Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US, page 578
“Supposin’ that they cut sidewise across the hills?”
“It don’t make no difference. Only thing that they could of done was to cut straight back across country. We’ve drawed a circle beginning at the cut, yonder, where we blocked ’em off. We got the edges of that circle all lined with men, and the lines only got to move in closer to the center. The nearer they get to the center the surer they are of baggin’ ’em. They’re as good as ours.”
“This’ll teach man killin’, murderin’, robbin’ swine to keep out of Cranston County!”
They drew nearer. One stumbled. He was so near that Allan could hear not only his exclamation, but the little indrawn breath of anger and of pain which preceded it. And then — they were past! He could turn his eyes and see them marching away across the little plateau in a line, talking busily, until they dipped into one of the gorges where the other hunters were busily at work.
22. THE KID IS RIGHT
TO HIS KNEES rose Allan, his mighty grip on the collar of his captive at the base of the throat where, with one powerful twist, he could throttle his victim. He looked around and made sure that there was no other man in sight.
“Now,” said Allan, “you’ve had bad luck, Bill. You swear to keep still and make no noise?”
“You’ve got me,” said the other. “I’m beat. I’ll swear anything that you want.”
“Get up and walk ahead of me — this way — that’s right.”
So he guided his man back to the hollow, carrying in his own hand the revolver which poor Bill had dropped. Bill was a middle-aged, stoutly built man with a pair of hanging side whiskers and a long, high-arched nose which gave his face, together with a glittering little pair of eyes, an air of the shrewdest penetration. At the hollow he gasped with amazement when the low voice of Allan called forth the hidden men from their place of concealment.
“And we was standin’ right over you!” said Bill.
The first word for Allan was not praise for his accomplishment. It was the brutal snarl of Sam Buttrick.
“Why’d you bring him back to us? I don’t want to see him. Make him safe and make him safe pronto, say I!”
There was no mistaking this butcher’s meaning, and to make it all the clearer he drew his revolver, took it by the barrel and weighed the heavy butt as though prepared to dash out the brains of the captive on the spot. And poor Bill shrank back toward Allan.
The latter was sick at heart.
“Keep back, Sam,” he warned the big man. “I’ve given Bill my word that he’s safe with us so long as he treats us honestly.”
“Your word?” sneered Buttrick. “What’s the word of a kid like you among men?”
“You’re out of your head, Sam,” broke in Geer. “But what can we do with this gent, Al?”
“Take him with us a way.”
“To have him show us up?”
“Leave him here, then.”
“We’ve got no time to gag him and tie him.”
“Take him part way. And this is the way — back across the top of this hill and then down across the cut on the farther side.”
“Do you mean it, Al?” asked Jim anxiously, while the two elder men merely stared.
“I’ll explain while we go; I heard them say that they’ve drawn a circle around us. The best way is to turn straight back.”
“It sounds queer to me,” doubted Jim.
“He’s nutty,” said Buttrick. “He wants to run us all into jail and then turn State’s evidence, or something, to save his own head. I know that kind!”
“We got to do something quick,” said Geer. “An’ I’m goin’ to split the difference and start goin’.”
With that he slung his treasure pack over his shoulder, turned on his heel, and started off down the plateau at a long, slinking run which covered the ground with the greatest speed. Buttrick at once made off after him.
“Jim,” pleaded Allan, “I tell you I heard them with my own ears; they said they’d drawn a complete circle around the whole range of hills in that direction.”
“Looks like it’s too big a job for them to have done that so quick.”
“They’ve used the telephone, I tell you! The whole country’s up and searching for us.”
“No matter what the country’s doin’, Al, there go the pals that have rode with us to-night. Our place is with them.”
And, with this unanswerable argument, he turned off to follow in their footsteps. There was nothing left for Allan to do except, with a groan, to order Bill to run ahead of him. In a trice they were streaking down the plateau and into the very teeth of danger, as Allan was certain beforehand.
For all the strength of Sam Buttrick’s muscles, his weight told against him when it came to running. Even the solid form of Bill was lighter afoot, and they presently overtook Sam and Hank jogging on drearily, side by side. For a half hour they struggled on in this fashion. Nothing appeared before them. Nothing was heard on either side. They came to the end of the little plateau and dipped among broken hill forms, interspersed with groves of trees and thickets. They had covered, perhaps, three miles in that time, and now Buttrick stopped and gasped; he could go no farther. He was exhausted, he declared, and would spend the rest of the night in hiding in the first covert. In the morning, which would come before long, one of them could keep a lookout. The others would rest until the dusk of the evening, and then they could all start forth again.
“We’re putting the rope around our necks,” said Allan. “They’ll beat across this entire country, by that time.”
“Does it look like they’re beatin’ this way?” asked Buttrick, and held up his hand to command silence.
In fact, there was neither sight nor sound to alarm them. There were other factors pleading on his side. It was pointed out that on the rocky plateau they would have left no trail which could well be followed. Furthermore it was well past midnight, and they were all, saving the inexhaustible Allan, well-nigh spent by the exertions of the day, which had begun early and had included so much hard riding and so much travel on foot.
“Besides,” said Buttrick, “we got to understand right here and now whether the old heads or the young uns do the commandin’ on this here trip!”
To this even Jim responded that it would undoubtedly be best to do in all things what Geer and Buttrick should decide. That point was thus settled. In five minutes the party was curled up among beds of leaves in the heart of the first thicket before them, sleeping or trying to sleep, with the prisoner, Bill, securely fastened to Allen in case he should try to escape.
Indeed, within a few moments the others were asleep, saving Allan to whom sleep would not come, and Bill, whom constant terror haunted. He did not know what might lie in store for him on the morrow when he became an encumbrance upon the fugitives. They held a whispered little dialogue there in the dark thicket among the sleeping men. It was far from cheerful.
“We’re lost. Bill,” said Allan.
“They was fools to foller the gent you call Sam,” said Bill. “Who is he?”
“Sam Buttrick.”
It was a name, evidently, to conjure with. There was a frightened little gasp from Bill. Then he was silent for some time.
“Tell me one thing, young man,” Bill said at length. “How did you happen to throw in with these gents?”
“That’s a long story.”
“It’s a sad one,” whispered Bill. “An’ Heaven help you before you’re done with ’em. You ain’t their kind.”
“What’s done is done,” said Allan gloomily.
“When you’re all took,” said Bill, “you can lay to it, son, that I’ll have something to say for you. An’ if you ain’t got the blood of no man on your hands”
“Why should you do so much?”
“You saved me from that butcher.”
Some one of the other three stirred, groaned, and demanded silence and a chance to rest, so that all talking ended here, but it was a drearily long night for Allan. The hours dragged by and it seemed that day would never come.
Once, when the dawn began to creep up through the trees, making them tall, jet- black forms, and when the cold wind which rises before morning among mountains was beginning to blow and search through Allan’s clothes to his very heart, his captive ventured speech again.
“If you was to let me loose — like as if I’d got away during your sleep”
But Allan shook his head. The right or the wrong of this particular matter he could hardly decide, but he felt that, having been hunted like beasts by this fellow among others, they had at least a right to render him helpless to betray them. As for Buttrick, he assured Bill that the butcher should not lay hands on him.
Morning, in the meantime, came fast. The sun rose, and when its radiance fell in cold, rosy patches through the trees, the sleeping trio were wakened by cold, by hunger, and by bitter thirst. They had not tasted water for twelve hours and more, and they had endured much physical fatigue in the meantime. Neither had they a morsel of food with them. Their breakfast consisted of a cigarette and belts drawn a few notches tighter.
Nothing could describe the gloomy savagery with which they regarded one another now. The sleep for which they had halted had not refreshed them. Their appetites, ravenous from work, anxiety, and the mountain air, became so many tortures, and the rest which they hoped for during the day now became manifestly impossible.
The first and bitterest need, of course, was water. Bill was questioned. He knew of no spring near by. In fact that whole district was unfamiliar to him, for he had ridden many miles from his home region with the posse.
“To kill — or get killed,” snarled out Buttrick, his brutal eyes fastening upon the victim, and Bill turned pale, sallow yellow with fear.
Hank Geer, as being a most dexterous and cautious hunter, was commissioned to go out and locate water if possible. He was gone for an hour. He came back with a black face and sat down in silence. Instead of speaking, he merely rolled and lighted a cigarette, and smoked it in great drafts, inhaling the smoke so deeply that it nearly disappeared. It was a quarter of an hour before he spoke, and then it was to say, simply: “The kid was right.”
“What kid?” growled out Buttrick, whose hatred for Allan appeared to grow every instant with his own bodily fatigue.
“You know who I mean. Al was right. You was wrong. So was all the rest of us.”
“Right?” echoed Buttrick, turning pale. “About what?”
“They’re closin’ in on us. They’re all around us. Gents, they’ve drawed a circle clean around us. You can toss a coin to see what we’ll do!”
“They’s only one thing to do,” said Buttrick. “Bat this gent on the head and leave him here where he won’t be no more trouble to us. Then the four of us bust through the line. A couple might get tagged. A couple might get through. There ain’t no other hope.”
23. A TRUMP CARD
FOUR PAIRS OF eyes turned fiercely upon Bill. He moistened his white lips and tried twice before he could speak.
“Gents,” he said huskily at the last, “I sure see how you’re fixed. What I say is, tie me tight. Use a gag that dog-gone near chokes me. What could I do then?”
“Wiggle out of the trees and show yourself.”
“Tie me to a tree.”
“Work the gag out of your mouth and yell.”
“Not if you put it in tight enough. Nobody could do that.”
“We can’t take many chances,” said Hank Geer thoughtfully. “I know the way Buttrick thinks. But maybe he’s right this time.”
He fixed his terrible, dreamy eyes, devoid of human emotion, upon the victim.
“There’s four lives on that chance,” said Sam eagerly.
“Who’d do the work?”
“Me,” said Sam.
“Gents,” gasped out poor Bill, “I give you my word of honor that I’ll not make no noise. I’ll lie quiet. My word of honor that ain’t never been busted.”
Still they regarded him without a word, gloomily, fiercely, and he knew that his word to them was like a feather blowing on the wind. He turned desperately to Allan.
“Son,” he begged, “would you sit by and see a man with four kids murdered?”
There was no answer from the latter for a moment, but he had determined in his slow way what he must do. It was to draw out his revolver without haste and rest it across his knee, pointing straight at Buttrick.
“Sam,” he said at last, “it simply won’t do. It may be right for the rest of you, but I can’t stand it.”
“Geer,” said Buttrick at last, “the young skunk has me covered. You goin’ to sit by and watch that? Are you goin’ to murder me?”
The long, lean fingers of Geer were wrapped around his gun butt, but he did not speak. Action was close to his mind, but he had not yet quite determined.
“There’s another way out,” said Allan finally. “The three of you do as you please and stay where you please. I’ll stay here with Bill.”
The long fingers of Geer released his gun.
“You hear that, Sam?”
“I hear it. Then let’s start. What’s in his fool head I dunno. Maybe he figures that him and Bill could be hid where four would be seen. Maybe that’s it. I say, let’s start now — pronto.”
Geer also rose to his feet. “Come on, Jim,” he said. “The three of us can make a way for the lucky one to get through — if we shoot straight!”
But Jim shook his head. “Me and Al,” he said, “is partners in a way. It ain’t my style to leave him behind.”
That was all — very simply spoken, but with an unshakable determination behind it. Buttrick started to implore. For two to attempt to pierce the closing lines of the man hunters would have been insanity, obviously. But for three there remained a single chance. Was it not better than to calmly submit while the noose was being drawn about one’s neck? It was all in vain. Hank Geer merely shrugged his shoulders and sat down, and Buttrick, with a final groan, submitted also.
“It’s the kid,” he declared solemnly. “He ain’t brought nothin’ but bad luck on us since he joined. He’s our Jonah! Ain’t it plain?”
Geer nodded. “He’s got only one thing on his side,” he said quietly. “He’s square! An’ while he’s square, Jim is right. We got to stick by him.”
It was an overwhelming majority, now, and even Buttrick could talk no more. At least they could cast about them for a better hiding place. First they scattered the leaves and buried the cigarette butts in the spot where they had camped. Then they started on their search, and as they started Bill, with shining eyes, clutched the hand of Allan.
“If my kids live to see me ag’in,” he whispered, with his heart in his trembling voice, “they’re goin’ to learn to pray, and they’re goin’ to learn to put a new name in their prayers. Son, you’re white — all white — clean through!”
They had no luck on their earnest quest. They went to the edge of the grove which sheltered them and saw a sweep of open ground leading back toward the plateau from which they had fled the night before. There was one small hillock in the vale like an island in the sea, crowned with a narrow circle of trees. And as he saw, an inspiration came to Jim.
“Where does gents always fail to look?” he said. “In the places that don’t seem to have no chance of bein’ the right ones. When I was a kid I always lost my hat on the hat rack. I could find it a pile quicker if it was under the bed or stuck away in a corner. But if it was right under my eyes, I never had no luck. Would they ever think that we’d try to hide, all four of us, in a place like that over yonder? One look inside the circle of them trees would show us, if we was there. Nope, they’d never go yonder! Boys, ain’t it a chance?”
They grew enthusiastic immediately. Even Sam Buttrick for the moment forgot his gloom and vowed that Jim was the good luck of the party, almost strong enough to offset their “Jonah.”
So they went to the place at once and found it, in fact, ideally suited to shelter them from the casual view of any passerby. For, along with the circle of trees, there was a thick growth of shrubbery, so that they even had to break down a few of the bushes before they could make a place where they might sit down in a circle. Seated there they could see nothing of the outside plain; how impossible, then, would it be for them to be located unless a searcher actually walked within the circle of the trees?
Their spirits-now rose to a high point, but at the command of Geer it was decided that they should not risk so much as a taint of cigarette smoke in the air. They began to wait, one of those endless times of suspense. Yet in actual minutes it was not long before the searchers appeared. And when they saw them as they peered out through their screen of shrubbery, they could agree at once that against such forces as these, any attempt to have rushed the lines would have been useless and instantly fatal. Over the sector which they could view themselves — and surely the rest of the circle must have been just as thickly manned — they could see twenty well-armed men advancing. All carried rifles. Many of them had revolvers also in their belts. And their bearing alone gave proof that they knew how to wield their weapons. They went like hunters of deer, with keen eyes playing over the country before them. These were the men of Cranston. One might have culled a great city to find such another twenty and culled it in vain for such work as this which lay at their hands. Even Hank Geer, that sad-faced fatalist, shrugged his shoulders and grew a little pale as he watched them.
They were on foot. By easier routes their horses were brought on behind them. Seven horses came into view, led by one mounted man. He had avoided the plateau, apparently, and come on by a roundabout route, but in case of a sudden necessity, the horses would not be far behind the advancing line of the beaters.
Now the cheerful voices of those hunters seemed more terrible to Allan than any sounds he had ever heard. They called to one another that the work must be nearly at an end — to look sharp — to shoot straight — and the answers were always briskly alert. Hope made their fatigues seem nothing, just as despair weighed down the fugitives with leaden weights.
