days from today, in the morning, at eleven o’clock.”
“What of that?”
“And that he wanted to meet you in front of Bob Mundy’s shop.”
“He can find me. Who is he, and what does he want of me?”
Si Dean shrank to a safer distance. He looked behind and below him again at the rocks. They were hard, indeed, and yet how could he resist telling the cream of all his story?
“He’s a gent that says that he’s tired of hearing so much about the doings of Al Richards. He’s a gent that says that he licked you once before plumb easy, and that he’s going to do it again. He’s a gent that says they ain’t nothing to you but your size, and that, when he gets through, you’ll be whittled down plumb small.”
A tremendous oath tore the throat of Richards. “What’s his name?”
“Givain!” cried the old veteran. And then he cowered halfway to the earth.
There was no violence in Richards for a reply. Instead, as though he had forgotten that there was an interlocutor before him on the hillside, he lifted his head and then raised up his great hands to the night sky. Light from the fire that he had kindled inside the house upon the open hearth shone out through the door, however, and struck across his features, as rugged, as hard as the rock upon which his foot was based. And in his face there was joy, or something akin to joy. His eyes glittered with it. His hands trembled. His whole body shook with eagerness.
“He’s coming — to me — of his own self,” whispered the giant.
And Si Dean fled, stumbling, for safety.
Therefore, he did not see what Givain saw. For the latter saw the big man lean suddenly, seize the rock upon which a foot had been resting, and tear it from its bed. Up it came, all dark beneath, with small, white roots of grasses clinging about it, and from the full height of Richards it was dashed down upon another boulder. It cracked to a score of splinters, and every splinter was a heavy stone that went rolling or flying down the dark hillside. Givain heard old Si Dean cry out in feeble terror as a missile went hurtling past him. Then another rock rolled farther below, and another cracked sharply into a rivulet of water in the bottom of the hollow. After that was silence, and the giant dropped his arms.
X. THE HEEL OF ACHILLES
THERE ARE PRODIGIES that numb the body, the very faculties of the mind. And the gambler could not stir in his place of covert after the rock had fallen or after this vast mass of muscle and bone and venom had strode into the house.
But then Givain came forth from hiding, slowly, dragging one limb after the other with a conscious effort. His mind was full of panics. At every whisper of the wind it seemed to him that it was the rushing of the air in the clothes of Richards as the latter sped upon him in the dark. And, once perceived, he could not fly. There was no strength in his heart to bear him up, and there was no strength in his limbs.
And yet he could have smiled at the irony of this event. For he had climbed the hill in the vain, small hope that the girl had been right, that this giant had some vulnerable point, that, like Achilles, he had been only partially blessed with invincibility to the gods of war, and that he, Givain, might spy the weakness out. He had believed that speech of Rose Mundy’s because he was almost forced to believe it. There was no other hope for him.
