Valley Thieves

by Max Brand

  "Three men on a trail!" said Clonmel, "and one woman left behind them to talk, and talk, and stab them in the back."

  "I won't talk, Harry," said Julie Perigord. "I'll be as still as stone. I won't say a word to Dean Cary or Will—but it's not true that they've thrown in with Barry Christian! They've never even mentioned his name. They—"

  "You fished for Parade to give him to the Carys," said Clonmel bitterly. "You've done their dirty work, and ruined me. I hope I never get sight of you again!"

  And he turned away and left her.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Taxi's Arrangements

  SOMEONE should have said a word for Julie Perigord, and I was the one to have spoken and told Clonmel that he was acting brutally when he talked to her as he did, but I was too much taken up by our own troubles, and that was why the three of us walked away from her white, sick face. I had heard the name of Barry Christian linked up with that of the Cary family, and I knew that if we were matching ourselves against such a combination as that, we were just about beaten at the start. I let the troubles of poor Julie slip out of my mind, while the three of us pulled back into the trees with our horses and sat down in the shade to think.

  There was no use trying to follow the trail while it was hot, we decided, because the men who traveled with Parade were going like the wind, and they would keep on going like that until they reached some of the stone-paved ravines among the hills, where no sign of the flight would be printed on the ground. We had to think our way to a conclusion, reach far enough ahead with our wits to find where Parade might be taken.

  First of all, I suggested that Will Cary admired the stallion so much that he might very well have stolen him for his own uses, but Taxi shook his head. He said that the Carys would never dare to bring down the anger of Jim Silver unless they had strong backing, and the only backing that would seem strong enough would be that of Barry Christian, who had carried on his struggle with Silver during so many years.

  "But what makes you think that Christian is in this part of the world?" asked Clonmel.

  "What else brought Jim Silver here?" asked Taxi sadly. "What else keeps him traveling across the world, jumping here and jumping there, never easy? What else brings me trailing along behind him, trying to help, only in touch with him once in a long while, because he doesn't want me in on the danger that always lies ahead? No, Silver is up here somewhere, because he thinks that Christian is around. And the Cary outfit is one that used to play into Christian's hand a long time ago. They're probably playing into the same hand now. People that have had his easy money don't forget the taste of it very soon. He'll pay them thousands for Parade. Why shouldn't he?"

  It was clear enough as an argument, after all, and I knew the legend that Silver had sworn never to rest until, at last, he ran Barry Christian to the ground. I listened to the lonely wind in the trees and felt cold in spite of the warmth of the day.

  "Well," I said, "I'm willing to do what I can. But I don't know what we can manage—the three of us against the lot of them."

  "One of us has to go and take the word to Silver."

  Clonmel said. "The other two ought to watch here, because Will Cary and his father are sure to return. When they're back, if we can lay hands on one of them, we may make him show us the way to Parade—and Christian, if Christian is there."

  "The Carys won't come back—not for a long time," said Taxi. "They know that they're spotted. They're more apt to return to the hang-out of their whole clan."

  "Where's that?" asked Clonmel.

  "Back through the hills," said Taxi. "I don't know where. The old father of Dean Cary is still alive, and he's kept a tribe of sons and grandsons around him. Enough to turn back even Jim Silver. No, after Dean gets the horse to Christian, he'll go back to his tribe."

  "I know where they live," said I, the picture of the valley growing up suddenly in my mind. "It's just under timber line. I could show the way, but—"

  I hesitated, thinking of the number and the fierceness of those Cary men. I knew a lot about them.

  Taxi asked for a description of the trail, and I drew a map of the route on the ground and pointed out the first landmarks, because we could see the mountains through the trees. It was arranged—Taxi did the arranging—that he and Clonmel should take the mountain trail until they had arrived close to the Cary clan. In the meantime, I was to fetch a course overland to the pass beside Mount Craven and try to locate Jim Silver. Clonmel told me where he had managed to find the great man. The reason I was sent toward Silver and not toward the Cary outfit was plainly that I was not much of a fighting man, and the Cary tribe might use their claws on strays that happened into their vicinity. Anyway, I got my horse and pounded away for the pass.

  It was fixed that if I got hold of Silver, the two of us were to show up near the Cary place and fetch a course down the creek that flowed near it. Somewhere on the way we would come in hail of Taxi and Clonmel.

  That was the background behind me when I climbed my mustang through the pass again, bound for Jim Silver. The day had been bright and hot in the valley, but up there in the country of the winds the sky was patched with racing clouds that kept drawing rapid pencil lines of shadow across the map.

  I found the creek that worked among the trees in a shallow little ravine. I took the south side of that ravine, just as I had been instructed, and rode on among the pines, with the mustang slipping a good bit over the layered pine needles, until I came bang on the place which had been described to me by Clonmel as the site of the camp of Silver. It was the exact picture, with a big pine between two smaller ones, near the bank of the creek, and the face of the big tree shattered by lightning. But there was no trace of any campfire, no blackened soil, no dark spot of ashes, and no suggestion of broken firewood anywhere around.

  After I had looked for a few moments, I began to feel that Clonmel must have seen the place, to be sure, but that nothing but ghosts had been in it.

  I was still staring around when a voice said, behind me:

  "Well, stranger?"

  I jerked about in the saddle. There at the edge of a huge boulder was a tall fellow who reminded me of someone I had seen before. He had big shoulders and the legs and hips of a running stag. There was something about his brown face, too, that reminded me of other features which I could not place.

  "Jim Silver!" I exclaimed.

  "Who sent you up here?" he asked.

  "Clonmel," said I.

  "Ah, he sent you, did he?" answered Silver. "I think that's the last thing that—Clonmel would do."

  He said this in rather a queer way. I felt that I had to establish the facts at once before he would believe me, and I blurted out:

  "He only sent me back here because Parade and Frosty are gone. They've been stolen!"

  He came up to me with quick steps and gripped the reins of my horse just under the chin, as though steadying the head of the mustang would hold me in a better place to be looked at.

  "Parade? Frosty?" he echoed.

  "They're gone!" I said wildly. I made a big pair of gestures to explain how entirely they were gone. The gestures also helped me to look away from the bright, grim eyes on this man. "Dean Cary and his son took them, while Harry Clonmel and I were in the house. Taxi heard about a stranger riding Parade. He came to the Cary place to fight to get them back for you. But instead of fighting, we went out to look in the barn —and the horse was gone."

  I told him rapidly about what had happened and what plans we had made, while he backed a little away from me and released the head of the mustang.

  I couldn't help winding up by crying: "But how did Harry Clonmel get the horse and the wolf away from you?"

  "That's another matter," said Jim Silver. "The item for you to be interested in is that you're not riding back there with me."

  "No?" said I. "You mean that you want my horse? Why, you can have him, Silver. All of us in these mountains—all the honest men—are willing to give you more than a horse if it will help
. You take the mustang, and I'll peg along on foot. I may get there late, but I'll arrive."

  He smiled at me a little.

  "I'll get there on foot faster than any horse could take me," he said. "Any horse except one," he added. '"But you're not for this sort of business. You're not trained to the minute for a fight, and there's apt to be fighting up there. I'll cut straight across the mountains, where a horse couldn't go, and I'll be at the headwaters of that creek before an ordinary mustang would carry me there. But you—you're going back home to your wife."

  "Wife?" said I. "How do you know that I'm married?"

  He smiled again.

  "A woman sewed that patch at your knee," he said. "Men don't take such small stitches or such regular ones. I'm grateful to you for wanting to help—but you're going home."

  Now, as I stood there and looked at Jim Silver, I had a strange experience. I knew, in a flash, that all I had ever heard about him was true—all of his wild adventures, and all of his courage, and his steel-cool hardness of nerve. Invisible lips were calling to me, and I felt cold-hearted and alone in a strange way. I made a foolish and childish gesture toward him.

  "My wife—she saw you once," said I, "and if she were here, she'd send me kiting along to help you. Yes, and she'd want to go along with us!"

  I laughed, but Jim Silver did not laugh. He just looked at me.

  "I've got to go," I said at last. "I'd never have the courage to call my soul my own, if I didn't go. I'd never be able to face my son."

  He kept his silence until I thought it would never end, and at last he said:

  "If anything happens to you—"

  "I have a son to carry on after me and work the ranch," said I. "I've got to go, Silver."

  He walked slowly up to me again, and raised his face so that I could see a sort of gentleness and sadness in it. He took my hand.

  "I don't even know your name," he said.

  "Bill Avon," I said, "and—"

  "Bill Avon," said Silver, and gave my hand a good, long grip.

  I could feel that the strength of that grasp had sealed us together, and I wished that he had given me the grip after I had done something worth while, not before. I had the uneasy feeling of a man who has been paid in advance for goods that have not been delivered and that will be hard to find.

  When he stepped away from me, he said:

  "That pony has done some hard traveling today. You'll do better by him and yourself if you unsaddle here and let him rest an hour or so. Give him a drink and cool him off. After that, you can ride as fast as you please on the trail. And another thing—will your wife be breaking her heart when you don't turn up at home?"

  I thought of Charlotte and drew in a long, slow breath.

  "No," I said shortly. "She won't be breaking her heart!"

  CHAPTER IX

  The Cary Domain

  IT was not a great deal after noon of that day before I got around the half circle of riding that I had to complete before I was near the hang-out of the Cary clan. Grandfather Cary had his head about him when he picked out that spot. It was a little mountain kingdom all of its own. The mountains fenced it around in a circle. Half a dozen creeks flowed down through it. The forests came off the highlands and slipped in green floods over the valleys, and where the forests ended, the grazing land began, pushing out arms among the woods and extending over a great central portion of the plateau where there were only occasional groves of trees. In one of those groves was the old Cary house.

  Almost any other people in the world would have become rich with such a domain to exploit, but the Carys could not accumulate wealth so long as "Old Man" Cary lived. And he seemed to defy death like a stone. Time could crack and wear and seam and color him, but it could not rub him out.

  Old Man Cary possessed a queer cross between faith in God and hatred of man. He refused to take ordinary precautions. He refused to build the big barns and feeding yards where a great herd of cattle could be sheltered when bad winters came along—and, of course, bad winters came pretty frequently at that altitude. But when the thermometer dropped toward zero and often dipped below it, Old Man Cary shrugged his shoulders and left everything to the will of God. That was why the big Cary herd would increase for half a dozen seasons and then half of it would be wiped out. The bones lay heaped, here and there. I saw a whole white windrow of them under the edge of a bluff against which hundreds and hundreds of beeves had been driven by a fierce blizzard and where they had stood until they froze. That had been many years before, but the same disaster had happened over and over again. And Old Man Cary always said that it was the will of God, and he would look around through his family to find out a recent sin which the Lord might be punishing.

  There were plenty of sins to be found. A few of his descendants, like Dean Cary, had left the home preserve and founded homes here and there, but the majority of them preferred to remain in the land of their inheritance. They were all slaves of the old man's word, and he had plenty of words. He said when cattle could be driven to market, and that was the moment when they had to be taken out, no matter what the state of the market might be. He said when and how much timber should be felled for the winter store of wood. He named the creeks that could be fished and the ones where the stock must be allowed to accumulate. Now and then he would step down into more intimate details and invade the privacy of the home of one of his sons or grandsons, and the terrible old fellow was sure to leave scars wherever he struck.

  It was, on the whole, a wild and easy life for his offspring, of course. They had plenty of beef and fish; they could dig vegetables out of the vegetable patch; their horses were a splendid big race of animals; they were all allowed to spend a share of the cash income on clothes and foolishness; plenty of moonshine whisky was made on the place, and for houses they built on crooked wings and sprawling additions to the great log cabin of the old man. On the whole, it was a life for wild Indians. The only modern improvements that the old man permitted were the big steel locks on the doors.

  I thought of these things when I came down from the headwaters of the creek, along which I expected to find Clonmel, and Silver, and Taxi. I was thinking so busily about them that I ran into a whang of trouble. I rode around a bend of the stream and heard a voice croak at me, and saw a young Cary pointing his rifle at my head.

  I don't think he was more than fifteen. His brown spindle shanks were only half covered by ragged overalls with half a pair of suspenders to hold them up. His shirt was a sun-faded rag of blue and white. His head stuck up like a big fist on a lean, sinewy forearm. But he was a Cary, all right. I could tell it by the black of his shaggy hair and by the black of his bright eyes.

  I could tell it by something fiercely unrelenting in his manner, which made him seem eager to treat me as he would have treated a wolf or a deer. Men told strange tales of things that had happened up here beyond the law. This lad had bare feet and a fine new repeating rifle. That was what you would expect in a Cary. They were men who didn't know how to miss with a gun, whatever else they might miss in life.

  "Who are you, stranger?" he asked.

  "My name is Bill Avon," said I.

  "What are you doing up here?" he asked.

  "Looking for some cattle to buy," said I.

  "Ain't the time of year we sell cows," said he. "You know that."

  "No, I don't know that," said I.

  "Why would you wanta buy cows here?"

  "Because I've heard that they can be bought cheap."

  "Where do you live?"

  "Away over there between Blue Water and Belling Lake. I've got a ranch."

  "Yeah?" said the boy.

  He kept the rifle on me. There was no let-up in the fierce brightness of his eyes, the cruelty in them. Something kept pulling at his mouth, and it was not kindness that kept it twitching. Young people like to kill for the sake of killing, and this lad was not only young but he was a Cary.

  The story was that no one was an acceptable member of the clan until h
e had killed his man. It was certain that all the young men left Cary Valley and journeyed here and there through the West. About half of them or more never came back. Those who returned wore scars, as a rule.

  I have even heard it said that every single male in Cary Valley had killed his man. This I don't vouch for, but it's a common superstition among a lot of people who ought to know what they're talking about. No wonder my flesh was creeping more than a little as I faced this young savage.

  He kept turning the idea of me in his mind like a bird on a spit.

  "You go on with your hunting, and I'll ride on and see your folks," said I.

  He grinned at me.

  "You think I'm a fool. You're a fool for thinking so," said he.

  "What's your name?" I asked him.

  "Chuck," said he.

  "Chuck," said I, "you ought not to look at a stranger as though he were a freak of nature or a snake. What's wrong about a fellow riding into your valley?"

  "Nobody's asked here; nobody's wanted here; nobody but a fool or a crook would try to break in," said Chuck.

  "All right, then," said I patiently. "If that's the way you people feel about it, I'll have to turn around and get out."

  "Yeah. Go on and git," said Chuck.

  I turned the horse, glad to be headed away from that young panther.

  "Wait a minute!" he sang out.

  I pulled the reins and turned my head.

  "Maybe I'll take you on to the house," said he.

  "That suits me," said I.

  "Maybe it won't suit you so well when the old man gets through with you," said Chuck. "Ride along ahead of me, and don't try no funny business, or I'm goin' to lambast you."

  I rode ahead of him and I didn't try any funny business. But I could hardly keep from chuckling when I thought of the trouble that lad had ahead of him if he kept right down this side of the creek. Taxi and Silver and Clonmel were all down there, somewhere, waiting for me. It would probably be quite a point in this lad's life, if he had a close look at the great Jim Silver.