by Max Brand
So that strange cavalcade rode back and entered the streets of Yeoville, and all the way, in the distance, they were followed by the weird cry of a wolf, skulking in the distance, and that cry was the voice of Comanche.
There had been an armistice, of a kind, with the master, but it did not follow that there was any quarter for this man-killing beast. So they had tried for him with vicious eagerness, only to find that they were shooting at a skulking shadow that darted here and there and avoided them and their bullets, at last, by streaking off through the thick of their press and so getting to safety.
“That’s your death song, Deems!” called Shodress over his shoulder. “That’s your soul, calling for you!” And he laughed hugely at this poor jest.
For he was in the highest good spirits, and, as they streamed through the streets of Yeoville, the whole party was filled with the same exultation that was in the breast of their leader. They reached the jail. They passed through the shattered doors that the jailer had been vainly striving to patch up, since they were burst earlier in the evening. And in the strongest, safest room in the building, loaded with irons on arms and feet, Single Jack Deems was finally brought to the end of his journey.
It was an old house that had been appropriated for the purposes of the law. The windows of the first floor were heavily barred, but for other security there was none except such as the heavy irons that were kept on the prisoners afforded, together with the guard that was maintained over them.
And as the strength of that guard depended almost entirely upon the will of Shodress, it was a well-known fact that that jail could hold his friends from liberty no more than a sieve can hold water from the stream, whereas, on the other hand, he could make the place as secure as adamant for his foes.
“And now, kid,” said Alec Shodress, slashing at his riding boots with his quirt, while he leaned one fat hand on the table in the room where Deems had been lodged, “who wins?”
“I win,” answered Deems instantly. “I win, because I’ve badgered your whole town, and you’ve chased me with all your men, and I’ve blocked you from Apperley and made a fool of you.”
“You win!” shouted Shodress, choking with rage. “You win! You win when you begin to dance on air, which ain’t going to be so long from now!”
“Are you going to wait for the law to hang me?” asked Deems curiously, his nerves apparently as steady as ever,
“Law? There ain’t nothing in this town for law except me. What I want is law, kid. And you and the Apperleys and the rest of the fools that don’t understand that are gonna pay heavy for being blockheads.”
“All right, all right,” said Deems. “But what’s the thing you’re going to charge up to me? What’s the murder?”
“What’s the murder? The murder of Westover. Ain’t that good enough?”
“Murder?” Single Jack smiled.
“Look at him grin!” shouted Shodress. “Confound him, he enjoys this. Yes, I say the murder of Westover. Didn’t you sneak up in the dark and shoot him down?”
“All right,” agreed Deems. “And the four men that were with him . . . they ran away so they could be witnesses against me, I suppose?”
“They’re witnesses that’ll hang you, Deems. That’s the fact. How does it make you feel?”
“It makes me more certain of one thing than I ever was before,” said Single Jack. “I’m going to live to get out of this jail and put a bullet through your head, Shodress. I’ve always felt I would do that, ever since I first laid eyes on you. I never felt surer of it.”
The face of Shodress turned purple and swollen with his passion. He sprang forward, the floor bending under his weight, and straight across the face of the prisoner he swung the biting lash of the quirt. “You murdering rat!” shouted Shodress.
The quirt was torn suddenly from his hand. Much as he was feared in this town, a little gasp went up from the ruffians who had followed him into the room, because, after all, that blow was delivered to a helpless man.
It was Steve Grange who had snatched the quirt away, and now he stood over the livid Shodress, saying savagely: “No more of that, Alec! He can’t hit back and you know it.”
Shodress glared at the youth as though he would willingly have thrown him to the tigers, but the next moment, seeing the solemn faces of even his best retainers, he realized that he had gone too far.
“You’re right, Steve,” he said. “I forgot myself. All that I could remember, just then, was that I was in front of the sneak that had murdered poor old Westover. But he ain’t a man and he don’t deserve to be treated like other men.”
He made a pause, breathing hard. All the others stood motionlessly, not speaking, for they had been chilled with what they had just seen. So that, in the pause, they were able to hear the far-off bay of a hunting wolf, as it seemed.
Shodress snatched at the clue. “That’s it!” he cried, pointing through the open door. “That’s what he is, and that’s where he belongs, out there with the rest of the wolves!”
And there was a sudden nodding of heads. The little incident had come in so pat that it really seemed that there was something more than mere chance in it.
All eyes turned back to the prisoner.
He had not moved, either under the whip, or afterward. A great red welt ran across his face, beneath the left eye and running across the bridge of the nose and down the right cheek. And a thin trickle of blood had run down and crimsoned his lips. But all the while his dark, large eyes dwelt steadily and without expression upon the face of Shodress.
“What are you thinking of?” gasped Shodress suddenly, giving back a little before that fixed stare. “What are you seeing in me?”
“I’m seeing you dead in the street,” Deems stated slowly. And he nodded as though the picture were being revealed gradually and with wonderful clearness to his eyes.
Shodress loosened his collar and said hoarsely: “He’s crazy. But I’ll tell you what, kid, if you get out of this joint, it’ll be because I’ve gone to sleep. Because right here in this jail I live and sleep and eat and wake, until the day when I’m gonna have the pleasure of seeing you dance at the end of a rope.”
He turned and stamped out of the room, and only Steve Grange remained behind, looking down into the dark eyes of the prisoner.
“I’m sorry,” said Grange at last. “I’m sure sorry. It was the trick of a low hound.” He added suddenly: “Deems, I don’t care what they say about you. I’ve been with you and I know what I saw in you tonight. You’re white. You’re a square-shooter. You tell me what I can do for you, and I’m your man.”
“Are you the brother of Hester Grange?” asked the prisoner.
“I am.”
“Then there’s nothing you can do.”
“Why not?”
“Go ask her, and she’ll tell you.”
And so Steve Grange, utterly baffled, obeyed, and left the jail.
Chapter Thirty-Four
In the jail, every precaution was taken to secure the prisoner. Shodress exhibited his pride and joy in the capture by living constantly within the building. He had had himself appointed a special deputy for this purpose and he had with him, to make doubly sure, Dan McGruder. It was known that McGruder understood the formidable nature of the prisoner by bitter experience of his prowess, and therefore it was to be taken for granted that he would never relax in his vigilance. As for the irons that weighed down Single Jack, they were doubled, both upon his wrists and upon his ankles. And attached to his feet there was a heavy iron shot that had seen service on the battle front, and was now degraded to a prison duty of this humble sort.
But though he was loaded with iron chains and weights, and had to keep upon his hands every day and all day the burden of two pairs of handcuffs, in other ways Single Jack was treated well enough. He had to see a number of people every day, for not only were the townsfolk never satisfied with staring at him, but cowpunchers were riding in from all parts of the range to have a look at him and say a
few words. He amazed them with his good nature. It did not bother him to have them stare him out of countenance. And he was not in the least averse to talking with them a little. So the reputation of Deems lost some of its unearthly quality. He was no longer considered an uncanny phantom but rather a subtle and marvelously clever man, who had united courage and gun skill to the highest possible point.
“As fast as Single Jack” became a simile that might be interpreted to mean lightning fast. “As brave as Single Jack” meant simply a man without fear. And to “shoot like Single Jack” was simply a superlative to be applied to the mythical marksman who cannot miss.
When it was seen that he was not really a poisonous creature, even women came and brought their children to look at him, and they stared, and laughed, and gaped, and pointed at him while he smiled back at them with an unshakable good nature.
His trial came quickly.
The very evening before it was supposed to begin, Steve Grange came into the jail and found the prisoner playing poker with Dan McGruder. For that was their usual occupation all the time that Dan was on duty. They used to sit at the table near the windows in the front room of the second story. And there, with the sun streaming in and washing far across the floor, Single Jack would sit on the edge of the table, so that his heavily manacled hands would be comfortably above the cards. Dan McGruder, sitting opposite him and in a chair, did the shuffling and dealing.
And Steve Grange found the two at this pleasant occupation as he strolled into the chamber. It was long after the hour when visitors were admitted to the jail, as a rule. But Steve Grange was a fellow of such proved importance that he could go and come very much as he chose to do.
He watched the game for a moment, and then sat down on the window sill, just as Shodress came back from his dinner.
“Hello, Steve,” said Shodress. “What’s the news from your house?”
“No news.”
“Apperley ain’t changed any?”
“Apperley is getting better every day. He’s all out of danger, now.”
“Look here, Steve. What makes Hester work her head off over that fellow, will you tell me?”
“You ought to know,” said Steve Grange. “It looked as though she’d asked him to come down to our house just so’s she could keep him in the reaching distance of your gunfighters.”
“My gunfighters?”
“Why, Shodress, you don’t deny that the three of them were all your men?” He turned to Dan McGruder at the table. “Tell me, Dan, if I’m talking through my hat.”
Dan McGruder shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno nothing except what the teacher tells me,” he said with a grin. “That’s all that I know. And sometimes I forget even that.”
Alec Shodress laughed largely and comfortably. For nothing pleased him more than the feeling that his followers were completely in his hands. And that his trust in them could be absolute, he knew.
“Well, Steve,” he said, “you see that nothing could be proved against me. But as for Apperley, what difference does it make what he thinks? The less thinking the better . . . the less living the better, so far as Apperley is concerned. I wish him no luck. And you might let Hester know it. I see no reason why she should slave over him. Or does she plan on marrying a good house and a good position back East? Or maybe she has the corner of her eye fixed on the coin of old Andy Apperley. Is that it?” And he laughed again, for he was very proud of the keen eyes with which he saw through the motives of many people.
He was greeted with a cold eye by Steve. “Hester’ll never marry for money, and she’ll never marry for a house and a position in society,” he declared.
“Hello!” exclaimed Shodress. “And why not?”
“Why, for one reason, because she’s my sister.”
“Is that a reason?”
“That’s enough reason for any man,” declared Steve Grange, and he thrust out his formidable fighting jaw as he spoke.
At this, Shodress turned sharply around and stared at his young adherent. It was not exactly a revolt on the part of young Grange, but it could not be taken for anything other than as a declaration of rights. And that was abhorrent to Shodress. For where he was master, he wanted to be absolute master.
There had been so much point in the tone and in the words of Steve that even Single Jack, who rarely seemed to pay much attention to those who were around him, now lifted his dark eyes and let them dwell on the youngster, and Grange, meeting that glance, nodded slightly, and let Single Jack see him thrust a fold of paper into a deep crack between the adobe bricks that composed the wall.
Then Jack went on with the game of cards.
For one instant angry words had swelled in the throat of Shodress at the thought of such a youngster as Grange daring to raise his head against him. And then he saw that with a single syllable he could alienate that youth forever. And though it would be easy to drive Steve away, he could never be won back again. So he pondered the matter back and forth and instantly made up his mind that it would be better by far to let matters take their own course than to press this boy into a corner.
It left a surplus of rage in his heart as he turned from Grange toward the pair at the table, and he snarled savagely at Dan McGruder: “You’re at the cards again with him, Dan!”
“There’s nothing else to do with him,” said McGruder regretfully. “What’s wrong with the cards?”
“What’s wrong? Everything is wrong! Look at him sitting up above you on the table, for one thing. All that he’s got to do is to throw himself down on you. Ain’t even a baby able to see that?”
Dan McGruder looked up quickly to the outlaw on the table. And then he could not help smiling. “At the idea of anybody just falling down on me,” he said to Shodress. He touched one of the guns that hung at his hips. For, after all, Dan McGruder had a record behind him that was long enough to satisfy the most meticulously critical in matters of gunfighting. “And him with his feet and his hands in irons.”
He could not help breaking into laughter, and even Shodress smiled a little, but it was a sour smile.
“You act like a young fool, not like a man that’s had a few lessons already from this same gent,” he declared to McGruder.
“Never mind that!” exclaimed McGruder, flushing. “He had me on the run, for a while. I’ve admitted that to everybody. Why harp on it?”
“Because here you sit putting your head into the lion’s mouth. By the powers, I’m going to change you for another guard.”
“I wish, you would!” cried Dan. “This sort of fence riding ain’t pleasing to me. I’d be happiest away from it. But I ask you this, Shodress. What could he do? Just what could he do, except he did try some such fool thing as falling on top of me . . .” He broke off and smiled at Single Jack, and Single Jack smiled back, frankly, with no apparent malice in his eyes.
“And if he did that,” said McGruder, “he’d as soon be throwing himself right to destruction, because that’s where I’d blow him. You know that, kid. You know that, Deems? Sure he knows it, Alec. He sees that I’m decent to him, but that don’t mean that I ain’t watching him all the time.”
Shodress leaned both his fat hands on the table, and in this manner he diminished his height until his eyes were on a level with those of his prisoner. “Well, kid,” he said, “I ain’t decent to you, am I?”
“You have the look of a toad, Shodress,” said the prisoner calmly. “But I never knew before that you had the manners of a toad as well.”
Shodress started as though a spur had been driven home in him. “You gutter rat!” he yelled.
“Because,” explained Deems, apparently with a naïve desire to explain the reasonable grounds for his remark, “you deal with poison, Shodress.”
Shodress glared and then recoiled. “You lie!” he shouted.
“You see?” said Single Jack to McGruder and Steve Grange. “He has to take it seriously. I’ve touched him on a sore spot.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
A
t this point, Steve Grange turned and stared fixedly at Shodress, but that gentleman was unaware of anything in the world with the exception of young Jack Deems. From the first moment of the appearance of the outlaw in Yeoville, the boss of the town had dreaded him. That dread had turned into a frantic fear and loathing combined. And the more efforts he made to get rid of Deems, the more profound became his hatred of him. He had wronged Jack Deems just enough to make himself a fanatic enemy. What maddened him more than all else was the quiet manner of the prisoner. And day by day he worked with a violent concentration to break through the nerve of the younger man. But most of his efforts ended as had this one, today. The more brutality he exhibited, the more Single Jack smiled, as though he were in the possession of mysterious knowledge that made all of the efforts of Shodress futile and foolish.
Sometimes he would sit down with Deems and quietly urge him to be prepared for the worst, to think of the future world, to consider the hell to which he was surely going, and, again, he would confess with a jovial outburst of good nature that he had never in his life enjoyed so much pleasure as he was now receiving from the spectacle of the younger man in the jail. Sometimes, also, he would dwell upon the trial, but since the verdict at the trial was apparently a foregone conclusion, he spent his best talents in calling up before the eyes of Deems the picture of the last fatal moment when the hangman’s rope would be around his neck and his feet would be treading the thin air.
He returned to that theme over and over again. He returned to it even on this occasion, since he could think of nothing better to say.
