the Long, Long Trail (1923)

by Brand, Max

"It's this way: I don't mean any harm. But when I see some boy I've never known very well, I just can't help beginning to wonder about him. What is he inside? Maybe he has a touch of the fire; I always keep hoping that!"

  "What fire?"

  "I--I don't know."

  "Well, go on."

  "Maybe I've met him at a dance. The music is in my head. He dances well. He doesn't talk much. My imagination begins to work on him. All at once he dawns on me--a new picture--he's strong, brave, gentle, clever--and has the spark of fire. I begin to burn with it. I'm happy." She dropped her chin upon her knuckles and stared gloomily into the distance. "And that's all I can say about it."

  "But mostly you tell him that he's making you happy?"

  "Mostly."

  "And then what does the man do?"

  "Mostly he says that I've made him happy, too. Sometimes they start being foolish. They want to sit in a corner and hold my hand. I don't like that. Or if we walk out of the hall they--" She shuddered. "Why do men want to put their arms around a girl when they're happy?"

  "What do you expect them to do?"

  "Why--talk--or be silent--and--"

  "Well?"

  "I don't know. But mostly they do something that makes me despise them before the evening's over. Or if they don't, then I think about them until the next time we meet. And then--everything pops into thin air. They always seem different. You understand?"

  "Maybe. It's just what I thought."

  "Am I bad, Uncle Morgan?"

  "No, but you need room, honey. I'm going to send you away to a big city."

  "You--send--I won't go. It's Aunt Maude! She's never liked me!"

  "Hush, girl!"

  She saw suddenly that his hand was trembling, and the sight of his grief struck her cold with awe.

  "In some city," he went on slowly, "you'll see crowds of clean young fellows. Maybe you'll get over this; or maybe you'll find a man that's worthy of you. But there ain't any round here. And I know them all. Why, rather than have you marry one of these unshaven, thickheaded fellows, I'd shoot the man, first! I want you--to marry--a gentleman."

  He spoke this last slowly, hunting for the words. She sat with her head bowed. Then she looked up to him.

  "You'll do what I want you to do, Mary?"

  She made a little gesture. He could not tell whether it meant yes or no, and all the while there was a glimmer in her eyes like the changing colors of watered silk.

  Chapter 4

  But two days later Morgan Valentine bought a ticket to Chicago and made his reservations; Mary had made up her mind apparently, though not half a dozen words had been spoken on the subject of her departure since that first night. But the next day she was talking of Chicago as though all her life had been spent there, and this experience in the mountain desert was only an excursion off her beaten trails.

  "Between you and me, Uncle Morgan," she said, "why not New York?"

  This, for some reason, had rather staggered him. But now that the ticket was bought--dated ahead several days--and the step irremediably taken, he was easier. He made a short stay in Salt Springs that day. After he had the ticket in his wallet, he went to the bank and drew out the cash for his monthly payroll. His cowpunchers were numerous as befitted the keeping of his big range, but moreover there were the hired men who worked the cultivable ground, and in the northern part of his domain--the territory of his dead brother--there was a small logging outfit. Altogether, he had some thirty men to pay off each month, and the payroll ran around sixteen hundred dollars. He got it all in gold coin, and it made a heavy little canvas sack--fifteen pounds, or so. It was three in the afternoon before his buckskins jogged out of Salt Springs on the back trail of the twenty-five-mile trip, and though the going was fairly smooth most of the way, it would be dark before he arrived.

  That, however, was a small worry to him. The two geldings were sure-footed as goats; and, given their own sweet way and a shambling trot, they could take the buckboard home in rain or shine, through the night and the rocks. They had done it before, so now Morgan Valentine bunched his duster around his shoulders with a shrug, settled back into the right-hand corner of the big seat, and let the reins hang idly.

  An hour and seven miles dropped behind him, and still the buckskins were jolting steadily on. The suddenness of their stopping jerked him through a thousand miles of dreams back to the cold facts of earth. The buckskins had their heads high. And just before them was a horseman with a revolver pointing between the geldings and straight at the head of Valentine.

  He put up his hands with the utmost unconcern.

  "Thanks," said the stranger. "If you've got any coin handy about you, you might throw it this way."

  There was deprecatory gentleness in this--the same tone of embarrassment which one uses when one asks a stranger for a match, and it made the rancher regard the holdup artist with more attention. The man sat a down-headed roan, an ugly brute which looked undersized in comparison with the bandit's length of limb; for he was a tall man, with formidable shoulders. He had long arms, also, which appeared extremely capable; and the heavy Colt was poised lightly as a feather and firmly as a rock.

  He seemed indiscriminately somewhere between thirty and forty and might have been at either end of this limit. What little hair appeared beneath his sombrero was sunburned and dusted to a pale-gray brown. He had one of those lean, long faces which are thin through the cheeks and wide through the cheekbones and the jaw. He was far from good-looking; and a very wide mouth and a highly arched nose which showed that he clearly belonged in the predatory type of mankind, made up a further debit on the side of beauty. To complete the impression, his eyes were an uninteresting but very intelligent gray. In fact, one might say that the color of this man was gray; for the rest, he keenly impressed Morgan Valentine as being about equal portions of sinew and sinew-hard muscle.

  "I suppose," said Morgan, "that you want my gun first?"

  "I'm getting old, pardner," admitted the other. "I'm forgetting my A B C's. But--"

  The last word was so explosive that Valentine paused with his hand on the way down to his weapon.

  "But," continued the stranger, "guns are things that I most generally like to take for myself. Thank you just the same."

  "As you please."

  He stood up and turned, his hands well above his shoulders, while the revolver was removed from his holster.

  "Which I'm acting like a fool amachoor," the bandit was saying apologetically, "and pretty soon you'll begin to be ashamed of being robbed."

  He skidded the weapon into the back part of the buckboard.

  "Now you can sit down ag'in, pardner."

  Valentine accepted the invitation. At close hand, he found that the stranger lived fully up to his first impression. He was, indeed, a grim-faced fellow. Only his voice, which was of the most exquisite and tender softness, counteracted the general effect.

  "Now, if you'll gimme your kind attention just a minute, sir," went on the tall man, "I want to explain that holding a gun is plumb tiring to a gent of my nature that hates work. So I'm going to put it back in the leather. But here and there I've met curious gents that wanted to see just how quick that gun could come out of its house ag'in and say how'd you do. So they've let me take a gun off their hip, and then they've sprung a surprise by fetching out some little token of affection from under a coat or a shirt--say a knife, or a derringer. And them that have tried my gun have most generally found it right there on the job talking business."

  So saying, he slipped his weapon into its holster.

  "I think I follow your meaning," said Valentine. "Which I'm tolerable quick to do when men talk sense."

  He added: "Here's the coin." And he kicked the canvas sack so that it jingled at the touch. "I have some in my wallet if that ain't enough to satisfy you."

  At this the stranger smiled gently upon him.

  "They's one part of my heart that's an aching void sure enough," he declared, "and that's the part where a plumb
reasonable man fits in. Pardner, you seem to be it. Nope, I don't want your wallet, I guess. That is"--and here he lifted the canvas sack and weighted it in his hand--"that is, if this here talk is gold talk."

  Now, when he lifted the sack and held it lightly at arm's length, Valentine had seen a rippling of muscle under the shirt sleeve that fascinated him. So he murmured absently:

  "Yes, it's all gold."

  "Maybe it's the price of a few hosses you've just took into town, now?" went on the other thoughtfully.

  "Maybe it ain't," replied Valentine.

  "Yes, and maybe it ain't. Maybe it's the cash from some little claim you been working for some time?"

  "Maybe."

  "To cut it short," said the bandit a little sharply, "is this going to bust you or not?"

  "Fifteen hundred dollars is quite a bit," observed Morgan Valentine. "Took me three years to lake that much."

  "Three years' work in this bag?"

  "Yes."

  The gray eyes puckered and gathered, and a gleam went out of them, but Valentine withstood the stare. At this, the outlaw stepped back and glanced over the equipage swiftly.

  "Judging by that harness and the way them hosses is set up, I reckon I can put that down safe as the grand-daddy of all the lies I've heard lately."

  "You forget," said Valentine, "that I didn't say what three years they were--recent ones or a long time back."

  The other grinned. There was something remarkably contagious in his smile; in spite of himself Morgan Valentine found his face wrinkling.

  "I dunno why it is," declared the bandit, "but I take to you uncommon strong."

  "And I think I can begin to say the same about you, my friend."

  "Dear me," said the outlaw, and the feminine expression did not seem at all out of place for some reason, "we're getting real friendly, ain't we?"

  "Seems that way. You're the first holdup gent that's ever troubled to ask whether or not what he took would bust me."

  "Judging by that maybe I could say that sticking you up is one of the favorite sports around these parts?"

  "Maybe you could; it used to be."

  "How many times have you been entertained?"

  "Eight times," said the rancher.

  "Dear, dear! Who'd of thought you was that rich?"

  "The other eight," said the rancher, "lived in these parts and knew the size of my bank account."

  "Eight times you've left your roll behind you?"

  "Two of them," replied Valentine, with a glittering eye, "I shot and buried. Two more I carried back to town after I'd bandaged them. Two more were killed by the posses, and the other two gave up before they were salted away."

  "You don't tell me!" exclaimed the other, with all the happiness of one who hears the ending of a pleasant tale. "And maybe this little job will gimme more fun than I was looking for."

  The rancher examined him for a time.

  "No," he said, "I guess the ninth man will be the lucky one."

  "How comes that guess?"

  "As I said, the others lived in these parts, but you've come a long way, and you'll probably go on a long ways still."

  "You talk better'n a riddle," declared the bandit with open admiration. "How d'you know I've come a long ways?"

  "By the way your hoss is gaunted up; by the knot in your handkerchief; and by the look of your eyes."

  "Eyes?"

  "As if you'd been riding into the sun for a good many days."

  "Them are all good signs. But I never heard of that last one before now."

  "Besides," said the rancher, "you've got a professional air; I wouldn't even waste time sending the posse after you."

  "Now, that's what I call real friendly. You wouldn't even put the sheriff out about me?"

  "Certainly not. Suppose he caught you? He'd probably get two or three men knocked in the head doing it; and fifteen hundred ain't worth all that bloodshed."

  "I see you got a kind heart," said the other carelessly.

  "Also, I've noticed that every real professional along your line has a pile of pals. Suppose I get you; the word is passed along. One of your friends comes and tries his hand with me just to get even. You see I ain't bluffing?"

  "I see you ain't bluffing," said the other. He flushed and straightened a little. "But if you come from my part of the country, you wouldn't say that I hunted with any gang, I play a lone hand, pardner. I've never seen the crook yet that you could trust as a friend."

  There was in this speech such naive and direct comment upon the bandit himself that the rancher could not forbear a smile. The other replied with instant good nature.

  "Which you've already said I'm a professional."

  He dropped the money bag into the saddle pouch.

  "You really work alone?"

  "Why, you can call it that. But I got my gang. I got a hoss and a gun, which makes three of us. And they's both been well tried out and not found wanting."

  "No? But that hoss of yours don't look particular like a prize, Mr.--"

  "Dreer," replied the other quietly, "Jess Dreer."

  Valentine looked back into his memory. It presented a blank to him.

  "It's the right name," said the other, "but you won't remember it. I'm a quiet man, sir, and I got quiet ways."

  Chapter 5

  At this Valentine looked him in the eye; after a moment a faint smile came in the eyes of the rancher, and the same smile was reflected in the eye of the bandit. It was an expression of infinite understanding.

  "I am Morgan Valentine," said the older man at length.

  "Mr. Valentine, it's a pleasure to know you." The rancher extended his hand but the other, appearing to be in the act of bowing very lightly in a most courtly manner, was apparently unaware of the proffered hand, which Valentine presently dropped back upon his knee. This time his smile broadened, deepened, and struck the corners of his mouth full of wrinkles.

  "My hoss, as you say," went on the bandit, "ain't a blue-ribbon winner in a beauty show. But she has her points. Step up, Angelina!"

  At this, the mustang lifted a weary head, flattened both ears against her neck, and came at once to her master.

  "Why, she comes to you like a dog," said the rancher in admiring surprise.

  "Sure, and she'd sink her teeth in me like a dog, if she got a chance. Get back, you she-devil! The outsneakingest hoss I ever see, Angelina is, Mr. Valentine."

  The mustang had, indeed, slipped around to the back of Jess Dreer, and her great yellow teeth were bared as her upper lip twitched up. And at the same time her eyes gleamed with a malevolence that made the rancher shiver. He even started up a little, but at the threat of Jess Dreer the roan shrank away.

  In the meantime her master stood back; always keeping an eye upon his holdup victim, he expatiated upon the fine points of his mount.

  "She's got a lumpish head," he admitted. "And her neck ain't particular full. But look at those quarters. And look at those well-set down hocks and the way her high withers turns; and see how deep-girted she is, though she's a bit tucked up now, as you say. Give me a hoss with plenty of bone, and she's sure got it. Yes, sir, eight years Angelina and me has been pals."

  "Eight years with a man-killer," said the rancher, his interest still growing. "You ought to do very well as a lion tamer, Mr. Dreer."

  "Lions," declared the outlaw genially, "has nothing on Angelina. She's ripped up my forearm with her teeth"--he pointed to part of a white scar which ran down beneath the cuff of his shirt almost to the palm of his hand--"and she's nicked me with her heels." He indicated a white scar which began at the top of his forehead and furrowed its way into his hair. "If she can't kick she'll strike, and if she can't strike she'll bite; and if she's fooled one day she'll be a lamb for a month and then try to murder you in ten ways in ten seconds."

  He paused and smiled upon the mare with an open-hearted affection.

  "Why the devil do you keep her, then?"

  "Partly because, though they's plenty that can ou
t-sprint her, I ain't ever seen anything that can keep up with her after the first ten miles. And, my work is chiefly long-distance stuff."

  He confided the last remark to the rancher with perfect calm.

  "Personally," said Valentine, shuddering, "I've never seen a hoss with so much devil in its face. I'd rather have three men with guns behind me than that hoss under me."

  "The chances is about even for me to kill her or for her to kill me. Either way, it's been a good fight, and I've had a ringside seat."

  "You're a queer creature," the rancher smiled, clashing his hands about one knee and rocking back in his seat as though he wished to get a more distant and complete perspective of his new acquaintance. "If I had that mare, the first thing I'd do would be to fill her full of lead. I wouldn't sell her any more than I'd sell a man his own death warrant."

  "Sir, she's a genius; she got her brains from the devil. For eight years we've been studying each other, and we've both still got a lot to learn."

  As he said this, his lower jaw jutted out a little and the muscles stood out in hard knots below the ears. Morgan Valentine blinked. He had had a glimpse of a face of such demoniac cruelty, such murderous hatred, that he was shaken to the core.

  When he looked again, he saw that the bandit had smoothed his expression again. It was the former calm, sad face.

  "I begin to see," the rancher nodded. "Even a nightmare may be interesting. Has no one else ever ridden her?"

  A shade crossed the face of the outlaw.

  "If anyone else ever did," he said, "I'd give her away--or shoot her and leave her for the buzzards. A thing that's mine has got to belong to me. Got to be all mine. The reason I can ride Angelina and nobody else can, is because I go at her in the right way. I get her scared; she don't never know what's coming next--what I've got up my sleeve--and so we get along tolerable well. But if she ever finds out that I've been bluffing her, they won't be enough of me left to put in a box."

  And so saying, he smiled again genially upon the roan; and her ears flattened against her neck. "Well, much obliged for the coin and the friendly chat," the outlaw remarked in tones of finality.

  "Wait a minute."

  Morgan Valentine was rubbing his chin with his knuckles.