by Max Brand
Tom was on the verge of diving into this when the cry of the hounds rounded the top of the hill above the marsh. Then he dived and swam as he had never done before. When he came up, chilled and dripping, on the farther side, he shook the water out of his ears and listened again.
Shouts of men were now plainly discernible, some of them fading away toward the west. In that direction lay the end of the marsh and the bridge. But they were too late, he felt certain. It would be half an hour before they could have rounded the bridge and stormed back up the road toward the farm, and in half of that time he ought to be on the back of a fresh horse. He might even be able to stay and saddle one of the best in the corral.
With freshened vigor, then, he plunged into the heart of the marsh again. Instantly he was sunk to his chest in a quicksand, but he tore himself out with a fierce, soft shout of pleasure as all of his sinewy strength came to bear. Sometimes he tripped and fell headlong. Sometimes his boots were literally stuck in a thick adobe mud, and he had to stop and drag out his feet one at a time.
But—perhaps it was only his fury of impatience to be on the back of a horse again—it seemed to him that he should be already seeing daylight on the thinner, outer edge of the marsh. He stopped and quickly cast his directions again by the hill from which he had entered and the hill toward which he had aimed. And he found that he had been traveling for the past few minutes directly at right angles from the original course he had mapped. That discovery turned him cold. Five minutes were a vital gap. To make up for the loss, he veered and tore ahead in a perfect fury of effort. And so, at length, the trees suddenly thinned out, and his foot struck firm ground.
Just before him was a barbed-wire fence. He leaped it in his running stride, like a practiced hurdler, and dashed across the first narrow field. The trees of the marsh circled in on his left, and therefore he could not tell what might be approaching on the road from the bridge, but, if they had been near, he could have heard the pounding of their horses’ hoofs. Another barbed-wire fence. He leaped to clear it, but his foot slipped at the vital moment on a stone, his heel drove into the top strand of the wire, and he pitched forward on his face. The impact stunned him.
When he came out of blackness, so fiercely had his instincts and his subconscious self been fighting to carry him on to his goal that he found he was already on his feet and stumbling blindly ahead. His brain cleared instantly. He raced on for the barn, a hideous spectacle by this time. From where his forehead had struck the ground, a crimson stream was trickling down and clotting in red masses in his great beard. His clothes, ripped to a hundred tatters by the struggle through the marsh, streamed behind his shoulders. His sombrero was long since gone, of course, and his hair, which he habitually wore rather long, now stood on end, stiff with slime and mud.
He had quick reason to discover the effect of his appearance, for now he was among the buildings of the ranch, and a woman, with a pail full of eggs, stepped from the door. She screamed and threw her hand across her eyes at the sight of the monster. Tom saw her collapse against the wall of the barn, and drove on.
Into the right side of that barn he ran, his speed redoubled now, for in the distance he heard the purr of the beating hoofs of many horses’ sounding loud and clear from a stretch of hard-packed road surface. They were coming fast, and to avoid them would need both a good horse and quick start.
He issued from the barn, with the corral of horses on one side and the house on the other. From the house a middle-aged man and a boy were running in response to the scream of the woman. At sight of Tom Keene, a deep-throated shout and shrill yell arose. He saw the father jerk out a gun, and, whipping forth his own weapon, he fired well into the air. Impulse of self-protection, not fighting heart, had made the former draw his weapon. Now he dropped it and fairly took to his heels, while Tom, running on, snatched from the upper rail of the corral the bridle that had been carelessly thrown there.
His skillful eye swept over the horses in the enclosure. There was only one, to him. It was a fine four-year-old bay, standing an inch, at least, over sixteen hands, and from shoulders to hocks manifestly and expressly designed for the carrying of weight. How such an animal could have come into the possession of such a farmer, Tom did not pause to ask. But now and again mustangs would revert to the true type of that hot-blooded stock from which it had sprung. This must be such a reversion.
Moreover, best of all for his purposes now, the horse was apparently a pet, for, while the other animals crowded away toward the far fence of the corral, the tall bay stood fast, merely tossing up his fine head and looking inquisitively toward the stranger.
Tom vaulted to the top of the fence and looked back. Far away down the road he could see them coming, the men of the posse, a full dozen of them riding as fast as their sweating horses would carry them. And he saw them swing up their quirt-bearing hands at the sight of him and then lower their heads to plunge on. He saw, also, in that backward glance, that the twelve-year-old boy who had run out from the house had not followed the example of his father. Instead of running, he had leaned and swept the fallen revolver from the ground, and now, white-faced and resolute, he faced Tom.
“Don’t take the bay,” he piped. “Any hoss but the bay, stranger! That’s my hoss! Leave Dick alone!”
Tom registered the youngster as a plucky little chap, and the next moment was beside tall Dick. The big horse was gentle as a kitten. He merely snorted a little. Then he allowed the bit to be slipped into his mouth. Tom leaped onto his back.
“No, no, no!” screamed a voice that was partly hoarse with desperation and partly choked with sobbing. “Not Dick … my hoss …!”
“I’ll send him back!” Tom shouted, and he turned the big fellow at the fence. He took it like a bird, though doubtless he had never jumped such an obstacle before with or without a rider. But, as the bay shot into the air, struggled for balance like a feathering oar, and then swooped down on the far side, Tom Keene shouted with triumph, for he knew that he had a horse, indeed.
“Good boy!” he cried. And as the words left his mouth, the revolver spoke behind him, and a bullet whistled above his head. He looked back, his own weapon instinctively poised in his hand. But it was the boy. He stood with desperately twisted face, his feet braced, the revolver extended at arm’s length and gripped in both hands. Again the heavy Colt boomed as Tom, with a laugh, dropped his own weapon back into the holster. But this time the bullet did not whistle past. Instead, tall Dick staggered and stumbled.
Something hot gushed across the knee of Tom. He looked down and saw crimson spouting from the shoulder of the horse. An instant more, and the gallant fellow was away again in full stride, only with his ears flattened to give token that he had been injured.
Tom Keene took swift stock of his surroundings. Half a mile away there was a small field with horses in it, which, from the distance at least, looked good enough to be tried even in a great emergency like this. But if he made for them, he would have tall Dick dead before he reached them. No doubt the bay could make the run, even with this wound. But, if he died from it, Tom would never forgive himself.
The revolver was barking again, but, after that luckless shot, none of the bullets came near him. In the meantime, the posse was drumming the road closer and closer. If he stopped the bay, he practically surrendered.
But so be it. It was hard that he could not slip away, disappear, and so give John Carver a chance to play the part of an honest man by himself and his wife and daughter. But the bullet of the boy had cut short the possibility of that. He must stay and tell the truth.
A word and a pull on the reins brought Dick to a halt, and Tom slipped from his back. The boy, who had started wildly and futilely in pursuit after discharging his last bullet, was instantly beside them with a wail of grief as soon as he saw the wound. He threw his arms up, and the big horse, even in his pain, lowered his head, trembling, to the shoulder of the child.
&n
bsp; “Oh, Dick!” cried the boy. “Oh, Dick! I’ve killed you!” And he shouted furiously, through his tears, at Tom, “You’ll hang for what you’ve done! You’ll hang for it!”
“Gimme that shirt off your back, son, and stop talking if you want to keep this horse alive. Quick, now. We got work to do, and fast work, at that.”
Chapter Eighteen
This was the amazing spectacle that the posse came upon as it stormed around the farmhouse of Pete Chanley. Little Billy Chanley, stripped to the waist and dancing with excitement and eagerness to help, hovered around the mud-clotted form of the man they were pursuing, and that man was working hard to stanch the flow from the wounded shoulder of the big bay horse.
They circled around the White Mask with guns poised, ready to kill. Even in their most optimistic moments they had not the slightest hope of capturing alive a criminal so desperate. But when the sheriff advanced and thrust two guns under the very ear of the big man, Tom Keene merely roared, “Take them gats away! I can’t be bothered. Here, buddy, yank out my gun and give it to ’em. I ain’t going to put my hands up. I’m busy.”
It was not a dignified thing for a sheriff to do, but somehow or other it was impossible to do other than step back and let the fugitive have his way of it. The posse stood back, excited, silent, ready for any sort of trick and a break, but with a growing amazement that there was nothing they could do, and that their notable outlaw had sacrificed himself for the sake of a horse.
When he had done his best, he turned a muddy, wild-bearded face upon them and actually smiled. “Well, boys,” he said, “it looks like you have me, eh? And now that you got me, I’m sorry to tell you that I ain’t the man you want.”
“Maybe not,” agreed the smooth-spoken sheriff who saw the greatest feat of his life accomplished on this day, and who believed that he now possessed surety of reelection so long as he cared to run for office, “maybe not. That ain’t the only thing that you’ll be wanting to say to the judge. For now, partner, just shove your hands into these, will you?”
His wrists were instantly encircled. “Go as far as you like,” said Tom, “but I’ve got to tell you …”
“You know that anything you say is apt to be used against you?”
“Sure.” Tom smiled again. “Matter of fact, I don’t think I’ll do any talking right now.”
He had just begun to think of what might happen should John Carver be seized—of the misery and sadness that would be brought into the house. It was better to let matters drag along for a few days, even for a few weeks, until Carver’s wound had been healed, and he was equipped for an escape from the country. Then, when he left, he could simply mail from some distant place a confession that would release Tom from all danger of the law. As this idea came to him, he sighed and then lifted his head and smiled through his muddy beard. The sigh was at the thought of the weary days of confinement that lay before him. The smile came when he thought of the bright face of Mary Carver when, on a day, she should learn what he had done.
Back at the farmhouse they reluctantly allowed him to wash himself clean, for they wished to exhibit him to the good people of Porterville as terrific a spectacle as he had made when they ran him to the ground. As it was, the scene was spectacular enough when they rode through the street of the town, with Tom Keene in their midst, bareheaded, with his beard and long hair blowing, and looking more like a giant than ever. His tattered clothes, the ragged and unclosed wound that crossed his forehead, everything about him suggested desperation and desperate strength. Instinctively the men and women who had heard of what was coming, and who had packed into the town to see the sight, looked from the formidable prisoner to the calm-faced sheriff who rode at the side of Tom. And, just as Sheriff Thomas expected, they one and all agreed that he must have their vote so long as he cared to run for office.
As for their comments on the prisoner, they were such as are usually made when a man is arrested for such crimes. In their hearts they half admired and wholly feared the courage with which he must have been endowed even to conceive the things that were attributed to him. For the White Mask was one of those half-legendary figures that grow up on the mountain-desert from time to time. Men had done a hundred many desperate acts, but what little the White Mask had done had served to gather an atmosphere of the mysterious and the awful around him. The figure of Tom Keene, also, fitted in with the conception of great power, though he seemed rather a lion than the fox that the White Mask was reputed to be.
So Tom was brought down the street where he had preached faith and charity. And as the crowd remembered his sermon, the humor of the thing caught them, and a chuckle spread around. There was something intriguing, they felt, in boldness like that of Tom Keene.
He was brought to the little jail. There they searched him again—a mere formality, for he had been relieved of even his matches at the time he was captured. They took down his name and the date of his birth. They asked for a statement, which he refused to make, and then he was brought to his cell. The noises of the little town were shut away. The one stout building in Porterville was this little jail with its walls of thick stone, and when the doors closed and the sheriff alone stood before him, his face checked by the small bars of the door, Tom Keene felt for the first time the full decisiveness of his move. Seen from the outside, the law is a thing that few persons pay much attention to, but, seen from the inside, as Tom was seeing it now, it became vastly changed. It was a great machine. It had long-reaching arms. It had irresistible hands that clutched and crushed whatever came within their grip.
And the little, smooth-spoken sheriff, who had seemed so insignificant to him before, now became a man grim because of what he represented. Now the man of the law raised a cautioning forefinger.
“Keene … if that’s what you really want us to call you,” he said, “I’ve got one thing to say before I leave you. Nobody has tried to dig through these walls and managed to do it. So long.”
And he was gone, whistling lightly as he passed down the corridor. The moment he was alone there came another shock for Tom, and this time he realized with redoubled vividness why men he had known long before—gamblers and their ilk—had dreaded the word prison. For, in a breath, his life was shrunk to a space eight feet by six feet, bounded by barriers of iron and stone.
He shrugged his shoulders, however, realizing that it was only a temporary confinement, and lay down on the cot to rest and ponder the sad future of the Carvers. Now, more than ever, they needed him. And he came to the definite conclusion that, as soon as he was out, he would devote himself certainly to their welfare.
What chiefly troubled him was the thought of the panic that would sweep over poor Carver when the robber learned that Tom had been captured. Word must be sent to the man at once, if possible, reassuring him about Tom’s attitude, until his shoulder was healed. That, after all, should be a matter of no very long time, because, so far as Tom had been able to make out, the wound was a flesh one only.
Here he shouted loudly until the sheriff appeared again and in haste.
“Sheriff,” said Tom, “I need some little things. And Missus Carver is friendly to me. Besides, I want to write out and say a word to her about not knowing who he was when I shot her husband. Can I send out a letter?”
The sheriff paused, then nodded. It was not strictly legal, but the work that he did was rarely circumscribed by legal limitations. He went away and returned with writing materials. “Write as much as you want,” he said. “And what you write won’t be opened. I’ll send it out to Missus Carver myself.”
“Matter of fact,” Tom said, “I think I’ll send it to Carver. I guess that I can’t gain anything by entering into a plot with a man I’ve shot down, can I?”
The sheriff laughed. “I guess not,” he said. “You go ahead and write. The letter won’t be opened.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Here’s a letter for you, Carver,”
said the sheriff, putting the missive into the hand of the wounded man. “It ain’t just according to the way things ought to be for me to let a prisoner send out letters that I ain’t read. But there’s something about this White Mask … if that’s what he really is … that appeals to me. I can’t help wishing him luck. Well, so long, Carver. I hope this little accident will teach you to stay put for a while.”
He was gone breezily. John Carver heard the man of law speaking to Mrs. Alison, the bent old crone who had come to help while there were two injured people in the house. Elizabeth Carver had gone shopping to town.
Shopping, and gossiping, too, thought, her husband. What would she learn? What must Tom Keene have said in his defense by this time, and how far had the gossips of the village spread the tidings broadcast, labeled with the stamp of their belief? For the town was filled with people who, he knew, were eager to blacken his name.
And what would his wife think when she heard what Tom must long before this have said with the passion of a desperate man? Carver knew that the love of his wife had long since been dulled by his neglect and his ill use of her. Perhaps this would be the final blow—she would not only believe what the gossips had to say, but she herself would declare against him. And the result of such a declaration would be ruin for him. If she told even a tithe of the things that she knew about him, his reputation would be blasted forever. But perhaps everything was said in this letter, and Tom Keene was holding him up with threats.
Here he tore open the letter, raised it with trembling hands to the level of his eyes, and swept his glance hungrily down to the bottom. Then he dropped the paper with a gasp, raised it again, and repeated the message to himself slowly, stunned by what he saw. The missive read:
