by Max Brand
Sometimes, as he watched his herd and the cow-punchers on the farther side of the fence, he could see them talk to one another and shake their heads. Then a mist of self-pity would make his eyes dim; he would look upon the whole affair as from a pinnacle of a great height. It was a petty matter. He was a sullen fool, and Chris was a stupid old boor, no more. There was nothing here worth dying about.
Sam Hitchcock, the foreman on the ranch of Chris, called to him one day. “Are you getting your guns limbered up, Willie?”
It was half satirical and half sympathetic, the voice that asked this question, and it brought the last phase of the contest into the mind of Willie with a start. He was no expert with guns. He had used a rifle and a revolver ever since he was a youngster, just as everyone did on the range. But he could claim no particular skill with either weapon. His time was put in on the practical part of ranch work—the tending of cattle, and not the shooting of coyotes. He had not wasted three hours in his entire life pumping lead at targets. If he wished to make a showing, and against odds, he must certainly begin to practice at once.
He observed the fellows on the farther side of the fence. There were at least four of them who were infinitely better than he, and all the others were at least as expert as he. Yet, in another moment, he knew that if the time came when he must oppose fighting men, something would happen in him and make him capable of disposing of his work or else enable him to die as a brave man should. For, from this time forth, he began to feel that he was in the hand of a directing destiny that would drive him on to ruin or success as the case might be.
Then came the trip to town and the talk to the banker in an effort to sell his cattle. He had done small business with that banker before. He was astonished now by the price that was offered to him.
“I’m mighty sorry for you, Merchant,” said the banker, “but I hear that your cattle are in poor condition, just now.”
“They’re starved for water, that’s all. They need a drink, and then they’ll be as good as ever. Two weeks will put them back.”
The banker shook his head. That might be, and again it might not. His sympathy was all with Willie, but this was a business proposition. It was not his own money; he was investing for others; the directors would take him to task; therefore he concluded by offering a tithe of what they were worth. It was a joke, thought Willie, and went elsewhere to strive to strike a bargain. But nothing could be done in reason. His honest friends who he knew would not cheat him were all too poor to offer a price. The men who were able to pay wanted the cattle for nothing. Finally one old codger answered his complaints with a bit of dry, remorseless logic.
“Look here, you want a fair price when I know you’re cornered and that you got to sell. I ain’t a philanthropist. I’m a businessman. I’ve climbed on the heads of them that have gone down. If I can climb on you,all right. If I can’t . . . then sit down and smoke a cigar, but don’t try to talk business with me.”
Willie went back to the ranch and straight to the herd. The first thing he noted was a cow lying on its side with the upper hind leg stiffly extended. He knew without another look that that poor creature was dead. A sudden panic passed through Willie. What if they were all to die because of the lack of water, simply because he could not get his price for them? Then, with anguish in his soul, he fled to the nearest squatter—a fellow who was playing the same game he had tried to play, and had failed in. It was ten miles of hard riding.
“Come get the cows, Jerry,” he told his friend.
“I seen ’em today,” said Jerry. “We could never drive ’em this far.”
“They’ll need watering first.”
“Sure.”
“Then,” said Willie calmly, “they’ll have their water.”
“How?”
“Leave that to me.”
“Willie, you ain’t going to play the fool? Because you lose some cows, you ain’t going to throw away yourself after ’em, are you?”
“What happens to me,” said Willie, smiling, “don’t make a bit of difference. I’m just playing the game with Chris. He’s won the first move. Maybe I got a chance at the second, though.”
At this strange talk, the eyes of Jerry stared. But he rode home with Willie. He helped the latter harness up an old watering wagon that had been abandoned and left there by a wandering hay press. Willie’s ingenuity had patched the holes in the iron. Willie’s skill and industry had repaired the ruined running gear. Now he hitched six staggering, redeyed mules to that watering cart, although two could have pulled it in the days of their strength.
“The whole shebang goes to you, Jerry,” he told his friend. “These hosses and cows and mules are all done and all in. Now you stay here and wait for me to come back.”
Jerry waited, and Willie went straight on toward the ranch of old Chris. Three more cows were dead as he passed the herd. All the others were down, sleeping or resting or dying. He cut a way for himself and the team through the wire fence, and drove on. There was no guard on duty this night. As though Chris were inviting him to break the law.
The cows saw him go through. But not one lurched to its feet to follow him. They were spent in the last stages of exhaustion. So then he hurried as fast as he could go. He reached the great fountain where the spring welled out of the ground, and he tied the mules with fifth chains so that they might not get to the water and kill themselves by drinking great drafts too suddenly. He carried water to them in buckets, poor frantic creatures, until they ceased chafing in their harness and were able to endure the sight of the glimmering waters of the pond in patience. Then he went on to fill the tank of the wagon itself. That was slower work, but, when he backed the heavy wagon under the great pump at the farther side of the pond, he made good progress in filling it. It was a two-man pump, but Willie could have done twice that work with ease on this night. The tank was filled full. The last stroke of the pump sent water swishing cool and black along the sides of the wagon, and then Willie put on the cover, sealed it, watered the mules again, letting them drink more freely this second time, and finally started on toward the gap in the fence.
Jerry was out there to help him, by this time. He had refrained from cutting fence or in any wise breaking the law; he could not help lending a hand to reclaim the cows from death, which were to be his own, and so they passed the water in buckets, and the weakness of those which were down kept them from fighting the buckets out of the hands of their saviors. They could only bellow feebly as the smell of the water reached them. So they were given drink, one by one. Strength returned to them by magic. They rose to their feet. They began to crowd about the wagon, a mass of tossing horns, fighting to get more drink.
By this time they were strong enough to drive, so they started the herd toward the road, and then up the road to Jerry’s place.
“You can buy water off Sawyer on the way,” suggested Willie, and then left his friend and turned to go back.
“I’m only keeping these here for you,” suggested Jerry rather feebly.
“They’re yours for always,” insisted Willie Merchant. “I’ll never take a horn of ’em back again.”
“I’ll come back and help you tend to the hosses as soon as I get these fair started up the road,” said Jerry.
“The hosses are dead,” said Willie calmly. “They died today. All except the roan.”
There was no answer from Jerry, as though he realized that words would not do in a case like this.
Merchant turned back to his ranch alone, while the long train of the cattle that had once been his passed down the road before him, bellowing and fighting, for the water had given them just enough life and energy to make them ugly
Chapter 7
Back to the ranch went Willie. He had four dead cows, now, to replace. The living ones were no matter. He had saved them by giving them to another man, as poor as himself, one who could never have afforded to buy them, but who would be able to support them. With what he already possessed, this would make the nucl
eus of a fine herd.
But all this was behind Willie. The live cattle meant nothing. Only the dead belonged to him. He had not forgotten one syllable of the oath he had sworn in the presence of the people of the town. He went straight through the gap he had cut in the fence. He found a group of a weather-beaten old cows and four gay heifers. These he drove through the gap and back onto his ranch. After this, he carefully spliced the broken fence, and the sun was just rising when he finished his work.
He went back to the shack. He had been so active this day, that he had not had time to realize all that was happening. But when he put on a pot of coffee and built a rousing fire under it, the first fragrance of the coffee as it passed through the shack made the heart of Willie shrink in him. He threw himself down on the bunk and lay motionless, with his face buried in his arms. The whole agony flooded down on him at once. He had lost the three years of his labors. He had lost Jennie. And the house that had been so much to him was now no more than a coffin to him—it enclosed all of his lost hopes.
Willie slept. And when he wakened, there was a hand on his shoulder. It was the tall form and the stern face of Harry Vance that appeared above him, saying: “You’ve finished your game, kid. You just hop up and come along with me.”
Young Merchant sat up and yawned and stretched the sleep out of his arms until the last of it tingled out of his finger tips.
“Hold out your wrists!” said a voice behind Harry Vance.
It was young Pearson. Willie and Pearson had gone to school together, played together, fought together. They had flirted with the same girls, joined the same gang, followed the same ideals. But here was Pearson, looking at him as though the skin of Willie had turned into the hide of a wolf. There was dread and wonder and hatred in his face as he approached, carrying the handcuffs. Willie, as he obediently extended his wrists, thought the thing over. The conclusion came to him in a flash. He was reported a lawbreaker, a cattle rustler, and, being such, not only were the sympathies of people for him destroyed, but he had actually begun to be an object of hatred and fury.
He did not think of this with a passion of resentment, but calmly, remembering another occasion when he himself had ridden out with a posse to catch a parcel of cattle thieves. He could recall the battle fury that had risen in his breast when he had first sighted the fugitives. He could recall how his fingers had itched to pull out his gun. But the gun had not been drawn, and now the situation was reversed.
He despised and pitied young Pearson, just as he despised and pitied the being which had formerly been Willie Merchant, for far different was he now. It was almost worth the price of the agony he had paid and still was paying, this superior knowledge of the hearts of men that was now his.
“Hold on,” said big Harry Vance. “I guess we ain’t going to need no irons. Willie’s got his brains back again by this time. He ain’t going to make things a mess for himself by trying to resist arrest. Besides, he knows me. He ain’t . . . a fool.” And he frowned ominously upon Willie.
Indeed, Willie knew the deputy well. The whole county knew and feared him, and the greatest of all mysteries was why the good sheriff should use such a creature as a tool.
“We don’t need no irons . . . Willie ain’t no fool,” repeated the deputy. “Leave them handcuffs where you found ’em, Pearson.”
Pearson retreated, frowning.
“Cook us up something to eat . . . fix up a snack, will you?” said the deputy.
Willie Merchant went obediently to work. He cooked the best that he had. He had bought some eggs from Mrs. Chundar the day before. He scrambled them now with slices of ham cut crisscross until they were almost minced. He made strong, black coffee whose fragrance filled the whole house. With an expert hand and with wonderful speed, he mixed fresh batter and fried flapjacks that puffed up as light as a feather pillow shaken by the chambermaid’s hand.
The deputy and his assistant ate ravenously. They ate until they leaned heavily back in their chairs and watched the cook industriously puttering about the stove. Neither of them thought to offer to exchange places with him and let him eat while they cooked. They took his service as their due. And he worked most cheerfully, talking as he cooked.
Finally Vance wanted to know why he had been such a fool as to rustle the cattle off the Martin place without running for it after he had done the work. He answered that he had done that rustling not because he expected to escape afterward, but because he had told the townsfolk that he would do that thing, and therefore he must live up to his word.
In the meantime, as he talked, he went back and forth, and finally, still talking, he went out the door of the house to the water wagon. He filled a bucket and brought it in, and turned from the wagon in time to see young Pearson slipping back from the door with a naked revolver in his hand. It made the blood swim across his eyes. Even while he cooked for them and gave them his best, they were prepared to pounce on him.
When he got back, Vance and Pearson were tilted back in their chairs, asking for more coffee. He filled their cups, and then brought forth the ham and scrambled eggs. They had already eaten too much, but, like creatures that cannot turn from good food, they fell to upon the new dish with groans. The deputy shook his head like an aggressive bulldog, and Pearson returned valiantly to the charge. So, placing the last bucket of water that he had brought to heat upon the stove, and picking up another, Willie went out as to get a second supply from the wagon.
He talked as he went. “How about more eggs, Sheriff?” For, by that name, he was complimenting the deputy.
“Why, damn it, Willie. You’re a good fellow. But I’m stuffed, damned if I ain’t.”
Willie had put down the bucket of water and untethered that tall, long-legged, powerful racer of a horse, the gray upon which Vance had ridden out to the ranch house.
“More ham, then, Mister Vance?”
“Not a damn’ thing more, but maybe a swaller of
coffee, Willie.”
“Help yourself,” said Willie from the saddle of the deputy’s horse.
“What?” called Vance a little anxiously, as though catching a new note in the voice of his host.
“You take my ham, I take your horse,” said Willie calmly, and rapped his heels against the ribs of the gray.
At the same time there was a stifled yell from Harry Vance; his knife and fork clattered against his plate; his chair went back with a screech, and then was flung from him and smashed against the wall as Vance dived for the door.
“You rat . . . if you . . . !”
Willie heard that much. Then he was gone. He headed the big gray straight along the side of the shack until the front of the house was just behind him, and then he rocketed across the hollows.
Harry Vance came thundering into the open, but by the time he had taken his bearings and rushed around to the front of the house from which he could view the fugitive, there were scores of precious yards between them. Moreover, the sheriff’s assistant had no rifle with him. That rifle—a beautiful Winchester with fifteen newly loaded cartridges resting in the magazine—lay in the long holster that extended along the side of the gray and under the right knee of Willie Merchant. And to complete his arming, on either side of the saddle there was another holster, and in each holster there was a fine Colt, finished each like a jewel.
And with only a revolver to work, Harry Vance was quite helpless. His first two shots flew wide. His third was straight enough, but it only kicked up the dust at the flying heels of the gray, and after that the tall horse worked quickly out of range. Harry Vance, for his part, stormed back into the house. He met Pearson on the way, a white-faced Pearson, whose eyes were almost starting from his head.
“What’s happened? What’s happened?” stammered Pearson.
“You blockhead, what d’you think?”
“If only,” groaned Pearson, “you’d let me have my way about them there handcuffs . . .”
“Who stopped you? Who stopped you? You talk like a fool. If you’d
had a head about you, you’d’ve kept an eye on him. That was what I was trusting to you. I couldn’t be everywhere. I couldn’t do everything. I had to leave something to you.”
“On your horse,” said Pearson suddenly. “People’ll never stop laughing when they hear that he got away on your horse, Harry Vance.”
“They’ll never forget that. I’ll stick on his trail until I’ve cornered him, and then . . .”
It was absolutely necessary to his physical well-being that he should smash something. So he caught up the heavy stool near the door and hurled it with all his might. It caught the stove, in ring parlance, fairly in the solar plexus. That is to say, it caught the structure fairly amidships and scattered it to bits. It was only a flimsy structure of the thinnest cast iron, hardly able, indeed, to endure the weight of the steaming bucket of heating water that now was fast approaching the boiling point upon its top. At this shock the entire face of the stove caved in. The bucket of hot water dropped to the floor and tipped its steaming contents upon Harry Vance and scalded him to the knees.
At this his fury became madness. He rolled his eyes wildly about him for something alive on which he could wreak his vengeance, but he saw nothing as he danced back and forth outside the shack in an agony of suffering.
Then chance stepped in at this point. For, when the stove collapsed, all the contents of the firebox were scattered across the floor. Some of them fell upon the place where the water had already soaked the floor, and there they harmlessly smoked. But others rolled to the corner where there happened to lie the crumpled wreck of a two-week-old newspaper. This paper smoked for a moment, and then, as it reached the point of conflagration, burst into a broad tongue of yellow flame that, in an instant, had licked up the whole height of the wall. A loose end of wallpaper caught and passed the flame onto the shade with which poor Willie Merchant had recently covered the window. Then the sashes caught the fire beneath them, for all the wood was baked and rebaked into a state of the most perfect tinder dryness. In thirty seconds more that flame was curling around the eaves of the house.
