The Max Brand Megapack (426 page)

Murmurs, in the meantime, passed up and down the veranda. “What’s it all about, sheriff?” asked several men from time to time.

He merely shrugged his shoulders and continued to stare at the house opposite him, as though he were striving to read a human mind.

“The curtain ain’t up,” said the sheriff, “but I reckon that the stage is set and that they’s gunna be an entrance pretty pronto.”

“Here’s somebody coming,” said Georgia, gesturing toward the farther end of the street.

“Yeah,” said the sheriff, “but he’s comin’ too slow to mean anything.”

“Slow and earnest wins the race,” said another.

They were growing impatient; like a crowd at a bullfight, when the entrance of the matador is delayed too long.

“We’re wasting the day,” said Milman to his family. “That’s a long ride ahead of us.”

“Don’t go now,” said Georgia. “I’ve got a tingle in my finger tips that says something is going to happen.”

Other voices were rising, jesting, laughing, when some one called out something at the farther end of the veranda, and instantly there was a wave of silence that spread upon them all.

“What is it?” whispered Milman to the sheriff.

“Shut up!” said the sheriff. “They say that it’s the Kid!”

He came suddenly into view, as a puff of wind cuffed the dust aside. His back was so straight and his stirrup so long that he seemed to be standing in his saddle. His bead was high, and his glance was on the distance, like one who knows that his horse will pay heed to the footwork. But there was nothing unusual in his get-up except for the tinkling of a pair of little golden bells which he wore in his spurs.

Such a silence had come over the crowd on the veranda that this sound, small as the chiming of a distant brook, grew distinctly audible. The sheriff suddenly nudged Georgia.

“There’s a horse for you,” said he. “That’s the Duck Hawk, as they call it. That’s the mustang mare that he caught in Sonora. Ain’t she the tiptoe beauty for you?”

She came like a dancer, daintily but smoothly, with a pride about her head, as though she felt she were carrying some one of vast distinction. A king would have liked to ride on such a horse; or a general, or any mayor in the world, to lead a procession.

“She gets her name from her markings,” explained the sheriff. “You see the black of her all over, except the breast and the belly is white. I never seen such queer markings on a hoss before. But that’s the Duck Hawk. I seen her out of Phoenix once. I’d dig potatoes for ten years for a hoss like that, honey. How long,” he added, “would you dig ’em for such a man?”

He turned with a grin as he spoke, and the girl smiled back at him.

“He looks all wool,” she said most frankly.

So he did. The sort of wool that wears in the West, or on any frontier. Now, as he came up to the hotel and jumped out of the saddle, they could see that he had the strong man’s shoulders, smoothly made and thick; and the legs of a runner such as one finds among the straight-built Navajoes. He had the deep desert tan, but his eyes were of that same Irish blue which made men look at Georgia Milman with a leap of the heart.

Their hearts did not leap when they stared at the Kid, however. Instead, glances were apt to sink to the ground.

The Kid took a bit of clean linen from his saddle bag and wiped the muzzle of the mare before he permitted her to drink, which she did freely but daintily, for Georgia Milman could see, now, that there was no bit between her teeth.

“Hello, folks,” said the Kid. “Waiting here for a procession to come along, or is somebody going to make a speech?”

He picked out faces, here and there, and waved to them, but when he saw the sheriff he jumped lightly to the edge of the veranda between two of the troughs. The intervening people slipped hastily back, like dogs, Georgia thought, when the wolf steps near.

The Kid took the sheriff’s hand in a warm grip.

“I’m glad to see you, Walters,” said he. “I thought I’d drop in here at Dry Creek to see you. You’ve made my old friend Shay so much at home that I thought you might want me up here too.”

“I’m glad to see you, too,” said the sheriff instantly. “I’ve got a right good little of jail over yonder, Kid, and you’ll find it mighty cheap here in Dry Creek to get a ticket to it.”

“Never buy anything but round trips,” said the Kid, “and I hear that yours is only a one-way line. You’re not introducing me to your daughter, Walters?”

“This is the yegg I was telling you about, Georgia,” said the sheriff. “This is the same sashayin’ young trouble raiser. The lady’s name is Milman, Kid.”

The Kid took off his hat and bowed to her with an almost Latin grace.

“I nearly borrowed a pair of your father’s horses one evening,” said the Kid. “But there were too many barbed-wire fences. Mighty bad thing to use so much barbed wire around horses. You tell your dad that for me, will you?”

He stepped back, replacing his hat upon the tangled, curly hair of his head. Georgia had nodded and smiled faintly, without embarrassment.

“He admits what he is,” she said. “Don’t your hands simply itch to jam him into that jail, Lew?”

“Yeah,” said the sheriff, “and they’d itch a lot more if I had a bigger life insurance.”

The Kid, in the meantime, had stepped down from the veranda again, and, breaking two matches, slipped them into his spurs so that the golden bells were wedged and silenced.

He talked to this curious and rather breathless crowd as he did this.

“Anybody know if my friend Shay is at home?”

“Yeah. He’s at home,” said one.

“He likes a quiet step,” said the Kid, “because he says it’s a sign of culture. A cultured fellow, is Billy Shay, you know. So I mustn’t play bellwether when I go to call on him. I’ll see you-all later on.”

He walked across the street and through the front gate of Shay’s house before the spectators realized, suddenly, what it was apt to mean.

Georgia phrased it in one gasping sentence.

“It’s the fear of the Kid that’s cornered Shay!”

CHAPTER 3

Battle Royal

The same idea came suddenly home to all of the watchers, and there was a stir and a bustle on the hotel veranda. Newcomers were running from either side to get to this natural grand stand.

“What about it, Lew?” asked Milman.

“I only got one thing to say,” answered the sheriff dryly. “They both got only one life to give to their country, and they might as well do the giving today. Why, Milman, if you was to see a wasp and a hornet start a fight, which would you want to see win?”

This seemed the attitude of nearly all the watchers. They looked on with a smiling content.

“He don’t know that they’s half a dozen thugs in the house there with Shay,” said one.

Georgia Milman grew excited.

“Lew, that ought to be stopped!” she declared to the sheriff.

“Because of the Kid’s blue eyes, honey?” asked the grim sheriff. “No, ma’am. I ain’t gunna stop it. If they was to blow the tar out of each other, it would simply save the State from lodgin’ and boardin’ ’em a good many years, or else usin’ up a good rope to break their necks with.”

Every one grew silent now. For the Kid had come to the porch of Shay’s house, and was going swiftly up the steps. He went, not to the door, but to a window at one side.

There he worked for an instant.

It seemed to Georgia Milman that the windows of that house were so many eyes, peering out at the stranger with serpentlike content.

“He’s read the mind of that latch already,” said the sheriff, for at that moment the Kid pushed the window up so softly that certainly no sound floated across to the people who waited and watched from the hotel.

“What are they doin’ inside?” said some one.

“When you got a trap set, don’t you wait for the critter to get inside before you spring it?” said another.

The Kid did not hesitate. The moment that the window was open he slipped inside—and then closed the window behind him.

They could see the glimmer of his raised hand and ann.

“He’s latched it behind him!” gasped Georgia. “What possesses that madman?”

“Why, honey,” said the sheriff, “he’s as happy right now as you would be when you stepped into a dance hall and all the boys popped their eyes at you, and the music started up and you figgered that you had all of the other girls in that hall stopped four ways for Sunday. The Kid is just spreadin’ his elbows at the board!”

There was not a sound from the house. The Kid had disappeared. The sun poured strongly and steadily down upon the roofs and raised from them a thin stream—the last moisture of the winter. Down the street rushed a whirlwind, white with circling dust. It passed rapidly, but the crowd on the veranda stirred and shifted uneasily and peered through the passing veil, as though they dreaded lest it might shut them off from some sight of importance.

But there was nothing to be seen. The house stood there, bald and open of face, with its windows black or bright in shadow or sun. The silence continued.

Said a voice: “Aw, it’s a joke. Nothin’ ain’t gunna happen!” And a whisper answered: “Shut up, you fool!”

For every one felt like whispering. The stillness in a church was noise, compared with this. Suspense drew every nerve taut. Georgia gripped the arm of her father; her face was cold, and by that she knew how pale she must be. Covertly she rubbed her cheeks and looked guiltily askance at the sheriff. He had prophesied that she would be interested in the Kid. She was ashamed even then of the depth of that interest.

She kept saying to herself over and over again: “He’s just a bad one. He’s no good. Everybody knows that he’s no good!”

But the words had little meaning. They seemed to be brushed away by the bright beauty of the Duck Hawk, as the lovely mare lifted her head and listened to some far-off sound. She, it seemed, loved and trusted her master. Therefore he could not be all bad.

Then the silence of the Shay house was broken, and broken in no uncertain manner. Guns boomed hollowly and heavily within the walls, and a voice was heard screaming in pain, or fear, or both.

“Thunderation!” said the sheriff.

He burst through the crowd and started across the street, but Milman and two or three others grabbed him and pulled him back.

“You said the right thing before,” said Milman. “It doesn’t matter what happens to the rats in that den. We’re not going to let you chuck a useful life away, Lew, old fellow.”

“There’s murder being done in there!” shouted the sheriff. “You fools, leave go of me, I’m gunna—”

“You’re gunna stay here and stand quiet,” said one of the men who held him. “If they’s a murder in yonder, it’ll be only a murderer that’s killed! And what’s the difference, as you was sayin’ before?”

In spite of himself, the sheriff could not budge. He had to submit to the strong hands which restrained him.

The uproar in the house of Shay continued. Vaguely they could follow it. It seemed to dip from the first floor to the cellar. Then it climbed again.

Through the window by which the Kid had entered a man burst. Literally, he dived through.

He struck the porch, rolled headlong across it, and picked himself up from the ground. His face was a red mask, as he had been badly cut by the glass through which he had burst. Apparently he was half-blinded, for he stretched his hands out before him as he started running, and when he carne to the side fence he collided heavily with it.

The blow knocked him down. He got up, climbed the fence, and ran on, out of sight.

“He’s had enough,” said the sheriff grimly. “That’s Lefty Bud Gray. He’s the one that killed Tucker and Langton on the Pecos. Governor Chalmers pardoned him—the fool!”

A frightful crashing and dashing now came from the second floor of the house as though furniture were being hurled about. Georgia Milman suddenly regained her breath and her color.

“Mother!” she whispered. “It’s like seeing the rabbits come out when a weasel has gone down into the warren!”

Like rabbits, indeed!

And they came in a frantic haste! For now a door crashed at the back of the house, and an unseen man rushed out, screeching at the top of his voice.

The yells diminished as he turned a corner, but still they sounded, far off, floating like a wailing spirit in the air.

“I never seen nothin’ like it!” said a puncher. “What’s he done? Dynamited that old shack?”

Again the door at the back of the house slammed, and this time a double footfall could be heard rattling down the board walk at the rear.

The sounds of these fugitives diminished more quickly. “That’s four gone,” said some one.

Silence came in the house of Shay.

And then, low at first, but more distinctly as their ears grew attuned to it, they could hear the groaning of a badly hurt man.

Mrs. Milman sagged suddenly on her daughter’s arm, but Georgia caught her close.

“Steady, mother! Steady, dear!” said she. “It’s not the Kid—I think!”

“That boy?” gasped Mrs. Milman. “Of course it’s not he, but what’s happening to the poor creatures in that house? That tiger—and those wretches who—”

At the very top of the house there was another wild outburst of gunshots, a continuous peal of them. Then the distinct sound of a door being slammed, and the dormer window from which the signal had flashed not long before was cast open.

Out at that opening slid the long, gaunt person of Billy Shay himself, and at this sight a whoop went up from the spectators across the street.

Billy was in a frightful haste. He acted as though he would die if he did not reach the ground.

He slid down the sharply shelving roof. There, at the eaves, he hung by his hands, swinging back and forth like a pendulum of a clock.

“Lemme go!” shouted the sheriff. “I gotta get there and—”

But still they held him helpless, for it seemed to all of those men a most foolish thing to risk such a life as the sheriff’s in order to enforce the law among the lawless.

Billy Shay, twisting his legs in, got hold on a ledge below the eaves and climbed down like a great cat, reached the window beneath, and so down until he slid the length of one of the porch pillars.