Comanche

by Max Brand

  Yet for that matter, what could Apperley and all his tired men have done against this horde from Yeoville? No, the essence of all success to the scheme of Andrew Apperley had been the silence and the secrecy of a surprise attack by night, and now that opportunity was hopelessly thrown away.

  That overthrow of a horse and a man by a sneaking wolf, a mere gliding shadow, had checked the rush of the pursuit for an instant only. There were still nine men, and the odds were three to one in their favor, so they closed resolutely again, gaining at every jump of their straining ponies. In vain Johnson and Briggs wheeled in their saddles and emptied their repeating Winchesters. They struck no target but air and ground. Then, with the long arms of the Shodress riders fairly circling around him, Single Jack turned, and a lash of fire spurted from the end of his rifle.

  There was a difference between this shooting and that of his two companions. One of the pursuers reined in his horse suddenly, cursing at the top of his voice with disappointment and fury and pain, for the rifle slug had whipped through his arm.

  From the remaining eight there was a crashing volley in response, and the horse of Les Briggs sank to the ground. He rolled, staggering to his feet, and the next moment an arm strong as iron jerked him from his feet and drew him across the pommel of the saddle.

  He looked up, amazed, into the face of young Jack Deems. Where had the strength been hidden in that slender body—where the power of hand that rendered the outlaw strong enough to perform such a feat?

  But Single Jack was calling: “Johnson! Charley Johnson!”

  “Aye!” yelled Johnson.

  And the wild yells of the heartened pursuers rang in their ears.

  “Ride straight ahead. Forget us. Go on and save yourself!”

  “Never!”

  “Apperley’s men will all be lost then! Ride for their sakes! Get out of here!”

  Charley Johnson called: “Briggs?”

  “Go on, boy!” answered Briggs. “Go on, and God bless you! We’ll take care of ourselves!”

  And Charley Johnson urged his tired pony away from the horse of Deems, now staggering under a double burden, with the men of Yeoville pushing boldly up, closer and closer.

  In the saddle, Deems turned, and pitched his rifle to his shoulder, and Briggs, looking back, saw the eight brave riders wince away and veer to either side before the leveled gun.

  “I’ve played tag with them up to now,” said Deems calmly, “but, after this, I mean business, and they know it.”

  And he flogged his reeling horse straight for a little shack that stood in the center of the valley, with the narrowing walls descending close on either side of it.

  Behind them, the leaders of the Yeoville men had rallied to their best riding again, and swiftly tore over the intervening space as Deems drew rein before the shack and dropped upon his belly, on the ground, rifle ready. Twice he fired. There was a screech of pain from one of the charging riders, and then the party split away to either side and rode for dear life. For it is too much to expect men to rush down on an expert marksman who fires from a rest.

  So that pair of shots brushed the van of the Shodress army aside and scattered them, and Single Jack said quietly, as he rose to his knee: “Take the horse and ride, Briggs. I’ll hold them here for a while. Get back to Apperley and tell him to get for cover. He could never handle this mob,” he concluded.

  “I get out and leave you here?”

  “One’s as good as ten,” said Single Jack, peering down the valley at the mass of riders who came boiling up it, with the dust-like steam floating above them in the moonlight. “They won’t rush this place. Besides, they want me. They want me bad.”

  “Not me, old fellow,” answered Briggs, hastily refreshing the magazine of his rifle from his cartridge belt. “I’m not much from the back of a horse, but I can shoot straight enough to scare ’em when I’ve got a rest.”

  “Is that final?” said Single Jack. “Because I’ve got no time to argue.”

  “That’s final. I won’t budge.”

  There was a little silence, except for the approaching thunder of the many horses.

  “I think,” said Single Jack, “that you’re what they call a white man, in this part of the world. Well, no man can guard both ends of this shack. Come inside. Here, Comanche!”

  The wolf dog entered at their heels, and the tired pony, released by its riders, staggered off up the valley at a mechanical lope to get away from the sweeping danger that approached.

  They found the shack a poor enough refuge. The walls were half rotted away. Many a year had passed since it had been used, and the mountain winters swiftly make the weight of their hands felt.

  “They won’t be able to spot us . . . and that’s all,” said Deems, tearing down a board that had been nailed across one of the windows, so that this opening would serve them for their firing. “These walls would never stop a bullet. Drop a few shots among ’em, Briggs, while I scoop out a trench, here.”

  Briggs, accordingly, from the door of the shack, began to place long-range shots among the onsweeping horsemen from Yeoville, and those gallants scattered rapidly. Behind rocks, trees, fallen logs, and in the depressions of the valley floor, they found their shelter, and gradually they began to work around the shack from either side. Some, too, climbed to the top of the cliffs, and from these points of vantage they could open a plunging fire upon the men in the shack.

  In the meantime, with a broken board as a shovel, Single Jack scooped out in the floor of the shack a shallow trench in which they could both lie and so get protection from the bullets that were already beginning to shower at them.

  For big Alec Shodress was desperately impatient. Farther down that valley, and probably not so far away, was Andrew Apperley and many a man behind him. If he could push ahead, he could overtake the tired horses of the Apperley contingent, even if they tried to flee, and, at a blow, he could wipe out his only great opponent on the range. More than that, if there was ever a chance to commit a crime with impunity, this was it, for he could prove that Apperley had started with his armed mob first.

  There was only this one small obstacle in the way—a little low-shouldered shack in the midst of the cañon, with merely a pair of men in it. But those men were sure shots, and they were firing at everything that showed itself. It was possible enough to sneak a few men past the shack on either side and surround it with bullets. But the horses could not go by, which seemed an insurmountable difficulty.

  “Try the cliffs!” called Shodress in rage. “There’s bound to be some way of getting horses up them. Then we can leave a dozen sure hands to watch that pair, and go on with the rest to eat up the crew of Apperley. By the Eternal, I’ll make this the greatest night that was ever known in the mountains . . . but not unless we can get by that cabin. Boys, find a way up those rocks!”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  It was a simple enough matter to find places where the rocks could be climbed by men, but quite another matter to locate any spot where the horses could climb. And so the little shack remained in the throat of the valley to check the sweep and the surge of Alec Shodress’s ambitions.

  He flew into a vast passion. “Smash that shack flat! There’s enough of you to blow it to bits. Wash it out of our way with lead! Hose it with bullets!”

  More than two hundred men instantly prepared to obey. From every shrub near the little house, from behind every rock and sometimes lying flat in holes that they had scraped in the dirt, and from the edge of the tall cliffs, they turned loose a storm of fire. A thousand fireflies seemed to be winking all at once, and a thousand hornets were rushing down the wind in repeated droves through the shack where the two had taken refuge.

  Those hornets stung a way in at one wall and out at another. They knocked the boards to dust, and filled the interior of the little house with tiny flying splinters. They plowed up the floor of the shack. They filled the air with danger. And the two inside, working their safety trench deeper, lay quiet, or talked
through the rattle of the guns,

  “But what can he do? What can all of ’em do?” asked Les Briggs. “They can’t blow us out of the shack, can they?”

  “They can sneak up in rushing distance, however,” said Deems quietly. “And that’s what they’re doing now. Down, boy.”

  The wolf dog, feeling his master stir, lifted his head, but he immediately crouched again under the command of Single Jack.

  “Coming to rushing distance!” exclaimed Briggs. “They wouldn’t risk that!”

  “They’re getting a little wild and out of hand,” said the other calmly. “Listen. They’re coming closer. They’ve done all the talking, so far, and I think that I’d better show them that we’re not dumb, either.”

  He was out of the trench before Briggs could stop him. And crouching beside the wall of the shack, regardless of a fresh crash of musketry that combed the little house with bullets once more, he took deliberate aim and fired. Instantly a shout of pain rang through the night, to be followed by a fresh roar of fury from the men of Yeoville.

  “You got one of ’em, Jack!” cried Briggs. And he in turn left the trench, and took his place at the opposite wall of the house.

  “Come back!” called Deems angrily. “There’s enough done. You’ll get yourself killed, Briggs.”

  “They’ve had their turn. If you could tag them, so can I.”

  Lying flat on his belly, he peered through a rift in the wall against the moonlight. It was not a natural crack in the wood. That opening had been made by half a dozen rifle bullets of big caliber clipping through the board close to a single spot. On the outside Les Briggs could see the valley spotted with the vivid flashes from the hot rifles of the Yeoville men. All were firing from good cover. And if any had been taking risks, a moment before, the last shot of Deems’s had sent them back to close hiding. So Briggs waited and poised his rifle, vainly hoping for a favorable target, because he was ashamed to return to his place before he had done something.

  “Briggs, you’re acting like a fool.”

  “Perhaps, I am. Look here, old-timer. What makes you go through with this deal?”

  “What deal?”

  “The war with Shodress. What’s the money to you . . . I mean, the money that Andy Apperley can pay you? Can he pay you for the scalp that Shodress will surely lift off of your head, one of these days?”

  “Never mind me, but get back into shelter. I tell you, I’m not in this for the money, but for the fun, and because I owe Apperley one good turn.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “No.”

  “Apperley hasn’t talked about how he first met me?”

  “No.”

  “He was on a boat in the East River when I broke jail and swam for it. I was nearly done, and they were hunting me up and down and across the water with boats, when Comanche saw me in the water and dived in and brought me out. And after I had been carried onto the Apperley boat, the police came to search it, and I would have been turned over to them, except that Andrew Apperley told them that he’d never seen me. And that’s why I’m here.”

  Briggs whistled softly, scanning the plain before him, and then, seeing a shadow move, he took aim and fired. There was only a quickly concentrated burst of fire in response, and he crawled back into the trench. “I missed,” said Briggs gloomily. “And, oh, how I’d like to tag one of ’em before I’m out of this job. Only . . . Why is it that you haven’t let people know that you’re in this out of kindness and not for money, old-timer? People around here are reading you wrong.”

  “What they think of me makes no difference,” declared Deems. “Particularly now. This is the finish of us, Briggs. So there’s no good of thinking . . . except with a rifle.”

  “Maybe not the finish, either. If that moon ever gets behind a cloud, we might try to sneak out . . .”

  “And be filled full of lead while we run? No, I’ll take mine here. And they’ll pay for me in full.”

  He laughed a little, and an uncanny thrill quivered up the spine of Briggs.

  At the same time, bullets began to smash through the roof, angling sharply down toward the floor. Someone was on the rim of the cliff just above them and the firing at that sharp angle made the trench in which they lay a most inadequate protection.

  A puff of dust raised by one slug got into the eyes of Briggs. He shifted his position.

  “They should have started that long ago,” Deems said calmly. “I’ve been waiting for it . . .”

  There was the distinct sound of a bullet spatting into flesh, like a fist struck against a palm, and then a groan came from Briggs.

  “They’ve got you?” asked Deems.

  “They’ve got me!” gasped his companion.

  “Where?”

  “Through the body. I . . . can’t . . . talk or . . .” And Briggs collapsed.

  As for Single Jack, he remained quiet for a moment, whistling softly to himself. Then he leaned over, fumbled for the breast of the other, and found the heart. Yes, there was a perceptible beating of the pulse, and now he cursed grimly to himself. He made up his mind swiftly.

  Crawling to the door of the shack he shouted: “Shodress! Shodress!”

  A spurt of flame answered from a neighboring shrub, where two rifles had opened fire in response.

  “Shodress!” he shouted again.

  “Stop the guns!” called a voice near at hand. Then: “Shaw and Hammond, stop shooting!”

  “All right.”

  “Hello in the shack!”

  “Where’s Shodress?”

  “Where he can’t hear you.”

  “Hello!” called a more distant voice in the unmistakable accents of the fat man. “Here I am! Have you been peppered enough, Deems?”

  “Briggs is bored through the body, and he’s bleeding to death,” said Deems frankly. “I’ll surrender . . . on terms!”

  “Terms nothing. You walk out with your hands over your head!”

  But Single Jack merely laughed. “Let Briggs die, then,” he said. “I’m not his murderer.”

  “Open up on ’em again!” shouted Shodress with a torrent of oaths. “No . . . wait a minute. What terms do you want, Deems?”

  “I want a fair trial, and your promise that I’ll not be snagged during the night.”

  “You’ve held me up tonight and spoiled my game. You’ll pay for that. And what sort of a trial do you expect?”

  “One chance in ten. That’s all I ask. Think it over. I’ll have your word of honor and one man sent in here as a hostage. Otherwise, I don’t go a step with you. And if you want to come and take me . . . why, I’m waiting.”

  There was a rapid confusion of voices, and then Deems could hear a younger man saying: “I’ll go in there as a hostage and come out with him. Once you get him in Yeoville, what’ll his trial amount to?”

  “Maybe you’re right, Steve. Will you really take your chance with him?”

  “Sure I will.”

  “Then go ahead. Deems!” the fat man called out.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sending in Steve Grange! He’ll stay with you all the way to Yeoville until you’re in the jail there. Is that fair enough?”

  “That’s fair enough. Send him on . . . fast . . . if you want to do anything for Briggs.”

  Suddenly he saw a tall form striding toward the cabin, hands in the air. “Grange?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Stand there right in front of the door. I’ll bring Briggs out.”

  He picked up the body of the wounded man and went to the door with him, Briggs gasping: “Don’t mind me, partner. I’m finished, anyway. Don’t mind me. Don’t trust yourself to ’em. They ain’t men. They’re devils.”

  He fainted again, and Jack Deems called: “Come get him, Shodress! And you can get me, too!”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  A storming column of a hundred and fifty men poured down Shingle Cañon and scattered through the rough hills a
t the farther end of it in the hope of finding Andrew Apperley and his little army. But the warning had come to Apperley from Charley Johnson in time, and he had withdrawn his forces from the field. To surprise an outlaw town by night was one thing; to meet odds of two or three to one in open war was quite another.

  So the hundred and fifty rode here and there in vain, and at length, coming upon a band of a few score of the cows that wore the Apperley brand, they made off with these, feeling that their day’s work had been brief, but that it must serve.

  And in the meantime, the cream of the Shodress forces went back in triumph toward Yeoville. Behind them followed a rudely improvised litter in which poor Briggs, badly hurt but not in danger, was carried to the nearest ranch shack. But he was left there to recuperate and go his way, unmolested, when he should be able to ride. He was not looked upon as a prize in comparison with his more famous companion.

  Perhaps some of the men in that armed party would have considered the capture of a single fighting man not a great accomplishment, but they were convinced by the manifest joy of Alec.

  At the first moment of the surrender, he rode up to Single Jack and shook his fist in the face of the younger man. “This is the first step, Deems!” he had shouted. “But I’m going a long way with this.”

  “Of course you are,” said Single Jack, and smiled in his face. “In the meantime, I have a hostage here. Keep back from me, and, if you shake a fist in my face again, I’ll shake a gun in yours.” This was said not with any fierce emphasis, but with a perfect self-control that made the rage of Shodress seem childish and wild.

  And Shodress, though his mingled joy and fury still surged and boiled in him, kept a safe distance from his armed prisoner thereafter.

  They formed in a loose column. At the head rode Shodress like a returning conqueror. And behind him cantered a sufficient number of his warriors. In the center, with an open space before and behind, came Steve Grange and young Jack Deems. Others followed to the rear to shut off all chance of escape, and, although there were shouts of insult and many a ringing word of abuse, no one ventured to lay a hand on Single Jack. Partly because of the awe that he inspired in them, and still more, because he had Steve Grange beside him, Shodress’s men considered that the first move against their prisoner would mean a bullet sent by him through the body of Grange.