Bandit's Trail

by Max Brand

  “Five hundred!” repeated Jim Bradley rather huskily. “Five hundred up to you, Carew. Look there on a horse that’s a horse. Suppose you wouldn’t want to ride him? You ain’t got to ride to get the worth of a thousand out of his hide. He’s worth a thousand, just to look at him a couple of times a day. Am I wrong? I’m not wrong!”

  Carew was biting his thin lip nervously. “Five-fifty,” he said gloomily.

  “Six hundred.”

  “It ain’t enough. No horse like Twilight can get knocked down for six hundred,” said Jim Bradley. “Boys, for the honor of Texas, where they know horses … what you say, Carew?”

  “Seven hundred!” shouted Carew, furious at the long contest.

  The Crisco Kid winced, and automatically his hand twisted into the mane of the stallion, as though he would hold the beautiful animal by force.

  “Seven hundred to you, Crisco?”

  The Kid looked wildly about him.

  “I’ll go you twenty-five, Crisco,” said a friendly voice.

  “Seven twenty-five,” The Kid gasped out, and stared at Carew.

  “Seven-thirty,” Carew snarled through his teeth.

  There was a long pause—a long, heartbreaking pause. Once more The Crisco Kid looked toward the corral fence, but the strain seemed too terrible for the voice of any friend to break in. Even now Carew glared around the circle, challenging anyone to dare help his rival. And slowly The Crisco Kid looked back to the man on the fence and began to straighten and stiffen. His right hand slipped down and hung with spread fingers above the butt of his gun. He would take no further start, though Carew, muttering savagely beneath his breath, was frankly gripping the handle of his Colt.

  “Seven-thirty, gentlemen,” Jim Bradley panted. “The horse is worth a thousand … for heaven’s sake, boys, don’t do nothin’ that you’ll regret later on. Seven-thirty is bid for Twilight. He’s worth a thousand of any man’s money that loves horseflesh. Kid, and you, Bud, bullets don’t mean nothin’ … but death. Seven-thirty, boys. Do I hear seven-fifty? Do I hear seven-fifty? Goin’ to Bud Carew for seven-thirty. Do I hear forty? Do I hear forty? Goin’ to Bud Carew for seven-thirty. Goin’ to Bud Carew … goin’ … goin’ …”

  “Eight hundred,” said a quiet voice.

  It caught at all those tensed heads and jerked them suddenly around where they beheld the smiling face of Señor Valdivia. And there was a groan of relief—and perhaps of disappointment.

  Jim Bradley relaxed his clenched hands and turned, half reeling, toward the Argentinean. “It’s Mister Valdivia,” he mumbled through his thick lips, which were suddenly grown numb. “I guess … goin’ to Mister Valdivia … sold, thank God!”

  Bud Carew swung his legs slowly across the top bar of the fence. Then he climbed down, slowly still. He had to help himself with his gripping hands, and when he reached the ground, his knees sagged under him. Then, jerking the brim of his sombrero low across his eyes, he went stumbling toward his horse, which was tethered at an adjacent fence.

  But the others did not move. They were watching The Crisco Kid, whose fingers were still wound in the mane of the stallion, though he had faced around upon the new man who had taken Twilight from him. And in his wild, uneasy eyes a score of resolves could be seen to be born in flashes, dying slowly and replaced by new ones. Perhaps, in the space of five seconds, his mind wavered back and forth between a fierce determination to draw his gun on the purchaser—or to leap upon the back of the dark chestnut and vault him over the fence and so away to outlawry, perhaps, but to freedom with the horse he loved.

  Jim Bradley extended both his hands, letting his truncheon fall. “Don’t be a fool, Crisco!” he pleaded

  Sometimes a single word will win an argument and sometimes the lightest unexpected touch will take the strength of a strong man. At the voice of the auctioneer, the big cowpuncher suddenly dropped his head and his body seemed to shrink and his muscles grow loose beneath his clothes. He was beaten, and a sigh of relief, perhaps of pity, also, came from the watchers.

  They saw The Crisco Kid gather himself together and approach the fence. Behind him, Twilight followed like a dog at the master’s heels. They saw the cowpuncher rest a hand against the fence and peer through at the Argentinean as though at some far-distant figure.

  “You’re Valdivia?” he asked.

  “I am, sir,” Don Sebastian said.

  “Señor,” the cowpuncher said slowly, and speaking perfect Spanish of the true Castilian brand, “you have beaten me. Where shall I take your horse?”

  Some half dozen times in his life the man from the Argentine had been touched. He was touched now, and, stepping close to the fence, he studied the drawn, haggard face of The Kid. One might have thought that the labors of a hard day had been condensed into the last two minutes, so greatly was he changed and aged.

  “Amigo mío,” Don Sebastian said, “we have not yet shaken hands.”

  “My name,” said The Crisco Kid, “is Charles Dupont.”

  “Señor, I am honored.”

  They shook hands gravely between the bars of the fence.

  “I am covered with sorrow,” continued Valdivia, “because I have had to take this horse away from a man who was worthy of it.”

  “There is only one Twilight,” The Kid said calmly. “I don’t blame you. Where shall I take him for you?”

  “I am collecting my horses at a little house just outside of the town. I think it is known as the old Montfort House.”

  “I know the place.”

  “If it will not too greatly trouble you …”

  “Not at all.”

  “Señor Dupont, you place me under a thousand obligations by your courtesy.”

  They bowed to each another, and The Crisco Kid, stepping back, leaped lightly upon the back of the stallion. One hand held the ropes of the halter. It seemed bridle and reins enough for his purpose. With a low cry he brought Twilight into dancing life. Like a tiger the great horse rushed at the nearest rails, reared, and floated across it. Then he flaunted away across the open fields, the rider guiding him with perfect ease with touches of the ropes now and again. And the crowd, having remained to see this odd situation come to an end, stared for a time after the departing rider, saw him dip out of sight below a hillock, and then broke up hastily.

  Carreño approached his master with a worried face and found the Valdivia fallen into a brown study, half smiling.

  “But, señor …”

  “Ah, Juan, what is it now?”

  “He is gone with your horse and eight hundred dollars of your money. Is it possible that you expect to see him ever again?”

  Valdivia smiled coldly upon his secretary. “You are in many ways a good fellow and indispensable to me, Carreño. But you will never learn that men cannot be judged by their clothes alone. Let me tell you, Juan, that a million pesos could not persuade my friend, Charles Dupont, to steal the horse for the very simple reason that I have entrusted it so freely to his keeping. Consider him again, Carreño, and you will see that in spite of his appearance, this Crisco Kid as they call him, is a gentleman.”

  So they mounted and rode, after Carreño had left word for the purchases of the day to be forwarded after them.

  “There is only one thing,” he added when they had gone some distance.

  “And that?” asked Valdivia, who seemed in the most inextinguishable high spirits.

  “Of what use to you will this eight-hundred-dollar unmanageable animal be?”

  “Tush, Carreño,” said the master, “I have paid eight hundred pesos not for a horse, but for a man.”

  Chapter Five

  A rush of hoofs across the night, a spattering of gravel against the front wall of the shack as the horse was swerved away in its charge, and then a little weighted bit of an envelope darted through the door like a bird, hung for an instant in the air, suppor
ted against a fall by the impetus of its flight, and settled like a fluttering bird toward the floor.

  Before it reached that resting place, Bud Carew had skulked swiftly into the open doorway, catching out his revolver as he went. But he could see nothing for the instant, so blinded were his eyes by the black night and the radiance of the lamp by which he had just been reading. But, when he squatted, he could see a flying rider whip over the top of the nearest swell of ground, sketchily outlined against the white blur of the stars for an instant, and then dip out of view.

  He stood up again, relaxing, but still with a scowl upon his wide mouth. Then he approached the fallen envelope with caution. For Bud Carew had been in a state penitentiary, and any man who has served five years behind the bars has learned long and valuable lessons in catlike discretion. The discretion of Bud had become so great that he had even risen to the position of a trusty.

  Now he touched the bit of paper with the toe of his boot. He kicked it a little distance, discovered that there was at least no hidden explosive in it, and then picked it up. When he opened it, he discovered that it had simply been weighted down with a large pebble, and when he had removed that, he took out a slip of paper. Upon it was written neatly with a typewriter:

  Carew,

  The Crisco Kid is at the Montfort House.

  He’s alone there.

  —A Friend

  This communication, after it had been perused with care, Bud Carew crumpled in his large hand and dropped into the stove. Then he stood a while in thought, smoking a cigarette until his brain had cleared and he had adjusted himself to the new thought. So, standing there and smoking, an evil smile grew upon his lips, and his eyes, wrinkling from the corners, grew small and bright. Finally he went to the bunk at one side of the room and jerked the blanket from a sleeping figure there. The clatter of horse hoofs and the fall of the envelope had not sufficed to disturb the slumber of the man. Now Carew caught him by the shoulder with small ceremony and dragged him to a sitting posture. It revealed a fellow with a sun-browned face, now swollen and reddened with sleep, for he had been lying on his stomach with his head pillowed in his arms.

  He now brushed the dangling hair out of his eyes and twisted about until his feet fell limply to the floor. “Are they after me?” he croaked.

  Carew made no response. And the other pushed his hand under the blankets and brought out a small flask that he uncorked and poured half of the contents down his throat. They were so fiery that they made him blink and roll his red eyes. Then he fumbled at a vest pocket with a numbed hand for his makings.

  “You’ve slept twelve hours,” Carew informed him.

  “The first sleep in two days,” muttered the other.

  “Wake up, Jerry.”

  “I’m awake. What’s poppin’? You heard word about me? About them, I mean?”

  “They’re watchin’ the border for you.”

  A grin of unholy glee transformed the fat face of Jerry. “You knowed that they’d do that, Bud,” he said, staring fondly at his companion. “I’d’ve been runnin’ straight into their arms, if it hadn’t been for you, old pal.”

  “Lay off that chatter,” said Bud Carew without emotion. “You can do me a turn tonight, boy.”

  “Say where, Bud. I’m yours to the limit. You’ve cached me away right under their noses … damn ’em. Tell me … did the old one die?”

  “He died last night. I heard about it today, at Garrison’s.”

  “You did?”

  “It was the slug that went through his belly that turned the trick. You ought to’ve knowed that it would do it. Gents don’t live after they been drilled there.”

  “I forgot about that. Well … he’s done up, then.” He shrugged his shoulders. Just a trace of a frown walked across his forehead. Then he puffed at his smoke.

  “What’s the party for tonight?”

  “The Crisco Kid.”

  “You didn’t get him today?”

  “I didn’t have no good chance,” Bud Carew said, his face changing color a little as he recalled the strange and terrible duel without weapons that he had fought with The Kid that afternoon. “I didn’t have no good chance, but tonight I got the chance that I want.”

  “That’s good. You been layin’ for him for a long time, ain’t you?”

  “Sure. Here’s the beauty part. You’re goin’ to give me a hand, Jerry.”

  Jerry hesitated—only a fraction of a breath. Then he nodded, and, automatically reaching for his cartridge belt that lay beside him, he began to buckle it on. “Might as well be two as one,” he said. “If the old guy has croaked, I might as well tackle another. Might as well be a hundred as one, eh?”

  “Looks that way, old son.”

  “What’s the scheme?”

  “He’s at the old Montfort House … alone.”

  Jerry stood up and stretched himself. “Son,” he said, “that’s a cinch. Let’s blow.”

  They were in the saddle within five minutes and rolling across the fields at a steady canter. In a brief half hour they were in sight of the Montfort House. It lay in a hollow near the flat, silver face of a tank whose stagnant waters took the faint reflections of the stars. One half of the Montfort House had fallen through age and neglect. One half remained standing, and from a window shone the uncertain glow of a fire.

  “Easy,” Jerry said, and chuckled, “this here is made to order for us. I don’t need you, Bud.”

  “You don’t know him.”

  “I’ve heard about him. He’s hard, I guess.”

  “Harder’n you think. Long as he can draw a breath, he’ll be able to shoot … and shoot damned straight. You hear me talk?”

  “I hear you, kid. Let’s start.”

  “What’s your idea?”

  “Drop the horses here, and then go down to the house together. We’ll find him and finish him easy. He ain’t lookin’ for nothin’.”

  “He’s always lookin’ for something. A gent that has had as many gunfights as him is always lookin’ for trouble. You lay to that. We’ll sneak up on that window and take our chance. But go easy, old son.”

  They went down the slope as noiselessly as a pair of snakes, and, creeping through the ruin of rotten timber and of sprouting shrubs before the standing part of the house, they came to the window that was dimly flushed by the firelight within.

  There Bud Carew peered in, and all he saw was a wreck of a room with the plaster broken from the ceiling and dripping down in tenuous strips. The fire burned lazily on the open hearth. In a corner was a blanket roll, and a rifle stood against the wall nearby. A faint aroma of coffee and of cigarette smoke was in the air. That was all. The only sign of life was from the corral behind the house, where a pair of fighting or playing horses began to squeal like two mischievous children.

  “Maybe he’s back with the horses?” whispered Bud to Jerry.

  And at that instant, from not far behind them, a strong baritone voice called: “You want me, fellows?”

  “It’s him!” gasped out Bud, and dropped for the ground, whirling as he fell.

  And as he whirled and fell, with Jerry following that excellent example, he saw against the sky the tall form of a man, looking gigantic above the ground gloom.

  Before he struck the ground, Bud’s gun spoke, and at his side Jerry’s barked in a higher note. Very deliberately, or so it seemed to the feverish eyes and nerves of Bud, the tall man drew his own weapon. Four bullets had whirred around him before he leveled it and fired, but in response there was a scream of agony from Jerry, and beside Bud his companion began to twist and kick. One driving heel caught Bud on the hip and half turned him over, bruising the bone and the flesh above it.

  Desperate, feeling that a curse was on his effort on this night, he rose to his hand and his arm’s length to plant a finishing shot. But the gun in the hand of the tall man spok
e again, and Bud saw a flash of red lightning, felt a heavy blow upon the head, and dropped into smoothly pillowing darkness.

  He wakened with the shiver and play of the red-yellow firelight upon his face. And beside him he looked up into the face of The Crisco Kid, who was calmly finishing a cup of coffee and smoking a tailor-made cigarette. The fumes of the Turkish tobacco were sweet and heavy through the room. That, in the beginning, had been one of the causes for the hatred and the scorn of Bud. He could not understand a full-fledged cowpuncher smoking these effeminately luxurious cigarettes. He raised a hand toward his head. It was swathed with a thick bandage.

  “I thought that you’d never come to,” The Crisco Kid said in his quiet way.

  “What happened?” murmured Bud.

  “I don’t know nothing except the last part of it,” The Crisco Kid said, and he smiled down at Bud.

  But there was something terrible in that smile to Bud Carew. In that smile was everything he had always hated and feared in The Crisco Kid—the cool aloofness from other men, the self-content, the leisurely criticism of those about him, and a thousand other things of which Bud Carew could make only dim guesses. He only knew that he hated them all.

  “Jerry?” he gasped out as the whole truth came back upon him.

  “Unfortunately,” The Crisco Kid said, “Jerry died almost at once.”

  Chapter Six

  There is something old about even the most modern parts of New Orleans; the very hotels have a quiet dreaming atmosphere. As the Kentuckian said: “The whiskey is thicker and the hours are longer down heah.” And on this quiet morning, with the stir and the hum of the traffic in the distance like a lullaby, even the subdued voice of Carreño crackled like an exploding gun in the deep silence of the hotel room.

  The burring of the hotel phone bell was a rude alarm that brought him sharply out of his seat.

  “Mister Dupont is calling on Mister Valdivia,” said the voice of the clerk.

  “One moment, please. Mister Dupont,” he repeated to the master, “is calling upon Mister Valdivia.”