Mountain Riders

by Brand, Max

  A sudden sickness almost made Derry stagger. He looked down at the ground, breathing hard.

  “Here’s the paper. Here’s the pen. Steady your hand, now. Now you can write,” the girl was saying.

  “By the jumpin’ thunder, M’ria,” said the old man, “if you ain’t useful, I dunno what is. There, Barry. There’s my name wrote out on the thing for you. Mind you take care of it. Look here, M’ria. Who put a whip on to you, I wanta know? I’m goin’ to have the hide off his back that — ”

  “Never mind that. That’s my business,” said the girl, while Derry listened in amazement. “But d’you want to do something real for me?”

  “Hey — of course I do. What would it be, honey?”

  “Give me your hand on it?”

  “Drat your eyes,” said the old man calmly, “now what low trick are you up to, M’ria?”

  “D’you give me your hand on it?”

  “Well, and here’s my hand, too. Fool that I am!” said he.

  She grasped that lean claw and shook it.

  “I want this man,” she said.

  “What? Derry? You can’t have him. He belongs to Barry Christian.”

  “What price did Barry Christian pay for him?” she asked.

  She turned to Christian. “Except for dirty treachery, what did you ever do to get this man that saved your life, Christian?”

  It seemed to Derry that nothing could upset the vast self-possession of this man, but strange to say, he actually lost colour now.

  “Keep your females in hand, Cary!” he demanded furiously.

  “Did she touch you as deep as that?” asked the old man with a mildly pleased curiosity. “Well, well, well! I guess you can have him, honey. But mind you one thing — he don’t get away from the rest of ’em. He’s got to stay close with the rest of us, day and night. We can’t risk havin’ him drop out to mark the way for that devil Jim Silver. Do you understand that?”

  “Ay, I understand,” she said.

  She turned and looked over Tom Derry with a calm eye of possession.

  “Lie down on your face,” she commanded. “I’m going to fix up them cuts on your back so’s you won’t ever know that a whip hit you!”

  20

  THE FIGHT

  A HOME-MADE salve took the fire out of the whip cuts. The broad, soft bandage eased the ache of the wounds. And still, when that work was ended, and a thin strip of plaster covered the cut on the girl’s face, the old man was peering at the designs which Barry Christian drew in the dust, and the soft voice of Christian went on and on, persuading, opening the barrier of the old man’s resistance to new ideas.

  “The deer-skin may have kept the lash from cutting your body, Molly,” said Derry to the girl, after he had huddled into his shirt again, “but there’s the welts that whip made.”

  “I don’t mind ’em!” she told him gravely. “They ache a bit and they burn a bit, but that’s all right. It keeps me thinking about things. And I want to think about them. I want to think about Chuck — and Dean Cary — and some of the others — and about you, Tom.”

  She had a way of looking at him with no tenderness in her eye, gravely, sombrely, as she had looked at him when she sat on the horse with her arms folded, watching the whip fall on his back. He had to remember that that had been the very instant when she was about to fling herself into the midst of trouble for his sake. Perhaps he would never understand her completely, but complete understanding was unnecessary. There were enough discovered regions of her nature, savage or civilized, to fill his mind. He would only wonder at her, and glory in her.

  “There’s Dean talking to the old man now,” she said. “He’s making more trouble. But one of these days he’ll have trouble enough to keep him the rest of his days, maybe. I’ll think that over, too. I tell you what, Tom, I wouldn’t be without the feel of the whip. It’s on my body now. And when it heals, it’ll still be burning and aching inside my head. Listen! You can hear him. The old man is pretending to be hard of hearing.”

  The big voice of Dean, in fact, came clearly to Derry, in spite of the distance.

  “There’s an old rule, and you made it,” Dean was saying. “No Cary woman goes out to a man until he’s paid enough for her to suit you and the rest, or until he’s fought for her.”

  “Ay, that’s a rule, and a good rule,” said the old man. “What’s the Cary that wants the gal, though?”

  “There’s Hugh Cary willing to fight for her,” said Dean.

  “Ain’t Derry been beat enough for one day to suit you?”

  “He ought to be hanging on that tree, dead, to suit most of us,” said Dean Cary. “He’s the cause of all our troubles. But we’ll stay right to the point. You give Derry to the girl. That’s all right — if you do it inside the rules. But Derry can’t have her without fighting for her, and she can’t have him. There’s a rule in that, I guess.”

  “I’m tired of the whole mess,” said the old man. “I kind of thought that she was goin’ with him up there in the valley. You was willing enough to that when he’d paid in money. And then he wouldn’t have her, and she come back — and everything got all tangled up. Gals and boys are fools, I say. There ain’t any way of makin’ ’em out. But if there’s gotta be a fight, let it happen. I wouldn’t care. Call up Derry, and call up Hugh, and they fight the way the stranger wants. That’s always the rule, I guess.”

  Dean Cary turned away with a happy face and hurried toward the place where the rest of the clan sprawled in the shade.

  “Do you hear, Tom?” said the girl. “Are you dead on you feet? Are you shaky from the whip? Can you fight?”

  “Ay,” he said, “I can fight. Gun or knife or hands.”

  She picked up one of his hands with both of hers and spread the fingers.

  “We’re raised with guns and knives. Hands will have to to do for you, Tom. You’ve got a pair of hands. But, oh, Hugh Cary’s a big man! He’s the biggest man that ever walked in the valley, I guess. Look at him getting up!”

  It seemed to Tom Derry, staring, that the great hulk would never stop rising. That was Hugh Cary who threw his hat on the ground, and laughed. Inches and inches over six feet, and bulking great in proportion, he looked strong enough to pull against a horse. He was in the very height and prime of life. He was clean-shaven. He had the heavy brow and the craggy jaw of a born battler. And he had the step of a young horse full of mettle, dauntless, unbeaten.

  And suddenly Tom Derry thought of his own weight, his own gaunt body.

  Well, he had a set of hitting muscles. He might surprise them, after all.

  “You can get out of it,” said the girl. “Say no — say you don’t want me. That’s all you need to say. No, don’t throw your head. I’d understand. What’s the good of a useless fight? Why get yourself all bashed up for nothing?”

  Hugh Cary walked straight up to Derry and towered over him. The rest of the clan followed on rapidly, grinning at one another. One of the men was patting the wider shoulder of Hugh Cary in admiration.

  “You want M’ria, do you?” said Hugh Cary to Tom. “But how do you want her? Knife or gun or club or hands, or anyway you say, I’m your man! I’m goin’ to fight for you, M’ria,” he added to the girl, “whether you want me to or not. I got an idea that I could tame you!”

  “You’ve picked your time,” said the girl. “When he’s walked half the day. When the blood’s been let out of his body. That’s the time to pick a man for a fight, and you well know it. But one day I may have to show you that that there’s something more than size that counts. And well I’d like the chance to do the showing!”

  “Take off your gun, in case you’d get careless,” said Tom Derry. “It’ll be hands, Hugh.”

  “Hands?” said Hugh Cary, his eyebrows lifting in amazement. “Hands, you runt?” he added, stepping closer to measure his bulk against Derry.

  “Ay, hands, you clumsy fool,” answered Derry calmly.

  He looked about him at the ground. There were only
moccasins on the feet of Hugh Cary. They would grip the smooth of the rock well, so Tom Derry dragged off his boots, and put his bare feet on the hot stone. If the skin cut on rough places here and there — well, that was a small thing.

  Hugh had tossed off his coat, laughing. His gun belt he shed, and threw a big bowie knife after it.

  “How does the betting go, boys?” he asked.

  “Get your hip and thigh hold, Hughie,” said one cheerful fellow, in the midst of the laughter, “and slam him up against the rock, and he’ll squash just like a rotten tomato.”

  “Yeah, and I’ll get my hands on him,” said Hugh Cary. “Are you ready, runt?”

  “I’m ready,” said Derry.

  ‘Tom,” said the girl suddenly, “will you kiss me?”

  He leaned over her till his face was close. She closed her eyes and waited. He straightened, without touching her.

  “Ay, afterwards,” said Derry. “When I’ve earned the right.”

  He spun about to face Hugh Cary. It was not going to be easy. That vast bulk, even untaught in boxing and wrestling, would be hard to handle, but Hugh Cary stood with a high guard, with the perfect balance of a man who knows thoroughly well how to take care of himself with his fists.

  He seemed a mighty picture of what a fighter ought to be. But then the old savour of battles in the past rushed up into the mind of Tom Derry. He had to run away for fear of what his hands might do. And now battle was demanded of him as a right! He thought of forecastle and bunkhouse, of land and sea, and a hundred faces grinning at him in the battle rage.

  Fine pictures are not the beginning and the end-all in a fight, so Derry tried an old ruse. He walked in high on his toes, his guard low. He saw the flexion of arm and body. He saw the blow shoot for his head, and, ducking just under it, he rammed both hands, one after the other, into the soft of Hugh Cary’s body.

  He hit where the soft should have been, at least, but the man was banded about with india-rubber. The blows rebounded foolishly.

  And Derry jumped back as an overhand punch grazed his head.

  The Carys were yelling and dancing. Hugh Cary wore a silly smile. The smile went out. He seemed infuriated because he had not ended the battle at the first meeting, and now he charged.

  It was no blind rush. It was open-eyed, with a long straight left prodding like a battering-ram to make passage for the charging bulk. Well, body punching would do no good on the rounded barrel of Hugh’s chest or against the corrugations of muscle that guarded his stomach.

  Tom Derry ducked his head outside that prodding left fist, made the little hitch step that throws weight into a punch, and slammed his left with all his might against the point of the chin.

  He stepped back, his arm trembling and half-numbed to the elbow, looking for the stagger of Hugh Cary, looking for the chance to put in the finishing Wow with his right.

  But the giant turned with a shout of rage and gripped him in open hands.

  There is a trick of diving at a man’s feet, at a time like that. Derry tried that trick. The shirt ripped off his back, and the skin came off under the cloth, where the fingers of the big man were gripping. But Derry slid out of that dangerous hold and twisted to his feet in time to swerve like a snake away from the next charge.

  There was a blackness of despair in his heart. He could hardly hurt the monster with body punching. To batter his jaw seemed little more than to hit a rock.

  There was the mouth. There were the eyes. And little, little hope.

  But he tried with both hands. Desperation made him stand in close, and as Hugh Cary turned, Derry slashed him with a left and right across the eyes. Then he sprang back and saw the blood go down in two trickles across the face of Hugh Cary.

  And better by far than wine to a thirsty man was the sight of that crimson to Derry. He did not know that a wild cry came out of his own throat. He did not hear the shout of dismay from the Cary clansmen. He only knew that he had made one step toward victory, and he went in like a tiger to draw blood again. It was the overhanging swing, tried and true, and sweet and straight it landed now, full on the right eye of Hugh Cary.

  In return, he received a lifting blow that cracked him under the chin and sent him running backward on his heels, with loosened knees.

  The image of the monster, coming in hot pursuit, wavered before his eyes; the shouting of the men was like the roar of a distant sea. Then the shrill cry of the girl stabbed through the mists that covered his eyes and cleared them away.

  An arm like a walking beam was hurling ruin toward his head. He barely managed to duck under the whir of the blow. He turned, his head clear, his feet light, his knees strong. And now he saw, as Cary turned, what those cutting blows had accomplished.

  One of Hugh’s eyes was quite closed and puffing. The other was streaked across with crimson. As Cary ran in again to finish his man, Hugh could not help lifting a hand to brush quickly at the blood which was dimming his sight.

  It was as though he had pointed out the target, and Derry sprang swiftly in with a blow that landed true again.

  Perhaps pain more than the shock made Hugh Cary give back with both eyes closed and running blood.

  He squared off, but turned away almost at right angles from Derry.

  And Tom said: “Your man’s not able to see. Do you want me to hit a blind man, you fellows?”

  They made no answer. The silence was thick and heavy in which they went to Hugh Cary and led him away as he moaned:

  “He had something on his hands. He had something over his knuckles. He tricked me!”

  A hand touched that of Derry and lifted it. That was the girl, leaning to stare at the broken flesh across the knuckles, for Derry had split the skin until the bone and gristle showed white underneath.

  21

  HEADED FOR GOLD

  WHEN the march began again, it turned and angled straight north through a canyon that led into a broken sea of mountains. In fact, the peaks often had wave shapes, the tall crests curving up and seeming ready to break forward or back. But they were all naked rock, those summits. That was why they shone like water in the afternoon sun.

  Even the scenery grew wilder and stranger, and Derry trudged on silently. The sweat sprang constantly on his skin and instantly dried away to a dust of salt in the acrid air. Some of the ravines were tormenting ovens. Others were merciful flumes of shadow through which the waters of coolness poured over the marchers. And always, up there in the lead, the old man and Barry Christian led the way. The strength of Old Man Cary in the saddle was an amazing thing. He could hardly walk without tottering, but in the saddle he was of redoubled strength.

  In the heat of the day, he stripped off his shirt. His head was left bare, and that polished scalp always carried a burning highlight. He seemed to be on fire, but he preferred the Indian half-nakedness to clothes of any sort One could see the wide spring of his shoulders, the gaunt tendons that reached up and down the sides of his withered neck. One could count his ribs like great fingers clasping his skeleton sides. He was death-in-life. But he was up there at the head of his clan, and something told Tom Derry that the old man would die before he relinquished his place. He had been content to loll about when he was still in the valley which he had made the home of his people, but when they were cast out of that residence, he would lead them again until they found means to settle in another place. There was still more strength in his will than in all the rest of his people.

  In the meantime, Derry was guarded before and behind. He had expected that the Carys would treat him with more hatred than ever, since his battle with Hugh. Instead, their entire attitude seemed to have undergone a favourable change. And finally Hugh himself, with bloodstained bandages over his face, rode up beside the pedestrian and dismounted, and walked with him for a little.

  “I’d give you the mustang to ride,” said Hugh Cary, “but most of the boys would be agin’ it. They’re comin’ around, but most of ’em would still be agin’ it. Doggone me, they want to see h
ow long you can last on foot, like this.”

  The friendliness underlying this speech amazed Derry, and he stared at his huge companion.

  The one battered eye of Hugh that appeared under the edge of the upper bandage squinted back at Derry with something like humour.

  “You licked me proper,” Hugh declared. “Them that know always lick them that don’t know. The old man says that, and the old man can’t be wrong. One of these days, maybe you’ll teach me how to box. You got an overhand wallop that dropped on me out of nothin’ at all. It sure plastered me. It dragged my face all down toward my chin. But it taught me something.”

  His cheerfulness was immense.

  “When you socked me that first couple in the ribs, I thought you was goin’ to keep hammerin’ at the body. Why didn’t you?”

  “Because it was like hitting at the staves of a barrel,” said Derry, smiling in turn.

  “Those punches sprung the staves of the barrel so doggone bad it pretty nigh gave me heart failure,” admitted Hugh. “I laughed, but I felt pretty sick. That was what brung my guard down, and you got at my face. My jaw pretty nigh was cracked, the first time you slammed it. But the eyes — you didn’t hit nothin’ but eyes, after that. I felt like my eyes was each as big as a saucepan. Where’d you learn to box, brother?”

  “On a ship,” explained Derry. “A fellow taught me. I had to learn or get my head knocked off. And I got my head knocked off a good many times before I learned how to block. After I could block, then I had to learn how to hit. There were only two buttons that rang a bell in the head of that Yankee skipper. One was the point of his chin, and one was the centre of his stomach.”

  Hugh Cary laughed. Then, growing more sober, he asked: “How come Barry Christian to hate you so much? Because you hooked up with Jim Silver?”

  “I didn’t hook up with Silver. He had me — and he let me go. That was all.” Then he added, out of the bitterness of his heart: “But I wish that I had hooked up with Silver.”

  “Ay,” said Hugh Cary, “I seen him once. I seen him, and Frosty, and Parade. I come over a ridge, and on the next one, toward the sun, there was a deer runnin’ lickety-split. You never seen a deer leg it like that one. It was half a mile off, and no good me tryin’ at it. And then the deer takes a jump in the air, and drops, and lies still, and I hear the report of a rifle come floatin’ up to me soft and easy out of the hollow of the valley, like a trout driftin’ up through still water. And I looked down there into the hollow and I seen a golden hoss, and a grey wolf, and a man. I couldn’t see the man very good, but by the shape of his head and shoulders, I’d know him again. He looked like he could lift a ton or run faster than a stag. I knew him by the look — and that was Jim Silver. It give me a kind of creeps, seein’ him like that. I was glad that he hadn’t seen me instead of the deer.”