by Max Brand
“I’ll come back… once… because of a girl.”
He saw the eyes of Dozier widen and then contract again. “You’re not exactly what I expected to find,” he said. “But go on. If I don’t take the bargain, you pull that trigger?”
“Exactly.”
“Hmm. You may have heard the voices of the men who came up the hall with me?”
“Yes.”
“The moment a report of a gun is heard, they’ll swarm up to this room and get you.”
“They made too much noise. Barking dogs don’t bite. Besides, the moment I’ve dropped you, I go out that window.”
“You’ll break a leg with the drop.”
“Get up and stand at that window and look down. No, keep both your hands at your sides, if you please. That’s better.”
Hal Dozier went obediently to the window and looked down to the saddled horse beneath. “You’d jump for that saddle and ride like the wind.”
“Right again, Dozier.”
“Suppose you missed the saddle?”
Andrew smiled, but his smile gradually went out before a gradual wrinkling around the eyes of the other.
“It’s a good bluff, Lanning,” said the other. “I’ll tell you what… if you were what I expected you to be, a hysterical kid, who had a bit of bad luck and good rolled together, I’d take that offer. But you’re different… you’re a man. All in all, Lanning, I think you’re about as much of a man as I’ve ever crossed before. No, you won’t pull that trigger, because there isn’t one deliberate murder packed away in your system. It’s a good bluff, as I said before, and I admire the way you worked it. But it won’t do. I call it. I won’t leave your trail, Lanning. Now pull your trigger.”
He smiled straight into the eye of the younger man. A flush jumped into the cheeks of Andrew and, fading, left him by contrast paler than ever. “You were one-quarter of an inch from death, Dozier,” he replied, “and I was the same distance from being a yellow cur.”
“Lanning, with men like you… and like myself, I hope… there’s no question of distance. It’s either a miss or a hit. Here’s a better proposition. Let me put my belt on again. Then put your own gun back in the holster. We’ll turn and face the wall. And when the clock downstairs strikes ten… that’ll be within a few minutes… we’ll turn and blaze at the first sound.”
He watched his companion eagerly, and he saw the face of Andrew work. “I can’t do it, Dozier,” said Andrew. “I’d like to. But I can’t.”
“Why not?” The voice of Hal Dozier was sharp with a new suspicion. “You say that the rest of these fellows are barking dogs, and that you don’t fear ’em. Get me out of the way, and you’re free to get across the mountains, and once there, your trail will never be found. I know that… everyone knows that. That’s why I hit up here after you.”
“I’ll tell you why,” said Andrew slowly. “I’ve got the blood of one man on my hands already, but so help me God, I’m not going to have another stain. I had to shoot once, because I was hounded into it. And if this thing keeps on, I’m going to shoot again… and again. But as long as I can, I’m fighting to keep clean, you understand?”
His voice became thin and rose as he spoke; his breath was a series of gasps, and Hal Dozier changed color.
“I think,” said Andrew, regaining his self-control, “that I’d kill you. I think I’m just a split second surer and faster than you are with a gun. But don’t you see, Dozier?” He cast out his left hand, but his right hand held the revolver like a rock. “Don’t you see? I’ve got the taint in me. I’ve killed my man. If I kill another, I’ll go bad. I know it. Life will mean nothing to me. I can feel it in me.” His voice fell and became deeper. “Dozier, give me my chance. It’s up to you. Stand aside now, and I’ll get across those mountains and become a decent man. Keep me here, and I’ll be a killer. I know it… you know it. Dozier, you can make me or break me. You can make me a good citizen, or you can turn me into something that people will remember around here for a long time. Why are you after me? Because your brother was killed by me. Dozier, think of your brother, and then look at me. Was his life worth my life? He was your brother, and that’s the reason I say it. You’re a coolheaded man. You knew him, and you knew what he was worth. A fighter, he loved fighting, and he picked his chances for it. His killings were as long as the worst bad man that ever stepped, except that he had the law behind him. When he got on my trail, he knew that I was just a scared kid who thought he’d killed a man. But he ran me down with his gang. Why didn’t he give me a chance? Why didn’t he let me run until I found out that I hadn’t killed Buck Heath? Then he knew, and you know, that I’d have come back. But he wouldn’t give me the chance. He ran me into the ground, and I shot him down. And that minute he turned me from a scared kid into an outlaw… a killer. Tell me, man-to-man, Dozier, if Bill hasn’t already done me more wrong than I’ve done him.”
As he finished that strange appeal, he noted that the famous fighter was white about the mouth and shaken. He added with a burst of appeal: “Dozier, if it’s pride that holds you back, look at me. I’m not proud. I’ll get down there on my knees. I’ll beg you to let me go and give me a chance. You can open the door and let the others look in at me while I’m beggin’. That’s how little pride I have. Do you think I’d let shame keep me out of heaven?”
For heaven was the girl, and Dozier, looking into that white face and those brilliant-black eyes, knew it. If he had been shaken before, he was sunk in gloom now.
And then there was a last appeal, a last agony of appeal from Andrew: “Hal, you know I’m straight. You know I’m worth a chance.”
The older man lifted his head at last.
“Pride won’t keep you out of heaven, Andy, but pride will keep me out. And pride will send me to perdition. Andy, I can’t leave the trail.”
At that sentence every muscle of Andrew’s body relaxed, and he sat like one in a state of collapse, except that the right hand and the gun in it were steady as rocks.
“Here’s something between you and me that I’d swear I never said if I was called in a court,” went on Hal Dozier in a solemn murmur. “I’ll tell you that I know Bill was no good. I’ve known it for years, and I’ve told him so. It’s Bill that bled me, and bled me until I’ve had to soak a mortgage on the ranch. It’s Bill that’s spent the money on his cussed booze and gambling. Until now there’s a man that can squeeze and ruin me any day, and that’s Merchant. He sent me hot along this trail. He sent me, but my pride sent me, also. No, son, I wasn’t bought altogether. And, if I’d known as much about you then as I know now, I’d never have started to hound you. But now I’ve started. Everybody in the mountains, every ’puncher on the range knows that Hal Dozier has started on a new trail, and every man of them knows that I’ve never failed before. Andy, I can’t give it up. You see, I’ve got no shame before you. I tell you the straight of it. I tell you that I’m a bought man. But I can’t leave this trail to go back and face the boys. If one of them was to shake his head and say on the side that I’m no longer the man I used to be, I’d shoot him dead as sure as there’s a reckoning that I’m bound for. It isn’t you, Andy… it’s my reputation that makes me go on.”
He stopped, and the two men looked sadly at each other.
“Andy, boy,” said Hal Dozier, “I’ve no more bad feeling toward you than if you was my own boy.” Then he added with a little ring to his voice: “But I’m going to stay on your trail till I kill you. You write that down in red.”
And the outlaw dropped his gun suddenly into the holster. “That ends it then,” he said slowly. “I don’t feel the way you do, Hal. I’m beginning to hate you, because you stand between me and the girl. I’m as frank as you are, you see. And the next time we meet we won’t sit down and chin friendly like. We’ll let our guns do our talking for us. And, first of all, I’m going to get across these mountains, Hal, in spite of you and your friends.”
“You can’t do it, Andy. Try it. I’ve sent the word up. The
whole mountains will be alive watchin’ for you. Every trail will be alive with guns.”
But Andrew stood up, and using always his left hand while the right arm hung with apparent carelessness at his side, he arranged his hat so that it came forward at a jaunty angle, and then hitched his belt around so that the holster hung a little more to the rear. The position for a gun when one is sitting is quite different from the proper position when one is standing. All these things Uncle Jasper had taught Andrew long and long before. He was remembering them in chunks.
“Give me three minutes to get my saddle on my horse and out of town,” said Andrew. “Is that fair?”
“Considering that you could have filled me full of lead here,” said Hal Dozier with a wry smile, “I think that’s fair enough.”
“Are you riding Grey Peter?” asked Andrew from the door, to which he backed with instinctive caution.
“Of course.”
“He’ll be safe, Hal. No matter how you press me, I’ll never take a bead on that horse. Why, God bless him, I’ve ridden him myself.”
“You didn’t have to tell me that,” said Hal. “Skunks that shoot horses don’t look down their rifles with your kind of eyes, Andy.”
There was a moisture in the eyes of Hal Dozier as the door closed, and Andrew’s quick, light step went down the hall.
Chapter Eighteen
As Andrew went down the stairs and through the entrance hall, he noticed it was filled with armed men. He saw half a dozen looking over the working parts of their rifles in the corners of the room. At the door he paused for the least fraction of a second, and during that breathing space, he had seen every face in the room. Then he walked carelessly across to the desk and asked for his bill.
Someone, as he crossed the room, whirled to follow him with a glance. When Andy paid his bill, he heard, for his ears were sharpened: “I thought for a minute… But it does look like him.”
“Aw, Mike, I seen that gent in the barroom the other day. Besides, he’s just a kid.”
“So’s this Lanning. I’m going out to look at the poster again. You hold this gent here.”
“All right. I’ll talk to him while you’re gone. But be quick. I’ll be holdin’ a laugh for you, Mike.”
Andrew paid his bill, but as he reached the door, a short man with legs bowed by a life in the saddle waddled out to him and said: “Just a minute, partner. Are you one of us?”
“One of who?” asked Andrew.
“One of the posse Hal is getting together? Well, come to think of it, I guess you’re a stranger around here, ain’t you?”
“Me?” asked Andrew. “Why, I’ve just been talking to Hal.”
“About young Lanning?”
“Yes.”
“By the way, if you’re out of Hal’s country, maybe you know Lanning, too?”
“Sure. I’ve stood as close to him as I am to you.”
“You don’t say so. What sort of a looking fellow is he?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Andrew, and he smiled in an embarrassed manner. “They say he’s a ringer for me. Not much of a compliment, is it?”
The other gasped and then laughed heartily. “No, it ain’t, at that,” he replied. “Say, I got a pal that wants to talk to you. Sort of a joke on him, at that.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Andy calmly. “Take him into the bar, and I’ll come in and have a drink with him and you in about two minutes. S’long.”
He was gone through the door, while the other half reached a hand toward him. But that was all.
In the stables, he had the saddle on the chestnut in twenty seconds and brought him to the watering trough before the barroom.
He found his short, bowlegged friend in the barroom in the midst of excited talk with a big, blond man. He looked German, with his parted beard and his imposing front, and he had the stern, blue eye of a fighter. “Is this your friend?” Andrew asked, and walked straight up to them. He watched the eyes of the big man expand, and then narrow; his hand even fumbled at his hip, but then he shook his head. He was too bewildered to act.
“I was just telling Mike,” said the short man, “that you told me yourself folks think you’re a ringer for Lanning. As a matter of fact… get in on this… Mike thought you was Lanning himself.” He began to laugh heartily.
“Can’t you picture Lanning hangin’ around the same hotel where Hal Dozier is?”
“Well, let’s drink.” Andy smiled. While the others were poising their glasses, he took a stub of a pencil out of his vest pocket and scribbled idly on the top of the bar. They drank, and Andy wandered slowly toward the door, waving his hand to the others. But the short man was busy trying to decipher the scribbled writing on the bar.
“It’s words, Mike,” he informed his companion. “But I can’t get the light right for reading it.”
At the same time, there was a hubbub and an uproar from the upper part of the hotel. A dozen men were shouting from the lobby. And the men in the barroom started crowding toward the door.
“Wait!” cried the short man. “Mike, listen to what he wrote… ‘Dear Mike, in a pinch, always believe what your eyes tell you. Lanning.’ Mike, it was him.”
But Mike, with a roar, was already rushing for the street. Others were before him; a fighting mass jammed its way into the open, and there, in the middle of the square, sat Hal Dozier on his gray stallion. He was giving orders in a voice that rang above the crowd and made voices hush to whispers as they heard him. Under his direction, the crowd split into groups of four and five and six and rode at full speed in three directions out of the town. In the meantime, there were two trusted friends of Hal Dozier busy at telephones in the hotel. They were calling little towns among the mountains. The red alarm was spreading like wildfire and faster than the fastest horse could gallop.
But Andrew, with the chestnut running like a red flash beneath him, shot down the tangle of paths on the same course as that by which he entered. He would have been interested had he heard the quiet remark of the very old man with the bony hands, who sat under the awning by the watering trough of the store.
“I knew that young gent was coming to town to raise blazes, and there he goes with blazes roarin’ after him.”
As the first rush of the pursuers came foaming around the nearest corner, the storekeeper darted out. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Nothin’,” said the very old man, “but times is pickin’ up. Oh, times is pickin’ up amazin’.”
The first squadron went down the lanes, five men like five thunderbolts, but they took care not to exceed the speed of the slowest of their comrades, for it was suicide obviously to get into a lonely lead behind a man who could drop his man at 500 yards from horseback—from running horseback, the story had it.
However, these five were only one unit among many. Two more were pushing up the ravine, making good time into the heart of the mountains; others were angling out to the right and left, always on the lookout and always warning man, woman, and child to take up the alarm and spread it. And not only were the telephone lines working busily, but that strange and swift messenger, rumor, was instantly at work, buzzing in strange places. It stopped the cowpuncher on the range; it stopped the plowman with his team and made him think what one slug of lead would mean to his farm; it set the boys in school drawing up schedules of how they would spend $5,000. And not $5,000 alone. There was talk that, besides the state, rich John Merchant, in the far south near Martindale, would contribute generously. The cattlemen, the poor farmers of the hills, every man and child in that region of mountains was ready to look and report, or look and shoot.
But Andrew Lanning, although he guessed at all this and more, kept straight on his course. He did not cut straight into the heart of the mountains, for he knew that the districts just above would be thoroughly alarmed. But he had a very good reason for making his strike for liberty in this direction, in spite of the fact that the mountains were lower and easier on either side.
Buried
away in the mountains, one stiff day’s march, was a trapper who Uncle Jasper had once befriended. That was many a day long since, but Uncle Jasper had saved the man’s life, and he had often told Andrew that, sooner or later, he must come to that trapper’s cabin to talk of the old times.
He was bound there now. For if he could get shelter for three days, the hue and cry would subside. When the mountaineers were certain that he must have gone past them to other places and slipped through their greedy fingers, he could ride on in comparative safety. It was an excellent plan. It gave Andrew such a sense of safety, as he trotted the chestnut up a steep grade, that he did not hear another horse, coming in the opposite direction, until the latter was almost upon him. Then, coming about a sharp shoulder of the hill, he almost ran upon a bare-legged boy who rode without saddle upon the back of a bay mare. The mare leaped catlike to one side, and her little rider clung like a piece of her hide. “You might holler, comin’ around a turn!” shrilled the boy. And he brought the mare to a halt by jerking the rope around her neck. He had no other means of guiding her, no sign of a bridle.
But Andrew looked with hungry eyes. He knew something of horses, and this bay fitted into his dreams of an ideal perfectly. She was beautiful, quite heavily built in the body, with a great spread of breast that surely told of an honest heart beneath a glorious head, legs that fairly shouted to Andrew of good blood, and above all, she had that indescribable thing that is to a horse what personality is to a man. She did not win admiration; she commanded it. And she stood alert at the side of the road, looking at Andrew like a queen. Horse stealing is the last crime and the cardinal sin in the mountain desert, but Andrew felt the moment he saw her that she must be his. At least he would first try to buy her honorably.
“Son,” he said to the urchin, “how much for that horse?”
“Why,” said the boy, “anything you’ll give.”
“Don’t laugh at me,” said Andrew sternly. “I like her looks, and I’ll buy her. I’ll trade this chestnut… and he’s a fine traveler… with a good price to boot. If your father lives up the road and not down, turn back with me, and I’ll see if I can’t make a trade.”
