by Max Brand
“Time may wear the feeling away,” I said.
“No,” replied Pepillo. “It will never die in you, I think.” He said it so serious and so grave that I couldn’t help more than half believing him.
I was glad that we had the roundup to take my thoughts away from myself that day. We scoured up the valley and got the rest of the cattle into shape for counting. Well, old Henry Randal was out there. He worked himself almost blind trying to count fewer than he had seen the day before, but he couldn’t do it and he couldn’t make out what was different, because we had sifted the new cows and calves very thorough through the rest of the herd. He couldn’t tell any difference, except that where he had counted the cows about sixty below par the day before, he now had to admit that the number was about forty more than could have been expected. Finally, he rode up to Harry Randal, and there was a happy light in his eye.
“Harry,” he said, “I think that you’re beating me, and I thank heaven for it. And maybe you’re right about him … because if he can turn tricks like this, he may be just the sort of a poison that’s needed here on Sour Creek.”
Harry Randal was almost turning himself inside out, he was so happy. But he had to take a chance to snarl at me.
“You get the credit from the old man for this,” he said, “but you know and I know that it was just the darnedest piece of luck that ever came to any man. And if my luck is coming in, I’m gonna play it and play it hard.”
Oh, he was a fine chap, that Harry Randal. I said to him, “Your opinion is like the opinion of your grandfather, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t give a hang what it is. I’m in Sour Creek to do a job and I’m gonna do it. But I’ll take no lip from you on the way, Randal.”
Oh, what a black look he gave me. If he’d had the power, he would’ve liked to chaw me up fine, I can tell you.
In the meantime, I was pretty busy. We had the cows now, but how long would we be able to keep them? What I did right on the spot was to hire four kids from Sour City—four boys about fourteen to fifteen years old. It was vacation time. I got them for almost nothing, and I told them what I wanted them to do. They could be counted on to keep wider awake than any ordinary cowpuncher. They were so proud to be used to keep a watch against the rustlers that they pretty nearly busted.
I had each of the four posted on a high hill toward the head of the valley of Sour Creek. They could look clean across to one another, into the cañons and down toward the ranch. I had each of the boys pile up two heaps of brush close together. One brush was of dead twigs and bushes. That pile was covered with a tarpaulin, and it was kept with a little can of oil nearby. In the night, if a kid was to see or hear anything suspicious, he was to throw the oil on the pile of dried brush and to light it quick. The blaze of the fire would be seen at the ranch house, where I kept a lookout, night and day. If there was trouble in the day, the kids were to light the dry brush and then heap on the green stuff from the second pile, which would raise a column of smoke big enough to be seen fifty miles away.
That wasn’t all. Each of them had a double-barreled shotgun. Each was ordered to have it with him night and day. In case one was surprised, so that he didn’t have a chance to light the heap, he was to fire off that gun—one barrel if he could, or two barrels. Then the other kids would be sure to hear the noise, and they would light their fires and send their signal down the valley to the ranch house, too.
Every day Shorty or Rusty McArdle or me, we rode the rounds and inspected those kids, let them rest for a while. They liked it a lot. We brought them plenty of chuck and ammunition, so they could practice “killing rustlers” all day long. Then we looked over their shotguns and praised the way they kept them and admired how neat and soldierlike they did everything. Those four kids were so proud that you couldn’t hardly touch them.
They seemed to be doing the work, too, because for five days, there was no sign of a rustler running cows out of the valley—not one sign at all.
Harry Randal begun to breathe easier. He couldn’t kick at the sum of money that I was giving as wages to the boys. He had to admit that it was a fine scheme. So, during those five days things got so that I didn’t have much to worry about, except Shorty and the mean way that he had with me. But I was almost glad to have Shorty acting sour, because anything that helped to take my mind away from the ghost of Stephen Randal’s wife was pretty welcome to me.
However, I pretty near had a showdown with Shorty the day after the roundup. How it came about was that me and Shorty spotted a fool steer that had bogged down, and we worked on him together till we got him onto firm footing. Then the idiot lit out and chased us as if we were his mortal enemies. We managed to dodge away from him, though, and we sat our horses on a hump of ground and laughed at that idiot as he went tearing across the plain, throwing his head and acting like he had just conquered the world, instead of only being pulled out of a mud hole.
Well, the laugh sobered right out of the face of Shorty when he woke up to the fact that he was out here alone with me. He gave me his worst black look, then he started to ride away.
“Hey, Shorty!” I cried. “Come back here!”
He turned around in the saddle, glowering at me. “I can hear you from over here,” he said. “What you want?”
“Look here,” I said, “tell me what I’ve done to Pepillo that’s made you so hot against me?”
I thought that he would bust. He was so mad that he turned red and then he turned white. “Ain’t you got no shame?” asked Shorty. “I know that you got no decency nor cleanness, but I would think that in a man of your size there might be a little room for shame, you know.”
That was enough to make most folks fight, but I wasn’t in a fighting mood.
I said, “Now, Shorty, I wouldn’t take that much from most folks. But I’ll tell you straight that I like the way that you stick up for Pepillo, though I’m cursed if I know why you’ve buried the hatchet against him.”
“You don’t know?” asked Shorty. “You don’t know? Like the devil you don’t! And why do you keep up the bluff talking to me like this here?”
“What bluff?”
“What bluff?” screamed Shorty. He wrung his hands together and finally he was able to get his madness down under control so that he could speak again. He said to me, “Now, Big Boy, I want you to know that the only reason that I don’t try to put a slug of lead through you, the way that I had ought to do, is that the kid won’t let me. I’ve begged for a chance at you … but the only answer is no. Now, if there’s ever a change of mind, and I get permission, the first thing that I do will be to tap at your door and tell you to come out with your shooting irons.”
“Shorty,” I said, “you’re crazy.”
“Because you’re one of these here dead shots?” asked Shorty. “Oh, I know that stuff, and how you killed the rabbit a hundred yards away. But that ain’t what counts with me. I can’t kill a rabbit at a hundred yards, but I can kill a man at twenty. And I’m gonna come trying when I get the word.”
I should have argued with him, but I couldn’t. I was getting too mad myself. “Well, you come along whenever you’re ready,” I said.
“And I got this to say,” Shorty said as he turned his horse away, “I’ve mixed with some low-down skunks, but you’re the lowest. You’re so low that you could stand up straight and walk right under the belly of a snake and never touch the top of your hat!”
That’s what Shorty said to me on this day. And I went back to the ranch in a daze. Who was the kid? Who was he that he could make Shorty go wild like this? A younger brother?
No! A young nobleman? No, that seemed wrong, too. Heaven knew what the answer to the riddle was.
I couldn’t tell that I was mighty close to having everything explained, and explained in a way that would clear it all from start to finish—clear it in a single word—make it all easy to see. Only—right at that minute I was a mill
ion miles away from knowing what the single word could be. Just as you’re a million miles from knowing that word, too.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
For five days, everything had gone pretty well, and I was set for smiling at the whole world, with the exception of the trouble with Shorty. I hoped that in time I should be able to see a way to smooth even that over pretty well. I really began to think that I had beaten the game—heaven forgive me, because right then was when the blow fell.
I mustn’t get ahead of the game. When I come to write about the terrible time that was coming, I want to go slow and easy, and show you everything just as it happened, beginning with the night that I woke up and found Pepillo sneaking out of the room.
He always slept yonder in a corner of the room, sticking to his goatskins, though I noticed that finally he sneaked a mattress under the skin, and so he was fixed pretty comfortable.
I should never have noticed him moving this night, because when Blue Jay decided on moving without noise, he was more silent than a flying owl. But ever since the ghost had looked in on me, there hadn’t been a single night that I slept really sound, because all of the time I was sort of expecting that she might appear before me again, and if I was too sound asleep, I would miss her.
Anyway, my eyes opened before I had heard a thing, and I saw the shadow of Pepillo stand up. He came over to my bed and leaned there a minute and then he shoved a little piece of paper under my pillow. After that, he went for the door, stepping mighty silent. He didn’t seem to be expecting anything behind him, though, because when I rose from my bed, he jumped sideways almost to the wall and whirled around on me with a gasp.
I just shut the door and locked it and dropped the key into my pocket.
“All right, kid,” I said, “where were you going?”
“No place,” Pepillo said like a fool boy.
I lighted the lamp, and while I was doing it, he made a step for my bed and snatched beneath the pillow. He missed, though. Then I picked up the pillow and I found the paper that had been put there.
It threw Pepillo into a good deal of excitement. “It is only a joke, señor!” he exclaimed. “It means only nothing.”
“That’s why you’re shaking so bad, then?” I asked, looking him over. Because he was white and unsteady. He was dressed for a trip, too, belt and all, though his clothes were put on not so sassy as usual. I opened the paper and I read:
Big Boy,
I’m sorry to sneak off in the night, but it saves a lot of arguing and explaining. You and I have got along pretty fine. I’m sorry that I can’t tell you all about everything, and now I know that I’ll never be able to explain to you. Well, best of luck to you, old-timer. You’re going to beat the game here and make yourself rich. Then you build your house and get your pictures and buy your horses and your woman.
So long,
Pepillo
“Short and snappy,” I said to the kid.
“I’m sorry,” said Blue Jay.
“Well, what’s wrong?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“What have I done to hurt your feelings this time?” I asked. “Because if you’ll explain, I’ll apologize. I’ve got no pride where you’re concerned, Blue Jay.”
Well, the Blue Jay leaned against the wall and he hid his eyes behind his hand.
“Look here,” I said, “you’re homesick. Is that it? You got an idea that you have to go to see your own people. Now, I’d be right tickled to pay your way out to see them … wherever they may be … and back again. If you’ll come back.”
“I need no money,” said Pepillo. “Only … I shall be glad to go.”
“You’ll come back, then?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Look me in the eye,” I said, “and then say that over again. Slow and steady.”
“I shall … come … back,” Pepillo said. But he couldn’t work the bluff. He broke down. His strength faded out of him and it left him pretty weak.
“Look me in the eye!”
He couldn’t do it at all.
“You little liar,” I said. “You wouldn’t come back.”
“Señor! Señor!” said the Blue Jay, getting terrible excited, but fighting to keep from showing it. “I must go.”
“You must not go,” I said.
I thought he would drop, he seemed so scared.
“You must not go,” I said. “You think that you have to, but down in your heart you know that you don’t want to go.”
“Ha!” cried Pepillo. “Why do I not want to go?”
“Because you’re happy here.”
“And what, pray, should make me happy here?”
“Because you got room for your natural meanness to bust loose out here on the range.”
“I am to be happy here? I tell you, señor, that this is a dull and a stupid life to me. I am tired of it and I desire to go.”
“Are you tired of me, too, Blue Jay?”
“Why should I not be? Yes, I am tired of you, too. Will you unlock the door, señor?”
It cut me pretty deep and quick, of course. I got up and I shoved the key into the lock. But I pulled it out again.
“No,” I said.
“Bah!” Pepillo said. “What shall I do to prove that I do not want to stay?”
“Come here,” I told him.
He came swaggering across the room and he stood there in front of me, with his head chucked back and his legs braced far apart, and a sort of a sneer on his lips. There was never anybody that could look more like a sassy devil than that Pepillo, as maybe I’ve said before.
“I am here, señor.”
“Now, then, you’ve been happy here before?”
“Yes, for a time.”
“What’s changed you, then?”
He looked me right in the eye. “Do you think that I can live forever listening to the cursing and the stupid talk of cowpunchers? No, they are very stupid and tiresome. I have had enough of it.”
“And of me, too, Pepillo?”
“Why not?” asked the kid. “Are you very different from the rest of them?”
“I don’t believe you, Blue Jay,” I said. “I think that you’re lying to me. You don’t really mean that you’re tired of me.”
He flew into a rage. “Bah! I have never heard of such a pig of a man. Could I not be tired of you? And do you think I have ever forgotten that you dared to strike me … me?” He snapped his fingers under my nose.
It made me terrible mad. I jumped up and grabbed him by the wrist. “I got half a mind to flog you again, curse your sassy hide!” I cried. “There’s the key. Unlock the door and get out of here and never dare to come back again.”
“Good!” he answered. He jammed the key into the lock. But he couldn’t quite find the place, and I heard the key chatter once or twice against the lock.
I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.
Yes, sir, there was tears in his eyes. So I knocked that key out of his hand and put my foot on it. “Pepillo,” I said, “you’re the grandest natural-born liar in this here world.”
I couldn’t tell you how the Blue Jay looked at me, with his lips trembling, and his eyes softening. Yet there was a sort of a despair in his face.
“No, no, Big Boy. I do not want to go, but I must go.”
“You must go … and never come back? Now how come that is possible? Look here, kid,” I said, “I dunno how it is, but there ain’t much that I wouldn’t give up for you. You understand? Now, if you were to tell me how I could make things so that …”
He shook his head. “There is nothing that even you can do. I must go.”
“You must not go. And I tell you, Pepillo, that I won’t let you go.”
It seemed to throw a tremendous scare into him. “B-b-big Boy,” he stammered, “will
you believe me? Will you please believe me, in the name of heaven, when I swear to you that if I do not go tonight, you will die before morning? Oh, I swear that is true. So let me go. Let me go!”
I did believe that there might be something in what the Blue Jay said. There was a sort of a mystery all wrapped around him, like he wouldn’t bring any good luck to anybody. And then besides, there was a ghostly feeling in me ever since the image of the dead woman trailed the perfume of jasmine into the room and down the stairs into the night.
“All right, Blue Jay,” I said. “Then I’ll die, since it’s my turn to take chances again.”
He shook his head. He was fair dancing up and down in all his impatience.
“They are waiting for me now,” gasped out Pepillo. “I must go. I am already late. Ah, no, señor. I was a fool to tell you this. I should have known that I could not frighten you. Only I tell you not … for pity of yourself and for me, let me go!”
“Will you explain to me,” I said, “how it could be a mercy to you to let you go? Is your life threatened, too?”
“Aye,” said the Blue Jay, “because I should never be happy so long as I lived.”
I stepped back and stared at him.
No, there wasn’t any doubt about him being sincere now. It was written all over his face that he meant exactly what he had said.
I tried to understand. “Blue Jay, I think that you’re serious. But I can’t make up my mind about it. I swear I want only to do what’s right by you … but you’ve lied so often to me …”
“I’m telling you only the very truth now,” said Pepillo. “I shall swear …”
Into that last speech of his there cut a sharp sound of a whistle from the night beyond the house, and it was just as though a whip had slashed across Blue Jay.
“They have come,” said Pepillo. “Now … now … let me go.” He was fair shaking. He wanted to get out into the dark, and still he was afraid to go.
“Tell me who they are,” I said, “and I may let you go.”
“I can only tell you,” said the Blue Jay, “that they are men who will wait not ten seconds, and then they will kill us both, señor.”
