Silvertip's Roundup

by Brand, Max

“Scatter out of here, all of you,” he said, seeing that the end of the fuse had been lighted and that the light of its burning was sputtering across the floor, making the snaky fuse line shudder and leap. “Get out and stand by to see the pieces of Jim Silver start skyward. Get out. I want to lock every door. There’s only two or three minutes before that fire hits the dynamite.”

  XXIV

  The Explosion

  THERE was one auditor of the words of Christian who was not in the room. That was Taxi, who had flattened himself against one of the windows, so that he was able to see much and hear everything.

  Now he dropped to the ground and raced to the rear of the house. The men were already swarming out the side door. The voice of the Chinaman came singing through the kitchen as Taxi dropped into a patch of brush just behind the kitchen door.

  The Chinaman came out, locked the door behind him, dropped the key into his pocket for all the world as though he might have to use it again, tossed his queue over his shoulder, and went off at a dogtrot toward the little shed at the rear of the house.

  It was the best place to secure complete shelter from any flying fragments from the explosion. Taxi already had glanced into it and seen there a single mule loaded with a small pack. There were no horses in the shed. The gang, of course, would have left their mounts in the distance.

  Taxi, as he kneeled in the brush, kept swearing in a soft whisper. In a few moments Jim Silver would be ended, but the calm face of Silver as he had looked back at Barry Christian would never die out of Taxi’s mind.

  He had known, as he stared with aching eyes through the crack in the window, that this man was, in fact, capable of every good thing that he had dreamed of him, and incapable of the evil. The quiet with which he sat there, and the steady, firm eyes, somehow had told Taxi.

  There was only firelight in that room now, and the sputtering, dancing end of the fuse as the fire ran up its coiling length toward the dynamite. But there would be enough light to show Jim Silver all his life. Perhaps among other things he would see the face of Taxi, a stranger, an unknown man, for whose sake Silver was to die!

  Taxi stood up among the brush.

  There was nothing to do. He could hear the heavy locks turning with a clank as big Barry Christian turned the key in door after door, to seal Jim Silver with his fate.

  There was nothing to do. Except, afterwards, to run them down, one by one!

  And then he saw himself leaning over the locks in that dark house, fumbling with the picklock, struggling forward, striving to get at the man who sat there waiting for death. He would be working like that when the explosion came and put an end to them both.

  “Scatter out, boys,” said the voice of Barry Christian, in the distance. “Scatter out and get under the trees, in case that explosion sheds something on us out of the sky. Watch yourselves, lads!”

  What a cheerful ring in his voice — and Jim Silver in yonder, waiting for death, alone!

  Like a ghost, Taxi was out of the brush and on his knees at the back door. There were no eyes to watch him. All the men of the gang were gathered far forward to enjoy the full flare and crash of the explosion. What was left of the house would soon be flaming from the embers of the fire that burned in the living room.

  The kitchen lock opened, but with a slowness and a difficulty which augured ill for the other locks. This lock must be used more constantly than the others. The rest were apt to be more difficult because of rust.

  Now, like the edge of a sharp knife, the flashing light in Taxi’s fingers divided the darkness, right and left.

  The next doorknob glinted. He was at the lock in an instant. And the little picklock trembled at the heavy inwards of the metal contrivance.

  Two minutes or three minutes, Barry Christian had said, before the fire reached the dynamite.

  The hands of Taxi shuddered. It seemed to have been longer than two or three minutes. It seemed twenty or thirty minutes. His heart was beating slowly. His heart was stopping. For time seemed to be rushing like a stream of lightning past Taxi.

  He could do nothing with the lock. His mind was urging him to leap from the house, to run to a distance, to hurl himself face downward on the ground before the explosion blew him into eternity.

  He jumped to his feet.

  Then with the ice-cold hand of his will he took hold of himself, bowed his knees, made himself bend over the doorknob. His iron will would not even let him begin at once but forced him to count three slowly, deliberately, while the chill sweat trickled down his face.

  After that, he had himself in hand.

  He opened that lock with a mere gesture, as it were, though it seemed a slow gesture to one racing against time in that manner.

  The flashlight touched the door on the farther side of the dining room. He was instantly at it. The lock was stiff. It was soldered firmly with rust. He threw away the small picklock and took a larger one. It would not fit the wards!

  He had to turn and find the bit of steel he had just discarded. Calmly, slowly he played the ray of light across the floor, since haste would be sure to miss it. He found it, reached it with a tigerish bound, returned to his work — and in an instant that door was open.

  He was in the hall. The living-room door was there in front of him. He went at it savagely, yet delicately. He found the heart of it. The bolt moved among the wards. The door yielded itself to his hand, and snatching the door open, he looked in and saw the running fire of the fuse right at the dynamite.

  He shrank, then hurled himself forward. His hands and arms seemed to have the courage and not the rest of his unwilling body. His hands gripped the sides of the doorway, and his arms threw him forward, stumbling, until as he drew nearer, he saw that the fire in the fuse had not actually covered the last two feet of the cord.

  He put his heel on the fuse and ground the fire out. Then he began slashing the ropes that swathed Silver. Silver merely said: “Taxi? Is it you? Well, how on earth — ”

  Then the man was free. As he rose, Taxi pushed the automatic of Plug Kennedy into his hands and thereby, as he suddenly felt, he transformed a helpless victim into a fighting power worth any three — yes, even if Barry Christian were one of them.

  “Take this, Jim,” he said. “You can use it better than I can.”

  “I don’t know one end of an automatic from another,” said the quiet voice of Silver. He did not even whisper! “Besides, they’ve not taken my guns. There’s a strain of sentimentality in Barry Christian — and he left my guns here to go with me!”

  He stepped to a table, and by the flicker of the firelight, Taxi saw the big man take possession of that pair of long-barreled Colts.

  “Where are they? All towards the front of the house?” asked Silver.

  “They are. We can get out the back way, Jim. You can whistle Parade to you. They’ve got him by this time, I suppose. But he’ll break away when you whistle. And then we can run for it.”

  Silver put a hand on his arm.

  “The house is going to blow up — after we’re out of it. And then we’ll have a pretty free hand to work on the crew of them, Taxi. Are you with me?”

  Taxi stared through the dimness and the leap of the firelight at the big face. Even that dull light glinted on the silver spots of gray, like incipient horns, over the temples of Arizona Jim.

  “I’m with you,” said Taxi, “as long as I live — through everything!”

  Silver kneeled by the remnant of the fuse and pinched it hard in three places under his heel, to make the powder burn more slowly. With a coal from the hearth, he lighted the end of it. Then he ran soundlessly with Taxi through the house, passing the open doors, one after another, until they had issued from the kitchen.

  They kept on, for there was no need of much caution with the entire gang grouped about the front of the cabin. They reached the trees near the little shed which had been built as a stout lean-to against an outjutting of the rock.

  And as they crouched in secure covert, the explosion st
ruck at the ground under their feet, and the air beat with a soft, weighty hand at their faces.

  The cabin split apart. A pale moon had just slid up above the eastern trees, and in that light and right across the face of the moon they could see free logs and beams from the house thrown high.

  The blast was followed, after an instant, by the heavy thudding of the logs against the ground. The whole cabin lay flat, like a house of cards.

  Still there was a little interval of silence, as though the watchers were stunned, then a wild outbreak of cheering voices. Guns were fired into the air in a steady thundering. Silver could see the gang capering under the moon with drunken happiness.

  They were like silly youths on a spree. They interwove their arms and put back their heads and howled to the moon. They yelled themselves hoarse and, freshly tasting the cup of their happiness, yelled again. They danced in an Indian circle, prancing aimlessly up and down.

  Only, apart from the rest, his arms folded, the moon gilding his long silken hair, Barry Christian faced the ruin and watched the thickening of the smoke that began to rise out of it.

  Tongues of flame leaped. The blaze leaped and roared. It seemed a bonfire lighted to celebrate the grand occasion.

  But it would take hours for that pile to burn down, and Taxi heard Barry Christian call his men together.

  “We’ve made noise enough to call in any one within a mile from us. And now we’ve started a fire to show ‘em the way. Boys, don’t forget that we have a lot of gold dust packed away on that mule, in there. We’ve seen the last of Jim Silver, tonight, we’ve sent Taxi to another kind of hell, and now we can reward ourselves with a neat split of hard cash, for each of us, and scatter for the next job. Come on with me!”

  They gathered together and followed him. Some of them kept turning back to stare at the fire and then stumbled forward again, blinded by the increasing brightness of the flames.

  They passed into the open door of the shed, and Silver said, as a lantern was lighted in the interior of the shed:

  “They’ve been collected there for us, Taxi. Lie low here in the brush. I’ll get behind those rocks. We can make those fellows come out one by one with their hands over their heads, or else we can shoot that shack full of holes and get every man inside it that way. Keep the door covered, will you?”

  Taxi slid into his place. The position was perfect. He was entirely covered. And the moon and the fire gave excellent light for shooting. He saw Silver get into place among a nest of rocks that would enable him to cover the door of the shed, also. There were no windows. That one point of exit was all that needed surveillance.

  Then Silver’s resonant voice rang out through the night: “Barry Christian! Oh, Barry Christian!”

  There was a pause, and then a frightful cry from the shed: “Boys, the ghost of Silver has come for us.”

  XXV

  A New Man

  IF that had been the voice of Babe or any of his fellows, Taxi would not have been so stunned, but it was Barry Christian who had shouted out in a panic. It was incredible that that man should be weakened by superstition.

  “Charlie Larue! Charlie Larue!” called Taxi. “I’m waiting out here for you.”

  “It’s Taxi!” yelled Larue.

  The lantern was dashed out in the shed. There was a confusion of voices inside, and then the louder tones of Pudge, explaining:

  “I saw the detective walk off with him in handcuffs that he couldn’t slip. I tell you, I saw it!”

  Silver sang out: “You can’t dodge us, boys. There’s no way out of the shed except by that door. And if you try to stay inside, we’ll turn the shack into a sieve and pepper the lot of you inside. Those of you who want to take your chances with the law can walk out of that door one by one, with your hands as high over your head as you can stretch them. Babe, you’re first! Step out, and step fast, or we’ll open up on you all.”

  There was another groaning confusion of voices. Then Babe appeared in the doorway with his hands above his head. He said:.

  “What a beating I’m going to soak up from Taxi!”

  But he strode ahead to take his punishment, while Silver said:

  “Walk right on into that patch of brush, and turn around before you get to it and back in. Taxi, get his guns and tie him.”

  Babe executed these orders with a perfect obedience, turned just before he reached the brush, and backed into it. When Taxi commanded him to put his hands behind his back, he obeyed, saying:

  “You ain’t going to get the same satisfaction, Taxi. You gotta use a club to get effects on me, and I used my hands on you. A club ain’t got the same feeling.”

  Larue came next. He was completely gone. He stumbled halfway to the brush, and his knees seemed unwilling to support him.

  “Poor Charlie!” said Babe. “You’d better’ve had it out with him back there in the Round-up Bar; better that than to hang for murdering Joe Feeley, which is what’s going to happen to you, kid!”

  Scotty came next, then Pokey, who refused to put his hands over his head and sauntered out with his hands in his pockets. His bravado lasted until he got into the brush. There he simply broke down and groaned and wept as Taxi tied him to the others.

  Pudge came out, saying: “Play your luck where you find it!”

  The Chinaman was next.

  Silver said: “You yellow-skinned son of trouble, run out of here as fast as you can. I’m not going to bother about you.”

  The Chinaman bolted so fast that his pigtail stood straight out behind his head.

  “Now, Christian!” called Silver. “Come out, old son!”

  Barry Christian came, but he came in a style different from that of the others. He came with a six-gun in each hand, with his long hair flying, and dodged for cover, shooting at the same time toward the rocks and the brush.

  Taxi, taking a good aim, pulled his trigger. There was only a dull clicking sound for answer. He knew that his gun had jammed, and in another moment Barry Christian was out of sight.

  “Jim! Jim!” cried Taxi. “What’s the matter? My gun jammed — but what’s the matter with you?”

  Silver walked over to him, shaking his head.

  “Listen!” he said.

  Far away, they could hear the departing thudding of hoofs as Barry Christian mounted a mustang and fled through the night.

  “I couldn’t do it,” said Silver. “It wasn’t a fair fight. And when he charged out like that, ready to die — well, letting him go is the worst deal I ever gave the world in all my days, but I couldn’t help it.”

  Of course, the report of that escape was twisted. Nothing did so much to lower the reputation of Silver; nothing did so much to raise the fame of Barry Christian, afterwards, as the fact that the outlaw had fought his way through great odds and escaped with his life. That his followers were lost mattered very little.

  It was well after daylight before the procession got into Horseshoe Flat. The whole town was roused. The elements of peace and order had kept their heads low for a long time, while the gang of Barry Christian was near enough to dominate the place. They turned out in force now, and lodged the outlaws in their little newly-built jail.

  Justice and a stern law waited for every one of those men except Charlie Larue. His nerve, which had first been broken by Taxi in the Round-up Bar, failed him completely when the iron door of his cell was locked. That night he used his belt to hang himself to the bars of his cell rather than await a judge, a jury, and a State hangman.

  There was one curious little aftermath the next day when Mr. Kennedy, the detective, returned to his hunting grounds. The townsmen, of course, knew why he had come, and before he walked three blocks from the station, a crowd had commenced to gather. They trailed Kennedy to the door of the Creighton lodging house and then they swarmed over him.

  When his hands were tied, he had the privilege of seeing Taxi wave to him from a front window of the house, with Silver and the girl standing beside him. Then Kennedy was taken back to cat
ch the next train out.

  Certain things were said in Kennedy’s ear by leading townsmen of Horseshoe Flat. They were vigorous enough to assure that he would never take his chances in that town again. Whatever Taxi had been before, said Horseshoe Flat, he was a new man now. And the West is the place where the past is forgotten, and the world is given new men for old.

  Taxi, back in the Creighton boarding house, finished the just division of the gold dust which Barry Christian had looted from the Feeley mine. The majority of Horseshoe Flat was up there in the hills prospecting for a new strike and finding a few streaks of color and little more to boast of. But Taxi and Silver were splitting the treasure into three parts. Half, they decided, went to the mother and the rest of the family of Joe Feeley. The other half was divided between Silver and Taxi. Sally Creighton weighed out the gold on a kitchen scales, very equitably.

  Then Silver said: “You’ve turned a corner, Taxi. You’re on a new street. You may think that you’re hitched to your past, but you’re not. Horseshoe Flat wants you, and Horseshoe Flat will kick the rest of the world in the face if it tries to get at you. You have the money for a new start. There’s Sally here, who knows how to keep house and cook. She can tell you how to live on the new street, if you want to settle down in this part of the world.”

  Taxi looked her straight in the eye. “Sally,” he said, “do you hear that? Do you think that you could fit a yegg and a crook into your life?”

  “Not for a minute,” she said. “But I could fit Taxi into my life forever.”

  They kept looking at one another, smiling like children. Then Silver said:

  “I’d better leave, because you’ll have to do something about that, Taxi.”

  Taxi reached out a hand and caught his arm.

  “When you go, I’m going with you,” he said. “You people trust me, but I don’t trust myself. If you hammer me long enough, maybe I’ll break. Jim, let me ride with you for three months. If you still think I’m right at the end of that time, I’m coming back.”

  “What do you say to that, Sally?” asked Jim Silver.