The Max Brand Megapack

by Max Brand

  And Bud winced, and made no reply. He hung his head, doggedly, until his small mother ran to him out of the corner of the room and cast her meager arms around him.

  “Oh, Buddy, Buddy darlin’!” she sobbed against his breast. “My own boy, my brave boy. Oh, thank Heaven, thank Heaven!”

  He cradled her in his arms, and he turned to the wall for fear that the others might see what was happening upon that grim face of his. His father gripped his arm with a brown old hand and said not a word, but it was plain that the ties which held that family together had been riveted with something stronger than steel, in the last moment.

  The Kid, in the meantime, sat down in the chair and drew a breath.

  “Well,” he said frankly, “I thought that I was a goner, that time.”

  Then he nodded toward Davey.

  “You’re a cool kid,” said he. “I can thank you first, Davey. And, Bud, something more than cancels out, too. He lost two thousand and put up a fight, besides. And this Deacon is a wild cat. I know all about him. Aren’t you, Deacon?”

  The smile with which he asked this last question turned the pallor of Deacon from yellow-white to green-white. He blinked. But resolutely he maintained his smile.

  “Well, what’s the game?” said Deacon, lightly.

  “Sit down and make yourself a cigarette,” said the Kid. “There’s no hurry. We’ll just have a friendly little chat. That’s all.”

  “About what?” asked Deacon.

  “Oh, about old times. And new ones, too. I want to know who hired the pair of you for this job, Deacon.”

  “Yeah? You wanta know?” said Deacon. “You ain’t expecting me to talk, Kid, are you?”

  “Yes,” drawled the Kid. “You’ll talk, all right.”

  Sam Deacon shrugged his lean shoulders. His eyes flickered aside toward the door. Then they returned to the face of the Kid, who was lighting a cigarette. Almost desperately, Deacon followed that example.

  “You’ll talk,” said the Kid. “You’ll tell me everything.”

  “I’ll not say a word,” declared Deacon, and pinched his lips together with an effort.

  “Deacon,” said the Kid, “don’t you think that you ought to pay something for your life?”

  “I’m no double-crossing curl,” said Deacon, looking bitterly at Bud Trainor.

  “All right,” said the Kid. “You don’t double-cross. You simply murder, eh? Well, Davey, take a lid off of that stove and freshen the fire and put the poker in under the lid, will you?”

  Davey, without a word, did as he was told.

  And Deacon watched him, curiously. Sweat began to gather on his forehead.

  But the silence continued, through which the Kid was smoking quietly.

  At length he said: “Bud, will you take your mother and father outside of the house? Davey, you’d better go along, too. What’s going, to happen now won’t be pretty to watch. You’d better get out of earshot. There may be a little noise in here.”

  “Kid,” said Deacon huskily, “whatcha got on your mind?”

  “When that poker’s hot,” said the Kid, “it ought to make a good running iron. That’s all I mean.”

  Deacon got up slowly from his chair.

  “You ain’t serious, Kid,” he gasped.

  “No, only joking,” said the Kid, “if you intend to talk.” Deacon rubbed a hand violently across his face.

  “Aye,” said he. “You’ll do what you say! There ain’t nothin’ but a devil inside you. Kid, whatcha wanta know?”

  CHAPTER 14

  A Compact

  The Kid, at this, smiled in the most amiable manner.

  “I want to find out about the whole idea,” he said. “Who sent you, why you were sent, and how much money was promised.”

  “Send out this crowd,” said Deacon glumly. “If I gotta tell, there ain’t any reason why I should tell anybody besides you.”

  “They’ll go out,” admitted the Kid. “That is, Davey and the old folks will. But not Bud.”

  “Not Bud?” almost shouted the other. “What has that sneak got in the way of a right to hear?”

  “Why,” said the Kid, “Bud and I are partners, old son. You ought to know that, by now.”

  “Partners? A fine partner he promised to be to you,” said Deacon.

  Already the others were leaving the cabin, though reluctantly, but Bud lingered near the door.

  “You mean that you want me to stay here?” he asked incredulously of the Kid.

  “Of course I do,” said the latter.

  “And why? Why?” shouted Deacon, infuriated until he trembled. “Here’s the gent that sold you, and then changed his mind and double-crossed me and Morgan. Why should he stay?”

  “You thought that he’d sold me,” said the Kid. “No, no, Deacon. Bud Trainor’s not the sort of a fellow to ever do that. He’s not the type for it, at all. Bud is in partnership with me, and when you tried to buy him, he simply led you into the middle of the trap.”

  “By heck!” cried Deacon. “Is that it? Is that why you were so cool, all the time? You knew that you had something up your sleeve?”

  “Of course I did,” answered the Kid, genially. “You never had a chance against Bud and me, because all the while Bud was waiting for my signal before he jumped you from behind.”

  Bud Trainor, listening near the door, dropped his head a little, so that the bewilderment in his face might not be too openly apparent to Deacon.

  The latter twisted from side to side, in the agony of his humiliation—not humiliation because he had attempted to take advantage of the Kid and failed, but shame, because he seemed to have been tricked and trapped.

  “Have I gone and been a fool?” he asked bitterly.

  “You’ve been a fool, Deacon,” said the Kid gently. “You might have known that Bud Trainor isn’t the double-crossing kind.”

  Deacon turned aside and glared at Trainor.

  The latter, lifting his head, gave to the Kid an odd look and a faintly twisted smile, as though there were some deep consideration between them. But he said nothing.

  “I see it!” said Deacon. “Bud was simply drawing us on!”

  “How about the news that you have for us, Deacon?”

  “Say it over again, what you want to know?”

  “Who sent you?”

  “Why, Jack Harbridge up in the Mogollons is the feller. He wants to get even with you for the game you trimmed him in, two-three year back.”

  “Harbridge?”

  “Yes.”

  “That poker game still sticks in his crop, eh?”

  “It sure does.”

  “He tried to crook me, that game, and I only stacked the deck with two crimps in it. He found the first crimp, but he banged into the second one. Well, it’s Harbridge, is it?”

  “Aye, it’s Harbridge.”

  “I’m glad to know that. What was the price?”

  “Ten thousand flat.”

  “That’s worth while. I’m glad that Jack puts that high a price on me. Where did you see Jack last?”

  “Up there in the hills. About two weeks back.”

  “You been drawing a long bow at me, eh?”

  “It was worth time.”

  “It wouldn’t take that long to get down here.”

  “We didn’t know where you were, for a while. And then we wanted a little practice with our guns. We expected a hard job ahead of us. And if I’d plugged you when I came through that door—”

  He paused, his teeth showing, but not in a smile.

  “You wouldn’t do that, Deacon,” said the Kid. “Bud, see if that poker’s hot enough now, will you? I want it white hot.” Bud went toward the stove.

  “What’s the idea?” asked Deacon, growing whiter than he had been.

  “I have to burn the truth out of you,” said the Kid. “I don’t want lies from you, Deacon.”

  “I’m telling you the honest truth.”

  “Then I’ll have to burn honester truth out of you. Ho
w about the poker?”

  “It’s pretty nigh ready to melt,” said Bud, lifting the lid from the roaring, glowing stove.

  “It ought to be ready for the work, then,” said the Kid. “Bring it here, will you?”

  Bud, accordingly, first wrapped a rag around his hand and then withdrew the poker from the fire. The end of it was white hot, and snapped out little bright sparkles. It seemed, indeed, as though the tough iron had been melting, and was forming a liquid drop at the point.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” said Deacon, in a gasp. “I’ve told you—”

  The Kid smiled.

  “You’re a rat, Deacon,” said he. “You’re a low rat and you always were a rat. I’ll have the truth out of you or I’ll mark you so’s the boys will be able to read your face like a book, a block away!”

  “Put back that thing!” groaned Deacon.

  “Put it back, Bud,” said the Kid.

  Bud, almost unwillingly, obeyed.

  “Now, who sent you, man?”

  “Shay,” said Deacon.

  He dropped into a chair.

  He was almost fainting, and his head fell back, his body shook convulsively.

  “I thought so,” said the Kid. “Shay has a sort of reason for wanting me. Shay offered ten thousand, did he?”

  “Aye, he did.”

  “I’m glad to know it. I’m glad to know that he has that much spare cash. Why didn’t you bring Dixon along?”

  This startled Deacon erect in the chair again.

  “Who told you that?” he cried.

  “About Dixon, you mean?”

  “Yes, about Dixon. What sneaking crook has been spilling news on us all?”

  “I can guess, Deacon,” said the Kid. “I know that he’s with Shay, and that this sort of a job is just about his size.”

  “He wouldn’t horn in,” said Deacon, bewildered by the answer. “He said that his luck was bad, today, so far as you went. I dunno why he said that, but he’s a superstitious kind—and by Heaven, they’s something in his superstition, too. I’ve seen what luck a man can have with you today, Kid!”

  He glowered as he spoke.

  “That’s about all,” said the Kid. “I don’t need you any longer.”

  Deacon stood up.

  “It’s to be a bullet in the back, I reckon?” said he.

  “Did I ever shoot a man through the back?” asked the Kid. “You’re one to learn, though. You mean that I’m free to go?”

  “I told you that I’d turn you loose, for the sake of the news that you could give me.”

  “You mean it, Kid?”

  “I mean it. Get out, Deacon.”

  Deacon went slowly to the door. There he paused and turned, at last. “I dunno that I make you out, Kid,” said he. “You must have underground wires all over the world. What made you know that Harbridge wasn’t behind this? He hates you enough, and he’s got the money to hire men.”

  “Harbridge generally does his own killing,” said the Kid. “And after all, it was only a guess, Deacon. Just a bluff, but it seems to have worked.”

  The face of Deacon wrinkled with hatred and with anger.

  “I ain’t fit to wear long trousers,” said he. “I been bluffed all the way through. You got anything else to say?”

  “Yes,” said the Kid, “I have a little message for Shay. Will you take it to him, word for word?”

  “Aye.”

  “Tell him that one of these days I’ll call when I can find him at home and not in a hurry to leave. Tell him another thing. If any of his rats come here to make trouble for the Trainors, Dad and Ma, I mean, I’ll never sleep on the trail until it takes me to them. And I’ll never rest till I’ve got Shay. Tell him if he so much as breathes on their windowpane, I’ll burn him alive with—a song and dance. I’ll hire Indians to do a good job on him. That goes for the old folks. As for Bud, of course, he takes his chance with me. The open season is on for Bud and me, as far as Shay is concerned. That goes without saying. Now get out of here, Deacon, and the next time you see me, don’t stop to ask questions. Fill your hand, even if it’s in church!”

  Deacon gave him one backward, glowering look, then glided through the door, and a moment afterward, they heard the sound of his horse, as it departed at a dogtrot across the valley.

  It left the two inside free to face one another.

  “Kid,” said Bud Trainor huskily, “I dunno that I got much to say to you.”

  “You can thank me for putting a lot of bad men on your trail, Bud,” said the other.

  “Them?” said Bud. He smiled, and waved his hand. “I’ll take my chances with them! But you, Kid—what made you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Talk as though—as though I was your partner?”

  “Well, Bud, are you happy here at home?”

  “Here? I’d rather be in prison.”

  “The open trail is not a prison. Why not come along—as my partner?”

  “I’d rather than anything on—. But hold on. You know what I am, Kid. I ain’t worthy of—”

  “Hush up,” said the Kid, smiling. “I’ll take my chances. Shall we shake on it?”

  Bud Trainor suddenly bowed his head. He fumbled vaguely before him, but the strong right hand of the Kid found his, and closed like gentle iron upon it. The compact was sealed.

  CHAPTER 15

  Land Sharks

  Two days after this, “Spot” Gregory of the Milman ranch daubed his rope on a tough Roman-nosed broncho in the corral, and started out to teach the brute manners. That big-headed mustang bounced up and down between the sky and the hard ground until Spot’s teeth were loose in his head. After ten minutes the gelding decided that its luck was out, and settled down to a good, steady lope going along with pricking ears, quite good-naturedly.

  This sign did not altogether deceive Spot Gregory. He knew all about horses, and pricking ears are apt to mean forethought as much as good nature; so when a mustang thinks ahead, it is likely to think of trouble.

  Therefore, the foreman of the Milman ranch was not at all surprised when, on climbing over the hills toward Hurry Creek, on the first down slope, the Roman-nose began to pitch once more.

  It is ten times as hard for a horse to pitch on a down slope as on the level—but if it manages the feat, it is a hundred times harder for the rider to stick in the saddle. Spot Gregory, nearly flipped out of place in the first ten seconds, settled down to give that broncho a busting that would last him the rest of his days, but in the midst of accomplishing the good work, scratching the pony fore-and-aft and flogging it thoroughly with the cruel quirt, he became aware of an odd condition in the valley before him.

  For the edges of Hurry Creek were rimmed and lined with cattle which were not going down to drink, but remained up on the hills, red-eyed with thirst.

  Spot Gregory rubbed his eyes and looked again.

  Hurry Creek was to the Milman ranch what the heart’s blood is to the human body. In the whole length and breadth of the big place, there was not a drop of water except for the creek. Sometimes during periods of heavy rain, little rivulets formed in the hollows, but they were not worth thinking about. There was any quantity of the finest grass on the ranch. The woodlands were a small fortune, also. But of water, there was only this one vein.

  It was enough!

  When Milman’s old father came here, long years before, he had had wit enough to pick out the place with forethought and locate with care.

  All through its upper course, Hurry Creek went shouting and raving through a high-walled canyon. On still days the noise of its anger drifted far away to the ranch house, like a faint prophecy of trouble. At a certain point, leaving the canyon, it spread out suddenly through an almost level tract of rolling land, and then dropped into the opposite hills through another high-sided trench. Cows could not get up or down the walls of either the higher or the lower ravine, but they did not need to. The Milman ranch was in outline like a huge dumb-bell. The narrow grip was where the wat
ers of Hurry Creek ran from canyon to canyon across the rolling ground. The huge knobs were the wide-spreading acres, thousands upon thousands, which formed what they called the western and the eastern ranches. And, from the farthest corners of the two districts, the cattle would march into the creek for water.

  The younger ones usually went in every day. The older stock often remained away two or three days in the best grazing at the edges of the far hill and then would come at a trot or a lope the long distance to the stream. There, standing belly-deep, they drank and drank to repletion. They waded back to shore and browsed a little on the short grasses which were always eaten close. Then they would drink again, and begin a leisurely trip back to the chosen eating places.

  But on this morning the thirsty legions did not go down to drink. Some were lying down on the upper edges of the valley. Some wandered back and forth uneasily. A few milled and lowed frantically close by the water’s edge. Sometimes, singly or in groups, they made dashes for the bright promise of the water, but they were always turned away by certain riders who careened up and down either bank of the stream, whirling lariats, shouting, running the cows off to a distance, where the animals turned in despair and looked hopelessly back toward the creek.

  There were enough men to ride herd in this arduous manner both east and west of the creek. On the eastern side, moreover, farthest from Spot at this moment, appeared several wagons. Smoke rose from a camp fire, here, and one of the wagons, being partially unloaded, showed on the ground a heap of what looked like thick coils of newly burnished silver.

  Spot could guess its true nature; it was barbed wire!

  In the brush beside the water, other men were cutting stakes of a sufficient length, and beginning at the mouth of the northern canyon, on each side of it, two small groups were setting up the posts and stringing the wires upon them. Anger darkened the eyes of Spot Gregory until the whole scene disappeared before him in a swirl of black. He blinked and looked again, half hoping that the vision would disappear like a bad dream.

  It did not disappear. It grew more and more vivid.

  The early sun, now breaking through its veil of morning mist, made the whole view clearer to him. The men, little with distance, toiled on unceasingly. Behind them, on the new-made fences, the barbed wire gleamed like spider threads, bright with dew, and up and down the open bank of the creek, the watchful riders wheeled and flashed upon their active horses.