by Max Brand
“Joan, dear, have you forgotten munner?”
The wildness flickered away from the eyes of the child little by little.
“Munner?” she repeated dubiously.
No shout of welcome, no sudden rush, no arms to fling about her mother. But if her throat was dry and closed Kate allowed no sign of it to creep into her voice.
“Where’s Daddy Dan?”
“He’s gone away.”
“Where?”
“Oh—over there!”
The mother rose slowly to her feet, and looked out across the mountains as if in search of aid. For her mind had harked back to that story her father used to tell of the coming of Dan Barry; how he had ridden across the hills one evening and saw, walking against the sunset, a tattered boy who whistled strangely as he went, and when old Joe Cumberland asked where he was going he had only waved a vague hand toward the north and answered, “Oh—over there. It was sufficient destination for him, it was sufficient explanation now for the child. She remembered how she, herself a child then, had sat at her father’s table and watched the brown face of the strange boy with fascination, and the wild, quick eyes which went everywhere and rested in no one place. They were the eyes which looked up to her now from Joan’s face, and she felt suddenly divorced from her baby, as if all the blood in Joan were the blood of her father.
“He left you here alone?” she murmured.
The child looked at her with a sort of curious amazement.
“Joan isn’t alone.”
She whistled softly, and around the corner of the rock peered two tiny, beady-bright eyes, and the sharp nose of a coyote puppy. It disappeared at once at the sight of the stranger, and now all the strength went from Kate. She slipped helplessly down, and sat on a boulder trying to think, trying to master the panic which chilled her; for she thought of the day when Whistling Dan brought home to the Cumberland Ranch the wounded wolf-dog, Black Bart. But the call of Joan had traveled far, and now a squirrel came in at a gallop with his vast tail bobbing behind him, and ran right up the rock until he was on the shoulder of the child. From this point of vantage, however, he saw Kate, and was instantly on the floor of the cave and scurrying for the entrance, chattering with rage.
The wild things came to Joan as they came to her father, and the eyes of the child were the eyes of Dan Barry. It came home to Kate and she saw the truth for the first time in her life. She had struggled to win him away from his former life, but now she knew that it was not habit which controlled him, for he was wild by instinct, by nature. Just as the tang of his untamed blood had turned the child to this; and a few days more of life with him would leave her wild forever.
“He left you alone here!” she repeated fiercely. “Where a thousand things might happen. Thank God I’ve found you.”
Even if her words conveyed little meaning to Joan, the intonation carried a message which was perfectly clear.
“Don’t you like Daddy Dan?”
“Joan, Joan, I love him! Of course.”
But Joan sat with a dubious eye which quickly darkened into fear.
“Oh, Munner, don’t take us back!”
Such horror and terror and sadness mixed! The tears rushed into the eyes of Kate.
“Do you want to stay here, sweetheart?”
“Yes, munner.”
“Without me?”
At first Joan shook her head decidedly, but thereafter she quickly became thoughtful.
“No, except when we eat.”
“You don’t want me here at dinner-time? Poor munner will get so hungry.”
A great concession was about to burst from the remorseful lips of Joan, but again second thought sobered her. She remained in a quandary, unable to speak.
“Don’t you want me even when you wake up at night?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re so afraid of the dark.”
“Joan’s not afraid. Oh, no! Joan loves the dark.”
If Kate maintained a smile, it was a frozen grimace. It had only been a few days—hardly yesterday—that Joan left, and already she was a little stranger. Suppose Dan should refuse to come back himself; refuse even to give up Joan! She started up, clutching the hand of the child.
“Quick, Joan, we must go!”
“Joan doesn’t want to go!”
“We’ll go—for a little walk. We—we’ll surprise Daddy Dan.”
“But Daddy Dan won’t come back for long, long time. Not till the sun is away down behind that hill.”
That should mean two hours, at least, thought Kate. She could wait a little.
“Joan, what taught you not to be afraid of the dark?”
This problem made Joan look about for an answer, but at length she called softly: “Jackie!”
She waited, and then whistled; at once the bright eyes of the little coyote appeared around the edge of the rock.
“Come here!” she commanded.
He slunk out with his head turned towards Kate and cowered at the feet of the child. And the mother cringed inwardly at the sight; all wild things which hated man instinctively with tooth and claw were the friends, the allies of Whistling Dan, and now Joan was stepping in her father’s path. A little while longer and the last vestige of gentleness would pass from her. She would be like Dan Barry, following calls which no other human could even hear. It meant one thing: at whatever cost, Joan must be taken from Dan and kept Away.
“Jackie sleeps near me,” Joan was saying. “We can see in the dark, can’t we, Jackie?”
She lifted her head, and the moment her compelling eyes left him, Jackie scooted for shelter. The first strangeness had worn away from Joan and she began to chatter away about life in the cave, and how Satan played there by the firelight with Black Bart, and how, sometimes—wonderful sight!—Daddy Dan played with them. The recital was quite endless, as they pushed farther and farther into the shadows, and it was the uneasiness which the dim light raised in her that made Kate determine that the time had come to go home.
“Now,” she said, “we’re going for that walk.”
“Not away down there!” cried Joan.
Kate winced.
“It’s lots nicer here, munner. You’d ought to just see what we have to eat! And my, Daddy Dan knows how to fix things.”
“Of course he does. Now put on your hat and your cloak, Joan.”
“This is lots warmer, munner.”
“Don’t you like it?” she added in alarm, stroking the delicate fur.
“Take it off!”
Kate ripped away the fastenings and tossed the skin far away.
“Oh!” breathed Joan.
“It isn’t clean! It isn’t clean,” cried Kate. “Oh, my poor, darling baby! Get your bonnet and your cloak, Joan, quickly.”
“We’re coming back?”
“Of course.”
Joan trudged obediently to the side of the cave and produced both articles, sadly rumpled, and Kate buttoned her into them with trembling fingers. Something akin to cold made her shake now. It was very much like a child’s fear of the dark.
But as she turned towards the entrance to the cave and caught the hand of Joan, the child wrenched herself free.
“We’ll never come back,” she wailed. “Munner, I won’t go!”
“Joan, come to me this instant.”
Grief and fear and defiance had set the child trembling, but what the mother saw was the glint of the eyes, uneasy, hunting escape with animal cunning. It turned her heart cold, and she knew, with a sad, full knowledge that Dan was lost forever and that only one power could save Joan. That power was herself.
“I won’t go!”
“Joan!”
A resolute silence answered her, and when she went threateningly forward, Joan shrank into the shadows near the rock. It was the play of light striking slantwise from the entrance, no doubt, but it seemed to Kate that a flicker of yellow light danced across the eyes of the child. And it stopped Kate took her breath with a new terror. Dan Barry, in t
he old days, had lived a life as quiet as a summer’s day until the time Jim Silent struck him down in the saloon; and she remembered how Black Bart had come for her and led her to the saloon, and how she found Dan lying on the floor, streaked with blood, very pale; and how she had kneeled by him in a panic, and how his eyes had opened and stared at her without answer and the yellow, inhuman light swirled in them until she rose and backed out the door and fled in a hysteria of fear up the road. That had been the beginning of the end for Dan Barry, that instant when his eyes changed; and now Joan—she ran at her swiftly and gathered her into her arms. One instant of wild struggling, and then the child lay still, her head straightened a little, a shrill whistle pealed through the cave.
Kate stopped that piercing call with her hand, but when she turned, she saw in the entrance the dark body of Bart and his narrow, snake-like head.
CHAPTER XXV
The Battle
“It’s Dan,” whispered Kate. “He’s come.”
“Maybe Daddy Dan sent Bart back alone, munner.”
“Does he do that often? Come quickly, Joan. Run!”
She ran towards the entrance, stumbling over the uneven ground and dragging Joan behind her, but when they came close the wolf-dog bristled and sent down the cavern a low growl that stopped them like an invisible barrier. The softest sounds in his register were ominous warnings to those who did not know Black Bart, but Kate and Joan understood that this muttering, harsh thunder was an ultimatum. If she had worn her revolver, a light, beautifully mounted thirty-two which Dan had given her, Kate would have shot the wolf and gone on across his body; for she had learned from Whistling Dan to shoot quickly as one points a finger and straight by instinct. Even as she stood there barehanded she looked about her desperately for a weapon, seeing the daylight and the promise of escape beyond and only this dumb beast between her and freedom.
Once before, many a year before, she had gone like this, with empty hands, and subdued Black Bart simply through the power of quiet courage and the human eye. She determined to try again.
“Stand there quietly, Joan. Don’t move until I tell you.”
She made a firm step towards Bart.
“Manner, he’ll bite!”
“Hush, Joan. Don’t speak!”
At her forward movement the wolf-dog flattened his belly to the rock, and she saw his forepaws, large, almost, as the hands of a man, dig and work for a purchase from which he could throw himself at her throat.
“Steady, Bart!”
His silence was more terrible than a snarl; yet she stretched out her hand and made another step. It brought a sharp tensing of the body of Bart—the fur stood up about his throat like the mane of a lion, and his eyes were a devilish green. Another instant she kept her place, and then she remembered the story of Haines—how Bart had gone with his master to that killing at Alder. If he had killed once, he would kill again; wild as he had been on that other time when she quelled him, he had never before been like this. The courage melted out of her; she forgot the pleasant day outside; she saw only those blazing eyes and shrank back towards the center of the cave. The muscles of the wolf relaxed visibly, and not till that moment did she realize how close she had been to the crisis.
“Bad Bart!” cried Joan, running in between. “Bad, bad dog!”
“Stop, Joan! Don’t go near him!”
But Joan was already almost to Bart. When Kate would have run to snatch the child away that deep, rattling growl stopped her again, and now she saw that Joan ran not the slightest danger. She stood beside the huge beast with her tiny fist raised.
“I’ll tell Daddy Dan on you,” she shrilled.
Black Bart made a furtive, cringing movement towards the child, but instantly stiffened again and sent his warning down the cave to Kate. Then a shadow fell across the entrance and Dan stood there with Satan walking behind. His glance ran from the bristling body of Bart to Kate, shrinking among the shadows, and lingered without a spark of recognition.
“Satan,” he ordered, “go on in to your place.”
The black stallion glided past the master and came on until he saw Kate. He stopped, snorting, and then circled her with his head suspiciously high, and ears back until he reached the place where his saddle was usually hung. There he waited, and Kate felt the eyes of the horse, the wolf, the man, and even Joan, curiously upon her. “Evenin’,” nodded Dan, “might you have come up for supper?” That was all. Not a step towards her, not a smile, not a greeting, and between them stood Joan, her hands clasped idly before her while she looked from face to face, trying to understand. All the pangs of heart which come to woman between girlhood and old age went burningly through Kate in that breathing space, and afterwards she was cold, and saw herself and all the others clearly.
“I haven’t come for supper. I’ve come to bring you back, Dan.”
Not that she had the slightest hope that he would come, but she watched him curiously, almost as if he were a stranger, to see how he would answer.
“Come back?” he echoed. “To the cabin?”
“Where else?”
“It ain’t happy there.” He started. “You come up here with us, Kate.”
“And raise Joan like a young animal in a cave?”
He looked at her with wonder, and then at the child.
“Ain’t you happy, Joan, up here?”
“Oh, Daddy Dan, Joan’s so happy!”
“You see,” he said to Kate, “she’s terribly happy.”
It was his utter simplicity which convinced her that arguments and pleas would be perfectly useless. Just behind the cool command which she kept over herself now was hysteria. She knew that if she relaxed her purposefulness for an instant the love for him would rush over her, weaken her. She kept her mind clear and steady with a great effort which was like divorcing herself from herself. When she spoke, there was another being which stood aside listening in wonder to the words.
“You’ve chosen this life, Dan, I won’t blame you for leaving me this time any more than I blamed you the other times. I suppose it isn’t you. It’s the same impulse, after all, that took you south after—after the wild geese.” She stopped, almost broken down by the memory, and then recalled herself sternly. “It’s the same thing that led you away after MacStrann through the storm. But whether it’s a weakness in you, or the force of something outside your control, I see this thing clearly; we can’t go on. This is the end.”
He seemed troubled, vaguely, as a dog is anxious when it sees a child weep and cannot make out the reason.
“Oh, Dan,” she burst out, “I love you more than ever! If it were I alone, I’d follow you to the end of the world, and live as you live, and do as you do. But it’s Joan. She has to be raised as a child should be raised. She isn’t going to live with—with wild horses and wolves all her life. And if she stays on here, don’t you see that the same thing which is a curse in you will grow strong and be a curse in her? Don’t you see it growing? It’s in her eyes! Her step is too light. She’s lost her fear of the dark. She’s drifting back into wildness. Dan, she has to go with me back to the cabin!”
At that she saw him start again, and his hand went out with a swift, subtle gesture towards Joan.
“Let me have her! I have to have her! She’s mine!” Then more gently: “You can come to see her whenever you will. And, finally pray God you will come and stay with us always.”
He had stepped to Joan while she spoke, and his hands made a quick movement of cherishing about her golden head, without touching it. For the first and the last time in her life, she saw something akin to fear in his eyes.
“Kate, I can’t come back. I got things to do—out here!”
“Then let me take her.”
She watched the wavering in him.
“Things would be kind of empty if she was gone, Kate.”
“Why?” she asked bitterly. “You say you have your work to do—out here?”
He considered this gravely.
“I dunno
. Except that I sort of need her.”
She knew from of old that such questions only puzzled him, and soon he would cast away the attempt to decide, and act. Action was his sphere. There was only one matter in which he was unfailingly, relentlessly the same, and that was justice. To that sense in him she would make her last appeal.
“Dan, I can’t take her. I only ask you to see that I’m right. She belongs to me, I bought her with pain.”
It was a staggering blow to Whistling Dan. He took off his sombrero and passed his hand slowly across his forehead, then looked at her with a dumb appeal.
“I only want you to do the thing you think is square, Dan.”
Once more he winced.
Then, slowly: “I’m tryin’ to be square. Tryin’ hard. I know you got a claim in her. But it seems like I have, too. She’s like a part of me, mostly. When she’s happy, I feel like smilin’ sort of. When she cries it hurts me so’s I can’t hardly stand it.”
He paused, looking wistfully from the staring child to Kate.
He said with sudden illumination: “Let her do the judgin’! You ask her to go to you, and I’ll ask her to come to me. Ain’t that square?”
For a moment Kate hesitated, but as she looked at Joan it seemed to her that when she stretched out her arms to her baby nothing in the world could keep them apart.
“It’s fair,” she answered. Dan dropped to one knee.
“Joan, you got to make up your mind. If you want to stay with, with Satan—speak up, Satan!”
The stallion whinnied softly, and Joan smiled.
“With Satan and Black Bart”—the wolf-dog had glided near, and now stood watching—“and with Daddy Dan, you just come to me. But if you want to go to—to Munner, you just go.” On his face the struggle showed—the struggle to be perfectly just. “If you stay here, maybe it’ll be cold, sometimes when the wind blows, and maybe it’ll be hard other ways. And if you go to munner, she always be takin’ care of you, and no harm’ll ever come to you and you’ll sleep soft between sheets, and if you wake up in the night she’ll be there to talk to you. And you’ll have pretty little dresses with all kinds of colors on ’em, most like. Joan, do you want to go to munner, or stay here with me?”
