The Max Brand Megapack (270 page)

“I thought you came to congratulate me,” said Terry, withdrawing his hand.

“Congratulate you?” echoed Vance, with unaffected astonishment.

“For having learned the truth,” said Terry. “Also, for having a father who was a strong man.”

Vance could not resist the opening.

“In a way, I suppose he was,” he said dryly. “And if you look at it in that way, I do congratulate you, Terence!”

“You’ve always hated me, Uncle Vance,” Terry declared. “I’ve known it all these years. And I’ll do without your congratulations.”

“You’re wrong, Terry,” said Vance. He kept his voice mild. “You’re very wrong. But I’m old enough not to take offense at what a young spitfire says.”

“I suppose you are,” retorted Terry, in a tone which implied that he himself would never reach that age.

“And when a few years run by,” went on Vance, “you’ll change your viewpoint. In the meantime, my boy, let me give you this warning. No matter what you think about me, it is Elizabeth who counts.”

“Thanks. You need have no fear about my attitude to Aunt Elizabeth. You ought to know that I love her, and respect her.”

“Exactly. But you’re headstrong, Terry. Very headstrong. And so is Elizabeth. Take your own case. She took you into the family for the sake of a theory. Did you know that?”

The boy stiffened. “A theory?”

“Quite so. She wished to prove that blood, after all, was more talk than a vital influence. So she took you in and gave you an imaginary line of ancestors with which you were entirely contented. But, after all, it has been twenty-four years of theory rather than twenty-four years of Terry. You understand?”

“It’s a rather nasty thing to hear,” said Terence huskily. “Perhaps you’re right. I don’t know. Perhaps you’re right.”

“And if her theory is proved wrong—look out, Terry! She’ll throw you out of her life without a second thought.”

“Is that a threat?”

“My dear boy, not by any means. You think I have hated you? Not at all. I have simply been indifferent. Now that you are in more or less trouble, you see that I come to you. And hereafter if there should be a crisis, you will see who is your true friend. Now, good night!”

He had saved his most gracious speech until the very end, and after it he retired at once to leave Terence with the pleasant memory in his mind. For he had in his mind the idea of a perfect crime for which he would not be punished. He would turn Terry into a corpse or a killer, and in either case the youngster would never dream who had dealt the blow.

No wonder, then, as he went downstairs, that he stepped onto the veranda for a few moments. The moon was just up beyond Mount Discovery; the valley unfolded like a dream. Never had the estate seemed so charming to Vance Cornish, for he felt that his hand was closing slowly around his inheritance.

CHAPTER 10

The sleep of the night seemed to blot out the excitement of the preceding evening. A bright sun, a cool stir of air, brought in the next morning, and certainly calamity had never seemed farther from the Cornish ranch than it did on this day. All through the morning people kept arriving in ones and twos. Every buckboard on the place was commissioned to haul the guests around the smooth roads and show them the estate; and those who preferred were furnished with saddle horses from the stable to keep their own mounts fresh for their return trip. Vance took charge of the wagon parties; Terence himself guided the horsemen, and he rode El Sangre, a flashing streak of blood red.

The exercise brought the color to his face; the wind raised his spirits; and when the gathering at the house to wait for the big dinner began, he was as gay as any.

“That’s the way with young people,” Elizabeth confided to her brother. “Trouble slips off their minds.”

And then the second blow fell, the blow on which Vance had counted for his great results. No less a person than Sheriff Joe Minter galloped up and threw his reins before the veranda. He approached Elizabeth with a high flourish of his hat and a profound bow, for Uncle Joe Minter affected the mannered courtesy of the “Southern” school. Vance had them in profile from the side, and his nervous glance flickered from one to the other. The sheriff was plainly pleased with what he had seen on his way up Bear Creek. He was also happy to be present at so large a gathering. But to Elizabeth his coming was like a death. Her brother could tell the difference between her forced cordiality and the real thing. She had his horse put up; presented him to the few people whom he had not met, and then left him posing for the crowd of admirers. Life to the sheriff was truly a stage. Then Elizabeth went to Vance.

“You saw?” she gasped.

“Sheriff Minter? What of it? Rather nervy of the old ass to come up here for the party; he hardly knows us.”

“No, no! Not that! But don’t you remember? Don’t you remember what Joe Minter did?”

“Good Lord!” gasped Vance, apparently just recalling. “He killed Black Jack! And what will Terry do when he finds out?”

She grew still whiter, hearing him name her own fear.

“They mustn’t meet,” she said desperately. “Vance, if you’re half a man you’ll find some way of getting that pompous, windy idiot off the place.”

“My dear! Do you want me to invite him to leave?”

“Something—I don’t care what!”

“Neither do I. But I can’t insult the fool. That type resents an insult with gunplay. We must simply keep them apart. Keep the sheriff from talking.”

“Keep rain from falling!” groaned Elizabeth. “Vance, if you won’t do anything, I’ll go and tell the sheriff that he must leave!”

“You don’t mean it!”

“Do you think that I’m going to risk a murder?”

“I suppose you’re right,” nodded Vance, changing his tactics with Machiavellian smoothness. “If Terry saw the man who killed his father, all his twenty-four years of training would go up in smoke and the blood of his father would talk in him. There’d be a shooting!”

She caught a hand to her throat. “I’m not so sure of that, Vance. I think he would come through this acid test. But I don’t want to take chances.”

“I don’t blame you, Elizabeth,” said her brother heartily. “Neither would I. But if the sheriff stays here, I feel that I’m going to win the bet that I made twenty-four years ago. You remember? That Terry would shoot a man before he was twenty-five?”

“Have I ever forgotten?” she said huskily. “Have I ever let it go out of my mind? But it isn’t the danger of Terry shooting. It’s the danger of Terry being shot. If he should reach for a gun against the sheriff—that professional mankiller—Vance, something has to be done!”

“Right,” he nodded. “I wouldn’t trust Terry in the face of such a temptation to violence. Not for a moment!”

The natural stubbornness on which he had counted hardened in her face.

“I don’t know.”

“It would be an acid test, Elizabeth. But perhaps now is the time. You’ve spent twenty-four years training him. If he isn’t what he ought to be now, he never will be, no doubt.”

“It may be that you’re right,” she said gloomily. “Twenty-four years! Yes, and I’ve filled about half of my time with Terry and his training. Vance, you are right. If he has the elements of a mankiller in him after what I’ve done for him, then he’s a hopeless case. The sheriff shall stay! The sheriff shall stay!”

She kept repeating it, as though the repetition of the phrase might bring her courage. And then she went back among her guests.

As for Vance, he remained skillfully in the background that day. It was peculiarly vital, this day of all days, that he should not be much in evidence. No one must see in him a controlling influence.

In the meantime he watched his sister with a growing admiration and with a growing concern. Instantly she had a problem on her hands. For the moment Terence heard that the great sheriff himself had joined the party, he was filled with happiness. Vance watched them meet with a heart swelling with happiness and surety of success. Straight through a group came Terry, weaving his way eagerly, and went up to the sheriff. Vance saw Elizabeth attempt to detain him, attempt to send him on an errand. But he waved her suggestion away for a moment and made for the sheriff. Elizabeth, seeing that the meeting could not be avoided, at least determined to be present at it. She came up with Terence and presented him.

“Sheriff Minter, this is Terence Colby.”

“I’ve heard of you, Colby,” said the sheriff kindly. And he waited for a response with the gleaming eye of a vain man. There was not long to wait.

“You’ve really heard of me?” said Terry, immensely pleased. “By the Lord, I’ve heard of you, sheriff! But, of course, everybody has.”

“I dunno, son,” said the sheriff benevolently. “But I been drifting around a tolerable long time, I guess.”

“Why,” said Terry, with a sort of outburst, “I’ve simply eaten up everything I could gather. I’ve even read about you in magazines!”

“Well, now you don’t say,” protested the sheriff. “In magazines?”

And his eye quested through the group, hoping for other listeners who might learn how broadly the fame of their sheriff was spread.

“That Canning fellow who travelled out West and ran into you and was along while you were hunting down the Garrison boys. I read his article.”

The sheriff scratched his chin. “I disremember him. Canning? Canning? Come to think of it, I do remember him. Kind of a small man with washed-out eyes. Always with a notebook on his knee. I got sick of answering all that gent’s questions, I recollect. Yep, he was along when I took the Garrison boys, but that little party didn’t amount to much.”

“He thought it did,” said Terry fervently. “Said it was the bravest, coolest-headed, cunningest piece of work he’d ever seen done. Perhaps you’ll tell me some of the other things—the things you count big?”

“Oh, I ain’t done nothing much, come to think of it. All pretty simple, they looked to me, when I was doing them. Besides, I ain’t much of a hand at talk!”

“Ah,” said Terry, “you’d talk well enough to suit me, sheriff!”

The sheriff had found a listener after his own heart.

“They ain’t nothing but a campfire that gives a good light to see a story by—the kind of stories I got to tell,” he declared. “Some of these days I’ll take you along with me on a trail, son, if you’d like—and most like I’ll talk your arm off at night beside the fire. Like to come?”

“Like to?” cried Terry. “I’d be the happiest man in the mountains!”

“Would you, now? Well, Colby, you and me might hit it off pretty well. I’ve heard tell you ain’t half bad with a rifle and pretty slick with a revolver, too.”

“I practice hard,” said Terry frankly. “I love guns.”

“Good things to love, and good things to hate, too,” philosophized the sheriff. “But all right in their own place, which ain’t none too big, these days. The old times is gone when a man went out into the world with a hoss under him, and a pair of Colts strapped to his waist, and made his own way. Them days is gone, and our younger boys is going to pot!”

“I suppose so,” admitted Terry.

“But you got a spark in you, son. Well, one of these days we’ll get together. And I hear tell you got El Sangre?”

“I was lucky,” said Terry.

“That’s a sizable piece of work, Colby. I’ve seen twenty that run El Sangre, and never even got close enough to eat his dust. Nacheral pacer, right enough. I’ve seen him kite across country like a train! And his mane and tail blowing like smoke!”

“I got him with patience. That was all.”

“S’pose we take a look at him?”

“By all means. Just come along with me.”

Elizabeth struck in.

“Just a moment, Terence. There’s Mr. Gainor, and he’s been asking to see you. You can take the sheriff out to see El Sangre later. Besides, half a dozen people want to talk to the sheriff, and you mustn’t monopolize him. Miss Wickson begged me to get her a chance to talk to you—the real Sheriff Minter. Do you mind?”

“Pshaw,” said the sheriff. “I ain’t no kind of a hand at talking to the womenfolk. Where is she?”

“Down yonder, sheriff. Shall we go?”

“The old lady with the cane?”

“No, the girl with the bright hair.”

“Doggone me,” muttered the sheriff. “Well, let’s saunter down that way.”

He waved to Terence, who, casting a black glance in the direction of Mr. Gainor, went off to execute Elizabeth’s errand. Plainly Elizabeth had won the first engagement, but Vance was still confident. The dinner table would tell the tale.

CHAPTER 11

Elizabeth left the ordering of the guests at the table to Vance, and she consulted him about it as they went into the dining room. It was a long, low-ceilinged room, with more windows than wall space. It opened onto a small porch, and below the porch was the garden which had been the pride of Henry Cornish. Beside the tall glass doors which led out onto the porch she reviewed the seating plans of Vance. “You at this end and I at the other,” he said. “I’ve put the sheriff beside you, and right across from the sheriff is Nelly. She ought to keep him busy. The old idiot has a weakness for pretty girls, and the younger the better, it seems. Next to the sheriff is Mr. Gainor. He’s a political power, and what time the sheriff doesn’t spend on you and on Nelly he certainly will give to Gainor. The arrangement of the rest doesn’t matter. I simply worked to get the sheriff well-pocketed and keep him under your eye.”

“But why not under yours, Vance? You’re a thousand times more diplomatic than I am.”

“I wouldn’t take the responsibility, for, after all, this may turn out to be a rather solemn occasion, Elizabeth.”

“You don’t think so, Vance?”

“I pray not.”

“And where have you put Terence?”

“Next to Nelly, at your left.”

“Good heavens, Vance, that’s almost directly opposite the sheriff. You’ll have them practically facing each other.”

It was the main thing he was striving to attain. He placated her carefully.

“I had to. There’s a danger. But the advantage is huge. You’ll be there between them, you might say. You can keep the table talk in hand at that end. Flash me a signal if you’re in trouble, and I’ll fire a question down the table at the sheriff or Terry, and get their attention. In the meantime you can draw Terry into talk with you if he begins to ask the sheriff what you consider leading questions. In that way, you’ll keep the talk a thousand leagues away from the death of Black Jack.”