The Max Brand Megapack (68 page)

“No! no! We are waiting for you at the ranch.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Dan, this wild trail has no end.”

“Maybe, but I know that feller can show me the way to Jim Silent, an’ now——”

He turned towards Haines as he spoke, but here a low, venomous snarl from Black Bart checked his words. Kate saw him stiffen—his lips parted to a faint smile—his head tilted back a little as if he listened intently, though she could hear nothing. She was not a yard from him, and yet she felt a thousand miles away. His head turned full upon her, and she would never forget the yellow light of his eyes.

“Dan!” she cried, but her voice was no louder than a whisper.

“Delilah!” he said, and leaped back into the shade of the willows.

Even as he sprang she saw the flash of the moonlight on his drawn revolver, and fire spat from it twice, answered by a yell of pain, the clang of a bullet on metal, and half a dozen shots from the woods behind her.

That word “Delilah!” rang in her brain to the exclusion of all the world. Vaguely she heard voices shouting—she turned a little and saw Haines facing her with his revolver in his hand, but prevented from moving by the wolf who crouched snarling at his feet. The order of his master kept him there even after that master was gone. Now men ran out into the clearing. A keen whistle sounded far off among the willows, and the wolf leaped away from his prisoner and into the shadows on the trail of Dan.

* * * *

Tex Calder prided himself on being a light sleeper. Years spent in constant danger enabled him to keep his sense of hearing alert even when he slept. He had never been surprised. It was his boast that he never would be. Therefore when a hand dropped lightly on his shoulder he started erect from his blankets with a curse and grasped his revolver. A strong grip on his wrist paralysed his fingers. Whistling Dan leaned above him.

“Wake up,” said the latter.

“What the devil—” breathed the marshal. “You travel like a cloud shadow, Dan. You make no sound.”

“Wake up and talk to me.”

“I’m awake all right. What’s happened?”

There was a moment of silence while Dan seemed to be trying for speech.

Black Bart, at the other side of the clearing, pointed his nose at the yellow moon and wailed. He was very close, but the sound was so controlled that it seemed to come at a great distance from some wild spirit wandering between earth and heaven.

Instead of speaking Dan jumped to his feet and commenced pacing up and down, up and down, a rapid, tireless stride; at his heels the wolf slunk, with lowered head and tail. The strange fellow was in some great trouble, Calder could see, and it stirred him mightily to know that the wild man had turned to him for help. Yet he would ask no questions.

When in doubt the cattleman rolls a cigarette, and that was what Calder did. He smoked and waited. At last the inevitable came.

“How old are you, Tex?”

“Forty-four.”

“That’s a good deal. You ought to know something.”

“Maybe.”

“About women?”

“Ah!” said Calder.

“Bronchos is cut out chiefly after one pattern,” went on Dan.

“They’s chiefly jest meanness. Are women the same—jest cut after one pattern?”

“What pattern, Dan?”

“The pattern of Delilah! They ain’t no trust to be put in ’em?”

“A good many of us have found that out.”

“I thought one woman was different from the rest.”

“We all think that. Woman in particular is divine; woman in general is—hell!”

“Ay, but this one—” He stopped and set his teeth.

“What has she done?”

“She—” he hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice did not tremble; there was a deep hurt and wonder in it: “She double-crossed me!”

“When? Do you mean to say you’ve met a woman tonight out here among the willows?—Where—how——”

“Tex——!”

“Ay, Dan.”

“It’s—it’s hell!”

“It is now. But you’ll forget her! The mountains, the desert, and above all, time—they’ll cure you, my boy.”

“Not in a whole century, Tex.”

Calder waited curiously for the explanation. It came.

“Jest to think of her is like hearing music. Oh, God, Tex, what c’n I do to fight agin this here cold feelin’ at my heart?”

Dan slipped down beside the marshal and the latter dropped a sympathetic hand over the lean, brown fingers. They returned the pressure with a bone-crushing grip.

“Fight, Dan! It will make you forget her.”

“Her skin is softer’n satin, Tex.”

“Ay, but you’ll never touch it again, Dan.”

“Her eyes are deeper’n a pool at night an’ her hair is all gold like ripe corn.”

“You’ll never look into her eyes again, Dan, and you’ll never touch the gold of that hair.”

“God!”

The word was hardly more than a whisper, but it brought Black Bart leaping to his feet.

Dan spoke again: “Tex, I’m thankin’ you for listenin’ to me; I wanted to talk. Bein’ silent was burnin’ me up. There’s one thing more.”

“Fire it out, lad.”

“This evenin’ I told you I hated no man but Jim Silent.”

“Yes.”

“An’ now they’s another of his gang. Sometime—when she’s standin’ by—I’m goin’ to take him by the throat till he don’t breathe no more. Then I’ll throw him down in front of her an’ ask her if she c’n kiss the life back into his lips!”

Calder was actually shaking with excitement, but he was wise enough not to speak.

“Tex!”

“Ay, lad.”

“But when I’ve choked his damned life away——”

“Yes?”

“Ay, lad.”

“There’ll be five more that seen her shamin’ me. Tex—all hell is bustin’ loose inside me!”

For a moment Calder watched, but that stare of cold hate mastered him. He turned his head.

CHAPTER XV

THE CROSS ROADS

As Black Bart raced away in answer to Dan’s whistle, Kate recovered herself from the daze in which she stood and with a sob ran towards the willows, calling the name of Dan, but Silent sprang after her, and caught her by the arm. She cried out and struggled vainly in his grip.

“Don’t follow him, boys!” called Silent. “He’s a dog that can bite while he runs. Stand quiet, girl!”

Lee Haines caught him by the shoulder and jerked Silent around. His hand held the butt of his revolver, and his whole arm trembled with eagerness for the draw.

“Take your hand from her, Jim!” he said.

Silent met his eye with the same glare and while his left hand still held Kate by both her wrists his right dropped to his gun.

“Not when you tell me, Lee!”

“Damn you, I say let her go!”

“By God, Haines, I stand for too much from you!”

And still they did not draw, because each of them knew that if the crisis came it would mean death to them both. Bill Kilduff jumped between them and thrust them back.

He cried, “Ain’t we got enough trouble without roundin’ up work at home? Terry Jordan is shot through the arm.”

Kate tugged at the restraining hand of Silent, not in an attempt to escape, but in order to get closer to Haines.

“Was this your friendship?” she said, her voice shaking with hate and sorrow, “to bring me here as a lure for Whistling Dan? Listen to me, all of you! He’s escaped you now, and he’ll come again. Remember him, for he shan’t forget you!”

“You hear her?” said Silent to Haines.

“Is this what you want me to turn loose?”

“Silent,” said Haines, “it isn’t the girl alone you’ve double crossed. You’ve crooked me, and you’ll pay me for it sooner or later!”

“Day or night, winter or summer, I’m willing to meet you an’ fight it out. Rhinehart and Purvis, take this girl back to the clearing!”

They approached, Purvis still staring at the hand from which only a moment before his gun had been knocked by the shot of Whistling Dan. It was a thing which he could not understand—he had not yet lost a most uncomfortable sense of awe. Haines made no objection when they went off, with Kate walking between them. He knew, now that his blind anger had left him, that it was folly to draw on a fight while the rest of Silent’s men stood around them.

“An’ the rest of you go back to the clearin’. I got somethin’ to talk over with Lee,” said Silent.

The others obeyed without question, and the leader turned back to his lieutenant. For a moment longer they remained staring at each other. Then Silent moved slowly forward with outstretched hand.

“Lee,” he said quietly, “I’m owin’ you an apology an’ I’m man enough to make it.”

“I can’t take your hand, Jim.”

Silent hesitated.

“I guess you got cause to be mad, Lee,” he said. “Maybe I played too quick a hand. I didn’t think about double crossin’ you. I only seen a way to get Whistlin’ Dan out of our path, an’ I took it without rememberin’ that you was the safeguard to the girl.”

Haines eyed his chief narrowly.

“I wish to God I could read your mind,” he said at last, “but I’ll take your word that you did it without thinking.”

His hand slowly met Silent’s.

“An’ what about the girl now, Lee?”

“I’ll send her back to her father’s ranch. It will be easy to put her on the right way.”

“Don’t you see no reason why you can’t do that?”

“Are you playing with me?”

“I’m talkin’ to you as I’d talk to myself. If she’s loose she’ll describe us all an’ set the whole range on our trail.”

Haines stared.

Silent went on: “If we can’t turn her loose, they’s only one thing left—an’ that’s to take her with us wherever we go.”

“On your honour, do you see no other way out?”

“Do you?”

“She may promise not to speak of it.”

“There ain’t no way of changin’ the spots of a leopard, Lee, an’ there ain’t no way of keepin’ a woman’s tongue still.”

“How can we take a girl with us.”

“It ain’t goin’ to be for long. After we pull the job that comes on the eighteenth, we’ll blow farther south an’ then we’ll let her go.”

“And no harm will come to her while she’s with us?”

“Here’s my hand on it, Lee.”

“How can she ride with us?”

“She won’t go as a woman. I’ve thought of that. I brought out a new outfit for Purvis from Elkhead—trousers, chaps, shirts, an’ all. He’s small. They’ll near fit the girl.”

“There isn’t any other way, Jim?”

“I leave it to you. God knows I don’t want to drag any damn calico aroun’ with us.”

As they went back towards their clearing they arranged the details. Silent would take the men aside and explain his purpose to them. Haines could inform the girl of what she must do. Just before they reached the camp Silent stopped short and took Haines by the shoulder.

“They’s one thing I can’t make out, Lee, an’ that’s how Whistlin’ Dan made his getaway. I’d of bet a thousand bones that he would be dropped before he could touch his shootin’ irons. An’ then what happened? Hal Purvis jest flashed a gun—and that feller shot it out’n his hand. I never seen a draw like that. His hand jest seemed to twitch—I couldn’t follow the move he made—an’ the next second his gun went off.”

He stared at Lee with a sort of fascinated horror.

“Silent,” said Haines, “can you explain how the lightning comes down out of the sky?”

“Of course not.”

“Then don’t ask me to explain how Whistling Dan made his getaway. One minute I heard him talkin’ with the girl. The next second there was two shots and when I whirled he was gone. But he’ll come back, Jim. We’re not through with him. He slipped away from you and your men like water out of a sieve, but we won’t slip away from him the same way.”

Silent stared on again with bowed head.

“He liked the girl, Lee?”

“Any one could see that.”

“Then while she’s with us he’ll go pretty slow. Lee, that’s another reason why she’s got to stay with us. My frien’, it’s time we was moving out from the willows. The next time he comes up with us he won’t be numb in the head. He’ll be thinkin’ fast an’ he’ll be shootin’ a damn sight faster. We got two jobs ahead of us—first to get that Wells Fargo shipment, and then to get Whistling Dan. There ain’t room enough in the whole world for him and me.”

CHAPTER XVI

THE THREE OF US

In the clearing of Whistling Dan and Tex Calder the marshal had turned into his blankets once more. There was no thought of sleep in Dan’s mind. When the heavy breathing of the sleeper began he rose and commenced to pace up and down on the farther side of the open space. Two pairs of glowing eyes followed him in every move. Black Bart, who trailed him up and down during the first few turns he made, now sat down and watched his master with a wistful gaze. The black stallion, who lay more like a dog than a horse on the ground, kept his ears pricked forwards, as if expecting some order. Once or twice he whinnied very softly, and finally Dan sat down beside Satan, his shoulders leaned against the satiny side and his arms flung out along the stallion’s back. Several times he felt hot breath against his cheek as the horse turned a curious head towards him, but he paid no attention, even when the stallion whinnied a question in his ear. In his heart was a numb, strange feeling which made him weak. He was even blind to the fact that Black Bart at last slipped into the shadows of the willows.

Presently something cold touched his chin. He found himself staring into the yellow-green eyes of Black Bart, who panted from his run, and now dropped from his mouth something which fell into Dan’s lap. It was the glove of Kate Cumberland. In the grasp of his long nervous fingers, how small it was!; and yet the hand which had wrinkled the leather was strong enough to hold the heart of a man. He slipped and caught the shaggy black head of Bart between his hands. The wolf knew—in some mysterious way he knew!

The touch of sympathy unnerved him. All his sorrow and his weakness burst on his soul in a single wave. A big tear struck the shining nose of the wolf.

“Bart!” he whispered. “Did you figger on plumb bustin’ my heart, pal?”

To avoid those large melancholy eyes, Bart pressed his head inside of his master’s arms.

“Delilah!” whispered Dan.

After that not a sound came from the three, the horse, the dog, or the man. Black Bart curled up at the feet of his master and seemed to sleep, but every now and then an ear raised or an eye twitched open. He was on guard against a danger which he did not understand. The horse, also, with a high head scanned the circling willows, alert; but the man for whom the stallion and the wolf watched gave no heed to either. There was a vacant and dreamy expression in his eye as if he was searching his own inner heart and found there the greatest enemy of all. All night they sat in this manner, silent, moveless; the animals watching against the world, the man watching against himself. Before dawn he roused himself suddenly, crossed to the sleeping marshal, and touched him on the arm.