The Max Brand Megapack (284 page)

It was joyous, free, terrible in its force—that wish to slay. The emotion had grown, held back by the very force of a mental thread of reason, until, at the very moment when the thread was about to fray and snap, and he would be flung into sudden action, the booming voice of Joe Pollard had cleared his mind as an acid clears a cloudy precipitate. He saw himself for the first time in several moments, and what he saw made him shudder.

And still in fear of himself he swung El Sangre and put him down the slope recklessly. Never in his life had he ridden as he rode in those first five minutes down the pitch of the hill. He gave El Sangre his head to pick his own way, and he confined his efforts to urging the great stallion along. The blood-bay went like the wind, passing up-jutting boulders with a swish of gravel knocked from his plunging hoofs against the rock.

Even in Terry’s passion of self-dread he dimly appreciated the prowess of the horse, and when they shot onto the level going of the valley road, he called El Sangre out of the mad gallop and back to the natural pace, a gait as swinging and smooth as running water—yet still the road poured beneath them at the speed of an ordinary gallop. It was music to Terry Hollis, that matchless gait. He leaned and murmured to the pricking ears with that soft, gentle voice which horses love. The glorious head of El Sangre went up a little, his tail flaunted somewhat more proudly; from the quiver of his nostrils to the ringing beat of his black hoofs he bespoke his confidence that he bore the king of men on his back.

And the pride of the great horse brought back some of Terry’s own waning self-confidence. His father had been up in him as he faced Slim Dugan, he knew. Once more he had escaped from the commission of a crime. But for how long would he succeed in dodging that imp of the perverse which haunted him?

It was like the temptation of a drug—to strike just once, and thereafter to be raised above himself, take to himself the power of evil which is greater than the power of good. The blow he struck at the sheriff had merely served to launch him on his way. To strike down was not now what he wanted, but to kill! To feel that once he had accomplished the destiny of some strong man, to turn a creature of mind and soul, ambition and hope, at a single stroke into so many pounds of flesh, useless, done for. What could be more glorious? What could be more terrible? And the desire to strike, as he had looked into the sneering face of Slim Dugan, had been almost overmastering.

Sooner or later he would strike that blow. Sooner or later he would commit the great and controlling crime. And the rest of his life would be a continual evasion of the law.

If they would only take him into their midst, the good and the law-abiding men of the mountains! If they would only accept him by word or deed and give him a chance to prove that he was honest! Even then the battle would be hard, against temptation; but they were too smugly sure that his downfall was certain. Twice they had rejected him without cause. How long would it be before they actually raised their hands against him? How long would it be before they violently put him in the class of his father?

Grinding his teeth, he swore that if that time ever came when they took his destiny into their own hands, he would make it a day to be marked in red all through the mountains!

The cool, fresh wind against his face blew the sullen anger away. And when he came close to the town, he was his old self.

A man on a tall gray, with the legs of speed and plenty of girth at the cinches, where girth means lung power, twisted out of a side trail and swung past El Sangre at a fast gallop. The blood-bay snorted and came hard against the bit in a desire to follow. On the range, when he led his wild band, no horse had ever passed El Sangre and hardly the voice of the master could keep him back now. Terry loosed him. He did not break into a gallop, but fled down the road like an arrow, and the gray came back to him slowly and surely until the rider twisted around and swore in surprise.

He touched his mount with the spurs; there was a fresh start from the gray, a lunge that kicked a little spurt of dust into the nostrils of El Sangre. He snorted it out. Terry released his head completely, and now, as though in scorn refusing to break into his sweeping gallop, El Sangre flung himself ahead to the full of his natural pace.

And the gray came back steadily. The town was shoving up at them at the end of the road more and more clearly. The rider of the gray began to curse. He was leaning forward, jockeying his horse, but still El Sangre hurled himself forward powerfully, smoothly. They passed the first shanty on the outskirts of the town with the red head of the stallion at the hip of the other. Before they straightened into the main street, El Sangre had shoved his nose past the outstretched head of the gray. Then the other rider jerked back on his reins with a resounding oath. Terry imitated; one call to El Sangre brought him back to a gentle amble.

“Going to sell this damned skate,” declared the stranger, a lean-faced man of middle age with big, patient, kindly eyes. “If he can’t make another hoss break out of a pace, he ain’t worth keeping! But I’ll tell a man that you got quite a hoss there, partner!”

“Not bad,” admitted Terry modestly. “And the gray has pretty good points, it seems to me.”

They drew the horses back to a walk.

“Ought to have. Been breeding for him fifteen years—and here I get him beat by a hoss that don’t break out of a pace.”

He swore again, but less violently and with less disappointment. He was beginning to run his eyes appreciatively over the superb lines of El Sangre. There were horses and horses, and he began to see that this was one in a thousand—or more.

“What’s the strain in that stallion?” he asked.

“Mustang,” answered Terry.

“Mustang? Man, man, he’s close to sixteen hands!”

“Nearer fifteen three. Yes, he stands pretty high. Might call him a freak mustang, I guess. He reverts to the old source stock.”

“I’ve heard something about that,” nodded the other. “Once in a generation they say a mustang turns up somewhere on the range that breeds back to the old Arab. And that red hoss is sure one of ’em.”

They dismounted at the hotel, the common hitching rack for the town, and the elder man held out his hand.

“I’m Jack Baldwin.”

“Terry’ll do for me, Mr. Baldwin. Glad to know you.”

Baldwin considered his companion with a slight narrowing of the eyes. Distinctly this “Terry” was not the type to be wandering about the country known by his first name alone. There were reasons and reasons why men chose to conceal their family names in the mountains, however, and not all of them were bad. He decided to reserve judgment. Particularly since he noted a touch of similarity between the high head and the glorious lines of El Sangre and the young pride and strength of Terry himself. There was something reassuringly clean and frank about both horse and rider, and it pleased Baldwin.

They made their purchases together in the store.

“Where might you be working?” asked Baldwin.

“For Joe Pollard.”

“Him?” There was a lifting of the eyebrows of Jack Baldwin. “What line?”

“Cutting wood, just now.”

Baldwin shook his head.

“How Pollard uses so much help is more’n I can see. He’s got a range back of the hills, I know, and some cattle on it; but he’s sure a waster of good labor. Take me, now. I need a hand right bad to help me with the cows.”

“I’m more or less under contract with Pollard,” said Terry. He added: “You talk as if Pollard might be a queer sort.”

Baldwin seemed to be disarmed by this frankness.

“Ain’t you noticed anything queer up there? No? Well, maybe Pollard is all right. He’s sort of a newcomer around here. That big house of his ain’t more’n four or five years old. But most usually a man buys land and cattle around here before he builds him a big house. Well—Pollard is an open-handed cuss, I’ll say that for him, and maybe they ain’t anything in the talk that goes around.”

What that talk was Terry attempted to discover, but he could not. Jack Baldwin was a cautious gossip.

Since they had finished buying, the storekeeper perched on the edge of his selling counter and began to pass the time of the day. It began with the usual preliminaries, invariable in the mountains.

“What’s the news out your way?”

“Nothing much to talk about. How’s things with you and your family?”

“Fair to middlin’ and better. Patty had the croup and we sat up two nights firing up the croup kettle. Now he’s better, but he still coughs terrible bad.”

And so on until all family affairs had been exhausted. This is a formality. One must not rush to the heart of his news or he will mortally offend the sensitive Westerner.

This is the approved method. The storekeeper exemplified it, and having talked about nothing for ten minutes, quietly remarked that young Larrimer was out hunting a scalp, had been drinking most of the morning, and was now about the town boasting of what he intended to do.

“And what’s more, he’s apt to do it.”

“Larrimer is a no-good young skunk,” said Baldwin, with deliberate heat. “It’s sure a crime when a boy that ain’t got enough brains to fill a peanut shell can run over men just because he’s spent his life learning how to handle firearms. He’ll meet up with his finish one of these days.”

“Maybe he will, maybe he won’t,” said the storekeeper, and spat with precision and remarkable power through the window beside him. “That’s what they been saying for the last two years. Dawson come right down here to get him; but it was Dawson that was got. And Kennedy was called a good man with a gun—but Larrimer beat him to the draw and filled him plumb full of lead.”

“I know,” growled Baldwin. “Kept on shooting after Kennedy was down and had the gun shot out of his hand and was helpless. And yet they call that self-defense.”

“We can’t afford to be too particular about shootings,” said the storekeeper. “Speaking personal, I figure that a shooting now and then lets the blood of the youngsters and gives ’em a new start. Kind of like to see it.”

“But who’s Larrimer after now?”

“A wild-goose chase, most likely. He says he’s heard that the son of old Black Jack is around these parts, and that he’s going to bury the outlaw’s son after he’s salted him away with lead.”

“Black Jack’s son! Is he around town?”

The tone sent a chill through Terry; it contained a breathless horror from which there was no appeal. In the eye of Jack Baldwin, fair-minded man though he was, Black Jack’s son was judged and condemned as worthless before his case had been heard.

“I dunno,” said the storekeeper; “but if Larrimer put one of Black Jack’s breed under the ground, I’d call him some use to the town.”

Jack Baldwin was agreeing fervently when the storekeeper made a violent signal.

“There’s Larrimer now, and he looks all fired up.”

Terry turned and saw a tall fellow standing in the doorway. He had been prepared for a youth; he saw before him a hardened man of thirty and more, gaunt-faced, bristling with the rough beard of some five or six days’ growth, a thin, cruel, hawklike face.

CHAPTER 30

A moment later, from the side door which led from the store into the main body of the hotel, stepped the chunky form of Denver Pete, quick and light of foot as ever. He went straight to the counter and asked for matches, and as the storekeeper, still keeping half an eye upon the formidable figure of Larrimer, turned for the matches, Denver spoke softly from the side of his mouth to Terry—only in the lockstep line of the prison do they learn to talk in this manner—gauging the carrying power of the whisper with nice accuracy.

“That bird’s after you. Crazy with booze in the head, but steady in the hand. One of two things. Clear out right now, or else say the word and I’ll stay and help you get rid of him.”

For the first time in his life fear swept over Terry—fear of himself compared with which the qualm he had felt after turning from Slim Dugan that morning had been nothing. For the second time in one day he was being tempted, and the certainty came to him that he would kill Larrimer. And what made that certainty more sure was the appearance of his nemesis, Denver Pete, in this crisis. As though, with sure scent for evil, Denver had come to be present and watch the launching of Terry into a career of crime. But it was not the public that Terry feared. It was himself. His moral determination was a dam which blocked fierce currents in him that were struggling to get free. And a bullet fired at Larrimer would be the thing that burst the dam and let the flood waters of self-will free. Thereafter what stood in his path would be crushed and swept aside.

He said to Denver: “This is my affair, not yours. Stand away, Denver. And pray for me.”

A strange request. It shattered even the indomitable self-control of Denver and left him gaping.

Larrimer, having completed his survey of the dim interior of the store, stalked down upon them. He saw Terry for the first time, paused, and his bloodshot little eyes ran up and down the body of the stranger. He turned to the storekeeper, but still half of his attention was fixed upon Terry.

“Bill,” he said, “you seen anything of a spavined, long-horned, no-good skunk named Hollis around town today?”

And Terry could see him wait, quivering, half in hopes that the stranger would show some anger at this denunciation.

“Ain’t seen nobody by that name,” said Bill mildly. “Maybe you’re chasing a wild goose? Who told you they was a gent named Hollis around?”

“Black Jack’s son,” insisted Larrimer. “Wild-goose chase, hell! I was told he was around by a gent named—”

“These ain’t the kind of matches I want!” cried Denver Pete, with a strangely loud-voiced wrath. “I don’t want painted wood. How can a gent whittle one of these damned matches down to toothpick size? Gimme plain wood, will you?”

The storekeeper, wondering, made the exchange. Drunken Larrimer had roved on, forgetful of his unfinished sentence. For the very purpose of keeping that sentence unfinished, Denver Pete remained on the scene, edging toward the outskirts. Now was to come, in a single moment, both the temptation and the test of Terry Hollis, and well Denver knew that if Larrimer fell with a bullet in his body there would be an end of Terry Hollis in the world and the birth of a new soul—the true son of Black Jack!