The Max Brand Megapack (417 page)

After supper he went up to the room and found a book. There had been little time for reading since he passed the first stages of convalescence from his wounds. Pete Reeve had kept him constantly occupied with gun work, and the hunger for print had been accumulating in Bull. He started to satisfy it now beside the smoking lamp. He hardly heard Pete and Hugh Manners enter the room and go out again onto the second story of the veranda on which their room opened. From time to time the murmur of their voices came to him, but he regarded it not.

It was only when he had lowered the book to muse over a strange sentence that his wandering eye was caught beyond the window by the flash of a falling star of unusual brilliance. It was so bright, indeed, that he crossed the room to look out at the sky, stepping very softly, for he had grown accustomed to lightening his footfall, and now unconsciously the murmuring voices of the talkers made him move stealthily—not to steal upon them, but to keep from breaking in on their talk. But when he came to the door opening on the veranda the words he heard banished all thought of falling stars. He listened, dazed.

Pete Reeve had just broken into the steady flow of the newcomer’s talk.

“It’s no use, Hugh. I can’t go, you see. I’m tied down here with the big fellow.”

“Tied down?” thought Bull Hunter, and he winced.

A curse, then, “Why don’t you throw the big hulk over?”

“He ain’t a hulk,” protested Pete somewhat sharply, and the heart of Bull warmed again.

“Hush,” said Hugh Manners. “He’ll be hearing.”

“No danger. He’s at his books, and that means that he wouldn’t hear a cannon. That’s his way.”

“He don’t look like a book-learned gent,” said Hugh Manners with more respect in his voice.

“He don’t look like a lot of things that he is,” said Pete. “I don’t know what he is myself—except that he’s the straightest, gentlest, kindest, simplest fellow that ever walked.”

Bull Hunter turned to escape from hearing this eulogy, but he dared not move for fear his retreat might be heard—and that would be immensely embarrassing.

“Just what he is I don’t know,” said Pete again. “He doesn’t know himself. He’s had what you might call an extra-long childhood—that’s why he’s got that misty look in his eyes.”

“That fool look,” scoffed Hugh Manners.

“You think so? I tell you, Manners, he’s just waking up, and when he’s clear waked up he’ll be a world-beater! You saw that doorknob?”

“Smashed? Yep. What of it?”

“He done it with a gun, standing clean across the room, with a flash draw, shooting from the hip—and he made a clean center hit of it.”

Pete brought out these facts jerkily, one by one, piling one extraordinary thing upon the other; and when he had finished, Hugh Manners gasped.

“I’m mighty glad,” he said, “that you told me that, I—I might of made some mistake.”

“You’d sure’ve made an awful mistake if you tangle with him, Manners. Don’t forget it.”

“Your work, I guess.”

“Partly,” said Pete modestly. “I speeded his draw up a bit, but he had the straight eye and the steady hand when I started with him. He didn’t need much target practice—just the draw.”

“And he’s really fast?”

“He’s got my draw.”

That told volumes to Manners.

“And why not take him in with us?” he asked, after a reverent pause.

“Not that!” exclaimed Pete. “Besides, he couldn’t ride and keep up with us. He’d wear out three hosses a day with his weight.”

“Maybe we could find an extra-strong hoss. He ain’t so big as to kill a good strong hoss, Pete. I’ve seen a hoss that carried—”

“No good,” said Pete with decision. “I wouldn’t even talk to him about our business. He don’t guess it. He thinks that I’m—well, he don’t have any idea about how I make a living, that’s all!”

“But how
will
you make a living if you stick with him?”

“I dunno,” Pete sighed. “But I’m not going to turn him down.”

“But ain’t you about used up your money?”

“It’s pretty low.”

“And you’re supporting him?”

“Sure. He ain’t got a cent.”

Bull started. He had not thought of that matter at all, but it stood to reason that Pete had expended a large sum on him.

“Sponging?” said Manners cynically.

“Don’t talk about it that way,” said Pete uneasily. “He’s like a big kid. He don’t think about those things. If I was broke, he’d give me his last cent.”

“That’s what you think.”

“Shut up, Manners. Bull is like—a cross between a son and a brother.”

“Pretty big of bone for your son, Pete. You’ll have a hard time supporting him,” and Manners chuckled. Then, more seriously, “You’re making a fool of yourself, pardner. Throw this big hulk over and come back—with me! They’s loads of money staked out waiting for us!”

“Listen,” said Pete solemnly. “I’m going to tell you why I’ll never turn Bull Hunter down if I live to be a hundred! When I was a kid a dirty trick was done me by old Bill Campbell. I waited all these years till a little while ago to get back at him. Then I found him and fought him. I didn’t kill him, but I ruined him and sent him back to his home tied on his hoss with a busted shoulder that he’ll never be able to use again. His right shoulder, at that.”

There was a subdued exclamation from Manners, but Pete went on, “Seems he was the uncle of this Bull; took Bull in when Bull was orphaned, because he had to, not because he wanted to, and he raised Bull up to be a sort of general slave around the place. Well, when he comes back home all shot up he tries to get his sons to take my trail, but they didn’t have the nerve. But Bull that they’d always looked down on for a big good-for-nothing hulk—Bull stepped out and took my trail on foot and hit across the mountains in a storm, above the timberline!

“And he followed till he come up with me here where he found me in jail, accused of a murder. Did he turn back? He didn’t. He didn’t want the law to hang me. He wanted to kill me with his own hands so’s he could go back home and hear his uncle call him a man and praise him a little. That shows how simple he is.

“Well, I’ll cut a long story short. Bull scouted around, found out that the sheriff had done the killing himself and just saddled the blame on me, and then he makes the sheriff confess, gets me out of jail, and takes me out in the woods.

“‘Now,’ says he, ‘you’ve got a gun, and I’ve got a gun, and I’m going to kill you if I can.’

“No use arguing. He goes for his gun. I didn’t want to kill a man who’d saved my life. I tried to stop him with bullets. I shot him through the right arm and made him drop his gun. Then he charged me barehanded!”

There was a gasp from Manners.

“Barehanded,” repeated Pete. “That’s the stuff that’s in him! I shot him through the left leg. He pitched onto his face, and then hanged if he didn’t get up on one arm and one leg and throw himself at me. He got that big arm of his around me. I couldn’t do a thing. My gun was squeezed between him and me. He started fumbling. Pretty soon he found my throat with them big gorilla fingers of his. I thought my last minute had come. One squeeze would have smashed my windpipe—and good-bye, Pete Reeve!

“But he wouldn’t kill me. After I’d filled him full of lead, he let me go. After he had the advantage he wouldn’t take it.” Pete choked. He concluded briefly, “He mighty near bled to death before I could get the wounds bandaged, and then I stayed on here and nursed him. Matter of fact, Manners, he saved my life twice and that’s why I’m tied to him for life. Besides, between you and me, he means more to me than the rest of the world put together.”

“Listen,” said Manners, after a pause. “I see what you mean and I’ll tell you what you got to do. That big boy will do anything you tell him. He follers you with his eyes. Well, we’ll find a hoss that will carry him. I guarantee that. Then you put your game up to him, best foot forward, and he’ll come with us.”

“Not in a thousand years,” said Pete with emotion. “That boy will never go crooked if I can keep him straight. Do you know what he’s done? Because his uncle and cousins tried to get me, he’s sworn never to see one of ’em again. He’s given them up—his own flesh and blood—to follow me, and I’m going to stick to him. That’s complete and final.”

“No, Pete, of all the fools—”

Bull waited to hear no more. He stole back to the table on the far side of the room sick at heart and sat down to think or try to think.

The truth came to him slowly. Pete Reeve, whom he had taken as his ideal, was, as a matter of fact—he dared not think what! The blow shook him to the center. But he had been living on the charity of Reeve. He had been draining the resources of the generous fellow. And how would he ever be able to pay him back?

One thing was definite. He must put an end to any increase of the obligations. He must leave.

The moment the thought came to him he tore a flyleaf out of the book and wrote in his big, sprawling hand:

Dear Pete:

I have to tell you that it has just occurred to me that you have been paying all the bills, and I’ve been paying none. That has to stop, and the only way for me to stop it is to go off all by myself. I hate to sneak away, but if I stay to say good-bye I know you’ll argue me out of it because I’m no good at an argument. Good-bye and good luck, and remember that I’m not forgetting anything that has happened; that when I have enough money to pay you back I’m coming to find you if I have to travel all the way around the world.

Your pardner,

BULL

That done, he paused a moment, tempted to tear up the little slip. But the original impulse prevailed. He put the paper on the table, picked up his hat, and stole slowly from the room.

CHAPTER 13

He went out the back door of the hotel so that few people might mark his leaving, and cut for the woods. Once in them, he changed his direction to the east, heading for the lower, rolling hills in that direction. He turned back when the lights of the town had drawn into one small, glimmering ray. Then this, too, went out, and with it the pain of leaving Pete Reeve became acute. He felt lost and alone, that keen mind had guided him so long. As he stalked along with the great swinging strides through the darkness, the holster rubbed on his thigh and he remembered Pete. Truly he had come into the hands of Pete Reeve a child, and he was leaving him as a man.

The dawn found him forty miles away and still swinging strongly down the winding road. It was better country now. The desert sand had disappeared, and here the soil supported a good growth of grass that would fatten the cattle. It was a cheerful country in more ways than the greenness of the grass, however. There were no high mountains, but a continual smooth rolling of hills, so that the landscape varied with every half-mile he traveled. And every now and then he had to jump a runlet of water that murmured across his trail.

A pleasant country, a clear sky, and a cool wind touching at his face. The contentment of Bull Hunter increased with every step he took. He had diminished the sharpness of his hunger by taking up a few links of his belt, but he was glad when he saw smoke twisting over a hill and came, on the other side, in view of a crossroads village. He fingered the few pieces of silver in his pocket. That would be enough for breakfast, at least.

It was enough; barely that and no more, for the long walk had made him ravenous, and the keenness of his spirits served to put a razor edge on an appetite which was already sharp. He began eating before the regular breakfast at the little hotel was ready. He ate while the other men were present. He was still eating when they left.

“How much?” he said when he was done.

His host scratched his head.

“I figure three times a regular meal ought to be about it,” he said. “Even then it don’t cover everything; but matter of fact, I’m ashamed to charge any more.”

His ruefulness changed to a grin when he had the money in his hand, and Bull Hunter rose from the table.

“But you got something to feed, son,” he said. “You certainly got something to feed. And—is what the boys are saying right?”

It came to Bull that while he sat at the table there had been many curious glances directed toward him, and a humming whisper had passed around the table more than once. But he was accustomed to these side glances and murmurs, and he had paid no attention. Besides, food had been before him.

“I don’t know. What do they say?”

“That you’re Dunbar from the South—Hal Dunbar.”

“That’s not my name,” said Bull. “My name is Hunter.”

“I guess they were wrong,” said the other. “Trouble is, every time anybody sees a big man they say, ‘There goes Hal Dunbar.’ But you’re too big even to be Dunbar I reckon.”

He surveyed the bulk of Bull Hunter with admiring respect. This personal survey embarrassed the big man. He would have withdrawn, but his host followed with his conversation.

“We know Dunbar is coming up this way, though. He sent the word on up that he’s going to come to ride Diablo. I guess you’ve heard about Diablo?”

Bull averred that he had not, and his eyes went restlessly down the road. It wove in long curves, delightfully white with the bordering of green on either side. He could see it almost tossing among the far-off hills. Now was the time of all times for walking, and if Pete Reeve started to trail him this morning, he would need to put as much distance behind him by night as his long legs could cover. But still the hotel proprietor hung beside him. He wanted to make the big man talk. It was possible that there might be in him a story as big as his body.

“So you ain’t heard of Diablo? Devil is the right name for him. Black as night and meaner’n a mountain lion. That’s Diablo. He’s big enough and strong enough to carry even you. Account of him being so strong, that’s why Dunbar wants him.”

“Big enough and strong enough to carry me?” repeated Bull Hunter.

He had had unfortunate experiences trying to ride horses. His weight crushed down their quarters and made them walk with braced legs. To be sure, that was up in the high mountains where the horses were little more than ponies.

“Yep. Big enough. He’s kind of a freak hoss, you see. Runs to almost seventeen hands, I’ve heard tell, though I ain’t seen him. He’s over to the Bridewell place yonder in the hills—along about fifteen miles by the road, I figure. He run till he was three without ever being taken up, and he got wild as a mustang. They never was good on managing on the Bridewell place, you see? And then when they tried to break him he started doing some breaking on his own account. They say he can jump about halfway to the sky and come down stiff-legged in a way that snaps your neck near off. I seen young Huniker along about a month after he tried to ride Diablo. Huniker was a pretty good rider, by all accounts, but he was sure a sick gent around hosses after Diablo got through with him. Scared of a ten-year-old mare, Huniker was, after Diablo finished with him. Scott Porter tried him, too. That was a fight! Lasted close onto an hour, they say, nip and tuck all the way. Diablo wasn’t bucking all the time. No, he ain’t that way. He waits in between spells till he’s thought up something new to do. And he’s always thinking, they say. But if he wasn’t so mean he’d be a wonderful hoss. Got a stride as long as from here to that shed, they say.”