The Max Brand Megapack (50 page)

“I tried to work them off—you see the laces are untied,” explained Drew, “but the poor fellow recovered consciousness at once, and struggled to get his feet free. He said that he wants to die with his boots on.”

“You tried his pulse and his temperature?” whispered the doctor.

“Yes. The temperature is not much above normal, the pulse is extremely rapid and very faint. Is that a bad sign?”

“Very bad.”

Drew winced and caught his breath so sharply that the others stared at him. It might have been thought that he had just heard his own death sentence pronounced.

He explained: “Ben has been with me a number of years. It breaks me up to think of losing him like this.”

The doctor took the pulse of Calamity with lightly touching fingers that did not waken the sleeper; then he felt with equal caution the forehead of Ben.

“Well?” asked Drew eagerly.

“The chances are about one out of ten.”

It drew a groan from the rancher.

“But there is still some hope.”

The doctor shook his head and carefully unwound the bandages. He examined the wound with care, and then made a dressing, and recovered the little purple spot, so small that a five-cent piece would have covered it.

“Tell me!” demanded Drew, as Young turned at length.

“The bullet passed right through the body, eh?”

“Yes.”

“He ought to have been dead hours ago. I can’t understand it. But since he’s still alive we’ll go on hoping.”

“Hope?” whispered Drew.

It was as if he had received the promise of heaven, such brightness fell across his haggard face.

“There’s no use attempting to explain,” answered Young. “An ordinary man would have died almost instantly, but the lungs of some of these rangers seem to be lined with leather. I suppose they are fairly embalmed with excessive cigarette smoking. The constant work in the open air toughens them wonderfully. As I said, the chances are about one out of ten, but I’m only astonished that there is any chance at all.”

“Doctor, I’ll make you rich for this!”

“My dear sir, I’ve done nothing; it has been your instant care that saved him—as far as he is saved. I’ll tell you what to continue doing for him; in half an hour I must leave.”

Drew smiled faintly.

“Not till he’s well or dead, doctor.”

“I didn’t quite catch that.”

“You won’t leave the room, Young, till this man is dead or on the way to recovery.”

“Come, come, Mr. Drew, I have patients who—

“I tell you, there is no one else. Until a decision comes in this case your world is bounded by the four walls of this room. That’s final.”

“Is it possible that you would attempt—”

“Anything is possible with me. Make up your mind. You shall not leave this man till you’ve done all that’s humanly possible for him.”

“Mr. Drew, I appreciate your anxiety, but this is stepping too far. I have an officer of the law with me—”

“Better do what he wants, Doc,” said Glendin uneasily.

“Don’t mouth words,” ordered Drew sternly.

“There lies your sick man. Get to work. In this I’m as unalterable as the rocks.”

“The bill will be large,” said Young sullenly, for he began to see that it was as futile to resist the grey giant as it would have been to attempt to stop the progress of a landslide.

“I’ll pay you double what you wish to charge.”

“Does this man’s life mean so much to you?”

“A priceless thing. If you save him, you take the burden of murder off the soul of another.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“I know you will.”

He laid the broad hand on Young’s shoulder. “Doctor, you must do more than you can; you must accomplish the impossible; I tell you, it is impossible for this man to die; he must live!”

He turned to Glendin.

“I suppose you want the details of what happened here?”

“Right.”

“Follow me. Doctor, I’ll be gone only a moment.”

He led the way into an adjoining room, and lighted a lamp. The sudden flare cast deep shadows on the face leaning above, and Glendin started. For the moment it seemed to him that he was seeing a face which had looked on hell and lived to speak of it.

“Mr. Drew,” he said, “you’d better hit the hay yourself; you look pretty badly done up.”

The other looked up with a singular smile, clenching and unclenching his fingers as if he strove to relax muscles which had been tense for hours.

“Glendin, the surface of my strength has not been scratched; I could keep going every hour for ten days if it would save the life of the poor fellow who lies in there.”

He took a long breath.

“Now, then, let’s get after this business. I’ll tell you the naked facts. Anthony Bard was approaching my house yesterday and word of his coming was brought to me. For reasons of my own it was necessary that I should detain him here for an uncertain length of time. For other reasons it was necessary that I go to any length to accomplish my ends.

“I had another man—Lawlor, who looks something like me—take my place in the eyes of Bard. But Bard grew suspicious of the deception. Finally a girl entered and called Lawlor by name, as they were sitting at the table with all the men around them. Bard rose at once with a gun in his hand.

“Put yourself in his place. He found that he had been deceived, he knew that he was surrounded by armed men, he must have felt like a cornered rat. He drew his gun and started for the door, warning the others that he meant to go the limit in order to get free. Mind you, it was no sudden gun-play.

“Then I ordered the men to keep him at all costs within the room. He saw that they were prepared to obey me, and then he took a desperate chance and shot down the gasoline lamp which hung over the table. In the explosion and fire which resulted he made for the door. One man blocked the way, levelled a revolver at him, and then Bard shot in self-defence and downed Calamity Ben. I ask you, Glendin, is that self defence?”

The other drummed his finger-tips nervously against his chin; he was thinking hard, and every thought was of Steve Nash.

“So far, all right. I ain’t askin’ your reasons for doin’ some pretty queer things, Mr. Drew.”

“I’ll stand every penalty of the law, sir. I only ask that you see that punishment falls where it is deserved only. The case is clear. Bard acted in self-defence.”

Glendin was desperate.

He said at length: “When a man’s tried in court they bring up his past career. This feller Bard has gone along the range raisin’ a different brand of hell everywhere he went. He had a run-in with two gunmen, Ferguson and Conklin. He had Eldara within an ace of a riot the first night he hit the town. Mr. Drew, that chap looks the part of a killer; he acts the part of a killer; and by God, he is a killer.”

“You seem to have come with your mind already made up, Glendin,” said the rancher coldly.

“Not a bit. But go through the whole town or Eldara and ask the boys what they think of this tenderfoot. They feel so strong that if he was jailed they’d lynch him.”

Drew raised a clenched fist and then let his arm fall suddenly limp at his side.

“Then surely he must not be jailed.”

“Want me to let him wander around loose and kill another man—in self-defence?”

“I want you to use reason—and mercy, Glendin!

“From what I’ve heard, you ain’t the man to talk of mercy, Mr. Drew.”

The other, as if he had received a stunning blow, slipped into a chair and buried his face in his hands. It was a long moment before he could speak, and when his hands were lowered, Glendin winced at what he saw in the other’s face.

“God knows I’m not,” said Drew.

“Suppose we let the shootin’ of Calamity go. What of hoss-liftin’, sir?”

“Horse stealing? Impossible! Anthony—he could not be guilty of it!”

“Ask your man Duffy. Bard’s ridin’ Duffy’s grey right now.”

“But Duffy will press no claim,” said the rancher eagerly. “I’ll see to that. I’ll pay him ten times the value of his horse. Glendin, you can’t punish a man for a theft of which Duffy will not complain.”

“Drew, you know what the boys on the range think of a hoss thief. It ain’t the price of what they steal; it’s the low-down soul of the dog that would steal it. It ain’t the money. But what’s a man without a hoss on the range? Suppose his hoss is stole while he’s hundred miles from nowhere? What does it mean? You know; it means dyin’ of thirst and goin’ through a hundred hells before the finish. I say shootin’ a man is nothin’ compared with stealin’ a hoss. A man that’ll steal a hoss will shoot his own brother; that’s what he’ll do. But I don’t need to tell you. You know it better’n me. What was it you done with your own hands to Louis Borgen, the hoss-rustler, back ten years ago?”

A dead voice answered Glendin: “What has set you on the trail of Bard?”

“His own wrong doin’.”

The rancher waved a hand of careless dismissal.

“I know you, Glendin,” he said.

The deputy stirred in his chair, and then cleared his throat.

He said in a rising tone: “What d’you know?”

“I don’t think you really care to hear it. To put it lightly, Glendin, you’ve done many things for money. I don’t accuse you of them. But if you want to do one thing more, you can make more money at a stroke than you’ve made in all the rest.”

With all his soul the deputy was cursing Nash, but now the thing was done, and he must see it through.

He rose glowering on Drew.

“I’ve stood a pile already from you; this is one beyond the limit. Bribery ain’t my way, Drew, no matter what I’ve done before.”

“Is it war, then?”

And Glendin answered, forcing his tone into fierceness: “Anything you want—any way you want it!”

“Glendin,” said the other with a sudden lowering of his voice, “has some other man been talking to you?”

“Who? Me? Certainly not.”

“Don’t lie.”

“Drew, rein up. They’s one thing no man can say to me and get away with it.”

“I tell you, man, I’m holding myself in harder than I’ve ever done before. Answer me!”

He did not even rise, but Glendin, his hand twitching close to the butt of his gun, moved step by step away from those keen eyes.

“Answer me!”

“Nash; he’s been to Eldara.”

“I might have known. He told you about this?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re going the full limit of your power against Bard?”

“I’ll do nothin’ that ain’t been done by others before me.”

“Glendin, there have been cowardly legal murders before. Tell me at least that you will not send a posse to ‘apprehend’ Bard until it’s learned whether or not Ben will die—and whether or not Duffy will press the charge of horse stealing.”

Glendin was at the door. He fumbled behind him, found the knob, and swung it open.

“If you double-cross me,” said Drew, “all that I’ve ever done to any man before will be nothing to what I’ll do to you, Glendin.”

And the deputy cried, his voice gone shrill and high, “I ain’t done nothin’ that ain’t been done before!”

And he vanished through the doorway. Drew followed and looked after the deputy, who galloped like a fugitive over the hills.

“Shall I follow him?” he muttered to himself, but a faint groan reached him from the bedroom.

He turned on his heel and went back to Calamity Ben and the doctor.

CHAPTER XXXIV

CRITICISM

After the first burst of speed, Bard resigned himself to following Sally, knowing that he could never catch her, first because her horse carried a burden so much lighter than his own, but above all because the girl seemed to know every rock and twist in the trail, and rode as courageously through the night as if it had been broad day.

She was following a course as straight as a crow’s flight between the ranch of Drew and his old place, a desperate trail that veered and twisted up the side of the mountain and then lurched headlong down on the farther side of the crest. Half a dozen times Anthony checked his horse and shook his head at the trail, but always the figure of the girl, glimmering through the dusk ahead, challenged and drove him on.

Out of the sharp descent of the downward trail they broke suddenly onto the comparatively smooth floor of the valley, and he followed her at a gallop which ended in front of the old house of Drew. They had been far less than five hours on the way, yet his long detour to the south had given him three days of hard riding to cover the same points. His desire to meet Logan again became almost a passion. He swung to the ground, and advanced to Sally with his hands outstretched.

“You’ve shown me the short cut, all right,” he said, “and I thank you a thousand times, Sally. So-long, and good luck to you.”

She disregarded his extended hand.

“Want me to leave you here, Bard?”

“You certainly can’t stay.”

She slipped from her horse and jerked the reins over its head. In another moment she had untied the cinch and drawn off the saddle. She held its weight easily on one forearm. Actions, after all, are more eloquent than words.

“I suppose,” he said gloomily, “that if I’d asked you to stay you’d have ridden off at once?”

She did not answer for a moment, and he strained his eyes to read her expression through the dark. At length she laughed with a new note in her voice that drew her strangely close to him. During the long ride he had come to feel toward her as toward another man, as strong as himself, almost, as fine a horseman, and much surer of herself on that wild trail; but now the laughter in an instant rubbed all this away. It was rather low, and with a throaty quality of richness. The pulse of the sound was like a light finger tapping some marvellously sensitive chord within him.

“D’you think that?” she said, and went directly through the door of the house.

He heard the crazy floor creak beneath her weight; the saddle dropped with a thump; a match scratched and a flight of shadows shook across the doorway. The light did not serve to make the room visible; it fell wholly upon his own mind and troubled him like the waves which spread from the dropping of the smallest pebble and lap against the last shores of a pool. Dumfounded by her casual surety, he remained another moment with the rein in the hollow of his arm.