The Max Brand Megapack

by Max Brand

  The pleading eyes of Kate raised Byrne to his feet.

  “My dear Mr. Barry!” he called. The other turned again and waited. “Do you mean that you will leave us while Mr. Cumberland is in this critical condition?”

  A shadow crossed the face of Barry.

  “I’d stay if I could,” he answered. “But it ain’t possible!”

  “What takes you away is your affair, sir,” said the doctor. “My concern is Mr. Cumberland. He is in a very precarious condition. The slightest nerve shock may have—fatal—results.”

  Dan Barry sighed.

  “Seemed to me,” he answered, “that he was buckin’ up considerable. Don’t look so thin, doc.”

  “His body may be well enough,” said the doctor calmly, “but his nerves are wrecked. I am afraid to prophesy the consequences if you leave him.”

  It was apparent that a great struggle was going on in Barry. He answered at length: “How long would I have to stay? One rain could wipe out all the sign and make me like a blind man in the desert. Doc, how long would I have to stay?”

  “A few days,” answered Byrne, “may work wonders with him.”

  The other hesitated.

  “I’ll go up and talk with him,” he said, “and what he wants I’ll do.”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  TALK

  He was long in getting his answer. The hours dragged on slowly for Kate and the doctor, for if Joe Cumberland could hold Dan it was everything to the girl, and if Barry left at once there might be some root for the hope which was growing stronger and stronger every day in the heart of Randall Byrne. Before evening a not unwelcome diversion broke the suspense somewhat.

  It was the arrival of no less a person than Marshal Jeff Calkins. His shoulders were humped and his short legs bowed from continual riding, and his head was slung far forward on a gaunt neck; so that when he turned his head from one to another in speaking it was with a peculiar pendulum motion. The marshal had a reputation which was strong over three hundred miles and more of a mountain-desert. This was strange, for the marshal was a very talkative man, and talkative men are not popular on the desert; but it has been discovered that on occasion his six-gun could speak as rapidly and much more accurately than his tongue. So Marshal Calkins waxed in favour.

  He set the household at ease upon his arrival by announcing that “they hadn’t nothin’ for him there.” All he wanted was a place to bunk in, some chow, and a feed for the horse. His trail led past the Cumberland Ranch many and many a dreary mile.

  The marshal was a politic man, and he had early in life discovered that the best way to get along with any man was to meet him on his own ground. His opening blast of words at Doctor Byrne was a sample of his art.

  “So you’re a doc, hey? Well, sir, when I was a kid I had a colt that stuck its foreleg in a hole and busted it short and when that colt had to be shot they wasn’t no holdin’ me. No, sir, I could of cleaned up on the whole family. And ever since then I’ve had a hankerin’ to be a doc. Something about the idea of cuttin’ into a man that always sort of tickled me. They’s only one main thing that holds me back—I don’t like the idea of knifin’ a feller when he ain’t got a chance to fight back! That’s me!”

  To this Doctor Randall Byrne bowed, rather dazed, but returned no answer.

  “And how’s your patient, doc?” pursued the irresistible marshal. “How’s old Joe Cumberland? I remember when me and Joe used to trot about the range together. I was sort of a kid then; but think of old Joe bein’ down in bed—sick! Why, I ain’t never been sick a day in my life. Sick? I’d laugh myse’f plumb to death if anybody ever wanted me to go to bed. What’s the matter with him, anyway?”

  “His nerves are a bit shaken about,” responded the doctor. “To which I might add that there is superimposed an arterial condition—”

  “Cut it short, Doc,” cried the marshal goodnaturedly. “I ain’t got a dictionary handy. Nerves bad, eh? Well, I don’t wonder about that. The old man’s had enough trouble lately to make anybody nervous. I wouldn’t like to go through it myself. No, sir! What with that Dan Barry—I ain’t steppin’ on any corns, Kate, am I?”

  She smiled vaguely, but the marshal accepted the smile as a strong dissent.

  “They was a time not so long ago when folks said that you was kind of sweet on Dan. Glad to hear they ain’t nothin’ in it. ’S a matter of fact—”

  But here Kate interrupted with a raised hand. She said: “I think that was the supper gong. Yes, there it is. We’ll go in now, if you wish.”

  “They’s only one sound in the world that’s better to me than a dinner gong,” said the profuse marshal, as they seated themselves around the big dining table, “and that was the sound of my wife’s voice when she said ‘I will.’ Queer thing, too. Maria ain’t got a very soft voice, most generally speakin’, but when she busted up in front of that preacher and says ‘I will,’ why, God A’mighty—askin’ your pardon, Kate—they was a change come in her voice that was like a bell chimin’ down in her throat—a bell ringin’ away off far, you know, so’s you only kind of guess at it! But comin’ back to you and Dan, Kate—”

  It was in vain she plied the marshal with edibles. His tongue wagged upon roller-bearings and knew no stopping. Moreover, the marshal had spent some portion of his life in a boarding house and had mastered the boarding-house art of talking while he ate.

  “Comin’ back to you and Dan, we was all of us sayin’ that you and Dan kind of had an eye for each other. I s’pose we was all wrong. You see, that was back in the days before Dan busted loose. When he was about the range most usually he was the quietest man I ever sat opposite to barrin’ one—and that was a feller that went west with a bum heart at the chuck table! Ha, ha, ha!” The marshal’s laughter boomed through the big room as he recalled this delightful anecdote. He went on: “But after that Jim Silent play we all changed our minds, some. D’you know, doc, I was in Elkhead the night that Dan got our Lee Haines?”

  “I’ve never heard of the episode,” murmured the doctor.

  “You ain’t? Well, I be damned!—askin’ your pardon, Kate—But you sure ain’t lived in these parts long! Which you wouldn’t think one man could ride into a whole town, go to the jail, knock out two guards that was proved men, take the keys, unlock the irons off’n the man he wanted, saddle a hoss, and ride through a whole town—full of folks that was shootin’ at him. Now, would you think that was possible?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “And it ain’t possible, I’m here to state. But they was something different about Dan Barry. D’you ever notice it, Kate?”

  She was far past speech.

  “No, I guess you never would have noticed it. You was livin’ too close to him all the time to see how different he was from other fellers. Anyway, he done it. They say he got plugged while he was ridin’ through the lines and he bled all the way home, and he got there unconscious. Is that right, Kate?”

  He waited an instant and then accepted the silence as an affirmative.

  “Funny thing about that, too. The place where he come to was Buck Daniels’ house. Well, Buck was one of Jim Silent’s men, and they say Buck had tried to plug Dan before that. But Dan let him go that time, and when Buck seen Dan ride in all covered with blood he remembered that favour and he kept Dan safe from Jim Silent and safe from the law until Dan was well. I seen Buck this morning over to Rafferty’s place, and—”

  Here the marshal noted a singular look in the eyes of Kate Cumberland, a look so singular that he turned in his chair to follow it. He saw Dan Barry in the act of closing the door behind him, and Marshal Calkins turned a deep and violent red, varied instantly by a blotchy yellow which in turn faded to something as near white as his tan permitted.

  “Dan Barry!” gasped the marshal, rising, and he reached automatically towards his hip before he remembered that he had laid his belt and guns aside before he entered the dining-room, as etiquette is in the mountain-desert. For it is held that shooting at the tabl
e disturbs the appetite.

  “Good evenin’,” said Dan quietly. “Was it Buck Daniels that you seen at Rafferty’s place, Marshal Calkins?”

  “Him,” nodded the marshal, hoarsely. “Yep, Buck Daniels.”

  And then he sank into his chair, silent for the first time. His eyes followed Barry as though hypnotized.

  “I’m kind of glad to know where I can find him,” said Barry, and took his place at the table.

  The silence continued for a while, with all eyes focused on the new-comer. It was the doctor who had to speak first.

  “You’ve talked things over with Mr. Cumberland?” he asked.

  “We had a long talk,” nodded Dan. “You was wrong about him, doc. He thinks he can do without me.”

  “What?” cried Kate.

  “He thinks he can do without me,” said Dan Barry. “We talked it all over.”

  The silence fell again. Kate Cumberland was staring blankly down at her plate, seeing nothing; and Doctor Byrne looked straight before him and felt the pulse drumming in his throat. His chance, then, was to come. By this time the marshal had recovered his breath.

  He said to Dan: “Seems like you been away some time, Dan. Where you been hangin’ out?”

  “I been ridin’ about,” answered Dan vaguely.

  “Well,” chuckled the marshal, “I’m glad they ain’t no more Jim Silents about these parts—not while you’re here and while I’m here. You kept things kind of busy for Glasgow, Dan.”

  He turned to Kate, who had pushed back her chair.

  “What’s the matter, Kate?” he boomed. “You ain’t lookin’ any too tip-top. Sick?”

  “I may be back in a moment,” said the girl, “but don’t delay supper for me.”

  She went out of the room with a step poised well enough, but the moment the door closed behind her she fairly staggered to the nearest chair and sank into it, her head fallen back, her eyes dim, and all the strength gone from her body and her will. Several minutes passed before she roused herself, and then it was to drag herself slowly up the stairs to the door of her father’s room. She opened it without knocking, and then closed it and stood with her back against it, in the shadow.

  CHAPTER XXX

  THE VOICE OF BLACK BART

  Her father lay propped high with pillows among which his head lolled back. The only light in the room was near the bed and it cast a glow upon the face of Joe Cumberland and on the white linen, the white hair, the white, pointed beard. All the rest of the room swam in darkness. The chairs were blotches, indistinct, uncertain; even the foot of the bed trailed off to nothingness. It was like one of those impressionistic, very modern paintings, where the artist centres upon one point and throws the rest of his canvas into dull oblivion. The focus here was the face of the old cattleman. The bedclothes, never stirred, lay in folds sharply cut out with black shadows, and they had a solid seeming, as the mort-cloth rendered in marble over the effigy. That suggested weight exaggerated the frailty of the body beneath the clothes. Exhausted by that burden, the old man lay in the arms of a deadly languor, so that there was a kinship of more than blood between him and Kate at this moment. She stepped to the side of the bed and stood staring down at him, and there was little gentleness in her expression. So cold was that settled gaze that her father stirred, at length, shivered, and without opening his eyes, fumbled at the bed-spread and drew it a little more closely about his shoulders. Even that did not give him rest; and presently the wrinkled eyelids opened and he looked up at his daughter. A film of weariness heavier than sleep at first obscured his sight, but this in turn cleared away; he frowned a little to clear his vision, and then wagged his head slowly from side to side.

  “Kate,” he said feebly, “I done my best. It simply wasn’t good enough.”

  She answered in a voice as low as his, but steadier: “What could have happened? Dad, what happened to make you give up every hold on Dan? What was it? You were the last power that could keep him here. You knew it. Why did you tell him he could go?”

  The monotone was more deadly than any emphasis of a raised word.

  “If you’d been here,” pleaded Joe Cumberland, “you’d have done what I done. I couldn’t help it. There he sat on the foot of the bed—see where them covers still kind of sag down—after he told me that he had something to do away from the ranch and that he wanted to go now that Black Bart was well enough to travel in short spells. He asked me if I still needed him.”

  “And you told him no?” she cried. “Oh Dad, you know it means everything to me—but you told him no?” He raised a shaking hand to ward off the outburst and stop it.

  “Not at first, honey. Gimme a chance to talk, Kate. At first I told him that I needed him—and God knows that I do need him. I dunno why—not even Doc Byrne knows what there is about Dan that helps me. I told Dan all them things. And he didn’t say nothin’, but jest sat still on the foot of the bed and looked at me.

  “It ain’t easy to bear his eyes, Kate. I lay here and tried at first to smile at him and talk about other things—but it ain’t easy to bear his eyes. You take a dog, Kate. It ain’t supposed to be able to look you in the eye for long; but s’pose you met up with a dog that could. It’d make you feel sort of queer inside. Which I felt that way while Dan was lookin’ at me. Not that he was threatenin’ me. No, it wasn’t that. He was only thoughtful, but I kept gettin’ more nervous and more fidgety. I felt after a while like I couldn’t stand it. I had to crawl out of bed and begin walkin’ up and down till I got quieter. But I seen that wouldn’t do.

  “Then I begun to think. I thought of near everything in a little while. I thought of what would happen s’pose Dan should stay here. Maybe you and him would get to like each other again. Maybe you’d get married. Then what would happen?

  “I thought of the wild geese flyin’ north in the spring o’ the year and the wild geese flyin’ south in the fall o’ the year. And I thought of Dan with his heart followin’ the wild geese—God knows why!—and I seen a picture of him standin’ and watchin’ them, with you nearby and not able to get one look out of him. I seen that, and it made my blood chilly, like the air on a frosty night.

  “Kate, they’s something like the power of prophecy that comes to a dyin’ man!”

  “Dad!” she cried. “What are you saying?”

  She slipped to her knees beside the bed and drew his cold hands towards her, but Joe Cumberland shook his head and mildly drew one hand away. He raised it, with extended forefinger—a sign of infinite warning; and with the glow of the lamp full upon his face, the eyes were pits of shadow with stirring orbs of fire in the depths.

  “No, I ain’t dead now,” he said, “but I ain’t far away from it. Maybe days, maybe weeks, maybe whole months. But I’ve passed the top of the hill, and I know I’m ridin’ down the slope. Pretty soon I’ll finish the trail. But what little time I’ve got left is worth more’n everything that went before. I can see my life behind me and the things before like a cold mornin’ light was over it all—you know before the sun begins to beat up the waves of heat and the mist gets tanglin’ in front of your eyes? You know when you can look right across a thirty mile valley and name the trees, a’most the other side? That’s the way I can see now. They ain’t no feelin’ about it. My body is all plumb paralyzed. I jest see and know—that’s all.

  “And what I see of you and Dan—if you ever marry—is plain—hell! Love ain’t the only thing they is between a man and a woman. They’s something else. I dunno what it is. But it’s a sort of a common purpose; it’s havin’ both pairs of feet steppin’ out on the same path. That’s what it is. But your trail would go one way and Dan’s would go another, and pretty soon your love wouldn’t be nothin’ but a big wind blowin’ between two mountains—and all it would do would be to freeze up the blood in your hearts.”

  “I seen all that, while Dan was sittin’ at the foot of the bed. Not that I don’t want him here. When I see him I see the world the way it was when I was under thirty. When
there wasn’t nothin’ I wouldn’t try once, when all I wanted was a gun and a hoss and a song to keep me from tradin’ with kings. No, it ain’t goin’ to be easy for me when Dan goes away. But what’s my tag-end of life compared with yours? You got to be given a chance; you got to be kept away from Dan. That’s why I told him, finally, that I thought I could get along without him.”

  “Whether or not you save me,” she answered, “you signed a death warrant for at least two men when you told him that.”

  “Two men? They’s only one he’s after—and Buck Daniel has had a long start. He can’t be caught!”

  “That Marshal Calkins is here to-night. He saw Buck at Rafferty’s, and he talked about it in the hearing of Dan at the table. I watched Dan’s face. You may read the past and see the future, Dad, but I know Dan’s face. I can read it as the sailor reads the sea. Before to-morrow night Buck Daniels will be dead; and Dan’s hands will be red.”

  She dropped her head against the bedclothes and clasped her fingers over the bright hair.

  When she could speak again she raised her head and went on in the same swift, low monotone: “And besides, Black Bart has found the trail of the man who fired the barn and shot him. And the body of Buck won’t be cold before Dan will be on the heels of the other man. Oh, Dad, two lives lay in the hollow of your hand. You could have saved them by merely asking Dan to stay with you; but you’ve thrown them away.”

  “Buck Daniels!” repeated the old man, the horror of the thing dawning on him only slowly. “Why didn’t he get farther away? Why didn’t he ride night and day after he left us? He’s got to be warned that Dan is coming!”

  “I’ve thought of that. I’m going into my room now to write a note and send it to Buck by one of our men. But at the most he’ll have less than a day’s start—and what is a day to Satan and Dan Barry?”

  “I thought it was for the best,” muttered old Joe. “I couldn’t see how it was wrong. But I can send for Dan and tell him that I’ve changed my mind.” He broke off in a groan. “No, that wouldn’t be no good. He’s set his mind on going by this time, and nothing can keep him back. But—Kate, maybe I can delay him. Has he gone up to his room yet?”