The Max Brand Megapack (178 page)

“You’ll go home before I have a chance for that dance?” she asked. “You’re acting like a two-year-old, Jack. You are!”

He flushed. Burning would be too easy a death for Donnegan.

“He’s making a laughingstock out of me; look around the room!”

“Nobody’s thinking about you at all, Jack. You’re just self-conscious.”

Of course, it was pouring acid upon an open wound. But she was past the point of caution.

“Maybe they ain’t,” said Landis, controlling his rage. “I don’t figure that I amount to much. But I rate myself as high as a skunk like him!”

It may have been a smile that she gave him. At any rate, he caught the glint of teeth, and her eyes were as cold as steel points. If she had actually defended the stranger she would not have infuriated Landis so much.

“Well, what does he say about himself?”

“He says frankly that he’s a vagrant.”

“And you don’t believe him?”

She did not speak.

“Makin’ a play for sympathy. Confound a man like that, I say!”

Still she did not answer; and now Landis became alarmed.

“D’you really like him, Nelly?”

“I liked him well enough to introduce him to you, Jack.”

“I’m sorry I talked so plain if you put it that way,” he admitted heavily. “I didn’t know you picked up friends so fast as all that!” He could not avoid adding this last touch of the poison point.

His back was to Donnegan, and consequently the girl, facing him, could look straight across the room at the red-headed man. She allowed herself one brief glance, and she saw that he was sitting with his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand, looking fixedly at her. It was the gaze of one who forgets all else and wraps himself in a dream. Other people in the room were noting that changeless stare and the whisper buzzed more and more loudly, but Donnegan had forgotten the rest of the world, it seemed. It was a very cunning piece of acting, not too much overdone, and once more the heart of Nelly Lebrun fluttered.

She remembered that in spite of his frankness he had not talked with insolent presumption to her. He had merely answered her individual questions with an astonishing, childlike frankness. He had laid his heart before her, it seemed. And now he sat at a distance looking at her with the white, intense face of one who sees a dream.

Nelly Lebrun was recalled by the heavy breathing of Jack Landis and she discovered that she had allowed her eyes to rest too long on the red-headed stranger. She had forgotten; her eyes had widened; and even Jack Landis was able to look into her mind and see things that startled him. For the first time he sensed that this was more than a careless flirtation. And he sat stiffly at the table, looking at her and through her with a fixed smile. Nelly, horrified, strove to cover her tracks.

“You’re right, Jack,” she said. “I—I think there was something brazen in the way he tagged you. And—let’s go home together!”

Too late. The mind of Landis was not oversharp, but now jealousy gave it a point. He nodded his assent, and they got up, but there was no increase in his color. She read as plain as day in his face that he intended murder this night and Nelly was truly frightened.

So she tried different tactics. All the way to the substantial little house which Lebrun had built at a little distance from the gambling hall, she kept up a running fire of steady conversation. But when she said good night to him, his face was still set. She had not deceived him. When he turned, she saw him go back into the night with long strides, and within half an hour she knew, as clearly as if she were remembering the picture instead of foreseeing it, that Jack and Donnegan would face each other gun in hand on the floor of Milligan’s dance hall.

Still, she was not foolish enough to run after Jack, take his arm, and make a direct appeal. It would be too much like begging for Donnegan, and even if Jack forgave her for this interest in his rival, she had sense enough to feel that Donnegan himself never would. Something, however, must be done to prevent the fight, and she took the straightest course.

She went as fast as a run would carry her straight behind the intervening houses and came to the back entrance to the gaming hall. There she entered and stepped into the little office of her father. Black Lebrun was not there. She did not want him. In his place there sat the Pedlar and Joe Rix; they were members of Lord Nick’s chosen crew, and since Nick’s temporary alliance with Lebrun for the sake of plundering Jack Landis, Nick’s men were Nelly’s men. Indeed, this was a formidable pair. They were the kind of men about whom many whispers and no facts circulate: and yet the facts are far worse than the whispers. It was said that Joe Rix, who was a fat little man with a great aversion to a razor and a pair of shallow, pale blue eyes, was in reality a merciless fiend. He was; and he was more than that, if there be a stronger superlative. If Lord Nick had dirty work to be done, there was the man who did it with a relish. The Pedlar, on the other hand, was an exact opposite. He was long, lean, raw-boned, and prodigiously strong in spite of his lack of flesh. He had vast hands, all loose skin and outstanding tendons; he had a fleshless face over which his smile was capable of extending limitlessly. He was the sort of a man from whom one would expect shrewdness, some cunning, stubbornness, a dry humor, and many principles. All of which, except the last, was true of the Pedlar.

There was this peculiarity about the Pedlar. In spite of his broad grins and his wise, bright eyes, none, even of Lord Nick’s gang, extended a friendship or familiarity toward him. When they spoke of the Pedlar they never used his name. They referred to him as “him” or they indicated him with gestures. If he had a fondness for any living creature it was for fat Joe Rix.

Yet on seeing this ominous pair, Nelly Lebrun cried out softly in delight. She ran to them, and dropped a hand on the bony shoulder of the Pedlar and one on the plump shoulder of Joe Rix, whose loose flesh rolled under her finger tips.

“It’s Jack Landis!” she cried. “He’s gone to Milligan’s to fight the new man. Stop him!”

“Donnegan?” said Joe, and did not rise.

“Him?” said the Pedlar, and moistened his broad lips like one on the verge of starvation.

“Are you going to sit here?” she cried. “What will Lord Nick say if he finds out you’ve let Jack get into a fight?”

“We ain’t nursin’ mothers,” declared the Pedlar. “But I’d kind of like to look on!”

And he rose. Unkinking joint after joint, straightening his legs, his back, his shoulders, his neck, he soared up and up until he stood a prodigious height. The girl controlled a shudder of disgust.

“Joe!” she appealed.

“You want us to clean up Donnegan?” he asked, rising, but without interest in his voice.

To his surprise, she slipped back to the door and blocked it with her outcast arms.

“Not a hair of his head!” she said fiercely. “Swear that you won’t harm him, boys!”

“What the devil!” ejaculated Joe, who was a blunt man in spite of his fat. “You want us to keep Jack from fightin’, but you don’t want us to hurt the other gent. What you want? Hogtie ’em both?”

“Yes, yes; keep Jack out of Milligan’s; but for heaven’s sake don’t try to put a hand on Donnegan.”

“Why not?”

“For your sakes; he’d kill you, Joe!”

At this they both gaped in unison, and as one man they drawled in vast admiration: “Good heavens!”

“But go, go, go!” cried the girl.

And she shoved them through the door and into the night.

CHAPTER 22

To the people in Milligan’
s it had been most incredible that Jack Landis should withdraw from a competition of any sort. And though the girls were able to understand his motives in taking Nelly Lebrun away they were not able to explain this fully to their men companions. For one and all they admitted that Jack was imperiling his hold on the girl in question if he allowed her to stay near this red-headed fiend. But one and all they swore that Jack Landis had ruined himself with her by taking her away. And this was a paradox which made masculine heads in The Corner spin. The main point was that Jack Landis had backed down before a rival; and this fact was stunning enough. Donnegan, however, was not confused. He sent big George to ask Milligan to come to him for a moment.

Milligan, at this, cursed George, but he was drawn by curiosity to consent. A moment later he was seated at Donnegan’s table, drinking his own liquor as it was served to him from the hands of big George. If the first emotions of the dance-hall proprietor were anger and intense curiosity, his second emotion was that never-failing surprise which all who came close to the wanderer felt. For he had that rare faculty of seeming larger when in action, even when actually near much bigger men. Only when one came close to Donnegan one stepped, as it were, through a veil, and saw the almost fragile reality. When Milligan had caught his breath and adjusted himself, he began as follows:

“Now, Bud,” he said, “you’ve made a pretty play. Not bad at all. But no more bluffs in Milligan’s.”

“Bluff!” Donnegan repeated gently.

“About your servant. I let it pass for one night, but not for another.”

“My dear Mr. Milligan! However”—changing the subject easily—“what I wish to speak to you about is a bit of trouble which I foresee. I think, sir, that Jack Landis is coming back.”

“What makes you think that?”

“It’s a feeling I have. I have queer premonitions, Mr. Milligan, I’m sure he’s coming and I’m sure he’s going to attempt a murder.”

Milligan’s thick lips framed his question but he did not speak: fear made his face ludicrous.

“Right here?”

“Yes.”

“A shootin’ scrape here! You?”

“He has me in mind. That’s why I’m speaking to you.”

“Don’t wait to speak to me about it. Get up and get out!”

“Mr. Milligan, you’re wrong. I’m going to stay here and you’re going to protect me.”

“Well, confound your soul! They ain’t much nerve about you, is there?”

“You run a public place. You have to protect your patrons from insult.”

“And who began it, then? Who started walkin’ on Jack’s toes? Now you come whinin’ to me! By heck, I hope Jack gets you!”

“You’re a genial soul,” said Donnegan. “Here’s to you!”

But something in his smile as he sipped his liquor made Milligan sit straighter in his chair.

As for Donnegan, he was thinking hard and fast. If there were a shooting affair and he won, he would nevertheless run a close chance of being hung by a mob. He must dispose that mob to look upon him as the defendant and Landis as the aggressor. He had not foreseen the crisis until it was fairly upon him. He had thought of Nelly playing Landis along more gradually and carefully, so that, while he was slowly learning that she was growing cold to him, he would have a chance to grow fond of Lou Macon once more. But even across the width of the room he had seen the girl fire up, and from that moment he knew the result. Landis already suspected him; Landis, with the feeling that he had been robbed, would do his best to kill the thief. He might take a chance with Landis, if it came to a fight, just as he had taken a chance with Lewis. But how different this case would be! Landis was no dull-nerved ruffian and drunkard. He was a keen boy with a hair-trigger balance, and in a gunplay he would be apt to beat the best of them all. Of all this Donnegan was fully aware. Either he must place his own life in terrible hazard or else he must shoot to kill; and if he killed, what of Lou Macon?

While he smiled into the face of Milligan, perspiration was bursting out under his armpits.

“Mr. Milligan, I implore you to give me your aid.”

“What’s the difference?” Milligan asked in a changed tone. “If he don’t fight you here he’ll fight you later.”

“You’re wrong, Mr. Milligan. He isn’t the sort to hold malice. He’ll come here tonight and try to get at me like a bulldog straining on a leash. If he is kept away he’ll get over his bad temper.”

Milligan pushed back his chair.

“You’ve tried to force yourself down the throat of The Corner,” he said, “and now you yell for help when you see the teeth.”

He had raised his voice. Now he got up and strode noisily away. Donnegan waited until he was halfway across the dance floor and then rose in turn.

“Gentlemen,” he said.

The quiet voice cut into every conversation; the musicians lowered the instruments.

“I have just told Mr. Milligan that I am sure Jack Landis is coming back here to try to kill me. I have asked for his protection. He has refused it. I intend to stay here and wait for him, Jack Landis. In the meantime I ask any able-bodied man who will do so, to try to stop Landis when he enters.”

He sat down, raised his glass, and sipped the drink. Two hundred pairs of eyes were fastened with hawklike intensity upon him, and they could perceive no quiver of his hand.

The sipping of his liquor was not an affectation. For he was drinking, at incredible cost, liquors from Milligan’s store of rareties.

The effect of Donnegan’s announcement was first a silence, then a hum, then loud voices of protest, curiosity—and finally a scurrying toward the doors.

Yet really very few left. The rest valued a chance to see the fight beyond the fear of random slugs of lead which might fly their way. Besides, where such men as Donnegan and big Jack Landis were concerned, there was not apt to be much wild shooting. The dancing stopped, of course. The music was ordered by Milligan to play, in a frantic endeavor to rouse custom again; but the music of its own accord fell away in the middle of the piece. For the musicians could not watch the notes and the door at the same time.

As for Donnegan, he found that it was one thing to wait and another to be waited for. He, too, wished to turn and watch that door until it should be filled by the bulk of Jack Landis. Yet he fought the desire.

And in the midst of this torturing suspense an idea came to him, and at the same instant Jack Landis entered the doorway. He stood there looking vast against the night. One glance around was sufficient to teach him the meaning of the silence. The stage was set, and the way opened to Donnegan. Without a word, big George stole to one side.