The Max Brand Megapack (354 page)

“Well,” muttered the big man, “may I be eternally damned!” He added: “All right. Hold his head, and I’ll ride him without pulling leather. Is that square?”

Barry nodded absently. His slender fingers were patting the velvet nose of the stallion and he was talking to it in an affectionate undertone—meaningless words, perhaps, such as a mother uses to soothe a child. When Strann set his foot in the stirrup and gathered up the reins the black horse cringed and shuddered; it was not a pleasant thing to see; it was like a dog crouching under the suspended whip. It was worse than that; it was almost the horror of a man who shivers at the touch of an unclean animal. There was not a sound from the crowd; and every grin was wiped out. Jerry Strann swung into the saddle lightly.

There he sat, testing the stirrups. They were too short by inches but he refused to have them lengthened. He poised his quirt and tugged his hat lower over his eyes.

“Turn him loose!” he shouted. “Hei!”

And his shrill yell went down the street and the echoes sent it barking back from wall to wall; Barry stepped back from the head of the black. But for an instant the horse did not stir. He was trembling violently, but his blazing eyes were fixed upon the face of his owner. Barry raised his hand.

And then it happened. It was like the release of a coiled watch-spring; the black whirled as a top spins and Strann sagged far to the left; before he could recover the stallion was away in a flash, like a racer leaving the barrier and reaching full speed in almost a stride. Not far—hardly the breadth of the street—before he pitched up in a long leap as if to clear a barrier, landed stiff-legged with a sickening jar, whirled again like a spinning top, and darted straight back. And Jerry Strann pulled leather—with might and main—but the short stirrups were against him, and above all the suddenness of the start had taken him off guard for all his readiness. When the stallion dropped stiff-legged Jerry was thrown forward and an unlucky left foot jarred loose from the stirrup; and when the horse whirled Strann was flung from the saddle. It was a clean fall. He twisted over in the air as he fell and landed in deep dust. The black stallion had reached his master and now he turned, in that same catlike manner, and watched with pricking ears as Strann dragged himself up from the dust.

There was no shout of laughter—no cheer for that fall, and without a smile they watched Strann returning. Big O’Brien had seen from his open door and now he laid a hand on the shoulder of one of the men and whispered at his ear: “There’s going to be trouble; bad trouble, Billy. Go for Fatty Matthews—he’s a deputy marshal now—and get him here as quick as you can. Run!”

The other spared time for a last glance at Strann and then hurried down the street.

Now, a man who can lose and smile is generally considered the most graceful of failures, but the smile of Jerry Strann as he walked slowly back worried his followers.

“We all hit dust sometime,” he philosophized. “But one try don’t prove nothin’. I ain’t near through with that hoss!”

Barry turned to Strann. If there had been mockery in his eyes or a smile on his lips as he faced Jerry there would have been a gun play on the spot; but, instead, the brown eyes were as dumbly apologetic as ever.

“We didn’t talk about two tries,” he observed.

“We talk about it now,” said Strann.

There was one man in the crowd a little too old to be dangerous and therefore there was one man who was in a position to speak openly to Strann. It was big O’Brien.

“Jerry, you named your game and made your play and lost. I guess you ain’t going to turn up a hard loser. Nobody plays twice for the same pot.”

The hazel eye of Strann was grey with anguish of the spirit as he looked from O’Brien to the crowd and from the crowd to Satan, and from Satan to his meek-eyed owner. Nowhere was there a defiant eye or a glint of scorn on which he could wreak his wrath. He stood poised in his anger for the space of a breath; then, in the sharp struggle, his better nature conquered.

“Come on in, all of you,” he called. “We’ll liquor, and forget this.”

CHAPTER IX

BATTLE LIGHT

O’Brien pressed close to Barry.

“Partner,” he said rapidly, “you’re clear now—you’re clear of more hellthat you ever dream. Now climb that hoss of yours and feed him leather till you get clear of Brownsville—and if I was you I’d never come within a day’s ride of the Three B’s again.”

The mild, brown eyes widened.

“I don’t like crowds,” murmured Barry.

“You’re wise, kid,” grinned the bartender—“a hell of a lot wiser than you know right now. On your way!”

And he turned to follow the crowd into the saloon. But Jerry Strann stood at the swinging doors, watching, and he saw Barry linger behind.

“Are you coming?” he called.

“I got an engagement,” answered the meek voice.

“You got another engagement here,” mocked Strann. “Understand?”

The other hesitated for an instant, and then sighed deeply. “I suppose I’ll stay,” he murmured, and walked into the bar. Jerry Strann was smiling in the way that showed his teeth. As Barry passed he said softly: “I see we ain’t going to have no trouble, you and me!” and he moved to clap his strong hand on the shoulder of the smaller man. Oddly enough, the hand missed, for Barry swerved from beneath it as a wolf swerves from the shadow of a falling branch. No perceptible effort—no sudden start of tensed muscles, but a movement so smooth that it was almost unnoticeable. But the hand of Strann fell through thin air.

“You’re quick,” he said. “If you was as quick with your hands as you are with your feet—”

Barry paused and the melancholy brown eyes dwelt on the face of Strann.

“Oh, hell!” snorted the other, and turned on his heel to the bar. “Drink up!” he commanded.

A shout and a snarl from the further end of the room.

“A wolf, by God!” yelled one of the men.

The owner of the animal made his way with unobtrusive swiftness the length of the room and stood between the dog and a man who fingered the butt of his gun nervously.

“He won’t hurt you none,” murmured that softly assuring voice.

“The hell he won’t!” responded the other. “He took a pass at my leg just now and dam’ near took it off. Got teeth like the blades of a pocket-knife!”

“You’re on a cold trail, Sam,” broke in one of the others. “That ain’t any wolf. Look at him now!”

The big, shaggy animal had slunk to the feet of his master and with head abased stared furtively up into Barry’s face. A gesture served as sufficient command, and he slipped shadow-like into the corner and crouched with his head on his paws and the incandescent green of his eyes glimmering; Barry sat down in a chair nearby.

O’Brien was happily spinning bottles and glasses the length of the bar; there was the chiming of glass and the rumble of contented voices.

“Red-eye all ’round,” said the loud voice of Jerry Strann, “but there’s one out. Who’s out? Oh, it’s
him
. Hey O’Brien, lemonade for the lady.”

It brought a laugh, a deep, good-natured laugh, and then a chorus of mockery; but Barry stepped unconfused to the bar, accepted the glass of lemonade, and when the others downed their fire-water, he sipped his drink thoughtfully. Outside, the wind had risen, and it shook the hotel and carried a score of faint voices as it whirred around corners and through cracks. Perhaps it was one of those voices which made the big dog lift its head from its paws and whine softly! surely it was something he heard which caused Barry to straighten at the bar and cant his head slightly to one side—but, as certainly, no one else in the barroom heard it. Barry set down his glass.

“Mr. Strann?” he called.

And the gentle voice carried faintly down through the uproar of the bar.

“Sister wants to speak to you,” suggested O’Brien to Strann.

“Well?” roared the latter, “what d’you want?”

The others were silent to listen; and they smiled in anticipation.

“If you don’t mind, much,” said the musical voice, “I think I’ll be moving along.”

There is an obscure little devil living in all of us. It makes the child break his own toys; it makes the husband strike the helpless wife; it makes the man beat the cringing, whining dog. The greatest of American writers has called it the Imp of the Perverse. And that devil came in Jerry Strann and made his heart small and cold. If he had been by nature the bully and the ruffian there would have been no point in all that followed, but the heart of Jerry Strann was ordinarily as warm as the yellow sunshine itself; and it was a common saying in the Three B’s that Jerry Strann would take from a child what he would not endure from a mountain-lion. Women loved Jerry Strann, and children would crowd about his knees, but this day the small demon was in him.

“You want to be moving along,” mimicked the devil in Jerry Strann. “Well, you wait a while. I ain’t through with you yet. Maybe—” he paused and searched his mind. “You’ve given me a fall, and maybe you can give the rest of us—a laugh!”

The chuckle of appreciation went up the bar and down it again.

“I want to ask you,” went on the devil in Jerry Strann, “where you got your hoss?”

“He was running wild,” came the gentle answer. “So I took a walk, one day, and brought him in.”

A pause.

“Maybe,” grinned the big man, “you creased him?”

For it is one of the most difficult things in the world to capture a wild horse, and some hunters, in their desperation at seeing the wonderful animals escape, have tried to “crease” them. That is, they strive to shoot so that the bullet will barely graze the top of the animal’s vertebrae, just behind the ears, stunning the horse and making it helpless for the capture. But necessarily such shots are made from a distance, and little short of a miracle is needed to make the bullet strike true—for a fraction of an inch too low means death. So another laugh of appreciation ran around the barroom at the mention of creasing.

“No,” answered Barry, “I went out with a halter and after a while Satan got used to me and followed me home.”

They waited only long enough to draw deep breath; then came a long yell of delight. But the obscure devil was growing stronger and stronger in Strann. He beat on the bar until he got silence. Then he leaned over to meet the eyes of Barry.

“That,” he remarked through his teeth, “is a damned—lie!”

There is only one way of answering that word in the mountain-desert, and Barry did not take it. The melancholy brown eyes widened; he sighed, and raising his glass of lemonade sipped it slowly. Came a sick silence in the barroom. Men turned their eyes towards each other and then flashed them away again. It is not good that one who has the eyes and the tongue of a man should take water from another—even from a Jerry Strann. And even Jerry Strann withdrew his eyes slowly from his prey, and shuddered; the sight of the most grisly death is not so horrible as cowardice.

And the devil which was still strong in Strann made him look about for a new target; Barry was removed from all danger by an incredible barrier. He found that new target at once, for his glance reached to the corner of the room and found there the greenish, glimmering eyes of the dog. He smote upon the bar.

“Is this a damned kennel?” he shouted. “Do I got to drink in a barnyard? What’s the dog doin’ here?”

And he caught up the heavy little whiskey glass and hurled it at the crouching dog. It thudded heavily, but it brought no yelp of pain; instead, a black thunderbolt leaped from the corner and lunged down the room. It was the silence of the attack that made it terrible, and Strann cursed and pulled his gun. He could never have used it. He was a whole half second too late, but before the dog sprang a voice cut in: “Bart!”

It checked the animal in its very leap; it landed on the floor and slid on stiffly extended legs to the feet of Strann.

“Bart!” rang the voice again.

And the beast, flattening to the floor, crawled backwards, inch by inch; it was slavering, and there was a ravening madness in its eyes.

“Look at it!” cried Strann. “By God, it’s mad!”

And he raised his gun to draw the bead.

“Wait!” called the same voice which had checked the spring of the dog. Surely it could not have come from the lips of Barry. It held a resonance of chiming metal; it was not loud, but it carried like a brazen bell. “Don’t do it, Strann!”

And it came to every man in the barroom that it was unhealthy to stand between the two men at that instant; a sudden path opened from Barry to Strann.

“Bart!” came the command again. “Heel!”

The dog obeyed with a slinking swiftness; Jerry Strann put up his gun and smiled.

“I don’t take a start on no man,” he announced quite pleasantly. “I don’t need to. But—you yaller hearted houn’—get out from between. When I make my draw I’m goin’ to kill that damn wolf.”

Now, the fighting face of Jerry Strann was well known in the Three B’s, and it was something for men to remember until they died in a peaceful bed. Yet there was not a glance, from the bystanders, for Strann. They stood back against the wall, flattening themselves, and they stared, fascinated, at the slender stranger. Not that his face had grown ugly by a sudden metamorphosis. It was more beautiful than ever, for the man was smiling. It was his eyes which held them. Behind the brown a light was growing, a yellow and unearthly glimmer which one felt might be seen on the darkest night.

There was none of the coward in Jerry Strann. He looked full into that yellow, glimmering, changing light—he looked steadily—and a strange feeling swept over him. No, it was not fear. Long experience had taught him that there was not another man in the Three B’s, with the exception of his own terrible brother, who could get a gun out of the leather faster than he, but now it seemed to Jerry Strann that he was facing something more than mortal speed and human strength and surety. He could not tell in what the feeling was based. But it was a giant, dim foreboding holding dominion over other men’s lives, and it sent a train of chilly-weakness through his blood.

“It’s a habit of mine,” said Jerry Strann, “to kill mad dogs when I see ’em.” And he smiled again.