by Brand, Max
“Silver?” exclaimed Buck.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure,” said Christian. “But I’d give a good deal to put my eye on that same peon with the big shoulders and the narrow hips. And the very dark Mexican skin, too! A bit of stain will make the whitest man in the world as brown as a berry. I’ve been a Mexican myself more than once.”
And he laughed very gently, as though he were afraid that a loud sound might disturb his listeners.
“I’ll take these clothes to Higgins,” he said, “and let him know what I have in mind. We’ll turn out every man on the place and search for that missing peon with the broad shoulders and bare feet and the very dark skin. And if we find him — ”
He snapped his fingers in the air.
“Perhaps he’ll turn out to be a Silver worth more than gold to me!” continued Christian. “I’ll have more men up here in a few minutes. In the meantime, use your eyes. Be awake. If Silver has actually doffed his clothes and taken a disguise, he means to try his luck and take his life in his hands. And the hands of a fellow like Silver will hold a good deal, boys. And I should — ” He broke off sharply before he furnished the word which would have made admission of the events which had seared into his soul his hatred of Jim Silver.
“Keep our eyes open?” said Buck. “I’ll be watching for snakes to drop off the rafters!”
“That’s it,” said the chief. “Be on your toes. You can’t be very far wrong when you’re on your toes.”
He went to the head of the ladder, turned to give them all one slow, penetrating glance, and then passed down the ladder out of sight.
“Silver!” said Buck in a whisper. “Look out that window, Stew. I’ll look out this one. Look as far on the roof as you can, and down the side.”
They went to their appointed windows, but all that they found was the naked roof line, running off to the brightness of the stars.
They turned back and faced one another.
“Keep moving,” suggested Stew. “That’s the way to have your eyes open.”
“Move, but move slow!” answered Buck. “Silver — I’d rather have the real devil after me! Silver!” A perceptible shudder ran through his long, frail body.
“And he’ll come,” said Brender with a sudden depth in his voice, as though he were ten years older in conviction, at least. “He’ll come, and make short work of both of you!”
“The pair of us?” said Stew. “You talk like a young fool, and there ain’t no fool worse than a young fool. There ain’t no one man on earth, excepting maybe Christian, that could handle the pair of us when we got our eyes open and are looking for trouble.”
They paced slowly about the floor, keeping their eyes specially fixed upon the windows and upon the open trapdoor. For it seemed that there was no other possible entrance for a grown man into that part of the loft.
“Suppose that he’s hid in the hay!” said Buck.
“How’d he be able to hide there, dummy?” snapped Stew. “Tell me that — how’d he be able to hide there? You know the answer? Wasn’t there people here all the day long? How’d he burrow through solid piles of baled hay, anyways?”
“Well, maybe not,” said Buck, reluctantly giving up the dangerous possibility. “But he can do things that you and me wouldn’t think off.”
“What’s that? Who’s on the ladder?” asked Stew.
For the head of the ladder, projecting above the trapdoor, was visibly trembling.
Buck stood close to the trap.
“Who’s there?” called Buck.
“All right — boys,” said a soft voice, broken a little with panting. “I’m coming up — myself.”
“All right. It’s the chief,” said Buck, stepping back with a sigh. “We’re going to have him up here with us.”
He had turned from the trapdoor with Stew, but as they looked at Brender, they saw something in his face that froze them in place. And then, behind them, the panting voice, but now harsh and clear, said:
“Shove up your hands. Shove them up slow and sure!”
They looked over their shoulders, these two guards, not to see the form of their enemy rising cautiously out of the hollow black square of the trapdoor, a revolver leveled hip-high in his hand, but to glare at one another, as though each wanted to see in the face of his companion news of that terrible fate which would come to them from the hands of Barry Christian when their chief knew that they had failed in their work.
Then, with another common impulse, they began to raise their hands.
Silver stepped closer to them, little by little.
He spoke as he watched them.
“Chinook is in the third stall to the left of the ladder,” he said to Brender. “I’ve untied her lead rope and knotted it around her neck. I got her bridle on her, too, and she’s standing fast. When you get down, take her. I found a Colt in the saddle room, and now it’s in your saddle holster. Flatten yourself on the mare’s back and go through the stable door at a gallop. There are men on watch beyond the door, not right at it. Go through it like a devil. I’ll get a gun from one of these old chums of yours before we’re through. Buck — watch your hands!”
But Buck, as his hands came to the height of his shoulders, moved them more and more slowly. A fluttering appeared in his fingers. And Silver recognized the workings of a desperate impulse in the outlaw.
“Don’t do it, man,” said Silver. “I don’t want to murder you with your back turned, but I’ll do it sure if you make a move. Get those hands up over your head. That’s better, Stew!”
Yet as he spoke, though Stew had thrust his own hands well up over his head, Buck snapped into action.
With one hand he struck at the lantern on the table and sent it crashing the length of the loft room. At the same time he was hurling himself toward the floor, and with his other hand snatching at a revolver.
There was only the tenth of a second for Silver to shoot while the light was still clear enough. He used the first half of that fraction of time to hesitate — in all his life he never before had shot a man through the back. And when he actually fired he was aiming at the hips, or a shade lower.
He knew that the bullet had struck flesh, but that was all he could know.
The loft room was in darkness.
From where Buck lay, a revolver began to spit red fire in narrow-throated gusts. And from where Stew stood, another gun was speaking. Those sparks of fire gave weird flickers that were not illumination of the loft, but afforded vague glimpses of what was happening in it.
What they showed was Silver, almost flat on his face, firing in return.
He brought from Stew a yowl of pain with one bullet.
Then footfalls stampeded across the loft floor, straight at him. Silver fired again. The flame from his gun showed him the contorted face of Stew as the man charged madly home. Silver, with the flash of his own shot to guide his next bullet, again fired low. Just at the hip the bullet struck. Stew was flung sidewise, spinning, by the heavy impact of the .45-caliber slug. He struck the floor and skidded along it, then lay still.
Perhaps he was stunned. Perhaps he was merely playing possum, and waiting for a chance to strike a heavy blow for his cause.
A long splinter, ripped from the floor by one of Buck’s shots, cracked neatly in two across the head of Silver. He put an answering bullet right into the red flash of Buck’s gun and heard the impact of the lead striking flesh, the gasp and sigh of the man.
Silver reached Brender with a leap. He had to fumble a bit to find the right ropes before his knife could cut them, and as he groped he heard Brender choking out vague words that were something between a groan and a song. Those sounds did not need to form syllables, for the first instant that his hand touched his friend, Silver knew that all the peril he had undergone, all the danger that still lay before him, was well braved for the sake of this man.
The shadow of Brender rose beside him and ran toward the ladder, staggering a little, because the pressure of the cords had shut
off circulation somewhat and left his legs partially benumbed.
Silver followed. Something in his brain, beating like a metronome, measured off the seconds since the shooting had commenced. The booming echoes of it still seemed to live in the loft of the great barn. Perhaps ten seconds had passed since he opened fire.
And in that time, what had the watchers of Barry Christian done?
Brender was climbing down the ladder. Silver followed. Off to the right, through one of the wide doors of the building, he saw the glance of lantern light that fell on the dark bodies and the pale, gleaming faces of several running men. One of them pointed his hand and fired. Brender loosed his grip on the ladder and dropped to the floor beneath.
Had he been shot through the body?
Silver, swinging out from the ladder, tried a snapshot. The lantern went out; a man yelled sharp and short with pain. Another gun exploded. And now Silver was on the floor of the barn.
All was darkness. Voices and footfalls were retreating from the aisle in which he stood. Brender was not in reaching distance — therefore he must have run on to get to the mare, Chinook. Overhead, the voice of Stew rose like a steam siren, screeching:
“Silver! He’s got Brender loose! Help! Silver’s got Brender! Stop him! Stop him! Help!”
Every screaming phrase jagged through the brain of Silver like red lightning. Outside the barn, other voices were shouting, and then one pealing cry that rang above the rest:
“The rear door! Guard it!”
Was that the voice of Barry Christian?
Silver was pulling from its stall the mustang he had bridled. He heard the gasp of Brender calling his name. Now he was out in the aisle and astride the little horse, and before him Brender was whipping — a dim shadow — onto the back of Chinook.
“Straight back and through the rear door. Ride like a devil, Rap!” called Silver.
Then Chinook shot down the aisle and almost out of sight. The digging heels of Silver made the mustang lurch in pursuit. It sprawled, skidded, almost fell on the wet flooring. Then, straightening, working desperately, it shot out the doorway with a gathering speed.
Silhouettes of men were rising out of the ground like exhalations. Guns flashed.
A shape ran before Silver, shooting. He tried to fire. The hammer of his gun clicked on an empty chamber. He hurled the gun at the dancing shadow, and it was blotted out against the darkness of the ground.
Well before him raced Chinook, gaining ground with every leap.
“Right, Rap! Right! Right!” wailed Silver.
He saw Brender swing obediently to the right, skirting beyond the houses of the peons. Out of those houses large and small shadows were running like giant wasps out of huge nests.
The shooting had ended. It was a turmoil of voices only that raged behind him, and, mixed with it, the snorting of horses, the beating of racing hoofs.
Beneath him the frightened mustang was doing its best, but he knew that he had caught a slow mover. A dozen animals on that place would surely be able to move almost two feet for its one. So Silver whistled high and shrill and long, a call that Parade had learned to know of old.
Silver looked back, straining his eyes. Behind him he saw swift forms darting through the starlight. There were already half a dozen men in pursuit on fast horses. They called one to another. Above all the others rang one voice.
That was Barry Christian, and that must be Christian’s horse which now forged ahead of the others. Chinook drew suddenly back. That was the work of Brender, gallant fool, pulling up his mount to rejoin his friend.
Something shot at Silver from the gloom ahead. He knew the great stride, the inquiring whinny, the lifting head of the stallion, and now Parade swung in at his side, crowding jealously against the mustang.
Silver made that change like a circus rider, at full speed. In an instant he was sitting in the saddle on the back of the stallion. He called, and the cantle of the saddle struck hard against his back as the big horse leaped into full stride.
With his left hand wound into the mane of Parade, he watched the riders of Barry Christian draw back rapidly into obscurity. He caught Chinook and Brender, and heard the Indian yell of triumph from the lips of Rap.
Then, as Silver swung far forward and fitted the bridle over the head of Parade, they left the soft going of the plantation and came out onto the wide, smooth face of the desert, and the rushing wind of the gallop seemed a noise made by wind in the last trees as they swept away into a mound of gloom in the rear.
Other horses were clattering out from the same trees. But what chance had they of overtaking two such flyers? Silver rated Parade to a long, easy lope that kept Chinook laboring to keep up, and gradually the noise of the pursuit melted away, and in the east a pyramid of soft light formed to show where the moon intended to rise.
CHAPTER XV
Christian’s Bargain
IN the hotel of Tom Higgins, Buck and Stew lay on their backs in small cots, side by side. Buck grinned at the ceiling with a wider display of white teeth than usual, for pain had puckered his cheeks a little and drawn the lips back. He was very white; his eyes were glassy, as though with fever. Without stirring an eyelid, he lay still and endured pain. Perhaps he would die, perhaps not. The doctor could not tell.
As for Stew, he drew in his breath through his nose and let it out again through his loose lips with a snoring sound. He kept his eyes closed. He would get well, the doctor had said. In the meantime, he either made that snoring sound with his mouth or else used his excess breath to curse steadily.
“Swine!” said Buck in a whisper.
“It was you,” answered Stew.
“Me what?”
“You that said it was Christian coming back up the ladder. You that throwed me off guard.”
“You heard him speak as good as I did. It sounded like Barry to me,” answered Buck. “I hope the soul of you leaks out through the hole he drilled in you.”
Big Tom Higgins was pacing up and down the room. He paused now and indicated the two wounded men with a gesture, while he turned to Christian.
“Look at that!” he said. “Good, ain’t it? A fine thing for me to have a coupla thugs like that laid up on my hands if a sheriff or something comes by this way?”
“A few drinks of your bar whisky,” said the soft voice of Barry Christian, “will make a whole posse forget the job they’re riding on. Don’t worry, Tom. But think of the hard cash you’ll be paid when this pair is cured.”
Higgins sighed. He wet his vast lips and rubbed them off with the back of his hand.
“I ain’t arguing,” he declared.
Barry Christian rose and smiled on him. Then he stepped between the beds and looked down on the two wounded men.
He said: “You boys will get all that the doctor and Tom Higgins and his men can do for you. When you’re cured, you’ll get a lay-off and plenty of money to spend on your vacation. You’re not being blamed because of what Silver managed to do. It’s my fault. Silver being what he is, I ought never to have left Brender’s side. There’s no worry for you to keep on your mind. When your vacation is over, you’ll come back to me. I won’t see you again for a good many weeks probably. You’ll know where to get in touch with me when you want me. So long!”
Christian turned and called: “Come here, Doc.”
Old Doc Shore appeared out of a corner unexpectedly.
“Where you been keeping yourself, old moss-face?” asked Stew.
Doc Shore divided his white beard with his fingers and smiled on the wounded man. Christian laid a hand on the shoulder of the old man.
He said: “Doc, you stay here and run things. Run everything, including what’s outside. You’re the one who got the message from Lawson to put Silver out, and you planned it well. You called in four big guns to do the trick. One of those guns went wrong, but that wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t tell that Rap Brender would cross us up. Nobody in my outfit has a better or a faster brain than you have, Doc.”
The pink-rimmed eyes of Doc Shore narrowed to slits of fire, so intense was his gratification. He said nothing. Christian waved to the two wounded men in farewell, saying:
“Trust Doc in everything. He’ll take care of you boys.”
Buck feebly raised a hand in acknowledgment, but Stew continued to blow out through his lips with the snoring sound.
“Now,” said Christian to Tom Higgins, “I want you to tell me where I can find Murcio.”
“He’s gone to bed,” said Higgins.
“Wake him up and send him down to the barroom,” said Christian. “I’ll be down there helping myself. Hurry it, Tom!”
Higgins hesitated for half a breath, for he was not used to this calm voice of command. Then, as the eye of Christian flicked across his face, he turned in haste and went off with long strides.
Barry Christian went down to the saloon. The door of it being locked, he took a thin splinter of steel from his pocket and worked for an instant, after which the door opened under his hand and he entered. The place was ordinarily illuminated by two big lamps that hung suspended from the ceiling. They were out now, and the only light was from the moon, which sloped in through an eastern window.
Barry Christian stood for a moment inside the door and breathed deeply. It was not the aromatic scent of liquor that he was inhaling, but a far more ethereal fragrance of adventure, for over his mind flashed the pictures of many other rooms that he had seen by the secret light of night.
There was a lantern hanging against the wall. He raised the chimney, scratched a match, and touched the flame to the wick. Then he placed the lantern on the bar and went behind it. There was one bottle of Scotch whisky. He took that and retired to a little table that stood in the corner of the room. The lantern he left on the bar, running its dim fingers across the lines of colored bottles and setting their reflections in the mirror at their back.
