by Max Brand
“You’ve done a lot for me, Chris.”
“Me? My heaven, man, don’t talk that way. You’ve stopped me from bein’ a fool crook. Which I ain’t smart enough to make money going wrong. You’ve made me so much coin that I dunno what to do with it. You’ve paid back the money that I swiped and got started on to the same bank that I swiped it from, and you done it in such a way that they’ll never know that I copped the coin that day. Then you showed me the way to talk everything out with Julie, so’s they’ll never have to be nothin’ concealed between us. That’s some of the things that you’ve done for me, old-timer. And it’s enough!”
Five minutes later he was riding through the hills rapidly, with Gus cantering a horse in the lead. And Gus was riding freely, without a rope to bind him, handling his own spurs, his own reins, his own quirt. He was held in cheek only by the slender noose of a lariat which was fitting around his waist and ran back to the horn of Venner’s saddle.
In this way they journeyed on steadily through the night until the dawn came; and a little later, while the light was brightening, they came out on a ridge and saw, in the hollow beneath them, the long, winding street of Larramee. At this, though it was so early that there was not a stir or sound of life except the noise of the chickens and the moving of their hurrying bodies in the yards—though there was not even the lifting of a single smoke column above a chimney mouth, Gus Curtis cowered in his saddle and turned a fear-yellowed face to his guard.
“Venner,” he breathed, “I dunno that I can stand it.”
“Stand what?” asked Venner brutally. “That cacklin’ of the chickens?”
“I’d rather get a slug of lead through my brain right up here and now!” stammered Gus Curtis.
Venner, with a snarl of scorn, raised his revolver, but as the black muzzle yawned on him, Curtis screamed and tossed up his hands.
“No, no,” he pleaded.
Venner slid the long gun back in the holster. “I didn’t know that gents come done up to look like men but really bein’ nothin’ but rats inside. I didn’t know that folks could be like that. Now get on with me!”
He turned aside from the town and went toward the house of Larramee. It was a long circuit through the hills to get to the big ranch house without riding through the town, but Venner had pity on the cowering fear of his prisoner, and brought him by the long way. So it was the first brightness and the first heat of the morning when they reached the ranch. There on the lawn, as the two turned the corner of the roadway, Venner came suddenly on Oliphant Larramee walking with his daughter and with Mr. John Cutting, all looking marvelously fresh and gay and at ease with the world, so it seemed to big Chris Venner.
They stared at this apparition of victor and captive. Larramee stepped forward to meet the pair, but Cutting stayed behind with Alexa.
“Not quite as wild as the coming of the crippled murderer,” said Cutting. “Still, spectacular enough.”
“Who are you, my friend?” they heard Larramee saying.
“Me? I’m Chris Venner.”
“And this man you have in the noose?”
“His name is Curtis.”
“Are you an officer of the law, Venner?”
“Me and the law have got on tolerable well without leanin’ none on each other for support,” declared Venner.
“You have done this on your own account?” asked Larramee, smiling at the unwillingness of the other to come to the point, but equally confident that there was a reason behind this strange visitation.
“Nope,” said Venner, yawning and then beginning the careful manufacture of a cigarette.
“You’re working for some one, then?”
“You might say,” answered Venner, unperturbed.
“Sort of an odd-jobs man?” suggested Larramee.
“Sure,” grinned Venner, and they nodded at one another in mutual understanding, mutual appreciation. “I was sent up here by my boss.”
“Ah? And why?”
“I don’t ask no reasons. I do what I’m told to do.”
“Perhaps you don’t know who this long fellow you have with you may be?”
“I’ve a pretty good general idea. He’s the gent that’s been cuttin’ throats and stealin’ wallets around Larramee for a month or so.”
“In the name of heaven!” murmured Larramee, “do you mean—”
He did not need to finish the question, for the terror of guilt which flashed across the face of cringing Gus Curtis, would have damned that man in the eyes of any jury in the world. One glance was enough to hang himself.
“It’s a lie,” stammered Gus, recovering himself. Then, feeling the disgust and the wrath in the eyes of the watcher, his own look fell to the ground and his chin sloped to his breast. He had felt the whip, and his spirit was broken.
“You were sent with this man, after you captured him—”
“I didn’t capture him.”
“Who did, then, and who on earth could have dictated you to bring that murderer to my house?”
The answer came suddenly in the ringing, strong young voice of Alexa from the rear.
“Tom Holden!”
CHAPTER 29
Never did an audience of four greet such a remark with four greater attitudes of surprise; the prisoner jerked up his head and his hollow eyes glared terror and blank confusion upon the girl. Oliphant Larramee himself spun on his heel and shook his finger at Alexa.
“Don’t be foolish, my dear!” he said almost sternly. “You’ve let the dread of that rascal become an obsession in your mind which—”
“He? That wretched little blinking rat!” exclaimed John Cutting, breaking in, in spite of courtesy. “Besides, he couldn’t—”
Here there was a second interruption. It came in the huge, rolling voice of Chris Venner. “Gents,” said he, “I dunno what the ways is around these here parts, but mostly where I come from, when a man has a partner, he sticks up for him when somebody up and sticks a knife in his pal’s back. Gents, I aim to do that for Tom Holden.”
Oliphant Larramee was actually embarrassed and surprised. And in many years his daughter felt that she had never seen him so moved as he was upon this occasion.
“You mean to tell me,” said the rancher slowly, “that Miss Larramee is correct?”
“That’s what I say,” said Venner. “The lady is plumb correct when she said that it was Holden.”
This brought a little sharp gasp from Alexa. She caught at the arm of Cutting, and he supported her, perhaps with unnecessary strength.
“Very well,” said Larramee. “Your man, there, was captured by your dearest friend, and your dearest friend is no other than the peculiar—er—cripple—Tom Holden?”
Chris Venner did not like several things about this speech. He was so irritated by the entire interview, in fact, that now he lost all his awe of that great name of Oliphant Larramee which for years had been synonymous through the countryside for wealth, generosity and wisdom. He yanked his soft-brimmed sombrero lower, until the steep black shadow descended like a curtain across his eyes. Through that shadow he scowled down at Larramee, and between thumb and forefinger the cigarette which he was smoking dissolved into a shower of tobacco crumbs and morsels of paper.
“Mr. Holden,” said Chris sharply, “is the gent that took in Gus Curtis. Mr. Holden, I dunno that I got the right to say that he’s a friend of mine. Leastwise he’s done more for me than the rest of the world put together has ever done. Mr. Holden told me to take this here poison rat and bring him to you. He talked like you would understand when I come up with this gent. But maybe you don’t. And if you don’t, I’ll slide right along to the town with him. Talk up, Mr. Larramee!”
Mr. Larramee was compelled, first of all, to clear his throat. “Alexa,” he said, “you need not stay!”
“Not stay?” cried Alexa. “Why, Dad, this is the most exciting thing that has happened in months!” And she came straight up and stood in front of Chris Venner. Perhaps some vague foreshadowing of an understanding swept
across the brain of Chris, at that moment, as he stared down to the fresh face and the clear eyes of Alexa. What made him first think of it was her smallness, the marvelous smallness and delicate precision with which her body was constructed, compared with the ample scope, the bone and the hearty substance of Julie Hendricks. This blue-veined wrist of Miss Larramee—even infancy could not parallel that. His emotion, as he looked at her, was equaled by one other thing alone, and that was the singular awe with which he was often overwhelmed when he found himself in the presence of Tom Holden himself.
“I’ll stay,” Alexa was adding. “I want to know a few things. I want to know whether—”
“Whether,” broke in John Cutting, spinning his cane, “Mr. Holden, as you so precisely call him, is not himself the actual murderer and thief that has been troubling the vicinity—”
Mr. Cutting might sometimes interrupt. But he was not accustomed to interruptions, and he stared, now, as the heavy voice of Venner overwhelmed his own.
“Stranger,” he said, “I dunno your name. Mine is Venner. Chris Venner. I allow myself to be the friend of Holden. And them that want to call him names, has got to do it when I ain’t around, or else—”
“Or else what?” asked Cutting, who had plenty of courage.
“Or else I start to work on ’em,” stated Venner. “Any way that they—”
“John,” said Alexa, “please don’t answer him, or there’ll be a fight. And you’re not a Holden, you know, to win fights by miracle.”
“Holden? Bah!” cried Cutting.
The big brown hand of Venner dropped to the butt of his gun and then swung slowly away again; but thereafter, his glance was never long away from the face of Cutting, and his fury was easily legible in his eyes.
Alexa, however, came still closer. “Tell me,” she said suddenly and gravely, “about your friend!”
“Alexa,” commanded the father sharply. “I think you may go to the house.”
“One moment, Father, please. Tell me, Mr. Venner, is he truly honest?”
Venner stared wildly about him. “Do I look honest to you?” he said at last, pointing to the stiff, strong arch of his breast.
“That’s why I’ve asked you.”
“Lady, he’s as much more honest than me as I’m honester than that yaller skunk here beside me.”
“Will you believe that, Alexa?” cried Cutting.
“Of course not!” said Alexa.
And she hurried away to the house. Her father watched her go, rubbing his knuckles thoughtfully across his chin.
“Is there any call for me and Curtis to stay up here?” asked Venner.
“None at all,” answered Larramee. “Except that I’d like to ask you a word or two about this same hero of yours—this Holden.”
“Mr. Larramee,” said the big man, “me bein’ short on words, that’s one thing that I ain’t gunna talk about. We’ll let that drop and lie, sir.”
So he left Larramee and rode down the hill, still with the rope fixed around unfortunate Gus Curtis. As for Larramee, he went back to the house slowly, his head down, his pace slow. He was not thinking of the prisoner or of big Chris Venner, or even of Holden; and as he stepped into the doorway, he heard a sharp confirmation of his suspicions.
“Alexa has gone up to her room,” said Cutting, coming toward him. “This affair gave her such a shock that she wants to lie down a while in the dark.”
Larramee nodded and went out from the house almost at once. He crossed to the western side of the building where he could look up at the window of Alexa’s room. The shade was not drawn; and even as he stood there, looking up, he saw her come into the square frame of the casement, staring out across the hollow and the town which carried her father’s name.
At this, Larramee went hastily to the stables. Twice he paused on the way and turned back to the house for a step or two, but each time he went on. He had them saddle a strong-limbed brown gelding, and on his back he stormed down to the town and straight up the road until he drew his rein in a cloud of dust before the house of Miss Carrie Davis.
She herself was in the garden; and even her stern face grew a little pale as she saw the great man, the great enemy, come upon her. There was no time to retreat with dignity; and to do anything without becoming dignity was far beneath Miss Davis. She folded her arms, therefore, and the only sign she gave of nervousness was the irregular waving of the trowel which was still grasped in her stout right hand.
She neither advanced to meet Mr. Larramee nor retreated from his coming. And now she saw him throw open the gate; she watched him lift his hat; she traced with a keen eye a new touch of gray at his temples; she admired again the brown, strong, handsome face; she observed the long, easy stride of an athlete; and as he came nearer, she was most unnerved to mark in his eye that same twinkling light which sometimes glimmered in the eyes of Alexa in her most bewitching moods. The heart of Aunt Carrie swelled; a lump choked her throat; therefore her frown was doubly black!
To this meeting after so long a disagreement, Mr. Larramee advanced, with a smile as bright as though he were greeting the nearest of friends. But Carrie Davis pressed her lips together. She wanted to be gay and debonair, as he himself was, but all she could do was to glower upon him. He went to the point with his usual directness.
“I’ve come to surrender,” said he, “and beg you to talk to me about Alexa.”
“And what?” snapped out Carrie Davis.
He was a bit staggered by this counter thrust. “And a mutual acquaintance of ours,” he admitted. “That harum-scarum, strange imp of the perverse—Mr. Thomas Holden.”
He saw that she was shaken by this; she did not reply at once, and he went on smoothly, to tide over her indecision.
“I’ve seen precious little of her lately, and she’s been coming down to your house quite often.”
“Do you think,” said Miss Davis, “that she never comes to see me except to talk about men?”
He smiled broadly. “Of course not. But somehow, this chap Holden is in the air. Every one is talking about him, you know. The whole town buzzes about nothing else. And today a mountain giant came riding in with a captive to show me, and it seemed that Mr. Holden had sent him. He acted, by Jove, as though he were very happy to be a sort of messenger boy for the cripple.”
“That is his misfortune,” said the lady. “I wouldn’t reproach him with it. Of course I’ve heard that Tom caught the sneak who has been raising Ned and letting the blame fall on Tom’s head. Is that what you mean?”
“I mean,” said Mr. Larramee, “that my daughter is a romantic girl. I don’t know just how to put it—yes, I do know. I can talk frankly to you, I thank heaven. Miss Davis, I’m frightfully worried. Young John Cutting has been at the house for many days. As fine, clean-cut a youngster as ever walked. But Alexa doesn’t seem to see him. She’s abstracted. About what? Perhaps you know? Perhaps you’ll tell me?”
“Do you think?” cried Miss Davis.
“I don’t dare to think. I only know that in the offing is this young cripple, this odd devil who seems to be able to tame wolves and horses and”—he added, looking directly at her—“people, just as he pleases.”
“It isn’t possible!” cried Miss Davis.
“She hasn’t talked to you, then?”
“And yet,” murmured she, “why not? He has everything that a gentleman should have, except money.”
“And name and background and—er—” Mr. Larramee stopped.
“Does it really matter?” asked Aunt Carrie.
“A cripple? An unknown vagrant suspected of—I don’t know what?”
“I have nothing to say,” said Miss Davis, and looked past her visitor to the pale blue sky.
CHAPTER 30
All the night Holden rested on the site of his victory. The next morning he began traveling slowly on and after many pauses, came at last in the first dark of the night to the cabin of Joe Curtis. He had purposely delayed his advance for the very good reason that
he wished the news of what had happened to Gus to come to the cabin before him. He arrived, in fact, in time to find three kindly neighbors telling the event to the father, sitting eagerly about and drinking in his shame and his grief.
Outside the window sat Holden and watched and listened, while Curtis raged through the room and tore down a rifle from the wall, and then dropped into a chair and sat quivering, with his head in his hands. After this, the three looked to one another and went away.
As their horses scampered away down the road, “Judith!” called the big man.
And Tom Holden’s mother came to the kitchen door, timidly, her tired head canted to one side, squinting her wearied eyes at the tyrant, and wiping her wet, red hands on her apron.
“He’s gone and done it,” groaned the owner of the house, not looking up to see that his call had brought her, so familiar was he with her slavish obedience.
“Who?” ventured she.
“Who is him that never brought me no luck? Who’s the one that’s never made nothin’ but trouble in this here house? Your boy! Your brat! Your Tom!”
“Tom!” whispered the mother. “Ah, what’s come to him, poor lad?”
“Hell and fire!” thundered the other. “Are you gunna pity the skunk that’s landed my Gus in jail with a noose dog-gone nigh fixed around his neck already?”
Holden waited for no more. He went to the open door and stood there, stroking the long head of Sneak. Then he pointed, and Sneak went forward on his belly, gliding, noiseless.
“I ain’t gonna have your face around to look at and remind me of what your brat has done. You can—”
“Cousin Joe!” cried she. “You ain’t gunna throw me out where—”
“I’ve fed you here year on year. I’ve give you house and clothes—”
She pointed to the much-patched, faded wrapper which she was wearing. It had been blue gingham; it was a dull gray now with much washing.
“I ain’t had a stitch, Joe,” she said softly.
“Complainin’, are you?” bellowed the big man, lifting a chair and crashing it against the floor. “What I give you ain’t good enough? What I—”
