by Brand, Max
"Well?" said the bandit a trifle impatiently.
"Which way might you be going?"
The other looked sharply at Valentine and then shrugged his shoulders.
"Over yonder," he said.
"That's the way I'm going, Dreer. Suppose you rest your hoss for a spell and come along with me."
A gleam of suspicion flashed into the face of the bandit, and once again Valentine glimpsed that fathomless, cruel strength of will and insight. Then he thought of a way to tempt the big man.
"They ain't much to be afraid of," he said. "My gun is in the back of the wagon."
"Why," and Jess Dreer grinned, "this sounds to me like a real party."
And he sprang instantly into the wagon and sat down beside the rancher.
Chapter 6
Morgan Valentine concealed his triumph, or sought to do so, by busying himself with taking up the reins and fastening them between his fingers.
"But will your horse follow?"
"It took me two years off and on to teach Angelina to follow. And I figure that if she lives to be two hundred, she won't forget what she's learned," the outlaw replied.
Valentine spoke to the two geldings, and they struck their collars at the same instant in answer to his voice; but at once they settled down to their time-honored pace. In the meantime he was adjusting himself to his companion. It was plain to see that the other had accepted the invitation to ride with his victim simply in the light of a dare. Morgan had put himself side by side with a man who had already admitted to several killings, and he had allowed that man to choose his time and place for an attack. Yet the bandit, scorning to sit far to one side or to keep his head turned toward Valentine, sat perfectly erect in the seat with his eyes fixed far down the road. It was not until Valentine, jerking his hand up swiftly to his cigarette, had made a definite move that could be construed as hostile that his companion showed the slightest sign of being on the alert. Even then he did not turn his head, but Valentine was aware of a flash of those gray eyes to the side and a tint of yellow in them. And all at once he knew that Jess Dreer was fairly a-tremble with an electric watchfulness; that he was concentrating a tremendous energy in keeping aware of his companion, and that in the space of a split second he could have whirled in his seat and got at the throat of the rancher.
It was not altogether a comfortable feeling for Valentine, but in his day he had had to do with many a hard man and had even possessed a certain name for hardness himself. There were few men in that part of the mountain desert who would have cared to risk their lives on the speed and certainty of their gun play as opposed to the speed and certainty of Morgan Valentine. For he was a cold-headed man, a cold-blooded man, and he fought with the same nerveless accuracy with which he lived, with which he had married, with which he had raised his children. The death of his brother--the coming departure of his brother's child--these were the emotional landmarks of his life.
Indeed, it was a sense of loneliness, of lack of food to fill his mind and his heart that had made him ask the bandit to ride with him. There was also a lingering hope that he might be able to turn the tables upon his antagonist. For there was never a man born--at least none worthy of the name of man--who did not have somewhere in the bottom of his heart love for an honest fight. Yet he had sense enough to guess that whatever his prowess might be with weapons, it would be as nothing compared to the man in the seat beside him. For Jess Dreer was his antithesis. If he was without nerves, Jess Dreer was full of little else. And the calm exterior of Dreer was a disguise maintained by an almost muscular effort; beneath the disguise there was a mind of wolfish alertness. It suddenly occurred to Valentine that this man might be many years younger than he seemed, for he was of the kind who age rapidly.
And the interest of Valentine was by no means entirely malicious, as has been hinted. In Jess Dreer he crossed a new type of man, and he was curious to read beneath the surface.
"You've had your horse for eight years," said the rancher, and he looked down to the holster at the hip of his companion, "but I'll chance a guess that you've had the gun a good deal longer."
"This gun?"
With a gesture so smooth that the eye failed to appreciate its speed, the bandit reached back, and with the tips of his fingers--so it seemed--flicked the revolver out. It lay in the palm of his hand under the eye of Morgan Valentine.
Suppose he were to strike up, would he knock that weapon out of the open hand and send it spinning? Something told him that swift as his blow might be, the long brown fingers would move with vastly more speed to curl around the gun. The very thought of what might happen perceptibly lowered the temperature of the rancher's blood.
He saw that it was, as he had guessed, a very old weapon. It bore evidence of the most meticulous care, but in spite of that an expert could see at a glance that it had passed its palmy days as an engine of destruction.
"Now, there's a gun that ain't much to look at," said the bandit, and his singularly winning smile softened his face for a moment. "And between you and me, it ain't much better'n it looks. It bucks like a wild colt. It's got funny ways. It shoots the way a one-eyed hoss runs. It keeps veerin' off to one side. Well, it's a hard shooter--if you know its ways."
He paused, then added: "I seen it thrown out of the door into the ash can one day, and I picked it up."
"Just like this?"
"All the parts was there, but it was considerable chewed up with rust. You can see where it's eat away in places. It was on a Friday that I seen that gun throwed away."
"Unlucky day?"
"Unlucky for most, but I run by opposites. And when I seen it fall, I says: 'There goes somebody's bad luck. Maybe it'll be my good luck.' So I took out the gun and spent the off time for the next couple of days oiling it up. Then I went out and tried her. Lordy, lordy! I shot a circle around a knot. She had twenty queer tricks, that gun had. But after a while I got to know the tricks. And now she does pretty smooth, neat work. You see?"
The gun flipped up in the long fingers, and without raising his hand off his knees, the bandit fired. Twenty yards away a squirrel, standing up like a peg beside its hole, was blown to bits.
The geldings plunged at the explosion of the gun, and the bandit burst at once into a stream of excuses.
"Now ain't that a fool kid thing to do?" he cried. "Shooting a gun without asking you if your hosses was gun-broke? Well, sir, call me a blockhead, because I am one. Mr. Valentine, I sure am sorry!"
Indeed, his words did not seem overdone, for his earnest gray eyes were upon the rancher in a species of entreaty.
"Dreer," said the cattleman earnestly, as soon as he had quieted the horses, "you don't have to apologize. It was worth it--to see that gun act all by itself."
But the other shook his head and returned the weapon to its leather.
"You see," he explained, "that gun is almost human to me. Suppose you had a friend with you when you got into a fight, and it was a dead-sure cinch that you'd get plugged if your friend didn't stand up and play the man by you. And suppose you never knowed whether that friend would fight like a devil or else lie down and quit--like a greaser? Well, sir, that's the way it is with that gun. If I shoot with it, I have to look twice to see if I've hit a thing."
"And yet you still carry it? You still let your safety depend on that old rattletrap?"
The crimson departed suddenly from the face of the stranger. And the muscle at the angle of his jaw leaped out into prominence.
"Sir," he said quietly, "they's one thing that I appreciate, and that's a gent that chooses his words. Rattletrap ain't particular accurate, speaking about my gun!"
"Why, Dreer, you've as good as said as much as that yourself."
The other turned his face, and there was the old unpleasant glint in his eyes.
"I'm a peaceable man, Mr. Valentine," he said. "Matter of fact, I'm a quiet kind of a gent and I mostly hate trouble, but I don't think you and me are going to agree."
Morgan Valentine
was too dumfounded to reply.
"In the first place, sir," went on the stranger, "you say you don't think nothing particular fine about my hoss. Then I let that pass, and I just throw in a few qualifying remarks about the roan. And pretty soon you up and say my gun--_my_ gun is a rattletrap!"
He was unable to continue for a moment.
"But after you'd just said practically the same thing yourself, man."
"Sir, whatever else may be wrong with that gun, it's mine, and, being mine, they ain't any man in the world that I'm going to hear say things about it that they won't stand up and prove. And, speaking man to man, I can sure digest a pile of that sort of proof before I admit that I'm wrong."
A veritable devil was in his face as he spoke. And the long brown fingers were becoming restless upon his knee.
Then, very suddenly, and most welcome sight to Valentine, the blood rushed into the face of the tall man again.
"Hanged if I didn't forget for a minute," he said, "that I was your guest, riding in your wagon. Mr. Valentine, I got to ask your pardon again. Just stop the buckboard and I'll get out and climb on the roan. They ain't any man living whose pardon I've asked three times hand-running. And I've done it twice by you already!"
"Sit still," replied Morgan Valentine. "I figure to keep you right here and take you home with me."
Chapter 7
It should not be thought that Valentine was that cheap type of fellow who attempts to carry his points by surprise, but as the stranger talked with him, the gradual conviction grew in him that he must see more of Jess Dreer. In the meantime Jess stared at his host as though the latter had gone mad.
"Mr. Valentine," he said, "I ain't prying into what's behind your mind. I'll just say one little thing: I ain't been under the roof of another man for eight years--as a friend."
"Why, then, if you object to coming as a friend, come as an enemy."
"With the bars down and you free to call in the sheriff when you please?"
"Dreer, do you think I'm the sort who'd call in a sheriff while you're under my roof?"
"I didn't mean no insult," replied the bandit more gently. "But I ain't a mind reader, Mr. Valentine. Why the devil should you want me to come home with you?"
"Because," said the rancher, "although I've lived some fifty years and a bit more, I don't think I've met more'n two men that particularly interested me. And you're one of 'em. As a matter of fact, there's nothing so strange. You've taken some of my money. Well, what you've taken won't break me. I'm what you might call a pretty well-to-do man, Dreer. Now, I'd spend fifteen hundred on a fine hoss and never think twice about it. Why shouldn't I spend fifteen hundred for a man and enjoy talking to him? Think it over."
"I stick you up and lift fifteen hundred iron men. Then you step out and ask me home. I go to your home. I put my legs under your table. I eat your chuck--" He made a face of disgust. "I couldn't do it, pardner, even though you don't mean nothing but kindness."
"Think it over," echoed the rancher.
A silence fell. The geldings jogged relentlessly, tirelessly forward; the roan cantered softly behind the buckboard.
"If I could figure how you'd gain anything," the bandit murmured finally, "I might chance it, but--"
"Take your time and think it over," insisted Morgan Valentine.
"Well, sir," said the bandit suddenly, "I call your bluff. If it's a trap--well, a nerve like yours ought to catch something. I'll go home with you."
Valentine stretched out his hand. But the tall man glanced down at the stubby, proffered fist, and then back to the rancher.
"Some ways," he said, "you might put me down as queer. But I ain't any too fond of shaking hands. You see, a handshake means a pile to me. I shook hands with a man that sold me to a sheriff once."
"And the sheriff got you?"
"No, the other way round. But I couldn't touch the gent that had double-crossed me--the skunk!--because I'd shaken hands with him. Now, remembering that, I guess you'll change your mind about this handshaking?"
"It goes with me as far as it goes with you."
Suddenly they shook hands.
Then they said in one voice, like a trained chorus: "That takes a load off my mind!"
In the meantime the evening was approaching. The early night had patched the mountains with purple and filled every ravine with tides of incredible blue. Before them the hills began to divide.
"D'you know something?" said the bandit.
Valentine saw that his companion was leaning far forward, his elbows on his knees and his face wistful. It meant a great deal more than words, that unguarded attitude. It meant that Morgan Valentine had been judged by this man and had been accepted according to his standards.
"What's that?"
"Yonder--behind them hills--well, I'll be stepping out into a new part of my life."
"I wouldn't wonder much if you were."
Still the geldings jogged on, and the hills moved by them slowly, awkwardly, growing each moment more dusky. They turned a sharp bend, and below them lay the valley of the Crane River; above it the red of the sunset filled the sky, and the river itself was a streak of dark crimson.
"Gimme the reins," said the bandit.
Silently the rancher passed them to his companion, who now gathered them in closer. He did not speak a word, but perhaps the tenseness of the reins, the new weight vibrating against their bits, carried a message to the geldings. Of one accord, they stepped out into a freer gait, their heads raised, their ears pricked. Life came into their step. If two whips had touched them at the same instant the effect could not have been more noticeable. And it seemed to Morgan Valentine that a current of strength and knowledge was passing down the reins and into the minds of the dumb brutes. To him it was more than a miracle.
"Do you know," he said, as the buckboard was whipped forward with redoubled speed and jolted noisily over the bumps in the road, "that's the first time I've seen those nags change that old dogtrot of theirs?"
The bandit made no reply for some time. He was changing the pressure on the reins. First the off horse came up on the bit and strained against the collar; then the near horse, who had been pulled back, was released and quickened his pace until he was snorting beside his companion and even ahead of him. And then both increased their pace, and the jolting was redoubled.
"Look at that!" murmured the bandit. "As long as they agreed, they wasn't worth a nickel. As long as they went ahead at that same old sleepy trot, they wasn't worth powder and lead enough to blow their heads off. But now they're beginning to try each other out. They're beginning to race. I tell you what, Valentine, the way to get the most out of men--or hosses--is to play 'em one agin' the other."
Indeed, the two geldings now had their heads as high as if they were just beginning a journey--higher than they had ever held them for Morgan Valentine.
And the latter was naturally full of thought as the buckboard careened down the hillside and dropped into the valley floor. Now and again, as the dusk thickened, he looked behind him and saw the roan mare following patiently, always with her ears flat against her neck. It was almost as if the fear of the master she hated were still in the saddle, spurring her on, curbing her free spirit, and breaking it to do his will.
Something in this thought made him look up at the face of the bandit, and he saw him sitting with his face tense and a light of cruel enjoyment in his eyes. It was as if he drew a deep delight out of the rivalry which he had put in the hearts of the two geldings.
It was, of course, night when they reached the stables behind the ranch house, although the moon, which hung over Grizzly Peak, was sending a faint, slant light down the valley. One of the hands came out to unhitch the horses, but the outlaw insisted upon handling his own mount. He led it into one of the individual corrals.
"A roof over her head always sort of bothers Angelina," he explained, while the rancher looked on in curiosity.
He watered her carefully, fed her grain and hay in cautious portions, and
rubbed away the sweat under the saddle blanket. Yet the instant he turned to answer a word from the rancher, she whirled on her master. He did not turn his head to make sure that she was coming; though she veered noiselessly, her master did not pause, but leaped straight for the bars and vaulted over them. The teeth of the mare clicked with the noise of a steel trap shutting, just at the place where his hand had rested on the top bar.
"Ah, beauty! Ah, Angelina!" cried Jess Dreer, and came back to the bars. "Eyes in the back of my head, girl, and tomorrow you'll pay for this. Remember? Tomorrow? Or the next day; it's added to the score."
There was, at this point, a sudden outbreak of snorting and a rattle of harness from the big watering trough.
"What the dickens! Jud! Harry!" a man was crying. "What the devil has got into you? Quiet there!"
"By Heaven," murmured the rancher, "the geldings are fighting!"
"Is that strange?" asked Jess Dreer.
"They've lived like two brothers--which they are--ever since they were foaled."
"All the better," said Jess Dreer gaily. "A hoss is like a man. Needs a good fight now and then to keep 'em on edge."
And Morgan Valentine shivered. He did not say another word on the way to the house. He was beginning to think of many things.
Chapter 8
It was not until they had reached the very shadow of the sprawling old house that the rancher recovered from his absent-mindedness.
"How am I to introduce you?" he asked.
"As Jess Dreer," said the bandit. "I guess I've outrode my reputation."
"I think so. But where have I met you?"
"Somewhere south."
"I haven't traveled about much in the south. Let me see. Five years ago I was in Ireton; have you ever been there?"
"Nope. What's it like?"
"Common cow town."
"All right. I know it then. You met me there."
"That's all I'll have to say unless Mary starts asking questions. She's the outbeatingest girl for talking when she gets started on a thing."
At this the bandit sidestepped and scowled at his companion.
