Authors: Max Brand
I
T WAS NOT LONG AFTER TINS, FAR SOUTH FROM THE
Sierra Blanca, far south from Parmalee, that the horses lined up for a rodeo race. There was not much of a purse to be run for, but the betting was high. Nearly every cowpuncher in that section of the country had put up all he had; guns had been sold and spurs pawned to raise cash, and all around the little half-mile track there were tense spectators.
A dozen horses had lined up for the start. There was a long, low mare from the Indian country, and she had her share of betting; there was a dappled gray out of the Pecos region, a picture-horse that made many a cowpuncher reach for his wallet; and among the rest there was a brown stallion, rather time-worn, his hip bones thrusting up at sharp angles. Nevertheless, at least half the money had been bet on him, for that was Brandy and on his back was the meager body and the ape-like face of Lake, the half-breed.
Upon Lake and the stallion, one man stared with a peculiar intensity of interest. He forgot the race impending, he forgot the fluttering flags, he forgot the lowing of cattle in the distance. Suddenly the sun seemed to press on him with a greater heat. He took off his sombreo to wipe his face, and showed the features of a man who might be anywhere from twenty-five to thirty years of age, with a spot of gray hair over each temple. As he settled the hat back on his head, a man near him said:
“What you pick, stranger? My money’s on the gray. I never seen such a hoss.”
“If looks could win, he has the race before it starts,” agreed Silvertip. “But looks won’t beat Brandy — not if he gets an honest ride.”
“Honest ride?” said the other. “You think that that half-breed would — ”
The starting gun tore that sentence off short. The yell of the cowpunchers seemed to strike the sky and fly back from it in echoes. Madness of joy and hope set the watchers dancing. Only Silvertip remained aloof from the excitement, with the faint smile touching the corners of his mouth and his glance wandering calmly from face to face of the spectators, with hardly a glance at the racers.
The old melancholy had suddenly dropped on him in the midst of all this turmoil. These were men who wanted to win. To lose their money would be almost like losing their blood. Their eyes were wolfish, their nostrils flared. They struck at the air with their fists, or with open hands they pulled on invisible wires to draw their favorites forward in the race.
But Silvertip stood outside of all this. He had put down fifty dollars on Brandy as a mere gesture. He had a little silver outside of that sum, and that was all. But he was still more interested in the people than in the race. And, as he glanced from man to man, he was wishing with all his might that he could commit himself so utterly to a moment and lose every other thought.
It was a good moment for Silver, in a sense, for he was able to probe deeply into the minds around him, while they were regardless of his eyes; it was an evil moment in that it made him realize, more than ever, the strange gulf that separated him from other men. And suddenly he told himself, through his teeth, that if he could not gain an interest in any other way, he would resort to crime. There, at least, one could be assured of sufficient excitement to stir the blood.
People began to shout the name of Brandy. Silver saw that the field had completed the first round of the track and that they were well along the second and last lap, with Brandy running second to the gray stallion from the Pecos. Easily the long strides of Brandy covered the ground; he seemed to slide along as though he were the shadow trailed by a kite.
But in spite of the ease of his striding, he did not gain on the gray. And now the mare, the long, low-built mare, came streaking up on the outside. The stallion drew ahead. The gray and the mare fought nose to nose, while Brandy dropped gradually back.
A wail of dismay broke upward from the crowd; when men groan, they lift their heads.
“He’s too old; he’s worn out; Brandy’s done for!” men were saying around Silvertip, but Silvertip knew better.
He had seen the pull of the half-breed, something more than that weight on the reins which steadies a horse and helps it to stretch out to full speed. Now the whip flashed into Lake’s hand. It rose and fell methodically, while with his left hand Lake jerked at the reins. One would have thought that he was working with all his might to get the utmost out of Brandy, but the keen eye of Silvertip saw that those pulls on the reins were exactly timed to unbalance the stridings of Brandy. More rapidly he fell to the rear. Four horses in a cluster swept up and past him.
And then a dull heat began near the heart of Silvertip. It spread through his body. It flushed his face. It burned in his brain. This was not the first time that he had seen Lake at one crooked trick or another, but to cheat a horse seemed much more horrible than to cheat a man.
The gray stallion and the mare, still running head to head, rounded into the stretch. A furlong off, down the straightaway, was the finish, and both riders went to the whip.
Far, far back, was Brandy, but coming again as if with a second wind — a cunning trick on the part of Lake to give himself a chance honestly to ride out a horse that he himself had hopelessly beaten in the course of the running.
A yell ripped into the ear of Silvertip, the harsh, sudden outcry of many astonished men. Something had happened, and it was to Brandy. The right-hand rein had broken away at the bit, and, no longer troubled by the pull of his jockey, Brandy came up the track as if on wings. He rounded the sharp corner at the head of the stretch, swinging wide to clear the cluster of horses which was struggling there.
They fell behind. The track seemed to flow back against them, carrying them to the rear. Only Brandy it allowed to speed ahead.
Lake was no longer using his whip. It would have been like flogging an avalanche.
But far away, the gray stallion and the long mare were fighting toward the finish. Now the head of the gray began to bob. The mare shot ahead. Victory brightened the eyes of her rider.
Then the thundering of the crowd gave him warning as the chorus shouted for Brandy. There came the stallion on the outside, with enormous strides. The rider of the mare yelled with fear. The mare strained to her utmost under the rapid cutting of the whip. Very different was that picture from the sight of Lake, clinging to his place with a distorted face, one hand twisted into the flying mane of the stallion.
They seemed to strike the finish line at the same instant, though Brandy was immediately half a length ahead before the pair began to ease up. Perhaps that was what influenced the judges, and the name of Brandy was posted as winner.
The favorite had won, and so had Silvertip, but he collected his bet with an abstracted air. Drifting to the verge of the group that was packed around Brandy, he heard Lake explaining in a sullen voice:
“He kind of sulked. He dodged it all the way through the start. Then he got hold and run away on me. I never seen such a fool hoss.”
How much had Lake and Harry Richmond stood to win by pulling Brandy in that race — wondered Silvertip. What had been the life of the fine horse during these years? Unless he was very much mistaken in horseflesh, long ago Brandy’s name should have been among the winners of some of the great Eastern stakes; but still he seemed unknown, except in the pickup races of Western rodeos and fairs.
Silver drifted with the crowd, afterward. He was not a part of the rejoicing. All life seemed flat and savorless to him. The only fire that burned in him was one of steady horror that such a horse as Brandy should be in such hands as those of the half-breed and the crooked rancher, Richmond.
Silvertip was not drinking. He was merely wandering with the crowd, preoccupied. He had one pleasant surety, which was that in this place he would not be recognized. But even in that he was wrong, for a man with a square, lined face came up to him and tapped him on the arm,
“My name’s Dodgson,” said he. “I’m the sheriff of this county. I know you, Silvertip, and I wanta say that I’m watchin’ you. If there’s any gun play in
this
town, self-defense ain’t goin’ to be worth anything for you to talk about.”
He gave Silvertip a glimpse of his badge, and went on.
Silvertip, in disgust, turned into the first big saloon and took a whisky at the bar. Men were crowding up to the rail. Voices were shouting. Half of that crowd was already drunk, and their jolly condition seemingly was envied by the other half. But the liquor was no more than a sourness in the throat of Silver, a foul smoke in his brain.
He passed on into the big back room where a dozen groups sat at the tables, playing poker; the half-breed, Lake, was at one of them. The sight of him made the jaw muscles of Silvertip bulge. He came near, but not too near. He saw the progress of the game at once, and that all the flow of money was toward Lake. In ten minutes, one of the men pushed back his chair and slammed down the cards with such violence that one of them skidded into the air and dropped near the feet of Silver. The latter picked it up.
“It’s no good,” said he who had risen. “I’ve seen more cards here than I ever seen before in a whole night, but I can’t win. It ain’t my day, and I’m licked and busted. So long, boys!”
“Wait a minute,” said the voice of Silvertip.
He approached, holding the blue-backed card which had fallen to the floor. On the back of it was what he had expected — a faint blue smudge, almost indistinguishable to an inexperienced eye, and located half way between one corner of the card and the center of it. The card itself was a jack, and it was not hard to guess that every honor card in the pack had been similarly marked by Lake, by this time. Perhaps the entire pack was tampered with, and to the half-breed it would be as if the faces of the other hands were turned toward him.
“Wait for what?” asked the man who had left the game.
Lake, twisting about in his chair, saw Silvertip and turned a yellow-green. Fascinated, he watched while Silver threw the card back onto the table.
“Wait for Lake,” said Silvertip. “You don’t want to carry the joke any further than this, Lake,” he added. And to the other bewildered players he went on. “He takes a hand with the boys, now and then, but nobody ever loses through him.”
“What’s all this lingo mean?” demanded a fiery youth at the table.
“It means that Lake is shoving back the pile he’s won, and leaving the game,” said Silver. “That’s all. Take your table stakes, and come along with me, Lake.”
He saw the lips of the half-breed twist away from yellow teeth, but no words came. Then, selecting one stack of coins, Lake dropped them into his pocket, and stood up. His eyes were fighting those of Silvertip every instant.
“Is this gent a crook?” asked the youth of the party. “Is that why you’re hooking him away, big boy?”
But Silver gave no answer.
“Walk ahead of me,” he commanded Lake. “Go out the back door, and don’t try to get away. The spots are still on that pack of cards. I suppose you’ve still got the crayons on you. And if I split your wishbone for you, nobody will care a bit.”
T
HEY STOOD BETWEEN THE BACK OF THE SALOON AND A
woodshed, with a pair of dusty-leaved cactus plants near by. Lake was shaking like a bulldog that wants to hurl itself at a jungle tiger, despite all differences of size and fighting talents. But if the red fury was in his eyes, the green sickness of terror was in his face. The greatness of his emotion made his voice and his entire body tremble.
“There was twenty thousand bucks in that game,” he groaned. “I could ‘a’ had the whole of it. It was the best chance that I ever had, and I could ‘a’ had the whole of it! I’m goin’ to have the heart out of you, for this!”
“Why don’t I march you back inside?” demanded Silvertip, looking Lake over calmly. “Why don’t I take you back inside and show the boys the smudges on the backs of those cards?”
The half-breed was silent. But as he breathed, his nostrils kept working in and out like the nostrils of a panting horse, and the muscles of his ugly, frog-like face kept pulling at, and distorting his features.
“I brought you out here to get some information out of you,” said Silvertip. “The last I saw of you, you were trying to steal Brandy. How does that happen?”
“Ask Harry Richmond,” snarled Lake.
Silvertip smiled at him, and then made a cigarette. It was very dangerous business, for Lake had been tormented to the point of madness, and as he saw both the hands of Silver occupied, his own hands jumped and jerked several times in the direction of the guns that he wore under his coat. Yet something held him back; an invisible thread bound his strength and kept him helpless; with every moment the mastery of Silvertip grew more complete.
He was saying: “I won’t ask Richmond. I’m asking you. What happened after Brandy got away?”
“Richmond hunted him, and old Charlie Moore caught him.”
“Charlie still owns half the horse?”
“No. He gave up his half because Richmond made a big Job gettin’ Brandy back.”
“Richmond made the big job of it, and Charlie caught the horse, eh?”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
“What did Charlie get out of it?”
“He got a chance to groom Brandy every day and talk baby talk to him, and feed him, and set on the edge of the manger and rub his nose.”
“That’s what he got out of it?”
“Yeah. He’s a fool. But that ain’t my business.”
“What happened to Brandy then?”
“I took him East, and we put him into a coupla races.”
“
You
took him East? Then Richmond arranged with you to try to steal him, before that?”
“I dunno nothin’ about that,” said Lake sullenly.
The eyes of Silvertip shrank to points of brightness.
“Did Brandy win his races?” he asked presently.
“Yeah. He won a coupla. He was goin’ good.”
“What happened then?”
“He got off his feed, or somethin’. He quit winnin’.”
“He couldn’t win at all?”
“The dirty crooks, they went and double-crossed us! They throwed Richmond and me and Brandy clean off the tracks. Just when we were ready to haul in the big dough, they ruled us off.”
“Because you pulled Brandy in a race?” suggested Silvertip. “Because you bet against him, and pulled him in a race, eh?”
“He was off his feed,” muttered Lake.
The faint smile of Silver twisted at one corner of his mouth only. “You threw away your big chance, eh?” said he. “You wanted the quick money — the dirty money. You got one taste of it, and you threw away your chance of the long green, and you threw away Brandy’s chance of becoming a famous horse. Ever since that time, you’ve been dodging around the country, racing Brandy under different names at little rodeos and country fairs. Is that the story?”
“You think you know everything,” growled Lake. “What’s the good of me tryin’ to tell you anything?”
“What a dirty, sneaking lot you are!” said Silvertip calmly. “Where’s Moore now?”
“I dunno where the old fool is. Somewhere singin’, I guess, because Brandy won the race.”
“He wouldn’t have won if you’d had your way,” observed Silvertip. “I suppose you and Richmond lost a good deal of coin today, betting against your horse?”
The face of Lake worked. He made no other answer.
“And where would Charlie be?” insisted Silvertip.
“I dunno. Out in the sheds at the rodeo grounds, maybe, coolin’ off Brandy. Always takes the old fool two or three hours to cool off Brandy after a race. Cool him off and rub him down. You’d think that old skate was a pack of diamonds, the way Charlie works over him.”
That was why Silvertip went back to his horse, mounted, and returned to the rodeo grounds. Everyone else had left. It was nearly sunset, and the golden waves of light that rolled across the earth showed only the white head of Charlie Moore, as he walked back and forth, followed by Brandy.
There was no halter on the stallion, but he kept his head close to the left shoulder of his handler all the time. Now that the saddle was off him, he seemed to Silvertip older and more timeworn than ever. Still, he was a horse in ten thousand, with a certain lordliness about even his walking gait.
When Charlie Moore saw Silver, he cried out in a loud voice, and came running; the stallion trotted softly behind him. A moment later, Silver was on the ground, shaking hands.
“All these here years — doggone my soul!” said Charlie Moore. “Where you been, Silvertip?”
“I’ve been here and there,” said Silver.
“I know,” said Moore. “We get rumors and whispers, now and then. It ain’t newspaper stuff. But sometimes we run into a gent that starts talkin’ about a big gent that he knew, somewhere down in Mexico, or up in Alaska, or off in the South Seas, or down in Nicaragua, say. And he’ll tell a terrible yarn about what the big gent done, and then he’ll say there’s a coupla gray spots in his hair.”
“That’s a lot of talk,” said Silvertip. “I’ve been hearing from Lake a little of what you and Brandy have been through.”
The face of Moore darkened.
“He could ‘a’ been a great stake hoss, Silver,” he said huskily. “He could ‘a’ been one to have his picture in the papers, for a coupla years, and when he was retired to a stud farm, he would ‘a’ had visitors comin’ to see him. He oughta be in a fine green pasture all to himself, and he oughta be eatin’ the best oats, and nothin’ to do for himself but pose for a camera, now and then. But they throwed him away, Silvertip. They throwed him away.”
“He was ruled off, eh?” said Silver.
“It was at Aqueduct,” said Charlie Moore. “He’d won a coupla times. The wise gents was watchin’ him. They was timin’ his moves in trainin’. Tips was beginnin’ to float around about him. There was a kind of whisper in the air that a great hoss was on the track. And those crooks didn’t want that — Lake and Richmond. They wanted to bring him on slow. They wanted to enter him in some big stake with long odds agin’ him, and then they’d clean up and make a fortune. So they decided that they’d spoil his reputation by puttin’ him in an overnight race and pullin’ him. And they pulled him, all right.
“I ain’t goin’ to forget how I stood there and watched from the rail, and seen Brandy try to eat up that field and swaller it, and how Lake pulled him double and jammed him into a pocket, and brought him around on the outside, and jammed him into another pocket. And then he came again, with the bit in his teeth. And even the way he was rode, the winner only beat him by a head. And the stewards throwed the whole lot of us off the track. We couldn’t race no more anywhere in the country, on a regular track. And since then, we been a lot of bums, travelin’ from place to place. Lake handles us, and Richmond sends down a flock of money, now and then, to bet.”
He turned away from Silvertip, a little, and let his hand wander over the face of the thoroughbred.
“We won today,” said Moore, “but you seen how. And Richmond is goin’ to be crazy mad. He must ‘a’ lost three or four thousand, because he bet agin’ us.”
He sighed, and added: “Where you bound now, Silver?”
“For the Sierra Blanca,” said Silvertip. “I want to take a look at that Parade horse.”
“There’s a lot that’s had a look at him, but there ain’t any that’s had a hand on him. There ain’t goin’ to be any, either. Not even you, Silver, I reckon, because now they’re huntin’ for him with guns.”
“Guns?” cried Silvertip. “Hunting for him with guns, did you say?”
“He run off with the fine saddle stock of Dave Larchmont. Ain’t you heard about that? There was ten or twelve thousand dollars’ worth of stock in that outfit. They started chasin’ him to get those hosses back. Dave has worked hard, but he runs more hosses to death than he catches. He caught up eight of ’em, at last, and he took ’em down and corraled ’em with Steve Barrett’s hosses.
“And in the middle of the night, Parade come and busted down the fence, like he done at Larchmont’s place, and he run off with Larchmont’s nags, and all of Barrett’s too, and they say he’s got seventy head of good stock with him out there in the Sierra Blanca, now. Well, ranchers ain’t goin’ to stand for losses like that, so now they’ve put a thousand dollars on the scalp of Parade, and the boys are out with their rifles — bad luck to ’em!”
“It’s not possible!” said Silvertip. “Nobody would do it. Not even for a thousand dollars. Why, Charlie, it’s not in the game — it’s not in the cards! Look here! Men started driving that horse — men started hunting him — they drove him for years — and now he’s finding out how to hit back — and you mean to tell me they’re going to use guns on him?”
Moore nodded. “There’s gents alive,” he said, “that would cut off an arm for a thousand bucks in cold cash. Don’t you make no mistake about it! And they’ll have the scalp of Parade, right enough.”
“It’s murder,” said Silvertip quietly.
“Aye,” said Charlie. “Murder pays pretty big, if you know the right gents to kill!”
That was how Silvertip started for the Sierra Blanca as fast as a good horse could take him.
When he reached Parmalee, he found talk of very little else in the air. All was news of the last outfits that were to try their hands at capturing the great stallion, or of the hunters who were going out singly, expert shots who carried high-power rifles to end the career of the horse.
Silvertip carried a rifle himself, but it was not to be used on horses, when he rode into the white-and-purple land of the Sierra Blanca.
He rode for four days, and then what he wanted to see came suddenly on his vision. He had hobbled his horse and slept out on a tarpaulin in the hollow corner of a small ravine, and he was wakened about dawn by the sound of hoofs thrumming rapidly over the ground, beating up musical echoes almost like the swift fingering of a tambourine.
So he sat up and saw for the first time in his life a sight that made his heart rush out in an ecstasy of delight. For there was a whole river of horses pouring down the ravine, and at their head ran a creature made of golden fire, a thing of blinding beauty. His trot kept the tide of horses at a gallop; when he swung into a flowing gallop, the others had to race to keep up. It seemed to Silvertip that the stallion barely touched the ground with his hoofs; it seemed to him that there was a beat of invisible wings, supporting and prolonging the striding of that monster. It was not by size but by magnificence that he dwarfed the retinue that poured behind him.
And afterward, when they were gone, Silver remained for a long time, staring before him. He had seen a kingly thing. All his being flowed outward with a desire to possess it.
This was what he had been searching for all his life, one object which he could desire with all his might. Battles with other men had not given him the ultimate thrill, the full madness of joy. In all his days he never had set his hands upon an object utterly capable of filling his heart. And now, at last, he had found it.
When he thought back to the picture that he had seen, it seemed to Silvertip that there had been only one horse running down the valley like a creature of molded flame, and behind the stallion had run futile little shadows.
He stood up and looked his own horse in the eye. It was a good, tough gelding, but it looked to Silvertip like a worthless rag of horseflesh.
He glanced around him at the immensity of the mountains. He felt that the game was lost before he commenced to play it. For that very reason, his heart swelled, and he set his teeth for the great endeavor.