The Max Brand Megapack

COPYRIGHT INFO

The Max Brand Megapack
is copyright © 2013 by Wildside Press LLC.

* * * *

Harrigan
originally appeared in 1918.

“The Ghost” originally appeared in
All-Story Weekly
, May 3 1919.

The Untamed
originally appeared in 1919.

“Hole-in-the-Wall Barrett” originally appeared in
Munsey’s Magazine
, August 1919.

“Out of the Dark” originally appeared in
The Ten-foot Chain
(1920).

Ridgers of the Silences
originally appeared in 1920.

The Seventh Man
originally appeared in 1921.

Way of the Lawless
originally appeared in 1921

Gunman’s Reckoning
originally appeared in 1921.

Ronicky Doone
originally appeared in 1921.

Ronicky Doone and the Coslett Treasure
originally appeared as a 6-part serial in
Western Story Magazine
, Jan. 14 – Feb. 25, 1922.

Ronicky Doone’s Reward
originally appeared as a 6-part serial in
Western Story Magazine
, July 15-Aug. 19, 1922.

Black Jack
originally appeared in 1922.

The Garden of Eden
originally appeared in 1922.

The Rangeland Avenger
originally appeared in 1922 in
Western Story Magazine
under the title
Three Who Paid
, as by “George Owen Baxter.” It subsequently appeared in book form under the title
The Rangeland Avenger
in 1924.

Alcatraz
originally appeared in 1923. No record of copyright renewal found.

Bull Hunter
originally appeared in 1924. No record of copyright renewal found.

“The Hair-Trigger Kid” originally appeared as a 6-part serial in
Double-Action Western
(1931). No record of copyright renewal found.

A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

Over the last year, our “Megapack” series of ebook anthologies has proved to be one of our most popular endeavors. (Maybe it helps that we sometimes offer them as premiums to our mailing list!) One question we keep getting asked is, “Who’s the editor?”

The Megapacks (except where specifically credited) are a group effort. Everyone at Wildside works on them. This includes John Betancourt, Carla Coupe, Steve Coupe, Bonner Menking, Colin Azariah-Kribbs, A.E. Warren, and many of Wildside’s authors…who often suggest stories to include (and not just their own!).

A NOTE FOR KINDLE READERS

The Kindle versions of our Megapacks employ active tables of contents for easy navigation…please look for one before writing reviews on Amazon that complain about the lack! (They are sometimes at the ends of ebooks, depending on your reader.)

RECOMMEND A FAVORITE STORY?

Do you know a great classic science fiction story, or have a favorite author whom you believe is perfect for the Megapack series? We’d love your suggestions! You can post them on our message board at http://movies.ning.com/forum (there is an area for Wildside Press comments).

Note: we only consider stories that have already been professionally published. This is not a market for new works.

TYPOS

Unfortunately, as hard as we try, a few typos do slip through. We update our ebooks periodically, so make sure you have the current version (or download a fresh copy if it’s been sitting in your ebook reader for months.) It may have already been updated.

If you spot a new typo, please let us know. We’ll fix it for everyone. You can email the publisher at [email protected] or use the message boards above.

—John Betancourt

Publisher, Wildside Press LLC

www.wildsidepress.com

THE MEGAPACK SERIES

The Adventure Megapack

The Baseball Megapack

The Boys’ Adventure Megapack

The Buffalo Bill Megapack

The Christmas Megapack

The Second Christmas Megapack

The Classic American Short Story Megapack

The Classic Humor Megapack

The Dan Carter, Cub Scout Megapack

The Cowboy Megapack

The Craig Kennedy Scientific Detective Megapack

The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack

The Dan Carter, Cub Scout Megapack

The Detective Megapack

The Father Brown Megapack

The Ghost Story Megapack

The Second Ghost Story Megapack

The Third Ghost Story Megapack

The Horror Megapack

The Macabre Megapack

The Second Macabre Megapack

The Martian Megapack

The Military Megapack

The Mummy Megapack

The First Mystery Megapack

The Penny Parker Megapack

The Pulp Fiction Megapack

The Rover Boys Megapack

The Science Fiction Megapack

The Second Science Fiction Megapack

The Third Science Fiction Megapack

The Fourth Science Fiction Megapack

The Fifth Science Fiction Megapack

The Sixth Science Fiction Megapack

The Penny Parker Megapack

The Pinocchio Megapack

The Steampunk Megapack

The Tom Corbett, Space Cadet Megapack

The Tom Swift Megapack

The Vampire Megapack

The Victorian Mystery Megapack

The Werewolf Megapack

The Western Megapack

The Second Western Megapack

The Wizard of Oz Megapack

AUTHOR MEGAPACKS

The Achmed Abdullah Megapack

The Edward Bellamy Megapack

The E.F. Benson Megapack

The Second E.F. Benson Megapack

The B.M. Bower Megapack

The First Reginald Bretnor Megapack

The Wilkie Collins Megapack

The Philip K. Dick Megapack

The Jacques Futrelle Megapack

The Randall Garrett Megapack

The Second Randall Garrett Megapack

The G.A. Henty Megapack

The M.R. James Megapack

The Andre Norton Megapack

The H. Beam Piper Megapack

The Rafael Sabatini Megapack

HARRIGAN (1918)

CHAPTER 1

“That fellow with the red hair,” said the police captain as he pointed.

“I’ll watch him,” the sergeant answered.

The captain had raided two opium dens the day before, and the pride of accomplishment puffed his chest. He would have given advice to the sheriff of Oahu that evening.

He went on: “I can pick some men out of the crowd by the way they walk, and others by their eyes. That fellow has it written all over him.”

The red-headed man came nearer through the crowd. Because of the warmth, he had stuffed his soft hat into a back pocket, and now the light from a window shone steadily on his hair and made a fire of it, a danger signal. He encountered the searching glances of the two officers and answered with cold, measuring eyes, like the gaze of a prize fighter who waits for a blow. The sergeant turned to his superior with a grunt.

“You’re right,” he nodded.

“Trail him,” said the captain, “and take a man with you. If that fellow gets into trouble, you may need help.”

He stepped into his automobile and the sergeant beckoned to a nearby policeman.

“Akana,” he said, “we have a man-sized job tonight. Are you feeling fit?”

The Kanaka smiled without enthusiasm.

“The man of the red hair?”

The sergeant nodded, and Akana tightened his belt. He had eaten fish baked in ti leaves that evening.

He suggested: “Morley has little to do. His beat is quiet. Shall I tell him to come with us?”

“No,” grinned the sergeant, and then looked up and watched the broad shoulders of the red-haired man, who advanced through the crowd as the prow of a ship lunges through the waves. “Go get Morley,” he said abruptly.

But Harrigan went on his way without misgivings, not that he forgot the policeman, but he was accustomed to stand under the suspicious eye of the law. In all the course of his wanderings it had been upon him. His coming was to the men in uniform like the sound of the battle trumpet to the cavalry horse. This, however, was Harrigan’s first night in Honolulu, and there was much to see, much to do. He had rambled through the streets; now he was headed for the Ivilei district. Instinct brought him there, the still, small voice which had guided him from trouble to trouble all his life.

At a corner he stopped to watch a group of Kanakas who passed him, wreathed with leis and thrumming their ukuleles. They sang in their soft, many-voweled language and the sound was to Harrigan like the rush and lapse of water on a beach, infinitely soothing and as lazy as the atmosphere of Honolulu. All things are subdued in the strange city where East and West meet in the middle of the Pacific. The gayest crowds cannot quite disturb the brooding peace which is like the promise of sleep and rest at sunset. It was not pleasing to Harrigan. He frowned and drew a quick, impatient breath, muttering: “I’m not long for this joint. I gotta be moving.”

He joined a crowd which eddied toward the center of Ivilei. In there it was better. Negro soldiers, marines from the
Maryland
, Kanakas, Chinamen, Japanese, Portuguese, Americans; a score of nationalities and complexions rubbed shoulders as they wandered aimlessly among the many bright-painted cottages.

Yet even in that careless throng of pleasure-seekers no one rubbed shoulders with Harrigan. The flame of his hair was like a red lamp which warned them away. Or perhaps it was his eye, which seemed to linger for a cold, incurious instant on every face that approached. He picked out the prettiest of the girls who sat at the windows chatting with all who passed. He did not have to shoulder to win a way through the crowd of her admirers.

She was a
hap haoli
, with the fine features of the Caucasian and the black of hair and eye which shows the islander. A rounded elbow rested on the sill of the window; her chin was cupped in her hand.

“Send these away,” said Harrigan, and leaned an elbow beside hers.

“Oh,” she murmured; then: “And if I send them away?”

“I’ll reward you.”

“Reward?”

For answer he dragged a crimson carnation from the buttonhole of a tall man who stood at his side.

“What in hell—” began the victim, but Harrigan smiled and the other drew slowly back through the crowd.

“Now send them away.”

She looked at him an instant longer with a light coming slowly up behind her eyes. Then she leaned out and waved to the chuckling semicircle.

“Run away for a while,” she said; “I want to talk to my brother.”

She patted the thick red hair to emphasize the relationship, and the little crowd departed, laughing uproariously. Harrigan slipped the carnation into the jetty hair. His hand lingered a moment against the soft masses, and she drew it down, grown suddenly serious.

“There are three policemen in the shadow of that cottage over there. They’re watching you.”

“Ah-h!”

The sound was so soft that it was almost a sigh, but she shivered perceptibly.

“What have you been doing?”

He answered regretfully: “Nothing.”

“They’re coming this way. The man who had the carnation is with them. You better beat it.”

“Nope. I like it here.”

She shook her head, but the flame was blowing high now in her eyes. A hand fell on Harrigan’s shoulder.

“Hey!” said the sergeant in a loud voice.

Harrigan turned slowly and the sergeant’s hand fell away. The man of the carnation was far in the background.

“Well?”

“That flower. You can’t get away with little tricks like that. You better be starting on. Move along.”

Harrigan glanced slowly from face to face. The three policemen drew closer together as if for mutual protection.

“Please—honey!” urged the whisper of the girl.

The hand of Harrigan resting on the window sill had gathered to a hard-bunched fist, white at the knuckles, but he nodded across the open space between the cottages.

“If you’re looking for work,” he said, “seems as though you’d find a handful over there.”

A clatter of sharp, quick voices rose from a group of Negro soldiers gathering around a white man. No one could tell the cause of the quarrel. It might have been anything from an oath to a blow.

“Watch him,” said Harrigan. “He looks like a man.” He added plaintively: “But looks are deceivin’.”

The center of the disturbance appeared to be a man indeed. He was even taller than Harrigan and broader of shoulder, and, like the latter, there was a suggestion of strength in him which could not be defined by his size alone. At the distance they could guess his smile as he faced the clamoring mob.

“Break in there!” ordered the sergeant to his companions, and started toward the angry circle.

As he spoke, they heard one of the Negroes curse and the fist of the tall man darted at the face of a soldier and drove him toppling back among his comrades. They closed on the white man with a yell; a passing group of their compatriots joined the affray; the whole mass surged in around the tall fellow. Harrigan’s head went back and his eyes half closed like a critic listening to an exquisite symphony.

“Ah-h!” he whispered to himself. “Watch him fight!”

The policemen struck the outer edge of the circle with drawn clubs, but there they stopped. They could not dent that compacted mass. The soldiers struggled manfully, but they were held at bay. Harrigan could see the heaving shoulders of the defender over the heads of the assailants, and the crack of hard-driven fists. The attackers were crushed together and had little room to swing their arms with full force, while the big man stood with his back against the wall of the cottage and made every smashing punch count.

As if by common assent, the soldiers suddenly desisted and gave back from this deadly fighter. His bellow of triumph rang over the clamor. His hat was off; his long black hair stood straight up in the wind; and he leaped after them with flailing arms.

But now the police had managed to pry their way into the mass by dint of indiscriminate battering. As the black-haired man came face to face with the sergeant, the light gleamed on a high-swung club that thudded home; and the big man dropped out of sight. He came up again almost at once, but with men draped from every portion of his body. The soldiers and police had joined forces, and once more a dozen men clutched him, spilling over him like football players in a scrimmage. He was knocked from his feet by the impact.

“Coming!” shouted Harrigan.

He raced with long strides, head lowered and back bowed until his long arms nearly swept the ground. Gathering impetus at every stride, he crushed into the floundering heap of arms and legs. The police sergeant rose and whirled with lifted club. Harrigan grunted with joy as he dug his left into the man’s midsection. The sergeant collapsed upon the ground, embracing his stomach with both arms. Harrigan jerked away the upper layers of the attackers and dragged the black-haired man to his feet.

“Shoulder to shoulder!” thundered Harrigan, and smote Officer Akana upon the point of the chin.

The victory was not yet won. The black soldiers of Uncle Sam’s regular army need not take second place to any body of troops in the world. These men had tasted their own blood and they came tearing in now for revenge.

Harrigan, standing full in front of the rescued man until the latter should have recovered his breath, found food for both fists, and his love of battle was fed. The other man had fought stiffly erect, standing with feet braced to give the weight of his whole body to every punch; Harrigan raged back and forth like a panther, avoiding blows by the catlike agility of his movements, which left both hands free to strike sledge-hammer blows. Presently he heard a chuckling at his side. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the black-haired man come into the battle, straight and stiff as before, with long arms shooting out like pistons.

It was a glorious sight. Something made Harrigan’s heart big; rose and swelled his throat; rose again and came as a wild yell upon his tongue. The unfortunates who have faced Irish legions in battle know that yell. The soldiers did not know it, and they held back for a moment. Something else lowered their spirits still more. It was the clanging of the police patrol as it swung to a halt and a body of reserves poured out.

“Here comes our finish!” panted Harrigan to his comrade in arms. “But oh, man, I’m thinkin’ it was swate while it lasted!”

In his great moments the Irish brogue thronged thick upon his tongue.

“Finish, hell!” grunted the other. “After me, lad!”

And lowering his head like a bull, he drove forward against the crowd. Harrigan caught the idea in a flash. He put his shoulder to the hip of his friend. They became a flying wedge with the jabbing fists of the black-haired man for a point—and they sank into the mass of soldiers like a hot knife into butter, shearing them apart.

There were few who wished more action, for the police reserves were capturing man after man. One or two resisted, but a revolver fired straight in the air put a sudden period to such thoughts. The crowd scattered in all directions and Harrigan was taking to his heels among the rest when an iron hand caught his shoulder and jerked him to a halt. It was the black-haired man.

“Easy,” he cautioned. He pulled a cap out and settled it upon his head. Harrigan followed suit with his soft hat.

“Are you after givin’ yourself away to the law?” he queried, bewildered.

“Steady, you fool,” said the other; “they’re only after the ones who run away.”

An excited Kanaka confronted them with brandished club.

“What’s the cause of the disturbance, officer?” asked the big man.

The policeman for answer waved them away and darted after a running soldier.

“I’ll be damned!” murmured Harrigan, and his eyes dwelt on his companion’s face almost tenderly.

They were at the edge of the crowd when a shrill voice called: “Those two big men! Halt ’em! Stand!”

Officer Akana ran through the crowd with his regulation Colt brandished above his head.

“The time’s come!” said Harrigan’s new friend, and broke into a run.

CHAPTER 2

They were past the thick of the mob now and they dodged rapidly among the cottages until the clamor of police fell away to a murmur behind them, and they swung out onto the narrow, dark street which led back toward the heart of Honolulu. For ten minutes they strode along without a word. Under the light of a street lamp they stopped of one accord.

“I’m McTee.”

“I’m Harrigan.”

The gripping of the hands was more than fellowship; it was like a test of strength which left each uncertain of the other’s resources. They were exactly opposite types. McTee was long of face, with an arched, cruel nose, gleaming eyes, heavy, straight brows which pointed up and gave a touch of the Mephistophelian to his expression, a narrow, jutting chin, and lips habitually compressed to a thin line. It was a handsome face, in a way, but it showed such a brutal dominance that it inspired fear first and admiration afterward.

Such a man must command. He might be only the boss of a gang of laborers, or he might be a financier, but never in any case an underling. Altogether he combined physical and intellectual strength to such a degree that both men and women would have stopped to look at him, and once seen he would be remembered.

On the other hand, in Harrigan one felt only force, not directed and controlled as in McTee, but impulsive, irregular, irresponsible, uncompassed. He carried a contradiction in his face. The heavy, hard-cut jaw, the massive cheekbones, the stiff, straight upper lip indicated merely brutal endurance and energy, but these qualities were tempered by possibilities of tenderness about the lips and by the singular lights forever changing in the blue eyes. He would be hard for the shrewdest judge to understand, for the simple reason that he did not know himself.

In looking at McTee, one asked: “What is he?” In looking at Harrigan, the question was: “What will he become?”

“Stayin’ in town long?” asked Harrigan, and his voice was a little wistful.

“I’m bound out tonight.”

“So long, then.”

“So long.”

They turned on their heels into opposite streets without further words, with no thanks given for service rendered, with no exchange of congratulations for the danger they had just escaped. That parting proved them hardened knights of the road which leads across the world and never turns back home.