Essential Novelists - Max Brand. Max Brand
It was the desire to meet face to face one whose metal of will and mind was equal to his own, whose nerves were electric energies perfectly under command, whose muscles were fine spun steel. He had gone half a lifetime on the trail of fighters and always he had known that when the crisis came his hand would be the swifter, his eyes the more steady; the trailing was a delight always, but the actual kill was a matter of slaughter rather than a game of hazard. Only the rider of the black stallion had given him the sense of equal power, and his whole soul had risen for the great chance of All. That chance was gone; he pushed the thought of it away—for the time—and turned back to the business at hand.
“They's only one thing,” he went on. “Sliver! Ronicky! Step along, gents, and we'll have a look at the insides of that house.”
“Steady!” broke in Haines. He barred the path to the front door. “Sheriff, you don't know me, but I'm going to ask you to take my word for what's in that house.”
Glass swept him with a look of a new nature.
“I got an idea your word might do. Well, what's in the house?”
“A little five-year-old girl and her mother; nothing else worth seeing.”
“Nothing else,” considered the sheriff, “but that's quite a lot. Maybe his wife could tell me where he's going? Give me an idea where I might call on him?”
“Partner, you can't see her.”
“Can't?”
“No, by God!”
“H-m-m!” murmured the sheriff. He watched the big man plant himself, swaying a little on his feet as though poising for action, and beside him a slightly smaller figure not less determined.
“That girl in there is old man Cumberlan's daughter,” said Daniels, “and no matter what her—what Dan Barry may be, Kate Cumberland is white folks.”
The sheriff remembered what Vic had said of yellow hair and soft blue eyes.
“Leastways,” he said, “she seems to have a sort of way with the men.”
“Sheriff you're on a cold trail,” said Haines. “Inside that house is just a heart-broken girl and her baby. If you want to see them—go ahead!”
“She might know something,” mused the sheriff, “and I s'pose I'd ought to pry it out of her right now: but I don't care for that sort of pickin's.” He repeated softly: “A girl and a baby!” and turned on his heel. “All right, boys, climb your hosses. Two of you take Mat. We'll bury him where we put Harry. I guess we can pack him that far.”
“How's that?” This from Haines. “One of your gang dropped?”
“He is.”
They followed him and stood presently beside the body. Aside from the red mark in the forehead he seemed asleep, and smiling at some pleasant dream; a handsome fellow in the strength of first manhood, this man who was the second to die for Grey Molly.
“It's the end of Dan Barry,” said Buck. “Lee, we'll never have Whistlin' Dan for a friend again. He's wild for good.”
The sheriff turned and eyed him closely.
“He's got to come back,” said Haines. “He's got to come back for the sake of Kate.”
“He'd better be dead for the sake of Kate,” answered Buck.
“Why, partner, this isn't the first time he's gone wild.”
“Don't you see, Lee?”
“Well?”
“He's fighting to kill. He's shooting to kill, and he ain't ever done that before. He crippled his men; he put 'em out of the way with a busted leg or a plugged shoulder; but now he's out to finish 'em. Lee, he'll never come back.”
He looked to the white face of Vic Gregg, standing by, and he said without anger; “Maybe it ain't your fault, but you've started a pile of harm. Look at these gents around you, the sheriff and all—they're no better'n dead, Gregg, and that's all along of you. Barry has started on the trail of all of you. Look at that house back there. It's packed full of hell, and all along of you. Lee, let's get back. I'm feelin' sick inside.”
Chapter XVIII. Concerning The Strength Of Women
There were three things discussed by Lee Haines and Buck Daniels in the dreary days which followed. The first was to keep on their way across the mountains and cut themselves away from the sorrow of that cabin. The second was to strike the trail of Barry and hunt until they found his refuge and attempt to lead him back to his family. The third was simply to stay on and where they found the opportunity, help Kate. They discarded the first idea without much talk; it would be yellow, they decided, and the debt they owed to the Dan Barry of the old days was too great to be shouldered off so easily: they cast away the second thought still more quickly, for the trail which baffled the shrewd sheriff, as they knew, would be too much for them. It remained to stay with Kate, making excursions through the mountains from day to day to maintain the pretence of carrying on their own business, and always at hand in time of need.
It was no easy part to play, for in the house they found Kate more and more silent, more and more thoughtful, never speaking of her trouble, but behind her eyes a ghost of waiting that haunted them. If the wind shrilled down the pass, if a horse neighed from the corral, there was always the start in her, the thrill of hope, and afterwards the pitiful deadening of her smile. She was not less beautiful they thought, as she grew paler, but the terrible silence of the place drove them away time and again. Even Joan no longer pattered about the house, and when they came down out of the mountains they never heard her shrill laughter. She sat cross-legged by the hearth in her old place during the evenings with her chin resting on one hand and her eyes fixed wistfully upon the fire; and sometimes they found her on the little hillock behind the house, from the top of which she could view every approach to the cabin. Of Dan and even of Black Bart, her playmate she soon learned not to speak, for the mention of them made her mother shrink and whiten. Indeed, the saddest thing in that house was the quiet in which the child waited, waited, waited, and never spoke.
“She ain't more'n a baby,” said Buck Daniels, “and you can leave it to time to make her forget.”
“But,” growled Lee Haines, “Kate isn't a baby. Buck, it drives me damn near crazy to see her fade this way.”
“Now you lay to this,” answered Buck. “She'll pull through. She'll never forget, maybe, but she'll go on livin' for the sake of the kid.”
“You know a hell of a lot about women, don't you?” said Haines.
“I know enough, son,” nodded Buck.
He had, in fact, reduced women to a few distinct categories, and he only waited to place a girl in her particular class before he felt quite intimate acquaintance with her entire mind and soul.
“It'll kill her,” pronounced Lee Haines. “Why, she's like a flower, Buck, and sorrow will cut her off at the root. Think of a girl like that thrown away in these damned deserts! It makes me sick—sick! She ought to have nothing but velvet to touch—nothing but a millionaire for a husband, and never a worry in her life.” He grew excited. “But here's the flower thrown away and the heel crushing it without mercy.”
Buck Daniels regarded him with pity.
“I feel kind of sorry for you, Lee, when I hear you talk about girls. No wonder they make a fool of you. A flower crushed under the foot, eh? You just listen to me, my boy. You and me figure to be pretty hard, don't we? Well, soft pine stacked up agin' quartzite, is what we are compared to Kate.”
Lee Haines gaped at him, too astonished to be angry. He suggested softening of the brain to Buck, but the latter waved aside the implications.
“Now, supposin' Kate was one of these dark girls with eyes like black diamonds and a lot of snap and zip to her. If she was like that