The Max Brand Megapack (185 page)

“As a matter of fact,” said Donnegan, “I have been keeping that in mind.” He added, with that deadly smile of his that never reached his eyes: “I never disappoint the public when it’s possible to satisfy them.”

“No,” and Lord Nick nodded, “you seem to have most of the habits of an actor—including an inclination to make up for your part.”

Donnegan bit his lip until it bled, and then smiled.

“I have been playing to fools,” he said. “Now I shall enjoy a discriminating critic.”

“Yes,” remarked Lord Nick, “actors generally desire an intelligent audience for the death scene.”

“I applaud your penetration and I shall speak well of you when this disagreeable duty is finished.”

“Come,” and Lord Nick smiled genially, “you are a game little cock!”

The telltale flush crimsoned Donnegan’s face. And if the fight had begun at that moment no power under heaven could have saved Lord Nick from the frenzy of the little man.

“My size keeps me from stooping,” said Donnegan, “I shall look up to you, sir, until the moment you fall.”

“Well hit again! You are also a wit, I see! Donnegan, I am almost sorry for the necessity of this meeting. And if it weren’t for the audience—”

“Say no more,” said Donnegan, bowing. “I read your heart and appreciate all you intend.”

He had touched his stock as he bowed, and now he turned to the mirror and carefully adjusted it, for it was a little awry from the ride; but in reality he used that moment to examine his own face, and the set of his jaw and the clearness of his eye reassured him. Turning again, he surprised a glint of admiration in the glance of Lord Nick.

“We are at one, sir, it appears,” he said. “And there is no other way out of this disagreeable necessity?”

“Unfortunately not. I have a certain position in these parts. People are apt to expect a good deal of me. And for my part I see no way out except a gunplay—no way out between the devil and the moon!”

Astonishment swept suddenly across the face of the big man, for Donnegan, turning white as death, shrank toward the wall as though he had that moment received cold steel in his body.

“Say that again!” said Donnegan hoarsely.

“I said there was no way out,” repeated Lord Nick, and though he kept his right hand in readiness, he passed his left through his red hair and stared at Donnegan with a tinge of contempt; he had seen men buckle like this at the last moment when their backs were to the wall.

“Between—” repeated Donnegan.

“The devil and the moon. Do you see a way yourself?”

He was astonished again to see Donnegan wince as if from a blow. His lips were trembling and they writhed stiffly over his words.

“Who taught you that expression?” said Donnegan.

“A gentleman,” said Lord Nick.

“Ah?”

“My father, sir!”

“Oh, heaven,” moaned Donnegan, catching his hands to his breast. “Oh, heaven, forgive us!”

“What the devil is in you?” asked Lord Nick.

The little man stood erect again and his eyes were now on fire.

“You are Henry Nicholas Reardon,” he said.

Lord Nick set his teeth.

“Now,” he said, “it is certain that you must die!”

But Donnegan cast out his arms and broke into a wild laughter.

“Oh, you fool, you fool!” he cried. “Don’t you know me? I am the cripple!”

CHAPTER 32

The big man crossed the floor with one vast stri
de, and, seizing Donnegan by both shoulders, dragged him under the full light of the window; and still the crazy laughter shook Donnegan and made him helpless.

“They tied me to a board—like a papoose,” said Donnegan, “and they straightened my back—but they left me this way—wizened up.” He was stammering; hysterical, and the words tumbled from his lips in a jumble. “That was a month after you ran away from home. I was going to find you. Got bigger. Took the road. Kept hunting. Then I met a yegg who told about Rusty Dick—described him like you—I thought—I thought you were dead!”

And the tears rolled down his face; he sobbed like a woman.

A strange thing happened then. Lord Nick lifted the little man in his arms as if he were a child and literally carried him in that fashion to the bunk. He put him down tenderly, still with one mighty arm around his back.

“You are Garry? You!”

“Garrison Donnegan Reardon. Aye, that’s what I am. Henry, don’t say that you don’t know me!”

“But—your back—I thought—”

“I know—hopeless they said I was. But they brought in a young doctor. Now look at me. Little. I never grew big—but hard, Henry, as leather!”

And he sprang to his feet. And knowing that Donnegan had begun life as a cripple it was easy to appreciate certain things about his expression—a cold wistfulness, and his manner of reading the minds of men. Lord Nick was like a man in a dream. He dragged Donnegan back to the bunk and forced him to sit down with the weight of his arms. And he could not keep his hands from his younger brother. As though he were blind and had to use the sense of touch to reassure him.

“I heard lies. They said everybody was dead. I thought—”

“The fever killed them all, except me. Uncle Toby took me in. He was a devil. Helped me along, but I left him when I could. And—”

“Don’t tell me any more. All that matters is that I have you at last, Garry. Heaven knows it’s a horrible thing to be kithless and kinless, but I have you now! Ah, lad, but the old pain has left its mark on you. Poor Garry!”

Donnegan shuddered.

“I’ve forgotten it. Don’t bring it back.”

“I keep feeling that you should be in that chair.”

“I know. But I’m not. I’m hard as nails, I tell you.”

He leaped to his feet again.

“And not so small as you might think, Henry!”

“Oh, big enough, Garry. Big enough to paralyze The Corner, from what I’ve heard.”

“I’ve been playing a game with ’em, Henry. And now—if one of us could clear the road, what will we do together? Eh?”

The smile of Lord Nick showed his teeth.

“Haven’t I been hungry all my life for a man like you, lad? Somebody to stand and guard my back while I faced the rest of the world?”

“And I’ll do my share of the facing, too.”

“You will, Garry. But I’m your elder.”

“Man, man! Nobody’s my elder except one that’s spent half his life—as I have done!”

“We’ll teach you to forget the pain I’ll make life roses for you, Garry.”

“And the fools outside thought—”

Donnegan broke into a soundless laughter, and, running to the door, opened it a fraction of an inch and peeped out.

“They’re standing about in a circle. I can see ’em gaping. Even from here. What will they think, Henry?”

Lord Nick ground his teeth.

“They’ll think I’ve backed down from you,” he said gloomily. “They’ll think I’ve taken water for the first time.”

“Why, confound ’em, the first man that opens his head—”

“I know, I know. You’d fill his mouth with lead, and so would I. But if it ever gets about—as it’s sure to—that Lord, Nick, as they call me, has been bluffed down without a fight, I’ll have every Chinaman that cooks on the range talking back to me. I’ll have to start all over again.”

“Don’t say that, Henry. Don’t you see that I’ll go out and explain that I’m your brother?”

“What good will that do? No, do we look alike?”

Donnegan stopped short.

“I’m not very big,” he said rather coldly, “but then I’m not so very small, either. I’ve found myself big enough, speaking in general. Besides, we have the same hair and eyes.”

“Why, man, people will laugh when they hear that we call ourselves brothers.”

Donnegan ground his teeth and the old flush burned upon his face.

“I’ll cut some throats if they do,” he said, trembling with his passion.

“I can hear them say it. ‘Lord Nick walked in on Donnegan prepared to eat him up. He measured him up and down, saw that he was a fighting wildcat in spite of his size, and decided to back out. And Donnegan was willing. They couldn’t come out without a story of some kind—with the whole world expecting a death in that cabin—so they framed a crazy cock-and-bull story about being brothers.’ I can hear them say that, Donnegan, and it makes me wild!”

“Do you call me Donnegan?” said Donnegan sadly.

“No, no. Garry, don’t be so touchy. You’ve never got over that, I see. Still all pride and fire.”

“You’re not very humble yourself, Henry.”

“Maybe not, maybe not. But I’ve been in a certain position around these parts, Don—Garry. And it’s hard to see it go!”

Donnegan closed his eyes in deep reverie. And then he forced out the words one by one.

“Henry, I’ll let everybody know that it was I who backed down. That we were about to fight.” He was unable to speak; he tore the stock loose at his throat and went on: “We were about to fight; I lost my nerve; you couldn’t shoot a helpless man. We began to talk. We found out we are brothers—”

“Damnation!” broke out Lord Nick, and he struck himself violently across the forehead with the back of his hand. “I’m a skunk, Garry, lad. Why, for a minute I was about to let you do it. No, no, no! A thousand times no!”

It was plain to be seen that he was arguing himself away from the temptation.

“What do I care what they say? We’ll cram the words back down their throats and be hanged to ’em. Here I am worrying about myself like a selfish dog without letting myself be happy over finding you. But I am happy, Garry. Heaven knows it. And you don’t doubt it, do you, old fellow?”

“Ah,” said Donnegan, and he smiled to cover a touch of sadness. “I hope not. No, I don’t doubt you, of course. I’ve spent my life wishing for you since you left us, you see. And then I followed you for three years on the road, hunting everywhere.”

“You did that?”

“Yes. Three years. I liked the careless life. For to tell you the truth, I’m not worth much, Henry. I’m a loafer by instinct, and—”

“Not another word.” There were tears in the eyes of Lord Nick, and he frowned them away. “Confound it, Garry, you unman me. I’ll be weeping like a woman in a minute. But now, sit down. We still have some things to talk over. And we’ll get to a quick conclusion.”

“Ah, yes,” said Donnegan, and at the emotion which had come in the face of Lord Nick, his own expression softened wonderfully. A light seemed to stand in his face. “We’ll brush over the incidentals. And everything is incidental aside from the fact that we’re together again. They can chisel iron chain apart, but we’ll never be separated again, God willing!” He looked up as he spoke, and his face was for the moment as pure as the face of a child—Donnegan, the thief, the beggar, the liar by gift, and the man-killer by trade and artistry.

But Lord Nick in the meantime was looking down to the floor and mustering his thoughts.

“The main thing is entirely simple,” he said. “You’ll make one concession to my pride, Garry, boy?”

“Can you ask me?” said Donnegan softly, and he cast out his hands in a gesture that offered his heart and his soul. “Can you ask me? Anything I have is yours!”

“Don’t say that,” answered Lord Nick tenderly. “But this small thing—my pride, you know—I despise myself for caring what people think, but I’m weak. I admit it, but I can’t help it.”

“Talk out, man. You’ll see if there’s a bottom to things that I can give!”

“Well, it’s this. Everyone knows that I came up here to get young Jack Landis and bring him back to Lebrun’s—from which you stole him, you clever young devil! Well, I’ll simply take him back there, Garry; and then I’ll never have to ask another favor of you.”

He was astonished by a sudden silence, and looking up again, he saw that Donnegan sat with his hand at his breast. It was a singularly feminine gesture to which he resorted. It was a habit which had come to him in his youth in the invalid chair, when the ceaseless torment of his crippled back became too great for him to bear.

And clearly, indeed, those days were brought home to Lord Nick as he glanced up, for Donnegan was staring at him in the same old, familiar agony, mute and helpless.

CHAPTER 33

At this L
ord Nick very frankly frowned in turn. And when he frowned his face grew marvelously dark, like some wrathful god, for there was a noble, a Grecian purity to the profile of Henry Nicholas Reardon, and when he frowned he seemed to be scorning, from a distance, ignoble, earthly things which troubled him.

“I know it isn’t exactly easy for you, Garry,” he admitted. “You have your own pride; you have your own position here in The Corner. But I want you to notice that mine is different. You’ve spent a day for what you have in The Corner, here. I’ve spent ten years. You’ve played a prank, acted a part, and cast a jest for what you have. But for the place which I hold, brother mine, I’ve schemed with my wits, played fast and loose, and killed men. Do you hear? I’ve bought it with blood, and things you buy at such a price ought to stick, eh?”

He banished his frown; the smile played suddenly across his features.

“Why, I’m arguing with myself. But that look you gave me a minute ago had me worried for a little while.”

At this Donnegan, who had allowed his head to fall, so that he seemed to be nodding in acquiescence, now raised his face and Lord Nick perceived the same white pain upon it. The same look which had been on the face of the cripple so often in the other days.

“Henry,” said the younger brother, “I give you my oath that my pride has nothing to do with this. I’d let you drive me barefoot before you through the street yonder. I’d let every soul in The Corner know that I have no pride where you’re concerned. I’ll do whatever you wish—with one exception—and that one is the unlucky thing you ask. Pardner, you mustn’t ask for Jack Landis! Anything else I’ll work like a slave to get for you: I’ll fight your battles, I’ll serve you in any way you name: but don’t take Landis back!”

He had talked eagerly, the words coming with a rush, and he found at the end that Lord Nick was looking at him in bewilderment.

“When a man is condemned to death,” said Lord Nick slowly, “suppose somebody offers him anything in the world that he wants—palaces, riches, power—everything except his life. What would the condemned man say to a friend who made such an offer? He’d laugh at him and then call him a traitor. Eh? But I don’t laugh at you, Garry. I simply explain to you why I have to have Landis back. Listen!”