by Max Brand
“You don’t need to ask for fair play,” said Chris Venner. “But that kid is a crip. You ain’t gunna beat up a one-legger, Blinky?”
“What in the devil is it to you what I do?”
“I’m gunna have the killin’ of you, you ferret-faced snake!” bellowed Chris Venner. “That’s what I’m gunna have! Leave the kid alone, I say!”
They both advanced, and came to the edge of the circle of the firelight, glowering at each other. And there they saw Holden sitting down by the simmering stew. He had reached into the mess with a tentative pocket knife and now he drew out upon the point of the longest blade a bit of white breast soaked in the richest of gravies. He tasted it, deliberately with the eyes of the two killers fastened upon him.
“Delicious!” said Holden. “Before you murder each other, you really should take my advice—”
Chris Venner suddenly burst into huge-throated laughter that roared and rang through the ravine. He staggered across and dropped by the fire. He tossed his gun aside. And still he thundered forth his laughter. Blinky stood by, a short, wide-shouldered man with a long-featured, narrow-faced head and a venomous small pair of eyes. He glowered from his laughing enemy to the complacent form of Holden as though unable to decide on which he should deliver his attack. Finally he drew back and vented his disgust with an oath.
“Are you quittin’?” he yelled at Chris Venner.
The latter rolled to a sitting position.
“Why, Blinky,” he said, “it just beats me, that’s all. If it was anybody else—but this here kid talkin’ up to you, and to me. I call that funny!”
This gave Blinky a new idea. “Maybe the kid don’t know,” he said.
He stepped closer and leaned above Holden, and the latter could barely repress a shudder, so malignant, so ugly was the face of the man.
“D’you know, kid, who we are?”
“Do I know?” asked Holden deliberately. “Do you think that I came down here by accident?” And, adjusting his glasses calmly, he stared with much deliberation into the face of the other.
CHAPTER 3
Let it be said of Blinky Wickson and of Chris Venner that their nerves were of the strongest and the thickest ply, but now they were sufficiently shocked to stare at the eyeglassed youth and then at one another, hardly knowing what to do next. If a small bird flies into the face of a lion, the lion is apt to shrink and blink for a moment. So it was with these two renegades, except that Holden, slender and weak as he was, was not any negligible bird but a man, watching them with a quiet pair of man’s eyes. They could feel the power of his thinking. They could follow him as he read their minds, and they were distinctly uncomfortable. When they glanced at one another it was as though they said, mutely: “Who the devil can this person be and how much and what does he know?”
Chris Venner, who was the more outspoken of the pair, put that thought into exactly those words. But, for a reply, Holden thought it was much better to merely smile and let the matter go at that. It is always wiser to prefer the cloudy veiling of a mist to the naked daylight of the truth. That which is understood is too often despised. This quiet smile of Holden struck them with a colder awe.
Here Blinky took sudden command.
“Take a step into the woods, Chris,” he said. “This bird thinks that he has something on us. And he’s got some of his hired skunks along with him, I guess. You take a look around and see what you can see. I’ll keep this baby covered.”
While Venner went obediently off into the shadows of the woods, Blinky squatted behind Holden, and without turning his head, Holden sensed the flashing of the firelight on the naked gun in the hand of Wickson. Sitting so close to death, he took up his emotions one by one and examined them, curiously, dispassionately. He was not afraid; he could be sure of that. For all fear seemed to have died in him at the same instant when he was able to rise from the floor to which he had been struck and defy Cousin Joe Curtis. He felt, too, that the stakes which he was risking were pitifully small. Other men had good health, wealth, friends, loved companions to lose in death. But he had nothing except this failing body. A child could overcome him!
Yet what child could do what he had just done? Shake two perfect villains with a few words and make them dread him so much that they forgot everything—forgot the bitter feud which they were about to fight out—forgot the very meal which was so temptingly near?
At this remembering, Holden dipped into the tin boiler again and brought forth a morsel. There was a half loaf of bread near by. He cut himself a slice of this and proceeded to eat with a calm enjoyment. The danger at his back was a mere relish to his pleasure.
“You’re a cool little nervy devil,” he heard Blinky muttering.
Chris Venner came back to report that he could sight no one in the brush. Apparently the interloper had come without an escort.
“Maybe,” burst out Blinky in a destructive fury, “he’s gunna leave here without no escort, too!”
He seized Holden by the shoulder and shook him. And the latter knew that here was a crisis. If he let that rude grip pass unnoticed, he was doomed to pass on to greater and to greater perils. His very death might be only a step away. So he made himself turn without haste upon Blinky Wickson.
“All of this,” he said icily, “I’ll remember against you, Blinky!”
“You’ll remember?” said Blinky sneeringly, growing purple with a sudden and very horrible fury. “Why, you sneakin’ little runt, what good’ll it do you to remember? You—you ain’t even got a gun!”
“And doesn’t that show you,” said Holden, “that there is nothing for me to be afraid of? If I were not amply protected, do you dream that I would come here and put myself in your power?”
This Blinky considered for a moment of breathtaking silence. “You mean,” he said, “that I couldn’t sink a thumb in that skinny throat of yours and choke you?”
“Certainly you could do that,” said Holden. “But immediately afterward, I believe that you would be burned inch by inch—over a slow fire, Blinky! A very hot fire at that.”
There was both indecision and infinite malice in the face of Wickson, and Holden added with much energy and great surprise: “Why, Blinky, don’t tell me for a moment that you haven’t guessed who I am?”
Such a rank bluff as this invariably must have one of two ends. Either it must ruin the man who attempts it, or it must make him. Either it must infuriate those who hear it, or it must overawe them. As for Chris Venner, his slow brain was quite incapable of following the trail of such an agile conversation. And at a time like this he frankly stopped thinking and looked to the keener wits of Blinky to arrive at a just decision. Blinky wavered for a moment with a black scowl on his forehead, but with his eyes widening. Then the scowl disappeared, or only a suspicious shadow of it remained.
“Sure,” said he. “I had an idea. I ain’t a fool, partner.”
There was a sigh from Chris Venner. “You might have tipped me,” said he honestly. “I didn’t have no guess what he might be. He didn’t look like nothin’ much.”
“My friends,” said Holden generously, “it’s quite all right. As a matter of fact, I’ve been watching your work for quite a while.”
“You know what luck we’ve had?” snapped out Blinky, eager to pin down this odd guest with questions.
Holden bit his lip. But, having assumed omniscience, he could not draw back. He had to continue, and he continued calmly: “Of course I know about your luck.”
“Well,” snarled out Blinky, “let’s hear what that luck is?”
The brain of Tom Holden was working desperately. No cornered fox with a pack of swift-coming hounds behind it, ever turned and twisted and wriggled more furiously. The clothes of these men most certainly indicated poverty. Besides, the clothes could not be indicative of anything while they were roughing it, no matter what they might indicate in a town of any size. But what could have caused the trouble between the pair? Surely, in hard times, men of this caliber would b
e soldered together by misfortunes, each realizing that the presence of the other made him stronger and more able to stand up against the tricks and the blows of fortune. But in prosperity, they well might quarrel over a division of the spoils.
On that meager hint he spoke. “I’ll tell you, boys,” said he, and he smiled whimsically upon them. “You both know a devil of a lot that’s worth knowing, and you both have used what you know. And right now you have enough coin to furnish both of you a comfortable stake. But the chances before my coming were very great that only one of you would enjoy the money!”
He saw, at once, that he had struck astonishingly close to the mark. Blinky exclaimed in a loud voice. Big Chris Venner contented himself with lumbering around in front so that he could stare at the face of the wise young stranger and study him in the red firelight.
“And who has the money now?” shrilled Blinky.
Where should the money go except into the hands of the cleverer? And who could doubt that the greater mental agility belonged to Blinky?
“Why,” said Holden, “you have it, of course. If Venner had it, there would be no fighting over a fair division.”
At this the eyes of Blinky turned green.
“You take his part?” he asked.
“You see?” roared Chris. “Nobody that really knows, like this gent does—What did you say that your name was, pal?”
“Let the name go,” said Holden, “for the moment. You can call me Tom, if you want.”
“You say,” said Blinky, “that I ought to split with him fair and equal?”
“I do! That, in fact, is why I came here.”
He could not get on with both of these men. One must be his enemy and one his friend. He infinitely preferred the friendship of the larger of the two, huge-limbed, honest-eyed Chris Venner.
“You was intendin’ to overlook the way that we split up the coin?” yelled Blinky, furious beyond control. Then with an effort which turned his face purple, he controlled himself. “Well,” said he, “when the voting is two to one, I guess that the thing for me is to give in.”
He tore out a wallet and tossed it on the ground. It was so fat with riches that it yawned open, instantly, and exposed the thickly wadded sheafs of notes. Even Tom Holden, for all the iron grip which he had on himself, could not help wincing a little and feeling a fire mount into his brain.
“Count it over,” said Blinky with simulated disdain. “Count it over. If you think that I’d crook you, Chris, you just count it over, and I’ll let you make the split.”
“Sure,” said Chris. “I’m dog-gone sorry that you ever figgered I was suspicious of you, Blinky. Darned if I didn’t always trust you like I’d trust myself, till you got to talkin’ sort of queer a while ago while I was cookin’ the stew—you sayin’ that you had a right to two parts.”
“Because I knew where the lay was; I done the lion’s share of the work, and I even done some of the blowing, which by rights ought to have been your work!”
Chris Venner had picked up a bit of string, out of which he made a little lariat and began to noose the stones by the fire, until the noose burned in two.
“That was this job,” said Chris. “What about the others?”
“This was the job that brought in the kale,” said Blinky gloomily.
“I figger that we took just as big chances on the others when—well, we ain’t gunna talk ourselves into a heat a’gin.”
Chris began to count the coin; Blinky began to eat, voraciously, steadily, with a purpose, one might say, lifting his eyes with every bite and fixing them for a single brilliant flash upon the two piles of currency which began to grow in front of Chris on the ground. He finished his meal, loosened his belt, went to the trickling little stream of water to quench his thirst, and then returned in time to take the counted-and-recounted pile of money which Chris had prepared for him.
“Count it over, and then count over mine,” said Chris.
“Besides what you put in your pockets?” asked Blinky sneeringly, filled with malice.
“Blinky, I done that straight. I wouldn’t double cross nobody that trusted me. You ought to know that!”
Blinky, with a shrug of the shoulders, shoved his share into a pocket.
“Well, Chris,” said he, “we’ve finished our trail together. So long.”
“You ain’t aimin’ to break loose, Blinky?”
“Why, you thick head, d’you think that I’d stay around with you—after we’ve had words like these here?” Blinky stared at him, as though overcome by such settled malice. Then he shook his head.
“Well, Blinky,” said Chris, “so long. And good luck to you.”
Blinky replied with a snarl and disappeared at once into the shadows of the trees on the side of the gulch which was nearest toward the town.
As for Chris Venner, he remained for some time with his wrists crossed in his lap, looking idly at the fire with sad, speculative eyes.
“Some gents,” he said at last out of the depths of his thoughts, “have a way of figgering things out all wrong. Between you and me, Tom!”
Holden said nothing; he was too busy with another idea which had just formed in his mind.
“What’ll Blinky be doin’ now with himself?” asked Chris.
“Can’t you guess?”
“Sure. He’ll go to town and blow it in about as fast as he made it.”
“Not till he has tried to get some more.”
“What?”
“Certainly, Chris. He’s not yet satisfied.”
“I dunno what you mean.”
“He’s sneaking back to the edge of the clearing right now, Chris, to put a bullet through you and then murder me and take the whole bunch of the money!”
CHAPTER 4
First he watched bewilderment wrinkle the brow of big Venner. Then that man of might leaped to his feet with a face gray with concern, as though he saw, in a blinding flow of mental light, all the truth that lay in the words of Tom Holden.
He made a long stride toward the trees, gun in hand. Then he paused to look back at the little, scrawny figure of the man by the fireside, so diminutive, with the red of the firelight flickering on his big glasses and shining like silver where it glimmered over the prematurely grayed hair at his temples.
Such indifference in the face of danger filled Chris with actual horror. It partook of the demoniacal. But, at the same time, it foretold perfect success to Chris. He was not the brain which conceived, he was simply the striking arm—the messenger of wrath sent forth by this little deity of wisdom and of vengeance which happened to be sitting now in that gully!
All of these things were read by Holden with some clearness in the face of Chris as the latter turned and stared back at him. He waved his hand; and Venner, turning, plunged at once into the woods.
Big though he was, and apparently clumsy, he was at least in part a good woodsman, for though Tom Holden listened acutely for a time, there was not a sound. Deep in the wall of shadows which the copse of trees composed, there was not a murmur to warn him what was happening, but he knew that big Chris Venner was feeling his way carefully ahead, listening, scarce breathing, and he was equally sure that malignant Blinky Wickson was returning to make his kill, sliding like a snake along the ground. As for himself, sitting out there in the open, it made no difference. Better to be killed at once by the firelight, slain with a merciful speed, than to be overtaken and knifed to pieces in the semidarkness of the woods. For he could have fled neither fast enough to take him far nor silently enough to escape detection.
He turned these matters in his mind, saw that he could not escape, and forced himself to take notice of what lay around him. The trees seemed to have grown taller and denser than when he first saw the fire in the clearing. Now a late moon rose, went up through the eastern trees like a climbing flame, and stood on a dark evergreen’s tip. While it rested there, a broad-winged bird of the night flew into the circle of white and hung there for a moment with flapping wings, then dip
ped suddenly away to one side. Had it been flying toward the clearing or away from it?
Then he heard a footstep behind him; then—and this is actual truth—he heard the breathing of a man approaching—a hoarse, irregular breathing. Then were ten seconds of icy dread. Then Chris Venner lumbered into view and sat down cross-legged at the edge of the fire, his head dropped, his face sullen. And he said not a word to tell of his errand. But, methodically, absently, he worked a long-bladed knife into the sand near the fire back and forth, cleaning it. And Holden needed no telling of what was on the blade.
After the knife was put away, Verner drew out a handkerchief wrapped around a small bundle. He turned out the bundle, which was a tall stack of bills. As for the handkerchief, a stain of some sort on it made Venner throw the thing in the flames of the fire. Next he extended the money to Holden.
“Look here,” he said, a little quiver of excitement coming into his voice, “this here is yours.”
Holden shook his head.
“I’d be a dead man!” said Venner, growing a bit husky with emotion. “Darned if that skunk wouldn’t of got me. He was comin’ back. I found him slidin’ through the woods mighty secret and soft. He was shovin’ his gun along ahead of him. Somehow, a gun didn’t seem the right sort of thing to fight him with. A gun might miss. I reached for his throat, and when I found that, I put my knife home between his ribs. He spat at me like a cat. Maybe you heard him?”
Holden shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t take that money,” said he.
“Take half of it, then!”
“Not a penny.”
“Then,” cried Chris Venner, “I’ll throw it in the fire. It’s more yours than it is mine!”
“Wait,” protested Holden. “I’ll take this.”
He took a dozen bills from the top of the stack and pushed them into his pocket.
“That’s enough!” he insisted, and he would not take any more. So Venner reluctantly pocketed the others, still vowing that they belonged to Holden of right.
Then he broke in softly: “How’d you guess, Tom? How’d you know that he was sneakin’ back—”
