Larramee's Ranch

by Max Brand

  “Are you laughin’ at me?” asked Chris sadly.

  “I’m telling you exactly what may be done. The bank that you and Blinky Wickson touched up doesn’t want vengeance. It wants hard cash—the same hard cash that was taken out by you and Blinky. If it had that money back, it would let vengeance go hang itself. Besides, it would consider you the closest thing to a saint and an honest man—perhaps those two words mean the same—that this century has given to the world.”

  “I’m tryin’ to foller you,” said Chris Venner.

  “It’s very simple. You and Blinky stole fifty-eight thousand dollars from that bank. You’ve invested that money and struck a gold mine. The money was only a part of it. The moment you went straight you stopped being a beggar and turned into a man of substance. Well, Chris, you now have a bank behind you that will back you to the limit. Thirty thousand is all that you need for yourself and your farm, irrigation section and all. And here’s a bank which will let you have a hundred thousand and think nothing of it. Well, sir, doesn’t it seem to you that you could afford to put aside sixty thousand and repay the very people that you and Blinky robbed? Principal and interest!”

  Mr. Venner merely stared at him, for a moment, as the thought sank home in him.

  “I’d never dare let ’em see me,” he said, shaking his head. “They’d take back the money, and then they’d send me to prison. That’s what’d happen.”

  “I’ll manage that for you, Chris. The money will be restored to the bank. And there’s an end of the matter. I’ll take it with me and dispose of it for you so that the whole account against you will be closed. Unless you’re afraid that I’d run away with your money and never bring it to the bank?”

  Venner laid a hand on his arm. “You could run away with my right hand,” he said solemnly. “I’d never put it against you, Holden. You could run away with dog-gone near everything I got. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d of blowed in all I had playing cards, or followin’ the ponies, or some fool thing like that, or else I’d have a knife in my gizzard and be lyin’ out in the desert watchin’ the buzzards drop out of the sky at me. But you made me go straight, old-timer. I tell you—I’d be scared to go crooked after talkin’ to you!”

  “If you’ve paid back the bank,” said Holden, “your past is as clear as a slate. Everything that stands against you is rubbed out. Then, there’s no tale that could ever be carried to Julie. Isn’t that right?”

  “Holden, you see right through everything to the bottom of it!”

  “You’ll take my advice?”

  “Yes, and God bless you!”

  “Go see your bank, then, Venner. When you have that money in hard cash, come back to me.”

  “Holden,” said the big man, “what could I ever do for you?”

  “Something I intend to ask of you later. I’ve come to get your help in something, Chris.”

  It was as though he had promised a great benefit to the rancher. Venner was as happy as a child. And afterward he took the cripple with him as he drove about his place and showed him the region which was to be irrigated.

  “I was like that—dry ground when I met you,” he said to Holden. “Dog-goned if you ain’t reclaimed me. But what I want to know is, when you take that coin to the bank, how’re you going to be sure that they won’t have you pinched?”

  “You must leave that to me,” answered Holden, retiring behind his cloud of mystery.

  Venner blinked at the sunburned hills: then he nodded in a mute admittance that there was much in his companion which he could never hope to fathom.

  CHAPTER 22

  When they came back to the old ranch house, they found a piebald mustang with thrown reins standing in front of the place, and at the sight, Venner so quickened the pace of the return that his companion was prepared for what he met. A tall girl with a brown face and a frizzing of weather-bleached hair beneath the brim of a man’s hat—a long-striding, deep-voiced girl with a foot like a man’s and a hand like a man’s hand, and yet with something inevitably and delightfully feminine about her. There was no need to ask whether or not this were Julie Hendricks. Her smile and the glimmering of her eyes as she saw big Chris Venner were enough to announce it. And Holden saw Venner, as they went forward, quivering with delight.

  They were introduced, and when he had bowed to Miss Hendricks and shaken her hand, he heard Venner repeating: “This is the Holden!”

  “Oh,” cried Julie, “I was blind! And I didn’t remember. I’ve heard more about you than would fill a book smack up with fairy tales, Mr. Holden.”

  He found occasion to take the stallion to the stables immediately and left Chris and Julie together. When he came back, they were a little more flushed, a little more foolishly happy in expression. Before Julie rode away, again, she found a chance to speak to Holden alone.

  “I dunno all that you’ve done for Chris. Of course he ain’t much of a talker,” said she. “But I know that he thinks that he owes everything to you. I guess you’re the best friend that he has on earth. And, I hope that you’ll be my friend, too, Mr. Holden!”

  She said it with tears of sincerity in her eyes, as though she felt that his disapproval would be enough to drag big Chris Venner away from her. He put all her fears at rest at once.

  “He doesn’t need any help after this,” said Holden, “except from you!”

  So she went away, laughing and blushing, and Holden prepared for his own departure. He could not stay long on the ranch because, selfishly and to his great shame, the more he stayed there, the more he was annoyed by the happiness of Chris and the girl, and more keenly he felt that he himself was shut away from all such joys in life!

  And there was, above all, the babble of Chris to trouble him, for now that he had seen the girl he had to give his opinion of her and admit that she was beautiful, brilliant, gentle, and wise. The next morning they went to the bank of Chris, and Venner came back to him after a long delay.

  “They didn’t want to do it. That much cash stripped them short, and it was only luck that they happened to have so much coin on hand. Credit is what they work by!”

  But there he had it. Sixty thousand dollars in bills—a fine little fortune which, invested with any skill, would keep a man from want all of his days. Yet his fear was never for a moment that his friend might run away with the prize. All that he worried about was that trouble of some kind might come to Holden during this dangerous errand.

  “They go hand in glove with detectives,” said Venner. “I know all about that. They’d jail you quicker’n a wink if they got the chance, returned money or not. But, Holden, if you manage to do this for me, and hush up the thing forever, so’s it’ll never have a chance to come back at the ears of Julie—why, I’d die for you, Holden!”

  “When I come back,” answered Tom, “you may have your chance.”

  After that dark warning, he rode away. There was a nine hours’ journey before him, even for the tireless speed of big Clancy. They had to climb out of the region of silver spruce and lofty pines to the levels of the lodge-pole pines, those vanguards of forest advances. They crossed a bleak range and dropped down into a bright, green-faced little valley where two slow streams flowed from north and south, met in a little lake, and then rolled westward, but in diminished masses, for the opening from the lake was dammed high, the lake itself much magnified, and the waters which were backed up served to water a quantity of otherwise useless desert.

  But the desert was gone from that hollow. Where there had once been only a streaking of grass on either side of the rivers and where the willows on the banks were almost the only trees, half a dozen years of cultivation had flooded the whole valley with pleasant fields, and rich orchards of a paler green.

  The air at the level of the height from which Holden looked down was crystal clear and his eye, at a single step, could leap across to the farther side of the valley. But beneath him the mists from the wet fields rose like smoke, thin, but in layer on layer, clouding the glass, as it we
re. And as the wind stirred strongly this delicate mist, he saw certain things by glimpses, such as the blinking windows of the neat little town in the center of the valley on the edge of the lake. That was his goal. Yonder was the Maybeck bank in the town of Maybeck; yonder was Julius Maybeck, whose frantic appeals to justice since his bank was robbed had made himself famous and laughed at through the cattle country. Even Holden, somber minded though he was, smiled as he started Clancy down the slope toward Maybeck.

  Here was no crossroads village. When he entered it, the shod hoofs of Clancy rang upon bitumen pavements. There were gutters made of heavy stones, three feet long, looking as strong and as stubborn as iron. There were neat little houses, built after the fashion of California bungalows, each with a gaily painted roof, a deep veranda, and set back behind a lawn with a palm standing in it, or a great-armed cactus. And such was the cheerful face of the town of Maybeck! A town that had sprung up under the magic of one man’s hand!

  Holden, as he journeyed through it, took a careful note of the place. It was no wonder that the place had been able to withstand the loss of sixty thousand dollars, or thereabouts. Ten times that loss could not have ruined the town of Maybeck!

  He reached the center of the town. It was a large square in the center of which stood the county courthouse made formidable as the seat of the county powers by a classic front of five columns built of granite courses and donated to the county by Mr. Julius Maybeck, himself, he for whom the town and then the county had been named—the benefactor—the farsighted banker who had founded the prosperity of the whole valley!

  And just as Mr. Holden saw the courthouse, someone saw Mr. Holden. He was aware of a stir and a buzz of comment in a group which stood in front of the cigar store. The whisper ran out to the curb. Someone in an automobile turned to stare.

  They seemed both surprised and horrified. And Holden himself was amazed. He knew that his reputation in Larramee was most unsavory, but he was amazed to find that he was known at such a distance from the latter town.

  He went on, however, until he found the bank. There was no mistaking it. It was like the courthouse, except that it was smaller. That mysterious instinct in American businessmen which makes them plant a bank that looks like a Greek temple in the midst of skyscrapers of a downtown district, made Mr. Julius Maybeck plant another bank in the guise of a Greek temple among the little bungalows of the village. Holden noted the solemn and classic face of the imposing structure with a smile.

  Then he left the stallion at the curb. There was no need to tether him. He and Sneak had grown to be great companions, and while the dog lay curled on the ground beneath his head, no one would dare to approach the stallion, and Clancy, in turn, would not leave the dog.

  Half a dozen people gathered to watch him dismount, but they gathered at a respectful distance, whispering to one another. Certainly he was well known in Maybeck!

  He entered the bank with his staff, and a moment later he sat down in front of Julius Maybeck.

  CHAPTER 23

  Julius Maybeck was easily the most important man in the valley. Everyone admitted his rating, and Mr. Maybeck was the first one to discover his own significance. When the doctor sent him West for a vacation, after his hard work in a New York haberdashery had broken down his nerves, Mr. Maybeck could not leave his business acumen behind him. And when he reached this valley, ostensibly for quiet and hunting, he spent his time, instead of carrying a gun, in staring down at the yellow waters of the little rivers, dreaming of dollars.

  A year later his haberdashery was sold, and Mr. Maybeck was in the West at work on his scheme.

  That was twelve years before. In the interval the dam had been financed, the valley cut up into ten- and twenty-acre farms, and the range land turned into a garden. All the profits did not go to the late haberdasher. He had not enough money to finance the scheme in its entirety. But he always felt that the others who had made money out of the scheme were his great debtors. They were grateful to him, but in the eyes of Mr. Maybeck, they were not grateful enough.

  This thought of the ingratitude of the world kept a continual shadow on his brow and in his mind. And sometimes, when he thought of his own virtues and his own genius, so ill rewarded, tears flooded his eyes.

  He had money, of course. He had plenty of money. But as he used to say: “Money ain’t everything. There’s something else!”

  Exactly what he had in mind, no one ever knew, not even Mrs. Maybeck. But in reality Mr. Maybeck was dreaming of a day when the valley which had been named after him would awaken to his great services and, to perpetuate his fame, erect to him a statue in the central square of the town which his ability had conjured into existence. Not stone. Not even marble would do. It must be imperishable bronze, and on a pedestal, lettered in lasting iron, some such motto as this:

  To Julius Overman Maybeck, philanthropist and financier, whose genius, whose generosity, and whose foresight created this city and all that is in it, erected by a grateful people, conscious of his virtues, that his name may be constantly before them and before their children.

  Something like this would have been to the point. Not entirely enough, but still, a hint—a milestone pointing in the right way. And every time there was a meeting of the city’s council, Mr. Maybeck in his heart of hearts wondered who would advance this worthy proposition.

  No one did. Time rolled on. The years grew old. And this beautiful and appropriate action was not performed. There came a time when Julius Overman Maybeck began to feel that it would be necessary for him to plant the germ of the idea in some other mind, so that it might be proposed. And just as he was about to broach the subject to the mayor, who had recently benefited through a large loan from the bank, the blow fell, and the safe was opened, and nearly sixty thousand dollars was taken from the vault.

  It was not the cash lost that hurt Mr. Maybeck. In the first place, only a portion of that loss came upon him, and that share of it which struck him, was but a scratch upon the fair face of his fortune. That was not the trouble. What grieved him to the heart was that there should have been such baseness in the world as to strike him—a benefactor of humanity—one who had helped to turn the desert green for the benefit of others! It was a blow from which he could not recover. From that day his face was black. The genial air left him. The kindness passed away from his business dealings.

  “Business is business!” became the battle flag around which he rallied all the savage discontent that was in him.

  And as he slapped his fat hand on the edge of his desk and leaned forward in his chair to stare at Mr. Holden, the “business is business” look was in his eyes.

  “What is your name?” asked he.

  “Holden,” said the cripple.

  At this, the man of money reached backward toward a bell in the wall behind him, and then checked himself mid-gesture, so to speak, and grew white and flabby of cheek as he glowered at the young man.

  “You’re Holden!” he said huskily, at last.

  “Yes.”

  “Thomas Holden?”

  “Yes.”

  “God have mercy on my wretched soul,” sighed Julius Maybeck. “There is no justice in this world. Now you have come to pillage me and my bank?”

  “In what way?” asked Holden curiously. “Here you are surrounded by your men. Here am I all alone.”

  “My men,” sighed the banker, “work for the sake of small wages. Their souls are not in the business.”

  “Suppose,” said Holden, “that I tell you I have come for quite another matter.”

  “Such as what, my friend?”

  “To do you good, say?”

  Mr. Maybeck smiled dryly. “Very likely,” said he.

  “You have heard a good deal about me, I presume?” said Holden.

  “Here and there—we have picked up a good deal about your doings, Mr. Holden.”

  “And everything you have heard has not been, altogether, favorable?”

  “Not altogether! No, I dare say t
hat it has not!”

  “I have had robberies and murders laid to my account?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Very well, Mr. Maybeck, even assuming that I have done all of these things, I may still be capable of doing you good.”

  Mr. Maybeck made a wide gesture with both hands, and his meaning was obvious. He desired to have proof before he talked further.

  “For instance,” said Holden, “it might be to my interest to undo the damage which other people have done you.”

  “Ah?”

  “For many good reasons.”

  “I am waiting to hear you, Mr. Holden.”

  “There may come a time in the life of the most lawless man, Mr. Maybeck, when he finds that he needs something more than money.”

  “And that?”

  “Protection, let us say.”

  “From what?”

  “The law, Mr. Maybeck!”

  “I thank heaven,” said the banker, “that the law has been my friend all the days of my life.”

  “I thank heaven,” answered Holden, mimicking unconsciously the words and the tone of the other, “that the law has never laid a hand on me up to this time. But suppose that I wish to have some further resource? Suppose that I conceive of a time to come when I may need the help of honest people?”

  “What could they do?”

  “Speak for me when I am in trouble. Help me as if I am cornered by the same law that we have been speaking of, and perhaps, when the worst comes to the worst, hire a lawyer for me, promise him good pay, and see that he fights the case through.”

  “This is all very sensible,” said the banker. “I suppose,” he added, smiling grimly, “that I am your object in this?”

  “I intend to buy your interest,” said Holden.

  “Ah?”

  “Exactly that.”

  “There is no money—” began Maybeck, and then stopped and flushed.

  “Which could hire your intercession for a criminal? You mean that?”