by Max Brand
I could not help laughing at this childish vanity. But he was not offended.
“Laugh if you please,” said the old villain. “Laugh with me or laugh at me. Only silent men I fear. To continue, I was delighted when I saw my daughter scattering destruction and leaving broken hearts on either side of her as thick as the seeds that the sower scatters. Very well, thought I. Play your game. Enjoy your pleasures. May they last long before you are caught . . . or before it is necessary for me to sell you.”
“What?” I exclaimed.
“Are you shocked?” said that scoundrel of a Caporno. “But of course, one of the chief reasons for my pleasure in her beauty was that I hoped someday to take advantage of it for a good match. But let me get on. Yet I begin to fear that you are a distressingly moral young man. Morality is a leaden anchor. One cannot climb far or high with such a weight.
“I continue . . . toward the end of the ball, instead of a silken rustle of applause, a little wave of silence and sharp attention followed my Rosa. And when I looked, I saw the reason. The other young men and the middle-aged widowers . . . they had fallen away from her. Only one knight remained to escort her. He was very young . . . handsome as a god . . . light-footed . . . light-handed . . . with a smile to stop the heart of a girl, and very gay blue eyes. As beautiful as a woman, and yet all manly. Do you understand? There was not a thing feminine or weak about him. He was graceful . . . but there was strength behind his grace. He was gentle and gay, but it was the gentleness and the gaiety of a fearless heart.
“I looked, and I saw the danger. But I did not dream how far the fever had spread even by this time. I did not dream. But that night, after we had returned to the house, I came to understand.”
XV
At this point, Caporno paused and glanced to the side, and I saw walking toward me that same slender and sprightly youngster who I had watched before as he rode at the side of the girl with the four blacks in attendance behind them. This, then, was Lewis Vidett. This was the man who I was to guard.
However, I could not, first of all, help agreeing that he was all man. One, surely, would never have dreamed that such a man as this was in any need of a guard. His step, as Caporno had told me, was light, and his smile was as smooth and as bright as the smile of any girl. Yet there was the elasticity of strength about him. He carried his head in that nameless way—high and yet easily—which denotes a man of heart. I respected him the instant I laid eyes upon him. He was at the best not more than a fellow of average weight and height, and I had my bulk of 220 pounds of hard bone and athletic muscle to pit against him, and yet I tell you frankly that I should not have entered upon a quarrel with that fellow freely. I would have avoided him as I would have avoided a wildcat.
He came with his light step and his smile under the barred shadows of the colonnade toward Caporno, and I saw the heavy, sinister face of that swarthy gentleman light with a flash of pleasure.
That instant, I knew that he loved his son-in-law to be. Yet he raised his hand and waved.
“I am not ready for you yet, Lewis. Amuse yourself, my child, for another moment. Then I shall be ready for you.”
Vidett answered with a graceful little gesture and turned out into the patio where he sat down on the rim of the fountain bowl and amused himself watching the blue jay, which was hovering heavily nearby, eager to return to its perch beside the bright waters and almost unafraid of the man. It was a pleasant sight to watch Vidett. As he sat there hugging his knees and laughing at the dancing bird in the air above him, I could not help smiling with pleasure.
“And yet,” broke in Caporno suddenly, “he is three years your elder. He is twenty-five. But what are years? It is the fountain of exhaustless youth that matters, and that bubbles in him constantly and gaily. Ah, divine gift!”
And he sighed.
“However,” he went on, “I come back to the evening after the ball when I sat discussing men and women with my wife. That was her one talent . . . or curse . . . the ability to gossip . . . personalities tumbled forever off her tongue. Well, as we sat talking, our Rosa came in to us. She paid no more attention to her mother than if she had been a statue of salt. There is sense in that girl, and she knew that I was the one who mattered in that family.
“Up to me she stepped. ‘I have found the man that I shall marry,’ she said.
“Her mother screamed, ‘That penniless young American fool!’
“‘Will you send my mother away?’ said Rosa, not even looking at her.
“‘Impertinence!’ screams Missus Caporno.
“But I understand. Not impertinence . . . but brains. I send my wife away. I take her beneath the elbows and shove her, wriggling, from the room. Then I return to my girl.
“‘Is it madness, dear Rosa?’ I said.
“‘Yes,’ she responded. ‘It is madness.’
“‘Nevertheless, you shall not be married to an adventurer.’
“‘I will leave the house and go to him this instant!’ she said.
“‘I shall have the puppy stabbed.’
“‘You shall not dare,’ she said.
“And, by the heavens, when I look into her black eyes, I see that she is right.
“‘You love him?’
“‘I have said before . . . it is madness. I must have him!’
“‘What is he?’ I ask her.
“‘You will see him for yourself,’ she said.
“‘At least,’ I said, ‘he seems harmless.’
“She shrugs her shoulders.
“‘When can the marriage take place?’ she said.
“‘In a month,’ I say.
“‘It is too long!’
“‘In three weeks.’
“‘It is too long!’
“‘Rosa, you may marry him in two weeks from this night.’
“She threw herself on my neck and kissed me and told me that I was the kindest father in the world . . . and the wisest.
“However, before the two weeks ended, the revolution came. We traveled suddenly and unexpectedly across the sea and north to our new home. And even Rosa saw that it was best to have the house completed and all the family affairs settled before she married him. And that is the reason that she is not wearing a golden ring at this moment. Do you understand them?”
“I think,” I said, “that you have told me more than a little about both of them.”
He grinned at me, his fat face folding into odd creases. “Very well, my son,” he said, and he called briskly to Vidett.
The latter came at once. I stood up, and I felt his calm, bright glance ripple from my head to my feet, missing not a feature of my bulk. I felt that I was weighed. And I felt, under that cold, bright blue eye, a little ashamed of my assumed Mexican finery. We were introduced. A slender hand touched mine.
What happened was my fault. God has given me more physical strength than any man needs, and, above all, he has given me more strength in the hands. My grip is heavier than I know. And, after all, in my lonely life there had been few necessities of shaking hands. The pressure that I put upon his slender hand brought a flash into his eyes. The feminine brightness left them and was replaced by the glimmer of steel. His fingers coiled like taut springs. It was astonishing.
No, not that I could not have ground that hand of his to a broken, helpless, useless mass, but that I was astonished and delighted to see what power could leap out of a wrist so small. I said to him instantly: “I ask your pardon, señor. I did not mean to match strength with you.”
At that, he relaxed his hold and our hands parted, but I saw a swift, brief shadow of contempt fly across his face. It was very plain that he had misjudged me.
“Now, Lewis,” said Caporno, “your troubles are ended . . . you can close your eyes at night without worry . . . for Señor Mendez will not leave you day or night. He has become our guard. Best of all, he is your guard, Lewis. Señor Mendez is our surety against gunmen and knife fighters. Are you not, Mendez?”
I muttered that
of course it was my duty to do my best. But I was not paying much attention to Caporno himself. I was too interested in this Lewis Vidett, this young American who I had pledged myself to guard for a six months’ term, at least, and at a salary which seemed to me princely.
Of course there was a great deal for me to think of, but, first of all, I could not help wondering why I, now safely guarded from their recognition by beard, mustache, name, and clothes, should be suspected as an enemy of a man who I had never in my life seen before?
There was only one possible answer, it appeared. In the party of the four riders who had gone north to destroy poor Truck Janvers, this Lewis Vidett had made one. Aye, there was still another possibility. Perhaps it was through him that the four riders had started on their mission of blood.
And yet, when I wondered what earthly connection there could be between this brilliant young Vidett and that large-handed, slow-witted miner in the north country, I was amazed. However, it was plain that the connection did exist somewhere. It was for me to find it. And I began to feel that I was standing in the presence of the man who was the cause of the death of Truck Janvers.
I cannot tell you how perfectly it hardened my heart. I turned as grim as a piece of steel. I was ready to look past all of the youth and the charms of this youngster and regard the facts that might lie beneath.
That he regarded me with not much greater favor was plain, for I felt his calm, cold eyes flicker over me as he said to Caporno: “Señor, I only ask . . . why must I be guarded?”
“Why? Why? Why?” screamed Caporno. “Knife thrusts in the dark . . . gun shots from behind the trees . . . name of heaven, child, do you ask me that seriously?”
“Ah, señor,” said the boy, still eying me with a faint, discourteous smile of scorn that Caporno could not see, of course, from his chair, “but why should our new kind friend, Señor Mendez, be employed . . . at such an expense?”
There was a subtle insult conveyed in the last phrase that made me clench my teeth and Caporno heard the tone as well as I. He rasped out harshly: “Hear me, Lewis! I am in earnest. Now walk away with Mendez and come to an agreement, the two of you. Each of you will find that the other is a man. Now go!”
I went, accordingly, half unwillingly, at the side of young Vidett. Why do I call him young, when he was three years my senior? Well, it was because, as Caporno himself had pointed out, the very spirit of youth was incarnate in Vidett. He guided me out of the patio and we were instantly among the shadows of the trees. Then, whirling toward me with a smile, I saw the flash of a gun in his hand, and, before I could stir, he had fired!
Fear shot a hot bolt through me, like the tearing chunk of lead from the muzzle of his Colt that he had conjured out of nowhere. And yet, although the turn of Vidett had been fast as a flash of light, and, although he had seemed to be looking me fairly in the eyes, he had found a target for his bullet.
Through the higher branches of a tree just behind me there began a light crashing, rapidly increasing in velocity and in volume until I looked over my shoulder just in time to see the little body of a tree squirrel, half floating by its brushy tail, thud lightly and softly upon the ground.
XVI
It was a masterful display of marksmanship. The draw, the swift spin of young Vidett’s body, and the instant selection of a target were matters that I could appreciate—professionally, you might say. There is nothing like familiarity to breed contempt, says the old maxim, but I will aver that there is nothing like familiarity with the tricks, the whims, the uncertainties of a revolver to breed respect for the man who can use it with any degree of accuracy.
I have heard much talk of wonderful revolver play. But I have not seen a great deal of it. Most men, even at the shortest range, would do much better to depend upon the slowness and the accuracy of a rifle; the snap draw generally leads to a snap shot that hurts nothing but the wall of the room, or the empty air. But to gain any degree of skill with that weapon needs constant, constant practice, together with a certain amount of finger genius—I know of no other term that will express the thought.
I have always had a fair degree of natural talent with guns, but I never had the real genius. But what little talent I had was carefully cultivated up to my eighteenth year. And from that moment forward, during four years, I had gone from day to day with the very sure knowledge that at any moment my life might depend upon my ability to get a gun out of leather fast and put my bullet fairly into the target. So I had worked patiently and steadily, of course. Not with a thrill of joy at my skill as I gradually acquired it, but with a sort of laborious earnestness and a grim fixation of purpose.
Often I was in such a place that I dared not risk the noise that guns make. And, in those cases, I had to fall back upon the mere handling of the weapon itself. People speak of the balance of a revolver, but at the best it is a clumsy weapon to manage until one has worked with it so long that it becomes simply an added part of the flesh. When one can take his Colt to pieces in the dark and assemble it again—and all with as much speed as if the light were shining to show him what to do, and when one can jerk out his gun from its holster at the first alarm, finding it instinctively with his hand as the call of a bird wakens him in his camp in the morning, or as the voice of a wild beast disturbs him at night—when a man has gone through a training severe enough to leave these effects in him, then he begins to be ready for real practice with lead at a target. And, day by day, month by month, year after year, I labored and labored at that necessary craft. My revolvers did not last long. They were simply burned out by constant use, one after another, for the instant the gun ceased to shoot exactly true, it had to be discarded.
I say, therefore, that I was at least qualified to appreciate the wonderful adroitness of Vidett as he whirled and shot the squirrel out of the treetop. But by a great effort of the will I kept the slightest degree of that admiration and that shock from appearing in my eyes.
He was saying, smiling in his insulting, superior way: “Now we are out of earshot of that old fool, and we can speak our minds. Tell me, my most respected Señor Mendez, why I need you or any other man as a bodyguard?”
“I do not wish to pose as a teacher,” I said.
“You are modest,” he said, and still his insolent gaze was swinging up and down my body, as though he were finding a thousand vulnerable places in me—things to be mocked—bits of my new-bought finery that were out of keeping with the character of a gentleman.
“However,” I said, “when I see a mistake, I have to try to alter it . . . seeing that a very young man is making the mistake.”
“I am afraid,” he said coldly, “that is a piece of impertinence.”
“My dear Señor Vidett,” I said, “do not consider that I have the slightest interest in what you say or in what you think or feel, but what I am interested in is the man who is employing me . . . with most liberal wages.”
Color leaped into his face and fire into his eye. He looked at me steadily. The steadiness of a puma as it stalks its prey. There was something inexpressibly deadly and formidable about that handsome youngster the instant he left off smiling and became serious. Perhaps he knew it, and that was the reason that a smile was almost never off his lips.
The sinister expression altered a little almost at once, however.
“You are a cool rascal,” he said. “Señor Mendez, you are very cool. And very impertinent. But there is no reason why I should murder a man for impertinence . . . so long as a third ear does not hear him.”
“Thank you,” I said sardonically. “You relieve me a great deal.”
“Impertinent still! However, what is there wrong in my marksmanship?”
“You refer to your lucky hit on the squirrel?” I inquired.
“Lucky?” he said, letting his cold smile return.
Of course it was skill—but there was luck in it—an immense portion of luck. I knew too much about marksmanship to think that anyone who ever lived could have turned and made that hit in
that fashion without having a very liberal portion of luck at his side.
“Luck,” I repeated, “as you very well know. However, it is plain that you could have improved upon your work, for everyone knows that a squirrel is useless game when a body hit is made and the creature is blown half to tatters . . . whereas there is a serviceable hide and good food remaining when the head is nipped off.”
“That is absurd,” he said. “But I should be very happy to see you demonstrate what you mean . . . by a snap shot like mine.”
I had invited that remark, of course. But I saw that my case was desperate. I had to demonstrate some skill of an extraordinary kind, or this youngster would begin by despising me, and under the burden of his contempt I could not, of course, live in that house with any content whatever. I was ready for the invitation. My fingers were already curling for the draw of my Colt. And, in my mind, I had been marking the exact spot at which I had seen the body of the squirrel strike the ground and how far I should have to turn in order to fire at it.
So, in answer to him, I said with a smile: “Of course I am very happy to oblige you. It should be done in this manner.”
I flipped out the heavy Colt that was concealed under my right armpit and I fired with my left hand instantly, hardly stirring my body at all.
Luck was with me as luck had been with him. Frankly it was a thing that I could not expect to duplicate in more than one chance out of four. But this was my fortunate chance. The head was snipped fairly from the body of the poor little squirrel as it lay bleeding on the ground, and my smoking revolver was instantly back in its hiding place.
“Because,” I went on, hardly changing my tone or interrupting myself by this bit of target shooting, “because, my young friend, bullets in the body often do not kill . . . at once. And as a rule it is advisable to kill . . . at once. So . . . the head, señor . . . the head.”
