by Brand, Max
Once more Jud Boone met the eye of Dreer and quailed.
"Put it short," he said at length. "How far'll you go for this Valentine?"
"To the limit."
"They must of paid you high," said Jud bitterly. "They's no other way out?"
"They ain't a single way. We got to give way, one of us, Jud. And that one ain't going to be me!"
A gray color invaded the face of Jud Boone. He rose slowly from his chair with his arms hanging stiffly at his sides.
"Dreer, I can't step out. I've give my word. I--I'd rather go to hell than to face her--after running out on my promise."
He swayed himself a little back and forth and set his teeth. With every scruple of energy in his soul and body he was striving to call up the fighting passion, but the result was only a dull glare, and the mouth of the gun fighter was twitching loosely.
"If you're going to stop me, Dreer, you got to stop me now!"
The sneer deepened on the thin lips of Dreer.
"You poor fool," he said contemptuously. "Look down at your hand! A Chinaman could beat you to your gun, Boone, and shoot you full of holes."
As one fascinated by a superior power, Boone looked down, saw the quaking fingers of his hands, and dropped back in his chair. His face was buried and he groaned. Jess Dreer walked to him and touched the trembling, massive shoulders. The gun fighter dared not look up.
"Listen to me. Jud, I'm sorry for you. I ain't your confessor, but I tell you I've heard some awful things about you. About what you done to your pardner that found that claim for you back of Angelville. About a pile of other things I've heard, too. But I'll say now that I don't believe them.
"I'm going to do my part by you. How do I know that this Charlie Valentine is enough of a man to be worth all this trouble and pain saving? Maybe in a pinch he'd show yeller. I've seen it done. He's done nothing but clean up on a bunch of kids. How'd he act facing a real fighting gent like you? That's the question! Well, Jud, we'll try him out.
"You go to that saloon tomorrow and you hang around until Charlie Valentine comes in. Then give him a try. Walk up to him and see if he's got the nerve to meet you. Laugh at him, mock him, tell him what you're going to do in the line of filling him full of lead, and when you're done with that, just tell him to get out of the saloon; and then stand still and look him in the eye.
"They ain't one chance in ten that he'll come through. Most likely he'll try to grin and then back out. And if he does that, you're through. You've done your part better than the Normans could of asked, because you'll have shamed the boy.
"Aye, it would be worse than shooting him, in a way. But I'll stand by and give you the chance. And I tell you straight it costs me more'n you guess to do it. But you go ahead. Try his nerve.
"But if he don't buckle and quit--if he don't walk out of the saloon--if he stands ready for a fight--then, Jud, you won't be fighting him. You'll be fighting me. Because I'll be standing by, and the minute the test comes, I'm going to call your name out, and you and me'll finish what you and him begun."
"D'you mean it?" cried Jud Boone, leaping to his feet, exultant.
"I mean it."
"But how can you stand around in Carrol's place? What if you're seen?"
"I won't be seen, but I'll be seeing."
"Then, pardner, you'll see this Charlie Valentine crumple up like wet paper when I get my eye on him. And--I know how to work it!"
His face went savage. Indeed, he had had a practical demonstration that night of the power which one eye may exert upon another.
"They's one thing more," said Jess Dreer slowly. "You know my name. You know I'm wanted. If you was to spread the news around that I was in town, it might be kind of bad for me. I'll leave it to your honor, Jud."
"Gimme your hand," cried Jud. "You've met me halfway, and you can trust me to go square with you, pardner!"
"S'long, then."
And the outlaw backed to the door, waved his hand, and was gone.
Chapter 21
But the moment he was alone, shame threw Jud Boone into a perfect frenzy of rage and self-hatred. He ran to the door with the revolver naked in his hand, as if even now he would call back Dreer and face him. But he heard the door close downstairs and he hurried back to the window. Across the street below him the tall figure was passing, and he raised his weapon for a chance shot, balanced it a moment--and then dropped it into the holster with a groan. He sank into a chair, grinding his knuckles into his forehead, then leaped up as though under a spur and paced the room. But the thought of Jess Dreer followed him like a ghost, and like a ghost kept the calm eye upon him.
At length he made up his mind. It was a shameful thing, perhaps, to betray the word which he had pledged to Jess Dreer, but to Jud Boone this was a matter of life and death; and where he was vitally concerned, he had never been in the habit of consulting the requirements of honor.
He went straight to the bedroom of his host, Sol Norman, and slipped in without knocking at the door. He found the lamp on the table by dint of fumbling and lighted it, looking up to find Sol Norman rising in bed on one elbow and blinking rapidly at the light. Sol Norman was prodigiously long of nose and chin and was considered the saddest-faced man on the ranges. His face was now even longer than usual while he gaped at the gun fighter.
"The game's off," declared Jud, frowning at the other.
"What game?"
"Me and Charlie Valentine. I'm through."
At this, Sol Norman swung out of bed and plunged his bony legs into trousers. Sol was preeminently a man of action. Half a minute later he was strapping on a gun, and all these vital seconds he had not asked a single question.
"Now," he said, catching up his hat, "what's wrong?"
"I took on one man, not two," declared the gunman sullenly. "I took on Charlie Valentine for you folks. You all figured that Charlie was too fast with his gun for any of you to tackle, and I was willing to have a try at him. But the new man--"
"What new man?"
"Jess Dreer."
There was a foul oath from Sol Norman.
"What's he got to do with it?"
"This: That if I jump Charlie, Dreer will jump me."
"Two to one, eh? Don't worry, Jud. That's just what we want. If we can get this down to mob action, everything is dead easy. We got the numbers."
Jud Boone flushed.
"It ain't the numbers, Sol. He ain't going to work with Charlie. He'll work by himself."
"Then you'll send him the same way you send Charlie Valentine, Jud, and you'll collect the price for him. Not a bad day's work, eh?"
He made his voice hearty as he said this, but Jud failed to show enthusiasm. He flushed as he approached the shameful truth.
"Sol, don't you know nothing about Jess Dreer?"
"Well?"
"He's the fastest man with a gun that ever sunk a spur into a hoss, Sol. Why, it was him that killed 'Salty' Moore--and--I've seen Salty work!"
He had turned gray while he recalled Salty, and now Sol Norman nodded slowly; he understood.
"But they's one way around it. We'll keep Dreer from coming anywheres near Carrol's saloon. He's an outlaw. Nobody don't need to wait for an invitation before they plug Dreer. We'll pass the word around. We'll get all our boys out with something on the hip."
Jud Boone mopped his forehead.
"It's a rotten job," he muttered. "I don't feel no ways right about it. Keep him away if you can. But--somehow I figure he'll get through. He'll be somewheres near watching when I face Charlie Valentine. But--"
"Have a drink," urged Sol, studying the face of the fighter with his little, shrewd eyes. "Have a drink. Then you tumble into bed and have a snooze. I'm going to make the rounds and get the boys together. They'd be on hand, anyway; I'm going to make sure of having them here early. But what does this Dreer look like? I've never seen him; none of the rest of the boys have."
"He's tall--big shoulders, narrow waist, long arms--like a gorilla. He ain't very good to look a
t. Kind of lean in the face. Got a straight-looking eye." He shuddered slightly as he remembered that eye. He concluded: "You just tell the boys what I've told you. And when they see Jess Dreer--they'll know him well enough."
He stepped closer and clutched the arms of Sol with his pudgy hands.
"Sol, you got to keep him away!"
And he turned to the whisky bottle.
Sol Norman left the room with three huge strides, went down the stairs with as many leaps, and burst into the night on his errand; and Jud Boone, turning the whisky glass nervously, was comforted by the beat of hoofs that swept down the street.
There was no sleep for Jud that night. Most of the time he spent in recalling the most minute details of his interview with Dreer. And then he focused the eye of the memory on the personal appearance of the outlaw--and most of all he dwelt upon the long, capable, deft ringers of the man. In those fingers a revolver would become a living thing, he felt.
In the meantime, before dawn was well up in the sky the first arrivals appeared at the house of Sol Norman, for this was the rallying place for the clan. And their coming, also, cheered Jud Boone, He could hear the front door slamming more and more frequently and their noisy stamping through the lower hall to the kitchen.
When he went down, they gave him a noisy reception. He was their champion, and they treated him like a king. Eagerly, to the circle of attentive faces, Jud described the outlaw, and the necessity of keeping him away from the saloon. They were to shoot at sight, ask their questions later, for if Dreer ever got the drop on them or even a fair warning of his danger, he would probably escape through a thousand of them. Jud was willing to exaggerate the prowess of Dreer. It made his fear of the outlaw less cowardly, and more like a man's dread of any power in nature. Jess Dreer became, under his painting, a cyclone against which one man or even two would be foolish to stand. And the result of the speech was that every man of the Norman clan looked to his weapons and then went out prepared for desperate battle.
By the time it was full day they had already laid their preparations and their plans of battle. And by the time it was full day Dan Carrol went up to the room of Dreer.
The big man, like Jud Boone, had not slept during the small remainder of the night, and at a signal from the gambler he went to the window.
"Look yonder."
"Well?" asked Jess Dreer.
"What d'you see?"
"A bald old boy scratching his head."
"That bald old boy is Tom Norman--the old man himself."
He led the way to another window.
"What d'you see?"
"Why, the same thing you do. Three gents sitting on a log playing dice."
"Them three are Walter Norman and his two cousins, Garry and Wally. Now, Jess, d'you begin to do a little thinking?"
"I begin to think that they's a considerable heap of Normans in this town. Anything else I'd ought to think?"
"Why d'you think they're there?"
"Why, they're going to hang around and wait for the fight to come off. They're waiting to see Jud Boone kill Charlie Valentine. Wouldn't take much brains to figure that out."
"Don't it strike you that they're a wee mite early?"
"They don't want to get caught in the rush. Go on, Danny, and tell me what it all means--if it does mean anything queer."
"Kind of queer, pardner. Them gents ain't the only ones. They's others all around the saloon. They're sitting on front porches. They're loafing around in the alleys. They's a couple of 'em down in the barroom now. Not talking much. Just standing and sipping their drink like they didn't like it, and looking, looking, looking. Jess, they're out there to keep you from getting to the saloon!"
It made the outlaw whirl on him.
"What the devil do they mean by that?"
"They's a whisper going the rounds that you intend to show up when it comes to the pinch between Jud and Charlie Valentine, you're going to step in and take a crack at Jud. They ain't anything in it, Jess, is there?"
The tall man was stunned, but he gradually recovered.
"It's Boone," he said huskily. "The skunk has started talking. He gave me his word. Danny, I could of killed the hound dog and got away clean without nobody knowing I was ever near him. And now he's double-crossed me!"
"He told what?" gasped Carrol. "D'you mean to say that you _were_ going to step in between Boone and young Valentine?"
"I was--and I am."
"Jess, you're hanging yourself!"
"I'd only be hurrying up something that's sure to happen sooner or later. But--I still got one chance."
"What's that?"
"If I can get back to my room after the fracas--"
"No good, Jess. They'll search every inch of the house."
"That's right." He fell silent. "They's only one chance, then. If I have to make a play agin' Jud Boone with all this gang around, I'm done. But if Jud bluffs down Charlie--why, then my neck's saved."
"But what'll I do? Where can I help, Jess?"
"Nothing you can do. These here things, Danny, just up and happens."
Chapter 22
Public opinion in Salt Springs was strictly neutral. On the one hand it was felt that Charlie Valentine had overstepped the bounds within which a peaceful man should walk by his various shooting scrapes. On the other hand there were not many who entirely approved of the Normans. They were a clannish tribe. They carried into the mountain desert the spirit with which they had lived in the Kentucky back hills. And the spirit of the clan is not wanted west of the Rockies in the large spaces where a man's malice should dissolve before he had spread it like a poison into the blood of his relations. Therefore, when Salt Springs found out that if the toes of one Norman were stepped upon, the fists of fifty Normans avenged the hurt, the townsmen put their heads together, marveled at this new spirit, and then began to frown. The Westerner does not make up his mind suddenly. He really is more conservative than the most hidebound New Englander. He is taught from his childhood to look on the better side of a man, and if the man has not a better side, then to avoid him altogether. The reason is simple. It is dangerous to disapprove of a man who wears a gun; it is far better to keep away from him, and above all, it is best to say nothing about him lest tidings of what you have said be brought to his ear.
Accordingly, Salt Springs saw the Normans, disapproved of them, and then waited in silence for something to happen. But on this day, when the Normans gathered in the streets of the town, every man armed, every man silently ugly, it was felt that they had overstepped the bounds of decorum. Salt Springs, in a word, disapproved, and hitched at its gun belt. And if the opposite party had not been a young mischief-maker himself, there was every probability that the neutrals would have risen en masse and run the Normans out of the town.
But as it was, it was felt that this private war had best run its own course, though many public-spirited men shook their heads with the knowledge that, if Charlie Valentine fell, it would be merely the beginning of constant warfare--for Morgan Valentine himself would then take up arms, and when Morgan Valentine stirred, society was shaken to the roots. As for the other rumor--that Jess Dreer was mixed up in this matter and was on the side of the Valentines, most people were inclined to disbelieve it. Besides, Dreer was to most of them a semi-mythical spirit. He came from the southland. His crimes were not of their region. And the man himself was discounted. Compared with Jud Boone, a known force, he was nothing.
But there was something so set and staged about this affair that Salt Springs began to grow excited before the morning was old. It drifted more and more thickly toward Danny Carrol's saloon, where the meeting was to take place. And all eyes, turning upon Jud Boone, who sat at a table in the corner, would then flick over to the prize saddle, which now lay at the other end of the bar waiting for Charlie Valentine.
Obviously, no one could look at the saddle and then at Jud Boone without picturing the gun fight which was coming.
But where was Jess Dreer? He had not been seen
. The loose-flung circle of the Normans had espied no one even distantly resembling the descriptions of the outlaw. Of course, no one dreamed of looking into the saloon. And in the saloon, least of all, would they have looked into the old closet at one end of the room. But here stood Jess Dreer, with the door ajar a fraction of an inch. From this he could not see the barroom, but he could look down the long mirror behind the bar, and in this mirror he saw perfectly at second hand all that happened. He saw the crowd filter through the door, a silent crowd, lining up before the bar, and then breaking swiftly into groups that gathered along the wall--always hurrying across the line between the chair of Jud Boone and the door, as if at any moment Charlie Valentine might appear in this doorway and the guns be drawn.
Jud Boone drank with a deep relish of the excitement which his presence roused. The number of the mustered Normans soothed his nerves. And if Jess Dreer were kept away from the saloon, this day his triumph would never be threatened.
There was a sudden flurry around the door of the saloon. Everyone stood up--except Jud Boone.
Then the whisper passed down the room, rose to a murmur, to a deep voice: "Charlie Valentine is riding down the street--and he's coming alone!"
Alone, and into the very teeth of all this savage clan of Normans!
All at once the men of Salt Springs began to remember that Charlie Valentine was young, handsome, of good family. That in his quarrels he had never taken an unfair advantage; that he had never actually killed. And then they looked from the open doorway to the face of Jud Boone, killer. The contrast was perfect.
Not even Valentine's brother--not even his father had come with the boy. It was as though the whole family trusted everything to the sense of fair play in Salt Springs. And that was the reason for the deep, stern hum that went about the saloon. Sheriff Claney, of course, was not there. His habit was to attend such affairs after and not before.
But Steve Harrison made himself spokesman when he went up to Gus Norman.
"Look here, Gus," he said, "they ain't any mystery about why you got all your men out here today. But you take my advice. Stay clear of trouble. Don't start no mob action. It ain't popular around these parts. And write this down in red--Charlie Valentine is going to get a square deal!"
