by Max Brand
“You’re wrong. I know what Silent can do with his hands. No one could beat him up. What’s the name of the other?”
“Barry. Whistling Dan Barry.”
Calder hesitated.
“Right or wrong, I’d like to have this Barry with me. So long.”
He was gone as he had come, with a nod and a flash of the keen, black eyes. Lee Hardy stared at the door for some moments, and then went outside. The warm light of the sun had never been more welcome to him. Under that cheering influence he began to feel that with Tex Calder behind him he could safely defy the world.
His confidence received a shock that afternoon when a heavy step crossed the outside room, and his door opening without a preliminary knock, he looked up into the solemn eyes of Jim Silent. The outlaw shook his head when Hardy offered him a chair.
“What’s the main idea of them two new men out in your front room, Lee?” he asked.
“Two cowpunchers that was down on their luck. I got to stand in with the boys now and then.”
“I s’pose so. Shorty Rhinehart in here to see you, Lee?”
“Yep.”
“You told him that the town was gettin’ pretty hot.”
“It is.”
“You said you had no dope on when that delayed shipment was comin’ through?”
Hardy made lightning calculations. A half truth would be the best way out.
“I’ve just got the word you want. It come this morning.”
Silent’s expression changed and he leaned a little closer.
“It’s the nineteenth. Train number 89. Savvy? Seven o’clock at Elkhead!”
“How much? Same bunch of coin?”
“Fifty thousand!”
“That’s ten more.”
“Yep. A new shipment rolled in with the old one. No objections?”
Silent grinned.
“Any other news, Lee?”
“Shorty told you about Tex Calder?”
“He did. Seen him around here?”
The slightest fraction of a second in hesitation.
“No.”
“Was that the straight dope you give Shorty?”
“Straighter’n hell. They’re beginnin’ to talk, but I guess I was jest sort of panicky when I talked with Shorty.”
“This Tex Calder—”
“What about him?” This with a trace of suspicion.
“He’s got a long record.”
“So’ve you, Jim.”
Once more that wolflike grin which had no mirth.
“So long, Lee. I’ll be on the job. Lay to that.”
He turned towards the door. Hardy followed him. A moment more, in a single word, and the job would be done. Five thousand dollars for a single word! It warmed the very heart of Lee Hardy.
Silent, as he moved away, seemed singularly thoughtful. He hesitated a moment with bowed head at the door — then whirled and shoved a six-gun under the nose of Hardy. The latter leaped back with his arms thrust above his head, straining at his hands to get them higher.
“My God, Jim!”
“You’re a low-down, lyin’ hound!”
Hardy’s tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.
“Damn you, d’you hear me?”
“Yes! For God’s sake, Jim, don’t shoot!”
“Your life ain’t worth a dime!”
“Give me one more chance an’ I’ll play square!”
A swift change came over the face of Silent, and then Hardy went hot with terror and anger. The long rider had known nothing. The gun play had been a mere bluff, but he had played into the hands of Silent, and now his life was truly worth nothing.
“You poor fool,” went on Silent, his voice purring with controlled rage. “You damn blind fool! D’you think you could double cross me an’ get by with it?”
“Give me a chance, Jim. One more chance, one more chance!”
Even in his terror he remembered to keep his voice low lest those in the front room should hear.
“Out with it, if you love livin’!”
“I — I can’t talk while you got that gun on me!”
Silent not only lowered his gun, but actually returned it to the holster. Nothing could more clearly indicate his contempt, and Hardy, in spite of his fear, crimsoned with shame.
“It was Tex Calder,” he said at last.
Silent started a little and his eyes narrowed again.
“What of him?”
“He came here a while ago an’ tried to make a deal with me.”
“An’ made it!” said Silent ominously.
No gun pointed at him this time, but Hardy jerked his hands once more above his head and cowered against the wall.
“So help me God he didn’t, Jim.”
“Get your hands down.”
He lowered his hands slowly.
“I told him I didn’t know nothin’ about you.”
“What about that train? What about that shipment?”
“It’s jest the way I told you, except that it’s on the eighteenth instead of the nineteenth.”
“I’m goin’ to believe you. If you double cross me I’ll have your hide. Maybe they’ll get me, but there’ll be enough of my boys left to get you. You can lay to that. How much did they offer you, Lee? How much am I worth to the little old U.S.A.?”
“I — I — it wasn’t the money. I was afraid to stick with my game any longer.”
The long rider had already turned towards the door, making no effort to keep his face to the agent. The latter, flushing again, moved his hand towards his hip, but stopped the movement. The last threat of Silent carried a deep conviction with it. He knew that the faith of long riders to each other was an inviolable bond. Accordingly he followed at the heels of the other man into the outside room.
“So long, old timer,” he called, slapping Silent on the shoulder, “I’ll be seein’ you ag’in before long.”
Calder’s men looked up with curious eyes. Hardy watched Silent swing onto his horse and gallop down the street. Then he went hurriedly back to his office. Once inside he dropped into the big swivel-chair, buried his face in his arms, and wept like a child.
12. PARTNERS
DUST POWDERED HIS hat and clothes as Tex Calder trotted his horse north across the hills. His face was a sickly grey, and his black hair might have been an eighteenth century wig, so thoroughly was it disguised. It had been a long ride. Many a long mile wound back behind him, and still the cattle pony, with hanging head, stuck to its task. Now he was drawing out on a highland, and below him stretched the light yellow-green of the willows of the bottom land. He halted his pony and swung a leg over the horn of his saddle. Then he rolled a cigarette, and while he inhaled it in long puffs he scanned the trees narrowly. Miles across, and stretching east and west farther than his eye could reach, extended the willows. Somewhere in that wilderness was the gang of Jim Silent. An army corps might have been easily concealed there.
If he was not utterly discouraged in the beginning of his search, it was merely because the rangers of the hills and plains are taught patience almost as soon as they learn to ride a horse. He surveyed the yellow-green forest calmly. In the west the low hanging sun turned crimson and bulged at the sides into a clumsy ellipse. He started down the slope at the same dog-trot which the pony had kept up all day. Just before he reached the skirts of the trees he brought his horse to a sudden halt and threw back his head. It seemed to him that he heard a faint whistling.
He could not be sure. It was so far off and unlike any whistling he had ever heard before, that he half guessed it to be the movement of a breeze through the willows, but the wind was hardly strong enough to make this sound. For a full five minutes he listened without moving his horse. Then came the thing for which he waited, a phrase of melody undoubtedly from human lips.
What puzzled him most was the nature of the music. As he rode closer to the trees it grew clearer. It was unlike any song he had ever heard. It was a strange improvisation with a touch of both melanch
oly and savage exultation running through it. Calder found himself nodding in sympathy with the irregular rhythm.
It grew so clear at last that he marked with some accuracy the direction from which it came. If this was Silent’s camp, it must be strongly guarded, and he should approach the place more cautiously than he could possibly do on a horse. Accordingly he dismounted, threw the reins over the pony’s head, and started on through the willows. The whistling became louder and louder. He moved stealthily from tree to tree, for he had not the least idea when he would run across a guard. The whistling ceased, but the marshal was now so near that he could follow the original direction without much trouble. In a few moments he might distinguish the sound of voices. If there were two or three men in the camp he might be able to surprise them and make his arrest. If the outlaws were many, at least he could lie low near the camp and perhaps learn the plans of the gang. He worked his way forward more and more carefully. At one place he thought a shadowy figure slipped through the brush a short distance away. He poised his gun, but lowered it again after a moment’s thought. It must have been a stir of shadows. No human being could move so swiftly or so noiselessly.
Nevertheless the sight gave him such a start that he proceeded with even greater caution. He was crouched close to the ground. Every inch of it he scanned carefully before he set down a foot, fearful of the cracking of a fallen twig. Like most men when they hunt, he began to feel that something followed him. He tried to argue the thought out of his brain, but it persisted, and grew stronger. Half a dozen times he whirled suddenly with his revolver poised. At last he heard a stamp which could come from nothing but the hoof of a horse. The sound dispelled his fears. In another moment he would be in sight of the camp.
“Do you figger you’ll find it?” asked a quiet voice behind him.
He turned and looked into the steady muzzle of a Colt. Behind that revolver was a thin, handsome face with a lock of jet black hair falling over the forehead. Calder knew men, and now he felt a strange absence of any desire to attempt a gun-play.
“I was just taking a stroll through the willows,” he said, with a mighty attempt at carelessness.
“Oh,” said the other. “It appeared to me you was sort of huntin’ for something. You was headed straight for my hoss.”
Calder strove to find some way out. He could not. There was no waver in the hand that held that black gun. The brown eyes were decidedly discouraging to any attempt at a surprise. He felt helpless for the first time in his career.
“Go over to him, Bart,” said the gentle voice of the stranger. “Stand fast!”
The last two words, directed to Calder, came with a metallic hardness, for the marshal started as a great black dog slipped from behind a tree and slunk towards him. This was the shadow which moved more swiftly and noiselessly than a human being.
“Keep back that damned wolf,” he said desperately.
“He ain’t goin’ to hurt you,” said the calm voice. “Jest toss your gun to the ground.”
There was nothing else for it. Calder dropped his weapon with the butt towards Whistling Dan.
“Bring it here, Bart,” said the latter.
The big animal lowered his head, still keeping his green eyes upon Calder, took up the revolver in his white fangs, and glided back to his master.
“Jest turn your back to me, an’ keep your hands clear of your body,” said Dan.
Calder obeyed, sweating with shame. He felt a hand pat his pockets lightly in search for a hidden weapon, and then, with his head slightly turned, he sensed the fact that Dan was dropping his revolver into its holster. He whirled and drove his clenched fist straight at Dan’s face.
What happened then he would never forget to the end of his life. Calder’s weapon still hung in Dan’s right hand, but the latter made no effort to use it. He dropped the gun, and as Calder’s right arm shot out, it was caught at the wrist, and jerked down with a force that jarred his whole body.
“Down, Bart!” shouted Dan. The great wolf checked in the midst of his leap and dropped, whining with eagerness, at Calder’s feet. At the same time the marshal’s left hand was seized and whipped across his body. He wrenched away with all his force. He might as well have struggled with steel manacles. He was helpless, staring into eyes which now glinted with a yellow light that sent a cold wave tingling through his blood.
The yellow gleam died; his hands were loosed; but he made no move to spring at Dan’s throat. Chill horror had taken the place of his shame, and the wolf-dog still whined at his feet with lips grinned back from the long white teeth.
“Who in the name of God are you?” he gasped, and even as he spoke the truth came to him — the whistling — the panther-like speed of hand— “Whistling Dan Barry.”
The other frowned.
“If you didn’t know my name why were you trailin’ me?”
“I wasn’t after you,” said Calder.
“You was crawlin’ along like that jest for fun? Friend, I figger to know you. You been sent out by the tall man to lay for me.”
“What tall man?” asked Calder, his wits groping.
“The one that swung the chair in Morgan’s place,” said Dan. “Now you’re goin’ to take me to your camp. I got something to say to him.”
“By the Lord!” cried the marshal, “you’re trailing Silent.”
Dan watched him narrowly. It was hard to accuse those keen black eyes of deceit.
“I’m trailin’ the man who sent you out after me,” he asserted with a little less assurance.
Calder tore open the front of his shirt and pushed back one side of it. Pinned there next to his skin was his marshal’s badge.
He said: “My name’s Tex Calder.”
It was a word to conjure with up and down the vast expanse of the mountain-desert. Dan smiled, and the change of expression made him seem ten years younger.
“Git down, Bart. Stand behind me!” The dog obeyed sullenly. “I’ve heard a pile of men talk about you, Tex Calder.” Their hands and their eyes met. There was a mutual respect in the glances. “An’ I’m a pile sorry for this.”
He picked up the gun from the ground and extended it butt first to the marshal, who restored it slowly to the holster. It was the first time it had ever been forced from his grasp.
“Who was it you talked about a while ago?” asked Dan.
“Jim Silent.”
Dan instinctively dropped his hand back to his revolver.
“The tall man?”
“The one you fought with in Morgan’s place.”
The unpleasant gleam returned to Dan’s eyes.
“I thought there was only one reason why he should die, but now I see there’s a heap of ’em.”
Calder was all business.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“About a day.”
“Have you seen anything of Silent here among the willows?”
“No.”
“Do you think he’s still here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I dunno. I’ll stay here till I find him among the trees or he breaks away into the open.”
“How’ll you know when he leaves the willows?”
Whistling Dan was puzzled.
“I dunno,” he answered. “Somethin’ will tell me when he gets far away from me — he an’ his men.”
“It’s an inner sense, eh? Like the smell of the bloodhound?” said Calder, but his eyes were strangely serious.
“This day’s about done,” he went on. “Have you any objections to me camping with you here?”
Not a cowpuncher within five hundred miles but would be glad of such redoubted company. They went back to Calder’s horse.
“We can start for my clearing,” said Dan. “Bart’ll bring the hoss. Fetch him in.”
The wolf took the dangling bridle reins and led on the cowpony. Calder observed his performance with starting eyes, but he was averse to asking questions. In a few moments they
came out on a small open space. The ground was covered with a quantity of dried bunch grass which a glorious black stallion was cropping. Now he tossed up his head so that some of his long mane fell forward between his ears and at sight of Calder his ears dropped back and his eyes blazed, but when Dan stepped from the willows the ears came forward again with a whinny of greeting. Calder watched the beautiful animal with all the enthusiasm of an expert horseman. Satan was untethered; the saddle and bridle lay in a corner of the clearing; evidently the horse was a pet and would not leave its master. He spoke gently and stepped forward to caress the velvet shining neck, but Satan snorted and started away, trembling with excitement.
“How can you keep such a wild fellow as this without hobbling him?” asked Calder.
“He ain’t wild,” said Dan.
“Why, he won’t let me put a hand on him.”
“Yes, he will. Steady, Satan!”
The stallion stood motionless with the veritable fires of hell in his eyes as Calder approached. The latter stopped.
“Not for me,” he said. “I’d rather rub the moustache of the lion in the zoo than touch that black devil!”
Bart at that moment led in the cowpony and Calder started to remove the saddle. He had scarcely done so and hobbled his horse when he was startled by a tremendous snarling and snorting. He turned to see the stallion plunging hither and thither, striking with his fore-hooves, while around him, darting in and out under the driving feet, sprang the great black wolf, his teeth clashing like steel on steel. In another moment they might sink in the throat of the horse! Calder, with an exclamation of horror, whipped out his revolver, but checked himself at the very instant of firing. The master of the two animals stood with arms folded, actually smiling upon the fight!
“For God’s sake!” cried the marshal. “Shoot the damned wolf, man, or he’ll have your horse by the throat!”
“Leave ’em be,” said Dan, without turning his head. “Satan an’ Black Bart ain’t got any other dogs an’ hosses to run around with. They’s jest playing a little by way of exercise.”
Calder stood agape before what seemed the incarnate fury of the pair. Then he noticed that those snapping fangs, however close they came, always missed the flesh of the stallion, and the driving hoofs never actually endangered the leaping wolf.
